There's No Day Like a Snow Day

Yesterday (Wednesday, 01/17/2018) was spent ensconced in the Fortress of Ineptitude due to snow. 

Well, mostly.

My daughter and I did forage outside for a bit in the morning to experience the winter wonderland nature deposited on our doorstep.   

Everyone, try to stay warm, stay safe and be good to one another.   

Is Norway... White?

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen doesn’t know if Norway is predominantly white?  

 

Testifying under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Nielsen dodged questions about the president reportedly saying last week, in a White House meeting about immigration, that African countries are a “shithole” and that he preferred that immigrants come from Norway instead.

 

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) pressed Nielsen on the racism inherent in Li'l Donnie's comments, but Nielsen wouldn’t take the bait. 

 

“Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?” Leahy asked.

 

Nielsen replied, “I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that is the case.”

 

Hey, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: Norway is one of the whitest countries in the world, you fucking moron. And the racist, even bigger fucking moron you work for knows that. And  Li'l Donnie knows so little. But he damn sure knows where the white people are.

OK, at least two problems here.

 

If she did know but wanted to cover up for Trump, she may have just lied under oath.

 

If she somehow did not know that Scandinavian countries are predominantly white, the head of the Department of Homeland Security is unaware of basic global demographics.

So take your pick: crooked or stupid?

I know, neither is a good answer. 

 

Well, as the people of Norway might put it: “Kirstjen Nielsen er en jævla moron.” 

 

To translate that to English: “Kirstjen Nielsen is a fucking moron.” 

 

And here’s what Norway might think of her boss: “Donald Trump gjør Amerika til en shithole. Og han er også en jævla moron.” 

 

Or tro put that in English: “Donald Trump is making America a shithole. And he too is a fucking moron.”

Not Much To Report

Not much to report with this post. 

The road trip with my daughter to Randie to my home town on Saturday was pleasant and uneventful. We just chilled out with my stepbrother Roger at our mom’s house, eating take out from Fowler’s Grill which is this small town literal hole in the wall grill where they make the best hamburgers. We watched Speed which is one of those movies I have seen before but not at one time or in the right order. Saturday, I got to see Speed at one time and in the right order.  There’s a lot of violence and Sandra Bullock is simply.. a delight.

 

Inexplicably, we caught the last half of CHiPs, the movie based on the TV show about motorcycle cops with the California Highway Patrol. The movie is a bit of a mess. BUT..at one point, we get to see Allison Janney’s boobs which are spectacular.  OK, they may not have been Allison Janney’s real boobs, they may have been stunt boobs.  At one point, we get to see boobs which are spectacular. 

 

After burgers, movies and recovering Randie’s headphones (which was the ostensible purpose of our journey), we made the return trip back to the Fortress of Ineptitude to rejoin Andrea where we watched the live action version of Beauty and the Beast.  There’s a lot of plot holes and Emma Watson is simply.. a delight.

 

Andrea and I finished off The Crown on Sunday.  There’s a lot of royal intrigue and Claire Foy is simply.. a delight.

Really, not much to report.

Remember to be good to one another.  

ENCORE: People Working In A Field

Below is the text of a post I wrote Monday, January 20, 2014, Martin Luther King Jr. Day four years ago. I was a bit more hopeful then than I am now.  

________________________________

When you grow up in the American South as I did, one can't help encountering racism in some form or another. Now that sounds like one of those blanket statements that plays into a stereotype, in this case the South is filled with a bunch of redneck yahoos who hold black people in contempt. As all blanket statements, this cannot be universally applied to the entire South. White proponents and defenders of black civil rights were not just from the North but also from the South. But the inescapable truth is that racism was a part of Southern culture and no, it has not disappeared. Racism may be less than it was but it isn't dead yet. 

Back in the 1950's, racism was ingrained not only in culture but in law. Separate schools, hospitals, drinking fountains, seats in the movie theater, churches, etc etc. Black people were put in "their place" and held there. In my home town, years before I was born, a newspaper reporter and editor took it upon himself to challenge this institutionalized separation of black and white. And in the face of lost advertising and death threats, he stood his ground. He knew that segregation of races was on the wrong side of history. And he would eventually convince people of that. 

My mom was one of those people. A young girl working in the tobacco fields, she heard the racial epithets and saw the humiliations and pain visited up black people day after day. But she also saw those same black people, young men and women her age and working in the same tobacco fields. Regardless of the color of their skin, they were all dirty and sweaty and just trying to earn a few dollars. They were all just people working in a field, covered in sweat and dust, just trying to get by.

