Anne N. Mouse: Blog

I lost a filling this week... GRRR... Poor PMCS as the military would say... Anyway the dentist says the tooth will have to be extracted... To crown and root-canal the one next to it will be about $1,700, and probably I'll need another crown and root-canal, altogether he was saying something in the neighborhood of $6,000. All of which pretty much eats my automobile fund... And all my other funds for the year.
I hate saying po' mouth, but in a way I am po' so po' that I can't afford any extra o's or r's :P

With what I've been putting in in the mornings and another shift this month I'll be approaching 20 extra hours this month. It is nice on the wallet, but I sure feel my age at the end of an extra shift. Not so much when I put half or more of an hour extra in a day....
Anyway I have to make plans to arrange other things I want to do, what with another weekend essentially being eaten...

On the health front, I lost a filling the other day and probably may just spend the overtime money I get having that replaced if it can be done.

Well folks, this seems to be the only writing I'm doing of late....

So with no apologies, here are my thoughts:

One reason that politics has become so contentious is that the 'pot' in essence the reward for those who hold the power in the nation has become ever and ever greater. Lord Acton said "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (That may be a slight paraphrase, but I think it captures the essence of what the man intended to convey) I have often said that the larger an organization becomes, the more corrupt it becomes. This is because the larger an organization becomes, the more power it obtains, either through money (which is best described as a certificate of service [Dr Walter Williams]) or force of numbers of people who agree with the general agenda (or who feel that they dare not disagree with the general agenda) of the organization. Thus capturing the catbird seat (or visible leadership) becomes ever more contentious as it puts the people who back the person who captures that seat into positions to have vast wealth and power in their control. This would not be so if it weren't for the fact that the government has asserted that it should control things it cannot control.

In a society that is functioning well, family members, friends, and neighbors should be able to disagree about their viewpoints regarding political candidates (including Trump) without damaging their personal relationships. This may be difficult at first, but we should recognize that it was much more difficult in the past, as in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln at that time wisely encouraged the nation, "With malice toward none, with charity toward all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds …."

For a nation to continue to prosper, we must be able to discuss policies without impugning the character of those who advocate for certain policies, no matter how difficult that becomes.

But what of policies? Which ones are best? More and more government control? I've mentioned above that the more the govt controls, the more contentious the sides vying for power will become, so you may guess that I would say this is a bad idea, and that any group who advocates for more govt control is probably up to no good at best.

But what about safety nets and the like?

Well how about the govt gets out of the way so that I can work? Then I won't need their hammock! People are more closely related to squirrels than to ants. So the work of a man, if I may be blunt, is to provide his own store against the storms that beset his life, not to depend on the community to provide for him in his time of need.

More people who believe socialism is a good thing would be best advised to study the life cycle of either an ant nest or a bee hive. Come back after you have watched the ants or bees put the unproductive out in the fall and tell me again how your idea can do otherwise?

For the last few days I've barely spotted the comet NEOWISE as it makes its way around the sun. I think the best siting I had of it was a couple of Saturdays ago when I went in to do some cleanup at my job. That day I was out around 3:00 AM. But now it seems to have either been washed out by light pollution or smoke from forest fires, or I don't know what... Not that the comet was ever very visible... I actually accidentally spotted it around the first of July and wasn't sure that I was seeing such a thing until I searched it on the net.
Well I'm about too tired to concentrate again, so I'll stop writing about stargazing and try to gaze at the insides of my eyelids for a bit...

I'm going to work at least 8 hours of overtime this week. Not that I really need anything to keep me from writing. I've added maybe 100-150 words to Helluva. And to be honest they all seem flat to me, so I'll probably go back and scrub them out pretty soon. And that is the tale of why the story doesn't get finished. I write a couple hundred words and don't like the way they read, although I can't necessarily define what is wrong other than they seem flat, and scrub them over the next week or three.
Of course it is a nice economic boost for me to work extra time so in a way I'm pleased to earn the time.... But it still hurts!