Sunday, September 1, 2019

 I've been sitting here for a half hour trying to think of a decent way to start this nonsense, & there's nothing coming. So, screw it, here we go.



 Woke up feeling awful. Not just the weird body aches I've had since spending all Tuesday on a hard metal folding chair, either; there was something off with my blood pressure. The diastolic number - that's the bottom number of a normal 120/80 reading - was high & that's the one that hangs the doctors up. I've shook it as the day rolled on but I still don't feel right. Plus, the mood swing lamps on "depression" rather than "anxiety", which is sort of a pain. Just grumpy & bitchy, a bad vibe all around.

 Part of the reason I'm in such a foul frame of mind is, of course, how screwed up this weekend's been. Dorian has been upgraded to a Category 5 with winds reaching 200 miles an hour. It is officially the most powerful hurricane that's hit that part of the Caribbean-slash-East Coast since they started keeping track in 1851. It's already starting to pound the ever-loving shit of the Bahamas, & will hit the Southern Atlantic Coast like a ton of goddamn bricks.

 And, of course, the gibbering dope that is our president started the morning tweeting that some actress from Will & Grace was nice to him when he had his TV show but isn't kissing his ass now. Or he's pretending no one's ever seen a Category 5 when at least four of them have impacted the United States during his administration.

 The other thing is, of course, the sickening fact that some asshole with a weapon of mass murder decided he had the right to end of many lives as possible, caused be, apparently, getting pulled over for not singling when making a left turn. The death count is up to 8 out of 21 total shot - including a 17-month old little girl, & the Great Uncleaned & Usual Suspects have spent the last 20 hours being just awful, surprising absolutely no one.

  Worse, the multitude of people, including the president & Republicans like the oleaginous Ted Cruz have moved on to how bad  everyone is being to people who feel the need to own those weapons of mass murder. And, of course, there's plenty of folks who think the "MSM" is playing up this batch of murders with the shooting at a high school football game where 10 people were shot. The media, say the waterheaded horde, "ignores" that shooting because they hate white people or some stupid shit because racists wouldn't be racist if they were head-slappingly stupid.

 Or this asshole who actually represents Texas in & has actual legislative power. Long, dumbass story short, he promised the gun fetishists he wold allow anyone to take away their precious shooty-bangs &, of course, everyone needed Jesus & it was the lack thereof that's causing all these darn shootings. Well, that & video games, natch.

 There's something screwy going on with this particular dickhole & the local fuzz in Midland apparently scrubbed his social media presence clean. He'd had run ins with the law, but of course Texas is intent on making sure every man, woman & child is loaded for bear, so his difficulty with the law didn't prevent him from having a gun.

 This is why nothing will be done about mass shootings any time soon. They don't care who gets shot as long as the have their high-powered guns. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Klan) was shot, remember, & the whole experience just made him more driven to make sure people who should absolutely not have weapons of mass murder have as many as they want.

 That's the new normal. That's the world we live in. That's the reality your kids have to grow up with. Like I grew up worrying about a nuclear holocaust, your kids have to worry about taking a full-metal jacket if they go to the movies or a country music concert or just shopping. And the gun nuts will sacrifice your children, their children, because of their "rights".

 This is one of the reasons I'm sort of okay with never leaving Enon Holler. Of course, living in Mississippi has it's own issues. Man, I hope Tate Reeves doesn't become our next governor. That greasy bastard's creepy as hell. Guarantee you he's got some horrible shit in his closet. But he loves him some Trump, Jesus & guns, in that order, so I wouldn't be surprised.

 Sometimes it's just flat out embarrassing. And, no, my fellow Mississippians, people from other states giving us shit for having too many bigoted, close-minded goobers are not out of line because, to be quite blunt, we has a surfeit of bigoted, close-minded goobers in this otherwise lovely state.

 Now, I said all that to say all this. A couple were looking to get married at this venue in Booneville, about an hour northwest of here. The lady at the joint told them they wouldn't let the couple use the venue because they were mixed &, I quote, it was against their "faith". Same thing with gay marriages.

 The first interracial marriage in Mississippi took place in 1970 (though it wasn't until 1995 until we agreed that, constitutionally, slavery was a shitty thing), so y'all have had plenty of time to catch up, Boone's Camp Hall, there is just no excuse for this kind of shit in 2019.

 And, no, your "faith" doesn't give you carte blanch to be a racist or, for that matter, homophobic. There is nothing in the Bible about not allowing black folks to marry white folks, pretty sure. Fairly certain most of the Late JC's word revolved around being nice to each other. And for that, we nailed him to a tree. Yep.

 I love my home, I do, but I try not to have much to do with any of the rest of it past Peppertown. Except for the plethora of doctors I see these days, I don't have much need to go to Tupelo & I sure as hell ain't going to Fulton, where I went to high school, if I can avoid it.

 Ah, but I'm getting worked up & my blood pressure is already running high. Better calm down. Just hit that "Publish" button, bubba, & maybe see about fighting off an alien occupation or something. This is a new month & the holy day of the High Priest of Country Music, the Best Friend A Song Ever Had, Conway Twitty. A new week starts tomorrow, so we must look up & not down. Or just stay in bed all day, & frankly, I'm finding it harder & harder to find reasons to get out & deal with this poor ol' world.

 Take care of yourselves, celestials. It's a crazy world out there & the people responsible for keepng things running smoothly do not give one single, solitary shit about us.