As the local newspaperman kept up his pressure against the institutions of segregation and racism, certain forces pushed back. The Ku Klux Klan was very active in the region. My mom described a scene that occurred one night while she was still a young girl. I wasn't there, of course, but I can see what she described so vividly. The KKK staged a "parade" where they all dressed in their robes and held up pitchforks and torches and reminded everyone within range of their shouting voices that white people were "superior" and "chosen by God" and that "n****rs needed to remember their place" and "no college boy from up north was going to tell them different". (Never mind that the newspaperman in question was a local resident who grew up in that town.) 

My mom said someone had rigged the front end of a big black car with lights to resemble a burning cross. My mom was and is a Christian and the cross is normally a sign of comfort to her. That night, affixed to that large menacing black car, the glowing cross that led this "parade" did nothing but instill fear. And that was an epiphany for her. She was afraid but not because of black people; they were just poor souls who worked in the same tobacco fields she did, just trying to get by. No, the fear came from these self appointed bastions of white superiority. She realized she had more in common with people whose skin was darker than her's than with these so called leaders with a skin of a paler color.

This is not say that she became a crusading advocate of civil rights. As I said, racism was ingrained in the culture and even in the laws of the time and of the region. But if the KKK sought to solidify their position with that ugly display that night, they did what all villains do: they overplayed their hand. A lot of hearts and minds they had hoped to frighten to their side were lost to them.  

The good news is the institutionalized racism of the past is just that: of the past. The bad news is that racism has just found more subtle ways to survive in bitter people with small hearts and smaller minds.  When I was a young man, there was a political election where the term "welfare queen" was invoked to describe those who were reliant, perhaps too reliant, on government assistance. The image this was meant to conjure was of a black woman, unmotivated to do anything except pop out babies for a variety of anonymous fathers and cash welfare checks. And there were women in our town that I knew fit that description to a "T" except for one inconvenient fact: a lot of them were white. 

There was this one woman named Pearl who was large and snaggletooth with pale freckled skin and stringy red hair. This woman put the "ug" in "ugly". But somebody was sexing this woman up because she would pop out a baby every other year or so. And she wasn't the only one. There were lots of women like that in my small town (although I swear to you, few if any were uglier) and yes, some of them were black. Yes, as a proportion of the population, black women were over-represented in this sad group. But the inescapable fact was this pattern of having babies and living off welfare did not have skin color as a commonality. The common factors were poverty and a lack of education which affected their judgement and impacted the development of their character. 

When Martin Luther King Jr declared his dream "that one day a man would be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character", this is what he was talking about. Even now, into the 2nd decade of this 21st century, there are people who still make judgments based on skin pigment. But the real things that hold people back, hold them down are things like access to economic opportunity and a good education. Without these, people cannot succeed. Without these, people find it hard to just get by.

And ultimately, that's who we all are, just people working in a field, covered in sweat and dust, just trying to get by.

Thank you for reading and, more than ever, be good to one another.  

FORE!

For a few minutes, Hawaii thought a ballistic missile was heading its way. 

Thankfully, no there wasn't. At a U.S. military base charged with keeping an eye on such things, someone pushed a wrong button that sent out a mass alert that a missile was on the way. 

Whoops?  

38 minutes later, a follow up alert was sent. "Sorry! Our bad. No missile. Everyone just chill. It's cool. Seriously, no missile."  

MEANWHILE at a golf course in Florida, Li'l Donnie Trump was playing golf. For the few moments of terror that Hawaii did not know that missile alert was in error, our Moron In Chief did nothing except finish his golf game. 

When it was all sorted out as being a mistake, sorry 'bout that, Trump said and did nothing in response.  

When he did finally send out a tweet later in the day, it was about "fake news,” the mainstream media and Michael Wolff’s new book about him.

Oh and we found out that after a year into this idiot's administration, the White House has no preparedness on how to respond to a domestic missile attack.  

We are so well and truly fucked.   

Hitting the Road

Hi there!

 

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of my fateful fall that shattered my left elbow and revealed I had a stroke. And we’re a few days away from it being one year since my mother passed away.

 

So yeah, that’s where my head is at.

 

If all goes according to plan, my daughter Randie and I are making a day trip down to the ol’ homestead.  Along with my wife Andrea, we made the trip on December 30^th to spend some post-holiday time with my step brother Roger, nieces and cousins. We’re making this trip because my daughter left her very expensive wireless headphones her mother got her for Christmas in our previous visit. Roger offered to ship them to us but Randie as anxious to make a road trip.

 

Randie likes to take road trips with me. Recently during a day off from work for the holidays, we made an excursion to Philpott Dam in Virginia. Why? C’mon! Who can resist a road trip to a place called “Philpott Dam”? 

 

Anyway, Randie saw an opportunity for a road trip with dad in recovering her head phones. No, we’re not taking Andrea. I feel bad about that but to be honest, she just slows us down whenever we go anywhere. Frequently, Randie and I are left to wait impatiently while Andrea packs for a trip. And it doesn’t matter the duration of the trip; she packs for it like she climbing Mt. Everest.

 

If I plan to leave the Fortress of Ineptitude at 8 AM, without Andrea,  I will leave the Fortress of Ineptitude at 8 AM.  If I’m going with Randie, she’s already behind the wheel at 7:55 wondering what’s keeping me. 

 

If I plan to leave the Fortress of Ineptitude at 8 AM, with Andrea,  we will leave the Fortress of Ineptitude at 11 AM.  Randie has a white knuckled grip of rage on the steering wheel. I have taught her well. 

 

Many, many years ago when Randie was but a toddler, she was riding in her car seat in the back. A car pulled out in front of me. Thankfully, my cat like reflexes of a trained ninja kicked is as I avoided a collision. I gripped the steering wheel and yelled at the clueless offending driver, “STUPID!”  

 

Sometime later, back home a the Fortress of Ineptitude, Randie clambered into the front seat to pretend she was driving. She gripped the steering wheel firmly with both hands and yelled “STUPID!”  

 

That’s my daughter. I was so proud at that moment. Still am today.

 

I just realized I casually referenced having a step brother named Roger earlier and I don’t think over the 5 years of this blog, I’ve mentioned that before.  I should rectify that.

 

But not today. Time to hit the road. Randie’s  already behind the wheel wondering what’s keeping me. 

 

Remember to be good to one another.  

Trump Shit

So Li'l Donnie's not going to London. 


“Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts,’ only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!”


Trump scores a two-fer in finding a way to blame something on Obama AND tell a lie about it. 


The process to move the embassy actually started during President George W. Bush’s tenure.



Robert Tuttle, former U.S. ambassador to Britain (October 2008) :   “This has been a long and careful process. In the end, we realized that the goal of a modern, secure and environmentally sustainable embassy could best be met by constructing a new facility.”


A lot of people in London have been opposed to Trump coming to visit their sceptered isle with mass protests expected if Trump went through with his visit.


London Mayor Sadiq Khan, an outspoken Trump critic, welcomed the trip’s cancellation: “Many Londoners have made it clear that Donald Trump is not welcome here while he is pursuing such a divisive agenda. It seems he’s finally got that message."


Regarding someone getting a message, Mayor Kahn, do you mean the big fat cowardly moron hiding behind Obama? 


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While in discussions about immigration, Li'l Donnie's blood sugar go a little low, causing him to get a little cranky.


 “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”


Trump asked this when lawmakers pressed to restore protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and multiple African nations.


To clarify what Trump thinks a non-shithole country, he added, " “We should have more people from places like Norway.”


Perhaps I should note that the population of Norway is predominately white? While the "shithole" countries are populated mostly by people of color?


Let's not pretend there isn't a racial bias present here. The contrast between "shithole" Haiti and "non-shithole" Norway could not be more stark.

And this racist rhetoric plays well with the base that elected him and still supports him. 

When Trump sad  “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”, while everyone else went into indignant rage and shock at his ignorant, hateful and divisive tone, Trump's base punched the air and yelled, "OH HELL YEAH!!! TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMPP!!!!"

Everyday is Monster Truck Rally Day in Trumpland. 


Meanwhile, Norway with its high standard of living, low crime and free health care may look at America as a bit of a shithole. 




Hey, Li'l Donnie: No one in Norway is fucking crazy enough to want to fucking move here, you big fucking fat fucking cowardly fucking moron fuck!




Well, if we're not completely a shithole yet, Trump is working real hard to get us there. 


One last note on this subject: I observed CNN did not edit or censor either the audio or any graphics referencing "shithole".