I Am Number Four

 Trump has no actual principles or convictions. He's a Hindenburg full of poison gas, that's all.

No Borders for Superman

“The world is full of people who think different is synonymous with wrong.”
― David Levithan

Donald Trump, Cave Man

And Trump caves on the government shutdown, just as I anticipated.

A) I knew that the moment the shutdown began to seriously interfere with air traffic, and thus inconvenience the rich and the corporations, it would end,

B) Trump desperately needed a distraction from the damning Stone indictment.

C) Trump was also desperate to feed his pathetic, needy ego with the State of the Union address. Therefore, the signs pointed to Trump folding.

You know, Trump has no actual principles or convictions. He’s just a Hindenburg full of poison gas, that’s all.

Be a Lion

Mindfulness is not urgency, but calm. It’s not tying your courage to the sticking-point and trying, but untying and untrying.

MAGA: Maggots of the Mind

Trump voters always think that because they are ignorant of something,
that makes it untrue.

Archaic Torso of Apollo, by Rilke

We cannot know his legendary head

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Walling Off Sanity

Trump's stupidity and incompetence is the only thing that's saved the republic so far, and that's a pretty awful thing to have to rely on.

Offered in Remembrance

Mary Oliver just died at age 83

The Battle of the Boney Bone

George with his pet snake.
You'd better not
touch that, either.

Every night, when Larry gives George Hilton Beagle the small rawhide treat we have so cleverly named the “boney bone,” George trots off to find me, drops it at my feet and growls softly. Then he barks.

This is his way of saying that this particular boney bone is HIS, and that I’d better not try to get it or there will be

HELL.

 TO.

 PAY.

George seems to think that the treats we give him — so foolishly — are things we will immediately want back, once we regret the error of our ways.

Thus challenged, I naturally have to make a grab for it, but he snatches it up and dashes off to another room.

We run, we feint, we stop and stare at each other like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

“Drop it, bitch,” I tell him, and he drops the boney bone, tauntingly. At my slightest motion, he grabs it up again and dashes room to room to room.

“Tonight is the night I’m GETTING that boney bone!” I tell him, hot in pursuit. “Say goodbye to it!”

I feel, strangely, a little like Wile E. Coyote.

Sometimes I hide behind a door, which worries him. A ridge of hair on his back rises like the spines of a stegosaurus, and he barks with mad, abandoned joy when I jump out from my hiding place. And we’re off again!

This kind of thing continues until I slow down and collapse on the sofa, muttering, “Okay, okay. Enough, enough.”

Then George settles down happily to eat his boney bone, reassured that he is a streak of tri-colored lightning, much faster than any pokey old human.

George chews his treat with great satisfaction, knowing that I have once again been put in my place. And I rest gratefully until he finishes the boney bone, and it is time for us to go outside and pooty.

Whom to Blame for America's Fall

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

—    Bertrand Russell

'I Was a Racketeer, a Gangster for Capitalism'

“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

“I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

“I wouldn'’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

“There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its ‘finger men’ to point out enemies, its ‘muscle men’ to destroy enemies, its ‘brain men’ to plan war preparations, and a ‘Big Boss’ Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

“It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

“I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

“During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

­ — Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

The Essence of Republican Fascism

The essential point of fascist power is to wield rules against others while remaining unconstrained by them yourself.

A Word About Character...

“A person's character is his fate'” — the Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

Fox News Is Hiring...

The ill-informed Americans have been eager to be conned by Fox News, which scratches the itch of their ugliest fears and prejudices until they bleed. And Fox News is eager to oblige them.