Mystery Numbers

 

I'm not sure where they're coming from.

Last month was more typical. I received 1,046 views on my blog, The Strait Line.  

This month, so far, I have 8,688 views. I don't know why this month is substantially higher than last month. To date, I have 6 new posts in Mach, which is the same as in February. 

I know what it is not. It's not FaceBook because I get little to no response there. Facebook shows my Strait Line posts to few. Maybe because the blog is from rival Google. Maybe because it wants me to pay advertising money to show it to more people. I can't do that. My blog doesn't make money. I was lifetime banished from advertising more than a decade ago. 

I can see views made to individual blog posts, but I don't see anything explaining this month's numbers. Sometimes, my stories get reposted to more popular sites, but I don't know where.

It's probably some bot thing. I don't know. I'm trying not to get too depressed.

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Speaking of not trying to get depressed, I bought Mega Million lottery tickets. The jackpot was $1.1 billion, and I figured if I was going to lose, I might as well lose big.

Which, of course, I did. The odds are such that wasting a lot of money on the lottery is really stupid.

Oh, well. Never said I was a genius.

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There seems to be some joy in Biden's improvement in poll numbers in swing states.

But it's nothing more than a statistical tie for many of those.

Given what a lousy candidate and horrible person the Orange Conman is, I don't understand why anyone is supporting him anywhere.

But they are,  And now he's hawking "patriotic" bibles. I'm surprised they're not combusting at his touch.

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On a happier note, we are counting down the days (roughly 60) until we can see our Granddaughter again! We could see my oldest son in roughly two weeks, and my youngest son is coming home for Easter!

So, that's all good!

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Have a good week!

T. M. Strait

Toto Leads the Way!

 

Lost in the mists of time was the original intent behind L Frank Baum's purpose as a political allegory. He meant it to be a commentary on American politics at the turn of the century. There is a lot about agrarian versus urbanism in it. For example, the Scarecrow represents the farmer, and the Tin Man the industrial worker. The stuff about gold and silver (the slippers were originally silver, not red) related to the disputes about what should back the monetary system.

L Frank Baum's harshest criticism was reserved for politicians. They were blustery and full of falsehoods, serving, in the end, their own self-interest. They were frauds, snake oil salesmen, and grifters, promising everything and delivering nothing.

The chief fraudster is, of course, the Wizard of Oz. He has somehow managed to elevate himself to almost deity status. He hides behind smoke and mirrors, people believing he can do anything.

This illusion is shattered when Toto pulls back the curtain, revealing the wizard as a charlatan. He is nothing, a nobody, an empty suit.

Now is the time for a new Toto.

And that new Toto is...

Letitia James, New York Attorney General.

I don't know what will happen today. Will Trump engineer another delay? Will he continue to evade accountability?

I don't know. I hope not.

But whatever happens after this, the curtain has been pulled back. We've seen enough that even his most ardent supporters have to admit he is a raging fraud. He does not have what he's been telling people he has. Everything is smoke and mirrors.

His lawyers plead that he does not have it and no one will bond him for it. Trump contradicts them by saying he does have $500 million in cash.

Somebody's lying. Guess who's my nominee?

He does not own what he says he owns. Much of his property is mortgaged for more than it's worth.

He's not rich. He's just playing a mammoth shell game, moving from one overinflated loan to another, spinning so fast that he hopes no one will notice how little is there. 

Not anymore. Thanks to our modern-day Toto, even the most resistant can finally see him for what he is.

Oh, he'll continue to blow smoke. He'll try to get away with fakery like the Wizard of Oz did—fake medals, diplomas, and ticking clocks. He'll use tennis shoes painted as if they were gold, NFT cards with AI images, and beg limited-income supporters to send him the money they need to live on.

But we all know now. The curtain has been pulled back.

We now must pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Not the myth, but the man.

The misogynist, racist, adjudicated sexual abuser, narcissist, grifting conman, the Wizard of Nothing - Donald J Trump.

Sleepy Time Monday Musings

 Pixie Dust has the right idea. Just crash after the sheer exhaustion of having gotten up and eaten breakfast.

How many of us haven't dreamed of doing that?

Habits are hard to break, though. Even now that I'm retired, my routine is too set to vary much. Once I'm up, I'm up until 11:30 to midnight.

Naps don't pay off for me. It will make it all that harder to sleep that night.

Saturday night was rough for me. I was awake quite a bit, stressed about a meeting I was going to have the next day. I don't have a lot of insomnia. But I have a night every once in a while that's a struggle.

It turns out that the meeting was nowhere near as bad as I feared. I lost sleep for no rational reason.

Some people seem to like to sleep a lot. There are tons of memes on social media about people who like to go to bed at 9 PM.  

I'm not built that way. I want to be awake and take in as much as possible.  

I am in bed by midnight at the latest and up by 6:15 to 6:30 most mornings. I usually get up once or twice a night for reasons that older men tend to get up. 90% of the time, I go back to sleep relatively quickly.

The bottom line is that I need about 5 1/2 to 6 hours of sleep a night. If I get more than that, it is harder to sleep the next night.

