As some of you know, I moved to Michigan from Oregon last October. I now live in what is (or used to be) called the Northern Midwest and it is home to a couple states like Michigan and Wisconsin which pretty much surround Lake Michigan and have proven to have surrounded it with vast and copious quantities of "teh stupid." The outcome of this and the rampant stupidity in DC and the media (which purportedly exists to inform us) has had an effect on me and it isn't nice. Get the hell out of here if you want nice.
You people are fucking idiots. I am surrounded by the kind of idiots who blame Detroit for being a mess after they all bailed on it because the population darkened and left it to rot. I am surrounded by people who think it is reasonable to pay 6% tax to wipe their asses while their betters spend a pittance of their income on sales tax. I am surrounded by people who couldn't count past ten with their shoes on and claim the (D)s are socialists. I am surrounded by people who think environmental regulations are bullshit, after watching rivers catch on fire and their fisheries tank and cheering the results of those regulations because the goddam GOP says they're bad. They go on and on about minimum wages increasing costs while they're at the Federal minimum and pay servers with my goddam gratuities to get them above $2.65 and every damn thing costs as much or more than it does in Oregon with a no exceptions minimum of $8.95. These people spew salt on every damn roadway and turn them into polluted ice rinks while they sit on country side composed of goddam sand and their cars rot away in a couple years. The bare black top roads are now greyish white thanks to that.
The media here and nationally can't report the time of day without consulting their corporate masters and have to find a "both sides do it/are responsible theme for every bit of stupidity that politicians manage. President Obama, the best Republican President since Dwight Eisenhower, is called a socialist with no push back. Civil liberties and civil rights are kicked to the goddam curb and all anybody can seem to care about is what a woman does with her vagina or if the sexes of a relationship are church approved. The corporations have taken over a couple of these states and almost nobody gives enough of a damn to even make squeaking noises and you idiots re-elect the Vandals.
OK, I get it. I'm a damned lunatic because I think getting a fair shake matters and that I'd like to live without getting poisoned and it just isn't important. I'm tired of the puzzled looks when I complain and suggest that there are other ways to do things. I'm real tired of giving a damn what happens to people who insist on voting for more of what gets them shit on. I figure that if you can't learn a goddam lesson then it sure the hell isn't any of my business that your head gets cut off - all I have to do is to try to avoid that axe.
If this POS blog sticks around and gets used it will be for fun stuff and politics be damned. If you think giving a damn about it matters, go ahead with that but I'm gone and done. I cannot continue to give a damn and not nearly lose my mind in the face of the abject stupidity. Yes I've got a kid and grandkids who will be royally screwed by what the idiots are up to; but maybe if it gets bad enough for them they'll start another Revolution - but they sure as hell can forget this generation because it is comfortably stupid and the only hope is to thin the goddam herd and by then I should be safely dead and not have to answer questions about why we let it get like this. Now if I can just get brain dead enough to go through with this...
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Telemarketing Can Be Funny
This morning my phone rang, unusual in itself, and a lady with a nice voice was on the other end. She told me that this was my second warning that my vehicle warranty was running out. I thought, hmmm, and looked out the window. Sure enough, my 1974 K5 Blazer was still parked next to the house.
Yeah, I think the warranty has run out.
Yeah, I think the warranty has run out.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Suicide? Please Stop For A Moment
This story in the NYT about Aaron Swartz has brought into my thoughts a topic I'd really like to leave alone, suicide. I've had my own collision with this and for various reasons I've had to go back to it and I really, really don't want to. I will do it because I don't want other people to have to know what I know about this. I'll use words to try to tell you about something that you won't truly understand unless you're a member of the group impacted by a suicide, and honest to god, you really do not want to ever truly understand.
We're the ones you leave behind. We're the ones who cannot sort it out, we cannot ever know your mind. We're left with nothing but guesses, what ifs, and whys. Maybe you think you can leave a note that'll lay it all out, it won't. I know, for reasons I won't go into, the blackness and despair that put you here and I'll tell you that your best efforts will not explain and fix what it is you're contemplating. You are going to break some one's heart, you are going to crush them with a weight they cannot fix. Someone loves you, someone really does care and you are going to do to them what it is you're thinking to escape. If you could explain yourself, if you could express what is happening you'd be working your way out of it - the results of this act will leave the survivors in the same position. I'm going to go with the assumption that this isn't your desired end result.
I am very close to the 25th birthday of clean and sober so I have reason to know that comebacks are possible and I do mean comebacks from a bad hopeless appearing place. There really isn't much good I can say about that person, back then, and not many others held any hope for him - but some, in the face of all evidence, did. Those people are there and you are not in a good position to see it, any more that I was. What you see is not what all others see and what you think and feel is not what all others do. You are proposing to make that decision for them, whether your life counts, and you don't get to. Your life will count to them whatever you decide and they will have to deal with that. The people who care don't know that you believe they don't and so you don't know that they do care. People cannot read your mind All the science, philosophy, and empathy in the world do not grant anyone the ability to read a mind, and you can't read theirs - either.
