Wayward Landlubber

I don't know exactly how to write; it's a mystery to me. It's not that I don't write, I do. It's just that the process remains a mystery to me. Some people outline what they write. Some create a block diagram. There are other tactics I've been told about, but I'm  too lazy. So I write in a style and manner in which I have become comfortable. Mostly I write satire.  Political satire, because I'm lazy. Nothing says lazy like picking up a turd dropped by a Republican candidate and dropping it in the alphabet soup of presidential shenanigans. And the turds abound in this group of stooges. There are many ways to express yourself in writing. Fiction, history, humor, satire. I'm told there are physicists who write, though it's a mystery to me what they write. I write because I have something to say. Something others don't care to hear. So I put my thoughts in writing so I can, from some future promontory tell people who didn't want to hear that,...

I DONT THINK WE'RE READY.. Mass media has made people, who's grasp on reality is tenuous at best, too confident in their ability. I recently saw where a post asked about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez' support if she ran for president. Naturally, one of our maga moron's contributed his two cents worth, the very penny no longer distributed by the treasury. "I don't think we're ready for AOC," he opined. And there you have it. A not very bright human who's only qualification to be a Podcaster is his affinity with maga, gives us his assessment of Alexadria Ocasio Cortez' fitness for running for public office. "I don't think we're ready for that". Perhaps he was thinking that he was thinking. Perhaps he doesn't know what qualifies as thinking.  Funny thing, in a popular democracy, where democracy is allowed to be practiced by those not at the power centers, people who pay close attention to the discussions, and the legislative quali...

I have a secret internet activity. Something that has grown in dimension and intensity, since i started my internet activity. I used to feel awkward about it, embarrassed even. No, not that one! I'm a troll. I click on comments initiated from right-wing nut jobs. What's a rightwing nut job, you ask? Good question. It's like how Justice Potter Stewart described pornography, "I know it when I see it". If you come onto the screen with the insulting over-confidence of a watcher of websites populated by young, white, and dim-witted males in muscle shirts, you are almost surely a RWNJ. If your opinion is regarded by you on the same intellectual level as science, or medicine, or economics, you are an RWNJ. You are the kind of guy that will peer over the shoulder of a portrait artist on the street, and say, "I think you should make my old lady's lips fatter".  Where is that line between spirited discussion and verbal war? It is at the level of wit. It is the...

My dad used to call them marble bags. Those white briefs that, once we are potty-trained, become our big-boy pants. Tighty-whities. At some point, as we eagerly approach adultery, some of us start looking farther afield on the underwear rack. Boxers wait for our approach. Pillow-slips. Instead of wrapping our nether areas in soft cotton, boxers fit like a loose swimsuit. Cotton in various colors and designs, sitting crisply inside your jeans. I started wearing boxers when I was 18, just short of that day I would enter adultery. Over the years underwear became made with rayon thread. First came bikini briefs, nestling things somewhat more closely. And for a while, I wore them; enjoyed them. But we gain weight and the rayon loses its elasticity. And the lifetime of those tight marble-bags are somewhat less than a penurious individual might desire. Who wants to spend money on something that can't be seen? Another advantage to boxers is, on a crisp winter day, and far from the ski lodg...

My dad was a car guy. He lovingly washed his car each Saturday. When I became tall enough to reach the middle of the roof, he paid me $15., a handsome some them, to wash it. Every season, he applied Turtle Wax rubbing it lovingly into the outside of the car and buffing it away with a chamois. Water beaded up on the paint of dad's car like wax on a candle. Similarly, he was a shade-tree mechanic and did his own brake jobs, tune-ups, etc. We could be traveling down the road and he would say, "Hear that, Larry. My right-front tire needs air. This was in the era when tires had inner-tubes and white sidewalls. Before radial tires. That gene did not live long in my body. Outside of the $15 for washing the car.  Cars in those days were caressed by owners in the way AR-15s are caressed today in Republican circles. Gasoline was 39 cents/gallon. It was leaded. Nobody bought regular, and service stations offered not only service, but were staffed with mechanics, not cashiers. Cars In tho...

I borrowed this title from a book written by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, two podcasters whom I like listening to. I have not read it, which puts me on the same footing as Republicans, but I'm old and have been political since we were seeing lights that did not exist in the tunnels of Vietnam. It is here that I must reveal that i once wrote a letter to the editor of the Oregon Statesman, when I was 14 years old. A time, I must plead, when young men are not known for their subtlety. In this letter, which was published, I called Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield "worms in the bowels of government". Within the next 4 years my outlook changed. It took me some 40 years to hike up the trail to the Wayne Morse farm, with my ex-wife where i apologized to the bronze plaque comemorating our greatest Senator. A Senator who could not abide the Republican party of his day, which is being repeated in todays Republican party. The great old party is smothering the Grande Old Party.  Co...