The Daily News

1   Oh, my!

2   Every computer in my house has these dire warnings that Mozilla is no longer protected, and that I must upgrade with a click of a button.

3   Hmmmm.

4   Something is pretty crooked about all of that. Not sure what, but I guarantee they want money.

5   How come we buy computers every couple of years, but for some reason they can't just include "protection" in them?

6   Because the world is run by a buncha crooks, that's why.

7   A part of me feels like challenging those "warnings". Can't we do a class action against HP or Dell or whomever?

8   It reminds me of New York gangs having restaurants and small businesses buy "protection" against being burned down.

9   It's Godfather stuff.

10  It almost makes me want to "uncomputer" myself.

11  Sons a sons a sons a...!

12  Don't get me wrong. The advent of the computer in the past twenty years is arguably man's greatest achievement in our brief history.

13  But we have gone into a sort of future shock, thinking we have this when clearly we don't.

14   Control.

15   I am getting darned tempted to de-digit my entire being.

16   Moving on, Part the First: I'm not really moving on. I'm just switching thoughts for a sec.

17   Ever since I got my iPhone, I've been paranoid.

18   Technology has done just about everything technology could do. I'm now beginning to believe that the next step is going to be the stuff of science fiction. Already our computers have the entire "access denied" thing going on.

19   At what point are our computers going to begin out-thinking us? Sounds creepy, but the reality is that I now have a computer that I can keep in my shirt pocket. It can tell me exactly where I am, where I shop, what my thoughts are, and all sorts of other weird things.

20  I was driving down Capitol Expressway the other day thinking of how I really miss being able to push buttons instead of having the "touch" thing going on with my phone.

21  I'm afraid that if my phone hits a quarter in my pocket that it might phone someone.

22  It already plays music randomly.

23  And it is listening and gathering info off everything I do.

24  I'm serious.

25  Ah, just paranoia I suppose.

26  Moving on, Part the Second: Did you see that Rupert "Big Brother" Murdoch just arranged with Apple to begin an online paperless newspaper that will include "leather-biting" journalism?

27  Yeah Rupe. We know what your "leather-biting" journalism is.

28  You already control eighty per cent of thought in America. And it's all the way YOU want the news slanted.

29   It's already pretty much Hitlerian. And you already control much of America's thinking.

30   Who controls the present controls the past. And who controls the past controls the future. Or somethiing Orwellian like that.

31    We are already raising an entire generation that accepts mainstream news as a mere nightlight. I get very little sense of young people caring what their government is up to. And that's scary to a guy who has seen his own government blow off a President's head and get away with it.

32   I'll restrain myself here, but Murdoch has just launched an online paperless paper called The Daily with Apple.

33  I'm thinking of suing the bastards for stealing my idea.

34  Think I'd win? 

35  Anyway, the very fact that they already are painting Ronald Reagan as a saint shows me a lot. This morning Yahoo or AOL had a picture of Mt. Rushmore with Reagan carved into it. Are ya kiddin' me? Some people in the Bay Area wanted to change the name of Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan. <shudder!>

36   If you look at pictures of Reagan's inauguration, you will see Italy's number one godfather at the time, Licio Gelli, the fascist puppeteer and emperor of Italy's corrupt P-2, standing right behind Reagan at his swearing in.

37   The Bush family was in bed with the Nazi party. All one needs to do is to Google Prescott Bush and his insidious connections. Half of those connections are linked to the Kennedy assassination. And a WHOLE bunch of those guys are still walking around making decisions.

38   You won't get any of that from The Daily.

39   And people who actually have read and researched this stuff for years are being looked at as though they are the one's who are lunatics. Fine. Don't read.

40  Google PNAC, Cheney's mob. It stands for Project for the New American Century.  It's all there, in black and white, and in red, white, and blue.

41  I stay away from this stuff deliberately because journalism no longer does its job, which is to be the watchdog of this sort of thing. Since almost nobody else is reporting, it, I don't want to be the only guy who tells it without buzzers and whistles.

42  I took journalism courses before everything was controlled, and every class talked about newspapers being the watchdogs of government and corruption.

43  Not anymore.

44  Right now in another room there is an infomercial about a cut-em-up food processor called the Magic Bullet.

45  That is a direct reference to the Kennedy assassination. The "magic bullet" is the one bullet that allegedly went through JFK and Texas governor John Connally, "proving" that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy all by his lonesome, which is clearly bullshit.

46  The call it the "Ultimate Party Machine". But the concept of a one-thing-could-do all that blender called The Magic Bullet is disgusting. It is directly named after an imaginary bullet in a grisly murder that furbished one of the greatest lies of the twentieth century. I'll buy ten.

47   Somebody took over the government that tragic day, and as yet, no real arrests. A coup took over our government and never turned back.

48  And now Murdoch, who controls nearly everything we think nowadays, is about to manufacture a huge propaganda piece, and Facebook freaks and Twitterers will be thinking his thoughts into the next millennium.

49   I remember that the only other person I ever knew who researches as much as I did was me old friend and confidant Al Russell. He once told me he wanted to write a novel about a ninety-year old man who tries screaming to a younger generation that JFK was murdered by his own successors, and that he would simply look like a howling wolf in the wind. The guy becomes the only logical voice in a thought-controlled world, but comes off to the controlled world as a madman.

50  Chilling, but we both used to laugh about it.

51  That commercial is still on. It's a "juicer". Whatevuh. If I'm a Kennedy, I'd be appalled.

52   Well Rupe, enjoy your Orwellian control thing. You've succeeded gracefully, you old poop.

53  Who controls the present?

54   Just a New Years Friday rant. Boycott the Daily. It will be controlled trash, just like most Dailies these days. There isn't a journalist out there who isn't afraid anymore. 'Cept this Old Brown Shoe. Oh, well.

55   Go Packers.

56   I'm out.

57   Peace

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

1  SHARRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKSSSSS!!!

2   'Bout time.

3   Great game, and it was good to see Patty shine on his night. He was heralded pre-game for having played in his 1,000th career game.

4   That team NEEDED a game like last night.

5    Nice stuff.

6    Moving on, Part the First: I would like to apologize to my Giants' constituency for completely not reporting the arrival in San Jose of the World Series' trophy yesterday. I didn't know until after school that the trophy was happening at San Jose Municipal Stadium.

7   At teacher told me.

8   How that slipped past me I'll never know, but somehow it did.

9   It probably has much to do with my going to sleep early these days. I miss the late-night news, so the majority of my news gets to me through early morning radio and the San Jose Merc.

10  If I may, the past couple of days haven't exactly been huge sports newsdays. Talking about cheesheads and how bloody cold it is in Dallas isn't exactly riveting sports events.

11  AnywayZ I really blew that one, because that is THE perfect place to display the trophy. It was at home plate from I think 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

12  Moving on, Part the Second: Almost didn't make it home last night.

13   All week long traffic has been over the top ridiculous, plus there were massive stalls on Capitol Expressway. I suspect it is directly related to Tet weekend.

14   My job yesterday was to meet with the amazing Thuy Ann Le, who is working on a community project that involves putting a small show together. She wanted a little advice about how to organize and direct something like that.

15   But both of us had trouble even trying to meet up because of massive traffic.

16   We work around a mile away from each other, but it took almost 45 minz just to get off work and meet up at her house.

17   Great meeting, as always, but on the way home, I pulled in front of two lanes of traffic to get into a left-turn lane.

18   Some guy pulled in front of me so that I was stopped perpendicular to oncoming traffic, one of those deals where you really can't move, and you KNOW you are going to get somebody angry.

19   Fortunately, the traffic approaching was pretty far down the road, maybe eight car lengths.

20  Suddenly, this SUV bastard charged the TOOOOOONDRA with horn-honking assholishness.

21  I tried to get the TOOOOOONDRA into reverse, so I could get into a nearby parking lot, but a light is out on my dash, and I just couldn't get it into gear.

