Monday, February 26, 2024

. . . and if chosen I will . . .

I too, am an elderly man with a poor memory. I too, am 81 years old. There, though, the things I have in common with Joe Biden end.

For one thing, I know that actions have consequences, whether those consequences are or aren’t intended. I didn’t need Ruth Bader Ginsberg to show the truth of that—I’ve known it since I was a young man with a good memory.

Another thing that clearly separates me from Joe Biden is that, like Dirty Harry, I believe “that a man has to know his limitations.” Joe, apparently, doesn’t. His running for a second term proves his adamantine asininity. I have never even sought a first term, frankly because I didn’t give a damn.

Until now.

I’m tossing my hat in the ring, because America deserves better than what it’s going to get come November.

That’d be me: (The poor man’s Joe Biden)!

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Hey Jude

To state the obvious, I have put off writing a blog for January 2024 until the penultimate day. There are a myriad of reasons for this delay, all invalid, ranging from intellectual lethargy to physical disgust. I have a strong suspicion that many people will understand my self-diagnosed state of being, given the circumstances in which we all have been plummeting downward to our current weird-worldly situation.

Throughout all of my Bidenesque 81 years abiding in this particular portion of the planet I have never felt less comfortable with the odds against maintaining the necessary conditions for the continued "success" of the so-called "Democratic Experiment."

"So-called," because its "success" was always a grand delusion if you'd dare or care to examine its roots. The land-grabbiness of the gold-greedy conquistadors and the colonizing, genocidal, God-fearing folks whose battle cries of "Live Free or Die!" had many applications, the least of them being the application of "Freedom" for "Others."

Well, this year, perhaps the penultimate, or worse.

If we keep heading down this narrow path straight to hell there will be nothing else to say.

Just "air-quotes" hanging in a purple sky.



Sunday, December 17, 2023

Is DEI Driving Everyone Insane?

Today marks 4 score and a year that I've been circling the Sun. So like that guy from State Farm, "I've seen a few things!" Not all of them good. Forinstance, out of curiosity I once Googled the events of my birthday, December 17, 1942: "Revealed: 6 Million Jews Exterminated," screamed the banner headlines.

There were to be many more atrocities and naughty behaviors unfolding during my hiatus here on Earth: Genocides, Wars, Massacres, Natural Disasters, and Man-made Catastrophes: Assassinations, Homicides, Fratricides, Matricides, Infanticides with a side of Revolutions, Lynchings, Arsons, Rapes, Robberies, Burglaries, Corruptions, Injustices, Bamboozlings--etc., all too numerous to remember, let alone mention--you get the picture.

So what's a body politic to do? Well, we've resurrected a grand old idea: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This seems to ring a bell--a Liberty Bell--for wasn't this the idea(l) embedded in the Declaration of Independence? Well, it happens that what was good for the goose in 1776 is too saucy for the American Eagle in 2023.

For a myriad of reasons, chief among them pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth--pick your deadly combination of cardinal sins--we have tossed ourselves overboard--and are now furiously treading water, floundering in a rising tide of ignorance, despair, purposelessness, and dare I say, "DEI deprivation." In other words, nothing's really changed in 81 years. Or has it been 8,100?



Thursday, November 9, 2023

To Humankind: "Can We Talk?"

"Fundamental to the moral law of Holiness are the two principles which lie at the basis of man's creative cooperation with God -- Justice and Righteousness, Justice being the negative aspect of Holiness; Righteousness, its positive aspect. Justice means the recognition of six fundamental rights. These are the right to live, the right of possession, the right to work, the right to clothing, the right to shelter, and finally the right of the person, which includes the right to leisure and the right to liberty, as well as prohibitions to hate, avenge, or bear a grudge."

"Righteousness is to manifest itself in the acceptance of duties, especially in the concern for the poor, the weak, and the helpless, whether friend or foe. It is also to show itself in the conception of earthly goods, the possession of which is to be regarded not as a natural right but as a divine trust. When a neighbor is in difficulty, a loan is to be made to him for which no interest is to be charged. If he is obliged to surrender his ancestral property, it is to revert to him. The difficulties of a man's neighbor are not to be used to increase his own income. Economic life in the Torah is thus to mean essential services to one's fellow man; and behind this ethic stands the law of love as formulated by the golden rule 'Thou shalt love thy fellow as thyself', which is expressly stated to include the non-Israelite stranger."


from Judaism by Rabbi Isidore Epstein.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Dis United Nations

From the Britannica World Review of 1975.

 "The escalation of Communist and third world "antiracist," "anti-imperialist" rhetoric reached a peak at the UN in October 1975, when the UN Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee passed (70 to 29, with 27 abstentions and 16 absent) an Arab resolution condemning Israel as the "racist regime in occupied Palestine," declaring that Zionism was "a form of racism and racial discrimination," and calling upon all nations to opposed Zionism as "a threat to world peace and security" and a racist and imperialist ideology."

" . . . In November the anti-Zionism resolution was adopted by the General Assembly."

The resolution was introduced by Pres. Idi Amin of Uganda.

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Witch Watching

Swatch Out!

Three Witches Watched Three Wristwatches

Which Witch Watched Which Wristwatch?

That's a tongue twister on which to whet your whistle. I have long been warm to witches--ever since seeing Veronica Lake (of Tudor City) playing it coy and cute in I Married a Witch when I was just an awedful kid loaded with hormonious mischief watching the Early Show in the days when TV dinners were stillunborn. 

And then when I grew up, there was Arthur Miller (not my uncle, Arthur Miller, who drove a laundry truck and early succumbed for his pains) but Marilyn's other toy boy, the one who penned The Crucible. 

And then there was Gabby and his long spell of witchery to enthrall me with his heavy-handed brand of magicianship. 

And then along came John and Jack and The Witches of Eastwick.

And then Dame Atwood broomed in with a scary tale of a real live Succubus, Zenia, with The Robber Bride. She who has been named nastily disorders the lives and loves of three innocent women. After reading Atwood's deft portrayal of female betrayal I returned to unholy Mass to refresh my memory of the male take on the delicate sorcery close to his and Hathorne's heart with Updike's, The Widows of Eastwick.

I rest my piece. The jury's out.



Tuesday, August 22, 2023

What a Revoltin' Development This Is!

As I begin to ruminate, or fulminate, or maybe better, percolate upon the development of this post post-haste I'll get straight to the point--whenever I hear someone say "the developing countries," I am puzzled, and quite frankly not a little bit annoyed. Aren't all countries always, like marriages, "developing," for better or for worse? Hemingway asked a guy who had once been rich and had become a panhandler living on the down-low what happened. The guy told him that "it happened to me in two ways, first gradually and then all of a sudden."

Like life itself, "developing" gradually until something sinister seems to happen suddenly. To be sure, inevitability sucks, but what's a body to do?

I'll keep ruminating, keep fulminating, keep percolating, and keep posting.

Maybe you'll learn to stop worrying while I apply the balm.