Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

The debate had about the same results as the first one.  Sanders fans say Sanders won, Hillary’s fans say Hillary  won.  Everybody says O’Malley did O.K., because nobody’s worried about Martin O’Malley.

O’Malley’s in an interesting position.  He could be either one’s VP choice.  Maybe that’s his plan.  I doubt he’s actually got the leverage, though.

While browsing through my mail, I was alerted to a comment in response to a facebook comment, which read something along the lines of:  “You, Willie Watson, are an ignorant pig.  You have insulted a lady and tried to stifle her freedom of speech.  You’re illiterate and didn’t read the article.”

I had to admit, that last was possible.  I very often respond to a headline, even to another comment, without reading all the links.  So little time.

But the other stuff mystified me.  I insulted a woman?  Certainly not deliberately.  I might make wisecracks about other people’s political opinions, but I’m not a mean type of person.  I stifled somebody’s free speech.  Definitely not.

So, I clicked on ‘see this comment on facebook’ and I got “Nope.  No can do.  You ain’t seeing that article.”  Mystified, I went to my personal page and looked through all my comments.  I figured I’d said something nasty about Hillary and some feminist had taken offense.  I’m not saying no feminists have a sense of humor, that would be stereotyping, but there are a hell of a lot of humorless feminists.

I didn’t see anything.  Then I realized what was missing.  It was a meme (what article she thought I hadn’t read, I don’t know), just a meme.  On a gray background was written “Paris 11/13, New York 9/11, Israel 24/7”

I had written “Shut up.  You do not have terrorist attacks of that level every day.  Get over yourselves.”  So, I can sort of see where she got the stifling free speech bit.  But, I don’t agree.  Where I’m from, ‘Shut up’ spoken in a certain tone of voice, is more like “Get outta here,” “Come on,” “Get serious.”  It’s a bit derisive, but I don’t actually expect anybody to shut up.

I can understand how she construed it, but I stand by the original statement.  Not everything’s about Israel.

I didn’t write in my blog last night, so today I’m going to write two, I was just tired and stoned and falling asleep in my chair and not likely to produce words of wisdom and insight, so that was that.

There is really only one subject now (I may talk of the Democratic Debate in my next blog) and that is Paris.  There is little we can do but mourn.  But, many point out, we should also be mourning the 44 dead in Beirut, and some bombing in Baghdad, and one in Kenya, but I’m short on details on those and that, of course, proves the point of those who are pointing that out.

Still, it seems to me the same mentality that drove people  to say “All lives matter.”  ‘Sure, you’re upset over armed men attacking innocent civilians in restaurants, at football games and rock concerts,’ they say, ‘but what about a bit of grief for the innocent dead, the babies, the old men, in less privileged corners of the world,’ and I am forced to agree that they’ve got a point.

But, today, I am sad about Paris, and what are we to do?  Change my profile picture, don’t change my profile picture, that makes no difference at all.  Well, it made me feel a bit better and pays respect, which is something, but little enough.

I wrote a poem about it, because that’s what I do:

A night of terror and despair
dans la ville lumiere
we feel frustration; we don’t know
how to make this not be so
tears will be shed, words will be said
the dead, the dead, so many dead
but in the morning comes the dawn
and life will slowly carry on
Though many feel the urge to kill
the will to live is greater still

…and I guess that’s how I feel about it.  We just have to keep on with our lives, and remember that for every crazed terrorist who wants to kill people, there are millions and millions of people who just want to live.  Life will prevail.

Escalation continues apace, in the Great Republican Crazy Race.

Donald Trump, during a deranged and obnoxious speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa,

called Marco Rubio a weak, little baby, Ohio Governor John Kasich a pathetic little man, plugged his book for a few minutes, totally mocked Carson’s version of himself as a bad boy with a knife, railed on George Pataki for being a lousy governor, mocked at Lindsay Graham for having some knowledge of the military, said he loved war -yes, he really did say that, and there was also a point where he admitted that what was good for the country was bad for the Republicans.and bragged a lot about what a great negotiator he is.

