Month: March 2016

Good morning, y’all. Our Republican Debate potluck supper was, like the debate itself, a calmer more gentle version of the sideshow we’ve come to love. In fact, it was a more gentile debate when compared to their Democratic counterparts. I guess I’m just being silly by pointing out that we’re down to four white guys as the “Final Four”. It looks like this Final Four won’t include a “Cinderella”.

In fact, the “Cinderella” of the Republican debates, Carly Fiorina, endorsed the Cruz yesterday. With the endorsement of The Donald by Ben Carson, it looks like we have the potential platforms set. Cruz with a woman, to soften his brash, crazy ideology, and The Donald, with a black man, to soften his racist tendencies. Little Marco and John Kasich are just running on fumes at this point. The only endorsements that could potentially help them would have to come from The Donald or the Cruz. As sure as I am that The Donald is not going to be asking Louis Farrakhan to dinner, I’m sure The Donald won’t be dropping out and endorsing anyone. The die is cast, the Rubicon crossed, and the only unknown now is the final margin.

In fact, the other pretenders for the crown seemed to acknowledge the anointment of The Donald as the Republican standard bearer. There was so much civility shown in the debate tonight that you might have thought you’d tuned into the Democrats. Until, you listened to the words, of course. The Democrats are still talking substance, and the Republicans are still talking subterfuge. The Repubs are just doing it more politely now. It makes one wonder if Phineas T. Bluster had not been given his head to bully, insult and intimidate, what would the Final Four have actually come to? Coulda, woulda, shoulda, as they say. It does make one wonder if The Donald would have gotten any traction with the public if he was forced to discuss the issues. Would the Elders of the Republican party have gotten their designated hitter if the debates had been conducted honestly about issues rather than bumper sticker slogans?

I guess we’ll never know. We’ll have to wait for The Donald to debate Hillary to see how the public responds to a know nothing bully. I have the hope that, in spite of a declining educational system, the American public will be able to discern the B.S. from the truth.  I’ve been surprised before, though. In fact, I was recently quite surprised when “The Daily Show” exposed a great many of The Donald’s “companies” as props. You know, “Trump Steaks”, “Trump Water”, “Trump Wine”, etc.

This exposure comes about as a result of The Donald’s press meeting after one of his rallies. The Donald felt the need to refute a charge by “Mittens” Romney that The Donald was in truth, a failed businessman. Mittens had called out The Donald on several of The Donald’s ventures, and now it was time for The Donald to refute Romney. The Donald pointed with pride and spoke with authority about the businesses in question. As it happens, I watch a lot of TV, and the only Televised rebuttal of Trump’s claims in his news conference came on “The Daily Show”. Thank God folks still go there for honest news reporting.

I’ll quote a little bit from an NPR article that does take on the entire sideshow:

“The table was stacked with bottles of Trump Wine, and Trump declared of the winery, “I own it 100 percent, no mortgage, no debt.”

The winery’s website says something different: “Trump Winery is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, which is not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their affiliates.”

How could the major networks not cover this shameful subterfuge? Equally as important, how did the candidates and their staff miss the opportunity to point out that The Donald is totally full of it? How did the candidates and their staff miss the opportunity to point out that The Donald is shameless in his continual lying about his success? It seems like an absolute no-brainer to me. But then, I’ve never been a part of the Republican hierarchy, so I can only speculate as to their motives.

From where I’m sitting it appears that The Donald train has already left the station and is headed full steam towards its rendezvous with destiny. “Trump Railroads”, kind of has a nice ring, don’t you think? I bet The Donald already thinks he owns one.

 

 

Good morning, y’all. I feel Spring is officially here. I am holding in reserve the right to change my opinion should April bring its occasional snowstorm. Looking out over TackyToo from the office here in the Rec room, it is rejuvenating to see the buds starting to pop through the ground. It is fun to watch the birds flitting about. It looks like they’re getting ready to start building nests and start families. Circle of life, as they say.

It is sadly ironic that the life giving force of rain can be life taking as well. I’m watching the news  from the Southwest, specifically around Shreveport, Louisiana, and the folks there have really been up against it. It is hard to imagine what twelve inches of rain will do to an area. I guess if we watch the TV, we don’t have to imagine. Whole towns are flooded. Just everything is under two to three feet of water, and it’s not like these are folks are not used to flooding. Most of them experience it to a degree every year. This is just another one of those “five hundred year” storms, that are now occurring every few years. It seems to me that the only way to get used to the new normal is to move. I know the folks there don’t want to do that.They are fiercely loyal to the area.

