Hair

Megan commented on The Mews blog about a hair restraint Laz played with "Am I the only one who's wondering why on earth TBT would have bought one of those things? I can't imagine that he ever wore one himself".  And that made me consider the history of my hair.  And why pass up a good topic to post about?

OK, I'm sort of an old fart (turned 71 Friday).  When I was a kid, we all had either "buzz" or "crew" cuts.  "Buzz" was a short 1" high flattop cut and you needed Brylcream to comb it up stiff.  Crew" was a short cut rounded to the skull.  I think the 1st was army and the 2nd was navy.  The really short hair for boys was a leftover from WWII when head lice were a problem.  There was probably also some element of "long hair gives an enemy something to grab".

But, of course by the late 60s we guys were tired of looking like Dad, so we wanted our hair long as a symbolic act of rebellion.  It was one of the least objectionable ways to do that.

So, in college, I grew an 18" ponytail.  Dad hated it, so that was great!  I must have been quite a sight then.  Square-toed engineer boots, a cowboy hat, bell-bottomed jeans, a vest, and the ponytail.  My dorm-mates nick-named me "Sheriff".

It DID cause some surprises when I worked at a department store.  When facing away from a new customer, I often heard "Excuse me Miss..."  LOL!

I still had it when I went to my Govt job interview.  The boss decided I was worth hiring but also asked if I would cut off the ponytail "for professional appearance".  I'm no fool, I immediately agreed and cut it off that night.  I mean, it was a 25% pay raise from the department store!

But I cut it off with the elastic still on and hung it from a picture hook for years.  Reminders of "good old days" are good.  I tossed it away eventually.

Many years later (secure in my job) the 3rd level boss above me grew a ducktail.  He was an utter jerk but thought he was "hip".  So I regrew my ponytail to mock him.  I am basically a progressive type with a few conservative ideas, but very sarcastic (or is that "sardonic"?).  I don't show that here very often, but you should see me on some discussion boards.  No, I won't tell you which ones; I am rather compartmentalized.  But eventually I got bored with the trouble of maintaining it and cut it off again.

Then, when the covid-19 problem came around and visiting the barbershop was a no-no, I shaved my head completely.  3x in 2020.  But my skull is "lumpy" (impacted sebaceous glands), so I gave up on that too.  That's a topic in itself, but not today.

These days, my hair (what is left of it) is styled like my high school yearbook picture.  1/3 to my right and the rest to the left, tapered at the neck, none more than 6" long.  Ease of maintenance has overcome style...

My hair has gone "around the block" (makes me a "blockhead?) a few times, so to speak!  :)

So I am familiar with hair-restraints.  Mostly though, I was happy to see him play with anything.  He is not a toy-oriented cat.  Nor is he a lap cat.  I think he gets really bored inside.  Even in the morning, not having eaten for 10 hours, he would rather go outside first.  

And until he arrived here and was also kept inside for several months until I was sure he knew the house smells and could find it, he had never been outside.  It may explain part of why he had frustration issues at first.  

The more he gets outside, the calmer he is inside.  He avoided returning inside the 1st few months, but as he learned I would let him out frequently (and by very loud demands) the more he has become willing to return when called. 

 

I pretty much let him out when he wants, and he pretty much returns these days when called.  And even when he doesn't return immediately, he is at the deck in 5-10 minutes.

They say "nothing can ignore you like a cat".  And it is true especially with Laz.  He can be right on the lawn and when I call his name, clap my hands, whistle, his ears don't even twitch! But he knows he has been called.  He's at the deck door soon enough.  Marley responds at once.  Ayla seldom even leaves the deck these days.  

But that is the tale of the hair elastic...

Thanks for the topic, Megan!  Give me a question and I'll write a chapter, LOL!

More Political Silliness And Illogic Comment

I received a comment from Angel Abbygrace's Mom in response to the original post.  The comment is detailed and it is valued.  And I don't want to change a normally personal and friendly blog into a heated discussion in the stress of the last week of an angry and partisan political campaign.

