Moving Along (2016Oct23)

Posted by XperDunn on October 24, 2016

Sunday, October 23, 2016 4:45 PM

I’ve been trying to plan what to write about in future—after the election. If there’s an upset, I’ll be too upset to write for quite some time. But if Hillary Clinton wins as expected, I’ll be needing a new topic—I’ve spent over a year raging against the threat of Trump. When I felt that I was seeing something dangerous in him, that seemed to be invisible to others, I was desperate to express my misgivings. I saw our great nation tottering on a precipice.

Now, though, the truth has come to light—Trump is unqualified and unfit for most everything, but most especially unlimited power. The charges made against Secretary Clinton are the sorts of things we’d cheer if they were done on behalf of our own ‘side’—mostly it amounts to her being a juggernaut who gets things done. This is only a problem for people who don’t want the things she’s going to do—I’m more than ready, myself, to see some changes being made to the near-plutocracy the one percent have managed to make of our system.

So, case closed (But don’t forget to vote!) and new topic wanted. The trouble is, these last two years I’ve been consumed with resistance to an approaching disaster. How am I going to find a topic that is equally pressing? In a sense, Hillary’s election will be a ‘happy ever after’. I’m confident she will proceed from victory to victory in making our government better, and hopefully our lives better.

Not that doing so will be quick or easy. Nothing good ever is. But I will have little to say about it. I need to begin a new crusade—I’ve gotten used to trying to convince people of something important that I believe. I’d like to keep doing it—but nothing has ever been so obvious and so dangerous as the threat posed by Trump. And the focus on a single individual made the whole issue a very simple one. If I tried to do the same with, say, the Environment, there are issues upon issues, piles of data, commercial pressures, international pressures, and the whole ‘do no harm’ problem that always arises when we press for change without being too sure of exactly what change we want.

The world is very interconnected. Trade, communication, and transportation have all gone global—making any kind of change a complicated piece of business. What works on the plains doesn’t work in the mountains—what works in the desert doesn’t work in the jungle. Whenever we try to plan for a sensible change, we have to figure out how to insert it into the organic goat-tracks of the existing culture—and no two cultures are the same. Plus, there is a clock on anything environmental—saving biomes and habitats is only feasible if we succeed before they are destroyed.

Many potential environmental fights have already been rendered moot by the disappearance of a species, or a forest, or by rising sea levels. The environmental fight is therefore a heartbreaking commitment—I don’t know if my heart could stand it. If I had the strength, I’d go get myself arrested at that pipeline protest—my god, haven’t we taken advantage of the natives long enough? Not to mention, they have a point—water is life, and no amount of money can change that.

No, life is rarely as simple a question as whether Trump could be trusted with the leadership of our country. Nothing else has ever appeared so blatantly, simply unwise. It will be hard to find something new that fires me up like that. But the problem is not in any dearth of issues—the problem is finding something I know enough about, that I could debate intelligently over.

I was paying a great deal of attention to politics, long before Trump showed up—and I’ve studied American history extensively—I know which people protested and fought and died for the national ideals that Trump is so willing to trash. And I know enough about it to know that Trump doesn’t know any of the important ideas behind the job he’s asked for. I don’t know of any other subject I’m so comfortable with. So I may have to retreat to poetry or some such writing.

Still, it’s better this way. If I can see the whole country about to jump with both feet into the worst mess imaginable—well’s, that’s a pretty sorry state of affairs, regardless of my writing ambitions. I wouldn’t want to become like the media—eager for trouble so that people will pay attention to me. That’s not who I want to be.

And perhaps I will even reach some new understanding through all of this stress and angst—maybe I’ll turn to something completely new, something hopeful—an idea of a new renaissance, even. Who knows? Perhaps all of this pent-up urge to write will come out in fiction, and I will finally write a story that entertains while I bore people with my opinions. It could happen—even if I am sixty already. I’m not too old to try something new—just limited in what I have to choose from.

The election will soon be over. The news channels will soon be seeing a nose-dive in viewership—which is a good thing, as I mentioned above. But they will take a hit, still. The news rarely involves something that touches everyone so closely as their vote—the one time we get involved in government, every couple of years. International news is pretty bloodthirsty stuff: drowning refugees, sex-trafficked girls, besieged cities under heavy bombardment—it’s a shitstorm out there in the big world. And domestic shootings hardly draw viewers as much as outrage. It’s bad news for the news, alright, the end of this election season.

But I will approach it as a positive—a new beginning for my writing efforts—something more about myself than ‘the worst person ever’ running for president. Hmmm… I’ll have to give it some thought.

bye now.

Things Pile Up (2016Oct22)

Posted by XperDunn on October 22, 2016

Thursday, October 20, 2016 8:33 PM

The recordings pile up—so the graphics I create for the videos piles up too. So, the YouTube upload count ticks upward. Meanwhile, I’m writing this stuff—and posting it—so the WordPress blog-posts tick upward and these documents keep piling up essay-titles. And, with all the PC activity, my files and folders get longer, bigger, and more numerous.

The books get bought and, sometimes, read—and while I no longer create a pile of actual books, my Kindle is getting severely crowded. And if you though it was hard to remember what you had already read, when they were actual books—forget about the Kindle’s ‘Library’ listing. Plus, there’s the incessant stream of new TV shows and new movies to keep track of.

The point is—I’m retired, disabled—I do nothing all day—and yet my life is a steady stream of data, too much, and too fast, to keep track of. I can’t remember what it was like when I had a busy, complex job on top of all that—and a social life, once upon a time.

So don’t think I’m complaining—I’m just stating a fact—I would not be surprised if your life is far more complex, and your firehose of data is choking you even worse. There may be an internet-access gap that separates the human race into digital haves and have-nots, but the digital haves are not without their share of problems.

Businesses and governments will find ways to dump a lot of data processing in our laps—there’re insurance forms, tax returns, bill-paying, car registration, subscriber services, cable-package options, and wyfy-speeds to choose from (and pay for). There’re school applications and job applications and loan applications and grant applications and business plans and budgets. There’s chores and meals and shopping and laundry and the kitchen sink (I threw that in too).

When you get down to it (and if you leave out the suffering and deprivation) the poor really have much better lives than we do. A poor person would have to work awfully hard to hurt as many people as a corporate executive can with a simple paperwork mistake. The more power one has, the greater the damage one’s mistakes can do. And it is far simpler to live life without a nice house full of comfortable things, than to spend every waking hour worrying about losing a nice house full of comfortable things. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve had occasion to be poor, hungry, cold, and tired—and that’s no bargain either—but it is simpler.

Of course, I’m just being foolish—having had occasion to be short on funds, I’m well aware of the high cost of being poor—the piecemeal existence demands more man-hours and more cost per reward. And the complexities of stretching a dollar are, in truth, more, not less, than those of maintaining a high-income lifestyle. But the grass is always greener, isn’t it?

I’m starting to wonder what I’m going to do when the election is finally over and done with. I’ve been blogging about the presidential race for two years, pretty near, and it’s time for me to find a new subject. I’m thinking the guaranteed minimum revenue idea deserves at least as much thought and analysis as I’ve given to this lopsided popularity-contest-cum-constitutional-crisis.

It doesn’t fully address the far future, but it is a reasonable idea to begin the transition from a labor-based economy to a labor-free one. Trying to reform capitalism, in one fell swoop, into something completely different, would be like throwing the transmission of an ocean liner into reverse at full revs—you’d tear the engine apart. But a guaranteed minimum revenue for the unemployed, without conditions, would provide consumers in areas without jobs and, more importantly, give people some financial security outside of the job market.

It would also serve as a de facto minimum wage—the higher the guaranteed minimum revenue, the more employers would have to offer to get a person to come to work. Politically, you can call it socialism if you want—I can’t deny it.

But you tell me—if manufacturers and business owners produce more goods with less labor (an ongoing trend with a potential zero-sum result) then we must ask, “Do the people that own things become the only people with any revenue?” If the answer is ‘yes’ then we must further ask, “Who are they going to sell this stuff to?”

Henry Ford only paid his workers generous wages because he wanted them to be customers, too. He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart—he wanted to sell a lot of cars. No one ever got rich selling stuff no one can afford—and without jobs, people can’t afford anything. Okay, dead horse well-beaten—I think you get my point by now.

In a world without jobs, you have to give people money. They buy the stuff, the businesses make a profit, the businesses pay taxes, the taxes pay the guaranteed minimum revenue to the people, so they can buy more stuff—and round and round it goes. The only difference is that computers and robots do the actual work—the salaries once paid to workers now take the form of taxes paid to Big Brother. The taxes are disbursed more uniformly than the salaries ever were, so it’s actually a much fairer system in some ways. We just have to get past our conditioning—our belief that a man makes his bread by the sweat of his brow—we can still do work, but we will not have to have jobs.

We will have to accept that doing almost anything by hand is pure therapy—that it would be easier and quicker to have a machine do it. Human life once included defending ourselves against wild beasts—it was so much a part of how we defined ourselves that men still hunt and fish today—for things they could more easily get at the supermarket. Soon, labor will be equally vestigial—like running on a treadmill to stay in shape, instead of fleeing from a mountain lion or a pack of wolves.

Who knows? Perhaps, at some future date, we’ll even need some artificial form of stress, just to keep us mentally fit—in the same way we exercise to stay physically fit, in a world without walking, lifting, or carrying. You know, most people don’t work in busy offices resembling zoos because they have to—they do it on purpose because they get off on the energy of it. Without stressful jobs, we’ll be desperate for challenging activities to match that energy—especially the younger people.

But I digress.

I’m starting to feel sorry for Trump. I still need him to lose the election—nothing about that has changed, only intensified. But this guy really has issues—once he is without Secret Service protection, I hope his loved ones can stage some sort of intervention and get him the help he so clearly needs. Did you know he has numerous siblings? But forget the eerie absence of his kin—let’s talk about his mother. What political candidate has ever failed to dote on his or her mother, to harken back to her sure, steady raising—that made them the person they are today?

Where is the love? Is that the true purpose of his presidential run—to be loved? Is Trump crying out for attention, much like an abandoned child? It’s kinda startin to look that way. His fear and mistrust of women is readily apparent. His avoidance of babies and children is publicly documented. Trump has intimacy issues. The poor guy—no wonder he’s this close to pulling the whole country down around his ears—and doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Melania, give that poor bastard a hug, wouldya?

Losing this election isn’t going to help him any—but self-destruction and self-loathing go hand-in-hand, so it’s inevitable that it should come to this. Still, I’m really starting to feel sorry for the guy.

The Shifting Sands of Time (2016Oct19)

Posted by XperDunn on October 19, 2016

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 1:23 PM

Do you remember the ACA website roll-out? Gosh, what a mess—it took them weeks to make it work properly, right? And the furor, while it was still kludgey, was amazing, deafening—as if a buggy program could never be fixed. But now it works fine (better than the legislation, if we’re being honest about it) and nobody says ‘boo’ about it.

Opponents of Obamacare saw the bobbled roll-out as an opportunity to press their case—against the bill and the president, both. But the moment passed and now we are back to judging ACA on its merits, rather than the mechanics. Issues are always more vulnerable to criticism while they are still in flux—but success always changes the playing field.

The same could be said for the economy, wages, and the fight against ISIL. The meat of Donald Trump’s campaign is that ‘America is losing’. He talks of inner-city hell-scapes (even though crime rates are plummeting). He talks of job loss and high unemployment (even though employment has risen steadily for eight years). Stats on wage-increases show the biggest jump since the sixties. And with the siege of Mosul under weigh, and ahead of schedule, the idea that ISIL represents an existential threat to the USA becomes more and more of a fading boogeyman.

I’ll be interested to see in tonight’s debate whether Trump will get a pass, running on stats that were borderline when he declared two years ago—and are laughably out-of-date in October of 2016. While he’s been vaguely promising to somehow ‘make America great again’, Obama’s administration has been repairing the damage left by Bush, and exceeding the level of success our nation enjoyed before Dubya got his hands on the reins. Yes, Bush-43 did take a lot of the wind out of the sails of our ‘greatness’, but our incredible President Obama has undone all that, and moved beyond, to historically surpass our previous greatness.

People make a lot of noise about wanting the candidates to focus on issues—but they are. There is only one issue—Trump is unfit to be president. Hillary Clinton is as fit as a human being could possibly be. There’s your issue. You can dress it up, if you want—but we do not need a savior to repair all the ‘disasters’ of the Obama years—because they are small potatoes compared to all his enormous successes.

In fact, a case could be made that the whole idea of a ‘disruption’ candidate is an expression of pure frustration—and that slow, thoughtful change is the only reasonable way forward for the world’s greatest government. That is why the Educated demographic is fully backing Clinton, and the Uneducated are fully backing Trump—the uneducated, less mobile, more financially-insecure people are far more open to an emotional message, promising them the moon without any details about the journey.

So, in the end, not only is Trump wildly unfit for public office, but his mission to ‘bigly enGreaten’ America is an entirely unnecessary one. Competent public servants are already taking care of that, Drumpf—you can scurry back to your TV shows. Hillary will handle it.

Reviews (2016Oct18)

Posted by XperDunn on October 19, 2016

Tuesday, October 18, 2016 2:14 PM

Beautiful day. Leaves is fallin. Sun is shinin. Can’t beat that. Sarah McLachlan may be an acquired taste, but her music is fantastic—what a voice. I’m making a video—I just played Bach’s keyboard arrangement of a Vivaldi Concerto in D, an early transposition from an early influence of old J. S.’s.

Then I played an improv—I don’t know what I’m doing, but it felt good. Now if it only sounds good. I called it “High-End Stroller” because that’s what baby Seneca rolls in these days. There’s a break about a minute in—the camera does that every twenty minutes, making a new file, but it loses a second or two of recording. I took too long with the Bach, I guess—it’s not usually a problem because I rarely play piano for more than twenty minutes—and I often restart the camera recording when playing for longer. What I really need is a film crew, I guess.

Shall we discuss politics? No! It’s far too nice a day for that—and tomorrow’s the final Shootout at the OK Corral, so let’s wait, shall we?

Autumn preys on my weakness—if anyone ever wrapped themselves up in melancholy, it’s me—and that time of year (thou may’st in me behold, when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang…) sorry, Shakespeare got me—this time of year makes me dive deep into memory, loss, and the unending cycle of change that is living.

I fairly delight in depression while the summer fades, the leaves fall, and the winter looms. We must remember that ‘clinical depression’ is an imbalance, that modest, occasional depression itself is natural—a way of crawling into bed and putting the covers over our heads, while working or relaxing. Chronic Depression, the problem, is much in the news nowadays—but if you get depressed, sometimes, there’s no need to panic—it is only when it takes over your life that it becomes a problem with a capital ‘P’.

I used to prefer the grey, rainy days—but now I settle for leaves falling—the wet weather chills me to the bone, making me stiff and achy. I still enjoy breezes—you’d have to be dead not to enjoy a breezy day. But enough about the weather.

I just read a sci-fi book called “Machinations” by Hayley Stone. I was disappointed that the plot was a straight rip-off of Terminator, but it was well-written, with good characters, so I finished the book. Dear Ms. Stone: It isn’t science fiction if you don’t have a new idea—it’s just writing, however good. I took one star off of my Amazon rating—because it was a good book, but it wasn’t good science fiction. (If I finish a book, I usually give it full stars.)

I saw the “Ghostbusters” re-make—loved it—loved everyone in it. I don’t see how they could have pandered to fans of the old original any more than they did—and it was nice. Anyone who wasn’t satisfied is just too hard to please.

I enjoyed a few episodes of “Lucifer” on TV, but as with all outlandish premises, they try to ‘mealy-mouth’ it down to a drama, instead of juicing it up into a comic-book fantasy. I watched nine episodes of “Luke Cage” on Netflix, but I’m getting too old for the kid stuff. I’m having trouble with stories that contain corruption, violence, and amorality—they just upset me. My options are narrowing tightly—I’m down to mostly biopics.

I’m trying to read the new Bruce Sterling book, “Pirate Utopia”, but it’s hard—I’m sorry, I just can’t stand ‘alternate history’ sci-fi—it’s a bridge too far for me. Woulda, shoulda, coulda—that’s all it means to me. But Bruce Sterling is heavy-sledding—I’ll keep on for now, and see if I get drawn in. It might be one of those books you don’t get until you re-read it. Sometimes, they’re the best.

What Have We Learned? (2016Oct18)

Posted by XperDunn on October 19, 2016

Tuesday, October 18, 2016 8:32 PM

Tomorrow night is the third and final debate. For most people, it will be a spectacle, rather than an education. This campaign is on its second year—if you haven’t heard it all, already, you’re just not paying attention—and you haven’t seen a TV since 2014.

I have learned a lot about this country and the people who live in it. I learned more than I wanted to know about Trump. I have learned a lot about the media, especially media journalism. And, of course, I’ve learned about our next president, Hillary Clinton.

I find Hillary Clinton so impressive that, to my ear, all those who can’t abide her sound like a lot of sour grapes. She’s tough—in a very tough game—world power. You know those people who always win at Risk? Well, she does that—in real life. Do you know how rare it is for capable people to throw their lives away on this inexcusably wretched, yet crucially important, circus called national politics?

Only a martyr to public service like Hillary would put the intelligence and drive that most successful people put into forging empires of their own—into a lifetime of helping our ungrateful, apathetic asses. Look at the crap she has to take from us, before we will deign to allow her to work herself gray-haired, in the toughest job on earth, for four years. Oh, no, no—wait! We might prefer the racist pig idiot clown with the stupid face. Hmmm—let us think. Hmm—think, think, think. Well….

Are you joking? Are you seriously joking right now?

Watch the last debate—watch him tell every lie three times—he thinks that makes people believe it. Even children see through him. What is wrong with the grown-ups?

The Running of the Snark (2016Oct17)

Posted by XperDunn on October 17, 2016

Monday, October 17, 2016 1:58 PM

“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,

As he landed his crew with care;

Supporting each man on the top of the tide

By a finger entwined in his hair.

“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:

That alone should encourage the crew.

Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:

What I tell you three times is true.”

—from “The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony, in Eight Fits)” (1874) by Lewis Carroll [Fit the First : The Landing]

The idea that repetition suggests authority is no doubt rooted in the days when anyone who would gainsay the head man rarely got to repeat themselves. In fact, the value of free speech is more than mere human rights—it is the assertion that truth exists outside of, and in spite of, authority.

This can be used and, just as easily, misused—the Scientific Method is an example of the use of truth-seeking through disruption of the established consensus—science-denial is an example of the same principle, turned on its head, by conflating Science with Established Authority. The latter use amounts to saying, ‘I’m not gonna be bullied by all this provable, reproducible experimentation.’

This is irrefutable logic within the bounds of free speech, but it still falls outside of common sense, and is suggestive of a motive or agenda, rather than pure objectivity. Pure Objectivity doesn’t help matters any, by being an imaginary ideal that we aspire to, rather than obtain—so the arguments persist, simple by virtue of the complexity of the ‘knot’.

Propagandists, thus, still live by the rule—say anything three times, and people start to believe it. Trump states this in his Art of the Deal—as if he discovered a big secret. Whenever Trump lies (or rather, whenever he speaks) I always listen for that third time. It would make a deadly drinking game—a shot for every third repetition of a lie—the whole party would be passed out in the first fifteen minutes.

But Trump has become too used to this concept of the pliability of reality—his flights of fancy become ever more outlandish, more self-evidently false. Or, as he put it, ‘the shackles are off’. What gets me is, every time he lies, he’s saying that we are stupid enough to believe him, just because he says it three times in a loud authoritative voice. I find that incredibly offensive—not much different from the time he asked a crowd of Ohioans, “How stupid are the people of Ohio?”

He insults our intelligence with all these lies—I find it hard to grasp why people would take so much disrespect from him. But then, I’ve always had a great big chip on my shoulder, so I react pretty strongly to that sort of thing. He doesn’t ‘get’ that, yes, many politicians lie during campaigns—but they limit themselves to lies that can’t be technically disproven, at least not easily—like, with a quick Google search. Yes, ‘the Donald’, politicians lie, but within the bounds of reason—they don’t force cognitive dissonance upon their constituents, making their continued support require a blind rejection of the obvious.

I think, after this election is finally put to sleep, the media should start to take stock of the Outlandish factor: ‘Obama is a secret Muslim, alien Kenyan’, ‘Death Panels’, ‘Obama founded ISIS’, ‘Hillary is a she-demon’, ‘Trickle-down economics’, ‘Muslims are dangerous’, ‘Weed is dangerous’, ‘Poverty is a choice’—you name it, the Republicans are allowed to go on TV and say whatever crazy bullshit comes into their heads.

The media needs better ground rules—Trump supporters have been spreading their unblinking, shrill crazy-talk across America for a year—everyone, including the anchors, knows they’re lying, twisting the facts, and supporting a dangerous psychopath, yet they are rarely cut-off, or even interrupted, while saying things that make me physically ill. WTF, media? Mental disease can be just as contagious as germs, you know—you’re creating a health crisis by your lack of quality-control on the disingenuousness of your guests—in the name of fairness. It’s not fair, it’s a false equivalence and everyone knows it.

Journalism has a responsibility to give both sides of an argument—not one side of a very lopsided issue versus plain old crazy. That’s not ‘both sides’, that’s an invitation to inanity in nice clothes. And the media has had a parade of that from the day Trump declared. Once we are saved from ourselves, assuming Election Day isn’t a death knell for America, the media needs to rethink their ‘equal time’ policies—crazy doesn’t need any help—and it sure don’t need any free air-time.

Which reminds me—Trump says the media is rigging the election. Is this the same media that gave him billions-of-dollars-worth of free campaign advertising by reporting on his every word, obsessively, daily? Like I said—plain old crazy.

[Fit the Eighth : The Vanishing]

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away —

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

Sunday, October 16, 2016 5:25 PM

Made a video today—not too bad—but then the darn camera’s charged died before the very last note—Arrgh! But the pictures of the grandiloquent granddaughter more than make up for the music’s shortcomings.

As you can see, when Seneca goes out in her stroller, she looks a little like a tiny granny-lady—very fussy and querulous—it’s so adorable.

Twenty-Five Days (2016Oct14)

Posted by XperDunn on October 15, 2016

Friday, October 14, 2016 8:11 PM

What the hell? We’ve been treated to a disturbing-revelation-a-day for like two years now—and the last twenty-five days is going to outdo all the guff that went before? What is going on? Oprah says, “You get an October surprise! And you get an October surprise! And you get an October surprise!…”

I’m tired. Let me tell you, I’m tired. I’m gonna vote for Hillary on Election Day and I’m gonna hope for the best. That’s all I can handle at this point. I don’t know about you, but I have enough stress just doing me—I don’t need Donald Trump trampling over every tradition, every decency, every law—making a mockery out of this great country. Fuck that ass-hole.

He may be the first candidate in history who actually needs a secret service escort. He makes my skin crawl. And let me state clearly—he does not represent the male gender. He rather represents the sub-group of rude, crude troglodytes that feel entitled to harken back to the days when any man had virtual control over any woman’s fate. Most men see that dark past as an example of how not to behave towards women. Real men find a way to respect women without condescending to women, as if it’s some big favor they’re doing. But troglodytes do exist—and, sadly, they are not rare.

The only real surprise about Trump’s behavior is that he thought he could revel in it so long, and then run for President, as if no one would pop up and say, ‘hey, wait a minute.’ Even his denials of his past behavior reveal his objectification of women—‘just look at her…I wouldn’t pick her [to assault]’. He is so clueless that he denies his groping allegations by suggesting that he gropes prettier women!

Whatever mental imbalance this guy suffers from, it is, as I said, not rare. The hard 30% of voters forming the Trump Cult share his ‘hate is natural—don’t fight the feeling’ neurosis to some degree. No amount of testimony, evidence, or reasoning will reach them. I would feel sorry for these folks if they weren’t so terrifying—they are the human equivalent of Skynet in the Terminator movies—smart enough to destroy humanity, but crazy enough to think it’s a good idea.

Now, Finally (2016Oct14)

Posted by XperDunn on October 14, 2016

Thursday, October 13, 2016 7:45 PM

With all the problems in this world, we nevertheless have one clown ready and eager to burn it all down to satisfy his ego—Donald Trump, and three people who won’t let their inevitable failure keep them from their ‘right to run for president’: Evan McMullin, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. If Trump wins (God forbid) he will have done it with their help. And people say Hillary is ambitious.

Friday, October 14, 2016 12:04 PM

It is a season of extremes. If Trump wins, I will feel a greater despair than when Bush-43 was re-elected. If Hillary wins, I will feel an even greater elation than when Barack was elected. And that’s not hyperbole—those moments of deep disappointment and sky-high celebration are both burned in my memory.

Though I resented Bush and felt happy for Obama, my deep disappointment was in my fellow American voters—my celebration was, too. Democracy means self-government—we rarely contemplate that such a system depends entirely on the knife-edge of people’s judgement. It’s terrifying. An uninformed, or misinformed, electorate will have the judgement of a drunkard—which is to say, no judgement at all. And as we become more and more a culture with various ‘genres’ of truth, judgement becomes something of a commodity.

The complexity of modern life requires not only that we reveal the truth, but that we also beat back the misinformation. Children are educated in schools, where there is some quality-control on the information being taught—but the rest of us get our information from the media. Some media-combines have a political agenda. They promote this agenda by cherry-picking their info—but they also have to cast doubt on the rest of the media, which contradicts many of their premises—and even their ‘facts’.

It is a very fancy, very cyber-age form of lying. It’s lying. The whole point of Journalism (with a capital ‘J’) is to be impartial, to report the facts, without any filter. But we live in a complex world—reporting all the facts is virtually impossible—no one can read that fast. So today’s reporting is, by necessity, an abstract of the research—rather than printing 2,000 pages of a report, reporters try to convey the sense of the report. Objectivity is an ideal—and such reporting almost begs to be interpreted subjectively—so a journalist has no easy task trying to give us nothing-but-the-facts. If media outlets go into that process with an agenda, their results can’t be truly labeled ‘journalism’.

The differences in our politics used to be philosophical differences—this ‘genre-fication’ of our news-media twists our politics into a battle of air-time, spin, and financial backing. This is, no doubt, what convinced the SCOTUS to find that ‘money is speech’ in the Citizens United ruling. Personally, I think they can only truly find so if, and only if, speech is also money—which it ain’t.

The beautiful thing about the truth is that it has a ring to it. When propagandists go too far, we can tell. When the entertainment value of Trump’s rallies wears off and we revisit what he has said, we find nothing but the vacuous nonsense and bitter resentment of a spoiled child. When Fox News fails to air Obama’s speech this morning, we can still watch it on all the other news channels. There may be millions of bitter, frustrated Americans who eagerly latch on to Trump’s ‘hate train’, but the rest of us can easily see through his machinations.

I put it to you that Hillary Clinton has been investigated in courts, Congressional hearings, and by the friggin FBI—if she belonged in jail, don’t you think she’d be there? The Republicans have been stalking her for thirty years—if there was even a hint of real criminality, wouldn’t they have convicted her by now? And, since that hasn’t happened, can we now, finally, begin to question the motives of those who stalk her? Can a lady who has done so much good, also manage to do so much bad—and do it so secretly that no one can find any hard evidence of wrongdoing? Please.

If the Wiki-leaks hack of Podesta’s emails shows anything, it shows an engaged career politician hacking her way through the undergrowth of others’ mendacity. Granted, politics is nothing if not manipulative—but it is manipulation for a cause—private and public policies are a reality. Only a history-illiterate newbie like Trump would deny that Lincoln was a politician as much as a leader. Trump is not a candidate so much as an insult to our intelligence—to even begin to compare him to a real leader like Hillary, we would have to first find, in his seventy years of existence, one instance where he thought of someone else’s welfare, ever. ‘Nuf said.

Vote for Hillary!

Pete and I (2016Oct10)

Posted by XperDunn on October 13, 2016

Monday, October 10, 2016 9:25 PM

My good friend Pete came by today and we talked briefly about the presidential race and the disgusting Donald. We had a wild session today—I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but I’ve edited the videos, so you can decide for yourselves.

Right now, however, I have a big back-log of musical offerings. Some were delayed by waiting for fresh baby pictures of the princess—there are several improvs and a Haydn piano sonata. Then there are five song-covers and one improv, from Pete and me collaborating this afternoon. All together, it’s quite a concert—but don’t feel like you have to watch it all at once. A lot of production work, after the actual recording, goes into these videos, so I’d prefer they be savored, wherever possible.

