Yearly Archives: 2023

The thing that lets people keep up with activity, both human and non-human, that occurs throughout the world each day.

News implies momentous events—the ones that can shape and influence daily human endeavors.

We love news as evidenced by the thousands of news outlets around the world.

For example, this past week the news featured allies of former President Trump telling the truth to federal prosecutors about the former president’s alleged and charged criminal conduct; about six Supreme Court justicess—two of whom are the most corrupt in the court’s history—imposing their political ideology under the “rule of law” in three decisions that adversely impacted at least 100 million disadvantaged people; and about too many climate-change spawned weather disasters to even count.

And, then there was Vanessa Trump and Cardi B who, for reasons only known to them, decided to give their peculiar versions of “breaking news” to enlighten the rest of us about the “special” gifts of behavior the “rich and famous” have n crisis situations.

First, from Yahoo News, we learned that Vanessa, who unfortunately was once the wife of Donald J. Trump, Jr. before their marriage came apart after little Donnie Jr. decided to have an adulterous affair with Aubrey O’Day—a former contestant (a “reality TV star” as she was described by news outlets) on Celebrity Apprentice, a spinoff of Donnie Jr’s pappy’s show, The Apprentice.

What Jr. and Audrey did in their bedrooms (or in hotel rooms or behind trash dumpsters) must be left to the imagination of the reader.

But according to a social media news outlets Vanessa knew a thing or two about what the pair did in their bedrooms—and that was enough to cause Vanessa to go “gangster” (as described by the media) on poor, heart-broken Audrey—a rather fitting description given the family’s organized crime-like business ventures.

It seems , according to the Yahoo News report, that Vanessa sharply criticized Audrey about her lack of, or certainly inferior, “bedroom skills”—criticisms  that “deeply hurt” little Miss Audrey.

Why Miss Audrey did not tell Vanessa that her bedroom “skills” were apparently good enough to lure little Donnie out of his marriage bedroom into an adulterous bedroom, is anyone’s guess.

But the “bedroom wars” between Miss Audrey and the billionaire’s wife pale in comparison to the nuclear meltdown Cardi B had after her husband—some fella named Offset (or maybe it was Offbeat) who accused her in a Twitter post, “My wife fucked a N**ga on me gang yall n**gas know how I come.”

That’s an exact quote, it really, truly is.

After being scrapped off the ceiling by her maid, Cardi B took to Twitter telling her followers (and anyone else who would listen) that hubby Offset was just “talking shit.”

Apparently after some deep reflection, she then returned to Twitter to share with the world her intellectual genius with these earth-shattering and life-gripping nuggets of marital wisdom:

“Come on, y’all. I’m fucking Cardi B. I think sometimes motherfuckers forget I’m Cardi B. If I was giving this pussy to anybody, it would be out. I’m not just anybody.”

That’s also an exact quote—it really, truly is. Cannot possibly make this stuff up.

She then told hubby, Offset: “Please boy, stop acting stupid.  Stop acting stupid. Don’t play with me. What the fuck. Stop playing. That’s all I’m motherfucking gonna say.”

No one can dispute that she made her point.

Got to love Twitter, the Musk News Hour.

Cardi B, for whatever reason, decided to inform the public about the value of her most private anatomical part—that if she chose to share that valuable part, the entire world would know about it.

This was the Yahoo News leading into Independence Day weekend—a sneak peek into the lives of the rich and famous.

It certainly provided enough “fireworks” to last till Christmas.

But I really don’t understand why Yahoo “news” thought it was “news” enough to be put in the public square.

Why can’t these rich and famous folks keep their private business private?

Anyway, I hope Vanessa and Cardi B have a great holiday weekend.

And I thank them for giving me the “news” fodder for this post.

Extremism of virtually every stripe is behavioral insanity.

Commercial products of every make and model are peddledacross media advertising venues through extremism: speed, sound, color, exaggeration, and idiocy are used in extreme methods to secure and manipulate the American public into buying one thing or another.

Here is how extremism works in real time.

Beginning this past Father’s Day through Thursday, June 22, the American and world attention was absorbed in the missing OceanGate submersible Titan lost with a crew of five adventurers who wanted to go to extreme depths to see the infamous wreckage of the Titanic.

Every morsel of information, every possible detail was consumed by a public absorbed in a death watch ritual until their actual deaths were announced.

Simultaneously, while the public’s interest and attention was focused on those five lost souls, more than 300 Pakistanis nationals died off the coast of Greece when a fishing trawler being used to smuggle them capsized and sank. The world barely noticed the tragedy. It was not extreme enough for the world to care about.

The question no one wishes to ask: are five rich lives more deserving of world attention than 300 impoverished lives?

All life is sacred. Each death of life deserves notice.

It was the extremism of the adventurers’ journey to the depths of the ocean where the ruins of the Titanic lay that captured the mass fascination of the nation.

Extremism.

Americans love it, especially when it comes to extreme adventure.

But should we?

Since the advent of the Tea Party Movement in 2010 (or thereabouts), America has seen a bumper crop of idiocy—even greater than soybeans which, at least, contribute to the world’s food source.

Idiocy does not serve anything other than to make stupid people feel smart, almost intellectual at times.

I watched a video recently of a town hall meeting in none other than New York City during which Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was booed and heckled by a dozen or more folks in attendance. I don’t know what the meeting was about. What caught my attention was the Yahoo News headline that the representative had been booed.

The video showed one man, who I assume is the Godfather of Idiocy in New York City, screaming at Ocasio-Cortez and her supporters in the crowd in a language befitting of Vladimir Putin on the day 16 of his 17 so-called “invincible” hypersonic missiles were shot down over Ukraine. The idiot’s language was difficult to understand as spittle flew out of his loud mouth as he screamed profanities and hostile protests that only he could understand.

I’ve seen men like this more than once in my life. In Texas, the bow-legged, hard-riding cowboys would say the idiot was “all hat and no cattle” while in prison someone would have told him to, “shut the fuck up, mother..ker, you ain’t gonna bust a grape with a sledgehammer.”

I’m sure you’ve seen this kind of person in one social format or another during your lifetime. You know the kind that makes you want say something ugly or nasty.

And this Godfather of Idiocy had one of his idiot cohorts with him.

This guy had, I’m fairly sure, a steroid induced stunted brain, a peanut size tallywacker, and a proverbial beer belly bloated over the years from too many Bud Lights before Marjorie Taylor Green told him it was a “woke” habit.

Lieutenant Idiot was being politely removed from the meeting by a security official. Each time the security official would ease or direct Lieutenant Idiot to the door, he would say:

“Don’t touch me,” or, more forcefully, “keep your hands off of me.”

The security official was undeterred by the implied threats as he gently maneuvered Lieutenant Idiot out of the crowd.

It made me wonder how he must have recounted the story of being kicked out of the meeting to his wife and kids once he got home and as he struggled to get a new “Tough Guy” beer down the ole hatch. No more Bud Lights for him.

Some lady got removed from the meeting as well. Not sure what her particular gripe was about, but she expressed it all the way out of the town hall.

What this brief viewing episode showed me is that about 30 percent of Americans have drank too much Idiot Juice and eaten too many soybean sandwiches.

Welcome to America Made Great Again!

Hell yes!

Does a bear use Charmin toilet tissue to clean his behind?

Hell no!

So, what does it say about American society when a blue animated bear must instruct people about what paper product they should use after a sit-down in their bathroom?

Yet there are thousands of Americans—if not tens of thousands—who rush to their favorite grocery to buy one of the most expensive brands of toilet tissue in the store because a blue, ass-shaking bear told them to do so. Their decision to purchase was not based on product quality or price but rather on the blue bear’s recommendation.

I suspect, without any real evidence, that some of these toilet tissue buyers probably participated in a CNN poll several years ago in which 10 percent of American law school graduates said Judge Judy was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

That is how advertising dumbs down Americans.

Macho muscle cars and heavy duty tough truck ads tell men what and how to drive while racy undergarments and leak protection feminine products tell women what to wear when they join those brutes behind wheels on a “night out on the town” during which time their parents sit home watching Blue Bloods medical ads about health products that have 15 seconds of benefits and 30 seconds of life-threatening side effects.

Meanwhile, mass shootings, debt-ceiling economic collapse, world famines and wars, environmental disasters, and the threat of nuclear annihilation are put on the “pay no mind to” list.

But there may be a solution to improving these little life absurdities.

Take that damn blue bear, insert a little artificial intelligence in its head, add 20 words to its vocabulary, and dye its hair orange—and America will have itself a president who will tell us he alone can fix every life problem in the country, from how to clean your ass, spell covfefe, drink bleach, and move a hurricane from one state to another with a magic marker.

We can all then rejoin the “leave it to beaver” era when a bear shit privately in the woods and toilet tissue remained in the bathroom unnoticed till needed.

Texas, and America, experienced another mass shooting with an assault weapon this past weekend.

The first assault weapon in U.S. was the Gatling gun—a weapon patented in 1862 by Robert Jordan Gatling that would fire more than 200 bullets in a minute. Though used sparingly in the Civil War, the weapon saw greater use in the 1870s and 1880s, not only in America but across Europe.

The Gatling gun was an “assault” weapon used by the Army in battles against Native Americans over that two-decade span.

For example, 3,000 White American soldiers used the weapon against 700 Native American warriors during the Red River War in Texas in 1874. The Army needed the weapon to remove Native American tribes—Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho—from the Southern Plains to reservations during the great theft of Indian land.

This “assault” weapon was used because it was designed to kill people in large numbers in a short period of time.

Two other American “assault” weapons were also created during the Civil War era: The Spencer Repeating Rifle in 1860 and the Winchester Repeating Rifle in 1866.

Both weapons were made to kill people, not animals. They were not made for individual or home protection. Their only purpose was to allow the shooter to kill as many people as desired through a rapid fire procession.

Gun proponents, especially assault weapon owners, say “mass shootings” are a byproduct of mental illness—not the prevalence of guns.

History is not kind to that argument.

The de-institutionalization of mentally people in California in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a series of horrific mass murders (like the John Frazier murders in 1970) and unleashed some serial killers (like Edmund Kemper in 1973).

But there were no mass shootings at shopping centers, schools, places of worship, or work places like the hundreds of assault weapon massing shootings being seen across the country today.

Mass shooters are generally avid gun owners, possessing multiple types of assault weapons. For a host of real or imagined grievances against society in general or certain people in particular, they use their “assault” weapons to kill as many people as possible to settle their grievances.

In other words, they fulfill the original purpose that the assault weapon was created for—to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time as possible.

That is the methodical “assault” intent of such weapons as evidenced by the first real mass shooting in the United States—the Texas Tower Shooting in 1966 that left 14 people dead at the hands of Charles Whitman, an avid gun owner just his father was.

Was Charles Whitman mentally ill? Probably, in some textbook kind of way. But his intent to kill as many people as possible from the Texas Tower was motivated by anger, rage, and grievance.

Probably half of the nation’s population suffers from some sort of “mental illness.” One trip into the dark side of social media where all sorts of conspiracy theories and racial hatred and violent impulses exist reveals American “mental illness” on display.

Many assault weapon owners will now say the Allen, Texas mall shooter was one of those social media “mentally ill” extremist.

Yet many of these assault weapon enthusiasts, like some in Congress, will simultaneously say that the thousands of people who stormed the nation’s capitol of January 6, 2021 shouting “kill Mike Pence” were proud gun-owning “patriots” trying to protect White people from the “Deep State” run by the “let’s go Brandon” mafia.

Hatred is not mental illness. It’s a social plague that allows people to see violence as a natural response in support of their own belief system.

It may be reasonably said that mental illness is an “excuse” for mass shootings but it is the insane prevalence of “assault weapons” that is the cause for such shootings.