I Long for Yesterday

I managed to avoid coverage, yesterday, of the beginning of the end of our democracy. From what I’ve heard, I didn’t miss anything but the groundwork being laid for an administration rife with misinformation, lies, greed, and callous disregard for public service. And sitting right up front were the filthy rich, without whose direct involvement, the average American might still have a chance.

Well, Red America, you got what you wanted. How’d you like that immediate raising of Medicare drug prices? At least it’s not eggs, right? (Yet.)

And today’s snowstorms on the Gulf Coast and other southern states? Get used to it. There will be no more attention paid to climate change, the results of which we’ve been getting hammered with for the last decade. Yes, I know your limited information leaves you wondering why global warming makes it cold, but that’s what happens when Arctic ice melts and airflow patterns change, pushing jet streams out of their usual places. But sure, pull out of the Paris climate accords, so we’re one of four countries not included (along with the climate geniuses in Yemen, Iran, and Libya). You and Fox “News” are right and the rest of the civilized and uncivilized world is wrong. You betcha.

And with the new bird flu on the horizon, our nation’s health will be handed over to some schmuck with zero medical experience and a lot of wrong ideas about medicine that has eradicated diseases from the modern world for a century.

We’ll need to bring in a mathematician to keep track of all the needless deaths from disease, medical neglect, and insurance logjams, that is, if there is anyone left who remembers how to math.

The thing I’m most distressed about is that there is no longer a mechanism for sounding the alarm about what the consequences will be when 47’s actions bear fruit. The news industry has given up investigation and reporting in favor of cheerleading because the big businesses that own all the networks and newspaper companies decided to abandon their journalistic obligations in lieu of currying favor with the once and current emperor. Social media CEOs have turned belly up as well, dashing the idea of fact-checking and preventing life-threatening disinformation from taking root on their platforms. The only people who want to get rid of fact-checking are habitual liars, who need their bullshit to spread unimpeded. But that’s who they’re throwing in with, to keep those ad dollars flooding in.

Once upon a time, journalists stood tall and firm, united against autocrats. There are still some out there too, if only their boardroom overlords would allow their voices to be heard. (Hi Jim Acosta! Hope you enjoy your new overnight shift at CNN!)

No, this new administration laid the groundwork with threats and clandestine meetings, to make sure that their own statements would be amplified, with any opposition reduced to lone voices, wailing in the distance. To disobey would mean an onslaught of federal lawsuits, IRS audits, and costly new regulations. Naturally, there wasn’t a strong backbone to be found amid the business world nor the political one, not even the Democrats. They seem to have accepted their servitude and oncoming irrelevance and disappeared into the woodwork. Nice going fellas… and be sure to keep sending those fundraising emails! Be sure to list all your “accomplishments,” too.

It won’t be long before they come for the bloggers too. The Imbecile in Chief will put pressure on the platform bosses and next thing you know, they’ll have moved “content management” from Facebook to Blogger, from Twitter to WordPress. Maybe we’ll have to resort to smoke signals. You know the EPA won’t step in… there will no longer BE an EPA. It’ll disappear right along with the Department of Education. That way, Americans not only get poisoned by the air and water, they won’t even know how to read the warnings. (You know, from bloggers’ smoke signals. It’s not like they’re going to hear about it on the news.)

And the worst part of all this? Even if, by some miracle, there IS a massive case of Buyer’s Remorse, come November 2028, we can’t expect that there will be an honest election. Guess who’s already working on putting more limits and restrictions on voting.

This 100% follows the Republican playbook wherein they create a prevailing atmosphere of suspicion around the voting process and then “fix” it in a way that plays to their advantage. (Like only having the upper crust vote.) By the time they’re done, the only way we get to place a vote will be with a secret code that they only give you upon completion of your MBA.

I think President Biden did the best job he could, under the circumstances. He left the country in good shape so that the blame for any tanking will fall on the new Administration, at least until Fox and friends can jerry-rig a way to call a spade a club and blame the Democrats anyway.

I’m glad he distributed pardons to Dr. Fauci, the 1/6 Committee, and his family. If the Republicans are going to use the Justice system to play offense, the least we can do is play some defense. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would follow through with these threatened prosecutions despite zero evidence of wrongdoing, even if it was just to make their adversaries pay out the nose for massive legal fees. That can set you up for a world of hurt… just ask Rudy. Although this is America, even after working day and night to overthrow a free election, he still gets to keep his World Series rings.

What a great time to be a white, male, Republican.

Cabinetry for Dummies

So we’re a couple weeks out from the Big Reveal and I’m trying not to be bitter.

I said I’m trying… I didn’t say I was successful.

Now we’re at the “Holy Shit, He’s Really Gonna Do It” stage as he’s rolling out his cabinet nominees. Each one seems more heinous than the last. I mean, Gaetz for AG? That’s certainly putting the fox in the henhouse. I just hope there’s some way that the findings from the Congressional investigation into his sex abuse charges make their way public. Someone’s got to leak it. Dirt that good always finds the daylight, eventually.

RFK Jr in charge of  Health and Human Services? That’s like putting a Christian Scientist* in charge of the Food and Drug Administration. It’s not going to be pretty. In this case, people will likely die as a result of the new regime, especially if a new pathogen makes an appearance.

Elon Musk in charge of a new department dedicated to governmental efficiency? This guy forgot to keep some engineers on hand before decimating his Twitter staff.

I can’t wait to see what he throws MTG’s way… maybe she can be the head of NASA and build a defense system to use against those Jewish space lasers.

Perhaps he’ll name Lauren Boebert to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. She’s probably got all the research material she needs, right in her den.

These are all just preliminary nominations but I think they’re going to stick. There may be outside circumstances that do in one or another but it won’t come from Congress. After his big win, do you really think any Republican Senators are going to buck him? All TFG has to do is bark at them once and they’ll roll over and show him their bellies. They are not going to cross him, especially now when he’s got more power than ever and has free reign to legally torment anyone he chooses. These guys will be the rubberiest of rubber stamps.

I saw that President Biden met with him at the White House, a courtesy he never extended when the roles were reversed. I’ve seen people say that maybe he’ll learn something this time around for when it’s time for him to go.

