Feels

 I was writing in a previous century. I wrote, primarily for an audience of two or three, about the things that were on my mind. I snapped up a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: This is what life feels like to me. It came from the prologue of his novel Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! I read this book when it first came out, and it joined the long list of Mister Vonnegut's work that I took as my own philosophical compendium. 

That was fifty years ago. My audience has expanded by a degree, but I am currently reflecting on just how morose I was when I was a teenager. Back then, I would stare longingly out a metaphorical window, fretting that I could not imagine life after thirty. The cocoon in which I placed myself back then was definitely part of being an adolescent, coupled with the steady diet of science fiction novels and movies and New Yorker cartoons. 

Morose. 

Of course I did manage to live beyond age thirty. That little bit of melancholy would not play as well once I fell in love, got married, and had a son and bought a house. All of these took place after I turned thirty. It seems that I may not have been able to see all of this joy over the horizon because it would not have fueled that youthful angst. The tragedy that I had been setting myself up for never came to pass. 

Not that there wasn't tragedy. Death and sorrow came along. With it I found the novels of John Irving. More to the point, my father gave me a copy of The World According To Garp in a brown paper bag for my eighteenth birthday, This set me on the path to The Hotel New Hampshire, which would inform me and my dealings with Sorrow for the foreseeable future. 

Foreseeable. 

I had no idea that there would be so much joy waiting out there just over the rise. Watching my son progress from preschool to kindergarten to middle school to high school to college, I became aware that I was observing my own legacy taking a hard turn into optimism and hope. This became what life felt like to me. I was at some point in this era when I learned that John Irving was a student of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Mister Irving tells a story about how he once felt he was going to save the life of his mentor by giving him the Heimlich Maneuver. Through gasps of air, Vonnegut was able to squeeze out the truth: "Get off me. I have emphysema."

It's a sad story. But it's funny. 

And that's what life feels like to me. 

Getting Scrooged

 Prices at the pump. Gas is expensive. Consumers are making tough choices: fill up the gas tank or fill up the refrigerator.

Those are but a few of the hackneyed notions being tossed around currently regarding the cost of oil.  As the gas station around the corner seems to change their reader board on an almost hourly basis, there is not a lot of hope on the horizon. I can say with a solid degree of certainty that our purchase of an electric vehicle almost two years ago now seems like an expressly clever idea. In spite of all the tax incentives and deals going on out there, not everyone can make that leap. 

What does the Second Trumpreich have to say about all of this? "We spoke ​to Mr. ⁠Zelenskiy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don't hit diesel fuel. That's hurting the ​world." This is especially rich coming from the architect of the "blockade" of the Strait of Hormuz. And the trade war with Canada. These two incomprehensible foreign policy decisions are at the very core of the current price surges in oil. It should be clearly noted that while it was the United States that attacked Iran to set off this latest in a seemingly endless series of crises, "Mr. Zelenskiy" was minding his own sovereign nation when it was attacked by (checks notes) a very good friend of the convicted felon, the President and Head Bear Wrassler of Russia, Vlad "The Goofaman" Putin. 

This latest deflection on the part of the Orange Worst continues to deflect the responsibility for the price of a gallon of gas rising above six dollars away from his despicable choices. Back in May, I took a bit of my pop culture education and suggested that if any or all of the oil companies, who continue to bathe themselves in wads of cash due to record profits from the sale of petroleum products, might take a few pennies off the price of gasoline just to prove that somehow we are all in this together. 

I am reasonably certain that most of the executives to whom this idea was lobbed are far too busy to take the time to read this blog, but maybe one of their underlings might sit at the edge of their enormous money tub and read my suggestion to them while they frolic in their profit plunge. Or perhaps one of them might look around themselves and have a moment of Christmas morning clarity: We don't have to make so much money that we can continue to take these baths in consumer's hard-earned cash. 

Bad news. Charles Dickens is busy with the most recent iteration of his holiday story the one that looks to "humanize" Scrooge. Which, wouldn't you know it, seems just about right for a fable of our times. 

Opening That Door

 New York and Los Angeles, two of they country's largest school districts, have issued temporary bans on Artificial Intelligence. The most obvious reason being that in a place where plants are grown, bringing in plastic flowers doesn't make a lot of sense. 

I am, for the time being, the Media Arts teacher at an elementary school up the road apiece from Los Angeles. Coincidentally, if one were to travel that road you would have to drive through a region once known as Silicon Valley. I would like to change the name, since that sort of thing seems all the rage right now, to Uncanny Valley. 

First, a little background: My career as a Media Arts teacher began in a previous century when I was simply the computer teacher. The "lab" in which I worked was filled with Mac LCIIs, nominally networked by wires to tractor feed printers. Aside from the opportunity to play what the kids referred to as "The Shooting Game" which was the floppy disc driven eight bit version of Oregon Trail, the other main concession of those times was the chance to make a picture using Kid Pix. In spite of my exhortations to try and use the freehand tool of drawing lines and shapes with their mouse, my little artists were more than content to plotz a page-filling stamp of a heart with their tame vaguely typed on or near it and insist that I print it out. For their mom. 

Eventually through very kind donations from our business partner, our school was able to install a PC lab that would connect to Al Gore's Internet. For some time this setup required a good deal of help running programs from CDs that needed loading and setup from yours truly. It wasn't until I started running web-based programs like Starfall that I was able to shift away from typing tutors and simple math games. Not long after that, Google Docs and Sheets allowed us to write stories and slideshows that were all part of the eternal student plea: Can I be done now?

As students started to enter my room with more and more native user skills, it did not take long before they discovered the copy and paste tool that allowed many of the most clever to lift chunks of text or images to suit their needs. Access to Wikipedia made it possible for those in the know to lift a three paragraph essay on The Oregon Trail in minutes, leaving plenty of time for playing Cool Math Games. 

I would like to believe that I was that most savvy educator who was able to detect this intellectual theft and force these kids back on the path of "meaningful research" and a journey of self-discovery. I know that this was not always the case. 

Now, coincidental with the budget-driven gutting of our district's tech department, the doors to the kingdom of Artificial Intelligence have been left in the hands of "teacher discretion." Currently this particular teacher of children ages five to eleven has chosen to keep that issue off the table, even as online companies have begun to encourage all users to embrace these tools. I'm looking at you, Google. Since the Uncanny Valley stalwart is the same company that supplies our district with Chromebooks for student use, that Pandora's box is opened right along with the lid to every laptop. 

"Hey Google, write me a three paragraph essay on the evils of Artificial Intelligence." 

Did I mention that our school district, along with the state of California, no longer allows student use of cell phones at school? But we seem to be fine with the "discretionary use" of artificial intelligence. 

Did I mention that I am planning to retire at the end of this school year?  

Don't Pick At It

 Atlantic Industrial Coatings told the White House that its own failures were responsible for the botched renovation, not vandals. This contradicts the convicted felon’s claim that the pool had been sabotaged. the company blamed its own work, saying that workers did not spray enough primer to keep the pool liner’s layers stuck together. The company also said that its repair plan for the liner layers called for the use of two chemicals that weren’t compatible with each other. The chemical on top reached a high temperature that the one below couldn’t handle, leading to the bottom layer of the liner blistering and coming loose.

If this were a contractor that an American taxpayer had called upon to fix their Koi pond and chunks of the renovated pool had come loose after just a few days, bringing not just American Flag Blue bits floating to the surface but also a resurgence of the muck the alleviation of which was the whole reason to begin the project in the first place, said taxpayer would be asking for their money back. But since the pool in question here happens to be located between two national monuments, and the job that was bungled by the contractor was paid more than fourteen million dollars of (checks notes) our money, we probably won't get a lot of traction for calling 5 On Your Side. 

