Who's been talking?

  Well, it's Saturday night, the first one of my 46th year. Twenty years ago, I'd be getting ready to go see some band play if I wasn't in some kitchen getting my daily salt. Either way, I'd probably be stoned and that's about the only thing I miss from those days.

 Anyway. This was a depressing week. Too many shootings, either by the police or just some asshole who's decided he's got the right to decide who lives and who dies. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were all about some shooting, be it the cops in Minneapolis or the guy in Indianapolis. It's depressing as shit, even more so knowing that probably nothing significant will change.

 I've talked about gun violence all week and I don't want to talk about it anymore. I will reiterate that I really don't give a shit about your guns or, for that matter, what you think the Second Amendment actually means. Knock your damn fool self out, for all I care. Just know this: if you're not someone I know well enough to know that you know what you're doing with something that's good for nothing but killing, I feel it well within my right to treat you like the next mass shooter should you decide you simply cannot hit the local Wal-Mart without being loaded for bear. Deal.

 It's come and gone, but I really didn't touch on the whole "America First Caucus" Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar tried to pull off. I am surprised that it didn't last a week, for what that's worth, though I never did figure out what "Anglo-Saxon political traditions" meant, seeing as how the whole "Anglo-Saxon" thing was a non-starter after 1066. I know it was a badly disguised "white power" to-do, sure, and probably dumb as a bucket of shit considering the progenitors. 

 I think if nothing else, it might behoove Nancy Pelosi to give Greene something useful to do with her time. Put her on a low-grade committee that doesn't actually mean anything. She could be naming post officers or something like that.

 Moving on, I think I've bought all the harmonicas I'm going to need for a while. Key-wise, all I lack is a B and an F in major keys. I might, might, buy an F and a B-flat, but I wouldn't count on it. It's past time to actually try to get back to getting better-than-decent on them, I reckon. Plus, I have that chromatic to figure out. I got that Rocket Low C and thought I meant to get a Low G as Junior Wells suggested. Them things are expensive as hell, though. Lee Oskar doesn't make a Low G and Junior preferred Lee Oskars, so who knows. Harmonica talk, always a winner.

 Okay, I don't know what else. Something about this week, I don't know, but I've been kind of out of it. I can live with it, though. Last week, I got up every morning by 8 a.m. and hit the gym, while this week I laid around until noon or so. Why, I couldn't tell you, except I've been taking advantage of the new fiber optic and trying more of the games with huge downloads. The Witcher 2 is actually a pretty good game and not as dense as 3, though it takes a minute to get used to not being able to jump.

 And that's that, kids.

It's the same old story. Tell me where does it end.

 Okay. It's Thursday and, to be honest, I have nothing. What little creativity I have is wrapped up in a fiction idea, but I'll get to that in a minute. Otherwise, we'll just ramble on until we hit word count.

 There's news, of course, but I'd rather save it for the News. That Marjorie Greene fruitcake got all her committee appointments taken away, but the GOP as a whole decided they were fine with being lamped in with the whole QAnon bunch, 9/11 trutherism, and the stroke that certain school shootings weren't anything but false flags to destroy the Second Amendment. I'm never sure who's supposed to do that, but there you go.

 She's dangerous but she's tedious and dull. I wouldn't be surprised at all if she winds up shooting someone she works with, but she's just not that interesting. Conservatives have been indulging in dumbass conspiracy theories and muttering darkly about exercising their Second Amendment rights all over people who disagree with them. Hell, the first time in years they've acted in good faith in years was when that bunch of dipsticks tried to take over the Capitol.

 Of course, them backing down when they weren't the conquering heroes is just as predictable as Greene pretending she really didn't mean it. Ideally, this would mean her fifteen minutes were up, but to repeat myself, this has been the GOP for years. They've just cut the bullshit.

 Speaking of cutting the bullshit, Nashville is wrestling with the fallout of Morgen Wallen dropping the N-Bomb during a drunken tirade that got recorded and distributed by TMZ. He says he's "embarrassed" about it all but I'm he's more embarrassed he got busted. That boy's mullet and white-trash 'stache isn't helping his argument any. Helluva way to start off Black History Month, Nashville.

 I really don't pay attention to recently released music, much less country music, and haven't in about a decade. That's not a comment on modern radio's quality because, quite frankly, the only thing more tedious than "bro country" is hipsters getting snooty about "real country music" or, even worse, "saving country music." You want to save country music, go out and make good music.