As I mentioned before, I used to travel the Southwest area and I’m familiar with the “Spring rains”. I’ve actually been trapped in Bossier City because Interstate 20 was flooded, same as it is now. My entrapment was an overnight stay, this rain looks far more serious. Currently, they are using the big military vehicles to evacuate people all around the Shreveport area. I watched a sad scene of young parents going back into their flooded house to retrieve a bunch of little girls dresses. The dresses were on hangers, and I guess hanging high enough in the closet to have not been soaked by the flood waters. The dresses looked like they would fit a two year old.

It’s amazing how such a simple scene as the parents with the dresses personalizes the tragedy so much more than aerial shots from a helicopter. Even though we know that the hundreds of flooded houses we see held thousands of people who are now displaced, seeing the young couple retrieve the dresses for their daughter really brought it home to me. It is one of those scenes where you just want to jump in your car and drive to the area to see what you can do. I realize I would be serving no purpose by showing up in Caddo Parrish, “ready to serve”. There are already legions of young, well trained personnel in the area, and considering my advanced years and general health, I might just add to their burden.

My arrival on the scene wouldn’t even have the psychological impact as the Duke students arriving in New Orleans after Katrina. The Duke students were responding to the knowledge that help was not getting to the people of Louisiana, specifically New Orleans, and they took it upon themselves to do what they could. They took off from Durham and drove straight through to prove that the roads were not impassable. In fact, their biggest obstacle was the military keeping folks out. They fooled the military into letting them through by using press passes. I guess if they had Red Cross passes they would have been turned away.

Anyway, while the flooding is as catastrophic, the response from the federal government has been night and day different. There was helped dispatched immediately and it looks like emergency services are far better trained than in the Katrina days. I guess “practice makes perfect”, and the folks dealing with flood waters have had plenty of practice. From Minnesota to the Gulf Of Mexico, folks along the Mississippi and its tributaries are exposed to the threat of losing everything to the rain. Johnny Cash lived it and wrote about it. I’ll let him tell it:

Good morning, y’all. Another gorgeous day here in the mountains. Wet weather is supposed to enter the area this weekend. If it’s part of the storm system that is currently ravaging the Southwest, I hope it is greatly diminished by the time it arrives.

The city of Shreveport, Louisiana has received a foot of rain in the last twenty fours, with another half foot on the way. Dallas, Texas is reporting seventy mile an hour winds with sporadic tornadoes springing up. I’d hate for us get caught by a bunch of high wind events that would have been confined to their rightful place in Tornado Alley, if not for global warming. Of course my fears are assuaged by the knowledge that Channel 11’s crack group of “storm trackers” are on the scene.

Now, the Channel 11 Storm Trackers are not like the folks we are used to seeing in movies like “Twister”. Unlike real storm trackers, who use sophisticated equipment with specially equipped vehicles, Channel 11’s Storm Trackers are armed only with their cell phone. Channel 11’s Storm Trackers go boldly onto their back porch, or into their front yard, and snap pictures of the current weather conditions to forward back to Channel 11. Channel 11 is then able to broadcast the photos on their news shows as proudly as if they had sent a meteorologist with a camera truck to the scene.

Softball sized hail? Snap a pic. Trees toppled by wind shears? Show me the snapshot. Tornado traveling up Highway 19? Get in your Toyota and set your smart phone on video. Get Channel 11 a good picture and you’ll receive instant fame by having their meteorologist mention your name on the air. Be careful though. Any footage taken that results in the storm tracker being killed will be disavowed. It’s nothing personal though. It’s just under the advise of counsel that Channel 11 can’t be perceived as encouraging folks to put themselves in a dangerous position. A position that they aren’t actually trained for, or employed to do. Otherwise, snap away. Be sure to include your name with your contributions. Hopefully they’ll it pronounce right.

