Sunday, May 31, 2020

Masks Are So Hot Right Now

So I read in HuffPost that Fox News’ Brit Hume attempted to shame Joe Biden for wearing a mask on Memorial Day. Apparently, according to Mr. Hume, Biden looked silly in a mask. And, you know, all the cool kids refuse to wear ‘em. Particularly when they’re out smoking behind the gym.

The word I think I’m looking for is “idiotic.” Of course, no one looks cool wearing a mask. Well, exceptions made for Batman and the Lone Ranger. but you get my point. A mask is reasoned, rational, choice with which you try to protect your health as best you can. It is not a God Damn fashion statement. Period.

But my point is that I worry about the American people, and particularly Americans who support Donald Trump and bash mask wearers and claim that Covid-19 is hoax and all the rest of it. They are endangering themselves, and everyone else...



What the GOP has become...

And they are doing so using most adolescent language possible. They sound and act like the bullies and Big Men/Women On Campus I knew in Junior High. And, like the bullies I knew in Junior High, their behavior (like smoking, “up with your rules”) may serve them well in the short run, but quite possibly kill them in the long.

In other words...

Dear God, what happened to Americans? When did we abandon all signs of maturity and adulthood?





Source: Fox News' Brit Hume Face-Mask Shames Joe Biden; Twitter Goes Bonkers by Mary Papenfuss, https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/brit-hume-joe-biden-trump-face-mask-shaming-032451198.html


***



About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Anti-Mask Men With Small Peenies

I find it fascinating that not wearing a mask in the midst of the current pandemic has, somehow, become a means of demonstrating just how big your penis is. I mean, how tough you are. I see postings on Facebook and elsewhere reading, “I refuse to wear a mask because I refuse to live in fear.”

And, already, we’ve seen people take the next logical step from there. That is, to say that wearing a mask must be a sign of weakness and cowardliness. And, of course, weaklings are made to b e bullied. That is the Will Of God...as interpreted by the church of the Deplorable...

Thus, the anti-mask movement has revealed its true colors with remarkable speed. It is no longer about the freedom to go without a mask. It is now about the suppression of my right to protect my health as I see fit.

Or, to put it another way, the anti-mask movement was never about liberty. It was, and is, about being a bully.

Nothing more. And nothing less.







***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Friday, May 29, 2020

I Couldn’t Give Blood

Funny what seems important in the midst of a crisis.

I had kind of a bummer of a morning this a.m. Nothing serious. Just a mild downer.

What happened is that I couldn’t give blood, or, more precisely, platelets. I originally got started doing this because I may have had Covid-19 back in February. If so, I’d like to donate blood to the various programs that are experimenting with “convalescent plasma therapy.” That’s where doctors take plasma from someone who has already recovered from a disease and inject it into people who are still sick from it. The antibodies in the donated plasma then fight the disease -- in this case Covid.

I would like to do that, but the antibody tests are just not available yet, and the way we’re going, may never be.

Still, my local blood bank, WeAreBlood.org, suggested instead that I donate platelets. These are the components in the blood that help with clotting, and it turns out there’s always a need for that sort of donation, and it also turns out that my blood type, AB+, is uniquely valuable for platelets.

So, last month I started donating them. Truth be told, it isn’t particularly fun. It doesn’t hurt much. But it does take a long time--about two to three hours. And afterwards, I feel lightheaded and a little ill. In fact, between the process itself, and my state of mind afterwards, I basically lose an entire day.

Still, this morning, off I went. Martha drove me down. I checked in at 10:30 am. Then, next thing I knew, I was on the bed and they had the needle in my arm. A machine next to me whirred into life and everything was in process.



But, about fifteen minutes into things, we discovered that the needle had gone in “at an angle.” This meant the blood couldn’t be returned to my arm after the platelets had been extracted. Which meant that the whole process had to come to a complete halt. No donation that day. And I can’t do it again for another eight weeks.

I was startled by how depressed I was about it all. I had gotten myself geared up for the adventure, only to have it end in frustrating failure. I had all the negative aspects of the experience -- the wasted day, the vague feeling of lightheadedness -- with none of the satisfaction of knowing that maybe, just maybe, what I had done would be of use to someone. That is, I didn’t even have the hope that my platelets went to a patient who really, really needed them.

