14 Sunday Feb 2021
Posted in Anxiety, Brain Droppings, Change, Compassion, Conspiracies, Coronavirus, Corruption, Death, Democratic Socialism, Depression, Dingleberries, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Environment, Existential Risk, Fear, First Amendment, Fucking Hannity, Grief, Growth, Guns, Hate, Healthcare, Human, Indivisible, Islam, Kids, Love, Making Sense of Guns, Male superiority, Memorial, Mental Health, Middle Way, Moscow Mitch, News, Open mind, Patriotism, Pledge, Politics, Putin, Race, Revolution, Sameness, Tax the Church, Terrorism, Trump-Hole, Women
Donald Trump and his new Republican Party proved something: That a Constitution written when indoor plumbing was actually cutting-edge technology, is not itself strong enough to withstand a manipulative assault on it by a modern day organized crime mindset that literally came of age in the dark gaps found between its words.
20 Monday Jul 2020
Posted in Brain Droppings, Dingleberries, First Amendment, Fucking Hannity, Human, Male superiority, Politics, Race, Trump-Hole
Sometimes I used to wonder if there was some way we could figure out how to tell someone is a racist shitbag. So that when they walk into my business, I could tell them they’re not welcome at my lunch counter. But of course, you can’t always see racism very easily.
Now we have a pandemic, and wearing a mask is suddenly a hot button issue. The thing is, maybe we should have required people to wear face-masks sooner. It really makes things so much easier.
What else is amazing is that the battle lines they’ve drawn are suddenly concentrated on the right to choose what someone can do with their own body. And no government (or local deli) can tell them what do to with their bodies!
I shit you not! They’re actually saying this now. Anyway, what I’m saying is that it’s easier to see them now…
10 Friday Jul 2020
Posted in Art, Book Review, Ego, Environment, Human, Love, Male superiority, Sameness, Trump-Hole
BOOK REVIEW
Book Title: The KING, the MICE, and the CHEESE
Creators: Nancy and Eric Gurney
The KING, the MICE, and the CHEESE, by Nancy and Eric Gurney is a book I read at least 40 years ago, and I’m just getting around to telling you about it now. It was absolutely in the top 10 favorites I would reread. It’s illustrated with fantastic cartooning, especially the mice. I absolutely love how expressive their faces are.
It’s a lighthearted tale of your usual self-important, rich white guy who has a series of problems he needs to solve. In typical fashion, he throws his weight around and until he can get someone else to satisfy his petty whims.
His subservient advisors go to outlandish lengths to please their tantrum-prone Mucky Muck. They begin to bring in everything from cats to elephants in order to try to solve the latest problem. Yet each new catastrophe is really nothing more than the growing happiness of these animals as they begins to relax and settle in to the new home they’ve found themselves in.
Each one is brought there for a specific reason, with never a moment’s thought given to its well being or happiness. He would use them only for what he needed, and after they’d outlived their usefulness to him he would quickly mark them as the next problem his kingdom must eradicate.
The book itself is of course, a work of fiction. Nothing more than childhood stories of the outlandish. I mean, could you imagine the leader of a country being so self-aggrandizing, and so hyper-focused on only his own comforts and whims, yet so blind to the suffering of everyone and everything he can’t use somehow? Thanks just crazy talk.
That’s whackier than a mouse eating a nice cheese dinner, with very good manners.
27 Thursday Sep 2018
I grew up in the northeast, and was in high school during roughly the same time period as Brett Kavanaugh. Here’s what I know about that time period.
Parties were measured by how many kegs they had. When a party was described with terms like ten kegger, no other descriptor was required. This was only a couple years after Animal House was released. And some of the most popular movies about high school life at the time were Porky’s and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Both movies were shining examples of how all early 1980’s high school students spent their time — on academics, sports, church, and service.
Every guy I knew that went to a private prep school (which is admittedly a very small number of people) were absolute douchebags. They all basically acted like entitled pricks about everything, especially with girls. And, thanks to people like Owen Labrie, we know more about what happens at elite prep schools than we used to, and we know how far we still haven’t come.
