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.