Walkabout Thoughts #29

 Writing notes My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…(1/14/23)

Weather for the day… 45 and some cool, looking ground fog and broken clouds in the sky or a blue moon. Looks cool.

Podcast for the day Pod Save America, "The House that MAGA Built", episode

Instagram post for the day

So I’m getting busy starting a new company with a couple of others. And I am listening to politics right now and again? It’s a mess (politics) and I’m getting really bored with it. And I got other things to worry about that are more specific to me and right now more important. There’s nothing fun or funny about starting up a company, but it can be rewarding. There’s a lot of growing pains we’re working through. It’s also reminding me why I left the corporate IT life. On the other hand, it means I have a lot of experience for doing this, and I had learned more than I ever realized. Because thinking of the three of us, I’m the one with the most big corporation experience at (near) the top level, in both IT and business. I’ve worked on some top-tier IT teams around the Pacific Northwest including US West Technologies (a fascinating place to work at their Bellevue offices), and some other companies. Companies that were no nonsense and you could lose your position if you didn't live up to standards, and rightly so.

So, on politics, since the podcast I'm listening to is referring to it… Republicans ran on a ticket of no platform other than hating Democrats and blaming Joe Biden for inflation. So their first order of business would be to do something about inflation. Right? What do they do? They voted down the desperately needed, greater funding for the IRS to reclaim more taxes for us, basically from the wealthy who find too many loopholes or outright fraud. Which means the IRS the burden again falls on us, the citizens, who don’t make that much to be so overtaxed and depended upon. GET the taxes from the wealthy and corporate who have the extra money to PAY taxes and PAY those taxes. Stop ripping US off! Look, I don’t make $1 million a year, do you? Or $10 million, or $1 billion? Those guys are now going to continue to get away with Screwing with their tax returns and unpatriotically, basically, steal our tax money. Their fair share. But House Republicans can now run around saying they defunded the IRS. Which apparently a few are. No, seriously. They are. Here’s the thing. It’s stupid. It’ll never pass the Senate. The president will never sign it into law. So what are they doing? Again, obstructing, subverting, twisting our government into being more dysfunctional. Why do they always want to throttle the government from what it’s supposed to be doing? They’re also against big government and yet they do things that requires bigger government. Like the whole thing about going against women’s rights. Stripping away civil rights. Things that requires more government. Unbelievable. And stupid.

As far as my not paying so much attention to politics now, hopefully. Whereas before I was watching news daily, hour by hour. When Trump was criminal POTUS45 and watching for very good reason. At any moment, he could have ended this country. Which he tried to do, failed in a coup and insurrection. Now it’s gonna take forever for justice to finally crack down on him and his. Republicans in the House in power now are going to have a bunch more of their famous, infamouse, kangaroo court "investigations" as they’ve done before with "Hillary‘s emails" and Benghazi and whatever other bullshit they could and can dream up. So no, these things were something that had to be watched moment by moment. Although now Ukraine, requires observation. Taiwan. But this is good timing for me, because I feel I can really devote my time to building this company. For now.

Something on the arts: I watched the latest episode of "Echo 3" on Apple plus. Man, I was not pleased with that ending, if that’s the ending episode. I don’t remember. I’m not sure how many episodes it has. My thoughts on the last episode? Not the ending I was hoping for. I don’t want to say much about it. But in a way a pretty realistic show. Things don’t turn out the way you expect in reality. War is very realistic when you get in the middle of it. You simply can’t foretell what will come, once you throw certain things in the process. And in that sense, I do like the show.

Since the Republicans seem to be following a MAGA agenda and extreme toxic right wing agenda, we desperately need truth and media laws again. We’ve got to get a handle on media lies in all or any media. In social media. It’s mostly on the right where the damage is being done to democracy in this country. But we also have to get a handle, as Europe has been trying to do, on social media and citizens as citizen journalists and reporters. There’s free speech, and then there’s misinformation that becomes misinformation to citizens when they do not vet that information, which journalists do (as best they can but at least they try). When citizens repeat it, parrot it in a force multiply of deploying it. That shit has got to stop. At least it needs to be reigned in and I would argue... ASAP. Sooner!

I think we’ve been discovering that massive media companies shouldn’t be owned by one person. They need to be accountable to truth, if not to government to the people through regulation. Somebody like Elon Musk shouldn’t be able to affect such a vast platform as his Twitter does. Rupert Murdoch shouldn’t have been able over decades to finally bring America to its knees and nearly find it destroyed through an insurrection by a criminal, POTUS45. Empower humankind, not forces against it. Technology is just a sophisticated machine. We’ve gotten to a point in this post information age (I would argue) that machines have gone beyond simple mechanisms, to multiplying criminal efforts to effectuate social concerns in directions most of us just don’t want to go.

Let’s remember, Marjorie Taylor Greene said if her and Steve Bannon were actually running the insurrection, they would’ve had guns and won. That’s an actual member of Congress, who was cut off from any power by House Dems, that is now under Republican House control and who will now be given power, as a member of Congress, having espoused sedition, insurrection, and in doing so offering aide and comfort to our domestic enemies, which is treason. And she’s still a member of Congress. And she’s not the only one…

POTUS45: over 30,000 lies told during his presidency.
US Representative and Republican Party mascot, George Santos: “Hold my beer.”

Why aren't they getting rid of George Santos? Who should not be in Congress. Even Republicans are complaining and refusing to work with him from his home district and state. Consider this and this is important. If Republicans had full control of the House and didn’t need George Santos? He’d be out of there in a second. But because they need his vote so desperately, they’re hanging onto him with tooth and nail. Tells you everything you need to know about the situation. He should be gone. But the Republicans in the House are ethically corrupt, and it’s all about them. Somewhat about their Party but has nothing to do with American citizens. Except for their base and they are MAGA. Yes, be afraid. But apparently no one can hear you scream… In the House of Representatives or in this Republican Congress.

President Biden: "Compare me to the alternative not the Almighty." And so of course Republicans compare him to the Almighty and then what are they comparing people like Trump to? The Alternative. Double standard? You judge.

The majority of the Republican base, the majority of the MAGA base, are uneducated white males who are against breaking Social Security and Medicare. While Republican leadership simply doesn’t give a shit. Because they just think it's a good idea.

Podcast: "Navigator" poll from last Thursday morning: ranked the least popular items of the Republican Party agenda at this point, and at the top of that their wanting to end Medicare & Social Security. Only 11% of their voters support it. NO one wants that!

Apparently, Kevin McCarthy conceded to the insurrection caucus. I mean the freedom caucus of ending federal taxing, for instead a huge sales tax increase. Oh, and abolishing the IRS. Which no one needs.

Apparently, Chris Murphy told Punchbowl this week, that because of the last week's debacle, Kevin McCarthy has to manufacture some new wins. And that’s never good.

Remember how in 2012 Kevin McCarthy said that Obamacare failed and Republicans are going to give us a very accessible healthcare system? We’ll? Still waiting. Like we’re waiting for Trump to give up his tax returns. Which we finally had to take.

I haven’t done anything but sit around and over the holidays, eat kind of incorrectly for fun. Haven’t been drinking alcohol because of long Covid and now working on starting this new company. Weather is been really crummy. So while I needed to be walking 5 miles every other day to counteract somewhat my long Covid, I haven't been. Today I only will do 3 miles. Because I've been so inactive. I could do four but, whenever I push it, which I would be doing in this case, it’s then harder to concentrate and work until like the next day. Today I need to go home and work on the company.

OK, this podcast from last Thursday. They’re mentioning Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel about the docs found at Pres. Biden's office and home. Since this is obviously not about the  same thing as Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago debacle, no special council was needed here...except for because of whiny insurrectionist types and MAGA. Merrick Garland would’ve made a great SCOTUS Justice, but we needed somebody more bold as Attorney General. That being said, he may well do a good job in the end of this, but we need bold moves, and we need this Trump/Republican divisiveness to end. Like bad children who need to be corrected, for this to stop. All we’re doing in going a bout things in this way is egging it all on. I don’t think Trump needed a special counsel either, but I could grant that. Garland has got to protect the DOJ and the FBI. Sure. But sometimes when you protect something you allow other things to fester and or coddle that bad mindset and position. So I really think Garland should’ve been on SCOTUS and we needed somebody a little more savvy, while there’s few who are in the kind of crap that Trump and Steve Bannon, in these massive lies and MAGA/QAnon issues and all this "tail wagging the dog" version of thus vastly broken Republican Party.

New conservative conspiracy theory: Obama setting up Biden to allow Gavin Newsom to become president. First of all the degree of disloyalty that invokes is mere projection by Republicans used to the disloyalty of their own and their own greed guiding them. I’m sorry, but it's just more projection from Republican's unethical behaviors, onto people who just aren’t their kind of people. Not that you could ever convince them of that.

Here’s what I would say about this whole classified documents and personal residences issue. What it says to me is we need better examination/monitoring as people leave office and maybe they need to be going through their things more completely, so this doesn’t happen again. Seems to me that checking in and out docs, needs to be worked out better. When you take your classified document and then you’re going to leave office, a month before you’re leaving alarms need to go off. And everything made accountable before you leave office. This is all just bullshit. Trump's a special case because those are criminal actions overtly, and quite very obviously.

Classified documents at Biden's places: Docs found by Biden's people. Docs were turned over to a national archives who didn’t even know they were missing and that’s another issue.

Biden's actions: His people offered any further help necessary, needed, required or requested.
Trump's actions:

• Intentionally took a "shitload" of documents
• He was given multiple requests to return them
• At one point purposely moved them to avoid them being found
• Had attorney's falsely testify there were no more docs & had all been returned when he knew they weren't
• Trump was so obstinate about returning docs the FBI had to show up unannounced to get them
• After the FBI did that Trump lied and said the FBI planted docs on him
• He then claims he declassified the docs, with his mind, something so dishonest no attorney of his would testify about under oath or in court
• And then he repeatedly attacked the FBI and all the people investigating him

So, which of those things did Biden also do? NONE. So in that sense they are not similar at ALL! If Trump had simply turn them all over and offered any others feel being handled just as gentle as MAGA thinks Biden is being handled now. And that’s really the issue. Trump didn't do anything like that. He acted as he always has... like a mob boss.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walking Thoughts #28

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…

 
Weather for the day… 35°, and foggy.

