America Is Beginning to Look Like Trump

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

When Donald Trump savagely attacked Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings over Twitter last week, his actual reason for doing so was that Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee, was not backing down in his requests and subpoenas for information on Trump, his administration, and his family.  Just prior to Trump's tirade, in fact, Cummings had made moves to secure the private emails of Jared and Ivanka (Trump) Kushner who had reportedly been doing government business over those private accounts.

 (Remember how enraged Republican members of Congress were at Hillary Clinton over the same allegations regarding her private email accounts?  Hypocrisy runs deep and wide in the Trump White House and the GOP!)

Trump wanted some personal revenge on Rep. Cummings, and, if while doing so, he could stir up his white nationalist base, well that would just be gravy.  Impugning the congressman's character while making him a target of extremists would be quite a twofer!  In Trump's first volley at Cummings he attacked the congressman for being a "bully" toward the Border Patrol - before blowing a couple of racist dog whistles:

"Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous.  His district is considered the Worst in the USA."

Trump went on to refer to Baltimore as a "rat and rodent infested mess."

The gauntlet had been thrown down, and Trump used his patriotic fervor for the activities of the Border Patrol as a wrapper for his racist harangue of Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore.  He never intended for the Border Patrol and its activities to be his focus.

But events of the past couple of days have brought the crisis at our southern border back into the actual headlines.

It seems there is a secret group on Facebook with nearly ten thousand members that share violent and racist memes with its members, and at least a portion of the membership of that group belong to the US Border Patrol.  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, questioned Kevin McAleenan, the acting Director of Homeland Security, at length on the matter last week in a congressional hearing.

One of the memes that had been shared by the group was a photoshopped image of Representative Ocasio-Cortez being violently raped, and she wanted McAleenan to understand that she felt racist and violent memes could have a dehumanizing impact on the people who viewed them, and her particular concern was with the Border Patrol agents who viewed such material - and how they could then become less humane toward immigrants who were trying to enter the United States.

McAleenan said he felt the posts were "unacceptable" and that he had ordered an investigation into the matter.  Then he stated that he did not believe the Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) had a "dehumanizing culture."

Then yesterday we learned that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has had to go back to court to again try and stop family separations at the border.  More than a year ago a federal judge had ordered the government to begin restricting the process of removing immigrant children from their parents.  A few guidelines were established whereby children and their parents could be pulled apart, and one of those allowed the removal of a child if the parent(s) had a criminal history.  An overreaching interpretation of that exception apparently led Border Patrol agents to remove children if parents had at least one traffic violation - or, in one case, a conviction of property damage totaling just five dollars.

The ACLU told a judge yesterday that more than 900 children have been taken from their parents at the border since the judge gave that preliminary guidance in June of 2018.  Acting Director of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan told Congress as recently as last week that family separations are now "extremely rare."  Nine hundred children - and their parents - would probably beg to differ.

(Would an American bank deny a white family a loan based on one minor traffic violation?)

Donald Trump, himself a bully who tends to get loud and obnoxious, argued that Elijah Cummings was a "brutal bully" who shouted and screamed at the "great"men and women of the border patrol about conditions along our southern border - and then he minimized those conditions.   Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concern that Border Patrol agents engaging a Facebook group which promoted racism and violence could, themselves, become dehumanized in the process - and that they would be more apt to treat new arrivals at the border as less than human.  And, add to that mix actual data showing that children are still being taken from their parents at the border for little or no reason - and an ugly picture begins to emerge - much like the one in Dorian Gray's attic.

Our inhumanity is on display for the whole world to witness.  It has nothing to do with rats and rodents in Baltimore - and everything to do with rats and rodents in the White House.  Donald Trump is reflecting himself across the entire country, and it is an ugly damned image!

Donald John Trump is an abject failure as a human being, and he is trying to take our civilization down with him!

Moscow Mitch: A Thin-Skinned Reptile

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from he Commonwealth of Kentucky, has has lived in the sewer of national politics for most of his adult life.  During his long tenure in Washington, DC, McConnell has made a name for himself by relentlessly pursing the interests of corporations over those of his constituents back home in Kentucky.  When it comes to public service, Mitch McConnell is motivated by two things, and two things only:  filling his pockets and maintaining power.

Public service is about the public serving Mitch.

And those goals work hand-in-hand with one another.  The more money Mitch amasses, the easier it becomes to keep his power - and his tight grip on power brings in more and more corporate cash.  Mitch is not in the Senate to do charity work or to necessarily benefit anyone other than Mitch McConnell.

McConnell is a cold-blooded reptile who is very at home slithering through the sewers of our nation's capital.  (Apologies to snakes everywhere!)

Mitch McConnell's latest foray into public controversy has to do with election security.  McConnell, who has accepted bribes political donations from the manufacturers of voting equipment, is loathe to allow any legislation to be voted on in the Senate which would enhance election security in any meaningful manner.  Some say his intransigence is due to the cash that people who make election equipment have stuffed into his pockets, while others say he is doing it to allow continued Russian interference (including the hacking of voting machines) in the US elections.  The argument goes that Russian interference in the 2016 elections put Donald Trump in the White House and brought in enough Republican senators to solidify Mitch's control of that chamber for years to come - and why mess with success?

McConnell doesn't want tighter protections on voting because - he says - all of that honesty stuff would help Democrats,  Why put his fiefdom at risk?

But in keeping the lid clamped down tightly on American democracy, McConnell has opened himself to charges that he is fighting election security measures in order to  better facilitate more Russian interference in the 2020 election - and enhance that country's efforts to elect more Republicans and stir more political turmoil here in the United States.

Some wags even openly suggest that Mitch McConnell takes his marching orders directly from Russian leader Vladimir Putin - and more than a few malicious "tweeters" have taken to referring to McConnell as "Moscow Mitch" on Twitter.

And Mitch does not like being referred to as "Moscow Mitch," not one bit!

McConnell, a man who has spent a lifetime belittling and disparaging others, can dish it out, but he sure can't take it.  Yesterday, in response to the #MoscowMitch tag which has been trending on Twitter for several days now, the senior Kentucky senator tweeted this response:

"Modern-day McCarthyism is poison for American democracy. It is shameful to imply that policy disagreements make the other side unpatriotic. The people who push such unhinged smears are doing Putin’s destabilizing work for him."

Joe McCarthy was a Republican senator who caused a great deal of political turmoil in the 1950's by castigating his political enemies and other prominent Americans as being "communists."   Ironically, if McCarthy were around today, he would most likely be sitting quite comfortably in the GOP's big white tent drinking beer and trying to keep Lindsey Graham's hand off of his knee.

Communism is out of fashion in Russia, and the only time that I recall it being bandied about in recent years happened in 2016 when Donald Trump referred to Bernie Sanders publicly as a "communist," though Trump recently came dangerously close to using that appellation on members of "the Squad," and will probably get around to doing it sooner or later at one of his hate fests.

But for the time being it is Mich McConnell who is being smeared by McCarthy tactics.  Poor, poor Moscow Mitch.  Who knew that a hoary old reptile like him could have such thin skin?

Monday's Poetry: "Incident"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

The city of Baltimore has been in the news this week as America's preeminent racist, Donald John Trump, has stayed busy savagely attacking Elijah Cummings, the black statesman who represents most of that proud city in Congress.  In his racist screeds against Representative Cummings, Trump also chose to disparage Baltimore itself - calling the city "a rat-and-rodent-infested mess" and "a very dangerous and filthy place" all of which were racist dog whistles designed to depict Baltimore as an impoverished black ghetto.

After Trump's Twitter outburst it was revealed on social media that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a major slumlord in the city of Baltimore.

Several weeks ago I used a poem by poet Countee Cullen in this space to honor "Pride Month."   Cullen, a gay, black man who was a leading light of the Harlem Renaissance, used that poem, "Fruit of the Flower," to remind parents of gay youth that their children were biological extensions of themselves, products of the root system generated and nourished by the parents.  They are the literal creations of the parents.

There is a bit of mystery surrounding the childhood of Countee Cullen, who grew up living with his grandmother in New York City - but some historians think it is likely that he was born in the city of Baltimore.

Today I would like to highlight another poem by Countee Cullen, "Incident," which tells of something that occurred to him during a childhood visit to Baltimore - something the poet always remembered.  It shows the enduring power of one solitary racist word.  If that one word can have that much impact on a child, just think about the impact that a full-bore racist assault from the President of the United States can have on children of color.

The racism and bigotry that Donald Trump is using for short-term political gain is casting a literal pall over the mental health and future of our country.  It's time for Americans of every color to stand together and tell Trump that he has to leave office - for the good of the country!

It worked in Puerto Rico.


Incident
by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
    Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
    Keep looking straight at me.Now I was eight and very small,
    And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
    His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Baltimore
    From May until December:
Of all the things that happened there
    That’s all that I remember.

Trump Flings Even More Racist Crap!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump is in full-throttle re-election mode, and his one clear strategy on display so far is to rile up his angry white base.   It is an ugly and dangerous way to campaign, but Trump is at his absolute peak as a politician when he is attacking people of color and denigrating those whom he sees as being less than true Americans because of their skin colors and ethnic backgrounds.  Donald Trump's America is white, and his most ardent supporters with their red MAGA caps, tattoos, low-to-average IQ's, and beer bellies are also white.  They are the master race, and Trump is their master.

And God figures in there somewhere, too - but HE is a wrathful white God with no tolerance for helping - or even recognizing - the world's less fortunate people or anyone who differs significantly from the master race.

Donald Trump has divided us by race.   He has intentionally and maliciously broken a social contract that has taken more than a century to assemble, and he is carting off what he considers to be the biggest piece of a society that he intentionally busted - the chunk of angry white voters.  They aren't a majority, but in a diverse and fractured society, that rabid base of pissed-off white crackers can swing an election.  Steve Bannon explained it to him several years ago, and Donald Trump listened.

(Coincidentally, earlier this week William Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, described Donald Trump as an "unhinged racist" and warned that Trump was going down and would take the Republican Party with him.  One can only hope!)

Now Democrats have to put together a coalition of people with energy and direction who can turn the tables on Trump and pull our country back out of the dystopian nightmare that the Trump administration has foisted upon us.  It will take wisdom, energy, and a cohesiveness that Democrats have traditionally found to be elusive.   But we'll see . . .

Back to my thesis:  Trump is already campaigning, and his message is all-out racist.  After spending the past few weeks attacking four congresswomen of color as being less than true Americans - and making them targets for every gun-toting white supremacist in the country, yesterday Trump turned his verbal fire on Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, a black man and senior member of Congress whose district includes part of the fine city of Baltimore.  Cummings is one of many Democrats Congress who have been critical of Trump's border policies and the family concentration camps set up by the Trump administration along the border.

Trump exploded on Twitter:

"Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA. 

"As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming (sic) district is a disgusting, rat- and rodent-infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place. 

"Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings' district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States? No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!"

And while all of that may sound a bit harsh to delicate ears, that is the way Trump talks.  Everything, EVERYTHING is inferior to the world that he has established for himself.  Brown and black people are "animals" and they originate in "shithole" countries.   Representative Cummings is, in Trump's view, a "brutal bully" who shouts and screams at the fine people who patrol the border.  And then he went on to belittle the district that Cummings represents calling it rat-and-rodent-infested, a "filthy place," and one of the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States.

(That's mighty heavy criticism coming from an actual bully who lives in Washington, DC, and in a house and office complex that has been described within just the past few days as being overrun with cockroaches - many of whom do not use spray-on hair or tanning beds!)

But Elijah Cummings is black, and while he may not be from a shithole country, Trump wants his faithful Klansmen to know that Cummings does represent a shithole district.

It's only July of 2019, but Donald John Trump is in full campaign mode - and the stench of racism and bigotry is already at dangerously high levels.  Things can only go downhill from here.

The Watermelon Trail

by Pa Rock
Happy Wanderer

Rosie and I just got back home following an overnight trip to Rogers, Arkansas - our first big adventure outside of Howl County since my hospitalization at the end of June.  (I still don't have an exact diagnosis of what put me in the hospital, probably more the result of lackadaisical care in maintaining medical records and communicating with patients than the complexity of the medical issue.  The doctor has assured me with 99% certainty that it was some type of "tick-born" infection, and the symptoms were like those of others in the area who have suffered from similar maladies.)

So Rosie and I have been on the road.  We drove across northern Arkansas both going west and heading home.  It's hot, but the lawns and trees were summery green nevertheless.  The most consistent thing that we noticed were watermelons.  We encountered several farm trucks loaded with watermelons out on the roads, and passed more than a few roadside fruit stands, most of which featured watermelons prominently.   This is probably the ideal time of the year to buy a melon, put it on ice, and head to the creek!

We noticed only one Trump sticker along the way - on the back window of a nice-looking ;pickup truck - and no stickers for any other candidates.  I have commented here previously about the scary right-wing billboards in and around Harrison, Arkansas, but for the past few trips through that community I hadn't noticed any.  Well, one (at least) is back.  There is a large billboard facing east on the main thoroughfare (Highway 62) promoting these local news outlets for like-minded people:  "White Pride Radio" and "Alt.Right Television."  Hillbilly culture at its most despicable!

Northwest Arkansas continues to be a warren of congested traffic, Walmart corporate facilities, and shopping malls.  One afternoon struggling to get through that mess every six months or so is quite enough for me, thank you very much!

I overheard two old men talking in the butcher shop here in West Plains last week.  One, who apparently has grandchildren over in that area, was telling the other how wonderful northwest Arkansas is and how he can't wait to move there.  He said forty-three families a day were moving into the area, and yammered on about how great all of that growth is.  He also wanted the other guy to know that there were plenty of golf courses there as well.

West Plains has two golf courses for a community of 12,000 - so that is probably "plenty" for our area.  But to each his own.  I hope that fellow still views rapid population growth as "wonderful" when he is sitting in stalled traffic while trying to visit  those grandchildren!

Gail and Patti and I visited our good friend, Mertie Harmon, at the care facility where she lives in Rogers.  Mert will be ninety-two next Wednesday.  She seemed to enjoy the company.   We also had a nice visit with two of the best school teachers in that area - my nephew, Reed Smith, and his wife, Jamie.  It's always good to see those guys!

But that was yesterday, and today Rosie and I are home - and ready for our naps!

My Ten Seconds of Fame

by Pa Rock
Slap-Happy Camper

I am officially "retired," which means I could sleep in if I did not have other responsibilities - in lieu of a paying job - waiting for me each morning, but the sad fact is that even though it remains dark outside this morning, like most others, I am up and busy.

Rosie must be let out, the cats fed, the hen house opened for the day, and the blog, my daily grind, has to get written.  Then, when all of that - as well as any accumulated laundry - is finished, I get to the second phase of my day.  That is usually somewhere around noon.

About lunch time, but before I actually sit down to something exotic like a sandwich and chips, I head into town and make a regular daily purchase - a tall cup of unsweet iced-tea, big enough and with enough ice to last me the rest of the day, and a couple of lottery tickets - two different state "drawing" style games.  The total for the purchase, including the tea, is three dollars and twenty-eight cents.  Actually, the tea is a "purchase," and the lottery tickets are an investment.  I still plan on dying rich, and at this stage in my life, the lottery is about thee only means left to that end.

And then, after lunch is finished and the paper plate has been thrown away, I get down to my afternoon schedule.  That is when I roll up my sleeves and go to work at Twitter.  An in-law of mine describes Twitter as a "huge time-sucker," and even that is serious understatement.  Twitter is Alice's rabbit hole writ large, and once a person jumps in, it might take days before they are able to climb back out.

Bit still I persist.

I use Twitter to promote my blog, and I guess it works because some days my readership numbers in the dozens - and I also use Twitter to vent my spleen on things that catch my attention.  Most days I "tweet" about Trump, ad nauseam, though he never "tweets" me back.

I have three goals with Twitter that pull me onward each day.  One is to garner more "followers" than my doofus congressman.  Over the past few months I have worked that goal hard and now am about halfway there.

My second Twitter goal is to be followed by somebody famous.  So far the only name of note that I have among my followers is Nancy "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" Sinatra, Frank's daughter, but she probably shouldn't count because Nancy follows everyone who follows her.   I am just part of her Twitter entourage.

And my final Twitter goal is to be blocked by somebody famous.  A few years ago I was "blocked" by a lady who thought that I had said something unkind about Hillary - and I probably did -  but so far no celebrities have chosen to acknowledge my snide remarks and outright insults toward them by blocking me - and  Walmart, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Jim "Gym" Jordan have had plenty of reason to do so.  I'm being as vile and mean-spirited as I dare, yet they continue to ignore me!

Twitter is perhaps my last chance to achieve a bit of fame in this life.  How sad is that!

But yesterday, as I was sitting at the living room window banging out astute observations and insults on Twitter, fame found me - kinds, sorta.   I happened to look up from the computer just as a small blue-and-white sedan drove past the house on the country lane that runs along side of my property.  According to its signage, it was the Google Maps car!  Now, if I just knew how to access Google Maps, I might be able to come up with an image of my house, and perhaps see myself staring out the front window!

But the best news of the day, the absolute topper, was that as the Google Maps car cruised past, the yard was freshly mowed and all of the weeds in front of the house had been pulled.  My yard will always be freshly mowed and manicured in cyber space!

