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People seem very angry for no apparent reason these days.

Yeah I’m prone to anger and breathtaking rage myself, but for many years I’ve been the outlier and fight a daily battle to maintain my calm in the face of what I perceive to be insane stupidity.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m an outlier anymore. If I’m “normal” then things are way worse than I thought.

Yesterday on a walk with Jesse I was waiting to cross the road to begin climbing the hill to home. Jesse hadn’t slept well the night before. His stomach was making all kinds of noises, growling, gurgling, and he just didn’t seem to be comfortable. He spent a lot of the night with his head on my arm and every time he shifted around to try to get comfortable, I’d wake up and try to sooth him, making sure he didn’t need to go outside.

Earlier in the evening we’d been playing and he upchucked then he didn’t really want to play anymore. Instead curled up on the couch next to me while I watched some TV.

He’d not been all that thrilled with our walk and turned us toward home at about the 1 mile mark. Since we usually walk almost 3 miles I took it as a sign he was still not feeling well.

So there we are standing at the side of the road, I’m scratching his head while waiting for a truck and a Cadillac SUV to pass. Jesse was impatient so I had him short leashed to keep him from stepping out onto the pavement.

Honestly I was kind of zoned out, worried about him, but just standing there. As I watched the two vehicles approach I noticed the Cadillac was right on the trucks bumper and thought to myself that’s gotta be annoying as hell for the guy in the truck.

The truck made a right turn and the Cadillac accelerated.

At that moment a phone call buzzed my pocket, and Siri announced the call, asking if I wanted to accept. I was wearing my AirPods listening to a podcast and instead of letting go of Jesse to fumble my phone out of my pocket to decline the call, I shook my head. As expected Siri sent to call to voicemail.

While I’m crossing the road, I realize the Cadillac had stopped on the bridge and some guy is screaming out the window… At me?

I pause the podcast and listened…

Amongst all the nonsensical obscenities I manage to figure out this guy is upset because I shook my head.

REALLY?

He’s wound his panties in a bunch because I shook my head?

My breathtaking anger uncoiled because this moron was just wrong!

He needed a good old fashioned ass-kicking and to have his teeth knocked down his throat. Maybe both arms broken so he couldn’t jerk off for six to eight weeks while he sat in his daddies house whining about whatever he could whine about.

I think this kind of thing is why God didn’t give us telekinesis. I know if I’d had that ability at that particular moment, I’d have flipped his shitty Cadillac off the bridge and into the wash with him in it. I might have slammed the vehicle up and down a few times for good measure. 

From what I could hear, he thought I was making comment on his driving.

Well I had, internally. But I’d not done anything other than dismiss a phone call I didn’t want to have while humping myself back up the mountain.

A familiar whine brought me back. Jesse was looking at me as if to say, “Come on Dad  I want to go home.”

I turned the podcast back on and kept walking.

I was confused. What would make someone so nuts? Unless, he knew he’d been an asshole tailgating, and I triggered his self introspection & guilt.

Ironically, he was in such a hurry that he needed to be on someones bumper, but had the time to come to a full stop on a bridge to lose whatever time he thought he’d gained by yelling at a complete stranger for nothing other than shaking their head.

Seems to me the problem was his, so I’m glad I didn’t make it mine.

One day, unless he changes and grows up, he might encounter someone just as angry who’s more of an asshole, and also carrying a gun. At which point, best case he’ll have that expensive back window shot out. Worst case he’ll catch a bullet.

Either way, it’ll be 100% on him, and quite possibly well deserved.

Now in my calmer state I’m thinking, maybe he was having a bad day, and wanted someone to share in his misery. Maybe like me, he’s got some anger issues that he’s not learned to keep in check.

Perhaps it’s better to take the high road…

But there’s a part of me that would really have enjoyed seeing him bloody.

I’m encountering stuff like this frequently these days. I’m not looking for it, I’m just going about my daily activities and encountering people who are all right on the raggedy edge of decency and self control.

My family says things are very different where they live.

This kind of thing never used to happen in my small mountain town. It was a place where I could avoid almost all of the nut jobs in the city and could work on my own personal Zen.

The fact that I am encountering this kind of thing so frequently, even here, possibly indicates that the crazy has come to town and it’s time for me to go somewhere else.

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Wow, just wow. I really hate hit pieces

Caught this article and thought, “On the one hand I can understand fighting fire with fire”

Platner maine.But it saddens me that it’s gotten to this point and It muddies the waters.

The article is about a veteran running against Senator Susan Collins (R-ME). It’s a hit piece and I personally found it as offensive as the hit pieces against Pete Hegseth.

What it looks like at this point to me, is a veteran that became disillusioned with the military when he began questioning the reasons he’d joined in good faith to protect our country.

That questioning is not uncommon. They see friends blown away, they see the results of war, they see politicians getting rich from the military industrial complex, and REMFs giving orders that make no damn sense. 

They seem to realize they’re pawns and question if the honest motivations that made them become soldiers were naive and wonder if they’re on the “right” side.

I’ve known a few military people that went through this and came to the conclusion that the only fight they’ll engage in, is one where they can clearly see and understand the threat but they’re not interested in some overarching geopolitical bullshit that has no clear endpoint or goal.

Some of them become pacifists, some become thoughtful and introspective, some work their way through it, and decide that war should be the absolute last resort and then only in defense of their homes and families. They seem to be somewhat agnostic about concepts like nationalism and patriotic duty. And some become stone cold killers who are never fit to live in non-military society again, they become the monsters that fight other monsters and that’s all they know or remember.

The duty that many citizens have completely forgotten and abdicated is our duty to reach out to all of these soldiers to hold their hand guiding them back from being warriors to being people again.

We’re supposed to hug them when they wake in the middle of the night, wild eyed and dangerous, because they were reliving the nightmare of battles they’d been in. I’ve always believed it was our duty to remind them of what they sacrificed their youth and innocence to protect, we’re supposed to be rocks they can cling to in those turbulent moments where all these soldiers can do is wait for the sunrise to break on a new day.

I’ve seen a few sunrises sitting next to men in that state. I can’t fix or heal those psychic wounds, only time can do that. But I can be a rock, a calm point in the storm, waiting for the sunrise with them.

It’s been said the last thing you want to do, is make a soldier turn his plowshare back into a sword. Because that man will fight with a fury of a demon out of hatred and anger at having his hard won peace stolen from him again.

I believe that with all my heart. A soldier who’s forced to do that risks everything because he risks being taken by the abyss.

This hit piece is about Graham Platner. He’s running against Susan Collins for a Maine senate seat.

He’s got a skull & crossbones tattooed on his chest. He’s 41, a vet and referred to the tattoo as a Totenkopf. That’s German for skull. The tattoo doesn’t mean he’s a NAZI.

I’ve known a lot of soldiers that had skull tattoos of various types. Some choose traditional pirate tropes, others choose Baron Samedi, other variations I’ve seen include skulls with new life sprouting from them represented by green plants growing around or through them.

The article implies he got it when he was 22, and in the Marine Corps. I found a photo that is supposedly him, and honestly the tattoo quality is really bad. It’s a crap tattoo. Duh, a drunk 22 year old on leave, kind of typical.

As muddied and indistinct as the lines were, a coverup piece would probably be a nightmare to design. It would take a real artist not some $20 per hour hack.

I know a lot of people who’ve had coverup tattoos to eliminate their youthful regrettable choices. I know about an equal number of folks that just said, “Fuck it”. It wasn’t worth the time or money to bother.

So this guy having a skull tattoo doesn’t meet my personal qualifications to mark the guy as a NAZI. 

This looks more like the rabid assholes on the extreme right trying to get payback for the extreme left’s making hay about Hegseth’s cross tattoo.

The article also quotes Mr. Platner as saying;

“Tell them that if they expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.”

The author of the article claims this is a call to violence.

I don’t look at it that way. If you cite WWII as an example, it was semi-automatic and full automatic rifles that beat back the penultimate fascists known as NAZIs.

