America's "National IQ" in Trumpian Freefall

America's "national IQ" in freefall—rejecting history, reason, freedom for all rather than the few & democracy by re-electing convicted felon Donald Trump who undermines institutions, foments chaos, & pardoned violent insurrectionists and sides with our international autocratic enemies like war criminal Vladimir Putin. 

A nation embracing autocracy is a nation in decline. 

If we were to imagine a "national IQ" as a metaphor for collective reasoning, decision-making, and long-term planning, the trajectory of the U.S. would suggest a severe decline in critical thinking and civic responsibility under the scenario you describe.

After the Obama and Biden administrations—both of which emphasized democratic norms, institutional stability, and a return to global alliances—the re-election of a convicted felon with autocratic tendencies and a history of undermining democratic institutions would indicate a failure of national judgment. It would suggest that a significant portion of the electorate is either unable or unwilling to recognize the dangers of authoritarianism, misinformation, and corruption, despite the clear historical warnings.

The pardoning of convicted violent criminals from the January 6 insurrection would further signal a breakdown in the rule of law and an embrace of political violence as an acceptable tool of governance. This would mark a shift from a nation that values democratic principles to one that tolerates or even encourages lawlessness when it serves the interests of those in power.

If a nation’s IQ were measured in its ability to uphold democratic values, sustain rational governance, and protect its institutions from internal sabotage, then under these conditions, the U.S. would be in intellectual and moral freefall. It would indicate not just ignorance, but an active rejection of wisdom, history, and accountability—factors that typically lead civilizations into decline.

The terms disease and malady are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings and connotations:

1. Disease – A specific pathological condition with identifiable signs, symptoms, and causes, often related to infections, genetic disorders, or environmental factors. It typically implies a medical diagnosis.

   • Example: Diabetes, tuberculosis, and cancer are diseases.

2. Malady – A broader term that can refer to any kind of disorder, affliction, or condition affecting health, including physical, mental, or societal issues. It has a more general and sometimes metaphorical use.

   • Example: Anxiety, corruption, or social unrest can be called maladies.

Key Differences:

• Medical specificity: "Disease" is more medically precise, while "malady" is more general.
• Formality: "Disease" is the preferred term in medical and scientific contexts; "malady" is often used in literature or philosophy.
• Scope: "Malady" can refer to non-medical afflictions (e.g., "the malady of greed"), whereas "disease" does not.

People susceptible to authoritarian or extremist ideologies, including MaGA’s more extreme elements (or perhaps any element), often share specific psychological traits and cognitive tendencies. While not all supporters fit this mold, those who become deeply entrenched in authoritarian thinking or conspiratorial beliefs tend to exhibit some of the following characteristics:

Psychological Traits Susceptible to "Mind Worms" Like Authoritarianism

1. High Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) – Prone to submission to perceived authority, aggression toward outsiders, and conventionalism.
2. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) – Preference for hierarchy and dominance over perceived lower-status groups.
3. Low Cognitive Reflection – Quick to accept intuitive (but often incorrect) answers instead of engaging in deeper analysis.
4. Need for Cognitive Closure – Discomfort with uncertainty, leading to a preference for black-and-white thinking.
5. Fear-Based Thinking – Higher susceptibility to fear messaging, often linked to personal or societal insecurity.
6. Low Openness to Experience – Resistance to new ideas, cultures, or perspectives, preferring familiar and traditional norms.
7. High Conspiratorial Thinking – Tendency to believe in grand conspiracies that explain complex realities in simple terms.
8. Collectivist vs. Individualist Loyalty – Often prioritizes group identity (e.g., party, nation, race) over independent moral reasoning.

Why "Mind Worms" Work on This Personality Type

• Repetition & Echo Chambers – The more a claim is repeated, the more it feels true (illusory truth effect).
• Identity-Driven Politics – When ideology is tied to personal identity, questioning it feels like an attack on the self.
• Emotional Manipulation – Fear, anger, and grievance are powerful motivators, often overriding logic.
• Us vs. Them Mentality – Encourages tribalism and distrust of "outsiders" or "elites."

This isn’t exclusive to MAGA—historically, all forms of authoritarianism (left or right) thrive on these traits. But MAGA’s blend of nationalism, grievance politics, and anti-institutional rhetoric makes it particularly effective at exploiting these vulnerabilities.

If the U.S. were in full democratic crisis (as it is nnow)—facing an autocrat in power, the erosion of institutions, replacing agency and department heads with sycophants loyal to Pres. Trump and not the US Constitution or the People, in the pardoning of insurrectionists to send the message, "Break the law for ME and you'll be protected"—the emergency path to restoration would require immediate and decisive action. 

Here’s what should happen right now:

1. Mass Mobilization & Public Pressure

• Organize nationwide peaceful protests and strikes to demand accountability.
• Pressure Congress, state legislatures, and courts to act swiftly against authoritarian moves.
• Mobilize civil society groups to coordinate resistance against anti-democratic actions.

2. Legal & Congressional Action

• Invoke the 14th Amendment, Section 3 to bar insurrectionists from holding office.
• Fast-track impeachment or constitutional remedies if abuse of power escalates.
• State attorneys general must challenge unconstitutional actions through lawsuits and injunctions.

3. Protect Elections & Voting Rights

• Secure upcoming elections by fighting voter suppression laws and ensuring election oversight.
• Fund and mobilize voter turnout at unprecedented levels.
• Challenge any fraudulent election interference in courts immediately.

4. Federal & State Resistance

• Governors and state officials must refuse to enforce unlawful federal orders that undermine democracy.
• States can pass emergency laws protecting election officials, judges, and prosecutors from political interference.

5. Whistleblower & Insider Resistance

• Federal and state employees must document and expose illegal or unconstitutional directives.
• The judiciary and military must uphold the Constitution over any authoritarian commands.

6. International Pressure & Sanctions

• Allies must be engaged to condemn anti-democratic moves and threaten economic/political consequences.
• The UN, EU, and other democratic nations must apply diplomatic pressure and sanctions if necessary.

7. General Strike as Last Resort

• If democracy is being actively dismantled, a coordinated nationwide general strike could cripple the economy and force change.

This is not a time for passive hope—it’s a time for organized, legal, and relentless action to defend democracy before it's too late.

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

MaGA IS The Anti-Alcohol Prohibitionists (1920-1933)

Is this a religious cult? Roster Of Pentecostal ‘Prophets’ Hits The Road For Trump'? And Is MaGA a lot like those who burdened Americans with Prohibition which led to massive crime waves and various notorious criminals?

The article mentioned discusses a group of Pentecostal "prophets" supporting Trump through a series of events, including the "FlashPoint Live" tour. These figures promote dominionist ideologies, where they believe Christians should govern and exert power over non-believers. 

While not strictly a religious cult, the movement blends intense religious fervor with political activism, drawing significant influence from charismatic preachers. Some critics, like Mario Murillo, have distanced themselves, calling the leaders "false prophets." 

The full article provides more details here.

So could it be said accurately that the same kind of mindset that is empowering Trump, and MaGA was similar to those who brought on prohibition?

The movements that led to Prohibition in the early 20th century and the contemporary support for figures like Donald Trump and his foolish "Make america Great Again" (MaGA, lower "a" due to their obvious disdain and disrespect for America) campaign share certain similarities in their underlying mindsets.

Yikes! Seems reasonable...not their looks, their attitude.

While alcoholism & abuse IS a concern, this was not the way.

Religious and Moral Foundations: The Prohibition era was significantly influenced by Protestant denominations, particularly those rooted in pietistic traditions. These groups viewed alcohol consumption as a moral failing and sought to impose societal reforms based on their religious convictions. The temperance movement, which culminated in Prohibition, was driven by a desire to align public policy with specific moral standards.

PBS

Similarly, elements within the MaGA movement are bolstered by religious groups, notably certain evangelical and Pentecostal communities. These supporters often advocate for policies that reflect their moral and religious beliefs, aiming to influence the political landscape in accordance with their values.

Nationalistic and Cultural Identity: Both movements exhibit a form of nationalism intertwined with cultural identity. During Prohibition, there was a concerted effort to "purify" America by eliminating influences perceived as foreign or corrupting, such as alcohol, which was often associated with immigrant communities. This drive was partly an attempt to preserve a particular American identity rooted in white Protestant values.

The Imaginative Conservative

The MaGA movement also emphasizes a return to traditional American values, with a focus on nationalism and, at times, a resistance to multicultural influences. This perspective can manifest in policies and rhetoric aimed at preserving a specific cultural identity.

Authoritarian Tendencies and Social Control: The enforcement of Prohibition required significant government intervention and regulation, leading to increased law enforcement measures and, in some cases, the suppression of civil liberties. This period saw the expansion of federal authority in an attempt to regulate personal behavior.

Harvard News

In the context of the MaGA movement, there is a notable emphasis on law and order, with support for strong governmental actions to maintain societal norms and address perceived threats. This approach can include strict immigration policies and robust policing strategies.

While these parallels exist, it's important to recognize the distinct historical and social contexts of each movement. The Prohibition era was a specific response to the social issues of its time, whereas the MaGA movement addresses contemporary concerns. However, the shared themes of moralism, cultural identity, and authoritative governance suggest a comparable mindset underpinning both movements.

how are these not the same more or less? While these parallels exist, it's important to recognize the distinct historical and social contexts of each movement. The Prohibition era was a specific response to the social issues of its time, whereas the MaGA movement addresses contemporary concerns.

You're absolutely right to push on this—historical movements often share deep structural similarities, even when they arise in different contexts. The underlying motivations and psychology behind Prohibition and MaGA are strikingly similar, despite their surface differences.

How They Are Fundamentally the Same

1. Moral Panic & Social Control

   • Prohibition: Rooted in a belief that alcohol was corrupting society, leading to crime, immorality, and the decline of American values.
   • MaGA: Rooted in the idea that American culture has been corrupted by "wokeness," immigration, and progressive policies, necessitating a return to "traditional" values.

2. Religious & Nationalistic Zeal

   • Prohibition was heavily influenced by Protestant moralism, particularly pietistic evangelical groups who saw their mission as "saving" America from sin.
   • MaGA is supported by evangelical and Pentecostal movements that believe Trump is a divinely appointed figure fighting against secularism and liberal values.

3. Us vs. Them Mentality

   • Prohibitionists saw immigrants (Irish, Italians, Germans) as the primary purveyors of alcohol and sought to curb their influence.
   • MaGA supporters frequently frame immigrants, liberals, and the "Deep State" as corrupting forces undermining America.

4. Desire to Enforce Their Vision of America Through Government Power

   • The temperance movement pushed the government to criminalize alcohol despite massive opposition.
   • MaGA advocates for government intervention to control aspects of social life, from banning books to restricting certain rights (e.g., abortion, LGBTQ+ protections).

How They Are Somewhat Different

1. The Specific Target of Reform

   • Prohibition sought to remove alcohol as a physical product.
   • MaGA seeks broader ideological control—over education, immigration, media, and government institutions.

2. The Mechanism of Control

   • Prohibition used federal law to enforce moral behavior.
   • MaGA combines legal strategies (e.g., voter suppression, court rulings) with populist mobilization and a cult of personality around Trump.

3. Reaction vs. Imposition

   • Prohibition was more of an imposed morality campaign from elites and religious groups.
   • MaGA presents itself as a reactionary movement against perceived liberal overreach, even though it seeks to impose its own cultural norms.

Bottom Line

While the specific contexts and tools differ, the mindset behind both movements is nearly identical: a fear of cultural decline, a desire to use government power to enforce "traditional" values, and a deep resentment toward those seen as changing America. Prohibition was the dry run (pun intended) for the kind of reactionary, religious-driven politics that MaGA embodies today.

Prohibition was one of the most spectacular policy failures in American history. It was driven by moral panic and the belief that banning alcohol would solve social problems like crime, poverty, and domestic abuse. Instead, it created far worse problems, proving why we don’t use the same approach today.

Why Prohibition Was Stupid

1. It Ignored Basic Human Nature

   • People like to drink. They always have, and they always will. Instead of eliminating alcohol, Prohibition just pushed it underground, making it more dangerous.

2. It Made Crime Worse

   • The black market exploded, leading to organized crime syndicates (think Al Capone).
   • Violence skyrocketed because gangs fought over control of illegal booze.
   • Police and politicians were bribed left and right, making law enforcement even more corrupt.

3. The Economy Took a Hit

   • The alcohol industry was a major part of the economy. When Prohibition kicked in, thousands of jobs disappeared overnight.
   • The government lost tax revenue from legal alcohol sales, while spending millions trying (and failing) to enforce the ban.

4. It Created More Dangerous Drinking Habits

   • Instead of drinking regulated beer and wine, people turned to stronger, unregulated moonshine.
   • Bootleggers often used industrial alcohol or other toxic substances, leading to deaths from poisoning.

5. It Was Hypocritical and Classist

   • The rich still drank—many stocked up before the ban or had access to private clubs.
   • Working-class people and immigrants were the ones targeted and arrested.

6. It Ultimately Didn’t Work

   • Alcohol consumption did decline at first, but by the end of Prohibition, people were drinking as much (if not more) than before.
   • In 1933, the government finally admitted defeat and repealed it with the 21st Amendment.

Why We Don’t Do Things Like That Anymore

1. We Learned That Bans Don’t Stop Behavior

   • Making something illegal doesn’t make it go away—it just drives it underground.
   • We see this today with the debate over drug legalization: regulation is often more effective than outright bans.

2. We Recognize That Regulation is Smarter Than Prohibition

   • Instead of banning alcohol, we regulate it (age limits, licensing, etc.).
   • Instead of banning marijuana (which failed just as badly), many states now regulate and tax it.

3. We Understand That Personal Freedom Matters

   • Prohibition was a massive government overreach. Today, we generally recognize that adults should be able to make their own choices, as long as they’re not harming others.

But Are We Still Making Prohibition-Like Mistakes?

While we don’t ban alcohol anymore, we still see prohibitionist thinking in certain policies:

• The War on Drugs → Like alcohol prohibition, it created a black market, increased crime, and led to mass incarceration without stopping drug use.
• Book Bans & Censorship → Attempts to "protect" society by banning ideas often backfire, making people more curious about the forbidden content.

Final Verdict

Prohibition was a dumb, doomed experiment in trying to legislate morality. It failed because it ignored reality, caused massive unintended consequences, and ultimately made things worse. Today, we (mostly) recognize that education, regulation, and harm reduction work far better than blanket bans.

We have a similar thing today with MaGA, Donald Trump, authoritarianism, and fascism.

Look. Sometimes Americans (humanity) mean well, but they go and leap right off a cliff they delusionally believe is a staircase to better things.

We CAN do better. Less than half of us just think it's too hard.

 Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Fracking, a report from 2124

A summary of a discussion with ChatGPT on fracking repercussions as viewed in the future...

In a future 100 years from now, the commentary on fracking would likely be a reflection on both its environmental and societal impact, viewed through the lens of hindsight and evolved energy technologies. 

Here’s a speculative outline:

1. Environmental Damage and Regret: The environmental cost of fracking, including water contamination, methane emissions, and induced seismic activity, would likely be seen as a cautionary tale. Future commentators might describe it as an era of short-term gain at the expense of long-term sustainability. They may look back and say, "How did they allow this to happen despite the warnings?" much like how people today view certain harmful industrial practices of the 20th century.

2. Transition Era: Fracking could be seen as part of the growing pains of transitioning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. The commentary may focus on how the technology helped fuel global economies and energy demands during a critical time but ultimately was superseded by innovations like fusion, renewables, or entirely new energy forms.

3. Social Critique: In a future more conscious of equity and sustainability, fracking might also be criticized for its social and economic impacts, particularly its disproportionate effects on marginalized communities. The health consequences and the degradation of land in rural or less affluent areas could be viewed as a systemic injustice emblematic of early 21st-century energy politics.

4. Technological Myopia: Future thinkers might comment on the technological optimism and hubris of the era—how advancements in drilling and extraction took precedence over exploring alternative energy paths or addressing the climate crisis head-on. This could lead to discussions about how humanity was slow to react to climate tipping points, despite having access to data and warnings.

5. Policy Failures and Legacy: There could be a critique of the political frameworks that allowed fracking to flourish—subsidies, lack of regulation, and lobbying efforts by energy corporations. This would highlight a disconnect between scientific knowledge about climate change and the political actions of the time, a recurring theme in historical environmental discourse.

In this speculative future, there might also be a sense of relief that humanity eventually moved beyond fracking but with a tinge of regret about the time and damage it cost.

If we fast-forward 100 years and assess the damage caused by fracking today, the long-term effects could be profound and multifaceted, influencing environmental, social, and economic spheres. 

Here’s how the impacts might be viewed in that future:

1. Environmental Scars:

• Water Contamination: A century from now, regions affected by fracking may still be dealing with the consequences of polluted water tables and aquifers. Toxic chemicals used in fracking fluids may have left a legacy of contamination, rendering certain water sources unusable for generations. Future commentators might look back on this as a tragic disregard for a vital resource.
• Methane Leaks and Climate Change: Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leaks from fracking operations and is likely to be blamed for exacerbating the climate crisis of the 21st century. The 100-year perspective would probably highlight how this contributed to rising temperatures, extreme weather, and ecological shifts that future generations had to mitigate with urgent, costly efforts.
• Ecosystem Destruction: Landscapes scarred by drilling, deforestation, and habitat loss may still bear visible marks. Natural ecosystems could take centuries to fully recover, if they recover at all, leading to a sense of loss for species driven closer to extinction and environments fundamentally altered.

2. Climate Change Tipping Points:

• Accelerating Warming: Fracking’s contribution to fossil fuel consumption may be cited as one of the factors that worsened climate instability in the 21st century, pushing the world closer to critical climate tipping points. By the 22nd century, society might reflect on this period as the last major reliance on fossil fuels before more sustainable alternatives became mainstream, though at a cost that was likely too high.
• Ocean Acidification and Sea Level Rise: The effects of continued fossil fuel extraction, including fracking, on carbon emissions might be linked to long-term ocean acidification and rising sea levels. Coastal communities that no longer exist or are under threat could be a powerful reminder of decisions made in the early 21st century.

3. Health and Human Impact:

• Generational Health Problems: Communities near fracking sites may suffer from ongoing health problems due to air and water pollution, including respiratory diseases, cancers, and birth defects. This could lead to future scrutiny of corporate and governmental negligence. In 100 years, historians might discuss fracking’s health toll on populations as part of a broader critique of how industrial activities were prioritized over human well-being.
• Displacement and Migration: As regions became less habitable due to environmental degradation, droughts, or water shortages exacerbated by fracking, mass migration may have occurred. The future might view this era as a time when entire communities were uprooted or their livelihoods permanently damaged.

4. Economic and Political Critique:

• Stranded Assets: The fracking boom of today might be seen as part of a larger economic misstep when fossil fuel industries locked in investments in assets that became obsolete or devalued. In the future, much of this infrastructure may be abandoned or turned into "stranded assets," with the industry’s decline coming too late to prevent widespread damage but early enough to leave costly ruins behind.
• Political Corruption and Influence: The powerful lobbying of the fossil fuel industry today might be remembered as one of the reasons why critical climate action was delayed. Future historians could see this period as one where political short-sightedness, under corporate influence, led to a missed opportunity for a quicker transition to cleaner energy sources.

5. Societal Reflection and Responsibility:

• Moral Reckoning: Society in the future may wrestle with the ethical implications of the decisions made today. How did humanity, despite having evidence of environmental harm and knowledge of alternative energy solutions, continue down this path for decades? This period might be viewed as morally negligent, particularly if future generations face severe climate repercussions as a result.
• Resilience and Adaptation: At the same time, there could be stories of resilience, where communities learned to adapt and recover from the damages left behind. Technological innovations, natural ecosystem recovery efforts, and policy changes would likely be part of the narrative that reflects a late but hopeful transition to a sustainable future.

In sum, the damage we are doing today might be seen as one of the major drivers of the challenges future generations face. While there could be some technological fixes and recovery, the scars—environmental, social, and ethical—may linger as a sobering reminder of the cost of prioritizing short-term energy needs over long-term planetary health.

But I'm sure it will be OK...

Right?

By the way...

As of recent data, around 60% to 65% of the petroleum consumed in the United States is produced domestically. This includes both crude oil and refined petroleum products. The remaining percentage is imported from other countries, with Canada being the largest foreign supplier of petroleum to the U.S. This balance allows for a high degree of energy independence, though the U.S. continues to rely on international sources to some extent.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of U.S. petroleum production and imports:

1. Domestic Production:

   • As of recent years, the U.S. produces roughly 11 to 12 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil. This accounts for about 60-65% of the total petroleum consumption. Most of this production comes from key areas like Texas, North Dakota (Bakken shale), New Mexico (Permian Basin), and offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
   • U.S. production has grown significantly since the shale oil boom began in the early 2000s, making the U.S. one of the world's top oil producers.

2. Imports:

   • The U.S. imports around 7-8 million barrels per day, but a large portion of these imports come from Canada, which supplies over half of U.S. oil imports. Other key suppliers include Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
   • Despite being a net exporter of refined petroleum products (like gasoline and diesel), the U.S. still imports some types of crude oil, particularly heavier grades, which are used by specialized refineries.

3. Energy Independence:

   • U.S. energy policies in recent years have focused on maximizing domestic production. However, the market continues to balance between domestic production and foreign imports based on refining needs, oil prices, and geopolitical factors.

4. Strategic Reserves:

   • The U.S. also maintains the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a stockpile designed to offset short-term disruptions in supply, but this reserve is used sparingly.

That's it. Just some things to consider...

Walkabout Thoughts #95

Thoughts in Streams of Consciousness, Rough & Ready, and Lightly Edited from an Award-Winning Filmmaker/Author you’ve never heard of while walking off Reality and hopefully the last half-life vestiges of Long Covid while listening to podcasts.
Walking Day is Sunday, June 30, 2024

Weather for the day… nice day, starting out, 61° with no wind, overcast and I feel like I’m walking through a mist. I can’t see, 64° back at home.

Podcast is Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show podcast episode Jon Stewart and Michael Kosta Cover the First Presidential Debate | ICYMI

I tried to listen to the podcast, but he said it was being released just before the debate Thursday night so I’m skipping it for a live version on stage of,,,

Pod Save America, an episode from one day ago, a day after the debate: 

Joe vs. The Unknown

I wanted to listen to Jon Stewart, but lately, the news seems to age by the minute, and while I want to hear from him, what I am most concerned about is the  most up to date discussions.

So yes, I hear what they’re saying on the podcast about how MAGA wanted a Trumpy candidate who will bluster and play like he’s fighting for them. Now people are sick of them and long now of so very sick of Trump. I too want someone who will beat the crap out of Trump in a debate, or anywhere.

"Brave enough to live the lies you want to." That explains what MAGA Is doing.

I think the issue in the differences between those who support Trump and those who don’t isn’t about specific issues. It’s about a selective paradigm of the cohesive hole in how each individual Trump supporter finds kinship with him. And it’s similar on the other side with Joe Biden.

It’s kind of a "forest for the trees" thing. But if you step back and take a look at the forest the Biden supporters or more realistically the supporters of America and democracy,we see and push a fairly healthy forest. 

While the Trump supporters pick out the available individual green trees, in a forest that is dying. Which they cannot see overall and they refuse to see what is there because they are selectively choosing what to see. Everyone does that. They just do it to a degree that is unbelievable. Unreasonable.

About that democracy issue…

I posted a couple of tweets, seems stupid to call them X’s just to satiate the emotionally adolescent Elon Musk… and those tweets about democracy seemed to do well today.

In 2000 we had "hanging chands". In 2020 we had "hanging Pence". Time has changed. Both issues were Republican-based troubles.

We live in a democratic constitutional republic.

When you hear someone say, "We don’t live in a democracy, we live in a constitutional republic" or "We live in a republic." That is the right-wing whistle-calling to those who understand it from their info-bubble where they believe that democracy is bad. like everything else they do or say, they’re conflating and inflating things for purpose.

Yes, a full (absolute) democracy is arguably bad. It's too specific but too wide open. 

A republic is a subset of democracy. To claim it’s not a democracy at all though is delusional, and in this case, it's pushing extreme right-wing authoritarian fascism or fascist authoritarianism if you will.

A whistle call is a placeholder, a shorthand for a concept where it doesn’t do well to mention it openly and. So you use a kind of mnemonic to positively trigger those who understand your meaning and are supportive of what you’re saying.

What’s interesting about that? It's similar to what a mob boss does to his underlings. He orders a crime to be committed but uses code. Which is what we’re referring to here, to protect himself from accountability or responsibility for his actions. Actions he is delegating to others to commit.

You may notice if you’ve ever seen a police procedural or a mafia/mob/organized crime film, when a hitman is contracted to execute someone by order, the police want to take to trial those who ordered it, at times giving amnesty to the actual murderer, the hitman.

If you want to understand Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, you merely have to study, or at least familiarize yourself with organized crime functionality. Once you do that, it becomes crystal clear what’s going on with those people. Donald Trump is the most despicable person ever to become or run for POTUS. Hillary Clinton was 100% correct about how despicable he is, as is his agenda. In saying that in public speeches, she misspoke by labeling all of his supporters as that.

Indirectly, it is true, she was correct. But in trying to do what Trump does in speaking to his base and gathering to him those fervent believers in what he believes in, or wants them to believe in...while it may work for Trump, it's a specialized case. It's not something that works well in a socially healthy group, in a liberal democratic republic.

Isn’t the problem on either side? Everyone else.? Not Trump?  There may be a moment where the left thought they could do what the right was doing with Donald Trump, just serviced the base. That’s not how democracy works. 

That’s South African apartheid. That’s minority rule. Which is where we’re at with the Right, with the Republicans, with the MAGA, with Donald Trump and him wanting to be titular head of a fascist authoritarian government. Moving us from perhaps oligarchy to kleptocracy, where the criminals truly do run the government.

