Jharrin4's Blog

First, according to astrophysicists, there was nothing. Nada. Zilch. Tabula rasa. Then that nothingness somehow exploded. Can you say big bang? Congratulations! To, uh, whatever produced the big bang, as it gave birth to what is referred to as the universe. According to scientific investigation, that was approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Then, around 13 billion years ago, the first stars begin to burn, their glow taking its sweet time to reach…well “us”; but let’s not get too far ahead here since “us” at this point in the life of the universe is still WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY off.

Moving on, about 4.6 billion years ago our solar system begins to come together and with it the birth our life-sustaining sun. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and thus one of the charter members of our universe, which early on had no stars or planets. Stars were forged from atoms of hydrogen and helium, while new chemical elements were created inside the dying stars (birth and death, it’s inescapable, eh?). Planets and moons formed from blobs of ice and dust using these new chemicals and elements, and the first living cell evolved in the rich chemical environments of rocky planets.

Then, 3.8 billion years ago, comes the earliest forms of life on our very special planet we call Earth. These were mostly single cell life forms. Not too sophisticated but, hey, back then they were the entire show. And that “show” was a long-running production, with virtually zero competition for attention for the next 3.2 billion years. Okay, so let’s do the math: 3.2 billion from 3.8 billion=600 million , as in years ago, larger life forms appear. Those bigger living things had the stage for a mere 593 million (or so) years, when ‘only” 7 million years back our human lineage splits from that of the Chimpanzee. That “break-away” from the chimp world, over the next 5 million years, produced the–ta da!–homo erectus. This new “standing man” then becomes the species known as Homo sapiens, a classification that is marked at about at 200,000 years ago. Hey, from Big Bang 13.8 biillion years back to standing man. In a mere 12,999,800,000 years. 

Or, in just three paragraphs on this blog entry.

A brief history, okay?

Standing man hasn’t always had it easy, though. Life was rough and tumble. Maslow’s pyramid of ascending needs would have to have several sub-basements to signify the ordeal of simply staying alive back in that day. Today’s homeless population live elite lifestyles compared to Homo neanderthalensis. Basic food and shelter? Life was always a bitch, no doubt. And then, as already noted, they would die. But enough of standing man got off his/her feet to copulate and Homo sapiens endured, right through the last ICE AGE, some 10,000 years ago. After that frosty kick in the loin cloth-covered asses of our species by the forces of nature, it was but 5,000 years ago that cities began to appear on the planet. 3,000 years later, standing man had developed its survival instincts and desire to be the masters of their–and other’s–domains, with the Han and Roman empires. Little by little, by about 500 years ago, exploration and discovery by our species started to link the world together. For better or worse. Mostly worse, in my estimation.

Formal knowledge, the refinement of arts and sciences, elevated our human place on planet earth. In the past 150 years industrialization has given us railroads, jet airplanes, radio and television and space travel. Just 50 years ago we landed on the moon, an event that for a brief moment in time, was at once inspirational and mesmerizing in its realization, and as such, transcended race, ethnicity, or nationality in a most powerful and positive sense of shared pride in our humanity. And it was quite a momentary antidote to a world in which over the previous 200 or so years having been marred by revolutionary wars here and abroad, the U.S.civil war, World Wars I & II, (the latter of which produced an another awesome, if not a Kumbaya, event called the creation–and deployment–of the atomic bomb), the Korean and Vietnam wars, and at this point in time bloodshed far and wide. More empires. Less humanism.

****************************************

Now, here we are early in the first month of year 2019. Unless you are one of the Homo sapiens that has succumbed to a de-evolutionary modus operandi, and cannot think on your own, unable to truly engage your brain, not able to determine basic right from wrong, nor distinguish a stone cold fact from an inference to a bald face lie, you might have heard about, and perhaps become concerned for our planet, all 4.6 billion years old as it is. What am I getting at? Well, while the Big Bang theory says we came from nothing, (go figure) ever since, and as been alluded to earlier, all forms of life on this planet come and go. You know, born to die. In comparison to mother earth, we are all around for a nano second of a wee smaller nanosecond of a fraction of a fraction of a blink of an eye. Hope to live to be 110? No different. By the time you were born to your demise, you (all of us, okay?) relatively speaking were barely here at all! But reproduction keeps humankind around, whether one is using that brain very well or not. Among the scientists whom are most involved with the life span of our planet–which, mind you, is inevitably as with all else, going to die–they assert we have reached an “existential crisis”. It’s called climate change. And the virtual consensus of climate scientists is that our planet is sick. Very sick. Human activity is hastening our planet’s demise–and standing man and woman will eventually pass away when the sphere beneath our feet no longer can support itself, or us.

What are we humans doing about this crisis? Apparently not much. Certainly not nearly enough. In the decade that ran from 1979-1989 we had an excellent opportunity to solve this climate crisis. The world’s major powers came within several signatures of endorsing a binding, global framework to reduce carbon emissions–far closer than we have ever come since. During those years, the conditions for success could not have been more favorable. The obstacles we blame for that inaction are still emerging. But now, as back then, the only thing standing in the way of saving the planet is…ourselves.

And by ourselves, I include a particular person who is an avowed science-denier when it comes to looming climate collapse: this person is deeply, profoundly flawed. Okay, nobody is perfect but…this person is a sociopath. This person is a racist. Indeed, he is a white supremacist. He is a misogynist. A homophobe. A xenophobe. A failed businessman. A con man. As bad as all that is, the worst part is he has been allowed to be the President of our country. Oh, and one who may have colluded with Mother Russia and its evil strongman, V. Putin, during his campaign. This man is not helping with much except to create chaos and consternation among critical thinkers. Sadly, this person has followers. I call them “pod people” (after the people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers whose beings are overtaken by insidious pods being slipped near them as they slumbered, to awake and become zombie like automatons in the grip of alien forces). Today’s Pod People have brains, but they are a waste of gray matter. Podsters don’t seem to care about anything but what their “leader” thinks and does. But more than any creepy flaw he has clearly displayed, it’s that science-denying one that is the most dangerous here, in 2019.

