Off The Wall, Or Up Against It

Dear Debbie, You would not believe what's going on here. It's insanity!  It's crazy!  I haven't been out of the house in over a month, except for going to the grocery store every week and to the park once or twice. Really, we all have to stay inside and wear masks when we go out and people are dying right and left and the President......omg, Debbie, I'm afraid to tell you:  The President of the United States is Donald Trump! Yes THAT Donald Trump! And he's even worse that you could imagine. I mean; Imagine the most embarrasing thing you could think of for a POTUS to do.  Got it?  This happens EVERY DAY! He comes up with a new embarrassment EVERY DAY! Every. Frikkin.' Day. For three and a half years!  So what it is is; The Coronavirus!  AKA Covid-19.  over 3 MILLION cases in the world now. And thanks to DT the US Leads The World in Cases and deaths!  Yes, it's true! Close to a third of that 3 Million is in the US. It started in China, they say

What is the way out of this? When we are heading back out into the business of making money, what will we be choosing as the direction we want to head? Already I can see the big business push to get back to "business as usual", meaning a tiny percentage of people will be making millions daily (to add to their billions) while the rest of us struggle with the rat race, distracted by the headlines, worried about falling behind, confused by conflicting information that is screamed at us all day and night by those who do a really good job of making us believe the lie. Or of discrediting the truth until it's not so obvious any more. That's what Trump and the 1% want us to get back to. Let me ask you a question: Why do you think the chronically homeless are left to fend for themselves on the streets of our cities?  You may remember that Ronald Reagan closed all the asylums. They said it was because there were abuses, but if there were abuses, the solution would have

In this struggle between right and left for the soul of America, where do we draw the lines? The lines that should not be crossed?  How do we decide what those lines are?  When it becomes increasingly apparent that the 1% own the right, and about quite a bit of the left, when do we say enough? Enough big money in politics. Enough purchasing candidates, judges, senators, congressmen, presidents.  And once we have seen that line has been crossed. which it has long since been, what do we do about it?  How do we turn this around? How do we end their tyranny?  Because they are the tyrants, the dictators, of this age we live in.  They are the Kings and Queens. They are the Pope. They are the Royalty to whom we have to pledge  our allegience, else we risk poverty, ruin, ignominity, shame.  Trump is but an extreme example, openly demanding that we grovel. Most of them are more subtle than that, but underneath their public personas, underneath the camoflage of normalcy that many of them tr

Last night I was telling Grace my fears that some of these Governors might feel the need to call out the National Guard to deal with these protesters.  I was heading to my concern that with Trump backing the protesters, this could lead to civil war, but she interrupted me before I got there. I'm paraphrasing here: "Who do the Guard report to?" she said, "Is it Trump?" "No," I said, "They are essentially a state militia. They report to the Governor." "Oh," she said. I went on to say one of my concerns was that someone high up would decide that Trump had to be removed by force.... "Who does the military report to?" she said. "Well, technically Trump's the Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces...." "So they would be on his side." she said. "Technically, yes, but what I'm talking about would have to involve people in Congress as well. Would have to be people from both Republi

Let's do some hypotheticals. If a guy is walking down a street with a gun shooting at people, even if he doesn't actually hit anyone, do we just say he's 'exercising his 2nd Amendment rights' and let him keep doing it? If a person is drunk out of their minds and driving all over the road, even if he doesn't actually hit anyone, do we just say they're having a harmless bit of fun and let them keep doing it? If a person is throwing shards of broken glass out of their window onto the passersby below, even if they don't actually hit anyone, do we just say it's their right to freedom of expression and let them keep doing it? If a person has a deadly contagious disease, even if they're not showing symptoms, and they walk around hugging and kissing people, do we just say they're being demonstrative and let them keep doing it? The answer to all of these is, of course; NO!  We don't! Because they are endangering others! The lives of o

There's a word from my childhood; The Doldrums. Where the ocean's currents are aimless or non-existant. If the wind dies as well, ships ain't goin' nowhere. This is what it feels like right now. The doldrums. The excitement of the first few weeks of this lockdown has died down. We are firmly in the grip of the Coronavirus and it's side effects, which are isolation, quaranteen, physical separation, fear. These are becoming the norm, although it's a norm that carries a strong undercurrent of fear. We have not quite reached the peak of infection, here in the US or the World in general  For the world it's a kind of rolling peak, first here then there, then on to the next hotspot but overall growing. Here in the US we are just getting to that point where the numbers are becomeing horribly real. and we are most of us on pause, waiting with 'bated breath, so to speak. In movie terms I'm thinking of the part of the movie where the heros are hiding from

I think we're putting paid to the myth that; if people are not working at a job they'll be lazy and do nothing all day.  If everyone else's FB feeds are like mine, people are filling their time with creativity, cooking, house projects, quality time with their kids, and discovering a community of peers across the country, heck; across the world! Seems like every other post is someone's latest culinary masterpiece, or a creative exercise with the kids, or the remodel on the garage. I'm seeing more art, moer people performing, more people cooking, more people having fun with each other and the kids and the dogs and the cats than I have ever seen before, and sometimes from the last people of whom I would expect such a thing. Seems to me there's been this myth perpetrated (I have my suspicions as to the origins) that people without a job would be at loose ends, adrift, lazy do-nothings who just sit around all day, or would turn to illegal and illicit doings. B