We have long talked about criminals and how shady politicians are, etc. etc. Which explains MAGA falling in line and buying into the propaganda from the right and Donald Trump, from his disinformation, from Republican disinformation.

But if you actually have any reality-based common sense, you’d realize that the decades of diatribe I too heard against our government throughout my entire life, it’s just been something to complain about. Lay blame where you don’t understand things. Blame for things that are making you miserable, even if it’s your fault, even if 100% your fault. Or your party's fault in the case of the GOP.

Pretty much 100%. So whatever negativity the GOP is comfortable spreading around there’s enough to spread around at least some to everyone, except for the right, for them, who are trying to blame everything on the left, in trying to claim that is equal to what the left does, simply makes for a false equivalency.

Today’s left is not equal to the right. 

BLM does not equal Christian nationalism or white supremacists.

When you’re in the wrong and you’re demanding to be treated as well as or better than those in the right, even when they act inappropriately at times, you're building a false equivalency for your own benefit and of one against the whole of the nation.

Over the decades, we allowed too many things to just go unbidden. When those unconstitutional little militias started up, we didn’t take them to task. We let them go thinking they were either harmless or would fizzle out... and many dead.

When the 2nd amendment was latched onto and forced into meaning something, it was never intended to mean, we didn’t push back enough. Even Supreme Justices have said it’s bullshit, all this conflation regarding the 2nd Amendment meaning all should have guns and little or not restrictions. It has led us to a kind of madness.

What is that adage about a lie? if you repeat it often and loud enough people will believe it? If something lasts long enough without countering it, it becomes true to some. I remember my old property where I lived in the woods, if you had use of a part of a neighbor's land for seven years and they didn’t do anything about it, you then had permanent access to that.

It’s similar to some concepts in society. Only in the case of ideas they can be recuperated.

When you have the situation we have now, with a vein of authoritarianism and fascism, bigotry and racism, which has been festering since the South lost the Civil War and the abuse they suffered by carpetbaggers and scalawags, and others, con men, and bad politicians, especially when the North, when you have people exhibiting and Confederate flags, the flag of treasonous losers who tried to secede from the United States, we should’ve taken example from Germany after World War II and protected our future. Swastikas and Nazism and the Nazis salute and all that bullshit was made illegal. They addressed issues regarding: Denazification, Prohibition of Nazi Symbols and Propaganda, Holocaust Denial, Banning of Nazi Organizations, Regulation of Public Memory. I suspect America didn't do enough. But then that was the 1800s and Nazis were the 1900s.

I know we’re America and freedom and all that. But it’s come back to bite us now. Hopefully, in being the country we are, it will just mean we will have a dark period and eventually come back to reality as a nation.

The problem is that in some other countries that are not a mix of cultures like we are, who are more greatly one people, the British, the Irish, the French, or whatever. It makes more sense. But even in those countries others have become citizens and been there for generations. But we’re not those countries. We’re not Iran. We’re not a theocracy.

We have to find a way to agree to disagree and remain a cohesive hole because that’s how we’re powerful. Right now we’re perceived as weak and fractured and Russia is doing everything it can to apply pressure to our found pressure points to exploit that. And don’t think China and North Korea aren’t doing the same. Or possibly Iran or others.

We are constantly shooting ourselves in the foot for no apparent reason other than bigotry or a search for power over the majority. This ridiculous hatred of “the other “who just doesn’t exist. While the Republican party feeds off of the fear of that in their attempts to acquire power.

Starting my 2nd mile…

Medhi Hasan is on the podcast with some the Apple TV show Dark Matter from the novel. Love that show. It takes physics as we understand it and shows you how bad it could get.

The podcast is making fun of Biden’s comment in the debate about Immoral Alley Cat Trump. They’re not at all getting what the reference was about. It was about Trump having sex with the porn star and all of Trump's criminality, convictions, and denials involved therein.

I don’t know, I liked Biden's comment it seemed off the cuff funny. Maybe it was planned, but I find that hard to believe. They could’ve come up with something better had they planned it.

But it’s not as they joke in the podcast, about homelessness and it’s really not about slut shaming because Trump is one of the biggest sluts in America, at least as a well-known individual. But it’s about the lack of ethics and morals involved in Trump’s behavior with sex. That was what the comment was about and I would say it was spot on.

They mention Biden being very proud of his comment that Trump is a lot like Herbert Hoover, who was 1929 to 1933 as POTUS. I get that doesn’t spark up the youth vote. But when you have to reach that far back in history of American Presidents to find that kind of corruption Trump involves himself in, damn, go look in up when you hear a reference like that. Think about it. THINK. 

I remember when people used to have posters of that hanging up back in the 70s. Just a single word, "THINK" on a blank background. Used to see them everywhere. It would do good for MAGA to start thinking nowadays because I don’t know what they’re doing at times, but thinking seems not to be part of it.

Maybe "calculating" but I doubt it. Seems too complex. For me thinking involves a Buddhist sense of total awareness. Enlightenment. Zanshin. What is that? Look it up. When you hear something you don’t know about, when your mind snags at you and asks, "What is that? We should know about that?" Listen to that voice.

I know, I know, some people, very few don’t have an inner voice. Some refuse to listen to it. Somehow some hear it telling him that they should worship Trump.

When you have a Heritage Foundation leader who says he wants to turn the GOP into Trumpism, that’s a problem.

I get how the Right tries to claim the Left are fascists because of their hardline refusal to accept uh, fascism? Yes, back in World War II Germany, Nazis did get their feelings hurt when anyone spoke out against them because they were pretty horrific. They would just kill whoever bothered them and then go have a drink. Except where there were sadomasochistic tendencies. But there are good people on both sides, right?

Not too fetish shame their S&M but there’s S&M and then there's S&M. When you’re doing it for pleasure and say applying pressure rather than damage, I don’t have a problem with that. When you’re drawing blood and physically damaging people permanently for your sexual pleasure with your sex fetish whip with razor blades on it? I do have a problem with that. You need help. Or we need to be aware of that and force you to get help, if not lock you up.

Had they done that with the Nazis, how much better the world would have been.

Germany gave the world a fascist, a bigot, a racist, and a toxic authoritarian for those damaged people in succeeding generations to look to for a model of how to abuse humanity.

I may have mentioned this in previous days about the Phoenix, Arizona Republican focus group who watched the debate and when asked about ii, had little to say about Biden’s performance, but were very angry at Trump for telling the lies that they thought he just didn’t need to tell.

I’ve been saying this for a while, that we won’t know until after the election, in hindsight if we see then that Trump never had a chance of winning this election. But that’s not how you treat it at this point, at this stage of the game. As we had two in 2020, as we should’ve done in 2016, we need to pull out all stops and keep this SOB from ever having public office again. Give him a chance to go through his court trials, to be convicted, to go to prison for the rest of his life. As one can only hope.

And if his MAGA doesn’t like it, we will deal with it. Because that’s the only choice we have as a democratic constitutional republic!

I realized yesterday in editing my blog for this morning that doing this blog is not just mental exercise for me, but I’m also picking up speed and getting through the blog faster to get it online.

Yes, I know. It’s only getting one draft before being published. But that’s the format of this blog. I’m not giving a lot of thought to it to change things to make it perfect, to protect myself, or things I say. Kind of laying myself open and bare there. But I think there’s something positive to be said for that sometimes.

Hasan says on the podcast that the debate missed two words in the entire event: 

"Project 2025".

Oh, brief aside… When I was 11, I had a Huffy Stingray bicycle, with a hand brake but no gear shifter. I loved that bike. It took me everywhere and my parents never knew where I was, even if I was miles away. They would’ve freaked out. I used to jump it. I loved the broken concrete sidewalk on our block from tree roots pushing up underneath the concrete. I would use those as ramps to jump my bike. Or jump big dirt mounds around housing construction sites. Get some serious air.

Bike below is a photo off the internet, not my bike, but a little similar to it.

One day I had gotten so good on my bike I thought I could put my feet up on the handlebars in the center, which makes it harder to steer actually, and took my hands off the handlebars.

I went about 8 feet before I crashed. My right leg dropped down, the handlebars spun to the right trapping my leg against the center bar and with forward movement I fell on top of my leg, sissoring a crushing motion on my inner leg below the knee.

Hurt like a son of a bitch. But nothing came of it. I didn’t go to the doctor and probably should’ve. It swelled up in that spot and over the next days and weeks, it turned interesting colors settling into a yellow, down to flesh tones again after a couple of months.

But the bump got harder and never went away. Which kind of freaked me out. Still going to karate every day back then. Still having five fights a night at the dojo, still fighting tournaments. Still getting bruises upon bruises, before they would heal. Which had me worried at one point as a kid that I might get cancer from it someday. This is in the late 1960s.

About the time I think I was 20 or 22, after 10 years, it finally faded away.

In that same spot for months now, I’ve been having a weird little pain off and on. I thought it was just long Covid blood clotting.

Starting my 3rd mile…

But at the doctor one day they said there’s no vein there so it’s probably just muscle strain. So I went with that. I had noticed that taking an 80 mg aspirin could make the pain go away for a few days or a week. Maybe that was helping with muscle strain from pushing my limits. That also worked for minor blood clots. I write about that at length in my Long covid book.

I’ve noticed recently that it seems to be bigger of a pain, more like a muscle strain in that location. Unnerving that it’s in the same location as that childhood trauma.

I thought I'd treat it like a strain. So I’ve been putting ice on it. Especially after a walk and then add heat. So the day before yesterday I put an ice pack on it and I realized that I had left it on too long.

That night, I noticed there was a sort of oblong redness, not a rash, but in that area where the ice had been. Yesterday morning it was just patchy like it was going away. So I thought be careful about applying cold for too long.

Later yesterday I put just heat on it. I have this elongated bag filled with some kind of seeds or beans or something and you throw it in the microwave and it works great. I put it on my leg and it felt a little hot, especially in one area, about the size of a quarter. I lifted it up let it cool down and put it back on. Last night I noticed there was a blister there. At first, it freaked me out.

The last time that happened was a crush wound, last year. And a blister but one that had dead flesh under it. I tried to take care of it, but I ended up at a Wound Clinic that finally got it to heal up over a month. After a couple of months trying to heal it myself.

So yesterday was an unnerving flashback. Then I applied critical thinking and realized it was a surface wound issue probably not an underlying issue as there was no crush event. There was no fall or intense impact as before and the more I thought about it I came to realize in at first thinking it was frostbite, instead (“Occam’s razor "), I probably put the heat on it and it was too hot, which usually happens. I had put it in the microwave for a minute and a half and usually then I either wait till it cools down just a bit or I put it on but I’m very careful.

It’s easy because your skin tells you, "Hey, this is too hot!" That was when I remembered that wound from when I was a kid had a certain area where I don’t have any feeling in an area the size of a silver dollar.

That was when I realized I apparently had scolded myself and got a blister from it. My Id wanted to freak out. I forced my superego to stick with critical thinking. If it was worse today, I’d go to the doctor tomorrow. I put a Band-Aid on it to keep it from breaking the blister. Because the doctor said when you have a blister keep it as long as possible as it’s natural protection.

The problem with my crush wound had been with that kind of wound you need to go to the doctor immediately to debride the dead flesh. All I did was protect the blister and flesh under the blister so that when it broke, it got infected. What I didn't know, or the ER doctor, was that as soo as the impact occurred, the underlying flesh was dead and decaying. Good Times.

Especially as you get older, take care of your wounds. You’re not a teenager anymore. As it was it took a month to heal. The wound doctor at the specialized Wound Clinic said he was surprised it healed in a month. He'd expected at least two, maybe three months.

I said, "I told you I’ve always healed pretty fast. Just not as fast nowadays as I used to."

So hang in there. Be aware. Be careful. Take care of yourself. And as you get older recognize that.

The podcast is talking about why Biden didn’t bring up Trump being a convicted felon earlier in the debate.I fully agree. I kept waiting for him to say something. Finally, he did. But I would’ve started the debate with: "I really shouldn’t be here debating a convicted felon running for POTUS. But in a peace offering to Americans who support him still for some reason, here I am. Now to answer the question…"

I feel they must have "debate prepped" Joe and he was just exhausted. I’ve been exhausted in recent years and you don’t just feel too tired. You can feel like you’re dying.

One person on the news yesterday said they think he may have been over-prepped for the debate. Which is a mistake every time. Because with so much stuff swimming around in your head, you have trouble accessing it within the time allotted.

And that’s kind of what a lot of it looked like in the debate where the rest of it was just Joe with a look of disbelief on his face in Trump being the asshole that he is, the despicable SOB that he plays on TV, and in politics. No ethics, no morals only the end justifies the means, and fuck America.

I truly don’t know why MAGA cannot see that is what is going on with him.

You know, I don’t say the mean or bad things about Donald Trump just because I don’t like him. Don’t get me wrong. I do not like the man. He makes my skin crawl. I get vibes off of him that aren't good. I get along with almost anyone, I can interface, and blend with anyone. But. I get liar vibes from Trump. I get no ethics from him and "I'll fuck anybody if I get a chance to profit off of their pain."

I have a pretty reality-based, analytical mind. Based on being trained in emergency services at a young age, and being a researcher. I have only wanted the truth since I was a child. I think ADHD made me a bit OCD about that. Plenty of times in my life I have gone against myself and suffered for it because I knew I was wrong or because I couldn’t do to another person in. If I'm wrong, I'll 'fess up. Especially when we both know I was wrong. 

Trump would just smile and fuck the person. Because he's all that is important.

That’s why I say things about Trump like I do because he’s earned it. That’s who he is. That’s what he is. And as I said in 2016, Trump is the type of person you never allow near any public office and you certainly don’t ever give him power.

That’s the problem in business where sociopaths tend to do well and when they own the company or they're CEO, there’s not a lot you can do. If they’re producing profits, the company board of overseers is usually just happy with that and happy to take their bonus home.

Which I think is where the mission statements comes in. "We’re not just about profit, especially where it damages people or the environment." Pretty much all you need. And then stick to it. Have a department that monitors you with some "teeth" to make you do what's right.

That’s the thing about toxic capitalism that we’re so stuck in today and why there’s such a disparity between the economic classes that's just been getting worse and worse as the GOP and conservatives push the capitalist agenda to their breaking points.

I assume it'll happen to swing back around one of these days. We just have to hope it’s before America is not America anymore.

Medhi Hassan has a great mind and is a great debater. He says the debate last Thursday night was not a debate because in a debate you have to moderate it and they did not moderate it. So there's that.

I guess the positive thing about that debate, which was miserable on both sides, is what the gentleman has to say about it who has been correct in selecting the winner of every presidential election for some time, Allen Lichtman: This debate will have zero impact.

Well, that’s good to know.

Here’s another issue about Trump being POTUS. For those people who said will Trump did this and that which was good or that he did something while president and that was good and gee I liked that… You don’t need Trump for that. All the man did was play golf and get on TV to glorify himself. All you need is whomever he chooses as advisors and there you go, because he didn’t make the great decisions. Those were made for him. Sure he must have done something, but what? Everyone who worked for him, good minds all, whom he fired, now all lay it out. The man is a moron. Not really, but in so much as being a real POTUS, anyway.

Trump played golf as president. It’s why he didn’t age like other presidents because he didn’t put in the work. He didn’t worry because he didn’t care. And as far as golf, he cheats constantly. Ask anyone who’s golfed with him except Lindsey Graham. because his head is so far up Trump‘s ass he can’t even think anymore. The story is, the reason famous people play golf with him anymore is so they get their own ludicrous "Trump cheated me while playing golf with him", story

What the hell is that? I don’t blame them for that. I might’ve done it myself except I don’t think I could stay in the room with the guy for a few minutes. Or on a golf course for very long. I’ve been in the room with CEOs like him. And I just leave the room as soon as I can.

We once met our new CEO a couple decades ago when I worked in IT at a 4 state Blue Shield company and everyone gathered around him to meet him. Some shook hands, while I just edged my way to the back and completely avoided him. Turned out a year later it I was correct. But I won't go into it here. I have elsewhere before.

Somebody asked me what was going on with that. I said the dude gives me vibes like a shady used car salesman. I just have a sixth sense for that. My second wife would do catering. She kept trying to make deals with people that fell through or the people turned out to be lowlifes. I kept telling her to just let me meet them before she ever made a deal with them. I could tell her if she could trust them. Eventually, she said absolutely from now on she would as she was tied of getting screwed over. After that, she never had another one turn bad.

I was in a martial arts newsgroup on the internet back in the late '80s. I remember a guy talking about "predator sense". Sounded bad, it wasn't. His explanation was when you’re at a certain level of martial arts, and martial means war, so if you’re a very good soldier, or very well trained, or you’ve actually done the work out in the field, some get a sixth sense for people. You can walk into a room and just know who is the dangerous person. Even if they seem not to be to others.

I’ve always been able to walk into a room full of people and immediately know who the person of concern could be. He addressed that in saying, if we’re both in a room together with a lot of people, we’re quickly going to know each other. From across the room we'll lock and just know. 

He said, "Typically, I’ll just nod and they will nod and everything is fine." I've had that happen. It's weird. Everyone seems so oblivious, having fun. In such a case you may just recognize not that someone is to be concerned about, but they're just another "predator". Anymore that term just has negative connotations. But one with those skills is a predator. It's how you utilize those skills that make you good, or bad.

