Tag: politics

The Cycles of Mail

The cycles of life came in the mail. Credit card invitations when he was young. Cable and Internet deals in his middle age. House and window cleaning services as he aged, followed by landscaping and financial planning, then house-painting and payday loans.

As he reached his mid-fifties, AARP became friendly, as did companies like Prudential, offering planning assistance, worrying if he was saving enough for retirement. Cruise and vacation suggestions came every week. Everyone became concerned about his estate and his will. Hearing-aid flyers were frequently received. Then came funeral and cremation services, with coupons and discounts!

Reaching his mid-sixties brought flyers and letters for Medicare plans. Of course, every two years through it all were pieces from politicians, PACs, and political parties asking for a little money, pleading their cases, railing against one another, and demanding change.

Coming with weekly persistence regardless of the year or his age were advertisements from his local stores, catering to the holidays and time of year.

Fondly he remembered his past mail as he perused the latest offering from an assisted living residence and dropped it into the recycling bin, letting his imagination run wild about what his future mail would bring.

3

Friday’s Theme Music

Time is suddenly slowed for me. Like I was on Chronos Highway, speeding along, making, um, good time, when suddenly everything slowed down. Wonder how many others are feeling it?

Today is Friday, May 20, 2022. Sunrise spidered in through leafy boughs at 5:45 this morning. Sol will skedaddle from these environs at 8:30 PM.

It’s a clear sky, empty of clouds, but haziness hovers on the western horizon. Reflecting that clear sky, temperatures dropped to 35 F last night and sit at 42 now. We expect a high of 68 F. The cats are out digging the sunshine. I told them, “Don’t you put holes in the sunshine.” They were like WTF you talkin’ ’bout?

The neurons put nothing into the morning mental music stream. First no dreams are remembered, and then the neurons abandon their musical motif. Interesting Friday. Well, I lie a bit. The neurons did have “Time Is On My Side” sliding around the music stream for about seventeen seconds. I sat and wondered, what song should I put out there today? As I did, I came across a video of Tears for Fear playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in 2022. With the primary elections in full swing in the U.S., Ukraine trying to fend off Russia, Putin threatening Finland and Sweden, Turkey saying “Nyet” to NATO, the GOP trying to undo established precedent and foster election corruption, and billionaires attempting to become trillionaires, I thought, “Why that’s a perfect song for this age and time, innit?”

Sure, the neurons said, yawning. Go for it. Which I did.

Regardless of the little neurons’ mood, I’m going for coffee. Care to come? Here’s the music while you decide. Cheers

2

Back to Bed

It’s become one of those days. I started off optimistic and energetic. Despite the leaked SCOTUS decision regarding Roe v. Wade and the various responses to it, I thought, it hasn’t been finalized. It may have even been floated by Republicans to see gauge reactions. Maybe, right, fingers crossed, etc.

But then I go on to the news. Ohio elected a guy, a Qanon promoting individual who thinks Joe Biden is tearing this country apart. He says, “Our grassroots movement across northwest Ohio intensified with every terrible mistake the Biden administration continued and still continues to make. I am more energized than ever to unite the Republican base.”

What terrible mistakes have been made? That’s not specified. I’m sure he’ll point to oil and gas prices, inflation, ignoring, of course, the global view of what’s going on in that realm with supply lines, Trump’s contributions to the problem, and the war. Perhaps, being a QAnon’er, he’ll point to the ‘COVID-19 Hoax’ or ‘the stolen 2020 election’, ‘illegal mandates’, or other things already proven to the contrary. How they hold on to the lies and disinformation that’s been spread. This man might well end up in the U.S. Congress, alongside Boebert, MTG, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Ron Johnson, and that ilk.

Then I see headlines about a few more murders and news about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. All of it drains and angers me, but also frustrates me. It’s sad to read of people’s behavior and thinking. In many ways, when I think of the net, that’s one of the things that comes to mind: TMI. But then a friend shares information about AI testing bees and their networking processes, and I think, see? Technology is also good.

Yes, science and technology can be wonderful, when used right. Perhaps, that’s what bugs me: we have so many undermining technology and history, twisting their narrative to promote themselves as saviors of freedom and progress. 1984? Oh, yes. Often, the motivation behind these people and their movements turn out to be the ancient problems of racism and greed.

Instead of going back to bed, I’ll deep back into my writing world. Got my coffee. It’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Cheers

3

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Typical Tuesday for late April. Sun and clouds are pugilistic about who will rule the sky. The clouds were here first, they said, pointing out that the sun didn’t get there until 6:14 AM. “That’s the point,” the sun replied. “I’m only going to be here until 8:04 today while you clouds are coming and going as you please. Shouldn’t I have the sky while I’m here.” They were still arguing when the seasons came in and started putting in their points.

It’s April 26, 2022. Just five more shopping days until May 1!

I have the song “Mother” by Danzig (1988) circling the morning mental music stream. I was watching the new season of “Russian Doll” on Netflix, and they used the song. Well, the neurons reacted by saying, “I haven’t heard this in so long,” and latching onto it like a kitten taking a nipple. So here I am.

The song was a protest to labeling music for content and made a big splash when it arrived. As many noted, the labels warning children that there was sex and violence, or drugs mentioned in the song, prompted more interest in the music. As many told me later, “I didn’t even know “She Bop” by Cyndi Lauper was about masturbation.” All of that was part of a larger anti-pornography movement. Now, of course, we have the web, which casts a whole different kind of shadow over the world.

Stay positive, test negative, follow the CDC advice, etc. Here’s the music. A cup of coffee is summoning me to the other room. Cheers

0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Today finds us at the juxtaposition of winter and spring and the week called Thursday, April 14, 2022. Snow on the mountains is a hopeful sign for us in our drought-struck state while the buds and flowers remind us of spring’s promise of life and growth.

Sunrise was a solid showing of light and warmth at 6:32 AM. Showers have drifted away, the clouds moving on for the moment, muttering about, “maybe coming back later,” perhaps after they go off to chill and have something to eat or drink, maybe even coffee. Although just 41 F right now, the sun’s presence makes it feel warmer to me. A 44-degree high is all they say we can hope for before sundown at 7:51 PM.

Reading the news, I can’t stop the conclusion from jumping into my head that Putin is a terrorist. “Don’t you dare join NATO, or I will nuke you,” he metaphorically shouts in his cold, threatening tone. Isn’t that the way of war, though, “don’t do that or we’ll do this,” pressing an escalation of tension with fear and the threat of violence. If not a terrorist, he’s certainly a bully. I know, the U.S. has its own version of bully tactics, too. At least we haven’t overtly attacked another nation recently.

The neurons have planted “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison in the morning mental music stream. Released when I was fourteen, its slide guitar, rhythms, and lyrics mesmerized me. Yes, I know of the later copyright infringement action and the obvious connection between “He’s So Fine” and “My Sweet Lord”. While “He’s So Fine” is an excellent song, its lyrics and slide work didn’t have me sitting there listening again and again.

Stay positive, test negative, drink coffee, wear a mask as or when needed, and get the jabs as, when, etc. Sorry about the coffee bit; it just jumped in there because it’s that time. Not trying to influence you or anything, no, about the promise of what that hot, dark beverage can do for the body and soul, no, not at all.

Here’s the music. Look – sunshine! Hey, it’s raining. Cheers

0

Rewriting History

In the Smithsonian Magazine’s excerpt of Narrative Tension, Inc.. From the forthcoming book Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission, Richard Cohen writes this:

‘Around the same time, between 1934 and 1936, the Politburo, or policy-making body, of the Russian Communist Party focused on national history textbooks, and Stalin set scholars to writing a new standard history. The state became the nation’s only publisher. Orwell had it right in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Records Department is charged with rewriting the past to fit whomever Oceania is currently fighting. The ruling party of Big Brother “could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”’

He is writing about the old U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union, and how Putin’s Russia draws from the lessons learned from Lenin and Stalin about rewriting history to control the narrative.

I can’t help but think of the United States. GOP led legislatures in several states are fighting hard to rewrite history or ignore it, battling against teaching critical race theory, solidly misrepresenting it as they do. Alabama passed HB 312 earlier in 2022, 65 to 32. Pushed through by Republicans, the bill bans teachers from broaching subjects that Republicans find divisive, like ideas that the United States is now or was ever racist.

Ignoring facts or history that is painful or inconvenient has become the GOP standard. It’s been going on in Texas for over twenty years. The Texas textbook controversy erupted as Republicans attempt to color the United States in white, Republican, Christan hues. Trump leans hard on this idea of changing history to fit his needs, denying that he fairly lost the election in 2020, accusing everyone he can of voter fraud, lying, and cheating, without offering evidence. Officials and lawyers working on his behalf have had their cases and lawsuits rejected as lacking merit in courts across the United States. The most prominent cases of voter fraud involve Republican and Trump lackeys being caught while illegally voting or tampering with the process. Search the net for proof of this. Of course, deep Trumplicans hold that anyone saying or printing anything except their version of the truth is guilty of spreading false news.

This is all supported by ‘Evangelicals’, a group that holds the world is only six to ten thousand years old, depending upon which group you hear. They ignore all evidence and facts to the contrary. Listening to such would distort their reality.

This operating process of distorting reality and twisting and denying history is just like Russia and the old U.S.S.R. It’s sad but not surprising that several Republicans are admonishing the world for not embracing Russia’s excuses and lies as the truth for why they invaded Ukraine. Why, paraphrasing their thinking, Russia is only destroying Ukranian cities and killing Ukrainians to protect them. Doesn’t that sound like thinking right out of 1984?

And the one excusing Putin and Russia most of all? That would be the dear GOP leader, Donald J. Trump.

The GOP has become a shallow party, bereft of principles, and desperate to remain meaningful. The only way they can now make history is by pretending what has happened — and is happening, in the case of climate change, and LGBTQ rights and equality — didn’t happen. Deny, deny, deny.

It’s been a long, sickening fall to watch for the party begun by President Lincoln.

13

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