Hildog

Last night while listening to the radio, i received the following warning.  Americans -- you don't understand the reality of the Clintons, the true reality, my friends.  Bill?  Bill is just a talented politician, a back-slapping glad-hander who's an inch-deep and a mile wide; he lucked into the presidency and was just there to savor the perks of the job.  He's an amiable fuzzy-wuzzy good old boy...

...but Hillary?  Hoo-boy.  She is, and always was, the nerve center of the Clinton dynasty.  She's the Machiavellian mastermind, the Mandarin, the Richelieu, the brutally-effective prime minister behind the figurehead.  Her mind is sharp and deadly.  She sees everything through her army of agents, like Littlefinger and the bald guy on Game of Thrones.  She knows all the players, all the angles, coldly analyzing them and moving them around the game board in a brilliant manner, an ever-changing and ever-growing battle that she is determined to win at all costs. No one except her close allies and worst enemies have any real idea how dangerous this woman really is.

Umm.

Good?

I'll vote for that.

It's only fair.

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I want some of what Mark Levin is smoking...

Seriously, i do.

Sometimes say something so stupid, so obviously mendacious and untrue, that i can barely process it.  I'm sitting here, listening to Mark Levin, and he claims...

...that everything went wrong about a hundred years ago.  That was when an "alien" way of thinking invaded America, a way of thinking in which people classified themselves not as individuals, but as members of "groups."  Instead of saying, "i am a human being," they started saying things like "i am a poor person" or "i am a woman" or "i am a black man" or "i am a Latino" or "i am a gay."

This was a crippling and catastrophic change, because before that, the USA was some sort of colorless, genderless, classless meritocracy where everyone was just "a human."

.....wait, what?

Has Mark Levin ever heard of... of... well, HISTORY? 

Like, ALL of AMERICAN HISTORY?

Look, Levin, start with Jim Crow and work your way backwards.  It just gets worse. 

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No Fat Kids

Conservatives still confuse me.

Quite frequently they will complain that children today are fat, lazy, and spoiled by indulgent parents who cater to their every whim.  What kids need today more than anything is discipline.  To be kicked outside and forced to do unpleasant things to build up their deficient characters....

...but hey, did you hear about what's going on with school lunches?  Ever since the government started mandating healthier lunches, a growing number of kids are avoiding them, bringing food from home, and throwing out the leafy green vegetables and whole grain breads....

...intolerable!  The conservative screams, that  our precious babies should ever to put in that position.  If they want to eat nothing but cheeseburgers and Mountain Dew, then that is their right as Americans. 

.....whut?  I thought... i mean, i just assumed... they'd say that kids need to eat the healthier food... that they were lucky to even have food... that they should listen to their parents... that personal responsibility including a healthy lifestyle must be brutally drilled into them to keep them away from Obamacare...

...no?  Really?  We should let kids eat whatever? 

Umm, okay.

My brain hurts.

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Switching chairs.

Looking back, it's a bit funny what have happened to the two parties over the last few decades.  Let's rewind back to the time when i first became aware of politics, somewhere around the Bush v. Dukakis election of 1988...

...the Republican Party was the party of strong national security.  They were the ones who "won" the Cold War, they were the warriors, the generals, the stalwart men guarding the battlements against foreign threats.  The Democrats, in contrast, were the besweatered professors, the kindly doofuses, the geeks and eggheads who would let the Russians sneak into the county and wreck up the joint.

Democrats lost elections because the average American would shrug and tell the exit poller "eh, i just feel safer with a Bush in charge, you know, like my kids are safer, i guess?"

So during the Clinton era, Democrats worked hard to overcome the wimp stigma and learned to beat their chests and rattle their sabers.  "If my Republican opponent is willing to bomb our enemies, i'll bomb them twice!  Come on, what you got?  Iraq?  We're going to war with Iraq?  Hell yeah, i'll vote for that shit -- America, yeah!"

Then 9-11 happened, and it sucked.  And Bush launched his wars, and they were utter disasters.  Pretty much every American realized how bad an idea it was to try to bring "freedom and democracy and the blessings of Baby Liberty Jesus" to nations that were little more than warring tribes tenuously united by strongmen.

The wars were so bad that Democrats started winning elections.  But they had spent the last 30 years trying to not look like wimps, so they had to keep that up.  They had to continue all the Patriot Act/NSA programs because, Jesus man, can you imagine what would happen if we ended all that crap and then a terrorist attack happened, and we were left looking stuffy professors blathering about Amendments and civil rights while American bodies burned?  We'd be Dukakis all over again, and we don't want that.  We're STRONG, damnit.

Meanwhile, the Republicans who used to worship Bush no longer speak that name.  And they've done a total 180-degree turn into John Birch-style anarchy and teabaggerism.  They want a cabin in the woods and a shotgun to keep the big bad government away.

Their leaders have jumped on this train, because its convenient to just oppose anything a Democratic administration does.  If the Democrats are for national security and breathing oxygen, then i'm for total anarchy and breathing nitrogen, damnit!

So here we are, in a political climate where Republicans are now whining about the big bad government having the ability to keep track of people, while the Democrats are accused of being iron-handed, skull-stacking tyrants who crave absolute power.

It's been quite a journey from Bush and Dukakis, it really has.

A warning to all teabaggers and freedom junkies -- just wait until the next time the Republican Party controls the White House.  It might be a while, because their candidates suck so badly that they thought a fat bully from Jersey was going to be the messiah.  But when it does happen?  Be ready.  Because the government security state, which will be bigger and scarier than it is now, will again be the tool of a strong and patriotic nation, odious only to terrorists and troublemakers.  And the only people clutching copies of the Constitution and whining about rights and amendments will be those weak, traitorous hippies who hate America and want the terrorists to win.

Just letting you know.


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Both of these Voices

You know, it's frustrating, being a regular guy from a poor family trying to make it in this crazy, mixed-up world.

Half of the voices you hear say the following: "The world is your oyster, baby!  If you work hard and stay focused, then you too can be a massive success.  You could be the next Steve Jobs, the next Mark Zuckerberg, the next Walt Disney!  The unlimited possibilities of America are totally open to you, like a Las Vegas buffet!  Where does your true calling lie?"

The other half say: "Uhhh... eeessshh.... yes, this dream of yours?  Listen, kid, there's a reason they're called dreams.  If they could exist, they'd be called "reals."  Now that you're in your thirties, you, ah, need to start thinking practically about your future, because the idea of getting your pie-in-the-sky job (that many people actually have) is just faerie dust that's preventing you from buying a house and starting that 401K."

Both of these voices suck.

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Brand New Year

Wow, it is frozen outside.  This is neat.  I'm one of those people that loves the cold.  Okay, sure, having to work at 3:00AM when it's 20 degrees outside gets a bit rough, but during the day?  When i'm taking my strangely cold-impervious Jackrat terrier on a chilly walk in the 35-degree weather?  Oh, it's heavenly.  I never want the winter to end.  But it will, so i just gotta enjoy these last few months of blissful cold before.... April.  April, when the bugs awaken.

Right now, i can't remember what 98 degree heat feels like.  Six months ago, i couldn't remember what 28 degree cold feels like.  It's a strange form of amnesia.

You know what?  2013 was a pretty damned good year for me.  I got a raise at my job.  I moved out of the moldy rathole and into a much nicer apartment.  I had more commission work than i could handle, and my night job didn't have any major upheavals.  Well, i lost my two great coworkers and they were replaced by one great coworker and one total dud, but i suppose these things happen.

Do i have resolutions?  You bet i do.  I've already pretty much given up cow milk for almond milk, and promise to continue to eat healthier.  Broccoli and salmon and avocados and onions, oh yes.  Garlic in everything.  More importantly, i'm going to FINALLY take some pauses in my Photoshop work to learn Illustrator and some other programs.  InDesign is probably a cinch, right?

I should also overcome my natural cheapskatery and buy a new tower, one with a 64-bit operating system.  That money does me no good sitting there in the credit union vault.

I would say i mean to be nicer to people and all that crap, but the truth is i'm already nice enough.  Maybe TOO nice. 

2014, people.  Let's do this.

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