Month: September 2025

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The great thing about being a reader is that you discover that there are a lot of people that think like you. It is a relief to know that there are others who have the same thoughts and you are not alone in the world.

This is also a very bad thing for me as a writer. Writing is something painful for me. It takes me awhile to be satisfied with what I’ve written and I will reread and edit numerous times before I am happy with it. Inevitably when I think I have written something particularly brilliant I immediately read someone who saying exactly the same thing except maybe better and certainly faster.

This discovery is disappointing for me because I think I have this original idea and I have put it all down so the world can see it and then I learn that the world has already seen it and has know about it for some time. Somebody else got to it first.

It has all been said before which has actually been said before too. Damn.

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One of the more telling aspects of both parties trying to gerrymander the electoral maps in states where they are the dominant party is that it sounds like both parties have given up on winning over enough members of the other party for a big win. Both parties prefer to rig the system where they can. Then they will rile their base and pick off enough undecideds to win a slim majority. Not a terribly confident strategy nor very promising strategy in getting things done.

It means that the nation is stuck in deadlock. The only way to make things happen is for people who don’t care about our political process and will ram their agenda through using extra-Constitutional methods — like Trump. Trump isn’t the problem. He is a symptom of a greater problem. The system is no longer working as it should. Changing the system, thanks to our clever forefathers, is nearly impossible without a supra majority.

To end this stalemate and hopefully save democratic institutions (or if you prefer republican ones), the country needs a modicum of co-operation between the two parties in order to make this happen. I just don’t see that happening in the present political circumstances.

It is all very depressing.

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I once was talking about reparations for the families of ex-slaves with a woman who finally had enough of me. Now here is the thing I doubt that reparations will be instituted anytime soon. The American public is too tax averse and the subject is too controversial to get anywhere near congressional passage. Even though it is unlikely to happen, there is a pretty reasonable case to be made for giving reparations.

So the woman I was arguing with finally stumped when she asked, “why should I pay for the sins of my father?” I didn’t have an answer at the time but I do now.

This same woman gets all weepy when speaking about all the good America has done. She visited Normandy Beach to see where D Day was fought. She had justifiable pride in those soldiers sacrifice. She believes she benefited enormously from her American heritage. She owed something to the forefathers for the sacrifices they made.

Well, then, doesn’t she also owe something to the victims of her ancestors mistakes. It is terribly easy to claim American heritage when it is doing good. But let’s face it, it didn’t always do good.

My mother’s family were some of the original settlers of my home state of Kansas. Presumably, they took their land from the indigenous people who roamed the plains prior to their arrival. Now I certainly don’t approve of forcing people from their land. On the other hand I have benefited greatly from their actions even though I committed no crime.

Might makes right. The bottom line is that the native population was, through a combination of trickery and force, removed from their land. My ancestors then took advantage of it. If I am proud of what they built and I also need to acknowledge the damage they did to the native population. History cuts both ways.

Getting back to the reparations debate. There is no clear cut dividing line when racism ended. Indeed it lingers on to this day but let’s use the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a dividing line. Before 1964, then, discrimination was legal. What did my ancestors do to prior to 1964 to ensure that Blacks had civil rights. Precious little, I am afraid.

Now these are ancestors that I actually remember not some distant myth of an ancestor. These are grandparents and parents. I am innocent of any crime but my ancestors sat idly by while something terrible was happening.

Which brings me to Trump trying to sanitize slavery by removing a picture of a whipped slave from the National Park system. Trump is concerned that this type of photo gives a negative view of our history and “distorts understanding rather than enrich(es) it.” This is an actual photograph. There is no argument about that. Trump is afraid that people will learn that actual flesh and blood human beings whipped this mans back until it was a mess of scars.

What? Seriously, what? What misunderstanding is Trump worried about? What is gained by removing this photograph? We don’t have to think of our ancestors doing horrible things in order to keep slaves? The problem with wanting to worship our ancestors is that our ancestors were human beings not saints. Sanitizing history doesn’t change it and it actually makes the Civil War more confusing. Why did so many people die to stop slavery when the slave owners were so nice and the slaves so happy?

And this is why reparations are useful. It would be a price that living Americans would pay for the mistakes of their ancestors. It might make, and might is the operative word here, people realizes that at one point in our history we behaved terribly to our fellow human beings and that is important.

Of course, it will never happen but the least we can do now is fight to show the brutality of slavery. A very small price indeed.

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“Some Like it Hot” is a song I like that I lost track of. For some reason, I stopped listening to it. I have a habit of listening to a song I like until I am sick of it and then stop listening to it again for a very long time. I think this is what happened here because I certainly enjoyed listening to it again when I stumbled across it the other day.

The only thing I have a quibble about is some rather inane and juvenile lyrics which I find easy to forgive for the following reasons:

  1. The drums. There is some pretty intense and powerful drum playing – particularly at the beginning of the song. A solo drum start which gives the song a primal sound that brought me into the song and continues to pound throughout the song.
  2. Robert Palmer. I have to confess I have very few star crushes but Robert Palmer is one of them. His voice has a sexy pitch that it is difficult to define — masculine and playful — not exactly the words I am looking for but as close as I can get right now. He means to seduce you but he is also assuring you that it will be a lot of fun all the same. It’s weird. It could just be an irrational response to a man who gets my pheromones going. Whatever the explanation, I like Robert Palmer.
  3. Brass. I like horns in a band. Except for the tuba, brass instruments are easy to carry. A small band could certainly throw in a trumpet into the trunk of a car as easily as a guitar case so its absence in rock bands is a mystery to me. In this song’s case, the brass adds powerfully to the sexiness of the sound.
  4. It is entertaining which I think all any piece of art has to do. I enjoyed listening to it.

Here is a link if you want to give it a try. Some like it hot, I know I do. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

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This equivalence debate surrounding the Charlie Kirk murder bores the shit out of me. You guys said horrible things after Charlie Kirk was murdered. Well, Charlie Kirk said these horrible thing first and that was worse. And, by the way, your mother wears army boots. It is childish and meaningless. This back and forth of who said horrible things about who is impossibly long and never complete. So trying to pinpoint where this all started is a fool’s errand. No one will be happy with the other side’s starting point.

The takeaway from this back and forth is that you are responsible for what you say. This means you might think twice before opening your mouth to say something nasty about someone you don’t like. But, if, instead, you want to determine who started it, by all means, take all the time you want. I am sure some Biblical scholar could take this back to Cain and Able. That will be so very helpful in resolving the present crisis.

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Unless someone can provide evidence to support some criminal conspiracy was afoot, the only person who deserves blame for the murder of Charlie Kirk is Tyler Robinson who is accused of shooting him. It is important to emphasize accused because, at this point, we, and by we I mean the public, the press and the pundits, know very little to ascertain anything.

This, of course, doesn’t stop anyone from speculating. There is all this finger pointing. The shooter was Trans. The shooter was left wing. The shooter was a Mormon. The shooter came from a MAGA family. The shooter was a white man. All of these may be true but none of these groups bear any responsibility in the shooting.

Charlie Kirk fans want revenge. Against who exactly? Saying you don’t like someone or his politics and wishing them dead is not a crime. It is akin to someone in a fit of anger saying I could kill him. The important thing is they didn’t. It was a feeling that wasn’t put into action. There is nothing wrong with that and I don’t see the point of pursuing a vendetta against anyone who did. Poor taste isn’t a crime and, by all means, feel free to point out the bad taste but that is about all anyone should do about that.

Jimmy Kimmel eluded to some vague connection of the accused being a white man with a wink wink and nudge nudge, like this is supposed to mean something. I am a white man, Jimmy Kimmel is a white man, is he saying that white men are prone to murder? It is as ridiculous of a statement as the Texas congressman who wants to take Trans people off the street because a few of them have been involved in some highly visible crimes. We no more can take Trans people off the street than we can take White men off the street. These are meaningless bits of information that tell us absolutely nothing about what happened.

Here is a time when speculation is particularly dangerous. Charlie Kirk was a controversial figure. Some people are angry that he was murdered and others blame him for his contributions to a poisonous political environment. Pulling these meaningless facts out as if they mean something is pouring more fuel on an already burning fire. Now is a very good time to keep your mouth shut until you know more and then, and only then, punish the man who actually pulled the trigger instead of a group who might share some identification with the shooter.

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First it is important to know that I hate the color orange. It hurts my eyes every time I see it. So the above shirt had one strike against it to begin with. But, upon closer inspection, it just gets worse. Orange, as I have said, is a problem for me but the combination of green, white and orange is ghastly. Then the patterns are inconsistent in a way that makes the shirt look poorly put together. You have orange line running down the left side of the shirt surrounded by squares, except for the one section where the buttons are which looks like a sideways Utah and gives the appearance of being wonky and amateurish. This is a horrible looking shirt that I can only see senior golfers wearing when the nicer shirts are at the bottom of the dirty cloths basket. A definite no from me.

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I am going through songs that I like and trying to understand my taste. Depeche Mode keeps coming up for me as a top group and one of my favorite songs of their’s is “You Should be Higher.” It remains true to the original album version while also being better. For me, very rarely is the live version better than the album and this is one of those times. Dave Gahan is a remarkable performer, easily dancing across the stage while also singing up a storm. He is both entertaining and thoughtful.

I even liked the light show which I usually find distracting but found this one supports the song and is interesting to watch while not overwhelming the band’s performance.

The lyrics are mix of cynicism and wistful longing for something better. I particularly like the phrase “your lies are more attractive than the truth.” Truer words, given the present world situation, have never been spoken and perhaps the root of our problems.

Give it a listen.

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I can’t get over how often things I read on the internet are wrong. I have learned my lesson the hard way. I check everything out now because it happens so often. Even if I want it to be true, I check it out. Unless, of course, it is funny and then I pass on without further clarification.

So yesterday I read the following post in Instapundit, a conservative/libertarian site, with a bit of skepticism:

How could 1 million people march in London? That’s 10 percent of the population of central London. The number looked suspicious to me. So I checked new sources who give a significantly lower number of between 110,000 and 150,000 people. This is still a pretty large number of people but off by 850,000. I was going to write about this but decided it could wait until tomorrow.

To my surprise, today Instapundit is reporting 3,000,000 marchers:

So I checked newspapers and the Independent is still using the 110,000 to 150,000 number. Which sounds about right. Think about 3,000,000 people in the streets around Whitehall. It was difficult enough to get 150,000 in there much less 3,000,000.

What bothers me is that the actual number, which is quite impressive, isn’t good enough. Why lie about it? And why lie with such a patently unbelievable numbers. And if you will lie about this, what else will you lie about? It undermines anything you have to say to me because if you lie to me once I can guarantee I will be checking you out every single time you try to use numbers to convince me.

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A few months back I read an advice columnist on Slate that shook me. I wanted to say something about but what exactly I wanted to say was still coalescing. The shooting of Charlie Kirk reminded of this column and what I wanted to say.

A bride had asked a friend to wear a piece of clothing that would piss off the bride’s MAGA loving in-laws. At the time, I thought why would anyone want to deliberately piss off their new in-laws and his family. On her wedding day no less. The bride said that the new in-laws were constantly disrespecting her and her fiance never supported her.

First, and most importantly, this marriage sounds doomed and not because of politics either. This woman expects support from her man and isn’t getting it. So pissing off his family is going to change this how? If he doesn’t support you now, while he is still in the wooing stage of the relationship, what makes her think he is going to get better at it after a brawl at her wedding. He has shown his character and she is on her own with his relatives.

Then, there is a big difference between people bringing up their politics independently of your prompting and you waving a red cape at them and expecting them to sit quietly while you taunt them. Maybe you would get along better with your MAGA loving in-laws if you didn’t try to piss them off. I know it is a stretch but maybe give it a try.

I have a strategy that works every time I am with people whose politics I disagree with. I avoid politics altogether. We can chat endlessly about the weather, sports, movies, children, and so forth as long as we tip toe around politics. Which is a surprisingly easy strategy and almost always successful. If politics does come up, I have found saying something like “I don’t think we agree on politics so maybe lets not talk about it” works well to defuse the situation. I have found people, on the whole, prefer civil conversations as opposed to knock out drag out quarrels over Donald Trump.

Which brings me to Charlie Kirk. So many people want to both acknowledge the wrongness of his assassination and still make a point about how horrible a person he was. You really don’t have to say he was horrible person. It is irrelevant to the present situation. All you need to say is nobody should be shot for what they say and I am sorry his family has to suffer through this. Then do the easiest thing of all keep your God Damn mouth shut.

There is a time for political quarrels. This isn’t the time. You may have a lot to say about Charlie Kirk’s politics. It will keep and you can raise it again when the time arises.