humor

IV, OV, TB, BB, and More?

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A long time ago in dog years, I postulated and pontificated (PP) about an Inner Voice (IV), an Outer Voice (OV), and The Body (TB), as parts of my physical and psychological makeup. It was declared that IV was shy and slightly impetuous, OV was measured and careful, and TB went along for the ride, doing what it was told by one of The Voices (TV).

It is emblematic of the constant growth of human intelligence that I PP*, now, about one more important, needed, part of my existence. As the months passed since IV, OV, and TB entered the Lexicon of The Essay, much thought was done by all** about how my “system” actually works. My old remarks about thought, action, and reaction suggested IV and OV fought for supremacy when in situations they did not inherently agree, and the winner then communicated the “Deemed Proper” (DP) action to TB.

But that is not how “we” (WE) work.

Since WE have (nearly) completed recovery from The Calamities, certain facts revealed themselves and caused this revision: IV and OV do not settle their own arguments. It took months of navel-gazing to finally understand “something” else was making the Final Decision (FD) for each circumstance.

Let’s review using the doughnut (DN) example from the past essay. My IV says it wants to eat the last DN. My OV says I don’t need it and urges me to be considerate, someone else might want it. My TB says it doesn’t care either way and can “find a place for it” if WE eat it. See? Who makes the FD about the DP action of the DN?

Much like an algebraic equation, the answer to the DN question is obvious: the DP FD is made by a Big Brain (BB). BB*** acts like an umpire and does not create circumstances causing the need for an FD. BB receives input from IV, OV, TB, and the outside environment (OE) before determining the scope and ramifications DP actions mandated by the FD will have on the OE as well as TB. When all the appropriate arguments are submitted and analyzed, BB will reach a FD and communicate important messages (IM) to TB who will then distribute IMs to its subsidiaries to begin the DP action.

BB then receives IMs back from TB about progress and final results (FR), plus an after action review (AAR). AARs are always needed so BB can analyze and make future FDs about FRs when IV and OV need clarification or future guidance (FG). FG is extremely important to avoid future mistakes (FM). Imagine the DN example if IV convinced BB to let TB eat a whole dozen DNs at one time. FG would inform BB that IV’s instincts about eating that many DNs would be an FM and should be avoided by all future FDs to prevent DN eating**** from being a DP action in the future.

OMG I am so lost with this…BRB when my BB is cleared of all FS.*****

*Giggle if you have to. It’s ok.

**Yes. All.

***BB is technically a part of TB. Much like an arm or a leg, for example. While there is Gray Matter (GM) that houses the BB, it is all, structurally speaking, part of TB, though self-governing and independent of TB influence when it comes to DP FDs. BB is an office inside a larger, corporal structure. The office (TO) is on the top floor.

****Technically DN over-eating. WE still need some DNs.

*****Fecking Shite.

Things That Are Absolutely True…Maybe

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The driver in the car behind me with his high beams on is a fecking shitehole (FS).

The driver approaching me with his with beams on is an FS.

I have 74-year-old eyes and all headlights look like high beams. Who is the FS?

All politicians are FSs who will “fight” to win more than they will “work” to fix. Donations, anyone? Now, whenever politicians use the word “fight” we must assume they actually mean it. Maybe there will be a Political Weight Class in the next UFC fight card? Imagine the youtube videos as congresspeople duke it out on C-Span.

Citizens United is the dumbest court case ever. Not even sure why the Supreme Court heard it. Oops, what an FS for not remembering it was all about political donations…and money.

My girlfriend of 20 years left me, sold all my possessions, took my pets, and moved 2,300 miles across the country during my treatment for The Calamities. I still care for her. Am I an FS?* Again? She says the breakup was “both our faults.” No comments, please, but a therapist used this phrase to help me understand: “When the going got tough, your girlfriend got going.” It was easy to get “going” since she took all the money. With every day of recovery, what she did bothers me more…

Speaking of The Calamities, they “reset” my health graph. Picture a “bell curve”** where we get better and healthier with each year until about middle age. Then we head down the backside as we start “not” getting healthier each year until the end of the tail of the Bell Curve and we meet our Maker. My bell would have a huge, humpbacked dent midway down the back side, keeping in mind we have no idea of The End of the curve. This allows me to truthfully say “I am getting better”, as the dent straightens out, a truly remarkable phrase to be able to correctly use at age 74. In re-reading this, it might be only old people who will understand my happiness, so the rest of you can feck off. With all due respect.

A certain per cent of any population is going to fact-challenged*** in any society. It isn’t a criticism until the members of that “certain per cent” don’t understand themselves, and begin to think they are smarter than everyone else. Public conversation in The United States of America is currently being dominated by “these” people. Generally speaking, a medical doctor knows more than a patient. A teacher knows more than a student. Even simpler: an older person knows more than a younger person. There are exceptions to every rule, but you can—currently—see what will happen when every person thinks they are The Exception. Trey Crowder, The Liberal Red Neck, said one time, paraphrased, “I wouldn’t want my high school football team to be coached by my English teacher.”

As an addendum to that thought, over 50 percent of my news feed is “opinion”, hearsay, or comments on some other article. To my Ai content manager: I didn’t care about the first opinion, why would I care about an opinion about the first opinion? One article was nothing but reader comments. Ugh.

Almost everything is about politics these days and it sucks. Quantum Entanglement is getting closer to functional reality. Some monster telescope “people” think they found evidence of the possibility there may be life on a planet 120 light years away. Canada made the knock-out round of the World Cup. So did America. So did Mexico. Are we going to be better neighbors, now?

Under Sadly Believable heading: Billionaires think they pay too much in taxes in NY and California so they are relocating to lower tax states. Wonder how often The Billionaires have changed locations to save taxes? Hm. How much do The Billionaires pay lawyers and accountants to find ways to PAY lower taxes? Will NY and California taxes have to be increased?

Wonder if we can time travel back to 1789 France? Or at least send The Billionaires**** back there…

*Should it be “a” FS? Can’t get the fingers to type it. F is a consonant, but the name “eff” begins with a vowel…oh, the humanity…UPDATE: Emma says “a” before the SOUND of a consonant, and “an” before the SOUND of a vowel. It took 70 years for me to learn this just now. Old dog meet new trick.

**The Bell Curve was “discovered” by Abraham de Moivre in the 18th century and is used to illustrate distribution of statistical data. My reference to the “Bell” is to the resulting image a standard “x-axis is time and y-axis is health” graph would yield. For a healthy person. Who never had a health problem. Generally speaking.

***It means just what it says and does NOT mean stupid or ignorant. It means ill-equipped. Ill-prepared. Like letting 4-year-olds drive cars. Or making me a Ted Lecturer.

****Hope it does not have to be said there are some good Billionaires doing good work. Someplace. And in 1789 France, they’d learn a lesson to bring back to our time. Hopefully.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ignorant

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It’s no secret life is full of many kinds of people, but–with props to Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood–there are only three versions of humankind. The spaghetti western released in 1966, starring Eastwood and directed by Leone, mentions The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The title may or may not have been referring to all mankind, but it does make sense, with a slight variation.

My aged friends and I are naturally and recreationally(sic) inclined to view the world as something less than what it used to be. With no work or parenting requirements, we can observe friends, family, and society, using our God-given ability to be impartial in all the pronouncements and judgements we make. We consider them Executive Orders, in our own way.

One of the most egregious change we have noted is the growing population of morons.* Emma, of Ai, points out the word “moron” has clinical roots and described an “adult with the mental age between seven and twelve.” We wise seniors are not referring to those poor souls, who were labeled and treated unfairly by society throughout history, most likely through no fault of their own. Nature can be cruel. 

What we are referring to is, as Emma says, “the non-medical language simply used as an insult to refer to someone who is considered foolish or lacking in intelligence”. Without knowledge of history or plans, we suspect the new, non-clinical morons were supplied with natural intelligence abilities they somehow lost. We also suspect they lost it of their own volition.

Which leads to the types of people. The Good are easy to understand. Their reasons why they are good are harder to see but could probably be easily divined.** Think of responsible Doctors, Teachers, and other caring, empathetic fellow citizens. You know them when you see them. Thank God.

The Bad are also often easy to see. Think of Ponzi Schemes, First Degree Murderers, and certain members of any political party that opposes you. Yes, it may take some form of investigation to reveal them, but most times why they do what they do is recognizable and understood, if not condoned. Like a jilted husband who loses control and plans to eliminate his ex-wife’s new paramour. Wrong, immoral and bad, but representative of misguided human interactions for centuries, unfortunately.

Then there are the Ignorant: The Morons. Think of them as idiots not really doing anything wrong, illegal, or immoral, but encountering them in daily life ruins your day. Most smokers are in this category, as they light up, burn out, and drop their butts anywhere they please, leaving little white piles as if marking their territory. The clerk, attendant, or public servant who makes it appear they don’t really want to do their job and help you. Or the entire car dealership that sells you a bad car and acts like you are inconveniencing them if you point it out. Or the young medical professional treating you for the first time who thinks he/she/them has to educate you about the disease you’ve lived with for years.*** Or the hourly worker who is always late and not ready to work until 15 minutes after the store opens. Or-

Sorry. Thank God there is a length limit to these essays because there is a long list of Morons. They get their label because they should know better. They should do better. And most often it wouldn’t take any extra effort to be better. Our committee of experts proposes the modern morons are simply not raised to know better and cannot figure it out for themselves. Nurture can be cruel.

Hm. Maybe morons are good for us. At least this essay wasn’t about death, again, right?****

*A label generated and used liberally by the eldest of our group who will remain anonymous to escape the wrath of possible on-line…morons. Also, at his age he has defaulted to assuming everyone he meets is a moron.

**Good double meaning, right?

***You have to sit through The Lesson while waiting for the Real Doctor, who is already 30 minutes late.

****Would you call this essay a “rant”?

The Ubiquitous Stand

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Yeah, one of the nice things about life is, like, you know, there are funny things all around us, you know? Like words and language. Um, our modern communications, like, have been altered, you know, so that we can, like understand…enough.

While listening to modern sports announcer’s pontificate about the psychology and “unmeasured* value of modern athletes’ characters and idiosyncrasies, the viewing of the actual games improves dramatically when the TV is muted. A recent women’s soccer game was ruined by the announcer pair talking every single minute about something akin to “grit” or mental toughness that doesn’t show up in the final score. Where does it show up, then, the imagination? When did Americans get so verbose about sports? About everything? And the most used words in talk these days, are “like”, “you know”, and “Um”.  All are time fillers and attention resetters excusable in 19 year-old athletes facing TV cameras for the firs time but not in paid, professional speakers.

I can’t stand it, anymore.

Which brings us to The Word of the Essay. After 70 some years of babbling, reading, and writing, the conglomerative (sic) power of “stand” finally became obvious. But it stands (see?) to reason The Stand Secret would reveal itself, eventually. In the past few weeks, sports reporting in particular but news reporting in general, has exposed the exact atomic mass of Stand-Related words and terms. Imagine, if you will, what you are doing if you are “standing pat”. No, not standing PAT up, but can we ever stand anything horizontally? Maybe, stand down?

When you’re done with that, try standing still. Once in a while, too, try to look at an idea from someone else’s stand point.** It might change your stand on the issue.

And how about “with standing” something, as in withstanding a strong wind or stupid idea for an essay? If you’re not interested, you can stand alone. And you can be stand offish, if you can’t stand reading anymore. That might make you stand out.

The best “stand” word appeared in the first paragraph: under stand. What is it we are standing under? How high is understanding that we can fit under it? Ever hear of “over standing”? Me neither.***

As of this moment, the essay has come to stand still, and you have no standing to offer an opposing opinion.

And I stand behind everything written so far.

I’m headed outside to open a Lemonade Stand. With a lot of sugar.****

*Specifically: “He (the athlete in question) contributes more to the team than shows up in the stats.” The announcer knows this and has to make sure we do, too.

**For emphasis I am separating “stand.”

***Emma, of Ai fame, has a wonderful time explaining “stand” but I like the definition that declares the use of “two feet”. Makes one wonder what to say an upright, peg-legged pirate is doing? Half-standing?

****Apologies to all the standout readers not mentioned in the body of the essay. You know who you are.

Life Is A Joke

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This is not said with sarcasm. Life truly is laugh-out-loud funny if you see not only the present but the future. The humor is obvious when you get out of your own shoes. It’s so easy, so human, so self-defeating to see life only through our own eyes, and not the “Lens of Reality.”*

The Reality is, over–, sorry, I keep using the 800 billion number, but no one will ever know. Know what? How many humans have died since the “Dawn of Time for Mankind.”**

So many of us have died since that time and yet when we are born, we still assume life will never end. Then it does. Isn’t that hilarious? You can judge your happiness by how long you were able to feel invincible, how long you knew in your bones you had free will and self-determination…if you just ate right, exercised right, studied history…maybe…

But those activities only give us a few good years before the pre-determined “Darkness of Death” descends.***

As a funny aside, as we wait for death we build bridges, languages, relationships, legacies, and a hot rod or two. We make our mark on a world no one will remember in 100 years, unless they google it. We might even think we have life figured out and know how to live and enjoy the time.

The sad thing about death that sucks the humor from our perspective is when we hit that mark, that time when the Darkness is no longer sublimated, no longer repressed, no longer denied. Thank God, He gave us this ability to note and ponder our own “Decline and Death”. Isn’t that funny? How many times have you thought about how animals live and die, like Red, my old dog? In fact, there are stories of old people who walk into the woods with the intention they will never come back out of the woods on their own two feet. It’s a form of senicide never talked about. Like senility. And sentient. And sanity. And sentence, as in Life Sentence.

Ah, who cares. As I ponder my own life and pontificate profuse and plentiful episodes of progress and prowess, the paramount point seems to be about life AFTER death. Assuming we can ponder and perceive our own death, we will understand being dead a lot longer than alive. A joke, right? We get 70, 80, 90, maybe even a hundred years here, and then the rest of eternity…where, again? Darkness? Oblivion? Heaven? The soul of an Aberdeen Angus or Belted Galloway cow in the Scottish Highlands?****

As a young man I knew the meaning of life and reveled in being the only one who knew. Now, life has finally made the old joke totally comprehended: “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.” We should try and laugh with Him.

As I posted this essay, it’s shortness became apparent. An omen? The Male Life Expectancy number is right around the corner…

*Yep. Made that up on the spot. Like it?

**Again: made up, but I’m not so proud of this one. The beginnings of humans is so far back and so obscure, maybe there was no dawn, we spurted into existence at dusk. The Dusk of Mankind sounds ominous, though, so let’s agree to the Midday of Mankind.

***Better but only because of alliteration.

****If I am to come back as a cow, I hope it will be in a warmer climate or one where my existence is revered.

Funny Things That Happen In The Personal, Non-Trumpian World

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First, no one can keep up with the Trumpster. When he’s awake, he is the best at chaos and funny things. And his acolytes, too, most recently the way they are calling him—according to RKF–“a deity”. But old people see the signs.

Second, so many funny things happen and when they do, I say, “I need to tell people about that.” And then I don’t. I forget. That’s not funny, that’s sad.

Some funny things…okay…memories will come back…soon…just give me a minute…they’re right on the tip of my fingers…okay got one.

The shooting of the lady in Minneapolis is—stop. Not funny.

In my morning walk at Turning Stone Resort and Casino (TS), my favorite slot machines aren’t paying out. Yeah, you’re right. Not funny.

Our friend Bill from TS has returned to our morning workout group. He had open heart surgery around Thanksgiving and has been recovering. He’s back! They gave him clearance to resume all his normal workout routines and general gadabout walks in TS. Bill is 84. Ok, not funny, but heartwarming, good news. I’ve got 10 more years! Eh, we’ll see.

