Neighborhoods in Distress

When my sister-in-law moved here last summer, we drove her around to many places looking at homes. This tour included newer developments, those built just before or during the big bubble. These were neighborhoods in much distress; it was obvious all around. These newer homes had all been purchased at very high prices, and many had been bought by unqualified buyers. When the bubble burst, they all were underwater on the money owned on these places, and the marginal buyers were marginal employees, many of whom found themselves out of work due to recession.

In some of these places, "For Sale" signs were rife; many were pathetic attempts. Some were bona-fide listings and some were short sales and bank-owned foreclosure properties. The bona-fide listings of course were priced many tens of thousands of dollars over the distressed sales and had utterly no hope of selling. There were lots of people standing around the neighborhood, none with a pleasant look on their faces. Lots of men needing haircuts and dressed in dirty tee shirts or "wifebeater" undershirts. It was terrible and personally, I would never move into a neighborhood in such distress like that. Petty crime is probably higher than normal. Residents are low on money and have plenty of time on their hands, a recipe for trouble. Stress within the households due to financial difficulties probably generates a higher than normal level of discord with resultant fighting, screaming, etc. Some of these households double or triple up within the same house, increasing density within the neighborhood. It might be hard to find a good neighbor thereabouts; with so many wanting to leave, who knows what kind of residents come next. Lots of renters for a while anyway. Speculators have bought some of these homes on the cheap and they don't care whom they rent to as long as the money comes in. Neighbors don't matter one whit to these absentee owners.

My guess is that it will take years for things to settle down in many of these newer developments that were thrown into turmoil from the housing price collapse and recession. Eventually, prices will stabilize and more permanent owners will settle in and take root. Hopefully.

In some places, these neighborhoods will never be the same. Like in CA, where all the "good people" move out and are replaced by an underclass of deadbeats. These are people who are permanently dependent upon the largesse that politicians there have doled out to perpetuate themselves in office. CA has made itself attractive to freeloaders, so it's no surprise that they make a bee-line for the state.

Diesel and Other Exhaust Fumes

At a time when my sniffer isn't working as well as it did when I was younger, I seem to be more sensitive to Diesel and other exhaust fumes. I really notice this more this time of year when I'm driving in my car with the heater on. If I get behind a Diesel pickup, the heater intake is apt to suck up some of those exhaust fumes and route them right into the passenger compartment. During warmer weather, I can roll up the windows and escape from most of these fumes. I try to avoid driving behind Diesel-powered pickups and the few cars that are around; the big rigs don't seem to bother me as much but maybe that's because their exhaust stacks are often routed up higher.

I've never owned a Diesel-powered personal vehicle and likely never will. I understand that they deliver better fuel economy than gasoline and produce more torque but these attributes do not interest me. I'm turned away from them primarily because they are noisey and smokey. They tend to last a long time, but from the people I've known who've had them, when something does go wrong the repair bill can be many times that for repairs made to a gasoline engine.

Then there is the subject of driver technique. With big rigs, there isn't much issue with excessive accelleration, but with smaller Diesel-powered rigs there can be. Hot dog drivers with a Diesel are just as apt to tromp on the throttle as they would in a gasoline-powered car, which of course creates an even greater burst of smoke. As I understand it, the fuel economy of a Diesel is optimal (even moreso that with a gas engine) with even, gradual accelleration.

Be prepared for an increasing number of Diesel-powered personal vehicles in the future. The US government likes the idea because of the increase in fuel economy (even if Diesel often costs a little more).

I wonder how all the "Green attitude" in Europe squares with their much wider use of light vehicles powered by Diesel. A great many smaller cars there have Diesel engines. When you're in the city, those streets can be like canyons, with breezes blocked off and no relief from the clouds of Diesel smoke.

My other complaint about fumes comes from old Ford trucks that have outlived their time. These would be gas-powered, older F-100's, F-150's, and F-250's. Whenever I see one of these ahead of me on the road, I groan inwardly and know that I am about to be treated to a big, long sniff of semi-burned raw gasoline fumes. Rarely am I disappointed. These old Ford pickups with carburetors just seem to have lasted longer than anyone ever anticipated. They mostly have FE series engines; big, heavy, gas-guzzler V-8's that by now have worn-out carburetors, all kinds of crankcase blow-by, and in general, are quite tired. But they keep running so the owners "cling to them" (sound familiar?). In this region anyway, by far and away, Ford sold the most pickups in decades past, so the original numbers of Chevrolet (and GMC) and especially Dodge were smaller. Given the greater propensity for rust, the GM products didn't last as long regardless of how good the engines might be. So it's the old Ford pickups that drive me nuts with fumes.

It's funny that the Ford pickups would be so long-lived, as the heavier trucks in their product line have tended to have presented the opposite experience. Professional operators that I've known have not particularly liked heavier Ford trucks, to include C-600's, C-750's and the conventional cab types in comparable weights. Forget about over-the-road trucks; Ford gave up trying to make and sell those some time ago.

My New Computer

The computer we've been using for, oh, about five years or so, was due for replacement. It had gotten very slow and aggravating, so my son who does all of our IT set-up got us a new one. This is a machine that he built, with lots of (all the things that make it work faster and better that I can't think of the acronyms for) along with a new keyboard, etc, and installed it. The old machine had the XP operating system; the new one skipped over the discredited Vista and has something called Windows 7. Well, it's different but similar. Different enough so that I have to do many things in slightly other ways than I used to and it's really slowing me down.

The new computer is very fast and that part is very satisfying. The downside, however, is the keyboard (or "keyborad" as I've typed at least 500 times by accident). It's not an expensive one, and I'm thinking that if you're going to get spendy on any one thing, it should be the keyborad. The old one I had was a heavy, expensive one. I got it (second hand) because it was just like the expensive one I used to have at work that I liked. Unfortunately, that one wasn't like an army blanket: I couldn't steal it.

Anyway, the new keyborad (might as well do what comes naturally) is a cheaper, plasticky thing that takes more deliberate pressure on the keys and likes to ignore the space bar a lot.

The real point of aggravation is the spacing between the very top line of keys (the F-numbers row) and the second row, the numbers and more importantly, the back space key. When you have a crappy keyborad, you especially need the back space button a lot. My old keyborad had a lot of space between those two rows, like 3/8 of an inch. This new one has about 1/16 so it's really easy to get into the F-numbers row by accident. I discovered that the F-12 key, right above the back space, is the Death Key. At least on this computer. When you hit the F-12, it goes irrevocably into the computer shut-down mode. So for example, if I am writing one of my posts like this, it all goes away.

I'd like to plug my old keyborad back in right now, but it has the round plug. My new computer only has USB sockets. You can get little adapters to go from one to the other, but we tried the $2 one and it didn't work. There is another one for $10 and I may have to get that one. It would be worth it.

Isn't it amazing how quickly expensive electronics become obsolete? At five years of age, my old computer was considered ripe for being done-for, just on the basis of age alone. Not long ago, I was at the Goodwill Outlet store where they sell all the dreck that doesn't move in their retail stores. The Goodwill Outlet store is not like the Donna Karan outlet store, for sure. Anyway, I found a little Minolta DiMage Xi digital camera in the electronics bins for 49 cents a pound; at 5-1/2 ounces, what's that, about 17 cents? This camera came out way back in 2002 and cost $449 new. It's rated at, if I remember correctly, 3.2 mega pixels. Now you can go to Walmart and get a 8.1 MP for what, $50? The little Minolta DiMage isn't worth anything; you can see that quickly online. However, because nobody wants this obsolete item any longer, the special proprietary batteries that it takes are very inexpensive now as well as wall chargers.

So What's the Deal with Bright Headlights?

Used to be, the DOT had national standards for specifications on car headlights that included brightness. For some years now, there doesn't seem to be any standard in how bright headlights may be and they get brighter and brighter with every passing year.

I can't speak for what's going on in other parts of the country, but young pukes around here like to install extra-bright lamp bulbs in their little Japanese cars and blind everyone else. Like with the blue lights, for example. I'm not sure why they do this; a form of aggression I guess, like they have brighter lights that you do, hahaha. Having the brightest light is like having the fastest car; it's a form of oneupsmanship. Or they get a feeling of power from being able to blind other motorists.

There's no getting around it, but for some people their eyes become more sensitive to light as they age. However; I've never liked having bright lights pointed in my eyes at any age.

Remember the days when the police would pull you over for headlight offenses? These days, there aren't enough of them around to waste time on such trivial matters. Also, as bright as headlights have gotten on newer cars, how would they even tell if someone was driving around with their high beams on?

Then there's the deal with fog lights. Lots of people who live in the city and the 'burbs feel compelled to drive around with fog lights on in addition to headlights, in any weather. Just because. I know extra illumination is nice to be able to see, but it comes at the expense of every other driver that is forced to deal with overly-bright lights.

I guess some of this comes as a consequence of of the lack of civility and manners that keeps creeping insideously into our society. In times past, motorists might've had some consideration for other drivers on the road. Now, it's "I've got mine and screw you, Jack."

The Age of Aquarius was Horse Puckey

Now that I've gotten to be an old codger, it gives me a bit of experience and perspective to look back on in reflection. Maybe a little license, too. Sometimes, I hear Boomers talking about the Hippie generation, or the "Age of Aquarius" as if it was some golden time when everybody got along, there was this new awareness, etc. Horse puckey. Being carefree Hippies just enabled some young people to get along somehow in life without having to work for a living.

How about life in the communes? I've heard enough stories about this to know that many of those people lived in squalor and their own filth, too lazy or disorganized or factionalized to make a serious, honest go of country life.

And what about "Free Love"? It was free sex, without taking responsibility for the consequences and without having to make a commitment to a relationship.

How about Flower Power, the "Counter Culture", smoking pot, dropping acid, psychedelic music, weird hair and weird clothes? I repeat, it was all horse s**t no Boomer revisionist will convince me otherwise about all these years later. Just like the Japanese revising the history of WW2, the passage of decades doesn't change what happened.

Incompetence in Government

I've just finished reading the book, Killer Spy, by Peter Maas which is about the CIA traitor spy Aldrich Ames. For some reason, I've been interested in the stories of contemporary American traitors and have read similar stories about Jonathan Pollard (Navy employee who gave secrets to Israel), the Walker family (a navy family that made spying a cottage industry), and James Hall (US Army warrant officer who sold highly classified communications security information to the East Germans and the Soviets) and others. In terms of damage to US intelligence operations, Aldrich Ames has to rate way up there near or at the top of the list. His revelations to the Soviets resulted in the rolling up of numerous CIA intelligence operations which in turn resulted in the deaths of numerous US-recruited agents.

A consistent undercurrent in this story is the downright incompetence, inefficiency and malfeasance of the CIA. Ames fed material to the Soviet Union and later the security services of the Russian Federation for many years. During this time, he was an known alcoholic, flunked agency lie detector tests, left plenty of evidence of spending beyond his means, and the agency was aware that he had failed to report contacts with Soviet representatives. Ames frequently entered counterintelligence sections of the CIA where he was no longer assigned, trolling for information. This was a clear and repeated violation of the simple "need to know" principle of security.

I well recall that during the Cold War, the CIA was the dreaded know-all agency in the eyes of our Iron Curtain enemies. Mention of the letters "CIA" and people around the world would shivver. They did not know that it was just another bureacratic government agency, fumbling along, often with indifferent, sometimes careless employees.

Except for a big jump in the unemployment statistics, were half of all federal government employees to be laid off, most people in the US wouldn't know the difference. When you get right down to it, most government agencies are reactive in nature. Since most of them exist to perform a regulatory function, they mostly wait for events to happen and come to them. For this reason, it's difficult to measure efficiency in terms of work produced. So, an efficient employee who empties his in-box quickly is probably working on the same playing field as a slothful one who drags his feet along and whose in-box stays full. I've heard it all before, "Each individual worker has different capabilities."

