Have Yourself a Virtual Little Christmas

I don't do anything for Christmas anymore anyway except enjoy the time off work and a vicarious vibe from the celebrations of others, but I ended up having a virtual Christmas after all and what a merry little thing it was.

Twitter Affairs

So for four years now I've been following a handful of American tweeters about Trump/Russia.

I'm not on Twitter myself because I didn't get enough attention when I was on it and have no desire to retweet the experience.

But now it turns out that two of those tweeters, in real life, are much less than advertised in their tweets on Twitter.

I kind of suspected/knew this, but ignored it, because I'm addicted to the Trump/Russia hit.

Fortunately, the Electoral College has finally stolen the election for Joe Biden. And in any case, I still have Andrew C. Laufer and Louise Mensch to rely on, two tweeters about whom I know nothing except what they advertise of themselves on Twitter, for the final Trump/Russia tweets.

Check

If I was Donald J. Trump I'd tweet now that I've been working for the FBI since the '80s in an operation known as "TreasonWeasel" to expose the Republican Party as working for the Russian Mob. Leave it to the FBI to decide if that's how I got to be President of the United States.

CBC Christmas Charity

How about instead of an annual Christmas charity drive CBC just stops pretending political balance is providing a forum for people who want to be in government to make the lives of other people worse?

"That Looks Good on You - You Should Buy It!"

 Friends, frenemies, I have written a book which is being serialized over at Galaxy Brain

Whack-a-Mole Law & Order

It doesn't matter to what degree Alex Minassian has autism. He was a young man susceptible to indoctrination. Whoever funds the forum he got the idea to be a terrorist from should be on trial.

Parler Porn

Just a heads up to everybody that Parler is pretty obviously a kompromat generator for treason weasels so maybe don't click on anything or you'll end up being President of the United States for the Russian Mob.

COVID Christmas

Before I had to actually make Christmas happen, I loved it, right up until my last present was opened. Shortly after that Gram would announce, "Christmas 19(fill in the year) is over - dead and buried."

Eventually, Gram would spend Christmas with rellies in southern Ontario, but it didn't matter, the letdown was the same, and so I'd try to delay opening my last present until my older sister would rip off the wrapping and throw whatever was inside across the room.

As we know now, her anger was actually grief, grief due to the death of our father, a tragedy for everybody old enough to remember him, which I really didn't.

Later, when I had kids and was in charge of making Christmas happen, there was only relief when it was over, and in an homage to Gram I'd sing, "It's the most wonderful time of the year" every Boxing Day morning.

Later still, when I finally ended a marriage that wasn't working out for me, I gave Christmas to my former in-laws, and thus began what would eventually be my abdication from Christmas.

Yes, I said abdication. We're watching The Crown, just into season two, and abdication is the word that best describes how it is for Me vs Christmas. I have abdicated. And so I just watch, happy in my choice, while the dutiful soldier on keeping the annual anachronism going in our world of too much and not enough.

Except COVID, and so I'm hoping this year that a lot of dutiful Christmas soldiers, having had to take a step back from it all, will stay that step back, until so many of us have abdicated that Christmas becomes like Easter.

I know. Easter? What the fuck is Easter?

Quite.

"The Debt! The Debt!"

Call me a taxpayer but I don't give a shit how much it costs my government to protect my health and well-being during a global pandemic. Or anytime. And for as long as I need it. No matter how much money I do or don't have. I'm a Canadian citizen, ffs.

Edition #4

 Here it is - the 4th edition of GalaxyBrain

2020 Election Eve

I remember when the Bush/Gore thing was happening back in 2000 and I was so gung ho that Gore would ultimately be declared President of the United States. But my mother said, "No. They cheat. Bush will be President. Did you get the cheque? Don't just spend it on groceries. Buy new chairs."

And I was gung ho on Snowden. But my mother said, "No. He's a traitor. He'll go live in Russia. I just put a cheque in the mail. Don't just spend it on groceries. Buy something you want. You still haven't bought new chairs. Buy new chairs."

Etc etc etc with many in-betweens and follow-ups. Me: gung ho. Her: traitor, cheque, buy new chairs because in one of those catastrophic slips I once mentioned wanting new chairs.

(Full disclosure: I could want new chairs until I die of ancient age without ever having bought new chairs. My mother could want new chairs for as long as it took to her to make the ten minute drive to Sears. So we were related by blood but not really in any other way. Like, in a fair universe, she should have been able to trade me for another daughter and I should for sure have been able to trade her for another mother. Alas, the universe is not fair.)

(Fuller disclosure: I have a chair that I hate so much it's destroying my will to live and I fished it out of the garbage down the street.)

Donald Trump - Double Agent

Occurred to me today, given how Donald Trump has exposed everybody around him as willing to commit treason rather than have the kompromat on them get out, that maybe the rumours about him being an FBI informant are true.

In any case, he sure has brought back voting, eh?

A Hunter We Will Go, A Hunter We Will Go, Hi Ho the Dairyo A Hunter We Will Go

Xtra! Xtra! Read all about it! Mainstream media pundit, Rex Murphy, lambasts mainstream media in mainstream media for not reporting on Joe Biden's son Hunter being a rich pedophile pizza trafficker in Ukraine!

Chartwell Tries for a Comeback

So of course CBC is back to its old tricks with Chartwell advertising its seniors residences to local news watchers as places to visit.

Yeah, key word - visit.

Then report what you saw to CBC.

Spare a Thought

Everybody and her maiden aunt is going on about the children this Halloween, and how they'll miss out on this most sacred of holidays, the one that's all about candy and dressing up in costumes and getting to run around outside at night.

It falls on a Saturday this year, too. So much easier for the dads who have to accompany children nowadays because helicopter parenting is real, dammit, and no modern parent is comfortable letting their children run around outside during the day, never mind at night.

My brother got mugged - twice - on Halloween, and it happened when he was old enough for me to remember it, and he's three and a half years older than me. He broke a mirror in my Gram's bedroom, though, so bad luck for seven years.

But that's not what this entry is about because this entry is about sparing a thought for the millions of young women who won't get to dress up like sexy mice, or Rocky Horror Picture Show maids, or just how they would always like to dress because they're into looking sexy but recognize that it can hold them back professionally and so reserve it for Halloween.

Also, the other type of young woman on Halloween.

Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes

Ottawa told today that the video we saw of a white cop beating a black suspect to death was actually a video of a white cop NOT beating a black suspect to death.

Update: White cop union boss was just on the local CBC news to remind us that his member was responding to a call by several sexual assault victims.

Whoa I did not see white cop union boss throws victims of sexual assault under the bus coming.

Wait.