It just doesn't get better than that!

There Is a Free Lunch After All, and Breakfast, Too!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Last Sunday I wrote about the awful letter that Wyoming Valley West School District in Pennsylvania sent home to the parents of students who were in arrears on their school lunches.  In that letter, penned by a school official, the district threatened to report those parents to the state's "Dependency Court" system, and then advised that such a report could culminate in a child being placed in foster care.

Not only was the abusive letter a flagrant attempt at bullying, it also appeared to be intended to shame the families and students who were behind on their lunch bills.   The district, which has a limited tax base, was trying to collect $22,000 in lunch debt that was owed by approximately 1,000 students.

News articles about the situation brought offers of help from more than a hundred donors across the country, and the debt was finally settled by Todd Carmichael, a co-founder and CEO of La Colombe Coffee in Philadelphia.   The school board of Wyoming Valley West initially turned down Carmichael's offer the pay the entire debt (perhaps they didn't want to feel shamed), but then had a change of hart and accepted the payment.

But now it looks like there is more good news for the beleaguered school.   Apparently someone in the district (perhaps the Director of Federal Programs who sent out the obnoxious letter to begin with) has discovered that the school system qualifies for the Community Eligibility Provision, a USDA Food and Nutrition Service Program.  As a result, every student in the Wyoming Valley West School District will receive FREE breakfast and lunch in all of the district's schools for the next five years - regardless of income!

See what can happen when school administrators do their homework!

Nick at Forty-Six

by Pa Rock
Proud Papa

My oldest child, Nick, was born forty-six years ago at the Camp Kue U.S. Army Hospital on Okinawa, Japan.  He came to the United States at the very young age of two months, and has been a permanent fixture in this country since that time.

Nick grew up in the Missouri Ozarks where he loved to hunt and fish, and he has remained a resident of southern Missouri for most of his life - and the hunting and fishing have continued.  He has one child, Boone, who is in college, and a faithful old dog named Riley who has spent more than a decade looking after his master.

Nick often steps forward to help me out with odd chores and difficult tasks here at the farm,  and he did all of the mowing during the first few weeks following my hospitalization this summer.  It is good to have someone around to depend on when times are tough.

Happy birthday, Nick!  Thanks for being there when I need you.

Election 2020: Fighting a Hog Will Require Getting Dirty!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There seems to be a lot of free advice circulating on social media lately about the proper course of action Democrats should take in challenging Trump in the 2020 election.  I have taken a few notes and have some thoughts on the strategies for electoral success which are currently circulating.

First of all there is the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" crowd reminding Democrats to support the person that the party nominates, whether he or she was the voter's original preference or not.  I buy into that if for no other reason than than the lowest, mangiest most vile Democrat anywhere on the party roster is still head and shoulders above Donald Trump or Mike Pence.   Trump has set the bar so low that it would take some serious excavating equipment to get beneath it.  Democrats must support the nominee of their party.  To vote for a third-party candidate or not vote at all helps to insure that we will be living in Trump Hell for four more years.

That said, I do not subscribe to the notion that Democrats should remain quiet and overly polite in the run up to the convention - nor should they not be too concerned with speaking ill of any Democratic presidential wannabe.  That's not who we are, and being wallflowers will be no help at all in figuring out which candidates are tough enough to take on Trump.  The primary season is a trial by fire, a raucous and messy political rumble that rolls from state to state, and not a white-gloved sit-down over tea and crumpets with Pearl Mesta.

And after the candidate is chosen at the convention - what then?

One approach that is currently being proposed in some quarters is the "high road."  In that model the candidate and party would ignore the outrages of Trump, as much as possible, and focus on the problems facing our nation while offering up reasoned and pragmatic solutions.  Careful explanations of situations buttressed with well-crafted policies and programs that address each issue.  Be the well-informed adults in the room.  In one corner Trump is busy erupting like Vesuvius, and in the other corner a competent teacher is rummaging through charts and graphs explaining the looming crisis with the national debt.

Uh . . . probably not.

Others are arguing that the "high road" approach just plays into Trump's hand.  Trump, the showman, knows that the media rushes to cover his every utterance and that it never misses an opportunity to quickly amplify his outrageous lies and dog whistles.  While the Democrats try to "educate" their followers, Trump is whipping his into a frenzy.

Another strategy  that some opinion makers are kicking around is for the Democrats to just ignore policies and programs altogether and spend the entire campaign solely focusing on Trump, calling out his lies, racist statements and actions, and examples of ignorance and incompetence as they occur.  Trump relishes being the center of attention, and this strategy would keep the bright light of reason glaring sternly at him.  This approach might be seen by some as the "low road," the street on which Trump lives.

A third option would be to have a strong case of policies and programs sitting on a shelf somewhere and "at the ready" when a person or group seeks details, but to keep the daily focus on Trump and his constant flow of outrages.  This plan, to focus on Trump's character but to have a thorough plan for governing capable of being discussed at a moment's notice, is somewhat of a "middle road."

Donald Trump is a unique character in American politics, one who should not be taken for granted.  Trump's campaign style will be, as it always has been, patently offensive to a wide swath of decent individuals.  He will make racist comments, he will make sexist comments, he will spread intolerance and hatred toward immigrants, and, on a slow day, he may even mock a few disabled individuals.  He will play golf while he derides others as being lazy, he will espouse "Christian" values while never setting foot inside of a church, and he will continue to profit personally off of the presidency.

Donald Trump is truly the elephant in the room, the one who cannot and should not be ignored.  Yes, the Democratic candidate needs to present a decent image and be well versed in the needs and capabilities of the country, and that person must be prepared to govern competently beginning on day one of the next administration.   But that person must also be ready to ready to roll in the mud and throw some punches - because Donald Trump is a creature of filth who lives in the mud - and it is from there that he will be conducting his campaign.

Donald Trump wants everything to be about him, and the election of 2020 will be about him whether the Democrats choose to recognize and fight that battle or not.  Trump has defined the race, and now the Democrats must win it!  And, like it or not, wrestling a hog will require getting dirty.

Monday's Poetry: "The Fawn"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Basically I live in the "country."  I have a small home on ten acres - at an intersection of two paved roads - about two miles from the center of a town of twelve thousand.  Deer and other wildlife are plentiful where I live, but throughout the recent spring the deer were strangely absent.  That led me to speculate that last fall's hunters may have been a might too successful.

I have a salt lick up by the little pond, and the block of white salt attracts occasional deer, but it is usually commandeered by the farm's many squirrels.  Most afternoons I have a large apple for a snack, and I always carry the apple core up to the salt lick where I deposit it on the ground with the hope that a passing deer will enjoy it - but I suspect that the squirrels get them as well.

Occasionally the farm acts as a resort for visiting possums, skunks, ground hogs, and even armadillos, and my son swears that he has seen a very large panther-like black cat on more than one dark night.

Thee deer have returned from their hiatus within the past few weeks.  I have a large pear tree deep in the backyard that is loaded with fruit every summer, and the deer always get most of it.  This year several showed up for the pear harvest.  First they ate the ones that had fallen to the ground, then they spent a couple of days butting the tree to shake others loose, and finally the stood beneath the old tree, on their back feet, and stretched their necks as far into the tree as they could to get the really stubborn pears that had refused to fall.

Now the pear tree is empty, but some of the deer have stayed on.  Yesterday I watched two small spotted fawns as they walked beneath my bathroom window and out toward the road.  Just as they got to the road, one of my hillbilly neighbors roared by and scared them back into the yard.  Soon I saw them with their mother, lazily eating a patch of weeds surrounding one of the trees.

The more weeds the deer eat at my place, the more welcome they are!

One of my neighbors (who probably learned science from his grandmother - or Elly May Clampett's grandmother) told me that the deer are responsible for all of the ticks that are plaguing the Ozarks this summer.  Others blame the mild winters brought about by climate change, but the locals who are weened on Fox News know that climate change is fake news.   That leaves ticks as one more good reason to slaughter deer.

Here is Edna St. Vincent Millay's experience of unexpectedly coming upon a fawn lying on the ground:


The Fawn
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

There it was I saw what I shall never forget
And never retrieve.
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to believe,
He lay, yet there he lay,
Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft
small ebony homes,
The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.

Surely his mother had never said, "lie here
Till I return," so spotty and plain to see
On the green moss lay he.
His eyes had opened;  he considered me.

I would have given more than I care to say
To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend
One moment only of that forest day:

Might I have had the acceptance, not the love
Of those clear eyes;
Might I have been for him in the bough above
Or the root beneath his forest bed,
A part of the forest, seen without surprise.

Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he depart
That jerked him to his joints knees,
And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling
On his new legs, between the stems of the white trees?

