Month: August 2026

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Things I ask myself now, at 69, before getting on the floor:

1.) Is what I am going to do on the floor worth the effort to get off the floor when I am done?

2.) Is there anything near that I can use to leverage myself off of the floor when I am need to stand up?

3.) Can this wait until there are more things on the floor that I need in order to maximize my floor experience? Honestly, why pick up an errant spoon when you can wait for the knife and fork to fall later.

4.) Can this wait until a more youthful friend (say late 50’s) shows up and I can casually ask them to help me like I just noticed it now?

5.) Will anyone really notice if I don’t do what needs to be done of the floor? A good kick towards the couch will hide anything you don’t really need to immediately retrieve.

6.) Is there a pillow within grabbing distance so if I have to stay longer on the floor than necessary I can, at least, be comfortable?

7.) Do I have my cell phone in case I find myself unable to get off of the floor?

8.) Do I have enough clothes on so that nobody, particularly me, is embarrassed if I need to call someone to get me off the floor?

9.) Should I leave the door unlocked so the person who is rescuing me has easy access to my apartment?

10) Why is it that everything I need right now is on the floor?

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I was laying in bed this morning thinking about what important issue I was going to tackle today in my blog. Yes, dear reader, this is how seriously I take my blogging. It is the first thing I think about in the morning. Any way, enough about me, I remembered seeing in the Huffington Post’s headlines a post about J.D. Vance’s Astrological Chart. See below. I also provide a link to the actual chart if you are so inclined to pursue this type of prognostication device to understand the future of our vice-president.

I do not however and it occurred to me that I have been scrolling by these posts without much thought.

Now, first, I have to confess I like a good astrological chart as much as the next guy but J.D. Vance’s seems like a big waste of space. I realize this is in the Life section of Huffpost, so media outlets have a lot of leeway about what goes in the section. It should be fun — advice columns, crossword puzzles, comics and general astrological predictions. So, for example, my astrological sign is Cancer. I would be perfectly fine with an astrological column saying something like “Cancers will wake up this morning with a startling realization about the media.” This is harmless fun. I could laugh about and say yes that’s what happened to me.

But J.D. Vance’s astrological chart isn’t really an appropriate Life posting. J.D. Vance is a major political figure in a position of power. Providing space for an astrologer to speculate about his future is waste of time and space. The reading is, as almost all astrological readings are, vague and could conceivably apply to any number of people sharing his astrological sign or not. And what have I learned about Vance — that his sun sign is Leo and he is a Leo rising is hardly worth troubling my eyes to pursue.

This is worse than a gossip column in that, at least with gossip, you may be getting the truth about a famous person. Yes I don’t have anything to do with this person, it will in no way help me in my life and is certainly a waste of my time — but it may be true. And there is something important about the truth. While an astrological chart is giving you ambiguous information that is relevant only to the person who’s chart the astrologer is reading. A chart, by the way, that this person will probably never read. Helpful right?

To further disappoint my expectations in the Huffington Post, they think this post is so important to actually highlight that they have an article about J.D. Vance’s astrological chart. Instead of hiding this post in a hard to find place so people won’t realize the bullshit they are posting, they are proudly highlighting it for everyone to see. They are actually wanting people to read it. Their shameless pandering knows no bounds. I am gobsmacked.

Finally, I am disappointed in myself because I’ve been seeing these astrological posts of current political figures for some time and hadn’t thought a thing about it. My obliviousness to bullshit now is remarkably high. Just more bullshit on the bullshit pile. I go to the next post without giving it a second thought. It took actual time for me to reach the bullshit conclusion which means how much bull shit am I missing?

This is truly scary.

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Bernie Sanders and James Carville are having a disagreement about the rising power of the Democratic Socialists. Sanders even suggested that Carville should think about starting a different party which is, with all due respect to Bernie here, the worst possible suggestion he could make.

It is important to remember that the Democratic Socialists may be winning some of these close primary races but they are close races. El-Sayed beat Stevens by less than 16,000 votes out of 1,500,000 votes cast. He needs the Stevens’ votes to win the seat in November. When your win is narrow, and you need the votes of the person you just defeated to win the next contest, a moment of humility and grace might be the better approach than gloating and rubbing the defeated’s nose in their loss.

Carville, who, after all, worked on the Bill Clinton’s winning team, has a lot to offer in the way of political advice. He is not a part of the Republican disinformation machine. He is a loyal Democrat. That he is concerned about how the Democratic Socialist’s are behaving should give one pause.

Perhaps what appeals to left wing Democrats isn’t particularly appealing to more moderate Democrats, so say nothing of Independents and unhappy Republicans. Millions of Americans choose Donald Trump as the lesser of two evils in three very close elections. This should disturb every Democrat. People knowingly picked an incompetent asshole because they were more afraid of the Democratic Party than they were of Donald Trump. This is a big problem.

American political parties are umbrellas that cover large groups of various interests. These groups don’t always agree. That is OK. In order to win elections, you do, however, have to keep everyone under the same umbrella. This is a difficult task. Telling someone to leave is political suicide if you can’t replace them with someone who can bring in the same number of votes. This makes moderate Democrats essential if we are going to win in November.

I would be more impressed with the Democratic Socialists if they were now spending some time trying to win over people like Carville instead of alienating them. I am hoping this is the temporary flush of victory and they will come to their senses soon, but so far they look like a bunch of assholes who think they are unbeatable. I am afraid they are beatable.

The goal here is to get remove as many Republicans from office as possible. Keep your eyes on the ball.

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How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)

Whenever I think of immigration, I, at some point, think about our ancient ancestors who left Africa and then walked out of there to every other continent on the planet. Over the course of thousands of years, they wandered into Asia and Europe, eventually, finding North American and then making the 14,000 mile journey to the end of South America. Presumably these ancestors were looking for a better life and not a quick vacation getaway.

Since immigration is in the human DNA as a way to improve your life, I am baffled at how to stop it. This is how human beings have been behaving for thousands of years.

After people became settled this was more problematic for the immigrant. The Roman Empire fell because unwanted immigrants (Barbarians and Goths) decided to move into the Empire without first asking the Romans. The end result was the formation of modern Europe.

There is a long historical record of this phenomena. Mongols into China. Mongols into Europe. Europeans into the Americas. Europeans into Australia. If you have a group of unhappy humans in one place, there is a very good chance that they will decide to move to another place.

The problem is poverty. People want what they can’t have where they are. Now they can wait around and hope things change or they can move. This earthly life is short. Waiting around for things to change doesn’t make much sense. So move it is.

While most of the people who come are good people, some are just wretched people.These wretched people cause problems for both the settled population and the other immigrants. They tar the good immigrants with an undeserved reputation which scare the natives who then tar every other immigrant and not just the malcontents. There is a reason we call a group of uncouth people Barbarians and it isn’t because the Romans liked them.

Which brings me to our present problem. Many in the West feel under siege from immigrants looking for a better life. They feel that the world their ancestors built will be irreversibly changed and they will be correct. New people bring change both to the native population and to the immigrants.

What exactly do you want to preserve is then the question. If you want to see only white faces going to Christian churches, I hate to tell you but that ship has sailed. The West is a multi-racial hodgepodge of Black, Brown, White and Mixed Race peoples. If you are talking about freedom of speech, religion and democratic elections, I am with you 100%.

What worries me is the increasingly heard notion of keeping out all immigrants. Or, worse still, letting in White immigrants because they are seen as good immigrants and preventing Black and Brown immigrants from coming in because they are perceived as all bad. If a White South African immigrant goes on a rampage, you don’t hear people saying keep out all White South African immigrants. Black and Brown immigrants are afforded the same courtesy. That is a big problem.

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Winning primaries is a much easier task for Democratic Socialists because the Democratic Party is the left wing party in the American two party system. There is a disproportionate number of left wingers. It makes sense but it doesn’t answer the question about can these left leaning people win general elections.

Winning the general election should be on every Democrat’s mind because Donald Trump is a menace and the only thing that can stop him now is vigorous opposition coming from the legislative branch of government. Democrats need to win elections in order to tame Trump.

Now if we were talking about your garden variety Republican, someone like George Bush, I might be more willing to gamble on Democratic Socialists. Their thinking happen to align more with my own thinking.

On the other hand, it is more important for the Republicans to be defeated. Much more important. A half of a loaf of bread is better than no loaf at all.

That Democratic Socialists can win in a place like New York City is great news but unsurprising. New York City is much more liberal than the rest of the country. Can these Democratic Socialists win in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, states that even more moderate Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris barely and painfully lost — leaving us with Donald Trump as president.

I have been told many times that all the American people need is to hear a true candidate of the left and they will magically cast their votes for the left wing candidate. Well, tell that to President George McGovern, President Jesse Jackson, President Howard Dean, President Bernie Sanders. I have supported an array of left wing candidates who never held power.

Americans are suspicious of big government. I happen to disagree with them but then that doesn’t change any minds, does it? The polling for James Talarico in Texas and Jon Ossoff in Georgia shows a more plausible way forward the Democrats. Are they perfect? Of course not. But can they win in states where Democrats have difficult time getting elected. Absolutely.

My fear is that very winnable races will be lost by candidates who are wasting their time on having to define what a biological woman is or what personal pronouns to use because these are the issues the Republican party will raise in these close races.

In the 1990’s most Democrats opposed Gay Marriage — not because they actually opposed it but because they knew it would sink their potential election. Gay people largely understood this and bided their time until the public perception (with a grand assist from the Supreme Court) of Gay Marriage changed.

The same thing can be said for Capital Punishment. I don’t think very many Democrats actually support Capital Punishment but the American public do. Until minds are changed, it is irresponsible for Democrats to lose elections on an issue where the public has a firm commitment.

The world is imperfect. This will always be the case. This means that we will elect imperfect people who hold imperfect positions in an imperfect government. In order to get things done, we have to accept reality and imperfection.

I hope that the Democratic Socialists do well however my bigger concern is that they don’t torpedo potential Democratic victories in the election. Ideological perfection is all well and good but if we have learned anything during the Trump years is that the people who hold the power make the rules. This means winning elections.

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Apparently Troy Jackson, the Democrat’s new candidate for the Maine seat in the U.S, Senate, had sexual relations with his second cousin. This is news for some reason. There is nothing illegal or wrong about it. Maybe a little weird for some people but nothing that would stop me from voting for someone.

What I object to is the waste of space in the media to pursue this non-story. There is a better use of this space given the state of the world than investigating second cousin sexual relationships. Give me a break.