Half the Country Has TDS

I received a comment on a recent blog post accusing me of having "TDS" for writing, "I don't hate Donald Trump. I don't even dislike him."

That guy got it backwards. In fact, Trump Derangement Syndrome was defined by CNN reporter Fareek Zakariah as "hatred of President Trump so intense that it impairs people's judgment."

That certainly explains what's wrong with the entire Democratic Party and how they continue to defend a feeble-minded, Botoxed, hair-plugged, lying, plagiarizing, corrupt, do-nothing geezer president and his giggling, cackling, off-her-rocker second banana.

At least 50% of Americans still have all their marbles.

Modesty Flies Out the Window

Lindsey Vonn not skiing.

It has long been true that certain people have no respect for themselves or others. I would put all nudists in this category, even though they think they are really "cool" and "open" and "brazen" and other words like that, when in reality they are little more than narcissistic exhibitionists. 

I mean really, who wants to play volleyball with a team of naked people, with breasts and penises bobbing and waving? How about dining in a nude restaurant, flabby bodies and sagging breasts everywhere you look dampening one's appetite? Or worse, great bodies turning you on while you're picking away at your salad.

Anyway, at least nudists have their place, and if you want to be one you go there. But rampant signs of decreasing modesty abound, most notably on the Internet. Today I saw a story about Lindsey Vonn, the once-reigning Queen of the Slopes in the Olympics, accompanied by two photos she posted of herself on Instagram. Both are pathetic, but one is particularly unfortunate, showing her looking like a semi-vegetable in a hospital bed following knee surgery.

Why, Lindsey, why? And what's next? Will we soon see photos of celebrities sitting on the toilet, or, even worse, the results of their toilet visit? Like, "Hey, look at my shit -- for real!"

Modesty is gone, but I remember it well. Those were the days, when you could use your imagination. Now you don't even need one.

Why I Paint

I was once right in the middle of everything. I went to Woodstock. I was a hippie. I smoked pot and listened to all the big rock bands and saw all the big movies and knew everything that was going on culturally. Somewhere around the time everyone started saying, "It is what it is" and "At the end of the day," I checked out and learned it's possible to exist on Planet Earth and still be out of this world.

"Still Life With Sailboat"

For example, I have never heard Taylor Swift sing or seen her perform, yet she is allegedly "the most famous person in the world." All I know is that she has blond hair and is dating a football player and everyone is very excited about it.

I have only seen three of the 10 films nominated for Oscars and didn't think any of them deserved to be named "Best Picture." I tried to like Oppenheimer but did not, and refused to see Barbie for fear of degrading my brain.

I don't eat nachos, burritos, tacos or fajitas and don't know the difference between them. (Okay, I know nachos are a pile of chips with cheese melted on top.)

I'm not queer, bi, gay, trans, polyamorous, or anything out of the ordinary. I like members of the sex opposite to mine. I have had gay men friends but never any gay women. Sorry, can't help it, they freak me out.

I won't eat lobster. Too rubbery and tasteless. Living in Maine, this is borderline-punishable by death.

I don't hate Donald Trump. I don't even dislike him. I've tried, but it hasn't happened. This fact alone has made me what I am today: friendless in a heavily Democratic city and state.

I always thought Anthony Fauci was scum, even back in his AIDS heyday.

I am literally stupefied that anyone can think that Joe Biden has anything to do with running the country and that Kamala Harris is the Vice President despite being such a silly thing.

I have never seen Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, America's Got Talent, or any of those TV shows where people compete and then who won is in the news the next day.

So I paint.

Film Review/ UNKNOWN: COSMIC TIME MACHINE

Documentary fans will be delighted, and those new to the genre will be won over, with this fascinating look into the creation of the world's largest telescope that has been exploring our universe for the past year.  NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the latest, newest, largest and most ambitious one ever imagined, and this film depicts, in real footage and animations, every step from inception to launch.

"Webb has over 1200 skilled scientists, engineers and technicians from 14 countries (and more than 27 US states) building it. (It is a joint NASA/ESA/CSA mission.)"

