Layng quietly in fields

Layng quietly in fields
Glstening lights

Monday, February 6, 2017

And the most vituperative are…




Today's Tids Issue 3,790
For the Pats:

So, I’m writing this sentence Sunday at noon, six and one half hours before the Big game. How am I going to finish this Tidlet – that is the big question. This morning: Around 7:15 I was trying to figure out how to overcome my emotions and write an honest obituary. Aaaarrrrrrrgh! A couple of hours later I was only thinking Zowie! Yikes! What the hell just happened! For a diehard like me it was exhausting and exhilarating. I just want the music to keep on playing. What a game! What more can I say that you all didn’t see.

I would go along with Trumps easing of regulations governing financial stewardship of people’s money, if when brokers and advisors are found guilty of abusing trust in any manner, the penalty is severe jail time. And that firms take the financial hit for risky investments gone bad, and never again the taxpayer. That’s how capitalism works and it is self regulating.

As an inveterate Northeasterner, I see little chance of my ever going elsewhere, in part due to lines like this in news stories, “Rattlesnakes are often found in rural Texas homes.” The operative word here is “Often”.

The Question:
“Who are these people?”: John Shuck, Lisa Eichhorn, Pamela Ferdin, Bonus: What is the difference between a Turtle and a Tortoise

The Headlines:
--New England Patriots Beat The Odds For Biggest Comeback In Super Bowl History; Atlanta Traumatized After Pat’s “O” Wears Down Falcons “D”; Atlanta Looks Like Team Of The Future.
--Markets Opening Lower; Hasbro, Toyota Showing Good Earnings.

--97 tech Companies File Protest Against Trump Immigration Plan.
--China Displays New State-Of-The-Art Ballistic Missiles.
--Progressive Boycotters Pushing Department Store To Drop Ivanka Trump Jewelry Lines.
--Trump Temporary Immigration Ban On Obama’s 7 Countries With Lousy Vetting, Running Through Courts.
--Trump’s Latest Putin Remarks Stirs The Pot Anew.

Recession Warning: In my experience, every time the big local newspaper starts exclaiming about multiple hotels in planning for Providence RI, the bottom falls out of the economy. It’s that old irrational exuberance thing, all over again,

GaGa is certainly a good entertainer, and I liked her opening on the roof. But in the end, the show looked like every other SB show. The music, and dancing all blurs together, unless of course you are a little younger than I, and know the tunes.

The first commercial that got me laughing was about the mounting social network hysteria as Terry Bradshaw raced to get rid of a spot on his shirt. Maybe it was beaus it was close to home! Mr. Clean was good, but as I think back after those, nothing stopped me in my tracks. I realize commercials aren’t designed to become embedded in fading, aging memories, so I have to assume there were others. Or perhaps I was more interested in returning to the excitement of the game. I do remember the commercial about the charming mother and daughter trying to sneak into America illegally. It was well done, but simplistic considering the chaos generated by a disregard for rules.

Friday nights NBA game between the Boston Celtics and LA Lakers was huge, and nobody knew it. Going into the game, the two old franchises were tied for the most NBA wins in history at 3,252. The Celts won and are now the all-time franchise, at least today. Even before the Celtics rose to real dominance, the “Minneapolis” Lakers were a huge powerhouse with George Mikan, Jim Pollard, Slater Martin and Vern Mickkelsen. (Where did you think the word “Lakers” came from – the streets of LA? No, the Lakers were named in honor of the large cargo ships that plied the waters of the Great lakes). Led by Mikan, the NBA’s first superstar, the Minneapolis Lakers won 466 of the total franchise winning games and 7 championships between 1948 and 1959 against the big rivals Rochester Royals and Bobby Davies and New York Knicks with Sweetwater Clifton and Dickie McGuire. The Celts were just beginning to see the light with the arrival of Bob Cousy and Red Auerbach in the late 50’s. Other powerhouse teams were Fort Wayne with Andy Phillip and George Yardley, Syracuse wit Dolph Shayes, Chicago with Max Zazlovsky and Cincinnati with the Big O. Nostalgia makes the NBA look like a different place.

Have you noticed that contributions to 401 accounts are up substantially…and withdrawals are down? It just shows you what individual Americans do on their own in the face of declining corporate pensions. And Big government wants us to think they are the only solution.

To me, the most amazing thing that the Patriots did last night was making good on two consecutive 2-Point plays?

You can mount a screaming protest in Providence RI for just about anything these days. Yet, in all my years I have never seen a protest against the State Legislature for prohibiting through excess burdens on business the growth of real, good paying jobs. Problems regress when people work. But then, why would any self-righteous progressive want to argue in behalf of business, even if it was good for everybody?

Beethoven’s 7th was the first 33LP Symphony I ever bought. I have to think that it was because it was the cheapest record in Ludwig’s pile.

James White was spectacular in the game last night. But he has been doing it all year long. In fact, the only press he gets each year is that he is the running back who may have to be cut; that he’s caught in a number’s game! I don’t think we’ll hear that next training camp.

