“Imagination must seem like such a scary thing to those without one.”
Montego, Greg. Ziegfeld Zaggar, Quantum Detective & the Dirty Rotten, Sarcastic Multiverse (The Quantum Detective Book 1)
TODAY FROM AMERICA:
A. POOKIE’S ADVENTURES DURING THE SIXTH MONTH OF SELF-QUARANTINE:
“Like all old men, I nurse the illusion that if I can remember enough of the past and imagine enough of the future, I will never reach the end of my life, or if I do, it will take forever to get there.”
Hartman, Bruce. The Philosophical Detective (p. 30). Swallow Tail Press.
Alas, as my memories fade and become confused with the stories I may have told about them I become as frightened by the death of what I was as I am with the end of my life. On the other hand, and there always is another hand even if you have two already, today sprung bright and warm from a surprisingly pleasant night. After a delightful swim, my usual breakfast and seeing to the dog’s comfort. I set off into the Golden Hills to visit HRM.
It was a fun visit. HRM was excited about his yard work business. He says he enjoys it, being out in the sun, building walls, clearing weeds, planting gardens and above all the money he is making. We had lunch by the TownCenter Lake walked around a bit, shopped in Nugget and talked about things of little import.
On Thursday morning, I skipped my scheduled swim in order to watch the John Lewis memorial on television. I was struck that among the notables giving speeches, Bush, Clinton Obama and Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, a woman, seemed to be the only one whose talk seemed remarkably free of rhetorical flourishes. Then, of course, there was that magnificent address by James Lawson (He was an associate of MLK taught non-violent revolution to Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry, and John Lewis) who demonstrated the true stirring of the human heart that can be generated by genuine classical oratory. And then there was the music. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the Church used music as an essential compliment to ritual. Then, alas, there was the reaction that for almost 500 years replaced the magnificent music with simple chants. In the nineteenth century the black churches, in the South primarily, took these simple tunes and returned magnificent music to religious ceremony. At one point I turned to Naida and said, “ You know, I find it amazing that I am sitting here watching a funeral service in a church and find it as interesting and enjoyable as a great movie. It’s a spectacle with soul.”
In my previous T&T post, I included a photograph of me wearing sunglasses and dressed in a white bathrobe. There were several comments on the photograph. So far I have been accused of looking like Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante, Lucky Luciano and Vincent “The Chin” Gigante. I must be doing something right. Nevertheless, I always thought I looked a bit like Frank Costello — then again, maybe not.

A few days later, while we were watching MSNBC, Naida turned to be and said, “You know, you look just like an aged Rachel Maddow.”
Recently, I do not know whether I am ill, exhausted, or depressed. Even Naida who seems to approach the world with uncanny optimism seems down. After five months of social-distancing, who would not suffer bouts of seemingly terminal ennui?
I slept through the ringing of my alarm clock and missed my scheduled time for using the pool. I also napped away most of the afternoon. Should I be happy or worried?
Last night, we spent much of the evening with Sarah, Naida’s daughter and her husband, Mark, at their house a short distance off Watt Avenue. Mark is a supervisor of nurses at a Sacramento hospital, he has just returned from a two week fishing trip through Idaho and Montana. They loaded us up with a large shopping bag of produce that Mark and Sarah grew in their back yard some of which we ate this evening.
It has been almost a week since I last have written here. I wonder if it is because I have become so sedentary I no longer do much or so decrepit I no longer remember if I do. As I sit here typing this, Naida is playing the piano going through some old song books used by her mother and grandmother, both accomplished pianists and singers. Some of the song books are about 100 years old. After playing a mournful rendition of Old Man River, she told me it was her father’s favorite song. He was an excellent singer and when family and friends would gather at their home in the wilds of Idaho he would sing the song accompanied by Naida’s mother on the piano. She then showed me where her mother taped the edges of the song book pages so that while playing she could rapidly flip them without tearing them. Later we went back to the studio where I played with my computer and Naida continued to work on her memoir.


