Mix and Match

Well the weather here is frightening, but not as bad as elsewhere. In Tennessee home of the deniers of science, climate included, has had flooding that has led to over 20 dead. But hey don’t ask the Legislature to do anything about infrastructure as well they will take that Government check and promptly build some monument to a White Supremacist over doing needed repairs to roads, bridges and flood controls on the rivers despite the 200 year old floods that now are Decade new ones. Hey they have mask mandates to overturn, civil rights to oppress and open carry laws to pass. Priorities people! (Yes folks I hated every waking minute living in Tennessee and that will not change, no absence and heart not in the least fond)

That said Memphis was a cover story in The Washington Post with regards to the issues of hiring and how it is affecting small businesses, mostly those owned by people of color. Memphis is largely a chocolate city and perhaps unlike most of the other racist cities in the State it is the one that truly reflects the concept of Southern Hospitality. I loved it there and cannot wait to return but this issue is one I am seeing everywhere. From Bridgeport to Newport the swath of Help Wanted signs is why many of the businesses have permanently closed, from small business, to major ones you see CLOSED on many doors or limited days and hours. And no folks it is not the extended UI benefits as again as a study has shown that employment in states that ended in earlier versus those still in the plan have a slight difference in that trajectory, the irony is that the states which have elected to keep the extended benefits hiring is up and most notably the workforce has changed, to one of teenagers; a group that has found in the past few decades the lowest employment, go figure. What this says to me is that is what these jobs truly are, low wage entry level which for years have been the jobs that were the ones that we have neglected with regards to paying a living wage and filled by Immigrants and Women. As for those other jobs, such as child care and home care health workers, we pay them poorly as well but those cannot be held by teens and much like the ongoing Nursing and Teaching shortage, little will change until they stop paying in change.

Then we have another Tennessee tale, Phil Valentine, the Covid denier is dead, from Covid. Irony much? May Governor Greg Abbott of Texas join him soon. He has a colleague from a Texas town who thought it was all bullshit too, waiting to greet him. Not so much bullshit now is it? Well can’t suppress voting rights from six feet under! Okay, I have zero problem wishing the deaths of men who are largely enabling people to die from something preventable. Sorry folks pity for the ones who did not do anything wrong and died or became seriously ill thanks to the bullshit peddled by assholes like these. Hey but in Florida it is a new way to defund the Police, kill them with Covid.

Next up on the hit parade is the riots and mayhem in the streets of Kabul. What? You mean Portland. Oh yes same difference, angry men fighting to prove who are the bigger meaner men. One is about religion and the other about religion. Christianity vs Islam when it comes to that issue it is literally a race as in a color of skin and gender. Men swinging dicks with guns as the condom. Oh wait these shitholes won’t wear masks so would they wear condoms? No love no glove or mask. Wow you know this mask thing is kinda sexy folks, and the Proud Boys do love some cosplay costumes there. Funny that at least the women in Afghanistan are more than masked. Yes we women are the problem.

And Trump had a rally in Alabama. Was Jeff Sessions invited? Guess not. Odd, he promoted vaccines. Well he has to as he needs his Trumptards alive. They are going old school Japanese and doing it Kamikaze style. Just say NO. Wow we are back in the Reagan years!

And lastly in this the Country of Old Men, great movie btw, we have my beloved Joe Biden doing the right thing and upholding the deal Trump made and getting eviscerated for it. Again this war was useless and we knew this and The Washsington Post had long uncovered how the Military had obfuscated this fact for decades.. yes all two of them we were there. The link is to the NYT and it in turn has the link to the Post and they are a must read, so anyone who truly believes we are handling this wrong, needs a dose of Fox News and a recall back to another decade of my life that was all GOP all the time, the Nixon years and Cambodia. Kissinger is still, well, alive and I am sure railing that we should have stayed there too. War kills all living things.

And then we have the R. Kelly trial (number one)going on in Brooklyn. There is so much luggage there to unpack I am not sure what to make of this. But the Doctor who diagnosed Kelly’s Herpes but never took a payment from him in exchange for free tickets and comped show travel seems to have some problems with being a licensed Physician. As stated in the trial: Dr. McGrath said that he had first believed that Mr. Kelly could have had herpes in 2000. He had first begun to serve as the singer’s doctor around 1994, but did not charge him for his services, he said. (Instead, he testified, Mr. Kelly invited him to about a dozen concerts, sometimes flying him across the country and paying for his accommodations.)

And to hear one former employee describe working for R Kelly as being in the Twilight Zone you realize how money and access to fame color our vision when it comes to men doing harm to young women. And in turn enabling toxic workplaces such as former Governor Cuomo (who assured all of us or reassured us that he would still be leaving office today as scheduled, despite the weather. Yeah a bitch to move during a Hurricane) or Scott Rudin who did not sexually harass anyone (and apparently Gay and married which makes this one a glass ceiling breaker and steadfastly unusual) who did discriminate in his abuse, women and especially those of color the targets of his abuse; however it seems that regardless he was a Grade A asshole across the boards, literally across the boards as he became one of Broadway’s most notorious or most voracious, either/or, none of it good. What we tolerate in the search of money and fame – herpes, death, rape and beatings by a computer keyboard. When does it stop Mommy?

To demonstrate my quest to prove equality when it comes to abuse can we discuss Naomi Campbell? Yes folks, phones were thrown but the Guardian is right, someone has to work with these people. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.