A Break

 What I wanted was a break. 

What I got was food poisoning. 

For those of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning, the phrase "last piece of lasagna" might bring with it a faint air of nostalgia, or perhaps a little sympathetic nausea. It was not, to paraphrase Carl Denham, the lasagna that got me. 'Twas burrito that killed the beast. 

Carne asada will now be added to the list of phrases that will give me pause when considering my meal choices. 

Some four days after the Burrito Express came rushing out of me with all the urgency one might imagine a digestive system stuck on reverse could manage, solid food was something that my vacation was sadly missing. There was one day when I felt as if I had proceded to the normal lane, but my guts did not approve. They let me know that dry toast and Gatorade would be on the menu until everything was all settled down there, thank you very much. 

This meant that even day trips to some nearby bed and breakfast were off the table. So was my daily exercise regimen. As I spent those days sitting around my house waiting for the next gastric eruption, waiting for the scourge to fully depart, I felt the enforced low-key staycation weighing on my soul. Sure, I had made it out into the yard before the cursed burrito experience to trim up the trees, making way for Spring's renewal, but the reality of my situation was embedded in my diminished physicality. 

I watched a lot of TV. I tried not to bother my wife or my cat with my needs. I was only moderately successful with this, as my usual tireless approach to maintaining order took a miss and I spent a lot of time wondering just exactly how long it would take until I was "all better." 

There is no reset button. It takes time. Thankfully Spring Break allowed me this luxury. For this I have decided to be thankful. And as far as breaks go, I will be taking a break from Burrito Express. 

Women's Work

 Okay. 

So maybe it's the patriarchy. 

In spite of our best efforts, it seems as though white males make up the majority of leadership spots on our landscape. For example, we don't tend to flinch when we make a list of "the richest men in the world." We just assume that women lag so far behind that it's not worth including them in this accounting. Contrastingly it is unfortunate to note that the only two members of the convicted felon's current cabinet to be tossed out of that clown car were women. Idiots like Pistol Pete Hegseth and Robert "guess what the F stands for" Kennedy Jr. continue to hold down office space in the Kremlin West. 

This ruling party to which I have no interest in an invitation from continues to carry on in its boys' club way, denigrating and destroying anything that does not fit in their cartoon version of a masculine world. 

What about Hillary's emails? What about Kamala's laugh? There are still far too many knuckle-draggers willing to insist that we would not be better off currently if either of those women had won election. 

Or if that's too big a setting for you, let's take the confrontation between coaches Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley in the aftermath of Staley's South Carolina women's team win in the NCAA semifinals. Coach Geno used the opportunity to fly off the handle criticizing the officiating and then had an angry interaction with Coach Staley before stalking off the court without shaking hands with the winning team. 

The one coached by a woman. 

Since then, Coach Geno has been apologetic about his part of the ugliness, but the question remains: would he have gone screaming after an opposing male coach? 

Given the current global uptick in wars and "military operations," I noticed that in spite of there being thirty countries with women as heads of state, not one of those countries is currently involved in armed conflict outside of their own borders. If you're looking for examples of that, you would have to search bac.k a few decades to Margaret Thatcher and her little escapade in the Falklands. 

Meanwhile, in spite of that seemingly "large" number of women in charge of the globe, they only comprise eight percent of all head of state or government positions worldwide. Contrast that to the stunning number of women named in the Epstein Files. 

As victims. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Risk Management

 From Al Gore's Internet: Threatening children, such as using empty threats or fear-based ultimatums, in an ineffective parenting style that damages trust, breeds resistance and causes anxiety.

For the sake of those of you who may feel that you have stumbled on some of my wife's work regarding family dynamics, I will say that I am working in a more metaphorical vein. In this particular model, the "parent" will be played by the convicted felon and nominal "president" of the United States. We will be the children.

Have you felt anxious over the past ten months? Ten years? Do you experienced trust issues with the current regime? How about the breeding of resistance? 

If you answered "yes" to any of these then you may be an American citizen. 

Unfortunately in this version of family discord, the "co-equal" branches of our parenting scheme seems to be broken. "Wait 'til your father gets home," is a pretty solid non-starter here since the problem is that even when daddy is on the golf course or sitting on the toilet late at night, the threats keep coming. More promises of punishments alternating with assurances of some sort of intangible reward that benefits only those in positions of power. Meanwhile, our economy continues to circle the drain while daddy's friends get rich on speculation that the threat of nuclear was is just a threat. 

Nothing more. 

While we sit alone in our metaphorical bedrooms, wishing that daddy would die, imagining a savior will ride in and save us all from the terror in which we currently live. Someone who will stand up to daddy and make him stop being so awful. "Don't you worry about it honey," with a reassuring pat on the head, "That bad man won't be able to hurt us anymore." Right after they write a strongly worded social media post with the caveat that unless daddy's friends move out first that there's not much to be done, but if we could just send a little more money to the committee to keep mommy safe we'll see what we can do. 

Not a very healthy dynamic. 

Another two weeks? 

Full Stop

 I have one video game that I play, aside from the somewhat tedious and OCD repetitions of computer solitaire. It is called "Civilization." There are a lot of newer versions of this game, but I tend to favor the one that I started playing a couple decades ago. It was a reaction to kicking free from the first-person shooters that we had discouraged my son from playing. The very high-minded concept of this set of code is that starting thousands of years BC you are charged with guiding one of several tribes through centuries of development, hoping to survive drought and disease and other warring tribes to eventually create a modern world in which these former barbarians to inhabit. You could win the game through diplomatic means, or by beating those other civilizations to outer space. Or through do mination, crushing those other poor unfortunate peoples' lives under my cyber-despotic bootheel. 

