300

"Championship Bowling" host Fred Wolf
often said, "If you can do it with a
pencil, you can do it with a bowling ball." 
I can assure you that you cannot write
with a bowling ball.  Nor can you do
some other things I can't talk about
here, because this is a family blog.

I've hit 300!

Today marks the 301^st post on the “WannaBet” blog, something I started on a lark nearly 10 years ago.  This blog has come a long way since then.  As have I. 

Since all communication has purpose, the purpose of the blog back then was to go hand-in-hand with the release of my first ebook about Poker.  “All the trades” said that in order to promote your wares, “ya gotta have a blog,” so I did.  I wasn’t hard to convince, since I like to write.  Always have, though I haven’t always put myself out there.

Those of you who knew me back when might recall that I was a very shy individual until about 8^th grade when I did something very stupid; I ran for class Vice President.  Really, I did, even though
(a) those things are always popularity contests, not actually about who has the best “platform” or “ideas”,
(b) I knew this, and
(c) I was very very unpopular.  

Why yes, it was a disaster, and you’d think that would have shut me up and locked me into a deep dungeon for years.  It almost did, but then I got the idea to run for homeroom president in 9^th grade and actually won.  How could this happen?  Well, I was only president for the first semester, because I agreed to share the position with another non-cool-kid and we basically split the cool-kids vote so that we’d win each time.  We were math people and we could add – we knew there were more uncool kids than cool kids in our homeroom, and cool kids don’t do math.

But it wasn’t until I found out about radio in high school that I really came out of my shell.  I still wasn’t cool, but I didn’t feel bad about myself anymore.  Hell, I even tried out for a class play my senior year, and that was something else (and I got a part, though not the one I tried out for).  Acting was different than radio because in radio NO ONE SEES YOU and yet you still can communicate with the audience.  As an actor, everyone sees you.  Still, I didn’t wet myself, so it turned out OK.

I never set the radio world on fire, but being in the industry (briefly the first time) gave me more confidence, something I lacked in spades.  I matured enough to get a job, start a career, get married*, the whole nine yards.  One thing I began to do in my off-hours of work (where ever I worked, in a variety of jobs) was write.  Writing was like radio in that you could communicate but people didn’t see you (so you could really put yourself out there without fear).  Of course, few people (if any) saw any of what I wrote, but it felt good in a way that I didn’t understand back then.  Call it cathartic if you will, but writing filled a need I didn’t know I had.

At some point my writing “skills” tiptoed into my work.  I decided my memos at the bank no longer had to be boring, so I spiced ‘em up so that people would actually READ them (isn’t that the point?).  I wrote about my memos back in 2016 in this post here if you’re interested, my point being that I had learned that the idea of writing was to communicate EFFECTIVELY (even if it pissed off the brass at the bank).  I endeavored to improve my writing skills, and broaden I wrote about.

From the bank to the university to being back in radio to marketing research, I wrote all sorts of stuff.  Newsletters, memos, reports; and in each one I tried to use my “voice” – speaking plainly, with a dash of humor, always trying to effectively get my point across.  I thought I succeeded well enough.

But one day…I was facing complete unemployment, wondering what in hell I’d do for a living, having gone through several “careers” and facing another 15-20 years of my life before I could hope to retire.  The answer?  WRITING!  I did a bunch of freelance work, was a reporter for a weekly paper in Boise, and discovered two things:
(1) I loved to write, and
(2) there was no way in hell I could make enough money by writing alone.  

Fate stepped in with a full-time job at the marketing research center, and then the big change in life running the ice cream parlor, but all the time I kept writing.

Not me.

In the last ten years, most of that writing has appeared here.  Yes, I’m still trying to write a great novel (sometime soon I’ll tell you about attempt #3).  The blog serves me as an outlet for some of my anger and frustration.  I try not to be an angry old man yelling at clouds.  Early on I used my blog as a megaphone to push for online poker in the US (which dried up about the same time I wrote the poker books and started the blog, ironically).  Sheldon Adelson was my big adversary then; later on, it was “the former guy” aka the Orange Menace who incurred much of my wrath.  There’s been humor, and whimsy, but mainly WannaBet was a mirror on how I felt that day, that week.  There have been a few good times and a lot of struggles.  Things are looking up now, and hopefully I’ll share more mirth here sooner rather than later.

