Danger Dead Ahead

 I used to attempt to annoy/frighten the people with whom I was riding on most any carnival or amusement park attraction. Generally, my bit went something like this:

"Wow. Did you ever consider the potential of catastrophe on any one of these rides? How many people a day do you suppose get on one of these things without a care in the world, not knowing that there is a loose bolt or a faulty weld? Some sort of hidden defect that will eventually fail under the stress and strain of repeated use. The kind of breakdown that could only happen when a scheduled maintenance was skipped or a simple check was overlooked."

I would pause, for effect. Then after looking up toward the structure that would soon be hoisting us up and jostling us about, I would continue: "But that type of thing happens so infrequently." A sigh. "I guess that's why they call them 'accidents.'"

Inevitably this would lead to moans and groans from those trapped in the cattle chute that would eventually lead us to our destiny. I am sure that at some level this was a way that yours truly could deal with his own morbid fears and anxiety. Speaking them aloud, especially when the ride was located in one of those dodgy parking lot fairs that seemed to spring up in front of K-Marts, one step ahead of the state inspectors. 

Inspectors like the ones who uncovered maintenance issues, such as a train derailment, faulty restraint bars and guest injuries including dislocated joints and concussions. These concerns were not found in any traveling carnival, but rather at a dozen different Six Flags parks across three states. The latest "infraction" resulted in the death of forty-two-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem who fell to his death and several others were injured while riding the Goliath rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia. 

Additionally, the powers that be at Magic Mountain, a Six Flags park in Valencia, California permanently closed their X2 Hypercoaster after more than a hundred riders reported brain injuries after experiencing the flips and twists and high speed turbulent turns generated by this three hundred foot tall beast.  

Whee. Sounds like fun. 

I just like a little vertigo with mine. And when the actual effects of the ride turn out to be more perilous than the ones I used to spout in line, I guess the thrillmeisters have won the day. 

Naturally

 It's artificial. It is a stew made of scrapings from Al Gore's Internet. There is nothing truly "super" about it. Are you ready for the weird part? I've been using something like it for the past twenty-some years to write this blog. 

When I sit down and start to expound on the little things that gnaw at me, or the big things that consume me, I oftentimes turn to the search function of the program most of us know called Google Chrome. For example, if I wanted to know how many gallons were in a ton of diesel fuel, I would do a search for the answer, rather than going to the set of encyclopedias I keep in my office. 

I don't keep encyclopedias in my office. I use Al Gore's Internet. You may remember the Internet. It was a "series of tubes" according to Senator Ted Stevens. When I ask Al Gore's Internet how many gallons in a ton of diesel, the network of computers all tied together in a series of tubes or "a net" gives me a whopping great list of responses, topped off by a summary of those responses labeled "AI Overview." A cursory peek at that paragraph lets me know not only the answer to my question, but keeps me from moving down the list to look for an answer I might have clicked on myself before 2024 when the engineers at Google decided that poring over a list of responses might be too tedious for users. Why bother checking on those thousands of potential links when you could have the answer handed to you on an artificial platter? 

Maybe because of my inherent distrust of machines, first introduced to my by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The HAL 9000 on board the spaceship Discovery was not giving the best answers to astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole. Even though HAL kept saying that he had the utmost enthusiasm for the mission, the computer sends Frank out to fix the AE-35 unit only to ram him with a pod and send him spinning off into space. Then, when Dave goes out attempts to retrieve his fellow astronaut's body, HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors. 

I didn't have to look that stuff up. 

It was in my brain from all those years ago. 

But now I feel as though I need to check myself, to verify those tasty bits of infotainment for you, dear reader. I have to consult the oracle of intelligence because I really need to know that there are two hundred eighty gallons of diesel in a ton, and that the "deal" made by the self-proclaimed very stable genius with Russia provides the United States with three hundred thousand tons of the stuff. That ends up being eighty-four million gallons of diesel. Which seems like a lot. I used old-fashioned AI for that one: a calculator. Then I checked with the oracle once again to discover that the United States uses approximately one hundred thirty million gallons of diesel a day. That means that the deal the convicted felon and Russian asset trying to distract us all from the miserable job he's doing isn't going to cover one day's use of diesel fuel. 

I did that last bit in my head. The former game show host is trying to keep the pod bay door closed. Use your own intelligence. You don't need anything artificial or super. 

It's all natural. 

Shocked And Dismayed

 "I have not seen anything like this in my twenty-eight-plus years," Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah told a local news station. "I'm not sure that the city of Erie has ever seen the loss of life and the devastation that we just witnessed."

Why do we keep saying things like this? This statement comes from a guy who might consider himself a "peace officer" who goes to work each day with a gun strapped to his hip and wears a bulletproof vest as part of his uniform. 

Which is by no means a slight on Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah. I would guess that even the Sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina would expect his deputy to carry more than one bullet in this day and age. 

Meanwhile, back in Erie, the scene described by Chief Lorah was one in which eight people were shot and killed before the idiot with a gun turned it on himself, bringing the grand total to eight. Reports in some quadrants are noting that one of the victims was pregnant, so the math may need to be amended. Additionally, there were children aged one and five years old among the dead. According to reports, all of the victims were related. 

So here's my quandary: SWAT teams were dispatched to the scene after reports of gunfire were made. Authorities said that by the time the heavily armed "peace officers" arrived, all the killing had been done. I wonder what might have happened if an emergency call had gone out to that family for counseling in the days leading up to the shooting? What if unarmed social workers had made their presence felt in the runup to the murders? If a mental health check had been made and the guns in the house had been removed as a precaution?

I'm guessing that's not anything Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah has seen in his twenty-eight plus years. Because we tend to solve our problems with guns. Immigration. Diplomacy. And as an added bonus, we can livestream the firing squad death sentence being carried out after the fact. 

If we do, in fact, hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness then maybe we should check in with the guys who wrote that Second Amendment and see how that squares with the Declaration of Independence. 

I hate to think that Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah might continue to witness mass shootings anywhere int he land of the free and the home of the moving targets. 

Worst Of The Worst

 Federal immigration officers opened fire on a Dominican man whom they were trying to arrest in New York because they believed their lives were in danger. Twenty-eight-year-old Oscar Belgal was shot in the neck last Thursday as he drove his car with a five-year-old boy inside. 

That's their story, including the part where Federal officers "were not aware" that the five-year-old was in the car. Oscar "was aware," according to the story that ICE goons issued, and yet he chose to evade officers, including the now familiar refrain about how officers used vehicles to block him in as he attempted to drive off,  then he accelerated his vehicle toward officers, smashing some of their vehicles. At which point the goons shot Mister Belgal "superficially" in the neck. 

Quick aside: I don't know if you've ever been shot "superficially," but I would expect if feels a lot like being shot profoundly. 

As this armed assault took place in New York City, Head ICE Goon Markwayne "Two First Names" Mullin took chose to remind everyone "Sanctuary politicians, they create an environment for criminal activity to thrive, not for the American citizens to be safe." 

Safe? Well, it seems like having plainclothes idiots with guns firing seven times into a vehicle on city streets does not seem to meet that distinction. I would categorize such an action as "unsafe."

No matter. The politician alluded to in "Two First Names" Mullin's statement was, most likely, New York City's mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mayor Mamdani's comments ran somewhat contradictory to the Goons of ICE: “There is no justification for what we have seen today." He also said the federal officers who surrounded the vehicle wore construction vests and masks, making it difficult to identify them as immigration officers.

This makes some sense, since in recent months New York City has been making an all-out effort to rid their streets not of dangerous immigrants, but potholes. The five-year-old in the car witnessing his father being shot by construction workers may flavor his perception of men wearing orange vests. Or the trauma suffered by the child may simply be slopped onto the shelf ICE likes to refer to as "collateral damage." 

You have the right to remain silent. In this case, I suggest we all go in a different direction. 

The Whole Shebang

 Homecoming. A time for celebration. A time for reflection. A time for senseless killing. 

Authorities in South Carolina are still looking for a suspect who shot and killed nineteen-year-old Jaliyah Butler. Eighteen-year-old Matthew Daniel McCoy was arrested and charged with Pointing and Presenting a Firearm at a Person, and Carrying a Weapon on School Property last year, but the other eleven people who were arrested for possession firearms on campus during the shooting did not net the killer. 

Fast forward a year, shifting focus a couple hundred miles to the south, we find two dead and thirty-five injured when gunfire erupted early this past Sunday morning over a four block radius of a neighborhood block party. A party celebrating the Dooly High School win in their big Homecoming Win. They beat the team from Wilcox County.

So there was a big party. 

Two twenty-year old men were killed. The injured ranged in age from fourteen to fifty-one. An incident like this might suggest that the twenty-somethings were the "targets" of all that gunfire, and the thirty-five others covering that wide range of age were collateral damage. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Celebrating homecoming. 

A time for reflection.

A time for senseless killing. 

“I’ve been doing this for forty-two years,” Dooly County Sheriff Craig Peavy told reporters. “I’ve had a lot of cases I’ve been on, a lot of bad situations, and I think by far this is the one that has caught me off guard.”

It could be that Sheriff Peavy's experience has not taken him far from his home, since Georgia has experienced one hundred fifty-five mass shootings since 2020, and guns continue to be the leading cause of death among children. 

The investigation, along with the mourning, continues. 

Olden Days

I lost interest in the evening's football game, so I decided to travel up the dial to see what might be showing on Turner Classic Movies. Lo and behold, the 1976 Classic Movie, All The President's Men, was just beginning. I saw it first when I was an impressionable fourteen year old all those years ago. I have come back to it over and over again, but I confess that I have not given it my full attention in the past decade. 

Because it seems so incredibly quaint now. A group of burglars who broke into the Watergate Hotel back in the summer of 1972 getting caught while attempting to bug the Democratic National Headquarters feels like a bit out of the Keystone Cops. Except this one didn't end in a pie fight, but rather the resignation of the President of the United States. Following the trail of bread crumbs in a world that did not include Al Gore's Internet, cell phones or word processors, these two young reporters helped topple a corrupt regime that was attempting to stay in power at any cost. Woodward and Bernstein exposed the links between the bungling burglars and the Oval Office and brought down a sitting United States chief executive. No gunfire. No special effects. No love interest. Just journalism.  For me, this was as close as I tend to get to a "feel-good movie."

When it was all over, and those clever programmers at TCM began unspooling The Manchurian Candidate, I decided to head off to bed, where on my dresser sat my most recent nighttime read: Regime Change. Written by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, it tells the tale of the second Trumpreich, contrasting it to the somewhat more benign version that ended just four years prior. It would be nothing short of an understatement to say that these two had an easier row to hoe than their Washington Post predecessors. Except that the Washington Post is now owned by one of the Chief MAGAts, while Haberman and Swan's reporting is still supported by their left-leaning publishers. Woodward and Bernstein worked feverishly back in their day to stay ahead of The Times. And TV News. And all the other ships at sea. 

These days, all the dirty dealings are laid out for everyone to see, and it is left up to anyone with half a brain to connect the dots. Haberman and Swan were able to put out a book in a matter of months encapsulating just the first year and a half of dirty tricks and dealings by all the convicted felon's men. As a point of timing, I should point out that the publication of Woodward and Bernstein's book was followed by the resignation of the Head CREEP, Richard Nixon, by two months. Haberman and Swan's book came out this past June. 

So my question is this: Why is it taking so long? 

Toxic

 While the Secretary of War is prattling on about testosterone levels and the essential manliness of killing people abroad and here at home, he also wanted to insert the importance of faith: the newly minted  Office of Religious Affairs will have “a direct line to the secretary.” Pistol Pete insisted that, “Decisions about faith and religion were made by secular careerists in cubicles and lawyers running around with red tape.” Further more, during his speech last Wednesday he appointed Elon Musk to help develop the next generation of weapons and said he wanted to staff the US military with “patriotic cowboys. No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors,” he said.

The ultra macho surge continues in our nation's capital. while a few hundred miles up the road the ugly reflection of all this hyper-toxic masculinity is on display for all to see. At Cornell University, the investigation continues into the case of a woman who was drugged and then raped by a group of fraternity boys at Cornell University. It seems that back in 2024 Jane Doe was visiting a friend at the Chi Phi fraternity and was already intoxicated. The members then plied her with more liquor and a dose of what they said was Ketamine. From there, two of the frat boys proceeded to rape her, then sent out messages on social media that suggested that there was a girl upstairs who was "ready." Over the next few hours, five more males made their way up to continue the assault. Once the initial report was made, the university acted: two of the fraternity members were expelled, while five others received lesser sanctions including suspensions, workshops and writing essays.

No criminal charges were filed. 

I can't help but imagine that the two boys who were expelled would be right at home in Pistol Pete's new Armed Forces. Shoot first, ask questions never. I don't expect that those who were stuck writing essays would be considered manly enough to be a part of the future of the secretary's over-fertilized imagination. These are just the kind of "patriotic cowboys" he's looking for. "We need students of Western civilization and the pillars of our republic. Leaders who understand the faith of Jerusalem, the philosophy of anthems—Athens. The power of Rome, and the freedom of Philadelphia circa 1776." In case you missed it, Pete was trying to invoke the capital of Greece - Athens - somewhere in there. All the more reason to believe these frat boys might stand a chance in the recruitment office. 

Unless they've got beards.

Generation Execute

 Jello Biafra once questioned, "How do we teach 'Thou Shalt Not Kill?'"

Well, twenty-seven of our current fifty states have a death penalty on their books. As of mid-2026, there were nearly two thousand prisoners on death row here in these United States. States such as California have capital punishment, but the governor has placed a moratorium on carrying out any executions. 

As you may expect, the majority of the states that continue to kill their convicted felons can be found in the south. Tennessee would be one of those states. That is where, this past Wednesday night, authorities attempted to kill convicted murderer Christa Pike. The only woman on The Volunteer State's death row was injected, not once but twice, with a supposedly lethal dose of pentobarbital. These two injections came after the execution was initially paused as a stay was issued by an appeals court, only to be overturned a few hours later by the "Supreme" Court. 

At this point, I do not feel compelled to defend Ms. Pike, who never disputed her part in the 1995 murder of a classmate when she was eighteen. As part of the lengthy conviction and appeals process, Christa spend the next thirty-two years waiting for her punishment. At the age of fifty, she was scheduled to be the first woman executed by the state of Tennessee in two hundred years. I do feel the need to question how, after the first dose of drugs only succeeded in making her arm "feel funny," why officials didn't back up and try to figure out what went wrong before attempting a second dose. 

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, for his part, expects "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred." It might have been a bad or degraded batch of pentobarbital. Or maybe Christa's veins were blown and unable to accept the injection. This was enough to get Tennessee state Senator Marsha Blackburn up off her chair, insisting a return to the electric chair, a method that had not been in use for the past six years. Since 1998, your standard Tennessee execution shifted to that of lethal injection, but "Old Sparky" has been available.

Just in case. 

In the meantime, Christa Pike has been taken to a medical facility to try and get her healthy enough so that she can be strapped to another device in hopes of finishing the job. 

I dunno. Sounds a little cruel, and if I may, not so unusual. 

Birds Of A Feather

 It's a little trifle of a trivia quiz. I use it to pep up a conversation when I am stuck waiting for something else to begin. I ask, "What teams have mascots that are not animals?" This tends to get a ball rolling that includes such "easy" answers as The Yankees, The Reds, The Phillies, The Mariners, and so on. There are plenty of examples outside Major League Baseball, but it provides even those without an encyclopedic knowledge of sports an opportunity to stretch their memory. 

I will pause for a moment while you begin your own search function.

I hope that was satisfying. Now, the next time I encounter this situation, I change the parameters of the question. Instead of asking for non-animal examples, one of the other participants asked if we might try and come up with as many bird teams as possible. Orioles, Blue Jays, Cardinals, top the list if you start with baseball, but you might have found yourself discovering the bird thread available in Atlanta. The Falcons and the Hawks both call the ATL home.

My guess is that this is where Senator Eric Schmitt stopped in his inquiry cycle, Which might explain why he went to all the trouble to head on over to Kinko's to get a big poster printed up for his chance to humiliate former prosecutor Jack Smith. The Missouri Republican attempted to put Mister Smith not in Washington but in Atlanta on the night of February 3, 2024 when the NBA franchise Hawks were hosting the Golden State Warriors, who qualify for the non-animal category. 

“So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024. Is that correct? What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warriors-Hawks game on Feb. 2, 2024?” The hope was to catch Mister Smith lying about being in the Big Peach at the same time that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was facing scrutiny for her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special state prosecutor she hired for the county’s election-interference case against a certain convicted felon. 

There was some head-scratching moments as the connection was finally made: Jack Smith had attended a women's basketball game in Maryland. In that collegiate contest, the hometown Terrapins hosted the Iowa Hawkeyes, featuring the phenomenal Kaitlan Clark. This game was taking place some six hundred fifty miles from the location suggested by Senator Schmitt's posterboard allegation. 

Hawks. Hawkeyes. Easy mistake to make. Especially if you're in a rush while standing at the Kinko's "Gotcha" Counter, waiting for your order to be completed. 

But he won't be invited to play in any of my trivia time-sinks. 

Lessons Learned

 My mother kept a Tootsie Roll bank in her dresser. She put quarters into it whenever she found a few laying around. This was her stake. On the relatively few occasions that she found herself in Las Vegas, this was the money she used. Exclusively on slot machines. She expected to lose her little nest egg twenty-five cents at a time. 

I understood that every game of "chance" that the kid down the street from me ran would end up in his favor. I learned not to bet on anything ever with my older brother as well. If there was a wager being made with either one of these two, I figured that the best choice was to keep my money in my pocket. 

Even if it was just a quarter. 

Much later in my youth, I was part of a crew that was sent to Las Vegas to install office furniture at Nellis Air Force Base. The fellows I travelled with decided to try and get to Sin City a day early so we could have some time to do the things that one does in Sin City. I wasn't interested in the casinos, given my predilection toward keeping my money in my pocket, but I did stroll down the strip to take in the sights. One of the sights I took in was, at high noon, every single light was on. No need to conserve here. No need for sales tax either. 

It was all paid for. And then some. 

Which is why I am currently kicking myself, metaphorically, for spending thirty dollars on an NFL "Survivor Pool" being run by a friend. I have participated in a number of seasons of Fantasy Football, but never for money. It was always for that odd sense of vicarious community that it invites. All of the vagaries of the current professional football season left me bewildered not only in our friendly no-money league, but abruptly out of thirty dollars when I chose the Green Bay Packers to beat the Atlanta Falcons this week. 

It seemed like a sure thing. 

It wasn't. 

I forgot the lessons I learned all those years ago. Chief among them, never bet on anything that is not in your personal control. Not suiting up for Green Bay myself left me out of control. Which brings me to the other reminder from my mother's Tootsie Roll bank: Don't bet money you don't have. All of those ads that surround any and all sporting events on television inviting you to put up that pittance that you might have left over after buying a tankful of gas on the outcome of a game being played by a bunch of strangers, many of whom are millionaires already, and all of whom are prohibited by their employer from betting on sports. Which is essentially the case for NBA players. And then there's the strange tale of Pete Rose and Major League Baseball. 

I'll bet he never gets into the Hall of Fame. 

Progress

 Here's an interesting thing: My wife and I own a Fiat. It has been a godsend lo these past few months. It is an electric vehicle. It is tiny. We are able to make our way in and around our various destinations in and around our municipality by the grace of our solar panels and the used battery within our Fiat. 

The old joke that I remember from my youth: What does Fiat stand for? "Fix it again, Tony." The happy news here is that after a year and a half the only maintenance we have needed on our little marshmallow of a car was self-imposed. Trying to upgrade the stereo, my son and I both forgot to check to see if the power was securely seated in the back of the unit, causing it to lose connection whenever we drove over a speed bump or other obstacle. Once we fixed that, we were free to scoot on past all those gas stations whose prices have done nothing but climb since the convicted felon decided to start a war to get us all to forget that he was a convicted felon and pen pals with the world's most notorious human trafficker. 

Now comes the fun part: Do you know what you call an official order, a decree, or command made by someone in authority without needing discussion or agreement? No? 