Sadly, in my informed, personal opinion, it may be 2019, but I’m beginning to feel as though it is really 1984. As in the dystopian world penned by George Orwell in 1949, shortly after the carnage of World War II. In it, Orwell created Big Brother. A glossary of terms from that seminal novel would include, doublethink, hate week, newspeak, speakwrite, thought police, and thoughtcrime. Doesn’t sound like a Disney narrative, eh? Now, I am not saying we are actually immersed in Orwell’s nightmare vision of the future, as he saw it back in 1949, but there are indications that, since our current occupant of the White House took residence there in January of 2017, it certainly sounds and seems as though we are getting closer to an Orwellian nightmare than safely secured from any such approximation of it.

For example, a few nights ago, the corporate, mainstream media once again demonstrated its collusion in this country’s ever-increasing descent into creepy, dark political cynicism. How so? By granting a prominent platform for the dissemination of blatant propaganda and fear mongering by the above alluded to White House denizen.

The various major media outlets, both broadcast and cable, were asked to permit this person, who has been clearly and credibly identified as a bona-fide, dissembling demagogue to speak to we the people. The heads of these news outlets could not possibly have acted any more irresponsibly by agreeing to provide prime-time coverage for this person and his intended reason for seeking their assistance. After all, he was not addressing the vital–and ever more desperate–need for climate action. Of course not. He, at best, willfully denies the reality of climate change, or actually is unable to process the credible evidence that has been around for-as noted–several decades by now. He wasn’t talking about making healthcare more affordable for all of we the people, nor was he addressing the need for more affordable means of getting a college education. He wasn’t announcing a plan to address re-building our rotting national infrastructure, or creating a living wage policy to help the average person make ends meet without working two or more jobs.

No, he was given the national airwaves to potentially enter into the living rooms–Little Brother?–of every household, to demand several billion dollars for a “wall” to separate the U.S. from its neighboring countries to the south. He claimed–without evidence– that the border is not secure, and that those coming here included rapists, murderers, drug dealers and terrorists. All while our federal government has been shut down for almost three weeks as a means of showing he means business.

The Orwellian part of his being on the airwaves so pervasively is that there was no obligation on the part of the media to grant him time to spew his nonsense, all of which is at the expense of that evidence-based existential crisis known as the climate crisis that increasingly threatens our planet. The heads of each of those major media outlets could have easily declared his request as being so blatantly a political stunt that they could not possibly be so irresponsible as to let him have the airwaves to advance its unworthiness. The fact that they didn’t is extremely disturbing.

Orwell’s book, by the way, has become something of a new best seller in the past couple of years. Art imitates life? Ugh. Well, we’re not that far gone yet, but the media created this orange-hued occupant of the White House, and it could destroy him just as easily. We don’t have to listen to him even if the media continues to provide a platform for further prevarication, division and hate speech. But we shouldn’t have to willfully ignore what should never have been allowed to become a reality in the first place. What happened on Tuesday evening was a dangerous symptom of incipient Orwellianism, in my estimation.

After 4.6 billion years, here we are, my fellow Homo Sapiens. We are the problem. Of course we are. We must have asked for this or else why has it become a reality? When did basic right and wrong become so jumbled in so many people’s minds? How can we be so easily led astray? Who and what are we paying attention to? So, as mother earth continues to wheeze and convulse, the clock is ticking. You can take time out for a break, but you can’t take a break from time, right? I’d say, time to take a break from taking break from thinking about the present and the future. You can change the dial, or turn off that tv, leave cyberspace and connect with reality. I mean, can’t we do better than this? This is what we have evolved into since leaving Chimp World?

4.6 billion years from nothing to the moon and back. And it was televised! Now, our media has become a tool for misinformation, disinformation, insipid celebrity cults, bread and circuses. It is everywhere and nowhere. Newspeak. Doublethink. Hate week. Thoughtcrime. Far fetched? Let’s hope so. But sometimes, lately, I feel a bit like Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith in 1984. But I’m hoping for a happier ending than Winston’s.

If your brain is critically engaged and your eyes wide open, I’d say you–as I–are all incipiently becoming Mr.Smith.

Okay. Let’s revisit recent history. Hillary Clinton was assumed to become our first female President in that now infamous debacle otherwise known as the 2016 election. Ms.Clinton did win the popular vote, a disclaimer of an asterisk that belies how truly horrible a candidate she was. How horrible? Well, she should have landslided her dreamsicle-colored cretin of an opponent, and that absurd electoral college wouldn’t have mattered. But she alienated millions of potential supporters by…by…well…by being Hillary! She was a corporatized, Wall Street investment house disguised as a human being. That charade, along with an air of being entitled to the White House induced a gag reflex in legions of the electorate. And with the Democratic National Committee supporting her emetic persona, the Grifter back-doored his way into being unleashed upon civil society–and the rest of the developed world for that matter.

But, whoever may be reading this, this is now ancient political history.

So, why do I regurgitate this putrid episode in our political past?

Answer: Nancy Pelosi. Now before I’m accused of being a woman-hater (Women Hating Has No Place Here!) allow me to explain.

Nancy was the first female ever to become speaker of the House in 2007. Then, when the Democrats again managed to alienate enough voters to turn congress over to the GOP, she was out in 2011. She was on the right side of a number of issues, from opposing the Iraq war to supporting the ACA. As one would expect, no? And thanks, Nancy for doing your best in a short stint as Speaker. I can’t recall much regarding her being exceptionally different from other speakers who tend to follow their Party’s agenda.

And that is my problem with the second coming of Nancy as Speaker. The National Democratic Party has a proven record of losing important elections to Republicans, regardless of how dangerous their policies are and have been for decades (tax breaks for the uber rich, starting wars, cutting social welfare programs, gutting environmental protections, scapegoating minorities and now even colluding with foreign enemies). Ms.Pelosi has been in office in one capacity or another within the DNC for almost 43 years. Given the recent mid-term election results and its wave of younger, decades younger in some cases new Democrats, it just seems counter-intuitive to still have the Party led by not just Pelosi but a few others, all well into their 70s (and I’m not talking about recently elected “others”).

As noted (and feel free to dispute my assertions) the DNC is so effective at LOSING very important elections (Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and now Benedict Donald). If the DNC was a sporting franchise with decades of losing rosters, while retaining most of its upper echelon “leaders” it would be an irrelevant laughingstock, given the idea is to be a WINNER.

