I stopped by this morning to unlock the door and turn on the lights, but I can’t stay long. I’m on the road for a couple of days. No, I am not at the beach as are Arlo and Janis in the above oldie from 2010. I wish! However, speaking of leisure, et al, I have not forgotten our discussion about the work status of our friends. In fact, I have enjoyed thinking about it and look forward to sharing my thoughts with you. That’s why I’m not going to rush into it now. In a day or two, I’ll have more time to spend on the subject. See you then! And please, try not to break anything.
157 responses to “She Buys Sea Shells…”
DPT?
Morphy:
Being a product of the late 60s/early 70s, an eternal student of how and why the U.S. was founded, and a philosophical adherent of the Founding Documents, I have never trusted any American government, be it local, state, or federal.
A citizen’s highest calling is to be constantly wary of the government and jealous of his natural rights and liberties, especially when the party he prefers is in office.
And I think that we need to be even more wary of the intelligence agencies.
Anon:
Dr. of Physical Therapy. Over the past several yr., it has become for PT students to remain in the program until they get a doctorate. Conjecture: maybe it’s so they can accept clients w/o an MD’s referral, which may in turn relate to eligibility for insurance.
Wife [RN] asserted, over 10 yr. ago, that HIPPA, the law that governs privacy of patients / clinic, hospital, etc., was written by Big Insurance. Surprise?
Peace,
Rick, I think we are similar, only stumbling over shades of meaning in the words we use. Eternal vigilance is not just a good idea, it is proscribed in the writings of many people contemporary to the American Revolution. And has been echoed through our history, by those with the luxury [or necessity] to spend thought on the subject. Ironically is not quite the correct word, maybe counter-intuitively, some of the loudest voices were on the secessionist side in the 1860’s. And I would admit, if you can hold at bay some of the uglier issues of the time, they had valid points. But I’m still glad the Union re-United. We are stronger together.
I guess that to me the starting point is trust in my government, referring to the self-correcting structure designed with providence a very long time ago. It has features that protect us from lasting damage caused by temporary officeholders. But it requires vigilance. And a willingness to do right when action is required. First step is be counted every election day, so that all views are recognized. Between those days, remind the officeholders of your opinion so that they are not deluded by the concept of ‘mandate’. I believe that has no place in a republic, and its underlying ideal of ‘with the permission of the people’. The hope is that no further action will be required beyond that.
On your last point, intelligence is a comfortable euphemism for spy. A concept that has proven value in a hostile world, unfortunately. But note the core concept, hostile. Should we view our domestic sphere as hostile? I think that smacks of presumed guilt, and should be reviled.
Me, I think many of us share similar views, if not semantics.
Intelligence is not synonymous with intelligent but it does usually entail spying 8n my experience.
I keep remembering my conversation with the CIA during Vietnam, “I guess you just want me to fill a paper bag with cash and leave it under a rock?”
“Can you do that?”
Jackie, hypothetically, “I can personally guarantee 40% of any cash given to me will be under that rock, precisely when you want! Trust me!”
Mark, two unrelated things that will tie together. It may not be apparent in our free-society, but getting permission to publish certain items back in the time that Bamford had relevant knowledge, was not as simple as it is now. [changed easy to simple, because consequences make it not ‘easy’]
Separately, anyone with some familiarity may have already pieced together the geography of my life. And they may wonder if I have a loose association, if not direct, with the topic. I do, though at a distance. It is part of what shapes my view of our government and its place in the world. Nothing hidden here, the relevant mission has long since been scrapped as irrelevant. In fact, it was put in the public domain by the other author mentioned by Ron. But only long after its useful life. And that is what ties these points together.
From the day that ‘groundbreaking’ book was published, there was no longer any such thing as no such agency. And from that day, I knew this agency had become the public front to absorb the arrows, allowing some other(s) to work unnoticed. It’s the magician’s hand-waving trick played large.
Morphy, an excellent post regarding vigilance, but I think you didn’t mean “proscribed” but a similar sounding word, such as “prescribed.”
Morphy are you still up in Seattle Puget sound area? If I ever get back up so would enjoy meeting you some day.
TruckerRon, you are right of course. And a clanger when pointed out. My mind reached for the concept ‘professed in writing’. My fingers typed ‘pro-scribed’. And HAL the spellczhecing daemon doesn’t own a thesaurus.
I probably still would not have chosen ‘prescribed’ though. I associate it with a known solution for a known condition. Would have preferred a word that focused on the future possibilities of potential unknowns. Still drawing a blank beyond ‘professed in writing’.
Jackie, no, I was a dry-sider, to the east of the Cascades, back in my heyday. No mushrooms or geoduck around my area. Found a word HAL don’t know. But weekends and downtime, when extra money hadn’t found a purpose yet, had me up in those mountains, or down to the Sound, or down-river to Portland.
I admit a fascination with sailing, and a life near or on water, from childhood. But life has a way of going in ways if you don’t focus on one thing. So it has never been something I learned. You know the joke, on a small craft, when ‘JIBING’ is yelled; everyone gets shorter except the guy saying “Wha-” just before being knocked down, or over. That’s me, I’m that guy. [I hope I used jibing right.] Or I assume I would be. The only floating craft with a mast I’ve been on are museum pieces. Still have a ‘sailor’s flute’ somewhere, tourist junk from visiting the _Constellation_, I think, at Baltimore’s inner harbor as a child. Similar ship, her name I do not recall, is at the museum in San Francisco, name also forgotten.
Meant to tie the dry-side idea back to the original point TruckerRon made about water use, and why I find it relevant, not to be dismissed out of hand. Although I must say, the taming of the Columbia [with a ‘u’ like our nation personified] made it so most of Eastern Washington has no worries. When volcanic soil sits a few thousand years or more since the retreating glaciers, it gains a lot of nutrients that are not used. Add a canal system for irrigation, and an amazing potential for agriculture is released from a ‘dead’ ground. Benefits have downsides, the river is nothing like it once was. But I did not know it then.
Oregon has no such system, that I know, for it’s dry side. I have been in sandstorms that reduce visibility to zero. All you can do is wait it out, hoping no idiot rear ends you, while you hear the paint being stripped from from your car. Made me remember _Dune_, a movie by and starring men from the Pacific Northwest, not as riveting as the books.
from from
don’t even remember editing that line
vroom, vrooOOMM!
Hunh, went and looked at David Lynch on Wikipedia. I had based my comment on Kyle MacLachlin’s appearance recently on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show. He had said he hit it off so well with Lynch because he was also from the Northwest.
Wiki says Mr. Lynch is not from, educated, or currently residing in The Pacific Northwest, even though he frequently sets stories there. Kyle does tend to say odd things though.
Morphy, my service specialty tied in with the NSA, although I didn’t know it till I read Bamford’s book. Until then, I had no idea that the original plan had been for the NSA to do it all, but the military squawked at being cut out and caused the work to be divided up among the services.
Mark, yeah, I read you as having more than a passing interest. ‘Compart-mental-ized’ in action, huh? For that very same reason, I could be way wrong with my views.
I understood there was a time, no current info, when, if you could make the flip from uniform to suit [those used to be required] the paymaster was the same, but the check had a different payer, and the amount was heavier. Same door, same desk, same secretary, same file cabinet, different clothes, new advancement opportunities.
I doubt the structure is as beneficial as it once was. But I gotta say, every time I hear another ‘leak’ is from an ‘outside contractor’, I wonder why someone ‘outside’ is allowed ‘inside’. Not because I want secrecy on the domestic side; I just can’t figure the security of the situation when the paymaster is different, and agreements and promises take the place of oaths and training.
On the why or how plans change, pure conjecture on my part, on a development decades old. I had the sense that book was a permitted/planned exposé/exposure. And the world is a very different place now.
Curiosity sent me back to Wikipedia on _Puzzle_Palace_. Did not even realize he had a followup book twenty-years later. Which raises the admittedly uninformed question: If the first book was such a breach of trust, how could he possibly have relevant information in the era following our total realignment of priorities?
My unfair impression without knowledge is encapsulated in the words of the aged and wise Yogurt, “The Quest for More Money”
Prairie dog town, morning greetings and tumbling, at least:
http://explore.org/live-cams/player/plains-bison-grasslands-national-park-cam-1
Peace,
Finally, a new Pibgorn, after what? Two months? More? 9CL is much better, though I don’t remember what Edda’s new contract is about. Rather watch prairie dogs. Peace,
http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn
emb, our local zoo has a lot of prairie dogs. My late Mom-in-law loved them, and they seemed to love her. We used to tease her that it was because they thought she was one of them. (She was a tiny lady.)
Re-reading an earlier post, found a booboo. Some of you may have realized the error, but the less churched might have just been puzzled:
‘Wished HMD to many at BUMC this morning, also watched confirmation, which included one confirmation first, …’ should have read:
‘Wished HMD to many at BUMC this morning, also watched confirmation, which included one BAPTISM first, …’.
Since confirmation regularly includes an affirmation of the vows taken by others at your [infant] baptism, if you’ve not been baptized as an infant, we baptize you before we confirm you. Girl in question played the title role in Annie only a few years ago, is now taller than me, carried it off well. Has lots of presence, and is generally a delight. Pastor declined to carry her around the church as pastors do w/ those in swaddling cloths, but took her by the hand and walked her down the center aisle and back up a side aisle, the one with the unique original murals. Good show, exciting day.
Another whoops: ‘it has become USUAL for PT students to remain . . .’ Much easier to copy edit others’ work than my own.
Peace,
In Blue Springs, Missouri and on way home via Carriage, Missouri and a stop to see Llee. Just had delicious crab cakes and shared a fantastic pecan pie.
Now if only we got out of bed soon enough to do sight seeing so we could report on where we’ve been.
You’re traveling via carriage? I thought you;d be in Black Jack. Say hi to Llee for me, please.
Hal has gotten downright insolent a put what he says. You have to watch him like a hawk. Yesterday I noticed he had added seven more words to s post here after I hit period and send.
Time to change clothes, grab instruments and music, and get to my group’s next performance. Here’s a video of an outdoors one we did some time ago. I like it because I can be plainly seen, with my bass clarinet, at about the 1:45 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gotv-R2qaKc&t=601s