Wayward Landlubber

I used to work with a conservative, back before maga, when Donald Trump was a mere celebrity, not celebrated by me. His name was Scott. I was not a BFF with Scott. Besides being a conservative who could define the word, Scott smoked cigarettes at a time when non-smokers rights were not honored. We shared a couple drinks one time and he told me that he had been a member of the Weather Underground back in the 60s. The Weather underground was the extreme version of the weathermen. He was in love with Ronald Reagan when I new him. That's pulling some neck-snapping G forces. Like a black, hispanic, or female on ICE. It was our good fortune that neither of us worked closely together, me having a difficult time keeping my mouth shut. I have not seen Scott for some 40 years, so I can't say if he is now maga.  I was not inactive during the 1970s. I had the good fortune to be declared physically unfit for military service, thanks to a booklet given out at anti-war rally's with the ti...

She's  a spritely little ball of fur. Sort of black, brindled with brown when in the sun. Down the left side of her nose is a white strip, shaped something like a fat b. A thin line of white extends across her jaw down to her collar-bone across her thin chest and down to her sternum, like streak lighting. This is a kitten that will be a beautiful adult cat. She is settling in to her new home and to me. Part of the settlement involves her bolting out of my room when I return from my many bathroom breaks overnight. She loves to run around the kitchen, hiding behind the electric range. She also makes a bee-line to the bathroom. Catching her is not easy for an old man with stiff joints.  She sleeps comfortably with me, though not where I would like, in the crook of my arm where I know where she is when i turn over. We will be working on that. So far in her short time as my Lulu, I have taken her with me when I venture into the public. I don't want her to have separation anxiety. A...

k Decisions become more difficult as we age. Will buying a newer used car be worthwhile, the closer I age until I must let others drive? When do I finally listen to that desperate phone sales-person trying to sell me burial insurance? Should I cut back on ice-cream, or chocolate. But things could be worse and it pleases me that it isn't.  My doctor wants me to have a colonoscopy, my third. I got scheduled for an appointment a week ago. It's in Feb. My follow-up email was that I needed to pay $446. Up front. My previous two appointments were covered. I rescheduled until March so i could afford my twice-yearly car insurance. The out of pocket cost fell to $296 in my march appointment. Does that mean i get a cheaper physician? I hope the meds are as pleasant as before. I got some new pants for Christmas. My waist size is a couple sizes smaller. I'm happy with that. My new blue jeans are made for mature men. They are called Ballroom jeans. My visits to ballrooms, rare earlier, ...

Back when Henry Ford was figuring out the assembly-line process, and spreading fascist propaganda, there was a work theory called Taylorism. It's proponent was Frederick Winslow Taylor. It taught management how to break up factory jobs into small, easy-to-manage, units. Workers preferred to think of it as monotony. Later, as I took my place in the work-a-day world, they were known as efficiency experts, or "bean-counters". The corporate world is like that. I make a distinction between the corporate world and capitalists. Capitalism is your local pizza parlor. Corporatism is the international food conglomerate targeting the local pizz parlor to cut part of their business away so that Dominoes can make their P&L look good.  I suppose there is something remarkable about capitalists hiring an extra employee who is not producing product. But underlying this workplace annoyance is the reality that the excess profits earned by the bean counter makes the P&L look good, wh...

There's something wrong with Republicans. A mind-worm maybe, or a dimming of intellect. I can't begin to guess the cause, but such behavior is well-represented in the realm of Maga, and undetected by the non-maga corpse of the Republican party. How, for Instance can a preening woman who shot her dog for not being sufficiently obedient, and then shot her goat for the period on the point of the exclamation mark, be appointed to any public position, let alone an office where such fraught language as Homeland Security is used. In what alternate universe can a woman be appointed Director of National Security, when she had been investigated and not cleared, by the FBI as a national security threat. That woman is Tulsi Gabbard, washed in the cleansing waters of maga-dom. And how do you explain Steven Miller, Trump's Reichsmarshall. He is a ripe  pustule of fascism, ready for Dr Pimple-popper. There are more, there's not enough time.  Indulging in speculation, which I am often ...

Too many years ago I was transitioning from a 9th-grader in middle school, to a Sophomore in high school. It is a cruel turn-about, from the status of the oldest class in middle school to the youngest of the high school rankings, all while acne and hormones are raging. Across Highway 214 from high school, however  Was Burkes Big Wheel, for soft  ice cream, a block from there was Smith's Corner Grocery. The convenience store of today, 7-Eleven and Plaid Pantry, did not arrive until the late 1970s. To call it a corner grocery was an exaggeration. It did sell cigarettes and candy. The Smiths had a son in his mid-20's. He was male because that was the only option he had. Some of us called him a 'morphadite', a mis-application of hermahrodite, which people 1000's of years before our time, new more about than Republicans today. As time progressed gays and lesbians were finally allowed legal humanity. Transgenders have not yet achieved that status. In June of 2024, I becam...