Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

Coots Week in Review November 6, 2010

Posted by Ralph at 11:44 Uncategorized

Feb 102015

: Image via Wikipedia

The top news stories of the day. Don’t know what to think? Let the Coots help.

According to USA Today, these are the top stories for Sunday November 6, 2010, Yeah, We never read most of them either but, for what it’s worth, here’s the Coot’s perspective on those stories.

Looking Ahead: The Weekend and Monday.

President Obama in India while the Presidential Oil Spill Commission opens two days of hearing.

Not only did the President have nothing much to say after the Mid-Term Elections turned the House of Representatives over to Republican control. He got out of town before his commission on the gulf oil spill opened their hearings. Nothing says “I’m on top of my game.” like a 10 day Asian tour. That oil spill? It’s old news and besides, we’re not drilling for oil anymore. That’s so 20th century just like fiscal responsibility.

Peruvian judge orders Lori Berenson freed

Lori Berenson, if it escapes your memory like it did ours was convicted of terrorism in Peru when she assisting the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. They convicted the Marxist mother and sentenced her to 15 years in prison. Then they let her out and later sent her back. Well., she is back out again, free to work her Marxist magic back in the USA. Coots were under the impression that 15 years in a Peruvian prison was equivalent to a death sentence which would be a fine outcome for enemies of freedom. Unfortunately, she appears quite healthy in the picture and Peruvian prisons get a thumbs up for motherhood. Apparently Peruvian prisons are good places to be pregnant since she has a 15 month old child. It is unclear what this says about the Peruvian justice system but Coots predict that Joran Vandersloot may be released shortly.

Michigan bans alcoholic energy drinks

The automobile industry may be on life support and Michigan’s economy may be a shambles but the nanny state is going strong. Coots were unaware of alcoholic energy drinks but The Michigan Liquor Control Commission is on top of the situation. The FDA is merely looking at the drinks but Michigan channels Nancy Reagan and just says no. According to MLCC the public is concerned about the effects of the drinks and that’s enough for them. It probably means that this unique niche of alcoholic energy drinks doesn’t produce enough tax revenue.

Al-Qaeda cell in Yemen says it sent U.S.-bound bomb

Duh!

Young Asian boards flight to Canada in eerily lifelike disguise as elderly male

Coots can’t comment on this story without more details. It is certainly understandable that people might prefer Canada to many Asian countries and there are many Asian counties Coot’s would be happy to flee. Canada probably benefits from resourceful immigrants to complement the easy going Canadian temperament so they are going to have to sort this out on their own. At least he didn’t have explosives in his undies.

Consumers increased debt in September for first time since January

Coots say it’s about time. For two years the government has been all alone borrowing money to stimulate the economy with no help from the public. Consumers just haven’t been pulling their weight. Finally consumers have decided to do their part. Coots predict that the recession is over.

MSNBC suspends Keith Olbermann for donating to 3 Democratic candidates

Coots say that it is a dark day for the news media. We are shocked to learn that news anchors actually have an opinion. Who would have guessed?

Nancy Pelosi says she will run for House minority leader

Coots say more power to you Nancy. We applaud your spunk and grit even as we will miss the excitement and suspense of your reign as majority leader. We were dying with eager anticipation while the Obamacare Bill was getting approved. We couldn’t wait until it passed so we could find out what was in it. It’s the end of an era.

Back to you.

We at Coots hope that you enjoyed this summary of the important stories of the day from USA Today. We welcome your comments on these stories and any suggestions you might have for stories not important enough for USA Today to notice. Michiganders- are you missing those energy drinks? NBC watchers- pining away for Olbermann? Let the Coots know.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with Fishing- Sort of

Posted by Ralph at 11:44 Up With

Feb 102015

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr

I don’t fish!

You have probably figured out that this Coot is no fisherman. My Dad tried to develop my love for fishing. He got fishing rods and spinning reels and he would take my brothers and me down to the pond from time to time. It didn’t take. I don’t know it if was not catching many fish that kept me from developing fishing fever or maybe it was that my father never seemed very committed himself. Somehow, fishing just never caught my fancy. If I planned to spend a day staring at the water, I would much rather not be distracted by casting a line and reeling it back in.

Justin fishes!

Whenever the pressures of his responsibilities weigh too heavily, he finds a way to shove them aside and go fishing. Even during his day to day stay at home Dad duties, it seems that Justin can squeeze in a little fishing diversion and he is always eager to share his love of fishing with his kids. It seems to be working because his four year old is now eager to teach the baby how to fish. It seems that those apples just don’t fall very far from the tree in the Matthews household.

