#amwriting #blogging – POLITICS NOW

I sat here for approximately fifteen minutes looking at this stupid computer screen, just trying to think of a title of this post and I just couldn't come up with one. Possibly because the state of my country has become of such over-weening concern since I returned from Japan and I cannot seem to think of anything else. I've had some minor financial things to do that are to be expected when being out of country, or out of residence for over a month, but that has been nothing compared to the things I've been reading, seeing and then trying to process in some way that make any sense at all to anything I've experienced in American life over some 60-plus years, and I'm coming up with nothing, bupkis, nada, nichdo; my mind is either a confused mess or a blank.

Whether it's trying to create analogies with information I'm seeing now from previous experiences to try and figure out where this is all going and coming up with either a giant hole, or a huge apocalyptic nightmare, or pretend I'm some sort of modern-day Kremlinologist (which I was damned good at, but THIS sucks!) and learning about the Rasputin-like Steve Bannon and the terribad Jeff Sessions (Really?) and the less-than mediocre picks for Trump's Cabinet and his choice for Supreme Court – which 54% of the vote HAD dictated that the previous President should have chosen, by the way, you stupid Democrats, it always circles around to looking like a country and a world, that is close to coming off of the rails.

courtesy:theindystar.com                                        

This is not the REAL cabinet; but the real deal is a whole lot motlier-looking and the people in the real cabinet had on terrible clothes, slouched and looked all together unprofessional, so I found this mock-up on the Indiana Star website of sports figures made up as Trump's cabinet. They'd probably be better than the meatheads he's trying to get confirmed anyway.

I truly wonder if our allies and non-allies have ever stopped to wonder what it would be like to have a less-than great, or even good America on the planet, as I think Donald Trump is determined to make us, by looting the coffers of whatever he can loot for himself and his buddies, with nary a peep from any watchdog agency, Congressional or otherwise. Although Trump is determined to tell us he's going to “make America great again”, there's never been any real indication that it was less than so, and financial and other indicators bear this out.

A very valued and trusted friend has also pointed out to me, that since the end of World War II, our own war dead has dramatically fallen, although our engagements in war zones at times may seem profligate. I am making no excuses for George Bush's hare-brained rush into Iraq and Afghanistan back in 2003, but with the exception of terrorists and terrorist-states, such as ISIS, countries have abided by rules of engagement, which have lowered military and civilian casualties dramatically.

So, it would seem that our own danger, as during the McCarthy years is actually from within, at least, that is how I parse it out. Yes, we have become more divisive and the atmosphere is much more toxic and bellicose; more than I have ever seen and each time Trump issues an edict, signs a directive, makes a phone call, or any move at all, folly and confusion ensues, with back-tracking and alternate facting all the way.

Who in the HELL came up with this Orwellian term? An “alternate fact” is a lie, pure and simple. When Kellyanne Conway babbled some nonsense about the “Bowling Green Massacre” and then Chelsea Clinton called her on it, what did La Kellyanne do? Bitch at Chelsea about some Bosnian shit. That right there is called misdirection and dissembling, and is the first bastion of a liar. What in the FUCK would Chelsea have been able to do at that time, other than possibly find Bosnia on a map? She was a school-girl at the time of the incident and was in no position to be making policy.

Conway never did answer Clinton on Twitter about that; she couldn't because she made it up out of whole cloth. Two men were arrested in Bowling Green on weapons charges, but that is a long way from a massacre. The only thing that died in this fiasco was the truth, and Twitter made the most of it, with hashtags #BowlingGreenMassacre, #NeverRemember and #AlwaysForget, as people held fake vigils for the Bowling Green Massacre that failed to happen. 

Although I'm laughing at the absurdity of this and thinking of the millions that would have shown up to Trump's Inauguration had they not been cut down in the line of fire during this horrendous Massacre that was not reported on, or at least missed us in Japan, I DID have to remember, (or is it forget?) that the news cycles in this country have become notoriously quick and even though I was only gone a month, it's a damned shame I wasn't here to wear a black armband, or ribbon or something for a few minutes in remembrance of the millions slain. Damned shame.

Of course, Twitter, being Twitter, much hilarity is to be had over this nonsense. It's actually a blissful relief and a reminder that all is not dire when you see drivel like this.

This is how we veer off into the absurdity of the New Administration. This is also coupled with the Holocaust Remembrance, that was Jew-free this year. Thank goodness; they've been hogging the whole thing to themselves for years and we KNOW other folks died there, too, in some camps or in battles, or during sieges or something. It was just insane back then, from September 1, 1939 to August 14, 1945, when we finally ended World War II. So, we know some holocaustin' was going on, and it wasn't just Jews, so we just didn't even bother with them this year.

They went the way of Fred Douglass who “has done a really good job” and more and more people are knowing about him all the time, because he's done such a really good job. When Trump talked about him for Black History Month, I completely forgot who he was, and I felt like ole Freddie was right there in the room with me; Trump did such a swell job of bringing him to life. I hope we get to here more such encomiums with such descriptive terms. I cannot wait until he talks about George Washington Carver, botanist, scientist, and an expert witness, who, during segregation was routinely called to Washington, D. C. to deliver expert testimony. He was granted extra time, because it was thought that he would be “slow”. *snort* Trump will tell us that he was a really, really good guy, who does a good job, which would be a neat trick, since Carver died in 1943.

Frederick Douglass? George Washington Carver? Trump's Random Black Guy? Just my hero, Muhammad Ali. All the same to the Donald. I'm sure he thinks Ali "does a real good job, so many people are coming to know him!".

