Friday Roundup

Bad Friday Haiku

Friday makes me glad

It means the weekend is here

And I can sleep in

Obamacare Haiku

They tried to kill us

But Obamacare still lives

Fuck you, GOP

More rain, less run

This was a bad week for running. It rained Tuesday and Thursday so I didn’t run (yes, I know I have a treadmill) and today I just felt blah, which seems to becoming a usual feeling.

I just seem to be lacking in energy. Maybe I need to take some vitamins and minerals. I know I should take more Vitamin D to compensate for all the rainy cloudy weather and to counteract my S.A.D. And I just read that potassium, calcium, and magnesium deficiencies (brought about by exercise, thyroid problems, and taking a diuretic for HPB) can cause cramps, which I’ve been getting in the soles of my feet lately.

Usually I do take a multivitamin, but I ran out a while back and they’re so damned expensive.

My favorite multivitamin was by OneSource for Men 50+. They had a whopping 4,000 IUs of vitamin D3 (take that, S.A.D.!). And they were inexpensive, about $5 for 60. But for some inexplicable reason, Walmart discontinued them.

One-A-Day, Centrum, and Nature Made can’t hold a candle to OneSource. So I need to find a substitute.

Any suggestions?

Weigh-In Friday

I went up 0.4 pounds. I blame the lack of energy and the gloomy weather, which makes me eat more. (Did I ever mention how much I love Cheetos?)

If only I had a powerful megavitamin to take. Damn you, Walmart!

Beginning a new hobby

If you read yesterday’s blog post (and if you didn’t, go read it now. We’ll wait. Hmm hmm hmm hmm *hums theme from Jeopardy* Oh, you’re back? Good.) I mentioned I was interested in, or reinterested in, learning how to draw.

Here is my first attempt at a chair:

I did it all freehand (no rulers or straight edges) with a mechanical pencil. It’s basically a visual copy (meaning I didn’t trace it) of an exercise in the drawing book I checked out from the library.

As you can tell, I need a lot of work on understanding three-dimensionality, particularly perspective and shading.

“What about your attempt at an apple?” some reader shouted. Yeah…. No. That really shows how poorly I translate three-dimensinal objects into two-dimensional renderings.

*looks at his readers faces*

Fine. Here. I told you it was atrocious.

Who laughed? I distinctly heard someone say, “What the hell is that on top? A window?”

This I did from memory, as I didn’t have an actual apple to look at. I have always had trouble interpreting circular objects, such as balls, cones, and cylinders, in three dimensions. That’s my attempt to show that side of the apple is shiny (and curved). I think I saw that effect used in cartoons.

Oh, well, back to the drawing board.

Scout Jamboree

As a former Scout Leader, to say I’m appalled by the speech TheRump gave to a group of Scouts is an understatement.

This man-child simply cannot talk without it being about how great he thinks he is or how terribly he thinks he’s being treated by the Free Press and other political opponents.

Every speech he gives is filled with lies, half-truths, hatred and paranoid vitriole; such content might almost be considered appropriate for his normal audience of supporters, which is usually brain-dead, deplorable racists and mysoginists, but these were CHILDREN!

These weren’t potential voters (not for several years) and they certainly weren’t there to attend a partisan political rally. They were there to have fun. Learn various outdoor skills, like camping and woodcraft. To exercise their bodies and minds.

Not to listen to the incoherent, rambling ravings of an orange turd cursing, attacking his rivals, and insulting a former President of the United States.

Now can we start impeachment proceedings?

Obamacare Repeal

The Republicans have been trying to repeal Obamacare since day one. During Obama’s presidency they voted over 50 times to do so. And failed every time.

Last night was their latest attempt. It failed as well.

These failures must really gall these old white men. Deep down in their white-hooded souls they’re seething with racist rage because all their attempts to sponge away the legacy of this uppity black man, to whitewash the shameful memory of a black man ever having occupied their White House, have been twarted.

And to all their failures, the best response is:

Fuck you, GOP.

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The Compromise Gap

Tuesday’s elections swung the power in Congress into the hands of the Republicans. Many Democrats, myself included, couldn’t understand why anyone paying attention to what was going on would vote for a Republican.

Many others seem to believe both parties are at fault. There might be some truth in that. One of the biggest complaints is neither party is willing to negotiate. Nobody on the right or left is willing to compromise. But the actual fact of the matter is, both parties have tried to negotiate, but the problem is something called the Compromise Gap.

What is the compromise gap? I’m glad you asked and what better way to illustrate it than with a graphic? Why, with two graphics, of course.

Graphic 1 illustrates how things used to be. The line represents the entire political spectrum; the farther right you go, the more conservative you become and the farther left you go the more liberal you become. In the center lie the America people, mostly moderate, not too liberal, not too conservative, just right.

The GOP and the Democrats traditionally occupied the circled areas, fluctuating along the line from more so to less so year to year, but never really deviating all that much between 4 and 5 for the GOP and 6 and 7 for the Dems.

The fringe groups occupy the farthest extremes on the scale. Representing the right wing extremists are the Christian Right, now joined more recently by the Tea Party. I didn’t bother to make a circle for the radical left, because as I’ll explain, they don’t have much of an affect upon the movement of the Democratic Party as a whole.

For years, the GOP and the Dems haven’t had very far to go to reach the center, where the majority of Americans await. It was easy to compromise on many issues. The two parties negotiated readily and those involved were often viewed as statesmen.

But then, the Tea Party and the Christian Right began to gain political clout, winning elections on their extremist platforms. With each new success, their political reach grew and the GOP was sucked across the political spectrum by their strengthening gravitation field, pulling the traditional Republicans farther and farther to the right.

Graphic 2 shows how things are today. The Tea Party and Christian Right still occupy the extreme right position, but now the traditional Republicans have been dragged over and occupy positions 2 and 3 on the scale compared to their previous position of 4 and 5, whereas the Democrats haven’t moved at all.

So there are several things at play here. First, many conservatives think the liberals have moved farther left, not realizing it is they, and they alone, who have moved.

Second, the Compromise Gap, once easily bridged has now grown into a political Ginnungagap, a vast, insurmountable frozen void that neither party is willing to cross for fear they’ll fall in and be destroyed.

Sure, both parties are still willing to negotiate the same 1 or 2 points left or right on the scale that they always have. And the Dems when negotiating are still crossing to the center where the rest of America as a whole still resides. And the GOP, likewise, is still willing to negotiate the same distance they did before, except for them, they now reside so far right that their attempts to compromise only land them solidly within the conservative spectrum, still many points away from center.

And it is the Republicans who decry the Dems for not being willing to cross the great divide while completely ignorant of the fact that they’ve moved so far right that even centrists seem like extreme liberals to them now.

It is not the Democrats’ fault at all that negotiations have often failed miserably, nor should anyone really expect them to move farther right than they already are.

The best the nation can hope for is a return to sanity on the side of the Republicans. Only by rejecting the fringe fanatical right wing and moving closer to center can we ever hope for the good old days of compromise and negotiation.

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