We're Not Communicating

" I think Putin is more of a uniter than Trump the divider is that he is ruling over the Russkies who are a very different people than the Americans."

I was being sarcastic.  What I meant was that Putin has succeeded in uniting people all over  the world against Russia.  Trump, on the other hand, has not succeeded in uniting the U.S. electorate against Trumpism.  He still has his cult following even after all the shit he has pulled since he lost the election.  

About that other thing:  What the Hippies and the January Sixers had in common is that they both gathered together in a mob and worked themselves up into a frenzy over their ideology.  This likely induced the illusion that they represented a solid majority of the general public.  When you're surrounded by thousands of people all screaming the same slogans, it tends to give you the impression that everybody is of the same mind.  The thing is, everybody is not participating, just a relatively few people compared to the country as a whole.  While it's true that the Vietnam War eventually became unpopular, that probably would have happened anyway.  Indeed, it might have happened sooner than it did if those protesters hadn't pissed so many people off by obstructing traffic and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves.

standing up to the man 3

 Youth are idealistic.  They have yet to make those morally compromising decisions that life calls for, their souls are yet to be besmirched, and they don't have much so they don't have much to lose and it feels so right to be on the straight and narrow and rising road.  

And it is as plain as the noses on their faces that there is plenty wrong with this world.  Plenty wrong with this world run by adults who have all the money and all the guns and seem just fine with this.  Are they blind?  Are they corrupt?  Well either way, something has to be done about it, the Youth will have to lead the world,  Wasn't there something in the credo of the children's crusade where the pure of heart have a power that evil cannot defeat?

And then there was the war, and wars are terrible things, all that blood and treasure disappear into the chasm.  Men are killed by their fellow men, guys who would have been swell pals if they had been born in the same country are killing each other.  And then, of course, they wanted us to do the fighting,

But what of the Trumpists then?  I am at a distinct disadvantage here because I don't know any Trumpists.  I have my improv group, and my watercolorists, and the gang at the Ten Cat, and my neighbors here in the condo, and not a Trumpist among them,  At any given moment one of us will make a crack about Trump and everybody will laugh.  Oh there is likely one or two who, like my friends living in red states, know it is easier to say nothing and get along, but I am not going to be able to talk to them,

And I am not talking about Trumpists so much as I am talking about the horde of January Sixth.  The one thing I think they had in common with the protesters of the sixties is that they thought they were doing the right thing.

But what first sticks out about them right away is how old they are.  Not many idealistic youth in that crowd, and the second thing is how many couples there were among them, so many wives and seemingly just as fervent as their hubbies.  And what a mish mash, all those Q anon patches and flags, all those militant military groups like the proud boys, and a lot of them just thrill-seeking tourists, "Oh look Martha, we can walk right into Nancy Pelosi's office, let's get a selfie of ourselves behind her desk for the grands, they will get such a kick out of that.

Well I don't know.  This is one of those things that I thought as I wrote about it things would become clear but they have not, so I don't know what to say.

I think Putin is more of a uniter than Trump the divider is that he is ruling over the Russkies who are a very different people than the Americans.

Putin the Uniter

We have discussed Switzerland's neutrality before.  I thought it was just a tradition, but according to this, it has been guaranteed by international treaty since 1815.  Now it seems that Putin is such a dick head that even the Swiss are turning against him.  Then there's Norway and Finland, two other mostly neutral countries that are now planning to join NATO because of the war in Ukraine.  One thing you can say about Putin, he sure knows how to unite people in a common cause.

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-war-raises-hard-questions-for-neutral-swiss/ar-AAX0hY5?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

I wonder why Trump, who openly admires Putin, seems to have the opposite effect on people.  If Putin is the Great Uniter, Trump is surely the Great Polarizer.  Although I had mixed feelings about Trump and his followers in the past, they crossed the line and went too far on January 6, 2021.  I plan on voting against them in the primary and will still vote for any non-Trumpist Republicans that are on the ballot in November, but what am I supposed to do about the Trumpists that are on the ballot.  I suppose it's safe to vote for the Libertarians because they will never win, but what this country really needs is a party for normal regular Americans like me.  

standing up to the man 2

 I don't intend to get into the usual political squabble with Beagles.