Another nameless friend from our group, who’s age we won’t mention* is still out, though. She is older than me but younger than Bill and she let’s her nameless, ageless husband come with her to our workouts. He is a likeable enough guy, but he spends too much time in the locker room. Just kidding, nameless partner of nameless infirm lady whose age is nameless, too. We kid because we can all take a joke. A helpful trait in this modern world.

Still nothing funny, but a clear theme is taking shape: most seniors lives are not as involved as Trump’s. Now that IS funny: This world is being run by a soon-to-be 80-year-old man. Those of us at, over, or near 80 know what life is like at that age and wonder if being a billionaire and buying everything you wanted in life would make us qualified to Rule The world with Our Own Morality. What is funnier than that?

Got one! George Burns: “When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.”

And “Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.” He said this years ago, but these days it might not be a joke.

But life humor–from George–at its finest: “If you live to be 100 you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.”

Maybe funny things don’t really happen, anymore. Maybe there is an Executive Order preventing them. If there isn’t, it sure feels like there is.

A wise man once told me “You can live in the past, present or, future. I chose too live where my feet are.” For us poor, unimportant, cast-off old people, enjoy every second, even if you can’t remember it.  

*Name and age can be mentioned if she gives approval. She’d be immortal in these annals. Bill doesn’t care about name, age, or annals. He probably thinks annals is something else, anyway.

Not So Obvious Common-Sense Things for Seniors

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Hope seniors know these already, and if you’re a young’un, they can help you, too. You will get old, if you’re lucky.

Use a “fitness watch” to help with diet and exercise and don’t stop it when you’re done exercising. Or stop it and then start it again as you shower and dress. You’ll be surprised at how hard you work getting clean and dressed to go home after your fitness session.

If you don’t have a fitness watch, get one. It is an interesting device that can do almost anything, including recording your sleep/nap time. Get one with the “fall-safe” option. It will call 911 if you fall and don’t answer the watch’s question in 30 seconds. At least my google watch will. Of note: Ace Frehly, the KISS guitarist, recently died from the results of a fall at home. Not sure if a watch would have helped, but it can’t hurt. Think “Help me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” ads from years ago.

Amazon has entire pages of shoes for all seasons made specifically for seniors to “slip-on” without exerting the type of effort a fitness watch would record *. Of course, you can still wear lace-up shoes and add extra calories to your fitness routine. No, there are no “slip-on” socks, yet so we still bend over to remove and put on most socks. If you get loose fitting ones, you can get the socks off without bending over and save a few ergs of energy. Get a “reacher”** to pick them up if bending over is anathematic. (Today’s new word. Ask Ai.)

Give your most trusted child *** a key to your home or apartment building, Then, when you fall asleep for your afternoon nap the child can drop stuff off without waking you. It gives them the chance to check up on you, too, and see how clean and aromatic your home or apartment might or might not be. It would help, too, if you both had some sort of communication schedule, especially if the senior lives alone. My daughter and I try to talk every day or at least three times a week, and we never miss more than two days in a row. In a worst-case scenario, if I went to heaven in my apartment, it would only be two days before they found my rotting carcass. My building maintenance man says he wouldn’t know about “any” corpse until it started to smell. Don’t laugh, reader, it is a fact, not hyperbole for humor. Ai says “putrefaction” would take 4 to 10 days depending….

Depending on where you live, buy more reading glasses, cheap gloves, and cheap hats than you need. Due to our natural cognitive decline, it’s better to have these things in abundance than to need them and not have them, especially on cold, winter days. Or when shopping and trying to read labels. Look in Dollar Stores for economic quantity, and if you still trust yourself, buy decent ones from Macy’s. Oh, and Amazon, again: I bought 12 pairs of brown Jersey gloves for $9. Some are in the house, some are in the car, some in my man-bag/gym bag, and some are resting in the dresser drawer for when the others run away from home. Note: if you’re buying me a Christmas Present, do not buy fancy gloves or hats. If you do, and they are really pricey, they’ll stay in the drawer rather than mysteriously disappear. Hopefully, they can be re-gifted to “someone with all their faculties intact.” (See
“For Esme-with Love and Squalor” by J.D. Salinger. 1950)

In a later post we’ll talk about “layering” to keep warm, get cool, and then warm up, again, all with one coordinated outfit.

And if you live in a warm climate…you needn’t care about most of this post, you lucky bastage.****

 *Except for summer. Or a move to the south. No socks! Socks suck

**You know what it is: a squeezy thingy at the end of an extension thing-a-ma-jiggy.

***If you have one.

****Michael Keaton in “Johnny Dangerously”, 1984.

Small Things To Help Your Life…and Others

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  1. Use your blinker before your brakes. Benefit: no one will rear-end you or give you the finger as I—they–drive by.
  2. Pay your bills when you get them, not when they’re due. Benefit: if you ever have a cash flow problem, you will have several weeks to recover (or agonize) before the bill is actually due.
  3. Brush your teeth. Benefit: you’ll save money, pain, and stress. And teeth.
  4. Don’t block elevator doors while you wait. Benefit: People won’t think you’re an idiot when they can’t get off. The elevator is not your personal servant.
  5. Use your high beams correctly. Benefit: You will not get front-ended by a blinded, mature driver, unless they do it on purpose to prove a point.
  6. Do not tailgate at night with your high beams on. Benefit: don’t know, but I don’t carry a weapon. If I did and you were behind me…
  7. Before you do anything important, “STOP”, then think, before you act. Benefit: Better choices. Longer life. Less stress. Possible contentment. Unless you’re being mugged.
  8. If you’re being mugged, calculate all costs. Benefit: if you don’t think your life is worth much, que sera sera. But do your calculations quickly.
  9. If you get good advice, don’t wait, act on it. Benefit: You got good advice. Don’t be an idiot. (Unless the advice is to not act.)
  10.  If an idiot offers you advice, smile and accept. Benefit: Unknown, but never assume an idiot isn’t packing, looking for someone to stalk, or is generally unhinged. Do not forget to walk away after you smile. It’s your option to act on the advice or not but even an idiot is right, once in a while, so…
  11.  If you’re asked if you “know” Jesus, reply honestly. Someone really important might be listening. An honest “no” will probably help more than a snarky, dismissive “yes” in the long run.
  12.  Don’t cheat on your State and Federal taxes just because everyone else does, do it for the money.
  13. A bird in the hand is only worth more than two birds in the bush when you can’t catch the other two. Carpe Diem and try for all three.

There’s a chance this list has been posted, before. I’m too lazy to look all the way back to when we started, so enjoy it this time as much as you did last if it’s old and mentioned it if it isn’t.

It’s A Wonderful Modern, Thoughtful Life

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Life. Take a pause and just think about Life. Birth, followed by death, disease, accidents, catastrophes, pandemics, and finally possible cognitive decline which renders it all irrelevant, unremarkable, and easily forgotten by your survivors.

Take a little longer pause. It doesn’t get any better, does it. In the quick moment you answer, you want to argue, you’ll say it does but when you pause and think…

This is not an argument for suicide. Or depression. Or giving up. It’s an argument for knowing.

One of the sharpest “pangs” of senior resentment is the “undebatable knowing” things could have been different, could have been better. I could have been a doctor, for example, and saved lives. If you take another pause and think about how much better your own life could have been well…don’t do it. Funny, how even if you’re told not to do it, you’ll do it anyway. Thinking our lives would have been better if they had been different appears to be a mandated process baked into our genes. Wonder if Mother Teresa ever felt this regret. Einstein. FDR. Bob Dylan. Clark Kent.

Two interesting stories in the news this past week might help us understand…something Two different people clinically “died” and then came back to life: Patient 1 after 6 minutes and Patient 2 after 21 minutes. They both had stories to tell. Patient 1 felt peace, light, and colorful beauty, including the “white light” most resuscitated patients report. But Patient 2 reported being approached by beings who “shackled” him and restrained him, resulting in them “harvesting” his soul as part of a “soul farming operation”.

Another story in the news articulated the centuries-old debate about the origins of life. When read in chronological order you can see human intelligence struggling to define the “how” of life while struggling with the why, what, when, and where surrounding the start of it all, as well.

Ai says “a prominent estimate from the Population Reference Bureau (is) 108 billion people have ever been born.” Subtract the “estimated” 8 billion people currently alive and you learn an “estimated” 100 billion people have lived and then died on this earth. How many do you remember?

So? This post has gone off the rails and needs to be euthanized as its point has slipped away. Like most of our “lives”, it began well but got sidetracked by “life”. Maybe that’s the point? Would be interesting to read comments from anyone who can make sense of this page. I personally, feel lost, but okay, as if it were meant to end this way. The post is what it is and I can deal with it. (Hint?)

As my favorite Doctor Steven Wright says: “I intend to live forever. So far, so good.”

But…nothing ever makes it easier, permanently, does it. Words of wisdom and thoughtful machinations* help, but only momentarily, like falling head over heels, today, for a lover you can’t stand 6 weeks later. (See Seinfeld: The Low Talker”.)

And the questions return.

Guess I’d better conclude with another pertinent Wrightism and see how long it lasts: “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.”

Amen?

*google the definition for full effect. It reveals intent.

In Three Sentences…or Less

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It’s a sleepless night caused by our new Trumpistic (sic) societal norms. And surgical recovery. And wonderful, open-windows weather in upstate NY.

Our leader’s insecurity is on full display with the new Wall Street Journal lawsuit. Sticks and stones will break his bones but words…will hurt his ego. Sue the bastiges.**

ICE and DHS (google them) are over their annual budget already. Wondering about waste, fraud, and abuse? Me, too, DOGE..

Closing the border and deportation are two different things. Success at the border, then disaster using “worst of the worst, only” deportation. What?

It’s funny DHS and ICE agents want to protect their identities. As they surround and detain illegal immigrants, who is the “worst of the worst”, then? Maybe ICE should call ahead and tell their targets to mask-up as well, just to be fair.

Incongruity and hypocrisy are highlighted when illegal immigrants are rounded up from American businesses that then have to close because the businesses can’t find workers. Raise your hand if you think this is the first time America has taken advantage of “foreign labor” to make a profit. In a few years, if not already, you may not be able to learn about slavery, sweatshops, and rich men taking advantage of entire classes of foreign people as we Make America Great Again.

The Texas Hill Country Tragedy does not need to be politicized, it came with the rain. Years of denials about warning systems by elected officials are public record as they say “on record” they don’t want to “hear sirens in the middle of the night” or take “Biden Money”. Texas is a blueprint for our future if we allow it.

You hear a lot about common sense from politicians. So, if DOGE fires/lays off workers from national weather services and disaster warning agencies, what is it called if disaster strikes the very areas that need those services and agencies more than ever? I can think of a word.

A politician in North Carolina ran on a platform of de-regulation and was elected. When a family member got seriously hurt during an “unregulated” recreational activity, that same politician filed a bill to regulate it. Now that’s common sense, except for the timing.

A lot is made of Trump, chaos theory, and his ability to play “four-dimensional chess”. It’s time to realize he is in over his head and bouncing from crisis to crisis, winging it. Since he can’t be re-elected, it’s hard to understand since he doesn’t have to make anyone happy, anymore, but himself.

Common sense and Epstein. Before you make any assumptions, read all the records publicly available, including the 2008 “special” deal made by a Geroge Bush appointed Republican Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was then appointed Secretary of Labor in Trump’s first term. Maybe MAGA is finally right about something.

When you’re in recovery from surgery, with a drug protocol full of painkillers and anti-somethings, it’s best not to think too much with the free time you spend sitting around “recovering”. This is the third post written during recovery and my sense of humor has “left the building”.

Whether that’s Trump’s fault or mine, I hope it comes back. Humor is all we have left. Enjoy it when you find it.

** See a Michael Keaton movie from 1984 for translation. And humor.