I did. Of course I did. Of course I saw white cop union boss throws victims of sexual assault under the bus coming

Yeah I think we need more than a conversation.

In the meantime I say we defund that white cop union.

Pandemic Confessions

Being able to articulate in writing how I experience this life we're all living I feel like the least I can do is blather on about it on my blog.

So here's one effect of COVID-19 that for me comes 40 years too late: The shutdown.

Look, millions of people who used to have to go out in the world to make a living for ourselves and our families - and didn't want to - can now: "Earn $$$ working from home!"

It's all I ever wanted.

Also, not only do I not have to pretend to give a shit about Halloween now, I don't even have to buy candy for it - candy that would normally be boycotting but it's not like I'm going to give out organic fair trade chocolate to a bunch of kids, is it.

Oh hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.

This Christmas is going to be the best ever. 

 

Q for Nerds

Are there any stupid questions about the hows and whys of technological developments?

Voting to Vote

Remember when Nancy Pelosi said she wanted a democratic solution to Donald Trump and people of all politics gnashed their teeth and shook their fists at the sky?

Well she was right.

Democracy caused this mess. Democracy can damned well clean it up.

And, fortunately, it looks like it will.

Because Republicans are voting Democrat.

Hey, I'm like you. I wanted a criminal justice system solution to Donald Trump, too. Cripes, I thought he'd be in prison by January 2017. If I'd known that '80s attention whore was going to be driving us all to the Hamptons for four fucking years, I'd have left social media.

But I guess Republican voters had to witness their party's nominee - an 80's attention whore in hock to the Russian mob - being President of the United States - for four years - before they could consider not voting for the Republican Party and voting for the Democratic Party instead.

"That Looks Good on You - You Should Buy It!"

Chapter three now featured at GalaxyBrain

Wait, wut?

Anybody have "Donald Trump finally faces a consequence after a lifetime of reprehensible behaviour and the rest of us are supposed to wish him well because he's the Russian mob's pick as US President" on their bingo card?

 

The Debate: MAGAs vs The World

Sorry, World - MAGAs win for taking "there's no such thing as bad publicity" to a whole 'nother level.

Also, if even one American changes his vote from Joe Biden to Donald Trump - regardless of how many millions change their vote from Donald Trump to Joe Biden - MAGAs win.

 

NGL

 Enjoying the Donald Trump as President of the United States reality show for the first time in four years.

Fair Weather Friends

Funny how in 2020 even the nominal human and civil right of American girls and women to terminate a pregnancy would hinge on the life of one Supreme Court justice.

Of course, that human and civil right is one that doesn't translate into more rights for boys and men, too, or it likely wouldn't. I mean, in every other scenario, more civil and human rights for one person equals more civil and human rights for all persons.

Not so the right to terminate a pregnancy.

Also, Conservative boys and men aren't actually opposed to abortion, because we all know that for them it depends on the girl or woman who's pregnant and by whom.

They just don't want to give up the right to deny us ours.

Galaxy Brain - 2nd Edition

 Galaxy Brain, 2nd Edition

Technobureaucratic Government Begone!

 There's a joke by a comedian, "You know who cares less about your problems than you do?"

"Everybody."

And I get that. But I think I want to use this space I'm occupying on the internet to get personal because what I experience is just a variation of what we all experience, each of us in our own bubble that we lived in before COVID-19, but which is exaggerated now.

And I've got the skill set necessary to write about my experiences.

So here goes this entry.

We have a plumbing problem that will require several thousand dollars to fix. The problem is not our fault but it's still our problem. It should be a shared problem with our neighbour, but our neighbour is not as affected by it as we are, and so he says he doesn't have a problem and so is not going to share the cost of solving it. He will benefit from the fix, but he doesn't care. We would absolutely share the cost of the fix if the situation was reversed, and I have paid him for cosmetic changes he wanted to make to our properties that I didn't care about at all and which caused us inconvenience, but so it goes.

It was a one-sided relationship effort on the social front as well, me trying to be the exception for a man who lacks respect for other people, but he has helped us with this and that over the years, too, and like I say now, so it goes.

Meanwhile, the city of Ottawa initially assured both us and the plumber - who spoke directly to the fellow at the city - that the city of Ottawa was responsible for the problem being caused and so video was made by the plumber that we would then be tasked with sending to the city - electronically - so that "next steps", as is said in government, could be taken.

And here's where 'it's all just too much' comes in. Never mind that we paid a few hundred dollars last November to deal with this problem, a problem that popped up in our basement after the city dug up the street in front of our unit, which it did on behalf of the millionaire apartment building owner across the street when he decided to convert his 2 and 3 bedroom family apartments into bachelors and 1 bedrooms and charge $1100 and $1500 respectively for them.

Never mind either that we had to deal with it again when the city came back for a re-do. And yes, I reported this amazing coincidence at the time but was told, "Oh well sometimes this sort of activity by the city" (she left out "on behalf of millionaire apartment building owners") "can expose existing problems" (she left out "for taxpaying suckers we don't care about as much as we care about millionaire apartment building owners").

Never mind either that after doing the work of getting the video to the city electronically - a task that I can assure you very few people would actually be able to do - like maybe one in ten thousand - we were told that the city wasn't responsible after all.

Never mind that making the video for the city cost a few hundred dollars, thereby ratcheting up the amount (a few hundred dollars times three) we paid for a temporary fix to a problem that the city assured us was its responsibility, and that the city then used that video to claim the opposite of what it had claimed when we were told to make it.

Never mind all that.

There is absolutely no way that most taxpayers would have the technical expertise to do what we were tasked with doing. It is simply too difficult and we should not tolerate this bullying by technology that our various and sundry public service bureaucracies are engaging in. And so on the advice of a friend, we will engage the services of our city councilor to find out - definitively - who is responsible for the problem, and therefore the temporary fixes required until we are able to deal with the permanent fix, which we accept as our responsibility, our civic duty, really, regardless of our neighbour's failure to rise to the occasion as I warrant most neighbours would.

So ending on a positive note, I have learned a valuable lesson. I have known all along that this would be how our neighbour would react to a situation like this. He cares about his lawn more than he cares about anybody or anything in the world. And he's an independent operator. Nobody knows more than he does. It's why his own dearly beloved brother moved from the unit we now live in. He got tired of it.

When a person shows me who they are, believe them. Stop trying to make other people be better and just be better myself. And ask myself, in a situation like this: What do I want?

Well, I want a permanent fix to the problem. If I have to pay solo for it, okey dokey. Unseen infrastructure can be like a hot potato - every once in a while we all get burned. And I never expected that the city would pay to replace it, either. That's not what this is about. This is about the city of Ottawa - which, as it turns out, will be showing up next week to take its own video ANYWAY - tasking us with an assignment I can assure you most people would not be able to do. And this is about now having to take up the time of  our city councilor to find out which story is true, that the city is responsible for the temporary but still expensive, not to mention dangerous to our health, problem, a permanent fix for which is our responsibility ANYWAY - or is it not responsible.

