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Since Anthony Kennedy’s imminent retirement from the Supreme Court has been discussed ad nauseam in major news outlets literally for months, I’m not entirely sure whence this collective outpouring of wailing, breast-beating, and Ain’t-it-awful arises.
Increasingly, social media is a Middle-earth role-playing game.
What? An 81-year-old guy can’t retire?
Roe v. Wade is certainly on the chopping block.
Women living in the northeast and along the Pacific Coast will continue to have access to abortion through state legislation; women living in the flyover will not.
It is true that the United States has probably the most idiotic attitude toward abortion going, imbuing fetuses with supernatural significance that I don’t think any other nation state on the planet gives them. I am absolutely positive this is connected in some mysterious way to plummeting birth rates among white people: Hell, no, the evangelists and assorted frozen chosen are saying, we’re gonna force you to birth them white babies if you live in Texas, Mississippi, or Kansas, and then you’re gonna give them to us for adoption!
I don’t know what happens to the black babies. The frozen chosen won’t want them, that’s for sure.
To me, the “detention centers” for immigrant children is a much, much bigger issue because it’s such a blatant test balloon for fascism. I wish people would keep focused and not allow themselves to be diverted by Today’s Exciting Crisis. A short attention span is the enemy of all real action.
Also, people need to start moving their investments into money market accounts because the only way you get rid of Trump is if the stock market plummets and the economy crashes. No, I am not kidding about that.
I’m old; I just don’t have the stamina to spend 22 hours a day on Facebook and Twitter ranting about who the two likeliest Republicans may be to help delay a SOTUS confirmation vote.
I’d rather spend my limited energies knocking on doors on behalf of candidates I support. And making $$$ so I can contribute to those candidates’ campaigns.
As to LBGT rights… Honestly? I think those are safe. Seeing as there are LGBT people on both sides of the coming Civil War.
###
In other news, my dolls eye bracelet arrived. It is every bit as creepy, disturbing, and wonderful as I remembered:
K&J on Violet Avenue, the auto repair shop Kurt recommended, turn out to be wonderful. Immediately and correctly diagnosed the problem that the fuckheads at Monroe Muffler – WORLD’S WORST MECHANICS! NEVER GO THERE! – cheated me on. Aren’t gonna bankrupt me to repair it. My little anono-car will pass state inspection!
And I started writing the ghost deer story:
NEVERSINK
Eric and Alison Atwood lived in New York City, but they voted in Neversink where their weekend house was located. Neversink was an easy three-hour drive from the city, first along the interstate, then over a twisting nexus of back roads that snaked through the eastern ledges of the Catskills, traveling through towns that weren’t there anymore and had names like Narowstown and Barterburg and Riggsville. Neversink wasn’t really there anymore either, but enough of it remained—a cluster of small houses, an auto parts store, a tired roadhouse that sold pizza and beer—to lay claim to a post office.
“Do you have any pets?” asked Mac who lived across the road had asked when they first took possession of their new vacation home. Mac and an ancient mutt named Fanny had brought the Atwoods a cherry pie. “Home-baked,” Mac had bragged though Alison could clearly see the “Hannaford” sticker on the back of the tin plate.
“Nope,” Alison said. No point in explaining her multiple allergies: It would only prolong the conversation, and she might have to end up eating the pie.
“Probably for the best,” said Mac.
“And why is that?” asked Eric. He was what Alison described as a people pleaser, but only when he and Alison weren’t fighting.
“Pets around here don’t do too good,” Mac said. “Lotta wild animals around here, foxes, bears, coyotes and such like.” He looked longingly at the pie.
“How long have you had your dog?” asked Eric.
“Well, I’ve had Fanny for a long time. A very long time. But she was old when I got her.”
Mac wasn’t completely dumb. When Alison picked up the pie and very pointedly put it on top of the expensive refrigerator, Mac rightly calculated that was his cue to leave.
“Oh, one other thing,” he said as he opened the screen door. Three hundred and thousand some odd dollars ago, the Atwoods’ house had been a twin of Mac’s ramshackle clabbord cottage. They didn’t look at all alike now.
“What’s that?” Eric asked.
“Well, you want to be real careful when you drive around here at night. Real careful.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, the deer,” Max said in an incredulous voice as though this was the craziest question in the world because the answer was so, so, so obvious.
