I finally pulled out one of the movies that I purchased a few months ago, but never have gotten around to watching.  (Hey, you have to take advantage of those Amazon specials as they come up.)  The movie was Island in the Sky starring John Wayne.  The film was produced by his production company, Wayne/Fellows Productions, and he is one of the two producers.  The story involves the emergency landing of a World War Two-era Douglas C-47 Skytrain in Labrador due to the buildup of ice on the wings and the search and rescue of the crew members.  It was actually a very riveting film with some amazing photography. 

I’m not your typical John Wayne fan.  I like his films, the ones I’ve seen, but I won’t go out of my way to watch one.  My dad, on the other hand, is a die-hard fan and has most likely seen all of his movies multiple times.  I was very pleased with John’s performance here.  He didn’t portray the character with the usual machismo you normally associate with a John Wayne role.  You saw fear and uncertainty.  It was a great role.  James Arness also starred as well as some relatively unknown actors that would later gain fame through television:  Mike Connors (Mannix) and Fess Parker (Daniel Boone).  Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer also had a small somewhat comedic role as the copilot of one of the rescue aircraft.  This is a film that I would whole heartedly recommend to anyone.

DVD Cover for Island in the Sky

I know.  I really do need to get back to this.  Let me first just say that it’s been a beautiful summer here in Germany, and I’ve been enjoying it.  Ok, so that covers some of the time.  How about I REALLY needed to get caught up on CSY: X?  Yeah, well that’s done too.  So here I am.

I currently feel the need to talk about the newest online service that I discovered recently: MP3tunes.  They offer a service called Locker.  You can either sign up for a free account or a premium service for $39.95 a year.  Since I wanted to test it first, I signed up for the free service which gives me up 2 GB of storage space for my music.  It works well, but since it’s free, you have limited control.  Here’s the process:  download LockerSync and then let it run.  It will find the music on your computer and then upload it to your account.  I really do recommend that you start this process before you go to bed, if you have a large connection.  Then go online and sign into your account.  Voila, you can now listen to your iTunes (or other) collection online.  Why you asked?  It keeps you from having to move your music around with you, and if you work in a place that won’t allow you to bring in an iPod, all you need is a computer account.  The premium service offers much more including a 50 GB storage space.  I think it’s time to see what else this site can provide.

“C’mon Rufus. This way.” I said. “This way” means “not that way” to The Boys. We were enjoying the afternoon walking down the old tank road that stretched between the German cities of Vaihingen and Boeblingen. It’s made of cobblestone, and the forest is taking back the sides of it in some areas. The sky had begun to cloud over and the temperature was cooler than it had been earlier, but not so much that I felt uncomfortable in my shorts and t-shirt. However, we had walked for over an hour already and The Boys were getting tired.

As we continued down the road, I noticed a moth sitting on it. It was a sandy colored moth with markings that resembled the Nike symbol on each of its four wings. I bent down to look at it and take its picture. Since it was in the road, I let it climb onto my finger to put it in a safer place among the trees. It wasn’t afraid in the least. “Why are you sitting in the road?” I asked it expecting a come back with some witty answer. Max came up quickly to see what I had discovered, and after sniffing it, decided it was not worth any more of his attention. Rufus had already made the decision to stay where he was and sat down. I took a couple more pictures of the moth while it sat on my finger, and then moved into the forest. As I tried to move him to a leaf, he climbed a bit higher on my finger. It seemed he didn’t want to leave me. So, in a soft voice, I began to convince him that it would be better for him to move to place where he might be able to eat something. “Don’t you think a leaf or tree would be a bit more natural for you?” He didn’t move. After a few minutes and some gentle persuasion, I moved him to a leaf. He didn’t seem too comfortable, and then the leaf flipped over. I let him climb back on my finger. I was a bit perplexed at this point. I couldn’t imagine why a moth would not want to sit on a leaf. Don’t they eat leaves? Then I moved over to a tree. He REALLY wouldn’t go there. Then I went to a mossy patch of ground and thought, as nice as it looked, any moth would be happy to rest there. I set him down onto the dry moss, and talked to him a bit. Then all of sudden his wings went straight up, and he began to fall over. I didn’t know what to do next, but there wasn’t much else to I could do. The small, sandy-colored moth with the Nike emblem on it then fell over and died. I was a little saddened, but then realized that he was able to spend his final moments on Earth in the company of someone who cared enough to carry him a few feet from a road and place him back in a quiet little part of the forest where he belonged.

Today, I learned, albeit a little late, of just how much the federal government wants to get involved in our lives. On April 15, 2008, Congressman Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon (I’ll get around to using the more conventional “D-OR” eventually,) introduced the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace Act or HANG UP Act. It was cosponsored by 24 other representatives and reported by committee, The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, on July 31, 2008. WHAT??? Who are these people representing? According to the congressman, 63% of those responding to a poll sponsored by The Association of Flight Attendants do not want to see the ban on cell phone use in aircraft lifted. What are the actual numbers of the poll? The argument is that cell phone use will disrupt the comfort of an entire cabin. OK, maybe. What about the screaming babies? I can’t think of anyone who can stand that. Can we legislate that until a child is of an age where they won’t cry or throw a fit, they can’t be allowed on the aircraft? What about the obnoxiously chatty couple next to you? What if I don’t want to deal with the flickering lights during the movie? No movies? Why don’t we just make a law that says once you enter the aircraft, you sit down, shut up and only speak when a flight attendant speaks to you?! Let’s go another direction. What about cell phone conversations in restaurants or movie theaters? I know there is most likely an overwhelming majority of people that this bothers. The fact is you can’t outlaw poor manners. We can politely ask someone who is being inconsiderate to please stop, can’t we? Or do we need the government to come in and do everything for us? Representative John Mica, R-FL (there, I did it) said it best, “You are trying to legislate courtesy, folks, and that just doesn’t work.” Thankfully this atrocity was never voted on.

Now for some really good news: I’m happy to report that the people in Oregon, Indiana, California, Minnesota, Arkansas, Hawaii, Colorado, New Jersey, Texas, Washington, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Illinois, and North Carolina have absolutely no problems.

And so it goes….  The American people are outraged about what has happened to our economy and how it happened.  The Congress is NOW also outraged.  The Administration is outraged.  It reminds me of a line from The Hudsucker Proxy, “Norville, you let me down. You let Mrs. Eisenhower down. You let the American people down.”  Just substitute Wall Street or US Government for Norville depending on who you want to blame.  Who is to blame?  There really is plenty to go around.  Time released its “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis”, so they have their ideas.  Here are mine starting from the top:

1. The people.  Everyone seems to be looking for a way to get rich without any effort.  “Let’s buy a house today, sell it a year later and make $50k.”  That’s quite a turnaround.  I saw that in action when I bought my house in Maryland in 2003.  The woman selling it lived in it less that 18 months and wanted to make a $50k profit, even though it was obvious she put nothing into the home.  At least do SOMETHING to improve the residence.  The houses I viewed prior to that were pathetic, but the owners wanted an amount that in previous years would have been not only unreasonable, but unthinkable.  Realtors wouldn’t have even shown those places, let alone look at me with a straight face expecting me to even think about buying.  What happened to working for your living?  An economy can’t be founded on house flipping and loans based on probable equity.  I don’t think our parents and grandparents who weathered the Great Depression and The Second World War really had this spoiled mentality in mind when they tried to protect us from deprivation.

2.  The Government.  Notice that I didn’t say The Administration.  Massachusetts Democrat Congressman Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would like everyone to believe him when he says that “The private sector got us into this mess.”  However, he continued to argue against the Bush Administration about the financial health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Well, we know now how healthy they really were.  But the Bush Administration could have done things as well.  It’s not like they wanted the housing bubble to end.  My guess is they might have put the brakes on a bit, but certainly not ended it.  How often did they make public speeches arguing for more regulation?  No, they needed the economy to just keep going so the people wouldn’t focus on Iraq.  You can’t have failed International AND Domestic policies.

3.  The Street.  They are what brought the economy to a screeching halt.  But they are only the instrument.  The government allowed them to do it.  Does anyone really consider Wall Street to be a philanthropic entity?  C’mon!!!  We look at the executives, CEO’s and other financial giants with awe and wish we were in their shoes.  We’re TRYING to get to where they are.  There are great men on Wall Street who are charitable and not thinking only of themselves…just not that many.  The capitalist engine runs on greed.  In fact, without greed, you probably can’t truly have capitalism.  Some government regulation is necessary as is individual responsibility for personal finances. 

