Saturday June 27, 2020
127 Days until the election on November 3rd
207 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
First, my apologies. Which, you will understand more, as we go along. I’ve been taking a course with Shelby on how to do video in real time, livestreaming, and the like. One of the things I learned was the idea of a teaser. Something you ask at the beginning of your video to grab someone’s interest. Well, I’ve been lying in bed thinking about what I wanted to write today, and then I thought about a teaser, and then another, and another.
TRIPLE TEASER ALERT!!!
T1 – What’s your super power? What are you really really good at?
For me, it’s the ability to weave together seemingly disparate pieces of information into a coherent whole. On the downside, I sometimes forget to explain how all the really neat pieces of information fit together, because I think it’s sooo obvious. (This explains a lot. Like why when I was being super cool at high school dances and trying to impress a young lady she would look at her wrist and explain she had to go to the bathroom, never to return.)
(BTW part of a teaser is to answer the question you posed to explain how it relates to you. See above.)
T2 – Have you seen the movie “Office Space”? It’s a cult classic and one of my favorites. In it, the protagonist, played by Ron Livingston, at the beginning of the movie explains to a therapist that every day when he wakes up he thinks that day is the worst day of his life. The therapist says, “that’s messed up,” but says he can help by hypnotizing Ron. The therapist does so. Ron is hypnotized. The therapist has a heart attack and drops dead, leaving Ron in this happy Who Gives a S*? State for the rest of the movie.
I have found having a bit of WGAS? is useful, especially in today’s world, and especially today, as everyday the news seems worse than the day before.
T3 – Last year I got this lovely two stapled catalog called “Napa Lifestyle.” It had beautiful photos of products they were selling staged in California wine country. The products seemed nice, if overpriced, and maybe not the top quality they purported, but the stories behind them were stellar.
In today’s screed as I go through the increasingly more terrible than the day before news, I will be introducing sidebar commentary on products I intend to sell in my catalog called “DGAS & DGAF lifestyle”. The D is for Don’t. It is the compliment to W which is Who. GA is “Gives A” and if you can’t figure out the S or the F, it’s okay. Because…that’s right (WGAS?)!
In Texas, Arizona, Florida and many other states (all run by Republican governors) are hitting all time highs on infection from the Corona virus. The three states I’ve mentioned are in dire straits (no not the band!) Their hospitals are reaching the point that in the next few days they will have to start triage protocols. That means doctors will have to start determining who lives and who dies. There is a scoring system, which includes questions like: How bad is it? Are they likely to recover? And How many good years do they have left anyway? (Their questions are a bit more antiseptic sounding btw.)
It’s gotten so bad that the governors in those three states have taken their lips off the penis of the president long enough to say, “Gosh, a lot of you are dying. Why don’t you wear a mask? I’m sorry but the bars will have to close again, despite my saying yesterday that we wouldn’t do that.”
Maricopa county in Arizona is so bad that it is outstripping Brazil in infection rates. Houston is so bad that the mayor of the county (not sure how that works) has issued a dire warning, code red, to stay inside. Too bad the governor took away her ability to make it an order.
The rate of infection throughout the southern states is skyrocketing. And it’s only in the last week. Kind of looks like the unemployment graph, which is kind of like this: hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, YIKES!
Yeah, both the unemployment and the rate of infection is literally Off-The-Charts. I remember when I worked at super computer maker Cray, IBM would issue graphs showing folks their computer was almost as fast. What they didn’t always show you was they were using a logarithmic scale, which is to say they squashed the data down so it didn’t look like they were getting their rear-ends whooped. Wonder when the Govs will do that move?
In good news, Roger Stone’s lawyers asked for a delay in his going to jail. Instead of the end of this month they asked for September 9th. The Justice Department agreed. Imagine that! The judge asked the Justice Department why. Why delay? The prosecutors had until midnight the day before yesterday to file and they filed at the last minute. The judge ruled. “Uh, no – two weeks is all the delay you get. July 14.”
Well, isn’t that special? Will president Donnie pardon his old bud? Why not? He only committed seven felonies. (Well, he may have committed more, but that’s all he was found guilty on.)
Okay, now we get to the real news of the day. The Russians were paying Afgan militants to kill American soldiers and the president knew about it, met with Putin, and did nothing. WGAS? I do! Oh, sorry, the president did take action. After meeting with Putin he tried once again to convince the G7 to let Russia back in and make it the G8. Who loves our soldiers? Hum? (Not the president.)
I’m waiting for my meme posting right wing buds to spin that one.
Also, there was a photo posted of some Second Amendment guy in battle gear, super big rifle in hand with sniper scope and tripod on top of a building scanning a Black Lives Matter rally. WTF? This raises the question for me of “Does the Second Amendment now extend to this kind of activity?” Let’s consider the Las Vegas shooter. If we had known he was in his room with an arsenal and was scanning the crowd with a high powered rifle is that his right? Do we have to wait until he starts shooting to say, “Hey man, not cool?”
Did I mention that the Russians were paying the Afghans to kill American soldiers?
Did I mention that the president knew and did nothing?
I guess we’ve come to a new place in our history. We need three strikes. The president hasn’t protected us – the general public – from the Corona virus. (Strike One).
He hasn’t protected American soldiers from being killed by Afghans in a murder for hire plot hatched by the Russians. (Strike Two).
So we have to wait for Strike Three?
Wait no more. The Justice Department is in court arguing that Obamacare should be rescinded. Yeah, that’s right. They are in court saying millions of people should be thrown off their health care. Is that Strike Three? Or do we have to wait for it to happen? Like the shooter on the rooftop or the guy in the room in Las Vegas? Can’t you hear the excuse? “Well, gosh, we thought he was a good guy with a gun until he open fire on the crowd.”
Jack Abramoff is back in the news. He’s the guy who paid Christian right wing pastors to rail against the evils of gambling so he, Abramoff, could soak Indian tribes for millions to protect them. What’s that called? A protection racket? Yeah, well freshly out of jail he’s now been indicted on the law named after him. This time with bitcoin currencies. It’s the same old Jack! Wire Fraud, Failure to Disclose Lobbying stuff. He did four years last time. He’s up for five this time.
And finally, we have trans people. Hey, they are people too. Who knew? Apparently, they get arrested, abused, killed, raped etc. Etc. Etc. At much higher rates than any other group in the country. That is except the subset of Black Trans Women. Now if you’re like me you are probably wondering WTF is a BTW? I mean what do they have down there? I don’t know. I’m not sure. But can we agree to leave people the F alone and let them live their lives? No? let’s worry that someone with certain genitalia is going into a bathroom that is generally designated for people with different genetalia.
Now, I don’t know about you, but a lot of my right wing friends post worries about that kind of activity. Sounds like their fantasy to me. If so then I see why Trump is their boy. “You can grab ’em by the pussy…They let you do it.” Plus he boasted about walking into the ladies changing room at the Miss Universe Pageant. As far as I’ve heard, he’s the only one to do such sh*t. Now, I have heard many reports about trans people being abused. Abused by strangers. Abused by lovers. And my this is the one that gets me, handcuffed and abused by police.
Maybe we should do something about this? You know, like make a bumper sticker with a rattlesnake on it and say, “Don’t Butt F* Me!”
I don’t know. How about …
Can we let police do police work and only police work?
Can we take the budget that police have been given to do therapy, drug rehabilitation, mental illness care and give it to people who are trained in those area instead?
As I sit in my plastic Adirondack pink plastic chair, looking out on my beak mask covered pink plastic Trans flamingoes and I hoist a Mason Jar of red and white box wine swilled together to make what I call Rose-eh? I want to wish you and yours a wonderful WGAF weekend. Because when you get right down to it if you DGAS, DGAF, and wonder who does than …
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I think something came off the rails…
Swing low, Sweet Donnie T.
Swing lo, Fat Billy B.
The damage you’ve caused,
Oh wait. Hold on. Mike Pence. I almost forgot. Did you see the press conference? OMG! Six questions in and he got asked a real question! He couldn’t or didn’t want to answer it. So he closed his three ring binder. (Binders full of BS, no doubt.) and hustled off the stage. As he left with Dr. Fauci and what’s her name Brixet? Brexit? Scarf lady, in tow a reporter yelled, “Dr. Fauci, Are rallies safe to attend?”
No answer.
Speaking of no answer Sean Hannity interviewed the pres and asked him what his agenda was for his second term. The president had nothing. A lot of words, but no agenda. Yeah, no plan, nothing to accomplish, nothing to do. I mean soldiers are getting killed and Russia is paying for it, the country is in a pandemic, the economy is in the toilet, and unemployment is off the charts and he’s got NUTHIN’. Think about that.
More Rose-eh? Do you think the third flamingo from the left is gay?
Meanwhile, I keep watching Swans for Relief. I cry. It is so beautiful. I cry.
127 Days until the election on November 3rd
207 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
PS Good Times: Katie, Rickie, Alex, Me, Shelby and the bird house on the OBX – March 2010.
PPS I just realized it should be De-Gas or Du-Gas for Do You GAS. I regret the error. Oh well.
btw that’s pronounced Dew Gas, not Dugaw as the painter is called (that after he combined the syllable de with Gas to form Degas.
Mi Ann says
One of the best to date, amigo!