Category Archives: politics

July 28, 2016 · 12:48 am

Love and Hate and Politics

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I cringed through a few of the speeches in the Republican National Convention.  Speech after speech talked about how bad Hillary Clinton is, how terrible ISIS is, how Obama has betrayed us and failed us, and other warm fuzzy stuff like that.  They make me sick to my stomach with fear.

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Was there anything to like about the RNC in Cleveland?  Well, their logo was nice.

I could complain about the plagiarism thing, the Ted Cruz booing thing (although that actually made me smile), or Donald’s deep, dark speech of the coming apocalypse.  But I would rather do like the Democrats seem to be doing this week.  I would rather talk about the good things they can and will do if only we are smart enough to give them the chance.

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They contrasted their policies in favor of ending discrimination based on race, gender, and orientation with the anti-crime and anti-terrorism howls of the Republicans. Instead of talking about how satisfying it would be to throw the other side’s candidate in jail for imagined crimes, they told us about Hillary’s record of standing up for women, children, and the handicapped.  They gave us specifics about what she has done and who she has helped and what she has learned from Bernie Sanders.  Sanders graciously made her the unanimous choice by throwing all of his delegates behind her.  There was peace and harmony (beyond a few former Bernie supporters who were so mad about the DNC email leak that they may vote Trump out of spite).  Cory Booker’s speech suggested that instead of talking about what we are afraid of, we should be talking about working together in a spirit of love and friendship in order to do great things.  Trump, of course, had an angry tweet in response to that, suggesting he knew things about Booker that could shame him.  Booker replied that he loved Donald Trump and felt honored that the orange one considered him worthy of an angry tweeting.

Now, I am not saying that Democrats are perfect and Republicans are evil… am I?  I don’t believe that when I am rational and not dreaming up nightmares… do I?  But loving one another is what I think the default position should always be for Christians.  So why are the nominally Christian conservatives so much more keen on the righteous wrath of God stuff and punishing those they hate?  Shouldn’t it be the opposite of that?  And my severely Republican friends are always suspicious of just how Christian the godless communist heathens in the Democratic party really are.  If the Democrats are so totally wrong, shouldn’t the facts line up against them?

But it all boils down to facts versus feelings, doesn’t it.  Republicans have reason to be angry, especially the poor ones, because of the raw economic deal they have been given.  Their righteous indignation deserves redress.  But is that best served by punishing Democrats in the more liberal party that more generally favors less income inequality?  What about the capitalist billionaires who drive the Republican agenda?  Are they really saints and deserving of everything they have taken for themselves?

I am smart, but not smart enough to have ultimate answers to the biggest questions.  I have Republican friends who agree whole-heartedly  with that last sentence, especially words five, six, and seven.  But I know the DNC made me feel good while watching, and the RNC made me ill.  I definitely choose love over hatred and politics.

 

 

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July 27, 2016 · 1:35 pm

Driving Lessons

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My middle child, Henry, is sixteen and anxious to learn how to drive.  And like all young drivers, he has yet to get into his first accident, is awkward behind the wheel, and is determined to be the best driver the world has ever seen.  So, we gave him a driver’s instruction course, which he completed by July 15th, though he hasn’t taken the wheel yet in a driver’s ed car.  And I had to come to terms with the idea that, even though I shelled out more than 300 dollars to have someone else teach him to drive, I was still going to be the one riding in the passenger’s seat and cringing every time the car lurches towards oncoming traffic and hideous, painful death.

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I decided that since we were visiting Iowa where populations are shrinking and little towns like ours are dying, we might as well take advantage of nearly empty streets and lack of other drivers competing for road space.  We went to Rowan to practice driving.

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Of course I had forgotten how narrow the streets are in my little home town.  Some of the avenues can’t sustain two cars passing in opposite directions at once.  And there are more than a few junk cars, old tractors, and other wheeled things parked in the way, just begging to be hit and make a dent in our affordable insurance.

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Leave it to me to be multi-tasking while teaching the boy to drive the family battleship down the narrow streets of Rowan.  I wanted to take pictures to do this post.  I also wanted to take my mind off the depressing realization that Donald Trump will likely be the next president, and our lives will continue to go down hill as we are treated more and more like cash-generating farm animals for billionaires, corporations, and the owners of all the debt we have accrued by selfishly spending money on life’s necessities in order to keep on living.  We stopped to take a picture at the house I grew up in.  It was depressing to see that the house has not been painted since I put that blue paint on it when I was a teenager.  Dang!  I’m sixty now.  And the poor people who live there now couldn’t afford to paint it even once in the last forty-two years.

But even with all the potential distractions, we managed to practice driving and parking and driving again without any catastrophes or sudden fiery death.  We did pass the same lady walking her little white dog four different times on four different streets.  We only made a wide turn and nearly squished her dog one time.  And we only had one incident where he accidentally pressed the gas instead of the brake while the car was in reverse instead of drive.  Unfortunately, that happened on Main Street.  Fortunately, the one and only car parked on Main Street was in front of us and not behind us.  So we were successful.  An hour and a half of driving practice with no costly accidents and no blood or death.

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July 3, 2016 · 6:41 pm

Butts and Nolts

“Don’t you actually mean nuts and bolts?” someone is surely going to say.  Oh, yes, I misspelled that little item on purpose.  This is another inane post about the writing process and trying to improve my “brand” with my blog.  It is something I have no earthly idea how it works or how to go about it.  So I often have to go back and think about the nuts and bolts of how you put this stuff together and try like heck to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Dumb Luck

Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.

So, the problem is, while the blog as a whole has been gaining momentum, my blog traffic is down for this month.  People are not viewing and reading my actual stuff and nonsense as much as they were in the other months besides February.  So I have to look again at what works and why it works.

A lot of my work generates interest from the real world outside of my stupid little head because of the artwork.  I am really probably better at drawing colored pencil Paffooneys than I am at the constant yadda-yadda-yadda of trying to write humor.  Pictures like Mr. Fuddbugg here draw people in better than anything else I can post.  Of course, the artwork I post from my favorite cartoonists and comic artists of the past, like Wally Wood and Rumiko Takahashi draw far more views than my own artwork does.  This is due to the undeniable fact that they are better known and better at it than I am.

And both of those artists are well known for the “butts” that are in their works.  Yes, nudes and naked pictures increase your blog traffic.  Two of my top ten posts of the past two years are Be Naked More (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2015/12/20/be-naked-more/) and Naked and Nude (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2015/03/04/naked-and-nude/).  (Sorry for the poor link quality, but my computer is still having brain farts and keeps shrinking stuff and blowing stuff up at random, so I cannot, for the moment, make proper links.)  So, I can probably boost my blog traffic by posting another nude I have never posted before, even though it may make it impossible to share this on Facebook.

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This picture is actually a very complicated thing to post.  I have issues with things like sexuality and nudity because I was assaulted as a child.  And some of my nude drawings involve real-life models whose privacy I don’t want to invade.  (Yes, I had a real Gryphon pose nude for this picture.)  But this picture is old, having been created during my wild days as a grad-school college nerd.  Adding the “nude” tag to this post will undoubtedly draw in viewers.  (There really do seem to be a lot of people out there who want to look at naked Gryphons.)  And I am not ashamed at having drawn this pencil-piece.  It brings back lots of grand and glorious memories, though probably not the ones you think I mean.

Finally, I may need to get more aggressively insulting.  It seems to be the thing to do to create political humor with the impending Presidential Election coming up between the Wicked Witch of Wall Street and the Racist Orange King.

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The Orange King is very, very HYUGE! but his hands are small.

But there are difficulties in pulling that one off.  I mean, I spent a lifetime learning how to love the unlovable in the classroom because all students are able to learn and we owe them all, as teachers, the best education we can give them.  (Believe me, you will have a better life because I spent my teaching career trying to iron out the stupid from the laundry basket of Texas education.)  So I will have to settle for a more serene and gentle sort of political wit (if I may be allowed one last oxymoron).  Because I agree with Neal Gaiman on the subject of Political Correctness.

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There’s my two cents, such as it is.  Four cents after inflation.  I have had my say about the Butts and Nolts of this essay.  And if that’s not enough to explain it, then feel free to call me names in the comments and look at some of my other recent posts that nobody is reading so you can see how terrible those are too.  And thank you for actually reading the whole post.

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July 1, 2016 · 3:03 pm

Polyticks

political insanity

People are people, no matter how wrong…

And it isn’t a good thing to argue too long.

