My father is going into hospice care. Parkinson’s disease is winning against him. I am stuck in Texas until the results of my COVID 19 test come back. Needless to say, my heart is broken. I need magic to fix it now. Where do you find that kind of power? This is where I am looking today.
These are acapella songs. No instruments. Only voice. It comes straight from the heart. Out through the mouth and into the ever-present ether. Life may come to an end, but the sound of it continues… never-ending. Even God does not make a song unsung once it has been made real.
I have been watching these videos on my laptop, lying on my sickbed, and crying at the beauty, the truth, and the depths of sadness in my soul. It hurts to lose a parent. My father was born in 1930. In October of this year, his life-song will reach 90 years of age. It hurts now. But songs are never unsung once they finish. In this I find comfort.
I hope you will actually listen to these. I add a lot of music to my posts, and I never notice any reports of someone clicking on the videos. But these musicians; Pentatonix, Home Free, Peter Hollens, and BYU Vocal Point all have that magic… the power to both lift you up towards God and to make you weep for the bittersweet tragedy that is the experience of being alive and knowing… well, that every book has a final chapter, every song has a final note, and every life…
I don’t have to finish that thought, do I? Now is a proper time for sadness, for trepidation, for listening to music like this… and for remembering love. And I am not through crying just yet.
Since I originally posted this musical essay, my father passed away on my birthday in 2020. My mother did not last a year without him, rejoining him in September of 2021. I can’t listen to any of these songs now without weeping. But it is a good cry. It fills me up with the song of life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? But today… today I am filled with the music of lives well-lived. He was 89. She was 87.
Apparently the plan is, “Let’s use up everything on the Planet Earth to make ourselves excessively rich and possibly even happy, because the more you have, the more you are likely to be able to buy happiness. And if it destroys the Earth and all life on it, we will just move to Mars.”
That, of course, is a laughable solution to a problem that really isn’t funny. If we have the scientific knowledge and technology to transform Mars into a new home, why don’t we simply use that knowledge to fix what’s wrong with the planet we already live on?
Of course, I know the answer. Because it will cut into Koch Industries’ profit margins and provide less money and power to the shareholders that will survive Earth-death to live on the new Mars.
Cute rat, huh? Cute enough to merit space on the spacecraft to Mars?
Profit margins for shareholders are the whole reason for life on Earth. We can’t have the life and deaths of millions of the mere peasants and working poor to interfere with Ivanka Trump and Jared having chocolate cake with dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Right? Vermin don’t have rights.
I recently started a whole new life in a whole new world myself. I finished paying off my Chapter 13 Bankruptcy caused by medical debts and Bancko Merricka’s lawsuit. It gave me enough money to put in savings, and afford not only to pay off the incredibly high fees for Medicare Part B, but also to see an eye doctor and a glaucoma specialist. With treatment for my glaucoma, I see things more clearly, and with more vivid color than I have seen it all in a decade. And, although both of my parents passed away during the pandemic (but from health issues other than Covid,) I have inherited a third of the family farm along with my two sisters, actual wealth to leave to my own heirs. It would be nice to live in and enjoy the new world for a little while.
Of course, there is the problem that people like me aren’t really allowed to have wealth and keep it. Wealth is intended to get scooped up to benefit only the elite class of shareholders for whom the system is really designed to benefit. It has always been a tilted playing field.
I have paid off massive debts twice now where more than 75 % of the debt was created by compound interest. Bancko Merricka is full of pirates and cutthroats who are paid to make the money off the backs of those who really do the work and funnel it to the investors and shareholders who get to make lots of money because they already have money. I have sworn off credit cards from predatory banks, but life gets more expensive by the day, and there are limits to how much you can save on a teacher’s pension. Passive income is another thing tipped toward the people who own everything whether they worked for it or not.
The January 6th hearing is bringing out more and more of the criminal behavior of President Pumpkinhead and his MAGA Minions. These people who control whether or not we can mitigate climate change or protect ourselves from predatory banks are obviously never going to accept the good guys overcoming them and restoring democracy. Instead, we appear to be headed for the bad guys getting away with heinous crimes and instituting a minority ruling class by cheating, making us as bad as the German or Italian fascists of the 1930s and 40s. The Pumpkinhead will probably be President again in 2025. And we would be better off on Mars.
But the Mars solution won’t work for you and me. The vermin won’t be welcome like they were back when Noah built the Ark. Elon’s Ark will be for the rich and powerful only.
WordPress has put in a new feature for finding old photos from Posts Past.
This allows me to pull from past years much more easily than the scroll-down feature I have been using. Thus, art from 2017.
This is from the Star Wars Role-playing game that we stopped playing in 2008.the Murphy family (well, three of them anyway)The disintegrator pistol from Catch a Falling Star“The Wise Thaumaturge Visits Cymril”Eventual cover art for Magical Miss MorganI painted this miniature lead wizard, as well as made the castle from cardboard and paper.I also painted the buildings in the background, acrylic on plaster.“Their Most Feared Offensive Player Could Beat Them By Herself”All of these works of art are done by me, whether they are drawn, painted, or photographed.
This has been a look back at pictures posted in 2017, starting in December, and going back in time to January. There is at least one picture from every month.
Have you ever noticed that some celebrities with weird names are recognizable no matter how badly you mess up or mangle their names?
For example, take a name like Justin Timberlake.
If you call him Timber Just-in-the-lake, everyone still knows who you mean.
Yes, I’m talking about Laker Timberjust, that singer who used to be famous when he sang with that group Out O’ Sink. You know, that guy named Joozin Mimbolake who caused Joanie Jackelson’s wardrobe malfunction in the Superbowl. Muffin Limbersnake… you know, that guy.
Well, there’s this other actor named Ving Rhames.
Actor Ving Rhames (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)
Okay, that’s too scary to contemplate. Well, there’s always Kenderbick Bumbersnatch! He’s always good for a name-mangling good joke.
Very astute literary allusion delivered with Sherlockian poise, Benickle Bumberbatch!
I can think of a number of name mangles that make me laugh. Bumbershoot Bandersnatch, or Bimbleroot Snoodersnatch, or Smogthedragon Paddlebatch. What mangled names can you think of for the Mangled Name Game? You can put your bubbling genius-type answers to that question in the comments. For these guys, or any other mangle-able celebrity names you can think of.
If you tell a middle-school child not to do something, do you know what the only thing they are thinking about doing is? Yes, you know it. The thing you told them not to do is the only thing they desire to do. Republicans in general, old white guys with lots of money, and everybody who follows their lead will be exactly the same. If you want to see middle-school kids try coming to school naked, tell them the dress code specifically requires them to wear clothes. And it won’t be the pretty ones, the smart ones, or the poor ones who try to become in-school nudists. It will be the fat, ugly, wealthy ones. In fact, it is the reason private schools for the rich concentrate on telling them what they must wear, like ascots, diamond cufflinks, and polo shirts in school colors. And they never have a rule that states, “You must wear clothes.”
So, let’s see if we can really confuse the disobedient and contrary masses of the world by telling them not to do what we really want them to do. But don’t tell them we want them to do what we are telling them not to do. Make them figure it out for themselves. It’s the only way to get them to do what you want. Make them think it’s not what you want and forbid it.
(Is the king wearing his new clothes? Not if you can see them, peasant!)
Let’s start with the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSaniflush. Do not vote him out of office. Only support those ideas that benefit his political career no matter how badly they will hurt the people of Florida. Happily pay the extra tax burden he has laid on Florida residents because he rescinded the special deal Disney has as a major employer and corporate entity in the Orlando area. The Disney corporation is guilty of a terrible thing, not wishing to demean any of its LGBTQ employees by following his “Don’t Say Gay” law, and don’t deserve to have the special deal where they have the right to maintain their own roads and county services in the Disney World region of Florida. Those Floridians need to assert their rights by paying for those same maintenance and service issues with their own tax burden. That will show those Mickey-on-Pluto-going-at-it perverts.
Get what I really mean? Listen very carefully. Some of those words are dog-whistles and bell-ringers, and Floridians are too stupid to figure out what we really want them to do. They will never prove us wrong. Am I right?
This honorable gentleman, current Emperor of Texas, Greg “Gunslinger” Abbott, also should never be voted out of office. After all, he is the anointed successor to the former Emperor of Texas, Rick “I’m Smarter With My Glasses On” Perry. You don’t become Emperor of Texas by being voted in, but, rather, by preventing certain people from possibly voting against you.