But these along with all of the crazy stories about praying for Arnold during the National Prayer Breakfast, so that he does better on Trump's show “The Apprentice” and hanging up on the Australian Prime Minister, are mere sideshows, to the main issue itself: where is America going with Trump at the helm?

This also raises more questions; will Trump survive four years, or will he finally commit an actionable crime that the DOJ will hop on and appoint a Special Prosecutor to begin Impeachment proceedings? If this happens then, we will have to put up with Mike Pence for the rest of Trump's term. Pence will be a good little soldier – I hope – and just try to keep the ship off the shoals.

I have been done with the GOP for years; I seldom vote for a GOP candidate, and it's generally a local one, in the General election, as I am a registered Independent, but I'm now also done with the Democrats as well. They have had every opportunity to push back against Trump, as did Reince Priebus, ex-head of the RNC (him and his stupid, goddamned, fucking loyalty oath*; that back-fired spectacularly!)  and every other GOP'er who were NEVER, EVER gonna support Trump. From that evil devil Ted Cruz, to bloated Chris Christie, they all fell like a bunch of dominoes before the monolithic Communist juggernaut, much like the oft-maligned Truman Doctrine – which in reality has proven to be wrong.

*The link is an article written by Jason Linkins of HuffPo and is one of the most lucid pieces of writing on this subject, and I highly recommend you read it, if you don't know much about that part of the GOP's history. 

The Democrats just basically rolled over and gave up when HRC lost the election. It was not until their own voter base began to call and email in desperation and in droves - clogging up Congressional inboxes -  and asked them to do something regarding the immigration ban, regarding the seven states and Muslims, that they were finally prompted to act. I was already over them. My own Senator, Bill Nelson, Florida-(D) last tweeted about Gene Cernan's death, until someone booted him in the ass on Twitter and told him to GET BUSY (Don't look at me in that tone of voice!). Really? Gene Cernan, Senator?

But for that, I'm done! Personally I think it best if the Dems just sit back and let Rome burn. I really think this system is so beyond saving that we need a good train wreck to shock everyone out of their complacency and start really taking things seriously. I may not always sound serious and I'm the last person to let a serious time get in the way of my funnin', as we say here in Florida. The fourth estate – mainstream journalism – needs to be ethical and punctilious in its fact-checking, lest it run afoul of the fifth estate – bloggers like me and outliers. We – still speaking as the fifth estate here, need to be diligent in fact-checking what our politicians and media are saying and doing and reporting, because truth is a rare commodity in the political arena and news needs to be fair and unbiased.

Once upon a time, all the news did was report the FACTS, and editorializing was strictly held to be a separate function in any news organization. It's true that newspapers were recognized as conservative or liberal, but they were restrained in their views as such and they were open to printing opposing views. Bill Maher made a very good point about the demonstrations and violence at Berkeley University over the speech that was to be given by famous internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos, invited by Berkeley Young Republicans. Berkeley owns up to the fact that they had an obligation to provide a platform for Milo to give his speech, and they are right, as is Maher. Progressives and liberals do not have a right to condemn what Trump says, hateful as it is, and then quash another speaker for the same thing. Just because someone gives a speech that we may label as hate speech, this does not give us the right to quell the speaker. He/she has that right. For us to defend the 1^st Amendment, means we defend it all the way, not cherry-pick the parts we like; this is dangerously close to Trump territory, who already has a bill in the works that could very well quash parts of the 1^st Amendment. The Fifth Estate is watching this carefully and hopefully, the Fourth Estate is on this, as well.

This. . . guy. I started a petition for his recall from Marquette County. He is a "family and faith" values kinda hypocrite and a coward. In the face of this heat, he's closed all of his social media accounts, but not before I informed him I was pitching for his recall. Sometimes, the fifth estate crosses boundaries into the third estate (the vox populi, as it were).

The Berkeley incident also gave a hapless Michigan GOP gorm, by the name of Dan Adamini to remark that “another Kent State” would be timely right about now. Yes, by all means; let's ratchet up the tension in this country from demonstrations to shooting students. Then, we can call out the U. S. National Guard, declare Martial Law and have Missile Parades and we're all done. Curfew's at 6 pm and you'd better be home from your shitty job at Mickey D's, or you'll be shot on sight. That's how you fix this country, by God!

But this new Administration has fostered this sort of thinking and it is now rife and seems to be okay. We can legitimatize the KKK and take them out of their sheets and take away their guns and moonshine and put them in tweed suits and call them alt-Right, but it's still the same old White Supremacy crap. Along with this comes the “it's okay to hate innalekshuals, wimmen and free-thinkers” nonsense, too.

You can see why I would go merrily down this road; we're less than three weeks into The Donald's reign of Terror and the country is in total upheaval, or something close to it. I am no longer proud to be an American and am considering where my next home is going to be. My better 2/3rd's and I have discussed it; lots of muttering over the phone. We still have obligations here in this goddamned place until the end of 2017, so we're trying to behave and not bring chaos down upon our heads before the balloon goes up – another worry. The Donald and nukes; shudder. Maybe we'll end up on an island and just play jazz forever.

In my case, my 2/3rds'll make room for some Beethoven, along with some moonlight, and it will be all right.

Anyway, I've summed it up as well as I know how; I still have little to no clarity on where any of this is going and it's partly because I doubt Trump himself knows what he's doing from moment to moment. I feel better for venting, but that's all. The people I've written about, I will be watching, via my usual methods, which I never discuss. Just know that I have some formidable resources at hand and I also have kick-ass computer skills, courtesy years spent in the trenches at IBM and Verizon, and a good degree. Again, I'm through with any Dem currently holding office and will vote against ALL of them in the 2018 elections; too little too late. I' counting on the GOP to self-immolate by 2018 and we'll hopefully have just seats of cinders who will miss votes and do about as much as they've done as they did during President Obama's terms. But, by then, I may not care. Peace out, and have a good week!

#A-TO-Z-CHALLENGE – LETTER “Q” - THE QUAINT NOTION OF UNDERSTANDING THE 1ST AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

I've decided that finishing the #A-to-Z-CHALLENGE on my time line isn't such a bad idea after all. This gives me the chance to not only write, or make up some nonsense about my 'hood, but also to take a look at some of the more idiotic nonsense that is going on as regards to peoples' understanding of what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all about in this here us. Emphasis on the “us” because I sure as HELL don't recognize this as the country of the U. S., that I was born in anymore.

The latest flap has devolved into what constitutes “patriotism”, I guess, with some people agreeing with Colin Kaepernick and others disagreeing in a very disagreeable fashion with his display of choosing NOT to stand during the National Anthem before a football game. The question is not one of patriotism and Kaepernick should be either supported or ignored, according to others' feelings. I get why he feels this way and I cannot disagree with him. But, for him to have been moved down to back-up quarterback and to be taking all of the abuse he has been given is unforgivable. He is merely stating something that he feels is wrong with our country, a right all of us share and if you don't believe me, read this, the 1^st Amendment of our Bill of Rights:

“The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitutions prohibits the making of any law respecting and establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religions, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibiting the petitioning for a government redress of grievances.”

This was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

What Colin is doing is protesting; as is his RIGHT. It is our right to disagree, but not to interfere, nor to demote, nor to say stupid shit, as did Kate Moss, when she said Colin was denigrating a “symbolic song”. It's an “anthem”, meant to rouse a group, a cause, a country, and there is no symbolism in the thing. But, hey, Kate's just a hair-do. Nor is Kid Rock (and I love Kid's music, plus, he's another Michigander) correct in yelling F*ck Colin Kaepernick! during one of his concerts. If he wants to engage Colin in intelligent discourse he should. Kid, you're way smarter than that, I thought.

courtesy: gettyreuters

Colin Kaepernick has been demonstrating since the pre-season, but his message has spread and more and more athletes (not just football players) have joined him in his silent protest against the deaths of many African-Americans to police. In all fairness, many other people have died at the hands of guns: police, whites, Hispanics, children, the elderly. I live in a 'hood where my night-time Lt. regularly comes to my house on a "shots fired" call. I do not advocate for gun-control, but for stricter background checks. All lives DO matter and Kaepernick is taking a huge risk and a brave stand by doing what he is doing to START A DIALOG, not be treated like scum.

We used to have passionate discourse and disagreements in this country on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat, and I guess Harold Stassen was along for the ride too, for several elections. People would have some damned heated discussions, but they ultimately led to compromises, or would at some point realize, both sides were unworkable and start over. It's what made us so strong. What kept us so flexible was the knowledge that you could walk out on any street corner, climb up on your soap box and spout just about any gibberish, with the exception of trying to foment the overthrow the government. That worked for YEARS and there's no reason to stop doing it now.

However, we're in this weird Joseph McCarthy-like era, where people are afraid to say what they really think – just look at what Reince Priebus did to his own Republican Party; by having them swear an oath of loyalty to their own party, so that they would support the EVENTUAL nominee. This has never been done in the history of any democracy and it undid the GOP, as everyone HAD to swear their fealty to Trump. No one dared say what they really thought.*

^{*source: jason linkins; Editor,Eat The Press, Huffington Post}

Protests, especially passive ones such as these are meant to foment a dialog. People need to look BEYOND what Colin is doing and question WHY he is doing such a thing. He certainly knows that he is not making himself popular; he's not doing this to be anyone's hero. He is trying to draw attention to a grievous wrong in this country that has just been recycled over and over and over and over and there is no relief in sight of it ending.

All of this hollering about #Blacklivesmatter, #Bluelivesmatter is just that; hollering, but I agree, it needs to be hollered. Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. It's creating nothing but more fear on both sides, and it's a terrible fear.

Before one more person dies on ANY side to any accidental gunshot, we should all ask ourselves, “why is this young man doing this? Why is he so willingly making himself an object of controversy and derision? Why is he making people react this way?” I have an answer. He's forcing us to look at ourselves. By following his own belief that there is a problem and it's a big one I agree, he's hoping he can change other people's minds. He's hoping that maybe in his humble way, he can make us look into our hearts and see if yeah, we're not part of the problem and we take all of this way too cavalierly. He may ruin his future and his career, but by God, he's doing something he believes in. Can you say the same?

#A-TO-Z CHALLENGE LETTER “H” HYSTERICAL BUILDINGS I HAVE KNOWN

Yeah, yeah; I was going to write about Historical buildings, but there's been so much written on it and it's so boring at this point, what fun is that? I've got some history, but I also have my own take on some of the dwellings, huts, edifices, superstructures, but not ziggurats, and some domiciles that inhabit V. M. Ybor (pronounced ee-bor, not eye-bor, as this moron did, when first exploring the place), and Ybor City, which we are cheek-by-jowl with, and in some confused way, a part of.

So, let's get started with this nightmare. It's on the corner of 15^th Avenue, or Columbus Avenue and Nebraska and it has no windows, no doors that I can see and I never see any activity, although I did notice cars parked in an adjacent lot, one evening. It could be anything, since this is a mixed-zoning area. The more prosaic guess is some kind of hum-drum manufacturing of small bits of metal doo-dads goes on here, but I'm not the only one who thinks this is a scary building.

courtesy:googlemaps   

This building doesn't look that ominous in the daytime, but the fact that what windows it did have are painted over, and I can see no egress or ingress, is creepy to me. Mebbe the workers tunnel in, or climb a ladder in the back and enter from the roof. Crappy working conditions, if you ask me.

Two violinists of my acquaintance, who drive me regularly to and from rehearsals and concerts have both commented on the more sinister aspects of it's appearance. Of course, we're usually viewing this at night, when we've been plowing through something like Mussorgsky's “Night on Bare Mountain” and are a bit jumpy to begin with, so perhaps we are to be forgiven for our hesitance to ascribe anything benign going on behind those sinister walls. My best guess? Bad juju as there is a Haitian church nearby and this is where they make zombies with that scopolamine we sell them at the “Farmer's Market Gun and Knife Show”. We have no one but ourselves to blame, when the missing neighbors lurch north and start trying to munch on our body parts.

courtesy:googlemaps   

This is more a case of the building isn't scary, but what's in it is. When you have people who are basically bored and shiftless, you're bound to have trouble.

Now that we've sorted out that mystery, we can go on to something that is truly scary and does truly exist. Take a look at this purple number. It's a supposed “halfway-house”, although I have yet to see a halfway-house with an attached bar that is open during the day. When I was homeless, one of my roomies, who didn't have a screw loose and I would walk to the library with one of the guys who liked to read; safety in numbers, and all that.

The first time we passed on the same side of the street as this place is on, 42 guys all came out and in various states of sobriety, or sanity, cat-called us all the way down to the library. I might mention that there were women who live in this squalor, too, although, I think this was just the prospect of fresh meat. Guys were hanging off the roof of the bar, off the porch and just making all kinds of noise. After that, we either walked on the other side of the street, or even safer, took the bus.

courtesy:googlemaps   

Checkers: Proudly serving you 4-day old grease, heartburn, strokes and heart attacks since forever.

I know that the police go to that place much more often than they ever went to our shelter, and I'm pretty sure that is a place, where you could get ANYTHING, up to and including fissile material to make your own nuke, if you had the brains. It's been that same god-awful color since I've lived here. They've either cornered the market on “Midnight Blue” or it's more than likely paint full of lead, judging from the way the inhabitants act.

courtesy:googlemaps   

Checkers of the Damned. Once you've shuffled off this mortal coil, who says you stop craving those grease-and-bacon burgers, and spicy-oily fries? I think you just change venues and come here for your Happy Meal!

Next on our guided tour is this curiosity. I'm not even sure that this building was ever opened, or why it was painted the way it is, but Alex and I speculate all the time. I personally think that because this is such an old neighborhood and that there are regular paranormal activities going on, that this is probably “The Checkers of the Damned”. We just can't see all the ghouls and ghosts, as they are in the spirit realm. They coast through in their Christine cars and order wormy slug-burgers with crispy toads' feet, and drink minty, or vanilla ectoplasmashakes.

There's a Checkers for live people right across the street, and the ghouls, being Nebraska ghouls, set up shop there, thinking they'd give the other Checkers some competition, and then they went “oh... wait... yeah. We're dead.” and shrugged their little ghost shoulders. I'm sure their service is just as horrible as the live Checkers; the staff flirt and yak on their cell phones and make drug deals. A person could starve to death, or just eat a few meals there and let the cholesterol kill you. Either way, you're gonna end up at “The Checkers of the Damned” sooner or later.

courtesy:zillow.com   

This is how the house looked during it's Roosevelt-Truman-brothel and apparently "Paul's Tourist Home" era. I've been inside this house and up and down and all over it. It's a wonderful house full of nooks and crannies and the trim and original fixtures are marvelous. Some of the rooms are roped off, because they are designated historical sites, where Teddy and Harry laid their heads, and just their heads. At least I think so.

So, now that we've established that V. M. Ybor is full of hysteria, we can also establish that it's full of history – as is anything that is more than a decade old. My dear friend (okay, my “pretend adopted son) Alex, lives across Nebraska Ave. from me in a house that is considered the heart of V. M. Ybor. It has been declared an historical building and anyone who owns it, has to put up with many, many regulations to fulfill the “restoration clauses” of the house. Alex rents a room there and has been there forever.

What's interesting about this house is that Teddy Roosevelt stayed there and used the University of Tampa as his staging area to muster his troops; the “Rough Riders”, for the taking of San Juan Hill in Cuba. Ole Teddy mustered the 1^st United States Volunteer Cavalry, which was one of three such units raised in 1898 to participate in the 1898 Spanish-American War. President William McKinley called for the volunteers, because the American Army was so poorly understaffed after the Civil War.

courtesy:zillow.com   

The white house as it looks today. It is a stunning house, both inside and out. My pretend adopted son, friend, Alex lives here in one of the rooms upstairs.

Teddy slept in the big white house, while musterin, as did Harry Truman. Truman also has a “Truman White House” in Key West. Truman, apparently, loved Florida. The house also gained notoriety as being one of the finest brothels in the country, but I'm hazy as to when this was, and I'm thinking that it may not have been when Roosevelt or Truman were sleeping there. Or maybe it was and that's why they slept there. Who am I to judge?

courtesy:googlemaps   

One of the many beautiful houses that grace V. M. Ybor. They probably don't have nearly the vivid past that the white house does, but they are pretty. Most were built in the 1920s to 1940s and have gone some kind of renovation. They are typically built "shot-gun" style, with the rooms in a line to take advantage of the breezes, as the homes were built before A/C was a thing here in Florida.

But, the real heart of Ybor, meaning “Ybor City”, and not V. M. Ybor, are the Cigar factories and now, the micro-breweries, which are on the edges of the tourist district. People flock to Ybor City for it's fine Cuban and Spanish cuisine and the night life. I used to play with my string quartet there, almost every night in the tonier restaurants. It's within walking distance from where I live, but it's a world apart.

courtesy:googlemaps

I love to tell the story about the Washington D. C., national journalist for HuffPo, Jason Linkins, who was sitting in a bar in Ybor City during the 2012 GOP convention. He was tweeting about the pizza and beer he was drinking. I was busily “live-blogging and tweeting” the convention from the comfort of my blogging chair, as if I were at the convention. When we got to the “family values” part of the speech some nameless gorm was making before nominating Mitt Romney, I tweeted, “Yup, some family values. Nebraska Ave looks like a Hollywood Premiere with all them damn stretch limos running up and down. Guys looking for crack 'n' ho's!”

I tweeted that to Jason, and he is one of the very finest iconoclasts I've ever known. He said, “ha ha ha ha ha ha.” We tweeted back and forth a bit, and became Twitter friends; the man knows his political shit! Thus, a years-long friendship was born. I admitted later, I was just making shit up, except the part about the limos. That was true and it was before noon. Guess the GOP wives were getting their hair done, or some shit.

Just more history. Just more hysteria. 'Cause, Nebraska Avenue.

RUSSIA, THE UNITED STATES, SYRIA AND IRAQ - GLOBAL HEGEMONY AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Boy, what a boring-sounding title. If I were a reader of my own blog and came across this, I might be tempted to skip it, but let me see if I can make it a bit less weighty-sounding and try to relate it to the blog post I wrote recently, regarding “World War II – Was It the Last Good War?”

In response to my Twitter buddy, Jason Linkins who writes political op-ed for HuffPo and does it very well, he is absolutely thrilled that we are once again being given the opportunity to hop back into a quagmire and protect the political aspirations of a bunch of affluent politicians, I can't say he's wrong at all. Thirteen years after 9/11, we've done. . . what? Killed Osama bin Laden, sure. But we've managed to destabilize an entire region, which we seem to be immensely terrific at doing (see Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) in the mid to latter part of the 20^th century.

So, Dubya got a hair up his ass, after 19 terrorists from Saudi Arabia, backed by money provided by al-Qaeda (suspiciously close to the Saud family, who were hand-holding with the Bush family, in case anyone forgot) bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (although I wonder about that) and went tearing into. . . Iraq? Only after we had staged a semi-invasion of Afghanistan, and that was always kind of iffy to me, because Afghanistan is known as bein' the “Graveyard of Empires” and all. I'm still trying to connect the dots. When Dubya made his brave assertion “Mission Accomplished” just what in the Hell was he referring to? We never really managed to “quell” the “dissidents” in either Afghanistan or Iraq, a fact that can still be measured in body counts and terrible stories of atrocities, coming out of, now, specifically, Iraq, and of all places Syria, which has it's very own home-grown Strong Man in place, the son of the late President Assad.

In all honesty, I don't know if this is a good thing, or bad. I also don't know if it's a good idea for President Obama to sit down and treat with this man, seeing as how he's got lots of his own countrymen's blood on his hands. At least, Obama isn't sitting down with al-Qaeda, which was the worst idea I ever heard, since I said “yes” to Bill Nunnally. You DO NOT treat with terrorists. Terrorists are not countries; they are not sovereign entities; they are not realms or Kingdoms. They are a bunch of zealots with nothing in their jackalheads except creating terror in the hearts and minds of the people around them to further their cause, which is usually couched in some amorphous language and difficult to attain, even with more measured people and responses. They have no mission statements; they have no credo, other than “Death to the Infidel” and are sectarian in the extreme; they will kill members of their own “faith” quicker than Christians and Jews, because those Sunnis were closer to Allah and should have understood that they were committing heresies. I liken them to the IRA at its worst. The Crusades sound more moderate, when you remember that the Christians who lived there, routinely met and worked with the other faiths in the Middle East.

And now, we come to this: I TOLD YOU SO. Russia. Last week, I implied that basically, the whole mish-mash between Russia and Ukraine should be left alone. They've squabbled and gone back and forth for centuries. They are two countries, who, while not having a lot in common, bear a very similar culture and a shared history; at times amicable, at times, downright horrible. Stalin went out of his way to starve the Kulaks, the rich Ukrainian farmers in 1934, and several million people starved to death. It has been referred to as “Harvest of Sorrow” and a fine historical book of the same name, written by Robert Conquest, depicts the horror and devastation wrought upon the Kulaks. But, again, this was not the first time Ukraine and Russia had adversarial dealings with one another and would not be the last.

Again, there are many ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, just as there are many ethnic Ukrainians who live in western Russia and Belarus. The ENTIRE region has seen many different rulers, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, to the Czarist rulers. It really is no wonder that one day, Ukrainians want one thing, and another day, they wish for something else. There is a kind of schizophrenic zeitgeist that exists in this entire region and when you look at the maps and how the empires overlaid one another, it is easy to understand why.

courtesy of: deviantart.com

The writer P. J. O'Rourke once went to Eastern Europe and Russia when the Iron Curtain first fell, and the salient point he took away from his experiences there, aside from all of the horrible automobiles looking like they had been made by the Dinky Toy Company, was the complete and utter confusion that the new “nation-states” wanted and why they wanted it. “We want Democracy!”, some shouted on one day. When asked why, they yelled, “Because, Democracy is good!” without having clue one what it was all about.

 courtesy of: allaboutturkey.com

Later on, during the same trip, P. J. asked some of the same people what they wanted. “We wish to stay with the Motherland!”, they shouted. When asked why, they hollered, “Because she takes care of us?”, although many were not sure this was true. This was over twenty years ago, and it is still pertinent today. If you look at the maps, you see that some of the western parts of Ukraine were in the Austro-Hungarian sphere, the southern parts in the Ottoman Empire, and the Eastern portion were part of the Russian Empire. Divestiture came in 1914, but in 1917, the Russian Revolution took place and the Communists were firmly in power, after fighting a civil war against the Royalists. After World War II, as part of the agreement at Yalta, Russia retained Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and the other “buffer” states, as there were already ethnic Russians living in these places, and because Stalin was a murderous, land-grabbing rat-bastard. Regardless, I believe that, if by some miracle the Romanovs had remained in power, and they were somehow, by another miracle, able to best the Nazis, they would have demanded Ukraine and Belarus and all the rest as their spoils of war. This is a Russian thing; NOT a Soviet thing.

Again, it speaks to the peculiar phobia that Russia harbors towards the West and we help no one by meddling in this. To top it off, today's headline in “The World” is this:

courtesy of: HuffPo

I TOLD YOU SO!

Followed by this article:

courtesy of: HuffPo                   

I mentioned last week that the situation between Russia and Ukraine will find it's own solution. That may sound like weak sauce, but what I mean is they are better left to their own devices, especially since the west and most particularly the United States has such a horrible track record when it comes to intercession. People can quote Panama and Grenada all they want, but the simple fact is, we invaded weak 3^rd world countries, one in an attempt to divert a horrendous foreign policy decision on our part, when we were involved in Lebanon, in 1983.

Let's play a "what if" scenario and see if this doesn't make a bit more sense. Suppose the United States was having some kind of squabble with Mexico, over god-knows-what. Water rights, illegal immigration, the number of donkeys displayed in crappy mariachi bands north of the border was in dispute, whatever, and things got heated. Maybe we have some troops lined up along the borders, ostensibly to keep out "undesirables". We've had our issues with Mexico in the past, but we've always managed to get them straightened out. But this time, we're dragging it along, and for some reason, both sides are being belligerent. On the outside, the rest of the world is throwing their two cents in about what a bunch of imperialist dogs the United States is, and we should never have left Merry Olde England. Yada, yada. After several weeks of this, with tensions ebbing and flowing, things get kind of mind-numbing, what with all of the other stuff going on. Then, out of the blue, or not-so, England is invaded by France and Belgium, and some not-so-nice things begin to happen. Do you honestly think that for one minute, the United States isn't going to have something to say, or do something about that situation, to mitigate and save their long-time ally? The same case can be made for Russia as regards Syria, I refuse to say "vis a vis" because it's pretentious, and I realize I am kind of shoe-horning some facts in here and making it a bit ridiculous, but it's for a reason. 

The Russian-Ukrainian relationship is a very special one; much like ours is with Great Britain. Why? Because, history.

I'm not a historian, or a military historical buff, but I do understand long arcs and how actions from the past resonate into the present. What we do now will make a difference. It might be a decade, or it might be a century. Wise men have the gift of being able to predict what our actions now will predicate for our future. I am not one of those, but I'm a damned good observer and student of global hegemony. I truly think that we should do nothing at all about the Russian-Ukraine situation and tread very, very lightly with this mess in the Middle East.

This isn't even a war movie. It's an exploration into the heart of darkness, based on a Joseph Conrad novel.

I know I called for taking a stance last week, regarding ISIS or ISIL and they are fearsome and what they are doing is beyond horrific. I cannot imagine the charnel house over there, and the suffering of the people who live there. I have friends in Tunisia and Morocco and Egypt and I fear for them, but we did a terrible job in Iraq. We destabilized the country; something we excel at, and upon our departure(?) we managed to foist some mediocre bureaucrat upon the country, along with a less-than-useful fighting force. This is nothing but Vietnam Redux. Francis Ford Coppola did a much better job with “Apocalypse Now Redux” and it still sucked. Watch the original. But, let's not create our own “Iraq Redux”. That's nothing anybody wants to sit through.

#ROW80 2ND QTR 2014 – THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

It's been a long time since I've written ANYTHING for #ROW80, or really tried to start any kind of schedule, since the A-to-Z challenge, and it's really time I did. Without any kind of schedule or balance, I tend to zone for days, or just react to whatever is going on around me. Not much there to think about, and certainly not much of a way to live, when someone has gone through the hell I have. I could say I'm merely coasting, but that's not my style; now that JC has started to feel better and we seem to have put that behind us, and I've recovered from the “shock and awe” of A-to-Z, I feel it's time to start putting out some effort in the writerly part of my life once again. The viola part of it is never a problem, now that I have my e.t. (essential tremor) under control, but I do feel another chance has been tossed my way and I'd be stupid not to grab that brass ring, along with a mixed metaphor or two.

So, it's back to the beginning of “Music of the Spheres”, to untangle what is surely (or, maybe not) one of the more fucked-up ideas for a speculative-fiction, or sci-fi book in a long while and see if I can possibly straighten it out, do some editing mo-jo and make it something that people will want to read. To that end, I might try writing a few short stories, or something along the way, as I've never written fiction, so I might want to think “baby steps, baby steps” before attempting the Boston Marathon. Or not. Anybody who has ever told me “no” has had cause to regret it, although in this case, I might take the advice of much more seasoned authors than myself. I have a cute idea for #StoryDam; if nothing else, I get to hang with them on Twitter and they always throw a good party!

The only other thing(s) of note here recently, were these:

I do a butt-ton of work for SETI@home as a volunteer and Dan Werthimer lets us know what is going on with the project run at Cal Berkeley. He is Director of the SETI Research Center and he and Seth Shostak of SETI, along with countless and nameless others, have created open-source programming that have created spinoffs of the original SETI project. The full text of his speech to Congress last week can be found here.

I work on several different projects, but my primary team is located some 70 miles north of me, and is called “The ********”. I kid and tell everyone that my team are a bunch of retired Navy SEALS, spooks and people from the NSA, CIA and whatnot. Most of them aren't around and a 65-member team has 7 active members. But, between the 7 of us, we can crunch some numbers. Being a total numbers wonk, I go and look at our world-standings. We've been as high as number 462 on the charts globally; this week, in the U.S., we're number 71, ahead of U.C. Berkeley. We seem to be in a vicious winner-take-all war with the Iowa Hawkeyes, as we routinely swap 70^th and 71^st positions with them daily. This volunteer work is a stone-cold bitch! And this is just the USA! I haven't even mentioned the Russians!

I still can't believe we trounced MIT; they must have had finals. . .

Teams slap down challenges; I feel like they're holding Royal Flushes, and I'm stuck with a pair of 8s; the air is fraught with 18^th century-style duels. Statistics are king and we have MIT huffing along in our rear-view mirror! Now, if only our errant spooks would return from their missions and do some heavy lifting, we could leave MIT in the dust; we've already buried “Get Off My Lawn”; it's time for us to take on “DigitalDingusBoinc” and sweep the field!

Is There Anybody Out There? Not just a cool Pink Floyd tune from "The Wall" but an existential and philosophical question. Math and Metaphysics are mapping the Milky Way.

But this is all in the BOINC realm of volunteers and people who believe that using their computers and their smarts to try and detect E. T. The spinoff from the original software is being used for everything from Breast Cancer research to mining Bitcoins. Metaphysically speaking, we have run the gamut from attempting to discover the origin of the universe to running what appears to be the selling of current-day Amway products, or possible Ponzi schemes. I may be misinformed, but at least it's misinformation I've parsed myself. Leave my shibboleths alone!

But that isn't even what sent me into an uproar last week. What happened last week was Dan Werthimer went and gave a nice little speech before Congress. I found out about it in the usual manner, which is a nag screen from my BOINC software, so I read the speech and thought, "Gee, wonderful things are happening up in the skies and all, and we're parsing and analyzing the data received from Areceibo just as fast as we can. Dan thinks it'd be a swell idea if Congress went along and helped on the funding". This isn't the first time in recent months that Congress has held a hearing on aliens. In December, the Science House Committee held a two-hour meeting about the ongoing search for extraterrestrial life. The publication, The Wire said at the time that the hearing was the “best thing Congress had done in months.” I tend to agree.

"Congress Debates the Finer Points of Aliens" I suggest each member just look across the aisle; or better yet, in a mirror. Here is the HuffPo article.

What I got a bit pissed off about was HuffPo's coverage of Dan's speech. Understand that I exist in a culture where the idea of E.T. being here is taken for granted, and even though that is the text of Dan's speech boiled down, it's not that simple, and the wording of HuffPo's Headline sounds as though this is not a serious undertaking. We operate under the assumption that E. T. and friends have been here, (wherever “here” is; it doesn't necessarily have to be boots on the ground) for some time, and this is nothing new for us. We're crunching numbers fed to us from satellite arrays like crazy to prove uncategorically, that YES, THERE IS INTELLIGENT LIFE THAT DID NOT ARISE FROM THE PLANET EARTH. I have a scientist uncle who based a whole set of mathematical equations on his observations of flying unidentified craft and their motions that defied E=MC² and the math works; you can't get much more truthier than that. He, for reasons obvious to anyone who's been around the naysayers for any length of time, disappeared off the grid several decades ago, not because he felt he was in any danger, but because he was tired of having his bona fides questioned. Who can blame him? If I had to play a four-octave scale and 50 etudes before every concert I ever performed in, I would have packed it in early, too.

But, as long as knowledge is used as a form of currency and it matters so in certain circles and in politics and in the establishment of world hegemony, there will never be a reckoning about many ideas and past events. Black helicopters and men in black will be talked about in whispers. It doesn't matter whether they exist or they don't; the IDEA of them does, because we see these things as a symbol of power and manipulators of populations, with the ability to either sway or silence us via covert means, and they are powerful indeed. So, when HuffPo (who should know better) posts an idiotic headline like the one above, I get a bit. . . cra-zy. Not in the sense of haul-off-to-the-Loony-Bin-Baker-Act cra-zy. Been there, done that. But cra-zy in the sense that, the journalism is irresponsible, and to me, that is unconscionable.