I know, I know -- the premise of Cosmic Time Machine sounds too techy and nerdy and ultra-scientific, at least it did to me. But it's actually very approachable, full of beautiful images of distant stars and galaxies and interesting interviews with the brilliant space engineers and many others involved.  It's also quite suspenseful, since the viewer is constantly reminded of how easy it is for it all to fail. If just one tiny thing goes wrong, it's the end for this $10 billion project and heartbreak for the hundreds of people who have worked on it for the past 30 years.

An added bonus is that in just an hour you will feel, and actually be, smarter from watching it, a rare result of most movie-viewing these days. Now streaming on Netflix.

Extorting Donald Trump

Hey, I want $83 million too! And who knows, maybe Donald Trump raped me a million years ago also -- you know it's possible he was in a raping frame of mind. I was very attractive back then and also lived in NYC, and Trump was exactly my age. 

Come to think of it, yes, I remember now, he was at a party at Studio 54 and I was there and he forced himself on me in the coat check room, but I never said a word because I thought my date would beat him up -- that guy Dennis was the violent type. (We broke up after he punched a waiter for smiling at me.)

Anyway, if that ridiculous woman E. Jean Carroll can tell a tall tale and wind up with a bundle of cash, why not me? Apparently just as long as one denigrates Donald Trump the sky's the limit! I'm calling her lawyer today.

Drop That Burger and Gimme All Your Money

In 1983 I accepted the job of Art Director of the Oakland Tribune, in Oakland, California. I had never been there but the title was good, the money was great, and that was my field of endeavor so why not. I was a bit nervous when my new boss said I should look for housing in Berkeley, the next town over, since Oakland had a lot of gang-related crime. Oh great, for this I'm moving? I had experienced lots of crime already in Washington, D.C., which was partly why I was looking to start somewhere new.

Anyway, I found a house in Berkeley and commuted 12 miles to work every day. An armed guard walked me to my car in the company parking lot each night after work. 

No dummy, I read the tea leaves and got out of California with my brains and body intact. After moving back East, I heard rumors that the city was having a renaissance. Had I given up too soon? But then yesterday I read that the popular fast food chain, In-N-Out Burger, had closed one of their 417 locations, 236 of which are in California, because their employees and customers were getting carjacked and/or robbed at gunpoint too often.

So, 41 years later crime in Oakland is no better and is seemingly worse. Is this a great country or what?

Three Out of Five Ain't Bad

In a perfect world, our candidates for president would be in their late 40s or early 50s. They would be honest, super-intelligent, brave, self-confident and maybe even a tad boring. But the world isn't perfect, and instead we have two men of advanced years, one obviously senile and the other prone to self-aggrandizement. But only one of those two men can handle the job, and that's the one who did it so well before.

Come on people, admit it: Joe Biden is a joke and always has been. A liar from the get-go, his chaotic term as president has ushered in a wave of racism the likes of which hasn't been seen since the Civil War. Forget antisemitism and "Islamaphobia," I'm talking about the growing hatred for African-Americans stemming from forced DEI requirements and an increase in rampant black crime that goes unpunished, and for all those Hispanic "immigrants" who swim across the Rio Grande and get lots of free stuff from our government once they dry off.

I think back to Trump's four years and remember only how much the press made fun of his hair color, how Melania was maligned for having been a model who posed nude in her youth, how his son Baron was mocked as being "different, and how Hillary Clinton and her minions made damaging claims about him to avenge her embarrassing loss.

In reality, for the average American things were pretty good during Trump's four years in office. There were no wars anywhere that impacted us, prices were low on gas, food and services, we were selling oil to other countries instead of paying dearly for it, and the scariest leaders in the world had friendly relationships with our president. I'd far prefer to have my president be in Putin's pocket than in his sights.

If all those dastardly journalists would put down their poison pens and just shut up for ten minutes, the American people might be able to think straight and see that Trump was never the problem, it was the other team ganging up on him. And while Biden is only boring, Trump is super-intelligent, brave and self-confident. And if you ask me, three out of five ain't bad. Plus he's very funny, and that's never wrong.

