Good Connections

There is much gnashing of teeth over the treatment of this young lady:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/01/when-white-girls-deal-drugs-they-walk.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

Were it up to me, I would let her off with moderate to severe spankings. However, many people want her punished as severely as less attractive defendants, not eligible for spankings. And that misses the point.

We're such a revenge-based society these days. Instead of asking why cops shoot any unarmed people, too many of us wonder why they don't also shoot white people. Would that help somehow? The cops should not be killing unarmed people of any degree of pigmentation.

Same with drug sentences. This adorable young woman should not spend the rest of her adorable life in prison for being the connection for her friends (and making a few dollars in the process) any more than an inner-city boy or girl. That goes for users too. Being a drug addict is a sickness. Drugs, alcohol- they're not for everybody. You don't put sick people in jail to make them better. Same with people who are dealing to friends, or friends of friends. Where's your capitalist, entrepreneurial spirit? This country was soooooo slow in state's allowing marijuana sales- and it's still against Federal law and some state's, despite crying "state's rights" on this, that and the other thing, don't think Colorado and Washington should be allowed to legalize pot.

Little, seemingly off-topic note about state's right's as they pertained to The Civil War; The south may claim today that their beef with America was "state's rights" but one of their beefs with slavery was the Federal government's refusal to force northern states to return fugitive slaves as per The Fugitive Slave act. Some northern states saw it as their right, to not comply. Fucking ironic, eh? The south used "state's rights" to get ugly about state's rights!

So don't cry because this terminally adorable young woman isn't likely going to be Bertha's bitch in prison. Make sure Laquisha or Dejuan get the same deal. The legal system should not be vengeance. It should not ruin lives to make certain people content.

Somebody told me....

These days you can't tell the players without a scorecard. To me, Trump, Cruz and the other GOP candidates sound just like idiot reichtards on the internet. The obvious thought is that the trolls are parroting their favorite leaders but, I'm suspecting that the leaders are taking their cues and stances from their favorite trolls.

In the sports world, the Green Bay Packers have lost three straight games and, as anyone who considers himself a football expert can attest, the Packer QB- Aaron Rodgers, is certainly failing in bed at home. Or, the girlfriend is not putting out or she's putting out to much. There, I just explained sports. It's all about pussy. Too much, too little, win some, lose some. Get some.

Sheesh. According to some ESPN journalist, Rodgers may be slumping because of problems at home with his girlfriend, actress Olivia Munn. He based this on a conversation with an agent who suggested that girl troubles was often the case when an athlete slumps. This just shows to go ya that agents are as dense as sportswriters when it comes to actually playing the games. Yes, there are psychological factors in sports just as there are in any aspect of life. Fighting with a spouse can affect a QB just as it could a bus driver. It's just one of a myriad of difficulties any of us can have at work, no matter what work we do. It shouldn't make headlines.

But, it does in the sports world because a writer needs to fill column inches or a minute on a TV show.

Olivia Munn did some tracking on the internet and it's quite likely that the alleged sports journalist got his *facts* from a bitter, vitriolic internet troll. She found a local cheesehead troll who has it in for her as well as Muslims and blacks.

Olivia is probably right. To make a deadline, sportswriters will concoct possible trades based on conversations around the office with each other. "A source tells me..." That source could be another writer or now some scumbag troll. "I read that..."

The ESPN guy was likely getting his info from a trolls who is as knowledgeable about Rodgers and Munn as he isn't about Muslims and blacks.

And that might be the same asshole that GOP presidential wannabes are getting their, um, ideas from. Who can tell anymore? Trump, Cruz, various republican governors- they all sound like the assholes I deal with on Topix. Or the ones that troll liberal websites or propagate hatred on Breitbart.  And now they fuel our second place finishers. They are the tails that wag the lesser dogs. Not all of the dogs, necessarily. At least the butts.

It turns out that Rodgers is now reporting an injury. As A Bear's fan, I'd like to say that he hurt his vagina but, that would not be accurate. He's been playing with a bum shoulder and, more recently, a hurt leg from the Lion's game. It could be a deflection but, I don't think so. Football IS a contact sport, you know. Injuries do happen. Probably more so than girl girl problems.

And, politicians do listen to their constituents, I guess.

I guess that what you believe all depends on who does your thinking for you.

Ramblin' Ferrerman

Just a couple of things I've been thinking about...

"Spring forward/fall back??!! What kind of liberal nonsense is that? Let the liberals and their lame stream media go back in time an hour like some magical Back To Your Future thingy-dingy...we'll just stay right here in good ol' 2015 at the same bat time, same ol' bat channel as yesterday! Don't retreat- RELOAD!"

~Sarah Palin, speaking to an empty auditorium, one hour before scheduled, about Daylight Savings Time.

I think a really fun drinking game would be watching old episodes of "Holmes Makes It Right" and doing a shot every time his foreman, Damon, calls somebody "buddy". A double shot when Damon calls Mike Holmes (his boss!) "buddy". If you survive the hour without dying from alcohol poisoning, you're my new buddy, buddy!

Full disclosure: I used to work with a guy who called everybody "boss" even though he was technically my boss and others. Once he was lining everybody out and suddenly I realized he was trying to get my attention. You know how it is when, though there are dozens of people about, someone yells "HEY YOU!" and you know they are talking to you? Well, it's not like that. They are usually talking to anyone who will answer to "HEY YOU!" Anyway, the guy says, "Boss, I was talking to you". To wit I replied, "How the fuck would I know that when you CALL EVERYBODY BOSS??!!" This guy didn't have the ego that TV's Damon (above) has, but he just couldn't be bothered to remember and use people's names. I think with Damon it's a power play like that. My guy was just slow... If you've ever been in a conversation with someone, you know you like it when they use your name. Do manners a favor and use their name too, eh buddy?

Ben Carson. I first heard his name 3-4 years ago when a Facebook friend was linking and posting about him. She is a serious tea partier and fired me from her Facebook a few years ago but, her and others like her were on the vanguard of Carson. Then as now, I found it hard to believe that there was a brain surgeon in the Tea Party. Now you might too. The guy is nuttier than squirrel poop. I almost doubt that he was ever an actual brain surgeon. How does a guy get through medical school doubting science? How does a group of people believe that a guy who knows nothing about politics could be a functioning president? Did he operate on their brains? Carson believes the pyramids were built for grain storage. The pyramid builders themselves wrote down why they were built but, I guess ol' Ben knows better than to take something written so long ago as gospel...

No Nudes Is Good News?

I'm not terribly surprised that Playboy is going to cease showing nude women in the magazine. It's been several years since I've looked at a Playboy (or a Penthouse) but when I last looked, I noticed both had become more like the MAXIM- type men's magazines of the time that had scantily clad pretty girls instead of nudes and more of a factoid approach to journalism that was akin to PEOPLE magazine rather than the literature that Playboy (at least) was known for. Yes, there really were articles to read and most were quite good.

The late Bob Guccione, who founded Penthouse changed the format of his magazine when he saw the writing on the wall that was internet pornography. Penthouse had always been pussy-centric and was the first mainstream men's magazine to show pubic hair, erections and then penetration- the natural order of things. Guccione realized a long time ago that people would opt for the free, unlimited porn of the burgeoning internet rather than spend several dollars a month on his magazine. He retooled, keeping the nudity while dropping the hardcore sex. Penthouse became MAXIM but with nudity, probably about the same time Playboy did.

I have long considered Playboy to be for arrested adolescent, over-aged frat boy types anyway, what with it's emphasis on hedonistic pleasures. It was very Sublime in it's time, with tips on how to romance women, what vehicle to drive, what wine went with what dish, and yada yada. Don't get me wrong- it was a great find when I was a kid and very, very enjoyable but after college age you realized, Hefner was a silly old man hanging on to a past that really only existed in a James Bond film.

Within the last ten years Playboy followed the MAXIM trend of mctidbits of information but kept the good ol' tasteful nudity. In a way it tried to become something a young man could read after jerking off to midget porn on the internet.

But, magazines, like newspapers, are struggling in competition with the internet. Whether they feature nudity or not, it's hard for any media to compete with the immediacy of the internet and it's only getting harder.

I don't really get how dropping nudity will help or even save the magazine. Evidently MAXIM is still popular with a circulation of 2 million readers each month. Playboy is down to around 800,000. When this Ferrerman was in high school, they were talking 5 million. MAXIM is not a feminist magazine and young men aren't flocking to it rather than Playboy because they'd rather imagine the models naked. The only thing I can think of is that Playboy has long since shown it's age. It's not just your father's nudie mag, it's grampa's! There's no changing that. Dressing it up is not going to help, Hef.

Merchants Of Death

I don't know if this most recent mass shooter (the one in Roseburg, Oregon October 1, 2015 in case you're reading this several mass shootings later in the year) was mentally ill. There's a strong argument that he was just an asshole. You can argue that anybody who kills so many people, so casually is mentally ill but, quite a bit of planning goes into an act like this and I question how crazy he was. Mentally ill people can certainly be violent but I rather doubt they are very detail orientated, given to plotting and writing or typing out manifestos. You know who does that? Assholes do that.

After every mass shooting in America- after the ones that really grab the headlines and the cable news attention- the guns and ammo fans in politics always say we need to talk about mental illness rather than gun control. They represent the gun manufacturers and/or the NRA that represents the gun manufacturers and they are financially bound to not say bad things about the folks who make the product that pays for the safe private schooling of their kids. In 21st century conservative parlance, these congress persons and politicians have an obligation to their shareholders...

We're maybe one republican president away from that being an accepted fact in American politics, that the Koch's and corporations are the ones that spend their own money electing these people so, they have a right to tell them what to do. That is what Citizen's United was all about.

But, I digress. Enacting laws to make it easier to kill people and to kill as many people as possible is not crazy but, actually killing people is? One is lazy and the other is messy but both are equally evil. You could argue that both are crazy. I'll argue that the true mental illness is in the politicians and pundits who, with straight faces, defend the inanimate objects that are guns rather than the living, breathing Americans they allegedly represent. A Trump, a Huckabee or a Hannity are all legitimately fucked in the head when they blanketly defend guns or the archaic, poorly interpreted Second Amendment. But, is that mental illness or are they just assholes? They all profit from guns so you could say that they'd be crazy to not blindly support all things gun. Even if a republican congress person doesn't directly receive money from the NRA, he or she better love guns if they want to remain a congress person. A republican congressman may not be on the NRA payroll but if he comes out in favor of gun legislation then he's quickly on their shit list. So, crazy or just practical? Or, assholes?

When politicians are publicly talking about "second amendment remedies" and saying "don't retreat- RELOAD!", they are sending a violent message to the assholes out there. The message sure seems to be: "Go for it, asshole!" If that's not the intent, they've certainly cheapened life enough when they say that or come out in favor of Stand Your Ground laws that encourage people to kill when afraid. When politicians and Lou Costello- looking pundits encourage militia's standing against the Federal government and for a deadbeat like Cliven Bundy- willing to kill American law officers, then we've got assholes trying to run the asylum, not inmates. These pundits and politicians are crazy like a FOX, and laughing maniacally all the way to the bank. Remember when GW Bush was the Federal government? FOX and Hannity liked gubmint then. That might seem like cognitive dissonance but it's really just assholery. The cognitive dissonance is when they practice this assholery- passive aggressively encouraging Americans to arm themselves against government and neighbors- while thinking that there would be no blood on their hands.

Crazy would be Sean Hannity or Ted Cruz shooting their child in honor of the Second Amendment they hold entirely too dear. Nope, they're assholes who don't care about YOUR kids or that your kids might be sacrificed for the Second Amendment that they hold entirely too dear. They are the assholes who trigger the other assholes to kill. And that is just crazy.

Ferrerman Addresses Mental Health Issues

With another mass shooting- this one happening last week in Roseberg, Oregon- we need to address mental health issues.

Why are we tolerating these obviously mentally ill kocksuckers in politics and the media promoting guns as they do? They're crazy. We need to do something about it. The easiest and best thing would be to enact far stricter gun legislation. That just makes sense. Civilized countries like England, Japan, Australia and others have done that and been quite successful at. They've made it very difficult for gun massacres to happen and yet the citizens still enjoy freedom. In fact, they probably enjoy more freedom than us because they can attend school or a movie without wondering if they'll be murdered.

All the GOP candidates are clearly mentally ill on a lot of issues but on their stance on Lack Of Gun Control, they are really nuts. When Chris Christie or Huckabee (too name just two of the hundreds of GOP presidential candidates) speak about guns, they sound just like any of the reichwing trolls on the internet. They all speak in talking points because they get their views from the same sources. Christie sounds like the imaginary person, Denny CranesPlace on Topix. Curiously, that would be an insult to either idiot. That's probably why I did that.

But whether it's jackleg magicians on Youtube,  presidential wannabes or Sean Hannity on FOX, some crazy fuckers are leading the pro-gun dialogue and that needs to be addressed because they are wrong. You've heard enough "good guy with a gun" bullshit rhetoric that you are probably gun-blued in the face. The Second Amendment has been reduced to a marketing tool. You know who wants people to have 30 guns? Smith & Motherfucking Wesson. They, and the other gun manufacturers, need you to buy as many guns as possible because it means profits for them. Every murder, school or theater shooting helps move their product. So does every democrat in the White House. There are camouflaged people in bunkers all over America who think Obama will confiscate guns on his last day. Just to fuck with their already fucked heads, I guess. They hoard guns and ammo like people did with Twinkies a couple of years ago.  The gun manufacturers don't care who buys and why, or how many they buy. And they don't care how bad they are for you. If they could, they'd put high-fructose corn syrup in bullets.

How far away are we from a fracking-like argument where politicians, Hannity's and imaginary internet people talk about guns and massacres as S&W legally plying their trade and "employing many people who need jobs..."? "Do you want cheaper ammo and jobs or do you want to wipe your ass with The Constitution after you shit all over the free market, you communist bastard?"

How soon before some politician honors the victims of these murders as "Patriots who gave their lives so that our glorious Second Amendment might live"?

We might not be that crazy yet but, you can see it from here. And from Roseburg. And Sandy Hook... The theater in Aurora.... Charleston... on and on...

We exported the American Dream and all we got were these lousy t-shirts!

Well, and guns! We got guns! Not all God's chillin's got guns!

There's a popular meme showing a school teacher in Denmark who makes $61,000 a year. She (and they) get free education and healthcare. Yes, it's paid for with higher taxes but, getting sick there won't ruin you. Neither will a college education start you off a hundred grand in irrevocable debt. Danes get 6 weeks of vacation, maternity leave for women- and men- and everyone gets a pension at 65. In between, they get what used to be the American dream here of home and car ownership.

That's pretty basic stuff but it is out of reach for a couple hundred million Americans. It's basic stuff for the Scandinavian, socialist countries. Just not us. The Danes and Swedes seem to be enjoying the American Dream we knew here in America back in the 50's and 60's.  It's Beaver Cleaver but with personal computers and HDTV.

Their minimum wage is higher and- again- yep, they pay more in taxes. Taxes finance the free education, healthcare, roads, bridges etc. They don't get as much bang for their buck there because they don't blow the budget on the bang of war. They don't fuck with anybody, foreign or domestic. They don't use war as a moneymaker like we do. Our military budget is nearly $600 billion this year, more than half of the budget of the government. That's more than all our allies- combined! Story for another day. Just interesting that the same people who think that that's not enough are the same people who think a handful of good ol' boys from Texas can and should take over the gubmint by force.

That's part of the problem. I don't think Denmark has any obnoxious assholes like that. If they do, no one pays them any attention. Europe survived Hitler and Mussolini. We struggle with Cruz and yet another Bush. The Danes walk the walk and talk the talk of socialism while they live it. Evidently there is no FOX *news* there telling them that "You're neighbor has what YOU have and he doesn't deserve it!"  That's America at this moment and the American Nightmare that we might try to export but, no one is buying. Only in America can you feel less free as more people get freedom. Too many people here fear socialism because politicians and other idiots on the internet have told them it's the same communism. Well now, if it was the same, there wouldn't be two separate systems now, would there? It's like humans. You've got men and women and they're the same, right? Nooooo. Socialism is kind of a blend of capitalism and communism. In human sexuality terms, it'd be like bi-sexuality. In economic terms, it'd be like Eisenhower era and into the 60's where we had a very high tax rate on millionaires and corporations and used it to build infrastructure, schools and healthy Americans. Even conservative republicans supported unions then and no one thought we needed all (white) Americans roaming the streets of Anytown, USA with semi-automatic rifles and handguns.

We are less free than Denmark and many other countries but it's not because of literally exporting our freedom. We are less free as they've gotten freer with our dream but they didn't take it from us. We didn't even give it away. We just put a price on the American Dream so that fewer Americans could afford it. That wasn't very smart. However, it turned out to be a very American thing to do.

Let me tell you how not to think

Recently, a mother and daughter were attacked in a New York City restaurant by at least three people who mistook them for a lesbian couple.

Oops?

No one has been arrested yet but cops have blurry photos of a white man and two white women. The victim's were Hispanic. Being attacked in a Korean restaurant for any reason was probably the last thing the Santiago women expected but they believed the attackers were drunk. And in their slurred minds, they thought the mother and daughter were lesbians and needed to be punished for that.

These days perception seems to be 9/10's of life. Even the otherwise fairly wonderful Pope Francis thinks that conscientious objectors like Kim Davis should be allowed to inject their faith into any level of government.

The old guy was doing sooooo good too. Let's face it- he's a likable spokesperson but, the product is not exactly new and improved, just the presentation.

Francis, of course, is not at all calling for violence against anyone, even against the gays his church does not approve of, but, you have to admit that almost any religion is definitely an enabler. If you can discriminate against people because your god seems to say you can, then your country is a de facto  theocracy. Why would one expect that discrimination stops right there before things get violent? Discrimination is the foundation for violence.

