Author: tallthinman72

Unfiltered Decay

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What more can be said regarding Trump’s tone deafness in the aftermath of the loss of the Reiners?

There’s no way, anymore, to access words that sufficiently address the depravity and immaturity. It’s all been said. The burden going forward will fall to the sane among us who must create new vocabulary that captures the essence of a 79-year-old 10th-grader who thinks he can say and do whatever he wants because he’s POTUS.

He apparently has never gotten the memo about the list of things that should remain unsaid– or un-done– because he’s POTUS.

What should bother us all is that there is no one close to him who has the courage to correct him, or stop him, or report him to the authorities as a danger to himself and others. It’s been an endless flow of sewage since 2015, and people in positions of being able to do something about this should be way past tired of putting up with it. The rest of us can signal our dissatisfaction in the voting booth, but that’s not happening soon enough.

One more thing… did anyone else read that screed/tweet from Trump re the Reiners and wonder if it didn’t sound more like Stephen Miller?

A Modicum of Ambition

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Daily writing prompt
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
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Pretty much, I guess. I’ve never been one for making long range plans, especially anymore. The only thing approaching goals or plans that I might have had a year ago would have been to stay ahead of the bills, and stay healthy enough to be useful around the house, enjoy the grandchildren, and tackle a couple of woodworking projects.

Some Things

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Daily writing prompt
What skills or lessons have you learned recently?
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I recently introduced myself to the new combination belt/spindle sander I had bought a while back. It’s a very useful tool, and I intend to utilize it as often as called for, especially now that I know how it works.

As far as lessons learned, one can never arrive at a place where they feel as though there’s nothing more to learn, especially when it comes to human relationships.

Ambience

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It’s good to live in a place where people are trying to sustain a certain vibrancy and connectedness. Last night, we walked around the center of town, which was a few blocks filled with street vendors and warming stations and Christmas music. It was a way for folks to feel welcomed and involved, something to enjoy, take part in.

With a light snow falling, the atmosphere felt like something out of a Currier and Ives Christmas card, or maybe a Hallmark movie. It gave a whole new feel to a part of town that normally is busy with traffic passing through and people tending to business.

The traffic was still passing through, more slowly, but the surprisingly good crowd of people didn’t exactly seem to be in a hurry, or pre-occupied with taking care of errands or avoiding the snowflakes. For the lack of better words, it was something different and nice. And the wintry conditions didn’t seem to be bothering anyone.

A Sensory Memory

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Daily writing prompt
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
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Of the three choices named in the prompt, the one I remember best is my first day of first grade. My first day of work was when I was maybe 16, working on a farm, but I don’t remember much else about what I did that first day. My first day as a parent was, of course, a day like no other, and the significance of that moment when our first child was born wouldn’t really settle in until sometime later.

My first day of school, on the other hand, sticks in my head as a sunny morning in early September, 1960. I remember waiting for the bus at the bottom of our dirt driveway, on the opposite side of the street, near a power pole and a banking, beyond which spread nothing but woods, since it was still years before the housing development would appear. My Mom was with me, though I can’t remember if any of my brothers or sisters were there, too. Dad was already off to work. I was the oldest, so this was the beginning of a next chapter that I got to kick off.

I remember the old Dodge bus rounding the bend and slowing down. The door opened and I got my first glimpse of Mr. Lemanski, a weathered, older gentleman with a gruff exterior but a good heart, who smoked cigars (this was 1960…) and gave me the impression he was always a bit put out by something.

I don’t remember my first day in the classroom, just bits and pieces along the way. But I’ll never forget that first day waiting for the bus. That has stayed with me, for some reason.

Makes You Seeth

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It’s the visual, and the shit-eating grins. Trump sits, fully awake and beaming ear to ear while he holds up the latest Executive Order proclaiming the destruction of endangered habitat or the removal of all safeguards at a plant that makes razor blades, while a gaggle of Cabinet members and Congresspeople gaze adoringly and try to refrain from backslapping and lighting victory cigars.

It’s the incongruity, the dissonance, because we know it won’t be long until the next gathering of minions, standing around the Commander-in-Beef as he holds up an order declaring 24 hours of celebration and flag-waving revelry in honor of the most recent derailment and explosion of tank cars full of mustard gas in a small town in upstate New York.

I Suppose So

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Daily writing prompt
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
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I was Bob Cratchit in a middle school performance of A Christmas Carol, but never got to deliver all of my lines because a couple pages of dialogue somehow got skipped. It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

I was a pastor for 26 years, so most Sundays, Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve, Lenten mid-weeks, Holy Week, and at weddings and funerals I stood before groups of people and offered words that hopefully fit the occasion. They weren’t speeches, in the typical sense, but to a skeptic or a neutral observer they may have seemed that way.

National Embarrassment

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I can’t shake the thought that this military build-up near Venezuela is just the latest attempt at distraction from everything going on at home for President Dunce Cap. Imagine putting our military personnel in harm’s way just so we can secure more fossil fuel and keep the media off the scent of decay. Certain pundits and anchors are playing up this potential confrontation as a cakewalk, but we should know better.

There’s plenty from which to distract: a delayed release of footage from the second boat strike on 9/2, the ongoing smokescreen surrounding the release of the Epstein files, dissatisfaction with food prices and costs in general, and the never-ending reminders of just how ill-suited and incompetent the entire administration is, beginning with Donald Trump– the fragile man child dressed in a suit.

Another building with his name on it, receiving a ridiculous, contrived FIFA Peace Prize, hosting the Kennedy Center Honors and spearheading that institution’s plunge into irrelevance—it all serves to keep him happy, I guess.

But to the rest of the world, it’s just the latest confirmation of how pathetic he is, and that the bottom has yet to be glimpsed, in reference to how far we’re falling.