Coot’s News Service for November 27, 2011 I was wrong!

Posted by Ralph at 05:27 Headline News

Nov 272011

Image via Wikipedia

Some news is important!

It takes a big man to admit he is wrong and all three of us Coots are not petite. So today I’m just going to say that last week, I was wrong. You can’t just ignore the news because once in a while there is a story that matters in your life and that you can do something about. And that is what the news stories for today reveal.

After last week’s snit, faithful readers might be wondering what to expect from the Coot’s News Service this week. I laid it on pretty thick and pretty much sawed through the tree limb I was perched on. I stopped sawing just in time. But still, after all that fuss about the irrelevance of news how can the Coot’s continue to provide this service.

Well the answer is another opportunity to clarify the benefits of cantankerosity. Being consistent is another of those traps of conventional thinking that mess people up. Cantankerosity is never having to be sorry about changing your mind. This needs expounding in a Coot’s lesson but for now take it on faith that it takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. And last week I was very wrong because every so often, there is news that matters and news that each person can do something about.

Black Friday 2011: Holiday shoppers hit stores, with a Thanksgiving head start

The news stories this week are about the evil cancer of Black Friday eating our national holiday- Thanksgiving. Apparently nothing is more sacred than saving a few bucks on that big screen TV, not even a family holiday dinner. And retailers will stop at nothing to take your money.

Shoppers in Sacramento, across U.S. turn back the clock in bargain hunt

So what can you do to quash this diabolical threat to family life in America? Stay home on Thanksgiving and plan your holiday to eliminate any need to shop. As Justin has pointed out, there are bargains available on line so you can satisfy the shopping urge and look for deals from your home between courses or at half-time. Maintain the sanctity of your holidays and allow retail employees to enjoy the holiday as well. The Coot’s recommend Amazon for convenience, great selection and fantastic deals and encourage readers to use our link which helps keep this blog going.

It’s all over for this year but early reports suggest that retailers were encouraged by the sales on Thanksgiving. Make a resolution to avoid retailers that were open on Thanksgiving and shop on-line instead.

And now that Thanksgiving is finally over, lets move on to the next holiday.

0&autoplay=1

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

CNS for November 20, 2011 Do Something Important Today

Posted by Ralph at 05:09 Headline News

Nov 202011

We’ve Got News!

Image via Wikipedia

There is lots of news today and it all sounds important. Libya, Syria, Greece, Italy, the Euro, the Budget Deal and then the attacks on Newt after his rise to the top of the Republican contenders and the never ending saga of the Wall Street protesters. It all seems so frantic and so important and it all is – to somebody.

When you get down to hard cold truth, however, what I realize after dragging myself through all those stories today is a simple truth. They don’t matter a hill of beans. Those stories have no impact on my life today because: I don’t have any power to affect the outcome of those stories today and nothing I can do is going to make a difference in the future.

Bottom line, reading the news is a total waste of my valuable time.

So where does that leave the Coot’s News Service?

It’s a good question which deserves a good answer. The original thinking of our crack management team here at COC was that we could provide a valuable service to our readers by filtering the myriad news stories each week to find a few really important ones, particularly those stories which were upbeat and inspiring. This meant hours of research reading hundreds of real downer stories in the hope of finding something positive. Talk about a deadly assignment! Over time, the task moved from challenging to impossible and our dynamic research team became demoralized. So we moved on the Plan B.

Plan B was to find one story each week that would put our readers ahead of the pack. That seemed like a realistic ambition but even finding that one story soon became a challenge. I don’t know if the stories got worse or our standards rose higher. Whatever the reason, the challenge of finding that one perfect story got harder each week. And keeping our staff on target harder.

So today, exhausted from a fruitless scouring of the news, I have no choice but to punt. Today, we don’t have a story.

Get a Life!

The unavoidable truth is that nobody NEEDS the news, nobody BENEFITS from the news. News is an incredible and scandalous WASTE of society’s time and resources. I can confidently state that there is absolutely nothing in the news that you need to know and that you would be much better off walking the dog, playing catch with your grandson or taking your wife to a movie than reading the news.

There! I’ve said it.

