It’s only May, and I already want to scream. It’s not the candidates (yet), it’s the ridiculous shell game of fake grass roots activists.
Real grass roots folks are great, and interesting for a journalist. Unfortunately, in this modern world (with its highly organized political machines at every level of government), they’re vastly outnumbered by fake grass roots folks who all speak off the prepared talking points sent out by the various political groups (even the groups that deny that they’re actually groups). The bad news, though, is that fake grass roots people aren’t as practiced speakers as the actual political professionals, and they will stick very close to the script, giving the game away.
If people would just come in and say, “hey, I’m here from (fill in the group), and we have some issues we’d like to discuss with you,” that’d be great, and it would be building an honest relationship. As it is, I’m half-inclined to ignore their whole point of view entirely because they lie to my face and expect me not to notice. Don’t insult my intelligence.
Six months to Election Day …
Well, in Microsoft’s continuing efforts to get me to buy a dual-boot Macintosh set-up, my hard drive has developed serious problems over the weekend, and each time I run chkdsk and restart the computer, more, not fewer problems occur. I’m now told that c: is corrupt or unreadable, which likely means the end of the road, as an amateur fix-it guy. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking in my computer to a local shop and getting a new master hard drive installed, with Windows, and seeing what, if anything, can be transferred off this machine to that.
Since Firefox is gone now, World of Warcraft is gone now, my personal information for Thunderbird is gone now, it seems prudent to back up (online, here) my list of podcasts now while I still can. (As opposed to the list of Firefox plug-ins which I’m going to just have to remember on my own once the new hard drive is installed. Argh, and the WoW mods as well.)
So here’s the current list:
Put those addresses into iTunes or Juice (or even TiVo, if you’re really ambitious) to get the feeds and see, well, hear what I listen to regularly.
- In other it’s-good-to-have-a-hard-copy news, the first season of Supernatural is coming to DVD on September 5. Awesome.
- It’s a trick getting your iPod’s music back onto a new hard drive — it’s not what iTunes wants to do by any means. Luckily, there’s all sorts of third party programs that will do it. I used PodUtil. It seems to have missed most of the artists whose names start with any letter before D, strangely, but I’m hoping the files got copied over somewhere.
Last year at this time, my chest was covered in Bactine and I was midway through being sliced open for my biopsy at St. Mary’s Hospital.
Today, the scar at the base of my throat is almost totally gone (although I imagine a sunburn will make it quite visible, as happens with my other major scar, on the back of my left hand). My sarcoidosis symptoms have returned, but are mostly managed by twice-daily pills (my left knee, as often happens, is killing me at the moment, but at least I can function, which is a lot better than I was doing 13 months ago).
I still have my plastic medical ID bracelet I wore during my surgery last year. I’m not sure why I keep it around or what it is that it’s supposed to remind me of, but I like having it around and looking at it once in a while. Maybe it’s because last year on this day was when I found out I didn’t have advanced lymphoma, which had been the fear.
Anyway, happy not-having-cancer anniversary to me!
A press release from Hansberger’s office:
Supervisor Dennis Hansberger today sent an internal memo to Board Chairman Bill Postmus expressing his objection to Postmus’ appointment of private attorney Dennis Wagner to the Interim County Counsel position in light of former top attorney Ron Reitz’ abrupt departure last week.
Hansberger’s concerns outlined in the memo include his concern for the integrity of sensitive “in-house” legal information now being subject to an attorney whose clients’ interests clearly may be in conflict with those of the county. Further, Hansberger claims that Mr. Wagner has a financial interest in the affairs of clients who now, or in the past have had financial contracts with the county.
“Mr. Wagner and his firm have a clear conflict of interest in county matters, as they represent clients who have financial dealings with the county,” said Hansberger. “Subsequently, at least one of his clients’ contractual relationships is under scrutiny in an investigation by the FBI, if not state and county agencies, as well.”
Hansberger cites the example that Wagner and his law partner, Tristan Pelayes represent members of the California Charter Academy.
In the memo, Hansberger requested that Postmus rescind the appointment he made without the benefit of discussion with the entire board, and indicated that he saw no reason that the county’s existing team of counsel should not be tasked with handling county legal matters until a replacement can be agreed upon by the board.
“We have appropriate leadership and structure within our County Counsel’s office to handle all legal affairs in this county,” continued Hansberger. “I see no existing emergency that would warrant such a hasty appointment.”
This story has more implications for Hesperia readers than is immediately obvious (yes, even with the CCA thing). Consider this a taste of things to come for readers, and a notation for me so that I’ll remember to keep my eye on this particular ball.
Although Dave Cusick’s Post Modern Rock Show is still the best radio show on the Internet, I’ve recently discovered Coverville, which is a strong #2.
The concept — interesting covers of well-known songs — could easily have been painful, painful, painful, but the music (mostly) stands on its own as great tunes, although many of them are so obscure, they’re impossible to find on one’s own.
In a clever twist, there are also Originalville shows that feature the original versions of songs that only became popular as covers.
For those who find Dave Cusick’s show a little too po-mo (which even I find to be the case once in a while, as he’s more musically adventurous than I am, despite all my efforts at extreme open-mindedness), Brian Ibbott’s Coverville might be just the ticket. And even for those who’ve gotten turned on to the former show, it’s a great addition to a podcasting line-up, along with the music shows from KCRW.
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