I suppose, were things different, I could vote for a misogynistic, bigoted, toxic narcissistic, serial-lying sociopath, but he’d have to be much better looking—and considerably smarter—than Donald Trump.
Tag Archives: Trump
MAGA? Yeah, Right!
Over the last few years I’ve spent most of my social media time on Facebook, with Twitter fairly close behind. My goal on both is to attempt to inform, entertain, and educate others on things I think are important, like politics, the economy, society, religion, and numerous other things I think are valuable to be informed about.
I will freely admit to being highly partisan; in these perilous times I would suggest it’s impossible not to be, given the stakes . . . our freedom, the lives of immigrant children, western democracy.
This blog, however, has remained a place for me to share my thoughts about what’s particularly important to me. Yet I seem to have had trouble filling this location with much content, considering how long I’ve been blogging and how (relatively) few pieces I’ve actually published. This is especially true in light of the fact I frequently post to FB more than a dozen times on any given day; more if there’s a lot going on, less if I’m busy elsewhere.
I’m changing that. In fact, I’ve been changing it for the past couple of weeks. For most of the last year and a half I have been concentrating on my position as Business Manager for Quantellia, LLC and not paying any attention to this blog. I’m not posting as many as four times a day and, actually, believe I will be posting even more frequently. Most of these will be fairly short, but I will still write some longer posts, especially since I’m gathering my thoughts for a book.
So, here’s a meme—actually, I prefer to think of it as a work of art—I encountered on Facebook. The person who posted it where I found it pointed out how the artist used the shadow of the child’s hand to create an Adolphian mustache on the Tangerine Tyrant. It’s him, dontcha think?
Concentrating on the Border | The Weekly Sift
Testing a bit of WordPress’s functionality; in this case, the “Press This” widget I installed in Firefox that allows me to share just about anything. Here’s a blog post shared by a friend of mine on Facebook, whose judgment I trust more than most. At least, in terms of her politics, historical and contextual understanding, and her humanity.
With respect to historical and contextual understanding, as well as (perhaps, most especially wrt) humanity, I would argue the Trump administration possesses none of these admirable qualities.
Additionally, what comes across loud and clear is that most of the media is fucking clueless. Their quest for clicks and profit has made it impossible for the majority of them to pay attention to what’s really happening or to help do something about atrocities such as this. Link to the full post at the bottom.
This week America’s talking heads argued about a label: Should the places where the Trump administration is detaining immigrants be called “concentration camps”? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used the term (she wasn’t the first), and then pundits inside the Fox News bubble began demanding she apologize: to Trump, to Jews, to history, and so on.
As so often happens, the perpetrator became the victim. The media hasn’t devoted nearly as much time to the real victims — the immigrants (many of them asylum-seekers who have followed the law and done nothing wrong) being herded into camps of dubious safety and hygiene — as they have to the Trumpists howling with outrage. Instead of “What is happening on the border?” our focus has been on “Is it fair to call them concentration camps?”
I will not get snarky about this, because Alexandra Petri has already done that very well. (“If we do not use the right words for this, we might think that something terrible was happening.”) But I will point out that we had a very similar debate (including some of the same people, i.e., Liz Cheney) during the Bush administration: Should “enhanced interrogation” techniques (water-boarding, beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme heat and cold — sometimes resulting in death) count as torture. Instead of discussing exactly what our country was doing to people we had captured, we argued about a word. Those who felt injured by that word often got more sympathy than the people they were (or were not) torturing.
For The Little Man
preferably in some Federal Correctional Facility.
Yes . . . and Nancy Best Get Crackin’
I just came across this tweet from Teh Donald™, which I’m quite sure is part of the collection of tweets where he has previously said something about someone else (usually Obama) that is actually applicable to his presidency. Donald John Trump has severely wounded irony and satire. It remains to be seen if we’ll ever recover a normal, decent sense of humor.
I’m also (not sure this is the right word) “pleased” to see this very special one was originally born on my 67th birthday and will now follow me all the days of my life . . . which are far fewer than they were even then.
Prayer For The Pissant
In response to Franklin Graham’s call for prayer for Donny 2Scoops, I offer the following, inspired by the accompanying cartoon.
Here’s my prayer for Trump today:
Oh, God! Please make it so. Then tie him up, attach an anchor, and hoist him overboard. That’s my plea, Lord.
(R)amen.
The Nothingburger Memo And Disappointment
After a couple weeks of breathless anticipation, endlessly hyped by Trump TV . . . er . . . Fox News, the ballyhooed Nunes memo was finally released, creating a giant thud as it fell flat on its face. After all the buildup and breathless hyperbolating over it being set to expose the worst scandal in United States history, it was a real let down, though you wouldn’t know that by the response of the Knucklehead-in-Chief or his band of merry sycophants.
As I have mentioned before, I’ve been spending time learning how to use Photoshop to create my own renditions of the news or other things that catch my fancy. I’ve got two of them related to this debacle. One I created is based on an earlier “confrontation” where something Mueller had done was written off by the right as a “nothingburger”. I’m afraid I can’t quite remember what that something was, but I obviously reacted to it. I didn’t do much; merely found a great shot of a hamburguesa tremenda, then added some words.
The second one took a bit more work as I had to create a series of layer masks to represent what I envisioned. Generally, I put these together, then post them to Facebook and, at times, to Twitter as well. I’m working on remembering to post them here too.
Here they are, with added captions.
Wrap Your Mouth Around This Puppy
Jerky is Such a Disappointment When You’re Expecting a Thick, Juicy Steak
Cheetolini Hard at Work
As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I’m teaching myself Photoshop. As far as I can tell, one of the most important things to understand and use is layers. This is one of my first creations where I was beginning to understand how to use layers to change pictures in both large and small ways.
May years ago I worked at a silk screen shop. Silk screening required the creation of (as I recall) four separate screens (layers) in order to create the colors of whatever poster was being printed. Those colors were the primary ones: Red, blue, and yellow . . . as well as black. If the poster called for orange, then the area to be that color was open on both the red and the yellow screens. Same thing for green, purple, brown, etc.
The thing I remember most about working there (I was in my very early twenties) was coming home higher than a kite at times. This was because we used a lot of toluene as a solvent for creating and cleaning the screens. There were days when I breathed in a lot of that stuff. There were no requirements to wear masks and I don’t think there were many, if any, regulations in place regarding adequate ventilation, etc. Now that I think about it, it’s a wonder I can recall anything about that job. I did enjoy the work, though.
So here’s an early picture I ginned up using PS. It consists of seven layers:
Where’s My Phone? I Need My Phone!
America The Not So Beautiful
I believe I wrote this (see below) during the administration of George W. Bush who, at the time, I thought was the worst President I had lived through. Harry S. Truman was POTUS when I was born (1947) but the first I remember is Ike (Dwight D. Eisenhower). With the election of Donald J. Trump, I have lived through 13 presidencies, most of them two-termers.
Now that I’ve figured that out, and despite not being superstitious, I can’t help but note that Trump is number 13 and, were I triskaidekaphobic, that reality (a difficult word to use in the Drumpf era, no?) would be significant. In this case, I consider it amusing, but entirely random.
At any rate, inasmuch as I’ve begun using this space to share some of my other work from different venues and applications, I have some old poetry and the like I will no doubt put up on occasion. Some of what I’ve written (and bothered to keep over the years) is not what I would consider complete, as I sometimes just jot stuff down as it occurs to me and often don’t actually spend the time completely fleshing it out.
One day I guess I was thinking of the song “America The Beautiful”, as I’m wont to do at times, since I love to sing and patriotic songs — as well as religious ones — are often particularly beautiful. It doesn’t mean I believe in them, at least not any longer . . . and not for a long time, but they’re pleasing to the ear musically, if not lyrically. So here’s a verse of that song, as rewritten by me at least 10, more likely 15, years ago.
Oh beautiful for specious lies
That shelter capital gains
For the poor and elderly
Who endure financial strainsAmerica, America
Your God damned lies I see
Have replaced thy good with two-bit hoods
And political chicanery
I’ve known for a long time the reality of what this country stands for is far from what most of us were led to believe (read “brainwashed”), but I still feel it’s important to think of those things as aspirational. As Robert F. Kennedy said “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
I wish this truly were the greatest nation on the planet, but it’s not. If you think about it, I don’t believe there is such a thing. Different nations lead in different areas of government, economy, and society. There isn’t one that truly stands out as “the greatest”. We can leave that to Muhammed Ali, who really was just that. 😉
Triple Blast From The Past!
I have been learning Photoshop for a while now and, although I’m not doing much of anything constructive with it, I do like to play around and give a little substance to some of my thoughts and ideas. Most of what I’ve done has been shared on Facebook, which has been my primary conduit to the world, along with this blog.
However, I think it’s time I started sharing my work, if only as a way to preserve it a little better than Facebook does. Usually, I’m thinking about making a statement and using PS to do it. Here’s one I posted today, with the comment “Triple blast from the past! Three memorable alticons deliciously blended into one. 
Good for . . . nothing.
I should also point out that, for the past two months I’ve been posting on Facebook on behalf of the Simi Valley Tourism Alliance, and I’ve felt it necessary to use PS several times to create useful graphics to include on some of these posts. This was especially true because, even though I specified in my proposal to them that members of the Alliance would be responsible for providing much of the content, that has yet to happen and I’ve been required to create almost all of it. It’s not difficult . . . but it most definitely is time consuming.
PS – I was in a hurry on this one, so didn’t take the requisite time I would have needed to change those “F”s in “P”s. Nevertheless, I think it makes the point I wished to make.
Systems Savvy 