I like being awake. I can read more while I'm awake. I can enjoy life more.

I don't feel like I'm living with a sleep deficit.

Everyone is different. I hope you can appreciate that.

A Letter From a Re-education Camp

 Dear Maggie,

I can't seem to forget you.

They say that time makes you forget the details. Faces and voices of the past begin to fade. Everything becomes a hazy blur.

But that's not happening. I remember your hazel eyes, the aquiline sweep of your nose, the redness of your full lips, the auburn curls, the tiny earlobes, and even the location of the mole on your cheek.

I have no picture of you; it is just what I have preserved in my mind. But that is enough to see me through this nightmare. I refuse to accept that I will never see you again.

I'm not supposed to be able to write you. But I have managed to have smuggled to me this one piece of paper, and a small pencil nub. On one side is my note to you, and on the other is the menu for the week. Yes, they got it from the kitchen. The pencil nub was from the guard's station, pilfered by the prisoner assigned to janitorial duties.

Do not worry about me. I am doing fine. I don't like being incarcerated, and I miss you tremendously, but I can and will survive.

I am so happy that you were able to escape the Kingdom. I pray that you are safe. I won't say where I think you are for fear that this letter will be confiscated. Just know that I picture you there, secure and happy.

They have not tortured me. I have no information they desire. Let me repeat that. I know nothing that could help them in any way.

I do spend long hours in counseling sessions designed to convert me to their religion and cause, I listen carefully, but I remain the same. It does not help that I am a Christian because I do not hold to what they are calling Christianity.

That said, I will do what I can to secure my release. Whatever it takes.

And rest assured, I will see you again.

Love,

Gregory

This is flash fiction from a series of stories based on the Kingdom, a near future in which America has broken up into several territories/nations. Much of the South has become The Kingdom, where Christian Nationalists have achieved dominance.

The stories may not always follow from one to the other, as they are adjusted to meet a reasonable extrapolation of current events. Think of them like DC's Elseworld stories or Marvel's What If.

Maybe someday I will edit them into a whole.

How much I write of any one thing may depend on the number of views it gets. So far, following that logic, I should refrain from writing about anything.

Cage Match Re-Match

 

It's official! We have a re-match!

Whether you like it or not.

If you don't like it and did not vote in your primary for somebody else, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I'm not thrilled with the lack of real contest in our primaries and conventions. If we really like democracy, then we should consider competition essential.

That said, no matter how many choices we had, I would still vote for the same person - Joe Biden. Yes, he's old. Yes, he's not perfect. But the reality is that he has exceeded my expectations for what he has achieved.

The most comprehensive infrastructure and climate bills ever passed. Growth in the stock market, low unemployment, growing GDP and stock market, a return of manufacturing jobs, and recovering from post-COVID inflation as quickly as any nation on Earth. He has helped rally the free world to support Ukraine. I'm not happy with how he has failed to do everything to protect Gaza, but without a shadow of a doubt, he is doing more than what Trump would (who has just urged Netanyahu to "finish the job"). 

I won't go on and on about Trump. Anyone who reads my blog knows how I feel about him.

Every day for the past nine years has been an utter embarrassment to me that anyone would support this racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, adjudicated rapist adjudicated fraudster four times indicted with a total of 91 counts, twice impeached incoherent orange conman. Shame on you if you're still with him.

But...speaking of still being with him, Pierce County continues to outshine in its extremism.

I keep waiting for the big turnaround, but the Democratic Party's share of the vote keeps dwindling.

Here is the county vote in yesterday's primary, as reported by The Blackshear Times:

In the last two general Presidential elections, Trump has garnered about 87% of the total vote.

How about this time?

*

It just keeps getting more depressing. Unless they're people we know that are not Trumpers, we have to keep our mouths shut or risk dehumanizing vilification.

Only Republicans go to heaven, you know. At least per our very active and loud Christian Nationalist churches that dominate Pierce County.

It's hard. But I hope people across the nation recognize the danger Trump poses.

* This vote total represents only 17.53% of the county's registered voters. I'm sure this was somewhat reflective of the real lack of competition. Nevertheless, I don't know for any reason why the vote percentages would have been higher if more people had voted.

I'll Meet You at the Oscars!

 

Actually, no. I won't meet you at the Oscars. I wasn't there. I didn't even watch the Oscars. It's my further devolvement in my interest in movies.

Well, not really. But it does represent my decline in watching award shows. This year, I got the idea that Oppenheimer would clean up, and no mystery was involved. 

And that's what happened, with Oppenheimer winning 7 awards, including Best Picture.

The only real surprises came before the awards when actress Margot Robie and director Greta Gerwig were not even nominated for their work on Barbie. In the awards, it was a bit of a surprise that Lilly Gladstone did not win for Killers of the Flower Moon.

One of the great changes in my life is that, over time, I have seen fewer and fewer films at the movie theatre. The reasons for this are many. My boys are grown, so we don't see that many together (Benjamin has indicated interest in seeing Dune 2 with me, but we have yet to be in the same location to do that). Alison did not grow up going to the movies like I did, which was about one each week. My 68-year-old bladder makes me take more breaks during a film, missing more minutes.

