Whimsical

 Would you buy a used space shuttle from this man? 

The world's only paper trillionaire has decided to scale back his plans from colonizing Mars to building a city on the moon. 

In my head, I started picturing Space X employees working the phones and knocking on doors, not unlike Glengarry Glen Ross, trying to sell investors on how great this change will be for them, even though the moon is much closer and already has a certain amount of debris left there by previous landings that will need to be cleaned up before the tennis courts go in. That's a difference of thirty-five to one hundred forty-five million miles, depending where the moon is in its orbit around the earth. And, as previously mentioned, the moon is kind of played out. 

More than fifty years ago Apollo missions landed humans on the moon's surface where they picked up rocks, drove around in a moon buggy and played a little golf. That last bit might be enough to get the Mar A Lago crowd excited, but I'm not sold. 

As I have mentioned here previously, I am immediately suspicious of any vehicle Elongated Mush is selling for fear that they might explode. Add to that the lack of oxygen during the trip and once you get there there won't be any atmosphere so you'll be subject to whatever price Mister Mush decides to charge you. And hitchhiking back to earth seems like a stretch. 

It was just six years ago when everyone's favorite nearly-human insisted that he would have human beings landing on Mars right about this time. Since then, he's been "busy." Getting his pal the convicted felon into the White House so he would be encouraged to take a chainsaw to parts of the government that he wanted to mine for data as well as giving up interest on saving the planet with electric cars in favor of building robots so he would have someone to talk to. 

And again, who is to say that once the first space cabins have been pieced together near Mar A Luna that Mister Mush would decide that he was really more interested in making a perpetual motion machine, leaving the colonists stranded on the moon. Just like all those Cybertruck owners who decided to take their new vehicle to a car wash. 

Dare To Be Great

 Someone online made this observation: "Remember when Sarah Palin was the dumbest person in politics? Good times."

This got me to thinking about this whole "Make America Great Again." It sounds like a boast, but I have decided it is actually more of a dare. 

If you believe that those we entrust to guard and defend our Constitution and Institutions should be subject to the same laws that the citizens who vote for them are, Make America Great Again by getting rid of the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. 

If you believe that America is the land of opportunity and that as a nation of immigrants we should welcome the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, then the dream that this country has always embodied isn't just for a select few. Make America Great Again by ending the persecution of those who have come here for many of the same reasons all those boatloads came before us. 

If you believe that politicians are elected for their capacity to bring a better life for their constituents and not to feather their own beds, then Make America Great Again by getting money out of politics and stop pretending that corporations are people. 

If you believe that convicted felons have no place in our government and anyone bragging about the results of their cognitive test is already past their use-by date, Make America Great Again by voting for those who will usher hope and change and not business as usual. 

If you believe that health care is a right and not a privilege and that women should make decisions about their own bodies, Make America Great Again by making health care affordable and free of judgement from those who pretend to know.

If you believe this truly is the land of the free and the home of the brave, Make America Great Again by being both. At the same time. 

I dare you. 

Starfleet General Order 1

 Hear me out: I believe this all started with the distress call from Sigma Iotia II. When the Enterprise arrived, they were told that the inhabitants of that planet had knowledge of the Federation's exploration ship, Horizon, lost some hundred years before. This Iotian, Bella Oxmyx, suggests that a team from the Enterprise beam down to the surface so that he can hand over the information personally. Chief Science Officer Spock reminds the Captain that this could lead to a violation of the Federation's Prime Directive that prohibits its members from interfering with the natural development of alien civilizations. Though exceptionally imitative, the Iotians lack many of the components of a culture that would allow them to achieve warp speed and interplanetary travel. Their culture seems based primarily on gangster movies from the 1940s. 

Not to belabor the point to those of you who have seen A Piece Of The Action, but the gangsters of Sigma Iotia II eventually get some sort of order impressed on them via the manipulations of the wily Captain of the Enterprise, much to the chagrin of Mister Spock. Then once the crew is safely back aboard the Enterprise, satisfied with their handling of the situation, it is revealed that Doctor McCoy has left his communicator back on the planet. From the basis of the technology found in that communicator, it is feared that eventually the Iotians will find their way more abruptly to space travel, and warp speed. From there, Kirk imagines it's only a matter of time before the Iotians show up asking the Federation for a piece of their action. 

And what I'm suggesting here, expanding briefly on plot points found throughout at series subsequent iterations that were spawned from Star Trek that it's only a matter of time before the Iotians can figure out how to travel in time as well as space. And somehow, the ancestors of Bella Oxmyx and his kin found their way back to Earth in 1947 where they influenced the birth and raising of their spawn here who would eventually become a real estate tycoon and game show host. 

And eventually find his way into the White House. 

It's the only explanation that makes sense. 

Dog Whistle Or Air Horn?

 "This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public."

These were the words the spokesmouth for the "president" of the United States used to explain away the video the convicted felon and still only twice impeached pedophile in chief posted on his "Truth" social media account. The post depicted the superimposed faces of Michelle and Barack Obama on the bodies of two apes. The fake outrage of which Ms. Leavitt spoke was the voices calling the images racist. 

Once again, it should be pointed out that the mild cleverness required to create such a meme is beyond the seventy-nine year old former game show host. It is not, however, beyond his capacities to mash on the "repost" button. And it is definitely not beyond the capacities of this despot to make or promote racist images or commentary. This is a cretin with limited understanding for world beyond his tiny fingertips, but what he knows is that his slavering minions seem to go for this kind of thing in large ways. 

Of course this kind of thing tends to play in the background while Nero fiddles and Rome burns. The Pressed Secretary has a full time job making excuses for all the somethings "actually matters to the American public." As proven time and again with this herd of cretins and their nominal "leader," the bar that was once set to be cleared above now required a trench of some depth be dug into the ground in order to find it, let alone get over it. 

Because getting over it is not what we should be doing. Each day's outrage is a reaction to the poison being spewed by the deranged Cheeto knocking things down across our nation's capital. He is attempting to sue the IRS and the Treasury department for ten billion dollars. An economist who happens to know about such things was asked where the money for such a decision might come from and the answer that most viewers of Schoolhouse Rock could probably come up with was easy: The American Taxpayers. 

Meanwhile, I don't expect the Obamas to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed racist. I will point out that Michelle's documentary has a ninety-three percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Melania's has yet to break out of the single digits. Barack has a Nobel Peace Prize. With his name on it. 

I could go on and on, but I have to prepare for today's outrage. 

SportsBall

 Hey sports fans!

If you read this sentence it means you're not my younger brother because he's pretty decidedly not a sports fan.

He did, however, accompany his idiot brother to San Francisco ten years ago to soak up all the festive goings-on in Super Bowl City. That was just up the road from where the actual game was going to be played in Santa Clara. To be completely transparent, the San Francisco Forty-Niners played on the outskirts of the city from which the team took its name, some sixteen miles from the center of all that truly is San Francisco. Cable cars. Rice-a-Roni. 

Candlestick Park was not where I dragged my sports agnostic brother ten years ago. Instead we took a BART train under the Bay and wandered up to the surface to see armed guards patrolling the streets. The Streets of San Francisco, a Quinn Martin Production. Recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino had created a heightened sense of imminent danger surrounding special events. 

Like the Super Bowl. 

But once we were inside the relatively friendly confines of the armed perimeter, we found the carnival-like atmosphere of Super Bowl City to be every bit as consumer-driven as we might have expected. The whole area was bathed in a soft blue haze brought on by the pervasive beer sponsor, Bud Light. We encountered many different opportunities to both stand in line and give up ridiculous amounts of cash to experience standing in line and giving up ridiculous amounts of cash. 

Eventually, after only being separated half a dozen times by the milling throng, I made my way to the one attraction that truly held my interest: wading through a sea of like-minded individuals to get a chance to buy my Official Super Bowl Fifty baseball cap. At this moment, typing those words, I understand the full absurdity of buying a baseball cap to support my favorite football team, but that's how we learn. 

Sometimes it takes a full decade. Sometimes it takes just a few sentences. And if you happen to see my younger brother, let him know that I was thinking about him. 

Discontented Winter

 Way back in the winter of '25 I attended the Eagle Court of Honor for my brother-in-law's girlfriend's daughter. She had attained scouting's highest honor, and I appreciate the time, energy and commitment it takes to do anything outside of getting to class on time in high school. Wilderness adventures like the ones I heard described during the ceremony are the kind of memories that last a lifetime. 

Not that I would know. I was an Indian Guide. This was a father and son organization formed under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. YMCA for those of you who like your acronyms set to the Village People. There wasn't as much wilderness retreat as there were hanging out in friends' living rooms eating brownies and making craft projects. My older brother gave the Boy Scouts a try, making it all the way to First Class. This required a weekend sleepover camp, and I wasn't having any of that. I'll stick to my brownies and soup can rattles, thank you very much. 

Back to the winter of '25: I was struck by the amount of pomp and pageantry involved, and then at the length of the tangents the scoutmaster was able to spin. Later, once the presentations had been made, there was some discussion of just how recently the Boy Scouts had dropped the "boy" and started letting girls in. This change came about officially in 2019, so given the time it takes to earn all those merit badges, what I had witnessed was still a pretty fresh experience. 

Insert doom chord here.

Now Secretary of War and Cocktails Pete Hegseth wants Scouting to return to "common-sense core values." Pentagon Spokesmoron Sean Parnell burbled the following statement: “For more than a decade now, Scouting America's leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration and this Department of War, including an embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances. This is unacceptable.”

So unacceptable, in fact, that the War Pigs are considering cutting funding to Scouts unless they start providing "boy friendly places" once again. Maybe they were unaware of the precedent set back in 1971 when Marcia Brady decided to join Greg's Frontier Scout troop. The settlement apparently involved a certain amount of Brady tit for tat when Peter was cajoled into joining the Sunflower Girls. Hilarity ensued. 

But those were simpler times. Not like the winter of '25.

What's Next?

 I suppose I should appreciate the Machiavellian manipulations of the Second Trumpreich, hopping as they do from one crisis to another like a dealer in subway three card monte game. Will it be the demolition of the Kennedy Center? How about a military invasion of Trinidad and Tobago? Or maybe taking out a lawsuit on the estate of Jeffrey Epstein for doing "political harm?"

Two of those are real things, and if you had to go back and check to see if there are warships steaming toward Port of Spain at this minute, then the scheme seems to be working. With each new crackpot revelation, the realm of disbelief grows smaller and smaller. 

Did he actually send the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Georgia? And why was  Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has no authority over the FBI, seen there poking around? What could she have been talking about to her boss from the scene? 

For heaven's sake, at least the Watergate Burglars snuck into the Democratic National Committee offices at night. Not exactly James Bond, but classy by comparison. 

What was Watergate, you ask? Probably because that slice of history has been conveniently wiped from history curriculum along with any other references to Republican malfeasance before or since. 

Not to distract from the Worst's call to "nationalize" elections, “We have states that are so crooked and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win. Now you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out.” 

He continued, “Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast,” Trump continued. “It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$. Ask Little George Slopadopolus, and others, how that all worked out. Also ask CBS! Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!” 

Okay, it wasn't during the same rant exactly, but you've got to be quick to catch that switch...Look out Trinidad and Tobago!

Blunt Force Trauma

 I am curious, after years of discussion about legitimate use of force by law enforcement, why people are being shot, pepper sprayed, beaten and mistreated by "officers of the law."

That first part, being shot, is really a mystery since lethal force is a last resort after all other means have been attempted. For those who have received more than a week's worth training, this should be one of the first lessons learned by someone who will be carrying guns around. Private citizens who wish to carry concealed weapons in most states are required to complete a sixteen hour course before they are permitted to wander the streets with a death machine tucked in their belts. One of the things they teach in such classes is threat avoidance, de-escalation, and mindset.

For just a moment, let me step outside the gun realm and shine a light on the ethics of force. If you earn a black belt in martial arts, part of the ceremony involves taking an oath that says you will use your skills only in self defense and you will avoid conflict, rather than inciting it. 

This is with your bare hands. When they start putting guns in your hands, you had best check your head as well because there is something systemically wrong with the use of lethal force on unarmed protesters. For that matter, the use of any sort of force is uncalled for unless the peaceful protest turns violent. Time and time again the aggressors in these ICE scenarios have proven to be the over-hyped poorly trained goons who seem to be ready to bust heads long before they change minds. 

Former Border Patrol commander in Minneapolis Greg Bovino regularly exhorted his troops in his SS trench coat chanting slogans such as "Whose streets? Our streets!" looking for a place to toss tear gas cannisters, including a preschool.  

Our tax dollars at work. Domestic terrorists. Born and raised paid for right here in the Good Ol' USA.

Sleep tight, America. 

Patience?

 There is an old proverb that suggests, "With the rich and mighty, always a little patience." While there is some confusion as to whether this saying originated in Spain or China, I became familiar with it while watching the seminal romantic comedy, The Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn is reminding reporter Jimmy Stewart of the class divide so prevalent throughout the film. 

If only the sordid events that occurred on the private island of Jeffrey Epstein at the beginning of this century could be so blithely dismissed. 

The "secrets" behind one of the most notorious sex trafficking rings in history have been slowly leaking out since 2005 when a fourteen year old girl and her parents reported that she had been molested at Epstein's Florida mansion. In 2008, Epstein was taken into the most refined version of custody in which he was allowed to hang out in the private wing of the Palm Beach stockade. With his own security detail and was allowed to go to work six days a week. He "served" eighteen months. 

By 2011 he was registered in New York as a sex offender, and in 2016 a woman claims that when she was thirteen she was raped by Donald Trump at a party at Epstein's New York residence back in 1994. 

In 1998, Little Saint James, heretofore knows as "Epstein's Island" opened for business, where the rich and mighty were treated with more than just a little patience. All of this abuse of underage girls was public knowledge, but kept "quiet" with the assurance that it would never be used to slow the rise of those involved in the ruling class. 

The Rich And Mighty. 

After decades of keeping things "quiet," Mister Epstein was taken into custody when his private jet flew in from Paris and landed in New Jersey. This was July of 2019. Donald Trump had since been elected "president." A month later, Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his jail cell before ever going to trial. For the past seven years the Amerian public, not the rich or mighty, have been anxiously awaiting anything that looks like justice for the victims of the "rich and mighty." Each little ugly morsel is devoured by the media and then seemingly digested without any sense of the whole picture. The money needed to keep things "quiet" has begun to run out and the evidence that could put this whole thing to rest once and for all is being doled out with an eye dropper as the crimes of those in the so-called upper class go unprosecuted. 

Enough patience. Time for the rich and mighty to be brought low. 

Yes And

 The most amazing thing about Catherine O'Hara was not that she made her comedy seem effortless. When you watched her perform, you could see the effort. And you might be amazed at how daring and difficult being that silly really was. 

Seeing her walk a very fine line between tribute and parody, her Katherine Hepburn impression was flawless in that it made the viewer consider "what would it be like if Kate Hepburn did..." It was as if she was real life intelligence channeling a spirit to take our imagination along for the ride. 

I used to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to catch Ms. O'Hara and her Canadian Crew on SCTV after Saturday Night Live had finished up. I watched Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in the Great White North, and John Candy bursting through any and all scenes he shared with anyone else. I reveled at the wry smarm of Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty, and the goofy charm of Andrea Martin. Eventually I was able to marvel at the kinetic silliness of Martin Short. And then there was Catherine. 

It was easy to get the idea that she had been hustled in as "the pretty one," the one who would take all the parts for the "pretty" ingenues who would be put off or frightened by the chaos that surrounded her. Not so. Catherine O'Hara could bring the goofy and her characters were always carefully drawn and often very brittle. But hysterically funny. 

Some will remember her for her role in Home Alone, a wacky tale of parents who should have been put in jail for leaving their child behind when they run off to Europe. But she was also the mom in Beetlejuice. And she was also the autoharp half of the folks duo of Mitch and Mickey in A Mighty Wind. In the midst of all the arch and sometimes sarcastic moments in this film, the pair's final number, A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow, brings an emotional catharsis to a film filled with memorable performances but none as tender as Mitch and Mickey. 

Catherine's gone now. She will be doing improv nightly somewhere in the ether I'm sure. But she won't be forgotten. She stomped on the Terra for seventy-one years and made me laugh for most of it. 

She will be missed. 

Tin Soldiers

 What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground - How can you run when you know? Ohio, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

No one knows exactly who fired the shots that killed four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Sixty-seven shots rounds were fired in thirteen seconds, killing students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Schroeder, were killed and nine more were injured. Eight of the twenty-eight National Guard soldiers involved in the murders were eventually brought before a judge. They were all acquitted. 

Lawrence Shafer, a sergeant in the Ohio National Guard at the time, admitted to firing his weapon, stating he felt his life was in danger and firing in the direction of demonstrators.

"In the direction." Hold on to that. 

Event though the soldiers were acquitted, the judge said in his decision, "It is vital that state and National Guard officials not regard this decision as authorizing or approving the use of force against demonstrators, whatever the occasion of the issue involved. Such use of force is, and was, deplorable."

"Deplorable." Hold on to that as well. 

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming. Four dead in Ohio. 

Fifty-six years later, ICE soldiers and Trump is coming. How many more will have to die?

All these years later, it's time for a change. 

I leave you with the words from another Neil Young song: There’s one more kid that’ll never go to school - Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool. - Rockin' in the Free World.

What Could Go Wrong?

 Don't you worry about incipient trillionaire Elongated Mush. He might still make it to that thirteen-digit plateau, even if his plans for jury rigging the government of the United States government have fallen by the wayside. 

To get to that place where no one else can touch his wealth, the genius behind MechaHitler is hoping that it will be humanoid robots that will move his company's stock out of the red and into the black. He's asking that we put away our foolish notions about electric cars saving the planet as Tesla will stop manufacturing their models S and X in order to free up factory space to construct droids. No specific mention was made about the future of what was touted as the future, the industry punchline known as Cybertruck. Soon, we are told, those electric vehicles will be just an afterthought as Mister Mush moves on to creating an army of automatons to serve us. 

Avoiding for just a moment that a great many of Mush's projects seem to blow up and/or burst into flames, can we focus on the science fiction trope that swirls around any endeavor such as this? I would imagine that someone inside Tesla has a copy of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot stashed in a drawer in their desk, next to some twelve-sided dice and a few Rush CDs. Or maybe one of the flesh and blood employees has spent the ninety minutes it takes to watch Westworld. The movie, not the HBO series that would take far too much of their precious time. 

We could spend time here discussing the merits of the HBO version versus the 1973 original, but the sentiment expressed in Michael Crichton's amusement park gone nuts follow-up, Jurassic Park stand as a reminder to all of us when we start putting too much trust in our droids. “Yeah, but John, If the pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." That was Ian Malcolm, an expert in chaos theory, speaking to John Hammond whose clever idea to turn dinosaurs loose on a remote island turned out rather poorly for many of the invited guests and spawned a seemingly endless number of sequels. Very rich people seem to have a penchant in these movies for messing with the defined order of things in order to expand their wealth by bringing about the aforementioned chaos. 

Judging from the track record of Mister Mush, I would expect things to head in the direction of cannibalistic pirates. Or maybe he's hoping that by making a legion of humanoid robots he can finally build something he never had: a friend. 

Here You Are Again

 Most, if not all of the things I am telling you are not news. I am no reporter. I am a filter. 

I believe that everyone who reads more than six words of Entropical Paradise gathers this in. The most obvious reckoning of this is the way it takes three days for "current events" to show up here for your reckoning. This digestive cycle allows me not only the chance to stay ahead of the daily demands of writing a daily demanding blog, but also gives us all a chance to reflect for ourselves on what is laid out here for readers to consume. Once it creeps inside your brainpan it's entirely up to you, dear reader, to choose what those freshly fired synapses do. 

You might nod in quiet agreement. 

You may wonder where I get the impressions that I serve up. 

You may skip to the end just to see if I ever stop talking about my marginally misspent youth. 

I do not expect to change any minds here. The evidence I present is primarily of the "have you heard" variety. I understand that this is the choir to whom I am preaching, and I don't expect any actual blowback when I say that the pedophile-in-chief ought never to have been elected in the first place and the effort it will take to remove him from office is wholly out of scale with the seemingly effortless way he slid down that escalator into our political lives more than ten years ago. This event alone should have shown the convicted felon up for what he is: A grown man afraid of stairs. Why walk when you can ride? 

Perhaps you drop by this corner of Al Gore's Internet to see if my opinions on things have shifted in some dramatic fashion. This might be disappointing for you. If instead you stop in to see if you want to hold the ax while I grind, then we've got a pretty good thing going. 

And maybe, just maybe, you're tired of reading about how much I detest the dark places this world is sliding. Which is understandable. I just write this stuff. 

I don't have to read it. 

Crossing Over

 I don't know if it was someone's pet or just a stray. Just like a year ago, when I rode past the lifeless body of a cat who had apparently made an ill-fated attempt to cross the street, I stopped. 

As I did a year ago, I moved to the sidewalk and got off my bike. Then I waited for the traffic to pass before I went out and made the worst possible rescue of a black and white cat that was not as lucky as I have been all these years on that hundred yards of High Street. It is the busiest stretch of my commute, and I try not to experience it too often during the rush of the day. The nocturnal amble this feline took didn't seem to keep him safe, and it is quite possible that whatever or whomever struck him was blissfully unaware of the collision. Radio on, thinking about the coming day, on their way to or from work.

Or simply out for a drive that ended tragically for a cat. 

I picked up the carcass and laid it on the sidewalk, only a few feet from where the end came. I thought of some words and was suddenly thrust into a world that doesn't always stop when someone dies. 

I thought of Alex Pretti, and how a nation stopped for him when he was struck down. I wondered, not for the first time, how many others had been abused, beaten, tortured and killed when there wasn't a sea of cell phones tracking the tragedies in real time. I thought of Renee Good whose last words to the officer who seconds later ended up shooting her three times in the head: “That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you."

I'm not guessing my little Oreo Kitty friend was harboring any ill will toward the driver of the car or van or truck that stopped him in his tracks. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He used up one of his nine lives trying to get across the street. I didn't want whoever loved this cat to find an ugly mess where their pet had been. Just like I wish that those who knew and loved Alex and Renee want to believe someone or something will help them get to the place where they belong. 

Wherever that is. 

Haunted

 I read somewhere that Denver Broncos' coach Sean Payton is haunted by a decision he made during his team's loss to the New England Patriots. For those of us whose next six or seven months will be spent wondering if choosing to go for a touchdown rather than a field goal was what kept our team from a trip to the Super Bowl it's good to know that there is a conscience associated with the alternatives presented to someone in charge in the heat of the moment. Or in the middle of a blizzard. 

But I didn't come here today to discuss professional football. I will have an offseason for that. Instead I present Coach Payton's response to making a decision that did not work out well to that of the Trumpreich's various and sundry misfires over the first year of their second term at the controls of this big machine we call democracy. 

Shall we begin with the "twenty-four hours" needed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine? I don't get the impression that our Dear Leader is losing any sleep over that hyperbolic promise. Much in the same way that things in Gaza continue to deteriorate. Add to that the millions of barrels of oil that he stole from Venezuela after kidnapping their "president," or the continuing flurry of threats directed at various established world leaders who were under the mistaken impression that they were dealing with a rational human being. Spoiler alert: They were wrong on both counts. 

Then there is the domestic situation. Eggs continue to cost just a little more than they did the week before. The promised "concepts of a plan" to bring health care to Americans continues to hold little or no metaphorical water. 

And people are being murdered in the streets of our country by federal agents. The supreme irony being that this program of "enforcement" is intended to weed out the "worst of the worst." Yet another ugly reminder of looking for trouble and finding it in the mirror. His own "justice" department has driven past the deadlines set forth by law that he signed to ensure the release of all the Epstein Files. By more than a month. And no particular sense of urgency to get those accounts of sexual trafficking by our Dear Leader out in public view. 

For now we have to be content with imagining just how awful the contents of those files must be to keep stacking up invasions of other sovereign nations and murdering his own people in the streets. The worst part of all of this is that there is no offseason to reflect. Just another day in these "united" states. 

Feelings

 From the relative safety of my perch here on the West Coast, I wondered how poorly someone could handle the vicious snowstorm that descended on the opposite side of the country. A million people were without power as cold ground the Southeast United States. 

And the clown with a golf club in Florida says, “Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”

Sorry about the excessive punctuation and all caps, but that's the way it comes out of the tiny brain that tore down the East Wing of the White House. He can hang out and wait for the snow to melt without ever bothering to imagine that climate change is what is bringing all the severe weather to that side of the country. It's science that confounds the convicted felon who seems to also be unable to distinguish right from wrong. 

It also highlights one of the key features of human understanding that is completely absent in the dark place we refer to as the "president's" brain: Empathy. Who cares if millions will suffer and possibly die because of severe weather? This doesn't affect his golf score. This is also on display when he insists that the people pouring out into the streets in spite of the subzero temperatures are paid protesters. He simply cannot comprehend that other human beings care for other human beings beyond the cash on the line. Could it be that watching Americans being kidnapped, beaten and murdered is enough to bring us out to the point of rising up against the powers that be. 

Whatever happened to checks and balances? 

Whatever happened to due process? 

Whatever happened to free speech? 

Whatever happened to being a nation of immigrants? 

Whatever happened to The United States Constitution? 

Environmental Insurrectionists? How about the plain old insurrectionists thumbing their noses at the American people right now? 

Right Now

 In what obscure model of the universe is this a sane country anymore? 

Detaining five year old children because their father fled in fear of being kidnapped by masked goons is now part of our everyday reality. The father of little Liam Canejo Ramos has a pending asylum case with no orders for deportation. And yet, now father and son are currently in government custody. How a preschooler fits into a scenario involving "the worst of the worst" remains to be seen. 

Could it be worse than worst? Well, if involves ICE, the answer is an unqualified "you betcha." Only a few days later, ICE goons attacked, beat, then shot a protester out on the streets to condemn the murder of another innocent American citizen, Renee Good. Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse unaffiliated with the similarly acronymed ICE, was attacked and killed on the streets of Minneapolis. By Border Patrol agents. 

Minneapolis, Minnesota. One thousand four hundred sixty-five miles from the U.S./Mexico border. 

Or just two hundred fifty miles from the U.S./Canada border.

If you're a MAGAt, it would be hard to choose a worse threat than these two foreign menaces. The way they openly defy the wishes of Mad King Worst. But rather than getting into a shootin' war with those countries, why not send locked and loaded masked idjits to a city in the country you pretend to govern to terrorize and kill  the people right here in the United States?

Minnesota happens to be the home of Governor Tim Walz, who in another version of this story would now be Vice President of the United States. Instead of the Pope-Killer we have now. Governor Tim might have spent the past several months giving out tips on how to keep your lawnmower running at peak performance and sharing recipes for hot-dish with visiting heads of state. 

No, we're living in the model of the universe in which Americans are being shot and killed by the Secret Police, and toddlers are being snatched up off the street on their way home from school. Because, we are told, this will Make America Great Again. 

News Flash: This is the kind of behavior that made Germany into one of history's most grotesque punchlines. This is the kind of behavior that I used to protest as a member of Amnesty International when despots in foreign lands would disappear their dissenters. 

This is happening in America. 

This is happening in America right now. 

Socks

 I got stuck in a loop a few mornings back. The quad-pacertm on my electric toothbrush beeped to remind me to change the corner of my mouth in which I was scrubbing and I noticed that it had taken more than thirty seconds to pull one of my socks on. As is my wont, I began to fret that I was losing valuable seconds in my race to be ready to bike to work on time. 

To be fair, I was attempting this feat in the dark with only my left hand as my right was busy holding the toothbrush that was filling my mouth with minty-fresh foam and beeping every thirty seconds to remind me to switch quadrants of my mouth for brushing. 

And reminding me of just how long it takes me to put on my socks with one hand. In the dark. As my mind might or should have been focused on other things. 

But because every day is a race against time, I was hyper-aware of the need to clear my throat when I walked out to the kitchen to ask our Google Home Assistant to please put toilet paper on the shopping list. I wondered how much time I was saving compared to the seconds it would have taken me to scratch the letters "TP" on a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator. 

Still, I couldn't shake that thirty second threshold for putting on a sock. How was I going to scrape together any free moments in the course of my day if it took me a full  minute to pull on both my socks? 

As I moved through the rest of my routine that took me out into the world where my bicycle was waiting to carry me to work, I noted that this too was an act totally dependent on the efficiency of my mechanism. Opening the door, rolling the bike out into the dawn to the front gate, opening said gate and then taking a moment once I was astride to set the timer on my watch to count the minutes it would take me to pedal to school. 

Could I possibly make up any time after the sock debacle? 

In the galactic scheme of things, this is not a true crisis. The orbits of the celestial bodies I could observe with my naked eye were not affected by my malingering. The custodian and my principal didn't comment when I arrived before the sun was fully over the horizon. "What took you so long? Trouble getting your socks on?"

That didn't happen. Instead, I found myself with just enough time to sit down and craft this little essay for you, dear reader. 

Imagine how much better it could have been if I'd had more time.  

The Smell Of Elderberries

 Somewhere last Wednesday, it was Taco Tuesday. 

Perhaps it was something about the international dateline, but somehow Taco was on full display this past Wednesday. 

Trump Always Chickens Out. 

After weeks of insisting that he was going to take the autonomous territory of Greenland by any means necessary, including the use of military force, he backed down. In the face of the stern faces of world bankers and leaders of the European Union, he gracelessly stumbled backward on his promise to seize the island nation in the Arctic Ocean. 

Instead, he burbled something about a "framework" that would allow him to be satisfied with conditions to remain essentially the same as they were before he started making all his scary faces and noises. This "concept of a deal" was announced with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the same group the convicted felon had been threatening for days just prior to Dear Leader's trip to Switzerland. If this sounds vaguely reminiscent of the "concepts of a plan" the adjudicated rapist had on a health plan, you'd be correct. 

The folks sitting across from this orange clown recognized the Worst when they saw it. They were able to do something that the United States Congress has been unwilling to do for more than a year now: Just Say No. Not tariffs. No invasion. No mucking about with agreements between nations that have stood the test of time. Take your Taco Bell and go back to the mess you made back in the country that left you in charge. 

And if you think you got a nasty taunting this time, you ain't heard nothing yet, daffy American President!

Maybe Mike Johnson just needs to watch more Monty Python. 

Strife

 I spent half an hour this past Tuesday afternoon unraveling the strained relationship between two third grade girls. Initially I thought the conflict was between the two girls who initially entered the office. After a few minutes of histrionics from one of them, I understood that she wasn't specifically involved in whatever social slight had occurred. She was just there, loudly advocating for her friend's hurt feelings. Once deep breaths had been taken by all concerned, she was sent on her way.

At this point, I interviewed the lone allegedly offended young lady. She was upset because yet another third grade girl had not offered her any gum. 

I asked if she knew the school rule prohibiting gum and candy. This was not the line of questioning that she wanted to pursue, so she plowed ahead with her tale of wounded feelings and ostracization. After being denied her piece of gum, this other girl turned to still another third grade girl and whispered something. 

Something that must obviously have been salacious and rude and hurtful. 

I wondered out loud once again if there had been no gum involved if any of this would have happened. 

No response. 

So I called for the offending party to come to the office. When she arrived, I had her sit down and recount the events that led to the squabble that was keeping anything resembling pleasant after school activities from happening. Hers was not tremendously different from the initial tale of woe that I had heard, but somehow the one proffering the gum became the victim. She was only consorting with her friends because she was worried that "something" would happen. 

I asked her if any of this would have happened if there had been no gum. I was surprised at the length and breadth of the response to what I had imagined was a yes or no question. There were far too many young feelings on the block already and there would be no quick resolution. I allowed the two of them to rehash their versions one more time, asking that each listen to the other as they ran through it. When that was done, I asked if either one could point out any significant difference between the two. 

As it turned out, the answer was "not really." I told them that I could not imagine a reality in which this quarrel existed without the gum. After some mild prodding, neither could they. Nor could they come up with a reason for the two of them to sit in the office any longer when the rest of the third grade was outside enjoying the afternoon sun. "You don't have to be best friends," I reminded them for the sake of my repeating my own philosophy, "but you do have to get along."

There was a moment when each of them began to raise an objection, but the look on my face must have told them that this particular dispute was over. They were going to have to go back outside and pretend to get along until the next perceived slight. 

I hoped to be most of the way home on my bike before that happened. 

How?

 "Well," to paraphrase David Byrne, "how did we get here?"

Here we are in the early part of the twenty-first century without interstellar travel or affordable eggs. This is not the future that I had hoped for back when I was eleven. Or twenty-one. Or thirty-one.

And so on. 

This past weekend's release of a note from the occupant of the ruins of the White House, addressed to the Prime Minister of Norway, brought the collective us one step closer to no future at all. If you're not familiar by now with the contents, the convicted felon and petulant child wrote: "Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer ‍feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America." 

For the record, the Prime Minister has on several occasions explained to the twice-impeached leader of the Trumpreich that Nobel Prizes are not awarded by his country but rather by an independent committee.

No matter. Full speed ahead. Bombs away. Greenland or bust. 

If all of this chicanery is truly an attempt to distract the rest of the planet from the ugly truth about the adjudicated rapist's conduct with his very close friend Jeffrey Epstein, then I might suggest that our republic wasn't as strong and viable as we might once have imagined. The idea that politicians are crooked is not a new one. Dating back as far as ancient Greece and Rome, we were gifted with the term "kleptocracy," rule by thieves. 

As I have mentioned here before, I lived through the rule of King Richard the Crooked back in the late sixties, and the pinheaded warmongering of the Pinhead George W, but nothing in those regimes prepared me for what confronts us now. Though we are admonished not to do so, the only historical parallels that come abruptly to the fore are those of Germany in the late 1930s. 

And while it seems possible that Hitler's final solution was generated out of a need to cover up some personal embarrassment, but his mania seemed to be based entirely on the insane ideal of a Master Race. The former game show host in the here and now seems to be guided primarily by the need to stay out of jail. 

And in a horrible twist of irony, to earn a Nobel Peace Prize. 

Tis The Season

 I have the Denver Broncos National Football franchise to thank for giving me the better part of six months of distraction from "the outside world." During this period I watched only bits and pieces of the games that they played, eighteen of them during this past season, due to my inability to stare directly into the glare of the actual competition. This did not keep me from feeling the tension and anxiety associated with spectator sports that many individuals experience by actually watching their favorite team play. Amongst the seemingly endless quirks about my character is this odd fascination/avoidance combination. It makes for some strange behaviors on any given weekend from August through January. 

This past weekend, I enlisted the help of my very patient wife to stare at the goings-on in Mile High Stadium. She understands the significance of the decade that has passed since "our team" has been to the Super Bowl. As I sat in the office, looking for ways to distract myself, she watched the entire second half of the Broncos/Bills game, encouraging me every so often to "come and look at this." Every so often I would stray out of my self-imposed cocoon and watch a play or two. Just enough to feel that creeping pain in my neck from the tension created by caring about a group of men playing football in a city in a state where I used to live more than half my life ago. 

Why should I care? I have been disappointed far more often than I have been brought joy from this association. It is a condition that I was actively attempting to address even as the Denver Broncos continued to find a way to make me care. 

It's just a game. 

The joy I felt when "our team" prevailed was cautiously out of scale for the outcome. There were still games to be played for the victors. Contrastingly, there were tears in the eyes of the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills as he addressed the media. The Bills' coach was fired two days later. For taking his team all the way to the doorstep of a championship. This is, after all, big business and losing is not the way to hang on to a job in the National Football League. And in the midst of the mildly ridiculous euphoria that was my home came the news that Denver's quarterback had suffered a broken ankle and would not be able to participate in any of the games left to be played this postseason. 

Once again I felt relief from having to care, but mired in the past with a heart that somehow continues to bleed orange and blue. This is a legitimate medical condition I can assure you and may be the root cause of all this madness. 

At least that's what I will continue to tell myself for at least one more week. 

Definitely

 I know. There is a convicted felon in the White House whose cognitive abilities have been measured by the ability to identify various sorts of wildlife. "Hey, I know that one! My son shot one of those!"

But maybe, just maybe, we're measuirng the wrong thing. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is used to detect mild cognitive impairment. 

There is nothing mild about the cognitive impairment found between the ears of the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He seems to actually believe that because the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize handed it to him, that it transfers to him. This is a guy who openly campaigned for the prize by threatening anyone who had the temerity to disagree with his whimsical notions about international and domestic affairs with military force.

Sure. He knows what a giraffe is, but peace? Please. 

Instead, maybe we should focus on testing for sociopathy. You know, "a pattern of behavior characterized by a disregard for societal norms, lack of empathy, manipulation, deceit, and impulsivity." Does that sound like anyone we know? A sample question: "I’ve always found it easy to convince people to do favors for me." Or how about, " Other people make so many stupid mistakes compared to me." 

I don't know about you, but I would happily take a person who struggles to identify the animals in the zoo as our nation's leader instead of one who would easily agree with the statement, " Some people just aren’t meant to succeed in life, and that’s not my problem."

Convicted felon. Demented? Maybe. Sociopath? Definitely. 

Boldly Going

 A lot has been made of the potential failings of the overwhelmed muscle situated between the "president's" ears. A great many headlines begin by mentioning that this specimen is seventy-nine years old. The wandering off to peer out the window during a meeting at the ruins of the White House with oil executives is a matter of fact. Or the addition of a gold script sign reminding the occupant that they are standing in what used to be "The Rose Garden," to go along with the sign that shows the occupant where the Oval Office is. The fact that there is a sign labeling The West Wing seems particularly ridiculous since there is no longer an East Wing on the White House. Are these literal signs that the convicted felon needs assistance as his mind continues to deteriorate? 

Or maybe he's just stupid. 

But let's not pick on the doddering old pedophile. Instead, let's pick up the thread of dumb at the social media account of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen "Goebbels" Miller. After taking the time to make very specific threats against anyone who stands in the way of the ethnic cleansing he is overseeing, As frightening as this continues to be, the noted Nosferatu cosplayer extended his own particular brand of hate to the Final Frontier. He took to what was formerly Twitter to announce his displeasure with the new Star Trek spinoff, Starfleet Academy. The issue for proto-nerd Stephen is the galactic "wokeness" of this new generation. Ignoring the historic facts of the interracial and gender acceptance found throughout the decades of the Trek-verse, Little Stephen chose to take issue with the three women on the bridge of the newest starship. "Beyond parody," he fumed, and then went on to insist, "But it’s not too late for @paramountplus to save the franchise. Step 1: Reconcile with @WilliamShatner and give him total creative control.”

Nobody mentioned, apparently, to Miller that William Shatner is ninety-four years old, and his last time he showed up on the bridge of any Enterprise was 1994. I would expect that every so often, Bill gets up and stares out the window, imagining there's a holodeck out there. At least he doesn't need a lot of gilded signs reminding him where sick bay is. 

Flock You

 The one finger salute. 

Give someone the bird.

Flip the bird. 

Flip someone off.

Flick someone off. 

Give someone the finger. 

Once, when shown this signal by detention-mate Claire Standish, young John Bender was shocked: "Obscene finger gestures from such a pristine young girl."

Which is essentially the approach I take when I see the bird taking flight on my walks across the elementary school playground. Most of them have no working knowledge of what gesticulation implies beyond the obvious naughty implication. They have seen someone else do it, and they have heard the gasps. They might be years away from uttering any of the variants of the meaning behind that middle finger, but they know it's dirty. Kids flip the bird at each other. They wait until the grownups' backs are turned and they give them the finger. One of the upsides to all this digit manipulation is that it gives a pretty accurate reading for basic motor skills. 

Which brings us to the "very stable genius" who is capable not only of identifying a giraffe, but also capable of maneuvering his fingers into the aforementioned salute. The convicted felon's supporters/handlers must be relieved to know that he is capable of such dexterity after months of concern over the bruises on those tiny little hands. He was able to signal his previously mouthed response at a Ford auto worker who had called him out as a "pedophile protector." 

The Ford employee was suspended directly after this exchange, and shortly after that two separate GoFundMe accounts was set up for him and his family. Donations added up to just over eight hundred thousand dollars. 

I don't know if we can afford to pay off every offended third grader on our playground like that. 

The Wonder Years

 While rambling on about my work history earlier this week, I neglected to give any quality time or words to the five years I spent helping to run a book warehouse in Oakland. This enterprise had begun in Berkeley, and as an employee-owned company birthed in the height of hippiedom, there were plenty of ways in which the business never quite managed to escape its granola roots. I say this with love and affection as this was the first job I had in California, having missed my opportunity to continue my career standing behind the counter of a video store blocks from the apartment where I landed. 

As mentioned in prior posts, my ascension in the ranks from the packing line to assistant warehouse manager was achieved in less than a year. I had arrived at a time when change was on the rise, and I caught that wave, eventually landing in the weekly managers' meeting and then a spot on the Board of Directors. This put me in the position of being part of the team that was going to select the company's first general manager since they had thrown off the yoke of oppression way back in the seventies. Five of us were entrusted with the task of bringing in someone who would steer the ship but always be able to hear the folks back in steerage who were complaining about the direction. 

Thus began a months-long creation of a job description for this duckbill platypus of a position. Eventually we ended up talking into the night about the expectations for our creation. It all came down, for me, about the difference between "power" versus "authority." In my very Jimmy Stewart view of the world back then, I felt that authority was something that was given, while power was often something that was taken. 

I think about those late nights often these days. I wonder how we ended up giving away so much authority to one person, never imagining that this might give that person the chance to grab more power. 

Eventually, we hired a guy we thought could do the job. His salary was, by the metrics set by the hippies who founded the place, enormous. To his credit, he hit the ground running, coming up with all manner of ways to make the book warehouse work. It was not long after that when I left the book business to become a teacher. It was not long after that the book warehouse died of "natural causes." Not enough money. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't hasten that end with my part in the devolution of the employee-owned model. 

And I wonder now about how we ended up picking this new General Manager for our country, even as it tips at the brink of collapse itself. Somewhere in all those high-minded ideals, do we all really secretly want to be oppressed? To have something or someone to blame for our misfortune? 

I do wonder. 

Wheels

 Up until very recently, a law in Los Angeles read:  “No person shall play ball or any game of sport with a ball or football or throw, cast, shoot or discharge any stone, pellet, bullet, arrow or any other missile, in, over, across, along or upon any street or sidewalk or in any public park, except on those portions of said part set apart for such purposes.” If you read that statute and thought, "Hey, this is a law that forbids me to play catch with my kid," then you were paying attention. Violators could be fined up to one thousand dollars and face up to six months in jail. This law was believed to have been enacted some eighty years ago, and fast-thinking City Council members voted to repeal it. 

Something about the wheels of justice turning slowly and all that. 

Right about this same time, Stephen "Nosferatu" Miller issued what he labeled a REMINDER to the goons under his purvey: “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity. Anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony. You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist— can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”

It's kind of a shame that he didn't finish up by outlawing hopscotch or touch football. That way the ridiculousness of his pronouncement would have fallen directly in conflict with the hard work of the Los Angeles City Council. Little Steven and his Disciples of Cruel were announcing their position above the law. No city, state, or civilian interference with their stormtrooper tactics would be permitted moving forward. The newly minted notion of "weaponizing vehicles" is not something suited for a Mad Max sequel, they're talking about a Honda Odyssey trying to get past a bunch of masked nincompoops as they terrorize the neighborhood. 

Did I just mention "terror?" Well, yes I did. It was conjugated, but it was the term I used to describe what the Department of Fatherland Insecurity is doing across this land of ours in hopes of making it "great again." 

Great as in, "The stormtroopers are here. Oh, great," with a derisive roll of the eyes. 

The next step for the LA City Council should be to declare its sidewalks sanctuaries. For balls and human beings alike.  

Worst Of The Worst Part Deux

 Jonathan Ross, the ICE goon show shot and killed Renee Good last week, had a GoFundMe page set up on his behalf by supporters who felt that shooting an unarmed civilian three times in the head at close range was an act of heroism. Folks like hedge fund billionaire Bill "Yunz" Ackman and Megyn "You can't spell Megyn without a Y - oh wait yes you can" Kelly promoted the fund because they figure "Officer" Ross might need to buy some more ammunition. 

Ross is alive, by the way, and has yet to see any sort of disciplinary action. He is being kept away from motor vehicles. 

But he is alive. 

And in the middle of the tirade connected to the plea for money for this "victim of domestic terrorism" we find this little bit: "But this didn’t happen in a vacuum — it’s the dire result of anti-American traitors like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (who is Jewish) fanning the flames of resistance. Frey blasted ICE after the incident, telling them to ‘get the f— out of his city,’ signing executive orders banning federal agents from using city property for deportations and even warning that ICE agents could get ‘kilted’ if they keep removing invaders from his sanctuary cesspool."

Hold on. Why does it matter if the Mayor Minneapolis is Jewish?

Oh. Just because you walk like a Nazi, talk like a Nazi and quack like a Nazi doesn't you a Nazi, does it?

Which is probably why some of "officer" Ross' neighbors were surprised to find out that he was an ICE goon. He was telling neighbors that he was a botanist. He worked with plants. 

Right.

Fiercely proud of his service to The Party. 

Who knows how many ferns died under his watch?

Retirement Plans?

 I have been employed since 1974. That was back when I was mowing lawns to make enough money to buy a waterbed. Since then my work history has been many and varied, with an emphasis on staying employed to make sure that I always had gas money and a few extra bucks to buy albums. 

Albums. Records. Vinyl LPs. Like the kids play these days. 

I am not naïve enough to imagine that I would have been fighting for scraps out in the streets if I hadn't kept working all those years. I had a pretty amazing safety net in my parents' support. Room and board would be taken care of, but that official John Chambers Planet of the Apes gorilla mask did not fall into either of those categories. So I saved up my pennies, nickels and dimes and eventually dragged all of those wadded bills and clanky bits of change to the magic shop on the Pearl Street Mall and made a point of wearing that furry chunk of latex out of the store. 

As my teenage years dragged on, it became increasingly important for me to remain nominally employed in order to keep gas in my car and the latest audio configuration in the dashboard. When I was a senior in high school I had a girlfriend for the first time and became abruptly aware of just how expensive being in a relationship could be. 

The "gap year" I ended up taking after I bailed on college in Santa Fe brought my parents to the mild brink of an ultimatum: I was not to be allowed to sit around the house all day waiting for my girlfriend, who was still in high school, to be free. I was told to get a job. 

Full time. Working at Arby's. 

It was probably this experience that hastened my return to academia, and after taking a year way I was off to my freshman year with the good graces of my parents who felt that I should concentrate on being a student. For that year, I was not required to have a job. I lived a life of relative privilege along with my fellow dorm mates, spending freely on the things that make college life. Mostly beer. 

When I woke up from that drunken brawl of a liberal arts education, I returned to an apartment in my hometown where I picked up where I left off: at Arby's. Now I was a dual threat. I was a student by day and the closing manager by night. 

It would be another decade of installing steel office furniture and running a video store before I was ready to launch myself into adulthood, and another five years after that before I stopped doing "jobs" and started my career. When I stopped being paid by the hour and started getting a salary. 

Now, all these years later, I find myself wondering how I might possible retire. Stop working? What if I need a gorilla mask? 

Maybe Arby's is hiring. 

The Worst Of The Worst

 That phrase, "the worst of the worst," is the one that the current regime in Washington uses to legitamize their stormtrooper tactics. In spite of everything that has been witnessed by those of us with two eyes, two ears and a brain, the Department Of Homeland Terror continues to grab primarily innocent victims of the streets, many of them citizens of this country, and disappear them. 

