Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

First, and most importantly, condolences to the friends and families of the two journalists who were killed today.  I don’t really expect it to lead to reasonable gun laws, because if the slaughter of dozens of little kids isn’t enough, I don’t know why two journalists would be, except maybe the  fact that they  were actually shot on camera, and the governor of Virginia and President Obama have both responded to the incident by calling for tougher gun laws.

If it does lead to tougher gun laws, I’ll be happy, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Just read about a very weird case.  An 18 year old girl is being charged with manslaughter because her ‘boyfriend’ (he was really more of a cyberbuddy – they’d met a couple of times in real life but they were apparently texting each other constantly) committed suicide.  Apparently, when police were looking through his phone, they saw a whole slew of texts from her saying ‘go ahead and do it’ and ‘don’t chicken out now, you’ve always got some lame excuse..’

Judging from the comments under the article, I’m expressing the minority opinion here, but I don’t think she should be charged with anything.  Sure, she’s a horrible person, but if being a horrible person was a crime, there’d be more people in prison than out.  I hope she never has children and I feel sorry for her future boyfriends -and there will be future boyfriends, physically she is not unattractive – but I don’t think she commited any crime.

It was loser boyfriend’s choice to kill himself.  He’ll have to live with…oh, wait, no, he  won’t.

Don’t do it, Joe, please.  I like you, and would vote for you if you were the nominee.  Six months ago, I would have been thrilled if you announced you were running.  But, things have changed since then, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Joe Biden

Those people who were saying “Why do we always have a choice between two crap candidates?” aren’t saying that so much any more.

Those people who were saying “I can’t believe we’re going to have to choose between a Bush and a Clinton, sheesh, Washington’s as bad as Hollywood,” have been kind of quiet lately.

Even those people saying “When, oh when are we going to have a Democrat who talks like a Democrat, who isn’t afraid to stand up for the working class?” haven’t been as vocal lately.

Because we have a candidate who stands up for the working class.  It’s looking very much like the election will not be between a Bush and a Clinton, because chances are neither one will make it through primary season, and, out of the two candidates on the ballot in November of 2016, it looks like one of them will actually be a decent guy.

So, instead of jumping in the race and creating more Democratic discord, how about getting behind Sanders?  He’s got the momentum.   He’s got his finger on the pulse of the people.  A few big, respectable voices like yours early on would give him the respectability and credibility he  needs to win next November.  Back the winner, Joe.  Feel the Bern.

Bobby Jindal is probably the biggest hypocrite in the world, and it makes me wonder about the relationship between him and his parents.  He is absolutely the definition of an anchor baby.  He was born in the U.S. while his parents were here on work visas, and they used his birthright citizenship to become American citizens.

Now he has jumped on the Trumpwagon to denounce the concept of birthright citizenship and has made a few nasty comments about anchor babies, although he is one.  There’s some serious self-loathing going on there, or a whole lot of delusion.

One thing these right wing Republican pukazoids have not taken into account is this: if a baby born in the U.S. is not a citizen of the U.S., what country are they a citizen of?  The country where their parents came from?  What if that country doesn’t automatically grant citizenship unless you are actually born there?  This could create a class of stateless people, and that would really be a raw deal.

In fact, there are a whole lot of people on Earth who get a raw deal in life just based on where they are born, and it is not right.  I am American, and now I’m a permanent resident of the E.U., so I am among the privileged, but that does not make me any better, any smarter, more talented, hard working, decent or deserving than some poor sod who was born in Burma or Syria or Sudan or China, and has little chance of ever living anywhere else.

There is no immediate solution.  The world is divided, there is a huge economic disparity between nations, and the haves are not going to just open their borders.  If you let everybody onto the lifeboat, the lifeboat sinks.

But we should not lose sight of the fact that this is one world, we are all one people, and if things were the way they ought to be anybody, born anywhere, would be able to go anywhere else and live there and work there and marry and have children and be happy there because planet Earth belongs to all of us equally.

