Yesterday Ravi Shanker died, they tell us, in San Diego. Shanker was born in 1920, which makes him older than my Dad. Of course Shanker was one of the prime organizers of another benefit concert other than the one today and that was the concert for Bongle Desh. They had the entire video on You Tube last time I checked. I don't know if it's still there. Of course Shanker was pivital in the evolution of the Beatle's sound. The breakthrough came with the song Norwengen Wood. John Lennon asked George Harrison whether a sitar could be tuned like a western guitar. Apparently Harrison equivicated a bit saying such a thing has never been done. But Lennon pressed insistently, "I don't care whether it's even been done before, is it possible to do it?" And of course it was. You more sitar on the Anthology of Norwegen Wood than you hear on the official album version. Some say it's a sitar on "Paint It Black" that Brian Jones plays. I don't believe that instrument IS a sitar, if you listen to the tonality carefully, it's just played in the style of one. So if you want to call Ravi Shanker's death a cosmic event, then be my guest. But as for my predictions of this date, I count them largely as having failed.
North Korea put a missile warhead into orbit. They are calling it a "weather sattelite' but I wouldn't presume they were telling the truth. They tried to fake us out this time, not wanting to be embarrassed again like they were twice before with the missile going down in the Yellow Sea. So this time they salved our government by saying "We are experiancing technical difficultiesx" and then readied the rocket for a launch. It's in a polar orbit, and one of the rocket stages went down in the Philipines. US officials add "But they are having trouble controling the craft". This isn't Star Trek. Once it's in orbit they've made their point. It means they have the capability to shoot a missile to America, with a nuclear warhead. But US officials said "If the trajectory ever threatened America, our forces would have shot it down". I'm glad they're so confident. Of course we have that Dome thing in Israel protecting their people from oncoming missiles. The odds of Dr. Levy being injured by a Gaza missile during the trip he later canceled are only slightly higher than being struck by lightning in my oppinion, since Dr. Levy's family is in the north. However Democrats have been saying for four years that North Korea developed nuclear capability during George W's term, whereas under Clinton we had the situation under control. At least that's what they are saying.
Syria has now begin launching scud missiles at their own people, and I guess at Turkey. To me this is a situation where the US has been playing possum, and I'm not really sure why. John Mc Cain is the only guy who's making sense right now. They tell us that Iran is a lot further away from developing nuclear capability than people generally believe in the population at large. Some are saying that Israel wants to go in and Nuke their facilities, but that they need US help to carry it off. Apparently we'd have to Nuke Iran because conventional missiles would be incapable of penetrating the heavy shielding since the facilities in question are deep underground. According to Joe Drisco, Putin has just announced a total modernization and expansion of Russia's defensive capabilities, and that Russia has made it a point in saying that the United States is still its number one enemy. I guess the big question really is whom the Russians regard as THEE biggest enemy they have to face. Apparently it is neither Iran nor China. And I'm a little unsure myself of the resolve either Russia or China has in actually doing anything to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear country.
The only word we've heard as far as this five or six week tax bill stalemate since the elections of last month is that Obama's resolve is weakening and he's backing down over how much revenue he desires to raise from the bill. Also others are saying that Obama wants to compromise over the tax rate. Perhaps it won't go all the way back to 39 percent but he might have to settle on 37 percent. And there is wide spread talk- - that seems like more than talk, that the age for Medicare will be raised to 67. This will cause a lot of untold hardship for those retiring folks who find themselves in this "donut hole" of no coverage. If you're a brick layer you might to even retire before age 65, for instance at 62. They used to make Airline Pilots retire at sixty, and brick laying or mining is a more physically demanding job than piloting a plane. Some have suggested that certain people who are rich "unofficially retire" but then stay on as "consultants" continue to pull down big salaries while they avail themselves of medicare benefits. Perhaps "means testing" could cover this particular contingency.
This has been a pretty sucky 24 hours for me since I did that last entry. I lost enough money to buy two and a half packs of cigarettes last night- - when I know exactly where it was supposed to be - in my front left jeans pocket. How it could have possibly completely disappeared is something beyond me, besides some sort of supernatural hocus pocus. Today my computer shut down and I could not reboot it. But then I dug out the reboot disk Judy had given me for just such a contingency. I got some warning messages and shut the thing down before lunch. But after lunch the thing booted normally when I turned it on, as if none of that stuff had ever happened. I'm wondering whether there might have been some sort of solar flair that occurred that didn't make the news. They love to fill the news with a lot of crap - - like all this Cal State Fullerton shit- - showing a picture of a building or else law enforcement people milling around in the rain - and absolutely nothing going on - for three whole hours, even preempting the National network news on NBC and ABC to do it. But of course they had to break when something really important was scheduled to come on - - like Jeopardy. Fortunately CBS still had their regular network news, and I should send them a letter of comendation. Of course Nora took off the thick bedspread from my bed and put the thin one back on - - at the same time they turn off the heat in here - - and the temperature of the whole building begins dropping. And don't even get me started about breakfast and how our table has been the last to be served at least ten of the past fourteen days. At LEAST. And I mean, they are already clearing off tables in the other side of the dining room and we haven't gotten our pancakes and bacon yet. But on the positive side- - my brother- - the one who lives in Woodridge- - writes and tells me that I'm the only one besides himself that can "read" the photographs of his trip he's been sending out. I've often been told by others that this computer both sends and receives photos that other computers can't handle, so I should count my blessings there. Of course if the whole hard drive fails or something- - then we'll have a whole new tale of woe to tell.
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