Between the inspiration of becoming a grandpa and the turmoil of the campaign season, I’ve had all my buttons pushed lately—and I flatter myself that it’s coming out in the music. I’ve been doing satisfying stuff lately—not all of it recorded and posted to YouTube—but I like to think that what I do post is representative of my recent work. Pete encourages me—so blame him, if you like.

“Wrong Guy”

“Four (4) 60’s Covers”

“MacArthur Park”

“Music Room”

“Haydn-and-Improv Hash”

“Philosophical”

“Cautiously Optimistic”

“Sight-Reading a Haydn Piano Sonata”

“Storms May Come”

“A Phoenix, I”

“Mickey’s ‘Mama’ Song”

Cautiously Optimistic (2016Oct12)

Posted by XperDunn on October 12, 2016

Wednesday, October 12, 2016 10:42 AM

This is more like it. I don’t feel like a lone voice crying in the wilderness anymore. Most people seem to have caught on—electing Donald Trump would be just like electing a hog because it had won the blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair. That’s a good pig—that’s a pig above its peers—but it’s still a pig.

Donald was (and is) a scheming skeeve, first as a real-estate conniver and Manhattan ‘playboy’, then as a reality-TV star who entertained by being pompously cruel. That he had fourteen seasons is a sad commentary on the American TV audience—but enjoying his perfidy, as semi-fictional guilty pleasure, is a far cry from finding him fit to lead the nation.

Cmdr. Spock could have told you right off that a human doesn’t indulge himself at the expense of others for seventy years—and become a model public servant the next day. He’s not a plotline, he’s a person—he doesn’t ‘pivot’, or suddenly transform in any other way—anymore than you or I do. Thus we conclude that his candidacy was nothing more than a quest for self-aggrandizement and power—in other words, an ego-trip.

And I can forgive Trump and Billy B. for their lewdness on the tape—I can even forgive Trump running for President, for the most venal of motivations, and pretending he’s been ‘called’ to public service, out of idealism. I can forgive all that. To forgive is divine. But I ain’t gonna vote for him—no, that’s a fer piece beyond forgiveness.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, began her life with a passion for helping children. As her life brought her to positions of influence, she used that influence to help children—and learned that helping families is a great way to do that—and found that a community (or ‘a village’) is a great model for raising every American to a place of opportunity, security, and freedom. Thus her passion for children and her love of country melded into a single driving motivation.

Comparison between the two candidates is laughably unequal. Those who hate Hillary Clinton have very vague and diffuse rage against the status quo—the hysterical intensity of it marks it as a prejudice, rather than a reasoned judgement. When they try to tell me that Hillary is ‘just as bad’ as Trump, I can’t think of how to answer them—except to call them ‘dumb people’ (which rarely helps).

I truly think that the world is getting too complicated for a certain segment of the populace—they view the election as an unfair test—a test they are afraid to fail, as if life had become one long math class—and Trump is waving at them, saying, ‘Easy answer!—Over here!’ They are voting their frustration, not their judgement. Emotions and Democracy don’t mix, any more than emotions and the judicial system, or emotions and the practice of medicine. Passion has its place in politics, but only as passion for good, for the truth, and justice.

Has thirty years of campaigning, media fire-storms, scandals, political infighting, and partisan attacks blunted Hillary’s idealism? I should hope so. Imagine, if you will, what such a ‘refining fire’ would do to your dewy-eyed, youthful dreams, or what it did to mine (and I’m just a regular guy). A battle-scarred pol may seem an uninspiring option to the young absolutists—but we should keep in mind what fights she fought while earning those scars.

They were not legal tussles with creditors and unpaid workmen and excluded minorities. She fought to end school segregation. She fought to get disabled kids the right to be included in our public education system. She fought for health care for people who weren’t rich enough, or healthy enough, to get their own. She has served the public her whole life.

Trump, at the 2^nd debate, said she’s been in power for thirty years and ‘has nothing to show for it’. That’s right, Donald—by your lights, Hillary has nothing to show for a lifetime of public service—she hasn’t become a billionaire, or a celebrity TV bully, or cheated decent people out of payment for the work they gave in good faith—nothing to show for her life. Well, except maybe millions of grateful people whose lives have been improved, even saved, by her work—and the respect of decent people like myself.

I was very excited about seeing Hillary Clinton be elected the first woman president of the United States. I didn’t think the Republicans could field an opponent that had a chance against her. I was pretty shocked to realize that the campaign to impugn Hillary Clinton was not only alive and well, but had become rabid—and that the majority of Americans were starting to believe, through sheer persistence of repetition, everything her opponents were accusing her of—no matter how wild.

This was complicated by the fact that Hillary Clinton—the actual human being—is indeed less than perfect. She has made mistakes—and she has been a politician—and decades of attack have spurred her to a few unfortunate verbal rejoinders. I get the feeling she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Neither do I. But none of that—and certainly none of the hogwash peddled by her haters—changes the fact that she is a whip-smart, doggedly capable person—and we’d be hard-pressed to find a better leader for the next eight years.

But enough—28 days from now, we’ll vote, and then we’ll, finally, know whether we are safe. Vote as if your life depended on it. VOTE.

Playing Grown-Up (2016Oct08)

Posted by XperDunn on October 8, 2016

Saturday, October 08, 2016 2:00 PM

What a roller-coaster of emotions. Initially, of course, disgust and mind-boggle-ment. Then an unattractive glee over this ethical implosion (but we were so frightened he might become our president—you really can’t blame us). Then back to disgust—but this time, over the fact that our politics have come to this. Then an overwhelming sense of relief—as in ‘he can’t win now.’ Then a chill of worry—after all, his cult following isn’t going to care—their support has no relation to judgement. Then ‘self-reassurance’, because he can’t win with just his existing base of zealots.

I’m positively dizzy with disorientation. But, as Rachel Maddow says, “You are awake. You are not dreaming. This is really happening.” I’ve long since stopped thinking about Trump at all—it became painfully clear that the problem is in the vast numbers of voters who see him as presidential material. People like Trump (and Trump himself) have always been there—but they’ve never had a shot at the presidency before. People have never been accepting of such a filthy, perverted creep before. Sure, there was Nixon—but he had the presence of mind to hide his lack of character as well as he could, not to revel in it.

But let’s not overlook Julian Assange completely—he has waited for the perfect moment to drop his ‘bomb’ on the Clinton campaign. Well, the Billy Bush video kinda messed up that timing—but even without it, we are hard-pressed to understand how he could have thought Hillary’s speeches to businesses would destroy her. I’ve read what he leaked—it’s all pretty reasonable stuff, assuming your life is not dedicated to despising Hillary Clinton.

We are mature enough to watch Trump’s damning video—surely then, we’re mature enough to grapple with the paradox of democracy. An elected official needs to present themselves so as to be elected—if the right thing to do is unpopular, you only talk about it in private. That’s the crux of what is revealed about Hillary in this latest leak—small potatoes compared to the revelations about Trump’s character (or total absence thereof).

The truth is—I don’t really know enough about international trade agreements to gainsay the people whose job it is to formulate such things. I do know that Europe has seen borderless-ness as a goal for generations—a sign that civilized people can live side by side without armed guards and walls. In examining their history, we may find ourselves embarrassed to be fixated on so bad an idea as a Big Wall. It’s a really stupid idea—and in so many ways.

I’m so desperately hoping this election comes out right—democracy has shat the bed twice, recently—first with Brexit, then again with the Columbians voting ‘No’ to peace with the FARC. It would be nice if the cradle of democracy could score one for the good guys. My nerves have had it.

Catchphrases work well as political tools, but they are worthless as policy. If NAFTA is unfair, we should modify it until it is fair. Killing it is a simple idea—but rather simple-minded, if we remember that there were reasons why NAFTA was created. TPP is neither good or bad, either—it is an agreement, which can be changed if it is unfair. And, our experience with NAFTA will tell us what problems to look out for.

In the same way, the Affordable Care Act was a vital bill—that has been revealed to be flawed. Now, we can throw it in the trash—bumping 20,000,000 people off of health insurance—or we can modify the bill to be fair and economically feasible. Legislation and Trade Agreements are complex works which can be modified when faulty—but in using them as political footballs, we reduce the question to ‘live or die?’ We don’t want to trash these things—we want to tweak them until they work. You don’t fix a computer by taking a hammer to it.

The Republicans are slippery on this—sometimes their objections are that the bill doesn’t work, sometimes their objections are that ‘socialized medicine’ is bad. In the end, they conflate both arguments, and say that we have to repeal Obamacare. Not that we have to fix it. And honestly, everyone knows that the Insurance Lobby blocked the single-payer-option because it makes the industry more competitive—and everyone knew that blocking the single-payer-option would make the bill a nonsensical mish-mash. They don’t want to fix the bill, now, for the same reason they fought the bill’s passing.

Tomorrow night’s debate should be fascinating. I hope Hillary knows that she’s already won—she should take it easy, not for his sake, but just because she’s gracious in victory. Then again—let’em have it—he’s earned it. Making us all look bad—grumble, grumble…..

October Surprise Number One (2016Oct07)

Posted by XperDunn on October 8, 2016

Friday, October 07, 2016 11:38 PM

Well, that ought to do it. Not that I didn’t recognize Trump for what he was thirty years ago, or whenever I first saw his bullying-entitled-looking face on TV—sort of an Eddie Haskell/Biff Tanner nightmare, grown spoiled and rotten by lack-of-consequence and by age. Bless his billionaire heart. And here we are, with some states already in early voting, with concerns about the southeastern seaboard being able to pull itself back together in time to vote—something that seems to trouble Florida, even without a hurricane.

I’m seeing some frog-in-a-pot-of-cold-water-type behavior in the Trump surrogates now—they have slowly been expected to cover for greater and greater breaches of decorum and decency—and they reached a point, with this new avalanche, of flailing blindly for any rationale that can either distract from or excuse the inexcusable. I’ve said before that Trump is a person I wouldn’t have in my home, much less the White House—but now I have a chorus of TV pundits saying the same thing. My blog posts have been railing against the GOP nominee for almost two years straight. Now I feel I wasted all that time—Trump didn’t need me to lose this election—all he needed was some public scrutiny .

Which is what I’d suspected all along—my posts were mostly exasperated expressions of disbelief that such a horrible creature could get so near our highest office—that so many people could be taken in by his shtick. So, I guess I’ll be blogging again tomorrow—about all the people who are still with him, in spite of today’s disclosures. I actually find his insistence, against law and science, that the Central Park Five were wrongfully acquitted by DNA evidence—and shouldn’t have received compensation for unlawful imprisonment—even more damning, in some ways, than the video of his sleazy banter confessing to his predatory sexuality.

Not that both aren’t disqualifying—please don’t misunderstand me. But the naked bigotry of his obsession with those wrongly-accused children, twenty years ago, and today, is an uglier surprise than the Billy Bush video—it’s not as if we didn’t know he was a sleazebag already. We had less warning of his deeply racist motivations—though that, too, is no great surprise. The surprise is that he would raise the issue himself, weeks before Election Day.

My only concern now is that low poll numbers for Trump might suppress the Democratic voter turn-out, rather than pump it up. It would be the ultimate irony if he got himself elected by proving himself un-electable.

Storm Break (2016Oct07)

Posted by XperDunn on October 7, 2016

Friday, October 07, 2016 11:58 AM

I have family in Hilton Head, SC—though they are not presently at home—they are safely inland at some hotel in Georgia. And a lucky thing, too—Hurricane Matthew seems to have a beef with Hilton Head. Forecasters say the brunt of the damage will slide past Florida and give coastal South Carolina a good pasting.

In spite of excellent efforts in evacuation for all four states, there will be inevitable loss of life and property—it will be a tragedy. The only question remaining is the extent of the destruction. If there is a silver lining, it is in the media’s focus on the storm. For the first time in weeks, we are thinking of others, worried for the well-being of strangers.

It is a healthy break from the incessant battle for our approval by two titans of publicity. Every four years we become heroes of the ballot-box, patriots of preference—and, while the talk is all about the two candidates, the true focus is on us, the voters. We are polled and polled again—it’s not just about the two nominees, it’s about how we all feel about them.

It does our American egos good—but this time around, we’ve gone a little over the top about it. ‘Undecided voters’ shiver with delight at the contortions being performed to entice their acceptance—everyone wants to know what they’re going to decide. But our preeminent attention has an expiration date—by mid-November, we’ll all just be regular schmoes again. It’s just as well we have this hurricane right now—to remind us that the upcoming election is but a single judgement-call out of the many we need to make with every new day and every unexpected turn in the weather.

As the storm front passes, residents are warned not to return too quickly—they should wait for the back-end of the storm to go by. Storm surges lag behind the initial wind-damage of this hurricane—and coastal flooding could end up causing greater damage than the storm that preceded it. People, naturally, focus on the event and overlook that which comes after.

In the same way, we conveniently forget about many extraneous issues when the hoopla of the presidential race is in full swing. A president can’t wave a magic wand and fix the whole planet on election day—but we overlook the tripartite balance of power in our frenzy to pick the one leg of the stool that is elected as a single man or woman—the head of the executive branch of our government, the president.

Some commentators are broadening their view, now that things are coming to a head. They’ve switched from ‘Hillary or Trump?’ to ‘What Senate will Hillary be working with?’ Trump’s unfitness may well be a favor to the Democrats—giving them both the presidency and a Senate majority. I would love to see what Hillary could do with some open-field running.

I think the Republicans no longer represent a different way forward—conservatism for its own sake seems to have usurped the party’s power. Their focus now seems less trying to prove themselves preferable, and more trying to keep Democrats from proving they were right all along.

There was a time when social justice could be demonized—fear-mongering about change was easy-pickings, back in the day. Now, though, we have evidence that social justice is good for the economy, good for law and order, and good for international relations. Sudden change has become such a constant in our lives that Conservatism itself may have become obsolete—and Trump’s candidacy its last hurrah. Complexity is forced on us. Subtlety becomes a requirement. Narrow-mindedness becomes dangerous, a handicap on our ability to compete.

Conservatism would be even more obsolete if it hadn’t become a sponsor of big industrial concerns—Climate Change threatens Big Oil’s profits; Gun Control threatens the NRA’s profits; Women’s Equality threatens the major religions—nearly every progressive cause has a profitable opponent—rarely are they challenged on idealistic grounds, as was normal in earlier times.

Renewable energy makes a big difference—it’s not the environment versus the economy anymore—now it’s the tech of the past versus the tech of the future—a much harder argument for oil barons to win. And it doesn’t hurt that the latest oil-drilling technology, fracking, has turned Oklahoma into one big sinkhole.

Not to mention Hurricane Matthew. But he’s just one storm—there have been major storm disasters across the globe recently. In the tension of dealing with preparations and outages and rescues, nobody’s talking about where this storm came from. Hurricanes happen every year, but historically dangerous ones over a short span of years—that’s a symptom of Climate Change—a phrase that Florida conservatives are loathe to speak. Talk about whistling past the graveyard.

….

Julian Assange, Pony Up (2016Oct04)

Posted by XperDunn on October 4, 2016

Tuesday, October 04, 2016 4:51 PM

My two most-recent Facebook Status Updates:

“We’re supposed to vote for a guy who lost a billion dollars of his own money in a single year—because he’s good at business—and we’re not supposed to vote for the lady who gave her whole life to public service and helping kids—because we can’t trust her? Okay—that makes sense.”

“Trump says and does things that would be troubling in any man, far more in a man asking for the ultimate responsibility. I wouldn’t want him in my home, much less the White House.”

**–** ___ **–**

Julian Assange is enjoying his moment in the sun—holding a sword of Damocles over the Clinton campaign—threatening to destroy her image with revelations so awful that no one can defend them. This I have to see.

When dealing with people who like to get down in the mud, one sometimes is forced to make hard choices. If, in her thirty years of being hounded by a right-wing conspiracy, Hillary Clinton has made some hard choices, I won’t be surprised. I can be as headstrong as the Trump supporters—you better come at me with something that bites.

If the whole truth about Trump is as bad as his opacity suggests, Assange is going to be hard-pressed to find dirt on anyone that supersedes it, much less dirt on Hillary. Of course, Hillary does have some cyber-blindness—as most 68-year-olds would—and may well have had some memoir rough-drafts hacked, in which she is brutally honest in a way no politician can afford to be. I would enjoy debating that sort of thing—honesty is inconvenient in public discourse, but can be ultimately healthy.

Hillary Clinton is the gold standard in modern politicians—not hardly forthcoming, but seen to have the good of the people as her ultimate goal. If this were to be a mere façade behind which lurked our darkest fears, we would have little course but to surrender to despair—our illusions snuffed out entirely, at long last. If that is the case, then this little prick Julian had better produce something more than innuendo—he’s suggesting he’s in possession of something that will rock 600,000,000 people’s world.

But Assange talks about his ‘revenge’ dump as if it is proof of criminality. Fine, if he’s got legitimate documentation of wrong-doing, instead of a lot of smoke, let’s have it. He’s done a lot of talking. Time to pony up or shut up.

Law and Order My Ass (2016Oct01)

Posted by XperDunn on October 1, 2016

Saturday, October 01, 2016 1:22 PM

Unregistered charities, illegal envoys to Cuba, allegations of rape of under-aged girls, fraudulent ‘universities’, tax cheating, bribing DAs with campaign contributions—yes, Trump makes an excellent “Law and Order” candidate—the writers could get a season’s worth of episodes out of his life story. And if lying were one of the qualifications for politics (which many people maintain is the case) then certainly, Trump is the most qualified candidate ever to run.

He’s as fit to be president as any obese misogynist could be. He knows more about government than Sarah Palin—and she’s a career politician. His intelligence and literary credentials are proven by the book he had ghost-written about how to lie and cheat your way to success. It’s a fascinating book about all the ways in which one can cheat in business—it’s a shame that governing operates under different principles.

If only he had the presence of mind to continue pressing the conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton invented by the Alt-Right—just about 90% of the country believes in one or all of the accusations levelled at her—that stuff is working like gang-busters. If he would just stop making his candidacy about himself—it’s a losing strategy, displaying in real-time all the faults that he would have us believe reside in his opponent.

I see Trump constituents being interviewed on TV recently—they have this deer-in-the-headlights look, as if they like the ignorance Trump promotes, but they don’t want to be the ones seen publicly agreeing with the specifics of his campaign. They know in their hearts that they should be ashamed of supporting him—and being on camera suddenly brings that into sharp focus. They answer in curt, impatient growls, as if someone is trying to steal their ‘ignorance’ bone while they’re still chewing on it. It would be amusing, if it weren’t the fate of the world in their resentful, bitter hands.

But, Republicans, you’re on the hook for this, too. Have you noticed that all the serious people in your party have disowned it for the duration of this election, for the duration of this particular candidate? That’s because Trump is a bridge too far. In reaching for the ignorant and the resentful, in stoking their belief that progressivism is to blame for all that’s wrong in this country, in denying science and education, you have created this Frankenstein’s Monster. In cultivating a small-government, Tea Party, birtherist, vote-suppression, anti-gay, nationalist mentality, you opened the door to an ignorant demagogue. And instead of admitting your mistake and turning away from this shameless political agenda, you’re sticking with the whore that brung ya.

Trump has exploded your party. I don’t think much of the GOP ‘platform’—if it even deserves that term—but neither does Trump. On the conservative issues, he’s as much a Democrat as Hillary, but without the political know-how. He has disrupted your core ideals—yet you cling to your political strategies, as if they existed in a vacuum rather than a complex society. Thus, while he makes a joke of your tenets, you display a moral bankruptcy in sticking by him, just to win the election. Trump may turn the whole world upside-down, if elected, but he will do (and has done) much worse to the GOP. You guys have had it.

Try living in reality. Try reading a book. Try to see Trump for what he is—or spend the rest of your lives being ashamed of how you voted in 2016.

Huffington Post – Child-rape charges against Trump?

Banana Time (2016Sep30)

Posted by XperDunn on October 1, 2016

Friday, September 30, 2016 11:08 PM

Where is the love, people? Where is the love? Are we so afraid of something bad happening that we can’t spare a moment to consider something good that might happen? We can argue about the size of government and try to make that the issue, but—communities used to do a much better job of taking care of their own—states used to subsidize their state colleges enough to keep tuition down to a reasonable fee, instead of a small home mortgage. Welfare was roundly condemned for having a few bad apples—but back in the welfare days, a company had to pay a de facto minimum-wage that was high enough above welfare to make it worth working full-time, instead of collecting checks.

And why are we starved for jobs when the infrastructure of all fifty states is either unsafe or outmoded? We could spend money on infrastructure and count it the same way a homeowner counts home improvements, as a good investment—with the added bonus of jobs aplenty. The enhanced infrastructure will spur business growth.

I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember—when Eisenhower started the interstate highway construction, commerce exploded. In the New York metro area alone, the bridges and highways that made all of Long Island to the South—and all of Westchester to the North—brief, pleasant drives to and from the city, turned lazy little backwaters into bedroom communities for city-workers. The construction boom alone lasted decades. The commerce both in city-to-suburbs, and in services industries for these exploding communities, was part of what made my early years a time of seemingly endless growth, here in New York, and all over the nation.

And, believe it or not, if the economy booms loud enough, you start to see a labor shortage. Labor shortages are good for labor—increased demand forces increased salaries. If you want to grow the middle class, get the economy growing at a rate fast enough to create a labor squeeze—we haven’t seen a labor competition in a long time. But, let me tell you—it is a beautiful thing. When employers simply can’t get enough workers, they start paying people more money. You should see it—beautiful, I tell you.

I sometimes suspect the rich actually suppress growth to keep the 99% on the back foot, demand-wise. And then there’s foreign labor—that’s us turning a blind eye to unfair conditions in other countries, just for cheap stuff at K-Mart. Big mistake, long-term—not to mention ethically blind. Don’t buy shit from China.

But this is the world we live in now. Who ya gonna believe, my facts, or the other guy’s facts? It doesn’t matter—I write for the pleasure of hearing myself talk (in my head). There’s a shit-ton of infrastructure in this well-developed country—but it’s all pretty old by now, a lot of it needs re-furbishing or outright replacing. Add in the clean-energy industry, and the need for a modernized power-grid from coast-to-coast, replacing half-a-nation’s worth of lead water-pipes (and disposing of them safely), and a resurgent manufacturing sector—you’re talking about a lot of jobs.

So I expect Hillary to do something immense with infrastructure projects. If the government invests in the country, I’m sure American businesses can take care of finding a use for a vibrant, modern business environment. And if she taxes them for the privilege, well, it’s about damn time, is all I can say. I’ve heard enough rich-folk mumbo-jumbo about ‘trickle-down in my face and call it rain’. Pay your fair share, you sleazy bastards. It’s all take, take, take with you scumbags… Well, break-time for you—reality check. Even rich folk don’t get something for nothing.

I blame a lot of this on the media—those people are always chasing after the butterflies, they never show us the onrushing train of current events, just a bunch of sensationalist trash. But it’s our fault too—they go by ratings, and we have no one to blame for high ratings but ourselves. But we don’t expect TV or the internet to be serious, like a book—we expect it to give us escapism, like opium. That’s what we want, so that’s what they air. We have to want information to get information. But we’re just a bunch of monkeys—we don’t care, as long as we get our banana on schedule.

Now, here’s a little something I played earlier today:

Hope it suits.

…Russ, and Joey, and ?, ?, ?

Sex Matters (2016Sep29)

Posted by XperDunn on September 29, 2016

Thursday, September 29, 2016 3:20 PM

Let’s discuss presidents and sex. I don’t want to go back too far—let’s start with FDR. That great man was confined to a wheelchair and he still managed to have multiple affairs while in office. Truman, a great man as well, was also a good man—no known affairs, though he enjoyed drinking and gambling. Then there was Eisenhower—definitely an affair while SCAEF, but I’m not historian enough to know whether he fooled around in office.

dwight_d-_eisenhower_official_presidential_portrait

Then we had Kennedy—I think we can put him in the plus column. Then we had LBJ—no affairs that I know of. Same with Nixon—though we’d be hard-pressed to call him a ‘good’ man. Then Ford—another no; then Carter—another no, though he ‘lusted in his heart’. (And what hetero man doesn’t—or gay, come to think of it?) And Carter was followed by Reagan—two wives, but no known affairs.

Then we had Bush-41—a definite no. Bill Clinton was then the fourth modern president with publicly-known, documented affairs—but he was the first to be hounded for it while still in office. Then Bush-43 came along as the matching Puritanical bookend to his father. (If we can call a hard-partier like the young Bush-43 ‘Puritanical’, it is only in the fidelitous sense.) And last but not least, we have our present President—who, like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every particular (and certainly doesn’t have affairs).

So there you have the modern roster—affairs aren’t exactly common among presidents, but then they aren’t exactly uncommon either. And, if we are honest about it, the Presidency is one of the few jobs where such a thing would still impact one’s position. Married men having affairs is no rarity. In today’s society, no one goes to jail or loses their job over infidelity alone—with the exception of politicians and priests. Likewise, in today’s society, Divorce has very little baggage—heck, Trump’s on his third marriage and nobody says boo about it—even with him as presidential candidate for the Conservatives.

Yet as a man with five kids by three wives, he seems to be considering bringing up Hillary’s husband’s infidelity as a black mark against Hillary—he claims he denied himself that ‘weapon’ at the debate because he had scruples about embarrassing Chelsea. Bringing up Chelsea’s name in this context seems like the sensitive way to go, alright. But I still need to have explained to me what Bill’s peccadilloes have to do with his wife running for office?

Is Trump going to criticize her for not abandoning her family when she suffered the embarrassment of Ken Starr dragging this affair out over two years’ worth of prurient headlines? That’s how Trump advised his daughter—saying that if she were sexually harassed at work, she should quit her job and find a new career. Does he believe that Secretary Clinton, as a woman, is also supposed to run away when a man hurts her feelings?

Or is he going to try to blame Bill’s behavior on his wife? A lot of stand-up comics have gone that route, suggesting that, if Hillary had been more sexually inventive, Bill would have never strayed. I can see Trump going that way—it would fit with his apparent theme: ‘no lie too big, no statement too idiotic’. And his advisors clearly have trouble explaining the difference between a presidential campaign and a stand-up routine to the GOP nominee. Wait—scratch that—stand-ups rehearse their acts.

I don’t know how Trump is going to tie Bill Clinton’s notorious hound-dogging to his wife’s character. Still, he blames the last thirty years of federal governing on her alone, without any problem with the logic of saying so. But even Trump supporters are going to have trouble with tarring a wife by her husband’s affairs—at least the women, I presume. The married ones may even resent such an implication—if Trump supporters even hear the words that come out of his mouth in the first place. There is no evidence of that at present.

The world, and especially the media, await this idiot’s next words with baited breath—though for the life of me I can’t understand why. There’s no reason to fear this clown—we fear only the crowd that supports him and will, apparently, vote for him to be President of the United States—and the education system that is so broken that these crowds exist. President Clinton (the faithful one) will have to work on that.

Thirty Years (2016Sep27)

Posted by XperDunn on September 27, 2016

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 11:27 AM

Of all Trump’s bombastic BS, the ‘thirty years’ attack is the most exasperating. Trying to turn Hillary Clinton’s preparedness into a negative is as convoluted an argument as his claim that an unprepared ‘outsider’ is what this country needs in a leader.

Let’s take a page from Seth Myers and take ‘a closer look’ at this ‘thirty years’ nonsense. Hillary Clinton earned her law degree and was active in public service long before she became the First Lady of Arkansas, never mind First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS). Beyond that, of all the people who ‘serve at the pleasure of the President’, I think we can place FLOTUS at the head of that list.

In other words, while First Lady, Hillary Clinton tried to help her husband’s work, succeeding in creating (and passing) the Children’s Health Care bill and other notable good works. She met with elected officials from around the country, with foreign dignitaries, and with charitable efforts leaders, learned about the workings of the White House and the challenges of governing—but she did not govern.

After the White House, she won election to a Senate seat from New York—and was an able partner to the senior Senator from her state and worked diligently with both sides of the aisle—but she did not govern—she wasn’t even the minority whip.

Then she became Obama’s Secretary of State. Again, serving at the pleasure of the President—not governing.

