Alcohol No Longer Tasts Good - What's the Matter with Me?

Full disclosure: ever since I snuck my first gulp of booze at eleven years old, I was an enthusiastic imbiber of spirits of all kinds.

One of my earliest experiences with getting drunk and puking like a sick dog came in my sophomore year of high school when I went to a party with my sister's friend Patty (a pretty Latina). 

I had too much sloe gin and found myself hurling my guts out in front of the house. I never had sloe gin again in my life. True story.

My first legal drink of alcohol - I was 18 and at a bar in New York City with a friend - was a beer. It was legal in the state in 1969.

A year later I was in Vietnam souveniring officer's whiskey supplies to share with the guys in my squad.

By the time I was out of the Army and 21 years old I considered myself a connoisseur of alcohol ranging from Scotch to Wine and everything in-between.

My love hate relationship with booze often got me in trouble in my younger days. I was a real idiot who got into too many fights in bars and on the streets when tanked up. 

But as I grew older and married my relationship with alcohol became more benign. There were exceptions in those years when I did get drunk and ugly, but most of the time I drank socially and behaved myself.

When our three sons grew up my drinking experience once again blossomed, and my wife and I enjoyed going to wineries with friends. Right up until recently it's been my golden age of booze intake with an eclectic selection of spirits on any given night.

Then it happened. The first time was about nine months ago when I suddenly couldn't drink any kind of booze and began throwing it up the following morning. I quit drinking for a few months then tried it again. Wine and beer seemed okay until it wasn't okay one day about two weeks ago.

I have mixed feelings about this aversion to alcohol. On one hand, it's not a bad thing for my health. If anything, it's probably beneficial.

On the other hand, I'm feeling like I lost a good friend. I just wish I knew why.  

Refusing the 'Wise Guy' Agenda for America

Today we're going to brush up on wise guys in American history.

The term wise guy to mean a smart aleck came into use in the later 1800s in America. The modern definition - since 1970 - means a person who's in the Mafia.

With that established we know the former president is a wise guy on political steroids who's trying to drag democracy down a back alley for an ambush.

Trump slithered into the social and financial scene with millions from his father. 

He was a natural con man and grifter with no conscience or concern for others. He's known for shedding his support for friends and allies like a snake if it'll personally benefit him.

His wise guy education came from the likes of notorious New York crime bosses, and the likes of Roy Cohn, and Roger Stone. 

As Trump put together his company he was guided by his mentors and emulated their way of doing business like a wise guy. It didn't take long before everyone in his orbit to call him boss. 

His Republican acolytes in Congress refer to him as boss when the press isn't around.

Others like extreme activists openly call him the boss. 

The public has seen testimony and emails from the Jan. 6 Select Committee where GOP lawmakers cravenly call him the boss.

Trump's perfected the art of passing the buck to others and never getting caught outright ordering his minions to commit a crime. Like a classic crime boss/wise guy in the mafia movies, he always has a layer of fools who end up paying for his crimes.  

No surprise then that Trump has a wise guy agenda for America where he controls the masses with government thugs loyal only to him. That way he'll become America's puppet master and first dictator.

This midterm and the next two years has to be a refusal (by voters and Democratic lawmakers) of the orange wise guy's agenda if the republic is to survive.

Disneyland Has Always Been About Family Entertainment... and Still Is, Despite Politics

The year was 1955 and my sisters, brother, cousin, and I went to Disneyland when it first opened the doors to the magic kingdom for all to see and enjoy.

I was five-years old, and the day was magic. I'll never forget the spinning teacups and seeing Disney characters everywhere talking with other children.

I have fond memories of taking our three boys to Disneyland in the late seventies and early eighties. People from around the country and foreigners flocked to experience Disneyland then, and they still do today.

The House that the Mouse built has always been a shining example of American family entertainment and the gold standard for innovative and interactive rides.

Since 1955, Disneyland has been a mecca of merriment that all children (and many adults) want to go to.

When I read about Florida governor Ron DeSantis' war on Disney World that began in February, I was stunned.

What triggered the Trump wannabee to go after an American institution?  

The answer is Florida House Bill 1557, which critics call the "Don't Say Gay" law. Standing up for LGBTQ family community rights the Disney Company issued a decree saying its "goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts."

In retaliation, a vengeful DeSantis forced a Florida House vote that revoked Disney World's designation as a special tax district - a privilege that Disney has held for 55 years.

Florida Disney World will no longer be considered a self-governing Special Zone (called the Reedy Creek Improvement District) with its own fire department.

Instead, the two counties Disney World is in are going to have to pay taxes to make up for the lost revenue to repair roads and all of the other improvements the Disney Company was paying for over a half century.

I applaud the Disney Company's stance in support of the LGBTQ community. It's an example of what Disneyland has always been; a family park for everyone.

If TV Commercials Were Bad Back in the Day - What Do You Call Them Today?

I'm often amused to see young folks' reactions to TV commercials from the 1940s through the 60s.

They almost faint in horror at the outright misogynism in those early messages to consumers. 

The tobacco misinformation spread in those early ads guaranteed a generation of lung cancers that still plague stubborn users today.

For the record the first official paid television advertisement came out on July 1, 1941, at 2:30 p.m. over New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The ad was for Bulova watches.

Those early ads used popular jingles or slogans designed to be striking and memorable. 

I still remember that enduring phrase "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" which ran through 50s to the 70s. 

And Marlboro cigarettes campaign "The Marlboro Man."

Another For the Record Moment; I started smoking cigarettes in 1966. My first full pack (up until then I bummed them off of buddies) was Marlboro.

I didn't kick my nicotine addiction until 2000. Hopefully I added a few years to my life. But I digress.

On Modern TV Commercials

Most insult your intelligence in not-so-subtle ways. 

Many so-called modern TV commercials were attacked by racist viewers who demanded they be taken off the air if African Americans were in them.

I still remember when Sly and the Family Stone's anti-racism song "Everyday People" was used in a car advertisement angering a lot of viewers.

There are certain TV ads running today that drive me crazy with their cute little way of describing male genitals and women's sanitary products.

The "Bent Carrot" ad representing a man's penis with a condition known as "Pyronines Disease," is particularly loathsome. 

They all but call the condition the crooked dick disease with a dancing bent carrot among all of the straight carrots. The narrative with it is just as stupid and easily forgettable... unlike Winston's slick jingle in the days of yore.

Sometimes the commercials can be entertaining like the one with the old lady asking, "Where's the Beef?" in the 1984 Wendy's ad.

In all fairness, I don't like TV ads, nor have I ever liked them. I know they've always been a necessary evil to pay the bills in the industry. But make no mistake, they're there for one purpose, to sell you shit you probably don't need. There's nothing educational about them. 

And that's all I got to say about that.

You Can Move but You Can't Hide from Climate Changes

When I was a teenager back in the 60's I lived in Azusa, California. I doubt you ever heard of it. It was just a small city nestled in the San Gabriel Valley.

In those days the smog was so bad that breathing was difficult on some days as it blanketed the area with a dead gray cloak of carbon emissions. I remember my chest aching and eyes watering while playing sports outside.

In what was the one and only time in my life local lawmakers got together and addressed a current climate problem with action by reducing carbon emissions in the state considerably.

Residents who didn't like paying extra taxes for clean air were able to move to other states where the climate was still predictable and livable.

Our reality today is there are no places we can go to escape the historic heat, storms, hurricanes, tornedos and flooding year around. Right now, the west and east coasts are burning up with record-breaking temperatures. Alaska is burning up for cripes sake!

Two years ago, my wife and I had to grab our pets and evacuate the house because an out-of-control fire (the Alameda fire) tore through cities forcing residents to flee.

We live in the city of Medford, in the southern part of Oregon, not a rural area where out-of-control fires have become a regular thing along the west coast.

After that unnerving experience, huddled all night in a car at an evacuation center where everyone was wearing masks because of COVID-19, we thought about moving after owning a house here for six years (at that time in 2020) ... but decided against it. 

We wondered "Where would we move too? The whole planet is changing and getting more extreme every year. Trillions of metric tons of ice are breaking away from Antarctica daily. A heat wave has killed over 5,000 people in Europe in the last week.

So, where should we go? My wife and I's answer to that is nowhere. There's no safe haven from mankind's stupidity. All we can do is to hunker down and try to make the best of our circumstances.

The Enemy is Us: Social Media Versus Democracy

Since its birth in ancient Greece Democracy has been a fragile construct of justice for all.

It has to be defended at all times or it'll end up being a wasteland of human rights under a dictatorship.

American democracy has a history of fighting to maintain our freedoms from foreign and domestic enemies. 

Interesting fact. "We have met the enemy and he is us," first appeared on an Earth Day poster in 1970 while I was tramping through the jungle in Vietnam. The quote later appeared in Pogo. But I digress.

Today, once again, the enemy is us... because we're fighting on political social media killing fields where extremists push lies and misinformation without fear of reprisal. 

Social media has cleaved away at any pretense of civility as people attack one another in online forums full of hate and bigotry. 

A prominent NYU professor, Johnathan Haidt who co-authored a book titled, "The Coddling of the American Mind," describes social media as a coliseum where people go to get entertained, or to entertain themselves with conspiracies.

Lies never traveled this fast before. Misinformation flows 24-hours a day on numerous social media platforms. Fact-checkers just can't keep up and by the time they debunk one conspiracy another pops up from the cesspool of the internet depths called the dark web.

Social media is undermining democracy.

It's plain to see. Trump's coup attempt could never have come so close without social media platforms recruiting right-wing militias and extremists of all stripes.

I've heard pundits and scholars argue that there's a lot of good things about social media and how it's brought millions of people together to do good things.

It's the bad things that worry me.

Do the good things balance out the bad things on social media platforms? I don't think so. Our democracy has never been this fragile, even when we had a Civil War and were invaded by the British in 1812.

The only solution to social media pitting us against one another is for all the media platform owners to monitor (and take action) against lies and violence against others.

That'll never happen. The First Amendment will prevent it. America is doomed to wither away on the fields of toxic politics from within.

Alea iacta est... The die has been cast.

RNC Previews New Program: Fake News Hour

Welcome to the Republican National Committee Alternative Reality Media Club. Today's launch of Fake News Hour is expected to become a viral hit for extremists throughout the country.

In the first podcast Florida governor Ron DeSantis owns the libs by creating a story about elementary students being told by teachers that if they were born a boy, they can still be a girl. And vice versa.

Wow! How about them apples?

DeSantis called out those bad apple teachers in Florida and across the nation and told them to repent or school boards will have to try them for crimes against children. 

The Republican dominated state Senate and House have introduced a bill that says convicted teachers can get anywhere from the death penalty to life in prison with no parole.

Moving on...

My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell has come up with evidence of fraud in the upcoming Republican primary for governor supporting candidate Kari Lake's assertion of fraud before the voting has begun.

In a debate last week Lake warned the other candidates to stop cheating and that her opponents will use the votes of dead people to try and defeat her.

But her real bombshell came when Lindell caught Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer asking voters to use a new quick-drying pen instead of their regular black or blue pens.

Lindell's election experts discovered the "new" pens were made in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez who was bankrolled by President Biden's crooked son Hunter.

Lake, who has been trailing in the polls, expects a big bounce after the shocking revelation is announced. 

Donald Trump (who is still president), endorsed Lake at a rally earlier this month and called her up on Thursday after hearing about the poison pen conspiracy and her excellent response.

That's all for today folks. Have a MAGA day!

Why Do Republican Lawmakers Treat Veterans Like Bargaining Chips?

Republicans don't care about our military personnel and the proof is in their voting history.

Once again Republicans officially delayed a veterans' bill with a filibuster. "They chose yesterday to rob generations of toxic-exposed veterans across the country of the health care benefits they've earned," said Senator Jon Tester, who added, "It was a total eleventh-hour act of cowardice."

It's hard to square how much Republicans give the military industrial complex benefiting the Pentagon, and how little they care about the rank-and-file who put their lives on the line to protect democracy.

Veterans get no respect from Republicans. Yesterday's filibuster was just the latest example of that. What's really chickenshit is why Republicans lawmakers refused to help out veterans.

They were retaliating against a newly revived Democratic plan to curb climate change by blocking a bill they previously supported providing healthcare to veterans of burn pits, and Agent Orange.

So, in summary the GOP uses veterans as bargaining chips for their negotiations. History proves that. The Republicans hold veterans' healthcare hostage to forward their toxic ideology.

A longtime advocate for veterans' rights, Jon Stewart said it the best...

(To Republican lawmakers)

"Congratulations... You successfully used the Byzantine Senate rules to keep sick veterans suffering!!!! Kudos! I'm sure you'll celebrate by kicking a dog or punching a baby... or whatever terrible people do for fun!!!"

'Can We Get Along?" The Answer is Still... No

I sometimes think about Rodney King and the LA riots and how he pleaded with the public during a June 17, 2012, press conference asking the question "Can we all get along?"

Here we are 10 years later, and the answer is still... no.

If anything, Americans are fighting more among themselves in a societal war to divide this country in half. 

No one should be surprised, however. As a longtime and ongoing student of American history I've yet to find a period in the nation where Americans all got along. Even wars against foreign nations only partly unify the country. We're never "all in" on anything.

It's apparent that individualism far outweighs the common cause. We are proud, maybe too proud of the fact we're the only country in the world with very little gun control and laws which result in mass shootings almost daily.