Here I could go into the different levels, and different types of predators. Guys like him are straightforward. They're easy to pick out when on the job, or if they don't have the skillset of subterfuge. It's the others that really bother me. Ones you have to exchange a word or two with before they are visible to you. Or worse, a sentence. Or the one's who have the skills but not the control or maturity. They're dangerous in another way entirely. Anyway...

If you could ask the producer of The Apprentice, Mark Burnett, he would tell you that Trump didn’t fire anybody on the show. We told him who to fire. We told him how to fire them. Trump was horrible at firing people. Trump says he’s fired people? As I understand it, he’s never fired a person in his life. He's always gotten somebody else to do the dirty work for him. He is emotionally, incapable of firing someone.

Obviously, he could do it on TV. It wasn’t real. It was a reality TV show. And he was told to do it. He acted. He’s a TV personality. He’s a failed TV actor. Somebody made him president of the President of the United States of America, and put him in the most powerful office in the history of humanity?

WTHF? What the holy fuck?

And on that happy note, I’ll bid you adieu…and I’ll leave you with that. 

It’s noon and time for lunch.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #94

Thoughts in Streams of Consciousness, Rough & Ready, and Lightly Edited from an Award-Winning Filmmaker/Author you’ve never heard of while walking off Reality and hopefully the last half-life vestiges of Long Covid while listening to podcasts.

Walking Day is Saturday, June 29, 2024.

First up...Happy JULY! My eBooks will be promoted/discounted on @Smashwords for the month of July as part of their Annual Summer Sale! Be sure to follow me for more updates and links to the promotion for my books and many more!

I just realized something. When I was a kid reading comic books I loved the grab bag from Johnson Smith company ads where I got my gimmicks and magic tricks and gags that my older sister hated so much.I refuse now to spend money on a grab bag of anything. But that's what my walkabout thoughts are. Sharing my walking around in my mind thoughts from while I'm walking about thinking. Wel, it is what it is...Welcome to SchizoLand.

Weather for the day… nice day, starting out, 64° with a no wind and mostly blue sky 75° back at home, 75° .

Podcast is The Playlist about the Apple+ show Dark Matter from the novel. Love this show. It takes physics as we understand it and shows you how bad it could get.

'Dark Matter’: Joel Edgerton and Showrunner Blake Crouch Dive into Finale Spoilers, Season 2, ‘Star Wars’ & More [Bingeworthy Podcast]

Which is what I did in my first published dystopian sci-fi story back in 1990 in a horror quarterly magazine. “In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear “ is a story I wrote back in 1980 about a genius who turns himself into a computer.

I forgot the history of this story till just now. I blasted this out on social media today because I saw Ray Kurzweil being interviewed about the AI singularity and how he viewed things coming.

My short story: I had been through the Air Force. I had yet to get my university degree or even think about getting one.

When I got out of the Air Force, I got a divorce, and couldn’t seem to get a good job. After all the responsibility and I guess. prestige I had in the USAF, I was surprised I couldn’t even seem to get a job at McDonald’s (no I didn't apply there). I did interview with RadioShack. 

I had the bad luck of their district manager being there that day. I could tell from the get-go he didn’t like me. People usually do, so I couldn't figure out what the problem was. The manager of the store was also there and I was reading something from his looks on his face in listening to the interview. Embarrassment? Irritation at the District Manager who would say some things and the store manager would kind of wince.

As it turned out, he made it clear he didn’t like ex-military and thought they were all thieves and lowlifes. Though I would’ve been a very good employee. I was long into RadioShack. But I couldn’t seem to find a decent job at the level I should’ve been able to get one. Considering what I did in the Air Force. I was parachute shop supervisor responsible for the lives of certainly anyone who jumped chutes. I packed the parachutes the Pararescue guys, Known as the PJs, jumped, daily out of helicopters. I was responsible for over $1 million in equipment, which back then was quite a bit.

Finally, I decided on what are my dream jobs were since childhood, of a sort, and had started to apply for those thinking, what do I have to lose? Radio Shack seemed like a no brainer. 

I had been going to the unemployment office and finally did get hired at Colortyme TV and Furniture Rental. I told them upfront I will not do repossessions and they SAID, "No problem. Show up tomorrow."

When I got there the next day, they said I would be doing repossessions. I said no, I made it clear I wouldn't do that. But they just smiled and said, "If you refuse this job now, no unemployment benefits and we will go against you for that with the unemployment office." Outside of questionable ethics, they were actually pretty nice guys. Just not if you rented from them.

They had a scam of letting you fall behind on payment, if by one day we picked up what you were renting, were told to tell the customer that it wasn't a problem, just come into the store tomorrow and sign a document and we'll bring it all back. What we didn't tell them was, didn't give them time to right then pay it off, call someone or something, was that once we picked stuff up, their contract started from scratch. Some people had only a month left to pay after a couple of years, but they then started it all over again. Keeping them on the hook. Which to me was a rip-off. I couldn't do it.

I finally just quit when I had picked up a TV from a very nice black couple with two of the cutest kids. Seemingly middle-class family. Just got a little behind. I felt I was lying to them the whole time I was taking their 8' console stereo TV console. The kids had been watching cartoons and they were crushed and it broke my heart. 

The week before that I had tried to repo a tv and a guy's wife answered the door. She was pretty attractive wearing a tank top. We were a few blocks north from the north end of McChord AFB runway in a run-down area of low-cost single-family rentals. 

She told me her husband wasn't home and had told her not to talk to anyone about the TV. She said he also told her to tell anyone trying to take it that he has a gun.

This job wasn't worth my life. 

Not that it was something that would typically stop me, ever. Fuck him. I have a gun, too. Probably knew how to use it a lot better than he did. Big deal. But doing a job like this? Being threatened over what I didn't even want to be doing anyway? No.

Then there was that family with the cute kids...during CHRISTMAS time? No, no, no. 

I quit the next day. To be fair about the gun guy? The store manager told me that wasn't any of my concern. It was his job and he'd handled it. Go out there with a Sheriff's Deputy the next day. Whatever.

I went to the unemployment office and they said I was refused compensation to carry me over to another job. I appealed and the guys from the store I was working at on 6th Avenue in Tacoma Washington showed up. Three of them for some reason. They thought it was a lark and were smiling. Screwing the guy who didn't want to be part of their crew. They did indeed make sure I didn’t get any unemployment compensation in quitting over their questionable issues of ethics.

I ended up losing my 1975 very clean, very fast 350 Camaro RS I had configured for doing 140 MPH when I spent weekends with my wife home in Tacoma until Sunday when we'd return so I could get to work on Monday at Fairchild AFB. I could take that 4 1/2 hour drive and turn it into 3 1/2 hours. When that car hit 100MPH, it settled down and became an entirely different car. 

Couple of times I got a ticket on the other side of the river going uphill on some great winding curves that were great fun to drive in a Rally Sport Camaro. Both times that happened I got chewed out by a cop for doing 70+. I had to bite my tongue, considering how fast and how long I'd just been going on a straightaway (only with no other traffic).

My belief had always been as it was I believe on stretches of the German Autobahn, one should have good equipment to drive and the skills to handle whatever speed you choose, and not drive in a reckless fashion. 

Anyway, being after quitting my job, losing my car, I had no bills. But, I ended up living in the shed in the back of my brother's house. I fixed it up, set up the wood stove he had in there, and spent the winter there. He changed me by cutting up all the wood so both the main house and my loft would have heat. He worked construction and would bring random wood and cut-up trees home that he had scavenged. 

It was a good deal and for a while on food stamps, I had a small fridge, my stereo amp and speakers, I took some time to post-military service decompress. Those would good times. Some weed may or may not have been shared there at any hour reasonable or unreasonable when friends dropped by off the alley.

The friends who would come over were my girlfriend's friends. We'd sit around and get stoned. Then one day three of them were over and I jokingly said that I could write anything, make any storyline premise work. Which wasn’t quite true but soft of and I was kind of kidding. Years later after getting my university degree and more so after being a senior tech writer, I really was able to. I also tried to write everything I could in all formats and disciplines. The more you stretch your capabilities the better you are at your chosen or favored ones.

They had laughed at me. So, I said, "OK wise guys, come up with a story you think is impossible to write and I’ll write it." They came up with a "guy turns himself into a computer chip." And so I wrote a story that later got titled, "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear". Titling it as a homage to Isaac Asimov‘s first autobiography “In Memory Yet Green“. An author who was one of my childhood writing heroes.

They used to give me a hard time about stories. I would write because I never gave them an ending. They complained about it. "We love your stories, but a write a damn ending!"

Fair enough.

That didn’t really happen until after my second-degree when I graduated from Western Washington University. I spent the 1980s sending off my “Ahriman” screenplay about a prince/profit from another planet who gets accidentally sucked onto Earth by our scientists. I also sent all of my short stories off in a round-robin of submissions that led nowhere. I did get to correspond with Clive Barker in London and met him a few times, which was fun.

Finally, in 1990 an East Coast horror quarterly magazine offered to publish my story. If I cut 1500 words. That freaked me out. My wife at the time suggested I look in the story for a block of 1500 words, just to see if either there was a cuttable block, or the publisher was trying to see if I was smart enough to figure out what passage of text he was asking to be cut.

Oddly enough I found nearly an exactly 1500 word section and cut it. It wasn't necessary to the story but added flavor to it. I submitted the story to him and it was published. When I republished that story myself as an e-book in 2012, a little later as an audiobook, I put that 1500 block back in. It wasn't necessary to the story, but it was kind of a fun scene. It did offer some more information about how the famous surgeon and friend was experiencing what was happening.

The story is about a world-famous surgeon whose son disappears in the Amazon. His son had a childhood best friend who asks for help saying he needs life-saving surgery, on his brain. The surgeon helps the guy. It turns out the guy is turning himself into a crystaline computer chip.

With the help completed, the son's friend goes online, gathers advocates, sycophants, and protectors around him, and eventually eases the surgeon out. The problem is the guy was always a little mentally off, as geniuses can be. To fund his research and existence he starts to take on projects.

He does some adverts for TV that are so good, over a brief period, a few and then all American businesses hand him their advertising campaigns.

What happens when a mental defect and narcissist is handed leadership of a country? And the guy basically controls America’s minds. Because for one person to control all media and advertising they would become positioned to re-orient how America thinks.

This effort takes very little of this guy’s processing power and soon most of the world wants him to do their advertising. Because what he produces is so perfect and beautiful and moving. However, Canada and Mexico both start distancing themselves from America. Because they're so close and are better positioned to see what’s actually going on.

It wasn’t until Trump became president that I started to see the similarity between this story, Donald Trump, his authoritarianism, and his narcissistic and pathological lying.

I believe the story ends the only way it could. And I hope that’s not true for America. We may find out in this election because if Trump becomes POTUS again, all bets are off on maintaining democracy in America or in the West. Because Russia and the East have been pushing us in that direction and have been for decades.

Back in the 1990s, oddly enough, the Republican party picked up on this and started going in this direction. Authoritarianism has been creeping back, growing in the democratic West, and needs it to be stopped. ASAP.

Basically how you can tell if anyone’s playing into that is if they support Putin or are against aid to Ukraine. It’s gotten that simplified. Also if you support Donald Trump, then you’re obviously supporting the demise of Western democracy. He has tried to distance us from NATO and other international alliances that are for the betterment of all humankind. You hear from them Christian nationalist speaking points and isolationism

We can change this. We just all need to wake up. Including all of those against Trump. Because even a lot of them aren’t seeing what’s been going on.

This is not a conspiracy theory. That’s not how I came into this information or my understanding of what’s been happening. I had been studying something else completely, when the comparison became clear.

As I’ve said many times before, I didn’t come into this by being a Democrat. Most of my life I was an Independent. I voted for the best candidate of any party. I came into all this by studying the Soviet Union and its expertise in disinformation. Suddenly I'm seeing it in the 1990s coming out of the Republican Party. I thought it had to be something Russian, but it was coming out of the Republican Party who was utilizing those techniques... against our own Americans. 

Because in using Russian techniques, they found themselves rising in power. Do not think Russia did not notice this. It's where their expertise really lies. Observing, assimilating, weaponizing, feeding back into the opposition system, applying pressure in the right few places, hidden from sight, magnifying using useful idiots and cutouts, then sitting back and cheaply reaping the benefits. Republicans loved that concept. 

It’s a heady mix.

Getting back to the podcast, the guy who wrote the novel Dark Matter, Blake Crouch, I’m really enjoying his show based on it. Heavy on physics, but that’s something my son and I communicate back-and-forth about all the time.

This author is apparently written several books that have been made in the shows I have watched, never knowing where they came from. Like Wayward Pines.

Starting my 2nd mile… The sun is kind of warm, but not too bad yet.

Blake Crouch, and then actor Joel Edgerton are interviewed on the podcast. I've enjoyed Joel's projects. 

I've been a consumer of horror books, films, and shows for decades, since the early 1960s? I believe it was one night in 1959, in Philly, I got up at about midnight and my mom let me watch a late-night vampire movie with her in her bed. Being up at a time I never was allowed up at. Hanging with mom. Watching a scary movie in the dark? Life, is good..

I enjoyed that so much that I begged her to wake me every time she watched a late-night horror film. Being a good mother, she tried to dissemble over that. She offered to try flashing a flashlight in my eyes while I was sleeping when the show was starting, and if I wake up, I could watch the movie with her.

I don’t know if she ever did that. She may have because she could be like that. But I don’t think there was any way I was going to wake up. But it shut me up for the time being.

I have to say in the show Dark Matter, in a very reasonable and I think realistic way, they touched on a trope in a different way that was very disturbing and fun to experience.

Blake says he’s envious of those who came up with the show Severance (I like that show too) and said he'd bet when they came up with the conceit of that show, they were punching in the air in celebration.

Blake loved Red Rising, a book that is sci-fi and fantasy. A Game of Thrones sci-fi fantasy set on Mars. He said he’s not usually into leaving Earth for such things, but this is a good series that should be made into a show.

He said he really likes the show Primer. He said he heard they made the show for like $7000. I’ve seen it and I enjoyed it myself. I was a voracious reader through the first half of my life, slowed down when I started needing reading glasses when I turned 40. Now I’m having all kinds of vision problems, making it difficult to read and at times even to watch TV. I don’t know if it was 30 years of sitting in front of a computer screen, or not.

I was used to having better vision than anyone I ever met. I could read road signs down the road from further away than anybody who was ever in a car with me. Sometimes they thought I had memorized all the street signs or something. My hearing was checked in the Air Force and was so good it went right off the edge of the IBM punch card that was recording the session. Te technician running the test thought the machine was broken. But apparently no matter how faint the sound or high-pitched it was, I could still hit the button when they sounds started and exactly when they ended.

In that USAF test, everybody who worked on the flight line near jet engines had to be tested. I realized during the test that I couldn’t quite hear sound at a certain point. I started to think if I couldn’t hear the sounds, I could sort of “feel “them. So I started hitting the button and letting go by a feeling in my chest. Apparently, I was spot on. 

Anyway, my hearing was fine. I was always very protective of my hearing, wearing sound Protectors around jets or the wheeled "ground units", or "ground power units". Generators, basically engines on wheels generating power for the jets to warm up so you didn’t have to burn jet fuel on board. More modern one shown above.

We also had to be careful about being a 25 or 50 feet too close to the exhaust of a jet engine due to radiation or simply being picked up and blown backward. That was the USAF 92nd Field Maintenance Squadron from 1976 to 1979. Interesting times. Even got to meet a Russian agent once off in the woods, in a camper on a truck monitoring the base's signals communications. Nice guy. Base said they didn't care. Fine for the enemy to expend resources counting jet deployments (flights) or unsecured communications but wasn't worth their effort to stop it. Just part of the mission.

Then there was the security police I ran into in the woods across from the base main entrance. Just sitting in their cars getting blasted on cannabis. That next year after that I came to base in the morning from my house near downtown Spokane to be met with heavily armed security police with guard dogs everywhere. Randomly all over the bast, on the streets, which you never saw on base.

Got to our shop and I was told what happened. There was an inspection in the security police barracks and they found 14 cannabis plants growing on the roof so they busted 3/4 of that squadron. On a nuclear SAC base you have to have security police at full staffing. So they called in SP’s from around the nation, over night and while we slept.

I got tasked along with one person from each shop to go around and find mattresses so these guys would have something to sleep on, on the floor somewhere because there was nowhere to put them all. That only lasted few days, a week or so until we got actual replacements requisitioned.

Podcast: apparently, in 2014 the author sold Dark Matter to Sony features. He had only written about 140 or so pages at that point. Damn that must be nice. He said they had sold it to a publisher and somehow the pages got leaked.

He said he and a few other really good screenwriters tried to write a script to make it a feature film, but they could never really crack it. Apparently, I needed a series. They must have done a good job because I’m liking the series.

He said they were having to "kill their darlings" (as we do as writers and filmmakers) and remove the character emotions and character beats that were so important to the story and so eventually gave up making a movie and it moved over to Apple.

This makes me think again that maybe I should take my screenplay “A Teenage Bodyguard” a true-crime drama, that I put massive research into over the years. A story I lived in 1974, though I didn't have a clue the world I was being immersed in. It’s been an interesting journey, living it, forgetting it, decades later writing it, researching it and rewriting it. I just want to get the damn thing out there for people to experience it.