You see, what Emperor Abbott wants to protect us from is something called Critical Race Theory. This is an evil cloud of educational ideas intended to make innocent white children, specifically rich innocent white children, feel guilty and ashamed by knowing about things like civil rights abuses, inequality, slavery, racially-motivated lynchings, the South losing the Civil War, and Jim Crow laws not being about birds. This will be achieved by accusing and firing teachers and principals, especially teachers and principals of color, for promoting CRT through books like the ones about Ruby Bridges.
Here are the kinds of books CRT police want to ban;
Bridges, Ruby (2009). Ruby Bridges Goes To School: My True Story. New York, NY: Scholastic Press. ISBN9780545108553. OCLC230915434.
Bridges, Ruby (2020). This Is Your Time. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. ISBN9780593378526.
For the good of white children in America, regardless of how children of color will feel about it, you should not buy these books to read them and risk liking the story of how young Ruby passed the test as a kindergartner in 1959 that allowed her to integrate William Franz Elementary as a first-grader, the only black child in her first-grade class in the previously all-white school, escorted to and from school every day by four U.S. Marshals and her mother, running a gauntlet of foul-mouthed racist protesters that threatened her, and attended an empty classroom where white children had been removed by their white parents in order to break the color barrier in Southern schools as a sort of heroine for the ages at seven years old. No, you should only buy these books to use as evidence against teachers or to burn them in a public display of CRT contempt.
So, here are the things you should not be doing. (And remember, you are not supposed to do what I say in this article.)
Do not develop tolerance for people and cultures that are different than your own. We are not stronger when we are diverse. That is a lie the bad guys tell.
Conservative and Republican are words that mean, “the good guys.”
Democrats, liberals, progressives, fascists, communists, socialists, and terrorists are all the same thing. They are all “bad guys” and all the same.
It is more important to hate the “bad guys” than it is even to love the “good guys.” After all you never know when a “good guy” will develop a conscience and become a RINO, socialist, or some other kind of “bad guy.”
“Bad guys” never have ideas worth listening to. What you don’t learn about can’t hurt you. So just ignore them… or better yet, hurt them.
Loving one another without conditions only works for perfect people like Republican Jesus. Don’t try it. Hating everyone works better.
So, these are the things I am saying when I say, “Don’t Do What I Say.” So, now you should go out and NOT do them.
The question arises from this most recent illustration I drew, “Are you saying, Mickey, that kids can learn better if they go to school naked?”
No! Are you crazy?
I used to teach middle school students. Can you imagine kids from this current modern culture being giving license to come to school starkers if they wish to do it? In the middle school world of half-brained sub-intellectuals passing judgement on everything? Especially judgments about appearance and attractiveness… or non-attractiveness? With brains fueled by hormones and the questionable values taught by TV and movies? Chaos! Fires being lit! Real and metaphorical! Windows being broken! Derisive laughter! Tears and sobbing from the offended! And that would just be the teachers.
But the truth is, if we look at the studies of B.F. Skinner and his recommendations for child-rearing in his Utopian propositions in the book Walden Two, children not taught to be ashamed of their nakedness from early on would develop more peacefully and naturally into perceptive and intelligent learners if allowed to be openly and happily naked.
Skinner, an experimental scientist, believed everything in life should conform to findings from scientific observations and scientific experiments. How loony is that? Why would we do something that is practical, natural, and beneficial just because it might enhance your ability to learn and enjoy your experience of the world?
In my illustration, I was actually intending to convey a notion of the relationship of openness and innocence to learning. The two children sharing the big danged book on the floor are nude because they are willing to approach the material with a sensory receptivity that can only be hampered by the barriers and limits we put on ourselves, like the clothing that we shield and limit our bodies with. So, I would never suggest it was appropriate to learn things while naked. Or even that, with the right training and cultural shifts, that going to school naked would be a good thing.
Even I have nightmares about being naked in school. In my dreams I sometimes dream about forgetting to put on clothes before going in front of a hostile classroom to teach something they all find boring and awful… while I am naked and awful myself. I still have that nightmare even now that I am retired.