Saying it another way, most federal agencies don't produce anything with some notable exceptions. The US Postal Service might be termed a productive agency, in that they perform a service and it's of a measurable quantity. Of course they are
flawed and suffer some of the same problems of inefficiency as other agencies. Other examples of "productive" government agencies might be the Bonneville Power Authority or the Tennessee Valley Authority, both of which actually provide a service, i.e., electrical power. Interestingly, these "productive" agencies that I mention have been reviewed for possible privatization and governmental divestiture in past; that's right, get rid of the only government entities that actually produce something and save money for people.

Many of the other government agencies are either road-block or obstacle creators or they have some purpose for giving money away. Regulation wouldn't be a bad thing in all cases, but so often in recent years we have seen so many examples where such regulation either favored special interests or didn't work at all.

Part of the problem with efficiency in federal employment are worker protections. Some of these go back in history to times when employees could be punished for their viewpoints in a system of political patronage. The protections were put in place to protect them from arbitrary management abuses. The political patronage system went away long ago but not the protections. In the meantime, they have also come under the protection of EEO, unions in some cases, and the nation-wide fear of litigation. Consequently, it's very difficult for federal employees to be let go for cause. Simply being a lousy worker won't do it (as it would in the private sector). Aldrich Ames was a good example. Even before he turned to spying, he was known to be an often ineffective employee and some of this was documented (but not all of it because much slipped through the cracks). Do we really want to retain ineffective employees in our intelligence services? The CIA didn't do any more to shed themselves of employees like Ames than the Social Security Administration might have.

Then we come to the Department of Defense. There isn't a valid argument for eliminating this agency, as a structure that provides for a national defense will always be needed given human nature. However, this one is overripe for reform. Many years ago, I worked with a Regular Army Major who espoused that the armed services, in addition to their normal function in providing national defense, also performed a service of social welfare. One facet of this service was to provide an employer of last resort for the unemployed and for youth with a lack if direction in their lives. The other main facet of this theory was that defense expenditures kept defense contractors in money, which not only enriched companies and corporations, but provided jobs for those employed by such enterprises. As time goes by, this theory is more and more supported by facts in evidence as we continue to maintain a large standing military.

There are plenty of arguments for not keeping a large standing force, number one of which is a serious reappraisal of defense priorities. Number two would be a realistic look at what can be financially sustained. Three and beyond involve considerations as to how warfare is likely to be waged in the foreseeable future. The days of elaborate and fantastically expensive super weapons systems might logically be considered a thing of the past. Laser beams nor scalar weapons are going to be any good against a suicide bomber with a dirty nuke in a suitcase. Reducing the active force and rebuilding the National Guard and reserve forces as true week-end warrior outfits might help offset the argument for having a force in place when it's needed in a hurry. In recent times, the reserve components have been looked upon as mere pools of easy manpower for the active forces.

We mourn the loss of our pets

Back around 1958 or '59, we had two cats, which were both white. One was named Frisky, and the other was named Homer. Frisky we got as a kitten from I don't remember where, and Homer was a stray that had come around where my dad was working and was brought home. We had a neighbor lady across the street who didn't like cats, and one day made a pointed complaint that our two cats had been in her yard and messed things up and what was my dad going to do about it? Well, in those days most people didn't think about keeping cats strictly indoors. My dad was angry about
this complaint, not at the cats but at the neighbor. Nevertheless, he wanted peace in the neighborhood (which most people were still interested in in those times), so he took both of our cats to the pound (which it was called then, not the "animal shelter") where they no doubt were destroyed. He didn't feel good about it, because he liked cats in general and these animals in particular but at the time, he didn't see another solution to keeping the peace with this neighbor. I was very upset at the time, but of course the passage of time heals wounds especially when we are young. Still, I think about and kind of mourn the loss of these two animals all these years later.