Nothing Really Matters To Me

As usual, Shakespeare said it best: Life is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Despite that, your average Joe, and by that I mean to include your average Jane as well, gets all hot and bothered over the slightest thing. This common occurrence can be seen constantly online in the comments section of every news article. 

I am sometimes guilty of this when it comes to grammar and spelling, if little else. It irks me when ordinary words are misspelled in print and I am quick to point it out, motivated by the desire to educate rather than chide the writer.

Most recently I corrected the spelling of the word "border," as in our southern border, that had been written as "boarder" repeatedly and by several different commenters, enough times for me to realize it wasn't a typo but that's how many people think it's spelled. So I, a former newspaper writer, chose to write: "It is spelled BORDER."

OMG. You'd think I had said that Hitler had the right idea. The wrath! The outrage! Clearly I was a scoundrel and most likely a Trumpie. So I will stop doing that. 

The bottom line is that I don't care if people I don't even know want to remain ignorant.  Go ahead, be a dummy. In the grand scheme of things, nothing matters anyway.

Paleface Bad

I get it now: Being white is bad. I finally understand how black people have felt for so long, and my heart goes out to each and every one of them (except for the murderers, rapists, looters, burglars, drug dealers, sex traffickers and gang members).

What's got me thinking this is that Senator Dianne Feinstein died last night, and California's Governor Gavin "Hairdo" Newsom was ready for it since she had already said she wasn't running for re-election. In a recent interview on CNN, he boasted that he will definitely appoint an African American woman to fill Feinstein's open seat because he wants "the best person for the job" and is "interested in representation." 

I would have thought those are two separate things, but no, not any more, since the former now means anyone who is black, as was seen in Biden's choice for VP and again for an open SCOTUS seat.

Go, blacks! As for us whiteys, it's over. Admittedly, we had quite a run.

How to Eat An iPhone Sandwich

Have you ever had a cell phone-leggings-sneaker sandwich? I guess they are quite tasty, considering how often the ingredients are stolen by allegedly hungry people. 

Like the night before last, when a mob of teenagers looted stores in downtown Philadelphia. Included targets were Apple, Lululemon and Foot Locker. Notice the stores were not Kroger's or Safeway or any other purveyors of food. Yet AOC, that saucy bartender-turned-Congresswoman from the Bronx, explains away these repeated crimes by saying that the looters, "may lack funds enough to feed their families so they steal bread to feed their children."

I wish that once -- just once -- an article reporting on these highly coordinated assaults on high-end retail establishments, now so frequent they are considered to be "an epidemic" by the National Retail Federation, would mention that almost every one of the looters is a young black person grabbing nothing edible. 

Obviously, fear of angering blacks is the biggest detriment to ending the rising crime in America's cities. So why not talk about it? How does it help anyone to sweep the truth under the rug?  Target's answer is to close nine of its stores in four states because of organized retail crime. If a store as large as Target can't handle the losses, how can any retail establishment?

Girls Will Be Boys

Tonight my husband and I will attend an open meeting of the local school board to discuss a recent proposal allowing teachers to keep information about their child's gender preferences from parents, even in elementary school. As you may have guessed we live in a very liberal town, which means most of the people here are obedient soldiers in the culture wars, following orders. Fortunately there are a few remaining independent thinkers who plan to make their displeasure known. 

One reason, we are told, for keeping this important information from the parents is that Maine has the highest rate of domestic child abuse in the country. The statistic being tossed around is that 2% of school-age children in the state are being abused at home.

Hey, here's an idea: Let's dig into that horrific situation and stop giving a hoot if 9-year-old Samantha now wants to be called Sam. If someone is abusing her at home, who cares if she pees in the boy's room or the girl's room?

Many Mainers are misguided mental midgets, and that's putting it mildly, although the sentiment is beautifully onomatopoeic. I'm sure the few dissenting voices at tonight's meeting won't make a dent in school policy, but still it's good to let them know we're out there -- watching.

What Keeps You Up At Night?

An op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal addressed the grim reality that anxiety is rising for most Americans, especially among young people. Emergency room visits and recent federal surveys concur that mental health issues have soared significantly in recent years. Gee, I wonder why.

The author of the piece cited several reasons, including Covid, climate change, wokeness (fear of being cancelled) and the increased use of cannabis. Oh yes, and the very existence of Donald Trump. 

None of those do it for me. My anxiety stems from not knowing who's really running the government, since it's obviously not the doddering old fool in the Oval Office or the cackling brown lady who is good for nothing. So who is it? Not anyone any of us voted for, that's clear. At least not in the last election.

That's what keeps me up at night.

