Month: November 2020

No User Serviceable Parts Inside

Family Time

Adjusting the rabbit ears on the family television set was like a game of charades: Who would get up to adjust the antenna? The critical comments, the shouted advice; and then finding that sometimes when you took your hand off one of the rods, or stepped away a couple of feet, the picture would deteriorate.

The fancier rabbit ears had a dial in the base; with detents and marks, but no labels to tell you what they did, or why; and that produced startling changes in the picture when rotated. “Don’t touch the dial!”

The techniques for getting the best picture were frequently empirical and inventive; like adding aluminum foil or nicknacks, but that’s a different story.

The “Big” Picture – rooftop antennas

In looking at the Radio Shack circulars, your eyes are drawn to the “maximum range” and “deep fringe” roof antennas [because who doesn’t want the maximum] — and you leave the store with a 12-pound box that’s longer than your parent’s station wagon.

When you have finally got your chimney mount attached, the pole is bolted tight, and the antenna opens up to the size of a Boeing: where do you point it? I think the city is over there. Where is your neighbor’s antenna pointing? Or with the help of family members relaying the results from the living room and shouting through the window: “No, back the other way.”

The problem with “black box” technology is that it has no people in it. It is not amenable to human behavior; and it does not serve the human need for involvement.

I have had, and have used, many modern pieces of technology; but I have no love for them. It’s hard to love something that rejects you so completely. I used to take comfort in the ability of electronic appliances to receive a snowy TV picture from a transmitter out of range, or an AM radio station from Chicago that could bounce to New York one night. It gave me a sense of continuity and connection with a greater world than I could apprehend.

Now, you either get something, or not – 0 or 1 – yes or no – a picture or blank screen; and the non-conforming knife edge in between is filled with such a pixelated – freezing – jerking – brain-numbing noise that people are happy to get back to the two-tone – right-wrong security they’ve been educated to accept. Doctrine brings clarity; thinking brings “confusion.”

Black Box technology has given us a world without wonder, without anticipation, and without ourselves . . . just a lot of stuff. And a burgeoning “black box” bureaucracy.

If you think this blog is leading up to something; you’re right.

All Roads Lead to Cornithaca

All Roads Lead to Cornithaca

Biden’s social policies are in direct conflict with the principles and conduct of every revered figure of human compassion and worth that the world has ever known.

His Doctrine holders have overturned the “melting pot” and installed a theocracy: “Everybody’s different; and should be treated differently — for the Greater Good — and WE will decide where and in what way that should be done.”

I have no respect, and no trust, for a government that operates without principles, and in secret, and for an end only they can shape.

All roads lead to Cornithaca . . . and down the drain. The proof is now in Cornithaca County.

This book will help you keep on top of things until we reach bottom.

Biden’s New School Dictionary

Bi-partisan: Everybody does what I say. Everybody agrees with me.
“It’s Bi-way or the highway.”

Bi-polar: What he says and actually does are “poles apart.”
“After listening to that speech; I need some Bi-polar medication.”

Bi-ennial: Young person who believes Biden’s doctrinal cant.
“That book burning was a Bi-ennial celebration.”

Bi-cycle: Variable; one Term, two Terms, for Life. Impeached.
“It’s time to get off the Bi-cycle, and do something productive.”

Bi-onic: A stupid policy.
“That Bi-onic replacement is worse than the original.”

Bi-ped: A person who sold their transport to pay taxes.
“Biped workers walk long hours.”

Bi-lateral: Having only one side.
“His Bi-lateral platform embraced a Bi-partisan viewpoint.”

Bi-sect: A theocracy.
“Those new laws Bi-sected all our Constitutional Freedoms.

Tell them to “Get off the high ground.”

Today’s Doctrine holders always take a high ground that assumes their beliefs are the only truth and measure. Questioning that assurance will only result in anger, dogma, or the questioning of your question.

One simple way to find an answer is to compare their beliefs with those of people whose actions and convictions we respect:

“Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color” — Frederick Douglass

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” — Mother Teresa

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ” — Dalai Lama

“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” — Malcolm X

These beliefs cannot be reinterpreted; because their statement is unequivocal:

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.” — Abraham Lincoln

But Doctrine holders twist these principles backwards upon themselves; declaring that only by a policy of conditional worth, can equality be achieved; only by submitting to discriminatory policies, can society be saved; and that evil must be sown, so that good will grow out of it.

And they claim all this is being done in the names of those who would be appalled, saddened, and outraged at being used to give legitimacy to these actions; so contrary to what they stood, fought, and died for — a world where there is room for all; but never room for bigotry and discrimination.

The choice is a simple one, but it’s not easy:

Doctrine holders will seek to turn you with their endlessly insisting claims and assumption of a higher good; delivered with all the irrational rationalizing of extracting gold from seawater, and with the sly temptations of a doctrine that guarantees individual profit without individual responsibility.

And if you can’t be turned; there is force:

The force of iniquitous laws.

The force of ridicule.

The force of isolation for your views.

And Hate.

HATE-HATE-HATE-HATE-HATE

A bone-crushing, concentration camp filling Hate.

But take comfort in knowing that it is YOU who are following in the footsteps of compassion; it is YOU who are carrying on the fight for equality and human worth; and know that all the abuse and injury suffered by you is no different from that suffered by those before you; from much the same people, and in the same cause.

For your enemies are like wolves in shepherd’s clothing — and woe to the foolish sheep who follow them.

What’s causing it?

My John Deere tractor mower has been stored until next year. After blowing all the trapped grass from the deck mechanism, I made sure the tank was topped up with stabilized gas. This brought to mind a problem I had several years ago.

While I was mowing, the engine would start running rough and then stop. Diagnosing this as due to water in the gas tank [helped in part by the slopping ground and bouncing around] I bought and added a gas treatment; and it worked . . . for a while. Every so many minutes, the engine would conk out and adding more treatment would get it going again for a while. Why?

The answer was simple: the gas cap vent had gotten clogged; and depleting the gas created enough of a vacuum in the tank to hinder the flow of gas to the engine.

Every time I put in the gas treatment, I removed the cap, and it destroyed the vacuum. . . For a while.

If only I had thought of connecting removing the cap with the engine restarting, I would have known.

It was a lesson I never forgot: Even a valid explanation may not be the correct explanation — and a solution that seems to promise success may not have any effect on the problem at all. And that it is easier not to bother to think things through, but just to buy a packaged solution that “experts” have already thought out.

The pollution that is impairing our lake is overwhelmingly from only one source; an unregulated source; Agriculture — and neither our politicians, nor our colleges, nor our environmental agencies and conservation committees want to regulate it, or even mention it.

The Governor’s Task Force has publicly stated that they are only working to keep “some of the uses” of the lake; and have adopted that answer to a polluter’s prayer: the TDML paradigm.

“TDML” stands for the Total Daily Maximum Load of pollution that the lake can handle without complete impairment. Or in the vernacular: You’re not drowning in shit if you can still keep you head above it.

The correct TDML levels will be set by Cornell; one of the bigger polluters, and a whole-hearted partisan supporter of all Industrial Agriculture methods [even those banned in other state due to environmental risks.] Cornell has a very close working relationship with the NYSDEC; so you can be sure their TDML study will max out the max, with more quibbles and offsets than there are Zebra Mussels.

Once the TDML plan is adopted; our lake will never get clean.

What do you think about that “expert” solution?

We could be in deeper shit — the lake bed could collapse from the salt mining. Now how deep is that?

Maybe this isn’t a Blog

Due to the work involved in resurrecting my Idea Enhancement and my Art websites; I haven’t finished any new blogs — but there is a considerable amount in the pipeline for coming months and for 2021.

An umbrella theme of “All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” will shelter a variety of projects and blogged comments on local issues:

  • “May the Source be with you” uses the Lake Source Cooling as an example of how corporations can acquire fast-track approval and bypass regulatory barriers. It proves there is more to corporate planning than just a “Fox guarding the hen house” strategy; and shows how a judicious admixture of in-house studies and policy formulation can create a barrier to unwanted interference; and insure the “deniability of liability” factor that is so important down the road.
  • “The Greater Good” examines what would happen if our County’s policies were actually enacted for the greater good. Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Elite always justify their actions with claims of “The Greater Good” — isn’t it time we explored what the greater good might actually be; and how disastrous it would be to these same policy deciders. In a county where everyone agrees there is no meaningful public participation: this blog may give readers a little vicarious “payback” – and maybe start something . . .
  • “Stories of Cornithaca County” will showcase tales of activities and incidents as only rural residents can remember and relate — by exchanging the “4-year memory” of our college town, with the four-generation memory of our county’s rural community. Rural residents are unconsidered and unnoticed: they are like servants in the halls of the “great”; they know the family secrets, and where they are buried. These stories are a refreshing departure from the endless flow of self-serving handouts that constitute the usual information offerings.
  • “The ‘Lossy’ System” In information technology, lossy data encoding methods use inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. This technology strips out data regarded as either unnecessary or redundant to reduce data size for storing, handling, and transmitting content. The process is irreversible. This blog will discuss how our county’s elite decision makers make use of lossy methods in creating policies and perceptions
  • “Get Off the High Ground” makes a direct and straightforward comparison between the beliefs and actions of our most revered advocates of compassion and human worth, and those of modern doctrine-holders. The results are clear-cut; and will cut deep.
  • “New Normal Politics” with the take-your-breath-away-dismissiveness of their “Somebody has to take the hit” user philosophy; New Normal politicians sense who is weak and injured, separate them from the herd, and attack. It’s no wonder that with the massive disruption and death of our country’s elderly; these users are swooping in to tear off big chunks of the Medicare funding our seniors have paid into for decades. In the words of “Bigotry: The Musical”:

Each law I make helps me to take
What others sweat to build
They’ve got a nerve, cause I deserve
My every wish fulfilled

Cornithaca County’s Elitist Policy Making continues unabashed and unabated; like the stream of effluent from a TDML pipe.

Maybe this is a blog after all.