In Support of Well Fed Children

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A school district in rural Pennsylvania has been in the news lately after someone in the school's administrative staff sent a letter home to parents whose children were behind in paying for their school lunches.  The Wyoming Valley West School District of Pennsylvania sent out "hundreds" of letters telling parents that if their children's lunch bills were not brought up to date, the families would be referred to the state's "Dependency Court" and the children "could" wind up being placed into foster care.

Many news sources reported, at least in their headlines, that the letter had stated the children "would" be placed into foster care.  That was fake news.

As someone who has worked as a school teacher and an administrator, a state child welfare worker and an administrator, a paid journalist, and a mental health provider (licensed clinical social worker), I have quite a bit that I could say on this matter, from several perspectives - and as a retiree, I have the time to say it.

So you might want to refill that coffee cup, because here goes . . .

First of all, there is no school district in the entire country, at least of which I am aware, that has the power to summarily place a child in foster care.  Taking children out of their homes and putting them in foster care requires the action of a judge - apparently through the "Dependency Court" in Pennsylvania and through other forms of state courts in other locations.  My own state has "juvenile court" system which works within the state's district courts to handle serious matters involving children - including their placement into foster care and the (hopefully) subsequent return to their natural parents.

The school district in Pennsylvania was correct in the way it stated the threat - foster care could result - but it was a threat, and an extreme bullying tactic - and a few sacrificial school administrator heads will probably roll before all of the dust has settled.  The press was wrong in the way it portrayed the case in the headlines which gave the clear implication that the school actually had the power to place children in foster care.  That is never the case.   And the school district was wrong in making the payment of school lunches into such an extreme issue.  There are smarter ways to handle a personal matter of such importance.

There is a certain subset of individuals in this country who get very angry at the idea of schools feeding children.  They are opposed to the notion that their tax dollars might be putting food on the trays of  poor and minority students - and anytime a brown child, or even a poor white one, is fed at public expense, that is overt socialism in the minds of these aggrieved taxpayers - not all of whom actually pay taxes.  When a school district chooses to make the payment for meals into a local political issue, the ensuing fallout can ripple far beyond just lunch bills, and can negatively impact a wide array of school programs and responsibilities.

One way to turn down the heat on a situation like this without threatening to remove children from their homes is for school administrators to meet with families and try to get them qualified for the federal government's free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch programs.  All students take home forms for free and reduced meals at the beginning of the year, but, as every parent of a school-age child knows, not every form makes it home, and, of those that do and get filled out, not every form makes it back to school.

Administrators can invite parents in for a conference regarding alternative ways to get meals into the bellies of their children, but many parents work - often several jobs - and coming to the school during regular work hours in often not an option.  Another option, and one I have practiced many times, is for the school administrator to take his forms and go on a home visit.  Again, many parents work during the days, and sometimes it takes an evening visit in order to catch parents at home.   That's a lot of extra work, and not every school administrator is up to the challenge.  It's much easier just to crank out a mass threat and shovel it into the mail.

Another option is to use local resources.  There are a few kind-hearted individuals in every community who will step forward and help out if they suspect that a need exists - and add to that school support groups like the local PTA, as well as church and civic organizations, and a program as basic as school meals can be kept alive without going to war with the community or embarrassing hungry little kids.

As an elementary school principal in the 1980's, one of the biggest controversies that I ever stepped into was when I volunteered my school to be a test site for school breakfasts in our county.  The program was sponsored by the federal government and contained provisions for "free and reduced" meals, something which benefited nearly half of our school's population.  Several people of means in the community were livid that the school was planning to spend more of "their" money to feed poor kids.

Our staff stood strong in the face of that opposition, making the school breakfast program a success that soon spread to all of the other elementary schools in the county.

Here are two important things that I learned from that school breakfast experience:   First, attendance improved.  Kids are more likely to get up and come to school in the mornings if they know that breakfast is waiting.  (Did you know that not every family has adequate food at home?  And did you know that not every parent is at home in the mornings or capable of waking their children for school - and that not every parent even cares if their child goes to school or not?). When attendance improves, at least in Missouri, the amount of aid paid by the state goes up, and that paid by the local level goes down - so that was an added benefit to the program.  It actually saved the locals money.

The second benefit of the program was that overall student behavior improved after the breakfast program was initiated.  Maybe your child had a great breakfast at home and didn't need the food offered at school, but if that roustabout who sits next to her everyday behaves better, then your child's school experience is likely to be better as well.

Children benefit from access to regular meals and good nutrition, and when children benefit, so does America.  Instead of subsidizing farmers by turning their corn into ethanol and pumping it into our cars, why not turn that corn into cornflakes and invest it where it will bear an actual return - in our kids?

There is nothing immoral or wrong with feeding children, but there is something morally wrong about threatening families who are already being degraded by living in poverty.  A nation that can send people to the moon can surely give a hungry child a sandwich and a carton of milk.

Feed those kids, dammit!    Not only is it the Christian thing to do, feeding hungry children is one investment that will quickly begin paying returns across all of society.   And it's the right thing to do!

Camp Funston, the Great Flu, and the Moon Landing

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I remember well where I was fifty years ago, the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two human beings to step onto the moon.  I was suffering through ROTC Summer Camp at Ft. Riley, Kansas - on an older portion of the base called Camp Funston.  By that summer Ft. Riley itself had advanced to the point where it was a very modern base, the home of the 1st Infantry Division - the Big Red One - with nice red brick buildings and well manicured yards and parade fields.  I remember large motor pools and acres and acres of big military trucks - deuce-and-a-halfs and five-tons.

Camp Funston was not that modern.  It was a collection of old wooden barracks dating back through the two World Wars.  Funston had been used to train Army recruits prior to its service with ROTC.

Curiously, as I have mentioned in this space previously, Camp Funston was also thought to be ground-zero of the worldwide flu pandemic that ran from from January of 1918 until December of 2020, a health catastrophe also called "the Spanish Flu" which is thought to have infected more than half a billion people around the globe and killed between twenty and fifty million.  

And while the pandemic had been over for nearly half a century by the time I arrived at Camp Funston, I still remember my summer there as a singularly horrible experience.  Yes, I did learn things of value while I was there - how to crawl beneath live fire, breath in a gas chamber long enough to blurt out my name, rank, and service (social security) number, read a topographical map, throw a grenade, and clean a grease trap - but most of what I remember about the experience is not so glamorous.

I remember constantly rushing to get things done.  There was never enough time to get one thing finished before another deadline was charging forward.    And sleep?  Well, forget about that.  Some of the best sleep I had that summer was in one-and-two-hour spurts as we rode in the back of deuce-and-a-halfs in full battle rattle to remote training spots - usually well before daylight.  Even those "naps" were laced with drama and trauma.  One morning a friend on mine who was sitting in the back of the truck nodded off.  His helmet was not strapped on and bounced from his head out onto the road where it was run over and flattened by the next truck in our training convoy!  For the next week or so he thought that he had died and gone to Nam!

There were no televisions in our old wooden barracks.  There was one somewhere close, perhaps at one of the clubs, and on the day that the astronauts climbed out of their capsule and walked on the moon many of my friends were able to get away from the barracks - it was a Sunday - and view the big event on television.  I don't remember the circumstances, but for some reason I stayed back in the barracks and heard the details later on.  (I'm sure that I was struggling to catch up on shining or polishing something.)

I regret not finding the strength and making the effort to view that important piece of American history - as much of the world did - but if I had the chance to repeat that summer so that I could watch Neil Armstrong take his small step for a man and big leap for mankind, I would pass.  I had enough of Camp Funston that summer to last more than a lifetime!

"Funston" was anything BUT "fun"!

Oh to be "Trapped" in Iceland!

by Pa Rock
Gadabout

I have mentioned this before in this space, but when I about travel abroad, one of the ways that I prepare my mind for the possible adventure that lies ahead is to read about the country that I would like to visit.  Not travel guides, but fictional literature that takes place in the settings which I would like to experience.

My last trip "overseas" was a week-long jaunt to Cuba which is just ninety miles south of the southern tip of Key West, Florida.  Before making that trip I read an assortment of contemporary mystery novels about life in modern Havana.

Over the past couple of years I have expanded that mode of research by including television shows filmed in locales that I would like to visit.  I have seen several complete series that were filmed in Australia, including one campy jewel which featured zombies clawing their way out of their graves - and one great short series that took place in Tasmania (though the name now escapes me.)

Recently I have watched two complete seasons of a crime drama that was filmed in Iceland, and the scenery and lifestyles that those episodes revealed have conspired to give me the travel bug.  The show, "Trapped" takes place primarily in a small town and rural area in northern Iceland, but the country is small enough that some of the necessary action drifts over to the large metropolitan area and capital of Reykjavik.  Taken together those two seasons (twenty episodes total) reveal a panoramic vista of Iceland that could never be conveyed in a mere tourist video.