Democrats Seeing Clearly

Lately I've met several die-hard Democrats who vow to vote Republican in the next election. Finally they have removed their blinders and see that Biden is feeble-minded and Kamala is incapable of much should he die, which is a possibility despite the power of those behind the scenes who run the country. Also, Senator John Fetterman? AOC? Ilhan Omar? Are they kidding?

Age Happens

As expected, my recent blog post denigrating tattoos has elicited insults from strangers. Okay, I get it and they are deserved. But the insults lobbed at me are pathetic: I was called "a granny" and "old as dirt."

Biologically, one can become a grandmother as early as age 25. It has little to do with age and more to do with one's fertility and sexual activity and that of one's offspring. I am not yet a grandmother, despite being in my 70's. Talk to my son about it.

Next, as far as being "old as dirt," that's just plain silly. Dirt is as old as the planet, which is many millions of years old. Nobody can ever be as old as dirt.

Lastly, I can't keep my body from aging -- it's a natural process that occurs to all people who don't die. But I can choose to not deface my body, a personal act many people commit freely.

So go ahead and call me old. In fact, thank you.

Fat Is Gross

Is it just me, or are fat people seriously gross? My husband says that is judgmental of me, but then what is anything that anyone says but a judgment? 

It's cold outside, it's way too hot, this steak is too rare, I hated that movie, the music is deafening, the doctor is wrong, my foot hurts, your hair is very pretty, this wine is delicious, that baby is adorable, that comedian is very funny and this coat is too expensive are all judgments. But they're okay. But saying that Lizzo and her back-up singers, shown above, are too fat, way too fat, grossly overweight -- that's not allowed. That's being judgmental.

Well, that's crazy. (There I go again.)

Return of The Freak Show

Well, that didn't last long. My hiatus, that is. I decided that the world needs my voice. Most people don't know it yet because most people haven't heard it, but The Daily Droid is one of the very few places online where nothing but the truth is told, and little is held back. So onward I go into the fray, holding my nose since we all can agree that the fray stinks these days.

Back when freaks were freaks.

Today's topic boring a hole in my brain is the prevalence of tattoos among the misguided. This morning as I worked out with my trainer at the gym, I was visually assaulted by a woman working out near me. She had full arm sleeves and lots of ink on her back, her torso and her legs, and it was all pretty nauseating. A young 50-year-old, she is attractive under all the ink, but with it she looks like a freak in a circus side show tent, the kind they still had when I was a teen in the '60s.

Speaking of which, the first time I fainted was in a "freak sideshow" at a circus in Rye, New York. I can remember the whole thing very clearly: getting woozy in front of a cage containing "The Elephant Lady," whose skin was grey and wrinkly. Next thing I knew I was out in the sunshine, lying on the ground with someone holding a bottle of smelling salts under my nose.

I bet that so-called Elephant Lady was once a normal woman who got colorful tattoos all over her body, and as she aged they morphed into a leathery, gross, grey-ish blob covering her from head to toe. So look out for a generation of freaky people with elephant skin in about 40 years, that is if any part of this dying society still remains.

I'm Sick of it All

Last blog post for awhile as I am throwing my computer out the window, or into the ocean, or under the next oncoming Freightliner. The Internet is depressing, as is life these days. Everyone I know is depressed or has cancer or is in a nursing home or has a husband with Alzheimer's. Some of the best ones are dead.

I'm going out for a walk.

The End is Overdue

Believe it or not, I just saw this headline on a news site online: "Taylor Swift Steps Out in Knee-High Leather Boots for Dinner in NYC." There was a tease hinting at who she dined with but I didn't click.

The only thing I can conclude is that reading the news, even just logging on to my computer each morning, is a one-way ticket to Hell. I tell myself this again and again, yet I continue to do it. One reason is that I have so few local friends -- one plus my son -- that I communicate with friends living far away via email and Facebook to avoid being a total recluse.  

But maybe being a recluse is the way to go. After all, Sen. John Fetterman, a stroke victim and obvious whacko in addition to any medical condition he may have, was elected by Pennsylvania's voters to represent them instead of the sane, educated, distinguished heart surgeon running against him. Not only has Fetterman seemingly won the respect of his constituents, but now all of Congress has bowed down to his wishes for a relaxed dress code in the Senate. Do I really want to be part of that human race?

I mean this literally and with all my heart: If both my parents, long gone, were to come back from the Great Beyond -- like Emily did for one day in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" -- and saw the state of our union today, they would immediately drop dead. My mother would drop first and hardest since she toiled in grass-roots politics for many years, finding it the only valuable and serious use of her time and deep intellect. Today, being involved in politics is less intellectual than flipping burgers at a fast-food joint.

When exactly is that giant meteor we've been warned about ever going to get here? It's way overdue.