DON’T THINK TOO HARD. IT’LL RUIN YOUR DAY — Marilyn Armstrong

THINKING CAN DECIMATE YOUR EQUILIBRIUM

There’s a reason why I don’t always want to write about the things that make me crazy. First of, they are things that make me crazy and I figure I’m crazy enough without working at it. Also, there is so much wrong with this world. Just thinking about the environment is enough to send me into spirals of despair.

Thinking about the Orangeman makes my acid reflux go into overdrive. Thinking about this epidemic that seems unlikely to go away anytime in my lifetime. Or, for that matter, trying to figure out how to replace our boiler and repair the rotting back door … and somehow figure out how to pay my mortgage too. Because the money has to come from somewhere, so it looks like it’s coming out of my mortgage. I don’t have any other choice.

As it stands, I can get a boiler OR I can fix the rotting door, but not both.Really, there is no choice. You can’t live through a winter here without heat, at least not at our ages. I’m not sure anyone could live in New England in the winter without heat.

I spent all day answering calls from plumbers who might be willing to install a boiler or heating unit for us. We don’t have natural gas in this area. It has never been piped in and considering that one of the gas companies blew up a pretty large town in the north of this state a couple of years ago, I’m not sure I want natural gas anyway. But we could get a propane heating unit. Propane was standard in Israel for heat. You had big canisters alongside the house and got them changed as needed. And propane is MUCH less likely to blow up a whole town.

Two different natural gas companies blew up Lawrence, then a different company blew up another town right near Lawrence. It was huge news and terrifying to see on TV. There were pictures of who houses just blowing and bursting into flames. A few people died and most others managed to get out, but many are STILL homeless. Insurance companies hate paying for the errors of other companies. Mainly, they just don’t like paying money out. They LOVE collecting it.

I believe the courts finally ordered them to pay everyone and they are NOT allowed to go into bankruptcy to avoid paying. We’ll see how that goes. Apparently they hadn’t replaced or checked the pipes for years before the explosions started. So propane works for me, assuming it falls into the affordable range, whatever that is for us.

Then I think of Trump. I think about Gordon Gecko. I think of Mitch McConell and Lindsey Graham. I think of all those GOP rich, white pols. I get instantly depressed and try to think about something else. Sometimes, I’m so mad I have to write something, but occasional a little romp with Duke and some television does the job. Baking helps too.

I need more humor. It can be hard to find. Then I wonder if I can convince people that voting really DOES matter, even if the person you are voting for was not your first choice. To let Orangeman run another term will turn this country into something else, but nothing that I want to live in. Sadly, I’m too old to migrate anywhere and who would want us anyway? THEN I worry whether even if we win, how we’ll get Orangeman out of the White House? I would prefer handcuffs or a straight-jacket, but any old way will work form me.

I read an article this morning that said that unless many more people vote (as they did in 2018) we might get HIM back. That idea ruined my day — which had barely begun!

WHAT ABOUT THE ELECTION? – Marilyn Armstrong

Georgia’s primary the other night was a warning to all of us of what may be coming. In the course of writing this blog, I’ve had direct communications with several real-life historians and all of them have said exactly the same thing:

DONALD TRUMP WILL NEVER VOLUNTARILY LEAVE THE WHITE HOUSE.

When I first heard this, I pooh-poohed it. That can’t happen. It can’t. But since then, I’ve realized that many things that can’t happen have happened, are happening, will happen. Why do we think Trump wants to ditch the post office? You think it might have something to do with preventing people from mailing in votes?

Gerrymandering as been around for a long time. More than a hundred years and for all I know, longer than that. The Democrats have done it too … but they haven’t turned it into the science as has the GOP.

Why not?

I don’t think it’s out of a higher form of political beliefs. More like if everyone voted, there wouldn’t be a Republican party, or at least not the current one. Most Americans are in favor of universal health care, a more controlled police force, fewer guns on the streets, a greater degree of honesty and transparency in government, good education for everyone based on truth, facts, and science and not being gouged by pharmaceutical companies.

These past three and a half years have been a nightmare. Aside from Trump, who is a nightmare all by himself, there has been a plague and now, finally, one murder over the line, a broader recognition that killing dark-skinned people for being different than you is not okay. Nor is giving these same people substantially harder sentences for relatively minor crimes or making sure they have the worst paying, most insecure jobs in our so-to-speak economy. It’s NOT right. It was never right.

Dr. Seuss Cartoon from 1941 on antisemitism. The old story, just updated with a red hat.

The way we underpay women is wrong. They fact that we have allowed women to be brutalized in and out of the workplace is not even remotely acceptable.

We can disagree about how our national taxes should be spent but on principle, we all believe in honor and justice for everyone. Yes, there are bigots too, but I think they are a small minority. If they didn’t have access to powerful military guns, they would also be mostly harmless.

