When Puty annexed Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 he had a simple approach: he sent in troops dressed in green, without identification or insignia, but with ample fire power, and they took over Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
No wonder Portlanders are driven to violence when they see their fellow citizens snatched into unmarked vans off the street, snatched by well armed apparently military personnel with no insignia or identification.
Some Portlanders might watch something other than Fox News and might know a little about what is happening and what has happened in the world.
Knowing about the little green men would drive me to violence if a bunch of them showed up on my doorstep.
One would expect most Americans to feel that way.
It appears that most do.
However: the fact that 40% of Americans think that the invasion of Portland with little green men is OK is not OK.
But then, having a faux president who is guilty of blackmailing the President of Ukraine is not OK either.
Having a faux president who is a documented sociopath is not OK.
Having a faux president who is an accused rapist is not OK.
Having a faux president who is a documented racist and white supremacist is not OK.
Having a faux president who gleefully suggests that he'd like to screw his daughter is not OK.
Having a faux president whose only input to the country's attempt to save millions of its citizens from becoming homeless beggars wandering the streets has been to include $1.75 billion for a new FBI headquarters next to his downtown DC hotel is not OK.
Having a faux president who claims to own the hotel that will benefit from proximity to the new FBI headquarters is not OK.
Having a faux president who colludes with Russia daily is not OK.
Having a faux president who would not be claiming ownership of anything - I forgot he always lies about everything, so nothing would change his ownership claims - if it were not for the money he has acquired and laundered through Russia is not OK.
Having a faux president who wants to postpone the next election is not OK.
Having a faux president who has changed the office of Attorney General to Consigliore de Famiglia is not OK.
Having a faux president who thinks it's cute to dismantle the Western Alliance is not OK (this one is probably OK with Putin).
Having a faux president who has sat on his ass and watched 150,000 of us die of a disease that real countries have contained is not OK.
Having a faux president who is going to sit on his fat ass and watch the next 150,00 of us die is not OK.
And so on and so forth.
There is so much more, but I think I have said enough.
Except to ask my fellow Americans - excluding the cretins and the christians - "when are you going to rise up and say 'enough'?"
30 July 2020
If The Roman Church Were Serious About Being Relevant
The era of Pope Francis has included a surprising thing: a lot of people across the world, of all religious persuasions, and of no religious persuasion, wish the Roman Church well, and even, maybe, some continued success.
It has seemed to me for some time that, if Francis really wants to advance the interests of the Roman Church, and of humanity, and with him having the the backwind that those surprisingly common well wishes, he should, post haste, initiate whatever the process is that starts the path to Sainthood, for six of our fellow humans.
They would be:
Whether they were Roman Catholics or not, if that were to come up, would be a ridiculously irrelevant aspect of such an exercise: five of them are martyrs, and one of them was nearly a martyr; they all clearly, by any measure, are Saints.
Francis: let's get on with something important here.
It has seemed to me for some time that, if Francis really wants to advance the interests of the Roman Church, and of humanity, and with him having the the backwind that those surprisingly common well wishes, he should, post haste, initiate whatever the process is that starts the path to Sainthood, for six of our fellow humans.
They would be:
Abraham Lincoln
Malcom X
Robert Kennedy
John Kennedy
Martin Luther King
John Lewis
Whether they were Roman Catholics or not, if that were to come up, would be a ridiculously irrelevant aspect of such an exercise: five of them are martyrs, and one of them was nearly a martyr; they all clearly, by any measure, are Saints.
Francis: let's get on with something important here.
An Email From Adam
Adam Schiff, that is.
I received it this morning.
I am posting it because it is as beautifully succinct as is necessary to reply to a statement from a criminal, traitor and buffoon (donnie has many roles).
Here it is:
"This morning, Donald Trump posted a dangerous tweet lying about the safety of vote-by-mail and even threatening to postpone this November’s general election. See for yourself:
We all know why. He’s way behind in the polls, there is a pandemic raging because of his incompetence and we just suffered the worst economic contraction in history. He’s terrified he’s losing. Here’s what I have to say to Trump:
You can rant all you like. Spread all the lies you want. Stoke all the fear and division you desire.
But…
We voted during the Civil War. We voted during World War II.
And nothing that you can do or say will stop us from voting you out of office on November 3, 2020."
I received it this morning.
I am posting it because it is as beautifully succinct as is necessary to reply to a statement from a criminal, traitor and buffoon (donnie has many roles).
Here it is:
"This morning, Donald Trump posted a dangerous tweet lying about the safety of vote-by-mail and even threatening to postpone this November’s general election. See for yourself:
We all know why. He’s way behind in the polls, there is a pandemic raging because of his incompetence and we just suffered the worst economic contraction in history. He’s terrified he’s losing. Here’s what I have to say to Trump:
You can rant all you like. Spread all the lies you want. Stoke all the fear and division you desire.
But…
We voted during the Civil War. We voted during World War II.
And nothing that you can do or say will stop us from voting you out of office on November 3, 2020."
24 July 2020
20 July 2020
Paris: Sunrise From Crazy View
Crazy View; that is the name of one of the apartments I have lived in while in Paris.
This one also was a character in a novel I have written; it is much more to me than a stove and a bed.
It is a spiritual connection with - something - something I can't really explain but something that I did describe in the novel; in any event, it is magic; and we don't get enough magic anymore.
I never closed the windows of this apartment: the Seine is a being, and one should never let it be shut out.
From the inside.
Of where one lives.
I have so many pictures from this apartment I wish I could show here.
But I can't find them; and there are too many.
But this is one of my favorites:
SUNRISE FROM CRAZY VIEW.
16 July 2020
15 July 2020
Two Question IQ Test
1. If you don't do testing for a disease does the lack of test documentation mean that the disease doesn't exist?
2. When tariffs are imposed on the goods from a country does that country pay the tariffs?
Here's a bonus question:
3. When the president of the United States is a fucking moron is the world a lot better off?
donnie's answers to these three questions are:
2. When tariffs are imposed on the goods from a country does that country pay the tariffs?
Here's a bonus question:
3. When the president of the United States is a fucking moron is the world a lot better off?
donnie's answers to these three questions are:
"yes"
"yes"
"yes"
14 July 2020
A Reverse Tinkerbell?
I think I remember in Peter pan that Tinkerbell got dead or something close to it.
But it didn't need to be permanent.
If only all of us "out there" sent our love in massive heart rending waves, we were told, Tink would come back.
And we did and so did she.
Do you suppose if all of us "out there" direct, in unison, massive waves of our legitimate hate at donnie, he will just shrivel up the rest of the way?
Let's all try it.
But it didn't need to be permanent.
If only all of us "out there" sent our love in massive heart rending waves, we were told, Tink would come back.
And we did and so did she.
Do you suppose if all of us "out there" direct, in unison, massive waves of our legitimate hate at donnie, he will just shrivel up the rest of the way?
Let's all try it.
13 July 2020
11 July 2020
A Good Question - This Time
Biden proposes:
Keep the Affordable Care Act, fixing all the obvious flaws that it has exhibited since passage and adding all the obvious enhancements that were left out the first time.
One of those enhancements will be to add the ability for citizens to buy Medicare, a world class health care system (one could view that as a significant step toward universal health care).
He also proposes that, having seen the threats to national security and national survival inherent in outsourcing our manufacturing and distribution supply chains, he will bring them home; and that means lots of American jobs; and, if voracious and rapacious corporations are properly controlled, those jobs will pay a living wage.
He also says he will re-join the Paris Accord and put America back on the path to saving the planet; that probably includes adoption of significant components of the Green New Deal; that means jobs, lots of American jobs, good paying jobs.
There probably will be more.
But even those three things, when compared to donnie and the republicans' pointless and aimless chaos and their promise of more to come if re-elected, ought to be enough to allow Joe to ask a simple question.
"What do you have to lose"?
Keep the Affordable Care Act, fixing all the obvious flaws that it has exhibited since passage and adding all the obvious enhancements that were left out the first time.
One of those enhancements will be to add the ability for citizens to buy Medicare, a world class health care system (one could view that as a significant step toward universal health care).
He also proposes that, having seen the threats to national security and national survival inherent in outsourcing our manufacturing and distribution supply chains, he will bring them home; and that means lots of American jobs; and, if voracious and rapacious corporations are properly controlled, those jobs will pay a living wage.
He also says he will re-join the Paris Accord and put America back on the path to saving the planet; that probably includes adoption of significant components of the Green New Deal; that means jobs, lots of American jobs, good paying jobs.
There probably will be more.
But even those three things, when compared to donnie and the republicans' pointless and aimless chaos and their promise of more to come if re-elected, ought to be enough to allow Joe to ask a simple question.
"What do you have to lose"?
09 July 2020
08 July 2020
Another trump?
A recent revelation from the family archives has been released for general publication in support of the trump re-election effort.
The individual on the left is thought to be a heretofore unacknowledged "love child".
06 July 2020
Saigon Street Food
When I was in the "war effort" in 1967, I used to like to go into the mostly Vietnamese area of downtown Saigon and take pictures.
The other major sortie to downtown, once a month at payday, was to go somewhere around The Brinks.
There was a French restaurant - The Mayfair - that was so good.
Street food vendors were always prime photographic subjects when I was in the other part of Saigon, mentioned, above.
That place was where I learned that if you don’t have refrigeration and want to sell chicken meat you keep the chickens alive and break their legs so they can’t run away.
In support of my distaste for Saigon and the war effort I invented and adopted the urban legend that Saigonese ate the feet and threw away the chicken.
In later years I discovered that there was an element of truth to that: they really like the feet.
Anyway, this image got presented recently by Screen Saver (I have digitized my Vietnam
ektachromes).
My 2020 reaction has been “those people must have had the immune system of a wart hog”.
I don’t know if wart hogs have robust immune systems, but I like the sound and rhythm of the phrase.
In 2013 I wrote a little book about my year in Saigon: Saigon 1967.
It's a fun little book.
The other major sortie to downtown, once a month at payday, was to go somewhere around The Brinks.
There was a French restaurant - The Mayfair - that was so good.
Street food vendors were always prime photographic subjects when I was in the other part of Saigon, mentioned, above.
That place was where I learned that if you don’t have refrigeration and want to sell chicken meat you keep the chickens alive and break their legs so they can’t run away.
In support of my distaste for Saigon and the war effort I invented and adopted the urban legend that Saigonese ate the feet and threw away the chicken.
In later years I discovered that there was an element of truth to that: they really like the feet.
Anyway, this image got presented recently by Screen Saver (I have digitized my Vietnam
ektachromes).
My 2020 reaction has been “those people must have had the immune system of a wart hog”.
I don’t know if wart hogs have robust immune systems, but I like the sound and rhythm of the phrase.
In 2013 I wrote a little book about my year in Saigon: Saigon 1967.
It's a fun little book.
05 July 2020
04 July 2020
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