Williambanzai7

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Idioms

 

As far as Wisconsin "human services" goes, if it be true The West is the best, then one might deduce, The East is the least.

 

To follow with similar idiom, Quantity does not equal Quality.

To put it more succinctly, if Going through the motions has become the standard, well then .. 

You can just kiss my ass.

 

 

 

I get emotional in the morning

 ... and I haven't even had my coffee yet. 

Now, if only I can get my US Congress to get off it's collective behind and follow their oath of office. We have a constitutional crisis currently. Our executive branch - read that as the State Department - has promoted war in the Ukraine since 2014, spending well over a hundred billion dollars, in fact, ably supported by our media machine and a captive, NATO apparatus.

Not to discount the thousands of deaths incurred due that scurrilous strategy.

Well, US citizens? If you're of a like mind and see this post, before it disappears, contact them to assertively let your feelings be known. If enough participate, even from the safety of your own home, they will relent. I know. I've seen it succeed. You might even try this one, simple trick;                                                                  

Send faxes en masse to your Congressperson. The reason being, faxes are so  ... tactile. They make a right bloody mess of the office floor, while a career politician's sensitivities run to one goal; re-election.  I've always said, 

"The US Congress is the weakest link in the chain."   

Rattle it.

Now, just look at these kids. they give one hope, don't they? 

戦争法案強行採決に反対する国会前緊急抗議行動 (2017)

 

         A thicket of summer grass
             is all that remains
          of the dreams and ambitions
                of ancient warriors

      Matsuo Basho; Tr. by Nobuyuki Yuasa

 

 

 

Black Helicopters: zero dark thirty . . . . . again

 

I remember the Black Helicopters. That's right, I saw them. They hovered right over the crib, shaking the rafters, the pulse of their rotors like a bass drum played double time deep in a black cat bone. I didn't know whether to fall screaming to the floor or run into the street shouting platitudes to glory and firing my riot gun indiscriminately at erstwhile targets hidden in shadows. 

 

I wasn't the only one. It seems our own River City had been chosen, along with other metropolises across the nation, as practice grounds for doppelganger constructions born of the sands of Araby and beyond. San Diego was one, Dallas another and others, all without prior notice a dozen or so years after the Big One - 9/11. 

 

Actually, I went out on the roof to observe a squad of choppers, a hairsbreadth over 100 feet above, maneuvering like the bats that rose from the Mississippi on many a summer evening, door gunners and missiles glinting menace on that moonlit night. I could almost reach out and touch them.

 

The paper was headlined with explanations the next morning. It had been an exercise to protect our freedoms after all, in league with our now infamous efforts to save the world from "terr'ists" while spreading Democracy afar. 

 

Visiting the supermarket later in the day, I questioned the two off duty policeman stationed there to quell shoplifters if they had been informed, and, to the purpose of such an exercise. 

 

The officer responding boomed, "You don't want Bin Laden attacking us again, do you?", in proper authoritative tones, as though he were addressing the village idiot.

 

I didn't have the heart to remind him that Bin Laden had died quietly of kidney disease in Pakistan well over a decade before.

the fog of war --

even the general 

dons his battle fatigues

 

 

 

Housekeeping

 

After a review of some earlier work, I've set out to do some editing.
Both in the text and layout of certain posts, some of it just awful, including the addition of some new labels. You may notice them beneath some of the prose, set as indicators of topic as well as access to similar postings.

Most consisted of seasonal markers, amidst the newer, haphazard rantings and mad verse that sprang up on this site in the wake of our ever more haphazard, and dare I say questionable, existence.

Before I came to some of the more lugubrious postings, however, circa early 2020, my efforts failed to induce a response. A quick check of the network connection found nothing amiss. Could it be the JavaScript? Facebook is notorious for its piece meal patchwork of coding (never mind those awkward pop-up notices of "glitches" that occur when one posts something too sensitive). I'm not sure. After all, Meta has a business to run, as well as user numbers to puff up for latent advertisers.