So, all this experience is excellent preparation for becoming the President—but never gave her any opportunity to make her own decisions. I won’t deny that those were positions of influence—but influence is not power. Any decisions made by her husband, by Congress, or by Barack Obama, were theirs, not hers. And she couldn’t even publicly talk about any disagreements she might have had with the two presidents she worked beside—people don’t do that.

So the last thirty years of Hillary’s life have been an historically excellent preparation for the job of President—but they haven’t been thirty years of governing, as Trump would have us believe. He is simply trying to turn one of her greatest strengths into a negative.

Well, two can play at that game—Trump, you’ve had seventy years to engage in public service and you have never once bothered to care about other people—what’s makes you think you can convince us that you suddenly do care? Seventy years of self-serving, sometimes fraudulent, piracy have prepared you to do nothing other than lose to a qualified candidate. No amount of bombast can change that.

Questions, anyone?

Desperate For Change (2016Sep26)

Posted by XperDunn on September 26, 2016

Monday, September 26, 2016 1:47 PM

Desperation is like panic—always a bad idea, in spite of our being tempted by both on a daily basis. I always try to resist them—I consider desperation a dangerous mistake, more dangerous in the end than the thing I became desperate over. Some people seem to want to go there—to give themselves permission to make a choice, whether good or bad—like an itch that needs to be scratched.

We live very inhibited lives—signs are posted, regulations must be obeyed, dress-codes must be observed. Desperation is a holiday from that reality—that is why there is something of hilarity about people in an emergency—no matter how bad it is, it is still a break from the ceaseless rule-following. This is only natural—we are, after all, animals with clothes on.

Doom-sayers, conspiracy-theorists, and provocateurs attempt to create emergency conditions in the midst of normalcy—that’s why we both despise and are fascinated by them. They offer the ‘holiday’ of a world turned upside-down. Their followers are their cheerleaders—they like their thinking, and realize that they only need to propagate the message, to popularize and legitimize it to the point where it becomes an emergency.

We want excitement—we crave it. But if we want our complex, but very comfortable lives to continue, we have to learn to compartmentalize our thrill-seeking from our judgment. An election is a popularity contest—yes—but it is also a judgment call. We are handing over our most prized possession—we want to award it to the most impressive person. We are also handing over a fragile, delicate clock-work—we want to entrust it to the most steady-handed and clear-eyed craftsperson.

Do We Just Wish They Were? (2016Sep25)

Posted by XperDunn on September 25, 2016

Saturday, September 24, 2016 9:28 PM

I had hoped the Charlotte NC authorities would release the videos of the killing of Keith Lamont Scott—and they have, but not all of it. And, when you think about it, given what we’ve already seen—what could Keith Lamont Scott have done in so short a time as to cause a trained policeman to gun him down?

The reluctance of authorities to be transparent is just a knee-jerk reaction—this was not a ‘good’ shoot. That much seems clear. An innocent man was killed. No one wants to admit that, but maybe they should. What happened was bad enough—I don’t see any profit in playing cute with evidence.

The police claim that he was rolling a joint with a gun by his side—his family says he had TBI, didn’t own a gun, and was reading a book. The police have produced an ankle holster and a pistol, and claim it has Mr. Scott’s DNA on it—I’d be a lot more open to that if an ankle holster wasn’t so popular with the police, and if they had said his fingerprints were on it—after you shoot a man, his DNA is all over the place (with apologies to the Scott family for saying so).

I’ve heard a butt-load of talk—on and on they drone, saying everything as circumspectly as a thing can be said, casting doubts in every direction, hoping to divert focus from this being, in simple terms, a crime committed by a police officer. It makes me tired.

Can’t we just, for once, go straight to the part where North Carolina institutes improved police training and extensive community outreach—and makes this sort of thing a relic of our past? Do we have to pretend that this serious problem doesn’t exist—and go through all the bullshit back-and-forth? Really? It’s 2016, folks. Tic – toc, dammit.

There is something so sickly stubborn about the South’s veneration for the Confederacy—it imparts an element of pride to their ignorant racism and the persecution of their fellow citizens. The North Carolinians have been caught twice this year—once, specifically targeting minorities with new voter-restriction laws that, fortunately, were thrown out by the Supreme Court; and two, this public, almost farcical, obstruction of justice, to shield the police from their own misconduct.

And don’t tell me the officer who fired was black—the police are a culture unto themselves—that’s why we have these situations, where the opacity of the process is guaranteed by the police’s interdependency and necessary loyalty to each other. Retraining is needed to change the police culture—to make these hitherto winked-at shootings a thing of shame, instead of a rallying cry for police solidarity. The good police need to be given the tools that allow them to call out bad actors, without becoming traitors to their team.

Policing is difficult work—part hero, part helper, part target, part social worker, and on and on—its outlines stretch in almost every direction. And the power that comes with it can, apparently, be quite seductive—and easily twisted into something frightening. We have intensive training for doctors and lawyers—it is time to recognize that a proper police officer, man or woman, requires a host of skills and therefore involves training that goes far beyond learning how to hit what they shoot at.

There are police in many countries where the civilians fear their approach, because the police force can be used as a tool of suppression and intimidation. They are not police in the developed world’s sense of the word—and their hallmark is unwarranted, unthinking violence. The police training in many European countries puts America’s to shame—they are serious about civilization in the way that some Americans are serious about ‘law and order’ (a code-word for fascism if ever there was one). We compete in so many arenas—Americans love to compete. Why do we not feel a need to be the best in policing, or in community? Are these things so unimportant? Or do we just wish they were?

One Fine Day (2016Sep24)

Posted by XperDunn on September 24, 2016

Saturday, September 24, 2016 12:43 PM

It’s a fine day. I just finished hearing Obama’s dedication address at the opening of the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture on C-SPAN. Stirring, inspiring, as always—isn’t that strange? Our president’s default setting is ‘stirring, inspiring’—I don’t think he can give a speech without sending a thrill through his listeners. Very strange. The combination of ‘president’ and ‘cool’ is almost overwhelming.

And Stevie Wonder sang and Patti LaBell sang—it was an eye-tearing, joyous celebration. When President Obama finished speaking, he introduced a family of four generations—a 99-year-old woman, daughter of a slave, her son, his son, and that man’s little daughter—and they rang a bell from the first African-American church, in Virginia, which was echoed by bells all across the country—a further echo of the bells rung all across the nation to celebrate Emancipation, a century and a half ago.

I love it when I can spend a day being proud and loving this country, for what it has done, for what it is, and for what it will become. And the sun is shining. And a gentle breeze is blowing. Life is too good.

The New York Times came out with an endorsement of Hillary Clinton today. I was pleased to read it—it said much of what I’ve tried to say in my blog posts (but better, because, let’s face it, it’s the Times). And I started to think about how the conservatives rail against the media as a bunch of lying propagandists. It’s not true. I’ve never been lied to by the New York Times—they may not always be perfect, but they do not have an agenda, per se, beyond journalism itself. Neither do many of our media staples.

The social media, guerilla journalism, and cable news—those people are new to journalism as an idea—they have it confused with show business, with capitalism, or with political gamesmanship. You can indulge in that stuff, if you don’t mind having to fact-check everything they tell you. But the Gray Lady, the Washington Post, and other traditional sources are no more biased than they were in the days before Tweeting. Anyone dismissing their reporting as ‘spin’ is trying to hide from the truth, not reveal it.

In the same way, the authorities in Charlotte, NC have claimed that the video from body-cams and dash-cams is inconclusive, yet still feel the need to hide the video from the public, even after the family of the murdered man requested its release. This is not transparency—when you hide something, it says you have something to hide—it’s as simple as that. The Charlotte community marches night after night, demanding this evidence be made public—yet still the authoritarians hide the evidence. Release the videos.

It’s a fine day for me—but not for everyone. There is still work to be done.

But You ARE Deplorable (2016Sep23)

Posted by XperDunn on September 23, 2016

Friday, September 23, 2016 10:10 AM

An Ohio Trump campaign chairwoman resigned yesterday after sharing her delusional world view with a reporter—a view that seemed to blame Obama for the existence of racism. (Thanks Obama.)

Trump supporters have many self-serving delusions—they see in Trump an authority figure who legitimizes their particular crazy. It makes them feel better. They see the present as a travesty, brought on by those who just don’t understand the ‘rightness’ of their racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and islamophobia. Hillary got in trouble recently for being too straightforward in describing this phenomenon (and, for some reason, using the word ‘basket’).

Secretary Clinton was just being honest. Dangerous for a politician, granted—but it seems outrageously unfair that Trump’s steady stream of disinformation gets lovingly massaged by the media, while Hillary’s momentary frankness becomes her ‘biggest mistake’. Sorry, half of Trump supporters (or whatever the precise fraction may be)—but you are deplorable.

When our country once faced a similar crisis, FDR told us they only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Donald Trump wants to undo that tradition—Trump thinks fear is good stuff—he tells us to be very afraid. And you deplorables are listening. Trump tells you that inclusion is weakness, that mercy is foolhardy, and that action is better than thought—and you believe him.

Trump tells us that we don’t need to see his tax returns—we should trust him. He tells us that his indebtedness to other countries won’t affect his decision-making. He tells us that his family business won’t create a conflict of interest with his presidency—well, he’ll be right about that one—there’s a lot of people like me in this country who will do our damnedest to ensure he never gets near the White House. Vote for Hillary.

A Good Breakfast Ruined (2016Sep22)

Posted by XperDunn on September 22, 2016

Thursday, September 22, 2016 11:35 AM

Breakfast—is there anything sweeter than a hearty breakfast—and a handful of pills? Well, the pills are something I’ve acquired over time—what I really like is the bacon and eggs and hash browns—and then the sour of orange juice washing it all down—and then the hot, steamy, rich coffee (I take mine with lact-aid milk—the half-n’-half of the lactose intolerant).

And the best thing about it is that one isn’t supposed to have a hearty breakfast—all those nitrates, and fats, and the salt—OMG. Heaven forfend! But that just makes it taste better. And no breakfast is truly enjoyed without a newspaper, or at least a crossword puzzle or something—so you feel like you’re preparing your body and your mind for the day ahead. Well, the rest of the day—I don’t usually get around to breakfast until noon-ish—I know, I know—but it takes me a couple of hours just to wake up all the way. I’m kinda punchy for a while, at first.

Now, take a look at this picture of my niece holding my granddaughter—just look at the smiles on these two gals. It’s quite a photo, no? I stared at it for a good few minutes—it’s as good as a TV show.

But before I have my breakfast, I’ve uploaded this morning’s improv—it came out pretty good because I wasn’t entirely there. See, I tend to overthink things—so, when playing the piano, the more asleep I am, the better.

Thursday, September 22, 2016 12:43 PM

Aaah—so satisfying. Now that’s a breakfast. I made the mistake, however, of substituting the TV-news for a newspaper. When really bad stuff starts to go down, I realize I didn’t know how good I had it, when it was all presidential election claptrap—they were just filling time because they had no news—and no news truly is good news.

I see video of a pack of Tulsa police gunning down a stalled motorist in the middle of the highway in broad daylight. I ask myself, ‘what the hell is it like, living in Tulsa?’ I ask myself, ‘what would it be like if our cops just shot people down in cold blood like that?’ I find myself grateful, not to live in Tulsa—what a stain on this country. Then the stain running for president, the Donald, becomes the first Republican to hassle the cops about shooting black people. Why? Because, this one time, the shooter is a woman—Trump’s not castigating the police, he’s saying women don’t have the balls—a very different issue—but Trump’s an ass, and wouldn’t know the difference.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the cops shoot another black man—this time they say he had a gun—his family says he had a book. The cops won’t release the video—they had one excuse yesterday—today they have a different excuse—they’re saying they’re just following the law. But the law about releasing cop videos just got rushed through their state legislature—so it doesn’t take effect until next week—and on the hypocrisy goes. But that doesn’t stop the media from drooling in anticipation of more violence during community protests there—so they can say there’s violence on both sides. Vultures.

I must confess—if the cops made a habit of shooting at me, I’d be tempted to shoot back—but I’m white, so maybe I just don’t understand the situation? Regardless, it sure ruins a good breakfast.

I’m an escapee. My disability sidelines me from the distractions of life, so I get to watch the rest of humanity go about its business. It’s a disturbing show—we’ve got a lot of chaos going on in the world. You who have jobs and other distractions are lucky; you don’t spend the day poring over the problems of the world.

I’m an escapee. I already died once, so my concern over dying is not the big deal it once was. Everyone knows we all die someday—but we don’t usually accept it—and that’s a healthy thing. I’ve accepted it—and while that tones down the fear of dying, it also detracts from the ambitions of living. Plus, I’ve gotten old, so any ambition of mine would just annoy people. My day is past, just like Dr. Evil holding the world hostage for a million-dollar ransom, in a time when a million bucks barely pays for a new house.

I’m an escapee—even from myself. I used to be very intent, very tightly wound—now I have trouble concentrating, so I’ve let go of all that OCD behavior, as much as I could. I enjoy playing the piano when I first wake up, because I’m not all there yet—I don’t get in my own way as much.

We’ll all be escapees in November, when Hillary gets elected—we will have escaped an unholy confluence—NBC Universal, The Republic Party, and the Alt-Right movement have created a monster out of a joke. In truth, Trump remains laughable. It’s the half of the country he’s bamboozled into supporting him that’s scary.

We’re also beginning to escape from our past Conspiracy of Silence shielding police misconduct in the persecution, and murder, of minorities. For generations, certain police in certain communities have indulged their bigotry in a calculated and cold-blooded fashion. For generations, minorities’ claims of unwarranted search, seizure, arrest, beatings, and killings have been waved away with a ‘he said, she said’ and a ‘who you gonna believe?’

But now we have video. The old tradition, the evil conspiracy, is being shot through its own heart—its secrecy—and I confess to a certain glee as I watch these criminals-in-cop-clothes try to explain away the truth as it plays on a screen in slow motion. The thin blue wall of silence doesn’t work against YouTube footage—bigots, your day is come.

Unrest will be part of this process. The unwillingness to absorb this age-old confederation of persecution, even while it plays on our TV sets, faces tremendous inertia among white people. We don’t want to believe that such villainy has been sniggering behind our backs while we trusted our men and women in blue. And we recognize that many police do their jobs with pride, competence, bravery, and integrity.

But our respect for the police as a group cannot be a shield for this pernicious evil that resides within it. Black communities gather in outrage, risking harm themselves, to protest this cancer within law enforcement, and within the hearts of communities. Evidence is plain to see—yet we do nothing but debate talking points.

Changes must be made. Perpetrators must face consequences, even when they wear the uniform. Improved training and community outreach must become the norm—as must criminal prosecution for these brazen killings committed under the guise of ‘keeping the peace’. Ironic, and unacceptable—and most of all shameful. Shame on them. And shame on us if we don’t root out this corruption with the same intensity with which we support our cops.

But I see all this as ultimately good, as progress—an ancient evil has been caught in the light of day and, if we do right, will be hounded into non-existence. Trump points to this unrest and other violence, and tries to say that violence and crime are increasing—statistics, as usual, make a liar of him—but that’s how he wants to frame our reality, so we’ll all get scared and vote for a bully. Crime and violence are at historic lows. The recent unrest is a part of making the police a force for good for everyone, including every shade of skin.

This is important work, not cause for hysteria. But, regarding Trump, that could be said about many of his positions, on just about every issue.

It’s Kinda Complicated (2016Sep21)

Posted by XperDunn on September 21, 2016

Wednesday, September 21, 2016 1:14 PM

One of my friends wrote a poem. One of my friends died. One of my friends came to visit. One of my friends got divorced. I don’t know how to feel. I wake up every morning wondering.

As a young man, the life I live today would have made me crazy with restlessness—but I see chaos all around me and all I can think is, thank god the tornado missed me today. Not that I’ve ever even seen a tornado, except on TV—a big storm is the worst it ever gets around here—no earthquakes, no floods, no disasters (not since 9/11, anyway).

Some morning I’m going to wake up and everyone will be busy at work; all the kids will be studying in good schools; all the countries will be trying to get along; and things will get better. Well, maybe not—but if other people can play Lotto, I can dream too.

The world keeps going faster, getting more complicated. A lot of people aren’t embracing that—they’re running away from it. Maybe we have to start thinking of two new groupings of people—those who want to intern at Google, and those who want to live in a meadow—if you know what I mean. The world is sprinting forward—maybe some people would rather be left in an enclave of simplicity. If we don’t recognize this schism, it will become a point of friction. If we do recognize it, we have a shot at working out a compromise.

Maybe there’s a way to have our science-fiction future come true for some of us, and leave a bit of Lothlórien behind for the rest of us. We have to start thinking about this stuff—not everyone wants to live in Nerd Paradise. Just as robots are assuming manufacturing jobs—raising the question of where to find consumers when there are no jobs?—we need to address the fact that human IQ averages are not going to grow in proportion to Moore’s Law.

In olden times, when no one typed except secretaries, and making change was the big science/math challenge, lots of people had trouble dealing with even simple arithmetic. Now we expect every adult to choose a health insurance plan, apply for a bank loan, file a tax return, remember ten or twenty passwords, pin numbers, SSN#’s, and devise a retirement investment strategy. Our devices have manuals. Our phones contain more answers than questions. Our online footprints are at risk from hackers. What’s a C student supposed to do? Grow an extra brain?

Back when computers were new to the office environment, I was the computer guy. Every else asked me what to do when the screen confused them, or when the printer jammed. That seemed natural—thirty people, and only one of them had the interest or the intellect to get into the details of using a computer—now we’re all expected to learn it in grade school. And most do. But we are still asking a lot more from humanity than the last 30,000 years have asked of them. And we have to address that.

Disgrace in Syria (2016Sep20)

Posted by XperDunn on September 20, 2016

Tuesday, September 20, 2016 12:50 PM

What’s happening in Syria is some bullshit. For years, they’ve been deconstructing an ancient civilization—ancient cities, like Allepo—and sites of historic importance to all of humanity. They’ve ruptured their society, spilling millions of displaced, forever exiled, into the world around them—exiled, not because they can never return, but because the place they fled has ceased to exist.

No one even knows who he or she is shooting at anymore—Assad’s troops, Rebels, Jihadi-extremists, Kurds, Russians, Americans, now Turks—this isn’t a war at all—it’s a civilization-free zone. The pitiable millions remaining were promised a cease-fire, waited day after day for the shooting to stop, then finally got a relief caravan moving—and, poof!—the cease-fire was over, and they shelled the relief trucks, killing innocent civilians and aid-workers alike. Fucking assholes.

And I’m not just talking about Assad and Putin. Where is the UN in all this? Where are the Saudis? Where are the Egyptians? What about all those little caliphates full of oil-rich poohbahs? I live in the suburbs, an ocean away, and I can hardly stand this—what is wrong with those people?

This is what happens when people have to fight for their voice, for their dignity. This is what intolerance gets you. All these people are so busy fighting for their side, they don’t even realize that the best way to stop the killing is to accept that there are other sides. And, of course, you do what you know—half-a-lifetime these folks have been clocking in each morning by picking up a gun. It’s a shame they’re raising a new generation, in the rubble, who will never know anything else.

It makes me want to cry. There are a lot of problems behind this violence. It’s a shame that killing each other is the only solution—O, wait a fuckin minute. It ain’t. Goddam fucking assholes….

Alright—deep breath. There’s nothing I can do about any of this stuff.

I have new pictures of my beautiful granddaughter. She just gets more adorable every day. This time she has on Supergirl socks (with tiny red capes!)—it’s just too delightful. And just look at those delicate hands and feet. People are fragile things—but babies just flaunt it, don’t they? Still, none of us have armor—just flesh. We should treat each other like we were as fragile as babies. Because we are.

I know—because I used to be healthy and indestructible—nothing could hurt me. Then I got sick, and then disabled. Little friggin microscopic bugs took me down. How can we waste our lives fighting each other? I know talking things out is boring—but it beats living in rubble, with babies starving. Just sayin.

[below was previously published on Medium.com]

Monday, September 19, 2016 7:26 PM

ISIS is Bombing (2016Sep19)

29 people were injured by a bomb in NYC—another was found two streets away, before it could go off. The Marine Corps marathon in NJ had a late start, so no one was hurt when a bomb there exploded. Another IED exploded while bomb-squad robots tried to defuse it. Unexploded devices allowed investigators to identify and hunt down a suspect—and, as of now, it appears that he was acting on his own.

All in all (and with sincere sympathies for the 29 wounded in New York—and the NJ police wounded during his apprehension) this was an excellent terror attack—a complete and utter failure to engender unease, much less terror. Our police and other agencies acted professionally, quickly, and successfully. It’s really little more than a campaign talking point, 72 hours after the event.

Americans do not terrorize quite so easily—certainly not anymore. And with top ISIS leaders being taken out day after day in the field, a laughable flop of a domestic terrorist attempt is only made more ridiculous by the knife-wielding Jihadist in Minnesota (again, with sincere sympathies for the wounded in that mall)—if they’re going to take us out hand-to-hand, they’ve picked the right country—come and get me, nutjobs.

Still, we must remember that school-shootings, mass-shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Anthrax mail-hoaxes of the past—all were carried out by the mentally disturbed—and even if we wipe terrorism from the face of the earth, violence will always lurk in the dark spaces of the mind. And we should remember that, outside of the buzz of current politics, these radicalized people are also mentally disturbed.

The will to violence is not so common as the media might suggest—if it were, we’d have people popping off every ten yards. The rare individuals that perpetrate bombings or shootings—even in the name of an organization—are still being culled from the ragged edges of our society. Most of us are too busy trying to get along—too busy living—to trouble with violence.

And that is why it is so important to uphold our ideals and our inclusion—every time someone is marginalized or neglected, they are pushed in a dangerous direction. When these people act out, there is a failure, too, in those around them—those who didn’t enclose that person in the security and comfort of a community. Those who overlook the underserved, the troubled, and the stigmatized, only put off trouble, and allow it to grow into a greater problem.

Trump’s Cult Constituency (2016Sep17)

Posted by XperDunn on September 17, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016 4:34 PM

We’ve all been mystified—how has a self-confessed fraud and egomaniac managed to collect and hang on to so many voters? The first clue is that Trump has made slim inroads into the educated-people demographic. The second clue is that none of his lies—even when proven untrue—see him losing any followers.

A narcissist with no experience in government who, when Hillary says he’s unfit, says, ‘no, she’s unfit’; when Hillary points out his racist behavior, says, ‘no, she’s the racist’—like an idiot child, he doesn’t even deny he’s unfit, or a racist—he just says, ‘I know you are but what am I?’ And now—the most flagrant lie in history—after spreading birther bigotry for five years, he says, ‘Hillary started it.’—a provably-false lie—and reverses his own position, without explanation or apology.

We wonder if we’re still sane—any other candidate would have been laughed out of countenance twenty slip-ups ago. Any other candidate would have plummeted in the polls by now. But Trump’s supporters hang tough—it’s a mystery. But I’ve figured it out—it’s a cult.

Think it through—this is a group of people who have been indoctrinated against science and facts. They’ve been told they can’t believe the newspapers or the TV or the radio—that reality is something different from what everyone else says it is. They have little or no education—many are emotionally fraught from all the change in this country—a change they see as working against them. And here’s a celebrity who speaks like Moses come down from the mountain, bringing the revealed word of Trump—graven on plastic tablets (that dissolve in water each news-cycle).

He tells them who the infidel is—he jokes about someone shooting her. He tells them that only he can save us all. The rest of us can tell he’s making it all up as he goes along—but his followers take his every word as gospel.

Their rage insists on a target—someone has to be punished, or at the very least damned—and everyone knows women make the easiest targets. Their fear is comforted by his insane confidence—like a prophet of old, he spouts nonsense—nonsense that God will make good on, in the end, right? These peoples’ faith is their strong suit—and it’s been under attack by progressives. Trump welcomes their non-judgmental faith, their non-questioning faith—in him (God is a bit player on Trump’s stage). It’s not a constituency—it’s a cult.

So, don’t go looking for Trump’s numbers to drop—no matter what happens. This election will decide whether there are enough sane people in this country to keep this jackass out of public office—or whether his zombie army will outnumber us at the polls. It’s the stuff of nightmares. This election should be quite exciting—we won’t be simply casting a vote, we’ll be trying to save the world. Vote for Hillary. Or live in the hell-scape of the alternative.

Seneca and Me (2016Sep17)

Posted by XperDunn on September 17, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016 12:58 PM

Wow—even I’m tired of me—I can’t imagine how fed up you must be, dear reader. But it’s the weekend now, so I’m going to do my best not to say anything until Monday, maybe even Wednesday—who knows?

Our granddaughter has a wonderful new toy in her crib—a small keyboard that she can play with her tootsies. Punkin sent me a video of it, so I’ve made a new video of the two of us playing together. Enjoy. (I’m the one in the green shirt.)

It’s No Fun If You Can’t Share (2016Sep16)

Posted by XperDunn on September 17, 2016

Friday, September 16, 2016 10:04 PM

When one group fights against another, someone wins and someone loses. We see this in the trouble-spots of the world—two sides which will fight until one or the other of them wins—beyond reason, beyond humanity, the absolutism of one group against another seems basic enough to overcome civility.

I’ve been thinking today of our strength as a nation—the melting pot that makes any one group a part of the larger whole—whether they like it or not. Immigrants to the United States know that the rules are different here—feuds from the old country don’t count here; authoritarian prerogatives once enjoyed by men over women, or one class over another—in their homeland—are forever null and void, here in the land of the free.

America has never fought for conquest or territory—only for the Right as we saw it (and a few mistakes, undeniably). And indeed, who could we attack? Where is there a country that isn’t already a part of ourselves? Reel off the role of the United Nations’ 193 countries—not a one of them fails to be represented by a segment of our population. Even those whose governments are seen as ‘bad actors’—their people, too, are a part of who we are—the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Libyans, the Syrians—you name the place, and chances are high that the United States contains the largest number of any country’s population, outside of that country.

So, as we recognize that inclusion must be part of our domestic social policies, we also recognize that all nations are siblings—and that our nation is the glaring proof of that truth. We attract immigrants for many reasons—but I believe that most come here because, in the USA, you own yourself. Nobody tells us what to do. Nobody says we have to ask permission to try a new idea. We say whatever we want, and if you don’t like it, you say whatever you want back.

We take personal freedom very seriously here in America—sometimes, some of us even get a little crazy, pushing the bounds of propriety and safety merely to demonstrate the fullness of our liberty. In its own way, it’s pretty rough and tumble. But the acme of the ideal is not merely to have freedom—it is to accord it to everyone else, even when you don’t like it—even when it gets in your way.

And we certainly see abuse of the concept—many people are only too glad to take freedom, and less enthusiastic about giving it to others. Liberty isn’t always obvious—it doesn’t shout, it waits for you to notice it. Some people willfully turn away, and use ‘Liberty’ cynically, hypocritically, as a cudgel attempting to carve out their freedoms at the expense of others’ rights. But they will run out of hot air before America runs out of people who treasure its ideals.

In the end, our immigrant heritage not only strengthens us as a nation, it bonds us to all nations—not as a competitor, not as a threat—but as a family of humanity, all collected together in the great experiment of America. While our capitalists and generals may sometimes lose their perspective, and get lost in the struggle for power, remember this—all most of us want is to share our freedom with the rest of the world. We don’t want other countries to belong to us, we just don’t want to hog all the good stuff for ourselves—it’s no fun to be happy if you can’t share it with everyone else.

A Word About Arithmetic (2016Sep16)

Posted by XperDunn on September 16, 2016

Friday, September 16, 2016 1:46 PM

A Word About Arithmetic (2016Sep16)

As the polls stand today, HRC has a slim lead over DJT in a head-to-head, but they are dead even, when the poll includes Johnson and Stein. People tell you to vote your conscience—and that is very good advice. However, judgement is also a factor—if you vote for someone who polls at or below ten percent, you are casting a vote for your conscience—but you’re not electing anyone.

Someone will be elected, but it won’t be Johnson or Stein. They could be angels come down from heaven, their policies could be solid gold—they are not getting elected. That’s arithmetic. Either HRC or DJT will win the election. So while you vote your conscience, ironically, you are also abstaining from voting for who will be elected.

And that would all be hunky-dory, if you don’t care which major candidate wins. Since there are big differences in the two major candidates, it is unlikely that anyone has no preference of one over the other—but if you really don’t see any difference between them, go on and vote your conscience. But, personally, I would also add—go and get your eyes checked.

