Rainy Day Blues

It's been raining for the last two days here in Maine. Not a nice rain, but a driving, hard, bitter, punishing, ceaseless downpour. An ugly rain. So ugly that I had to bring in all my potted plants because they were getting pummeled by the elements.  Some of the more fragile among them may not make it. Adding to the general unpleasantness our power went out and I was forced to eat an entire bag of guacamole flavored corn chips just to maintain any sense of calm. Now I am totally nauseous.

This is all merely annoying when compared to the latest news from Chicago, where gang members keep killing other gang members and occasionally there is collateral damage, like yesterday when a 10-year-old girl died inside her apartment after being shot in the head by someone outside. Also, a year-old baby was killed in a car when a stray bullet entered the vehicle being driven by his mother. Sadly, all these deaths occurred in black neighborhoods. I wonder -- do those Black Lives Matter? Not much on the news about all that, I guess because it cannot be blamed on Donald Trump.

And then of course there is Covid-19, which seems to be getting worse every day. The "experts" say we ain't seen nothing yet. Are these the End Times? They'd better be; I cannot keep eating this way.

The Devolution of the Species

This appeared in yesterday's New York Times, in a column about Parenting. Readers were asked to send in their examples of what they considered a "tiny victory" as a parent. I was appalled.

Having been alive for 3/4 of a century now, I feel I have earned some valuable perspective on where things have been and where things are today. Of course my observations only run from the date of my birth, 1946, through today; I have no first-hand intelligence on The Crusades or The Roman Empire and other things like that.

Where We've Been: 

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

"The Godfather" Trilogy

The Moon Landing

The Beatles

A cure for polio

Lifesaving treatment for AIDS

Hip replacements as outpatient surgery

Dental implants

Invention of cell phones

Invention of computers

Legalized abortion

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Heart transplants

Where We Are

J.Lo's Superbowl pornographic halftime show

Binge-watching TV

Justin Bieber

Covid-19 infecting millions worldwide

Suicide rates rising

Facebook and Twitter censorship

Surveillance cameras everywhere

Bad cops reviving racism

Black Lives Matter 

Defacing of public property commonplace and accepted

Rampant obesity in the general population

Pierced nose rings that look like dripping snot

Tattoos defacing the human body

Where We're Headed

Kids having heart attacks in their teens and early 20s

Thought Police

Government edicts banning politically incorrect words

Book burning

The junk heap of history

Film Review: INCEPTION

Someone's really bad dream.

If you enjoy wasting time in front of a screen, you can't do better than Inception. It's got it all: Leonardo DiCaprio, loud music, plenty of gunfights, ridiculously implausible car chases and more things blowing up than you could ever even imagine. And there's no silly plot to worry about, because the plot is so silly that half an hour in you don't care.

You see, Leonardo plays a man who earns his living by extracting thoughts from other people's brains while they are dreaming. He is really good at it, but he got in trouble with the law and is now out of work. Luckily a rich businessman (Ken Watanabe) shows up and asks him to implant an idea into a person's brain instead, promising that if he succeeds, his criminal record will be expunged. Naturally Leo (not his character's name) agrees, and immediately pulls together his usual Brain Dream Team and gets going.

Many people get hooked up to machines. They are given sedatives. They dream. They dream they are dreaming. Then, pushing the envelope, they dream they are dreaming about dreaming! To put it mildly, it's impossible to figure out who is dreaming and what level of dream they are in. Like, one guy gets shot pretty bad, bleeds a lot, and may even die! But no worries, since he will wake up.

Similarly, the movie ends and you are free to resume your ordinary life and never think about any of it ever again, although the next day you may wonder why Ellen Page was cast in the role of the brilliant architect who designs the dream spaces when she looks and talks like she is in the seventh grade. Also on hand is Marion Cotillard who wears a negligee a lot and is, as always, stunning.

Famous for Dying

Apparently all you have to do to achieve stardom these days is get killed by a cop. (It helps to be black.) No matter if you are a convicted criminal who once did jail time, your wrongful death will nevertheless elevate you to the status of an Angel. 

Following are just a tiny sample of the scores of amazing images of George Floyd created by a mourning public who never even met him. Who knew there were so many fabulous unsung artists out there? Maybe if the news presented stories about some of them instead of focusing on yet another picayune way in which Donald Trump sucks, we'd all feel better about life.

Who's Scary?

So Donald Trump has a rotten personality, a childish tendency to hit back when attacked, dumb orange hair, is a fatty, and his wife probably hates him. Still, before the pandemic and the current race riots brought about by police who suck, things were humming along nicely: Unemployment was down and the economy was soaring.

All good, except for people like Whoopie Goldberg and Bill Maher fanning the flames of the hate fires set by the mainstream media, Rachel Maddow being one of the major arsonists.

Now things are a mess and many blame Trump, although he didn't cause the pandemic or kill any Black people. But his simple statement that the people tearing down random statues, many of which honor famous leaders who never did a damn thing wrong, should ultimately be punished by using "force," is considered hate speech worthy of censorship on Twitter.

Meanwhile Governor Andrew Cuomo (a dead ringer for my Aunt Peska by the way) says the vandals are exhibiting a "healthy expression of their anger." And the Democratic Mayor of Seattle thinks the kids are playing nice over in that occupied zone in the middle of the city where no cops are allowed. None of this makes any sense. If you ask me the Democrats are the scary ones, with Fraulein Pelosi leading the way.

Who Says What Matters?

Things are bad and getting worse here in America. I hope I can say that without being considered a racist, but you never know -- somebody could find something wrong with the statement and think I'm  inferring that the Black Lives Matter movement is holding the whole country hostage. For example, recently a Vermont school principal was fired for posting on Facebook, "Just because I don't walk around with a BLM sign does not mean I am a racist."

The Covid-19 pandemic, now getting pretty stale if you ask me, pales in comparison to how tumultuous our race relations have gotten. My husband and I disagree wildly on this issue, so I can't say more because he's coming. Quick, where's my BLM sign?

Fun Things to Do While Staying Safe

Now that I've been staying home to avoid getting Covid-19 and dying, I'm doing some new things to keep boredom at bay. Of course being an artist, I can always just hide out in my studio and make bad art nobody wants. I highly recommend that, and anyone can do it; no training is required. But that gets tiring, so I've started answering all those scam phone calls that keep coming despite having registered my number on the Do Not Call Registry. It's quite entertaining.

Almost all the calls are from robots, many with Chinese accents and a few from India. They are all very well-meaning, alerting me to impending dire events like my credit is about to be ruined, my bank account may be overdrawn, my home warranty (who knew I had one?) is about to end, my Apple account is severely in trouble, something is wrong with my home computer and my car lease is on the verge of expiring. In each case it's "my last chance to remedy the situation" and it's the "last time" they will call me to help. (It's not.) To fix things all I have to do is enter my bank account information or my credit card number. Cursing loudly at the robots can be good fun, and offers a welcome break from the ordinary along with some needed lung exercise.

Another riotous pastime is actually reading the Sunday New York Times, which we have home-delivered, instead of just doing the magazine crossword puzzle and using the rest of the paper to light the barbecue. Like just now, I read an opinion piece about how white people are very busy these days, "Trying to Be One of the Good Ones." Author Maeve Higgins opens with, "There are a lot of reading lists being passed around among us whites." Really? I have not gotten any and I am white, so go figure.

Anyway, she goes on: "There are so many anguished conversations among us white people taking place right now about what to write on our protest signs, about that time we said that thing to a black friend and it changed the energy in the room, about whether re-watching the movie "The Help" counts as progress." 

See what I mean? That paper is a hoot -- it's full of lots of articles just like that. I had no idea. 

Film Review: BAD EDUCATION

Hugh Jackman and Ray Romano share a tense moment.

Bad Education is a great movie from HBO about a crime that really happened 18 years ago but could happen today, tomorrow or any day when nobody is paying close enough attention to the people in power at any institution. Entertaining, informative, shocking and even funny at times, there are no dead bodies anywhere, just ruined careers. The superb cast (that surprisingly does not include any superstars) and very clever director (you never heard of) present a story you will not soon forget.

