Leaving this cold and this damp

December 9, 2013 – getting ready to play that old blues number “Goin to the ATM, Sorry but I can't take you”.

Rockvale, TN - - Oh, boy! Thursday afternoon I get to go get on an airplane and fly down to Miami for a private party gig. Things have been worse.

Recently, you may have noticed the absolute plethora, not to say busload, of Make Money On The Internet ads showing up on your browser of choice. We here at the vast Panama Red Music compound have noticed these, too, and have researched them mightily. And for just one payment of $97, we'll show you the one sure-fire way to make money on the Internet. Write us. This method really works.  

Have had an ongoing coyote problem at the cattery lately, lost 4 of our favorite little guys, reducing the population of felines by about 25% before we got hip and started keeping the cats in at night. Old coyote been treating my back deck like a buffet. Gave me an idea for the fruit fly solution:

1. Trap a male coyote
2. Give him a vasectomy
3. Release him back into the coyote population

Lookin' forward to Friday, Miami.

Over and Out

Panama

LIGHTING THE DARK CONTINENT

AFRICA AT NIGHT: check it out: 

Here's a map of the middle of the world, showing Eurasia and Africa.


As you can see, Eurasia has a lot of lights and Africa doesn't have many.

I meet a strange Zimbabwean M.D lady, trained in the United States, and with a thriving practice here in Middle Tennessee, who regularly cycles between lectures in Buenos Aires and Bengladish, as well as the U.N., and she interests me and us into putting together a package to demonstrate the ease of installing 24-hour-a-day solar lighting in clinics throughout the Dark Continent.

A tete a tete is performed. Friendships develop. I get on the internet.

Now, I've run my whole career as a non-profit, though never intentionally, but nonetheless this comes easy to me. It ain't nothin new.

So I find out a busload about solar power available nowadays. I am not surprised that a) it ain't changed that much since I first studied it, and b) the technology side ain't changed that much, either. So that c) anybody can do it.

What's happenin' these days is flexible solar panels. It's a long story, fraught with intrigue, but the upshot is that nobody in America is makin these panels.

I get in touch with some folks in China because that's where it all went when the Koreans and Germans aped it from Stan Ovshinsky's estate in Detroit.

Over the course of months the Panama team deep in their underground warrens, puts together a package cruise that will display two rollup adhesive panels, a charge controller, two 12V 21 Amp hour batteries, a switch, and two 2 lights, which blaze on with astonishing brightness to reveal, perhaps, the young African mother delivering her child in safety, a young life saved because the medico could adequately see the problem. This gets a green light and a check from the African princess and we send off for the parts.

The parts come. 

                                              -30- for now

The Liverpool Lads and Their Contribution to Modern Radiology Rockvale, TN, October 24, – Electric and Musical Industries, Ltd was a British firm which had been in the electric and musical business since the early 1930s. Mostly you read about EMI on Wikipedia in connection with music, but before the Beatles arrived on the scene, EMI was most highly valued for their contributions to the British war effort in World War II. Had there been no Beatles, there would have been no enormous interest in records. And the Wiki article would not be so gushily slanted as a result. EMI did a lot of radar and microwave stuff. Still, they kept their hand in the record biz, but even being a major player in a specialized market, which is what music was before the British Invasion, didn't count as their chief source of income. They made their money the old-fashioned way. They invented. They were scientists, not pop stars. One of their scientists was a fellow named Godfrey Hounsfeld. Along about the beginning of the 1950s he had an idea: If you could take enough x-rays of the human body, it might be possible to mathematically manipulate the resultant images in such a way as to show the area of interest in cross-section. There was one overwhelming problem, however: it would take a lot of math. Later, Hounsfeld realized that a computer would do the trick and began to work on an idea that would ultimately become the first transistorized computer in Britain. This took a long time, however. The research and development was extremelyexpensive, even for EMI, so the idea was shelved and then re-shelved. George Martin was a young A&R guy at EMI Records, and he heard the Beatles, signed them to the label, and produced their records. The rest, as they say, is history. But not quite. The Beatles not only changed the nature of the record business, taking it from small-time, largely regional endeavors to an actual industry, they also added millions and millions of sudden wealth to EMI. Not having anything to throw all this windfall at, EMI funded Hounsfeld and his x-ray idea. The result was what was at first called EMI-scan. We now know it as Computer Assisted Tomography, or CAT-scan. All other modalities, PET-scans and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), are descendants of Hounsfeld's idea.

So next time you're in an MRI tube, with those incredibly inadequate earplugs which do nothing to block out the 4000 decibel clangs, whams and that rhythmic pattern that reminds you so much of "I Wanna Hold You Hand" (I can't hide!  I can't hide!  I can't hiiiiide!) you'll know why.

Panama

Homeland Insecurity: Remembering September 11

Homeland Insecurity: Remembering September 11

Rockvale TN, September 11, 2013 - - Twelve years ago at about this time, 2:55 pm Amsterdam time, I was sitting in the Joost Pub when somebody came in and told Willem the barman to turn on CNN. When he did there was a picture of a building that had fallen to the ground. A couple of minutes later we watched in horror as a passenger plane crashed into the building next to it.

Like the Kennedy assassination, everybody who experienced 911 knows where they were and what they were doing when the Twin Towers collapsed. And like the Kennedy assassination unsolved mysteries remain. I saw the second tower implode and I have opinions that would brand me accurately as a conspiracy theorist. But that's ground well (but not well enough) gone over, and we're not going to go there today.

What I want to write about today is the aftermath of that horrible event.

As everyone freely acknowledges, the shock of that event made it possible for plans to unfold that would lead us into what will no doubt prove to be failed and wasted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the expense of still thousands more lives both dead and ruined.

911 also made possible the creation of Homeland Security, and I have to say that when I heard the word “Homeland” I had an icy feeling of where we were headed, and here we are, with the NSA , capable of spying on our own citizens, but incapable, apparently, of

using data handed to us by the Russians to prevent the Boston Marathon massacre. For me, “Homeland” carries the same tyrannic connotations as “the Fatherland” did for Nazi Germany, or “Mother Russia” for the bolsheviks.

And as everyone knows, (but nobody has done anything about {WHY?}) we were lied into those wars in which billions were lost. Not misspent, not misappropriated, though of course some were, but literally picked up and carried away, to parts unknown by parties unknown.

The fact of the fabrications of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, and countless others who were either in on the ruse or dupes themselves, has been slowly obliterated by time just as messages on a beach fade with each tide. These traitors have escaped into compensated retirement, or the World Bank, or they show up on television now and again as “experts on terror”, which of course they certainly are, having generated quite a bit of it themselves..

Their crimes, and they were crimes, have faded from memory because now we worry about other things: fat cats who figuratively give the Homeland the finger by living here and paying their taxes cheaply elsewhere, for example. Health problems that could be ameliorated with an affordable diet for all, and education levels that are such that thousands of “institutions of learning” make their bones by offering nonsensical glamourous courses to student loan applicants, who do not find work once they graduate, but who nevertheless owe a great deal of money they cannot pay back.

Today, all across the Homeland, there are more payday loan places and pawnshops than there are fast food restaurants. Prices are cheap at WalMart because the pay is so low that many of its employees are on food stamps and Medicaid. If the minimum wage had kept pace with what it was in 1967, it would now be on the order of $20 per hour.,

Whether a calculated plan carried out, or a genuine terrorist event allowed to happen, or a complete surprise to the American government, the shape of America was changed on September 11, 2001. Now it doesn't seem so farfetched that the NSA is functioning with no oversight, that the homeless veteran is no longer an anomaly, that 1% of the population control nearly half the assets of the Homeland. We look on the wealthy with admiration and envy, rather than the utter rage we should be feeling.

The effects of the manifesto drafted by the Project for a New American Century, which called for an event “similar to Pearl Harbor”, is still with us. The specter of unbridled government control is imposed by those simultaneously calling for smaller government. The country has gone to hell in a bucket while we have watched reality television and the Kardashians, and paid our credit cards with more credit until we have none left.

There is no security in the Homeland.

FLUFFY GUY UPDATE

Rockvale, TN, September 9, 2013 - - You'll remember, or maybe not so much, my story of how Fluffy Guy showed up at the Boarding House lookin all completely matted and just horribly disreputable. If you didn't see it, you can go back to June right here on this site, and re-read all about it.

But if you do remember, I thought I'd bring you up to speed on this pilgrim's progress into the world of cats who live amicably with people. You'll recall that he was, when he first came, the actual living breathing definition of the word scrofulous. He was so completely fur all stuck together and infested with ticks and fleas that we were unable to tell much about him except that he didn't like people or other kitties very much. It took us two months of work and snipping and brushing and combing and gentle sweet talking to get him, or at least his hirsute parts, straightened out. He only hung around during all this for the food.

When we had taken care of the obvious grooming challenges that were Fluffy Guy(we called him that, perhaps in hope), we could tell that he had come to us with other defects as well, among which most worrisome was the fact that somehow his nether parts, those back there towards his tail, were out of whack. He was unable to use his hind legs for jumping, so that we were given cause to wonder if this were the result of some trauma involving stick, broom, or car because he was certainly malformed back there.

We decided to wait and see. Waiting and seeing was a lot cheaper than taking him to the vet where we already have a bill as large as the gross domestic product of San Marino.

So we waited and watched. Gradually, amazingly, his little bottom began to fill out. He became more and more capable of actually leaping. And running.

And as time went on we also became aware that this cat, who had come to us looking almost exactly as disgusting and old as this wino Sam that I used to know back in the Est Village, was in actual fact a very young cat. Indeed, he was a kitten. With an extremely large head and upper body for sure but a small bottom, now filling out. Also now filling out were a couple of other parts, round in nature, so we took him to the chop shop and had these parts dealt with. We hadn't closely observed the not very largeness of them before due to all the matted fur and the yowling and scratching and biting.

So, over time, Fluffy Guy has become a clean kitty, who now takes extra special care of his personal grooming himself. Patty has gotten into the habit of combing all the cats to get the occasional stray flea off their little faces, and Fluffy is always first in line.

So I guess he's here to stay. He's a clean little guy now, and sometimes I'll wake up just before dawn to find him snuggled up to my back, snoozing away. He has a few toys to play with, as the older cats are too dignified for such foolishness as exercise with no reward. Sometimes when I'm walking past the breakfront he'll be playing MONSTER! and reach out and grab my feet (but ever so gently) from underneath it.

He has discovered that the parquet floor in the kitchen is fabulous for sliding, and now skates around the island in the middle. If you pick him up he starts purring.

I know. I have a lot of cats. But I'm glad that this just one more came into our lives while he was still malleably young, and didn't grow up wild not ever knowing love or human kindness.  Pray, if you do that sort of thing, for Peace on Earth.

Panama

Dropping out electronically

I like Democrats, really do, am one myself.  In my family we's all Democrats except for my stoopid brother.
This past week I got a notice from ATT, which handles all my commo stuff, my computer blather like this, my internet TV, everthang.  What it said was that I was nearing my limit of kilobytes or somethin.  Burnin up my time on the internet, in short.  And every extra 50 kb or so would cost me $10.

So I got to looking and realized that half of my incoming mail was from the Democrats wanting more $ so they could continue to battle the Repugnicans.  Well, really, what with the spying an all, I figure they's all on the same side anyway, that is, the OTHER side of the one I'm on, whatever that may be.

Then, of course I also got mail from upworthy, newsmax, the list is practically endless.
So I began to go through the list of messages and unsubscribe from everybody.

Now, this morning, I find that I am not getting any messages asking me for $3 so Barack can continue being everything he said he was not going to be and everything he is not that he said he was going to be, or so that some Congressman hopeful from Boogaloo County in Louisiana can compete in a primary so he can compete in an election in Boogaloo County, a county that has been 99% Repugnican for the last 40 years.

I still donate to Alan Grayson, but I do that without getting any kb usage; they just call once a month or so and if I have a few bucks I give it to them.
If you notice that you're getting a lot of stuff from the Democrats (or Republicans, depending on your faith), I not so humbly suggest that you disassociate yourself from it all.
It's calm here this morning.  
panama

Fluffy Guy Shows Up At the Katterij

Fluffy Guy Shows Up At the Katterij

Rockvale TN, Sometime in Mid-June: Lord, you shoulda seen him. Christ! Where did this cat come from here in Rockvale that whoever has let him deteriorate to this state?

Big disgusting mats of fur hangin offa him, poor guy. Ticks. Fleas. Took weeks to get his trust, calm him down, get a few snips with the scissors before the growling set in.

Gradually, though, he's been coming around to a more civilized viewpoint. Now, don't get me wrong: I don't hold with no tryin to civilize a cat that wants to be feral. And if Fluff decides he's ready to take off, that'll be fine. He'll just do it having been repaired.

It is amazing to me how flat-out mean and irresponsible people can be when it comes to other critters. Then bitch about how many feral critters there are. However I've been flat-out mean and irresponsible myself. But anyway, lately he's been enduring the wire brush getting alla that undercoat out – it is amazing how much fur keeps coming off in the brush. Winter hair that he shoulda been able to do himself. But I can only surmise that he didn't spend enough time with his mommy, because she woulda taught him better. Most of em do, anyhow.

Anyway, as time has gone on and he's lived in a community of cats who do not fight but instead have a close-knit tribal relationship thing goin on, he's begun to exhibit traits of civilized behaviour. Been starting to come out of “in there” and take calmer notice of his surroundings. Still got too many parasites on him to gain complete entrance to the Inner Sanctum, but he knows it's a good place.

When he first came we fed him on the patio table – (up high, pretty easy to leap and run any direction) – by putting the plate of food on the table and then completely ignoring him.

But it's been about a month now and the cats have their own access to the house, which he's recently found out about, and so he's been coming in to take his dinner on the floor (separate plates) with the natives.

So he's kind of been trying to be a good kitty lately, whatever that is, is my point, and startin to be political. He is starting to think he might like it here, and he's workin it. He's a hoot. Been sneakin into the house whenever he can. 'Course he doesn't realize what's in store for him, go or stay. A little snip. Et viola! Yet another social problem solved by the Lone Pensioner.