Category Archives: Opinion

Behavior, Government, Opinion, Politics, Social Media, Trump

Let Them Speak

Leave a comment

I got reminded of my own words. Ones echoed by Obama years ago. Paraphrased, it’s “Let them speak and reveal their idiocy.”

The infamous monkey video Trump posted demonstrates his lack of character and qualification for the office he holds. 

It also serves the dual advantage of revealing to us those who are hiding in plain sight, the ones who are studiously avoiding the revelation that they are admirers of Trump. 

Each successive debacle cements the certainty that a lot of us weren’t wrong about him. 

It’s outrageous, of course. But take a minute and think about the reaction Obama and his wife must had upon seeing it. Think about Obama’s smile and the way he shakes his head in the face of lesser intellect attempting to insult him. 

Trump’s orchard can’t grow anything except rotten fruit. 

When he’s gone, we will collectively sigh. But over time, we will forget that another person like him can come along. And many of the people around us will willingly abandon principle to cheer another buffoon into office. People like him don’t get power accidentally. They take the worst elements and amplify them. 

Trump’s hateful words and antics fire up reactions. He’s a narcissist who feeds on the limelight and publicity. He is an energy vampire. 

The kind of post he made about the Obamas is a self-accusation that he’s too stupid to understand. 

X

.

Government, Justice, Opinion, Politics, Security, Social Rules, Trump

The Boy

Leave a comment

If and when this national lunacy ends, we can’t get a broom, sweep it into a box, and then pronounce ourselves whole again. We are a nation of the 3/5s, of the Epstein files, and of letting our rights slip away in the name of security and cultish loyalty to a man whose entire life contradicts who we say we are.

Some of us will retain our squinted eyes as we look at the people around us. We’ll try to make sense of the fact they endorsed basic violations of our Constitution and hurting people, all under the guise of protecting our borders. Borders lose significance when you degrade the people inside of them.

Though it’s not my story to tell, I will be the speaker for the dead and the oracle of things that require reckoning.

Children are sponges. Despite their lack of understanding, they absorb what’s around them. Whether it be kindness and love or fists and anger. How some children grow up without releasing the toxicity is a question that never leaves my mind.

The United States has a problem. Yesterday, upon hearing about the death of his beloved great grandmother, a boy asked his mom if the “evil police” had taken her. Just two little words, both packed with backstory, accusation, and a comprehension beyond his years.

It’s not that the boy had been soaked in specifics or propaganda. He takes in what’s around him.

Just a boy, already trying to grapple with loss, echoing and powerfully saying what a lot of us are feeling.

If you’re in favor of all the nonsense going on, it would be easy for you to discount a little boys concise concern. But it is often the voiceless, the naive, and the ones who are powerless who provide the strongest condemnation.

Though you may not recognize the validity of his reality, he and countless other people in the United States and around the world now possess a primal fear and recognition of what we’re capable of. How many generations will it take to dispel?

And maybe we never will at all. This is the new us and those of us who are horrified will become silent. The justifiers and idolaters of power and money will get their way.

I hope the little boy finds reprieve from his thoughts of the “evil police.” And that he’ll take this formative observation and be one of the people who works to keep it from being duplicated. We can’t blame him if he grows up to be mentally looking over his shoulder at the shadow of what we’ve become.

We’ve managed to take a little boy’s grief and amplify it with the immediate thought that our government may have had something to do with it.

X
.

Behavior, Brother, Government, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules, Trump

Cut By Cut

Leave a comment

My brother Mike sometimes lives in my head for reasons that would irritate the piss out of him. When I listen to AM talk radio, it is his voice I hear, superimposed on whichever oversimplifying demagogue is talking. I used to call him Mike O’Reilly. “I don’t know” was not a phrase you would ever hear from him. “Is there a better way” is a dangerous question for those who are possessed by certainty. 

My brother was an authoritarian at heart. There’s no question of this. The tendency escalated as he grow older. Authoritarianism brings dominance and violence.

He loved begging the question. All of this swirls in my head because of what’s going on with all the dubious ICE activity. 

“You can’t lawfully stop someone or detain them just because you want to.” My brother’s answer to that was that I was naive. That police everywhere can and do exactly that. Some do. Which of course, is true. He conveniently ignored the word “lawfully” in my observation, just as all the Trump-supporting constitutional simpletons are currently doing. 

Almost all of ICE’s abuse would evaporate instantly if they followed the Constitution. But they don’t – and the more people argue that what they’re doing is legally justified is pushing us collectively down a dark road. 

Anyone denying the political motivation of choosing Minnesota over Texas is breathing the fumes from their gas tank. I don’t mind a little idiocy because it keeps people like Tom Cotton entertained. The problem is that abuse has tendrils that reach unexpected places. That which we permit anywhere will eventually reach us. 

Does anyone believe that if every person not lawfully here left the country today that the huge military apparatus ICE has become would disappear? That their budget would be given back and used appropriately? In the same way that police or prison budgets almost never decrease, ICE isn’t going anywhere because this administration is using it in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used. 

If your argument is enforcement, we have the technology and the ability to “solve” that problem for 1/1000th the cost. Without the violence, mayhem, and turmoil. It is so obviously motivated by the desire to engender those consequences. 

PS I am in awe of the mental gymnastics some people are employing to justify encroaching on our constitutional rights. Once abridged, they rarely return. You may support those who are currently encroaching them, but you’ll be wondering what happened once the dust settles. We will all be 3/5ths when it’s over. 

X

.

Behavior, Family, Government, Opinion, Personal, Racism and Prejudice

From 1984 To 2026

Leave a comment

Several of my social media friends have been posting 1984 quotes. 

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

I have two of Orwell’s most famous books in Spanish. I’ve been reading “1984,” constantly finding parallels. I included “Animal Farm” in the picture because it is a companion warning to what’s going on around us.

Listening to the loons of this administration attempting to reframe what they’re doing takes me back to my childhood. Surrounded by violence and racism. Even though my dad was violent, the family members who justified their horrendous worldviews loom larger as villains. I think of them as I listen and watch. They were scared of losing control of a world that wasn’t just theirs to begin with. They could not admit that they might have been the bad guys.

X

.

Government, Opinion, Trump

Ugh

Leave a comment

For any “Catch-22” fans, the breaking news I woke up to this morning inspired me to write my own Yossarian quote: “Having tried nothing proven or reasonable, the administration decided the only way to keep the foreign country safe was to bomb it.”

If I behaved like this administration behaves, I would be fired, exiled, vilified, and hated, and deservedly so. 

X

.

Food, Humor, Opinion, Review / Critique, Safety

Campbell’s Soup

Leave a comment

The Campbell soup controversy is both fascinating and amusing. 

I had a can of Campbell’s tortilla soup last night, with a can of Mexican tomatoes, sliced potatoes, and a ton of hot savory spice added. It was delicious. 

I’ve worked in food facilities. Y’all are out there eating all sorts of things you don’t want to know about. If they are 3D printing chicken or beef, that’s fine with me. If they throw a horse leg in there, I don’t care about that either if I don’t know. Doubly so if it’s treated so that I won’t get sick. 

I survived my childhood. My dad forced me to eat things that were featured in the Temu edition of National Geographic. Other than some observable brain damage, I survived. These symptoms allow me to either be the Secretary of Health and Human Services or the President.

The amusing part of it all is that an executive got caught with his pants down, spouting what we already know.  I’d rather be eating oysters right now than working in the Campbell marketing department. (And oysters are just repackaged mucus.) 

X

.

New Word, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Psychology, Racism and Prejudice, Social Rules, Trump

Rule 47

Leave a comment

Rule 47

“Anyone who posts words, policy, or statements by our current president for any purpose other than mockery or excoriation can no longer be taken seriously regarding any societal, political, or economic consideration.”

I can cite countless examples. The government shutdown can be ended without any Democrats voting in favor of it. By changing the filibuster rules, Trump and his Republican devotees can pass the budget bill immediately if they choose to do so. Given the increasing risk that Congress shall soon become an anachronism without teeth, it’s ridiculous to worry about tomorrow’s fire when our shoes are melting today. 

People reposting Trump’s ill-informed and uneducated rants in support of something that’s factually untrue isn’t surprising.  If racism, misogyny, fraud, and incitement toward insurrection aren’t deal breakers, it’s a deep well from which to draw an infinite spiral of malevolent ridiculousness. 

If Trump wishes to be king, then let’s proceed with the coronation so that we can move on to a broken democracy. At least under that scenario, we will not be victim to an ongoing onslaught of “WTF”

moments, nor continue to hope for an end to the madness. 

We can acclimate ourselves to the loss of the country we grew up in because we’ll have no other choice. 

This isn’t politics. It’s madness and mayhem, driven by someone completely unfit to run a household, country, or company. 

X

.

Exercise, Fayetteville, Opinion, Personal

Out And About

Leave a comment

As for this morning’s long walk, it was interspersed with too many people suffering from yesterday’s choices and last night’s anger. The contradiction of one of the last summer mornings cool breeze and moisture-laden air. The distant lightning flashing like old memories. I will wager that all of the people I witnessed suffering from their inability to take a chill pill and go to sleep will one day think back and wonder what made everything feel so urgent and dramatic. That’s what age gives you; a recognition that one of the ways to try to be happier is to remember all the times It felt like everything was an emergency, or that your feelings that seemed so monumental will soon be forgotten. Replaced by new emergencies.

When I passed the two beautiful young people arguing relentlessly on the curb along Leverett, I wanted to stop instead of passing by without comment. I wanted to tell them that they had youth, beauty, and the luxury of a good education. And maybe it would be better for them to stop opening bottles until they had control of their emotions. I didn’t, of course. Almost a block away, the strong wind carried their fruitless words to me. They might as well have been shouting into the wind instead of each other.

I took a few pictures, but none was so eerie as that of the forgotten streetside vehicle. In a good world, I wouldn’t hesitate to check the doors in order to save somebody the surprise of a dead battery. After checking to ensure that no one was passed out inside, I took a long exposure to illuminate the incredibly dark neighborhood, one in which the railside and gentrified beautiful houses sit quietly. 

“I couldn’t be around them. They all had smoke on their tongues. You know who I mean. The energy vampires who you never catch being encouraging. The ones who complain just eloquently enough to make you forget they are problem-oriented. They don’t look for glimmers or things to be happy about. Nah, they search for proof that they are right to be unhappy and cynical. And guess what? They find them around every corner. You might not be wise enough to recognize it yet, but they’re trying to recruit you. Misery loves company and it is always trying to find ways to get you to sign up.”

-The Book Of Experience