But it's mostly about being a voice for anybody and everybody who has had it up to here with technobureaucratic public services that only add to the increasing isolation we were already feeling but which has only increased as a result of COVID-19.

 

Xtra Xtra

We don't have cable and accidentally found ourselves watching Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada leadership race so I can report that the cheating is taking longer than usual.

Also I'd never listened to Andrew Scheer before and he is seriously whack.

I'd bet money he voted for Trump in 2016.

Of course they all would have done.

Never mind.

Dear New Democrats

I'm only ever going to vote Liberal now.

I just heard Pierre Poilievre's voice on the radio and there's no way I'll ever risk it.

In fact, I'm annoyed that I have to even worry about it.

Also, Jagmeet Singh is forty years old and makes six figures. As do all his boomer supporters on Facebook and Twitter.

Damn straight the rich aren't paying their fair share.

 

Love, Russia

Ironically, I think the lesson we're all going to learn, thanks to Russia's interference in the presidential election of 2016, is that democracy works. And that even when a mobster traitor is elected POTUS, he will only last the duration of the agreed upon term. Then he'll be defeated and responsible government restored for the citizenry.

Rent Money

Where's it all going? Who's benefiting from our crazy high rents here in Ottawa? Why the hell do bachelor apartments in my shitty neighbourhood go for $1100 and one bedrooms for $1500?

Are Ottawa landlords all money launderers for the Russian mob or something?

What Millennial, never mind GenZ, can afford rents that high? And that's just in my shitty neighbourhood with its shitty public transit and four lane speedways.

Ferfucksake, politicians, get it together. Rents are too high. Nobody under thirty is making any money. And if they are, it's all going to the Russian mob or whoever's getting all that extortion.

And if we'd had a basic annual income before this goddamned pandemic, we'd ALL be in a much better position to weather it. You lot have one. And your rent's covered, too. How about a little quid pro quo for your sister and brother citizens?

#JustStop

Dear CBC: Just stop ending your 1/2 local news shows and The National with stories you think are "feel good". Nobody who's watching the news is not offended by this waste of time, effort and money.

Also, anybody who gives a shit what's trending on Twitter is on Twitter and knows what's trending.

And Jared Kushner isn't responsible for anything. He's the son-in-law. He may as well be wearing a red uniform on Star Trek.

WE WE WE

Who cares.

GalaxyBrain!!

Dear Media

Why are you calling attention whoring assholes "anti-maskers"?

CBC Now Reports an Anti-Voting Party Majority Government

Yabbut, Serially

GalaxyBrain.ca

Go there to support the arts and read chapter one of "That Looks Good on You - You Should Buy It!"

You won't regret it.

Photographic Memory

A Facebook friend just posted about not knowing what to do with a lot of old memorabilia left behind by the long ago owners of a house she purchased. I guess she'd ignored the stuff as long as she could and is now dealing with it. But in the thread someone mentioned rescuing photo albums from the trash of a seniors' residence and it put me in mind of my mother, who, not long after moving in threw all her old photo albums in the laundry room trash of her seniors' residence.

Fortunately, another resident saw them and took them out again and suggested to my mother that she might not want to throw them out.

So my mother, not wanting to interact any more than necessary with another resident, took them back and stuck them in the closet, where they remained until we cleaned out her apartment after she had to move into the nursing home.

But I remember on one visit, when she was in the hospital recovering from a fall, and I was staying in her apartment, I decided to look through her photo albums. They were of her travels, and I was shortly into my look-through when I came across a photo of her staring at the camera. And I stared back at that person staring at the camera because suddenly, I had no idea who she was.

Who. The. Fuck. Are. You.

It was a quite a discovery for me, that I really had no idea who my mother was outside the context of me, myself and I. She was absolutely a stranger, that woman in the photo, staring at the camera. So I looked at more photos and, sure enough, not a trace of my mother. Just some stranger in Hawaii. Or Australia. Or Greece.

And she'd thrown out the photo albums not because she was depressed, although she was, but because she couldn't see the photos anymore. She was losing her eyesight. Besides, I'd never once known her to look at a photo album even though she made many of them. I used to pour over them when I was a kid because I loved those old photos of her as a WREN or WAC or whichever it was. She always looked to be having fun.

Anyway, my point is, I have no idea where those photo albums are now. And although I'm really glad I saw that photo, and so can live on knowing that we never really know our mothers, I'm gladder still that I don't have responsibility for storing them - or not.

Because I'm pretty sure the resident who handed them back to my mother has passed on now and I can't just knock on her door and hand them back.

Make Government Work Again

Since my late mother's public service pension went entirely to Chartwell, profiteering vampire-at-large benefiting former premier and lifelong thug, Mike Harris, and then partially to Extendicare, houses of horror in ongoing violation of even our most basic regulations, I say all residences for people who are no longer able to live independently, or just no longer want to, should be entirely public and paid for with the public and private pensions of residents.

So co-op-style.

Because here's the thing, nobody deserves more pension than anybody else anyway, but also, we don't need money when we're old and certainly wouldn't need money if we could count on our governments to - at least - look after us - properly and equally - in our old age.

This is just stupid how we're living. I'm still working because I don't have any pension, not because I want to be working. Meanwhile, my younger ex retired a couple of years ago on more money than my current partner and I make combined. A recent university graduate should be doing my job, like, say, one of my own offspring. Instead we have thousands of them (not mine, everybody's!) in student debt up to their ears who aren't working at all and so have no way of paying it off.

Why? No wonder anxiety and depression are rampaging through our population. And who wants to add the responsibility of babies to their stressed lives?

Oh and here's the real kicker - in spite of my fear of me or you, Dear Reader, getting COVID-19, my old lady still working life is actually better because at least I don't have to spend a couple of hours a day commuting on public transit to make money to increase my pension so that I don't have to live in a cardboard box in the middle of the road when I'm no longer able or wanting to live independently.

Seriously, stop the world, I want to get off.

Dear Canadian Political Media

Yes we have a ginormous deficit. There is a global pandemic. If you get it you will either die or have lifelong health consequences.

Or, get it and not even know you had it.

But odds are, if you're middle-aged to older, it'll be option #1 or option #2. So our governments, democratic and undemocratic, mandated a complete shutdown of communal activity. That's how important it is to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, children, or, Vectors of Disease, as I call them now, seem to get away with option #3.

So I say we leave the deficit to them to sort out.

Christmas Gift Ideas for 2020

Masks.
Disinfectant.
Sourdough starter kit.

Warning: Marxist Feminist Porn Ahead

Earlier this week I was reading some blah blah about the exact wording of the thing the first white male Christian American to step on the moon said: "Hey, everybody else - stepping all over the moon is for for white male Christian Americans ONLY!"  - when suddenly it came to me: If Karl Marx had said, "To each according to their needs", a lot of us would nodding along in solidarity with Marxism right now.

Way to blow a slogan, Marx.

Tweet Tweet

A Canadian friend who has been taking on a Canadian purveyor of deliberate disinformation and racist propaganda in the courts, and losing, for reasons of judges appointed by Stephen Harper and judges who don't seem to care about or understand how deliberate disinformation and racist propaganda poisons all our lives, has now been unceremoniously banned from Twitter.

No explanation forthcoming. Just had his account deleted. So score another white power win for the Canadian purveyor of deliberate disinformation and racist propaganda.

Meanwhile, the other day I witnessed a fellow on Facebook offer to have a word with Jack Dorsey about this predictable course of events, for me, anyway, in which the billionaire white tech bro's free speech empire opts to deny access to the free speech rights of the good guy in favour of the bad guy's right to continue profiting from his purveying of deliberate disinformation and racist propaganda.

Now this friend of mine is a person of some resources, but not endless resources, who is doing the public good of exposing fraudulent fundraising practices by the owner of this propaganda outlet, a propaganda outlet that employs known white nationalists, and who is known for his tactic of tying up critics in court for years on end. I mean, lordy, there are even tapes! Leaked to the public! By disgruntled former employees!

I'm not on Twitter, but I read it, and because I'm not on it, caught up in its swirling vortex of opining, I can see, in addition to the pointlessness of it all, the white nationalist bot armies that populate it, and the purveyors of deliberate disinformation and racist propaganda who poison all our lives, dominating it.

But, of course, Twitter can't host Donald Trump and pretend to be anything other than a purveyor of deliberate disinformation and racist propaganda itself, can it.

Netflix News

So I decided to watch the Netflix series "Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich" and, I have to say, for a guy we've been told by all and sundry was a charismatic math genius in real life, he sure comes across as an oafish dolt on camera.

Also, I found it hard to square the sophisticated billionaire financier philanthropist party host by night with the cross-eyed mutt by day whose wealthy British heiress and probable spy galpal procured for him local adolescent girls for topless massages for $200 a pop.

And you'll note if you watch the series (which is worth watching for how manipulated you'll feel before, during, and after) that, the victims - who are entirely believable - are careful to specify the $200 offered, and just as careful to not specify leaving with it.

I mean, I get it, why help their abusers get away with the claim that they thought their victims were of-age prostitutes like at Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion, not local schoolgirls being sex trafficked for peanuts, but you can practically hear the pre-camera-rolling instruction, "Say the part about Ghislaine Maxwell offering you the $200, but just leave out the part about taking it."

I don't know, either, but it's also hard to square these now middle-aged women, again, all entirely believable victims of Jeffrey Epstein & Friends, living in what - in most cases - appear to be fairly upscale surroundings complete with ocean views, telling all about what we already know, backed up by photos we've already seen, and Jeffrey Epstein's ignominious death in the federal custody of Bill Barr, Attorney General of the United States.

Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but did we not all witness - via the media, of course, not with our own eyes - supposedly untouchable Jeffrey Epstein get fed like a goat to a caged lion at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan last August? I mean, did any of us not think he was going to be murdered by that salivating steroid case and dirty ex-cop facing the death penalty for murdering four other cops in a drug deal gone bad?

Anyway, apparently, a $600M payout from the dead Jeffrey Epstein's estate is in play for his victims, and, of course, their lawyers, unless maybe the filthy rich perverts from whom it was extorted decide to demand their money back and it all gets tied up in court forever.

Is the kink for these rich men - and women because there's always at least one to make it #notjustmen - sexually violating minors or knowing that they're being videotaped sexually violating minors?

Knowing that they're going to be blackmailed for being videotaped sexually violating minors?

By the way, even though we can clearly see Bill Clinton in some of the photos, the victims, so far, make it equally clear that they never witnessed him being part of any of the illegal activities engaged in by other party-goers, like the repeatedly named Ghislaine Maxwell, Alan Dershowitz, and Prince Andrew.

But you, like me, already knew that, I'm sure.

To be continued if anything even remotely revelatory comes up.

#Viral

Way to go, COVID-19, kids don't even change out of their pajamas anymore. I see them everywhere now. Kids in pajamas.

Otherwise, I do enjoy being part of a global effort to not get or spread you, so I suppose that's on you, too.

Also, not having to go anywhere or do anything is the best.

Oh. Did I say "not having to"?

I meant "not being able to".

"And the Oscar Goes to..."

... "Twitter! For Best Screenplay! 'Donald Trump - Mobster Traitor FBI Informant and President of the United States'!"

Shitty Commenters

Okay, nobody commented on my "Thanks, Pandemic!" entry so here goes:

Kamala Harris in a mask is at a protest outside the White House right now.

The Minneapolis police chief says his jail is full of Trump supporting white supremacists.

NASA launched a spaceship today.

Thanks, Pandemic!

Comments are open.

Leftovers

We don't know what to do with old people.

And old people don't know what to do with themselves.

But they have to go on living regardless because qualifying for physician assisted dying is like winning the lottery.

A Real Whodunnit

Starting to suspect either the Russian mob was behind Trump's nomination which in turn caused the FBI to call its bluff and elect him President - or - the FBI was behind Trump's nomination which in turn caused the Russian mob to call its bluff and elect him President.

Ground Zero for Democracy

When the Electoral College voted Donald Trump into the presidency, shocking and dismaying people of sound mind, Obama told us to stand down, let's see how this plays out, maybe he'll grow into the office, but that's how the democracy goes sometimes, the people win some, the people lose some.

Then he went water skiing with Richard Branson as if he didn't have a care in the world.

Shortly after that, almost like it had been set up and ready to go like, like, a pandemic manual, a massive criminal investigation was launched into that election and the world watched a stock photo of Robert Mueller and a couple of stern faced prosecutors come and go while the office grew into Donald Trump.

And not just the office. Everything. People wrote into their own obituaries that their only regret was dying before the end of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

And when Robert Mueller handed in his small piece of that massive and ongoing criminal investigation, 600 pages of redactions so as not to compromise ongoing matters resulting from that massive criminal investigation, called in early by law and order thwarter, Bill Barr, Nancy Pelosi said she wanted a democratic solution to Donald Trump, not a criminal one.