Speaking of names, I need to pick up the story of my visit to the new home of The Full Gospel Original Church of God. Well, we rolled up to the church and I was struck by mixed feelings. Sort of like being in a crosswind. One second you’re thinking, “wow, that’s an impressive bit of architecture”, to, “that’s like the coldest most sterile building I believe I’ve ever seen”. It’s impressive, it’s glass. The pieces that aren’t glass are white, so you have this feeling of purity. Which, I guess is the vibe a church wants to give off. No chance the “Crystal Palace” is going to be mistaken for Blairsville’s new hot spot for exotic dance. It was very clearly designed to give the impression that the folks who go to church there are reaching for the heavens with the church’s many spires. I resisted the temptation to get closer to the “Pearly Gates” by climbing the eight stories of the bell tower, which is housed in the main spire. Eight flights of stairs just might send me to my final reward.

Let me tell you about the interior. It is splendiferous. Everything is freshly painted, with what I suspect, is multiple coats of paint. The floor is covered in a very deep pile red carpet. The red is more blood red than UGA red, but I’ll try to not let that prejudice my view. White paint covers the walls and the sides of the pews. The mahogany pews are covered with a long bench cushion covered in red fabric matching the carpet. The red theme carries on to the altar where the stage curtains are a matching red velvet, trimmed in gold. The podium is also trimmed in red fabric with what I believe is something of a cross between a serpent and a fish outlined in gold on the fabric. I’ll try to ascertain exactly what the animal is later. For sure, it’s not “Old Ben“.

The stage was outfitted like it was going to host U2. Cameras everywhere. Microphones and amplifiers everywhere. I made the comment that, “the only thing missing was a smoke machine”, which was met by Mulva’s number six stare. The number ten stare melts pig iron.

Anyway, the tour was quickly concluded after that. I think Mulva was fearful of errant lightning bolts and didn’t want to be a part of the destruction of the newly commissioned church. We scooted out of the parking lot and lunched at the IHOP. It’s “all you can eat pancake week”, and there’s no way I don’t come out ahead on that deal. Over my third plate, I asked Mulva, “I have just one question, what are they going to call the new church?” To me, the “Crystal Palace” seem disrespectful, if not degrading. Mulva did her hem and haw again, and I knew I had pried into “church business”. No matter. The first services are next Sunday, I can wait.

Good morning, y’all. Spring seems to have returned once again to the mountains. I am happy to report with the advent of warmer, drier temperatures, my congestion has disappeared. Once medication started, the end was near. One day I’m sounding all the world like a wolf caught in a trap, and the next I can hit “C” over “C”. Now, I can’t hold the note for long without my voice cracking, but at least I can hit a note again. I’ll have to let Axel Rhodes know that I’m ready to rejoin the “TackyOnes” in my role as lead singer.

Speaking of rejoining things, I don’t know who is more interested in me rejoining society at large, me  or Mulva. The perspective is way different, I can think of a hundred things I want to do, Mulva can think of a hundred things she wants me to do. Those two lists create a very small Venn diagram of things where what I’d want, or be willing to do, overlaps the things that Mulva expects, or wants me to do. In trying to sort through the “things we could do” list for a mutually satisfying adventure, we struck a bargain over visiting the new home of The Full Gospel Original Church of God in Blairsville.

I have not seen the inside of the church in person. The “Crystal Palace” was something of an anomaly in Blairsville. It was “overbuilt” by the Mormons as they anticipated a huge following of mountain folk to throw away their centuries old beliefs and superstitions in favor of the Mormon’s new fangled system. Imagine the Mormon’s surprise when the “grand opening” coincided so closely with the “grand closing”. A church that was built to house hundreds in “Christian comfort”, never held a hundred people at a service. Eventually the Mormons realized that heating and cooling the building were only making their losses worse, and they moved the congregation to a trailer. The “Crystal Palace” has been on the market every since.

The congregation’s open house yesterday had whetted my appetite for seeing what was really going on at the new location. Watching something on TV is very different than seeing something with your own two eyes. I wanted to see if just the very structure itself could invoke a bond to a higher power. I have seen churches in Europe that brought about an emotional reaction from their beauty and presence. I needed to see for myself if the “Crystal Palace” felt, I don’t know, holy? I mean there is a choice to be made here. If I am to return to the fold, and start the ritual of church-going again, shouldn’t it be to a place that I connect to? I know how I feel about “The Little Church In The Valley”. Now I was on a pilgrimage to dowse for feelings at the new location.

We drove past by the “Sugar Hill Cemetery”, where Daddy is buried. I could see from the car that there was a funeral taking place, which was very odd. Who gets buried on a Monday? I’m guessing some long lost relative couldn’t get back for a weekend service and the funeral directors, “Diggum and Fergettum” were going to accommodate the family with a non-peak time. Maybe even non-peak pricing. “Diggum and Fergettum” had been very accommodating with Daddy’s wishes. They left the price tags on Daddy’s burial suit so that we could return it after the service. I told you all, Daddy was cheap, and he didn’t want to invest any money in a suit he was only going to wear one time, even if it was throughout eternity. Besides, he put it in the will, we had to do it.

Along the way we passed the “Boobie Bungalow“, site of yesterday’s impromptu sermon. I asked Mulva for any feedback on the situation, and she kind of hemmed and hawed the way she does when she has “insider info”. I figured that whatever it was that Mulva was mulling over would eventually come out, so I let it go. No point in spoiling our outing by asking her to violate her sacred oath. The one thing you can be sure that will get told and retold is a secret, so I’d just bide my time.

We past through town, and then, there we were at the new home of the Full Gospel Original Church of God. I’ll be giving more details later.

Good morning, y’all. I am happy to report that after a night without a coughing spell, I look forward to a reprieve from my exile on the sofa. I will try to modify my daily activities so that I don’t get overly tired and create a relapse. Maybe I’ll just sit in the office today and start thinking about my taxes. D-day is just thirty days away. Never too early to start panicking.

Speaking of panicking, I dodged a seriously big bullet today. My illness provided another excuse for missing this week’s services at The Full Gospel Original Church of God. While not thankful for the illness, I am thankful for the excuse. The events of last weekend’s futile altar call, and some other monetary considerations, propelled the Elders to create a “roadshow” for this week’s TV broadcast. I have no idea who came up with the concept, and I have no idea how much convincing it took the folks at Channel 99 in Blairsville to go along with the plan, but I’m sure it was an adventure that caused a lot of anxiety for all of those responsible.

As the plan unfolded on the TV screen, parishioners were met in the parking lot of the church and shepherded onto buses. The destination was the newly reconditioned “Crystal Palace” in Blairsville. As Mulva has related to me, there has been lots of rumbling about the expenditures of the new church. My guess is that the Elders wanted to get the congregation’s mood back on a more positive plane.

There were three buses in all, and they were packed to the gills. The overflow were encouraged to provide their own transportation for the caravan bound for Blairsville. The “A” listers were assigned to ride in the lead bus with the Reverend Helen Handbasket. The “B” listers in the second bus were given over to the care of the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread. The last bus was filled with the same folks who are always clambering for the last seats in church as the service begins. I couldn’t tell from the TV if the third bus had a “tour guide” assigned or not. As the events unfolded for the ride into town, only one of the bus monitors mattered.

Channel 99 in Blairsville had assigned a cameraman to the first bus and another cameraman was shooting from the Channel 99 van in the caravan. The cameraman in the first bus was broadcasting the Reverend Helen Handbasket leading the “A” listers in a fiery version of “Onward Christian Soldiers”, when the Reverend Helen Handbasket broke her song with cries of, “stop, stop”. The camera chronicles the Reverend Helen Handbasket then telling the driver to pull into a parking lot. The viewers at home are not given a clue as to what is going on until the cameraman pans to the infamous sign of the “Boobie Bungalow“, one of Blairsville’s centers of exotic dance.

Well, like ants bringing food back to their queen, the congregation of The Full Gospel Original Church of God were out of the buses and their cars and drawing a circle around the Reverend. The shot from the Channel 99 van was fantastic. The faithful were milling in a circle around the Reverend Helen Handbasket, standing in the parking lot of a strip club, with looks of anticipation on their faces. You could see from home that most of the folks were confused as to whether or not this was an intended destination, or if it was just serendipity. Some of the male members had a sheepish look, but maybe that was just my imagination. Every ear was attuned for the Reverend’s voice, but she had to wait to speak until the Channel 99 crew got her a mike.

Once “miked up”, the Reverend Helen Handbasket unleashed a furious condemnation of women who sold their bodies for the lustful eyes of men, and the men who lusted after them. There were strong words describing the “blight” on the community that the establishment imposed, and the need for the righteous to cast out this “den of inequity”. After ten minutes of intense fire and brimstone, the faithful were loaded back onto the buses to complete their journey.

Well, the walk around the “Crystal Palace” was anti-climatic to the guerilla like raid on the “Boobie Bungalow“. The tour of the church more closely resembled an “Open House” with a realtor, than a congregation entering the promised land. While Channel 99 was denied another altar call, and a testament of faith, they were rewarded with being on the scene when news was being created. Probably for the first time ever, Channel 99 got to use the phrases, “Exclusive”, “And Only on Channel 99” in their lead ups to their news slots. The telecast ended with the faithful being loaded back onto the buses. The closing scene was bus number three leaving the parking lot, headed back to Nunsuch. It couldn’t have appeared more like a documentary if it had been directed by Michael Moore.

Clearly, the Reverend Helen Handbasket is a multi-faceted gem, 

 

Good morning, y’all. While being ill this past week or so, I’ve reflected on the frailty of the human condition, mine in particular. It seems so unfair that something so small that you need a microscopic to see it could bring a man of my size to the fetal position.

It’s not just the physical aspects of being ill. After being sick for a few days, I get in this mental state that I will call “quiet desperation”. Others may disagree with my description of “quiet”, but I am desperate to start feeling better. The anxiety produced by being sick, and not being able to shake it quickly, makes me manic in the attempts to get relief quickly. If two Tylenol are recommended, would four be better? If two tablespoons of Tussin-DM every four hours is the required dosage, would four tablespoons every two hours not just speed up my recovery? Like I said, I get a little manic. About the only way I can calm the beast is to treat my “down time” as an opportunity to catch up on my reading.

I don’t read enough, I bet none of us do really. TV is just too darn easy. Somebody has already packaged the message, and if we don’t feel their slant is too odious, we accept the knowledge and move on. None of us carries the exposure to a new topic on TV to the next level. Who goes to the library to explore all of the material available on the subject? Certainly not me. I’m proud of myself when I Google a topic and read what has been packaged for me there. Even Wikipedia is somewhat sanitized, I find. I don’t doubt Wikipedia, or their intentions, I just don’t think some topics can be glossed over in a thousand words or less. Some topics require an in depth analysis to understand the true nature of the issue.

Which brings us to the Zombie Apocalypse. As mentioned many times before, I am a big fan of horror movies, and I have a special affinity for Zombie movies. When the “Walking Dead” series started on TV, I was ecstatic. The fact that it’s filmed here in Georgia is just icing on the cake. The fact that a show about the undead has become the top rated series is kind of phenomenal. The TV show has taken the comic books series and brought it to “life”, so’s to speak. The realistic special effects and the producers commitment to produce a quality series has been evident since episode one. We’re not talking about green screen footage or computer generated action, we’re talking old school acting with sets and lots of extras. Generally speaking, they’ve left me little room to complain about production.

Now, they have left me some room to complain about plot. I think the fourth season was the one I refer to as the “angst” season. I mean, episode after episode was focused on a character’s mental state. Tyreese has a “sad”, Carol has a “sad”, Glenn has a “sad”. Jeez Louise, the world is overrun by Zombies, can we all agree that anyone would be depressed in that situation?  I speculated at the time that all of the good writers had gone to write for the spinoff, “Fear The Walking Dead”. Having now watched the “Fear” series, I now believe that all of the good writers just took a year off. Based off of the first few episodes of this season, the good writers appear to be back. We’ll see if they can maintain the quality for the whole season.

There’s probably hundreds of questions that could be asked about the mental state of a country that seems to thrive on all things Zombie. I mean, I know I’m weird, but I don’t appear to be in the minority anymore. In fact, the Walking Dead comic books have been published as anthologies for those of us who missed the comics when they came out. I have been gifted the anthologies, and I used my down time this past week to get through the first book. Wow, what a treasure. I hope all “Walking Dead – Dead Heads” have the opportunity to read the comics. They are very well done. The TV series has a lot to live up to.

To put a bow on this, if I had not done further research on a topic that I was originally exposed to on TV, I would have never learned that Lori and Judith died at the battle for the prison. That, and the fact that Rick is now known as  “Lefty”.  I won’t give that one away, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.

 

Good morning, y’all. Modern science has brought me back from near death once again. I can even climb the steps in the Rec room to the second floor without collapsing in a ball of convulsing coughing. I don’t know who discovered antibiotics, but his time on Earth was well spent. I hope his or her heirs are still being rewarded by their granddaddy’s discovery. I’m sure willing to kick in a dime a dose.

Speaking of folks who did amazing work and remain in obscurity, I had the occasion to watch a movie for date night that would have slipped by me entirely. The movie was a documentary called, “The Wrecking Crew”, which was the name given to a tight knit group of studio musicians back in the ’60’s and ’70’s. I had no idea about the importance in modern day music these studio musicians played. To further show my ignorance, the only one of the musicians that I can truly say I had heard of before was Glen Campbell, and then only because he became famous on his own. I had read that Campbell was a studio musician and had played with the Beach Boys. I had no idea that the Beach Boys had found Glen Campbell in a studio while they were making their iconic album, “Pet Sounds”. 

I came by the movie in an unusual way. Because I’ve been down with the creeping crud this week, I was unable to peruse the $2.99 movie bin at the Walmart. I was thinking I would have to go to my library of classic Betamax tapes for a date night selection. Lo and behold, my band mate from the TackyOnes, Axel Rhodes, came by to see if I was going to be available for band practice this week. I coughed out a response in the negative, and told him, “maybe next week”. Axel then went home and brought me back his copy of, ‘The Wrecking Crew”, to “keep my head in the game”. There is one universal truth about musicians, if you’re still playing, you’re still dreaming the dream. Axel thought that seeing a documentary about folks who lived the dream, but didn’t become household names, would help me keep the spark alive. That Axel, better than Dr. Phil and not nearly as expensive.

‘The Wrecking Crew” was directed by Danny Tedesco, son of Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco, as a tribute to his dad and the other players who never received their just due in the music world. To clarify that statement, most of us think that the bands we see on the stage are playing all of the instruments in the song. During the ’60’s, this was hardly true at all. Even the Beach Boys required the services of trained musicians to arrive at the quality of sound required by the public. One of the conflicts shown in the movie was when Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had to let his band mates know that studio musicians would be playing on the albums. The music that Brian Wilson wanted to produce was at a level far above his band mates capabilities, enter the Wrecking Crew.

There are a couple of really funny insights shown in the movie. Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees relates how he didn’t even know how to play an instrument when picked for the group. A ghost musician was his only hope until he could learn to play the drums well enough to fake it while on tour. It was also funny that the other Monkees were indignant that their skills were not thought to be sufficient to do the recordings.

It was fascinating to learn about Carol Kaye, the Fender Bass player who is credited with playing on over 10,000 songs. She laid down the bass lines to “And The Beat Goes On” and “These Boots Are Made For Walking“. Where would those songs have been without Carol Kaye’s iconic bass lines? Certainly not the money makers they were.

Speaking of money, that was the true impetus behind producers using the Wrecking Crew as opposed to the performing artists. The Wrecking Crew could be ready to record a new tune in as little as an hour, and then generally have a finished take in two or three tries. At one point it was rumored that the Wrecking Crew was turning out an album a day. A far cry from the “six months in the studio” so often associated with new releases.

Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money, and fortunately some of it stuck on the musicians. While not “rock star” wealthy, most of the Wrecking Crew had very successful careers. They lived the dream, although a little more quietly than their talent would portend.

Good morning, y’all. Proud to say that modern science has provided me with some relief from many of my symptoms. Even better news, the relief came without the threat of bleeding from the eyes and/or ears, constipation and/or “discharges” from other parts of my body. The stuff they advertise on TV sure looks attractive until they get to that long list of the things that can go wrong. I guess there is a reason for counting on a qualified professional to do the right thing.

“Qualified professional” is a great lead in for talking about the latest Republican debates. I relied heavily on Mulva to get the Rec room ready for our potluck supper. While I’m able to move about, too much moving creates a coughing jag that could set some people “off of their feed”, if you know what I mean. As it turns out, the turnout has dropped down to a couple of dozen folks now that the field has narrowed. I don’t think anyone was a “no-show” last night because of the departure of Dr. Carson, though. I do think the overall “spectacle” has diminished now that the field has narrowed to the final four.

