Mazurland Blog

A Squandered Opportunity

So last night's beer summit is history. After all the hype, we now need to ask, what have we learned from this "teachable moment"? The answer is, probably nothing. None of the three men apologized, and I'm almost certain no one changed their opinion. Sure, there was "dialogue" at the table, but we, the American people, were not privy to what was being said. And most significantly, all the prejudices that started this fiasco have not only persisted, but have probably been amplified. So it seems that all the damaging stereotypes will persist despite, or because of, Obama's best efforts.

But what about the 4th party in this brew-haha? The woman who originally started it all; the "Eve" of this national sin. The one who remained above the fray. Can we learn anything from her that may help us to lessen our poisonous profiling? Well, here she is with the typical whiny, overly-emotional, spiteful display of victimhood that you'd expect from a broad:

Doesn't like beer?! Well I'm sure the White House can dig up a wine cooler that she could share with Michelle... Ah well. America moves forward. Unscathed, yet still unchanged.

Visualizing Music

Here are a couple of entertaining music related videos. The first is an adaptation of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah performed by Les Freres de St Francis de la Sissies, a group of monks who have taken a vow of silence. The introduction is a little boring, so you might want to skip to 1:35.

The second video is a visualization of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The music is performed by Stephen Malinowski on a device called the Music Animation Machine. The notes are shown as colored bars, with the height of the bar on the screen proportional to the pitch of the note. The length of the bar is proportional to the length of time that the note is held. Colors indicate the timbre of the note. It's fascinating to watch the geometric patterns among the notes unfold as the piece progresses. The artist has many more such visualizations on his YouTube channel.

{HT - Tom Mazur and Anne Gross]

I Told You So!

Ok, well, I never actually got around to telling you so.  But I thought about it!  View the following:

I am completely and unambiguously convinced. Discuss.

The Suspense Is Killing Me

There's been a lot of talk about the choice of beers for tonight's summit on race at the White House. Beer is something Mazurland can, and should, comment on. Apparently, President Obama has chosen Bud Light, probably because it's the most popular beer in America. I have read that Prof. Gates has chosen Red Stripe, and Sgt. Crowley has chosen Blue Moon. It's a shame that none of these selections come from an American-owned brewery, but who am I to begrudge someone their choice of drink? Although a nice cold Yuengling, from America's oldest brewery, would've been hard to beat. It might also have been funny if one of these three chose a Black & Tan, just for yucks.

But the thing I'm actually more curious about is their choice of drinking glass. Now, I realize that Sgt. Crowley is probably a straight out-of-the-can type of guy, but he's going to meet the president after all. He's gotta "clean up" a little bit. So, will it be a goblet shaped glass befitting the formality of the White House? A straight 16oz pub glass, as a hat tip to the only white guy's blue collar roots? A tall pilsner glass, to add to the growing list of Obama's faux pas? A pragmatic mug? A multi-national stein?

The suspense is killing me. There's gotta be a lot of lobbying going on. Future glassware sales ride on this decision.

Falling Apart

Or so it seems.  Wanda's cold developed into bronchitis, and after 2 rounds of steroids and 2 antibiotics, she's finally out of the woods.   I just stumbled INTO the woods. 

  0300 Saturday, after a day of sneezing/other cold symptoms, I awoke short of breath---but not from my heart.  After fighting it off for almost a month, I got Wanda's bronchitis.  To the ER I go, MD says the "duck egg" I felt in my air way was a massive post nasal drip---which doesn't help matters. 7 Days of antibiotics, and sent home to start to feel better.  Sunday I throw my back out hoisting a garbage can onto my Truck---Still in some pain after one Chiropractic session, another tomorrow.  

Go to my MD for follow--up tonight, and she says a bunch of stuff that I don't want to hear.   I likely have a unilateral pneumonia of the lower lung.  Diabetics who get Pneumonia have trouble gettting it fully eradicated.  Another antibiotic,Booster of Depo-Medrol, and 5 day course of same orally, which have the bad side effects of raising  blood glucose and further compromising my immune system, and a couple ounces of Tussionex syrup---Elvis' fave---and it DOES work.

  Go get a Chest X-Ray in the morning, and a blood test was taken. Another App't on Fri PM and she'll decide if it's resolving or if I'm going to the hospital for IV Antibiotics  AND NO WORK TILL MONDAY REGARDLESS.  I told her I was working and other than the cough I was OK. Dr says "Don't make light of this!!" She is, in the opinion of most, the best MD in our county, and she's saved my life twice.  I can't buck this woman. 

 My employer doesn't give sick days, burn your vacation days or you don't get paid, I do have AFLAC Short Term Disability, but that don't kick in until the 4th day you're out of work.  The only downside to what is still the best job I've ever had, so no gripes here. 

 SO look forward to our revised vacation plans, I got to burn a couple of days.  I'll be at home doing some filing when I'm not resting.  If I find something to post about, you slack asses since mfco get a Mulligan.  

Not Sure What Anyone Can Do About It

On reporting the news of a collision of an object with Jupiter that resulted in an earth sized hole in the atmosphere of Jupiter, Brian Williams of NBC news made a remark that was picked up by the White House as a challenge. Regarding the collision Mr. Williams stated , "...not sure what anyone can do about it." I'm sure that Obama and his team are scrambling trying to come up with ideas because as Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's chief of staff, is famous for saying, “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste, they are opportunities to do big things.” Fixing an earth sized hole in Jupiter's atmosphere would be big and expensive. This would be consistent with this administration's methods of solving problems.

Mazurland is hard at work trying to offer some suggestions. Perhaps we should start off with a slightly conservative approach. Maybe Jupiter's atmosphere is just a little hurt and needs needs some TLC.  We could create an earth sized pair of wax lips, ferry them to the planet and give Jupiter a big kiss. If that doesn't work, perhaps an earth sized Band Aid can be sent to the planet. Maybe a little protective covering from all of that nasty cosmic radiation will give Jupiter the protection it needs to heal the wound, And if that fails, we would have to move on to fill that hole with a giant cork.   Cork is light so it wouldn't cost too much to deliver it to Jupiter. Simple and easy to comprehend, it would be an easy sell to the American public. But I think if we want to do something really Obama-esque, we would have to make everybody forget about the initial hole, by making the hole three to five times bigger. We could gather up every nation's nuclear arsenals (except North Korea) and use them to blow a bigger hole in the atmosphere. There! A win win situation. All of our nasty weapons disposed of and everybody will have forgotten about that earth sized hole in Jupiter's atmosphere.

State Of The Blog

This post is as much for the other authors as for our readers. As I mentioned a few posts ago, and then again a few days ago, at least one of Mazurland's authors has been fretting about the future of this blog. Regular readers note that posting is nowhere near as regular as it was last year, let alone two or more years ago. Brother Chris started the blog four-and-a-half years ago, and for more than two years he wrote at least four or five posts a week. Brother Marty averaged less than half that, and Brother Paul was a much more irregular contributor. But when Chris came down with a lengthy case of blogger block, Marty upped his monthly most count. But even doubling his previous output couldn't keep the blog refreshed every day, so Mazurland recruited two more Brothers, first Hank, then Ben. With five authors, we thought, we could keep a regular stream going. But Hank's busy work and volunteering schedule and Ben's equally busy work and family commitments have made that difficult.

Over the last month, I've started to have a bit of blog fatigue myself. Now, I love writing for Mazurland. Always have. It's a great release, and I've also enjoyed the exchanges with the other authors and our readers. But a couple of weeks ago, I actually broke my "two posts a week" promise for only the second time and felt like I was about to let myself drop off the masthead. With the posting history of the blood brothers as it is, this would have meant that the blog would become Mazurland in name only. It would be time to have Brother Hank, our current most regular writer, start his own blog and let his one fall aside.

I talked the situation over with Brother Chris. Let it be said that when Chris invited his brothers, and then later Hank and Ben, to write for Mazurland, the idea was that there was to be no pressure on authors to write. But on the other hand, if I took an extended sabbatical, this blog would effectively become Hank's blog And while Hank has been a valued contributor, Mazurland would with him as sole active author have little of the flavor of the the original blog.

So my question to Chris was "What would you do if all three of us wrote seldom, if at all? And again (we've talked about this before), Chris punted. Or kicked the can down the street. Nothing was definitively decided.

But sometimes punting is a good thing, and it may be in this case. Somewhat miraculously, and with little correspondence among the authors, all 5 of us have posted in the last week. And there are more posts in the hopper. Who knows what will happen? Maybe Ben will come forth with offerings from one of his several promised series. Perhaps Paul will treat us with more treasures from the Orient, or introduce us to some of the status stylings that make him a god on Facebook. And, if it's not too much to hope, perhaps Chris's Muse will kickstart his writing. Chris punted. But the ball is still in play. We'll see what happens...

Need Some Help Here

As the 2 eldest Mazurs know, I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer in High School.  I just didn't apply myself as I should have.  With an 89.89 final average for 4 years, I finished 135/165.  Not the "Anchor Man", but undoubtedly solidly in the bottom 1/3 of our class.  Of course at Riverside I would have been Validectorian with the courses we took at the Institute, but I digress. 

I'm not a computer wizard, but I took some programming in college. So I consider myself able to read flow charts without too much difficulty.  But THIS one knocked me right off my fresh fried lobster.  This is the flow chart of the House version of the Health "whatever they're calling it today".

All I was doing was to try and follow the care flow for the Dep't of Defense.   If any of our MD's or PhD's in Mazurland can figure this out, let me know in comments.

Today's Rasmussen Poll Numbers

The Slogan of Germany's National Socialists was : DEUTSCHLAND ERWACHE!!! Or Germany, Awake!!!

Well, after a long slumber, aided by the non-credible media droning on about The One,  Take a gander at today's Rasmussen Presidential Approval Poll.

 

For the first time, Der Fuehrer's strongly disapprove numbers are higher than his strongly approve numbers.  Just last week he had hit zero, where just as many strongly disapproved as strongly approved. His numbers have been in a slide for several months. 

Rasmussen futher reports that only 31% of Americans think the country is going in the right direction.

Perhaps  Amerika Erwache!!! should be the new slogan.

And as this author and the other Mazurlanders who are former "inmates of the Institute" know so well---NNA is EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Our Black President

So by now everyone is familiar with... what shall we call it, "Gates-gate"? I'm referring, of course, to the recent uproar over the arrest of of Black College Professor™ Henry Louis Gates and subsequent fallout.  Now, I should go on record by saying that, maybe, just maybe, the cops could have kept their cool a bit better, and my inner libertarian is frothing over a private citizen being arrested in his own house for his behavior toward police when no crime had  been committed.  Whatever. 

But... then our Community Organizer In Chief Barack Obama decided to open his big dumb mouth.  "The Cambridge police acted stupidly", he said, "in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."  In spirit, I actually agree with the president.  But he goes on:  "there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."  So our president makes it abundantly clear that he believes that race was a major factor in what transpired.  And indeed, Professor Gates, likewise, made it clear in his ranting and raving that he believed race was involved in what transpired -- which is so readily apparent in the picture above.  After all, look at the way that WHITE cop was slandering both the BLACK professor and the BLACK cop behind their backs by making the well-known racist "PLEASE CALM THE F*** DOWN NOW, SIR" hand gesture in the picture to the left. 

Anywho, my immediate reaction to reading Obama's "stupidly" statement was "Wow, how completely unpresidential for him to take sides so early on."  But then I thought more about it.  And I quickly realized (or rather, remembered) that Obama, our first black president, is really just that -- Our Black President.  Not, mind you, Our American President, as any president should aspire to be.  Immediately jumping on the side of the race-grievance academic is not a way to move this country to a post-racial future.