I look at it this way:  If your computer crashes and you lose ALL of your work, do you blame the computer?  The manufacturer of the system?  Yourself?  My first reaction is always to curse the computer.  Then I curse the company that made it.  However, there are any number of DIVERSE ways to mitigate the loss if that happens.  The best way is to regularly back up your work.  For things that you truly can’t afford to lose, they can be backed up to multiple locations.  You will lose some things to be sure, just not everything.  You could have done better research of the manufacturer of your system.  If they had a bad track record, you could have bought a different system.  If enough people do that, then the company will REFORM how it builds computers.  (Of course, they were having a sale you just HAD to buy it.)  This is obviously oversimplified, and the crisis has many sides.  However, we need to start expecting less of others and more of ourselves.  Hold the politicians accountable.  Don’t look to them to save you from yourself, but force them to act in the best interest of the nation as a whole and do your part.  Don’t be lazy!  The internet is a great tool to research your representative, senator and president.  VOTE!!!  And not just in the national elections.  We need to start bringing action to the local level.  Stop looking to the market to make you rich overnight.  It happens, just not that often.  You most likely have as much of a chance playing the lottery.  The challenge?  Put down the remote control (or game control) and step away from the TV.  Now get out there and get active!

Alabama, USA - 10 dead.  Winnenden, Germany - 17 dead.  Two days, two murder sprees.  I’m particularly moved this morning by the recent killings because I used to walk The Boys in the fields and forests near Winnenden.  And so, I’m simply going to enter a poem by Michael Shepherd:

A grief ago

‘There is no grief
which time does not lessen
or soften’ -
so said Cicero, a man so often right;
a Stoic, those for whom
all life presents a lesson
to be learned from,
and then, to move on from..

But I wonder about all this:
is grief ever lessened or softened?
Is it not, perhaps, overlaid
in our so various ways?

For some, grief framed and falsified
to ease that grief;

For some, like hyacinths and crocus bulbs,
left in a dark cupboard in the autumn of our grief
to respond to time, and
become at last
themselves?

gently, gently, the covers pulled
over the loving bed,
the true, the pure, the lovely painful grief,
the memory deep cherished,
gently, gently, folded
into the cupboards of the heart

there to be known, without the door disturbed
until the time – ‘a grief ago’ as Dylan wrote -
the cupboard opened only for love’s sake
without grief…:
those carefully folded memories
brought out and loved
and lived a while…

not grief, not grief…but
the pure memory of grief

and behold,
life.

I love WordPress.  I haven’t explored it in depth enough to be  an expert.  I’m not sure I’ve ever explored anything enough to be considered an expert.  It seems that with a little work, you can really be creative with a blog.  My chiropractor in Maryland uses WordPress for his website rather than using more complicated web authoring software.  The one thing that does bother me at this point though is I seem to be upgrading every time I turn around.  It’s free.  It’s not difficult.  It’s not time consuming.  It’s not even really necessary.  But I do it anyway.   Time to upgrade….

This isn’t your grandparent’s (or great-grandparent’s) depression.  That’s right!  I said the “D” word.  I think, short of political cowardice, the government is going to have to call this what it is.  Of course, they won’t do that yet.  It seems these things are easier to determine after they have been going on for some time.  It took nearly a year, and the crash of Wall Street in October, to force the governments of the major economies to spit out the dreaded “R” word.  Now, depending on the organization, there are a couple of definitions for a recession.  Not so for a depression.  Ever since the Mother of all Depressions, The Great Depression, no politician has used the term.  We had a few before then though.  The Long Depression of 1873 to 1879 was The Great Depression until the 1930’s.  Is it possible that we have avoided them since then?  Learned our lessons?  Doubtful.  I think politicians just fear public retribution if a catastrophe of that magnitude occurs on their watch.  Murray N. Rothbard referred to the 81 – 83 recession as a depression in his Introduction to the Fourth Edition of his book, America’s Great Depression.  Could it have been?  I’m no economist, so I don’t know.  I have read articles where some of today’s economists are stepping up and saying that we are now in a depression.  The comparison’s to the two are striking.  In fact, and again, I’m no expert, the largest difference I’ve been able to find, is that their are protections in place to protect people from losing their savings and governments are jumping into action to keep the banks afloat, unlike the Hoover Administration.  But are those measures going to prevent a depression, or just minimize the length of time we’re in it.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Well, I think that I may have finally found a home that meets all of my needs.  The Alden, designed by Donald A. Gardner, Inc., is a nice 3-bedroom, 2-bath house with quite a lot of porch, a must for my future residence.  I’ll most likely put a half bath in the basement, but we’ll see.  One thing is certain, a strong, scratch resistent floor will be put in.  For the most part though, this is what I’ve been looking for.