But a response is deserved, and I'll put hers it italics for ease of identification.  And unless noted otherwise, I will accept the accuracy of her statements (this is not Fox News, after all, and we are not competing talking heads.  She is a friend whom I respect).

And unless otherwise noted I am commenting on her quote, not her conclusions FROM the quote. 

As she quoted, From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

"Chains" are series of emails on the same subject.  They can, as we all well know, contain many subjects varying widely as the "chain" goes on.  What starts as a chain can be about personal family matters, get into a brief argument about politics and then go right back to family matters.

In this case, I see that there are some numbers that seem to have meaning and some that do not.  "110 emails in 52 email chains" sounds like a whole lot.  Many people will multiply 110 by 52 and think "about 55,000 emails".  No.  It is still only 110 out of the original 30,000 emails.

That is "not many".

The numbers of emails that were "sent or received" is deceptive.  It is not a crime to receive improperly-marked classified information.   If I sent anyone of my friends classified information not properly marked as such, you would not be guilty of anything.  *I* might, IF I knew the information was classified.

The question is whether the information in the emails was known to either of us.

From what I understand, most of the emails considered to include classified information fell into 3 categories.

First, there was information not classified at the time but classified at a later date.  You are not guilty of handling information that was classified LATER! Such as, if you take a medication today and the Government declares it illegal next month, you can't be charged.

And even with classified information, there is a "lag time".  If some agency declares "Fact X" classified today and you refer to it tomorrow before you are told about that, you aren't guilty of anything.

It gets worse.  Suppose Agency A declares Fact A classified and Agency B says it isn't?  You still aren't guilty because there is reasonable doubt.

Second, classified information has to be properly identified.  In the movies, every classified document has a big red "CLASSIFIED" stamped at the top.  And maybe they do.  But they don't always show up that way in emails.  I have seen claims by seemingly objective sources that WHEN a classified email or  attachment in an email was sent to Clinton, there was simply a large "C" at the end.  

And there are 2 problems with that one.  If you only learn the information was classified AFTER you read it, there isn't much you can do to forget it.  And a "C" is not the same as a "classified" stamp...

Third, most of the information that is being challenged was "upclassified", meaning it was classified only after recent review by one Federal Agency or another and at a later date than the emails.  And if anyone has to choose between classifying information and NOT classifying it, it gets classified.

If my job was classifying documents, I would classify my office softball team schedule rather than make a mistake.  Because the is no penalty for over-classifying docoments, but a HUGE one for not when you should have.

Which leads me to my last 2 point, which I will combine.  Just because a document is classified doesn't mean it should be.  Just how many secrets to you think we have from the Russians and Chinese?  I think it was Kissinger who said that the only Nations we can keep secrets from are our Allies.  And apparently, we can't even do that anymore.

So I ALMOST question our whole habit of secrecy.  The only people who DON'T know US government secrets are the US citizens, LOL!

From AbbyGrace's Mom:  "The Top Secret email chains alone should set off alarm bells whether you support or don't support HRC as a candidate. If you had sent or received classified email on your own private server while working in the Government do you think the FBI would have been as lenient to you?" 

HRC has about the highest clearance.  I don't.

"Also from the director's statement: Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

"Careless" is not the same as "illegal".  If one classified person mentioned classified information to another privately at a party,  that is not illegal, but it is careless.

"One other note on classification from the Director: But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it"

At a certain level, probably almost anything could be classified.  And you have to be able to talk to people in real time without having staff research every fact for classification status.  I suspect that our classified system has gotten way out of anyone's ability to keep within the rules. 

I bet I could find half of the US classified information on the internet without trying too hard.  I think the whole classified argument is a mountain made from a molehill. 

Not that some information shouldn't be classified, but that most shouldn't.

And let me finish by saying again, no harshness, just my best answers to a good comment...