At Home, Odds & Ends + Two Important Words From My CIA Response

Tonight I am writing from home, off work until Sunday morning. I don't have a movie to review because Grimsley came over, this time with a Jerry Seinfeld tape he wanted to show me. I like Jerry - who doesn't? - and his stand-up live act is very funny, so we had a good time. Unfortunately, with no movie to describe, I am left wondering what I can tell you, because as usual today was just an ordinary workday for me.

I don't wanna go on any tirades if I can avoid it, although I re-read some recent blogs in which I did go off, and they didn't seem too bad. I always think, when I have finished writing something opinionated, "man, I hope I didn't sound like a jerk". When I do write about something that bugs me, I never wanna come off as just a malcontent, because as I always take pains to point out, I am not like that. So I always try to make my tirades informative, and - because they are never planned, always spontaneous - I try to make them lively rather than cranky, like somebody talking off the top of his head rather than out his......

Well.......you know.  :)

So let's see, what can I tell you?

I am listening to a lot of Frank Zappa lately. I've probably mentioned that a few times, but I just ordered yet another FZ album, the "Halloween '77" 3cd live set recorded in concert on that date, and I am super looking forward to seeing it in my mailbox.

I can't think of anything else to tell you, so I am going to give you a few sentences from the CIA response to my original FOIA request, in which I asked for any records pertaining to myself, referenced under my name. I sent my initial letter last October and I received their response near the end of that month.

After an introductory paragraph that acknowledges receipt of my letter, and then indicates that a search for the requested records was made, the FOIA Information and Privacy Coordinator of the CIA relates the following to me : "After conducting a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents, we did not locate any responsive records that would reveal an openly acknowledged affiliation with the CIA".

Please read the quoted sentence very carefully. When I received this letter just before Halloween 2017 (forty years after the Zappa album was recorded), I opened the envelope expecting the usual brush off I have been given in every 1989 FOIA request to all the other agencies I've written to, including several times to the FBI (and one directly to Robert Mueller in 2014 before he was famous), and also to the NSA and the Air Force and others. With all the other responses, I always got a response that had a "form letter" feel. So when I got my response from the CIA, I was expecting more of the same.

But when I nervously scanned the opening paragraphs, two words stood out. Can you guess what those two words were? 

Of course you can.

"Openly acknowledged".

Please go back and read the above sentence that is in quotations, and pay close attention to the wording of the entire sentence, but especially to the placement and context of those two words.

That is your homework for tonight. Tomorrow night I will give you some more information from the CIA response letter.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)