I Know... But I Don't Know

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."  -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Timing can be a funny thing. When I started this essay in late November 2018, the Trump Shutdown was just a talking point for the media, an event that everyone was cautiously optimistic would never happen.  

In fact, it almost didn't until the POTUS lied again for the ten millionth time (actually, over 7,600 lies in two years) and flipped on Congress, whom he had assured that he'd accept their budget deal to keep the government funded. They were already jetting home for the holidays when the Lying Liar lied again and rejected the GOP-approved budget deal.

Lying is what Trump does, has always done and most assuredly will continue to do. So here we are, experiencing the third government shutdown of his Presidency.

Reality has a way of exposing itself to us in advance, even when we choose not to acknowledge it, or to think things through, or to consider the consequences of our poor judgement. As an example, here's a list of some extremely negative human personality flaws:

Hatred. Bigotry. Ignorance. Stupidity. Misogyny. Criminality. Greed. Venality. Disloyalty. Infidelity. Insincerity. Treachery. Duplicity. Hypocrisy. Mendacity. Fraudulence. Conceit.

These are only some of the character traits of our illustrious 45th President, Donald J. 'Stable Genius' Trump, the man who proudly claims to know more about everything than anyone else on the planet.

During his adult life, he exhibited all of these traits and never tried to pretend otherwise because... well, because he didn't have to. As a so-called 'Master of the Universe', his behavior could be as awful and low as possible and yet he was never held accountable for it. Wealth, privilege and power does that, the very definition of 'Affluenza'.

Nevertheless, he was awarded the keys to The White House by people who knew who and what he was beforehand and voted for him anyway.

He's loved by the KKK... by neo-Nazis... by virulent racists... by aggrieved white people who fear they will soon become the minority race in our country (and that fear is based on their current M.O. of hatred and bigotry towards minorities... get it?). He's loved by the uninformed and/or willfully ignorant who don't know or care about facts or truth or reality or anything they haven't seen on Fox News or read on Infowars or heard directly from the puckered POTUS lips.

I keep hearing the same questions asked over and over and over again: "Why do so many people still support Donald Trump? He's incompetent, he's a pathological liar, he's accomplished nothing positive, his actions are criminal and borderline traitorous...so why do over 85% of Republicans stick by him?"

I know why, and it really has nothing to do with his disastrous stint at the helm of our listing Ship of State.

It has nothing to do with his moronic foreign and domestic policies... his ignorance of history... his pandering to regressive evangelicals... his grifting of the office for personal gain.

I absorb countless amounts of news and commentary each week to see if someone...ANYONE... will connect the dots and explain why, oh why do so many Amerikkans seem oblivious to the man's horrific ineptness. Rarely does any of the punditocracy connect the dots... except perhaps for My Dear Rachel Maddow (I  LOVE her Big Brain).

In fact, the reason is simple and it precedes Trump's short tenure.

The reason so many Conservatives and Republicans still support Donald Trump is because they cannot and will not allow themselves to admit they made a huge error in judgement by picking him to run the country. They refuse to acknowledge their disastrous choice, so they double-down with their support... damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with the Trump Shitstorm, as long as there are Liberal tears to be shed.

Willful ignorance of reality, slavish dedication to horrible behavior, complete lack of self-awareness.

Think I'm wrong? 

It really started with the Bush 43 Presidency... you know, the election that also resulted in a President who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral vote, not with help from Russia but with the help of an activist Supreme Court. You remember W, right? He WAS considered the worst POTUS in modern times until the current resident of The White House defiled those stately halls, calling it 'a dump'.

Now, I've sorta grown fond of W in his post-Presidency, but only because I've come to understand that although he was inept and made one bad decision after another, at least he seemed to do the best that he could. However, by the end of his tenure he'd bankrupted our economy, entangled us in two needless wars of aggression, blown up the deficit, caused the loss of 800,000 jobs a month, and enacted regressive laws that restricted individual freedoms.

The W presidency was a disaster, and by the time the 2008 General Election rolled around, our country was gripped in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Thankfully, we kept our cool and elected 'That One' over McCain (R.I.P.) and watched BHO take the helm and steer our ship away from the icebergs and into open, breezy waters for eight years of semi-smooth sailing.  44 saved our nation from a complete meltdown and deserves no small amount of credit for it.

The Congressional GOP were having NONE OF THAT, nosiree.

On the evening of Barry's inauguration, the GOP Big Dogs met in a D.C. steakhouse to plan their 100% obstruction of anything... ANYTHING... that The Black Guy would try to do. They didn't care that their policies and governance had already decimated every aspect of our country. They didn't care that millions of Americans had suffered at their hands during the W years. They didn't care that tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans had died as a direct result of their horrific attempt at nation building.

The GOP refused to accept that they had failed miserably.  They refused to accept their responsibility for having governed so poorly.  They rejected any blame for anything and refused to acknowledge their poor choices. Instead, they doubled-down on their awful brand of governing and placed loyalty to their party ahead of the country's best interests. 

They could not and would not allow themselves to admit they were terrible at governing. They refused to acknowledge that their disastrous policies had wrought such havoc, so they enacted total obstruction of The Black Guy... damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with the Disloyal Opposition Shitstorm, as long as there were Liberal tears to be shed.

Willful ignorance of reality, slavish dedication to horrible behavior, complete lack of self-awareness. 

Guess who else practices this same kind of fealty to a regressive ideology?

Followers of The Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church, a worldwide organization full of sexual predators, molesters, pedophiles and miscreants, protected and sheltered and hidden away and moved around the world in order to keep them away from law enforcement.

The Catholic Church, a tax-free entity that has paid out billions of dollars in settlements to maintain their ability to stay ahead of the law, to keep degenerate priests out of jail and on the prowl.

