The Barrel

   So This Blog has become the barrel that I scream into to clear my mind I guess. Though 'Hot' for a couple of years it's no longer used by the family or if it is it's few and far between.
   Have to admit my blogging has dropped of with only 4 post this year. This one making 5 but of little or no real content.
   I'm going to work up a real good one before years end to make it six for the year.
   Headed to Clanton on Friday morning. Will probably be there for Thanksgiving.

A win! A Loss! Gridlock!

A dear friend and his wife are born again Christian TP’ers. 30+ years of association, shared work and proximity keeps us close while the TP shit stays in the background usually. His wife, who I love like a sister, was my youngest sons first grade teacher. 8 years or so ago she had a bout with cancer. She has a great insurance plan provided to our teachers by our taxes. This plan was won for her by her teachers union.

Yesterday she posted on FB a plea to all to vote Obama out of office due to Obamacare, saying she would have been denied the right to choose where she had her treatments and would have died.

Well as far as I’ve been able to make out that’s false but the argument isn’t worth the friendship so I’ve let it go. The part she refuses to see is she got to choose the place of treatment due to union efforts. She had a plan that paid the bills. I on the other hand pay school taxes that provide her plan but can’t afford my own. That the President fought to start reigning in healthcare cost is just Communism to her.

Well I tell this why? I’m trying to find a way to look at these issues from the perspective of the far right I guess. How can so many be misled with falsehoods and slanders? This is a person that loves her husband, the kids she teaches, her dog & cats, obeys the law. Like so many of the TP'ers that I know she regurgitates the Glenn Beck falsehoods while living a life that doesn't mesh with the statements. Hates unions, is a member. Hates welfare, her recovering drug addict son is living in her home while on 'County Assitance', welfare. The retired TP'ers on SS that want an end to the social net, after they use their share.

They want government out of their lives but they want government in yours, telling you what to do with your body, abortion, They want a return to a perfect past that never existed instead of fighting for a better future that just might be.

We, these friends and I, have so much in common but perceive our country and society so differently. Are all of those TP’ers like that too? How can we find the common ground that our country requires if it’s to continue?

It’s like hanging with my friend Ronnie. Loves his wife, his family and I’m sure his country but we are polar opposites politically. What forms our political & social outlook? It can’t be education, Ronnie and I both graduated from high school I then went on campus to party while Ronnie partied off campus, the neighbor graduated from college.

So with this election the gameboard stays the same. The results will more than likely be the same ...Gridlock.

   So 'Everyman' has picked a running mate. This twits answer to our supposed impending national bankruptcy is to cut medicare and other social services. He is hailed as genius by the right. He knows about economics. He knows more about it than economist do. He's to be 'Everymans' connection to the 'common man'.
   So the GOP puts a guy that makes 20 million dollars a year up as presidential candidate because he knows what America needs to recover from being raped by the rich.Then they give him a lap dog that presents a budget that can only further depress our nations economy.
    Before the 'Bush Tax Cuts' for the rich we were doing very well. Had a surplus in fact. So the Repubs are convinced that more of the same is the way to go. Insanity: Doing the same thing over & over expecting different results. I don't believe that the Repubs are insane. I think they're happy with the same results. The rich get richer.
    Where is all the money that the one percent own? If it was here in the U.S. maybe it would be generating some jobs here. But it's not. It's in other countries where it can't be taxed.
    My deluded right leaning friends find nothing wrong with that. They are outraged that a poor child is being fed with public money but feeding lobsters & caviar to billionaires with public money is OK.
   The only thing I find promising is that there are 48 million people on medicare and at least that many close to needing it that could be a major voting block against them.

This SUCKS!!

Came to post one rant but after finally finding out how all I want to say is this new sh*t just plain ole SUCKS!!!

Bring on the Clowns!!

I have found, over the last few months, this constant presence of the Republican battle to see who gets to lose to Obama next November just damn irritating. But then I got to thinking about that old list of things in my life that I have no control over and the mere 5%, that is my attitude, that I do control.
So folks I’ve decided to find the whole shebang as high comedy. Last night instead of being all pissed off and upset Clowns entertained me. One, a man of proven failed leadership that seems to think with his little brain as much as his cranial, wants me to take his ‘word’ that he would make a better leader than ‘Everyman’. Everyman, whose income, income not worth, was 20 million last year wants me to think he knows my situation but can’t seem to fix his own stand on any issue longer than a wind blowing from a new direction. ‘Little Ricky’ stands and smirks, all pious and pompous, keeping his mouth shut lest they drag his lobbying besmirched linen on stage. And of course there’s the good Dr that won’t renounce his past or entertain the thought that his ‘Neverland’ future might need slight revision.
After sitting through as much of this sidesplitting hilarity as I could stand I turned of the tube, poured myself a double shot of Jack (wine wouldn’t do) and listened to my old copy of ‘The Firesign Theater – We’re All Bozo’s On This Bus” there were amazing similarities ;~)

WTF!!!

Do I start this rant as a question or a demand or a cry for help? When I was most active politically, was it so long ago?, there was the chance, the promise of better things to come. I believed that our country, our world would be more homogeneous, capable of caring for the needs of the citizens of this planet.
Wow! Did I have it wrong or what!? We, Americans, are so fractured in our wants, beliefs and goals that it's hard to say 'Americans' and mean all the citizens of this country. The world economy is so desperate that it is relying on China to finance it, and they're still Communist.

Happy ?? Birthday? If you insist.

    With just 11 days before my 60th Birthday thought I’d take stock. OMG was I out of my freekin mind? Looking in the mirror was the first mistake. Taking stock of the physical frailties was a disaster & then looking in the financial folio, better known as the checkbook was as depressing.

    There were several things I always said I’d attend to as I aged, cropping the forest that seems to appear in the ears of older men was one and I must say that I’ve been as diligent as other failings have allowed. I refer to my inability to focus on objects closer than arms length which makes seeing hairs in ones ears reflected in the mirror while side viewing through +2.50 strength readers difficult and brandishing a pair of scissors to reduce the growth sometimes painfully unwise.

    What’s that you say? Speak up damn it stop mumbling! Have my barber tend to it? Well if that’s all you have to contribute I guess not hearing such inanities is worth missing a few conversations. You have looked at my pics I suppose. Wanna borrow my readers?

    Then there’s the medication I’ve been taking to help me get to this august state. The majority, cost wise, helps my breathing, and is truly a Godsend but some of it doesn’t actually benefit me in my every day and is prescribed to enhance my chances of seeing future Birthdays. Then there are some that I’m sure I take to counter the effects of some of the others. I’m sure this is part of a world wide conspiracy, one of many I’ve been able to uncover since taking some of the said medicines. No I’m not being paranoid, I take a pill for that.

    The rest of the physical frailties are just one sad TV commercial after another and beside not worth reporting are disgusting and will therefore be overlooked.

    The financial part will go without much comment. Let’s just say that before the recent downturn in the economy it looked as though I might be able to take it a little easier as I approached 64. Not a retirement but at least a little relief from the pressure, but now, as I’ve often joked in the past, when I retire I’ll just drag the other leg into the box and pull the lid down … and I’ll have to build the box.

    So I guess after such a thorough analysis I should, like those interested in the health & well being of our country (thought I wouldn’t slip in some politics? Get a Grip), I should cut and slash my budget. Having no health care I can’t slash that, no children to feed or educate I can’t slash that, I get no welfare and if I did I certainly wouldn’t slash that, if by foreign aid you mean contributions to church & charity those have already taken as much slashing as conscience allows. Which means…. MUDDLE ON!!