Trump continues to hide his taxes. He just announced that he’s giving up the birther conspiracy—but no apology or explanation was given for the years of racist (and ludicrous) aspersions cast on the serving President. I could write all day and still not complete a full list of his nonsensical posing as a serious adult, and his unfitness for a position of responsibility. I’d need another entire day to review the lies he’s told, not just about his opponent, and his President, but about nearly everyone and everything.

To be fair, a lot of it is just ignorance—he actually believes some of his own lies. But most of it is purposeful manipulation of the people he looks down on—yes, I’m talking about you, Trump supporters—you poor, deluded suckers. He’s pushing your buttons, hoping you’ll push the button for him in November—and once you’ve done that, open that envelope from Reader’s Digest—‘You’ve just won a Million Dollars’! Ha!

Hillary Clinton has been unfairly attacked, over and over, for thirty years—but no one has ever taken her down, because she’s legit. We’ve all been lied to—she’s no monster, no criminal, no liar, no inept bumbler, no traitor, and no fool.

Here’s an easy point to make—Secretary Clinton, over the years, has been accused of so many things that they contradict themselves. She can’t be a monster and a weakling; she can’t be sneaky and a fool; she can’t be helpless and be the most dangerous person on the planet. In their over-enthusiasm to smear this fine lady, they’ve called her mutually exclusive things—so at least half of them are lying about her, right off the bat, by the sheer logic of it.

We’ve all been to high school—we’ve all seen the mean kids say mean things about the nice kids, and get away with it. But that nonsense doesn’t fly in the real world—with the one exception of Hillary Clinton. She’s got a mob of very good people, all vouching for her—no, shouting her praises—are you going to believe them, or Donald Trump and Fox News? Please explain your answer. If only to yourself.

Pete and Joanna — In That Order (2016Sep15)

Posted by XperDunn on September 16, 2016

Thursday, September 15, 2016 6:50 PM

A long and productive day—Pete came by, we recorded most excellent musical diatribes, but he had to cut our visit short and return to the world from whence he came. Then Joanna came by to see Pete—moments too late, very frustrating—but she and I had a pleasant visit, at least. This time I remembered to take a picture:

Today’s posts bring my total YouTube uploads to 2,005. Of those, 59 are videos of Pete Cianflone and me, collaborating together on improvisations and song covers. The audio-cassette archives of our 20^th-century recordings are lost in the mists of time—after many years of pursuing separate paths, we resumed our monthly journey together in January, 2014. It’s all on YouTube: Pete n’Me playlist

I’ll grant you, it’s an uneven catalog (always with the caveat that the problems are all mine—Pete’s a professional who’s nice enough to indulge me) but as we’ve gone along, Pete has figured out an impossible trick—drumming for a pianist with no sense of rhythm. He always makes me sound better than I sound by myself—it’s really something. Today’s videos are a perfect example—no matter how badly I mess up, Pete keeps things going.

Well, it’s been a very busy week. I think I’ll go back to bed for a few days.

Balance (2016Sep14)

Posted by XperDunn on September 15, 2016

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 1:45 PM

La-dee-da…. I don’t care. Let it all swirl around me. I usually feel obligated to pay attention, to try to sort the wheat from the chaff. But it all roils on, with or without me—I could live the rest of my life without a glance at the world and no one would ever notice. I could stop watching TV or going online, wait until November, vote for Hillary—and the result would be the same as if I had obsessed over all the political reporting, day and night, leading up to election day.

Those of you with the health and strength can rush down to campaign headquarters and volunteer to get out the vote—you may even decide that you’ve found in Politics a lifetime career—you can make a difference. I am unable to do so—but that’s okay—like I said, my lack of involvement frees me from worrying about my level of engagement.

We live in a media-centric culture. It is a mirror that we hold up to ourselves—and so our lives are judged not just on what’s happening, but whether we find ourselves entertained. It’s a lot to ask of ourselves—as if the whole family-of-man was driving its car down the interstate, admiring itself in the rearview mirror, trying to keep one eye on the traffic and the road signs. We must pay attention—but there are some things that don’t require our attention—they get in the way of the stuff we must keep watching for—dangers, opportunities, and responsibilities.

Not that we don’t need entertainment—I’m not saying that. Ever since fireside storytellers lit the imaginations of their tribe to mark the end of the day, people have hungered for entertainment. It is a part of who we are—just as much as eating or sleeping. In modern America, we’ve found that an overabundance of tempting foods can transform nutrition into a health threat. By the same token, it seems that we have the ability to over-indulge in entertainment to the detriment of our mental health. Sensationalism leads us on, to shorter attention-spans, lack of exercise, sleep deprivation, and carpal-tunnel syndrome.

As a bookworm, I was an early-adopter of today’s media overload. Long before it was popular to spend the entire day staring at a rectangle in your hand, I was reading a book during every free second of my time. Even back then, I found that reading books (a supposedly relaxing activity) could become a binge activity. I’d reach a point where the eye strain, stiff neck muscles, and headaches made it necessary to stop awhile—even at three in the morning, with only one chapter left to find out the ending.

I got a lot out of those books—I learned a lot and I was exposed to new concepts and perspectives that broadened my understanding. But I also missed out on a lot of other things—the kinds of things other people did—which narrowed my understanding. It’s that whole ‘balance’ thing—it always bites us in the tush. And when it comes to the popularity and ubiquity of the I-phone, balance goes completely out the window.

People in olden times often resisted having a phone put into their home—if they wanted to talk to someone, they would go and see them. Nowadays, landline home-phones are only remarkable in that younger people have begun to feel landlines are superfluous. And, as in those days, we have many people today who don’t wish to ‘be online’—if they want to talk to somebody, they’ll call them on the phone. But like the people before, their children are using texts and Twitter and Skype, et. al., to keep in touch—so they are forced to adopt the new tech, if only to talk to their kids.

But what if you’re among the millions of people without the money for gadgets, without access to the internet, perhaps without even literacy? We are creating a divide between the digitally-enabled and the dark-zoners—and these two groups live in worlds that the other cannot comprehend, much less share.

We are approaching a point where digital illiteracy and lack of access will become more disabling than a lack of money. It is a new form of what film-director Godfrey Reggio called ‘Koyaanisqatsi‘ or ‘life out of balance’. Only, in this case, it is specifically Humanity that is putting itself out of balance.

Prototypical ‘wild’ humans evolved to live a life of constant struggle and frequent deprivation. We have built civilizations that free us from such rigors—but being free of the necessity of fleeing from predators, free of hunting, gathering, and finding water and shelter—that doesn’t change the way we evolved.

We still need to exert ourselves. We still need to balance food with activity. We still need to bond, to form social groups, and to share stories. We still need to keep these animal bodies of ours balanced on the tightrope of biological function. Any extreme unbalance of exertion, food, leisure, entertainment, or self-regard causes problems—as lack of balance always will.

So, in the end, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with eating McDonalds or playing Black Ops or Tweeting—the danger lies in imbalance, in overdoing any one thing to the exclusion of a diversity of activities. Just as a conversation must include both talking and listening, our lives must balance our pleasures with our requirements. We take our bodies for granted—but we ought to stop using them occasionally, just long enough to listen to them and give them what they need. But I should talk—I collect unhealthy habits like they were baseball cards.

Okay, videos for today—one new one, and one from a week ago that I’ve put off posting.

So I’ll see you tomorrow.

Visitors (2016Sep13)

Posted by XperDunn on September 14, 2016

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 7:50 PM

What a day—what a beautiful day. Lorraine Gengo and Joanna Binkley came by today, bought me lunch, and we sat and talked about cabbages and kings, just like the old days. All the high school years I spent chasing them around like deer—and just as hard to keep up with. And now they invite themselves over. Wonders never cease.

Of course, it’s a sad occasion—we were all good friends with Cris, and Cary still. He was a very striking personality and we all feel his passing. Still we talked of other things, too—catching up on forty years is both plenty to talk about, and nothing to talk about, but we made do.

I usually spend the day trying not to wear myself out but today I don’t mind being exhausted—I don’t get out much. Seeing people from the olden times really lifts my spirits. I’m kicking myself now, that I hadn’t the presence of mind to take a picture! And me making a movie every damn day…

Seneca’s latest video came out adorable, just like they all do. She’s got two outfits in the new pictures—one says, “Dad and I Agree—Mom is the Boss” (a nice fantasy—everyone knows the baby is the boss) and the other has a whale on it. The teddy-bear looks like a permanent fixture—it’s so cute the way little’uns have ‘sidekick’ dolls or toys or blankets that cannot leave their sides.

I’m happy also to note that my granddaughter continues the family tradition (well, my tradition—Bear is a normal person) of wearing mis-matched socks. I think it adds a certain panache, don’t you?

Pete’s coming! New videos from the Buds-Up Consort coming soon—watch this space….

Get Well Soon (2016Sep13)

Posted by XperDunn on September 13, 2016

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 11:22 AM

Okay, that was uncalled for—whenever I write one of those profanity-laden posts—the ones that sound like a transcript of one of Donald Duck’s hissy-fits, I know that the poisonous insanity of Donald Trump’s campaign has gotten to me. I know I should be better than that. But my outrage is real. The divisive delusions, the media repeating gossip—and reporting on how they can’t stop repeating gossip, and the orange Godzilla trampling the landscape of our ethics, ideals, and traditions—eventually I just snap.

‘I know you are, but what am I?’—now there’s a campaign theme to be proud of, right? The only candidate ever to refuse to show his tax returns—no, that’s no biggie—we can just take his word, can’t we? So many, many things wrong, so many disqualifications—you get bored, hearing people like me drone on about them, don’t you? What an ingenuous strategy—horror overload. It’s new—it’s dynamic! He’s ‘looks’ like a leader too, doesn’t he? Bullies always have that stubborn expression on their face. One gets the impression that, when Trump loses, it will be the first time anyone will have ever told him ‘no’.

Let’s talk about something pleasant. I hope Secretary Clinton is feeling better today—she’s so nice. I really like her. And she’ll need all of her strength when the Democrats sweep the election. Without the obstructionists in Congress, she’ll be rolling out bills and appointments like a hurricane. People can stop complaining about government inaction, and start complaining about what the government is doing, like they used to.

Just think of it—infrastructure repair, so many jobs we’ll have a labor shortage, fully-staffed SCOTUS, EPA, federal agencies galore—and Hillary will scare the crap out of all the bad actors, heads of backward countries all taking the hint from ourselves—disrespecting Obama, and rattling their machetes. Let’em try that nonsense with Hillary Clinton—it will not end well for them.

America is headed for a very good morning—and I can’t wait for this endless night to be over.

Don’t Come Crying (2016Sep12)

Posted by XperDunn on September 12, 2016

Monday, September 12, 2016 6:20 PM

It’s a cold. It’s a friggin cold! It’s not even a virus—and she’s already on antibiotics. And we can state for the history books—this is the first time anyone has ever been criticized for not announcing to the media that they had caught a cold. She ignored it—why should she think to tell you about it? She ignored it, and kept going, against her doctor’s advice—you want to criticize her, criticize her for not taking better care of herself. Not that anyone else, man or woman, wouldn’t have had a complete meltdown under the kind of scrutiny that goes with becoming the first woman president.

If I was her, I’d be furious that she gets compared to Trump. You compare me with that racist, sexist ass-hat, and I’d punch you in the throat. And I haven’t spent my lifetime trying to help you people—you Americans, half of which seem ready to make the stupidest vote in history. Do you have to get hit with a sledge-hammer to know you’re being manipulated by a con-man? Or do you just hate women that much?

She was being kind, saying only half of his supporters were deplorable—those who get taken in by that joke-in-a-Chinese-suit have deplorable judgment. They may be fine people, but they are deluded if they see in Trump a dependable leader or a trustworthy person. He has whistled all the haters out of the woodwork—let’s be real. And bigots hate to be called bigots—they spend time and effort, trying their best to rationalize their biases, trying to use the right wording to avoid being called on their true feelings about people who are different. They get on their high horses and say, “I said all the right things—I never revealed any of the hate I feel—you’re the hater, for calling me a bigot.” Well, they don’t put it that way, but that’s what I hear—that’s what they’re really saying.

Of course, the media-sphincters are shouting to the rooftops, “Hillary said something rude!” I think, after all the crap that’s come out of Trump’s mouth, it’s Hillary’s turn. And, of course, she did it wrong—she admitted it wasn’t a nice thing to say, she apologized and took back the ‘half’ part. Ask Trump—that’s not the way you do it. You say something hateful and then just stand by it, and then send out a platoon of word-twisters to explain why it wasn’t really hateful.

Ailes is an ‘alleged’ pig (alleged by 30 people), that CEO guy is a neo-klansman, Conway is the new Goebbels—these are the best people Trump could find (after he fired any legitimate consultants). I wouldn’t even be in the same room with them—he’s taking their advice.

He hasn’t released his tax returns—and he won’t. There’s truth in those tax returns—Trump’s kryptonite is the truth. We’d know far too much about the real Trump if we saw those tax returns—but don’t hold your breath. It looks like plenty of folks (with deplorable judgment) are willing to overlook what, in any other candidate, would be disqualifying. They’re going to be super-loyal to this guy—because loyalty to a stranger makes so much sense.

I don’t know—do what you want. Go ahead and vote for that fucking asshole if you really think you should. Just don’t come crying to me. And you media-sphincters—you all should be lined up and shot. She’s a fucking woman—get over it and grow the fuck up.

Putin the Puny (2016Sep11)

Posted by XperDunn on September 11, 2016

Sunday, September 11, 2016 3:16 PM

There is no strong leadership in Russia—Putin scrambles for respect and legitimacy in ways that only push those goals further from him. Invading other countries for conquest is not something people do any more—that’s what the UN is for. And rather than mindlessly respond in kind, the US and the UN are trying to have a dialogue with this thuggish government—because bombing the hell out of Russia has been on the table since JFK, but no president has wanted to be the one to start WWWIII. Besides which, bombing innocent Russians doesn’t get rid of the real problem—any more than the 9/11 attacks weakened America.

Unarmed Russian jets buzz our fleet, the Iranians’ motorboats hassle our missile cruisers—these are the acts of irresponsible children, not of strong leaders. The North Koreans starve while their dictator tests nuclear bombs and shoots off missiles (just like a real country—in the 50’s). Kim Jong Un seems blithely unaware of our potential to melt his entire country down to glass with a single button-push—but, again, the North Korean people don’t deserve to be attacked, only their child emperor does. Strong leadership? Please.

In an age of nuclear-fusion H-bombs and space stations, the question of military might is beside the point. Real strength, here in the present, where real people live, is a matter of control. When the US convinces a UN-based coalition to sanction these juvenile delinquents of the geopolitik, that’s power. And it couldn’t be done by an American President who acts without thought.

The flashy, trashy behavior that our enemies indulge in has no effect outside of a weekly news cycle—the steady, considered behavior of our country, and others, is what keeps the markets, trade, and commerce going around the globe. They offer their citizens nationalist rancor—we offer ours economic security (like food on the table). Granted, many of us still feel the sting of the economic crash—but that still beats the hell out of places where the common people take second place to the egos of their strong-man demagogues.

‘Strong Leadership’ can take many meanings—it can be the superficial judgment, as Trump and Pence use the phrase, or it can refer to the steadiness of nerve that Obama exhibits. I leave the choice to you, dear readers.

Finger-Pointing (2016Sep10)

Posted by XperDunn on September 10, 2016

Saturday, September 10, 2016 3:01 PM

I am a bitter, angry old man. Have you ever wondered what an angry old man does with his time? Well, here’s how my day usually goes:

I get angry at the media for forcing a fifth-grade reading-level on public debate—and for lunging at any wisp of sensation. But then I tell myself that the media aren’t the problem, Trump is.

So then I get angry at Trump for trashing our global image, for sowing ignorance and fear, and shredding any solemnity we still felt towards our quadrennial ritual of choosing the Leader of the Free World. The gravitas of holding the fate of the globe, of humanity, in the palm of a single hand—is totally lost on this grubby con-man. But then I tell myself that Trump isn’t the problem, the Republicans are.

So then I get furious with the Republicans for choking the breath out of our government. Their obligation to lead their constituency is forfeited, for craven pandering to the most vocal, extreme, ignorant minority, for fear of being criticized by a mob of besotted malcontents, who hate the USA as it is, and yearn for a ‘return’ to some fantasy, fascist past.

Blocking appointees to vital offices and judgeships, strangling our economy with a sequester that punishes Democrats for the crash the Republicans made—and keeps that crash lingering, well… I could go on, ad infinitum, about the neglect and cynical sabotage the Republicans call ‘service’, but we all have things to do. So, anyway, I get mad. But then I tell myself that the Republicans aren’t the problem, the voters are.

And then I realize that calling half of American voters gullible, clueless, and deluded is not going to make me any friends—neither will it change anyone’s mind. Then I get mad at humanity in general, for its propensity towards destructive and lazy ideas—ideas that contain more inertial persistence than our rare insights into love, and all the work it entails. I get mad at the super-rich for toying with the whole of humanity, absent of any ethics and overcome with selfishness. I get made at the NRA, the arms-makers, and the arms-dealers for profiting on death. I am enraged at the injustice of seven billion mostly good people, used and misled by a mere handful of greedy, hateful pigs.

Then I go lie down and try to get my pulse back to normal. So what’s your day like?

Media Backs New Hitler (2016Sep10)

Posted by XperDunn on September 10, 2016

Saturday, September 10, 2016 11:26 AM

Is there anything Trump can do or say that will deter people from voting for him? Is there anything he can say that will finally push the media to report it as a lie, instead of just reporting his quote, and having a debate over it? Will this toxic confluence of media sensationalism, nationalism, and misogyny actually propel a border-line-psycho ignoramus into the Oval Office, edging out the best potential leader our country has ever seen?

They say the best way to win a fight is to act like a madman—it unnerves the opponent. This is the first time that strategy has been employed in an election campaign—because, prior to now, people who act crazy have been disqualified by the voters. Apparently, we now have voters for whom ‘crazy’ is acceptable. When fact-checkers report that 95% of what a person says is False, that usually disqualifies as well. But in this election, it actually helps Trump, because one of his lies is that ‘we can’t trust Hillary Clinton’.

I admire the way Trump obscures his total lack of experience by accusing Hillary of not fixing anything for thirty years—yes, she has done the hard work of public service, for thirty years, and more. But she hasn’t been President for thirty years—blaming her for all the (supposed) mistakes of her husband or Obama or Democrats generally—that only works on Survivor or The Apprentice. It shouldn’t be working in an election—it should be disqualifying in an election.

If a seventy-year-old visits one black church for the first time in his life, does that erase his racism? If his close friend, the alleged sex-assaulter, isn’t an ‘official’ member of his team, does that erase his chauvinism? If the one unchanging feature of his ‘supporter-commentators’ is that they never answer a direct question, does that make him a man we can rely on?

One thing that Hillary has done for thirty years is study policy—most of Trump’s policies (if you can call ‘secrets’ policies) are thirty days old, if that. When are we going to stop harassing Hillary about non-issues, like her emails, or Benghazi, or the CGI—and start asking questions about the millions of dollars wasted on investigating, interrogating, and always, eventually, vindicating her?

And, speaking of, why is Hillary the only person in America who can be accused, investigated, cleared—and still be guilty? That’s not a conviction, that’s a wish. And the media, apparently, is in the wish-fulfillment business—always talking about Hillary’s unfavorables as if she had earned then, when they’ve been dishonestly smeared on her, and embraced by people who ‘just don’t like her’. Hillary’s unfavorables say nothing about the woman herself, they are a verdict of ‘ignorant’ against the public. Why do we never hear discussion about why people are gullible enough to fall for dirty-tricks politics?

Media people, enjoy those high ratings—much good may they do you when our new Hitler takes the oath (with his fingers crossed, no doubt).

Improv of the Past (2016Sep06)

Posted by XperDunn on September 9, 2016

Friday, September 09, 2016 1:01 AM

I’ve been working on my video—it is a reminiscence of those who’ve passed away, particularly our old friend, Cris Miller, but also of children grown up, good times gone by, and, really, just fragments of the past—so if I’ve left you out, it is only the combination of having far too many friends and relations (and too many pictures of them all) and the fact that photo-shopping and video-processing over one hundred photos is hard on my eyes, my back and my hands, which made me pass up hundreds more that I would have liked to include. I apologize in advance—and promise there will be other days and other videos. If you are included and don’t like your photo—I apologize for that as well. I tried to create a pleasant journey back in time—that was my only goal.

Among the departed, you will see pictures of my father, my Gramma Duffy, my Grampa and Gramma Dunn, my Aunt Lois, Claire’s father, her Nana Ruth, my brother Russell, my brother-in-law, Jimmy Alaimo, and old friends—Billy Woerter, Rob Freeman, and Cris. I lacked photos for Stephen Breen, Kevin Ivory, Joey Arena, George Lesti, or the legendary Gil Freeman. And I must confess, my weak memory keeps me from remembering the names of all my old friends who’ve since gone.

I have no trouble with faces, though, so a crowd of unnamed memories stand with those I remember and those in this video. This video is for me, but it’s mostly for all of them. However, this isn’t just a memorial—if you see an old picture of yourself, that doesn’t mean I thought you’d passed on! It simply means that, while you may be a part of my present, you’re also a fond part of my memories of the past.

Friday, September 09, 2016 4:44 PM

I made a three-day job of it—but it’s finally uploading to YouTube right now. Please don’t ask for an explanation of the non-chronological order or the randomness of the themes—it’s partly my memories, but also simply what pictures I had to work with.

I watched it through before posting—QC, don’t you know. I realize now this video is so personal that it won’t make a lick of sense to anyone else. It started out as a desire to use all eight pictures of Cris Miller that I had (plus some sketch-artwork from a finished picture, I’m proud to say, he once framed and hung in his home). It just got out of hand—I was suddenly haunted by all the photos I had of loved ones whose pictures (and memories) are all we have left. And then, some living loved ones slipped in, because ‘loved ones’—and then a few photos that were just ‘from the past’. I never could be organized.

The piano-video came first, luckily, because all this photo-shopping has worn me out. I thought it went well, but you decide.

Dumber or Smarter (2016Sep08)

Posted by XperDunn on September 8, 2016

Thursday, September 08, 2016 2:14 PM

Has Trump’s candidacy made the whole country dumber or smarter? For the most part, he has suppressed our intelligence, particularly where news pundits are concerned. The title-chiron ‘Trump Supporter’ has come to represent a talking-head as cornered animal. Because media ‘requirements’ give equal time to opposing views, these people make up half of what we watch—a daily symposium on obstinate rancor and half-truths. What do we learn from this? We learn ‘never answer a question directly’. Actually, make that ‘never answer a question’. And we learn ‘when in doubt, shout about the opposition’.

We are smarter in one specific way—Trump’s easy victory over the crowded GOP primary field points up the weakness of having a party that relies more on talking points than public service, or common sense. And we learn that, no matter how modern we consider ourselves, we are eternally under threat from demagoguery.

Trump’s similarities to infamous fascists and other strongman despots have not stopped the angriest and most frustrated citizens from taking his populist bait. Governmental and political professionals, take note: if you neglect the common welfare in favor of the wealthiest, and do it long enough to turn discomfort into resentment and anger, any old bully with a smooth line can capture the electorate. Democracy, a system that relies on judgment, will always be vulnerable to strong emotional tides in the masses.

The dysfunction, frustration and anger can all be traced back to Republican obstructionism of the most flagrant, over-the-top quality. While the media drones on, echoing the rock-throwing harpies who haunt Hillary, and legitimizing the GOP’s novelty candidate, I’ve been driven to watching CSPAN2.

I’ve been watching Democrat senators beg the Senate to unjam the appointments back-log. Garland is just one of the appointees being ignored—hundreds of empty benches are causing a crisis for the few judges struggling to handle caseloads. The GOP’s refusal to confirm nominations prolongs massive vacancies in both federal judgeships, and agency and department heads. The vacancies in leadership can make it as though certain agencies don’t exist—effectively shutting them down, and makes a travesty of our institutional systems. This is government by forced unemployment.

Democrat senator after Democrat senator rose on the floor yesterday to declaim this political, cynical affront to public service and the most minimal bipartisan action, only to be answered with the word, ‘Objection’. That’s the response from the GOP.

Today, Senate Democrats gathered to honor Joe Biden (whose speech was cut off after mere seconds by GOP-controlled cameras). They also took the occasion to put it to the American public that the Senate managed to work out a bipartisan Zika-defense bill, sent it to the House, and the House Republicans added rider after rider, attacking Planned Parenthood, endorsing the Confederate flag, and other political BS that had no place in an national emergency funding bill. Then they doubled-down on this amorality by claiming the Democrats ‘voted down a Zika bill’. What kind of a dick does that? They all seem shockingly comfortable with this kind of childish evil.

It’s a sliding scale—GOP Senators seem to feel an occasional pinch of conscience, just enough to be embarrassed, not enough to act; GOP Representatives feel no shame at any of the bullying nonsense they pull; and the GOP candidate for President has lifted ‘bullying nonsense’ to an art form. But they’re all guilty of obstructionism and gamesmanship for its own sake, while the people they swore to serve languish in extreme distress.

The Democrats may blunder. The Democrats may get confused. But the Democrats never base their agenda on the opposition, they base it on getting shit done. Even a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative must recognize that a nation’s government must maintain what it already has. Even if you don’t want anything new, you still want to keep our roads, our schools, our military and VA, our justice system—you want to keep the nuts and bolts working. You don’t shut down, sequester, and obstruct any attempt to maintain the nation’s needs—that’s as good as treason—that’s an enemy within, more than any kind of public servant.

When Obama was elected, he doubtless felt a great weight on his shoulders—not just the weight that all presidents feel, but the additional weight of knowing that many would consider his presidency as a test of his race. Well, Barack Obama passed his test with flying colors—but we, the rest of the nation, have failed it miserably. Insidious bigotry and divisiveness in an effort to somehow deny President Obama the full honor of the office to which he was twice elected, especially birtherism, has made a sorry display of American politics these last eight years—and I am ashamed to be one of you.

Now, this orange clown, seeing the racism and nationalism ramping upward throughout Obama’s two terms, thinks he can win by running on the Nazi ticket. I mean GOP ticket. A debased and doddering tycoon hopes to bamboozle us all into ignoring the most able candidate—and the first woman candidate—that America has ever had. So says Barack—and so says her husband, Bill. And for what—a wall? Cracker please.

So, does Trump make us all Dumber or Smarter? I suppose that remains to be seen. November will tell the tale.

How Smart Do You Have To Be? (2016Sep07)

Posted by XperDunn on September 7, 2016

Wednesday, September 07, 2016 12:34 PM

Debates are coming. Can Trump hide ignorance with sheer bluster? Can Hillary Clinton overcome public awkwardness to reveal her inner beauty? We shall see.

People say ‘if Trump wins, I’m moving to Canada’—but for me, it’s more like cause to slit my throat—America is the greatest thing on Earth—we just can’t give it to a jerk who can’t see that greatness, who wants to replace it with his own conceited idea of what ‘greatness’ is.

But if there is a God (and even if there isn’t) Hillary should kick his ass. (And here I insert the obligatory reminder that we shouldn’t take it for granted—we must Vote—and get out the Vote.) If the world is made right again in November, and Hillary does win, I will feel a warm glow inside, knowing that America is safe from that bullying charlatan. But…

Here’s the thing. We have ‘checks and balances’—the tripartite nature of our government is meant to prevent excesses in any one branch—including the Executive. It is not meant to paralyze our government. And it never has before now, when subtle racism has made the Legislative branch into a stone wall preventing the Executive branch from any action, not only in legislation, but even in filling the complement of the Judicial branch. This is cynical politicization of government beyond the bounds of responsibility, or of shame.

After the disaster of Bush-43’s presidency, the GOP did an autopsy to see why their bankrupt ideological platform wasn’t getting any votes outside of their carefully gerrymandered pockets of influence. They solved the problem, and then ignored the solution, because the solution was to be more like the Democrats—that is, ‘decent human beings’. Not their scene, apparently. So they went down a rabbit-hole of lies, rationales, and bluster against the Democrats.

That conglomeration of ignorance and dog-whistling became so threadbare that a reality-TV celebrity was able to outshine them—when he should have been laughed off the primary-debate-dais by the contrast between himself and a dozen serious politicians. But by that point, he wasn’t facing rational, reasonable, serious politicians—he was facing Jeb, Marco, and Ted. Plus, the GOP had curated themselves a base of yahoos before the primary even began—so Trump won. They’re sorry now—but still, not because of their platforms, but because Trump made fools of them.

