Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
New for 2025…
Mood: Chillified
Gray clouds have returned to win the sky. Really, it seems like one big light-gray cloud. Low relative to the upper elevations, it cuts off the view after two hundred yards, giving an impression that the world ends there.
The wind is sedated to an infrequent breeze. Chillier air has shifted back in. We navigate 39 F with a high of 50 proferred, and more rain sometime.
This is Saturday, November 23, 2024.
My song today is “Good Life” by OneRepublic. I’d been reading news and opinions online late last night. One thing after another led me to new insights and angles. I ended up reflecting on the MAGA GOP’s narrow minded views. Their hypocrisy and lack of principles always flavor my opinion, as well. I’m sure they rationalize everything as the ends justify the means. Such cliches allow them to declare they’re for freedom, equality, and ‘protecting women’ even as they curtail equality and people’s freedom. They’re all about conforming. Two sexes and genders, traditional missionary position, trad wife, that’s them, at least in public. We suspect many dark things happening in private, based on what periodically crawls into the light. See, for example, Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” philosophy and his affairs, Matt Gaetz, Jeffrey Epstein, et al.
And, it’s their religion and their God to which we must all bow. That’s how they interpret religious freedom in their ‘Merica. Their pasteurized, homogenized history that must be taught. Anything bad that happened is pushed aside so they can pretend it didn’t happen. Mass shootings are all because of people with mental health problems who are troubled by the liberals’ DEI and woke agenda. All is good in the MAGA world, as long as the wealthy can avoid being taxed, the stock market is going up, and everyone is working, even if it’s at menial jobs for slave wages, even if it’s children working, even if the skies and waters are polluted. That’s their version of a ‘good life’.
As for Democrats, liberals, and progressives, they must be ignored, expunged, or re-educated to accept the MAGA way.
It’s so far from my idea of a good life that I’m nauseated when I contemplate the gulf.
Anyway, after I shifted through these strands of thoughts, The Neurons inserted “Good Life” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark rising) where it shared some time with “It’s My Life” by the Animals and “It’s My Life” by No Doubt. “Good Life”, released in 2010, feels like another of those songs people know mostly through movies and television shows. It’s been used in a few of them.
When songs are in my head, my mind often focuses on specific sections. In this case, the specific section is a set of lines:
Listen, to my friends in New York, I say hello
My friends in L.A., they don’t know
Where I’ve been for the past few years or so
Paris to China to Colorado
Sometimes there’s airplanes you can’t jump out
Sometimes bullshit that don’t work now
We all got our stories, but please tell me
What’s there to complain about?
h/t to Genius.com
Well, excuse me, but I have a lot to complain about. Some of it is about aging. Much of my gripping is first world blues, but there’s also a substantial political section to my complaints.
Coffee and I have been re-introduced. We plan to make green chili stew in a little while. The rain has begun dripping down again, clouds have dramatically darkened the day, and the temperature has leveled off at 42 F. Feels like something lower. That stew will go well with this day.
Here’s the music. Cheers
A blogging friend had a post titled ‘(this)’.
And this is the post.
I have Trump-voting friends who despise him for his character. Educated and intellignt people, they can’t stomach his voice. How he treats others nauseate them. But as he’s promising to give them the one thing which they want, they will suck it in and vote for him.
For a small segment, their vote for him was over social matters. They are against the DEI agenda, which is touted by them as ‘anti-white’. And it’s any effort that recognizes genders or sexes than CIS male and female.
And those books they’re making children read! Like their precious might explode in a puff of pink fuzz if they’re introduced to *gasp* sex of any kind, or learn about unflattering revelations about history, civilization, culture, life. The horrors, the horrors!
Yes, I don’t think much of those who stand against enlightening our children.
Another group is against abortion because their god or their religion. To them, that trumps all others’ rights and freedoms because their god is the on god, the true god, the only god. The rest are just wrong.
They know.
Perhaps most fucking maddening for me are those voting for Trump because they want lower taxes. They have excellent incomes but it’s a struggle to keep up with new car leases, a manse, and those luxury trips. Lower taxes ring their greedy bells.
These people don’t contemplate our society or government beyond their narrow focus. Police state to capture, imprison, and deport people? We hear versions of, “Well, that’s pretty horrible, but it’s not my problem.”
Public education system? Not their problem.
Equal rights and democracy? They wave those concerns away as overblown.
As a friend said after hearing these responses, “If Trump wins, it’ll go to shit and take these people and this country down. When it does, I’m going to get some popcorn and watch. We tried warning them. They wouldn’t listen.”
No, they listen. They just don’t think beyond a tiny, tiny slice of the spectrum of their existence.
Vote blue.
There was a second attempt to kill Donald J. Trump, the GOP nominee for President of the United States, last weekend.
As usual, deaf and oblivious to his own words, Trump blamed the Democrats, especially President Biden and Vice President Harris, using the same words that they used on him, “a threat to Democracy”…again.
It seems shortsighted for the entire nation to be surprised that political violence is taking place, that presidential nominees are being targeted.
This is a nation that frequently turns to violence when things go awry. Authorities often respond to violence with violence. Police showed up in military hardware. It’s not rare for them to kill after issuing a brief warning with no time left for anyone to react to their orders. Check out the newspaper articles and cop cam footage that exists. Citizens have armed themselves to ‘defend their homes’ and stand their ground, shooting innocents along the way, ending disagreements by killing someone.
The nation has had over three hundred mass shootings in this year alone. Statistics show that the leading cause of death for children under age 17 is by shooting — for three years in a row. People on the right have been arming up since Trump lost in 2020. More guns than ever are in the hands of private citizens.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be.” That’s the public remark made by Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. The folks behind Project 2025. Project 2025 is the plan for how Trump will reshape the United States by undercutting rights, deregulating industries, reducing women’s rights, and eliminating the Department of Education, among many, many other things.
Trump supporters have been calling for violence to solve matters for years. And Trump himself frequently and consistently refers to Democrats and judges as evil or bad people, often because they did their job as they needed to be done. As POTUS, Donald Trump wanted to use the military to shoot protestors.
Then, there is Jan. 6, 2021.
And now people are surprised that guns are being brought into politics?
Some just don’t get it.
Both sides are not the same. Don’t let the press convince you otherwise. They’re just tryin’ to make money. Vote Blue in 2024.
Trump said that if Christians come out and vote for him, they won’t need to vote again in the future. That stirred concerns for many, including me.
But Lindsey Graham (Idiot – R) laughed it off. “Ho, ho, that Trump, such a funny dictator — I mean, such a humorous dictator — no! That’s not what I’m trying to say. He’s a funny politician.”
No, that’s not what Lindsy said. I made it up, much like Trump makes up so much! Ha, ha, it’s so much fun. Note: CNN likes to label Trump’s lies as ‘false claims’. Any parent would tell him, stop lying.
What Graham said, seriously, “We will have democracy, god willing, for a very long time in this country, but what President Trump is trying to tell people — ‘I did it once, I can do it again. These problems can be solved, but you got to go in a different direction.’”
So number one, dickhead. Trump is a former president. He’s either Mister Trump now or former President Trump. He is not President now. Get it through your casaba, Graham.
Number two, what did he — Trump — fucking do for the nation when he was POTUS that they’re all so gleeful about? Are they really that happy about having a convict and rapist as their leader, an amoral individual and grifter whose biggest gift is conning others into giving him money over and over again?
Trump’s record speaks for itself as evidence of what not to do for the nation to be a prosperous, responsible, and free country.
And if you don’t believe me, just look at what Trump and the GOP has planned in Project 2025.
Donald Trump at Turning Point USA Believers’ Summit, July 26, 2024
“But the Trump campaign claimed the comments were about uniting the country.
“Trump “was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt,” a spokesperson told The Washington Post.“
Yeah. Sure. How would claiming to do away with voting in four years unite a democracy?
That’s some grade A MAGAt horseshit and another revelation of how Trump envisions this going. Trump is delusional. He’s not interested in democracy. He’s not interested in freedom for anyone but himself.
He believes himself great. He believes himself smart.
He wants to be dictator.
And the GOP wants to let him.
Mood: believing
Goorning folks. I thought it was time we blended good and morning as a greeting and just use goorning. Economical. Cuts down on those extra syllables weighing us down. “Goorning. Hoyadoin?” Hoyadoin is another blend.
