AI is Full of Gorilla Shit

You might think that AI is useful. Maybe you’re right. Or maybe you have already been conditioned to a predisposed assumption, even a conviction, that AI is the solution to some, perhaps even all, of our problems. That it’s just a matter of time and tweaks.

In that case, I’d have to break Rule #1 of my own (revised) list of no-no things to do in blogging: “Don’t Insult Your Own Audience”.

What I’m trying to say is that you’re an idiot.

First off, I’m going to repeat myself: no machine can ever gain self-awareness or magically just have a soul.

It is not possible, however much you wish it, no matter how many movies you’ve seen, no matter what you’ve read, and no matter who says what on YouTube, for truly intelligent and aware machines to ever exist.

Does this upset you, this outlandish absolutist statement from a lowly layperson who once thought a motherboard was a reference to equipment for middle-aged female surfers?

Or perhaps you, like I do, have the advantage of distance and uninvolved perspective, and can see what developers do not? Do we share some measure, you and I, of trepidation, even fear, of what horrors can, and even have already, come from AI usage?

Then you may be even more widely read than myself about the subject.

If so, I offer you this praise: you’re nobody’s fool.

You maintain perspective and cannot be swayed by leading articles which hail artificial intelligence as the greatest invention of all time, humanity’s pinnacle of accomplishment. Because you know that’s not true. And you know, more than most, that like everything else humans have “created” or discovered, it will be used for evil, exploitation, war, greed and the ruin of countries by other countries.

It has already been in development for all of these things, and hackers, traffickers and spies are, and have been, calling for more of this deadly tech.

As it stands right now, I contend that beyond rudimentary applications, AI is useless or worse, especially when it produces anything that is released to the public or a community such as certain science disciplines, most notably without oversight.

Already misinformation has been disseminated by AI, and at present we cannot determine how much material is out there. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic and attendant lockdown, Microsoft and others laid off or fired thousands of workers. Working from home was great, but the articles and testimonials about and by people allowed that luxury eclipsed an ugly truth: millions lost their jobs. Some, we knew, were in the service or hospitality industry: waiters had no one to serve in closed restaurants. Bartenders, line cooks, master chefs, store owners and employees not deemed “critical”, and scores of others watched helplessly their way of life and their careers vanish forever. Businesses failed. Did they know, that last night they locked up and turned out the lights, that it was the end?

In the quiet that followed, late night talk shows broadcast from the host’s homes in a surreal spot of history that too many have already forgotten, so traumatized were they. Buried memories, covered over by whatever was convenient or necessary until now, a mere three years later, it might never have happened at all.

Except it did.

Millions died. A camera facing Times Square showed traffic sawhorses and nothing else, an image of post-apocalyptic, dystopian emptiness none should ever forget.

Empty chairs at the dinner table, in the living room, the nursing homes…and the empty beds to match.

Traffic, non-existent on rural and suburban streets: at night, so quiet that one felt, not peace, but only a creepiness, a sadness, despair: was this the end? Or how the end starts?

No one knew.

In places, the deniers: restaurants remained open. Spring Break in Florida. Reports of outbreaks squelched, or at least padded, by denial specialists and some news outlets who would go on to scoff at or darkly warn against vaccinations. None of it stopped people from dying, or from surviving, but with long-term effects.

Amid this horrific and tragic setting: MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Every day, the death count. Always there, on the right side of the screen. Every morning, a new total. You couldn’t look away. That intrepid crew never was known for pulling punches. Creds for that.

And then there was Trump, who, after screwing up and making psychotic statements, or, more exactly, spewing shit that got people killed because they trusted him, managed a fait accompli:

With most of his damage already done, with enough disinformation and confusion among the people, he “tried to be helpful”, but merely showed his deplorable ignorance and his need to control his team of experts, whom he often contradicted or even berated in press conferences. He actually, without any refinement attempted, suggested that bodies be opened to accommodate UV light devices and, worse, that products like Mr. Clean be used for clearing lung infections. No one in modern history has ever heard a US president say anything quite like that, but no matter. People apparently tried his “cure” suggestions. How many is not known. That even one person tried it is sickening.

And this is exactly where today’s post becomes relevant.

In the midst of Covid-19, Microsoft — MSN– got rid of its reporting staff, or most of it.

What stood in their shoes?

This did. And it isn’t funny. Imagine why; if you’re human, it shouldn’t be hard.

The article in the link is scary, but humans have been replaced by machines for decades, so this is nothing new. In Baltimore at the General Motors plant, there had been steady news reports since at least the 70s of robots on the assembly line. It wasn’t a unique case. Welders, painters, it didn’t matter; one by one, the jobs were no longer for humans. People flooded unemployment offices carrying their pink slips, held as delicately as calloused hands could have done, and another Maryland unemployment rate hike hit the news with ice-cold numbers that could never tell newspaper readers or local TV news viewers what it really meant. Not to those who had once earned a good income and were suddenly facing default on their mortgages. Feeding hungry children who were used to Christmas presents and hot meals faced an abruptly horrible reality of hunger gnawing on stale bread and cut-rate bologna. Marriages ended. There were homicides and suicides. Desperation turned quickly to despair and after despair, there was nothing.

AI is the new assembly line robot. Who dreamed, back in the 60s, that the major changes that happened could even be possible? That then, at the beginning of a career, that Westinghouse, the Bell system, General Electric, General Motors and other giants would fail, automate, or break up?

Jobs were never guaranteed for life unless you were a Supreme Court Justice. But most offered steady, union represented, honorable work. And if that’s been torn down over the decades since, mainly because of politics and its dirty-secret bed companion, the economy, then there is much more to follow. This is compounded by AI, which has its unshakable place cemented in the future like global warming has.

And both are deeply complicated subjects, which works well for tech corporations and politicians, but not for us, whether you once thought motherboards were oceanic wave gliders for MILFs or not. While the rich, powerful owners of this world think we’re still down here dropping simian feces, we’re still the only ones who get the final say, and we’re dangerously close to giving it up. We vote. We pay. We decide which is real, and which is gorilla shit.

When an AI writes about places to visit, and includes an entry on a food bank and suggests visiting it on an empty stomach, that is gorilla shit. It begs the question of how much more gorilla shit is out there, and has been since 2020.

It’s your move.

But know this:

Generations alive now have lived in some kind of terror all our lives.

The Cold War paralyzed us with daily fear that at any second, all that we know and love could be vaporized.

The AIDS epidemic made sexual contact a haunting thing. It could somehow go undetected for years. Nobody knew if they had it or not, despite early perception that it was a “gay” disease only “degenerate men” got. Then the truth was discovered. It was an everyone disease, and it killed.

9/11/01 brought a new kind of terror to the United States: there was no target, no place, no building anywhere that could truly be protected, and the world had become more sinister and dangerous than we ever dreamed.

Mass shootings haven’t let up. Kids who should be worrying about nothing more scary than report cards or being rejected by a crush have to go to school not knowing if they’ll live to see home again.

Covid-19 has shown us true terror of the unknown and the unseen. We lost so much. Grieve so many. There’s PTSD that’s real, damage we cannot repair. We went from using wipes on our groceries to wearing improvised face masks to getting all of the recommended vaccinations and we got rid of Trump. Quietly, President Biden helped us get away from the edge of an abyss. He does not get his due, not even grudgingly.

A call has gone forth from the political right: we don’t deserve a democracy so let’s find a dictator.

A dictator. What a pile of simian feces.

It has all numbed us. Injured us. It’s too much.

And yet, you must hold onto hope that we as a species can overcome. And, Americans, how it all plays out?

That’s entirely up to you.

Good News, Bad News

Okay, let’s have the bad news first. In California, the BA.5 subvariant of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has a fearful trait. Once in the body it replicates faster and more efficiently than its predecessors. And it ain’t gonna go away, so wherever you are, prepare. Keep masking, distance yourself from others, and keep safe. Get updates on boosters whenever they’re available and you should be good to go.

According to NBC News, a New York Times poll shows that 75 percent of Republicans still support Donald Trump, still believe his lies and would vote for him again. Morons.

And just to show you how much the world regards women as cattle, let’s say hello to Vincent McMahon of WWE fame. The majority shareholder of the company has been outed for paying 12 million dollars in NDAs, or hush money, to women he sexually abused, including at least one woman in his employ as a wrestler. It’s so bad that, after forcing her to perform oral sex on him and she refused further contact of any sexual nature, he demoted her and then would not renew her contract. Imagine how humiliating that was, and how it still affects her. 3 million is nothing to what she goes through.

It is unknown how many more women he violated, but things like this usually bring a lot of past victims forward, and McMahon deserves everything he gets. Because I know there are more. I’ve heard stories about him for decades, all of them grotesque. Forcing wrestlers to take steroids, then denying it, destroying lives and refusing to ever say their names again, writing puerile scripts that got so weird that I eventually stopped watching.. Mark Henry once had “an affair” with a pretty old Mae Young who used to wrestle, supposedly impregnating her. Some time later she went into labor and birthed a hand.

Mae Young announced her pregnancy at none other than the Baltimore Arena on 27 January, 2000.

The hand was the “miscarriage” caused by Kurt Angle in the following clip:

Now that was funny. She wasn’t really hurt, but my sick sense of humor has its limits, and the hand was it.

I had ideas about McMahon before this, but 1999-2000 were my favorite two years for wrestling. WCW was always cool, and Goldberg, the nWo and even Tank Abbott were there. The wrestlers for both franchises were fun to watch, but as soon as WCW was bought by WWE, that did it. I stopped watching. Still don’t. Even the video games, with their pay-extra wrestlers, clunky controls and awful create mode, suck.