Although people who read HuffPo, are by and large, much better informed than the eejits who watch any type of broadcast or cable news, with the exception of BBC or Al-Jazeera, there are still a goodly number of people who are not well-informed and do not think critically at all who read the HuffPo. Just try reading the comments on a story that is not all that complex, and you'll see what I mean. Without any kind of epistemological imperative to seek the truth, they are more than willing to swallow any old guff handed to them. Maybe I am the one who is lacking here. I ferret out facts and snuffle up data to buttress my arguments, because I believe in the truth and I have no platform or agenda of any kind that I am trying to push onto someone else. I expected better of HuffPo. They're not Politico, nor are they WaPo; they usually try to gather news from many different sources, as well as using their own journalists, rather than rely on stringers, or feeds from other news agencies.

Or, maybe because the story comes out of Washington D. C.'s hallowed grounds, HuffPo just can't help themselves and they're caught up in the Never-Never Land world of Brobdingnagian shenanigans, or may have contracted the peculiar disease that seems to afflict all and sundry who end up in Foggy Bottom, although my Twitter pal, Jason Linkins, who writes for HuffPo and is a cracker-jack political analyst seems to have no trouble discerning the make-believe and wish-it-was from the slap-in-your face reality. But, I have really, really digressed. Color me pissed.

No doubt, SETI@home will survive on a shoestring and we'll all cobble together some wild financing and up our donations. I understand Bitcoin is in on this; oh, yay! A brand name that is better-associated with drug-trafficking and probably arms-dealing will bail out the SETI@home while taking a hefty chunk of BITCOINage for themselves. But that's alright; we're all one in this together on this big, enormous project that involves the entire world. Right?

About the only other thing that is newsworthy on this here home front is that no one has died here on Nebraska Avenue in a while. That's a good thing. That's not to say, we haven't had to run out in the middle of the street to make sure Señor Cerveza didn't get run over, when he fell down, but he'll live to annoy us another day. And that's all right.

Mama has a new thing. For those following along at home, Mama is the stray cat that adopted JC a few years ago, when she was pregnant and had been thrown away. We lost the kitten, and JC had Mama spayed and she's been with us ever since. When JC had his heart attack in February, he was in the hospital for several days. Mama is used to having the front door left open and coming and going as she pleases, but with JC gone, I couldn't take the risk of leaving it open, at all; day or night, so Mama had to become an indoor kitty, while he was gone.

Sweet Moses on a buttered cracker, I hope to never go through that again. It's supposed to be, if not easy, at least do-able, to turn an outdoor cat into an indoor one. Not so with Mama. She didn't tear anything up, or do anything bad, or not use her litter box. She's very clean, in all aspects. But, she became depressed, when she couldn't find a way out of the house. Oh. My. God. I took this sweet, little animal, who was already missing JC (at one point, she thought I'd stuffed him in the cupboards, I think) and made her become something sad and miserable. It was awful and it broke my heart. As soon as JC came home, I let her out and she ran off; I went in the backyard and cried and cried. She had run off and I was sure we had lost her. I cried more for the harm I had done this sweet animal, who had never done anything to anyone, than for what I thought was her loss, although it would have broken JC's heart.

Well, she came back, within half a day as if nothing had happened. She was so happy to see JC and is back to her normal self. She's pretty spoiled, but she deserves it. She'd been abused before, and bears the scars of either a beating, or a horrible cat fight and is blind in her right eye. The only thing that has changed from her sojourn inside the house, is that she comes inside to use her litter box. No more pooping out in the backyard for her. There's one other thing she does, that I have never had any other cat in my life do and this is really something.

The other evening, I was on my computer and Mama had been running in and out of the house all day. Generally, she's a stealth cat; you don't know she's around, unless she's hungry, and I usually feed her between 7 and 8 pm. JC feeds her in the morning, and I feed her in the evening. Cats are hardwired and if you mess with their routine it really confuses them. Mama is so hardwired, that for a long time, I had to sit in my chair on the porch; it was the only way she'd approach me. Now, she expects me to be in my computer chair. If I'm sitting on the couch, she's not too sure who I am, I suspect, until she gets close enough to smell me, then she's fine.

Anyway, this particular evening, I didn't have my headphones on, for a change, so I was conscious of the ambient sounds around me. My hearing began to register from a distance, a small “eeeeeeeeee” that was coming closer, but there was no cessation in the “eeeeeeeeee”, it just kept coming closer and getting louder. Now, it was “EEEEEE” but wasn't stopping, it just kept coming closer, and still, getting louder. Now, it was “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!” and Mama came through the room at a brisk trot, on her way to the kitchen, where JC was making tea, or Ramen Noodles, or brownies; I can't remember. I was just astounded; I had never heard a cat do that. As she passed by, the “EEEEEE!!” gained it's apex, much like a Doppler effect, and then began to retreat in the distance, now “eeeeeeeeeee” once again, and then fainter, “eeeeeeeee”, as she arrived in the kitchen to beg from JC. A drive-by MEOW, without the M and the OW. Cats are a wonder; as da Vinci said, “The smallest of the felines is a Masterpiece!”

Mama, beside my leg, enjoying a siesta on the porch.

Sorry for the length of the post, and my apologies for my lengthy absence, between Mother's Day and now. This week is #IWSG, along with #ROW80 check in for Wednesday. I hope to have something to report regarding editing of both “Music of the Spheres” and the material I have planned for my e-book on my life. I have enough material that covers my early life and school, careers in music and computers, my days in the homeless shelter, up to the present.