Though, I suppose there is a larger issue behind all of this, something I don’t necessarily think about consciously, but which is present just the same. Like most of us, I feel horribly helpless in the midst of all the bad news...the pandemic, the politics, armed protestors in Michigan and elsewhere, authorities who do not seem remotely competent, the fact that as of this date (I write this on 22, May, 2020) the United States has seen over 94,000 deaths from Covid-19...the fact that Trump doesn’t seem a damn about that...

And, well...everything...

Giving blood, or, rather, platelets was one small way for me to be of some service.

It is unpleasant to have that taken away, even if only for a time...


***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Just a reminder...DON'T LET THEM STOP YOU FROM VOTING

Seriously, don't let do it. Here's a reminder for next November from everyone's favorite activist Star Trek crew member:


Wednesday, May 27, 2020

A Ku Klux Rally In The Rose Garden

I saw an interesting piece in the Washington Post the other day, “Trump’s attempts to smear Obama could backfire spectacularly,” by Eugene Robinson. In it, Mr. Robinson argues that Trump’s current (and slightly unhinged) personal attacks on Barack Obama may not be the wisest course he would follow. He says that 45’s smear campaign might actually so infuriate Africa-Americans that they’ll be more likely to vote in November, and to vote for Democratic candidates.

I sure hope he’s right. The Democratic Party could really use the support.

But, part of me worries a bit. Trump has already done so much to alienate African-American voters. I mean, let’s face it, he’s done everything short of wearing a full Ku Klux outfit at the State of the Union address. So, like, what else can he do to piss them off even more?

Still, maybe I’m just underestimating him.

After all, he’s already proved that if any man can turn a fiasco into a debacle into an outright disaster...

Tis he...





***



About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Better late than never...

You do have to give him credit for changing his mind. Just wish he'd realized the truth a little earlier.

From HuffPost: Former Coronavirus Skeptic Warns Others To Take Pandemic Seriously After Infection by Josephine Harvey




About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Monday, May 25, 2020

Memorial: 100 thousand

If you haven’t already seen it, do visit this interactive piece on the New York Times’ webpage, “An Incalculable Loss.” It attempts to recall, however distantly, the nearly 100,000 Americans who have lost their lives to Covid-19 so far.

It is behind a soft wall, but you can see it for free simply by signing up.

But, on this memorial day, let us take it as an opportunity to genuinely remember...both those lost in military service, and in this new war of disease and pandemic.









***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Just how awful are things going to get?

The question that I keep asking myself is probably the same one you’re asking yourself, to wit, Just how awful are things going to get? Will we experience civil war or social collapse?

I’m hoping that we will pull it out of the nose dive sooner rather than later. I’m hoping that Trump will exit the White House with something like grace and with nothing like violence in 2020. I’m hoping, too, that America’s Power Elite -- i.e., the rich and powerful who have been so eager to drown government in the bathtub -- will wake up to the fact that they just can’t keep doing that without taking us all down the drain in the process.

And, in fact, there have been at least two periods in recent American history where the Rich and Powerful have done just exactly that. After the 1929 crash, particularly in light of the recent Communist revolution in Russia, America’s wealthy realized that if they continued to monopolize the nation’s resources without giving something back to the working and middle classes, they faced the real possibility of revolution themselves. So, they did, albeit grudgingly, and the result was things like the New Deal.

The second time came, again, after a world war, that is, in the 1950s and 1960s when, again, social unrest and an increasingly dangerous Communist threat convinced our Superiors that maybe it was better to compromise with unions and the middle classes than it was to endure riots in the street. So, we had the Great Society and the stirrings of the welfare state.

The problem was that then the Soviet Union collapsed and China became a capitalist state in everything but name. (I’ve heard the regime referred to as “Merchant Leninist,” Libertarian in economics, totalitarian in politics.) Suddenly, it didn’t seem so necessary to compromise with the middle or lower classes, particularly since globalization meant that you could effectively export your labor costs over seas. 






Okay, so, now we’re in a situation where our elites have very little reason to compromise with us or anyone. And, by George, we find ourselves in a real crisis, with plagues and foreign threats at every hand, but with a government that was designed to be ineffectual (“drown in a bathtub,” remember?) and so which cannot manage an effecive response.

What happens next will depend largely on the intelligence or lack there-of demonstrated by our elites. If they realize that they have to head back to the 1950s and even (gasp) take a pay cut, then there is a chance we’ll get out of this all right.

But if they refuse to mitigate their demands, if they continue to arm their deplorables and send them out to shut down state governments and intimidate their critics, if they refuse to do what the rest of us learned in nursery school and, you know, share...

Well then...

I don’t see how we are going to escape some very, very serious pain, indeed.



***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Donne's The Good-Morrow

Again, because we can't have politics all the time..

Here's my reading of John Donne's The Good Morrow. It's on Soundcloud. See what you think.

(Oh, and this will be on my other blog as well.)

cheers
mjt











***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Friday, May 22, 2020

All these Covid-19 deaths were unnecessary...

Powerful piece in the Rolling Stone,  Whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright Testifies That a Medical Supplier Warned: ‘We’re in Deep Shit’ by Peter Wade. If only Trump and his administration had acted in time, and if the GOP-controlled Congress hadn't defunded so many public heath care efforts, a lot of people would be alive today.

Maybe the most depressing section in the text, "Notably, Bright quoted medical supplier Mike Bowen, who sent Bright an email in January that talked about the 'completely decimated' supply of N95 respirators to protect health-care workers, adding that the government refused to ramp up production: 'We are in deep shit, the world is,' Bowen, a co-owner of mask manufacturer Prestige Ameritech, warned."





About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

For Heaven’s Sakes, Let Him...

So I heard yesterday that “Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Monday that President Trump should not be taking hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug the president has touted as a treatment for COVID-19, given his age and because he is ‘morbidly obese.’” (CBS News).

She is, of course, absolutely right. If Trump really is taking hydroxychloroquine, then neither he nor anyone else knows what it will do to him.

But, come..

Ms. Pelosi, he’s a big boy. If Trump wants to scarf down unproven medications which may have seriously deleterious side-effects and turn him puce-green with red polkadots and maybe give him projectile diarrhea in the middle of a press conference...

By Golly...

Let him.




***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

The Karl [Rove] Klux Klan

Attention Republican Party, aren’t you ashamed yet? Is it still possible for you to feel shame? Particularly over a little issue like, say, race-baiting?

Right-wing operative and pundit Karl Rove just said on Fox news that Barack Obama, one of the most cultivated men to be in the Oval Office for decades, committed a political drive-by shooting when he critiqued Trump.

Oh, for God’s sake.

Of course you don’t have to be an expert semiotician to figure out the subtext. Obama = Black. Black = Ghetto. Ghetto = Violence and Drugs. Therefore, Obama = N-word, and voting for Democrats = voting for N-words, drugs, and violence.

This, mind you, comes after Mitch McConnell said that Obama was “classless.” And, face it, that’s saying exactly the same thing.

So, Republican Party...

Have you really come to this? Have you really sunk so low? Have you really become the modern analog of the Ku Klux Klan? Have you really no other wiser, more important issues on which to run? Nothing more important to say?

If so, then you should be ashamed...both for your appeal to the most debased emotions possible...and, also, for your total intellectual bankruptcy.

You have nothing to offer. Other than the hate of the vulgar many for the virtuous few.







***



About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Monday, May 18, 2020

He’s Taking What?

I don’t ever post twice in a day. But...I’m going to make an exception.

I have just learned that 45 is taking hydroxychloroquine, whose usefulness in treating Covid-19 remains entirely unproven. He’s backing that up with zinc.

Okay...

Now, if he’s telling the truth (which he may not be. I’ve seen several people express their doubts on the subject), that’s pretty scary. It means that the commander-in-chief is scarfing down a drug whose exact effects remain uncertain to say the least. But, then, maybe after Adderall...

But, the other thing which frightens me is what this means for his followers. Remember, these are people who are already taking bleach. Now, when they learn their hero is swallowing hydroxychloroquine on a daily basis...