The method that the former game show uses to run our country is by fiat. This term originates from Latin, meaning, "Let if be done." This term found its way into English somewhere around 1630, back when fiats were more a part of everyday governance. 

As for our car, it's origins are an acronym: Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, or in boring old English, Italian Automobile Factory Turin. 

But as it turns out, the Orange Worst's fiats are exactly who spurred us on to buying our own Fiat. Every day that the prince of gasoline zips on past six dollars a gallon, my wife and I were happy to have had the shove, arbitrary or not, to go out and commit to a new lifestyle. We continue to be grateful in the most convoluted way for the madness of the mandarin molester. 

However, I do look forward to a future where we can make choices with a little less fear involved. 

Post Toasties

 Maybe it's time to scrape a little of the veneer off the illusion that the convicted felon who seems to run the Second Trumpreich via social media. 

Who writes this stuff? "All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like Third Rate 'Reporter,' Kaitlan Collins, of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren't going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics, in the Press Area, at the United Nations?" 

A cursory look at the Orange Worst's "Truth" account suggests that the use of unnecessary capitals and epithets such as "sleazebag" smells an awful lot like the venom spewed for the past four years on that platform and featured in many and sundry occasions in person. The logic used to demean Ms. Collins and her fellow reporters is similar to the stretches made by the adjudicated rapist, since it was he who banned CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House in the first place. That reporter and her cohort were at the United Nations hoping to report on the latest issuance from Our Dear Leader. 

The ranting and raving was all on the part of the guy clutching the podium. 

The assembled press was waiting for their opportunity to give the former game show host and his handlers an opportunity to explain their cockeyed vision of the world. And maybe to sort out his pondering, "Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we will make a deal right after the election, because it doesn't make sense for them not to."

Making sense.

That would be nice. But since this is an eighty year old man who has a documented difficulty staying awake during public events such as the 9/11 Memorial Event at the Pentagon, it does raise the question about those late night bursts of barely coherent text messages and images that pour out of his account in strange waves. 

One answer would be that this is the way he chooses to use what little energy he seems to have for things other than golf and the destruction of our nation's capital. Like the triumphant arch he plans to erect that has become a strategic necessity because it will “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

Now wouldn't you feel just a little safer thinking that some poor underpaid staffer is toiling away on those social media posts while the "very stable genius" sleeps? 

No?

Me either. 

At Least

 Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez. 

That's the name of the twenty-eight year old man shot by ICE morons this past Sunday in Austin, Texas. 

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Wilber had entered the United States illegally and was stable and was in federal custody pending removal from the U.S. Mister Garcés Perez was working for Door Dash at the time of the shooting. There was no response to the question as to whether the goons' bodycams were operating at the time of the shooting, nor was there any immediate information available as to the status of the order that was being delivered. 

So here's my question, aside from what was in the order that the goons felt the need to interrupt: Why use deadly force? If the underlying mission of these "peace officers" is public safety, why are they involved in vehicular pursuits that involve ramming other cars and shooting through windows and doors? It is an established fact that ICE is working on a quota system, with a target of three thousand arrests a day. In August, DHS reported more than fifty thousand arrests had been made. A record!

And the number of deportations held steady at approximately twelve hundred. This disparity is best understood when you take into account that record number of arrests included a vast majority of individuals with not criminal record. 

Yes. Apparently the mission of getting rid of "the worst of the worst" has switched to something more along the lines of getting rid of people with Latino surnames. Mister Garcés Perez is therefore guilty as charged. Which explains why he was shot? Well, no. According to the goons, Wilber fled. 

Let's see: Unmarked vehicle appears, masked gunmen pile out and start shouting. Maybe most folks named Michael Smith will immediately comply with the goons' orders. Or if your name happened to be something painfully Anglo like Renee Good or Alex Pretti. 

Nothing to fear.

Except the potential exile to a foreign destination without contact with your family. Or detention for months inside a chain-link cage. Or becoming another of a growing list of individuals shot and killed by the goons. Wilber is one of the "lucky ones" to appear on a list that the public sees. The reported numbers of eleven deaths and forty-two shootings by ICE goons comes with the qualifier of "at least."

At least. 

That seems to be what our expectations are for the masked idiots. 

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. 

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? 

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.