22  But instead of the approaching SUV slowing down, the driver kept coming full speed, barreling down on me and honking loudly.

23  He must have been going at least 30 mph and looked every bit like he was going to slam into me!

24   He stopped short and kept honking.

25   I eventually backed up, but this guy was a zany lunatic.

26   I'm usually a pretty careful and sane driver, but after that I must admit I was a bit shaken.

27   I didn't let on that I was scared, but yeesh! I fully expected to get T-boned by that guy. It scared me because instead of slowing down, he bore down and slammed his breaks on at the last moment. It was clearly an angry guy trying to take his own insecurities out on my error.

28   Anyway, I'm safe and sound now, and so is TA.

29   But it was quite a scare, let me tellya.

30  Moving on, Part the Third: It's Groundhog's Day.

31  Such a strange day.

32  Well, I think the old guy will see his shadow, but only if it doesn't blow away.

33  Groundhog's Day always had a connection with me. First, it is my Mom's Dad's birthday.

34  Second, it is my Mom and Dad's anniversary.

35  Just relevant to me in some sort of way.

36  The wind chimes played lovely music when I got home last night.

37   I'm convinced the wind chimes in my yard are played by my Mom.

38   I think she liked that I got home safe.

39   So thanks Mom, for the thoughts.

40   Okay then, it's time to get off this thing and get going to school.

41   I have another day of watching students push pencils and take bubble tests.

42   See you soon.

43   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

Sophie Schliemann wearing the diadem from
Ancient , AncientTroy. Google the Schliemann circus
for some laughs.

1   Seats creaked at last night's rehearsal.

2   Last night's rehearsal remained warm and real, almost professional despite the chill.  Good cast.

3   Who was that sub? Va-va voom!

4   Fish is in Austin working on the seventy-fifth chapter of his book about American Education and the Ancient Druids.

5   "This is the forest primeval. The murmering pines and the hemlocks Stand like the Druids of old." ---Evangeline (1847)

6   In the first chapter, Fish, dressed as a Druid, administers hemlock to Evangeline. It's all downhill from there.

7   Hey, Did the Sharks win one the other day, or was I having hemlock flashbacks after having dined on tuna?

8   Promise Keepers. Scared of that.

9   The Governor is taking action against El Niño. He's moving to Peoria.

10  I hate that Goofy Mr. Rogers lookin', Klan-lovin', no holes-in-his underpants havin', Marv Albert hair-combin', gray suitin', Yank magazine readin', goose steppin'...

11  Hey. He gave us a raise. Vote republican.

12  Yesterday's Merc had a picture of a Raider fan with a bag over his head. Reminds me of my last prom date.

13   I better get outta here. Happy Tober, one and all.

*****

29  I have to believe that the play was Moliere's Imaginary Invalid, and that the governor reference was to Pete Wilson. The reference to the hot sub was probably some sub that the boys went gaga over. I rarely see who my sub is, since I'm usually absent when I get a sub. Duh.

30  Fish was Mr. Fish, everyone's sub at the time. He was the grandson of Orville Redenbacher of popcorn fame, and disappeared in a smoky mist one fine morning, never to be heard from again.

31   What I really find appealing about the old DN's is how absolutely random each item was. It would switch mid-stream, and go off in all directions.

32  Especially appealing is the shortness of them. It's almost as though the DN has turned into a long novel, as opposed to a terse, short poem.

33  Pretty fun discovery, sort of like Heinrich Schliemann, the purported Father of Archaeology, discovering Troy.

34  Schliemann was a fraud, but he actually discovered nine Troys back in the 19th Century, round about when I was born.

35  But we'll leave all of that to the winds.

36   Right now it is 4:49 in the a.m. and I have to watch kids push pencils and do bubble tests, so I do need my slip.

37   So we'll call it a day here, long before the day even begins.

38   You all have a great Tuesday, and I'll see you in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow.

39   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

Orville Redenbacher, grandfather of
the famous Mr. Fish.