But back to the original question about CNS. Does this mean the end of CNS as we know it? Will the delight of checking COC on Sunday’s for insightful commentary and wisdom be gone forever? And the answer is “Of course not.” We know that our readers depend on CNS to brighten their dreary weekends and we take our responsibilities very seriously even if it means continuing to follow the news.

So there will be a new report next week, although just now it is hard to say what it will be. After all, it is seven days away. Who knows? Something important might happen.

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

More stupid local laws…redux number…?

Posted by Bob@HayleStorm Interactive at 02:13 Bob's Politics, Headline News, Podcast, rants, videos

Nov 152011

You have to make a decision here, folks. Is the south as conservative as folks think, or as stupid?

The city council in Jacksonville, NC might help you answer than question.

Sometimes you get an answer you really don’t want…

[powerpress]

Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

Coot’s News Service for November 13, 2011 Dissing Veterans

Posted by Ralph at 04:21 Headline News

Nov 132011

Mayor of Richmond prefers protest to veterans

I honor Veterans 364 days a year

Calif. Mayor Chooses Occupy Rally Over Veterans Day Memorial

So today I feel like I’m channeling Bob as I bristle with outrage but I don’t know what this country is coming to when an elected city official chooses not to even pretend a respect for our veterans. The Mayor of Richmond California doesn’t even hesitate about choosing a protest rally over a memorial ceremony on Veteran’s Day. Sure Veteran’s Day Memorials are not very exciting events with their patriotic music, lots of old geezers and politicians mouthing platitudes but that’s why we have the holiday. Maybe she just wanted to sleep in.

But she didn’t just stay home and sleep in. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin attended the Occupy Richmond Protest Rally instead. It is no big deal,the mayor says because she honors veterans on the other 364 days a year .She is apparently so worn out honoring veterans that she needs a break . Besides, she points out, the Occupy Richmond Protest will celebrate veteran Scott Olson who was injured at a recent Occupy Oakland Rally. So she is killing two birds with one stone, celebrating veterans and anarchy at the same time.

So where is Richmond California?

Now I don’t know the town of Richmond very well other than being the last stop on BART (the Bay Area Rapid Transit) and the place where I leave my car when visiting San Francisco. It seems an unremarkable town in a spectacular locale but next time I visit I will be looking more closely. Bay area suburbs are difficult to read because housing costs are so high that high income folks will be living in neighborhoods that look more like lower class areas in the rest of the country. Still is looks tidy and clean with none of the ominous atmosphere of nearby Oakland or the raffish, hippie style of even nearer-by Berkeley. Just another ordinary SF suburb trying to stay respectable. Apparently, however, there is more to Richmond than meets the eye.

McLaughlin is similarly hard to read as well. Her record, at least as recorded in her campaign website is fiscally responsible and socially progressive and her political career has been adept. She is the self-proclaimed highest level elected official of the Green Party. But it looks like the wheels have fallen off her bus with this move which reveals that the reasonable, nuanced progressive mayor is a well camouflaged nut job. Take a look at the Facebook page for the Richmond Rally and then check out the profile for Jose Lopez the organizer. Nothing about this Rally suggests community interest. What it reveals is the philosophy of the organizers which most surely includes the mayor.

Why protest on Veteran’s Day?

First look at the decision to hold the Rally on Veteran’s Day. Surely one of the other 364 days would have worked as well for the Rally but the organizers chose Veteran’s Day. Still, the mayor might have split her attention and attended both but she did not. The reasons are not hard to fathom for a proud progressive and Green Party apparatchik. Unfocused and chaotic as the recent swarm of protest rallies are, one of the common demands is the forgiveness of all debt including the debt incurred by student loans for college. This is a sensitive issue for the Mayor who recently declared bankruptcy to eliminate $100,000 in student loans. The trauma for the Mayor no doubt drew her to the Occupy Movement. Perhaps the personal philosophy of Mr. Lopez as listed on his Facebook page attracted her as well. All you need to know about the Rally you can learn from Mr. Lopez philosophy. “fuck the system . si se puede . i’m from Oakland biiiiitch lol “. Clear and concise!

Back on point.

