Sunday Morning Coming Down

Out of habit (mostly) I go to the Flagler Dog Track on Thursday Evenings when there is "live" greyhound races.  This is one connection I have with the outside world that is real. It isn't digital, it isn't fantasy.  On Thursday Evenings I sit and eat dinner with with a small and shrinking group of folks that bet on dog races.  The track has a free contest for those that buy a dinner or a sandwich. The sport isn't popular with animal rights folks.  I understand their concerns but that discussion always kind of deteriorates. The glamour of dog racing left the building a long time ago.  The folks that show up on Thursdays are almost always the same folks.  It's not like they take attendance but you must buy dinner by 7:15 pm to get an entry into the contest.  Last night Tony and his significant other(regulars) made it to their table just before the deadline.  They had missed the races the week before and got special greetings from just about ever...

Juke Boxes these days are sort of like a cosmic way back machine with a difference you must pay for the privilege,  The old time juke boxes were limited by the number of songs you could play, today's juke boxes have almost no limits.  I'm not sure how much the artists are paid but the music is out there. And that brings up a problem.  Sometimes the music you might listen to in the privacy of your house is not the music you would play in public.  Even the music from Broadway musicals or the musicals themselves might not play in Peoria. Yesterday, I punched up HAIR and just clicked a bunch of songs from the album.  All I can say is the dawning of Aquarius had not reached that bar that afternoon and I was given a ride back to the 1970's when my folks would tell me to turn that @&^# down or even better, off. Three five zero zero, don't go there.  It was a hard song to explain in 1969 or 1970 and not much has changed in almost fifty years.

Much has been reported about the conflicts of interest exhibited by the candidates.  They both criticized the other for lack of transparency.  And that is the positive spin of things. Past Presidents of the United States were given pensions, elected officials in other political offices were very kind in voting themselves pensions while gerrymandering themselves into districts where "majorities rule" and it is almost impossible to vote them out of office.  Political scientists Ken Kernaghan and John Langford, in their book “The Responsible Public Servant”, define self-dealing as “a situation where one takes an action in an official capacity which involves dealing with oneself in a private capacity and which confers a benefit on oneself."  In a larger sense this is what loopholes in the law are all about.  

On Friday I listened to a podcast from Malcom Gladwell who admitted he disliked golf and then went off on how unfair it was to give tax breaks to private golf courses.  I've played golf and I wonder if this discussion about property tax law is a backhanded complaint about how much golf our president's play.  The current president and the last president do seem to like the game and it is clear that they both have played on private courses while in office.  A president with real estate holdings is probably going to understand the value of land because they aren't making a lot of new land.  Rich folks and golf just seem to go together. A lot of regular golfers like living in houses that have a view of a golf course.  Golf courses can be pretty places and you usually have room to spread out or your neighbors are likely to be similarly inclined.  For some folks golf courses are a great place to conduct business. Golf is a game that takes place in park like set...

It is a long way from South Miami to the King Court Key Poker Room and Jai Alai Fronton in Florida City.  There are other places to play cards and hit the slots closer to home.  But if you live way south and are tired of driving in big city traffic this might become a home closer to home.   The place is definitely a work in progress as I visited only the Fronton where the first game kicked off at noon on Friday.  Mutual Clerks were being trained and finding the place to take a pee was more like going to a golf tournament with fancy port a johns.  You had to go outside.  The facilities also included showers for the players. A very nice touch, I wonder how long it will take residents of the RV Park to sneak in for a shower. Folks from Hialeah Park were there to see the first games and obviously see what needed to be worked on.  The players were from Dania Jai Alai and it looked from this not very trained observer that the new court and ball being use...

Sometimes even the Director of the FBI can have personnel issues.  If you ever worked in a governmental agency and supervised folks personnel evaluations could be problematic.  An impartial observer could be excused if they thought that James Comey might have been fired whoever was elected in 2016.  It's not like he didn't or has not pissed off folks in a bi-partisan manner. Generally, the appointed and confirmed FBI Director serves for a period of ten years.  Obviously this is to give the director some protection from politics.  In fact most FBI Directors are overwhelmingly approved by the Senate.  A cynic might say because you don't want to look like you are an enemy of the FBI but it also seems these folks have been straight shooters.  The current president's behavior in firing Director Comey is more than a little suspect. The idea that an employee or a boss would document stuff related to their employment isn't far fetched.  The documentat...

A friend of mine commented on Facebook about a rather unusual claim at the track.  The owners of a race horse who ran for a tag of $5000 got claimed by a rescue organization after winning a race.  I wish I had looked up the name of the horse and verified the number of wins, the horse's age and basically his racing history.  Claiming a thirteen year old horse that is still able to run competitively and has been described as a one owner horse does raise some questions. I don't know if the rescue organization got it right.  I have been around horses some and there are tired horses and there are horses that really like to run.  I also think all horses are better off if they are cared for and have a "job". This leads me to a discussion of "old age".  Some age better than others but there are always issues regarding soundness as horses age.  It would seem that the horse would tell the owner and trainer about his condition and retirement from the racetrac...

Last night's Cub victory against the Florida Marlins was a good one.  The launch angle of Chris Bryant's home run was awesome as the wind was blowing in.  The Cubs have been on a roll but it has sort of strange.  Beating the Cardinals and now the Marlins who have been playing good baseball may signal good things to come. But than again, they got thumped by the Padres and Dodgers.  The pitching has been up and down and the team batting average is also down from the tear they were on at this time last year.