Life – Page 3 – frustratedboomers

Liar Liar Pants on Fire!

by Roxanne Tellier

When we’re kids, we’re terrible at telling lies. You can spot a kid that’s telling a tall tale a mile away, because they’re just not great at deceiving others.

Deception and lying are all part of a cognitive understanding called a Theory of Mind. That’s the realization that we all have our own knowledge, beliefs and opinions … that development informs us that we all have different minds.

Over time, we learn to tell ‘social’ lies, the fibs that get us through our days. “How are you today?” the cashier asks us, and we cheerily inform her that we’re just fine, despite the screaming headache we’re trying to ignore. Or someone asks if they look good in their new coat, and we tell them they look amazing.

Salespeople lie a dozen times a day, or if not lie, at least they’ll minimize the defects of an item, and maximize it’s benefits. We lie on our resumes, and on our dating profiles .. at least a titch … and we lie when we want to look smarter or more informed than we really are.

Peer pressure and our need to fit the perceptions and expectations of others drives a lot of the lying. We want to look good to others, and to do so, we often have to ‘enhance’ our reality.

We lie to avoid the consequences of mistakes, we lie to buy time, we lie to spare other people’s feelings. We may be lying for all the right reasons, but we’re still lying.

All of that lying comes at a cost. What we really crave is honesty, or at least the belief that someone is being honest; complete honesty is the access to ultimate power. When we feel that a person is telling us the truth, we hand over our power to their keeping. We believe that they have our best interests at heart, and, in effect, must be better people than we assume ourselves to be.

But trust is a fragile thing. And even if the person who broke that trust tells us with sweet words and warm embraces that our trust was broken for a very good reason … once we no longer trust, we can no longer cling to a faith in the person that has broken the code of truth.

And when you pile lie upon lie upon lie … the very foundations of a relationship proves to be built upon quicksand. Not a great thing if it’s in a romance, but if that relationship is between a nation, and it’s leader, there’s an enormous price to pay, and it’s a dangerous place for a nation – or a planet. Especially a planet where Pinocchio demands absolute fealty, constant attention, and has the codes to a nuclear football.

“On January 20, Trump’s truthful hyperboles will no longer be relegated to the world of deal making or campaigning. Donald Trump will become the chief executive of the most powerful nation in the world, the man charged with representing that nation globally—and, most importantly, telling the story of America back to Americans. He has the megaphone of the White House press office, his popular Twitter account and a loyal new right-wing media army that will not just parrot his version of the truth but actively argue against attempts to knock it down with verifiable facts. Unless Trump dramatically transforms himself, Americans are going to start living in a new reality, one in which their leader is a manifestly unreliable source.” Politico, January 1, 2017.

There’s a crushing irony in Trump, who promised to be the ‘law and order’ president, who has racked up a blinding total of over 6000 lies since taking office, telling Americans and the world that he believes the words of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who denies having been involved in the murder of U.S.-based, Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Believes MbS, may I add, over the findings of his own CIA, the actual tape of the screams of the man being murdered, and the fact based reality that nothing happens in the Kingdom of the Saud’s without the leader having full knowledge of all actions taken in his kingdom, and in his name.

I’m sure it’s not only those of us who are parents or grandparents that smelled the aroma of defensive lies well before they were fully baked in Trump’s oven of hypocrisy. He did, after all, begin cooking them up even before the Saudi’s had had a chance to properly season those lies with the blood of their tortured and murdered victim.

Kids lie because they have no power. They lie to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions. But leaders have ALL of the power; if what they are doing or proposing is in the best interest of those they lead, there’s no need to hide their words or deeds. Trump’s deep dish lying is only necessary when there’s double dealing, corruption, and personal greed afoot.

But then again, Trump has a lot of practice in both the telling of, and the swallowing of, lies. He’s essentially based his entire presidency and legacy on a roiling sea of tall tales, myths, innuendo, misrepresentations, denigrations of truths, and lie after lie after lie. And his claims are usually at the expense of those whose sole mission in life is to present truths – be it the CIA, the FBI, or the free press.

He’s denied that Russia had any interest in putting him into office, even as witnesses, texts, and chains of emails come to light proving his collusion. No matter what proof is laid on the table, Trump, that sly dog, manages to twist and turn the truth, until his base can be convinced that there’s no smoking gun of evidence, just a ‘light’ claim of wrong doing that he denied at the time, but that if you look at it from his point of view, was never wrong doing, and even if it was, it wasn’t a crime and certainly not illegal .. and hey presto! There’s your new normal … a candy coated lie that everyone wants under the tree at Christmas.

The Teflon coating of Trump’s America is nothing but a veneer of protective lies. Just ask special counsel Mueller, who’s spent the better part of a year and a half exposing the lies of 45’s cronies, lies that come to them as easily as breathing. Or ask those he’s caught in those lies, those that once swore utter loyalty to the Father of Lies, in exchange for a sniff of power … Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn, to name but a few.

Whether it was lying about the paying off of sex scandals, the fiddling of campaign finances, or Russia’s involvement and meddling into the 2016 election, and whether it was for power, loyalty, or reasons we may never understand, Trump’s ex besties will be paying a steep price for lying to federal authorities.

Yes .. I’m aware that all presidents lie. The difference here, though, is the frequency, and the intent .. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton... no question that they were caught lying, in attempts to protect their reputations.

But Trump seems to lie because he just can’t help himself. There’s no matter so small that he can’t find a lie inside it; during the campaign, PolitiFact found that he lied 70 percent of the time. It’s knee-jerk, it’s just what he does … George Washington could not tell a lie, Trump cannot tell a truth.

(anecdotally, Trump once told his butler, Anthony Senecal, that the tiles in a nursery at MarALago‘s West Palm Beach club had been made by Walt Disney himself. Knowing that was false, Senecal protested. Trump’s response was: “Who cares?”)

He is the Boy that Cried Wolf. Many of us can no longer believe anything he says, ever.

Even the most brilliant human brain can only cope with so much misinformation. For the majority of us, we’re easily overwhelmed with a flood of false statements. Our coping mechanism soon becomes overburdened, and ultimately, we begin to absorb the disinformation as a new reality, no matter how implausible those statements may be.

And Trump is also the master of another form of lying, so insidious that most people don’t even see it coming …he practices ‘illusory truth,‘ … the sheer repetition of the same lie until it begins to register as truth in our minds, and even causes the actual reality and truth to be erased from our memories.

Keep repeating a lie and it begins to seep into our minds as truth. Say it enough, and we’ll no longer be able to recognize truth at all.

Worse still, our efforts to refute those lies only serves to solidify the lies as truths. The brain can’t parse out a phrase like, “it’s not true that all migrants are gangsters.” Instead, it filters out the first part, and seizes upon the second as what is important. Refutations and retractions will do nothing to change judgments and decisions we make based upon false information.

I wish that I could tell you that there is an easy way to change the minds of those who have absorbed this administration’s lies and misinformation and made those deceptions into core beliefs. But I cannot. In point of fact, the processing of all of this false information has physically altered the minds of the ‘true believers’ as surely as those of religious cultists. They literally cannot hear any information that does not correlate to what they have accepted as truth.

The base of Trump’s followers will not willingly drop their acquired values; they are far more likely to double down on their emotional connection to the lies than to hear statements that belie what they have come to consider gospel. Trump’s base will have to be ‘deprogrammed’ by someone able to reshape their minds. We can only hope that whomever comes along to do so, has honorable intentions, and the good of their country top of mind.

Addendum: When I first started writing this column, I came from a very different perspective. By the time I was winding up the piece, I was shaken to my core.