The article printed another quote;

“After the war, I’ve pretty much stopped believing in any of the patriotic nonsense that got me there in the first place, and am a firm believer that the best thing a person can do is help their neighbors and live a loving life.”

He added;

“Still got the guns though. I don’t trust the fascists to act politely.”

That tracks with several ex-military folks I know. I’ve heard similar sentiment from soldiers who saw hard combat, including one Vietnam Vet whose leg was spared by a penny in his pocket. He was very happy to have lost a penny rather than have a Purple Heart. The penny in question is mounted in a small glass case on his bookshelf among a few pieces of memorabilia from the war.

Later in the article Mr. Platner is quoted as saying he’s a socialist, later a communist and that he grows psychedelics.

Okay, that’s when I get a bit concerned. My question would be is he communist lite, or hardcore communist? On its surface Communism does look very appealing. However historically, the problem has been in the implementation, because human nature is not, in my opinion, compatible with Communism.

I’d like to read and hear more about Mr. Platner. It’s unlikely that I’d agree with him on all points but I’m willing to listen and if he’s got good ideas I don’t care what his political ideology is.

The article is decrying the Democrat party and their apparent love for bad candidates and bad ideas. Okay, I’ll agree with that generally.

Both are apparently true, the first is exemplified with Biden and Harris. The latter is exemplified by the Democrat Party doubling down on ideas, rules, & regulations, that have failed.

If the Democrat Party would simply be able to say, “Yep, that didn’t work as expected. So we’re going to defund and dismantle it.” I’d have a lot more respect for them.

Then I think about John Fetterman. When he was running, I thought he was possibly one of the worst candidates I’d ever seen, (other than Biden), but as it turns out, while I disagree with him most of the time, I’ve started to see him as a voice of reason within the Democrat Party. At least he’s willing to call out others in the party who are “Off the rails.”

Maybe Mr. Platner could bring a fresh view. Maybe being who he is, having actually seen combat, & worked for a living wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Democrat party and the Senate.

I’ve long believed that what we need in Congress is average people. Yeah AOC is “average” so maybe my theory may not hold water. But she’s not particularly bright and I suspect she’s kind of a “Go Along with the crowd,” kind of person. When I say “Average” people, I mean free thinkers who don’t vote lockstep along party lines.

I’m worried about the Republican Party doing exactly the same thing. If Republicans are expected to vote strictly along party lines, in short order they’ll be no better than what we’ve seen with the Democrat Party. 

Ideally what I want in Congress is a bunch of people who do the research, can justify their votes, and who are unafraid to have a different opinion. In other words, I would like a real cross section of America. I’d like thoughtful people who eschew rhetoric and party affiliation. I’d like to see votes in the House and Senate that look more like the results of the general vote.

While at the moment I think the Democrat Party is full of a bunch of loons. I don’t think it’s right or productive to paint all Democrats with the same brush. (Yes, I’ve done it in these very pages. I apologize, I was pissed off.)

We need balance. Hit pieces from either side aimed at destroying new or unknown candidates are not productive. In fact, I think they lead to maintaining the status quo because they poison the possibility of new blood entering office.

Nowhere in the article is there mention of what Mr. Platner is actually campaigning on. Perhaps the ink would be better spent describing the candidate’s thoughts on changing the political landscape, what kind of experience he has, what he plans to do for his constituents, and how he plans to do it. 

Were I living in Maine, those are the things I’d be interested in. Not a candidate’s tattoos.

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Well Damn!

Was cleaning the house today.

I moved the coffee table and a chair to vacuum. Under both were areas of the rug that looked “Odd” I didn’t think much of it until I’d run the vacuum over them. Then I was looking at the backing of the rug.

It took me a moment… then I saw a moth. I got down on my hands & knees and saw immediately what happened. Some kind of small species of moth had come in, and made themselves right at home.

The rug was made of wool.

Well shit!

The rug was 13 years old. It was the last one of a set. The first one had been destroyed when the fire sprinkler pipe in the ceiling broke. This one had survived, but it was showing signs of wear around the edges.

