Crisis and Cure: Writing Both Political and Personal

  Ram tough. If you haven’t explored the webpage of the Renew America Movement (RAM) please do at your first available opportunity. It is here:   https://renewamericamovement.com/ What’s RAM? It is a coalition of reasonable, rational Republicans who have set out to take their party back from Trump and his more deplorable minions. They regard the Orange Duce and his followers as genuine threats to democracy, and to the country. Hard to argue with them on that. So, they are supporting moderate Republicans who have steered clear of the Trumpsters. Moreover, in those races where the GOP candidate is a Deplorable, and that person’s opponent is a Democrat, the RAM-people are supporting the Democrat. The RAM-folks are thus a remarkable and praiseworthy case of valuing the nation over the party. Bravo and Brava to them. If you’re interested, you can donate to RAM through through their page. Or, and this is very clever on their part, you can donate to individuals who the organization feels to b

  Because sometimes you can't wait for the grownups to lead... So here’s a story that is also a public service. Let’s say you are a teenager. Let’s say you have a brain in your head and you know that you need to get vaccinated…against Covid and maybe more. But let’s say your parents are batshit crazy and are anti-vaxx. What do you do? Enter Vaxteen!   This is an organization, begun by a teenager, which helps teens find the support and resources they need to get vaccinated in this dangerous time, even if their parents are anti-vaxxers and Covidiots. (It turns out, by the way, that in many locations, teens don’t need their parents permission to get life-saving medical care, including vaccinations. Or, even if that isn’t the case, there are still some legal ways for teens to get vaccinated without parental consent.) Anyway, vaxteen.org offers online advice, links to important resources, and even information about how to deal with anti-vaxx parents. This makes it, IMHO, genuinely hero

  How long before the violence gets real? A while back I wrote about how Trump supporters have been threatening state officials about the supposed “Big Steal” in the election of 2020. Which, of course, is both terrifying and absurd. But there’s more. The other group of Right-wing nutcases threatening people are the anti-vaxxers. Case in point, Fox anchor Neil Cavuto, who recently urged his viewers to get vaccinated against Covid.   And some of them responded by threatening to kill him. Cavuto, according the news reports I’ve read, has had a variety of serious health issues. Then, he tested positive for Covid. Fortunately, he had been vaccinated so his symptoms were relatively mild. He then went on the air and urged all his viewers to also get vaccinated, if they weren’t already. The result? A barrage of hate and loathing from the Right.   There were suggestions that maybe Mr. Cavuto should die. He won’t, of course, or at least not from Covid. But you have to ask yourself, how did we ge

  The Same Old Song I don’t know why I bother writing about this sort of thing anymore. And you probably wonder why I do so, too. I mean, that’s just the way things are … Still… There is a distressing article on the RawStory website about Trumpian extremists who are threatening fellow Republicans in an attempt to reverse the 2020 election and impose some sort of retroactive GOP win on the White House. In “'This is domestic terrorism': Philadelphia GOP commissioner details MAGA death threats against his kids,” Brad Reed reports on how Philadelphia’s City Commissioner Al Schmidt has been on the end of countless abusive and threatening emails and other communications from Trump supporters. The emails and letters have included death threats to Schmidt himself and to his family. Notes   Reed, “[the threats] also included the names of his children as well as his family's home address, and also a photo of their house.” As I say, I don’t know why I bother writing all that. It is ju

  Be sure to check out Luke Haines' newest posting on "The Haines Report." It's very funny, as usual, and very true, also as usual. Sweet Charity Make Nigel Farage look stupid for a good cause. https://thehainesreport.substack.com/p/crime-and-punishment-and-monkeys

  Once The Beacon, Now Just The Flame... There was a powerful and depressing story over on the New York Times’ website recently, “How Corruption Ruined Lebanon,” by Rania Abouzeid. In it, the writer looks at how Lebanon, once a shining beacon of light and progress in the Arab World, has sunk into ruin…and all because of a small group of corrupt officials at the top who value their bank accounts and personal power more than the nation. Ms. Abouzeid explains how this group of men, formerly warlords in the country’s most recent civil war, emerged after the 1989 Taif Agreement that ended the conflict but turned the nation into a de facto oligarchic kleptocracy. Millions of dollars have been funneled away from the country’s coffers into their bank accounts and/or the pockets of their supporters. Meanwhile, the Lebanese state itself has been rendered utterly powerless by these same individuals. It says much about the situation that over a year after the August 2020 blast at the Beirut Port,

  Enjoy, everyone!

  Our friend Luke Haines has a very funny column over on his "Haines Report." This time it is " brain breakers," thoughts, facts, and reflections at that are, "All the fun of having an aneurysm, but in written form." Our fav? Maybe "In 1843, the first Fax Machine was invented, billed as an “Electric Printing Telegraph.” Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. The Samurai class was disbanded in Japan in the 1870s, meaning that for twenty two years it was conceivable that a Samurai could have faxed Abraham Lincoln. " So go here:  https://thehainesreport.substack.com/p/brain-breakers

