Shake and Pop

 We've all sort of gotten used to the President's Twitter game, haven't we? By that I mean we've all accepted that "The Most Powerful Man In The World" who has access to the nuclear trigger is a not-so-bright petulant bore given to throwing temper tantrums and has barely any concept of wit, diplomacy, or even what his job actually is. Every time he gives even a hint of not being a complete buffoon, the big-time media wets itself that he's got a "new tone" or "turning a corner." Within a few days, he lays a tweet on us so awful that I honestly think he loses a few votes. Not the Base, no. They are ride or die.

 So, today he laid this beauty on us:

 By the time he got to his afternoon tongue wag, he's amended it to mean he's still worried about mail-in voting because the results won't be immediately ready on Election Night. Hell, I don't know what he's talking about, either. I really believe he never paid attention to elections until 2016 and only then because he had to.

 So, all day long people have been trying to calm us down - and this is rightly worrying news - by saying only Congress would have that authority. Maybe so. During Congressional testimony, smirk pig hybrid and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the decision would ultimately land with the Department of Justice and Attorney General William "The Pope" Barr, which should fill everyone with confidence.

 And then there's the stroke that if he does manage to delay the election and if it goes on past January 20, by Constitutional fiat the Speaker of the House becomes president. That would be Nancy Pelosi and it would almost be worth it to see wingnut heads across the country pop like zits.

Again, maybe so, but here's what's bugging me, the nagging little thought I can't shake. Not only is Trump dealing with a mafia-loyal Senate and GOP, but he's also got a fairly pliable Supreme Court, one I wouldn't be on. Sure, he doesn't have the House, but let's be honest here. The Democratic party can charitably be described as "feckless" when it comes to dealing with Republican power grabs for at least the past 30 years.

 But that's not what worries me the most, honestly. What worries me is he's got at least 50 million drooling lunatics who are as loyal to him as maybe we've ever seen, to the point where anything that makes him look bad instantly becomes "fake news". Furthermore, they've already said they're willing to go to war with anyone who's against Trump, bragging about their guns and steadfastness. All they're waiting on, they say, is "the word". Whether they will or this is just a lot of talk from people who watch too much television, I don't know, but I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 I really don't get the American obsession with "strong leadership". Today it was announced that Mississippi led the nation in per capita COVID-19 cases. We also learned that former presidential candidate and Republican "black friend" Herman McCain died due to complications from the virus. He had dealt with Stage 4 colon cancer and, thus, had a weakened immune system. It's very likely, though not completely certain he came down with the virus while attending Trump's return to volksgemeinschaft back at the end of June.

 Both of these were, in some form or fashion, credited to a "lack of leadership," either from Gov. Tate Reeves or Trump. We've heard a lot about leadership in the last few years, especially when pointing out how badly it's being done. Maybe this should be a lesson to us: stop looking for leaders. Maybe stop giving unearned authority its power by already being willing to bend a knee to whoever is "in charge" just because that's how it's always been done.

 This is probably my appreciation for anarchism as a political theory kicking in, but I think a lot of this is because we as a people - and definitely as a culture - are so given to a Narrative that champions a Strong Leader or a Savior. The flip side is we think we're all so easily manipulated that we don't need to put the effort in to be any better. That's where a lot of the opprobrium for the mainstream media comes. They're lazy and profit-over-proof oriented because we let them be. Maybe if we demanded more from the big-time press, they'd deliver. In the meantime, give your support to indie publications, alt-weeklies, and bloggers you trust.

 Okay. That's plenty for today, I think. We'll try to get tomorrow's News out on time. It may be a wrap-up, but to be fair, it has been a busy week.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Tambourine.

 Weird. This is a new layout for the posting page. We'll see if it's just cosmetic, but I will say I don't like the left-hand side all the way up against the edge of the screen.