Yikes.




***


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mark of the Beast? Whoa...dude...

So here's a terrifying article in Yahoo news, "Some evangelicals fear the 'mark of the beast' from a coronavirus vaccine" by Caitlin Dickson. You read that right. Some Christian fundamentalists are going to refuse a Covid-19 vaccine, if one ever comes along, because they fear it is part of a demonic plot.

In a word, whoa.

Here's the reality. Thinking like that will get you killed...just like any other form of anti-vaxx ideology. 

And, frankly, I have a hard time believing that's what a benvolent God would want.





About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Race Mixing and Social Distancting and Communism (oh my)

I'm just old enough to remember signs like the one in the black and white photo in the composite below. I didn't understand it then or now, but I do recall it. 

Now, the second one, the one in color...the "social distancing is communism"one...

In a word, huh?





Same scare tactics, different morons. #AnyDemocrat #BetterThanTrump #FallInLine #STFU #GoJoe #ScumbagTrump #ImpeachCorruptTrumpAgain #CriminalPresident #TrumpResign •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• dem·a·gogue noun
a political leader who gains popularity in a democracy by exploiting prejudice and ignorance to arouse the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. “Trump is a demagogue who is truly the enemy of the people and is destroying America from within.” •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 🇺🇸@trumpeached 🇺🇸 #TrumpPeached #TrumpTrash #TrumpMeMeMe #LaziestPresidentEver #EnemyOfThePeople #TraitorTrump #AmericanDisgrace #RepublicanCancer #GreatestFraudEver #HateMonger #MostCorruptPresidentEver #WorstPresidentEver #Trump #YOULIE #LockHimUp #NotMyPresident🖕 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Repost @nofascism
A post shared by I Have The Greatest Followers! (@trumpeached) on






***
Please check out my new book, Padre, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father. https://www.amazon.com/Padre-Island-Michael-Jay-Tucker/dp/1792646909

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Vote, damn it, or face the end

Like you, like everyone, I am increasingly concerned about where we are headed as a society and a nation. Let’s consider the situation, shall we? We are in the middle of a pandemic, we are on the verge of a serious recession if not an outright depression, we have a president who is irresponsible and ineffective (except in so far as he can wreck the accomplishments of others), we have millions of deplorables who are heavily armed and eager to use their weapons on someone...and, oh, yes, we have enemies both foreign and domestic who are eager to flood the air waves and internet with rumors, falsehoods, and slanders. 

I fear that unless we are very lucky, it is all too likely that we will have serious civil unrest on our hands in the all too near future.



The Future With Trump

The question is what do we do about it? The only thing I can think of is for us all to vote Trump out of the White House...and then stand ready to defend the results of that election from a GOP which looks increasingly like a criminal or fascistic organization, and from Trump supporters who may go into the streets caressing their beloved automatic weapons.

Which means...

That right now the very worst thing any of us can do...the worst!...is to decide not to vote for Biden. If any of us says we “just can’t support him” because a “lesser evil is still an evil,” or because he isn’t Bernie, or because those sexual harassment claims are almost certainly false but “you just can’t be too sure...” or a hundred other reasons, then we actively support Trump’s return to the White House.

And the results of that...

Are too horrible to consider.




***



About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Friday, May 15, 2020

“Plandemic"

By this time, you’ll have already heard of the whole “Plandemic” scandal. But, on the off chance that you haven’t, here’s a story on it that ran a while back in The Daily Beast, and which I first found on Yahoo News, “Discredited Doctor and Sham ‘Science’ Are the Stars of Viral Coronavirus Documentary ‘Plandemic’,” by Will Sommer.

Basically, the tale is as follows. The “New-Age producer Mikki Willis” did a video, Plandemic, in which “controversial scientist Dr. Judy Mikovits, a close associate of anti-vaccine activists, weaves an elaborate tale alleging a government conspiracy to create the coronavirus, with Anthony Fauci as a kind of murderous puppetmaster behind it all. Along the way, she claims that masks ‘activate’ the virus, and that she was imprisoned as part of a cover-up.”