(The rugged coastline with its many fjords, the thermal springs and geysers, the quaint hamlets!  If one was destined to be "trapped," Iceland would be a great place for it to happen.  The country offers lots to absorb - in addition to the waters in its naturally-heated spas.)

And the crime dramas are first-rate as well.  The dialogue is conducted primarily in Icelandic with subtitles, though some segments with certain characters are in English.  The first season involves the discovery of a headless corpse in the ocean just as a ferryboat arrives from mainland Europe.  As it unfolds the residents of a small town are trapped by one of the worst storms of the winter.

The second season, which I would personally rate as exceptional, begins when a middle-aged female government minister is attacked in Reykjavik by her twin brother whom she has not seen in nearly twenty years.   The brother, who has pre-soaked himself in gasoline, rushes from the crowd and grabs his sister and then sets himself on fire.  She is badly burned but survives - and her attacker dies.  Then the action shifts to the rural north where another sibling is found hanging dead in his barn.  Before all of the investigative threads come together there is yet another murder and an abduction - and a lot of things are revealed about a family whom the chief detective describes as "having more secrets than anyone can imagine."

Yes, sitting calmly and reading subtitles can be distracting and seem like a lot of unnecessary work, but this particular show is worth the effort.  "Trapped" if featured on Amazon Prime.

So now I am thinking that Iceland might be a nice place to include on my bucket list.  And to add to the temptation, Icelandair, now has three direct flights to Reykjavik each week out of Kansas City with connections from there to most of Europe.

Pa Rock hopes it is the travel bug that is biting - and not some damned tick!

Trump Diminishes All of Us

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

If political storms were rated like hurricanes, the one currently whipping its way across the United States of America would be a Level 5 Plus - off the charts!  We are in wild, chaotic, turbulent times and democracy itself hangs in the balance.

Last week Donald Trump inserted himself into a disagreement within the Democratic Party, one in which the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was trying to bring four minority women representatives back under what she envisioned as her control.  In making the effort to rein-in the four, Pelosi marginalized their influence and referred to them as a "squad" with little in the way of actual political clout - other than their social media followings.

Trump, with a history of playing to white supremacists (remember Charlottesville?) jumped into the fray, uninvited, and sided with Pelosi.  Trump painted the four women, again - all minorities, as being ungrateful  immigrants who were attacking a country that had accepted them - and then he suggested that they go back to the places that they had come from.  After the media quickly pointed out that three of four members of "the squad" were born in the United States and the fourth came here as a child and is now a citizen, Trump continued to describe the four as un-American.

On Tuesday the House of Representatives voted to "condemn" Trump for what it deemed to be his "racist" remarks regarding the four House members.  Four Republicans and one Independent joined Democrats in passing that resolution by a vote of 240-187.  The toothless measure did little more than twist Trump's tail, and he continued to roar.

Later on Tuesday, Texas Rep. Al Green, a Democrat, introduced an Article of Impeachment in the House.   It was Green's third attempt to bring about a vote on the impeachment of Trump.    He based this one on the House's vote to "condemn"Trump earlier in the day.  In justifying the move, Rep. Green said:

 “This president has demonstrated that he’s willing to yell 'fire' in a crowded theater. And we have seen what can happen to people when bigotry is allowed to have a free rein. Look at what happened in Charlottesville. 'Blood and soil,' they screamed. They screamed, 'The Jews will not replace us.' And one of them took a person’s life who was exercising her constitutional right to protest. We cannot wait. As we wait, we risk having the blood of somebody on our hands—and it could be a member of Congress.”

The Article of Impeachment was voted on in the House yesterday where it failed by a vote of 332 to 95 with one member voting "present."   Of the 332 voting to table the measure, 137 were Democrats. All 95 of the votes favoring impeachment were cast by Democrats.  Speaker Pelosi and her "moderates" were successful in applying the brakes to the movement - for now - but the impeachment strength has been measured, and it is at ninety-five - also, for now.

Donald Trump took that vote as a victory and raced off to an election rally for himself in North Carolina where he spent the evening praising himself and attacking the more prominent Democratic presidential candidates as well as members of "the Squad," and in particular Rep.  Ilhan Omar, the black Muslim woman who had immigrated from Somalia as a child - and who has been a naturalized citizen since before Melania Trump took her oath of allegiance to the United States Constitution.  As Trump barked his jingoistic vitriol to the crowd, his supporters began chanting "Send her back!  Send her back!"

Donald Trump has dropped all pretense of being a concerned leader of all Americans, and he has solidly and irrevocably aligned himself with those who wallow in ignorance, and bigotry, and hatred. He is not worthy of the public trust that he has been given.

If Donald Trump is allowed to remain in office and mock ideals that were once proudly associated with the United States of America, we will have lost the moral high ground and dimmed the U.S. beacon of freedom that once shone proudly around the globe.

Trump has no shame, and he is proud of it.  

He diminishes all of us.

Are the Republicans Forming Their Own "Squad"?

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The United States is a culturally diverse nation with two major political parties as well as a rat's nest of political allegiances and alliances which make it very difficult to classify someone as completely within the political philosophy of one party or another.  The result is that both parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, must occasionally struggle to keep their members in line.

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and a Democrat, got into a tussle last week with four members of the House Democratic Caucus who had repeatedly sinned against the party by saying what they thought when they thought it needed to be said.  Pelosi tried to paint the four, all minority women, as being insignificant in the grand scheme of things when she referred to them as a "squad" who had nothing in the way of support other than a following on social media.

Pelosi, in attacking these four very bright congresswomen, erred on two fronts.  First she gave them a good deal of national attention and stirred new support for the four within their own party as well as across social media - and the reference of them being a "squad" caught on with the media and enhanced the collective image of the four.

But, more importantly, Pelosi's blunder, and it was a blunder, opened the door for Trump to bully his way into the conversation.   Trump, who has reason to hate Pelosi, was somehow smart enough not to attack the Speaker, but instead he agreed with her, only with far more vitriol.  Trump painted the four congresswomen as being un-American, anti-US military, and anti-Israel.  Then the US leader, a man who has seldom done anything positive for US troops or veterans, implied that the four were immigrants and suggested they go back to the disadvantaged and deplorable countries from which they came.

(All four members of the "squad" are American citizens, and only one was born abroad..  Two of Trump's three wives were immigrants.)

Trump's pivot to thwart the congresswomen put Pelosi in the uncomfortable position of having to defend those whom she had been attacking just days before.  Trump effectively tied Pelosi and the four together.

Democrats were quick to point out that Trump's remarks were blatantly racist, and Republicans, through their silence, seemed to concur.

Yesterday the House of Representatives held a vote on a formal condemnation of Trump for "racist" remarks.  The final vote was 240-187 in favor of the motion, with four House Republicans and one Independent voting with the majority Democrats.

The four Republicans exhibiting the courage to do what was right included Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan, and Susan Brooks of Indiana.   Rep. Jason Amash, who left the Republican Party to become an Independent just last week, also voted in the majority.

Could these four maverick Republicans - Hurd, Fitzpatrick, Upton, and Brooks - be the right's version of the "squad," a group of errant congressmen who are tough to corral and have a grating habit of speaking their own minds?  They had best be careful, because when it comes to free speech, the Republicans in Congress are even less tolerant than Speaker Pelosi.

Donald Trump, for his part, did not appreciate being condemned.  He angrily declared that he does not have a racist bone in his body.   Apparently no one has told our genius from the stable that the "skull" is a bone!

Lindsey Graham Does His Best Joe McCarthy

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The 1950's in America were simpler times.  Television was little more than a curiosity, and people still sat out on their porches in the evenings and visited in each other's homes.  Telephones were generally limited to one per household and members of the family took turns with their use.  Hippies hadn't appeared yet, though there were a few oddballs in the cities who called themselves "beatniks," and there was not much of a market for illicit drugs because doctors were generous in writing prescriptions for "tranquilizers" to take the edge of of whatever social pressures were making the rounds.

People smoked, and drank - usually in moderation - and went to church on Sundays.  Most men brought home a paycheck that could support a family, and occasionally some women would also hold jobs - but usually it wasn't a necessity.

The cars were cool - and affordable. - and most families owned one.

But the 1950's were also a time when people knew "their place:"  the back of the bus, specific restrooms and water fountains, away from the lunch counter,  and rooms in only certain hotels.  Society had strict rules separating the races, some of which were codified into laws and others were simply "understood," and anyone who flaunted the accepted rules of social interaction could suffer serious consequences - sometimes even death.

The 1950's were also times of political backlash against the efforts of FDR's administration to improve the lives of the nation's poor and disadvantaged.  For too many years the nation had listened to the ravings of radio demagogues and marginalized Republican politicians as they bemoaned the "socialism" and "communism" of the Roosevelt administration, and, in the 1950's as power began to shift back to the Republicans, they ran with their messages of fear and hate.

People like Senator Joseph McCarthy and Vice-President Richard Nixon turned fear of communists into a political art form.  McCarthy eventually imploded, but Nixon managed to remain a prominent national politician for two full decades.  The harm that both of these men did to America's character and its image abroad was incalculable.

The 1950's were not all Norman Rockwell and Richie Cunningham.    The decade had its dark side.  And for those who long to return to those Main Street days of yesteryear, the good news is that they appear to be coming around again - and this time it could be far worse.  Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero and respected leader was President then, and "Ike," as America called him, was a smart individual who managed to keep the country on an even keel, despite his saber-rattling of his Vice President and Joe McCarthy.

 Today we lack a steadying force like Ike in the White House.   Donald Trump, a raging racist who seems to have nothing in the way of a moral compass, is our elected leader, and now Lindsey Graham, a United States Senator from South Carolina, has ripped a page from McCarthy's playbook and is calling certain members of Congress - four women of color whom Trump labeled as un-American - "communists."  Senator Graham's own moral compass - John McCain - died last year.

It's starting again - and it will not be pretty.  Perhaps a nation must purge its soul every few decades in order to grow wiser, and, if so, this time around is shaping up to be a vomit-palooza.

How sad for us that our nation, once hailed as the greatest on earth, has to again endure this reign of ignorance and hatred.  It will get better, we know that, but the path forward will be a long and arduous traipse through territory that is familiar and shameful.

Step carefully because the slime will be everywhere.

Monday's Poetry: "Hymn to the Guillotine"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

A year ago yesterday our own Donald John Trump was in France where he enjoyed that nation's Bastille Day military parade, an event devoted to honoring the revolutionaries who freed the French from the bejeweled and uncalloused hands of the monarchy.    Trump got so carried away with the military grandeur of the parade that he'd rushed home and tried to set up his own parade for Veteran's Day.  That publicity stunt fell through, but then he settled on a Plan B and co-opted this year's Fourth of July celebration in Washington, DC, and turned that into his military pep rally and photo op for his re-election.

But there are other symbols noted with the French Revolution, and one of those is the famous guillotine, the head-chopping device that ended the French monarchy (and much of French high society) once and for all.   A good portion of the blood that ran in the streets and sewers of Paris during the Revolution spurted from severed arteries which had connected the bodies to the heads of French nobles and their enablers.

Here, in honor of Bastille Day (July 14th), the day the French stormed the dreaded Bastille (national prison),  is a piece by British satirist, John Wolcot, who was writing at the time of the French Revolution.  In this poem Wolcot lightheartedly suggested that it might not be a bad idea to import the guillotine to Britain.

And he even included a shout-out to American patriot and revolutionary, Thomas Paine.

I guess the guillotine could be imported anywhere.


Hymn to the Guillotine
by John Wolcot

Daughter of Liberty!  whose knife
So busy chops the threads of life,
And frees the cumbrous clay the spirit;
Ah!  why alone shall Gallia feel
The beauties of thy pond'rous steel?
Why must not Britain mark thy merit?

Hark!  'tis the dangerous groan I hear;
And lo, a squalid band appear,
With sallow cheek, and hollow eye!
Unwilling, lo, the neck they bend; 
Yet, through my pow'r, their terrors end,
And with their heads the sorrows fly.

O let us view thy lofty grace;
To Britons show thy blushing face,
And bless Rebellion's life - tired train!
Joy to my soul!  she's on her way,
Led by her dearest friends, Dismay,
Death, and the Devil, and Tom Paine!

¡Viva la Revolución! 

Trump Flings More Racist Crap

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump doesn't have the time or inclination to go to church on Sunday mornings.  That appears to be his favorite time of the week to put his giant, flabby, white butt down on his golden toilet and bang out the tweets that will set the political tone for the week.

This week we are going to be talking about immigration as ICE sweeps into ten metropolitan communities and drags brown and black people from their homes and places of refuge in preparation for stuffing them onto airplanes and flying them out of the United States and back into whatever dreadful circumstances that they fled in the first place.  It will be a week of fabulous photo opportunities for the Trump administration to show the world, and the primates who form his political base, just how tough an hombre he really is - and the nation's press will scamper along like so many poodles, reporting on the raids and showing photos of brown and black people in chains.

It will be a ground-shaking wet dream for American racists.

And that should really be enough baboon crap for one week, but Trump saw an opportunity to fling some more - and he just couldn't help himself.

This morning while some people were in church, Trump was sitting on the pot, thumbs a-flying, as he tried to wedge himself into Democratic politics and remind his base about the diverse nature of the Democrats in Congress - but not in a good way.

A disagreement has been bubbling along for several days now between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and four new female members of Congress - all Democrats.   The four:  Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, have all been outspoken and seemingly anxious to move their agendas in Congress, and none of the four have been shy about talking to the press.  This week Pelosi tried to force the four back into line, referring to them as merely a squad of four with limited influence beyond Twitter.   That effort quickly turned on her as party progressives began showing support for the outspoken congresswomen.

Trump smelled blood in the water and made several comments during the week regarding the rift in Congress among Democrats.   Anything that could keep his arch-enemy Nancy Pelosi on the ropes was worth exploiting.

This morning he changed tact, however, and went after the congresswomen - a ploy that fit nicely into his anti-immigrant focus for the week.  In a string of tweets, Donald John painted the four women of color as being immigrants who came to the United States from other countries and now want to tell real Americans how to fix this country - when they could not even fix their own.

Trump had this to say:

"So interesting to see "progressive" Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all) now loudly . . . . .
. . . . . and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.  Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.  Then come back and show us how. . . . .
. . . . . it is done.  These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough.  I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!"

Only one of those four ladies was born in a country other than the United States.  Representative Ilhan Omar moved from Somalia with her family when she was a very young child.   Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, New York City, and represents that area now in Congress.  Representative Rashida Tlaib was born in Detroit, Michigan, and represents it now in Congress.  And Representative Ayanna Pressley was born in Cincinnati, raised in Chicago, and currently represents a part of Boston in Congress.

Yet Donald John Trump would like for us to believe that they are all immigrants from "shithole" countries who are bent on destroying his vision and version of the United States.  (Trump probably does have some understanding of immigration because two of his three wives were immigrants to the United States.).

Pelosi, who was boxed in by Trump, shot back that his remarks were racist and designed to "make America white again," which they were.   None of the four Trump targets were standard white, Anglo-Saxon, protestants (WASPs), thus making it easy to paint them as "foreign" to many of Trump's uneducated supporters.

Race-baiting and name-calling.  It reminds me of the time several months ago when my own congressman, Jason Smith of Missouri's 8th, yelled on the floor of the House that a Democratic member from California should "go back to Puerto Rico!"  Representative Smith and Donald Trump both appear to be lacking basic geography skills, or, for that matter, basic human decency - and, of course, they are both Republicans.  (To Smith's credit, he later apologized.  Trump never will.)

So another week begins.  Keep those trash bags handy, folks, because it going to be like sitting down front at a Gallagher show!

Licking the System

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There is a new fad that appears to be sweeping through that sewer of filth and self-aggrandizement that is commonly called social media.  People are filming themselves licking things and then placing them back on product shelves or with supplies.  It's fairly gross and has certain disease and infection implications.

This current crime spree began on July 6th when a young couple, a teenage girl and boy, entered a Walmart in Lufkin, Texas, and paid a visit to the ice cream freezer.  There the girl took a gallon of  Blue Bell "Tin Roof" ice cream out of the freezer, took off the lid and had herself a big lick, and then, laughing, put it back on the shelf.  The boy filmed the incident and later the scene made its way onto the internet where it immediately collected a bazillion "likes" and became an instant sensation.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a proponent of Blue Bell ice cream who four years ago was featured prominently in news photos with gallons of the product as he welcomed it back into production in Texas, referred to the licker in a tweet as a "despicable criminal" and warned others not to mess with Texas or Blue Bell Ice Cream!

The despicable criminal could have faced twenty years in prison for tampering with food, but then it was discovered that she is a minor.  There is no word yet on how Abbott's Texas juvenile system will deal with the underage lawbreaker.

But the despicable criminal has had her fifteen minutes of fame!

This week there was also another licking incident, this one in a family health clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.  There were some medical supplies within reach of patients, along with a sign which read "Please do not touch medical supplies.  Thank you."  A 30-year-old mother of five then filmed her 10-year-old daughter taking a dental tongue depressor from a container, licking it, and putting it back where she found it.  The woman later posted this attack on public health on Snapchat along with a rejoinder saying "Don't tell me how to live my life."  Later it was, of course, on Facebook, the primary current of the social media sewer, where more than 60,000 people viewed the video before it was taken down.

