Things I Don't Say on Facebook

Avoiding much comment on facebook is not always easy.  Time after time I write some lengthy rebuttal or comment regarding an assertion made in a post, only to immediately delete.

I know that comments can lead to trouble and the pretend tough people get all upb in your figurative face about everything.  When the reason stops, it is pretty clear.

The last major meme which appeared to be hoax was one touting Trumpcare, the alternative to Obama care.  I am seriously skeptical of this story.  It pretty much says Trumpcare is a government pay insurance companies and you get your part tacked onto your tax bill.

That is kind of a single payer system, and no one gets a choice.  That's the forced buy concept amped up.  Single payer--US government, and single collector, IRS.  But this is right there in the taxes.

They said you choose doctors etc.  I think it is a garbage story.  Makes no sense.  No way I want to get into it on FB.   I still think we do not know--most of us--what the ACA entails.  Nancy said we'd see what is in it once passed.  We still do not really know.

Repealing it and going with whatever is supposed to happen will probably remain unclear.  On FB, at best you invite a bunch of talking point parrots when you question things.

When have we heard what exactly is the current healthcare situation?  What is wrong with it, what are they planning to do to make it right?  Are they going to remove government from healthcare completely?  That won't happen.

So, lets cheer for replacing what we don't understand with something we can't name.  Maybe start with those whose premiums went up along with deductibles.   If you really think the bill had zmuch to do with your health, I think you've been duped.  It is a thousand pages of crony, and another thou of ism.

But aside from that, I think the peer pressure thing of being cool by fabricating Trump hate and refusing to accept the transfer of power is a mistake.  Each pseudo intellectual activist tries to impress all his or her peers by coming up with the cleverest of disparaging comments re Trump.  It need not be true or have anything to do with values or actions.  They seem to want to totally disrupt the inauguration.  Third world action.

They call that democracy.  It is purely mob action.  They want a mob big enough to bully the process.  And to what end?  Get your candidate in office?  It is a bad trend.

But mobs stopping traffic and using other forms of force, while claiming to be peacefully protesting has been a danger forever.  Same idiots who thought the orchestrated Arab radicalization and destabilization was the "Arab spring" think this kind of thing is just free speech rather than insanity and bullying.

It is dangerous to go about it like that.  You don't get your way so you shut down businesses and harass people.  They cannot refuse you cakes or service of any sort, but you refuse if you choose.  (directed at progressive 'activists').  You retain your freedom of choice while trying to deny it to others.  Which is it?

Worst case is they disrupt so much that they legitimize some lunatic's declaration of martial law.

Probably won't happen.  But who knows.  My koolaid addled friends who have some connection to academia seem to be screaming "lalalala" while plugging their ears with their fingers.  They only want to hear what they like.  Truth be damned.  If it doesn't further cast aspersions upon their perceived foe, then it cannot be heard.

I see the hard left working themselves up to a dangerous frenzy; to the point where they do not know what it is they even want.  They just know it is cool to imagine further monstrosities about Trump.  True or false.  In their mind it is the same as how no one but white people can be racist; no anti-Trump meme can be false, no matter how untrue.

That is a danger.  The backlash is as worrisome as a president who cannot let one comment pass, no matter how superfluous, without going on a twitter binge in response.  Really the guy is worrisome.  But no more so than the drooling, rabid fanatics over dramatizing and failing to understand the system or the value of truth.  There are legitimate means if an elected official is too far out there.

This hysteria is based on partial truths and is a manipulative effort to gain power. Pure and simple.  So, playing the high road because it seems so easy when Trump is involved, is not the high road when force, hitting horses, and lies are involved.

Repeal It To See What It Is

The ACA has been both vilified and praised.   Trying to find actual facts to back up either force is tough.  There are people whose deductibles are prohibitive; they would do better out of pocket and no premiums.  Then you hear about people who have coverage which otherwise would not have happened.

In reality, many people don't know what this Obamacare thing is or is not.  Pre-existing conditions is apparently in there.  But pre-existing doctors of choice, not so much.  And it was a lie that if you liked what you had you could keep it.  That is where lots of high deductibles came in.