 I wish I was more into it, though. I grew up in love with country radio and find it depressing I can't go back to that love. At the same time, it's no longer necessary since I can make the best country playlist you've ever heard thanks to iTunes and Apple Music. So, I don't feel getting shitty about the state of mainstream Nashville is worth the effort. Dig, y'all, Willie & Waylon just wanted to get paid as much as rock artists, they still wanted to make those bullets. Hank Williams was tickled shitless when his tunes were made into pop hits.

 Every year I tell myself I'm going to write something about Black people and country music, and I'm sort of glad I'm so out of date that there are more Black folks in Nashville nowadays than there might've ever been. One of the kids in Brothers Osbourne came out as well, and that's a good step in the right direction. The peckerheads may be losing their shit over all this, but fuck 'em, they're the right people to be pissing off.

 If you're a racist or a homophobe who happens to be a country music fan and this sort of change makes you mad, good. You suck and your life should be as miserable as legally possible. I hope it gets worse for you, pissant, and you never know joy.

I was made to play the part.

 We're on the sixteenth (16) day of the 2020 Presidential Election. Though he has yet to accept the reality of the situation, Trump's chances are drifting further away and Joe Biden's victory becomes more solid. They recently finished up a count in Georgia, confirming his victory. After the election commission declined to challenge the Michigan vote based on a pair of GOP members' blatantly racist attempts to toss out votes from the predominately African American Detroit while ignoring more suspicious if predominately White communities, those same weasels said they wanted a do-over. It was past due, so nothing can come of it, but an interesting wrinkle is Trump himself took an active role in getting them to monkey with the count.

 And depending on how it's approached, that might be illegal. Much like how Senator Lindsey Graham's attempts to influence Georgia's count in his master's favor might be illegal, at that level it all depends on how bad they fumbled it and just who they've pissed off along the way. In any event, the Trump gang have withdrawn their lawsuit, saying it's served its purpose of, and I quote, "to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted and every illegal vote has not been counted." In other words, they wanted to slow down the inevitable since the game was over Tuesday night, and that's supposed to be a victory. Otherwise, they're like 2-27 when it comes to lawsuits trying to change what can't be changed.

 So much for all of that. As I've noted a number of times, I am sick to death of writing about the election, just as I'm sick to death of writing about whatever soft-headed bullshit Trump and his goons pull next. Either as president or trying to be president again, I am tired of that fool's very existence. Don't get it twisted, I wish him no special or particular harm. I just long for the day when I don't have to worry about the bastard anymore. He's a cheap punk and we're not only a poorer nation for his presidency and the viler aspects of the American Psyche it encouraged, we're a poorer culture just because a half-wit greedhead like that can become president.

 Donald Trump is an example of the American Dream being a dead and lifeless thing. He didn't kill it, but if there was actually anything to it, he would've never become a celebrity much less President and Most Powerful Man in the World. That's just all there is to it.

 Okay, then, let's move on. I have some Actual Paying Work to do tonight. It's a different beast than the usual post for a law firm to snag Google hits. Not much different, mind you, and it's more a question of for whom it's written rather than the subject matter. Either way, it's not interesting to get too deep into. Which as much as anything brings me to my next stroke.

 I often wonder just how much I should share here. Politics, naturally, and pop culture recommendations/considerations, of course. However, I find myself reticent to get too deep into my own brain here. If we met in public and became friends, you'd shortly know just about everything I tell anyone, from my closest friend to my therapist. I'm that sort of cat, I wear myself completely on my sleeve, and what I wouldn't tell you I don't tell anyone.

 My past because, quite frankly, I don't find it all that interesting. I had a good time as much as possible and when I wasn't was when things got ugly. I don't really like talking about friends and family, past or present. I have nothing but love for everyone who rides the highways with me and I've forgiven everyone I thought wronged me, whether they did or it was just my take on things.

 I really don't care to talk about my romantic history because, not to put too fine a point on it, I really can't figure it out. It's the same stroke; when I had fun it was great, when I didn't it wasn't. I'm not good at relationships or intimacy, stayed faithful if boring. I've had way more "meaningless" sexual encounters than actual relationships and I regret none of them. I don't think many women who were part of the process regretted it much, either. No one holds it against me, at least.

 The only problem, if it is indeed a problem, is it sometimes bothers me at just how inept at it. My brother celebrated his eighth anniversary earlier this week. My cousin recently hit her twenty-fifth. Some of my closest friends have recently clocked ten years together. My parents were together 44 years before my father died.

 I don't understand any of it. My last girlfriend is a wonderful human being and was in love with me. I was not in love with her, or at least I don't think. She's still one of my Better Angels and is better off with her current fella. Most of the ones before her I haven't talked to in at least five years. No real reason, just when it's over I think it's over.

 There's no regret or wistfulness at losing their affection, either. If they never think of me, fine. Indeed, the one woman I actually burned for and wanted body and soul... well, let's just say I could've had a one-night stand if I wanted. She was right there and ready to go, believe you me. But that one time it wasn't enough to have sex and go on with life. She still drifts across my mind, but I'm so glad I'm not the man in her life now, some fifteen years later.

 At the time, passion clouded my thinking and desire destroyed reason. When it fell through because she chose someone else - someone she told me regularly treated her shitty but she "couldn't have two men in her heart" - I was miserable for six weeks or maybe three months. I couldn't understand why she didn't choose me when I told her I would give her anything I could and, at the time, I meant it. I would have given her the whole world. At the time.

 Nowadays, I'm happy she's happy with her life, and she is, just as I'm extremely happy I'm not the father of her children or even who she sees when she first wakes in the morning. Was it love? I still don't know and that bothers me. I know I've never felt like that for anyone since, even for women who wanted that from me and I couldn't give it. That question bothers me, but not because I wish things were different. I just don't like not knowing something and I guess that's something I'll never figure out.

 Well, neighbors, that's enough of that nonsense. Back to politics, country music, and video games, I say. We're having fun and, in any event, it's like that old New Orleans saying.

 It is what it is.

One more reason for my mama's hungry eyes.

  Undoubtedly meant to take the sting off his comment about how "suburban housewives" will "get over" his dismissiveness, Trump decided to pardon suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony for her arrest in 1872 for trying to vote. I'm not sure what this was supposed to accomplish - beyond the sad political trick, of course - but there were plenty of living women Trump could've pardoned. Reality Winner, just one example. Besides, Anthony never fought the arrest because that was sort of the whole point and the law in her hometown of Rochester didn't pursue it.

 This was early in the Suffrage Movement, where Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Staton and others were gearing up to shake the world and expose the outright hypocrisy of the U.S. government denying the vote to fully one-half the population. The fight was long and hard - and if anyone tells you Joe Sixpack was on their side, even secretly, they're lying - but by 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified and a person's gender no longer prevented the vote.

 All fine and good, of course. However, in response to Trump's goofy pardon, a number of people pointed out, truthfully, that Anthony was a pretty nasty racist. Famously she said she'd rather cut off her right arm if the black man got the vote before the white woman, referring to the Fifteenth Amendment. And, yes, it's okay to take this as racist because she went on to talk about virtuous white women and degraded black men, and the Suffrage Movement was pretty dismissive of black women the whole time through.

 NowThis News made this informative little video about why Anthony's history shouldn't be ignored and, indeed, maybe it's time to honor other women as well, like Ida B. Wells or Fannie Lou Hamer. Apparently, people put "I Voted" stickers on Anthony's tombstone, but that's a new one to me.

 And of course, Dudebro Twitter lost their shit and have spent the day howling about "cancel culture." It was pretty much across the board, as both soi-disant libertarians and socialists pointed out... what was their problem, anyway? This is recorded history, and frankly, I'm sort of amazed this is coming as a surprise to so many people. I thought it was common knowledge that a whole lot of folks in 19th-century American history did amazing things but were also racist as hell, either against black folks, Indigenous peoples, the Chinese, hell, the Irish and Italians before we decided they were properly white.

 I know no one likes to admit that we were a nation of Rotten Bastards built on the backs of people we wouldn't let fight back, but we're an old enough country to own the truth. And this isn't a case of "judging the past by our standards". There were people in the 1870s who thought Anthony was a bigotted jackass and, in any eve, wrong is still wrong.

 None of this soils the Suffrage Movement just like Margaret Sanger doesn't soil Planned Parenthood or Thomas Jefferson doesn't soil the ideals behind the U.S. Constitution. Nor is it "erasing history" to be blunt and coldly honest about the country's history, warts and all. That's called "being an adult," and maybe we as a culture should give it a shot.

 By the way. If you're the type of person who's getting bent out of shape over this or removal of the Confederate flag or toppling of statues of Confederate generals, you don't have to wonder "which side" you would've been on back in those days. You're pretty much staking out the claim without ambiguity.

Everything's the same. There ain't nothin' changed.

 I have some Actual Paying Work to get done tonight, so we're going to knock this out right quick. Fortunately, we've still got plenty of Kamala Harris stuff to talk about. Apparently, Wingnut Intelligencia went decided to go full-goose loony right out the gate.

 The funny thing is until Trump started out remaking himself on Twitter, the whole Birther thing was fairly fringe. It first popped up on some Z-list wingnut blog before Obama got the nomination. I don't think it was the same folks who claimed Michelle had said "Kill Whitey" on tape, but it may have. Anyhow, the Clinton people did some opposition result and it came up nothing - naturally - and stayed on the lunatic fringe until Trump used it to make himself a public figure.

 Twelve years later, and there are still plenty of conservatives who're convinced that not only is Barack Obama not a native-born citizen, but the Republican Party and every government in the entire world is in on the con. This is the level of folks we're dealing with here. Unfortunately, the lunatic fringe has become the GOP mainstream, so the last 12 or so hours have been them going apeshit over Kamala Harris' eligibility. And here's why that's not only stupid but racist.

 For one, there is absolutely no question that she is an American citizen. She was born in Oakland, CA, and according to the 14th Amendment, that's it. Her dad was from Jamaica and her mom was from India, but both were naturalized citizens when she was born. Again, the 14th Amendment is very clear on this. There is absolutely no argument about this. Racists have called her an "anchor baby," which just means that, yes, she is a citizen.

 The height of this horseshit came from a column in Newsweek by Chapman University law professor John Eastman. His column was pretty much the above paragraph, followed by several paragraphs of "but maybe that's not so". The saddest part of this is seeing how far the once very respectable name of Newsweek has fallen. They were sold by The Washington Post for a nickel ten years ago to some far-right Christian Dominionist group that isn't "The Family," apparently, and have been running columns by the likes of Charlie Kirk and this clown.

 The opinion section is run by some yo-yo named Josh Hammer, who's a member of the same bunch of right-wing extremists as Eastman, The Claremont Institute. That wasn't mentioned in the column, by the way. For that matter, neither was the little nugget of information that Eastman ran for the same Attorney General of California back in 2010 that Harris won and brought her to national prominence. He didn't make it out of the Republican primary - finished third, actually - but is it possible he's still got some sand in his ass about being beaten by a woman of color? It would be irresponsible to not speculate.

 Even in his column defending the original mess of bullshit, Hammer said the "controversy" wouldn't go away. Well, no shit, sleazeball, way to add fuel to the fire. Way to make it mainstream and give it credence. There was no question about this, especially considering Eastman wrote a piece a couple years ago defending (rightly) the eligibility of Ted Cruz. He was born in Canada but to an American citizen, for what it's worth.

 And this, friends and neighbors, is what the next 80-something days are going to be like. We're already seeing people profess confusion over whether Harris is "black" or "Indian" or if having a Jamaican father means she's "black" enough or "African American". Laura Ingraham, She-Wolf of the SS, said on her hate hour that Harris had an ancestor in Jamaica that was a slave owner. This was supposed to be a sick burn, despite Frau Laura not stopping to think just why a black woman might have a slave-owning ancestor.

 If nothing else, this affair exposes the rank dumbness of far too many white Americans. They can't handle mixed heritages or ethnicities that don't fall neatly into census boxes. They get a hard-on for Confederate statues while pretending the horrors of slavery didn't happen, much less still have after-effects in the present. They claim the Left is "obsessed" with race when they spread stupid, ignorant shit like this at the drop of the hat.

 Look, bubba. If you're questioning about Harris' citizenship, you're a racist. If you use the phrase "anchor baby," you're racist. If you're trying to parse whether she's black enough or Indian or whatever, you're a racist. Deal with it. This is your party now. Hell, Trump is trying to scare white suburbanites by telling them Corey Booker - the Wayne Brady of American politics - will come after them if Biden wins. Own it. Embrace it. No one is fooled into thinking otherwise.

 Hell, I just wonder how long it's going to be before Trump's dumbass says something about Harris' Indian heritage but he thinks it's American Indigenous rather than someone from India. You know it's coming. You could almost set your watch by it.