Then, of course, there's the EU, with its hodgepodge of blatant laws restricting certain speech, especially that critical of policy. I can't say. I do know, with a 20th century eye sharpened in passage to a new millennia, there are no coincidences. Perhaps I should include censorship as one of the new labels I'm suggesting.

It's not important, really. At least, until one decides it is. That's a personal choice. In the meantime, I humbly ask your patience with this mad poet's vision. Your comments are always welcome.

George Floyd

Day four and now cars on fire on the highway in Minneapolis. News anchors practically begging the governor and mayor to *just do something*.

Really? Not at all an uncommon theme in this day and age.

Then all the Minnesota plates in Hudson, Wisconsin, smack dab on the border 20 miles beyond are stuck, too, since they could close Interstate 94 again and first Minneapolis, then St. Paul, got the curfew. But most the new arrivals came from the East, Chicago to the Rust Belt, a surge of professional agitators and a sight to small towns on the way and this outpost between civilization, the big woods and rolling prairies.

30 white kids at the riverfront park and downtown packed, all 3/4 mile of it. An odd mix, revolutionaries and tourists. No place to go in the Twin Cities. Everybody had shut down for fear of the barbarians in the metropolitan, urban centers. You couldn't even buy a tank of gasoline despite pallets of bricks placed strategically in the hot spots by someone, or some organization, unknown.

I infiltrated the protest to get a feel for the grievances, the postures and imposters. Provocateurs abound in America, real and imagined, some just figments of their own imagination.

I got the latest narrative, "we come in peace, and we deny property damage as a response". I've lived through the Civil Rights Act and know the motivations run much deeper than that. Heard from a big, likeable Swede talking to a La Raza lookin' character on the fringe with two mugs in tow.

"I don't see colors", he stated proudly.

Holmes and I both blurted, "What? Are you color blind?"

I'd worked with enough undocumented over the years to understand caution. Me and the small, quiet hombre, Central American by the looks of him, shared a wary respect. We both knew the other was a spy.

One professional agitator ran the show, and despite my efforts, I didn't get his pay master's name, but I knew mi vato and his homies weren't there to shout slogans. But the po po had 'em outnumbered. I never seen so many blues in this little village before.

They weren't really much different than I, similar in importance and status, neither of us really belong to this high dollar real estate escape from the urban jungle - we who cared not for repression; why does someone have to pay absurd fines for BS like possession of marijuana or driving while suspended to support executive bonuses and parachute clauses for those who oversaw failed publlc pensions and bailed out boondoggles? We're all opportunists in that regard, migrants from The City of Thieves.

A couple of National Guard boys (so they said) in civvies and open carry seemed all jacked up talking smack with no where to go. The one gave it away. Too fuckin' nervous. First time he carried in public, I reckon. Likely as afraid of the police presence as any scofflaw or knucklehead, though the cops I'd spoken to were fairly laid back, enjoying the overtime and mild atmosphere.

Their polite audience, as I'd eavesdropped, some well to do married couples from Golden Valley, that far suburb in the sunset on this beautiful, summer like eve, had no where to dine out but here. One of 'em said I looked like Sam Elliot and took my picture. I'd gone without a haircut for weeks, moustache bristling and a protest against Covid lockdowns that closed the only decent barber I'd found anywhere around. You should see it now ... At one point, as I interviewed the sign spinners, I heard a ruckus above the chants and horn honking. 

Jesus Christ was walking through the midst of the group shouting "Heil Hitler!" with his arms raised in defiance. 

They just asked him to leave; an appropriate response. "JC", to the locals, got the nick name for his appearance and eccentricity. I know, because I'd met him once, gave him the once over, but, I can't say I know him personally.
`


 apple blossom white -
 placards and pamphlets strewn
across the commons

What recovery?

And to think the entire collapse was based on a premise of statistical malfeasance.
In the USA, one considers the dire forecast of starting or returning to business when the forecast may include not just taxes, labor and economic security, but if the state government where one wishes to operate will violate the Constitution's Commerce Clause - and put you out of business permanently.

Indemnify, Inc.

On February 4, 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, there were only 11 active CV cases in the USA, yet the U.S. quietly pushed through Federal regulations giving coronavirus vaccine makers full immunity from liability.