“Lying” sounds like something we have to teach kids not to do; kid stuff, not all that important, a mere peccadillo, as they used to say. But it’s so much more than that. When the people we are meant to trust … our elected leaders, civic leaders, religious leaders … lie to us to further their own agendas, their words can warp the teachings and beliefs of a lifetime. And that is some scary stuff. Manchurian Candidate stuff.

If you have an interest in the science of lies, please read this article – especially the second half – and be prepared to look at America with an entirely different and more educated eye by the end of the read.

“ The distressing reality is that our sense of truth is far more fragile than we would like to think it is—especially in the political arena, and especially when that sense of truth is twisted by a figure in power. As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain put it, “The great master fallacy of the human mind is believing too much.” False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible. It’s little wonder that authoritarian regimes with sophisticated propaganda operations can warp the worldviews of entire populations. “You are annihilated, exhausted, you can’t control yourself or remember what you said two minutes before. You feel that all is lost,” as one man who had been subject to Mao Zedong’s “reeducation” campaign in China put it to the psychiatrist Robert Lifton. “You accept anything he says.””

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/donald-trump-lies-liar-effect-brain-214658

My City Was Gone

“Living just enough, just enough, for the city.”

The Big Cities of the past weren’t for everyone. In the hardscrabble days when I was growing up in Montreal or in Toronto, a city rat could always make ends meet, somehow, some way. There was always that neighbourhood where you could find a deal, that part of town where, while it might not be pretty, but, be it ever so humble, you could find a place to crash if you were short of dough. Or a place to score if you wanted to get high. You might not have a Rolex, but you could find a knockoff for a couple of bucks.

When you’re really hungry, a bag of smelts tastes like caviar. And back then, the smaller, inner city groceries, run mostly by the children of immigrants, could always be counted on as somewhere to find something cheap and cheerful to feed the belly of the hungry.

But getting older often means learning the hard way that the city you once knew is gone forever, for good or for ill. Cities change, landmarks disappear, and the people’s needs change. Progress seeks to whitewash the reality of the poverty and the needy that always lurk in a big city’s depths. Your need to find a little corner of the metropolis to call your own won’t necessarily be fulfilled when you most need it, even if you’re willing to bend to nearly breaking point, just to stay where you’ve lived most of your life.

Life in the big city was never gonna be easy for everybody, but for those of us who came here chasing a dream, there was a time when it was easier to make it work. These days, the city rats have to give way to the up and coming high tech mice, who have the wherewithal to pay the big rents, the big mortgages, and who have enough of the ready to enjoy the best of the city that wants to be world class.

When we sold our home in 2016, we didn’t worry about where we’d land up next. Surely we’d come up roses on a nice, new place to rent, someplace where we could keep our ‘stuff’ and exist comfortably for the foreseeable future.

But our search was far more difficult that we’d thought, and we didn’t find a cubby hole to curl up in straight away – there were a lot of twists and turns on the journey. And once here, the drawbacks of this particular rental surfaced, meaning that this isn’t where we’ll be staying long-term either.

But where we were lucky was in having a good credit rating, reasonably good health, and a couple of bucks in the bank. Not that any of that guarantees you’ll find a decent living space, but when you put them all together, it will help make the search just a little less frustrating.

There are several reasons why living in the bigger cities of North America has become harder for the lower to middle class. We’ve lived through decades of foolish governments who hung on to power by failing to increase taxes enough to keep the city running. Our infrastructure has been strained to it’s limits without the injections of cash needed to keep the trains going, or the hospitals able to handle an aging society.

Those same governments, as a rule, also tended to side with commercial leasing entities over renters, allowing businesses to take huge tax write offs on over priced properties that could stand vacant for months and even years, until a lessee with big dollars took occupation.

Real estate prices have soared in the last decade, until even the tiniest, most rundown, residential property in the city starts at a million dollars, and goes up into the stratosphere from there. Real estate agents are becoming the nouveau riche. Who can afford to buy those properties?

And yet the ‘for sale’ signs go up, and in days, come down, with the replacement sign reading, ‘sold over asking.’ How many of these buyers are house poor, I wonder? And how will they pay the overblown mortgage should one half of a couple lose their jobs or become ill?

Gentrification has been excising the more interesting parts of the city for at least the last thirty years. Within another three to five years, Yonge Street south of Bloor will be as nondescript as a Scarborough mall, packed with chain stores, fast food franchises, Starbucks, and a Shopper’s Drug Mart on every corner.

If I wanted Scarborough drab .. I’d go to Scarborough. “Cleaning up” Yonge street really means erasing our sense of history and place, and of sanding down the grit of People City, leaving behind the sort of bland, generic playground that is fit only for the children of the very wealthy.

I know that this is no longer the city that I came to conquer back in 1976; there are new generations coming up behind me, young and hungry, and eager to prove themselves in their fields.

But how are they to survive, when those with the ability to raise them up, choose instead to shackle these young spirits with internships and exposure? Where exactly are they to find the bootstraps these strugglers are supposed to pull up?

And most importantly… where are these young tyros supposed to live? And how are they to eat? When living is reduced to just surviving, there’s little time or will to create.

Once upon a time, those who yearned to enjoy and participate in Canada’s culture flocked to Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver, and took their chances, clawing their way to success, or falling by the wayside. But international big money has taken that option out of the equation.

If you didn’t buy real estate twenty years ago, you’re going to have to be in rarefied company to be able to afford to buy today. Even your ability to rent in a ‘better area’ of the metropolises is an iffy proposition.

Globalization, gentrification … we’re moving from the end of the industrial age into the fullness of the digital, high tech world. And our cities reflect that change, just as at one point they reflected the scions who traveled in horse and buggy.

The cities have begun to depend upon video, cellular communications, artificial intelligence, and eventually, a robotics industry that will force countries to accept a basic income that will keep the lower and middle class in just enough financial stability to stay alive … though that life may not be what many would have considered livable even a decade or two ago. The digital elite will own the residences; the rest of us will vie for the privilege of renting.

And those who fall between the cracks will live in the tent cities that are now springing up to house the homeless.

The cities, as we knew them, are changing. Some cities, like San Francisco and New York, are already gone. and it could be argued that Vancouver is next, with Toronto not far behind.

As much as we may yearn to keep this from happening, globalization is inevitable, and as unstoppable as a tidal wave.

And, for many, that wave is washing away the possibility of aging in place in the Big City.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeMfwUN5z_4

Exit the Idiot Whisperer

Ever have, oh, I don’t know… about 6 or 700 of ‘those days,’ where you start to wonder if it’s actually possible that you just might have woken up on another, identical, but much stupider, planet?

I have spent far too many hours attempting to reason with those who adamantly refuse to see logic or sense. The sad truth is that they are happy in their interpretation of the world. And I suppose I should be happy that they are happy. It’s all working out for them.

In the past .. well, up to about a week ago .. I would have spent a great deal of time and energy attempting to change someone’s mind. But the thing is, I’m not getting any younger, and the kind of gymnastics needed to argue with a firmly committed Trump cultist is something that no longer feels like fun.

It’s more akin to wrestling a pig. The pig likes it, but I just wind up feeling dirty.

The few diehard Trumpists that get through my anti-Trump wall tend to be friends of friends. Again, in the past, I might have opted to be gracious, rather than potentially offend someone. Now, I’m more inclined to block the one, and unfriend the other. Tiptoeing around crazy people just feels too much like work, and baby.. I’m retired.

I’m tired of being the Idiot Whisperer. I quit. Research your own damn questions yourself. Use your Google fingers to do what every other inquiring mind has to do .. look it up. Find a decent source, and if what you’re reading actually agrees TOO much with what you personally feel about a subject, check with Snopes to ensure that you’re not buying into a hoax.

