Hey, Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there. And those of you who have fathers. And those of you who have been torn away from your fathers and stuck in a tent city concentration camp, and may never see your fathers again. And also the father of the fledgling robins who have left the nest over our kitchen window (mom still lives there, but I think its a deadbeat dad situation. Or maybe it’s a deadbeat mom situation – I don’t know how to tell, but I never see more than one there at a time), and the father of the hatchling robins in the nest on the downspout by the back of our garage. Got a tip for you prospective nest builders out there – if you’re gonna freak out every time I go in or out the door, you should really think about building your nest someplace else. This is our first spring in over 20 years without a cat, so I guess that explains the sudden surge in nesting around here. Anyhow, to all you dads, I hope things are going as well as they can be. Except that fat incestuous ferret-festooned piece of shit in the White House that’s caused so much pain for so many other fathers, mothers, and children. You, I only wish I believed there was a god so I could know you’ve got a eternity of suffering to look forward to. But, hey, I guess you can’t have everything.
So, just in case you thought any of this shit was “new”….
Let’s face it, we (as in “we the people”) suck. We’ve sucked for a long time, and we continue to suck. We elected ourselves President, and many of us are repulsed by what we see in the mirror, but many of us think we’re looking pretty damn hot.
And of course it’s our good old pals – aka, “Republican voters” – who think Donnie J is exactly what we need.
I feel like Joe Jackson – are they really into this guy? ‘Cuz if my eyes don’t deceive me, there’s something going wrong around here.
I keep asking what is wrong with 40% of Americans? What is wrong with these people? Every day is a new horror. These toddlers and children….it’s killing me.
Well, I never thought it could get even worser but this morning has been devastating.
It’s not getting better, that’s for sure.
Susan Collins. What a surprise.
A Twitter thread (I think – assuming this link works).
Koko.
Today is Dump the Pump Day (Dump the Trump would be good, too, but I guess that should be every day), so if you took/take public transportation to work (or wherever) today, you are entitled to smugly consider yourself a morally superior human being.
Everybody else, well, far be it for me to cast aspersions.
I guess I’m supposed to mourn the passing of Charles Krauthammer.
As FLOTUS might say – “I don’t really care.Do U?”
It appears that tortoises don’t like having their pictures taken.
This is a public service announcement.
If you have something like this:
You should avoid plunging the pointy end roughly 9/16 of an inch into (or roughly halfway through) something like this:
Because while it may not look like much, it will make your whole goddamn hand (including fingers) hurt like hell all night long and well into the next day (so far).
You may also feel like an idiot.
I had a car breakdown a few weeks ago and took a spill and ripped the hell out of my left hand and a week later I had to get some debris removed. Sadly, the practitioner missed a chunk that I removed the old fashioned way. I hope you have better luck and the assistance of a medical professional.
I appear to have survived despite (possibly because of) the lack of professional medical attention.
PJ. that sounds awful. I hope it stops hurting today.
I’ve done worse things to myself, but all the meat in my hand is kinda achy. It’s nature’s way of telling me not to do that again. Of course, I don’t actually know how I managed to do it in the first place.
That tortoise looks like a turtle.
Truth be told, I don’t actually know the difference. Except we had a cat once that I was told was a tortoiseshell color and it’s hard to see but the shell on this guy or gal was the same color and pattern.
My old vet told me red male cats were the most personable and tortoise shells were the dopiest.The blackcats I’ve had have been very smart.
We had a tortoiseshell one that was on the stupid side. And kind of nasty a lot of the time. Had a black one that was absolutely insane. She eventually went her own way. And another black one that was incredibly stupid. I think it was from too much anesthesia when he was fixed (killed his brother, in fact).
A day late, but Happy Birthday to Bill.
Ed Schultz croaked. And only 64.
My dad for the most part was a black and white guy. He existed pretty much as in his early school days photographs, unsmiling, hard bitten by a childhood lived during the height of the depression on a poor Kansas farm. When I did some family research during an illness a few years ago, I found the census bureau report from 1940 which confirmed his description of the family as “dirt-poor”. My grandfather’s income for the year was listed as $200.
