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Rest In Peace -United States of America

Rest In Peace
United States of America
July 4, 1776 – January 20, 2025
“Even God could not save her from the religious.”

There needs to be some serious soul searching amongst the denizens of this country.  There was no sane, moral or ethical reason for having voted for the chimera that is Donald J. Trump, especially this time around, as his psychopathy had been on full display for years.

If you voted for him because your religion is preaching an Armageddon / Second Coming of Christ fantasy, and he is the the agent that God will use to fulfill those end days delusions, you need to apply critical thinking skills to what they are  spewing from the pulpits and to religion in general.  But then again, it seems to me, the only way for people to be religious is to forego thinking critically about it.  With the Evangelicals embracingTrump as they have, faith has become a four letter word in my book.

God save us from the religious.

For the first time in my life I am truly afraid, afraid of future, afraid of what this country is becoming, afraid of many of my fellow citizens, afraid of what DJT and his ilk are going to do to this world. The only bright spot I can see in this cluster f*** is that I will not be around much longer to witness it.

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Trump’s $90 Bribe Sent to Fredrick Wellman, Democrat Running for US Congress

The $90 bribe(ostensibly sent to help with Medicare cost) from the Enshittificator-in-chief was just donated to Fredrick Wellman, Democratic candidate for the 2nd Congressional District in Missouri.

The district we live in is very conservative.  It has a history of sending some of the worst Republicans to Congress.  The current US Representative is Ann Wagner, who, IMHO, never has had an original thought, never deviates from the Republican talking points, and is absolutely the wrong person for the job.  She is an adamant climate denier and anti-abortionist.

However, she is indirectly responsible for the tag line Continue reading “Trump’s $90 Bribe Sent to Fredrick Wellman, Democrat Running for US Congress”

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What To Do with Trump’s $90 bribe

There is an old Johnny Carson joke about an elderly gentleman and a sweet young thing (SYT).

The elderly gentleman asks the SYT, “would you sleep with me for a million dollars?”

The SYT replies, “sure, why not?”

Then the elderly gentleman asks, “would you sleep with me for a dollar?”

“Heck, no,” said the SYT, “what do you think I am?”

The elderly gentleman replies, “we have established that, now we are just haggling over the price.”

Apparently the Enshittificator-in-chief aka tRump thinks Continue reading “What To Do with Trump’s $90 bribe”

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A Small Delight

I received a text this fine a.m. from someone purporting to be Trump.  It might well have been some sort of political garbage from him, who knows these days.

It started out:

THIS IS PRESIDENT TRUMP

I need to ask David something personal.

Will you stand with me if…

Then it had a link.

Well, obviously I did not click the link.  Instead I went to the menu and selected “Report as Spam and Block”.

Doing so gave me much more pleasure than any effect my reporting and blocking the Enshittificator-in-chief might have on this out-of-whack universe.  However, a wise bear once told me, “take your pleasures where you can.”

Then, lo and behold, I receive a second text from someone purporting to be Don Jr.  It starts out:

It’s Don Jr. My father and I need you to do one thing: update your voter verification record. David — then it gave a link.

Another report and block, but this second action did not give near the same pleasure as the first.

If only I could report and block them in real life… whatever that is.

And so it should not be.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,683

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

Okay, this is not so much a random thought, but more of an interesting/strange fact that I came across while watching a Great Courses offerings,  How the Earth Works. The earth oscillates much like a struck bell. And the earth is continuing being struck by earth quakes, the movement of tectonic plates, the movement of magma, etc. which causes this oscillation.

The fact that I found interesting is that it oscillates at a note of E, 20 octaves below middle E on a piano.  Much too low to be heard by human ears, and, most likely, any biological ear.  Now you know, the note of the earth is an E.  So, if you are lost in space, just set your craft to hone in on this E, and you will be home before you know it… okay that was a random thought.

And that, my friends, is my two bits for the this day, the 273rd day of 2026.

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Pulp Fiction Wisdom

The quote below is from a Travis McGee novel by John D. MacDonald, The Green Ripper. It occurs towards the end of the novel after a series of devastating events left the protagonist questioning the very meaning of existence. For some of us a daily occurrence, but for our knight errant, it was a much deeper hole that he had fallen into much too often.

It had taken most of the five months to finish the job of sorting
myself out. Meyer had put me on the right track. I didn’t know
what he had meant when he said to me, “Not one of us ever
grows up to be what he intended to be. Not one of us fulfills his
own expectations, Travis. We are all our own children, in that
sense. At some point, somewhere, we have to stop making
demands.”

On initially encountering this philosophy in a Continue reading “Pulp Fiction Wisdom”

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Synopsis of My Love Life

Not exactly, but a close synopsis over several of my “love affairs”… for lack of a better phrase.  Of course, you would need to leave out the part, “going to become one hell of a man.”

The quote below is from a Travis McGee novel by John D. MacDonald, The Green Ripper. It was an older Travis McGee remembering a 16 year old Travis and his summer with an older woman of 24, perfectly acceptable in the 50s and 60s as long as they were discreet.  It is hard to pin down a time line for Travis McGee as MacDonald wrote the 21 books in the series over a 20 year span, and MacDonald was always trying to stay topical for the time the book was to be published.

“…I was in love with her, of course. I could not stand the thought of the summer ending. I told her I loved her, and I was going to come to New York to be close to her.

I will always remember the way she cupped both hands on my
face and looked deeply into my eyes. “Travis, you are a very very
sweet boy, and you are going to become one hell of a man. But if
I ever find you outside my apartment door, I am going to have
the doorman throw you out on your ass. We can end it right now
or next week, whichever you choose. But end it we will, boyo,
with no loose ends. No letters, no phone calls, no visits. Ever.”

And that’s how it was.”

Just saying!

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5787.264

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

I was in the kitchen when Señora came downstairs and found me, saying, “The bathroom scale is making some funny numbers.”

“Funny how?” I quizzed.

“I just need to show you,” she replied.

Following her up the stairs toward the master bathroom it dawned on me Continue reading “Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5787.264”

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Paul Krugman and I – Buds?

Well, not really.

We run in much different circles, and Paul Krugman is intellectually light-years beyond me. However, we seem to share some common interests.  Did I mention that I took two economics classes in college? A lot of the music he posts as a coda to his newsletter is my type music.  And now I discover that he reads science fiction, and has an ambivalent position on reading it.  I only slightly blush when I confess that my guilty pleasure is reading pulp detective and science fiction novels.  Krugman’s comment on this predilection  at an economic conference in Europe was, “And the answer is, well, I don’t know if I’m ashamed or not, but I do read science fiction.”

He then went on give a brief synopsis of one my  favorite novels of any genre, Dune:

“But the premise of the novel is that there’s this planet, Arrakis, which is the sole source of something called spice, which is essential to the galactic economy. And so everything relies upon it. And so basically Arrakis is the Strait of Hormuz with giant sandworms. It is really very much relevant to current issues. By the way, the struggle for control of the spice leads initially to weaponized interdependence and eventually to outright war, which is kind of where we want to probably end today’s talk.”

Followed by a quote by one of the characters in the novel Paul Atreides:

“He who can destroy a thing, controls the thing.”

I will confess that I did not read the whole talk as it is very long.  The parts relating to Dune are only a few paragraphs into transcript.

But having said that, here is a link to the transcript of his talk at the conference: Economic Size and Economic Power

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Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven Deadly Sins

Here is a little something for you to ruminate on this 262nd day of 2026 with 45 days to go until the most momentous election of our life…

Seven Deadly Sins per Mahatma Gandhi:

    1. Wealth Without Work
    2. Pleasure Without Conscience
    3. Knowledge Without Character
    4. Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics)
    5. Science Without Humanity
    6. Religion Without Sacrifice
    7. Politics Without Principle

If only…

Just the list itself is plenty to ruminate on, and I will not bore you with my puerile (this seems to be my word of late) commentary.

However, here is a link to an article on mkgandhi.org/ that does a bang up job: SEVEN DEADLY SINS As per Mahatma Gandhi

This particular commentary is based on Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which is more a business management book than a philosophical work. I remember going through a Stephen Covey corporate training on the seven habits.  I cannot say a lot stuck, but I will take good information where I find it.

Thinking about it a little more I can see some overlap between Gandhi’s proscriptions and Buddha’s 8 Fold Path, advice on how to live:

    1. Right view
    2. Right thought
    3. Right speech
    4. Right boundary of actions
    5. Right livelihood
    6. Right effort
    7. Right mindfulness
    8. Right absorbed concentration

The trouble with humanity is that at one level we all know the way to act that is best for us  and for our fellow man, but we let greed, fear and lust – for many things – dominate.

If only…

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Vanity Plate for the Day – L’BWSKI

Vanity Plate of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one in the wild that I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  When I was commuting from my home to downtown St. Louis and back, I was spending anywhere from an hour and half to two hours daily in rush hour traffic. I used the exercise of deciphering vanity plates to help pass the time… plus sometimes they are very clever and worth sharing.

This is in all likelihood referring to the cult classic, one of my favorite movies, The Big Lebowski.  Another one I wish I had thought of.

It was on the back of white Toyota Corolla.

To see more Vanity Plates of the Day use this link: Vanity Plates of the Day

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