Item: Politics and futbol….  I use the Spanish spelling here because the U.S. is the only country in the world where football doesn’t mean soccer.  We have American and Canadian football, NCAA and pro football, tackle and touch football, and arena football, all variations of a game unrelated to soccer (it’s more related to rugby).  Futbol’s World Cup, like the Olympics, is an international festival of sport where patriotism can be displayed, flags waved, and bragging rights gained without much violence, except for the wee bit of physical violence that occurs on the field (fewer concussions than in the NFL, I’m sure, but no slush fund to cover them) and among the fans.  All in all, it’s a healthy emotional outlet.  Even if your team is eliminated, one can still watch the games and admire the skill and strategy of players and coaches.  I mean, c’mon, that German goal against the U.S. was a beautiful set piece once you’re past the dismay of having it scored against our team.

All that said, what’s with Ann Coulter’s soccer rant?  An ultra-conservative whatever-she-is blessed with a big mouth because she so often puts her foot in it (“it” can stand for many things here, of course),  she calls soccer “a sign of the nation’s moral decay.”  Huh?  My two granddaughters play soccer, love it, and don’t seem to be suffering from moral decay, and probably never will from soccer.  It’s a wonderful game to teach team spirit, cooperation, and good sportsmanship.  Like other team sports, individual prowess shines best when the star makes his or her team members look good.  Maybe that’s why she says “individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer”?  But soccer stars are big names in the sports world—they might be revered more outside the U.S., but many names are recognized here in the States too, and that’s becoming more common with this tournament.

Sadly, Coulter is practicing her usual tactic of mouthing off about something she knows little about just to create controversy.  She works off the principle that any publicity, even negative publicity, increases name recognition and is therefore beneficial to her agenda.  In this sense, critics of her blathering about soccer are helping her achieve exactly what she wanted.  I don’t worry about my little blog helping her in that sense because my readers are intelligent enough to ignore her rant, taking it for what it is—a pathetic cry for attention from a person who is entirely irrelevant to both soccer and the political world in general.

FYI, for those who were wondering: I root first for the U.S., then Colombia, but I still enjoy objectively the individual skills and brilliant teamwork that goes into the game.  If the championship involves Colombia and the U.S., I’m prepared to enjoy the latter and also the fact that it would be a win-win situation for me.  In fact, while unlikely, that would be very entertaining because neither team has been in the second round for a while (the U.S. never, and decades ago for Colombia, if memory serves).

Item: Trusting Putin.  Vladimir, in his recent rhetoric, almost sounds apologetic—a man of peace, a man to lead Russia into the 21^st century (it’s still in the 20^th).  Don’t believe it!  This ex-KGB homophobic, greedy dictator leads one of the vilest plutocracies on the planet.  Maybe he’s only miffed at the West because he doesn’t have a comic movie about two idiots who are supposed to assassinate him like the sociopathic psycho who leads North Korea.  I think it’s more than that, though.  He’s craftily trying to separate the E.U. and the U.S. by extorting the former with oil and natural gas deliveries, but he knows economic sanctions from the U.S. can hurt whether Europeans go along or not.  They probably won’t, of course.

They were always content to let the U.S. defend them against the Soviets while mocking and demonstrating against the U.S.  They’re probably comfortable playing the same two-faced role with Putin.  Meanwhile, the Ukraine is caught between a rock (Putin’s head) and a hard place (Obama’s).  Who knows how it will all turn out?  Maybe Europe will change its tune now that the Ukraine has signed a trade agreement with the E.U.  Maybe ISIS will help organize the Chechens and cause the Russians some grief in the Rodina?  There are many ways to make Putin pay for his transgressions.  Russia is a huge country with many problems.  Putin can’t create enough distractions to make his compatriots forget the problems at home.  He’s a pathetic little dictator who can easily lose control.

Item: Cell phone privacy.  The SC has spoken…unanimously, I might add.  While I’m generally in favor of the ruling, I see three problems with the Court’s ruling about cell phone privacy: absurdity, enforceability, and emergencies.  First, cell phone privacy is such an unattainable goal, it’s absurd.  Go to any public place—an airport, for example—and listen to the cell phone conversations or watch what people do with their smart phones.  Sure, conversations are one-sided, but we’re all smart enough to piece together what people are saying on the other end most of the time.  And watching people sitting around cruising through their photos tells us a lot about their friends, families, and interests.

How does the SC expect this to be enforced?  Who do they expect to enforce it?  The first thing cops do to persons brought in for questioning is to empty their pockets.  What’s to prevent them from going through the perp’s or protester’s cell phone before they stash his or her belongings in that manila envelope?  If the cops or the FBI are sitting in their van on a stakeout using big ears to listen to what’s going on in a meth lab, what happens if they overhear a compromising cell phone conversation?  Does the warrant for the former cover the warrant for the latter?  What happens if a woman threatens her ex-boyfriend and he plays that threat back for the cops…or vice versa?  Did the cops violate the caller’s cell phone privacy?  I can come up with many more scenarios.

