Current Events

If the economy could speak

The Guardian: The US economy shrank by 32.9% between April and June, its sharpest contraction since the second world war, government figures revealed on Thursday, as more signs emerged of the coronavirus pandemic’s heavy toll on the country’s economy. The record-setting quarterly fall in economic growth came as another 1.43 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, a second week of…
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Current Events

Just Like Everyone Else

I live in a small-to-medium size Florida city, which for a time had the largest, per-capital concentration of COVID–19 cases in Florida. I don’t live in South Florida. Me, my family, and my coworkers all watched the news – as many of you did – about the pandemic. We saw other states close down. The county government here issued a stay-at-home order, about a week before our Governor…
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Current Events

Why do I do this to myself?

I spent 15 minutes this evening reading Ted Nugent quotes. You know, to see if it was fair to call Kathy Griffin the Ted Nugent of the Left. But I had an epiphany and stopped. It occurred to me that I don’t care if what he said is equivalent to what she did. Neither are worth that much of my time – especially not when I’m already depressed. I could be doing something more…
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Current Events

The Facebook reply that wasn't

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the mostly absent author of this site. The name’s John, but my friends call me John. I have not said much about the looming election, mostly for mental health reasons. That’s not meant to be a joke. I’ve started a few dozen posts – I think. I’ve lost track. I’ve always given up less than a few sentences in, already emotionally…
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Current EventsPolitics

Getting Ted wrong

I was born in Massachusetts so I’m required to have a soft spot for the Kennedys. There was rarely more tension in my house growing up than when my mother would accuse my father of voting for Nixon or Reagan… herself a liberal Democrat in the Kennedy mold – and fan of Ted, the liberal lion of the Senate, in particular. She named one of our cats Ted during the dark years of…
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Current Events

Bad times

My good mood this holiday weekend was tempered by events in the middle east. Everyone there seems fine with killing each other. It only gets easier as the days pass, each one providing the justification for tomorrow’s reprisal. Yeah, I know. This is nothing new. You hear it all the time. It can make you numb. Maybe it was the holidays, my good mood leaving me vulnerable to reversal. This…
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Current Events

INCOMING!

By the time you see this, I’m sure it will be all over the news – but I can’t not post this. Reuters via Yahoo! News: In a sign of lingering anger over the war that will define the Republican president’s foreign policy legacy, an Iraqi journalist shouted in Arabic “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” and hurled his shoes at Bush during a news…
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