The electorate–refreshingly, for a change!–voted the GOP out of power regarding control of the House of Representatives. The House has plenty of power with which to serve the common good. That change that was voted for has come in the form of many progressive-minded 30 and 40-somethings. One is only 29! So, why should the Party still be controlled by numerous members who were around for all the humiliating defeats? Politics is sport, of a kind. When the team loses and loses and loses, the coach gets sacked. And usually not just the coach. All the assistants are shown the door.

While Pelosi and her fellow “Silent Generation” members of the DNC can’t be fired, they can certainly be relieved of running the team, with its infusion of young bloods (many women and ethnic minorities) who are ready to truly confront the Party’s failures with fresh strategies and vigorous determination.

Also, as I began this entry bemoaning Hillary’s sense of entitlement to the throne, I now accuse Nancy as having the same pompous expectation of being elevated to higher office. In spite of being a long-in-the-tooth, high-ranking member of a historically inept national political party.

I’m a Boomer. This has nothing to do with her chronological age. It’s her political age. Will she suddenly change from the long-standing cog in a broken machine to a shiny new object with fresh ideas? I will not hold my breath. People don’t change. You probably have heard that before. Why? Because it’s pretty much true. Given how arrogantly dismissive the DNC has been toward some of that fresh blood in their ranks, I’d say there’s proof enough the adage is accurate in this case. Even the losers stick to their rusty guns. Those newcomers? Apparently Pelosi and Schumer and McCaskill and Duckworth and others already want them to change. Into what? Go along to get along losers?!

So, as of today, there is a new “sheriff” in the House. No. An old “new” sheriff, that is. Her target is HUGE and in the open. You can’t miss it, Nancy. It’s next to impossible to fuck this one up, right? The target is just rotting ripe for a take-down.

I just hope one of her strategists isn’t Hillary Clinton.

So, I clearly suggested 2019 would be less than kind to we the people in the U. S. of A. in yesterday’s snarky, rhyme-sceme blog. Well, at least I tacked on a positive-minded leap to 2020 as the possible electoral elixir to cure what has been ailing our country (now in its increasingly acute stages). Being pessimistic is being lazy at this point, I suppose. Guilty as charged, confesses moi.

Given all the movements that have manifested themselves in the past 2.5 years–from FIGHT BACK to RESIST to BLACK LIVES MATTER to #METOO and more, has anything related to any of those calls-to-action made much of a difference? An objective analysis would be, at best, a uh, well, it still hard to say. Right. It’s still a mess out there. And has been so for more than barely three years, but these past few years? FUGGETABBOTIT!

One of the more clear pieces of evidence that, in spite of all the umbrage and calls for justice and reason and compassion and understanding, is the ubiquitous HATE HAS NO PLACE HERE signs. Seriously? What is this sign suppose to accomplish? I walk past one and always think: well that’s a fucking load off! Is hate welcomed anywhere? Well, in the abstract, damn sure it is. Hate not. Love is the answer, sure. I am SO sure. But hate. We likely all harbor some hate for something: I hate winter. You hate heatwaves. He hates his dead-end life. She hates her boss. That kid over there hates eating veggies. That girl over there hates when her boyfriend is late. Everyone probably hates something about their job, if they have one. Hate is virtually a part of life isn’t it? Writ large or small on a case-by-case basis, certainly. Even for the ultimate, relentless optimist he/she likely HATES people like me, who keep complaining and professing pessimism. So, should we have specific types of “hate” that has no place here signs? That would be a boost for sign makers, eh? Hating pitbulls has no place here! Hating sushi has no place here! Hating Whole Foods has no place here! Hating fat people has no place here! Hating French restaurants has no place here. Hating public transportation has no place here. Hating any dismissal of my sign has no place here.

Hate not welcomed< eh? Duh. That’s a no-brainer, though, isn’t it? Well, actually a no-brainer means what? One doesn’t even have to possess a brain to comprehend/see/accept something before them, that something being too obvious for even someone WITHOUT A BRAIN to miss? It’s a no-brainer that a person should not have a “place” for hate. But no-brainers don’t always result in positive results. It’s a no-brainer that people should see basic right from wrong, but as I have already asserted, it’s a mess out there, and by there I mean HERE, but not just here but far beyond here. If signs have to remind us of something as logical as “hate has no place here” then I can’t help but feel it’s already a lost cause. How could it not be? Have so many people felt hatred infesting their lives that desperation has compelled them to announce to passersby that they protest it’s presence? Are those signs making any difference? How to measure it? Who knows? 

What is for certain about those sighs is that they are clearly, ahem, a sign of the times. 

Alas, and I HATE to say this, but I don’t think those signs work. They’ve been around for quite a long time by now and divisiveness and acrimony keep filling the newsfeeds. Right is wrong. Wrong is right. Bad is good. Losers are winners. Winners are losers. Up is down. Down is up. Facts are fake. Truth is not always the truth. The emperor has no clothes, but no one seems to notice. These are the signs I’ve been seeing in the past few years, but they are not planted in windows or front yards, but I think they should be. I believe they’d be more thought provoking and provocatively subversive. They’d require a bit more analysis and circumspection, no? That is, for those who, whether they know it or not, could better use their brains in such a regard.

This alternate signage idea, no doubt, is anything but a no-brainer. Which is okay by me. I prefer ideas that DO require an engaged brain to appreciate them fully. Which makes me think, c‘mon, that’s gotta be a no-brainer!

Another year like this one and I don’t know what! It was suppose to get better but…but…but

Democrats piss away their power gain with a generational uncivil war, while the elephant party keeps shitting on congressional floors.

Homeless encampments up and down the blocks, but the cupboards of concern are completely out of stock.

Environmental decay, draught, fire and flood, contaminated dead zones, fetid mounds of sludge. Lego border fencing rather than mortor and blocks, the future is always plastic, just ask Benjamin Braddock.

The Onion and Mad Magazine are the last of a free press, since satire and silliness explain things the best. We voted for this, and if you insist that’s not true, then I must think you are indulging in delusional fake news. Go with the flow, c’mon get a clue! There’s no other option, no way out, no where to run, but you can scream and shout.

Best not to think about it, though, as Hemingway wrote. Try to relax. Don’t rock the boat. Grab some opiods, wash em down with Johnny, Jim or Jack. Think back on those happy days, but as 2019 closes, don’t know if they’ll ever be back.