First off, I don’t think he’ll ever just “go.” His nail marks will be on the door frames before he’s finally drug out of there unless it’s on a gurney. But more to the point, he won’t learn a damned thing because this is the way he thinks it’s supposed to be. People cater to him, he caters to no one. He sees such courtesies as a one-way street, always running in his direction.

The only solace I take from this sideshow is that so many of his nominees will be incompetent. His administration might as well be a homage to the Peter Principle, wherein everyone rises to their own level of incompetence. These fools won’t be able to get anything done because they’ll have fired all the people who knew how things worked.

Elon should feel right at home.

 Director’s DVD Commentary: I vacillated a bit on whether to include this explanation because I hate to explain jokes, but since these people aren’t in the headlines anymore, many may have forgotten about them or never knew.

The Christian Scientists were a slice of Christianity that didn’t believe in modern medicine. Whatever illness befell you was God’s will so the only remedy was prayer. Then if someone died, it was because they didn’t pray hard enough or were otherwise unworthy.

I first heard about them in a comedy bit by 60s satirist Tom Lehrer. When introducing a new song he mentioned that it’s been a nervous year and people were “beginning to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.”

"90-Days" of Conflict

 Even with its current pervasiveness, I’ve never been a big watcher of reality TV. For 20 years, I only watched the Big Three: Survivor, Big Brother, and The Amazing Race, all of which I picked up in their respective first seasons. By 2024, I picked up a couple more, “Bar Rescue” and “Naked and Afraid,” which I may post about some other time. And there’s one other.

Now, my wife, Sweetpea, predominantly watches what she calls, “murder shows.” You know, the true crime series like First 48, Forensic Files, Dateline, and the like. I’m ok with them once in a while, but I prefer more escapist fare. Because we don’t have many shows that we both like, it’s hard to find things to watch together. Because she gets up insanely early and goes to work before I’m out of bed, she also goes to bed early, so we don’t have a lot of downtime together. After dinner, she’ll usually put on a murder show and promptly fall asleep. When she can’t find a murder show she hasn’t seen, she’ll opt for MTV’s Catfish or TLC’s 90-Day Fiancé.

I figured I could tolerate those so I began recording them with the DVR, so we can watch together at our leisure. Catfish is straightforward enough. It’s like a true crime show where the hosts investigate people who get into relationships with other people via dating sites but refuse to meet or ever be seen on camera.

But the 90-Day stuff? Wow. What a mess of humanity… that I can’t stop watching. It’s basically nationally televised voyeurism.

There are several 90-Days brands. The original is 90-Day Fiancé, which centers on couples who date internationally. One will bring the other to the US via a K-1 visa, and will then have 90 days to get married or the visitor has to go back. That’s always the focal question: Will they get married or will it all blow up?

Another variation is Before the 90-Days, which focuses on the lead-up to the travel to America, as they begin exploring an international relationship. There’s also 90-Days – Happily Ever After? which shows the lives of some of the couples after they’ve gotten married and are going about their lives. Then there’s the Bizarro World version, 90-Days – The Other Way, which is where an American goes abroad to marry and live in a vastly different culture.

And if all that isn’t enough, there’s a parasite series called Pillow Talk, which runs right after each of the other shows, featuring several pairs of former 90-Day participants who watch the show and provide commentary.

The whole organization is its own self-contained world, like an Earthbound Marvel Universe, whose occupants have staged adventures and bitch at each other.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I started. I fully admit that this is crap TV and I’m probably dumber for having watched it. It’s just that you get sucked into these people’s lives. There are some you love but many more that you love to hate. And there are some real pieces of work on these shows.

The reason I’m bringing this whole thing up is that I find there are a lot of the same themes that flow through each of these series and most of the dating pairs. There are three main categories of conflict:

·         Money

·         Jealousy/Insecurity

·         Religion

Money? That’s obvious and applies universally. As British comic Spike Milligan once said,

Everyone wants/needs more money. Some lie about it, some cheat to get it, and some think it’s owed to them.

To me, the biggest thing keeping these couples apart is jealousy (and the insecurity that leads to jealousy). Women go ape-shit any time their man talks to, texts with, bumps into, or acknowledges the existence of another woman.

Director’s DVD Commentary: I’m not being sexist; it goes both ways. I just don’t care to bother with the verbal gymnastics of keeping all terms unisexual.

One woman doesn’t want her fitness instructor boyfriend to have women as clients, even though they make up over 90% of his business. Another guy is crucified for “cheating” by receiving sexy videos from women he’s never met. Men flip out any time they find themselves near their women’s previous boyfriends, with whom they are still friendly. One girl got upset because her guy went to church, and there were women there. She also didn’t want him to hang out with his sisters, because they might have friends around. And on it goes…

If I were on that show, my stories would be as dull as dishwater. Most of my friends are women. Anyone I was dating would have to understand that, and if they flip out about it, I’m out. It’s non-negotiable. I will be friends with women. And my mate is free to be friends with men. I’d never be a hypocrite about it. I’m fully trusting until I have a reason not to be. (And I’m quite fortunate that Sweetpea is fine with this.)

I think these “cast members” would ease a lot of their own misery if they just decided to trust their partner and assume the best rather than the worst. And if they do stray, for real, cut them the eff loose and move on. (Those who do bugger off invariably find a line-up of men (or women) who want to go out with them, after having seen them on TV.)

The last obstacle is religion and it’s almost always bout Middle-Eastern or African men wanting to control American women. They never seem to tell their prospective wives all the details of what their lives together might look like, or what she might look like after she’s covered head to toe. They know that if they let on they expect a life of obedience, servitude, and child-bearing at the outset, the American dating pool is likely to dry up

One Egyptian guy was coming to live with his American wife in California, and they had a fight that led to their breakup because she was wearing a dress that, while it went up to her neck, down past her knees, and had long sleeves, it bared a couple square inches of her back. He couldn’t live with such a tawdry display of wantonness. Because of religion.

There is a couple this season, where the 40ish American woman is going to Jordan to marry her 22–year–old guy on the very day she arrives because his religion won’t permit them to be alone together in a room. This story is just getting underway and she has no idea what he’s going to expect of her. This is basically a “boy” who told the cameras he wants her to obey his wishes at all times and not question him as the man of the house. And he needs her to cover up with loose clothing

I think she ought to spank his 22-year-old ass and send him to his room without dinner. These stories always seem to end up the same way, with the American women taking a powder either before or shortly after the wedding.

