Can't Unsee That

Walking into my local Casey's that is now advertising fuel for $4.19/gallon (Thanks Mr President!), I was planning to get a fountain drink on this very hot day.  As I was walking in, a lady pulled up in her gigantic pickup; I could see that there were a few kids with her.  She jumped out and I noticed she was wearing a football T-shirt from a nearby town; likely she and the kids were in our town for a youth football game.  As I opened the door for her I looked down and noticed on her legs there were two tattoos.  On her right leg was the word F*CK (not asterisked out); on the other leg was the word BIDEN.  Well then.  Classy comes to our little c-store; glad she will pay be paying taxes here on her beer and vapes rather than elsewhere.  

I'm always fascinated by the people who thought that "Let's Go Brandon" was clever.  I say this fully understanding why some people didn't care much for his presidency; he was, after all, painfully mediocre.  While future historians will probably rate him higher than he is now because of the way he kept us from collapsing (for awhile) after Trump 45, there wasn't much more to look at and get excited at.  He was a solid C-.  

Yet my guess is that for this classy lady it wasn't so much that she hated Biden, but that she couldn't stand that her lord and savior was deprived of the presidency for four years.  Not that DJT lost it...that was unthinkable!  Rather, that his rightful place was STOLEN from him.  And Joe Biden, who so unfairly took his place, became the criminal whom she couldn't mention without throwing a vulgar word in front of his name.  

As this woman and her kids continue this ongoing parent-child relationship over the next few years, I wonder how that's gonna go.  Sometimes I have seen a child nuzzle up to a parent and trace the outline of a tattoo with their hand; did this woman's elementary school child learn the word F*CK (again, not asterisked out!) through the tattoo on mommy's leg?  When she goes to her school for a teacher conference, and she's sitting across from her child's teacher who may or may not be some kind of raging liberal, does she feel proud that this teacher will know how much hatred is in her heart?  When she is sitting in church as she does on Easter morning, will she feel a need to modestly cover her legs not to distract men (not that any but the most desperate of men would be attracted to her IMO), but to keep God from striking her down for her vulgarity?  And when she gets old and increasingly infirm, what's going to happen when this woman has a home health aide from a foreign country taking care her of her most personal needs and seeing those words every single day? 

But hey, our classy lady has this tattoo to scream at the world for the next half-century.  I'm guessing that someday another Democrat will join Mediocre Joe on her left leg.  We should all be so proud.  

My anger

We are now 17 months into the global pandemic.  The 'Delta' variant is causing COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations to spike.  People are getting sick almost everywhere.  Several of my co-workers have gotten ill.  The government is now encouraging those of us who got shots earlier in the year to get a booster 8 months after our first dosage because it appears that the effectiveness of the vaccines wanes over time.  This pandemic shows no sign of finishing.  

And I'm pissed.  So angry at the lies people have been willing to hear.  

About masks.  

About social distancing.  

About the vaccine.  

We could have been over this a long time ago, if not for a dimwit President who said this would magically disappear, and when it did not completely screwed up the response because he was afraid he would lose his election (which he did anyway) if he told the truth.  

We could have been over this earlier this year, if not for people who decided it was better to believe lies about vaccines.  Now generally 90+% of those who are getting seriously ill or who are dying are those who are not vaccinated.  And now because of their stubborn refusal to accept reality the virus has mutated and we might be dealing with this for years to come. 

We could have been over this during the summer, if not for craven Republican governors who decided to act as if no lessons had been learned last summer, that letting people think they are 'free' because they are irresponsible will win them elections.  The virus doesn't care about your ideology.  It doesn't care about your 'liberty'.  It doesn't care about how tired you are of being careful.   

As a Christian I know I need to be sympathetic to people who get sick.  And I am sympathetic to those who are vaccinated but yet have had a breakthrough positive test.  I have compassion on children who are not old enough to be vaccinated or whose parents will not let them be vaccinated and who get the disease. 

But these people who refuse to get vaccinated, who refuse to mask up, who refuse to stay home...I have nothing anymore.  My patience with these people is finished.  I stay away from them.  I have a hard time praying for them.  And I am so very, very angry at them all.  They choose to believe lies.  And all of us are going to suffer as a result of their stupidity.  

Forgive me, Lord, for my anger.  