Since the former game show host seems to be in such a generous mood these days handing out checks to citizens, maybe he could arrange for a refund of five cents per adult for this no-bid job he handed out to the "pool guys" at Mar-A-Lago that has yet to be repaired. 

And speaking of reparations, no mention of the method of compensation for the several people, including American Olympian David Hearn, who were arrested and charged with vandalizing the pool. Claims that antifa had sent squads of hooligans out prior to July 4 of this year turned out to be just as ridiculous as all those boasts about handing out cash awards in the face of his global mismanagement. No tariff check. No Doge Check. No masked bands of saboteurs sneaking in and cutting a three hundred yard slit in the lining of his vanity project. Just the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind.  

Forty-eight days from now, we all have a chance to begin to dismantle this insanity. Please vote in the midterm elections. Vote in such a way as to bring an end to this madness. 

Cashing In

 Last Wednesday, a third grade boy came up to me, waving a crumpled hundred dollar bill under my nose. My first inclination was to assume, as is often the case, that the kids had found the cache of play money scattered about the school. Upon closer inspection, I recognized that this was not cache money, but rather cash money. This eight year old had more money in his hand than I had seen in one place for quite some time. 

"Whose money is that?"

"It's mine!"

"We should probably put that someplace safe. Maybe in the office so that it won't get lost."

A nod.

"Where did it come from?

Long pause. "Jonathan."

Now it was my turn to pause, with a knowing look. "Where did Jonathan get it?"

The floodgates, as it so often happens with children, flew open. He went on to describe how Jonathan had given him a hundred dollars, and at least a couple other classmates their own crisp hundred dollar bill. They were stuffed in pockets and backpacks. Secretly. But the fifteen minute window in which these kids had sworn not to tell anyone else expired. The story began to unravel. 

Apparently, Jonathan had "found" nine hundred dollars under his grandmother's pillow. Jonathan has been looking for a way to connect with his fellow third graders, and he found it: give them money. 

Lots of money. 

To his credit, Jonathan was very generous. He kept none of the money for himself. He was hoping his new friends could, in his words, "buy themselves something they really wanted." The phone call our principal made to grandma was a delicate one. The hope was that Jonathan's altruism would not get lost in the wash. The sticky part was separating the parts that were right from the parts that were wrong. 

A few hours after this incident, the convicted felon and former game show host stood in front of a sparsely attended rally of his supporters and announced that he would be giving away cash money to every adult in America if they would just vote the way he wants them to. The money in question did not come from underneath his grandmother's pillow. 

Let's Make A Bad Deal

 Sometimes I like to toss around the sobriquet "former game show host" as if it were meant to be a put down for the convicted felon taking up space in the ruins of the White House. 

You may have noticed this trend. 

After this past Wednesday's speech at the Fuhrer Festival, I believe that it may be the most accurate depiction of a sloppy husk of a person who is currently grasping at straws in hope of staying out of prison. I am speaking most directly to the proposed five thousand dollar payout to every adult American if Republicans manage to retain control of Congress after November's midterm election. 

In case you missed it because you were watching the first NFL game of the new season, or perhaps reruns of South Park, or maybe you had an appointment that evening to have your corns shaved, the twice-impeached "president" was calling on anyone and everyone within the sound of his voice: “If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get five thousand dollars.” 

Okay. For just a second let's skip the details like where that cash would come from, or if somehow the outcome was a dead heat, and walk right up to this thing and lick it. 

Go ahead. I'm sure it will be fine. No awful germs or tastes here. RFK Jr. it will be a nutritious start to your day. 

Oh. I see. You're skeptical. Why would you want to put your face anywhere near something that dropped from the slit below the Dear Leader's nose? I get that. As an alternative, I suggest we poke at it with a metaphorical stick: Does that five thousand dollars feel like it would pay for all the money we citizens have been shelling out for gas and groceries and electricity and so forth since the beginning of the Second Trumpreich? Your average household has spent an additional three thousand dollars since the adjudicated rapist took office for the second time, with little or no assurances that there would be any change in policy or spending over the next two years. 

Alright. Now we can do the scary math. This little "gift" from the account of the US government, currently estimated to be operating at a deficit of nearly two trillion dollars, will cost nearly one trillion dollars. Now, do you want to double down with the clowns currently running the show in order to push the country further into debt, or can you imagine that just maybe it's time to change the ringmaster? 

Or would you like to trade for the box in front of which Carol Merrill is now standing? 

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and in this case it seems that for the former game show host stupid times call for even stupider measures. 

Don't Worry About The Government

 I have written here before about how I used to get spooked by newspaper accounts of cattle mutilations. These fears sprang not so much from concern over the cows, since even back then my carnivorous predilection was already well-known, but rather for what might happen when these aliens or devil worshipers or alien devil worshipers ran out of cattle to mutilate. 

Would I be next?

Much in the same way I worried about being harassed by Big Foot. The humanoid beast who wandered the woods of the Pacific Northwest, not the monster truck. I was somewhat frequently found in the woods, but not in the Pacific Northwest. Still. What would happen when Big Foot's wandering grounds expanded because of some ecological malfeasance  and I would end up face to face with an unhappy Sasquatch because of some corporation's pollution distribution problem?

What if? 

Happily, it never occurred to me to worry that these two fears might merge and become great tall alien devil worshiping cattle mutilators skulking around the forests just outside my door. 

But since we're already talking about the devil, what ever happened to that other favorite seventies terror, The Devil's Triangle. This one bothered me greatly not because of my proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, but then again, I was not particularly concerned with geography when it came to arbitrary fears. 

I used to read accounts of airplanes and pleasure cruises that simply disappeared in a region off the coast of Bermuda that became synonymous with disappearing pleasure cruises and airplanes. GPS did not become available for civilian use until the 1980s, so that meant that once you drifted into this triangular region with just your wits and a compass that became instantly useless, you were very much on your own. Left to be devoured by great tall alien devil worshiping cattle mutilators patrolling the area in unidentified floating objects. 

As late as 2023, a French sailboat went missing in that bit of Caribbean geometry. Then again, the number of pilots, passengers, sailors and potential castaways that have travelled through this potentially hazardous zone of terror might suggest that we didn't have anything to worry about.

But that's just what those great tall alien devil worshiping cattle mutilators patrolling the area in unidentified floating objects would like you to think. 

Misinformation Accomplished!

 " I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen — big, strong guys — and I’m not the smallest guy in the world — they grabbed me under the arms, said, ‘Gotta get out of here.’ And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself.’ But they were amazing, but they thought it was coming down; it didn’t come down. US Steel.”

These were part of the "prepared remarks" that the convicted felon who claims that he never met the woman he raped shared across the street from another demolished building: The White House. 

You may recall the roasting that George "The W Is Silent" Bush received after his performance art piece in which he hopped out of a plane that had just landed on an aircraft carrier. In his flight suit, he posed for photos and made the most out of his junior flight instructor badge before changing into a suit and tie. Once behind the podium on the USS Abraham Lincoln, he stood in front of a banner in May 1, 2003 to repeat the message, "Mission Accomplished." 

A couple things: Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continued until August 31. 2010. So the mission was far from "accomplished" as this dog and pony show played out. Also, the USS Abraham Lincoln was only thirty miles from shore. In San Diego. There was no reason that W couldn't have used a helicopter to make that hop. Except he needed those points to help him graduate junior flight instructor class. 