I don’t see how they didn’t research the culture the second they made contact with their foreign beaus. It would have saved them a lot of heartache and a pile of cash.

Or maybe they just reeeeeally wanted to be on TV.

But that’s the worst part. I can’t even comprehend allowing TV cameras to film every part of my life, every argument, every mistake, every emotional moment, and broadcast it nationwide. And when these fights happen, everything is in play, from bathroom habits to sexual inadequacies to masturbatory quirks. Nothing is off-limits.

And I make room for the fact that producers are egging them on or providing angles to assert to keep the fights going. You can see by their casting choices that they’re counting on the conflict, the louder and more warped the better.  That’s too bad because I’m sure there are viewers like Sweetpea and me who really enjoy seeing decent people overcome international obstacles and go on to live happily ever after. (These people tend to end up on the Pillow Talk series.)

At the end of every season, they stage a multi-episode “Tell All,” where all the cast members get together in New York to answer questions from a moderator and each other. They all get to know one another; some become real-life friends, others bitter enemies. This helps build the 90-Day ecosystem

It’s hard to watch sometimes because they poke and prod for every bit of controversy and conflict, even those that have already been resolved. They ought to call these episodes, “Pulling at Scabs.” It’s seldom pretty.

The bigger point is that we, as a people, are being conditioned to become our ugliest forms of ourselves. We’re guided to be vain, jealous, insecure, snarky, mean, over-reactive, and without empathy. Is this the public influencing the media or the media influencing the public?

Either way, we’re a mess and we don’t seem to be getting any better.

Maybe the next iteration ought to be “90 Days – Incel.” That’s where they take some anti-social, obnoxious misfit out of his parents’ basement, send him on a date with a real woman, and film the inevitable disaster. They just need to make sure the crew has tasers ready. They’ll need to be able to guarantee the woman’s safety.

So yeah, I’m up here on my soapbox, but I’ll still be watching Sunday nights. Damn it.

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Anyone feel that Northeastern earthquake last Friday? I can report that I felt no such thing here in Baltimore, although others had reportedly felt it in the Baltimore/DC area.

Never one to leave a solid omen unpoliticized, Rep. MT Greene (3-Toes GA) proffered the following wisdom:

“God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

As soon as the rational population could stop laughing, they went about setting the record straight, in that eclipses are known hundreds, if not thousands of years ahead of time, and that there are up to 55 earthquakes that strike the planet each day.

Never one to back down from having said something stupid, Greene doubled down by citing more Bible passages:

Yes, even if we accept the irrationality of using the Bible to clear up geological and astrological phenomena, is THIS the person we need to provide the interpretation?

Maybe she has one of those customized Bibles, that contains a passage somewhere that reads, “Let some hateful, small-minded, charlatan conjure up fascist propaganda in My name.”

How do we know that the correct interpretation of these incidents isn’t that it’s a warning against restricting people’s personal freedoms at the behest of one small aggressive sect of religious whackaloons?

That’s what I say it is and I have as much experience in what God intends with His omens, as Ms. Greene does.

Of course, she’s not really talking to the country, she’s addressing the sheep who have elected her twice. I wonder what she’s ever done for her district, other than provide a misplaced air of haughty superiority. I’ll never understand how after her first term, her district could look at the job she’s done and go, “Yeah, we want more of THAT!”

No Labels, No Problem

I saw last week that the “No Labels” group is abandoning their attempt to run a third-party presidential candidate. One less distraction in the mix, that’s always a good thing. I don’t think they realized how transparent their stated, high-minded intentions were. No matter what their messaging said, everyone could see it was all about sabotaging Biden’s reelection chances by siphoning off Democratic votes.

I’m sure the reason they couldn’t find anyone to carry their banner is that anyone paying attention knew that they’d be a mere sacrificial lamb, with zero chance of winning. Any serious candidate is going to wait until TFG is out of the mix, as well as an incumbent president, and take a chance in the free-for-all in 2028. No sense in wasting reputation and resources on a predetermined trouncing.

More from the Echo Chamber

I’m not even addressing the details of this tragedy, other than to point out one of Fox “News’s” most common misdirections.

“Biden ridiculed for obvious hypocrisy…” Who do you think is doing this ridiculing? Well gee, I bet it’s all those talking heads at Fox, OAN, Breitbart, and the rest of the Republican bubble. They manufacture the controversy, and then go, “Hey look, there’s a controversy,” as if it’s a legitimate news story. Rule number one in journalism is that you don’t become part of the story. But I don’t expect that Fox has many J-School grads on the payroll.

Today’s Debunkery

I culled this from Facebook last week:

Just another hunk of fallacy from the fossil fuel industry and their trolls. The point of electric cars isn’t what’s put into them as much as what comes out. Even though there is energy necessary to charge up the car, the emissions are zero.

And the electricity used for charging is created with less pollution than gasoline. So it doesn’t have to be pristine, just less than what we already do. We can’t let “perfect” become the enemy of “better.” But the oil companies don’t want you to think about that. They just want to keep the gasoline gravy train running as long as it can.

And to be clear, I don’t think we’re ready for widespread use of electric cars because the infrastructure is not there yet. It won’t be until there are more charging stations across the “heartland” away from urban centers, and the time needed for charging is brought down. But the tech is advancing steadily and these issues will be ironed out soon enough. But memes like this are trying to sow the seeds of mistrust, to keep the population hooked on gas, regardless of the effect on climate.

Turn Around…

So, today was Eclipse Day. (Gee, I wonder if I can find a US Representative from Nowheresville to explain to me what it all means!)

As Baltimore wasn’t in the path of totality, it was kind of like the sun went behind a thick cloud for a while. It was still light, but sickly-looking, as if it was from an old photograph or a spooky movie. When I went out to retrieve our recyclables bin from the curb, I considered grabbing my post-dilation dark shades and wrap them around my usual sunglasses, but I still knew better than to risk my eyesight just for a glimpse of odd-looking light.

