The Bostonian Abroad

You are doomed. Yup, we all are! You might not like to think about it, might not like to admit it, but it's true and as plain as the nose on your face: You are going to die. Everything you do, hope, think, dream, plan, and make will all one day be for naught. You think you will be remembered for something? Try again. Sure, you might be the "lucky one" and be remembered like Jesus was, or Rama, or Mohammed, but who remembers Ahmed, Sanjay, and Jimbo? No one, that's who. You might get real lucky and have a huge funereal temple built around your slowly rotting corpse, a la Tutankhamun, but most likely, you'll end up in the ground in a quite unremarkable enterrement,or worse, your ashes will lie scattered in a million directions across the uncaring world. . . Maybe you think someone's great sacrifice will lead to immortality? I betcha Jesus wouldn't be too thrilled with what became of his teachings. You think he ever had the Pope Mobile in mind back i...

So Weiner actually DID send that tweet of his meat to a college student. He also has done this many times before, both before and after he was married. And he spent the last week or more lying about having done any of it??????? Ok, So here is why I am mad enough to say this jack-wagon has to be drummed out, driven out on a rail, if he doesn't do the right thing and resign. He is a big, fat, public, petty, selfish liar. And, yeah, I know, "Aren't they all?" True enough, and you might ask if I had the same attitude when Clinto went through this with Lewinsky. What Clinton did was no less stupid, no less reprehensible, and no less pathetic --except that Clinton was presiding over the best economic boom in the history of the planet. But when the country is in its second Great Depression, when the economic collapse has caused over 25 million Americans to have lost their jobs, some for over two years, when we are fighting two and a half wars, when the Republicans ...

Since I am leaning heavily towards not riding anymore, I have been trying to find something else to occupy my time and interest. Guns have filled this role. Thanks to the inheritance of firearms left to me by my father, I have begun to take a much more serious interest in shooting and reloading. I have gone to the range a lot more in the past six months than I ever have, and I even started shooting a Glock 30 (.45 ACP). I got educated in the necessary bits that would enable me to get a concealed-carry permit, so now I'm able to pack heat , so-to-speak. I'm into holsters, shooting vids, ammo, reloading, and virtually all manner of handgun shooting. Except for revolvers. I just don't find myself being very enthused by them. They are perfectly good-looking guns, and no one can argue with their reliability. It's just that, for me, they don't inspire me. I think I am more practical in my approach in that I am thinking about the number of rounds, the quickness of rel...

This morning while driving to work, NPR was reporting on the Fed's ending a long-standing policy of not raising, and indeed lowering, the interest rate. Apparently, the Fed chief said this policy was coming to an end. He also said that this was categorically NOT because inflation is rising. Critics argue that despite what he says, this is his real motivation. Bernanke countered by reasserting his position and basing it on the "fact" that the measurement of inflation does not take into account the price of gas or food. Instead, he argued, the measurement is based on the price of housing. . . . . . . . . Um, WHAT?!!! So why then, when housing prices were stratospherically through the roof and people couldn't afford to even rent an apartment, let alone buy a house, didn't the Fed declare inflation to be going up during the YEARS of the housing boom?????!!!! I've written about this before. Years ago. Look it up. I complained that there was no one willing ...

I'm so tired of the Democrats and Republicans and their stale positions on every single issue. I'm also tired of they ways both liberals and conservatives seem to download without question everything they watch or read or hear on the media serving their political mind-set. The way they parrot what they have heard, without questioning its validity, demonstrates a real lack of thought and skepticism on their parts, and this is most tiring of all. Worse still is how the moment you state your view on something, these same people are just waiting, drooling to put you in one camp or the other. It's like they are thinking, "Now what is this guy, a liberal or conservative?" They immediately want to see if you are friend or foe, and if you happen to have a view they deem in one camp or the other, they shove you into that camp and commence treating you like one of "them," ending even the chance of a meaningful conversation. Neither party represents me. Nor does...

I hate to speak ill of anyone or any organization, and my dislike of my time in the “Aloha State” has been thoroughly documented here over the years, but a recent annoyance has brought back to me the very reason I left that wretched island “paradise.” Now, don’t get me wrong. Hawaii is a beautiful place, for the most part, and the weather is the very best in the entire world. Nothing comes close to it. But the people, ohhhh, the PEOPLE!! They make it the hell it truly was for me, and the hell that it truly “IZ” for so many people there. To be diplomatic, I will not name the school at which I taught for my five-year tenure in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Y’all can figure it out somehow anyway, if you are Internet savvy. What set me off this time? I wrote a nice note to the students, faculty, and staff of the school sending them my well-wishes at this difficult time, which is the tragic event of the earthquake and tsunami of March 10, 2011. You see, I have taught a ton of stu...

I’ve been noticing a lot of talk recently about the end of the world. Not the usual rigmarole of 2012 or of Nostradamus, but of the imminent collapse of the dollar, the reversing of the magnetic poles, the loss of our magnetic field, and some lady named Saba or something who died long ago but supposedly made all kinds of predictions, the most recent of which is the advent of World War Three. Maybe it’s because I am into guns and watching a lot of channels on Youtube about guns and their attendant proponents, who all seem to be prepping in one way or another for the eventual (and they say inevitable) collapse of modern society. As if these people would really be able to survive very long in such a scenario. I think it would be more luck than anything that decides who lives and who gets trampled, burned, blown-up or even eaten when the “shit hits the fan.” I can understand being prepared for a Katrina-like situation, where society collapses for a short time before returning. You’d ...

Since I broke my leg, I've been casting about uselessly for something to do with myself now that my main hobby/obsession is impossible for me and may be thus for the rest of my life. At the same time, I have a sizeable collection of guns I inherited from my father last year, so my long-standing interest in guns and shooting has naturally rekindled. Recently this interest has kicked into high gear. I've been watching a ton of videos on Youtube, reading different websites, and logging onto gun and shooting websites galore. I even went and took a concealed-carry class in order to get my CCW permit. Looked at different ccw guns and learned all I could about size, weight, calibre, mag-capacity, and overall cost. Two Youtubers stood out for me in my search: Hickok45 and Nutnfancy. Both really know a great deal about guns, and both are interesting, entertaining, and inspiring to watch. Hickok is more of a shooter and down-to-earth kind of guy, whereas Nuntnfancy is more of a mor...

As horrific and unbelievable as the shootings in Arizona have been, I have to say, sadly, that nothing could have prevented them. "What??!!" you say? Rachel Maddow seems to make a connection between his drug use and the shootings. She also seems to make a link between his troubles at Pima CC and the shootings, indicating that these were warning signs that could have or should have been used to keep him from buying a gun and ammo. I hate to sound so callous, but I have to quote Sex and the City: "Coulda, woulda, shoulda!" Look, the JLL's of the world are always going to be out there. Sure, we need to try and get to them and either lock them away or drug them silly before they get to hurting others, but in the end, it is an impossible task to get them all. The reactionism on the TV now shows a hue and cry for new laws: Ban guns! Ban large ammo clips! Lock nutcases away!! We can't ban guns in this country. We just can't. To do it w...

Okay, so it has been nine weeks since I broke my tibia and fibula when I went down on my motorcycle, and my foot got twisted up as the bike spun out on a poorly paved lot where I was working. How am I doing? First, I'll talk about how I'm doing physically. If you have watched the above video, then you know I'm healing well -- in fact, better than I had anticipated or was led to believe. The orthopaedist originally told me that I would not be able to bear weight on my right leg until February first, but when I went to see him at the end of December, he shocked me by saying I was cleared to bear weight and even transition out of the crutches and the boot I've been forced to use since November. When I got home from the doctor's office later that evening, I was so excited to be able to bear weight that I dispensed with my crutches altogether and started walking around my kitchen, utterly amazed that I could in fact "walk" again, albeit, limpingly. Then realit...