Wish I Knew Where Tim Anderson Was And How He's Doing

ON THE WHOLE most of the blogs and websites I used to frequent fifteen and more years ago seldom if ever come to mind.  One exception of those I recall involuntarily is the long ago baby blue blog (as once allegedly referred to on the silly and long ago Sorkin fairy tale, The West Wing) comes to mind only because one of its habitues insists on libeling me there and cross posting his slanders here, or tries to.   But you know as much about that as anyone needs to.  And, really, who does need to know about it? 

There are a number of those who were always interesting and frequently had content that I wasn't likely to come about anywhere else.  I won't make a list because I wouldn't want to leave any of them out.  One I will mention is the blogger who called herself Echidne of the Snakes for whom I used to act as weekend guest blogger,  someone for whom English is a second language and who wrote better than easily 99% of those of us who started learning the language at birth.   I don't know the details of why she stopped writing her blog, nor do I know what happened to her other guest bloggers,  Suzie, Phila, a few others.   I always enjoyed reading them.  I will mention NTodd whose blog I really enjoyed a lot and the mysterious blogger who went by the name Roger Ailes,  I assume though never knew, out of some subtle irony that I never knew.   

But this is about one named Tim Anderson who was a Gay man who drove trucks for a living,  had a degree from a small college in the North West,  was active in HIV prevention among truckers, truckstop prostitutes and others and an entirely admirable man.   He also wrote and posted many very good essays and stories which I read and copied a large number of to re-read.    Unfortunately,  I don't have access to the hard drive of my long ago had and now greatly lamented desktop computer where I believe those might be located because his website isn't anywhere online I can find,  trying the link to one that I mentioned in a post eleven years ago,  the result is to tell me that the domain name is up for purchase.  He had another website after that one which has a number of interesting posts still up but I can't find those many stories I loved so much.   Its last post from four years ago might hold the clue as to why I can't find him, his sudden, unexplained and unsuspected deplatforming from Facebook, taking down 14 years of his work -  I'd read it on his blogspot blog, never having been involved with Facebook.  It wasn't much like the stereotype of LGBTQ+ life that most straight People and many an LGBTQ+ one holds  

I can understand him not having the heart to repost so much work,  even though he seems to have had many other dedicated readers.   I wish I could find him in some active blog or other website, I'd like to be able to tell him, again how much I liked his work and respected his point of view and his work.   

Anyone know were I can tell him that?  

As Trump Mounts His Reichstag Fire In LA, His Policies Are Killing Scores Of People Every Hour

BROOKE NICHOLS,  professor of public health at Boston University has been posting on how many People,  Children, Women, Men are dying every hour, right now, due to the Trump-Musk-Miller slashing of funds that were keeping them alive around the world.    The estimate is that every hour 103 People die due to that, twice as many of them Children as Adults,  you can read the figures at the Impact Dashboard.  I would call your attention to the Filters and the tabs that let you access the data according to several categories,  including deaths due to cuts to Medicaid,  deaths caused by HIV,  and deaths due to malaria.  

The "pro-life" Trumpzis should have that thrown in their faces as should Catholic bishops and others who overtly supported Trump, as should those worshipers of Mammon and the Antichrist who pretend to be Christians, as, in fact, should every single person involved in Republican-fascist politics and everyone who voted for him or encouraged People to vote against Kamala Harris - I certainly include those who did so on the basis of the Biden-Blinken policy on supporting Israel, right or wrong. 

On Being Accused Of The Greatest Mortal Sin In Media Addled America, Not Having a "Sense of humor"

OH, I'VE SAID a few good lines here.  I once pointed out to Simps that one of the reasons that movies are more profitable than books is that no one expected they could get sex by bringing someone to the books.  

Abolish the ICEstapo Arrest Everyone Involved In The Crime Of Trump II - An unfiltered reaction to yesterday's federal government attack on American Citizens and Residents

ABOLISH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.   With the attack by Trump's crime gang in California yesterday it's clear that the entire thing is a fascist putsch against American democracy,  one started decades ago when Lewis Powell wrote his memo about how to impose a fascist oligarchy on the United States, which the fascists, in the Republican-fascist, billionaire-millionaire financed stink tanks,  on elite law school faculties,  in the Republican party,  in the corporate media have been following which has brought us to first the Supreme Court imposed Bush II then Trump I and now Trump II,  in which the stupidest man to have ever been president is doing a brilliant job of destroying the country on behalf of the richest criminals, with the immunity from the law that the Roberts Court AND THE DISASTROUSLY FAILED CONSTITUTION HAVE GIVEN HIM.  

