Politics – Page 2 – WALKING ON THIN ICE

Benedict Donald

May 12, 2020 No Comments

Benedict Donald,
TrumpVirus Buffoon and World Laughing Stock

online tap water quality check by zipcode

October 24, 2019 No Comments

Cleveland tap water quality test results for the Tremont neighborhood per the EWG.org (Environmental Working Group) website.

Bromodichloromethane exceeds the standard by 125 times
(cancer causing)

Chloroform exceeds the standard by 30 times
(cancer causing)

Chromium (hexavalent) exceeds the standard by 5.1 times
(cancer causing)

Dibromochloromethane exceeds the standard by 36 times
(cancer causing)

Dichloroacetic acid exceeds the standard by 12 times
(cancer causing)

Nitrate exceeds the standard by 2.5 times
(cancer causing) *

Nitrate & nitrite exceed the standard by 7.3 times
(cancer causing) *

Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) exceed the standard by 157 times
(cancer causing)

Trichloroacetic acid exceed the standard by 11 times
(cancer causing)

Go here and type in your zipcode to find your neighborhood’s ratings
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/

* don’t know why they have Nitrate and Nitrate & Nitrite as 2 catagories

the 2nd coming mending wall

August 29, 2019 No Comments

Strange – I pick these 2 poems for their moral implications, and find they were written within 5 years of each other, back in the WW I days – the war that ended all wars.

The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats, 1919

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~ ~ ~

Mending Wall
by Robert Frost, 1914

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

free will on the installment plan

August 28, 2019 No Comments

Recent Facebook statuses:

~ ~ ~

I am what I is… not much mainstream involved.

~ ~ ~

Been thinking about joining the power structure. I am white. I am male. I am old. Of course I’m poorer than Trump’s chance of telling the truth, and I’m not a lizard-person, so there is that. Can one become a lizard-person? Are there apprenticeship programs? I do lie well, so I have the basic skill set.

~ ~ ~

I wanna be a kleptocrat.

~ ~ ~

Walking from kitchen to living room swinging my arms, my forefinger thumps against something… I look down to see a 3 inch black & pale wasp of 3-segments circle me slowly then move on, and my fingertip tingles with the might-have-been.

~ ~ ~

We’re back home from her eye operation, she’s sleeping… they lasered away 2,500 portions of her eye, reducing the edges of her retina in hopes of increasing blood flow so her retina doesn’t swell.

~ ~ ~

Watching roadkill before it becomes roadkill –
what do you want for Brexit?

~ ~ ~

The better root of the bitter truth
is the bitter route to the better truth

~ ~ ~

They always talk of darma,
but what of darpa… and their darkids?
People say the darmist things.

And when darma goes shopping,
does she drive her karma?

~ ~ ~

“We die. That may be the meaning of life.
But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

– Toni Morrison

~ ~ ~

Folk call me a cradle robber for marrying 27 years younger,
but she chose me, so it’s more like she’s a grave robber.

~ ~ ~

The 1950’s kids TV show was originally to be called The Howdy Dawdler Show, but the puppet star-to-be dawdled so long they found a puppet that would do his duty and changed it to the Howdy Doody Show.

~ ~ ~

We need to change the rules —
you can only shoot someone who has a gun.

~ ~ ~

I live in the addict.

~ ~ ~

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” – Genesis 3:1, New King James Version

If God made everything, how can the Snake of Eden be craftier than anything God made?

~ ~ ~

Spirit caged by skeleton
bone cased in flesh
free will on the installment plan

the Lady, the Dick, and the Liar

October 31, 2018 No Comments

This is a 3-fer – the Lady, the Dick, and the Liar.

~ ~ ~

Here is Lady K’s poem written last Saturday in the hour before our monthly poetry workshop called Rufus, run by poet Wendy Shaffer.

Rufus is 6-10 friends sitting in a circle around coffee and bagels sharing 1 new poem each for feedback, and has been going on longer than Lady & I (and we’re in our 14th year).

Rufus includes 3 of my favorite poets – Wendy Shaffer, Russell Vidrick, and Lady K. Smith.

Stone soup is, according to Wikipedia, “an old folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.” Love the concept.”

RUFUS
by Lady K, 10.27.2018

Let’s meet at the the crossroads, I’ll bring a
stone. someone some magic beans, and one a
string from their pocket, and someone a
clock

The cat will bring some cheese, the mouse
will bring some cream, the clock will bring
its hands, and we will make some time

We’ll tie our shoes with patience and button
up our ironed shirts, flashes of the pinks
from filed nails on worried-over hands, what
our barber has made of us this moon.

Harvest conjures measure. This is the time
for apples and carrots, for potatoes and
pumpkins and Mother Goose’s cobbled shoes.

This is the time for the reunion of friends these
words are candles in the closing tilting
cabbage of year each other like a yardstick
turning in measured postures we are, the grace
of our liquid profiles, the loping of shoulders,
and years are offspring of old who have gone
their whimsical way while we, we turn as houses
in each other, seasons housed in us, how I
looked last year, how I look this year, how I
look again, squinting through the sleeping dark
at the blurry clock through years and years.

The solace of friends, friends, this is our
solace, survivors of time’s laminating palimpsests
over memories until the poignancy of a turn
uncovered, the clear mirror of each other through
the madeleine of crisp seen huffs of breath in
huddled sky, we are characters of favorite books
meet in knit caps, we ladle out the stories and
make stone stew.

~ ~ ~

Just reread The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick (1962) and found it much better than I remembered from 40 years ago, though it doesn’t seem to have much similarity to the TV series. Now rereading Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? for the first time since they turned it into Bladerunner in 1982 – he died just before it came out, but I read he had seen it in a studio showing especially for him.

Bladerunner is better than Sheep.

The man might have the most titles turned into film/TV… though Shakespeare could be competitive with his 37 plays.

Philip K. Dick 1928-1982.

Second Variety, 1953, shortstory, Screamers, 1995 movie
Paycheck, 1953, shortstory, Paycheck, 2003 movie
Imposter, 1953, shortstory, Out Of This World, 1962 TV
Imposter, 1953, shortstory, Imposter, 2002 movie
The Hood Maker, 1953, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
The Commuter, 1953, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
The Hanging Stranger, 1953, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
Sales Pitch, 1954, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
Exhibit Piece, 1954, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
The Father Thing, 1954, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017
Adjustment Team, 1954, shortstory, The Adjustment Bureau, 2011 movie
The Golden Man, 1954, shortstory, Next, 2007 movie
The Crystal Crypt, 1954, shortstory, The Crystal Crypt, 2013 movie
The Impossible Planet, 1955, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
Human Is, 1955, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
Autofac, 1955, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
Foster, You’re Dead!, 1955, shortstory, Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, 2017 TV
The Minority Report, 1956, shortstory, Minority Report 2002 movie
The Minority Report, 1956, shortstory, Minority Report 2015 TV
The Man In The High Castle, 1962, novel, The Man In The High Castle 2015 TV
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, 1966, shortstory, Total Recall, 1990 movie
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, 1966, shortstory, Total Recall 2070, 1999 TV
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, 1966, shortstory, Total Recall, 2012 movie
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968, novel, Bladerunner, 1982 movie
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968, novel, Bladerunner 2049, 2017 movie
Confessions of a Crap Artist, 1975, Confessions d’un Barjo, 1992 movie
Radio Free Albemuth, 1976, novel, Radio Free Albemuth, 2008 movie
A Scanner Darkly, 1977, novel, A Scanner Darkly, 2006 movie

plus some short films like Piper in the Woods 2016 7 minutes from 1953 short story

~ ~ ~

While I have not read of a single decent person ever saying a good thing Trump has done, I have seen that he has publicly been accused of 3 rapes (one of a 13 yr-old), of stealing from his vendors, cheating on his taxes, cheating on his wives, laundering money for both the Russian and the American mobs, of treason, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, destroying evidence, voter fraud, stealing from charity, of being a genuinely shitty person, and of siring Trump thug junior 1, Trump thug junior 2, and Trump thug daughter who’s married to a Trump thug wanna-be… I dream of Trump and his Klueless Kluck Klan of a family in jail, without bail, all in one cell with no food – the deal being the last one left uneaten gets to be put in a cage and floated out to sea.

sloth smith

May 4, 2018 No Comments

SlothSmith here – my daily blog seems to be down to once a month. So slowly I turn…

Various statuses or statii from my Facebook page past 4 days.

I worked 45 years, paid Medicare and taxes… my last year as a programmer analyst consultant I made $75,000. I had a good life, money in the bank. Then throat cancer ate up all my money, so I sold my condo and we lived on that for 10 years. Now I’m poor enough that my hospital absorbs all costs that Medicare doesn’t pay. Welcome to the roller coaster called capitalism.

What is this Big Band that created the universe? Are we really the by-product of swing?

what trump’s own people think of him:

White House chief of staff John Kelley – “an idiot”

former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – “a fucking moron”

National security adviser H.R. McMaster, – an “idiot,” a “dope” and a man with the brain of a “kindergartner.”

former chief of staff Reince Priebus an “idiot.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin – an “idiot.”

Then-chief economic adviser Gary Cohn – “dumb as shit” and “an idiot surrounded by clowns.”

billionaire media baron Rupert Murdoch – “a fucking idiot”

Me? I call him a child rapist (he was sued for raping a 13 year old girl), a thief, a liar, a traitor, bottom feeder, and sexual predator.

They use “the birds & the bees” as metaphor for the ‘sex’ talk, but the bee queen has sex once, then spends the rest of her life laying 1,500 fertilized eggs a day until she dies, or until she doesn’t produce enough and is killed by her loyal workers who grow a new queen. Perhaps this would be a good model to use with British Royalty.

Our 4th year beekeeping – lost 4 hives hives plus 2 queens so far. Our 5th hive’s queen didn’t make it out of the queen cage so I drove an hour southwest yesterday to buy a $40 queen, hour back, then hour east to hive to put queen in, then back.. Our 1st year we harvested 120 pounds of most excellent honey… years 2 and 3 one small jar each. This is our make or break year – love bees, love beekeeping, but can’t keep putting hundreds of dollars into it for bees that never survive the winter

I worship the Great Vine.

Skum Lord

December 8, 2017 No Comments

Skum Lord

Serving Up Our Country

Richard Nixon said
it ain’t illegal if the President does it.

George Bush admits killing
between 110,000 to 460,000 Iraqi civilians,
not the 1,200,000 estimated
so everything’s ok.

Bill Clinton claimed he didn’t have intern sex
cuz “is don’t mean is”
and besides a blow job’s not sex.

During his Presidency, Richard Nixon had
76 of his people indicted for crimes
55 convicted
15 jailed

Ronald Reagan had 26 indicted
16 convicted
8 jailed

George W Bush lagged with only
16 indicted, 16 convicted, 9 locked up.

Donald Trump in office less than a year
already has 4 indicted with 2 admitting guilt
gonna be a long 4 years

Clinton: 2 indicted 1 convicted 0 jailed
Bush1: 1 indicted 1 convicted 1 jailed
Ford: 1 indicted 1 convicted 1 jailed
Carter: 1 indicted 0 convicted
Obama: 0 indicted

Reagan’s soldier deaths = 17,201
Bush1’s soldier deaths = 6,224
Clinton’s soldier deaths = 7,500
Bush2’s soldier deaths = 10,946
Obama’s soldier deaths = 2,499
Trump’s soldier deaths = 4 in less than a year

Civilian deaths under JFk = ?
Civilian deaths under Johnson = ?
Civilian deaths under Nixon = 2 to 5 million
Civilian deaths under Ford = 20,000
Civilian deaths under Carter = ?
Civilian deaths under Reagan = 325,000
Civilian deaths under Bush1 = 50,000
Civilian deaths under Clinton = 300,000-600,000
Civilian deaths under Bush2 = 1,000,000+
Civilian deaths under Obama = ?
Deaths under Trump = U.S. Democracy

The Whiskey Ring, 1875, Ulysses S Grant:
238 indictments, 110 convictions – Republican

Teapot Dome, 1922, Warren Harding:
first Cabinet member to go to prison – Republicn

Watergate 1972, Richard Nixon:
69 indicted, Nixon resigns – Republican

Iran Contra Affair, 1987, Ronald Reagan:
14 indicted, 5 pardoned – Republican

Trump’s lawyer sez
it ain’t illegal if the President does it

– Smith, 12.8.2017

Little Donnie Dick

conversation with wife #36

September 2, 2017 1 Comment

Conversation with Wife 36

Wilcox and I are talking
of the rotted undergrowth that’s Washington
when Lady lays back
says softly, sadly
“I try not to look at the floor of the sausage factory.”

– Smith, 9.2.2017

1926 American Radiator ad