There have been noticeable gaps when I didn’t post anything for months (in a couple of cases, more than a year).  I’ve still been writing – mostly online screeds or diatribes on social media (and all those attempts at novel writing).  I realize now that the former was time wasted, as I was actually trying to convince folks on the other side of their folly using logic.  Yeah, pretty stupid, I know.  You know how that turned out.  The tinfoil anti-antifa crowd distains things like facts and evidence and lives for the slightly off-key music that echoes inside their tiny heads.  I wrote a shitload of words, all for naught.  I won’t make that mistake again, partly because I have a block list that spans a couple of pages now.  Better for my blood pressure, too.

So here I am babbling about, but that’s the great thing about this blog.  It’s free and you, the reader, are always as free to reject what is written, just as I am free to write whatever I please.  I do aim to please, but sometimes my aim is off.  Like being drunk in front of one of those tiny urinals.

Thank you for bearing with me these last 300 posts, and a warning:  There will no doubt be more.

 

* yeah, sometime I’ll talk about my dating prowess (or lack thereof), but I’ll have to be very very drunk to get that started.  Don’t hold your breath.

500K

In a week that saw Ted Cruz depart for Cancun, Rush Limbaugh depart to hell, and Perseverance land on Mars, the news was overlooked.  Or the official number trackers have yet to make it official.

No matter.  If we’re not already there, we will be (sadly) soon enough.

A half-million Americans have died from the coronavirus.

Five Hundred Thousand.

It’s one of the worst administrative disasters in our history, and because it’s dragged on for over a year, it barely makes a blip in the news cycle.

One reason might be the very fact that no one can say for certain just how many have died, exactly.

As of Sunday, WorldOMeters (pictured here – it’s the one I follow) had the count at 511,026.  The COVID Tracking Project says 489,060.  And the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University has 498,794.  Of course, the very fact we can’t get an exact count is also part of that administrative disaster.  The WorldOMeter count blew by 500K on Wednesday; the others will soon follow.

Yet I saw no stories or Op-Eds then about this disaster.  A few started to pop up on Friday, a couple on Saturday, and a few more today (Sunday).  Like this caught people by surprise?

But there’s something more disgusting than having 500,000 dead from COVID, even though that itself is disgusting enough.  No, what really grinds my gears is that a year later, even with 500,000 dead, we’re STILL having arguments about wearing masks.  We’re STILL arguing about keeping our “social distance.” We’re STILL not completely trusting the scientists to do what’s right and get our collective asses out of this fix.

Yes, the vaccines are coming.  They’re here.  They’re being distributed.  But each of the fifty states has their own methods, their own procedures, their own stockpiles.  I’ve said this before and I will say it again:  it’s damn hard to believe that everything not done about the virus and what was done (poorly) wasn’t done that way on purpose just to fuck everything and everybody.

It’s a fucking disaster.

The new administration has been at it for only a month and already things have improved, but there’s still a long way to go.  In the meantime, more will get sick, and more will die.

Yes, there were others who screwed up in dealing with the virus (looking at YOU, Cuomo), but there was one person above all who should shoulder much of the blame.  He KNEW what was happening, and failed miserably. Yes, the “former guy” whose name I shall no longer utter in this blog.

Imagine if he had come out and said, “Y’know, this is gonna be a tough one.  Stay safe, wear a mask, keep your distance, wash your hands.”  That’s it.  Nothing more than that.  Imagine the difference it might have meant.  Imagine if Rush Limbaugh, with his massive audience (OK, not as big as it used to be) said something similar.  Imagine if they didn’t fart around with pushing hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for COVID.  Imagine if they just shut the fuck up and didn’t push push push to “reopen the economy” prematurely.  Imagine if they took the resources that were squandered in the 2017 tax cuts and spread it out among first responders, the unemployed caused by the shutdown, and those in need.

Didn’t do any of that.  And now 500,000 are dead.

And that’s probably a massive undercount.  I’ve seen reports that it could be 600,000 or more.  It’s a staggering number, no matter what the official count is.