How hard can that be, people? Don’t repeat stuff that’s stupid. If you are unsure if it’s true, look for another source before you pass on that article, that meme, or that obituary. And if the only reason that you’re gonna forward something is because you know it’s going to rile up people – don’t share it. Life’s hard enough without people going out of their way to be ornery.

And for those people who might be job hunting, it’s best to keep in mind that those checking out your resume will probably also have a gander at what you share on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, along with checking your references. You might want to go easy on the kind of uploads that get a person sent repeatedly to Facebook Jail. What you’re saying and sharing online is a pretty good measurement of how you’ll conduct yourself offline, on a social level, whether for business or pleasure. Social media is not the place to let it all ‘hang out,’ or to boast that you fooled that personnel interviewer by temporarily concealing your skin head and rad tats.

Here’s another thing we all have to stop doing ….. taking the bait of every professional AND non-professional journalist that hosts a webpage. Most stories, even those that are put up by highly reputable sources, still fall within the realm of ‘entertainment.’ It’s all about the clicks.

Yes, we agree with the 97% of climate change scientists who assure us that what we’re seeing is real. Yes, we agree with the majority of psychologists pointing out Trump’s massive mental issues and how difficult it is to deal with his deficiencies. Yes, his choices for important roles in his administration are tearing the fabric of America apart, and it may never be able to be repaired …

BUT…

Have any of our complaints and demands for change been heard or acted upon in a timely manner? Yes, Whitaker is likely an illegal, unconstitutional appointment to the role of United States Attorney General, but have any of our heated debates or stern warnings on the subject got him fired from the gig?

No, they have not. The U.S. is essentially an autocracy where things happen as decided by the autocrats, and no matter how cogent our carefully thought out arguments may sound, or of how angry we may become, our words and emotions have about as much chance of making a dent as a Nerf bat.

And our ruminations are about as important to the world as those of the Thirty Helens Who Agree on Coleslaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC7ID1WiFpE

So, you may as well let a lot of those clickbait articles, and columns asking rhetorical questions, to just sail on by. The last thing any of us needs is to have a stroke over the very idea that raking up the over one million square feet of California forest would have prevented all that destruction. (Spoiler alert: It wouldn’t have.)

Better to spend that time answering questions that may help you to figure out what historical figure you were in a past life, and if it’s true that you are a fire horse in Chinese astrology. .

Remember when going on Facebook used to be fun, and we’d connect with old friends and relatives and share cat videos and terrible jokes?

Yeah .. that all changed ’round about 2015. Now it’s more like negotiating an armistice or surviving a Civil War. No thanks, Zuckerberg. Most of us have one foot out the door, and we’re taking our advertising dollars with us when we find our next social media platform.

Now, I am not saying that I am going to turn over a new leaf, stop commenting and forwarding political columns and memes, and devote myself to some new hobby, like fly fishing. Far from it. I will definitely continue to attempt to make some sense of the political machinations exhibited daily, from both sides of the border. Someone has to keep an eye on these bastards.

I’m just saying that not all of us have to be on guard, all of the time. The holiday season is nearing, and a lot of the people whom we care about, really don’t care about politics. In fact, they would prefer it if your holiday gift to them this year would be a promise to not discuss politics at the dinner table. They’d rather have that than pretty much any of the novelty gifts you’ve been thinking of getting them this year … even more than that tea cup you thought would be a hoot.

I’m just saying that it might be time for us to do what the mass media and social media refuse to do – take a few days mental and physical break from the constant bombardment of stupidity, greed, corruption, whipped up paranoia, and hysteria that has become our daily diet.

I’m just saying that maybe it’s time to deny oxygen to the people and things that can’t survive without our steady attention. Maybe letting ‘the cheese stand alone,’ bereft of the attentiveness and arguments that are used to make him appear relevant, will help some of his most stalwart supporters to see what most of us already know – that the trump presidency and administration is a gasbag of noxious farts meant to keep us all looking in the other direction, so that the pickpockets can fleece us without our noticing.

Or maybe I really did wake up on an identical, but much stupider, planet. It’s as good a theory as any other out there.

Politically Incorrect

In the mid nineties, my husband and I decided to do a West Coast trip. We were looking forward to reconnecting with a special family, and enjoying the beauty of California.

But there was one special stopover I was determined to make, one that I had pre-planned and booked as soon as we had decided on the holiday.

I wanted to watch a taping of an episode of Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect.

In Los Angeles, people beg you to come and be a ‘live audience‘ for the shows being taped. But I’ve been on a ton of game shows, a reality show, and some comedy shows, so none of that appealed. Bill Maher, on the other hand …

I’d never missed an episode. Every week I waited anxiously for Friday night to come around, and was sure to be planted in front of the telly the moment it began.

That series, Politically Incorrect, ran from 1993 to 2002, first on Comedy Central, and then on ABC. Ironically, the show was cancelled due to … political incorrectness.

Is that not the most delicious irony?

“In the aftermath of the (9/11) attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush said that the terrorists responsible were cowards. In the September 17, 2001, episode, Maher’s guest Dinesh D’Souza disputed Bush’s label, saying the terrorists were warriors. Maher agreed, and replied: “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, [it’s] not cowardly.”

Despite similar comments having been made in other media, advertisers withdrew their support and some ABC affiliates stopped airing the show temporarily. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer denounced Maher, warning that “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do.” Maher apologized, and explained that he had been criticizing U.S. military policy, not American soldiers.” (wikipedia)

Maher bounced back, with a new hour-long program on HBO called Real Time with Bill Maher, which premiered on February 21, 2003. Bill recently celebrated his 25th anniversary of on air political correctness, with a gaggle of celebrity friends. And I still watch the show religiously, every week that it’s on, and even when I disagree with Bill and/or his guests – which is quite often.

“The term political correctness (adjectivally: politically correct; commonly abbreviated PC) is used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.” (also wiki)

In the wild, as a concept … political correctness is a wonderful idea. It is an effort to put the spotlight on those unconscious biases that many of us grew up with, and sometimes find ourselves blurting out at awkward moments. It is an exercise in trying to dig out those prejudices at the root, and kill them forever. Many of the things we say without thinking betray unconscious biases, because we are the products of not only our society, but of the thoughts and opinions of our parents and grandparents, who lived in a much less permissive time, and who imprinted their preconceived judgments on our little psyches when we were at our most impressionable.

And the truth is, we allow those people whom we like or generally respect, to say all sorts of terrible stuff, not normally said in ‘polite society‘ … our ‘tribe’ gets a pass. Especially if our ‘tribe’ is a beloved parent or grandparent. We may shush them in public, but we know where their prejudice comes from, whether it is warranted or unwarranted.

But here’s the thing – some very well-meaning people have taken that lovely, Christian, politically correct, desire to make everything and every one equal, and run it into the ditch. And while those very well-meaning people may consider themselves pretty ‘woke’ … they are actually in a clear minority.

In fact, it’s getting to the point where they’re no fun anymore (to paraphrase Crosby, Stills & Nash.)

According to recent studies, “25 percent of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives, and their views are far outside the American mainstream. Some 8 percent of Americans are progressive activists, and their views are even less typical. By contrast, the two-thirds of Americans who don’t belong to either extreme constitute an “exhausted majority.” Their members “share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation.”

Most members of the “exhausted majority,” and then some, dislike political correctness. Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24.

On social media, the country seems to divide into two neat camps: Call them the woke and the resentful. Team Resentment is manned—pun very much intended—by people who are predominantly old and almost exclusively white. Team Woke is young, likely to be female, and predominantly black, brown, or Asian (though white “allies” do their dutiful part). These teams are roughly equal in number, and they disagree most vehemently, as well as most routinely, about the catchall known as political correctness.

