if we'd made it to nanticoke last night

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[KNEE-SLAPPER... yes... I'm still battling my animal instincts... but... hey... I do have a sense of humor about it!]

bugs in the system

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Not only am I bumming because the pub isn't broadcasting Tim's appearance... as of this moment... and I've been fizzing here at my desk for an hour now... but I turned to my rounds to settle down and found this appalling news about the huge job loss in February. Plus, you can listen to the mp3 that comes with this piece and become even more appalled than just the cold numbers themselves. Why is it so blasted easy to find demoralizing shit, and so hard to find energizing stuff?

moved back down because whole netcast was an abortion

There was a nice big screen to watch Tim on here, but I've stricken it from my site because there were insurmountable technical difficulties and nobody out here got to see him in action. I'm bummed that nobody even came on the live chat to state that they were down for good, and a few of us hung around for quite a long time. Thank you, all my dear readers, for giving it the college try, but maybe there will be better times in the future. It would have been inspiring, I just know it.

i'm pretty sick of democrats

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1:24pm: I'm thinking I'm just gonna keep adding my thoughts here intermittently. So this post has a high likelihood of being different every time you look at it.

And, until I'm done, I'm changing the time stamp on it to keep it on top every time I do a new post.
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I was reading a piece about a private sector prison business in The New Yorker last night, and though the deal is that they are heavily connected in the Republican Party, it seems to be angering me more about the Democratic Party each time someone fleshes out another aspect of Republican perfidy for me in this way. It's gotten to the point where bitching about Republicans just doesn't cut it for me anymore. There is no new thing you can say that makes them any worse than the ultimately despicable they already are, and it's turned into Democratic perfidy that Republican perfidy exists at all. If you won't beat that fundamentally evil stuff, you are fundamentally evil... or that's the math working on my feelings in these matters.
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I say "won't beat" because it isn't that you can't beat, and so that is what makes you evil not to beat evil. You can and you don't means you won't. Too busy coveting that sense of superiority I guess. Too busy adoring the fact that you want great things for everyone and how exhilarating it is then to hold yourself up to any of the many "conservative" pig-pundits poisoning the airwaves from sea to stagnating sea. If you actually stop that shit, where's your reflected glory then?
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Nope. I can tell when someone's serious about good things. There's no excuses. There's no whining. There are deeds. There is clear indication that no stone is being left unturned. There aren't any trade-offs of support for one bad thing in pursuit of support for your other good thing... which is turned into loophole-riddled worthlessness in this process anyway. There is no concession to entropy when someone means it, when someone will perform. We have no candidates who meet those criteria, now do we?

They're all very busy just now making hay out of H.L. Mencken's perfectly-stated crystallization of the popular mentality. Their excuse is that it will put them in a position to do good things. A sad price of getting elected, but getting elected, says each, is the only way. Not so. But never mind that. Not so. We can cite centuries of precedent. But never mind that. What did I just say about excuses? They don't excuse you!
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Yes, I really do know how terrifying adulthood is. That isn't an excuse for staying a child
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The herald of the passive-aggressive is the childish manner of getting his needs met, the bottomlessness of advantage that is provided by the excuse juste. She will capitalize on our pity for her misfortune, from physical handicap to hurt feelings. He will expect you to return his friendliness with your solidarity behind the fulfillment of his desires. She might come off as a total sweetheart and you're just too ashamed to react negatively to anything she does or says. He was maimed as a child, and that is the reason everyone sees to it he makes it to a deathbed in a comfortable home. She was left with a mountain of debt by a heartless bastard, so she's not a floozy for getting shitfaced every night at the end of the bar alone, waiting for whatever loser will take her on at closing time. (There's always the possibility he might end up feeling too guilty to boot her out come the light of day, and if he doesn't, having been that drunk is definitely the perfect excuse.) If you have shunned him, prepare for his broken leg or loss of job or dead kitty being reason enough for you to stop that heartless action and return to validating his excuses for him.