Now, these people are saying, “Okay, vote for Hillary if you must—but make sure to vote the party on the down-ballots, to provide a ‘check’ against Hillary”. In other words, if the GOP can’t govern, no one else should—and Democracy be damned. I say, if you’re going to elect a President, elect people who will work with her. We’ve had it, we little people—let someone get some goddam governing done. If the Dems fuck it up, elect a GOP president and Congress to replace them, but let somebody do something.

‘Small Government’, in a highly-developed country, in the 21^st century? Yeah, that’ll work, alright. ‘Nationalism’, when we need the injection of fresh blood that only immigration can bring—and when we need the real Muslims, as our greatest defense against extremist murderers? Yeah, that’ll work, alright. Ignorance and Science-denial, in the midst of a cyber cold-war and increasing automation and AI? Yeah, that’ll work, alright. I know, I’m an egghead—but how smart do you have to be, to see the hypocrisy of the GOP or the unfitness of their candidate? How ignorant do you have to be, to fall for it?

The Struggle (2016Sep06)

Posted by XperDunn on September 6, 2016

Tuesday, September 06, 2016 1:23 PM

Two months is a lot of time—I should be experiencing it; I should be savoring it; I should be reveling in it—especially at my age. An old friend of mine died yesterday—and he was the latest in an ever-growing list of people who are gone from my life forever. Until the day I join those old acquaintances, I owe it to them and myself to wring the juice out of life to the best of my ability. I resent the media making me wish for the next two months to go by as quickly as possible—I resent the media making the simple act of turning on the TV a painful experience.

My resentment glowers at their false equivalency between the con man, Trump, and the target of cynical, misogynist con-men, Hillary Clinton. I smolder at the easy passes they’ve given the Ignoramus, and the sensation-biased scrutiny they’ve given a woman who could fairly be described as our most prominent statesman—statesperson, that is. For instance, if I were running for president, I would hope that I, like Hillary, would have policies backed by decades of experience and consideration—not policies that I’m still struggling with at the eleventh hour. Presidential candidates don’t get a learning curve—that’s why we’ve never seen a tyro run for president before—it’s not a trainee-level position.

But there’s a bigger, longer story behind the present scuffling. Bush and the GOP got us into a war we should never have started—or, having started it, should have ended. They let the financiers play their games until the economy crashed and burned, leaving millions unemployed, evicted from homes, and robbed of their savings or retirement nest-eggs. Then they let their racist colors fly proudly while our first black president tried to fix their mess, obstructing every remedy he proposed, every move he tried to make—even when they wanted the same things—out of pure venal spite.

The GOP is not called the party of the rich for nothing—their lip service to the true values of this country has become ever more cursory; their demeaning of science and sense in favor of the cold comfort of profits have left them with no honor—and due to their incompetence, no profits, either. This country is in a mess—and anyone who blames the Democrats for this simply hasn’t been paying attention. Now a demagogue, with no thought for public service, hopes to ride the rage and despair nurtured by his own party into the White House. The few decent people left in that party have felt compelled to accept their party’s utter failure, and stand with Hillary Clinton.

This not only belies the false equivalence shored up by the media—it also proves that the GOP’s attacks on her are only for show. Sensible people of either party see Trump as the death of the American Dream—and rightly so. Hillary Clinton (who, being human, has faults) is as vulnerable to criticism as anyone with a fifty-year resume—but fair-minded people can only marvel at all she has gotten right and all she has accomplished. Trump is having a grand time criticizing others for how they do a job he’s never done—and no one calls him on it. His record is spotless—because it is a blank sheet of paper.

But let’s suppose that Hillary Clinton were just an ordinary politician—nothing special, no life-long history of experience especially suited to the job she hopes to win. Let’s say we criticized the former Secretary of State for her mediocrity, rather than her brilliance. Her opponent is still a horrible man. Far from voting for Trump, I wouldn’t even let that man in my home. Trump has no values, no ethics, no decency—he is a greedy, self-serving cretin. I’d sooner vote for anyone else—not that the Stein or Johnson votes won’t help Trump more than Hillary—that’s just another way the GOP is trying to worm their way into office. So, make that ‘anyone else with a chance of beating him’.

And even if he weren’t a monster, he’d still be ignorant and inexperienced—not just for the office, but in general. He has no experience of life as people live it—he is a yapping lap-dog without an owner. He’s mean-spirited, pompous, and selfish. He’s a billionaire who claims to be the salt of the earth. He’s a racist who claims Hillary is a bigot. He’s a crook who claims she’s crooked. He’s great at firing people. He’s great at putting people down. He’s the insult-comic dog candidate—a joke that wears quickly but won’t go away.

Watch Trump’s old interviews, when he’s asked if he’ll go into politics—he spent his life avoiding the hard work of public service—he’s not interested in being a mayor or a governor or a senator—he just wants to win the reality show that is the presidential contest. He doesn’t want to do the work. He doesn’t even want to study the issues. He just wants to pursue his celebrity to new heights. What will he do as president? He’ll do whatever the hell he feels like. He won’t know or care about the ripple effects of his actions. Oh that’s bold, alright—but it’s pretty stupid, too.

(Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Americans, if you vote for Trump, you will get exactly what you deserve—and it won’t be pretty. Naturally, I’m with Her. But you don’t have to share my admiration of our potential first woman president—you can vote for her just to save the nation from a con man. This country has so much history, so much greatness, so much potential—why would you hand it over to a conceited, spoiled, sorry excuse for a man, like Trump? Do you really want to vote for a GOP presidential candidate that promises to make Bush-43 look like Solomon? Help me and all right-thinking Americans keep George W. Bush as our stupidest and most inept president—vote for Hillary.

ta-ta. (o wait–one last thing):

Response to Derek Sivers (2016Sep04)

Posted by XperDunn on September 4, 2016

Sunday, September 04, 2016 6:59 PM

Response to the Derek Sivers Article: Why are you doing?

Goals are for the young. Their goals allow them to push themselves, to experience the ups and downs of life, and to learn who they really are and what they’re capable of. Having achieved a goal, one looks back and sees the entire journey differently for having reached its end. Do that often enough, and one becomes an adult.

Adults come to see life not as an Olympic event, but as a group activity—being a good, supportive family member, being an engaged employee of your workplace, being a contributing member of your community. Goals in this context are what one does with the interstices—diet and exercise, continuing education, workbench projects, artistry, whatever. Thus I find the whole subject of goals difficult to get my arms around.

But exceptions abound—entrepreneurs, visionaries, activists, geniuses of one type or another—such people include disruption in their life plan, while still trying their best also to be the ‘adults’ described above. That’s a tall order—which is why there are not more of such people. Only the truly driven have any reason to make life even more challenging than it already is. The rest of us tend to make a goal of finding something pleasant to do during our leisure time, and making as much of that leisure time as we can.

I thought myself exceptional—until I’d become more familiar with the world and realized that, out of seven billion, exceptional isn’t always automatically ‘rich and famous’. I found my exceptionals to be balanced neatly against my weaknesses. I found ‘rich and famous’ to be a silly goal, because both balance their advantages against their hassles. And I found that personal, private success is hard to enjoy when there are so many people with less comfort, less wealth, and less opportunity.

On the other hand, saving the world is a tall order—and I’m not that ambitious. I would have to satisfy myself with being engaged in my family’s, and my community’s, welfare—but then I became disabled and found myself the target of support, rather than the source. Surprise! Nothing educates like vulnerability. A great chunk of my ego was carved away. A great load of gratitude was grudgingly taken on. I went from dreaming of doing things no one else could do, to wishing I could do what any average person could. I was, as they say, ‘taken down a peg’.

We don’t choose our goals any more than we choose our talents or our failings—goals accommodate themselves to the size of their container, if you will. But I appreciate your advice—whatever the goal, we should all be seeking maximum joy and personal growth—and time is short, so whatever we want to do, we better get busy doing it.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Daddy’s 1st Dance (2016Sep02)

Posted by XperDunn on September 2, 2016

Friday, September 02, 2016 7:10 PM

I finally got in a file-folder from Bear, containing over 100 Photos of Seneca showing off his daughter, Seneca, at his Restaurant—he appears to dance about the place, introducing the Princess to all his co-workers. It’s beautiful—so I made a video of it. I can’t speak for the piano music—my fingers were a bit tired from photo-shopping all those pics—but I think it will do.

The photo sequence repeats once, because I only show each picture for 0.75 secs. That left me with a-minute-and-a-half for the whole sequence, but the music is three minutes. It’s driving me crazy to be in New York while my baby granddaughter is growing up in California—it’s just so wrong. They’re going to visit at Christmas time, so I’m very impatient for the holidays. Meanwhile, I have to settle for photos. Arggh!

Well, anyway, that was a full day’s work—and I think it came out okay—but I think I’ll use these pictures again, more slowly, on my next video. I like the way this one suggests movement, but it’s a little frenetic. I’d like to see the pictures come more slowly. Next time.

ttfn.

Confusion Reigns (2016Sep01)

Posted by XperDunn on September 1, 2016

Thursday, September 01, 2016 1:56 PM

I’m confused. I like Hillary Clinton a lot—but everyone else seems to hate her. A person accused of endless atrocities, but never proved guilty of any of them, is a rare and wondrous thing. If she is truly guilty of all this criminality, then she is unbelievably clever. If she is not, then she is the target of the longest, most intense smear campaign in history—and yet continues to be the favorite for the upcoming. That would make her unbelievably tough. Clever or tough, or both—I like that—and I don’t see where all the spite is coming from.

I’m not confused about all the free media Trump gets—everyone knows: if it bleeds, it leads. Trump’s campaign has been bleeding (out of his wherever) since he first announced his candidacy by calling Mexicans rapists. Everything he says is full of entertainment value—he’s shocking. I’m shocked that, with all he has said, he has anyone willing to vote for him—and we are all shocked by his hate-speech, his rudeness, his trashing of American ideals, and especially his ignorance—considering the job he’s asking for.

Consider this: many people who know and work with Trump have been telling people that he is a narcissist, a cheat, and a bully. No one who has worked with or knows Hillary Clinton has anything bad to say about her. The people who vilify her are always people who don’t know her. Even Republicans she has worked with have testified to her competence and ability—and never accused her of duplicity, as her detractors do.

So, if Hillary Clinton is a villain, she’s not only clever enough to never be proven guilty, she’s also clever enough to fool everyone she’s ever met. And that’s too damned clever—that’s beyond the limit of credibility. One has to wonder. Is it a coincidence that these same people hate her husband, Bill, or her former boss, President Obama? That sounds a lot like the attitude of an angry Conservative, not the indictments of an objective observer.

These would-be angry-mob-leaders blame Hillary for the deaths in Benghazi—even after Ambassador Stevens’s sister said, “We all recognize that there’s a risk in serving in a dangerous environment. Chris thought that was very important, and he probably would have done it again. I don’t see any usefulness in continuing to criticize her. It is very unjust.“ The GOP do a disservice to the late ambassador’s heroism—yet the public still makes it a black mark on Hillary’s ledger, eclipsing the memory of Chris Stevens and the honor of his sacrifice.

That one bugs me the most—but there are two sides to all the accusations made by her enemies—and, as with Trump, only the most shocking and sensational sides are harped-on in the media. No one, to my knowledge, has ever done an in-depth analysis of the Hillary-smear’s long history, or the pros-and-cons of each smear, to expose this nebulous far-right propaganda machine for the ‘doubt factory’ it is. Sixty Minutes, where are you when we need you?

We should remember that her accusers are the same people who brought us Climate-change Denial, Reverse Racism, and Trickle-down Economics. They are the liars, not her. They are the criminals, not her. They are the bigots, not her. That should be clear to everyone. It is not. I’m confused. Are American voters such empty-headed lemmings? Can a horror-show like Trump really worm his way into power, when we have Hillary Clinton as an option? Someone explain this to me.

And while you’re at it, explain to me how people so judgmental that they disapprove of Hillary Clinton can elect a Congress full of village idiots. Those are the good guys? And Hillary is the Wicked Witch of the East? Very sound, everyone—extraordinarily wise—well done. Shit. Nice to know the country is just crawling with intelligence.

The world loves Hillary, but America doesn’t. The world believes in Climate Change, but America doesn’t. The world is dead set against using nuclear weapons, but Trump is considering it. How am I supposed to love my country, when it is so tightly-packed full of morons? I am confused.

bye now.

Exam (2016Aug30)

Posted by XperDunn on August 30, 2016

Tuesday, August 30, 2016 12:24 PM

A list of key-words, a chart of interconnections, a graph of differences—the idea of Algebra tries to worm its way into life. I used to make myself to-do lists, back when I did things—I’d have Top Priorities (things that needed doing right away), Regular things (a sort of ‘daily chores and maintenance’ list), Non-Work things (commitments I had made to people), Long-Term Projects (often becoming a list of things I never got to), and so on. Late at night, I’d still be scribbling away like John Nash from “A Beautiful Mind”—the list became its own project, keeping me from doing the things on the list.

Analysis can become a rabbit-hole from which there is no escape. Philosophical discussions that devolve into semantics—finding, at the end, that language is more personal than universal—can only be enjoyed so many times before we realize that life is to be lived. There is just as much value to experiential data-gathering as there is to mental wool-gathering, perhaps more—and certainly more stimulation.

Yet ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’—or so philosophers would have us think (no pun intended). So we think about what we’re doing while we do it. Occasionally we’ll find that we need to sit and think, to put down what we’re doing and ponder a question—maybe even draw a diagram or blueprint. My least favorite thing is to realize, in the middle of doing something, that I’m doing it wrong—or, worse yet, that I don’t need to do it.

Life is like a deep wood—we follow the trail without too much care, but where the trail ends, or forks, we have to stop and consider our options. Sometimes we have to trail-blaze where there is no path; sometimes we have to gamble on which fork leads in the best direction. Sometimes we have to micro-manage, such as making camp before the sun goes down; sometimes we have to macro-manage, such as planning where to get provisions over the next month’s travel. All activity involves thought, planning, decision, and judgment—we humans are rarely wholly physical—our actions are the physical complement to our calculations.

Examination, though, is a special case—it has no boundaries. We can examine something forever, if we wish. We can opt not to examine something at all—taking for granted that it is a known quantity or a known object. To walk the ‘tightrope of examination’, to do it well, being aware of the world around us without losing the context of our lives—that’s the trick. Too much or too little are both dangerous ground.

I’ve been speaking, so far, of learned debate—where people try to agree on terms and their usage, where both sides are actively engaged in a search for truth or meaning. Most of our public examinations, unfortunately, are not like that.

When I see a news-show’s panel of commentators about to debate the presidential election, I know I’m in for a heaping helping of snake-oil and tap-dancing. The pretense of fairness and balance becomes a shambles of illogical carping and condemnation—insisting on their opponent’s evil while excusing the same evil in their champion. It’s a virtual ballet of slippery memes, with a dash of shouting and derision. Both sides hold up their ‘true facts’ while we, the voters, recognize neither’s claims as either true or factual—we call them ‘talking’ points, not ‘thinking’ points.

One of the candidates has latched onto the new Media-philosophy and has based his platform on the idea that what he says is more important than whether there is any earthly reason to say it. His constituents are no better—a recent poll reveals that, of those who will vote for Trump, 4% think he can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons. As Rachel Maddow pointed out last night—that means that a certain number of Trump supporters don’t trust him with nuclear weapons, but want to give them to him anyway.

A hilarious recent article in the New York Times made the point that Trump supporters are loyal to a fault. In it, a supposed Trump advocate scolds the rest of us for pointing out Trump’s faults, assuring us that nothing anyone says will change the minds of his base. Funny as hell, except for the part about it being true–nothing can destroy democracy quite so thoroughly as an evidence-proof electorate.

The hypocrites in the GOP, the ones who, for years, have been shoving reason through a black hole, so that it always comes out backwards and upside-down, are caught flat-footed. They like Trump’s hypocrisy a lot, but they’re nervous about how unabashedly he exposes it, without a whisper of the usual serpentine reasoning they usually like to use, to confuse the issues.

He just says the stupidest things—and liberals are confused. They’re used to having a debate with someone who injects a lot of false data and emotional blackmail into their policy, requiring an exhaustive review of what’s actually true, to rebut. Trump’s bald-faced “Build a Wall” or “Ban the Muslims” leaves them with their jaws hanging, unable to process such public abandonment of adult responsibility. It’s an unexpected gear-change. Trump no doubt mistakes it for awe, or something.

Trump supporters and far-right wackos of all kinds worry about an invasion of ‘foreigners’ in the USA. But people like me see past the surface of a person’s skin color or faith—we worry about an invasion from within, by the ignorant. America believes in equality—so the ignorant have as much of a say as any high-school graduate or PhD. Even the willfully ignorant, proud of their dismissal of science and logic, proud of their bigotry and chauvinism, eager to kick over the sand-castles of the liberal progressives—even these troglodytes have an equal say in the making of America. They are the cup of sugar in the gas tank of democracy.

Nothing I say will change them. Nothing I write will even propel them towards thought or questioning. So I’m not writing for them—I’m writing for you. You can grade my examination now.

36th Anniversary (2016Aug29)

Posted by XperDunn on August 29, 2016

Monday, August 29, 2016 9:57 AM

For some reason, 36 years ago, I married a Bear. She married a Clown. We did the things that other families do—house, kids, pets, Christmas, birthdays—but we did something you don’t see too much of—we were silly. I find silliness to be precious—it’s something a lot of people don’t have time for. Some people even have an aversion to silliness—though that makes them the perfect people to be silly in front of.

Bear is not always relaxed enough to get silly—she spends most of her time being quite serious and busy. She’s lucky she has me—I know the value of silly. I’ll check—but I’m pretty sure she feels the same way—yeah, pretty sure…

I told her last night that I had forgotten to get her a gift. Bear doesn’t care—Bear doesn’t like a lot of gift-giving. She likes Christmas presents and birthday presents and she doesn’t mind a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day—but that’s it. No Mother’s Day, no Easter, no wedding anniversary, nothing where she feels a gift would cheapen the day. I try to get gifts anyway—silly ones, of course—but when I forget, it’s not the end of the world.

She said, “When I go shopping tomorrow, I’ll get myself some flowers.” That’s what we do—I tell Bear I didn’t get her a present, and she gets it for me (for her). I think she prefers to do her own shopping and decide what she wants—silly gifts are all well and good, but….

To the outside observer it might look like I get most of the benefit of being married and Bear gets most of the work—but only because it’s true—and I have an excuse—and a note from my doctor. But I do bring something to the table—old world queens had their court jesters—and Bear has her Clown. Plus, I kill spiders and fix toilets.

I don’t even want to think what my life would have been like without her. So that worked out pretty good. I am the lucky one.

Sunday, August 28, 2016 12:33 PM

It’s Addictive (2061Aug28)

I’m having trouble getting any work done on the computer. My wife is having trouble leaving the house. Friends come over and when they try to leave they just can’t walk out the door. It’s a real problem. We’re all addicted.

I’m a nerd by trade. My usual PC-monitor backgrounds and screen-saver slide-shows have always been NASA images—false-color galactic spectaculars, grandiose launch-fireworks, awesome celestial bodies—you know the drill. But I have recently received an influx of my granddaughter’s baby-pictures, which reminded me of younger times, when my computer graphics included our own infants—before they grew old enough to be self-conscious about being on daddy’s screen-saver. So, now, only occasional close-ups of solar storms or galactic star-cradles interrupt the steady stream of baby worship.

If you’ve had kids, or grandkids, then you know that your baby pictures are the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen—and it’s hard to look away. This is especially true when the actual enfant is on the opposite coast, unavailable for grandparental doting. Well, it turns out that having a slide-show screen-saver of such images is pretty close to graphics heroin.

I finish my typing or Facebooking or whatever, I go to leave the room, and I find myself caught, in glancing backward, by the full-screen splendor of our little Seneca. I walk into the same room later on, and I can’t bring myself to hit a key, stopping the screen-saver—I just sit and watch. When Claire (or anyone, really) tries to walk past the computer on their way out the door, they find themselves stopped in their tracks. She’s a cutie, what can I say?

I have piano recordings I’ve put off for days now, because I won’t edit the video without some fresh Seneca graphics to replace the image of me sitting and playing (with over 1,900 YouTube videos, I’ve seen more than enough of myself). Claire is holding out on me—but that’s between us, we’ll work it out. In the meantime, I have one recording that I really like—I may have to post them as is—or at least this latest one.

The universe is a big place (he said, apropos of nothing) and if we are honest with ourselves, our individual selves are such a minute part of the planet—itself a minute part of the whole—and we must accept that ego is entirely a biological-evolution thing—it is as misleading as our perception of the Earth as a flat surface—ego is a special case, only valid to one person in a specific point of time and space—certainly not any part of the larger reality around us.

We accept ego as a driving force, giving us the confidence to move forward, the sense of self-worth that allows us to believe in our goals and dreams—just as we move across the earth as if it were a table-top—it’s practical. But an overabundance of ego in one person is usually recognized in those around him or her—as delusional. So we conclude that ego, like glandular balance, is a healthy thing, and egotism, like any metabolic imbalance, is unhealthy.

Our egos are like our faces—other people see them clearly, while we cannot. And there is no mirror for an ego—except perhaps the brick wall of harsh reality, though sometimes even that has no effect. I’m not sure how big my ego is—I can’t be certain if my ego is in balance or not. It troubles me. But then, I’m out of shape too—no question, yet I can live with that—more easily than I can get myself to exercise every day. Sometimes I have to accept that I am what I am.

My point? I don’t know—my point is that it’s hot—too hot for this heavy, long-sleeved shirt I wore in the air-conditioned part of the house. My point is that I’ve gone down the rabbit-hole of presidential politics and it’s virtually impossible for me to write about anything else. But it’s Sunday, so I’m trying to take a day off from all that. Still, I catch myself nibbling around the edges of it.

For me this political ‘rumpus’ is about human nature, about character, about strength of purpose and clarity of vision—it’s not a party to me, it’s not a hootenanny where I get off on the sheer emotional energy of it. I’ve always been too damned serious—and this election is an exaggeration of that side of me. Don’t think that, because I’m taking a day off, that I don’t have a lot more scolding and griping to do—but that’ll wait.

In the meantime, I only have eight measly photographs with which to make four videos—I guess if I can’t squeeze any new shots out of Jessy or Claire, I’ll have to fall back on photos I’ve already used—we’ll see.

Damn Good Woman (2016Aug28)

Posted by XperDunn on August 28, 2016

Sunday, August 28, 2016 6:52 PM

Lately a lot of people are saying the election has gotten very ugly, that the rancorous back-and-forth is getting out of hand. To me, this is just more unconscious misogyny. Trump has said some very ugly and thoughtless things—it’s most of his platform, really—and lots of ugly things are being said about Hillary, the Clinton family, and their Foundation. But Hillary herself has done nothing but point to Trump’s record, and quote his own words—is that really Hillary being ugly, or just holding up a mirror to her opponent? I know people like to say that politics is a rough business—having one ugly candidate in the race is enough to tar them both—but that seems pretty facile to me.

There has been nothing underhanded or resentful in Hillary Clinton’s attacks on her opponent and his positions. She was very careful, recently, to outline the facts that reflect racism in Trump’s history, without ever calling him a name. Trump did that—and he’s the only one, Dem or GOP, that has had the foul grace to do so. News-chyrons trumpet his sensationalism, feeling no need to add that it’s a childish and baseless claim. But again, Trump is being ugly, so the news-folk are being ugly—still no ugliness from Hillary.

When are Americans going to give this woman a fucking break? When was the last time enemy-agents destroyed this country by donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a luncheon invitation? Umm, never. What office-holder doesn’t have a network of contacts that help them serve their constituency? Umm, none of them—not if they’re doing their jobs. Who the hell, in or out of government, can guarantee us that all their cyber-comms are completely un-hackable? Nobody. Since when does an FBI head criticize the State Department for being sloppy, without it being taken with a grain of salt for the political elbow-in-the-ribs it most likely is? When it’s Hillary, that’s when. Why has every single, silly, stupid charge the far-right can raise against her made headline news? I’ll tell you why—because it’s two stories. First they can dazzle us with the exotic claims, then, they can report on the dull facts that belie the stupid claims—that’s why they do it. Two for one—and fuck the poor lady’s feelings.

She does have them, you know. Yes, even you, with the sore throat and the spittle on your lip from screaming her damnation—you have to admit that she has feelings. Successful strong women have just as many feelings as any of us. Imagine what it’s like to be a political football, having to take time out from the very hard, very complicated work of serving the nation at the highest levels, to answer a bunch of rabid barking from the most thoughtless group of people ever known. You couldn’t pay me.

And speaking of pay—Secretary Clinton never twisted anyone’s arm for her speaking fees. If I may quote “Moneyball”: ‘High salary says the same thing about you that it says about other top players—that you’re worth it.’ I suspect Trump’s camp picked the speaking fees as a target because it gives them an extra free hit—suggesting that Hillary isn’t really worth what she was payed, therefore it had to be ‘influence money’. Please—just because no one ever has, or ever will, pay Trump the same amount—try again, losers.

Yet Trump gets a pass. Every day, we get to hear foolish back-and-forth over immigration and inner cities. Let’s go back to the original problem. Trump has no experience and no empathy. Trump hasn’t the preparation or the knowledge for the office he seeks. Trump hasn’t the temperament or the self-control to be fit for the office he seeks. He’s a narcissist who wouldn’t be running for president, if he really knew what the job was all about. His daily feed of BS may divert us from this core problem, but it will never make it go away.

So, we can go on picking apart the fifty-year career of a political master, and continue to ignore the wreck that is supposed to oppose her, but it’s all just misogyny at this point. I’d appreciate anyone who can convince me otherwise—this is all very disheartening. Even a gay guy wouldn’t have to take this shit. And, speaking of taking shit, it’s a good thing both Donald and Bill are old farts, or Trump wouldn’t be talking so fast and loose about a damn good woman—he’d be swallowing teeth.

Alt Right There (2016Aug27)

Posted by XperDunn on August 27, 2016

Saturday, August 27, 2016 10:28 AM

Every once in a while, someone remembers that electing our first woman to the presidency would be an historic breakthrough—and immediately, someone else will pointedly comment that they’re not going to vote for someone just because she’s a woman. We suffered from no such timidity when Barack Obama was elected the first African-American president. Sure, people would carp that Obama was ‘half-white’—but, that being a distinction no racist had ever before bothered to parse, no one took them seriously.

And much has been made of late about the racism of the Alt Right fringe—as if these troglodytes were mostly concerned with what Larry Wilmore calls “The Unblackening”, i.e. replacing President Obama with a Caucasian. But what both the Clinton campaign and the media are overlooking is the Alt Right’s far greater interest in maintaining male chauvinism. Both Trump and his new campaign-head, Steve Bannon, have been explicitly and publicly misogynist in both word and deed.

“All men are created equal” was confined to men-only for so long that there are women alive today who were born before women had the right to vote. The discrimination against women in America—even after Suffrage was granted—included property, banking, police protection, the workplace, and exclusion from any social or business group or meeting place deemed ‘men only’. And the feminist movement has made slow, tortuous progress towards gender equality for the last fifty years—but even gay men were allowed to serve in the military before women were accorded the same privilege in full—what was it, days ago? Maybe weeks ago?

One could easily make the case that, when the Democrats nominated a woman presidential candidate, the GOP was taken over by the “He-Man Woman-Haters Club”, known today as the Alt Right. They must have pinched themselves when a man renowned for his public misogyny (and not ‘just against Rosy O’Donnell’) was nominated by the Republican Party. How perfect for them that an enemy of ‘political correctness’ was able to slip his chauvinism under the media’s radar. Even better, the Democrats have mistaken them for racists, when their true, core agenda is the unwinding of Women’s Liberation.

How else does a woman, who statistically is more honest than most politicians, find herself confronting an electorate that has 63% of its number believing her to be wildly dishonest? Why else would a woman whose first job was sneaking into Southern schools to expose their refusal to de-segregate, end up being called a ‘bigot’ by the most morally bankrupt opponent ever to run for office—and the media repeats his claim 24-7, as if it has even a whisper of credibility?