And it’s only going up from here.

The Final Flush of Rush

From yesterday's Sacramento News & Review

A tremendous amount of ink was spilled yesterday reporting the death of one radio broadcaster.  As a former radio guy, perhaps I saw more than average, as I belong to several broadcasting-type groups, and have many friends who are still in the industry.  But I don’t recall ever seeing so much commentary about one man who, in my opinion, doesn’t deserve that much praise.  Or any, really.

I exaggerate a bit, but then again, so did Rush Limbaugh.  He was a pious, holy man.  OK, I lie, but so did Rush Limbaugh.  To be fair, Rush was good at what he did.

But what he did was vile.

Rush did what he did for two reasons – one was for Rush (ratings and money) and one was for the Republican cause.  It’s no wonder the right and the far-right, not to mention Fox News and that ilk went bonkers heaping praise on him.  All owe something to Rush.

The truth is, Rush owes everything to Ronnie Reagan.  His gutting of the Fairness Doctrine set the stage for Rush to be Rush, and to dominate the AM airwaves without a General Manager having to worry about that pesky “equal time” nonsense.

Rush also owes a debt to Joe Pyne.   Before Rush there was Pyne, and I mentioned this on a few posts yesterday.  One guy responded that Pyne was mild compared to Rush and Hannity and the loud-mouthed bastards we know today.  I shot back that Pyne was radical for his time.  Also, the Fairness Doctrine was still intact then.  Even though I was just a kid back then, I know Pyne was conservative and controversial.  How can I know?  Simple – my dad never watched talk shows and he never missed Pyne, and politically, my dad is just to the right of Archie Bunker.

About those broadcasting posts, there were as many posts praising Rush as there were criticizing him, and many of the Rush-lovers got their panties in a bunch whenever someone was critical of Rush.  They were horrified that people would say bad things about him…as if Rush never made fun of anyone’s dying – he was notorious about poking fun of gays who died of AIDS, and mocked all sorts of celebrities – as long as they were Democrats.

I had a neighbor who was a Rush fan.  He always would stop me to tell me what Rush said someone said, or what Rush said someone did.  Of course, by the time Rush got around to telling the tale there were bits missing, emphasis changed or added, and just enough fiction tossed in to make what actually was said or actually happened very very different than the way Limbaugh described it.  It was his style too to be “just the guy asking questions here” even though he already knew the answer was bullshit.

From a radio programming perspective, Rush was a “better” broadcaster when he was on the offensive, attacking the Democrats when they held the keys to the kingdom.  He fared less well defending the GOP during the Bush eras as it was harder to pin everything on Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi.  Not that he didn’t try.

Of course, when “the Obama regime” took over in 2009, Rush was in heaven.  Here was a guy he could unload his entire arsenal of hate upon.  There was only one problem; Obama didn’t do much that was wrong.  That didn’t stop El Rushbo from cranking up the “outrage du jour,” whether it be a tan suit or Dijon mustard or Fast ‘n’ Furious.  And then in 2016 it was TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP as Godzilla met King Kong and a love-fest soon followed.

By then Limbaugh’s ratings were a shell of what they used to be when he “wrote books” and “was on television” and was pretty much the only game in town.  Now there’s several NETWORKS of pundits who “do the Limbaugh” and are far more outrageous than he.  By the time Rush got his Medal of Freedom he was yesterday’s news, but he’d never admit it.  Then again, he’d be living in a fantasy-land for the last 30 years, so why stop now?

I obviously was no fan of Limbaugh, but I never wish a person dead.  But he’s no one I wish glad tidings on, either.

Two others in the industry offered their perspectives, and they’re worth reading.  The first is the veteran/legendary Paul Harris.  Rather than excerpt his excellent piece, I link to it here:

http://www.harrisonline.com/rush-to-judgement-day/

The other comes from Jeffrey P. Jones, the Executive Director of the prestigious Peabody Awards and University of Georgia Professor of Entertainment & Media.  He tweeted:

What Rush Limbaugh did to us:

1. Made opponents into true enemies

2. Revived overt and dog whistle racism

3. Stifled attempts to revive the Fairness Doctrine

4. Showed Roger Ailes the formula for right-wing broadcast success

5. Offered ignorance as "common sense" thinking

6. Created an army of listeners with little knowledge and skills in civics or critical thinking into believing themselves political experts

7. Stifled dialogue and said it was OK to talk politics without debate (rarely took calls from those who disagreed)

8. Made partisan propaganda into a consumable product with tremendous market value.

9. Made hatred and violent rhetoric commonplace and "acceptable"

10. In sum, laid the groundwork for the triumph of MAGA and Trumpism, a reality we will deal with for decades to come.

 

All I can add to that is, “he’s gone.”

Snow Day

It’s a snow day today here in Warren.  That’s uncommon, sort of.  I mean, it snows, but usually not often and usually not much.  But when it does…well, it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I’m no stranger to snow, having lived in Michigan for my first 35 years.  When we moved out west in ’85 we experienced a completely different type of four seasons.  Our first stop was Eugene, where it was wet, wet, wet, and then completely dry in the summer.  We wondered about winter, and came to understand a grim reality in the fall when I asked a local about the lane dividers in the highway.  We were used to the recessed reflectors, imbedded recessed into the road – these were bumps that stuck out a good inch above the surface.

“What happens when the plows come through during winter storms?” I asked.

“What plows?” was the response.

Sure enough, we got a paralyzing snow storm that winter.  All of about 3/4^th of an inch, enough to completely shut down everything.  The plan for snow removal is simple – wait until it gets warmer, which it usually does soon enough.

Our next stop was Boise, where it snows but not as often as you might think (it’s very dry there).  The mountains get a lot of snow, of course, so there’s equipment available for when it does snow, and we experienced a couple of good-sized dumps both times we lived here in the 80s and again later in the 90s.

Living in Louisiana for two years meant no snow, but people still drove like shit there.  Just sayin’.

Now back in Oregon, we lived in Seaside, on the coast, for 18 years.  When we moved there, we asked how often it snowed, and we were told, “about once every 10 years and it never sticks.”

Bullshit.  It snowed 13 of the 18 years we lived there, and twice the snow (a good 3-4 inches) stuck around for 3-4 days before yielding to the rains.  Naturally, everything shuts down tighter than a Republican budget.

When we moved more inland two years ago, we thought we had it all figured out.  About snow, that is.  The Portland metro area gets one or two snowfalls that “matter” every year, it seems, and sometimes they’re similar to the blizzards of my Michigan youth.  But until today we’ve been spared.  It snowed not at all our first winter here, a little last year, and up until today we were 0-for-everything.

You may ask – if we’re so far north (and we are), why hardly any snow?  We normally experience temps in the 40s, and upper 30s at night, so it’s hardly ever cold enough to snow.  Rain, sure, we’re famous for it.  But we need some sort of polar event to make it cold enough to get measurable snow.  And we’ve got that now – a hard easterly wind is blowing cold in the valley, and we won’t see the upside of 30° for a few days.

So far, we’ve got about three inches, with anywhere from 4-10 more expected over the next couple of days.  That’s enough to close government offices and the schools, which is a pity, because some of the elementary schools JUST OPENED YESTERDAY.  One FB friend with two kids is pissed as hell, and I can’t blame her.  She’s had her two daughters under foot for almost a year, and she got ONE DAY OF FREEDOM.

I’ve been happy to see the roads are almost empty, which is a good thing, because while we do have some transplants from snowier climates, no one seems to remember how to drive in this shit, and there’s always accidents galore.  The empty roads do allow for my neighbor taking advantage of the big hill on our street with her two dogs.  That looked like fun!

Wheeeeeee!

As for us, we’re inside staying warm, thinking about how just Wednesday I was contemplating mowing the lawn (really) and we were planning the garden for this summer.  I finished making the new garden beds earlier this week, and we moved them inside the garden area just yesterday (I have yet to dig up the sod underneath so they’re not in their permanent spots yet).  You can see the diff between the old ones (grey) and the new ones (cedarish-yellow).  Sigh.

Empty and waiting...

It could be worse – just 30 minutes south of here the temps are such that it’s not snow, but freezing rain, and more of that crap is expected – maybe a half-inch.  That will make the roads impossible and it’s already had an effect on the power grid – several outages have been reported and I’m certain more are on the way.

Speaking of power, that’s the only downside to the snowfall here.  Our solar panels are covered, and we’ll have to wait for the snow to melt before they will be functioning again (no, you don’t scrape ‘em off – damages the surface).  So that’s a pisser.

Otherwise, it’s pretty to look at, though it can go from “pretty” to “shitty” quickly.

I did live in Michigan, after all.

Psst: Democrats - use "The Benghazi Standard"

Not Benghazi

As the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins today (with the results already known to anyone who’s been paying attention), I wonder why Democrats don’t hold Republicans to the “Benghazi standard.”  After all, the events of 1/6/21 are eerily similar to the events of Benghazi.

• Both were attacks on US government buildings by armed militants.
• Both were believed to have started out at a nearby protest.
• Both resulted in damage and destruction to government property.
• Both resulted in the deaths of several Americans.

There are a few differences.  For one thing, Benghazi happened BEFORE a Presidential election; the Capitol insurrection occurred afterwards.  Benghazi was deemed by Republicans to be the fault of Barack Obama and his administration; they blamed him for two things:

• Not providing enough protection prior to the attack, and
• Not telling the truth about the reasons for the event.

And yeah, that does sound a lot like what happened last month.  There is one more glaring difference.  OK, two, but I’ll get to the second one in a moment.  One BIG difference is that Obama wasn’t at that protest in Libya egging the protesters on, urging them to storm the embassy.   If he had, maybe the GOP would have considered impeachment proceedings against him.  Who am I kidding?  They did it, anyway.

And they held all sorts of hearings.  There were no fewer than eight investigations into the Benghazi attack, at the cost of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.  All these investigations found no wrongdoing by the Obama administration. To put the GOP’s egregious political gold-digging into perspective, Republicans “investigated” Benghazi longer than congressional probes into the September 11, 2001 attacks, Watergate, the JFK assassination and Pearl Harbor. 

Benghazi happened in September, 2012…BEFORE Obama’s re-election.  THAT’S why the initial effort was to hang Benghazi around HIS neck.  Clinton was an afterthought and wasn’t the focus of the Uber-GOP investigations until she announced her presidential candidacy.  THEN it was Clinton = Benghazi.  And all of those investigations and hearings achieved the GOP’s main task; to defeat Hillary Clinton at the polls (and they needed additional help to do that).

But here’s the second, and more important, difference between Benghazi then and the Capitol insurrection now:  back then, the building that was attacked was on foreign soil.  The more current assault happened here.  In our nation’s capital.  In the Capitol.  In the very fucking building where many of the Republicans who called for all those hearings and investigations on Benghazi WERE WORKING AT THE VERY TIME OF THE ATTACK.

In other words, the assault was ON THEM.  We have ample proof that the domestic terrorists responsible for storming the Capitol were seeking congressional leaders and Vice President Pence.  Not to shake their hands or ask them for a grant, but to do them bodily harm.  How else do you explain the phrase “Hang Mike Pence?”  How else do you explain “Shirtless Horn and Facepaint Guy” screaming that this was their house, and that they were there to take the Capitol, and to get congressional leaders and used his bullhorn to communicate that they were there to take out several United States congressmen?

Why aren't Republicans calling for investigations like they did Benghazi?  Why aren't they calling for hearings?  Why aren't they outraged that an assault on their workplace happened a mere month ago and we still know very little about who, and why?

Will they ask these questions during the impeachment trial?  Or will they attempt to “move on” and “call for unity” until the next time a Democrat is in charge?

I leave you with this from one of the many Benghazi investigation reports.  I took out the one reference to the event, but you could use it for either one – Benghazi or the Capitol insurrection – and you’d be right.  Well, at least you’d be right about one of them.

“What we did find was a tragic failure of leadership – in the run up to the attack and the [during] – and an administration that, so blinded by politics and its desire to win an election, disregarded a basic duty of government: Tell the people the truth,” the congressmen wrote. “And for those reasons [this] is and always will be, an American tragedy.”