Turn your backyard gas grill into a crematorium with this handy accessory. Avoid price-y mortuary rip-offs!

If one watches any television, one can’t help but notice commercials. The commercials for prescription drugs are quite compelling. Even if the drug is for a horrific disease, the commercial depicts an almost utopian world. People are smiling, doing fun things, and look pretty damn healthy

“Don’t you wish you had Stage Four small cell carcinoma of the lung?”

Early Monday morning and the world seems broken.

I’m tired and I hurt emotionally and physically

Once again I will try to sleep.

I’m watching a Russian You Tube channel broadcast an Orthodox Liturgy from Sviatagorsk Lavra , a monastery in Eastern Ukraine. If Ukraine is preparing for war, what is this Russian crew doing in Ukraine?

I know. It doesn’t fit the narrative offered by the Biden Administration. I guess this isn’t happening then.

Oligarchy – A governmental system wherein power is held by a few persons.

That is my definition. It is my recall of the definition I learned in high school over fifty years ago. Oligarch is the term used by politicians and media talking heads to describe the persons close to the head of government in the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

There are all these shadowy figures, along with President Putin, running Russia. At least this is what is presented to us. We are expected to believe it, just as we are expected to believe in human caused climate change, gender inequities in pay, Critical Race Theory, and that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

You see. The U S of A is different. We aren’t ruled by oligarchs. (When you’re through rolling on the floor, laughing, read on.)

Ever notice that a Congressional Representative or Senator defeated for re-election happens infrequently, or that they are almost all millionaires to a person? It just turns out that way. Oh, and they were elected, or re-elected to office, on the basis of their merits. The same can be said for Presidents and governors of the individual states.

The people in power and their media minions are used to lying to us. We, in turn, are inured to believing them. We wouldn’t think to call our Senator, a billionaire tech mogul, a Wall Street financier, or a four star general/admiral an oligarch. But they surely are. An outsider, who stands in their way, will be destroyed. Joe Rogan is but the latest example. Rogan is relatively harmless. Donald Trump isn’t. Sometime, between now and the 2024 Iowa Caucases, Donald Trump will die under questionable circumstances. He pissed off the wrong people.

The motivation behind those who govern isn’t service or dedication to principles, but attainment of and holding on to power. Consider the shifting position of Barack Obama on same-sex marriage. When he changed his mind from opposition to to support for same-sex marriage, he evolved. On the other hand, when Nixon went to China, he was a cynical opportunist. Nixon didn’t evolve, nor was Obama an opportunist. Both, however, shifted their positions to hold on to power.

The oligarchs aren’t omniscient. Bill Gates may know how to write software, but he doesn’t know any more about human rights or liberty than your server at your favourite breakfast spot. Gates has a media and public relations staff. Your server doesn’t.

Oligarchs are used to having their wishes fulfilled. Their ideas are simply that, wishes. If Bill Gates wants the human race vaccinated against COVID-19, that is little more than a wish, He has minions, paid and unpaid, to promote that idea until the whole world, especially its rulers, believe it, and the people of the world are vaccinated.

Back in the Eighties and Nineties, eliminating tariffs and other trade barriers, was the wish of economists and the billionaires (oligarchs) for whom they worked. People lost their jobs in Flint, Michigan, Gordonsville, Virginia and thousands of other places to have this wish fulfilled. When Americans can’t get a light bulb, a pair of shoes, or penicillin until they are offloaded from a container ship, this is the result of this wish. Good for the oligarch and the academic he hires to justify his whims, bad for us.

Today, forty per cent of the ammonium nitrate needed to fertilize our food crops comes from Russia. The Russians say they won’t be able to ship til April. These are the same Russians that are supposedly poised to attack Ukraine. Think they really care about the threat of sanctions? Your Thanksgiving dinner is riding on the answer. Our oligarchs look like they might not get their wishes fulfilled, this time, at least.

Back in July, in the wake of my son’s TBI, I thought it would be a good idea to get the pistol out of my son’s house. I was concerned over his mental health. His wife, now estranged, took it out of the house.

Well, he is furious at this action and my part in it. He has been verbally attacking me, via texts, for the past day. I asked his forgiveness, for my poor judgement.

I’ve damaged the relationship, but, he’s my child. I sensed danger and directed the action to remove the weapon. Maybe I shouldn’t have. If he never speaks to me again, then so be it.

When I have things to do, I either make a list in my head, or write down the tasks on a piece of paper. I have been saving the scratch pads that the direct mail charities, like St Jude’s, Boys’ Town, or DAV, send me. But the clutter is so bad that I can’t find them. Then I chastise myself for being an organisational train wreck.

I made this particular list on the back of an envelope, kind of like Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. I know where it is. It is in the den, next to my tan leather Danish Modern recliner. What’s necessary is that I get off the porch on this warm, but overcast day, go inside and complete the tasks, thus ending this reverie and self-flagellation about not completing tasks.

There are psychologists and other Wise People who write books about this sort of behaviour that chronically disorganised people, like me, buy and, perhaps, read, intending to break this cycle of incompletion. Right now, there’s a chill wind gaining speed. My outdoor time is less and less appealing. So it’s to the indoors I shall return. Let’s see what happens this time.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.