The Catholic Church. No matter how many times they're shown to have accepted and accommodated the worst kind of human behavior among their leaders, their members seem unfazed and unconcerned enough to actually do anything about it.

Sound familiar? 

How is it that people of faith who profess to follow the teachings of their current version of the Bible... how is it that so many of their leaders can be as degenerate as imaginable, yet they still support the Catholic church and it's leaders?

They cannot and will not allow themselves to admit their own religious leaders are the worst representatives of their ideology. They refuse to acknowledge that their church leader's inhuman behavior has wrought such havoc, so they enact total willful ignorance of the horrific behavior and pretend it doesn't exist... damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with the Sectarian Shitstorm, as long as there are Non-believer tears to be shed and law enforcement to be avoided.

Willful ignorance of reality, slavish dedication to horrible behavior, complete lack of self-awareness.

See?  See what I did there?

There's an almost religious fervor among Trump supporters and the Congressional GOP that, to my jaundiced eye, is exactly the same as followers of The Catholic Church. In each case, what appears to us on the outside as incredibly misguided loyalty is somehow not an issue for them. We ask ourselves, "How in the world can these people not see or understand that their loyalty, their trust, their dedication is totally misplaced?"

Don't worry... they see it all JUST FINE. They just choose to ignore it.

And that's the rub.  Trump supporters, the Congressional GOP, followers of the Catholic Church... they all make a conscious decision to ignore what they see with their own eyes and pretend they're on a righteous path to their greater reward. They'll accept the worst kind of behavior as long as they get what they want.  Life as a series of moral, ethical and philosophical transactions.

I know this is our reality, but I don't know how or why people can make these reprehensible choices. 

I know there are perceived short-term gains to be had with these awful choices, but I don't know how they can be justified in the long view. 

I know that spite and hatred and bigotry and vengeance can be powerful motivators, but I don't know how personally/ethically/morally corrosive choices can be rationalized over and over and over again.

It boggles my mind. 

Human beings are frail and flawed creatures. Only our self-awareness and intellect and compassion and empathy for others separates us as at the supposed top of the ladder from all other creatures.

Self-awareness and intellect and compassion and empathy for others seems to be totally devoid from the make-up of Donald J. 'Stable Genius' Trump. While over 800,000 federal employees are out of work because of the insane government shutdown... while thousands of migrant children are separated from their parents and being held prisoner for the misdemeanor crime of crossing the border without documents... while laws that prevent pollution of our air and land and water are being gutted... while all of this is going on, our eminent POTUS will not suffer or care for even a millisecond. 

I know Donald Trump doesn't care or concern himself with the suffering of others, but how he can live with the disastrous results of his decisions? 


Willful ignorance of reality, slavish dedication to horrible behavior, complete lack of self-awareness?  Perhaps. History will certainly judge him harshly, but for now I think the answer is obvious: He doesn't know either. Never has, and probably never will.

"Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse." -- Nigerian Proverb




Lead image, Gracias de Google images; Blondie video Muchismas Gracias de youtube.com; Impeach Donald Trump.

Donald Trump Is A Good American

"If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

I'm not surprised that The Donald has risen so far so fast to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Will he succeed?  After all that's happened over the last few weeks, from pussy-grabbing commentary to rejecting possible election outcomes to debate performances worthy of unending derision and pity to a refusal to release his tax returns, my gut says NO, but these are Strange Days indeed and anything is possible.

When he descended that gilt escalator in Trump Towers in the summer of 2015 and announced his candidacy while savaging Mexican immigrants as rapists, murderers and criminals, I knew he would strike a chord a certain voter demographic.

My initial reaction was to laugh out loud and view him as a ridiculous figure, but I immediately began to think about who exactly he was speaking to.

Then I knew. This was no joke. 

After the last eight years of GOP-enabled and supported racism, bigotry and hatred against Barack HUSSEIN Secret Commie Muslim Anti-Christ (black guy) Obama, coupled with the generalized stupidization of so many willfully-ignorant Amerikkans, seeing Donald's puckered visage so close to the highest office in the land fills me with a combination of mirth and dread, coated in anxiety, powdered with disbelief and sprinkled heavily with pathos and black humor.

As true as all that may be, I still feel that no matter how corroded and corrupted his soul and brain may be, I firmly believe Donald J. Trump is the epitome of what many would consider as a Good American.

Not me, of course. But this essay isn't about me.

It's a simple reality that drives many Liberals (and lots of Conservatives as well!) completely bonkers, but it really shouldn't.  All you have to do is take a good hard look to see how easy it was for The Donald to bully, insult and bum-rush his GOP competitors, the same way he's operated his far-flung business dealings over the last several decades.

He's the Stuff of The American Dream.

Think about it: born into a wealthy family, raised with every benefit and entitlement a human could want, schooled at the most prestigious facilities money could buy, fronted with millions of dollars by his Father to start his business at the highest level, married to supermodels, living a Large Life and being answerable to no other human being.

I mean... COME ON. Who wouldn't want to have all that?

Many people slave away their whole lives seeking a whiff, a taste, the tiniest morsel of the life that Donald Trump has lived. Yet no matter how hard they try, how hard they work and sacrifice, they end their lives broken and wanting, never having achieved that which they sought: The American Dream according to Donald Trump.

The American Dream is all about he Benjamins, doncha know? It's all about the Moolah... the Dough... the Scratch... the Samolians... the Sheckels... the Grease. Don't laugh... you know it's true.

But this whole politics thing... it just doesn't seem to make sense as to why someone like Donald J. Trump would bother with it all. I mean, the guy is 70 years old, claims to be worth billions of dollars, has all the power and fame and notoriety he could want.  Why run for a thankless job like being POTUS?

