Down with California

 Posted by at 06:13  Down with
Dec 132012
 
Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10), eastboun...
Image via Wikipedia

“California invented the concept of lifestyle. This alone warrants their doom.” Don DeLillo

I chose California

I wasn’t born in California. Missouri gets that honor. But I have lived in California long enough that nowhere else can claim my allegiance. When I came to California, and Los Angeles in particular, it was like dying and going to heaven. I hated the years I spent in the provincial East gagging on their cultural pretension and I had been desperate in my youth to escape the conventionalism of my midwest home. My take on California was that it was the midwestern idea of heaven. It had all the virtues of midwestern lifestyle with none of the drawbacks. You could buy anything you wanted, anytime and anywhere and the climate was perfect. No snow, except in the mountains where it was useful for skiing. Very little annoying rain with the necessary water being imported from elsewhere. There was culture but no pretension. There were great schools, great roads and parking anywhere you needed it -for free. What was not to like?

California Dreaming

Even then, in 1970, when I would drive the Santa Monica Freeway to the beach, I remember looking at the Hollywood Hills and thinking how fantastic LA must have been in the 40’s or 50’s. Raymond Chandler was in the air. Still, even in paradise, life happens and I lost myself in the excitement of marriage, family and job. Gradually the spirit of California began to change. The can do, pioneer attitude became a feeling of ‘I’ve got mine. Too bad for you.” Politicians began to turn on the automobile which made LA possible. Jerry Brown, when he became governor stopped building freeways because building more freeways just encouraged more cars. This insight led him to limit other infrastructure investments as well. In the 70’s California was at the top of all states in infrastructure and driving the freeways was pleasure. Today after 30 years of neglect, it is near the bottom in every category despite having the highest taxes in the country and the the LA freeways are a bad joke.

Starve Infrastructure, Feed Politicians!

You might wonder where all that money, not being spent on infrastructure, went. If not spending money on infrastructure means low taxes, maybe the private sector would step in the fill the void and make California even better. Alas, Jerry Brown and his political hack friends had a better Idea for using that money. They created a new class of professional politicians, well supported with high pay for political service either on an elected basis or on appointed commissions. Today, California is run by the highest paid bunch of political hacks the world has ever known. They have no worries and no accountability even when they are incapable and unwilling to perform the normally expected tasks. California is bankrupt in everything but name. The economy is wrecked. Businesses are leaving due to the high tax burden and wretched services but the political class is unworried. With an education system that teaches kids that they are wonderful without ever having to earn their way, voters want their legislators to care, not to manage and so they continue to elect them. Politicians can’t balance a budget but they can ban supermarkets from giving you a plastic bag. They know what is important. Currently they are debating the earth-shattering concern about aluminum bats which might be dangerous for little league rs. We may not have jobs in California but our kids will be safe.

Time to give up on California?

It is a tough dilemma for someone who remembers what California used to be before the politicians sucked it dry. How bad does it have to get before you give up on the golden state? And where can you go? Can California wake up and slough off the leeches that suck it dry? I have my doubts. I’m afraid that it is too late and that there is too much denial from native Californians schooled on the feel good philosophy pervading the culture. Then again look who is running for governor again this year – Jerry Brown. I don’t know what there is left for him to wreck but it does have me worried. Missouri starts to look better all the time.

Ralph

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

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Coots have the computer blues!

 Posted by at 04:23  rants
Oct 082012
 
Error (EP)

Image via Wikipedia

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” — Albert Einstein

Computers: You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them

Cantankerous Old Coots are dealing with the scourge of modern existence today- computer problems. This week Bob’s computer just won’t connect to the internet. And you know what that means – we finally found a way to shut Bob up. It’s not a complete solution because Bob still can Skype. He can still write too ( if that is what you call his rambling rants) but without the internet he can’t share his wisdom.  And that pisses Bob off!

Bob is no computer whiz but what he lacks in knowledge, he more than makes up in brute force. Any moment now, I expect to feel the blast of hot air from the Georgia backwoods when he finally wills his computer into submission and gets connected with civilization again. Meanwhile, it’s just another rainy day in California while I fill the vacuum here at Coots.

Computers have changed our lives

Bob’s misadventures with computers, just remind me how dramatically computers have changed our lives. We haven’t reached the deadly evil genius computers like HAL in 2001, a Space Odyssey. What we have today is actually much worse. Computers have become something far more destructive and insidious than HAL ever dreamed of being. We used to joke about government bureaucracy and senseless rules and red tape that stopped us from living our lives. That was then. This is now. That government stuff hasn’t gone away but today we are far more constrained by computers constantly telling us no than we ever were by bureaucrats. And when you are fighting you computer, there is no recourse.

We understand humans

Bob is a good example. When Bob gets messed up by a bureaucrat, he knows what to do. He knows who to talk to and what buttons to push. Not everybody has Bob’s connections, outweighs the police department and knows how to start a strategic lawsuit, but most of us know how to talk to people and bug them until they have to respond. None of that stuff works with computers. You can sit on them, threaten a law suit and talk at them until you are blue in the face. It won’t make a difference. No wonder Bob is flummoxed.

Who are you going to call?

