I Think They’re Funny

 She didn’t actually order this. 

Good advice. 

Hail

 I took these pictures of corn damaged by hail near Mt. Sterling, Illinois today. The damage happened a couple weeks ago. 

The next two pictures are fields directly across from each other. One damaged severely and one not.  

The next pictures were taken at the farm I grew up on in the mid 1960’s. I remember the storm and the sound of the hail hitting the metal roof of our house. 

Things can change quick and a great crop can be destroyed in moments. 

Things to Ponder

 

Greedy Motherfuckers

 

This showed up on my Facebook page. I find the premise interesting. If the corporate tax rate is raised it is a foregone conclusion that those increased taxes must be passed along to consumers. These apparently poor struggling corporations will have no choice. Prices must be raised and costs passed along. Is it just me or does this appear to be a one way relationship? When corporate tax rates were lowered I don’t recall corporations passing those savings along to consumers in the form of lower prices. I don’t recall them giving workers pay raises or big bonus checks. I don’t even recall them hiring hundreds of thousands of new employees. How about those big corporations that in effect are not paying any federal income tax on the profits they are making? Do they raise prices based on taxes they are not paying? Some of these bastards have gotten creative. They didn’t raise prices. They kept the price the same and made the package smaller. Less toothpaste in the tube. Less potato chips or crackers in the package. 

The solution seems to me to be a minimum tax on all corporations and a wealth tax on the extremely wealthy. Corporations that make a profit should be required to pay taxes on that profit. Individuals with extreme wealth should pay a wealth tax. Poor or even average taxpayers should not be required to pay a higher percentage of their income in tax than the very wealthy. So these greedy motherfuckers need to pay their fair share just like the rest of us. I’m sure if you can afford to launch yourself into space you can afford to pay some more taxes. 

Fucking Idiots

 One of my Facebook friends posted this recently. 

Please take a moment to look at the title of this post again. I hope that no one who believes the picture above is fucking. The last thing we need are these pin headed, inbred, cornpone eating, slack jawed bastards creating more children with the IQ of a pool ball. 

They would rather believe this orange skinned, ass boil, brainless pervert was cheated out of an election he clearly lost. He was claiming before he lost that if he didn’t win he would claim the election was a fraud. If you need any more proof look at what happened at CPAC recently. They held a straw poll. He claimed if he lost he would say it was a fake poll. If he won it would be the greatest poll ever. All I see and hear from him is lies. He lies about telling lies. He cheats, he steals, he is a fraud. He need to go. Here is my suggestion on where he can go. 

Songs

 Some days you wake up with a song in your head. It plays over and over. It doesn’t seem to matter what you think about that song plays in the background. One day for me it was the theme song from Spider-Man. You know: “Spider Man, Spider Man, does whatever a spider can….” All too often it is some stupid ditty from a commercial. Sometimes it is one of the songs noted below. The great thing about those songs is their ability to take you back to a special time and place. A memory that might not exist without the accompanying words of the song playing in your head. So, please take a walk down memory lane and see where these words take you. Enjoy the trip. 

Junior Never Learns

 Donald Trump, Junior decided to post a stupid picture of his father riding an eagle while flying over Mt. Rushmore. The great Presidents depicted there are shown wearing Making America Great Again hats. This response seems to sum up my opinion on the matter pretty well. 

 

Don't Take BOB to the Beach

 Things are changing on Tybee Island. 

Maybe she could have found a better location. Try at home locked in your bedroom. I found it interesting that the “witness” was able to provide officers with a video to support her claims. 

For those wondering about BOB: Battery Operated Boyfriend. 

Slaves

 

I saw this a few days ago and it started me thinking. As my wife often tells me that can be dangerous. She is never sure where the thought process is going. For me it took my thoughts back to July 5, 1852. Seems like an odd place to go. I take some time every year to read the speech Stephen Douglass have that day entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” It is reasonable to ask what the fuck I’m talking about. We are not enslaved. We are free to go and do whatever we want. Are we really? 

When many of us work for a living and our jobs fail to pay for the basic requirements of life are we not in a manner enslaved? A job that pays so little we are eligible for government assistance. Government health care. Government housing or housing assistance. Off to our little job we go. When we finish with that job maybe we go to another. Eat, sleep, work. Don’t get sick. No paid sick days. Vacation? No money for that. Maybe once in a while you get to go out for a McMeal. Nothing fancy just burger and fries. They say go back to school and get training for a better job. When? With what free time? Eventually if you’re lucky it’s time for retirement. I say lucky because the poor have poor diets and poor health care. Early death is more likely than a long retirement. The meager income from social security will keep you where you have spent you life. Subsisting on the meager scraps thrown your way by a government that hopes you die soon. 

I think that is where Douglass can be enlightening. This is from his speech that day in 1852. 

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”

It is time for change. No one should be required to work for less than a living wage. We can and must as a nation do better. 

The Lost Class

 https://www.thelostclass.com/

Take a minute and visit the website. 

If you watch the videos and listen it should make you sad and angry. Make it personal. Think about how you would feel on graduation day if one of those graduates was your son or daughter. If it was your grandchild, niece, nephew, cousin, perhaps even your neighbor. If that doesn’t touch you then I feel sorry for you. Sadly your soul is empty and you are already dead. 

Just Do It