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Timothy S. McTaggart's Archived Blogs Oct-Dec 04

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"Next year I am going to Florida" says Vijay Patel, via E-mail to CNN's web site. He is a survivor of the tsunami that devastated coastlines in many parts of the Indian Ocean after the 26 Dec 9.0 quake in Indonesia. Estimates of those killed are approaching 100,000. Subject survivor is apparently ready to contend with the alternative of occasional or collective hurricanes. Unlike the Pacific Ocean's perimeter, there was no established warning system for this type of thing, and now we see the suffering and sorrow from what happened. I am unable to adequately address this in the form of a blog, other than to say God rest the souls of those lost and all condolences to those left behind. May all the help being offered to this part of the world now find where it is needed the most.

Well here it is in the wee hours of Christmas morning as Santa makes his rounds. Some years we opt to have Christmas on Christmas Eve, usually late at night, and other years have it on Christmas morning. This year it was on Christmas Eve, so Santa should be done with us until next year. The gig last week for the "Snow Ball" at the Cactus went very well. Very good crowd ready to party. So I was up about this time of night last week loading PA system back on the truck. No snow down here in Menard. With the weather we're having, it'd be snowing anywhere else. That's about all I can digress on for the moment, so more later, and Merry Christmas!

Here we go with another ridiculous Mad Fold-in ...well maybe not. Will have to settle for this blog entry instead. I am still disgusted with Mad Magazine from when they started accepting real advertising about three years ago, and I have not renewed my subscription since. But enough about that. Okay, what else to talk about, besides the holidays looming before us? The San Angelo Symphony's Christmas Concert last Saturday night did help to put things in a far better perspective. I think our church choir at St Luke UMC also contributed yesterday (Sunday) when we performed our annual Christmas cantata. It was a lot of work putting that one together (we probably still needed at least one more rehearsal) but we were well received. Now to get the Santa Claus work finished up. Got a big gig this Friday evening as we play for some of the bigger wigs at their annual holiday get-together. Black suits, ties and what not. Hope we can fix that problem. Well, that's about all I can think about for the moment, unless I take time to digress on something else, thereby doubling the length of this blog and further taxing our dear readers. So, Goodnight for now, and may your holidays be happy (trust me, I'm working on ours).

Guess I'd better post another blog real soon after that one I posted yesterday. I did say that I was both not feeling very well, and was spun up. For the record I do feel better today, but I make no further apologies for the points raised in subject blog. I have since researched the movie "Polar Express" and found that it was based on a very cute and heart warming story out of a children's storybook. According to most of the reviews I read, the consensus was that "Polar Express" should not have been made into this gross overblown technological behemoth of a feature length film. I had already decided that I'd seen enough when I saw an ad promoting this film. But enough there. As for new year's resolutions, I don't think my 2004 resolution was the first new year's resolution ever written that ended up somewhat less than accomplished. However I will NOT give up on these like I did for 2003. I am writing another one for 2005 and to repeat a quote, am saying "damn the torpedoes!" Next subject. Our band is getting ready for a high profile gig at the Cactus Hotel next Friday (17 Dec) where we entertain San Angelo's more elite society in their fancy holiday party endeavors. They may need to be aware of what they're getting into by letting us play. Look out!! Should we survive this one, our next gig is at the Oasis club on 8 Jan, and that one is open to the public. Hope to see you blog readers thereabouts. I may even warm to the season in the meantime. Until then, I say all the best, and hasta la taco.

(This one could be a little hot to post as a blog here, so if you're reading it, this would mean that I decided to go with it.) Once again I felt Scrooge's "Bah Humbug!" attitude. This time it was when I was assaulted with some screaming DVD player playing some animated kids version of "Jingle Bells". This was when I was hoping to get in and out of a grocery store right before Thanksgiving! I wasn't even at Wal-Mart where I'd expect this crap. Too bad I didn't have a large and heavy item in my cart I could have nailed the goddamn DVD player with (a frozen turkey would have been effective, as well as to explain that the season was Thanksgiving, not Christmas yet). Folks, I know it's cliche to say this, but once again I raise the question as to the purpose of this 'holiday' season. I saw a TV commercial for this film called "Polar Express" out in theatres now, and that commercial appeared to me as no more than gross orgy of kid consumerism in toyland. Yuck. Okay, get the kids their overpriced IPODs (probably made in China) and leave me the hell alone. Well, I guess I'm a bit spun up at the moment and I apologize to my readers. Didn't help today that I went home from work sick. At least I feel better, physically now after sleeping for nearly 5 hours this afternoon. Still contributing to my attitude of disgust today is that I reviewed my New Year's resolution I'd written back in January for this year (2004). I'd accomplished barely one out of several objectives I'd outlined for this year. I'd have to call that resolution failed at this point. Also our band's endeavors at last Saturday's office party were both poorly planned and recieved. I'd feel better about my sore back from hefting PA system had our gig gone better. I don't expect the band to return next year, based on how that party went. Suffice it to say that I am not sporting a very good 'tude' at this point. I'm mad, disgusted, irritated, still feeling sick, and I also continue to watch the war casualties mount in Iraq. Season's Greetings? My ass.

Time is a relative thing and it may have been some time since I've visited my relatives, but I digress. Now if that last sentence doesn't sound like something Dave Barry would write, I'm not sure what would. On to another topic now, but one still related to time. It was a long time since my army brat days in Kabul Afghanistan. I recently discovered something called keyhole.com on the web, which offers satellite or aerial views of nearly the entire globe. The resolution (sharpness) of pictures does vary with the area being looked at. Areas garnering more attention have higher resolution pictures taken of them. So to return from that digression, I note that Kabul Afghanistan has a 7/10 meter resolution (fairly high) satellite picture available. After extensive looking through that picture, I found both houses that we lived in during our time in Afghanistan, as well as what is left of the American International School of Kabul (AISK) compound. I am somewhat amazed that our first house that we lived in appears to have survived, even though it is in the newer southwest part of town that took very heavy damage from civil wars after our time there. Our second and much older house also appears to have survived the Russians, the Taliban and that civil war. This house is located in a much older part of Kabul. With apologies to keyhole, I offer its picture here. Buildings have encroached on many sides, to include where the yard had been west of the house, but the house itself still seems intact. That structure appears nearly as tough as the resolve of the Afghan people. Need I say more.

Damn, did I just see four horses riding across the sky? No wait, that was four more years of Fox News... nevermind. It was not the outcome that I had hoped for in this election. It appeared that Kerry had the numbers to win, but those numbers evaporated during the course of returns that evening. My sleep was elusive that night, and I watched Kerry's concession speech the next day. Despite the occasion, Kerry's speech was not a swan song. Kerry spoke of continuing this cause. I hope our president has been sent an unmistakable message. Bush may not consider it too important for his second term, but this message remains, should he choose to heed. Nearly half (if not more) of our voters wanted an administration to take a different direction from this one. Sooner or later, this new direction will prevail, and if the Grand Old Party is unable to realize that, they will not have a part of it. Our "Jackass" party (the donkey being the unofficial mascot based on such a reference) will fall back, regroup and once again rise. Four more years of the current administration will serve well to help that happen. That is, if we survive it. We again try the long established integrity of our country's constitution. We keep our hopes alive in that constitution, as we do our faith in the almighty. It may be rough but we should survive, Enshallah. Despite my wishes for the almighty to bless all countries of this world, I will finish this blog with the ending quote from Kerry's concession speech: "... And that prayer is very simple: God bless America. Thank you."

Looks like the Washington Redskins lied to us. 51% of the voting population has dumbed down and backed Bush this time (unless we want to quibble the electorial votes like the Republicans did four years ago...). Better wish Bush good luck on his four more years. He's gonna need it. More later.

All Hallows Day, and it's one hour longer this year thanks to the time change. Still no trick or treaters. I really shouldn't eat all that candy myself. There is a superstition regarding the most recent Washington Redskins home game before a presidential election. Since 1936, it has predicted the outcome. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party remains in the White House. If the Redskins lose, the opposing party takes the White House. So with Green Bay on the schedule today to play Washington, I frantically searched TV, radio and internet for a broadcast of the game. No soap. Anything here in Texas probably wouldn't really want to broadcast this game (especially with Green Bay favored). Fortunately, Green Bay Packers web site kept the score on the home page, and after a few antacids, I saw the final score of 28-14 appear there, in favor of Green Bay. So, as I said in an E-mail I sent out regarding this, I've got my fingers crossed. Mr. President Elect Kerry, when you win this one, you're gonna have your work cut out for you, given all those promises you made. I hope and pray this country makes the right choice in backing you.

As the pre-election campaigning reaches a shuddering crescendo in the next few days, I wonder if it is only out of morbid curiosity that I continue to watch the TV, listen to the radio and read the paper. Like much of the population has done in states where they can, I voted early. Our folks running for president have encouraged early voting (possibly in case they slip up at the last moment, they haven't lost your vote then). It was a stormy, wet drive down to Menard, where I am registered to vote. The weather was metaphoric of the stormy nature of this race. This campaign has been one of fear vs. hope with gross exaggerations, and even lies told on both sides (according to factcheck.org). But I wasn't disgusted enough yet by the campaign rhetoric to consider a vote for our perennial candidate LaRouche (besides he didn't get on the ballot this time, either). I know that it is a gamble to put my trust in the major party candidate running against our president, because I don't have much knowledge of this person, or those around him. But I already know that I cannot trust the same administration that got us into Iraq, to get us out of there. Besides, there were already many reasons not to trust this administration. So I cast my vote on the side of hope, and noted the sun coming out on my drive back. I hope that's a good sign.

So should I pick up from my last blog what I wanted to continue discussing? First I have to remember what the heck it was, but I'm sure it's related to politics, considering the moment. We sit about two weeks from this election, with early voting started as of today. The fervent hope of us all is that we don't have any states with floridain inability to tally an accurate count of votes. To this day, I still wonder if the governor of subject state, being a brother of our present "elected" leader, may have exerted some undue influence. I do hope that the campaign ads that I see in the next couple of weeks don't run me out of things to throw at the television. The writer of a recent anti-bush letter to the editor in our local paper stated that he wasn't too thrilled with Kerry, but then said that he had to vote for Kerry, just to get Bush out of the White House. I share some of this writer's uncertainties, but based on the debates, I feel better about Kerry than I did before. Since I don't have the benefit of proverbial 20/20 hindsight, I will go out on a limb to say that the person, who got us into this Iraq mess, can't be trusted to get us out of it. I hope for our country's future that this person is not re-elected. To put things succinctly, the greatness of our country may be determined by the way that we, God forbid, may have to handle four more years of the current administration. May we exercise that greatness instead, by getting a more competent (or 'fit') person in charge now.

I had to start by archiving my blogs from the last quarter. We're halfway through October here (new quarter) and I hadn't put any blogs in yet. So I'll make up for that with this rather long blog. But first to do this odd manual archiving. Maybe one of these years I'll quit editing this web page with notepad. Well on to the blood pressure raising topic of politics. A little more than two weeks to go before this nation's presidential vote for either a change of direction or a continuation towards the apocalypse slated to happen early this century anyway. I make that observation with a little humor there; very little humor. To say the least, this is one of the most important presidential elections this country will see for some time. I'm hacked at the Texas state democratic party, who seems pretty much to have written the state off to the individual in the White House. This is notwithstanding that village here in Texas of which he's missing from. Not a lick of support from the state democratic party (they didn't even return our phone calls!!) to even get help on campaign signs. I lend much more kudos to the newspaper editor of subject village for saying that we need to vote for somebody else. To hell with the local advertisers he's lost; I'll buy a subscription. The TV ads of this election season are beginning to fly now, and I'm concerned that I may run out of things to throw at the television before this mess is over. I watched the first two presidential debates and the single vice presidential debate. I taped the third and last presidential debate, and will probably watch it sometime this weekend, in spite of whoever the spin claims to have won it. To be honest, I was impressed during the first presidential debate, and felt much better about both persons running for this next term. Bush has his 'bushisms' though, such as "...of course we're after ah... uh... Saddam Hussein... um... I mean Bin Laden..." That would probably be a Freudian slip regarding our fearless leader's obsession with the former Iraqi dictator. I feel that Bush is at least very sincere, albeit dangerously misguided. Kerry improved greatly in my mind, changing from the obnoxious snowboarder grousing about secret service agents getting in his way, to the elocutionary statesman with the confident handle on the mission of the office of which he seeks. I felt that Kerry would be much more able to serve the people of this great country than our incumbent. Regarding Iraq, I'll have to make a reference to lines from the movie "The Right Stuff" and say that our incumbent "...screwed the pooch." I hope that Kerry, if elected, can make the best of this extremely bad decision, and somehow win back that part of the world. If so, terrorism as per Kerry's assessment, could drop to the point of being a mere nuisance. The key is not brute force, it is diffusing things that would otherwise inspire continued terrorism. Well I've only discussed a little more than half of what I'd meant to discuss here, but seeing that this blog has already run a bit long, I'll spare our readers at this point, say thanks and wish you folks a great day. See ya next blog if you're still interested. Please E-mail too (see address on my home page, link at top). Take care.

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