Viola Davis isn’t a graceful winner

Her statement: “The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity,” Davis said in her acceptance speech. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” is perhaps true…

But then again, Black people are less than 25% of the population…and I strongly doubt that that many bother to ;earn how to act, or even try to be actresses. And of that very low number, how many can actually, you know, act? How many have the talent (developed by training or not) to become Emmy award winning actresses…or can produce an Emmy award wirthy role?

Much like the fact that few black men and women choose to become olympic swimmers….the pool (pardon the pun) of olympic swimmers of any race is small enough….add in the fact the even fewer black people choose to give that level of effort, and you have nearly zero olympic quality swimmers who have more melanin that I do.

Stem fields….Few enough women choose to become engineers. Fewer yet for black (and Hispanic) women. Are they underrepresented in all of these fields of endeavor? Yes. Is it because of a lack of opportunity? Doubtful; Maybe a lack of motivation, or maybe a cultural issue that prevents them from choosing to take that path, but, really, I doubt that it is a lack of opportunity as much as a lack of people trying for those  WHO ACTUALLY HAVE TALENT TO SUCCEED….

Yeah, I know, pointing this out makes me a racist….

Can’t argue with his:

“They’re ivory. Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl-handled pistol.” – General George Patton

The incident  about the kid with the clock that was mistaken for bomb by an uninformed and ignorant school teacher brought this to mind:

So I was travelling to a class in Chicago…this was in, IIRC, the then Sears Tower. Long elevator rides…

I’m travelling with a buddy: we had carpooled to the city to save on gas and parking and such. He was pretty smart, and even more importantly to this story, quick on the uptake.

Now, realize, this was pre-9-11…a more relaxed, more sane age, less psychosis when it came to “security” and less unrealistic fears.

So you also have to realize that this was before cell phone service (and phone technology) was at the level that it is today. I was carrying a Star Tac phone by Motorola…Which was, while in it’s time,a real whiz bang device, (not so much today) it had a battery life measured in 10’s of minutes….So I was also carrying a pager….I would keep the phone off, and turn it on and call the number displayed on my nifty Numeric Pager….(See, kids, this is how we had to do it before the new cell services that you take for granted today was built)

My pager was a nifty device too. It had a user selectable set of something like 15 or 20 tones….not just the Beep-Beep-Beep that most pagers used. My choice (so it would wake me up no matter what) was a very raspy and strident alarm that one might hear in a nuclear power plant just before a soft voiced woman announced “Core Breach Imminent, please evacuate” or some other words of doom….

So anyway….Here we are, in an elevator in the Sears Tower..(I don’t recall if it was still the tallest building in the world then, but were going to somewhere fairly near the top, so it was long ride) The elevator car was fairly full….And we were somewhere close to the middle of the herd…Something like 30 buttons were lit, and we were near the end, so we were going to have to wait through numerous stops….

And here, even in an elevator my magic Pager goes off with it’s strident “the end is near”alarm…in my backpack. And I didn’t remember which of the multiple pockets I had placed said pager….

Everyone looked at me and or mumbled expressions of displeasure…I had disturbed their serenity or something.

I looked at Jack and said “Oh shit, I think it activated”…..

Quick on the uptake, he said “Fuck, find it quick! you only have 30 seconds”.

Amazingly enough, the once crowded elevator car was now instantly uncrowded, as all the other occupants were pressed tightly against the outside walls, staring at the two of us with wide eyes.

I took the pack off and began rooting in the pockets to find the offending pager….He took it from me and held it “Here, let me hold it… you don’t have much time…c’mon, hurry dude…”

After about 25 seconds, the door opened and the entire car with the exception of the two of us emptied out. As the door were closing, I yelled “Got it!”. We laughed heartily at the joke that only we knew….

We continued on our upward journey, but were met farther up by two security guards….who held us (after removing the backpack from me, and relieving Jack of his briefcase) until the Chicago Police arrived.

They were, well, not amused, but professional. Didn’t think it was very funny (at least officially, but they were both smiling broadly as they told us to behave better) and they let us go with a stern warning after searching us (I did ask about a warrant, but didn’t push it as I had started the fun..).