He inherited by example his anger (always nearby and lurking) from my grandfather who was stuck with raising two little girls upon the death of his first wife who were useless to him in running a farm that had no chance of providing any comfort. When my grandmother, a nurse who came out to see after them. married him and gave him three sons and another daughter I can only imagine that it was out of pity for this broken-down old farmer. His anger probably increased when the oldest son, my uncle Bob, joined the army as soon as he could to get away from the farm and when his second oldest, Russel, was killed along with 20 other Army Air Corp pilots when the transport they were flying went into the side of a mountain in West Virginia in a thunderstorm. He was then left with only my dad who, at the age of 12 or 13, couldn’t make up for the emotional and physical hole left in Georges’ (my grandfather) life. He died slowly from a heart attack the same year as Russel’s death over a period of six weeks in the farm house since a hospital was out of the question financially.
My dad and grandmother were then forced to sell the farm and moved in with some great-aunts In Chanute where he graduated from high school and went into the Army Air Corps himself where he served out the end of WW II in the Phillipines.
When I was in college at the University of Kansas, my friends and I would joke about the gothic nature of rural Kansas and the cruelties our ancestors endured and the effects that had on them and us.
Harvey, my dad, married my mother who he had grown-up with north of Topeka mostly because they had known each other before and it was the expected thing to do for two kids from adjoining farms. Despite their familiarity, he hadn’t yet seen her narcissism and she hadn’t seen his anger and resentment. They pursued the american dream with the little imagination they had for 18 years before the absence of self-awareness and real feelings collapsed in on them and the marriage ended.
He remarried a few years later to an older Norwegian woman from Iowa who spent her days wringing her hands and chirping disapproval of the lifestyles of my two sisters and I. He spent thirty years working for a very large defense contractor and when he retired, he and my step-mother got to travel to Russia to dance on the grave of communism.
For many years it was the many insane whippings that were at the forefront of my feelings towards my dad but fortunately as time went on and I gained a little distance, I would forgive him and come to understand him in his context and circumstances. I’ve got two distinct memories that brought us close that I will always be able to call back too. I entered a science-fair in junior high-school with a chicken that I trained, Pavlovian-style, to reward with food for triggering a light bulb inside a cage. He was pretty clever in building solenoids by hand and it was a very rewarding for the two of us to be working together in making the cage, the mechanics and training the chicken.
The second was when I drove home nearly black-out drunk (as I had an alcohol problem in HS) and missed the drive-way and just managing to get the car into the front yard. When he answered the door rather than anger, he showed my some compassion by saying “If you’re ever like this again, just call and I’ll come get you”.
He fished a great deal and hunted pheasant in western Kansas every year until his seventies sometimes accompanied by myself. What he really enjoyed was pulling my chain like when he left out an 8X10 glossy of McCain and Palin for me to see when I was visiting.
He survived about everything that life could throw at him health-wise (cancer, heart attacks, diabetes) and lived in poor health the last several years of his life.
I think his last chain pull was when he died on Fathers Day June 17th. I know I’ll miss him from time to time and he know’s I’ll never forget Father’s Day.
Thanks for sharing that, Art. And sorry for your loss.
I was trying to reply earlier and was unable.
I am very sorry and sad for your loss.
I lost mine 7 years ago on July 6. It was a day after I saw Ry Cooder playing a show at a union hall next to the baseball stadium not long after father’s day. I completely forgot about that show which was fantastic for a year until th 1st anniversary. Last week I saw Ry twice 7 years later. Also great but bittersweet.
My dad was a prankster. I thought some times he used his illness to punk me like the time I was visiting me he had quit watching sports and was only watching Fox News. He was a Federal judge and once when my aunt an uncle invited him to a party. 6 hours away in Pittsburg, six hours away from RVa. The theme was to bring someting that was no longer of any use and my parents drove up so he could deliver the picture of Nixon that hung in his office until he joyfully removed I after Tricky’s resignation. My very conservative repug Uncle Red was probaby not so pleased but had a mixed marriage and my New Deal Dem just like my father loved it. We so tortured Red during Watergate. My father also escorted Sargent and Eunice Shriver around West Virginia coal country advancing JFK’s successful primary run in 1960 which was instrumental getting him on his way to the presidency.
We were somewhat esranged for a number of years and that I blame on my mother for reasons I will not get into, After she passed we gradually patched things up and wolub talk sevear times a week about sports and pollytick. I regret those ‘lost years’ more and more as time passes to this day but I also remember how patiently he would play catch with me for long periods of time almost everyday.
The last time I really tried to talk to him on Father’s Day 2011 via skype but he was confused by it all and a few weeks later he was gone.
I am happy that he is not around to see what has become of things but I would also love to know what he would think about it. I also see a lot more of him in me as time goes on.
Again, sorry about this late response to your loss and your comments.
Thanks PJ
Doesn’t really seem appropriate to give a Russian FSB asset a second crack at a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court, does it?