Another hiatus in posting here. I have put off swimming tor two days telling myself that it has been too cold and returned to reading vociferously the most trashy novels I can tolerate. Are these symptoms of stir-craziness?
One evening, Naida and I, with the dog in tow, drove to a local frozen-yogurt place where we downed a cups of flavored yogurt. I buried mine under a heathy amount of hot fudge. The trip made us very happy — even Boo-boo the Barking Dog seemed delighted. Such small pleasures loom large in the constant struggle to maintain out mental health during this year of social distancing.
You know, being called old is something to be proud of. It means nothing has managed to kill you yet. On the other hand, when you creak while you walk, your plumbing’s amiss, and your skin begins to looks like a cross between a dried out pickle and a year-old prune, it is not much of a compliment either.
A few days later… I went swimming this morning. For some reason, I felt like I did not want to swim, but I did anyway. Walking back I felt slightly dizzy and things appeared a bit dark. I got home and after a brief session in the massage chair, I went back to bed and slept until about four PM. After a late lunch, I returned to bed until about seven. I cannot point to any pains or specific physical upsets that might justify my fatigue. Perhaps, it is merely a symptom of age — unexplained bouts of exhaustion.
Hayden mentioned that he was taking the autistic boy at his school bowling on Sunday. The boy likes bowling and enjoys Hayden’s company. HRM often befriends other children like the autistic boy. Sometimes, I feel that almost all the members of the scooter gang are attracted to him in order to avoid being considered outcasts. I sometimes wonder about that, empathy can be a wonderful thing, but also a heavy burden. Well, his ego-centric years are coming up. They usually cure one of undo sensitivity.
This morning, Sunday I believe, we slipped out of the house and drove to Mel’s for a breakfast of overcooked bacon, blueberry pancakes and eggs. While we were waiting to be served Naida and I discussed poetry, namely Naida’s observation that Longfellow’s A Skeleton In Armor and Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner both use the device of an odd narrator telling the story to a somewhat unwilling listener. Naida can recite the Skeleton in Armor by heart and used to recite the Ancient Mariner by heart also but cannot remember it all now, so, I turned my iPhone to a uTube recitation of the poem. This all may sound odd and a bit fancy-dancy, but after six-months of social distancing there is no longer a limit to the depths to which we will plunge for entertainment. Besides, those poems are perfect for these desperate times. We have killed the albatross and forgotten those of our deeds worthy of the sagas.
“I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man’s curse;
For this I sought thee.
A Skeleton in Armor‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
On Monday, after my swim, I drove the Mitsubishi into the Golden Hills to visit Hayden. Although there are some similarities between El Dorado Hills and Campus Commons (e.g., socio-economic) there is one difference that stands out to me. When I lived in EDH I noticed that I rarely saw people on the streets. In the Enchanted Forest, however, whenever I walk around there I see people, some walking their dogs, some disappearing around a corner on the paths and others just strolling along. Every now and then, I see couples holding hands while they walk — In four years, I never saw anyone in EDH holding hands. Anyway, Hayden and I had a pleasant lunch.

The view from the front of our home in the enchanted forest.
Today after my swim, I took a long nap. When I woke up learned that Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his running mate and sat through several hours of various pundits on television and in print media tell me why I should like or not like his choice.

B. A FLOWER TO BRIGHTEN UP THE DAY:

PETRILLO’S COMMENTARY:
A new phase?
We, perhaps, are witnessing a new phase in the evolution of parties and elections in the nation. The traditional structure of both parties and the nomination systems that supported them appear to be in a state of collapse or at least major change. It is as though we are returning to the mirror image of the process that existed at the end of the Nineteenth Century. Now instead of nominating an unknown party hack, the parties through the nomination process seem to be moving toward selecting celebrity outsiders. The nomination process now exists for the benefit of ideologically based media operations. To them, it appears to matter less who wins the nominations than how it enhances their ratings.
We now have a plutocratic system, and many politicians see it simply as a matter of buying elections. Here’s why — As our economy is now structured, the big corporations — aerospace, oil, and so on — are able to pour out millions to support the candidates they favor. The restrictions on the books are easily evaded, and the politicians in power won’t do much about it because they want some, too. The Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions by the Supreme Court merely confirmed a process that already existed. What it did do is take away the power of government to alter the process.