Was it just a few months ago that Republican candidates were unpiling from Air Force One like clowns out of a clown car? Now they could all share an Uber together to get to the debates. Not that any self respecting Republican would ever use an Uber. Who knows who might have sat in that seat before you, right? Well, Kasich might, but he’s such an outlier now that he should probably team up with Bernie. They could run on the “People Who Talk Sense” platform. I wonder if they would get any votes at all.

Speaking of a vote deficit, two time loser, “Mittens” Romney weighed in this week with his condemnation of all things Trump. I’m trying to think of a time in history when a former candidate jumped into the fray to try to sabotage another candidate that was actually increasing the party’s base. I mean, I get the fact that the people who The Donald is now championing are the “shadow people” of the Republican base. You know, the white supremacists, the misogynists, the xenophobes, the evangelicals, the pro-lifers, the anti-gay, nut jobs who used to be able to receive in-patient care until Ronald Reagan turned them out onto the streets. Now they wander among us, blending in except for the occasional tin foil hat and the slurred speech of a chronic Haldol user. Is it wrong to try to deny them a candidate that speaks their truth, that says exactly what they’re thinking?

Apparently, so. The “jump Trump” movement was in full swing during the debate. Kasisch continued to stay on the sidelines. “Poor John’s” screen presence was marginalized by the Fox moderators not wanting to hear what he had to say, and his own good sense. I reflected on my Daddy’s old saying while I watched the look of bemused amusement on Kasich’s face as the other three got ready to “drop trou” to show America who the “most qualified” candidate really was. Bocephus, “Bo”, Lite used to say, “don’t go tussling with pigs, you’ll just come home covered in pig sh*t, and the pigs will be happy for the attention”. I learned later in life that Daddy had “borrowed” the phrase from George Bernard Shaw, but the point is the same. Kasich seemed to understand the point as well and is the only candidate that will go home not smelling of pig sh*t.

As for the rest of the dais, well it was an evening to remember. It’s hard to imagine standing on a stage and calling another candidate everything but honorable and then reinforcing your pledge to vote for him if he becomes the party’s standard bearer. It is the trying to have it both ways, the “having your cake and eating it too”, dichotomy that drives me nuts about the Republican party. Not too mention the promotion of candidates that appeal to all of the base elements of humans, and then being surprised when they turn out to be really, really bad Presidents.

It looks like the Republican party has a tiger by the tail with The Donald. While their strategists try to decide how to dump Trump and not prove to the electorate that their voice doesn’t matter, I am reminded of an old limerick I heard in high school. Yes, I can really tell this one, it’s PG:

There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

The Donald kind of has the same hair color as a tiger, don’t you think?

Good morning, y’all. As my cold/plague settled deeply into my lungs, I got less and less motivated to leave my sofa. Mulva realized that the point behind stoicism and stupidity had been breached, and that I needed to see a real doctor. Not someone who just plays one on TV. I’ve taken two rounds of antibiotics now, and good things are happening. I am able to bend over to pick up a cup of coffee without the movement bring on a coughing spell that wakes up children five trailers down.

Speaking of someone who just plays a character on TV, we once had a President like that. The worst President of all time, George W. Bush, was so poorly equipped to be the leader of the free world that his handlers should all be prosecuted for product fraud. At least Ronald Reagan’s handlers had gone to the trouble to secure a candidate that could act. Regan’s handlers promoted a candidate that could deliver a line with the appropriate facial expressions and body language to convince the audience that he believed what he was saying. Not so with W. W was at a complete and utter loss as to how to erase the look of confusion on his face when asked a question by the press. That look of confusion was probably the reason that Bush gave the least number of press conferences of any President ever, by far. Out of sight, out of mind, was W’s handlers’ philosophy.

In spite of being kept behind the curtain while in Washington, and on a perpetual vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, W occasionally got trapped by a question that he had not been prepped for. The depth and width of his intellect was revealed when W was confronted with a topic he had not been prepped for. In fact, W gave so many interesting answers, there have been books detailing them. They are called “Bushisms”. There are millions of them, but I’ll just list a few:

 “They misunderestimated me.”

“I’m the commander, see. I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.'”

“Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”

“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.”

“I’m telling you there’s an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That’s the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best.”

“Well, I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy and will provide the enemy – more opportunity to train, plan, to attack us. That’s what I mean. There – it’s – you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”

“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.”

“See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.”

“You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”

“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”

Like I said, there are millions of them on the internet. I may keep looking harder to find the one where Bush is complimenting an Iraqi war veteran that had had both legs blown off in the war. The veteran had his legs replaced by those prosthetic blades that the South African runner used. Bush was gushing that the amputee should feel lucky for getting the bionic legs. The veteran was confused by his good fortune at the loss of both of his legs. Classic W.

So, if the bar for intellect is set incredibly low for the office of President, is it possible that we could elect another candidate as unprepared, as incapable as W again?

Stay tuned.
 

Good morning, y’all. I slept on the sofa last night, in the role of good husband. Normally, the sofa is reserved for the punished husband. In this case, I took to the sofa to spare Mulva a night of endless hacking. I’m not sure how much she was spared, mobile homes being fairly narrow and all. I’m also thinking that the exterior metal walls might provide an amplification effect for my incessant coughing. I know it sure was loud at my end of the trailer. I hope Mulva fared better.

Anyway, sound is kind of an underlying theme to this missive. We all know there are sounds that are of such a high frequency that the sound is above what human ears can hear. An example of something that produces a sound that can be heard, but not by human ears, would be a “dog whistle”. Now, whoever came up with the idea of marketing a whistle that blew at such a high frequency that only dogs could hear them, was either a genius, or a really, really good salesman.

I mean the true story might be that the Ajax Whistle Factory produced a run of one million whistles that nobody could hear. Imagine all of the board members of the Ajax Whistle Factory sitting around the conference table discussing their eminent bankruptcy when one member picks up the whistle and blows it to emphasize the nature of the problem. All of the members of the board turn and look quizzically at each other except, for Mrs. Schneider, whose lapdog Shotzee is going nuts. Mrs. Schneider gets Shotzee calmed down only to have him riled up again at the blowing of the broken whistle. The Ajax Whistle Factory marketing department jumps on the opportunity to market whistles that only dogs can hear. The rest, they say, is history.

So, how the heck does a dog whistle relate to anything else, anywhere, at anytime? It seems that there is a political term that I had never heard of before that is being used to describe The Donald’s lack of response to being allied with the Klan. It’s called a “dog whistle”. The concept here is that the people Trump wants to get his message to, can hear the message over what Trump is actually saying. Eventually, Trump whined, “I disavow, I disavow”, after he had been told he’d been endorsed by David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Klan. But the rebuttal was so weak, and took so long to hit the airwaves, that the feeling is that The Donald’s real message got across. It was like The Donald was saying, “I’m with you, Klan members, but you know I have to say I’m not, to get elected”. And like the “silent” dog whistle, the Klan heard The Donald’s message above the din.

I found an excellent example of the dog whistle in Wikipedia, so I’ll just quote directly from there: “You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968, you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff.”  Now this comes from former Republican strategist Lee Atwater. Ronald Reagan used,“Cadillac-driving ‘welfare queens’ and ‘strapping young bucks’ buying T-bone steaks with food stamps”, to let his constituents know which side he stood on of the racial divide. In 2012, President Obama was accused ‘of not loving America’ by a Tea Party nut, trying to portray Obama as a Muslim.

It seems like a lot of work to come up with a phrase that will let your target audience know you’re one of them, without alienating the sane rational voters. I guess that’s why these strategists get paid millions of dollars every election cycle to come up with these concepts. Rather than listening for a “dog whistle”, maybe folks could just look a little closer at The Donald’s family tree to reveal more about his true nature. It is reported that his daddy was arrested in a Klan brawl in 1927. In the 1970’s, when The Donald was in his twenties and taking over his father’s empire, the Trumps were sued by the Federal government for violating the Fair Housing Act. They behaved for a while, and then were later sued again by the Feds when they returned to their old ways.

I mean, it’s cool to get mentioned in a Woodie Guthrie song, but not so much for being a racist. Maybe The Donald should use Guthrie’s, “I Ain’t Got No Home” as his campaign song. The Donald wouldn’t have to worry about blowing his dog whistles any more.