Joy and Angst

No, I'm not bi-polar, but I think that as you mature, you've absorbed so much over time - both good and bad - that your peaks become higher and your lows can get pretty low.

I mean, think about it…with practice we (should) become better at most anything, right?  Fill in the blank with whatever you like________(photography, cooking, angling, playing an instrument, making love).  Our perception in any particular area becomes more discerning.  We can more easily judge if something tastes better (or worse), if something sounds better (or worse) or if something makes sense or is just f*g ridiculous.

In other words, on one hand, we have opinion and on the other a more informed opinion.

All the things we've absorbed over the years (can) give us more points on the graph of Life and help us more clearly define pictures and issues.

They say with age comes wisdom.  Perhaps not all the time, but mostly, yes.  And of course, the way we think about things, the way we process Life's input can be distorted by a variety of prejudices.

But back to joy and angst.  Over 50 years of musical experience has given me the ability to find great joy and beauty in creating, performing, and recording sounds.  It's why artists are artists.  Creativity is a very pleasurable thing, but we also enjoy sharing it with others.  Like cooking.  And I try to spend as much time as I can in that state of mind, not just because it's fun and gratifying, but because it's also a counteragent to the dark side.

There's just so much dark out there; the stupidity, the selfishness, the greed, the hatred, the lack of empathy, the extremism.  At times, it almost seems as though the dark will steamroll or consume all that is good in the world.  It makes one wonder how - with all the love and wonderful things there are - that some people are apparently helpless or even intent upon their negative agendas.

As I've said many times, there may or may not be such a thing as ultimate evil, but there sure as hell are some evil MFs out there.

And with that said, I think I'll go play my guitar for a while...

Wingnuts and Self-control

(partly borrowed from an article at Crooks and Liars )

My thesaurus is wearing thin on adjectives to describe hate-filled pseudo-Christians like Bryan Fischer.

American Family Association spokesman Fischer is outraged that the U.S. is intervening in Iraq to stop ISIS.  Fischer believes that President Obama only intervened to stop the extermination of the Yazidis, who practice an ancient religion yet are considered by ISIS fighters and others to be "devil worshipers."

Wait.  Wha…?  WTF?

This guy's problem - other than the fact that he's let go of the last blade of grass that connected him with planet Earth - is that he just can't resist opening his mouth to announce his latest insane conspiracy theory.

Let's look at this from a different perspective.  You're a guy out in public somewhere, maybe picking up a few items at Walmart, and you're standing in line at the checkout.  In front of you is this rather attractive woman in her 30s, wearing a short summer skirt.  She bends over her shopping cart to retrieve something, and you get a momentary glimpse of her taste in undergarments.

Now, in your mind, you might be thinking,"Ooo, baby!  Nice knickers," but you don't SAY it out loud, obviously because you don't want other shoppers to think that you're a total perv with no self-control.  That, and there's the chance that the babe might smack you upside the head with a box of laundry detergent.*

But guys like Fischer…hey…whatever pops into their tiny little heads…it's gotta come out the mouth.  Same with Palin, Bachmann, Nugent and other assorted wingnuts.

You see, wingnuttery comes in all sizes, shapes and colors, and they all share the inability to keep their tinfoil hat nonsense to themselves.  They just can't pass up a live microphone…

*Didn't wanna seem sexist with the laundry detergent, but you'd better hope she wasn't in the Automotive Dept. because she works on her own Jeep.  Then, you might risk getting hit with a breaker bar or a large channel-lock.

Blowing Up the Lies about Poverty

Republicans - especially guys like Paul Ryan - are totally full of crap regarding poverty, the poor and homeless in America.  Please allow me to blow-up some of the more common disinformation:

• Poor people are lazy:  over half of all SNAP recipients are working adults. More than 80% of recipients worked during the year prior or after receiving SNAP. That figure is 90% for families with children.
• Single moms are to blame: only 9% of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years.  35% were married to the child's father.
• Minimum wage jobs are for teens:  almost 88% of those affected by increasing the minimum wage are age 20 or older.  Almost 36% are married and 28% are parents.
• Go back to school and get a better job:  In 2012, just over a million people held a bachelor's degree, worked full time, and made less than $25,000 a year.
• The homeless want to be homeless:  1 in 45 children experience homelessness each year.  That's over 1.6 million kids.  Among families who are homeless with children, the majority cited loss of a job as the cause, followed by the lack of affordable housing, and low paying jobs.
• The poor are ripping us off:  fraud in the SNAP program is one penny on the dollar.  Fact.  And, the average food stamp benefit in WI and MN is only $116/mo.  That's not even $4/day!  Who the f*k would choose to try to live on that??

A "cheap" one bedroom apartment in Minneapolis starts at about $550.

An average Walmart employee makes $8.81/hr.  You do the cost of living math.

I realize that a lot of voters have the short-term memory of a gerbil.  That's probably why they continue to vote for lying SOBs like Ryan and his ilk.

Next time you hear someone whining about "the poor and unemployed," remember some of the facts listed above.