@hg47's Blog: The Tweet & The TakeAway, page 8

Break Out Of The Box

Break out of the Box
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or shrivel inside the Box.



Your "box" may look like a gilded cage from the inside. But unless your horizons are expanding, you, Yourself, the-essential-YOU is contracting, getting smaller, dying a little every day.

@hg47

How To Avoid Jury Duty

HOW TO AVOID JURY DUTY.

[The Long Answer]

When I was the Superintendent for Colby Plastics, a couple of decades ago, the Office Manager had a full page letter that got me out of jury duty twice; essentially, it explicitly stated in detail why my presence was essential to the function of the company, and why I could not be spared for even one day. Complete nonsense, of course, as I had trained the foremen and maintenance men and operators so well that even in a worst case scenario, Colby Plastics would be fine without me for any duration: except that my boss, the Vice President of Manufacturing, might have to get his hands dirty for some of the tougher jobs.

Circa year 2013, Congress 113, these types of "dirty tricks" require actual "political pull." Yes, you can get completely out of jury duty, if you know someone who knows someone. But I recommend that if you have that kind of political capital that you save it for when you really need it: arrested for drug possession or suspected of being a serial killer. If you have the kind of influence that can get you excused from jury duty, SAVE THAT INFLUENCE FOR WHEN YOU REALLY NEED IT . Just eat the first day of jury duty; get yourself kicked from days 2-x by deviant behavior.

Every year, jury selection becomes more important, and the actual arguments during trial become less important in determining the final verdict. For background on this point read THE RUNAWAY JURY by John Grisham. The result of a single trial can make or break careers, not just for the Defense and the Prosecution, but for the Judge as well: none of them wants some weird principled hold-out juror who might dead-lock the whole thing into a mistrial by stubbornly sticking to a 1 to 11 vote over and over: bad for the judge, bad for the prosecutor, bad for the defense.

Ask two weird questions, and it's like RED FLAGS & FIREWORKS shooting up that only the Judge and the Prosecutor and Defense Attorney can see. The Judge will immediately want you out of his courtroom fastest. You'll probably go quickly by peremptory challenge, but if not, the Judge will bend over backwards to allow either side to bump you for cause.

@hg47

It's A "North Of The Equator Thing"

Disclaimer: I am a RINO. I'm a moderate Republican living in California who voted for Obama twice.

Recently I read an analysis of the Republican Party that placed the majority of its membership in the Southern states. The South. Closer to the equator.

Then it struck me: It is about where you live, not about your politics or your religious beliefs. Republicans aren't gun-carrying Christian fanatics out to shoot holes in the globe if it threatens to warm. No. Republicans are mostly the gals and guys in the South. "Hey, in the winter it's always cool, in the summer it's always Damn Hot, excuse my German. Global Warming? I don't see it."

In Canada everyone believes in Global Warming except the 2% of people there in mental institutions or on Twitter.

Close to the equator people don't see the effects of Global Warming.

But in Canada people who have lived in the same place for forty years know that the lake they used to ice-skate on every winter rarely even freezes over anymore. They used to need 6-layers of clothing to walk next door in the winter; now they sprint over in their long-johns (What? long-johns aren't appropriate attire for a coffee-klatch? Are you a Democrat???)

If you don't get my point by now, you never will: toward the poles there are changes happening that are obviously permanent and scary. We are talking: Common Sense.

By the way, I got those percentage stats for the picture/tweet from Harper's magazine.

SOURCES -
Canada: IPAC-CO2 Research (Regina, Sask.)
America: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication (New Haven, Conn.)
RINOs & "real" Republicans: Pew Research Center (Washington)

@hg47

Not Asking For Directions - Just Need A Second Opinion

♂: “Asking directions for a friend. If he was to go from here to Main and 42nd Street, how should he go?”
♀: “You are so busted.”

@hg47

Can't Succeed? Fail UP!

Try to fail in an upward direction.

I have no "New Year's Resolutions." But I am putting together a bunch of promotional experiments to run. Most or all of them won't "work."

When I try to promote my written work, I feel like I'm the Village Idiot: "Read my book, please?" Whoever I say that to grabs my book out of my hand and slaps me in the face with it, then throws my book into the mud.

But, if I'm climbing a hill, or climbing stairs, and I fall down, I'm failing up, aren't I?

This is actually my favorite sort of tweet.

Minimalist.

Lots of space. The #TwitterArt reinforces the actual message. Best of all, for my ego, I'm doing tricks that no one else even knows how to do on Twitter! And, yes, I prefer the clean look of a tweet without hashtag.

Actually, there are at least 5 #TwitterArt (ists) who know how I am doing these sorts of "special effects." Two artists, I explicitly confessed to via DM. Two long-time #140art heavy-hitters know me well enough to have sussed me out: my guess is they leave me alone because of respect, or fear, or their own personal integrity.

What? People can't have integrity? By the time you read this, it will be 2013: I proclaim this the year of integrity! @hg47

Television Studios: "Dear DVD, Just Die Already!"

TV studios are starting to pull back on DVD picture quality to kill the format and make Blu-Ray look better than it is by comparison. I don't have a television, but I watch DVDs and TV-on-DVD on my computer. My best friend has gone Blu-Ray, but he is into movies not TV on Blu-Ray, so I have not yet done A-B comparisons. But the picture quality on some of my favorite shows is on the down.

Another example: THE GOOD WIFE Season One picture quality on DVD is pretty good; starting with Season Two, there is a digital blur that is added to the DVD video that pisses me off.