Today is July 22, 2024. It’s a Monday. 76 F with smoke painting the blue sky gray, today’s high will be in the mid to upper 80s again for us. Smoke is worsening through the day, as it usually does. We started with our air quality charting as ‘moderate’. We’re edging toward unhealthy. An alert has been issued. There’s also a fire warning issued because the land is so dry and hot winds are picking up.
I spent the morning outside while it was cool and the air was healthy friendly, so I’m writing late today. Picking up on the news, the big stuff for the U.S. at this point is President Biden dropping out and Veep Harris announcing that she’s chasing the nomination. At this point, we expect an uphill fight. Kamela is not the incumbent President and its positives. But she’s part of a good administration, a strong one. However, she has things against her as viewed from some circles: female, other than white, young, from California.
Those negatives are bullshit, of course, but this is the United States, home of the free and land of the bullshit. Vice President Kamala Harris is intelligent and passionate and has garnered several significant endorsements. The Nikki Haley Voters PAC endorsement really pleased me. Close behind is the six governors endorsing her. And for what it’s worth, a Times article claims that the change from Biden to Harris has fired up support for Dems in the tech industry.
After reflecting on all of this, I convinced myself that I’m a Kamala Harris believer. It’ll be a tough fight. I’d like to see her debate Trump. Naturally, we can expect every legal machination possible thrown at her and her ‘legitimacy’. Hope the SCOTUS doesn’t get involved, because my faith in them is in the dumpster.
Besides all of that, what Trump and the GOP represents is just unaccepted. Project 2025, while not a coherent document, displays dangerous counter-democratic and outright hateful, bigoted ideas. Agenda 47 is loaded with ideas meant to exclude people based on who they are. Sorry, but that’s fucking unacceptable. Most of us agree with that; the ones who don’t want to drag us back to the stone age. They must be stopped.
As my wife and I were both avoiding delving into the news last weekend, I spent a lot of time perusing book lists in the NYTimes. They had created a reviewer’s list, and then a reader’s list. My wife is a big reader and when I read the reader’s list, I thought that she had read almost all of them. So I went through the list with her. She’s read 88 of the 100. Most that she didn’t read were non-fiction. Several of the fiction books she hadn’t read are in the house awaiting her attention. Well done to her, you know?
BTW, she doesn’t agree that “Demon Copperhead” should be #1. She’s not a fan of the book.
We also went off to the library yesterday to pick up more books and another jigsaw puzzle. The week’s activities are becoming set.
We my thinking about Kamala Harris percolating, it’s not surprising that “I’m A Believer” is circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark qualified). Neil Diamond wrote it, and the Monkees had a hit with it back in 1966. But I have the Smash Mouth cover of it from 2001 in mind. They did it for the movie Shrek but it solidly charted in the U.S.
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Be a believer. Here’s the video. Feel free to sing along with it. Coffee has made its way into my systems. Here we go. Havagooday. Cheers
The GOP’s fall into a shithole party continues.
The RNC made it official and Trump accepted, both surprises to no one. The racist, lying felon is now their nominee for President of the United States in 2024.
As is standard, Trump gave an acceptance speech. As is standard, he regaled listeners with lies. As is standard, his supporters cheered. He and they need to tear others down and lie in order to make themselves look good because they are shitty leaders. History shows this.
Now, what comes to me is, does he and his supporters not really know reality? Is it possible, that they’re all living in a different reality than the rest of us?
My science fiction and speculative literature fed brain says, “Why, yes, it’s completely possible that some surreal quantum superpositioning between different realities are blending competing histories and outcomes.” On a more pragmatic level, my brain calls bullshit.
Listen to the analysis.
It comes down to values and facts. The fact is, the twenty-first century GOP values are mendacity, hypocrisy, and cynicism. We saw that on full display in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as those who warned against Trump and his character in the past, like J.D. Vance and Nikki Haley, turned around, smiled, and kissed his ass.
Voters who will embrace this GOP as their leaders are embracing mendacity, hypocrisy, and cynicism.
And if those are your chosen leaders, you should realize that the path being forged will be full of lies and hypocrisy, just as Trump’s speech is.
That’s hardly a shining example for the world as a bastion of freedom, prosperity, and democracy.
Vote Blue in 2024.
Michael Seidel, writer 