Revenge is what's at play here. Donald Trump ALWAYS seeks revenge for those who he thinks have wronged him.

Remember, he's a self-professed counter-puncher, and he exacts his own brand of revenge on whomever he trains his sights on. It's his signature modus operandi, and has played out in the media during the entire campaign.

Revenge for being humiliated at the 2011 Annual Correspondents Banquet by none other than the Kenyan Muslim Usurper hisownself, Barack Hussein Obama. Because if there's one thing that DJT simply cannot tolerate, it's humiliation and embarrassment.

Go look it up if you don't believe me. After months and months of being the progenitor of the 'birther' movement, demanding BHO's birth certificate and claiming that BHO simply wasn't an American citizen, Don got a faceful of diss from Barry in front of the assembled banquet crowd, with the sharpest barbs played endlessly on the teevee for days afterwards.

There he sat, Mr. Donald J. Trump, (alleged) Billionaire, who (supposedly) owns many mansions and many yachts, forcing himself to remain emotionless while his nemesis, that Black Guy, roasted his ass with a smile and one sharp joke after another, all at Don's expense. Those in attendance said that you could practically hear Donald grinding his teeth while Barry sliced him up with a smile. And it was that single evening, say those who know things, that convinced Donald to eventually run for the POTUS job to teach that uppity Black Man a lesson.

Amerikkans know about revenge.

I'm sure there's lots of other reasons for his seemingly ill-fated attempt to move into far less gilt-laden digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Power... (more) Fame... Personal Enrichment (his over-arching motivator)... all the things he's lived his singular life to achieve via ruthless ambition and wealth and endless White Privilege.

But the truth is, regardless of how much I personally reject everything that Donald Trump is, says, does and (allegedly) stands for, I have an admiration for him that is undeniable. It doesn't matter that he was personally broke and in debt to his eyeballs when 'The Apprentice' fell into his lap and helped him to re-establish his brand as the gold-covered standard for American Excess.

It doesn't matter that he started his rise to worldwide fame and fortune halfway between third base and Home plate, because the end result is what some of our citizens yearn and strive for, so they accept him as who they perceive him to be.

It doesn't matter that he refuses to release his tax returns, because we have a strong anti-tax bias among our citizenry that cheers him on for sticking it to The Man, even though, as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization."

It doesn't matter that he proudly waves his freak flags of racism, bigotry, misogyny, hatred of The Other and willful ignorance of the reality we all share, because many Amerikkans feel the same way and cheer him on for exactly those reasons.

To those among us who applaud and support and defend Donald Trump's regressive ideology and self-professed Awesomeness, he is the quintessential Good American.

I can't argue with that.

I can totally disagree with his world view, offer verifiable and substantiated reasons why he's wholly unsuited for government office, cite documented evidence of his financial misdeeds, racist tendencies and predatory sexual behavior, but NONE OF THAT MATTERS to his acolytes.

They love that he's an inflamed, bloated, narcissistic asshole who could give less than a fuck about what anyone he doesn't like thinks about him.  It's how he's led his entire life, because he was born into the life he lives. To a not-insignificant portion of our country, that's what The American Dream means to them. They wanna be like Trump.

And who the hell am I to deny them that dream?

I have many family members and friends who I love and respect and cherish who are 100% supportive of Donald's insane view of the world. I can offer them factual information about his insanity all day long but it doesn't make a single iota of difference to them. They love him, they believe him, and that's all they need to know, case closed, don't bother to try and dissuade them.

Facts?  They don't need no stinking facts, because they're all lies anyway and the vote is rigged and the government is rigged and it's all a giant conspiracy to prevent True Patriots from gaining the power they feel has been lost to them.

I know many of these people have almost no understanding or knowledge of how government works, how politics works, how the economy works, what really happened in Benghazi, why Hillary's e-mails are a non-story, that voter fraud is non-existent, that Congressional Republicans have been sabotaging the Federal Government for the last eight years, that climate change is real, that racial equality is a necessity, that LBGT people need their civil rights protected, that women should be in charge of their own uteri.

I know all of this, and it sometimes makes me crazy to figure out how they manage to get through their days with so much of the world around them out of their understanding's grasp.

But then I remember:  MANY Amerikkans live their lives that way.  They have too much to deal with... spouses, kids, mortgages, taxes, dead-end jobs, poor health, never enough shekels in the bank.  It can be daunting to deal with all of that AND try to have an educated world view, so that expanded world view gets left behind.

IMHO, left behind at their own peril, but that's only my opinion, and opinions are like assholes because everyone has one, right?

So.  There it is.  Donald J. Trump is indeed a Good American.  I don't have to like it, but I accept that reality and don't hold anything against him because he's a genuine individual with a highly-visible status and millions of fans.

Will he win in the upcoming election? My visceral reaction to that thought turns my stomach, but unlike his rabid fans who are already threatening to start shooting up the place if he doesn't, I'm a Big Boy and can handle defeat without resorting to mindless violence because I too am a Good American.

I'm voting for Hillary Clinton, and I think she'll make an excellent President. If you're voting for Donald Trump, and you accept and support his ideology and worldview, well... that's what elections are for, and that makes this already-great country even greater.

"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt



Lead image, gracias de cnn.com; 'Donald Trump is a Dinosaur;' video, muchismas gracias de youtube.com; GO HILLARY!!!!.

Let It Go

As I lean into the reality of achieving 60 years on this planet, an epiphany has struck me that simply won’t let go:  

The act of forgiveness has become a scarce commodity in this modern world.

Forgiveness is an emotional tool that many people have simply forgotten how to implement. For some reason, we’ve lost the ability to forgive the transgressions of others, choosing instead to cling to the venal anger and hatred that comes with not forgiving another human being for something they did or said or didn’t do or didn’t say that was ether bad or wrong or stupid or misdirected or just plain dumb. 

