Points to Ponder in a Politically Correct World
01). Why would Obama warn us about global warming and rising sea levels and then live in a mansion of the coast?
02). As bad as Merrick Garland is as Attorney General, imagine how bad he would have been as a SCOTUS member.
03). Anheuser-Busch learned going woke was bad for its stock price. How long before Target and Walmart learn this obvious lesson?
04). If Democrats stopped shooting people, gun violence rates would drop nearly to zero.
05). Do you remember when climate change was global warming (or global cooling back in the 70's), undocumented workers were illegal aliens (because they broke the law illegally crossing the border), adolescent gender affirmation was mutilation, and gun safety reform was gun control was gun confiscation?
06). How many times must Biden fall off his bicycle, down a flight of stairs, or (even) up a flight of stairs before the media reports that there is something physically wrong with Biden?
07). How many days must Hunter smoke crack, pay for prostitutes, demand payments for White House access, and pay 10% to the "Big Guy" White House occupant before the media reports there is something legally wrong with this crime family? If only there was a laptop with conclusive evidence.
08). Is a woman who is "Pro-Choice" when she chooses life, still "Pro-Choice"?
09). Both the IRS and the FBI (possibly more) are weaponized government agencies working against the American people. This is not a issue of Democrat v Republican. This is enforcement of tyranny, plain and simple.
John McGurk, Entrepreneur
The dancer kicked her leg high and swished her pink dress, cut low how McGurk liked it. He watched her and not the screaming woman who kicked her legs even higher, albeit with the benefit of a man carrying her aloft toward the door and the waiting Bowery cop.
“Where do they get it?” the barman asked him beneath the piano music. He poured three more fingers of whiskey for a swaying, unshaven man.
McGurk stroked his moustache and eyed the dancers, choosing. “Get what?”
“The carbolic acid.”
McGurk’s flat gaze remained on the edges of the dress, which had slipped a little, it seemed to him. “Don’t your missus clean house, Willie?”
“Not if she can help it.” A customer put three bits on the bar, so Willie extended the tube to him. The man took a deep breath, then began gulping as the crowd began hooting around him. “It could be a problem, Mr. McGurk,” Willie said.
The dancer on the left had stopped smiling, McGurk noted. He didn’t pay her to frown. She’d get a little pick-her-up before her time upstairs. “How’s that?”
“These women. That’s the third one tried to kill herself, now. In two weeks. The cops might ask questions about upstairs.”
“They all know upstairs. There ain’t a one of ’em but he dips his wick at McGurk’s after a patrol.”
The drinker coughed beer onto the floor. The surrounding patrons jeered, and McGurk smelled the camphor he cut the beer with. A drunkard reached for a dancer’s leg, then yelped as she brought down her heel on his hand.
“The customers, then,” Willy said. “Bit hard to have your fun while some woman’s burning her throat out next to you. And everybody’s heard about it.”
McGurk turned to his barkeep. “That’s right,” he said. “Everybody’s heard about it.”
John McGurk was a diligent man. He worked through the wee hours. Before the Bowery rose from its stupor sometime the next afternoon, he had affixed his new sign to the crumbling brick. New York City had 7,000 saloons, but everyone would hear about McGurk’s Suicide Hall.
I have died
I have held the suicide hotline in my hand, ready to press the number. I have curled up on train platforms, the cement ground touching my face, and I have picked my day of death twice.
It all comes down to a conversation where I lost someone I love. In my writing, I try to make the words flow. Sometimes they don't come, and I'm stuck in bed at 2am, hearing the pay phone dial tone like an erotic whisper. The one where she hung up on me, while I was in the hospital. When words fail, there's nothing but pain.
She's not dead. Not even close. She goes to Harvard, she's married and has three 'fur babies.' I'm some deadbeat who writes for s___ and giggles. Maybe someone will hear me in the internet void. She saves lives, or is studying to. She is better than me.
She is better than me. She is better than me. She is better than me.
I made a mistake. I didn't apologize. Not even over the hospital's pay phone. I didn't even cry until after she had hung up. I don't know if I'm repressed. Maybe I am. I went back to sleep and didn't wake up for three days. I texted her when I got out and she didn't respond for hours.
I'll never recover from the mistake I made. I didn't know, before she disowned me as her sister, that you can die while you're still alive. That is something I will never recover from. It's a sprained ankle that I didn't go to Urgent Care for, and now I'll limp forever. She doesn't love me in the same way, in the same amount. If I had a penny for every time I think about what a piece of s___ I am because of it, I would be able to afford the cost of fifteen million plane tickets to visit her, but they would be as useless as the pennies themselves.
I don't know how to recover from it. That's my answer. In filling out a response to this prompt, I thought I had something to say. Maybe I don't. And maybe that's the problem. I have no words. One of us will go to the other one's funeral, because one of us will die first. And there will be words uttered there. Words like, I'm sorry for your loss. But she's already chosen to lose me. And that's where I'm stuck on this prompt. Because how do you find words, or emotions, or thoughts, when you've already sealed the coffin on the relationship?
There's no real answer to death and I'm not sure there's an answer to what happens after someone decides you're a toxic piece of trash.
I went to the hospital for her. To save our relationship.
Click, goes the dial tone. I hear it in my sleep. I'll hear it after I'm dead.
It's funny how that sound can come up in casual conversation, conversations where she doesn't ask me about how I'm doing. Harvard's so great, she says, eyes glistening. I can't see them glisten, but through texting, there's a certain emoting that comes through with certain emojis. If she were an emoji, she'd be the little smiley one with a pink face. I see her as bubbly, punctuating my life with pain. Punctuating my life with little moments of regret and stupid responses to meaningful prompts.
The Global Reset v Dylan Thomas
Are you all in?
Could you explain what this means with a straight face?
Do you think you stand to gain by supporting it?
Earth has nearly 8 billion people. Most live on less than $2 per day. Most are impoverished, living in squalor, barely getting by.
The value of all assets on Earth (as per the Boston Consulting Group) is $431 Trillion.
Do the math. This amounts to $53875 per person.
Sounds nice?
But think.
If you live in the US, this is less than all homes and most cars. This is less than a college education. This is less than the clothes you wear and the contents of a home.
Even if every human on Earth participates, all Americans lose.
But think.
What makes you believe all humans on Earth will offer all they have worked for? The Global Reset is exclusively for Americans. This may be news to you, but most of the world feeds off the self-depricating suffering Americans are exposed to on a daily basis.
Meaning.
Most of the world's population will not share in the expense of the Global Reset, but expect to share in its bounty.
The value of all assets in the United States is $269.6 Trillion. Divide that by 8 billion.
The value of each share is now $33700 per person.
Now think.
What do you get to keep of what you have worked for?
If you have worked for 20 years, that is 40000 hours. That is less than $1 per hour. Even at this rate, most of the world will call most of America rich.
What makes you think if you are so gullible to believe the Global Reset will be a one time event? Why not a yearly reset? Let the world vote on the raid of the American coffers. Voting is the hallmark of democracy. What could be fairer than that?
Or,
Pull your head out of the sand and see the barbarians at the gate. Listen to the double-speak luring you into a virtue signalling. See the wolves working harder to loot your freedoms/liberties/wealth/lifestyle than working for their own. The world has you in their cross hairs and many in both the government and the populace want you to not resist. Your inaction makes them feel better about their inaction. If they can make you feel guilt, they will feel better about their guilt. But make no mistake, appeasing these people will only create more hunger for your way of life.
Neville Chamberlain gave us the most recent blueprint for dealing with totalitarianism. Do not provide the corallary for stupidity as a justification for theft.
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Time to see the world for what it truly is.
Contemplating with Thoreau
Think you are a great multi-tasker? I doubt it.
Multi-Tasking = Poor Prioritization.
If writing is important to you, then make time to write.
If you finish the day feeling like a dog that has been chasing his tail, then not only are you exhausted, but your backside still itches, too. It is why dogs fare poorly in the wild. Take a bear now... she knows how to scratch her itch and then get on about the important business of a long winter’s nap!
There is little non-sense surrounding Momma Bear. She wakes, scratches her rear end on an unfortunate Spruce tree (quickly ridding herself of that annoying itch), while her Cubs slowly come alive. She then gathers them up before leading them straight to the termite log for twenty minutes of breakfast. When time is up, she’ll angle her unhappy brood (who wish to linger, as there are still plenty of termites to dig out) across a mountain meadow pink with Indian Paintbrush straight to her favorite elderberry patch for lunch hour. The cubs will want to laze once more in the tall grasses after their elderberry lunch, but Momma will still manage, as always, to be there early for her prime seat at the evening salmon run. All of this is no run of luck, nor accident. You see, Momma Bear had a plan, and woe to the irascible cub, panther, unfortunate hiker, or anyone else who stands between she and her goals! When there are little mouths to feed efficiency is a must.
And then there is the bee. Funny thing about a bee. He may linger about the rose bush, visiting and re-visiting it’s many petals, but he knows what he is about. He knows that the stickier his feet get, the more pollen he will find on his next visit. But if you are ever dying of thirst in the desert and a bee buzzes past your ear, follow it quickly! He will be heading directly to water, without deviation.
And while an ant appears helter-shelter, the hill somehow forms, doesn’t it?
No, it is only man and his beasts’ who get bogged down in self-made mire, accomplishing little to nothing in their eight hour day. So when you find yourself dying the death of a thousand cuts: Stop! Ask yourself what is most important. Complete that task, and ask yourself again? Then complete that task. Be the Momma Bear! Roar at those trying to hinder your progress! Be the bee and head directly to water! Prioritize!
When you find yourself with much to accomplish remember ’Ol Huck’s definition of a multi-tasker is, “one who does many things poorly.” (This is also a good thing to remember in a job interview. When you say, “I’m a great multi-tasker,” you are telling a potential boss that you do not prioritize.)
Stop. Plan. Execute without deviation!
Be the Momma Bear!
(You can thank me later, when you have completed writing your latest new story. ;)
“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”
- Henry David Thoreau
I try not to wish my life was over.
Half-heartedly, and weighed down with a sinking sense of hopelessness, my mind searches desperately for a place in this world I might find a purpose to hold onto and a safe comfort to curl up in, longing that such a discovery would somehow serve to convince me that my life is worth preserving and that dying is not where my only hope lies.