Online Musings

It Has Been a Year since I Moved from San Diego to Cave Spring, Virginia

David — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 19:23:13 +0000

Lately, I haven’t written much in my Blog, an old-fashioned name. Perhaps I should change it to David’s Cast Pod in Print. Cast Podding Print? Cast Pudding Print?

This little blurb of an entry is here to announce that I will be getting back to writing more frequent posts from the sunroom in my new home after this year-long break of getting used to a new home and a new culture. There will be lots of posts, I suspect, on the new culture I find myself in. Not criticisms so much as comparisons to my 50 years on the west coast, from LA to Seattle to Vashon Island to San Diego back to LA and then Palm Springs then back to San Diego before arriving in the greater Roanoke, Virginia valley in the middle of March, 2022.

Oh, it has been fascinating. And to paraphrase my long dead father, Lorne, “I’ve gotten to the place in my life where everything is either interesting or amusing.”

So I will return, amused and interested, in the weeks to come.

I don’t know if anyone reads this Pod Print anymore but if you do, please send me a message by clicking on the Contact button.

Cheers!

Cheney and the End of Democracy

David — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 12:49:06 +0000

I’m tired of hearing how courageous Rep. Cheney is. She is doing her job by upholding her oath of office. The fact that only a handful of members of her own party agree with her is beside the point. Oh, I’ve enjoyed watching her co-chair the Jan. 6 Committee. But I would never vote for her for anything because my vote for someone who voted with Trump 93% of the time is democracy failing.

West Coast to East Coast, 2022

David — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 15:50:45 +0000

In March, I moved to the Blue Ridge mountains of southwestern Virginia from San Diego. I was born in Galax, Virginia. I attended Hampden-Sydney College my freshman year before leaving Virginia when I was 19.

For the first time in all my travels and relocations around the country, beginning at 19, this move from California to Virginia was met with dismay and confusion by friends and acquaintances alike. “Why are you moving to a red state” and “you’ll be killed when people find out.” (My husband and I have been together 39 years.) These comments are a reflection of our times. Were I a different person, I might have been talked out of my move.

Blue state. Red state.

My mother’s people were from Grayson County, Virginia between Elk Creek and Flatridge. My maternal great-grandparents lived until I was in college. They were all voting Democrats. I attended the 1976 Democratic Convention in NYC with the help of my father, an attorney in Independence, and a Republican Congress member, William Wampler, a friend of my Dad’s. That’s how bipartisan it was back then.

Red state. Blue state.

I’m currently in the unbelievably shaped 6th Congressional District of Virginia. I have contacted my new Congress member, Ben Cline, a Republican member of the “freedom caucus,” 3 times, to ask him to speak of his reaction to the Jan. 6 hearings. I have not heard back. And neither have any of his other constituents, as of today. He has made no public remarks about the hearings.

Where have all the courageous politicians gone?

Freedom Caucus.

Red and White.

Blue.

Hell

David — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 21:47:33 +0000

The following is a question given at a University of Arizona chemistry mid-term exam and an actual answer turned in by a student.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct … leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’

THIS STUDENT DESERVEDLY RECEIVED AN A+.

Ixtapa, Mexico to San Diego

David — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 21:41:06 +0000

It was difficult to find a Covid test site in Ixtapa, Mexico, so I paid to have a man come to the house. The result was immediate but the paperwork took all day to complete and involved many phone calls and emails with the man after he left. My test was negative but I wondered what would happen if my test was positive. Would Alaska refuse to let me board? Would I be taken to a secret location? Or would I be returned to my friend’s house? Would I be reimbursed for the ticket or would I be forced to pay for a one-way ticket back to the US after I what, tested negative? By whom? In what language? Would I be hospitalized? Where? If I died, then what?

Red Rural

David — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 17:26:35 +0000

I had great-grandparents and grandparents who lived in rural southwest Virginia, Grayson County, until they died when I was in my 20s and 30s. They would never have allowed something like fracking to occur on their land. Sometimes you have to fight for your community. They voted democratic and the small towns around them thrived. Southwest Virginia is now a sea of red and the area has succumbed to vast poverty. The current great-grandparents and grandparents who live there have been convinced to vote against their own self-interests. Their children and grandchildren have all moved away.

California Governor Recall Bullshit

David — Sun, 09 May 2021 21:23:20 +0000

As a longtime California resident, who lived through the last recall,
this Newsom recall effort is nothing but the state Republican party
attempting to circumvent the general election in a year and a half in
Nov 2022 when Newsom is up for reelection and turnout will be
much higher than it will be for a recall election in Nov 2021. Why?
Because the Republicans see it as the only way they have a chance
to win statewide office. Instead of putting up a candidate in 2022
with ideas that might garner voters’ support, they will cost the
taxpayers 100 million+ and spend millions on negative ads at a
time when we are coming out of a pandemic and need everyone’s
efforts to rebuild the economy. Sound familiar?

Congratulations, Nomadland

David — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 21:32:45 +0000

DHC
Hillcrest, CA |

April 24, 2021

This is my response in the Times to Maureen Dowd’s latest column.
She wasn’t a fan of Nomadland and neither was a friend of hers she
quoted in the column so I had to write an opposing view for the
now Oscar winning film.

(As a Hollywood writer friend of mine said after she watched
“Nomadland”: “That was not entertainment. That was Frances
McDormand having explosive diarrhea in a plastic bucket on a van.”)

You need new friends, Ms Dowd! “Nomadland” portrayed a segment
of American life many of us drive by on highways and back roads, in
parking lots and on our streets, that we never get to know.
McDormand, along with the real nomads, takes us on a journey
through a culture we otherwise would never get a chance to even
begin to understand. To me, that is art, every bit as much as
“Nashville.”

ARGO and the INSURRECTION

David — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 06:18:40 +0000

Tonight when I watched the Oscar winning picture ARGO again,
it reminded me of the recent January 6, 2021 Insurrection at the
US Capitol.

In 1979, Iranian Revolution supporters invaded the US Embassy in
Tehran and took Americans hostage. It was bloody. People died.

The Iranian insurrection mirrors the January 6 invasion of the US
Capitol by Trump supporters whose goal was to overthrow the free
and fair election of Joe Biden because Trump revolutionized his
supporters into believing the election was stolen, but stolen only in
the states Trump lost, not the states he won. It was bloody. People
died.

(to be continued)

Allen v. Farrow

David — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 06:25:58 +0000

Allen v. Farrow

I made it halfway through the first episode of Allen v. Farrow before
I had to stop.

I hate, yes hate, all of them. Whatever the rest of this HBO
Documentary has to offer, I want no part of it.

Mia Farrow is a manipulator.
Woody Allen is a manipulator.

All the kids, who can keep up?

Then Dylan comes along. Then Ronan (Satchel). I’ve never witnessed
two more pathetic manipulators.

When everyone is manipulating throughout their lives and
in front of the constant cameras, the constant filming by Mia, the
quick manipulative edits, then who is living a life, a real life?

My advice:

1. Get a fucking life.
2. Shut your mouths for 1440 minutes, if possible, and stop the
constant filming and performing.
3. If any of you care about healing whatever happened, do what I
did and GET SOME HELP.
4. When your choice of house, not home, becomes a manipulation,
then where is home?

Dumb v. Stupid v. Mad

a HUMILIATING

Documentary.