Like it says in ‘The Invisible Sky Wizard Explains How To Live Your Life’:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” – Luke 6:37

Now… don’t get me wrong here. I’m not a religious person or a believer, and I hold all religions in contempt for the brainwashing and manipulation of so many mentally enslaved people on this planet. But we humans are prone to being brainwashed and manipulated, so I forgive those humans because of their human-ness.  As for the myriad superstition-based religions that seek to ensnare and enslave malleable minds… well, whatever, they have no bearing on my life and I can ignore them with no effort whatsoever. 

Forgiveness has nothing to do with religion, and it seems religious folk are the ones who are the least forgiving among us. But we as a species definitely need to re-learn about forgiveness in order to keep our world spinning in the right direction. 

Here’s a few notable examples of my efforts to forgive.

I forgive George W. Bush.

I forgive him for being the absolute worst U.S President in my lifetime.

No… really. As much as I despised his smirking stupidity, his vapid incuriousness, his destruction of our economy and of countless American and Iraqi and Afghani lives… I forgive him. Viewed now through the lens of time and space, it’s easy for me to chalk up his disastrous tenure at the head of our nation as just… well… he did the best that he could, that’s all.

I forgive him because he’s a human being, and all human beings are flawed.  None of us are perfect, or even near-perfect, with the notable exception of The Artist to whom I am married because she is AWESOME (nice save, eh?).

It’s a funny thing, forgiveness. We have it at our disposal to allocate and use as we see fit, yet somehow we simply refuse to do so because we're dicks. Here are two words that demonstrate this concept perfectly:

I  forgive Jane Fonda.

There's an entire demographic of mostly-older While males whom, upon hearing those two words, will fly into a blinding ranting rage of hatred and disgust and cursing against ‘Hanoi Jane’ because of an ill-timed photo and film taken of her during the final day of an arduous trip to Vietnam in 1972 for which she has apologized literally thousands of times.

They have no forgiveness for Jane Fonda, even after all these years. They don’t care about the situation she was in, nor her countless apologies, nor the fact that lots of things happened during that ridiculous war that were far and away more egregious and deserving of their venom than an image of her sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in some nondescript rice paddy.

They want to preserve the hate and anger and hostility. They desire to maintain the jagged little pill of blackness in their hearts, which they don’t realize has rotted out their human-ness.  They refuse to forgive, and it will gnaw at them for the rest of their lives.  They’ve chosen that path because they simply cannot find the human emotional capacity within themselves to forgive her, and it will haunt them right into the Dirt Nap.

I forgive my ex-wife.

We weren’t meant to be a couple, which became evident almost immediately after we met and got pregnant and then married, all in rapid succession.  Our marriage was a rolling disaster, and the divorce was tragic and ugly and she made damned sure I always knew how pissed off she was by feeding our daughter a constant stream of negativity towards me that took decades to overcome. But guess what?  Eventually, we became friends again, and she even admitted to my stupid face that I was a Good Father and a Good Person and she had actually forgotten why she stayed mad at me for so many years.

I had forgiven her a loooong time before that, but she finally figured out that forgiveness is better than wretched anger and unreasonable hatred. The Artist had a hard time understanding my decision to let it go way back when, but women look at things differently than men, amirite?

Now… when I say that forgiveness is an important emotional quality to have, I certainly don’t mean I should also forget.  That would be dumb, because how in the hell does a human being learn things if they forget everything that happened to them? As I grow older and shorter, I realize that I’ve always admired Gray Panthers because they've LIVED THEIR LIVES, learned from their mistakes (mostly) and use that knowledge to whip up a frothy cocktail of wisdom and pathos and humor to sip on for the remainder of their conscious lives. 

And it tastes goooood.

I forgive Donald Drumpf for being a Major League Asshole.

Poor Donald... he doesn't even realize why he's such an inflamed, bloated, stinking, reeking asshole. His life of unparalleled privilege has accorded him the ability to say and do whatever the fuck he wants, and NO ONE has ever had the nerve to tell him NO. That's what unearned inherited wealth and power and celebrity can do, but... it's not really his fault.

He was born into an extremely wealthy family, had every possible benefit accorded to him because of his birthright, attended the best schools, never wanted for anything, and was fronted a million bucks by his Nazi-sympathizing Father to get his business career started.  He's been the Captain of his own ship since the beginning and has never even once had to swab decks or peel potatoes or scrape paint or any of the myriad grunt-work jobs the rest of us enlisted slobs have to endure. 

Therefore, it should be no surprise that he acts and talks as if he is simply owed the right to be President of this-here United States on HIS terms and NO ONE is gonna question him because he's DONALD TRUMP. He simply doesn't know any other way to be. He's the poster child for and the very definition of Affluenza.

I forgive him for that, and I'm certain it matters not to him because that forgiveness is for my benefit, not his.

See what I'm getting at?

Everywhere you look, there is seething anger and rage, hatred and angst, rancor and animosity... and all because nowadays no one will give an inch, a millimeter, an iota towards deference or compromise or forgiveness. I can have a FecesBook conversation with someone whom I vehemently disagree with, but I don't hold their ignorant and uninformed opinions against them because they arrived at those ignorant and uninformed opinions via some mechanism that I can't begin to comprehend, so why should I blame them for that? I'm not them and don't pretend to know what's inside their head.

I forgive the long-dead relative who repeatedly sexually abused me as a child.

No… REALLY… I forgive him, and not just because he’s dead. I’m lucky that the abuse happened when I was still young, and although I knew at the time what he was doing to me wasn’t right, he never actually hurt me either physically or emotionally. In fact, he provided me with an early window into my own blossoming maleness and appreciation for why girls were just so darned cute and special and fun to be around… and this was in grade school. Well, that and the hush money he’d give me that would be spent on Orange Crush and Look bars and MAD Magazines.

He grew up in a family environment where sexual abuse, while not necessarily condoned, was a fact of life and just happened. It’s not an uncommon thing, no matter what anyone says, and there are many people who suffer their whole lives with the self-imposed shame of having been sexually or physically abused but never EVER admit or speak or think of it lest they open themselves up to more shame and scorn and ridicule. I’m pretty sure that same internal shame is what caused my younger brother to live his life inside a bottle until he wasn’t living any more.

I forgive the Barack and Hillary Haters.

Think about it:  why do some folks hate Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton so much? These two amazing and dynamic people, who have given a majority of their adult lives towards the betterment of all Americans, are roundly vilified and derided, hated and accused of being any number of terrible things.  Why is that?

Could it be that as a strong and visible politically liberal people, it's very easy to accuse them of wrongdoing and malfeasance without a shred of evidence, yet have those accusations given legitimacy and validation by a media machine that is always taking out the long knives and slicing for no reason other than they can?

After years of negativity and lies and hatred and animosity towards them by a ratings-addicted media, people who simply won't educate themselves are brainwashed and convinced that Barry and Hilz are inherently evil, which is painfully obvious by asking the haters a few simple questions about why they hate them. 

I forgive those haters because of their ignorance... they really DON'T know anything. They simply parrot what they think they know because they only know what they've been told. It happens over and over again to the point of absurdity, but that's the result when someone's been wrongfully vilified for years and even decades.  It becomes a given truth, and unless one is compelled to investigate further, that given truth is all they have.

I forgive the Boss who cursed me out to my face numerous times.

Although he's now retired to play golf and goof off, I was subjected to numerous curse-filled, spittle-flecked, raging rants from a guy who I worked under for 10 long years. His normally semi-snarky attitude was easy enough to handle, but his ability to fly into a screaming "FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!" rant without warning kept me off-balance for many years until I finally figured out where his simmering rage came from.  Once I understood his motivation, I learned how NOT to take it personally.

The Artist isn't quite so forgiving towards him, and of course I love her for that.

People who are prone to such outbursts of anger and hostility are usually marinating in it 24/7 for one or many reasons, but they're well-pickled and can squirt out the Hate Juice with a viciousness that is almost breathtaking. I was known to have a quick temper that dated back to my youth, but I've learned how to resolve those tendencies and rarely (if ever) slip back into that mindset. I know how it feels to be both a giver and receiver of that unleashed anger, so I'm tuned to the wavelength that keeps it at bay. 

Mostly. I'm human, too.

**************************************************************************************

During the final few months of my first marriage, we had decided to try counseling to see if the union could be salvaged (it couldn't), but after only two sessions she announced SHE was done with counseling because the problems we were having were MY fault, so it was up to me to get right. Nice.

I continued the counseling sessions for another few months, which turned out to be a watershed moment in time.  Counselor Donna helped me to see where I was at, where I wanted to go and how to get there.  She also introduced me to a phenomenon that often caused marital problems called 'gunnysacking'.

'Gunnysacking' is something people in troubled relationships do when they would rather not discuss or fight about a particular issue. Instead of hashing things out, they take their anger and stick it inside an emotional gunnysack that's always slung over their shoulder. Time after time, it seems easier to stick one argument after another into the gunnysack instead of dealing with the problems at hand.

Eventually, that sack gets loaded down with anger and issues and deferred hostility until one day, usually the result of a minor squabble, one or both parties take their sacks filled with emotional crap and dump it out all at once, which can lead to severe chaos and unintended consequences. Relationships end over this kind of emotional violence.

Donna helped me to understand that my troubled marriage was like me clinging to a slippery rock in the middle of a swollen and raging river, weighted down with a sack loaded to the brim with unresolved emotional crap.  Letting go of the crap-filled sack (forgiveness, no matter what) was the first important step, but I still clung to the rock, afraid of what would happen if I let go (divorce). I could cling to the rock and take what I could get (unhappy marriage), or let go of the rock and swim like hell to try and reach the shore (destination unknown).

Letting go of the rock and making a break for the shore meant I might actually drown in the process, but as R.P. McMurphy said when he simply couldn't budge the massive water station in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest': "Well I tried, dammit! At least I tried!!"

"There are no guarantees", Donna told me... "but at least you'll know you're going somewhere, and if you try hard enough, you'll reach dry land and the chance to start your life again."

BOOM.

Donna saved my life and taught me a valuable lesson that I still use today. Sure, sometimes I get angry about things that I can and can't control, but I don't stay angry. I let that anger rise, internalize my understanding of it and then Let... It... Go. If someone does me wrong or something riles me up, I let through a flash of anger (because it's a solid and honest emotion) and then immediately forgive. I refuse to drop anything into my gunnysack, because life is hard enough to navigate without the extra weight of needless emotional bullshit.

Did I mention The Artist and I have now been together for 34 years?

"Forgiveness liberates the soul. That is why it is such a powerful weapon."

Nelson Mandela knew it. I do too, and so can you.



Mandela image, gracias de static1.squarespace.com; GWB image, gracias de gannett-cdn.com; Fonda image, gracias de static.guim.uk; Flo image, gracias de groundfloormedia.com; Drumpf image, gracias de answerguy.com; Molester image, gracias de dailymail.co.uk; Mob image, gracias de michaelshannon.files.wordpress.com; Boss image, gracias de rawstory.com; Marshall Crenshaw 'Walkin' Around' video, gracias de youtube.com; Fuck Donald Drumpf, I'm With Hillary and I forgive Bill Clinton too.