Trump and his ICEstapo,  the National Guard units who should have mutinied instead of following illegal orders will get away with it,  they will do it again.   When you listen to the MSNBC lawyers talk about how Trump is "losing in the courts" your first comment NOT QUESTION should be, HE'S NOT BEING STOPPED BY THE GODDAMNED COURTS BECAUSE THE SUPREME COURT HAS YET TO STOP HIM.

Our Constitution was a crooked deal between slave holders and Northern financial interests,  it is full of provisions that they either intended or which since the Supreme Court has made into weapons against equality and democracy.   The Electoral College is what gave us those two giant steps into fascism,  Bush II and then Trump.   That, alone should make anyone who is opposed to fascism demand its abolition AND IF THE FASCIST STATES AND TINY POPULATION STATES WON'T ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN,  THOSE STATES SHOULD SEPARATE FROM THE "PRO-SLAVERY COMPACT" Wendell Phillips called it correctly and honestly in 1845,  as soon as he could read Madison's papers on the framing of the document.   No one who had a voice at all favorable to the practice of slavery in that period is worthy of trust, either then or now.  That would include all of those who took part in the framing of that document even the lone non-slave holder, John Adams because he went along with some of the most appalling pro-slavery-anti-egalitarian-anti-democratic features that were in it.*

America's only good history is the history of the struggle AGAINST the Constitution as it was originally written.  Its only virtue has been in the struggle to make the government what the Constitution has never been, INCLUDING THE SO-CALLED "BILL OF RIGHTS"  a egalitarian, and so truly democratic instrument of legitimate and just government.  The major enemies of that have been the wealthy, their media,  the Supreme Court, at times even when the "justices" may have intended otherwise (the Warren Court having done some of the worst damage by their good intentions) and the legal establishment which has invented all kinds of novel "interpretations"  and outright fabrications,  such as Court nullification of federal laws,  corporate-personhood and, now, presidential immunity under the Ivy League Law-school innovation of the fascist unitary executive theory of the presidency.    Anyone who believes that Amy Coney Barrett is going to turn against Republican-fascism should take a harder look at the totality of her choices on the Roberts Court because it's clear as day she's pretty much as all-in on fascism as the rest of her Republican-fascist colleagues.   I'm not even sure I think Kagan is that reliable, when it comes down to it. 

Trump's ICEstapo and other military agencies are attacking U.S. Citizens and Residents with military weapons and tactics.   That is more a declaration of war against American democracy than the slave-power's attack on Fort Sumpter and the Japanese Imperial government's attack on Pearl Harbor.   And it's the Republican-fascist party and its billionaire and millionaire owners who have done this to us.   I keep making these points and having scoffers scoff at them only to, weeks, months or years later, have to face that that's what they're seeing before their eyes.   

If the foolish idea that the Supreme Court is going to allow lower courts to stop him,  the idea the Congress in the hands of the fascists themselves is going to stop him had any demonstrable truth in real life instead of lawyerly-liarly claims,  I might revise my ideas.  Slightlyi.  BUT I HAVE YET TO SEE HIM AND HIS CRIMINAL ARMY STOPPED, NEVER MIND THEM BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE.    For crying out loud,  the idiotic idea that St. Jemmey Madison and St. Hamilton are going to save us from their corrupt document was clearly always a lie.   Those states and legislatures that got Madison to promise that a "Bill of Rights" would be added by the First Congress got duped because the Bill of Rights that got passed did little to nothing to fix the worst things about that pro-slavery compact,  not even for white men and women and children who were held in wage-slavery (we're never to talk about the 19th century literature on that, not even when it's the likes of Lincoln who condemned it).   It certainly did nothing to end chattel slavery or get rid of corruptions like the Electoral College.   It didn't even do anything to end the pro-slavery ban on taxing exports, one of those things demanded by the slave-holders.  

* "AI" is not only stupid, it's a liar.   In fact checking one of the things I say above, the goddamned automatic Google "AI" gave a list of "founders" who never owned slaves, including Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton who both are known to have held slaves at some point in their lives,  Hamilton lived in luxury supported by the slaves held by his wife's family, the largest slave-holders in New York state and he is known to have facilitated the selling and buying of slaves.  He inherited slaves along with his brother when their mother died.   There is no record of him ever having freed them so I assume he sold them when he moved to what would become the U.S.A.   It also mentioned Jefferson's very temporarily expressed disdain for the infamous crime, when he was trying to gull the common Americans to fight the aristocrats war of independence - including the large percentage of very recently freed-blacks and white-indentured servants who fought the rich men's war.  Once that was done,  Jefferson became an enthusiastic advocate of his fellow aristocrats holding and breeding slaves because every slave born under their enslavement made them richer.  His journals show him doing the figures on that.   I wouldn't even exempt the one of the who freed the slaves he, personally held - after he was dead and they were no longer a value to him - Washington because he tired to con the escaped slave held by Martha Washington,  Oney Judge, back into slavery shortly before he died.   I'd like a Constitution that wasn't saturated in the blood of Native Americans and Slaves and Wage Slaves and not full of the tricks and wiles of those who drew that blood.   I hope my niece and nephews and their children might, someday, live under such an honest one that takes into account the experience of living under the one we do now.   

Saturday Night Radio Drama - Dan Treston - Piano In The River

 Piano In The River

Tonight a jewel from the archive, and the winner of the Prix Italia in 1965.

Thomas Studley and Deirdre O'Meara lead the other Temporary Unestablished Civil Servants (who constituted The Raidio Éireann Players) in  Piano in the River ~ An interlude for radio by Dan Treston

Anticipating The Neo-Nazi Trolling Me About The Indictment of Abrego Garcia

IT'S GOT NOTHING to do with Abrego Garcia, this is Bondi DoJ-FOX Lies distraction because now they don't know if among the things Musk and his incel-boys got hold of was Epstein evidence, especially those thousands of hours of video rumored to be among that evidence.   Musk dropping his bomb was all about putting Trump on notice that he's got that or to make Trump think he's got it.   He'll play Trump like Putin in possession of a pee-tape to get what he wants.   So, I think if someone wants to take advantage of the EV subsidy (what Trump, no doubt on the advice of the Republican-fascist PR focus group research to lie more effectively calls a "mandate")  I think you can take your time because as long as Trump and the Republican fascists think Elon has got those goods,  it's a safe bet it isn't going anywhere.  

Real History Isn't Expurgated Like A Best Seller Bullshit Bio Or Coextensive With "Production Values"

I WILL NOTE it's why the bullshit bio that inspired "Hamilton" is bullshit history,  as, in fact, so many of those "biographies" and best-seller "history" books are bullshit.   What makes about 99% of cabloid and now online "documentaries"  annoying bullshit with shitty musical scores and annoyingly upperclass, generally brit sounding narration.    

Some may have been surprised that I posted the video about broke and horny soldiers one of the excellent short videos about LGBTQ+ history  of Hugh Hagius about the long mostly hidden history of straight-identifying men in uniform either prostituting themselves to other men or enjoying sex with other men.   I don't know why that should surprise anyone,  it's always amused me that a lot of People figure being a Christian requires not knowing about such things and, certainly, never talking about them.   I think such  genteel Christianity is of little help to anyone and is certainly incompatible with Jesus as presented in Scripture and the earliest traditions.    It certainly didn't help anyone during the AIDS pandemic (which, despite what the media leads our gulled and media stupefied population to believe is nothing like "over)  or will be of much help in what I have ever confidence will, eventually, be another deadly and easily contracted pandemic of STDs, promiscuity among straight as well as much of LGBTQ+ People providing such an excellent lab for the development of those.   I certainly don't advocate promiscuity or having sex outside of a committed, faithful relationship but I neither think those who do those are beyond the experience of holiness nor do I think they should be excluded from our active care and love.   If anyone needs the love and attention of Christianity,  it is those most at risk.  It's that practice of prissy Christianity and, even more so, respectable secular kulcha that forced LGBTQ+ People into a demimondain life,  sometimes along with a more "respectable" overt life in the wider society.  

If you watched the first of his videos I posted about him,  you'd see that Mr. Hagius spent a number of years in the seminary,  which,  I think, accounts for his care about his research and reporting of history.  I also think it helps that he became a newspaper man back when that profession had some standards of fact checking and integrity of reporting, something that goes out the window when you make it electronic media, especially that which makes money through getting more eyes or ears glued to it.   As with the non-style style production practiced by some of my favorite podcasters,  such as Heather Cox Richardson,  I associate "low production values" with superior content.  I really like his style of presentation as much as I do the paint stains on the woodwork in HCR's videos.   I LOVE her paint stains on her paneling because of what she says in front of it. 

Walter Brueggemann Has Died

I CAME LATE to Walter Brueggemann's scholarship and, more importantly, his witness to Scripture and the life of Christianity.   It's one of the regrets of my life that I didn't read him from the 1970s instead of wasting so much time reading much of the philosophy,  political literature and pretty worthless lit literature instead of reading him and others who wrote on religion.   