My friend is a “Can” from the Republic of Cans,

Who says all the poor people are just bad hu-mans.

And he really believes it, even though he’s not dumb,

‘Cuz he thinks climbing ladders using one of his thumbs,

Is how all people manage to be worthy and good,

And lazy bad people choose to fail like soft wood.

And though he’s not seen that old ladder of mine,

Or the ladders of people with one rung in nine,

He’s thoroughly convinced that all ladders are fair,

And it’s all their own fault if they fall through the air.

Yes, people are people, no matter how wrong…

And it isn’t a good thing to argue so long.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asserts an objection to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a Democratic sponsor of the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline bill, as the committee met to advance the controversial project, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sanders, who sits with the Democrats, wanted an amendment to put Congress on the record about their beliefs on climates change and whether they agree with the international scientific community that climate change is real or not. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

I have a good friend who’ll do Demos of Crats,

And screech about equity like an army of cats.

He thinks we should pay for all college and school,

And use our tax money as a leveling tool.

He thinks we can make the rich pay for our dreams

And make life all breakfast of sugars and creams.

And maybe he can and maybe he can’t…

Make sense of the subject of his long, drawn-out rant,

But they’ll never pay it and he will get Berned,

Because they never part with what they think they have earned.

But, people are people, no matter how wrong…

And it isn’t a good thing to argue so long.

In conclusion I think the thinks that I think

Are carefully measured and really don’t stink,

But don’t take good thinking to toss in dump,

Or sooner or later… it’s President Trump!

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May 19, 2016 · 6:27 pm

Point by Point

Wally22

I was enumerating yesterday all the bad things that make my life exactly the way I expect it to be as a total pessimist.  Of course, I left out that I am fully expecting Donald Trump to be the next president of this country.  Yes, I expect the worst to happen.  Hillary Clinton will not beat Trump either because of her toxic unfavorability or because the email thing will bring down an indictment to nullify her eligibility to be president.  And all my conservative friends who love Trump will continue to dance happy dances and sing about me being a hopeless “lib-tard” who doesn’t really know anything about anything as Trump continues to rob them and make their lives more miserable with the help of the government he will control from the inside.

Yes, one of the biggest downers about being too smart for your own good is, you see past the lies everyone tells themselves, and perceive the darkest of the truths that lurk behind them.

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I got this meme from a high school friend who served in the Navy and became a firefighter… an honorable public servant no matter how you look at it.

In the meme to the right, I am characterized as a self-centered numb-noggin who thinks his opinion is more important than the realities of this person’s life.  It makes me sad that my childhood friend believes this is true about my political beliefs.  But I am not claiming to be oppressed.  Well, maybe by Trump once he does away with the healthcare law that guarantees insurance companies will cover me despite six pre-existing conditions.  This is a straw man argument that sets up liberals as unreasonable norks that want the law to dictate that everything should be the way liberals want them to be.  That is not the way I see being a liberal.

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I choose rather to look at what people are saying on all sides and make decisions based on my hopefully broad and enlightened mind.  I would never advise someone to have an abortion.  But I do care what happens to children once they are born.  Are we limiting their suffering when they are not wanted by anyone?  When they are born into poverty?  When they drink lead-contaminated water and are subjected to brain damage and death because the conservative government decided saving money was worth the risk?  I believe all people are deserving of respect and all people have value.  I have gay friends and former students.  Their existence in this world enriches it, and I am not ashamed to know them.  I would never ask one of my conservative friends to marry another man… or marry anybody.  I have a wife who is from a foreign country and her road to citizenship is still not traversed.  Could we be making that road harder than it needs to be?

I am a liberal.  But I would not call myself a tax-and-spend liberal.  I would rather see the money we already pay in taxes go for better public schools, better roads and bridges and public works, less expensive, or even FREE college education for my struggling children, rather than tax breaks and corporate wellfare for GE, Pfizer, and Exxon.  Is it too much to ask that our taxes be spent on us rather than enhancing corporate profit margins?  And couldn’t millionaires and billionaires afford to pay the same percentage of taxes that I do?  Maybe even more because they have more?  Why does believing these things make me evil?  Or stupid?  Or any of the other things that my conservative friends tell me that I am because I am a liberal?  I would rather reason things out than simply insult others, something the other side of this argument doesn’t make a habit of doing.

I have no problem saying, “Black lives matter.”  They do matter.  And they have not been treated fairly.  Not Trayvon Martin.  Not Michael Brown.  Especially not Tamir Rice, the twelve year old shot to death for having a toy gun.  These are children who are not to blame for their own deaths.  So I am not burdened to add “…All lives matter” because it goes without saying.  White and Asian lives have not been snuffed out in Walmart’s toy section for handling an air rifle.  I guess I must be a reverse-racist for saying this like I have been told on Facebook.

I am a liberal.  So shoot me.  Er… rather, don’t shoot me.  But be patient with my fact-heavy and logic-heavy arguments.  If you are a Christian, then weigh my arguments against what you know in your heart Jesus actually would do.  I know scripture.  I have read the entire Bible more than once.  I am confident my wanting government to do what helps the greatest number and harms no one will stand the test.  And I am preparing to deal with a President Donald Trump who probably won’t see it that way.

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May 15, 2016 · 8:40 pm

A Question of Gender

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As an almost sixty-year-old heterosexual man with a wife and three kids,  I am really not in a very good position to pontificate on the North Carolina transgender bathroom controversy.  I play with dolls and stuffed animals (though in my defense, it is more of a collector and wannabe toy-maker style of thing).  A couple of my children may actually decide to consider themselves bisexuals (though in their defense, almost all teenagers go through this sexual-identity angst and it is fluid, not carved in stone).  The religion I professed for most of last twenty years says that we should hate gender problems and treat them as a wicked lifestyle choice, not a genetically determined spot on the flexible continuum between male and female.

But I have known transgender people as a school teacher who was always approachable and who students often trusted with their deepest, darkest secrets.  And teachers, by the very definition of the profession, care about students.  The insensitivity of this stupid controversy breaks my old teacher-heart.

The truth is, transgender people in this country inhabit a bear pit full of angry bears that wish to rend them with claw-like condemnations and bullying treatment all because their preachers and opinion leaders tell them that they should be angry about this.  But whose business is it really?  And all the transgender people I have ever known, all two of them, were incredibly damaged people.  Suicide is the most likely result of the depression and self-loathing that most transgender teens experience.  I pray that such a thing doesn’t happen to children whom I have taught and tried to love for who they are.  But it happens.

(I need to warn you… the next part is not funny at all… nor is it intended to be.)

My example story does not have any names attached.  I will not tell you what happened in the end because transgender people are entitled to privacy.    But I am using a concrete example because I want to share with you things I know to be true.  The boy I am telling you about was really born a girl.  He was a boy on his birth certificate because an accident caused by hormonal imbalances during gestation gave him a penis on the outside even though he had internal girl parts, including ovaries.  He was not a hermaphrodite, though he was closer to being that than he was to being normal.  His culture forced him to be raised as a boy, even though his thoughts and actions revealed him to be a girl.  The people around him had decided he was gay by the time he was old enough to be in my classes.  He was bullied, insulted, and abused in very Catholic and homophobic community.  Things got even worse as he began to develop breasts.  It was no wonder he acted out in school.  The image burned into my memory was the day he threw a fit in the school hallway and had to be restrained so he would not continue to smash his forehead against the doorpost.  He was screaming and crying and ended up having to be hospitalized on a protracted suicide watch.  I never found out what set off the meltdown, but I can imagine based on the things I saw people do and say to him.  I believe he eventually had a sex-change operation in his twenties.  I pray that was a true rumor and not just wishful thinking on the part of some of his former friends.  That would’ve solved much of his problem, if only it had been an option before so much damage was done.  It might’ve been better if he had been allowed to dress and act like a girl from early childhood on… like the other one I know about but can’t say any more about.  They deserve to keep whatever dignity and respect they still have.  We don’t have the right to take it from them.

This has been a very difficult thing to write about.  I hope, if you read this far, that I haven’t made you cry as much I as I did myself.  But crying is good, because it means there is caring in a place where more caring and understanding are desperately needed.  There are places to gain more knowledge about this issue, and I hope that you can see that more knowledge is what is most critical to resolving it.  Let me offer a link from a right-hearted clergyman to help you know a little bit more.

A Baptist Pastor Tells You What He’s Learned About Transgender People.

Cool School Blue

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May 4, 2016 · 2:53 pm

Rare Are the Good Times

Senator Tedhkruzh, the lizard-man from the doomed planet Galtorr Prime.
The orange-haired bloviator known as Donald Trump.
John Kasich flipping the byrd at teachers.

Last night brought second-hand victories to Mickeyworld.  I am definitely NOT a Republican, but the Indiana Primary results put a smile on my face.  Not, of course, because the Orangutan Man with a pocket-full of wall plans won and will probably be the GOP nominee.  Rather, because the evil space lizard who wants to put an end to everything good that comes from government finally dropped out of the race for President.  Yes, Ted Cruz has put his world domination ambitions on hold until some future election or military or political coup.  And Trump against any candidate the Democrats put forward will probably lose… unless Americans all have lobotomies before November.

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The NHL playoff game last night also yielded good news.  The St. Louis Blues, after having beaten last year’s Stanley Cup champion, beat the Dallas Stars 6 goals to 1 in the third game of round two.  They totally dominated the division champions and took the lead in the series in a way that makes it seem that going to roll over them.

I am certainly not fool enough to imagine the good times will last.  Good things happen one day, only to evaporate into nothingness the next.  But I tend to believe that I have every right to enjoy the good things while they happen.  Boo-hoos for tomorrow.  Yippee-kai-yays for today.

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March 6, 2016 · 10:30 am

Making Fun of What’s Funny

 

Senator Tedhkruzh

There is only so much time you can spend making fun of Tronald Dump and Cred Tuz…  Only so many “Ted Cruz is a lizard-man” jokes can be made before they are no longer funny.  But it is never going to be less important during an election season than it is now.

Lizard-man Cruz is a religious-fanatic-poser who will lead us further into the realms of oligarchy and fascism.  We see him constantly in the Republican Presidential debates using lizard tricks to get any advantage he can get.  Telling Ben Carson supporters that Ben the Sleepy Dwarf was leaving the race and his supporters should vote for Cruz, the next best choice.  Of course, Carson was still in the race.  And all we got from the Cruz campaign was a big old “oopsie”. Those of us dedicated to making fun of Senator Cruz, especially those of us in Texas who have to take the blame for him, are trying our hardest to expose what he is to everyone who listens to us, and it isn’t working very well.  Cruz, as sleazy and reviled as he is, still seems to get what he wants… at least preventing others from having what he doesn’t want us to have.

Here’s a lovely video of Ted Cruz from Bad Lip Reading on YouTube;

I have to admit that I had to watch this three times to figure out that they were matching words to his lips rather than just showing us stupid crap that Ted actually says.  I mean, he really does talk and act like this.  How was I supposed to know it was mere satire?

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And as bad as Ted Cruz would be as a choice for President, Donald Trump would be far worse.  The irrational humanoid orangutan is using the same sort of fear tactics that Herr Adolf used to rise in Germany in the 1930’s.  He uses Mexicans and Muslims as whipping people instead of Jews, but he is similar in almost every tactic.  In fact, I believe that Herr Hitler would have his own reality TV show if he lived in New York City in this day and age.  He would definitely relish firing people on television, especially using real fire.  This man is leading all the Republican candidates in the polls.  He is even capable of beating Hillary Clinton due to her Benghazi-and-email tarnished reputation.  We may soon be required to salute and shout “heil Donald!” in this country.

Any of the Republican candidates would be better than these two I have concentrated my ridicule upon, yet any of them would be a disaster.  Kasich and Rubio are the most moderate and least-likely-to-destroy-all-life-on-earth.  But Kasich wants to slaughter public education, and Rubio is actually an enemy to immigration reform, not an advocate.  They are no bed of roses either.  Bed of thorns maybe, but not sweet-smelling like roses.

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A fairly accurate portrait of what Marco Rubio sees when he looks in a mirror.

So now I have used my 500 words to elucidate and lament the evils of politics as they have played out in this election year so far.  I hope you will laugh with me at the ridiculousness of booger-eaters like Cruz and monkey-men like Trump.  But I also hope you will take this humor at least a little bit seriously.

