GOAT

 The Federal Bureau of Investigation would like for the somewhat recent hires for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be on the lookout for girls who would like to date them. The suggestion seems to be that anyone desperate enough to take a chance on one of these soulless ghouls in the first place must not be serious, and furthermore only made these overtures to make their lives more difficult. 

It's pretty hard not to see the logic in that. 

The memo read, in part: “as of late January 2026, a small group of women allegedly were creating fictitious online dating profiles with the purpose of attracting and then doxxing law enforcement participating in immigration enforcement.” In short, the only reason any of these goons would be getting any traction on their Tinder account would be from women who were trying to expose the men behind those tacky masks they wear. 

The FBI went on: “These profiles were incorporating imagery of a ‘traditional wife’ aesthetic and listing specific interests in an attempt to appeal to … individuals in law enforcement. The objective was to lure affiliated law enforcement personnel into an online or in-person interaction under the guise of a date, after which the individuals would be publicly exposed and doxed online. The tactic is intended to generate public embarrassment and deter immigration enforcement activity.”

And to ensure to the rest of the dating pool that these individuals were morally bankrupt and had in fact already given up their souls in exchange for a paycheck and the chance to beat and detain innocent victims. Which, it seems to me, would put them in a rather special rather dark corner of the app. 

If you have read this far and are curious what possible connection the FBI has with the dating profiles of ICE agents, I point you directly to FBI Director Kash Patel's recent move to eliminate the restriction his agency had against bestiality. It seems party boy Kash didn't want anyone's sordid past to get in the way of them serving and protecting their country. 

Or maybe he didn't want anyone to regret choosing some pretend tradwife when they could be marrying a goat. 

Wishing

 You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. 

I want Three Wishes Toy Store. The crowded aisles stuffed and overflowing with things that I could only imagine having in my toy box. GI Joes. Hot Wheels. Models of tanks and planes and warships. This was the destination my brothers and I patiently awaited when it was time to head down to Crossroads Mall to buy school clothes. This was the scene of my ugly reality check when, as a child, I was taken there by my grandmother and told I could get "anything I wanted." I was alternatively admonished by my mother before I went that my grandmother was "not made of money." 

Alas, those Three Wishes were of limited duration, and it was bulldozed along with the rest of Crossroads Mall so that they could erect a very similar structure with a number of different chain stores with the inspired name of 29th Street. Only this new mall would allow you to walk outside from store to store. 

Pretty ingenious. 

Do that dream died. It was eventually replaced by Toys R Us, a warehouse-sized compendium of all things toy. It was at one time a litmus test for friends of ours. If you could hang for an hour or two walking the aisles of Toys R Us with us, you were worthy. As my son grew to relative maturity, we would often take a side trip to what had become "his" toy store just to look. "Need it. Got it. Need it. Got it." 

Then, about a decade ago, Toys R Us closed all of its retail stores and filed for bankruptcy. They could not compete with online sales. But that meant there was no place to go to test drive, to fondle, to covet. It wasn't the same thing. 

But now, the clouds are parting. With a new partner Toys R Us is opening one hundred twenty stores again, just in time for the holidays. 

Wait. "Just in time for the holidays?"

That means that these are essentially "pop-up" stores, with the focus on milking as many dollars from a toy-starved populace as possible before returning to its prior existence as a Bev-Mo. 

It's really hard to keep your inner child nourished in this world. 

Not Quite

 Playing out the string. 

That's what I want to avoid. 

I am retiring from teaching, but I don't want to do that slow slide into lethargy. I don't want to be that guy in the back of the classroom, reading his newspaper as his young charges busy themselves with the worksheets he has so vaguely printed out for them. 

I want to go out on top. 

To that end, I arranged a donation drive to purchase a bike rack for our students to be placed someplace secure so that when I have stopped riding my own bicycle to and from my home to school, others will be able to jump into that void. 

That void. 

It's the thing that my colleagues keep referring to: "What are we going to do when you're gone?"

My initial response would be that I am not planning on becoming incorporeal. I would be quite surprised if I did not receive a number of texts or calls within that first year of not having regular attendance asking for the password to this, or how you find the ladder that gets you up on the roof to fetch balls that have mysteriously found their way to the upper strata. 

It is something of a time-honored tradition here. With the possible exception of the tangled web of wires and missing codes I really could have used to sort out the computer lab when I first started working here. That I had to sort out all by myself. That, along with the best time to make the bike ride from my house to school to avoid the regular commute traffic. 

So here we are: Months left of a career that spans three decades. I have been a husband and a father longer that I have been a teacher. I lapped being a video store manager long ago, and my tour of Arby's is just a blip on my employment timeline by comparison. 

I never felt compelled to buy a bike rack for the video store. I never bothered to get a soccer ball off the roof of the Arby's where I worked. I will not go quietly unto that good night. 

Thank you for all of those encouraging words, and the donations to the purchase of soccer goals or headphones or whatever else I extorted out of you. 

Just to let you know: I'm not quite done here. 

Hate Speech

 Free Palestine. 

Now I hope that Robert Kraft doesn't come and kick me off of my blog.

Just so I'm clear: What is so utterly devastating about the suggestion that there be a free Palestine? A majority of Americans favor a free state for Palestinians. Fifty-seven percent. Admittedly it's not the kind of clear cut mandate that are against the war in Iran. That rings up to fifty-eight percent. 

Sure, we could get into the weeds and aske Americans if they support Israel. They are our allies and have been for quite some time. Of course, current the current diplomatic landscape does not seem to require that we maintain these tried and true connections. America is currently waging a trade war with Canada. 

Canada. They're supposed to be the bad guys. 

Meanwhile we seem to be in a trade war with (checks notes) every other nation on the planet. 

But this Free Palestine thing. What is the hard line that has NFL Franchise Owner Robert Kraft keeping a rapper from being allowed to perform at his stadium, and in stadiums across America because of his "hate speech."

Free Palestine. 

The rapper in question, Macklemore, got the crowd at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to chant along with him. 

Free Palestine. 

I know. He's "an artist," and he should just stick to singing quirky bits about thrift shops and get off the stage. Better yet, just get off the stage before you embarrass international treasure Ed Sheeran. Oh, and maybe Macklemore's new song Hind's Hall, which proceeded that chant may have been a problem. You know what it's about?

Free Palestine. 

Like many Americans, Macklemore has chosen to make his views known. Mark Ruffalo, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Incredible Hulk, has ruffaloed more than a few feathers for his repeated calls for a free Palestine. Mister Ruffalo has been accused by a great many very angry voices of spouting antisemitism. Hate Speech. 

Yes, a Free Palestine is for many an anti-Jewish notion. Describing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza using terms like genocide, famine, and ethnic cleansing is, for folks like Robert Kraft, anti-Semitic. The billionaires like Mister Kraft can force voices they deem "hateful" out of their stadiums. And consummate showmen like Ed Sheeran have some choices to make. Ed can keep the show going without any mention of a Free Palestine, or he can just pull the plug and go back to his ancestral home of Ireland where they know nothing of these kind of "troubles." 

Either way, Free Palestine. 

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.