I don't know any details other than that he was 92 and remarkably active up till at least recently.  I did hear one interview-discussion with him a few years ago,  when one of the interviewers asked him how he was he said, . . . . "I'm old."   The interviewer pointed out that  he, probably one of the greatest of Old Testament Scholars wasn't familiar enough with Scripture because there were lots of People in the Old Testament a lot older than he was,  which got a good hearty laugh from him. 

May he live with God in the Communion of Saints forever. 

Just Posted And Without Further Comment - Broke & Horny Soldiers and Their Gentlemen Admirers

 

At Last!

I'VE SAID BEFORE that I really like Keith Olbermann,  I mean I like him like you like a really good radio-person who you know is generally reliable, adult and responsible,  and added on that intelligent, good humored, and has good morals,  you know, in the way I love Callie Crossley and a few others.  That's despite our disagreements about religion and a few other topics.   And he's a really good writer and has a really great radio style vocal presentation.    He is the only person in my lifetime who has ever been able to get me to listen to a sports story that was longer than thirty seconds with something like real attention.    

Today he said something in passing which I realized was the very first time I've heard someone in the media admit a glaring truth that I not only noticed about 49 years ago but which I've railed about ever since.     I've gone to and edited the automated transcript of Olbermann's excellent podcast for this morning where his mention is embedded because you need the context of it:

. . . More importantly Musk's money is going to ghost Trump and bluntly without Musk's money $275 million in the election thank you Citizens United and Floyd Abrams without Musk's money and Musk's tech bro vote Trump probably loses.  Musk has ghosted Trump and is starting to attack Trump and Trump can't say a word because unless Musk bankrolls it Trump will not be able to subvert the Constitution and run for a third term.  And unless Musk bankrolls it a Trump successor will never get off the ground and unless Musk bankrolls it the Republicans will lose the House next year and maybe the Senate too all Trump has been able to do thus far is the really sad sight of publishing without comment a screenshot of a Musk tweet . . . 

Astute readers of my humble attempts here might note this,   "and bluntly without Musk's money $275 million in the election thank you Citizens United and Floyd Abrams without Musk's money and Musk's tech bro vote Trump probably loses. " 

Olbermann was, of course, referring to that figure considered a hero of the "civil liberties" industry,  Floyd Abrams,  who is such a goddamned, frickin' champion of all that is good that he represented Moscow Mitch McConnell in the case that cemented in place the corruption of American democracy on behalf of, not only our domestic billionaire robber barons but, also opened up our elections to being bought and corrupted by billionaires foreign,  such as the richest of those,  Putin,  Xi, MBE, and all of the oil state billionaire dictators,  as the Roberts Court and the goddamned "civil liberties" industry.   

He started his quite brilliant commentary on this by asking a question:

It's still just at the passive-aggressive stage but Elon Musk has not only broken with Trump and ghosted Trump, now he has re-tweeted someone telling MAGAs to go to the comments at Fox News and read how "almost every comment is in agreement with Elon – to see so many vehemently disagreeing with Trump is wild.”

This is not going to end well.

Pass the popcorn.

How is that POSSIBLE? Who could have EVER forseen that relying on a chemical’d-up, psychologically-impaired, persistent over-promising, compulsive sperm donor who may have been the victim of a botched penile implant, could be a BAD thing? 

I can answer part of that in the negative.  We're to believe that the many Ivy Law School grads on the Supreme Court foresaw it as a GOOD thing BECAUSE THEY, WITH OPEN EYES, HANDED OUR ELECTIONS OVER TO CORRUPTION BY THE MUSKS AND BEZOS'S AND TECH BROS AND THE MEDIA WHO WHORES AFTER THEIR MONEY AND AFTER THE SAME TAX BREAKS AND GRAFT THAT THE BILLIONAIRES DO.  And so do the like of Floyd Abrams and many a liar lawyer I can name at the ACLU and many a mealy-mouthed "liberal" civil liberties champion in the whore houses of the legal profession, the media that benefits so handsomely from that corruption and millions of idiot "liberals" and "lefties" who are OK with that status quo continuing and metastasizing because, you know, "the First Amendment." 