Then impeachment without conviction came along, as was a foregone conclusion, because, as Lindsay Graham became famous for saying, "if we nominate Trump, we will be destroyed, and we will deserve it".

So in for a penny, in for a pound, may as well go down swinging our golf clubs.

But then COVID-19 came along and a stay-at-home order and the shutdown of the economy and armed white nationalists loitering on the steps of state legislatures making death threats against politicians while law and order pretty much turns a blind eye until they get tired and go home.

I don't know about you, but, Obama pandemic plan or not, nobody really seemed to expect or be prepared for COVID-19. And that includes armed white nationalists. I mean, they can't even get arrested for making death threats against politicians from the steps of state legislatures.

Law and order has bigger fish to fry. Somewhere. Just not where anyone can smell it going down.

Well last week, apropos of nothing, Joe Biden said he will not pardon Donald Trump. And Obama gave a presidential commencement address, a call to individual and collective action from graduates, in which he alluded to the problem of an infantile degenerate occupying the White House, and then seemed to punctuate it with a tweet, "vote".

So that's it, that's going to be the lesson to Americans and the rest of the world, including the despots and the global mob who have caused us so much death and destruction, that the best fix for the problem of Donald Trump is, as Nancy Pelosi said, democracy.

But then I want guillotines on the front lawn of the White House.

Eldercare

My mother was a retired high school teacher with a university degree. At 95 her pension was paying her more money than I managed to make in five years of working.

And all of it went to Chartwell.

So why not have a system of eldercare whereby people who can no longer live independently give up their pensions to the government and the government provides them with the appropriate and graduated level of care and accommodation they require. Co-op-style. Elders spreading their wealth to look after each other and provide meaningful employment for geriatric support workers.

The Morning After Mothers' Day

It's embarrassing to me, Mothers Day.

Mothers steal our young pure DNA in utero and trade us their old sketchy DNA.

Wake up, people.

That Looks Good on You! You Should Buy It!

Between 2013 and 2015 I sold ladieswear at the mall. Then I wrote a book about it. I sent it to a few friends to read. They liked it but most friends said they would rather wait until it's published, buy it, and then read it. Or not.

Either way, they wanted to pay for it. And fair enough. I prefer doing that, too.

Then I decided I'd like illustrations for my book. One thing led to another and a Facebook friend agreed to do them. The illustrations took a while, and during that time, my mother died, and then my illustrator's mother died. But on April 1st, my dead mother's birthday, the book was complete with illustrations. It had also been re-edited by a couple of keen-eyed readers.

The end?

Maybe?

Look, here's the thing, my Facebook friend and I are splitting the profits from sales of the book. She's donating her share to a shelter in her area, I'm donating my share to a shelter in Ottawa. It's the only thing that makes sense to us now and I'm sure you can all appreciate why.

But getting a book published is hard. I thought I could just slap it up on Amazon but I can't. It's too complicated. So I'm soliciting advice, help, maybe even a publisher to get the job done for us.

Comments are open.

April 2020

Shitty from start to finish, eh?

Today in "Life's a Hustle"

Read former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, sell COVID-19 to his bosses as the path back to the public purse - permanent-like:

"As conservatives, we must also ensure that our governments do not lose focus on the economic challenge that is now coming at us as quickly as the coronavirus. The measures that countries are taking to deal with the pandemic, as necessary as they have been, are creating economic and fiscal realities that are simply unsustainable. Our populations will naturally look to the centre-right for economic answers to the coming recession and budgetary crises. At the same, as supply chains are being rebuilt and restructured, our parties must not lose sight of the importance of freer trade. When grounded in mutually beneficial agreements and national security, trade is key in driving the innovation and growth our world needs."

Freedom COVID-19

Yeah, yeah, trade. It's the racists and sexists in charge of our governments we don't want. So not you.  Liberals. Or NDP. Either/or is fine. But thanks for trying.

Freak...

Bucket List for 2020 and Beyond

1. Don't get COVID-19.

The End

Who the hell do we have to blow...

...to get a basic annual income around here?

Asking for a friend.

And the Problem with COVID-19 Is...

...The solution requires the public to have a solid grounding in math and science.

While We're Watching

Years ago when my mother was living in a Chartwell seniors' residence I became aware of a parasitic entity taking advantage of the sitting duck residents called Hospitality Network.

There was a brief CBC Go Public look into Hospitality Network's deals with hospital administration boards that allowed it to feed off patients, but nothing about its deal with the boards of seniors' residences and nursing homes.

I don't know if it's still around, but if it is, it shouldn't be.

What the hell were governing politicians ever thinking that they would put the care of citizens in vulnerable states of being in the paws of profiteers?

And while we're watching, maybe governing politicians could cancel that stupid and reckless policy of paying bonuses to so-called executives in our public service. All it does is make wealthy public servants wealthier while reducing services for everybody else. Enough already with garbage governance.

Wish Upon a Star

Guillotines. Front lawn. White House. November. Televised.

Fly on the Wall

A Facebook friend just wondered, now that Bernie Sanders has endorsed his friend, Joe Biden, if Bernie Sanders would be his running mate.

Well no, Joe Biden already promised it'd be a woman. So if Bernie Sanders told Joe Biden he'd only endorse him if he chose him to be his running mate, Joe Biden would have had to say, "No can do, Bern, already promised it to a skirt. Everybody heard me say it, not that, well, never mind. Ah, ya don't wanna be VP anyway. VP's nothin'. Aim higher. But hurry it up 'cause we're gettin' our clocks cleaned out there."

"Okay, okay. Let me think. <grind grind grind> Credit! I want credit!"

"Well sure, Bern, I didn't know you needed money. All ya had to do was ask Jill-"

"I mean credit for all the good stuff! I want credit for all the good stuff! And task forces! Lots of task forces! Teams of task forces!"

"Wow, Bernie, ya gotta deal. Credit and task forces comin' right up."

"And a speech. I wanna make a speech."

"Sure, Bernie. Sounds great. Make a speech. Just remember to stick 'I endorse Joe Biden' in there close to the top before everybody stops listening."

SOS

Hey FBI (if you're reading!) maybe speed up the investigations a bit or just go with what you've got already because I'm not sure how much longer we can hold out against this President Trump guy's army of treason and corruption.

Hello?

Are you there, FBI?

Symptoms, I've Had a Few

Now that COVID-19 has turned social media into Dr. Google, I'm reminded of a brief dry cough I had in early March, a brief dry cough that woke me up twice in the night, for which I didn't stay home, for if I had, I'd not have been paid.

Also, it was a brief dry cough that only woke me up twice in the night, the number of times I get up in the night to pee anyway.

I've always had a wee bladder and, after three big babies sitting on it for months on end, it's also flatter.