In the American Federal political system Nominations are more important than the elections. Far fewer people vote or take part in the nomination process than the members of the parties that vote in the general election. It is essentially undemocratic at its core.
We as a nation are faced with a political party of the right well organized and capable no matter who is their standard-bearer or whether he wins or loses. On the left, any group professing an ideology more radical than that acceptable to the more centrist elected officials on the Federal, State, and local levels usually lacks an organization able to develop candidates on all levels and get them elected. However, the Obama campaign using modern telecommunications strategies appeared able to win. His success was not able to be carried over to subsequent Congressional, State, and Local elections. The Sanders and O’Rourke campaigns demonstrated again how electronic media fundraising and campaigning may assist and individual candidate to achieve electoral success. It has not yet demonstrated that that success can be translated to the party as a whole.
In 2016, on at least on the Federal level, the ideological based media organizations backed by the Financial, Natural Resource and Super Large Retailer plutocracy, elected one of their own to the Presidency (They had been successful one the more local level primarily through ideologically based radio in electing hoards of super conservative and generally unknown politicians under the rubric of the Tea Party.) 2018 has seen a significant reaction to the reality TV excesses (but surprisingly not the corruption) of the recently elected federal administration.
Nevertheless, the underlying fundamentals remain the same. The plutocracy and the ideologically biased media continue to fund and prop the Republicans. The South remains solidly conservative Republican although cracks in that have appeared primarily through the emergence of ideologically Democratic women and people of color at the polls. Retail fundraising and identity politics appear to have worked in 2018 and may work again in 2020, but until there is another fundamental change in how campaigns are financed, I do not expect a long term change in national politics.
MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:
Sometime ago in my much younger days, I wrote a post entitled, There’s Something About a Petrillo (Here). In it, along with the sordid tales associated with that surname, I mentioned that somewhere in the Andes region of South America there grows an evergreen shrub of the myrtle family commonly referred to as Petrillo (Myrceugenia correifolia). I recently discovered that there exists a type of Tomato also named Petrillo. Reputedly, it tastes delicious and ripens sooner than other similar types of tomato. There is a joke in there somewhere.

As I said in that post and at other times when I have scratched the itch to explore my surname, there is little to note or to be proud of for those of us who bear that patronymic. For example, today I discovered that among the sport stars to have born that surname the most noteworthy was one Ferdinando De Petrillo (August 11, 1904,—???), an Italian boxer who competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics and was eliminated in the first round of the lightweight class.
Oh, the Glory…
DAILY FACTOID:
They are all around us and closing in — a snag from Jason Colavito:
“Nephilim hunter and homophobic bigot Steve Quayle is facing new controversy after a fellow Christian writer exposed a fairly clear-cut case of industrial-grade copy-and-paste plagiarism in Quayle’s Genesis 6 Giants, a book written in 2005 and revised and updated in 2015. According to Ken Ammi, Quayle copied, usually verbatim, from Charles DeLoach’s infamous 1995 book Giants: A Reference Guide from History, the Bible, and Recorded Legend, a book I have previously consulted in debunking claims of giants in ancient history.”
“Ammi’s evidence is damning. Quayle, who tried selling sculptures of scenes from his book for as much as $50,000, can be seen copying and pasting whole sentences, paragraphs, and pages from DeLoach’s book, sometimes rearranging sentences, and other times pasting DeLoach’s footnotes into the body of the text. He seems to copy OCR errors, as well. Ammi also found that Quayle used large chunks of a public domain text, Edward J. Wood’s Giants and Dwarves.”
“I encourage you to visit Ammi’s website and read the evidence for yourself.”
