Thursday, February 27, 2020                                           11:37 AM

Science Debate   (2020Feb27)

The debate over the shape of the Earth has been a reliable measure of a person’s intellect, since Ancient Greece, when one guy remarked, “All you have to do is, watch a ship sink beneath the horizon, its mast-top the last thing to disappear, to know that our Earth is shaped liked an orange.” For millennia, well-educated flat-earthers could point out that, “If the world was round, why don’t we all fall off?” Thank goodness for Isaac Newton.

Claudius Ptolemaeus (c. AD 100 – c. 170) was quite certain the Earth was the center of the Universe. He invented the Ptolemaic System, which explained how all the planets (& the Sun) revolved around the Earth. His planets stopped in orbit, occasionally, to do a little dance-orbit, then continue on their ‘big’ orbit. Ptolemy made an assumption—he was geocentric.

“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” by Galileo (1632) explained that all the planets ran in smooth orbits (and so did we) around the Sun. He was tried for heresy by the Inquisition (No one ever expects that, right?) and kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. But since he was the ‘father’ of modern science, he just continued doing experimental research.

Therefore, it took 1,500 years for someone to correct Ptolemy’s assumption—and people were so used to it, they threw the ‘snowflake’ in jail for life. Fortunately, the scientists that grew out of the Renaissance were more receptive to Galileo’s math… although the Vatican did issue an apology to Galileo, about ten years ago, or so.

Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939) would invent psychoanalysis, but he would wrap it up in his own emotional issues, using his assumption of male chauvinism as a given, rather than an artificial overlay on society. This assumption made Freud’s work an amalgam of his study of the mind, and the feelings of his heart—a mess that psychologists are still trying to straighten out, a century later. Freud made an assumption—he thought everyone was like him, in ways he didn’t think of.

This is all by way of saying: Science is a slow grind—and people are its worst enemy. Galileo was also influential in separating the arts from the new, ‘reproducible’ sciences—and some people, including me, are still not sure if that was the right move…

But Science is beside the point.

We are faced with a psycho who believes that if he repeats a lie long enough, it will become true—and millions of people who are rooting for him to get away with it. Science will not help you here.

We are faced with a Republican Senate that admitted, sotto voce, ‘Yeah, he did it all—of course he did it all.’—and then acquitted—as if what he did was not treasonously criminal, clumsy, and unacceptable. It was acceptable to the Republican Senate and they said, “Forget it—we don’t care.”

If one single GOP Nazi Traitor remains in office after their 2020 elections, this country has entirely lost its way—like a cute, cartoon mouse with a thousand lawyers, or a Pussy-Grabber in the Oval Office. Where’s Galileo when you need him?

Friday, February 14, 2020                                       7:33 AM

What Are You Doing In Public Service?   (2020Feb14)

I imagine right now the Republicans feel pretty much the same way the White Sox felt after they threw the Series, 101 years ago. See, the ‘Black Sox’ (as they came to be known) were just part of a culture of sports-bet fixing that had become endemic. The players assumed that this was acceptable behavior, because of the corruption all around them. They went out and got drunk on the money they were paid.

When a straight-up judge was appointed the first Baseball Commissioner, he ignored the legal acquittals of the players and banned them for life, ignoring life-long pleas for re-instatement. This seems harsh to some, but it resulted in restoration of public faith in our national pastime—and our common belief in the integrity of modern pro baseball games.

The Republicans have been doing the truth-denying, respect my authoritah, science-is-lying ‘thing’ for years—remember the ‘Tea Party’?—a simperingly-cute label for a regressive inversion of truth and logic never-before-seen. What a bunch of racist conspiracies against the plain truth! Those people made me want to start screaming—the blatant confidence of sheer dumb-assed-ness.

But I don’t think these intellectual cowards, these locked-in-their-own-self-interest morons, have yet become the majority of voters. I think people that miss a respected and powerful America (or human rights?) may vote for someone else….

And please don’t try to tell me that Trump deserves credit for the fantastic Obama-fix of our economy—which he did nothing but ‘F’ with. Trump has been an out-in-the-open criminal (while Republicans spent the last four years pretending he was fine) destroying, dismissing, or demeaning every American value he can get his hands on. And while his leadership results are in the high negatives, his practical effect on our country has been nil—his accomplishments remain entirely on Twitter. His advisors remain in jail.

But isn’t AG Barr the cute one? He may actually believe that if you BS in the right tone of voice, no one will question it—but I find him neck-and-neck with King Ubu. Never before has anyone accepted that post on the understanding that his job will be to prevent the law.