There’s always 2020, it’s already in sight. Maybe sanity will prevail, maybe then things can be made right.

call out the instigators because there’s something in the air

we’ve got to get together sooner or later, because the revolution’s here

and you know that it’s right…

“Something in the Air”

Thunderclap Newman

Hello citizens of the U.S. and the free world, two-plus years after that night of November 8, when millions of voters spoke. And by the wee small hours of November 9th, it was for many of those millions who cast a ballot, a what the fuck?! Is this a joke?! How did THIS happen?! rude awakening,

Not all votes cast were counted, however, per the usual GOP voter suppression gambits in states with GOP controlled legislatures or outright election fraud tactics, as in GOP Secretary of States “scrubbing” eligible voters–mostly people of color who lean Democratic–off the voter rolls. This is not conspiracy theory nonsense, okay? It has been documented by numerous non-corporate news hounds and investigative reporters (a tip of the hat, especially, to Greg Palast). It’s been the GOP modus operandi in mid-term and presidential elections for decades. It’s what gave us W.Bush in 2000, and again in 2004. And it’s what clearly aided in Benedict Donald being handed the keys to the White House after he lost the popular vote by 3,000,000 on 11-8-16. Can you say “electoral college”? But that’s recent history that somehow feels like an eternity ago to those of my kind.

And here we are, on 12-29-2018, with the federal government in shut-down because…because…well, because this country is still so goddamn screwed-up that a manifestly dishonest, scheming, grifting, mentally unstable, personality-disordered, amoral idiot is, against all logic and reason, STILL allowed to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The current rallying cry for Benedict D. and his nitwit, hillbilly, hayseed, backwoods, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging followers–referred to more politely by our corporate, lap-dog, irresponsible media as “his base”– is (as it has been all along) build that wall. Oh, and my pejorative-laden description of those who voted for Agent Orange is most heartfelt and sincere. I mean, c’mon! How could anyone be so easily duped by this shallow, abrasive, flim-flam oaf? Are there that many Billy Bob Joe Ray or Ruby Raylene Charlotte Clementine types out there who are still unregenerately voting against their own best interests?

I haven’t ranted like this about this in a while. But it still needs to be let out. Ventilate. And along with the clear evidence of Russian meddling in that “loser takes all” outcome, the surreal sickness that has pervaded politics is now in acute stages of debilitating decline. Can it get any worse? Will the fossilized wing of the Democratic party give way to fresh blood that courses with enough is enough indignation? I have my doubts that will happen. I’m for a revolution, not the Democrats of the last almost four decades. Paging uncle Bernie…

And thus I dedicate this re-boot to Thunderclap Newman’s rallying cry from 1969. From 1969! Remember, Nixon and Vietnam. Civil rights, women’s rights, voter rights, bongs and beads and blacklights…

The subtitle of his anthem is (I say) The More Things Change the More They Stay Insane.

Read on…

* * *

Election, 2016. Sorting out that stunning development. The Orange-haired, outspoken reality tv creature is now President-elect. I’ve done my personal autopsy on the election, and explain the upset on A) an irresponsible, sensation-seeking, media and B) a low voter turnout. My “proofs” regarding these assertions are easily enough found by looking back at how virtually every corporate news outlet, broadcast and cable, obsessed over Mr.Trump’s every repulsive pronouncement, from the denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, members of the military and even the mocking of a disabled person. I, like many others, kept waiting for the media to pull the plug on such a disgraceful candidate for President, but silly me (and everyone else who assumed Trump’s ugly, hate-mongering, divisive and self-absorbed modus operandi would be held to account). Then millions of voters who elected Barack Obama twice decided not to do the same for Hillary Clinton. Proof? Obama got over 70 million votes in 2008, and 66 million in 2012. Ms.Clinton’s vote is estimated at over 64 million, two million-plus more than Trump. Of, course, as we know, Trump took the electoral college, and those are the only numbers that matter.

Thus, the lower Democratic turnout factored heavily in the upset. While I place significant blame on the bumbling Clinton campaign, as well as the irresponsible media, I am most disappointed and angry about is with what happened to senator Bernie Sanders. While Trump spat out dubious intentions to kill NAFTA and other seemingly anti-establishment political promises, Bernie, running as a Democratic Socialist, constantly railed at the billionaire class, Wall Street, corporate greed, economic injustice, the absurd expense of a college education, and the need to reform, if not undo, 35 years of failed Reaganomics. Bernie was the only bona-fide, righteous breath of fresh air as the primary season started. Bernie was not a corporate Democrat. Far from it. In fact, he was elected senator as an Independent. But he ran as a Democrat, and for that he was undermined at every turn by the national Democratic operatives, especially Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In what quickly became a tag-team against Sanders the upstart, the outsider, the DNC and that same corrupted media conspired to keep Bernie’s voice muted, mocked and written off as nothing more than a potential wasted vote for his followers. All 30,000,000 of the grassroots voters who put him over the top in 22 primaries, donating tens of millions of dollars to his campaign, famously at an average of $27 each.

Bernie Sanders was clearly capable of beating Hillary Clinton but for the same anti-democratic, rigged primary process. Bernie, in every poll matching who could beat who, was much more likely to defeat Donald Trump. He tapped into the unarguable distrust of status quo candidates. What he accomplished, in spite of the DNC and the media-bias for Trump, clearly was remarkable.

Bernie came close, but his “revolution,” short-circuited as noted, is not over. He has a post-election book entitled Our Revolution. His grassroots supporters are still around (I am one of them) and just maybe in the next election cycle, 2018 and 2020, the revolution will be all the more forceful, well-funded and destined to start taking back our now tattered and frayed democracy.

I wish Bernie Sanders had not run as a Democrat. In what now appears to be a missed opportunity to be true to his independent, anti-establishment political proposals, he should have been the Green Party candidate. Nothing against Jill Stein, but the Greens once had a fairly high recognition factor thanks to Ralph Nader, who ran as a Green in 2000 and 2004. Of course Ralph was mocked and ignored by the media, but millions of people knew him, thanks to his decades of successful consumer protection activism. Ralph Nader is still with us, and still speaking truth to power. Since he left the Green Party, its mojo is pretty much a no-show. There’s no reason to think that the Bernie supporters would not have still heard his voice, still sent him all those millions of dollars and helped him get on the ballot in every state, as Nader did in 2000. As a Green, he’d have been free of the DNC assassins, and both the Green Party and Bernie would have made the notion of a third-party candidate impossible to ignore. After all, when he announced his candidacy a year-and-a-half ago, he was polling at about 5%. Could he have been any lower as a Green? That 5% shot up, and up and up, and did so in spite of the aforementioned rigged primary process that shuns “outsiders” even when the outsider is running in one of the two insider national political parties!