We were late for the class.

Today, in the paranoid world we live in,  we’d likely be shot…or at least incarcerated.  But then, it was fun.

Don’t try this at home kids.

So some kit named Ahmed Muhammed did a project for school….Built a clock that an ignorant person thought resembled their idea of what a bomb looked like…Or what fictionalized bombs look like in the movies…I mean wires and digital display mean bomb, right?

It was mistaken for a bomb. …Of course, if you look at the pictures, there is nothing but circuitry…no actual, you know, explosives. Nothing that could be mistaken for explosives. But cops aren’t very discerning……apparently even less so when your name is Ahmned…So he got arrested. Truly, anyone who after about 30 seconds of looking at the thing who thought this was a bomb is an idiot….

There is prudence, and then there is unrealistic fear and paranoia. You figure which this is.

At least the kid has gotten some fame from this.

And in doing so, you insulted every single previous recipient…and cheapened the prize for every future recipient.

Obama’s award of peace prize  was a mistake….

“The decision was based in a hope for the future rather than recognition of past accomplishments”….The big motivator was, of course that to the liberals in europe, at least he wasn’t George Bush

From the Army, the National Guard, or even from some of your local cops when/if the Revolution comes…

Who thinks that those “Thermal Blankets” marketed by Max Tactical and others to those Militia minded folks who just don’t understand FLIR….

I urge you to buy one of these add ons to your smartphone and learn just what FLIR can do…

You can see what a $250 thermal imager can do (IOS version available here)

….Now think about what the military has available. I worked with it 25 years ago, and it was bad-ass then. You could, under the right conditions, see a person’s BREATH from a couple hundred yards away. And that was 25+ years ago.

You’ll realize that your tactics will have to change…..drastically.

So I’ve been a customer of Amazon’s for …a long time..longer than some of you have likely been out of high school (hell, longer than I was IN high school)….. I dislike their founders politics, but I do like their service enough to overcome that….

Along comes the smartphone. And the Amazon App…. A very handy tool. I can scan any barcode and see what the price is on Amazon compared to the price in the store right there IN THE STORE. (I especially like to check prices on books and music in Amazon while IN BARNES AND NOBLE!)….track purchases and such right there on the magic elf box in my hand….I even use it to BUY stuff once in a while…(OK, I use the amazon app to buy a LOT of shit…)

3 times, however,this year, I have turned the preference to “Leave me alone, Damnit” for the “Hey! let’s send suggestions to B for stuff he might like or has previously bought!” (“Buy it again!”….even though the suggestions are likely one-off purchases like a stethescope). and clogging my notifications bar on my Android phone….and setting an alert which sounds just like my voice mail notification….which wakes me up in the middle of the night on the days that I am on call…  And pisses me off when it is a false alarm….Now, I think that having the default be “on” for these suggestive selling thingies is maybe a good idea for the first time a person downloads the app…..but I am getting a bit peeved when they keep resetting the fucking preference to “ON” when I set the thing to “OFF” for a reason.

If this keeps up, I will decide that I don’t need Amazon on my phone…. Which is going to impact my Amazon buying much more than their suggestive selling is likely to generate…the offset will be at least thousand dollars a year, if not more.

Ya hear me, Jeff Bezos? I already buy enough through you.. leave me the hell alone.

I mean, whoda seen this coming?

Certainly no one with a functioning brain……

     Iran has reportedly found an unexpectedly high reserve of uranium, following assessments that the      country is running low on the nuclear raw material and just days after President Obama essentially      secured an international nuclear deal with the country’s leaders.

I am shocked, shocked, I tell you.

When the first A bomb goes off, it’ll be Barry’s finest achievement….Sadly, he (and most of the DNC) are not working for the good of the USA….

Apparently, Tam has put 300(!) rounds through a 1911 with no cleaning (and apparently, it started out not so terribly clean to begin with) …. and had no issues…..

Can’t be. The only gun that can do that is, of course,  a GLOCK. We all know that 1911’s  are Jam -O-Matics…. The only things worse are Kel-Tecs and Hi-Points….

Be interesting to see if it makes it all the way to the 2000 mark.