Now, I don’t blame the media, per se—they are the fully-owned creatures of about four rich fuckers (tops—might be two). But they do abet the charade by pretending Republicans aren’t blowing it out their assholes, every time they respond to serious allegations against any of those traitorous scumbags.

I have taken a cue from my wife, who stopped watching TV news after the 2016 election. Rachel Maddow is remarkable by contrast with all the rest of it—a lone voice of reason and research—but sometimes even she is reduced to following the peer-telephone up BS creek.

So we have no social grapevine, like Johnny Carson or All In The Family, that can assure we’re all on the same page. We certainly have no Murrow, or Cronkite, to give us all the straight poop. We have to develop judgement of our own. We have to learn to look at rich people and ask, “What the fuck are you doing in public service, now that you’re old and out-of-shape? You think you’re a good leader because you’re used to giving orders? Get tha Fuck outta here!”

Tuesday, February 11, 2020                                             5:08 AM

We Assumed Victory   (2020Feb11)

Americans have always fought with each other. We fought with (and about) the Native Americans. We fought with those who thought we should be ruled. We fought with those who thought we should accept faith as law. We fought with those who thought we should accept prejudice. We fought with those who thought we should disrespect women. And none of these fights have ended.

Ever since we showed up here and started stealing their home, we have been entirely cold-blooded about slaughtering the indigenous people—and whoever survived the slaughter is treated, even today, as less than a person. Just this week, Traitor Trump decided to dynamite their sacred site to install a section of border wall.

Traitor Trump also demonstrated the flim-flam at the heart of organized religion when, at last week’s prayer breakfast, he questioned the “part about loving your enemies… I don’t know…” I’d quote the full sentence, if he ever talked in full or finished sentences.

The cowardice of the truly prejudiced is evident in the notion that a border, lain open for centuries, suddenly needs a steel barrier to protect us from the brown people. Traitor Trump is manifestly a troubled sicko.

Traitor Trump displays his disrespect for women most incisively by bringing his third wife, an Eastern European émigré, to the White House and somehow convincing her that First Lady isn’t a real job, and she needn’t bother fulfilling that role. But, mind, that’s only the tippy top of a humongously long list of panic attacks our Dear Traitor suffers over the thought of female empowerment.

So America has a new image. The home of the constant battle against ignorance, the land where ignorance is funded by the wealthy. Come the ‘80s, we were so close to winning the culture war (because it was a war against ignorance) that we assumed victory would just amble along. But ignorance is a tool of the wealthy—and Trump has made it a power-tool. And with last week’s Senate vote-of-denial, ignorance has regained the upper hand.

Thursday, February 06, 2020                                           10:54 PM

Big Picture   (2020Feb06)

Can we take a step back? Consider: All of the Republican’s/Trump’s tactics are based on circumventing the will of the majority. An honest election would be a fatal blow to the Right.

Thus the lying, the conspiracy theories, the phone-line-clogging, the e-mail hacking, the randomly false accusations, the extorting of Ukraine, etc.—the Republican Party virtually admits that they are opposed to Democracy, in both practice and theory.

No wonder their darling is a convicted fraud, who can’t speak without dishonesty mixing in with his ignorance. No wonder several of his closest associates are now in prison, for working with him. No wonder the Republican Party has had to historically disgrace itself, to keep up with him.

This is corruption and decline, pure and simple. Cable news seemed a good idea, at first. Now, its format is a proven stress-inducer—and all mental-health authorities recommend against watching that crap.

Political satirist have thrown up their hands, complaining that nothing they could invent comes close to the Dali-esque quality of Republican fact-alternatives and denied truths. Now, that may seem like a merely ironic nugget among the deluge of bad news—but again, Consider:

People whose job it is to exaggerate the issues-of-the-day to their most-ludicrous extremes—are being outdone by straight-faced, angry Republicans. Hate crimes have soared. The news reports that ‘everyone is happy with the economy’—but no one asked me, or my neighbors.

So, what are we voting for, when we vote Republican? Dishonesty? Criminality? Tax breaks for the rich? Nothing I’m wanting, that’s for sure….

Thursday, February 06, 2020                                           2:38 AM

We’re Wise   (2020Feb06)

I’ll tell you what happens if you watch too much stand-up: you stop laughing. The point of stand-up is to tell the truths that everyone else just naturally avoids saying. Whether we haven’t been clever enough to have seen life from that perspective, or if we’ve just avoided facing reality that objectively, the stand-up’s job is to rub something surprising in our faces.

As soon as I, the viewer, get the least bit tired, I start to hear stand-up as a litany of bitter truths—uncomfortable facts, being dwelt on for far too long. Comedy has to be a relaxation—people under strain aren’t prone to laugh.