Reality is nothing like this. As scholars Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon argue in a report published Wednesday, “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” most Americans don’t fit into either of these camps. They also share more common ground than the daily fights on social media might suggest—including a general aversion to PC culture.

If you look at what Americans have to say on issues such as immigration, the extent of white privilege, and the prevalence of sexual harassment, the authors argue, seven distinct clusters emerge: progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the politically disengaged, moderates, traditional conservatives, and devoted conservatives.

According to the report, On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.” (The Atlantic, October 2018)

It seems that 79 percent of white Americans, 82 percent of Asians, 87 percent of Hispanics, and 88 percent of American Indians believe that political correctness is a real problem in America.

If you happen to be a huge proponent of PC culture, that’s gotta come as a shock. But again… irony! … not everyone thinks the same way you do! Even those people whom you believe your well-intentioned political correctness is protecting – might be just as happy if you’d back the hell off, pardner.

I don’t think a lot of people can see just how extreme they’ve become in the pursuit of ‘social justice.’ It’s getting harder and harder to justify the micro-aggression of someone who attacks another person on social media over their lack of political correctness, without seeing that the criticism itself is a lack of political correctness.

Their virtue signalling becomes very like the thinking of the critters of George Orwell‘s Animal Farm, who started with the pledge of “Four Legs Good; Two Legs Bad, ” but soon find that motto a meaningless sound bleated by the sheep (“two legs baa-d”), and meant only to drown out any dissenters. “By the end of the novel, as the propagandistic needs of the leadership change, the pigs, who have learned to walk on their back legs, alter the chant to the similar-sounding but completely antithetical “Four legs good, two legs better.” (SparkNotes)

The propaganda of what is politically correct, or incorrect, is massaged into place to suit those to whom we’ve handed the power of cultural judgment.

(Don’t believe me? Google Scott Kelly/Winston Churchill.)

There is a danger in this deification of virtue signalling, the scouring and nitpicking of the words of allies, issuing ‘trigger warnings,’ and the compulsive polishing of a turd of correctness while ignoring giant piles of far more real and horrific shit going on everywhere else. All of that desire to be perfectly and pristinely correct places too much emphasis on protecting special interests, rather than the larger issues now effectively, and often literally, hobbled. (“I’d like to protest those babies in the Kiddie Koncentration Kamps, but someone on Facebook just called someone else fat!”)

This need to be more morally righteous than the rest of the world will be the death of the liberal movement. It’s not only the opponents of a PC agenda that find the mining of politically correct navel lint both contemptible and jejeune .. it is those possible allies being driven away by non-stop micro-aggressions targeting their every non-policed, casual word.

Last word goes.. as it should .. to Mr Bill Maher, and his thoughts on Halloween.

America – Coming Apart At The Dreams

There are only two things that kept me from spontaneously combusting this week.

This ….

and this …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7cjQ8BsfJw

and for bonus points .. this…

I was in a white hot rage for most of the week otherwise. Watching democracy die in real time is exhausting. Understanding the implications of just what America is losing is heart wrenching.

This is, after all, what many consider a doomsday scenario, one in which an intrinsically flawed president controls all three branches of government and has declared war on American institutions. With the nomination and confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, every branch of government – meant to protect ALL citizens – now soaks in a stew of fragile, toxic, angry, white, masculinity.

I’m KavaNauseous.

There was never any reason to force a flawed candidate down the throat of America; there were dozens of other candidates without multiple allegations of sexual assault against them, just as worthy, perhaps even more worthy. I’m gonna bet that it’s likely none of the other guys had a former female law clerk available, ready to flash white power signs at the camera during his confirmation hearings. And I’m pretty sure that any of those other choices would have still secured the long term goal of tipping the Court to the right.

Kavanaugh was also concurrently facing multiple ethics complaints about his time on the Court of Appeals. A Supreme Court nominee has never before been poised to join the court while a fellow judge recommends that there be a review of a series of misconduct claims against that nominee. With his elevation, those complaints cease to exist.

But the obvious calculation on the GOP’s part, that this candidate holds some very interesting opinions on just how far above the law lies the office and power of the presidency, was escalated once the fight got into the sexual realm.

And it was then that the depth of male anger, resentment and entitlement leapt to the fore. Although the Republican senators made a stab at showing some sort of sensitivity, as in hiring a seasoned, female sex-crimes prosecutor, their true feelings were evident when they repeatedly referred to the prosecutor as an ‘assistant,’ and took over the questioning when it was time to protect their boy, Kav.

For most sane people, Kavanaugh shot himself in the foot when he came out swinging, getting that toxic entitlement all over the front rows of the viewers. Spewing conspiracy theories, breaking into tears for little reason, and aggressively belittling the Democratic senators attempting to question him, he came off as nothing more than an aging high school bully who still likes to swing by the old school to ensure his legend as a ‘hard man’ maintains.

I’m pretty sure that most women who’ve dealt, even peripherally, with a man this angry, feared for what would happen to his wife and daughters when the day was over and they were in the shelter of his home.

And the subsequent oped that Kavanaugh placed in the Wall Street Journal continued to foster a tone that echoed exactly how abusive partners talk to their spouse, after an episode blows over.

But whatever anyone might deduce from his words and tone were totally immaterial; the fix had been in from the get go. In the post filibuster era, all the GOP needed was a vote of 51, and they knew they had that handily, even if they had to bring in Vice President Lapdog.

When Senators Flake and Coons demanded an FBI investigation, some of us actually had a momentary hope that there might be some justice involved in the rush to elevate the justice, but within hours, our hopes were dashed again.

The FBI were essentially ‘hired’ by the White House, and Trump made the rules for how they’d investigate. The entire report was a sham, from start to finish, and served only to give the few senators looking to cover their ass, a flimsy excuse to give to their female constituents.

The sort of secrecy around even the tiny bit of ‘investigating’ that got done when they talked to “nine people – no walk ins,” and not at all to the two main characters, became even more farcical when the results were treated like a Shroud of Turin, too fragile to be accessible to more than a few people at a time.

The report was a cover-up, a charade meant only as a fig leaf to cover the tumescence of the senators about to give one to the women of America.

Now – we do know that every honourable group in America, and even some not so honourable groups – were opposed to Kavanaugh. Even the ABA (American Bar Association) asked the committee to hold off on the confirmation while they re-evaluated Kavanaugh’s standing, based on his temperament. Gonna hazard a guess that his rating, already having been dropped from ‘very qualified’ to ‘qualified’ was about to drop to ‘unqualified.’

In fact, the only group NOT opposing him, on moral and ethical grounds .. were Evangelical Christians. What a pretty sight to see .. that the group considering itself America’s high ground for morality … displays no tinge of morals whatsoever.

It’s a display…a veritable parade … of the power of white supremacy and male entitlement.

And the Republicans just cannot understand why women and minorities aren’t standing up and cheering the decision.

Well, history will have it’s say – Kavanaugh, I firmly believe, will be outed in all of his reprehensible glory, and this episode, regardless of any thing good he might have done in the future, will colour his legacy with a crimson stain of perjury and rageaholicism.

The confirmation also taints the Supreme Court itself. Every decision made while he sits on the court will be treated with disdain and contempt, with his input rightly treated as the squealing of the suck up to the president/Republican party.

This appointment undermines the integrity of the Supreme Court, whose main job is to provide bipartisan checks and balances. All pretense of that is gone with this new court – five right-leaning judges and four liberals. It’s value is now eroded and this obvious partisan lean challenges the courts ability to uphold the constitutional rights of ALL American people. The SCOTUS branch of justice has been trimmed back hard.

” McConnell and our dysfunctional and disrespected Congress have now ensured an increasingly dysfunctional and disrespected judiciary, and the constitutional balance of powers among the three branches of government is in peril.”
(Christopher R. Browning.. The Suffocation of Democracy)

But I also hold the FBI as complicit in it’s own slow walk to becoming ineffectual, and ultimately, too worthless to continue being supported. And it’s a mark of how far we’ve come in normalizing this abnormal administration, that there was no chance that the FBI would overrule the president, and conduct a proper investigation.

The sad truth is that America is in the middle of a legitimacy crisis. Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme Court was recommended by a president that actually lost the popular vote, and investigated by a Bureau that is rapidly losing the faith of the people. A third of the country – what remains of his base – is being whipped into a frenzy at his Nuremberg-style rallies, with politics now such a delicate area of conversation that families are being ripped asunder by partisanship. People are buying t-shirts that say they’d rather be Russian than vote for a Democrat. The country is ripe for another civil war.

All because of one man, who thrives on chaos, and on pitting us against each other. He is the antithesis of a good leader – he is the Jim Jones turning America into Jonestown.

His minions cheer on his cruelty, unaware that they could well be his next victim .. he’s capricious like that. Citizens are chasing politicians out of restaurants and going after them in elevators. A miasma of violence percolates through the land; we’re one upping each other in our passion, and that can only lead to more violence.

These upcoming midterm elections are being called the most important elections in modern history. Much depends on getting out the vote, and Mitch McConnell is pretty sure that the Supreme Court win will energize the Republican base to come out in droves. Democrats are hoping for a Blue Wave, but if there is one thing certain, it’s that after the debacle of 2016, no election can ever be considered in the bag.

What we do know, however, is that the outcome of the midterms is critical to the future of the United States. A Democratic win would ensure a small return to democracy and an opposition with some teeth. A Republican win, on the other hand, would allow Trump and his very worst flights of fancy to finish the job he’s begun … of tearing America into tiny shreds before handing it over to his Russian handlers.

I’ll bet Putin never expected he’d get such a rate of return on his investment into the useful idiot.

Meep Meep! and other Augusty Thoughts

No matter how you may feel about Senator John McCain‘s political past, with his recent demise, you cannot help but remember that he was a war hero, and a stand up guy. His passing leaves us short of what might have been the last real gentleman standing in the Senate. As his life becomes a memory, those who knew him well remind us of those moments that defined a Giant of the Senate and of a politician who frequently eschewed partisanship for a wholehearted defence of democracy.

Even in death, McCain holds firm to his principles. As I read this morning, “John McCain told friends months ago that he didn’t want Donald Trump at his funeral. Instead he wanted former President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush to attend his funeral and deliver the eulogy. McCain famously lost to Bush in the 2000 Republican primary race for President, and then lost to Obama in the 2008 general election for President. Yet McCain chose these two men — one Republican and one Democrat — to eulogize him.

McCain thus ensured that his funeral would be bipartisan and inclusive, making it all the more glaring that current “President” of the United States wasn’t invited.”

Imagine what a horrific human being you have to be, to be barred from both McCain’s funeral, and the funeral of Barbara Bush. And this is the guy who thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. He couldn’t negotiate peace between the two types of candy in an M&M bag.

November can’t come soon enough ….

In a week that hints of a possible end to the Trump administration’s reign of terror, it is a real comfort to know that the rule of law must ultimately prevail, even over an administration as venal and corrupt as this one.

And yet, there are still those that hold a grudging admiration for the Grifter in Chief, and his army of wily surrogates and spokespeople who seek to stop his feeling any sort of retribution for his heinous , malicious whims and vindictive executive orders.

They will assure you that they would never .. NEVER … vote for the Orange Manatee. But they just can’t help themselves from grinning – just a little – when he wriggles out of yet another moral or ethical dilemma.

It’s like Trump is the RoadRunner, constantly outwitting the smarter, but nonetheless ultimately hapless, Wile E. Coyote.

For many who feel vaguely discontented with their lot, there’s a real anger towards ‘smart people,’ those who ‘caught the breaks,’ and are often considered part of a group that seems to be determined to keep the regular Joe down. There’s a resentment for those who have more success, and a belief that somehow, those guys had more, and unfair, advantages.

Because of the tales and tropes we’ve grown up believing, there can be a real bitterness in some. It is as though they believe that intelligence is a negative characteristic, that should be hidden from others, or at least, played down with great modesty.

They believe that “Real Men” don’t have to study, let alone ‘think’ … Real Men just DO! They naturally have all the information they need to solve any problem, even if it’s not in their field, or their realm of expertise. They are simply born with that ability. It’s just something that ‘real men’ know in their always righteous guts.

So when a confident, if completely incapable, con man comes along – especially one that ticks so many of our culture’s other boxes .. he’s tall, he’s imposing, he takes no shit, he is in charge, he’s got a lot of women in his life, whether through matrimony or a lifetime of libertinism … those same people can feel like they’re looking at a man of action. If not a hero, then at the very least, an anti-hero, whom they can admire.

They look at this man who will literally shove aside other men to be fully spotlighted and in charge … and something inside them admires that brutality.

Mistaking recklessness for bravery, lasciviousness for virility, and self-preservation for selflessness, they are happy to carry the 72 Year Old Toddler‘s water.

The OranguTAN likes to come off as a sort of lovable rogue, always ready with a quip, even when it is completely inappropriate or critically cruel of others. It’s all about the luck, the wit, the simple act of being The Donald, rather than any sort of actual information, data or reality. He is completely averse to any pretension of knowledge, or the acquiring of same, disdaining his crucial daily briefs and demanding that they instead be solely bullet points and pictographs. Because a man of his stature, you see, must always be on the run, on the go, being a manly man, playing golf, grabbing pussies. Busy busy!

Eventually, of course, there will be retribution. But up until that fateful day, there will be many who will throw their careers and bodies in front of Mad King Donald, as he stumbles toward a possible impeachment and a probable indictment, believing that their loyalty will be rewarded, if not in the White House halls, than in the publishing offices where they will flog their memoirs for big bucks, in hopes of bringing joy to the slathering, puerile readers who will never come within a thousand miles of such proximity to ‘greatness.’

Until the day that the roadrunner catches Mr Wile E.

……………………………………………………..

In the flurry of convictions, plea bargains, and requests for immunity this week, one long time comrade of the Gibbering Gibbon found his string of publications in the spotlight – and most definitely not in a good way.

David Pecker, notorious tabloid king, owns nearly every supermarket tabloid and gossip sheet in the United States, including the flagship publication National Enquirer. In an effort to get ahead of the rush of those seeking immunity deals, he’s admitted to having withheld stories detrimental to the Trump campaign, by using ‘catch and kill;‘ the practice of buying up a story and then burying it. This would very likely constitute an unlawful contribution to the Trump campaign of 2016.

He’s even admitted to having an office safe dedicated solely to stories and photos of Trump in flagrante delicto. This ain’t no Geraldo hoping for an Al Capone bonanza – this is the real deal.

But while we wait, and silently shudder at what might lie within the safe’s depths, I think it has to be noted that Pecker did not just hide Trump’s offences, he maintained a constant assault on Hillary Clinton throughout the course of the campaign, on his tabloid’s covers.

Despite all this Democratic insistence of ‘going high when they go low,‘ this abuse of the public’s trust, in the lies and smearing of one presidential candidate in favour of the other, cannot be ignored. While the tabloids may be considered ‘entertainment,’ there are many parts of the United States when their words are considered ‘gospel,’ based mainly on how many lesser educated people were raised – to believe that words in print must be true, simply because they have been printed.

We already know a big chunk of Americans – the ones Hillary so rightly called ‘the deplorables‘ – did and do believe these accusations and lies. They continue to buy into Pecker’s steady drip of venom against Democrats, anti-gun activists, and civil rights advocates .. every damn Saturday when they pick up their groceries at the local Wegmans or Albertsons, and then trot down to the VA for a rousing chorus of “lock her up.’

If Hillary can’t bring herself to sue the bejeezus off this turd, a civil suit should be brought against his publications. His stories constitute a willful assault upon the attention spans of the ignorant and the poorly educated.

Lies, propaganda, and a relentless, overt attack on one candidate to assure the political success of another is not free speech – it is collusion between Trump and Pecker, and campaign meddling, and it needs to be acknowledged as such.

All The President’s Men

With two of Trump’s main cohorts, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, now actual convicted felons, it certainly looks like we’re nearing the end of a long and rocky road in American politics. Trump’s misdeeds are beginning to emerge thru the swampy miasma, and while he may continue to scream, “no collusion!” it’s becoming very clear that the ‘best people’ with whom he has surrounded himself, are not being ‘best’ at all. They are felons, and he himself is now the ‘unindicted co-conspirator‘ in the room.

The midterms will – if fair and unrigged – leave Trump in the same place Obama found himself after his first midterms … bound and gagged until his term peters out.

I wonder how these trump junkies are going to survive without their daily doses of vitriol and madness, from the twitler machine. His rage against .. well, everyone who is not him and who DARES to try and stop his putsch … is especially appealing to those who believe they’ve been ‘done the dirty’ by others. “How is it that everyone does not see my shining worthiness, and give me the respect I believe I’m due? ” these egotists wonder, these, the true “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” of whom Steinbeck wrote.

History and reality have no toehold here; the delusions run so deep that they are truly convinced that a loss of over 3 million votes still somehow guaranteed a mandate for their boy, and that ‘half the country’ wanted him .. instead of the barely 1/4th of the country that bothered to vote. Over 60 million people cast their ballots for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, while 59.8 million voted for Trump.

In truth, a total of less than 120 million our of the 250 million Americans eligible to vote in 2016, actually did, and out of that, he still lost. He has never had a majority .. no popular vote .. and certainly no mandate to reshape America in his gilded image.

They tell themselves that it was the ‘real American’ that wanted Trump .. the downtrodden, the grass roots, those left behind by the economy. But again, they are swallowing whole the lies fed to them by accomplished liars.

By income, Clinton led among voters with a 2015 family income of under $50,000 — a group that included 36% of the voters in the exit polls. In reality, Trump’s supporters were 70% white, and male, who earned, on average, between $80 and $90K a year.

Their votes were never about the economy, or the ‘good old days’ when America was ‘great’ .. it was about racism, and making sure that they kept themselves well fed, and that others had no place at the table.

It was about the Religious Right screaming about their own victimization, and their need to force their religious beliefs upon all Americans, like it or not.

It was about terrorizing a historically gullible nation, partial to conspiracy theories, by painting ‘the others’ – be they immigrants, refugees, Muslims or Mexicans – as a demonizing force, set on consuming America’s goodies like so many frenzied zombies.

They still insist that what they want is a better economy .. when they were already sitting on a terrific economy that is now being torn apart by foolish trade wars and a destabilizing of faith in America.

It was about painting ‘regular American’s’ as being taken advantage of by other nations, through globalization. The trade wars were put into place willy nilly, without foresight or forethought, or knowledge .. lead by Peter Navarro, a fool that Jared found on Amazon while he browsed for info on China, and whose theories have been soundly derided by any real economists.

But it made Americans feel good, because Trump told them they were victims .. and for some reason, being a victim that has evil done to THEM, rather than their being the one doing evil, is a historic change that makes a lot of Americans very happy.

They still insist that it is only the natives of other countries that ‘bought into’ the Obama story, regardless of the millions who march against their orange haired boy. They refuse to look at the millions of words written by economists, ecologists, and others far more educated and intelligent than themselves, to see that their boy lives in a fantasy world of his own making. (And it’s one that does not include them – never did, never will.)

As much as Trump’s ‘devil’s advocates‘ …. and has their ever been a truer name for those who twist and turn the law into something more favourable for their vile and demented client … attempt to ‘explain’ why every law, regulation, ethical consideration, or moral tenet he’s driven over actually ALLOWS him to have his way – the time is coming when, barring gerrymandering, vote rigging, and Russian interference … the evil spirit in the White House will be exorcised.

When that happens .. and it will … all of us who have been – willingly or unwillingly – jacked into politics, 24/7, are going to have to deal with a withdrawal from this poison. At first, it will seem like we want that intoxication back. Don’t kid yourself .. it’s gonna be a serious withdrawal.

But hopefully, little by little and day by day, we will eventually get back to a place where our days and minds are not continually hijacked by the worst president and horrific events that most of us have ever had to live though.

Hang in there … as with all addictions, it’s gonna be hard to get straight. But we can do it. The world needs us to do it.

Stuff Is Hard

I didn’t have the best week, to be honest. On Tuesday, I learned that a very dear friend had passed away after a series of health setbacks. Scott Shelson was a good man; look up ‘mensch’ in the dictionary – his photo should be there.

Scott was not only a fabulous musician, he was movie star handsome, smart, funny, athletic, a great husband, and an amazing dad. He ran a courier company for years, and many a musician found a temporary or long term job there when they needed it.

At the family’s ‘Celebration of Life,” the scores of those who had come to honour Scott praised his commitment to his family and friends, saying that he was a man who had never been heard to raise his voice in anger, or have a bad word to say about anyone – even those who might have sinned against him in the past.

A good man – a big loss for those of us who loved and respected him.

Two days later, the world mourned the loss of another irreplaceable human being, when Aretha Franklin succumbed to pancreatic cancer. I can’t remember a world in which she was not a force to be reckoned with, not only in music, but in civil rights, and in her position as senior female spokesperson. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. baby…

Every musical entity on the planet .. and many non-musical entities … have written glowing tributes to the Queen of Soul. So, of course, the Orange Mango waved away the importance of her life and works when he dismissively referred to her as someone who once worked for him. Sigh. Money can’t buy class.

I do know that she was asked to perform at Dead Clown Walking’s inauguration, and vehemently refused to do so. Maybe in the fantasy carnival ride of his mind, he thinks she accepted. Who knows? Or cares?

“Though she largely refrained from publicly criticizing Trump during or after the 2016 campaign, two individuals with direct knowledge of her political opinions said she was repelled by the Republican standard-bearer, his policy prescriptions, and his rhetoric. One source close to Franklin told The Daily Beast that after the election, she confided to associates that “no amount of money” could convince her to perform at the inauguration.”

Orange Condom represents the worst America has to offer, but Miss Franklin showed the world the heights an American could achieve with a real love of her art and her country.

Rest in well deserved peace, Queen … we are richer for having had you in our lives.

While I’m not all that into astrology, August 16 is a very interesting and auspicious day for comings and goings. We lost Elvis Presley, the King of Rock n Roll, on that day, as well as Aretha, seminal blues guitarist, Robert Johnson, and baseball giant, Babe Ruth, while Madonna, Steve Carell, James Cameron, Angela Bassett and Kathie Lee Gifford were born on that day. And … August 16 is also National Bratwurst Day, National Roller Coaster Day, National Rum Day, and National Tell A Joke Day.

Things that make you go .. hmmm … and then pour a large rum and coke to go with your bratwurst, while you tell a joke about roller coasters.

In other news – the world just keeps getting more chaotic, and honest to pete, guys … can we just stop with the getting all up in our own selves, cherry picking facts, and doing a lemming-like march to every available cliff?

Being ‘woke’ is great when we’re in progressive mode. But when a huge slice of the electorate is obsessed with real and made up reasons to be frightened and angry, it’s time to get back to the middle-right, not the Middle Ages. People care a great deal about jobs, the economy, health care, education … and why their kids can’t make enough money to move the hell out of their basement.