These are also tricks the intelligent play on the stupid or unwary. Huge fog banks to darken the mindscapes of the already benighted issue from those whose motives completely suck.
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Where do you suppose we'd be right now if the revolutionaries had pled too many family obligations to go out and fight King George? If the heartless little fucks, whose love for their families only extended to their status as breathing entities, had held the day do you suppose this would ever have been "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? Not on your life! Not on anyone's life! That's the fucking point! They had wives and children. They had jobs. They had crops and livestock that needed tending. They went out and died that we might prosper instead of suffer and die for the aggrandizement of plutocrats!

Look on my sidebar for the stats on how many of us are already on our way to resorting to mud cookies to stave off the agony between scraps of FOOD. Fascism turns a nation into a third world country. It is completely unavoidable. You are that close to missing your next meal, despite your paycheck, BECAUSE you have stopped being not only unwilling to die for justice, but even unwilling to risk your next paycheck for it. We've ONLY been well-fed this long because our forebears have been willing to die to prevent plutocrats from making us starve. You cannot possibly think of an excuse that will obfuscate the truth of this.
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No. I do not want you to die. I'd die first.
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I won't, however, be very sorry to lose you if you've just stood back and tsk'd on the internet while I get hauled off to Gitmo for refusing to show my papers to the ICE agents who stormed my immigrant-laden neighborhood... or starved to death because you wouldn't do anything dispositive about the politicians whose excuses have blown away my rights.
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All this talk about starvation has forced me out to the grocery store....

lucky citizens of nepa, be there or be square

[click picture on Friday, 7 March, 5:30pm ET]

Tim Grier will be appearing at BF J'Eat's Pub at Front and Oak Streets in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania this Friday, 7 March 2008, between 5:30 and 8pm ET. If you go, the picture won't be this blurry until you've had a few of their designer beers.

If you live near enough, you really have to go for me. If you can't, you could send somebody you know for me... for you... for the decent future we all want so badly. Since I very seriously don't live near enough, I'm going to be clicking this picture at 2:30, my time, so I can hear it. I really hope everyone not close enough to be there in person will too. Let's give ourselves something to be happy about for a damn change, eh? Forget that lying Hillary, and Obama has plenty of people climbing over each other to get into his rallies. Tim Grier, I'm certain, will be a better use of your time.

[I'd really love it if somebody would take pictures! How am I going to get him elected king high poobah of North America without lots and lots of pictures?]

standing

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I used to rent a broken down old house in Seadrift. It's a gated community that sometimes has to put everything aside for the limo parade that is a Dianne Feinstein party, but mostly it is fairly peaceful. It was a lucky break for me because I was suddenly in dire need of a roof and without much in the way of funds. My friend's mom had gone to a rest home but continued to believe she'd be coming back. So he couldn't sell the place and he didn't want to put the money into it to rent it out for real money. All was pretty darn peaceful there until Mr. and Mrs. Pinhead, the people who'd bought the lot next door, built their house.

Mr. Pinhead had inherited quite a huge amount of money. His job was overseeing the people in charge of increasing it and... well... that's all he did. He was about thirty-two. He'd found himself a nice dim catalog model and they were on the point of having their second child. Their mansion on Belvedere Island was too dull for weekend entertaining and they wanted this second house to get away from the grind. I can't tell you how grateful I was that it was only for weekends, but... have you any idea how quickly weekends come when you are dreading them? Amazing.

Their splendiferously chic beach cabin cut off my breathtaking view of Mt. Tamalpias from my kitchen window. They put in a hot tub for their bathtub that rang the septic alarm every single time they took a bath in the monster, and they never came out to turn it off. The thing would keep ringing for an hour unless you went out to the alarm box by the septic tank and manually shut it off. Their alarm was as loud in my house as a smoke alarm in the same room with me, and the first thing I do when I go anywhere is take the batteries out of the smoke alarms on the off chance they might so much as chirp, because blood starts dripping out my eyes when they do. I always ended up having to get up and get dressed and go out and turn that fucker off late at night. Sometimes in the driving rain. The Pinheads always acted innocent when I mentioned it, insisted they couldn't hear the thing going off, and never showed any evidence that putting me through this regularly was any kind of an imposition. Never mind that it was a lot closer to them than to me. Never mind that the reason that alarm was there was to warn them that they were breaking the law. Never mind that I was so close to being bin material that a dog barking in the distance sent me through the roof. Never mind all that. They wanted luxurious bathing experiences and they got them.

The lot had come with the coveted old telephone poles laid near the street to keep the sand in the yard. The Pinheads had decided one of them was a foot too long and had their builder saw off that foot... but not haul it away. It ended up marring the austerity of their landscaping [sandscaping?] and every weekend I would find the thing rolled over into my yard. Every weekend I rolled it back. Inevitably came the weekend where the rollers met face to face, and this roller read that roller up one side and down the other. That roller, Mr. Pinhead, took umbrage at my unwillingness to act as his garbage dump. "Oh, yeah? Well we'll just see. I own my place and you don't own yours. Let me talk to the owner, and we'll just see."

"Why you snotty little prig! You think because I rent this place that I'm some stupid little prole who is glad to turn off your septic alarm for you while you bask in afterglow? That I should haul your shit to the dump? I have EXACTLY as many rights as you, and if you think dealing with me is hard, just wait until I put you in touch with the owner."

I guess he went back inside and sat down and thought about his rights in relation to mine, because the next day he came over with a chocolate Easter bunny as a peace offering, told me he guessed he hadn't been a very good neighbor. Said he'd try to do better. [He didn't.] But I honestly think that was the first time anyone made him sit down and assess the actual differences in the rights of owners and renters. There are none.

It's only people with less deferring to people with more that makes them think so to begin with. Pretty soon it ends up turning into customary, which ends up being how things are run. If you're not careful the Pinheads will start rewriting the laws so the proles can't get snippy about this sort of thing.

People are already trying to tell you that you have no say in how the local government spends its money because you don't pay property taxes. No, no. If you are a citizen and a resident they are accountable to you. Your rent money is paying the property taxes on your home. A government in the United States isn't allowed to govern anyone who isn't equal to everyone else. A government in the United States can't govern without the consent of the governed. Do you get called for jury duty? Are you eligible to run for office? You have standing.

If they try to tell you otherwise, appeal it clear up to the Supreme Court. Make them overtly turn America legally fascist before you give up.

my crush on tim grier

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I know you've got to be sick of me falling in love with guys every time you turn around, and I'm usually just kidding, but this Tim Grier thing has me by the throat. For about the last 48 hours, suddenly, I've gone Tim Grier crazy. It started the night before last. I am so going to get over it. Rest assured of that! It's just throttling me right now.

I think it's part of enlightening being, of karma, of shedding delusion once one has gotten a gander at truth.

I'm just kidding about Davis. I think he's a doll. I love most of his videos and seriously dig his readiness to action. I really do think he's a dancing god, and don't think I can stop calling him my boyfriend, even though he's married.

But the Tim thing is of an entirely different character. I found out about him on another website a few weeks ago. I've been skimming over news of his various battles with local authorities, and Tim was just a bit of news to me, a guy trying to fight the good fight and catching flak from a bunch of self-important local poobahs. What nailed me was going to his website for the first time a couple nights ago, finally finding out exactly what he was doing, and noting that there was no trace of whining or self-importance there at all. Just the facts.

It's ridiculous, really, that I should get nailed by someone over twenty years younger than I am, but seeing what I saw, as I saw it, made my knees go all wobbly and that warm front moved in. It's really not appropriate to have such a reaction to someone merely doing what he thinks is right, but, truly, don't you think hearing of such a person these days is too much like a breath of air to a drowning person? Yes. That's just precisely it. Someone merely doing what they think is right is water to the one dying of thirst on the desert or air to the one drowning. In the best of times it is too infrequent. We tend to make those guys into heroes damn fast, but, lately? Am I missing something?

Yes!

THAT.

Now that I've watched a couple videos and read some news about him, I see he keeps being identified as an "activist". That's how I was once known too, before that surgery clocked me. Maybe soon I can go back to it, but it's a seriously silly way to describe anyone who's only doing what they think is right. I mean, if we live in this world we have to be active or the world gets done to us. People who want what is everyone's, people who do have the will and the energy to act in furtherance of that goal, can just take it if we do not act. The laws we've let be turned into total shams hardly slow them anymore. It's like taking candy from a baby. You just have to wait till nobody with any backbone is looking.

Always seems to me that maybe three people on the planet grok this. Can't work with anyone because their failure to assimilate the bare bones of real life on earth, true humanity, fundamental humantude, always leaves me searching wildly for ideas about how to take everyone's blocks off with one cosmic swipe. And. Ka-ching. A heavily tattooed one of those three pops up in the arrangements of pixels in front of me and it plum bowls me right the heck on over.

Pfeh.

It's the buddhas working to get me back on the razor's edge.

Okay. Okay! Give me a break! I hear ya! Sheesh! He's too young! This is silly.

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No. REALLY. Doing what is right is ORDINARY. It's just that when everybody isn't doing it, it seems so outrageously vital. It's just that when everybody isn't doing it and nobody can even tell that they're not doing it a couple of us feel like we're being held under water, like we're crawling on our bellies across the Gobi in a sand storm, on the way to dead for so long we almost couldn't identify LIFE anymore.

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I remember my teacher hollering about when people would gush about my teacher's genius. "No!" my teacher would holler, "I'm just normal. I'm just ordinary. This is what humans do." The ticket, of course, is that people are out there not letting themselves be normal, be ordinary, do what humans do. Too risky. Someone might see you fail. You might have to work at something on top of how much work life already is. Better to just say stuff. That will cover it.

It doesn't cover it.

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Walking in the County Clerk's office, or the Registrar of Voters office, or the Board of Forestry office, wherever, slapping down your complaint, or whatever is going to actually bring them up short and make them attend to the problem, and sticking with it for as long as it takes, for as much as it takes, covers it. EACH of us not only knows that is right, but we make ourselves ever more ashamed every time we don't actually DO what is right.

The ones who take what is everyone's are not even partially fazed by any number of signatures on a petition, or letters to our senators, or floods of emails to the local station. Sheets flapping in the breeze of a freight train.

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God, I hope there are enough decent people in Wilkes-Barre to make sure Tim's complaint doesn't get buried. How absurd is the term "activist" anyway for doing what you think is right? It means everyone else is a "passivist" fer crapsakes... which seems quite horribly to be the case. Is it really any wonder so many who consider themselves elite condescend to be our "leaders" while they very obviously -- to each other -- are only there to rob us blind? We can be relied upon to prefer the safety of flapping like sheets while they drive their freight train right over us.

Does it occur to you that most everything is almost exactly backwards?

It is. And you are as responsible for it as the kleptocrats running the world. Until you will up and do what it takes to bring them up short, you are a passivist enabler of planetary doom. Whatever fantastic excuses you have, this is so.

We are in charge of the world. All of us. If we do not perform, this is our world.

real men license their dogs or own property

Move over Davis, another is vying for first place in my heart. Tim Grier, a resident of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, even before he bought licenses for his dogs, has sued the county for... well... wait... who cares why? They are doing what counties do, mishandling public funds, and Tim just up and took the appropriate action to stop them. Bip bam. Nobody does that. It drives me nuts. Has always driven me nuts. And here, big as heck, at last, is relief. He's twenty-two years younger than me! Even more age-inappropriate than Davis!

Do I just sit here swooning? Or whut?