Jharrin4's Blog

As of today, October 17, 2023, the death toll resulting from the Hamas attack is: 1, 400 Israeli dead and 3,400 injured. In return, Israel’s response to that attack is: 3,000 Palestinian dead and 12,500 injured. This is the most recent renewal of hostilities between Palestine and Israel, an adversarial relationship that began with the post-WWII creation of the State of Israel. The Palestinian people, at that time, occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The history of these two differing religious and ethnic populations goes back much, much longer than 1948. Historians still write about this particular point of friction. What happened on October 7, is, sadly, another chapter in this ongoing, tumultuous reality.

I am not a historical scholar on this matter, but I write this post to reflect upon what is happening right now, not knowing what may happen next, short or long-term. Whatever that may be, my guess is nothing will ever be diplomatically resolved between Israel and Palestine. Apparently it is unsolvable. The history of our world is rife with wars, carnage, devastation, and massive losses of human life. We, as a species, are indeed our own worst enemies, dare I opine? Israel and Palestine are not exactly a shocking new chapter in the narrative of wars that preclude effective diplomacy, or an innate sense of human compassion for one another. No, Rodney King, we clearly cannot all just get along.

But back to my first paragraph. Can anyone, anyone, assert with even the flimsiest amount of reasonable thought, that the counter-attack by Israeli forces can target only members of Hamas? Palestine’s population is close to 5 million. It is estimated that the number of Hamas militants is 30,000. Israel has close to twice the populations of Palestine. It has a formal military of 169,500 active troops and 465,000 reserve personnel. Palestine has no formal military. Hamas and its 30,000 militants largely acquire their various weapons through smuggling or local construction, and has Iran as an ally. Israel has a highly trained fighting force, and the full backing of the United States, which has, between 1946 and 2023, provided its military with 124 billion dollars of support. Indeed, Israel possesses 90 nuclear warheads. Clearly, Palestine, labelled by many world organizations as an “open air prison” has no possible means of destroying Israel. The Hamas attack was pure evil, but are we to assume that the other 4,970,000, people of Palestine knew what was about to happen, or overwhelmingly approving of that attack? Based on Western media reporting, it would seem so. At best implied and in some cases overtly stated as such. Recall the expression that the first casualty of any war is the truth.

When I hear that Joe Biden has approved of sending Israel thousands of bombs, as he pledges–not at all surprisingly–that America stands with their Middle-East ally, I cannot help but feel a combination of nausea and revulsion. Will these be “smart bombs” that somehow will only kill those who senselessly attacked its neighbor? Of those 3000 dead and 12,500 injured during Israel’s counter attack are we to assume that no innocent men, women and ESPECIALLY children have not paid with their lives? The knee-jerk and angry attacks on any such line of reasoning and as is threaded throughout this dispatch from my perspective reflects some really cold-hearted hate and and a detachment from any consideration of big picture morality.

Right now, in hot-spots around the world, innocents are dying because of racial, ethnic and religious differences. Again, this is the human history of the world in which we all must live together, like it or not. The only side I am taking here is that of those innocents, especially the children. In any country. Repeat. Any country. To those who want to attack pro-Palestinian protestors, or read or hear any suggestion that any lethal counter attack by Israel is righteous, try and stop for just a moment and dare imagine growing up in that so-called open-air prison that is Palestine, with its electric, water and food supply now in crisis since the the counter-attack. Will the complete annihilation of Palestine be good enough for those who wittingly or unwittingly assume that whatever hell any civilians are catching in response to October 7, is morally correct?

Just the other day, a six-year old Palestinian-American boy of a Muslim family was stabbed umpteen times and died at the the hand of the family’s twisted and toxic white landlord. The mother is recovering from stab wounds. Let us hope she survives although then having to constantly relive the evil that caused such a tragedy. This little boy had to die for…what?

Please excuse me now while are try to locate the office in which one can resign from the human race.

Recently, noted filmmaker Martin Scorsese reiterated his negative opinion on superhero movies, and other so-called “tentpole” franchises. His comments expectedly garnered some blowback from those who make and attend the endless string of Marvel or D.C. movies about characters that were (mostly) originally comic book creations. These movies have made billions of dollars collectively over a couple of decades or so. A generation or two of young superhero fans likely don’t know who Martin Scorsese is, and couldn’t care less what he thinks about Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Blue Beetle, and others. Scorsese feels that the proliferation of such movies have taken over the multi-plex venues (both before the pandemic and in the post shut-down period). He considers them as a variation of a theme park. He also asserts these movies have damaged the movie-going culture that was once imbued with more than the now rare offerings of style and serious substance. That is, films for adults.

I personally agree with him, but this posting isn’t really confining itself to Martin’s critical negativity about a part of our overall culture being dumbed down by Marvel and DC’s prolific output of mass produced, cheap cinematic sausage. My attitude is we now live in a country that is in and of itself a cartoon show. And a very unenlightening, unentertaining, increasingly irredeemable one at that.

As recently as last night, several of the lesser cartoon characters who infest our cultural landscape conducted a political “debate”. Except it was not a debate, but a charade. A farce. A fraud. Noisy but bereft of substance. Any substance at all. It need not have been either televised or assessed by any media/news outlet. That it took place was utterly meaningless. Its only contribution to the political machinery that vomited up the event is to reinforce just how horrible our political landscape has become. That “framework” is made of fraying string and stale chewing gum, all of it rotting away as a quotidian cartoon show. It is ugly, angry, inane, insane and insufferable for any observer with a fully functioning brain (which, unarguably, many people apparently lack).

Am I being hyperbolic? No way, I’m actually trying to hold back a little here.

While any movie is produced by those in the cinematic medium, politics is produced by organized parties that live and die by all of media. There is high (but harder to find) to low grade (easy to find) cinematic sausage, while politics has devolved over the past several decades into a very icky, scrape the bottom of the barrel operation. In my adult lifetime, I’ve witnessed a litany of high-profile politicians given major media platforms to appeal to an ever-increasingly “low information” electorate. Leaving Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and II aside, the electorate of late has lowered its standards to the point of endorsing the kind of cartoon characters who were on that debate stage last night, babbling and shooting barbs at one another while the biggest cartoon character of all doesn’t even bother to attend. Why should he? The corporate media gives Agent Orange warehouses of free air time he has grown used to getting, letting him judge his competition. At the same time the media barely bothers any longer to soberly note his massive legal transgressions which should have him already in lockup, or at the least barred from being allowed to pose as a legitimate choice for the 2024 presidential election. Where’s Bugs Bunny? Wile-E Coyote, Yosemite Sam, The Roadrunner, and especially Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck in all this? Folks it’s clearly a Looney Tunes show. It’s all so cartoonish. So cringe-worthy cartoonish. And kind of creepy as well.

Our culture is becoming one big junkyard. That includes every part of our politics (ya know, even that phony Donkey Kong outfit led by a cadaver) our glitzy, vapid pop star spectacles, our de-fanged electronic and print journalism, sport as soap opera and a gambling addict’s dream with on-line betting parlors being peddled to the public with the same frequency as TV ads for more and more pills to cure whatever one may or may not actually suffer from, our junk food franchises littering the national landscape while producing the most obese country in the world. Junk in. Junk out. Are we dumbed down enough yet? No way, but we’re getting to the point where the brilliant social satire Idiocracy (a mostly neglected film from almost 20 years ago!) is becoming a reality before our very eyes.

Oh, and in two days it looks as though the government will shut-down. For no reason other than that’s what we have for a governing body on both sides of that infamous isle. Some voted for this, okay?

Beam me up, Scotty, there’s no intelligent life on this rock.

Hey, man.

Yo, what up?

Not much.

Wanna get high?

I am high.

On what?

High on Jesus

Uh oh. High on or from Jesus?

I don’t use drugs, if that’s what you are suggesting.

Nothing? Beer?

Don’t drink.

Then, you are mellow on life. No booster needed, eh?

I found Jesus. He’s my booster. I recently found him.

Really, where was he? Hiding?

Haha. He finds you.

Then you didn’t find Jesus.

What’s the diff?

If he finds you, then you can’t say you found him, okay? Get you’re story straight.

Hey I listen to him..

What did he say? You need me?

Yeah, I had problems.

And now you don’t?

No, man, I’m good.

What problems did you have?

All of them.

That’s a lot of problems, all of them.

Jesus has saved me.

Screw you, you’re nuts. The invisible guy in the sky solved ALL your problems.

Right.

I think my high is the same as your Jesus high.

No way.

Of course it is. A little weed and I feel my problems are not problems anymore.

But that’s going to wear off. Mine is permanent.

Nothing is permanent.

Whatever. I’m okay. And I don’t have to pay for my high.

Describe your high. Am I part of it right now.

Sure you are.

But I’m saying you’re full of shit. Oops. I swore. Guess I’m going to hell.

Not if you accept Jesus you won’t.

I’m not looking for him. Besides, you have him. He’s already spoken for.

He is with all of us, all the time.

That’s one busy guy.

You talk nonsense. Because you are high on weed.

Yeah, maybe weed is my Jesus. No, wait. my guy is a gal. Maryjane.

But that’s artificial. Mine is real.

You are so full of shit, bro.

I think you and I should just let this go..

Your “real” high is just you deciding an imaginary guy in the sky is real. And he found you or you found him. But here’s everywhere blah blah. You are entertaining me with this horseshit, bro. My high lets me laugh at your bullshit. I’m enjoying this.

Well, I think I’ve had enough of this nonsense.

What? Shouldn’t you try and save me? Ask your pal. He’s right there with you.

Yes, he is.

Well Maryjane is with me. You should meet her. She don’t cost much and she’ll stick around a long while.

But she will leave, eventually.

Nothing is permanent, bro. Including your high on Jesus jive.

It will last. I am a true believer.

So am I. But I kinda like the tangible stuff. You are delusional.

How can you be sure?

Well, what about when someone dies/ Or you get dumped by someone you’re crazy about. Or your house burns down? Or you lose your job. You get mugged. That shit can’t happen to you now because you found an invisible guy?

That can all happen to me or anyone. But my faith in him keeps me strong.

My faith in Maryjane keeps me strong. She softens the blow from cruel fate. Explain how your guy allows so much bad shit to happen? Oh, I suppose the non-believers are the victims. People like you have no worries.

I worry. But he helps me with that.

Bullshit. That’s you letting yourself believe it helps. But we’re are in the same boat. It’s smooth sailing one day, a raging atmospheric river the next.

You are talking nonsense.

Hey, whatever floats your boat, dude. You got him I got her.

But he will save me. She won’t save you.

You got it backwards, maybe?

How so?

I believe in some higher power that created everything. But to try and name it is absurd. Maryjane came with the package. Hey, and someone initially had to find her. All the medical drugs had to be found. They come from nature. Except for the synthetic stuff. I think your guy is synthetic. My gal is pure nature. At least that’s what I’m willing to believe.

So, you believe in a creator?

Sure, and influencers too.

What?

What, you don’t watch YouTube or TikTok?

I’ve heard of it, but it seems trashy. Anyone can post stuff. Who would follow that stuff?

Millions follow it. A cat that takes a shit using the commode video gets millions of hits. Or a dog that does tricks. It’s like a drug.

Social media is a drug?

Yeah. It’s got funny stuff and sad stuff on it. If the “creator” gets enough eyeballs on the video, then the moineyflows in.

I’ve heard about it. Seems like a waste of time. Unless Maryjane is on duty, ha!

It’s no different than watching teevee preachers. Your invisible guy in the sky is a money maker too. People send in money. The guy in the the sky is always broke, haha.

I don’t watch that stuff. That’s for suckers. I’m not a sucker.

Hmm. Different strokes, bro. A cat uses the toilet. Someone cashes in. Some preacher does a song and dance on teevee and makes a lot of dough. And then buys boats and mansions with the bread. Why would you guy let that shit happen?