But I'm in a celebratory mood because it is the first time I ever remember someone in the news business admitting that it wasn't just Republican-fascists and the alphabet soup of Louis Powell inspired crypto-fascist think tanks and foundations and their kept Ivy League faculty whores who were responsible for making the corruption of American elections Constitutional dogma and the lawless Supreme Court legislated law of the land,  it was the same goddamned "civil liberties" lawyers who are, when you look at their careers, about as virtuous on their beat as RFK jr. is in his anti-vaxx ambulance chasing.   Floyd Abrams shares in the responsibility of corrupting our elections and putting some of the worst Republican-fascist politicians in power as the most corrupt of our oil tycoons or tech bro fascists, as do the "civil liberties" lawyers of the ACLU who have been thick as thieves with them in overturning literally every attempt at effectively cleaning up our elections since a strong bi-partisan Congress passed the post-Watergate election reforms overturned by Buckely v Valeo (a case containing the name of one of our most genteel of fascist families,  sort of like the Kennedys used to be associated with mildly progressive politics).   You will note that Abrams represented Mitch "Leonard Leo Tool" "Republican Court Packer" McConnell in this.   I doubt it was pro-bono work. 

I'm greatly gratified to have heard someone of Olbermann's stature finally note that someone who cares about equality and democracy has finally noticed.   Though I doubt that anyone in the media in my lifetime will admit the truth that that line of "civil liberties" Supreme Court innovation goes back to the Sullivan decision that first gave the media to lie with impunity - a "right" that not only created the impossible,  that there is a "right" to do what's wrong, that is LYING,  but also gave the media a carte blanche to lie with impunity FOR ITS OWNERS AND OPERATORS PROFIT.    The Supreme Court in the legendary Warren years, in fact, are the authors of the downfall of American democracy in that act making lying in the mass media a "First Amendment 'right'" and they were fully supported in that by the ACLU and other "civil liberties" whores.  

Continuing On With Hugh Hagius' Story - Another Pride Month Post

 

I'm old enough and was enough of a news junkie that I remember this period of LGBTQ+ history,  though the news business of the time didn't lead to much information having been accurately transmitted.    It's interesting to hear someone who was there, observing it as a journalist at the time   It's important to look back at the pre-Stonewall period of the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement because the Republican-fascists and today's news operations are trying to return us to that status quo. 

You Can Imagine How They'd Be Treated If They Were Muslims

HERE'S A RECENT INCIDENT in Jerusalem:

Palestinian Christians, like many others in the West Bank, must navigate a complex system of Israeli-imposed movement restrictions to access holy sites and basic services. This system includes nearly 800 permanent checkpoints and barriers in the West Bank, along with thousands of temporary "flying" checkpoints, all enforced under the justification of Israeli security concerns. 

After parking near the New Gate, Hani (who preferred not to disclose his last name due to personal reasons) and his family began walking toward the entrance — until he was stopped. Tension hung heavy in the air. 

"You can't get in," said a policeman.

"I'm with my wife and kids," Hani replied. "They're already inside."

His 8-year-old daughter burst into tears, reaching for him. It was only her second time attending with the Orthodox scout group, and she wanted her father beside her. His wife stepped forward.

"He's my husband. We're all inside — he's the only one out."

They stood in the sun for half an hour, pleading. Eventually, the police let him through. He was lucky — at least he made it to Jerusalem. Others from the West Bank never got past the checkpoints, left standing outside the Old City behind barriers, watching.

Hani continued toward the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate but was stopped again — trapped between two checkpoints, unable to move forward or back.

The sun was relentless. The children were exhausted. Then things escalated.

A border police officer approached the children, shouting and demanding the spot they were sitting in. Hani stepped in, but the officer kept yelling and pushing him. Surrounded by Israeli border police, with his wife beside him and his daughter behind him crying, the situation grew tense.

And then — chaos.

Hani heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. He turned to see the officer had drawn his weapon — aimed at Hani's head.

"I was terrified. I moved closer, tried to push his hand up so he couldn't fire."

Others rushed in, pulling the officer back and holding him. Then, quietly, several officers began removing their name tags. They scanned the crowd. People were filming.

Hani moved toward a shaded area. That's when the camera went off — and things got worse. Police, border police, soldiers — it was hard to tell who was who. One officer began hitting him, swinging like a boxer.

It was the members of the Orthodox scout group who intervened, forming a barrier between Hani and the police.

Again, he walked away — searching for someone, anyone, in charge. He found an officer who barely spoke English. Still, the man followed him.

"What happened?" he asked.

Before Hani could respond, another soldier cut in: "It's OK. Never mind. Go away."

Hani asked for the name of the officer who pointed the gun.

"Here's my name," the soldier replied mockingly. "Sue me. Take a picture."

But Hani couldn't. Other soldiers stood behind him, smirking. As if to say: "We can do anything. You can't stop us."