Superintendent Frank Tassone of the affluent Roslyn School District of Long Island, NY is quite the dandy. A closeted gay man (except to the audience who must endure some deeply amorous moments with his young lover) given to dressing well and having facelifts, everyone absolutely adores him for making their school district fourth in the nation's ranking. His sidekick Pam Glukken (Alison Janney) is the rich, suburban housewife who runs the school district's business affairs. Together they rob the county of millions, brazenly embezzling school funds for their own personal use.  Their scheme unravels at the hands of a curious and persistent student (Geraldine Viswanathen) reporting for the school newspaper. Among the most outraged is the School Board president, a gruff and mustachioed Ray Romano in a strictly dramatic role.

I won't say more so as to not spoil your fun. But do look for it and settle in with a huge bowl of popcorn for a story you won't believe really happened, except for the fact that it really happened. Also, great edgy music throughout  -- the film was made in 2019 -- adds to the experience, and here's a bit of trivia I loved knowing: the script was written by a former student attending the Roslyn Middle School when all of it went down.

Shut Up About Racism Already

I am sick to death of the whole black thing. 
Or should I say Black thing, since I have recently learned that Black should be capitalized while white does not need to be since white people are simply all racists, or something like that. Well guess what: I AM NOT A RACIST!!!! And I am white; I came out that way. I did not invent the color named "flesh" in the box of Crayola crayons. I have never even eaten pancakes -- Jews make their own out of matzoh meal -- so I have never bought a box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix, although I learned recently that she was a real person who made millions over the course of her lifetime as the spokeswoman for the brand.

And by the way, since I am ranting, where is Oprah Winfrey all this time? I have not seen or heard one word from her, maybe she is busy lolling around one of her many island mansions, poolside, with her pal Michelle Obama, the two of them giving one another pedicures and sipping drinks with tiny paper umbrellas stuck in them. Or flying around on her $25 million private jet. I wonder if she feels like the cards are stacked against her as she counts her $2.6 billion?

So can everyone just shut up about it already and move on to burying our dead from the global pandemic that is killing people regardless of skin color? Enough with the blacks already!

Itch Season

Breakfast these days: Black coffee with Cortizone.

All you people who can't come to Maine for vacation this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, take heart: You don't want to be here now, believe me. It may be summertime where you live, but where I live it's Itch Season thanks to the browntail moth caterpillar, the tiny hairs of which float through the air with the greatest of ease and cause irritation to human skin. Unlike a mosquito bite that itches where you got bit, the browntail moth, found only on the coast of Maine and Cape Cod, causes itching wherever you happen to have skin. In my case it's all over my entire body.

This doesn't mean you don't still get mosquito bites. So stay put and be happy.

Ending Racism Is Free

I am currently reading Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and thus far have come across the word "nigger" at least a dozen times. I don't feel any differently about black people because of it. I have also returned to working out at my local CrossFit gym, the CEO of which has been accused of being a racist. Again, my personal values remain unchanged.

I am finding the book about the adventures of a young boy in the South in the 1880s to be quite amusing, sometimes laugh-out-loud-funny, and never even a little bit racist in feeling or intent. As for the gym, my personal trainer is the same wonderful woman she has always been and the other members I see there are also unchanged, except for sometimes wearing face masks.

The truth is that racism resides deep in the hearts of some people and cannot be "undone" or "fixed" by any government action. It's got to come from within. Handing out money to black people in the form of "reparations" won't change a thing, except that they will have more money for awhile.

The Last Days of Huckleberry Finn

Today, eager to get out of my house and experience the world as it used to be, and with some retail stores now open here in Maine, I stopped at a bookstore in downtown Freeport. It was an odd experience. Once inside, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I realized that in the past three months I had forgotten how to shop. I certainly didn't need any books, and even if I did I would simply order them from Amazon, since this particular store wasn't known for books but rather its wide array of Maine souvenirs, including baseball caps, bandanas, socks, greeting cards, shot glasses and ashtrays embellished with images of moose, lobsters, lighthouses, sailboats and pine trees.