This trio of miscreants can explain that they attacked the mother and daughter because they thought they were gay but, that's not the stay-out-of-jail-card that some on the right might want it to be. Not yet. They keep warning us about the danger of Sharia Law happening here because they want Christian Law happening here instead. What they don't tell you is they are like Coke and Pepsi. Either one is refreshing in moderation but, not at all healthy in frequent use.

Thinking bad  about someone does not make them bad. It does not mean that they are how you perceive them to be. The problem often exists in your own mind and in the quest to find others who *think* like you do, and all too often in life it winds up as lynchings (as in America) or full scale holocausts as in Germany in the 30's and 40's. But, it all begins in the not-so-perceptive eye of the myopic beholder. It all begins with you and I.

Ever seen this guy?

That's "Bill The Butcher" as portrayed by the great actor, Daniel Day Lewis in the film "Gangs Of New York". The film takes some liberties with the character such as William Poole (the Butcher) getting killed in the NY Draft Riots of 1863 rather than eight years earlier in a shooting but, that's Hollywood! Bill The Butcher was a leader in the Know Nothing party, a group of Nativists who fancied themselves more American than any other Americans, were against immigrants and, the Catholic church.

Does that remind you of anyone today?

If you said: "The republican party", you win!

I'm not Catholic and I'm certainly not religious and that makes me an awful, awful American because I also believe in the freedom of  and from religion. You should be able to practice whatever religion you like as long as it doesn't physically hurt anyone. Or, you can not practice. That's a right too. I'll add too that you need to understand that the founders set it up that America would never have an official or state religion. You can look it up.

So, when Pope Francis speaks about the dangers of global warming and how capitalism has let down hundreds of millions of people, my non-Catholic self has to applaud the man. I think he's sincere. There's no money in what he's saying. In fact, the big money would be in him defending corporate interests on the subject of environmental and corporate abuse. But, this man does the opposite and republicans hate him for it! Instead of dining with Congress, he opted to lunch with homeless people. Who would do that? Well, Jesus comes to mind....

Someone described him as a new salesman re-packaging an old, tired product. I don't think so but, even if so, it's about damn time. The Catholic church is as silly as any of the other major religions who all can compete with hocus-pocus, skulduggery and flim-flamming fecundity. Essentially they are mostly working off of the same story and it's presumed that one of them may be the right one. But, that's like four guys at one intersection, all proclaiming themselves to be Jesus. True, they can't all be Jesus but, that doesn't mean that one is.

Back in the day when I worked nights, I used to watch Oprah in the morning. Her show was more talk-showy then and I always figured that if Jesus returned, he might be hip enough to return on OPRAH!  I then imagined that a woman in the audience (perhaps from the suburbs) might be skeptical and Oprah might sidle over to her with the microphone for the woman to demand: "Well, who died and made you boss?" To wit Jesus might reply: "Well...me?"

Pope Francis is the first Pope in 600 years to succeed a living Pope. This totally cheats all of us from an idiot like Ted Cruz standing on the Senate floor and demanding of Pope Francis: "Well now, who died and made YOU boss?!"

Ted still could and he might but, it wouldn't be quite as delightfully ironic. Ted and a whole slew of conservative republican presidential wannabees and politicians think a religious leader has no business telling America what to do. Even Mike Huckabee said so but, he might have been looking in the mirror at the time.

Francis is making suggestions rather than orders. Good ones too. Actually very good Christian ones, regardless of which franchise you belong to. Take care or the earth, take care of the poor, take care of each other, and don't go to war- all good advice. Only in America could conservatives find fault with a religious man saying such things.

Bunch of fucking Know Nothings!

You can't hurry love. It's not fiscally prudent.

I watched Ted Cruz last night on Stephen Colbert, talking about gay marriage and "state's rights". Cruz said that the 10th amendment gives state's the authority to rule themselves on things not covered in the Constitution for the federal government.

Yeah, well, maybe....but, here's the thing about that. The federal government has made the call in the past about many issues not specifically covered in the Constitution and that's the way it is. Perhaps now more than ever you have to think of the states as petulant children who drastically (in some cases) need a lot of guidance and ground rules. It's the function of the Supreme Court to decide these things. While they don't make laws, they do interpret them as to how they relate to the Constitution. It was their call that it was illegal to deny same sex couples marital rights in the United States so, effectively, "gay marriage" became legal in the US.

Suddenly, Ted Cruz (and others of his political faith) declared that five lawyers in Washington (of the nine on the USSC) shouldn't decide what they think is a state's right to decide. I guess they'd be agreeable to four making the call if the state's were to decide to rescind math laws and deem 4 to be a greater number than 5.

The thing about any Supreme Court is it's always an "activist court" to the losing side. Republicans think this court- The Robert's Court- is one because not every decision goes their way. The losing team's fans always think the ref's conspired against them. Then next week when they win, the ref's made good calls. That's how that works.

When the USSC rules that you can't deny gay couples marriage licenses that's that. They are the highest court in the land. You can complain and you can even ask them to consider the matter again but, they don't have to. Bitching about them "redefining marriage" is not going to change things. The same arguments were made in 1967 with the case of Loving v. Virginia when the Supremes ruled that the state's who had miscegenation laws could not have them. Blacks and whites could marry, in any state in the Union. If Cruz could overturn this decision, the state's could overturn that decision. And don't you think for a moment that they wouldn't try. They may be a republican president and a couple of more conservative justices away from doing God knows what. We don't want to find out.

But they certainly do. Who marries whom is such a non-issue. Gay marriage doesn't actually effect anyone but the happy couple. Same with inter-racial marriage. If someone you don't know, getting married across the street or across the country impacts your life in a negative way, your life is way too fragile. If you believe the Bible and the way God defined marriage, then you believe the sale of daughters, polygamy and all sorts of weird shit that isn't "...between one man and one woman." Remember- 48 years ago they argued that God didn't want blacks and whites to marry even though there was nothing in his book that said anything against that. It'll be a long time before we hear the last of the gay marriage debate. It's a moneymaker like abortion still is 42 years after Roe v. Wade.

I don't think most Americans really care about gay marriage. It's a republican issue because enough people do care, or are willing to care, that it becomes part of the republican market share of the country and it's a moneymaker. Planned Parenthood has been around for decades and managed to survive republican presidents who have had republican houses of congress. Republicans have never liked it for a variety of stupid reasons but they never try to kill it when they have the numbers. Golly, why is that?

Well, they need it. Not for the contraceptive and health services it offers. They need it for the small number of abortions they provide, with 3% of their whole existence being abortion services, services not paid for with Federal money, by the way. That's a fact. Republicans would have you believe like they have their fan base believe, that all PP does is abortions but, it's just not true. They want you to view nonexistent videos if you don't believe them....

The Greatest Country In The World (tm) and we're still being subjected to grifters and con artists trying to sell us monorails and small government. The last time they shut down the government to punish the president for being president, it cost we the people $29 BILLION. Does anyone remember the "reason" for the shutdown? Look it up. Tell me if it worked. It's unbelievable that so many people still fall for this, every fucking election. I really wonder if the grifters in the GOP really want to govern? I know that they're not very good at it. The big money must be in keeping the con going.

Gray Lives Matter

Things are not looking up on Topix. Neither are the trolls.

It happens so often that someone is going about their troll business and either the proxy fails or they simply fail to look up when they think they have changed IP's. It's a regular occurrence, usually revealing what you already knew anyway.

Half of trolling is these people trolling their friends with or without their knowledge. I think it's usually without their friends knowledge but, you never know. In these little cliques it's how the clique leaders keep people in line and on their toes. It's stupid and juvenile but, that's Topix! 

Back in the day when I had an avatar/profile on Topix, if I posted gray to be cute, I'd blow it on the next post forgetting I wasn't signed in to my profile. No big deal as it was harmless fun but still, for me, it was a Homer Simpson "DOH!" moment. Though the circumstances of Topix banning my profile and IP were dirty and foolish, it kinda simplified things. Well, once I figured out how to post, that is. I always liked the ability to use names pertinent to my posts whenever I would post gray, something you obviously can't do with a registered profile.

I never really intended to get a profile. Having one makes it easy for others (including Topix...especially Topix...) to track you. I got mine when a Troll Mod was spoofing my gray self and I figured registering would protect me. It didn't. Someone promptly spoofed my profile, complete with a copy of my profile pic. Such shenanigans aside, Topix likes to ban profiles, forcing people to kowtow to them and re-register. I doubt I could have done that being IP banned but I wasn't going to anyway so, kinda moot point. I kinda do but don't miss the Private Message feature that comes with a profile. First of all, they're not quite private. Mods can read them. This means they might share them with their troll friends. But, they were a convenience in contacting people you wanted to communicate with offline.

I don't have to bother to look up anymore though and that's kinda nice. It's always bemused me that many of the worst trolls on Topix are registered and that they look down on most all gray posters as "trolls". Almost all. Not the ones they know, love or fucking are much of the time. It's just silly that creating an email address for Topix, picking a name and an avatar and it's like you're a natural born citizen and can suddenly demand walls and sanctions on undocumented people. Kinda like real life in America.

I Have No Shame!

