Once a week or so.

When we first started this blog we mentioned that we would be writing in it once a week, which was the original plan, then stuff happened (as it often does.) And we sporadically entered into it daily. But as you can plainly see it seems to have gone back to a once a week sort of thing. Although not many people are reading this we still get a cathartic and fulfilling sense of accomplishment from doing this. This week has been no exception, we've been busy, And real life has gotten in the way of working on the blog, hence the week long haitus from any entries. And that being said, we must tell you we have absolutely nothing to write about today. The right wing extremists and the left wing nutcases are still spouting the same old crap. We've noticed recently that even television shows that are decidedly liberal leaning have begun to bad mouth the president. We guess it was to be expected, many presidents throughout history have been the victim of bad press relations. Abraham Lincoln was called 'a grotesque baboon', a 'third-rate country lawyer who once split rails and now splits the Union', a 'coarse, vulgar joker', a dictator, an ape, and a buffoon'. One paper declared "that every act since the day he left Springfield was filled with deception." It's fairly clear that a lot of the press at the time was not pleased with Lincoln. And it could be argued that when John Wilkes Booth killed him in Ford's theater and shouted "as always to tyrants.", (or sic semper tyranis for those of you who read latin.)He may have gotten the idea from the November 7, 1863 issue of the Los Angeles Star which said "since his advent to high position, the tyrant has developed itself in his nature to an alarming extent.” So if you read a news story describing President Obama as an elitist or a tyrant, or a fool, or any other strongly worded opinion, just remember that it's not new or even original. Politicians in America have always been the victims of bad press at one time or another, and certainly the press would in some way be responsible were he to be assassinated. We would also like to point out that freedom of the press though guaranteed in the constitution has been infringed upon in the past. In 1918 for example congress passed the Alien and Sedition act which stated that anyone who dared to "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal or abusive language" regarding the government, the armed forces, the Constitution of the United States, or its flag." Had committed a crime. It wasn't until 1921 that the sedition act was repealed. (After the supreme court declared it unconstitutional.) The government is capable of making errors in judgement, just as any person is. It is our hope that the constitutional guarantees will always be protected by one branch of the government or another. The checks and balances layed down by our revolutionary forefathers have so far proven effective. Just a quick history lesson for those who are interested. That's about it, ciao for now.

Graffitti is as old as walls...

About 3 this morning I awakened hungry and thirsty. And although that's not too unusual, (As I get older it seems sleep is going to be a somewhat rare commodity.) I decided to use the time while eating a half of a peanut butter sandwich and some no fat milk, (Good lord, what have I come to.) to explore a little history. For some unknown reason a piece of graffiti I read once on a bathroom wall was bouncing around in my head. Written in a neat printed hand with magic marker were the words. "Time is natures way of keeping everything from happening at once." and underneath written hastily in black ball point, "Space is nature's way of keeping it from happening in the same place." I was pleased to find such mind expanding thoughts penned in such a lowly and dismal place. (A gas station restroom) But it got me thinking about graffiti in general. Wondering if there was any historical graffiti, and it appears there is, lots of it in fact. And it is pretty much the same sort of things found written on bathroom walls to this date. (Understand please that I don't see cave paintings as graffiti, to me graffiti requires that the artist does not have permission to write on the wall, where cave paintings are clearly ceremonial and were painted with permission from the entire clan.) The most famous Graffiti of all time is probably the one found all across Europe during world war II, which stated simply "Kilroy was here." No one knows who wrote it first but it seems obvious that many soldiers began writing it as the war raged on. The vikings had been scratching their names in walls a thousand years before kilroy. In a beautiful marble church in Istanbul (then Constantinople) a Viking traveler snuck into the church sometime in the 1st century and carved "Haldvan was here." into the marble banister. Earlier than that the people of Pompeii were carving onto bathroom and brothel walls up until 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius put an end to them, but also preserved that ancient graffiti so that we may read it today. One of my favorites is a piece of prose written by a frustrated man which says, "Whoever loves, go to hell. I want to break Venus's ribs with a club and deform her hips.If she can break my tender heart why can't I hit her over the head?"
We can only hope that carving that into the stone wall helped to vent his frustration so that vandalism was the only damage he did. A lot of the graffiti from Pompeii was of a sexual nature, such as, "One who buggers a fire burns his penis."
or "Virgula to her Tertius: You are one horny lad!" or "Celadus the Thracier makes the girls moan!" I've only included the PG carvings from Pompeii, there were many that were much more graphic and weren't suitable for a family friendly website. But if you are interested in reading them click here. So it seems that people are people no matter what century they lived in. That's about all, got work to do. Ciao for now.

Garbage day again... and again.

Another Thursday here at the crazy, (actually it's Thursday across the whole United States by now.) and we are again putting out the garbage. Kind of in a hurry today as we overslept. (Connal is on summer vacation so sleeping in is a possibility.) So garbage day was a little less ordinary as we had to hurry to put it out. (As this is being typed the garbage truck is out front picking up our weekly detritus.) Putting out the trash seems like a waste of time, someone needs to invent an atomizer or some such thing to destroy the trash, and at the same time create energy for the household.
But as such a thing is impossible with current technology, (and would put the Trash collector out of a job.) we stumbled to the curb, frightening our neighbors with our morning bed head. (The neighbor's dog took one look, yelped and ran to it's door scratching to get in.) It wasn't until we got back into the house that the reason became apparent. With the help of a spray bottle of water, a lion tamers whip, and an electric powered hairbrush we managed to get it under control. Well, anyway, the garbage is gone to the great garbage heap in the sky, (wouldn't that be terrifying)and the bedhead is under control for now at least, and a cup of freshly ground coffee is steaming before us. So even though it is now after noon our morning starts peacefully. Ciao for now.