Oh. And that aircraft carrier. It may sound familiar too. Mostly because recently it sailors have been abandoning ship when they weren't complaining about the conditions on board during its nine month deployment. Twenty-three years later, it's headed back to San Diego. 

Meanwhile the feeble-wobble currently making bad decisions used the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks to make it all about himself, neatly dovetailing with the bizarre AI memes his social media count keeps pushing out. As a general flanked by Patton and MacArthur. Sitting in a meeting, regaling George Washington with his plans for a ballroom. 

What I am suggesting here is that the convicted felon and his predecessor in war crimes share a very active fantasy life. Since the last time the twice impeached "president" was involved in any sort of airborne "daring do" he was hiding in a catering truck he can continue to dream. 

For the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, I hope their tour of Fantasy Island is ended, and someone can take the former game show host's phone away, leaving him the option to spin his tales of stolen valor to anyone who will listen. Natalie? 

Spam

 Every day.

Every single day. 

My inbox is filled with email from all manner of things Democratic. The party, that is. 

They want me to back the cause and be aware, but most of all they want money. They need my contribution to keep up the fight. Times are hard. Times are dangerous. They think I should know. 

I do know. Isn't that what I have been whining about, off and on, for the past ten years right here on this very spot?

Okay. So we agree. Things have gone for worse to worser, and there is no hope in sight. Well, unless I chip in the prescribed fifteen to one hundred five dollars. Then everything will be alright. 

For the record, I have sent money to campaigns and causes. In the past. That is why I am currently receiving so very many emails asking that I send more. 

Except current realities preclude me from supporting James Talarico. And/or Abdul El-Sayed. Or any of the myriad candidates in any of the fixed number of states that would bring about a leveling of the playing field we call "politics in America." These realities are primarily economic, but I will attest to a certain degree of a difficulty with reality itself. 

All that money I spent trying to get Kamala Harris elected did not turn out the way I wanted. Nor, apparently, did it buy a spine for those Democrats currently ensconced in their difficult but considerably more comfortable situations than mine. You are asking me to pitch in to support the writing of yet another strongly worded letter to the clowns currently in charge? With the full and complete knowledge that they do not know how to read?

Some of these emails try to disguise themselves as "surveys." They claim to want to know my position on issues like the relative fitness of the Orange Worst to run our country. I will answer faithfully right up until the moment that they want me to click on that recommended contribution button. 

I understand that it costs money to print posters. It takes money to put up TV spots. It takes money to get those clever social media posts coming. It takes money to keep my local public television station on the air. 

They sent me a tote bag. 

Now I want my government back, thank you very much. 

For that, you will receive my vote. 

Schools Of Thought

 In Buddhism, they say "suffering exists." It is the core principle of the Four Noble Truths: Dukkha, which translates not just to acute pain, but to a fundamental sense of impermanence, incompleteness, and unease in life. 

According to the Bible, suffering exists because human disobedience brought sin, death and brokenness into a world that God originally made perfect.

I guess I'm feeling a little more Buddhist currently, since I have a little difficulty imagining that somehow we have all been so disobedient that we deserve the brokenness. Five year old boys being scooped up by masked goons and sent to detention camps does not seem to fit that model. 

As a measure of impermanence and unease, I think this feels more like the life in which we are currently living. If we continue to examine those Four Noble Truths, we understand that our suffering is caused by craving, desire, and attachment. Furthermore, ignorance of how the world truly works also keeps us tied to this cycle. This would go a long way to explaining how even though I have finally been able to land at a living wage and own my own house and even an electric car I don't feel "happy." A quick look to the left or right would remind me that what really ought to be happening on our planet is most definitely not happening on our planet, and all that desire and attachment is a driving force in what is keeping us from achieving peace or calm or happiness or any of those things advertised as being just over the rainbow. If we keep up that struggle. 

Letting go of all that could lead us to nirvana. The state of mind, not the band. 

I feel so diametrically opposed to the direction and goals of the country in which I live. The world as a whole seems to be so profoundly invested in powering on past the signposts that should be guiding us toward a better life breeze past like a picket fence. Here in the so-called United States we have been pushing that notion that he who dies with the most toys wins. Wealth and wisdom do not always go hand in hand. They tend instead to be more of an inversely related relationship. 

So, since it may be some time before we start getting practicing Buddhists elected into office, maybe we should take it as a sign that we have begun to vote for more Muslims. The Quran suggests that suffering is  a temporary test of faith, a means to spiritual purification, and a path to divine mercy rather than senseless punishment. And even if we want to keep voting for Christians, let's make sure they've actually read the Bible, and maybe even understood it. 

Now, A Word

 If you know anything about me, you know how important television is to me. 

Not the appliance, necessarily, but rather the opportunity to sit in front of a torrent of sound and vision that seemingly has not beginning and no apparent end. 

A lot has changed since I started staring at cathode ray tubes back in the early sixties. My earliest recollection is the funeral procession of John F. Kennedy on the TV in that basement of my parent's house and the reflections it made on the tile floor. I am certain that I did not comprehend the gravity or social implications of what was taking place, but image was burned into my brain at a year and change of age. 

I have friends and acquaintances who will announce their conscious choice to go for periods of their lives without television. I know that one of the biggest challenges for my burgeoning brain was being deprived of video input for those long summers my family spent living in the mountains. Each trip down to our suburban base camp allowed me a brief fix of just about anything that was on when our chores were done and before the car was loaded for our retreat back up those winding roads. 

I cannot remember a time when my parents set any kind of limit on the hours I spent staring at our television. To the contrary: We were that family that had a set on wheels that could be rolled into the kitchen to be plugged in so as to distract us from any and all healthy unemotional conversations that might take place. This was not a concern, since there was plenty of conversation about just about everything all the time at my house. 

A lot of it was about what we had seen on television. 

All of this history is an introduction to the news that came to me last week via a forwarded email, initially received by my wife. "Beginning November 2, 2026, the current version of SkipMode, using the Skip Button on your TiVo remote, will no longer be available." In less than two months, I will no longer be able to avoid commercials with a mere flick of my thumb. We have been reassured that Tivo users will still be able to manually fast forward in that inexact way that harkens back to those days of VHS recordings of NBC's Must See TV lineup. Once upon a time, in a previous century, it was my wife's cleverness that brought Tivo into our lives based in large part for the capacity to skip those annoying ads. 

Much in the same way that I felt personally attacked by paying for Prime Video to load up commercials in and around the content I have already paid to stream into my home, I am curious as to just exactly how this is a consumer-driven decision, and how much is it a simple hostage situation?

So, my wife and I will shift our consciousness to becoming more appreciative of the art of television advertising. If we truly have no choice but to embrace the disruption we will do just that. Soon we will be cataloging favorite commercial breaks between shows that are merely getting in the way of our ads. Home Shopping Network and Infomercials will fill up our hard drives. 

And eventually they will have to carry us away to a quiet home in the mountains. Without a TV. 

Rock My World

 Sheena is a punk rocker. 

Susie is a headbanger.

Maria was formerly a financial reporter for Fox News.

Not many Fox News correspondents can put on their resume, "I was the subject of a Ramones song." To be completely transparent, the song "Maria Bartiromo" appeared on a Joey Ramone solo album, so there's that. With lyrics like, "I watch you on TV every single day/Those eyes make everything OK" and, "I watch her every night/She´s really outta sight" it is apparent that Joey, at least, was a fan. As for herself, Maria was flattered. Joey went so far as to invite her down to CBGBs to hear the song in person, but alas their schedules conflicted, what with Joey being a night owl and at the time Maria had to get up early to be on her show, which at that time was on CNBC. 

Joey didn't live long enough to see his financial crush turn to the dark side when she joined Fox News in 2014. There she dug herself out quite a little following among the foil-hat crowd, who of course exchanged those for the red baseball caps in 2016. When it came to whom her allegiance truly belonged, it turns out that it wasn't Rupert Murdoch bur rather the convicted felon currently squatting in the ruins of what used to be the White House.

It seems that last July, when the former game show host took to the prime time airwaves to spin his web of lies regarding election interference by China in 2020, the powers that be at Fox News decided to distance themselves from such fabrications, having lost a rather large lawsuit to Dominion voting machines, and how they were supposedly used to undermine the MAGAt agenda. Seven hundred eighty-seven million dollars later, Fox News decided to start getting out of the election-denier business. 

But not Maria Bartiromo. Her bosses told her one thing, but her heart said another. She secretly sent texts from Fox News' higher ups laying out their plan to ditch the 2020 election as "news" to the Second Trumpreich. This turned out to be the contractual straw that broke the camel's back. She was let go, abruptly, but Fox. 

As a female journalist, Maria stood in contrast with her counterparts from other outlets. The adjudicated rapist referred to her as "fabulous" and "fantastic." Maria may not be a punk rocker, but she is currently unemployed. Don't be surprised if she ends up running the press circus for a former slumlord turned tiny-handed despot. 

Oh, how the headbangers are fallen. 

Gloria In Exelcis

 If there is a heaven, Gloria Steinem is walking there, perhaps catching up with Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan, talking about the old days when women were held down and were only allowed to make seventy-five to eighty cents for every dollar a man made.

Last year. 

Gloria Steinem took the notion of stomping on the Terra to heights previously unseen or heard of in the past century. Her life spanned ninety-two years of struggle and change, with the elusive notion of equal rights for women as her standard. She co-founded Ms. Magazine in 1972, causing one of the more amusing moments in my family's sexual politics. My mother announced that she was going to get a subscription to Ms., then added demurely, "Can I?"

While my mom fought bravely on our home front, surrounded by boys who made an effort to understand her struggle, Ms. Steinem took to the streets, the airwaves and any place that would give her a word in edgewise to promote the idea that all men and women were created equal, in spite of the somewhat truncated version floated out there by (checks notes) Thomas Jefferson. Two hundred fifty years ago. It took one hundred forty-four more years for the Nineteenth Amendment to be passed allowing women the right to vote, which was a big step, but there was still a long way to go. Baby. 

Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. Women started showing up in the House of Representatives and in Governors mansions across this great land of ours, but the struggle continued. She campaigned vigorously for both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, much in the same way she had done for Shirley Chisolm way back in 1972. It is unfortunate that Gloria Steinem did not live long enough to see a women take the oath of office for President of the United States. 

Would that mean that her work as finished? 

Not really. 

There is still a long way to go, but thanks to Gloria, we know the way.

She will be missed. 

Nom De L'eau

 As many of us are aware, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

In this same way, a lake or a gulf, would be as wet.

Why then would it matter what we called them?

I believe the answer lies somewhere in the slapdash manner in which these chores were undertaken. Monuments are not men, after all. They are only put there to mark the achievements of those who have gone before us. For instance, there is a street that encircles a portion of Mile High Stadium in Denver called John Elway Drive. The guy won two Super Bowls for the Broncos, and it was under his leadership that the team appeared in three more prior to that. It was not John's decree that made this happen. The Denver City Council chose to honor one of the city's favorite sons to acknowledge his accomplished. 

Imagine if Mister Elway had decided to demand, as part of a contract negotiation during his career, to have a lane or boulevard or circle to be renamed in his honor. Or if he had insisted that the franchise replace the twenty-seven foot tall Bronco mounted on the scoreboard at the stadium with a statue of him leading that now infamous drive back in 1986. That's not the sort of thing that real heroes do. That's the kind of thing that Kim Jong Un and Saddam Hussein would do. 

It is probably worth noting that the surge in the placement of statues and monuments to the Confederate States of America began in the 1950s and 1960s, not directly after the war that they lost. 

Google and Apple would concede this reality, if you asked them, but they seem completely willing to go along with the charade regarding the vainglorious attempts to remake maps in the twisted vein of the failed "president" currently occupying the ruins of the White House. 

And while we're on the subject, it seems that the "Supreme" Court is more than happy for the defacing of our capital to continue, allowing the construction of the ballroom/bunker combo to continue on the east side of "The People's House." They did not, by the way, decide that the construction was legal. Instead the opinion came down that the challenge to the project "lacked legal standing." An oblique turn to keep the felon in chief moving forward without having to appear biased. 

Except they did. 

Meanwhile, its up to the rest of us without Sharpies to argue the point that Lake Ontario is still Lake Ontario and The Gulf of Mexico is still the Gulf of Mexico. The justification is our problem now. 

And the Epstein Files remain unreleased. Maybe someone should sneak into the Department of Justice and label all those boxes "Golf Course Plans." That might get someone to open them. 

New Power Generation

 "The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign." 

This was the advice from a former real estate tycoon and convicted felon. Odd combination, you might think, but it seems to suit the Beast With Tiny Hands just fine. 

The suggestion that you would be stupid not to let some faceless corporation build two to three acre monstrosities that will suck up your community's natural resources so that the real estate convict can continue to generate ugly memes that further his vision of how the world should be. 

Like all con men, the current resident of the ruins of the White House would rather that you di/n't take too long examining the "details" of any and all plans to plop one of these energy vortexes into the vacant lot near you. Each one of these server farms use as much power as one hundred thousand homes. I'm not sure if you've noticed that lately gas, electricity and so on have all become more expensive. Americans paid ten percent more for electricity on average in 2025 than the year before. The Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory reported that by 2028, data centers could be sucking up twelve percent of U.S. electricity. 

And how about water? Estimates put daily use for AI could reach thirty-two billion gallons of water a day for the creation of funny cartoon versions of your family photos. And if you have taken a look at a map of where these centers are popping up, you may have noticed that they are frequently popped into locations that are already water stressed like southern Arizona, the Colorado River Basin and Texas.

Then there is the matter of powering them. Gas and diesel powered generators are used to keep your cat memes coming. These are the ones that show up before the public has a chance to react. They tend to spring up long before environmental impact statements can be prepared or the Supreme Court can give their personal okey dokey on the continuation of construction on the ballroom that is way out of scale for the hands of the oligarch making those funny videos of ducks. 

The only reason communities would not want a data center n their back yard is because they want to have a say in how their community's resources are used and/or abused. If some of this money and energy were put into universal health care, maybe the aforementioned community might be willing to take the risk. Just think of the number of servers you could slide into the space occupied by the average golf course. 

Just sayin'. 

Burnout

 My morning commute was interrupted by a pair of blue cars, with a third one waiting by the curb. As I approached the intersection, the first one roared to life and began spinning donuts. After a couple passes, the second joined in behind the first, sending clouds of burned rubber into the pre-dawn sky. 

I had a number of possible responses. The first was to try and ride around the intersection. I didn't feel like going out of my way. Nor did I feel that making any sort of attempt to disrupt or disturb their absurd ritual. 

Both cars had a passenger hanging out of their window, documenting the ridiculousness on cell phone video. It did occur to me that taking my own pictures or video might cause these young men to pause in their revelry. Their stinky, hot, testosterone-infused revelry. 

I kept my phone in my pocket. 

As they finished up a third and forth circle around the intersection, I was the only bystander to this showcase. I wondered if this was merely a rehearsal for some later occasion when they might be cheered on by a larger crowd. I stood there, hands resting on my handlebars, standing astride my bicycle, waiting for the show to end. 

The sideshow. 

The first car peeled off and sped down the street with his partner close behind. I waited for a moment before proceeding on my way, making sure that these early morning chuckleheads were not going to come screeching back as I made my way across the street. To my mild relief, they had begun to tear around the corner a block down, allowing me to continue on my way to work. 

Through the stench and mess they had just created. 

It only occurred to me when I got to school that any one of the chuckleheads involved could have been former students of mine. So very proud. 

A Look Into The Past

 I miss my mom.

This is true just about every day, but it was felt acutely by me last Saturday night. 

While flipping about the channel lineup on our television box, I landed as I often do on Turner Classic Movies. I did this as part of a routine that has me patrolling the hundreds of possible stations by leapfrogging over the flotsam and Hallmark to land on the islands of movie outlets that will still offer us commercial-free watching. TCM is an oasis of sorts since their internal promotions are generally for their own extensive library of films without spending too much time promoting Bill Maher or a bunch of dragons. It is also where my mother spent a great deal of time in her golden years, watching the movies of her youth.

On this particular evening, my wife was feeling just a tad out of sorts, and so as we finished up dinner I rolled on down the dial to that spot where I figured we might find some quiet satisfaction. 

We did. 

Cover Girl, starring Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth had just begun. The all-singing, all-dancing feature from 1944 was just the ticket for pushing the current event malaise away, returning us to those days of yesteryear when movies were escape. Showbiz was a hard-luck chance that every boy and girl was willing to endure for that one chance at stardom. And love. Rita and Gene danced and sang in glorious Technicolor to songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin. It was, as the name of the channel suggested, a classic. 

I longed for the opportunity to share our experience with my mother, who would have been able to supplement the TCM host's rapturous memories of the production. She would have been so happy to have shared her own account of that bygone era, and remind us all of "the good old days." 

When it was over, after a quick break, Fred Astaire joined Ms. Hayworth in another musical romp called You'll Never Get Rich. By this time, my wife was transfixed. Her mood had escaped the cellar from which it had been dwelling, and she went to bed with a goofy smile. 

I could thank the folks at TCM, but I would also like to appreciate the tutelage of my mom, who opened that door for me so very long ago. 

I miss her. 

Trial

 It could have been the setting. 

Leaning back in the padded chair, pillow behind my head, and a needle stuck into each arm so as to immobilize me for just over two hours, this seemed like the optimal position in which to subject myself to Nuremberg. The 2025 retelling of the events of 1945 in post-war Germany was something that I had initially avoided going to my local cinema to endure. Hadn't we just decided that Nazis were bad and deserved to be punished? 

At that time, there were more than a few winks to be shared about how "history repeats itself" all while watching history repeat itself. But this couldn't really be. It's one thing to allude to fascism. It's another to make one to one correspondence to the Second Trumpreich to the Third Reich. 

Yet, as I lay there, strapped to that comfy chair with my blood making its slow progress from one arm through the platelet stripping machine back into my other arm, I bore witness to the trial of Hermann Goring, portrayed by Russell Crowe. I watched U.S. Army psychiatrist Rami Malek, portrayed by Freddie Mercury, work to understand and then reveal the hidden weaknesses of Hitler's second in command. 

Spoiler alert: It turns out that the best way to get inside this slab of a Reichsmarshall was to appeal to his vanity. It seems that he, along with a great many of your big Nazis, were narcissists. Far more concerned with their places in history and on the pecking order to the head pecker than actually solving the problems of their country. At one point, the prosecution that has put Hermann and his goons on trial lists the countries and territories invaded by Nazis in their insistence that they had been their all along. Like Putin with Ukraine. Like the convicted felon and his Sharpie. 

As I watched history play out in front of me, with my bleeding under the strict observation of a medical professional, I began to wonder why I hadn't selected a binge of Gabby's Dollhouse instead of this two and a half hour reminder of just how awful human beings have been and apparently still can be. 

When it was all over, and Goring avoided the hangman's noose by ingesting cyanide, the psychiatrist, now discharged returns to America, where he writes a book and becomes an alcoholic and spends the rest of his life warning about the potential resurgence of a Nazi regime before he commits suicide. By cyanide poisoning. 

The medical professional pulled out the needles and put band-aids on my arms. I surrendered my headphones and went back out into the world, less a few billion platelets. And happy to have my reality grounded once again in what could be. 

Is There Really Any Such Thing As Permanent Ink?

 I have, in the past, written in this space about one Amerigo Vespucci. If that name doesn't immediately tickle your memory center, I remind you that we are living in the United States of Amerigo because some saucy wanderer named Christopher Columbus chose to scribble his buddy Amerigo's name on a map when he figured he had found India. It would have taken an even bigger leap of ego to declare the continent into which he ran his ships Christophia, or some such idiocy. 

At least that sort of idiocy was connected with an arduous voyage across the Atlantic at a time when most of the planet believed that they lived on a flat plane upon which the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria might have fallen off into the abyss. Nope. Not this time. The convicted felon who seems to have a spokesperson role with Sharpie pens made an Executive Order in which he declared the name of Lake Ontario would be "forever" changed to "Lake America." 

Even though this body of water has been recognized for four hundred years by the Wendat name Ontario. No other country or cartographers outside the "united" states is compelled by this order to make any changes. This is just the adjudicated rapist's method of projecting his idiotic spasm of frustration with our neighbors to the north regarding trade negotiations. You know: Canada. The land mass he proposes should become our fifty-first state. 

This echoes his tantrum of a year and a half ago when on a whim he chose to order executively that The Gulf of Mexico be hereby named "The Gulf of Mexico." This ignored five hundred years of precedence and was accomplished not by any diplomatic or military means. It was done primarily for show, and like Lake Ontario, no one outside of "official US databases" is required to go along with this charade. It's another in a series of extremely white trash attempts by the Second Trumpreich to deny the rest of the world in which we all live. 

History is written by the victors, according to folks like Winston Churchill who happened to be the winner of a war. The former game show host and pedophile in the ruins of the White House has on little if anything except two contested elections, and most certainly not the war he declared in order to take people's minds off the fact that he was best friends with the most notorious pedophile in history. He hates to lose. Witness the tarp that still hangs in front of one of his most ridiculous renaming efforts on the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts. 

Make no mistake. This is not a winner. This is not any sort of adventurer. This is a man grasping, not at straws, but a Sharpie. 

Not Just A Sweet Transvestite

 Confession time: I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theater once. 

Once. 

I had friends and acquaintances in high school who made a weekly pilgrimage to the midnight showings at the UA Regency theater just off the Pearl Street Mall. They dressed up. They recited the lines. They carried in newspapers and toilet paper and squirt guns. Not unlike the way I absorbed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by listening to my brothers prattle on endlessly about them, I gained a rather thorough connection to all that went on during those late-night viewings from my friends. 

It was one of those friends who eventually became my roommate for several years who had not only participated in the Rocky shenanigans, but had taken note of one Tim Curry, who played Doctor Frank-N-Furter, having originated the role on stage back in jolly old England. And not just any brief connection, but went out and purchased the solo albums of Mister Curry. When I lived with him, I was able to become familiar with the "hits" he produced during his recording career. 

I Do The Rock. 

Working On My Tan.

Simplicity. 

And many more. 

But a world that already had a Freddie Mercury really needed a Tim Curry to be an actor. For me, most notably, he was the original Pennywise the Clown. And the butler in Clue. Mister Curry more than held his own on a pirate ship crewed by Muppets. 