Podcast for the day is In The Bubble with Andy Slavitt, episode: "Presenting: This Day In Esoteric Political History"

Second podcast (see below) Lovett or Leave It! with Jon Lovett, episode "Holiday Grift Guide":

Lovett Or Leave cozies up in front of the roaring fire we’ve hurled 2022’s desiccated hull into during this, our last show of 2022. Mike Lindell (James Adomian) stops by with pillows for all the good little boys and girls of the RNC. Jena Friedman and Atsuko Okatsuka pull up a chair to your family’s holiday drama. Elon Musk (James Adomian) tries his hand at stand-up and spoiler alert: the audience is wrong. Lovett provides a personalized gift guy for the right-wing whack jobs in your life, and we end by putting our grateful well-wishes in the Thank Bank. Happy Holidays, everybody, and see you in 2023!Instagram post for the day

Comment from the podcast, "Twitter is now the circular firing party for things that don’t go your way."

I'd just like to mention that I think I’ve always been a “liberal“. I’m also, oddly enough, against things like Fascism. So if you wanna call me, "Antifa", then what the fuck? It strikes me as bizarre, anti-patriotic, anti-American and anti-democratic, those who rail against Antifa, who want to attack “Black Lives Matter“ types, at any cost. First, they can't seem to understand that Antifa is against Fascism. Although MAGA seems to be pretty pro-autocratic with Trump is their leader. Though I think he’s starting to dissolve in his own spit and mire. Also, liberal doesn’t seem to mean what people think as it’s defined as:

"Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. Also, relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."

So of course, MAGA hates liberals and always wants to "own the libs" as idiotic as that is.

Liberal like entitlement doesn’t mean "overly" or "too much" or "give me free stuff". Liberal means democratic. Entitlement refers to things you’re absolutely entitled to... because they’re yours. Like Social Security which you paid into. There’s no freebies involved. It’s like, if you go to a store and buy some groceries. You’re fucking entitled to those groceries. You paid for them. But if you got tax breaks, if you’re wealthy or a multinational corporation who Republicans always strive for tax breaks for, which you haven’t earned or paid for... those are the entitlements MAGA in talking about by there definitions which are 180° of reversed from reality. It's strange. Upside down. Backward. Stupid.

I got to say walking in the fog, see you Instagram post for the day at the beginning of my walk, feels like at 35°, and flash frozen or something.

[It's later, I'm editing this at home, after a shower. End of the movie on Apple+, "On the Rocks" is on and the husband is apparently trying to impress his wife, working too hard, leaving her to believe he's not interested in her anymore. I made a similar mistake in my last divorce (yes, last...) only in another way entirely. Screwing up the relationship. Oh, and she was crazy. No, really. Still is. ]

I have to agree with what someone said, I can’t remember who it was, but this reference to Trump's "Team normal/Team crazy" crap when he was ridiculously POTUS45, at the end there, in trying to suborn a coup and an insurrection… was actually "Team Crazy/Team Criminal". Just sayin'...

Since blatantly telling lies by a Republican seems to be their platform for election anymore (see Donald Trump, see George Santos, see too many of the insurrectionist Republicans in Congress), perhaps Democrats, for a while, going forward, should start every speech, every comment with a lie, one that people want to hear, to bring them to the party, and then immediately turn around and say none of that’s true. Then go on with the truth. I know it sounds weird. But when you’re fighting old Soviet disinformation tactics by an out-of-control, seditionist Republican Party one needs to fight dirty. If not as ethically as possible. Somebody’s gotta be the Party of Ethics and it sure as hell isn’t gonna be a conservative based party.

Has there really been no governors on Fox News lately? Is that true?

The 2012 Republican "autopsy" failed, even though it was accurate. But Republicans decided instead, "No, we Want to follow a failing course, because we can garner power in that way. It’s a short term view, but somehow we'll make it work!" So how’s it working out for you? I’ll tell you, people like Tucker Carlson, who are the extreme end of this crap, why are they so very popular on Russian State TV. And if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about those types, what country do you think you live in? Because it isn't, America.

Yes, I’m on Mastodon. I tried to get on Post, but they're being an asshole about it. So I’m still utilizing Twitter, which I’ve been on over a decade. Sad to see what Elon Musk has done to that, not to mention Tesla. But some of my tweets from today pretty much laid out where we should be headed and we’re not headed. Like:

Tweet:

Why is Putin still breathing?

Why is Donald Trump still walking free (still breathing)?

Why is Louis DeJoy STILL Fucking Postmaster General?

Why is SCOTUS still polluted with toxic conservatives?

Why is Xi free to Putinesque (propagandize) his people into war?

Tweet:

Xi in China is prepping his people toward war.

We've got to make them aware & against war.

Like citizen flyers/posters in Russian for "free sugar" but a QR code going to Radio Free Europe & Radio Liberty, which are mostly video news & social media, anti-Putin, & pro Reality.

Tweet:

It's time for the end of Putin, end of Trump, end of the Republican Party. End of the nightmares governing any of humanity. End of Kim Jong Un family. End of Xi in China.

End Humanity's nightmares where you find them.

Yeah, I think you get the point...

