Hmmm... Does our Nation have its own case of Alzheimers?

I, myself, was surprised at all the gushing over Ronald Reagan during the past few days on television and in the news. Perhaps one should take a look at his "real" record. Makes one pause. I'm sure Ronnie might have been a "Great Communicator" in his younger days, but I sure didn't see much sign of it during his presidency.

Ron Jr.
Did you pick up on the comment by Ron Reagan at the funeral ceremony in California? I thought at the time - oh, boy that will get them a talking! And it appears it has.

Genocide
It is rather astonishing how the world can continually snooze over these mass genocides. Rwanda and now western Sudan. Bunch of crazy Arab militia backed by a nutty government out to eradicate all black people. I would think 320,000 killed would wake up a few people - our 1000 or so soldiers in Iraq who have been killed in our own nutty war seems to pale against those numbers. Yet, how often, do we hear about those dying every day in Darfur? If you listen to the BBC World News, you'll hear about it, but you'll be hard pressed to hear about it here. At least Nicholas Kristoff of the Times gets the message out here. Watch his editorial for a follow up. "The Bush administration says it is exploring whether to describe the mass murder and rape in the Darfur region of Sudan as "genocide." I suggest that President Bush invite to the White House a real expert, Magboula Muhammad Khattar, a 24-year-old widow huddled under a tree here."

Bitter at the Top
Brooks writes an interesting article in the Times about the differences between the educated classes and how they vote. Business Managers to the Right - Teachers to the Left. THe Black and White thinkers are hired to make decisions and any waffling will hold up the financial juggernaut. Unfortunately, that black and white thinking doesn't always work for the long haul and leads to heading down the wrong path, something we have seen all too many times in the recent past , both with companies and with our elected govt officials. Failing to understand the subtleties and nuances of situations leads to this. I think the "thinkers" can look down the road a bit further and understanding the nuances, can see better where some of our actions will lead. But they have a hell of a time making a decision, because of all the subletities. Thus, the conundrum. Must be why I lean left - never could stand all those business types who wanted to see everything in black and white cause it was easier and quicker than really thinking about all the consequences. I've worked with many a black and whiter - thanks, but no thanks. Probably why it was so always so hard for me to fire someone - always could find some redeeming quality in a person. :) Brooks is a Republican as you will probably note, if you read closely.

News on Demand

If you're an avid news reader, then you owe yourself a review of this article from PC World. I've included it in it's printable form, so that it is all on one page, thus alleviating you of the trouble of flipping pages. :) As you can see there are numerous readers out there, some of which are free and some of which offer free trials before using. Personally, I use FeedDemon, but there are plenty of other choices out there.

Clinton
Check out the pic of Clinton's presidential painting to be hung in the White House. Painted by Simmie Knox, born to a family of sharecroppers in Alabama, it looks to be a pretty darn good likeness. For more on Simmie Knox, turn to this page . "He turned to portraiture after years of painting a wide variety of paintings because he found that there is nothing more challenging and interesting to paint than the human face. He states "I think that a good portrait is the most difficult thing for an artist to bring off successfully. Not only must you get an accurate likeness, but you must also create a good painting. Somehow you must convey a subject's character,spirit, and personality; and everything must communicate the dynamism of the subject". A great portrait of Thurgood Marshall here

Quote of the Day
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair

Word of the Day
equanimity ee-kwuh-NIM-uh-tee; ek-wuh-\, noun:
Evenness of mind; calmness; composure; as, "to bear misfortunes with equanimity." Usage: For one whose mind has been notoriously troubled, Brian Lara is at least retaining a sense of equanimity Origin: Equanimity comes from Latin aequanimitas, "impartiality, calmness," from aequanimus, "impartial, even-tempered," from aequus, "even" + animus, "mind, soul."

News on Demand

If you're an avid news reader, then you owe yourself a review of this article from PC World. I've included it in it's printable form, so that it is all on one page, thus alleviating you of the trouble of flipping pages. :) As you can see there are numerous readers out there, some of which are free and some of which offer free trials before using. Personally, I use FeedDemon, but there are plenty of other choices out there.

Clinton
Check out the pic of Clinton's presidential painting to be hung in the White House. Painted by Simmie Knox, born to a family of sharecroppers in Alabama, it looks to be a pretty darn good likeness. For more on Simmie Knox, turn to this page . "He turned to portraiture after years of painting a wide variety of paintings because he found that there is nothing more challenging and interesting to paint than the human face. He states "I think that a good portrait is the most difficult thing for an artist to bring off successfully. Not only must you get an accurate likeness, but you must also create a good painting. Somehow you must convey a subject's character,spirit, and personality; and everything must communicate the dynamism of the subject". A great portrait of Thurgood Marshall here

Quote of the Day
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair

Word of the Day
equanimity ee-kwuh-NIM-uh-tee; ek-wuh-\, noun:
Evenness of mind; calmness; composure; as, "to bear misfortunes with equanimity." Usage: For one whose mind has been notoriously troubled, Brian Lara is at least retaining a sense of equanimity Origin: Equanimity comes from Latin aequanimitas, "impartiality, calmness," from aequanimus, "impartial, even-tempered," from aequus, "even" + animus, "mind, soul."

Roady Review

Thought I'd add a review of the Roady, now that I've pounded down the road for some 600 miles with it. First of all, the sound is impressive - excellent clarity. I had thought my speakers were going out before I got this - now I realize it was just the trashy radio I have in the car. With the Roady, I can crank it up and the sound is great. I was also impressed with the no loss of signal, other than in tunnels or under heavy trees. I got a full 3 signal bars all the way to N. Indiana from Virginia. I was suprised to see it not bat an eye at incredible rain downpours, even where cars were pulling off. I know with satellite TV, you wouldn't have had any signal, so perhaps an engineer or someone can explain to me , how satellite radio differs from that.


The cons, which are minor, is that the unit is tiny, so the buttons are tiny and the descriptions written above the buttons are so miniscule they are almost impossible to read. One learns which buttons do what though, so that is nothing major. The method of anchoring it to your dash is not so good - it comes with some little pedestal that supposedly rotates to where you can read it, but it didn't rotate enough for my flat dash, so was basically worthless. Janet suggested we just put a small strip of velcro on the dash and one on the bottom of the unit and I think that is an outstanding idea. Much simpler. The unit also has a lot of wires coming out of it - one going to the cigarette lighter, one going to the cassette adapter and one going to the antenna (click on thumbnail to the left and you'll see a larger view). You can buy a $60 kit for installing it professionally, which would be the best alternative. I'm not bothered that much by the wires though, so probably won't bother.

Would be nice to have an extra antenna though, so that when you took the unit out of one car and placed it another, you wouldn't have to go through the hassle of removing the antenna. We found some clips that fastened on the outside of the windshield, through which we guided the antenna wire. Those worked well, otherwise you would have antenna wire just flying around.

Tons of stations - some 120 in all. So plenty of stuff to listen to. We spent a lot of time on the World Music channels, New Age, Classic Rock and Reggae channels. Many songs you would never hear on regular radio. It would be nice to be able to see the Album title as well rather than just Artist and Song Title - that would be helpful when you press the Memory button to save a song that you might later like to look up and purchase as a CD, although I'm sure a search of the Net with Artist and Song Name, would turn that up quickly. You can also buy a remote
for it - I'll have to check that out - that would be very handy vs leaning forward to punch buttons. Checking Ebay , I see you can get the Roady + free remote and wireless FM Adaptor (in case you don'th have a cassette deck in your car) for $112 + shipping - that's a good deal - wish I had seen that earlier.

For $10/month, hard to beat (no contracts either - quit whenever, of course if you sign up again, I'm sure they will hit you with the $10 activation fee again). I normally listen to my audio books in the car, but this gives me one more thing to listen to, when I tire of those.