Trying to Stop being Clever

Do we still acknowledge Pearl Harbor Day? I won't say celebrate. We never celebrated it. But we remembered it. Because we lost a lot of Americans that day. Is it okay for us to have a day of remembrance for our fallen soldiers? Or is it considered a hate crime? Can we remember this tragedy, this time when we fell victim to a brutal attack? Well, considering we dropped two atomic bombs on them for it kind of makes us even. Japan: killed 2403 Americans America: killed around 250,000 Japanese That's approximately 100 times as many deaths.

Is this kind of attitude helpful for anyone's cause? This was posted by a Black rights group on Facebook. This was my response: " Why wouldn't you say "stop caring what racists think"? Racists aren't only white. As you've proven with this post. But then what do you care what I think? Hate is hate, and I see a lot of it here. Hating people with progressive attitudes, who believe that our future is in our hands. You're not helping yourself." One of the hallmarks of the idiotic Rump supporters is their inability to use the language correctly. The lowest common denominator. They routinely include misspellings, wrong words, bad punctuation and structure, and generally make themselves look uneducated. In general, I find that the more eloquent, well-spoken people tend to be more progressive. In the comments under the above post I noted similar generalities, such as those whose message was clear and accurate tended to be more progressive, s

Now that we are once again visiting the topic of gun control, sadly via the only way it seems to be acknowledged, I confess to much ignorance and indecision on the subject. On the one hand I clearly recognize the FACT that assault-type weapons (fully-automatic, semi-auto with extended magazines, etc.) have no place in the hands of the average citizen. The Second Amendment clearly states that a "well-regulated militia" is necessary to protect the freedoms of the people, and I would hardly call every redneck with a pickup truck "well-regulated." These types of weapons are virtually NEVER used to great effect in instances of gun violence, where a citizen with an assault weapon stopped a criminal shooter (see this ). The argument that more guns prevents gun violence is just completely absurd (see this ). The argument that "criminals will get guns anyway" doesn't defend against people who are NOT criminals, but who are driven to such violence through thin

Forty some years of remaining expressionless has helped keep that youthful look within reach. Those worry lines are starting to show up though. And the grey hair is somewhat of a giveaway. No, I'm not going bald, my forehead's always been this big. My nosehairs grow incredibly fast. I mentioned in a previous post that the most embarrassing thing I could think of about myself was the tattoo on my forearm . But I'm owning that. Besides, I thought of something possibly worse. I was a bed-wetter. Looking back on it now, it would be nice to be able to blame it on the undiagnosed epilepsy. But I'm pretty sure I know better. I don't know exactly why it happened, but it made sleepovers very difficult.  When I was probably 11 years old I regularly slept on a damp, urine-soaked mattress that I didn't even change the sheets on. I didn't take showers in the morning. I just went to school smelling like pee. I didn't know it, but some of the other

A tale of pure fiction. No similarity to any actual persons, living or dead, is intended or implied. Any that is perceived is coincidence. "Wow, she looks terrible." "Eh, I guess so. She just looks older." "-" "I noticed she changed her last name on her Facebook account. I wonder if she got divorced. Doesn't every parent on Facebook just plaster their timeline with photos of their kids? I don't think she has them anymore." "She's kind of pathetic, how she's touching all over every guy she talks to." "Not me." "She better not." "Oh, and she knows it. She knows you're the scariest, most bad-ass bitch of a jealous wife there is. And that's got to be hard. She knows that, for years, decades even, I was into her. She blew me off and 'friend-zoned' me the whole time. Now here she is, separated, probably had her kids taken away, and here I am, happily married and killing it wit

I just had a realization that people see me as some sort of spastic because I'm rocking all the time. I've always known that i rock, like shift my weight back & forth. I rock when I'm sitting. I find my center of gravity and I shift to make sure I have control of it. I can lose my balance and fall if I stand totally still for too long. I didn't realize how much of a character trait it was. I realized because my best friend told me, in a no-holds-barred "tell me the truth about myself" moment, he said the thing his friends thought was the weirdest about me was "the rocking." Imagining someone else doing that, I guess I would think they were a little spastic. That's the thing that stands out about me? I always knew I did it but it was just an aside sort of thing. But that stands out about me. I'm clearly a spastic. Whatever else is wrong with me, whatever else goes along with being this way, this kind of special, we don't really know. W

This is an interesting time for those of us who predate the internet and smartphones. Mobile phones at all, really. Having grown up using rotary phone land lines and the post office, the changes are many and dramatic. Telling these stories and thinking "kids today will never understand" is, for me, remarking about how different things got very suddenly, but I can see that, to the kids, I'm just talking about how things were a long-ass time ago. The year I was born is, to my daughter, the equivalent to 1930 to me. For her to try to understand how things were when I was born is like me trying to relate to prohibition.

