Nielsen's ra(n)tings

Politics, guns, homeschooling for the gifted, scuba, hunting, farming and somewhat coherent occasional ranting from your average Buckeye State journalist/dad/farmer/actor.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

You just can't make this stuff up

Hmmmm….­­political advisor Robert Steinbuch doesn’t want the sordid details of his sex life splashed about for all to see on his lover’s blog, circa 2004. So what does he do? He files a lawsuit against the writer, then known as Washingtonienne, more properly known as Jessica Cutler, asking for $20 million in damages.

Now I know that the proper path to power in Washington, D.C. is an undergraduate degree in stupid with additional coursework in ignorant arrogance, but this is rarified territory even in the land of the perpetually pandering. By filing a lawsuit to recover perceived damages from a violation of his amorous privacy, when a trial is guaranteed to spread those salacious details to every man, woman and child on the planet, the Bobster has distanced himself from the pack of also-rans in the Grand Prix de Knuckleheads.

It is certainly fitting that Steinbuch was an advisor to our own soon-to-be-gone-but-not-lamented Sen. Mike DeWine (R{sorta}-OH). It’s also ironic that he has taken up teaching in Arkansas, almost as famous as West Virginia for its steely refusal to overvalue education.

It’s been TWO YEARS Bobster…anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together will tell you that if you were truly interested in your privacy, you’d quietly withdraw from this suit and hope never to hear the word “Washingtonienne” again. Thankfully for the Jerry Springer-watching crowd, however, it looks like the Bobster is going to stand up for all those Washington insiders who have had their exploits…exploited.

From the story:

“…Cutler called him the "current favorite" and said he resembled George Clooney, liked spanking and disliked condoms. "He's very upfront about sex," she wrote. "He likes talking dirty and stuff, and he told me that he likes submissive women."

My advice, Bob, is to cut and run You think you were violated by the initial disclosures? Just wait until the expert witnesses hit the stand during the trial, analyzing your hanky panky with spanky spanky. It’s like watching a long anticipated slip and fall on a banana peel…you’d like to follow your higher instincts and avert your eyes from this misfortune of your fellow human, but it’s just too damn funny.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

A near shutout

This has officially become my worst deer hunting season in at least 15 years.

We have ONE deer in the freezer, a 7-point taken during archery season. Results of gun season? Zip. Zero. Nada. Heck, I didn’t even SEE a deer for the first five days of the week-long season. The fresh tracks were everywhere by the thousands, it was just the deer that were absent this year during hunting hours. I blame the warm weather and lack of snow for keeping the deer nocturnal and sluggish.

Of course, this year during archery season I saw tons of deer…more bucks than I’ve ever seen. I passed up several easy shots on bucks (youngish 8-points, forks and spikes) and young does while in the woods with my bow.

The just-completed extra weekend of gun season also did me no good. I’m down to muzzleloader season now and the remaining month of archery season…brrrr!

Meant what she said...said what she meant

I’ve had cause to reflect the last few weeks, during Doc-wife’s job search, on the difficulties in communication between people.

We have a common language, somewhat common cultural background and perhaps even a shared generational outlook…so how come simple declarative sentences such as “I’m not happy working under these conditions and, if they don’t improve, I’ll find work elsewhere” can become shrouded in such layers of mystery?

Case in point: Doc-wife had been telling her present company for six months that some aspects of her job are unacceptable…not only for her, but for patient care, liability and staff morale. She told them again when she went to the corporate offices to discuss the company’s desire to renew her contract. Even when she tendered her resignation letter, effective, per her contract, 120 days from submission, they attempted to pat her on the head and to smooth her ruffled feathers.

What she said: “I’m not happy and will look elsewhere.”

What they heard: “Blah, blah, blah, blah, I’m whining for more money, blah, blah, blah.”

There was a fundamental disconnect in the way the two parties viewed that simple statement. One was straightforward and the other was through a connotative lens that turned the words into some kind of gambit in the game of contract negotiation. That has to be why the corporate people have been hounding her for the last two weeks with the attitude of “c’mon, what do you really want?”

They say they had no idea that she was unhappy, and in that they may be telling the truth; seen through the corporate lens, all of her messages may have been viewed as nothing more than moves in the game. If that’s true, then nothing this company does or could ever do should entice her to return. They’re pitting themselves against their employees, and the validity of criticism and chance for improvement is sacrificed by people most interested in getting the best of their workers at the negotiation table.

Now they’re promising her all kinds of things…things they specifically and emphatically said were off the table when she drove down to corporate for a meeting the week before Thanksgiving. Of course, working where she does, she’s seen a lot of this spontaneous repentance: “I’m sorry, baby…I swear I’ll never hit you again…I didn’t mean those things I said…just come back to me and everything will be alright.”

I think the model of her new company is much to be preferred: “Here are the very-high qualifications for whom we hire and this is what we pay everyone…if you like it, great, we’d love to have you.” Though generous, the contract terms are not really flexible…leaving no room for the game players, the wiggly middle men and the cheats.

It’s the American Way..straight-talkin’, straight-shootin’ and nary a nuance to be seen. It makes communication a lot easier when everyone takes the words at face value rather than trying to seek advantage in some perceived meaning behind them.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Promised update...

Last night’s meeting with the elite of Doc-wife’s company yielded the expected high-pressure used car salesman’s pitch to get her to stay. It also provided some interesting moments:

*A medical director said “now I don’t want to sound like a car salesman,” immediately after sounding exactly like a car salesman…I laughed. He didn’t get it. He then proceeded to offer carrots to get her to stay. At least he didn’t have to go check with his sales manager to see what kind of deal he could offer Doc-wife.

*Everyone in the company who has met the owner has commented on what a great guy he is…Doc-wife had only seen him in passing once at a corporate education event, and so had no opinion. He was charming and reserved during last night’s dinner meeting, so bland as to defy description.

Doc-wife and I had the same reaction upon leaving the restaurant…intense dislike and distrust. Mine started the moment I saw him…one of those visceral things you can’t explain, and which almost never happens. He was too slick by half while, unsuccessfully, trying to act the common man. It was weird…we walked out the door and said almost the same thing at the same time…what a slimy individual.

*After the president left, the others kept us there in the restaurant for another hour and a half, fishing for an opening to pressure her to stay. It got so bad, the maitre de offered to give us the keys to the restaurant and let us lock up.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Can't spell stupid without 'u'

You know, the older I get, the less tolerance I have for people who are stupid or think that I am stupid.

Doc-wife and I were talking about the subject this morning.

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As an example, I flipped on the computer last night after getting home from play rehearsal, and found that there’d been a big illegal worker raid at meatpacking plants across the country. Hmm…this sounds familiar…wasn’t there another raid on packing plants in the southeast before the last push for a wide-sweeping immigration amnesty last summer/early fall? Results of that raid? Lots of confirmed illegals rounded up…and then let go. Results of this raid? Ditto.

It’s all done for effect.

“We’re serious about enforcement (uh huh, okay…) so let’s just pardon all these lawbreakers so we can really focus on securing our borders. Oh, and funding for that 700-mile border fence we approved before the last election is going to be a bit of a sticky wicket. So how about we just shelve that and instead hire NICE Systems, you know the closed circuit camera company that has turned Chicago into the modern approximation of 1984, to put up cameras all along the border. That way, in addition to monitoring the flow of people over the border, we’ll also be able to make some cash by hitting up all those border jumpers for their “Welcome to the USA” photos conveniently posted at kiosks along popular human smuggling routes.

Note to Those In Power, who have apparently forgotten…or never knew…or think we’re stupid: Gestures do no equal accomplishment and a big show does not obviate the need for competence.

You insult me when you think I’m stupid enough to fall for this.

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I was also talking to a teacher acquaintance recently who was concerned his district might go on strike. It’s the usual problem in Ohio…the costs for employers to provide benefits to employees is skyrocketing, but as schools are funded primarily through property taxes, homeowners are reluctant to keep footing the bill.

The district has 4,400 students, just built a new high school (to consolidate two older schools) and plans other construction projects…all to be funded through taxpayer beneficence, of course. Apparently, the district has stubbornly maintained the need for a reduced level of benefits in the contract negotiations…which have proceeded to arbitration and are now considered to be deadlocked by the board.

He maintained the district was just being miserly, pointing out the books showed a $700,000 surplus in the last budget cycle.

I was polite, didn’t rant or rave, but pointed out that schools districts, just by maintaining current benefits levels, are effectively granting huge yearly raises to staffers. Costs for companies to insure their workers have risen by 87 percent since 2000. The benefits increase is also not taking into account the automatic salary hikes built into virtually all teaching contracts, and personnel costs typically eat up 85 percent or more of a district’s budget. That budget surplus is nothing in a school district the size of the one in which he teaches (he’s not a math teacher) and will likely be quickly eaten up in other projects.

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Doc-wife will be switching jobs in a couple months, going back to work for a company she worked for two years ago.

She repeatedly pointed out problems with her current company (with which she had a two-year contract), offered solutions for some growing pains and tried to improve things despite her lack of any official authority to do so. At a corporate contract renewal meeting, company reps dangled carrots, offered no concrete proposals, but did affirm their support for a fellow employee whose incompetence is a major roadblock to improvement. She came out to the car after the meeting and called her old company, a top-notch nationwide firm which “killed the fatted calf” at the idea of her return.

Since then, she’s had a non-stop parade of corporate lackeys dropping by seeking to stroke her ego. It’s back to my first entry again…gestures do not equal accomplishment and a big show does not obviate the need for competence. Her retention would have been easy…she was honest with you during her entire tenure and if the company had done its job with an interest toward improvement she’d have signed on the dotted line for an extension.

We have a dinner meeting tonight with the president of her current company and other assorted notables for doc-wife to (ostensibly) frankly detail the manner of their failing. I’m fully expecting the dinner to be a used-car-salesman-what’ll-it-take-for-you-to-go-out-the-door-with-this-lemon effort to get her back.

They’re either unbelievably stupid or think that she is…I’m not sure which is worse. My political correctness governor has been turned off for this meeting, thus giving my inner gremlin permission to be just as blunt and plain spoken as it likes.

Hehehe. Will update later.

Monday, December 11, 2006

I just had to laugh at this post from The Burton Blog, which is produced by Gunrunner owner Scott Weber. (reprinted in its entirety.) Perhaps the era of wit has passed, but I find it a welcome alternative to the MTV Jackass/Funniest Home Videos/Scary Movie genre of humor in vogue today.


"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

-- Winston Churchill

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"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."

-- Winston Churchill

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"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

-- Clarence Darrow

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"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

-- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

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"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words"

-- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

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"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."

-- Moses Hadas

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"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."

-- Abraham Lincoln

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"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

-- Groucho Marx

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"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."

-- Mark Twain

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"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

-- Oscar Wilde

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"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one."

-- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

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"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."

-- Winston Churchill, in response

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"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."

-- Stephen Bishop

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"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."

-- John Bright

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"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."

-- Irvin S. Cobb

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"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."

-- Samuel Johnson

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"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

-- Paul Keating

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"He had delusions of adequacy."

-- Walter Kerr

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"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."

-- Jack E. Leonard

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"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."

-- Robert Redford

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"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."

-- Thomas Brackett Reed

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"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."

-- James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

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"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."

-- Charles, Count Talleyrand

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"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."

-- Forrest Tucker

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"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

-- Mark Twain

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"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."

-- Mae West

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"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

-- Oscar Wilde

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"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination."

-- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

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"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."

-- Billy Wilder

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Miss Kitty in repose

Miss Kitty at home

This is a photo of Miss Kitty, the barn cat we brought with us when we moved back to Ohio from West Virginia. As far as we know, this ancient cat (at least 16, according to annecdotal evidence) had never been in the house before last week, when we felt bad about her being left out in the snow and carried her in. As you can see, she's settled in rather easily...after her initial claustrophobia. Now if we can just find a way to get her back outside...

Nothing a couple of .45 slugs wouldn't cure

It’s been awhile…time for a rant.

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What the HELL is going on in England?

I was just reading the Right to Keep and Bear Arms page from Thursday, Dec. 7 and came across several news items which made me despair for the future of the country from which a majority of my forebears emigrated.

Item 1:

A 23-year-old policewoman described yesterday how she was left screaming in agony after being shot at point blank range trying to arrest a suspected burglar. Biggest mistake: like most of the bobbies, she could only bring pepper spray to a gunfight. Bobbie (Bobbette?) Rachael Bown, 23, said that despite yelling at him not to shoot her, she heard a bang as the gunman ran past and felt excruciating pain down her right side. She collapsed on the floor terrified and struggling to breathe, screaming into her radio "I've been shot, I've been shot".Nottingham Crown Court was told that the gunman, who the prosecution claim is 24-year-old Trevon Thomas, did not even break stride as he ran past her and her partner and fired the gun.

Item 2:

AN ARSENAL of 40 imitation guns are to be destroyed after a man surrendered his collection. Officers were shocked to find the weapons at the home of a Nantwich man. Along with relatives, the man, who has refused to be named, had built up the collection over the years but became worried that they could be stolen by criminals. The stash included self-loading rifles, machine guns, automatic pistols and a long-barreled Smith and Wesson revolver, similar to that used in the film Dirty Harry. There was also one genuine Thompson sub-machine gun, which had been de-activated. But police say they could have been faced with a 'life or death' situation if the guns had found their way into the wrong hands (emphases added above.)

Item 3:

This is the moment three sword-wielding raiders robbed a petrol station. The CCTV image shows the brave cashier struggling with one of the thugs. Despite the man's courage, the raider overpowers him. The robber then pinned the cashier against the wall, allowing another gang member to rifle through the till. The cashier was bludgeoned across the back of the head with one of the blades after the gang stormed into Skippool Garage, in Singleton, Lancashire, at around 9.30pm on Sunday. Police were shocked by the degree of violence in the robbery, which netted the raiders £250 in cash and cigarettes.

Above are two clear-cut cases where the law-abiding use of a gun was clearly warranted. And one case of hysterical overreaction in the face of a non-threat shows how out-of-balance British thing has become.

Let me state the obvious in no uncertain terms: Police officers NEED TO BE ARMED.

The people they come into contact with, by the very definition of their work, are criminals. Criminals tend to scoff at things like gun laws and rules of polite society; they prey on the weak, try to avoid (fear) the strong and exhibit behavior more along the lines of “A Clockwork Orange” than “Pride and Prejudice.” They don't even raise their pinky finger when sipping tea...appalling!

When someone pulls a gun on police, it’s a pretty good indication they have little regard for the law. Their reward for this behavior should be a double tap through the center of mass, not a misting with pepper spray as they blithely skip between the neutered guardians of law and order on their way to their next act of crime. The timely application of a couple .45 caliber slugs not only puts an end to this crime (and saves the state the expense of paying health care costs for the injured officer…and in the unlikely even they're caught, the resulting criminal trial and incarceration), it also puts an end to any future criminal activity in which the perpetrator would have been involved.

Likewise, guys with swords come to rob a gas station: Clerk’s gun trumps sword in that confrontation. At the least, bad guys flee and think twice about their life of crime.

And the case where the police were all a-dither because of a collection of non-guns? What the hell is scary about fake guns? See option A: if someone pulls a fake gun on a police officer, apply two .45 caliber slugs through the center of mass and then call the coroner. Problem solved. You'd also be ridding the gene pool of someone clearly too stupid to be allowed to procreate.

Impolite? Yes. Less than genteel? Definitely. American cowboy justice? Perhaps…but I’d rather be guilty of that than lose my life to some thug because I refused to see the world, complete with its monsters and dark underside, in the harsh light of reality.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Snow day here

The news for which kids prey

The Rant-daughter looks over the white world outside after being woken by her brother ("Hurry up, we'll miss the bus!") only to come downstairs and find out the local school district declared a snow day today. Our Russian exchange student was also delighted to find out she was having her first snow day: "Oh, why don't we have school buses in Russia...then we could have snow days too!"

Deer drought

The first week of deer gun season in Ohio was the worst since I’ve been here:

  • The weather was way too warm
  • We hadn’t yet had a hard freeze
  • I hunted every day of the week (usually morning and night) and saw SEVEN deer for the entire week…none of which were in a position which offered a shot. As an illustration, last year I had about 14 deer around my stand at first light on opening day. Earlier this fall, we counted 17 deer standing in our big hay field – no idea where they’re hanging out now…though judging by the innumerable tracks on our place, they’re still here. Maybe they’ve discovered invisibility?

All I’ve gotta say is THANK GOD there was an additional weekend of deer gun season added to the traditional weeklong season this year – Dec. 16-17. I’ve only got one deer in the freezer from this season, and that’s not going to last my kids very long. A lot of the deer I passed up earlier in the year would be looking pretty good in my larder today.

I’m not alone: Cousin Bentley, who usually has a couple archery-harvested deer to his credit by this time, has been shut out.

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On the plus side for this year: my son showed some real interest in hunting, putting in quite a few hours in the woods and providing some comic moments.

Cousin Bentley: “What was that noise? It sounded like someone in a tree stand fell out of the tree!?!”

Son and Heir: “Yeah, my hat fell off and when I was trying to fish it back up to the treestand with a bungee cord (he was only about 10 feet off the ground), the bottom half of the treestand kept falling. I got it, though.”

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My son was using a12 gauge H&R Ultra Slugger with a Simmons Whitetail Expedition scope this year. These things are like toting around an iron pry bar in the woods…for the barrel, they use a 10 gauge blank and drill it out for the rifled 12 gauge barrel. It’s pretty accurate, but that accuracy comes with a heavy price – the gun weighs in at about 11 pounds. Son’s plan when he ran out of 12 gauge sabots? Drop the gun on the deer from his stand.

I think it would have worked.

In the "Cuckoo's Nest"

I’m in rehearsals for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” at the Ashtabula Arts Center. It’s a powerful play, a surprisingly good cast and I have one of the plum parts in the play…certainly the part I wanted, though with relatively few lines.

I’m playing Chief Bromden, the narrator throughout the original book, an American Indian in a mental institution who pretends he can’t hear or talk to avoid interaction with the other patients and staff. He spends his days as an automaton: mechanically sweeping the floors of the ward and clandestinely observing the interactions of the staff and patients. In the play, he periodically breaks his silence during blackouts onstage and gives a running commentary on life in the institution and the dark conspiracies hiding behind the doors of the hospital. Bromden is drawn unwillingly from his shell by the arrival of a charismatic shammer named McMurphy, who finagled his way into the asylum to avoid his sentence at the work farm.

McMurphy, the irresistible force, meets an immovable object in Nurse Ratched who is in charge of the ward. The collision is powerful, tragic and triumphant…for details, you’ll have to come see the play, which runs Jan. 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26 and 27.