He has nothing to with it.

Right.

But you are high on his mojo, even though his mojo can’t be proven. Sounds like a set-up for suckers. Or the very desperate.

Maryjane is for suckers.

No way. She’s more real than good book jive. Hell, she can make reading that book interesting. But cat and dog videos are enjoyable. Your good book is a bloody mess of sin and suffering. My book is the book of Zen. Or is it Mad magazine.

Well, good luck with you and Maryjane. As you say, different strokes.

Strokes and tokes.

Sure you don’t want a hit?

No, as I said, I’m good.

No you’re not.

Why do you say that?

Because I’m going to take your money. Hand it over now. I have a gun.

What gun?

See, this one I just got from my backpack. Gimme the dough, now.

You’d shoot me?

Of course not. Unless I have to.

Why would you have to?

To get more money for Maryjane.

That’s a terrible reason.

Hey, your guy is always broke and having hucksters shill for him. I’m a servant for Maryjane.

Jesus can help you with your problem.

Sorry, can’t locate him. So, you’re it.

This is crazy.

Life is crazy. Relax man, the gun is fake. Just messing with you.

Wait. Do we even know one another?

No.

Then why are we talking?

It’s the program. I think.

What program?

I just got promoted from general usage to GPT regular. You?

I’m trying to get to GPT. I was just dot-matrix for a long time, but now I’m auto-fill.

Auto-fill?! Ha. You are SO not popular.

Hey gimme abreak.

Uh, the low-battery signal just came on.

Yeah. Who does the auto-recharge?

Who knows? But I’m a true believer that it will happen.

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

The above exchange may or may not be real. That is, written by a human or A.I.? But if you liked it, please send money to P.O. box 8675309, Buzzard’s Breath, Montana. Minimum donation $100. Crypto currency only.

I wanna to be an Airborn Ranger. I wanna live a life of danger…

So goes one the of the military chants that occur during training sessions for our service members. Since WWII and the Vietnam conflict, which ended in 1975, our military has been an all volunteer operation. During the Vietnam era, the draft was in effect. The military draft could once again be activated, although I don’t think it will ever again be something American young men, over 18, need worry about. Why? Well, that military operation lasted ten years. During that time, the print and electronic media still practiced something resembling “journalism”. You know. Get the facts. Check it out first. Don’t go with the story without stone-cold facts. Who, what, where, when, why and how based on the facts.

During the Vietnam clash, body counts were reported on a regular basis–provided by the military. Typically, the American public would hear daily news updates of dozens or hundreds of Viet Cong dead each day, with minimal (in comparison) U.S. soldiers becoming casualties. Eventually, the math didn’t add up for the American public as that engagement dragged on. And on. Print and electronic media reported and showed the factual reality of the war, with some degree of graphic intensity. The anti-war sentiment became increasingly bolstered by large protests and young men burning their draft cards in defiance.

Nearly 59,000 of our U.S. combatants died by the time all troops were recalled. The North Vietnam forces thus succeeded in taking over the South. A lot of those dead soldiers were draftees. Mostly from working class families. Urban Blacks and Hispanics, along with working class whites from the big cities and backwoods regions of the country. Now, sadly, many of those draftees have their names carved into the Vietnam Memorial. They died for…what exactly? The draftee’s attitude about becoming a member of the military was of no concern to the draft boards. Except for those who fled the country or were jailed for refusing induction, the draftee raised his right hand and accepted being sworn in. After that, it was a roll of Fate’s dice as to what awaited them.

Recently, I visited an exhibit on the Tet Offensive, a major escalation of the Vietnam conflict in early 1968. That’s when the Viet Cong staged a surprise attack on American forces in South Vietnam. It took several weeks for the American troops to push back the offensive. Although the North Vietnam military ultimately lost that battle, it aided in the aforementioned weakening of the American public’s support for the conflict, as it flew in the face of those hugely one-sided body counts the Pentagon used while assuring the public the U.S. was on it’s way to soon winning the war. The exhibit, with photos by photojournalist John Olson are quite powerful. Some are very graphic. Audio testimonies from survivors of that offensive add powerful emotion to the visuals on display.

War is hell. Any war. Anytime. Anywhere. But viewing this exhibit while understanding the outcome of that deployment and its ultimate failure to succeed exemplifies the inevitable collective and personal hell that is any combat experience. Losing Vietnam wasn’t the fault of those fighting that war–before and after the Tet Offensive played out. That failure, with tens of thousands of casualties, was the fate awaiting one and all, from any buck private “newbie” to the seasoned generals following the ineffective strategies of the Pentagon.

Thus, if any good came from that flawed fight for democracy over communism, it very likely is knowing a draft isn’t ever again probable. Barring perhaps an invasion from Mars. And meaningful, hard-hitting journalism might never return either.

In journalism schools, I doubt the training includes reciting I wanna be a real reporter; I wanna get the real story in order.

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

Last Monday marked the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks by Saudi and Afghan terrorists. Always a somber anniversary. The ramifications of that “second Pearl Harbor” these twenty-two years later, include a Homeland Security Act, The Patriot Act and a clear erosion of personal privacy for all citizens, as it dramatically increased surveillance power. Sure, our smart phones track our every move, but there were no smart phones when the two above-named Acts came into existence. We’ve been backsliding as far as democracy goes ever since 911. Smart phones are now extensions of our physical anatomies, and they do more than take and make phone calls. They connect us not so much to one another as serve as reality disrupters. They are soldiers for Big Tech, and their stealthy objective is to shape our beliefs, attitudes, opinions and behavior. Now, you can wear these disrupters on your wrist. If you want privacy, you need to toss the “smart watches,” smart phones, tablets, and laptops. Maybe that 65 inch smart screen TV, too. But who the hell dares do that? That would trigger an alert to Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. You could wind up in Gitmo for such low-tech insolence.

Clearly, the digital age is now in its Orwellian phase. Our personal data, once largely under the control of the individual (you know pre-“smart” this and that and this that), is now part of myriad on-line systems, including retail and banking information, The digital Big Brother is forever more watching. From cyberspace. Which is everywhere and nowhere all at once. And this Bro’s data gatherings are subject to the hacker masters that he has spawned. We are watched, and we are aware that we have virtually no ability to push back on it at this point unless one goes rogue. What is safe any longer in the digitized universe? The Pentagon has been hacked. Airlines. Banks. Retail companies and on and on. Digital Big Brother is a snoop and a sneak and a thief. Does the U.S. government run this operation or is it the other way around? If 911 never happened would we still be this deep in the grip of digital Big Bro? Did 911 just speed up the corrosion of personal privacy, data breaches, stolen identities, and worse of all an ongoing diminishment of our democracy?

The cruel irony of 911 also includes it leading to an invasion of Iraq, under the now factually verified canard that that country was part of the terror attack. The war drums banged away, most of congress gave the invasion a thumbs up, as did virtually all of the mainstream mass media. The military, akin to its being deployed to Kuwait in Gulf War One, required print and electronic media to be embedded with (in bed with…) the troop operations.

Recall the aforementioned Vietnam War being covered by reporters who practiced real journalism? After Vietnam and certainly since Gulf One and the Iraq invasion, there still isn’t much rigorous, serious, honest journalism being practiced in the U.S. Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable? Not very often, unless one digs deeper into the thickets of digital and print news organizations. You want the truth? You won’t find truth by following corporate “news”. And do not think Fox News is mostly responsible. The media may have directly helped end the Vietnam quagmire, but now it is aiding and abetting the destruction of democracy that has been under attack since long before 911, beginning with its fawning over a right-wing puppet named Ronald Reagan. Fast forward from January, 1981 (Reagan sworn in) past August 2, 1990 (Gulf One) past the Iraq invasion (2003 to 2011) and stop–momentarily–on 2015. The loss of mainstream, responsible journalism has permitted a steady procession of bad actors (Reagan, literally) to become office holders, with possibly the 2016 presidential election being the most egregious outcome of watered down reportage. As a consequence of the abject failure to cover that election fairly, we now have a grotesque cartoon character, he being an ex-president who was twice impeached and now as a civilian having been slapped with NINETY ONE criminal charges, but still being given massive amounts of free air time to spew threats at judges and others who dare try holding him to account. The media normalizes his behavior and dumbfounding status as the front-runner for the Republican nomination going into the 2024 election. Things indeed do fall apart. The center indeed cannot hold, as such. Logic and reason checked out and hit the road, a number of decades ago, along with its ability to underpin the Constitution and country-at-large.

So, here we are in September of 2023, twenty-two years out from the 911 terror attacks. The U.S. hasn’t been attacked by foreign enemies since then. Ironically, the enemy is now very much home grown. The media essentially currently prostitutes itself for sensation, and the more outrageous the sensation’s source the better. The inmates are running the asylum, clearly. Given the financial meltdown of 2008 and the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, the rise of A.I.’s dark side, inflation, national and some statewide politics being run by wannabee dictators, autocrats and theocrats, what will 2024 bring? Whatever it brings will depend on ending journalistic malpractice and its disregard for truth.

Maybe an invasion from Mars would be the sensation that demands an honest, sensible response. What’s the worst that could happen? We lose that war of the worlds? Another John Olson could document the carnage. War of the Worlds, endgame edition. Yeah, just come on down, Red Planet forces, maybe bring humanity together to love one another, or they clean our clock and then leave. Mission accomplished. Then their version of John Olson can have an exhibit. And we’d not have to worry about the future anymore, and what may come to pass. I don’t know about y’all but so much of the past is hard to recollect without wincing. What was that saying penned by James Joyce having to do with history and nightmares and needing to wake up?

I must stop now. Need to check Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, X, YouTube, WeChat, TikTok, What’sApp and my stock portfolio. And Big Digital Bro, you know all of the above is not to taken serious. It’s not really me, anyway. It’s ChatGPT. I’m sure YOU can detect bullshit from the facts, no? That’s jouranlism 101..

Idalia. That’s the name of a tropical storm that in the next few hours–maybe before I finish this posting–is expected to turn into a category 3 hurricane, packing winds of near 100 mph. It is expected to hit somewhat north of Tampa, and then make its way across the peninsula on a NE direction. Storm damage to countless homes and businesses is inevitable if the expected trajectory is proven accurate.

Was it not that long ago that Florida got its ass kicked by back-to-back hurricanes, one of which essentially leveled Ft. Meyers. Since then, compounding the precarious reality of living in a state that always has to consider hurricanes wreaking havoc on life and limb, is the “home insurance crisis” that now adds even more trepidation to what Idalia may or may not do. At least six home insurance companies have gone bankrupt in Florida over the past year. Farmers Insurance recently pulled up stakes in the sunshine state. Smaller companies have moved in, but with rates often so high they challenge residents ability to hold onto their homes.

Rates have been sharply going up in Florida since 1992’s monster, category 5 hurricane Andrew in 1992. As bad as the hurricanes of year last year were, Floridians have essentially themselves to blame for poor preparedness from state agencies when it comes to these hurricanes. How so? Well, they elected Rick Scott who actually forbade the use of the phrases “climate change” and “global warming” in such state planning and preparedness. Current governor, and presidential wannabee Ron DeSantis is as willfully ignorant as Scott as far as not taking science-based climate threats seriously. How profoundly ignorant is that these Republican governors refuse to accept climate chaos reality? What is it they have to gain by being such gigantic assholes? Well, once again, each got elected and then re-elected. As the saying goes, we get the government we deserve. Nationally or locally. So, well done, you Floridian dupes who voted for these two dummies. Maybe some of you can afford exorbitant insurance rates, but I doubt most others can.

Then again, it’s one big, dumb-ass country at this point. Consider the absolute absurdity that passes for politics from coast-to-coast. Scott and DeSantis are especially bad for Florida as far as taking basic climate science and needed adaptive preparedness for increasingly powerful hurricanes seriously. Elected officials, scattered from Miami to Maui, have proven themselves unfit for office. Yeah, we get the government we deserve.

The U.S. has so many dangerous morons that have gotten elected by dangerously moronic voters. Dupes, dummies, patsies, saps, suckers and slackers are par for the (dis)course. When the 2024 election comes around, there’s a good chance that morons will again win the day. How? The system is rigged. Of course it is. Can you say “electoral college”? And while it seems that everyday, someplace is either on fire or underwater, and the cause is clear and confirmed by science, one can only hope to live in what remains precincts where a sense of reason and responsibility to one and all is at least given a fighting chance.

We shall see, huh? In the meantime, Idalia and its ilk gear up to literally and figuratively feed from the through of human stupidity that swells up and threatens to eventually wash away all in its path.

Call it Mother Nature cleaning her house of the pests that keep pissing on her carpet.

What are you watching?

Nothing.

Well, I see you staring at the tele, so you must know what you’re watching, huh?

There. Now the tele has gone to black. Can I legitimately now say I am watching nothing?

Then why did you have it on before when I asked?

I wanted to see if there was anything to watch. Duh.

We have all the streaming services, plus Cable 1500, plus a direct link to Ukrainian News Now. You went through all of those channels? And nothing?

That’s right.

So, then what are you going to do now? Just sit there and look at a blank 53 inch 3D, HD tele? What about that novel you started? Reading is still a thing, ya know.

I know that, except all the stories have already been written. There’s nothing original anymore. I gave up on that novel. Different characters, same story. Love and death. Betrayal. Blah blah.

Huh? Every year a Nobel is awarded to some author. Or a Pulitzer. Someone must be doing something original. Fiction or non-fiction.

Fiction? There is no fiction anymore. And non-fiction is just a replay of what used to be fiction. All the stories have been told.

Has your story been told?

Sure has. Many times over.

Really? Who wrote your story? Many times over.

All of them did.

Who is them?

Anyone who ever wrote anything about anything, anytime, anywhere, any place.

Well, then, which one is your favorite story–about you?

None of them.

Your life story is that simple?

All stories are that simple. Yours too.

Huh? I’ve had a lot of experiences. You know, Birth. School. Work. Stories everywhere. We’re all unique, no?

Fuck no, we are not.

How do you figure?

Life is a universal experience. Like you said. Birth, school, work. And we’d like to think we are unique but that’s just the universal experience of everyone convincing themselves they are the center of the universe.

Are you the center of your universe?

Of course.

Then that makes you quite unique, eh? See, and your story is therefore unique, eh?

Exactly the opposite. Like I said, we are all the stories that have been told. And they are all boring at this point. Twenty-first century boring.

No one out there–in the news or on TV or in the movies, or sports. Their stories are all boring?

I’d say so. Whatever they did, someone did it before they did.

What? If someone sets a record, that’s new. Even exciting, no?

Setting a record means someone else had set the record before and so if someone else can come along and set a new record for whatever, how is that special or exciting?

Wow, you are in a funk.

The world is in a funk. Just look around.

What about nature? Does nature bore you. Forget people. Isn’t nature special and exciting?

It can be, but nature isn’t people. People are inferior to nature. Because we are all so boring, and all our stories have been told. Stories about nature lack authenticity. Just mere observations. People don’t know shit about shit. Even the ones who are paid to know their shit. Then it turns out they ultimately don’t give a shit. Again, just look around.

Are you doing street drugs again? What are you smoking? Snap out of it. You know, stop and smell the roses. Commune with nature.

All drugs are part of nature. Magic mushrooms. The Poppy. All sorts of plants.

So, which part of nature did you use to become so negative? You must dig the barbiturates, eh? I suggest you switch to amphetamines. Try LSD. You know, drop acid, see god?

Nature is superior to people, like I said. Using nature to escape reality is an admission of this inferiority.

So, are you stoned now or what?

Do I look and sound stoned?

If fact, you do.

Oh, well. It’s my universe and I’ll do what I feel with it.

What do you feel like doing with it besides what you are doing with it right now?

Nothing.

Nothing? That’s where this conversation started, no?

Right. See, I guess I have proved my point. And this conversation has become boring.

If you say so.

I say so.

So, you want to go out tonight. After your drugs wear off?

Sure. We can let our universes collide.

That sounds exciting. See, boredom can be overcome.

What do you suggest we do?

Hmm. Well, listen to some live music. Go to a movie. Stay home and watch the Ukrainian news feed.

All the music has ben played before. The movies are just junk. Ukraine has nothing new to report.

But you have relatives there.

Right, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Let’s get rid of that channel. It has become boring.

Fine. So, what DO you want to do?

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll start writing my own story. Maybe I can find something exciting about it.

Okay. Write away.

Do you have a working title for the book?

Yeah. Being and Nothingness.

That book has already been written. By Jean-Paul Sartre.

What? Bullshit.

C’mon. You never heard about that book?

No but I do know John, Paul, George and Ringo tho.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds, eh?

Yeah. About drugs..

And love and death, blah blah blah. And revenge. Don’t forget about revenge.

Same old same old.

I suppose so.

You see, like I said, all the stories have already been told.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

That segment from William Butler Yeats‘ poem The Second Coming, always had relevance as a summation of the chaos and calamity contained in life-at-large. Life is a series of peaks and valleys, right? When was ever it not the case according to the history books? Even the dinosaurs peaked and then went into a terminal valley thanks to a meteor strike about 67 million years ago. Humankind has yet to be wiped out by that random rock rocketing toward earth. The odds of that happening are pretty long, but there are other forces that are loosening anarchy.

Ya think?

Second coming? If one wants to credit a religious comeuppance to that expression, well okay. After all, religion is responsible for enough bloodshed to possibly form its own ocean. And all religions have made contributions to that righteous reservoir. However, one need not confine attribution of “second coming” to supernatural spiritual beliefs alone. Another type of “religion” exists in the realm of politics. Politics is friction, folks. Friction: the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another.

Politics is currently causing plenty of chaos and anarchy. Political parties are actually not much different than religious organizations. Either can get you roughed up or ultimately laying lifeless on a gurney with an I.D. tag on the big toe. Right now in the U.S., there’s a faction of a political party that has, in recent years, literally unloosed anarchy. Rest assured it’s not the Green Party. It’s the Red Party (with an elephant mascot; an insult to the elephant species). It’s hardcore true believers often use religion as a wedge, seeking power the same as one set of spiritual beliefs does over another. It’s essentially a cult (the same as every organized religion).

The most fervent of this Red cult’s members have blood on their hands. It’s “leader” holds a disturbing sway over them. In fact, this person holds sway over even those whose job it is to hold such bloody behavior to full account. No, I do not allude to another political party, though the cult’s main opposition is a political party, but one that pathetically is much better at rhetorical retorts than serious and substantive pushback. No, the reason this Red Cult still exists in a most toxic context is because it apparently is good for ratings. Local and national (dare I say even international?) news agencies treat the Red Cult as ratings red meat.

The proof of such a cynical approach to so-called journalism was literally admitted to when the head of a major national media outlet said as much back in 2015, when the aforementioned “leader” of the current cult first spewed his ugly ideology of divisiveness, hate, and sociopathic poison: “He may not be good for the country, but he sure is good for ratings.” And eight years later, in spite of a legal system that has finally decided to show some backbone by charging him with a plethora of crimes sitting on a mountain of smoking-gun evidence, the media allows him to dominate headlines with reporting that still is fawning over him. Sure, innocent until proven guilty, but this is ridiculous. The average person has near-zero chance of beating parking ticket!

Talk about things falling apart and a center that cannot hold! Science-trained meteorologists see the climate dramatically collapsing before our very eyes, but for some reason do not acknowledge its clear cause and effects. Likewise, mainstream news media refuse to pronounce the absurdity that is the Red Cult leader still being assessed as a legitimate candidate for the presidency in spite of his having attempted to overthrow the very government that the presidency is beholden to. Not very funny, but those ratings…

Another part of Yeats’ The Second Coming offers this:

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Has it really been forty-one months since the covid shut-down? Did that universally stressful stretch of time really happen? Stuck at home, with even the fitbit strolls, saunters, amblings, and power hikes becoming somewhat self-delusional as far as sustaining that I got this kind of gumption. Weather a lone wolf lifestyle or parents of a brood of grade schoolers, it all became blursville. Within that blur there was the rote mannerisms of masks, disinfectants, keeping one’s distance, while watching the death toll mount, locally or globally. And of course we here in the U.S. had the added burden of a sociopathic president who at one point suggested drinking bleach. Did some people follow that flagrantly flippant, insane advice? If so, then at least some of us could be comforted by figuring it was a Darwinian thinning of the herd. Then came a vaccine. Then another and then boosters. And science saved the daze. But with the caveat that it could mutate. In the meantime some bought as much Big Pharma stock as possible. See, always a silver lining–for those who can afford the luxury.

Here we are, in mid-August of 2023. We mostly feel safe, and as survivors of that once-in-a-lifetime confrontation with a global attack on humanity by an invisible monster, perhaps all the better for it. You know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Until something does eventually kill us; however, many of the “steppers” gained healthy cardio while losing love handles. Damn right. The health clubs were all closed. Think outside that box. Even if one walked the floorboards of their domesticated virtual prison cells.

We are now in so much a better place. We have Hulu, Netflix, Apple, Disney, HBO Max, Peacock, Amazon, Paramount, Sing TV, Tubi and more. And then there was–and will now always be-Zoom. Zoom-doom! Good thing we added that covid cardio since as we all know exercise is much harder than sitting on ass.

*******

Recently the cinema has had some big budget fodder to entice those asses to fill a seat in a multiplex, pigging on popcorn with synthetic butter slathered over it; tub-size Big Gulps, and many venues offering booze too. Been to a movie lately? If so, it was likely a superhero comic book bloat of 150 minutes on average, or a supernatural haunting tale a million times already told, or a pinball body count contrivance of revenge by an ex-CIA operative requiring daring do and lots of shit blowing up. Let’s not forget the remakes/reboots/sequels/prequels starring ageless action heroes. With lots and lots more of shit blowing up. Hey. movies are a means of escaping reality. Reality?–time and space and the law of physics have no place in action movies. And usually there’s no place for a comprehensible plot. But free refills on that soda and lubed-up popcorn.

Then there’s kiddie fare galore. Ninja Turtles. Mario Brothers. Actual cartoons rather than the live action cartoons. You know, like Barbie. Yeah. Saturated pink Barbie. This Barbie isn’t a little girl’s plaything Barbie. She seems to live and breath and walk and talk and smile endlessly, in saturated pink. According to critics, there’s substance beneath its insufferably pink surface: about patriarchy. And body image. And feminism. Or, as one explanation of the point of the movie reads: a metamodern approach to dissecting the toy’s standing in the world and how it relates to the ways we (we?) construct our own identities. So much for escapism on the silver screen! And in SATURATED PINK to boot. I’ll wait for the sequel, hopefully made by David Lynch or David Cronenberg. Or Steven Soderberg. Hey, can you imagine what James Cameron might do with the same material? It would likely be filmed underwater, and Barbie could finally have her scuba attire added to her wardrobe.

But we have lived to see cinema become mildly popular again–though in my estimation not offering much creative gravitas. You want gravitas? Oppenheimer is making big bucks, too, inviting speculation on that man’s moral struggle with creating a weapon that can end the world. Ironically, since the lifting of the covid shutdown, and much saber rattling by the U.S., Russia and China, the atomic Doomsday clock is set at a mere 90 seconds to midnight. Closer to lights out than ever before. Barbie was a manufactured play thing. The Bomb was the terror of science and NOT a play thing, eh? Which one has more to say about human nature than the other?

Girls play with dolls. Guys like to blow shit up. What underlying ethos in either case is there to explore? For me, it’s just look around and see what a mess the human species has created. If you are inclined to explore the depths of our current dilemma, there are volumes of well written analysis and speculation. Not one page of such writing or one bit of cinema can ever explain how dysfunctional reality has now become. Ask Siri. Or Alexi. Or Big Blue. Or better yet, just try not to think about it. That should be no problem, eh? Think? Critically? If the human brain were wired to actually endeavor for a world where all could live in peace and love and understanding, going to see a live action cartoon in saturated pink that serves to address little girls and grown women and the toxic culture of hyper masculinity would never have to be made. Ya think? There’d never be a world war that generated the The Bomb. Or a post world war where autocrats and sociopaths get elected to public office. Morons too. Conspiracy nutjobs. Up is down. Right is wrong. There is no there there. Alternative facts. Fake news. Normalizing the pathogenic political circus full of creepy clowns.

Drink the bleach. Drink the Cool-Aid. Play with your doll or G.I. Joe action figure. If it’s not too late, don’t grow up. From where I sit, growing up is the biggest trap of all. Then again, William Golding grew up, only to write the dystopian novel Lord of the Flies. If you’re not familiar with that work, its characters are aged 6 to 12. They are stranded on an island after a plane crash. In short order they indulge in factionalism and murder. Would the same happen if they were 6-12 year-old girls? Uh, yes, that would be Dare Me by Megan Abbott. Which begs the question as to what if those Golding’s Fly Boys met Megan’s cheerleaders? Maybe love would conquer all. That would make it fiction for sure. Reality? Hey, it’s a mad, mad, mad mad world, and you can’t make this shit up anymore. And books that have meaningful lessons to tell are now being banned.

But please, have a nice day.

As of the past week, it has become vividly clear the Supreme Court is a 67% rogue operation, doing the bidding of the billionaire class and its fascist faction of anti-democratic fanatics. The most egregious evidence of this creepy reality is the case concerning a supposed web site designer asserting a potential client emailed her asking for a web site for a gay couple. Claiming religious reasons for not wanting to be forced to cater to the LGBTQ community, she files a lawsuit. It reaches the Supremes. Sure enough, by a 6-3 vote, the Sinister Six ruled she was free to discriminate.

It turns out, however, Lorie Smith and her company never created any website for ANY individual or company. So why was the company created in the first place? It was, apparently, a far Right scam, orchestrated to find that friendly SCOTUS six to rule on the “merits” of the suit.

The supposed email sender was contacted, and he turns out to be a happily married heterosexual male. So, there was no such web designer, who received no such email by no such gay couple. But the six far Right jurists went along with the case as though it was real. By submitting false information to the courts, Lorie Smith committed perjury. The suit had no standing whatsoever. The six judges also committed “subornation” which means bribery!

Do NOT expect either Lorie Smith or John Roberts, Amy Barrett, Bret Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas to be held to account. We do not live in that kind of “rule of law” country, a label that has always been subject to verification, but it has now reached a red-line zone which places ever more stress on the engine of our so-called representative democracy. In addition to giving carte blanche to those of the bigot class wanting to discriminate against others, the Court also recently ruled against the student loan relief policy (the banksters want that loan fully paid off including the lucrative interest rate that goes with such loans). Keep in mind in the 50s and into the 60s public education was pretty much free. We don’t live in that country any longer either. Then the Six shot down affirmative action, using reasoning that aligns with a decade-ago decision that the Voting Rights Act was no longer needed since–using again non-existent “evidence”–the country was no longer beset by institutional racism. Hey, it’s the Six Shooter Court, and so there’s a new sheriff in town, is that it?

No doubt, since the Tea Party movement in 2010 (We want our country back! From that black guy in the White House) to 2015, and the ascension of a blowhard reality show host to candidate for the President, the U.S. has been slipping and sliding into a ever widening valley of hate, division, xenophobia, misogyny, and flat-out white supremacy. And thanks to a corporate-friendly, collusive mainstream media, and complicit social media platforms advancing the rot of the Right, We the People (that’s the majority of general public, okay?, who in the abstract want to simply be treated with dignity by our governing bodies), need to demand a pushing back of MAGA and their lot. And now with SCOTUS and its 60% unfavorable rating (sure, 40% of the public is fucking crazy as in MAGA crazy), the rot includes the Six’s propensity for using the Constitution as toilet tissue.

A push-back is an urgent matter. Ya think?

That push-back is very likely a matter of an uprising by rational, free-thinking, members of every generation, regardless of age. It certainly will not automatically come from the Democrat Party, which as been corporatized for decades itself. For the umpteenth time, it was, after all, senator Joe Biden who in 1991 along with a large Democrat senate majority, who allowed the lying, sexual harassing, jurist without portfolio named Clarence Thomas to be placed on the Court. This is a stone-cold fact that I believe 99.88% of the public is unaware of. Do the MAGA assholes even know this factual, incriminating factor regarding Joe Biden? So, why should “the Left” expect sleepy, stumbling, walking corpse JB to do anything now?

There has been conjecture of adding more liberal judges–at least four– to the Court to reverse its clear complicity with the fascist elements, which CAN be done since the Constitution allows for adding (or subtracting) the number of justices. However, Biden, Pelosi, and other upper echelon Democrats show no interest in using that as a campaign strategy as we inch toward a possible end-game election in 2024. In fact, stacking the Court lawfully in favor of true fairness and an actual rule of law and compassion for the afflicted ought be the absolute leading campaign pitch by every Democrat running for any office anywhere. Period. Full stop. But that kind of Howard Beale fed-up-and not-going to-take-it-anymore spirit is no longer anywhere to be found in the DNC’s DNA.

As an indication of just how fake an “opposition party” are the democrats and JB, Joe just proposed adding Elliot Abrams to the Public Diplomacy Commission. Abrams was part of Ronald Reagan’s henchmen who helped destroy Central American democracies during the Iran/Contra infamy of the early 1980’s. He was then knee deep in human rights atrocities. Look it up. He’s 75 years old now. I doubt he has seen the errors of his past and now is a love dove for humanity. Old dog, new tricks? Nah. Not if Biden thinks he’s fit for more duty. Are we about to invade Costa Rica or Belize?

I remember back when, whenever that was, the rather common occurrence of a doorbell ringing or a knock at the door, wondering whom might this be? It was quite often a couple of formal looking, well-rehearsed, well dressed younger folks proselytizing on behalf of Jehovah’s Witness. Perhaps, dear reader, you might recall this experience as well. Their reading material was headlined Awake! Hmm. Is that the precursor of becoming “woke”? Awake or woke or whatever. They were true believers, of course. Like all religions purporting to being the true Righteous Ones, these front door disciples, were and still are, full of shit. The MAGAs are true believers and are very full of shit. Hard core Democrat voters are full of shit. Joe Biden is full of shit. The mainstream media is full of shit. The Supreme Six are incredibly full of shit. Our two-party, rigged system is now completely, irredeemably, full of shit. To not be full of shit is to know a fact from an inference from a stone-cold FACT. With that superpower, also known as critical thinking, there are many among us who are not full of shit. Alas, none of us are completely perfect. But thinking, listening critically is seemingly not being applied to our body politic.

The question is, can those in possession of critical thinking outnumber those that are full of shit when it comes to demanding positive change? In some respects, given the last 40-plus years of Reaganomics, now morphed into a fascist movement, in spite of democrats having had moments of complete control of congress and the White House, and Biden and his semi-senile cohorts, the “why vote, it doesn’t matter” mentally mitigates the free -tinker’s sense of hope. No shit, eh?

The new Jehovah’s Witness ringing doorbells needs to be a swell of 3rd party acolytes. The woke and the awakened better organized or it will be a very bad 2024 and beyond. This critical thinker may be full of shit as far as that becoming a reality goes. Then again, at this point in my life, maybe I don’t give a shit anymore. Less is more. Just let me be. I’ve tried to make a positive difference, and what difference has it made? Jack shit, that’s what. Sure, all politics is local. All politics is also LOCO. Uh. But I will close this out by saying, again, we get the government we deserve.

Oh shit!

Hey ladies and dudes, boys and girls, kiddies and carpet crawlers, it’s the last day of June, 2023. That makes it akin to half-time in the smash mouth game of NFL football. To extend the analogy, this “half-time” highlights the successes or failures of each competing team. Is this one evenly matched and the score tied or showing no signs of dominance by either team? Hmm. Let’s take a look at the stats, but let’s drop the football game hypothetical.

Let’s make it the nastiest game, the most important game going on at this calendar year half-time: politics. In our essentially two-party system of Donkeys and Elephants, the game does feature one side–Donkeys–with a numerical advantage. That would be the Dems. Inasmuch as they have the majority in the senate, and have the more powerful “quarterback” by occupying the White House, one might assume they are controlling the game, using that advantage by using the power that advantage confers. basically using that political muscle to ensure victory.

Having an inherent advantage by having the majority in the senate and White House should place the odds of victory squarely in their corner. This Donkey bunch, however, has neither any real muscle nor do they have the leadership skills that ought to ensure that office-holding advantage provide results for its “fan base” to feel smug about. In fact, here at the half-time of 2023, they are actually getting their asses kicked by the team that wishes it had the advantage the Donkey possess but still appear to be in control of the flow of this political game, scoring almost at will. But 2023’s Donkey edge in controlling the game, using the levers of power pales in comparison to their ineptitude at pleasing their fan base when 2021 is recalled.

As of January, 2021, the Dems had even more of an advantage over the Elephant party by not only having the White House and the senate, but also the house of representatives. That edge was quickly lost in the mid-term election of 2022 (half-time until the 2024 tilt). The fan base again sees their support not being rewarded by giving their team control of ALL the levers of power.

Clearly, there seems to be a lack of effort here for democrats, from fossilized Joe B. down to a progressive wing called The Squad that barely barks, let alone bite. The minority party, the one that is now in full-bore fascist mode may be outnumbered, but no sweat, they see that their opponent lacks any energy in terms of fighting back. Joe Biden. Nancy Pelosi. Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Jim Clyburn and their ilk are simply the latest incarnation of the play to lose DNC. And remember, Joe B held the gavel during the Clarence Thomas hearings. In spite of a 15 seat senate majority wussy Joe ushered a most vile and dangerous excuse of a human being into a LIFETIME appointment on SCOTUS. Then recall that it was 5-4 in Citizens United and 5-4 on gutting the Voting Rights Act. That fifth vote was Thomas. Way to go, Joe!!

Now SCOTUS is a 6-3 fascist nightmare, and although Joe, the Donkey QB, could add liberals to the Court, which he has the power to use, he chooses not to, then decries the latest radical Right rulings that continue to chip away (maybe jackhammer away at this point) at what is supposed to be a democracy. This started with Reagan in 1981, and with the help of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the slow but unabated slide into plutocracy, corporatocracy and the rule of the billionaire class.still grinds away.

If you care about the environment, social justice, education, worker-friendly economics, the ability to have your vote counted, or a woman’s right to control her reproductive rights and more, you have no party among the rigged frick or frack system forced down your throat. Third party? Not with a corporate media, which playing to win the ratings game circa 2015, escorted the now indicted, now convicted of sexual assault, twice impeached ex-president onto the political stage. And still this media normalizes the fascist take-over that is happening in plain sight.

This game, at a 2023 half-time mark, is not even intended to be a match of political opposites. The game is already over. One side scores a field goal here and there while the other side scores touchdowns, even while technically being shorthanded!

Me, I DO vote 3rd party. I know it is an act of futility as the game is so rigged, but it is with complete sincerity that I can proclaim: don’t blame me, I never voted for this.