A bit later, in a n interview, he basically called Dr. Ben Carson a child molester.  There’s no evidence that it’s true and he phrased it in his usual choppy, partial sentence method of speech he has which might give him some legitimacy in a court of law, but the implication was clear.  My Oppenent….child molester.

There’s a story of Lyndon Johnson, who was. at the time, involved in a very tight race for something down it Texas and he suggested they start a rumor about his opponent having sex with animals.  One of his aides objected “We just can’t call the man a pig fucker!.”, to which Lyndon replied “I know.  I just want to hear the son of a bitch deny it.”

I have never taken part in the NaNoWriMo festivities although I probably should, a lot of my facebook friends do and post things like “Up to 20,000 words today!,’ but they never actually show you an excerpt so you don’t know if those 20,000 words are the next “Old Man and the Sea” or “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”  written over and over and over again so when your wife walks into the room and catches a glimpse of it she’ll know right away that you have lost your marbles.
I salute the people who do, it’s a hard thing to get sat down in front of a keyboard and pump the words out onto the page.  I would like to write a novel.  Well, another novel.  It’s not laziness.  I’m not a lazy person.  It’s not actually a writer’s block, because I do write poetry, and I have a couple of platforms where I’m writing stuff every day.  There is this blog, which averages 250-500 words a night.  There is my ‘Poems About Paintings’ page which, I confess, I only add to occasionally and sometimes it’s a week or two between poems but, when I post something there, it’s generally something I like a lot.  There is one rhyming tweet per day, to plug this blog.  There are all my comments on facebook.  I try to avoid just LOL and WTF and actually put some thought into what I’m saying, but very often it just amounts to WTF or LOL.  There is a group called ‘Occasional Poems’ where I occasionally post a poem.  And that’s it.  I guess my desire NOT to write a novel just outweighs my desire to write a novel, and maybe I need to get that turned around, because nobody’s reading my poetry, that’s for damned sure.

In November, 2016, the American people will have a clear choice.  It won’t just be Republican or Democrat.  That happens in every election, and sometimes it’s not much of a choice at all.  If Sanders gets the nomination, and I am confident he will, it will be a choice between liberal and conservative.  If Clinton gets the nomination, it will be a choice between conservative and insanely conservative.

Whoever gets the nomination, though, it will be a choice between smart and stupid.  As much as I dislike Hillary, I’m not doubting her smarts.  Bernie Sanders is also obviously a bright guy, and it seems O’Malley is, too.
On the Republican side, Ben Carson is still standing strong, after a string of lies, nonsense and weirdness that, historically, would have wrecked a political campaign.  Howard Dean’s presidential ambitions were ruined after one moment of unguarded enthusiasm.  Ed Muskie shed a little tear during an emotional speech complaining about Republicans slandering his wife (they haven’t changed much since ’72, they’ve always been sleazy.  They’ve just become more extreme), and for poor Mike Dukakis, it was one unfortunate photo-op.  But, Carson’s still in.

Marco Rubio: Leading the War on Philosophy

Donald Trump is still in, and just yesterday  suggested a boycott of Starbucks because their cups aren’t Christmasy enough.

Jeb Bush constantly reminds us he is just as dumb as his brother, and we had 8 years of finding out how dumb that is.  The years from 2000 to 2008 will be forever remembered in American history as ‘the stupid years.’

But, in last night’s debate, Marco Rubio might have let the cat out of the bag.  His biggest applause line was “We need more welders and less philosophers.”  First of all, it should be ‘fewer philosophers.’  Philosophers are countable.  Somebody running for president should know that.

But, let’s think about what he said.  I’ve got no objection to more welders, although I was unaware there was an actual shortage.  It’s the attack on philosophers that’s key.  The applause from the audience wasn’t from people who want more vocational training in schools because they’ve seriously thought about the issue.  They were just happy that somebody finally had the political courage to attack philosophers.

Philosophers are the root of our problem, they think.  Philosophers are smart.  They don’t like that.  Get into an argument with a conservative, and it will often end with the brilliant retort “You think you’re so smart!”

They see a world with lots of problems, and they figure (mistakenly) that smart people must be in  charge, therefore they resent smart people.  So, they want to elect a stupid person.

Which is stupid.  But they think it’s smart.  I’m not sure how we can break this cycle.