Long before 2000 and long after, McMahon was a ravenous wolf who preyed on those he considered beneath him. And he considers almost everyone beneath him, especially women.

I’d like to see the bastard prosecuted. He’s so defiant and smug that even after leaving his daughter in an acting CEO position, he’s appeared on two shows in the ring. What a snot.

President Biden has headed to Israel on a multi-stop Middle East visit. He’s got a tough job ahead, especially in Saudi Arabia where questions about a murdered Washington Post reporter are bound to come up. On the other hand he’s got to negotiate oil prices. Iran will be discussed on every leg of the trip because impossibly, that nation is hosting Russian fruit loop Vladimir Putin and he’s asking for help in his massacre of Ukrainian children. You can’t make this shit up.

Russia seems in control of the eastern front, but Ukraine remains strong and defiant. How much longer, I wonder, until this insane war spills beyond the current theater of war? I hold to my previous assessment: it will spread.

Wait. Before I leave you tonight, what about the good news I mentioned in the title of this post?

There is none. I couldn’t find any.

Until next time, be well, be careful, be safe, and may God bless.

COVID-19 and Science Denial: More To It Than I Thought

Here is an awesome article that is a must-read. You don’t need to understand every word, but You’ll likely come away knowing more about something that has been bothering you. It sure has bothered me.

One warning before you read, though: in the end you will not get all of the answers raised during the pandemic. It does not explain everyone’s behavior and it will not offer you any comfort.

Should you read it or store it as a pdf file for later, keep that in mind. Remember that with the SARS-CoV-2 onset and the initial failure of methods for treatment being arrived at, nobody knew what to do. It overwhelmed us like a deadly blizzard until we were buried, reduced to using refrigerator truck-trailers to store corpses. It may be easy now to forget so many details, because we were all on sensory overload. The brain takes things at its best speed, and when it does overload, shock or some other mechanism slows everything down. Trauma? Yes, I talk about that a lot, but with good reason; everyone goes through traumatic events, perhaps varying in severity, but in the brain, it seems the damage is not always so apparent. Damage does show up in brain scans, although it must be actually looked for by a trained diagnostician to be interpreted as damage from posttraumatic stress disorder.

I’m mentioning PTSD because the article doesn’t. Yet some of the damage associated with the syndrome may be worsened by such a crisis as a pandemic, and may even affect the mechanisms required to respond rationally to anything, much less a health crisis.

For example, I know of two people with PTSD who responded similarly, then very differently to the early part of the pandemic.

Both knew each other. One had almost certainly had the virus. Both agreed that improvising masks when none could be found was a good idea. One went over everything brought in from a grocery with sanitary wipes, the other couldn’t find them in stores or online. One knew that the other had been very sick and advised turning often when lying down and even sleeping on the “stomach”. It probably saved the life of the sick one. The dry cough turned productive and gradually that person felt better, but certainly not overnight. The other subject never showed symptoms. That was the one wiping down everything brought in from the outside.

We have since learned that such a precaution was never necessary, although hand washing seemed crucial. As masks became available and in areas where people actually used them, numbers of morbidity and mortality decreased. The decline was definite, easily visible on line graphs.

This is where the article comes in. I’ll let you read and soak it in, but we know that many people denied that COVID-19 was real and cooked up conspiracy theories to explain the shutdown. They denied that anyone had died, much less in so many numbers. That is, of course, until they or someone they knew went into a critical care unit. People they knew didn’t come back. Some said only hours before their death, “It’s real” and via video calls begged their families to take it seriously.

But even if they believed that it was real, conspiracy theories covered that and the mortality rate: it was manufactured, or engineered, if you will, by the Chinese. It was deliberately spread to the world by infected subjects via air travel. Stories were out there of people boarding planes feeling fine but deathly ill by time to land. These stories fed “proof” to conspiracy theorists who then spread their interpretation far and wide via internet. When it became clear that people believed these theories and Donald Trump began calling it the “China virus,” hate crimes against all Asians became prevalent. Sure, it’s disgusting, but it happened. It is still happening.

People would look up and see a private, single engine Cessna circling as it climbed-out after takeoff, and suddenly the skies were full of Asians using chemtrails to spread the virus. Or it was the CIA, or anyone else you can imagine.

The whole idea took a different turn some time in early spring, 2020. Focus on bioengineering switched locations to from Wuhan Province to USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Maryland. It went from there to the University of North Carolina, where some puddinghead found out that research on coronaviruses was ongoing. When it came to light (it wasn’t a secret) that studies included modifying a virus and infecting modified mice, the staff in that department were issued death threats.

The novel coronavirus which causes the disease COVID-19 has repeatedly been proven to originate in wildlife. In earlier outbreaks of coronaviruses like SARS and MERS, the virus had evolved by going from bats to other animals, then making the jump to humans. With this one, it came directly from bats and didn’t need a middle host animal.

Republicans had a field day with conspiracy theories, all of which, Trump claimed implicitly, were to make him look bad. He was desperate to downplay the COVID-19 pandemic or to thrust false allegations to deflect what he thought made him look bad. Fox News and OANN scrambled to make liberals and Asians appear guilty for creating the virus and inflating the numbers.

In a now infamous interview, though, Trump seemed to have had a mental break, and flat-out told the opposite of what he had said in the beginning: that it was fake, then that a “few cases, and it will be gone”. In that interview he was a actually clear: “It’s the plague,” he said. And he described exactly how easy it was to catch.

Later he would act as if the interview was a deep fake. And he went right off the deep end. In a press conference, he said it could easily be beaten by injecting disinfectant into patients because “I hear it does a real number on the lungs” and worse, that ultraviolet lights could be inserted into the body cavity to kill the virus. Either treatment would be fatal.

After he had endorsed hydroxychloroquine as a treatment or a preventive and caused chaos enough, because anti-masking activists actually took it, and some died anyway, this press conference stands out as one of the most outrageous ever given by a United States president.

There has never been more concrete evidence that conspiracy theories are extremely harmful. Homicides were committed over these during the pandemic’s peak, and even after. People died because some people whose brains malfunctioned spread bullshit to a population with a growing sense of panic.

When shops closed, family businesses like delicatessens, when people lost jobs, they foamed at the mouth for someone to blame. I’m all for placing rightful blame where it belongs, but after that blame is fixed, cooler heads must prevail. Justice cannot be served by angry acts of or by vigilantism. If you haven’t noticed, US prisons aren’t a solution either; too many innocent people populate those Hell holes, and midemeanants never belong there at all.

In the sad case of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no blame, not for the origin of the coronavirus that causes it. There is plenty of blame for everyone still adhering to conspiracy theories. For smear campaigns and death threats. For homicides and hate crimes. True, the first link I posted above does explain why some people are especially vulnerable to conspiracy theories and it’s tragic. It’s not their fault and we need studies that can end in ways to treat them. But that doesn’t account for everyone else who were, and still are, motivated by politics and religion.

The first step comes with understanding the difference and continuing the mission of telling the truth and trusting the scientific and scholarly communities. Because the bug that will cause the next Pandemic? It already exists. It just needs to make the jump. Time to gather what we’ve learned and prepare ourselves.

God Save Her Royal Highness

While I’m off getting my stuff together, the world will not stop.

Queen Elizabeth has tested positive for COVID-19 and while her symptoms are mild, I’ll still worry. The world’s longest reigning monarch, an extraordinary woman, I’m sure she will be fine. Nevertheless, a prayer is in order.

God save her Royal Majesty.

Omicron A Great Concern, According To The WHO

Whereas most of the covid variants have 5 to 10 variants between mutations, the newest one of real concern has 25 to 32 differences in its protein spikes, which are what allows the virus to enter and stay in place in the host body.

That’s a big problem. The question is whether the vaccines will still work.

Short answer: we don’t know, but current vaccines, social distancing, using masks and frequent hand washing are believed to prevent the serious symptoms should you be exposed.

The longer answer is that if this isn’t the case then there can be different vaccines prepared rather quickly for testing, but we can’t know how long that will take. It’s a process, but one that’s been prepared for and anticipated. Currently the virus has an unknown number of strains or mutations. Using Greek letters (Beta, Delta, etc.), the ones most virulent are designated, but there are more than letters can define, and most are not likely to make anyone sick except for unvaccinated and high risk people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The changes in RNA don’t always mean trouble; the virus replicates itself once inside a host, and sometimes the process is flawed and the copies can’t do what the original did.

Other times, these copies are more efficient, and that’s the case with Omicron. When designated “of concern), it means health experts just don’t like what they see because the potential is unknown as far as the strain’s abilities. Will it spread more easily, will it make people more sick?

All viruses mutate. That’s why every year we need a flu shot. Last year’s flu shot may not work well against the current strain (we use Australia as an indicator of what we should expect because as they’re coming out of flu season, we’re heading into it).

***

European countries are already engaging travel bans. Most countries affected by these bans are in southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe). I hate it right along with everyone else, but it is a necessary evil. And I hate to say it, but major protests for shutdowns are taking place, making sure that the illness spreads. Football matches, events where large crowds gather, living conditions where a lot of people are forced into small places, failure to use masks, failure to receive vaccines, poor decisions– all contribute to the continued spread and therefore further mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19.

