Cooking With Hotplates

My stove is a countertop appliance than plugs into a regular wall outlet.  Like a lamp.  It consists of two "burners", each of which is a metal disc.

The idea is that the metal disc will eventually get hot enough to cook something.  I've learned to turn the thing up as high as it goes, and use a large frying pan with a lid.  Not a heavy cast iron pan.  That might take forever.

Here's what you do.  You put whatever it is on the pan, add the upside down large stainless bowl that serves as lid, turn control up to high, go do something else.  Like write here, read an article, start a show on hulu.  Practice playing when you are in that mood.  Right now, I am not very interested in playing music.

A clever trick is to place a small piece of butter here and there.  It serves as a temperature report when you check to see how things are.

In some ways this cooking system is a time saver.  If the burners actually burned like real burners do, I'd have to keep a close eye on it.  This set up can be left for awhile; take a shower, go to the next step in changing the oil in the car, turn on computer and see what's up, etc.

Now that I think of it, this is the picture of an idiot who has gone too long without getting married again.  Not necessarily legally and all that.  Often there is no point, at a certain stage, in bringing the state and/or the church into it.  That probably means commitment.  No wonder I am here now.

Age of Hypocrisy

European types have experienced a number of eras to which they gave labels; the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, etc.

This era may stand out as the Hypocritical Madness.  Either you get or you don't.  Not sure expounding on it is worth the trouble.

I was thinking how I am not a fan of basketball. It is OK, I guess, but doesn't appeal to me.  On top of that I do not agree with Obama's view of the USA, the role of government in general, and federal power specifically.   This would easily land me the label of "racist" among those who lend non-critical support to anything the president does.

Yet, my views are not formulated using race as a factor in the equation.  Oh well.  Label away.

One statement which defines our difference in viewpoint was made during Obama's first inauguration.  I paraphrase but I think the essence is intact.  He stated that the size and scope of government is not an issue, only whether it works.

How one defines what "works" means in that assertion is less and less a mystery every day.  It is not comforting that some close to the president, supporters in the Congress, have stated that China's government "works".  It is a slippery slope.

My idea of a government that works would be one in which individual rights are protected, and one's freedom is maximized as much as possible; personal freedom, and economic freedom.  That is not a system under which citizens are subjects and businesses are running the state through convoluted regulations, cronyism, and competition killing measures.

My ideal place is not one in which the immediate answer to anything bad is to curtail the natural rights of individuals.

So, that is why I don't support the would-be king, and most of the others who live large while stealing, and seeking to control the lives of those whom they view as "the masses".

A totalitarian system can be said to work, if your goal is unfettered control over the individual.   Of course those in charge assume they know best.  One benefit of being older is that one may have glimpsed a freer time, and observed as the political world created crises and wars, then pretended to address the issues by closing the grip on the citizens.  Over and over and over again.

Create a problem, tout a worthless fix, spout ay irrelevant lie needed, over and over until people buy it for rational, or include some inducement which will quiet people's better sense.  Then do it again.  The result is incrementally more responsibilities for government, more money spent, more erosio of rights and liberty.

One key is the casting of the crumbs.  nother is convincing people that only the evil, label of the month to hate, group is affected.  Like "the rich", the "1%", NRA, Oil, this that the other.  Wow, I get a phone or some other perk while my lords stick it to the rich or some ethic group who is out of style.   Yippee.

And the truth is, the evil whoever is probably not phased.  Especially the echelon of that group which is very much in bed with the powers that be.   Often the public face of the relationship is a total facade to project a adversarial impression.  If you have never had cause to discover such deception first had, you may think this sounds like paranoia and fantasy.

I assure you it is not.  I was bit pretty hard one time due to this phenomenon in our federal government. I'm sure it occurs on every level to some degree.  Anyway, there was no doubt about the truth.  My discovery was the result of pure coincidence and being in the right place at the right time.  Or wrong time, depending upon how you look at it.

I'm just venting.  It is all true and right, but...never mind.  I know this is a worthless waste of time.  I like to write such things down.  I'd say, "so sue me", but I'm not sure you won't, ad not sure you wouldn't win.

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Life Meaning

It must have been a reaction to someone describing the "service" of a senator.  The tone and context implying that living on the public dime, making a career of it, is somehow an elevated calling.  Not in my book.  I checked it and it said "NO".

That brought me to thoughts and recollections of harboring and hearing concerns about meaningful work.  I think any honest, freely traded work is significant.   People are designed to create, cultivate, build and imagine.  Our minds and bodies are designed for that and sex.  That's it.

Really, that should be a great deal.  We're designed to be nuts as well.  It humors the powers that be.  Should I have capitalized Powers That Be?   Maybe add PBUH(peace be upon him; it, they, she, he, that).

When I remember that any endeavor which requires use of body and mind, and pays money or serves as trade, is making use of what I've been given to navigate life, I tend to do better.  It all has meaning.

That doesn't mean all work has the same market value.  The significance is still there.

Things that I am only just learning, a healthy 13 year old would already know.  My parents, for whatever reasons, just assumed I'd understand life and all else by pulling the info out of the ether.   To some extent I guess I did.

Most of the time I feel freer and less stressed now than I did at thirteen.   Looking back it hardly seems like that was me.  I don't think I enjoyed much for several years.  I know.

I did go through the motions, and I had my dreams, even though they seemed somehow forbidden.   I'm pretty sure, if I had to grow up the way it is now in the USA, I'd be locked up or dead.  Kids have less freedom, in some ways, than did everyone older than them.  That trend has been there for awhile.

I'd roller skate up and down the street, at four years old, with no one outside watching.   I was five or six when I got my first BB gun.  I'm not sure if crime was that much lower or the politics of paranoia and the accompanying entertainment industry built around fear had simply not yet matured and molded the psyche of the culture.  

Whatever the case, it was not all roses.  Not in Miami, that's for sure.  Largely a town of jerks when I was growing up.  Living elsewhere makes that clear.

Alright, finding meaning in what's being done right now.  Making use of the design in which they chose to house me, whatever I am.  It was all arranged at the factory.  I don't remember it.   Who knows where to find the factory.  Cheap imitations, like public schools, are the best you get.

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