I am writing this because perhaps in expressing this I can get it out of my mind.  The narrative that has been building in my head over the past few weeks won't leave on its own.  Only God can take it away, and perhaps this will allow him to do so.  

Forgive me, Lord, for my arrogance.  

Indefensible Driving

It snowed a few inches last night, not enough to close school (shockingly) but enough to make the streets slick enough to warrant a lot of caution.  Of course, there are still terrible choices being made out there by people who should have their licenses revoked instantly.  While on my way to lunch a woman pulled out in front of me making me slam on my brakes (fortunately I did not slide much) and as she passed in front of me I noticed that sitting in her lap was a toddler with a binky in her mouth.

I'm not going to be surprised, though, because I see people drive stupidly everyday.  We're told all the time about the dangers of using cell phones or texting while driving, but I see people (usually women) driving with small (and sometimes large) dogs in their laps with their heads out the window.  I see others with 3-4 dogs who have the run of the inside of the vehicle.  I mean, it's hard enough to drive with a few kids strapped in, but letting over-excited dogs who are looking to bark at anything just run free while you are driving?  Are you insane? 

When I drop the kids on my bus route off at the schools I see parents who have no thought as to anything around them, weaving in and out of traffic like it's a video game.  Others run school zone stop lights, ignore the stop arms when we drop kids off in the afternoons, and pull out in front of buses as if they can't see a giant yellow box hurtling their way. 

All this talk in recent years about self-driving cars makes people nervous: 'But what if they have an accident?  What if they kill somebody?'  But I've been watching human drivers long enough...most of them really, really suck at what they do.  Bring on the computers...surely they won't be nearly as bad as the humans. 

Deconstruction is easier than building up

Today is the election for the Alabama U.S. senator in which an accused pedophile with a history of being removed from office multiple times will likely defeat a former federal prosecutor with a history of putting away Klansmen because he has R after his name instead of D.  And, as voters know, this means they are true to the Constitution, live with integrity, and are specially blessed by God, while the other team hates God, hates America, and hates everything good. 

It amazes me how far our national intelligence and morality have plummeted in recent years, and this is just one of many examples.  I mean, when GOP now stands for 'Groping Or Perving', there's a problem.  Yes, I know...BOTH SIDES are wrong.  But at least the Democrats and liberals seem to be exiling their failures even as the GOP is intent on building them up higher and denying that they did anything wrong. 

(Take a breath.  Look at your own plank.  Realize that these problems are bigger than you.  Now, continue.) 

It's so easy to point out all the problems with our world...but to be honest, I am at a point that I have no idea (except the power of God) how to make things better.  The other day I figured out what my problem is...I know exactly what is wrong with something, I know how systems work, and I can see patterns.  But making something good out of it?  I'm not your man. 

So I was watching my daughter and her team play basketball, and it became very apparent that there were a lot of problems with their plan...they were not setting screens, the guards were not passing into the bigs, and they were not communicating on either defense or offense.  I could see all their problems...maybe I would be a good scout for a sports team, as I can always see the problems and what is being done. 

But, like a lot of Americans, I'm really bad about figuring out how to make things better.  I can yell and scream and point fingers, but fixing the problem, and building up my fellow man?  Nope.  This is why for all my morbid interest in politics, I have never had any desire to run for any public office except for the anointing of Dictator.  It's why I'm not a great coach...I can see what is going on, but I can't make the kids do what I want them to do in my mind.  It's why I stink at video games...I can figure out all the patterns within the game, but I don't have the ability to exploit them. 

Maybe our world is just too complicated today to make a difference in.  We'd rather just tear things and people down than build it up to something good. 

Why Are We So Surprised?

So we are now almost 4 months into the presidency of Donald Trump.  Daily there's something new that comes out that should have shipwrecked almost any other president, and daily the outrage and disbelief that we elected this man continues to grow.  But what's amazing to me is not that these things are happening, but that so many are so surprised that this could happen.  I mean, electing a thin-skinned reality TV star whose personal life has so often been a shambles to the most powerful office in the land, who could have predicted this?

-Nepotism and conflicts of interests with his family retaining business controls while having high-profile assignments within his administration:  check.
-Charges that the election was stolen through Russian hacking, even as Trump continues to maintain many personal relationships and praise for Russian leaders: check. 
-Trips on the government dime to Florida almost every weekend so that he can play golf, even though he routinely mocked his predecessor for playing golf: check. 
-Firing subordinate government officials who have contradicted his 'facts', stood up to him, or even been investigating him or his cronies: check.
-Administrative incompetence and chaos after his signing of countless executive orders, many of which are quickly turned over for their sloppiness or being unconstitutional: check.
-Pointlessly bombing a foreign nation with cruise missiles, even while stating he has no intention of getting further involved, because his approval rating will tick up slightly after doing so: check.    
-Petty late-night Twitter feuds with his 'enemies', to the point of threatening people and abusing the powers of his office: check.

And on and on it goes.  There's not a thing that has happened in his administration that has surprised me, except that his approval rating still hovers at around 40%, even amongst people (usually poor, uneducated whites) who are going to be most screwed over by his policies.  But then the other day I read a report that even Richard Nixon, who had done many things competently in his presidency, still maintained about a 25% approval rating in the last days before resigning in August of 1974.  It made me realize that while Mr. Trump's approval rating will continue to drop, there will always be people who think he's doing a great job.  Why am I surprised at this?  

Congratulations. You're Both Idiots.

We've all seen the show or movie in which there is a love triangle.  Two men are fighting over a women, show themselves to be complete and total jerks, and she finally gets between them and says, "You're both idiots, I don't like either of you" and then walks out.

I feel kinda like that right now when it comes to both left and right.  I used to be a solid conservative, but my years of studying the Bible showed me that Kingdom of God was not, in fact, a desperate cry from Jesus to lower taxes on the wealthy or build up our military infrastructure around the world.  Yet the liberal perspective, which in practice seems primarily a cash grab in order to fund do-gooder projects of dubious worth, have never seemed a worthy alternative.  While today I probably sympathize more with the Left than the Right, partly because the Right has moved so far into crazytown that it's impossible to at all accept it, I don't feel home in either ideology or either dominant political party.

The first week and a half of the current Trump administration has not made me feel any better.  Trump...crap.  What an idiot.  Whether it's appointing cabinet ministers who are designed to placate the billionaire class or continue repeating many of our foreign policy adventures of the past half-century, or whether it's Trump himself overreaching to drive away every ounce of goodwill or common sense that may have existed, I'm convinced that ending his reign cannot come soon enough.  Even Mike Pence would be a welcome change at this point...maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do think he has principles.

But some of the liberal response has, to me, been lacking.  Yes, I am glad that there are protests.  But I'm sometimes worried that their actions fall short.  I wonder how many of the good-hearted liberals speaking of how we should not close our borders to refugees are willing to sponsor those same refugees.  And many of those who are speaking up are doing so in such a crude manner that one can't tell the difference in style between them and Trump.

I'm not happy, and my patient waiting for the center to arise and put away this imbicility is starting to wane.  It's not getting any better anytime soon, and I'm tired with the idiots on both side.  Thankfully the 21st century is the best time in history to engage in some media escapism.

The Three Unforgivable Curses

I have been reading again the Harry Potter series, which I am increasingly convinced may be the best series of books written since the Bible.  In the wizarding world there are three unforgivable curses, for which a wizard will go to Azkaban: the Imperius curse, in which one controls another person; the Cruciatus curse, in which one causes another person unspeakable pain; and finally the Killing curse (Avada Kedavra), in which one kills another.

I am starting to wonder whether our country is living within this wizarding world and whether or not Voldemort has taken over.  Consider: the people who are excited about either candidate, Trump especially, must be under the Imperius curse...is there any other explanation for the behavior that people have in supporting these candidates?  Their actions and the actions of the candidates is casting upon the rest of us the Cruciatus curse...it's really painful to watch; we are all scarred by what is happening.  And if Trump should happen to win, dare we say that we will all be under the Killing curse?  I really fear that if Trump wins this country will be irrevocably broken, and if he loses his supporters will soon break it.  Death to America seems to no longer be the chant of Muslim extremists.

Fortunately those books and those curses are not real, are they?  Yet right now they certainly feel real.

Baskets upon baskets of deplorables

It's a pretty safe bet at this point to say that Donald Trump will NOT be our next president.  Despite Hilary Clinton being the second-most hated person in America, despite the cowardice of the American population to not even consider looking at third party candidates...he's simply not going to win.  He's shot himself in the foot so many times that his unfavorable ratings are 63%; the sense is that he has a ceiling of about 38-40%, and no more.  He can't win. 

Yet this number that he has a 63% disapproval rating tells us something else: there are still 37% of Americans who either have their heads in the grounds or have decided that yeah, they still really like Donald Trump.  After all the allegations of shady business dealings (Trump University, condo deals gone bad, unpaid creditors), all the racist and hateful things he has said to offend anybody who is not an older white male, and now after the recordings of him laughing about groping and even assaulting women, they still look at him and think that everything bad about him is a mainstream media/Clinton Foundation/globalistic plot to keep the true Friend of the Working Man from becoming president. 

How do people become so deluded?  I get it...there are at least a few of his voters who will vote for him because they think that any Clinton is worse.  I can relate to that, as I've considered it myself a few times.  And sure, he is unlike any politician on this stage that we have seen since probably Henry Wallace.  In a way it's kind of refreshing to have somebody who is not so guarded and measured in their words. 

But c'mon.  It's still Trump.  How can anybody with any kind of conscience, any kind of Christian value system, look at him and still approve at this point?  What does that say about a small and loud minority of Americans that somebody will  still think that he is our last best hope?  Have we really sunk that low?

Yes, yes we have. 

A Life Skills Quiz

As I am now in middle age, I know about life.  OK, maybe I don't know nearly as much as I think I do...but I do know enough to know stupid living when I see it.  And these days, sadly, I see it a lot.  I see people, usually younger, but some older people as well, doing things that just make me shake my head.  Hundreds of years ago the Darwin effect would have killed these people off rather early, but today our social safety net (a product of Christian charity) enables people to keep on living.  Still, just because they live does not mean they live well.  And so, as a service to you, I give you a simple life skills quiz.

-1)You are young, have a wife and small child.  You need to buy a new vehicle to get to work and take your family around.  You don't have much money...what should you do?
a. Buy a sensible used four-door sedan.
b. Buy a fifteen-year old convertible Camaro that sounds like a dying buffalo when running at 40 mph.
c. Buy a brand new Harley on a five-year payment plan, because it's badass.

-2)You and your baby mama are expecting your third child.  You recently received your tax refund back.  What should you do this weekend?
a. Put a portion of the refund away into savings.
b. The Fourth of July is coming, so load up on fireworks and with whatever's left swing by the liquor store for a few cases of Natty Light.
c. Take your other girlfriend to Vegas for the weekend, even as you tell your baby mama that you have to go see your grandparents.

-3)Your mother has passed away recently.  It's the day of the funeral...what do you do?
a. Show up early, greet her friends and family and be thankful for her life.
b. Sleep in, show up late for the funeral, and as you can see everybody waiting for the funeral to begin, stand by your car and smoke another cigarette.
c. Smoke your last stash of pot, show up to the funeral wasted, and get into a fistfight with a cousin who gets into your face about how you are being an embarrassment.

-4)The end of the month comes and you don't have enough money to pay all your bills.  What do you do?
a. Sort out what bills are priority and dated first, and pay those; those that you still can't pay, contact them and ask for an extension.
b. Spend your morning calling around to churches and charity agencies asking if they will pay your bill.
c. You still have money in your account, so go and get that new 50" flatscreen at Wal-Mart.  Bills will take care of themselves.

-5)Your boss schedules you for an extra shift on Saturday.  What do you do?
a. Go to work and be grateful that you have a job and now some extra money.
b. Show up half-drunk and half-interested.  They can schedule you, but they don't own you, bro.
c. Quit that stupid job.  Getting worked to death is for suckers.

-6)Your child is not doing well in school.  What do you do?
a. Work with them to try and help them understand what is going on so they can do better.
b. Blame their teacher for not understanding your little genius, and storm into the principal's office demanding that you get your way.
c. Nothing.  True playas don't need school.

-7)Your renewal for your lease is coming up.  What do you do?
a. Make sure you have taken care of the property, paid your rent, and talked to your landlord about renewing your lease.
b. Have your cousin show up with his pickup after dark, because you want to get away before your landlord finds out that you put multiple holes in the walls to hide your stash.
c. Start stripping the copper wiring wherever you can, because you gotta get out of there as fast as possible.

SCORES:
a = 10 points
b = 0 points
c = -50 points

Finish with 50 points or higher, and you have chance.
0-50 points: you are an idiot, but you might survive.
Negative figures: Good luck.  You'll need it.