Month: August 2023

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Big Yawn!

Ohhh Georgia indicted Trump and a bunch of other people.

Bored now!

But I can say this, Georgia is completely off my list of potential states to move to. Not just because of this indictment, but because of Stacy Abrams, their crime & violence, and their tax structure.

Then you add this weak ass indictment, and guess what? Obviously, they don’t have any damn common sense either.

Even if I was to find a place well outside the Crime zones, how long would it be before some moron like Stacy Abrams got into office and did all the usual shit Democrats do? Increase Taxes; Income, Retirement, Property, Registration, and provide absolutely NOTHING in return for my dollars? I doubt I’ll live long enough for some moron in power to weaken all my constitutional rights, as California has managed to do. But I’d hate like hell to live to be 90 and find myself having to move at that age.

Georgia I never thought I’d see the day when you were as stupid as New York City. Yet here we are…

So, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. Georgia, aren’t you just precious?

NEXT!

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This hits home.

Not in a good way.

KTLA Los Angeles reported that a smash and grab robbery happened at the Topanga Mall Nordstrom.

I thought, “WHAT???”

That was one of the first malls I was in when my family moved to California. Back then it was called Topanga Plaza.

It’s just shocking when you hear of someplace from your misspent youth being assaulted like that.

One of my first jobs was at a Toys R Us nearby. The friends I made working at Toy R Us and I spent time in all the local shopping centers. We were young, and we were Valley Boys!

Where were you likely to find Valley Girls???? Right! They were at the shopping centers too.

While I’ve been aware of the smash and grab phenomena, I really hadn’t thought about it as anything more than something weird that was going to pass. Now, perhaps because this feels like an assault on my cherished memories I wonder how we’ve come to this point.

To be sure there was shoplifting. There was an LP in my collection that had considerable guilt associated with it. The only thing I ever shoplifted, and I did it on a dare. I mean literally, the only thing I ever stole was that LP.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that my friends were similar. Maybe once, and then never again.

None of us would have considered being violent about it. Maceing people or smacking ‘em around? Oh Hell no! We wouldn’t have thought of doing something that could hurt somebody.

Which makes me ask again what the hell has happened that’s made so many people think it’s okay to wholesale ransack stores and hurt innocent bystanders?

Is it just that there isn’t much in the way of consequences?

I really enjoyed watching the viral video of the cigarette thief in Stockton, CA getting his ass kicked.

He deserved it! The thief was later arrested in association with a string of other robberies and at his court appearance told the judge he was asleep when asked if he understood his Miranda rights. This guy is out on probation, clearly he didn’t learn a damn thing in prison.

The startling thing about this story for me is the 7-Eleven clerks let him go after beating his ass.

They showed mercy and kindness, yet hours later, this guy is arrested at another convenience store. He had to still be hurting from the beating but he was doing the same thing a few hours later???

The general consensus about this guy getting beaten, is that he deserved it. For once, I’m not the outlier.

Here is a guy who had immediate consequences for his actions and learned nothing. He’s been in prison and learned nothing. So where does that leave us?

I am reminded of my childhood in the Deep South. There were Chain Gangs of prisoners dressed in stripes fixing roads, digging drainage ditches, putting in fences near highways, cleaning up trash, and whatever else the State decided needed doing.

My Father would point at the prisoners as we drove by and say that’s what happens to you if you break the law. You end up chained like an animal doing public work to pay your debt to society.

I asked my Father what a debt to society was.

He then explained that keeping someone in prison cost the state taxpayers money. Feeding them, clothing them, looking after their medical needs, hearing their bullshit in court, all cost the state money. That represents a debt the prisoner owes to society on top of whatever crime they committed and its only fair that they work to pay that back to the taxpayer via public work.

Then he said something I remember very clearly.

He said, “If I ever see you on one of these chain gangs, I’ll be very disappointed, I’ll probably have to pull off the road to cry, I’ll still love you son, but I’ll never be able to forgive you for throwing your life away.”

My Father admitting he’d cry, or even that he could cry?

Now you know why the one LP stolen on a dare had such profound guilt associated with it.

Thinking about it, those Chain Gangs had another purpose. They served as an example to young impressionable children like myself. Seeing these men chained struck fear of breaking the law, or even the rules at school, deep in our hearts. If big strong men could end up like this, we children had no chance. Best obey our parents, the rules, and the laws. They don’t have moonpies or RC in prison, or so my momma says.

The trouble now is that we’ve gone so far into the Wild West, that only gunslinging Marshalls who shoot first and ask questions later can rebalance the scales.

It’s very likely that the Marshalls weren’t nice guys. It’s more likely that they were personally worse than the gangs of criminals they were hunting down.

The famous Marshalls were apex predators taking out the competition. Had they not been paid well, and treated with respect, when they were done with the criminal gangs, they could easily have filled the void and become super criminals. You’ve got to wonder if they didn’t think about it.

Societies are never supposed to cede control to criminals. Which is what California has done, and other states are doing. The apex predators that rise to fight criminals can just as likely become apex criminals.

