12 October 2013 Not in Tennessee

Not something that would or could be published in N.E. Tennessee.

While Tennesseans are aware that sex happens, the local community generally wants to keep it as something condemned by “the bible”, never mentioned in schools, and the source of many questions about consanguinity.

Dick Cavett closes his column with a quotation appropriate for some of the nation but somewhat exclusive for the Tennessee I inhabit. 

       “As further assertion of the place of humor being everywhere, let us close with the wise, wise advice about life given by the great George S. Kaufman to his young daughter Ann.

“Sample everything in life. Except incest and folk-dancing.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/more-sex-anyone/?ref=opinion

Cassi Creek:  While the government shutdown continues and the debt ceiling crisis looms closer, the public’s concerns and the nation’s needs are ignored by politicians who chose to advance the demands of political parties splintered into uselessness and paid off by corporations, lobbyists, and plutocrats. 

          We are, of course, deeply concerned about the continuity of VA compensation.  The closer we get to national default, the more likely that people living on social security, VA disability compensation, and other fixed income resources will become pawns to be discarded by both major parties as the GOP pushes every harder toward economic suicide.  We can’t imagine the degree of disdain for the American people that such plans display.  Nor can we understand the depth of hatred that has driven the anti-Obama forces since 2008.

          The GOP’s practice since the Clinton election of 1992 has been to attempt to overturn the results of any election that they lose by obstruction, by trying to discredit entire administrations, and attempting to impeach anyone they can.  The practice is destroying the democratic nature of our nature and the orderly turnover of power from one administration to the next that has marked our nation as a model for other egalitarian societies.  Now we are becoming more like the oligarchies and plutocracies that brought the 18^th and 19^th centuries to sweatshops and wage slave conditions,

          Closer to home we are sweating out the next couple of days as our water pressure fluctuates and decreases.  We suspect that we have a pressure valve/switch/gauge filled with mud.  That will need to be changed.  Change involves getting the well company out to dive under the house and make the needed repairs.  The job shouldn’t cost too much.  However, with no assurance that my VA disability money will arrive, the small job becomes more of a concern.  Thanks teavangelists.

11 October 2013 The root of the problem

Cassi: Creek:   This is the gut level reason for all the obstructionism since the 2008 election.  The GOP and its base are horrified at the election of an African-American POTUS.  They have tried everything imaginable to unseat him and reverse the results of two elections that they could not steal. 

          They have allowed racism and other factors to bring the most rabid factions, the teavangelists in their various forms, to a point which allows the threat of billionaire funded primary contests to destabilize the GOP.  The teavangelists are willing to bring down the global economy before accepting the reality that most of the nation’s voters disagree with their position. 

          In other thoughts, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter died this week.  His death leaves John Glenn as the only surving Project Mercuty astronaut.  Carpenter flew in Aurora 7.  Godspeed, Scott Carpenter.

10 October 2013 Where’s Mr. Ranger this morning

Cassi Creek:  I had Loki outside this morning, about half an hour ago.  There was no hike with Mike this morning.  Loki displayed interest in a deep ditch that borders our property and the road. 

          At the same time, one of our neighbors was on-line describing an encounter with a black bear and three cubs in her front yard.  That placed the bears about 0.1 miles from our driveway.  I might have seen them if I had focused more on the uphill view than on the down valley view. 

          Our property sits entirely within a bear preserve.  Bears are frequently seen traveling through the valley.

           Today is also trash pick-up day for this part of the county.  Most residents don’t pay for trash service, having several other options for disposal.  (Roadside dumping seems to be the most widely practiced).  I think that there are less than 15 houses on Cassi Road that pay for trash service. 

          Our trash can has been permanently dented by one or more bears jumping or pounding on the lid.  It also has several deep claw scratches and at least one prominent canine tooth puncture. 

          There are some residents in the valley who make it a practice to leave food out to attract bears.  Some of these people are hunters practicing unethical baited hunting.  Others are best described as just marginal in several manners.

          There is a federal wilderness area to our south and the Cherokee NF runs southwest to north east with borders less than 100 meters from our back door.   We’ve seen most of the game animal, most of the raptors, and most of the big game animals that populate the valley and its surrounds.  While the NPS may be shut down, the word hasn’t filtered down to the local fauna. 

9 October 2013 Domestic violence for fun and profit

Cassi Creek:

          The United States is now being held hostage by the supposedly grass-roots tea party thugs.  They fully intend to default on the nation’s financial obligations.  That this will cause worldwide economic damage does not concern these idiots.  To be somewhat more accurate, it does not concern the Koch brothers and their analogs who have sufficient billions to ride out another Great Depression while the United States declines from a democratic republic into an oligarchic theocracy. 

          The resultant economic failure will destroy our social safety nets, demolish our public schools, and strip health care from all but the richest.

          The probability of economic destruction is now so great that the Wall Street bankers and investors are calling for Congress to end the shutdown and return government to normal status.  These financiers can’t believe that 80 or so teabaggers will voluntarily and knowingly cause default on the U.S.’ obligations.  Rational people, no matter how greed driven they may be, can foresee the harm that default will engender worldwide.  There in is the problem.  The Teabaggers and their base are not rational beings.  They have been brainwashed by the GOP/teavangelist propaganda machine.  They now believe that they will save the nation by destroying it.  To this end, they have essentially declared war upon the nation, the former middle class, the former working class, and everyone not parroting the tea bagger mantras. 

          They now threaten the disability compensation and the pensions of over 4 million veterans and dependents.  This is banana republic behavior that should result in the immediate call for impeachment of the legislators involved in forcing the shutdown.  

8 October 2013 They’re only cannon fodder

Cassi Creek:  In today’s news, I found a notice that the DAV is moving their offices from current locations along side VA facilities to fallback locations.  Since the VA laid off an additional 7000 employees yesterday, there is a dearth of open office space where DAV can operate as they previously have. 

          This latest round of VA layoffs means that no one will be answering phones when veterans call for help or to follow up on a claim for benefits.  The tremendous pile of backlogged disability claims will continue to grow larger and the processing will fall farther behind. 

          This is taking place at a time when veteran’s needs are greater than ever.  The shutdown services include GI housing loans, GI bill education services, disability determinations, and a host of other services that suddenly become unavailable. 

          The Vietnam War was a turning point in treating injured troops.  With the ability to evacuate the wounded via Dust-Off flights, and with improvements in trauma surgery, many troops who would have died in previous wars lived to become veterans.  VietNam also led to Agent Orange related diseases that could surface a decade or more after exposure. 

          The Gulf War also led to injuries due to chemical agents and petroleum fires, in onset, more like WWI than VietNam but just as real and just as debilitating. 

          Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate further progress in our ability to stabilize and save troops with such extreme injuries that they would died in any previous war.  However, the number of people with such injuries is still increasing and the follow up care and compensation these wounded deserve is going to require long-term health care and life-long therapy.

          Enter the teavangelists, all willing to send other people’s children off to war but unwilling to pay for their injuries.  This group of brainwashed minions belonging to their corporate sponsors is quite willing to shut down our government, destroy our economy, and create still more injured veterans that they will then refuse to care for. 

          Thank you very much teabaggers.  We will remember which blunder of morons is responsible for closing Veterans’ Affairs offices.  

DAV Service Offices Relocating Immediately Due to Shutdown
http://bit.ly/19csmtQ

7 October 2013 Weather Report not so suite

Cassi Creek:  After the morning hike with Mike, I’m on hold, waiting to see if Mike needs a ride home from an auto repair shop. 

          I noticed yesterday that my anemometer was not reporting properly.  This morning I took the weather station sensors down and replaced all the batteries.  I hit all the proper reset switches.  It’s all back together and sitting in its usual place on the deck.  Now I have to reset the date, time, report intervals, etc.  The final act will be to verify that data is being sent from the base unit to the software that collates and displays all the data.  Last night we had wind. Today, so far, no wind that I can use to judge success or repeat necessary.

         

6 October 2013 Veterans? Screw them!

Cassi Creek:  1^st it was the WWII monument that was the contact point.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Congressman-Confronts-Park-Ranger-Over-Closed-WWII-Memorial-226209781.html

Now it has become the VietNam War monument placed out of reach by the GOP/teavangelist legislators.  http://bit.ly/17aUydT

          There is a need for the National Park Police, National Park Rangers, and maintenance staff at the various memorials and features on the national mall.  Vandals do deface monuments, trash does get scattered and dropped anywhere people can find to discard it. 

          However, preventing veterans access to national war monuments by means of shutting down the government is an act of major stupidity.  Even more evidence of intellectual incompetence can be found in the actions of a GOP legislator attacking a National Park Ranger for doing her job, as ordered, and blocking access by WWII vets to the WWIII monument subsequent to the actions of the GOP in shutting down our government. 

          Yesterday, VietNam vets were denied access to the VietNam wall for the same reason. 

          Here’s the question.  Do these Teabagger minions actually think that we will forget between now and 2014 which party was responsible for denying veterans adequate funding for health care, adequate funding for disability determinations, and even access to the gravesites and monuments to our comrades in arms?  I guess they are.  They keep complaining about how much they need their salaries in order to pay for their “nice houses” and for college for their spawn.    These video clips will come back to haunt them.