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 |   Tales from real life |
| Well, if they're not true, they oughta be! |
If crime doesn't pay, then you're doing it wrong. - The Gospel of Trump Today the U.S. officially declared their support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This change of position was made public with a pro-Russia vote at the United Nations. It would have been unthinkable just six weeks ago. But the corruptor in chief campaigned on a platform of vengeance and it's the only promise that he can be trusted to keep. Decent American citizens and free elections may be his primary enemies, but he has a long list, a long memory, and he longs to get even with the entire world. And for such a lazy, cowardly man, the only way to get to even is to drag others down. When Donald Trump was appointed president in 2016 as a DEI hire (Didn't Earn It), he realized that his position was precarious. He knew that Barack Obama was his superior in intellect, political acumen, and as a man. And Trump was cunning enough to understand that Obama's vice president was still a threat. Most people didn't take Joe Biden seriously as a candidate, but Trump feared him as an extension of the Obama presidency. But the problem with attacking Joe Biden is that he's always been a decent and honorable man. So, the dishonorable thing to do was to attack Joe's kids instead. Punching down is right in Trump's wheelhouse and abusing the power of the presidency is a trivial matter to a career criminal. He fully expected the president of Ukraine to be equally corrupt and 'do me a favor though.' He wanted Zelenskyy to manufacture evidence against Hunter Biden so that Trump could smear Joe by proxy. His ploy failed miserably, and Trump was proven right about the Biden threat. Voters transferred their admiration for Obama to Joe Biden and Trump was humiliated at the polls in 2020. The big lie and the insurrection were purely about an egomaniac trying to save face. A pathetic loser like Trump needs his revenge and Ukraine is high on his enemies list. I am 100% certain that Trump gave a green light to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Getting others to do the dirty work is classic Trump. He would have hinted that Americans admired strong men like Putin and that they would never support a clown like Zelenskyy. He would have praised the takeover of Crimea with words like manifest destiny and played up Russian superiority to the lesser Slavic peoples. Trump may even have been cunning enough to suggest the invasion in such a way that Putin believed it was his own idea. Trump publicly sowed seeds of doubt to weaken NATO and encourage Putin. And he has consistently belittled Americans who support military aid for Ukraine. And now it's all coming together. An autistic billionaire who isn't good at picking up on social cues is doing the dirty work for a sociopathic liar whose only real talent is gaslighting the gullible. What could go wrong? A million casualties over three years and 100 billion dollars in infrastructure damage? That doesn't bother Donald Trump. He's never had any skin in the game. They weren't his people, and it wasn't his country. But now he's poised for the biggest win of his life. The partition of Ukraine into Russian and U.S. zones of influence isn't just a brilliant theft. It's also a most satisfying revenge on a stupid little man who doesn't understand that favors are how business gets done. |
| There's nothing new under the sun. The text below is from the Old Testament. Habakkuk was a prophet who lived around 612 BCE. If you substitute 'Russians' for 'Chaldeans' in verse 6, 'MAGA' for 'people' in verse 14, and 'Trump' for 'enemy' in verse 16, then it reads like it was written yesterday. Habakkuk 1 - The Prophet's Complaint 1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted. 5 Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. 6 For I am rousing the Chaldeans, (Russians) that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. 7 Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 9 They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand. 10 At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it. 11 Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god! 12 Are you not from of old, O Lord my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O Lord, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. 13 Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? 14 You have made people (MAGA) like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. 15 The enemy (Trump) brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults. 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich. 17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy? |
I never met a scam I didn't like. - The Gospel of Trump Actions speak louder than words. The Trump administration is officially and openly an organized crime organization. His cabinet is made up of professional liars, convicted felons, sexual predators, nasty drunks, and mental defectives. Some of his cabinet picks and agency appointees openly bought their nominations with campaign donations. Others begged his favor on their knees, with their head between his knees. The only firm requirement to be part of the Trump administration is to swear a corrupt allegiance to The Donald first, MAGA second, and country last. Even democrats can join the Trump crime family if they can prove themselves to be morally bankrupt and utterly corrupt. Using the Department of Justice for Trump's personal political ends is the most blatant act of corruption to date. The offer to drop federal charges against democratic mayor Eric Adams in return for his loyalty is simple extortion. And the negotiations at Mar-a-Lago for his soul weren't even done in secret. The ass-kissing photo-op was publicly proclaimed. It was followed the next day by an announcement that the U.S. attorney in New York had been ordered to withdraw the charges against Mayor Adams. Again, the deal wasn't kept secret. The order from Washington DC said plainly that the DOJ decision was made without evaluating the evidence or the legal basis for the charges against Adams. It's almost too difficult to believe, but the so-called president actually wanted a public example of how he's solidifying his grip on absolute power. So, Tom Homan gleefully humiliated the New York Mayor on FOX television. He openly referred to the agreement that Trump forced on Adams at Mar-a-Lago. Then Homan explicitly threatened to reinstate the charges if Adams doesn't do as he's told. He made it plain that Trump 'owns' Adams and has full control of New York City. In a legitimate administration this corrupt quid-pro-quo would be grounds for dismissal of both Homan and Attorney General Pam Bondi. But for these MAGA Capos there is no conscience, no shame, and no accountability. Just like the Don himself. |
I sometimes wonder about the mental processes that led our ancestors to brew beer. Brewing may not be rocket science, but it is somewhat complicated. Beer production starts with soaking barley and allowing it to germinate to become malt. The malt is dried and mashed (coarsely ground) and then steeped in hot water to release starches and sugars. The resulting liquid is called wort. Hops and spices are added to enhance the flavor and then the wort is boiled. Yeast is added and the fermentation process produces alcohol. Brewing requires three weeks or more depending on the type of beer. And the brew must be filtered, bottled and aged for a month or two to smooth the taste of the final product. Today’s craft beers are easy to drink, but it's difficult to imagine the centuries of trial and error that culminated in modern brewing. Interestingly, scotch whisky production is almost identical to making beer. The hops are left out when making whiskey and the wort is distilled after fermentation instead of being bottled. It’s not entirely inaccurate to say that whisky is just distilled beer. But more complicated to produce. Wine, on the other hand, is almost inevitable. Yes, making fine wine involves both science and art, but the basic process is rediscovered on a regular basis. Once you've squeezed out a glass of fruit juice, it only takes a couple of weeks of lazy inattention to achieve fermentation. There are millions of tiny yeast microbes living all around us. They send out spores that float through the air and land in our open containers. Some of them spoil our milk and some turn a mundane fruit juice into marvelous wine. Unlike the complex recipe for brewing beer or distilling whisky, the serendipitous discovery of wine is easy to grasp. And apple cider is a perfect example of this natural process. I bought a gallon jug of pure apple cider last fall and stored it outside on the deck because the fridge was full. Our deck is on the shaded side of the house, so the temperature is mostly cool. I enjoyed a glass of fresh apple cider every day for a week or so. Then the appeal faded and I forgot about the jug for a while. There was still a quart of cider left when I finally got back to it, and I heard a little pop like a champagne cork when I removed the cap. The whoosh of released pressure had an unmistakable aroma of ethanol, so I knew very well what had happened. A wiser man might have poured it down the drain, but curiosity prevailed. I had to try a sip of the now hard cider. It wasn't half bad, slightly fizzy, tangy on the tongue, and definitely alcoholic. So, I drank a full glass and enjoyed it more than when it was ‘soft’. The cider incident reminded me of making balloon wine when I was in high school. I don't remember where I came across the idea. Maybe I got it from Popular Mechanics magazine, maybe Reader's Digest, but probably not from Julia Child. The recipe seemed so simple that I had to give it a try. It called for a couple of cans of frozen grape juice concentrate, water, sugar, yeast, a gallon-size glass jar with a narrow neck, and a latex balloon. And all of those things were readily available in my mother's kitchen. The grape juice can be red, white, or even rosé if you use one can of each. Mix the juice per the instructions on the can and the resulting liquid will almost fill the gallon jar. A pinch of yeast is required to get things started and putting the balloon on the jar seals the deal. You can add an extra cup of sugar to the mix to ensure that the little yeasties are well fed and motivated to create alcohol. Using less sugar results in a dry wine and more sugar gives a sweeter taste. And more sugar ensures a maximum amount of alcohol, so that’s what I did. Be sure to keep your makeshift wine vat out of the sun. Putting it in the back of the closet where your mom won't find it is a good choice. The basic process of fermentation is that the yeast consume sugar as they grow and excrete alcohol as a byproduct. But when the alcohol concentration rises to a certain point, the yeast dies off. Which goes to show that you shouldn't shit where you sleep. The steadily growing yeast also produce CO2 gas that partially inflates the balloon. You'll see the balloon expand as the yeast does its work and then deflate slightly to signal that the ordinary grape juice has miraculously become wine. It takes about three weeks for the yeast to do their thing. I didn't know any better, so I used a packet of baker's yeast from my mom's spice rack. The wine might taste better with real brewer's yeast, but it becomes alcoholic either way. And yes, there is a small amount of alcohol produced along with the CO2 that makes bread dough rise, but it evaporates away in the oven as the bread bakes. When you finally remove the balloon from the jar you'll find a surprising amount of sediment on the bottom. This yeast poop is another byproduct of fermentation, and it is not tasty at all. So be sure to carefully separate the wine from the sediment. My family still had a milk cow in 1974, so I used one of the large paper filters for straining milk and folded it inside a funnel to carefully decant my wine into another clean jar. Screw on the cap and you’re ready to smuggle it out of the house for a party! A winery will age their new wine for months or even years to mellow the flavor and smooth the rough edges, but a teenager doesn't have that kind of time. The whole point is to have alcohol for tonight, so we drank it raw. And that's the way I remember it going down. My friends and I did our best to stomach that balloon wine, but it really wasn't very good. We finally settled on starting the party with some better stuff first. Homemade wine goes down a lot easier if you’re already buzzed. And this fact has also been rediscovered many times over the years. There's even a reference to serving the good wine first in the biblical story of the wedding at Cana. The steward didn’t know that Jesus had changed water into wine. He thought the miracle was serving good wine even though the buzzed wedding guests were ready for the cheap stuff. Author's note: ▼ |
O, Canada! O, land of the northern nice, refuge of the conscientious, wide wheated plains gaze up to snowy peaks. O, pure of hearty smiles, an outstretched hand and auroral wonder welcome the weary heart. I grew up with Canada as our ‘up the road a piece’ neighbor. We often met Canadians on holiday near Flathead Lake and thought of them more as peers than little siblings. Canadian cowboys would compete in our July fourth rodeo and my sister once spent a summer working as a groom at a horse track near Winnipeg. A Canadian master once showed up at our chess club tournament. If he was disappointed in the level of competition, he didn't show it. He even complimented my decidedly average play. I really enjoyed the Great White North skits on SCTV, and I love the corny humor of the Red Green show. For me, Canada has always been a serene and peaceful image of good people and simpler days. My first thought of moving to Canada to escape the American insanity came in 1973. I had to weigh being hunted in the jungle by the Viet Cong against being hunted in Canada by my Uncle Sam. I would lie awake at night and contemplate the horrific body counts that were reported on the nightly news. Despite the official satisfaction with the lopsided mortality score, I didn't see anything heroic about killing Vietnamese just to spite China. As my high school graduation loomed, I came to loathe the word 'lottery'. Fortunately, the draft faded away like a bad dream and I didn’t have to choose. I still can’t say for certain what path I would have taken. I next muttered vague threats of moving to Canada when our first Bush-league president was elected in 1988. I was appalled when he hired out the U.S. army as mercenaries to defend Kuwait. But it was an easy win, nobody important got hurt, and H. W. was well paid for his perfidy. Americans didn't care about a few dead Arabs and the 'moral majority' were glad to celebrate the return of U.S. military might. I actually looked into the process of changing citizenship after Bush-league Jr. stole the 2000 election from Al Gore. My wife persuaded me not to leave a good job and not to uproot our kids. I really thought America had turned a corner in 2008, but I never even imagined the level of bigotry and stupidity that dominates this country today. Now, I feel resigned to my fate. I'm probably too old to make a life-changing move, and running away wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway. My political posts help me to deal with the impotent rage that is so much a part of American life under MAGA rule. My writing may not make any real difference, but at least I'm doing something. And I'm putting myself at some small level of risk by airing my views in a public forum. So, there may yet come a day when I have to choose whether to live on my knees in America or stand on my feet in a free country. Keep the stove warm Canada, I may join you yet! |
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