I See Naked People

I’m not finding a lot of current events this week to which I think I can add anything of value. The big bomb last week was the ousting of Speaker McCarthy and the subsequent clown show that has followed ever since. It seems that Matt Gaetz, the catalyst for the big move, had no idea what was to come next after achieving his goal of unspeakering the Speaker. As several have pointed out (before I could get to it), it looked a lot like this:

For the next Speaker, TFG has put his considerable weight behind Gym Jordan, a loathsome individual who’s best known for ignoring reports of molestation from the college wrestlers under his tutelage and for being the House’s greatest suck-up to the deposed president. The guy just rubs me the wrong way… he reminds me of the prototypical back-slapping frat boy, the kind that proclaims himself an “alpha male,” because merely acting like a giant douche all the time isn’t getting him enough attention. He is the walking personification of bluster over substance.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that… so how to fill up the rest of the day’s post?

I used to write a good bit about TV and broadcasting, but it’s been a while.

I’m still a cable guy… I don’t like all the streaming business. My cable package has more than enough content and channels to keep me occupied. There’s always something on I can watch. Although it has been a bit more challenging throughout the writers and actors strikes. But it did afford me the opportunity to try out some shows I’d heard about but never had the chance to actually watch.

I’ve never been a huge “reality” TV fan. I’m mostly a fan of the Big Three of network broadcast: Survivor, Big Brother, and Amazing Race, pretty much since they started. Then a few months back, I recorded a few episodes of Naked and Afraid, just to see what it was all about. I had read before that they pixilated all the naughty bits, so I kinda wondered what the point was. I mean, if you’re gonna go on TV naked, be naked! Put the show on HBO and do it up!

So yes, they do pixilate boobs and crotches. Butts seem to be OK, as long as no one is bending over. They still blur out the old red-eye and shots of the old under-carriage.

The show features participants with all kinds of body types. Some dudes are buff and some women are smokin’ hot. Other times they have big barrel-shaped dudes with their droopy little asses and women who look like they’re one Whitman’s Sampler away from a massive heart attack. Or they have so little meat on their bodies you wonder how they’ll ever be able to survive the cold overnight.

The idea is that they send a man and a woman out into a wilderness of some kind, African savannah, Amazon rain forest, Florida Everglades, deserted islands, and so on. Aside from not having clothes, they get to choose one item to take, usually a machete/axe/big-ass knife, a fire starter (flint device), rope, or netting. Sometimes the show gives them a metal pot, to boil and purify water. And that’s it.

Unlike Survivor, in the standard show, there are no challenges or rewards… it’s just, “Gimme your clothes, here’s your items, see you in 21 days. Go survive.”

They also get a burlap bag with a strap, so it can be worn over the shoulder. They use it not only to carry their meager supplies, but for transporting small food items that the forage or catch. The bag is usually good cover for their privates too. I think that was a production decision, so that they can save on their pixilation budget.

After watching a few episodes, the naked part of it kind of falls away. You just get used to it and begin to identify with just how vulnerable these people are and how little they have to protect themselves from insects, animals, and the elements.

In most cases, the participants are survivalists in one way or another. And by “survivalists,” I don’t mean wingnuts who hoard canned goods, firearms and ammo in their bomb shelters. I mean people who have learned how to live directly off the land, without even 18^th century conveniences. There are a lot of ex-military and law enforcement, but also endurance athletes, hunters, extreme campers, and nature lovers... people who know how to build shelters, build fire from scratch, forage for food among native flora.

The terrain is unforgiving. The bugs alone would send me running for the rescue truck on Day One. Sometimes people get bit up so bad it looks like the world’s worst case of measles. Nights get surprisingly cold, even in desert locations. 40-50 degree temperature swings are common, leaving even married people with little choice but to snuggle up with their partners for warmth.

On the other hand, the production plays up the animal dangers a great deal. I know there are big, scary, dangerous critters out there, but they keep rolling what looks like stock footage, to keep the images in front of the viewers’ eyes. It’s like”

“What was that sound? Was it a lion?”

Cut to a shot of a lion strolling by… it could have been from that day, or a week ago. You rarely see the participant and the beast in the same shot. So I know they take some liberties. But that’s not to say the danger isn’t out there. The participants find big cat or bear tracks outside their shelters all the time.

I don't underestimate the sound of a big animal close by. I was at a zoo once and heard a lion roar. Even from about 50 feet away, the sound reverberated in my bones. I had never felt so insignificant in my life, so I can only imagine the effect on someone that doesn't have iron bars between themselves and something that could swat the mouth off their face.

So, the participants are dropped off, they get naked, then go to a pre-arranged spot to meet their partner. That’s always awkward, but entertainingly so. They use a map to navigate through various perils to find a place near water, to make camp.

In Africa, they make something that’s called a “boma.” That’s where they find a clearing near some trees, and pile up thorn bushes (with which Africa seems to be covered) in a circle, for protection against all but the most determined predators. Inside the circle, they can make any number of different kinds of shelters, depending on their expertise.

Other locations use platforms to get up off the jungle ground, away from bugs and snakes. Sometimes they do a lean-to, other times they practically build a small house, with four walls and a roof. You definitely need a roof because it always seems to pour down rain at night.

Then they have to make fire, for night protection and to purify the local water. Sometimes, when the fire is not forthcoming and someone is wracked with thirst, they drink straight from a stream. In most cases, they later become ill, often having to be pulled from the game.

It’s funny with some of the people coming in who say they’re experts with making fire from scratch, so they don’t bring a Firestarter. Making fire with a made-in-the-wilderness “bow drill” always turns out to be a much greater ordeal than they expect, especially in humid places like rain forests.

This is a bow drill, which many participants use to make fire. You pull the bow back and forth to spin the rod, whose friction with the base will make an ember (maybe), which you take and put in a nest of wispy kindling. By blowing on the ember, you hope to catch the rest of the kindling and then build up into a sustainable fire.

So many people start the show by talking about how they’re going to dominate and thrive. These are usually the people who tap out and quit in the first week. Mother Nature is a great humbler.

After shelter and fire/water, they eventually turn to finding food. That’s where the characteristics of the terrain come into play. Sometimes there’s plenty of game to hunt, or fish to catch, sometimes not. Sometimes the forest is rife with coconuts and fruit, sometimes not. Even the most experienced hunters often come up empty, because they don’t have their gun or bow and arrow. People who know how to make snares or deadfall traps sometimes can come up with some critters like rats, groundhogs, or other small game.

And that’s it… they try to keep their fire going, stay hydrated and out of the elements, and find food where they can, for 21 days. The last day entails a long hike to their extraction site, which is completely draining, because they are often at their weakest point.

