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Objective Observer
Weekly newsletter from the Objective Observatory offers a pithy insight into the inner workings of Anguillian Society.
All content is (c) 1993-2006 by RK Publications and reflects the views of the author.
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Over the past weeks, the entire Staff has been combing over past OO columns, sorting by date, and preparing the giant 1993-2004 compilation . This required reading the entire canon, and triggers thought, a rare phenomenon around here. Some columns strike repetitive themes, mostly small whines about the habits of bureaucracy, or the surplus of goats, or the despicable non-food at San Juan airport. That’s not news. More interesting are the political and economic predictions and the analysis of the different casts of Anguillian and Expat thought. We are glad to report that the politico-economic reports from before the 1999 election to date are dead on. The deficit is as predicted from the no-tax big-spend platform of the incumbent. The Ir*q mess is also flatly as predicted. So don’t blame us.
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[Note: due to breaking news (pun – see below) the scheduled Backwards will be seen next week.] The news is the arrival here of a deliberately post-Christmas catalog. It comes under the name "Johnson Smith, since 1914" and indeed the older Staff well remembers that name. In long ago days there were J.S. ads in comic books, and they had items such as a build your own electric motor for 10 cents (might have been 15 cents). This was a small collection of metal bits and some wire. Now, the contents are somewhat more shocking, possibly explaining some features of modern life, such as certain TV programs and political candidates. But, before exploring this treasure trove of bad taste, we have to come to an understanding about a certain word. We have noted before that "poo" is now heard on TV (CNBC spoke of "chicken poo" this morning). We don't know about the current propriety of the common word "f*rt", to describe the release of intestinal gas, so instead we give you the word in the title above from our Dictionary of Slang.
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The year opens with more to do, and more to worry about, than ever before. The TV is still crammed with terrible pictures of that monster tsunami off Indonesia. As Readers know, Anguilla is notably flat, and even heavy rains have been known to flood low-lying parts. Here, you can’t run to the mountains, because there aren’t any. Yet, a soothing scientist, making a penny being interviewed (there can’t be a good living in being a tsunami expert, can there?), this expert said that Caribbean tsunamis aren’t a big threat. So we can relax and worry about the fate of the dollar, which seems to be crumbling, largely due to the U.S. Government deficit, not to mention the enormous trade deficit, and the current threats to add a few trillion dollars in aid of a Social Security makeover. Our Revered Investment Guru doesn’t think much of the idea of workers depending either on their own investment smarts, or on the tender mercies of what are called “Money Runners”, a term that reminds one, quite properly, of piracy.
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So. Here we are again at the end of a year, with only the unknown future ahead. This week, the entire Staff here has been busy trying to organize the previous 577 OOs into some sort of order. This task is in response to a Very Loyal Reader [a VLR – quite a high station] who wanted either a printed book or a CD with all the columns on it. We had, of course, saved all the columns, but because of the peculiarities of the Windows operating system, they weren't in good chronological order, and besides, needed to be saved in Adobe .pdf format for those who don't have WordPerfect on their computers. It is a surprisingly tough job (particularly changing all to standard margins) but there is progress. Now, in the course of this task, we started with Year One (mid 1993) and got to re-read all the old columns. Pretty amusing stuff, we'd say, modestly (our hallmark).
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“It’s a week before Christmas, and all through the Observatory, most things are a mess, whilst our progress is nugatory.” From time to time, attentive and faithful Readers send the OO practical gifts that may – or perhaps may not– embellish this column. This week, a charming Reader in Vero Beach, Florida sent a 2005 desk calendar with a strange and all but forgotten word on each page. We have already looked ahead, and find a few that are good to go. We can use “logolatry” [worship of words], as well as “opiniatrety” [unreasonable attachment to one’s own notions]. Practical stuff, right for daily use. Let’s start with “opiniatrety” and apply it to that rather strange White House ceremony where high medals were just awarded to three characters who may have deserved some government action, but just not medals.
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All those expert in real estate insist that the three keys to value are: Location, Location, Location. A recent OO column about hardships of air travel to and from Anguilla via the American Eagle service (a misnomer) and the terminally awful San Juan terminal brought many horror stories from Readers. At this holiday season, dear friends, we offer wise advice: your own hearth is the best Location. Plan to visit Anguilla when the rush abates. [Rush Abates is not that crazy loudmouth on radio.]
