Walkabout Thoughts #46

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…June 30, 2023 Friday


Regarding affirmative action in the SCOTUS, shot me down this week, here’s the deal about that…one University where there were 9% Blacks have been cut down to 4%, in a country that has 13% Blacks who are living and paying taxes in America. Whenever we have a situation where there’s too few voters and taxpayers ethnocentrically in a group, in a workforce, an educational system, in the military, or prisons, workers, or inmates, and the percentage is way out of whack? That’s when it needs to be addressed. And that’s what we’ve been saying. In the case of Blacks, way too many are inmates. Way too few are in institutions of education. I could get what conservative members of SCOTUS are saying, if they see affirmative action laws as unconstitutional, even if I may disagree with them. But when you look at a group and see the disparity and the injustice that should be corrected, how do you do that? Are you proactive or do you react to that, that you’re just fine with it? And so we have had affirmative action laws, hoping to correct that. But not correct it 100%. Which AGAIN evokes the question… "What the fuck are whites complaining about?" Is it that they were that week and ineffective themselves, but today they have to beg forevermore for cushions to their existence? That while Blacks and Minorities should “pull them selves up by the boot straps“ because that’s those American's quote? But they don’t wanna do that for themselves? Because when They have to do it, it’s somehow reverse racism? I grew up, middle, maybe upper lower class, and through hard work and multiple jobs my stepfather worked us into lower middle and at some point (after I moved out) middle-middle class, although they were always in debt. There was no question when they died that they'd leave any money for their kids. 

I graduated high school at 17, immediately got a job and moved the hell out. I was going nowhere in life. And so I joined the Air Force at 20. I'd given it a few years to try to do better but just saw no prospects. Between that belief and a curious nature, and ability to absorb information easily in some ways, with difficulty in others because of ADHD, I struggled all my life to get out of debt myself. In positioning myself, luckily I found some opportunities, and never turned down opportunities out of fear. Plenty of times I was fearful of taking on a newer and harder position. But I kept my mother's dad in mind, our grandfather who always excepted challenges when half the time he didn’t know what he was doing, until he started doing it, or teaching it, but kept that to himself. He forced himself to succeed, and with that model in mind, I got through life bouncing around with plenty of knocks and bruises. Eventually with a small retirement, that should’ve been much larger. But at least I had one, at least I have something.

Some colleges, after hearing about SCOTUS knocking down affirmative action laws, say they will continue trying to do what’s right, regardless. Until OUR federal judiciary and SCOTUS, toxically and conservatively stacked and weighted with conservatives, at some point finally says it’s unconstitutional, remember always what they did with abortion. They won a little and they took a lot. They just wanted to pass it back to the states they said, and then they tried to pass federal laws against it to take it away from the states and nationalize an illegal ban. These are not trustworthy people. It’s not my orientation but their actions that prove this time and time again. Conservatism leans into religion, and so you can trust religion being pro-deity and anti-human in passing more absolutist laws.

How is Black SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas not what other Blacks used to refer to as a “Uncle Tom“? An apologist for white privilege. So I asked the AI:

"The term "Uncle Tom" originated from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel titled "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which was published in 1852. The novel depicted the life of a slave named Tom, who was portrayed as a submissive and loyal servant to his white master. Over time, the term "Uncle Tom" has evolved into a derogatory term used to criticize African Americans who are perceived as being overly subservient to white people or betraying the interests of their own community.

"The term "Uncle Tom" is often used as an insult to demean African Americans who are seen as acquiescing to racism or supporting policies or actions that are detrimental to their own racial or ethnic group. It suggests a lack of racial consciousness or a willingness to conform to white societal expectations at the expense of one's own identity and community.

"It's important to note that the term is considered derogatory and offensive, as it perpetuates harmful stereotypes and oversimplifies complex issues related to race and identity. It is generally discouraged to use such terms, as they can contribute to negative racial tensions and misunderstandings."

OK, so maybe calling Justice Thomas, "Uncle Tom" is offensive. Then explain what the fuck he is doing?

However I have little respect for anyone who thinks like Thomas. "I put in the sweat labor to get to where I got to, everyone else had better appreciate that and do the same!" Not realizing that equating what he went through was the same for others, regardless how he grew up. To NOT stand up for your own, for those like you (regardless of race), so also giving due consideration for any of the poor, immigrants or, Native Americans who we took these lands FROM, or many Mexicans who were in a similar situation, though perhaps not quite so murderously abusive). 

With such considerations, I must here offer this from, "The Beat with Ari Melber", podcast on a special episode:
"BONUS: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Affirmative Action Dissent Read by Actress Alfre Woodard". "Award-winning actress Alfre Woodard reads Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s entire 29-page dissent to the affirmative action ruling." Why? Because of SCOTUS poor standing of late in their excessively conservative extremist rulings. The Republican Party and its supporters have gone off the deep end, grabbing things they've long wanted, regardless the consequences. Because it's easier to take and apologize later and retain some, than do what is right and receive little of what you want. No matter who unethical, immoral or toxic it is to the nation overall.

Is it time to rid the world of internal combustion engine leaf blowers and grass trimmers, yet? For that of battery powered ones? I read this thing decades ago, while it apparently doesn’t have scientific legitimacy, it does makes sense. That is that as civilization evolves, it becomes more advanced to the point that it becomes quieter. Maybe darker? Thus earth once shouted massive amounts of signals off planet and our cities and machines are noisy. But as we get more electric cars and such, we become quieter as we make advances. It also makes sense we would utilize lighting more adeptly so we'd direct smaller amounts of lights (at night) with more efficiency in various ways. But you get it concept.

How do we know that the Bible or the Quran aren't some of the largest “telephone game“ examples in the history of humanity? That being in writing things down after telling them by word of mouth for a long time, and then by translating them so that through time and history, we've been altering them? And we’ve seen how that subvert and/or Re-orients from the original message.

So, according to SCOTUS... racial Gerrymandering exists, but that’s where it ends? WTF?

One wonders if we sent back in time, well-educated individuals, from both sides of the ticket today, to when the US Constitution was being written, how would that alter it? Because I suspect they would tighten it up and better address certain issues that the Right is now trying to make superfluous. What I'm saying is, if we went back in time to tell the Founding Fathers what the hell we're doing with their US Constitution, they'd make some re-writes. And now how today's nutcase Right wingnuts would.

I like Pablo Pascal, the actor. He signed on to the writer's strike. I liked him in "The Mandalorian". I liked him in, "The Last of Us". I heard him in an interview recently where he said he had a lot to be thankful for in having been in "Narcos" on Netflix. So I watched that this past week. It was him and his blond haired, white partner with Pablo being a Spanish speaker in Colombia where they were DEA agents. I understand he didn’t think he would be in the show very long but he lasted two seasons and then they gave him the third season, losing his partner. Interesting they never mentioned what happened to that guy. But when I saw the third season, it was obvious to my why he did so well after that. It wasn’t so much the first two seasons, but they got him to the third and final season. I really liked it. Then they came out with "Narcos Mexico". Which I just started though he’s not in it. I remember when sinsemilla cannabis hit the streets in the late 70s as the seedless version of weed. In the 70s we were so sick of having to clean out the seeds, as Cheech and Chong had so famously said, "No stems no seeds that you can see, Acapulco gold is fine... ass weed!" But I didn’t know about how that all came into being. At first we thought it was brilliant. The weed was cleaned up. Everyone had a shoe box lid or something just slid under their couch usually with their weed in it and some stems and seeds off the the side. Maybe an expired credit card or something for the sifting. Holding the lid at an angle, using the card to drag the weed up and catch it repeatedly to allow the seeds to run to the bottom. Anyway, you got what you paid for with sinsemilla, not a bunch of bulk and seed nonsense you didn’t use. When one day we we’re sitting around getting stoned and  I looked at my friends, and I said, "Hey, this is seedless." They smiled, just puffing away and said, "Yeah, I know, cool...right?" "Yeah cool… but now we can’t grow our own." And everybody looked at each other surprised and went, "Oh shit that’s right." Until someone said, "Yeah, but we're not growing it anyway, right?" "Yeah, but now we can't, even if we wanted to." And suddenly, everyone wanted to. But it was brilliant marketing in that they didn’t have to ship the stems and seeds, which kept us from growing our own, but also made the packs smaller and they could profit more and ship more. The kilo is more dense, which was an all-around win-win for everybody. Except for anyone who wanted to grow their own. At that point, we started to try and find some seeds and no one had any. And if they did, they were valuable. When they had been everywhere at one point. It was a marketing awakening, in the illegal weed market. So Narcos Mexico. Pretty entertaining. An interesting show though so far I’m only a few episodes into it

But speaking of that, I watched the latest episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" last night. It was a court trial, which usually I like, but not in a sci-fi show so much. But by the end of it, I liked it a lot. Actually, that was last weeks episode. And it was good by the end. Last night's episode was a time travel episode where they went back in time on earth. And again you might be like, "Hey, this isn’t space cowpoke fun romping around the universe stuff!" But by the end they tied it together, and you had to sort of smile and go, "Nice job."

The last episode of "Silo" hit for the season on an Apple+. Really like that show and it had a good cliffhanger season ending that left me with my mouth open, going, "Oh shit, hadn't seen that coming!"

Another one on that streamer is "The Crowded Room". Having a degree in psychology and always being interested in pathologies kind of like shows like that.

Another on Paramount plus is Joe about it Bureau of land management ranger. Like the character so much I haven’t read novels that it’s just a fun and at times difficult show to watch. He takes a lot of brutality in his job but keeps on pushing. And his family’s interesting his lawyer, wife, and two girls.

I also watched Mayans because I was a Sons of Anarchy fan. But there’s something missing from this series that "Sons" had. Maybe it’s 'cause I’m a white boy and not Mexican, Latino, Latinx or whatever, but I’m kind of looking forward to the end of the series. Hey, I still watch it. Though it's not meant to be some kind of sequel to "Sons", and well, it's not. Something isn't clicking for me with it.

Alaska Daily (now cancelled), how about a New York world famous journalist transplant to a tiny newspaper that’s on the edge, in Alaska. The first and only review I read of it when it premiered was not good and they shot the showdown. Screw them. I liked it. I'm sad it's cancelled (I just found out in looking for a link for this). But I think there’s elements for the show the reviewer entirely missed. We need more shows like this. Losing our small newspapers has been crippling America. Native Americans, First Nations...they're getting more attention, but still not enough. A Free Press is a necessary part of our democracy. Our toxic capitalism has worked hard to conglomerate, kill off smaller papers and allowed to monopolize, hampering a Free Press ever more so. Autocrats are doing it around the world. Our democracy and our haters of democracy on the right, especially autocrats like Trump and his MAGA infection, are using the boundaries of democracy to cripple our Free Press. 24 hour new cycles haven’t helped because then they have to always report something new even if it's nothing or worse, which is anathema to what should be loss leader news reporting. Short news cycles and shorter short term memories, news for profit rather as a loss leader for a company, or a network has been signing news death warrant now for years.

How in the hell can we have a fair and balance SCOTUS if it’s too heavily unbalanced one way or the other and why aren’t there laws to assure that NEVER happen? Obviously so that it CAN happen. And that’s got to change. I’m not asking for liberals to have a hand up. I’m asking for the entire country to have a fair and even hand up. Mitch McConnell and the GOP conservatively stacking our federal courts, as well as OUR SCOTUS, in illiberally disallowing Merrick Garland a seat on that court… If that’s not anti-American, what the hell is? Well, more "corporate thought" at work.

For those complaining that the Trump economy was better than Biden so far… First off Biden isn’t done and has he said what they have done and it is helping, it is working and it will continue to get better, such as reasonable projections all say. Let’s point out the disaster Obama took over and now he has a history of a better economy, so far better than Biden or Trump. But Biden still has time in his office before you can judge him. Especially if he gets a second term...if America has any self-esteem left whatsoever. Biden will, as opposed to say Trump getting a second term, which takes the consideration of any self-esteem whatsoever for America off the table if that happens, as he will have gone full on autocrat, giving him purchase to completely destroy our economy and our democracy. If you can’t see that, that’s a degree of ignorance so vast one don’t even know how to address it. Trump doesn't WANT to destroy our economy, just our democracy, but if he profits only by destroying our economy? It's toast.

A new Navigator poll shows that 75% of Americans are against tax cuts for the rich including Republicans. So WTF America? I remember saying when I got out of my university years in 1984 that priorities in America are fucked up. Well, thanks to conservatives they’re fucked up to a fantastical degree far beyond anything I had considered back then. And I have some pretty good "out there" fiction. Just check out, "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear" (ebook free through July 2023). When I would have said all this now is just bad science fiction or really really poor speculative fiction writing and by a lazy writer.

This isn’t a difficult intellectual puzzle. We have to take money from somebody to run this government. I know my brother says we can run without taxes. I said explain to me how that works  but he couldn’t. But then he’s a conservative who supported Trump, so… But the point is, do we take those taxes more from people who don’t have the money or from those who do have so much money, they don’t know what to do with it? How is that an intellectual conundrum? I mean it's just common sense. The people with more pay more but also at a higher ratio. First of all nobody should have above a certain amount of money. No individual should have as much money as a country. No corporation should have more money than the largest country. Multinational corporations are dangerous. Just watch Rollerball. The original better one with James Caan. The problem as with so many other things in our society today is due to toxicity...in our conservatism and economy, leaning into autocracy, of those with autocratic desires, where common sense has been devalued, diluted and weaponized, all this against ourselves.

Inflation is down 11 months in a row, gas and groceries are down… But Biden they say is a doddering, old fool? And Trump isn’t? At the least, at very least Biden isn’t a criminal like Trump. Even if you believe Biden is, or that there actually is a "Biden crime family", which is stupid, which is fucking stupid, when you can see there is obviously is a Trump crime family, which is not mere denigration or ad hominems, which is why Trump keeps getting indicted ("criminal")… We just need to stop this juvenile fakery and get down to work.

Oh, another streamer show “From”, I like that one a lot because it’s really messed up.

I really like Kaley Cuoco, the actor from, "The Big Bang", who was in "The Flight Attendant". Another screwed up, show that I liked a lot. It was in fun and part is my older sister was a senior flight attendant all of her life. It was fun to tease her about, "Hey, did that happened to you?" No.

Oh, just saw the first few episodes of this season 3 of, "The Witcher" (last season for Henry Cavill as Geralt, replaced in upcoming seasons 4/5 by Liam Hemsworth). They just dropped on Netflix season three. Nice to see it back. I heard it’s the same actor as in "Superman and Lois" and for some reason I like that and watch it too (Emmanuelle Chriqui surely having nothing to do with it). But remind me of the Clark Kent, superman thing, where are the actors don’t look anything alike in each role. (I know, I know, see below further down).

This week I also watched Lamborghini with Frank Grillo as the elder character of the title name, and Gabriel Byrne, whom I have always liked his work. Since I first saw Ridley Scott's first film "The Duelists" with Harvey Keitel, opposing Keith Carradine through their lives, and the Napoleonic wars. Great underrated film.

Oh, and by the way, "Bidenomics" has given us the lowest unemployment rate for Blacks and Hispanics. So Hispanics really need to review this rush to the Republican Party who really doesn’t give a shit about anybody except their own leaders, donors and superPACs, lobbyists.

I se Hyperwrite as of recently and a company called Reword just pinged me with some spam. It looks interesting. But I need to make sure it’s hooked up to this blog. I don’t think it is. If I could make this stream of consciousness blog look a little more... well written without spending a lot of time on it, because I’ve got other things to do, I think we all agree... that would be awesome.

Sometimes I put things in these notes during walkabouts that are just for me to see so that when I get home and read them, I delete them from the blog and go do them. But sometimes I leave them in... like the one just above.

As I’ve spoken about in the previous two blogs, when exercising you can hit a point where you want to quit. Today that was at about mile 4 and a quarter. Usually I don’t start sweating till like the last mile or so. It’s hot today so it was by the end of the 2nd mile. But around mile 4 I started feeling I was overdoing it. So I stopped in a shady place. I looked down into a gully, or gulch, or whatever you wanna call it, that runs off downhill to the next main street below. I realized, I’ll have been in this house about five years now and in the first week, years ago, I would’ve already gone down into this thing out of curiosity. Just to search around to see what was there. I've always been like that. Going up in the mountains by myself to go hiking alone. Exploring local, wooded areas people tend to not go into. But with this time and age, it’s just not worth my effort. Or I just don’t have the motivation anymore, or my body isn’t so in shape (thanks so much Long Covid) so as to not give a thought about overdoing it in time or effort. Yeah getting old is not for the old, but it sure as hell isn’t for the young.

Damn talking about ADHD… I just posted on Twitter and social media today about it, because my son, who also has it, sent me a 20 minute comedy clip of a guy talking about his wife having ADHD. It’s pretty funny and more so if you have it. He’s exaggerating, but it’s pretty entertaining. And the reason I say this now is because above, I was gonna say something about getting to mile four, and wanting to quit today. And the reason for mentioning that, which I got distracted from… was that I had stopped to cool off And then saw something on my phone from someone who DM'd me about being a product ambassador or something. Which distracted me so I started walking again and then realized I feel fine now. So I’m now starting mile five and again I feel fine. My point is, was... that when you hit that point where you think you can’t do anymore, rest, then take your time to slowly move forward, get back up to speed and you may well find that you’re just fine.

I agree with the Biden administration consideration on if all Biden makes is a single term. They should get two. They have a strong story to tell that needs to be told to counter the bullshit from the right. This ain’t your grandfathers voodoo economics of trickle down nonsense by toxically capitalistic right wing nut cases who led us to first to the Tea Party, and then Donald Trump's MAGA and an insurrection. How you can see him being "worth his salt" is beyond all rational thought.

At what point do we make Nazism, neo or otherwise, illegal in this country? It will hopefully eventually die off, this core of the MAGA Trump personality cult, our current autocratic infection which needs to be curbed and made somewhat, somehow, illegal? Yes, yes 1st Amendment, yes, Freedom of Speech, and so on, but when it’s weaponized against our US Constitution itself, maybe it's time to act.

Want an easy element to indicate to you who not to vote for? Someone who is thin skinned like Ron DeSantis, like Donald Trump. Those are not leaders. Those are not men who can run a country. Run it into the ground, yes, sure... to be sure. But, let's not do that.


Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #33

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


Weather for the day… 44 degrees and light clouds lots of blue sky

Podcast for the day podcast “Pod Save America“ episode, “

Instagram post for the day

Olympic Mountains today

“Trump has reminded us that misogyny is a feature not a bug in the Republican Party”

“Pompeo hates Nikki Haley”

Paraphrasing “Nikki Haley is just a Kevin McCarthy“

So I told my adult trans kid I’d like to take them and their trans spouse out for that kid's birthday next weekend. I said pick a place and we'll go there. Thinking that’s part of a gift. And their response was, "Oh so I choose?" Yeah. Sure. In part because of their dietary requirements being hard for me to track. And thinking about that, as many do (with a roll of the eyes, and I’m not saying I’m doing that, but people do), it occurs to me...Why do so many seem so attuned to their physiology regarding diet? That’s annoying to many who are not. But here’s the thing. As we’ve become more educated and knowledgeable about diet and an awareness of things, why would we not become more attuned to ourselves, internally? And how is that a bad thing? One might argue even that it’s bullshit. But if you’re eating healthier because of it, then how is that bad? It’s annoying to others, sure. But what if it’s not imaginary? When I was a kid, and this is how I’m viewing this whole issue… I was fifth or sixth grade, my mom took me over to a friend's house. Some woman who had a couple of Siamese cats (that's another story). While I was talking to this woman when we first got there, I felt my body invaded. It was a weird kind of rush. I could see her breathing down on me, standing a few feet from my mom and I inside the front door. I couldn’t put my finger on the feeling I was having until later. But I started not feeling well later that day. The next day I felt worse and my mom said the woman was talking to her on the phone and said she thinks she came down with something. By the next day I was feeling so bad my mom took me to the doctor. And he said, "You’ve got the flu or something." I told him I knew it, and then about the woman, realizing I felt I was catching something from her, apparently a virus. I felt something invading my body while talking to her, probably my immune system over responding. Years later, a doctor told me that my allergies were my immune system overreacting too rapidly to invading elements. And if it was slower, my body could adjust and I wouldn’t have all these allergy issues. This was back in the early 70s by that time. So the doctor when I was a kid, in his office, said, "I’m sorry but it’s impossible that you’re feeling ill or could have felt her give you the flu as you stood in front of her. It takes about two weeks for you to feel the symptoms." I didn’t know what to do with that. He’s a doctor. I was a kid. But the thing was, he’s right about a week or two to feel the symptoms. But I wasn’t feeling the symptoms the day I met that woman. I was feeling an invasion and my immune system reacting. I’ve always been very tuned into my physiology. And I’ve always been discredited on that. But it’s been proven to be accurate over my 67 years. By time I hit my teens, it wasn’t quite as accurate, as you get older, it diminishes. But still seems to be more awareness than other people I've known. Getting back to my original premise… I do also believe that food is medicine, or can be. Sure, some take things to extremes. Some always do. But there is logic, and science in it. Eat healthier, you're healthier. Eat poorly, your health will suffer for it, though you may not notice it at first or until you're old, and some can handle that better than others. At least some of these people, with our better education and knowledge today than we had so long ago when I was a kid, if they're more tuned into their bodies now and trying to eat better… other than being annoying to some of us, what the hell is the problem with that? Don’t get me wrong. I like eating meat. But ethically and morally, I realized once a society gets to a place where they don’t have to hunt and kill for their food, why are we still killing other species for food? Not to mention, eating a lot of meat in a diet is unhealthy and can kill you over time. Granted not everybody, but we’re not all the same, biologically speaking. That’s why one person can smoke as much as another, yet one gets lung, cancer and dies and the other lives to 100 and is healthy. But it doesn’t mean everybody’s wrong. And that doesn’t mean we’re always correctly righteous in our annoyed beliefs.

It occurs to me that with some people, probably younger than me, who are doing what they're doing today about their diets and stuff, as I was discussing above, people traditionally did pay attention only once they had health problems. When they were told to log their health statistics, day by day. Which I’ve been doing since I got long Covid back in April, almost a year ago. So if they don’t need to log it all to figure things out, and can simple tell, more power to them. I’ve been getting a lot of migraine visuals lately. I used to get maybe a migraine every year or two, or every so many years. I would go a little blind, start to see visuals, start seeing bright colors at about a half an hour before the pain hit. Which could last for three days. I read somewhere that as you get older you don’t necessarily get the pain, but the visuals. So I counted in my log today and found I had migraine visuals, seven times in the past 30 days. Which I assume has got to be because of long Covid. It's disturbing.

Speaking of which, I read somewhere else that long Covid can thicken your vagus nerve. Is that good or bad? Probably bad, right? Which are the issues I’ve been having, vagus nerve issues. Since this is the second time, I am sure, as I had long Covid the first time lasting 8 to 14 months long, I have to wonder if repeated long Covid physically changes/damages something? And if one's vagus nerve gets thickened? Does that mean you’re not having permanent issues while things being magnified? Like when I first got it, that was really bad and I had to go into the ER with couple paramedic visits due to my pulse/BP shooting up and I became hyper sensitive to certain foods. As this has is faded, will it never go completely away because I may now have a thicker vagus nerve? Does thicker mean it's more functional or less, and if more that seems to be over reacting to things. Just great. 

Here’s a nightmare scenario. My poor son and his girlfriend have been dealing with her heart issues for a year now. Something she’s perhaps been ignoring for years, as we tend to do when it's not obvious what the problem is. She’s been having seizures and things that she didn’t recognize until the doctors figured it out and gave her meds. They couldn’t get the meds figured out. They'd get them "figured out" and then they'd fail before she could go home from the hospital stay. "Hello again, hi, bye!" Sorry. That was a like, cute one year old I just walked by with his mom… Anyway she left their city to go to Seattle and then back home and then back again and then back home but didn’t make it. Had to stop at another hospital in another city and on and on for a year. So I said to my son, at least once, did she have Covid? And he said, "Yes." I told him then that she may have had long Covid and not even known it. And if that’s the case, it magnifies things. I wrote a book about it, "Suffering Long Covid" And I published it. He gave her a copy but he doesn’t think she read it. Which may be good because there’s some hard realities in that book. Anyway, as of yesterday they finally think they’ve got things worked out and she can come home. But we’ve heard this so many times. "Hi". This time it was my postal woman delivering mail a few blocks from my house. I'm headed onto my 3rd mile now [I jumped back up from below, later on, so that explains my mileage being out of sequence, shit happens...]. So anyway, all the medication they tried on her has reacted in ways they didn’t expect and... that’s what long Covid does to you. So, as time passes, a long Covid phase for her fading, it could be that meds will start to work correctly, as they seem to be. Finally. But I don’t know. She’s got some good doctors, at some good hospitals, who know what they’re talking about, and they think Covid is definitely a factor. Now that could mean the initial week or so of Covid damaged her heart. Or that the long Covid issues were screwing with her results. There’s also a study that says it can kill off some of the muscle cells inside your heart which cannot grow back and that’s a serious concern. So you could end up with a heart transplant. But here’s hoping next week they’re both finally having dinner together and this nightmare can finally be, if not over, better controlled. I think they’re giving her a pacemaker now. Which is sad because no one needs a pacemaker in their 30s, although sometimes you do.

I think I walked a mile last walk and the time before that, or at least the last time anyway. I’m just starting my 2nd mile and at the end of that I’ll see if I can walk a third. I’d like to at least do that today. So far my right knee is holding out…

Regarding this bullshit about Medicare and Social Security with Republicans. There’s a news clip of one of them saying that those things are very important but so is military spending. But we review military spending every year. Well, dumb ass. The obvious difference there, which only a disingenuous fool couldn’t see, is that we don’t know from year to year how much military spending we will need with a current forecast. But we know that American citizens, our human beings still need to live and survive, to have healthcare and money to live on they expected, some for over 50 years. Kind of not an ever-changing thing like a military budget. That is so simple to understand and obvious that it’s offensive that a professional adult politician would speak such dumb words in public. But then, his voters probably won't notice. He's a Republican. (No, not all Republicans are dumb, but MAGA has altered the stats on that) So...

That was centered around comparing thing as "citizens need" to "military budget". Ron Johnson said that about those, I wanna call them "entitlements", because we should be entitled to them and we funded them ourselves as citizens, he says it’s a Ponzi scheme. Well, if you look at it critically, it’s not. Unless you’re a Republican, apparently. But let’s say it is. Well, then? Fix it! Something Republicans hate to do. Fix things. Because it opens them up to criticism and hard work. And compromise. They love breaking things and shutting things down and defunding things and crippling government. You know it’s a lot easier to take a sledgehammer and destroy a house then it is to build one that’s viable and functional that you can live in.

By the way, Rick Scott in Congress ,who is so against Medicare and Social Security? We need to recognize the company he used to work for, who was fined over $1 billion for fraud in those areas. Makes you wonder why he hates social security and medicare so much.

By the way, even Mitch McConnell can’t stand Rick Scott.

Thinking about this for a second. When you see news clips of some Republican, talking to a group of senior citizens about how we need to kill Medicare and Social Security, and they don’t say anything. Or maybe even applaud? Those are not people who need Social Security, or Medicare. Those are wealthy seniors who just see it as taking their tax money. First of all, fuck them. If you got that much money, you should be taxed. Get these Republicans in a room with a good deal of America who need help. The middle class, not the upper class, not the upper middle class. As I understand it, there’s wealthy people who actually use Medicare, while some refuse to rightly indicating it's kind of immoral. Yes, ethically if you paid into it, you deserve it. But if you don't need it and other do and you are after all a part of a nation, a society, yeah, like I don't know...help others? And I would bet they take Social Security, too.

I don’t know what the stats are on this, but if wealthy Americans are paying into Social Security all their lives? And they don’t need it at all in any way, shape or form? How about we don’t give it to them? Wouldn't that help? I mean, if I were a wealthy person, that would be my attitude about it? I have plenty, give it to those who need it. It's charity, it's partiotism.

OK, on the issue of privatizing Social Security, or for that matter, Medicare… or most things...No! Time and again we have seen Republicans push for the privatization of  things, at times even convincing Democrats, as it has so often turned out to be a complete disaster. One that they keep trying to keep alive. Ideology over reality, as usual. You don’t privatize prisons! It’s ethically and morally wrong. Just as the State, with a capital "S", should not kill its own citizens, so I'm against capital punishment (except for maybe people like Trump, who have massively harmed massive amounts of people). When the State takes away a person's, freedom, and imprisons them, that should be the government, not a for profit business picking up that responsibility. That is the government shirking ITS responsibility. That should be an alternate motto of the Republican Party: Shirk Responsibility!

OK I’m about quarter-mile into my 3rd mile (just after seeing the 1 year old and saying hi and bye), and my knee tweaked. I could maybe finish the 3rd mile, but it's safer to turn around and walk back. Let it rest and try again another day. Rehab can be painfully slow, but if you overdo it like (as with long Covid), you’ll really regret it and it can then take longer. When I get home, I need to stretch like the VA nurse said, and then ice it.

And now Adam Schiff is on the podcast…

So my blog is called murdockinations.com, and it’s about the machinations of, if not the phenomenal, the phenomenological mind of this sci-fi/horror writer and filmmaker/documentarian. Just wanted to make that clear...

Excellent! Adam Schiff just said that McConnell and Rrump stacked the courts and they need to be unstacked, and the only way to do that is to expand SCOTUS. And he’s looking at term limits. Finally, thank God. America’s been broken. It needs fixing. I don’t want to expand the SCOTUS but we have to fix things and sometimes it’s uncomfortable. He also mentioned Gerrymandering, as far too often the minority is running things or choosing the president. The minority needs a voice, obviously, but they don’t need control. Obviously.

In the end today, I got in 2.5 miles (6,115 steps) before having to turn home as my knee had finally had it for the day, even if I hadn't. Hang in there little guy.

Cheers! Sláinte!

America's First & Necessary Post POTUS Execution

Is there an argument for the State execution of Pres. Donald Trump, once he is removed from office? I believe the consideration it is now rapidly being approached and very likely will soon be surpassed.

Why do I keep thinking of the French Revolution of 1789 – 99? And, "Why [does] President Trump resembles a pre-revolution French monarch."

Either way, treating our abusive leader appropriately, is really my point in all this.

The Donald, or The Don?

The argument against it is far less strong with each passing day. Not to mention Mr. Trump's own orientation on the death penalty being required for certain crimes. It's not a long stretch to consider if he were on the other side and himself were his enemy, he too would be calling for the execution of a traitorous POTUS. Especially if he could have pushed for that against an obviously far better president in Barack Obama.

Where there is this much smoke...there's fire.

First off, IF we allow this kind of abuse to go unpunished, we are essentially following the Donald Trump foreign policy for his beloved dictators and the abuse of national leaders' own citizens as in Syria or even as with Saudi Arabia against a journalist: "Oh well...."

We have GOT to send a strong message to not just Donald Trump AND his people who appear to be dropping like flies in a firestorm. And the vapid and zombie Republican party for this manufactured nightmare. But also to ANY other party (or foreign actor) in the future who may consider similar actions against the American electorate in their desire for power and position, or simply...chaos.

Putin loves western chaos, not Trump

That includes Vladimir Putin as a foreign actor against America and as well against his own country. Putin needs to be removed. I can't say that enough and I'm sick of saying it as I have since about the year 2000, a year after he took power.

Perhaps, had we better helped and made better decisions along with Mikhail Gorbachev in the bringing down of the Iron Curtain, we would never have seen a coup that replaced him with the alcoholic criminal Boris Yeltsin. Who then put Putin into power to protect him and his family from prosecution once he left office. It is a chain of authority from a decent path to a criminal path until today we have a State Criminal in Putin and a government he crafted in his own ex-KGB image.

Obviously, we need the appropriate and legal proof against Donald Trump to act upon it. The last thing America needs now is more illiberal or criminal actions in our government. We need to not follow in the footsteps of Russia.

Or China for that matter in their recently giving Pres. Xi a position for life. A stupid move. A very stupid move for any country to do. And a sign that something is very wrong. One that other nations need pay attention to and in their dire fortune if they ignore it. As they are doing. As we are all doing.

We must also take a stand against presidential plausible deniability. A tough thing to accomplish.

Which one should suspect Mr. Trump has already screwed up anyway and may prove not to even be a concern for us. Mostly because of his innate ineptness and that of his crew along this path he has taken these past decades.

The president is indeed held to a different consideration than the rest of us. And rightly so. Up to a point. Therefore he (or hopefully soon, she) needs and, especially this president Trump, needs to be held to a different judicial consideration.

We obviously have to be sure what we're doing. That is, to be transparent. As there will always be those who believe this is being done TO the POTUS  and somehow had not been done BY him and to himself and therefore, to America at large.

These are difficult times to be sure but we're up to the occassion!

That being said, IF Mr. Trump did these things, IF we cannot prove it in the normal ways, then it needs to be proven in an appropriate enough way to succeed in finding a ruling that should be found in considering just what he has done. Leaving things like plausible deniability by the wayside. We need to protect the citizens by rule of law. But we also must protect the nation by rule of reality.

Presidents DO need that capability at times in plausible deniability, in order to not be held accountable. There IS  a legit reason for its existence.

But FOR the American nation, the American people, and not against them as Mr. Trump has apparently done. All for wont of money and power, to satiate his defective ego and personality. That is no longer in question. Mr. Trump obviously has some serious defects. Defects that should have disallowed him ever to become POTUS. We have damaged the office of president, ourselves in allowing such a man to enter into it.

In actuality, our least hardworking POTUS in history

Otherwise, we will have allowed ourselves to continue to be dupes to what and who is basically a conman in a Donald Trump as president.

However, if all this happened as we're seeing it, but Trump is technically "clean" though obviously not, as a nation we have got to demand appropriate repercussions. We cannot let a conman slip through our fingers because he is the president.

Just as being POTUS should have certain protections, so too it should not have certain protections because of a situation just as we're seeing before us now. The loopholes have been found by the Republican party and Donald Trump. When that happens sometimes you have to step sideways and correct an abusive action, in the most powerful and democratic ways available to us.

IF for no other reason than not being seen worldwide as the fools we are now being seen as!

Otherwise, we will inevitably see this action again and again, over and over again, against us. These conservative Republican abuses will continue against America (potentially and quite plausibly with the aide of one foreign entity or another), UNTIL we do something aggressively against it in order to once and for all, stop it.

We have got to end all this nonsense now! End all the extremist conservative right wing abuse from the GOP, from the NRA (which reportedly now may no longer be with us anyway), from Russia, from criminal types like Putin, from THIS president...once and for all!

Saying that this is treason, is actual and real patriotism. Unlike the fake forms of nationalism we've been seeing from the far right and not so weirdly enough, also from Russia who has been backing them.

When Nixon was pardoned by Press. Ford, I was like many, angry at the time. But eventually, I came to see Ford's reasoning. in order to protect the office of the president.

That certainly is not the case any longer. Quite to the contrary, this is exactly and specifically not that case.

Through this process, we have also got to work toward putting an end to this bacterial infection of authoritarianism worldwide. We need to end the greater potential we see for war today and the abuses from our wealthy who are involved, our military-industrial and our corporate sectors who have all had a stranglehold on what IS after all, OUR government.

It's time to clean things up. To truly empty the swamp Trump was foolishly elected to empty and instead, filled to the brim and overflowing with his political appointees. In the cabinet, in his offices, in our judiciary. And not for partisan, organizational interests, but for his own personal financial gain and empowerment. Never satiate an egotist's personality, that never goes well for anyone involved.

And yet we've force-fed Mr. Trump at his request again and again.

Trump is not the last, but merely the first domino. We need to flick his blank piece, executing the beginning of the end for as many of our ongoing nightmares as we can effectuate. Now!

We are and should be in control. We just need to start acting like it! An America for all. Not just a few.

Special Post - Kavanaugh vs Dr. Ford

What have we learned about the #Kavanaugh situation today? Accepting Dr. Ford is telling the truth as her testimony lends itself easily to that being the case. Considering therein Kavanaugh's own testimony today....

Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh

How can you explain this juxtaposition of testimonies if she is telling the truth?

Schools such as Kavanaugh attended during the time of his alleged attack can hold some of the wildest types of students. My own experience from being at a Catholic school was I couldn't wait to get back to a public schools.

I was told they only had the best kids at that private Catholic school and I had to be one to go there. I agreed. I looked forward to it. A school with kids who were good, decent? Awesome! Then I got in and found I was one of the best of those kids in a moral or ethical sense and I was STUNNED to find the behaviors they partook of.

There were several other kids who weren't Catholic, and I liked them far better than the career Catholic school kids we had to suffer though. I had thought public school kids were the lowlifes. I'm sure many of those private school kids graduated and got positions of importance and power and trust. As eventually I had myself.

But they were some of the wildest and most crass kids I had ever attended school with up to that time. They knew they were highly scrutinized, morally kept to an annoyingly higher standard and consideration and so they tended to be smart about hiding things. They were well educated and very good at hiding their looked down upon activities  Even over years. And how they loved to party.

At 17 Kavanaugh was approaching the height of his sexual intensity in his life, his libido undoubtedly high as it was for many of the male gender at that age. Male libido during these formative years can be unwieldy, almost impossible at times to control and so you seek out accepted behaviors. With a girlfriend, or through sports or exercise. He said he had a full schedule, worked hard to be #1 in his class.

These require hard work and a good degree of stress. Those who party, as he admits he did, do tend to party hard as the old saying goes, "work hard, play hard". It can also as we've seen repeatedly with high stress hard working people under pressure, to get weird. If not at times, even criminals. That is a well known stereotype proved out with many well known as well as high pressure jobs. Nothing we've seen so far precludes Dr. Ford's allegations to be patently untenable.

Or as some especially rich and privileged kids do, like Kavanaugh (and we've all seen those teen movies about these types), exercising their libidos through taking advantage of any situation where they can get sex.

I never understood sex with your male friends on one woman. But those I knew who liked it, found it an intense bonding experience with the guys. One where they might in the future give their lives for you, or lie to Congress about things you all once did together. Especially if it was sick or sadistic. And those activities objectified and denigrated women, those girls of their  focus, in living those experiences in those ways with those very special male friends.

Sometimes the bad behaviors of those formative years alone are enough for many to get onto a good path in later learning of one's mistakes and how bad they may really have been. They may, push one to be an advocate for women, as Kavanaugh claimed, which actually supports the contentions here and not his allusions.

Thus governing future actions. Perhaps even with a future orientation of hoping your past never surfaces and your future will take a new and better path. And never getting caught for things you'd never today attempt.

During high school and college you are living the years of freedom! Hiding your behaviors, living your fantasies as you can get away with them during a publicly sanctioned period of exploration and even of "sowing one's wild oats" as the "old saw" goes.

After Kavanaugh got into the work force and began to work in highly scrutinized legal professions and positions, his libidao was on the decline after his peak years. Perhaps he wisely controlled himself as he could more easily by then as he aged out of his teenage testosterone insanity, and from then on he COULD be investigated and vetted with a clean bill of health.

IF this is the situation, if he was a predator during high school and college and for some reason stopped, it simply indicates that minus his system being flooded with testosterone as happens to all of us guys, as happens more intensely to some of us more than others and then levels off at some point, that Kavanaugh is actually a decent person, who felt guilty, adjusted, and at some point after college got his act together. And in the process, he is denying what Dr. Ford is sharing, and what is that doing to her, in Kavanaugh trying to salvage his life, his career and his family? At the expense of a woman he accosted and altered the course of her life for her, forever.

As long as they stayed out of his high school and college years. Or started looking into his sexual activities more closely, with an eye for those types of activities. Even the FBI could miss all that, if they were not clued into a need to consider them. Especially when vetting such a well respected, well documented and high profile type such as a Kavanaugh. Or even perhaps, a Bill Cosby. or Justice Clarence Thomas.

Is Kavanaugh guilty? It sure and reasonably looks like it. What about his comments today about being a virgin till later? It may be true. I doesn't change what Dr. Ford went through or who accurately believing he was sexually assaulting her.

The question then is, should we punish these people for bad behaviors in their formative years when they have cleaned up their lives and made a decent life and career from that point on?

Because many would fall if that were the case. But that isn't the point here.

The point here and now is that he would have lied to Congress. For a position on our highest court in the nation. And that being the situation, Kavanagh has then condemned himself to being barred from the position as a Justice of the #SCOTUS, himself. Or worse. As he lied under oath. To Congress. And the FBI. Which some Republicans have gone on record recently saying, was not a crime. Really? They do have an odd sense of who they are and what is real, or criminal.

After all, doesn't it always seem to be the cover up, not the crime, that brings an end to these people and their careers?

Let me just end with this clever little video response.


#gop #pOTUS #vpOTUS #Republican #conservative #Congress

SCOTUS On Notice - A Centered Supreme Court

I may be missing something but this seems patently stupid how we select Supreme Court Justices. On a nine Justice Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) we need an always balanced court with four conservatives, four liberal and one swing voter.

There is a new petition on WhiteHouse.gov calling for what we desperately NEED. A balanced SCOTUS, by Constitutional Amendment!

Article Two of the United States Constitution requires the President of the United States to nominate Supreme Court Justices and, with Senate confirmation, requires Justices to be appointed. ... he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court... - Wikipedia

It would seem to me regardless who is in power, on a nine Justice SCOTUS we need balance to protect America and our laws. We are seeing now a days a problem in those in power being able to choose more power through appointing judges and Gerrymandering. It's broken. The original intent is broken. We need to balance this out going forward. The concept of the President being selected by the People, is no longer accurate. It has purposely been skewed by the Republican party, conservatives, and of late, by a contrary anti Democratic nation, in Russia, and more specifically a criminal leader, Vladimir Putin.

Wouldn't it be better, to have four conservative justices selected by a bipartisan Congressional confirmation process, weighted more heavily with conservatives\Republicans as they choose?

Then four liberal justices selected by a bipartisan Congressional confirmation process weighted more heavily with liberals\Democrats as they choose.

Then finally one justice to be selected by an equally bipartisan Congressional confirmation process to select the swing vote Justice. I think it may be time to end the President having this power to submit justices for SCOTUS, or otherwise. As for judges in each state, that's another matter. Having central government select judges across the nation leads to too many conservatives, or too many liberal judges nationwide.

When we need moderation. Judges for life is another questionable issue based in a need of them being above being threatened, but bringing into the mix what we see now in some judges who should no longer be judges and yet, they are there until they quit, or die?

Supreme Justices can still be suggested by the president, but also filtered as now through Republicans and Democrats, equally in Congressional Confirmations This isn't about the president, it's not about Congress, it is after all and should be, about the PEOPLE.

When a Supreme Justice vacates depending on position as conservative, liberal or swing voter, that Congressional panel (conservative weighted or liberal) would be put together to properly execute the process so that in the end the People will have a well balanced and functional SCOTUS. And end this nonsense we have now as we've seen in an abuse Republican Congress who denied Pres. Obama his selection for a Supreme Court Justice, then allowing a Republican Congress now to push through another conservative Justice when it should have been a liberal one.

That, is wrong. It is illiberal. It is unAmerican.

It would then matter not who is in power at any one time because that seems to be the mistake we're seeing today. A mistake that has made America world wide, not only a laughing stock at times, but a bully super power.

Where we have one party in power illiberally as we have now with the GOP, giving us apparently a SCOTUS with soon to be a too long of a term court weighted incorrectly for the actual desires of the people overall.

Especially after again, what Republicans did during the Obama administration in denying a Supreme Court Justice in order to purposely skew the People's Supreme Court which is obviously not a fully Republican one and yet they seem to wish that to be the case.

Which would be a travesty of jurisprudence and Congressional oversight.

Did not know, as John Oliver points out, that we're the only democracy in the world with SCOTUS life terms. Not say, 18 year terms to coincide with presidential administrations. We need to pay attention about this. As Oliver mentions, during the Constitution writing, life expectancy was shorter and judges retired younger.

Now we have justices who in some cases are too older to be thinking clearly or quickly enough as we've seen actually happen in the past. And we've seen outdated, outmoded thinking by elder Justices affect our modern needs and concerns. Not to mention, many conservative Republican beliefs are typically outdated and out moded to begin with.

We have got to fix these issues one way or another (better in more enlightened intelligent ways however) because this, is not a functional situation and this, is going to happen again.

Besides we don't want an extreme America that is way too liberal or way to conservative. The world doesn't want that though I submit they would prefer a too liberal America over a too conservative one as we're seeing in being protectionist, and a bully.

We need now to do something! We need to guarantee from here forward that rather than this haphazard guessing game that is literally in some cases, killing people, a more stable and guaranteed continuous reliable and decent America. Because in skewing America one way or another in our judicial, in acting as our national personality governing our orientations and attitudes through our laws, that does indeed affect the entire world.

And as of this time I fear, some of that is leaning not the direction of the majority of the American people, not in a more democratic direction, but in one that makes the leader of another country, in that of Russia, smile in Putin is getting into bed each night. In believing the world is becoming more Russian than American, more autocratic than... democratic. Undemocratic. Illiberal. UnAmerican.

Understand, these comments about Putin and Russia are not just about them hacking our elections. This has been a long term goal of Russia over decades. It's been reported that Russia's "useful idiot" in Donald Trump (a KGB reference to useful foreigners they can use, many times even without their explicit knowledge) first got involved with Russian crime through their oligarchs back in 1987 (it's been more recently reported his connections go even further back to 1984 when he sold parts of Trump Tower to one of them, leading to money laundering issues). It has to do with the Republican party using old tried and true KGB methodologies on the American citizenry for decades now. Yes, it's a mess. One we need to clean up.

We need to get back control of America. Not for Republicans. Not for Democrats. Not for Russia or Putin. But for the American People overall. Which means also for those people of the world who wish to come here, be here or simply be proud again of knowing always in the world that there is a county such as America to be the shining light it once was for fairness and compassion.

And can be again. We have not had to make America Great Again" until the man who ran on that platform brought this country to her knees and now does indeed need to become the great country it once was, before he came on the scene. Before the Republican party for decades now, set the path downward for someone like a Donald J Trump to come onto the scene to disrupt, damage and destroy who we are and should be, at our core.

And it all starts...with our Supreme Court of the UNITED STATES of America.


#SCOTUS #Republican #Democrat #conservative #Liberal #Progressive #realDonaldTrump #POTUS #VPOTUS #Trump #illiberal #Autocratic

Today's Gender Roles - Marriage Equality now SCOTUS Supported

I am a phenomenologist. Truly. I have a degree in psychology and I studied phenomenology. I am here not to make judgement as much as I am to observe and describe what I see.

I was just talking with my daughter and her friends about transgender issues and modern gender issues in general. I'm pretty open minded, transcendental. But I am human and was born in a time where a certain paradigm was prominent even though I was usually ahead of change due to my love of science fiction since the early 1960s.

We had talked about Bruce Jenner, my daughter and her friends, and individuals we've all known, personally. We were talking about how one relates to a transgender person. How is that defined?

My daughter said it's all about how the individual wants to be defined. But I think there is more to it than that.

As I see it there are three versions of gender. How a person defines themselves. How the person's gender is defined legally (what's on your birth certificate). And how you are defined by your physicality.

It used to be easy. There was an order to that, it wasn't a concern or consideration. No one thought about it because there was nothing to think about. Or so it seemed.

You're born either male or female, you're male or female, respectively. Surely a small percentage are born without a physical and prominent distinction. One in 1,500 babies from one report. So more than one might think, or have thought at one time.

Then things like gender reassignment came up. We were defined by our physicality but eventually we were defined by the individual's beliefs more than their physicality.

So Bruce Jenner takes hormones, comes out to the world as a woman. He's a woman? But he said he will not go the full course and lose his penis so physically he will be a man with breasts and a feminine appearance. What's his gender then? Female? Male\female? Male? What's the defining factor?

My daughter said if someone dyes their hair from blond to green, isn't it green or will you say, "No, you're still a blond."

I said that wasn't how I saw it at all. It was more like they were blond, dyed their hair green and said it's red. If that is the case, do we accept then that it's red? Or is it blond. Or green? How do we define their hair color?

Still there would be the three ways to define that. Legal, physical, personal. But in this case the hair would physically be green, though called red, and fundamentally blond.

It occurred to me that part of the issue here is in those gender reassigned or partially reassigned individuals over-complicating the issue.

See, it's really a fairly simple issue.

But individuals need to feel, well, what they feel. In the old days, they'd have gotten therapy. Basically, that is what they do need IS therapy. But the therapy has gone from mental, to physical and therein lay the confusion. For everyone.

I've always been told I was over complicated. But as I saw it, I was merely able to see the complexity in things that most people couldn't see. In this issue it seems to me that these people are overcompensating things for their therapy. They are over complicating their gender issues (yes, gender issues are complicated, I'm not denying that, just bare with me), so they will feel normal.

Now look. I don't have a problem with people trying to feel normal. Up to a point. We all have limits, right?

I mean, if you're a serial murderer, or a pedophile, you need to kill or molest to feel normal. Well, I don't want you to feel normal in that case, I want you not to feel normal. However for most people I do want them to be able to feel normal. I don't have a problem with THAT. Not if it doesn't affect others (as in death I mean).

But there is more to life than a person simply needing to feel normal.

As I'd said you can call yourself a rocket ship even, if you like, but you are still going to have to be designated on legal documents as something discrete, a compartmentalized unit. Such as male, female, or even, let's call it, trans. I don't think we need legal definitions to go to the lengths of Facebook and allow fifty-six gender titles. We just need a general idea of what we all can agree that you are.

I mean, really Facebook, do we really need 56 genders? Well it's social networking so, sure why not? I do think that's going a bit far, though. Okay, perhaps not for social media, but certainly for legalities. Three should be enough, or six, but let's not get carried away.

Here's in part my point. Some will over complicate their gender or title because they need to in order to feel either special, or that is, normal. I'm more concerned about the special, but the normal can also be an issue.

When you over complicate your gender to the group, you are also asking them for something for you. Understanding, if nothing else. I mean you can call yourself anything in the privacy of your home but when you go out and expect others to relate to you in non normal (general, average, etc.) ways, you are entering a different realm. You are then asking the group to help you make you feel normal. That simplifies things for you but complicates them for the group. Whether or not they see it that way really doesn't matter, because it simply does what it does. And that's fine. To a point.

But it is more complicated than that, too. If I were to point that out then those who are over complicating the issue will rebel and say that I am over complicating their issue. So they are saying they want things to be simpler and I'm the one over complicating things on their agenda.

You can't have it both ways. It's either complicated, or simple.

Obviously we can just relate to someone as they wish to be related. But should we, really? If they aren't based in some form of reality? And what is reality but a definition of what is? What is which, physical, emotional, legit, intellectual? What? Where is the definition? What or which is more important? The individual? The group?

Basically the individual is expecting the group to take on part of their therapy. And that too is okay, up to a point. We all do that and the individuals who do it too much are labeled as troublesome, possibly to be avoided and at some point they are usually locked up.

Thankfully we don't do that anywhere as much as we used to. There are people walking around free today who at one point in time would have been locked up in a prison, or an asylum. Of course there are those in prison now who should be in a mental institution for help and are instead being brutalized in prison because we are too cheap as a country to pay for the proper care in the proper environment.

So someone gets gender reassignment and doesn't change their genitals. Male or female? Is it only their decision? Well, for the most part outside of legalities, sure, why not. However, when it gets into things like pronouns, how much can they require before it gets out of hand?

What if it carries over to their pets? Do you call their dog a "he", a "she", a "their"? Or some other form. When it gets to the point that when someone meets your pet for the first time and they have to ask, "Oh, what pronoun does "she" ("he?") like to be called?" Isn't that kind of over complicating things?

At what point does it become over complicated to the point that it is too complicated and unacceptable, or should be unacceptable?

Here's part of the consideration. It's easy to just be accepting and say, "Whatever an individual wants to be referred to as, is what I will refer to them as." It sounds pretty, it's feelgood. but when you consider a group of all non standard gender types, the consideration becomes something else; as I was indicating above about the hair dye.

Sure, on an individual basis you can refer to someone as however they prefer to be referred to. At some level, it's just good manners. We should try to be considerate and cater to our fellow human's identity of who they see themselves to be.

But you can also reach a point where it simply isn't reasonable, or where it isn't even good for the individual making the claims in calling for their desired designation.

For the most part I think, just refer to someone as they choose.

But when you start talking about it in the abstract as we are here and now, and as I was with my daughter and friends, it really grows into a bigger and more inclusive issue than just the consideration of a single individual as you initially wish it to. It quickly grows into a societal issue and not just a personal or subgroup issue.

That is where some of this can quickly become very emotional to discuss. Because you can get one person talking about it at an individual level, even though they are or may also be discussing it on a much larger scale. Many times debates run into that issue. It's why you see so many heated discussions or arguments on topics like this, not even going into the potential pathology of someone arguing about their own identity.

Bottom line I think is, just treat someone kindly and compassionately. Outside of that and in the larger sense, just give it a little more thought than you might normally have done. Life isn't simple anymore. We  have masses amounts of information to deal with, ways to behave are more sophisticated, people can more easily be hurt by way of inattention or ignorance, or a fear of the different.

Don't be one of those people. Be thoughtful and kind and try to understand. If you find yourself reacting negatively, then try to find a more productive way to deal with it. You may find that many times what you fear or hate, find distasteful or disgusting, is out of ignorance, or unfamiliarity. Consider if it's based in elements of what you have grown to see as reality and where any of that  might wrong, or if you are right but you can still treat others strange to you with compassion if not at least, common good manners.

To each their own. And maybe we can tall talk and get to know one another, regardless of how annoying they may be, or we may be, to them.

Speaking of which, SCOTUS, the Supreme Court of the United States has just declared same sex marriage legal in all fifty states. It's nice to see sanity rule the day for a change. From them today on this..