 

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February 28, 2016 · 5:26 pm

The Cowboy Code

When I was a boy playing cowboys and Indians with cap pistols and rubber tomahawks, we all knew that cowboys had a code.  The guy in the white hat always shoots straight.  He knows right from wrong.  He only shoots the bad guy.  He even shoots the gun out of the bad guy’s hand if he can.  Westerns are about right and wrong, good and bad, and the unyieldingly good knights of plains.

And boys believe what they see on TV and in the movie theaters.  People who make television shows never lie, do they?  In fact, Wyatt Earp was based on a real guy who really lived and really shot the bad guys at the gosh-darn real OK Corral.

Daniel Boone was a real guy too.  He faced the opening up of new lands full of deadly dangers.  And when Fess Parker played him in 1964, wearing Davy Crockett’s coonskin hat, he walked the earth like a guardian angel, making everyone safe by the end of the episode.  He even knew which Indians were good and which were bad.  Mingo was always on Daniel’s side.  And when they spoke to each other about the dangers they faced, it was never about killing the people they feared.  It was about doing what is was right, about helping the community at Boonesboro to survive.  Being encouraging… looking forward to a more settled future created by following the cowboy frontier code.

So, I am left wondering what ever happened to the cowboy code?  I listen to Republican presidential candidates talking about dipping bullets in pig’s blood to kill Muslims, and building walls against Mexican immigrants, and why our right to carry assault rifles is sacred, and I wonder what happened.  Didn’t they experience the same education from the television versions of the Great American Mythology?  Didn’t they learn the code too?

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I am old enough now to know that cap guns are not real guns and you cannot solve problems by shooting somebody.  But that was never the point of the cowboy code.  We need straight-shooters again in our lives, not to shoot people, but to tell the unvarnished truth.  We need wise people who can tell who are the good Indians and who are the bad   We need them to shoot the weapons out of the bad guys’ hands.  And I know that’s asking for leaders to be larger than life and be more perfect than a man can actually be.  But Daniel Boone was a real man.  Myths and legends start with a fundamental truth.

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February 25, 2016 · 4:43 pm

Left is Right

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The finished portrait of Marla

With numerous health problems, I have difficulty with sleeping every night.  One of the worst problems I have is nocturnal acid reflux.  It makes me wake up in the middle of night with fire in my throat, like some sort of dyspeptic acid-spitting dragon.  I have to vault out of bed, arthritis and all, and go toss the contents of my stomach into the toilet.  Sorry to be so gross, but it is important to this theme to get a sense of just how bad it is to be on the wrong side.  What do I mean by that?  Well, I learned from a doctor recently that which side you lie on to sleep makes a big difference.  If you sleep on your right side at night, your stomach is oriented in a way that the top opening angles down towards the esophagus.  This leads to an unfortunate ooze of stomach acid that sets off the reflux crisis.  If, however, you sleep on your left side, the stomach is angled in a manner that allows gravity to work for you instead of against you.  I have been intentionally lying on my left side every night for a month.  It works.  No acid reflux.  Until last night.  But when I woke up gagging, I had unconsciously rolled onto my right side.  So it has become obvious to me,  the left side is the right side.

 

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The latest additions to my collection, January & February

Life has to be in balance.  But, unfortunately, it constantly shifts back and forth, up and down, and all around.  Keeping life in balance is a juggling act that may involve lying only on your left side while you sleep.

I worry too about the balance affecting the world as a whole right now.  We are very deeply mired in a time when political right and left are out of balance and have been for too long.  In politics, the right is the conservative belief that things should remain the same.  Since the Reagan administration, that has meant deregulating in the name of profits, free market capitalism, and letting Wall Street profit-makers do anything and everything they want to do to make higher profits.  The left is in favor of change.  When I was a kid, I can remember the left being a very bad thing.  They wanted communist-style revolution.  They robbed banks and blew things up.  But most of those leftists are now dead.  They still exist, but the far right is just as dangerous, the KKK, the militias, and they are far more numerous in this day and age.  The leftist agenda now is more what used to be the moderate position.  Senator Elizabeth Warren and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders want to re-regulate the Wall Street trends that caused the economic meltdown in 2008.   They want to promote progressive tax systems that move the money out of corporate profit-funnels and back into the hands of the middle class, and the institutions that benefit them.  There is a need to shift to the left.  There is need to restore balance.  Once again I think it is proper to say, the left side is the right side.

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Here is some of that leftist thinking from the socialist Public Television initiative.

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