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When you live on Anguilla, you lack a movie theater (and even a theatre [British spelling]), a symphony orchestra, a casino, and various other societal embellishments or detractions. In return you get the best of fresh air, many beaches, the tang of the Anguillian outlook, and both cable TV and Internet connections to the world at large. Cable TV offers daily news, some funny people, rather uninteresting and repetitive drama, and instruction. True, Internet connections lead to several dozen rather embarrassing messages a day, offering to enlarge body parts (male and female) and to show you a lot of stuff you should not wish to see. But still the Internet – we at The Objective Observatory have wireless broadband – lets anyone connect to all the body of knowledge so carefully heaped up by past generations. No word need be undefined, no name unidentified, no bit of knowledge hidden. All praise to Google!
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We regret last week’s skipped OO, and the postponement of the announced title. The delay was caused by a trip to Atlanta and an ugly experience with what calls itself the U. S. airline “Industry”. As our Revered Investment Guru has long believed and taught, U.S. airlines bear no relation to a going business. They never have made money, net, and they are currently rushing into and out of (and back into) bankruptcy. Put your money in Czarist bonds instead. But, it used to be possible to take a trip from A to B, or even C, without spending 40 days in the desert.
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Notice to patient Readers: Due to atmospheric disturbances on the Sea Rocks, the Objective Observatory’s broadband wireless internet receiver was hit by lightning or its moral equivalent. Thus, this column will go out by old-fashioned dial-up, and it may take some time to get to you. We apologize for the technical fault (but not, of course, for any content). The title for today’s column came from watching Antique Roadshow on Public Television; this consists of experts telling astounded plain people how much the junk they have around the house is worth. On this day, there was discussion of the value of “historic” (not our term) baseballs and baseball bats. Numbers in the six figures were mentioned. Now, you may not know that the OO has the largest collection of Heintz silver-on-bronze ware on all of Anguilla (and possibly the entire Lesser Antilles). So respect for the old and curious is rampant around here. But, we are not bidding over $100,000 for any baseball bat, nor anything similar for a baseball, whatever its “Provenance” (not the section of France, but the record of its possession).
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As our well-informed Readers surely know, there is a place in Iraq called Al Qaaqa, where immense quantities of Saddam's munitions used to be stored. Apparently, while the Anguilla Water Department was managing the invasion, the site wasn't secured and a lot of this stuff was trucked away. Our Chief Proofreader was struck by the name, and took down his trusty copy of Slang and Euphemism by Richard Spears, 2nd Ed. Memory served correctly, and Ca-ca, or Caca or Ka-ka were all listed, all with the same (and appropriate for Iraq) meaning. When the OO was growing up, proper mothers always used euphemisms for all bodily functions, and the most proper of them used euphemisms for the euphemisms, tending to confuse the toddlers. We judge from reliable sources that the word of choice is now "Poo" instead of "Qaaqa". This may or may not be important progress.
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The U.S. election is on Tuesday, so you Readers need a poetic campaign thought from Alexander Pope:
“Beneath her footstool,/ Science groans in chains,/ And Wit dreads exile, penalties, and pains./ There foam'd rebellious/ Logic , gagg'd and bound,/ There, stripp'd, fair Rhet'ric languish'd on the ground;/ His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne,/ And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn./ Morality, by her false guardians drawn...”
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The OO, accompanied by the entire Staff, will be making a ceremonial journey to Washington, DC next week. Therefore, no column will be forthcoming, though material will be gathered at the source. Today, we attempt a non-partisan excoriation of the evasions of both U.S. candidates on problems of overwhelming importance for one’s children and grandchildren, and for the great globe itself. The problems are large as a mountain, but are treated as invisible by both parties and both candidates. [Please note that we consider Nader a non-candidate, since he understands not the two party system and is arrogant even beyond the incumbent. Besides, he looks unacceptably scruffy.]
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So we’ve been in the middle of what is called the “Debate” Season, and there’s a lot of guff being shoveled around. We’d like to explain that on Anguilla, the phrase is “Off Island” when you aren’t here. In Debate Season, the danger the candidates see is being “Off Message”. Our Staff is clear that we alone have been On Message since the ill-fated and mis-managed invasion of Iraq. We pointed out early and often that the unrestricted UN inspectors, chasing tips from U.S. “Intelligence’, had found absolutely no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and little else except vulgar Saddam palaces. Now, the final report is in, and the conclusive finding is that there were no WMDs at all, and no capacity to make them, either. One fascinating detail in the final report is the explanation why Saddam was so given to concealments when he had nothing to conceal. The answer is, he was much more concerned with frightening Iran than he was with the U.S. – remember the long, bloody, Iraq-Iran war? [The U.S. was on the Iraq side.]
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From time to time, Readers accuse this column of being (a) Crotchety, or (b) “Liberal”, or (c) “Opinionated”. While all charges may well be true, this last week we received two e-mails calling for action. One most faithful Reader accused the OO of not being Objective. That stung, yet the basis of the charge was that we had failed to denounce the notorious circulation by CBS News of seemingly forged documents purportedly written by Pres. W’s Vietnam war National Guard Commander (deceased). The docs said that W (well, he wasn’t then Pres.) had disobeyed an order to get a flight physical. We admit our non-comment. We had, though, heard on TV from the secretary of the then Commander. This feisty lady said that the docs were fake, she didn’t type them. But, she said, what the document contained was in fact true. That seemed conclusive, and we let it lay. This implied no approval of CBS, nor did it prove to us that CBS is a hotbed of lying Liberals. We have said that we thought it was ethical and legal for Cheney to avoid the draft and for W to play in the National Guard league – the rules are the rules. We are also not going to talk about disputed Kerry medals, just rather quietly endorsed by the Navy Inspector General. We have bigger and fresher fish to fry.
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As our Faithful Readers know by now, our official and considered position is that the Iraq invasion was based (at best) on false so-called Intelligence, and has been defended as “Fighting Terror” although the Saddam regime was not the slightest threat to the U.S. The occupation has been botched to the max by incompetent planning and management. All that is plain enough, but a Reader (who knows the OO’s secret identity) said to him this week: “You’re always complaining about the Iraq mess; why don’t you give some positive advice?” We claim we have given a good deal of guidance, but it’s a fair request.
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[Note: For reasons meteorological/political, the scheduled topic will be treated next week, God Spare Life, as we say in Anguilla.] Good news and bad news this week: The bad news was Hurricane Ivan, continuing disastrous violence in the Bush Iraq adventure, and cowardly irrationality of most U.S. Politicians. Start with the U.S. Congress permitting the so-called Assault Weapon Ban to expire. Visit the U.S.! Buy a machine gun! Our Staff is always ready to debate and consider all rational arguments. Those who have strange attractions for guns (deeply Freudian, we think) can rationally argue about the joys and traditions of hunting, the need to protect the homestead, and the need for gun safety training. These are all arguments that can be rationally put forward and weighed. Unfortunately, there is simply no rational argument – none – for allowing the sale of assault weapons in any society, anywhere.
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Our Staff is alert, sophisticated, logical, and, of course, humble (necessary for appointment). Today, the Staff declares itself disgusted with the U.S. Presidential campaign, now reaching a level of stupidity not seen for a generation. Our disgust is non-partisan, as you shall hear. For the worst specimen, there is the unrelenting Bush campaign insistence that the invasion of Iraq was part of the “War on Terror”, a war they declare Bush is superbly suited to lead, despite multiple stubborn and crass errors of record.
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We wish to distinguish among (i) what is vulgar, (ii) what is not to our taste, and (iii) what is offensive to either legality or morality. Few such nice distinctions are needed with the noxious “Fall TV Season”, an event comparable to the arrival of an infestation of plant lice. One program at peak vulgarity is called the “Fear Factor”. When the Securities and Exchange Commission finds anyone guilty of pillaging a mutual fund, say, the miscreant is barred for years from playing with other people’s money. Well, everyone involved with the Fear Factor should be barred from TV (and polite society) for life. What, we say bleakly, is to be said for a program that makes people eat bugs? Siberia for you! Vulgarians!
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Yes, despite grumbling from those Staff members who regard physical activity with suspicion, TV screens here at the Objective Observatory have been lit with Olympic images. One curious sport that attracted attention was women’s beach volleyball. This game consists of two lithe women jumping around on the sand and batting a ball back and forth. For the serious watchers of American football, with its complex strategies, beach volleyball is, well, “Lite”, but its charm is in the fine flat bellies of the players, who wear minimal bikinis. [Please note that we, unlike the announcers, do not call the belly the “stomach”, which is an internal organ and not as viewable.]
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As you Readers can tell, most of our Staff is noted for youthful and resilient outlooks on the world. One exception is our Revered Investment Guru, who has soured from watching Wall Street for too many years. We all know those sports commentators who say a football halfback, for example, is a marvel to be hobbling around the field at, say, the great old age of 32. Well, this week the Staff was hanging out watching the Olympics, and almost lost it at the commentators for the women’s swimming. These babblers carried on about the performance of a lady who had reached the incredible age of 24 and was still tottering around the pool. Please don’t do that, NBC. We understand that medals can’t be awarded to seniors, but we have known some fairly sprightly women who have reached 25.
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