So I found these two stories on 5 Nov, 2021, one right above the other, on the Reddit group, “Not The Onion.” Houston, we have a problem. Sources: “Homeless students at California college can now sleep in their cars in parking garage,” by Jennifer McGraw, Nouran Salahieh, Mary Beth McDade, Nexstar Media Wire   Posted: Nov 3, 2021 / 11:59 AM PDT / Updated: Nov 3, 2021 / 11:59 AM PDT, https://www.kron4.com/news/california/homeless-students-at-california-college-can-now-sleep-in-their-cars-in-parking-garage/ “At least 18 billionaires got federal stimulus checks, report says,” Aimee Picchi, CBS News, November 5, 2021 / 7:53 AM / MoneyWatch, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stimulus-check-18-billionaires-relief-payments/

 Love this! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Spankin’ Al Franken (@my_liberal_bull_shit)

  Ernie, a muppet from the popular children's series "Sesame Street," appears with new character Ji-Young, the first Asian American muppet, on the set of the long-running children's program in New York on Nov. 1, 2021. Ji-Young is Korean American and has two passions: rocking out on her electric guitar and skateboarding. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir) I don't know why,  but I just find this really, really cool. Here's a story from the Associated Press on Sesame Street getting its first Asian-American Muppet. Her name is Ji-Young, she's seven, and she's Korean-American.  Oh, and her name means both "strong and smart" and, fittingly enough, "Sesame." The story is here:  https://apnews.com/article/sesame-street-asian-american-muppet-ji-young-390bd29ba9d986524b242e9fa69695be The photo above is from the AP site and is provided here with the original caption. 

 I think I'll just leave this right here. Contemplate at your leisure... Source: "Understanding the role of religion in shaping cross-national and domestic attitudes and interest in abortion, homosexuality, and pornography using traditional and Google search data," Amy Adamczyk, Yu-Hsuan Liu, and Jacqueline Scott, in Science Direct :  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X2100079X?via%3Dihub

   Not Joe, but close enough... Remember Joe Arpaio? He was the tough guy Arizona sheriff of Maricopa County who was sort of a pre-Trump Trump. He did all sorts of awful things to people, particularly people of color, and kept getting voted back into office by Republicans who thought such behavior was just fine, thank you very much. Keep those [deleted] in their place, and all that. Until, that is, he ended up getting his country sued like a zillion times and he became a very expensive liability. Finally, even Republicans got a little wigged out by his antics, and the Democrats got their act together, and he got kicked out of office. Ah, but there’s the rub. He was gone, but all those suits against the county for Arpaio’s misdeeds were still pending. The last major case was just settled this year. And, according to the Associated Press, the total cost of Sheriff Joe’s Trumpian actions was a cool $100 million.* Let me repeat that. He cost his county one hundred…million…dollars . Gee. I

  Get Off My Meta-Space Lawn...you dang kids! I’m a regular user of Facebook. I’m also 64 years old. I’ll be 65 in February 2022. That means, I’m a serious problem for the boys and girls at Meta, Facebook’s newly renamed parent company.   It is nice to know that I can be a bother, now and then, to billionaires. Here’s the background. According to an article in The Verge, Facebook’s bosses are increasingly concerned by the fact that young people are turning to other forms of social media.* Every year, more and more teens and tweens are abandoning Facebook for pretty much anything else on the web. Of course, to people outside of Facebook, that’s no surprise. We boomers have known for a long time that once we found ourselves Facebooking in a big way, our children and, now, grandchildren, would flee our boring postings and wrinkled profile pictures for younger climes. The only surprise for us is that it took so long for Facebook’s people to notice. But, you know, if Facebook really wants i

  A Turkish Bayraktar UAV, in all its glory Image source: By CeeGee - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82382275 Sometimes when I write this blog I feel like I’m reporting on the Decline and Fall of pretty much everything I like or admire, like American Democracy and America as a culture. Yet, now and then, I’m pleased to see that not everything is going quite the way the chaps in the Kremlin and/or Beijing might like. Case in point, according to several news reports, Ukraine has been purchasing military drones from Turkey. And, more, it is using them against Russian-backed separatists in its eastern territories.(1) In fact, the Ukrainian authorities have released a video which, they say, is of one of their new drones blasting a Russian-Separatist field piece.(2) Moreover, the Turks and Ukrainians seemed to be developing all sorts of new defensive ties. There is even going to be a joint drone factory in Ukraine.   Now, none of this is necessarily i

  Serious Troubles You know how I’ve been saying the Taliban and its alleged government in Afghanistan are in deep trouble? And how the rest of the world may get pulled into their problems? Well, guess what? Now real government officials are saying something similar. In fact, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Iran has just hosted a meeting of the nations who share a border with Afghanistan to discuss some sort of joint response to the Taliban government and its ever mounting problems.* Officials from Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, plus (attending via video link) Russia and China, gathered in Tehran to express their concerns. At least from what was said publicly, it doesn’t sound like the conference accomplished much beyond expressions of hope that the Taliban will form a “more inclusive” government, and that something will be done about various terrorist groups based in Afghanistan, like ISIS-K, which are now free to threaten the whole region. But

  I wanna be a cowboy... Be sure to check out Luke Haines' really funny, really thoughtful, and really negative review of Liam Neeson's new movie, "The Marksman." Let's just say that him and Liam are never going to be friends. https://thehainesreport.substack.com/p/movie-night-the-marksman

 I love this video of the Pope's translator...on the left, her and Biden...on the right, her and Trump... From Instagram: View this post on Instagram A post shared by YouKnowNothing45 (@youknownothing45)