Of course if you are in a government job or on a government or military pension, you really have little clue how the thing works in the real world.  If you are in Congress, you are special, so all this is for the "masses", not you.

The term, "the masses" is messed up.  I think it came from one of the communist thugs of early 20th century.  Both a telling and a demeaning term, I think.  There are those who like being part of the masses.  The oozing jelly of solidarinosc folk who blanket the streets, harassing the disinterested among the other masses while screaming at some power or another; their idea of God--government.

Anyway, blanket repeal of something no one actually fully understood to begin with is another move in the dark.  It could get weirder than ever.

I know from my own efforts in trying to find and read the affordable care act that it is incredibly obscure and complex and covers thousands of pages of confusion.  Most of it comes down to a clerk's judgment somewhere in the bowels of the federal government.  Surprising how many threads end there in trying to follow that bill.

I do not really know what to make of it.  In principle, the buy or die approach is not what I consider right.  Opting out seems to be a basic right.  But be prepared to die should you get ill rather than expect the good treatment.

By being forced to show coverage, semi poor folk are forced to take your generous subsidies, or else. I know I appreciate it.  But I don't know if what I am doing is really part of that act or not.  I know I pay more than what it would cost out of pocket with no insurance.  But if I progressed to the next phase of this condition, just one month worth of drugs might be 10k or more.  And I could conceivably want some stem cells to go.  That has to be costly.

In no time I'd cost thousands, tens of thousands of dollars more than I pay.  I actually couldn't pay more, and barely swing the bit I do.  If you are so indigent that you pay zip, your choices are very limited, and sometimes the only options available to you are not the best ones, and you will die.  I believe that is the point; make it look like compassion, but really it is just a pretense at care while you die off and shut up.

So, I hate to think of some of these goof balls grand standing over health care while making it worse. They have nothing to lose.  I'm too lazy to follow any money to see who gains.  I just do not think I trust any of them, demo or repub, to do anything sane and useful.

One thing for sure, do not do anything until you know the big picture and know what will work out better.

I believe they figured out the cost of this overly centralized system represented by the ACA was such that they could have just direct paid for people's health care 100% for a long long time, eliminating numerous middle men.

Corruption is a nervy vocation and it is astounding how it is conducted in plain view, yet "the masses" seem to be content to go alng with all pretenses that these people and things they do are not totally engineered and implemented according to corrupt motives and practices.

For God's sake, for my sake, for everyone's sake, will we quit having government by twitter, immediately, please?

Well, Nancy lied.  We did pass the Affordable Care Act, but still do not really know what is in it.  I suspect repealing it will not shed any light on it.  Especially considering the players involved.  Please save me from the Schumers and Warrens and Ryans and McConnells and other grandstanders reaping the spoils of power.

Town up on the ridge

There is a community up above Harbison Canyon, the community where the wild music ranch is located.   Crest is a suitable name because it is on the crest of that geographical deal going on up there.

Some years ago, but definitely this century, they were devastated by the Cedar Fires.  Like hurricanes, big fires out here have names.  But they usually relatye to the event rather than just name it after your dog or aunt.

They rebuilt, and rebuilt a very nice community building on the edge of the park.  Every other month they have a music night.  It is hosted by a trio called, Baird and Silva.  It used to be a duo until my friend J-Rod was brought aboard to play bass.  Tom Baird is really good.  Love his original stuff.

Anyway the format is three acts or artists play.  Each plays a fairly short set and they go around again.  Sometimes at the end, everyone plays.

I've played Crest Community Center several times, both with Copper Creek and with the current group, Enter the Blue Sky.  And I always love it.  The sound is great, the setting is perfect and it just pleases me.  I also like to go there just to listen.

One problem,  much of the time when I come to listen, I get recruited to play.  I rarely know there songs.  They save the easier 1 4 5 stuff for others I guess.  I get who knows what, and if the Gods aren't pleased, I get stuck playing some friggin' Neil Young cover.    I am not a big Neil Young anything.  I like some of his songs.  I seldom want to play any of his songs.

Oh well.  I got recruited last night.  The guy is good and I didn't want to say no.  They know I don't travel far without my harps in the car.  I guess I did OK.

A couple of other friends were playing and even though I love playing with them other times, I was grateful they did not succumb to any thought of having me sit in.  I liked hearing the combination of those two, plus the girl with harmonies.  There are times it is better when I sit and listen and enjoy.  Plus, I already know their opinion of my playing so no need to be concerned about hurt feelings if they don't redo a pre-planned gig to include me at last minute.

It is flattering to walk into a place slide in to the middle of the room, being anonymous and then be summoned immediately by the performers.  It is nice.  I am so surprised how often that occurs.  Especially because I try not to make it happen in most cases.

But last night, it was OK.  I needed the contact.  I am a little shaky in the mental health department, I suppose.  The ending jam was much fun.  The quality of the musicians last night was just tops.  Truth is, the music I most enjoy these days seems to be music my friends play.

If I could describe what is my issue or conflict or whatever, the picture would look really stupid, so I will shutup and get better.

Crest is really cool.  Way up on a ridge.  Muriel and I took a walk back behind the park and you could see El Cajon and beyond to the west, three or four thousand feet below stretching out for a couple dozen miles toward the coast.  A sea of lights.  But up there is mostly dark.  Damn barky dogs caused me to turn around.  Good for owners--to a point.  But they screw up the leisurely stroll.

Not as afraid of strange snarling dogs as I have been most of my life, but still not good with it.  Even though I get along with everyone's dogs very well in most settings.  It's the unknown snarlers that trouble me.  I guess you tend to be a little shy if you ever got a taste of an attack dog wanting to rip your thigh.  Fortunately my friend at 10 years old was able to immediately pull his psycho dog off before damage got done.  We were both 10.

They called my house worried we might sue.  So glad we weren't of that ilk.  They got rid of the dog. Had not had it long.  It was nuts but trained guard dog. Shepherd.  He answered door and bam His dog, Ted Bundy, ran past him,. latched onto my thigh and started shaking back and forth.  But he let the kid pull him off and give whatever command.  I don't care what you say, you get jerk animals just like you get jerk humans.  Happens.

So, nice place usually for a walk.  But anywhere you go is hard to walk because people's dogs do not know when to harass you and when not to.  Dogs that know that stuff are the minority.   Same with people, now that you mention it.

Has POTUS Weighed In Yet?

You may or may not have heard about the four people of color holding and torturing a mentally challenged colorless person in Chicago.   They aired it live on facebook.  They ranted about white people and Donald Trump.

There is question if it is a hate crime.   If only the perps were colorless and the vic had color.   Very similar to a crime outside of Greensboro which occurred when I lived there.  Same mix but the vic was a challenged female.  It was not reported but as well as multiple rapes she was more or less skinned alive.  In that one there were as many females involved as males.

Don Lemon of CNN says it wasn't a case of evil.  It is just bad parenting.  Perps are not juveniles.  Don Lemmon is a creepy idiot.  He always looks like he's trying to lie and screw someone over. The look is always there.  I bet he's a back stabbing coworker.

But where is Obama on this?  Could that have been his son?  Have yet to hear from Al, et al.  I'm sure we will.  We'll end up distracted by more faked, staged incidents of "hate".  Like burning churches and spray painting "go Trump".  That could have been my church!  You do know that was a parishioner of the church and one, reportedly, not devoid of hue.

This asinine racist and racial pretense is proving fatal.  And part of the collateral damage is that it will spawn more idiotic white racist people.   There are very very few as it is.  But the constant badgering and poking and bigotry by Black, encouraged by pandering guilty whites and opportunistic activists of color, schools, media, even academia, and others has become so offensive that only the most hard core of pretenders can ignore it.  Many motivated by guilt and the requisite dose of self hatred.

It has come to the point that the act is not what matters.  Only the race or ethnicity or other irrelevant characteristic.  Hence Don Lemon won't call this incident evil.  But a fake assault with races changed, like Mike Brown, and what does he say?   Liar, hypocrite, creep.

Please God, I pray; do not let Donald Trump tweet about this.  Amen.
Thank you

Tonto : Secret agent of the West

photo abc television

I don't care what you say or who hates it. Tonto was a badass. They were out to make things better. This would have been a good presidential ticket.  Probably they'd have to put Tonto as pres and the Lone Ranger as VP.

Not sure how they'd address the mask issue.  Probably, they'd stage a distraction, just like they do in the real world now.

Imagine if they re-wrote the ACA,  somehow making sense of things.  (just an aside, didn't they figure out they could have paid for everyone's medical care anyway with the money it cost to implement the ACA?  Something like that--at least paid all the lower income people's stuff.  Maybe not.  Have to check out exactly what it cost. )

We could call the updated version of Obamacare, Tontocare.
From papoose to purgatory, Tontocare's got your back.

I can't expound on the details of the Tonto -Kimmesabie (sp?) plan.  We need to get it passed to see what it is exactly.  Tonto likes it, and that's good enough for me.  Besides, Tonto is a name you can trust.  Tontocare for all.

Fun fact:  You won't catch Tonto doing any twitty tweeting on twitter.  No way.   Cuz he ain't no twit. No @therealTonto for him.
Presidents, past, present, future---do not do twitter.   Great place for half truth and quick lies.  Not for complex reasoning, or much reasoning at all.  No twitter for government officials except to say, hey the forest is on fire and headed your way.  Presidents.  Please, NO MORE TWitter!

Here's the dilemma

Should I fear more the lash or the backlash?  It is often a coin toss, especially when I see little promise in either.

For example, Trump is a tweeting nightmare sometimes, but the backlash to him is absolutely out of their minds, creating half truths and total BS to paint themselves as freedom loving saints.  And freedom loving they are not.  Not if it is you choosing freely for your  own life.  That's their job.

I fear that both the lash and the backlash in this case are ignorant of the constitution; both its spirit and letter.  Or else they just don't like it, in general.   I know the democratic machine hates misfits like me.  They always have, and I have grown to detest their language and their authoritarian ways of pretending to help people when they are just keeping people under their governmental thumb.

They truly think they should be the arbiters of all your choices.  They know best. Always.

Right now I actually think the backlash may be more dangerous than the lash.  I believe there is nothing Obama and this administration plus supporters wouldn't do in order to make it very tough for Trump to slide into office--even if it meant war or any other detriment to the country.  I believe they would sabotage things in such a way as to guarantee disaster and lost lives, if they could make it look like his fault, or just leave him with clean up.

I thought Trump was nuts forever.  Especially since his lowlife public battle with that disgusting creep, Rosie O'.   Two sides of the same classless coin, although she may have the edge.

But the left has been a cruel force forever.  They hate nonconformists and minority viewpoints.  They love identity and tribal politics. Because they need that peer approval.  Lacking in original thought and in depth reasoning ability.  Even smart people are caught in that petty quest for approval.  And, believe me, academia is full of small character people like that.  Same ones who run public school in most cities.

I admit.  I have deep resentments of these creeps.  The problem is that we give too much power to governing bodies.  Governing bodies are too top heavy; too centralized.  And since everyone, including myself, are on the take in some way from the public purse, we just keep on with it.

Lots of stuff works out for a lot of people.  Screw the ones who never managed to fit in.  Pretend to help them as you sweep them into demoralizing programs and hope they die or get shot.

What a scam.  And people are running around as if Trump is the big worry.  Like we had Utopia then along came this mean guy and made mean states vote for him so he could hijack the electoral college.

It wasn't Utopia.  He did not force them to vote for him.  Did you really find it that easy to deal with life and government before?  I never have.  Not really.  Only if I turn a blind eye and ear to many things.  Then I can tolerate these bastards. Simple as that.

I Get Reset

My disdain for new year's madness is not bias against second chances, resets,  or rebirth in any form. It only makes sense that everyone's reset situation be different.  Well spread out anyway.  My new year is not January 1.   I was born in February.  If resets work best at end of one cycle and entering another,  one's birthday should be more appropriate than the one size fits all new year hooplah.

If this is how we acknowledged the cycles then it would be too spread out for the sort of mass inebriation all at once that new year's eve yields.  I wonder how that works.  I guess we are better off with one universal calendar.  But the year end thing is poorly done.  Maybe there is a classier way to celebrate it.  So far I see no trend in that direction.

OK. Here's An Example of What Irks Me

Here we go, making up stuff and writing it all over a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio toasting something.  It is from some movie.  I guarantee he was not saying what is written on the photo as if he is saying it.  No, he just has that smirky, knowing look.  It is a facial expression, and use of body language which seems to know something.  But it is acting.

Every time you turn around some Leo pic toasting is circulated with inane text espousing some viewpoint that Leo is not pushing.  It gives it weight though to have that authoritative yet whimsical personality in the image.  Actors sometimes have a presence that just makes you believe whatever they are selling.  That includes male and female.  I think some females don't like the word actress.  I can see that.  Not sure it matters.

You never know.  People get all wound up over nothing and then think they have a right to harass the culprit who does something egregious like wear a Trump shirt of some kind.  People are getting rabid like never before over this election.  It is bizarre.

But take it from Leo

No.  I will bet into triple digit dollars that Leo did not say these things.  None of it.  I just think not.  

Movie Review: Sully

This was an excellent film.  I expected boring.  Very well written and all else, I think.

Reminded me very much of Capt Clyde, retired Eastern pilot, instructor and safety expert.  Also WW2 hero.   Somehow reminds me of him.  I've known some remarkable people.

My movie reviews have generally been whittled down to, "I think is is a good flick", or "what a lousy movie".

This one=good.

Was I Censored?

In coming months I plan to comment even less than I do now, on facebook.   I may have been censored, or maybe someone flagged my comment as being less than lockstep leftist kool aid material.  Not sure.

No one likes it if you question their third or fourth party info which appears to be a fakish news meme.

My friend, who has become absolutely obsessed with sharing every democratic party, progressive blurb, particularly if it is ridicule of Trump or supporters, shared from a site called liberal something, who cited moveon or daily kos as their source had a story of how Trey Gowdy admitted manufacturing Hillary emails to make her look bad.

Wow.  That would be big news.  Head an investigation, and make up evidence?  That is just awful.  

The headline post was presented in a way that made it look like today's news.   Rather than react from a headline like 90% of facebook does, I clicked it and read the big story at the koolaid factory site.

Turns out this was from October of 2015, and I guess it was largely fake because I think we'd have heard a bit more on this.  Contrary to general opinion, democrats do still wield considerable power.

All I asked was if this was real or maybe not so real, and was it real in 2015 or some such thing.  Someone liked my comment.  But when I clicked and got back to the story, my comment was gone.

I had some problematic fb experiences today.  Kept denying my login.  Very weird.  Then I managed to placate it and get back on.  

You can fear the Trump era all you want.  I already fear the possibility of algorithms designed to flush out malcontents and screw with them.  Nothing personal, just let it be an automated madness.  Seriously, ever since my days in public school, I have noticed that the governmentally privileged, power and tax dough, will crush others in the name of the greater good without even a twinge of conscience.

Actually "the war on fake news" is very probably just code for a war on dissent.  Where else can that sort of thing go?

Oh well.  My real concerns mostly exclude government.  We'll see if the zealots have sway when Trump takes office.  I consider much of what is called ultra conservative to be authoritarian and missing the point re freedom and life.  CBD oil and other cannabis items may have life saving value to people. Not up to government to decide.  FDA is mostly just Cronyville for big bucks.  BS organization.

If the population is too stupid to make their own decisions, then maybe the Darwin effect is beneficial.  Mostly though, I doubt the FDA saves any lives.  They do however make life a living hell for certain types of epileptics and others.

The insurance thing will be something truly bizarre if they aren't real careful.  It is now, but it is set up with booby traps.  What do you expect?  Written by insurance insider.  And it is the most complicated, impossible to humanly follow structure I have ever seen.  Most of it is left up to appointed clerks.

Oh well.  I may be better off now.  Maybe not. I expect no change for awhile.  If ever.  

But the facebook bit has me wondering.