But Bob is not alone. Sure you can call the Geek Squad or whatever the marginally computer literate computer service guys call themselves in your neck of the woods but once you do that, it is all over because first they will babble some nonsense at you. Then they will fuss around for a while and sigh. And finally they will happily sell you a new computer because something got corrupted in your old one. If you try to debug on your own, the computer pretends to be helpful and gives you cryptic messages but it is all a sham to make you feel guilty. Soon you become frustrated and buy the idea that it is not the computers fault that it won’t work. It is all your fault. So when you finally give up in desperation, you are no longer mad at your computer, you are mad at yourself. Buying a new computer is your penance for being so stupid and ruining you old one. They have us cowed!

Here’s hoping that Bob prevails and gets his computer back in line. If anybody can do it, it will be Bob. Me, I no longer fuss at my computer. I don’t pretend any knowledge or mastery at fixing problems. I give up and buy a new one immediately.

Ralph

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

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Apr 082012
 

Down with consistency!

hobgoblins abound

Nothing to fear

They tell you that consistency is  the hobgoblin of small minds- whatever that is supposed to mean. We can’t be bothered by consistency here at Cantankerous Old Coots. One reason is that by the time you get into your dotage like this Coot, consistency is out of the question. I have done so many things in so many ways that practicing consistency would mean complete paralysis.

So today, Up with Inconsistency. 

The Coot’s News Service is a perfect example of inconsistency. We’ve reported good news. We’ve reported bad news. We have even reported no news. There is no question that CNS is not burdened with any hobgoblins, small though our minds may be. We go all over the map for our news report each week. The news stories today are no exception.  Today we’ve got News you can use.

Most news is useless. 

Most of the time news is titillating but essentially useless. You may be interested in a story about a military jet crashing into an apartment complex but aside from the fact that it wasn’t your apartment complex, you are no better off reading it. Newspapers, TV newscasts and the entire content of CNN and Fox News do nothing to make your life better. They sure won’t make you happy and there is nothing you can do to affect any of it anyway.  Bottom line, the time you spend watching or reading is a total waste of your time.

Today’s CNS is a game changer.

Today’s stories actually provide useful, actionable information that, acted upon can change your life for the better. Take this first story.

All Academic Fields of Study, Ranked by Realness

These days picking a major in college can be very difficult, with all the new categories. How can you pick a field of study that actually contains real, useful information that might actually prepare you to provide value to an employer? Use this handy guide to keep your college education real and avoid courses that contain only empty calories and leave you holding a big student loan debt when you can’t get a job.  Choose wisely!

The next story is valuable only to residents of my state of California who live in constant denial of reality. Californian’s are brainwashed from birth to believe that the way things are in California is the way things ought to be. The group think, government overreach and lack of accountability are accepted as good and the sniping from lesser states is dismissed as mere envy. Californian’s are blind to the truth of their own dysfunction and refuse to accept that Americans despise California and all it stands for.

Americans Hate California Even More Than They Hate New Jersey

There is probably nothing that can wake California from it’s mindless self worship unless and until the 30 percent that can still think for themselves take what resources the state has let them keep and moves out. Dream on California.

Take the stories today and make your life better. If you still believe that a college degree makes you more valuable then at least pick a major that is reality based. And for your own sake build your life in a state with a future. Leave California and head for New Jersey.

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Ralph

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

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Jan 082012
 
Young chinese water dragon

Image via Wikipedia

Are you prepared for the year of the Water Dragon?

Well we may be looking at the Chinese New Year of the Dragon in a few weeks but here in California we are celebrating the Year of the Wolf. It’s been 90 years since anybody saw a wolf in California but now we have a wolf from Idaho seeking fame and fortune in California.

With all the government regulations, only wild creatures like wolves get to roam at will even if they do have to wear the mandatory tracking devices like California’s newest transient OR7. In the old days, wolves were evil creatures who devoured livestock and small children. One of the marks of civilization was eliminating threats like wolf packs; so primitive, our forbears.

That was then.  This is now.

Wild wolves were exterminated from the West in the early 1900s because they were viewed as a threat to livestock. Biologists now recognize that wolves play an important role in managing deer and elk herds and, in turn, the forests they live in.

Now in the more enlightened and nuanced 21st century, it is humans who are seen as the threat. Civilization stops in its tracks because of some obscure snail or bird species and enlightened regulators shut down California agriculture because of some insignificant fish. You might think that Californians would take action to change this destructive course but the reality is that people that actually earn a living in the private sector in California are outnumbered by people who live on the dole- government employees and welfare recipients. The whole state is a Ponzi scheme sucking the life out of anybody stupid enough to work for a living. But I digress.

 So far so good!

gray wolf

Image by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region via Flickr

So here in California, and specifically Northern California we all anticipate the return of the wolf. OR7 seems to be remarkably well behaved during his trek. There have been no attacks on livestock or small children along the way. Of course the scientists have kept track of him as he crossed Oregon and entered California, apparently looking for his own version of a California girl. So far so good. He may be happy in Siskiyou county where there aren’t many people. But I doubt it.

The experts think he is looking for female companionship but nobody seems to have thought about letting him range so far on this foolish quest. There aren’t any other wolves here, male or female. I see disaster in the future for OR7. He is either doomed to a long and lonely life or even worse, those unstoppable government busybodies will intervene and play dating game with OR7. It’s either a lonely future or an arranged marriage. I can’t believe the government will let OR7 die lonely. For California, it’s the year of the wolf.

 

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Ralph

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

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