I watched more of the GOP debate than I thought I would. The debates are stupid and archaic. But, so are the GOP candidates and *ideas*. The format of spreading questions to be answered in 30 second time frames is silly whether there are 11 suspects on the stage or three.

Politicians, like cops, are allowed to lie to you. Just like a cop can tell you: "We've got 20 people- including your mother- who can put you at the scene!" politicians tell you that they have seen videos of jars of still living aborted fetuses flopping about before they are sent to the Planned Parenthood chop shop to be sold for parts.

Cops, however, are expected to tell the truth once they get to court. I'm not saying they do, but they are expected to... We really have no such expectations of politicians. You knew that.

I was reading the other day that Ann Coulter isn't as marketable as she used to be. She's not getting the bookings anymore. She and Rush Limbaugh used to be THE go to's for outrageous comments. Those two said the things that republican politicians were afraid to say. Well, no more. These republican candidates and politicians have no filters these days and few seem to have any qualms about saying outrageous crap. They don't have to back anything up with facts. Fuck facts. If you are a republican, your opinions pass as facts to other republicans.

If I were a republican, I'd be ashamed. Of course, if I were a republican this whole post would be about how Obama is a secret Muslim who eats Christian babies. I just don't have it in me. I can't sustain the crazy. I don't know how they do it.

Politics seems to be the great equalizer. Billionaire Donald Trump polls really well among blue collar rednecks. They relate to his jingoistic musings about Mexicans. There's that and, well, he's a rich boss so, he must know what he's talking about. One of these types stood up yesterday at a Trump speech, declared the president a Muslim and stated that we have a "Muslim problem" in this country. Trump didn't even try to disavow that.

Every minute these candidates and politicians sound more and more like trolls on the internet. When I read reichwingers saying idiotic things I now think: OMG- this asshole could be a republican front-runner! He'd be one or two Kochs away from maybe getting the nomination! YIKES! President DennyCranesplace?! Noooo....

He's not that smart. They are that stupid. Trump, Jindal, Cruz- they do speak for their constituents. That's a goddamned shame. So, there's that- they're not completely shameless...

Jade Helm 15- Republicans 0

Jade Helm 15 concludes today. You probably forgot all about it. I almost did until yesterday when I saw a short YouTube video made by a trucker who said he got drunk with some British soldiers in Albuquerque  who told him that by September 15th our government will have taken over the American southwest and would be implanting chips in everyone. The trucker was convinced and, after he delivered his load of mattresses, he was going home to gather up the wife, kids, guns and provisions to hold off the government troops. If you can't believe drunk people, who can you believe.

That scenario was one of who knows how many thousands of JH15 stories told so far. Even the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, had announced he had put the Texas National Guard on alert and probably even Chuck Norris. Surely, Chuck Norris. They could have had the lovely and sane, Wendy Davis, as governor. But, no. They picked the one that would expect the US to invade itself and to be obvious about it. If we wanted to break Texas we'd withhold their federal money.

So, end of the day, the military exercise is over and no guns have been confiscated, no towns destroyed and no chips installed. Of course that's "that we know of..."

That's the thing with these people and their beliefs- right or wrong- they still might be right about anything no matter how wrong they were so, no need to apologize or admit that they were wrong. It's like how Scott Walker talks around President Barack Obama being Christian. Kochsucker Walker cannot confirm or deny that Obama is a Christian. He "hasn't seen it" is, I think, how he put it. I guess that means that unless he sees you at his church your religious conviction is a complete mystery to him no matter what you say. I think half of the republicans still believe him to Muslim and that same half will tell you about his 20 year relationship with Rev. Jeramiah Wright's  America-god-damning Christian church. That's hedging your bets, folks. But, it's hedging on losing two ways instead of winning on at least one.

The trite movie line: "Don't apologize- it's a sign of weakness" must be the first commandment for the republicans. They just never, ever say they are sorry or admit that they were wrong about something no matter how obvious it is. The JH15 conspirators were caught with their pants down and their hands on their little dicks but, you won't hear them say so much as "oops". They have no shame in believing any stupid theory or conspiracy that comes their way with no contrition when proved wrong. Now, who would want to conquer a people like that? They've already conquered themselves.

Thanks, Huckabee!

I went into town to get a fishing license. No can do, said the clerk. She's a vegan and you know- "anything with a face"...

We've all got to suck it up because Mike Huckabee championed the cause of that Christian woman in Kentucky and forgot to push it as a strictly CHRISTIAN right. If Kim Davis wins and he wins, so does every religion. Well, Christianity wouldn't actually win, the way they keep score. When the other religions win too, they lose. 

Anyway, my buddies that hunt lost out too. So did the guys looking to get gun permits from Brother Ezakiah, the Quaker who clerks at Window #3 where you used to get gun permits. Over at the DMV my sister, Sue, was refused a driver's license by Mohammed because, evidently, women are not allowed to drive according to his religion. I had to also go to Walmart to pick up a few things and it took me going through 3 lines to check out. The Catholic guy wouldn't sell me condoms, the Jewish woman refused to ring up my pork chops and the Mormon dude refused to sell me smokes and beer!

It certainly is a mixed up, jumbled up, shook up world and don't even get me started on Lola. 

I was thinking that what we need is a separation of church and state, a constitutional law that prohibits the establishment of a state religion so that government can't be controlled by religion. Then I noticed that we've actually got that in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Who knew?

Not presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, evidently. He and other Asshole-Americans paid no mind to the Jewish saying: "Be careful what you wish for- you might get it!" Mike's assuming his matter-a-fact declarations that "we are a Christian nation" actually mean that we are a Christian nation. Nope. He just maybe forgot that other religions might have an interest in our government too? Like you can't just say that "Christian Laws Matter" when others might think that "ALL Religious Laws Matter"?

And hey- doesn't Mike always say that "the government can't pick winners and losers"? Sorry, Huck- the founders decreed a long time ago that the government was NOT in the religion business. Like Kim Davis, your first mistake was starting at the top of your own chain of command, with a God who doesn't speak in public- just to you and guys on a street corner. 

Wall To Wall America

On Memorial Day, Veteran's Day and so many Fourth's of July, we often stop to ponder the men who died so that we may enjoy various freedoms. We know that men died storming the beaches at Normandy for any freedom you can name. Specific rights were never up for grabs or on the table to be lost, mind you, but the general notion is that, if our soldiers had not won, our rights would have gone away. The Vietnam Memorial- "The Wall"- contains the names of 58,267 men who died in the Vietnam war. We lost that war but not any rights.

We average 85 deaths a day from guns. That's murders, suicides and accidents. Over a year that is 31,025 and that was actually for 2010. It hasn't gotten better. It's estimated there are 300 million guns in the US. Amazingly, the NRA, various gun nutters and highly paid congressmen, believe that this number could be more manageable if there were more guns....

That's that good guys with guns bullshit that makes sense to people sitting in bunkers with cans of beans and a wall full of AR15's but it doesn't really mean much to those of us outside of the bunker mentality. And that's most of us. And that's most of the victims of the gun shootings. The unarmed black men shot by cops. The theater-goers and school children shot by madmen. The spouses murdered by the ones who promised to love them until death do they part. The curious children finding a cool toy... The sad people who give up and want to end it quick. All the people who die because there was a gun handy and someone was willing to use it.

These people- these 85 every day- die for your second amendment right to have guns, to have as many as possible. Does "...shall not be infringed" ring a bell? They die far more directly for an American right than any soldier ever sacrificed his life for. Who honors them though? They are anonymous to the NRA and the gun manufacturers they represent.

Trump and the other wannabes are promising to build a wall on the southern border to keep out illegals and, well, make a few bucks. Let's honor all the US victims of guns here in America by putting their names on that wall. And let's put the names on both sides of The Wall so that people who come here might know what the are getting into.

And let's do it now and let's try to stop the madness before we need to build a wall on the Canadian border just to fit all the names.

The Big Bother Show

I've been sorta, kinda looking at the Big Brother show this year. It gets worse every year. Just like scripted programs become derivative of themselves, reality TV does too. Most people on BB grew up watching it so they are heavily influenced by past seasons. Same with Survivor. You get people on a show talking to each other about someone on that same show from five years previous, and it really gets silly.

If you watch shows like that, the common theme among the folks who get voted out is that "you don't really know what's going on in the house or on the island when you are there."

What the huh? That would seem like an excellent time to know. Granted, you aren't privy to the private conversations of your enemies like the viewing audience is but, you are there to look these people in the eye and to notice who they hang out with, and who they whisper with. How hard can it be? Weren't they ever in the 6th grade? It's very frustrating watching people playing so poorly. At least do what I've long done on Topix- look around and see who is not there. Usually the asshole who is not there, not signed in, is actually the asshole you're really dealing with.

Recently, the old guy who plays the combat veteran, retired judge on Offbeat, forgot to look up and he posted gray, from his town as "Rosa". Now, I can't speak to who Rosa is because I never cared enough to read *her* but, now I know who Rosa is. If you're scoring at home, Rosa is a fake combat veteran/retired judge, that's who. Or, is she?