‘Now, who would have thought that a guy like Steve Quayle, a friend of Alex Jones who has expressed his desire for a genocide to eliminate liberals and gays, would also be intellectually dishonest? I feel like that God fellow whose genocidal soul Quayle claims to know so well said something about not lying or stealing. But what would heathen me know about that?’” (http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/weekend-omnibus-younger-dryas-volcano-elon-musks-ancient-astronaut-tweet-steve-quayles-plagiarism-and-more)
PEPE’S POTPOURRI:
A. Terry on Top:
Terry, although dealing with problems of health and aging as well as other personal issues, continues to post his views about current affairs, specifically politics and the coming national election this November. Here he gives his opinion on what it would take to allow Biden, should he get elected, to carry out his proposed agenda. I agree with Terry, without at least 52 Democratic Senators most of his major programs are not viable and we will be left with a government that resembles the last four years of the Obama administration, sensible, honorable, and respected but ultimately ephemeral, much like Camelot.
“Straight forward data analysis: with 52 Dems in Senate: progressive program gets implemented . Anything less, it’s a compromising slog like Clinton or late 2011 – 2016 Obama. That’s primarily because you probably can’t get rid of the filibuster with 50 Dems plus the VP. You lose at least two Dems: AZ and WV. So which it will be is out of Biden’s hands. It’s all about MT, GA (2) SC ,TX, IA; that’s six on the bubble. We have, hopefully, CO, ME, NC, AZ locked up. We lose AL.”
“THAT MEANS WE NET THREE SEATS AND BRINGS US TO just 50 Senate seats. We need at least two more out of the six on the bubble. Then you have a working majority for climate change , ACA extension, and massive government intervention in the recovering economy , etc.”
“That’s what’s important on election night. Biden is effectively elected, absent a catastrophe. But the working senate majority is far from sure. In fact that’s where the ball game is won or lost.”
“Opinions | Biden could be a compromiser or a progressive. That choice is mostly out of his hands. The shape of the Senate, not Biden’s decisions, will shape his administration.”
By David Byler
B. Trenz Pruca’s Observations:
There is something to be said for religion. The less said the better.
C. Today’s Poem:
October
by Helen Hunt Jackson
Bending above the spicy woods which blaze,
Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun
Immeasurably far; the waters run
Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways
With gold of elms and birches from the maze
Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one,
Escape from satin burs; her fringes done,
The gentian spreads them out in sunny days,
And, like late revelers at dawn, the chance
Of one sweet, mad, last hour, all things assail,
And conquering, flush and spin; while, to enhance
The spell, by sunset door, wrapped in a veil
Of red and purple mists, the summer, pale,
Steals back alone for one more song and dance.
Helen Hunt Jackson, in full Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, née Fiske, (born Oct. 15, 1830, Amherst, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 12, 1885, San Francisco, Calif.), American poet and novelist best known for her novel Ramona.
She was the daughter of Nathan Fiske, a professor at Amherst (Mass.) College. She lived the life of a young army wife, traveling from post to post, and after the deaths of her first husband, Captain Edward Hunt, and her two sons, in 1863 she turned to writing. She married William Jackson in 1875 and moved to Colorado. A prolific writer, she is remembered primarily for her efforts on behalf of the American Indians. A Century of Dishonor (1881) arraigned government Indian policy; her subsequent appointment to a federal commission investigating the plight of Indians on missions provided material for Ramona (1884), which aroused public sentiment but has been admired chiefly for its romantic picture of old California. (Encyclopedia Britanica)
Naida tells me that her novel “River of Red Gold” was referred to as “the Ramona of Northern California.”
Another factoid, Helen Hunt Jackson was born on October 15. So was I 109 years later. Another example of the universe being nothing more than a giant bubble of coincidences. Think about it for a moment in quantum terms, no-one would have known we were both born on the same day until I observed it. Is science great or what?
D. Tuckahoe Joe’s Blog of the Week: Colavito — The Twilight of the Blogger.
Today I visited the blog of Jason Colavito, (Here) one of my favorite bloggers, and sadly learned that he will be withdrawing from writing his blog. Colavito, whose efforts I sometimes featured here in T&T under the heading, Jason Colavito Takes Them On, investigated the claims of those professing alien contact or other highly unlikely historical theories, especially on programs appearing in media like the History Channel, and demolished them. I am sad to see him withdrawing from the field especially since conspiracy theories and other fanciful beliefs have become such a sad and dangerous part of American culture. In the following essay Colavito relates his reasons for his pending withdrawal. It also is interesting in that it describes some of the vagaries and difficulties of the life of a blogger — especially where he writes, “…the transition away from an internet of articles toward a social media world of memes, videos, and pictures has further eroded interest in longer writing. Increasingly, there is no place for complex analysis.”