The mother has been arrested and is quite upset.  She said she did not even realize there was a "licking" challenge on social media.

She goes to court next week where a judge may tell her how to live her life.    But the good news is that she, too, has had her fifteen minutes of fame!

Grab it, lick it, put it back - and then post the video!  That's high culture in the time of Trump!

Happy Birthday, Rosie!

by Pa Rock
Proud Papa

My little Chihuahua, Rosie, was born on either July 10th or July 12th, 2014, and since I let the 10th slide by without remembering, we are marking the occasion today.  She knows something special is going on because her Daddy rarely sings to her!

Rosie and I met at a roadside puppy stand at Caufield, Missouri, on September 1st, 2014.  She and her slightly smaller sister were in a box, and she reached up and licked my face.  I knew at once that the little pup (just one pound and one ounce) had good taste!  I pulled myself away from the puppies and continued on my shopping trip down into Arkansas, but as I was returning to Missouri later that day the stand was still there and I found myself once again faced with Rosie, this time by herself.  She came home with me, and, as far as I know, we have neither one ever regretted that move.

My granddaughter, Olive, gave her the name "Rosie."   I learned later that she had chosen it because it was the name of Dora the Explorer's little sister - but it fit nicely!  When Rosie is outside and hears her name, she come's running.  Also, saying "Rosie, there is food in your bowl" will set her running straight to the kitchen!

My little Rosie is a smart girl, and the light of my life!

Happy birthday, sweetie!

Boobs Voting for Brains, Not Boobs!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There was a primary race in North Carolina this past week which will ultimately lead to the filling of a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that became vacant with the untimely death of a sitting member of Congress.  The district is bright red, so the winner of that primary should ultimately be the new representative in Congress.

The GOP race was between two presumably very bright people, both medical doctors.  They were of different genders, however, and that distinction seemed to be a deciding factor among some supporters and voters.  The female candidate, Dr. Joan Perry, a pediatrician, was trounced by the male, Dr. Greg Murphy, by a 60-40 margin.  Some Fox News mouthpieces supported the male, as did the former an immediate past chairmen of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, but GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (the highest ranking GOP female in Congress) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy gave their support to the female candidate.

After the 2018 congressional elections, Democrats have a record 89 women serving in Congress.  The total of Republican women serving in the House dropped from 23 to thirteen.  Many Republican women are now openly complaining that their work is welcomed in campaigns and behind-the-scenes drudgery, but when it comes to trotting out an actual candidate, females need not apply.

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second ranking Republican in the House, blames Nancy Pelosi (of course, he does) for the decline among female GOP representatives in Congress - claiming that the scheming Pelosi targeted GOP women who were running in the last election.  Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, hopefully targeted all Republicans who were running in the last election - that was an important part of her job at the time as the Minority Leader of the House.

Ann Kremer, a co-founder of "Women for Trump," expressed her support of the male candidate in this past Tuesday's election this way:

"If these women are saying that they should support women because they have the same body parts just for the sake of having more women in Congress, then they're sexist.   I'm smarter than that.   I vote for brains, not boobs."

Meanwhile others are arguing that people who vote to keep women out of positions of power just because of their gender are themselves the boobs!

There Should Be No "Faves" When It Comes to Rapists of Children

by Pa Rock
Social Worker

During my working career I spent over a decade in state child protection - and to say I have seen it all, neglect and depravity in unspeakably horrific terms - would still border on understatement.  Awful things are done to children every day - in every type of neighborhood.  I've been in those homes, and campers, and kennels - and I know that of which I speak.

Last week a billionaire who has social connections to at least two United States Presidents was arrested by federal authorities on "child trafficking" charges.  The apparent specifics of his charges are that he used  minor girls, sometimes fifteen or younger, for "sexual massage" and sex.  It has also been reported that lewd photos of minors have been found in a safe in one of his homes.  Significantly, the alleged perpetrator, Jeffery Epstein, has been in jail for several days now - unable to buy his way out through America's privileged bail-bond system.

Epstein received little more than a slap-on-the-wrist for these types of crimes more than a decade ago (2008) when a U.S. Attorney in Florida by the name of Alex Acosta negotiated a deal whereby the billionaire would not be prosecuted for allegations involving sex with minors.  A Miami newspaper recently described that agreement as "the sweetheart deal of a lifetime."  That same Alex Acosta is currently the U.S. Secretary of Labor in Donald Trump's cabinet.  Since the arrest of Epstein last week and the subsequent public scrutiny of the old plea deal, Acosta has been in a panic mode yammering about "new information" coming to light which resulted in new charges.

But, try as he might to deflect attention away from the gross miscarriage of justice which he engineered back in 2008, Alex Acosta has still been strongly tied to Jeffrey Epstein in the current press.  Donald Trump has said that he stands by his labor secretary, and members of the Trump administration  are attempting to give Acosta personal credit for what they say is a strong economy.  Trump said he would be watching the situation with Epstein closely.

Donald Trump is one of the two U.S. Presidents who seem to have personal ties with Epstein that go back for many years, so it is understandable that he would be watching the case "closely."  Earlier this week Christine Pelosi, a "Democratic Party political strategist" and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, put out a couple of tweets alerting (Democrats, one must suppose) that some of our "faves" may ultimately be implicated in the Epstein sexual saga.  Pictures of Bill Clinton appeared with some of those tweets.  Clinton quickly commented that he has had no contact with Epstein in over a decade.

(And, of course, the Acosta situation with Epstein also occurred over a decade ago, thus not giving Bill Clinton much in the way of political cover.).

Here's what I know from my own decade of working with abused children and the filth who find ways to live out their sexual fantasies with them:

• There is no such thing as a child being able to give consent for sex with an adult.  While this may be muddied by marriage laws in a couple of backwater states, by and large a child cannot consent to sex with an adult.  When that happens it is a crime called "rape."  
• Rape is rape, regardless of who the perpetrator is.  It does not become something socially acceptable if the scumbag perpetrator is a billionaire - or a tight political friend of a billionaire.
• When it comes to a person raping a child - or palling around with someone whom they describe as "liking them young," this angry typist has no "faves!"  Expose the vermin and let the chips fall where they may - hopefully with honest and courageous prosecutors bringing the cases to court and demanding justice for these abused children.

The abuse of children is never right, people - whether it's locking them up in filthy concentration camps in order to try and deter what some see as "illegal" immigration, or trafficking them from one rich and privileged pervert to another!

Something stinks in America - and it bears more than just a "close" watch.  It's time to spray for cockroaches, and if that takes down some rich people who never had to worry about laws before, so be it.  

No more "faves"- lock the bastards up!

Life Happened

by Pa Rock
Self-Absorbed Typist

I had stuff to write about today, an important porridge of provocation centering on . . . well, important national stuff, bad stuff.   I had a full head of steam and was ready to blast my rage onto this blog space - but then life happened.

I have been dealing with a refrigerator failure for a couple of days now, and when an appliance that important to health and well-being goes down - always in the heat of summer - it becomes a draining and life-changing experience.    The same problem happened a year ago, and the repairman that I was able to locate managed to fix it.  So when the current problem started, I had a relatively good idea of what was happening.

The repairman, of course, had gone out of business and disappeared in the interim, as small town service providers are prone to do.   The only other repairman that I was able to locate showed up twice during the day, with two different diagnoses - neither of which solved the problem, then announced that he was ordering a part, and would be back in two days.

This morning I went to a large appliance retailer here in town, discovered that he had only one refrigerator in stock - other than those on the floor - gave him a big wad of money and raced home to empty the old machine.  The new refrigerator has now been installed, and the old one has been moved to the garage where I will let the novice repairman experiment for awhile, and eventually, probably after I fix it, will become my backup refrigerator and freezer.

Today I have made several trips out to the compost pile to throw away what was recently good food, and I have moved things that had adorned my old refrigerator to the storage shed.   It is still shy of three in the afternoon, and I have already walked almost as many steps as I did up until bedtime yesterday.

Oh, and I also got the day started by going to the local hospital and getting strapped to a heart monitor which I have to keep on for twenty-four hours.

Jeffrey Epstein, you are on deck for tomorrow.  Don't expect me to be pleasant - or kind!

Monday's Poetry: "Firework Night"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

The U.S. Census sent around a sample questionnaire a couple of weeks ago in preparation for next year's real census, the one the Trump administration is still trying to shape to fit its political agenda.  Basically the "sample" census wanted to know about the people who were in residence at my home on the evening of July 1st.  After sending it out, the Census folks immediately began hassling me to get it turned in - well ahead of the July 1st date of interest.  That was not easy to do because sometimes the people residing at my place can vary due to a variety of circumstances.