I knew women and men who were raped and sexually assaulted. If the topic came up around someone new, the most empathetic response you could hope for was, “That sucks”, before they quickly changed the subject. But when the victim wasn’t around, people would ask each other what she was wearing. The idea being that if you dig down far enough, there’s always something wrong with what the woman did to make the guy rape her. If you were a guy, you could also count on being made fun of, and told that “You can’t rape the willing!”
Today, while listening to both witnesses testify, I didn’t focus so much on the details of their words, as the context of their speech. And what I saw was a very scared woman testifying before the entire United States Senate, and openly discussing one of the most frightening events of her life.
Then I looked up to see a room full of dour faced white guys hiding behind a hired gun, one who just happened to be the same gender as the victim. And each and every one of those Republican Senators sat in their shame and pretended to look busy, while their constituents made sure to note whether their Senator has the guts to ask their own questions, or if they abandoned their responsibility to a woman that no one voted for (this is getting to be a thing with these guys).
And then the nominee/accused rapist spoke. And suddenly I was too angry to watch anymore. I used to know guys who talked to people like this. Every entitled prick I have ever known has acted the same way.
23 Saturday Jun 2018
Posted in Change, Dingleberries, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Environment, Fear, Hate, Human, Indivisible, Islam, Love, Male superiority, Middle Way, Open mind, Politics, Race, Revolution, Sameness, Trump-Hole, Women
So, news reports have said that members of the Trump administration have been denied service in, and chased out of, businesses they thought they had the right to frequent as a normal customer. It’s completely unfair.
And I hear they’re also having trouble finding dates, or keeping them when they do. People are just walking out in the middle of dates when they find out someone works for the administration. It’s just rude.
No one likes to be judged by others. Especially not before they even get a chance to know you. And something personal, like where you work or what you believe in, shouldn’t affect what restaurant you’re allowed to eat in… Right?
04 Wednesday Apr 2018
Posted in Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Ego, First Amendment, Guns, Hate, Making Sense of Guns, Male superiority, Mental Health, Middle Way, Music, Patriotism, Politics, Terrorism
Ted Nugent, a board member of the NRA, has decided to proclaim that the students who are protesting in the wake of their friends being slaughtered, are nothing more than soulless lying media shills.
Now, I wasn’t there, so I have no way of knowing if Ted offered up evidence to back up his claims that what these survivors saying are saying is false. I mean, I would hope that he offered up evidence. He can’t possibly have just claimed that they were all lying at the behest of the media, and that they should be silenced, so that real measures can be put in place. He wouldn’t do that, right?
Of course, when Ted says “real measures can be put into place to actually save children’s lives”, I am assuming he means that the NRA has finally come up with some real measures. Because, arming teachers ain’t it.
For that matter, adding more guns into the populace would only help the gun manufacturers anyway. The claim that “the only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” is not at all true, or what happens in the vast majority of cases.
Statistically speaking, a good guy with a gun is more likely to know someone who will use that gun to commit suicide. Yes, even if it’s properly locked up. If you’ve ever been around someone who is suicidal, then you know that they watch your every move, watching for that two seconds out of years of being careful, that the gun ends up unattended. And a good guy with a gun is more likely than someone without a gun, to see that gun involved in an accidental shooting by a child.
Putting aside, how safe guns actually are (i.e: ignoring the fact that they are designed to kill things), the question still remains, “Who in their right mind would ever use Ted Nugent as a model for morality, and/or demonstrating, or having a soul?!
Seriously, here is a guy who is known as the Motor City Madman, and is proud of that moniker. He has made a living out of acting crazy, but he still wants to be taken seriously. That’s not how it works Ted.
Let’s avail ourselves to a few of Nugent’s moral, and soul-lifting quotes:
“Apartheid isn’t that cut and dry. All men are not created equal. The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed of man… They still put bones in their noses, they still walk around naked, they wipe their butts with their hands… These are different people. You give ’em toothpaste, they fucking eat it.”
“Big bangs don’t make this. That’s not a big bang. God made that. That’s a liver. That’s mystical. You and I can’t make livers. Things banging don’t make livers. This is mystical stuff. This is magic. This is perfection.”
“I’ll show you some security and I’ll show you some peace: Nagasaki and Hiroshima. You fuck with us and we’ll fucking melt you.”
“I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America.”
“Should a kid going to a Grateful Dead concert who’s caught with sugar-cube-encrusted LSD go to prison for life with no parole? Of course not. But should that guy get caned? Yeah. And should he go to prison in an overcrowded cell where a huge, unclean black man will fuck him in the ass every night? Yeah. Now, that sounds cruel, doesn’t it? Well, tough fucking shit.”
And, in closing, I’d like to offer this last gem. Nugent’s comments are meant to be inflammatory, so most of the things he says get ignored by most Americans. And you can see why he does it. It’s really all he has left. He’s not selling records. He needs the attention. But this last tidbit is far more revealing.
Ted, like every other Might-Makes-Right-Second-Amendment-Defender (they are a different breed than your average, level headed American, who realized that the Second Amendment is just as important as the First Amendment, and the rest of the Constitution. And therefore, all of these things need to be given equal weight in the consideration of the law), sees guns as the great equalizer for his neanderthal beliefs, and for his fading demographic.
And so in parting, let’s hear what Ted really believes is all we really need. Because with a gun, you can make your own laws.
“If it was up to me, if you uttered the word ‘gun control,’ we’d put you in jail.”
22 Wednesday Nov 2017
Posted in Dingleberries, Emotional Intelligence, First Amendment, Human, Male superiority, Middle Way, Open mind, Politics, Sameness, Sex, Trump-Hole, Women
So lately, with all of the sex assault allegations firing off in every direction, taking down politicians left and right (yes, I know it extends far beyond politics), it has me thinking… I’m sure what I’m about to say will piss a few people off, but here goes.
For one thing, it’s absolutely wonderful that we are finally in a place where victims of this kind of abuse can finally feel confident enough to tell their story with far less fear of reprisal. It’s been a long time coming.
What is also amazing is how the victims are finally getting the benefit of the doubt, right out of the gate. The phrase, “I believe the women” is now being spoken by anyone who wants to enjoy any sort of public life in the future.
But, I also found myself thinking about the fact that, in politics, people play dirty. I’m not saying anyone is in these cases, but just for a second, imagine what the perfect political weapon would be. It would have to be the ability to make accusations of wrongdoing that’ll get judged long before they get proven.
Now, before anyone loses their shit on me, I want to make sure to say that I feel every accusation I have heard recently has been completely credible.
But, just imagine what you could do with that kind of weapon. Aim it at someone, and you could get a perfect hit (and resignation), every time! And by the time an investigation was done and we found out the truth, it wouldn’t matter because your political enemy would still be gone. And you would still get your special election, and a really good chance to plop your candidate in the newly vacated seat.
The court of public opinion has suddenly increased exponentially in power because of social media. And with it, the possibility that we can completely undermine the legal standard of due process. “Innocent until proven guilty”, would become afterthought. Again, that isn’t the case right now. But, I could see it happening if we aren’t careful.
It would be great if there was an easier, more expeditious way to prove guilt. But, alas, it’s not like some guy guy running for president is going to openly admit popping a Tic Tac, and then grabbing women by the crotch.
10 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in Conspiracies, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Hate, Male superiority, Middle Way, Patriotism, Politics, Trump-Hole
If you haven’t heard yet, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson allegedly called President Trump a moron. Well, actually, I heard he called him a fucking moron, but do we really need to quibble about the details?
So, what does this mean? Was the Secretary of State being somehow insubordinate? Is this a crisis of diplomacy? Will this effect some of the high level negotiations being drafted with other world leaders?
Relax! The good news is that The Trump administration is so poorly staffed, that the State Department is effectively hobbled anyway. And if you’re worried about some healthy banter between two consummate professionals, don’t be. President Trump is a straight shooter, and will handle this like he handles most things, by dominating and controlling it! No one gets one over on The Donald in the area of size. He is simply bigger, in every way.
Behold! The taxpayers will now be able to fund a study worthy of its own segment on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Donald Trump is throwing down the gauntlet, and challenging Rex Tillerson to an IQ measuring contest! That’s right! You thought he was done displaying his superiority when he wanted to compare penis sizes with Little Marco, think again. Trump continues to steamroller the cucks, like real a president should!