You remember that it was called a “novel” coronavirus? That’s because it’s new to humans. It existed for probably ages in animals, and one of its mutations made it possible to make the transition to human hosts. It’s happened since long in the past, and always will be a threat with any virus seen previously only in animals.

This is what viruses do. That’s why I hate all conspiracy theories about the current coronavirus being engineered in any lab, whichever one people are using, from North Carolina to Wuhan Province, China.

Do What’s Right

I’m not suggesting that you should be panicked or even very worried. I’m not an influencer or expert. But it’s time for people to decide: you want travel bans or not? Want to see the latest covid numbers on Morning Joe for the next decade? It doesn’t have to be like that.

Ask your higher power, what’s right? If you have no higher power, then ask yourself, but be careful: consider the question valid and important. Be honest.

Carrying hand sanitizer and double-masking are both things that everyone should be doing. When at home, wash hands with soap and hot water often. For dry skin you can always use a moisturizer. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Unless it gets much worse, no shutdowns should happen, so for now if we do these things, we can avoid that kind of situation. But going out to protest mask requirements and not wearing a mask is the height of recklessness. It’s really very stupid.

I still believe some restrictions were lifted too soon, but that’s a moot point. Just think of the health of others, if nothing else. Staying in is fine, so long as your ventilation is good. Going to work is great but be vaccinated and wear a mask.

We’ve all had enough of this. I get it. But it won’t go away just because we’re tired of it.

Update: as of late December, Delta remains the worst strain in the US, but Omicron is spreading rapidly due to a high transmission rate facilitated by its protein spikes. Even those who have received booster shots catch it, usually with very mild symptoms, like a head cold. The symptoms include sinus distress, headache and sore throat but pass quickly. However some develop a fever, but other symptoms seem to be rare. The effect on unvaccinated people is not clearly known but it seems that the dangers are quite serious. People are missing work, causing massive issues in airline services and shutdowns elsewhere. It’s no joke.

A word of advice?

Stop attacking Dr. Fauci and wear a mask, get the shots and stay out of the hospital.

World Travel Advisory: Avoid The United States At All Costs

While my attention was on what Hurricane Ida was doing to the south and then the northeast, and my God it was epic–dozens dead, property damage I can’t get my head around–some terrible things have been going on here.

In Texas, two laws which either defied or abused our Constitution have passed. First, because this is only the beginning of women losing every bit of their equal rights so bitterly fought for, is the Texas abortion law. I’ll tell you right off, if you are against abortion, you probably would be much happier skipping this post.

Because, fuck that. Rich white men in bed with the Catholic Church and other interests had passed a law in May which the U.S. Supreme Court has given its blessing to. And god damn them for it, too.

Known as the “heartbeat” bill, it specifies what on the surface looks strange.

It says that as soon as any doctor can detect a fetus’s heartbeat, the mother may not legally abort it. It also restricts the state from enforcing the law and puts responsibility for that onto private citizens through civil cases. Oh, and that goes for the mother, the doctor and includes anyone who aids the mother. With that kind of ambiguity, even a municipal bus driver can be sued, although I doubt that will happen.

At least not right away.

This now forces women to leave the state for the procedure, but you can bet all states surrounding Texas will do something to prevent it; probably with their own abortion restriction laws.

Pregnant women will be forced to carry and deliver babies with severe birth defects and handicaps that will make child and parents alike suffer. The states are fighting to take away all aid to poor parents. That means that the heartless Republicans would gleefully have a child born with special needs that the state is not responsible for giving any help to. Not for procedures, not for formula, pediatrician visits–nothing will be provided. And if the poor baby dies, I would not be surprised to see a law providing for parents to be criminally prosecuted.

A bunch of bald, fat white men are taking away the right of a woman to decide what to do with her body.

A Grenade With The Pin Gone

As of 1 September, people in Texas can carry handguns without a permit.

Or training.

This makes it the most dangerous state to travel through or to. Stay out. Because any traveler from another country is in grave danger. The Texans who will carry guns also are the most likely to be racist. Or in a gang. Both are equally dangerous.

There are many infamous cities around the globe that are rated the most dangerous. Although not in the top ten, Baltimore Maryland consistently ranks around the same general spot on the charts. It’s an easy city to get shot in and we don’t have any such gun laws. That doesn’t matter; gang violence and other gun violence kill over 300 people per year, and children, even babies are among the murdered.

I live about 45 minutes away. I don’t go there and constantly tell others not to. Because visiting the amazing National Aquarium, the magnificent USS Constellation, dining in Little Italy or watching a Ravens or Orioles game is not worth your life. True, most crime happens away from those areas, but not all, and the Baltimore Police Department has a long record of corruption. It’s not safe anywhere.

COVID-19 Alert

The rising rate of infection from coronavirus makes any travel in the United States dangerous. Particularly in Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi and Texas. The governor of Mississippi told his constituents that they would not be provided with the vaccine. He actually told them to sit back and let God take care of them. He forgot the part of the Bible that says “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

Despite what’s reported by American media as an increase in vaccinated individuals, the rates of transmission are rising and there are still cases ending in mortality. If people here aren’t taking covid seriously by now, then stay away.

Why risk your life for anything in this country? I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I’d rather see businesses lose money than to see visitors to our country die because of stupid bastards without regard for others.

Take care of yourselves. Stay away from the United States.

Stay safe. Be well.

As always, I’m humbled and grateful that you’ve let me be a part of your life.

Republican Bullshit Over Approved Vaccine

Watch this . It’s never been more clear how full of shit and opposed to anything not self serving for Republicans. Mr. Cohen always gives a fair and true analysis. This should piss you off.

Larry The Blunt

“Just get the damn vaccine.”

That’s what Maryland Governor Larry Hogan says when asked whether masks are going to be required again because covid cases are rising.

His goal is to force unvaccinated people to get the shots. If the virus is spreading fastest in unvaccinated people, it means that vaccinated individuals who aren’t wearing masks are spreading it. Mathematically and logically there is no other conclusion which is possible. It is right there in front of us.

Delta variant is spreading fast and coincides with the end of many mask rules. Putting aside the fact that some people never conformed with mask mandates unless forced, as when entering a grocery store, those who have stopped wearing masks must be transmitting the virus, which accounts for such a rapid rise in deaths, not to mention the number of positive test results and hospitalizations.

Among vaccinated individuals the virus can occur but its effects are probably only mild symptoms. However, the language used by media leaves me confused. They don’t help much even though they bitch about misinformation. News media will do what it always does: fill in the blanks between commercials and clickbait.

So Hogan didn’t bother saying anything the media could confuse, muddle or fuck up. He just told people to go “get the damn vaccine.”

At this point, and considering that schools are due to reopen and that the Delta variant can spread to and from kids, I must go one step further than Hogan, who has proven himself a great crisis governor.

I say that considering how many people have died and are about to die, fuck you and your right to be a moron. Go get the fucking shots.

I know what your excuses are. They’re stupid. And if you don’t get the goddamn shots, you are likely to get exposed and possibly die. I don’t question your right to die. But you’ll likely spread it to other morons in your fucking circle of friends and family.

And I do question your right to commit murder.

America, The Hungry Tigress, Will Now Eat Her Own Cubs

Not that it’s anything new, the United States has once again turned on the poor, and is going to put unknown numbers of people on the street.

Get ready to see the initial footage of furniture and trash bags full of clothes, dishes and everything you can imagine lining the sidewalks in front of suburban homes, apartments and condos, and row homes in neighbor hoods you wouldn’t choose to live in, but had no choice and, in time, made it your home. A home you will now be unceremoniously kicked out of.

The moratorium or ban on evictions for not being able to pay rent during the COVID-19 crisis has expired as of 31 July. It means, in simple terms, that landlords who were kept from kicking people out until that date are now at liberty to get court ordered eviction notices. These have a humiliating and terrifying effect on the recipients. People have been known to see this notice scotch-taped to their front door and go into shock or even have heart attacks. For many people it is a death sentence because they have no way to stop the process and no other place to live.

If they were unable to pay rent or a mortgage, what makes anyone think that they have the money to move, much less rent some other place?

I SAW THIS COMING

As seen in this article on CNN there’s nothing right or good or merciful about to happen. What’s worse is, if I knew this would happen, then the excuse Speaker Pelosi gave about not getting informed until that last minute is a bold-faced lie. Not just an excuse, mind you, but a fucking confession of uncaring distance: “I knew it was time but I was busy.”

She and everyone else in congress knew and a last-minute attempt by the House to pass emergency measures didn’t even make it despite a Democratic majority.

That’s a signal, America. Your elected government has finally backed out of its obligation to represent everyone, especially the sick and the poor.

I don’t understand the Biden Administration. With Trump I expected heartlessness, but not with Biden. Biden has proudly announced that progressives hate him because he’s not progressive, yet he’s not even a fucking moderate. He too has a lame excuse for letting the moratorium pass, although a week earlier he told everyone that he had concerns about people not going back to work because their benefits for unemployment were still coming in. I’ve never heard such bullshit from a Democrat. Not with circumstances anything like a crisis. And I know COVID-19 is the biggest crisis of my lifetime, but to hear such bullshit from a democratic president is out of place and far away from what I could have imagined. He said, in effect, “Go ahead and put the lazy motherfuckers on the streets.”