I wasn’t quite ready to let it go but found myself having no choice. I rolled it up and carried it outside. Now I have to figure out how to get rid of it. It’s small enough that I may be able to stuff it in a black trash bag with some plant trimmings ( as camouflage).

The rugs, were two that Jerry & I picked out when we were buying furniture after the house rebuild. Both were neat matching geometric patterns.

I had to get rid of it, but it’s still another thing in the house that we selected together. Now it’s gone.

Jesse isn’t pleased. I think he believes he was bad although I’ve been trying to reassure him. I ended up wiping the underside of all the furniture trying to make sure I got any remaining eggs or other creatures.I scrubbed the floor and put felt on the bottoms of the furniture pieces to protect the floor. In case anything slid around.

I sort of like the room without the rug. I’ll have to see how this works. If it doesn’t I’ll pick something up.

This was not what I had planned for the day, but it’s probably for the best. I went around the house checking on the cedar blocks in drawers containing wool. I should probably find some replacements, they’re not as pungent as they once were. I’ve got wool sweaters and scarves for winter. I’d prefer not to have them eaten.

I usually moved the furniture around every couple of weeks to vacuum and I remember seeing something a few weeks ago but thinking it was just that the rug was getting old. I’m amazed how much damage was done in such a short period of time.

If there’s any benefit to synthetic carpeting, I suppose it’s that moths aren’t an issue.

Between the grape vine and now the rug, it feels like things are just slipping away.

Sigh…

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Peace in the Middle East, for however long it lasts

I’m glad that President Trump managed to bring peace to the Gaza – Israel conflict. Overall it’s a good thing.

I’ve noticed that there are Democrats claiming President Trump is building on something someone did in the Biden Administration.

I don’t believe it and honestly don’t give a damn what they think. Or what lies they have to tell themselves to maintain their delusion that Biden was in any way good for the country.

I don’t think it will last, Hamas is already testing the boundaries and they are not to be trusted. They’re not going to willingly give away their control or power, and they’ve no doubt negotiated this peace as a survival tactic. I believe they should be hunted down and exterminated like the lying vermin they are. If Israel decides to do exactly that, I’m all for nobody noticing.

My only concern is that I don’t want America involved in it at all. It’s none of our concern.

That’s not being islamophobic, or genocidal, it’s recognizing an enemy that has for decades played the same game. Attack, get their asses kicked, sue for peace, rebuild their arsenal, attack again. 

It’s like the shampoo bottle instructions, “wash, rinse, repeat.”

“Oh Hamas did a terror attack in Israel? Again? Yawn!”

I’m really hoping President Trump holds the line regarding our involvement and that he’s able to keep the other Middle Eastern nations to their word about controlling the bullshit in Gaza.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be a lasting peace. I’m willing to enjoy Palestinian protestors being off our streets for a while.

I’ve been amused watching the media trying to acknowledge the accomplishment without choking on their own bile.

Trump’s been in office less than a year, and thus far he’s keeping campaign promises. Illegal crossings at the border are at what some reports indicate, a 50 year low.

Corporations are brining manufacturing back to America, (that’s going to be a long term improvement.) Oil drilling is allowed in US coastal waters again. I’m not sure that I’m all for that, but I am for energy independence, and if drilling is a stepping stone to that I’m good with it.

The H1B programs are under fire so maybe we’ll have the ability to call a bank, cellphone, electric, natural gas, and almost any other service oriented company and get someone that we don’t need a universal translator to understand. It would be nice to conduct business in my language without straining to understand the person.

Folks are screaming that our medical industry will be impacted. Maybe. However, since we’re deporting a substantial number of people who use hospital ERs and urgent cares like their primary care physicians because they’re getting medical services on the tax payer dime. The medical issue may sort itself out without intervention.

I for one don’t feel comfortable with the sloppy medical care that has become commonplace. Nor do I feel comfortable having to ask for a translation of the doctor’s diagnosis, then ask for a translation of the translation a nurse provided, from a janitor.

Yes, these people supposedly speak English. But it’s unintelligible.