I agree that it is not all that useful to bandy around words like lefty and righty and communist because they mean different things to different people at different times.  What I think is interesting about the Trumpist and hippie protestors are their similarities in that they are both sticking it to The Man.

The Man was not so bad growing up in Gage Park in the fifties, he would maybe filch an apple from the immigrant's fruit wagon now and then, but you knew he'd keep the Beagle Boys out of the money vault.  The US was riding high, having defeated the nastiest characters to come along since the Huns.  Well they were actually called that back then.  The living was easy, everything was fine on tree-lined Homan Avenue and everybody fought to keep those impudent dandelions out of their well trimmed lawns.  The American flag was the most beautiful of all flags and our country was the apple of God's eye.

But when you rode the bus downtown somewhere between Western and Ashland things changed.  Suddenly there were colored people, which is what we called them when we were being nice about it, who well, looked kind of shabby, and their neighborhood also.  We were told by our parents that these had once been perfectly nice neighborhoods like on Homan Avenue, but then they had moved in and they were bad people who ruined neighborhoods and watch out because they were moving steadily west towards Homan Avenue.

And you know that just didn't sound right, there was something wrong here.  But if you listened to the guys on the radio and the tv, there was nothing wrong with America and anybody who said anything otherwise, there was something wrong with that person.  

See that's the thing.  If the guys on the radio and the tv had said something like America is a pretty good place but it has its flaws and we should work to change them, maybe things would have been different in the sixties.  Maybe not, that is just speculation, just my personal impression.

My intention is to compare the my people of the sixties with the Trumpists of today, and I have not gotten very far, but it is getting late and the newspaper is waiting outside my door and my cat is looking for her morning lap, so I am going to give it a rest until Monday when the forecasters all agree summer will be here at last, no really.

A Fine Topic

 "My impression is that the dawgs are not fond of this sort of thing, and I have been avoiding it so as not to discourage them from posting."

Au Contraire mon ami, I think this is a fine topic for discussion.  I have not been posting lately because I have run out if things to write about that haven't already been beaten into the ground.  This is just what we need, some fresh fodder for our cannons.

"The next item on my dope insights list has to do with the protestors of the sixties (because we were young and we thought what we were doing what's right) and the mob of January 6 (they thought what they were doing was right, but they weren't young).  What is the difference, what is going on here?"

My knee jerk response is that the Hippies were left wing nuts while the January Sixers were right wing nuts, but I'm not sure those labels apply anymore.  Back in the day, it was generally understood that the lefties were pro-communist while the righties were anti-communist.  Now it seems that they have both switched sides, with the lefties supporting the Ukrainians and the righties leaning towards Russia.  This wouldn't be the first time in history that has happened.  Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, called himself a "progressive" you know.  Then there was William Jennings Bryan, who was central to the Progressive Party that was subsequently assimilated by the Democrats.  Abe Lincoln was a Republican who opposed slavery, while the Democrats defended it.  Now it's the Democrats who favor the colored people while the Republicans tend to distance themselves from their causes.  

Myself, I feel like a man without a party anymore.  The Republicans are mostly Trumpists and the Democrats still want to raise my taxes and take away my guns.  The Libertarians don't want to do that, but they seem intent on turning the country over to queers and colored people just like the Democrats.  Michigan's primary isn't till August, but a number of statewide candidates are nominated by party convention instead of the primary election.  The Republican choice for Attorney General is a Trumpist, while the Democratic incumbent is queer as a three-dollar bill.  What kind of a choice is that?

Meanwhile, I haven't just been killing time during my posting hiatus.  Among other things, I have learned the Ukrainian Battle Cry:  "Idit ebat sebe!"  The Google Translator not only translated and transliterated it for me but taught me how to pronounce it as well.  This goes to show that you are never too old to learn something new and useful.

standing up to the man 1

 Saturday night I was watching The Magnificent Ambersons.  Pretty good the first time through, and then, as is my habit, I smoked some dope and watched it again.  I always enjoy the second time around more than the first because I notice all these things going on that I hadn't picked up on earlier.  And the dope puts me into more of a speculative mood and what I call dope insights occur.