CDC RECOMMENDS RENEWED PRECAUTIONS

Hand washing, facemasks indoors, it’s back to square one because unvaccinated people are dying. New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are rising. Misinformation is compounding everything happening. We are already in for what I’ve said was bound to happen. And if people call me negative they’re not wrong. I’ve maintained since early last year that in any closed system, predictability is bullshit. Impossible. Chaos maths dictate it. History bears that out. Human behavior is not geared toward self-preservation, but destruction and extinction. Wars alone prove that much. And even in war, nothing specific can reliably be predicted, just as no chess player can accurately predict every move during a match, no matter how they have mastered the game, and so it is with any war, right down to specific battles. Who, among German high command, could have predicted what Patton did with his divisions during the Battle of the Bulge? And even if they could have known, who could believe it was even possible? Even his peers thought he was nuts. Until he did it.

Dealing with unpredictable situations is not a strength of humanity. Overkill or the lack of a reaction. The in between grows less likely with every second.

We are seeing a lack of a reaction right now. Even when it was known that the Delta variant was reported in every state, restrictions on social distancing and wearing masks indoors were being removed. How fucking stupid can people get?

The Biden administration bitterly complains that misinformation has hampered the vaccination process. But what about people who are vaccinated? Can they be carriers? Can they, in other words, infect others who are not vaccinated? The numbers and the rate of spread led me to believe that it was not just possible, it was happening. Dr. Fauci has since confirmed this as fact.

The news is vague. “Most new cases…are unvaccinated…”

Most? See, journalists don’t know shit. Vaccines are definitely desirable; we know from the numbers that cases rapidly decreased because of them. But lax attitudes toward the virus in parts of the country meant it never went away. One misconception I hear is that before Delta, COVID-19 had gone away. That’s not true.

The renewed recommendations are an obvious indication that health experts know it’s a whole new ballgame. But I go into stores and people aren’t masked. They aren’t disinfecting shopping cart handles. The risks being taken are equal to the premature lifting of safety procedures and restrictions. Cases did, in fact, almost immediately rise.

Keep this in mind when the evictions start. When neighbors vanish.

There’s been talk of help from the White House. But Biden does not want to be seen as soft on people who don’t want to work.

Pelosi’s expression of concern led us to believe that last minute help would come.

That will not happen. It’s vacation time for our pissant, self-absorbed, lazy elected representatives. Because, fuck you, America. I’m going after a trophy marlin. Have fun dumpster diving you sleazy common people.

I believe that this country as it has been is doomed. Until such time as there are more people who care about others than those who do not, and caring people run for political office, we are doomed.

What will be left?

I’m sorry. Chaos theory says there’s no way to answer that except to say, it’ll be a much worse place to live. As if God Himself had come to smite a land already marked by blood and a history of being run by uncivilized barbarians who had their chance and blew it.

Divine retribution or karma. They always get their way.

I’m deeply sorry for starting your week on a story this depressing and disgusting. Do stay informed. Visit the WHO, CDC and sites like BBC News and CNN to keep misinformation down. Tell others what you learn. Wear double masks, carry hand sanitizer and keep social distances. The future of this country is really in doubt. Don’t make it any worse. Please don’t.

———–U F O———–

A report came out about UAPs which means unidentified aerial phenomenon. It made the news. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I’d already seen the videos of cockpit footage from the Pentagon or whatever department released it a year or more earlier. After 2020, it’s difficult to nail down the dates of certain things because that year was a hard reboot. The new software was a hog. It took up so much disk space that some things sort of seem distant in odd ways. The screen was now indicating that there had been a major system failure, and there was now a string of programs in place as a fail safe. But it doesn’t turn out to be helpful. The virus that led to a cascade failure left others dead, their computers rendered nothing more than tall coasters. Or a footrest for one foot as they sat at their desks.

Others had the virus, made it to reboot, but are compromised with leftover damage. Suddenly, nothing was the same anymore. We should all have known that nothing would ever be the same.

So forgive me, but I don’t much care about a report that I honestly think everyone should have known didn’t say much. My concern is you. So let’s talk.

A nine page report. Incredibly brief for an American government document, yes? Because if there’s one thing us Yanks are good at, indeed insist on, it’s printing a whole forest’s worth of bullshit on paper, even this far into the digital age. Nine pages can’t possibly say much when a House bill used up half the wood in the Rocky Mountain forests and the bill is only about who can access public restrooms.

Could have just used a page and say the same shit, saved the rest for music rolls to put in those restrooms. Or maybe we could just have spared the fucking trees and perhaps kept some endangered species from going extinct. Fucking paper pushers.

And yet the “report” is nine pages.

For a subject as big as UFOs.

That’s right. I still use that acronym. I’m tired of people changing shit there’s nothing wrong with.

And if you really thought that those nine pages actually contained anything new, the joke’s on you. It doesn’t. I finally did read an article about it. I just randomly clicked something that showed up in a Google search.

For what it’s worth, I don’t give a shit about UFOs, and you know why?

First, people are hungry. They’re sick. Poor. Dying. So WTF?

Second. The fucking bullshit stories of “contactees” who claim to be in telepathic communication with extraterrestrials. There are and have been more of them than you think and they’re not all acid-droppers. And it’s not some metaphysically weird thing, it’s called psychosis. I laugh. Seriously, I cringe first, but then I laugh. And I think of George Adamski.

He was a guy so keen to prove flying saucers were real that he made one, photographed it and then sold books and gave lectures. People believed him to the point of becoming a cult. Lectures brought big money and of course, back then being the era of the black and white home cameras that had film rolls one had to develop in a dark room, and pros still used plates, people paid cash for prints of his photographs. The cash rolled in and the fucker got rich screwing multitudes of gullible people.

What’s worse is that almost immediately debunkers went to work and this candidate for an asylum just kept raking in the currency.

He claimed to have met an extraterrestrial named Orthon. The guy was Venusian but somehow Nordic. Okay. A Venusian from the Netherlands. Gotcha.

A Hollywood photographer and a few personal friends failed to back his story up and Project Blue Book tore him apart.

He did things that could be prosecuted today as fraud. Possibly more, since he chose to tangle with the FBI. They just thought he was a kook and he was never arrested.

But he and others like him caused damage to the serious research that concerned UFOs. It was and remains a mysterious subject that has troubled people for ages. Stephen Hawking warned that if extraterrestrials ever did come here, they wouldn’t be friendly.

Some of the most fertile ground for hoaxes, UFOs are troubling by nature, but after the History Channel turned into the Erich von Däniken and the Giorgio Tsoucalos channel, it’s hard for me to take anything on the subject seriously.

It’s fair to call me on this; with the Travel Channel now having jack shit to do with travel, so many bullshit shows with fake or scripted content regarding the paranormal could well have you skeptical about my encounters with demons or whatever the hell they are. And I would understand. I’m personally a skeptic about Bigfoot and UFOs, but I do give others the benefit of the doubt. That something did happen in the sky or woods is not my problem; I don’t dismiss every witness as a liar or delusional. I just see little evidence of what’s being seen. To date there has never been a body, bodypart, live specimen or clear footage of a sasquatch. Does it conclusively prove the bloody things aren’t real?

I can’t say that.

There’s scant evidence of spirits, ghosts and demons too, but does that prove they aren’t real?

Hardly.

I’ve been through too many times when I knew good and well that truly weird shit was going on.

Like that fucking cat. And the Angel of Death. And that thing in my room, and the totally haunted houses I’ve lived in. And the time I masqueraded as a ghost hunter. Man was that a trip. In my life and times of being an asshole, that one stands out to this day as one of the most dumbass things I have ever done.

If you have had strange, unexplained things happen around or to you, then you honestly want to be believed. You don’t like being scorned or made sport of. And nobody enjoys being laughed at.

Same here, my friend. But this is why I demand of myself that I listen, without judgement, to people who are trying to simply understand what the fuck happened.

Because humans are damn intelligent creatures, inquisitive, curious, hungry for knowledge. When something that we don’t understand hits us upside the head, we may run away. Some of us never go back out of a desire for survival. There’s nothing wrong with that. Others will keep on sniffing around until they are worn out, find what they need, or sometimes both at once.

As for alien abductions, I’m a definite skeptic and that’s not likely to change. On this I make a stand:

•I believe that something did happen unless we’re being lied to.

•Theres an explanation.

•That explanation may not be the one people think of the most.

Because interstellar travel remains so improbable that I can scarce believe any race or species has ever accomplished it. If you look into a telescope at the star Betelgeuse, the light you see left that star only a few decades after Christopher Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue. Even travel to a nearby star system is a twisty problem for us, and to get to a system with what we figure is a habitable planet is far from our reach. To think that it’s possible other civilizations have mastered the physics, maths and technology to get to us is a bit of a stretch. As for UFOs which seem to change directions at high speeds, that is, speeds our fastest interceptors cannot attain, if extraterrestrials are inside, then they are definitely nothing at all like us. Weve seen so much science fiction that we think of aliens as humanoid but nothing like us could survive such maneuvers at-speed. If humanoid, however, they would have to have conquered the problems of density, gravity and physics for their craft’s interiors.

There’s a snag here, though. Aliens usually fall into the general descriptions of the “grays”, but many different descriptions of aliens have been reported. The odds of one species finding us are steep enough, but dozens of them, all from different planets? I think not.

Such technology would be so outside of our understanding that the reverse-engineering theory (or more accurately, conspiracy theory) is almost automatically ludicrous. We’re smart, but not that smart.

As for the theory that aliens work with our government, or have worked with it in the past, giving tutorials on bits of tech, I call bullshit. No, I’ve gone far enough with the benefit of a doubt and can’t go any further. This theory sometimes includes the government allowing aliens to abduct people for experiments in exchange for technology. What a crock of shit. Don’t expect me to eat out of it.

I guess in the end what we have is another bullshit ploy by the government to string people along. The real mystery is why. Why can’t our elected leaders be fucking honest with us?

I don’t give a damn if the cockpit footage was released, leaked or faked. It changed nothing as far as I’m concerned, and nine pages of more of the same can’t change that.

Stay skeptical. If you want some bullshit to digest that’s far less boring or insulting, follow a youtuber who posts scary videos. At least you’ll get a yuk or two out of it.

Happy Thanksgiving, Assholes

A news report.

Actually, lots of them. Everywhere you look. Every hour, every day.

Not about Trump. He’s broken about every protocol and a host of laws; no shit. Made us look like a “banana republic”, quoth many politicians and pundits. Oh, it’s worse than that.

Not about Biden, either. A good man who Trump cannot admit he lost to. Now, finally, transfer and the sharing of information and intelligence can go forth as it should. Through it all, Trump played golf, tweeted hate, incited rebellion, bribed Minnesota and intimidated Michigan officials and generally tried to take food stamps and basic rights away from citizens. He’s engaged in a scorched earth policy to wreck everything and interfere in a smooth transition of administrations. To make Biden look inadequate. To throw shade on all who voted against him, Trump almighty.

No, I’m not talking about seeing reports on any of that.

I’m referring to idiots who continue to refuse to wear masks, sanitize hands, use the six-foot rule, and who are absolutely killing other people.

Those people who are traveling or hosting gatherings for Thanksgiving. This week.

This fucking week.

Experts are alarmed.

Have the horrifying events of this year not already impressed you how deadly COVID-19 is? Haven’t we lost enough people, family, friends, coworkers to get through your fucking selfish, small brain?

I guess not.

I’m not a wise or intelligent man. I have no decency, no dignity.

I am without honor.

And I am quite sick.

But I’m better than you.

I try to do what I should. I wear my mask. I keep my distance. I stay home when it is not necessary to go out. I don’t want to kill. I’m not selfish or vain or rebellious enough to fucking murder a stranger or a friend.

But for the sake of a fucking carved turkey, you’ll risk anything: air travel, mixing in grandma’s house with family from 5 states. Whatever. Bus, train, air. Makes no difference. None. And you don’t make sense to me.

Happy Thanksgiving you fucking morons. Even if you kill someone, you’ll never believe it was you who gave grandma COVID-19.

The airlines are happy to sell tickets. Coaches too, and trains, oh, always. You gotta wear masks but when nobody’s looking, they can’t tell you’re bare-faced. You’re pathetic.

Morons.

Idiots.

In December and January, just stand back and wait for your phone to ring. And watch the news. Because those climbing numbers of deaths? You and everyone like you did that.

If you think I’m being presumptuous and harsh, prove me wrong. Stay home. Cancel the meal. Eat a TV dinner and watch the Lions and the Ravens lose.

Live and let live.

Trump Has COVID-19, Now In Hospital

President Trump is at Walter Reed National Military Hospital Center. This is bad, very bad. And yet the reflex attitude on social media is horrifying and disgusting. From statements like “Karma’s a bitch” to “this is a hoax”, the bullshit is piling up so high we’re going to need air and sea rescue to get out of it.

A sober article on just why this is so terrible reminds us all that this is a national crisis. First, they used a helicopter for transport. That’s bad. He would have done anything to avoid that kind of attention. It doesn’t help his cause at all, and now the whole world knows he’s got COVID-19. Politically it spells doom for his campaign. He denied saying what Bob Woodward recorded him saying, then backed up and lied, saying “I meant that we can’t panic.”

Now he’s got it. His wife has it. Hope Hicks has it. Contact tracing is a nightmare. After hearing about Hicks testing positive he still went to a rally. Who can say what he’s done?

A ridiculous conspiracy theory has it that Trump and his wife both tested positive at the same time, and given that she’s never closer than ten feet from him, it’s suspicious.

Anyone who watches the news knows she gets a lot closer than that. On Marine One, everyone on that last hop is almost certainly infected, whether they’re symptomatic or not.

The White House stated that Trump’s condition changed from “light” to “moderate” and since the White House is unreliable in news dispatches, he could be on a ventilator by midnight for all we know.

There’s too much here to sort out. Hell, we’ve been on overload since last winter. Over 200,000 dead from coronavirus infections. Many more sick, not fully recovered from damage it left behind. Everyone should be pissed off about that. It was preventable once we found that masks worked. Trump set an example by first calling it a hoax, then playing it down, forcing the opening of schools, strong-arming the Big Ten into reversing its decision not to participate this season, and all kinds of things that put people at risk. Now college kids and even an NFL team are stricken.

We, ladies and gentlemen, are in the middle of a catastrophe, and it’s not going to disappear. So I understand the anger. I do. I’ve said many times he killed people by mishandling this pandemic and that children of immigrants suffered horribly at his hands. I hate everything he does.

But wishing for a sitting president to die is not civilized, not humane, and is, in fact, the height of evil. I expect anger. It’s been there. Almost four years’ worth. Hell, we’re choking on it.

But let’s not be ugly here. Karma or God or plain bad luck from continued risky behavior, whatever it is you’re using, stop it. Especially since understanding basic karmic rules, whatever you wish for others, if evil, will come back to you in equal measure.

A transition of power before an election would be chaos and one thing we don’t need right now is more chaos. Contingency protocols under the 25th Amendment could be challenged and bog us down while everything else literally stops.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do I really want to be seen posting evil wishes on anyone?

Does our country face an existential crisis that could be made worse if Donald Trump dies from this?

And finally, if you say things that are ugly, and he does die, would you really feel great about yourself?

If you think that last question is a lightweight, there’s something wrong with you. You’re more like Trump than you think you are. His attitude is nutty and evil and absolutely without a shred of sympathy for anyone who suffers from anything. Poverty? Homelessness? Fuck em, let em die. Is that you? Is that really you, too?

As for the conspiracy theory that this is all a hoax?

He could never pull off such a stunt. His test has been verified. It’s real, and moreover, what political gain is to be made in this? Think it will delay the election? Wrong. Doesn’t work that way. Garnering votes by sympathy? Shut up. Even he would not do that. He doesn’t have any concept of that emotion.

Stop the stupid, goofy conspiracy theories. This is a bad day for America, folks. Not many people alive have seen a transition to the presidency due to in-term sudden death. It’s a horror. You can love him or hate him but you still have to rise above his level or you’re as bad as he is. I instead suggest prayer and meditation for his recovery.

Oh, before I go, one conspiracy theory has it that Hope Hicks is a deep state operative intentionally infected and paid to hug Trump. I had a laugh at that one.

Then, last but not least, people are suspicious because Putin sent Trump wishes for a speedy recovery. Yeah, but so has Justin Trudeau and other world leaders, because that’s what they do. None of them relish the knowledge that Trump has COVID-19.

Neither should we.

Is Donald Trump TRYING To Lose, Or Is He Really That Crazy?

Look, I’m sick. Lots of us are, from different things, mainly the coronavirus or just plain stress over whether we’ll catch it, or grief over those we’ve lost to it; family, friends, neighbors and colleagues.

We are sick with a deep foreboding over the use of brute force and terrorism by unidentified paramilitary forces in Portland and threats of more “deployments” in other cities.

Both the virus and the shock troops are a threat to our country in different ways, but both are terrifying. A dumbass senator refuses to wear a mask, tests positive, won’t admit he was wrong. People die. Still no outward reaction from “conservatives”. Trump goes in front of the press and claims Dr. Fauci has “high approval ratings, but “poor little ol’ me” does not. It’s a continuation of his statement “maybe people don’t love me” and that’s similar to lamentations made by Richard Nixon following the 1962 loss in the California governor’s race. He said to the press, “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

Of course, he would have more.

Trump is a diseased, self-occupied, self-centered, self-destructive bag of possum peckers. His mistakes are not really missteps; they are all his decisions and have gone against every competent adviser he’s had, throwing tantrums and firing those people in favor of idiot yes men and women. And even those are scared of him. Reporters are scared to ask him certain questions. Republicans fear him to the Nth degree, lying for him, backing him, endorsing him. Hell, you’d be forgiven if you thought he was the antichrist. He lies so much that some fact checkers say his total tops a hundred thousand.

In Portland, the world has seen everything we have seen: unidentified paramilitary officers shoving protesters into unmarked vans, which constitutes kidnapping, false imprisonment and assault. Sources say they’re made up of ICE and Border Patrol agents acting through Homeland Security on Trump’s orders. The world has seen Trump bungle the pandemic and opinion is divided; many feel sorry for Americans. Third World countries feel sorry for us. News services like BBC, CNN, Reuters and others carry stories of America that stuns the world. How can such a powerful country be brought to its knees by only a single man? Why won’t anyone take action?

Who can blame them? There’s a travel ban against Americans in Europe because the danger of the coronavirus is too great to risk the least bit of contact.

Trump finally proved he was a burlap sack full of marsupial phalluses when he concentrated on suburbanites by calling white women “housewives” and promised an end to low-income housing in their areas.

But his sexist way of referring to white women in suburbs shows, at last, that he doesn’t care about anyone. That even his supporters mean nothing to him.

His pity party was disgusting. “People don’t love me”, and “It can only be my personality.”

Those are manipulative at least, self-destructive at most. Yeah, he’s crazy, but pointing out the fact that his personality is a problem may also be seen as yet another self-inflicted gunshot to his foot: he wants you to know he’s aware of his salad-filled head.

