Just a thought...

...as we begin to liquidate our holdings here, after 32 years in Alaska. My bookshelves just walked out the door yesterday, for the sum of $155.00. If that wasn't bad enough on my psyche, I have given away most of my books, my precious books. It's not as though I owned a library of classical literature, although I did own English translations of both The Iliad and The Odyssey. These others were "classics"to my quirky and yet somewhat pedestrian tastes.

Authors like Martin Cruz Smith (Arkady, when is your next adventure?) and Patrick Tilley (Jesus as a time-traveling warrior from another planet)in his one true opus, "Mission." "Source," certainly James Michener's best work - and it was about archaeology! Ray Bradbury's "Golden Apples of the Sun," And of course the late Patrick O'Brian's 18-tome saga of "Lucky Jack" Aubrey of the Royal Navy. Julian Stockwin's Kydd series is the next best thing,and it, like the "Sharps Rifles series, has gone away as well. So many authors and books. Like friends, only reliable. On the eve of seeing O'Brian's "Master and Commander" leave my possession forever, I began to reread it, and I must say I could read it again, and again.

I've kept a few books, mostly on the Cold War and books that suit my growing humanistic philosophy, a few science books to be housed by my son the science guy.

And I have a "Nook," an e-book, which my wife tells me is all and more of what I want, and takes up a lot less space in our 960 square foot condo (I feel like I should only use the abbreviations "sq"and "ft"when referring to the condo, which of course is an abbreviation for the term "condominium"). In any case, the feeling you get when you give away all of your corporeal, material literature, and settle for "virtual" literature,is a sense, maybe ,not of death or dying, but certainly an adjustment to a new "plane of existence." I guess that's what retirement is, too.

Feel free to send me suggestions from fiction (especially historical fiction), pop science, and history. If I cannot download it onto my Nook, maybe I can sneak out and buy it in its corporeal form.

This Blog's-a-movin'

Thinkagain-bybill is being "transmogrified" (according to my son Deder's favorite, Calvin & Hobbes) into Thinkagainbybill. Things just got kind of complicated with stoopid internet (that "series of tubes" according to our on-trial U.S. Senator Ted Stevens) stuff. If I get too technical, let me know.

As a proponent of the "Bigger Hammer unified field" theory of most everything electronic, I am a proud Clovis projectile guy, and still hope to occasionally stick it to a few political woolly mammoths and giant ground sloths, after a virtual fashion. The ones you wound and follow into the brush are the ones you have to worry about - right?

Stay tuned...

The more I think again about it...

Barack Obama says: "Americans aren't stupid. " I hope that he's right, but on John Stewart's Daily Show a piece was done on my town of Wasilla, Alaska, and it was not flattering. The Daily Show has no mission to give us "real" news, yet the piece was still revealing. Watching it, I came to the conclusion that Obama may be wrong: Americans, and Alaskans in particular, may own a collective stupidity, of sorts. I may even be part of that collective. But the good news is that I know a lot of people here in Alaska who are smart, progressive and involved.

Oh, Alaska will go for old "Top Gun" McCain and Sarah (wink) Palin on November 4, and more's the pity. But Alaska hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, and may not do so again any time soon. But we could - some day.

U-Tube has the SNL version of the Veep Debate and if it wasn't so funny, it'd be spooky, because it was so real....

How Alaska looks bad in this...

While cruising the AM dial this afternoon after work, I listened to all of 2 1/2 minutes of Dan Fagan's local Anchorage, Alaska drive-time radio show, and could not believe my ears as I heard Fagan call Barack Obama a "Radical '60s Black Panther."

I was of age in the 1960s and '70s, and I cannot make any, and I mean any, connection between Barack Obama and say, Bobby Seale, or Eldridge Cleaver - Obama is more like a Julian Bond, at the time the consensus building future mayor of Atlanta, Georgia ("The town too busy to hate").

Where does this shit end?

As my elderly mom in Florida says about Sarah Palin's accusations toward Obama," Get this woman out of my state and send her back to Alaska!"

I don't think I want Sarah back.

Veep Debate, October 3, 2008

I watched Governor Palin's performance in Friday’s Veep debate, and all I want to say is: Was that the hokeyest dog-gone-straight-talk-to-Joe-Six-pack-shout-out-to-the-American-people (wink, wink) or what? You betcha! If you thought so too, extra credit!
I don’t know if Sarah was trying to portray herself as a the governor of Alaska, or a denizen of Dogpatch, U.S.A. What next from Sarah? “Dag-nabit?” “Jumpin’ Jehosephat?” “Land-o-Goshen?” A few weeks ago, when she was still only governor, Sarah spoke publicly as you might expect your governor to speak: with the dignity that befits the office of the Governor of Alaska. What happened?
Sarah didn't follow the rules that I assume she agreed to prior to the debate, by refusing even to attempt to answer the moderator's questions. Was this rudeness, desperation, or both?
Did Sarah implode during the debate? No, although to conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, she performed “like a wind-up doll” (Caribou Barbie strikes again?). More importantly, did she help John McCain get elected in November? No.
Watch, as Sarah goes back into the media-free bubble, working the winger base with personal attacks on Obama for the rest of the campaign. After it’s all over, she can do herself, America and Alaska a favor by coming home, facing the Trooper-gate music, and work at rehabilitating what’s left of her political reputation.

Sarah and the Flag

Reading my Sept. 15 issue of Newsweek (the one with Governor Palin on the cover, shotgun over shoulder), and on page 29, I was treated to a picture of Sarah, literally wrapped in the flag for the photo op. You know, Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the “Grand Old Flag.” Yes, that flag.
As I recall, the blatant and crass use of a show of extreme patriotism to deflect legitimate criticism has long been referred to by the metaphor, “Wrapping oneself in the flag.” Never mind that Governor Palin would appear to be in violation of U.S. Public Law 94-34, Section 4, e and i, which deals with the approved uses of the flag, including advertising (was this photo not a political advertisement?). This use of the U.S. flag is surely offensive to many Americans.
As one of the governor’s constituents, a member of the VFW, a Vietnam Veteran and a high school history teacher, I am profoundly disappointed that our governor allowed herself to be photographed in this manner, with this flag. What can this say about her political judgement as the potential leader of the country whose symbol is this very flag?

~b