But enough about me, I was working alongside people with paid sick leave who were away for days at a time in December, January, February and March, apparently quite sick with symptoms that all sound suspiciously like COVID-19 - on social media, anyway.

But enough about them, too, because this is about all of us experiencing an existential crisis - together - which is totally nuts because as anyone who has experienced an existential crisis knows, it's the alone part that makes it a fucking existential crisis!

This global pandemic is the worst - the worst, I tells ya.

Silver Linings

So the money I'd been saving to live on when I'm older is as good as gone, thanks to our economy being shut down to reduce the spread of COVID-19. And I'm okay with that because doing what we can to reduce the spread of COVID-19 is the correct course of action.

I'm just flabbergasted that we're actually doing it. And at the urging of all our governing politicians, no less. Imagine, who would have thought in 2019 that we'd be sacrificing The Economy! The Economy! in 2020 to save each other from the flu.

But also, and much less noble, I realize now, after looking desperately for a silver lining (I mean beyond Canadians coming together to sacrifice The Economy! The Economy! to save each other from the flu) that I was never going to use that money anyway. I was going to hoard it until after I was safely dead and could no longer enjoy picturing it in a bank vault, glowing with energy, whilst I sipped my tea and nibbled my toast in the old folks barracks.

My little pot of gold for a rainy day that would never be rainy enough for me to dip into it. I could be drowning in rain and still I wouldn't have touched that rainy day fund. Not even to buy a boat. Because as anybody with a boat will tell you, they're all the Titanic when it comes to the money poured into them to keep them afloat.

Anyway, this has all been kind of enlightening for me so I thought I'd share.

Also, don't tell the government I said this but working for it from home is the worst. NOT that I don't consider myself lucky to be able to do it, having scored a casual (temp job at government pay) in February. But it's the worst.

On the Road to Kindness

So I read a cool article today about Jack Kerouac that included a poem, the essential part of which is below:

The world you see is just a movie in your mind.
Rocks don't see it.
Bless and sit down.
Forgive and forget.
Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.

Calming, eh?

On the Flip Side

I look at it this way, if Trump et al were telling Americans to practice social distancing by sheltering in place and keeping a couple of metres between themselves and other people, his followers would be owning the libs by shooting on sight anybody who ventured outside for a bit of fresh air.

Seeing the Light in Ottawa

I just realized after reading yet another lamentation for our loss of what we think of as normal, our "drive to work to pay for this car" way of life, that I don't want to go back to normal now.

Normal was stupid. Anti-social, not social. Competitive, not cooperative. And why have we allowed our governments to task us with saving for our individual retirements instead of insisting our governments guarantee us all the same good standard of living later while we put our resources to good use now?

Cripes, we've all witnessed how basic it actually is, old age: get up too early, have a few sips of coffee and a small bowl of porridge, complain about everything to anybody who will listen while waiting for lunch, eat a half sandwich with a glass of bone builder of some kind, snooze with the tv or radio blaring while waiting for happy hour, drink an alcoholic beverage, feel happy, eat the other half sandwich and a piece of pie, watch tv, go to bed too early, get up to pee two or three times in the night, repeat.

How did this become what we're all supposed to work to save our money for anyway?

By the way, our governments have had to do a 180 from attributing virtue to citizens who have paid employment to attributing virtue to citizens willing to forgo it - for the good of the many as opposed to the few (Spock in Wrath of Khan). And anyone with a brain can see that "flattening the curve" would go a lot smoother if we had a judgement free guaranteed basic income in place. So count me out for going back to normal and count me in for adapting away from it.

The Great Leveling

My friend double nickel (he's from France) posted this on Facebook today:

"One thing that has become clear in the past few days is that the people who earn millions per year are worth significantly less to society that the ones who earn minimum wage."

And on that note, as us plucky paupers watch our retirement savings bounce around in ever diminishing returns, at least we won't be in prison for insider trading like a lot of mucky mucks are going to be.

Cripes, what would it be like to go through life without any shame, I wonder.

U.S. Senator Burr?

And the Oscar Goes To...

Well not Jason Kenney for best performance by a premier at a press conference about coronavirus.

And not the press gallery guy who went on about the carbon tax being scheduled to kick in soon and how the gLiberal government in Ottawa wasn't canceling it.

Reminded me of an act I saw in Vegas that made me wonder partway through if we were going to get mugged leaving the theater - or while we were still in it.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Dear Everybody: Stop expecting Donald Trump to act like a President or in the interests of Americans. He won't. He's a traitor.

You're welcome.

Panic in Ottawa

The shelves in my neighbourhood Farm Boy were bare of fresh produce this afternoon. I've never seen that before. I've known favourite (and expensive) products to disappear, like grilled artichokes, but I've never seen shelves empty of fresh produce, ffs.

It may have had something to do with delivery, trucks, how much can come in at one time, how much is available at any given time for re-stocking shelves. I don't know. But it was freaky. The cashier was one of those young people born middle aged and beleaguered and it struck me how heroic people are just for showing up to work.

Mister Rogers said to look for the helpers. Or be a helper. I can come through in a pinch, I guess, but why bother if we're down to fighting over the last roll of toilet paper.

No Country for Smart Women

I hope Joe Biden picks Bernie Sanders to be his running mate.

That would really take the wind out of the Bros' sails.

Of course, he'd best get a food taster first.

It's still a bit early to call it but here's hoping President Biden brings some calm and an upswing to the markets. Goddammit. Years in GiCs and as soon as I get mildly adventurous <kaboom>.

Stupid fucking Coronavirus.

Oh well. It's not like I wouldn't have just saved it until after I'm dead anyway. Sorry kids.

I think Bernie fizzled this primary go 'round because his campaign was too much about defeating Democrats and not enough about defeating Republicans. He overestimated how much Democrats hate the Democratic Party and underestimated how much they hate Donald Trump. I think people even started wondering if Traitor Trump was cheering on Crazy Bernie over Sleepy Joe because President Crazy Bernie would be so busy purging the Democratic Party of liberals that he'd just let Traitor Trump lumber off to Mar-a-Lago to cheat at golf, while President Sleepy Joe would unseal the indictments at his swearing in.

And really, if this wasn't all about the male ego, neither one of them would have run and Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren would be the Democratic Party nominee.

We're All Gonna Die!

So, I have to avoid two my my three reads on Twitter now on account of their gloating re the Corona virus induced market crash.

Why are they gloating re the Corona virus induced market crash?

Because they hate Donald Trump and figure it makes him un-re-electable.

I mean, Geez Louise, nothing like going for broke, eh?

Anyway, I think if we've learned anything from this go 'round, it's that you can't lose investing in toilet paper.

Seriously, fuck Al Gore and his damned internets.

On the good news side, my book will be up on Amazon soon, so watch this space.

Because It's 2020

Happy International Women's Day in this year of our Lord 2020, ladies, where two frail male octogenarians, one with a dicky heart who doesn't like women, the other with a dicky brain who likes women too much, take it to the mat before the winner squares off against the all-time world champion of attention whoring mobster man babies - the current Adderall-snorting President of the United States of America.

Because apparently, nobody likes a healthy female human of sound mind less than a voter.

Hey, we'll always have book clubs, ladies.

And the Winner Is...

I only half pay attention to what's going on south of the border because I don't want to lose what's left of my mind, but speaking of Joe Biden, it looks to me like Mitt Romney is positioning himself for something.

In the meantime, Elizabeth Warren just called out Bernie Sanders' supporters for being the obnoxious bullies they've been for at least four years now, so, feel the Bern, bros. Here's hoping she goes for broke and a shot at being VP and endorses Joe Biden.

Jerks.

Anyway, I'm no political strategist (like Tad Devine of Paul Manafort and Bernie Sanders 2016 fame) but if I was the top dog and a socialist (I guess I should insert democratic either before or after socialist so that goons from Socialist International don't picket my hovel) going into a race to lead a liberal party of which I'm not a member, instead of attacking the liberals who are, I'd take it down a notch. But who knows. Maybe my ego would get so big being the leader of my party of one that it wouldn't leave room for my brain.

By the way, apparently there's such a discrepancy between those famous mom and pop donations (of either $27 or $14 amounts) that have been supporting Bernie Sanders' wildly expensive campaigns, and the votes they should translate to but don't (donors to political parties tend to follow-up with actual votes), that the FEC came up with a 500-plus page report about it all.

I read somewhere in the silo I'm on online that Saudi Arabia features in it.

Yikes.

But hindsight is 20/20 and like I said, I'm no political strategist (like David Sirota, Bernie Sanders' campaign manager and leader of his obnoxious bully squad currently being called out by Elizabeth Warren) but if I really wanted a President to take on Wall Street I'd have asked Bernie Sanders to not run at all so that Elizabeth Warren would be the alternative to the rest of the field and the first female pres... Oh never mind.

I dunno. Maybe Bernie Sanders is just the chaos agent he seems to me to be and not actually in it to win it after all.

Regardless, it looks like this shit show is about to get a whole lot shittier. Chin up, everybody. There are lots of asteroids out there.

NRA! NRA! NRA!

Hey I just want to point out to all you Mueller naysayers out there in Naysayerville that the NRA, the most powerful lobby in all of American politics ever, has been very quiet for some time now.

Bernie's Moscow Honeymoon

Hey, I just figured out why Bernie Sanders voted against the Magnitsky Act.

There's video of his honeymoon in Moscow.

Jesus I'm smart.

Comedians in Climate Destroying Cars

So I realized today that this gloom and doom environmentalism I subject myself to on a daily basis - hello social media - is really quite sexist. Indeed, it came to me in a flash today that, at its core, the environmental movement is yelling at girls and young women that it's wrong for them to want to bring children into this dying world.

Well the world has been dying since forever. Social media just amplifies its death throes.

I remember how much I wanted children once I wanted them. I also remember having a couple of guilt trips laid on me for my selfishness, as if I wasn't aware of the state of the world, as if it didn't sadden me that the big mammals were threatened with extinction everywhere.

So I tried cloth diapers for the first week while my nipples were cracked and bleeding from breastfeeding. Then I wrote a letter to Michelle Landsberg, who had a column at the time in the Toronto Star, about how sexist cloth diapers were. My point was how hard it already was in a society that expected too much of us. We didn't need to be blamed for Toronto's landfill problem, too.

She got it, too, and referenced part of my argument in a later column, even taking my side. 

Anyway, now those children I had are young women (and a young man) and they're surrounded by guilt trip layers and it irks me that they are. So I'm going to tell them and all the other young women I meet hither and yon to close their ears to the gloom and doomers and do whatever the fuck they want.

Even if I don't actually do it I know that it's the only way to live this life - do whatever the fuck you want.

By the say, full disclosure, I'm pretty sure this realization came to me today from watching Comedians in Cars earlier with my eldest. Jerry Seinfeld is awful but it's my kind of awful, an awful I find incredibly life affirming. Jerry Seinfeld doesn't even pretend to give a shit about anything except what he does give a shit about.

So refreshing.

The Republic of Albertastan

From the old stock Boomers to the middle stock GenXers, it looks like it's deja vu all over again at Conservative Party of Canada Inc.

Indeed, Stephen Harper's Firewall Letter has been updated to Michelle Rempel's Buffalo Declaration.

Cripes, 4 million people and I can't think of any Canadians outside of Quebec (double the size at 8.5) who've had this much attention from a federal government ever.

PMJT bought us Canadians a pipeline whether we wanted one or not, ffs.

Hey, that makes me wonder - Stephen Harper's CPC Inc. maybe doesn't like that Canadians own the TransCanada pipeline instead of a foreign multinational corporation, eh?

Just a thought.

Also, Conservative politicians, especially Michelle Rempel, seem to hate Justin Trudeau for reasons that have nothing to do with the economy, but whatever.

Disability Matters

Looks like Doug Ford has decided to shake down Ontarians on disability.

Imagine being hounded by a collections type agency with all the powers of government behind it and having to prove over and over and over again that you need money to pay for rent and food because you're unable to find and keep paid work due to your physical and/or mental health challenges.

People will suffer and die due to this ill-conceived contracting out of our social services so I hope the media names all the names of the profiteers who will be paid bonuses for doing this devil's work.

Aaaannd It's Rantin' Gramps for the Win

There was a guy this morning yelling at people on their way to work, "Quit yer fucking jobs! We gotta crash the economy!"

I figure he was a Bernie Bro wandered north of the border.

But seriously I think this strategy of Bernie Bros behaving like 'roidal dicks is paying off in spades. Americans are attracted to winners and Bernie's acting like he's already won this shit show.

And Geez Louise but stick a fork in his competition already.

Rantin' Gramps for President it is.

Holy Mitt, Batman

I'm not a Bernie Sanders fan because I worked for socialist men back in the 80s and they turned me Liberal - but - I do concede that he could well win this Democratic Party shit show.

But it confuses me why Canadian socialists think the broader American public will elect a socialist - excuse me, democratic socialist - President, when Canadians won't even elect a New Democrat Prime Minister.

And Jesus Christ but if I had thought in 2015, 16, 17, 18, and 19 that I'd still be arguing about Bernie vs Hillary vs Trump in 2020, I'd have hacked a hole in the ice of the Ottawa River and jumped in.