What if we are fulfilling our destiny? What if, all along, the planet (and the universe) was working toward having us continue to seek more and more power until we generated the nuclear devices that will irradiate the planet, creating heavy elements that did not previously exist, thus boosting the explosion of the sun when all the planets crash into it, creating a larger explosion and therefore setting off a chain reaction at a higher temperature/energy, causing the post-supernova Sol to be elevated to a higher level than it would have been if Earth had gone in as a wet rock? What if we have evolved from bacteria, through the chain of mammals, to the bipedal organisms we are today with the specific intent of seeking out stronger energy sources, with the intention being to generate more explosive power at the end of our solar system? What if all solar systems are trying to increase the power of their explosions in all the ways they can, and it's some sort of contest between stars to

They're trying to maintain too much control. Some things you just don't need to control. The People, as Ramona says below, need to be able to protest when things aren't right. They're trying to do it the right way, and not in the face of the fascist bully police themselves. Because you know what happens then. I can't help but notice that the people who most loudly yell about their second amendment rights are often the same people who trample the first amendment rights of others. The ones who recognize that the police state is getting out of control are commonly the same who are saying that everyone in the nation doesn't need guns. So the ones with the guns are on the side of the ones with the guns, and the ones without the guns are asking everyone to lay them down. Clearly, when the uprising happens, it will be the unarmed against the unjust. I am going to go into some unpopular territory here. I wish none of this was happening the way it is, with the brutal

If you think football players should be forced to stand during the anthem, you're not wrong. It's your opinion, it can't be wrong. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that these protests mean the protesters don't love this country. They love it enough to want to help fix it. If you think it doesn't need fixing and that showing respect for the anthem is more important than police showing respect for human life, then you can be considered part of the problem. Whenever I see these down-and-dirty argument threads on standing for the anthem, I see that the ones saying the flag needs to be respected at all costs are also the ones who have the little flag emojis in their screen names. Is that a prescribed, acceptable use of the flag's image? Little digitized versions used to set yourself apart from your countrymen, because you're a "true patriot"? I feel that the flag represents the country, which includes its people, and that means a lot of thin

It was April 1, sometime in the late '80s. I drove out to Alhambra to my bass player's house. I parked my truck around the corner, out of sight of his front door. I walked to his house, and I got myself to panting. I knocked on the door. When Anthony opened it, I told him a story of how I was driving down his street, and I was going too fast. I said I was going about 50, and I know because I was looking down at my speed when the lady pulled out in front of me. I said I hit her, but good. T-boned her right there on his street. I was panicking, saying I didn't know what I was going to do. When he seemed good and concerned, I dropped it on him: "April Fool!" He said I should be an actor.

Since we're being honest, I'll just say it like it is: I'm a family man who took 35 years to get around to marriage, 38 years to get around to having a kid, and that's my world now. I'm confident in the fact that this is what my life is now, and that my duties are clear. Therefore when I see people talking about "what dating is like nowadays" or "who might you be matched to" or anything, I can just ignore it because it doesn't apply. I wasn't any good at dating when I could, and I'm frankly glad to be done with it. So something like this is a funny story to add to my collection, but that's all. It doesn't make me uncomfortable because I know, and am, exactly where I belong.

I'm not judging you. I'm creating a mental picture of who you are based partly on the decisions that you make. What other valid reality can I use to determine the type of person you are than the choices that you make? Your behavior is who you are. If I'm not supposed to make my determination of where you fit into my understanding of personality types based on how you react to situations, then am I supposed to just start fresh each time I see you as though I don't know a thing about you? I wouldn't gain much from that, now would I? If each time I see you I act like it's the first time, convince myself to start at zero each time, then I won't make any progress in my friendship with you. Therefore the choices you make, they do have consequences, and one of those is that I am going to anticipate some of your future behavior based on some of your past behavior. Now if that is being judgmental, then maybe I am. But I've misunderstood the meaning of the word s

David Coutant 12 October 2016 The Echo (Los Angeles) Poster Children / State to State / Batwings Catwings Instrumentation used: two guitars, bass, drums (supplemented with drum machine) and vocals. The first band, Batwings Catwings played simple 4/4 and 6/8 rhythms with a lot of barre chords and power. The guitars both played lead, sometimes taking turns doing solos, sometimes playing dual leads a la the Allman Brothers Band. Guitarists Ray Santillan III and Jeffrey Byron play Rickenbacker and Fender guitars with a distorted rock sound. Bassist Cindy Sukrattanawong played a Precision Bass, and she had a solid, clean sound. Drummer Clay Johnson, who formed the band in 2009, plays a standard acoustic kit of probably 7 pieces. The music was high-energy and precise. The vocals of lead singer Dana Poblete were less precise, but she sounded good for the music. The second band of the night was local group State to State. They opened with a swirly, ambient sound that became the song

I was driving to my guitar lesson on Thursday. At one point I found myself behind an SUV-type vehicle and I noticed that the license plate frame said "Alta Dena" on the top. Now, I don't know where your local milk comes from, but we see a lot from the Alta Dena Dairy, and the way it was written on this license plate frame looked like it does on the milk carton. I started to ask myself, "who would have a milk license plate frame on their car? I mean, usually you see a dealer frame, or something custom/personalized. Who would put a custom milk frame on their plate?" It didn't look cheap, either. It was a nice, shiny chrome-looking thing. I got as close as I could to read what it said at the bottom of the frame. Sure enough, it said "Dairy Pure," confirming my suspicion that it was indeed related to the Alta Dena Dairy. So my question was renewed; "who would go out and get a milk license plate frame and replace whatever they had with this one? Wh