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Tag Archives: politics

as a matter of fax the fax machine is obsolete

as are landlines modems and landfills

the fax that factses are still used on the strete

is as ridiculous as handbills

but we need mo dems

and less (fewer) reprehensible repugs

and less (fewer) usses and more thems

less bullets from guns more flowerings on stems

more-er numerous features

fewer featureless bugs

more stoneless gems

no punches nor slugs

and we need kindness

less absent-of-minded willful blindness

axes that are grindless

and a banishment of notions of ugly mugs

and promotional love-potional eye-of-beholder

o p h t h a l m o l o g y

to put the Psyche in Psychology

to stamp Peace On Earth on the last page

of the obsolete non-digital

f o l d e r

..

p s less rage

  1. Don’t just baffle them with bullshit. BOMBARD them with bullshit. BURY them in bullshit.
  2. If they catch you cheating, call THEM cheats. If they catch you lying, call THEM liars. You can do this with absolute sincerity, even if they haven’t cheated or lied since childhood.
  3. Find dirt on them. Ask their enemies. Go to the ends of the earth. Go back to last century if you need to. If you don’t find anything heart-stopping enough, make something up.
  4. When talking about how horrible your opponent is, ask an outrageous question and then weasel out of slander with your answer. Example: “Wasn’t she the one behind the human-trafficking and pedophilia activity operated out of a pizzeria? –I dunno, you tell me.”
  5. Predict awful, catastrophic stuff that is sure to happen should your opponent get elected. Stock-market crashes and world wars are good places to start, but don’t stop there.
  6. Every time your incumbent has something bad happen during their term in office, tell the world that it never would have happened if you had been in office.
  7. Whenever good stuff happens during your incumbent opponent’s term in office, ignore it, or, better yet, belittle it, or, best of all, take credit for it
  8. Make up a disparaging, alliterative name for your opponent. Use it as often as you can, dragging it in by the heels if need be.
  9. When making a speech, interrupt yourself constantly, avoiding short sentences, or preferably any complete sentence at all. Gibberish, delivered with a theatrically singsong voice and odd repetitive gestures, can be hypnotic
  10. Behind the scenes, make shady deals with hostile foreign powers and business folk seeking either legality for criminality or Cabinet posts. Sell that legality, sell those posts, sell pardons, and sell yourself as if there were no tomorrow.
  11. Avoid the Milk of Human Kindness at all costs.

.

Long, long ago, Eric Knight, author of LASSIE COME-HOME, wrote a delightful story called “All Yankees Are Liars.” He began the story with this epigram:

You can always tell the English,

You can always tell the Dutch.

You can always tell a Yankee,

But you cannot tell him much.

What goes around comes around. Donald Trump, now President of the United States, is a chronic, unapologetic liar. His recent ploy to smear former president Barack Obama is a shameful attempt to direct attention away from the wrongdoings of some of his advisors, cabinet appointees, and, of course, himself.

My blog has been seen by people from at least 72 different countries. WordPress tells me I have more than 500 followers. So this goes out to all who see it, worldwide. Citizens of Earth, I and other Americans who are proud of what our country has stood for as represented in its Constitution, but are ashamed of what our country has  come to as embodied by our current President and his cohorts, want you to know that we wish, peacefully and legally, to set things aright by ousting this liar, this bad representative of our country.

Thank you for your attention.

 

 

My friend Suz Dykes took a break from Facebook because of the political nastiness–then came back today of all days. I promised her some light and/or fluffy and/or inspirational stuff. Hope you like this, Suz!

2016-11-09 16.32.07.jpg

boy and cat and dream

the boy has a cat on his shoulder

the cat has a dream in her head

the dream is of warmth to enfold her:

a boulder in sun as her bed.

the dream snaps as shut as a locket

the cat feels the boy stroke her fur

the boy has a treat in his pocket:

unsocketed catnip–she’ll purr.

pat2.jpg

“I fear for this country,” I told Isabelle, the French-Canadian lady who sat two chairs down from me while we watched the Los Angeles Dodgers shut out the Chicago Cubs on a TV screen at an English-style pub called The George & Dragon, where we had just met. “I fear for the world,” she replied.

We are fearful in large part because one of the candidates in this year’s Presidential election is Donald J. Trump, real estate mogul, demagogue, hate-monger, and misogynist. He attained prime candidacy through a take-no-prisoners campaign riddled with lies and extravagant, baseless promises. He has promised to forbid all Muslims from entering the United States. He wishes to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. He promises to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS, “collateral damage” or not. He viciously attacks his opponent Hillary Clinton, often by attacking her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

How can he get away with all of his lies and meanspiritedness? He exploits the sad fact that many of us have come to distrust the corruption at the core of Washington politics in general, and Ms. Clinton in particular. Many of us think Hillary Clinton is an even more despicable character than Trump. Many of us look at her erased e-mails; her lack of support for those left to die at Benghazi; her six-figure speaking fees tendered by Goldman Sachs; her war-hawk tendency that led her as a senator to vote in favor of the Iraq invasion; her championing of the rights-infringing Patriot Act; and then many of us then say anyone but her.  Consequently this election may be viewed as a no-win situation.

As for me, I have voted for Clinton, though I did not want to. My choice would have been Bernie Sanders, but Sanders has no chance to win. My vote is against Trump. He has proven to be a misogynistic, hate-mongering megalomaniac. His hypocrisy extends to the exploitation of Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, while his own checkered past has left plenty of circumstantial evidence of misconduct. But the main reason I am voting for Clinton is when I imagine the possible futures with President Trump, and then the possible futures with President Clinton, the latter seems to offer some hope of unity and healing, while the former seems much more dangerous, even apocalyptic.

The above political image is a vote against what Trump stands for. He is isolationist and at the same time hypocritical. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! is his campaign slogan, yet he has no interest in those actions and ideals that DO make America great. His America does not want “your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” His is not a helping hand, but a grasping one.

2016-05-04 15.03.53

slow, please; stop, please; turn around, please

optimism needs to be on a leash
for if not
it is unleashed
and what-the-hell holds sway

a man runs for president
and he is famous for his infidelities
and his bankruptcies
and he wrote or had written the art of the deal
and he seems near-identical to the uncaring jerkmeisters
catspaws of the corrupt bank-executive predators
whose fraudulence brought down the 2007 economy
and who got off scot-free

there is vast proof that he lies constantly
and his supporters say “ah well,
all politicians lie”
while he brands an opponent “lyin’ ted”
schoolyard bully style

many years ago there was an english rock band, the who
who did a song called “won’t be fooled again”
but the last line was “meet the new boss,
same as the old boss”

gaaaah
reason and logic may once more fail to carry the day
because there are neckless optimists with distractive shotguns
and a bedrock-solid sense of entitlement
who think letting the fox run the henhouse is a great idea
and will make america great again

[photo by the late, beloved Karen Wilkinson]
smallmouth grunts 101412 - Copy

vitals

born 22,147 days ago
not dead yet

no fire in the belly right now but some rumblings

there was a writers conference at phoenix college yesterday
jana bommersbach read from her book about a woman unjustly lynched
beth kendrick described an exchange with her editor that led to rewriting; “the jell-o had set”
(personal: crystal gkill may be the subject of an acrostically poetic page)

five miles of walking in the warm afternoon led to a pre-sick feverishness
muscle spasming after bedtime led to a bad night’s sleep

hope has been a slowly rising variable for the last three weeks
(some wonderful spikes; some awful troughs)

judging from pre-campaign-trail shenanigans the country will continue to be run by baboons

…ellipsis…

life is good and wretched and huggable and golden and sewagey and puzzling and careworn and unblessedly existential

Image

For a creative AND compulsive person, Prolificity is a real Monkey on the Back. Lately, with moving and full-time nightwork and a now-long commute, my Monkey is an unwelcome screecher of a creature. He screeches THE SHOW MUST GO ON! and YOU’VE VIOLATED THE EVERY-SINGLE-DAY COVENANT! YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE! and batters my unbettered psyche.

Well, screw The Monkey. It is not an all-or-nothing world. I am happily romantically involved, gainfully employed, and I just became un-uninsured, so mostly things are sunny. (Still, it bugs me when an every-day streak ends.)

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“Quasimodo” can be translated to mean “not completely formed,” and all of the images I offer on this post are such. Peter Lorre always seemed to me a quasi-Quasimodo, so this incomplete page of him–in glorious black and white, like the best of his movies–suits the theme exspecially well.

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Doodles are almost always Quasimodos: we ever know when to stop. But hey, you fellow doodlers out there: a well-spent doodling hour can happen if you have a timer go off every five minutes or so, and you scan the doodle in its current state, and then continue. At the end of the hour, look at the scans in sequence, and you’ll feel like you’ve created something that’s Alive. You can also print the best of them and doodle yourself a new tangent. Warning, though: you have better things to do than doodle, and this can turn into a real time-suck if you get hooked.

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Here’s something I did with my French Canadian friend Michel Lamontagne in mind. I’m hoping he’ll look at it and want to finish it. His mind is agile, and his image-sense startling.

Here are the words to “Secret Socket.”

Select eclectic trends if apropos
Elect electric-haired politico
Contort & make a body twitch & tic
Resort to form you rock with single click
Each win will amp the voltage that you mete
Teach Sinless Pride and Life just can’t be beat