Month: June 2026

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I have always taken pretty good care of my body. The underlying hope from all this care was that my body will get in shape. I will look and feel better from the effort.

I have reached an age (68) where I realize that no matter how hard I try that my body isn’t going to get better. The best I can hope for is maintaining what I have. I am beyond improvement. Indeed, chances are it will get worse and there is very little I can do about it.

Maybe some plastic surgery could buff up the exterior but I am afraid I’ve waited too long to get much benefit from it. Why go through a tummy tuck or a face lift and then drop dead the next day? If I am going to spend plastic surgery kind of money, I want to get plastic surgery kind of bang for my buck. So that ship has sailed.

I am trying not to be depressed about it because this is one of the many sad realizations you have as you get older. In the past I could look 20 years into the future and see a future. Now I think 88, there is a good chance I will be six feet under or spread across the Pacific Ocean (still haven’t decided yet).

There is no future really. Age forces you, at some point, to live in the moment. I don’t put things off any more. Things like saving money for retirement. Well, I am retired. What am I waiting for. Spend the fucking money now while I still can get some pleasure out of it.

Age is letting go of what you were. It is sad but also liberating. Fuck them. The good news for the rest of the world is that I don’t have a lot of energy for causing too much trouble. I won’t be leaping in and out of people’s beds, driving cars too fast, or robbing banks. Mostly I will just be a grumpy old man. But, on that, I can guarantee, so watch out.

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Ken Paxton, notoriously bad Christian and Republican candidate for the US Senate, caught again breaking one of the Ten Commandments.

I know he was a keen advocate for having them posted in Texas schools so that children know their importance as a basis for American Law. They are also a good guide in regulating personal behavior. Perhaps he should post them in his bedroom. He clearly needs a reminder.

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Texas wants to teach the Bible in public schools. I am so tired of this. Republicans are trying to leverage this as an issue because Democrats would likely oppose this and the Republicans can shriek about the anti-Christian Democrats.

They hold this very strange belief that just reading Bible stories will make children Christians. Well, I am sorry to break it to them but I am living proof that it will not. One of the great disappointments of my parents’ lives is the extra money they paid to give their five children a Catholic education and they got exactly zero Catholics in the bargain. Zero Catholics with 12 years of Catholic education.

Catholic education also had the advantage, at least as far as the Church saw it, of putting their lessons in context to a much larger Catholic belief system. The story alone is a story. The story with an explanation of what this means to Bible believing Christians is something completely different and impossible to tell because no two Christians believe exactly the same thing.

The Texas School system will be unable to do much in the way of incorporating these stories into a belief system because once they try to do that they will have Christians arguing among themselves about Christian doctrine. And that is when the real trouble will begin as any one conversant with European History knows — Christians like nothing more than to spill blood over Christian Doctrine. This is the very trouble, by the way, that our founding fathers wanted to avoid.

So, go ahead, read your damn Bible stories. I am sure it will have little effect on the thousands of kids staring out the window wondering what the cafeteria is serving for lunch.

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One of the more mystifying things about sex is we expect 13 year olds to make the right decisions when 40 year old adults are still making bad decisions about sex.

I came out in the midst of the AIDS crisis. At the time, getting HIV was a death sentence. I knew it. I knew I needed to take precautions if I wanted to have sex. I also remember that sometimes I screwed up and had unsafe sex anyway. I was in my early 30’s at the time. Way to old to being making a mistake like that, but I still, embarrassingly, did.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone here, makes mistakes. It is a normal part of life. Some of these mistakes, say lending a friend a hundred dollars who promises to pay you back on pay day, are sad lessons but not particularly life altering. Pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are.

Given the siren call of sex, making a mistake about sex is pretty much par for the course for most people. Sex is mighty tempting and the chances that you will make the right decision 100% of the time is fairly remote. People make mistakes.

Which leads me to this idea that allowing a young woman to have birth control is giving her permission to have sex. Maybe. The trouble is she doesn’t need your permission to have sex. The decision to have or not have sex is in her hands. The idea that she will never give into temptation is wishful thinking at best.

Christian doctrine will save her. Probably not. I went to Catholic schools for twelve years. I heard the word of God on a fairly regular basis and I still wanted to have sex. I wanted it so badly that any rational precautions I could have taken, weren’t taken — mostly because I was too terrified to ask the pharmacists for condoms. Think about that I was more afraid of the pharmacist than the wrath of God. This is a challenging theological problem for Christians.

So pontificate all you want on how giving Birth Control to young women is giving them permission to have sex. But it is cruel to expect young women to never error and crueler still to saddle her with a 18 year project of raising a child for making a mistake.

What is irritating me most about this stand is that the good Christians here are more interested in punishing the young woman for her mistake than giving her assistance to sort through the tumultuous time of raging hormones and sexual temptation. Expecting her to make mistakes should be a given, and this why birth control is a God send.

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I have been laid off three times. During the process, each time I was reminded, as if this was all that mattered, that it was just a business decision. There is nothing personal about it. Jobs needed to be cut, my job was just one of the many that needed to be eliminated. Every time this happened, it was easy for me to see that it wasn’t personal. The company was moving operations or eliminating my department completely. My personal circumstances neither harmed nor helped me — it was irrelevant to the business decision that was made.

What is bothering me here is the phrase “just a business decision.” This absolves the laying off party of any culpability in the decision. People were looking at a spreadsheet of costs and then decided to make cuts. We had nothing personally against John Smith, we just had to cut payroll and poor John was one of the many positions on the spreadsheet we thought we could eliminate. Purely a rational decision based on facts.

Since this was, and as we are constantly reminded, purely a business decision then any emotional reaction towards the person using the spreadsheet is unwarranted. Yes, you were laid off, and yes, it has sent your life into a bit of chaos, but, it wasn’t personal. We have nothing against you personally. I looked at the data and this was what the data told me. Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the spreadsheet.

It is a facile way to avoid responsibility. If I could have made another decision, I would have. But the spreadsheet right? I have to follow the direction that the spreadsheet takes me.

It is annoying because it is a lie. Most companies gather the data on the spreadsheet for one reason and one reason only — eliminating jobs. This just isn’t some neutral gathering of data where after looking at the data it was obvious that jobs needed to be eliminated. Eliminating jobs is the whole reason for the spreadsheet.

The just business excuse removes any moral or human dimension from the decision process. Its all numbers. Data determines the action. It allows businessmen to do about anything as long as the balance shows a profit.

It is the reason why Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg find themselves watching wrestling on the White House lawn — something I can’t imagine either of them doing on a free week day night otherwise. They added up the figures and decided it was just better for their business to show up than risking pissing off some mad man who might use his governmental power to harass them.

Smart businessmen know the best way to keep clear of the growing irrationality of Trump is to go along with him. It is just good business. Nothing personal there.

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I don’t recall ever hearing Aretha Franklin’s version of “I Say a Little prayer for You” when it first came out. I was familiar with the famous Dionne Warwick’s version and, perhaps, because I have always associated the song with Warwick and it was the more well known version, there was no reason to investigate any other singers’ takes on the classic song.

For what ever reason, I just recently stumbled on Aretha Franklin’s version of “I Say a Little Prayer for You” and it is like listening to another song. Warwick’s excellent version is more polished and ethereal while Franklin’s is raw and passionate. Warwick is letting the man know she thinks about him. It is more of a seduction than a declaration of love whereas Franklin is confessing to passionate love.

Franklin’s musical arrangement is clever too. There is a point where she winds the song down so far that you think it is about to end when she ramps it right back up again. It is unexpected and exciting. Also the backup singers take on a bigger role than normally assigned to them. They take over the song at several points while Franklin seems to responding to them instead of the other way around. It gives an almost conversational tone to the song. They ask — he answers your prayers and Franklin answers he answers my prayers all right.

The whole effect is a powerful rendition of standard song. Nobody does female sensuality like Franklin and, if you want to hear her at her most passionate, it is worth a listen.

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I have many complaints about Donald Trump. He is an asshole. He is corrupt. He is stupid. He is incompetent. I could go on but you get the point. I don’t like the man. But nothing illustrates the true badness of Donald Trump like the Reflecting Pool Fiasco. And, also, sadly his genius.

Why on God’s Green Earth is the president of the United States so involved in such a trivial matter — particularly when the nation is at war. Isn’t this more of a First Lady or Parks Department issue? What a waste of the limited time of the most powerful man on the planet.

Other people can, and should, straighten out this mess but no Trump has to put his two cents in.

Furthermore, and much more irritating, why is the media so fixated on this bull shit. Again, I am sorry to have keep doing this, but it seems important to point this out — we are a nation at war. Yet what do we hear about in the news — how the Reflecting Pool, which was promised to be blue, is a murky algae green instead. Really.

And people are actually getting mad about it for some reason.

Donald Trump can create controversies with one hand tied behind his back and blind folded. He likes attention and he knows how to get it. He also, to the great advantage of the powers that be, knows how to distract the media from the issues that really matter. Just because Trump is talking about something doesn’t mean the press is obligated to report about it.

Think about the past few months — the Wrestling Match on the lawn, tearing down the East Wing of the White House, the Reflecting Pool — all, in the scheme of things, small potatoes — and distractions from more important issues. All Trump has to do to get the press dogs off of his ass is for him to pop off about something, make it juicy or controversial, and the press, who all seem to lack any sense of proportion, chases after this new controversy like dogs after frisbees.

Yes it is very interesting that the frisbee was caught but is it any surprise. This is what dogs do when frisbees are thrown. So what if they catch him making as ass of himself about the Reflecting Pool. It is meaningless. He seems to know this. I am afraid the press does not.

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Why do our poor needs so little help and the rich are constantly needing help? If we don’t give the rich more, they just can’t produce the needed wave to lift all boats. The poor, on the other hand, must suffer or else they won’t come to their senses and invest their money in the Stock Market, vacation homes and crypto currencies. Right?

There are two ways to get government assistance. Government can give you assistance through programs and services or government can reduce your tax bill through tax breaks. People who have less money tend to get their assistance in government services while people who have more money receive their assistance through tax breaks. Both, however, are handouts.

But only one carries the weight of does this person deserve to be helped. The idea that if you receive government benefits you also need to prove you are deserving of these benefits. So, for example, a person who receives SNAP benefits are unable to buy alcohol and cigarettes with the money they receive while a person who receives a tax break can buy as much alcohol as they want. Nobody would dream of questioning their purchases.

Why? They are getting money from the government. Why isn’t it monitored with the same vigor that SNAP benefits are watched.

They even get a different spin on their handout — the rich are job creators who need that extra money to power the economy while the person who receives benefits is a welfare recipient — a non-productive member of society, a taker. This glaringly different view of these two handouts also has an effect on how government benefits and tax breaks are perceived so that if belts need to be tightened, it is the poorer people who are squeezed.

Tax breaks, on the other hand, are sacrosanct. Why?

Taxes are an obligation. Now, you may not like paying taxes nor the programs that taxes are used for but this doesn’t take away from the fact that taxes are an agreed upon method for us to pay the government bills. If you don’t like they way taxes are collected or the programs the government uses them for, you can take your position to the public during an election. It is an imperfect system, especially if your position always loses, but it is the one we have and, unless someone has a better idea, the fairest way for government to work.

I am not against tax breaks. I do, however, think that there should be a real verifiable return for the government for any break given. The tax breaks need to prove they are indeed more beneficial than the financial loss to the government tills. So my question is how are tax breaks measured as being successful — good for society or a good return in additional taxes. And, if they aren’t producing the desired effect, why not cut them instead of programs that help our most vulnerable citizens.

The tax breaks will, or so we are told, pay for themselves because the rich will invest in the economy which will eventually raise all boats. But, if this was the case, shouldn’t the government be rolling in dough. This isn’t the case. In fact, the biggest single expenditure in the Federal Government is tax breaks. Since the Reagan years, government has given tax breaks and cut taxes numerous times and yet we are further in debt. The income from tax breaks and tax cuts have failed to raise the promised revenue.

To get rid of these tax breaks, even some of them, would bring in enough additional money to offset some of these expenses. But, eliminating tax breaks is nearly impossible because you are hurting the job creator. They need help. But, then, so does the mother using SNAP. Who needs more help?

Herein is my question then, why do our richest citizens always seem to need so much help? Why can’t they stand on their own two feet, pull themselves up by their boot straps and just pay their taxes without any breaks? It is really sad that the rich have sunk into such dependency on government handouts. It isn’t really helping them they continue their proliferate ways — drinking alcohol, taking vacations — on the government dime. They just need to learn how to live within their means.

All I know is I am getting tired of their constant whining about how difficult it is for them as I have seen very little evidence that they are having a difficult time.

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The most depressing thing about Mark Zuckerberg and David Ellison attending Trump’s birthday bash is that these two billionaires felt compelled to attend. I doubt seriously that either man wanted to be there but then Trump. No further explanation is necessary. Two of most powerful men in the world felt the need to show up at all demonstrates the disorienting and disproportionate power that Trump holds. Better to show up at Trump’s birthday party than to be investigated by his Department of Justice. This is where we are.

The most powerful men in the country bowing down and kissing Trump’s ass.