Let’s keep that in mind.  The way the world ought to be.  Let’s keep working toward it.  Not away from it.

There is a truly obnoxious meme going around facebook today and I hope it’s gone by tomorrow.  It’s the ‘discover the true meaning of your name’ meme, and it breaks your name into two parts (even if your name has only one syllable, or three, and then says the first part is an Arabic word (usually it’s Arabic – they might throw in a couple of other languages here and there) meaning something or other, and the second half means something else, so everybody’s name is like “Valiant Warrior” or “Beautiful Princess” or something like that.  It’s really obviously bogus.

Like, I’m sure that ‘St’ is not an Arabic word meaning ‘loyal’ because there’s no way to even pronounce that, and about half the women I facebook know are named Warrior Princess, and not one of them is actually named Xena.

Also, what adult human being has not already researched the meaning of their name?  There have been books on that since long before the internet existed.

I am quite pleased with myself that I didn’t take this one, but I occasionally succumb to the temptation.  A couple of days ago I looked to see who my ‘facebook Doppelganger’ was.  I guess that’s the person who clicks on the stuff most similar to what you click on, so it was interesting.  It was somebody whose comments I’d  seen, and I do think we agree on lots of stuff, so that was O.K.

I took the test to see “How American are you?” and got 100%, which was fine.  Actually, all they had to do was look at my profile, see ‘born in Des Moines, Iowa’ and bingo, there you have it.

I also looked at one to see “What are your faults?”  They were so far off it was absurd.  Perfectionist?  First off, that is not a fault.  Secondly, they have never seen my apartment.  A quick glance would tell them I am not a perfectionist.  Easily excitable?  Not particularly.  Sure, I argue politics with people on facebook, it seems to me that’s what facebook is for.  But, in real life I am generally a fairly calm guy.  They totally missed procrastination, laziness, gullibility, and being delusional.

I’m not sure how they do these things.  Some, like the names, they’re obviously just pulling out of thin air.  Some others, like with the faults, I think they really are attempting some kind of personal analysis.

And, I think it’s possible.  They need to tweak the algorithms a bit, though.  They’re not there yet.

Today was my last day of reading Tarot cards at the art gallery.  It was good fun while it lasted, but the artist/owner only intended it as a summer promotion, whereas I’d seen it as a possible permanent gig.

Maybe just as well.  It wasn’t bringing in a lot of money.

It was time well spent in other ways, though.  I got some poetry written, some reading done, and had some great conversations while waiting for customers.  I had several interesting readings, and added a couple of people to my facebook account.

One of the most memorable things, though, was a small thing.  A very small thing.  Only about a centimeter or two square.  It happened Thursday.

The gallery’s art is all done with colored pencils, and so they sell colored pencils.  They have them right next to the cash register, and there is a note pad people can use to check them out.

At one point, when there was nobody  in the shop after a busy stretch when there’d been maybe a dozen people through in the preceding half hour or so, the girl who works there, who is quite an artist herself, showed me the pad.

Where several people, (everybody) had laid down monotone scribbles to check  the pencils, one person had drawn a perfectly lovely apple.  It was red with a bit of brilliant yellow.  It had curves, it had perspective, it had shading, it was three dimensional.

It was small, and just something somebody had sketched in a few seconds, while nobody  was looking, but there was something brilliant about it.  And we couldn’t figure  out who did it.

There are people in this world like that, they walk among us.  They have incredible talent that they don’t show, either because they  are unaware that they have great talent, don’t see it as anything extraordinary, or because they are modest and not particularly driven to share their  talent with the world.  They are artists, musicians, writers, builders, teachers, psychologists, and  dog trainers.  They go through life, publicly seeming ordinary and mediocre but then, while nobody is looking, they draw the perfect apple, or play something amazing on the piano, or build a dream cottage in the forest, or teach a child math in a way they’ve never thought about it before.

I would have never suspected it.  But then I saw the apple.