To be painfully clear about how screwed up we are… The question is not , "DID Donald Trump break the law as POTUS45." He obviously did. The question is, "How is his execution to be brought on legally and executed quickly?" Because that’s what needs to be done to begin the return of the Republican Party to American politics and end toxic conservatism in being an ignorant and self-defeating, Putin supported disinformation campaign, an active measure against America and western democracies.

Now the podcast is agreeing with me in that what Republicans are doing is not sustainable. What they’re doing is always what is better in the short term. For immediate profit. Autocratic, which should worry people. Autocracy is anti-democracy. And for those in America, who like a "strongman" character, who like autocrats, well they're (again) in the wrong fucking country. If it’s true that 60% of the world are under autocratic rule, feel free to go there. The more autocratic nations there are, the more important these fewer democracies become. How do they not see that? How do they not understand balance is important? How do they not understand that our three branches of government need to balance each other out and monitor one another? How do they not understand that currently that’s not been happening and things have been force skewed toward the undemocratic? How do they justify the people not having a say in government, after decades of their railing against government, how is that a good idea? The Republican Party doesn’t appear anymore to be a conservative party, but a party of illogic, bordering on insanity. Unless you understand, they are anti-democracy.

My, Trump talking conservative, crazy older brother, and I don’t know how he got that way... and he doesn’t know how I got this way... when we both have probably always been the way we are, still calls President Biden, "sleepy Joe". How is that not "sheep bleating"? In repeating what Trump says, how is that not parroting Trump? How is that not cultist? How do you not see Joe Biden, who rides bicycles, has more energy than fat old stupid Donald Trump? The Republican one trick pony for evil? Where is the critical thinking? Where is the accurate information on the Right? Where is the American patriotism? Why have they subverted "patriot" to mean, "patriot for our international enemies"? Remember the MAGA T-shirt that said, "I’d rather be with a Russian then with Biden"? How do you not see Trump was never a good idea? How do you not see Putin was never a good idea? I’ve been saying since the year 2000 Putin as a leader, as ex-KGB… how was that ever a good idea for the Russian people, or the world? How do so many people not see any of this?

Yes, Democrats try to be progressive because what do they say about a sitting shark dies? They’re forward-looking and sometimes too far forward, but they mean well. Republicans are generally backward looking, into too far backward. Because if standing still kills a society, what does going backward do? Well, you can follow the pattern there, right? Because if you can’t, well "concrete thinking" won’t get you anywhere useful. Although it will get you there somewhere, useful for somebody, just not you, not for US. Somebody, like corporations, anti-union, multinational corporations, international enemies of democracy and America. I mean pick your fight, but apparently a third of this country doesn’t understand who they’re fighting for and it ain't them, and it sure as hell ain't us.

I’ve heard this repeatedly, that Americans and actually humanity, tend to make their best choices just as they’re about to go over a cliff, to their death. You know, a little proactivity could avoid that necessity? Could we stop doing that and not do that anymore? When you have a scientist in 1968, who wrote a book called The Population Bomb, who warned us that at 3 1/2 billion people, we’ve hit our max with what the earth can handle, for our lifestyle, worldwide. And now it's over 8 billion and we’ve exceeded that limit, by more than double. Why can’t we react appropriately to that? In all these decades since? What is WRONG with us?

So, I guess for something positive... enough politics for a second… Today is the signing of contracts for our new movie streaming network that we’re setting up. I have to get something ironed out as far as a contract, or something, for my efforts and compensation. Which there aren’t any right now and I’ve already been doing work the past few weeks. I think that’ll be OK, but this will be the first time I started working on something, like I said, weeks ago, without a contract already in place. I spent years as a contractor at some pretty high levels in IT thoughout the 90s, until I got a permanent job that I retired from and there on a high-level IT team, on the front line. So this is right up my alley. As far as the work I’ll be doing on the platform, I was a platform administrator, a software engineer, a networking server administrator, webmaster, a senior technical writer, and a bunch of other stuff. I have high hopes for this project and it’ll be fun to be able to let you know what it is, because I’m not allowed to say yet, until we go live. Wish us luck! We’re trying really hard as Indie filmmakers to set up a fun network of movies in a niche that will hopefully address some who are not being addressed. One thing we’re interested in is with Amazon prime having dumped a bunch of indie film maker's projects. Finding a place for their films is hard. And we're as well looking to handle much higher quality films, also. People need to understand that some "B" and even some "C" movies are better in some ways than some A-list films. The production values are low because they don’t have the money. But the stories, and sometimes the acting, or the directing, or whatever, there’s can be some value in these. And giving a place for these kinds of things does help to make things better overall. "Rising tide raises all ships." But Hollywood and others, needs competition and people need to open their minds a bit. We’re gonna be offering some free stuff too, viewing wise. Anyway, just know that we really do have the best of intentions and that's it's not just all about making money as the end all be all of things.

Since I took a brief aside from the podcast here… Regarding my ongoing long Covid issue. Last night I felt like my long Covid had ratcheted down to a new lower level, maybe. My body wasn’t reacting to things I was eating as it was before. Over reacting poorly. But I’m still having trouble sleeping, taking vitamin D to counteract the lack of sun and melatonin. I don’t like taking melatonin, but I took one last night so I could get some sleep for today. And I woke up feeling a little touch of long Covid again. Which I really don’t need to feel. Ever again. Anyway, I do still feel it a bit. Though I’m at the trailing end of long Covid, going on nine months now. First time I had it in 2020 I noticed after eight months, it started trailing off and my lungs started to feel normal. Then at 14 months I felt it was over. But then I couldn’t tell, when I would feel it over that next year, if I was catching something but my body was fighting it off successfully or if it was long Covid recycling back a little again, once in a while. There’s so much we don’t know, still. But then, I covered a lot of this in my book “Suffering Long Covid”.

From podcast: remember 2016, and all the Republicans on stage and how Trump kept hanging on, like herpes? And how people kept saying it wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t, and he shouldn’t have access to votes, ever again.

Remember how we used to hear how political parties and candidates, political leadership was paying too much attention to polling? And then they started this crap about "we have to follow what our voters want", which sounds good, but as we’re seeing, it’s really fucking dangerous. I noticed something in the word, "leadership". The word "leader" is actually in there and those in leadership should look that up. And yeah, you can push it and say the word "ship" is in there too, and when it’s sinking, I don't know, DO something to keep it from doing that? But not at all or any cost, and certainly not at all or any cost to any or all others, just not you, merely to keep yourself in power and profit and in office (unofficial GOP motto). Republicans need to start respecting people like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, and those candidates who stand up for ethics in America and not just follow Trump puppets heading to the end of that "cliff". How many cliffs are involved in our politics anymore?

Why was Trump flushing documents down the toilet? Why was Mark Meadows burning documents in the fireplace after meetings which appear to have been involved with the insurrection? When you say "what’s the big deal?" The big deal is that everything in the White House belongs to the people and you can’t just burn it. If you do wanna burn it you can’t, but you have to get permission, even if it IS yours, or the president's, even if it's not the People's. But you can’t just burn stuff. Good God... review Watergate!

Well, I’m now at mile 2 1/2 miles and the podcast is over. That was a short one.

OK so second podcast for the day, "Lovett or Leave It"...

So apparently each of the guys from Pod Save America that I listen to have their own podcast. And this is apparently the gay version. One wonders why gay versions of things are so sexually oriented? When you do that as heterosexual, you’re considered immature or perverse. I don’t really care either way. I suppose some of it is just they’re willing to say things others won’t. And we need that. And there’s some really great journalists who are gay who will stand up, say things. Maybe because they’re used to having to do that in their own lives. Then once they come out, they've fucking had it with hiding. We all need to have fucking had it with hiding. The insurrection happened because police were afraid of looking bad because, although they don’t seem to have a problem with beating on Black Lives Matter protesters, they were worried about beating white MAGA protesters or something. So yeah, had all of those people been gay, and I do mean the police… What do you wanna bet the insurrection wouldn’t have happened?

I’ll say this about open sexuality. Having been born in 1955. I spent my entire life being more progressive than normal and more open about things, although quiet about some things. Personally, I pushed my limits, but I also respected the fact that it didn’t work that way for others. Because others were mostly all like that, incapable of being flexible and relaxed and open. But it appears in the past, I don’t know, 10 years or so, maybe 20, perhaps I wasn’t paying attention to this while raising two kids, it appears that the openness about sexuality and such things has surpassed me. Giving an example. Not sexual. In the 60s and 70s I did some interesting things as a kid. Things other kids didn't do. I would tell people stories about myself and would even damn them down. I would leave out things I thought were cool about things, because people wouldn’t believe me. And people still didn’t believe me. Now a lot of those things other people have done or are doing and it’s more normal and it’s on TikTok or Instagram or something. Now I’m boring, while at one time I was unique and more fascinating. So maybe the things I fought for quietly and pushed for, have finally come to be, and our society has opened up. Yeah, we still have conservatives and Republicans who react to what they think is toxic, sadly, in a toxic way, making themselves the enemy, as they fight what they think is the enemy. I tell you, we’ve been through paradigm shifts over time, every so often. The 60s was one. We’ve definitely had a few. But we usually had time to have a breather between them. What we’re seeing now, since the information age hit, after it had a few years to get itself on its feet...we’re now getting hit with multiple paradigm shifts and because of all the information worldwide that we’re getting instantly, we’re getting hit with paradigm shifts from different cultures, too. Since were multicultural, those people live here too, yeah, it’s making us a bit schizophrenic. But we also have a strong form of government, if we'd just let it exist. Breathe. I will be OK, you will be OK. I suspect will all be OK. But it’s gonna hurt. People are gonna die. All we can do? Minimize the pain and the damage and the death. Oh yeah, and we’re fighting all this on an international scale. But, there’s a way I’ve looked at things like this, all my life, and it helped me get through. And that was this. "I will either die or succeed." If we die, what’s the matter? If we don’t, we have to make it succeed. When you consider that the toxic conservatives, the MAGA, the crazy Republicans, are really only a third of us, and that is diminishing, but it’s not reality, and as I said it is diminishing. And has my "vicious dying animal syndrome".  Which is, as things are dying. Religion or conservatism (which I’ve never liked) or this version of MAGA/Republicanism, they each will lash out and bite and attack and try to harm anything around as it too slowly dies. We need to segregate it off and help it die faster, turn off the oxygen, strangle it if we have to. Problem is we have to do it legally and as some of them are criminals, they have no rules or boundaries to follow. And as "dying animals" are, they don’t care, they just want to damage because they’re hurt. You can have compassion toward them, but you also can have compassion via euthanasia when necessary, and when it’s the right thing to do.

So all Americans deserve respect and a place in America. But not MAGA if you’re working against America! Yes, that includes gay people and yes, that includes trans who all have a place. They are people who are generally more patriotic than MAGA , and from what I’ve seen, in the past three decades, Republicans, Republican leaders, while I should say I’ve met many patriotic Republican voters. I’ve also met a lot of confused MAGA types who think they’re patriotic. But functionally speaking they’re working more for Putin, not Biden. And even IF you don't like Biden, you really should be more for HIM, than Putin. Ya know? I mean, really.

I have to remember to add a new chapter for graphics in my new companion book for my film, "Pvt. Ravel’s Bolero".

So fake Santa/fake Mike Lindel pillow guy, in the Lovett podcast, just said that "the voting machines are so rigged at the next RNC chairman gonna be Hillary Clinton."

So Lovett says the TLC channel released trailers on their new show "MILF Island" with a twist. And then you year one of the mothers when they arrive wherever, say, "What the fuck?" And I thought, OK, what the fuck? So I figured, it’s got to be eight mothers and eight of their sons, as love interests, mix-and-matched. As then Lovett says, "It’s got to be eight mothers and eight other sons. Right?" Bingo. And then he says, "OK, so what else could it be?" And then says it's like a "30 Rock" skit for an episode. It’s ridiculous. It’s a stupid joke that they turned into a show.

About small dogs. Uh, No.

So "Rudy Giuliani" My Pillow company flip-flops for $79.95 actually exist. WTF? Use the code “Rudy“ for a discount at $49.95?

The old movie "The Exterminating Angel" is about people who can’t leave a party (I have to check this out...Oh! it's a Luis Buñuel film! I wonder if I saw it decades ago then?)? Here I thought he was talking about "Russian Doll "on Netflix. I love that show. And Natasha Lyonne, let’s face it.

Before I left home for my walk today I read somewhere that people who leave without saying goodbye‘s save three days a year. So does that mean the "Irish goodbye" is in now? Well, I’m part Irish, and I guess more Scottish, and a little Welsh, among other things, including a bunch of Slovak, on my mom side. I’ve done that "just sort of fadeaway" thing and then I’m not there anymore. But admittedly, in my later years, I’ve tried to be more stand up and just take time to seek people out and say goodbye. I mean I always say thank you, I’m always appreciative. But if you get to where you feel like you’re not there and people don’t seem to know you’re there, then maybe it's time to leave and if you were to say goodbye, and no one notices...well? Leave.

So don’t you sometimes want to do a DNA check of anti-Semites just to find out if they’re part Jewish? Because I sure as hell have wanted to take white Christian nationalists and check their DNA for African DNA. Which has actually happened a bunch of times now. And they did have African DNA. 

OK then. Four miles walked today. On to, I don't know, something else the rest of the day...

Cheers! Slainte!

Walking Thoughts #27

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…(My walk was yesterday, I'm editing this and posting it today on New Years Day)

Happy New Year 2023!

I just received an email from the Indie Filmmakers Awards in California. I received an email from FilmFreeway.com yesterday indicating I'd won for my submission of my antiwar historical documentary and filmic poem, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero". But the email today from the awards festival indicated my award not for just the film, but as director! My first director award! I had submitted to a Dublin festival for best Director but only got Semi-Finalist for the film (I had a great time in Ireland in 2015, by the way). 

Weather for the day… 45° and overcast

Podcast for the day The Problem with John Stewart, episode with Mark Cuban, Maria Ressa & Julia Ioffe Join Our 2022 WrapUpFestPalooza

Instagram post for the day

Maria Ressa on the MIT study, finding that lies travel six times faster than truth on social media (Specifically, Twitter). Also, how toxic conservatives been hampered on Twitter for saying stupid shit and outright lies and hate speech as a first amendment issue until Musk bought Twitter, when it’s suddenly becomes a private company where Elon can do whatever he wants according to conservatives because now they can speak and spew their nonsense.

Zuckerberg with Facebook was Rupert Murdoch 2.0 where now Elon Musk with Twitter is Zuckerberg 2.0.

We need some new laws for social media. There’s no doubt about that. We need to protect human beings, not just America. Twitter is global, so Elon Musk has this global social media power through Twitter. That has to stop with our making Elon Musk the very last one allowed to do that. It needs to be run by some kind of a board who are accountable to someone. Like in Europe, who had seen this ahead of time has done way better than America in moderating this kind of stuff.

If Trump was President, he would be hitting on Elon Musk to be head of the FCC. What do we think the ramifications of that would be? Not good.

John Stewart: you can be good at Twitter, or you can be profitable, but you can’t be both.

Mark Cuban on podcast: I might invest in Twitter depending on its valuation but not right now. Post News, I would have invested in it but they’re evaluation of $250 million was too high. Mastodon, it was too hard to use in its too many servers and just too confusing. I like Post better. Mark also said about Elon buying Twitter, don’t give him too much credit for all the stuff he says, in the political angles. He’s just another rich guy who got a new toy he’s playing with it. How just wants to have his voice heard but he wants profits.

Maria said Twitter in the Philippines is far better than Facebook or YouTube, certainly in allowing her some protections. And in the Philippines, Facebook is essentially, their social media.

Elon is providing Internet for Ukraine, but last month he raised the prices by 25%.

Elon should be charging Russia for Internet access for Ukraine, as long as the Russian are within and attacking Ukraine.

Fatalism has somewhat taken over in America, especially for conservatives & autocrats. In Russia, the propaganda is so much that same thing, happening there. People don’t know what to believe in Russia or who to listen to so they just shut down and go "well government? Do whatever you want. I don't matter, and can't." This is not something that happens by accident.

As far as the Russians, noticing that their men dying in Ukraine, for apparently no good reasons, as Julia points out on the podcast, remember that they’re not Americans. They don't expect life to be a get better, they're Russians. who have centuries of basically being serfs, forever abused by the elites.

Julia tell the Russian joke to explain the Russian mentality: A bunch of Russians are standing in a pool sewage with it up to their noses. One of them raises his head up looks around and says, Hey let’s organize and get out of this shit. Someone else says, Hey stop making waves!

Considering how much faster, lies travel, and how companies can make money off of it on social media, look at the Republican party with people like Trump or George Santos ...lies aren’t sticking anymore. They can say whatever they want, getting what they want (elected), profit from it and yet, still stay in office? Again. Who is STILL Postmaster General right now? Louis DeJoy. How many Supreme Court Justices do we have who should never have been allowed on the Supreme Court? At least four conservatives. That, is not good.

I'd just like to mention yet again that I started telling everyone I knew back in the 90s that I was seeing the Republican Party using old Soviet KGB disinformation tactics and techniques. It was blaringly obvious to me. I was attuned to noticing whenever the Russians did something like that. Then suddenly I started to notice a change in the GOP and realized, they were doing the same things. They’ve only gotten better at it over the years and expanded it. I would almost argue now that it’s coming back around to beginning to destroy them. Because it’s never been a last forever this kind of thing. KGN only used it for short term efforts that were then supported by other things or actions executed in the short term. The GOP has been relying on it now for decades. Just as autocracies sooner or later cave in on themselves, so too will the GOP. And should they take over America? That version just won't last.

As Maria’s pointing out now, why are some of us now in America electing a illiberal leaders? That makes absolutely no sense at all. But that’s not just America, as she points out 60% of the world is under autocratic rule. And if this keeps happening…well?

Corporations and governments are now doing exactly what we’ve been doing for decades to our earth. We take the wealth out, and we let the worst happen, we allow parts of the world to die for it, because of it. We now seek politicians, who are taking wealth out for themselves and their kind, and their supporters... and I don’t mean citizens or voters. I mean, lobbyists and corporations, dark money and letting their/our citizenry die, sometimes, literally. It can’t be avoided to say that Donald Trump allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans die because of his purposeful befuddled COVID-19 Response. There is no making excuses and saying that he got the vaccine out. That’s absurd. Just because the vaccine got out under Trump has nothing to do with what he did before, or after that point.

We have to ask ourselves as Americans how much responsibility do we bear for the war on drugs destroying families and citizens, for decades. And then a two decade plus war on terror help spin up some of the autocracies in the world, adding to an autocratic movement around the world.

Julia said in 2015 Putin helped in Syria by bombing the shit out of them to generate in part all the many refugees to flee the country, which help lead to Brexit and other issues in Europe. A force multiplier situation.

To my VA doctor. I want to thank you as I’ve said before, for helping me through this year. Especially from the end of March when I caught COVID the last time, until our last email, for all the support and sometimes just listening or not reacting poorly to my emails. I did want to mention one thing, that my dentist noticed a dark spot on my lip which in researching it, I’m assuming could be nothing. And also, although 2022 wasn’t the worst year of my life, it was certainly the scariest from this last bout of Covid and long Covid. Which I’m at the trailing end of and which could drag on for more months or (I’m hoping not), beyond to March of 2023. Since I’ve read some doctors saying it seems to last about two years for many and the last time I caught it, it lasted about 14 months. I felt because I can, I should, and so I did write a book on long covid and the experience. I just wanted you to know that and share that with you. I titled it, “Suffering, Long Covid“ and published it end of October. Anyway, happy new year and here’s hoping the VA has all the funding it needs so you guys aren’t so overworked anymore, and that Covid or whatever the next pandemic might be, won’t be.
Also, to help me get through the end of my last long Covid in early 2022 I had created/produced out a filmic poem, antiwar historical documentary titled, “Pvt. Ravel's Bolero“. It’s been winning a lot of awards and I just won another one in California today, for best director of an experimental short film. Anyway…
Cheers! Sláinte!

Maria says here that Russian military doctrine, according to KGB head, Yuri Andropov said disnformation is like cocaine, it's OK to consume once or twice, but if you taken in a steady diet of it you become a changed person. Welcome to Russia. Welcome to America.

Mark Cuban: And it’s all gonna get worse.

Mark also says those who control what goes into AI's like ChatGBT, or DaVinci version 3.5, they will control a lot as it can be Weaponized.

The first murder in history put us on the path to "Godhead", but it took social constructs of government and laws to reign that in. We can now design babies using CRISPR, but government regulations worldwide won't allow it.

The first murder was supposed to be when Cain killed Abel. He got kicked out of town because God didn’t like a human broaching the realm of Godness. Except that wasn’t the first murder. Because Cain then went to the land of Nod, married some woman whose brother had killed somebody (my personal Biblical history) and so they felt an affinity over that and that’s how they got together.

Mark Cuban pointin st where there’s no transparency there’s crime. So how about if you run for public office your tax returns are immediately examined. Yes, we'll have to pay more for the IRS. Get over yourself. I was thinking, do that with the president and whoever is a candidate. And then I thought, Congress, too. And then I thought, governors too, because they’re the "presidents" of their state. And then it occurred to me, if transparency helps to illuminate crime and abuse, then if you want into public office you'd better be honest and we'd better see your tax returns.

Paraphrasing Donald Trump: "Yes, I gave politicians money because they would do what I say." That’s proving both politicians he paid and Trump himself, are corrupt. He went on to say because he knew how corrupt they are, voters should elect him to fix all this. And so MAGA, elected a corrupt person. Or as we used to put it, a fox/wolf was set to oversee the chicken coop/flock of sheep. Dumb.

Regarding Congress and insider trading? I've said this many times. If you’re gonna be in Congress, you have to eliminate your portfolio or convert it to like an IRA/401(k) set up just for Congress. Or maybe better, set one up for all government employees which helps to demystify it. And make it more egalitarian.

Mark: it takes a few frauds to burst a bubble. Financially speaking. So now that a few of these things have rolled over in crypto, that’ll get looked at and probably fixed. But we don’t have the same thing for government. 

How many of those frauds have happened? Because it’s been happening all through history, so it's become normalized. No one ever really thinks about it. Just fix it. But instead, it’s more like, "Oh look he’s having a massive heart attack and a compound fracture. He’s bleeding all over the place. Here’s a Band-Aid."

Word for the day from Mark Cuban: duopoly. Referring to our two-party system in America. Which he said is why he likes the ranked choice voting. Which I’ve been liking a lot too since I first heard of it only a year or two back.

I know people get confused between sociopath and psychopath. The way I view it is there are many sociopaths. A lot of them are drawn to leadership and a lot of them are actually harmless. But they don’t have the same need to follow the rules as most of us. When you add narcissism into that (see, Donald Trump), it’s like adding an octane booster into the crazy cocktail. A psychopath is within the group of sociopath and more acute/dangerous. He went to sociopath university and became a graduate Summa Cum Laude. And that’s amongst their cohort, their group of their peers. And that could be people in their social circle, there physical location, or economic/ political stratum, worldwide.

There are people who can’t differentiate faces. In some cases, it’s a pathology. For most of us who have that issue at all, we’re just not that good at like picking people out of a lineup, say. Artists are much better at it than most people. We’re seeing that today with too many people who can’t differentiate fact from fiction. That’s achieved through many routes. The problem today is that some of that is achieved through selective ignorance, and choosing what pleasures them. Until they finally can’t see fact because they're so estranged from it. Maybe the primary way to explain Donald Trump getting elected. Obviously that’s also all been magnified through foreign entities, who are our enemies (and domestic enemies) who are simply profiteers, toxic capitalists and toxic politicos.

Many of the people who seem to get the furthest in America, merely say American patriotic things, and then do the opposite. Thank you for that comment, Julia.

Sometimes I feel like I got fucked, family-wise. On the other hand, I had two dad’s, my birth father, who didn’t seem to want anything to do with me, and my stepfather, who really didn’t seem to like me, who made my childhood kind of a hell. Who when mom told us she was marrying him, I was five years old and said, "NO, I don't like him!" And rightly so. But she was pregnant so... And I had half a mother, who in the last half of her life, my life, made life hell her my siblings and I (and her). But in the first half of my life, she was almost like two mothers worth of mother. Who loved us a lot. My own two grown kids I dearly love and they love me very much. I made sure of that. I didn't want my kids growing up disliking their parents as I had. It didn't work out so well for either of their mothers however, who didn't pay that kind of attention to raising them. So maybe that makes up for all of it, having kids who love me. What I mean about feeling like I got screwed, family-wise, was that I grew up watching those early 60s family TV shows where everything was perfect and mom worked around the house wearing a nice dress and pearls and nobody got divorced. while I grew up in a family where my siblings were all half siblings, we all had different dads and my parent's relationship sucked. Life. Can't live with it sometimes, surely can't live with out it.

Somehow, I ended up with a bunch of 10% off coupons from Safeway for getting my vaccinations this year. I’ve gotten a few between Covid shots/boosters and other things and so today was the last day of the year. I finally used one of those coupons for 10% off for fun stuff for New Year’s weekend. I was standing there looking at a couple of those coupons at the self checkout, so...I just left them there for whomever else comes by after me... so here, have 10% off!

Here’s a question, asking for a friend… Is murder justified if you buy through the mail a signed author copy of a book and it has one of those fucking stickers on it that says "author signed" copy that you can’t get off the front cover? I mean that’s justified... right? May this new year have no "author signed" book stickers on them!

Cheers! Sláinte!