Frightening concept, a world where “there is no place for complex analysis.”
Upcoming Changes to This Blog:
For the past ten years, I have written this blog anywhere between five and seven days per week. For almost ten years before that, I produced regular content for the predecessor site to this one. When this blog was at its peak in 2013, I had 100,000 readers, regular appearances in media coverage, a number of TV opportunities, a literary agent, and a growing writing career in both fiction and nonfiction. None of that is the case today, and I don’t see a way to justify continuing to devote so much effort to this endeavor. Several recent posts had readership so low that I could have just emailed all of you a few bullet points and saved myself the trouble.A number of reasons contributed to the decline, but a few are fairly obvious. First, I vastly underestimated the degree to which my readers cared about my work as opposed to simply hating Scott Wolter and America Unearthed. The (first) cancellation of that series in 2015 started the bleed of readership, and that downward trend never changed. Second, the transition away from an internet of articles toward a social media world of memes, videos, and pictures has further eroded interest in longer writing. Increasingly, there is no place for complex analysis. Over the last five years, I have tried many different strategies to expand my audience across many platforms and media, and nothing has made a dent. Even appearing on national TV did literally nothing for me.
I knew the end was coming when the hate mail started to dry up. In the mid-2010s, I’d get dozens of hate missives each week from apoplectic readers outraged at whatever it was I had said. The hate mail trailed off after 2015 and has largely stopped altogether. It’s a good proxy for disengagement as social media pushes people into bubbles where they may never encounter an unwelcome viewpoint.
On Sunday, one of my tweets had twenty times the number of readers as the weekly average for this blog. Overall, my tweets average around ten times the number of readers as my blog. However, that audience is almost all the same group of people, and it is not growing.
This past week, I borrowed a celebrity acquaintance’s 165,000 Twitter followers in an experiment to see if some higher-profile promotion could drive some more traffic my way and help to grow my social media presence in an effort to demonstrate to literary agents and media types that I have work worth representing. The results were beyond disappointing. The effort netted one like and somewhere south of 30 clicks. I had my largest audience since I was on cable back in 2013. And I got one like. Out of 165,000 people. I doubt I will get that kind of audience again, and it’s clear that I perform way below random chance outside the group that already follows me.
Whatever mysterious alchemy produces engagement, I don’t have it. Things haven’t changed very much since Nicole Kidman said in the movie To Die For that you aren’t anyone if you aren’t on TV.
The History Channel’s efforts to damage my career did not help matters. Leaving aside the time they threatened me with a lawsuit or the times I caught their employees posting inflammatory comments on my blog, their informal efforts caused real damage. My literary agent dropped me when he couldn’t get publishers to give me the time of day. The TV offers dried up next. I didn’t report every TV effort I undertook here on my blog. But I was under consideration for TV roles several times, and I shot a pilot presentation that impressed the producers enough to make plans for when the pilot was taken to series. The same answer came back every time: You can’t shop a show around in Hollywood with me in it because the bigwigs at A+E Networks and their corporate cousins (which include the Disney properties) decided otherwise. Sure, they could all be lying, but why would they all tell the same lie? I heard the same thing from the one literary agent since then who gave me any real consideration. If a book doesn’t stand a chance of finding favor with cable TV and Disney, then it might as well not exist.
I haven’t been featured in a news article in years, despite regularly doing interviews with reporters. I went from being quoted regularly in publications like The Washington Post and The Atlantic to being cut from the New York Times, CNN, National Geographic, and a list too long to name. The balance of effort to reward is far too skewed.
The trouble has always been that success isn’t an individual endeavor. It depends on having a network of people who are positioned to help you to succeed. That has never been me. It’s great that many people receive help and support from higher-ups that led to success. That wasn’t my experience. People tend to help only when they think there’s something in it for them.
So I got left with the aliens. Lucky me.
You don’t need to feel too sorry for me. I work all day at a dull gig writing backend copy for websites. I didn’t really want my legacy to be that I wrote the snippets of text that show up on a Google search for specific industries’ optimized keywords, but millions of people have read them. It would be nice to have a similarly large audience read something that actually had meaning.
The long and short of it is that I know what needs to be done for the next phase of my career, as much as I’m not enthusiastic about doing it.
First, unless and until more people read my blog or visit my website, posting nearly every day is not feasible or sustainable. There just aren’t enough of you to justify that. I won’t stop blogging entirely (and contractually I am obliged to continue efforts to promote my current and future books), but it can’t be as regular or as sustained as it has been for the past decade.
Second, since there are so few readers, having comments on the blog posts is increasingly pointless, especially when they are primarily the same handful of outspoken regulars making the same points over and over. The time it takes for me to read them and wade through all the spam (sometimes up to a 3:1 ratio) is a huge waste. Comments will remain open (with moderation) on this post, but I will be shutting them down soon.
Third, I will need to transition to more social media content, whatever that might look like. I’m not sure what it will look like yet.
Fourth, more of my efforts need to go into providing the best possible start to my new book—not the pyramid one, but the one after that. It will be connected to the upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of UFOs in 2022, and it will need to be on a tight schedule to make the deadline. The first step is to devote the upcoming weeks to crafting a strong proposal. (http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/upcoming-changes-to-this-blog)
Sic Transit Gloria, the destiny of all life.
E. Giants of History: Peter’s Comments on T&T:
1. Peter’s comment:
“I just started reading this edition of TAT and came across the following line, which should be come an instant bumper sticker. As an alternative to hypochondria frolics, perhaps getting HRM to assist in producing and marketing the bumper stickers:
“PEOPLE OVER 70 SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO UPGRADE ANYTHING”
2. I wrote:
“Once again it appears that it is women who will save us.” (https://trenzpruca.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/it-is-time-for-women-to-lead-us/)
Peter responded:
“When I was in India with UNICEF, I learned some of this. Found it interesting, not surprising, and irritating that many people in and out of govt. had problems with population control; UNICEF had to soft-pedal the family planning component of their aid program. Some local practicalities, like needing to make more children to have workers because of people dying from malnutrition and diseases, raised issues with birth control. BUT, definite sense that the women were/are more inclined (some not entirely, though, because of female social pressure) to do birth control as they end up with the most adverse impacts of dumb attitudes and behavior (a universal situation, it seems). And indeed, hope of the world lies with the women. I recall when we were in India in the 60’s in Orissa, found that the women on Thursdays did puja rituals for Vishnu (their local incarnation), who of course is the Preserver; Siva is he creator and destroyer – Hindus (Persian Aryans before them) had this deal pegged eons ago. Tolstoy got it, too, in War and Peace: when the men ride off on their trusty cavalry steeds to try to prevent Napoleon from getting to Moscow, meanwhile before dawn the women are up lighting the samovars and taking care of business.”
3. I inquired:
Could It Happen Here?
Peter Responded:
“No doubt: Definite possibilities. Several people have published scenarios and anxieties of this. Masha Gessen in New Yorker has a good, if ominous, statement. And don’t forget Betsy de Vos’s brother’s crew who, possibly may be in Portland now.”
4. I asked:
What do you plan to do now?
Peter replied:
“How much of an oasis in California? I’m reading a great biography of Einstein. I’m at the point where, in 1932-33 he finally moves to the US permanently. Ended up at Princeton at the Institute for Advanced Study. What would we put in the U-Haul to Vancouver? Do we set up a bank account there first?”
