8/21/2016

Thoughts On A Sunday

This weekend saw the Timberman 70.3 Ironman Triathlon return to Lake Winnipesaukee. It's always something of a spectacle, with a couple of thousand participants, between the first day Sprints and the second day full-on Triathlon.

About the only downside to the annual event is the disruption of traffic during the race, specifically the bicycle portion of the race. Normally I make allowances for those disruptions, but today I got caught up in one of them and I had to go 12 miles out of my way to get home from our local Walmart.

This disruption was not one of the organizer's planning, but that of the spectators'. In this case my only access to my neighborhood was blocked off because the parking along both sides of the side street was such that it narrowed the road to the point where only a very small car, a bike or a motorcycle could make it through. Even trying to do an end around was impossible, meaning I had to go back out to the state highway, head east to the next town, and take a secondary state highway that brought me back home from the other side of my neighborhood.

That's poor planning on someone's part. (Yes, I could have made my trip to Walmart later in the day or the next day, but there were things I needed in order to perform some of my weekend chores. I would have gone on Saturday, but I didn't know I needed those things until last night. So sue me.)

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Seeing the latest ad slamming US Senator Kelly Ayotte for not being truly independent per the sound bite they play at the beginning of the ad, using that sound bite to illustrate she isn't truly independent because she has given support to Donald Trump, makes me wonder what their definition of 'independent' happens to be.

Is it because she's basically ignored the GOPe and their disdain for Trump or because she hasn't gone along with all of the other 'independents' who have decided Trump is persona non grata.

Isn't that like the old saw that goes “Be different, same as us!”

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If the above gives you the impression that I am a full on supporter of Kelly Ayotte, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. I haven't decided who I will be supporting other than it won't be the presumptive Democrat nominee, Maggie Hassan.

I merely want to point out the absurdity of the ad, and hope to keep doing so for every ad for whatever candidate I see that includes any such paradoxical, disconnected, hypocritical, or asinine claim or comparison.

Neither party has a monopoly on those kinds of ads.

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I keep seeing the news, both local and national, touting the medal count at the Rio Olympics.

Frankly, I don't care. Without Russia involved, even with their cheating, it doesn't mean as much as it might have otherwise.

This has to be the one Olympics where I have not bothered to watch a single event. Not one. Whether it's the poor coverage or a total lack of interest due to other factors that has me underwhelmed by the Olympics, the end results are that I really don't care.

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From the Truth Hurts Department.

When Austin (TX) City Councilman Don Zimmerman told a group of visiting students it was in their best interest to buckle down, finish school, learn a trade or go to college, to do something useful with their lives “so you don't have to live off others,” boos arose from the audience.

Another council member derided Zimmerman's implication that those who are “fully capable of providing for themselves but make choices that keep them dependent on extracting wealth from wealth-producers (via the government tax collectors) are not productive.”

They aren't. They're leeches, making others support them when they are fully capable of doing so themselves.

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Are today's feminists worse than lynch mobs?

Why yes, yes they are.

All it takes is an accusation with no evidence, no investigation, and no police involvement for them to destroy someone's life. It can also leave the accusers and any enablers open to lawsuits, as more than a few colleges have found out the hard way. Private and public groups are just as much in jeopardy as the colleges have been in this regard.

To accuse someone of being a serial rapist with “multiple” victims “over the years” is a very serious thing. The previous three paragraphs took me a lot of work to write because, as a journalist who spent decades with a copy of The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual on my desk, I know that you have to be careful in reporting such serious accusations, especially when there are no official law-enforcement sources
to quote. Carefully read any newspaper story about an arrest or an investigation or a trial, and you will notice that everything in the story is attributed to some official source — “according to the affidavit,” or “police said.”

Imagine some newspaper put up the following headline:

SERIAL RAPIST AARON GLASER PREYED ON WOMEN IN NEW YORK COMEDY SCENE, ACCORDING TO SOMEBODY ON FACEBOOK

No newspaper would ever publish a headline like that, because Aaron Glaser’s attorney would sue their asses into bankruptcy. No reporter in his right mind would try to sneak a story like that past the copy desk. Some old-school editors I’ve known would probably clobber you over the head with a copy of the AP Stylebook: “FACEBOOK? YOU’RE QUOTING A G–DAMNED FACEBOOK POST ABOUT A RAPE CASE?”

In effect, that's what's happened to Aaron Glaser. He was accused in a Facebook post. That's it. No police reports filed, no criminal investigation performed, no indictments filed, but he's been branded a serial rapist by a group theater project and his reputation destroyed.

Welcome to the new lynch mob, same as the old lynch mob, but with better social media accessibility.

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Yes, the Religion of White Guilt is a leftist cult, and a nihilist one at that.

And because [Professor James Wellman] has sadfeels about being white, all other people should give up their freedom and bow to Government. But I notice his White Guilt has not led him to quit his well-paid, taxpayer funded sinecure as Chair of the comparative religion department at University of Washington and give it to a native person, a gay person, a black person, an Iraqi or a woman.

It's only other White People who should have to do that since the professor gets a pass because he's an academic and has the proper politically correct outlook.

He's also a clueless self-hating ass.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we have one more week of summer left before the kids go back to school, summerfolk are trying to cram as much vacation into the remaining days, and where the lake's waters will be returned to us (at least during weekdays).