Posted 11:25 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Da heat, da heat

I recently promised to try to be more positive in my postings... not easy for someone whose grandsons call him Grumpa. This stretch of higher heat isn't made easier by knowing that the global warming nuts will be saying "told ya so, told ya so". But... middle of last week my old worn-out A/C was replaced by a snazzy new one. It runs on 220V and came with a remote. I just set the desired temp and it does what it must to make it happen. I feel like Jean-Luc Piccard, waving a "Make it So". Today will be a good test, but yesterday (high 98) it did just fine. My apartment has a bay window facing west, so late afternoon is a severe test.

I can be positive about no longer living in my former non-A/C house nearby. Although I had a plethora of shade trees and good ventilation, several days of high temps in a row would just saturate the building with heat. I used to work at the computer with towels on the chair seat and armrests.

I can be positive for my friend in deep southern Arizona (down there where the Minutemen are chasing wetbacks), who emails me their mid-70's temps. No, Virginia, it isn't burning hot all over Arizona.

My, how life changes. As a teen I did farm field work in the summer and tanned to "about-Pakistani-darkness". This morning I went to the tanning salon (a real stretch as a name for the cheap dump I go to) and then hurried home again to the A/C. Well... I did a few other errands too, but most of them were in cool stores.

By the way... I'm looking for paid work. Website design, driving, cleaning, just about anything legal and moral (but if you think that's too restrictive, ask anyway). You'd be amazed at what I CAN do when I feel like it.

Posted 11:04 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Modern zombies

I hope it's a fad that will fade, but I'm concerned about the number of young and wannabe young people who are walking and motoring while listening to music or chatting with each other on cellphones. I understand it... when I was young, it was a bore to do only one thing at a time, and I still have the TV or music on while I'm working. That is stationary muti-tasking, and that's not what I'm worried about.

Do cellphone users realize how stupid they often look? You can see them standing in the damndest places... facing walls, in store lines, in public restrooms, and while trying to drive in cramped areas that require their attention. It's not unusual to see two cellphone users facing each other as if in conversation with each other, then realizing they're each talking to someone else. One of the world's scariest sights is a woman driving an SUV while she's on the phone. Even without the phone, it's scary.

I'm sick of ads offering me ringer tunes, and I'm sick of being shocked at someone's pocket suddenly blaring some obnoxious noise. I'm sick of having conversations interrupted, and then having to listen to half of another conversation.

Those who wander around wearing headphones really worry me. I love music, but music is a small PART of life, not life itself. That someone should have thousands of tunes they've downloaded is incomprehensible to me. That they spend much of their time listening, because they've downloaded them, is understandable but totally bent out of shape.

What such people are likely to be missing is unplanned conversation, because they've made themselves unavailable. They're here, but they're really somewhere else. Others walk on by... no greeting or even eye contact. I've passed by people I knew because they weren't really there... it was some sort of digital image not available for human contact.

I've owned 2 cellphones, and didn't use either much, so I dropped the service. I'm a throwback to a time when phones were new, and we always felt guilty about stopping one conversation to respond to a call. Why should a caller get priority over someone you were talking to in person? Well... they shouldn't, and it's rude to give them that preference. If I had a cellphone, it would be off unless I was alone.

I used to lecture my daughters about the value of being bored. Almost anything CAN happen, if you allow it, and "allowing it" means doing little or nothing else. Why, you might even have a random thought or two if you're not too busy doing something else. It's no accident that people often have "strokes of brilliance" while out having a smoke, or in the bathroom, or just before they go to sleep. Quiet time (boredom, as I prefer) is valuable time, but you have to allow it to happen, and it does require some patience.

I can only hope that this current rash of madness will pass.

Posted 10:40 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

I have updated the terrible loss of our young people

Posted 10:22 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

it's...

...about time I put more characters here. A 10-day absence, lurking within my own blog? I've been hiding here behind your screen almost all that time, waiting furiously for inspiration. As you may have already detected, I'm still not inspired. I have, however, been thinking.

My friend Chris Basten and I have decided to write a book, about what it's like to be a man. Our opinion, bolstered by comments from various women, is that women don't understand men, little wonder since we don't understand ourselves well. Having been one for a very long time, it's a subject I've considered writing about ever since I began to learn a few things about myself. We are making the assumption that men can be understood. We anticipate having a lot of fun interviewing others for their experiences and opinions.

On a separate tack, three individuals... Sharon Harris and Michael Cloud, and Frank Robinson, have spoken on a common thread that I am going to again try to take to heart as a writer... that a libertarian writer should speak from an optimistic, positive viewpoint. Because the sort of government and society that libertarians want is so far from what America has become, it is so easy to write critical commentary, but there are several problems with that approach. It's depressing to constantly be "on the attack"... concentrating on the negative aspects of what goes on around us. I suspect it is just as depressing to read, especially for non-libertarians. Perhaps most importantly, writing negatively means that others tend to see libertarians as simply negative people... people no fun to associate with.

Truth is, the book about men and writing more positively are very connected. I've said before that the emotion men have the best handle on is anger. To women, it may seem the only emotion we men have easy access to. I prefer to write positively, but dealing with government intrusiveness, injustice, and insanity so easily raises my hackles, that it requires deliberate control to avoid lashing out. I pledge to try harder.

Posted 5:54 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

De-radicalizing the Libertarian Party?

The recent national convention of the LP seems to have begun a shift in what the party stands for. The party platform has been "toned down" in an attempt to make the party more "big tent". A group of reformers, taking advantage of a less-well-attended off-year convention, were able make significant platform changes.

What has made the LP unique among political parties is the strength of what we call "purists" or hardliners. Because of them, the party platform has changed very little over the decades, resisting the impulse to attract more members and voters by showing a less specific, "pasteurized" platform. Reformers have long insisted that the specific, radical platform is the reason the party hasn't been able to elect more people to office.

I don't like the changes. The issue has been debated since the party's inception. I'm surprised the LP has been able to resist such changes this long. Democratic organizations are almost always changed for the worse over time. New members, filled with zeal, are often unwilling to understand why things were done in the past, and their tendency is to toss out the old in favor of changes without thinking through the consequences.

I believe the underlying cause of the change, which is a change in the attitude of the members, was the absurd drive to put as many candidates on the ballot as possible. The result of heavy candidate recruitment has been to pull in many new people who have political ambition but who are not very libertarian. Some I've encountered have very little understanding of libertarian principles, yet they were running as endorsed Libertarians.

The LP now has less specific meaning. There is no doubt in my mind that, assuming platform specificity isn't restored quickly, the party will become just "another party"... no more unique than any other. It will stand for not much in particular.

The reason for the existence of the LP has been to return America to the principles on which it was founded, through the political process. Electing candidates to office is one strategy to achieve that, but that strategy can only work if the elected officials understand those principles well enough to consistently abide by them. This "reform" almost guarantees that, even if the NUMBERS increase dramatically, those elected will be no more committed to principles than are the Democrats and Republicans in office. That leaves us with a best case of having our rights trampled on by officials elected from 3 parties rather than just 2. I don't see that as progress.