brain teazers

If "snuck" is not a word (and it isn't), what should it be?

What is the plural of mongoose?

smells.like teen spirit

Must B pun kin-spice season, which means we B gettin a lot of these.

Restaurant facade in Tokyo.

bye for a while

I'm afraid I must suspend work here, at least 4 a while.

Typing has. Become 2 difficult. I could use Voice activated typing on the iPad, but speaking is nearly as difficult as typing.

It's all due 2 Parkinson's. 

Not sure what to do. I'm not ready 2 pack it in completely. I'll continue posting on Facebook, mostly on the "news & politics" pg, also occasionally on Twitter.

suckhard

Here's what Marco Rubio said during the debate on Tues. that upset me so,

There is a lunatic in North Korea with dozens of nuclear weapons and long-range rocket that can already hit the very place in which we stand tonight. The Chinese are rapidly expanding their military. They hack into our computers. They're building artificial islands in the South China Sea, the most important shipping lane in the world. A gangster in Moscow is not just threatening Europe, he's threatening to destroy and divide NATO. You have radical jihadists in dozens of countries across multiple continents. And they even recruit Americans using social media to try to attack us here at home. And now we have got this horrible deal with Iran where a radical Shia cleric with an apocalyptic vision of the future is also guaranteed to one day possess nuclear weapons and also a long-range rocket that can hit the United States.

Taking this mess sentence-by-sentence, Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea, may or may not be a lunatic. the rest of the sentence is pure fantasy: Kim does Not have "dozens" of nukes, nor a missile that can hit anything farther away than Japan. The burden of proof is on Sen Rubio.

yuck

I found myself unable to watch the Rehooligan debate last nite.

4 1 thing, it was (again) all about Trump, who looked like a big, ugly rat being set upon by a pack of enraged gerbils. Everybody, including the moderators, is trying to bring this giant rodent down, but he continues to chug along.

About 7:00 Marco Rubio, professional honor-roll student, comes on & holds forth 4 a few minutes on Iran, saying that undesr the terms of the still-unconcluded treaty with the country, the mullahs were "guaranteed" -- guaranfknteed -- to have a nuke in a few short years, which they would of course use against us &/or Israel.

"Bud, you can stand out on the corner & tell that same lie twice" I said B 4 kissin the Mrs. & bidding her goodnight, for she had determined earlier in the weeek 2 punish herself by actually watching this dumb show put on by morons & misfits. 

It's past time 4 us to start keeping track of these fearless predictions, such as the one made by Marco R. Last nite, so as 2 B b able 2 rub the perps', faces in em when they fall due.

From z sub-conscious

In 1973, French novelist Jean Raspail wrote  "In the Camp of the Saints." It was immediately almost universally condemned as racist garbage. 40 years later we're looking at they events described in this novel playing out in the news from Europe.

During the interlude between the book's publication and 2011, when the demand for it became such it needed 2  reprinted, the Atlantic magazine, at a time when "Camp of the Saints" was out of print & hard 2 find (1994), published an appreciation of Raspail's work under the title "Must it be the  West versus the rest?" 

Then there's Donald Trump.

Nobody, not even trump himself, wants to just think of himself as a racist asshole. At the same time, treating the coming migration storm as if it's not a problem is self- destructive. 

The earth is overpopulated, especially in places where 200 years of energy whoopee have encouraged population growth way beyond what resources in those places -- Middle East & North Africa (MENA) -- could ever support. 

This past Monday Jim Kunstler addressed this situation by noting that "Yes, the tragic intrusions of the US military in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere have been reckless and stupid. But that is not the whole story. The desert nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have populations abnormally swollen by a century of oil-and-gas-based agriculture, really by the benefits of Modernity in general. Now that the oil age is chugging to an unruly crack-up, and Modernity with it, and the earth’s climate is doing wonky things, and the rich nations to the north have faked their finances to the point of bankruptcy, well, circumstances have changed."

In this country I have advocated getting a handle on our borders by limiting immigration from Latin America  by eliminating the sick, the criminal, and illiterates. There would still be a lot of people coming here, but they would all be workplace ready.

Pretending there's not a problem because T. Rump's a butthead, or J.M. Penn a racist dick, doesn't get it either.

I curse our so-called leaders past and present, who allowed International income inequality 2 become so skewed this situation has arisen: people can't stay in Mexico because life there is impossible, as it is in Syria, Afghanistan,  & Libya. 

1972, at home by the shore of the Mediterranean, Raspail had a vision:  "A million poor wretches, armed only with their weakness and their numbers, overwhelmed by misery, encumbered with starving brown and black 
children, ready to disembark on our soil, the vanguard of the multitudes pressing hard against every part of the tired and overfed West. I literally saw them, saw the major problem they presented, a problem absolutely insoluble by our present moral standards. To  let them in would destroy us. To reject them would destroy them." 

Friday cat blogging

Sammy really loves her new stroller.

With the weather a little cooler now, we take her out  morning & evening most days.

9/11/2015

I'll never forger what I saw on 9/11/01, nor would I want to.

I wish I could forget that it was shortly thereafter this country, after flirting with mass psychosis for decades, decided 2 go balls-2-the-wall nuts.  Collectively, our national psyche went into orbit and hasn't come back.

And we might never, although I hope this orbit we're in, characterized by Rambo fantsies fed by extreme paranoia, will weaken sufficiently that we might fall back down to earth. 

sardine balloon to

The sardine balloon is a concept that's been around since 1985, when my daughter was 13.

The appearance of the SB signals a tough time ahead, since this is the signal of an imminent revolution.

It may be thorough or partial, universal or strictly personal -- you never know in advance.

The sign of the sardine  balloon  is momentous indeed.

the crucible,1965-1972

We were all reborn out of the crucible, every one of us over age 10 by 19 & 65.

The crucible was Vietnam, racism come 2 a head, and other culminative factors loose in society simultaneously. 

The 70's was still unwinding when Patrick J. Buchanan called out the simultaneous semi-revolutionary turmoils of the late 60's as some sort of turning point in US society and gov't.

The political revolution he called for in 1979 & 1980 has been wildly successful, and is just now beginning to show signs of fatigue.

We;ve hardly been heard from 4 over 30 yrs. The next couple yrs will shock a lot of people.

friday cat blogging

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ





































Photo: Kit Wood 

oops -- reflections on aging

I've probably deeply insulted Matt Salmon, the Congressional Rep for my Arizona district, and the chelloveck whose picture you see below, although I'm pretty sure he doesn't know it (VIP's don't ever read this blog).

Yesterday I said he was an OAF (old fart) like me, and "probably in his 70's."

Turns out the dude is 57 -- 14 yrs younger than me. So my first question is, How does one so young manage 2 look so old?

I thought all that clean livin due to Mormonism was good 4 a person.

something fishy goin on

Oh My Cod! The Congressman from Aridzona who just happens 2B my own rep here in this little old Congressional district where we've settled down, Rep. Matt Salmon has been scarin the little kids in elementary school.

Now you must understand that believing in democracy as I do leads me to conclude that Rep. Salmon's Mormonism and Republicanism are OK, because East Mesa here is largeley Mormon and Republican, so that's cool.  BUT he's an old fart like me, and I happen to know most OAFS are totally clueless people.
             
The problem with OAFS is they think things are as they were 50 or 60 yrs ago. What I mean by that is Salmon, being probably in his 70's, clearly remembers the "duck and cover" drills of the early 50's, and very clearly understood what a nuclear bomb was and what it would do, as all public-school first graders did at that time.

A parent who heard the Congressman speak to the little ones was horrified by his question, "Do you know what nuclear weapons are?" to a group of 2d- and 3d-graders. He was talking about Iran when he asked it, as well as mentioning that in countries where they hate Americans, the schools train "kids your age to be suicide bombers."

Mr. Campbell (4 such was the witnessing parent's name) was horrified by this statement as well, and said the next day that was the information  which most frightened his daughter, as she didn't know what suicide is. We're talkin 8- & 9-yr-olds who have no information on the basics of life and death.

I'm sure Mr. Campbell's telling the truth in all of this, but I can't help but think the parent in this case is as clueless as the Congressman. As an educator he'd make a very sour dean. He appears 2 think  kids like we were, who knew what the atom bomb was, what it was capable of doing, and also read a newspaper every day, and so figured out early in my life the precise meanings of all the common death-associated words -- murder, suicide, homicide, mortal, etc. -- that such children are now extinct, & no longer walk the earth.

It's a big flap over nuthin, really. and a tempest in a teapot, but Rep Salmon really needs a style makeover. I wonder how may of these little kids, unlike Mr. indignant dad, felt like something smelt  in Salmon's presentation. I also wonder how many of em know a lot more than Mr. Campbell thinks they do. 

#30#

what price derpitude?

And quite a few are all 4 (i.e., Negro-Hispanic jazz musician entertainers), you towel-mouthed cretin.

I never realized how much I truly hate this guy. He was the worst individual who happened to this country in our lifeetimes, and a one-man act of domestc terrorism.

What was the price we paid for our phobias concerning marijjuana. How many parts and big pieces of lives were wasted behind bars, and what was the  effect on our collective mentlal health, derived from substituting alcohol 4 medicine?

of splebes, diagonadl & z "é booby''

dish yere is made me loif completL! it's a jen -u -wine  DIAGONADL SPLEBE.

My life's great desire & purpose is fulfilled, & come on, relly, this perfect SPLEBE  has gone unremarked, tho in my possession 4 a cupola yrs now...it's just a matter of 'C-IN'G things As THeY riLLy R.

There;s the signpost, Up ahead(!) -- You're entering...

Definitely not a What Were We Doin? story; it was more like "What did us?"

This is a screen shot of z haboob that was spoze 2 smite us day B4  yistidday (8//26).  At this pt. it was 10-12 mins south of here, and all dust out in front.