Anyway, I browsed the aisles and started to get the hang of it. It was entertaining, and there were no commercials. Wandering over to the Fiction department, I came across a lone copy of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Despite being a fan of Mark Twain I have never read it, and since it is now steeped in controversy, as it has been since it was first published in the 1880s, I grabbed it and considered my shopping expedition over and done. Paying for my purchase, I told the cashier that I had taken the last copy. "Thanks," she said with a smile, "but we won't be re-ordering that one." I asked why, and she said, "For obvious reasons."

Apparently Huck has been cancelled and the book has to go, along with all those statues of Robert E. Lee and Christopher Columbus.

Machines Are People Too

About two months ago, our dishwasher started making a terrible sound when it was running. This was new; usually it was very quiet. But suddenly it sounded like a cow in labor. Really, the machine started to moo. It was dreadful to hear, and it made you want to put the poor thing out of its misery. But it kept on running, and the dishes got clean, so we just tolerated it as best we could, since we never thought about it once it stopped.

Then about ten days ago, our clothes dryer, normally very quiet, started clacking and clanging like a San Francisco trolley car. I fully expected it to explode, or shoot through the roof of the house, or something dire like that. But again, it continued to work and the clothes got dry, so we let it go and concentrated on surviving the pandemic.

But finally I had had enough, and a couple of days ago set about finding an appliance repairman. I made several calls and left messages detailing the problems with the dishwasher and the dryer. Eventually I got a call back and the repairman was very helpful. He explained what each noise might be, and said that in both instances it would be cheaper to just get new appliances since the costs of repair were quite high, and not really worth the investment in machines several years old. He said to run them until they broke completely, and be ready to replace them. I reported this news to my husband and we agreed that was the best course of action.

All of these conversations took place within earshot of both machines. Today, for the first time since deciding they had to go, I ran them both. Neither one made a sound; both worked perfectly, just like in the old days.

I Ain't Dumb Enough to Vote Democratic

I know, "ain't" is incorrect English. But just like presidential candidate Joe Biden, I'm trying to reach out to all people -- even those I assume to be ignorant -- since I feel I have an important message to share. Listen up, folks: things are going from bad to worse. Much, much worse. The reason is that nobody is in charge, and since there are 328.2 million of us, somebody should be. One bit of evidence is the current situation in downtown Seattle, where a large group of hooligans, assholes, thugs and just plain millennials have "taken over" a portion of that city's downtown and declared it to be a separate country, keeping people out and refusing to follow the orders of those in power in the United States.

Naming their country CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone), the children with guns put up barriers and occupied a six-block area of Seattle that formerly contained a police precinct. The police were forced out, or went willingly, I'm not sure which. But the Mayor of  that city, Jenny Durkan, a proud lesbian whose hatred for mainstream America and Donald Trump oozes from her pores and through the TV screen, is totally okay with the whole thing. Hey -- no problem if ordinary, moronic citizens on drugs want to take over, eliminate the police and run things for themselves! So what? In fact, Jenny calls their behavior "patriotic."

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer showing their true colors: Yellow.

Add this to Princess Nancy and Prince Chuck showing up in kente cloth scarves last week, not to mention kneeling in Congress for eight minutes as their way of saying to outraged African Americans, "Please don't hurt us, we're with you," it's clear the Democrats should not get any more power than they already have. Remember that when you vote in November -- unless you are anarchist, then go for it.

Get Your Brain Up to Speed

The activists associated with the Black Lives Matter movement have been busy. Most recently they have torn down or beheaded several statues, including several of Christopher Columbus (in Boston, Miami and Virginia) and four in Virginia depicting leaders of the Confederacy, all of which have stood for hundreds of years and are a part of our nation's historic tapestry. Attacking the works of art with axes, hatchets and mallets, the protesters hoped to obliterate the past, which as we all know is impossible without taking lots and lots of LSD.

HBO Max, always looking to make a buck and thus ever-vigilant on the desires of the public, yesterday pulled the 1939 Oscar-winning film, "Gone With the Wind" from its roster due to its perceived racial, i.e. racist, content. One of the most popular films of all time, the epic tale of the South during the Civil War featured actress Hattie McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her efforts and was the first African American to do so.

Of course many books have to go too. Humorist and novelist Mark Twain, himself a national treasure, wrote the long-beloved, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, about which Ernest Hemingway said, "All modern American Literature comes from that one book." But, having been written in 1884 it contain the dreaded "N-word" that must never be uttered (except by every gold-toothed black rap star who rakes in millions of dollars screaming it into a microphone) more than 200 times, so into the trash it goes. Or at least off of the shelves in bookstores, schools and libraries across the country.

Yet despite all that, racism remains. People have memories -- that's the problem. So beginning in January 2021, Americans can register to have all memories of slavery removed. "The problem lies within our heads," said CDC Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Speaking to a group of reporters assembled outside the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, he explained, "We now have the ability, thanks to technology and advances in brain science, to obliterate all memory of that heinous time in our history. We can also remove any other unpleasant memories associated with racial bias, including the Holocaust in Germany, anything to do with Hitler and the massacre of the American Indians by the white man. This will allow people to live their lives happily in the present, without past indignities weighing on them."

It us unknown at this time whether insurance will cover the procedure. Of course if the Democrats win in November it will be free of charge, just like a college education, housing, health care, food and clothing.

RIP, Whoever You Were

Last Sunday was the deadliest day in six decades in the city of Chicago, with 18 people murdered. The grand total for the weekend was 25, with another 85 wounded. All the dead were African Americans, killed by other African Americans. None of them will have a gold casket pulled through the city on a horse-drawn carriage, like George Floyd. In fact, we will never learn their names or a thing about them. The Reverend Al Sharpton, so loquacious at several of George Floyd's memorial services in different cities and at his funeral, has not said a word about these 25 lost lives. So we must conclude that black lives matter a whole lot more when they are ended by a white cop.

Mob Rule Matters

"Think like we do, or else shut up!"

Things are getting scarier in America every day, and I don't mean because cops are roaming around killing black people with abandon. First of all, they aren't, although nobody can deny the existence of plenty of wacko cops patrolling our big cities with hatred in their hearts for people of color. That's a given, and it must be rectified soon.

But something equally scary is how the media no longer even pretends to be fair and balanced, leaving us to glean truth from the droppings of our friends and the crumbs we get from the few remaining reputable reporters out there (like Bret Baier, Brit Hume and Juan Williams, all on Fox News by the way).

As for the media giants, they're so over, it's heartbreaking. Newspaper bigwigs are quitting for minor infractions that upset the snowflakes working in the trenches. By now we all know about the New York Times editorial page editor who resigned amid staff protests concerning a published opinion piece by a Republican senator registering his agreement with President Trump. (Good Golly Miss Molly, we can't have that!)

Now we learn that the long-time editor of the Philadelphia Enquirer was pushed out because he allowed the headline, "Buildings Matter, Too." It ran above an article by an architecture critic who worried that buildings damaged by the recent racial unrest could leave a gaping hole in the heart of the city. The staff freaked out, saying it diminished the importance of the BLM movement. That editor didn't last even a week.

This is of course sick. Lots of things matter; for example, my cat. He matters a lot -- to me. Ditto my son and my husband and all my friends and even people I don't know who might not even be black. But most of all, Mob Rule Matters. It foretells the end of life as we have known it in this country. Say goodbye to it now, and weep with me.

Jumping on the Racism Bandwagon

"The bandwagon effect is a phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases the more that they have already been adopted by others. In other words, the bandwagon effect is characterized by the probability of individual adoption increasing with respect to the proportion who have already done so. As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence." -- Wikipedia

So now not only can I no longer find my favorite brand of ice cream because the people of Maine have decided the owner of that particular company is racist and every single store has cleaned out its stock and now presents empty shelves where that brand stood, but I won't be able to work out at my CrossFit gym because the CEO of that organization wrote a one-word tweet that has been deemed "insensitive" to the Black Lives Matter movement and so the gym must "disassociate" from the parent company that made it what it is today and caused its membership to swell.

Yesterday a friend of mine who has often described herself as "racist" and admits she still "has a problem" with black people, i.e. doesn't like them, due to having grown up among racism -- her grandmother owned a plantation and employed what she called 20 slaves -- made a big show of attending a rally to show her "solidarity" with the movement, of course posting it on her Instagram page. 