I do enjoy the fact that when these people look at my last name, they revert to “Mr.” And my first name. 

That being said, I’ve recently had some “American” workers do the same thing because they can’t navigate saying my last name. Had our family not americanized the spelling when we came in on Ellis Island or other ports of entry, I’d probably be a whole lot more amused. Or offended… I’m not sure which.

Were it not for the expense and inconvenience, I’d consider changing my last name back to the original spelling. At least then, when someone botched it they’d have a good reason.

How is it that I, an uneducated American, can usually say someone’s first and last name from the way it is spelled? When I was answering technical support calls, I always took the time to give it a whirl, ask if I got it right, then carry on with the conversation properly using the Mr. Mrs. or Miss pronouns and the person’s last name as a sign of respect.

It’s a small thing, but I always found it made people at least more comfortable and feel that they were being heard. Referring to someone as “Mr. Steve” always felt, to me at least, disrespectful.

Then there’s the prescription pricing that President Trump is working on bringing into line. I’m super happy about that. There’s never been any excuse for being able to buy the same medication in Mexico or Canada at 1/2 or 1/4 the price just because you bought it outside the United States.

What does the drug cost to manufacture? What does it cost to package and distribute? What did it cost to develop? Add the costs up divide that by the number of people likely to use the drug during it’s patent period, add a little % of profit and that’s the freaking cost the consumer should pay no matter where they live.

If their government wants to subsidize the cost to provide the medication to the poor, that’s their business.

There’s no way that the people of the United States should have been paying higher prices for something just because someone, somewhere, decided they should pay for someone in Zimbabwe to pay less. President Trump is right in saying the American people have been ripped off for years.

I know the pharmaceutical industry is pissed off at Trump and I’m “all in” for that too. 

Even here in America, you can see the differences. Wallgreens charges 4 times the price for a generic medication I’m familiar with than Rite-Aid did. What Wallgreens charges medicare is even more.

House & Senate Democrats light their hair on fire about medicare and social security becoming insolvent but don’t have any plan except to keep pumping money into those systems, except asking why. They never get to the root cause of stopping that kind of fraud.

President Trump went to the source and attempted to put a stop to usury pricing.

The Senate Democrats are claiming that millions will lose healthcare due to the government shutdown. They neglect to say that many of those millions are getting it for free due to government subsidies. Some are flat out illegal aliens, some are people who are citizens and who truly need assistance. The latter, I’d like to see taken care of but until the former are not getting the freebies they’ll be hurt too.

Why is it better to be an illegal in America than it is to be a citizen?

I could’ve had healthcare for the previous 5 years.

I didn’t because the math just didn’t work.

Let me lay it out to you. I couldn’t pay for a bottom of the barrel Obamacare plan. It cost more than my mortgage. I could have applied for a subsidy that the state insurance folks called “Free”.

But it’s not free. It’s paid for by tax dollars, and required giving the state direct access to my banking, retirement, and pensions. Oh and since I owned a house, they’d have had the ability to put a lien on my house to cover the “Free” taxpayer subsidy.

They’d have monitored my income, so they could make sure I wasn’t getting benefits I wasn’t allowed to have. Oh, and guess what? The subsidy is taxable as earned income. 

I’d have been paying full income tax on a subsidy that did nothing but pay for a service costing $1600-$1800 a month, but over the past 5 years the actual cost of medical care cost  me a grand total of 12K out of pocket.

Plus I’d have been paying for car registration, property taxes, sales tax, gas tax, and all the wonderful little fees & taxes on my utility bills that provide “Free” utilities to people who are poorer than me.

Providing those “Free” services to the people poorer than me, in effect drives them further down the economic curve by increasing their tax burden, rather than raising them up.

Our Senate Democrats are fighting for more money to provide subsidies for a system of insurance that is clearly broken, and whether by design or implementation breaks the backs of not only the poor, but also the working individuals paying their taxes to the Federal and State governments. 

Admittedly I’m a special case. In that I have hard assets, but even a single guy in an apartment would feel the impact, if for example his employer didn’t provide health insurance.