Millions of Americans simply don't believe in the laws of the land and flout them constantly with anarchist alternatives. The Republicans still paying homage to the former president are trying to turn reality on its head with the Big Lie.

From the beginning of this democracy we enjoy, there were divides that still exist today. One is that city slickers just don't get along with rural folk. They're values are just too different.

I've always been amused with writers who talk about the great melting pot this nation is. From the day that white Anglo-Saxon Christians arrived in America and set up colonies there's always been a societal pecking order with them on top. The melting process is still trying to take hold.

Immigrants are reviled and white nationalists have united with Republicans to seek an authoritarian government free from outsiders. 

We've fought a Civil War but the traitors who lost are still revered in Southern states.

America has survived the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma Federal Building Bombing, Waco, and hundreds of other assaults upon our society without unifying and moving forward as a United States of America.

What would it actually take to bring all Americans together in a common cause?

The only thing that comes to my mind is if we're invaded by extra-terrestrial beings Americans might unite to survive to save their collective asses.

Still, I wouldn't bet on it. 

New Heights of Hypocrisy in GOP Hastens Race to the Bottom

Lies alone are not enough to prove MAGA credentials these days as feats of absolute hypocrisy have become the latest measure of being a Trump supporter.

Thus far the leading Republican hypocrite in the news is Rep. Glenn Thompson from Pennsylvania. 

A mere three days after voting against federal protections for same-sex marriage Thompson attended his gay son's wedding. A press secretary for Thompson confirmed to NBC News that he was there and thrilled to celebrate his son's "new chapter in his life."

Yes, it's blatant and Thompson doesn't give a damn. He was part of a group of 157 House Republicans that didn't want to codify marriage rights because it wasn't the Way of MAGA Morons

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest those 157 naysayers have an LGBTQ+ person in their family, or in their circle of friends. My question is how do they reconcile their obvious hypocrisy?

With the marriage protection bill headed to the Senate the American people will see which of the 50 Republican senators are against it and can judge them accordingly at the ballot box during the midterms.

In Trump world lately there's been a frantic race to the bottom of the barrel where truth goes to die, and everyone promotes the Big Lie.

It's Plain to See: Trump's Not Going to Make a Comeback in 2024

Some people really think Trump is going to get re-elected in 2024. They're going to be disappointed.

Why?

Let's think about it. The majority of Americans are now aware of how hard Trump tried to overturn a fair election thanks to the Jan. 6 Select Committee's series of eight nationally televised hearings. The effects from all the negative revelations will show up at the ballot boxes this midterm election cycle.

The fact that the Jan. 6 committee plans on holding future hearings in September will refresh voters about Trump's attempt to cripple our democratic republic.

The Department of Justice may appear to be crawling along with their investigation of the coup attempt but there have been signs their homing in Trump's inner circle and on him.

Meanwhile...

Legal experts are predicting that Trump's first criminal indictment will be for election interference in Fulton County Georgia. The DA, Fani Willis, is moving swiftly with a grand jury sending out subpoenas to local GOP officials and senators like Lindsey Graham. Her case is narrow and has a smoking gun - an audio of Trump trying to get Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change the vote count to favor him.

Meanwhile...

Trumps dance card of court cases in New York are rapidly advancing starting with this week which is the tentative date for the (1 case) protestor trial (Trump's bodyguard beating up a protestor at his urging) where Trump is going to be the star witness. His onetime fixer turned critic Michael Cohen is the star witness against him.

August 3rd is the day for depositions to begin behind the scenes in the (2nd case) writer E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Trump in Manhattan. She accused Trump of raping her and saved a dress with DNA on it. Trump is going to have to give a sample of his DNA at some point.

Two related investigations (3rd and 4th cases) by New York State and City officials are currently being carried out to determine whether the Trump Organization has committed financial fraud. One is a criminal case being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the other is a civil case being conducted by the New York Attorney General.

After taking in consideration the above listed challenges facing Trump the odds are against him dodging all of the charges. That's evident. We can also take into account other reasons why Trump won't be running for re-election in November.

For instance, who's to say his health will hold up to be able to physically run for office?

Chances are he'll be charged for more crimes in the future as both state and federal investigations progress.

Rupert Murdoch has thrown Trump under the bus! Fox News is no longer singing his praise. Both of Murdoch's newspapers - The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal ran editorials attacking him and saying he's unfit to ever hold office again. Trump's going to feel the pain without Murdoch's help.

Related: Trump Turns on His Besties Over at "Fox & Friends

I'm going to stop here. I could go on, but I don't think it's necessary. It's plain to see Trump will never regain the presidency.