The Lost World

Posted on 03/10/2020 by Grumpa Joe

The latest e-book I am reading is The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, he also wrote stories with Sherlock Holmes. It is an old story published in 1912, but because of a modern day movie called Jurrasic Park it seems familiar. If you ask me, Steven Spielberg stole the entire plot for his film from this book. All he did was to make the creatures come to life for the movie. Don’t get me wrong Spielberg’s accomplishments in showing us stories with realistic animatronics and green screen techniques is nothing to scoff at. His genius has made him a multi-millionaire if not a billionaire.

What impresses me about this story is the writing. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does a masterful job of creating images with words. I find myself on the edge of my seat wriggling with anticipation as the story unfolds and the plot becomes filled with action, suspense, and excitement. The writing of many of the old books I read during this COVID season were stodgy and stiff and lost me in proper English grammar and phraseology of the nineteenth century. Lost World hasn’t done that to me. Since I have not completed the book I cannot comment on the ending, I still don’t know what it is.

One problem I am having at this moment is a lap-top battery that is dying. When the battery suddenly comes to the end of its power, the screen goes black and all reading, writing, or computing is finished. At least with a hard copy book, and a simple book mark, one can resume reading almost instantly. All I do is pick up the book, (i.e. after finding it) and open to the mark. On the computer, one has to wait until the battery is recharged then boot the machine before reading may commence. As long as there are old people alive the need for hard copy books will thrive.

Since the boomers are all aging they too will learn the simple joys of holding a book and flipping pages. That is so much simpler than swiping the touch pad with two fingers, only to learn that the curser has gone to sleep or is not on the book page and needs to be found before the swipe thing works. I forget though that evolution will cause boomers to grow a phone out of their palm and an extra thumb on each hand to facilitate texting.

Filed under: Biography, Book Review, family, Satire, Seniors | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

You Didn’t Do It Alone, Big Gov’m’nt Helped

Posted on 17/07/2012 by Grumpa Joe

Obama tells Henry Ford to invent the car.

What ever the Conservative pundits say about Obama not getting it, they are wrong. Obama gets it. He is way smarter than the rest of us. Last week he cited his biggest mistake as not communicating his policy to “We the Sheeple.” He lied about that. He deliberately withheld the policy from the voters. Had we known, he would never have made it past the primary.

Now, he deliberately insults the small business owners by lecturing them on how they aren’t so smart, and that they didn’t become successful on their own, they needed big government to succeed. It is my opinion that they succeeded in spite of the handicap of carrying big government. I wonder how much more successful small businesses would be if there were no regulations or interference of any kind.

Bill Gates began his business at age nineteen. I have to believe he began small. What help did Obama give him to become a leviathan in the business? Steve Jobs another small business owner in the beginning did not    get government help. Even Al Gore, who invented the internet did not  get government help.

The internet came about through the Defense Department. The military needed a way to communicate in the event a war takes out cities within the USA. It was the educational system that developed it into a useful tool with their wish to  share research. So I guess one could say the government  paid for the  internet before the rest of us were able to take advantage of it.

Here are some examples of how inventors needed the government to make their dreams come true.

Orville and Wilbur Wright didn’t succeed with manned flight until the gov’m’nt built thousands of mega air terminals.

Henry Ford waited for the Interstate road system before he worked to invent the assembly line to make cars affordable.

Edison waited until the gov’n’nt built power stations all across America to invent the electric bulb, and the phonograph.

Alexander Graham Bell waited for the gov’m’nt to string telephone lines across America before he invented the phone.

Steven Spielberg started making films while in grammar school, but he didn’t really succeed until Obama came on the scene.

Walt Disney needed Obama to invent Mickey Mouse and then used gov’m’nt money to build Disney Land. That’s why Disney went broke six times in his life, he wasted our tax dollars all along the way.

One statistic that sticks in my dead brain is that most millionaires go bankrupt several times before they finally succeed.

Obama is the only one I know who uses gov’m’nt money to succeed with his own enterprises, and he has failed miserably.

Can you find the obvious error in the picture?

Related articles

Filed under: Cartoons, Conservative, family, Government | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »