Category Archives: Uncategorized

Thanksgiving Eve = Friendsday

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By National Proclamation we present this dedication,

That heretofore and henceforward on,

This day shall be known as Friendsday!

The day before Thanksgiving let’s celebrate the life,

That comes with simply living without envy, greed or strife

Let’s end all confrontation if only for this day,

and tomorrow carve a turkey and watch the games we play

Grab a chair and share a drink

While peaceful friendly thoughts you think

With days like this we could end the war

Heaven only knows what’s in store!

So share some joy and friendship,

Though you be near or far apart,

With those that you hold dear to you,

In your mind and in your heart,

Now gather all you minstrels,

And cook us up a song about

A new day we’ll call Friendsday

To last the whole year long!

“A good friend is like a grain of wheat, you keep the kernel and blow away the chaff!” — Old German Proverb

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?” “Nothing,” said Piglet. “I just wanted to be sure of you.” — Piglet from Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Thanksgiving Stew Washington Style

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What a new mess was cooking this past week in D.C. right before a welcome thanksgiving break. We’ve got Republicans sizzling up a serving of dyspepsia over the incident in Benghazi. Can you imagine they have to treat President Obama like the sous chef who mishandled the entire incident and gave the media a bad case of the trots with some terrorist plot misinformation? Funny thing is they had the same exact ingredients he had and they cooked up the same dish. Blaming the chef seems to be the easy way out of this one. The irony is Senator McCain’s and Graham’s short memory. Seems like just yesterday when Chefs Veep Cheney and President Bush cooked up a whopper over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That gave many people grief, heartburn, a huge national deficit and in all seriousness many good people died over that tomfoolery. One just can’t cook with that kind of oil. It just isn’t edible at all.

Add to that rumors we have of a couple of Generals muddling over the stuffing of some birds. Must have been a difficult recipe if it took an apparent thirty thousand emails to explain. “All In” seems to be a strange title for a cookbook but then these birds demanded a different kind of stuffing. Tampa Bay and Centcom and a tush of MacDill Air Force base is sure to spice up any dish. This dish is sure to simmer for quite some time. Probably won’t be near ready by the time turkey day rolls around. But surely it will be a turkey. Not surprising this type of dilemma would arise. Generals do worry about their privates and rightfully so. Let’s just hope that the giblets weren’t left out so long that they spoiled.

As far as Christmas is concerned the pudding pot is due to boil over on December 31 of this year. If that deaf dumb and blind cook, Senator McConnell has his way the pot might just explode. Why anyone ever ate at his restaurant to begin with is quite a mystery. As a cook he has absolutely no imagination whatsoever. Its grits, more grits and business as usual. The same bland food day after day and year after year, served up with a dose of hate and rancid butter. This intractable cook just can’t seem to get it through his diminutive mind or palette that a different dish might be in order and quick! This is what happens when a cook doesn’t even call their own shots. They live in a bland world of tasteless choices. Let us hope that Representative John Boehner can convince old Mitch to stick a sausage or two into his dish before the whole pot explodes! Stay tuned for the suspenseful conclusion of this pot of boiling fat.

“Damned Beaver/Jeremy is the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made–that we are meant for work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day….Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane.”— Thomas Pynchon, “Gravity’s Rainbow”

“My Mother gave me a real kick toward cooking, which was that if I wanted to eat, I’d better know how to do it myself.” — Daniel Craig aka James Bond

“Romney says Obama won because he promised his base ‘extraordinary gifts’. But what about the gifts the GOP gives to the rich every time they get elected? Like the crazy tax cuts President Bush gave while starting 2 wars?” –— Jake Shween

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Wanted: Independent Leaders for the Republican Party

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The Republican party of the United States is in dire need of a complete overhaul. Somehow they have gone seriously off course. By pandering to the far right of extremism and embracing such monolithic mouthpieces as Limbaugh, Trump and Fox News the party has become lost in a morass of discord and hatred. At least Mitt Romney had the chops to admit defeat graciously in spite of the fact that he led a devious campaign filled with distortions of reality. Now Fox News has the crazy people in their glorious team of social miscreants accusing the other side of playing dirty to win the election! Of course the blow hard Trump and Limbaugh are quick to join in this cacophony of blithering idiocy. Whoa to the Republican party if it continues to let these mental midgets define who they are!

The Republican party is in dire need of some person to step above this fray. Someone with the will and fortitude to stand up to and put to rest this creed of lobbyist Grover Norquist. A free thinker who can put the former Scranton weatherman Bill O’Reilly in his place when O’Reilly suggests that the Republican party failed because the majority of people in The United States of America have declining moral values. Stop making excuses that have no basis in reality! The American people are wising up to the Republicans distortions of reality and very bad math. Put forth a free thinker who without condescension can tell the truth to America and argue for a wiser form of government. If not the Republican party will continue to disintegrate into a party that relies on hatred, lies, distortions and name calling if they have any hope of further deceiving the general population and that is not a path to lasting success.

Unfortunately for now there seems to be no such person on the horizon for the Republicans. Any rising star they have quickly becomes part of the military industrial complex and puts on the jack boots of their party members. Even the so called mavericks of the party have been stilted. The tea party has turned into the fossil fuel party. Maybe a camping trip to Greenland in the summer time is in order to prove to the last of the nay sayers that carbon dioxide is indeed heating the atmosphere and something needs to be done quickly and completely to avert worse disaster. Republicans need to embrace science and stop pretending it is something made up to bewilder them and call their faith into question. The sooner the party realizes that it can’t bully its way out of every problem the sooner they might produce a capable and courageous candidate who will not only earn the respect of the American people they will deserve it.

“Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.” — George Will

“I have a very large Twitter.” — Donald Trump

“The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.” — Rush Limbaugh

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Government, Insurance and Socialism

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What do those three words conjure up for you? Visions of big government peering over your shoulder and raiding your still? Insurance payments due so you can go see a doctor without taking an ambulance from your apartment to the emergency room? A return to the horrific days of Mussolini, Hitler and fascist dictatorships that are perverse versions of socialist states? Sadly in many cases of modern Grand Old Party propaganda that is the exact image they want you to think of. They seek to use scare tactics to keep the oligarchy (read oil consortium) in place. Rule by the privileged few who can afford to buy the government representatives aka puppets they need to keep themselves in power.

In less than one week the people of the United States of America must make a crucially important decision. Will we follow a puppet who professes disdain for half of this country or will we embrace a straight shooting visionary with the courage to stand up to the military industrial complex? This past week gave us further reason to embrace the latter. Most people don’t want big government to interfere with their lives that is unless they are faced with a natural disaster that is so gigantic that they themselves nor their cities or states have the resources or the funding to pay for disaster relief. Think on it now. What constitutes that relief? Why it’s simply a bit of “Government Insurance” paid for by our collected taxes in what the naysayers would define as a system of Socialism!

What a concept that we would need help! But the cold hard fact is we do!. Every day we need help to survive Every day think of all the things you have learned from past generations, teachers and the like. Even if you spend days in isolation you still must depend on the knowledge you have acquired from others to survive. If you are faced with a natural disaster, a cataclysmic event that destroys everything you know and love, the need for a socialist structure of aid and recovery becomes a life giving necessity. Call it a form of Government Insurance. Think of it next time you pay your taxes. Think of it when you pull the lever or press on the screen to elect the President of the United States for the next four years!

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” — Winston Churchill

“We either need to redefine socialism and the negative connotations it importunes or replace it with a better ideal such as egalitarianism.” — Jake Shween

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

Letter From God

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Dear Humanity,

We use that term to be civil. “Dear” meaning in this case: precious. “Humanity” meaning in this case: the human race. The latter term has been disappointing of late as some of those who claim to be human choose to show the basest characteristics of this species which is ironic since many of you have the audacity to claim to be descended from our form or image. In any case, we digress,  back to the letter. Please refrain from bothering us any more as we simply can’t help any of you. It is up to all of you to come together and start taking care of the earth. We thought the instructions were simple enough but apparently not for all of you.

Please stop blaming us in any way shape or form for your shortcomings. These include your ever popular crimes of murder and rape. We have nothing to do with these wicked and heinous things that you do. You have free will. Please refer to your original contracts and note the disclaimer therein. Do not involve us in your political squabbles and stupid rivalries. Stop arguing as to which of our representatives you like, dislike, love or hate the most as these feelings and emotions will avail you nothing. If your team wins the game don’t even thank us because frankly we couldn’t care less either way. Stop screaming our names and perpetuating the myth that somehow we could have prevented or caused your misery.

The path for your mutual happiness lies in your ability to help each other. You must learn to share your gifts with each other. There is nothing to be gained from gathering the most to yourself. The earth, like your humanity, is fragile and easily damaged and destroyed. The sooner you learn how to cooperate on an international level the closer you will be to the heaven that you seem to crave and dream about.

Why, you might ask do we refer to ourselves as we? It is because we exist on all the different levels of time and space and the continuum. We possess the mindset of both the male and female principles. We wear the mask of eternity. Consciousness is simply one aspect of knowledge. To know all one must understand the reality of absolute nothing. That cannot, on this three dimensional plane, be shared …….

“Names can be named but not the Eternal Name.” —- Lao Tzu

“A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.” — Groucho Marx

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween

A Binder Full Of Women, A Pocketful of Cash and A Pile of Mitt

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I got a binder full of women and a pocketful of cash,

Don’t need no wine or coffee, just show me that great ass.

Women you must know your place now,

It ain’t on my A team.

Equal pay for equal work is just your crazy dream.

We love to burn the oil,

We love to burn the coal,

Let’s burn the whole damn earth down! That seems to be our goal!

Our great God will protect us

As we forsake the earth.

Now show me your damn credentials and your certificate of birth!

Billy Graham he loves me and Donald Trump does too!

To hell with those of you who don’t! I say forget you!

I can’t wait to get elected to pay you bastards back

I’ll rob you geezers blind and the middle class I’ll sack

No need for education, no need for playing fair

I’ll return us to the glory days of business laissez-faire

Remember our dear George Bush and the vision that he took?

I’ll take us right back to those days, I swear I’m not a crook.

So listen up dear people, Listen up to my clear wit!

and never forget who will run up the debt, I’m just a pile of Mitt!

 

“Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.” — Will Rogers

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” — Will Rogers

Get off the cell phone and drive! — Jake Shween

 

 

 

Pray for Malala

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Most people in the United States of America are perhaps unaware of many of the severe atrocities that take place daily in the strange and cruel world we live in. Something happened this week that was particularly disturbing in the Swat region of Pakistan. A fourteen year old girl who had proclaimed her desire to be educated was so threatening to the beastly Taliban that she was singled out on a school bus, a school bus that was stopped and searched by masked men asking for her. When she was located on the bus, these beastly cowards of the Taliban shot her and left her for dead. She now is reportedly in stable but critical condition in a military hospital in Pakistan with a bullet in her head and neck.

Apparently her crusade for educational rights for women was considered to be an “obscenity” by the Taliban who have already sworn that if she lives they will try to kill her again. It is very difficult for many of us in the so called modern Western world to understand what kind of mindset it takes to perpetrate such hideous acts of violence. However we have had similar occurrences here as well. It was not that long ago that a certain Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Or more recently the shooting of Senator Gabrielle Giffords by the madman Jared Lee Loughner in Arizona.These acts of murder have a frighteningly similar focus of hate spurred on by doctrines of small minded paranoid humans. Doctrines based on the idea that somehow by destroying parts of the world that one disagrees with or does not understand one can make the world a better place for others.

A member of a civilized society therefore has a responsibility to ensure that people are allowed to live with individual freedoms. The caveat being that these freedoms of thought and expression must never impinge on the safety or well being of others. Pakistan officials to their credit have flatly stated that this kind of violence will not be tolerated. Here in the United States we would be wise to consider this case carefully and not think we are immune from such hatred and extremism. Pray, please pray for Malala Yousafzai a young woman who wishes to be a doctor and maybe we can begin to heal the world together.

“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world?” — Christopher Hitchens

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying.” — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Seeking the Balance

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In lieu of a regular column in these days of resolution the writer chooses this in place of the regular semantics. It occurred to Gautama Buddha on the day of the enlightenment under the Mucalinda tree:

“How blest the happy solitude

of him who hears and knows the truth!

How blest is harmlessness towards all,

And self restraint towards living things!

How blest from passion to be free

All sensuous joys to leave behind!

Yet far the highest bliss of all

To leave the pride which says I am”

Oh Romneyo, Romneyo, Wherefore Art Thou Romneyo?

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It looks like this week that the Romney Campaign is in dire need of ambulatory care. This constant state of denial of reality and facts leave no other choice for himself, his deeply troubled laissez faire running mate, one Paul Ryan, and his demented staff assisting him in his pitiable run for the Presidency. Perhaps with some professional consultation we can get to the root of his constant need to avoid reality including his aversion to forty seven percent of the population of the United States. Consider his quote from Sixty Minutes on Health Care: “Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance, people — we — if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and — and die. We — we pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”

Wow he needs assistance from a qualified health professional consultant. Any emergency room Doctor and their staff know that this is not the solution to the health care crisis. Preventive medicine is cheaper by far. The ambulance bill alone will be in the thousands of dollars. What about the poor woman who is single and raising a child with no health care who ends up in the emergency room at three am for help. This is Romney’s health care solution?

Does he have any idea what reality is for most of the human race? The answer is a resounding no. He reminds us of this again and again. What has become of the Republican Party as of late? It seems to have become a puppet arm of the fossil fuel consortium. The delusion continues. Evolution has been called into question. This is most interesting because where do the fossil fuel enthusiasts think all the damn FOSSIL fuel came from to begin with?

Now think of truly helping the middle class. Health care and education freely available to everyone. Clean air to breath and clean lakes and streams. Give tax breaks to clean energy companies and stop subsidizing the fossil fuel consortium. Face the fact that the easy oil to drill is gone, the easy coal to mine is gone (it should be noted here that coal burning is what causes acid rain and mercury contamination of lakes and streams), fracking for natural gas is an impractical, dangerous process and any use of these fossil fuels in the production of energy causes vast amounts of carbon dioxide to enter the atmosphere and contributes to the crisis of global warming! The Republican Party has to stop lying to the people that increased use and exploration for these dirty fuel sources will solve anything except putting more money in the pockets of the fossil fuel consortium.

“Trickle down economics is the most ridiculous economic plan. The only thing running downhill is excrement!” — Jake Shween

“Mitt Romney has more opinions than the five headed Monkey God!”—Martin Bashir

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.” — Dr. Carl Jung

Get off the cell phone and drive! — Jake Shween

Elitism; the Snobbery of Riches; the Delusions of Faith

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Don’t you just love those people who truly believe that they are better than every body else? Those chosen few who mark themselves above the masses. They look down on the poor folk who need help. Those pitiful masses tired and poor, yearning to breath free will find no quarter amongst the elite snobs. All they crave is a  hand out any way. Why should a country that is a haven for the rich provide for such miscreants? How can we care about such fools that won’t even take responsibility for their very own lives? Why none of them have even heard of our illustrious God who has so thoroughly blessed us.

What a country we have created. We have a daring and old book that proclaims that those we disagree with we should smite. Rule upon tenet is laid out and every sin imaginable is covered if you have the gift of discernment. Gather around and your sins will be forgiven. There is enough delusion here that we can rule the world and smash in the heads of any society that would disdain and doubt our ancient and bloodthirsty God. Let us scream his name every Sunday and rally our delusional masses to do our murderous bidding. Never mind! We are better than they! Our God tells us so! No need for the Necromancer! We have a rich prophet. He is rich and he is on television and he claims he cares for us and he claims he speaks the truth so isn’t that enough?

Oh no, wait a minute! You mean that rich bastard is a liar? He doesn’t really care for us at all? He has faith in a God, our God he claims as his own? Strange, cruel and ancient religion —show us that it isn’t so. It cannot be. Our God never lies and He is so damn pure! What’s that you say? He was married? That’s a lie! Our God was never married. He was too busy smiting our enemies. Now we’re confused. Better turn on Fox News. They’ll set us straight. They never lie to us. Look who owns them, Rupert Murdoch! Why as pure a man never walked the earth! Damn this reality, change the channel. Put on: Who Wants to be a Millionaire and restore our faith in the American Dream. There there now that’s better.

“Sandwiches were invented by the Earl of Sandwich, popcorn was invented by the Earl of Popcorn, and salad dressing by the Oil of Vinegar.” — Tom Robbins from Still Life With Woodpecker

“So nowadays hard-minded men with hard muscles and hard hats are relieved from their jobs on Sundays because of an archetypal psychological response to menstruation.” — Tom Robbins from Still Life With Woodpecker

New Colossus by Emma Lazarus from the Statue of Liberty:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween