The Reason "Why"

Yer ol' perfesser'd say, the answer is simple, but it tolls so loud a knell for the decease of the Murkin "democracy" that it is likely to be dismissed as nihilism, because most people cannot admit or really comprehend the inhumanity of their enemies.
"They," your plutocratic enemies, are systematically alienating the People from their own sovereignty.
The GOPhux and their billionaire paymasters are creating the conditions under which even those people most committed to the political "values" of the Founders, John Locke, and the Enlightenment, will HAVE to throw up their hands in disgust and distaste at the feculent clusterfuck our politics have become and walk away, leaving all the messy shit to the corpoRats and plutocRats to handle in their boardrooms.
El Dotardo's just the dirty end of needle, and a distraction from the real shit work in Congress and in the deparments and agencies, such that by the time they're done, there will not BE any part of the Federal state involved in actual "public service," only "public regulation" under CorpoRat direction and supervision.
If one were a student of history, this present moment could be viewed, historically, as the culmination of the centuries-long design to eliminate "commons," and "public property.," altogether.
You're watching history unfold.
Aincha excited?

Double Y/Our Trouble: NO to ConCon!

Just Say "No"
I recorded this video in early 2015,  long before the advent upon the scene of the Orange Dotard and his retinue of grifters, philistines, and gunsels. I have been concerned about the prospect of a Constitutional Convention for the last decade or more.
Don't scoff at the idea that the GOPhux and the El Dotardo's Douchevix will try to call a Constitutional Convention. I believe it to be one of the main reasons the feculent, fetid lot  were brought to power.
Roy Moore spoke for a whole LOT of folks when he said life'd be a whole lot simpler if there were only the first 10 Amendments. But the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth,, Seventh, and Eighth are already as good as defunct.
The election of El Dotardo will likely be floated by ConCon advocates trying to attract support from the "Left/Lib/Pwog" contingent. It would require a Con Con or an Amendment to close the Electoral College, and one may easily foresee disguised corpoRat interests recruiting the gullible, thoughtless, or intemperate from the "left" to support a ConCon on the promise that the Electoral College--or the Second Amendment, or Citizens United, or Hobby Lobby, or any of the shibboleths of that wing's dream agenda--would be up for debate and repeal (when nothing would/could be further from the truth of the matter).
Don 't underestimate the mischief that could ensue.
While appearing "democratic," nevertheless there is a very legitimate threat that the Corporats would commandeer the whole process, especially now with the Orange Dotard in the White House. They would then use the occasion to rewrite/overturn the US Constitution in favor of Corporat/plutocratic (and racial) interests, and to eliminate or greatly curtail individual and civil rights/liberties.
What could go wrong?
For instance, an amendment would be written to codify English as the national language, even though "we" are becoming more linguistically diverse every year.
I'd anticipate installation of a national religion, too; and the constitutional prohibition against abortion. Prohibitions against GLBTQ behavior/marriage. I think the freedoms of speech and assembly would be diminished if not excised. Repeal and/or revocation of much civil rights and environmental law. Draconian immigration restrictions. You've already seen the portents, haven't you?
Let your imagination take you to the darkest place/worst case you can think of and THAT'S what will be on the table.
The GOPhukkkerz killed 'democracy' on Dec. 12, 2000. The republic effectively perished on Nov 8, 2016. All that's left, really, is that old parchment. I really object to the idea of Trumpola, Bannon and the Koch Brothers wipong their asses on it.
Not even James Madison, who effectively authored the first ConCon, wanted to go through another.

A year of Dogs: A Small Celebration

This time, last year, I still had Budreaux, the noble, ruddy-nosed pit bull, my 14-

year, boon companion. He had an aggressive cancer, and his health was failing very fast last winter. I had to "send him on ahead" finally, on the 23rd.
Little more than a week later, Angela Stell, the Guardian Angel(a) of NMDOG www.nmdog.org/ and benefactress of the myriad abused/neglected/chained dogs all over northern NM, and whose work I have supported as much as I could/can, asked me, would I take in a hospice case: a large, elderly fixed male of indeterminate 'husky' lineage, who had been essentially chained to a tree for perhaps as long as 7 years or so. He was in shock, with some unspecified, possibly gastric ailment and they didn't have much hope, but he needed a place to spend what time he had left.
So: Enter Mr. Smokes
Aka NOBLE @ NMDOG.

When he arrived, last January, the NMDOG folks carried him in and laid him on a pad. He was lethargic, indifferent, withdrawn, apathetic, without affect of any kind. He responded to nothing but the sound of big trucks going by in the street, fireworks, thunder, and my appearance at his bunk with food.  Not a name. Not a whistle. Not a clap. Not a click. He ate, but without appetite. In about a week, he relocated into what became his lair, the library/tv room.
Amazing NMDOG rescuer/groomer Dawn Rivas (http://doggieden.biz/index.html
had shaved over 30 lbs of matted fur. He had been so matted, he couldn't raise his chin from his chest, when they rescued him. I had to lift him to his feet and lead him outside. He had no interest in human contact, at all.
Over the next several months, Mr. Smokes, as I called him--cuz he moved silently as a cloud--slowly seemed to be sort of coming around. He raised his head more often, and more alertly. He perked up when I brought him his meals. He started to be able to rise under his own power.  Progress was slow, but steady. He began to look around at his surroundings. He started to go out without urging. I had procured a collar-bell so I could track his doings at night, because he was rather catholic about where he would relieve himself. He preferred to go outside but if the door wasn't open the the need was exigent, it wasn't his fault; he doesn't haz thumbs.
Except for the matter of affect. He was still aloof, inert, and when not, then evasive to my efforts to interact.
I petted him and cosseted him as much as I could, but him being 1) aloof, and 2) on the floor, and 3) my difficulties with mobility in general, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for intimate interactions.
Then in late September, Tasha arrived, and it's like night and day. The LIGHT went on went on.
She had had some human socialization, and knew how to "dog." and she set about teaching him. He was a reluctant pupil at first, but learned fast. He noticed how much she sought out skritches and such, and it slowly was revealed to him what a pleaasant thing a human touch can be.
Tasha's been such a blessing for Smokes: They're both "fosters" (but try to take 'em!), but she'll stay with me, and when the inevitable time comes, we'll find another foster/hospice. But Smoky's a totally new dog, since she arrived. It's a night/day change., or, rather, dawn/NOON contrast, cuz he was slowly emerging.
But the change since Tasha/Buttercup/Petunia/the Blonde Bombshell entered his/our life has been significant. Tonight he's prone on a mat four feet from me, head on paws, just watching me, in the front room of the perrara... Out of his lair (for the last 11 months), and where he's been there 30 min, or so, while the tri-paw,  Tasha/Petunia/Buttercup/Blondie, curls up like in arctic fox on the black futon, six feet away. They'd move as soon as I stood up to tale the foto. She's an amazing athlete, possessing only three legs. Just as agile and active as if she had all four.
The big developments are two:
First, over the course of the last week, or so, I've become Smoky's official human/person. He's attached himself to me. He stays close. He follows me from room to room, like a puppy. He's always nearby, though he returns to his lair in the library to sleep... I have to be aware of it, cuz he's an old dog, with bad hips...
He now actively SEEKS affection and attention. Tasha taught him. He'll wander off and then wander back and stick his head in my direction for some skritches, a couple of times an hour. He responds to my voice and he now recognizes his name, in most of it's permutations.
And, as it turns out, his breed is "Wooly Malamute."
He has displayed some 'frolic' behavior, albiet limited. But the instinct seems to be returning. And Tasha would be willing, though I think she's too strong. No animosity. Pack order.
In another major development, Tasha bestowed her first and so far only Kiss-on-the-Nose on me the other evening when SHE was getting the petting session, and HE came over to horn in: In a paroxysm of jealousy, she reached up and licked my nose!
My cup runneth plenty!
May you have "Happy Holidays and Jolly Yule!~"

You, Too? Prob'ly, 'Twarn't Me...

I'm an old man, now, a "disabled veteran" of the soi-disant "Sexual Revolution." "My friends are gone and my hair is gray, and I ache in the places where I used to play," reported the late poet Leonard Cohen, in the 80s.
I was not an unattractive fellow in my youth and I had some severtal occasion to engage in juvenile, youthful, sexual teasing with a fair number of young women in the 60s and 70s. As honestly as I can recall, I have only ever forced my attentions on one girl who said "no."
I was mebbe 17 or 18. I did not rape the girl, but I think I tried to. She didn't report it. I am sad to recall it. With that exception, I do believe I never inserted any part or member of my anatomy where it was not being warmly welcomed by my partner(s).
My "jobs" almost never gave me power. I was never anybody's boss. I had sex with willing co-workers when I could, but there no rank/power issues at those levels.  I flirted with bar-maids and took some home, or they took me. I only paid a prostitute once, in Dusseldorf, auf den Altenstadt, in 1966...I was pretty catholic in my taste in sexual adventures: If you wanted me, I wanted you. It worked for me.
 I can recall only one occasion when I was ever obviously presented the opportunity possibly to extort sexual favors from a visible, obvious power differential: When I was a professor and a pretty, female student offered me sex in my office if I'd give her a C, so she wouldn't be expelled from her sorority. I refused as gracefully as ever possible.
I have known other members of the professoriate who didn't or wouldn't have...It didn't seem worth the risk, to me.
As a geezer, I AM an encorrigible pedant, and might easily be accused of the offense of unnecessary or excessive man-splaining.
I also have a loud voice and a commanding presence.
I don't suffer fools of any gender.
Sue me.

Short Piss-tory of "Trickle-Down"

Copied whole from Wikipedia, which I support with a small, annual donation:
There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.
Humorist Will Rogers jokingly advised in a column in 1932:[11]
This election was lost four and six years ago, not this year. They [Republicans] didn’t start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands. They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue.
(Subequently) Will Rogers referred to the theory that cutting taxes for higher earners and businesses was a "trickle down" policy, a term that has stuck over the years.[12]
Presidential speech writer Samuel Rosenman wrote of
the philosophy that had prevailed in Washington since 1921, that the object of government was to provide prosperity for those who lived and worked at the top of the economic pyramid, in the belief that prosperity would trickle down to the bottom of the heap and benefit all.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes that the first known use of trickle-down as an adjective meaning "relating to or working on the principle of trickle-down theory" was in 1944,[13] while the first known use of trickle-down theory was in 1954.[14]
After leaving the Presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, alleged "Republicans [...] simply don't know how to manage the economy. They're so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket."[15]
Speaking on the Senate floor in 1992, Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colorado) said, "Mr. President, the trickle-down theory attributed to the Republican Party has never been articulated by President Reagan and has never been articulated by President Bush and has never been advocated by either one of them. One might argue whether trickle down makes any sense or not. To attribute to people who have advocated the opposite in policies is not only inaccurate but poisons the debate on public issues."[16]
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that "trickle-down economics" had been tried before in the United States in the 1890s under the name "horse and sparrow theory." He wrote,
"Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'"
Galbraith claimed that the horse and sparrow theory was partly to blame for the Panic of 1896.[18] In the 1992 presidential election, Independent candidate Ross Perot called trickle-down economics "political voodoo."[19] In the same election during a presidential town hall debate, Bill Clinton said,
"What I want you to understand is the national debt is not the only cause of [declining economic conditions in America]. It is because America has not invested in its people. It is because we have not grown. It is because we’ve had 12 years of trickle-down economics. We’ve gone from first to twelfth in the world in wages. We’ve had four years where we’ve produced no private-sector jobs. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago."[20]
In New Zealand, Labour Party MP Damien O'Connor has, in the Labour Party campaign launch video for the 2011 general election, called trickle-down economics "the rich pissing on the poor".[21]
A 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network indicates that wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy.[9]
In 2013, Pope Francis referred to trickle-down theories (plural) in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium with the statement (No.54)
"Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system."[22]
A 2015 paper by researchers for the International Monetary Fund argues that there is no trickle-down effect as the rich get richer:
[I]f the income share of the top 20 percent (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth.[6]
A 2015 report on policy by economist Pavlina R. Tcherneva described the failings of increasing economic gains of the rich without commensurate participation by the working and middle classes, referring to the problematic policies as, "Reagan-style trickle-down economics," and "a trickle-down, financial-sector-driven policy regime."[7]
In 2016 US presidential candidates debate, Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of supporting the "most extreme" version of trickle-down economics with his tax plan, calling it "trumped-up trickle-down" as a pun on his name.[23]
SOURCE
wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Dia-Illogics

"Hello Washington? I would like people to stop being shot, and maybe from shooting ME. Can we have tighter gun regulations, or something? Anything?"
Washington: "No, this is a mental health issue."
"Oh, Ok. Can we have access to mental health care?"
Washington: No, health care is a privilege, not a right.
"OK. Can we raise the minimum wage so I can have the ability to buy health care?"
Washington: No. LABOR is the greatest business expense. Minimal wages are necessary to stabilize business, discipline the workforce and stimulate the economy.
"Ok, can I have a tax break that cuts my taxes so I'll have more money to buy health insurance?"
Washington: No, we need to give all the tax breaks to the top that will trickle down so they'll provide jobs that you'll earn money at, which will then pay for their tax breaks.
"Ok. Can we have a public option to at least make health insurance companies compete and lower the cost of care?
Washington: No, that's "Socialism," which is bad and anti-American.
"Ok. Well then what DO my taxes buy for me?"
Washington: Here's some thoughts and prayers.
(Ed. Note: I copied much of the text from a facebook post, edited and enhanced it.)

Holy Daze of Obligation

Today, Nov. 1, in the Roman Catholic ecclesiatical calendar, is "All Souls' Day," the antithesis of "Hallowe'en," the night before, when the unquiet dead are said to move about.
"All Saints' Day" celebrates the quiescent, honored departed, who gained Heaven on the first try.. There are literally uncounted/ uncountable THOUSANDS of them, many martyred, all of whom come in for hagiographic attention on All Souls' Day.
It's also the anniversary of the first time, of many, I was ever sent home from school.
In Cleveland, OH, in the suburbs of which I grew up in the '50s, to act as a counterpoise to all the "Hallowe'en" mischief, children in Roman Catholic/parochial schools were encouraged to attend school on Nov. 1 costumed as either their favorite, or their namesake, "Saint." In my case, there are LOTS of "Saints John": Chrysostom; Damascene, Revelator, the Baptist, etc. There are literally scores of 'em. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John)
But my "patron Saint" was/is "John, the Baptist," who was martyred by being decapitated at the whim of the Babylonian whore, Salome. So, that year ('55? 56?), my father--who had a mordant sense of humor to go along with an agnostic sensibility--decided to send me to school as St. John, the Baptist's HEAD.
To prepare the illusion, he made a platter from a large, aluminum pie baking dish, by cutting out a hole in it for my head, slipped it around my neck (after dulling the edges), wrapped the rest of me in a "blood-stained" sheet, and off I went.
And back I came.
With a harsh note from the parish priest about blasphemy.
My school desisted from that "All Souls'" practice, thereafter.