By the time it hit us at 8-50pm it was heavy rain & dust mixed 2-Gether ---- woreded inuit joansing pretty guid, ye rain alasted long enoug & was sufre intense enough 2 wash it all 'clen.'

fear & loathing in d.c.

It isn't hard to figure what's driving the Biden 4 preznit thing. 

The Dem establishment is desperate 2 find an alternative 2 Mrs. Clinton who isn't Bernie Sanders.

DC politicians fear & hate this guy to the same degree some of us R devoted 2 the cause.

worse than hitler

For once, I have nothing to add.

Welcome to clusterfuck nation.

high crimes

The first presidential cabinet member convicted of a felony while serving was Warren G. Harding's secretary of the interior Albert Fall, who did two years after his 1922 conviction for accepting bribes in connection with the Teapot Dome, Wyoming oil lease scandal.

Fifty-five years went by before John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney-General, was convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice in connection with the famous burglary of Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Mitchell, to be fair, had recently resigned his office at the time.

Earl  Butz, President Ford's secretary of agriculture, was not convicted of a felony while in office, but was forced to resign after telling a joke on a public flight which was overheard and reported by the TV correspondent Geraldo Rivera, to wit: "The only things a nigger cares about are having loose shoes, a tight pussy, and a warm place to shit." In 1978, 4 years after his resignation, Butz pled guilty to income tax evasion in excess of $100,000, served 25 days in jail and paid the money back.

Two members of Reagan's Cabinet, Attorney-General Edwin Meese and interior secretary James Watt, barely avoided felony convictions. Watt pled guilty to a single, lesser, misdemeanor charge as he stood accused of 25 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with influence peddling at the department of housing and urban development Meese resigned in a timely fashion when he was being investigated by a special prosecutor for selling his influence over his long-time friend, the president.


The foregoing is an example of opinion writing with no opinion ever expressed.

Every sentence is an easily-verifiable fact.

To point to abuse is to condemn it.

Also, I find it interesting that all 4 presidents mentioned are of the same political party,

ping-pong politics

Trying 2 discern larger patterns of US presidential politics, it looks to me as if voters have spent the last 40 yrs getting whipsawed from pillar to post.

Starting with Carter, an ineffectual liberal who discovered that good intentions don't mean a thing if you don't have the swag to intimidate Congress, voters turned in frustration to the hard right-winger Reagan, and loved him until he proved 2 B a habitual liar and tax cheat. Michael Dukakis was such a mediocre candidate he couldn't even best the elder Bush, but  Clinton had no trouble doing so.

Of all the occupants of the White House in the past 40 yrs, Clinton was closest to being a magician, and pulled at least a couple of rabbits out of hats. His welfare reform, for example, though it hurt a lot of people as well as helping some, brilliantly stole a march on his opposition. But in the end he played ball with the oligarchs, gutting bank regulation by allowing Larry Summers to sabotage the Glass-Steagall Act. Next was the stupidest president (so far) Dubya, followed by the most ineffectual liberal ever, Obama.

To some degree it's not Obama's fault. He naively underestimated the ferocity of his racist opposition, and due to his habitual narcissism induced by doting grandparents, failed to learn the lessons Carter left 4 him 35 yrs earlier concerning the intractability of a hostile Congress. We endured 8 yrs of Obama & all we have to show for it is the crappy Affordable Care Act. It sets a good precedent, but then so did Jimmy Carter's Environment speech of so long ago. 


As we look @ the current field of candidates, voters have little 2 B cheerful about. Between a boatload of ludicrous Rehooligans who appear 2 B attempting 2 outdo each other in stupid macho posturing and Hillary Clinton, whose skin-deep liberalism covers everything & touches nothing, the shallowness of our political system stands exposed.

It's past time for an end to ping-pong politics. let's see -- there must B SOMEone out there who's different...

good golly miss molly

Right. She's been dead these 8 years, but some of us haven't forgotten that Molly Ivins may have been the best pure political writer America ever produced.                                

If not the best, she was the funniest in her daily handling of a naturally depressing topic. On the event of the Elevation of St. Ronald in 1980 Ivins wrote:

"As a life-long Texas liberal, I have spent the  whole of my existence in a political climate well to the right of that being created by Ronald Reagan and his merry zealots. Brethren and sistren, this can not only be endured, it can be laughed at. Actually, you have two other choices. You could cry or you could throw up."

Ivins read today reminds us that before there was Donald T. Rump there was Dubya, and before Dubya there was Reagan, and that things aren't getting any better. But while there's nothing in contemporary politics to celebrate, you don't want to make things harder on yourself. "You want to end up looking like Jeane Kirkpatrick? So smile."

The fight of her life was not political, however, and when she succumbed to inflammatory breast cancer in 2007, aged 62, only those very close to her even knew she was sick. Self-pity was not the style of this strong six footer, who left us so much and asked so little.

Even after 8 yrs I still miss her. RIP, Molly, and yes, you can say that. Who's gonna stop you?