After all why not? My thinking as an apex predator would be, “Society’s usual checks and balances couldn’t deal with shitty little criminals. I had to take out the trash, I deserve everything the criminals owned, including their business and and income streams. I call it the spoils of war, and no-one can stand against me…”

Mayor Bass had better make being an LA Police Officer a really good deal damn quick. And she better be prepared to look the other way for a few years while officers are brutal in bringing down the criminal element. She also better have an exit plan for officers accused of excessive brutality that includes a nice quiet retirement, not trials or prison.

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Really? My God I wish people would separate their feelings from facts.

I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do so very well but I’m going to give it a shot.

I ran across an (AP) Article titled US suicides hit an all-time high last year I thought, “That’s concerning but not really surprising.”

I can’t speak to the rise in suicide among young black men, but I wouldn’t be surprised if its a factor of hopelessness much like what I feel being in the 45 to 65 age group.

Realistically, what would it be like to be told literally everywhere all the time that the boogy man of systemic racism, will never allow you to succeed. (Personally I believe that racism is worse today than it was at the beginning of the Obama Administration, and that it’s fed in large part by politicians and people who make money from misery. BLM, Al Sharpton, etc,)

Imagine being told you’re a victim and always will be, or you’re not smart enough, or good enough and no matter how hard you work at it, you’re always going to fail, because of something that you have no control over. Add to that, how many of these young men may be losing friends to violence, or drugs. Maybe they can be included in the white 45 to 65 age group for the purposes of studying why suicides are increasing because of similarity in the root causes?

Just off hand I can think of reasons that might be causing an uptick in the white male 45 to 65 age group.

A lot of folks in that age group happen to be veterans. Veterans have not been served well by the VA especially in the area of Mental Health. This is also the time in life when you start losing old friends, spouses, parents, and a lot of men find themselves asking existential questions like, “Is this all there is? Work for fuckers I hate, making them rich, while they threaten and bully me with losing my job every fucking day?” Don’t even think that companies wouldn’t allow that kind of bullying, or it’s a rarity. Some supervisors think it’s funny to threaten subordinates with their jobs. Others use it as a way to “Whip their crew into shape,” and no HR department ever takes action. Their response is, “I’m sure the supervisor was joking.”

The job angle assumes a man has managed to keep working in the first place. If they’ve been laid off for the 20th time in their life after buying into yet another corporate pack of lies, ( We believe in family first, time off, vacations, and bonuses for good work…) that sure sounded like promises or agreements, they might just feel like, what’s the fucking point…

Contrary to popular belief, just because you’re older doesn’t mean that there are enough management or owner slots for everyone. The majority of folks aren’t going to get that single promotion slot… Often being older just means you’re at the top of an HR layoff list. Oh that shit is illegal, but the employee can’t prove they were the victim of ageism so older workers are totally screwed.

Having explored that existential question myself, I can say that the feeling of hopelessness and despair can be overwhelming.

I can also say with some certainty of belief, that our government, in collusion with Corporate America is directly responsible for any suicides over job losses. My belief is that the worker visa program is horribly flawed and government inaction bringing that system to heel, is killing Americans. It’s been obvious on its face for decades. When American workers have to train foreign Hn-nnn workers to replace them, we have a serious fucking problem.

The Hn-nnn system is destroying or has destroyed more than it has helped. President Bush be damned with his “These are jobs Americans won’t do,” bullshit!

Then there’s the terror most people feel about the IRS if they’ve worked long enough to have made, much less saved, any kind of money at all. The IRS has become a ravenous beast flinging audits and locking bank accounts at the drop of a hat. This is usually explained as crime prevention but almost always involves some small business owner who takes a lot of cash payments like a laundromat or coffee shop.

But that’s not all. Society is a mess. I’d like to see statistics on how many of the 49,500 had recently lost their jobs, have been involved in, or accused of, sexual harassment, have been accused of /counseled for racism or misgendering, were under IRS audit, might have been conservatives, may have been christian, possibly had a dim view of drag shows in front of children, might have voted for Trump, perhaps preferred common sense & old values to reading bullshit thrown at a wall to chart today’s course of action, or any of the million other razor blade hot button issues one could possibly run afoul of these days. Some members of families see no difficulty “Cancelling” each other over the new set of rules. Does that lead to more isolation and therefore higher suicide?

I often feel like I’m living in a social mine field and I’m unemployed! I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to deal with chaotic societal rules every day with no choice. If I’m not up for the silliness I simply don’t participate. It isn’t that I want to avoid other people or completely divorce myself from society.

I simply don’t always have the energy or desire to keep up with social rules that change as fast as vibrating atoms. In social settings today, failure to comply has immediate and sometimes lasting, even violent consequences. As a rule, there is no mercy or forgiveness for someone being unaware of an arbitrary rule created 12 seconds ago, or making a social mistake.

I don’t want to live constantly in fear. I’m very content waving at y’all as you whiz by on what is in my humble opinion, the highway to hell. “Have a nice oblivion morons,” is what I find myself thinking more often than not.

Admittedly, it makes me lonely. Especially since losing my spouse. But I was sort of lonely before losing my spouse. In a social sense we didn’t have a large circle. We relied on each other for support and there was comfort in knowing that no matter how shitty the rest of the world was, when we got home we had each other.

I get why people in my particular situation would flirt with the idea of suicide, or even decide it was preferable to living in this ever increasing insanity / stupidity.

What caught my attention was that the article turned toward Guns being the problem. I found that offensive as hell. (Yeah, I know my feelings & beliefs are intruding…) People choosing to kill themselves with a gun is just logical. By all accounts a bullet scrambling your brain is quick and probably relatively painless. That’s why slaughter houses use a boltgun on cattle. Brain is gone, cow dies, NEXT!

The gun isn’t the problem, nor are guns the source of suicidal ideation. (I picked that term up from a Psychologist. See I can learn things, as long as you’re not reversing every two seconds…) I’m too cheap to go buy a gun for the purpose of suicide. Strangely I’d be worried about the mess and who would have to clean it up. Is that a point in favor of the slightly OCD crowd???

If someone wants to kill themselves they will, just as if someone wants to kill someone else they don’t need a gun, a gun might be convenient, but it’s damn easy to kill a human.

The venerable club makes a fine weapon. Smack someone with a baseball bat in the head a few times and that’s pretty much the end.

As an aside, that is why I personally was appalled at how the media and police addressed the “Knock Out” game. Smacking someone at the base of the skull with a lot of force, such as running up behind them, is attempted murder in my book. It’s not a game at all.

If someone wants to kill themselves there are a lot of ways to do it. All you have to do is look around. There are literally thousands of sources of poison. Under your kitchen sink for example. Chlorine Bleach and Ammonia mixed in a confined space can do ya really quick.

If I was looking to go the poison route I’d just score some Fentanyl. Thank you China, Joe Biden, and open borders… It’s cheap, easy, and quick. The beauty of this method is that if you don’t leave a note, it will probably be ruled an accidental overdose and your life insurance if you have any, will pay off to your family. Get high as fuck and die. Now there’s a plan.

If you believe that killing yourself is a mortal sin, you could leave it in Gods hands. You could go to a black neighborhood and scream racist shit at the top of your lungs. Or you could walk into your local mosque and light a Quran on fire, perhaps while screaming Muhammad was a pedophile, who took it in the ass, and false prophet. If you lived through either of these events you could perhaps go on living knowing God had a plan for you.

You could use death cap mushrooms, you could go old school with other ancient poisons. Hemlock for example. A quick search of toxic plants is very enlightening. Oleander for can be deadly, even the common Daffodil bulb can kill, I’d say chop finely and brew as a tea.

My point is, Death is easy to find if you’re looking for it. Gun or no gun if someone is going to kill themselves they will.

I am repeatedly offended by politicians and other organizations using anyone’s death to push forward their fevered dreams of gun control. I don’t care if you’re talking about a mass shooting, or a single suicide. The dead are not for politicians to use for self aggrandizement or political gain.

Let’s agree that the real problem is that the person felt they had no hope, no future, and nothing to live for. (Perhaps we should eliminate politicians and their divisive rhetoric. It might be interesting to see where that leads us. Just a thought…)

I was glad to note near the bottom of the article there were some constructive things. The CDC working to expand suicide prevention services and the national 988 hotline number are encouraging steps.

Sometimes all that’s needed to part the clouds of depression is someone indicating that they give a shit about you and aren’t interested in using you. So if you know someone who’s depressed, give ‘em a call or a text just let them know you thought about them. I smile several times a day from a text message as simple as “I heard or saw X and thought of you.”

That goes both ways, if you’re depressed or feeling a little suicidal, (dear God don’t do what I’ve done here in this blog post and think too long about it, ) give someone, anyone, a call. Or you can go to a public place, help a stranger. Pick up an errant bit of trash some child dropped so their mother doesn’t have to. I’m always surprised that my doing simple things, and receiving just a smile for my trouble is remarkably uplifting.

FYI for me personally, If I was to get totally suicidal, I think I’d go with a fabric belt around a stout closet rod, naked with a dildo up my ass, jerking off, and wearing a pair of roller skates. Autoerotic asphyxiation is just soooo unseemly and dirty. It’s kind of the ultimate FUCK YOU! To the world. It says, “I blew my load and arrived to judgement still dripping!”

So friends, don’t worry about me buying a gun, worry if I buy roller skates!

To those of you who might be scared that I’d given this too much thought… Nope! Not really. Back in the early days of AIDS, a lot of my friends who nearing their end and not wishing to die gasping in agony in a hospital would ask me what I thought about suicide and how to go about it.

They asked me, because I had the ability to respect their choice without making judgement about it. In other words I’d give them a straight answer and was open to discussing the options pragmatically.

I miss those guys. I’m glad they’re in a better place and hope to someday meet up with them again.

A LONG number of somedays in the future! Until then guys, keep the bar tab open and the servers hotter than hell, cause when I get back with you guys, I plan to party!

Dang I was looking for a really offensive photo of autoerotic asphyxiation to finish this piece off with there was nothing truly interesting. Although what came up were a lot of photos of men having choke sex with women. But that isn’t autoerotic, is it?

Here’s the best I could do…

Enjoy!