The deer must know I am writing a story about them. They were out this morning everywhere, staring at me when I went for my morning trot:
Increasingly, social media is a Middle-earth role-playing game.
What? An 81-year-old guy can’t retire?
Roe v. Wade is certainly on the chopping block.
Women living in the northeast and along the Pacific Coast will continue to have access to abortion through state legislation; women living in the flyover will not.
It is true that the United States has probably the most idiotic attitude toward abortion going, imbuing fetuses with supernatural significance that I don’t think any other nation state on the planet gives them. I am absolutely positive this is connected in some mysterious way to plummeting birth rates among white people: Hell, no, the evangelists and assorted frozen chosen are saying, we’re gonna force you to birth them white babies if you live in Texas, Mississippi, or Kansas, and then you’re gonna give them to us for adoption!
I don’t know what happens to the black babies. The frozen chosen won’t want them, that’s for sure.
To me, the “detention centers” for immigrant children is a much, much bigger issue because it’s such a blatant test balloon for fascism. I wish people would keep focused and not allow themselves to be diverted by Today’s Exciting Crisis. A short attention span is the enemy of all real action.
Also, people need to start moving their investments into money market accounts because the only way you get rid of Trump is if the stock market plummets and the economy crashes. No, I am not kidding about that.
I’m old; I just don’t have the stamina to spend 22 hours a day on Facebook and Twitter ranting about who the two likeliest Republicans may be to help delay a SOTUS confirmation vote.
I’d rather spend my limited energies knocking on doors on behalf of candidates I support. And making $$$ so I can contribute to those candidates’ campaigns.
As to LBGT rights… Honestly? I think those are safe. Seeing as there are LGBT people on both sides of the coming Civil War.
###
In other news, my dolls eye bracelet arrived. It is every bit as creepy, disturbing, and wonderful as I remembered:
K&J on Violet Avenue, the auto repair shop Kurt recommended, turn out to be wonderful. Immediately and correctly diagnosed the problem that the fuckheads at Monroe Muffler – WORLD’S WORST MECHANICS! NEVER GO THERE! – cheated me on. Aren’t gonna bankrupt me to repair it. My little anono-car will pass state inspection!
And I started writing the ghost deer story:
NEVERSINK
Eric and Alison Atwood lived in New York City, but they voted in Neversink where their weekend house was located. Neversink was an easy three-hour drive from the city, first along the interstate, then over a twisting nexus of back roads that snaked through the eastern ledges of the Catskills, traveling through towns that weren’t there anymore and had names like Narowstown and Barterburg and Riggsville. Neversink wasn’t really there anymore either, but enough of it remained—a cluster of small houses, an auto parts store, a tired roadhouse that sold pizza and beer—to lay claim to a post office.
“Do you have any pets?” asked Mac who lived across the road had asked when they first took possession of their new vacation home. Mac and an ancient mutt named Fanny had brought the Atwoods a cherry pie. “Home-baked,” Mac had bragged though Alison could clearly see the “Hannaford” sticker on the back of the tin plate.
“Nope,” Alison said. No point in explaining her multiple allergies: It would only prolong the conversation, and she might have to end up eating the pie.
“Probably for the best,” said Mac.
“And why is that?” asked Eric. He was what Alison described as a people pleaser, but only when he and Alison weren’t fighting.
“Pets around here don’t do too good,” Mac said. “Lotta wild animals around here, foxes, bears, coyotes and such like.” He looked longingly at the pie.
“How long have you had your dog?” asked Eric.
“Well, I’ve had Fanny for a long time. A very long time. But she was old when I got her.”
Mac wasn’t completely dumb. When Alison picked up the pie and very pointedly put it on top of the expensive refrigerator, Mac rightly calculated that was his cue to leave.
“Oh, one other thing,” he said as he opened the screen door. Three hundred and thousand some odd dollars ago, the Atwoods’ house had been a twin of Mac’s ramshackle clabbord cottage. They didn’t look at all alike now.
“What’s that?” Eric asked.
“Well, you want to be real careful when you drive around here at night. Real careful.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, the deer,” Max said in an incredulous voice as though this was the craziest question in the world because the answer was so, so, so obvious.
The deer must know I am writing a story about them. They were out this morning everywhere, staring at me when I went for my morning trot:
