The Shimmering Sentience of the Social Media Commentariat

In defiance of practically every 2021 social norm, they act as one. United in their unswerving belief that they alone know. That they alone understand. That they alone possess the power to divine the true nature of a given incident.

Yes, even in the absence of facts they are somehow able to puzzle-out what really happened, based on—I don't know—their biases? Their prejudices?

In the aftermath of the shooting death of a thirteen year-old Latino youth by the Chicago Police Department, social media exploded with accusations and finger-pointing. This is another example of systemic racism! This is another example of a police department out of control!

As a sign at a subsequent demonstration read “Stop Killing Us!”

Seriously? Is that what we're doing? Am I permitted an eye roll?

As actual facts have been made available, it has become apparent that Adam Toledo wasn't the virginal innocent Black Lives Matter and other activists have painted him as. He wasn't a “baby”. He wasn't a “victim”.

He was a wayward youth embarking on a path that predicted his violent death.

You see, young Adam had just entered into a gang-banger internship. That's why he was out at 2:30 AM on a Sunday night, accompanied by an over twenty-one accomplice and shooting at cars. The gunpowder residue on Adam's gloves proves as much.

Gang-bangers like to employ young'uns because they are far less culpable.

After a prolonged foot chase, young Adam chose to turn towards a police officer with gun in hand. Acting in kind, that police officer shot Adam in the chest. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Go ahead. Call me a hater. Call me a racist. Even worse, call me a podium-pounding law-and-order Republican.

But I can't get too broken up about the death of a gang-banger-in-training. Sorry.

The intuitive geniuses on social media clearly know better. You know, the kind who believe that every police shooting of a person of color is unjustified and absolute proof of systemic racism. The kind who carry hysterically overblown signs reading Stop Killing Us!

I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that they act as blindly and as recklessly as the police they accuse.

I pity the decisions young Adam made. I pity the Chicago Police Department officer who will have to live with this memory for the rest of their life. I pity Adam's parents. I pity his family. No one is doing a jig.

And yet, Adam is a victim only in the sense that he fell prey to the world's worst role model—the ghetto. He was seduced by illusory images of gang life as being fatally and tragically heroic. That dying young would make him a martyr. 

I regret he will forever be unable to apply its final lesson.

Instead of making false and wildly misguided accusations, let's combat the reason why kids find gangs so alluring. Let's give them a sense of belonging that isn't centered on murder and mayhem.

Ya think?

The End of an Error?

 As we collectively crave a return to normalcy, one indication we're nearing that ideal is—ironically—one we don't want to acknowledge: mass shootings. Unless you manufacture and/or sell guns, ammunition or are in the emergency medical supplies field, mass shooting are something most of us turn away from.

What we should keep in mind is that most of us is different from all of us.

Republicans and the National Rifle Association see mass shootings as an inevitable byproduct of their rigid and inflexible support of the Second Amendment. Their support is a black and white, all or nothing gambit.

To his credit, President Biden has taken the first step in what is sure to be the most contentious trip of his presidency. He has announced several executive orders which chip away at the iceberg which threatens our already fragile notion of safety.

If there's a twitchier band of people than those who constitute the NRA, I would love to see them. The mere rumor of even benign gun control measures inevitably lapse into the hysteria of “Clinton/Obama/Biden's gonna take away your guns!”  And the gun crowd falls for it every. Single. Time.

Democrat's biggest mistake has always been their attempts to mollify these un-mollify-able folk. Nay, it is impossible. The gun crowd are a car alarm set on maximum sensitivity in a crowded urban area.

Yes, it's going to go off a lot.

Yet as we quickly learn to ignore that car alarm, we rarely do so with the gun crowd. And we need to. Now. They have established themselves as people in strident and unwavering opposition of anything that doesn't facilitate a complete and unregulated torrent of guns into the United States.

They are the customer who is never happy. And as the sentient portion of our society Democrats need to understand that. We need to let them stew in their paranoia and cower in the dark recesses of their fear. It is what they want, and if I'm going to be brutally honest, likely all they're capable of.

As Democrats, we need to stop appeasing them, couching our legislation with wording like “common-sense” to avoid waking the sleeping dog. Trump never worried about offending Democrats. We should learn from that.

The unmitigated slaughter of U.S. citizens taking place before our eyes is the result of the NRA and Republicans dictating gun policy. They have single-handedly enabled a nation with more guns than people. It's certainly noteworthy how this condition undermines the gun crowd's number-one contention that the more guns we have, the safer we'll be.

Really? Is that what we're seeing?

However much I'd love to see the manufacture, sale and possession of assault weapons declared illegal (as they have been in more-civilized nations where public safety isn't determined by an industry trade association), this is unlikely to happen.

More effective would be to strip away the immunity gun manufacturers and gun sellers enjoy. In a nation driven by money, the loss of same provides a very powerful incentive.

Let's make them liable for the destruction and the trauma their products inflict on Americans in the same way cigarette manufacturers were made liable for the toxic effects of their products.

Let's face it: the gun trade and their Republican hand-maidens have won the gun battle and profited handsomely. Wildly. And exorbitantly. After decades of unfettered government-sponsored largesse, it is time for them to bear the weight of consequence.

Georgia on Our Minds

As the struggle for America winds tighter and tighter, threatening to snap like a bridge cable, it was a welcome relief to see an entity as visible as Major League Baseball announce it would be siding with justice and equality by pulling its annual All-Star game from Atlanta in protest of the Georgia legislature's voting bill.

On one hand, Republicans have never been so transparent—or desperate. It's so nice to finally see their true motives on display. Long story short? They're exactly the venal, ghoulish sub-humans we've suspected them of being.

On the other, you can throw out that lip service about love of country and patriotism and God. Oh, and that shit about law and order, too. That is, unless we're talking about the new Republican law and order, which basically asserts 'thou shalt have no other party besides me'.

Yep. Their goal is absolute Republican rule. And even as they mimic them, let's not forget China is the embodiment of all that is evil.

Seriously?

Sorry, but 2021 Republicans present the biggest threat to democracy the United States has ever faced.

The most-ominous part of this legislation is the erosion of power held by the non-partisan election board and the handing over of that power to the partisan state legislature. As it stands, the Republican state legislature will wield total control over who interprets state election results and determines that election's validity.

Care to speculate about which elections would be judged valid? And which ones would not? 

“Bitch” McConnell maintains that no individual's ability to vote has been compromised and that the effects of the bill have been wildly overstated. And while your brain is on pause, kindly ignore that this legislation was enacted just months after a pair of Democratic victories in senatorial run-offs that handed a majority to Democrats.

Yeah, pure coincidence. Republicans wouldn't be working overtime to make sure that never happened again, would they?

If this bill is truly as harmless as McConnell paints it as, why has Ted Cruz become so defensive over the (very public) push-back, telling anyone who will listen that he and a cadre of Republican senators are working day and night to end Major League Baseball's anti-trust exemption?

Gosh. That seems like an even bigger over-reaction than Major League Baseball's, doesn't it, Ted?

I'm thinking Republicans are just really, really pissed-off that high-profile corporations like Coca-Cola, Delta, United Airlines and the aforementioned Major League Baseball see this legislation for what it is, and are outraged enough to go public with it.

On a lighter note, the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn selected the following tweet as the funniest of the week ended 4/3/21. It is taken from the Book of Matthew, and like all great humor possesses a sharp sense of irony entirely appropriate to its subject:

"I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. Matthew 25:35. *Offer not valid in Georgia."

Kind of says it all, doesn't it? 

Thank you to the tweet's author @AIWashburn. Brilliant.

Toilet Story (pt. 2)

About four weeks ago I had an unpleasant encounter with my toilet. Worse, I had the temerity to write about it. But before you run off to look for a get well card, you should know it wasn't biological in nature. Yes, I am indeed fortunate not to suffer from IBS, diarrhea, hemorrhoids or constipation.

This encounter was strictly limited to plumbing of the man-made variety.

You see, driven mad by a plastic hexagonal nut that had fused to the threaded stem of the fill valve and my subsequent inability to remove it, I began to attack the problem from the inside. Namely, this consisted of smashing the fill valve with a hammer.

Alas, one of my swings was errant and shattered the water tank. Regrettably, it was only then that I entertained the idea of grabbing the fill valve with my bare hand and bending it towards the bottom of the tank until it broke.

Fortunately, the valve snapped before I did. (Although in plumbing circles, this remains a matter of conjecture.)

In the aftermath, I commenced to look for a new toilet. It was then that I was struck by a most-welcome realization: I had a two-piece toilet! I needed only to replace the water tank and could certainly install that myself. Couldn't I?

(Longtime readers will be excused for turning away at this point.)

Yes, unburdened by my short-tempered excursion into home repair I recovered the toilet's model name and serial number and before long had located the tank I needed to put this problem behind me.

I needed only to order it.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. Oh, the agent I spoke with was a delight and we had a very animated chat about how I came to be searching for toilet bits on the Internet. But in the larger sense, it couldn't (and wouldn't) be a simple matter of ordering, receiving and installing.

Is it ever?

The first replacement was surreptitiously left in front of my garage by FedEx. No knock, no doorbell and no wonder. The second I picked it up I realized it was in pieces. The good folk who manned the manufacturer's call center immediately arranged for another replacement.

I waited, fearing to even imagine a positive outcome. Which was a good thing because replacement number-two also arrived in pieces. This was also dropped-off silently by my FedEx man (or woman).

Full of the kind of trepidation only the truly-innocent can harbor, I called the manufacturer again, fearful I'd be accused of fraud. For a third time I was met with an agent who listened to my story and after a brief response, put me on hold.

When she returned, she had a solution. Instead of allowing the tank to be sourced from their default location in Texas, this tank would be sourced from a location much nearer. Despite my best efforts, I felt relief. This sounded like a very promising alternative.

In a world where we take so much for granted, the radiant joy that washed over me after I opened the box and found replacement number-three in a single piece was a minor miracle. Of note is that FedEx had boldly left it on my porch.

I unboxed it and cradled it in my arms. An over-reaction? Probably. But with a home repair project gone so spectacularly wrong, even the tiniest success assumes the weight of giants.

Eager to restore the functionality of my second bathroom, I scanned the unit. The small plastic bag of parts that accompanied it and my array of tools. Then I looked at the installation instructions.

Like most, they were exceedingly optimistic, reducing the installation to two steps. I smiled knowingly. Hell, I'd be lucky if I got through this with just two trips to my local home improvement store.

I set about removing the old tank, which went surprisingly well. I cleaned the mount where the new tank would sit and examined the new tank's fittings. While slightly different than the previous model, they didn't present a problem.

All was going swimmingly until it came time to attach the supply line to the tank—per the instructions. Left with a heavily oxidized solid unit, I fell prey to ambition and decided I would upgrade it with a braided flex line.

(To those of you not flushed with the kind of satisfaction one receives at having successfully mounted a brand-new water tank atop a toilet—go ahead—laugh.)

In keeping with the tenor of this project, the trip to my local home improvement store was made unduly difficult by the fact that within the 4.3 miles of travel it takes to arrive at my local home improvement store rest seven (yes seven) traffic signals (often referred to as “red lights” by hard-bitten, seasoned drivers such as myself who fail to appreciate their purpose).

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the remnants of rush hour traffic, a surface rail crossing and the fact that, yes, all seven of these lights turned red upon my arrival, stretching a trip that by rights should have taken no more than seven minutes into eye-clawing agony that persisted for nineteen.

(If you're counting, that is exactly half the average speed at which normal urban traffic travels—and I live in what I fondly refer to as the middle of nowhere.)

With my ambition intact, I sought out the plumbing section and promptly selected two seven-inch supply lines (why not replace both?) and a 13 millimeter crescent wrench. Even with the knowledge of what awaited me on the area's roads, I practically danced to my car, certain this project had reached the home stretch.

Oh that my financial reserves were as boundless as my naivete.

Problem number-one was that I had followed the instructions, and had secured the tank before installing the supply line. When the seven-inch flex line didn't possess the requisite flexibility, I resorted to the one-piece.

But with the tank fully screwed on, the clearance was left wanting.

So I undid the three screws, lifted the water tank and installed the original supply line. I cursed the instructions for inverting this sequence. For a second time I attached the water tank.

Sigh.

I turned on the water. This was the moment of truth.

The tank filled and the toilet flushed without resembling certain scenes from Titanic, but the clumsy and ill-fitting monkey wrench I had at my disposal did not allow for the proper tightening of the toilet's water line to the home's water line.

I turned off the water, ignoring that which had already leaked, gathered the now-useless flex lines and set out yet-again for my local home improvement store. I was momentarily heartened by a green light, but sank when I realized I could have made a right-turn on red, anyway.

Yes, that was how this morning was going. Even my illusions of good fortune were frauds.

I re-entered the store where my money was cheerfully and expeditiously refunded.Then I realized I had left home without my wallet. Yes, I was in a truly special place.

So it was fortunate that the refunded cash was sufficient to cover the purchase of a 16 millimeter crescent wrench. I was again made fortunate when I realized that since this item contained so little alcohol, it was unlikely an ID would be required for purchase.

Back in the car I valiantly fought-off traffic, determined to keep my eyes on the prize. This toilet would be made functional or by God...I will, um, er... Hmmm. It appeared I was fresh out of vengeful oaths for the day. 

Once home, I deftly applied the wrench to the connecting nut on the supply line and watched with resonant satisfaction as its arms perfectly enfolded the nut's six sides and tightened it with a wordless certainty.

It was a moment of deep synchronicity. And of having the right tools.

Amen.

 

Ted Talks

Poor Ted Cruz. He just never gets a rest.

After abandoning his freezing and electricity-free electorate to frolick in the sunny—and not freezing—Caribbean last month, poor Ted now has to contend with libtards and their ongoing desire for gun control.

Sigh. It never ends.

"Can't I just restrict voting to wealthy white people, gift what's left of the country to the one-percent, outlaw any and all media not named 'Fox' and have the rest of you shut the fuck up? Is that too much to ask?"

Yes, Ted's rancor was on full display yesterday when he was asked to comment on the Boulder, Colorado shootings. Said the great man: “...and every time there's a shooting we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of...laws...that would do nothing to stop these murders.

The senator from Connecticut just said the folks on the other side of the aisle have no solutions. Well, the senator from Connecticut knows that is false. And he knows that's false because Senator Grassley and I together introduced legislation Grassley-Cruz targeted at violent criminals. Targeted at felons. Targeted at fugitives. Targeted at those with serious mental disease.

To stop them from getting firearms. To put them in prison when they try to illegally buy guns.

What happens in this committee after every mass shooting is Democrats propose taking away gun from law-abiding citizens because that's their political objective. But what they propose not only does it not reduce crime it makes it worse.”

Ah, Ted. Wonderful words. Mind if we take a look under the hood at that get-tough legislation you and Senator Grassley propose?

Now, you said it would “...stop 'them' from getting firearms”, by which I assume you to mean violent criminals, felons, fugitives and the like.

But on closer inspection, that's not quite right. Let's take a look at how your bill would inhibit “straw” purchases (gun shop and gun show sales where a person with a clean record buys a gun for a person with a record).

According to your bill, such a purchase would only be prohibited if a prosecutor could prove the purchaser knew the recipient either had a record or intended to use the gun in the commission of a crime.

Wait. What's that sound? Oh! It's violent criminals, felons and fugitives laughing—hard!

Seriously, Ted? So how are things in Shirley Templeland, anyway? Here in Illinois, our gang-bangers and would-be felons are just a tad more-wily than your incisive Texas intellect assumes.

Prosecutor: You knew he had a record!

Straw buyer: No. Honest.

Prosecutor: But you knew what he was planning to do with the gun!

Straw buyer. No sir.

Prosecutor. Umm. Well...no further questions your honor.

That's showing 'em, Ted! You're just a real ass-kicker, aren't you?

Okay. Moving on, let's examine the rest of your comments. 

Unlike Democrats, who only seek to fulfill their political agenda, you go ahead and push the time-honored NRA panic button when you reiterate the same tired, threadbare rhetoric Republicans have always reiterated when you say Democrats only want to take guns away from law-abiding gun-owners.

Ted? Be amazingly and strenuously specific and tell me the legislation and the section where Democrats propose this. Please. 'Cause I'd love to see it.

Fact is, you can't. Because it's never been their intent. It exists only in your overstimulated and fevered imagination. But it's a proven pathway to achieving your (ahem) political objective, isn't it?

Finally, please tell me—in excruciating detail—how mandating deeper and more-thorough background checks and outlawing assault weapons is going to make our gun problem worse.

I know you said it would, but you didn't say how it would. Please, Ted. A little detail if you don't mind.

I can wait. 

In an odd kind of way, I'm kind of grateful the whole Trump thing happened. All that swagger and all that adrenaline has gone straight to your head. It has emboldened you and stripped you. Your contempt and your greed and the once-unfathomable depths of your stupidity are now on display for all to see.

It is said that beauty is only skin deep. But ugly goes all the way to the bone, doesn't it?

