The world is weighing in on the tRumpian craziness…
This Machine Kills Fascists
The image below is from a phrase Woody Guthrie wrote on his guitar. It is very sad that here we are, 75 years later, and we are fighting this fight again. The reality is that it seems to be a struggle that never ends, the clash of humanity’s dark side against its humanistic side.
As my cousin, The Don Quixote of West Texas, said, “This political nightmare is turning into a field day for musicians.”
Bruce Springsteen – Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
The Boss needs no comment from yours truly. His words say it all. I would say enjoy, but this is a time for action. This monstrous malAdministration needs to go and like yesterday…
Another Reason I Am Not a Fan of AI
It used to be said that, “a picture is worth a thousands words.” It also used to be said, “pictures do not lie.” Perhaps that should be revised to, “a picture is worth a thousand lies.”
It has been quite a while now that I have been generally skeptical of all things photographic in the the media. It started with PhotoShop, which makes it easy-peasy to manipulate images. Now AI has come along, amping that up several magnitudes. What is even worse for humanity, is that it now includes videos.
I listened to a podcast a few years back that predicted that with AI and other technologies it would become impossible to tell if a politician – or any other person – appearing in a video was really the person. At the time, the podcaster stated that voice manipulation was already there, and they expected video to catch up within a few years. I remember thinking, “not in my lifetime.” Boy howdy, was I so wrong. It is just around the corner.
This video is more about photography as an art form, but it applies generally. It is short, only a little less than 3 minutes.
Can we really trust our eyes unless we are actually there? Even then “they” will try to spin it to the point that you question what you saw. And forget ye not, “2 + 2 = 5.”
When I was younger, much younger, I used to think reality was a fixed property. Now days, I have no idea. There seems to be so many competing versions of reality that is seems, well, unreal, at times.
Which brings up an Ambrose Bierce quote from the book, The Devil’s Dictionary that I completely relate to:
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.
Jon Winokur could have well been riffing on this definition is his book: The Portable Curmudgeon
Now the video that inspired this rambling:
Monsters – Still Happy with Voting for Trump?
What has happened to my once beloved country?
Here is a link to Krugman’s post today: Monsters
It starts out:
All this after they had control of the man who, from what I have read, was only trying to protect a woman from pepper spray being used by ICE agents.
The really sad part is that this is getting to be a common story. Trying to find accurate statistics about ICE and ICE deportations is almost a hopeless task. Whether you agree with deportations or not, I find it hard to believe anyone would approve of the tactics of this Fascist regime and the government agency, ICE, that seems to populated the worst of the worst. And the Trump Administration is defending them and cheering them on.
Are you still happy with your vote for Trump? Are you still happy with voting for Republicans enabling this madman strutting around the White House? Are you happy with government sponsored armed thugs in our streets? Are you happy with the mass abuse of people, who by the vast majority, were simply seeking a better life? Are you still happy with a President who has surrounded himself with the worst possible people? Are you still happy with a President that has pissed off just about everyone of our long term friends and allies, all the while sidling up to the worst dictators on the planet?
God save your soul.
My hope is that we will vote the monsters out in November. A bigger part of me is afraid we will not have the opportunity.
All of this for what? To stroke a madman’s ego… to bring on the Armageddon… To rid our country of brown people… All this so the rich get richer and the rest of us without benefits…
I have never felt so hopeless about the future of this country.
Trump’s Letter to Prime Minister of Norway
Here is the letter that Trump wrote to the Prime Minister of Norway. It has been verified by several sources including Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre:
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT
I don’t care what universe you reside in or what your political leanings are, that is bat shit crazy to the nth degree.
There must not be too many poker players in the Continue reading “Trump’s Letter to Prime Minister of Norway”
Bob Dylan Say Hello to Paul Krugman
Normally, I do not put out two postings in one day, but today I could not resist. The video of Bob Dylan at the end of this posting was the coda to Paul Krugman‘s newsletter today.
On the off chance you are not familiar with Krugman, he is a Nobel Laureate in Economics, the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and was a columnist with the New York Times for nearly 30 years until the newspaper made a sharp turn to the right and more or less ran him off. I suppose he is considered a Liberal, I find him to be a little left of center and one of the sanest voices currently in American politics. I used to read him regularly before the newspaper went behind a paywall. A friend recently gifted me a free subscription to his newsletter on SubStack, which is where he went with his heavily factual opinion pieces after his stint at the New York Times.
Listening to Dylan started me thinking of other times. I graduated high school in North Kingstown, RI, in 1970. For many of us of Continue reading “Bob Dylan Say Hello to Paul Krugman”
Nicknames for He Who Shall Not Be Named
Trigger warning: This is going to get crude… fast.
Giving nicknames to politicians has long been a popular American pastime, especially for those occupying the White House. The current occupant stinking up the Oval Office, however, has spawned a whole cottage industry generating euphemisms and nicknames for him. This quasi-humanoid has an extreme pathological need for attention, which reminds me of a psychology precept from Transactional Analysis, “a soggy potato chip is better than no potato chip.”
One of the ones that I see most often is tRump, emphasizing the rump part of his name, which to my way of thinking is much too polite. On occasion I have riffed on that one and used tArse.
From the title of this article, He Who Shall Not be Named, obviously a reference to the villainous warlock of the Harry Potter series of books. In Mexico this becomes Innombrable, interesting enough one of the few examples of when it takes fewer Spanish words for a concept than in English. It may be common in other parts of Latin America, but I visit with a few Mexicans on iTalki so I know a little bit more about there.
Speaking of Spanish, I frequently refer to him as El pendejo, which over time has morphed to El puta pendejo, then El puta pendejo naranja. If you are not up on your Spanish curse words I will let you put these phrases into Google translator yourself. One of the things about Google translator is that it will take the crudest of comments and translate them to something somewhat milder.
I was talking about the current cluster f*** that is the politics in the United States, and I used El puta pendejo with one of my tutors who lives north of Mexico City. Normally I stay very proper with my tutors except Continue reading “Nicknames for He Who Shall Not Be Named”
Pay Attention to History
Pay attention to history.
I sincerely hope we are a better nation than what tRump and his sycophants are attempting to do to our country currently… I sincerely hope so.
Why Separation of Church and State IS SO VERY Important
Among all the scary s*** happening in this country and the world right now, this ranks way up there. Mike Huckabee is a true believer in the Armageddon / Second Coming of Christ fantasy. I had not realized until now that El puta pendejo naranja had appointed this whacko as ambassador to Israel. Truly the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of the State Department. His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, current governor of Arkansas, is every bit as crazy as he is.
I would give them their religious delusions if they were not trying to push them on the rest of us…. much to our detriment. IMHO, their world view is delusional and draconian. Maybe it is a little over the top, but given half a chance, these “true believers” would make the Spanish Inquisition look like a cake walk.
God save us from the religious.