War of the Worlds

OK, so here's the thing:  Although I didn't vote for George W. Bush (twice!), and I felt he was an extremely poor choice to lead our nation, I never... not even once... actively hoped he would fail or supported efforts to stymie or derail his presidency.  He was who he was, and I accepted the election results, regardless of how certain I was that he would be a disastrous POTUS. It's how we voters pick our leaders, and sometimes we don't get what we want, but at least we don't go around shooting each other over the results.  Not yet, anyway.

As John Stewart once said, "Losing an election is SUPPOSED to taste like a shit sandwich."

I eventually came to despise W for a lot of reasons, all of which turned out to be 100% justified... that's the facts, Jack. He left a steaming pile of fail inside the White House, and no amount of historical whitewash will ever negate the terrible mess that greeted Barack and Michelle when they dropped their bags in the foyer and surveyed the excrement-covered landscape. Some had accused me of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome... so be it. At least it was easy enough to support my reasoning, because everything about W was simply awful, a snickering dolt born with every advantage life could offer, yet he still fucked over the whole nation and then skipped off to paint bad outsider art.

Fast-forward to  MY2014 and there's no doubt about it... halfway through his historic second term in office, Barack HUSSEIN Obama has been the most successful, most articulate, most intelligent, most progressive POTUS in my lifetime.  He's nowhere near perfect, but who actually expected him to be?  Certainly not me.  Funny thing is, there is a certain segment of our citizenry who have slightly differing opinions, such as:

"Barack Hussein Obama is the anti-Christ!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is not an American citizen!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Socialist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a tyrant!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Christian-hating Muslim!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is coming to take away my guns!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Communist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a weak-kneed pansy!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Fascist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama wants to destroy America!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a Marxist!"

"Barack Hussein Obama wants to shove homosexuality down my throat!"

"Barack Hussein Obama is a racist and hates white people!"

"Barack Hussein Obama has destroyed the American economy!"

"Barack Hussein Obama supports murdering the unborn!"

"Barack Hussein Obama... (place your favorite anti-Obama epithet here)!"

I get it... I really do. There are many people in this country who hate, and I mean H-A-T-E our country's first Black President. They are convinced he is not an American citizen, was not legally elected (twice), and that he is hell-bent on reducing our country to a sniveling shadow of our former glorious selves, a populace of sheeples who are addicted to gummint healthcare and free everything.

IMHO, anyone who agrees with any of the incredibly misinformed-yet-popular anti-BHO comments listed above can be described by one word: MORON (Noun).  Also see:

syn. = fool, idiot, dummy (slang), berk (Brit. slang), charlie (Brit. informal), tosser (Brit. slang), dope (informal), jerk (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canada.), ass, plank (Brit. slang), prick (derogatory slang), wally (slang), prat (slang), plonker (slang), coot, geek (slang), twit (informal, chiefly Brit.), bonehead (slang), chump, dunce, imbecile, cretin, oaf, simpleton, airhead (slang), dimwit (informal), dipstick (Brit. slang), dickhead (slang), gonzo (slang), schmuck (U.S. slang), dork (slang), nitwit (informal), dolt, blockhead, divvy (Brit. slang), pillock (Brit. slang), halfwit, dweeb (U.S. slang), putz (U.S. slang), fathead (informal), weenie (U.S. informal), eejit (Scot. & Irish), thicko (Brit. slang), dumb-ass (slang), gobshite (Irish taboo slang), dunderhead, numpty (Scot. informal), doofus (slang, chiefly U.S.), lamebrain (informal), mental defective, fuckwit (taboo slang), thickhead, muttonhead (slang), nerd or nurd (slang), numbskull or numskull. (Thanks, freedictionary.com!).

Heh heh heh... some of those are priceless.

Of course, most (if not all) of these synonyms could apply to anyone who honestly and sincerely believes that BHO is a Fascist or hates white people, but for me, MORON will do just fine, thankyouverymuch. If that offends you,well...  too bad, so sad, my blog, go read Infowars.

The reason I believe these tags are appropriate is because the vast majority of BHO-haters live in a world of their own creation, one which has no relation to the world the rest of us inhabit. Haters gotta hate, no matter that their memes are proven to be bunk, their accusations baseless and/or meaningless. They disregard facts and reason, holding like rabid pit bulls onto their hatred of 'That One' with the same blind zeal with which they stubbornly look to the Second Coming of Jeebus.

Let's take stock of the real world shall we?

Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a man, a human being, a mammal, a terrestrial inhabitant. He is mortal and will eventually die as all mortals do, including you and me. He is not inherently evil, unless you count moderate centrist DemocRats as the mewling spawn of Satan.  He was borne of two people from different racial groups who fucked and produced a bi-racial offspring, again not an unusual occurrence. He is made of blood and bone and sinew and skin and all the other hallmarks that make humanoids the (apparent) top predator on this spinning Blue Marble.

In other words, he is EXACTLY like each and every single damned one of us air-breathing skin bags, skittering along the surface of Terra, mating and crapping and breathing and trying to find a really good hamburger. The level of melanin in his skin and the specific content of his brain are perhaps the only differences that he (like the rest of us) has from every other mammalian bipedal homo sapiens that inhabits our microscopic speck of astral dust in a vast universe that doesn't give two shits about us, way out here on the edge of a tiny and unspectacular galaxy.

Given his unremarkable humanoid stats, BHO decided at some point to devote his life to the public realm and found himself on a path leading to the helm of arguably the most prosperous, most racist, most diverse, most purposely ignorant country on the planet. This decidedly normal human took the reigns of his post and set sail on a journey that would show him to be a moderate populist, a thoughtful advocate and a strategic thinker. The curtain has yet to drop on his second term, but so far it seems the un-skewed reviews are mostly good, the results positive, the legacy TBA. However...

"HE'S A COMMIE!"

The economy has been stabilized and turned around, generating positive job growth, mostly decent and dropping unemployment numbers, and a solid chart of overall health. The stock markets are seeing record highs, the wealthy are getting even wealthier, and corporations are raking in huge profits.  The federal deficit has been cut in half... IN HALF (you DO know the difference between the deficit and the debt, right? RIGHT?!), federal spending has been dramatically reduced, and the Affordable Care Act is on track to reduce the deficit even more as healthcare costs start to drop. But no, he's a commie.

"HE WANTS TO DESTROY AMERICA!!"

The two illegal Bush wars of aggression have seen US armed forces deployment (mostly) ended, the Libyan conflict resolved via political gamesmanship, and Bush's totally ignored Public Enemy #1 has been dispatched to party with Allah.  Barry's calm and strategic responses to worldwide conflicts has resulted in NO NEW WARS, and so far there have been no acts of foreign terrorism on our shores (homegrown domestic terrorism is another matter entirely). With only a few exceptions, our allies around the world have established closer ties with us than we've seen in decades, and our international leadership role has once again been established as the benchmark for most first-world nations. Although the dueling crisis' in Ukraine and the Middle East are running on their own searing levels of ethnic and religious hostility (I'm looking at YOU, Jews and Palestinians!), BHO is demonstrating the steady gaze of a leader who knows that solutions take time and intelligence to resolve. But no, he hates America and wants to destroy us.

"HE WANTS TO TAKE AWAY MY GUNS!!!"

In spite of repeated and all-too-familiar shooting tragedies, not to mention the fact that over 80% of the American public wants far stronger controls on gun ownership, this so-called tyrant/Marxist/Socialist/Fascist has not used his unilateral power to limit ammo or gun purchases, establish draconian registration guidelines, seek out and confiscate caches of weapons, or even try to mitigate the truly insane 'open-carry' phenomenon that has dimwits (informal) and idiots (slang) packing heat while shopping at Target.  Much as I wish he would, BHO has decided that without the support of the GObstrucionistP members of Congress, he simply cannot compel the gun fondlers and ammosexuals to put down their penis substitutes and think about the rest of us unarmed targets.  But no, he's a tyrant who is coming for you guns.

"HE'S DESTROYED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY!!!!"

Unemployment numbers are now below 7% nationwide.  Job growth has been increasing for almost fifty straight months.  The Dow is consistently over 16,000 and rising.  Corporate profits are at record highs. Consumer spending, which accounts for a major portion of domestic GDP, is growing and growing.  Small businesses are making strong gains in every market sector. Personal credit card debt is down. Durable goods purchases are up... WAY UP. The automotive industry and housing markets are booming, with sellers making big profits on homes that were underwater only 5 years ago.  But no, he's destroyed our economy.

(sigh)

I often wonder how it is that we have such a large number of people in this here US of A that are so willfully misinformed, so narrow-minded, so recalcitrant that they would negate or overlook or simply ignore the facts in this post-W America.  Has their venal mindset totally fried their collective cortex?

Hatred is what it is, pure and simple.  Unvarnished, acidic, mind-numbing hatred.

Hatred of people they can't or won't be troubled to understand or accept.  Hatred for those with a grander vision than themselves.  Hatred of those whose life decisions are made on the basis of intelligence and consideration and love, rather than religious voodoo or spite or bigotry or stupidity or rage.  Hatred of those who don't get all gooey and moon-eyed over holding a loaded weapon in one hand, a bible in the other, all while wrapped in an American flag bought at Wal-Mart.

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a true story:  In my neck of the woods, here behind The Orange Curtain of Southern California, we have a special breed of ignorance and hatred codified by six-figure incomes, gated communities and politely subtle racism. Our daily newspaper, The Orange County Register, is rife with condemnations of BHO and his policies, from the front page to the editorials.  Naturally, the Op-Ed Letters section is chock-full of spittle-flecked hostility towards Barry, but over the past six years I've been able to get counterpoint letters published that gently remind folks of an alternate world, a different viewpoint, one without hatred.

Last year, after the OCR ran another letter that was filled with hyperbolic misinformation against BHO, I responded and was graced with being published yet again.  This time, however, was different.  A few days after my letter was run, I was at work and got a call from The Artist:

Her: "Ummm... you got a weird letter in the mail today."

Me: "What do you mean by weird?"

Her: "There's no return sender info, our address is hand-written, the envelope is really thick, and something is sliding around inside."

Me: "Don't open it, put it down, wash your hands really good and I'll have a look at it tonite when I get home."

That evening, holding the weird envelope with gloved hands, I was disturbed by the appearance, the thickness, the sliding contents, the general creepiness of this unsolicited mystery envelope.  I called the local PD, explained my concern and was told to bring the envelope down to the station for further scrutiny because one never knows what one may find in one's weird mail.  John Law arrived, agreed about the suspicious appearance and, wearing gloves and using his HUGE knife, gently sliced open the envelope on the hood of his cruiser.

Inside was a sheaf of papers, folded several times to fit inside the standard-size envelope, with a long and rambling type-written single-spaced message about the evil anti-Christ Commie Obama, his roster of impeachable offenses, how he had bamboozled America so that he could destroy our way of life, and that my published op/ed letter proved that I was nothing more than a liberal scum dumbass (slang) patsy to his machinations.  Mr. Law and I read the thing together, amused at the mental images we had of the writer. However, it was the last sentence of the miscreant's letter that caught us both out:

"By the way, based on the Google image of your house, it looks like you should water the lawn a bit more often.  You never know who might be looking at your yard."

John Law looked at me, I looked at him, and we both knew what the other was thinking: this person is a wingnut wacko and had issued a veiled threat against me.

Me: "That's pretty disturbing, the idea that someone unknown to me has my address and knows where I live and sends me an anonymous threatening letter.  What kind if nutjob does that?"

John Law: "Yeah... well... it happens to me all the time, especially from people I've arrested. Your name and city were on the op-ed piece, so it was easy for him to find you online.  I wouldn't worry too much about it, people like this are harmless."

That was it.  He advised me to always call the Po-Po when weird mail arrives, and maybe not to write any more Letters to the Editor of our local right-wing rag.  I was dumbstruck at the notion that someone I didn't know would take the effort to threaten me personally simply because I used a newspaper open forum letter to state an honest and informed opinion. WHO FUCKING DOES THAT?!?!

Trick question, I already know the answer: someone who is filled with hate and rage and anger and hostility and misplaced angst does something like that.  Someone who uses anonymity to threaten someone else without fear of being found. A typical dickhead (slang).

"Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you." -- Wayne Dyer, author, psychotherapist

The Tea Party-controlled US House of Representatives recently voted to file a lawsuit again BHO for overstepping his authority as President.  His heinous crime: using his enumerated Executive powers to delay the implementation of certain employer mandate elements of the Affordable Care Act. Yep... the same august body that voted over 50 times to defund, dismantle and/or destroy the ACA is suing our Black Panther President for not putting it in motion according to a hard timetable.  The same group of regressives that have worked tirelessly to stymie, obstruct or completely ignore any type of honest lawmaking, their one true responsibility.

This has never happened before in the history of our nation.  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives are suing a sitting President for doing his job because they refuse to do theirs. Why? BLACK LIBERAL DEMOCRAT.

No jobs bills... no support for the unemployed... no infrastructure spending... no immigration reform... no healthcare support... no sensible gun control... no informed climate legislation... nada.  Nothing out of their stupid pie-holes except more tax breaks for the already-wealthy, an inquisition against women's health and contraception choices, a thick and gooey shmear of religious insanity and the never-ending hatred of the Muslim-loving, America-destroying, Marxist/Fascist/Communist tyrant Barack HUSSEIN (black man) Obama(nation).

Whatever. Schmucks (U.S. slang).

Just today, I got a call from a Very Nice Lady at The OCR about an essay I'd written and sent them before the mystery letter episode, a humorous essay about how we are now all at the mercy of the cretins (slang) who surround us every day, carrying loaded weapons in their cars and blind fury in their heads, ready to pull out their pieces and pop off a few shots at whatever target they can hit with their eyes closed, just like Tombstone, Arizona in 1889.  The VNL said she wanted to run my essay as a column in the paper and needed to confirm a few things about me.  Natch, I was pleased to know that once again, a voice for semi-reason would be featured in the paper and gave her the info she needed.  Then I made a huge mistake.

I told The Artist about it.

As you can guess, she was totally against it, and made it abundantly clear how she felt. I demurred, called the VNL back and offered my sincerest apology, but could she please NOT run my essay?  She understood and agreed to delete it from her files.

Of course, The Artist is right... why tempt fate again?  Why give some delusional mental defective (taboo slang) any chance to feel justified in threatening me (or worse) into silence for my thoughts and opinions, simply because it was PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSPAPER? I mean... who the hell do I think I am, anyways?

 I am a man, a human being, a mammal, a terrestrial inhabitant of Mexican heritage.  I am mortal and will eventually die as all mortals do.  I am made of blood and bone and sinew and skin and all the other hallmarks that make humanoids the (apparent) top predator on this spinning Blue Marble... an air-breathing skin bag, skittering along, mating and crapping and breathing and trying to find a really good hamburger.

I am not The President of The United States, but I am just as determined, just as passionate, just as dedicated to equality and compassion for every single person living in this amazing, crazy, beautiful, screwed-up country, no matter who or what they are or where they came from. Armed or not.

"You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your... concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help."                           -- Barack HUSSEIN Obama, 44th U.S. President

Lead image, muchismas gracias de hdwallsized.com; 1 Giant Leap 'Braided Hair' video, gracias de youtube.com; we are all just Bozos on this bus.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

I am mystified over the calls to dump Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack over the premature firing of USDA staffer Shirley Sherrod, all caused by the horrible edited video released by ACORN-killing Andrew Breitbart. I mean, who among us has never fucked up? Look, the whole escapade was an example of the hair-trigger nature of modern news discourse… everyone in the media wants to be the first one on top of a story, regardless of the facts. No worries, if the whole thing is bogus, the next 24-hour news cycle will either obliterate or confirm the story, and besides, the American populace has the memory of a gnat, so who cares?

Governing is the single most difficult, thankless, cluster-filled job anyone could think of doing, yet we have developed the emotional sensitivity of a 13-year-old girl when it comes to stuff like this. OF COURSE that scumbag Breitbart knew exactly what he was doing, and he succeeded. But you won't hear a peep about him in the MSM, nor any assertion to his major role in the ACORN debacle. He gets a free pass... he needs to be cock-punched, as The Rude Pundit would say.

Yes, this was a stupid thing for the Obama Administration to have done, but firing Vilsack would only admit that the scumbags were successful. Let them work thru this thing, let them all just lick their wounds and keep on going. They'll be sliced up again, no doubt about that, but come on... if anyone else thinks they can do better, than RUN FOR OFFICE. Otherwise, thank your lucky stars that there are people like Tom Vilsack (whom I know next to nothing about) who are willing to put themselves onto the public sacrificial stone, watching that knife hovering, always hovering.

I am 100% convinced that Barry and his gang are running WFO to keep the herd of cats headed in the right direction, while seemingly everyone on the Right and Left is tossing grenades, then laughing and pointing and vilifying them when the cats scatter and shit themselves and the gang has to scoop up the mess while running at the same time. COME ON... have a little empathy and patience. This is HARDER than rocket science.