Just read that the inequality of income and wealth in the US is at a pre French revolution level. I wonder if that will continue or grow. Where is the tipping point? Is media the “church” of the masses. As long as people listen to the media for information they are happy with the reporting and take it as factual information. What would spark a revolution? Police killing unarmed young people? The whole notion of wealth seems to go back to Reagan’s trickle-down myth. I read the cup doesn’t overflow but rather the rich just get bigger cups. What is the demarkation line? 1 million in wealth? 10 million? I’d like to know. I wonder how you got on the list of people lined up for the guillotine in the french revolution? There must have been a criteria. Maybe not. Perhaps it was political and wealth identified. I will look on wikipedia.
Category Archives: History
Listening to the House
Today, I listened to the US Congress House debate the clean CR. Just as I tuned in, after a few minutes, the House stopped abruptly with little notice. I wondered what was the cause so I looked at a news site and the news was there was shooting on the Mall in Washington DC. I witnessed history. They ended because they thought they were in danger and wanted to hide. Some person rammed a barricade to the White House, resisted arrest, panicked and started a chase through Washington DC. The press reports clearly said there was an “exchange” of gun fire. It turns out there was “no exchange” of gunfire it was just the police shooting and killing the woman, the driver in a black sedan who had rammed the white house barricade and fled.
Anyway, this event or series of events was portrayed in the media as a “shooting” and there were preventive lockdowns on the Hill.
* Don’t believe the early reports about any event in the news.
Late today the media said it had information that the woman had mental health problems. At this point I treat that as disinformation. At least the media said that they didn’t have any information on the motivation of the woman ramming the barricade and fleeing the scene. Media reported the woman was from Connecticut. The irony is that the government has shut down and there are 800,000 furloughed federal employees. One media account this evening even interviewed a couple walking on the Mall that were furloughed federal employes coming to talk to their representative about the government shutdown. Another irony was that the capital police are working without pay. Another irony, which escapees me, is that Congress continues to get paid.
Washington was on edge after the Navy Yard shooting a few days back so I think many drew the conclusion that this was another shooting. It was not. Apparently, there was an infant in the car with the woman that somehow escaped injury. Apparently,one policeman was injured in the high speed chase when his police car ran into a barricade.
I might also say that the House debate was highly partisan. Each side blaming each other for the government shutdown. Since the House is controlled by Republicans they enjoyed a one sided debate where the Democrats were stifled by a procedural rule. It was quite the spectacle. Total dysfunction.
UPDATE: The media is now saying the woman was suffering from depression. “Relatives have said that she may have suffered postpartum depression.”-a quote from the news. And there was a report that the woman had a head injury about 1 year ago.
UPDATE: Some are questioning the use of deadly force on an unarmed woman and the need to escalate to a high speed chase. Others said that the police did the best they could given that it could have been a more dangerous threat.
UPDATE: At this point I still don’t know the details of the life of the woman. I feel sorry for her. It was so desperate. There is so little in the news as followup. Just the sensationalism of the day.
Who would want to be the police? Always having to deal with the public, always on guard and in crisis. And as Jo says, the police are shooting to kill these days.
The irony of Apple
It is truly ironic that Apple, Inc. has fought back from the brink of extinction to what it is today–a highly successful company. There are several ironies. Micheal Dell’s comment about what he would do with Apple has come back to haunt him. Microsoft was once the 800 pound gorilla in the room that you dared not complain about because there were so many fanboys. Microsoft is having a difficult time without leadership that understands what the consumer wants or as they say where the puck WILL be. I get a little satisfaction with Apple’s success.
And this week Apple does it again with record sales of the new iphone 5s and 5c. They are working on selling in China’s huge market. And yet they aren’t making junk- according to Tim Cook. I read a good explanation of what people think when they think of the Apple brand. It is “luxury within reach”. Windows has always been, “cheap but if you’re patient it might work”. Apple’s line is “It just works.”
I stuck through the lean times with Apple. Through the time when Steve Jobs was running Next. I snarfed up a 20th Anniversary Mac that was available through educational channels in a heart beat. I had the Newton. But I sold them before they were obsolete and they held their value. I was sad about Apple Media Tool. I lost $500 on that title. It was a great tool. Jobs axed it right away on his return. The first iteration of products from Apple after Job’s return didn’t really catch my interest. Clamshell laptops were awful. And they axed the Newton. They could have at least spun off the Newton and Apple Media Tool like they did with Filemaker Pro. It really wasn’t until the first generation of iMac flat screens that I became interested. Though I think I bought all the Power Macs and G5 towers. I remember the 8500. I could take it apart, which was no easy task. I either sell my stuff on ebay or hand it down to family members.
The new Mac Pros that are due late 2013 aren’t all that interesting to me. They are small. They require external storage. I will wait until they are reasonably priced before I make the purchase. I am happy with the budget Mac Pro I just bought. If it lasts as long as the last one it will last me 6 years and have value to sell on ebay.
I am on the 5th year of owning a refurbished macbook air. I can’t afford to replace it. But I haven’t had any problems with it even though it is a refurbished item. I don’t think it has much value since I must honestly state it is refurbished. It has one quirk. After you hit the start button there is an 8 second delay until the chime.
Once you go to a SSD (solid state drive) you will never want to return to spinning drives. Take my word, they are that great! The Samsung 840 is the best of the best. The only challenge is fitting your boot drive on a smaller footprint. Prices on SSDs are falling. If you want to breath new life in an older machines just put an SSD in it.