Stand back, because Trump is whipping it out yet again! This time he’s going to show, once and for all, that he has words… he has the best words. And I suspect we will see some WWF-like actions, intended to humiliate in ways that no other president ever, in the history of the world, been forced to demonstrate. No one puts Baby in a corner! Look out ladies, no fainting. And guys, weep quietly, no one wants to hear it.
30 Saturday Sep 2017
Posted in Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Environment, First Amendment, Hate, Human, Male superiority, Middle Way, Patriotism, Politics, Race, Sameness, Terrorism, Trump-Hole
I tried to start an entry describing what I learned as a Boy Scout about respect for the American Flag. It was going to mention the flag worshippers out there who put the flag sticking up from the bed of pickup truck and drive around until it’s in tatters. Or better yet, how they constantly wear some form of the flag on their hat, or shirt. I was even going to mention the other people that put their confederate flag right next to the stars and stripes, usually on the wrong side… anyway, I never finished that post, I got distracted. Besides, it’s not like pointing out someone’s ignorance will make them reflect on their contradictory ways.
My distraction was about the (not-so) emergency response to Irma in Puerto Rico, and the fact that the President of the United States is ignoring the suffering of millions of U.S. citizens. But then Donald Trump began to bash the mayor of San Juan for criticizing him for doing nothing as the second level of destruction hits the island. Things like cholera, and the problems that come out of simply ignoring and not treating people for things that are so completely treatable… there is no excuse. Especially if you are more worried about upsetting the shareholders of shipping companies, than you are of human lives. And so neither of these topics got their own post.
You see there was this whole “drain the swamp” thing that was begging to be brought up as Tom Price came under fire for chartering private flights on the taxpayer’s dollar. But then he said he would pay the people back for his seat on these flights. He chartered the whole thing, but he was only going to pay us back for the seat he sat in. I was going to point out that the $50,000 he planned on giving back, was a fraction of the estimated $1M it actually cost for all of the charters. But then he resigned/was fired. And so, I began to comb through the stories of corruption and excess, that is coming out of this administration lately, but I got overwhelmed again.
You see, there’s some weird thing happening in Cuba with sonic attacks on U.S diplomats, and people are getting very sick. No one knows why, and what little is left of our State Department, isn’t saying anything. But even if they did, it wouldn’t stop the renewed fears that are reminiscent of the Cold War. You see, North Korea isn’t going to back down. Threatening nuclear war is all they have. But our president seems to think he can bluff them like some cement contractor from New Jersey. And that would be bad enough, but Trump will do anything to not lose face. That includes using “fire and fury like the world has never seen”, on a country that is about as much a match to us militarily, as I am to a 6 year old kid in arm wrestling.
I didn’t write about any of that either because the CEO of Equifax just retired after overseeing a massive data breach that has affected just about every American. Apparently this buttmunch was allowed to gracefully walk away with a $90M golden parachute. Even though, I guarantee you he’s the kind of guy who would fire his immigrant Guatemalan gardener for trimming the hydrangeas too unevenly.
So, as you can see I was going to write about all of these things, as well as a dozen more. But, I got overwhelmed. So, like Opus, I just need a dandelion break.
23 Saturday Sep 2017
As reports surface of an “earthquake” in North Korea in the area where they recently tested a hydrogen bomb, it makes you think.
Nuclear brinksmanship is a strategy that has more in common with a game of chicken in a couple of 1970’s muscle cars, than it does with chess. Primarily because it’s more about testosterone, than it is about tactics. For that matter, I have little doubt that Trump, or Kim, would be willing to “whip it out” if it came to that.
It seems like we are getting further away from having leaders who can recognize that humility and compromise can be far more powerful than posturing, or bravado will ever be. Add to that a few latent daddy issues, some questionable mental stability, a bad haircut, and an ever-present entourage of people who are too afraid to disagree with you out loud, and you end up right where we are now. The worst part is, you can’t even tell which one of these two knuckleheads I’m talking about!
Besides, neither one of them cares enough about the people they represent to risk their own reputation by actually wondering if the other guy is serious or not. It’s a choreographed tap dance in a field full of cow pies. And, if you’re wondering how it all ends, you’re in luck, the whole thing gets played out in this 3 minute video.