But the last straw was when he walked out on the press because he’d retweeted another fucking idiot claiming that hydroxychloroquine is a COVID-19 cure. That same woman believes that extraterrestrials have donated snot and sperm for use in pharmaceutical products. Among other fucking shit.

Holy shit.

I suppose you could have a bone to pick with me because I’ve posted about demons before, but I’ve got witnesses to some really horrible things. I stand by my words, but I realize that Trump does, too.

But I wonder sometimes if he’s really trying to throw this election. Yeah, he really is crazier than a Hefty bag full of possum’s penises, but sometimes, I think he’s making so many people die, is pissing so many people off, that he’ll lose in November for dead certain.

Except: there’s one thing.

Never underestimate this guy. You still have to oppose him. Fight him. And you have to show up at the polls in November and get rid of this squishy plastic bag of animal dicks.

You have to.

The alternative is death.

Typically Republican

I’ve seen enough. I don’t know who it was but some dickhead actually asked Dr. Fauci if the left and the media were being fair to “President” Trump.

His reaction was vanilla. Reason: he knows he must remain where he is in order to help save this country from Donald Trump’s ignorance and insanity. The next question from Dickhead was “do you regret not calling for the public to wear masks earlier?”

Wait. Wait a fucking minute. It was the republicans who denied COVID-19 was going to be a thing. Remember that?

Fauci answered, “we’re going to play that game…if you’ll remember, we had a paucity of PPE and we didn’t want healthcare workers who were risking their lives to have facemasks taken by the public.” Not a word-for-word quote, but essentially correct. How can politicians be so short on memory that they actually try to rewrite history, and how the hell are they so callous that this dickhead brought up deaths from drugs, AIDS and even managed to somehow throw mumps into his name salad?

Mumps?

First of all, that’s the fucking attitude that’s already killed so many people who had COVID-19. Trump’s attitude was, and remains, “fuck it.”

They’ll watch the economy tank, a million people die, businesses fail, and do nothing but throw blame on Democrats. Which is like your kids breaking everything in your house right the fuck in front of you and blaming the neighbors out back that you can’t stand. Today in hard-hit Arizona, Trump’s having a rally. He will not wear a mask. In Arizona. And his staff keep getting infected. He’s not merely stupid. He’s evil, bent on exalting himself as a god who can’t be hurt, get sick or make a bad decision. And while he’s at it, fuck everyone else. He’s not alone because his cult of political and civilian worshippers back him up. By now I doubt any of them even really know they’ve believed the lies they once took objection to. They live in a fake reality.

If you want me to write about him with a bit of respect, or all-out reverence, you can go fuck yourself. Ain’t gonna happen.

Guess what is gonna happen, though…

A lot more people are going to die. God damn these motherfuckers. God damn them all to Hell.

Why Do People Insist On Being Flagrantly Stupid?

Stupid woman.

Okay, that was interesting. She clearly planned her “presentation” well enough, complete with Elmer’s or perhaps a more “aromatic” glue fixing her pictures to a sign. And she wrote and read from her own, really demented and hysterical speech. Holy shit. But look. If you want to prove that you’re a “patriot” by singing a song, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you get the fucking lyrics right.

Some people can’t be troubled, though. It’s just not enough to prove yourself an idiot and mark yourself as a candidate for psychiatric observation; no, you just have to sing, too. And fuck it up.

I’m not calling into question a person’s right to speech. If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to write. But she’s a mess, a train wreck, like everyone else who reveals themselves Trump supporters. I know I laughed at the clip, and it’s unusual for me to do that when someone so obliviously embarrasses themselves. I usually feel bad for them. But this is funny until after it’s over.

That’s when I stopped laughing and eventually felt overwhelming dread that she’s not alone.

That’s truly sobering. Trump has apparently sold out the venue for his rally on Saturday and people are already camping out waiting for it. Right in the middle of a county with coronavirus cases rising fast. It was supposed to be on Juneteenth but he changed it and I can’t tell you why. Then he claimed to have made Juneteenth famous, that nobody had ever heard of it. And then we had to hear that he “polled” African American White House staff and they had never heard of it either. At least that’s what he claims. It’s horseshit but his cult followers won’t care either way. Right now he’s losing voters to Biden. He’s pissed, too. He’s pissed about lots of things. He’s asked, “Do you think the Supreme Court hates me?” Hes called them out and he’s rejected having masks be compulsory in the enclosed venue (to buy a ticket you had to sign a waiver). He’s ranted that people are wearing masks because they hate him (if that’s true, then why the need for a waiver?). And as far as COVID-19 is concerned, he’s lied so many times I can’t keep up with it all, but one of his latest was something about him inventing the “greatest machine (ventilator?)” ever. Ever. He’s totally fucking out there.

And this event is being described as a “superspreader” event. In other words, if the average COVID-19 patient infects two other people, this event will just plain kill a shitload of people and nobody seems to give a damn except for those who stand susceptible to these morons who will return home and kill them.

And since incubation can be indeterminate, between 5 to 14 days, and some will be asymptomatic, those victims will continue to spread it if they live.

Have you noticed that people are paying less attention to the numbers? Did you know that a month ago, several politicians from red states actually said they were going to stop the daily updates even if they really can’t? Based on my observations so far, it’s possible. Politicians, public behavior and myths have cooked a perfect soup. COVID-19 isn’t going away right now. It isn’t going to go away anytime soon. There’s no need to fear a “second wave” this autumn: the first one won’t even be over by then. Forget a vaccine. It’s too soon, and we may never get one anyway. That’s what we need to prepare for. You can’t count on Trump or any of his brainwashed cadre to tell the truth. The truth is, Trump fucked us with every step he took or failed to take during this pandemic; now we’re looking at the deadliest year in our history and that’s without a war. It’s going to claim more lives, and it will not stop.

The latest studies have proven that masks do help to stop coronavirus from spreading when used with physical distancing and obsessive hand washing. Yeah, it was working in areas where it was mandated and not voluntary. At first, yes, we were told masks weren’t effective. An article still pops up once a week with false or outdated information which has it that masks in public are useless, but its it’s dangerous not to wear them.

In this way it becomes harder to laugh at the woman in the video. It becomes easier to hate her. She will kill someone. If not by catching and transmitting the virus, then merely by example because people listen to morons like Trump and his death cult.

As we get to July fourth, it shakes me to the core to picture what we’re going to see. In my life, there’s never been a worse man in the White House. No one, not even Richard Nixon, came close to this man. And never mind the upcoming books by his niece and John Bolton. The former is reportedly flouting a signed non-disclosure agreement to publish hers. Now what kind of family would have something like that between cousins, uncles and nieces? What the fuck happened, anyway? Because it had to have been particularly horrible.

And I’ve saved John Bolton for last. People are applauding this piece of shit. Why? He’s a pussy! He could have testified any time during critical hearings and investigations. If he’s such a patriot, he would have. A true patriot couldn’t have been stopped.

He didn’t. He hid behind Trump and only now, when it looks like Trump may lose, only now, when a prestigious publisher stands ready to cut checks, does he claim to be brave with a tell-all book. John Bolton is a traitorous, cowardly and greedy man. He’s everything that’s wrong with this country. Because a weasel and a traitor, an unpatriotic piece of shit like him can’t have one or two weaknesses; he’s probably a bigot and a womanizer too. Don’t buy his book. The details will be discussed ad nauseum on cable anyway.

We’re in big trouble, America. Big trouble. Watch the video again if you doubt me.

Last Week

If you’re like me, you couldn’t keep up with it all. Or even process everything. What a week that was. I’ve never seen anything like it and nothing in my memory can compare to it. And yet, George Floyd was not unique in that horrible way he died. So people asked, “What’s so different now?”

I looked at the TV. I looked at videos and read articles. With a thrill of nausea and lots of dread, I saw the tear gas used on protesters, saw crowds running, saw the church burn on Sunday night, then, Monday, a debacle the likes of which I’ve never even imagined as Lafayette Square was gassed and crowds charged by cops with shields and riot sticks.

Which was followed by a bizarre speech by Trump with an open threat and a singularly bizarre walk by Trump and an unbelievably scary entourage to the burnt church. The fucker used a church and an upside-down bible as props for a photo op. No shit, and it’s still hard to believe.

Then, in a blinding speed, images and sounds like nothing that could be real, but was.

A 75-year-old man shoved. Lost his balance because he was shoved. Immediately bleeding from an ear and the posterior skull. Listed as serious but stable condition. But how serious? That’s a severe concussion and probable skull fracture you’re seeing. He could have died.

Surrealism: a reporter and his crew fired at as they try to retreat. Cannisters and rubber bullets. Two Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawks buzzing protesters, a maneuver someone called “dusting”, which is basically terrorism. The twin engines and the monster blades of the Blackhawks are weapons at low altitude. If you’re beneath them, you’re getting hit by particles of dust, small debris and anything they feel like dropping. You better tuck into a ball and cover your face. No shit. Whoever justifies this shit is stupid.

But there was no shortage of that. It didn’t begin or end with Trump’s bible modeling. He was asked if it was his bible, and he really answered, “It’s a bible.” Translation: “I don’t own a bible.”