The Chaos of Joe and Kamala

The latest buzz word for Democrats when speaking of Donald Trump is "chaos." Despite his first term as president having been pretty damn good, still it was allegedly "chaotic." Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley says it in every stump speech, surely calculated to scare people away from voting for another Trump term. 

Certainly all the reporters on CNN and MSNBC have been instructed to say "chaos follows him" when speaking of Trump, yet they never elaborate on what the chaos is or was. The truth is that Trump didn't create the chaos; instead it stems from his adversaries, the media, the Democrats and the Never-Trump Republicans hoping to bring him down. 

Everyone would agree that our country is far more chaotic under Biden (and Harris, I guess, although she does nothing) than at any time during Trump's term. I wonder what Haley would say about that.

Vaccines Make Money

I have long suspected that general practitioners in the medical field, the once-cozy Family Doctor having morphed into the more serious-sounding Primary Care Physician (PCP), are now little more than dispensers of prescription drugs, diagnostic tests and vaccines. By the time the typical patient arrives at the doctor's office, he or she has likely Googled the symptoms of what ails them and could probably tell the doctor a thing or two.

After addressing whatever problem brought me there in the first place, my doctor will recite a list of the shots I need: seasonal flu, Covid booster, pneumonia, shingles (two shots) and RSV.  I'm no anti-vaxxer, being a solemn believer in the flu shot for the last 15 years, but COVID is a different story, one that I am right to suspect as frivolous. Still, I never suspected that my friendly, smiling PCP can actually profit off selling the COVID vaccine and boosters he so persistently hawks during my visit. 

Below is a chart showing just how much a physician might earn (from one insurance carrier) for selling the so-called "jab." But remember, don't call it a payoff, it's an incentive.

Mental Illness in Hollywood

An actress named Julia Fox, who I have never seen perform and so have no idea if she has talent, is desperate for attention so I guess she doesn't. As is evident in the photo at right of Ms. Fox in Park City, Utah during the Sundance Film Festival, she believes that her real talents lie in her body.

Sad but true, many of Hollywood's superstars and wannabes are sick in the head. And if they aren't sick in the head they're on drugs. And if they aren't on drugs they're alcoholics. But here's the worst part: regular people worship them from afar, emulate them and think they are better than the rest of us.

If you do not walk around wearing a string bikini over your clothes in frigid weather in order to highlight your erogenous zones, lest someone forget you have breasts and a vagina, consider yourself lucky that you have all your marbles and stop envying the crazy loons you see on screen. They have much bigger problems than you, despite that mansion in the Hollywood hills with the big swimming pool and the eight bathrooms and the private tennis court. 

Give me a functioning brain any day.

  

The Circus Is Coming

How to elect a president....

Today I spoke with a woman at a local political event who was 100% positive that Joe Biden would not be the Democratic candidate in 2024, and instead would be replaced by Michelle Obama. She said she read about it somewhere or heard it on a podcast, something along those lines. However she came by the information, she had no doubt it was true. 

Naturally, she was horrified. Me too. If that happens, there won't be enough drugs or alcohol to quell my paranoia, loathing and overwhelming disheartenment. 

On a more positive note, the same woman added that there is talk of Michelle coming out as a man in order to win votes from transgenders (and all those other alphabet letters). Now that would be fun to see!

Get ready. The circus is coming.

What to Do With the Body

I am old enough to think about my funeral arrangements. Of course, everyone at any age is old enough for that, but the popular misconception still exists that only old people die. (I did not delude my three-year-old son from thinking that and instead told him the truth, as gently as possible and adding that actually most people die when they are old, but he still hasn't forgiven me 33 years later. Oh well.)

Anyway, I don't want to be buried in the ground, that seems really bizarre to me. I am not a tree or a bush or a plant of any kind. Worse than the burial is a service of some sort where people who knew me gather to allegedly mourn my death, while eating lots of yummy catered food and drinking freely from an open bar. (My husband is very generous and I'm assuming I'll go first since he is younger.)

