#mob discovers he’s in america and he thinks he’s in texas

[coca-coeli]

more effort could hypothetically come at some point in the future. psychic japanese youth eats specialty thai food and it’s so spicy he time travels to 1965 oklahoma

[newstfionline]

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Americans Are Drinking More During The Pandemic (NPR) When the pandemic began spreading across the U.S. in March, stores, restaurants and schools closed down. But liquor stores in many parts of the U.S. were deemed essential and stayed open. Alcohol sales have ticked up during the pandemic, so maybe it’s a good time to ask yourself: Are you drinking more than you’d like to be? R. Lorraine Collins, a psychologist at the University of Buffalo, recommends asking yourself, “Are you keeping alcohol as ... a special beverage for limited situations, or are you engaging in alcohol use across the board?” A break from alcohol can lead to a range of outcomes. As we’ve reported, a 2016 British study of people who participated in a monthlong “Dry January” break, found that 82% said they felt a sense of achievement. “Better sleep” was cited by 62%, and 49% said they lost some weight. Maybe you hike farther, have better conversations or get better sleep. Notice if your life feels richer to you. If we’re stuck at home for now, why not give it a try? What do you have to lose?

‘Do as I say’: Anger as some politicians ignore virus rules (AP) Denver’s mayor flies to Mississippi to spend Thanksgiving with his family—after urging others to stay home. He later says he was thinking with “my heart and not my head.” A Pennsylvania mayor bans indoor dining, then eats at a restaurant in Maryland. The governor of Rhode Island is photographed at an indoor wine event as her state faces the nation’s second-highest virus rate. While people weigh whether it’s safe to go to work or the grocery store, the mayor of Austin, Texas, heads to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on a private jet after hosting a wedding for 20. California’s governor dines at a swanky French restaurant with lobbyists, none wearing masks, a day after San Francisco’s mayor was there for a birthday party. Both had recently imposed tough rules on restaurants, shops and activities to slow the spread of the virus. To the public’s chagrin, some of America’s political leaders have been caught preaching one thing on the coronavirus and practicing another. Sure, politicians have long been called out for hypocrisy. But during a pandemic that’s forced millions into seclusion and left many without paychecks, such actions can feel like a personal insult—reinforcing the idea “that some people just don’t have to follow the rules while the rest of us do,” says Rita Kirk, a professor of communications at Southern Methodist University. Pandemic-era hypocrisy has only deepened the polarization in a time already marked by division, emboldening those who doubt the seriousness of the virus and dividing people’s responses based on political affiliations.

Hacked networks will need to be burned ‘down to the ground’ (AP) It’s going to take months to kick elite hackers widely believed to be Russian out of the U.S. government networks they have been quietly rifling through since as far back as March in Washington’s worst cyberespionage failure on record. Experts say there simply are not enough skilled threat-hunting teams to duly identify all the government and private-sector systems that may have been hacked. FireEye, the cybersecurity company that discovered the intrusion into U.S. agencies and was among the victims, has already tallied dozens of casualties. It’s racing to identify more. “We have a serious problem. We don’t know what networks they are in, how deep they are, what access they have, what tools they left,” said Bruce Schneier, a prominent security expert and Harvard fellow. Many federal workers—and others in the private sector—must presume that unclassified networks are teeming with spies. Agencies will be more inclined to conduct sensitive government business on Signal, WhatsApp and other encrypted smartphone apps. The only way to be sure a network is clean is “to burn it down to the ground and rebuild it,” Schneier said.

College students recruited as teachers to keep schools open (AP) As the coronavirus sidelines huge numbers of educators, school districts around the country are aggressively recruiting substitute teachers, offering bonuses and waiving certification requirements in order to keep classrooms open. Coming to the rescue in many cases are college students who are themselves learning online or home for extended winter breaks. In Indiana, the 4,400-student Greenfield-Central school district about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Indianapolis made a plea for help as its substitute pool shrank. “I said, ‘If you’ve got a student who’s in college, maybe they’d like to work even a two-month thing for us—which would be a stopgap, no doubt—but it will help us a whole, whole bunch,” said Scott Kern, the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation director of human resources. Over a dozen college students answered the call including his own daughter, 19-year-old Grace Kern, who is studying medical imaging technology at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. She has been working in elementary school classrooms, helping students as teachers offer instruction remotely via a screen inside the room.

An Ex-Governor Is Gunned Down, Punctuating a Deadly Year for Mexico (NYT) The former governor of the state of Jalisco was gunned down early Friday while vacationing in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, the authorities said, a brazen killing that further illustrated the government’s struggles to rein in the deadly violence that has surged across Mexico over the past five years. The killing of the ex-governor, Aristóteles Sandoval, who was shot in the back inside a restaurant restroom, is one of the highest-profile political killings in Mexico in recent memory, security experts said. Mr. Sandoval was killed just hours before President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his cabinet delivered a grim update on the nation’s security situation during a news conference. More than 31,000 murders were recorded in Mexico this year as of November, the latest month for which government statistics are available, a figure roughly on pace with 2019. But homicides have nearly doubled over the past five years.

Bosnian city of Mostar gets a vote (AP) Irma Baralija is looking forward to Sunday, when she intends to vote and hopes to win her race as the southern Bosnian city of Mostar holds its first local election in 12 years. To make that vote possible in her hometown, the 36-year-old Baralija had to sue Bosnia in the European Court of Human Rights for letting a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties prevent her, along about 100,000 other Mostar residents, from voting or running in a municipal election for over a decade. By winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes she has “busted the myth (that nationalist parties) have been feeding to us, that an individual cannot move things forward, that we matter only as members of our ethnic groups.” Left without fully functioning institutions, Mostar—one of the impoverished Balkan country’s main tourist destinations—has seen its infrastructure crumble, trash repeatedly pile up on its streets and hazardous waste and wastewater treatment sludge dumped in its only landfill, which was supposed to be for non-hazardous waste.

India’s virus cases cross 10 million as new infections dip (AP) India’s confirmed coronavirus cases have crossed 10 million with new infections dipping to their lowest levels in three months, as the country prepares for a massive COVID-19 vaccination in the new year. Dr. Randeep Guleria, a government health expert, said India is keeping its fingers crossed as the cases tend to increase in winter months. India is home to some of the world’s biggest vaccine-makers and there are five vaccine candidates under different phases of trial in the country.

Israel’s top-secret Mossad looks to recruit via Netflix, Hulu and Apple TV (Washington Post) After decades in the shadows, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, has been getting a lot of airtime, both on the news and in popular TV thrillers. In real life, details of operations attributed to Israel are in the open like never before, including the theft two years ago of a trove of nuclear secrets from inside Iran, last summer’s drive-by killing of al-Qaeda’s No. 2 in Tehran and the assassination last month of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. And on the screen, streaming hits like Apple TV Plus’s “Tehran,” Netflix’s “The Spy” and Hulu’s “False Flag” have starred the Mossad as a cold, ruthless and efficient machine. Far from squirming, the once-supersecret agency has welcomed the exposure, former spies say. The Mossad needs recruits. Military veterans who might have once made their career in national service now leave to work for lucrative start-ups, or found their own. Israeli companies Waze, Wix, Viber and others were started by intelligence veterans. In response, Yossi Cohen, the Mossad’s director since 2016 and a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has embarked on a hiring spree, increased the agency’s number of sabotage operations and enlarged its budget by billions of shekels. The Mossad’s recruitment drive includes a heightened social media presence and a calculated trickle of unconfirmed information about its exploits. And former spies say the agency is quietly embracing a slew of TV shows and movies that could do for the agency what “Top Gun” famously did for naval recruitment: make a life in the organization seem cool again.

Chaos and jubilation as freed Nigerian schoolboys reunite with family (Reuters) Parents sobbed, mobbed their children in hugs and even kissed the ground in gratitude on Friday as they reunited with scores of schoolboys who had been kidnapped a week earlier in northwest Nigeria. Hundreds of adults jostled to find their offspring among the 344 dusty and dazed looking children who had arrived by bus in Katsina state on Friday morning. Those who succeeded cheered and grabbed their children, but scores more were still waiting by early evening. “I feel like God has granted me paradise because I am so happy,” said an ebullient Hamza Kankara after she found her son, Lawal, in the crowd. Another man knelt and kissed the ground, thanking God for the return of his young son, before clutching the boy and sobbing.

[yasbxxgie]

Why Octavia E Butler’s novels are so relevant today

It’s campaign season in the US, and a charismatic dark horse is running with the slogan ‘make America great again’. According to his opponent, he’s a demagogue; a rabble-rouser; a hypocrite. When his supporters form mobs and burn people to death, he condemns their violence “in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear”. He accuses, without grounds, whole groups of people of being rapists and drug dealers. How much of this rhetoric he actually believes and how much he spouts “just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule” is at once debatable, and increasingly beside the point, as he strives to return the country to a “simpler” bygone era that never actually existed.

More like this:

-        The 1968 novel that predicted today

-        The fiction that predicted space travel

-        The story of cannibalism that came true

You might think he sounds familiar – but the character in question is Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret, the fictional presidential candidate who storms to victory in a dystopian science-fiction novel titled Parable of the Talents. Written by Octavia E Butler, it was published in 1998, two decades before the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States.

Like much of her writing, Butler’s book was a warning about where the US and humanity in general might be heading. In some respects, we’ve beaten her to it: a sequel to 1993’s Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents is set in what is still the future, 2032. While its vision is extreme, there is plenty that feels within the bounds of possibility: resources are increasingly scarce, the planet is boiling, religious fundamentalism is rife, the middle classes live in walled-off enclaves. The novel’s protagonist, a black woman like the author herself, fears that Jarret’s authoritarianism will only worsen matters.

Fourteen years after her early death, Butler’s reputation is soaring. Her predictions about the direction that US politics would take, and the slogan that would help speed it there, are certainly uncanny. But that wasn’t all she foresaw. She challenged traditional gender identity, telling a story about a pregnant man in Bloodchild and envisaging shape-shifting, sex-changing characters in Wild Seed. Her interest in hybridity and the adaptation of the human race, which she explored in her Xenogenesis trilogy, anticipated non-fiction works by the likes of Yuval Noah Harari. Concerns about topics including climate change and the pharmaceutical industry resonate even more powerfully now than when she wove them into her work.

And of course, by virtue of her gender and ethnicity, she was striving to smash genre assumptions about writers – and readers – so ingrained that in 1987, her publisher still insisted on putting two white women on the jacket of her novel Dawn, whose main character is black. She also helped reshape fantasy and sci-fi, bringing to them naturalism as well as characters like herself. And when she won the prestigious MacArthur ‘genius’ grant in 1995, it was a first for any science-fiction writer.