So I’m actually all in for not raising the subsidies. I’m hoping that the Senate Democrats demand to raise more subsidies to pump into a broken system like Obamacare, casts in sharp relief just how broken and wrong Obamacare was from the start.

A functioning system shouldn’t require endless money to be poured into it in ever increasing amounts.

If you’ve got a car that costs more to maintain than the payment on a newer vehicle, you dump the broken car and buy a new one. You sure as hell don’t keep pumping money into it and at the same time let your drunken buddies keep borrowing it then returning it more broken, with an empty gas tank day after day.

That’s essentially what Obamacare is doing.

I hope that Kennedy or Trump asks how much money shows up in Politicians bank accounts or campaign funds from Obamacare insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

I think the answer would be very enlightening. Afterwards, I’d like to see those answers referred to the DOJ followed by swift indictments and punishment for any wrong doing. I don’t care how many Congressmen are utterly destroyed or which party they’re affiliated with.

Which brings me back to peace in the Middle East, and the war in Ukraine.

Trump bringing an end to the Israeli / Palestinian conflict in short order makes me question in a broader sense just how similar the flow of money is in the military industrial complex to the medical / pharmaceutical games.

For those Congressmen who’ve been feeding the conflicts through words or deeds, how much money have they made?

Could it be that’s why they hate President Trump’s policies with every fiber of their being?

I hope President Trump is able to put an end to taxation for everyone. I’d be happiest if he stopped all taxation. But I’d be willing to accept him doing away with taxation on everyone that didn’t make a million a year.

That should make the Senate Democrats happy. After all, they’ve been saying for years, “Tax the rich,” haven’t they? But they say this knowing they’re immune from taxation don’t they? Maybe the House and Senate should be taxed at 50% on every dollar they make in excess of their Congressional pay.

Yeah, I know I’ve been all over the map with this one. Sorry…

Have a great day.

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I’m not sure I like the new AppleCare Plans

Got this little notice saying the AppleCare on my phone was expiring and that I could renew it. 

“Okay, that’s neat,” I thought.

Then I checked out the plans. I can cover my phone for another $99 a year, billed yearly. There’s a monthly option as well.

Or I can cover 3 devices for $239 a year, billed yearly or $19 bucks a month.

These AppleCare plans are automatically renewing until cancelled.

But what if you have more than 3 devices? You can add them for an additional fee. 

The thing is, I don’t believe I’ve used AppleCare more than 2 or 3 times for an actual repair in decades. Mostly I keep AppleCare on one or more devices which covers my one call every two years (on average) to apple technical support.

AppleCare has always been expensive. But this seems really pricy. The AppleCare includes theft and loss coverage too, so it’s even more like insurance. But my homeowners policy also includes theft and loss. 

I’m not sure that this is a value, at least not for me. I tend to keep pretty tight reign on my stuff. I suppose if I was always in a high crime urban area where the likelihood of getting mugged was higher, it might be useful.

With the newer generation of Apple Watches and their gesture controls, there’s really no reason to have your phone out (exposed) while you’re walking in a public space. 

Apparently you can answer a phone call with a gesture. If you’re wearing newer AirPods you can set it up to answer or reject a phone call with a nod or shake of your head. Again your high ticket phone stays in your pocket.

The newer watches have phone capabilities directly built into them. So, for me the price seems a bit high since I’m not one of those people that walks around with my face glued to a screen. I tend to be looking around and keeping an eye on anyone approaching me. Even when wearing AirPods in a potentially crowded environment I turn off noise cancelling. I want to be able to potentially hear someone coming up behind me.

Even on my dog walks, I’ll wear AirPods if I’m not going through wooded areas. In wooded areas, typically I put the AirPods away, I don’t need music or podcasts playing that might distract me from the sound of a predators approach.

I suppose these days, most people call that paranoia. 

I call it proactively defending myself.

I’ll have to chat with my insurance agent to see exactly what the homeowners policy covers. I’m not sure the ROI on the AppleCare plans is high enough to justify the cost in my particular situation.