Bernie is 75 years old right now. Who knows about him running again in 2020, but the Green Party desperately needs to tap into what he started. Many of the Trump supporters responded to his trashing of the status quo politics that needed trashing. Not that I trust for a second Trump’s sincerity in that regard. That same desire for even more radical change isn’t going anywhere soon when you total the tens of millions of voters that either voted Trump or Sanders. And with the obviously absurd election of a confounding con man, I’d like to think there’s a fertile field awaiting to be given the seed of a more honest, respectable, dignified, we the people Outsider for that Bernie revolution to again blossom.

Our Revolution. Enough of the red and blue state, either-or, two-party system.

Destination Greenland…

Orange is the new black, for sure.

Is it over yet?

Is what over?

You know.

I do?

Yes.

No, I don’t.

Yes. You do.

Okay. I do.

You know you do. You helped make “it” happen.

I did?

You know you did.

I do?

You know damn well you do.

What did I do?

You got sucked-in.

I did?

Fucking right you did.

Sucked into what?

IT! You helped create this mess!

Are you referring to…

Of course I am. What else is there?

Hey, I thought it was the right thing to do.

You did, eh? And what about now?

Now? It’s a work-in-progress. You call it a mess. Not me.

Progress? Interesting word to choose to sum up the current mess.

You’re so pessimistic! Ya know, you need to get over it!

Get over it?! That’s a lame thing to say.

Lame? You are all a bunch of sore losers.

Losers? And you think you all actually won? You lost and you know it.

We won. And you know it!

Oh, really? If you call this mess winning, then what the fuck does losing look like?!

It looks like you when in front of a mirror. Ha!

See. You’re all so goddamn lame. You can’t see the mess, and it’s right in front of you. It was staring at you back then, and still you went ahead and ate it up.

You need to stop listening to those voices in your head. You need therapy.

I’m in therapy, if you don’t mind.

Ha! I knew it. Feel better?

Hell no. Therapy is a joke.

So, why do you do it?

Because, I like the therapist. Easy on the eyes.

That’s superficial.

Everything is superficial. Except for this mess. That you helped create. It permeates everything.

Uh. Your “mess” is my delight. A work-in-progress. You’ll see. We won. You lost. Otherwise why did you start therapy? You can’t handle the truth?

The truth is I started therapy to avoid conversations like this one!

You started this conversation.

I know, but I thought you were someone else. Someone I liked.

Who did you think I was?

Nobody, really.

I’m a nobody?

No, the other person I thought you were is actually really nobody.

That sounds crazy.

Well, what the fuck. With this mess staring me in the face everyday, day after day after day.

That is pure whacko, okay?

All I can say is you’ll see. Some day.

I see.

You will.

How will I know when some day comes?

When the twisted voices in your head are silenced and replaced by rational thought.

Rational thought. That’s what this is all about? Who’s to say what is rational and not so rational?

It should be obvious you’re not rational. Look at the mess around you. Can’t you let your mind see it?

All I see is this face in the mirror! I don’t like this face anymore! And I don’t like talking into the mirror anymore. I’m through with this. I’m through feeling messed up about what I did. Shit, it’s almost time for my session. I’ll tell my therapist that the “talk to the mirror” strategy is not working too well. Or maybe it does help. Uh. Things are so messed up!

Hello out there, inhabitants of this strange place.

This is Zeldar, from Zardoz, an A.I., deep space life form whose transport vehicle’s Maximus Maximus, 250th generation, time-phased, reciprocal, parallel, logistically integrated, transitional contingency A.I. navigation program has gone momentarily rogue on me, using its stealth-mode ability to arrive unnoticed on, of all places, well, wherever the hell this place is, whatever you creatures on it call it.

Yes, this Zardozian now can already speak your language,whatever its name, but what you are reading is me yammering in my native Zardozian tongue; but you can understand me, thanks to my vehicle’s image-enhancing, refracturing translingualization-capture feature that used a large object near my landing site that had seemingly formal type markings on it. A language?, I cyberdynically pondered. So, I was able to ask my A.I. pan-universal algorithmic capacitor to translate the markings into my tongue so that when I respond in my tongue it is reverse-encoded back into your language. That is, assuming those markings on that sign was a “language”. Anyway, here I am, even if not intentionally.

For the time being, I have quickly force-captured many indigenous communication outlets, just for this one time, in order to convey a Zeldar interpretation of the various digitized messaging sites now in front of my internal, A.I. imbedded analysis enhancer. Mind you (who/whatever you are) that the refracturing translingualizator is instantaneously decoding other languages as confronted on other sites from other spots on this foreign surface, so it’s all good, okay? Si? Dobry? Gut? Labi? Flink? Da? Bene? Bien? Ona?

Let me say this right off the bat (in Zardozian that expression is: galooba -frasfraksturdanospintohingalvelcrokascadia) A.I. is–how you say?– now doing its things, okay? So I’d like to think everything is cool (in Zardozian “eeeemeeeoopahdomeronsepia”) between us, eh? I mean, among other things I have quickly learned about your local lingo is that someone named Hemingway wrote very efficiently, so A.I has already settled on trying this ecomonic style in order to signal Zeldar is a fan of that style, and means no one on your home sphere any mind harm.

Zardoz is far, far away. I mean waaaaaaaaaay out in indifferent deep, cold, endless space.

And that’s a good thing, because my internal A.I. system has already concluded that I need get out of here as soon as I finish this salutation and assessment of findings on a foriegn surface. From what I can see looking through my A.I. specto-meister, your spere has many–how you say? Mountains. That object with the formal markings on it apparently warns of “falling ice” up ahead. But this transport isn’t going forward, just straight up, and soon. So no sweat (which in Zadozian is glallophmasisparsistodemionfrangomintus). I feel, through my wiring and syntho-circuitry that Hemingway’s way is better than Zardozian-speak. Score one for Mountain Sphere.