Octavia Estelle Butler was born on 22 June 1947. Her father, a shoeshiner, died when she was very young, and she was raised by her mother, a maid, in Pasadena, California. As an only child, Butler began entertaining herself by telling stories when she was just four. Later, tall for her age and painfully shy, growing up in an era of segregation and conformity, that same storytelling urge became an escape route. She read, too, hungrily and in spite of her dyslexia. Her mother – who herself had been allowed only a scant few years of schooling – took her to get a library card, and would bring back cast-off books from the homes she cleaned.

An alternate future

Through fiction, Butler learnt to imagine an alternate future to the drab-seeming life that was envisioned for her: wife, mother, secretary. “I fantasised living impossible, but interesting lives – magical lives in which I could fly like Superman, communicate with animals, control people’s minds”, she wrote in 1999. She was 12 when she discovered science fiction, the genre that would draw her most powerfully as a writer. “It appealed to me more, even, than fantasy because it required more thought, more research into things that fascinated me,” she explained. Even as a young girl, those sources of fascination ranged from botany and palaeontology to astronomy. She wasn’t a particularly good student, she said, but she was “an avid one”.

After high school, Butler went on to graduate from Pasadena City College with an Associates of Arts degree in 1968. Throughout the 1970s, she honed her craft as a writer, finding, through a class with the Screen Writers’ Guild Open Door Program, a mentor in sci-fi veteran Harlan Ellison, and then selling her first story while attending the Clarion Science Fiction Writer’s Workshop. Supporting herself variously as a dishwasher, telemarketer and inspector at a crisp factory, she would wake at 2am to write. After five years of rejection slips, she sold her first novel, Patternmaster, in 1975, and when it was published the following year, critics praised its well-built plot and refreshingly progressive heroine. It imagines a distant future in which humanity has evolved into three distinct genetic groups, the dominant one telepathic, and introduces themes of hierarchy and community that would come to define her work. It also spawned a series, with two more books, Mind of My Mind and Survivor, following before the decade’s end.

With the $1,750 advance that Survivor earnt her, Butler took a trip east to Maryland, the setting for a novel she wanted to write about a young black woman who travels back in time to the Deep South of 19th-Century America. Having lived her entire life on the West Coast, she travelled by cross-country bus, and it was during a three-hour wait at a bus station that she wrote the first and last chapters of what would become Kindred. It was published in 1979 and remains her best-known book.

The 1980s would bring a string of awards, including two Hugos, the science-fiction awards first established in 1953. They also saw the publication of her Xenogenesis trilogy, which was spurred by talk of ‘winnable nuclear war’ during the arms race, and probes the idea that humanity’s hierarchical nature is a fatal flaw.The books also respond to debates about human genetic engineering and captive breeding programs for endangered species.

In her author photos, Butler appears a serious woman with an exceptionally penetrating gaze. At a talk she gave in Washington DC in 1991, later reported in the radical feminist periodical, Off Our Backs, she offered a fuller description of herself: “comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of Los Angeles – a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, certainty and drive”.

That certainty and drive can be seen in papers from her archive, now housed at the Huntington Library. In 1998, some motivational notes written on the back of a ring-bound writing pad begin “I shall be a bestselling writer!” She goes on: “I will find the way to do this! So be it! See to it!” Elsewhere, she’s to be found urging herself to “tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know. Make people feel! Feel! Feel!”

Butler died in 2006, following a fall near her home in Washington state. Though she had begun suffering from writer’s block and depression, caused in part by medication for her high blood pressure, she’d continued to teach, and in 2005, had been inducted into Chicago State University’s international black writers hall of fame. She published a novel that year, too, Fledgling, whose vampire heroine must avenge a vicious attack, and rebuild her life and family. By then, her books had been translated into 10 languages, selling more than 1 million copies altogether.

In the years since, her fanbase has only grown. It turns out that she didn’t invent the campaign slogan beloved by Trump. It was used by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 presidential campaign, and later by Bill Clinton, although later he described the phrase as a “racist dog whistle to white southerners”. Nevertheless, as Tarshia L Stanley, dean of the school of humanities, arts and sciences at St Catherine University, notes, when readers spotted during the 2016 US election that Butler had chosen the slogan for Jarret, it “jarred people into recognising that she’s been doing this work all along. She’d been trying to tell us that if we do not make changes, this is what’s going to happen. She constantly gave that message: this is the logical conclusion if we keep treading down this path. I think when people saw that phrase, it started a whole new group of people reading her work.”

Butler’s work is today the subject of fan fiction, television adaptations (there are at least two in the works), and lively attention on college campuses, where it’s read from perspectives as varied as critical race theory, Afrofuturism, black feminism, queer theory and disability studies. Stanley, who last year edited the essay collection Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E Butler, is also president of a society dedicated to the author. Its membership is broad, she says, but the most gratifying surprise is how many young people Butler’s work is engaging. At the inaugural conference, there was even a panel of high-school kids.

What would Butler have made of the present political moment in the US? “I don’t think she would have been surprised”, Stanley says. She puts Butler’s ability to envisage our future down to a deep understanding of human nature – knowledge gained from having the role of outsider foisted on her in girlhood. This she backed up with research, reading journals including Scientific American, listening to lectures, travelling as far as the Amazon. For Stanley, the one lesson to take from Butler’s work is hope. “World building is huge in her canon, and so there is always hope that since we built this world, we can build another one.”

There’s a scene in Parable of the Sower when the best friend of heroine Lauren Olamina insists “Books aren’t going to save us”. Lauren replies: “Use your imagination,” telling her to search her family’s bookshelves for anything that might come in handy. “Any kind of survival information from encyclopedias, biographies, anything that helps you learn,” she goes on. "Even some fiction might be useful".

Butler’s novels are just that kind of fiction. The child who began writing as a means of escape, ended up crafting potent calls to socio-political action that seem ever more pertinent to our survival as a species.

Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, and other books by Octavia Butler are published by Headline.

[fmr]

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

May 31, 2022

TEN GUN-CONTROL COP-OUTS

1- Guns don't kill people, elementary schools kill people.

2- The 2nd Amendment says we can have Stinger missiles.

3- Guns keep people safe, especially in grocery stores.

4- Some people are mentally ill — lets ban them instead.

5- A good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun — unless he's afraid.

6- Without guns Marjorie Taylor Green wouldn't have much to scream about.

7- When guns are outlawed what'll we do with 400 million of them in the U.S.

8- They didn't ban airplanes after 9-11, did they.

9- People love guns — especially teenagers in Chicago.

10- The NRA gives Republicans tens of millions each year. Lock and load.

PROGRESS AT LAST — EDIBLE TAPE

Tired of having their burritos unravel, four engineering students at John Hopkins University invented edible tape — and get this, it's clear, colorless and gluten-free. We are not making this up. They've dubbed it Tastee Tape and have submitted an application for patent. You can use it on any type of wrap — even a lettuce wrap. This could change the landscape of Mexican fast-food forever — would you like that with tape or without? You could use it on those new gigantic burgers at Arby's before the lettuce, tomato and onions fall on to your lap. It's the biggest tape revolution since people discovered they could use duct tape for almost anything — repairing clothes, holding car fenders together and binding and gaging kidnap victims. Tape has brought civilization a long way and edible tape is a true breakthrough. Engineers will surely explore the potentially vast edible frontier. What if we had edible coffee cups so people could eat their Starbucks cup instead of tossing it? And what if we had edible clothes so that if you were stranded in the wilderness or a plane on the tarmac at Kennedy you wouldn't starve to death — just eat your sleeve. But best might be edible books, so when the pitchfork mob comes for the school librarian, she can just eat “Of Mice & Men” and “To Kill a Mocking Bird.”

ANIMAL FARM

We believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America we love. All people are equal, but some are more equal. Corporations are people — of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? People's pockets — human beings, of course. There are 47 percent of Americans who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. We'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility for their lives. But we're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people. The media should take a good look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they're pro-America or anti-America. If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people will really look toward those Second Amendment remedies and say, my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? Do not let them take away our power. Do not let them take away our democracy. Make a plan right now. Make America great again.

Post script — That will do it for another confusing week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of Ted Cruz so you don't have to. See, here's the deal, if there's only one door into a school then it will be more difficult for a shooter to get in, said the wily senator from Texas. “There aren't too many guns, there are just too many doors.” Problem solved. On another topic of insanity, the Jan. 6 committee hearings will be televised starting June 9. “It's going to blow the roof off the House,” said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin. “It's the story of the worst presidential political offense against the Union in American history.” The committee must make the case that Trump and his mob sought to keep him in office after the election of Joe Biden — a coup d'etat. It has conducted some 900 depositions and interviews, and has obtained more than 1,000 documents. Beyond a written report, the committee will produce a multimedia presentation and include links to key video evidence. After the Mueller report and the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Democrats may have concluded they need to create a narrative on a middle school-level in order to convince the public that crimes were committed. And just as important, they'll be playing to the Department of Justice that would bring any criminal charges if a bunch of evidence was dropped right in their laps.

That was one weird week, Wilson. We sense the band is using a lot of herbs to cope with our age of discontent. But as Hunter S. Thompson said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And yes, he did say, good people drink good beer. So wake up the band and take us outa here so we can go get some good beer.

Is it worth it A new winter coat and shoes for the wife And a bicycle on the boy's birthday It's just a rumour that was spread around town By the women and children Soon we'll be shipbuilding Well I ask you The boy said 'DAD THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE ME TO TASK BUT I'LL BE BACK BY CHRISTMAS' It's just a rumour that was spread around town Somebody said that someone got filled in For saying that people get killed in The result of this shipbuilding With all the will in the world Diving for dear life When we could be diving for pearls It's just a rumour that was spread around town A telegram or a picture postcard Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards And notifying the next of kin Once again It's all we're skilled in We will be shipbuilding WITH ALL THE WILL IN THE WORLD DIVING FOR DEAR LIFE WHEN WE COULD BE DIVING FOR PEARLS

(Shipbuiding — Elvis Costello)

[omfgtrump]

Mutant Ninja Pollsters

Anyone who entertained the delusion that the Republican party was going to pivot from The Don has been put on notice. Remember the Grim Reaper McConnell’s passionate speech after the Impeachment process, where he held The Don accountable for the January 6th insurrection, even though he exonerated him? Does he regret it now, as The Don’s stranglehold on the Grand Offal Party tightens? Let’s face it, when Liz Cheney becomes the public enemy #1 in the Republican party, we are into a whole new dimension of crazy. One wonders, if the mob had succeeded in lynching Mike Pence, if that would have been a bridge too far for Mitch and his cronies!

Speaking of Pence, he has finally surveyed the landscape and emerged from his bunker in Indiana. In his first public address since his escape from the noose, he managed to praise The Don. Rumor has it that his speech writers vetoed the following remarks: “I want to thank the president for the chance to be hung. It would have been an honor. Sitting at home with Mother these past months, I have come to think of the entire experience as akin to a religious awakening, the way Jesus did, after Judas abandon him.”