The interpersonal relationships are always interesting because they show likes to cast for conflict, like putting the avid hunter with the tree hugging hippy, or the Southern chauvinist who thinks the man needs to lead, with an ex-military woman, who’s used to giving her own orders.

As far as the “battle of the sexes” goes, men and women seem to tap out with the same frequency. And like I said, it always seems to be the self-proclaimed badass who taps out early, leaving his female partner to fend for herself for the rest of the time. (Which she often does.) But I prefer to see the two participants successfully work together. You have to figure, once you go through an experience like this with someone, you’ve got a friend for life.

I sit in amazement at what I see some of these folks do and how much they know. I can’t believe anyone would sign up to go through such a trial by fire (and rain). So while I think I’m learning a lot about how to survive in the wild, there is zero chance I would ever try such a thing myself. My version of surviving in the wild is staying at a 2-star hotel. I’ll take the bedbugs and a lousy bar over the spiders, snakes, mosquitos and sand flies.

Other iterations of the show feature veterans coming back in groups to engage in longer stays, for 40 or 60 days. When they stay that long, they are often given bows and arrows, especially in Africa, which is pretty much of a necessity. In other locales, they can be given fish hooks or giant hooks to catch gators or caiman.

I’m not one for hunting, ever, but I do understand situations where you either kill, or you don’t eat.

But some of these people are truly amazing at what they do, with deep knowledge of their environment and how to do just about anything. I even saw one woman take the fat out of an alligator they killed, and make soap with it. And that fits with the vibe, because any time something is killed, the participants use almost everything. The meat they can’t eat right away gets smoked and dried into jerky, the pelts get used for clothing, or cut up into shoes, for protection against thorns and jagged rocks. The inventiveness fascinates me.

Naked and Afraid runs on the Discovery channel on Sundays, usually in an all-day marathon. Sometimes they also run on Animal Planet.

Unspeakable

I wanted to pull up to a front-row seat and bring a tub of popcorn, but the proceedings stopped being funny and ended up giving us all a sneak preview of the clusterfuck the House of Representatives is going to be for the next two years.

They say depravity sells and there it was out on display; a parade of fame and power whores lining up to see who could be the most petty, vindictive, and self-promoting. I wonder what kind of ratings CSPAN got last week…

One of the things that bothered me the most was the oratorical cover they tried to give themselves, speechifying about how they needed to “clear the swamp” and get back to “The People’s business.” But when you get a look at their action agenda, you find nothing but the pursuit of vendettas and the appeasing of the rich. They’re already talking about gutting the Ethics rules. Is there anything more Republican than that? That tells you all you need to know about that group of people. Rules are for everyone else because they were chosen by God, and He wants them to have nice things.

I’m sure there’s a reason their God wants them to cut Social Security and Medicare, despite providing massive assistance to millions of Americans. Just ask them; they’ll come up with something. Although, the fact that it’s something their rich benefactors have been wanting for decades probably won’t be mentioned.

They probably even have biblical verses to back up their desire to end assistance to Ukraine. I imagine it goes something like, “And I say unto ye, let thy allies fighteth their own battles against tyranny and oppression, for it shant be thy problem. Hunter of Biden’s laptop will not investigateth itself.”

It’s not like there was anyone to root for here. Picking sides was like trying to choose between syphilis and herpes. On one side, you had the noodle-spined Kevin McCarthy, who in his clumsy pursuit of power, stepped on his own balls by bargaining away any power he hoped to wield. On the other, a bunch of know-nothing attention whores, clamoring to get their way by holding their breath until the whole House falls in. And that would be just fine with them, as it seems their main preoccupation is to grind the government to a halt anyway. They can’t wait to shut things down over the debt ceiling, which is merely the approval to pay for the stuff they already bought.

You know it’s the End of Days when MT Greene sounds like the voice of reason. Of course, that’s only because she landed a special deal with McCarthy, to ensure her own seat at the head of a table. I’m sure we’ll find out, shortly, which committee she’ll be screwing up.

Now they’re bending over backward trying to find a way to blame the Democrats for the display of Republican dysfunction. It won’t work though, not on anyone who isn’t down the Fox “News” rabbit hole. When you elect a bunch of clowns to run the circus, you can’t blame the acrobats when the Big Top inevitably collapses. We’ll have to be sure to elect some lion tamers in 2026.

And can you believe there were people in the media wondering why the Democrats weren’t there to cut a deal with McCarthy? Personally, I wouldn’t trust any deal coming from a Congressional Republican. They’ve already shown an eagerness to play both sides of any fence, taking any stand that will help them today, regardless of taking the opposite stand yesterday. They are a team of “Lucys,” who can’t wait to pull the ball out from under Charlie Brown, again and again. I wouldn’t piss on their shoes if their feet were on fire, let alone help them solve a problem of their own creation.

The best we can say about last week was that it was a week not spent screwing the American people. I’m sure they will begin their mission of financially fellating their rich donors later this week or next, once the rest of the mundane Housekeeping tasks are handled.

I think that’s why the voting spectacle finally came to an end. The Donor Class button-holed some of their loose cannons and told them to cut the shit and get on with siphoning money from the treasury, right back to them, as they were “elected” to do. Time was a-wasting. And if they wouldn’t do it, they’d find themselves being primaried in two years by someone that would.

In the meantime, I hope President Biden is getting his executive orders in order. If he wants anything done before 2025, he’s going to need them.

The Home Stretch

 Here we are again, approaching the next Most Important Election of our Lifetimes. Early voting has already begun in many places; I dropped off my ballot at a drop-box on Friday, so my deed is done. So it’s time to talk about this election in “now” time, rather than in some amorphous future.

What happens with this election is going to send the country careening in one direction or another. Or possibly several.

The Republicans aren’t even hiding their intentions anymore. They’re explicitly saying they want to enact a national abortion ban, overturn the right to same-sex marriage, further restrict contraception, and cut back on Social Security and Medicare.

All of those scare the piss out of me because there’s no reason to think they won’t try to do what they say they’re going to do. Many people thought Republicans would never really kill Roe v Wade, but here we are. They put the right religious nutjobs in place and they did what they intended to do all along. We should not have been surprised.

Granted, they’re not exactly running on all those points. You won’t see many commercials saying “Hey, I want to take your (or your parents’/grandparents’) social security check away, vote for me!” No, they’re busy trying to scare you about crime and inflation. Fear… it’s what works.

That their threats are hollow doesn’t matter. They know most people won’t learn that the highest crime states are the ones that went for TFG two years ago. And they know that inflation is a global phenomenon, with many countries worse off than we are, but they don’t care. Nor do they have any kind of plan to reduce inflation themselves. They just blame Biden and the Democrats.

The funny thing is that the new British Prime Minister just got yanked out of office when her tax cuts and supply-side economic plans torpedoed their economy, the same idea Republicans enact every chance they get.

I suppose they could always ask their wealthy business-owning donors to do them a favor and stop price-gouging so hard for a little while. But I doubt they’ll even do that because they don’t give a shit. Do you think Mitch McConnell gives a rip about how much milk costs? Not a chance. He’s too wrapped up in setting a price for how much a Congressman costs.

So these are the ads and memes we’re seeing this week. Prices are high so vote Republican. Crime is still here so vote out the Democrats.

For me, the situation is numbingly simple. Assuming that the Dems really are at fault for high prices, (and I don’t believe for a second that they are), I’ll gladly pay a few more bucks for gas and groceries if that will buy half of our citizens the right of bodily self-determination, Social Security and Medicare gets shored up rather than cut down, everyone can love whomever they choose, use whatever birth control they choose, and the rest of the government takes climate change as seriously as the military does. Prices go up and down and always will, but you can’t put a price on basic human rights. And the right of rational people not to have to abide by the fever dreams of religious wingnuts is supreme.

I do think there may be enough votes out there to keep Congress under Democratic control; I just worry about how far those people who have weaseled their way into positions of influence over elections will go to ensure the outcome they desire. What are all those hired to “watch” and “challenge” voters going to do? How many state legislatures, who have gerrymandered themselves into permanent positions of power, will seek to overturn legal results that they deem fraudulent, for no other reason than that they don’t like the outcome?

We only survived the last election with a degree of sanity because there were so many people of high integrity, from both parties, who were running things. Unfortunately, many of those principled individuals have been driven from the position by harassment and death threats, making room for the aforementioned weasels. I think the aftermath of this one is going to be bad. Like, “democracy-killing” bad. If we’ve learned anything in the last two years, it’s that it doesn’t take much to get a crowd of idiots to take up arms against the government, out of “patriotism.”

Happy Independence Day. Now Half of you Surrender your Rights

Happy Fourth of July, or not. I’m not much in the mood to celebrate Independence Day this year. When half of the population is not allowed dominion over their own bodies, it ceases to be a free and independent country. Theocratic and independent would be more accurate. We are now in a cross between Iran and old South Africa where a minority of religious extremists dictate what happens to hundreds of millions who disagree with them.

I read yesterday that about 1 out of every 50 pregnancies are ectopic, where the embryo attaches in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. This condition will kill or severely injure the woman unless it’s treated by what is technically an abortion, which has been made illegal in about half the country.

The math on that is alarming. In 2019, there were 3.75 million pregnancies. That translates to 75,000 ectopic pregnancies. If half of those are in states where abortion is illegal, severely restricted, or has the process unnecessarily prolonged (because time is of the essence here), that leaves 37,500 women who will be killed or injured by religious Republican ideologues. It would leave 37,500 widowers/boyfriends and an untold amount of motherless children.

While Red State governors measure their metaphorical dicks by seeing who can impose the most draconian anti-abortion laws, tens of thousands of citizens will be killed or wounded as a result. Ain’t that America?

It is now.

More on the Hearings

There have been a couple more January 6^th hearings since my last post, one regarding TFG trying to use the Justice Department to facilitate a coup by installing a hand-picked Yes Man as AG, and one on testimony from the aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

The Justice Dept. hearing seems so long ago now, so I won’t delve into much of it. Suffice to say that Jeffery Clark must feel like the biggest putz in the country. The guy was publicly reamed out in the Oval Office in front of the president and now the nation. There’s nothing like having a bunch of the most successful lawyers in the country call you an idiot. Not that I think they were wrong, it’s just so humiliating.

“You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill," said Deputy AG Richard Donahue. I think that’s one of the most effective put-downs in recent memory.

And according to the official phone log, TFG had already made the decision to fire the AG and install Clark.  Records show calls to Clark as being to the “Acting Attorney General.” That means the decision had been made and this conversation apparently made him change his mind. The thought of mass resignations throughout the upper echelons of Justice must have had an impact. He may have been able to put a toady in charge, but there would be no apparatus to get anything done in such a short window. And the story would cease to be about righting a “stolen” election and become about the president firing the Justice Dept. If I give TFG credit for anything, it would be for knowing how things will play in the media.

Tuesday’s surprise hearing came while I was on vacation, which Sweetpea and I spent in Ocean City MD. I meant to come up from the pool and watch the hearings but I figured I could always watch it when I got home via DVR. Unfortunately, the hearing was so hastily scheduled that the TV guide grid must not have been updated, so it was never recorded. But I did catch the recaps later and saw much of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.

It’s unfortunate that the items that people are talking about the most really matter the least. Like grabbing the steering wheel of his motorcade vehicle and trying to force the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol, rather than the West Wing, where they were heading.

It’s not something he will ever be charged for so it’s more like a sideshow; another look into his infantile self-absorption. Tell me, does it surprise you at all that he had a meltdown like this?

“I’m the effing President, take me up to the Capitol!” Is that not the ultimate “Do you know who I am?”  moment? It’s completely in character.

Right away, GOP apologists started disputing her testimony, but of course, they’re not under oath. She was. Under oath beats carping from the sidelines every time.

I heard others talking about how it would be too difficult for a president (especially this porky one) to maneuver close enough to the barrier in “The Beast” (the president’s famed armored limo) to reach the steering wheel. What they don’t consider is that this incident didn’t take place in The Beast, it was in smaller, alternate transport. He was shown on video leaving his 1/6 speech in the SUV, not The Beast, where there are no such impediments to reaching up to the driver. It totally could have happened.

Other people are calling it “hearsay.” But she never claimed to have been there, she was testifying to what she was directly told by someone who WAS there, in the presence of a second person who was there.

But like I said, all this is really nothing that matters in the grand scheme of things. Nor is the story about throwing his lunch at the wall. Big deal… he acts like a petulant child. Who didn’t know that already?