Sometimes they seem so important that I pause the movie and write them down  I wrote down a dozen things Saturday night, and here is one: Americans' independent feelings.

I remember the scene well. George, the spoiled scion of a wealthy family, now down at the heels, is driving his lady love down Main Street in a horse drawn carriage, asking her to marry him, but she is demurring.  The problem is that George has no job and no plans on getting one.  

There was an earlier scene when they first met, and she was questioning him about his plans for the future and he tells her, quite seriously, that he is thinking about becoming a yachtsman.  It wasn't so disturbing then because his family was not so down at its heels then.

Anyway she is telling George about how Father, a pioneer in the field of automobiles, thinks George should be doing something.  Like what, he scoffs, become a lawyer or a businessman and dirty his hands with commerce?  And here he is getting on his high horse, your father, he tells his lady love, is trying to tell him how to live his life, and he wouldn't let any man tell him that.

And there it was.  This is how the founding fathers felt about King George, the way Dan'l Boone felt about those city fathers telling him he couldn't shoot squirrels from his front porch. The way Uncle Ken, with that fat state job, running afoul of office politics, told those stuffy bureaucrats to take that job and shove it.  

See, that's the thing.  It's not so much that we did the smart thing by going to war with the British, taking the path in the wilderness, not letting the door hit us on the butt on the way out of the office, but we were doing the right thing.  The morally correct thing, we were standing up to The Man.

The next item on my dope insights list has to do with the protestors of the sixties (because we were young and we thought what we were doing what's right) and the mob of January 6 (they thought what they were doing was right, but they weren't young).  What is the difference, what is going on here?

Well I don't know.  My intention is just to amble on because maybe I will come across something (maybe not).  My impression is that the dawgs are not fond of this sort of thing and I have been avoiding it so as not to discourage them from posting.  But clearly that is not working and the stage is empty so I am using it now. 

eating

 Well you know, Old Dog, it says on the box, right on the goldern Jiffy box itself, is that if you want to make cornbread instead of muffins you:

Prepare as directed for Corn Muffins except pour batter into a greased 8" square pan.  Bake 15-20 minutes.

So you see it's all the same dadgum thing  The only difference is what you put the gunk into.  

Not that I expect a gentleman scientist turned mad gourmet chef to give any credit to what is written on a Jiffy box, I expect his scoff at the thought of making something from a premixed box has echoed throughout The Chateau and possibly to the ears of those on the sidewalk.  For myself adding eggs, and milk, and melted butter, and things like corn from the can and chopped jalapenos and sun dried tomatoes and melted cheddar cheese and black olives is trouble enough without grinding corn for which I don't even have one of those mortar and pestle things, and I worry enough about burning my fingertips in that electric oven, that I am not going to risk cast iron.

Those breakfast platters of Old Dog's are very attractive and I am sure that they are plenty tasty, but they just look like so much work, which I know it is not work if you do what you love, but I do not love all that messing around.

In the winter I buy some vegetables at the Jewel, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, string beans, asparagus, zucchini, turnips, and I take them home and chop them up.  I fill one of those disposable microwave containers with half of one vegetable and half of another, add some garlic, soy sauce, black pepper, and butter and zap it.

In the summer I chop up a couple bell peppers and zap them with a can of Jewel brand fire roasted salsa style tomatoes with jalapenos, then add a big can of kidney beans in hot chili sauce and a smaller can of corn or garbanzos.  

And I eat that every day, well Monday through Thursday, the same damn thing.

I have been eating like this for maybe twenty years and I have never gotten tired of it.  I look forward to it with relish, pulling it out of the microwave as its heady aroma turns my head and when I scoop up the last little chunk of turnip, I am saddened that I will have to wait almost twenty-four hours before I can once again set the dainty dish before myself.

It was nice reading about how Old Dog prepares his own dainty dishes, and the photos are nice, but I lack the zeal.  I yam what I yam.  And I yam not a fan of yams either, don't know the difference between them and sweet potatoes and don't care because I don't like sweet potatoes either.