I think the change in the rules governing the financial community’s relationship with customers is kind of odd. The switch is now saying that the brokers don’t have to be a fiduciary to their customers. How can that be, that’s what they are? But equally strange was that Obama felt he had to have rules saying brokers and advisors were to think of the customers before themselves. Now I’m thinking, if we have honest people in the Financial industries, they should only be thinking about the safety, solvency and growth of their customers. I guess we have to guard against them being innately greedy humans. See Tidlet above on Irrational exuberance.

Watching people peddling away in TV commercials for advanced, hi tech stationary bikes reminds me again why I have never liked exercise.

The German magazine Der Spiegle went quite a bit overboard depicting Trump as an vile ISIS beheading murderer. The artist was from Cuba, and like many artists uses convoluted logic to defend his bad, uncivilized art. Do you think that being from communist Cuba had anything to do with it. I guess the over the top responders to trump are saying -- well, he started this vituperative discourse during the campaign. We just thought it was the new normal. I don’t think it is going to get better.

Basically, what Trump is doing is getting back to normal. It seems controversial because he is undoing the work of Obama, who was moving quite a bit outside the norm and along the way picked up a lot of fanatical converts. And, O’s converts shout louder, and angrier, than the Silent majority.

Of course, that doesn’t mean what Trump is doing to get back to historic norms is being done well and in a mature and unifying manner.

The Trump tax penalty idea is splitting big business. The big exporters like GE and UTC are on his side, but the net importers like Wal-Mart are violently against the tariff. I mean Wal-Mart and other similar American companies is as angry with the Admin as China, Australia, Illegal Immigrants, intellectuals, Spell-Check, the media and college kids. Well, the college kids aren’t really angry, they just like to party. Personally, I’m seriously thinking of getting away from Tids politics, hiding somewhere for four years, anywhere to get away from it all. Well, maybe not a rural Texas home.

Anti Trumpism is sustaining the DNC for now, but the party still needs a leader.

From recent Public relations generated “news” articles, it appears that “Pho” will be the next big food trend. Pho are simply Vietnam rice flour noodles. But the dishes take on the name of the noodle. The normal dish is like beef broth, super thin sliced beef and the Pho, and a couple of green leaves, mostly cilantro, for decoration and flavor. You can also use chicken broth, and perhaps the broth of dandelions for non-meat dishes, and it is always Pho. I doesn’t look particularly interesting. In fact, in a bowl is looks a lot like well garnished Campbells beef or chicken noodle soup. I actually do add lemon to my chicken soup, and citrus is generally a preferred addition to this Vietnam dish. If I added hot sauce to my Campbells, I’d be right there with “Faux Pho”. But Pho is good for foodies.

One of the things I dislike about Super Bowl broadcasts is that they replace local sportscaster with national crews who may or may not like my team. In other words, I liked biased homers.

The Parking Lot: Chapter 75.
   Martha Hicks felt she was walking slower back from her dad’s house. Was it because of her mind, now heavy with a responsibility for all of Sakonnet’s farm families. Did they really owe her everything, and she in return the need to protect them? Or was she physically exhausted just listening and trying to comprehend what her father was saying.
    And, what about her now deceased mother, the daughter of the chief of the southern Wampanoag’s; the sister of the three brothers and another sister, all who will control the tribe, in the face of new white aggression. How will she walk that line?
  How will she tell Jeffery Bullock that his land ends at the border of the tribal lands? Bullock is one of the most successful farmers and she knows that he wants to expand, at any cost. But it is her family’s land he is managing, and he knows that her grandfather gave them uninterrupted control for one hundred years. How will she tell her husband that she is in control of his family’s destiny.
   Dad left her by saying that she should be aware of the Howlands, a family who thinks they have the right to everything; that they were the obstructionists when her grandfather was finding a way -for everybody to take advantage of his good fortune. How can she hold the secret that her white man’s family helped her Indian family during the conflicts when colonists viciously attacked her brothers and sisters in tribes across the region?
   Martha walked into her home. “What happened to you?,” her husband asked.

The Answer:
John Shuck became a household favorite playing the role of Sgt. Charles Enright in the TV show McMillan and wife starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James; The spotlight fell upon Lisa Eichhorn for her first ever film “Yanks” where she was nominated for Two Golden Globes. Her work in the film “Cutters Way” was deemed “The most underrated performance of the decade” (1980’s) by the American film Institute. So, the woman can act; Pamelyn Ferdin gained great fame as the voice of Lucy Van Pelt in a Boy Named Charlie Brown and other CB TV shows, but you have seen her often on many, many episodes of big TV shows like Bewitched, Green Acres and Andy Griffith. As an active child star, she was the TV daughter of Dagwood, Felix Unger and Paul Lynde. Bonus: A tortoise lives only on land and has clunky style elephant legs compared to the thinner webbed feet of the turtle. A tortoise looks different with a much higher shell compared to the sleeker look of the turtle, probably for better swimming.  There are many varieties of turtles, but for the most part they are omnivores, eating what is available, which could include shrimp and other small sea creatures or sea grasses in water. On land they go for bugs and worms plus some vegetation. The land bound tortoises eat only grasses, flowers and weeds.

Well, now what am I going to do? Yes, I am one of those typical American football fans who recede from society when the season ends.

Has everything in this country become political? Social media is making just about everything a two-sided incident.

If his Tids sounds a bit incoherent, it’s because I’m still on the football field.

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