More Unknowns

One might think that because I have a blog I know things.

Here's a couple things I *don't* know, but that everyone else seems to. We recently lost the only movie star I've ever seen at a book fair, Dennis Weaver. Many have lumped him in with Darren McGavin and Don Knotts and are more convinced than ever that "death comes in threes."

It might, or it might not.

The thing is, I'd be more confident if I had a base line or starting point. My problem with this whole three buisness is that as far as I know Dennis Weaver may be number two or one as easily as number three. When did the counting start? I'm too lazy to go back to my birth date and count all the celebrity deaths, and I'm not even sure that the start of my existence is when I should start counting.

Also, on a person note, I'm as saddened by losing Otis Chandler as I am by most actors, but I don't know if he qualifies as the beginning of another morbid threesome.

The other thing I haven't made my mind up yet about is this whole Dubai port fiasco. The one thing I've learned, or had reaffirmed, is that a large chunk of the population doesn't read and comprehend as well as I'd like. It irks me no end to read message board and blog entries about "the US selling its ports to the Arabs." As I understand it, ports are not being sold and never have been. The companies that *run* the ports are most often foreign-owned anyway, and a big English company is being bought by one in the UAE. I think it's akin to Sears being bought by Ikea.

Lots of people go on and on about "less than five percent of the containers are being inspected," but I'm not sure how valid that argument is. Whenever I go near a port city, like our Long Beach (which I think is run by a Korean company with the curious American President Line name), I see bazillions of those containers, if not more. I don't know anything about global commerce or interstate shipping, but I have a hunch that if all those containers needed to be inspected all over the world, global trade would screech to a halt.

Which means none of my Swedish Meatballs or Spanikopita would arrive fresh.

And, it's not a valid argument, but whatever it is that they're doing about keeping WMD out of my backyard seems to be working.

One thing I *do* know is that it's rainy and cold right now. Not only am I getting frequent hazardous weather notices but what's worse is that the winds are coming out of the east, which means the planes are taking off over my home. Damn. That's noisy.