Friday

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/hillary-clinton-sexism-bernie-sanders-215375

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/on-campus-this-halloween-free-to-be-you-but-maybe-not-me/ar-BBmDp3G?li=AA54ur&ocid=mailsignout

In both of these cases, of course...I think people are being ridiculous and need to be called for it, though I did tell my coworkers that I suspected the Louisville case was done simply to get them to talk about something other than the hookers/hoops scandal...which, as you can imagine, everyone found to be amusing...

So, watched "The Exiles" yesterday, a film about wayward Native Americans...all I can say, it was only an hour.  This puts me to 360...I think I can get to 400...if I pushed myself.

Finally finished Thucydides; I need to get through some magazines that are accumulating, and then I can move on to the next oeuvre sitting on the table.  Very..well, cynical?  Realpolitik?  I suspect, of course, it is simply because we refuse to assign the ancients the fact that they were capable, if not moreso, of pulling the same crap as us...

I see the Blue Jays hired Shapiro...I would LOVE to be a GM in the AL East right now...

Explode!

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/10/ohio_food_stamp_decision_promp.html#incart_river

I always get a kick out of these stories; I mean, if some GOPer today proposed something like the CCC -- which was a giant welfare/public works/feeding people series of projects -- does anyone really think that the Dems/social justice warriors wouldn't go apeshit?  I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to pull something like it now, as the public sector unions and the contractors would go apeshit over the loss of business, even though there is plenty to go around...

Watched "Jailhouse Rock" yesterday on TCM...I mean, I think I expected a later Elvis film, which are all music and dancing; this one had some semblance of a plot (corny as it is) and drama, and the music wasn't exactly omnipresent, if you get my drift...so while it wasn't the Matt favorite, it wasn't awful, either...

Amusement

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-22/police-agencies-fold-in-st-louis-area-as-ticket-blitzes-stop

I find these stories amusing, because -- if you think about it -- the large majority of these towns are run by Democrats, and the party of social justice, the party of promoting minorities...is now nailing minorities and condemning them to lives of debt and injustice.  But, all of those government workers need their salaries, don't they?

Watched "Young Mr. Lincoln" last nite...I liked it -- Zanuck and Fonda -- though it was...well, a high pastiche of treasured Lincoln stories, how he Mrs. Lincoln, early rivalry with Douglas, etc... I was thinking how I haven't seen that many films with Henry Fonda... "Once Upon A Time in the West" is on it, in a plays-against-type role..."Grapes of Wrath" is on it, which is definitely one...but off-hand, I can't recall any others...  I am sure there are, though.  I always seem to put him and Jimmy Stewart together, even though they are completely different, but they both have a certain..well, moral quality about them that put them in certain roles.

Retiring

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/the-401-k-crisis-is-getting-worse/ar-BBmhbUd?li=AAa0dzB

I don't know; I mean, on the one hand, if you don't want to partake of your own retirement, that is on you...on the other hand, the Obama plan for My IRA is wise, aside from the fact that putting the money in government securities -- when the return on a T-bill is zero -- is pretty dumb.  Splitting the difference -- say, everyone invests in an IRA, you find one -- would be the smartest thing, as it would force people to consider their own retirement...let me assure you, from my experience in social justice, is that nothing works like reality therapy.

I've been putting in 20-30 pages of Thucydides a day...more if possible, just because I need to, and it IS interesting; not only politics and history, but those snippets of culture you don't get elsewhere.  In some ways it is less enjoyable than Herodotus -- a better storyteller -- but more informative.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rahm-emanuel-reaps-the-whirlwind-of-democratic-rule/2015/10/14/2bad09d2-71d4-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines

The Curley effect is fascinating to me; I've downloaded some articles about it, and will blog about it once I fully digest it...

Intelligence

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2015/10/19/examining-plummeting-obamacare-enrollment-part-i/2/

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/many-low-income-workers-say-%E2%80%98no%E2%80%99-to-health-insurance/ar-AAfDrEw?li=AAa0dzB

I've always found it fascinating that all that went wrong in Iraq has been relentlessly chronicled, but failures like this -- going from 20 to 10 million is hardly a success, to say nothing of a bold-face lie -- is given minimal, if any, shrift.   I realize of course that there is liberal bias, and this is something a bit more complex -- people getting insured is good, and the fact that is too expensive, unsustainable, not done intelligently -- well, who cares, and of course, journalists get into the profession to help people...and we all know where good intentions get you.  But, and this comes from my vast experience...is that journalists are simply too dumb to put all of this together; I mean, the job entails writing at a fifth-grade level, and you just cannot communicate things at that level.  I also wonder if THIS is why print media is dying; you can get better stuff out there online, you just have to look for it.

The Mets are surprising me, though I guess -- given their superior rotation -- I should not be; I mean, if they could handle the Dodgers, Arrieta, Lester, and crew aren't exactly Koufax and Drysdale, if you get my drift...though they are good pitchers.  Indeed, I would posit that Maddon and his Francona-style bullpen machinations are a tacit acceptance of that fact...

Films

Me and my non-blogging.  Anyways, last nite I had a good reason not to; namely, two recovered silent films were on TCM...The first, "The Grim Game," starred Harry Houdini in a something of a thriller...it was pretty good.  You were able to see him do some of his escape tricks (the film is basically a vehicle for them), which was pretty nifty.  The second was "Sherlock Holmes," the film version of the play that saw plenty of showings in its time; similarly, the Holmes in that film was the Jeremy Brett of his day.  I liked it...it was not quite as canonical (Holmes falls in love with the heroine!) and seemed a pastiche of the stories, but it did have some of the main characters (Watson, Moriarty) and the story was not the worst...

I've made some list progress.  "Roger & Me" I saw Friday...not the worst film, I actually liked it...not very Moore, if you will.  One thing that did amuse me was...if you think about it, it is the lefty/greenies/Hope and Changers who do NOT drive domestics nowadays.  As I say, look around the office parking lot...  "Lassie Come Home" was on TCM Saturday, so I watched that...lovely.  Ok, not my thing.  "Pull My Daisies," a short made by The Beat Generation. was about as lovely, similarly.  Two silents of note I've seen:  "Lady Windemere's Fan," a Lubitsch film -- you know, you hear about his touch, and this film showed it...no sound, but the impressive nature of how he used the camera to show nuance...not a lot of guys could do it.  The 1913ish "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was also pretty good; it starred African-Americans, which was pretty amazing for its time, and I thought it did a decent job of summarizing the novel, too.

Up to page 244 of Thucydides (about 520 in the book)...I put some time in it this weekend, and I think I made a dent.  One thing I love is the battle descriptions...he was a general, and in those days they fought at the front, so he knew of what he spoke...

Quick Hits

I know I need to post more, but..

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/syria-obama-putin-russia-discord-214677
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hope-fades-on-obama%E2%80%99s-vow-to-bring-troops-home-before-term-ends/ar-AAfoa1I?li=AA54ur

These two articles, I think, pretty much sum up the foreign "policy" of the President; namely, naive failure and blundering...I mean, I don't think anyone would mind too much if Russians and ISIS members killed each other anywhere, but that is only the ONLY useful benefit of the exercise for the US.  As for the second...as I like to say, that's why, after WWII, the US pulled its troops out of Germany and Japan and everywhere else, because, after all, if one of the world's most civilized countries needed a permanent policeman...well, you get the drift.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensavage/2015/10/09/the-organic-farming-yield-gap/

I actually think this is the plan and the goal...

Anyways, watched "Gentleman's Agreement" today; not on the list, but it might be -- Kazan's 1947 look at AntiSemitism by having Gregory Peck go undercover as a Jew...pretty interesting, honestly; maybe a little preachy, but...this was 1947...

Hmmm

http://highschoolsports.cleveland.com/news/article/-8409527149398245364/st-edward-football-needed-3-meals-2-busses-and-19750-to-schedule-florida-opponents/#incart_river

What I find fascinating about this is that, save for Florida law...we would never get ANY sense of the costs of this.  It doesn't sound like all that much cash, which leads me to believe that...um, additional funding was provided.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/most-americans-get-free-stuff-from-the-government/

Something that a lot of people -- mainly liberals, but others -- tend to forget is that nothing is free; something costs something, and someone (preferably someone else) has to pay for it.  What motivates the anti-spending conservative is the fact that, at every "transaction," the cost goes up -- handling fees, corruption, etc., -- and the transparency disappears...and eventually, you figure out if you do not spend the money in the first place, you're actually ahead...Big Farm subsidies for instance, the money spent on the welfare system; hell, even school vouchers, if you think about it, stems from this very notion.  Obviously, it doesn't work all the time, but one suspects if it was tried, it would work more often than not...

Alive

Infinite busyness here...and to top it off, this weekend was the Polish Festival, and I turned in yet another three days in the kitchen.  Oi.  I am a little beat and sore -- not the person I once was, obviously -- but I think it went well (the bakery prices were completely reasonable, for one) and I do have three days of leftovers, FWIW.  Didn't read any Thucydides, and have a shelf full of films -- Netflix and otherwise -- to read.  No baseball, though, means I can get through some of them...

I don't think any of the rotation will be traded; for one thing, they are young, for another, they are cheap, both of which make them more valuable for the pieces parts...I suspect that a focus on improving defense would be the focus by the front office; I mean, if you can't win 9-8, you may as well win 2-1...