Hani's ordeal was documented on video and the individual, a reservist serving in an operational role, was removed from his assignment following the incident, the Israeli border police told the National Catholic Reporter in a written statement.

But this is not an isolated case. It reflects a larger crisis confronting Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem — a shrinking space for faith in a city that once celebrated its multi-religious identity.

Israel is a pantomime of a democracy, it is an apartheid state and it was bound to become one.   And as the rot of apartheid develops,  some who experienced South African apartheid said it's far worse in Israel and the occupied territories, apartheid is turning to state terror, expulsion and, in the place it has reached its end stage, Gaza, genocide.  

All of those soldiers involved in that should be under international investigation for crimes against humanity as should the entire Israeli government. 

Dealing With Christians Using The Bible Against The LGTBQ+

 

I like Reverend Ed Trevor.   

Here's what I said in the comments.

I respond by pointing out that, as Paul said, all do the same things that they find disgusting when others do it.    I tell them to bridge the artificial barrier between Romans 1 and 2 because Paul pointed out things that his audience would find disgusting when other people did it to point out they do it too.  The recent statement by Pope Leo XIV that said the ideal family was based on a "stable union of a woman and a man" doesn't even apply to the majority of such marriages,  given the adultery rate -  by one or both - couples who hate each other but stay married,  those who divorce and remarry even when they are civil about sharing custody of children, ( who are adulterers according to Jesus),  the large number who are anything but civil in that instance.   those who become single parents through abandonment,  death, involuntary separation (such as imprisonment or forced immigration of some kind) , those who are single parents by choice,  those who are in any number of unconventional families, some of which are headed by a parent and a grandparent or aunt or uncle or other, etc.

If Lousiana's Kennedy Isn't Making The Name Dirty From Here On, Little Bobby Is Putting The Nail In Its Branding

LITTLE BOBBY,  a lying lawyer who has been trading off of his father's name his entire life,  is doing everything he can to make his ambulance chasing for profit gig ever more profitable for him and his law firm by risking the lives of Americans.   His  recently issued lie filled report, full of fake citations that don't exist and claiming real scientists said things they say they never said was only one of the things he did to do that this week.   He has also, in all of his scientific erudition, decided to cancel research into an HIV vaccine, bird flu vaccine, etc. and has removed the recommendation that healthy Children and pregnant Women get Covid boosters.    Here's just a little on that from two highly informed doctors.

He, no doubt, has the Kennedy male ego, which has helped give us, now, three of the worst presidents in our history,   Nixon, Reagan and Trump, but I think this is a new level of the hereditary mental illness that runs so conspicuously on the male side of his family,  KES, Kennedy Entitlement Syndrome. 

Considering how many millions of deaths across the globe his career padding might lead to, Little Bobby should be eligible for trial land conviction for crimes against humanity.   I loathe pretty much everyone in Trump II but I have to say I loathe RFK jr. to an enhanced degree because he tapped into the low-information "liberal" world to do what he's done and to get him where he is, today.   I'd be interested in doing some research into what the lefty media had to say about him in the past thirty years if I had the time to do that research,  I would bet it would not enhance the reputation of some of its more notable organs of the media.    Along with the clearly disproved myth that the "free press,"  freed to lie with impunity is a boon for democracy,  the idea that the lefty media is responsible and clean handed, the idea that that fabled American political clan lives up to the myth has died for any informed and thinking person rather definitively.  

Getting A Jump On Pride Month One Of My Favorite LGBTQ+ History Channels

 

I like Hugh Hagius' videos about LGBTQ+ history.   I like his research and writing and I like his plain, no production gimmicks style.   I will probably post a number of them in the next month 

And Now The Poetry Corner - Posted for reasons I'm not going to disclose

In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus

by X. J. Kennedy

In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day

Rose a lady in skunk with a topheavy sway,

Raised a knobby red finger—all turned from their beer—

While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear:

“Now who of you'd think from an eyeload of me

That I once was a lady as proud as could be?

Oh I'd never sit down by a tumbledown drunk

If it wasn't, my dears, for the high cost of junk.

“All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf

Beat the down of the swan by a length and a half.

In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose

Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.

“I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold,

My Virginia cheroot was a leaf of it rolled

And I'd light it each time with a thousand in cash—

Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash.

“Once the toast of the Biltmore, the belle of the Taft,

I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft,

And dine at the Astor on Salisbury steak

With a clean tablecloth for each bite I did take.