 Goddamn internet's still acting up. Had a guy come out and look at it, and while I hate to be mean, he was as useless as tits on a rooster. The replacement modem he gave me didn't work. Furthermore, I learned the local telephone company that provides the DSL - which, at its fastest clocks in around 12 Mbps at best - has to reuse and repair equipment. They only cover Itawamba County and only provide DSL to my area because someone with ties to the owner wanted it. They're putting in fiber-optic cable, but they're going to stop a good five miles from here. On the upside, Tombigbee Power is coming from the other direction with fiber optic, so hopefully by the end of the year, this will be a thing of the past.

 Okay. So much for that. I'd usually wait until the weekend to shine on the News at the WordPress site, but I think yesterday's monster is particularly noteworthy. Because it wound up being so long before all was said and done, I broke it up into two chunks each concentrating on one topic. First is a rundown of the frankly risible welfare scam currently afflicting Mississippi and further weakening Gov. Tate Reeves' stroke in Jackson. While poor folks in the poorest state in the union getting shafted once again by conservative politicians and crooked rich people isn't something to laugh at, this involved Christian wrestling organizers and that just cracks me up. Don't know why. Plus, it goes over all the other dirty deeds by Republicans currently befouling my fair home state.

 The second isn't much funny at all. It's concerning the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, by two white men in a predominantly white neighborhood in Georgia. I think I did a particularly good bit of journalism, so please do read for the lowdown. In a nutshell, Arbery was running down a street in this neighborhood, and Gregory McMichael and his son Travis chased him down, tried to get him to stop and "talk" to them, got involved in a physical altercation with Arbery involving Travis McMichael and a shotgun when he didn't, three shots were fired and two hit Arbery in the chest to leave him dead in the street. The McMichaels claimed he fit the profile of someone they thought had been robbing different houses in the neighborhood and claimed to have seen him look into the window, alternately using "stand you ground" and "citizen's arrest" as justification. Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper, said her son was jogging and indeed had jogged through that neighborhood before.

 This all happened Feb. 23. The original prosecutor had to recuse herself because Gregory McMichael used to work as an investigator for her office. The second prosecutor had to recuse himself because his son worked in the first prosecutor's office. The second prosecutor was ready to drop the charges, citing Arbery's high school arrests for shoplifting and having a gun on school campus and claiming he had "mental issues," though without any proof. The case only really got due attention after a video of the shooting - filmed apparently by a friend of the McMichaels - surfaced on a Georgia radio station's website and became viral on social media earlier in the week. The case is now in the hands of a third prosecutor from a county 70 miles away and he's announced he intends to fully investigate the shooting and, if necessary, bring charges against the McMichaels.

 Now.

 As with every time this sort of thing happens, legal geniuses on Twitter and Facebook who claim they're either "waiting for all the facts" or that for some reason, shooting a man dead because you think he might be someone who might be a robber is okay because he reacted poorly to two white men with guns chasing him down is perfectly reasonable. Either way, they're infuriated if you call either the shooter or them racist, and bemoan how liberals have tarnished the word because blahdy-blah-blah. Seriously, you sort of wish they'd get a new tune.

 To refresh everyone, I am a white man who was raised and currently lives in the South. Mississippi, in fact. Furthermore, I've not only lived in Georgia but I've never lived anywhere other than the South, either in a rural area, a college town or New Orleans. What I'm saying is, I feel very confident on making a judgment as to whether anti-black racism played a part in this, as well as the overall white supremacist leanings of both Georgia and the United States in general. For the "all the facts" crowd, I think there are enough for me to render judgement without fear of being unfair.

 This is nothing but racism. Aside from the judges' bullshit - and the first judge made the news last year for aggressively prosecuting a black woman who voted in the wrong district because she was given wrong info - the shooting itself was racist. The McMichaels are racist. Now, they may not be cross-burning, fully paid up Klansman. They may have black friends. They still thought a black man running down their street was not only probably the guy who they think had been robbing the area, though even that said robber's black is an assumption, he was worth going after armed and intending to shoot, if necessary, to make a citizen's arrest. Even then, a citizen's arrest is only valid if one sees someone committing a crime or has personal knowledge of a crime committed. Records show 911 was called, but all the McMichaels did was say "There's a black guy running down the street" as justification. Indeed, even the claim that Arbery looked through the window is supposition on their part.

