IS EVERYTHING BAD REALLY FOUND IN SOUTHERN USA?

If you live in the South of the US, in almost every bad thing that can be charted, you are at the top of the chart. Conversely, almost every good thing charted, you are at the bottom of the chart. Southerners, as a Yankee who cares for you, I must ask how long will you let the man hold you down by his constant tactic of directing your hatred at those of us Yankees who have escaped the power of the man? Look at the policies and people who keep you poor and in bad health. If you cannot see how you are being treated by the policies and people you follow, then don't blame others for your plight. Wake up Johnny Reb. You're being taken to the cleaners by your leadership. Up here, we're all cheering for your recovery. We need your strength beside us to make America work again for the middle class and the poorest Americans. Come join with us. It's a win win situation.

ARE YOU A MAN OR AN APE?

Recently, advanced imaging techniques have allowed neuroscientists to watch what happens in the brain of a member of the human species when it smiles. They found that when a smile breaks upon the human face, the chemicals that create happiness are engaged. When happy-making chemicals are released in the human brain via a happy circumstance, those chemicals also create a smile as a byproduct to show a fellow robot, most likely, that he or she is making us happy. If they like us, they'll be sure to do that action again to us or in our presence. It's a social thing for survival's sake. 

This marvelous wiring works either way and, of course, proves once again that humans are electrochemical robots because if we fake a smile, then conversely, the happy chemicals are  released in the brain. That means we can all increase our happiness factor if we just smile more. No shit!

With those happy facts in mind, I have

begun to practice a behavior which I hope will improve the circumstances of my life. If faking a smile will release happy chemicals, will strutting like an alpha male, help me increase my image and security among males of my species? If that little pipsqueak Bush Junior could own a ball club and become president of the US, then I figure copying his strut may help me get more done with less worry. 

Since I walk every day for an hour, I've got a good forum in which to practice my new strut. I've begun to throw my shoulders back and swing my arms during my walk, like a president approaching the podium. I can tell you already that it takes more energy to walk "manfully" than to do the stroll, but I also notice that hints of aggressiveness come into my thoughts and feelings as I walk like a conqueror. I become more outgoing toward those I pass in my walks. I believe I'm onto something. More later, and thanks again, neuroscience. 

KKK GREENSBORO MASSACRE 1979

This film shows gun nuts from the past in Greensboro, NC, doing their thing with weapons that gun nuts do. 

"The marchers killed were: Sandi Smith,^[2] a nurse and civil rights activist; Dr. James Waller,^[3] president of a local textile workers union who ceased medical practice to organize workers; Bill Sampson,^[4] a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School; Cesar Cauce,^[5] a Cuban immigrant who graduated magna cum laude from Duke University; and Dr. Michael Nathan,^[6] chief of pediatrics at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham, North Carolina, a clinic that helped children from low-income families." 

Readers can see the killings were targeted at leadership types. The murderers were all acquitted. This is what the South does to people who want to advance the welfare of wage earners in the South, black and white. Unfortunately many white wage earners in the South still line up with their masters, their white bosses. This massacre happened in the South where the Republican Tea Party Party has its greatest strength.

I separate from this group of gun nuts all those men (and women) who like to hunt, target shoot, enjoy finely made weapons and the history of weaponry, but I ask all those sane members of the NRA to publicly and frequently disavow those politicized members of their organization who do not recognize the fact that their fellow citizens have the right to want guns regulated. It's not the American government that wishes to regulate guns, it's a majority of their fellow citizens who are asking for these regulations. 

Sensible members of the NRA could start by getting rid of their new NRA president who imagines the gun issue is a Civil War issue and who equates Americans who want gun controls with members of the Yankee army who joyfully burned thru Georgia with Sherman to the sea.

PLUTOCRACY BARKS, REPUBLICANS OBEY

Rep. Connie Mack pushes bill benefiting big donor  Rep. Connie Mack, head of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, has scheduled the panel's first markup of the year – on a bill that would benefit a big donor to his campaign. www.usatoday.com

If only Republicans were this tough on their good friends, the offshore American companies that evade paying taxes. In the House of Representatives too...their special stronghold where the Republicans do much to hold back American progress and protect the plutocracy that owns them "lock, stock and barrel" as the saying goes. The plutocracy barks and the Republicans leap, asking first, "How high, boss man?" If only their boss were the average American Joe.

PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY ANYONE?

This should be called Republican "ouchreach" rather than "outreach". I can't believe this woman is still around and sounding as awful as always. With a mere change of a letter or two, her name becomes more symbolic of her activities. Phyllis Schaftly.


I just took out all my insulting language. Think I'll just let you judge for yourselves by reading her words. 

ALZHEIMER'S MAKES FOOLS OF US ALL

Does anyone else find it interesting that Charlton Heston and Ronald Reagan both moved from liberalism over to pretty far out conservatism as older men and that both of them also suffered and died from Alzheimer's? How soon they forget, eh, the reason for liberalism's necessity as a force to oppose the jungle mentality of dog eat dog capitalism. 

 

A little wealth can go a long way toward altering one's conscience sometimes. Today from my AARP magazine, I learned that the wealthy Mick Jagger endorses British conservatism. I suggest he get a mental checkup soon. — feeling amused.

THE RED AND BLACK CAFE: REVOLUTION, ANARCHY, GOOD FOOD

Wife and I went to the vegan Red and Black Cafe today for dinner after a movie at Living Room Theaters. Good food, great to see they were packed. The clientele is on the younger side and wear the hippest damn clothing and hair styles to be found anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. Hope they don't mind an old man, calling their apparel "hippest". You use the language you was brung up wit'. 

This fine cafe is cooperatively owned and all who work there are in the IWW. They support so many causes I don't know where to begin. Many pamphlets on display—an old dude's eyes get blurry reading. Go there and see for yourself, if you don't believe this woid a mout'. 

If you got any money left over for eatin' out after the attacks mounted on the wage earner by the plutocracy thru the likes of Reagan and the Tea Party, eat at The Red and Black Cafe, why don't ya! Can you imagine a better place for blue collar folks to veg out? 

PS: They're currently on the hunt for another owner to buy in. If I were younger and could stand on my feet for long hours...ah, well! An experience of a lifetime just waiting for someone to trip over.

IGNORANT RELIGIOUS FOLK MIGHT END OUR SPECIES

Ignorant religious folk can easily bring us a new Dark Ages. Muslims, just like religious fundamentalists everywhere, are afraid of the facts of life. Their fears can be the undoing of the human species. Religious folk long for what they imagine was a simpler time, forgetting all the while, about the disease and ignorance that inhabits those distant times....

ScienceInsider: Turkish Scientists See New Evidence of Government's Anti-Evolution Bias - ScienceInsider

AKA THE SILENT BOOMER

Within this ancient breast, cheek by jowl with the political identity that writes this blog, live a pretty good poet and a passable fiction writer. They currently share another blog, The Silent Boomer, dedicated to the act of writing and to the farcical idea of being a writer. Quite a battle rages within my withered anatomy as to which of the three synaptic patterns gets the most conscious attention from the OS the conscious world calls George Thomas.

The political synapses are always one headline away from breaking into a boil and spewing steam and bubbles everywhere, paying no attention as to whom or what they damage. Quite often, the pot itself receives the most damage—a burned bottom or a too-hot-to-handle handle. The poetic set of synapses, on the other hand, already has a couple of books of poetry available on Amazon. 

Meanwhile, the fiction writer wistfully works to get at least one of his four completed novels published before he hits the final skids into a brief but fiery afterlife in the cremation oven. Because he's busy on a stylistic rewrite of his novel, Angie's Choice, the fiction writer ostensibly receives the most attention from Operating System George [OSG]. It's a mild adventure tale. If made into a movie, Angie's Choice compares to The River Wild set on mountain roads. Unfortunately, political headlines constantly cause the novelist to lose sleep when the political self seizes control and writes away the night on the commentary websites of his local newspaper, the Columbian. 

The novelist, unlike his historical brother and sister novelists, has a daunting task ahead of him. He has been told in no uncertain terms that to get published these days, he needs a "following" on his blog! He must prove the novel worthy of being read before anyone reads it. Almost sounds like a political problem, doesn't it?

U.S. Fiscal Cliff Deal Leaves House Republicans Angry, Deal In Jeopardy

All I know is that with 70% of Americans saying NO to any cuts in Medicare and Social Security, I hope these recalcitrant, destructive, obstructionist Republican Tea Party Republicans will understand that those are still hot button issues that they can't tamper with. They aren't even close to the majority party when it comes to those matters.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost