The wonders of DVR

I used to be somewhat skeptical. My VCR worked perfecrtly well. But my roommate talked me into the DVR. Today after a long brain drenching day, I got home to unwind with a whole bunch of crime dramas that I hadn't seen yet. Two CSIs and two Law and Orders. I have become a procedural drama adict. And thanks to the DVR, it catches when the networks decide to switch their whole schedule around. That's something the VCR never did. Now I'll have move this higher up in my 'to get' list of toys. It would be a DVR plus so much more with the DVD recording capability. I think it used to be working with TiVO, but it looks like that partnership fell through.

So, my "toy" list now consists of a new hybrid bike, the DVD recorder, a couple of computer games I've been thinking about (although starting EQ2 would be a disaster timewise... I need to resist the EverCrack). Of course, there are the other necessities which are calling for money: tuition, car tune up (60K, so its a big one). I also need to get new clothes as a bunch of the stuff I wear is wearing out. I swear the washer/dryer eats my socks not just one at a time, but in 3s. And I could use a reupholstering of my favorite chair. Its probably 35 years old, but its so comfortable. So what if the stuffing has fallen out of the cushions, or that my last attempt to make the chair presentable is now held together by duct tape?

And then I see the credit card bills. And realize it all has to wait for another year or more.

NFL Refs give away game

I thought that the home team was supposed to have the ref advantage. I don't really care about either Dallas or the 'Skins - if they could both lose I'd be fairly happy. But two really bad calls by the refs are unexcusable. Leading up to the first Dallas TD was a case where the cornerback (or was it a safety?) got completely mugged by the wide receiver. Yet the pass interference was called on the cornerback. Well, yeah, he bumpted into the wide receiver -kinda hard when the wide receiver just practically tackled you.

Later, a non-call on the Dallas corner when he mugged one of the 'Skins wide receivers. Where's the home field advantage for the refs? Two absolutely abysmal calls by the refs.

Reconstruction

Re-reading a book from my college days, it portrays the Republican party's inconsistency between what their rhetoric has always said and what reality has always been.

The Republican party was founded on the idea of 'Free Men, Free Soil, Free Labor', as in no man tied to anyone else for their survival. What today would probably be most ideologically considered part of the Libertarian party. Yet, at the time of the Republican rise, the end of 'Free Soil' and the end of 'Free Labor' had started.

Urban migration was increasing. In control of these workers coming to the cities were industrial magnates, who cared little, generally speaking, about the care of those workers. In many cases the magnates were creating company towns which took over any freedom the workers supposedly had. The workers had to live in company housing, buy from the company store, send their kids to company schools, and so forth.

But the Republicans stuck to their convictions of 'free labor'. Man was free to control his destiny. Even if that destiny was stuck as a wage slave, frequently with no alternatives. Lincoln said, "no such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the conditions of a hired laborer. Men, with their families, work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other." (quoted in Foner, 12-3).

Today, virtually everyone is a wage slave. We are "free" to switch jobs, or even start our own company, or to not work. But we are not "free" to earn a living from the land - that's in the control of huge corporations. And that is what the Republican party was always championing: the independent farmer. They portray the independent farmer's life as their ideal - working on the land, eschewing cities, etc.

But what they have always championed in the backrooms was the centralization of political and economic power: the formation of monopolies. protective tariffs, and government subsidies of private enterprise.

Good to know nothing has changed in 140 years.