Finally, consider this case of an emergency: a young woman is abducted by a serial killer.  He lured her to meet with him via smart phone conversations.  The cops have the woman’s cell phone.  Do they violate her privacy by determining who she talked too last?  What happens if she was just playing a practical joke on her parents, to get back at them for something?  Can they use that information to track down the woman and her accomplice?  It seems weird to require a warrant in these cases.

I’ll admit I haven’t read the full decision.  The justices, in their infinite wisdom, might have even mentioned some of these issues.  They usually don’t, though, leaving lower courts and legal practice to flesh out their often nebulous and incomplete decisions.  If the admonishment is simply to “get a warrant,” then I’m a wee bit queasy.  But I guess I don’t really care.  My cell phone privacy is guaranteed.  I only use it for vehicle and medical emergencies.  It’s not a smart phone and it’s usually off.  I’m a slave to my laptop, not my phone.

Item: Women’s rights.  In another unanimous decision, the SC knocked down the MA law requiring pro-life in-your-face activists to stand behind a line.  Considering the tactics of these nuts, many of them aggressive and screaming religious fanatics who threaten women frequenting clinics, many times for other things besides abortion, the SC has opted for freedom of speech over freedom of choice.  They’re effectively saying, “Let the violent protests begin!”  Shame on the liberal minority for going along with this travesty of justice.

In a related case that had only a 5-4 decision (deja vu all over again–it’s the conservative majority v. progressive minority!), the SC decided that family-owned businesses don’t have to pay for birth control because of religious preferences.  I think women’s rights advocates should draw up a list of these businesses so we can all boycott them.  I’ll be happy to publish the list here.  We also need to get a law passed that allows people in these companies to opt out of their company’s plan in favor of a private insurer.  This ruling is a step back to the Dark Ages (most of the conservative rulings are like this, i.e. not status quo) and opens up Pandora’s box respect to using religion to attack anything.  There are religions that don’t believe in anything medical at all, for example.  Will the SC allow family-run companies who follow those beliefs to deny medical benefits to all their employees?  The SC clearly wants women to be second-class citizens again with these two rulings!

How is it that this last case isn’t considered an attack on employee’s freedoms, including religious freedoms?  Of course it is, but the decision is consistent with that slim majority’s continuous and generalized attack on the Bill of Rights.  It’s also consistent with their program of turning corporate identities into persons, giving them more and more rights and taking away the rights of employees and individual citizens.  The irony here is that hypocritical Hobby Lobby owns stocks in contraceptive products.  This proves their lawsuit was all about old-fashioned greed.  They don’t want to pay for employees’ normal medical expenses, but they still want them to buy those contraceptive products–money-wise, it’s a win-win for them!  I wonder what we’ll find out about the other litigant, Conestoga Cabinets?  The sad reality: that 5-4 majority that includes Alito, Scalia, and Thomas, fascists dressed in judges’ robes, continues to legislate their conservative agenda, because the conservatives in Congress are knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who haven’t gotten their way.  When will it all stop?  When we become the Fourth Reich?  Or, the Randian Republic of North America?  Either way, I’m happy I won’t live long enough to see that tragedy.  Or, will I?

Item: Legislation by presidential decree, or by SC decision?  Apparently the SC wants to flex its muscles.  If anyone is going to go around an inept, do-nothing Congress, it’s going to be them, nine legal has-beens completely out of touch with what goes on in America (this includes the “liberal judges” too—they’re just as aloof as the conservatives).  Obama tried a work-around Congress to get something done because Congress’ fixation all through his years in the White House has been to just say no to everything the President put forth.  Because Congress can’t govern—they all belong back home where they can do no harm—Obama tried to step around inept legislators to get something accomplished.  The SC said no—only they can do that!

Couched in terms of unconstitutional mumbo-jumbo, the SC struck a blow for ineffective, inept, and uncaring government.  The SC members need to be elected with term and age limits to eliminate these problems.  Nobody should have tenure in any position, especially government positions.  Of course, the Senate and House members need those limits too.  I’m tired of incompetent do-nothings.  We have too many problems in this country for a bunch of old has-beens to sit around chatting in their old boys clubs in DC.  Pox on all of them.

Item: Times op-ed author rationalizes.  NY Times op-ed contributor Nicholas Kristoff voiced an opinion about the trade of the Afghan terrorists for the American soldier last Thursday that worried me.  I’d heard it before.  The argument goes like this: The Afghans are tired old men who don’t have enough energy to be dangerous.  Huh?  Let’s say that they’ll only be symbols for future jihadists.  That’s enough.  But old fanatics are also still fanatics.  While not actually combatants, will they be schemers and cheerleaders?  Think of the old Egyptian, who’s still around; bin Laden, who’d still be around if we’d said anything to the Pakistanis; all those Ayatollahs from Iran, who have been plotting against the U.S. since the Shah was in power; and so forth.  The old jihadists have a lot of respect in the terrorist world.  We don’t need to increase their number.