Now, full disclosure—I want a woman. I think our entire political system can only benefit from an increase in femininity. Women are less likely to internalize power—and more likely to remember the weak and helpless, and, of course, the children. They are at least as smart as men—and far less likely to lose sight of their goals by getting involved in dick-measuring contests. Men consistently point to menstruation, pregnancy, and child-rearing as ‘handicaps’ of the opposite sex—but ask yourself this: Would you rather have a human race that doesn’t bother with all the inconvenience of reproduction? That’s a short-lived dynasty, bub. Just because women do all the work of perpetuating the species doesn’t mean that creating new lives is some sort of ‘accessory’ that only girls fool around with. Get a clue.

We worry about national defense, upholding the law, strength and power—we forget that life also requires caring, sensitivity, and tolerance. Men can even feel embarrassed for showing any recognition of these necessities. Yes, a lot of women would be embarrassed to show strength and toughness—but it’s not as overwhelming a barrier to women as men’s desperation to maintain their machismo. The most important strategic value of the female broadness of vision is that they are more likely to see both sides of an issue—they are less likely to pick a side and fight blindly for conquest, without any regard for other points of view. I don’t want to profile, but it would be ingenuous to pretend that the sexes think the same way, or perceive things the same way.

But forget all that difference business. Let’s say men and women are exactly the same—for argument’s sake. By that logic, it doesn’t matter what gender our president is—only that they are fit for the job. So let’s say the Democrats had a candidate, a man, with a lifetime’s experience in public service, with a stellar reputation among his peers, and accolades galore from nearly everyone he’s ever helped or worked with. Would you vote for that guy—or would you vote for Trump? Better yet, imagine that Hillary Clinton wasn’t a political nerd, a policy wonk who is uncomfortable in the public spotlight—imagine she had the charisma of Trump, or her own husband. Imagine she had a voice like honey and the presence of Angelina Jolie—would you vote for Trump? I don’t think so.

The trouble with Hillary is that she is our national medicine—it would help us, it would make us all better—but we don’t want to swallow it. We want something more fun, more attractive. Yet the things that make Secretary Clinton so desirable as our head of state are the very things that make it hard for her to appeal to us on a ‘popularity-contest’ level. She is serious. She is tough. Worst of all, perhaps, she is very intelligent. Of course we don’t want to vote for her—we don’t even want to date her. But this isn’t a date. This election is serious business—I would appreciate it if all my fellow Americans would be serious about their vote. That would not only be one more reason to vote for Hillary, but also one more reason not to vote for Trump. Let that poisonous clown bleed out of his ‘wherever’.

Racists Have Feelings, Too (2016Aug26)

Posted by XperDunn on August 26, 2016

Friday, August 26, 2016 12:08 PM

Racists Have Feelings, Too (2016Aug26)

Trump is a product of the reality-TV movement—in his world, Simon Cowell could insult, demean, and destroy a little girl’s or boy’s lifelong dream—and it was all a part of the show. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat—an unavoidable feature of sports—now available as social interaction! Those voted off of American Idol, or ‘You’re Fired’ by Trump, would staunch their tears as they walked off, to mouth obligatory approval of their own dismissal, and the good judgment of Cowell or Trump—because that was still part of the performance. It’s all show-biz—no harm, no foul.

This suited Trump’s persona well—he’s an unfeeling sort. Being capricious, overbearing and cruel towards others—and far from being criticized, as you or I would be, but rewarded with big ratings—suits him down to a ‘T’. His romp through the Republican primaries was just more of the same—though the GOP curated their base to include many who confuse reality TV with reality—and it seemed, for one brief, horrifying moment, that his inertia would carry him into the White House.

That his campaign is being shredded in the national one-on-one with a cogent, serious opponent is cause for pride amongst American voters, and no little shame for the GOP, to have the Tea-Party portion of their base be so shamefully exposed as insensitive mouth-breathers who see a kindred spirit in the Donald. His promise to eject millions of Mexicans from our country—and build a big wall to keep them out—had his faithful near hysteria with joy. His promise to ban Islam was just the cherry on top.

When we look more closely, we see that we’re talking about persecuting huge numbers of Americans, along with the ‘bad ones’, and that most Americans are not comfortable with a complete reversal of our traditions of equality and fairness. Good for us—wouldn’t it be tragic if our two-centuries-plus of idealism could have been squashed virtually overnight by an ignorant celebrity?

And now, while Trump engages us in a hypocritical debate over who is a bigot, we all ignore the Native Americans protesting the invasion of an oil pipeline through their land. Our original sin of genocide returns to us, over and over, resuming its place in our present—because the original target of white bigotry is still getting shafted, even today. The urban pockets with decaying schools, without access to fresh, healthy foods, with landlords who feel no compulsion to repair their tenements—these dead-traps for minorities have persisted for decades. But they are still spanking-new issues compared to our ongoing persecution of our nation’s original residents.

Trumpeting his new-found tolerance and pity for non-whites at all-white rallies is Donald’s way of staying in his comfort zone—but he may find that he prefers an audience of color once it sinks in to his most zealous advocates that, like the rest of what Trump says, he didn’t really mean it about deporting all the Mexicans, American-citizen children and all.

They supported him because, like him, they are insensitive to the suffering of others—their hate trumps their love—and they want America to show strength by being cruel. Their fear and hatred of having a woman control their lives has been slow-baked into them by the same parents, preachers, and culture that convinced them of the superiority of the light-skinned and the absolute need to carry a gun at all times. But bottom line, most of them are not financially secure themselves, and resent any comfort to the poor while they struggle to avoid their own poverty.

Such people’s hatred of Hillary Clinton is a steady-state thing, they do it nightly at a bar or watching FOX-News at home—but this bait-and-switch of Donald’s just might rouse them to active hatred. Donald once joked light-heartedly about Hillary and her liberal SCOTUS nom-pick—“maybe the second amendment people can take care of that”—well, let’s hope he doesn’t find out that such things cut both ways. Calling together the most iron-hearted misanthropes in the country under a banner of law-and-order, only to turn around and say, “I was being sarcastic” is not the safest thing I can imagine.

Substituting brash statements for policies has been a winning strategy so far for the Donald. It matches well with his total absence of experience. While he can snipe at a multitude of choices and missteps in Hillary’s long career, he offers no complementary points of attack upon himself. That might have worked, had Donald, like most villains, not had the seeds of his own destruction already within him.

But policies can be re-worked, modified, changed in detail while leaving the message intact. Trump’s bold statements may not have been policies, but his supporters certainly took them as such. Having a policy of deportation would have allowed some wiggle-room, but the simple statement, “We’ll deport 11,000,000 people” is difficult to walk back, especially if your constituency has set their hearts on that promise. The fact that the majority of Americans see that as impractical and inhumane means that he has to court them with a ‘softening’ of his stance—yet he cannot ‘soften’ on the one thing his existing base agrees on—not without betraying them.

So Trump has finally retreated to the political landscape of policies—and solved this paradox by having a policy ‘in flux’, i.e. he’s pleasing everybody by saying nothing definite. But there is an even greater danger for him in adopting a policy approach. Just as he left it until after his ignorant interviews to bone up on geopolitics; just as he left it until 75 days before the election to learn about minorities; he is switching to policy-planning virtually on the eve of debating Hillary Clinton. I would quake with fear to face Hillary Clinton in public to debate policy—and I’m a fairly informed person, unlike Trump. I almost feel sorry for him. But his would-be supporters won’t.

I Can’t Look (2016Aug25)

Posted by XperDunn on August 25, 2016

Thursday, August 25, 2016 12:08 PM

Slowly we turn, step by step…. Please, God, let this fuckin election be over. The Congress decided to sleep for eight years and the media have decided the people should sleep through these last two years (in solidarity?), mesmerized by the incessant drumbeat, ‘Clinton or Trump? Clinton or Trump?’

Completely outside the issue of that question being similar to ‘Gourmet Meal or Shit Sandwich?’, surely there are other things, other issues, other people in this world that we could spare a few seconds of attention on. I am constantly frustrated by so-called journalists reporting on the squeaky wheels of the world—has Research become completely forbidden? Is it impossible for newspeople to report anything other than the voices of spin-doctors, to find a story that doesn’t already have armed camps facing each other with oppositional memes? You know—actual news (as in new information).

The TV News has a tradition of arriving at the scene of an event, finding the stupidest person on the sidewalk nearby and asking their ‘opinion’ about what just happened. Nobody likes it, nobody gets any smarter because of it, but no one can seem to stop them from this exercise in inanity.

But today, they have a new thing—they don’t have to go looking for the stupidest person anymore—they just quote Trump’s blather-of-the-day, and call it news reporting. That’s beyond lazy—especially as they inject no hint of judgment or fact-checking—they simply parrot his words—as if they had meaning. News Fail. Get it together, cable news.

The thing that really gets me is when the media harps on Hillary Clinton’s ‘untruthfulness’—they can’t say her name without repeating this popular theme. And don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying she’s a paragon of honesty. But if they must add that ‘popular opinion’ to every mention of her, can’t they also always add that studies find her exceptionally honest compared to other politicians? Can’t they add mention of the fact that while it’s popular to call Clinton a liar—it is also incorrect? Why is that so hard? Are they afraid that confronting their listeners with the facts might turn them away?

This bothers me because I empathize. If the world thought me a liar, and I wasn’t, and all I heard from the news was repetition of the opinion that I lie, without any mention of the fact that I didn’t lie—well, I’d be pretty unhappy about that. Wouldn’t you? And what ever happened to being wrong? If Hillary Clinton says anything that turns out to be incorrect, she’s never wrong—she’s always ‘a liar’. If we follow that logic, we must elect Hillary Clinton—we could use a president who is never wrong.

I wouldn’t even be writing this rant right now—I was trying to relax and watch the news on TV. But rumor, fallacy, and claptrap are not my idea of news reporting. I can’t watch it. But I keep going back, vainly hoping for some common sense. What a fool I am. Journalism as a popularity contest just doesn’t work—telling people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear may be profitable, but it hurts us, where it used to help us. It distracts us where it used to inform us. Like reality TV, it shows a semblance of reality that has been curated for entertainment value.

The death of print journalism has gutted the research departments of all the great journalism sources—the news today practically feeds on itself, working as hard, now, to share from other sources as they used to work on out-researching other sources. Reporters are flying blind, with virtually no back-up troops to dig into records, archives, interviews, analysis, or do good old shoe-leather research.

Yet the media has more news-channels and more hours of the day needing to fill those channels. It’s not a good situation. The public is no longer being informed—we are being curated by different media-moguls, fighting each other to indoctrinate their audience in their private agendas—journalism as a public service is nothing more than a legend from our glorious past. I miss Huntley & Brinkley. I miss Cronkite. I miss the news.

Pay For What Now? (2016Aug24)

Posted by XperDunn on August 24, 2016

Wednesday, August 24, 2016 4:46 PM

Trump calls the Clinton Foundation a ‘pay for play’ scam. While overlooking the nature of the presidency, Trump has apparently also failed to grasp the concept of a charity. This is where his business background trips him up—he’s never been involved in charity, except for the access his donations brought him—which is no doubt why he contributed $100,000 of his own money to the Clinton Foundation, not too long ago. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on Donald’s part—he’s hoping the Clinton Foundation is a charity in the same way that Trump University was a school.

The AP reported a very specious bit of data: ‘Half the non-governmental meetings Secretary of State Clinton held were with Foundation donors’. That may sound like half of her meetings, but as you may expect, the vast majority of the Secretary of State’s meetings were with government officials—I believe the Clinton camp has estimated 1,700 of those meetings—leaving the non-governmental meetings a rather smaller part of it—and half of those meetings an even smaller part.

Trump has gleefully damaged the United States’ image globally, he has off-handedly thrown doubt on our election process domestically, and has, of course, even less scruple to trash the Clinton family’s possibly greatest achievement—their li’l ol’global charity to fight AIDs, provide health services to the underserved around the world, and promote the struggle of women and girls worldwide. People who donate to such a charity (for the most part) are deeply involved in these causes—giving them ample reason to seek the advice of our Secretary of our State Department—to consult on best practices, to coordinate efforts with other governments, etc. The thing Donald conveniently overlooks is that neither the Clintons nor their donors are getting fat off the struggle against the AIDS epidemic or other global health crises.

The Donald gleefully shreds our traditions and values, disrespects our most sacred cows, and shows a frightening lack of empathy—what’s the destruction of one little force-for-good amongst all that? All he knows is that the place has her name on the letterhead—ergo: target. He likes to win—remember? He never said he wanted to do good—he wants to win. Perfect presidential material—we’ve always fallen for reasonable people before—time for something new—as he says, “What the hell do we have to lose?” Uh, America!? God, can’t someone please make him stop?

The millions of people whose lives are better because of the Clinton Foundation’s efforts will find their lives that much bleaker for the pressure that seems will inevitably force the Clintons to close up shop. Does Donald care? No. And the shame of it is, he still won’t win the election—he’ll just cause as much damage as possible while losing. This jerk, who never lifted a finger to help another human being in his seventy-year long life, is actually destroying people’s lives during the campaign—just imagine what he would do in office. Jeez—the horror, the horror….

Your Brother (2016Aug23)

Posted by XperDunn on August 23, 2016

Tuesday, August 23, 2016 12:24 PM

Your brother and I are very stubborn-minded, and we have very different ideas that may keep us from agreeing on any political issue. But that doesn’t stop us from recognizing each other’s respectability—in an emergency or a disaster, we would work shoulder to shoulder, politics be damned—in a social setting, we would both behave and be polite—and do our damnedest to avoid discussing politics. In that way, politics is like religion—people can differ and still get along, as long as we don’t go out of our way to look for an argument.

For there are plenty of arguments to be had. People argue, sometimes for no other reason than to pass the time—if it’s a civil argument, I actually enjoy it—but nobody argues when something important comes up. If I am hungry or thirsty, I’m not going to argue with anyone, I’m just going to ask them the way to the nearest diner. If someone gets hurt, no one argues—they call 911, and argue later.

Take Hillary Clinton’s emails, for instance—why should we be surprised or upset if a lady older than we are (and we’re no spring chickens) didn’t fully understand about her email account? Only kids understand email fully—I was forty before I heard the word ‘email’. If Hillary’s IT techs were under investigation for being lax about security, that might make some sense—but to act like Hillary Clinton installed her own hardware, set-up her own network, and had full knowledge of everything there is to know about email—to shout, “lock her up” because she sent 30,000 emails and one of them was clearly marked ‘classified’—that’s hyperbole. That’s something you argue about when you have nothing else to do but kill time and gossip.

Yet because of this, we have 64% of Americans judging her to be untrustworthy—some reward for busting her ass in public service for fifty years. Plus, who tells the truth every single time? People lie like rugs—for politicians, it’s part of the job description—and for this grease-spot of a GOP candidate to crow about her ‘untruthfulness’—well, pot calls much smaller kettle on that score, in case no one noticed. P. T. Barnum’s got nothing on this clown.

Donald Trump’s inner circle consists of a white supremacist, a sex offender, and a pollster—they recently jettisoned their Putin mole. He’s a billionaire with a history of defaults and frauds who won’t release his tax returns. He owes money to China and gets financing from Russia. He’s an ignoramus who doesn’t even keep up with world events—and he’s never done any public service before—yeah, he should definitely be leader of the free world—what the hell do we have to lose? Well, except for civility, honesty, world opinion, economic security, national security, and our self-respect.

He’s a spoiled brat of a bully hiding inside the body of a seventy-year-old man. He doesn’t know or care about the office of the presidency, he just wants to ‘win’. What an ass. And he has the balls to criticize the most capable, accomplished politician of our time—not to mention criticizing everybody and everything else—and she can’t criticize his career in politics—because he doesn’t effing have one. He has a history of a business career—and not a glowing history, by any means. If we want to improve our economy by cheating everyone we deal with, including each other—then Trump is the ‘business-savvy’ leader we want—but why would anyone want that? It’s obviously left him so bored and brain-dead that he decided to run for president, like it’s some contest. Give us a break.

But I’ll tell you what inspires this venom in me—Trump is the whole Republican party, writ large. All their ingrown, paranoid policies point to one end—and Trump has unzipped their fly and is waving it around like the village idiot. They don’t like being exposed this way—especially by a narcissist who doesn’t appreciate how much damage he’s doing to their decades of careful rationalizing over the same stupidities. He destroyed the fifteen other candidates by ignoring the niceties, the pretensions that must go along with public support for wrongheadedness—he took their complicated stupid, and did them one better, with just plain stupid.

So my frustration is doubled by the fact that, once we’ve dealt with Trump, we still have to go back and deal with the GOP—hopefully without forgetting that their base is comprised of people who like the cut of Trump’s jib—and that the GOP curated them to be that way. The most malleable and knowledge-adverse Americans have a champion in the GOP—and Trump is the king of the knowledge-adverse. But your brother and I can vote differently and still remain friends—hell, I know one guy who thinks the earth is flat—that’s his business. Why should I judge him?

Political Work-Out (2016Aug22)

Posted by XperDunn on August 22, 2016

Monday, August 22, 2016 1:47 PM

Now that the ‘ill wind’ of the GOP has bloviated sufficient extremism to fill a Gag Reel of non-presidential character, or lacking character of any sort, really, we might be deluded into sitting back and breathing a sigh of relief—but that would be a mistake. Trump sprang from the mulch he grew out of—the GOP itself is the same cold-blooded, empty-spirited anti-Americanism that Trump is—he only ‘let it all hang out’, rather than the GOP’s normal tactic of ‘teaching the controversy’, or as I like to call it, hyper-bullshitting.

Vainly trying to find rationales for the worst side of people—exclusion, xenophobia, isolationism, and heedless greed—the GOP has played Devil’s Advocate long enough for us to drop the ‘Advocate’ and call them by their true name. Paying taxes for the good of the common welfare is no sin. Welcoming those who thirst for a better way of life is no crime. Insisting that the least of us get the same rights and respect as the rest of us is not faintness of heart—neither is being unable to succeed, through no fault of one’s own.

They reach into our darkest desires and fears—they tell us to blame and to suspect—they take advantage of our desperation, dangling false promises in our view. The GOP are the orcs to the Democrat’s elvish. How anyone can fall for their nonsensical prating eludes me—it is an abandonment of reason and judgment that I would not think most people capable of—yet it deludes a good half of all Americans.

I would have thought the ‘whoops’ war, and the cratered economy, would have woken up voters to the glaring truth. Failing that, one would hope people noticed the Congress they elected has devoted the last eight years to neglecting the people –with an iron resolve usually reserved for doing something productive. And if all that wasn’t enough, you have the specter of Trump—the high prince of unreason—leading them into a tomorrow full of open, blatant hate and fury.

If you vote for any GOP candidate this election, Trump or otherwise, I wash my hands of you as an American—I don’t know where the hell you came from, but you can go on back now. Just kidding. That’s what the ignorant tend to shout—‘Go back where you came from’—even though they shout it at their neighbors, hence their ignorance. I get it, though—if I blame someone else for my problems, then it feels good to shout at them to go away.

I’m sick and tired of this election—I’ve always seen Hillary as the obvious choice; I’ve always viewed Trump as a nothing with an ego; and the longer this circus drags on, the more ludicrous the coverage becomes. But I’m angry at the glacial time-frame of political change—our lives change overnight, and have done for a long time.

Our politics have got to become more pragmatic—we have to talk about grown-up stuff and shunt aside the childish whinings of those who want to turn back the clock (but only in their favor). We have to demand transparency from government, we have to start expecting results, and we have to start voting for people who hold themselves accountable—because we sure can’t do it, after we elect them. With all the work that needs to be done, I really don’t want to hear any more bon mots from the Donald. I don’t want to hear people give Hillary any more crap—you try running the effing State Department—or help run a global charitable foundation.

I don’t suppose it occurred to any journalistic geniuses to research what, if anything, the Clinton Foundation has done—that story doesn’t grab clicks, I guess. But as a viewer, I wouldn’t mind hearing about it—even if it was just boring stuff about trying to make poor people’s lives better. But no, better we stick with vague suppositions about financial hanky-panky—that makes a better news chyron. But at all costs, please don’t inject anything other than the presidential race—that would imply that it isn’t the only thing that matters to everyone. Where would that leave your ratings?

The entire state of Louisiana got flooded and sixteen people died—that’s a tragedy—not to mention tens of thousands of homes destroyed, or at least their contents and first floors—nearly the same thing. But 1,245 victims died in Katrina, 233 deaths were attributed to Hurricane Sandy—much smaller disaster areas—that makes 16 a pretty small number, President Obama—go on with your golf game until your scheduled Tuesday visit. It isn’t the presidential presence that makes the difference—it’s the preparedness and the organization of the relief effort—and Louisiana gets a gold star. The Katrina disaster was an education as well as a tragedy.

I found it amusing these last two weeks that many news shows, especially the NBC network family, were able to suspend their laser-focus on the presidential race to watch the Rio Olympics in awesome detail. But then it was right back to all politics all the time. Would that all the news shows would have the integrity to continue to report on the rest of the country, and the world, and still find time for Trump and the stupid things he says. Perhaps Hillary will be caught on tape, hiccupping during a speech—think of the infinite attacks springing to mind among the Trump campaign staff. But you journalists have minds too—maybe you can find other things to report besides Trump’s latest hiccup-gate comment.

Avoiding the Void (2016Aug21)

Posted by XperDunn on August 21, 2016

Sunday, August 21, 2016 11:20 AM

Only 80 or so days until our national mental-health referendum. I expect we’ll pass it with flying colors (knock wood) and then we can turn to Europe and the rest of the world and say, “Sorry if we scared you. That’s free speech—waddaya gonna do?” There are several countries with dictators who strut about and make stupid decisions—and don’t even bother to make up believable propaganda to excuse their neglect, their excesses, and their violence. But I think the citizens of those countries, though used to such blatant bullshit, would have been crestfallen to witness proof that the United States of America was no different from any other tin-pot dictatorship.

The USA has been a symbolic haven for many people of the world who never reach our shores—it is a dream they have. Those of us who live the American Dream may well envy them their perfect dream of a land of liberty. Would that the reality met their bar—but America is still an experiment in living—a work in progress. Our growth, our reaching for perfection, is less obvious—after 200+ years, we’ve gotten sedentary in some of our ways—and the lure of conservatism grows with every new blessing we stand to lose through the gamble of progressivism.

But the struggle goes on. America is a work in progress. If you think about it, irresistible change over time makes that a truism for all nations—whether they countenance the fact or not, the world’s sovereignties should all have some mechanism by which they can deal with the permutations of time, nature, and civilization. Resignation to the impossibility of Perfection should never prevent us from the pursuit of perfection—it is the pursuit that refines our lives, not the perfection.

A paradox arises from our core strengths—free speech, freedom of religion, democracy, justice, and tolerance. We aspire to those things, not just for ourselves but for everyone in the world. Hence UN, NATO, and our many other treaties and pacts with the nations of the world—we want to hold common cause with any governments that embrace, as we do, democracy, human rights, and equal justice. Thus, while nothing is ‘nailed down’ about America, there is an infrastructure to it. At times confidence men will contort freedom of speech to threaten our ethical infrastructure itself. Because it goes beyond the bounds of freedom, into the realm of nihilism, we call it ‘hate speech’. The con-men counter with a sneer at ‘political correctness’.

They have an answer for everything—their debate skills are phenomenal. It is in the absence of understanding that they reveal themselves. Their statements chivvy us towards frustration, anger, even violence—but they will always say something that gives them away. They don’t understand or appreciate the grandeur of America’s dream. To them, it is a game to be won—and in their exertion to win the prize, they reveal their cold emptiness of spirit. They carry the seeds of their own downfall within them.

It is an easy mistake to make. Capitalism is America’s guilty pleasure. Within the bounds of commerce we permit ourselves to seek power and wealth, to be selfish, rude, even cruel. And money is power of a kind. But in embracing Capitalism we conveniently overlook the fact that, in terms of our ideals, America should be one big hippie commune—Capitalism opposes freedom and equality—it rewards the cold-blooded and preys on the careless.

That is the true focus of the two-party system in America, as I suspect it is in most places, though with less rules to the dance. The Democrats represent the people and the Republicans represent the money and the power. In effect, the Republicans are the bad guys, unless you’re one of them. To hide their shame, their political rhetoric has evolved a series of memes that ‘invert the argument’.

For instance, their ‘voter-ID’ legislative efforts are a transparent attempt to keep minorities from exercising their right to vote. Their ‘Pro-life’ anti-abortion agenda is likewise transparent pandering to the evangelical right-wing, AKA Christians With a Bad Attitude. Their denial of Climate Change is really just their stupefying genuflection to the big pockets of Big Oil. Their vaunted ‘patriotism’ is just craven sucking-up to the military-industrial complex—the Republicans don’t care if we have a good military, just so long as it’s an expensive and profitable one.

The Democrats try to enact benefits for vets, and get shut down by the Republicans. The GOP doesn’t want to know that, after they make money off of war, some kids make the final payment in blood—and we owe them for that, at least. But they see that as an unnecessary expense. Some patriots.

The Republicans fought against the Affordable Care Act—and still fight it, after it’s already been made law—and shown economic benefits. They want ‘smaller government’ because their friends in Big Pharma and the Insurance Industry own these ‘representatives’ of the people. Millions of sick and dying are not their priority—but what is? If Americans have to live in agony or die uncared for, I’m gonna need something more than word-salad as an excuse.

So America tries to keep the struggle between rich and poor off the streets—we consign them to political teams and watch them play against each other, with democracy as the referee. When some guy waltzes in and says he’s gonna turn everything on its head—he’s not talking about ending political gridlock—he’s talking about trashing our most sacred beliefs and creating a void where the Constitution used to be. That’s already a problem for us—the last thing we need is someone rushing headlong into the void—and taking us with him.

So Capitalism is as much America as our Constitution is—Democrats prioritize the people, and Republicans will say, ‘The business of America is business’. The debate between the two parties is serious business—but our media have learned to mine treasure from its drama, so it can be made to look like a circus, especially this latest show. And with Journalism also falling victim to Capitalism, we were in mortal danger of falling for a snake-oil salesman—thank goodness his own words revealed his true nature before the election.

In My Prime (2016Aug19)

Posted by XperDunn on August 19, 2016

Friday, August 19, 2016 6:21 PM

Once upon a time I supervised thirty employees and ran the computer systems all by myself—I made and spent money like a lord, because times were fat—People thought I was a computer genius, and in that context, I kinda was. Along the way, I had married, we’d had two kids, a dog, three cats, a house, and two cars. We live in a lovely, woodsy neighborhood with a beach on the lake, just north of New York City.

I worked hard, long hours on the hardware, the software, the supplies, training the people (people didn’t know what to do with a computer back then—and, to be fair, all the computers were different, with different, custom-made programs). I talked to clients and suppliers on the phone. I talked in meetings. I talked to individuals if they had a question or problem. I kept everything going and, on the side, de-bugged programs or wrote new applications. I was often brought in on a big closing as the resident nerd—back then, if you had your own nerd, you could get ahead of the competition using those new ‘computer’ gadgets. I was big stuff—in a small way, for a short time.

But I had my own corner office, with a beautiful view. I had a nice chair. I was happiest when I was just sitting at my terminal, writing code. That was the easiest part of the job. Dealing with customers and co-workers was never my strong suit. I was younger than a lot of employees, and that could be awkward for both of us.

On my birthdays, a group of friends and family would join me at a fancy restaurant. We’d eat fancy food and drink pricey wine—it was very sumptuous, not hard to take at all. Eventually, we’d toast to my birthday and everybody would say, “You are the lucky one!” It was said half-joking, ironically, because there wasn’t anything too special about me, but I was undeniably enjoying a lucky life—and it was a night to celebrate.

But I believe it. I said it to someone just recently. They looked surprised. They said, “You? You’re the lucky one?”, incredulously.

I said, “Yeah. I should have died ten different ways by now but I’m still breathing. I should be a grouchy misanthrope hiding in a solitary cave somewhere but (and here I looked at my wife) I live in this wonderful place with wonderful people. I have everything I want and nothing I don’t.” Now, that may be a slight exaggeration, but not much of one, not in any way that really matters.

I do believe it. There are so many ways in which the twists and turns of fate could have put me up against it, but that has never happened. Fears arise, troubles come, but with time they all fade, and a better day dawns—every time. If that’s not lucky, I don’t know what is.