Eh, probably. You have to allow for the possibility that *Rosa* was a pass-around personality and it was the idiot judges turn and he forgot to look up.... That happens a lot. There's a lot of mentally ill birds on Topix that flock together. The one that played the therapist on the Chicago Forum years ago used to slip up a lot. *She* explained the trip-ups as "interns/students" getting on her computer and playing around. Anybody who bought into a therapist-studying-Topix bit bought into that. Amazingly, some still do believe that there was an Angelique Desassain, a sometimes French-born, internet psychologist, studying Topix on a grant from the US government...and yada, yada, yada. Some are still loyal. I'm looking at you- Michael and David....No, not that Michael. The other one.

Anyway, yeah, some profiles are passed around, even gray ones. It's always the idiotic ones like *Sam* because anybody can post like a closeted, homophobic reichtard. That's half the internet.  The thing is, as I've tried to point out for years here, these are not real people. There's people behind the scenes but it's like that current Sears commercial where the couple is lying in bed discussing dishwashers and the husband suddenly realizes that they actually said that they trust "peanutbubbles44".  It's an eyeopener and a laptop closer for the couple.

That is how you have to approach Topix though. If you find yourself saying: I really trust GreasyBiscuits for all my Ferrerman information! you might be open to the suggestions of peanutbubbles44 and well you should be. They might even be the same, uh, person. I mean- who names their kid GreasyBiscuits?  Topix, like the rest of the internet, is a place where you can be all that you can be. You can be a combat veteran Marine, a lawyer, a twin(?!) another lawyer, another twin(?!) yet another combat Marine- sheesh! How derivative can you get.

I know that the whole thing with the Rosa persona was to troll not only enemies but friends as well. Evidently it keeps some people in line and others interested. It's a way for a group to circle the wagons against a common foe. So they make up characters who attack people and they give these characters back stories. Nothing too involved, it's all very sketchy and perfunctory. It's all well and stupid when these are people I don't know and don't bother to post with but I had one imaginary person pretty much assigned to me, completely without my consent. It kinda takes the mystery out of Topix when they expose all their tricks while they think they are tricking you. Predictability breeds contempt too. And low ratings!

The Making Of A Ferrerman: They Troll, Therefore, I Am!

Let's face it: Trolls have made me one famous Ferrerman.

They didn't make me the Ferrerman I am today- life did that. Trolls just made me famous and infamous. Is there a difference?

Without trolls i'm just a reasonably brilliant, irreverent and rather charming poster. Good qualities but, that and a dollar will get you uptown on the streetcar. I get a lot of good and negative feedback on my posted thoughts elsewhere on the internet. My personal best is a 1000+ likes on a comment I made. To be ferrer, those people didn't know I was Ferrer but, to be ferrer, they didn't care. They just liked what I had to say. It's the ones who do care too much that care to troll as they do on Topix at the mere hint of Ferrerman.

And they are the ones who make Ferrermen famous. If they had it to do all over again, they'd surely do it the same way, all over again. You would notice a pattern developing. I could on for pages about how stupid these trolls were to obsess with me and how they made me the most feared Ferrerman- ever- and they would still carry on with more anti-Ferrerman sentiment. Why stop digging a hole now just because you can't get out?

One of the first things I learned when I got on Topix was "DFTT"- Don't Feed The Trolls. You hardly ever see that admonition anymore. Have you noticed that? I think it's because trolls are so pervasive that it just can't be helped. They won't go away just because they're being ignored/not fed. No diet effects their gluttony. Such is the case with my trolls. I barely post these days but my trolls still manage to post as me or they simply post about me. One mentally ill troll recently posted some made up quotes with links, all of which led to the index of the Topix, Main Forum page. What kind of an idiot would fall for that? The answer is: a stripper turned yard mower who also believes President Obama controls the weather. That's a very limited market.

To me, DFTT means don't respond to their slings and arrows. There's no Stand Your Ground necessary when you're dealing with the accusations of cowardly trolls on the internet. Defending yourself against false charges works in real law and is actually a good idea but, it's not a good idea in the court of public opinion. It's like cussing out a telemarketer- they may have not made a sale but they got a response out of you! They *succeed* (in effect) even when they fail. Everybody has that one busybody aunt or gossipy neighbor who, when they quote the victim of a rumor defending themselves, always does it in a sing-songy voice adding: Well, they would say that...wouldn't they? That, folks, is Topix!

I've always been amazed at trolls who denigrate me (based on their beliefs) and act as if they are superior to me and that that is some sort of accomplishment by their own standards! For chrissakes- they set the bar! And they set it rather low for themselves in doing so. They didn't quite think that through. Shouldn't you be better than your powerful enemy, not some weak enemy? How...Sublime.

It is similar to the things you read on the internet about President Obama. It's quite bizarre to hear some republican ditch-digger with a 8th grade education call Obama a "stupid, useless nigger". Don't compare resumes, bubba. Just as Obama deserves better trolls, so do I. But, you don't get to pick them. They pick you.

Without trolls I'm just an irreverent poster with some good and funny thoughts.

Oh- and a bottomspanker whom the ladies like to call "Two Nines" because I used to carry a 9mm pistol and, um- well, never mind...   

A Heartless Nation

Jade Helm 15 is going on in Texas and other parts of the southwest and, if you're scoring at home, the US has still not invaded itself. It doesn't have to. The US, you probably know, is already fucking here!

Sheesh- these reichwingers are dumb. And, embarrassingly so.

I saw a meme where some yokel locals were posing with their assault weapons and the pic of them was juxtaposed with a squad of Navy SEAL's emerging from the surf with their assault weapons. And the caption said something about these hillbillies think they can take on our soldiers...

They can't, of course but it's more than because our soldiers are the best trained fighters on the planet. Our  armed forces men and women are the best but, that and a few trillion dollars will get you a draw in every war we've fought since the last one we won in 1945. And we had help winning that one. War is a business and we fight not for survival as a nation but, instead for profit. We're not kidding anybody but the 19 year old grunts who will fight the wars and the republicans that will support them until they come home. Republicans don't need a nuclear-armed Iran to go to war with Iran. They just need a republican president to drop a hat and yell, "GO!" Congressional republicans are set to reject an Obama-led nuclear disarming of Iran because they unabashedly want war with Iran for fun and profit. Story for another day.

Today's story is about how Clem Kadidlehopper and his militia buddies cannot defeat the US military.

Never mind the lack of talent- that's a given. What they completely lack is the heart.

If your whole reason for revolution is that you are pissed that a black man was legitimately elected president, you haven't suffered enough to be a revolutionary. The Russians, Chinese or the Vietnamese of the 20th century would shit on your revolution. They would wonder what the fuck you are are crying about. And you can add on gay marriage, abortion, the horrific taxing of millionaires, or the tyranny of teachers unions and you are only making yourself look like a bigger pussy.

You are a pussy if you'd take up arms against fellow citizens or your government for any of those- cough- reasons or, if you're a republican, (D) All Of The Above And Then Some.

Only in America could people get together and decide that the rich don't have enough, too many of our poorer citizens have too much and, we're mad as hell and let's have a revolution so we can still be the greatest country in the world!

If you think we need to do that, you really put the cunt in country.

If you think you can outfight the US Army, your balls are surely too big to fit in a network of tunnels that would be necessary for the secret movement of troops and supplies so you'll just have to face them down like John Wayne or Ted Nugent would do. What do you figure- maybe two weeks of camping out and fighting and then installing Chuck Norris as president and then things get back to normal? You fucking idiot. You just do not know.

Read up on Czars in Russia and how life was under them before you decide to go killing people because they want to raise the minimum wage. Study a little about how no major country- including us, Russia and England- has ever been able to conquer Afghanistan. Most of those people live like Bible-times and no super power can beat them.

Know why? Because they are fucking beyond tough because they have actually suffered for centuries. They might very well like to have first world problems. They don't know as they've never had them. They've never known the rights nor wrongs our nation's assholes want to piss on so cavalierly. I don't think they would fight or die for the things our idiots would. Remember- half of our country opted to fight to keep people as slaves just 150 years ago. People were willing to die so that relatively few people could amass fortunes via the free labor of others. Every other revolution or civil war you can think of was fought to free people. Ours was that yet also to keep some people enslaved. Only in America...

As a people, only Blacks and Native Americans have suffered here. It took a couple hundred years to conquer the Indians. Blacks arrived here already conquered but they have since suffered plenty. They would be a force to be reckoned with. They know real pain, all to up close and personal.

Guys named Chuck and Bubba with the latest in AR15 hardware, outside the Piggly Wiggly are not a force to be reckoned with. They are assholes who are probably best suited to shooting up schools. They do not have the stomach for war. They do not have the perseverance because they do not have the history of suffering that breeds the will and the necessity to fight. That only comes from real turmoil, not frivolous, media-inspired, political trauma.

The irony of this all is, while these wannabe commandos are jerking themselves off, fantasizing about revolution, we've actually been taken over by the corporations. The America they think they are losing, is already lost. They just don't know it.

A hundred years or so of ironic FEMA camps ought to toughen everybody up.

Hyphenated-Americans

This confederate flag kerfuffle is easier to understand once you put it into proper perspective. Think of the man on the street-type interviews that late night talk show hosts have done going back to the Jack Parr days. People are stupid and they are out there walking among us and many have no qualms about going on TV and showing the nation how little they know. Think about this; millions of the people watching them display their stupidity are every bit as stupid as they are! Millions of adult Americans don't know who the Vice President is even, closer to home, who their governor or senators are. That's pretty typical. You can fear that they vote but, come on- these people don't vote, except on American Idol-type shows. Stuff they care about. They can name all the Kardashians  but they don't know who won WWII.

So, when you hear adults saying things like; "The confederate flag is a flag of heritage- not hate!" you have to understand that such people belong to the largest group of hyphenated-Americans in the country...Stupid-Americans.

How many young people today might even know who fought in the American Civil War? I assume everyone in my age bracket knows but, should I? The knowledge that I possess, I shouldn't take for granted that anyone knows. Technically, I have but a high school education but, I didn't stop there. Post school there are books to learn from, there is life itself and, more recently, the internet. I enjoy cat videos and Lord knows I fucking love arguing with strangers on the internet but, I Google too. A lot. There's a lot of info out there, you just have to know where to find it and where not to find it. You still have to figure it out for yourself because so many people are actively trying to figure it out for you.

Even if people are presumably book smart and technically better educated than you, don't believe everything they say. You have to consider their motives. Republican politicians, for example, will tell you that absolutely everything President Obama does is wrong. Everything. He's wrong to get health care for Americans. More recently, he's wrong to negotiate with Iranians when clearly the right thing to do is go to bloody war with them! Duh. Any fucking idiot knows that! AND, did you know that the minimum wage is a bad thing and that every current GOP candidate believes there should be no minimum and that it would actually be better for us if there were no floor as to how low people could be paid?

Isn't it ironic that some folks today totally disavow that the Civil War was fought over slavery despite articles of secession- official documents- saying that was the reason for treason? How about the irony of, 150 years later, many of the same leaders of the secessionist part of the country wanting to eliminate the minimum wage? And not just southern politicians but conservative politicians from all over the country. People should be offended that their leaders are telling them- with straight faces- that they make too much money with the minimum and that they could actually make more without it!

How the fuck does that work? Do I need to send $19.95 to find out? Where do I sign?

Conservatives, especially in the south, seem to have had enough. They've grumbled about possibly seceding again. One more democrat president might push them over the edge. All they have to do is figure out how to go to war with the US and keep that federal money coming in because they know they can't make it on their own.

We'll see what drives them to quit and wage war. They'll maybe lose it over gay marriage. Maybe the minimum wage getting raised. Or healthcare. It doesn't matter what they say now. I just wonder what they'll say it was really about 150 years from now? Since when do we let the losers write their own history.

State's Wrongs

The Slaveholder Rebellion flag is in the news again. In South Carolina, where the flag still flies over the state house, a young man shot and killed 9 black people at an historic black church.

That flag (also known as "the confederate battle flag" or "stars and bars") has long been controversial. Something like 150 years after the end of the otherwise termed "Civil War", people are still arguing about why it was fought. Many insist it has NOTHING to do with slavery. They get very angry about that. They insist instead that it was state's rights that 620,000 people died over because that makes so much more sense....

State's rights to own human beings would seem to be a pretty apt assessment then. You can look up the articles of secession written at the time. They were pretty pissed about the notion that the nation might tell them they can't have slaves. I've long felt though that no southerner wants to believe that their white ancestors died for black folks. So, they instead believe that those ancestors died for state's rights to, uh, well, uh...

Mostly they just stop at "state's rights" because it sounds political. And it is. Now it is. State's rights are the equivalent of having your cake and eating it too. Many states want to live in America and get all that Federal money, as well as the military protection we offer, but they want to make their own rules about everything else. Back then it was mostly about slavery. Today it's about wage slavery, abortion, guns, voting, women and minorities- everything. Keep that federal money coming in but don't tell us what to do!

It sounds like Europe but with Federal money keeping all the countries afloat. However, it's also a Europe without universal healthcare. That's something I could see our southern states going to war over. Well, they'd call it a state's right to protect it's citizens from affordable healthcare of northern aggression, or something along those lines. The right to put a spin on everything is practically a human right. No matter how wrong people may be, they can pretend that they are right about anything and if others agree, there you go. Caitlyn Jenner isn't really a woman and Rachael Dolezal isn't actually black but, who cares? They can believe what they want no matter how goofy it is as long as they don't force others to believe it at gunpoint. The state's though, don't have that right. We the people won't allow it.

The Line On The Color Bar

Rachael Dolezal, it turns out, has been passing herself off as black. It usually doesn't work this way. She's the 37 year old head of the NAACP chapter of Spokane, Washington. Evidently her very white parents went on TV and outed her as being of the Caucasian persuasion. She doesn't look the least bit African-American to my trained eye but, that's not all that unusual.

Back in the day I had a dear friend who found out in a very odd way that she was African-American. Sandy was- is- extremely beautiful. Dark-haired and lightly olive-skinned, every man at the private oilman's club in New Orleans we worked at crushed on her. When she entered the bar area, admiring eyes were drawn to her. Whispers followed her too. "She's a high yella, Ferrerman" Mr. Brooks would whisper to me as quietly as a loud man like him could whisper. It took me a bit but my young, Yankee self had a pretty good idea what he meant by that. Hearing a less discrete club member ponder aloud (after she departed) that there must have been "a nigger in the woodpile" confirmed that she was some degree of black. I really couldn't see it but, that seemed to be the consensus.

I crushed on her too. We became friends. She was quite seriously involved with a guy named Russell though, so friendship was what it would be, I recall feeling her out about her blackness. She had two extremely beautiful young daughters with her ex who was Italian, though he had a decidedly English surname. If she didn't care to discuss her heritage with me, I was fine with that. It wasn't important to me to push it though I was quite curious. When I left New Orleans, we stayed in contact via letters and phone calls. It was the 20th century.

A few years went by and she called me up- very excited- that she had discovered what she and others had always suspected. She was black. A sister in law had phoned a local news station for some reason and a reporter greeted her as "cousin" when he heard her husband's name. I'm going from memory here. The SIL was certainly shocked and awed at this sudden development but I don't think she was too caught off guard. The newsman filled in some details and she discussed it with her husband. A Pandora's Box of secrets began to come out. There was a whole other black side of Sandy's family in the area, one that knew of Sandy and her siblings but they did not know of them. Until then.

Sandy, the oldest, was ecstatic. The whispers and taunts she had grown up hearing were now accounted for as true. For her it was cathartic. Not for dad.

Her father angrily refused to acknowledge his past. He had passed for white his whole life, married a white woman, and raised a passel of white children. No one, least of all his first born, was going to tell him he was not white. Lot's of friction ensued. The story got to Oprah Winfrey's ears and she wanted to have the family on her show. I think most of the family was on board but dad wasn't, and without him, there was to be no show. It was an awesome story. He served on a warship in WWII as a white man. What other black man could say that in a time of a segregated military, and deep in the Jim Crow south? He broke the rules. He married a white woman decades before Loving v. Virginia said that was legal. That was 1967 if you're scoring at home. There was a clause in the Virginia law prior to that that allowed for a degree of Indian blood in whites when they realized that since begat-ting is as begat-ting does, many prominent Virginians has mingled with Indians in the past and, this would have to be accepted.

Don't get me to lying on the "one drop rule" the one/sixteenth rule that I believe they had in Louisiana back in the day, and how all this was determined before DNA simplified everything. It was a huge deal then. Not sure of the year but I recall a 60 Minutes segment years ago where a very whit looking woman was contesting the state of Louisiana's assertion that she was black, because of that rule. She looked like my grandmother.

In fact, Sandy's entire family looked like everyone I grew up with, including my siblings. I knew the story by the time I met and romanced Donna, one of her younger sisters a few years later. Donna had no children but I think all the other kids did by then and their family get togethers looked like any other family I knew. Sandy's beautiful daughters, like her, were olive-skinned like momma, thanks also to their bloodline via daddy. Sandy was darker than her sibs, I guess because she was first born? I'm no geneticist. That's all I can figure. The other kids took their new blackness in stride by then. The latter part of the 20th century helped that along. New Orleans is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle at times but, Louisiana itself can certainly be a hot mess of racial gumbo when you get out into the various parishes. I'm convinced that Bobby Jindal got elected governor because voters figured he was Cajun, a local boy. Bobby Jindeaux? But when I last visited, a young biracial Mariah Carey was topping the charts. It just wasn't that big of a deal for folks to enter into mixed marriages. Well, to knowingly do so. With the advent of DNA, a lot of people might be finding out what was in the woodpile of their own ancestry. Unless you're running for Grand Wizard of the Klan, who really cares anymore? . Now, as you well know, we have a biracial president. Not everyone is cool about that but more than enough people were for him to be elected. Twice.

So, back to Rachael Dolezal. She's not black. I bet DNA will bear that out and there are no family secrets. If she wants to believe she's black, that's her business. I don't think she's the right choice to lead the NAACP chapter and that is their business. I believe that will be taken care of soon. Her heart seems to be in the right place but her head is not. We don't have any control over how we got here. We only can hope to know where we are going, and to go there as ourselves...trying to do it together, if others will let us.

