Say something great or else...

A few of our athletes have banded together for solace and outrage at our national malaise. So be it. They have the same rights as anyone else especially the asshats in charge of running the country into the ground these days. This nation was founded on dissent so go forth and fucketh thine selves MAGAts! Ye are not making ANYTHING great again but for being asshats wearing red hats. You have that in spades.

As for moving away, I say, oh no you're not! You're not going anywhere before you eat your broccoli. But seriously, Trump's sycophants are hailing from a dark past that this country is still dealing with. Fortunately I have great news. I have a good friend from my recent work history that when asked about his being assaulted by or otherwise privy to any overt prejudice or bigotry, he mused, "I don't really hangout with assholes so no, I don't believe I have." I replied, Hallelujah, this means we've moved the needle off complete assholiness and toward a still brighter light. 

It's just that the present POTUS is bending the needle to prove otherwise. Anything in his eye line will be turned to drivel from the master's mouth. The man can't help himself. He absolutely cannot give an account for anything that doesn't include dislocating his shoulder in order to pat himself on the back.

What I mean is that this young man, a very dark young man with dreds AND confidence hasn't experienced what so many of our gen has. I remember race riots in high school and Jim Crow alive and well and living next door. Times have indeed changed for the better. My friend is aware only vaguely of the bigotry and hatred that still infects too many whites and near-whites all over this amazing country of ours. Again, hallelujah! I also suggested strongly to this young man that he need only consult his grandma to find out what he missed.  

As to the asshats-at-large crowd so pitifully thin-skinned, check my suggested action above. Go forth and fucketh thine own self and slither your dumbass back to whatever backwater hellhole you sprang from in the first place. And don't forget your opinions. We don't need them and they're way below our pay grade to give a shit about. Selah!

So now they're arresting 5 year-olds...

Nazi Germany didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened in plain sight. It happened because the little corporal was able to parlay his rhetoric into a national movement by controlling what his countrymen could perceive. Control the narrative. Find or makeup an enemy and hammer them mercilessly until the lie becomes common knowledge. Truth be damned. The truth is what HE said it was. After all, he made Germans feel so good about themselves again. The Master Race in ascension. Such a deal!

Sound familiar? You bet it does. Americans that fall for the America First ballyhoo are lemmings being lead over a cliff. Their concerns are real, their voices echo, and their biases confirmed. It's them, their the ones, them illegal immigrants and their Marxist handlers, the Democrats!

For our sake the Dems better be paying attention before another Night of the Long Knives and Krystalnacht is in the offing. The Minnesotans are onto something. Let us pray for them to have wisdom and do the right thing. Violence is never the answer. Unless there's no other way. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is only right when there's an actual fire. 

Anyone else smell smoke?

I hate it that...

 Donald J. Trump is always at the forefront of this blog. I really do. I knew back in 2016 that this motherfucker would steal EVERYTHING from us. I knew that he would ALWAYS make EVERYTHING about HIM. I knew that he would suck all the sense out of the room. And I also knew that he would succeed. Too many of my countrymen would succumb to his charms. They didn't know any better. But that's not all. 

The Democratic party would become apoplectic. They couldn't see the the forest fire for the burning trees. I and my missus changed sides. We became Democrats after 45 year as staunch Republicans. We didn't hold our noses because the stench from "our side" was so great. We didn't realize that the Dems were just using deodorant. But that's not all.

The Democrats desperately need to regain the high "middle" ground. They need to become the answer to EVERYTHING that's wrong RIGHT NOW in the country. They need another Jack Kennedy instead of the lesser kin in charge of our healthcare system. They need to promise to right the ship and set a new course whereby EVERYONE gets a fair shake. The big tent is empty right now. It is time for them to come to our senses and re-imagine us as the promise granted by our forefathers. Re-establish the Great Society and hammer that message home. 

Don't bother bashing the Trumpster and his bevy of acolytes.  Their future will be the dumpster of history. A dark anomaly along with the genocidal Trail of Tears, the Red baiting of McCarthyism and trickle down economics. The MAGAts will die without their detritus to feast on. Let's starve them out. Let's prove that our system IS the best in the known world.

What else do we have to lose before we come to our senses? 

Such a deal...

Too many of us have drank the Koolaid of indifference and derision over immigrants. I'm sure there are as many gasps are there are cheers every time a group of masked ICE agents storm into a Starbucks or Walmart. Wait a minute, a MAGAt wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks. We choose to look the other way while the Gestapo tactics are taking place a few feet away. I mean, they're skin is different, right? Too bad, I really loved their tamales and falafel.  

Such good pre-war Germans we'd make. 

Maybe we need another Underground Railroad. But we'd need a Harriet Tubman to go with. Our representatives are under the gun too. We decry their ineffectiveness and bemoan their blather about it all. Right or Left doesn't matter when you're being torn from the family, friends and home you might have built here in the greatest nation ever conceived. This country is a place of dreams not walls.

The first Europeans came with nothing but desperation and hope. Of course they brought a host of diseases heretofore never seen on this side of the Atlantic. That said, the first people's helped us survive even though we would screw them royally still. 

And now there's Trumplandia where everyone is invited to bend over and grab their ankles. 'Cause Trump's gonna save us all! Mmmhmm...

 

Mr. Farley and the Founder...

This world as made by CEOs is not a pretty one for the chronically underpaid. But just now a glimmer of hope. A corner turned maybe. We'll see. It didn't happen right away the first time so we should not be getting anywhere near comfortable. What the hell am I going on about? Glad you asked. 

But first, a little history... we know how ol' Henry Ford learned to make automobiles fast and cheap. He vertically integrated his entire system. Mr. Ford realized that buying raw products in bulk allowed him to control quality and costs. Naturally he kept wages where they were at the time too, at a minimum. 

One day Henry realized that his employees could never hope to enjoy the fruits of their labor due to the wages he wasn't paying. He was making cars for the people and the people in his employ had made him fabulously wealthy. It was time to give back some of what they earned for him. Henry doubled wages company wide overnight. 

You might think that was a bold move after all he had a board of directors to answer to. But remember, ol' Henry maintained absolute control of everything. The board bitched but history tells us who won. And it made them all even richer. That's why Henry was crestfallen when forced into a corner by the new up and comers, the union. Eventually he understood that for other companies to follow his lead it had to be a matter of contract rather than largess.

So just now the CEO of Henry's legacy, a man named Farley, has decided to do something similar. He discovered many of his newer younger workers were having to take side gigs with Amazon in order to make ends meet in this increasingly expensive world. He realized what ol' Henry did, you gotta dance with those that brung ya! Besides, no one ever went broke by being generous to the earners. Good on ya, brother! Ford just earned my next ride.

As a side note, the big box company where I worked for a time is union-proofed for that exact reason. All of the assistant managers maintain a side hustle (full-time job) just to make ends meet. To work for that company is nothing more than indentured servitude salved with platitudes, cheap pizza and badges. Their founders own sports teams, stadiums, yachts and jets while 75% of their employees do not make enough to support their families on what they take home. They're currently number one in their industry.

I dare say every company represented on Wall Street treats their employees exactly the same. Abigail Disney pointed that fact out a few years ago with an inquiry into the current spate of CEOs in America. She found that Disney's leadership was just the same as other mega corps. No better and no worse. This has to change if people--if America is to survive.

Unions made the middle class and it was growth in union jobs that made the America everyone remembers. Not some New York real estate developer cum peckerwood politician. Funny, I don't hear anything about bolstering unions or increasing wages for workers from that cocksucker. Though he sure is taking care of him and his kind, isn't he?

So if you want to make America great again, start with strengthening the unions. They're the ones that made it great the first time. They delivered on the American dream. Pay a person enough and they'll buy their own pizza.

Extinction event...

It seems Neanderthals were a hairy bunch. They died out a long time ago. So they said. Now there's DNA evidence that the once thought extinct bunch of hirsute bipeds are still with us. Seems some things never die while others like the Dodo and moderate Republicans just can't catch a break.

In science classes we find out that there have been several extinction events that have steered our existence. It's impossible to understand or even consider the ways we have evolved as a civilization without them. Nature isn't cruel. It just doesn't give a damn. 

We're no better. History is rife with examples of unintended consequences of something that up until it exploded or melted down or took out a town or something good at first--turned sour. We forget that it took an entire factory full of women to burn to death before basic safety protocols were invented. It took a school full of kids getting blown to smithereens before they added the funky odor to natural gas so you can smell a leak. Shall I go on?

Suffice to say that we are a thick-headed species. We'd rather be led down the path with promises of rainbows, clean coal and a life without liberals or murderous immigrants rather than take responsibility and triangulate the truth. Ernest Hemingway said for a writer and especially a reporter that they needed to keep their bullshit meter turned up in order to find the truth. Trump blows the fuse on those every time.

Trump has taken over by the not-wrong-headed notion that people don't really give a damn till their grocery cart eats half their paycheck. Then they'll blame immigrants, transsexuals and their dead mamas for the spike in the price of eggs. Even when it's verifiable bullshit, they still believe. Confirmation bias is real. This is exactly why I left "the church" and now the GOP. Bullshit by any other name is still a path to Hades.

The Grand Old Party is finished. There is only the Donald. Why? My guess is that it's every American's dream to be the bull in the Temu warehouse. To break shit, leave the mess for someone else to clean up and nab a few bargains on the way out the door. The scary part is that it's our democracy and not a Hong Kong knockoff shop gone viral. 

Now Americans have another choice to make. Stand and fight or bend the knee. If the Democrats want to be the candle in the dark then they'd damn well better get on with it. Spark it up for chrissake! We need to build a new liberal-conservative Democratic party. An enlightened Left of center movement with education, civil exchange and shared responsibility as their cornerstones. One that seeks substantive compromise rather than innuendo, subterfuge and fearmongering. One that wants to win for people instead of a twisted ideal. One that truly is of, by and for the people. All the people. The ones that were here first as well as all of those that came after. What a wonderful country it could be. 

Meanwhile Elvis has left the building.

It's Kamala, bitch!

I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir when I say, "Asshats! Every one of them!" Now apply that liberally on any itchy spot you have. Chances are it will offer no relief nor do I claim it will. But it is something to do till the January after the election when we can finally say good riddance to _ _ _ _ _ (insert favorite bowel obstruction here) and say hello to tomorrow. 

Now either you fall one way or t'other but all can freely apply the aforementioned tincture to their aperitif. If you're a Trump minion then you have my condolences. Naaaaaah, fuck you people! You idiots would sell us out to Putin and every tyrant on the planet just because your boy works for gawd and, he is stroooooong. He took a bullet in the ear then told Jesus he had to go 'cause Prezeedint Trump done stole my heart. 

Joe Biden is no perfect man nor president. None of them were. I don't believe we'll ever see one and I pray we do not. The real deal will gain a following that will make a Trump rally look like a sideshow at a county fair in a shit-hole country. Along with cotton candy and the smell of ripe livestock, the real deal politician will know how to drop a deuce, polish it and make you think it's gold. Trump only got half of us with his bullshit. The rest of us called him on it and continue to do so. His minions still thinks he's "the shit." I couldn't agree more. He is THE shit. All other shit just doesn't compare.

The real deal he/she will not stop until the world burns. Here's the rub, I can't blame the leader. I think leaders can be like children from uber rich families. No one has ever told them no and survived. So they surround themselves with sycophants because that's their people. Bow down and all will be fine. Rise up and you're fired! He admits as much by his fawning over Musk's talent for dealing with trade unions.

Make no mistake Trump followers are in a cult. It's hard to get through to folks that have fallen into a cult. Because the rest of us are just wrong, right? Just ask a member of Jehovah's Witness. We can try prayer or interventions but no one gets out of a cult unscathed. It will take a long long time for America to get over Trump. But we have to. He's poison on a stick. He's a taffy monster. You pop him into your mouth and he tastes great. You start to chew and then the taffy monster eats you!

Nowadays we are all giving the short shaft to each other. We'd rather demonize and insult each other than try to understand. Understanding takes time and effort. I find both ends of the political spectrum devoid of will in this regard. Adherents to either side would rather warn each other about the guns they keep loaded and at the ready. In every room in the house! You know, just in case some murdering drug muddled gender fluid illegal from Guadalupe wants to read something funny to our kids!

Immigrants schmimmigrants

The borderlands are fraught. Should we adopt the xenophobic route and continue putting up walls or just let 'em all in? Tell me, what's your answer for people trying to survive? Is it, go back to where you came from and fix your own damn country? Or is it, you poor souls let me get you some soup and citizenship papers?

In my time so far on this earth, I've born witness to the silly bullshit for brains attitude we aim at immigrants. I know the refrain, I don't have a problem with those that come here LEGALLY. Okay lets start with legal. Columbus was an illegal immigrant. Ask a native American how they celebrate Columbus Day. You'll get an ear full. At least a puzzled eye roll. In hindsight the natives should have slaughtered us on the beaches and scuttled the ships. Might have delayed the invention of the iPhone.

In the digital age I think it's safe to assume that none of us has any patience with any current solution offered up as a fix. As far as murder, rape and general mayhem committed by illegal aliens, get a grip people! Most folks are killed by people they know so you really should be a whole lot more anxious around your friends than any schmo that enters the U.S. without paperwork. 

 My question is this, where's the kindness? How do we as a country, the greatest the world has seen (so far) with the full set of tools at its disposal--end the crisis along our southern border? How about opening up an Ellis Island in the sand? How about knocking down those fucking walls (which all migratory animals will applaud) and create a chain of Ellis Islands along the border. Create funnels instead of walls to freedom. Make tax payers out of 'em in the process. Sure, they can't vote but who cares? They work for cheap till they make citizen. Then it's like joining a union. You get to pay dues (taxes) the rest of your life and you could get a piece of the good life.

But seriously isn't that the promise of America? Work hard, press every opportunity, be bold and damn the torpedoes? Tell me what's more American; some homegrown Jethro bitching about the plummeting price of peanuts on the world market or some hungry person from God-knows-where believing in that promise and willing to risk everything just to get here? It sure as hell ain't for free stuff and soft targets.

Let's open up a real conversation and hear from all parties involved and I'm not limiting it to the two we're stuck with. There's a real and substantive way to handle the question of immigration if we but have the will to find it and the courage to execute it. First, we need to appoint only native Americans to the task. Some will see the irony while others will tremble. That's America. Long may she flounder so beautifully.

I know there's something I'm forgetting. Probably something about infants and bath water.

On becoming a 21st century schizoid man...

The only thing that an autocrat needs to flourish is people willing to be lied to. It's as old as mankind. Our forefathers created a nation founded on universal principles. Their words favored neither color nor creed.  They understood the dangers. They understood the possibilities too. They also understood that the only real defense against tyranny is a well informed and armed populace.

The right thinking among us have learned to better pray. Our country has always been peril. If not from without than most certainly from within. The fringe will always be at the ragged edge of sanity. They sing a siren's song. Go right or go left, it does not matter which, both end in abyss. 

Our nation was designed to be pliant so that it would not break. The Right sees this as anathema to their agenda. They crave the solid distinctions of white against everything else. To them all else is taint and tincture. They want their memories renewed and recast in the light of their own image. Simply put, they want what never was. They crave the familiar distinctions. The ones they grew up with. The ones handed down from one generation to the next bereft of facts but packed with anecdotes and flags. Lots of flags.

The Left sees it differently and therein lies the rhubarb. It is true their fringe is dancing with some sort of Nirvana-esque notion of mankind in harmony with nature and itself. Yes and I have a business in supplying unicorns for such folk. In looking at both sides, it's my take that their adherents operate under the notion that they should reap benefits for their taxes. Not exactly a novel notion but it seems to be lost in the form presented to us. I mean, we SHOULD get a lot more for our money than street signs and promises by politicians, right?

The Left sees the Right as a bastion of bigotry, intolerance and patriarchy. The Right sees them as commies and fags. The Left sees the Right pressing an autocratic xenophobic agenda. The Right calls them commies and fags. The Left sees the Right's party of record diminishing in full retrograde toward a fiery end with an orange-haired idiot holding the reins. The Right calls the Left commies and fags. The Left points out that the Right's emperor is buck-ass naked. The Right flips the Left off and yells, "Prove it!"

If you sense a pattern then you're probably right. If you sense that I might be disaffected by the whole shebang, then you're more than right. You're right on.

God is a skeptic...

Otherwise why would "it" have thrown us a bone? He/she doesn't believe in us. It created us, right? The simple question for me that I proffered time and again in Sunday school was, "Why?" Why are we special? And for what? A pass to an eternity that any sane person would consider an absolute bore three days in? Oh look, it's manna for breakfast, lunch and FOREVER! Wait a minute, where's the pulled pork, Jesus? C'mon, that was so five centuries before you, man. Demon possession does not spoil the meat. Lemme at the grill, I'll show you. 

(Quick aside, I got spanked when I was ten and claimed I had no interest in a place without peanut butter. I felt Paradise was sorely out of touch with my needs even back then.)

Wait a minute, whadya mean we don't have to eat? What else is there? Rolling along 24K sidewalks on Segways singing "His" praises for ETERNITY? No friggin' way. There's gotta be more to the mystery than advertised. Otherwise this party is going nowhere and I'm not interested. Take your hymnal and your finely tuned deafness elsewhere. Have a nice eternity. I'm going where there's bacon. You can trust bacon way more than a priest. Just ask a choir boy.

That's how I think of religion. We're raised in it. Steeped in it. Redeemed by it. Absolved of our wickedness weekly when faithfully attendant and paying your 10%. Even the Good Book says you have to maintain in order to enjoy the fruits. And that was the source of my first rub in Sunday school. Salvation is supposed to be free but then there's the actual transaction between the stick of damnation and the dangled carrot of paradise. Wait, you said what? Oh that's gonna cost ya. Then the stick comes down and beats you and the carrot to a pulp. Like Job, just for shits and giggles.

That's just not me anymore. I've lived too long. Seen too much inside and out of the church walls to believe in a "just" God anymore. Like Mr. Palahniuk conjured so succinctly in his book about the existential threat of self awareness, Fight Club where the lead character clarifies, "God's a kid with an ant farm." Spot friggin on, that one. 

What's important is the person beside me. Be they friend or foe. They're what I'm about when in the world moment to moment. Being with that person or people listening and being present. What else is there? Life is either action or memory. Memories are paltry compared to the actual experiences but they do serve as way points marked along a trek. Memories also come in different denominations. Some are are like the rarest of jewels, sensual and soul stirring.

As for my personal beliefs, I defer to the epic, the big picture in minor detail. My heirs can sift through the detritus for worth and value. I'll be onto the next thing whatever it is. The afterlife must be okay because the dead haven't bothered to come back with pictures or an updated brochure and besides, the living don't really want to know anyway.

Friends are always welcome

 Me and the missus, we did it. Turned away from all rabid factions. Covid had it's way with us too and we're still here. For sure some did not make it. Some fell for other reasons altogether. Heart attack, cancer, self-inflicted or whatever. Half of those that died of Covid had already succumbed to ignorance and suspicion long before the virus took them. Their reward was choking to death on what they didn't know. Instead, what they believed was ill suited for warding off contagion. Their faith may have been bigger than a mustard seed but the thing that killed them was microscopic. Strychnine would've been kinder.

We've gotten good at making all of our own meals now. Spend time dreaming of better days ahead. Together. Yes, we'll have two to go, please. Everything has to be portable. We're lightening the ship. Collections put up for auction, extras made scarce, if it hasn't been used in a year, hell, a decade, sell it, give it or Goodwill it! Lighter and nimbler is the aim. 

A hovel on a mountain is the goal. Some place off the beaten. Defensible. It's something we've talked about for years. A cabin in the woods. One with a view or set back in the trees near a brook with trout. Up past where the gravel ends. Down the red clay made hard by us and the neighbors and a scheduled road-grader. Up and up up up then around then down again till where the gravel picks up again. Up one more time then leveling out, you arrive at the gate. 

We are here. We heard your tires crunching gravel. Saw your approach on the critter cams. We're here waiting. Punch the code and come on up. Put it in park and set the brake. Just in case. There's good bourbon and comfort inside. Hurry in, a storm's coming. 

Blood and circuses...

Cicero would have had a field day with the latest tragedy replayed in Uvalde, TX.  I miss Ann Richards with her blonde bouffant which I believe was a cooling system for that wit. The same one she kept sharp as a freshly stropped razor and quicker with it than Sweeney Todd.  And I miss Molly Ivans for calling the bastards out with frequency and aplomb.  I also miss what Hunter S. Thompson might have said too.  He was a lifelong .44 magnum fan.  He was also a fan of the truth no matter how ugly. God, I miss the acerbic wit of them all.

With them gone, here I go.  Feeble and growing older by the minute it's time for me to speak up... again. But first a few caveats about me: I'm a ginger, a marksman, a father, a husband, a coworker, a woodworker, a reformed evangelical, a hiker and a lover of movies, women, a friend to all dogs, a proud G-Pa who loves some musical theater, damnit!  Stanley Kubrick and Stephen Sondheim are the GOATs.

But what do we do about the most recent school shooting in Uvalde, TX. Mourn and lick our wounds. That's all we can do today. Tomorrow is another thing.  

The Gun Control Act of '68 was put into place after a decade of high profile assassinations. Shoot the famous and things get done. Shoot up a school full of grade school children or a nightclub full of revelers and you get squeals from the gun lobby about freedom and commies and freedom and God-given guns and FREEDOM! Like some K Street suit in Braveheart makeup brandishing an M5 over his head while dancing on the hood of his/her Hummer.

The GCA '68 created a separate classification for destructive devices such as bazookas, grenade launchers and fully automatic weapons. I remember my older brother getting an army surplus M1 Garrand. Beautiful! He still has it and as far as I know, hasn't used it on anything but paper and spent shotgun shells. The Greatest Generation chased Tojo and Hitler back into the holes from which they came with those rifles. 

Fast forward to today, we have weapons capable of killing an entire room of grade school children with one clip. The Garrand only holds eight rounds. Think about that. How many rounds do you need to take on Bambi? Or your government? The same government with drones, M1 Abrams, Apaches and Javelin missiles? Yeah, that one.

How about we move the assault rifle and all its variants into the Class III destructive devices category? The legislation already exists! Then we can grandfather in (no reg fee) any preexisting weapons into a registry with teeth. You own an AR, you have a record. The G men know where your ARs are. Fuck up and it disappears along with your freedom! Which means we are held responsible for any ill purveyed upon the public by the willful or negligent misuse of said firearm. Carrot and stick. Simple.

I also believe that if you are prescribed and taking psychotropic medications, you have to give up all things that go bang until you are cleared. You're depressed, dipwad, that's why!  You're manic-depressive, you numbskull!  You're taking meds to perk you up or perk you down, tapioca brain! In other words, if you can't control your behavior without medications, you sure as shit don't need an AR with a thirty round clip in the house. The 2nd Amendment wasn't about you! Just sayin...

Maybe we just hold them for you? How about leaving them with friends or relatives? Fine, but they have to know that they'll be added to the registry too. It's as simple as this, we have licenses to drive cars and have to prove that we can do so safely. Why is it that we can't do the same for civilian owned military weapons?

One things for certain, the fight for real democracy, freedom and justice will always be with us. Right now, I think we need to hold the do-nothing bastards in congress up by their ears and tan their asses as my mom would say. Now my Dad, he would have added, "Oughta take a machine gun and..."