Spam

 Every day.

Every single day. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They sent me a tote bag. 

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

For that, you will receive my vote. 

Schools Of Thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, A Word

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rock My World

 Sheena is a punk rocker. 

Susie is a headbanger.

Maria was formerly a financial reporter for Fox News.

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, how the headbangers are fallen. 

Gloria In Exelcis

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

Last year. 

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

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

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

Would that mean that her work as finished? 

Not really. 

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

She will be missed. 

Nom De L'eau

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

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

Why then would it matter what we called them?

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

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

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

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

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

Except they did. 

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

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

New Power Generation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just sayin'.