Comedians in cars, getting taken too seriously

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Kind words and blurred lines

What would the NRA- the Marketing Department of the gun manufacturing industry- do if a Ted Cruz or Scott Walker somehow became president?

Their whole spiel is dependent upon the fallacy that a democrat president WILL confiscate YOUR guns. You put some dipshit like Ted or Scott in the White House and all of a sudden you better get Don Draper selling your product  or at least McMann and Tate because it ain't easy anymore. You can't just wind up a Ted Nugent or a Palin and let 'em spew about the tyrannical bully in the White House if he's one of yours.

But, ya know, the White House may never happen for the GOP (in an election sort of way) and I'm not so sure they care. You win enough governorships and state legislatures and maybe the presidency doesn't really matter much. Thus the push for "state's rights" and the notion of "second amendment remedies..." It might take a reichstag fire.

And I'm wondering after watching the latest street video of police abusing Americans, if maybe the NRA and the Open Carry Texas nuts aren't right and that we should all be armed, all the time. You just never know when cops are going to attack. Here's an example of cops getting a stern lecture from a guy who refuses to be a victim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfK1fJhZX7g

See? The whole black-kids-at-the-pool drama could have been avoided if the blacks had been white and armed. Evidently, if you're white and armed you can talk to cops like they are- black kids at a pool party.

Here's an example of an unarmed citizen and how he's treated by the Salinas, California police. I don't know that an armed society is a polite society like the gun nuts claim, but it looks like mobs of cops can't beat armed people as easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDJhcT3jVu0

Really, folks, you really can get more with stern words and guns than you can with just stern words.

When you're a nail, everything needs to look like a hammer

The Duggar and Jenner scandals pretty much happened right on top of each other (which is just wrong in itself) and once again divided the nation. People were either Team Duggar or Team Jenner. Red versus blue. Everything is.

Team Duggar manned the ramparts against yet another attack on Christianity in America, though it seemed to be also a defense of child molestation of the incestuous kind. Stop and think about what you are defending, folks. When you make yourself a nail, everything must be a hammer.

The Team Duggar crowd also went on the offensive against the newly minted citizen, Caitlyn Jenner- the Jenner Formerly Known As "Bruce".

That's just like those libs! Buncha sex changing freaks! Is he-she gonna marry himself now? Is this a lib trick to vote twice????!!!

Here's the thing about that: Bruce Jenner- and Caitlyn Jenner- is REPUBLICAN! So are The Duggars.

How filled with hate can people be when they prefer child molesters to cross-dressers for political points? Nobody said anybody had to pick one or the other! I know not too many Christicans actually came out in favor of child abuse but they really didn't condemn it much when they passed the incidents off as "playing doctor" and "not as bad as the Jenner thing".

And if a male republican reality show star chooses to self identify as a woman how is that a democrat thing? Just because democrats are more inclined to say: "You go, girl" instead of: "String him/her/it up!"?

It's so weird that republicans can at once be more inclusive than democrats as well as exclusive.

The whole purpose of the tea party is to include absolutely every group of nuts in America into the republican party. Sometimes it's overflowing. It's amazing who they let out as well as in.

I'll bet Jenner doesn't leave the party though. Jenner's rich and needs republican politicians to protect his money from selfish Americans who think America needs roads and schools instead perpetual war. That might seem like oversimplification (and it is) but that must be why he stays. It can't be because of their open-mindedness about gender equality. He's one of them and they can't do a damn thing about it.

Goodness, we're just six months away from The War On Christmas Season. How time flies when not a goddamn thing changes.

Well, nothing but Bruce Jenner's outfit, that is.


                                                                     ****************

Oh- and Beau Biden died. The day after Beau succumbed to brain cancer, Ted Cruz was guffawing to a crowd about the dumb things Joe Biden has been known to say. No shame in the Cruz game. He did eventually find time to apologize. Like I said, they'll take anybody. Somebody's got to....

To Thine Own Self....

I don't know how brave Bruce Jenner is. He waited until long after childbirth and menopause to become a woman. Kinda telling. Not that gutsy, really.

I just don't see him as a "woman" just because he has the trappings of womanliness via make up and modern photo shop techniques. There's more to it than that. Modern surgery can evidently fashion a vagina and, of course, breasts and cheekbones and other facial features can be altered to appear more feminine, but- actual women are also female chromosomes, a uterus and ovaries. Also something to do with some degree of sugar and spice.

Evidently Bruce has no intention of getting the penis removed. That proves he's a man- just won't make the commitment.

It is a commitment, one that is not reversible. I read today that Johns Hopkins no longer performs gender reassignment surgery because they consider it a psychiatric issue. It doesn't mean Jenner or anyone who is not probably doing this for ratings is crazy. It means that it's all in their head and should be dealt with there before you go making irreversible alterations.

It really is all in your head, as flippant as that sounds. It doesn't mean you are crazy or need to be cured or prayed for. It means you have to deal with it. Jenner might be on the level. But, he should level with us and himself by admitting it if he simply likes to dress up in women's clothing. This makes him a transvestite. He as Caitlyn is still attracted to women. Evidently most cross-dressers are heterosexual men. If Jenner really considered himself a woman, he'd be attracted to men, as most women are. This isn't some Mike Huckabee jerkoff fantasy of dressing as a women so as to get into the girl's locker room. It may be a ratings scam (they'll be a new show...) but, Jenner is not trying to scam a B-movie locker room scene. He may be greedy, but he's not a fat, Arkansas hypocrite.

I also don't think he adds much positive to any national discussion about transgendered persons since he's not actually one. He is a 65 year old celebrity who likes to play dress-up and call himself "Caitlyn". OK. That has nothing to do with little boys and girls who feel trapped in the wrong body and actually live the nightmare of the confusion about who they are. Let's not let them fall by the wayside. Whether you buy Jenner's perception of himself or not, how he portrays himself should be more his business than ours. Same for the real people in the shadows of society's gender light. Don't dismiss them because of Jenner.

But, the great sexual organ we all share is the brain. It makes short, bald men believe they are studs and obese women think they are supermodels. Because you think, therefore you are? 

In your own mind is your own business. That's where you can have lady parts or be sure you can become president of the United States. It's your own virtual reality. We the people don't have to accept it. We do have to deal with it though, even if that means ignoring it.

Hipocritic Oath

Occasionally I like to point out that republicans, particularly of the tea party persuasion, are very hateful people. It seems like the more Christian they identify as, the more filled with hate they are. The internet is chock-full of examples of republican hatred. In fact, I think it, rather than pornography or cat videos, drives the internet. It seems like it's either reichwing sites promoting hate or left-wing sites reporting on the hate-filled rants on reichwing sites. As a guy who gets most of his FOX news from Jon Stewart, I tend to get my internet hate from liberal sites that keep track of reichwing hate sites. It does prompt me to go to the source at times....

Over the weekend Beau Biden died after a battle with brain cancer. He was 46. He is the son of our Vice President, Joe Biden. Aside from that, Beau was an Iraq war veteran. As a Captain in Delaware's National Guard, he served a year in Iraq.

You would like to think that republicans on the internet would take the time to thank him for his service. A couple few did, I suppose.

An obscene number, however, wished that his father had died in his place. The *liberal* site, Addicting Info, posted screenshots of similar and worse sentiments. To ferrer, I must note that some republicans did call out their peers for the brutality of their sentiments. But, ya know, dammit, they can't help but react that way because Beau was the son of the man who works with the man who has dedicated his life to destroying America- the country they love to death. So, there's that....

Forget  six degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon. These people can connect Barack Obama to absofuckinglutely anything in one to two moves. Well, that's politics.

But, they can also totally disregard their religious convictions with no shame, in a heartbeat. Fuck that "loving thine enemy" and any compassion for the deceased or his family. Everything you ever swore to as a follower of Christ goes out the goddamned window where politics are concerned! You betcha!

It was similar with the Duggars. Christianity was being attacked by Godless liberals when it was revealed that a teenaged Josh Duggar had molested his own sisters as well as other young girls. People who- probably minutes before were screaming for child molesters to be sodomized in prison by other prisoners- were now saying "he was playing doctor like all kids do" and "he said he was SORRY!" Jesus forgave him- why can't you?

It's like they took a hypocritic oath when they became Christian republicans- "First, do no mercy."

The come off their game quite easy. Most are never really on it so, it's not a steep fall from grace. Frankly, it isn't just politicians who find it prudent to jump on the religious bandwagon, regular people do it as well.  It's like a secret handshake. If you identify as a Christian, people are more inclined to trust you or at least think you might be trustworthy. If you aren't, God will get you....

There are certainly Christians in the democrat party. Well, they claim to be Christian that is. Obama, for example, is a secret Muslim who claims to be Christian. Them's the worst kind. Hillary probably is too. Or, she'll be one soon enough.

It makes you wonder who the real Christians are. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the "real" ones are not the one's who blindly defend TV child molesters, or who wish death on political rivals. Jesus, people- would Jesus do that?