I do not propose to judge the morality of suicide, I don't have the right to do that - for anyone other than myself. I do have the right to talk about the consequence of it and beyond the right I have intimate knowledge. You can tell me and yourself that my situation is different and that I just don't understand and yes, maybe I do only have bits and pieces but I have enough to tell you that in this state of mind you cannot make an informed judgement about others' depth of caring and love. I'm just a guy typing on the internets? Yes, I am that and I'll tell you that a guy not given to emotional displays is sitting here typing with tears running down his cheeks and swallowing hard. My boy wrote that he was doing a favor for angry disappointed parents and a world he couldn't function in and I'll tell you that in the face of all that anger and disappointment my heart is broken and what was broken will never, ever heal. I won't get over it, I'll get by it - I'll keep on because that's what I have to do and what I do, but I'll carry this for my forever.
If you're not dying of some horrid terminal disease, it is not too late to do something about it. You cannot undo a past, you cannot fix it - but the future is indeterminate, it is not fixed. I won't say something trite like, "you can be anyone you please," but I will tell you that you are not stuck where you are. You may not have it at the moment, but hope can be had.
Writing this hurts like hell. I'm doing this because if I can help save one person from having the knowledge that I have it makes an awful lot of things worth something. I have this because my son did this and if his doing it helps someone else not do it, then that is something, anyhow. I don't have much of him now, some photographs and memories, so if this gives something back - I'll have that also, even if I don't know about it.
Please stop for a moment and give someone a chance to show you that it matters, it'll only cost you a few minutes and a little bit of risk; really not much in the face of what you're considering. Hell, if nothing else - I'm pretty easy to find. Just take a moment, please.
signed:
Chuck Butcher, Nick's Dad Forever
We're the ones you leave behind. We're the ones who cannot sort it out, we cannot ever know your mind. We're left with nothing but guesses, what ifs, and whys. Maybe you think you can leave a note that'll lay it all out, it won't. I know, for reasons I won't go into, the blackness and despair that put you here and I'll tell you that your best efforts will not explain and fix what it is you're contemplating. You are going to break some one's heart, you are going to crush them with a weight they cannot fix. Someone loves you, someone really does care and you are going to do to them what it is you're thinking to escape. If you could explain yourself, if you could express what is happening you'd be working your way out of it - the results of this act will leave the survivors in the same position. I'm going to go with the assumption that this isn't your desired end result.
I am very close to the 25th birthday of clean and sober so I have reason to know that comebacks are possible and I do mean comebacks from a bad hopeless appearing place. There really isn't much good I can say about that person, back then, and not many others held any hope for him - but some, in the face of all evidence, did. Those people are there and you are not in a good position to see it, any more that I was. What you see is not what all others see and what you think and feel is not what all others do. You are proposing to make that decision for them, whether your life counts, and you don't get to. Your life will count to them whatever you decide and they will have to deal with that. The people who care don't know that you believe they don't and so you don't know that they do care. People cannot read your mind All the science, philosophy, and empathy in the world do not grant anyone the ability to read a mind, and you can't read theirs - either.
I do not propose to judge the morality of suicide, I don't have the right to do that - for anyone other than myself. I do have the right to talk about the consequence of it and beyond the right I have intimate knowledge. You can tell me and yourself that my situation is different and that I just don't understand and yes, maybe I do only have bits and pieces but I have enough to tell you that in this state of mind you cannot make an informed judgement about others' depth of caring and love. I'm just a guy typing on the internets? Yes, I am that and I'll tell you that a guy not given to emotional displays is sitting here typing with tears running down his cheeks and swallowing hard. My boy wrote that he was doing a favor for angry disappointed parents and a world he couldn't function in and I'll tell you that in the face of all that anger and disappointment my heart is broken and what was broken will never, ever heal. I won't get over it, I'll get by it - I'll keep on because that's what I have to do and what I do, but I'll carry this for my forever.
If you're not dying of some horrid terminal disease, it is not too late to do something about it. You cannot undo a past, you cannot fix it - but the future is indeterminate, it is not fixed. I won't say something trite like, "you can be anyone you please," but I will tell you that you are not stuck where you are. You may not have it at the moment, but hope can be had.
Writing this hurts like hell. I'm doing this because if I can help save one person from having the knowledge that I have it makes an awful lot of things worth something. I have this because my son did this and if his doing it helps someone else not do it, then that is something, anyhow. I don't have much of him now, some photographs and memories, so if this gives something back - I'll have that also, even if I don't know about it.
Please stop for a moment and give someone a chance to show you that it matters, it'll only cost you a few minutes and a little bit of risk; really not much in the face of what you're considering. Hell, if nothing else - I'm pretty easy to find. Just take a moment, please.
signed:
Chuck Butcher, Nick's Dad Forever
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