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.

Where do they find these people?

I've lived long enough to see one president assassinated, one fall from grace and hold up double peace signs before departing on Marine 1 for obscurity. Then saw his second in-command exonerate him while stumbling through his one term. Then a submariner peanut farmer who built houses for poor people (with his own tools), the great and fallible yet always entertaining Ronnie Reagan and then Clinton getting impeached for getting his brass polished in the oval office while on the clock. Talk about multitasking! Then came Dubya. Okay maybe we should table his tenure for different tirade. 

After that we came up for air, embraced the angels of our better nature and put a mulatto in the big chair. A place where no blackish man had gone before. Except maybe to fix a squeak or a tear in the upholstery. We did ourselves proud. We did good. Those that hate him still hate him for actually being way better than they expected.

Then came Trump. He who parlayed bloviation into political gold. Who knew? C'mon, I'm not always the brightest bulb in the fixture but really? What am I missing? These people make shit up about so much so often that you'd better not stand close for fear of being covered in it yourself. Now that the law has caught up with this asshole, his minions are doubling down with righteous indignation beating their breasts and blaming the very system they created. Go figure.

One ass-hat whose name rhymes with Sebastian Gorka had the temerity (he has a camel-back full of the stuff) to take offense at a direct question about the evidence presented at Trump's arraignment. Rather than answer the question he began berating the journalist even questioning their language skills, "You don't speak English, do you? Obviously you don't because you haven't heard a word I said." 

Which was nothing more than a feckless diversionary tactic. Knowing that, the reporter kept calm and let Gorka blather on about weaponized injustice like a pimple-face kid that memorized a brochure for the John Birch Society. If you can't answer honestly, call the questioner mean and stupid and a homo brain and promise to have them beat up. One thing's for certain he is definitely invited to the Trump Towering Inferno Christmas party this year. Rudi will not be invited. Unless he brings his own liquor!

I have it on Q authority they're trying out some new uniform designs for the future. Gorka's will no doubt invoke a Himmler-esque Darth Vader vibe paired with Goering's jodhpurs and jack boots. Either way, you just know it'll have one of those long zippers up the back so he can make a quick costume change. 

Just in case

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. 

When the truth fails...

Okay, I have to admit something. I live in Florida and I'm a conservative. This is not something I am proud of right now. Of either one. But I digress too soon. First we need a little context.

Conquistadors made landfall near St. Augustine in 1565 and shortly thereafter... aw hell, you know what happened and the natives didn't have a say much less a chance. Florida has entertained its share of villainy and prosperity in equal measure. From the aforementioned Spaniards to the Brits to pirates to slavers, to common profiteers, St. Augustine was just the tip of the spear with regards to what men will do in the name of king, queen, country or company when really it's always just about the money.

Fast forward to now and it doesn't take a degree to understand that this place, like most of America, either by way of the sword, bullets or the common cold succumbed to Manifest Destiny. I'm guessing the Timucua had never heard of herd immunity. Back then we spelled genocide another way--progress. 

Now a pudgy malignancy named Ron DeSantis, our current gov, has become a darling of the Tea Party cum neo-Nazi MAGA hat wearing set that have infected, nay, subverted the GOP. The Republicans are no longer the standard bearers of conservatism but rather a brutish bug-eyed buffoonery normally associated with survivalists, lynchings and Trump rallies. Bobert, Taylor-Green, and Gaetz are but minions. Blindly supportive, loyal to a fault, cultish and mostly lacking in any walking around sense.

They either cannot nor will not stand right-wise to the truth. Rather the truth is buried under a flurry of denial and misdirection and capped off with a two ton slab of certainty. And people loooooooove certainty. Goes right along with their notions of right and wrong. They like things tidy. Neatly wrapped in sanctity and slathered in dogma with a side of damnation. 

Personally, I think they've lost their way inside Donald Trump's colon, can't tell up from down and apparently not one of them brought a flashlight. Or any walking around sense. But I have not lost mine. My conservatism is intact. Theirs is a barrel of rotting fish left on the dock in August. If we would just kick it off so the bottom feeders could appropriately deal with the contents, we might all sleep better. 

Till that day comes, DeSantis will continue to take a cue from his progenitor and lie about anything and everything that he deems worthy to perjure himself for as long as it makes him look presidential. Like he said, "The future of America is at stake!" Heck, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.

DeSantis is proof of concept for the neo-GOP and their corporate handlers. Remake local governments into fiefdoms for the party. Control the spin into a downward spiral and blame the Democrats when anything gets wonky. They are the bringers of all things terrible. To socialize with a Democrat is to ladle the steaming contents of Das Kapital into your lap without benefit of pants or even a dinner napkin. Even if they are your beloved family members and neighbors you must demean, deride, demonize, deplore and blame them for all our country's woes.

If by chance the Democrats manage to lose again, I know DeSantis will celebrate by grabbing his own ass with both hands so he can fuck the remaining oxygen out of the room. There's a whole lot of smoke in the DeSantis household but not one friggin mirror. This is what we get in Florida's GOP owned state house and gov'nors mansion. More of the same. A grandstanding wind bag who'll spend taxpayer dollars to redistribute immigrant families to other states and blame the Democrats all while making friends in low places everywhere. Lord help us!

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..."