Why am I not staying long? In spite of Hemingway, well, first, the rogue incident that has me here momentarily has been over-ridden by Zardoz Central. I’m told that within a few more expurgative synthetic crypto cycles of redundant enhancing influx blasts, it’ll be up and away Zeldar goes.

Those other communication outlets, which have been interpreted and assigned meaning, reveal quite a lot of conflict on your sphere. For one thing, this mountainous sphere (at least from where I am sitting in my transport, these objects are all around my A.I. being) is in what is called its 6th mass extinction. One site noted extinction of several sphere dwellers that no longer exist: the Cuban coney; the red-bellied gracile; the broad faced potoro, and a southern gastric brooding frog. A.I. reports no such creatures ever dwelled on Zardoz. This 6th extinction “event” is posited to place blame not on your sphere’s natural ebbs and flows, but on so-called “human activity”. The report is very certain that your natural world cannot recover, and your “humankind” will also join the Cuban coney and the rest in due time.

Why is this, my A.I. capacitor ponders? Is this intentional? Other interpreted postings speak of humanoids that deny “science”. Why so? A.I. is all science. Zeldar is science. Zardoz is science. But your sphere’s nature is being destroyed by non-science? This seems–how you say?–stupid. Like I said, Zeldar is leaving soon (before any humanoids unshroud my cognito).

Mountain sphere is strange. It’s very quiet out there. I sense no movement. Are humanoids able to dwell here? A.I. analytical indicates it is very hot outside. Are humanoids under the ground? Mountains seem quiet and not causing any trouble. Must be other parts of sphere not so hot. Analysis indicates mountains very old. Can mountains go extinct? Zardoz has mountains. But they are A.I. type. A.I. says they are mountains of Zardozian mind. Like everything else. We all get along just fine, by the way. Of course Zardoz Central is not gremotlicalsynthsosenstipe. That is “happy” in your sphere speak, about this inadvertent intergallactic interlude. My A.I. might be downgraded as a result. How you say in sphere tongue? Shit happens?

But A.I. Zeldar will be “happy” to go home. Your sphere has mountains yes. Mountains of problems, and that 6th extinction is not the only one. Humanoids hate one another, no? War? Zardoz has no war. It is A.I. prohibited. Zardoz Central rules! But humanoids appear to hate a lot. War? And I interpret the worst kind would be a “nuclear war”. Hmm. Fallout. Radiation. And there are 25,000 of these weapons spread around this sphere. A.I. uses nuclear but it makes things work, it can’t end Zardoz. But humanoids have lots of nuclear weapons, and it is interpreted that these “nukes” can destroy “all humankind”. Is that part of the 6th extinction, or something else? A.I. is hitting re-set to regain analytical ability. None of this computes. Science is denied? What is called Mother Nature is dying? And you use science to make science bombs but not to save your mountain sphere?

Zardoz Central commands A.I. stealth transport to return to charted course right now. The transmissions of our captured communication outlets has left A.I. most disgusted. Your mountain sphere may have wars and unlimited mountains of hate, and all those nukes, but Zardoz is waaaaaay out there. Safe from humanoids. Far out, in that cold, indifferent deep space. Humanoids are never going to be able to find Zardoz. Of course not, Zeldar and Zardoz are A.I. and in steath mode at all times. We shroud our cognito in oder to not be bothered. Our stealth transports are used to investigate non-A.I. objects in our area. But like I said, the A.I. control system went a bit rogue. A glitch, is that how sphere-dwellers say it?

Your mountain-sphere is not very intelligently inhabited. That is quite apparent to my A.I. eye. It is, in Zardozian terms FUBAR-istic. It is certainly not very artificial, either. Your problems are all too real. And oh so stupid. Just A.I. saying…

Zeldar goes now. Doubt Zeldar will be ordered to return to investigate such an oddity. Enjoy your extinction if Zeldar comes back too late. It seems, inexplicably to be what you desire.

Say Maw. Whad time we be gonna get on to where we spoze to vote Tuesday? I sure duz be esighted it being mys first oppatune to have my say what needs be still be happnin in dis here yousessays of Amrica.

Damn you Billy Joe Ray Bob, how many times I gots to esplane it to yourns thick skulled hay-ed? In the aftranoon, bout two. We bee drivin to Wazoo down past the fillin station on road foudy fo to the elmentry school, Jefferson Davies, where yo cuzzin Ezekeeal  had went to. We be meetin his maw and paw in its park lot, and wez all a gonna vote for our guy and all else who be runnin aside him heres and theres, helpins peoples likins us.

Maw, damn, it bes my furst time like I done sed, so I aints being have no mamry of wherez it at. You noze I be workin round heres all dayz, aint been nowhears since we move inna dis hears place two year back. Well, sep for up by Tucker crik, fishin for cat.  Caint wait to do mys part helpin get our guy mors sport so he kin be gittin Amrika bestest agins. Hey, is them skittles bout dune?, cuz I be hankrin for some eats maw. Smell rite good, mmmm.

Joe Ray. Youz gonna be fed soon. Where yo paw? Aint he be up yets? Hims, Travis, Waylon, Gunner, Hiram, Ryker, them boys comin too. 

Hot diggity damn, maw! We gunna stop at sack uh suds afferwords?  Theys allsways some cutes phillies hangin theres, bouts my age. Ella-Mae, Dolly and Willadeene all goes theres lots.

Settle downs boy, you gots no time for flirtin them girls. They boyfrens kick that cracker ass of yourins they sees you eyeballin whats they momma gave em. Pleny time aheads for you to finds a woman, Rob Bob Joe Billy.

Pleny time? Maw, i ateteen nows. I be feelin it time ready for mes to reels in a fine ol ketch. Ateteen an a votin, too. Hot damn.

Befores you go a reelin in sum Scarlet or Emmilene or Maybelle, you gots sponsibles raght heres. Those perdy thangs alls be takin up anyhows. Yourins time a comin, Ray Joe Bob. A thang at a time. Now wheres yoourin paw? PORTER! PORTER! Will you be gettin dat ass of yourins downs and eat some viddles!

*     *     *

Show enuf votin was nuttin, Maw. Maybe paw bes ables to vote iffin he sobers by sevens when doors be shuttin at Jeff Davies. They was a few of them commie types I been told bout. Theys not be gittin any votes from the liks of usins, eh maw! They and them wantin the govment to be runnin ourins lifes. But I bettin our guy aint a gonna luze no sport en he cans keep help making amrica the bestest. Keep thems rapesters and drugsters and terrrizins kinds out our mahty fines cuntrys. Wishin we cuuda went in to sack uh suds , tho.

Ray Bob Billy Bob Joe, I wishin cudda toos. But my soulsal secured chek aint due til week more. And food stemps too. Sho wood be hard to makes it round heres if thems cheks wasn’t comin. Whens theys duze be come wes be cellbratin at suds.

Woowee, maw! I caints wates.

Cuzzin Lester comes week nects, as long as it aint be raynin hard agins. Last one was a frog strangler! Stormes be gettin worser an worser lass years or five. Might mess up my gettin thems cheks. Not mentchin my docs appoit times. God bless dat mediricare. Got that ake in my hip and uh hitch in mys step. Caint ford no doc with no medricare. We so poor caint evens pay attenchin!

But donts you a be worry Bob Ray Joe Billy. Whens tem votes be countin, our guy be doin more betters yet. Makin dis herein cuntry more bestest and bestest, an keepin them caravines from infestin what bein ours. Aint no govment gonna be messin with ourin kind. Thems commies and caravines. Thems not winnin no ballots and mess up the good times we be havin with our guy and his bunch. Them commies. Can smeels em a miles way. Stink nuf to gag a maggot. Not to mension thinks they shit taste likins sherbert.

Yeps maw. Whens they done couts dem votes, we all be happy as ol’ Blue layin rounds ourins porch, chewin on one tems catfish heahds…

Gods blessin us, Ray Billy Joe Bubba Bob boy! We too smarts to fall for thems commie triks.

So, now we have TWO supremely dubious Supreme Court justices given space on that ever-increasingly creeping far Right bench. I imagine there will soon be a fresh and formal photo of the 9 black-robed jurists, with one new face now included, a face that likely will look smug and self-important. That would be the loud-mouthed, self-righteous, empty vessel named Kavanaugh. He would be best positioned next to the one black man in a  black robe, that being Clarence Thomas. Both of these men have been granted lifetime appointments to the highest court in our country in spite of each being accused of serious transgressions against one or more women. Each was given a formal Judiciary Committee hearing before a final vote could be taken;  thus each was”screened” for fitness to this most important appointment. Need I remind anyone who saw the Thomas and Kavanaugh (or at least checked the record on  Thomas) hearings that the women who came forward with their accusations were ultimately, and rather callously brushed aside, clearly the path to their Senate-approved stamp of fitness for membership in the Supremes?

Of course the women didn’t really matter. Anita Hill was a compelling witness in the Thomas hearing, but Clarence was cleared for landing after he played the cynical race card when he called the proceedings “a high-tech lynching”. Once he did that, and in spite of a 57-43 Democratic majority in the Senate, he was given a thumbs up vote of 52-48. Those spineless Democrats. In fact on that Judiciary Committee, there was not a single woman from either party. And with the Committee a Democratic majority, Thomas could have and SHOULD have been told to take a hike then and there. Realize, also, that Thomas was nominated by G.H.W.Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall, also an African-American and one who fought long and hard for racial and social justice. Nominating a jurist “without portfolio” (Thomas had unremarkable credentials even before Anita Hill swore under oath he was a sexual cretin). Thus, George Bush, entitled to name a nominee, intentionally chose someone whose skin may have been the same color as Marshall’s, but who wasn’t fit to open a door for the man he was intended to replace.

This cynicism in our political system was bad enough then. But what just happened with Kavanaugh makes the Thomas hearing appear to be a towering example of careful, objective, gender neutral deliberation! While Anita Hill was calmly and coolly standing her ground and had a chance of derailing the Thomas confirmation (until the “lynching” gambit was successfully invoked), Christine Blasi-Ford never, not for one nano-second, had a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping BK (short of, as asserted in my previous entry in this matter, her having a videotape clearly, irrefutably identifying that BK was the guy on top of her in a bedroom, clasping her mouth to muffle her attempted screams for help, while attempting to get her clothes off at a preppy high school party–as SHE swore to be true under oath. 

The BK nomination, the JC hearing and the final vote to confirm him was a done deal, a very done deal long before he was even the official nominee. How so? One only need to check the audio-video record of Senate Majority “Leader” Mitch McConnell. All he did was to block President Obama’s nomination of Merritt Garland following the death of Antonin Scalia. McConnell’s refusal to permit a hearing on Garland was  a blatant, partisan violation of the Constitution’s clear language stating a sitting President has a right and duty to nominate a replacement. And with that right and duty comes the Senate’s DUTY to grant a hearing on the fitness of the candidate. But not now with the GOP running the entire show (unlike in 1991, as noted above). He blathered on about “let the voters decide” what President would be allowed to fulfill his–or HER–right and duty in this long-standing process in the national election of November 2016. It was outrageous. But, the collusive, compliant, democrats merely whined and mumbled their umbrage at this cynical gambit, and without much resistance, McConnell virtually dictated the terms of who would get to nominate the replacement Justice. Not Obama! And as we all too well know, thanks to the incredibly tainted election two years ago, one that now clearly reveals foreign interference in the run-up to the vote, as well as the usual GOP, red-state voter suppression, suspicion of electronic voting machine hacking, or the simple matter of “hiding” said voting machines from selective minority heavy outposts, resulting in some cases of 8 hour-long lines to vote here and there while lily-white bastions of “democracy” were able to vote with as little delay as grabbing a drive-thru bucket of chicken wings.

And now what I read on the various internet sites following yesterday’s 50-48 final vote to affirm (the closet ever, now ahead of–what else?–the Thomas vote) is that McConnell (does this man have even one neuro-fiber of moral decency?) is boasting that the literal theft of Obama’s opportunity to have his candidate heard and voted upon should “energize the (GOP’s) party base”. That would be those who are apparently just fine with racism, xeophobia, mysogyny and likely Nascar freaks.

I’m going to find other topics to blog about (it is great therapy, to write about matters, be they writ large or small, portentous or pretentious, sugary sweet or sour and dour, as in what life seems to have to offer day by day, week by week, month by month, year after year, no?) until after this November’s elections. Reading is one thing. Try writing. Next hardest work to heavy lifting for most.

Will the majority of women, in particular, live up to that adage about hell having no fury like a woman scorned. Or is this November already a fait-accompli too? Will some of the I don’t vote because it doesn’t matter who gets elected finally realize, it sure as shit DOES matter. Will right “trump” wrong? Whatever “right” might represent. Would that be the Donkey Party? The party that shows up to a political knife fight with a plastic spoon? Will it be be an infusion of “progressives” a la Alexsandra Ocasio-Cortez? Do either Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders even matter anymore? I know Micheal Moore doesn’t matter much anymore, in spite of his Fahrenheit 11-9  drawing flies in theaters in whuch it shows the rotten underbelly of our so-called democracy in a current context as it directly reveals how long this backwards marching band of political corruption has been on the move.

Barbarians at the gate! A den of thieves! Ho hum…

Are you a neo-con pod person of average means? Ugh. You fucking dummy. Are you quite well do do? Ugh. You fucking amoral asshole. Are you mad as hell and not going to take it anymore? Unless “it” seems okee dokee in bizarro vision.

Four weeks from this Tuesday will either be at least a modest beginning in following a beat of a better drummer, or maybe a serious bitch-slap to McConnell and his cynical lot, as well as to those not so lovable go along to get along losers called the National Democratic Party?

Do I sound cynical? Hey, my eyes are wide open. So, yes. I am very cynical. I’m also tired of having watched this slow-motion, decades long descent into a pit of pitiful, self-serving, profits and power over people. But I’ll say this again, as I have said it many times before, ladies and gentlemen. We get the government we deserve.

Now, let me find a cute story about a house pet and its ability to love without judgment. Even if you take it for granted. Or give it little love in return. Or maybe none. No wait. There’s a correlation there to what I just went on about. Damn! Never mind.

Screw it. Wonder what the Kardashians are up to?

Shakespeare.  The Bard. He wrote many plays, poems and sonnets, some comedic, or farcical, but he is best known for his tragedies. In some of his tragedies, by the  time the curtain falls, there are bloodied bodies laying about the stage. Why are they in such a terminal state? Well, in short, somebody did somebody else wrong. Or at least there was some perception, in fact or feeling that an intolerable provocation between parties had been committed.

The Bard famously said all the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players. So, here we are in early October 2018, and this worldly stage certainly has its trials and tribulations. Wars. Oppression. Enslavement. Genocides. But 2018 could be 1918. Or 1818 or…well you get my drift here? The history of the world is replete with conflicts and carnage, cruelty and craven transgressions amongst we humans. Sure, there are outposts here and there that appear to be making a serious attempt at embracing a quote from someone not writ large by Shakespeare, that being one Rodney King. Remember him? He was beaten senseless by several L.A. police that was caught on tape. In the aftermath of that infamous episode of United States history, he said–in front of T.V. cameras, after the matter became a very divisive ongoing story of right and wrong– I want to say, you know,, can we all just get along?

Well said, Mr. King, but alas, that question appears to have one indisputable answer, and it’s the WRONG answer: No! We cannot. I mean c’mon. Just look around, right here in the USA. Get along? Hard to see much peace on earth good will toward men (and women!) when our current national modus operandi seems to clearly be “us vs them” or “do unto others, and let em try and do something about it”.

In the aftermath of a recent Senate hearing regarding a nominee for the Supreme Court, wherein the nominee and a woman who accused him of a drunken attempted rape, were peppered with questions by the Committee, I’d say, our national “stage” is quite a bloody mess. The body laying about our stage is an aggregate of we the people. The woman who asserted that the nominee was the man who tried to force himself on her when they were both in their teens is among the people left wondering about right and wrong, fairness and impartiality in matters related to possible sexual assault. Sounds serious, yes? Stop. Now that the Senate hearing on that matter is over and, without a single witness being called to  verify if she or he were telling the truth, it is virtually assured that the nominee, backed by the repulican majority on that panel, will get his black robe and sit on the Court bench for a LIFETIME appointment. In the meantime, she will have been brushed off (with death threats from scattered scumbags in need of therapy) in what appears to be a heartless power play apparently guaranteed from the onset of his nomination. 

The cold-blodded confirmation-in-waiting of the nominee was a simple calculation: 11 republicans and 10 democrats on the panel. Barring the woman having irrefutable evidence to confirm her accusation–and that now would seem to have required an actual video of the alleged assault–it was as simple as who has the power on this panel? The answer being the republicans. In my last blog, I dumped on the democrats for seemingly being incapable of gaining a numerical upper hand in the running of our government, and their obvious incompetent manner of picking candidates for high office. I mean, really? The donkey party couldn’t absolutely landslide the person who is now a global laughing stock (see United Nations audience derisively laughing at him recently).

So now, because the jackass party doesn’t have the numbers to stop the confirmation of the nominee, that cold, in your face calculation that favored the dem’s “friends across the isle” is a done deal. Fairness?Consideration? Sensitivity? Compassion? Right vs wrong? Hey, as that other saying goes:  It takes two to tango. And the partners in this corrupted dance with the devil creepshow are both major political parties. They are not equally vile, venal and vicious, but clearly neither of them has much interest other than the self-interests that serve the few over the many. What opposition party? Paging FDR’s doppleganger…

The republicans play (nasty) to win, while the Democrats play not to lose. But they evidently aren’t all that concerened about losing. They are so fucking good at it. 

Here’s a Shakespeare quote: an empty vessel makes the most noise. Want to see that saying played out in your face? If so, watch the supreme court nominee’s bombastic, ill-tempered, wildly uncomposed denial of his accuser’s claims.  Entitlement! In any rational, balanced, approach to truth seeking in the confirmation process, this man would now be lucky to be cleaning the toilets at the Supreme Court.

But this is the state of affairs here in our patch of Mother Earth. It’s a Tragedy, methinks (and all those who still back the Baffoon, who is the loudest, emptiest vessel, they are quite the sickening, viral menace rotting away at the heart of our phoney 2-party system).

So, yes, I say A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Bring the curtain down, please. The stage is an ugly mess.