Those clever birds...

In one of our earlier posts we were intrigued by a news story about the ability of crows to recognize the faces of researchers who were observing them. (It had to do with the researchers wearing Dick Cheney masks as they were running tests on them.)
Recently we came across an article from Cambridge University that has found that crows also have the ability to build and use tools for food collection. We are not kidding, it seems the crows, when met with a challenge to retrieve food from difficult to reach containers, have been stripping the leaves off of twigs to make them usable to get food. Not only do they build tools they make up to three different types of tools to use in retrieving food from one cache. (They make and use straight twigs, hooked twigs, and thorns in the tool making process.) Crows in Japan have recently been seen placing walnuts on a roadway when lights are red, and then after the cars have driven over them waiting for the light to change again to red and retrieving the walnuts for a quick snack. This behaviour may not be new. There is an Aesop's fable of a crow dropping rocks into a pitcher to raise the water level so it could drink. And of course the story of the death of Greek philosopher Aeschylus, who was killed by a turtle dropped by an eagle. Yes, we know an eagle is not a crow, but we thought we would mention in anyway. (Apparently Aeschylus was bald and the eagle thought his head was a rock.) So we at the crazy are happily looking forward to the day when the crows band together, build some sort of weapon, and kill Dick Cheney. Just a thought. Ciao for now.

And another week whizzes by....

Sitting down to write the post this morning we couldn't help but notice an entire week has gone by without us airing any of our insane rants or ramblings about anything at all. Actually the whole week is a bit of a blur. Between Doctor visits for yours truly and Connal missing his last day of school before summer due to vomiting it's been eventful to say the least. Connal being the stoic heroic fellow that he is never complains. While cleaning him up and setting up some programming on Netflix for him to watch we discussed his illness and as always he says "I'm fine." between vomiting. Somehow by two in the afternoon he was better, eating and drinking without losing anything. This morning he was downstairs on the computer before Mom and Dad got out of bed. His Father on the other hand is not doing quite as well, (and complains about it incessantly as Connal's mother will tell you.) It appears as if I had a severe allergic reaction to something. We know not what. The Doctor has prescribed antivert to help with the dizziness and make me as sleepy and grumpy as possible without actually letting me sleep. We are not sure if it was the allergic reaction that was the scariest or the ensuing panic attack, (At least that's what I'm being told.)which began with all the blood rushing out of my extremities and leaving me shivering under blankets like a 10 year old after a camp out horror story. This was followed by a rush of blood to my face and chest which left me looking like a cigar store Indian. (I hope if someone of Amerind descent reads this they accept that cigar store Indians are part of the culture I was raised on and not in any way meant to denigrate the proud original people of this country.)
So between the cycle of hot flashes and freezer pop extremities in which I assumed I was either going to die or burst into flame, I had an eventful evening. And through it all was Wolfie calming me down, getting me fluids when I was thirsty, getting me wool socks for my cold feet. Administering to me like the ghost of Florence Nightingale. Amazingly she also told me I was having an allergic reaction and a panic attack. Who needs a doctor? And that is pretty much it, a week of inactivity followed by a few days of intense drama. The family has survived of course, Connal is watching videos and feeling fine, Wolfie is sleeping a well earned sleep upstairs, and I am able to sit up for an extended period of time. Which I have used to update the blog and vent my spleen a little. (What does that mean exactly?) So it goes. And now I'm going to lay down on the couch for a while as I am feeling a little dizzy (dizzier than usual anyway.) Ciao for now.

What to do... what to do....

Ok, we have absolutely nothing to write about. A complete blank. Our brains are as empty as the pinata at a party full of fat kids. The news is again about the B.P. Oil spill, we keep reading about how Obama is failing in his dealing with it. What do they expect him to do? Take a sponge and try and mop it up himself? It just amazes us here at The Crazy how much in the news is opinion couched as news, and not just Fox news although they are the most blatant about it. We miss Walter Cronkite, the man brought some dignity to the news, and when he had an opinion about a story you would know it. He would end a news story with "and that's the way it is" and then the date. If he didn't say "and that's the way it is." it's because he was about to do an opinion piece. The man understood the difference between straight news and opinion. But he was the face people saw when the Cuban missile crises happened, also when President Kennedy was assassinated, (also Bobby Kennedy.) He was the main source of news about the Vietnam war and most people would not know he believed the war was wrong. He was there again when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, (he later mentioned he wishes he had been more professional during the broadcast as he smiled, rubbed his hands together and said "Whew boy!" during the broadcast.) He was the main voice Americans heard during the Watergate fiasco. He once pointed out that America was one of only seven nations worldwide that did not give free airtime to political candidates. Anyway we guess we have done enough for a day when we had nothing to write about. But in closing we would like to give a little nod to Walter Cronkite who died in 2009. And although this is decidedly an opinion piece we will end it with... And that's the way it is on May 31st 2010.

What was that?..........Zoom......whiz.....

Just a quick note to inform you of a recent speed record set by the United States Air Force. They have just successfully tested a new aircraft called the WaveRider. (The image is used with permission of the U.S.A.F.) It traveled at 6 times the speed of sound or about 5000 miles an hour. (So traveling from New York to California would take less than an hour.) It's called the WaveRider because it is designed to ride the shockwave it creates during flight. Just pointing out that America is still in the forefront of technology in many areas. What can be done with this new technology? Who knows, but it's cool isn't it? Ciao for now.