“In a car like the Roxy I'd roll to the track,

A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back,

And the wheels made no noise, they turned over so fast,

Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past.

“When the horses bowed down to me that I might choose,

I bet on them all, for I hated to lose.

Now I'm saddled each night for my butter and eggs

And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs.

“Let you hold in mind, girls, that your beauty must pass

Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass.

Keep your bottoms off barstools and marry you young

Or be left—an old barrel with many a bung.

“For when time takes you out for a spin in his car

You'll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far

And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds,

Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds.”

All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar

Made a phonecall and up pulled a red patrol car

And she blew us a kiss as they copped her away

From that prominent bar in Secaucus, N.J.

If That Kind of "Protected Speech" Is OK For Everyone Else Why Is It Wrong When Judges Are The Victims Of It?

 AS I SAY BELOW,  just about everything Judge Esther Salas says, I agree with.  I will not mention a few things I disagree with just now - but listen to what she is saying about the violence and harassment that is coming the way of judges because of Donald Trump and his allies lies and violence provoking language about them. 

Here's my comment on this video.

I agree with just about everything Judge Salas said, but I would add that it was the judges and, especially, the "justices" who decided that these kinds of attacks were perfectly all right when it comes to them being made against other People. Whether they be politicians, especially, as it turns out Democratic politicians or teenagers who are victims of online harassment. There was a case in Massachusetts quite a while ago where a teenage girl was harassed and badgered and terrorized by girls at her high school and one of the girl's mother who was egging them on into committing suicide and when her mother tried to get redress she was told by the courts that her daughters assassins had a First Amendment "right" to drive her daughter to kill herself.* If the judges and "justices" had not made that interpretation of the First Amendment the kind of thing that she is rightly objecting to when it's judges who are the target of it would not be happening. You can't have that interpretation of the First Amendment and the kind of civility or even safety she is advocating.

* I haven't located the post I wrote at the time on that one but I did find one I found about a male nurse who frequented suicide blogs posing as a young woman, encouraging People to commit suicide online for his sexual pleasure. It was all about how he and lawyers said he had a "right" to do that. Here's a bit of what I wrote then:

Pretending he was a women half his age,* Dinkel trolled suicide websites (NB) and encouraged people to kill themselves in front of web cams for his sexual gratification. He’s suspected in at least five suicides and was believed to have encouraged as many as a hundred around the world. While pursuing his “suicide fetish (sic)” he worked as a nurse in hospitals and nursing homes. After years of doing this he was outed by Celia Blay, a 64-year-old woman with few technical skills, who tracked him down when police refused to become involved. The details of the case are pretty awful but even worse is the fact that the criminally degenerate Dinkel will likely get off without prosecution in the United States. As he has put it "Nothing is going to come of it, ... I've moved on with my life, and that's it." And, given the free speech fetish in our current legal culture, he’s probably right. As he moves on with his life, his victims will, of course, not. The law that St. Paul police used to finally stop him, for now, is likely to not be deemed to cover internet predators of his kind, encouraging people to kill themselves for his gratification on web-cams. If he never serves a sentence of a day, it wouldn’t be surprising. Here is how Jonathan Turley puts it: Turley said that if prosecutors file charges against Melchert-Dinkel, convicting him would be difficult, especially if the defense claims freedom of speech. The law professor said efforts to make it illegal to shout "Jump!" to someone on a bridge have not survived constitutional challenges. "What's the difference between calling for someone to jump off a bridge and e-mailing the same exhortation?" he said.

With all respect to Judge Salas, the judges and, especially, "justices" are now in a sewer they put the rest of us in. I only wish she would realize that what she wants for judges, they deny to the rest of American society.

I Also Got Some Flack

when I proposed taxing the endowments of places like Harvard and MIT and other rich, private institutions with enormous endowments and using the money to fund education for the poor and working class of Boston and other places.   But when Trump's robo-blonde designated liar, KKKaroline Leavitt talks about shutting down elite education because we need more electricians and plumbers,  I think it's in line to ask why that skank went to the Benedictine St. Anselm College - she went there on a softball scholarship, to tie in with the post below - instead of a vo tech where she might have learned to do something more productive than lying her face off for fascism.

I looked at the, no doubt St. Anselm maintained Wikipedia pages for the college and they list the lying fascist skank as one of their notable alumni.   They should be ashamed of having produced  such an amoral person, though I suppose like most of elite Catholic institutions, the same rules apply for them that some of them applied to organized criminals.  

Sports Are Healthy!

SINCE I GOT the kind of push back I knew I'd get when I again declared myself not a sports fan,   I thought I'd share this account of the good, clean, fun athletic competition is:

The teenager, identified in local media as Ryan Satterthwaite, died in hospital on Monday after playing a game of "run it straight" in Palmerston North.

The game has two players, one with a ball and the other the tackler, who tries to knock the other player down.

"Run it straight" has recently become popular as a viral online trend and has long been played in Australia and New Zealand.

"We would urge anyone thinking about taking part in a game or event like this to consider the significant safety and injury risks," Manawatū police spokesperson Ross Grantham said in a statement on Tuesday.

"While this was an impromptu game among friends, not a planned event, this tragic outcome does highlight the inherent safety concerns with such an activity."

I suppose it would have been OK if it had been one of the many deaths that have come about through organized games with coaches and rules and paying viewers and owners making money.   And if you think that that has nothing to do with this:

Mr Grantham added it was not a police matter, but officers will "continue to undertake enquiries on behalf of the coroner".

The match sees two players running head first towards each other over a 65-foot field without any protective equipment or kit.

It's even been endorsed by some professional rugby players, with England rugby player George Burgess, 33, winning £9,500 after competing in an Australian tournament, according to The Mirror.

Ryan was rushed to hospital by friends after the match on Sunday and died the following day.

One tournament, the Runit Championship League, described the game as the "fiercest, new collision sport".

Professor Patria Hume, an expert in sports science and injury prevention, said the sport is "a step backwards"

"This is a reckless and dangerous spectacle," she told the NZ Herald.

"The science is clear – repeated head impacts increase risk of long-term brain damage."

Run It Straight's founder, Christian Lesa, said community support remains strong despite backlash and said the game should only be played under strict and regulated conditions.

Again, I ask, so it's OK when someone dies or is maimed or suffers permanent brain damage so long as it's organized and,  I'm sure, someone is making money off of it. 

The nauseating, phony and ginned-up sentimentality and quasi-religious sanctity concerning "sports" has led the world into pretending it isn't what it is, sometimes ritualized, sometimes very actual violence as entertainment.   I merely said no one has ever been able to explain to me why I was supposed to care who won or who lost a game,  something that extends to everything from checkers to the phoniest, most sentimentalized and sanctified of shake-down con jobs, the Olympics and America's real religion, the NFL, but there are actually larger problems with sports.    

When I asked the guy who most consistently trolls me to explain to me why I should care, he listed with no explanation the long ago Brooklyn Dodgers,  The Mets (he's a NYC guy, I suspect those who live in other sports markets couldn't care less about the ghost of a team moved to Los Angeles a lifetime ago or the Mets) and mentioned a couple of famous players who,  I had to point out, where human beings, not sports.   A good part of why I don't like sports is because I do care about the lives and health and happiness of human beings and animals - don't get me started on sports that involve the abuse, harm and death of animals.   Such are also covered by "sports."  Bear and badger baiting were popular sports - bloody Queen Bess was a big fan -  as are dog and cock fighting.   

I am still awaiting some brighter sports fan to explain to me why I should care about it.   Though, that's a lie, I stopped waiting for that explanation about the time I was 12.  I do resent the near universal demand that I pretend to care about it and the idea that something is wrong with someone who doesn't like sports or find them interesting.   If someone told me they weren't interested in some part of the arts I care about,  I wouldn't figure they were morally depraved,  I'd have figured we liked different things.   The difference is that few to no artists produce artistic work that they want half of those who hear or see or participate in it to be unhappy.   That's built into sports.   In many of them along with a body count and lists of those maimed and injured, and corruption for profit, like, you know wars?   Some fun, huh?   I think there is something wrong with those who can watch People and animals getting killed or injured in some entirely unproductive and useless would-be entertainment with pleasure and no reflection on the morality of what they're getting pleasure from. 

Why don't I publish all of the neo-Nazi troll's comment?

BECAUSE AS HE almost always does, he slanders People and accuses me of saying things I've never said, often about things I never heard of.    I don't carry slander against other People.   If he didn't do that I might more often post his comments.   But, as I always have to point out, lying with bearing of false witness is the mother tongue of those on the right.   It's the start of why they are so consistently dangerous and evil.   Unlike the mainstream media and media in general, I won't be fair to fascists,  I won't be nice to Nazis and I despise anti-democrats of all kinds, on the fascist right and their near cousins on what only stupid people think are far removed from them on the left side of a stupidly written up graph.   There is egalitarian democracy and there is gangster government.  Only egalitarian democracy is a legitimate form of government, the rest of it is merely less bad to totally evil.