It's not just the little people who are crowding onto this particular wagon. The editor of the Opinion Page at the New York Times was forced to resign a day after after publishing an article written by a Republican senator that some snowflakes construed as racist.  OMG! Thankfully he quit before the furious staff members, all of them comfortably seated on the bandwagon, could stone him to death. 

We'd better all hope that Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and Whole Foods, doesn't make a silly mistake and say something insensitive. Then where would we shop and get all our cool stuff?

My Advice for the Graduating Class of 2020

You can't say anything these days without being accused of racism, so it's best not to say anything at all. Just keep your mouth shut and your head down and go about your business and in 65 or 70 years or so it will all be over.

For example, here in Maine where the most recent demographic count shows 94% of the population (1, 345,790 people) is white and 1.34% is black, still it's a powder keg. Most recently, the owner of  Shain's of Maine, a company that makes the best ice cream you or anyone else ever tasted, "used a racial slur" when he asked a young black employee why blacks could use the you-know-what word and white people can't. Well, fuggedaboutit!

Next thing you know the teenager told her mother, who posted it on Twitter, and before you could say "mob rule" Shain's is losing customers left and right and banned from baseball games with the local team after a 26-year-long relationship. So here's my advice: if you get a chance before the company goes bankrupt, try their Peppermint Stick ice cream. It's to die for.

Goodbye Officer Krupke

There is a movement afoot to defund the police. Activist actress Jane Fonda is on board, as is Steve Carrell and a host of other Hollywood celebrities. When I first heard about this idea I scoffed, thinking it would just make our world less safe. But after further deliberation, and an extensive education from my 32-year-old son who is wise in such matters, I'm thinking it's the answer to many of society's problems, police brutality being very high on the list.

It's not like there would be no authorities to call upon in times of distress, it's just that it might be a social worker, therapist, community organizer or mediator who would arrive on the scene unarmed, equal in stature to everyone else and lacking the power to make things worse. Just for a moment, consider the many dead-for-no-reason African Americans -- and of course people of other races too -- who would still be with us today, living out their fruitful lives had it not been for the violent intervention of an armed police officer. It boggles the mind. 

Crazy Conspiracy Theories

Ever wonder where conspiracy theories come from? We've all heard some crazy ones; I certainly have. Like the CIA killed JFK. Or that Mary Jo Kopechne was pregnant with Teddy Kennedy's child and that's why he drowned her at Chappaquiddick.  Or that the horrible tragedy of 9/11, wherein 3,000 Americans died, was an inside job, accomplished with the help/knowledge of George W. Bush, using controlled demolitions in order to start a war with Iraq to avenge his father's failures. Or that Dick Cheney, generally considered by all Democrats as The Devil Incarnate, was behind it.

Then there was the one that claimed that the tragedy of the Sandy Hook massacre was not real; that all the dead children and their families in Newtown, Connecticut were paid actors, the whole thing a staged stunt to further the cause of gun control and masterminded by opponents of the NRA, which means Democrats. More recently, there was the whole Trump/Russia/Ukraine thing, which turned out to be a bust that we no longer talk about in polite society.

Now we have George Floyd, who may or may not be dead. Possibly a paid actor now living comfortably in a fabulous villa in an undisclosed location, Floyd (not his name anymore) never died. And about that Minneapolis police officer who held him down for almost nine minutes: Who would do such a thing, knowing that his actions were being recorded the entire time? And the ensuing protests and riots, now going into a second week, all choreographed by the Democrats to further demonize Trump as a racist and win back the White House in November.

I have no idea who comes up with all this stuff. Except for that last one; that was me. 

How Ironic

So our national obsession with Covid-19 -- the rising case numbers, the death tolls per state, the masks or no masks controversy, the daily press conferences, the whining of Dr. Fauci -- fades into the background as the looters and protesters take center stage.

They will dominate the news until the coronavirus comes roaring back with a vengeance in a few weeks, after the hundreds of thousands of protesters and rioters, all in very close proximity to one another, spitting and sweating profusely, have reactivated it, undoing whatever progress was made in beating it back through the forced lockdowns.

And just as stores and restaurants across the nation were set to reopen, they cannot because they've been destroyed in the name of racial "justice." What a coincidence! I wonder who planned this.

