Seeds of despair have been growing and blooming into black orchids of depression. Doubt creeps in. It is true that the publisher I just signed a contract with is the kind of publisher that squeezes their money out of the authors rather than readers. That seems to be a dominating trend in the publishing world now. You don’t make as much money as a publisher by investing in advertising, editing services, and printing services at your own expense, even paying advances to authors for the rights to their works. The old way is dead. One way or another, to compete in the modern market you have to squeeze more and more profit out of your workers. More productivity for less money in wages puts more money into the hands of the owners, the corporations, and the CEO’s where it obviously belongs. I suppose, as one of those little guys at the base of the poo-poo volcano of American business, I have a right to feel cheated and abused. My hard work is taken supreme advantage of by others.
Lots of stuff has been going wrong lately. The yard has gone untended for too long and is now overgrown and wild. The dog got hold of number two son’s $350 retainer again. Both of my kids at home are groaning under the strains of work and school. My health continues to slide down the old hill. They are even cancelling one of my favorite Facebook games.
I must now say goodbye to Avengers Alliance on Facebook.
But despair is not really in my nature. I knew going in that publishing my book this way was going to cost me money I will probably never make back in my lifetime. But it will be available in print. It will even have my own artwork on it. And if I have to publish the other novels as digital Kindle copies only, at least I will actually have three books in print.
The yard looks unkempt, but there are blossoms everywhere, and our plants are at least processing carbon dioxide and putting oxygen back in the air.
The dog got hold of the retainer, but this time apparently realized how much trouble she was in. She doesn’t appear to have bitten or chewed on it at all.
Broken spirits and weariness are the intended products of the modern American school system, so we are doing that right, at least.
And not being able to afford to go to the doctor any more has made my wallet a lot healthier. I have the money… er, credit… to spend for the first time in ten years.
Maybe the orchids are not so black as I thought.
Catch a Falling Star 
Opinions Are Like Onions
“Why does something always smell bad when I am talking?”
Opinions are like Onions.
All you have to do is subtract 3.141592 and they are exactly the same.
The people that like the way they taste like theirs a lot.
They want you to try them.
And if you don’t like the taste, then you just don’t know what’s good for you.
Onions are good for you. They make you fart and they clear out the bad gasses made up of methane and other toxic waste from your colon and digestive tract.
Opinions are good for you too. They make you fart out of the mouth, clearing bad gasses made up of stupidity and toxic ideas out of your little old brain. You should not be holding that stuff in. It is poisonous and it could potentially explode. Not something you want to happen in either the colon or the brain. Only stupid people hang on to them in the face of contradictory evidence. (It makes me nervous that I don’t see people exploding more often, because I hold the opinion that there really are a lot of stupid people out there. I, too, am probably in danger of exploding at some point.)
And see, that’s the important point here. Opinions are only as valuable as fart gas. For the all-important progress of ideas to really happen, opinions have to be tested. And I don’t mean opinions like whether or not you like the taste of onions. I am talking about opinions that lead to policy. Politics are crammed full of opinions. (I got that right, didn’t I? I didn’t say “onions” when I actually meant “opinions”, right?)
Hillary Clinton is apologizing now for the opinion-based fart-gas of saying that “half of Donald Trump’s supporters are deplorable people”. The facts are that the KKK has voiced support for Trump, as have a number of immigrant-hating racists like Ann Coulter who will tell you in detail about all her onions concerning Mexicans and brown people. People at Trump’s rallies have physically assaulted black people and protesters of any variety. And to “deplore” someone is to speak out against their ideas or actions. So the critical word that is not a fact, but rather an onion, must be “half”. This is the word where Hillary went wrong. I am sure that “half” is an under-estimation.
And Mr. Trump, as a connoisseur of truly stinky onions has said that Clinton and Obama are literally the founders of ISIS. And in his onion, Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than President (of this country) Obama. One wonders why no one has really sliced and diced these particular onions. One imagines that if Hillary were the chef serving these onions, no one would be willing to have them in the dining room, let alone eat them. Onions need be tested for flavor and rightness long before they are served.
So, to close up this onion-smelling essay before it makes me fart again, let me just say, we need to not get stuck in the onion patch and mistakenly convince ourselves we are smelling roses. Roses shouldn’t make you cry.
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Filed under angry rant, commentary, goofy thoughts, humor, memes, metaphor, Paffooney, politics, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, humor, onions, opinions, paffooney, politics, politics and goofiness