Road Side Shrines

I finally set up a little shrine to where I started trying to produce text for publication. Maybe it will help me get back to the roots of writing. Word-processing is wonderful and all, but it is just one of the tools of the “creative” process. I think it was in the movie Reuben, Reuben that the poet points out that his whole being rebelled against the idea of regular employment, so he took up poetry. “It certainly wasn’t regular, and it certainly couldn’t be considered employment.” At least that is the way I remember it.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6412071412890340754/8606893002891445440

Ballooning

              It has been four and a half years since retirement, and I still haven’t shored up all the damage the world and I have done to myself along the way.  But as far as reversing the child being the father to the man process, the one where senility makes the man slipping back into being a child, I may be making some progress.  I just wish the body wasn’t so bloody useless with physical deterioration.  It sucks.  Still, life is a process that we were not given a manual for.  I need to find the address for the manufacturer, write a nasty letter.

                Grandkids help, but they put a strain on the body’s infrastructure.

Art Class

It takes 4 Mylar-helium balloons to hold up 1 regular, red balloon. I am going to have to come up for a better idea to make lighter than air ships to carry people around worlds. The whole hot air balloon thing is so Ogg-discover-fire! Hydrogen is so, “Oh the humanity!”

Cash Poor

Somewhere along the way, I saw a single panel cartoon with a middle-class couple hiding in their home as the paper boy knocks on the door for his collection for their subscription.  It might have been in Mad magazine.  It was a long time ago.

                I bet real wealthy people have the cash set aside for rainy days.  Stinking rich people have half a billion dollars in reserve for bonds so they can have their lawyers file an appeal.  If not, they aren’t that smart.

A Tendency Towards Tacky

I remember when people talked about the dignity of the office with the U.S.A.’s presidency. As of 2016 that no longer is a thing thanks to the Russia’s FSB (Federal Security Bureau), GRU (Chief Intelligence Office), the Trump Organization, and the Grand Old Party. The Russian Federation and the Grand Old Party, and Donald J. Trump recognized the flaw in American’s nature: the ugly American. Kudos, well played.

Not Soviet Realism

Tsarist Appeal

Tsarist Envy

What is the appeal of the gilt frame?

Gaming

There are people who game the system; these are the people the system should game. That is in the rules someplace.

Most of us cannot afford due process.

Newspapers

Once upon a time reporters wrote stories to sell newspapers. The owners of those newspapers probably made a tidy sum off of advertising. Now, the media probably makes most of their money off of advertising. Do television networks and cable companies have to pay media companies to run their stories?

Myth

The myth of the golden cracker-jack toy persists.  It is just fake gold, a veneer plastic, or gold coloring mixed in the P.E.T., a little boost to sell sugar.  Plastic army men, plastic creatures, plastic tokens, it is a petroleum industry side hustle.

                I found a cool green alien-beer-stein in the plastic recycling bin.  It must have come out of Roswell or some other U.A.P. hotspot.  I stuck it on a windowsill with lots of sun.  In a year it grew brittle, crumbled to the touch.

                Give people lots of light, the real ones will last longer.

Looking Forward

One of the odd things about people urging us to look forward is that in the present, the things that are screwed up are generally a result of the things they have messed up in the past.

English Degree

The dog runs.
The dog got the runs.
He lies like a dog.
The dog used to run.
He became an ex-dog.

Simile and metaphor,
remember dog spelled backwards
is god.
The Trumps don't appear
to be dog people.
I worship the goddess
Bastet myself.

International Women’s Day

               Numbers don’t lie unless you want them to.

                There are about 331 million people in the U.S.  If you work with that number and the number of votes for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020, about 62 million and about 74 million respectively, you come up with about 18% of the population the first time and 22% the second time.  We will see if the increase of percent holds into the 2024 election.  If it does, that get it up to about 25% for Trump.

                If you use the number of registered voters from 2021 as one of the figures, about 161 million, the percent of votes for Trump changes.  They work out to 35, 45, and 52% with the increase of votes for Trump.  Those are scary numbers.

                Hillery R. Clinton’s numbers work out to about 19% for 2016 using the population of 331 million and 40% if you use the registered voters of 161 million.  The winning majority of votes did not count thanks to the electoral college compromise with low population states to get the Constitution ratified by the original 13 states.  Chattel counted as population back then, but it was not allowed to vote.  Culturally, chattels are now counted as population and able to vote if it is registered.  Apparently, 171 million members of the current U.S. population are disenfranchised for some reason: children or just do not care?

                Joseph Biden’s numbers in 2020 work out to 24% with the 331 million population number and we do not know if the votes will increase in 2024.  If we use the registered voter’s number, we get about 50%.  So, it looks like Bidden needs to come up with about 86 million votes to not be stabbed in the back by the electoral college of the pro chattel states.

                Almost 104 years ago, Aug. 18, 1920, the 19 Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.  It gave women the vote.  This year, women who believe that people are not property really need to vote, about 5 million of them in the electoral college states with a bias toward women are too emotional to rule themselves and others.  They need to vote against the conservative agenda of people as property.

                The distinction between a conservative and a liberal might be that simple.  The difference between the two could be the chattel issue.  Both of them are pretty uniform on real estate, but they differ on the ownership of people.  Conservatives want to treat people like real estate, liberals at least balk at that idea.

                Sure, people are dangerous and frequently a threat to self and others so they need to be governed, but they are not property.