I have become an expert in the overdoing of things. As a sick, old dude I have spent the last twenty years in bed, getter worse instead of better. As my activities become, year by year, ever more conscribed by failings in mind and body, the few occupations left to me have a tendency to get overused.

TV has to be at the top of that list. No other activity so perfectly matches a lazy blob. But now, I’m hypersensitive to bad TV—particularly any talking-head-type show where the agenda is the sponsor, not the journalism. I saw Edward R. Murrow on TV, myself—I don’t appreciate an entire channel devoted to lying.

At eight years old, I saw my favorite president get shot in the head—and his brains rolled off the trunk and into the fucking street. So I can handle Republican traitors, like those faithless Senators that voted a lie today. Come November, we’ll see just how far these oath-breaking dick-heads get, now that we’re wise to’em.

More recent FB Posts:

The Repumpsters are traitors–their agenda is to destroy the fed. govt.

With Trump as POTUS, yes, the obese addicted racist hate-broadcaster gets the PMOF

Monday, February 03, 2020                                             5:16 AM

Disappointment Is My Only Friend   (2020Feb03)

I was disappointed with the Media, when they made Trump a celebrity as a fat-cat who enjoyed saying “You’re fired!”—and even more famous as the spokesman for that racist ‘birther’ conspiracy theory.

I was disappointed with the Republicans, when they allowed him to run on their ticket—even though the only thing Trump has in common with them is that he is corrosive to human progress.

I was disappointed (first) by McConnell, when he went full racist, and denied a hearing for Obama’s SCOTUS pick.

I was immensely disappointed in the electorate, when they voted by the millions for that transparent, idiotic fraud, Trump—and even more disappointed in the Electoral College, which failed in being our failsafe against grossly unfit candidates who bamboozle the voters.

I was disappointed in Mueller’s ‘Special Investigation’, which was hardly what I would call ‘special’, or professional, for that matter. I was disappointed at the lack of outcry against the caging of child refugees, separate from their parents’ cages.

I was disappointed by the Senate recent admissions, both that they wouldn’t deny Trump’s criminality any longer, but that they would vote not to give a crap. Brett Kavanaugh, I think we can agree, was and remains a disappointment to us all.

So here I am, in the land of my birth, surrounded by people who don’t understand what America stands for—people who can’t even spot a flim-flam man when he’s laughing right in their faces. I’ve lost faith in the institutions, the communications, and the educations of my homeland.

I fear I now live in a greed-fueled slaughter-house, with an American flag pasted on the front of it, pretending we haven’t changed. Serious, straightforward issues, such as refuge, income inequality, gun violence, and climate disruption, are being ignored, while we discuss whatever simple-minded garbage our Networks and Platforms toss at us. They can’t resist Trump—because he’s a fount of simple-minded garbage.

I know that Americans can get mad. I know that great injustice, properly presented, can make every American rise and march as one. My greatest disappointment, I guess, is that I’ve yet to experience that reaction to our present political disaster. Why do we still find this mini-stroke mobster an acceptable head of state?

Sunday, February 02, 2020                                              1:28 AM

Ray of Sunshine   (2020Feb02)

If we had sensible legislation, McConnell would have been jailed as soon as he swore to refuse any compromise and kill any legislation, for so long as he helmed the Senate. That kind of mindless, partisan obstructionism has no place in that (formerly) august body.

When he guaranteed the outcome of Trump’s impeachment trial, before it began and in contradiction of the oath he was due to swear, he publicly disgraced himself in the same way. And this nonsense about not allowing any evidence into the trial—ha! Justice prevails, right?

So we have this confessed gangster as president, being tried by a bunch of fatuous cry-babies whose own sense of entitlement is threatened by their responsibility to remove such a publicly-corrupt disgrace from office. So, they’re not gonna do it—easy answer. Easy, that is, for a self-deluded traitor and waste of breath.

Never before in our history could there have been such a multitude which that epithet covered—POTUS, VP, the entire Cabinet (but especially Barr & Pompeo), more than half of all Senators, less than half of all Congresspersons, a couple of SCOTUS judges….

Then there’s the problem of the one-quarter of the voters who are actually ridin’ this guy’s crazy-train all the way to the end of the line. They are the real problem. Decades of Republican, dog-whistling divisiveness has created a bubble-land for these people to live in: a private info-feed of disinformation ‘news’, scary stories to keep them from mingling with other perspectives or cultures—even white nationalist clubs to join.

America has been ripped from our hands by liars and frauds. The Democratic party is a disgrace—but even their wishy-washy adherence to the Constitution, and the human rights it points towards, would be a ray of sunshine in the midst of Trump’s flushing of the whole thing down the crapper.