I do like this new Hillary, though, who's finally figured out that it doesn't matter what she says or does, men on the left and men on the right and no doubt men in the middle, too, hate her. And they hate her more than they could ever hate a man, even Donald Trump.

Anyway, that's not what this entry is about because this entry is about a move I see coming from the dark side, which is that the Republican Party is waiting to see if the Democratic Party is incompetent enough to nominate a geriatric Che Guevara, before dumping Trump and nominating Mitt Romney.

Answer me these riddles three

I just heard Peter MacKay accuse the Liberal Party of being ideologically driven.

To which I have one question, Peter MacKay.

No, two.

1) Do you know what ideology is; and
2) Name the ideology you think is driving the Liberal Party.

I miss your wife and family already.

Physician Assisted Goodbyes

I'm posting this column by Michael Coren because I love a good redemption (Michael Coren) and it's another opportunity to tell my reader(s) what a privilege it is to be able to see someone out at a physician assisted death. As I've written here before, our federal government simply must improve on the current legislation, which is cruelly restrictive. And our provincial governments must improve on palliative care and nursing homes, which should not have even a whiff of profit connected to them.

This isn't hard. If we could trust profiteers to look after the most vulnerable citizens among us, we'd be living in an entirely different society than we do.

Holy Takes

But Why?

I guess the question I have for Bernie Sanders diehards who are so convinced that the DNC is rigging primaries against the only one of its candidates who can supposedly beat Donald Trump (not that he'll be in the running, I don't think, but I didn't think he'd have lasted this long, either, so what I should probably spare myself and stop thinking) is: Why?

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World So Repeat After Me

The job I'm currently doing to make money is a daily reminder that for a lot of my co-citizens, navigating their way through life in this complicated, and increasingly unresponsive and unaccountable society we've boxed ourselves into, is too much. And I know, myself, when My Blond Companion and I had to deal with a minor financial injustice recently, I ended up with a kidney stone, so stressful was it for me, and I'm a citizen of privilege in pretty much every way possible.

We were in the right, but it didn't matter. I'd gone down that road people like me sometimes go down and couldn't see the harm I was doing to myself in seeking that elusive vindication of justice being served, because if you're going to head down that road, you have to keep both perspective and a sense of humour, and I'd left both those essentials behind.

So personal lesson learned, I thought, when we just sucked it up and paid the money not owed.

Alas, no, because the only thing that really works - and I should have known this because I've put it into practice before with remarkable success to my health and well-being - is to recognize that everybody suffers the odd injustice here and there via our interactions with each other, deal with it (however you prefer to deal with these sorts of things), and then wish everybody involved well, including yourself. Seriously, just do it. It's the best antidote ever.

And then be kind, be kind, be kind, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc, because we all benefit from kindness.

After Dinner Thoughts

So I was thinking about socialism and what I don't like about it and I think it's just the prospect of socialists actually being in power that I don't like.

They're too "our way or the gulag" as it is.

Freedom 85

I have a friend in her late 80s who has a four bedroom house in Sault Ste. Marie full of lovely antiques that nobody wants.

Including her own three adult children who don't live in Sault Ste. Marie.

And when my own mother sold her four bedroom house in Sault Ste. Marie, where none of her four adult children lived anymore - ouch, baby. What a bath she took.

I was not surprised. She liked travel more than home maintenance. 

I read alarming articles - at least the authors of them are alarmed - about Millennials not being able to afford home ownership. To which I say, if it's that big a deal that they can't then why aren't our governments regulating against foreign ownership and fly-by-night rentals?

Of course, maybe even if Millennials could afford home ownership (they can't) they wouldn't want to be tied down to it and would continue to rent. And maybe they aren't all that interested in getting married and having kids either, and so don't feel the need for the four bedroom suburban house they grew up in that their parents still own because downsizing means acknowledging your age.

I'm telling you, being sixty is a tough one. As my mother would say, sure, it's better than the alternative but aging ain't for sissies.

Yes, that's right. She didn't give a shit if what came out of her mouth was politically incorrect or not because she wasn't on Twitter and so couldn't get banned from it.

And given the facts of climate change wouldn't it be better if we ALL lived in apartments near our places of employment (or at least the hustle and bustle of people still working) so that we could stop buying cars and the government could finally declare CBC an ad-free zone for the safety of seniors susceptible to unnecessary health insurance purchases and reverse mortgage traps.

I don't know but it seems to me that we need to get our story straight because the last thing we need is Millennials living like boomers and GenXers and then nobody being around to clean out the clutter of their houses when they head off to where they won't be needing any of it.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

When I think about what the real kompromat probably is that the Russian mob has on the Global mob in this world of privately owned islands and millions of poverty stricken and vulnerable children my mind shuts off and I just despair that we have to share the same oxygen these sadistic cretins breathe.

The Bear in the Living Room

We don't have cable so I just read the reaction to the news on Twitter and the people I follow on this mobsters in the White House nightmare we've been living through all say the same thing now, that none of the characters involved will ever tell the whole truth, whether they're being interviewed in a media studio or grilled in a courtroom, because they can't. Their only real oath is to the mobster above them, and they won't break that oath because if they do, they're dead.

On the bright side, Donald Trump is nowhere near the top of the mobster shit pile.

Now Hiring - Update

Offs what even were Harry 's royal duties? I don't recall Prince Andrew having any. And maybe the Queen just needs to accept that nobody except Kate the Commoner really wants her job.

Update: Uh Oh: Russian Billionaire Owns Meghan's Canadian Hideaway

Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First Dammit!

A few years ago a wise woman told me that if I wished the best for my worst enemy it would serve me well.

It was a tall order, going against type as it did - and oh how it went against type - but I trusted her to know a better way of being - which is an ongoing quest of my type - and so I did it.

I wished the best for my worst enemy.

And of course she was right and I was smart to trust in her and in some weird way of universe magic his success became my success and my fear of him - because that's the cause of enmity, fear - went away and I was able to recognize his humanity.

We all want to be recognized for our humanity, after all, don't we.

Lately I've come to recognize that I suffer from a chronic condition and have since I was a kid. It's anxiety - so fear - and it's made worse by the type of person I am both mentally and physically. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Whatever. It is and I have to live in this world, don't I. I'm not a tech billionaire, after all, I'm tethered to how it actually is down and out here in the real live world.

Luckily, just this morning, the first day of the auspicious seeming year 2020, it came to me in a flash that the first step I should take in dealing with this condition of mine is to recognize that I'm my own worst enemy and start wishing the best for myself.

So here it is, the best unsolicited advice you'll get today:

Be kind to yourself and the rest will surely follow.