As Biden tries to bring the pandemic under control and help ordinary people with trivial things like not dying, jobs, protecting them from eviction from their homes, putting food on the table and addressing a silly thing like climate change, the Offals, lament the end of hamburgers and continue to propagate the anti-democratic screed that the election was illegitimate and stolen from The Don.

In homage to The Don, the Offals are setting up county fairs all over America to air their grievances about the stolen election. Instead of prizes for the best cow or beard, they are competing in contests like: “How far up the Don’s ass can you go?” It’s quite a sight seeing all the brown-faced Offals milling around (Don’t worry, they used cocoa powder instead of…). It got so crazy that the Proud Boys, who were patrolling the fair, accused some of the contestants of being people of color and chased them out of the fair. “But I’m your state senator,” one of them decried, running for his life. Hey Mr. Senator, welcome to being black and brown skinned in America!

So how do the Republicans plan on making sure there can be no more stolen elections? It’s a brilliant plan. It’s by making it more difficult for people who tend to vote Democratic from voting. Their motto: “Stop the steal by stealing!”.

The anti-democratic assault on voting rights is something the Republicans have been doing since the 60’s. The 1965 Voting Rights Act mitigated against this by giving the Federal government the ability to intervene in states with a history of voter suppression. Shamefully, the Supreme Court in 2014 in Shelby vs Holder gutted the Act. After all, we had a black president, so the need to have oversight over bad actors making it more difficult for black and brown people to vote seemed so silly. America had finally fulfilled its promise as a “Post-Racial” society. Talk about the “Big Lie!”

Cut to today to witness our “Post-Racial” world where worrying about voting rights is just an illusion, where state legislators have introduced 361 bills in 47 states this year that contain limitations around voting. The measures include things like enhanced power for poll monitors, fewer voting drop-boxes, restrictions on voting by mail, penalties for election officials who fail to purge voters from the rolls, and enhanced power in politicians over election procedures. Oh and my favorite: Disallowing volunteers from distributing water to people on line to vote.

Republican poll watchers will be wearing shirts that say: “Dehydrate the Bastards.”

Surprise, surprise, that Georgia, where the Democrats won two highly contested Senate seats and a Democratic presidential candidate won for the first time since 1992, was the first to lay down the gauntlet to protect us from the myth of voter fraud.

In Florida, Ron De Satanist just signed a similar bill, and Texas is working its way to the same.

But my favorite is Arizona. Not only is the state trying to pass legislation to suppress voting, but it is trying to re-litigate the presidential election by having another recount!

The Don is foaming at the mouth at the prospects of finally proving that he won the election. If Arizona returns to the fold, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania will be next in line for recounts.

70% of registered Republicans believe that when the truth is discovered he will ascend to his proper position as president. People: this is how democracies die!

But let’s return to Arizona and the mysterious appearance of the “Cyber Ninjas,” a company that has no experience in elections, and whose CEO, Doug Logan, helped to spread “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theories in the run-up to the Capitol riot. The Ninjas are now in possession of Maricopa County’s ballots and voting equipment. Call me crazy, but it sounds like the proverbial fox in the henhouse!

And there is a spiritual mission as well. According to Logan: “As a Christian company, we also believe we have a responsibility to serve, as Christ served.” Did you know Christ was a liar and a cheat? Call me crazy, but I thought he was all about spreading the truth!

Ninja Auditors went to work and took to using UV lights to scan ballots for evidence of fraud. Election officials scratched their heads in disbelief wondering what the Ninjas believed they would discover by using UV light. Conspiracy theorists who follow QAnon and Stop the Steal, however, believe that UV light will reveal that the ballots contain secret watermarks and other markings that will separate the authentic from the fake. Rumor has it that The Don, provided the Ninja’s with the UV light devices leftover from those heady days when he pronounced UV light could zap the coronavirus dead in its tracks.

With the UV lights unable to bear fruit of the faulty ballot, the Ninjas turned their expertise to proving that some of the ballots were made from bamboo to determine whether or not China delivered tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots to tip the state to Joe Biden.

If the bamboo search leads nowhere, the Ninjas are prepared to search for wheat grains in the paper that Italy uses for pasta, bring in sniffing dogs to detect faint amount of Brie from France and curry from India.

One thing is for sure: America has lost its right to be the proctor any elections, anywhere! It has forfeited its place in the world as the defender of democracy.

Another thing isn’t for sure, but should be: The Democrats better figure out a way to get Joe Manchin to do away with the filibuster so HR-1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act can be made law. If they don’t, the chances of fair and free elections in this country will be no more. [NOTE: this will be the last article posted to the OMFGTRUMP blog; from now on all new articles will be posted over at the brand new https://grandoffalparty.com/, so be sure to bookmark/follow/subscribe!]

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[theliterateape]

Dear Don (both of you; all of you)

by M.S. Garvey

(15, February, 2021) FASCISM ACQUITTED.

Crime has never stopped paying. How naïve I have been all my life thinking that one day it would…not pay.

Dear Don,

This piece has become an inadvertent, accidental, perhaps unconsciously intentional personal letter to you. Which is fine, of course, especially if you print it. But, it is good because I have always liked best the medium of the personal letter when it comes to expressing one’s feelings and ideas.

It is a reaction/ revelation in response to your piece, Conspiracy Theorists Are Simply CosPlaying to Avoid Crushing Reality. I keep a pocket journal with me at all times for personal notes to myself, soft thoughts and big ideas. The piece that I offer here comes from that current journal and started as a personal note of something to consider. A few days later I read your piece. 

My heart is still sitting in the bottom of my stomach and I am questioning every motivation I have ever had and every choice I have ever made. I could have been one of those guys that stormed the capital. I am about to admit that I think I have been CosPlaying my entire life. I fear that I may never have had a genuine moment of truth with myself, or love, or pure creativity.

My brain no longer feels like it is a weighty mass with potential for great things, but more akin to a hanging electric bug zapper on a hot and humid Texas August night. (...they could use some of that right now.)

A phrase won’t stop repeating in my head from one of those mob guys that stormed the capitol as he was walking out free as can be, “let’s go get a beer and come back!” he shouted. “Let’s go get a beer and come back!” All my life I have been avoiding “crushing reality”.

Are your ready for some football?!

(14, January, 2021) (create your own tune,...and sing) (with gusto) “...you’ve got to be a football hero to get along with the beautiful girls!”

My Father would sing that to me when I was kid wanting to be and trying to be... A Football Hero. It’s what I wanted to be. 

The thing is. The question to answer is, I am, no, I mean, am I? Am I living for life? Or, am I living for affectation? In short; a fraud. Perhaps it should be approached the other way around—am I living for affectation? Or, am I living for ‘life’? Doesn’t that require more effort in this way? Ah, either way is the same way, no? I like, am I living for affectation or am I living for ‘life’? THAT is the question.

It is no longer ‘to be or not to be’. In this day, that is not enough. (...or, perhaps it is too much) It is no longer relevant. Either way—too much is too little in some other way and somewhat likewise too little is too much in an other different kind of way.

What is ‘to be’? (I know , I know, this is not the first time the question is asked) but, I don’t think anybody out there truly knows. But, there seems to be a lot of ‘bodys’ out there who truly think they truly know. Nobody knows. But, all of a sudden, in all of this not knowing I feel I have discovered what’s ‘not to be’—yes, that is affectation, isn’t it? ‘Not to be’ is shorthand for, ‘not being yourself’. I, am I living for affectation? Or, am I living for life? I must answer this. We all must. For, I don’t think that I am alone in this. This? This what?...this distinction? Distinction that feels like an affliction. 

This is worth examining for myself...and my country.

Am I living for life or am I living for affectation? I am pretty sure I share this psychotic distinction/disorder with others—the current past president perhaps or that drunk at the end of the street. A fraud. A fiction. An affectation, a façade. The more that I go there, I fear I feel that this is something that applies to my country; that has gripped my country like a, a, a, virus. 

Living for affectation or living for life has gripped the country like a virus.

When we say, in god we trust, do we really believe what we are saying? and god bless america...do we believe that that could be true?

Are we being ‘be’ then, or are being ‘not be’? Are we sure that this god has trust in us? Where does this god be? And, we are really to believe “HE” looks like you and me? Now, that’s scary...and hard to believe. But this is basically policy. Let’s go get a beer and come back.

And WHY? Why would it be crazy if I worshiped the moon? Or the tree? Or the spruce grouse? the butterfly? or the bee? What about the loon? But, football heroes? Are you too being afraid ‘to be’? Or, is it just me? So, are we going to ‘bee’ or ‘not to bee’...? I am for the bees.

Sincerely me,(I think) M.S. Garvey

P.S.—This piece is dedicated to the honey bee that came to visit me the other day and approached my face and somehow let it be known to me that she recognized me and remind me that they, the bees, chose me when I was eight years old in the woods outside of Portland Oregon one morning after breakfast in the summer of ‘73 when my cousin and I kicked that bee’s nest laying on the trail, to make sure that I spoke up for them when the day came that due to human stupidity we’d have to speak up for the bee to assure we don’t totally exterminate them and thereby annihilate ourselves...seems insane to think that it could actually be happening. Yet, it is happening and this is the point she was trying to get across to me when she kept approaching my face in an urgent scrutinizing manner. “Why would you let this happen?” she pleaded. And then she asked me to share this with others and have them ask others what they think of the bee. She told me to share it with ten people and tell them to do the same with ten of their people and in ten days tens of thousands of people would demand that we save the bees and thereby save you and me...yes, she did. She said this to me. Oh, you don’t believe she recognized me? Go ahead google it yourself—you’ll see.

M.S. Garvey would like you to visit http://www.thegarveytrain.com and Trap Door Theatre.

[filosofablogger]

Welcome, friends!  Did you notice what was in the front yard as you came in?  No?  Then come … you simply must see!  Yes, there … see them?  The crocuses are coming up!!!  It will be a while before we get blooms, but I am so happy to see their fresh green sprouts! 

So, how was your weekend?  Mine?  Meh.  It was very cold this weekend, and I’m still not quite up to snuff these days, tire too easily, so while we went out for lunch and the bookstore, that was about enough for me.  I was ready to come back home and put on my warm, cozy sweats and thick book socks.  Daughter Chris’ band played in the St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown on Saturday, but Miss Goose and I stayed home where it was warm.  Apparently not many people did, though, for it was so crowded it took her over an hour to be able to make her way back to her car after the parade!

Chris, my li’l drummie girl, is 3rd from the right, front row

Well, since it is Monday, let’s make it a jolly one with a bit of humour, shall we?  Grab a snack and a cuppa.  I put extra tea out for you, rawgod, since you said somebody sipped yours last week.  And David … there’s BFG just for you!

  Playing music for … cheese?

Say What???  This one doesn’t come from a satirical site, but you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it did.

A team of Swiss researchers has been studying the effects of music on cheese.  Yes, you heard me right.  Nine wheels of Emmental cheese weighing 10 kilos (22 pounds) each were placed in separate wooden crates last September to test the impact of music on flavor and aroma.

One wheel was played Mozart 24/7, while another was subjected to Led Zeppelin, and yet another to some hip-hop group of whom I’ve never heard and don’t care if I never do!  One lone wheel was left in peace and quiet.

According to the researchers from Bern University …

“The most obvious differences were observed in strength of flavor, smell and taste. The hip hop sample topped the list of all cheese exposed to music in terms of fruitiness … [it] was the strongest of these in terms of smell and taste. The differences were very clear, in term of texture, taste, the appearance, there was really something very different.  All the energy is directly resonating inside of the cheese.”

Interesting, but my question is … taste varies from person to person, so the cheese I might prefer might well (likely would) be the one that had Mozart playing in its … um … what does cheese have in lieu of ears?  Who comes up with these ideas, anyway!  And why?

Ghost or Gimmick?

The Habitat for Humanity Restore of Rowan County is a second-hand furniture store in North Carolina.  They recently acquired a queen canopy bed frame and highboy chest of drawers that the previous owners said were haunted.  Store Operations Director Elizabeth Brady says she felt obligated to advise potential customers of the possibility of a ghost or ghosts residing within, so she posted photos on Facebook, along with the disclaimer …

And suddenly there was a flurry of interest in the pieces, culminating in a sale for $1,000 just last week.  Now, perhaps I just have a suspicious nature, but I have a funny feeling it was an intentional tease to pique the public interest and have people vying to own these ‘haunted’ pieces, thereby raising the going price. 

Turn some lights out, Bud!

I’ve had a few eye-opening electric bills in my time, but I think the highest ever was probably under $400.  I would love to have seen the look on poor Tommy Straub’s face when he opened his monthly bill from Con Edison in New York and found this …

His average bill is $74.  Tommy took it all in stride, however, tweeting …

“I own a 600 square foot apartment in Astoria. I do NOT own the entirety of Manhattan Island. THIS IS INSANE. FIX IT.”

I think I would have been on the phone to Con Ed, rather than on Twitter, but that seems to be where everybody heads when things go amiss!  Happily, the problem was quickly resolved with a phone call, but if I had been the one to get a bill like that, it would have been too late to resolve, for I would likely have suffered heart failure right then and there!

ATM mobbed?

Back in November in Houston, Texas, I think perhaps the men who loaded an ATM near Interstate 45 and Farm to Market Road 1960 in Harris County, may have been a bit hungover or somehow distracted.  Perhaps there was a pretty little filly trotting down the FM road?  Anyway, where they were supposed to place $20 bills, they instead placed $100 bills! Customers contacted Bank of America, to whom the machine belonged, when it was discovered that the machine was dispensing extra cash, but not before a few people grabbed the money and ran, and a few fights broke out!  No word yet on the amount of excess cash that was distributed, or on whether those found having taken the cash will be charged with some criminal offense.

Personally, I would have waited for the cops and turned the extra money over.  No, really, I would have!  I’m he one who drives back to the store and goes back in to tell the clerk she gave me 25 cents too much change!

Dragonlord the Pig … or CAT???

What would Jolly Monday be without a cute animal video?  I say I post these for the young set of readers, but in truth, I have a ball with them!  Last night, I was sitting watching animal videos to find just the right one for this post, and literally laughing!  I really think we ‘oldsters’ enjoy the animals as much as the youngsters, don’t you?  Dragonlord is a pig who, having been raised with house cats, thinks he is one of them.  Watch …

  And now, folks, I am sorry to say that we must all get this show on the road.  I, of course, have laundry, bathrooms & a kitchen to clean, and a nap to take email to answer.  And you all … well, some of you anyway … have a job to go to so you can pay the electric bill next week.  I do so love seeing your beautiful smiles, and I hope you will share them with everyone you see this week!  Thank you for sharing part of your morning with me and Jolly!  Hugs ‘n love from Filosofa and Jolly!

Jolly Monday Once Again! Welcome, friends!  Did you notice what was in the front yard as you came in?  No?  Then come … you simply must see! 

[chlostertalks]

Thoughts on the Current State of the Union

I love this country. It's the only one I've ever known. It's the only one where I have lived.

But what is happening is scary as hell.

Being that politics is a sensitive subject, I tried staying silent on the matter. This silence is no longer feasible as a person or as an aspiring journalist.

Plus, my blog features well-thought-out posts--why not one on the current state of the union? I made it my job to educate people on things I like--might as well educate people on things that have boggled my mind lately.

Years from now, I want someone to read this in my archives. Decades from now, I want my children to read it. The history books and Oscar-winning films may dilute the raw emotion stemming from the first month of 2017; this post is meant to provoke thought on a number of unfortunate possibilities.

What a time to be in media

Yesterday, I went to a South Florida Black Journalists Association career fair. Talent, writers, and producers from local news stations and newspaper outlets spoke to 270 aspiring journalists, many of whom are still in college. Keynote speaker Calvin Hughes of ABC affiliate Local 10 (WPLG) had notable things to say as a member of the media during an uncertain time in the United States, especially when the President and his staff considers the media part of the opposition and full of "fake news" and "alternative facts."

Alternative facts. Fake news. This is equivalent to pouting in elementary school. What is an alternative fact anyway?

"We cannot live in a factless world," Hughes said. "It's our job to discover. It's our job to search….It's our job to be a servant of the truth."

It reminded me of what Denzel Washington told a group of reporters during the Hollywood screening for Fences:

In fact, Hughes continued on the  notion: "We should be in a rush to get it right, because when you get it wrong, it impacts all [in media, even the competing stations]….All of our destinies are intertwined."

Hughes also touched on the "lynch mob mentality" of the Internet, meaning that the mass attacking of dissenting thought is not a new concept; rather, it's on a new platform. On the other hand, Hughes pointed out the hypocrisy of seeing the media as an opposition: "You have people who don't like us, but….depend on us."

"You have people who don't like us, but….depend on us."

The President has such a fragile ego, he must continue to call out those who oppose him when he hears or reads about them from--you guessed it--the media. The President must inform the country of his actions through--wait for it--the media. He consistently shares his thoughts on Twitter, which is a social media platform.

Why does he have a Press Secretary? To interact with the media. 

The media is something he cannot control, and it irritates him to the point where he must showcase extremist power elsewhere.

Hughes asked us to name another profession protected by the Constitution or its Amendments. Exactly.

If we allow the President to overstep the First Amendment or if the President stops at nothing to get what he wants and remain in power while threatening the media industry, America is going to be an extremely frightening place in which to live. Writing and posting may cost careers and lives.

 "Stick to sports!"

When sports figures discuss the political climate of the day, I've seen this quote time and again on Twitter from insecure subscribers who are committed to misunderstanding, but also want to be seen. Few have a problem with art and music reflecting political views, but when sports figures reflect their own views, it’s a problem.

So let me stick to sports to ease your discomfort.

 The President has recently issued an immigration ban on seven nations in the Middle East. This affects athletes like Sir Mo Farah, the Great Britain distance runner and Olympic champion who resides in the United States with his wife and children. If that ban extends to other countries, this may affect your NBA, NFL, and MLB stars. Think of all the European, African, and South American NBA players that are active in the league. Think of all the MLB stars from Central America and the Caribbean. Think of all the NFL stars with Nigerian and Haitian roots.

Many like to see these athletes perform on the court or field, but want them to stay silent on issues off said court or field. They want to control how they view athletes for the sake of keeping their personal views intact.

The President also wants to build a wall along the southern border of the States to block Mexican and Central American immigration. This is the same Mexico that recently hosted a Monday Night Football game between the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders in an effort for the NFL to be more global and inclusive.

Will the NFL lose an opportunity to generate more revenue if a wall is built? Yes. However, they will also lose the opportunity to connect with Mexican fans and improve upon relations with Mexican-American fans, who have a large presence in Texas and California.

Speaking of Mexican-American fans, among fans from other Hispanic countries, what happens to Noche Latina in the NBA? What happens to the NFL's implementation to foster a culture of diversity and inclusion in league offices? Do these things fall apart because the President, who sits in one of the most influential seats on earth, is encouraging the opposite?

Building the wall doesn't just block Mexico. It either blocks Central America, or gives immigrants from Mexico and Central America the options to head for cities like New Orleans and Miami. Is it feasible to build a wall across the Gulf of Mexico? What about the industries that thrive in port cities? What about airports? Think of all the families that may be split, the potential hypocrisy that Miami is the "Gateway to the Americas," the businesses that hire immigrants to work in the States, etc.

Think also of Canada, home to an NBA franchise and many NHL teams, for example. Canada could easily shut its borders if the United States get too reckless. With lopsided leagues, it will be hard to complete seasons. This could lead to championships that never happened, a loss of revenue, and cut hours or jobs for the people who work for these teams, from concessions and ushers to managers. Broadcasting networks will have to search elsewhere to fill in programming space. It's a ripple effect.

But America still wants to host an Olympics in 2024, right? But we're all supposed to come together to cheer on Team USA for the Winter and Summer Games and the World Cup, right?

Does America really want to pull an East Germany by building a wall, yet host an Olympics (AND WELCOME ATHLETES FROM COUNTRIES LIKE MEXICO AND IRAQ) like West Germany in 1972? The current President will be gone by 2024, the year that Los Angeles wants to host, but if his mentality echoes into 2024, and if California chooses not to secede, will the United States ban Mexican and Iraqi athletes from competing? Will the States ban certain athletes based on religious beliefs? 

The "stick to sports" mentality does not consider the business implications politics means for the sports they so desperately follow. Sports is a business that has a long-standing relationship with the media. It may not be what the average viewer sees every day, but these are organizations with objectives and goals that appeal to citizens and non-citizens alike.

"You're overreacting!"

These are things to think about. One should not practice critical thinking once a problem arises. We must consider the risk of the current actions of the day, and figure out how we make the values America claims to stand for be the values America actually stands for and actually wants to stand for.

Those that were tolerant of America standing for values of racism and xenophobia, among other things, put our current President into office as a result of a common fear and commitment to misunderstanding opposing views. What has happened in the past week is a manifestation of that fear. If the President continues to lose support, many who voted for him will say otherwise, but may not necessarily admit to the common fear that they may carry into the future.

  To drive it home....

Whether we admit it or not, this is a turbulent time for America. To paraphrase Calvin Hughes, it impacts us all.

[battleslippers]

HELP THIS IS SO PEAK

more effort could hypothetically come at some point in the future. psychic japanese youth eats specialty thai food and it’s so spicy he time travels to 1965 oklahoma