My Daughter, Emilie, queen of the selfie, is on vacation, hanging out in a suite overlooking Jacksonville Beach, Florida. She flew out with her friends for a wedding. Life is good but it’s better if Dad pays the bills, isn’t it?


I wrote, “send me a photo for the Sunday Sermonette”. This is her entry.


Do you see the family resemblance? Neither do I. She got the better of the deal for sure and looks more like her mother, but she got her height from me. 

I’m back on the other coast, having returned from Mexico, living it up at the Hotel California. Soon I’ll be taking the Ducati She-Devil out for a run…but where? Along the coast sounds good. The temp for the day is forecast at high 80’s along the beaches. With the time changing (springing forward) this morning, I may be slower out of the gate than usual.

As with Mexico, just when you thought that the carnage was overwhelming, it gets worse. BUILD THAT WALL. Seriously, build the damned wall. I’ll be back in Zombie Land next week, earning a crust of bread. I also have a gig in the Middle East, but sent others to that hell hole in my place. Sometimes it’s better to pay others than to go yourself. Sometimes not. Consulting is like that. It’s problem solving — and you are only as good as your last game. Success brings more work and friends — and failure is an orphan.

Hollywood is starting to tick me off (more than usual), and I’m not sure when I can be persuaded to see another feature film. Oh, I’ll go back to the movies, but I was very disappointed by Logan (Wolverine 3), the last of the movies in the X-Men franchise. It was so laced with progressive politics in the writing and plot that I was close to walking out of the film twice, but soldiered on. Note that I paid $9.00 for the privilege of ‘soldiering on’ through the film. I realize that artists and film makers always have an agenda when they make a film, but it’s out of bounds these days — really. 

I no longer watch films that feature a host of actors that I used to like. Anything with Tom Hanks and Liam Neeson in the credits are a no-go. They’re good actors, but their off-screen causes put me off. Neeson has made a princely living by glorifying gun violence in movies. Off screen he’s a rabid anti-gun protester. It’s tough to square the two. Hanks is a typical Hollywood liberal, but I’m tired of his off-screen rants. Tarentino, likewise, can’t make a movie that I’d go see. There are more, and I could go through the list, but why?
Most of what Hollywood puts out these days are slasher movies of one sort or another, unimaginative Sci-Fi, racial movies, comic book themed movies (like Logan) or the tenth re-make of something that was good the first two times around but is tired now. The trailers for other films (took about half an hour to scroll through them) while I waited for Logan to start were likewise, not something that I’d pay $9.00 to sit through. One movie of the trailers is about “wonderful China” – or something like that. About the pristine nature of China. What a load of crap. It’s one of the most polluted places on Earth. I’ve been all over China and while it’s not as filthy as Bangladesh, it’s nothing to be proud of. Naturally, the movie was financed by the People’s Republic of China and American filmmakers whored themselves off to the project. 
It may be a function of age? It may be a function of film makers pandering to a different audience than the one that I represent? Or it may be that political correctness has shoved a lot of films into the same sort of box that represents miserable redundancy.

Healthcare – There’s a lot of chatter about how the government owes people healthcare. I understand that government has the power to license and to set standards for education, but the state has intruded way to far into that business.

I understand that the government confiscates money from us and then offers Medicare (which it naturally runs at a loss). The government couldn’t run a whorehouse at a profit much less manage healthcare.

Yes, ObamaCare established a tax-driven entitlement. Some would say that it’s unconstitutional, but the courts went along with it. However, when the government owes us something, it means that they’ll tax us heavily to get it to us. What a gift.

A smaller government is in all of our interest. If I want health insurance, I’ll earn money and buy it. If I can’t afford the diamond Cadillac plan, I’ll settle for less — as with all things in life. But when government intrudes the price spirals.

Privacy

The FBI reaffirmed that truth again this past week. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you.

Thanks for reminding me, FBI…but remember that OPR is watching you.

But who watches the watchers?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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20 COMMENTS

  1. Werdywood crossed the line for the last time when they had the Mighty Midget, Tom Cruise, playing the part of 6'5" Jack Reacher. His ego and command of his own band of religious freaks might make him feel that tall, but he is just a liberal POS.

  2. He also owns a bitchin' P-51 Mustang, but I don't know if he ever flies it. I'd have that bad boy in the air or in the hangar getting worked on all the time if I owned it…which is to say that I'd get into trouble with it.

  3. I don't care what the movie is, I'm too cheap to pay $9 to watch anything by anyone!! So the very few times we go to the movies, we go to the cut rate place for $4, or that's what it cost 2 years ago. We don't go very often. There is much less audience noise and the popcorn is better at our house, and ya can pause on demand when an intermission is needed.

    So far as healthcare goes…my attitude is get the federal government out of it!! I agree with state governments validating licensure, and of the feds testing drugs, but no one should be telling us what type of healthcare to buy. I should be able to buy what I can afford, just like with any other product.

    I think it is a very slippery slope when you give the feds the right to say what you HAVE to have…soon they will say we can't buy bacon, or regular soda, or chocolate.

    So far as the feds being able to manage healthcare, just look at either the VA or Medicare. The rules/guidelines are Byzantine, and mismanagement is beyond belief. Obamacare did something I never thought would happen to me as a nurse…my employer would no longer cover me as I had changed my hours to part-time, and I can no longer afford to pay for insurance. Even if I could, a deductible of $8000 with a 65% increase in premium for 2017 is just absurd for 1 person!

    I want the ACA repealed, and nothing to replace it. Have Mr Trump call the CEO's at Atnea, United Healthcare, BCBS, etc. tell them to dust off policies, or write new ones, and have them ready to market by 10/1, to be effective 1/1/18.

    I'm not really sure why so many are so up in arms over repealing this mess. Or why the feds need to replace a bad piece of legislation? Why can't they just say "Whoops, made a mistake. The private sector, while not perfect, did a better job then we did."

  4. "Life is good but it's better if Dad pays the bills, isn't it?"

    Please stop reading my mail.

  5. It's time to get as much as you can get, then move on and let the young ones 'try' to fill the void you leave.

  11. Funny. Exactly a year ago, the wife and I were at the Casa Marino on Jax Beach for our nephew's wedding.

  13. I guess it's popular. The wedding was between a friend of my daughter's and a naval aviator assigned to NAS Jacksonville.

  14. Smaller government? Yes please, but let's not expect the people who've made it their career to have power over us to vote themselves out of a job.

  16. We won't pay to see movies any more. Not just because they are more than that here, but because they are indeed crap as you say. And I despise politics in my movies as I despise it in Hollywood people who think they know more than we do.
    Your daughter is a lucky girl.
    Be safe and God bless.

  17. My expectations for a better country are quite low. I can hope, I can pray, I can work for improvements, but it's tough to fight against people who use my tax dollars to buy the votes of the 'great unwashed'.

  18. It's going to have to be quite some movie to get me out to sit in a theater and watch it. This last one was a bust.

  19. The gubmint does run a whorehouse. It's called Section 8 housing. They specialize in pumping out gang bangers.

    Movies nowadays are crap. So's television programming. And if they do manage to get a good show going the writers make a ton of money which they use to buy cocaine and hookers and by the third season the show turns to crap because the scripts are written by coked out jackasses.

    And what's with all these so-called movie stars showing their assess on the big screen? I'm not going to plunk down my cash just so I get to see someone's ass in a half baked plot about space robots pissing on a g-man. And Shia LaBouf and all his ilk can KMA.

  20. And beautiful daughters can be a mixed blessing. There is a young men out there in the world today who should be on his knees thanking God that I let him live.

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