Successful fishing has consequences.

I just never saw the pleasure in fishing. I remember that on one of my infrequent successful experiences that the joy of actually catching a fish quickly dimmed when I discovered that I was expcted to skin and clean the darn thing – and then eat it. This was a big overload for an over-sensitive youngster. My killer instict was undeveloped in those days and the idea of killing and eating a harmless fish made me anxious and inclined to vegetarianism.

My apples rolled away.

My sons through no influence on my part, love to fish. I took them fishing on occasion both at lakes near our house and at the pond where I fished as a child. I didn’t do it for love of fishing, it was because I was trying to be a good dad. Despite my influence (or maybe because of it) my older son now goes deep sea fishing often and my younger son wants to emulate him when he has the funds. I may give it a try myself because it seems a big improvement over the land based fishing I know. As I understand, you just get on the boat and then they take you where the fish are and give you the equipment. You fish and drink beer with the other fishermen (male bonding), When you catch something, the crew cleans and packages it for you to take home and it looks just like you bought it at the store. Perfect!

Maybe it’s time for a change-up.

Maybe I need to work a deep sea fishing trip into my schedule this spring, I could bond with my younger son, look good to my older one and score some points on the hunter-gatherer scorecard from my wife. Or I could just think about it while I stand on the shore like an idiot.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Caught Speeding

Posted by Ralph at 11:44 rants

Feb 102015

An image of two contradictory speed limit signs.

Image via Wikipedia

The Open Road

I left the toll booth ready for the long drive back home. Vallejo was a bit congested but the traffic lightened as I crossed the hills before Fairfield. I stayed with the traffic flow coming down the hill and I saw him sitting on the side of the freeway. He wasn’t even hidding like they usually do. This Officer was confident that he would catch speeders when they came over the hill before they had a chance to react to seeing him. As I moved past he pulled out and I knew just how the impala feels seeing a cheetah bounding towards him on the savana. I was a gonner.

By this time I was in the middle lane hoping to be inconspicuous as he pulled his cruiser behind me and turned on the lights. He had me. I pulled over to the shoulder and waited.

So what is speeding?

There was no question that I was speeding. Everybody speeds in California because the speed limit is inexplicably low. The question in my mind was why me. Out of all the cars speeding along I-80, how does the officer decide to target me and why is there a speed limit on a freeway anyway?

It’s been a few years since my last speeding ticket so maybe it is just my turn. Still, I have to wonder just what social benefit comes from enforcing speed limits on the Interstate Highway System. We are supposed to be grateful because the 55 mile per hour maximum was lifted a few years ago. When they established that 55 mph limit way back in the 70’s the politicians showed their hand. The 55 mph limit had nothing to do with safety. It was imposed to save gas during the oil embargo and also just to show us citizens who was in charge. We were beginning the age of the nanny state. From that time forward, it was impossible to believe that highway speed limits had any connection to safety. It was only social engineering keeping us from getting too uppity. It had the additional benefit of bumping up the government revenue. It took speed trap enforcement out of backwoods, redneck America and made it a part of mainstream life for all Americans. It was the beginning of Cash Cow Cops.

Confuse and Obfuscate

California raised the speed limit to 70 mph recently but unless you read the fine print, you might assume that the limit is 70 on all freeways. You would be wrong because only selected freeways have the higher speed limit. Which are they and how do you know? You have to read the signs. Just another way for the government to confuse and obfuscate and pick our pockets at the same time.

Still, California’s program to confuse and mislead drivers won’t get me off the hook. I know that I was going more than 70. But I did not know that I-80 still had a speed limit of 65. Would I have cared? Probably not but if the speed limit was 70 would the officer have chased me down? It might not have been worth his while. I can’t say.

What I do know is that I can’t stop being cynical about speed limits and the good intentions of the politicians who we elect to pass speed limit laws. I know that the government’s lowest prioritiy is my safety because the interstate system and my car are built to handle speeds much higher than 65 or even 70. I think that it’s all about control- making sure that I and my fellow drivers appreciate that all good things in life are because of the government and expecially making sure that the Cash Cow Cops, aka Highway Patrol keep the old cash drawer full during these hard time.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Coots at the Opera

Posted by Ralph at 11:44 Reflections

Feb 102015

Sometimes life catches up with you!