Item: Hachette v. Amazon.  Because the NY Times thinks this as important as major national and international news, I’ll follow their lead and discuss it here amongst my other comments on current events, if only to ask, “Is Hachette planning to buy the NY Times?”  The paper’s one-sided support of the French conglomerate—I repeat, French conglomerate—might have some logic to it if that’s the case.  Otherwise, that old saw “all the news that’s fit to print” should be changed to “only the news we like to print,” because I have yet to see one Times editorial or article about this dispute that presents Amazon’s side.  Or, the readers’ and writers’ sides, for that matter.

Contrast the Times biased reporting with the op-ed by Ben Thompson, “Book Wars: How Publishers could Defeat Amazon,” found in New Jersey’s Star Ledger last Sunday (the article was written for Bloomberg News, so it isn’t a rant, by any means).  While the title might seem to imply bias, the article effectively blames publishers for painting themselves into a corner, which is just another way to say that their business model is 1974 vintage, not 2014 (and it’s not like a fine wine, by any means).  I quote: “…and here’s the thing: Amazon is largely right.  Publishers as currently constructed simply aren’t prepared to compete in [a] world based on internet economics.”

“And so, expect Hachette [the French conglomerate] and Bonnier [the German publisher] eventually to cave, not because Amazon is right on the merits, but because Amazon’s DRM is the only thing keeping them alive.”  (I’ll hasten to point out that Amazon’s DRM isn’t the problem here—you can download a free app that allows you to read a Kindle file on almost any device.  Of course, you’d still have to buy the file from Amazon.  But that’s why Nook, iPad, and other e-readers can’t compete—those files aren’t readable on any device.)

Every reader out there should remember that neither Amazon, Hachette, any other publisher, nor any other retailer gives a rat’s ass about readers beyond being a source of profits.  Readers trump all, in my opinion.  You provide the demand for quality reading entertainment.  And you should question anything standing in the way between readers and writers.  Most of the time traditional publishers and retailers stand in the way, but Amazon does it the least.  Too many publishers don’t understand this.  Neither does the Times in continuing to pander to Hachette, supporting the conglomerate’s gouging of the reading public.  Bravo for the Star Ledger in taking a different view.  (You can also get a different perspective in the Huffington Post article I mentioned in my last “News and Notices from the Writing Trenches.”)

Item: ISP wars.  If you still watch TV the old-fashioned way (I do, and I’ll try to always remember to preface my anti-TV diatribes that way from now on), you might be tired of the coach pimping TWC products.  I thought Comcast was going to buy TWC?  All these ISPs give you a good deal to hook you, but they end up gouging in the long run.  And many communities help them by establishing monopolies in the town.

The problem is that the more you pay, the less service you get.  It’s like everything else, I guess.  You go to a website and find that there’s no way to contact any customer service—just a list of FAQs that doesn’t contain your problem.  Worse, they’ll ask you to download a piece of software that’s supposed to help, but probably only gives them a cookie that follows your every internet move.  I tried to open an iTunes account with a gift card I received and was asked to download an app for my browser—a rotten Apple prying into my life.

Back to the ISPs.  Comcast will make TWC worse, not better.  Comcast continues to add all kinds of crap without beefing up their networks, just like cell phone service providers (in fact, Comcast is a cell phone provider!).  How does this affect me?  It was already bad enough during the school year with a public school across from us and a family of six Silicone Valley refugees moving back in next door, but now the bandwidth hogging is extreme.  If we plug a laptop in directly to the modem, no problem, unless all of Comcast goes down (it does that all too often).  But any device dependent on my router is unusable because of the bandwidth hogging, now exacerbated by all the little kids home on summer vacation.

I’m at my wit’s end.  Outside of paying for a dedicated T1 line (I’ll take donations, however), I don’t have a workable solution—well, maybe work on the net between two and four a.m.  Anyone out there with a workable solution?  Hire a Pied Piper maybe to lead all the little internet brats off to an Amish colony in PA?  (Just kidding.)  Send a wicked Trojan or computer virus to Comcast?  (Just kidding again.)  Somehow, I don’t think Comcast buying TWC is going to help.  What would help is for them to update their networks.  Maybe they’re using local wi-fi routers to increase their “hot spots,” as one of their very own FAQ items suggested.  Let me know if you have any ideas.  And any good “hate Comcast” quotes will be shared in this blog.  I’ll call it “Steve’s Comcast FAQs”—or maybe not, because they’d really shut me down then!  Still, revenge is sweet, even if temporary….

And so it goes….      

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2014 at 4:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.