Trying to get them to be more interested in deep states, conspiracy theories, and fiery deaths from either an apocalypse or a nuclear war is just asking too much from us on an every day basis. Especially in the summer. Especially this summer.

In a time when populist leaders like Trump and Ford are being voted in with self-proclaimed mandates to do whatever evil their warped little cerebral cortices coax them to do, we’ve got to pull way back from the sinking side of the Titanic.

There are days when I wonder if the ascent of these fools was engineered to wipe out the last of the intelligent baby boomers by having them stroke out, thus diminishing the costs of elder health care costs. But then I remember .. thee and me are still here.

There are other days when I look at America’s underbelly supporting the 72 Year Old Toddler, with their cries of “lock her up!” replacing, “She’s a witch!” and wonder just how very different things are today from how they were in the Dark Ages.

After all – it was the time between the fall of one Empire and the beginning of a renaissance. It was also another time of rejecting science and truth, and of painting bothersome women as witches or animals, with no rights.

Fake News? Oh.. the medieval scribes had an excuse for that!

“Titivillus the Error Demon: Some in the Dark Ages believed that the blame for any scribe’s error—big or small—fell squarely on the shoulders of this Muppet-lookin’ monster. The Titivillus ran with a bad crowd (aka Satan), so it made sense he’d do such devilish work.”

And how very different are the most rabid anti-abortionists beliefs from preformationism; the belief that “sperm carried homunculi, tiny versions of a fully-grown human. It had organs, eyes, a brain—everything a baby had when it was born. In the womb, this little thing just grew from microscopic to baby-sized.” (boredomtherapy.com)

You wanna know what brought about the end of the Dark Ages? It was the black plague, the development of the printing press and the decline of the Catholic church.

So … I guess we’re just waiting on that plague now?

History doesn’t repeat itself .. but sometimes it rhymes … or ..

A Disney World

The cats and I love spring and summer .. and even some of fall. Winter is too snowy and cold, and we’re not too keen on rain; cold rain is particularly nasty.

But having so much lovely, balmy sunshine to enjoy in the warmer months … ahhh! that’s the best! By 6:30 a.m. most mornings, Lord Farlsworth, Lady Jade, and I are on the front porch, where I sip a coffee, and they survey their kingdom.

It’s a time when the world is calm and quiet. You might hear the odd dog bark off in the distance, or listen to an old clunker trying to make it up Vic Park before the muffler falls off, but overall, it is a peaceful time.

At the beginning of this summer, I began feeding a squirrel. She’s a bit of a celebrity on the street. They call her “Mama,” and you can recognize her by the fur she’s missing on her sides. Mama squirrels pull out their own fur to line their babies’ nests.

Anyway, it was probably inevitable that some of the other squirrels would want in on the peanut action. Who could blame them? Free food! And sure, they can be a pain in the butt, when they dig up my flowers to hide the nuts for leaner days, but I like to watch them enjoy their treats.

And they’re so damn cute, with their little paws and interpretive dance poses.

And a whole bag of peanuts is only .99 cents, so what the heck.

The cats don’t mind too much; they’re old. Sometimes the Lord will snarl a little, if they get too close to him. But it’s all good.

I was kind of surprised the other day, though, when something new was added to our morning.

As I tossed peanuts to my adoring fans, I noticed a few tiny sparrows, heads cocked to the side, watching the action.

And then, to my enormous surprise, the little birds began to imitate the way that the squirrels moved and behaved.

The birds were mimicking the actions of the squirrels, in hopes of getting a handout. It was something to see.

I had no seeds to give them, and wasn’t sure how to respond. So I went into the kitchen and found some fresh raspberries, which I washed and dissected into bird-sized pieces. And then I scattered the pieces in areas where the little ones congregate. Not too near the house, because … Lady Jade may be blind, but she’s still a cat.

So now I guess I’m gonna be feeding the birds as well.

On the plus side, I’m hoping there will soon be lots of help with the household chores!

But then again, after all these years, my cats still won’t so much as clean their own litter, the ungrateful buggers.

See, this is what happens to those of us whose early childhoods were shaped by Disney cartoons; we are very comfortable with the idea of animals deserving to be treated with respect, and being part of the family.

We whistle while we work, and know that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. We believe in magic, and of an enchanted land that can be found by travelling to the ‘second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.’

We are always ready for an adventure, and would be quite happy to follow a rabbit wearing specs and a vest down a hole, or to open a tiny door at the base of a tree to see what’s inside.

We are, it would seem, the last of the dreamers. In a cold world where it is everyone for themselves, and “I got mine, Jack,” replaces, “how can I help you?,” those of us who can’t shake off that Disney spell are ill-equipped to live in a world ruled by vengeful, egomaniacal, bigots.

We grew up when ‘men were men,’ and manly men like John Wayne were our heroes, stand up guys, who did what they said they’d do, and kept their promises. At least – that’s what we saw in the movies.

It might not all have been real, and maybe we kids of the 40s and 50s were naive and innocent of the real ways of the world.

But we did know right from wrong, and as we grew up, we learned to call out wrong when we saw it. We expected people to act honourably, even if it cost them, financially or emotionally. We took a person’s word as their vow, and believed them when they told us what they intended to do.

We called a liar, a liar, and blamed ourselves if we kept on believing anyone who continually lied to us. We expected consequences for misdeeds.

We kids of the 40s and 50s grew up to be the hippies of the 60s, and again, we may have been naive, and innocent of the ways of the world, but there was something beautiful and pure about that innocence.

Those days were good days. Perhaps it was inevitable that they would end, killed, as all beautiful things seem to be, by those who put money and their own desires and egos over the good of the many. Some of us even enjoyed being exploited. We really were very young, and not very wise.

But for many of us, we will always be those Disney kids, the ones that are a little bit off kilter, and a little too blind to ugliness. The ones with good hearts, that still ‘pay it forward,’ even when they might not have enough for themselves. The ones that see an animal in the wild, and gasp in appreciation of that natural beauty, rather than reach for a gun to kill it. The ones that will still take the time to pick up after those who would mindlessly despoil the planet, unaware of their own place in the cosmos.

It was the beliefs and the strength of people like the Disney kids that pushed forward every good thing that ever happened in our lifetimes, from the programs of the New Deal, to the establishment of civil rights, and the beginnings of universal health care. Our beliefs and marches ended a war. Progress comes from those who were nurtured to BELIEVE .. to believe in the goodness of the world, and the right of all of us – human or beast – to exist harmoniously on this planet.

There will always be the bad guys, the despoilers, the ones who want to bully and control, the ones who believe that strength is power over the weak. Always have been, always will be. What they can never understand is that their power is only temporary, and as nebulous as a dandelion seed; there is always someone with a more powerful weapon, ready to take it all away from them.

The truth is that It takes wisdom and what is called “ego strength” to actually be powerful. The part of our brain that processes threats commands us to ‘flight or fight,’ and for many, our sense of control ends there. Ego strength allows the person to tolerate feeling uncomfortable emotions for long enough to process the fear or rejection, without having to ‘discharge’ the emotions in a knee-jerk compulsion to ‘fight back. ‘

Aggressive reactivity is not strength, it’s a lack of impulse control. It is the behaviour of those who cannot see a bigger picture that is based on building alliances. They cannot recognize complexity.

In a populist world, politicians who use diplomacy are often seen as weak and indecisive. However, assuming that only brute strength can protect our lands can have grave consequences, especially in a world where nuclear weapons are ubiquitous.

