PittsburghThoughts

Morning Kiddies! Another day of hi-jinks and capers at Uncle Gene's Fun House!

Let's form a circle kids! OK, first, I'm going to whisper a secret in Johnny's ear and he's going to whisper it in Melinda's ear and on and on until it comes back around. Let's go!

Me:

Dick Cheney is a jerk!

Johnny:

Dick Cheney is a tool for the oil industry and a jerk!

 Melinda:

Dick Cheney is a tool for the oil industry, a cowardly war monger and a jerk!

Tommy:

Dick Cheney is a tool for the oil industry, a cowardly war monger, a liar and a jerk!

Sally:

Dick Cheney is a tool for the oil industry, a cowardly war monger, a liar, a criminal and a Jerk!

Becky:

Dick Cheney is a tool for the oil industry, a cowardly war monger, a liar, a criminal, a sneering sociopath and a jerk!

Ronald:

Dick Cheney is a tool....

OK Kids! Now that you know how the game works, try it at home. If you really want to have some fun, include swear words, just like the big people do! 

This is Uncle Gene, signing off! 

 

No one ask me, but ... 

The thing that disturbs me unmercilessly, almost as much as the crisis of militarism and our gradual loss of humanity, is the right wing's inability to appraise their failures. At every turn, any criticism that they level against political rivals, ( And don't they love to point the finger?) they have, on their side, countless, outrageous examples of systematic breakdown and pure incompetence double wrapped in hubris.

The truth is evident not in words, they can always find eloquent spokesman and women, but in the minutia of our daily lives: the price of gas, our lack of any national goals or ideals, the feeling that we are all Americans and any one child without access to medical care, any utility company willing to break or bend the rules for profit is an outrage for all of us.

If, as has been established, corporations are persons with rights and freedom of speech they should be held to the same standards that the poorest are held to. Were is their patriotism? Why is it always business as usual back home when our best and brightest are dying, fighting for a lie?

I can think of nothing more satisfying or just than having Donald Rumsfeld serving prison meals, Dick Cheney marking off the days left and weighing whether he'll live to see the sky again, George W. Bush explaining before a judge why he didn't know he was committing war crimes, why he didn't know violating international treaties was a crime, why he thinks murdering innocent people is good foreign policy.

Gitmo should be kept up and running as a monument to our national shame, but housing only the fabulously audacious public servants that abuse their charge, their pledge to uphold the constitution and work to defeat the dream of a fair and just America, a good country to raise our kids, not a nightmare of probable calamities waiting to befall us.

Primarily, Americans need to grow up and stop being afraid, stop allowing ourselves to be controlled by it, stop thinking being inflexible is a good thing, stop pretending that we are still pioneers on the frontier and individuality means being insular. Pride has preceded our fall, and only humility will bring us back.    Gene

The tyrant at our gate,

>

>

I don't mind that people live in an alternate reality, hell, I've lived in them myself, but I still knew that the larger reality, the one I didn't create, was dominate. I could tweak it a little this way or that, but the rules were set and even if I didn't like them, I knew I was bound by them.

>

So the question is: how do the ones in charge, however that's defined, reconcile their behavior enough to believe that, even though it goes against every established American principle, that their way is the right way? And -- why do the ones that they convince to agree with them or that agree on their own not to oppose what they know is wrong, reconcile that?

>

The truth is much uglier than I want to believe. There is such a chasm of class in this country today, that no one can, and, few even bother to try to, bridge it. The lower classes are use to having to struggle, the middle class is beginning to understand in degrees, but the upper class need not give it a thought.

>

These are huge generalizations and there's a huge difference between millionaire and billionaires but the millionaires, being closer the edge of the chasm, fight even harder than the billionaires for more, more, more.

>

Nothing trumps creature comfort and insuring that your particular genetic line survives. Nothing trumps being made to feel superior by virtue of wealth, position and power, being made to feel that you are a real, special individual. It's an irresistible lure while shouting that life is unfair or difficult falls on deaf ears.

>

The media has pushed back the tipping point. Their siren song of mass delusion keeps us in check, keeps us at each other's throat instead of amassing and concentrating the same power that made the French revolution seek justice at the aristocracy's throat.

>

That kind of justice seems so barbaric, so removed and, although Thomas Jefferson wrote that he supported the French revolution, we cannot, would not, today, use that same barbarism. Our barbarism has to be in words not in deeds, such a long struggle to reclaim what we once took for granted.   Gene

Election day in Pennsylvania,

>

Voting is a good idea unless you're so disconnected from the system that you can't manage one little "give a shit." You should stop smoking and you should vote. You should eat better and exercise. You should be a good citizen and ask not what your country can do for you, but what you ...

>

OK, I'm going to ask, what can I do for my country? Fight in a war? No, that's doing something for the government crazies that see terrorists or communists, or a boogeyman threat under every bed. I guess I could plant trees or clean up the highway but I'd probably be shot by some irate land owner or run over by a car. I could volunteer to help in any of a thousand different worthwhile organizations. Is the country the land or the people?

>

When I go in that little booth, oops it's not a booth anymore, it's like the telephone booth, gone the way of the *Dodo bird, I'll see bells, buzzers and names. I only know 3 people that I'm sure to vote for. What do I do about the others? Push and Pray? Vote those 3 and screw the rest? Ask for help? Wish I was a more informed citizen? This voting roulette probably isn't what the founders had in mind but I don't see Adams, Jefferson or Madison on the ballot. 

>

The much maligned but noble Dodo

I feel like a crappy American, like a reject. Bright shiny politician wannabe's greeted me at the door. Why can't I be like that? All friendly and connected and shit? The women of the election board are the same women that sat there when I moved into this district 32 years ago. Soon this will all be gone, for us anyway.

>

In heaven, will we have to vote?. St. Peter is as good as St. Paul. I wonder what my job will be in heaven? Manufacturing probably isn't big, service industry probably. I could wait on some muckity muck angel, be his butler or Man Friday.

*Portuguese: doudo, literally, "stupid." Who the fuck are we to call a bird stupid?

 **The lowest order of the angels, and the most familiar to men. They are the ones most concerned with the affairs of living things, messengers.

Here it is

The cold blank screen waiting or indifferent towards words

The searching eyes looking for fun

The new exciting blogworld spinning like a top hat

The citizen journalist creeping like an ivy

Oh here it comes

here it comes

Here it is

The battle of the bands

The war of the roses

The stiff upper lip

The cold shoulder

All the eggs

One basket

Oh here it comes

Here it comes

It's on us now you can't run

Hide

It's over there grab it

Too late

Understand it

Why bother

It's hooked you by the collar

You're going down

The ground's approaching

Oh here it comes

Here it comes

Thanks to ever dependable, Bill, who found this parody at:

Don't miss the bogus Rupert Murdoc video.

(By the way, where's that sexy Adam's Apple?)