The dog population, however, remains relatively constant.

Rosie, of course, is here whenever I am - it's her home.  And Riley, my son's very large - and old - Boston Terrier is also here most of the time.  This past week has been a tough one for the dogs, especially Riley who is deathly afraid of fireworks.  For the past seven days or so my sylvan idyll has been besieged by the nocturnal noise of firecrackers going off from around dusk until midnight or so. My quiet retreat in the woods sounded more like the ramparts getting rammed at Fort McHenry!  (Thanks, DT, for that fake imagery!)

And poor Riley has spent all of those nights hiding in the darkest corner of my bedroom, where he undoubtedly felt safest.

Today's poem, a simple verse penned by an animal lover in the early twentieth century, tells the story of "Bonfire Night"  (the actual night of the Fourth?) from a dog's perspective.  Apparently many of the helpless creatures were just as scared then as their descendants are now.

This one is for Riley and any other creatures who have been scared and stampeded by "civilization."   The numbskulls will soon have shot off all of their money and peace will once again prevail.  Stay strong, my canine and feline friends, better days are at hand!

Firework Night
by Enid Blyton

(By your dog and mine)

BANG!
What's that?
Bang-Bang!  Oh, Hark,
The guns are shooting in the dark!
Little guns and big ones too,
Bang-bang-bang!
What shall I do?
Mistress, Master, hear me yelp,
I'm out-of-doors, I want your help.
Let me in - oh, LET ME IN
Before those fireworks begin
To shoot again - I can't bear that;
My tail is down, my ears are flat,
I'm trembling here outside the door,
Oh, don't you love me anymore?
BANG!
I think I'll die with fright
Unless you let me in tonight
(Shall we let him in, children?)
Ah, now the door is opened wide,
I'm rushing through, I'm safe inside,
The lights are on, it's warm and grand - 
Mistress let me lick your hand
Before I slip behind the couch.  
There I'll hide myself and crouch
In safety till the BANGS are done - 
Then to my kennel I will run
And guard you safely all the night
Because you understood my fright.

Jason Smith and Nancy Pelosi: Keeping Change Tamped Down

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Jason Smith of Missouri's 8th, a rural, conservative, and basically white quarter of the state, is my congressman, though, as far as I can tell he seldom represents my views on anything.   Smith, a loud Trumpeteer, has really only made national news once in the several years he has been serving in his safe seat in Congress, and that was when he yelled at Democratic Representative Tony Cardenas on the  House Floor that he should "go back to Puerto Rico," and then scuttled into a group of his fellow Republicans and hid.  He later apologized to Cardenas for his adolescent behavior - and the Democrat, who was by far the better man, accepted the apology.

Jason Smith, who would like to be a person of consequence in Congress rather than just a noisy embarrassment to his party, recently managed to get himself elected into his party's leadership as the Secretary of the House Republican Conference.

Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic descendant of a powerful political family out of Baltimore, lives in the San Francisco area of California from which she also has a safe seat in Congress.  Pelosi has managed to parlay her political expertise into becoming the first female Speaker of the House, a position that she has now held twice in her long congressional career.

At first glance both Smith and Pelosi would not seem to have much in common.   Jason Smith is a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor - and Nancy Pelosi is a seventy-nine-year-old grandmother.   But, age and political differences aside, Smith and Pelosi seem to be in agreement on their abject fear of youthful exuberance and social change that appears poised to sweep across America.

Yesterday in his weekly email newsletter, Jason Smith went on a patriotic tirade against Nike over the company's decision to drop the controversial "Betsy Ross" flag emblem from some new shoes.  Smith was quick to blame the affront (to him, at least) on black athlete and Nike spokesman, Colin Kaepernick, a favorite bogeyman of less-educated white conservatives.   And while Jason Smith himself never served in our nation's military, he was most insistent on placing himself as close to America's veterans as possible in his Independence Day-themed newsletter.  Jason and America's vets are patriots, while Nike, and Kaepernick, and assorted Democrats still need to prove themselves.

(Did you hear the one about the famous Vietnam-era draft-dodger who held his own military parade this Fourth of July - on the public dime?)

But Jason Smith is not the only one in Congress who is concerned about rapid social changes in America.  Smith's fellow member, Nancy Pelosi, is discovering that swinging the Speaker's gavel is not as easy this time as it was the last time she ran the House.  Pelosi is finding herself constantly being dogged by young House members who are not nearly as reticent in giving their opinions as some of the senior members think they should be.

Yesterday in an interview with the New York Times Pelosi minimized the influence of four young female House members saying the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and three of her activist friends represent little more than a "squad" in the House.  She said they have their public "whatever" and Twitter accounts, but that their influence is limited to just four votes.  Ocasio-Cortez shot back that public "whatever" is actually public "sentiment," and she belittled the Speaker for trying to campaign and run the House like it was still 2008.

(Even Donald Trump understands the power of social media - but, of course, he is several years younger than Nancy - and far more urbane than Jason.)

We are on the cusp of a new world.  Some people can see that, while others would be more comfortable living in the older (and more predictable) world forever.  Change happens and those who can't roll with the changes are destined to be pushed aside as the ground shifts.

Buckle up, Buttercups.  Change is coming, and for some it's going to be a brutal ride!

Nap Time for Grandpa

by Pa Rock
Old Timer

My favorite cousin emailed this morning and reminded me that I haven't posted any recent medical updates.  The short response is that I am home, taking regular naps, and getting better.

I was released from the hospital a week ago yesterday after a two-night stay and have been home recuperating ever since.   I suspect that the doctors would have kept me there a third night, but after enjoying the facility and hospitality for two nights, there was no way I was staying for a third - and the medical staff seemed just as adamant in their desire to see me go!

I was tentatively diagnosed with a "tick-borne infection," and as of today the "tick panels" have not come back so that diagnosis remains unofficial.  Now I am supposed to call my doctor on Monday and hopefully get the actual results.

My regular doctor, who is a very bright individual, made the original diagnosis.  I saw him on Tuesday after doing another round of blood work, and he said my "numbers" are returning to where they should be.  He also told me that the Missouri Ozarks is the epicenter of tick bite diseases in the U.S., something that I did not know.

ADVICE for AVOIDING TICK BITES:  The doctor told me that anyone working outside in a tick area should wear long sleeves and long pants - preferably with boots.  Shirts should be tucked in, and the legs of the pants should be tucked into the boot tops.  Use tick spray, and the best practice is to spray the clothes before dressing rather than spraying the skin directly.   Then, after returning to the house, strip, throw the clothes in the washer, examine yourself, and hit the showers!

I had two physicians to deal with during the tick ordeal, my own regular doctor who made the initial diagnosis and booked me into the local hospital - and the "hospitalist" or hospital doctor who managed my care as an in-patient.  My own doctor walks on water, but the other did not know me or have a working knowledge of my health history - and he'd proceeded to change some of my heart and diabetes meds to meet the lower numbers that were brought on by the illness.  I had a regular session scheduled with my cardiologist for last Monday, and he made corrections to the new regimen, but I am still putting along with the new diabetes routine.  I will endeavor to set up an appointment with my endocrinologist within the next few days and get those meds readjusted as well.

The lesson here is that too many doctors can spoil the salsa.  Over the past five years I have slowly and carefully developed a team of doctors that stretch across much of the Ozarks.  They have me figured out - but when a new doctor enters the mix, confusion can ensue.

The basic treatment that I was on - after being re-hydrated in ICU, was a kick-ass antibiotic which I had to take for ten days.  It is the standard treatment for tick-borne diseases.  A necessary condition for taking that particular medicine is that you must remain out of the sun, so I have been an in-home wallflower.  Fortunately my son was able and willing to step-in and take over the mowing, and Amazon has some great old movies on Prime that have kept me entertained.

Last night I watched the 1984 version of Red Dawn, the good one, and was shocked to discover that Jennifer (Nobody puts Baby in a corner!) Grey played one of the two young female rebels opposite Patrick Swayze.  That was a full three years before she and Swayze set the nation's movie screens on fire with Dirty Dancing!

I also re-learned while watching Three Days of the Condor that Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway have some serious acting chops to back up their pretty faces.  And actor Jon Voight, while he may be a sad shill for Donald Trump today, was an amazingly good actor fifty years ago when he starred in Midnight Cowboy, the only X-rated film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture.  (Voight's talent and boyish charm aside, it was Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo who actually carried to film to its ultimate glory - but Jon Voight as the hustler, Joe Buck, was awfully good as well.). And as for that "X" rating, the same film probably would receive a PG or PG-13 today!

I finished the high-powered antibiotics yesterday, and will probably be back on the mower next week.  Today, however, I will likely watch the film version of Hair and have another nice nap!

I'm good - and getting better!