The problem is that so few people who "know" me are still alive, so they won't be in attendance, and those who come will likely do so only for the free food. Anyone who truly cared for me would be AWOL, home in bed crying their eyes out. (I hope.)

This is a maudlin topic but it came up because my husband is about to fly to a distant city to attend the funeral of a former co-worker I never heard him speak of. He says he's going for "the children," as if the bigger the number of funeral attendees the better they will all feel about their dead daddy. I say he's going for the party where he will see many of his colleagues who are still alive. What fun!

Then there's the speechifying about what a great person the deceased was, how their smile lit up the room, how much they loved life, they lived life to the fullest, and they were taken too young no matter how old there were. 

What I would like is for a couple of angels to show up and transport me to the Heavenly Father. Short of that cremation will do; it's clean and neat and a fitting nod to all those Jews incinerated in Europe. Whatever, just don't let them put me in the ground, Brian! (He knows who he is.) 

Trump Was Right

CNN reporters Jake Tapper and Dana Bash

Oh dear -- the level of misinformation, disinformation and just plain idiocy that is the very basis of the Democratic Party is almost as scary as the thought of another term of President Biden gradually morphing into President Kamala Harris.

This morning I received the following comment in response to my "liking" another person's comment online: "obviously you have drunken the bleach like president trump told you too."

Besides her pathetic grammatical errors, the woman was dead wrong. Like many of her kind, sheeplike followers of CNN, she stupidly believed that President Trump once told people to drink bleach to treat Covid. 

He never said anything of the kind, but that didn't prevent so-called reporters Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash from saying he did. The following clarification is from Newsweek fact-checkers:

 "Trump did speculatively raise the question of medical experts researching disinfectants as a possible COVID treatment. And though he initially touted an 'injection inside or a cleaning,' he clarified in the same press conference that any treatment he was speculating on would not be through injections. Despite Trump's dubious, conjectural and inarticulate comments, he did not directly suggest that people inject themselves with disinfectant."

The worst part of the first Trump administration was the lies spread about him by the liberal press, causing him to call them "the enemy of the people." Let's hope they do better in his next term.

Taking Care of Mom and Dad, Palestinian-Style

Every cloud has a silver lining in Gaza. 

As our parents age, naturally we worry about how to care for them should they become infirm or unable to generate an income. Just yesterday my own son voiced shock and concern after learning that a month in an assisted-living facility runs to about $20,000. "Who can afford that," he asked. (I assured him I would sooner walk into the ocean like Norman Maine in the original A Star Is Born than waste his inheritance.)

Dealing with aging parents may be tough here in America, but for enterprising Palestinians it's no big deal. All a healthy young man has to do is die while engaged in killing an Israeli, or die trying, and Mom and Dad are set for life. According to a piece in today's Wall Street Journal, the Palestinian Authority "pays a one-time lump sum plus a monthly stipend for life to the families of any 'martyr' killed attacking Israel or in a confrontation with Israel." 

So for a Palestinian parent, the death of a child is much less traumatizing than it is in the U.S. In fact, it's a good thing! Not only will the dead offspring be rewarded with 72 virgins in Heaven, but Mom and Dad can stop worrying about paying the rent and enjoy their golden years. 

A Day to Celebrate Jews in America!

Today most working Americans will have the day off in order to celebrate a very important holiday that gets right to the heart of our national desire for diversity, equity and inclusion: It's National Bagel Day! (So far no word on whether Dr. Martin Luther King liked bagels.)

The great thing about bagels is that you can eat them regardless of your religion and skin color, even though they are clearly a food that originated in the Jewish communities of Poland. 

So before you grab your hastily-scrawled sign saying "Jews should all die" and dash off to the nearest anti-Israeli protest, consider your morning bagel, so yummy be it plain, sesame, poppy seed, the popular "everything," or one of those goyishe blueberry, raisin or cranberry concoctions (which are a shonda if you ask me), and thank the first Jew you meet. 

Anyway, Happy Bagel Day to all! 

Film Review: THE HOLDOVERS

Dominic Tessa as Angus, being miserable.