While Reverend Al Sharpton gave a powerful and simply perfect eulogy for the family of George Floyd, others were beginning to fall away from supporting Trump. A number of former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs were vocal in their disapproval of his threat to use regular military personnel to police the streets of any state he chose, and Joe Biden failed to tell officers not to shoot at suspects. Instead he suggested that they aim for legs instead of center of mass. Joe wants to win, but waffling is not a good strategy. There’s no middle ground in a firefight and nobody aims for legs, but then again, that’s if someone else has a gun and can, or is shooting back. You aim center of mass unless you’re the highest tier in an elite sniper class. Then you can try for headshots, but even that’s mostly Hollywood and videogame bullshit. If you’re forced to shoot, you’re forced to kill. Fuck around, and you’ll be the casualty.

Besides, you know how easy it is to hit a major artery in the leg? If a shot goes astray and you score a leg shot, your high velocity round will be very likely to cut or sever the femoral artery. That’s still a kill.

Why all the stupidity? Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Diblasio are not handling things. The tear gas. The pepper balls. Vehicles running into a crowd.

The result: officers shot by anarchists or just plain dickheads using brute force against civilians as an excuse, which makes everything worse.

The police have been less than honorable in every city where protests took place save one, Newark. What are they doing different?

Hitting kids over the head with riot sticks has nothing to do with law and order. It has everything to do with wanting to crack his fucking skull open.

In my life, I’ve seen and been the victim of things nobody should ever see or endure. But though I’ve been bitter about it, there wasn’t enough evil in me to act on it. Oh, when I thought about shooting my parents, I was well and truly capable. I would have been convicted of first degree murder, too. But I’d have saved my nephew from things I knew he was already having done to him. Cops kneeling on a man because he had a rap sheet until the guy dies isn’t done to save anyone.

It’s done out of racist hatred and a disregard for civil rights and the sanctity of life that chills my blood. Watching George Floyd die is to watch a part of your own soul break off and die. Seeing that cop with a hand in his pocket, squeezing the life out of Floyd and smirking is to watch a cold-blooded, first degree homicide. That’s exactly what it was, straight murder. Other officers watched. And it doesn’t matter that one said something. It doesn’t matter because they all stood around and watched a bully cop with a bad record commit murder. Now they’ve been photographed in orange, and they should get used to that color. Other cops are pissed. They’re striking out at people because a “brother officer” is “guilty of doing his job”.

Meanwhile, honorable police officers are lumped together as assholes and murderers. That’s not cool, but what’s less so is when someone says, “If you get a bad hamburger it doesn’t mean McDonald’s is bad.” Speaking about police officers to a crowd. That’s not the way to handle this. It’s degrading, simplistic and grossly condescending.

Trump, on the other hand, notorious for not wearing a mask, toured a plant where swabs for covid-19 tests were made. In there, he alone wasn’t wearing a mask. The entire batch made that day are confirmed as contaminated and we already did not have enough.

Then he claimed based on flawed numbers that the economy was doing great, and that George Floyd was looking down on him and smiling. African American jobs were up, he said. Which confirmed, if anyone had any doubts remaining, that Donald Trump is a racist idiot who is so self-serving and egotistical that he would actually talk like that while the nation was caught up in protesting the man’s murder, his family was grieving, and he was standing there mocking them and perfectly happy to risk more unemployment when the coronavirus spreads.

Covid-19 is not over, is not slowing, and will continue to spread. There won’t be any second surge in the fall; we’re already into June and there’s no reason to believe next month will automatically be free of COVID-19. That’s unreasonable, unrealistic and too close to Trump’s lies and delusion than anyone should be.

Fortunately I have just the man to properly explain all of this. If a comedian can’t be funny right now, it’s not because he’s not willing to try. It’s because laughing at this shit is unthinkable. He gets in a couple of jibes, but this is the most serious episode he’s ever done.

Colin Powell and others are now openly calling Trump a liar. Why the fuck did it take three and a half years?

Time To Run

Last night as I watched live coverage of the DC area riot, and trust me, that’s what it was, I saw this live as it happened. It’s not an isolated incident either; reporters were targets for police in a lot of areas. It seems to be spontaneous, done by officers who blame all of this on media broadcasting the video of George Floyd’s murder all over the world, which to the minds of some, must be what caused all of this: the fake news media. Which, of course, Trump has tweeted since this began, remarkably increasing the mantra over the usual frequent outbursts on Twitter and camera. On a phone call with governors today, he ranted and shamed them for not using more National Guard units and not using more force against protesters.

Let me make one thing very clear. It’s a bad time to be a cop. In New York, officers marched with protesters while one recklessly forced an NYPD vehicle into the crowd. They’re either targets no matter how good they are, or they’re counted as evil by wearing a badge because bad cops also wear badges. That said, Trump has been egging the violence from civilians on, stoked the furnace, and now calls for military troops to come in and fuck shit up.

He’s being himself; he got where he is because he is good at polarizing and dividing with a simple vocabulary and common rhetoric.

He’s still doing it and he will not stop. From claiming that paper ballots by mail are a danger to democracy to considering sending the 101st Airborne to quell what he sees as a threat to his power and reelection, he’s continuing his mission to take American people and putting them under the heel. He’s still backed by congressional Republicans who won’t stand up to him. It’s part blackmail; he gets the dirty on people then threatens them. The dirt is substantial, as it must be to have made them so pliant. For some, the revelation of their dirt would wind up with criminal cases and Barr would be licking his ass all the way. For others, families would be destroyed. There’d be damage to national security, and as proof that Trump doesn’t care about our country’s safety, I remind you that after his inauguration, a Russian eavesdropping ship was parked off the east coast for an unacceptable time when it shouldn’t have been allowed that close in the first place. He had a private oval office meeting with Russians and wouldn’t permit any media except TASS. How many more examples do people need to know he’s a criminal with a purely criminal mind?

None of the protesters who really want change are provoking the police. According to NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, their ranks have been infiltrated by anarchists and other fringe types, but mostly plain criminals of various ages. The crimes they’re going for is entering a store and using the cover of the crowds to get away with armloads of merchandise. The anarchist types are the ones flipping cars, setting fires and attacking police. There’s a slight blurring in there, as some angry people do get violent, and those aren’t restricted to any race. I get that; they’re angry beyond certain levels of control. But multiracial protesters are peacefully coming out to show that murder is simply unacceptable and that police murdering a black man over a fucking twenty dollar note cannot be tolerated, will not be tolerated.

This is a bad situation. Dire. We can witness the end of the United States of America and see it turned into something horrifying, or we can get our shit together and cause change.

At the heart of all this are several things converging at the worst possible time. First, the economy was bound to crash. No bull market had ever been sustained for so long, and I saw it with dread. The longer it lasted, the harder the fall would be. Indicators told keen economists that it was going to happen but their warnings were ignored. It took the COVID-19 pandemic to push us over the edge, and struggling businesses such as department stores have followed Sears: JC Penney has filed Chapter 11, and with the news being so concentrated on COVID-19 and now the social unrest, I can’t find much else. Suffice it to say that our economy is in the toilet. Now it will kill people who should not die. Crowds during this pandemic, whether masked or not, will unquestionably spread the disease. Within a week we will see either a suppression of COVID-19 numbers on the news, or a sharp spike. Either way, the spike will be there.

Let us not forget that during the stay-at-home months, Los Angeles was photographed with a crystal clear skyline. Geologists could hear the Earth for the first time in modern history with cutting edge tech. The cars weren’t moving. Factories went dark or slowed down. Not as many trucks ran because essential goods had priority. Stars could be seen in places where young people had never seen them. We saw what was possible in regards to climate change. And climate change is the uncredited player that makes everything worse. Without it, probably no COVID-19 pandemic ever happens. Infections peculiar to warmer temperatures have been observed.

There’s a super fungus that exploded in the world scene suddenly, and it’s one thing among others that have adapted to warmer temperatures. It’s believed that the fungus could not survive inside a human body because body temperature alone would kill it. Well the fungus survives body temperature now, and it is virtually untreatable.

COVID-19 may not have happened. Imagine that. One of the components to climate change predictions is supercanes, storms so powerful that they make every hurricane before it look like a thunderstorm. Another predicted component is super pandemics, and I have no reason to doubt that we ain’t seen nothin yet.

In the current pandemic chaos was already in play, but the murder of George Floyd was unbearable, and all I can do is hope that all of this won’t be in vain. Trump claims he won’t allow Floyd’s death to be in vain. But he has yet to express sympathy. He said he will use the regular Army to put down insurrection, a threat instead of a call for peace. For calm.

If that happens, kiss democracy goodbye. He will become a military dictator. No election in November.

Think it can’t happen?

Or are you in favor of it?

We’re in undiscovered territory. We’ve never been here before. You and I can’t see what will happen. We don’t know.

Donald Trump’s just become the greatest threat to this country in all its history.

He’s posing with a Bible in front of the church that burned last night. God damn the fake son of a bitch. The evangelicals will have orgasms over that shit. It all just got so much worse.

In Memory of All Those Whom The Celebrating Masses Are About To Murder

Missouri was never a place I dreamt about visiting. However, this bunch of morons tell me in one photograph that some of the people have no regard for human life. Not even their own. I don’t just blame Donnie Douchebag, either. The media constantly sends people mixed signals, and a lot of people don’t know how to process such chaos. Some don’t bother trying, and assume they know everything by listening to and reading online bullshit.

My God I have rarely seen such mass stupidity. This time there’s no Jim Jones mixing fruit punch, there’s no Heinrich Himmler or Reinhard Heydrich ordering entire divisions of military personnel to murder millions of civilians just because they’re Semitic. The world will always have madmen who are capable of getting people to do great evil.

