Walkabout Thoughts #44

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…June 26, 2023 Monday

Weather for the day…yes

Podcast for the day “Deja News” by Rachel Maddow and Davy Aronson, "Episode 3: "The Meanest, Dirtiest, Low-Down Stuff""

Considering Rachel Maddow’s podcast of Deja news for this week about Republican voter suppression (when will America get tired by their exhausting antics??) do we have and why don’t we have, a whole section of intimidation laws to literally put these people in prison when they pull their crap? Laws in such a way that would stop their bullshit. I don’t mean capital punishment for voter suppression, I would reserve that for former presidents like Donald Trump, for things he did and is still doing.

What should LBJ have and the Democratic Party done to neutralize Republican illiberal newspaper voter suppression attack ads in 1964 regarding a fake, non-existent, "Negro Protective Group", who told blacks not to vote or you could end up in jail? This is America. We ARE a liberal democracy, still, and regardless what the Right keeps trying to do.

Also, you can take much or most of what Republicans claim about Democrats and dig into what they’re saying to find it’s really indicative about Republicans projecting onto any or all others to distract and obstruct the view of what they’re actually doing and what they really believe in. Autocracy, apparently.

Regarding pro-Putinist propaganda by Putin apologists claiming there are Nazis in Ukraine, forgetting their Russian war criminal president's invasion of another country. For the record, there are zero Nazis in Ukraine. However, their are those of neo-Nazi mindsets who have invaded Ukraine from Russia (and some of those type living IN Ukriane, as in any country). When Russia leaves Ukraine, the neo-Nazis will have for the most part, left. Attacking another country and committing war crimes is not an excuse for perceived, or potential neo-Nazis in another country made up from a mostly democratic majority (again, as in many countries)… As there seem to be in every country around the world. Every country has right wing autocratic extremists, some of whom find titillation in political fetishism in absorbing and presenting the neo Nazi’s nonsense. In our country, they tend to be Republicans and conservatives. All of them have been misled, but also cherry pick, as the religious do, in selectively ignoring reality, and chosing to be a patently as stupid as possible in the face of reality and thoroughly against the facts. Everyone's facts, not just "alternative facts", a term promoted by Kelly Anne Conway (divorced now from her more liberal Republican husband) deep in the MAGA slurry of Donald Trump's wake.

Regarding Rachel’s podcast this week and JFK winning over Nixon in 1960...It begs the question, if Nixon had won rather than JFK would he have turned into what he later did when he finally became president? I suspect he would have. Because that’s what happens with people of weak ego and poor character. Not to mention, with a conservative orientation and a Republican to boot. Which we’ve seen again and again. George W. Bush. Obviously and ultimately in Donald J Trump, criminal FPOTUS45.

As a political party, when you realize not enough people are going to vote for your candidate, and your response to that is, "how do we keep the other parties voters from voting against us", and you then fall on an answer such as, "we will suppress their votes," or worse, "...in anyways possible", yes… your party has "jumped that shark." You have then stepped out of an illiberal democracy into an autocratic party and one inevitably of sedition. And when you're in that GOP and Trump MAGA today, you’re moving into stochastic terrorism and your are then, you have then, fully left this country, the great American experiment and democracy itself. You're an Autocrat. At some point they are, and you have become, criminals. Where the only question of the rest of us at hand will be... how to prove it with evidence in court, and execute justice?

I should contact Eagle Harbor books and the book seller downtown and see if they would take maybe two of my books for free, welcome to sell them and keep the money, and if they want more... let me know?

Why isn’t there a law that says every state must have enough polling places, free and protected, where if you’re standing in line for longer than an hour, then the state should lose money and if they don't have money to have enough polling places, then federal money would be supplied giving states and their illiberal conservative leadership (who are the ones pulling this crap) will absolutely have no reason for THEIR voter suppression actions. And so on and so forth… remember 1964 presidential election's Republican operation, which Hubert Humphrey said should be called "Operation Evil Lie", which was pure and simple, voter suppression by the conservative party.

1964 presidential election was lopsided with Barry Goldwater losing on the Republican side and winning only later in 1968 with the eventual nightmare Nixon with an actual criminal VPOTUS (GOP took decades to advance to nominating an actual criminal for POTUS in Donald Trump). One being his home state of Arizona, with another five being States where the black vote had already long been suppressed. "Operation Eagle Eye" by Republicans wasn’t even needed in those five states because of Jim Crow laws already suppressing the black vote and the black community in general, and in so many other ways.

As we now know, if voter suppression by the right had never been utilized there would’ve been very few Republican presidents in the past 50 years.

I do realize that the 60s and 70s Republican voter suppression efforts and their "Operation Eagle Eye" did set the foundation and building blocks up for today’s illiberal “democratic free“ elections so subverted by subversive and seditious Republicans. At times, aided by America’s foreign enemies, via social media, or whatever they could come up with. With other issues such as dark money, toxic conservative, a stacked SCOTUS and federal courts, and illiberal Gerrymandering. None of that is news.

Here’s something else to consider… We hear a lot from the right about how bad the left is. We hear how the Democratic Party ruins our economy. Regardless of the fact that Republican presidents take us into wars, leave us with seriously depleted budgets and massive debt, and Democrats always seem to be the ones cleaning it up every time. But if Republicans would stop this nonsense and act as liberal democrats (lower "d"), which this country is... a liberal democratic republic… IF they would work with the other side, does it matter if they never win, if they get things done that they really do want (for the country), and not just what they want, for their always winning in their sadly toxic, anti-American, "corporate thought" agendas? If what they want is actually useful to America and Americans, and not just to their wealthy and corporate? If they would work FOR the American good and not just for Themselves? The GOP has degenerated into a party of actors who play out roles for pure power and notoriety and greed. They're propaganda is disinformed and autocratically subverted, their electorate in chaos and confusion, so now they feel like Russians who don’t know what the hell they’re voting, for. Don't we really just want to be left alone and reclaim what it is to be patriotic? Until finally they end up voting against themselves. And then Russia’s case strengthens up and we find ourselves again invading other countries (Remember "W" and Iraq?). how many of Americans mistakes in other countries are from toxic capitalism? From the greedy and conservative and the Republican? Oh surely, there were some Democrats and independents involved. But that doesn’t resolve the Right from there fundamentals and foundation in toxic conservatism. 

It has a little to do with Conservatism anymore.
Republicans: "Be very good at selling bad ideas."
Democrats: "Be very bad at selling good ideas, political effort, democratic spin"
Republicans: Fraud, Republican lies & disinformation.
Democrats: Truth and facts.
Republicans: Decency for corporations and the wealthy.
Democrats: Decency for all American citizens, especially those who are people and not business or industry while maintaining a healthy business and industry.
Republicans: Enhance faith in God and religion and autocracy. God’s autocratic by the way. The pursuit of happiness of their orientation or their beliefs or their institutions... against all others.
Democrats Enhance faith in democracy to allow a country mixed with many cultures and religions and non-religions. The pursuit of happiness, not just the conservative pursuit of their own happiness.

"Operation Eagle Eye" slogan: "To restore confidence in America’s elections"...but basically, just spew disingenuous disinformation.

Rachel Maddow's Deja News podcast should be required listening in every high school and every junior high, every college and every Congress. on TV and forced onto Fox News and all conservative media.

Attorney Jim Brosnahan, who testified against William Rehnquist in that attorneys active voter suppression action in 1964, said today on the podcast that, “Anyone's vote taken away is a democratic sin. “ restricting any citizens vote is committing a serious concern and should be dealt with." Citizens lose their vote when they going to prison. Unless it is under conditions of treason, no one should ever lose their vote. No one's vote should ever be suppressed, the more votes, the better.

Next podcast "Axios today"-
Prigozhin is not a hero, he’s a "Blackwater" type mercenary group type leader, although Betsy DeVos's brother, Eric Prince is no angel either… But basically a mob boss as some claim as a Putin capo. Putin, after all, being the mob boss. In America, we have something similar with a more cowardly, less, intelligent just as media savvy, maybe more media savvy than Putin, mob boss in Donald Trump. Both countries have the delusionally propagandized and disinformed who follow those cretins over the cliff to enjoy a plummet of their country into death and despair. Chaos and despair and apathy being the rule of the day for both those leader's followers. And remember, Putin’s capo and leader of the Wagner group, started a 10 hour march to Moscow to the capital and stopped 4/5 of the way there. There’s very much speculation about what Putin will do to his capo for this sedition. What does a mafia boss do to an ill acting capo? Well? That depends on how integral he is to his wealth and power acquisition and retention model that a mafia boss has in place. Unless that model, as in Putin‘s model, as in the failure of the Ukrainian war so far, according to his 'three days to overtake Ukraine" model, he now has in its place.

Finishing up my 4th mile, then starting on my fifth and final mile for the day. My long Covid "walkabout thought" for the day being solidly executed. If I keep this up at three or four days out of every week, while the weather hasn’t been helping, although it does get better heading into summer, That would mean every week I am alternately doing 15 or 20 mile walks total. Which my much younger, VA health doctor said is way better than anything he’s doing. But, such are the joys of retirement... and long Covid.

55 million people in the south east west to Mississippi are under a heat warning as of today. Texas is in some southern locations in the triple digits and so far doing well because they’ve applied some renewable energy sources and batteries which so far are functioning nominally. Even against all the bullshit and nonsense that crippled state's governor has been putting out since the storm, two years ago. Republicans are good at one thing. Ignoring reality and not being proactive. Being worried about this moment and this moment, alone but not about their citizens, long-term.

These temperatures in the south are as far north as Oklahoma and Kansas, have been proven to be at least five times more related to human induced climate change, and denial of this at this point really is criminal, because people are dying.

Gay and Black minorities and LGBTQ+ people are here. They always have been. To deny that is to deny America and democracy. So if you’re against all that or whining about how you won’t "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps", a typical Republican comment towards those who are incapable of doing that, then it’s not about those you hate or those you speak out against, it's yourself and your group of whiners, who refuse to go out and succeed, as any American would, regardless of what obstacles are against them. Because that’s American. And whining and abusing others or denigrate any others to make it look better, well that’s autocracy and that kind of makes you a rat bastard.

Next podcast, “Cork Today“, a podcast from Cork, Ireland, where I spent a few days and a lovely time back in 2015. I so wanna go back to Ireland. Sadly, my Irish roots are too well established for a dual passport. So, thanks for that Ireland.

The podcast is talking with somebody about a herbal remedy to help you sleep. It’s got so much stuff in it. How do you want to think about taking it. I’ve tried to keep my stress levels down since high school when I went in the hospital for it. When the doctors (3 neurosurgeons) said…(and this would’ve been winter spring 1973)… "Here’s a script for Valium 5 mg, now goodbye. We would suggest you move out of your parent's house from what your mother told us." Weeks later I graduated at 17 and moved out with a job into an apartment. Then life was good. The headaches stopped. My stress levels dropped. Now today in retirement at 67, 68 end of August, I do my best to get exposure to sunlight. 15 minutes today, even five help with sleeping at night in regenerating one's melatonin. Yesterday, I had spaghetti and meatballs for lunch with two glasses of wine, testing out my long Covid healing. I did well. But I woke up at 12:30 a.m. and thought what the hell… So I took half of a 5 mg melatonin...just enough to put me to sleep and keep me there, until  at7:30 AM I woke up. I feel pretty good today. Getting the exercise definitely is helping. I think the thing that helped me most in healing from long Covid was getting exercise, and sunlight. Although both can work against you, until you hit a certain degree of healing with that insidious condition.

I’d have to say as far as difficulty sleeping, all my life, especially in high school, I think it was more about ADHD and my mind running at hyper speed on multiple levels. As well as working nights through HS. As a snack bar drive-in theater worker and then snack bar manager. How long after work, late at night it took me to get to sleep, to get up early to go back to school, or after graduating, to work? I think my sleep was better after graduating HS, not having to go to school at day and then work nights. I figured I usually got a few hours sleep in HS. I would come home after work at maybe midnight, go to bed and have to be at school by 8:30 AM. I can remember many times looking at the clock before I fall asleep at 5 AM. I would just lay there in bed with my mind racing and thoughts spinning about everything... not all bad, just a mind that wanted to work 24 hours a day. My mother liked staying up all night. My older brother, who has said he thinks he got all the worst of our mom from her, well? I think maybe I left most of that out and get most of the best from her. Anyway, he felt he was a night person too. But we are day people as a race and require Vitamin D and sunlight and our schedules are ruled by that. I have to say really in much of my earlier my life, I did prefer being up at night. But life and having children has a way of rectifying that. Though, bending you to it, will wear on you to make you feel a little crazy at times.

The Cork podcast is talking about how hot it is there and how hard it is to sleep when you’re hot. People don’t have air conditioners there or some do bu no money for electricity. Cork's not a highly prosperous town, but it is a very lovely town. So they suggest curtains closed during the day to keep the place cool, windows open at and night sleep with a sheet only. Poor People's air conditioning. I remember those days.

Now they’re talking about a listener question about artichokes lowering cholesterol, and if there may be something involved there. The person is on a Staten who asked the question, and so am I. I’ve added eating two avocados a week. I don’t know if it’s helped or not, but they are tasty. Maybe I'll add artichokes, I do like them too. 

I'm editing this today, Wednesday, July 5, 2023 and it's my little brother's birthday... who died of liver cancer in 1975, two weeks before today, back then, He just missed making it to 15. His doctor in Manhattan said then, that maybe in 5 years, they will be able to do a liver transplant. Five years to the week, they did their first successful one. Happy birthday, little bro...

And with that...

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #43

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…June 24, 2023, Saturday

Weather for the day…62-72degrees

Podcast for the day “Prosecuting Donald Trump”

Dropped off just now, one of my older (and most epic) books "Death of heaven" (ebook discounted through July 2023 on Smashwords, as with my other writings there, or free) at my local Little Free Library on Lafayette Street today. I signed and inscribed it, “A Lafayette Avenue drop off.” Cool! Someone already picked up the previous book I had left, "Suffering Long Covid" (2022).

Speaking of which, long Covid...last Friday I got to see one of my kids and spouse in Quilcine, Jefferson County, north of me, across the Hood Canal Bridge, which is near to Bangor nuclear sub base/sub pens, tto attend a small concert from Victoria, BC, Canada, a Celtic music trio, Clanna Morna. I had a great time. But the next day it rained (and then for days until yesterday) leaving me not feeling so well. Today it’s sunny and it’s going to be warm and I’m feeling a lot better so I set off for a walk, after days off from walking since last Thursday’s walk.

I contacted my cousin, who also lives in Quilcene, about coming over to visit so we could go through our long late (1874) grandfather's stuff. I’m thinking about doing a documentary on him. It would be fascinating since back in the 1940s, 50s and 60s he was traveling the world. I have his old 8mm footage. For instance one of him walking through what was then Bombay, India. It shows a cow lazily walking down a main street in town. In examining his passport from the beginning of World War II, he was traveling around northern Africa and southern Europe and, South America, back in the early 1940s. 

Why? Just for, fun? Well, he did do that. But were there other reasons? I also have his draft card from about that time. He had already been in WWI. The "Great War", the "War to end all wars". The war my last multi award winning documentary film was about, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero". He traveled to places that may have been just for tourist reasons, but as he worked for the US Government later in life, it has to make one wonder. I'll need to do some FOIA requests (Freedom of Information Act) on him. [Yesterday (July 3) as this blog today is from a while back, I happened to talk to my older sister and tell her about this project and she's going to look through her things to see if she has any of Grandpa's documents or media]

I joined Ancestry.com years ago in 2008. I got my DNA done through them a few years ago, and also done by someone else for my ancestry and health info. It occurred to me I know more about my grandfather now, and my grandmother, then she ever knew about her husband, or he ever knew about his own family history. I traced my family line back through to the ninth century. 

DNA then offered me even more and surprising information. For instance, one of our ancestors or a few, must have been a seafarer. One may have gone over with the Conquistadors. Because we have ancestors that show up in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America around those times. I already know among other things, that I'm Black Irish (dad's side). A term that carries confusion and various explanations.

It’s now 9:16 AM and I’m approaching my first half mile of today's walk. It’s not hot yet, but I’m already thinking that before I finish today, I may think I started too late in the day. It’s only supposed to get up into the 70s but…we shall see.

Just passed a half mile and decided to switch over to Pod Save the World because... they’re talking about things I’m a little more interested in today. About India’s Prime Minister Modi visiting the US, and China, and Navalny in Russia who had tried to murder someone in Florida (Putin/Russia, not Navalny), and so on…

What is also interesting in the news this week is that the Pentagon somehow screwed up misplacing $6.5 billion that they still have available for sending resources to Ukraine, to fight against Putin’s criminal war in which he attacked another country without provocation, disregarding international borders like a toxic ex who can't let their once significant other go. War, ignoring history and reality because of Putin's petty, immature ego. Like Donald Trump. Damnaged personlaities.

I know this is nuts, but I have been a speculative fiction writer and reader all my life. And I wonder if it would be useful to have a small group dedicated to eliminating, if not autocracy around the world, its leaders… especially when they get out of hand. Had that been in place around the world, we would have eliminated what Modi has been doing in India? Or what Putin‘s doing in Russia? What Kim Jong-Un‘s lineage has long done to their citizeens? Or the GOP turning MAGA, worshipping Trump, and his cult? 

Arizona (ADOA) selling over 2,000 shipping containers illegally put at their Arizona-Mexico border.
How much has conservative bullshit cost US in recent years?
THIS all cost AZ, $194million!

We’re selling drones to India? India’s long been buying their weapons from Russia to protect themselves from China. India and China having long been at odds in having a border between them. But I have to wonder if our drones are already now long compromised, if Russia has them, and been able to duplicate them? Since now India will have them, that would seem to indicate Russia soon having them, too. Friends, share, right? Just like in Trump having classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, it seems pretty clear then that we know China and Russia have at least copies of some of those documents (having acquired them, if in no other way, secretly), as well as probably North Korea, and God knows....anyone else who was interested. 

Because the DAY those documents were moved out of the White House, every interested intelligence agency of every international enemy of America around the world also knew, and they were already planning how to get a hold of them. Possibly setting up plans, even before they moved out of the White House. THAT is how expionage works. In their anticipating ripping off the joke and disaster that Donald Trump is and always has been, and always will be, as he eventually and hopefully dies in prison.

Hey! Whatever happened to Pakistan? Or "migrant caravans" for that matter? How easily we do forget. We used to hear about Pakistan in the news, constantly. Lately? Pretty much nothing. So, nothting is going on there now, right? Uh huh...right. Sure.

About Trump's argument about the classified documents he didn’t give back right away, because as he put it...he "needed to go through them and pull out his personal [golf] shirts and things because he was too busy". OK? Too busy as we all saw, day after day after day playing golf. How long does it take to go through 60 boxes and pull out clothes? Which should’ve been done before they left the White House. Never being mixed with personal items. How hard is that to figure out? When you get a request to return something like classified docs, you drop everything, get it done, then bo back to having a life. Only a criminal, by definition, would view that differently. The boxes were labeled, and like I said, you don’t put personal items in them when leaving the White House. This is 100% on Trump who has no leg to stand on in this. So? Trump, still fat, lazy and stupid. No surprise there.

Trump's upcoming claims in court of his doing bad things because he's either stupid or delusional, can’t hold much water considering he was actually (somehow) President in the United States of America. If you’re that stupid and delusional, Article 15 should have been invoked, automatically. Which also means he couldn't be POTUS ever again. Shouldn't be. Never should have been. Which means he should also be disallowed from any public office. Considering his family's charity was a scam to make him money and of course was dissolved by court order. 

Trump shouldn’t have anything to do with anything public at all, ever again. Including walking our streets. If I were king? I would give Trump his life in prison and in a regular prison, a regular prison cell, with no Secret Service protection. Should he die before his sentence is up of 100 or 200 years? So be it. Because what I would really do would be invoke capital punishment for reasons of treason and crimes against humanity, against our American citizens (and other countries), not to mention his incessant asinine stochastic terrorism, and a bit of direct terrorism.

It should be noted in Trump's narcissism and political desires, that he always does what he can to win the "news cycle". That’s something utterly and totally dysfunctional... in court. He's so screwed. Considering Jack Smith turned over things to him yesterday? You don’t do that so soon, unless it’s a slam dunk case against. What this means is today his lawyers are reading and "shitting bricks" in trying to figure out how to tell Trump. Who again, is so completely screwed. They have got to make a deal. Except, when you have a slam dunk with a criminal of this degree, you don’t make a deal with them. You prosecute to the full extent of the law with all due and deserved prejudice.

"All the best people“ who Donald Trump hired in the first part of his administration. he either got rid of, or they left, and refuse to support him since. They denigrate him at every chance possible trying to point out he should never be president again. Trump's childish ad hominems against these people and anyone he doesn’t like, or anyone who disagrees with him, who he calls "stupid" if they refuse to break the law for him...and yet his sad MAGA crowd does what? They rationalize it all off as him speaking like a “normal person“. Well? That’s... not... normal. And if that’s normal for MAGA? That is just them telling us who they are, and not someone we want as part of our political system, or our citizenry.

I need to update my jzmurdock.com website and on the front page below the revolving carousel of my books for sale. I need to put a list of interviews and such things on the first page rather than in the "Non-Fiction area. [and...I did play with it a bit after writing this]

I don’t understand how Israeli settlements in the Palestinian area are a good thing for humanity, or anybody, other than Israel. I used to like "Bibi" Netanyahu, but I don’t like his autocratic slant. It reminds me of Donald Trump. I also used to really like Trump, for superficial reasons as I only knew his trumped up and carefully curated bullshit public image. In the early 2010s I got to know him better with his Obama "birtherism" bullshit and his anti-democracy autocratic nonsense and learned more about his (and his family's) bigotry; that he’s basically a toxic narcissistic asshole who’ll destroy everything for his own gratification and benefit. The fact that any Americans support that kind of thing is just embarrassing, utterly humiliating, and on an international scale.

I recently saw a video my son sent me about an African in Africa, complaining about how we always hear about Jews in the Holocaust, but never about what happened in Africa under King Leopold the II. Well, I get that. But his numbers were vastly out of whack. He said "100 million Africans had been slaughtered". The best I can find is 10 to maybe 15 million. Now that’s a lot ! He has reason to be pissed. I appreciate his argument and outrage. Which is basically that white people equel "big travesty, but Black people, nothing". But he doesn’t need to use incorrect information, or maybe he’s just misinformed himself. But it brings up a point I've always wondered about it. With all we’ve heard about the Holocaust all my life, I’ve wondered, every time I heard about another genocide in some country around the world, why I didn’t first hear about how Israel was speaking up about it, leading the outrage? I seldom if ever heard that. Why? Maybe they did speak up, but why wasn't I hearing it? Why don't I remember that? 

One would think those who speaks so much for themselves about something so horrendous, would speak for any and all others, whenever and wherever that happened again, or was even about to. Which leads me back to thoroughly not understanding the whole Israel/Palestine situation. I get it, there’s assholes, apparently on both sides, and both sides have a reasons to hate. But you would think a culture so steeped in such abuse for millennia would’ve figured out a way by now, better than what they’ve fallen upon, and into.
 

I had mentioned that it rained from last Saturday through this Tuesday. So Tuesday I got on my elliptical and did a single mile. Man, the next day, just 1 mile, I felt it in my calves and my stomach, my core. So I’m thinking if I can do 5 miles every other day, maybe I can do a mile or two on the elliptical in between, for a "rest" period. Such because it seems to be more greatly utilizing certain muscles that are good to use and get into tone.

Netanyahu is starting to look like Israel’s, Kevin McCarthy and the House of Representatives here in America. Making as many deals as he can to retain power. Sometimes it’s best to just step down move on. He stacked his government with right wing zealots, much as happened in our government and at some point one loses control. So even if he means to do well, he’s working against himself in having retained power.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has not failed regardless what MAGA or RFK Jr. says. I got to say, I don’t see us helping in all and any ways that we should be. Even illegal ways using cut outs so we can't get blamed for it. Look, Putin‘s got to go. If not physically leave this earth, he has to have his reputation ruined with the Russian people. And I’m not seeing a lot of efforts on that.

"Spies, The Epic Intelligence Wars Between East And West" details, the espionage attempt by Russia to murder one of their own on American soil, in Florida. Russian spy, Alexandra Pootie, who told American intelligence about sleeper cells had led to the TV show “The Americans,” as written up in the New York Times. This is also related to Sergei Skripal whose attempted assassination (with his daughter) by Russian intelligence in the UK. Where this is important is that we have long wondered if Russia was willing to assassinate people in the UK, would they ever try it in America. Obviously they would. It’s good to note for our own awareness that the kind of shit Russia and Putin are doing now wasn’t being done during the "cold war". Certainly not so overtly. Something I was involved in, in the late 70s. I have my US government awarded "Cold Warrior" certificate hanging on my wall behind me, as I write this.

Facebook has been getting more and more in bed with an autocratic Vietnamese government against dissidents and citizens. Seems to me we need some laws about that for our multinational corporations involved in questionable government countries. I’m not sure what that could or would be, and for Facebook to just shut down, or Twitter, in some of these countries, where the Internet IS Facebook or Twitter, really is problematic. Vietnam is the seventh largest population using Facebook. 70% of the hundred million people in Vietnam use Facebook. Facebook’s reach and impact there is much bigger than Twitter, and in most countries. The interface in Vietnam for many to the Internet, IS Facebook. Facebook does have some power to push back in Vietnam however, because if the government removes Facebook it’s likely they would have some kind of uprising. Facebook likes touting openness and friendship and community, but really in the end, especially since they’ve laid off people who used to handle this kind of situation, it’s about profit, pure and simple. Facebook has been given a list of government officials by Vietnam who are not allowed to be spoken out against. So I guess if I lived in Vietnam, I would have to speak like Nostradamus did about the royal, the rich and powerful, in his own time, indirectly and encoded.

Interesting to know nowadays, especially in America when you hear the term "kangaroo court" or "witchhunt" by some officials who are being called out "on the carpet" for their bad behavior, that it’s probably not fake attacks against them. On the other hand, when you hear the more reasonable types calling out things like MAGA, as "kangaroo courts", or "kangaroo court commissions", or "kangaroo court hearings", I suspect the Kangaroo population of the planet is pretty offended by that.

America needs a real time office in Congress of Truth and Speech, but only to hold our pubuc office officials to task. And anyone caught lying on the floor of Congress. Which, anyway for now, is out for a month.

Podcast is over, switched over to The Intercepted. They’re talking about Erdegon in Turkey and how his recent electoral win put him as despot of Turkey, evermore, his autocratic government with a failing economy not headed into two decades of his rule and foolish and manipulated support. They are what MAGA could turn America into, what they want to turn America into even (remember CPAC has now been held in Hungary with Viktor Oban speaking). We should also remember the recent devastating earthquake in Turkey, where tens of thousands of buildings dropped, killing their citizens and remember how Erdogan gave contracts to his friends which I’m sure he got kickbacks from. Those builders cut building codes which led to many buildings collapsing and has to make one wonder, if those tragic deaths are actually not murders. Much like the 100,000+ Americans, who didn’t need to die of Covid, who are dead because of Donald Trump. So these leaders are all at least morally and ethically, guilty of crimes against humanity in their personal footnotes of history.

It’s so sad what a democracy gets locked into a downward spiral in supporting poor leaders, such as Erdogan in Turkey or Donald Trump with his moronic MAGA, in America.

America needs some kind of independent commission to fix what’s wrong with our government, at least the broad strokes. Gerrymandering is toxic in too many cases. Voter suppression is a serious problem and dirty tricks have led some perpetrators to guilty judgments and prison in suppressing voting during elections. Including spam political phone calls that our courts have found heavily stacked in favor of anachronistic beliefs and toxic conservatism. Our government or state governments (or national government) have been infiltrated by domestic enemies, and MAGA falls under that heading. To be sure, not all MAGA (or Republicans, although silence is enabling) have made themselves our domestic enemies. But the majority of our current domestic enemies are indeed, MAGA. And their "friends", the White Christian Nationalist and White Supremacisits, and... Neo-Nazis:

""By leaving a definitional vacuum around the word 'great,' it became very easy for groups to co-opt it, ascribing to it the meaning they wanted it to have," Van Brunt says. "The same way a mother rests easy because her baby's food has 'all-natural' written on the jar, Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacists were able to feel good about Trump because 'great' became interchangeable with white, heterosexual, male, hate, oppress, deport."

The ironic thing about many dysfunctional government situations is, if (conservative/Republican) officials would just allow government to work, it could be efficient. Well, maybe not efficient, but functional. And it's what we’ve seen for many decades now, as Republicans try to jam up our government, or even just simply destroy it. Because they know they have bad ideas in their anachronistic beliefs, and they’ve become toxic to America and to humanity.

That’s why I have never been a conservative. Conservatism is for times of dire need and times of war. The belief that we are always in dire need, or always forever in some kind of  war…is ridiculous. Think about that for a moment. When did the "war on drugs" begin? The 1970s. And what did it do but literally destroyed lives...and entire families? And it did NOT get the drug situation under control. Ruling through fear and power is why we have a country now as confused and damanged as we are in America. And yet it's white Republicans have been defaulting, over and over now, for decades. That, is how autocrats function.

 Cheers! Sláinte!

"The Teenage Bodyguard" screenplay - Ruminations - Happy 4th!

Wishing you all a very happy 4th of July, 2023!

On that patriotic note, celebrating one of our own... 

I know a producer who’s worked with A-list talent on films, and read my screenplay, a true crime/biopic titled, "The Teenage Bodyguard". It sucked him in enough to then work with me on a rewrite. The rewrite was a selling script version while my original was what I referred to as the “Bible“ for the story that was the most researched, accurate and detailed. 

I get the concept of a biopic been entertaining. But for myself watching one, I prefer do at times, accuracy over entertainment value. As long as it’s interesting, engaging, evocative, and informative on things that happened, especially when in arenas I am unfamiliar with, even if it's a bit harsh, or bittersweet, I much prefer that in biopics better than the ones I would like which are merely entertaining and then, I later find out that half or all of it was just pure bullshit. IF you're going to tell a true story, based in a true story, at least try to be as accurate as possible, as much as possible. Unless possibly, if at the beginning your clearly state, "This is all bullshit, but very entertaining."

That producer said about the ending of my screenplay, a true story about a 17 year old guy (he was actually 18, but the producer thought 17 was a better idea), and about his experience over the course of a week in 1974 while protecting a murder witness. She had been a cocktail waitress at Tacoma‘s first popular topless club, run by the local crime family, the Carbones, enemies of the bigger and scarier Seattle crime family, the Colacurcios. And yes, all of Italian ancestry. The Carbone situation made national news in the late 80s for their federal court trial that had to be moved to San Francisco.

This producer said of my ending that he hated it. It had "ripped his heart out". Which was the point. The rewrite we did together, I wrote it, he guided me, and is a more mechanically functional screenplay than mine. But we left out that ending. I loved that. I loved it because this was the orientation of the entire story: bittersweet. For the young guy in a real world, growing up in a tough town of Tacoma, Washington in the Pacific Northwest, a town far tougher than he knew. This is not a typical "coming of age" tale. It is darker than light. Sadly, so many who I have tried to share the screenplay with, latched onto the young guy, hot girl, both caught up in the absurd situation storyline.

The first producer I told about this story was a London producer who triggered the whole thing. He said it was a great story. And that bittersweet intensity was its selling point. I have ongoing access to the actual character in the story and full agreement from him to tell his story. He and his story both are the selling points of this screenplay/story. The problem I ran into with the story immediately when I started writing a screenplay about it, after a lot of research and ever more as the screenplay developed and through rewrites (before I met the producer I was convinced to rewrite it by) was that no one believed this guy‘s life when he would tell anyone about it back in the 1970s. 

So he eventually quit telling this story to people. Stories he would tell people about this life story in general were discounted and disbelieved. "Kids just don’t do things like that," they would say. What is so sad for him about all that was that he was already downplaying those things but still people disbelieved him. Which surprised him. They would claim he was lying to try and make himself look better. But he didn't lie. His desire to never lie is another story altogether. So when people disbelieved him, he was shocked to be questioned. Why would he lie. But then he learned how unusual much of what he had done was to most people. Back then.

Nowadays we know far more about people and more about kids who are known for doing amazing things. And more kids are doing more amazing things now. Just consider Greta Thunberg, for instance.

But back then, for that woman to have happened upon that kid, at that time in her situation, really was an amazing stroke of luck for her. Or them both, depending on how you view it. In the end, he succeeded in his first job as a bodyguard. He later had a few protection jobs after that and into adulthood. She remained while in his protection, unharmed, unseen, and unfound by her enemies until she left the Tacoma at the end of that week. The awakening of this young man, raised as and by then a lapsed Catholic, with an old-school Slovakian mother, and a distant, seldom seen, Irish father, with a troubled stepfather who really didn’t like him very much, these are all entirely other but interesting elements of his story. 

It was a different time in the 60s and 70s. Drug culture was more prevalent. Free love was, if not more of a thing, more of a cultural phenomenon. There were no cell phones. If you were in danger, you had to get yourself out of it or find a phone somewhere. People could commit crimes more easily, and get away with them more easily. 

Some crimes, like the one this story begins with and because, in that of a bouncer at that topless club, in reality his murder was committed at 2 AM in the club's parking lot. It was deemed by a corrupt Sheriff's office, first on the scene, as a random event of violence by an "anonymous person". When in reality it was done by that crime family, to one of their own and most likely, the Sheriff's office, at least some, probably the Sheriff himself, knew what was going on, and what had happened. As he was in the Carbone's pocket, 

I had well known screenplay site, "The Blacklist", perform coverage of the screenplay. One of the reviewers asked in his review, "Why isn’t this already on the screen somewhere?" And that was years ago. Why? Because I don’t live in Hollywood? Also, although things are easier now with the Internet, the Film Industry is still after all a business. For whatever reason, I've been unable to find just the right person who gets what I'm selling here. Hard to believe, but it's true and I bet this happens all the time with great stories/screenplays.

The aforementioned producer, when he read the screenplay, said he had trouble with the beginning. But he got himself through it and in the end, it made him want to contact me. He said he wanted me to rewrite it with his help. Which I think says something right there. 

After it was rewritten, we talked to several directors he got interested in it, who wanted to make it as a film. But either we didn’t really click with one another, or I simply didn’t like their "take" on the spirit of the movie, and it didn’t happen. Because I wouldn’t go forward. We had three chances to make it into a film that I turned down. Because no one seemed to catch onto what the film is really about or who the protagonist was/is. He wasn't just some teenage boy with raging sex hormones. As one true crime podcast put it ("Scene of the Crime"), he was incredibly knowledgeable for his age and time, a quite disciplined young man, with ADHD, who was quite ethical, and had since childhood had a strong sense of character and of right and wrong. Things that had gotten him into trouble at times. 

He had found the works of Aristotle in the local library, in fifth grade and read him. In the early 60s as a little kid, he had liked watching adult detective and court ("Perry Mason") TV shows, and espionage shows. Some he watched with his grandmother. While he watched kids shows too, these were not shows other kids watched. Anyway, overall this a very good story. I just hope before I die, or even after I die, that somebody makes it into a good (great?) movie. 

Ah, now I remember what that London producer had said about this story… It reminded him of the film, "The Place Beyond the Pines" (2012). Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling. A gritty crime drama. And that is what "The Teenage Bodyguard" is.

THAT is what I have been shooting for. More of a serious drama. But everyone wants to turn it into a teen romp or some bullshit. I don’t understand it. The screenplay starts with a few scenes that lead into the protagonists childhood in order to make his story/character all more believable/acceptable. It stresses ta bit on his family situation. He was perhaps immature emotionally, but in other ways much more of an adult than many adults. 

By the time he was 18 he'd done many things that some adult would never do over their entire lifetime. He was a trained marksman by 9th grade. He was military trained in the USAF auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol with search and rescue training, where in his squadron, he was a Flight Commander training other cadets in drill and discipline. CAP kids can get called out of school for search and rescue missions, whenever a small plane goes down, to search for it.

When he actually entered the US Air Force, he was made primary squad leader which the entire flight of 50 men take their lead in marching from. Granted, at over 6' the tallest also goes to the front right for reasons that should be obvious.

He had his Radio-Telephone Operators permit in 8th grade in 1968, in order to operate HAM radio and that same year he flew and landed his first airplane. He landed it with a 2-point landing, which the USAF pilot owner of the plane (a "Senior" in CAP) said was excellent. "Better than some pilots would do", he had said. That scene is in the screenplay. He took pilot ground school, twice that year. He had begun Isshinryu Okinawan Karate in fifth grade and fought tournaments around the Pacific Northwest. 

By time he got connected up with that waitress (through a "friend", or so he thought...), he might well have been the most adept teen in the entire region, if not one of the most adept and well trained on the entire West Coast. 

Tell me that isn’t all set up for one hell of a story!

I’ve not named that Hollywood producer who I had worked with, because we’re not actively working together now. However, he did said should I find a buyer on my own, he would definitely be interested in  being a producer on it. He also said he’s always looking for somebody for this project. 

He's a really busy guy, working on more active projects. He saw this film as a small indie feature. I see it as a little bit bigger indie project (again, "The Place Beyond the Pine"). So we’ve kind of parted ways, but on good terms and may still work together one day. I will say, at the time I worked with him, the last A-list actor/producer he had worked with, has been one of my performing arts "heroes" since childhood. Not to mention, his father. Who, when I was very young, with my own birth father absent, was one of my "TV/movie dads". I've spoken to other guys over the years, who knew exactly what that means, and who also had absent fathers.

By the way, interesting side note… That A-list Hollywood actor producer, whose dad I so admired in the early 1960s, up until he died too soon (but at an advanced age)… that dad of my producer had been discovered by a famous Director, back in the 49? Or so he said. 

After receiving my second-degree from Western Washington University (first from Pierce College), I attended a series of seminars with that famous director. I got to sit and listen to him Saturday after Saturday, about the most amazing tales and advice on film production and the golden age of Hollywood, about his career and the famous actors he had worked with. What I would do to have a video tape of those lectures. Or even an audio recording of it. I’d have done that, recorded it, but it would’ve been too obvious back then. I started that first day seminar to take a notes, but I just gave up because of the onslaught of what he was saying, story after story all that were so amazing and distracting. He moved up north here to the PNW to retire near his daughter who lived up here. Best seminars ever. Week after week of looking forward to Saturday Kramer seminars, in 1984, at Bellevue Community College.

The problem I feared I had with this screenplay, this story, this protagonist, this real person, was getting people to find his character and actions, believable. Just throw him into situations with no backstory seems artificial. It's hard to buy into. People might see it as fantasy. How is this kid able to do all this stuff? Or have the "guts" to even agree to do it? Some is just ignorance. Some is boredom in life. Some was his position in his sometimes troubled nuclear family. Some was his position in his dojo in grade school or his  position as Flight Commander in his CAP Squadron and his first responder training.

Nowadays we can maybe see that in a youth. We see too many films that really are fantasies, but sold to us as action adventure, sci-fi, whatever. I think about the protagonist in "The Teenage Bodyguard" in that he just had a solid foundation. He had a lot of training. He sweat and worked hard since childhood. He was a "dojo rat" from fifth grade, which means he was at his dojo 7 days a week, and even when the dojo wasn’t open sometimes, on Sundays. If he heard the Sensei was going to show up to do some paperwork on Sundays, he’d request showing up alone and working out. And begrudgingly, at first, it was granted. So after mass at St. Joe's Slovak Catholic Church, he'd take the bus to the dojo.

The point of all this? "The Teenage Bodyguard" is a very interesting, well researched, true crime biopic. It just need the right director who gets the story for what it is. One of these days...

Walkabout Thoughts #42

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…from day of Thursday, June 15, 2023. 

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July! I'll be talking about my screenplay, "The Teenage Bodyguard" and wishing ALL a happy Fourth!

Weather for the day… 52 and overcast and 62 when I finished my 5 mile walk.

Podcast for the day...first up, "The Intercepted", then, Pod Save The World


So it appears the Russians did blow up the Ukrainian dam. And they’re shooting people trying to escape the disaster. Strikes me that if I were Ukrainian, I would plot to blow up a Russian dam and make it look like the Russians blew up their own damn dam. As a false flag operation. But all this tragedy needs to start up within the Russian borders and seem to be done by the Russian government. 

Make it happen? Somebody just stop this stupid war?

For people, wondering if and what Russia would do to escalate things if they’re not winning… Which they’re... not winning… Blowing up a dam and harming their own people along with Ukrainians seems a pretty good indicator of the war crimes they are willing to commit. So it’s not just tactical nuclear weapons to worry about. What do you do when you have a nation state acting out so badly? It seems there’s got to be more we can do and then part of that would be getting those who are aiding and abetting in Russia, in anyway whatsoever possible, to change their minds and wake them up to realize there’s more to life than simply profiting for your own country. Or of your own bank account as it seems to be.

Sadly, on that, America really needs to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. We’ve made some bad decisions in the past decade because, you know... "America first! Baby!" Obviously, we need to protect America in the, "put your oxygen mask on first, in order to help others on an airplane", when under duress. We also have to see a parallel in our humanity as also being important.

Generally speaking, the American soldier and citizen is important to our government. Because we have high self-esteem, I suppose. But in Russia, the Russian soldier and citizen are pawns and mere cannon fodder for, if not the government, certainly for Vladimir Putin. Who with his past, if you haven’t heard, in being born around the time of the siege of Stalingrad, he should know better. He should have some compassion for his own people, instead of just an ideology and consideration for the greatness of mother Russia and "Papa Vlad".

Robert F Kennedy, Jr’s contention that America is responsible for Russia invading Ukraine is ludicrous. Putin did this. This is on Putin, and his personality disorder. It’s on the books. He read history books during Covid when he was in lockdown, by himself. He's going against his own childhood experiences. This is why ideology and religion along with absolute power in a leader, are so very, very dangerous.

One could argue that binary thinking, especially if closed off with a lack of real historical context and world issues is responsible for much of this immature libertarian, anti-woke, anti-government nonsense. People think this "push button" culture concept of a revolution in their romantic notion of "instant change", is how you fix things. First off, things aren’t as broken as they think, in the ways they think. Second, things are broken in ways they don’t think they are. Prime example is that they’re part of what’s broken. God, I’ve said this to the point that I’m sick of saying it… Children, CHILDREN break things to fix them. Adults do the hard work, take the effort to fix what there is. To proactively enhance things and better things over time BEFORE they break. But what we’ve seen with the Republican Party is they do everything they can to break things. Then turn around and point the finger away from themselves and say you did this and this is how we fix it… By destroying it completely and building from scratch. That is the mindset steeped in the present with no concept of history or awareness of how that relates to now with no concept of how that relates to our future. It is a weaponizing disregard and selective ignorance, which is the epitome of sheer stupidity and narcissism. Which makes it clear how Trump is such a darling of those types.

I just saw a sign saying "class of 2023 Bremerton". It's been 50 years since I graduated in 1973 from high school. In many ways I feel like the same person, just wiser with a lot more life scars. It occurred to me if we could just go back in time and inject some of our knowledge into our younger selves, maybe at different stages in a little bit at a time, maybe at five, just a little bit. Then, like every five years. How far humanity could advance? How much better everyone’s lives could be. Not about foresight in a window into what's coming. But some of that which you learned from those things that happened in order to make better choices and to enjoy life more. To perhaps have more of life to enjoy.

Pod Save the World episode is talking about countries in the heart of Africa after years of drought. One country where there’s two warlords fighting it out who could use some UN peacekeeper types. Which are disallowed because of the chaos and violence still going on. One wonders if actual soldiers went in from many countries and overwhelmed that country and killed anyone who is fighting until there’s just those who want peace left. Ludicrous? I’m sure. But at what point in our history, if we did that consistently, would humanity have eventually given up their violent ways?

North Korean hackers in the past few years have stolen $3 billion in cryptocurrency and are using it to fund their nuclear program. It started in 2018. Apparently NK has workers around the world who will apply to cryptocurrency companies to work on their software and then apply back doors left open to be used from elsewhere at some point in the future. Companies are scrambling to counter that effort. Apparently NK has shifted from espionage to theft. I suspect this might be a good argument for using a hardware wallet for the bulk of your crypto investments. NK's the next step forward in this? AI.

A couple of weeks ago my adult son asked if my calling for capital punishment for Donald Trump for his crimes, which isn’t on the table, if that’s showing a pattern. Am I headed that way more than before, in saying that perhaps too loosely about people? Which, if you know me, is ridiculous and he should know better. But he’s just being careful and pointing it out because he wondered about it. And that’s good, better to speak than be quiet on these things. So thanks. But the only other time I remember calling for that in the past was Pres. George W. Bush with his Iraq war. I think that was war crimes. I think he had people set him up with plausible deniability. According to things I read from people who knew of those things, Bush did a “force" on our Intel community in order to get enough information to be able to go to war in Iraq. Something which he had long wanted to do, finishing up what his father had begun over the Iraq/Kuwait issue. What he long hoped to do. Perhaps planned to do long before he became president. Yes, "Sadman Insane", was a bad guy. But he was right in saying "if you remove me...chaos". And that’s what happened. Yes, he had to go. No, war was not the best way. But a week or so after 9/11 hit, I remember telling people that I’m worried. Because America has been hurt, on American soil. That’s never happened before, except when we did it to ourselves in the Civil War. We'll have to lash out, we'll have to punch somebody in the face. My concern at the time was that it was going to end up being someone inappropriate. We rightly immediately entered Afghanistan to go after bin Laden, who had attacked us. But just before we got him we were pulled back and allowed him to enter Pakistan. Functionally speaking, that’s what happened. And then we attacked Iraq! Queue the Iraq War.

Why am I so against Donald Trump, his MAGA crowd of sycophants and worshipers, QAnon, and conspiracy theories? My conspiracy theory awareness goes back to 1973 after I graduated high school. I read a book by the general who ran the Vietnam War. Interesting book, until he just dove straight into conspiracy bullshit. It was a shock. But rather than going down conspiracy rabbit holes that he was preaching, I did what I usually do. I delved right into studying conspiracy theories themselves. If everyone in America had done that? Donald Trump would’ve never become president. At that time, when I was 17, I was very oriented towards going into espionage work. I ended up in the Air Force, and eventually joined their version of the FBI, the OSI, The Office of Special Investigations. Then rather than go to Berlin, I left the service. I was going to be stationed and had asked to be stationed in Berlin, because it was the most dangerous place in the world, of OSI Officers. But you could learn the most about espionage tradecraft there, I was told by the OSI CO who interviewed me. I would’ve replaced the agent who had been blown up getting into his car one day...by the KGB. I would’ve undoubtedly ended up coming in contact with Vladimir Putin, a mediocre KGB agent at that time. I would not have been mediocre. But instead, I got out of the service and ended up at a University. Then another. But I spent two decades studying the Soviet Union and their KGB in their expert efforts in ESPIONAGE and OBSTRUCTION JUSTICE. As well as UK’s intelligence services starting around 1900 through World War II when they were teaching America about espionage through among other things, the "ABC Group", of America, Britain and Canada. Look it up. I read about our OSS and its evolution into the CIA. So it turned out that I’d been studying KGB tactics and disinformation for decades before Newt Gingrich picked up on it and started following their playbook of disinformation. Which led into the autocratic playbook and Donald Trump becoming president and eventually, today’s Republican spawned mess. So that a third of America has been overtly propagandized and delusioned into sheer an utter nonsense. I mean, how else did Donald Trump ever become elected POTUS?

Why do I listen to "Pod Save the World" podcast? Things like what they said in this episode today. The two of them are talking, remember that G7, (or was it a G8) meeting they had to fly to and were getting drunk one night with a bunch of Brits. They had a meeting the next morning they had to fly to and it turns out it wasn’t that G7, but it was a later G8 or something… But then they realized they were partying with a bunch of British MI5 or MI6 officers. Then the next day they had to sit in a meeting with Medvedev and Sergey Lavrov and others, and they were hung over too! At one point one of them looked over at Lavrov and said there he was sitting in "his shame and hangover, and I realized... he looks just like I do, the Russians must’ve been up late drinking too!" That stuff is gold!

Dear America, we have ways of changing our government and voting and protesting, and we have a free and fair, or “Free Press“ anyway. Even as much as Donald Trump wants to kill all that for his own selfish autocratic political fetishes and desires. Or an armed insurrection when necessary. But no, let's not. Not when you’ve been lied to, disinformed and propagandized for the desires of our enemies, via a Republican Party that’s lost its fucking mind by way of a populist, narcissistic cult, leader, and mob boss. We all want things to change instantly. But here’s an actual truth, and not one from Trump's disinformation “truth social faux social media platform". When you change things too quickly, even if you get exactly what you want, since everything is intertwined to everything else in government, and in our population and in our international relations... The reason government moves like a "lumbering giant" is for good reason. Move too fast, you can break the "babies neck". The issue is we that move too slow for some who see it as never moving. Because they’ve been pumped so full of rage they think nothing ever changes. And then when things change, for the betterment and evolution of our citizens and government, and so our country at large... but when you've been raised and propagandized to be freaked out about other citizens being different than you, be they having gender differences, or cultural ones as immigrants, you’re allowing yourself to be set up to be the "ugly American", within our borders. Look it up. "Ugly American", the model GOP citizen, certainly the model MAGA citizen. Embarrassing to America, internationally.

On Saudi Arabia in all that mess. Here’s the thing about so many countries like that. It’s so much the government. Our governments are different than our citizens, MAGA not withstanding, perhaps. I heard a Saudi woman talking a couple nights ago and she had a good point. She said, "We want to be in the world! But what's stopping us is our government and our leadership in our form of government. Shouldn't we want women’s women’s rights? Things are changing with this leader who everyone calls a murderer. And valid point. But what about the citizens?" Isn’t that the issue with so many other countries? The only exception maybe is North Korea as they are so brainwashed after generations that, that is a real problem. Russia too. So severely (though not as severe as NK) propagandized. But they’re waking up, just too slowly. We want countries to come out to the world to be world citizens. As Nixon did with China in the 70s. Which worked. Those who say bringing democracy to China failed in that effort? They have no consideration of how much it worked, yes somewhat in that, but also in other ways. He mostly took them off the platform Russia's on still today, still locked in their (Putin's) Cold War mentality. So if we had times have to forgive abuses for the evolution of a country to become a world citizen, maybe that’s what we need to do? I’m not referring to Russian here at all. When you disrespect another country's borders, you’re NOT being a world citizen. You’re being a bad actor, a war criminal. But these are indeed things to think about. International relations is extremely complicated. So much so that people far smarter than you are I, even have trouble thinking about it and working it out. Even with their groups of experts and professionals, and extremely well educated and knowledgeable professionals who’ve done the work for decades. And the best of plans will always go wrong and then you work them, massage them into fruition and production. As they say, "the plan is 100% perfect until it’s executed. So we need a little compassion and understanding and...wherewithal (the painful part). Our government and government workers are not perfect, but just people. Most of them are doing their very best and are very good at their job, or they wouldn’t be there. The problem is navigating, as it is with companies, international departments, and international rules and regs. Petty kingdoms within some of those departments. Progress being contingent upon such fools within those departments. As we’ve also seen with seditionist types who, when their favored despot raises his head, they will lean in his direction. This is a failure of our American priorities, and our education.

Interesting how the same day that Donald Trump gave a talk a while back, when Boris Johnson was UK PM, Trump used the term "Kangaroo Court" about somebody who was bugging him, and then later that same day, Boris used the same exact term. Not like he was mimicking Trump. But quite a coincidence, yes?

Here’s the thing about mottos. A good idea can be turned into a nightmare. "E Pluribus Unum" was Americas motto and in my book, still is. Changing it because of the fear of communism decades ago in the 1950s to "in God, we trust", was not only foolhardy, it was insipidly stupid. It’s also proving to be abusive and being weaponizing, in recent years and before. "Out of many, one"... "E Pluribus Unum"… That long worked well for us and we seriously need to get back to it. Because religion, especially Christianity, especially American evangelical Christianity, has been weaponized against the US Constitution and our United States of America and citizens. It’s opened the autocratic bigot door for so much fucking abuse, we really can’t even count it. Women are losing their rights. They don’t have autonomy over their body in some states anymore. Which is a ramp that will only allow more to come. Divisive conservatives stack our courts. Deliberately gerrymandered and suppressed votes from specific minorities in order to swing elections and to implement illiberal and abusively idiotic laws. They’ve changed the meaning of things like "patriotism" and "freedom". They apparently hate and are working to destroy our democracy for wont of autocracy and theocracy. And that’s not America. It’s just not American. And no one should want it to be.

Did you know that not just Donald Trump wants to be POTUS again, but Boris Johnson in the UK wants to be PM again? ARE adults that stupid?

What we are seeing both in the UK and in America with conservatives with this delusional nonsense of supporting obvious criminals, here, specifically in the form of Donald Trump. I started warning about this when I graduated university back in 1984. I started in talking to people about the dangers of “corporate thought“. It’s a closed minded concept of winning at all possible costs. "Full speed ahead damn the torpedoes!" Shareholders in the company, over concerns of the employees, or citizens, or the environment. It's why we've seen so much damages done by corporations worldwide. Pairing that with the travesty we’ve received into our institutions, bring evangelism into it which evolved out of the south Christian community and has led to many leadership with too many charlatans and grifters who built and led Mega Churches. Some of them going to prison. Those are powerful things to combine. And it’s exactly what we’re seeing when we watch people support people like Boris Johnson, or Donald Trump, or Erdogan in Turkey. One has to wonder how and why would people support such clowns. Well, there’s your answer. 

It’s a toxic social disease. And it got in through ways that were not obvious. When I first stumbled across this in my university days, I started to see this thing forming in my mind. The more I looked around the world, the more I thought about it and worried that it might evolve from where things were back in the early 80s. And evolve it has, beyond my worst nightmares. Until now it’s nearly torn this country apart. It could do so again, or finish the job next time if we don’t do something about it. The biggest thing we can do is to become aware. That’s all people like BLM wanted when they talked about being “woke“. Just know our/your history, know your/our place in the world. Experience compassion and work toward the best of the whole group and not just your specific and for some, greedy desires. Sometimes we have to suffer for others. It’s part of being in a family, the human family, or in a country, part of a species. Yes you have to survive, but when you’re surviving and doing better, when you’re living a life and other’s are hurt and, I’m not talking communism, or socialism here... because that’s where the "toxic" conservative mind goes immediately. out of a desire to "win" the argument, the debate, in order to continue their greed and lack of empathy. It's "Corporate Thought". It's shallow thinking. It's low information. It's dumb.All  I’m just talking about doing here is our fair share, our part to pay our fair share. Yes, most of us are. But many aren't and fight hard not to. The GOP is there to protect and enhance their lack of paying their fair share. They define that fair share as far less than is reasonable and disingenuously define that in ways of "Corporate Thought". And we can’t even get Republicans to make those who have more money than we can EVEN conceive of to give their decent and fair share to our country and the people who laid the foundation for them to be that wealthy. It is disgusting. It is anti-human and it is "Corporate Thought" at its worst, and strongest. We can do better. If not always, at least to a fair and reasonable degree.

That being said...

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Throughts #41

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…from Tuesday, June 13, 2023.

Weather for the day… 58 and overcast and although I can’t see it, I can feel I’m walking through a very sparse mist. It has 20 or so percent chance of rain in the afternoon so I’m hoping I don’t get rained on and want to finish 5 miles today like I did two days ago.

Podcast for the day podcast “Pod Save America“ episode, "Re-Indicted And It Feels So Good (with Hillary Clinton!)".

Interesting about January 6 in the 1930s in France, today known as "January 6" as it is here in America now, because of a similar occurrence. Interesting how damaging binary thinking is. It forces non-gender specific people painfully into a mold they don’t fit. It leads to religious abuses. It leads to, as we see today, toxic conservatism and overtaking of the Republican Party by whatever group is able to subvert it. The Tea Party, MAGA, whatever the hell they've got available in some whiny autocratic abusive cruel criminal. As we all know this time, it’s Donald Trump. 

I’m not saying we need to dive into absolute non-binary thinking. Myself I am a confusing mixture of ideologies founded in the concept of right and wrong, but as a guideline only. As heterosexual, cisgendered, somewhat old-fashioned in many ways in my fundamentals. I was raised out of the 1950s and having moved to autocratic Franco, Spain in 1958 with a stop from Tacoma in Philadelphia where the bulk of our family lived. Perhaps also being born ADHD with a mother who had a very interesting character herself, but very accepting of others. I've tried all my life to see outside of standard, black and white, binary thinking. Some of that came from my solid foundation in my nuclear family being repeatedly broken up in various ways, moving at three years of age to another country, which alone was interesting I suppose. 

After a couple of years with our family in Philadelphia, in 1960 we traveled back to where I was born in Tacoma, Washington with our mom’s new husband (whom at 4, I begged not to marry), with a new baby. Have you ever been introduced to the marvels of a modern city and then taken back a backward town and told this is your new (old) home (again)? That was Tacoma, Washington, in 1960. The Seattle Worlds Fair in 1963 was a saving grace.

Before we moved back to Tacoma in Philadelphia, mom and her new guy took my sister and I to see a museum. We actually walked through the giant heart and saw an exhibition where you could literally get into a rig and feel like you’re walking on the moon, with a moonscape as background. Then we move to  Tacoma and we go to the town museum. It had various standalone wood and glass displays around an empty wooden room. To me at the time, at 5, it was horrific. 

I learned (and acquired) my mom’s love of vampire movies in the late 50s when I entered the world of horror, films, and science-fiction via late night movies on TV when I woke up one night and watched a film with her in her room (alone, no new husband yet). Later in Tacoma, as soon as I could get someone to teach me to read, so I could read the Sunday newspaper comic section to myself without having to wait for everyone else to read the newspaper first… I dove into learning to read better as fast as I could. Eventually, in my grandmother reading me sci fi fiction novels, I got into reading some of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time. 

These were mostly men who presented advanced concepts, not well established in the human society of  America in the 1950s or 60s. But they also did their best to explore the world and the potential universe at large taking us beyond our petty beliefs and mores. Offering us insight through alien encounters, and venturing into other dimensions. As a parent. when my youngest declared they were gay and then trans, through difficult and at times scary, high school years, these were all things not in my experience as a kid, or an adult. 

As miserable as my childhood could be at times with a stepfather who really didn’t like me much, and could be a scary SOB, I refused ever to even think about suicide. Self harm? Just never came to mind. And I never knew anyone who did that as a kid. I never heard about it until a couple of decades ago. Though I have to say, one of my kids did point out I seemed to have had suicidal tendencies growing up. However, I pointed out back to them that what I did back then in my risk seeking behaviors, was to do it professionally. 

An adult once told me when I was a child, when I said I was scared of going in our basement… "Face your fears or you will forever be running from them". Well, I wasn’t gonna put up with that! So I faced my fears, which eventually led to thrill seeking behaviors. Or “dangerous behaviors“ as some saw them. But I also saw it, as my grandmother taught both my mother and I, to find the best and most professional teachers and instructors you can to learn from. 

So I learned from some of the best. My risks were calculated and thought out, while others may have seen them as, dangerous behaviors. I don’t see how that’s being “suicidal“. While to the outsiders, it may have appeared suicidal. This has a parallel to our non-binary thinkers today. I was different because of ADHD. As in my failing math in grade school. I could calculate math in my head, but I couldn’t do it on paper. So we in our binary, cookie cutter, 18th or 19th century, anachronistic, factory oriented school system to feed industry, I was told I had to show my work. They couldn’t correct my math if I didn’t show it. If you don’t show your work, you can’t see where your mistakes are. 

That’s great and everything. But it caused me great misery over a long time. I have to wonder, had they not thought in a binary fashion, had they taken what I had intrinsically and built upon those skills, what could I have done in my head and would I have succeeded in math/ Rather than failing math all through K through 12? Recently, I read in my DNA analysis that I have exceptional mathematical skills. If that’s true, then they were squashed as a child. Because I couldn’t do in it the way other kids did. I thought, differently...and that was "wrong". Why?

But they needed me to be the same as everyone else. Back in the 60s, the deficient or seemingly deficient, and the exceptional, had to bring themselves into the center of their class as an average to make it through that cookie cutter style of education. It happens when you don't have enough money in a school system to deal with all involved and that was the model and today still is in many ways, in many places and from how many thing. It's very American Republican. 

I learned recently through Temple Grandin in a talk she gave recently that in my spectrum of autism being ADHD, I’m a visual thinker. Which I actually tried to explain to others when I was younger, but it made no sense to anyone. She said in her talk that when you’re like that, you’re a bottom/up thinker and you need a lot of information up front. Which is exactly what I’ve seen. When I would share that with others, I would typically lose them. 

So yeah back around to the beginning… I get what non-binary thinkers are saying, in many ways. I understand where the LGBTQ+ people are coming from. I was long an advocate of alternate lifestyles, at least for a heterosexual cisgendered orientation, my orientation. Well, I don’t understand many of their provocations and insistence on being overly focused in sexuality, eroticism and performance but it's a choice, to be sure. The older I get, the less I find that interesting or fascinating. 

Though I get what They're doing, pushing back against the tidle wave of everything against him. And they’re doing everything they can to explore and exemplify their differences. Doesn’t mean anyone needs to hate them, doesn’t mean anyone needs to pass thousands of anti-trans bills, some of which can kill them. Or the tide of ignorance that literally has killed them and still does. Or in not even thinking outside the box just allowing women to have their rights over their own bodies, rather than oppression if not death, in anti-abortion laws. Taking something fundamental to females and skewing that into abuse through religious, nonsense, which we should’ve matured through hundreds if not thousands of years ago, is ridiculous. And many of them know that, but they do this for power and political purposes, disregarding our citizens and their rights.

If you wonder why non-binary people can be so extremist or hypersensitive? Let me kick you hard any place you prefer and then let me kick you repeatedly until you can’t take it anymore, then let me walk away and sneak up on you and kick you there again, and see then if your version, your reaction, isn’t extremist and hypersensitive. That’s what we're seeing with these people, these non-binary thinkers, these LGBTQ+ people, who go through this abuse every day of their life, making them ever wary and more frightened, literally because their friends have been beaten to death. It all becomes much more understandable under those considerations, doesn’t it?

So while I don’t live their orientation, I don’t get all of their world? I get my own, and there's room for others in it. Since childhood, I have not just tried to think outside the box as they say, but wonder why we’re thinking in or around a box in the first place? I never saw that a glass is half full or half empty. Rather completely full and always, unless it’s out in space somewhere, in a cold vacuum. In which case it’s half full of frozen water and half full of a vacuum. (I should say here, as some don't get this concept, the original question is, "is the half glass of water half full or half empty?", which is another question altogether but people take advantage of being asked the question incorrectly, so... what I'm saying here is relevant)

But, can you see where I’m going here? One could argue that’s non-binary, but in our binary thinking society, it’s non-binary to them. And that’s the point. Much of non-binary thinking really is binary. You just have to be seeing it through the filter or a paradigm, that isn’t anachronistic and preferred by the majority.

Wow, if that wasn’t a brain dump…

From the new Rachel Maddow, MSNBC data and news podcast talking about the French, January 6, 1934. Apparently flyers went out that said things like "you should show up it will be “wild“." Echoing from our past with Donald Trump's, January 6 insurrection, and today with his indictment of the tweets that went out saying to "show up and be wild!" Seriously. Fuck these people and their corrupt idea of America and their anti-democracy ideology, fetishizing violence, autocracy and theocracy. Those are in no way, American. But they are indeed, concepts of our enemies. Both foreign AND domestic.

We have thought since our reason for creating this country in the first place, and in seeking independence, and fighting a war, and breaking away from what was once our great Britain...then fighting a Civil War for similar reasons, against an oppressive south (who saw the north as oppressive), whose entire economy was built on slave labor. To be fair, the south saw the north as oppressor as they wanted to change the status quo. While the north was evolving into the understanding that slavery was indeed, bullshit. Things needed to change. We were America. Past time to act like it.

Slave labor, which the country profited from, but finally through grassroots efforts, people started to see how slavery didn’t fit what we saw as our country based on our US constitution and our civil rights, granted by God? An anachronistic concept that was used since the birth of humankind, in order to wrest power from unruly groups, to establish some kind of order, so as to allow for evolution in farming and cities and  society. Why would we now be going against all that for a populous belief in a politically fetishized desire for one narcissistic criminal, from a damaged (Trump) family, whose patriarch (Fred) once worked with Hitler?

Understand, these "Walkabout Thoughts" blogs are done through voice to text, as I walk, fighting off long Covid, while listening to podcasts and just ruminating about things they’re talking about and, things in my life. Some things from my past and some about my creative endeavors. Do not in anyway think though, that what's contained in these blogs are in any way indicative of the quality or substance of my other non-fiction, fiction, or any of my professional works. These random stream of consciousness, are my sharing my thoughts with you, and not to be any kind of a academic, or well-formed or presented set of considerations. Easiest way to read them is to just zip on through them, maybe reread something if you don't get it right off, and then move onto the next item. 

If you can get by that, I think you’ll find some interesting things in these. Cheers!

From Rachel’s podcast: All my life I thought, probably because of old movies about the French WWII Vichy government in France, they they were a bunch of cowards who surrendered to the Nazis. Now I know better, because of this podcast, that it was a bunch of French wannabe Nazis before Nazis existed, who signed up with invading Germany to become that notorious Vichy government in France. Which might explain the strength and endurance of the French Resistance during that time. How would we feel if Trump’s MAGA took over and turned us into their Handmaid‘s Tale version of "Gilead" or Hitler’s Germany? I wouldn’t doubt we'd form a resistance, and eventually we'd end that nonsense?

This is cool. I mentioned in a previous blog that I put my latest non-fiction book, "Suffering. Long Covid" in a little free library that’s on the road that I walk here on my street. Last week somebody put a book out so you could see the face of the book from the street. A big bigger book about houses and remodeling or something. The next time I passed it, I put it away, replaced it with my book. Later on that walk, someone had already reset my book, side-by-side with the rest so you could only see the spine of the books. I thought, I’ll just put my book back out front. But then maybe that’s not cool? So I just left it. 

Today when I started my walk, I saw it still there. No one had picked it up yet. On starting my 3rd mile I noticed someone had pulled it out a little bit, which was what I had been thinking of doing. Not setting it out front, just pulling it out from the crowd a bit to make a little more noticeable. But somebody else did that. My feelings on that were that it either showed others had looked at, or had looked but not taken it. So, which is worse? Make it look like it’s repeatedly not being taken? Or make it more obvious than the others to be seen? 

I didn’t touch it, but left it pulled out a more noticeable by a couple inches than the others. So I’m good. Also, there’s some important new information about long Covid that’s recently come out that I was thinking of putting out in a second edition. Or leave it? Not sure yet. One could be doing this all the time and that's not really cool. But, maybe I will. I mean… they have discovered that Covid makes nerve cells conjoin, which might explain things like a loss of smell. Until the brain pathway/route is replaced to go around that or that they are somehow re-separated, which is something else they’re working on being able to do. Pretty important as information. And a little terrifying.

On January 6… It’s interesting to note in 2021 that there were journalists in France who were gearing up to report on the reoccurring 1934 French January 6 insurrection date and celebration, when suddenly in America... our nonsense happened. When they noticed what was going on in America lit completely blew the French version out of the water, as far as news to be covered at that time. Sad, but interesting.

Just to add a caveat to all my blogs going back to about 2010 and now at around 1500 of them so far, I’m always saying what I believe in. Frequently, I’m saying what I believed in all my life and applying it to current issues today and insights about today or pointing out growth I have made intellectually or emotionally. But I’m also a writer. A nonfiction and fiction author. A screenwriter. And a filmmaker. With a university degree in psychology and phenomenology. And I understand communications. So while you may be able to pick apart some of my blogs to point out where I'm being problematic, I would argue that you may well be right. You may find I’ve changed my mind in later blogs. But also that I may be showing a window or a filter, or shading in somethings in such a way so as to communicate what I’m trying to get across to people. 

Especially when I know sometimes that it won’t get across and I have to frame something in a way that people will understand in order to see or accept, the rest of what I’m saying in the light of that, and maybe it will click in their minds in how I state it. But if you were to grill me about that, I might say that in my actual belief, I would say it a different way. I’m just pointing out that one should understand that what I’m publishing here is, communication. And no matter who does that, when you later question them? You’re going to get at least a slightly different insight into what they actually believe. Although I doubt it would change in substance, if they’re honest and have any kind of a craft in writing.

To be clear about the French national front movement, it is basically the dark ugly underbelly of French society, showing its diseased genitals to the world and yet... some praise them for that. Pretty much an exemplification of what we see with Donald Trump's MAGA in America.

More January 6 news about France in 1834... Between the fascists taking over in 1940 when the Nazis invaded France, those who were not fascist, all came together across the country and decided that this is just nuts! They started pushing back. Had Nazi Germany not invaded? Well, you get it. So the hope there is that with what we’ve seen here in America, we will go through the same kind of thing which... we’re already starting to see. Trump and MAGA are decreasing. Barring an invasion by a massive force like Nazi Germany against France in World War II, we may well just put this down and evolve beyond it. MAGA is an evolution into less than we are. That’s what autocracy is. It’s an ant hill society, and as power corrupts, absolute power in an autocracy, always eventually corrupts completely and utterly.

I’m on mile four now walking. I just switched podcasts as the Rachel podcast ended. Excellent podcast and I look forward to the next one about Florida and how they’ve seen this nonsense they’re going through, before. 

I’m switching now over to Pod Save America a show from last night which is a live version probably on stage and with an amazing guest cast, including Hillary Clinton. So I guess what this podcast episode is about? Trumps indictment today. So on this indictment, not the previous one he lost, or the next few coming up, he could either go to prison for the rest of his life for 100 years, which ever comes first, or become president. Or potentially be president within prison. What a country.

Jon Lovett on the podcast said he sides with Trump on one thing, that he’s more willing to go to prison than to clean out his closet.

About that one box at Mar-a-Lago, displayed out across the floor with at least one classified document visible, which in the photo they redacted a line on it indicating it’s important. One wonders who knocked it over? Agent of Trump? Would they have picked it up? Or agent of a foreign enemy? If they were caught or if they had to leave quickly and didn’t have time to fix it because they sure wouldn’t want to leave evidence and would only if they had to. So the possibility of agents of foreign enemies of America haven’t gotten in of their being there in having filmed at least some of the documents. This is so close a bet to have already been done that it's nearly at 100%. It’s almost not worth discussing or debating. I mean to disagree with Donald Trump‘s contention by so many of his supporters, some in Congress, who shouldn’t even be in Congress, the risk assessment of a foreign agent accessing these documents at Mar-a-Lago is so close to 100% that one might just as well just except it as having being done.

So if you remember, they did arrest one woman at Mar-a-Lago for trespassing. They checked her room and found basically spy equipment, your basic spy equipment. And as you know, it’s spies if you find evidence of one there’s more. And if you find evidence of an attempt you have to except out of operational procedures that somebody got in and got what they were looking for. As for that woman’s accoutrements, they found nine jump drives, a Sim card, etc., I mean, come on. From the article:

"When she was picked up at Mar-a-Lago, Zhang was carrying four cellphones, a laptop, an external hard drive and a thumb drive later found to carry malware. In her hotel room, investigators found nine USB drives, five SIM cards and a “signal detector” device, which could possibly be used to detect hidden cameras."

According to John Brennan, the CIA assessment may never be concluded about the danger of these documents at Mar-a-Lago. Because the only way to prove it was compromised (other than to just accept it must have been, Occam's Razor...) is to have someone tell what happened. Which could happen with an eventual agent/defector, etc. It’s happened before. The only time someone takes a physical document is if they can’t make a copy. And if these were originals that Trump had box after box after box of, there is your person that couldn’t make copies and just took the originals. There is your national traitor. There is the crime. There is the damage to America and our agents across the world. We have to wonder of those who have died since Trump left office, how many deaths are on his head? And how many on our head? And on our government's excuses for a criminal former POTUS, offering him the respect only a POTUS deserves. But he was never a real and actual POTUS in understanding that title and procedures he refused to follow like a petulant child. He was in essence, a foreign agent of industrial espionage.

Jon Lovett has a good point for those who think Donald Trump has evidence of extraterrestrials. No he doesn’t. Because if he did, he would’ve tweeted it out or told everyone even if he was warned that he might destroy the planet.

Totally off-topic… You know psychics always seem to be reborn from someone famous or a famous person speaks through them, or they were once a Napoleon, or something? I did my family tree years ago on ancestry.com and believe it or not, it was traced back to a once king of England, which in a way, is that so unusual over this much time? As a kid, I felt there was something weird about my life and that would explain it. When I got my DNA done by them and another group, the new lab (CRI Genetics) had some very interesting things to say on that, regarding my mtDNA Haplogroup (Mother Lineage) which linked me to some very interesting people. Who? 

Ötzi the Iceman, Mike Nichols, Craig Venter, Meryl Streep, Katie Couric, Stephen Colbert, Harry Connick Jr., Maggie & Jake Gyllenhaal, Ramesses III, Nelson Mandela, Sir David Attenborough, Lyndon strong. Johnson, Caravaggio, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Napoleon Bonaparte (I know, I KNOW!), The
Wright Brothers, William Harvey, Albert Einstein, Steven Pinker, Nicolas Cage, Larry Page, Zinedine Zidane.

Weird, right? Not to mention my lineage tracing led back to Alfred the Great (848/849 – 26 October 899). Good grief.

Jon Lovett has a good point on the podcast, don’t bother talking to any MAGA friends and family you have about this stuff. Talk to those who are MAGA curious or somehow on the fence about it. And obviously reinforce the support for those who believe in reality and democracy. Oh yeah, and that other thing what is it? Oh yeah, the rule of law.

Wow, a newer Chevy Impala just drove by me. Looks a little different than my first car in 1972, a 1967 Impala.

OK! I am at mile 4.5. That means I’ve done 10 miles this week so, far walking. I think I can say that without finishing the last half a mile yet because I still have to walk home and it’s actually after this last, half a mile, then another 2/10 of a mile from the stop sign down to my house :-)

Oh, so Pod Save America is in New York, because they say they’re bringing out "your attorney general Tish James", now. To thunderous applause! She takes Trump to trial on October 2, 2023 in New York.

What’s so funny about Trump's defense of his crimes is they’re all based on lies and ad homonyms. While those prosecuting him are basing their indictments on facts and evidence. Gee, I wonder who has a better chance of winning in an actual court?

MAGA lone wolves are no longer 100% Lonewolves, nor have they ever really been, when they’re being inflamed by lies and propaganda online and in media. But now there’s also unconstitutional private militias involved with their own lies and propaganda, and in some cases, even equipping people.

Wow, that's enough for this time...

Cheers! Sláinte!