The video was posted on Youtube and Facebook. Fairly quickly, those two worthy companies pulled the thing for being a threat to life and limb,  but not before it had been seen by millions of viewers and embraced by anti-vaxxers, anti-quarantine activists, deplorables of every sort, and fringe figures. That wouldn’t be a problem, particularly, if it weren’t for the fact that the video and those people who endorsed it will influence many, many innocent men and women who are simply confused or frightened, and who will now fail to take the precautions necessary to protect themselves.

Meaning that some of those people, and some of the individuals with whom they come into contact, will die.

Which means, in turn, that you could argue that Ms. Mikki Willis and Dr. Judy Mikovits, along with Donald Trump, will be responsible for those deaths.

Thus, we encounter an interesting question: to wit, where does free speech end and Negligent Homicide begin?

I do not know. I cannot say. But this much I will hazard...

We are, here, far too close to murder to be at peace.







About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

And Another Book (plus kooky stuff)

Okay, I’ve published another little book, but this one is very short. It is just three essays collected under the title Mr. Madison’s Militias (Plus Two) and it is only available as an e-book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088GMMWB7

Why so short? Well, a couple of reasons. I had three essays laying about that I had been thinking of submitting about to various small political publications, including maybe my old haunt of LiberalResistance.net, but I figured they were a little long for op-ed pages and a little short for full fledged magazines. So, I decided to gather ‘em up and send them out into the world as a wee booklet.

Besides...and here comes the kooky part...I have gotten interested in doing some audiobooks. If everything goes all right, I’ll read Militias and offer it as my first audiobook. If it doesn’t go all right (and I’m learning that the technical aspects of reading and recording for books are a bit daunting), then I won’t.

Anyway, stay tuned. I will let you know what happens when it happens.

And, once more, here’s the link to the e-book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088GMMWB7

cheers
mjt








About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Camus, Again

I’ve already posted this, but thought I’d do so again. There are two reasons for that. First, because I’ve just discovered how to embed Soundcloud postings to my blog (which looks a lot cooler than just having a link in blue). And, second, because I fear we still need to be reminded of this excerpt from Camus’ book, The Plague. Even as I write this, states are opening, people are removing their masks, and the Orange One in the White House is encouraging disregard of the most common sense precautions.

I understand the motivations to open the economy, even in the midst of a pandemic, but I do not understand the eagerness to do so stupidly.

But, then, as Camus puts it, stupidity often gets its way...even at the cost of the death of the innocent and pure.

Anyway, here am I doing a bit of (depressing) reading aloud. If you find it too much a downer, check out my readings of love poetry afterwards.







About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

I’m A Bookie (again)

Okay, the title of this piece was a stupid joke,  but somebody had to tell it.

I am, once again, starting to gather up some of my essays and putting them out into the world as books. Right at the moment, I’m focusing on pieces I did for Liberal Resistance dot Net, the little online political publication that I helped edit between the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2020.

I’ve just collected most (not all, but most) of the pieces I did for 2017 and put them into book form. The title is We Don't Want To Be Like That: Essays From LiberalResistance.net (2017) and it’s published by Belfort & Bastion. You can see the hardcopy version here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0889YZ1RK

Or, if you prefer, here’s the e-book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088DJH6QB

And stay tuned folks. Lots more to come.

mjt

PS -- LiberalResistance(dot)net is still very much in operation, btw. I even write for it now and then. I just don’t edit it any more.

But, when you get a moment, give it a glance. It is here: https://usaunify.org/liberalresistance/






Friday, May 08, 2020

They are not well

Yesterday, I wrote about  Ohio Governor Mike DeWine who basically told a bunch of anti-quarantine yahoos to stop acting like thugs and bullies and to behave themselves. (Three cheers, Gov. DeWine!)

But you’ll recall that along with the story, I posted a video of a protesting woman who was basically abusing a local reporter. I looked at that video again, and I thought that we really all ought to give it a careful glance. Watch it now...or at least as much of it as you can before the cringe gets you.

Listen to her. Watch her eyes and her expression. This is not a person you would care to meet in a dark alley....or anywhere else, for that matter. This is someone who could be a real problem.

Think about her, then, when it comes time to vote. Remember, you may or may not vote...it’s your choice...but she most certainly will.

Do you really want people like her running the planet for four more years?







~~~


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Thursday, May 07, 2020

Oh, look, an honorable man

Did you see the other day that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (a Republican, btw), basically told anti-quarantine protestors that they needed to grow up and stop acting like bullies, and, oh, if they insisted on being obnoxious Yobs then they should pick on someone their own size...specifically, himself? And if the were looking for a good rap in the proboscis...he’d be happy to provide it.

The story is that in a couple of recent rallies the Covid-Is-Hoax bunch have been going after state employees and news reporters, and being pretty damn aggressive about it. (There’s a video of a woman being a perfect...well, you know...rhymes with rich...which you can see here: https://youtu.be/R-vY1MSg8vo.)

So, finally, enough was enough, and DeWine...a man I normally don’t have a lot of warm feelings for...spoke up. You want a beef, he said? Bring it to me. These other people...the state employees, the reporters...are not responsible for the Shelter-in-place measures. He is. So come on, he said. I’m here. Take your best shot.

This is amazing. And DeWine is clearly a man of honor and courage.

Unlike, say, the more rabid of the protestors, who seem to be a little out of their minds.

And the Orange Man in the White House...

Who has no conception of honor, or courage....

At all.






About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

They will try to kill us

Yesterday I wrote about the armed anti-quarantine protestors who showed up at the Kentucky and Michigan Capitol Buildings with the clear intention of bullying their duly elected officials. I argued that they were truly dangerous people who, deep down, just want to kill someone.

The more we learn about these people, the more I believe that. We learn, for instance, that not only are they connected to right-wing organizations, like Betsy DeVos’ people, but, indeed, to fringe groups--armed militias, white separatists, even Neo-Nazis, as evidenced by the Swastika flags on display at the protests.

And, frankly, it is clear that they brought their firearms to these anti-quarantine protests not just to show that they have a right to carry them (though how guns rights got mixed up with a virus I don’t understand), but to demonstrate to lawmakers that they will use them. Their intent, in other words, was to threaten legislators -- and anyone -- who dared to disagree with them.

The next logical step is for them to actually use those weapons, to start killing people...to move to political violence...and to wage war upon the body politic.

And given their connections...their links upwards to the White House...

Who could say where that would end?


Source: Anti-Lockdown Rallies Are Providing an Opening for the Proud Boys and Other Far-Right Extremists (https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/04/27/anti-lockdown-rallies-are-providing-opening-proud-boys-and-other-far-right-extremists)




political violence

~~~



About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tuesday, May 05, 2020

Are They Dangerous? Yes.

I am increasingly concerned by the people who are protesting the quarantine. They are, well, troubling...not because I disagree with their position (which I do) but because of the fury with which they state it.

Twice now, first in Kentucky and now Michigan, anti-quarantine protesters have entered their states’ capitols with their guns in tow. Once there, they were confrontational to the say the least.

Take a look at the images below, which come from Mr. Dan Zak’s Facebook page. Look at them closely, particularly the one of the man yelling at the policeman. Look at the hatred and rage in that face.

It has always been clear, of course, that there is a great deal more going on here than just objections to the shelter-in-place policy. The fact that the protests are being funded and organized at least partly by far right wing organizations, and that the protestors have somehow conflated their opposition to shelter-in-place policies with the Second Amendment (as though a virus cares about the Constitution, or anything, for that matter, beyond infecting cells), and that the demonstrations have taken on an anti-media and anti-foreigner tinge (“Go To China!”) show that a variety of dissatisfactions are being aired here.

But, that said, I can’t look at these faces and not think that at least some of these people seem to really, and truly want to kill somebody. And that’s all.  They just want to kill somebody. And they just want someone to give them a reason to do it.  


And that’s scary.

Monday, May 04, 2020

"Walks In Beauty"

So here's another of my experiments with audio, this time a wee bit less depressing than the excerpt from Camus' The Plague (whoa.)

Here is my attempt at reading Lord Byron's "She Walks In Beauty."

I figure in this day and age, with Trump in the White House and disease in the body politic, we need all the cheery love poetry we can get.







~~~

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.