I shouldn’t be giving propaganda suggestions to a master manipulator, but I do have one for Donald Trump: Remake Hollywood movies to tell your story.
In Trump’s alternative universe — where lies are facts, allies are enemies, dictators are friends — so much is about show. And what better show for winning the minds of the masses than Hollywood movies? Alas, from the Trump perspective, the movie industry is in the hands of Socialists.
But given his limitless wealth, ego and lack of taste, I think he could still find financing for some of these remakes, while he awaits the arrival of the next Leni Reifenstahl. So try these on for size, POTUS:
“Gone With the Wind” A handsome devil-may-care carpetbagger falls for a beautiful and haughty woman. She finally succumbs to his seduction (and pre-nup). The movie bypasses the familiar “Frankly, my…
Is contrasting hardware when your pots or cutlery doesn’t match? Or you are wearing orange plaid pants and a polka dot shirt? Where no matter what you buy, it is inevitably the wrong color, but it’s too expensive to throw it away and it works, so you might as well use it?
Our house is mismatched in every way and I have long since given up trying to make anything coördinate with anything else. If it’s at least something of the same style, more or less, that will have to do.
You know what hardware does match?
The tech stuff. Computers. Tablets.
Garry has an iPad and I have a mini iPad (for which I have yet to find any use). We both have Alienware computers. I have a Mac Air in the bedroom, as well as a Kindle. There are two more Kindles in the living room, not to mention a TV, speakers, and something sort of like a stereo system.
Macbook Air 13
On a more personal level, Garry and I contrast nicely. Two out of three dogs are quite perfectly matched and none of them uses any hardware.
I have no idea why I’m writing this. It’s just a heap of words. There’s so much going on in the world and this has nothing to do with any of it.
Meanwhile, Garry doesn’t feel well, though I’m the one with the doctor’s appointment. I think we are both suffering from the fierce embrace of the killer weeds of autumn. Garry thinks “he’s got something.” If he does, you can be sure I will have it too in a few days. That’s one of the really nifty things about living together all the time. We share. Everything. Always.
Logitech Mouse
So now I’ve been prompted and I have no idea why except I figured I should write something and I had nothing to say. Or, more to the point, everything on my mind requires actual research and thought and planning and I just don’t have the time to do that today.
We’ve been so tired, that finally, we decided to go to bed early. For us, which means before midnight. Maybe just a little after it. I think I was out cold by 12:30 which for me, is definitely early.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up with a searing pain in my knee, both arms numb … and I was freezing.
It turned out, the temperature had dropped a lot — like 40 degrees — from where it was when we went to bed. I had wrapped both arms around my pillow under my head, so they were numb. AND I was sleeping with one leg half off the bed so the knee had twisted into a pretty strange position and wow, did it hurt!
I had to lift the leg back into bed, which was hard because both arms were asleep. I also needed to find a warmer nightgown, close the bathroom window, and take something. Like maybe the tranquilizer I usually take before going to sleep so I don’t just fall asleep, but actually stay asleep.
It took me an hour to get it sorted out.
Position the body to keep all limbs on the mattress with the rest of me. Do not put the arms doubled up under the pillow. Put on something warmer than a summer sleep tee and find a pair of socks. Close the window. Take a few Tylenol. Listen to a chapter of an audiobook.
Jacket weather – Photo Garry Armstrong
I proved that you don’t need to be sick to make yourself really miserable. All you have to do is dangle parts of you off the mattress while locking other under your body. And let yourself chill down to heart-slowing levels.
Who knew a dangling leg could hurt that much?
I’m working at keeping all of me in the bed. A couple of weeks ago, I fell out of bed. I have a habit of sleeping at the edge of the bed. I started doing it when I was really sick and it extremely difficult to get myself sitting up and moving. If I slept along the edge of the mattress, it was easier to move. Now, though, I seem to be having trouble keeping track of all my limbs –and keeping them sensibly organized.