One of those sappy-but-instructive tales about how the connection between two lost souls can improve both lives, director Alex Payne's The Holdovers has one major thing going for it: A brand new star in the Hollywood sky is unveiled. Dominic Tessa, 21 years old, steals every scene, even from Paul Giamatti, a seasoned pro whose performance is at the top of his impressive game here. I was reminded of the world's reaction to then-unknown Dustin Hoffman's debut in The Graduate, after which he was everywhere all at once. This kid is that good, exposing an emotional depth far beyond his years.

The film's title refers to students with nowhere else to go who are stuck at a New England prep school over the two-week Christmas break. It's 1971, with the music, hairstyles, cars and technology of the era adding to the fun. Set in winter, there are lots of pretty snow scenes of the campus and the surrounding areas. With everyone else gone a chaperone is needed, and history professor Paul Dunham  (Giamatti) draws the short straw. He's a bitter, lonely and crotchety man straight out of a Dickens novel who has no time for niceties with his miserable charges. One of them is Angus Tully (Cessna), whose heartless mother has dumped him from a planned trip to St. Kitt's to instead go alone with her new husband. 

Angus is distraught, depressed and near-suicidal over the fact that he's locked in with this sorry group of losers, especially since he despises Professor Dunham. Ultimately their relationship is the crux of the film, and as expected they end up all warm and fuzzy with one another, although it's a long and bumpy road getting there. Along the way they are propped up, cajoled and counseled by the school's resident cook (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), a loving and wise woman who is mourning the loss of her only son recently killed in Vietnam. The fact that she is black and hugely obese will delight fans of diversity, equity and inclusion, although honestly I found her size distracting.

Still showing in theaters, The Holdovers is currently rentable on Peacock only, but you can pay $20 to see it on other streaming services until January 26 when it will be rentable for $3.99. If you're looking for a pleasant way to pass some time right now, it's definitely worth the 20 bucks.

I Identify as Outta Here

It's official: I no longer relate to the world. I have never heard a Taylor Swift song. I don't like football so have no idea who her boyfriend is, although I know his last name is Kelce. Yesterday I read in the news that their relationship is "all anyone can talk about." Except for me, I guess, although that was not mentioned in the article.

I regard politics as a pathetic circus that attracts and employs losers, egomaniacs, narcissists, liars, sex fiends and fools who are interested only in their own self-advancement, self-aggrandizement and enrichment gained from speeches and books written for them by other people nobody ever heard of.

Additionally, petty criminals, especially those who are not white, can easily steal up to $950 worth of merchandise in broad daylight and in front of witnesses and not be punished. At the same time, illegal immigrants, many of whom are miscreants in their native land, are given free food, free health care and free housing by the above-mentioned politicians while poor Americans who were born and raised here go without.

The most obvious evidence of mental illness in our species is war. People disagree about how to live or if there is a God or what God looks like or who owns a particular piece of land, and instead of discussing their differences they pick up weapons and hurl them, shoot them or drop them on the people with whom they disagree. Then when they get hurt themselves they return home crying and say look I have no legs anymore, I have no arms anymore, I can't work, won't you pay off my mortgage? Not I, since they went willingly, ready to kill complete strangers wearing a different uniform. What did they think -- that they would return unscathed? So now every paraplegic, quadriplegic or burned-off-face-person wants a handout, and in return for supporting their sickening behavior we'll get a free blanket imprinted with a picture of a guy in a wheelchair.

Outside of our species, the natural world is full of beauty, with birds and flowers and waterfalls and kittens and puppies and chipmunks and flamingos and peacocks and palm trees and little tiny frogs no bigger than your thumbnail. That's what I relate to. In fact, my new pronouns are chirp, ribbit and meow. Please don't bother me, I'm napping. (Unless you have some treats. )

Reality Sucks

Some days it's hard to keep going. Those are days when the wall I have built between my brain and reality thins out or even retracts completely, allowing the awful truth of the world to seep inside. Today is one of those days. 

