Posted 10:13 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Grrrrrr...

The Twins beat the Yankees tonight, 7-3, but no thanks to Juan Rincon, who committed just about the only "sin" a pitcher can do in my eyes. I pitched a little baseball and a little more softball, and I can forgive pitchers of almost anything, but walks are terrible, and walking a run home is just plain unforgiveable. Walks so often cause other bad things to happen; I think it's a subconscious effect. When 8 other players just watch while the pitcher GIVES up a baserunner, it's discouraging and creates tension. Juan gave up TWO walks in that inning, following 7 innings of shutout by Santana. Rincon can be a good pitcher, but if I were running the Twins, I'd get him out of there... permanently. Any pitcher who can't throw strikes when he has to is not a pitcher at all. There are 7 players behind the pitcher, and the odds are 2 to 1 that the batter will make an out, so throwing strikes is critical. The Twins pitching staff is normally excellent at doing precisely that, which is one of the things that makes them good... and which makes a display such as Rincon's all the more shameful.

It all worked out, with Joe Nathan coming in to work out of Rincon's mess, and it was, in total, a great game by the Twins, with lots of hits and some great defense.

Posted 6:59 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Let your elected officials know where you stand

I've taken the great graphic created by the Castle Coalition's HANDS OFF My Home campaign and created a CafePress store with shirts emblazoned with that graphic. If enough of us wear these shirts to city council meetings, council members will realize that eminent domain abuse is not going to just be accepted without a fight. We have at times had a number of activists at a city council meeting, but the council members had no way of knowing that they had organized resistance present. Believe me, knowing that people CARE about what they're doing CAN make a difference.

Click here and add a great shirt to your activist wardrobe.

Posted 10:35 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

There is joy in Mudville

Twins WIN a one-run game! They had to score twice in the bottom of the 9th, and it wasn't pretty, but it may be what they need to get back on the winning track. As a reward, the Sox lost, so the Twins gain a full game on them.

Posted 7:39 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Walk this way

Isn't this a nice stepping-stone walkway? Well, it's nice if your stride is the right length to match the distance between them, otherwise you're going to walk funny. Now, if you happen to be careless enough to step onto the first stone with the wrong foot, your walk is going to be very entertaining to watch.

Posted 8:08 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Their kingdom for a run

Gadzooks... the Twins just lost another game by one run, to the Orioles. That is their 6th 1-run game in a row, and they've only won 2 of the 6. "Frustration" remains the word of the day, so let me take a moment to remind myself, and y'all, that even though the Twins are in a miserable slump and are now 13 games back of the White Sox, this is still a fine team. Carlos Silva pitched a full 9 innings, and they did score in the 9th to take it to extra innings, but 2 runs is just not enough scoring. Twins pitching has been fine, but as Burt Blylevin said, maybe they'll have to throw some shutouts for the team to win.

Meanwhile, the Dirty Sox are not letting up a little bit, with their 5th win in a row, and they had to score the last 6 runs to win 7-5 over Detroit and are now at .681, 29 points above any other team.

Repeat after me: "It's only a game" "It's only a game" "It's only a game"

Posted 11:33 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Ahhh... credentials

On Friday, I attended a lecture that should have been quite interesting. The title was "Art and Revolution", particularly relating to Russian art. I'm quite sorry to say that it was a lecture like most I've attended... written as if it was to be read, which it was, and far too concerned with dropping names and demonstrating the speaker's intimate knowledge of the period. I was impressed... and also bored.

I should add that the speaker was a university department head, because I believe that explains the boredom. I'm a student of history because I find it exciting and revealing of why humans do what they do. My experience has been that school is the least desirable place to learn history, unless you consider cold, hard facts and dates to be history. I don't. There are many individual historians who write books in a manner that is exciting, because they present individuals, emotions, and interconnections that simply seem to be absent from formal educational presentations.

I suppose that the reason for the boredom of universities is that professors must be so concerned about their credentials and publications. They are judged by their peers while historical authors are judged by the people who spend money on their books, and buyers are harsh judges.

Consider though... a lecture about art that is all words. Art is visual. It's not that words aren't important, but to just talk about art is totally inadequate. Art is created by individuals. Yes, it's of some significance who they hang out and study with, and who each was influenced by and who they in turn influenced, but it's how their works relate to their surroundings and change over time that is fascinating and relevant.

In short, if the lecturer had distributed his text to the audience, we could have gained his knowledge more quickly and at our leisure. We could have also done a little internet searching in conjunction with what he had to say.

I find it sad to ponder that the professor has an enormous amount of information, much of it firsthand, and that it is exciting to him... but that he does not know how to communicate that excitement. Perhaps even sadder is that nobody is likely to ever say that to him, because we just don't talk that way to eminent, credentialed "experts" who hold prominent positions. We are supposed to be honored just to be able to listen, and then comment to others that we were privileged to hear a prominent speaker.

Posted 11:19 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Strange sight of the day

This odd contraption seems to have grown from the top of a bush, and then became adopted by 11 tiny black birds

Posted 2:13 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

An American Dream

In a nation with a wide variety of dreams, this photo illustrates one of the most enduring.

Posted 8:36 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

The robbery-proof bank

Willie Sutton , famed gentlemanly bank robber of the 30's, the original "Slick Willie" prior to Bill Clinton, is known for this remark: When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton simply replied, "Because that's where the money is."