A Face In The Crowd

Over the weekend I saw a video of some mob *justice* delivered upon a teenage girl in Guatemala. The backstory of the clip was that she was part of a gang that had robbed and killed a taxi driver. The male culprits had gotten away.

The girl was surrounded by a hundred or more people.There was no place for her to go to escape them. She is kicked and punched by various people. My Spanish is quite rusty but, she was called a whore. People come at her. One guy seems to come to her aid, perhaps appealing to the crowd for calm but, it's hard to tell if that's what his intention is. At one point she's beaten down and a guy comes by, douses her with fluid and he lights her afire. She's alive while the flames engulf her body. As they subside, the guy refuels her body, briefly setting some of the crowd and the plaza on fire. You can only hope that she loses consciousness and suffers no more but, I don't know that she got that lucky. Most people, engulfed by flames, suffocate as all of the oxygen around them is consumed by the flames. Regardless, it can't be a quick way to die.

I viewed the clip on a popular republican site. The text said it was pulled from Youtube because it was so graphic but it's still on the republican site. That's actually kind of fitting.

The whole episode is so primal. So Biblical. So 20th century American South. Just like our republicans.

According to the text, they also lynched her. From 1882 to 1968, 4743 people were lynched in the US. Of those, 3,446 were African-Americans. Wiki adds that better than 85% of those were in southern states. It was typical to set the body on fire. Sometimes black men were mutilated, their genitals cut off.

I'm sure our nation's racists are pointing out: "Hey, ya goddamned Ferrerman- white people were lynched too!"

I can always count on our nation's Topix posters to enlighten us that (essentially) "both sides have done stuff so, uh, there you go..."

Then, the more Sublime will offer historical facts about how black people actually having started lynching... They didn't of course, but the more Sublime among us can deduce that, blacks were indeed an integral part of the lynching process in the south....it couldn't have happened without them....so therefore, and the party of the first part....

I guess white people just perfected it, much like the slave trade.

If you think I digress, you should have seen the comments. As if watching a human life ending in one of the worst ways imaginable were not horrific enough, reading other humans responses to it were also horrific. The folks commenting seemed to think Obama was bringing these folks to America to vote for democrats... You know how such sites go. Some folks were against the mob action and actually stayed on topic. Others went on about it highlighting the need for immigration reform.

Obviously people haven't changed much throughout the centuries. Guatemala has cell phones and videos but they have 20th century Alabama standards of justice. Alabama has cellphones but they seem to want to get back to more simpler times.

Mob justice is rather Biblical. Jesus once asked a mob: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Today, since he died on the cross for those sins and with Christian lawyers having poured over the Bible, one only has to apologize to Jesus, ask forgiveness and then one can commence rock-chucking. They make it seem that easy.

Mob justice is easy. It's not hard to reach a consensus of guilt among dull, slow-witted people with perverse revenge on their mind. I rather doubt that the girl in question actually killed anyone herself and her participation at all is probably in question. That's why we have police and courts with evidence and testimony. I don't care if she was part of the murder. Torture is not supposed to be part of the judicial process. You can tell Dick Cheney I said so.

It made me sick to see this happen to this child, this human being. To be so alone in a crowd... To plead for justice and mercy, with no one willing to help as the flames of inhumanity feed her persecutors. We're really just not getting any better at this, anywhere, are we?

We Are An Asshole Nation

Jeb Bush thinks we should be allowed to discriminate based on our religious views. He cited two religions- Christian and Judaism- to name just two. Conspicuously absent was Muslim and all the others. You have to give him a break on that oversight because there are not that many Muslims in this country so nobody covets them as a voting block. And, Christians pretty much hate Muslims so being unnecessarily nice about them is not a good political move for a guy who is going to run for president.

(Ferrerman note: Is he running? There's like 50 of these kochsuckers running and everybody knows it but, until they announce they are just whoring for PAC money. It's anti-climatic when they DO announce because I think even the most seasoned media types probably stop and think: "Wait- what again? Didn't he already..." It's hard to tell the players without a scorecard.)

So anyways, because of all this gay marriage stuff and how it effects (affects?) our nation's pizza parlors and bakeries, it's an actual fucking issue? Unbelievable, but true. I just can't imagine that gay marriages are anymore frivolous than straight marriages. You can't outlaw those, so why the arguement about the gays and their desire for temporary matrimony? Marriage isn't even an exclusive church thing. You do not have to get married in a church. You knew that but most people don't stop and consider that. There is Vegas and there is courts. There is Sheriff Taylor as a Justice of the Peace. You can get married in a pizza parlor- if they'll let you. That is actually up to them. It's up to a church if they want to hold your ceremony- not whether you can get married at all.

Evidently some Christians are afeared that their church will be forced to marry gay couples. Nope. Not even if you worship at a Papa John's in Indiana. That's just not gonna happen. I'm as straight as the next guy (wait- who's the next guy???) and, if I go crazy and want to marry again, me and the next Mrs Ferrerman can't force any church to marry us. Not even if we ask nice do they have to marry us. The same goes for civil court and Elvis Chapel marriages. You have to ask if they can fit it into their schedules and, you have to get a license. You don't have to take a test, guess the number of jelly beans in a jar OR do it in a church. Well, I don't mean do it, I mean you do not have to get married in a church. So, why do the overtly Christian Christian's care?

Because they are assholes.

The only way to combat Islamic Sharia law is with Christian Sharia law.

Well, that's not the only way. It's their only way. Religion is a business. Christianity and it's subsidiaries is the dominant set of faiths in this country but, that doesn't make us a "Christian nation" like they like to work into practically every conversation so that it becomes a habit.

"Good morning! Of course, we are a Christian nation! Looks like rain today!"

It just means that, in a nation of 310 Million And Counting, many millions are Christians, many millions are not, and many millions are ""D", none of the above. The founders, who are as widely misinterpreted- by the same people, oddly enough- as Jesus, long ago deemed that this nation would never have an official state religion. In fact, in the very first Amendment it says that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of....

Thank God- or not- that they didn't muddle up the first like they did the second by ending it with "shall not be infringed"  because if they did, that would cinch it that, if your religion is not the main one, you can violently revolt agin the gubmint (see 2A) as you can with elections.

Sheesh. It's the same assholes, all the time, trying to fuck it up for everybody else. They are the reason we can't have nice things. They are also the reason this country is going to Hell. Ironic, eh? They are a diversion. The corporations are sodomizing the American dream and we're arguing about how who people love and achieve (maybe) orgasms with. It's ridiculous but we fall for it all the time.

Born To Be Riled

This past Sunday in Waco Texas, several outlaw motorcycle clubs fought in the parking lot of a Twin Peaks restaurant. It was fists, chains, knives and very quickly- guns. Nine bikers were killed and about 30 wounded, last I heard. It was "Bike Night" at the TP which is some other geniuses interpretation of the mindless concept of Hooters- boobs and bottoms. Adding bikes is not a bad idea but this franchisee's version was catering to outlaw crowd rather than the pretend and spend crowd of lawyers, doctors and coke-dealing painters who want to live a sort of part-time bike fantasy, like other bars do. A lot of bars post signs prohibiting the wearing of club colors. Frankly, aside from the potential for violence between rival clubs it's also because of those colors, those colors can also scare away regular customers. It's not part of most business models.

So, rival factions...something about a parking space...fisticuffs....and then about a hundred rounds fired in close quarters....Pretty brutal. Is this the way white people riot? Where are the fathers?

I've seen a lot of complaining that the Waco PD was too easy on the perpetrators. A photo on just about every website seems to support this as it shows a bunch of the white bikers, sitting about, many of them studying their phones, while a cop appears to be standing guard for them. It does look pretty congenial.

Not so congenial though is murder and RICO charges accompanied by one million dollar bail for 170 of these guys. I'd say that's pretty serious treatment. I get that some are complaining that- if the bikers were black they'd be getting their heads split open, just for being there.

Some of the dead might have been killed by cops. This is unknown now and will certainly take time to sort out. Cops confiscated over 100 guns and scores of shell casings. All of those 170 suspects are witnesses and victims and perpetrators. At least one of the dead may not have been an active gang member at all. Remember, it was "Bike Night" (though lunch time) and some people were also there as regular customers. The dead man in question was a 65 year old, Marine veteran of Vietnam who, according to his family, was not affiliated with any club though he had been in the past.

The bikers themselves make a huge distinction between their "clubs" and gangs. There are motorcycle social clubs I suppose, but if you're dealing dope, guns, prostitution and violence, you can call yourself a club if you like but, the law and the public will call you a "gang". When you're a Jet you're a Jet, from your first cigarette to your last dying breath. We went through this with the mob and their "legitimate businessmen" defense and the "Hell's Angels" and their participation with the "Toys For Tots" at Christmas. Mussolini made the trains run on time but that did not define him like the fascism did.

I don't know if any of those arrested have made bail yet. If I remember my Math School ciphering, 10% of 1 million is $100,000 in bail cash. That's a lot of cheese to come up with, plus property. That's why we have bail bondsmen, of course, but, maybe these guys aren't considered good risks- at that price. Not very elite clubs, I guess.