According to Harvey the weather guru, it’s going back into the 80s (about 27 for you Celsius folks) with extremely high humidity tomorrow. Not to worry because it will drop down to the 50s (10 Celsius) the next day, then back to the 80s by the weekend. Or maybe not. It’s New England. We have chaotic weather.
I’m not ready to turn the heat on. It’s too early in the year, especially with oil prices so much higher. It’s just September. Winter has been lasting through April and last year it was cold through the first half of May.
Getting chilly
I try not to turn the heat on until the end of October or early November. This means lots of sweaters and warm socks until finally, I’m sufficiently miserable to up the thermostat. We need an extra tank of oil at the end of April last year which cost us more than $300 and emptied out all the money we’d been saving for exactly that kind of event. It also meant that when we needed to get the boiler tuned and repaired in July, we had no money in the account — and that was another $300.
Snow – April 22, 2018
In the middle of May 2018, it was cold. Cold enough for snow to fall and stick to the ground. I didn’t mind the snow — it wasn’t heavy enough to be inconvenient — but I minded that extra tank of oil.
This year, I’ve got a plan. Instead of telling people we are too poor to pay the higher oil prices (thanks, Donzo Drumpf!), I’m telling everyone we aren’t turning on the heat until all the people in Lawrence and Andover who got blown up a couple of weeks ago get their heat turned on.
A political statement is less pathetic. Also, with a little luck, we’ll make it through winter without having to dig even deeper into our lack of money to pay for more oil. You never know. Winter might not be too bad.
Marilyn does not like having her picture taken. She always feels fat or old or her hair is a mess and the clothing doesn’t fit. She would much rather be behind the lens than in front of it.
I have tested the limits of her patience. I sneak up from every direction. Determined to get a few good shots and I do. And anyway, since she does all the downloading and processing, she can just delete the ones she hates.
So this is a gallery of backward Marilyn.
Just the other day in Rhode Island … Photo: Garry ArmstrongPhoto: Garry ArmstrongPhoto: Garry ArmstrongPhoto: Garry ArmstrongPhoto: Garry Armstrong
We live in a have a country full of shallow, if not outrightly stupid people.
They watch “the news” and believe it’s all lies because an orange-skinned bloke says so. As a woman whose husband was a television news reporter for more than 40 years, I’d like to point out that not ONCE in his entire career did my husband haul his tired ass out of bed so he could get up to fabricate lies for the public.
He made mistakes now and then — but not very often — and sometimes made the wrong choice about what story to cover, but never at any point in his long career did he intentionally lie to the public. Moreover, none of his colleagues lied to the public either.
Note that I do not include Fox in this discussion. Whatever it is they are doing at Fox, the news is not it.
The news has always been as truthful as the people who do the job can make it. Are there errors? Of course. Reporters are human beings and we are imperfect, but none of the errors was intentional. It wasn’t lying. Errors are not lies.
What Trump does? THAT is lying.
Garry was never told to tell lies. He was occasionally asked to omit something, but he didn’t do it even when asked. Garry tells the truth and so did his colleagues.
And the other reporters, photographers, directors, and producers? Theytold the truth, too.
Fact.
Reporters are not liars. They work their asses off trying to spread the truth to the dunderheads who too foolish to listen.
Fact.
The news is as true as the people who research and write it can possibly make it. Do they make mistakes? Yes, but they correct themselves and apologize. They don’t erase the truth about a president. Only an elected pathological liar could do that.
Fact.
The news IS the truth. If you are don’t believe reality, you are going to live with something worse. We are on a razor-thin edge between what we used to think was freedom versus a plutocracy or oligarchy — if we haven’t already crossed that line. Time will tell us soon enough.
Shallow people are stupid. I don’t mean they have a “low IQ.” I mean they are too limited, lazy, selfish, and foolish to find out the truth. It’s so much easier to believe bullshit, isn’t it? You don’t have to read. You don’t need to research. You don’t need to know anything.
You can roll along, believing whatever the current blowhard in power tells you. That’s how we got where we are and that’s how we will keep rolling down the long grassy slope until we become one of those infamous shithole countries.
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— Illustration by Skye Hunter/The Shinbone Star 