A Really Sick Facebook Post!

I feel compelled to share this with my readers who are fortunate enough not to follow the Facebook stream of my husband's sick and twisted twin cousins, who are also morbidly obese and hideous which I add just to be mean. Anyway, this post comes off the Facebook page of the one of them, written by a woman named Wendy (I won't give her full name because I am so nice) who is apparently as sick and twisted as they are. This is what today's Democrats really look like:

"By January 1st of 2017 I had completely exorcized every single republican who even said we should give him a chance from my entire existence. I didn't just unfriend or block them on social media. I have entirely cut every single trump supporter out of my life entirely. I will not knowingly or willingly be in the same room with them. I will not accept texts or phone calls from them. I will not go to a social event, including even a wedding or a funeral with them. And I certainly will not engage with them on social media. I ascertained very early on that there were zero excuses for them and I maintained from that moment and every moment forward that, with the exception of the uber rich whose first motivation was greed,  Every. Single. Person. Who voted for trump is a lowlife pond-scum racist asshole. To. A. Person. They can try to talk to me about the economy or whatever other bullshit excuse they come up with, but every time I called out their bullshit and returned to pointing out their inherent blatant racism, whether they chose to own up to it in themselves or not. I maintain to this day that it is the sole reason people outside of the uber-rich protecting and growing their assets support him. Many of my like-minded friends said that I was a bit harsh. That there are other reasons people support him. Nope. I have never wavered from that position. And there is a smug little me inside whispering, I told y'all so...
It has to end."

I love the part where she says that anyone who voted for Trump "is a lowlife pond-scum racist asshole." Really Ms. Kissinger, that's quite a blanket condemnation of half the country, even worse than calling them a basket of deplorables.  

Some Black Lives Matter More Than Others

People the world over now know the name George Floyd. They know him because he was killed by a cop in Minneapolis on a routine arrest. What they may not know is that Floyd was charged in 2007 with armed robbery in a home invasion in Houston and in 2009 was sentenced to five years in prison as part of a plea deal, according to court documents. 

Floyd was passing a counterfeit $20 bill when the police were called and one very twisted cop ended his life. Yes, we all agree his death is terrible, sad and unnecessary. But let's not forget that Floyd was a criminal: armed robbery, home invasion and passing counterfeit bills are not what you want on your resume. 

Despite that, the media, hungry for red meat with the coronavirus story getting stale, has turned Floyd into a martyr. He is about to have not one, not two, but three funerals in different cities. Al Sharpton is doing the eulogy at one of them, and Hollywood director Tyler Perry has offered Floyd's family his private plane to ferry them around to all three.

On the other hand, few people know the name Dave Patrick Underwood, another unjustly murdered black man who was killed because of Floyd George. Underwood was an officer in the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service. Last Friday he was standing guard outside the U.S. Courthouse in Oakland, California with another officer. Both of them were targeted by an unidentified person shooting from a passing car. Underwood was killed, while the other officer lived. (Nobody knows his name either.)

Dave Patrick Underwood, 53, died on the job, protecting a U.S. courthouse where scumbags like the ones in that car, if caught, will likely get the benefit of due process of the law. “He was a good man, everybody in the community loved him,” his friend Antwon Cloird said. Ours is a truly sick society, wherein a two-bit criminal becomes a national hero just for dying while a true hero protecting our Democratic institutions is kicked to the curb.

It's Not All Black and White

I am sick and tired of being accused of "white supremacy." This term is usually hurled at me by some self-righteous columnist for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, or any number of similar self-serving publications groveling for more readers. A perfect example appeared in the opinion pages of yesterday's New York Times by author Roxane Gay, who blames the current mess we find ourselves in on white supremacy. She writes:  "Black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy."  

That's certainly one way to look at it. Here's another: Black lives would "matter" a lot more if burning down buildings, torching police cars, breaking into and vandalizing stores and restaurants, stealing from innocent shopkeepers, destroying private and government property and terrorizing local residents were not their typical, and by now expected, responses to a horrific and wrongful death. Perhaps if black Americans would begin to value and respect their own neighborhoods, and in so doing, their own lives, white people would follow suit. No vaccine needed.