Those who oppose these actions are subject to arrest, or being tear-gassed, or shot in the head. 

I understand that there are those who may have voted for this particular solution to be put in place. Frightened individuals who need the ostensible comfort of likewise tiny minds in which they can collectively fear those things that do not feel cater directly to them. These are the ones who truly beileive that there is a Great America out of the amusement park chain. These are the ones who bought all the stories about how "those people" were ruining it for them. It helps a lot to think of "them" as muderers and rapists. Gang members or the very worst kind. These are the ones who are taking the jobs and the health care and all the greatness that used to be found on every street corner. Those are the ones these tiny minds believe are being removed from our borders. 

Like the six year old Chinese boy who was separated from his father after an ICE "check-in."  Or how about the more than one hundred seventy U.S. citizens arrested and detained by the Trumpreich's Secret Police. Meanwhile the entirety of the insurrectionist mob who swarmed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 have been pardoned by (checks notes) a convicted felon. 

Who, just by the strangest coincidence, happens to be the worst of the worst. 

Go figure. 

Pleasant Valley Sunday

 The sun is out. Somewhere they're playing football. It's a January weekend in the United States of America.

People are out shopping. They're going to movies. Sitting on park benches. 

They're going to protests. They're doom-scrolling. They're wondering how they're going to find healthcare. 

They're watching videos in endless loops trying to determine exactly how a thirty-seven year old woman ended up shot through the head. 

They're doing research on probable cause and the twenty-fifth amendment. They're scraping together the money for groceries. 

They're trying to remember the way things used to be. 

They used to disagree with politicians. They used to argue with their neighbors about politics. They used to joke about how you could tell if a politician was lying because their lips were moving. 

They aren't laughing anymore. 

It's not "funny ha-ha" anymore. It's "funny because I lived through it."

We are going through the motions of living in America right now.

Because we don't know how much longer we will be allowed to do just that. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Reckoning

 Against the backdrop of this country slipping into ever more chaotic states, I continue to do the job for which I was hired: teaching elementary school. Into that pot there have been a few recent updates that have made it necessary to stir to keep the whole thing from turning into the hot mess just like the rest of the planet. 

To no one's surprise, the Oakland Unified School District is wringing its institutional hands over a lack of funds. It's a simple enough thing to point at the military budget that was already an ungainly one trillion dollars, but that number has been "requested" to be bumped up to a trillion and a half. Meanwhile, the privately schooled golf cheat has ordered the Department of Education to be dismantled. 

"It's a shame if our kids are dumb, but our bombs are smart" - Oingo Boingo

In the thirty years since that song was released, working in education has not become what I would call a more financially stable decision. I have participated in a number of protests, work actions and strikes to keep reminding the public at large that we continue to bring children into a world in which education is still deemed a necessity. 

Just not compared to building more of the aforementioned bombs. 

So the cry has gone out to the educational community that we need to demand better conditions in which to make this magic happen. Teach kids to read. Prepare them for a world that is changing by the minute. Give them a chance to manage their existence in a world that seems bent on making it more difficult. The current regime would like to pay people to have more children, but I have yet to see any suggestion of how to pay for the infrastructure necessary to make those new Americans' lives possible. 

I had hoped that I might sail through to my somewhat illusory retirement without having to live through another strike, but this is where we find ourselves in 2026. No one at the top is suggesting that we might need another trillion dollars to educate our kids. And don't go thinking that taxing the billionaires will solve the problem. They'll just take their tax-free lifestyles to another state where the test scores are lower and all that whining about "the kids" can't be heard. 

I'll think more about this later, but right now I have to make sure that the fifth graders whose teacher just died have a teacher and a classroom in which they can learn. 

Death Of An Unpopular Poet

After watching her appearance describing the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by her ICE goons, I wondered if Kristi "ICE Queen" Noem had children of her own.

She does. Two daughters and a son: Kassidy, Kennedy and Booker. 

I wondered how she might describe any event that resulted in the injury or death of one of her kids. I'm not guessing that she would immediately point the finger of blame at them and call it "domestic terrorism." 

That's how the ICE Queen referred to the death of Renee Nicole Good who was shot and killed by an unidentified ICE Goon just blocks from her house.  Ms. Good's mother described her: “Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. She was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

Renee had a son whose father died two years ago. That six year old now has no mother or father. The ICE goon who shot Renee is somebody's son. His father insists  his son as a “tremendous” person of whom he is deeply proud. Which I suppose is what parents ought to say, even if that parent's son just shot someone through the head. 

I'm not exactly clear on how we define "domestic terrorism" these days, but it seems that this loss of life should be considered a civilian casualty in the Trumpreich's attempt to weed out what they have decided is the scourge of Somalian immigrants in Minneapolis. 

Ms. Good was not a Somali. She was a poet, an avid movie lover, and former resident of Colorado. I can relate to that bio. 

I cannot relate to the continued resolve by Kristi and her goons to use unnecessary force to do a job that no one asked them to do. 

No one in their right minds, that is. Just the guy who screamed "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs..." He's the one who ended up in the White House. He's got kids too. 

But he's definitely not a poet. 

Cognitive Test

 I have tried, without any real success, to imagine the mindset of those who feel that the current regime here in the United States is Making America Great Again. Somewhere out there is a group of MAGAts that still believe that this country is headed in the right direction. 

As a point of clarification, I do believe that this country is headed in The Right direction. As in ever-more-conservative to the point of confusion and pain. To hear the pundits tell it, this is a march toward the cliff that reeks of fascism and we are supposed to believe that all of this over-the-top ultra-conservative energy is being used to protect our Dear Leader from being discovered as a pedophile. 

I think we've driven on past the point of cover-up. I think we are confronting something that no simple cognitive test can discern. The bar has been lowered so far that the qualifications for being the "leader of the free world" are limited to being able to identify a giraffe. To which Donnie Jr. insists, "Last night I shot a giraffe in my pajamas. How you get giraffe blood out of pajamas I'll never know." 

This disconnect between the actual capacities and the dementia of the individual in question keeps us all off balance as the latest outrage is unfurled. This is the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue speaking openly about taking over sovereign nations by use of military force. The twice-impeached "president" insists that we, or rather he, "needs" Greenland. This is the same tiny brain that needs a gold toilet and a ballroom constructed on the ruins of the White House. We have stepped so far out of the realm of frustration brought on by Project 2025 that your average citizen is hard-pressed to express their outrage before the next announcement on social media. Like the "thirty to fifty million barrels of oil" that the convicted felon insists that the money from the sale will be controlled by him. If you are curious about the leadership void created by the kidnapping of Venezuela's president, you've missed the point. It was never about regime change. It was about the oil. It was about the money to be made. It was about bringing the oil companies along for the ride, in spite of the fact that they seem less than thrilled about this "opportunity." 

Meanwhile the notions of affordability for the average American consumer, along with the promise of no new wars have fallen by the wayside. As we careen ever closer to the full-on dictatorship on which the seventy-nine year old golf cheat has his eye. 

At least he knows what a giraffe looks like.