Watch out for murder . . .

Seriously. Buh, bye 2014.

Abuse of Power . . .

A common human foible, trip-up, or mistake is that little thing called abuse of power. We've all met up with it at some time or the other in our lives.  What is it? 

Abuse of power can be monumentally destructive if left unchecked.  Most of the time when we encounter it for the first time, our friends and family tend to rein us in, letting us know we are getting "the big head" and to come back down to reality and maintain the former character we were before -- the decent, caring loving human being they once knew. 

You see, my few dust-ups with abuse of power meant I got to banish (or worse) every right wing troll who came across my radar on a message board I moderated.  I had told everyone I did not like the moderation set-up, that it was a hierarchical system I couldn't approve of (ripe for abuse of power), but they said no, you would be a great moderator.  Well I just ended up hurting a lot of feelings with my new found power.  I didn't mince words.  In fact, I thought my words were going to change the world.  I just ruined lives and feelings.  I had the power to do so.  It felt horrible.

I returned from that experience a bit changed but not really surprised by it.  Remember, I had warned them.  And I vowed to never fall into the power trap again.  Our structural systems (patriarchal, capitalist, etc.) foundations are fucked up, but that is no excuse for human beings to keep going along willy-nilly abusing their power. 

That means you Mr. Ferguson Police!!  Serve & protect, dude. There is a reason we don't see you executing blue-eyed blonde girls in the middle of the street for no good reason . . .

In the hands of most or some men in our society, abuse of power can manifest as subtle to extremely violent, and it is perpetrated upon those who are the most exploitable.  Taken to extremes it is so darned ugly and vomit worthy.  And we call those who have taken it THAT FAR, monsters.  This is the court of public opinion.  And we have spoken. And we have ruled!

Dear Predators:   The Jerry Sanduskys, The Bill Cosbys, The Richard Nixons, The KOCh Brothers, The John Boehners, The Dick Cheneys, The George W. Bushs, or Your Daddy.  We will not take it anymore!

As Michael Che of SNL said last night, PULL UP YOUR PANTS Bill Cosbys of the world! 

Crispy Christie Sets Nurse Free He Imprisoned

Why is it always the case in times of great stress, when there is pressure to make a critical decision for the good of the people, why is it Republicans always err on the side of fear, fascism & fuckery?

From the NYT:

Ms. Hickox’s treatment in New Jersey drew withering criticism from both public health officials and the nurse herself.

Ms. Hickox called her treatment inhumane and castigated Mr. Christie for saying she was “obviously ill” when she displayed no symptoms of Ebola.

The policy announced on Friday in New York and New Jersey raised concerns that quarantine might cause fewer people to volunteer to go fight the disease where they are needed most. On Sunday night, Mr. Cuomo offered more details about how the policy would work, easing off his earlier statements.

Ms. Hickox has said that she was planning to take legal action to challenge her confinement and spoke out forcefully about how she had been treated.

Frustrated that she was quarantined, even though she had no symptoms, Ms. Hickox took to national television on Sunday to criticize Mr. Christie about the policy.

Ms. Hickox’s friends and family were not surprised that she decided to speak up.

“She’s not a loudmouth activist,” said Dr. Nora Rowley, a classmate at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. “But she understands the contagiousness of the virus, and now she has to come back and be subjected to a policy that’s not based on anything other than fear.”

 Her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, a nursing student in Fort Kent, Me., said she had not planned on speaking to the news media but changed her mind after Mr. Christie said on Saturday that she was “obviously ill” when she knew she was not.

“Now he’s messed with the wrong redhead,” he said of her frame of mind.

Sue the hell out of him, Red!

Chris Christie is a fool and he will never be a president.  Perhaps President of Krispy Kreme?  Maybe Mitt Romney will buy it for him.  Keep on shoveling the sugar, Governor.

Disembodied

Some Republicans would like to call President Obama's policy for ISIL as incomplete (no boots on ground). 

How long are we to continue to atone for Cheney and Bush's mistakes, sacrificing poor U.S. soldiers till the end of time?  I don't think so.  The following was clearly a mistake:

Abu Ghraib Torture

Also, hanging women's panties on Arabs willy-nilly should never have been an option, yet that particular practice became Rumsfeld and Cheney's symbolic #1 option throughout their skirmishes and fiascos on their Iraq stage. 

(Of course we are paying for it today.) 

Laying #1 targets on slabs and then taking pictures was barbaric. Saddam and Sons did not bring down the twin towers.  Using Saddam just because THEY COULD was childish, abhorrent.  This is why we have ISIL or ISIS to deal with now.  Thank you George Bush.  Thank you Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Raytheon and Boeing and Halliburton -- all the dudes who make bombs and things -- lobbying right now.  For this is all war is about.  Call me cynical, but saving the sanctity of womanhood from ISIL and its benefactors is last on anyone's list.

Yet in establishment Washington (cult of death lobby) officials and/or media eschew principles of cause and effect (Abu Ghraib tit for tat for 911), throwing it under the rug, forgetting, forgetting it never happened.  All that is important is WAR, power, money, etc. and etc. and here we go again . . . and all we will be asking tomorrow is who can humiliate who more in this boys will be boys world.

Uh-oh, somebody said 'WAR' !! No!!!!

Dear, my new fellow Americans, America is at war with IS.  Period.  Full Stop.   Eh, no.  Depends on what your definition of IS is?  Or your definition of war is.

CBS reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday rejected the word "war" as a description for the U.S. fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and he said people should not "get into war fever" over the conflict.

Hello? John McCain and Mint-julep drinker, Lindsey Graham.  How ya-doin?  (Approach the war-hawks slowly but carefully or they just might bite ya!)  Grrrrrr.  WAR FEVER.

WAR hawk grimace

On the word " war" I will say though, technology obviously precludes fighting on the ground -- at least for America.  So there may be a new word that needs inventing for this conflicted situation with the world's newest big-bads
in the barbarical terrorism arena
who,
by the way,
surely has Hollywood beat
on horror points alone.

Police Provocation

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Ok, bad news first:

Yes, Ferguson police dudes were protesting TOO during the Ferguson standoff/saga the week after Michael Brown was

unnecessarily,
repeatedly

shot to death until he was indeed dead, and THEN, verily I say, dead. 

Was that really professional, Officer Darren Wilson?  Was it really, really necessary, to overkill, even if Michael Brown might've called you the dumbest, assest pig in the world?  I don't think so. 

Words : I don't care what some say, cannot be on par with hard-ass gun play.  Yet, Officer Wilson chose to do some hard-ass gun play.  How did it feel Officer Wilson?  Is it what you had always dreamed of?  And I am quite sure you have dreamed of killing.  Finally.  You were responsible for someone else's life.  How did that feel?  In reality, sir, it really was a MAJOR FAIL.  No matter what your buddies keep saying.

I just have to wonder if Officer Wilson was an oath keeper like Officer Dan Page, below who thinks some of us are a waste of time:




Yes, with racism, comes a lot of similarly bigoted maladies:  sexism, fetishism, ammosexuality, etc.  It goes on.  But I won't.  Mercifully . . .  Except to say! It seems cops need to do their own separate protests instead of taking it out on the citizenry they serve . . . we just might listen.

And . . . municipalities need to quit using the poor for their overly successful "plunder the poor" Wall-Street business model:

From the Daily Beast:

A report issued just last week by the nonprofit lawyer’s group ArchCity Defenders notes that in the court’s 36 three-hour sessions in 2013, it handled 12,108 cases and 24,532 warrants. That is an average of 1.5 cases and three warrants per Ferguson household. Fines and court fees for the year in this city of just 21,000 people totaled $2,635,400 [millions].

This kind of shit is on par with the usury of PAY-DAY LOANS  !!!  Grind people into the ground America.  "Shoot each other & get it over with." ??? Really officer?   When did assholes get this hard-core and jack booted?  When Wall-Street made stole all the money. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now for the good news:

I heard about this frog
It's a very tiny frog
But it's also very special
You can only find it in the jungle
So far away from me
But if you find it and if you touch it
Your world can change forever

If you touch its skin
You can feel your body changing
And your vision also
And blue becomes red and red becomes blue
And your mommy suddenly becomes your daddy
And everything looks like a giant cupcake

And you keep laughing and laughing and laughing
Nothing is ever quite the same really
And after you finish laughing
It's time to turn into a frog yourself
It's very funny to be a frog
You can dive into the water
And cross the rivers and the oceans
And you can jump all the time and everywhere
Do you want to play with me?

We can be a whole group of friends
A whole group of frogs
Jumping into the streets
Jumping into the planet
Climbing up the buildings
Swimming in the lakes and in the bathtubs
We would be hundreds, thousands, millions
The biggest group of friends the world has ever seen
Jumping and laughing forever
It would be great, right?

Paul Ryan's neverending Hunger Games never get old

 

 

 There are lots of underdogs.  I think if you could see them you would not root for them either.   ~President Snow

Oh my folks, it's now the days of future future --> 2033 and Paul Ryan has once again unveiled his newest plan to fight poverty!  (psyche) Still, the media treats it as if it is earth shaking news.  One knows it is not.  Everyone knows it is not new.  Yet we all continue to act like there might be hope, that he finally got it, that he had an epiphany somehow.  He woke up . . .

Yet there he goes again shaming the so-called "able-bodied".   At least become a coherent aspirant, Mr. Ryan.

Caught in a Web of One's Own Lies

A pack of lies is Vladimir Putin.  What to do, as a world tries figuring out what to do with this delusional old man.  More on Malaysian Flight M17.

Meanwhile, today the Dutch receive the dead in a ceremony at their airport at Eindhoven which is heart wrenching and very tearful for THE WORLD to see.  The humanity.  That's what it is.  We are human and we are self aware and we do respect humanity.  Thank you Dutch people for bringing this home to us in such a profound way.

Eindhoven Reception - A National Day of Mourning

Madeline Albright said that "Putin has been caught in the web of his own lies -- he has made up the whole story from the very beginning.  And now he is trying to figure out how to explain it to his own people that all the things he's been saying about the Ukrainians and about who started what are lies."



In this summer that sees so much unnecessary blood-shed, let's take a moment, as they have at Eindhoven and pray for the many so-called "conflict zones" surrounding this world today.

Aristocratic Siblings With Benefits

Almost Royal is the best new thing since butter on sliced bread or should I say biscuits or scones!?  See it served up on the BBC America channel on Saturdays!  Poppy and George Carlton are on a "royal" tour of America -- their recently departed father stipulated in his will he wanted the two to mingle with Americans!  What could possibly go wrong?

For example, Poppy Carlton gets into a disagreement with a bike ride tour director in L.A. that she and her brother ARE very close and they do indeed fall under the title of "friends with benefits." So shut up, I am right dude, do not argue with me.








Yes, Poppy is always right:



And she is right about the two having benefits: friends + brothers & sisters = benefits. It is self-evident that the British are very keen on having to keep the family tree straight?  (Britain is smaller and much older than the United States, so  I suppose it can get complicated.)

George and Poppy Carlton (above) learning about Base-Ball and chewing tobacco and trash talk -- aren't they cute?


This week's installment saw  the sibling duo touring the state of Texas (Saturday, the 28th).  Was that a clashing cultural nightmare?  Not quite as bad as Boston, I suppose, where Georgie gave a speech at the local Tea Party gathering (amidst of course "God Save the Queen" smiling mischievousness). 

Next week?  New York: Where crossing the street is just not perfunctory anymore . . .