The press may not always be correct, but the fourth estate is the only thing that stands between us and a Stalinesque dictatorship. In all the years that Garry worked as a reporter — and all the people with whom he worked — never did any of them drag themselves out of bed so they could lie to you.

Errors are made by everyone, but the only news outlet that makes lying a fundamental premise of their news production is Fox News. If they aren’t ashamed, they should be. And maybe, one of these days, they will be. I would not like to tell my grandchildren that my career was a series of well-produced lies. Would you?

Things are beginning to turn around. But what about the election? Will we be in the middle of a massive resurgence of COVID-19 as November rolls around? If the election is not held on time, will it be held at all? Ever? It’s a lot easier to keep a democracy than rebuild one.

We are standing on treacherous ground. We should be grateful for the changes and potential changes we see, but until we get this worst of all presidents out of the White House, we aren’t safe. Rebuilding America isn’t going to happen overnight, either. There’s a LOT of work to be done and we will all have to do some of it.

THE BATHING OF BONNIE AS THE APOCALYPSE RIDES BY – Marilyn Armstrong

There comes a moment in time when your beloved dog smells like a pile of indescribable offal. Bonnie had reached an intolerable stage and finally, all the stuff I ordered — shampoo, detangler, steel combs, brushes arrived. I told Garry last night we were going to bathe her today. He agreed, but I don’t think he was actually listening.

So when I paused the morning coffee and said “We are going to bathe Bonnie,” he looked like I’d struck him with lightning. You can’t pause the coffee. It’s just not done. But it was today. It was already two in the afternoon. We’d slept through most of the rainy day. It was cold and wet and miserable. I didn’t see any point in getting up anyway. Yesterday, Garry got his first best home haircut.

Today, Bonnie got her very unprofessional kitchen grooming. She doesn’t look groomed. Mostly, she looks cleaner and smells better. I know she smells better because Duke gets very excited by floral scents and the moment we had her out of the bath, he was hot and horny.

At 13, nothing makes Bonnie hot and horny except food.

That was our day, more or less. Our money finally showed up, so I spent a lot of it paying down credit cards, buying grow lights for the plants, and calling doctors for prescription refills. I ordered masks because you can’t go into town without them, though who knows when they will get here.

By the time I was done, there was surprisingly little money remaining.

On another topic, four figures in the Book of Revelation symbolize the evils to come at the end of the world. The figure representing conquest rides a white horse. War sits on a red mount. Famine rides a black horse. Plague sits on a pale horse. They are often called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

We are always at war and conquest never seems to come out of it. We are living through Plague and it seems that Famine is just around the bend. Death has been having a high old time for the past three months.

Also, I think our really bad government deserves a place on the team. Total incompetence should ride in a big black Humvee, don’t you think?

A BIZARRO REBLOG – CLEVER CARTOONS FOR THE CRAZY DAYS OF NOW – DIEGO PIRARO FINE ART

Bizarro Blog

EMBEDDED

It’s been a sci-fi-strange week in a sci-fi-strange time. We’ve actually seen a president of the United States muse during a televised press conference about the effectiveness of using disinfectants internally to kill the COVID 19 virus, and many thousands of grown-ups rushing to dissuade his more intellectually-challenged followers from trying it. Who would have guessed even ten years ago that the world would be living out a Simpson’s episode in real-time? But this one has had all the jokes removed.

If you’re not familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, look it up. In short, it is a reasonably rare, extreme cognitive bias in which a person of very low ability thinks they are an expert at everything. The “very low ability” part is of paramount importance here because a normal person of almost any ability will quickly realize how much they have yet to learn. A true genius at anything will almost always report that the more they learn, the more they realize they don’t know. Only a fool thinks they know everything.

Enter Donald J. Trump, who has for his entire not-very-successful life thought he was an expert at everything. And it’s not just a political ploy because he knows there are plenty of rubes who will believe him—he actually believes it. This is why he eschews the company of experts; they only serve to remind him of how inept he actually is. This is why he muses aloud about various magical cures for the current pandemic; he actually thinks he’s so special he can accidentally come up with a cure for a complex epidemiological conundrum without passing a single class in biology. “I have a knack for science,” he has said, as though that makes him an equal colleague to people who’ve actually read and studied things.

Imagine a person with “a knack for music” being handed a violin for the first time. Would they be ready to play alongside Yo-Yo Ma? Now imagine this person has been handed a baton and placed in front of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He waves his hands around like a maniac (but his hair doesn’t move!) and thinks he is conducting highly-trained professionals to play beautiful music.

In fact, he’s making a fool of himself and the musicians are confused and scrambling, using every ounce of their skill and talent to not make a mess of the symphony they thought they were supposed to be playing. In an attempt to save face and their job, they cover for the delusional conductor. To the sort of person who would drink bleach if the president said to, the orchestra sounds pretty good. But to anyone who knows anything about music or the dangers of ingesting household cleaners, it’s a cacophony.

This is our Dunning-Kruger presidency.

Read the original post and see more great cartoons by clicking this LINK.

Until next time, be smart, be happy, be nice, and resist the Dunning-Kruger Party.

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OUR MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE – BIZARRO REBLOG – Marilyn Armstrong

I don’t suppose anyone is surprised anymore by the behavior of the GOP under their Manchurian candidate. But just a few years ago it was unthinkable that a politician, particularly one representing the Republican party and who skipped out of serving by having a rich dad, could get away with trashing war heroes, pardoning convicted war criminals, ridiculing our intelligence services and our allies, and sucking up to our most long-standing and authoritarian enemies, but here we are. Thanks, Facebook. (And Fox News Propaganda Channel.)

Without the Electoral College, these cowards and their Führer would be out on their asses in the next election but since Zuckerberg doesn’t mind politicians openly lying on Facebook and using FB’s sophisticated algorithms to know exactly which “patriots” are most like to fall for their predictable, transparent lies, they have an excellent chance of sneaking into the back door again.

Oh well. Human history has always been a cycle of dumpster fires and accidental peace. It’s long been a planet dominated by mutant apes, it’s just that sometimes we manage to hide it a little bit better than we are now. Like a bad head cold, we humans will be on our way soon enough and the earth can relax again.

If you are not already a Bizarro fan, you’re missing one of the best cartoonists of our generation. I have loved his stuff since we lived in Boston, back in the 1980s. This post is located at:

https://www.bizarro.com/blog/2020/1/5/ai-and-ai/

The main site is:

https://www.bizarro.com/blog

He has a shop full of cool t-shirts and other stuff as well as his own paintings. And, he takes donations because, as he so well put it, there aren’t enough newspapers anymore to support a cartoonist.

ALL WRAPPED UP IN IMPEACHMENT — Marilyn Armstrong

I have to admit that we are hooked. We are both news junkies and though Garry tried denying it, one day he just broke down and it’s been news ever since. He is particularly incensed at the way the press is getting beat up.

The news was his life. This isn’t casual chatter to him. He has three Emmy’s and dozens of other awards for his work in the business. To Garry, this is personal. Very. Personal.

So, that’s what we are doing. We are watching. The last time I was this enthralled politically was Watergate. I was working as a writer and editor at Doubleday Publishing in New York. I carried a little radio and earplug with me so I wouldn’t miss a moment of testimony. Then, when I got home, on went the television.

I was thrilled when Nixon resigned, but I missed the hearings. It was as if they had canceled a favorite drama.

I think this is probably what I’m going to be doing as long as these hearings last. I thought we were the rare Americans watching this, but these hearings are getting huge ratings. Apparently, everyone is glued to their televisions.

Things that have gotten to me: McCaine’s daughter saying how deeply shocked and horrified she is by the spineless Republican party and how ashamed she is of people she believed were family friends … interviews on the street and on the late-night comedy shows of people who were Republicans and now say they don’t even understand what has happened to their party and how humiliating it is.

I’ve never been a Republican, but I never thought that being a Republican meant being a traitor. We disagreed, sometimes angrily, sometimes with humor, but they were Americans. They believed in this country as I did, but their ideas of how to manage this country were different.

Now, they don’t even act like Americans. They don’t care about the American people. They have lost touch with what has made this country great. Now it’s entirely about money and greed.

Shame on them, and shame on anyone who voted for them. They are everything we have deplored through our years on this earth.

Aside from having a bloated moron as our president, this is the most shocking part of this entire process. That all these supposed honorable men have become spineless jellyfish, unwilling to stand up to this idiot president or their own beliefs, is nauseating.

AMERICA FIRST IS RACISM FROM OUR PAST – Marilyn Armstrong

This post is primarily composed of quotes from HuffPost and other sources. “America First” has a rather long and ugly history … and it started long before Donald Trump.

If anyone thinks what Trump is doing is new, it isn’t. This is Fascism on the rise. It’s easy to suddenly discover that “free” now means “people who agree with The Leader.” We are far too close to that now. I’d hate to see what a second term would accomplish.

Democracy is a slippery slope. Ours is covered in ice.

Trump Was Not First To Use The “America First” Slogan. It has a long history.

In his Inaugural Address, President Donald Trump repeated a theme from his Presidential Campaign, telling the world: “From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.” Many Trump critics point to the fact that this was a watchword for those who opposed U.S. intervention in WWll before the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor. Actually, the phrase has a longer history.

President Woodrow Wilson, a hardened internationalist, ironically coined the term today associated with Nationalism. In 1916, Wilson was running for re-election by promising to remain neutral in WWl. His campaign slogan was: “He kept us out of War, America First.” Once Wilson was safely re-elected, he ordered troops into what was, at the time, called “The Great War.” My mother who had the “luck” to live through both world wars always called it “The Great War.”

Once the U.S. was enveloped in the war, newspaper Publisher William Randolph Hearst, a vociferous critic of Wilson, used the slogan against the President.

Hearst was sympathetic to Germany and warned the U.S. not to aid the allies in the fight against Germany. Hearst exclaimed: “Keep every dollar and every man and every weapon and all our supplies and stores at home, for the defense of our own land, our own people, our own freedom, until that defense has been made absolutely secure. After that, we can think of other nations’ troubles. But until then, America first!”

This slogan soon became an imprimatur for non-interventionists in both major political parties. Once WWl ended, the Americans became wary of foreign intervention. Wilson failed in his efforts to garner the requisite two-thirds majority needed in the U.S. Senator to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which included allowing the U.S. to join a collective security alliance called “The League of Nations.”

Some Senators would have supported the agreement if the President agreed to certain reservations. However, the bi-partisan group that steadfastly opposed the treaty came to be known as “the irreconcilables.”

Complete post: TRUMP WAS NOT THE FIRST TO USE AMERICA FIRST” – Huffpost

THE UNIMPEACHMENT NON-EVENT – Marilyn Armstrong

I keep reading about how Trump is going to be impeached. Or at least, SHOULD be impeached. Needs to be impeached. On this, I tend to side with Nancy Pelosi: I don’t want to see him impeached. I want to see him in prison. For life.

Two presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and William J. Clinton. Neither was removed from office. It was more like a bad mark on their permanent record than getting expelled. They were harder on Harry Potter than either impeached President.

This doesn’t mean I had or have anything against Bill Clinton. I liked him a lot except the thing about men and their zippers and how come they can’t keep them zipped. He could at least have kept it zipped until he left office. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Would it really kill men to not screw someone inappropriate for a few years? Men can be such pigs.

I do not think Trump will be impeached. “Why not?” you ask.

The Senate doesn’t want to do it and even the House isn’t sure about it. Also, why does everyone assume impeachment would unseat Trump? It didn’t unseat the two presidents who were impeached.

The only things that can unseat a president are high crimes and misdemeanors for which there exists no clear, modern definition. Although if any president has committed them, I’m sure Trump is The Man.

Moreover, a GOP-dominated — or even a Senate with a substantial percentage of them — does not have to act on impeachment. Regardless of the outcome of any investigation, now or in the future, there is no mandate to do anything about it. Yet, despite the ineffectiveness of previous impeachment procedures, everyone is convinced that this time, it will be different.

It won’t be different. It will be exactly the same.

What would make this time different than before? What new law is on the books? What new interpretation of “crimes the president can/can’t commit” exists? As far as I know, we have made zero legislative progress in Congress and we seem unlikely to see any before 2020.

And also, please note that no matter WHAT the House of Representatives does or tries to do if the Senate (McConnell) refuses to bring the issue to the floor, it’s not even a slap on the wrist. All it will do is raise the ratings on late-night television and miscellaneous news outlets.

BUT NOT REALLY FUNNY – Marilyn Armstrong

The last couple of years have been hilarious if you prefer very dark humor. It was a big year for late-night comics but it was depressing for regular people. Like us.

We laughed because comics are funny and it was easier emotionally to get our news from comic writers on late-night TV, but we weren’t really laughing.

Wrapped around the humor was the realization we weren’t going to get out of this mess for years to come. Two years if we do it right. Much more if we get it wrong.Remember way back in 2016 when Clinton said, “Look, I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald.” She was lying. I knew it. You knew it. I suppose it was the best she could do. She still thought she had to be polite.

We have learned otherwise in the years since. His children are as awful as he is, though they have a better education and at least seem able to read and probably aren’t demented.

Yet somehow, they are still stupid. I didn’t know you could get that much education and remain stupid. Perhaps it’s closer to ignorance — and unwillingness to learn.

In 2016, I could still remember the high points of the previous year. I don’t believe there were any high points in 2017 or 2018, except that Roy Moore wasn’t elected to the Senate and Democrats took over the House of Representatives. Otherwise, it’s been a down and dirty year with more on the way. I’m trying to feel better about it but the disorganization and confusion of the Democrats are not buoying my spirits.

This year may turn out to be hilarious at some point in the future when the world has gone around the sun a few more times, maybe it will be very funny. If I live long enough, it might be ROTFL for me and mine.

But not yet. I think my sense of humor needs an attitude adjustment.

This is my current theme song. I’m counting on something more upbeat for the future.

Lyrics: WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, “The King and I” and “The Catcher in the Rye”

Eisenhower, vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye