What Happened This Saturday Afternoon!

I submitted "No Ordinary Word" to the  Bethlehem Writers Group, and "Best of Intentions" to At Length.

Allegedly about Raymond Chander, but this documentary has a lot of Hammett material, too.

I rewrote the opening to "Best of Attentions" with this documentary going on in the background. Archeology still interests me, and the Minoans have intrigued me since I was young. I think the documentary does its job very well.

After lunch, the dishes washed, I headed out to get smokes and a bottle of Coke. That took me up Wheeling Avenue. Getting the right buses, I was gone less than an hour. This scheduling thing is like working a puzzle, and on the weekends it is a bit tougher. I am getting where I do not like all the time lost.

Oh, boy, someone who thinks about the Democrats like I do: In praise of s—tty Democrats.

Pride. Admiration. Confidence. These are emotions that I have rarely, if ever, felt when it comes to the Democratic Party. To be a registered Democrat like me is to feel let down by your party on an everyday basis.

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...  I watched Democrats blow a gimme election to Donald Trump in 2016. I watched them sit by passively as Republicans loaded up the Supreme Court with corrupt scum who have wasted no time using the Constitution to ransack your daughter’s uterus.

I watched Dems consistently take good legislative ideas and rejigger them into $50 mail-in rebates. And I’ve watched them try to get crowds pumped up by playing “Fight Song.” I had no faith in any of these jackasses. Why would I? Why would ANYONE? Republicans don’t win elections because they have good ideas, but because Democrats love nothing more than turning the ball over on the goal line. No reason to think they’d have their s—t together this go-round. Four new, awful years of Trump lay dead ahead. These donkeys would never be able to stop it. 

Uh huh, and this guy lives in California. I wonder what he would think if he lived here, in Indiana. 

If you have heard of Tycho Brahe, then you know he was a fascinating character. One of those heroic early scientists. CNN published Surprising element found in traces of Tycho Brahe’s alchemy lab confounds scientists.

An hour's nap, I feel worse. The achy, spasming back, and the numb arms. I should get myself downtown to see the bands. I just do not feel like leaving the apartment, again.

I did not hear much of Mayall until I was in prison, but I sure knew who he was, and if you do not, then read: John Mayall was a lightning rod for the blues who changed the course of British music

I read some Trump supporters say he should not be taken seriously. Okay, so we should think of President Trump as a joker when he has the nuclear codes at hand? Seems they say not to take him seriously when he is talking about being a dictator. My response is to not take his MAGA apologists seriously and Trump seriously.  He has never been shy about his desire to hold naked power; everything about him screams his desire to be a ruler, not a governor. And now he is back to saying what he means to do to this country out loud and in public: Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’

“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more,” the Republican former president said on Friday night at a rally hosted in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the far-right advocacy group Turning Point Action.

Even scarier are the people who want this buffoon to have uncontrolled power. 

Okay, I saw J.D. Vance putting down America as an idea and shook my head at another moronic comment by another imbecilic MAGA Republican. Jessica Gavora has put me in my place with her J. D. Vance’s Insult to America.

“America is not just an idea,” Vance said in his introductory speech to the American people at the Republican National Convention. Americans won’t fight and sacrifice for “abstractions.” Shared history, he assured us, is what we care about. And shared dirt. He used the morbid image of a cemetery plot in Kentucky coal country, where generations of his family have been laid to rest. He expressed his desire for his children to one day bury him there and—carrying his morbidity to the extreme—for them to eventually follow him.

The notion that America is an idea has always lifted up our country, and for good reason. The fact that America was founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the governing limits of the Constitution makes us unique among nations. Most countries trace their origins to tribal identity. But America has its origins in the revolutionary idea that the government cannot deny men and women an equal opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Both our friends and foes have recognized this difference. No less than Joseph Stalin railed against American “exceptionalism” when our workers refused to join in solidarity with his murderous revolution of the proletariat.

Vance went out of his way to trash this exceptionalism, to say that America is not distinguished by its creed, no matter what Stalin thought. In the same speech, he acknowledged the contribution of immigrants like his wife’s parents, who came here from India. But in repudiating the American ideal, he insulted the reason immigrants come to America in the first place.

I keep thinking America, love it - or leave it. Another thought, more Vance specific, is what are Yale University grads getting for all they pay in tuition? I knew better about America when I graduated from Anderson Highland High School in 1978.

Finally, someone with better credentials than myself asks if Trump and his ilk are truly conservative, see Karyn Amira.S JD Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate marks the end of Republican conservatism.

...Everyday citizens define conservatism in different ways, but at its root it is a philosophy that supports smaller and less-centralized government because consolidated power could be used to silence political competition and deny citizens their liberties.

Call me an everyday citizen, I guess. She goes on to confirm my feeling that MAGA and Trump conserve no American ideals: 

These converted Trump allies still hold modern conservative stances on issues such as abortion and health care. But in seeking to become Trump’s running mate, they tacitly endorsed an executive’s attempt to overturn a democratic election and subvert the liberties of U.S. citizens. Such a shift violates the spirit of conservatism.

These politicians have also moved away from conservative principles in areas including U.S. foreign policy and immigration. But the fundamental shift that is most profound is in their attitudes toward abuse of government power.

 

 I am going downtown within the next 30 minutes.

sch 6:58