https://x.com/kaitlancollins/status/2115624707563069561/video/1
Notorious Florida cultist Anthony Sabatini has appeared here countless times.
Last week a watchdog group found that at least 40% of those 20,000 names aren’t on the voter rolls to begin with, much less that they are noncitizens. Over the weekend, Trump claimed that California has “millions” of noncitizen voters.
OK as everyone knows, I am not functioning well. I don’t see very well and there are things I’m not getting to. Comments. I promise soon I will get to more comments simply because I like them.
But because I talk about my abuse a lot and I think I shouldn’t talk about it so much, a question was asked. A scary question. Am I suicidal?
I am a lot of things but no, I am not suicidal. I have a lot of self-hatred thoughts going on, and I desperately want to self harm. That desire has been growing all year. I keep finding ways to deny it, but I admit it is getting worse.
Self harm. Even now I look next to me and I see my trusted Jack knife that made so many prior cuts. And I really want to reach for it off the shelf. It would be so easy; it is right there.
Yet no! It is not time. But do I want to? Oh yes!!! I really do! But how to move forward with my wanting to do this. One step at a time. Hugs
Last night I had the opportunity to watch the new movie remake of He-Man, and I really enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek writing. Like many of you, I grew up on Saturday Morning cartoons. I had an itemized schedule of Mystery Machine’s and Purple Gorilla’s in dune buggies, a Waskilly Wabbit and a hunter with a stutter all listed out starting early in the morning and ending at 11:00 when I was finally kicked outside to act out all those story lines. And, among them was this cartoon “He-Man”! I was a bit old for it when it came out, and from an adult standpoint it was one of the most ridiculously named storylines ever created, but dang I loved the idea of having a hero come to the rescue.
Perhaps there is just comfort knowing who the good guys are and easily identifying the bad guys to settle a heart and mind. The bad guys were always portrayed monstrously by their actions, their words, their appearance. The heroes were strong, pure, caring, and always helped people by opposing evil. The bad guys always wanted people hurt, dominated, exploited. Scooby-Doo always came out the hero and the bad guys always lost. Saturday morning Ethics were easy to understand.
Then, I grew older and I realized that the morality of reality seemed extraordinarily flexible. I was told that the weak were weak because they chose to be weak, the poor were poor because they chose to be poor. The sick were sick…. you get the point. Somehow the absolute ethics of my Saturday morning education didn’t reflect in my life or experience outside that television, no matter how much I longed for it.
In time we are asked to change our heroes. Superman is crushed by cryptonite, Hulk is ruined by his temper, and as much as I want to believe that there is something greater than this world, God still somehow has babies born with defects, children who live in pain, parents who lose their will to go on in this world. But we yearn for that hero who made everything ok in the end that we loved on Saturday morning television.
We yearn so much that we forget that those stories were just stories for children. The people we lift up to solve all our problems are just skin and bone humans, and if they tell us they are our answer to all that hurts, well…
I’ve struggled to understand how relatively smart people could fall for a leadership that has visited the depredations upon the world that this one seems to enjoy. I’ve thought them idiots, racist pigs, deplorable trash and fools, especially as the truth of this man’s toxic morality comes more and more to light. He’s raped, stolen, and killed to cover his crimes and yet he is loved by a troubling number of people. It’s not logical, it’s not rational.
But outside the horrible scum that have latched onto his leprously-stained skirts in this bid for power at any cost administration follow a horde of broken and hurt people who somehow thought this con-artist cared about anyone but himself. They are the children who sat before the television on Saturday mornings and believed somehow that the blond-haired hero with the great propaganda was here to save them. They drank the cool-aid, bought the shirts – and the hats, they believed the hype because they believed the hurt. They are not going to release that hope easily once given and because of that any atrocity is forgiven.
I fearfully believe this Land of Liberty is lost for an inability to understand right or wrong. The utopian hopeful are mocked by a populace that have come to love their chains as they fight to defend those who would make them chattel because they fear that the people hoping to release those bonds have ulterior motives. I share their fear, in part, because I know that they who thirst for power will shed their skin to walk amongst the hopeful seeking a new path. Morality is cheap for those who mock ethics, and people broken and drowning will destroy anything for hope of salvation.
-Randy
I recently had a somewhat uncomfortable conversation with my Dad. At 88-years old, he is understandably considering what comes next, and knowing that I’m a ‘blowhard democrat and therefore think I know everything‘, lol, he made it part of my own considerations – at least out loud. But, as we talked, I began to realize that how we look at “what comes next” truly inspires how we view this thing called life, what we value and hold dear.
When I was much younger, I had the opportunity to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I think I’d like to read it again. It was a story that had a great impact on a young troubled life, and while I am sure I didn’t get nearly as much from the book as was offered, I still carry some of that book within my thoughts nearly 35 years later. Chief among those ringing ideas was the consideration that we are on this world to be excellent, to fly free and powerfully, to be our best selves. It is an idea that gives me hope and conviction on the same blade, for I’ve not made much of myself. What I have done, perhaps better late than never, is I’ve begun to understand what is important to me and I’ve tried to adjust my life accordingly.
During my studies of different religions, I found a great deal of beauty. It is probably shocking to some, but Muslims have a beautiful religion filled with dedication to their God, peace and humility. I recently heard a person of influence, a politician, say publicly that he “hated the Muslim religion”. I thought that was tragic. He has painted a billion people with a the same brush and feels fully justified in his self-righteous hate. His words did not influence me to hate Muslims, they only brought me sadness. Here is a man who hopes to profit by hate, and I can only imagine what those wages bring.
Over the years, I’ve come to find a lot of hope in the Christian Faith, but I don’t find myself deluded into thinking that the Bible is definitive or that the Pulpit is infallible. Clearly humans have left their mark on both, and both have gained their insecurities and foibles. Unfortunately, most religions are marked by the greedy and deluded powerful who are sure that they know what is best for everyone and damned be those who disagree. As a result, parishioners lose their search for what is beautiful and magnificent in whatever may come next. They instead follow a set of rules, a kind of club, a group identity. They have given up on God and hope only to please the pastor and Sister Bertha Betterthanyou. They have forsaken courage to seek for the safety of the flock.
Perhaps this is just what we are. How many of us are caught in this idea that by hating someone else, we are somehow doing as God would want? I would be very curious to ask them what they value, and then would I be so brave to ask how their spoken values reflect their current words. Do they value freedom, or just their own freedom? Do they value love, or only for those like them? Do they value hope, but do performative acts some man told them would get them into Heaven? Do they seek or are they comfortable in being told what to think, what to feel, what to do? Do they look for what comes next or are they seeking identity and safety in a church, a political movement, in the acceptance of someone seeking to control them?
I don’t know what I would tell Dad if he asked me again. I don’t think the answer is in religion, any religion. I do think there is something that comes next, what I would loosely if respectfully refer to as God, and if I could quote Ghandi I’d say that God is not restricted by any single religion. I want to believe that this beautiful thing called life doesn’t end. I want to believe in Love. I want to rest in Hope. I want to live a life absolutely riddled with awe at how fabulous humanity can be, rather than live a life of judgement and insecurity. And, when I regard my final days I hope I am looking forward with eager anticipation for all the wonders I will experience.
-Randy
Scottie posted this meme yesterday and it prompted a further exploration than seemed easy in his list of images.
I think I’m going to shock some people here, maybe even get someone mad at me at this writing. I have to tell you all, I’m kinda a shy person. So, I’m not comfortable with some strange transgender person staring at my pecker when I pee.
I’m really just not comfortable with that. But, you know, I’m not comfortable with a strange man staring at my pecker when I’m trying to pee either. Nor am I comfortable with a strange woman staring at my pecker. In fact, I don’t flaunt my pecker about when I pee. And, I feel somehow disenfranchised because I don’t find the bathroom a place to flaunt my privates, yet the way some on the right talk about it there must be things going on in there that I’m not contributing to or enjoying. What am I doing different than those who are worried about this happening?
Some may also find this startling, but I heard that this person was found in the women’s bathroom. Many accused homophobes feel that people should not “pretend” to be a woman for the sole purpose of going into the women’s bathroom.
And, some uptight karens would say that the prevalence of this very person in a women’s bathroom is indicative of just how far things have come that “she” would feel comfortable going into a women’s bath. They say we should be shocked and outraged at Sports Illustrated for publishing these pictures.
And others would be wise to tell you that this is ILONA MAHER, a phenomenal women’s rugby star and arguably the best in the world. I would tell you that she is very strong, very aggressive, and very beautiful, and I would tell you that hassling Ms. Maher is surely contraindicated for a long life.
The uncomfortable facts are that sexual assaults perpetrated by trans people is extremely low. And, let’s consider just for a moment the great deal of bother a person needs to go through to transgender, and there are those who think it’s so they can go look at girls?! Further, the uncomfortable fact remains that 85%-90% of all sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known by the victim — ie: not strangers, and often they are family members or close family friends and DO NOT happen in a public bathroom. And finally, a great many lgbtq folks actively avoid bathrooms, no matter how desperately they need relief, because they are all too often the victim of assault by other bathroom goers.
Personally, I’m not going into the bathroom to make friends, to admire others or to find comparisons to determine where I fall in the pissing contest of reactionary karens. I don’t care. We are all human, and like the kid’s book says, we all gotta poop.
Randy
