Jharrin4's Blog

The dog days of summer are upon us. Here in the northern hemisphere July has some really hot days. Yesterday (July 9) Phoenix set a record when it hit 118 degrees (but it’s a dry heat). Ol’ sol still climbs way up in the sky and its rays are intense. So, yesterday was indeed a “dog day” of summer for that desert city. Lots of daylight. Plenty of heat.

However! Yesterday was not a long as usual, according to scientists who measure the particulars of Mother Earth spinning on its axis as it orbits along. While the Phoenix area set that heat record, it did so on a day that was not as long as usual. Really.

What’s this, you ask? According to those scientists keeping close watch on our spinning sphere, yesterday it spun around faster than it usually does to complete its standard 24 hour go-around. Seriously.

Did you feel it? It what?, you now ask. Earth spun around yesterday with a little more mojo, clocking its quotidian go-around by 1.3 to 1.6 milliseconds faster than the usual 24 hours. That may not sound like much but it was the shortest day since such modern scientific measuring began. I must admit there were a few moments yesterday when my equilibrium faltered enough to bump against a wall on the way to rid myself of the waste product left over after digestion does its thing (otherwise known as using The Euphemism).

Or was it just a not so infrequent bit of dizziness brought on by having been around for about 27,000 24 hour days, or that many spins of the axis of the planet below my feet? But I digress…

The scientists also have reported that yesterday wasn’t a one-off. Mark your calendars, boys and girls, because on July 22nd and August 5, the daily rotation of this planet will again be shorter by that 1.3-1.6 millisecond measure. How do they postulate these future faster-than-ever spins? It has to do with the moon. “Tidal bulges”. “Gravitational interaction”. Look it up. Or don’t. But you now know what is coming and when. It’s not fake news, it’s science. Go with it.

Therefore, whatever you may have planned for July 22 or August 5 of this year, keep in mind it will be a shorter than usual day. A millisecond here, a millisecond there. It adds up. So maybe make sure that you take care of some business you’ve been putting off for far too long on each of those upcoming “shorties”. You know, some odious matter that becomes drudgery. But you’ll finally get rid of what you have been stalling on for far too long, knowing those two upcoming days will be done before you can say tidal bulge, baby.

You’re welcome.

Here in the USA, for many of us, we wake up everyday and assume more feces has been flung at   the fan. Choas, confusion. Fear and loathing. Who voted for his? Well, we know who did but still…why? As the guy who considers the default setting for the human race to be selfish, greedy and too often deadly in order to secure power over one another, I want to offer a possibly plausible explanation for our behavior.

In the immortal words of Tony Montana, otherwise know as Scarface, first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman. That “woman” can be any other object of desire, but I do believe that money is always the catalyst that creates that power. Money–also known variously as cash, coin, bucks, dough, moolah, chips, change, loot, shekels, green, lucre, pelf, wampum, tender, bread, scratch, cabbage, capital–makes the world go round.

That monetary momentum our our spinning sphere started around 3,000 B.C. in Mesopotamia, in the form of clay tablets. In the 7th century  the first standardized coins were minted. Paper money came along in the 8th century, in China. In the 17th century modern banking emerged. Hey, what’s in your wallet?

That poop that is propelled toward the fan blades on a daily–dispiriting–basis has to do with money. It’s a distraction. Pay no attention to man behind that curtain. Look, over there. squirrel! This has been the modus operandi for close to five months now. Our current administration just passed a budget bill that blatantly takes food off some people’s tables, or takes their federal healthcare programs away. Among other cruel parts of the legislation. It literally will kill people. Never mind, as one of the administration’s flunkies recently stated “Well, we’re all going to die.” in response to accusations of the budget bill’s taking away of life-saving programs. Cold, dispassionate, and spewed out of her sewer mouth in defense of the sinister exploitation of the working class while billiionaires get an uneeded bundle of even more MONEY.

