Bye-bye TV

Over the air TV was converted to digital last year. That means plain old TV sets with rabbit ears do longer work. You have have cable, or a converter box ($50 now) or a nice new TV set.
Visited my daughter last weekend. As a modern art sculpture, they have three old no longer functional TV sets piled up artistically in the dining room. That house no longer does TV. They have broadband Internet but no cable TV.
I'll bet the TV networks didn't see that one coming when they were pushed on board the high def digital TV bandwagon a few years ago. In effect, the switch to high def digital has reduced the TV audience, partly from people not converting, and also because the new high def digital signal doesn't go very far. Where I am we used to get 8 over-the-air TV stations. Now that we went all digital, we only get one station over-the-air. That's seven TV stations with a smaller viewership.

Can we Revoke Faisal Shahzad's Citizenship?

So reads the headline on a Wall St Journal OpEd piece by Peter H. Shuck, professor at Yale Law School.
To which I say, why in the name of all that's holy would we want to? He attempted to commit an atrocious crime on American soil, was apprehended by American police on American soil, and will face American justice. Since he is a US citizen, our foreign enemies cannot bad mouth us for being mean to foreigners. If convicted, the usual punishment is jail time or execution. Revocation of citizenship is surely unusual, and possibly cruel as well. There is a clause about that in the Constitution.
My other question is, what is this clueless lawyer doing teaching law at Yale?

Physician's Town Hall

We had one last night up here. It was kinda scary. The doctors, all respected local practitioners, known to and respected by the audience, tried to put a happy face on Obamacare. But as discussion went on it became clear that they see a grim future. Higher prices, less service. Rationing of care, extinction of new drug development, more and more paperwork. Mandatory electronic medical records that allow the government, the insurance companies, potential employers, and personal enemies to access your medical records. Bureaucratic OK's required before expensive treatment which are Sarah Palin's death panels under another name. The extinction of private medical practices, all doctors becoming mere employees of hospitals or health care organizations.

Follies of the Main Stream Media

So I'm getting a little breakfast in a greasy spoon on the way out of Washington DC. I skim a copy of the Washington Post that's lying on the counter. The editorial page is a classic. First article urged the administration to go postal on Egypt. Here is a friendly middle east power that has, and is still, doing good things. They called off the war with Israel 40 years ago and have kept their word. The outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood (root of Al Quada) in the 1920's, and imprisoned and executed Fawzi el Qutb (dangerous Islamic extremist) in the 1960's. Egypt has been a better friend and ally than even the Saudi's. Yet here is the Post calling for the administration to do regime change on them just cause Hosni Mubarak is a military strongman rather than a democratically elected politician. The world is not a perfect place, but but Mubarak is a better man than that nutcase with a funny name running Iran. If you want to pick on middle eastern governments why not pick on the really bad ones?
Next editorial down is praising the DC teachers union for finally coming to the contract table. Here we have the worse school system in the country, and the Post is siding with the teacher's union? As opposed to the parents and students? The DC system didn't fall to it's current nadir without a lot of help from the teachers.
No wonder the Post is loosing money, it isn't focusing on matters that readers care about.

Hat is in the ring. I'm running for office

Had to happen sometime. The Grafton County Republicans have been looking for someone, anyone, to stand for election to District 2 Grafton county, (Bethlehem and Franconia). At the last Lincoln Reagan dinner, a bunch of senior county Republicans backed me into a corner and pressed me to run. So, I said yes.
The district is two small towns way up and north of Franconia Notch. Both towns together cast 1500 votes for state rep in the last two elections. Both towns are residential and tourist places, no industry or agriculture worth mentioning. It's a single rep district.
New Hampshire has an enormous (400+) lower house from a smallish state, so reps are pretty far down the food chain, compared to state senators, executive council members, newspaper and TV reporters, to say nothing of executive and judicial branch officials.
My campaign plan is simple. Walk around and knock on doors. The district is small enough that it is possible to meet a lot of voters face to face.
I can use all the help I can get.

National Portrait Gallery

So I got to Washington DC. First time in years without young children, so instead of doing the fun childrens stuff like Air and Space, I did a grown up art museum. The portrait gallery was great. Best stuff is on the first floor, portraits of Americans that mostly I had at least heard off, and some about who I know quite a bit. Plus painters I had heard of. You can see the style changes over the years. Eighteenth century and earlier the men wear colorful three piece suits with coats down to their knees. After the revolution the bright colors go away and everyone dresses in black. Beards come back in for the civil war and last for 50 years.
All the faces show determined middle aged men, of the "don't mess with me" sort. Nearly all white, a number of Indians, and a very few blacks.
They have lots of room to expand. The upper floors are clearly waiting for some more stuff to show.

Westtown Alma Mater

Time flies. I attended my 50th high school reunion Saturday. At first I thought about maybe not going and pretending that I ain't that old. But as emails and Facebook stuff piled up, the nostalgia began to build, and I went. Driving into the school is a big change. The road I used to bike into West Chester on is all different. 50 years ago the road was all cornfields and apple orchards and wood lots. Now it is solid housing developments. Nice looking houses, but the farmers are all gone. It isn't until you get on the school grounds that things look familiar. The old treasured Main Building is still there, all red brick and a zillion chimneys. Since I graduated the school has added a theatre building, a science building, a lower school building, a middle school building, a student hangout building, an 9th grade girls dorm, and two more gyms. Our class gift will fund a new building for the maintenance people. Dunno what they will put up after that.
Our efficient class officers had name tags made up with our old 1960 year book pictures on them. Good thing, I wouldn't have recognized a lotta class mates with out them. We did lots of catching up on old times, and a fair amount of time listening to school officials make pitches for money and student referrals. That sell seemed a little harder than in past years.
All an all an enjoyable day, doing very simple things.