…upon the slithering approach of my 86th birthday
I discovered something interesting about invasive plants over the last week. Apparently, Europe gave us dandelions. In return, we gave them ragweed.
The get-outta-the-way, reckless abandon with which dandelions grow, I’d always assumed they were native. But though they were established in Asia and Europe, they hadn’t made their way across the Atlantic until the western Europeans nations introduced them, along with slavery and capitalism.
In recent decades, ragweed has spread from the U.S. along the coastal areas of Europe, from Norway to Portugal, bringing hay fever to places that hadn’t previously experienced its joys.
(A couple hundred years ago we also sent over democracy, but we now regret our intrusive error and are intent on removing its stain as rapidly as possible.)
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Waiting for an electric bill, a request to support a candidate you never heard of, or a physical letter from someone you love? Better pick it up soon. Here’s the latest on Sump Pump’s hopes to destroy the USPS:
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Here’s part of why I place what little trust I have these days in the country’s young women:
“While Church membership has been in steady decline, Gen Z women are leaving church at a faster rate than men, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.”
So, if there’s any hope for the country – and that’s definitely debatable – I’d place it in the enlightened competence of the next couple generations of women.
Yeah, there are many crappy women that you could point to – and most of them seem to gravitate to Congress – but they are so wildly outnumbered by crappy men.
I think a lot of it has to do with humans being mammals. Male mammals of most species are shitheads, especially where their treatment of female mammals is concerned. Once again: a paean to evolution and “intelligent design.”
I think part of my belief in women comes from my mother, who was the force in our family. But first I have to note that both my elder brothers hated her with a remarkable passion. I don’t know what went on in their youth – they were 12 and 14 years older than me – but when I came around, she gave me open support and encouragement as a writer and as a blindered, always-first-in-my-class intellectual. It was a mixed blessing, yes, but I think she did form [skew?] my outlook on women as leaders.
I’ve been particularly taken with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young, charismatic ass-kicker in Congress. Do I think she have the chops to be the next President? That’s asking a lot, and I don’t have any fact-based answer. But though she was one of the youngest Congresspersons ever, she turned 35 this year – the constitutional age requirement for becoming chief of state. (And my dog would make a more able and intelligent leader than Lump.)
I’ve never gotten into campaigning, but I’d love to start a group called “Old Farts for AOC.”
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Our beloved VP, “Just Die” Vance, has been sent to India to visit its prime minister, following a rewarding weekend with the Pope. Watch out, Mr. Modi!
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth must be one of the dumbest critters ever to stand upright. Just look at any given picture of the man, with that empty squinch of “I’m trying really hard to think.”
But at least he does help reinforce Chump’s superb ability to hire guys even stupider than he is to serve as his inferiors. And it’s good for a president to have at least one solid ability.
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PA governor Josh Shapiro this week escaped a weird arson attack on his home. Not quite sure what his attacker thought he could pull off, but he planned to take along a hammer to bash Josh’s brains in (if he didn’t fry him first).
The up side: Now Shapiro can run for President behind thumping beat of the Talking Heads’ “Burnin’ Down the House.”
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The continuing push by Musk and others to terraform Mars for human expansion strikes me as a destructive insult to the solar system. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.
There’s no upside in this for the human race – or for the other not-very-inhabitable spheres – seeing as how we’ve turned our home planet into a giant dog turd.
Most of this space travel rah-rah originated from a childish love of science fiction and an innate wish for folk and fairy tales to reflect some alternate view of reality – a longing for wish fulfillment that has nothing to do with actual reality.
Why should we have any hope of improving reality? Look at the world today and it should be obvious… though, on the other hand, why not let it all go down the tubes?
We don’t even have to visit the Moon to achieve that.
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I’m Poopass the sailor man,
I shit in a garbage can.
I took off the lid
And I’m glad that I did,
I’m Poopass the sailor man.
lickhaven 