If you want to watch CSI Miami, season 10, or NCIS, season 9, I recommend you avoid the DVD versions and upgrade to Blu-Ray now as the TV studios obviously want. The picture quality of TV on DVD is on a downward slide for many series. The TV studios are deliberately shipping DVD discs with inferior video to kill the format and to make Blu-Ray look better than it is. With NCIS-9 and CSI-Miami-10, the DVDs are so blurry I can't watch them. I CAN'T SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING! I own most, possibly all seasons of CSI Miami and NCIS on DVD; the early seasons are fine, CSI Miami 10 is a visual mess, NCIS-9 is a mess.

SEA HUNT Season One on DVD ©1958 *underwater* has sharper picture quality than CSI MIAMI Season Ten DVDs. I'm not joking: if you don't believe me, check it for yourself! CBS wants us on Blu-Ray.

I have yet up upgrade my viewing to Blu-Ray; but there may also be another factor at play. Remember first generation STAR TREK, where the close-up shots of the sexy female guest star would be shot through a lens that made her look sexier by blur? David Caruso would look like a wrinkled grandfather if Blu-Ray did a high-resolution close-up on his face; and Emily Procter is also getting up there in years. I suspect a state-of-the-art optical lens during shooting supplies just the right blur for the Blu-Ray discs to obscure the age of the stars, knocking the actual viewing experience back down into the DVD realm; but the studio can't ship the exact same viewing experience on both DVD and Blu-Ray discs, so the studio adds an additional digital blur to the DVD discs.

Can you say, time for a Class Action Suit?

@hg47

Good Intentions Versus Good Addictions

My soul doesn't just grab the steering wheel of my body and stomp on the gas.

I do believe in Free Will. Even if Determinism should one day be scientifically proven by quantum theory, we will still have to pretend that we have Free Will to function. So the whole Free Will Versus Determinism debate is dead to me. I don't care, because I have to act as though I have Free Will anyway.

But I have whims that over time become habits. Some of my habits seem to lock me into a cage of inevitability.

Repetitive pleasures take on the nature of addictions. Unconscious compulsions push me, lead me, bully me.

IMHO whatever Free Will I have is best employed in seducing my habits, misleading my compulsions, and kicking my addictions in the ass. @hg47

Bumper Sticker

First Lady Bill in 2016!

I have no clue if Hillary will run in 2016, but if she does I can't imagine her losing.

IMHO that should be the Democratic bumper sticker. Why? First, because it would piss off Republicans. Hell, they might put that bumper sticker on their own cars, thinking they are making fun of Dems, just giving Hillary added push.

The Far Right is already in a Rage about a half-Negro in the White House. The idea of a First Gentleman in the White House would throw them into a Hissy Fit.

@hg47

The Best Lie

Telling the best LIE to Ourselves may be the Paramount Strategy in dealing with the Lies Of Others.

The following is just one example.

I don't know about other writers, but before I can emotionally commit to writing a novel, and actually devote a year or three years of most of my spare time, I have to actually believe that what I am creating is going to be AWESOME+

Don't get me wrong, writing the first draft of a novel is the most fun I can have with or without my clothes on, but it is the antithesis of easy. To keep me at it requires every wily seductive device I can bring to bear.

The Islamic suicide bomber has his vision of Paradise to press him forward against Israel; I have my somewhat different vision of Paradise to press me forward and sit me down at the computer everyday, to keep me returning to my difficult task. @hg47

Free of Big Government!

THE TWEET:
1) Texas secedes from the U.S. 2) Mexico attacks, retakes Texas. 3) Texas screams: “We want back!” 4) Obama: “Not! You voted against me!”

THE TAKE-AWAY:
The idea of one of the States seceding from the United States is difficult for me to take seriously. I think we’re stuck with each other till the bitter end. I can imagine no peaceful scenario of secession. Even if massive public unrest caused ten, twenty, or thirty States to attempt to secede from the USA, the Feds would fight to keep us all together. There would be actual civil war: War Between The States 2.0 – and don’t forget, even if some paramilitary State units stole Nuclear weapons from military bases inside their States, the codes are Federal, worthless without Federal activation numbers.

My personal political bias is as a moderate republican who voted for Obama. I think RINO is the technical term.

The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of The Parts; and I don’t think the secessionists fully appreciate that. FDA, FDIC, FBI, Social Security; and a hundred other Federal agencies that impact our lives regularly, that we depend upon, that we don’t really notice until they are no longer there.

Suppose Texas seceded peacefully from the USA. Suppose the Feds allowed it to happen. The Military packs up and leaves. The FBI packs up and leaves. FDA? Not! Eat whatever you please. FDIC? Not! Who knows if your money will be in the bank when you try to get it out. Social Security? Hah! The joke’s on you! EPA? Breathe all the coal dust and plutonium particles you like! OSHA? You will lift and carry these 92-pound boxes all day, every day, or you’re fired! Oh, and, Texas, that whole border defense with Mexico is Federal, and now it’s undefended, abandoned, shut down.

But Mexicans don’t want to sneak into Texas, because Texas is no longer the Promised Land of Opportunity in the United States, Texas is just another crappy piece of dirt—but, WAIT! Texas used to be ours! Texas used to be part of Mexico! Hell, the United States doesn’t want Texas, LET’S GRAB IT BACK. Viva la Mexico! [Remember the Alamo! (with a twist)]

Mexico versus the new country of Texas with no nukes, no Federal troops, just State cops and NRA wingnuts; sorry, it would be NO CONTEST. Texas, you don’t really think Canada will come to your rescue, do you?? It ain’t gonna be the USA who saves your ass: You Voted Against Obama! Loser!

(Hey, my musings on the issue of secession are no sillier than the goofballs who actually imagine that secession is possible, and that finally they will be free of BIG GOVERNMENT! Oh, please.)

@hg47