And that voice. He made the noises of many an animated character, primarily villains. Like Hexxus, the toxic pollution spirit in Ferngully. Not quite so evil, but more confused was the pater familias of the Thornberry clan, Nigel. 

Now all those sounds have been silenced, but we can linger on their echoes, thanks to recordings and memories of fifty years ago, when there was a light - over at the Frankenstein place. Tim Curry stomped and pranced and made his way devilishly across the Terra. 

He will be missed.

Aloha, Tim. 

Stasis

 In Stand By Me, one of the young searchers makes note of a TV program that was popular back when the movie was set: "Wagon Train's a really cool show, but did you notice they never get anywhere? They just keep wagon training." This musing, posed by Will Wheaton in the role of Gordie, tends to be obscured by the very vehement discussion that is taking place around the same time between Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell pondering whether Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman. 

But it was Gordie's observation that came to me as I watched an episode of HBO's Stuart Fails To Save The Universe. For those of you who may not have fallen under the spell of episodic television as it now occurs in limited chunks on streaming services, this is a spin-off of the now settled Big Bang Theory. In this "new" series, a phalanx of secondary characters from the old show are put into a situation for comedy that involves a machine that allows them to hop from one reality to another. This very literal plot device has them moving from one set of circumstances to another, each one conveniently tailored to fit the half-hour format. Once I got to the fourth episode with my wife, I began to wonder exactly what the point was. They just kept wagon training. 

Sadly enough for me, this troublesome bit of ennui surrounding television does not exist solely in my relationship to Stuart and his dimension-tripping pals. I feel it more and more as I watch any show that pretends to prolong the contractual obligations to the network upon which it appears. Sitcoms by their very nature are stuck with a group of players whose predicaments tend to torment them for twenty-four minutes only to be resolved just before that last commercial break. This format is periodically skewed by a "special two-part episode," not to be confused with "a very special episode," which tends to be less about extending a story but instead providing a thoughtful examination of a serious social problem with special guest Henry Winkler. 

Shortly after that, the denizens of that TV neighborhood will get right back to wagon training. 

I have considered what might have happened if the castaways on Gilligan's Island had ever really been rescued. What sort of post-traumatic syndrome would await those seven victims of a shipwreck once they were returned to the relative comfort and safety of "the mainland?" My guess is that they would eventually have found a way to retreat back to the isolation and anonymity of that deserted island. After fifteen years of living off of coconuts and pineapple, I suspect that their intestines might explode upon ingesting their first cheeseburger after a decade and a half. 

I'm guessing they would have been better off if they had just kept wagon training. 

Over The Top

 Dolly Parton didn't pass away. 

She ascended. 

Singer. Songwriter. Movie Star. Queen of Country. Philanthropist. Spokesperson for anyone who needed a voice. 

And what a voice it was. 

When I was in high school, I didn't get it. She showed up in my world as too much. 

But that was the thing. She was too much. That was her thing. When the world needed help, she pitched in. She didn't care if speaking out on the plight of HIV/AIDS patients back in the eighties and nineties might rock the traditionally conservative boat of country music. When the COVID epidemic struck, she donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University to fund vaccine research. Her Imagination Library has gifted more than three hundred million books to kids who might not have one otherwise. 

Oh, and she was funny. She's the one who said, "Yes, I support gay marriage. They have every right to be as miserable as straight people." And she was always willing to point that Tennessee twang on herself: "You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!"

It took a while for me to understand that this was not just a cartoon but a diamond disguised as a rhinestone. The Mayor of New York City posted this tribute: "This is truly heartbreaking. Dolly Parton was an extraordinary person and an irreplaceable champion of the working class. We are a better country because of her."

Did I mention she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

A very good friend of mine and constant reader texted me to say the words that would necessarily come at the end of this post: She stomped on the Terra. In high heels and a denim jumpsuit with a wig that weighed as much as a German Shepard. With a song in her heart and a smile on her face. Dolly made us all better by being in this world, and it will be just a little darker each day without her in it.

Too much? How about not enough?

Dissonance

 So, among the enemies of our Great Nation that the Second Trumpreich is interested in bringing to their collective knees is the Islamic Republic of Iran and (checks notes) Canada. 

Yes. By now you are probably fully aware of our interest in bringing our neighbors to the north to heel. While we are busy figuring out how to blow up more of Iran without reloading, the not-so-United States is picking a fight with The Great White North. Since we have spent our munitions stockpile on "obliterating" Iran's navy, air force and girls schools, the Orange Worst is now attempting to induce surrender by announcing an "economic D-Day" in hopes of bringing these villains to the bargaining table in hopes that they might accept our terms of surrender once and for all. Our surrender. 

Meanwhile, when negotiations broke down after the minions of the convicted felon introduced last-minute demands concerning the auto sector, third-party trade deals, and cultural protections, leading the U.S. to impose fifty percent tariffs on roughly twenty billion dollars of Canadian goods. 

Just to break in here: One of the participants in the real D-Day invasion of Normandy back on June 6, 1944 was (checks notes) Canada. According to historical records, the third Canadian Infantry Division fought through heavy German defenses, securing their objectives and pushing deeper inland than any other Allied force that day. 

This might come as a shock to the star of Road Rules Challenge and current Secretary of Transportation Sean "The Duff" Duffy. The Duff let fly with this assessment of Canada:  "It's a country that doesn't have a military." Then he went in an even more interesting direction, "they have record-high euthanasia rates." Summing up, the Duff proclaimed, "And so to think that they're gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the U.S., I think it's foolish on their part."

Folks from above the border were quick to point out, "That non existent military that patrolled your skies on 9/11 and were one of the 1st nations to join you in Afghanistan." 

This kind of playing fast and loose with reality is nothing new. For several months now the "obliterated" armed forces of Iran have made it difficult to support claims by the Second Trumpreich that the Strait of Hormuz is now "controlled" by (checks notes) the United States. 

Meanwhile the U.S. deficit continues to balloon and our international standing shrinks. While the rapist in chief watches Indy cars race in circles around our nation's capital. In the writing business, we call this "an apt metaphor." 

Perchance To Dream

 I have a very visceral memory of carrying my newborn son around the house in the middle of the night when he could not, would not, go to sleep. I showed him the darkness in every corner. We looked out the windows and I told him that all those people out there were asleep because it was time to be asleep. We sometimes went out in the back yard where I showed him that even the birds had closed their eyes to get some rest before a new day began. 

All of this was mostly performative since what I was truly after was a few extra hours of shuteye for myself. The sun would be coming up soon and I had no vested interest in greeting it. In the big picture, it wasn't long before he was sleeping through the night, and not long after that he became a special project to wake up when it was time to face the world of middle school. 

It was during this time of transition that my own sleep schedule started slipping back as my morning responsibilities at school began to require earlier rising. As days grew shorter, I began to need a light on my bike to find my way depending on how much daylight was being saved. This has necessitated me climbing into bed shortly after the sun has gone down in order to find that elusive and somewhat arbitrary eight hours. 

The thought of "getting enough sleep" seems like something that I can aspire to once I have actually become a retired person. Now that my son is all grown up and discovering his own circadian rhythms I try not to let on that since I am more than twice his age and I have yet to unlock the secret to "a good night's sleep," I am just pleased as punch to face the day feeling somewhat refreshed. 

It pains me just a little when I consider that the guy who once sang a song called "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," is no longer among the living. 

I can always take a little walk into the back yard to listen to those snoring birds. 

Allegedly

 Maybe in all this fuss about ballrooms and wars with Iran you may have imagined that things in Florida had calmed down.

Not really. 

It's just that the "Florida Man" who tends to get all the press currently spend a great deal of time squatting in the ruins of the White House and voting in Sunshine State elections by mail. A process he insists is "inherently corrupt." 

Which by itself tends to overshadow some of the awful things that happen in the distended tumor hanging off our east coast, but indulge me for a moment while I lay this out: A former Florida state legislator, currently serving  as clerk of court and comptroller for Palm Beach county has been arrested. If that address seems familiar, it's the county where you might find a pleasuredome called Mar-a-Lago. The suspect, Michael Caruso, was taken into custody on five felony charges of kidnapping, child molestation, lewd exhibition, luring or enticing a child and child abuse causing mental injury.

This is a Republican. A close personal ally of Florida's governor, Ron "Remember Me?" DeSantis. So close that Ron referred to Mister Caruso as "my representative," in part because of his support of a bill that became law in their state that allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty or life without parole for adults convicted of sexual battery on a child under twelve years old. 

After appointing Caruso to his current position, Governor Ron told reporters this week, “It was a very easy decision for me to yank him from that position.” In that same press conference, DeSantis said Caruso was “well regarded in the community.” He coached little league baseball for decades and was a volunteer with boy scouts. But, DeSantis said, he “is going to be in a world of hurt” if he is convicted. Lethal injection being at the top of that hurt list. 

What Governor Ron could not do was remove Caruso's name from the ballot for the November election. Only Caruso can do that. The deadline for that to happen is just two weeks away. If he doesn't do anything then regardless of what happens, his name will show up there as the Republican candidate. 

So, now we've driven this far into the swamp, I am going to leave you to sort out your own feelings and conclusions about how things are shaping up for the midterms. Careful on your way out. This place is full of predators.

If you know what I mean. 

What Happens When You Break The Rules?

 The call came in after the school day was over. Even though I was technically still on campus, I chose to define the rule about no cell phones as being over when that last bell rings. 

So I answered. 

The gentleman on the other end introduced himself and inquired as to my well being, which is always a great way to begin. After we exchanged pleasantries, he introduced himself by saying that he represented a program called Upgrade California. He asked if I might be a homeowner, to which I answered in the affirmative. 

At this point, he launched into a description of all the various ways that this state funded initiative might benefit me in terms of upgrades to the home that I own. I confess that I was not listening with my full attention, since I was still nominally at work and in case there were any children that required my immediate attention, I wanted to remain vigilant on their behalf. 

When he finished his schpiel, he asked if there were any outstanding projects that might be suitable. With no students around, and only a couple of colleagues nearby to enjoy my continued performance, I launched into Phase Two. 

"So, if I wanted to build a lab of some sort in my garage, this would be a good use of some of that money?"

I was assured that this would fit within the parameters of the program.

"I just wanted to be sure, you know, since sometimes the government frowns on that kind of thing."

Again, I was assured that all I needed to do was schedule an appointment for an initial inspection.

"And during this inspection, I don't need to explain exactly what kind of lab it's going to be?"

All he wanted to know was what day would work best for me. 

"I'm just thinking that if they found out that I was using my garage as a meth lab, well, you know."

He kept pressing me for the best date and time for my free inspection.

It did occur to me that I was speaking to an extremely pleasant artificial bit of intelligence, so I clarified: "You're saying that I could take these government funds to build a methamphetamine lab in my garage, and there would be no repercussions?"

"Would Sunday work? Or Monday?"

I told him that those tended to be my busiest days, since cooking took place on Saturday nights, that left Sunday and Monday for distribution to keep my customers satisfied.

"How about later in the day on Monday?"

I told him how much I appreciated his understanding and flexibility, but as it turned out, he was more committed to his bit than I was to mine. I congratulated him on his persistence and asked if it was okay to call him back at the number registered on the caller ID just as soon as I hoped that he had a pleasant rest of his day. 

And I hung up. 

Crime And Punishment

 Okay, okay. I know that recently I have been prattling on here about the wonders of socialism and how it's not so awful. 

Into that pleasant conversation blows the boisterous opinion of one Emily Gallagher, New York State Assembly person from Brooklyn. It is Ms. Gallagher's assertion that shoplifting should be legal for products connected to "biological need." 

I will let her explain: “Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them,” she said at a news conference outside a Manhattan Criminal Court. She continued, “And we are choosing to protect billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens, over the people who are struggling to get by. So I would say that the true crime is that there is such incredible wealth disparity in this city that there are people who can be thrown in jail simply for having a biological need.”

Okay. Valid point there with the "wealth disparity" thing. The trouble arises when it comes time to figure out how we go about dealing with it. My guess is that the employees of the local CVS or Walgreens are living somewhere right around the poverty level. The money they bring home each week for "biological needs" is a means for survival, not buying a mansion or a yacht. If those ginormous profits from these billion-dollar companies are affected, it will not be the millionaires who feel the pinch. It will be those employees who are let go, or the stores in which they work will be shuttered, creating even more "biological needs" that might not be met. 

On a purely bourgeois level, I can also attest to the ridiculousness of having to wait ten to fifteen minutes in the aisle of my local "convenience store" after I have pushed a button summoning one of these hard-working wage slaves to some and open the plexiglass case where the Crest is kept safe so that I might take some toothpaste to the register to pay for it. This experience coupled with the price increases on these basic-needs items are the other side of the story. 

Like the corner stores that sell products for "biological needs" that are routinely the scene of multiple and sometimes extraordinary theft. These events are often pitched in a tone of "us versus them," but they are really "us versus us." I don't know how much toothpaste you would have to score in order to decrease that previously mentioned wealth disparity. Food banks and local assistance organizations for housing are sometimes forgotten in this chain of injustice. They attempt to bridge the gap that all of us eventually feel. Maybe now would be a bad time to bring up Ms. Gallagher's annual salary of one hundred forty-two thousand dollars a year. I can only assume that she is parting with a sliver of that each month to help support the "biological needs" of her constituents. Unless she needs the cash to pay for her traffic tickets. 

Crisis

 Just after seven o'clock on Monday evening, I asked Google for the time.

"Hey Google, what time is it?"

I was preparing to set our cuckoo clock, which tends to drop five to ten minutes over the course of the day. It is a nighttime ritual at my house for me to try to catch up.

Our Google assistant never answered. 

I asked again, "Hey Google, what time is it?"

Nada. 

So I went to another room where we have a colorful puck of all-knowing and asked it the same question. This was by no means a challenge for this machine in most cases. Not compared to some of the inane requests my wife and I have made of it over the years. Opening the pod bay doors, Hal being one of the most frequent. 

I leapt into problem solving mode and power-cycled two of the previously all-knowing pucks in hopes of getting them back to their all-knowing selves. No such luck. 

That's when panic set in. How were we supposed to turn off lights? How was I going to wake up the next morning? Would our robot vacuum know when to start its rounds? And most importantly, how was I going to know what time it was in order to reset our cuckoo clock? 

I turned to our IT specialist. Our son. Sitting at his desk in his home an hour away, he took my call while playing a video game. To his credit, he took my request and made an immediate test. He hollered across his bedroom to his all-knowing puck: "Hey Google, what time is it?" 

No response. 

We were in big trouble now. Breaking away from his game for a moment, he did a cursory search of Al Gore's Internet with his gaming computer to ask the rest of the planet if Google Assistant was having issues. Moments later, he found a Reddit post that suggested that pucks across the globe were losing their minds. How was anyone going to be able to reset their very-not-digital cuckoo clocks?

Sensing my panic, my son soothed me with the notion that the folks at Google made a boo-boo and were working feverishly to correct the problem, since that is their business, after all. I went to bed with my cellular device tucked in beside me, hoping it would have a reliable alarm for the next morning.

I slept fitfully, but somewhere in the middle of the night, I called out: "Hey Google, what time is it?"

"The time is two forty-eight." 

I breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours. 

I made a mental note to set the cuckoo clock once the sun came up.

All was right with the world again.

Reality Check

 Communism is bad.

Communists are the bad guys.

This is why MAGAts are all up in arms about Communists running for office here in the Communist-Free United States of America. 

And winning. 

It is difficult, if not impossible, to explain the concept of consequence to someone who does not understand cause and effect. These so-called Communists are showing up as a result of the past ten years of authoritarian MAGAt rule. New York City now has a *gasp* socialist mayor. This minor revolution is what happens when you can show up with a plan and a promise to serve the community, and the community responds by voting for that promise. No blood was spilled. No shots were fired. 

Which is more than we can say for the Second Trumpreich. 

Who, by the way, seem more than happy to cozy up to (wait for it) real and true Communists. This past week the convicted felon whose fondness for other authoritarian dictators is well known, chose to renew his bromance with Kim Jong Un. As with so many of the policy decisions made by this regime it was announced on social media: “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” 

In case you haven't watched a M*A*S*H rerun in a while, the North Koreans were the bad guys. 

The Communists.

Which seems to suggest that we are more than happy to nuzzle up to Communist dictators from other countries, but a mayor of a major metropolitan city here in the United States or a candidate for a Michigan Senate seat who holds values left of the incredibly right vision of MAGAts will earn everlasting condemnation from Vladimir Putin's bear wrestling buddy. 

For the record: Pedophiles are bad. Rapists are bad. Business frauds and slum lords are bad. Take a look in the mirror, MAGAt. 

Funny How Time Slips Away

 I dreamed that I was being asked to perform at a college standup comedy event. 

The trouble was, I had no material. 

So I started scribbling. What could I possibly have to say into a microphone that would elicit the slightest amusement in a crowd of moderately inebriated liberal arts majors? 

I decided to highlight my own journey through higher education, focusing on the notion that binge drinking is the exact wrong hobby to take up once you start paying for those eight AM classes. Pretty hysterical, right? 

It was my hope that I wouldn't come off as some old guy lecturing the youth of today. Instead, I was looking for some sweet spot between laying out a sermon and pointing out just how ridiculous it is to believe, as I did, that everyone in their twenties is indestructible. 

Because it turns out we are not. Searching for those anecdotes that rang true without overt moralizing became more and more difficult as I waited for my name to be called by the Master of Ceremonies. Why didn't I have that job? A quick two-minute bit before I announced the next victim to be ushered to the stage. That was where I would have shone. Now I prepared to be booed off the postage stamp-sized riser in the spotlight. Or worse: to be greeted by complete silence. 

As luck would have it, I woke up before that moment became part of my sleep baggage. was shortly before I reflected on my return to the classroom. Standing in front a group of intense and inquiring faces, waiting for instruction, inspiration, or both. What could I say that would not sound like the lessons I have been spouting for three decades already? I wasn't being tasked with getting big laughs from nine year olds, but I knew that part of my mission was to be a notch more interesting than anything they might find on the phones they were now officially forbidden to look at during the school day. 

I was transported back to those bygone days of yesteryear, when I was first writing a blog, before it ever became a daily event. I was reflecting on Gabe Kaplan, the star of Welcome Back Kotter. He began his career in standup comedy after he dropped out of high school, eventually hitting on a popular bit about the kids he knew from his days in remedial studies. He created his role as a teacher to pitch a TV series. Now he is a professional poker player. 

Isn't that funny. 

Why?

 "This is a very small community, and this type of incident — and it obviously has rocked and crushed that community at this point. They're looking for answers, and they want to know why."

Why would someone roar through a sleepy little community in northern Michigan, killing teenagers and adults before turning the gun on himself? This was the questions local officials were asking.

"This type of incident" is called a mass shooting. According to the government, our government, this is the definition that kicks in once the body count reaches three or more. Our Federal Bureau of Investigation refers to an incident that clocks in at four or more fatalities as a "mass murder." 

The killings in the Missaukee County community of Lake Township ticked both those boxes. 

The question remains.

Why? 

Preliminary reports suggest that the murderer had a "troubled past" and had been involved in a "contentious divorce." 

Oh, and this just in: He had access to guns and ammunition. One of his intended victims, a thirteen year old girl, was shot four times but managed to call 911 and identify the gunman. Authorities were able to track him down, but not before he took his own life. 

"How could this happen here?" Contentious divorces and individuals with troubled pasts can be found in just about every city, county, and town across this great land of ours. Land of the free, home of the brave and home to the glorious Second Amendment. 

In just about every city, county and town in this great land of ours there are goons with and without masks, some of them trained, some of them not, to kill. This is how we remind our citizens "thou shalt not kill." At the end of last month, the state of Florida executed two murderers on the same day. For some, this was a moment worth celebrating. One of them was eighty years old, the oldest inmate ever executed in the Sunshine State. The other one was a former police officer. 

Why?

I want to know too. 

Generational Upgrade

 The guy at the bike shop reminded me of the Ship of Theseus.  It is a paradox that poses the question: is a ship that has had all of its wooden planks replaced piece by piece over time remains the exact same ship? He brought it up to me in reference to "Archimedes' Ship," which is a bit confusing, since Archimedes did a lot of work on buoyancy, but wasn't much of a philosopher. Then again, there are those who would insist that Matt Damon has nothing to do with Ulysses. 

That's not me, mind you, but I digress. 

The discussion was based on the top to bottom, over and under, side to side reclamation of my bicycle. After parking my bike in the basement after the last day of school before summer break, I didn't pedal a block on it for two months, moving it from left to right as we hauled things out to give or throw away in an effort to reduce the surplus of stuff and junk down there. It was not until the week before my return to school that it occurred to me that I might want to check out the condition my bike's condition was in. 

A quick ride down the street let me know that I had forgotten just how bad things had gotten in spoke and sprocket land. 

Really bad. 

So I loaded my Dawes Eclipse City  flat bar hybrid two-wheeler on the bike rack and drove it to the bike shop. A brief assessment from an expert let me confirmed what I had already imagined: the patient was critical, and the outlook was better than terminal, but not by much. Chain, derailer, crank, tires, brakes, shifters and overall deportment were all part of a laundry list of maladies that needed treatment. 

I left it there with the understanding that the deposit I had left was going to be a fraction of what it would take to get me back on the road. Sails replaced. Planks replaced. Rigging replaced. When I once again tossed a leg over the frame, would it still be my bike?

In thirty years of teaching elementary school, I have had four bicycles. I bought the first one from one of the accountants at my old job at a book warehouse for fifty bucks. The next one came to me as a gift from my wife who announced that, "We may never own a new car, but you can have a new bike." The third was a replacement for the second which was "donated" to the community after I left it in the front hallway at school while the door was propped open. That was a Wal-Mart special that only lasted a few months. It was not up to a daily commute. 

The Dawes Eclipse City was. It served me well for a good long time, and endured all the DIY fixes I could throw at it until one day it didn't. All the inner tubes and brake pads and WD-40 that I had used up on my trusty steed just wasn't enough. In the end, I paid enough to buy several old accountant's bikes to get mine back on the road. 

The second week of school, I was back in action. On my nearly new bike.