 Furthermore, if you're trying to find why the McMichaels were justified in chasing down and shooting a man for no discernible reason, you yourself are racist as hell, white robe in your closet or not. That's a lot of the problem with American racism. We've relegated it to toothless hillbillies and made it almost comical, when it's a real thing most People of Color deal with almost constantly. Particularly black people who, if you read your history with an honest eye, know we as a nation have royally fucked them other from the days of slavery until the days of James Byrd, and did so with vim and gusto. No, you don't have to drop n-bombs left and right and, no, you don't have to have a Rebel Flag hanging on your wall.

 But if you think it's okay that two random yo-yos shoot someone because they think he's a burglar because he's black and running, then yes, you are as racist the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Maybe even worse, because he's at least honest about it. We pretend anti-black racism ended with the Civil War or, if we're generous, Martin Luther King's work or, if we're stupid, Barack Obama's election to president. But that just ain't so. Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, John Crawfod III, Philandro Castile, and now Aumaud Arbery and Sean Reed are all dead because we're a racist culture that doesn't care if black people get killed and white people get away with it.

 Doesn't matter if they have a gun permit. Doesn't matter if they were minding their own business. Doesn't matter if they needed medical care. Doesn't matter if they were in their own home. We as a culture are fine with white people shooting black people and suffering no consequences for it. And if you try to justify the shootings, either as a natural part of police work or people who're defending themselves, you're saying you're fine with it, too. You can try to deny it and claim all the black friends/relatives/sex partners you want, it's still so.

 Some say racism, particularly anti-black racism, is America's Original Sin. That may be so, but a large part of it is the different rules we hold for white people and everyone else. Last week saw armed and masked "protesters," many kitted out in ill-fitting combat gear, demanding to be allowed in the Michigan capitol to scream in cops' faces about how unfair it was they couldn't get a haircut. The same sort of people regularly parade around with their high-powered weaponry, going to shopping centers or even gun control rallies. These same people protested a recent vote on a gun law in Virginia and were so unhinged they ran a pro-gun Libertarian state senator into protective custody because they didn't understand the bill being voted on.

 Not a one of 'em gets shot or even asked to maybe not go to Starbucks loaded for bear. Indeed, we're told to be thankful that these "protests" don't turn into violent blood baths, the implication that maybe we shouldn't push them too far. But gun control is another issue, and really doesn't concern the police nor the law enforcement system. Both are not only riddled with racists, active and passive, but both were in large part designed in such a way to keep black people "in their place". One of the largest gun bans ever passed was by Gov. Ronald Reagan in the '60s once Black Panthers started walking around strapped and loaded. Morons claim Jim Crow wouldn't have happened if black people had access to guns, conveniently ignoring the fact the reason they didn't is because the racist white power structure set the law up that way. Black people who couldn't find work were charged with vagrancy, making finding a good job to keep them occupied that much harder.

 This isn't just a conservative issue, either. Mainstream liberals regularly ignore the black female voting block that often decides elections and as often as not, soi-disant leftists dismiss the concerns of the black community as "identity politics" not as important as universal health care or American foreign policy. We say "pimp" and "ghetto" and "ratchet" and "sleep" and don't care how a black person might feel hearing us throw those words around to describe nothing important.

 When it comes to racism, especially against black people, we are all guilty, we are all culpable and we are all responsible for fixing it. Stop asking black folks to "meet you halfway" or to "understand where you're coming from". They don't owe you the benefit of the doubt. We done pissed that away, neighbors. Stop saying you don't see color or that you judge people by their merits. You do and you don't, and neither does anyone any good whatsoever.

 All right. I believe I've made my point and, no, I don't care if you disagree. You'll have to either learn to live with being wrong or maybe reassess your behavior and ideas. As for now, I think I'll take a nap and then play some Phantom Doctrine. Cold-war era spy in an XCOM-like set up. It's pretty decent and Steam is offering it for a killer price, 80% off. Otherwise, wash your hands, cover your face and stop being shitty to service industry workers who ask you to not cough on them.

"I think they ought to nuke you two until you glow."

 Tate Reeve is sacrificing the state of Mississippi like a Judas goat on the altar of Trumpism and the worst part is the people he's trying to impress could give less of a shit about him or anyone in this state. He's like the weird, unpopular kid who wants to be in with the cool kids so he does awful, degrading shit to make them laugh and they still don't invite him to parties. Nobody outside the state of Mississippi gives a tinker's damn about the state of Mississippi, and honestly, sometimes I can't blame them.

 I've been waking up pissed off a lot lately, and I don't think it's entirely due to the dreams I keep having of, well, being that weird, unpopular kid. Some of it's that and a lot of it's frustration that using this CPAP machine isn't doing a goddamn thing to help with how exhausted I feel all the time. I think maybe it's making it worse. I can sleep five-six hours a night, be sharp for maybe three hours, and then need a nap by noon. I mean, barely keeping my head up tired. And if I'm not careful, I can then be in a dead-to-the-world sleep for another five-six hours. By the time I get my Daily Peace written, I'm usually wiped out again. I'm sure a lot of it's middle age and a sedentary lifestyle, but still. It's exhausting on a whole 'nother level.

 However, most of it is due to the awful situation the world finds itself in with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic and, specifically, how goddamn foul the political and business "leaders" are being about all of it. They're basically telling us "We don't care how sick you get or how bad it screws up your life. This is affecting our bottom line, even if ever so slightly, and we can't have that." Seriously, I have no fucking sympathy for a billionaire with a "B" who's "worried about the economy" when he could, just for an instance, fix the water problems in Flint, MI, with his pocket change.

 And, of course, the litany of uber-wealthy and their media toadies telling everyone that not only should they be willing, nay eager to go back to jobs where they work themselves to death for barely enough to live on, if they get the least bit of help during a worldwide crisis, the lazy plebes will forget their place as worker drones. Worse than that, more and more people who don't have an actually useful job keep telling us it's okay if some people die due to COVID-19 so long as they get back to work and get back to making the rich more money.

 So, yeah, I'm a little tense, I guess. Christamighty, I'd give my left nut for a bag of good right now. I wrote most of the above this morning before my nap, but I'm going to go ahead and tie it off here. It's very warm here in Enon Holler and I'm sure Otis is up for a stroll. Really not all that much else to look into. I gave Gothic another shot last night. It's got an interesting premise - a prisoner charged with a task in a prison high-fantasy colony - but the control scheme is so weird.

 That's one of the things I'm learning about the development of computer games: up until after 2010 at least, games chose any old way for their input. More recently, it's become more streamlined and industry standard. Like using WASD to move, C to crouch, the direction keeps to make necessary alterations, etc. Nothing earthshaking to anyone who's been around, I imagine, but it's interesting from my perspective of someone who stepped away for two decades.

 I wouldn't subject myself to the president's daily open-mic night, but a perusal of Twitter says he is being a bit more incomprehensible and embarrassing than usual. dogging governors that down kowtow and name-dropping Tom Brady. Tate Reeves is getting some pushback on his ridiculous order to countermand local social distancing regulations, and that's a good thing. He's got to learn that being that big a rat fink for someone who wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire does him no good politically.

 Okay, that's good. I may do some more later. But for now, good talk.

Friday, February 7, 2020

 I don't know who or why, but some read the tar out of this blog yesterday. I got 164 hits, which not only destroys that all previous records of hit-per-day but also more hits than I usually get in a month. I surely do appreciate it, whoever you are and why ever you did. Tell your friends and relations. Most of the time it's more interesting than yesterday's half-baked gibberish, too. Well, sometimes.

Friday, January 17, 2020

 I've been putting this off, I admit. Not in the mood, really, sort of generally indolent. Still, a man has to do what a man has to do, and I am wired & inspired.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Ugh, what a day. You know, I might as well just post a link to Google News & let you see for yourself.