Category Archives: angry rant

January 5, 2022 · 5:10 pm

Kit Marlowe, Secret Agent

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Christopher Marlowe is often sited as the real Shakespeare, a problematic assertion given that he would’ve been forced to write a number of plays after he was dead, giving new meaning to the term “ghost writer”.  But I would like to add to the assertion that “Marlowe is NOT Shakespeare!” that I also believe he did not die as they claim that he did.  Marlowe is a fascinating character of debauchery and misbehavior, intrigue and mystery, and undeniable genius.  As a writer, he was a maverick and risk-taker, having begun the ascendance of the theatrical play as one of the heights of Elizabethan literature with his play Tamburlaine the Great, about the historical figure who rose from shepherd boy to monarch.  This play, and its sequel, Tamburlaine the Great Part II, were among the very first English plays to be written in blank verse, meaning there is a very definite connection between the style of writing established by Marlowe and the later work of Shakespeare.  It is probable that for a few years, Kit Marlowe was a member of the Gray’s Inn group along with Sir Francis Bacon and several other suspicious literary luminaries like Sir Walter Raleigh and possibly Ben Jonson.  (I have to admit at this point that if I am wrong about the Stratford guy and he did write the plays, then he was a member of this group as well, because it was not closed to commoners, only to stupid people.  The Stratford guy was in no way stupid or a villain, no matter what you may believe about the authorship question.)  But here is where the link to Shakespeare’s plays and poetry both begins and ends.  Yes, Kit Marlowe was a capable enough author to have written such sublime plays.  He has all the individual skills to make up the whole.  But if you read his masterwork, The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, you will see that the voice, the unique literary style of the work is simply not by the same author.  Although Shakespeare revisits some of the same themes that Marlowe used in his plays, his manner of development, handling of character, style of humor, and underlying conviction in the existence of God are all different and opposed to Marlowe’s.  Marlowe is NOT Shakespeare.  Shakespeare’s works have more in common with Bacon’s than Marlowe’s.  And I have already said that, “Shakespeare is NOT Bacon… or eggs either.”  And if I said it, it must be so.  (Don’t throw eggs and tomatoes at your computer screen when you read this.  Just call me stupid and vain in the comments like everybody else does.)

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And an even more compelling reason to those of you who don’t obsess over reading Shakespeare and Marlowe and Ben Jonson is that, at the time Shakespeare’s plays were probably written, Kit Marlowe was busy either being stone cold dead, or, having faked his death, was busy being a secret agent for Queen Elizabeth.

And why would a goofball like me think that Christopher Marlowe cunningly faked his own death and went into his own thrilling quest to be like James Bond more than 300 years before Ian Fleming?  Well, because I know how to read and am not generally bright enough not to believe what others have written about him and his connections to the world of spying in Elizabethan times.

These authors have brought out the fact that Marlowe’s frequent absences from college and later public obligations coincide with things like the mysterious tutor called “Morley” who tutored Arbella, niece of Mary Queen of Scots, and a potential successor to Queen Elizabeth, in 1589.  He was also arrested in the Netherlands for allegedly counterfeiting coins related to the activities of seditious Catholics.  He was brought back to England to be dealt with by Lord Treasurer Burghley, the closest adviser to Queen Elizabeth, and was then not so much punished as let off the hook and even rewarded monetarily.  Still think he was not a spy?  Well, his demise probably came about through his relationship with Lord Francis Walsingham and his friendship with Walsingham’s son.  You see, Walsingham was Elizabeth’s “M”, leader of her spies and intelligence units.  After Walsingham died, there was deep concern that no one was still able to protect Marlowe from possible consequences of being both a homosexual and an atheist.  (Being gay was obviously not as serious a sin as atheism for which torture and death penalties lay in wait.)  It was possible that rival spies and nefarious forces could kidnap Marlowe and get information out of him that the Queen needed to be kept secret.

So, when Lord Burghley tortured Marlowe’s friend and sometime roommate, Thomas Kyd, into naming Marlowe a heretic and sending men out with a warrant to arrest Marlowe, Kit’s other friend, Thomas Walsingham probably warned Marlowe.  The bar fight that supposedly ended Marlowe’s life was witnessed by two friends of his, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley, both provably con men and professional liars.  The knife that stabbed him in the forehead above his right eye was wielded by Ingram Fizer, another of Marlowe’s disreputable friends, allegedly over an unpaid debt.  Fizer, of course, though he freely admitted killing Marlowe, was acquitted of the murder.  And the coroner’s report is suspect.  Rules of investigation were not followed, and the body was never independently identified by someone other than the three friends at the scene of the crime.  And the body was hastily buried before anyone else could get a close look at it.

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I am not only telling you that I believe Christopher “Kit” Marlowe was NOT Shakespeare… or eggs either (though that joke doesn’t really work here), but I believe he didn’t die the way it has been reported to us by history.  And why do I believe these things?  Because I think the story of Christopher Marlowe is a really great story, and it exists as a story whether it is historically true or not.

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Filed under angry rant, artists I admire, conspiracy theory, goofy thoughts, humor, poetry, satire, telling lies, William Shakespeare

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December 26, 2021 · 8:32 pm

What’s the Worst That Can Happen?

Being a fantasy and science-fiction writer with a considerable reputation for being totally ignored by the reading public, I often think about where society and science are taking this world as we continue to climb ladders towards the future and slide down the chutes of unexpected consequences.

And being a pessimist, the future I see is almost always grim. Of course, that’s not an unexpected thing from a writer who consumes a lot of very speculative ideas from other science-fictiony thinkers and proclaimers of gloom and doom.

But the War of the Worlds thing will not happen. Alien civilizations that are far more advanced than we are are already here, living among us and in secret enclaves in caverns and under the sea. We don’t have to worry about invasions from outer space. They could’ve akready taken this world from us if they had wanted to. Again, this is not a factual explanation. This is merely fanciful speculation based on things I think are probably true.

Of course, they are not going to solve our problems for us either. It is not in their own interest to save us from ourselves. No alien repairs to the environment reversing global warming.will ever happen. They have in the past intervened in nuclear crisis. There is considerable testimony from credible and qualified witnesses that UFOs have routinely messed with our nuclear arsenal, even disassembling warheads on rockets in mid-flight and neutralizing missiles in silos. They don’t care if we die. They just don’t want the planet wrecked.

The Democrat-bot continues to deliver haymakers to the Republican-bot, but notice who dominates the majority of the ring, no matter what happens.

One of the things that the alien residents of this planet might allow to occur, and even enjoy watching, is that the current two-year pandemic may prove to be the thing that makes homo sapiens go extinct as a species.

The political fight over pandemic responses threatens to turn the corona virus into a super-mega-killer virus. Already the Republican Deadly Propaganda Ministry of Lies over at FOX News has stirred their mindless minions to reject anything that could end the pandemic. Don’t shut down businesses. Don’t get the vaccine. Don’t wear masks. Don’t help people by creating green-energy jobs or stimulate the economy by giving money to people who need it and will spend it. Better to all die than to let Democrats get credit for doing something right and good. Ignore all the billionaires making record billions while their mindless minions die out allowing the virus to endlessly mutate and become more infectious and more deadly. Given enough mutation time, the virus could kill all human beings on Earth. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and Donald Trump can then have all the money in the world. Good luck eating that in a world with no farmers or grocery stores. They will then die out too, just like all the human beings did before them.

If these disturbing science-fictiony predictions worry you or make you afraid for life on Earth, then Good! You need to pay attention to these very things. But remember too that this is a humor blog. I am hot-cow-poop as a prophet of doom. What I say is very likely not right at all. And you can tell by the picture that Mickey is more often mistaken for Santa Clause than Nostradamus. Still, give these dark notions from a pessimistic fool a thought or two. Somebody has to solve these problems if we are to survive. And how do you know that this somebody is not YOU!

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December 18, 2021 · 5:15 pm

Mr. Grumpy Holds Forth

(This is an idea that comes from Bruce the Bottle Imp, so, don’t blame me if this humor blog-post isn’t really very funny.)

The thing I am grumpy about today, besides the dog chewing up last night’s pizza box and spreading the shreds all over the kitchen before I had a chance to take it to the trash barrel, is the fact that it seems like the world is ending.

I know, the “How can you say that?” crowd are going to argue with me if I say it’s because we let Adam Sandler get away with making too damn many movies. But in spite of the existence of Jack and Jill, I actually kinda like the cartoons where he plays Dracula and Selena Gomez plays his daughter. So, Sandler doesn’t give me the feelings of existential dread his movies used to provide.

No, I think the reason is because when I went out to walk the dog this morning on a sunshiny and blue-skyed dawn, and took a deep breath of fresh air, I nearly coughed up a lung thanks to that yellow-gray patina delicately painting the horizon.

We are running out of time.

President Grandpa Joe, the mildly confused one, is proposing a huge infrastructure bill that is even larger than the one he rammed through congress without a single Republican vote in order to keep the poor and the middle class from starving and becoming homeless… and potential fuel for the zombie apocalypse. The infrastructure bill will provide a starting point for building green-energy projects, providing thousands of green-energy jobs to an ailing economy, bullet trains and healthcare improvements, and life-changing transformations to rival FDR’s New Deal, which Republicans will also vote against. And he might actually do it if Senator Turtle McConnell doesn’t convince Senator Grumbly-Grampa Joe Manchin to vote against his own party in dismantling the foofy filibuster and then voting down the infrastructure bill both to fully insure the extinction of the human race.

For some reason, probably involving dark money, Republicans want so badly to see all middle class and poor people die a horrible death that they are willing to sacrifice the lives of their own grandchildren and great grandchildren. After all, they will mostly all be undead and undying critters by that time, and they won’t want pesky younger generations to support using money from their treasure hordes that they are planning to swim in like Scrooge McDuck for eternity.

I am also deeply grumpified by the whole Congressman Eddy Munster… er, I mean… Matt Gaetz thing (seen pictured in the Vampyr Paffooney above.) That happy-go-lucky blood-sucker is facing child sex-trafficking charges involving a 17-year-old girl, and the investigation was started under Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump’s Fred-Flintstone-impersonating, Yabba-dabba-doo collusion-denier. Senator Al Franken(berry) of Minnesota, a leading Democrat, had to resign from the Senate over a picture where he wasn’t actually touching the sleeping Republican-lady’s boobs, just making a crude joke-photo the way former Saturday Night Live comedians will often do… er, well… doo doo. But Eddy Matt Gaetz doesn’t have to resign, or even give up his assignment to the Judiciary Committee. And that’s because we’re okay with unindicted criminals running our country, just not Democrats.

I hate to say it, but, now that we have gotten rid of the Orange Prexydent at long last, if we still can’t prevent human extinction, we deserve what’s coming to us. We have work to do…. and things to grumble about… and Republicans have acts of vampire-evil to commit.

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December 13, 2021 · 10:33 pm

Education and the Future of Humanity

The Republican Fascist Wing of the GOP is now going to town about words and ideas they want removed from curriculum nationwide. They are getting their way in Red States like Texas. They fired a beloved principal from Colleyville, Texas for “promoting Critical Race Theory” and mostly for having black skin.

Bur, of course, they are only emboldened by any successes they have in forcing these toxic racist restrictions on school systems. And there is no Critical Race Theory being taught in Texas, but books are being banned and good educators are getting in trouble for things they are not doing, or even worse, getting in trouble for teaching things about history, science, and literature that they SHOULD BE TEACHING, but Greg Abbott (with no Costello to make him humorous) and Ted (the Cowardly Lyin’) Cruz don’t want students to know about.

There are words that can get you fired now as a teacher. These words, used in class to apparently stir up critical thinking… and worse, thinking for themselves, include woke, transformational, civil rights, white privilige, the 1619 project, slavery, and anything written by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The government is now meddling in how you handle cultural awareness and the teaching of history, especially how slaves were actually treated and what white-guy presidents like Andrew Jackson did to Native Americans.

School is supposed to be a place for students to go and have their days partitioned into strict time schedules enforced by bells, sitting quietly in rows all day, only speaking when spoken to, being submissively obedient to all authority figures, and turning themselves into mindless worker drones to fit into the work-slots in the dungeons of the corporation overlords.

Maybe it’s the way we go about teaching school. The Native Americans would have the mother teach all the farming skills, cooking skills, camp-making skills, and childcare skills to her daughters while the boys were taught to hunt, shoot a bow, ride a horse, track an animal, or be a warrior by their grandfathers. And then the boys would be set to hunt a bear or wolf or eagle feather completely naked in the woods to prove they were ready to lose their boy-name and take on the name they would be called as a man. Now, that was an educational system!

I know, I know… That would never work with Texas white people. Or Iowa white people. Or any people who belong to a naked-is-a-sin religion. Although nakedness was not the point of Native American education.

But how about listening to the experts? Especially experts equipped with research results that are proven to work in many different places? Do you know who Sir Kenneth Robinson is? Or what he has to say about education… backed by up-to-date research? Yeah, neither does Greg Abbott (without the benefit of Costello.) So, why is he the one who gets to decide?

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December 6, 2021 · 10:17 pm

The Fire Grows Hotter

I was forced to admit he was President of the United States for four long, long, extra-long years. And I am no longer mentioning his actual name in the same paragraph with the actual title of President. He is that, officially, no more. And he never was that as far as I can see by the actual job requirements.

But he did not get shot or lynched during the failed coup. And they did not execute him as a traitor afterwards… or even remove him from office. It is possible that he could even be back as President in 2024. But the criminal overripe mango with the badly thatched straw roof is guilty as hell of ruining our country.

He broke everything. The vaccines appeared so fast for Covid 19 that it could have been as miraculous as Obama’s cutting off of the Ebola outbreak that we never lost control of. Remember that? Probably not. The Ebola outbreak was controlled by s system developed by both Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama. ;It was a seriously-tested and proven playbook that the Cheetoh-powdered clown threw in the trash.

He totally mishandled the pandemic, resulting in over 700,000 deaths in this country alone. Soon to be over 800,000. And his propaganda ministers on FOX News killed my cousin with Covid by convincing her she wasn’t properly loyal to Cinnamon Hitler if she got vaccinated.

My classmate Tim, a Navy veteran and retired firefighter died two days after Karen from the same thing. I couldn’t convince Tim that the Orange Menace was a bad guy. Pumpkinhead convinced him it was completely okay to hate Muslims, Africans, Middle-Easterners, and other people who are the wrong color or religion. He also convinced Tim that he should hate intellectual elites, liberals, and college-educated snowflakes… in other words, people like me.

Texas Governor Costello-Less Abbott

And now that the Big Stinky Cheese Man in Mar-a-Lago has made it publicly acceptable to be totally hate-filled and actively punish those you hate, there are others who have taken up the belching cannons of hatred and have begun to fire at will.

Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA are the terrorist threat to be exterminated, and teens like Rittenhouse can now legally take up their beloved AR-15s and go hunt them. The KKK and the Proud Boys are made up of the “good people on both sides.” Let them have their way.

The problem is CRT being taught in schools. Critical Race Theory is a law-school study of structural racism that is NOT taught in any public schools. But it is the reason that Dr. James Whitfield, the first black principal in Texas Colleyville High School’s history was fired. He apparently was teaching CRT by saying in an email that George Floyd’s death was a bad thing.

Books like Nobel-Winner Toni Morrison’s Beloved have to be banned and removed from school library shelves because it makes white kids feel bad about slavery. Apparently everything will be better if white students aren’t made to think about race and slavery and human cruelty, and apparently we shouldn’t be teaching black kids about it either. No more Walter Dean Myers, no more poet Langston Hughes. No more Maya Angelou. All we can learn from them is shame in ourselves, not empathy for the tragic histories of others. (I must remind you that I am a white guy being sarcastic here. I love these authors and their works, and I would sooner die than see them burned.)

Florida Governor Ron DeSaniflush

Right now the Democrats control the government tentatively and are trying to fix all the things Republicans managed to break in just four long, long, super-long years. They will probably have some limited success and be voted out in the midterms for their trouble. Then the hatred will be ramped up even more. The flames will lick higher in the atmosphere. And snowflakes like me will reach the limit and be melted. You are free to laugh at me for being wrong again, Tim. Yeah, I know… from Heaven or wherever else firefighters and heroes go in the end.

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November 22, 2021 · 6:14 pm

Prudes and Prejudices (Part 2)

Who is really qualified to judge people? The Bible says only God makes that judgement. But who tells us what God’s judgement actually is? Especially if Nietzsche is right about God being dead?

Prudes

Not long ago I posted a short-short story about me wanting to see girls get naked while we were kite flying, and then, by verbal tricks backfiring, I ended up being the only one flying the kite while naked. I look back on that story now with laughter about my own personal foibles. But if I am completely honest, the church ladies with gray hair, wagging fingers, and tongues that are even waggier… Well, I am glad that the ones I knew as a boy are all now dead and can’t possibly read that story and shame me all over again.

And I know that I draw an awful lot of pictures and write an awful lot of stories that involve naked children. As a survivor of a traumatic sexual assault when I was ten (a thing that happened after the kite story was already in the past) there is a level of discomfort over recognizing that trend in myself. Not because I became a sexual predator of children. I clearly did not. I still am determined to prevent such things from happening in any way I can, though in retirement I no longer have access to children to talk with to find out about bad things that may be happening in their lives.

Derfentwinkle and Anneliese in my current work in progress, fairies both.

I write stories in which there are kid characters who are naked at times. Sometimes because of curiosity and developing sexuality, sometimes because of growing up in a nudist household, sometimes in their dreams, taking baths, and many other normal functions where clothing is optional. In The Baby Werewolf novel, I included a character who was trying to exploit a young nudist girl to make child pornography. He was the kind of predator I have always resolved to be against, and the book is intended to make readers aware of that kind of dangerous person and recognize where the opportunities to avoid such people lie.

And some of the nude young characters I create like the two fairy girls depicted in the illustration from The Necromancer’s Apprentice merely represent the liberating feeling you can get from embracing your own nude self, a thing my attacker deprived me of during childhood through trauma and fear.

I, as an adult human being, fully accept readers’ rights to be critical of my work and make prudish judgements about my writing. I don’t like that one critic of The Baby Werewolf who said things about my work being creepy for the wrong reasons (it is a horror story after all) and suggesting that maybe I as the author am bad and villainous instead of feeling that way about the villain of the story. It was fiction, not my personal life story. The villain character is not me.

But prudes being prudish and judgmental can do more damage than just hurting an author’s feelings.

I have had two students that I know of who were transexual.

One was raised a boy because he was born with a penis, but in grade school was discovered to have a womb and ovaries. I didn’t know such a condition existed until I saw an episode of Marcus Welby MD in the 70’s about a young boy who had to transition because he was actually a girl. The child in my class was from a poor Hispanic family that didn’t understand the problem and couldn’t really afford to deal with it. The prudes, judgemental as always, were not kind. This he/she hermaphrodite was forced to grow up as a flamboyantly gay male even though he was capable of physically changing into a woman who could conceive a child. I followed his development for as long as I was able. I did spend one long and awkward evening talking to him/her about his/her crush on me. I could’ve gotten the prude finger-wag over that strange conference too, if anybody had bothered to care about that poor child. I certainly wasn’t going to kiss him, and I had to send him home at the end of that discussion because of what he/she wanted from me. I suspect there were other men who took advantage of him/her. But I wasn’t close enough to help him in any real way. And I lost touch soon after he/she left my class. Based on that bizarre discussion we had, I have no confidence at all that the poor child is still alive. Nobody seemed to care about this child That is the most tragic of things teachers sometimes have to deal with.

The other trans student I had in class for a year was a girl as far as she was concerned. It was not a question open for debate. She was quiet and a good student. She only had a couple of friends, but they were good friends and stood by her. At the time she was in my middle school class, she already had breasts thanks to hormone therapy. By now she has probably transitioned by surgical means. Her life was a lot easier than the boy with ovaries. But prudes in Texas abound and provide a lot of sour fruit.

I personally find it offensive that anyone would deny either of these two people the use of whatever restroom was comfortable for them.

What gives the typical prude the right to pass judgement on anyone else’s behavior? Prudes can cause repression of natural behaviors for the benefit for no one but themselves. I find prudishness to be reprehensible. But the rub is… being judgemental about that makes me a prude too.

I try never to be judgemental. I would much rather accept everyone for who they are, or who they think they are, than rely on what I think they are. And I do listen when others judge me. I have changed things in my books and drawings because of observations my others. And I take everything seriously… especially comedy.

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November 21, 2021 · 10:00 pm

Prudes and Prejudices (Part 1)

I mean no disrespect to the bright spirit of Jane Austin by titling this thusly. But I do have an evil itch to confront these never-ending gremlins of public behavior. There is a need to regularly chastise the shoulder demons with the red suits, horns, and little red pitchforks. And if we listened more to the shoulder angels with the white robes, halos, and harps we would be talking these things out more carefully and logically with a view to how other people besides our bilious little little lizard-brains are affected.

Part One… Prejudice

Kim Fields from The Facts of Life

When I started teaching in the 1980’s in South Texas, a popular TV show watched by many of my students was The Facts of Life. It was about a girls’ boarding school, specifically, one house mother and her charges. Not a very realistic depiction of the reality of schools in the 1980’s. But even though real house mothers would probably have at least 25 more girls to worry about and drive her insane than this TV version did, it did have a feature that gave me hope as a teacher. This show had a girl of color, something that kind of school, even in the north, would have less of than the 20% representation in this show. And, miraculously, through all the weekly girl-dilemmas for a harried house mouther to deal with, and the occasional social-issue shows, that one black girl was treated as just one of the girls. No more important nor any less important than any of the other girls. That was an ideal to strive for in the world of education.

The character of Tootie (Dorothy “Tootie” Ramsey played by Kim Fields) was a perky and positive character, sweet and charming, and possessing a high degree of emotional intelligence. I remember wishing I had more students like that. But I did have a number of girls exactly like that, though they were Hispanic and Anglo. We had no “black” families in Cotulla, Texas during the 80’s, and only two families and one teacher in the entire 23 years I taught there.

But prejudice is not about what color a kid is. Or what color any human being is. As a teacher, I learned early on that you have to try to love every kid you are given no matter what their personal details are.

I remember teachers saying that, “Black kids are noisier than any other group, and more likely to be aggressive.” Or they also tried to convince me that, “Hispanic kids are too mature for their age and become sexually active sooner in life than they should.” Of course, there were usually examples they were talking about. But those examples weren’t proof that the prejudice is based on reality. They were proof that generalizations based on race, first language, or culture are potentially hurtful. I could point to examples that might indicate that, “White kids are more likely to say racist things than non-white kids are.” That is also an unfounded conclusion that is easily disproven by a majority of examples.

The real problems a teacher has dealing with students don’t come from any prejudicial generalizations. They come from students having to endure things outside of the classroom including poverty, homelessness, physical and emotional abuse at home, malnutrition, or untreated mental or medical conditions. And sometimes the misbehavior is caused by the teacher forgetting or skipping the essential practices necessary to controlling the classroom environment.

Everybody has prejudices. My favorite color is red. I favor it almost always whenever I have a free choice among colors to use. But the problem with prejudices is how we act on them. If I burn down my neighbor’s house because he painted it green rather than red, then I have been morally reprehensible. Not racism, but still an evil act based on my prejudice.

The teenager who got away with hunting protesters and killing two white ones in Wisconsin with a “self-defense” verdict is guilty of acting on a prejudice that people who are protesting a racially motivated police shooting are properly and justifiably shot and killed for protesting in favor of their side of the controversy. He crossed a State line to a community he did not live in to be involved in that opportunity to kill someone he disagreed with using his illegally purchased AR-15 even though the victims were unarmed. Maybe you can’t prove racism. But how about prejudice against protesters who believe they shouldn’t be killed for their beliefs?

In Texas the conservatives are using a hatred and an anti-Critical Race Theory law to exert their racism in Texas schools. The Southlake School District has fired a beloved principal because he had the poor judgement to be married to a white woman and speak his mind in an email about being against the killing of George Floyd. Apparently he was guilty of promoting Critical Race Theory in the school even though Critical Race Theory is a law-school process for examining systemic racism in law enforcement. That, of course, is NOT taught in any Texas grade school, middle school, or high school. He was actually fired for having the opinion (while black) that George Floyd should not have been killed by policemen in Minnesota. They are transparently acting on their racism and proving the need for law schools to continue examining Critical Race Theory. Their excuse is that white kids are being taught to feel guilty of the atrocities their ancestors committed because of racism. So, apparently, how black kids feel about the same things don’t counr.

Through prejudices, teachers will no longer be able to teach tolerance during Black History Month in February. The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison can no longer be taught in high schools. The book Ruby Bridges wrote about her experience with integrating the white grade school in Little Rock, Arkansas can no longer be taught in history classes.

Explain to me why this fundamentally racist prejudice is to be tolerated! But be warned, my personal prejudices are telling me to protest this crap. And you can’t fire me for having taught these things in the past since I am now retired from teaching. You’ll just have to get a teenager with an AR-15 to kill me.

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November 19, 2021 · 5:07 pm

Don’t Throw Me in My Laughing Place!

I am a captive today. I went to Denton, Texas yesterday to receive my booster dose of the Covid vaccine. I don’t feel any worse than the last two times I got vaccinated. But I am not better either.

And there are two big court cases happening today that have a huge effect on whether life is going to be fair to us rabbit-people, or will end up being more fair to those FOX people.

Three knuckle-dragging crackers hunted down an unarmed black man with guns in Georgia, claiming he was a theft suspect. They repeatedly threatened to kill him if he didn’t surrender to them, and then they finally carried out the threat and shot him dead. And yesterday I heard the main cracker make the excuse that the man tried to grab his gun, so he shot him to death in self-defense.

One Rambo wannabe in Wisconsin, a seventeen-year-old who owned an AR-15 that he wasn’t old enough to legally purchase, went to a protest where he goaded unarmed protesters to attack him, shot and killed two of them, wounded some others, and now is claiming he shot in self defense. Those unarmed protesters shoulda known better than to taunt him and make him afraid when he had his big gun in his hands.

I’ma thinkin’summat ain’t right.

It’s a tricky briar patch they want to throw me in. I live in Texas where you can now carry around a loaded gun concealed on your rabbit fur without having to get any kind of permit first. I may have to think twice about walking into anyplace named the OK Corral.

I am not the sort to solve my problems with a gun. If I am ever in a confrontation where someone has to be shot, it will most likely be me. I would sooner die than kill somebody.

But the world in general does not think like I do.

So, I am thinkin’ all tricksey about makin’ that old FOX throw me inta my laughin’ place. Somehow I gotta convince that old boy that I don’t wanna be there. Cuz them ol’ FOXes is cruel like that.

I will recover from my booster shot I will feel better in a day or two. The FOXes will probably look at this post and call me a racist, because of what I am actually saying. That’s how racists justify being racists. But the only race I really belong to is the ordinary rabbit-people race, also known as the human race. But rabbits come in many different colors, and lots of them are spotted. So what? What ya gonna make out o’ dat?

You don’t solve problems of violence with more violence. So, we gotta try something else. Any ideas?

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November 15, 2021 · 9:41 pm

Teacher Opinions

In Texas you hear that schools have been in the thrall of “woke” liberals who are trying to make all white kids feel shame and guilt because being white means you are a racist. This shaming curriculum is apparently called “Critical Race Theory.” And individuals’ basic freedoms are under attack by things like vaccine mandates and mask mandates. How could they? Don’t they realize your right to choose to get Covid Delta Variant and die in an ICU somewhere is guaranteed in the Constitution?

Where in Texas is this terrible teaching going on?

In 31 years teaching in Texas public schools, I never saw any such teaching going on. And I never met even one single radical-teaching commissar that would advocate such communist claptrap teaching.

Good teachers do not have political agendas. Good teachers don’t teach their own opinions. When opinions are involved, good teachers show both sides. But only if neither side is entirely, provably correct.

So, what is Critical Race Theory?

“critical race theory (CRT), intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour. Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.” -The New York Times

Do you understand that definition? And if you do, how would you teach it to third graders? Or to eighth grade History classes? Or even high school AP Civics classes?

You wouldn’t. It isn’t factual. It is a “loosely organized framework of legal analysis,” That makes it a complex study of legal questions and possible sociological inequities. That makes it a law school debate topic, not something to be taught in public schools (with the possible exception of AP Debate class.)

I find myself actually agreeing with the fascist propagandists on Fox News, like Tucker Carlson, who suggest any public school teacher trying to teach this in public schools should be fired. We should not be letting such clueless idiots be teachers. And most competent teaching schools would weed them out before they ever qualified for a teaching certificate. Only intellectually competent individuals should be given teaching certificates that they have earned through their own rigorously tested education. An education that exists for teachers. Unfortunately it doesn’t exist for Texas Governor, or Texas Lieutenant Governor, or Texas Attorney General. All you need for those positions is a soul evil enough to rig the appropriate election.

Not that my rage is cooling to the melted-iron level of heat, I need to remind you that these are my opinions. And opinions are onions divided by Pi. If you don’t enjoy that onion flavor, then let it lie and avoid it on your steak and potatoes.

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Filed under angry rant, politics, teaching

November 8, 2021 · 4:35 pm

Why My Kids Are Always Embarrassed

Yes, I admit it. I am a goofy old coot and an embarrassment to my children.

That’s my role in life now. Eye rolls abound when I am around.

There are several reasons why, which I intend to list here in detail in order to embarrass my children further. But it basically boils down to the fact that I am a writer, and though I write mostly fiction, another way of saying I lie a lot, a real writer tends to reveal more of the naked truth about himself than a child can stand.

Who wants to see their father naked? Especially when he is old… wrinkled, spotty, and mostly fish-belly white.

Speaking of nakedness, one of the things that my children are most embarrassed about is the fact that I know a lot about nudists and naturists, in fact, I know many real nudists, and I have been nude in at least one social situation with other naked nudists. And, even worse, I admit it in writing where my children and their friends can see it. Of course, none of them read this blog anymore for that reason.

I have written novels where there are nudist characters based on some of the real nudists I have known. The novels with nudist characters in them so far are, Recipes for Gingerbread Children, The Baby Werewolf, Superchicken, The Boy… Forever, and A Field Guide to Fauns. And these novels might not embarrass them so much if they read them to discover that the novels have something to say that really isn’t about their father being a crazy naked coot. But they won’t read them because I am embarrassing to them.

And there is the verified fact that I am something of a conspiracy theorist. I firmly believe that the actor/theater owner William Shakespeare only offered his name to the real writer of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward DeVere. There is actual evidence that is so, though it was a secret that DeVere took to his pauper’s grave after spending away his entire family estates and fortune. A pauper’s grave that no interested scholar can find the location of to this very day, although maybe he’s buried in the same place of honor as the actor/theater owner, as there are cryptic clues to that as well.

I also believe that Dwight Eisenhower met with alien civilizations in the 1950s and the Roswell Incident was a real crash of more than one spacecraft from other star systems. There exist real deathbed confessions that confirm those details, and the government has been covering up the facts for decades.

The conspiracy-theory skills I have as a crazy, embarrassing coot have resulted in books like Catch a Falling Star, Stardusters and Space Lizards, and the Bicycle-Wheel Genius.

And lastly, I was a school teacher in middle schools and high schools for thirty-one years, which means I can create kid-characters in fiction that are very realistic and have a good-but-comic quality that make readers generally like my stories.

So, my children are probably right to be seriously embarrassed by my very existence. Of course, I, like all old coots registered with the Crazy, Embarrassing Coots of America, the CECA, am totally immune to being embarrassed by the embarrassment of my children.

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Filed under aliens, angry rant, autobiography, conspiracy theory, humor, kids, novel writing, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, William Shakespeare