No, I would never suggest that. Unless, somehow, you can suggest something by not suggesting it. Surely I am not tricksy enough to try to do anything like that. And remember, I was an actual teacher in an actual classroom for many years where I merely thought of them all as naked, because kids are all transparent about their lives and motivations and can’t keep a secret even if they didn’t want me to know everything about them, even the bad kids, and even things they wanted to hide from the teacher.
I have been making plans to go to Iowa to visit my sisters, family, and the family farm place where my sister Nancy is now living and keeping the farm running. Things have been slowed by a couple of unforeseen events. The place where my wife’s RV was stored got broken into. The catalytic converter was stolen out of every RV and vehicle that had one in the whole place. No camper, no place for my son and his fiancee to stay as we visit. So, he cancels. My wife wants to stay in Dallas and fix the RV. But my limited ability to drive long distances may require someone to do at least some of the driving for me. The two-week plan was cut to seven days. Whether my wife drives or not may also depend on whether the dog gets to go or not. My wife hates dealing with a whiny dog on the road. And Jade hates riding in cars, thinking every trip she gets to go on is a ride to the vet.
I, of course, have the good fortune to be in poor health, rendered helpless by hot weather, arthritis, diabetes, and whatever bug which turns out to not be Covid has currently got me head-achy and out of sorts. The trip is still possible, but things are looking harder and harder to overcome.
Catch a Falling Star 
Moving to Mars
Apparently the plan is, “Let’s use up everything on the Planet Earth to make ourselves excessively rich and possibly even happy, because the more you have, the more you are likely to be able to buy happiness. And if it destroys the Earth and all life on it, we will just move to Mars.”
That, of course, is a laughable solution to a problem that really isn’t funny. If we have the scientific knowledge and technology to transform Mars into a new home, why don’t we simply use that knowledge to fix what’s wrong with the planet we already live on?
Of course, I know the answer. Because it will cut into Koch Industries’ profit margins and provide less money and power to the shareholders that will survive Earth-death to live on the new Mars.
Profit margins for shareholders are the whole reason for life on Earth. We can’t have the life and deaths of millions of the mere peasants and working poor to interfere with Ivanka Trump and Jared having chocolate cake with dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Right? Vermin don’t have rights.
I recently started a whole new life in a whole new world myself. I finished paying off my Chapter 13 Bankruptcy caused by medical debts and Bancko Merricka’s lawsuit. It gave me enough money to put in savings, and afford not only to pay off the incredibly high fees for Medicare Part B, but also to see an eye doctor and a glaucoma specialist. With treatment for my glaucoma, I see things more clearly, and with more vivid color than I have seen it all in a decade. And, although both of my parents passed away during the pandemic (but from health issues other than Covid,) I have inherited a third of the family farm along with my two sisters, actual wealth to leave to my own heirs. It would be nice to live in and enjoy the new world for a little while.
Of course, there is the problem that people like me aren’t really allowed to have wealth and keep it. Wealth is intended to get scooped up to benefit only the elite class of shareholders for whom the system is really designed to benefit. It has always been a tilted playing field.
I have paid off massive debts twice now where more than 75 % of the debt was created by compound interest. Bancko Merricka is full of pirates and cutthroats who are paid to make the money off the backs of those who really do the work and funnel it to the investors and shareholders who get to make lots of money because they already have money. I have sworn off credit cards from predatory banks, but life gets more expensive by the day, and there are limits to how much you can save on a teacher’s pension. Passive income is another thing tipped toward the people who own everything whether they worked for it or not.
The January 6th hearing is bringing out more and more of the criminal behavior of President Pumpkinhead and his MAGA Minions. These people who control whether or not we can mitigate climate change or protect ourselves from predatory banks are obviously never going to accept the good guys overcoming them and restoring democracy. Instead, we appear to be headed for the bad guys getting away with heinous crimes and instituting a minority ruling class by cheating, making us as bad as the German or Italian fascists of the 1930s and 40s. The Pumpkinhead will probably be President again in 2025. And we would be better off on Mars.
But the Mars solution won’t work for you and me. The vermin won’t be welcome like they were back when Noah built the Ark. Elon’s Ark will be for the rich and powerful only.
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Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney