The Long Road Out

Trump gives any one with a brain something new to contemplate every day.   I know this makes him happy.   He's definitely a guy from the "any attention is good attention" school of adolescent behavior. Today, it's his announcement that he'd rush in to any school to stop violence and save every one. Donald, you are an affront to yourself.  You-- now --sitting in your office chair this very moment --COULD rush in and save children by doing something.   You could.   Instead, you do diddlysquat, and talk about a hypothetical future you'll never experience. You will never  save a child.   You don't have what it takes to "rush in."   You're too out of shape, and it would take you too long to get your pants buckled up after playing with yourself if another armed guy showed up on your doorstep.  Even if he (it'll always be a he) sent you a Facebook message first, like this last guy.   You're a disgrace to being male. First, I'd li...

My Mac has been a clean playing field, but for the first time in six years, I've got spam from Advanced Mac Cleaner...I wonder who these miserable sad sacks are. Here's the guidance I found on the Apple User Group sites that allowed me to clean this horse dung off my login profile. Be advised this procedure applies only to the "Advanced Mac Cleaner" version available as of this writing. Like all similarly categorized Mac "cleaning" products, "Advanced Mac Cleaner" is a  scam  whose only purpose is to coerce you into spending money. To remove it read below. If you have questions regarding a file you're not sure about removing, ask. Quit the app it if is running. Select "No Thanks" when harassed to purchase it. Open your Mac's  Applications  folder, and drag the  Mac Adware Cleaner  icon to the Trash. A popup window may open when you do that, pleading for you to reconsider. Just close it. Do the same if a browser wind...

Bored of Valentine's Day?   Disinterested in celebrating or contributing to the world of overpriced flowers and silly commercialism and mediocre fixed menus of food you don't want to eat?   Here's a great quote from Brian Kurtz to get you back in the game: Of all the “Hallmark holidays” I love Valentine’s Day the best. We eat much better chocolate than we eat at Halloween…it reminds us of the gratefulness we all celebrate at Thanksgiving…the generosity (and love) that surrounds the Christmas season…and then we can add hearts anywhere we like…and of course we all have an excuse to wear red and pink. And rumor has it that sex may be part of the deal under certain conditions…in addition to the chocolate.

Today's mini-drama is about the use, by Dodge Ram, of part of Martin Luther King's "drum major" speech during the Super Bowl yesterday. A few people have noticed it, or complained.   In the media, this is called "a social media disaster."   All three of those sad people.   I did note that the New York Times complained, but then they also hated the Justin Timberlake half-time show.   I think the journalists at the Times were just having a very very sad day. As I see it. the concern is that the Dodge truck line brand is pretty aligned with white undereducated men.   (In one recent ad during the playoffs, Dodge positioned itself for viewers as "raising the bar."   To make sure their intended buyers didn't miss the point, they had a truck next to a big I-beam with the words 'The Bar' etched into it.) Wait...maybe that was a Ford truck ad.   Whatever.   Same difference. Under this "white-only companies should not be able to li...

I can't express my feeling about the Davos Economic Summit, currently performing it's annual circus, better than Joseph Stiglitz: “They are now licking their lips,” said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate economist. “Davos Man has been able to overlook Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric, his anti-climate-change action, his protectionism, nativism, racism, bigotry, narcissism, misogyny, for the lucre that seems to be the true motivating force behind Davos Man.” Indeed... I'm trying to imagine a policy level definition of some of the economic chaos generated in the last weeks.   There isn't one, not that the Dow Jones isn't loving every minute of it.   But what sort of policy combines: bonuses paid by Walmart based on some tax change-- tarifs slapped on random goods (this week's list includes foreign-made washing machines and solar panels. I assume Trump played golf with some one in the roofing and some one in the appliance industry last week.)-- random s...

  I ran volunteer networks for Planned Parenthood, and attended founding meetings of women centers and academic meetings ranging from the National Womens' Studies Association on down.  I've marched in every major women's march since the 70's—and a bunch of great local ones (I still get teary-eyed on Broadway in NYC recalling the excitement at some of those Take Back the Night marches in the 80's).   I even got arrested at the women's peace encampment at Seneca Falls.   I'm the real deal…a feminist man.   My resume is great! So why the fuck don't I want to go to the march this weekend?   My habits are so strong that I've been planning sign painting events and group meet ups, blithely ignoring my honest feelings.   I'm not interested. What happened?   Did I get bored?   I don't think so…maybe I'm numb to my heart here too, but I feel like I've been getting more animated about my p...

Ah, Denver, or Texas recently.   Or NYC.   Add them to the list.  This violence made my partner recall a paraphrase of the Margaret Atwood quote:    “Men are afraid women will make fun of them.   Women are afraid men will kill them.” Wife- and pet-beater kills people.   Feels kind of like slipping on an old shoe, doesn't it.   Indeed, it's the core US myth.  It’s our national story. It isn't enough we have the bully who authorizes all U.S. bullies, Trump, mouthing off like a crybaby.   The rest of the world already recognizes that he's representative of our joint narrative.   Guy who can't keep a relationship going.  Gets angry.  Takes it out on the women closest to him first, then every one, randomly.   We're going to let this pass too.   Mass Violence Incident 10, 850 (this is only the 2017 file we're reviewing so the numbers only go into the mid-five digits). Since violence against women (and anim...