Which raises the question, "So, if you don't want your son roaming around the universe with a ray gun, zapping aliens, why is okay for you to destroy other civilizations with a moderately superior military technology?" Well, I have spent a good deal of time rationalizing my motives, but I can say that my high-minded response centers around the notion that this is Civilization after all. Kill or be killed, isn't that the way?

The Orange Worst has been ramping up his rhetoric as his marbles continue to disappear. On the morning of his threatened destruction of the infrastructure of Iran, he let this one fly: "a whole civilization will die tonight." Not eliminating the war machinery or retaking the Strait of Hormuz by force. "A civilization will die tonight." Speculation has run rampant over the past few days as the countdown to meet the convicted felon's demands. The war crimes for which this idiot is already culpable continues to grow. This is the guy who somehow has his tiny hands on the buttons not just for Diet Coke on Demand, but the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives have already been thrown into the flames in attempts to, what do we keep saying, distract from the horrors that this infantile tyrant who couldn't run a casino in Atlantic City or keep his trousers zipped.

Why hasn't anyone run into the Oval Office, or onto the golf course, thrown this enfeebled failure to the ground, handcuffed him and taken him someplace where he cannot harm another human being? 

We used to have a Congress. We used to have a sense of morality. 

I hate to say it, but we let this happen. And even if tomorrow shows up and the literal Cradle of Civilization is still standing, we should have done something different. The fate of the planet should not be left up to a Narcissistic doddering old fool with delusions of grandeur. 

"Oh, he didn't really mean it." Or, "What he really meant was..."

It should stop. 

Now. 

Hey, the stock market went up. 

Or in two weeks. 

Whatever. 

Oh, Really?

 What a horrible, awful, frightening mess this country would be in had we stuck with that addled old man who stuttered. 

Or if we had gone with that lady who laughed like a hyena and had ties to law enforcement. 

And what about Hillary's emails, anyway?

Sorry. I'm having a moment here. Alex Jones, who would most definitely know a sociopath when he sees one, has declared the former game show host and golf cheat unfit to lead. “This is what I’m talking about, the way Trump’s behaving. Way more erratic. His speech, you know, is not coherent a lot of the time. You can’t deny this is happening.” 

Well heck, Mister Jones, thanks for pointing this out. Of course it's not as if this guy's rants about electric boats and shark attacks weren't out there on display for everyone to see on the days and weeks leading up to the 2024 election. Speaking of stupidity on parade, this is the guy who spent forty-five million dollars to get a poorly planned and executed display of military might for his birthday. That same day I participated in an event on the other side of the continent that ended up costing me just a few pennies for cardboard and magic markers for the sign I made, reminding anyone who cared to listen that America is no place for kings. 

Twice more since that day back in June of 2025 I have taken to the streets to point out the vacuum of leadership we are experiencing while the convicted felon sleeps through cabinet meetings because he has stayed up past his bedtime hammering out alternately offensive and nonsensical social media posts. Now, as the adjudicated rapist's approval ratings have begun to flirt with negative territory, Alex Jones would like us all to know that the Orange Worst has lost his way. “We’ve never seen rhetoric out of presidents like this when we go to war, even if you’re for this war. This is really bad PR, folks,” warned the man who insisted that the Sandy Hook Massacre was a hoax. 

Stupid is a stupid does, indeed. 

Hate Speech

 It is difficult to focus on "the one thing" that makes me most upset about having a former game show host for a "president." 

Today I will choose this: The announcement of national and international policy on the social media network owned by this coward of a cretin. 

This past Saturday, he made this threat: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP,””That was followed on Sunday, Easter morning by, "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah." 

One might expect that this came from the basement of some MAGAt's home he shares with his mother, rather than the "leader of the free world." Difficult to find anything particularly "presidential" in the vicious and ultimately racist threats against a country with whom he is the reason the conflict exists in the first place. 

The fact that his own administration routinely has to race to catch up on whatever late-night rants he fires off from the fancy new toilets in what is left of the White House. It is worth noting that he and his rabid War Czar Pistol Pete Hegsbreath seem to be in some terrifying game of who can generate more war crimes while his handlers struggle to explain "what the president meant." 

It's actually pretty simple: The "president" meant that he is full-goose bozo. One or two bricks shy of a load. He's all oatmeal north of the eyebrows. The Trump trolley has jumped the track. Over the weekend, there were rumblings across many different Internet platforms that the convicted felon may have been rushed to the hospital. The response, as you might imagine was less concerned that anticipatory. Would this be the weekend that the solution to all our problems came? Some sort of holy intervention brought forth as a reminder that there is something bigger than (small h) him? 

It was not, of course, to be as the rumors of his demise had been exaggerated, but not without some merit. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Luna Sea

 Sorry. 

Amid all the other distractions here on Earth, I have failed to acknowledge the flight of Artemis II. Four astronauts are on their way to the moon. Or near it, anyway. 

What with all the things blowing up these days, it's hard to pay attention to the controlled burn of a NASA launch that didn't explode like so very many of the Space X firework shows. 

This certainly points to a degree of talent and tenacity on the part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Strapping four humans into what is essentially a high explosive and aiming it not just into the upper atmosphere, but into the space between us and our moon? That must make all those billionaires selling tickets to their zero-gravity carnival rides blush. 

To be transparent, this is a reboot of a show that NASA put on more than fifty years ago. Back when these missions were named for Artemis' brother, and the rockets were named Saturn. 

We're not sending men to Saturn. Or Mars for that matter. Not yet. We have picked up this gauntlet laid down by (checks notes) the uncle of the guy who likes taking cold plunges with faux rock stars while wearing his jeans. We are moving ahead with a space program while wars rage on across the globe. 

Just like they did when the first Apollo missions were being launched. 

Now we're headed back to the stars. Or the moon. But we're doing it with a sense of hope for the future. Or maybe just as an exit strategy.