And as pathetic as it is, there will always be people without need of leadership to get them to do the most moronic shit.

This time doesn’t fit those situations. Think of the photograph in the linked article as a bunch of parents having a chicken pox party for their children. Because it’s kind of on that level. It’s fucking sadistic and stupid. Oh, they know what they are doing.

But wait. Let’s not be unfair to fucking Missouri, which has a college football team that plays on blue AstroTurf so painful to look at that any televised game makes you want to gouge your eyes out. There’s enough stupid to go around. I’m sorry that I’m not shocked. I should be. COVID-19 is still every bit the threat it was. The news is confusing, yes. Statistics are confusing. Testing is confusing because there are two tests and both seem to have problems. The antibody test is still being argued over. The virus tests have given false negatives and false positives. The work continues to clarify, facts, and to perfect and produce everything used to inform us abd diagnose, treat and prevent coronavirus.

Nothing indicates that the need for social distancing has gone away. Nothing indicates that the use of masks is no longer needed. Indications are to the contrary: the spread of COVID-19 will increase exponentially in short order. Because morons want to swim and drink a fucking pitcher of margaritas. Cocktails with stupid dumbass fucking umbrellas sticking out of the glass. Fucking selfish on top of being historically stupid. They’ll study stupid shit like this in “History 101” a century from now.

I wonder how far up the spikes in different states will go. Because it’s not a question of whether the spikes will be there; when and how severe are the only questions right now.

All of these people (in or on the pools, balconies, living rooms, hot tubs, patios, bars and restaurants) should be immediately considered exposed.

And the tragic part isn’t that they’ll just infect each other. If they’re all that selfish and idiotic I can’t exactly care about that part. The tragedy is the spike will consist of everyone the partiers infect who didn’t take risks but will die. Elderly relatives, siblings with diabetes, co-workers, and more.

Sometimes I really want to die. It passes quickly enough, even though my depression and self-hatred remain interminably. But goddamn if I’m as sick as the people out in pools or sweating on beach towels without masking or distancing, or crammed into bars drinking to the “great coronavirus hoax”. Fuck all if I’m that sick.

A court of law will never try anyone for doing this shit. And no test can forensically prove who a person catches COVID-19 from. And contact tracing? Really? That was always a fucking joke. Now it’s completely out of question and I’ll break the TV with an office chair, I hear any more about it. Enough already.

But I know this: as true as all that may be, these people will get someone killed. That should be grounds for manslaughter charges.

I’m not kidding and it ain’t funny. Being an asshole and a selfish piece of shit are two different things. I know what people are doing. Buying all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer and alcohol including the prep pads.

But that is all for nothing if you’re not staying in. You’re just stupid and you’re taking risks with your own life and the lives of others. But you’re already decided. To you, there’s no risk at all.

I raise my glass of ice water to you as I sit here at home and say, “Fuck you.”

Cowards!

I’ve been a coward all my life. Afraid of bullies. Afraid of pain. Afraid of being embarrassed or humiliated. Afraid of being abandoned. Afraid of being sick. Afraid of loving someone because everyone I loved had hurt me. That last bit was true until I was about 14. That summer I worked with my neighbor Larry. He didn’t hurt me. And I miss him. My first true adult friend from a time when I was a cowardly little kid.

Fear is partially ingrained in our minds, our innate selves. The other parts we have to learn ourselves. I once burned a finger and though very little, I of course learned to fear fire and high heat. I learned even earlier to fear my father. I remember riding a tricycle and he wanted me to come up and sit on his lap. I cried. I seem to have cried pretty loud. Like screaming, until he let me down. You know how you get fear like that. Yes, you do.

Fear as a conditioned response and fear of ordinary things like the darkness of night are very different things. But the mechanisms in the response end up feeling exactly the same. Fear sucks, we hate it. Unless, of course, we can experience it in a controlled way. Like watching a horror movie, reading a Stephen King novel. And sometimes, even that’s too much. If the input causing the fear response becomes too intense, we are no longer in control. We put the book down and sleep with the lights on. We walk out of the theatre. It’s okay; it happens all the time. Hollywood has test screenings to see how audiences respond. From the responses, they may make additional cuts before releasing the film to theatres worldwide.

When the first print of the original King Kong was test screened, the scene where men fell into a chasm and were eaten by spiders caused people to get up and make for the exits in haste. That scene didn’t make it to the original theatrical release. It was later restored, and the Jack Black film has that scene, but on crack and steroids and shrooms. I guess things are different now.

The original Frankenstein with Boris Karloff has a scene where the monster is watching a little girl throw flowers onto the surface of a lake. They’re pretty flowers. So the monster, thinking the girl is pretty, picks her up and throws her into the water. She drowns. Test audiences found the scene too disturbing. It was cut and only years later, restored.

Fear causes other responses from the”fight or flight” reaction to trauma to anger, unreasoning and thirsty for revenge.

But fear is healthy most of the time. It keeps us safe. We check our own emotions and hold our tongues for fear of starting a fight, getting arrested, losing a friend. Proper fear is good.

And fear has nothing to do with cowardice. Being scared enough to avoid pain or run from a fight is actually a pretty brave thing. John Wayne defined courage as being scared to death but getting in the saddle anyway. Sometimes, though, the right thing to do is to not get up in the saddle. It’s down to judgement and perhaps something as arbitrary as how we feel, physically and mentally, at the time. If we’re not up to it, then that’s okay. Maybe we need help. Maybe, some time. Everyone is different. Fear remains the same.

HYSTERIA, STRESS, ANXIETY AND THEIR TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES

The one thing fear does, especially when coupled with a mental illness such as PTSD, that is not productive or desirable, is to cripple us. Everyday tasks, the most ordinary things, like going out to get the mail, become impossible. We’ve ceased to be afraid and we have become prisoners of anxiety and stress. It’s never good. Some can work through it; most will need treatment, such as drug and talk therapy. We need a support system and coping skills. We’ve learned behaviour that keeps us disabled. It is a bad place to be. Without treatment, people typically self-medicate, using illegal substances and alcohol. It’s tough to save them at that point, and you can beg someone to seek help, but they won’t do it unless they choose to do so.

But there’s another kind of abnormal fear, and often it is not seen for what it is. By the time anyone knows, something terrible has usually happened. Intense fear can only be tolerated for so long. The imperative becomes not quelling that fear, but acting on it. Instead of being a paralytic, it causes radical behavior fueled by anger. The need to stop the source of the thing causing that fear. The need for control.

I knew a man. His neighbor was a Holocaust survivor. Now, back then, in Pasadena, Maryland, and a few surrounding areas, Neo-Nazis were growing in number. They put flyers in mailboxes to recruit, and at the time this was not a hate crime in Maryland. They would also put anti-Semitic messages in the mailboxes of Jewish people. This man, he was old. He was old enough to have seen and to remember seeing the unimaginable. Stuff that even footage can’t convey. He would read these flyers, go inside his house, and get a baseball bat, come back out and beat his galvanized steel mailbox into an unrecognizable chunk of metal lying on the ground next to a steel pole.

I’d say that was a perfectly understandable and healthy response. Action from fear, action fueled by rage.

But what if people drift toward such responses when they are not healthy and not normal? That desire, that need to act, to end the fear and by immediate association helplessness, can take a horrific turn.

That’s when you get something like this. The article tells all there is to know, but make no mistake here; it should never have happened. How it ever became legal to bear arms in the capital building is beyond my ability to comprehend. But more to the point is, people’s fear of the COVID-19 virus had overloaded radicals who went into action out of anger. Their fear of catching or spreading the virus was gone. In its place, rage. Radical groups have a group mentality in the first place. Otherwise, no group. The scariest ones go “paramilitary” and buy all sorts of weapons, including assault weapons and handguns, and sure enough, many are owners of bunkers. You don’t even have to dig your own and line it with sandbags anymore. They’re sold, already made, ready for installation. They include air vents and a locking access hatch. They’ll customize almost any feature you can imagine.

I’ll grant you, the Michigan protesters are radicals already predisposed to a simmering mistrust of authority. And if measures are not taken, one of them will surely pull the trigger before this is over, initiating a firefight in which law enforcement and the radicals would both take casualties. Such a thing will not get anyone back to work, or get any mall reopened. It will be an event that can change the country in ways these radicals will not appreciate.

Being fair about it, I’d have to admit that the Michigan protesters are in no way representative of the majority here. But they’ve managed to prove two things.

The first is that they’re self-serving and wrongly feel entitled and use “civil rights” as a shield. They cannot tough it out with the rest of us. They’re cowards in the truest sense. Too cowardly to hang in there until we can see social distancing really work properly. Cowards. They cannot bear to do what the rest of us do, no matter how scared we are. Courage, said John Wayne, is being scared, but doing the right thing anyway.

The second thing these protesters did is more serious. They may not have broken the law when they entered the capital building armed. That’s true. But to do it in anger and cause the government workers inside to don bulletproof vests, and fear for their lives, is terrorism.

We’re all worried. Scared. We’ve been traumatized by untimely unfair deaths. We’ve lost jobs. It’s a disaster.

I wake up from nightmares you can’t imagine and realize my kids are dead and I’m all alone. But I live with my bipolar and my PTSD and I take my meds and I care so much about other people that my problems vanish on hearing someone else’s story. So I ask: are you as tough as I am? Can you hang with me? Can you do better than I can? Or are you going to admit to yourself, and prove to the world, that you’re really just a fucking coward with a gun who needs to scare the shit out of others to feel like you’re in control?

You choose.