Which leads to…

I recently re-watched a scene from a 1976 film named Network. The narrative is a raging satire about the power of the media, and its influence on its viewers/consumers. It focuses on a character named Howard Beale, a network news anchor. Howard, nearing the end of his career at the fictional network, decides to use his last broadcast to denounce what he sees1 as the packaged bullshit being fed to his audience. At first, the network brass wants him fired. Until, that is, they realize his rant garnered millions of additional viewers. Those eyeballs equate to ratings. Ratings eqate to how much a network can charge an advertiser to run an ad. As a result, the network cynically exploits Beal’s popularity. That is, until Howard gets wind of a huge business deal having to do with a Saudi Arabian conglomerate buying the network for which Beal works. It’s not a hostile takeover but a smelly, wink-wink, nod-nod arrangement, as Beale sees it. His ranting to his huge and fawning audience result in the deal being quashed. A lot of money coming our way was thus made to remain in Saudi Arabia. Calling out bullshit. Before it hits the fan, huh?

In the scene I allude to, the boss of the network has Beale delivered to his office. The boss wants to explain why what Beale accomplished was so very wrong from the network’s (and international, monetary wheeling and dealings) point-of-view.

Here is the bulk of that scene, transcribed, which shows Beale at one end of a very long , empty, conference table and the network boss standing at the other end:

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale! You think you have merely stopped a business deal but that is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of our country and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow tidal gravity; it is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks of nations and peoples. There re no nations. There no peoples. There are no Russians or Arabs, there are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting, multivariant, multinational dominion of dollars! Petro dollars, electric dollars, reichmarks, rims, rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency, which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and sub-atomic and galactic structure of things today!

That screed was written 50 years ago (by the brilliant Paddy Chayefsky). And everyting that The Boss said to Beale back then could easily apply to what is going on in that geo-political monetary system of systems right now.  The blantant differnce is that the worship of money today is not just a matter of a quid-pro-quo, “tidal ebb and flow”. Today it is fully dreanged in its calculus of avarice, not aimed at any kind of “balance” but an absolute winner takes all mentality regardless of any collateral damage incurred in its brutally applied calculus.

Paddy Chayefsky is no longer with us to satirize our sickening descent into authoritarianism and rule by the billionaire class. What is still with us, however, is the possibility of a Howard Beale avatar who can arouse the exploited masses in need of a voice for coalescing their disppointment and siapproval as did Howard: I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!

Are you mad enough yet?

Standing by and seeing our urgent problems but not acting on it is being complicit with whatever you are witnessing that is clearly wrong. Have you made your disappointment and disapproval known? Called your local, state and national representatives? If so, have you heard back? Have you donated money? Did that make a difference?

I’m guessing not. Those reps are receptacles of desires to make the world a better place. That donated money leaves your account in hope of it helping bring about that better world. Good on you! Sit back and wait for better days…

However, at this point keep in mind that you might feel you are taking positive action, but think again. Are you recycling? That’s a feel good, eh? Except 90% of that what goes in that recycle bin ends up in a landfill anyway. Maybe more than 90% Donating money? It left your account, but how is it actually used? Maybe it just pays for a flunky to answer your phone call expressing your being fed-up. Or it is used to buy pizzas for that rep’s staff? You can’t trace that money’s final destination, anymore than the recycle bin’s bounty. Do you donate “gently used clothes”? As with bottles, cans and plastic and paper, the vast majority of those sartorial donations will eventually go on to reside in a landfill. There are documentaries (find them and check out their sources, of course) that reveal these modern-life realities.

Oh, and did I mention plastics up there? By now you may have heard that the oceans are a subterranean junk yard with plastic everywhere. Many fish species have dangerous levels of plastic in them. But avoiding fish won’t help. Find the documentary about micro-plastics being literally in every bit of any food we eat. Or what we imbibe. We all have plastic in our bodies. It is currently literally impossible not to ingest micro-plastics.

However, one possible comforting reality about how your efforts to make the world a better place while countless of your fellow humans, over a century or two, have made it pretty messed up, is that those who ignore your call, waste your well-intended monitary gift, and who may aid and abet the polluting corporations, they are all going down with this now clearly sinking ship. We all have an experation date. You know, this too shall pass. I, personally, would enjoy reading obituaries of any number of people who are making life miserable for those who are wanting to make things better.

Well, of course I am being very darkly ironic. I might still live to know some of those who are complicit will be held to account. But I doubt that. I’m an unrelenting realist. And cursed with critical thinking skills, and thus the ability to recognize a blatant lie from an inference, from a stone-cold fact.

Be one an angel or a demon, we are all complicit in our sad state of current affairs. Of course we are. We are humans. Humans have proven to be a bloody, belligerent species inclined to ultimamtely self-destruct. You may be trying to do the right thing, but we are all guilty by association. Seriously, what other species is so speciously deadly?

I am self-aware of my implicit duplicity in this matter. It’s a raw deal to be born human when your species is trying to kill you for the most innoble reasons. I have personally tried many times to locate the office where I–or anyone–can resign from the human race, but it is nowhere to be found.

Alas.

You’ve heard the joke: someone says memory is the second thing to go. The person on the receiving end of that statement responds with “what’s the first thing?” . Then the response to that response is “Hmm. I can’t remember”.

Losing one’s memory is no joking matter, of course. Losing one’s sense of humor is also no joking matter. Lose that, and you have a major deficiency as far as coping goes. We all have to cope now and then. Without a sense of humor, you have a serious deficiency. You are left with nothing but seriousness. So, try to see the humor in our human folly. The folly is always there to be seen or heard.

Not that all folly is funny. Some of it is quite disconcerting. Possibly frightening. But the casual and fleeting good times provide a sort of equilibrium between the peaks and valleys. with the sedating, hypnotic and altogether forgettable middle being the flat roads of most days, full of immensely forgettable moments.

Allow me to utilize a sporting metaphor: for certain there will be curve balls, change-ups and heaters thrown at us. At times even some nasty chin music. Brushed back. Whoa! That was close! Other times you get beaned. The noodle gets knocked on hard. All at once that smack to the brain bucket is something one would rather forget about, but maybe it was too much of a whack and that bad memory is determined to hang around and around.  Time, of course, will eventually make it forgotten, but that loss is usually many, many decades down that flat road portion of life, with little of interest on either side of it. Which is why the better and badder stuff have more room to occupy in your head.

We hope to keep our mental and physical health fit as long as possible. And that valuable sense of humor. Which, in Monde 2025, can be much the challenge. Lots of cringe-worthy situations out there. Coping mechanisms needed! Read a book that transports you. Listen to music that does the same, with sound waves soothing the psyche. Or other indulgences in the creative world of art. Or indulgence with nature. That walk in the woods. Stroll the shoreline. Stop and smell those roses. Or indulge nature in laid back, very chill recreational ways, now very less edgy a business with pot dispensaries formalizing the once much more hush hush and carefully executed experience of just wanting to score that nickel bag. And THC dispensaries are getting larger in number. But they’ll never outnumber liquor stores. Well, never say never?

We are in a moment in which an approach-avoidance of the daily “news” is probably making for a brisk business in the world of shrinks. You know, wig-tappers. Right. This condition is on a continuum that includes the bad news junkies causing self-inflicted gaper’s block as their brain gradually self-destructs and control of the wheel is lost, or a fastidious and rigid resolve to not look at it anymore, The memory bank may currently need some deleting of one of the most forgettable and regrettable moments in human history. Ugh. But how? Everyday there is more gunk. Until there is a crummy waking landscape full of gunk scattered in otherwise littered empty lots.Who’s going to clean up this mess?!

Depending on one’s age, there’s not even the ability to understand reality (that being very young or very old). Until then, reality has plenty of other space to park itself in the middle ground as we grow up, and older and ever older.

Oh bloody damn hell! Keep the faith and pass the gravy. Or the bottle or that joint or whatever gets you through the night. Time, if nothing else, will see this madness rendered non-existent. This too shall pass. The author’s name of that phrase escapes me. Memory, you know? The second thing to go.

Today is June 6, 2025. Eighty-one years ago on this date, 160,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of northern France. Thousands of ships and aircraft were involved in the operation. Known as D-Day, it represents the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. This massive military operation’s objective was to push into the interior of the country and begin liberating Western Europe from Nazi occupation. The invasion was ultimately a success and a crucial turning point in WWII.

Eight decades later, on this June day, there is another amphibious operation that seeks to push back on another country’s siege of a foreign territory: the Gaza Strip. It does not involve thousands of vessels and tens of thousands of troops. It is a single sailboat, named Madleen. It has twelve people on board. Its objective is not to engage in battle with the country that has been relentlessly attacking the civilian population in Gaza for the past 20 months. The Madleen is not carrying weapons. It seeks to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. Its cargo consists of medical supplies, flour, rice, baby formula, nappies, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, crutches and childrens prosthetics.

The Madleen will reach its destination on June 9. The blockade by Israel, a nuclear power, has threatened the Madleen. Whether or not any of the humanitarian supplies can be delivered will soon play out. Unlike D-Day, this is a well-publicized amphibious strategy, and the whole world is likely aware of the situation. This flotilla of a single ship ought not have to be putting its crew’s lives in harm’s way. Sadly, what is happening in Gaza has been clearly documented as a genocide, and international courts have labelled it as such. Why it has not been stopped by other countries, especially the United States, is a sickening indictment upon their duplicity in the bombing of hospitals, schools, shelters and refuge areas.

D-Day and the Allied defeat of fascism made for a saner, safer world. Eighty-one years later, the massive casualties incurred that day are remembered for such sacrifice. History now clearly is repeating itself, with authoritarian governments acting out their nefarious agendas that victimize people unjustly, cruelly. It is the same evil that was crushed by the end of WWII. It took unimaginable courage on the part of those Allied troops as they hit the beaches of Normandy, with Nazi firepower awaiting them. The twelve people aboard the Madleen have a similar courageous sense of purpose as they approach their “target” on what they refer to as a “freedom flotilla”.

We will soon find out what awaits them. One way or another, it will be a barometer of a different kind of global encounter of good versus evil.

The human race seems intent on self-destruction when viewed through a historical lens. Current events, such as the Madleen’s choice to say enough already, provide at least a modicum of faith in humanity.

For those with their eyes wide open, it is inspirational. One way or another, it will be a wake-up call as another chapter of history unfolds.

Hey. How ya been?

Uh, the usual. Different day same dystopia.

I hear ya. The cost of everything is going up. More than usual.

More than usual, and then some. Chaos.

Yeah. Lot of chaos.

And not much control. Where’s Maxwell Smart when ya need him?

Maxwell Smart. Haven’t heard that name in a while. Get Smart, the spy comedy.

Right. Remember, he worked for CONTROL. His nemesis was CHAOS.

Ha! Not much control these says. What’s it been, a year?

Try four months and two weeks. But now each day of the chaos is like way more than a regular day.

I hear ya.

It’s called emotional disequilibrium. Reality defies reality. Time is almost illusory these days. So, four months and two weeks may as well have been all we ever knew. But we do remember when there was at least some control once back when.

Back when, right. Not sure how far back back when was anymore. Or was there ever really any control? Give me an instance when back when was.

Before any of us were born. And maybe not even then.

That’s a weird answer.

In these chaotic times, weird answers fit right in with its reality. Time is now a complete illusion. The world is transient. There is only one instant and that instant is right now. We have always been in the same instant. That instant morphs and contorts but the world has always been in that same instant since day one.

Are you on acid?

Hell no. I wouldn’t even want to be on weed right now. Chaos has control of me. Why would I want to heighten that?

Hey. Drop acid, see god, wasn’t that a thing back when?

God is everywhere and nowhere. Like advertising. Our brains have been colonized with bullshit. Now bullshit is in complete control. And it’s chaotic. Ironic eh?

Maxwell Smart you are!

Except there’s no agent 99. Looking good and slightly sultry and full of sound advice. But hard to laugh now.

So, we should just watch the old goofball comedies as therapy, eh? I mean, that’s the BACK WHEN we can go back to eh? Hey, we even had Hogan’s Heroes, remember? That was comedy about American prisoners under Nazi control. Control! And it was a hit! My Mother the Car! My Favorite Martian. The Flying Nun. Mr Ed! All hit shows. All after the chaos of World War Two. What makes today’s chaos immune to laughter? `

Yikes. You’re right. And they’re all in perpetual reruns. But now they seem very dumb. Although back then that was during the turn on, tune in and drop out instant of that period. Hard to laugh at our current instant. At best, we have a tragi-comedy. In reruns already!

Hey, man, lighten up. You’re bringing me down.

You were on a high before we started chatting? You on acid, weed? On the bright side, weed is now legal. At least in most states. Beer, booze, weed and old sit-coms. Cheech and Chong. There, that bringing you back up? In this instant?

Uh, I best be on my way. Stop the world, I wanna get off. Ha!

It is to see the world as a grain of sand. So said William Blake.

Okay, dude. I think for sure my emotions are definitely in disequilibrium.

Go with it. Tomorrow is another day. I think.

Life on our planet has existed about 3.8 billion years. Civilization, with agriculture and trade leading to surplus food and economic stability goes back between 4000 and 3000 BCE. Language developed about 150,000 years ago. Tools and weapons date back over 64,000 years. Tools tend to be useful for survival. Weapons? Well, they became useful for protecting from others whose tools were less effective in surviving in the Stone Age. So, conflict became part of survival. As time went on and on, more weapons were created. The conflicts became more prominent. The idea of combat became part of survival. So, wars had to be fought. The earliest documented wars in human history include the Trojan War, Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War. Wars are still (one may have noticed) occurring right now. Clearly constant wars are permanent proof of human beings’ inability to get along with one another over millenniums. There may be enough of everything for everyone but to the victor goes the spoils, right? So the fight is on. They have it. Others want it. Ironically, Mars a planetary neighbor of ours, is labelled the War Planet. Go figure.

Aside from finding cause to kill one another, “entertainment” has a long history as well: the first forms of entertainment include cave paintings, storytelling and ritual dances. These forms of human activity date back to 100,000 years ago. Musical instruments like flutes dates back to at least 40,000 years. Today, we have countless other instruments, with solo acts, symphony orchestras and marching bands with hundreds of players. Recorded music started with the first intelligible recording of a human voice with a snippet of the French folk song Au Clair de la Lune, in 1860, CE. Soon after that came the Beatles, the Stones and Metallica. The explosive, easily accessible, modern era of music dates back to MTV, first aired on August 1, 1981, CE. Right, Music Television, a derivative of early television (a.k.a., the boob tube) Circa 1927, CE. The bastardization of live entertainment as a relatively intimate experience in night clubs or theaters with several hundred or more seats can be found currently in large outdoor arena events featuring mass idolization of personas drawing fawning fans who will show up for a performance even in horrific weather. For example, a touring spectacle branded Cowboy Carter, Soldier Field, Chicago, May 2025, CE. And the “cowboy” in question is a completely synthetic, manufactured character. The performer isn’t even a boy. It’s a she. So much for authentic, meaningful emotional performance. That’s not the point I guess. But it sells out. And its fan-addicts want to see the show. Even if a tornado warning is in effect and delays the start for 3 or more hours. But that’s pop culture, writ very large, super wide and extremely shallow, circa 2025, CE.

Education in its earliest forms are believed to have emerged in ancient Egypt circa 2061-2010 BCE. Mostly for the “elites”. Formal education began to take shape in the 18th century. Public education became more available during the 19th century. Reformers such as Horace Mann advocated for free, tax-supported schools accessible to all children. Currently, education in certain parts of the world is being defunded. Horace Mann would likely be “disappeared” as an enemy of the elite. But it’s barely even for elites anymore….

...which leads to the first form of organized governance, with the development of city-states, circa 5,000 years ago and the first “democracy” in Athens, Greece. Democracies include freedom of assembly, association, personal property, freedom of (and from) religion, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted deprivation of the right to life, liberty and minority rights. Today, however, such a system of governance has become downright quaint. As in “departing from what is ordinary, usual, or to be expected”. In many parts of the world right now, democracy’s ideals have succumbed to authoritarianism, fascism, racism, sexism, and to say the least, elitism. But elite has become so elite that it accounts for less than 1% of the world’s population. How could this have happened? Well, locally (here in the wealthiest country on the planet) I would say it’s the CE version of education not teaching critical thinking. Lacking such a focus of developing critical thinking/listening skills relates to the aforementioned Boob Tube (also referred to as a vast wasteland) that has become so portable it is now pocket-sized, and “smart” enough to algorithmically program the brain to over-value even the most flaccid, vapid, pathos over logos, style over substance acceptance and obedience to the nothingness that is there and the nothingness that is not there. See above, Cowboy Carter. She is not a he, and so much for respect of pronouns, circa 2025 CE. Pronouns. Inclusion. Equity. Diversity. Think before you speak. Know your audience, that being office holders who appear to have become quite sensitive to language. Mr. George Orwell’s ethos is floating around out there. Right along with Alfred E. Neuman.

How about sports? Sports, with rules goes back to the ancient Olympic Games, around 776 BCE. The oldest organized sport is wrestling, about 7000 BCE. Wrestling included combat competitions. Gladiator competitions. Thumbs up or down. Ballgames? The Mesoamerican ballgame could include the losing side to be sacrificed to the gods. Is this sports or are will still discussing war? Whatever. This was circa 1650 BCE. Today, football is violent but only leads to death by way of CTE (chronic traumatic Encephalopathy). Thus, we have CTE documented first by Dr. Harrison Martland in the Journal of the American medical Association, CE 1928. Popular games such as soccer, hockey and even baseball can also lead to CTE. Even if CTE doesn’t become fatal, it can tragically cause some victims to become addle-brained enough to support some individuals and causes that can lead to the above noted fascist, authoritarian, racist, sexist forms of governance. It may also explain how Cowboy Carter is a thing.

Our planet, Earth is 4. 543 billion years old. Our sun. 4.603 billion years old, the same age as our solar system. Our Milky Way Galaxy is 13.61 billion years old. The universe is 13.8 billion years old. There are an estimated two trillion galaxies in our universe. Hmm. Are we the only planet with life as we know it, past and present, amongst those trillions of galaxies? Not just some single cell levels of life forms, but close to how our planet and its progression from 4.543 billion years ago to today’s most advanced species known as Homo Sapien? Must be some other life forms out there, ya think? Perhaps we have already been visited, observed, studied by far superior life forms. The word “progressive” may not appear on their final report. If we have been visited, my guess is they sped back to their home base, somewhere out there, billions or even trillions of light years away, safely distanced from our clear propensity to be at one another’s throats, for no good reason at all.

I, for one, would not blame them.

A couple of days ago was May 5. Also known as Cinco de Mayo. Cinco is the observance of the 1862 victory at Pueblo by Mexican troops over French forces. Many a gringo assumes it to be Mexico’s Independence Day. Oops. However, many of those same gringos really don’t care about the lack of accurate historical knowledge, their objective being to have another reason to eat, drink and be part of the party. History goes on forever, and the party never ends.

This year, there seemed to be less of a buzz about getting out to the countless Mexican eateries here in the Chicagoland area. I do wonder if many a Mexican family or their multi-generational extended families decided maybe to stay home this May 5. I will give you zero guesses as to why I feel that way. If you have no clue, then you are simply not paying attention to dramatic current events, and I don’t allude to a Kardashian, Swift, Gaga, Beyonce, Brad or the Backstreet Boys pop culture version of current concern.

Alas, a certain someone has put a target on the backs of any and all brown-skinned persons in the US of A. It is, sadly, another Ice Age that hath cometh. This one coldly takes into custody not just Mexicans, but any brown-skinned residents of the U.S., be they citizens or not. Showing up at a Mexican diner location could be risky business, clearly. When will this Icy atmosphere be replaced with a warm and welcoming dome of fair weather? An increasingly large segment of the general public want it to end–yesterday! Of course! There are–maybe, maybe–20-25% of our population who are enjoying these chill winds of a potent political psychopathia, now a little over 100 days old. Make that daze old.

And while hispanic persons are in the crosshairs of this radical policy, essentially the entire country has a target on its back. Rule of law? Due process? Habeas corpus? Upholding the oath to defend the Constitution? Not so much right now. The 75-80% of the country in full disapproval of what we have now will eventually have its own special day of celebration. No doubt. For the time being, sadly, it’s different day, same bullshit.

But.

The majority of those millions who will eventually jump for joy will have to take a measure of responsibility for this creepy descent into Fascism. After all, the D.C. Wrecking Crew wasn’t just a product of those who voted for it. Many millions who now bitch are just as responsible as the ones they bitch about. How? By not voting at all or continually voting into office cretins from both major parties who do nothing but feather their political beds, take bribes (called lobbying) capitulate with extremists, corroborate with them, and then point fingers at one another as the problem. Most get re-elected, in spite of giving next to nothing ( if not nothing at all) in return for their constituent’s vote. That’s BOTH PARTIES, okay? Donkeys and Elephants. Dig? Capiche? Comprende? Is it sinking in yet? The System is rotted to its foundation.

Stop believing we have a functioning government when it is comprised of 99% of either corporate party that has given us this ugly reality. This was no coup. This is what the duopoly created. Understand this: neither party GIVES A SHIT ABOUT We the People. Other than bait-and-switch campaigns that play on divisiveness and hate at worst or at best beating their chests while spewing tired political rhetoric to get an ill-informed vote. Those who did vote for this are the epitome of a gullible, limp-minded electorate. Their lives are worse off for being suckered into the worst part of our self-indulgent, and now very dangerous, frick or frack illusion of meaningful choice whether they realize it or not.

This monstrous, monolithic hydra does not allow for any realistic possibility of a third-party challenge. With indispensable assistance from a lapdog corporate media that refuses to report on the platforms and proposals from other concerned voices, plus their typical legal challenges to ballot access, and fiercely keeping such other voices from the debates, it exposes itself as the anti-democratic force that it is.

So, while we wait for the Ice Age to thaw and the Wrecking Crew to be shown the door, think about looking for alternatives to this failed, fraudulent Donkey/Elephant dysfunction. Recall The Peter Principle. Well, here it is writ very large: achieving its highest level of destructive incompetence.

We need to demand more choices. How about the Howard Beale Party?: It has the perfect rallying cry/slogan of We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore! Like Howard said, first you have to get really mad! If you aren’t mad enough yet, again, you just are not paying any attention.

May Day, May 1st: Observing the workers struggle against the ruthless and unethical business practices led by the “robber barons” of the late 19th century. The most notorious of these barons included John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan. This massively imbalanced system allowed the Barons to exploit their workers in a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Unions? Collective bargaining? Not without a struggle. A lot of struggle.

On May 4, 1886, in Chicago a large protest took place in Haymarket Square. What happened that day is considered the catalyst that became May Day/International Workers Day: The Haymarket protest turned violent when a bomb was thrown at the Chicago Police, killing several officers. Although it was not certain as to who threw that bomb, several “anarchists/immigrants” were charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Four of them were hanged. In spite of not being able to identify the bomb-thrower. The labor movement continued, destined to improve the lives of workers from the greed and callousness of a cold-blooded capitalist system. Ultimately, workers secured an eight-hour workday and in 1955 the American Federation of Labor was created.

There is also another May 4 that resonates historically. May 4, 1970. Kent State University. Students protesting the expanding U.S. involvement of the Viet Nam conflict. Tragically, the protest also turned deadly when some members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on the student’s, most simply exercising their constitutional right to do exactly what they were doing. There were some clashes with the Guardsmen leading up to the shootings. Four students died from their gunshot wounds. None of the Guard were charged with murder.  They were indicted on charges of violating the civil rights of the dead students, but acquitted in a bench trial.

The word struggle applies to the historical events of May 1, and May 4. Protests. Pushback. Fighting for justice. Fairness. Be it 1886 or 1970, these events evoke the nature of a seeming constant struggle against exploitation, oppression, and basic human rights. Protests are happening around the world at this moment. Labor is still fighting against the modern-day oligarchs. Union membership has shrunk to around 11% of the workforce. It is 2025 and women are in the crosshairs of misogynistic legislation and an extremist judicial branch of government. Education is under attack. The free press is being undermined. Healthcare remains a viciously for-profit entity. Protestors have gathered by the millions across the country, seeking a saner, safer, respectful way of life for everyone. It would not be an exaggeration to say the wheels of progress over the last 140 years have now been shifted into reverse gear.

Nature provides for May to be a time of beautiful blooms of many splendorous colors. Humankind and its endless follies seem to often write an epitaph for the flowers of May, cut down for senseless and selfish motivations. Unable, seemingly, to control its darker impulses.

Just thought I’d jump on and vent my spleen for a moment. My compulsion for this entry has to do with that man. What man? I’ll assume you have a clear picture of who that man is. Who else could Viktor Patrenko of Word Press be alluding to? You might already think there’s no point Comrade Patrenko, to say anything else about that man. True, I recently admitted that I had–for the moment–nothing more to say about you know what and you know who. It’s that goddam man. What else can I say about this guy, you might be thinking? We get it already. He is bad news. Dangerous. A sociopath. And so much else. But we get it Viktor. He and his addle-brained, retarded, dim-witted, mouth-breathing, cross-eyed, hair-brained, knuckle-dragging, drooling dipshit supporters. What? What now, Patrenko?!

Ha! I knew you’d take the bait. Just as I suspected. But I can understand your knee-jerk reaction when I mention that man. Who the hell else would I refer to as that man? I get it. And it isn’t getting any better. Every day it’s more dystopia. More shitting on our Constitution. So, okay, you wish I would not remind us. Damn. Isn’t White Lotus on or something? Black Mirror is back. The new Nick Cage popcorn movie? We need a break about hearing more about it. And him. Find something else to write about!

Okay. No problem. In fact this posting has little at all to with that man whom you assume is the that man to whom I allude. You all just jumped to that conclusion. Very little more of this blog posting is directly about THAT that man. The that man in this case isn’t the that man who is 100% responsible for any of you assuming that man must be that man. Follow my drift? Maybe not. Let me clarify: I refer to a that man who preceded the current that man who is on many of our minds.. And that man is the guy who did not bother to keep that man who you thought I was referring to from becoming the that man who is now clearly attempting to make the world safe and solvent for the male, white, billionaire class. And very precarious for most everyone else.

This other man is none other than Joe Biden. He is the man who failed to hold our current rogue resident of 1600 Mar-a-Lago to account. And JB is in Chicago today (April 15, 2025). In town to do I am not sure what except whatever it is, it can no longer be what so many many many of us wanted to hear from him: announcing that that other that man has been arrested and charged with attempting to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021. You may have watched that day of infamy on your smart phone, laptop, or broadcast TV. An attempted coup!

I am just as concerned about the current dystopian direction this country has taken as any rational person. It sucks, for certain. But my greater vitriol and loathing at this point in time will always be reserved for Joe, whom, along with his Attorney General, inexplicably, irresponsibly and now so very clearly and dangerously failed to uphold their sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution, especially the part about protecting our country from threats both foreign and domestic. How, exactly, can someone who clearly was defeated in the 2020 election, and who then unarguably refused to accept defeat, and then idly stands by as his above noted lowlife acolytes busted down doors, smashed windows, threatened to hang the Vice President, caused the death of several people, and the injury of 174 police officers at the Capitol building–NOT be jailed and tried for treason? How? Anyone? Anyone?

So whatever Joe Biden came to Chicago to say or do, it means nothing. Zilch. Joe is that man, the other. The one who not only violated his oath of office by not holding that other guy to legal, constitutional account, but who had the unmitigated gall to leave office shortly after giving a parting speech warning the country about the rise of oligarchs! The absurd irony! The dystopian agenda of Project 2025 was clearly revealed. Not a threat, but virtually a literal promise of it being implemented. We didn’t need JB to warn anybody who was actually paying even passing attention to what was looming on the political horizon.

He is therefore also that man. He and that other that man are, IMO, equally enemies of our country. One now provides a daily display of his radical disregard for his oath of office because the other disastrously refused to honor his oath of office. In this current context I say they are both one and the same: traitors. Different political parties, but not really. My actual, and oft repeated refrain in this regard is that we do not have a political System that is the least interested in being responsible to their oath for which they all swear to uphold. Neither party cares about the We the People. The DNC has degenerated into a pseudo “opposition party” that is now one side of the same corporate coin that places profit over people, run by fossilized mouthpieces who specialize in losing elections in which they should easily win by a landslide. Incompetent. Corrupt. and completely out-of-touch with the working class.

A plague on both houses!

And now all that remains is a rotted to the core phony “two party” System: we  are a country without any leadership. Insultingly, a handful of “opposition party” mouthpieces are now grandstanding, railing against our current constitutional crisis, but with no actual political power to make any difference (but they don’t care about that, really they don’t), while that man is free to be the puppet of Project 2025. This dystopia is entirely the fault of Joe Biden, the DNC and a  limp-dicked administration that let 260,000,000 of us down by virtually escorting that man back into the presidency that he should have been barred from ever being able to run for again owing to his blatantly anti-democratic, unconstitutional actions in January of 2021.

We need to clean house. How that might come about remains to be seen. The anger is becoming palpable for action. Day by day, week by week, and not quite three months of this attack on reason and justice demands it be stopped. Which will eventually will happen. When? Impossible to predict but, for what it’s worth, think of the saying–rooted in Persian literature–this too shall pass. And it will. The tragedy is that this never needed to come to be in the first place.