What I found chilling was that not only did he know the crowd assembling for the event was armed, he wanted the Secret Service to allow them into the Ellipse anyway.

“They’re not here to hurt ME,” he said.

Another completely in-character quote. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. Hell, he wanted to LEAD the armed resistance straight to the Capitol and demand the presidency at gunpoint. Of course, this puts to bed Republican BS about the crowd being Antifa. He knew it wasn’t Antifa or he wouldn’t have even been out there in the first place, let alone while letting them have guns.

They told him the crowd was chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and he said, “Mike deserves it.”

I also wonder why all these armed insurrectionists weren’t arrested on the spot? Rifles and ammo clips are illegal in DC. They could have arrested these people on the spot, rather than just turning them away from the speech area. You know if it were a BLM protest that came packin’, it would be a different story. I’d wager there would be arrests in record numbers.

But we already know that the underwhelming police presence was intentional, and those who WERE there were told not to use guns and not to get physical with the crowd. Because they were TFG’s people not just a mob of 3^rd class citizens.

The violence on 1/6 was not something that got out of hand, it was the intention all along. Again with the Republicans, it was a feature, not a bug. He knew it, his staff knew it, they wanted it, they created it, and it happened just as planned.

This is not what is supposed to happen in a free and democratic country. So this Independence Day, I find very little to celebrate. We have become just like the tin pot dictatorships we used to oppose. Happy birthday to us.

Vacation Observation

One of the best things about going on vacation is the freedom to be lazy. If I laid around the house reading a book all day, I’d feel like there was some kind of chore I should be doing instead. But on vacation, I have license to sit by a pool or on the beach and spend the day reading a book. I knocked out two books in two days without a single regret. (Cheap mystery fiction, if you’re curious.)

But whatever we were doing came to a halt around 8:00 PM so that we could fix some drinks, adjourn to the balcony, and watch the sunset over the bay. It’s a sweet reward for getting through what has personally been a very tough last year.

Homeless Thoughts - the Idiotic Edition

We’re going to jump around a little bit with this post. I do this when I don’t have a big cohesive topic to ruminate on, merely a bunch of semi-coherent notions.

More on Forced Birth

I’ve said for years that the top Republicans don’t really care about abortion, they just love to use it as a wedge issue; something to get their voters worked up about. It’s been a great issue for them because they’ve had Roe established for so long, that there was never any danger of having to face any serious backlash.

And the most important thing was that fighting the abortion wars didn’t cost Big Business any money. Overturn? Don’t overturn? Doesn’t matter a bit to the Koch Brother and the energy industry. Or Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Farma, Big Tech, etc. Just as long as it could continue to be used to drive the evangelicals to vote Republican, they could count on passing tax cuts and cutting safety regulations.

But along the way, some True Believers have made it to the top levels of government. To them, the Mike Pences of the world, abortion is a moral issue they take personally, as in making it their personal business to force you to adhere to their morals in lieu of your own. And now, we have a fistful of SCOTUS members who can’t wait to make the rest of us dance to their church music.

So it will be interesting this fall to see if Republicans will be forced to pay a price for installing religious ideologues into the land's highest court. If they don’t, it’s the end of our secular world as we know it, because they’ll be coming for birth control and gay marriage next. The precedent will have been set that there are no more precedents, especially those the religious folk doesn’t like.

Speaking of More Ons…

I saw this headline last week:

That’s the problem with having a “useful idiot,” that no matter how useful he is, he’s still an idiot. I wonder if Putin made TFG sit on his lap as he explained world history and geopolitics to him. That would have merely been the visual representation of what had been going on all along… a ventriloquist act.

Poll Vaulting

I saw a poll a while back that asked, “Is the country going in the right direction?”

I never know how to answer that question unless I know who’s conducting the poll because they can interpret the answer in whichever way suits their needs.

I say the country is going in the wrong direction. A conservative outlet could consider it evidence that Biden is doing a bad job. A progressive outlet could make the case that the public is against the GOP roadblocks to everything the Dems try to do because the Republicans and Sinimanchin put the kibosh on it. (Which would be the reasoning behind my answer.)

Everybody Hates Joe

It looks like “baby formula” is the new “gas prices.” One of the 3 major providers of baby formula in the US had to recall their goods and shut down production due to contaminated products that killed or sickened some babies. These are post-birth babies, so the Republicans don’t really care about them, but it still makes for a good smear. Just look at how many GOP congressmen voted against removing the Trump-era tariffs on Canadian formula, to help resupply our stores. But Fox “News”  and conservative media are beating this new drum trying to put the blame on the Biden Administration as if Joe had his minions out creeping about the factory dropping E-Coli into the vats. You know, because anything bad that happens when there’s a Democrat in charge is the Democrat’s fault. And if there’s a Republican in charge, it’s also the Democrat’s fault. 

And how do they get away with doing that?

BoomaRona

Watch out, the ‘Rona is on the way back. Even in highly-vaccinated Maryland, the stats have made a big U-turn.

This clip was from Saturday’s Baltimore Sun. Only a month or two ago, the positivity rate was around 1.5%. The number of patients hospitalized with COVID was under 150. But since all the rules have been shelved and people rushed back to acting like they did in 2018, the ‘Rona has waltzed right back into our midst.

I still need to get my second booster. I’ve been waiting for two reasons: 1) I’m hoping they come out with an Omicron-specific booster and 2) I’d like the coverage to go further into this fall and winter’s germy season. Although I have a plane trip coming up in a couple weeks so I probably ought to get that booster right now. I plan to wear a mask but I doubt there will be many more doing so at the airport and on the plane.

On the Home Front

We have a big sea-grass bush outside the house that needs regular attention. This is its usual state:

This is a shot from mid-summer a few years back. Normally we clip it down in the fall because if we don’t, all those leaves turn brown and it looks like Cousin Itt on a bad hair day. But we never got around to it last year.

So with all the alternating rain and sun we’ve been getting, Cousin Itt was completely out of control. All the brown-bladed leaves were still there, but a lot of fresh green ones popped up as well. We should have done it earlier, before the new growth, but we needed gardening gloves. Those blades are finely serrated and sharp; they’ll cut your hands to pieces in a series of paper cuts. You’ve heard of Death by 1000 Cuts? That’s what it’s like to tackle Cousin Itt without gloves.

So after running out for gloves on Saturday, Sweetpea and I got the job done. We try to avoid having to rake up all the leaves, so we just cut bit by bit. I would grab a big handful, she would cut it off with the shears, and I’d drop it right into the leaf bag. It’s not the speediest method but it makes up in efficiency.

But it’s funny how much different he looks.

This is the final product.  And you should have seen it before he got a final once-over with the electric shears. It looks like a 5-year old that just cut his own hair. But don’t fret; within a month or so, he’ll be back to looking like his usual hairy self, albeit taking up a bit less space.

The whole experience, out there in the fresh air, the sun beating down on me, working with Mother Nature’s children, totally makes me want to move into a Condo and stay inside all day. Mr. Greenjeans, I will never be. And that's your second ancient TV reference for this story.

And Finally…

An apt cartoon from Sunday's Funnies, Pearls Before Swine, by Stephen Pastis.

War, Assault Trucks, Inflation, and Justice

Well, it looks like the Dogs of War are barking up a storm. The morning and afternoon news was all about how we now expect Russia to invade and not only engage with the Ukrainian military but move against civilians, especially those who they deem as likely to resist Russian occupation. They’re expecting abductions, assassinations, detentions, and the like. So how’s your 2022 going?

Here’s one angle I haven’t heard covered yet, regarding the reasons for Vlad’s insistence in pursuing this universally decried aggression. I think it could be more election manipulation.

If they can make the US look bad or ineffectual, he knows the right will put the blame squarely on President Biden. Those who don’t follow the details are likely to agree, given the hue and cry they’ll see coming from the Right. Maybe this is a way to get another Russian-friendly stooge in office, to eliminate the largest and most effective source of resistance. Maybe it’s the former stooge again; maybe it’s another devoted MAGA.

They’ve already spent a great deal of time and resources engineering the 2016 election, why not try another tactic? This way he reclaims old Soviet territory and neuters his opponent at the same time, killing two birds with one tank.

Asked and Answered

Answer: Just as soon as there’s no more regulation on trucks regarding their speed, loading limits, driver qualifications, and requirements. I’m sure the NRA can let them borrow some legal language to pursue to convince the courts that driving a truck anywhere at any time is somehow a Constitutional right. If more people start getting killed by trucks, that’s just the price of freedom.

Misplaced Nostalgia

And I could really go for accurate information once in a while. Can conservatives ever make a catchy meme that isn’t skewed, invalid, or just plain wrong?

·        Gas was $1.87 because there was a pandemic sweeping the nation and people staying home and not driving. It was simple supply and demand. The demand was torpedoed. When that happens, prices fall. Is it really worth hundreds of thousands of deaths so that you can have cheap gas?

·        Inflation comes with the cost of a recovering economy. And it wouldn’t be nearly this bad if corporate America wasn’t vested in keeping things expensive. All the large corporations are posting record profits, all the while raising prices due to “inflation.” Inflation of their bonuses, maybe. (And I think this is also a backdoor way of getting more Republicans elected. If the 1% can keep the “inflation” talk coming, they’ll see some more sympathetic congressmen elected this fall and maybe a president further down the road. They know Democrats have a target on their massive profits to target for taxes, you know, so the lower and middle classes might enjoy a slight respite from carrying the country’s financial load for the last 20 years.

·        I think the panic about empty shelves is overblown. I’ve been out shopping several times in the last months and there have been no bare shelves to be seen. Occasionally a store is out of one thing or another, but that’s no different than any time prior. Maybe Baltimore is just an oasis in the vast food desert but I doubt it. It’s supposed to be a pit of death and destruction, isn’t it? That’s what Tucker keeps saying. Yet our shelves are full. This is another Republican gambit to maintain the image of general mayhem and catastrophe, to use for electioneering.

·        Fuck your alibis for “mean tweets.” This is coming from people who want to change history because it might make little white kids sad. Presidents are supposed to model uplifting behavior, not sling slurs at people they deem “less than,” for whatever reason. The party of “Fuck Your Feelings” is only talking about other people’s feelings, not their own. Those are sacrosanct.

Lock Them Up

The heat is really getting turned up on The Former Family (TFF). Now he’s trying to pull the same shit he used to with the Mueller investigation back then and that Maryland’s State Prosecutor is right now, which is claiming innocence because the prosecutors have an agenda. I’ll say again, if you don’t commit a crime or cheat on loans, land deals, and taxes, there’s nothing to find. But they have reams of evidence on paper. They have all the proof they need right now. I can only suppose they’re not charging yet because there’s still so much more to add to it.

Of course, none of this makes a difference to the MAGA crowd. It’s only a crime when a Democrat does it, especially Hillary.

They’re all for locking their political opponents up or even giving them the death penalty but expect their people to get away with anything and everything. They storm the Capitol, kill and injure cops, destroy the facilities, and they’re all martyrs because they were held accountable.

Modern conservatives literally stand for nothing, except “Me first.”

Bite This

The Olympics has finally come to an end. I, for one, enjoyed watching. I think the winter games seem so exotic. I’d tell you what I think about them but I basically said everything in 2018 that I would say now. But I’ll repeat one part because it still pisses me off.

“One thing that always bugs me: the way photographers badger gold medal winners into posing while biting their medal. Can we please stop this? It's as pointless as it is trite. These aren't 1800s gold prospectors, they're elite athletes. And curlers. If I was a gold medalist, I'd shut that shit down in a hurry. They'd be like, "Hey, bite the medal." And I'd be like, "Hey, bite my ass, you no-talent hack! Why don't you go somewhere and grow an original thought?

More Dad Stories

For some reason, my dad had a thing about wearing glasses. Granted, for most of his life, he didn’t need them. He was proud of his eagle-eyed vision. But age takes no prisoners. Once he hit his 70s, it was obvious to all that he needed glasses. He’d always say his eyesight was fine, he just had a problem in dim light. But he wouldn’t wear glasses then either.

Eventually, I hear, he lowered himself to wearing non-prescription “cheaters,” from the drug store. But never in front of anyone but Mom.

All that was fine and good, but when it’s time to renew one’s driver’s license, it gets real. But Dad found a way to weasel out of that too. When it was his turn to go for the eye test, he just repeated the series of letters he heard the guy in front of him say. Worked like a charm.

How he managed that with his bad hearing is still a mystery.