F. More Tales From the Old Sailor, etc.

The Old Sailor, Treasure Hunter, Deep Sea Diver, Dope Smuggler, Adventurer, and on and on was a friend I made during my stay in Thailand. He lived in a single room in and old hotel off Sukhumvit somewhere near Soi Eight in Bangkok. The walls of his room were covered with photography, letters, public documents various bric-a-brac and other things. I once asked him why it was like that. He answered, “I do it because when I wake up in the morning I want to know that my life has not just been all a dream.”
I do not think he lives in Thailand any more. He has moved back to the Caribbean area or Florida where he had spent much of his life. Now and then, I receive messages from him — some of the most recent of which I have reproduced below. As I wrote the last time I reported some of his postings, I cannot determine whether they are poetry or evidence of madness — probably both.
1. Life.
NO control over my life
…can’t take care of med.
Situations ………financial Situations fucked
…all my news on the street
….going to get 2 lotto tickets this week
….not complaining just stating
facts.
Unfortunately……e
2. LOTTO.
Yea
have been
double, up on the LOTTO
..thanks
3. PETE.
PETE WAS ENGLISH ….
@@GOT his start
in the bar on SXM
….BY PICKING UP A 50 FT .. DRUG BOAT
..AFTER DELIVERY…×÷=
IT IS DISPOSABLE
.AS A LICENSED CAPT..
he picked it up
And sold it ….=÷=
Got 40 $ his share
…bought a bar in sxm….
@@@had pictures ,,,,,,,,ALL OVER THE BAR
,,,,,,,, of the GREAT train Rober
living in Brizil
4. MY OWN MAKING.
MY OWN MAKING ….+++ — – –
** BAD JUDGMENT OF CHARACTER..
============/========
..UPDATE…….
….@gmail.com> wrote:
USING HIS POWER AND HIS EXPERIENCE
..AS A BANKER TO P.LAY DOWN ANY MONEY
NOT TO PAY THE DEPT ENFORSEMENT………>>
using Experience
FANCY,,LEGAL
WORDING
….@@documents and confirmation have any usable or lendable assets
and any debt
service can only
longer
have any usable or lendable assets ….
-@@ ->>ALL THIS PAPERWORK
is available to him at place of work
…None of his
$$ Assists are available-on his 200k+ FINKA in Majorca
…if they are I am shore
the PAPERWORK will b
the same…….
@@ OR – perhaps
the 4kelo of gold -of mine……..
SOMEHOW–fell out of his pocket
on his majorca
ESTATE …
@@ JB THRASHED
ALL MY ASSETS ((600k total))
left me broke and homeless .
…THE DEAL
WAS HE COULD HAVE
ALL MY ASSETS
AFTER I DIED– IN WRITING ..
@@@ MY GUESS HE COULD NOT WAIT FOR ME TO
DIE…..
—–HAVE LOTTO TICKET
5. The Cross Dresser of St Thomas.
Stthomas
…around the time of airport construction….
At ANTILLES Boatyard..
REMRMBER THE CROSS -DRESSER
…GERMAN – –
…BOAT WITH PINK DECK…””OOTS –
Bous””
>>++Wore tits around the boat yard
((AND PANTIES))..under an overcoat….=÷=
“”SAID ALL
the Psychiatrists…in GERMANY
…Could NOT help Me…. .
..DIED at the bar …with MtGay RumOn Sun, Aug 9, 2020, 1:55 AM <sidt922@gmail.com
6.Ronny Biggs in Brazil.
Yea …some drug sumugular
…..the bar was full of them ………>>
went down to Brazil and got pictures
of him
…the ss went down there to
get him
but could not take him
because
he had a baby
….RONNY BIGGS
TODAY’S QUOTE:
“An angelic face swam into view above him. His voice came out as a parched croak. ‘Is this… heaven?’ Sister Dionne smiled down at him. ‘No, Mr McGarry, this is Brooklyn.’”
McDonnell, Caimh. I Have Sinned (McGarry Stateside Book 2) (p. 310). McFori Ink.
TODAY’S CHART:

Today the United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis issued its Gross Domestic Product, 2nd Quarter 2020 (Advance Estimate) and Annual Update that showed that:
“Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter of 2020, real GDP decreased 5.0 percent.” (https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-2nd-quarter-2020-advance-estimate-and-annual-update.)
They go on to explain the reason for this dramatic drop:
“The decline in second quarter GDP reflected the response to COVID-19, as “stay-at-home” orders issued in March and April were partially lifted in some areas of the country in May and June, and government pandemic assistance payments were distributed to households and businesses. This led to rapid shifts in activity, as businesses and schools continued remote work and consumers and businesses canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending. The full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the GDP estimate for the second quarter of 2020 because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.”(https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-2nd-quarter-2020-advance-estimate-and-annual-update.)
Later in the day, NPR reported on the BEA report and included the chart shown at the top of this post.
That chart, along with the NPR report purports to demonstrate that the recent 32.9% drop in the nation’s GDP was the worst drop in GDP since Eisenhower took office (although the article accompanying the chart maintains it was the worst drop since records have been kept.)
While others, I am sure, will comment on the BEA report and the staggering drop in the Nation’s GDP under this President, the chart, at least to me, may also show something else. Comparing Presidential administrations to recessions by political party, the nearest I can make out from the chart, of the 11 recessions identified therein since Eisenhower assumed office in 1953 at least 8 clearly occurred during Republican administrations, one during a Democratic Administration and two during the year a Democratic administration transferred power to a Republican (1953 and perhaps 2001).
To assist in making the comparison and the conclusions I came to, here is a list of the presidents and their term in office since 1953:
1953-61 Eisenhower
1961-63 Kennedy
1963-69 Johnson
1969-77 Nixon-Ford
1977-81 Carter
1981-89 Reagan
1989-93 Bush
1993-2001 Clinton
2001-09 Bush Jr.
2009-17 Obama
2017-20 Trump.
If this information is correct, it appears clear that the Republican Party, their chosen Presidents, and the conservative economic doctrines upon with they base their actions seem to me to have been woefully incapable of effectively managing the nation’s economy.
This observation may appear to be nothing new for most of us who post on Daily Kos, nevertheless, it is worth repeating every chance we get.
NOTE: Having published the above also in Daily Kos, I received the following perceptive comment:
Yes. And there are several reasons why many voters still believe Яepublicans are better for the economy: 1) the household budget fallacy, 2) the guns/butter investment fallacy, and 3) the number of new billionaires fallacy, to name a few examples.1) The US budget isn’t like a household budget, but some voters believe that cutting spending on “luxuries” and goosing the economy will always help. Actually, the US budget is more like a corporate budget, where the income comes from taxes and we borrow to invest in growth. So the way to improve the budget is actually to borrow, invest in citizens as broadly as possible, and raise taxes. Democrats are right, and Яepublicans are wrong on this basic issue.
2) Яepublicans believe in spending on big military parade items, like missiles, jet fighters, aircraft carriers, and tanks. These expenditures help the economy, but only briefly, with great waste and to concentrated contractors. They make headlines, but typically sit unused until they’re obsolete or destroyed. Many voters see the results of this investment and believe they’re getting security and jobs. Democrats invest in things like education, healthcare, housing & food. These don’t make big headlines, and they often take decades to show results. Again, Democrats invest better for the country in the long term (e.g. fighting pollution), while Яepublicans make a big deal about investments in hurting people (e.g., supporting fossil fuel).
3) Too many people, especially in the media, judge the economy on big billionaire fortunes. But that’s typically driven by a very small number of people amassing wealth that used to be spread more widely. Imagine a private entrepreneur figured out how to produce & deliver all the goods & services needed with AI & low cost self-producing robots, then everyone else would be unable to compete. The economy would be finished. A healthy economy actually grows most by widespread participation and sharing productivity gains broadly. Яepublicans believe that wealth is like the lottery: the more billionaires the better. Democrats believe that wealth is like families: the more we help each other grow and spend time doing what makes us happy, the better off we are, despite our limitations.
(https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/30/1965287/-The-Collapse-of-the-Nation-s-GDP-Are-Republicans-Incapable-of-Managing-the-Nation-s-Economy#comment_78111301)