#Tim Barrus on FB

[timbarrus]

I do not understand how anyone would bring a child into this sad and exhausted world. Some people have to have it all, when no one can have it all. The house. The cars. The kids. The job. The credit cards. Food. Food. Food. And school. And school times twenty. And school with its rituals. And church with its rituals. Why are we raising children in an indifferent society. Because the haves and the have nots have been fighting it out over equity for the last 150,000 years. In case you haven't heard: the planet is burning. Cultures are facing famine. Is this where I'm supposed to talk about war. People talk to me about progress in science. And. There is no and. Where is the human progress. How do children fit into the economic picture. File bankruptcy before you have sex. I had no idea the baby needed all that stuff. Relatives would give me that look: Where's your stuff. What stuff. The pressure was on. I know that pressure. I know it intimately. Women are baby machines, and so are men. Everything in your life takes a walk. I moved us into a five star hotel. They had stuff. I didn't have to buy a thing. But my life, and my kid's life, is utterly different. I do not get women. I do not understand them. I profoundly don't understand why they are only fulfilled if they have babies. Is that a crime to articulate. I loathe babies and children. I worked with disabled children for fifty years. At 5pm I could go home. Is that a crime to articulate. Ross Douthat loves children. I do not.

[timbarrus]

I can't take this stuff seriously anymore. All I see are suits and suits and suits. The New York Times is the great-grandpa suits of suits. Your grandfather's paper is still your grandfather's paper. What one suit says to another suit. That's always news. Not a single new idea. Some of us like to play We Are Suits but I am a mid-western Barn Boy. Pelosi is who we should be electing. Roll out the problems of the suits into a big Cleopatra carpet. Now, unroll it. Suits be popping out. Give me Ceaser or give me death, Ezra. Threads. Seriously. Kamala is playing it safe. Ezra is as safe as you can get. I hear the echoes of a tin can. I am so not going to vote. Why. Simple. Kamala is a suit and so is her friend. You can dress a suit up with another new suit, but the suit is still a suit. Sometimes the suits wear controversial stuff like a nametag. The democrat suits are going to lose. I was all out for Kamala. Excited actually. But there was something wrong here. She's a suit. It hit me like god and a clap of thunder. Suit ideology. Suits like other suits. Last night, I threw my television out the window. I have to replace that window. I have overdosed. On suits. It's a bitter pill to swallow.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. "But voters still trust his positions more than his opponent’s."

Don't tell me. Show me.

I do not believe it. There's a different standard for showing, and clinging to a narrative that is dubious at best. How do we know that Americans trust Trump more. Where are the figures and whose data are we talking about. What did you know and when did you know it. Criminality is culture, too.

Americans will opt to grab at the simple solutions. They're busy. They live in terror of losing their jobs. They're hung over. Nervous. Their kids are failing. They're in debt. But they get to vote. Yet Americans want to be controlled.

They are already controlled. That is what advertising is. You being controlled. You being told there is a god and you must worship him the way we tell you to worship period. Let us away to art.

1969: They Shoot Horses, Don't They. Gig Young was Rocky Gravo, the evil ring master of ceremonies. Rocky can sell you anything. The Bob Barker of 1934. Just keep dancing. Just keep dancing. Just keep the people entertained with who dies first. Just keep the people on their toes with who dies last. Rocky Gravo has to prove that he is not ordinary. Rocky Gravo is ordinary. Look around the dance arena and you will see the people we never see at all. They blend into the walls. Rocky Gravo is dog eat dog. Complexity is not his problem.

Immigration is code for Let's Make Them Dance. Come on down.

[timbarrus]

He's going down. The crazy daisies will now be his status quo. He's not going to put himself in another debate with someone who just ragged him into a pool of make-up and sweat. But can she win the election remains the last pseudo-journalistic place to hide. But can she win. But can she win. She can win. She will win. And the maga maestro can join his mate, Putin, who will eventually have to face the reality that their fates are intertwined because they themselves have intertwined it. I don't believe in a god. But here in the trenches of America, I am fervently praying that Americans can still be smart. Cats and dogs are embarrassed and humiliated that they were a part of Trump's playbook. My dog would have eaten his playbook for lunch. And there's the problem. It's their problem. The courtiers, the lobbyists, the lawyers, the snakes. Trump's problem is that he's going to lean into it. There will be recipes. Into the mixing bowl, crack an egg, throw in some high heels and and some blondes. Finally. Someone. Stood. In. His. Way. It took a black woman to do it. Today, he's calling for civil war. Grandpa, we have to go home now. I will hold your hand. And we're walking. And,we're walking.

[timbarrus]

Take notes: I am a super cool parent and I have set no one adrift. I do not bite Barbie's head off. Who actually parents children in a politikal context. My three-year-old is a Nazi. She orders everyone around. Are you telling me that republicans have children. Who demonstrate the teachings of a lone homo sapiens who never had any children let alone a marriage. Yes, Jesus had many republican children. This was more difficult than walking on water. Weird. My three-year-old usually knows a fantasy when she sees it. I teach her that everyone who is republican is bad. Republicans smell as they do not bathe. Republicans give Barbie cigarette burns. Republicans are mean to dogs. You are Wonder Woman, you have Wonder Woman pajamas, and you have magic ropes to tie people up so republicans have to tell the truth which is what makes them all go blind, they run into things. Wonder Woman (or our image of her) was never subservient to a male. Any male. Men are bad. Repeat after me: Men Are Bad, Men are Bad, Men are Bad. Why. Don't ask questions. And don't marry one. Why. Because when you have children, they will probably be men children. Why. Because men children play with matches. Pick me up. No, you have to walk by yourself. Everytime I say that I have to slap myself. We all fall down somewhere in our lives, republican or Democrat. Bring in the next one. There are no prophets in the world dreaming of things to come. Those would be our kids.

[timbarrus]

Lake Michigan Dunes

[timbarrus]

Bells. Whistles. Smoke. Screens. Lawyers. The lawyers win. Americans are famously attracted to the back porch light of conflict. Google invented it. Google wrote the script. Do no harm while you strangle other trade homo sapiens engage in. Are we giving it to you now." Yes, Google. Yes. Until you don't. Google will fail. The concept of do no harm was thrown out of the ballpark decades ago. The only way you do no harm is to stop existing. All of these stuffed suits will fail. The reach for conflict is the conflict. Engagement. Is not increased engagement. It's Vegas on steroids. Vegas on steroids does a lot of harm. Everything that is wrong with Google's Genesis, their rolling out of AI, feels like (after checking out every company selling or renting AI) I cannot find the voice behind the voice, the soul of the thing, is a discovery. It's not a good product. Yet. But that yet is a big one. Too little, too late. The bigness is a burden. For a company to pretend they do no harm, releasing a vague, lame, voice for everyone, is called attitude: We do not need you, you need us." But no. Not everyone needs a monopoly to coexist with homo sapiens whose origins, too, usurp conflict after conflict. It is us even if we are loathe to admit it. Our lizard brains were arranged so as to recognize conflict, and go over there to start some of your own. In my subjective opinion, all search engines engage in placement hierarchy where conflict results in increased engagement. So end the conflict.

[timbarrus]

No autistic writers. Or. We do not know of them. Why are we talking about supporting dead writers. Go full hog and put the writer in the spotlight. But not necessarily the book. We sell writers. Books are a bi-product. Sparkle, Shirley, sparkle. I didn't understand this. Author tours are unholy. I know how to write. I do not know small talk. I'm autistic. Neurodivergent. I only wear t-shirts, and only one color because dyes make hives explode on me. My eyes swell up and unless I take the nice shirt off, I go blind. I have to wear nice clothes to bookstores and no politics. This means no rabble rousing. Shake hands and shut up. Someday, I am going to show up shirtless. I thought a canon was something you shoot on a pirate ship. I love dead writers. Because. They can't fight back. If I even see a Jane Austen book, I search Amazon for top hats. The worst list on the entire planet in this part of the galaxy is the New York Times list of lists of lists listing books that have been selling since 1865. Why. Why. Why would I read a dull novel. Truth in advertising could be the word -- dull -- on a sticker. This sounds a little close to reading books you have read before. We have a home for that. Burn all journals. The list thing is so yesterday. Best books. Lists. Private journals. All of this is about the writer. I can't sell myself, so how is it, Mister Editor, that the book counts for less than zero. Where was he born. What race is he. What is his real name. Just read the book.

[timbarrus]

I live on a remote mountain in the Blue Ridge. We have been losing our squirrels in this intense heat. Coyote pups born in the spring can't walk or run. Deer struggle to get up. Where I could count the number of cat birds per acre on two hands, today, it's one hand. It's more alone up here. We just came out of a drought. August is burning my plants. Bears around the cabin here are more interested in water than food. Acorns are small. We are trapped by heat now. Not tomorrow. Magnify that times ten for the smaller creatures. We share this planet. We do not own it -- we are renters, even you in your Big house, with your Big air conditioners grinding away, we are all the morally little people who take up too much space. You are not aware of creatures living among you like spies, waiting to see what insanity you might pull next. If we kill all the birds, then we won't have bird flu. Wrong. You can kill all the animals on the planet, but you already have bird flu. Carrier Pigeons used to roost up here. Homo sapiens want it all. Rainbow trout are now small and rare. The air is polluted from Industry in the Ohio river area, blowing smoke smack dab into our lungs. At night, the frog trees were a chorus, that tiny little guys have such a voice. I don't have visitors. I am suspicious of your curiosity. The road is a walk, but I have plastered (you cannot miss them) no hunting and no trespassing signs all up and down the road. I have made 100 big new signs. One word. Consequences.

[timbarrus]

I was diagnosed as high functioning Aspergers as a kid. Asperger was a Nazi monster. I deplore even writing his name. I used to say: I Hate School. Now, I say: School hated me. Never unmask. Too dangerous. Never talk to teachers. Keep your hands folded on your desk. Do not tell them you already know everything they are going to teach. No stimming. No talking. Boys held me down and shaved my head. Every day of my life, I am at war with the world. When it comes to neurodiversity, let's be real, there are no jobs. I became a writer. It's the only thing I know how to do. I know nothing of grammar. I know nothing of writing rules and regulations. Even if I knew about the rules, I would not follow them. I write what I want. When I want. How I want. Wherever I want. Every single homo sapiens I have ever known hates my guts. I stopped trying years ago. There is no way you can take my mask off. It's welded to my skull. If we were having a conversation, I would smile and nod a lot. It's what I do. Smile and nod. It seems to make the Normals happy when you smile and nod and pretend you understand what it is they want. Homo sapiens always want something. Homo sapiens are a very needy species. I live in a remote place where I am not compelled to deal with anyone. I grow my own food. I only see other people when I drive my bike to town. They will punish you if they can for being autistic. Accomodation: I built a small desk in my little rowboat.I can write in the middle of the lake.

[timbarrus]

They walked a thousand miles to die but the river was a mudflat because they had sucked the water out and it had spilled out onto the grass where the grass was every proton and her garments were the speed of light.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. It's Christmas. The billionaire class gets to tuck us in and read us fables and myths. He is entitled to have access to the New York Times. Enormous wealth counts. It's all one needs. We must give our readers what they want and this is what they want because this is what they always want. Fluff. This is called a total lack of imagination. This piece attempts to normalize a psychosis that has infected the brains of homo sapiens who beg at the feet of the rapist. Oh, a big new box of fun things. This piece offends me to my core because it is disguised by a plea by a billionaire that we must all work together for the sake of community. The naïveté would be shocking but it's not naïveté. I want the hard, deep truth not because I am developmentally depraved, but because I am filled with fear. It's unmanly to say that, yet I think many of us are in the Afraid Boat. The writer has access. Front page. Because he's rich. Period. It is not uncivil to tell that tough truth. Shirley Temple tap dances with the salves. Quid Pro Quo died in November. Just drop a ton of happy pills from a plane. There is no god. There was no Jesus. Religion is the boot shoved against your neck. Religion is the icon of undistributed vast wealth. The little people love our billionaire stories about how lucky we are to have them because patriarchal culture has won the blood fight. A billionaire tells us the Christmas story of the bad stuff is our fault and the billionaires are misunderstood.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. We are ruled by criminals and one rapist criminal. It's the clown car and he is driving it. Our government is the mob and the mob has won. I wish you luck on keeping your vaunted democracy. Ordinary lament. The Supreme Court golf-cart assessment of how many things are all okay as long as we do not resist.