These days, we’re hearing that a lot of people are having second thoughts about the vote they cast for Trump. Turns out that his repressive, regressive, and bigoted ways are having actual consequences on them, and that’s not what they voted for .. they voted for bad things to happen to ‘other’ people.

They voted for bad things to happen to ‘other’ people. And then they were shocked when it turned out that THEY were the ‘other’ people upon whom they had wished bad things.

Karma’s a bitch.

I’ll stick with my ‘naive’ Disney ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKxP9PeGUFM

From Godwin’s Law to Homo Sapien Redux

You know things have totally gone sideways when the fellow who coined Godwin’s Law tells you to feel free to compare Trump to Hitler.

“By all means cite GL if you think some Nazi comparison is baseless, needlessly inflammatory or hyperbolic. But Godwin’s Law was never meant to block us from challenging the institutionalization of cruelty or the callousness of officials who claim to be just following the law. It definitely wasn’t meant to shield our leaders from being slammed for the current fashion of pitching falsehoods as fact. These behaviors, distressing as they are, may not yet add up to a new Reich, but please forgive me for worrying that they’re the “embryonic form” of a horror we hoped we had put behind us.” Mike Godwin, June 24, 2018.

I’m not gonna get into all of the reasons why the events of last week were enough to drive the Pope to drink – I’m sure you’re remembering a few priceless moments when you contemplated either getting started on that heroin addiction, slashing your wrists, or sending Peter Fonda off to the White House for a ‘midnight rendezvous’ with La Famille Trump.

(The thought of the 78 year old Fonda scaling the White House walls, with a dagger clenched between his dentures, gave me a little chuckle, but it scared Melania enough to sic her Secret Service onto the ol’ codger.)

You also have to have had a really good snigger at the draft dodger in chief saying he will commission a new military force – a space force – that he’ll use to militarize space.

Sure! Why not! Those 107 countries who signed a treaty to never weaponize space will be agreeable, I’m sure!

And I’m positive that there will be absolutely no resemblance in look or feel of Trump’s Space Force to the Mel Brooks‘ comedy, Space Balls … none what so ever … oh, who are we kidding? It will be TOTALLY like Space Balls …

Lord Dark Helmet: Who made that man a gunner?
Maj. Asshole: I did, sir! He’s my cousin.
Lord Dark Helmet: Who is he?
Col. Sandurz: He’s an Asshole, sir.
Lord Dark Helmet: I know that! What’s his name?
Col. Sandurz: That is his name, sir. Asshole. Major Asshole.
Lord Dark Helmet: And his cousin?
Col. Sandurz: He’s an Asshole, too, sir. Gunner’s made first class Phillip Asshole.
Lord Dark Helmet: How many Asshole’s we got on this ship, anyhow?
[All Asshole’s stand up and shout “YO!”]
Lord Dark Helmet: I knew it, I’m surrounded by Asshole’s. [Dark Helmet pulls down mask.] Keep firing, Asshole’s!

It’s one thing for this woefully incapable and useless dolt of a president to not know why there is no military in space … it’s another that NOT ONE of his many aides, with long military backgrounds and three and four stars on their lapels, appear to be just as unaware of the treaty. Or maybe they’re just afraid to tell him.

We can say one thing with complete assurance, however …

Meanwhile, I’m getting pretty damn sick of the stylings of mainstream media. I am sick of screaming at the screen as fools prate nonsense for the gullible to digest like unripe corn. Do they actually have people who have read history and politics, who can contradict the lies being t-shirt cannoned to the American people? We know they wear ear pieces; are they not getting fed the truth in real time? Because there’s a lot of days when I seriously doubt the journalistic abilities of those expressing their views on the day’s antics.

I feel like I’m Homer Simpson-ing (Doh! Doh! Doh!) through half of the news coverage on CNN or MSNBC News.

If they aren’t crowing over ‘breaking news!‘ they’re grinding the sexiest new tidbits of outrage into even finer dust. It’s like an enormous circle jerk where the safe word is “porn star.”

And while they’re drilling down into the finer points of some insane indignation, there is an obliviousness to what is going on behind the curtain, and around the rest of the world.

Yes – Melania‘s jacket was a horror show and made her look as culpable as any of the other Nazis running the ‘tender age shelters.” But while we kept that frisbee in the air for 24 hours, the Republicans were proposing to defund Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Our outrage is valid. Anyone with a modicum of empathy is concerned about the human rights abuses going on at the Southern border. Denying these children the potential of asylum, or of even ever seeing their parents again, is the work of monsters. Of course it is. And our protests forced Trump to actually back down on his cruelty, rather than double down. And that’s a good thing.

But it’s a teensy, tiny thing. The jacket was a distraction. 99% of what Trump forces out between his loose fitting dentures are lies and distractions. There’s no ‘art of the deal’ going on here .. it’s that he’s very good at fooling you with his talent at obfuscation, his devotion to the carny’s law, ‘the hand is quicker than the eye.”

Meanwhile, CNN relies on the rush of panels and ‘breaking news,’ while actually doing little more than regurgitating op eds from the New York Times or The Washington Post, so that they can invite the writers of said pieces to appear on air to pontificate ad nauseum, regardless of ability or suitability, to champion their causes.

Listen, you career Talking Heads with the awesome resumes … . It’s great that, once upon a time, you were in a position of power, or were relevant. However this is now, and your in-fighting and fast talking have become annoying, childish, and a guarantee the channel will be changed. CNN needs to send the minor devil’s advocates of Jack Kingston, Paris Dennard, and Ann Colter off to join Jeffrey Lord in the purgatory of obscurity.

We seem to be revelling in a new age of UNenlightenment, where the goal of the game is to see what depths of ugliness and cruelty can be plumbed. There’s a shocking resentment for the marginalized, and a lack of compassion for those who cry out for our help and our consolation.

My pet theory is that we’re in a period of cultural evolution. Just as, hundreds of thousands of years ago, early humans in Africa split into several groups, (Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, the Denisovans) we seem to be splitting the planet into partisan groups with geometrically opposed philosophies and tenets.

It seems to be playing out in force with how we treat those in need. For a good chunk of humanity, immigrants and refugees represent a terrifying segment of humans, one that those who have enjoyed privilege for so long find an abomination, in fear that they will be made irrelevant. (Spoiler alert: They will. And sooner than they’d like.)

By vilifying those who flee their war torn or violence ridden countries, by denying them amnesty or asylum, we become monsters just as horrific as the monsters the needy fled.

Those that post ugliness on social media, or who scream abuse at those who beg for the scraps that fall off our tables – the people who once dreaded having their “Drunk Uncle” spewing his hatefulness at the dinner table, but now embrace and join him in his most disgusting beliefs – the ‘patriots,’ filled with a fervour that pedestals God, Guns, and a bloated golden calf over, not just outsiders, but your fellow Americans – who embrace not only an acceptance, but a celebration of blatant corruption, constant lies, and zero morality ….

These are the unevolved, those that were able to conceal until now, that they only partially made the leap from caveman to homo sapien.

But when this time has passed, as all time does, we will need to try to find our best selves again, from beneath whatever couch cushion they’ve fallen under, and relearn how to live alongside each other in a civilized manner.

Luckily, it is believed by many that, by 2050, a completely new type of human will evolve. With radical new technology, behaviour, and natural selection, some humans will be well equipped to deal with a life completely different from what our parents and grandparents enjoyed.

This new species will live longer, wait longer to have kids, and will be comfortable with robots and AI being ubiquitous in their world. They will likely spent most of their time relaxing in a virtual reality.

By 2050, many of us will have left the playing field, and this new species will come into play, with life expectancies that will reach into the mid one hundreds.

Fingers crossed for humanity to take the opportunity to live up to it’s full potential, and gave life to the better angels that I hope we all have concealed inside ourselves.