Just because you’ve been around the block a few times doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve been counting. I’m into culture from time to time and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see big time opera just down the street so I found myself attending a meeting of the El Dorado Hills Geriatric Society down at the local multiplex. Well, actually it was a simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera beamed into the hinterlands by the wonders of modern science. They’re been broadcasting live performances for years now but I’m lucky if I make it to one each season. This was the first time I managed to get to one of the broadcasts this year and when I took a good hard look at the audience, it caught be by surprise. They were all old. I was embarrassed at the association.

Of course I blended right in although I tend to forget that I am no longer the apple cheeked, brown haired stud that I picture when I think of myself. Checking myself out reluctantly in the mirror of the washroom confirmed that I belonged to the crowd of old men with sagging jowls and bulging guts relieving their overloaded bladders at intermission. There was not a youngster in the crowd. I wondered if culture is dying.

Attending opera has never been so easy

as today when the Met beams its simulcasts into 10 or 15 venues in Sacramento alone on eight Saturdays each year. Since the Met is anything but a philanthropic organization, I assume that they must be finding an audience and filling the coffers. After all, if the Met is available in Sacramento, it is surely available anywhere because cowtown is no culture mecca. But if they want to make a killing in El Dorado Hills, they had better be quick because judging from the audience in the theatre; it won’t be many more years before they expire.

Opera wasn’t available to me growing up in Kansas City. My first live opera performance was the Lyric Opera in Chicago when I was in college. I don’t remember what opera I saw, just the difficult trek from the Southside to the Loop and then walking across town to the venue. It was clearly high value to cause a small town boy to brave the Chicago streets at night. Clearly I had cultural aspirations. The way I saw it, opera was the holy grail of classical cluture, combining theatre, music, dance and spectacle in one glorious package.

Still, as life continued,

opera remained only an occasional pleasure. For many years, there was no opera company in Los Angeles. Later family pressures and the fact that my wife doesn’t like opera kept me from subscribing for the season and made attending even one or two operas a year a guilty, solitary pleasure.

Early on, after I started working in Sacramento and commuting home to LA each weekend, it was easy to attend performances at the Sacramento opera on weekdays but when my wife and son moved up to join me my weeknights were no longer so free. Who would ever believe that opera would be so accessible that you could drop by the local movie theater to take in Aida or Madama Butterfly and snack on popcorn all the while?

The contrast between the availability of opera everywhere and the general lack of culture displayed in the media or normal life is disconcerting. It doesn’t help one bit that the opera goers down at the multiplex are easily as long in the tooth as yours truly. While I can’t say that my love of opera was nurtured at home, neither can I say that that I nurtured a love of classical music in my own children who wouldn’t be joining me at the opera even if I paid and bought popcorn. My only comfort is the knowledge that I wasn’t the only lone opera lover in the theatre. Nobody else was joined by children and grandchildren to enjoy the culture of opera. Opera may be alive and well right now but the future looks ominous, if the audience last week in El Dorado Hills is typical.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Checking in from Argentina

Posted by Ralph at 11:44 Coot Travel

Feb 102015

We have been in Buenos Aires for over a week now. That time has given us an opportunity to form some opinions about life down here in the Southern hemisphere. Don’t expect a big report today. Buenos Aires is not a relaxing place. It takes just about all the energy this old Coot can generate to keep moving down here. Even when you are trying to keep your cool and remain calm, just riding the SubTe (what they call their subway) or riding in a taxi engages all your reserves. All the taxis are subcompacts and it takes me five minutes to get in and out of one but once you are in, the ride is exhilarating. It amazes us that we haven’t seen one accident because taxi driving is a competitive sport down here. Your taxi driver plays chicken with all the other taxi drivers to get around a bus or into a better lane.

Down time is when you sit down for water at a sidewalk cafe, sometimes just inches from the traffic but once you order a water, you can sit forever.

That’s about it for today. I just noticed that neither Bob nor Justin had checked in since my last post and I figured I’d better put something in. I’ll upload a couple of pictures and add a few more observations about Buenos Aires to flesh out later. Trial lawyers would have a field day in BA because we haven’t seen a sidewalk without serious safety issues since we got here. Portenos (residents of BA) seem to have an underwear fetish. There are underwear shops in the SubTe stations. They do seem to celebrate Christmas with some of the same themes we use but Santa Clause is Papa Noel. Green wreaths, trees and lights are up but in more restrained fashion than back in the states. More later.