I will resist. Do you stand with me.

No. You desire certification. All wrapped up with an institutional blue ribbon. We need Johnny to help making widgets. The people want widgets and Johnny Boy is a compromised widget. The supply chain has a kink called New Jersey and all the widgets are on one big truck. All we need are more widgets so we don't have to pick sides yet. Choose. Now is the time to protect your personal agency. To not decide is to decide. I see a civil war waiting in the wings. There will be spies. The statue bearing Trump's name in Statuary Hall is the one with the loaded gun. That he is a rapist (I will get in trouble for writing this), doesn't seem to bother women who vote for whoever their boyfriends and husbands and brothers and the milk man tell her who to vote for. Thank you, women. To wit: Murder. I am not allowed to use that term. Murder. Let us spy on murder. This stuff is a Hollywood dream come true. Nicole Kidman must know Langley pretty well. This is where we formulate how the spy thing works on steroids. And you Americans think that all of it is real. All of it is real, and none of it is real. Civil war. They don't spy on that.Yet.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Great piece. I appreciate the research, because it points out the lack of research. But. It goes to law, and I appreciate that, too. What I'm looking at these days is not based in gender issues. It's based in violence. I was teaching a group of adolescents with HIV. We met three times a day. Because you had to be on top of it. It can all change in the blink of an eye. At first, they talked mainly about trans issues. A few dressed accordingly. It was an announcement that they were here. They talk the talk, and they walk the walk. At night, they did sex work to survive. Some of the gay boys had problems with a lot of it. Face it. They were afraid of becoming them. The Other is the Other and so are you.

This piece does not go to violence. That was not the theme. No one talks about the violence, or if they do, it's academic. You give social work names to it. You give sociology names to it. If you are grasping at that data, the odds of you belonging to the caste of us untouchables is obvious. You have never suffered a concussion from a fist. Or a baseball bat. I have seen teachers beat them up. To go home to change clothes or be suspended. I have seen cops look the other way when a child is being raped by the men who attacked her in cold blood. The murder rate applies every time they walk out the door. The media thinks it's colloquial. It's not. It's everywhere. My teens in that classroom had to process. Three times a day. Just to discuss what went on an hour ago.

Poor kids do not get the surgery stage. Caste and poverty are what they are. Dehumanizing humiliation. Rich kids from suburban families who have health insurance can get the surgery. No one is coming home from school with a different gender. That, too, is a self-created (homo sapiens are so kind to each other) vibe constructed to immobilize and freeze you back to 1949. The media only finds them a curious fetish for the non-conforming. They are fodder for the 24 hour news cycle. We hate these children because we hate ourselves.

[timbarrus]

Take Notes. Leftists? The term is a lie that journalists use in their hypothesis of the definitional political boundaries. Those leftists. But. Who are these so-called leftists. I know this: You made it up. God help us. Who are these people. Who shakes the hand of a Marxist and says: I Am A Leftist. Who runs a leftist campaign. Who throws leftist cocktail parties. Who buys a leftist house. Who has leftist babies and more babies and leftist babies. I think I drink in leftist bats. My dog is a leftist. I catch leftist fish. I am so tired of how the New York Times prostitutes the idea of whatever a leftist is. I am in favor of Head Start proving breakfast. A little box of corn flakes. And I apologize for that. Forgive me, but I am not a leftist. I am a radical. Leftists are too vanilla, and lame as sheep. The more you make it opaque, the more it makes them disappear. I am invisible. I do not not count. Some guy on a bike, Mom. The New York Times will not allow a leftist voice. Period. You should hear the laughter when I say: you need a radical voice because we are not tolerated. All columnists get away with the word because it has no significance. No leftists. No radicals. Radicals are made, not born. Mainly those ideas are in comments. I want to be in comments because there are, real people with actual ideas. I am tired of reading suit manifestoes. I want a radical (not me) who fights (politely), and do not want anymore suits representing suit ideology. Because it lacks courage.