Old Willie, though, never ran into an invulnerable nut like the Richfield Bremer Bank, which seems to have eliminated robberies with no more than a sign.

No guns, no robberies! Why do you suppose banks didn't think of that brilliant ploy a long time ago?

Posted 10:52 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

A small milestone for No Force

Today, No Force No Fraud moved into 5th place overall among the 38 blogs that have been part of Babelogue. One of the 4 is Babelogue itself. Most of the leaders were in place before I started No Force. No Force overtook Elaine Cassel's excellent Civil Liberties Watch. Cassel is a civil rights attorney from Virginia.

As of July 9th, No Force cumulative readership stands at 264,831. Very soon, Babelogue will move to different blogging software, and No Force, No Fraud will no longer be part of it. I will continue to write, less frequently, from a different location, but will still be available at www.noforce.org

Posted 11:42 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Sidewalk for tiny people?

There is quite a variety of sidewalks. Some are set back from the street beyond grassy strips. Some are up to 10 feet wide. Others are set right alongside the curb. This one, though, baffles me. Is this strip of concrete a sidewalk? If not, what is it? It's narrow enough to make walking on it tricky. Why go to the trouble of laying a narrow strip of concrete alongside the curb? Maybe the instructions to the sidewalk-layers mistakenly called for 1 foot instead of 1 yard? Who knows?

Posted 11:01 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Post-meandering

Went for a meander this morning, for about an hour and a quarter. Always amazing what I can find that I missed before. I was curious as to what stores would be open today. The answer: almost all of them.

Noticed: Dunn Bros. on 66th near Lyndale has closed, but a new Caribou has opened less than a block away.

Noticed: Very expensive luxury 3-level townhomes with screen porch and garden front, but they too, like me, are on the railroad tracks, and they get much more locomotive whistle because traffic on busy 66th and 65th must stop. I walked through the extensive internal park area shared by several buildings, and only saw one person using that space. I suppose it's mostly visual separation space, but I chatted with a squirrel for a bit.

Noticed: The athletic field of Academy of Holy Angels is really something... huge and all artificial turf. They have a mini-Metrodome that covers it in bad weather. They call it Stardome and rent it out. Two soccer fields, three adult leagues running, and more. I checked their financial statement... rentals cover about 3/4 of the expenses, providing a super facility for the high school at minimal cost. AHA is a BIG high school - 850 students (9-12), and draws students from all over the Twin Cities area. It also has a front lawn that must cover 5 acres.

Posted 8:17 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Yet another Independence Day

Just checked the two major Twin Cities newspapers. It appears that what was once the great American celebration has been relegated to a minor holiday called "The Fourth of July". On the Strib, you have to hunt for any mention, but there is a brief editorial titled "July 4/A celebration of liberty. Before centering on the idea that we don't need a constitutional amendment to protect the flag, it says:

We're free to choose our leaders and to go about our lives in pursuit of individual dreams. We are at liberty to make our own decisions with respect to religion. We are free to speak and to congregate -- to express ourselves as individuals and as groups.

The writer appears to live in a dream world, or is perhaps such an ingrained member of the power-brokerage class that he just repeats the propaganda lines designed to keep us thinking that we are free.

Free to choose our leaders, as long as we choose from the annointed and privileged of the two major parties. Free to make our own religious decisions, to speak and congregate, as long as we don't threaten any of the institutions of embedded power.

Yes, we're free... as long as we behave like obedient children. That is not independence. Our ancestors fought to maintain liberty from a government that was becoming oppressive. They fought a war over threats to their liberty that were insignificant in comparison to the threats posed just by the Patriot Act, and that act is one of a thousand threats we largely ignore now.

As a people, we appear to be completely whipped... content to chase the good life until it is too late... until we have no rights left at all... like fattened cattle happily munching our way to slaughter, able to watch others fall by being glad it wasn't us.

If independence is to be found on this 4th of July, surely it's only sensible meaning is that we have declared independence from our responsibility as citizens. We've abdicated it to our "keepers".

Posted 6:01 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

The State is closed... did you notice?

This is a good time to distinguish between the "state" of Minnesota and the "State" of Minnesota. The "state", meaning the area twixt Canada/Iowa and Wisconsin-Illinois/South Dakota is alive and well (more or less), but most of the "State", meaning the gummint, is closed... due to unresolved disagreements on budget by the politicians.

S'funny... the view out my bay window appears to be normal. I'm still getting email and phone calls, and I just completed my daily morning check of news and blogs. I'm way ahead of schedule for the day since I woke up too damned early. When that happens, I actually have to loaf around until more stores open, for my morning walk. (Old people NEED to walk, you know).

I'll stop in to chat with my Arab friends at the smoke shop... Americans now, formerly Moroccan and Palestinian citizens. It's also interesting to watch the mix of buyers of tobacco products. About 75% of their customers are women. There is also a significant number of really old (that means older than me) buyers... smokers who obviously haven't died "prematurely". Yesterday, I noted 6 in a row, in their 70's and 80's (one suggested an 83-year-old should get a special discount)... all walking, talking, driving... and still smoking. Curious, isn't it? They're all supposed to be dead, but "prematurely" passed them by.

I'll keep my eyes open for people distraught that State services are shut down... and report back here.