Help Us, Jesus!

It's a wonder I haven't picked up some terrible gangrenous disease that will cause me to lose all four limbs and then die of sepsis, considering how much time I spend swimming in a cesspool. It's called the Internet and it's everywhere, all over the world. In fact, you're in it right now.

Today I heard a dastardly rumor swirling around in the darkest reaches of said pool claiming that Senator Lindsey Graham was having sex with a transgender prostitute when he suffered his heart attack. That really irks me. I was deeply saddened to hear of Graham's death over the weekend. One of our finest Senators of all time, his fatal condition was unknown and yet not all that uncommon. Actor John Ritter died of the same thing -- aortic dissection -- in 2003.

Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine and had spoken with President Trump two hours before his heart attack. He was scheduled to appear on "Meet the Press" the following morning. If he was consorting with some skanky underworld character, it seems highly unlikely that he would have done so under those trying circumstances. 

The Internet is a sickness we all have, spreading lies, stupidity and misinformation everywhere. The galloping growth of AI has only made it worse. Nothing is real, no place is safe and nobody is held accountable. Someone should pull the plug on the whole damn thing. If Jesus Christ really is coming back, now would be a good time.

Finding My Niche

I read a newspaper profile of a young woman described as a "content creator." Wondering just what that is, I did some research -- i.e. Googled it -- and learned that it's someone who creates content on social media, like with a blog. OMG, I've been one since 2007 and didn't even know it! The only thing is, you're supposed to make money doing it, whereas I definitely do not.

The ways to make money are through advertising and finding a niche, the article went on. Since I find advertising morally reprehensible, that's out. As for finding a niche -- mine used to be Humor, but these days being funny can get you sued, or worse, cancelled, and nobody wants that. 

Next. I'm supposed to charge money for reading my blog. That's insane. How much could I possibly ask? And how would I ask it? Should I just post a photo of me holding a cardboard sign scrawled with, "Anything helps"?

So while my blog continues to create content, I remain niche-less and penniless, except for all the dough my husband has and is kind enough to share with me. And of course all my past earnings before I became a social media content creator and only made content for stone and mortar businesses, for a fee. As for finding a niche, I'm considering one of these:

1. Crimes against humanity, who's committing them, and how to stop it

2. Abuse of the English language by almost everyone, led by people who say,
"At the end of the day" when they mean "ultimately" or "when it's over"

3. Dumb Hollywood movies that get huge audiences because the audiences are themselves dumb

4. Things that are wrong with living in Maine and how they get worse over time

5. How anyone with a head can find Timothy Chalemet sexy, or even male

6. What foods will help you live longer and not get cancer, as opposed to what foods won't

7. Lists of things. (Apparently they get more clicks.)

Headlines I Didn't Click On

Go ahead and make fun of me but I still get my email at AOL. It's been like 20 years and it's too much trouble to change it now. Anyway, the only bad thing about it is seeing the stupid news stories they post when I go to my home page. I try to look away but they seep in somehow.

Following are just a few headlines for the trashy, dumb and possibly untrue stories they print. While I didn't click on any of them, some of them made me laugh.

Indiana Man Accused of Cutting Off His Genitals And Lighting Them On Fire Charged With Arson 

"Little House on the Prairie" Star Melissa Gilbert Discovers She Has 3 Older Brothers 

Bear Feasting On Salmon Surprised As Another Fish Leaps Into Its Mouth

Inside Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's Ultra-private Honeymoon

Ice Spice Shows Off World's Biggest Tongue Ring 

Violent Abuser Who Made Victim Bark Like A Dog Found Hiding In Fridge

What Your Favorite Nail Color Says About Your Personality

Dad Fights Back Tears While Watching His Daughter, 25, Perform for the First Time 

Only You Can Be You

Obviously nobody besides saints and surgeons knows what to do with themself every day. How else to explain the universal obsession with the lives of celebrities that results in nothing of value for anyone? The recent marriage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, a singer and a football player of all things, is a perfect example. It has dominated the news as if it matters to everyone else as much as to the couple. I wonder, will their eventual divorce also be seen as interesting?

Comparing our lives with those of famous people makes as much sense as comparing our lives to those of squirrels and ants. More sensible is comparing our present lives to our past lives. If there's been no progress, perhaps it's because you've wasted so much time voyeuristically envying other people's lives that you forgot to live yours.

Who Left The Door Open?

My friend Ron, who is 90 but looks and acts 70, said when I bemoaned turning 80, "Don't worry, the eighties are a piece of cake!" Well I don't know what kind of cake he meant, but for me it's been a total drag since that milestone birthday one month ago. My back constantly hurts, I pulled my shoulder somehow, and I'm more fatigued than ever despite getting to bed earlier and earlier. But what happened today was the worst so far.

I had gone out to do some errands which took me about 45 minutes. Arriving back home, I was stunned to see my front door wide open. It wasn't just ajar -- it was as wide open as it could be, letting in a parade of moths and mosquitos. WTF? I was 100% certain I had shut it hard when I left, still paranoid about break-ins from 30 years of living in crime-ridden Washington, D.C.

After checking with my husband and son to see if either one had come in  during my absence and left the door open -- they hadn't -- I undertook a full-scale search of the premises, fearing I was about to be murdered by some intruder hiding in a closet. I found none, but the call to my son was disheartening. 

He recounted an article he recently read suggesting that aging does not happen gradually, but at three distinct times in life: at about age 34, then at age 60, and finally at age 78. So apparently I am now an old coot who leaves doors open without knowing it. I wonder, does plastic surgery help with that or is Jane Fonda, looking fabulous and spry at age 88, also wondering who left the door open, or who went and closed it, or why did I come in here anyway?

Off The Rails Online

Yesterday the picture shown here appeared on my Facebook page. It was posted by a relief organization in Venezuela that was distributing food to the survivors of last week's massive back-to-back earthquakes which killed thousands, leaving thousands more missing and presumed buried under the rubble. 

I found it odd that, amidst the death and destruction, the little boy had a cellphone on his lap, and commented, "at least he has his cell phone." The following response to my bland observation came from a woman named Claudette Veitia: 

"Andrea Rouda he can’t hear you but US VENEZUELANS CAN! Shame on you! What kind of evil lives inside you? It’s disgusting to even read your IGNORANT AND EVIL comment! I am going to be much kinder to you than you were to this little boy in wishing you that you never see what he has seen as a young little boy and I wish you never live what he is living and all Venezuelans are living since the devastating earthquakes. I am sorry life or someone in it has put that much hate inside you, my last wish is for you to heal from whatever it is that fudged you over this bad, but you probably won’t, because only damaged goods would make a comment like that about other human being’s suffering!"

Thank God I hadn't written anything incendiary.

Happy Hot Holiday

Tomorrow is supposed to be a day to celebrate the birth of America 250 years ago. But it's just too damn hot. If it's outdoors and 90 degrees, count me out. That includes tomorrow's 4th of July Parade in our little town. 

Instead of standing on a street corner watching retro cars and fire trucks filled with waving people who somehow were convinced to participate, I will be at home in my air-conditioning. Is that wrong? Remember, heat waves kill. 

In fact, yesterday's Wall Street Journal had an article about that very subject, which asserted that in Europe, heat waves have "often caused tens of thousands of deaths." That was a hard fact to swallow so I did some fact-checking, and so far in Europe 1,000 people have died in France, another 1,000 in Spain and 25 in England during this current hot spell. I also looked up the meaning of "tens and thousands" and it means between 20,000 and 99,000, so I guess their AI bot/writer got that wrong.

Anyway, stay cool and Happy Fourth!

Alone In A Crowd

Do you prefer having just one or two friends and eschew group think? You might be an otrovert!

I just found out I'm an otrovert. I've always known I'm not an introvert or an extrovert, so after living with no label for my entire life it's exciting to be considered something other than "a kook" by at least one New York psychiatrist, who coined the term in 2025. 

Since then it has taken hold in the wider psychological community, earning a Wikipedia page wherein it is described as, "A persistent sense of being an outsider in group settings, even when the person is socially included, and a preference for selective, one-to-one connections over group affiliation."

That's me to a tee. I'm not shy and can easily hang out within a large group of people, be they strangers or friends, without anxiety. It's just that I never enjoy it. So for me it's ixnay to book clubs, volleyball games, yacht clubs, bowling leagues, group exercise classes, parades, parties and political functions.

However, I do enjoy my Loners Anonymous club, which meets only in my mind and on this blog. 

Harry Potter Is A Jew

It's laughable that antisemitism is on the rise in America today, or so it is said. So many actors, movie producers, inventors, business leaders, scientists, biologists and writers are Jewish, it's hard to imagine what life would be like today without all their efforts. And of course, no bagels. Everyone would be eating what for breakfast? Crumpets and plum pudding?

Instead, people should start hating that one ethnic group that has contributed nothing to society -- there must be one. (Google it.) That would at least make some sense.

Videos To Die For

Fat people are helpless and pathetic addicts, no less than someone who shoots heroin. But there are no videos of anyone doing that online. I guess give it time.

I've known about mental illness since I was a very small child. My first introduction to it was seeing the classic 1948 film, The Snake Pit, starring Olivia de Havilland, who became my favorite female film star of those old black & white days. I must have been very young, having been born in 1946, and it stayed with me. There were lots of people in strait jackets, with dirty, stringy hair walking around with dazed expressions like zombies. Starring the usual manic depressives, schizophrenics, bi-polars and psychopaths, some of them were confined to cages.

Today's crazies are more fortunate. They are not only free to be their looniest selves, but they are actually online "influencers" applauded by a vast number of "followers" on TikTok and Instagram who enjoy watching their insanity. Their output is called "mukbang", wherein they eat large quantities of food and post videos of themselves doing so online. The name comes from two South Korean words and literally means "eating broadcast." 

Very obese people -- and even some who are not overweight at all -- eating unimaginably large amounts of terribly unhealthy foods is beyond disgusting. Several of these mostly young people, in their 20s and 30s, have actually died while eating online from a heart attack or some other obesity-related disease. Almost worse is the enormous cult of people, called "Feeders," who get off on watching people stuff themselves and actually send them food and money to support their addiction. 

The pro-obesity sub-culture makes me feel sorry for the entire human "race", which apparently has already been lost.

Open Letter to All Dumbocrats

Connecticut's Democrat Congresswoman, Rosa DeLaurio

Okay, come on. Maybe you don't like Donald Trump because he's a braggart who is rich and successful with bad taste in furnishings and a penchant for self-aggrandizement. I get it. But he's very smart, and very accomplished, and has great political instincts, and he's done a great job as POTUS.

Now let's look at the contenders for president on the Democrat side in 2028: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a goofy bartender-turned-socialist cheerleader, Pete Buttigieg, a one-time small-town mayor who's gay and that's about it, Governor Hair Gel, a good-looking jerk with a bad political record, and worst of all, loser extraordinaire Kamala Harris,who cannot even speak plain English and is clearly a mental midget of monumental proportions.

How anyone can be a Democrat anymore is simply beyond my comprehension. Really, what are you all thinking?