Groundhog Day

In a long-ago episode of X-Files, Fox Mulder observed “Don't all the nuts roll down to Florida.” And while Florida certainly provides us with a bounty of evidence, it can't blame its most-recent bout of stupidity on imports. Nope. This one is wholly homegrown.

Swollen with indignation and suffused with self-righteousness, Florida made it clear that no collection of Big Government bureaucrats and White House Yankees were going to derail Florida's gravy train of robust, free-market riches. No sir!

As has been its m.o., Florida was again an early adopter of the cast-off COVID precautions aesthetic and announced itself open and ready for business. This because in certain states, COVID was beginning to regress. And besides, there were vaccines now—not that everyone was bothering.

But the COVID-is-gone dream Republicans can't stop having proved otherwise. Not only is COVID resurgent in Florida, but its variants are as well. (At least they didn't listen to the CDC, right? Because that would have just been stupid!)

Instead, Florida listened to its businessmen. People with the integrity of a death row felon and the far-sightedness of an Amoeba. “Open it up! Make me some money!”

And everything was going just fine. Bikini-clad coeds were frolicking on the beach, encouraging boxer-clad males to drink to excess and fantasize. Motel rooms were occupied. Bars were packed. Dance floors were an undulating mass of thirsty bodies—the way God intended.

Yay!

But then irksome facts began to surface. You know, the kind that routinely pierce the helium-filled foil balloon of Republican propaganda. Contrary to the Republican-propagated COVID-is-dead storyline, COVID wasn't. And isn't.

Which is why Miami police had to break-up a huge gathering of young spring breakers when they refused to acknowledge that, yes, COVID is in Florida, too. And that they needed to follow the same dreary and un-fun precautions they did back home.

Like a poorly-behaved guest who overstays their welcome, COVID isn't leaving the party because you're annoyed with it. Or bored with it. Nope. COVID ain't going anywhere. Get used to it.

What's more, the harder we try to pretend it's no longer a thing the longer it will be.

I hate COVID. You hate COVID. And they only way we're going to delete it from our lives is to clench. To bear down. To treat it the way Michael Jordan did opponents in the fourth-quarter of a big game.

To paraphrase a memorable line from Cleo King in Mike & Molly, we need to beat on COVID like it owes us money. Capisce?

This is the most serious threat to our well-being most of us are ever going to face. And if we treat it as anything less—even for a week while in Florida—it's going to kick us in the ass.

Just sayin'.

Questions. I Have Questions.

When they're not opposing the ninety-nine percent, Republicans generate questions. Questions like:

Why do you think the economy can be restarted without first conquering COVID? (Hint: COVID fatigue and your boredom-slash-impatience are not acceptable responses.)

Why do you feel being vaccinated should be a personal choice? Should observing school zone speed limits or any other law, statute or mandate that runs counter to your Trumpishness be one also?

And why is your politicized contempt more-important than the larger issue of public health?

How do Republicans who unanimously voted against a COVID relief package endorsed by up to three-quarters of the population remain in power?

And in light of that, how is it Republicans can initiate legislation immediately afterwards that would eliminate the estate tax and are still able to call Democrats elites?

Huh?

People, Republicans work for the one-percent—which by simple probability likely isn't you. They don't care about you. They don't care about your struggles or your ambitions. They have the moral fibre of a drug dealer. They care about entrenching and expanding the control the one-percent wield over the ninety-nine percent.

To wit, twenty-one Republican state attorney generals have drafted a letter to the Biden administration, questioning the relief package's stipulation that state aid be used solely to address revenue shortfalls and may not be used to finance tax cuts. Especially the Republican kind.

Let's hazard a big, giant, pie-in-the-sky, out-of-the-blue guess as to who would benefit from those.

Yeah.

To the addled and easily-provoked conservative mind, this is a non-issue. What matters is that the stultifying demands of a changing populace be stifled and ignored in favor of...them. That regardless of the demographics, America remains a country by, for and of white men.

Any other idea does not compute.

Unless you wish America to become a place bent on the fulfillment of billionaires whims and wishes and their whims and wishes only, you/me/us need to fight Republicans every step of the way. On everything. All the time.

Left unchallenged, Republicans are the rot that will destroy the ninety-nine percent from the inside out. (And that includes Republicans not a part of the one-percent. )

They have shown us who they are. Forewarned is forearmed.