The primary reason, though, is that I am a steamaholic. I spend money on these streaming services, and they get movies so quickly that it makes more sense to see them at home. It's nice seeing them at home with our homemade snacks, our pets, and the coupe de grace—being able to pause during bathroom breaks.

Oppenheimer, for example, can be watched on Peacock. We have yet to do it, partly because it's three hours long. We may have to treat it like a miniseries and watch it over a few days. Oppenheimer is the story of the man who led the invention of the atomic bomb that may someday end us all. Briefly, it is a feel-good story.

I'm going to rate all movies that I haven't seen and my interest in seeing them on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being low and 10 being high.

Oppenheimer is a 9.

From IMDb: A cranky history teacher at a prep school is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a grieving cook and a troubled student.

It can be seen on Peacock. Pair it with Oppenheimer and make a night of it—or a day—or two days.

My interest? 6.

From IMDb: Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss and his wife strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.

It won best sound because despite how idyllic they try to make it, you can hear sounds from the camp that destroy the illusion.

To date, it's only available to rent/buy on services like Prime. Stay tuned.

My interest? 7

Barbie is a great movie, as Barbie becomes more real and aware as the film progresses. I have seen this movie, and it is fantastic, 

It is available on MAX (more commonly referred to as HBO).

From imdb: The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter. 

So...like the Bride of Frankenstein?

It's listed, in part, as a sci-fi epic. Hmmm. I may need to find out more about this.

It's available on Hulu.

My interest? Originally a 4, but now that I've read more about it, I'll bump it to a 6.

Childhood friends are torn apart when one moves from South Korea. Twenty years later, they meet each other again.

It is available on Paramount+, and the fantastically free library service Kanopy.

My interest? 5. On the surface, it's not my kind of movie, but I've heard many good things about it.

From IMDb: A woman is suspected of murder after her husband's death; their half-blind son faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.

A legal drama? I'm in!

It is only available as rent/buy on services like Prime, but I'm sure it will eventually come to something if I'm patient.

My interest? 8.

This is a movie about the musical conductor Leonard Bernstein. I don't know what else to say about it.

It's available on Netflix.

My interest? 1.

I seen this one! It took us two nights, but we did it! It's almost four hours long.

I had recently read the book that it's based on, and it was a pretty good rendition of this horrible incident in American history. Another thing that didn't teach you in high school history class.

The ending was a little strange and not what I would have wanted, but overall, this is a great movie demonstrating the horrors and greed that a dominant culture inflicts on an oppressed culture.

It's available on Apple+.

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I'm bad and forgot to get a picture of American Fiction, a movie about a writer who writes a book that's meant to challenge the media's profiting from Black entertainment. 

It's listed as a dark, high-concept comedy and satire.

It is currently available on MGM+.

My interest? 5.

Dialing Up Tuesday Tidbits

 Here are a few tidbits this early March morning. I reserve the right to develop any or all of these into full blog posts at a later date—or not. We'll see.

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We were delighted to have my sister, Carol, and my brother-in-law, Mike, visit with us this weekend. It had been about a decade since the last time they were here. We've seen them in Michigan and Florida, but it's rare for them to visit here.

There was a lot of conversation and laughter. We consumed mass quantities, watched some movies, and visited Brunswick and Jekyll Island.

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My record of job success has been much less than that of most of my family. Others have achieved greater standing and better pay. Sometimes, this makes me feel inferior. But then I feel proud that so many I have helped raise and support have done well. I have some really good boys, and I am super proud of everything they have achieved.

I could have done more in my career, but it would have cost time to be with family, participate in theatre, and enjoy life. The bottom line is that with careful money management, we have done very well. It's true we don't have second homes and lavish vacations, but we have done most of what we wanted to do.  

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I dreaded my Thursday appointment with my physician's assistant. I'm at the age where you're not really sure what you're going to find out, But it went better than I expected, and I have no new crises to deal with. The best part? A medical intern looked at me first, and I commented on my blood pressure that it wasn't bad for someone 68. He left, and when he returned with the PA, the PA said, "Man, you look good. You don't look like you're anywhere near 68!" 

That was the first time I had ever heard anything like that. I about wept for joy.

I'm used to Alison being complicated because of how young she looks (and justifiably so), but me? Never.  

I will take it and put it in my Compliment Treasure Box.

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The "When will they ever wake up?" news about Trump continues to be mixed. Per the Supreme Court, states must keep an insurrectionist on the ballot. Also, the Supreme Court is slow-walking the absolute immunity case, which may delay the federal trials until next year.

What all this means is that we can't expect the courts and justice to bail us out.  We the people are going to have to end this madness by voting against Trump in the Novembe election  Only a thundering beat down at the polls will eliminate this threat.

Are we up to the task?

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Benjamin is back from Sweden and may see us this weekend. He is happy but tired. If I get any pictures, I'll be sure to share them.

Sincerely,

T. M. Strait