Pumpkin

This is my granddaughter’s “happy/spooky” jack-o-lantern.

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Stories

Stories are puzzles to me, and I find puzzles very difficult.

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Still Looking

Awhile back I wrote a post called “Some Men Just Need Killing”. https://atotalsolidwaste.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/some-men-just-need-killing/

I am sixty-seven years old now so I have been waiting for these fuckers to experience justice for a very long time. After nine months of waiting for some of the bastards from the GOP 2016 election crimes to wind up in prison, I am still waiting. It is getting colder as we get to the dark months of winter. I decided to once again revisit the search for that quote.

During the process of reading thousands of pages of text and viewing thousands of hours of film I came across a character saying “Some men just need killing.” I became curious what character said that early in the term of Donald J. Trump as he seemed to slip out of consequences the same way Ronald Reagan did over 40 years ago. But Reagan did not sue everybody under the sun until the clock ran out on his party’s crimes. I do not know why I am surprised because rich, power invested people have been doing it through out the course of human civilization. The development of law seems to be just a might makes right proposition. The hint of justice in the system never seems to reach that satisfaction of hueristas being put up against an adobe wall and being shot by Villa’s troops. Now there is an image from those thousands of hours of film that I have retained.

In the course of my looking for “Some men just need killing.” I have found that there is a novel titled “The Night Trade” by Barry Eisler that has a character saying “Some people need killing.” but I remember it from a western film. Memory is a tricky thing. I think of the film “The Man Who Shoot Liberty Valance”, and Valance needed to be killed as law enforcement seemed to be falling down on the job in that instance. But I do not think it was John Wayne to said it. Maybe before I die I will find that character as I rewatch all those old bits of film.

There are two quotes that I have tumbled recently that are at least in the spirit of “Some men just need killing”, not that I would advocate being that extrajudicial in human behavior unless it was in self defense, but the spirit of the law still exists even if it has become a matter of judicial appointments and high priced lawyers. I will wait until the criminals cross the line and are actually trying to kill me. I am after all a comfortable anarchist though I am getting closer to the “I am dying anyway” point. One of these quotes is by Benjamin Franklin:

“Some men die at age 25 and aren’t buried until they are 75.”

The other comes from E.W. Howe:

“Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.”

I am not a conservative, desperate to conserve their own beliefs in other people. I am just trying to stay a safe distance from what people call civilization.

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Benjamin Franklin

There is a reason that Franklin is on the $100 bill.

“Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.” Benjamin Franklin

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Pepperoni Pizza

Hi, my name is John, and I am an addict.

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I just want to remind everybody that when the box says “pepperoni made with pork, chicken, and beef”, that means it is made with all the bits and bobs off of the slaughterhouse floor.

Glassware

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I wonder if there is a Herat glass being made still?

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There was in 1973 when these dogfights took place in a gravel pit outside of Kabul.

Question

If one were to take a state, say Texas, and figure how much money that state puts into the federal government, all totaled, and compare it to how much money the federal government puts into that state, all totaled, who is on the loosing end of this arrangement? Maybe this winter I will think about the math.

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Pattern Recognition

I have been working on my pattern recognition software upgrade.

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Character Development

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               This is a question about character development.  If you as a reader or writer came across this internal dialog of a character, would you consider it to be a bad character or a good character?  By this I mean, would they be a good guy or a bad guy?  I guess I am also asking of the character would work psychologically?

                My thought on it is it is too soon to tell.  It would depend on further development by thought and action in the story.  What do you think?  They would be some sort of detective, soldier, law enforcement kind of character in a pulp fiction piece: smuggler might do, somebody on the other side of the Law.

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‘I can understand where a Nazi is coming from.  They want to kill the bad guys.  It appeals to a certain sort of person.  I know, I was programed all my life to kill Nazis.  Captain America kills Nazis.  Hollywood’s American Army kills Nazis.  In my schooling says America kills Nazis.  Fortunately, in my upbringing I was taught to think about who the Nazis are.  If they are trying to get me killed, they are Nazis.  If they are shooting at me, I know they are Nazis.

                I know my sins; I can tell the difference between if they are shooting at me for my sins, or just because I happen to be in the line of fire for no damn reason at all. I happen to have a prayer rug the size of a good-sized room to pray away my sins.  Some men only have rugs the size they can kneel on.  I know my sins intimately; I will see those who I wronged, and they may get that free shot because I am such a bastard.  It depends on the day I am having.

                This current breed of Nazi raised in the U.S.A. is fair game, well, they will be once they start to shoot at me for whatever reason.  I see what they are.  They are right bastards that need to be put down.  When they are shooting at me, I will put them down.  I will try to make sure my letters of marque let me kill them with as little hassle as possible.  What do I care, I am getting old, less to live for unless somebody comes up with the elixir vita, the philosopher’s stone, or nanotechnology, the hassle might be worth while if I am feeling really old that day.

                But I am hoping that the “good” guys who see me as an acceptable loss in their battle against Nazis recognize that I have more and more really tired days.  I am still looking for that elixir vita, and I am not going to trust that whole resurrection into eternal life thing if I die thing; nobody has laid out the rules to my satisfaction yet.  I will depend entirely on the kind of day I am having.’

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The Prices These Days!

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I moved out of my garret last spring into a burrow. It was much cooler this summer. But I started thinking about milkshakes recently and looked around for my vanilla flavoring. Things get lost in the shuffle. This little bottle of vanilla was over eight dollars at the store. The good extras were over twenty a bottle. I am going to have to start working on my kitchen alchemy projects with vanilla beans. The prices these days!