So, now that I’ve gone all Bob over this California politician, let me try to get back on track. I won’t even try humor today. Veteran’s Day always does that for me because my war was Vietnam. The first and I hope the last war to have the population and its lick spittle politicians go south on their warriors. Not only warriors but drafted warriors. I freely admit that I would not have volunteered for the Army and that I was ambivalent about the mission, but dammit, I served my country when it asked me and for 30 years this country has literally spit upon Vietnam veterans and run from our destiny as leaders of the free world.

So Veteran’s Day always leaves me testy and concerned about the future of this country when our warriors are disrespected and misused in unfocused missions. The President has cut and run from victory to appease his supporters the spiritual children of those who spit on me and my brother warriors. I don’t really care about Mayor McLaughlin and her disrespect for our soldiers. What I do care for is our country. I worry about a future where politicians do not even pretend to respect our veterans and our history. Without our veterans, we would have lost our country long ago. With politicians like Gayle McLaughlin, we won’t have it much longer.

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

CNS November 6, 2011 No Naked Dining?

Posted by Ralph at 05:17 Headline News

Nov 062011

What’s your image of San Francisco?

Forbidden pleasures? Anything goes? The BART tunnel under the bay? Alcatraz? Hordes of smelly homeless people?

SF has a well deserved reputation.

It is stunning visually with graceful towers rising out of the bay and a unique cable car experience to get visitors up and down the steep hills. Then there are the great restaurants catering to every budget and taste. It’s also the place were individual liberty is indulged, protected and encouraged from the homeless people clamoring for change on market street to the gay lovers holding hands in the Castro. San Francisco is the place where anything goes without even a pretense of old fashioned conservative values. Los Angeles is often satirized as the home of the fruits and nuts but LA is more like your grandmother while San Francisco is a high priced slut.

San Francisco is a great place to visit because you can pretend that you are crossing the line while remaining perfectly safe. All that tantalizing and questionable living going on right under your nose but you can enjoy it vicariously without risk. When in LA you quickly penetrate the facade of glamor and sin and discover that underneath you find a lifestyle that wouldn’t be out of place in Des Moines. Not so, San Francisco. Wherever you scratch the surface in San Francisco you find life that is bohemian at its best and downright otherworldly at its worst.

The possibilities are limitless!

Everything in San Francisco is geared for possibilities. The City fathers don’t like to inhibit your expression of whatever might be going on in your head. It has never been clear to me whether the motivation is to make a city which is comfortable as an old shoe to weirdos of all types or just a magnificent marketing ploy to attract schlumps with aspirations. Whatever the motive, San Francisco today is a place unlike any other and world renown as a place you want to be. But look at this.

San Francisco Bans Naked Dining…Here’s Why

So what’s up?

So when I saw this headline about San Francisco banning naked dining I was very confused. For years San Francisco was constantly looking for limits to push. No barrier was too trivial to break in the search for limitless options and opportunities. And yet, here in the 21st century, instead of breaking down old barriers, San Francisco begins to build new ones. Now, after all the years of freedom from convention, you can’t dine naked in San Francisco. Think about that! Something is actually banned in San Francisco. It is mind blowing. Now two of the three great desires of man cannot be enjoyed together. (The three are food, sex and money, of course .) Now in San Francisco, if you want food and sex, you need to have them separately or remain fully clothed- and what’s the fun with that?.

It’s the end of the world as we know it!

I think this means the beginning of the end for San Francisco. It marks the weakening of the resolve and clarity of focus that has marked San Francisco over it’s history. Never before has San Francisco buckled before a challenge. Never before has the city by the bay taken back a freedom. When I see that the only reason given is that it endangers public health, I know that the end of San Francisco as we know it is near.

What’s next? Air freshener in Chinatown?

When public health is considered more important than personal freedom then San Francisco has sunk to the level of Los Angeles or even Des Moines and with that kind of thinking, how long will San Francisco continue to be a tourist mecca. I think it’s all over.

I have to admit that naked dining is not a frequent pastime around our household and it isn’t a calling card at any of the local restaurants we frequent. Still the idea of naked dining does stoke some inner fires and the reality that when San Francisco bans naked dining it makes me wonder what they will be banning next.

So what do you think?

Does this new ban make you think differently about San Francisco. Will you be seeking a different city for that vacation you have been saving for? And what’s your take on naked dining? This may be an opportunity for Des Moines.

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Older Entries Newer Entries