For some reason I opted to read The Times of Israel website. Big mistake. There's a long story called "Those We Have Lost." That headline should have tipped me off and sent me scurrying back to the inanity of who wore what to the Golden Globes awards last night, but instead I soldiered on and read details about some of the people killed by Hamas last October 7, just because of their religion, or ethnicity, or whatever the heck being a Jew is. Mostly young people on the cusp of adulthood (see photo) who had gone to a music festival to have a good time, each one left behind a family to tell the world who they had been. 

My resulting feelings of grief and loss sitting in my kitchen in Maine, powerless to do anything about the situation, are pointless. My husband's advice is "don't read that stuff." As is often the case, he's right. Horrors taking place many thousands of miles from me that are far out of my control help me understand why so many people are into trivia about Taylor Swift and her football boyfriend. 

There's no punchline.

Subtle Signs of White Supremacy

You don't have to walk around carrying a torch or wearing a white sheet or waving a Confederate flag to be a white supremacist. There are so many subtle ways this dreadful condition takes hold, almost unbeknownst to the guilty party. For instance, I just heard today that punctuality is a concept of white supremacy. If so then I am guilty as hell since I can't be late even if I try. (I now also understand the whole C.P.T. thing.)

But now I'm wondering that if a simple thing like punctuality indicates white supremacy, what other things do that I don't know. How about neatness? Guilty. Showering daily? Guilty. I already heard that math is racist and luckily I'm off the hook there, although I can add, subtract and multiply. And perfectionism is apparently a very big indicator, but I don't suffer from that so maybe I'm not all white.

Who knows what's next? To be safe, if you're a white person just keep your head down and try not to articulate too much if you know what's good for you. Oh yeah, and stop knowing what's good for you.

Claudine Gay Was Targeted

Claudine Gay, the black Harvard University president who ultimately resigned after much unpleasantness is now claiming that she was targeted, never mind the Jews, because of her race. Of course she is 100% correct, that's how she got her job! Just like how Kamala Harris and other underqualified people of color obtain high-level positions.

Targeting people for their skin color is very popular these days. Maybe if I have my skin darkened I can finally get hired at LLBean.

Staying Sane in a Crazy World

Here's one approach to living: Build your house underground and stay there.

There's only one way to keep from sliding into a pit of despair and staying there forever: Wear blinders. 

Not literally, of course, like a horse training on a track, but figuratively, like an average citizen who doesn't want to know about the latest school shooting, the folly of politics, the death toll of the current wars, the coming environmental collapse, the loss of human lives from natural disasters, and the number of homeless swarming into the country and competing for sidewalk space with drug addicts, mostly because they can't do anything about it. 

My New Year's resolutions are twofold and attainable: Avoid all news and stay off the Internet. I can't wait to start feeling better!

At Least I'm Not Lisa Rinna

Lisa and her Lips

Lisa Rinna, an actress of little talent whose claim to fame, besides being married to Harry Hamlin, an actor of some talent, is her outlandishly large cartoony lips she had created with the help of a plastic surgeon or two, has, at the age of 60, decided to start the new year off with a bang by posting a full-frontal nude photo (top to bottom) of her anorexic body adorned only with sparklers over her nipples. Hoping to "start the year off fresh," she apparently thought the image would go viral and get her back in a game she was never really in. 

The poor woman. Below are a few more photos of Lisa and her lips yearning for stardom over the years. From now on when I'm feeling down I can say to myself at least I'm not Lisa Rinna. (Although I wouldn't turn down dinner alone with Harry.)

Does Mars Have Two Sexes, Like We Do?

Earlier today I came across a person whose gender was completely indeterminable. First I thought it was a woman, but soon enough I became convinced it was male. This went on for some time, until finally I was mystified enough to ask a friend who was with me and who knew the answer. Turns out it was a female, not a transgender although a lesbian. 

I give up. I am old enough to remember the good old days, when men and women flirted and tried to look attractive and, dare I say it, sexy to one another. If a man called you pretty, that definitely was a good thing. Unlike in today's twisted woke culture, where up is down and down is up and where I read the following in the "Letters" column of the Wall Street Journal: