Category Archives: angry rant

February 4, 2022 · 8:09 pm

Blurring, Glitching, and Fudging to Get By

As I get older and continue to deteriorate with a myriad of small problems, losing visual acuity, pain in every joint from arthritis, loss of hearing, peeling skin eaten up by psoriasis (or possibly eczema, depending on which doctor I choose to believe,) and bouts of serious forgetfulness, I am challenged to find ways to make it through the day and still do what I intended to do.

Yesterday I struggled to publish a book because these small problems created numerous proofreading errors that never used to exist. I am not a fast typist, but I tend to be very accurate. Yet, slips, glitches, and misspelllings were everywhere when I tried to submit the manuscript electronically. (The misspellling in that last sentence was intentional as a humorous irony. I know it’s not funny, but that’s a mental glitch I can’t overcome too.) To make matters worse, I have two computers to use for that. My new laptop which I am not fully used to yet, as I am using it now and repeatedly correcting errors as I go. (Apparently not correcting incomplete sentence fragments.) And my old laptop which inexplicably deleted it’s entire spell-checking program overnight one night last week. I tried re-loading Grammarly, but couldn’t do it since key program parts that come with every word-processor are now apparently fried. (And it doesn’t help that I keep forgetting to go back and make complete sentences out of fragments.)

Self-Examination has always been a feature of my inner, mental life. I keep count of psoriasis (possibly eczema) sores because some of them have to be specially treated, covered, or peeled in order to heal. One gets infected out of control, and diabetic that I am, I could lose an arm or leg… or even life. I also take note of some of my mental sores or infections. I try hard not to think like a Republican, but I find myself suddenly being grumpy, judgmental, or impossible to be around over money matters, dog-walking, or the opinions of others that I have strong opposing opinions about. I even worry that since I have been thinking more and more like a nudist in my personal philosophy (technically a Christian-existentialist-with-Stoic-leanings sort of nudist) I have not been holding back in reusing nude artwork too much in this blog, possibly over-using child-nudes which symbolize my own innocence and honesty in my mind, but symbolize perversion and possible pedophilia in conservative minds. I don’t care what other people think about me, and yet… as a survivor of a cruel childhood sexual assault, I am sensitive to certain conclusions other people probably jump to. I will try to use drawings of naked people less.

My car isn’t going anywhere again today.

Driving has become a serious area of fudging to get by. I can’t see well enough to pass that vision test when next I have to renew my license. I almost ran over a bicyclist walking his bike across the street simply because he was in shadow emerging into bright sunlight and I was unable to adjust my vision fast enough to even see him. I ended up getting a single-fingered salute that I seriously earned. (We both had the right-of-way because I was turning the corner and we both had a green light.) I have to nearly press my face against the windshield in order to see through sun glare or low light conditions. I swear I will not drive when I no longer can see well enough, but that day is coming soon if it is not already now. My son drives for me as much as possible. But he is planning to go off to Air Force boot camp in a couple of months.

Life is definitely changing in large ways due to small things. I have to look at everything from both sides now and make necessary adjustments. Mark Twain was about my age when the police had to escort him home for walking down the street naked. Except he didn’t. It was actually Sam Clemens that did that. But, like me, he was having trouble remembering that too.

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January 30, 2022 · 8:34 pm

Evil People

I have always maintained that people are basically good. I believe we are born good. All capable of empathy, good morals, and, most importantly… Love. In order to be anything else in life, a hard-hearted criminal, a manipulator, a murderer, a corporate CEO, the 45th President of the US, you have to be taught to do evil.

So, if all people are basically good, and most of us believe in a loving, benevolent God, why are we on a downward spiral of climate change grinding out the eventual extinction of all life on Earth?

You have to be taught to be evil. But there is more to it than simply having a father and a grandfather who were deeply involved with the KKK. You can be taught evil things by circumstances you simply can’t control due to their complexity and unsolvable problematic nature. Being raised in poverty is a big one. Being raised in poverty and having your fears and disappointments massaged and amplified by the propaganda on FOX News is an even bigger one. Intolerance, bigotry, and, most of all, hatred are a very human reaction to personal suffering, and they become an evil thing if you don’t properly place the blame on the real causes of things and then solve those problem-perpetuating causes.

Greed and narcissism are real causes of many evils that largely go un-dealt-with. In our modern world unregulated capitalism means the worst offenders have an automatic incentive to choose increasing profits over the well-being of the general population. Paying carbon taxes and taking carbon out of manufacturing emissions don’t help profits as much as being able to simply pour the waste into the air we breathe and the water we are literally made of. The temptation is simply too great to those raised on excessive wealth and privileges. In fact, it can be too much for those who built their own fortunes without being evil too. Staying good is not always a choice that wealth allows. Few are altruistic enough to give away an entire fortune once they have it in their hands. Whether they see how it affects them or not.

I can see these things are true, but I also have no power, no magic wand to wave, to solve these miserable problems. Evil is a feature of being human. And only our collective will can solve it. We are not inherently evil, deserving of every bad thing that’s coming to us. But even the worst villains think of themselves as the heroes of their own story. So, how do we solve it all? You tell me. And then we’ll solve it together.

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January 19, 2022 · 8:46 pm

I am Sick of Being Angry

I am sick of a lot of things. Right now, Covid Omicron is probably one of those things. Oh, it doesn’t seem like it is going to kill triple-vaccinated me. But it is not making my life easy right now.

It bothers me that States with idiots in charge of the government are trying to legislate school curriculum in ways that eliminate books about black culture and black experience, life experiences of gay authors and trans people, and anything else historical or factual that makes white guys feel guilty or uncomfortable about not feeling guilty. (Notice I haven’t mentioned any particularly stupid red States like Texas or Iowa or the evil kingdom of Florida, nor have I specifically insulted moron governors like Greg Abbot or Ron DeSantis. I am behaving myself just as I learned to do from FOX News.)

It also bothers me that States with rabid monkeys in charge of the government are rewriting voting laws to seriously make things more difficult for certain people to vote, and rearranging vote certification so that the Republican party does not have to put up with people winning elections when they don’t like them. Voting is easy for me because I live in a mostly white-guy voting district and I look like somebody who might vote for Republicans. But even I could get into serious trouble if I tried to give a bottle of water of to an elderly black woman waiting in line to vote. And my side probably can’t win in the upcoming election because the majority of the voters who vote for my chosen side don’t look like me, or more obviously think like me.

And I am definitely disturbed by the fact that somebody who looks like a badly fermented mango and used to be the President of the United States, obviously, and in front of the world, incited a riot at the Capitol which resulted in violence and death for some rioters, but more Capitol Policemen. He literally tried to overthrow the US government. And a year later, he still has not been arrested and imprisoned, in spite of the fact that in many other countries he would’ve been executed for his traitorous, failed attempt at a coup.

But what good does it do to be angry about these things? Evil, greedy crooks have been running the ov er-all show since at least the 1980’s, and maybe longer, since before then I thought and spoke and acted like a child. I probably wasn’t mature enough to recognize how easily evil comes to mankind. Perhaps we were always doomed to eventual extinction by the excessive evilness rampant in the human species.

If mankind is going to be inventive enough and resourceful enough to survive nuclear proliferation, human-caused climate crisis, and de-evolution into fascistic. authoritarian, criminal empires, it will be the positive, creative, and good-natured among us that will find the solutions. Not the angry men that dominate politics and television.

I have done my part already. I taught kids to read, and a few of them to write. I hope I taught the right ones how to think. And I didn’t give them reason to become hateful. And I tried to teach them lessons on higher morality.

I finished a novel yesterday. That means Aeroquest 4, and The Necromancer’s Apprentice are both only a good proofreading away from being published.

Will I have time before the end to finish another? This I do not know. But there exists enough published stories by me to secure my right to call myself an author. Still, it is a task that makes me happy and leaves more positive than negative behind me when this life is over. It is a better, more-useful thing to do than being an angry man.

I hope you will help me, when the time comes, to vote the evil out of the government… if they let us do so. But I also hope you worry far more about being happy and fulfilled rather than angry.

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January 9, 2022 · 8:59 pm

Black Obsidian Thoughts

It is quite normal to fear the future. Ironically, one of the things necessary to having a good future is to foresee the worst things that could happen, especially the bad things that are likely to happen, and prepare to do whatever is necessary to survive them. Science fiction that pictures a dark and dystopian future have been popular in recent years. And we are wise to believe they are popular for very good reasons. People with guns in Texas fantasize about a coming Civil War in which they can purge the places they call home of the people they believe they hate because all of their troubles are repeatedly blamed upon those people by propaganda engines like FOX News. Of course, those people being blamed are people of color, immigrants like my wife, and intellectuals like… well, me. So, if our current society were to collapse suddenly, I would be obliged to apply those preparations I have made to try to save my own life. Of course, I am not a prepper, so those preparations don’t actually exist at this time. My plan for that sort of apocalypse is to be one of the first to die.

Among the Native American Dakota and Lakota peoples the magic-men, the Shamans, were self-identified by their dreams. If they dreamed of lightning, they were the ones tasked with ceremonial magic, the maintenance of the village’s spirituality. If they dreamed of the white bison, they were to be a great hunter/warrior, bringing home much venison, hides, and buffalo meat. But if they were a Stone Dreamer, that made them the prophet, the diviner of the possible and probable futures.

So, that’s what I think this essay is for. Stone Dreaming about the blackest of obsidian days to come.

Of course, the first thing to think about with black obsidian thoughts is the Covid pandemic. We already know that it has now evolved into an endemic viral problem. We may be obliged to get vaccinated once or twice or three times a year for the rest of our lives.

And the virus has mutated several times already. Thanks mostly to the fact that it is a world-wide epidemic that has visited high-population countries like China and India and Brazil where not nearly enough vaccinations are administered, especially to poor people. And in this country, there is a strong anti-vax sentiment that makes people express their patriotism and sense of freedom by refusing to get vaccinated and catching a lethal dose of Covid as a consequence of their chosen political values. The consequence could very well be that the human population of Earth is decimated by at least 80% when a Covid variant becomes both more deadly and more vaccine-defeating than it is now. That is a rough stone dream to swallow.

Another potential black obsidian stone dream is the looming threat of climate change and global warming. It is man-made despite what corporations choose to believe. And defeating it depends on those same corporations to stop adding more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, and then invent a time machine to take that resolve back in time fifty years. The Western United States is on fire now every Summer. And the oceans have begun to rise. Miami and Houston have already had over-large flooding problems from salt water. Coastal cities throughout the world will be completely underwater soon. Underwater domed cities, fish and seaweed farming, and travel by submersible need to already become reality rather than science fiction. This is the thing that we have to fear the most.

And how do we deal with these dreams of stone-cold reality? There are limits to what the ordinary citizen can do. We can try to live more simply. We can work to recycle more and reduce the amount of trash we generate. Picking up plastics, especially plastic bags to keep the oceans freer of micro-plastic shards will help. Wasting less clean fresh water will help. But unless we are directly related to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, we can’t do anything major individually. We must band together and care for the environment as stewards of the land more like the Native Americans once were.

We have to stop being corporate slaves, shopping to buy more stuff like we see on TV, and working harder and harder just to earn money to shop with.

And if we decide not to pay attention to these alarming stone dreams, we must be prepared like the Dakota warriors once were, ready to stake ourselves out on the plain and declare with no weapons in our hands, “Today is a good day to die!”

I am not personally ready for that. Are you?

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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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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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Filed under angry rant, commentary, nudes, Paffooney