It’s sad because if that story had come out in say 1980, it would be impressive. There were a few people around like I was back in the '60s and '70s as young people who had, let's say, an interesting history. Now partly because of advancements and from social media, everybody knows somebody who did something utterly amazing and none of this is really all that impressive now, which is in a way, too bad.

Still, it did get me a producer a few years ago who works with Michael Douglas. He did get three directors interested who I thought misunderstood the genre or just the story. I see it is a true crime drama. They saw it as a teen romp of some sort.

About Dark Matter, I do like stories about the Multiverse. Like the one based on Thor’s brother, Loki.

Starting mile three…

Apparently, there’s no season two coming as of yet for Dark Matter, and he won’t say at this time.

I agree with the author that in his stories, he likes to leave things open ended, and then hand the baton over to the reader. I like to do that with my own stuff. “In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear“ that story can continue. But you could also argue that it does have an end.

I’ve been wanting to have spaghetti and meatballs lately so yesterday I did. Also drank a half bottle of Malbec red wine. Great fun lunch. Had some fun dessert. But then suffered for in histamine levels I think from the red wine. Had to take half a Benadryl in the evening. Then before bedtime another half. Good times.

I don’t know if that’s a leftover from long Covid or still some long Covid happening. If it's temporary or permanent. But histamines are a big deal with long Covid. It gives you a feeling that is uncomfortable to the point of thinking that something serious is happening.

Anyway, also took half a melatonin (2.5 mg) and I was able to sleep through the night. Woke up feeling an allergy hangover though, maybe a histamine hangover.

I do not feel like walking 3 miles today, as I am. But here I am.

Since I’m having trouble reading anymore, I should make a list here of fun sci-fi TV shows I’ve been watching. Because of long Covid and Covid starting in February 2020 when I first caught it, I’ve watched more TV in a shorter span of time than in my entire life at any one point. That being said, I have tried to learn from it since I do write screenplay and make films. I also watched a bunch of "the making of shows." Love those.

Let's see, sci fi/fantasy  shows I've been watching that I like in no specific order.

• Silo
• Dark Matter
• Various MCU shows
• Various Star Trek shows
• Various Star Wars shows
• Snowpiercer (thought the concept, ridiculous, but still watched the film & TV shows.
• Fallout
• Beacon 23
• 3 Body Problem (Or another version, Three Body, in Chinese)
• Outer Range
• Sweet Tooth
• The Umbrella Academy
• Orphan Black
• The Boys
• For All Mankind
• Foundation
• Monarch
• Severance
• See (thought the concept ridiculous, but very well done show)
• Hello Tomorrow
• Wheel of Time
• Game of Thrones (obviously)
• House of Dragons
• The Last of Us
• Peripheral
• Carnival Row
• American Gods
• Good Omens
• Outlander
• The Magicians
• The Witcher
• His Dark Materials
• Russian Doll
• The OA

No doubt I'm forgetting a few. Not to mention some you should already know like Stranger Things, or Supernatural, or many of the standards. I'm focusing more on the streaming shows here. So many more than I'd realized. So much great stuff to watch. 

Blake also says he thinks his show exploited the subject matter of the book better than he had. For instance, the primary nuclear family in the story has one son in the book. But at some point in the show, they are a family of four. And that does make the show more interesting. Blake is talking about the difference between writing a novel and producing a show. 

Which has a lot to do with why my own Bodyguard screenplay has yet to be made into a movie. It could’ve been a movie already at this point, I just had to say yes. The director was interested. The producer was excited about it. But that was off the screenplay I rewrote with the producer's input. 

I now call my screenplay "the original". Which is far more historically accurate. My first drafts were more like a docudrama. Lost that format very quickly. But I tried to stay true to the facts. So the screenplay is pretty accurate up to about the halfway point where it becomes necessary to fictionalize somewhat because it is after all an entertainment narrative film.

There were things about the lead female character I simply didn’t know about. So as difficult and frustrating as it was, I took my best guess, and I think what I wrote was entertaining and bittersweet.

When producer Robert Midas read the screenplay the first time he said when he got to the end, his heart broke. That was my goal, at least in part for the story. Because that’s how that story goes.

I think in a different kind of genre I would’ve written it for a feel-good ending. But I was trying to write it for what was more realistic.The world that woman had lived in was very realistic. People were abused, people died.

I think the final scene would’ve been one hell of a scene for a movie's post-credit position. So after turning down three directors, I stopped getting calls from Robert and I started to pursue my original screenplay again. He's a very nice guy. Good at his job. I liked working with him. 

I’ve sent both screenplays off to screenplay contests and so far my version has won more awards. So I think the problem was that Robert was simply trying to make a screenplay, a spec script, that would sell. And it did. But his view of production was at a far lower level than what I see for it as a film. Maybe he's the more realistic one and it will never get made. If not, that would be too bad.

I’m thinking $5 to $7 million and I think he was thinking around 1 million. Take or leave a few hundred thousand. Better to leave a few. But I think that doesn’t do the story justice. I think that doesn’t do the lead female character, justice, and over time I’ve gotten to where I more wanted this to be her story being told, more than my own. I didn't write it from her perspective because I know this story from my own experience in living it.

Originally it wasn’t my story I wanted to get out so much as I wanted to get something produced to acquire some money toward my retirement. Because in the last 20 years, things were rough as a single parent. All of my 401(k) retirement is gone now. Which is fine as my kids are up and living on their own, functional and happy as adults. But we had some rough years there.

Now I have Social Security and my original retirement from the 1990s that was shut off when they switched to a 401(k). So luckily, I still have that but at some point, especially with how politics are going and some wanting to kill things like Medicare and Social Security. Or that Social Security is having problems because of the baby boomer generation being so large… I still don’t quite understand that. If we paid our retirement into Social Security, where the hell is our money in that we won’t be getting it all? Or what?

As I understand it instead of getting increases in Social Security every year, soon we’re going to get decreases. Fun.

So yeah, let's make some money!

I did pretty good this week getting the blog articles up from a walk every day of the week at 6 AM. Missed today's though. I didn’t get around to working on the blog until after lunch and by then the wine had taken affect and I had another extra glass. Usually, I get two meals out of one bottle of wine. Two glasses for the one meal leaving two more for the next one. But I was having so much fun, I took a little bit more and then a little bit more up to less than another full glass. But as I’m learning, especially with red wine nowadays due to whatever reason, if I go over two glasses, I’ll regret it at bedtime.

It’s interesting to think in the Multiverse there’s another version of me somewhere from decisive moments in my life that failed where they succeeded for them elsewhere. I can think of at least three times in my life that, I had something gone the other way, I would have made a lot more money. 

In 1980 I almost published a manual with Digital Equipment Corporation's Digital Publishing with a book I wrote based on a wordprocessor app on the VAX 11/785 mainframe. But because I pointed out where their bugs were and how to get quickly past them, which usually took people hours, Digital proper got pissed off and threatened me. Literally threatened me. They said if I tried to publish it elsewhere, they’d crushed me and they could do it. That was a comedy of errors, that whole process.

I had written a manual that two major Seattle hospitals loved and used for years after I left that job. The Digital publisher said I would be making about $50,000 a quarter with worldwide sales of the manual going out with every VAX computer and PC they sold. Then things changed.

He had told me to rewrite the manual, not to use the specialized format I composed that everyone LOVED. He showed it to Digital Equipment and they didn’t like it. They suggested a way that I had originally designed it to be! And then the bugs were their final straw. You did not admit, surely not in a manual, to having bugs in your software, if you were DEC, back then. 

Dialing into our modem. We caught Digital one time dialing into our modem, applying a patch that brought the mainframe down the next day for two hospitals: UWMC and HMC who we supported. I actually worked for the University of Washington's MCIS handling Pathology and Radiology for those two hospitals

Digital denied putting in the patch. But we could clearly see it in the logs. So my manager said always to keep the modem turned off. They'd have to call and ask us to turn it on for access from now on. And that fixed that. They were kind of shady back then and now? They’re out of business.

When I decided to look for another job from that position, all the jobs around Seattle, all the available jobs were for people who could run IBM mainframes.

So things in my life like that screwed up. What if in another universe, I had fixed those issues and they published the manual? My whole life would’ve changed. I would’ve still gotten divorced though perhaps not for a few more years. Maybe she wouldn’t have become the alcoholic she did, that she was trying so hard to be when we were married, and that I could not see.

Maybe my oldest son wouldn’t have some emotional issues because of when he had been with his mom. Then maybe I wouldn’t have married my last wife which also gave my son even more issues because they hated each other. He was challenging and she didn’t have the maturity or expertise to handle him. My youngest son would be gone now though. I’m pretty sure. Because they had said if I hadn’t been there after the divorce, they wouldn’t be alive now. So maybe things are just how they're supposed to be...

On that note, I’ll bid you adieu…and leave you with that.

It’s noon and time for lunch.

Cheers! Sláinte!