And yet it isn’t much different from your life, is it, dear reader? We are all tremendously lucky to be waking up to this day, eating food, being with others, cruising around, reading books, whatever you like doing. It’s good, right? I mean, it could get worse. That would suck. That would be bad luck. But meanwhile we swim in a stream of good luck, barely noticing the miraculous moments go by. I am the lucky one. Say it with me.

No, You’re Still Not Getting It (2016Aug19)

Posted by XperDunn on August 19, 2016

Friday, August 19, 2016 8:48 AM

Trump has expressed regret for ‘being too honest’ while still happy ‘to make the powerful uncomfortable’. You’re still not getting it, Don. Belligerence is an ugly thing—most people who make a habit of it find themselves without many friends—only rich people get to be belligerent, towards the people they work with, because they pay. And even then, some bosses feel shame for being belligerent and try to curb themselves—only the entitled and self-absorbed glory in it the way you do.

Yeah, Don—we billionaires have to ‘fight the powerful’—you and me, Don. (Oh wait—I’m no billionaire.) And when we are ‘too honest’ about ourselves, we often have to walk it back—I’m sure you do regret that. It must be hard, trying to apologize, when you’ve never done it before, don’t know how to apologize, don’t truly understand what it is that offended everyone to begin with, and don’t actually feel any sincere contrition.

Yes, Don—this whole political discourse thing is new to you—as is public service, as is the presidency. But you’ve still got eighty-one days left to learn all about it and prove yourself more prepared than a life-long public servant. Let me help. Lesson one: America is not a business and the president is not the boss of America. Lesson two: Our military protects us all at the risk of their own lives and safety—we owe them gratitude and respect—even the ones who get caught—even the mothers of the ones who die with valor and glory.

Lesson three is rather important, so pay attention: Inclusion and tolerance are watchwords of the American culture. Even those of us who are not threatened by white supremacists should recognize that they are anti-American. Even Christians must recognize that Islam is a peaceful religion, even when terrorists claim allegiance to an extremist sect of Islam. You do not paint an entire religion with their brush—you recognize that their violence and destruction are aimed as much at moderate Muslims as at America. After all, of all the people the terrorists kill, Muslims are by far the greatest in number.

Lesson four is a sad one: No one can decide, after becoming a senior citizen, that it’s time to give ‘ruling the world’ a try. A business person never hires someone without experience—why would the American public vote for a President without the first clue about politics, governance, or public service? You say you’ve never had to campaign before—and that’s why you say such stupid things—well, imagine you became president—imagine what stupid things you might say or do. You’ll be having a great learning experience, while the rest of us are watching the country go to hell. I don’t think so.

Lesson five is a classic from Lincoln himself: “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time —but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” You’ve got your base—they cheer for you at your rallies—you’ve fooled some of the people. But, thank god, not nearly enough of us. This latest attempt to put on a humility you’re incapable of feeling—that will only work on the people who haven’t paid attention to you for the last year.

If it weren’t for the rest of the country, I’d gladly watch you get inaugurated, Don. You have never had a clear picture of what the presidency is, just as you have no understanding of the ethical infrastructure of the American spirit. At the end of four years you’d be huddled in a corner with a blank stare and a little drool coming out of your mouth. The presidency isn’t power, you asshole, it’s a responsibility—responsibility you can’t handle or even comprehend. Go back to bullying people with your bags of bucks—you can’t handle public service—you don’t even know what it is.

Go back to business, Don—and take the white-supremacist, the Putin mole, and the spokes-goblin with you. Foxnews is starting to back away from the real crazies—now’s your chance—start a rival media empire and get your base to pay instead of vote—that’s much more your style. Let’s face it, you never had a chance, anyway. Bush-43 already showed us what happens when we elect a moron. That was bad enough, without electing the moronic and the morally bankrupt.

Yes It Pours (2016Aug17)

Posted by XperDunn on August 18, 2016

Wednesday, August 17, 2016 5:28 PM

Two months ago, when our daughter’s pregnancy (and on the west coast, yet) lurked in the back of my mind—and it still looked like we might get taken in by Trump’s big con—and I was smoking too much and doing too little—back then, I resumed my anti-depressant prescription. That’s how bad I got.

But a half-a-pill a day of that stuff really pole-axed me. Yes, I smoked a lot less, because a lot less of me was there—I was zombified. But the cutting back on smoking was good for me—I felt much better. The only trouble was that I wasn’t doing anything else, either—and I wasn’t upset about that. I was very far from upset about anything at all.

Now, if I had wanted to spend my life on drugs, I could do that all by myself—and with much fun-ner drugs. So I compromised—now I take a quarter of a pill every day—and only until October, when I will stop altogether, and see how it goes. There’s a reason I stopped taking them, after all, and if I can do without, I’d really prefer that.

So, back then, it wasn’t just raining anxiety—it was pouring. But now, with our brand-new, cute-as-a-button granddaughter, I’ve been inspired to play new piano improvs. Claire’s trip has inspired me to get out and do more—like doing my own shopping. The influx of baby pictures has given me lots of busy-work in photoshop, making them fit into my YouTube videos. I enjoy my playing more when I’m looking at photos of that beautiful baby instead of myself—I think it makes me sound better.

Then Pete came by today—Hooray! I was pretty disappointed with last month’s recording, because of the anti-depressants making me punchy and basically out-of-it. But we made up for it today.

We started with a request: “Jesu—Joy of Man’s Desiring” by J. S. Bach. (That’s two requests in August—for me it’s been a banner month for music.) I played it slow, so I would make less mistakes—but Bach is good that way—it’s still pretty, even slow.

Then we did a couple of jams back-to-back. That video is called “On A Wednesday Afternoon”. I enjoyed it much more than the title might suggest—I guess I was going for the ‘soft-sell’, there. No Pete Cianflone session would be complete without a bunch of weirdness in the video—blame it on Jessy—if she had sent me a bunch of baby-pictures, you wouldn’t even see us on the video.

Then Pete suggested we cover a Golden Oldie from the 60s, so we played “Let’s Live For Today”. Now, about “Let’s Live For Today”:

Songbook from “Great songs…” series, titled “of the Sixties – Volume 2″ gives the following credits:

“Let’s Live For Today”

But Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia gives the following credits:

“Let’s Live for Today”

Writer(s): Michael Julien, Ivan Mogull, and David Shapiro. “’Let’s Live for Today’ is a song initially recorded by the English band The Rokes in 1966. The song was later popularized by the American rock band The Grass Roots, who released it as a single on May 13, 1967.”

I leave that mystery to someone else to solve, but we had fun playing it—it’s not really a piano piece, but we made do.

The last bit of improv was bang-ish, so the video is called “Monstrous”. Pete said he might be able to come back next week, so we may get two sessions for August—who knows? We toasted the baby—well, I did, Pete doesn’t drink. A good time was had by all. I hope it’s as good to listen to. Enjoy.

As I was saying—new baby granddaughter, clearer mind, more piano music—and having more fun at the piano, baby-picture photoshopping, regular shopping… and it looks like there’s no need to worry about Hillary being elected—(but Vote anyway!) Suddenly, it’s not just raining good things, it’s pouring. Ah, life. That’s what I say. Ah, life.

Dear CNN (2016Aug16)

Posted by XperDunn on August 16, 2016

Tuesday, August 16, 2016 9:31 AM

Dear CNN:

Since when did crazy-stupid become the ‘other side’ of the issue? In my day, we called that the ‘wrong’ side—and we didn’t broadcast it to lower the IQ of every viewer.

You’re presenting a narrative: “See the clash of ignorant belligerence against mature probity!” That’s not news, that’s story-telling. When a presidential candidate cites the National Inquirer as his information source—that’s news. The cotton-candy he spins from it—that’s not news.

When a grandmother faces down a prosecutor-packed congressional inquiry for nine hours—and sails through, leaving them the more exhausted side—that’s news. Childish carping that she may not have ‘stamina’—from a seventy-year-old who ought to know better—doesn’t meet that threshold.

CNN, you have fallen into the bad habit of reporting on what Donald Trump says as if he is not purposely manipulating the public—as if his words have the substance they lacked in his last hundred statements. Come back down to Earth and join the rest of us, who know that his pouty vitriol is an expression of venom, not a pronouncement from some learned sage.

You have made the chiron-title ‘Trump supporter’ a synonym for deluded neurotic—they are like the old zoo-animal ‘guests’ Johnny Carson sometimes had on the Tonight Show—they can make a brief TV appearance, but they need to be ushered off before they bite someone, or poop on the news-desk.

We thought we were considering a serious GOP candidate for president—why is it exactly like having an argument with a petulant pre-schooler? I know that you want to support democracy in America—which makes it impossible for you to admit that there is only one person to vote for this election. Democracy has to be a contest. In that sense, I suppose Trump has let CNN down as badly as he has the GOP. I sympathize.

But ask yourselves—does ‘fairness’ exist without reference to common sense? Does ‘balanced’ require the acceptance of every convoluted, partisan serving of word-salad? Have you any idea how hungry we are?—how badly we need to hear one of your anchors say to one of these spokes-goblins, “Enough! You make less sense than a monkey doing mathematics. Get your ignorant, unethical, nonsensical mouth off my set.” How we would cheer.

Monograph (2016Aug15)

Posted by XperDunn on August 16, 2016

Monday, August 15, 2016 9:52 PM

Why do I always do this? I post a blog-entry about my rage over politics, full of invective and damnation—then, later in the same day, I post another blog-entry swimming in sweetness and light—usually to go along with my new granddaughter’s latest photo-shoot, hopefully with accompanying piano video using said photos. It’s ridiculous—no one who wants to read one could possibly want to read the other. What am I doing?

Truth is, I’m just being myself. I try not to get worked up about the election, but then I watch CNN or whatever, get a whole new bee in my bonnet, and I’m off to the races. I’d much rather spend the day doing what I did this afternoon.

Bear and Punkin have been emailing me regular albums of virtually daily baby pictures. Today’s batch of eleven photos inspired me to create a new frame for the photos in my video. I work in photo-shop (the Corel version) with screen grabs of medieval illuminated page borders and fancy capital letters (which I used to create a monogram-inset for the royal princess’ picture-frames), going to extra pains to ensure that each photo is the same size and in the same position. Otherwise the video doesn’t flow as well.

Our old friend, Chris Farrell, came by to tune the baby grand today. I waited until his visit before I played today’s piano improvisation. I hope you’ll notice the clarity of pitch—it should stand out, compared to the ‘sour’ recordings I’ve been making these past few weeks. I have to watch that, because frankly my ear isn’t good enough to notice, but I know musicians who actually suffer, hearing an instrument played out of tune. Today’s video does not have that problem. As they say, all mistakes are mine alone…

This is one cute baby. I have trouble sometimes finding inspiration to record my 2,000^th improv (actually, my YouTube-uploads total is more like 1,976). However, knowing that I need an audio track for my baby-pictures videos makes it seem easy—but then again, I don’t try as hard—I just try to play something a baby might like. Today’s piece ends with a lullaby of sorts, hence the title.

Bear tells me that Lil Sen watched my previous video on YouTube—out in California—and seemed to think it was okay. Talk about inspiration. I’ll be playing piano improvs until further notice, no problem. Bear returns this Thursday—poor Bear, I’m sure she’ll be sorry to say goodbye (just for now) to our little sweety-pie. Though I’d better come up with a different nickname—I doubt Jessy wants to be called our ‘old sweety-pie’! But it’s bound to be confusing when your baby girl has a baby girl. I’ll work on it.

G’night….

Enough Already (2016Aug15)

Posted by XperDunn on August 15, 2016

Monday, August 15, 2016 10:43 AM

This weather is unbearable—extreme heat warnings in the tri-state metro area for days—and no end yet forecast. Floods and fires in too much of the rest of the nation. Riots in Milwaukee—not to make light of that situation, but did the flash point have to center around a rare ‘justified’ shooting? Talk about muddying the waters. But then ‘justified’ is a relative term to most people, in spite of the law-enforcement definition of it. I like to remind myself that Milwaukee’s population isn’t likely to explode at a single incident—there had to have been some previous incidents that elicited a sense of injustice among the residents. People don’t just rise up when the cops shoot an armed criminal with a long record.

Yet there is one thing that I have had altogether too much of—and for way too long. How long are we going to talk about Donald Trump as if he isn’t just a bad joke? Newspeople say totally misleading things, such as, “Trump will be giving a speech on the economy.” Or “—on national security.” Or “Trump will release his new three-point plan to fight ISIL.” Why can’t they be honest? Just say ‘Trump hopes to remain coherent and sound reasonable for a full day on Tuesday before returning to his usual bloviating that requires apologists on every news channel—no word yet on how superficial and ignorant his ‘reasonable’ will be’. I’d like to hear that.

The trouble is the GOP nominated him for president. This leads all the media to feel obligated to comment seriously on a running joke (no pun intended). I feel that Hillary, way back in the primaries, hit the nail on the head, saying, ‘All the GOP candidates are ‘Trump’—Trump is just better at it than the rest of them’. This also explains why significant numbers of GOP leaders are being shamed into switching parties—conservatism in America has always maintained a minimum level of BS, but there’s a limit to magical thinking—especially among business leaders—even in the GOP.

Here we have an entitled, capricious blue-nose whose normal relationships with others consists of bossing them around. He laughs at the idea of debts and obligations—a tactic which, in business, is merely seedy—but which, in public service, amounts to nihilism. Nihilism in public service is, of course, just what the Tea Party ordered—but for the vast majority it is terrifying—and should be.

Some of his madness is plagiarized straight from the GOP. The GOP administration oversaw the birth of ISIL and the destruction of our economy—but they hope to blame those very problems on the Obama administration—as if American history began eight years ago. It’s the virgin birth thing all over again, but this time the baby is a demon.

He also one-upped the GOP’s persistent dog-whistling to Islamophobes, homophobes, racists, misogynists, and bigoted, ignorant haters of every flavor—by openly courting such people, sans subtlety. His base is such a distillation of miserable people who want to blame others for their problems that they are invulnerable to evidence or reason. They’ve been told they’re wrong for so long—and here’s a guy who says they’re right. You can pry Trump out of their cold, dead hands, in effect.

His campaign rhetoric, while failing to build a majority, still manages to damage our foreign relations, our economic stability, and our faith in government in general. He has decided that if he can’t be crowned king, he’s going to leave a bruise on America—one way or the other, he’s leaving his mark. When he said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a single vote, I have to wonder if he was making a point or voicing a long-treasured fantasy.

As I’ve written before, Trump lived for seventy years without any interest in public service—I find it highly suspect that he wants to do it now, but only if he can start at the top, by running the free world. I would make a terrible president—but I’d be better than Trump. You’d be better than Trump. Anyone on the outside of a mental institution would make a better president than this horrendous excuse for a human being. He’s made traitorous statements. He’s made criminal statements. And he lies much more often than he says anything true. But he laughs it all off—pure nihilism.

But Trump doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are a lot of ignoramuses and crooks and haters and hypocrites out there—and they’ll all vote for Trump. Still, most people are basically good—and they won’t vote for Trump. He has overlooked the main thing the GOP uses to brainwash us into accepting their garbage—the appearance of civility. Thank God he didn’t have the subtlety to pull that off or, like most GOP candidates, we wouldn’t have known what a jerk he was until he’d been inaugurated.

Journal Entry (2016Aug14)

Posted by XperDunn on August 14, 2016

Saturday, August 13, 2016 8:04 PM

Okay, I give up. Yes, the computer room needs an air conditioner. In this heat I waver from wanting to stay in the cool bedroom, or coming out here to the hot-box and typing on my PC. I can be comfortable and bored, or engaged and sweating like a pig. Neither one is working right this minute—and I always decide I need A/C on the weekend, when I have to wait until Monday to order one. What a schmo.

I just got back from the supermarket. Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee pastas and Progresso hearty soups—it’s a can festival. Also some hot dogs. Now that I know I can make it into next week without shopping for a while, I feel better—plus, call me picky, but I like to eat dinner almost every day. I bought dill pickles and pickled sausage bites and some Laughing Cow and those round cheeses in the net-bag.

I found the world’s best microwavable breakfast—Eggo’s bacon-egg-and-cheese waffle-meals. And I grabbed some Polar Bears (Heath bar flavored). I was worried about getting those two things home and in our freezer before they were ruined—I think I made it.

Sunday, August 14, 2016 12:48 PM

“98.6” by Keith—what a great tune. It lifts my spirits. I collect one-hit wonders—the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not of the music world—strange artifacts that belong to no movement or genre but their own personal musical ‘ear’. There are a surprising number of them—and it’s sad in a certain way. Think about it—you can try for a musical career, spend a few years touring local bars and clubs, then peter out from lack of determination or lack of audience interest—or you can get lucky and hit it big, get signed to a label, tour big venues, the whole nine. But with a one-hit wonder, the artists are served the success-banquet and then have the whole thing snatched from their mouths after the first course. The same amount of grueling giggery, PR, lawyers, fans, and yet more giggery—then the promise of fame and fortune—then the almost instant fading of it all—how hard that must be. I love one-hit wonders—but I truly feel for the artists that make them.

And it begs a question that often haunts a sixty-year-old would-be artist like myself: Is there a finite amount of creativity in each of us, to one extent or another? Would Beethoven’s Tenth have been anti-climactic? Did Van Gogh kill himself because he had used all the colors in every way he could imagine—and was loathe to repeat himself? Was Dickens’ last novel just ‘more of the same’? In olden times an artists could be satisfied with just one single ‘masterwork’. Of course, if one is capable of that, there was probably a bunch of stuff one could do—Michelangelo did sculpture, painting, architecture, and poetry, but he did some things better than others.

But today, with the ‘industrialized’ arts, if you can have a hit record, contracts are drawn up by the money-people, as if to say, “Well, anyone who can please the public can continue to do so forever”. There is no recognition of the possibility that what makes someone creative may be the same thing that bridles at being expected to play those songs every day for years, or come up with another whole album of ‘more’. What the hell is ‘more’ when dealing with inspiration? And how can we expect inspiration to stick to a release deadline?

We think of art as a job. It was never a job. The musicians that played at weddings and dances were just the folks who had a knack for music—they had day jobs. The artists of old weren’t working on canvas—they were carving sculptures into the furniture they made, painting landscapes with glazes on the pots they were throwing. The ‘career’ thing started with court appointments—Michelangelo was part of his Pope’s court, Bach worked for his church choir until his fame made him a member of the household of the Duke of Brandenburg.

These early artists didn’t do anything but their art—but they were servants to royalty, at their beck and call—even with regard to subject matter and style. No artists made a living from their art except the travelling troupes of entertainers—and they were mostly fugitives, working sub-rosa in a culture that forbade merriment in general—criminals of art, in effect. No individual musicians made a living concertizing until the nineteenth century. The monetization of art has a fascinating history—but it is a history of the deformation of the original impulse to art.

Sunday, August 14, 2016 6:48 PM

I’ve made a nice video that contains our granddaughter’s latest pictures and, in between the two improvs, a piano cover of Cole Porter’s “Tomorrow”—so I tried to throw in some entertainment. It’s difficult to create a video under these rolling thunderstorms—I’m a computer hack since back in the ‘80s—lightning is my mortal enemy. I always rush to power down the PC when the lightning gets too proximate.

Usually a storm comes and I call it a day, computer-wise. But with this kind of late summer weather, I can either play the margins or wait for Fall—intermittent thundershowers are forecast for the foreseeable future.

So, I’m going to upload my video and get off until tomorrow—it’s hot and muggy even when the sun breaks through. Only a fool gets stressed on Sunday. Bear returns next Thursday, thank goodness.

ttfn.

The Doldrums (2016Aug12)

Posted by XperDunn on August 13, 2016

Friday, August 12, 2016 8:36 PM

Oh my. Did someone order a steam bath? What kind of ungodly weather is this? Wait, I remember now—every year about this time of the summer, it gets obnoxious enough that we almost feel grateful when the cold comes back. I hate the cold weather, but even I get fooled this time of year. Whew! I can’t stop sweating through all my clothes—it’s yucky.

Bear remains on the West Coast with her daughter (and her daughter) so I’ve been running around like a healthy person. I get so wound up I can’t sleep at night. Then I don’t wake up until noon. It’s getting me confused. I try to read books as much as I can—but that only lasts the length of the book. Then I have to wait until I’m ready to start a new one. You can’t just close one book and open another—it’s a rule, I guess. But I don’t like it.

The only bright point in this long wait is that my granddaughter’s pictures come in a fairly steady stream. I could stare at her all day—she makes me smile like an idiot, just sitting here by myself. Just knowing she exists makes my life a pleasure. After the first bunch, I requested some pictures of Sen with her eyes open. Oh man—I don’t know—it took me two days to process them all for a video—and I had to play eight minutes of piano improv to last the length of the final movie. I hope you enjoy it.

FLASH: Trump Does Daughter (2016Aug12)

Posted by XperDunn on August 13, 2016

Friday, August 12, 2016 5:46 PM

A whole lot of people have been burrowing into Hillary Clinton’s life—some of them are PR-whores and some of them are faux-‘institutions’ whose only mission statement is ‘screw the Dems and their Witch-Queen’. Then there are the ones who really matter—the FBI, the Justice Dept., the House, and the Senate. But Hillary is not charged with any crime or misdemeanor–she’s free as a bird. Hmmm. She couldn’t be innocent could she? Everybody says she’s a liar–I hear it ten times a day. Yet reliable sources call her the most capable candidate for president in history. How confusing. I wonder if liars can be found elsewhere? Two out of three ordinary citizens would be in prison by now, under the same magnifying glass. Just ask the African-Americans in Baltimore.

And speaking of racism—Merrick Garland, whom the GOP adored before Obama nominated him to the SCOTUS, is still waiting for a hearing, and Miami is still waiting for a Zika-defense aid-bill, while the House is on vacation. These bigoted bastards helped Bush-43 start an accidental war and bankrupt the country, then spent eight years keeping ‘the black guy’ from fixing their mess—just so they could blame it all on him. Yeah, we’re stupid enough to entertain that fallacy—no wait—that’s the media, not the public. Any GOP that accuses Obama of doing too little ought to have their tongue ripped out. Lying bigoted bastards….

Temper, temper, Mr. Dunn. That’s their trick—they say something childishly stupid for two days, then give a shit-eating grin and say, “I was being sarcastic”. This makes sensible people want to break something—these punks would pull the whole government down around our ears, just to forward their bankrupt agenda. Then they send out the Giuliani-brigade—the mob of nitwits that go on talk-shows and add polish to the lies and the rumors and the bullshit. Good job, Rudi—you complete and utter waste of air-time. I’m measurably stupider every time I hear your voice. Keep on polishing that turd—maybe you’ll believe the words coming out of your mouth someday.

They want to ‘lock her up’. Yeah, the hell with presumed innocence. They want to ban Muslims. Yeah, the hell with religious freedom. They want sexually-harassed women to run away and find a new job elsewhere. Yeah, the hell with gender-equality. They want to build a wall to keep out Mexicans. Yeah, let’s institutionalize racism—that’s the American spirit—let’s melt down that plaque on the Status of Liberty and make it part of the wall.

News12-Westchester FB-post: “QUESTION OF THE DAY! We want to know if Donald Trump’s controversial comments are affecting your vote?”

I answered: “A year in, I’ve depleted my vocabulary: dangerous, deluded, demented, dishonest, clown, ignoramus, demagogue, narcissist, misogynist, bigot, racist, bankrupt, rip-off, embarrassment, fool, idiot, disgrace, traitor, tax-cheat, buffoon—he is just what the GOP ordered—I hope they’re happy with him.”

mmmm…baby!

How about this: Trump fucks his daughter every night. Trump certainly fucks his daughter every night. Trump definitely fucks his daughter every night. You better believe Trump fucks his daughter every night. O, hey—I was just being sarcastic. Lighten up, guys. But you paid attention, didn’t you? Hey, it works! How about that? He’s right—say whatever fool thing, whatever disgusting lie you want—as long as people pay attention, where’s the harm?

I’m sorry, did I just waste your time and offend your sensibilities? I sincerely apologize. But I felt obligated to point out that what’s sauce for the Trump is sauce for everybody else. If he can dish it out, he’d better be prepared to take it. But he probably won’t have to. Why? Because people don’t act that way—only jerks like him and me will cross that line. Trump wants attention—well, he’s getting it. I see you Donald, you filthy pig.

Pro and Con-fidence Man (2016Aug10)

Posted by XperDunn on August 10, 2016

Wednesday, August 10, 2016 3:47 PM

Donald Trump tells us that America is broken, America has failed, it’s just a big pile of junk—and that he can fix it and make it ‘great’ again. America does have serious problems—no one could refute that. But is America the sum of its problems—or is there something more? Well, I think it’s pretty clear that there is more to America.

Over 94% of workers are earning a paycheck—that doesn’t change the millions in poverty, but it does mean that the vast majority of 300,000,000 Americans are actively engaged in the economy. That’s not nothing. And Trump’s desire to throw out all the rules and turn it all on its head would far more likely disrupt the economy, throwing more people out of work—and have no effect on the unemployed other than making their plight even more intractable.

Trump says China is ‘raping us’ because of our debt—he wants to use his bankruptcy tricks to reduce that debt. China has $1.24 trillion in Treasuries and Japan has $1.13 trillion. All foreign investment in Treasuries comes to a total of $6.1 trillion. US Treasuries are the safest investment in the world—it’s where everyone puts their savings. That’s why American citizens, our corporations, and our local governments hold $2.8 trillion in Treasuries. If Trump staged a Treasuries default to cheat China, he’d be bankrupting you and I—and the whole world—as well.

Trump wants to segregate Muslims, erasing two centuries of our proud tradition (and constitutional law) of embracing all religions equally. But Muslims are part of us—the 99.99% of American Muslims who embrace tolerance and peace are our strongest bulwark against terrorist infiltration. Over three million Muslim-Americans own businesses, police our streets, serve in our military, teach in our schools, and raise their families with the same values as every other American. Only an idiot would marginalize these loyal citizens because of hysteria over ISIL. Their children are being targeted by online terrorist propaganda—do we really want their parents to feel victimized by our government? No one hates the ‘Islamic-extremist terror groups’ more than the real Muslims. Paranoia has never been a virtue—and inclusion is among America’s highest virtues. We are left to wonder if Trump simply hates America, as it is, and wants to take it over and run it like a dictatorship.

Trump says we are wallowing in a swamp of political correctness—and there is some overreach by the nit-pickiest PC-police types—but when he calls for hatred against all Muslims and fear of all Mexicans, he simply makes the PC-police’s case for them. Advising his daughter to run from sexual harassment and find a new career elsewhere is proof that the PC-police still have a lot of work to do. And dog-whistling for snipers to take pot-shots at his political opponents is proof that Trump’s objection to political correctness is that it prevents him from saying whatever outrageous bile spills from his mouth.

It seems likely that this election will not be a choice so much as a sociological survey of the mentally unbalanced in America. By the time we reach November, Trump’s voters will have been winnowed down to only the most backward, bigoted, spiteful high-school drop-outs—and this will provide important data for the mental health care community. Using the voter stats from GOP down-ballot races for candidates who still stand by Trump will help further refine the input. We will know, for the first time, exactly how many of voting-age Americans are sane, how many are apathetic, and how many are just plain bat-shit crazy.

America has many troubles—no one denies that. But with the most prepared, experienced, smartest, toughest president to ever take office in charge, we have our best chance of rising above our issues and finding solutions. Vote for Hillary. And let’s hope we get enough sensible legislators in Congress to untie her hands, so she can get done what needs to be done. We can’t go on with a Congress that goes fishing while Zika establishes a beachhead in Miami, or keeps a Supreme Court nominee waiting for a record full-year for a Senate hearing, and on and on. Who votes for these snail-trails? Kick’em out—put the Congress back to work. Eight years of racist paralysis is enough—we don’t need another four years of misogynist paralysis there.

Why Hillary? (2016Aug09)

Posted by XperDunn on August 10, 2016

Tuesday, August 09, 2016 8:07 PM

Several people, mostly Bernie supporters and Republicans, have put forward the thesis that ‘the lesser of two evils’ is a false choice and that evil is evil. This is prompted by their firmly-held belief that Hillary Clinton is some kind of monster. They all agree that they won’t vote for Trump—and who can blame them?—but they stick at turning to Hillary. I respect ethical staunchness—I’m a big fan. And I won’t wade into the morass of a politician’s long lifetime to parse her sins, venal or cardinal—though I would point out that truly villainous politicians often get caught and convicted—and seldom accomplish any meaningful governance.

Plus, no matter what you accuse Hillary Clinton of doing or saying—she has in her off-time, as Family Advocate, First Lady, and Senator, done some planning, some consensus building, and helped pass several pieces of notable legislation—and, as Secretary of State, she obviously pleased her boss, the President—and didn’t let the world fall into anarchy or let anyone invade the USA. So she has experience, ability, and a firm grasp of the realities of the U.S. government—she has been, to some extent, mentored by two presidents.

Compare that to the Independent party or Libertarian party candidates. Those two may have more experience than Trump, who decided at the age of seventy to give presidenting a try, but they are still pigs-in-a-poke compared to the most qualified candidate in history. Neither have endured one percent of the scrutiny of the candidate they challenge—and I don’t vote for somebody just because I don’t know anything bad about them—not if it’s because I don’t know anything about them.

So that leaves ‘not voting’. Don’t choose that, please—it’s un-American. Because ethics are ethics, chess games are chess games, and annoying chores are annoying chores—but politics is part ethics, part chess game, and partly an annoying chore. There are thousands of people out there, screaming at the top of their lungs—and since long before the primaries began—that Hillary Clinton must not be elected. Why are they so desperately trying to keep her from the presidency? Well, because they thought that Jeb Bush would oppose her in the general—or some other GOP with even less chance of beating her—it’s all political messaging.

If Hillary was as bad as critics paint her, serious, thoughtful people would be criticizing her—or charging her with some actual crime—or at least saying that they don’t think she would make a very good president. But no serious, thoughtful person is saying that—only her political opponents are saying that. And this may be extra confusing, right now, because serious, thoughtful are saying bad things about Trump. If it helps, try to remember that only one group disses Hillary—everybody disses the Donald. There is a difference between political mud-slinging and objective criticism. Media-savvy Donald knows this—and tries his best to turn all criticism into politics—accusing his accusers.

America is a big complicated place—there are a lot of people out there with a vested interest in their own agenda. I accept that politics is a rough business and—bottom line—Hillary Clinton is no angel (or if she is, it’s that one with the big flaming sword). But we don’t want an angel as commander-in-chief. We don’t want an angel across the negotiating table from Putin. We want a smart, serious, no-fucking-around grandma whose been there and done that. What we don’t want is a little imp with a big mouth. Or one of two strangers that wandered in late. And we certainly don’t want a bunch of goddamned Americans whining that their conscience is telling them not to vote.

If your ethics are that disturbed by the present race, then you started late—you should have been out there the last four years getting ready, finding a good candidate and helping them towards the presidency. Don’t show up in the summer before the election and say you’re not pleased with your choices. You Berners—he announced his candidacy on May 26, 2015—and all of you high-and-mighty reformers were sitting around doing nothing until your friends dragged you to his rallies. Hillary started ‘stealing’ the nomination in 2008. So get over it—if you really got inspired—good. Do something with that going forward—if you really believed what he was saying, there’s no reason to turn your back on politics now.

And you can start by voting for the candidate that didn’t come from a millionaire’s family—try Hillary—how do you know you won’t like it, if you won’t taste it?

O–and BTW, there are new baby-pictures in my latest video. Please enjoy:

Merrily He Goes Along (2016Aug09)

Posted by XperDunn on August 9, 2016

Monday, August 08, 2016 11:33 PM

I get it now. For the longest time I was frustrated—I thought, ‘Why don’t journalists out this clown?’ But, here’s the thing—they’re hamstrung by journalistic ethics—they can only report what Trump does and what he says. They cannot follow that up with their honest opinion about what he just did or said—that’s against the rules—even if an entire roomful of journalists are asking themselves, ‘Could this man seriously believe he can lead a nation?—He’s out of his mind, or an evil super-villain, or both.’ They can’t say that. They can only report the facts, ma’am.

This is important not just because it explains the press’s failure to call the Donald what he is—but because it also means that Donald Trump has created the firestorm over his fitness and temperament all by himself. With his own words and deeds he has demonstrated his ignorance, bigotry and general unfitness for arguably the most important job in the world. Everyone talks about him ‘walking back’ the reputation he has made over a year of campaigning—but you can’t un-ring a bell. This leaves the vilification of Hillary Clinton as his one and only job—his last, desperate shot at liquidating his final rival.

But Donald Trump has zero experience in government, zero understanding of the global checks and balances that maintain the status quo—and by ‘status quo’ I mean holding back World War III, mass starvation, nuclear winter—or all three at once. Donald Trump has zero understanding of public service—he has spent a lifetime in the bare-knuckle private sector and now he supposes that governance is just another ‘business’. He wins a popularity contest—but he is forcing American voters (perhaps for the first time) to question whether the one they like the best is really the best person to vote for. And his cumulative statements seem to be answering our question with a resounding ‘no’.

Trump started out with an easy job—decades of Republican mud-slinging had already made Hillary Clinton unpopular, to put it mildly—and he should have easily made the case that she should not win. But now he has raised the bar much higher—he now has to show that Hillary is more unfit than he is—and that’s a much tougher job. As a Hillary supporter, I’d like to think that people had wised up to the unfair defamations of Hillary—and seen through Trump’s lack of seriousness, and his narcissism. But I’m afraid that’s not true. I’m afraid that people have simply had their noses rubbed in the outlandish antics of Trump to the point where even the staunchest Republican has to ask, “Is that really the American way? I didn’t think we were that ugly.”

Being outrageous about his rivals during the Republican primary was fair game—we enjoyed it. But being outrageous about the national spirit, about the constitution, about war crimes and nuclear bombs, about dead soldiers and POWs?—whoa, hold on there, fella. Let’s take a beat. Nobody’s laughing any more.

There was an article in the New York Times today addressing the issue of journalists whose heads explode at the paradox of Donald Trump. Journalists are supposed to be non-judgmental—that’s their job. But what do they do with a man who dances on the edge of insanity and enormous ignorance? When Hillary questions his mental stability and fitness, she is responding honestly to his wild clown act. But when the Donald turns around and, in effect, says, “I know you are but what am I?” journalists are obligated to print ‘Trump Questions Hillary’s Fitness’ as if the statement had been made by a rational adult.

There’s a method to Trump’s madness, though—he really knows how to work the spotlight. He only trips up when substance or ethics or empathy intrude on the conversation—such areas are quicksand for the glib and superficial. Trump can tap-dance like mad—it will be interesting to see the debates. Can his media-savvy outshine the emptiness inside his head and heart—or will Hillary’s command of the subject become painfully obvious next to his vague notions of which country is which, and what cabinet bureau handles which subject?

As a Hillary supporter, I hope for the later. But bluster and venom are deadly debate strategies—and Trump is a past master of both. He also likes to make stuff up in his head as he goes along—fact-checks afterwards be damned. If Hillary is as big a liar as everyone seems to think, she’s going to need it to stand up to the man who makes his reality up as he goes along.

Heart of Light (2016Aug08)

Posted by XperDunn on August 8, 2016

Monday, August 08, 2016 3:03 PM

“’You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;

‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’

-Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Oed’ und leer das Meer”

— (from “The Waste Land” (1922) by T.S. Eliot)

I know that all you working stiffs hate the start of the work-week, but I’m enjoying the beautiful weather and my good mood. The sun is shining. I’m free as a bird—and I’m a grandpa now, too—it’s really too sweet. Claire is, I presume, enjoying her beautiful granddaughter Seneca and spending time with her Jessy, and Big Sen.

I don’t know for sure because, when you’ve been together for 37 years (36 of them married, end of this month), two weeks away from the sound of my voice is the best vacation Bear could possibly ask for. So I don’t call. I’ll see her in two weeks. Besides, there’s no news here to report anyhow—unless you count the fact that Spencer and I haven’t starved to death without someone to look after us.

I always start to really love the summer when it’s just about to end. It seems so cruel that all the beautiful plants and flowers and all the leaves on the trees will all fade and fall. Soon I’ll have to close the windows—sacrificing fresh breezes for warmth—I think that’s the part I hate the most. Sometimes, in winter, I open the bedroom windows for as long as I can stand it—just to get a little re-oxygenation.

But temperate climate is where it’s best—yes, you get winter, but it’s harder to live in temperate climes, so you don’t get the profusion of jungles, insects, and creepy-crawlies of various kinds that make the tropics so claustrophobic. Winter is like a broom that sweeps away the ephemera that can only live in the hot sunlight—herding the irresistible force of Life into a dignified annual cycle, rather than an eternal riot of birth and rot—what Joseph Conrad called the “Heart of Darkness”.

But we still get a taste of the easy life, every summer—just a tease, but enough to fuel our dreams through the long winters. I love having all the doors and windows open all day—especially on breezy days, when the whole house breathes with the weather. Those flowers which haven’t already done their business are at peak bloom, blousy and vulnerable to wind—the last fireworks of nature’s annual explosion—so beautiful, and so sad, for their grandeur means the end is near. As they should correctly say on Game of Thrones, ‘Autumn is coming’. Right? I mean, who has Winter without first a Fall, for crying out loud? Why don’t the Game of Thrones people ever say, “Fall is almost over.”? That’s show-biz, I guess.

I’m going outside—all this talking about the outdoors has made me restless. See ya.

Crickets (2016Aug07)

Posted by XperDunn on August 8, 2016

Sunday, August 07, 2016 9:51 PM

The summer night is soft and cooling, but noisy—what with all the crickets calling through the screen door. It’s peak summer—quiet as a tomb. If you had somewhere to go, you’re already there. Me, I like to stay home usually. Spencer’s kind of the same way. It’s a Sunday night—it doesn’t come any quieter, if you don’t count the crickets.

I don’t watch the Olympics—not alone, anyway. I’ll linger on an event in the midst of channel-surfing, but that’s about it. And no programmer in their right mind would air anything good while the whole world’s on vacation and the Olympics are on. So the usual tired offerings on Sunday night are exhausted on a Sunday night like this.

I made some videos—one of them uses the pictures Bear took, out the window of her airplane as she flew to California. The other is the first request I’ve had in a dog’s age—someone asked me for a melancholy tune—so I’ve done my best to be absolutely drippy in that one.

I’m trying to make chicken noodle soup and blog at the same time—I’m likely to burn up a pot and go hungry. Wait a second—I’ll go check on it…. Still a minute on the timer. Oh no, another thing I forgot—Roadies is on—I’ll be back.

Sunday, August 07, 2016 11:36 PM

Here I was complaining about nothing being on TV, and I remembered that I like to watch Roadies, and then John Oliver, on Sunday nights. Man, TV goes by fast when you’re watching good stuff without commercials! It’s so rare on regular TV—I can see why people switch to binge-watching whole series seasons online. It’s much more satisfying—and if you don’t like it that much, you can just move on. I have a few Netflix series that I started and got tired of—I told myself for a while that I’d get back to them but as time passed I realized that wasn’t going to happen. But I’ve watched some really good stuff on Netflix, every season, all the way through—like Stranger Things, or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt —bingeing is great!

So now I’ve got one last improv to post before I call it a day.

Monday, August 08, 2016 12:27 AM

I got my bowl of Liptons, in case you wondered—there’s a timer app on Windows 10—good thing, too, because I never heard the kitchen timer go off. Imagine—I can cook and PC at the same time now—hmm… This opens up all kinds of possibilities.

See, I used to multi-task—like a normal person. But I have no short-term memory—or I have advanced absent-minded-ness (I was always absent-minded). Anyhow, I go for a long time without looking up from the keyboard—but with a timer?—oh, man.

I think our trip to the store yesterday helped ‘wake me up’ a little. I can do things—but then I get tired or I muck it up. So I get to a point where I stop doing stuff. But I should really make more of an effort to go outside and move around a little, every other day at least. I’m only mostly useless—I have to remind myself I’m not entirely useless. Not entirely. Not yet.

Okay, enough, the video is uploaded and it’s late—more later. Good night all.

…

If Hillary Is Satan, Then So Am I (2016Aug07)

Posted by XperDunn on August 7, 2016

Sunday, August 07, 2016 11:18 AM

Spencer and I went to the supermarket yesterday and spent $300 on spaghetti, hot dogs, and Eggos (plus my snack foods). This is probably why Claire does the shopping—she buys what we need, I buy what I want. Spencer did all the driving, so I thought the trip was easy. I get too stressed out trying to drive a car these days—but I love to go to the store. It reminds me of the good ol’ days when I made too much money and went shopping just for fun.

Claire is still out west—but she’s sending pix of Lil Sen, so I get to see. Oh what a beautiful baby our baby had. Every time I see California fires on the news, I get worried. I ask Jessy, “Are you near the fires?” and she always says, “No, don’t worry.”

One of my conservative Facebook friends posted a meme today—it had a list of accusations about Hillary Clinton. I thought to myself, “OMG, why didn’t I hear about any of this?” So I googled each one—and Snopes.com explained how each accusation was false or misleading. I left the Snopes URLs in the comment section—but you know how it is with zombie-lies—they never die, they just keep roaming the earth.

That’s why it bothers me that the media is always saying things like, “The public still thinks of Hillary Clinton as untruthful.” Have some self-respect, newspeople—don’t report on what people think, report on whether they’re correct or not. This whole thing with the email-servers just bugs me.

Some talking heads say that the main problem is that she had a separate server in the first place. Well, (1) she wasn’t the only government official to do that, (2) email was still fairly new tech—there is no “email division” in the state department, and (3) have you seen Hillary’s life? She’d been attacked by the far-right for decades—I’d have been paranoid about privacy, too.

As far as her lying about it goes—she said publicly that no confidential emails were on her private server. FBI director Comey said that out of 30,000 emails, he found three marked confidential—two with a ‘c’ at the bottom (which everyone knows means confidential) and one with a confidential ‘heading’. One confidential email, no evidence of being hacked, and no obstruction of justice—yeah she’s a lying bitch, alright—or maybe she’s just a human being. I prefer the human being explanation—but then, Hillary Clinton is not an existential threat to my yahoo mind-set, so what do I know?

When questioned about it (for the zillionth time) Hillary attempts to explain herself—but then the talking heads say, “She talked like a lawyer—parsing the details in a complicated way.” Well, first, she is a lawyer—not necessarily a bad thing, when in public service. And secondly, why is it okay for her accusers to nit-pick one email out of 30,000, but Hillary is evasive when she talks about details? Even MSNBC, supposedly the anti-FOXNews, goes after Hillary for her ‘untrustworthiness’. It’s the mother of all zombie-lies, and its roots are found deep within misogyny and humanity’s inherent need to knock down those who rise high.

Hillary Clinton is a politician—and compared to other politicians, she is the picture of transparency. Yes, she tries to spin things when attacked—that’s what politicians do. Yes, she makes mistakes—but then, people do that. Painting Hillary Clinton as Satan incarnate—that’s just hysteria. Her lifelong efforts in service to families and children have been entirely discounted, replaced with a mountain of BS from people who are themselves demonstrably dishonest—that the media climbs on board with it all is proof that they care more about sensationalism than information.

The media are also all in agreement that Trump is wrong to do anything other than hammer away at the false charges leveled at his opponent. They overlook that his charges against her are without foundation. They overlook that a candidate who can only attack his opponent must not have anything good to say about himself. And the latest thing they do is try to equate the two candidates’ attacks on each other—I’m sorry, but Trump’s non-stop blustering against Hillary is not the same as Hillary’s stump-speeches, in which she outlines her detailed plans to help the country, calls for unity, equal rights, and community among all Americans—and then ends her talk with a short review of the horrible things that Trump has said—and pointing out that his comments show ignorance on too many levels to count.

The whole thing makes me tired and not a little disgusted. Vote for Hillary—or be a victim—your choice.

Not So Good (2016Aug05)

Posted by XperDunn on August 6, 2016

Friday, August 05, 2016 2:21 PM

Okay, so call me a starry-eyed optimist. I always reach for the moon—yesterday I was day-dreaming about a Clinton presidency with a Democratic-controlled legislature—with bill after bill, just sailing through—and changing the face of our future. But I just saw Hillary Clinton give a press conference in DC that was co-hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists —and Hillary said that even if she wins, and even if Dems take the Senate, there will still be a GOP majority in the House.

For at least two more years, she would have to contend with Paul Ryan’s Mad-Hatters Tea-Party. She recommends that supporters write their congresspersons to let them know we’re watching, let them know how we feel about obstruction of important bills—and of course to vote for Democrats in 2018 (though she didn’t say that last part—she has to stay on message about this election—she only alluded to the low voter turn-out in off-year elections, which allows the GOP to keep sneaking in).

Thus it won’t be all peaches and cream—even if there’s a Democrat blow-out in this election. The GOP will be able to continue their policy of obstructing the Dems and claiming the Dems can’t do anything. I don’t know why people keep falling for this. Massive misinformation campaigns in targeted demographics—that’s my take on it—the GOP can evert any issue—they can take the simplest cause and turn it on its head. Their reasoning never survives close scrutiny, but if they hammer half-truths into their base, over and over—their nonsense starts to sound like sense.

People are suffering. People are angry. Why people blame Hillary for this is beyond me. Hillary doesn’t control the government—legislation goes through the GOP—or never makes it past the GOP, more like—so why do people still believe them when they blame Obama? They’ll try the same thing if Hillary wins—but maybe people will catch on. Maybe people will see that an adversarial two-party system is deadly—only a truly bi-partisan system that does its work, and leaves the differences on the sidelines, has enabled our government to function throughout its first two centuries. We cannot continue with the GOP mind-set of winner-take-all. It’s bad for everybody.

Still, I remain optimistic. Our government will inevitably embrace the 21^st century and all the digital magic that comes with—and streamlining data-collection, analysis, communications, and policy-making will do for bureaucracy what it has already done for our military—state-of-the-art tools for finding trouble-spots, creating solutions, and implementing those solutions, with digital monitoring that allows real-time feedback on its efficiency, will allow our government to change as quickly as the times—all we need to do is make sure the right people are deciding on our heading. Will America be run to please the wealthy and big businesses—or will we be governed in terms of what’s best for everyone—rich or poor, big or small? We decide—one way or another, we will not enter into our future without having anything to say about it—we just have to believe—and act appropriately.

The GOP and the lobbyists rely on political inertia and public indifference—the USA has run so smoothly for so long that many people feel our elections are just going through the motions. Let’s prove them wrong—let’s all vote—in every election—and get involved in politics more, locally as well as nationally. It’s a government by the people—but if the people lay down on the job, other influences take advantage. We have to fight back—no matter how boring or tedious the process may be. Vote for Hillary—and if you don’t like her, vote anyway—vote for somebody. Get off the sidelines. This isn’t a football game that we watch at home—this is reality—get involved.

***

Better (Same Day)

Enough. I’ve been hanging out here with Spencer—just us guys. Claire has found the way to San Jose and is holding her granddaughter as we speak. Lil Seneca is happy and healthy and Jessy is well also—Big Sen had to return to work. Lately Claire has taken some art classes including life studies sessions, pencil technique, pastels, charcoals, and even watercolor. I get a free art show every time she comes home—in one of today’s videos I share two of my favorite Life Studies with you.

I remember my teens—I was a pretty needy kid. I wanted to make friends in the worst way. One way I tried was to make my parents’ house a sort of Grand Central terminal for all the kids in my class who wanted to hang out somewhere, without their parents, and with other kids to hang with. Sometimes, when my parents weren’t around for awhile, we’d get some really heavy traffic going through the living room. After some time it became annoyingly clear that I had started something that I couldn’t stop.

Well, we never get that kind of traffic in our living room today. But since it is the room I record in, I often catch Claire or Spencer walking past the piano during a video—I think it adds character to the show. I have one today that shows the merest glimpse of Spencer, so I’ve called it Dunn & Son, Ltd.

Lastly, my piece de resistance, Granddaughter, is frustrating to post—I have all these beautiful pictures of our new baby, but I’m not sure I’m happy with my piano-playing on this video. The pictures make up for it, but I wish I liked the music better.

ttfn

Am I Dreaming? (2016Aug05)

Posted by XperDunn on August 5, 2016

Friday, August 05, 2016 12:03 AM

What is this winsome magic? Don’t tease me, now. Don’t say it unless you really mean it. Can the entire nation have finally begun to see the madness of a Trump candidacy? Will I be saved from the dread of suspecting that a majority of my country-people were foolish enough to be taken in by that ‘salesman’ who is selling his heart out? America has about 300 million people in it—about 13 million of them are hard-core Trump supporters—so roughly 4.3% of Americans are yahoos—yeah, that sounds about right.

I don’t want to jinx anything—but news reports now say Hillary Clinton is leading, even in battleground states—and that even congressional and senate seats are looking vulnerable, because of disarray in the Trump GOP. It just might be that Hillary would win—and—be working with a Democratic Congress.

The GOP handed Obama a nation in the ditch, miles from the nearest phone—and despite that, our President managed to helm a slow recovery. What he couldn’t do was pass any significant new legislation, with a GOP Congress sitting on its hands just to spite him. But if the Democrats get back the legislature, we could see an almost FDR-like wave of economic reforms. We could see jobs, growth, wage hikes—hell, all kinds of good stuff—who knows?

Now, that twit, Julian Assange, is planning to dump some sort of scandal into the news cycle sometime soon—you’d think a coder could see through Trump’s façade of BS—so, it’s still a tricky business. We’ll have to wait and see just how crazy Debbie Wasserman Schulz got—and whether any of it can be directly connected to Hillary. But a dream has sprouted in my mind—a future full of progress and prosperity—a return to American exceptionalism that isn’t just bluster—a serious effort to see equal justice for everyone, in every community.

I’d like to see Hillary do so well that future Republicans will have to make ‘compromise’ and ‘bipartisan productivity’ a part of their appeal. Four years from now, I want to see Hillary run for re-election with the slogan, ‘this is what happens when government does its job’. I want to hear the GOP disavow their era of obstruction and subtle bigotry. And I want them to change the subject, for the rest of my life, whenever anyone brings up the Donald.

I’ve been so terrified that we wouldn’t see through him until it was too late—I’m hesitant to think about this nightmare being over—there are still ninety-something days until Election Day. I can’t take the suspense. I keep telling myself to stop watching the news, just let it go until November—but then I just have to check and make sure we’re still heading in the right direction. Auggh! (As Charlie Brown would say.)

He Couldn’t Do It Without You (2016Aug04)

Posted by XperDunn on August 4, 2016

Thursday, August 04, 2016 3:00 AM

Trump uses the word ‘sacrifice’ very loosely—he doesn’t get that the military uses that word to mean spilled blood—shot, bombed, wounded, maimed, killed, brain-damaged. That’s sacrifice. That’s why we thank vets for their service and thank disabled vets and gold-star families for their sacrifice.

Trump is very glib—he says whatever comes out of his mouth; if you call him on it, he says he didn’t mean it the way you heard it. You’re not listening. He’s speaking very well—everything is going to be perfect, no matter what words he uses—believe him. It doesn’t matter what he says—he knows how to do things—he’s very successful. He had beautiful bankruptcies—you wouldn’t believe how much money he has. But his tax returns are none of your business. And don’t criticize—you don’t have the right to criticize him. It’s gonna be great, folks.

But Trump himself is just an annoyance—a major annoyance, but someone to laugh at, not to fear. It is his supporters that keep me up at night. It’s the bell-curve thing—a certain percentage of American voters are, unavoidably, of below-average intelligence and/or lacking in education. They understand our government and our constitution no better than he does—therefore his wild, ignorant statements make no difference to them—they cheer him for it. They see no great risk in putting this old fart in office—he can run a business (they believe) so he can run the country too (they believe). The rest is details that eggheads like to cry about—temperament, civil liberties, international diplomacy, financial stability—all just complicated bullshit that no real ‘Murican gives a shit about. They’re gonna take back their country and make America great again.

After all, Obama did nothing for eight years—and the Congress did all the actual, hard work of keeping him from doing anything. We’ve got to get rid of him. And Hillary—imagine what she might try to get done—jeez, what a nightmare. We all hate Hillary, right? She’s a bad, bad lady who ruined the whole world—without being president. Just imagine if she got the job—we’d have to spend another four years, at least, calling her a liar and making sure she doesn’t ruin the country by getting anything done, too.

Trump supporters are a bunch of yahoos that want permission to be bigots, to be ignorant and fearful, and to blame the government. None of them have a dime in the bank, but they’ll fight to the death to defend the wealthy from higher taxes. None of them would dream of doing manual labor—but they resent industrious immigrants for ‘taking their jobs’—I think they really just hate those immigrants making them feel lazy. Hell, immigrants make me feel lazy—but I don’t blame them for that—I’m lazy.

Trump’s trump card is, of course, that he makes it okay to be an idiot—when his supporters hear him speak, they hear themselves. Trump never accepts criticism—and they don’t like criticism either. Trump believes that being rich and entitled makes him a potential president—and isn’t that the American dream? Anyone can be president—without law school, without experience, without listening to anyone else’s opinion. What’s the big deal? If you’re the president, you get a bunch of people to tell you stuff—you don’t have to know anything—you just give orders. And being rich makes him an expert at giving orders. Right? Only he can save us all—ask him, he’ll tell you.

Trump is good at running a con—if he wins, that will mean that the majority of voters are dumb enough to fall for his scam—which will mean that Trump won’t have to ruin the country—it will have already failed.

The Usual Business (2016Aug03)

Posted by XperDunn on August 3, 2016

Wednesday, August 03, 2016 6:42 PM

In our outrage over Trump as a presidential candidate, we are overlooking a special case of injustice—understandably, given the stakes—though this injustice provides both insight and explanation. Those of us who have been in business, whether high-stakes tycoon-ing or low-end advertising, know how business works. It is a cold-blooded thing wherein the one with all the money and all the lawyers makes the rules—he or she doesn’t just win the game—one rules. You tell your employees what the rules are and what the pay is. You tell your suppliers what you’re willing to pay, take it or leave it. And the customers—well, you know what happens to customers, I think.

In most cases, this environment is leavened by the fact that virtually everyone has a boss—managers have top managers, top managers have board members, board members have chairpersons. Even business owners have either a major client or a bank that owns them—someone they answer to. But some people don’t really answer to anyone else—they’re very rich, they never share control, and they stick to one-shot stuff like real estate and construction—or scams like overpriced, insubstantial business seminars. They specialize in stiffing debtors and using bankruptcy as an ejection button—leaving with a ‘parachute’ that protects only themselves—leaving the rest in mid-air.

These people operate in a closed system—surrounded by the infrastructure, using the society, but always seeking profit, never offering something for less than the market will bear. In business law, there are many protections for ownership—no one has to approve of your behavior, no one has to agree with you—as long as you’re the boss, you are in charge. And everyone around you has to do what you say, pretend to like you, even socialize with you outside of the workplace—no matter what your true opinion of your employer may be. No one ever says no to these people—except perhaps lawyers—and even then, not always.

As a boss, the more belligerent you are, the more mule-headed—the more successful you’ll be. There are no penalties for being selfish, cruel, or willfully stupid—it all comes along with the unimpeachable power of being a boss. The only thing that you can possibly do wrong is to lose money—that’s the only sin for the bosses.

So, if we now reexamine Trump’s behavior, his statements, during his presidential campaign, we can easily see how it all makes perfect sense to him. This is how you win in business. He does, unfortunately, seem blind to the difference between being a boss and being president. He thinks the rules of “The Apprentice” still apply to his television audience. He doesn’t recognize the nature of public service—even corrupt politicians know enough to tell the right lies, to suppress the selfishness inside them and say the politic thing.

FYI:

pol·i·tic – /ˈpäləˌtik/ – adjective

(of an action) seeming sensible and judicious under the circumstances.

But I don’t feel the need to add my small voice to the cacophony of backlash against the orange fool who raped the GOP. I’m here to discuss the fact that, outside of politics, all of us are, or have been, on the wrong side of the business environment described above. Hyper-Capitalism gives the wealthy far more than mere ownership—it gives them the power of life and death over their workers and suppliers, it allows them to rob their employees of dignity—and then underpay them for the privilege. It gives the wealthy overpowering influence over our government, our courts, our media, and our health and safety.

But most of all it gives them authority that they haven’t earned. We tell ourselves we are governed by a democracy—but that government is all too often circumvented and distorted by the power of wealth. The fact that they make the lion’s share of profit and still bamboozle us into refusing to raise their taxes tells you all you need to know about them—and us.

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