VISITORS FROM CHUMBUCKET

My plan today is to get out of the house relatively early for chores and lunch, then relax with my pipe in the alleyways, avoiding the tourists. Simple. Some tourists are chuckleheads from the red states. Bugger hospitality, life is too short to deal with those people. As I understand it, they've decided to shorten the alphabet in those places because they hardly ever need it, and Pi shall henceforth be three, no more no less. Because three is easier to use in calculations than 3.14159265358979323846264 .....

3.14159265358979323 .....
3.1415926535897 .....
3.141592653 .....
3.14159 .....


All school children need is Jesus anyway, and not vaccines or lunches.
Or anything that might interfere with a football scholarship.

If I didn't live in the United States I would sneer at it.

Instead I smile tolerantly and pretend everything is okay.


Also, this weather is getting to me. It was warmish, now it's cold again, and when the wind picks up it feels like it's freezing. Yes, I know it's totally awful elsewhere, but I'm fine with that. Those are parts of the country that I don't care about that should sink into the ocean anyway.
We're not all in this together. Recent news proves that.
Those savages don't deserve weather!



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BAD TEMPERED OLD REPTILE

Having a white man with a walker raise his voice and peremptorily tell me to get out of the way on the bus, when I was trying to do just that, infuses me with no great love for elderly white people. And let us ignore for the time being that I am one of them, as I am not a Karen. If we have to focus on anything at all, let us focus on the fact that at my eyedoctor's office, at the barbershop, at the bank, at the pharmacy, the chachanteng, three grocery stores, and the bakery, everything had been mellow, efficient and effective, and courteous.

And all in Cantonese. Because unlike crusty old entitled white wankers, of which there are a regrettably large number in this city, Cantonese people understand courtesy and not being abrasive. Instead of arrogant, entitled, and disruptive.

Five people or so at the eyedoctors. Two at the barbershop. Only three at the bank, nearly a dozen at the pharmacy. A whole throng of them at the chachanteng, because it was the lunch rush. Several at the grocery stores and at the bakery. Cantonese. Although two of the people sitting down were speaking something that sounded closer to Fukienese (閩南話). In any case I couldn't understand more than one word in ten.

Mati kadadak, asu gila 'kau.

Some elderly white men need to be horse-wipped. They are unlivable, overly entitled, horribly rude, and in far too many ways rabid unbearable hapless jerks.
And I say that with the greatest respect.
As much of it as I am able.


And by the way, my right leg hurts. It's been aching since before noon. If I can act bearable and friendly despite that, so bloody well can you, you poisonous old bastard.


Old white men are precisely what's wrong with this country.
Zo is dat precies, gatverdamme.


Next time, I might whack you with my cane.



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BIGLY FICTION

Did not watch speechy-weechy last night. Read about it. One long grievance-filled rant, cheered by baboons. Went to bed early because of eye-doctors appointment today.
Need those eyes, of course, to read all about speechy-weechy.

There's only so much steaming coberder and hamvefe one can look at before deciding that we all need another bigly front page obituary. Actually, several.
There's a bigly-wigly list.


Pipe preambulary to any ablution was a Comoy squat bulldog like Clark Gable often smoked, filled with an aged red Virginia and Perique mixture, out on the front steps with a big cup of coffee. I decided to combine my two favourite early morning activities in the interests of efficiency, as my eye doctors appointment is right when the office opens.
And I like to be early.

The coffee was strong, the tobacco mild.
A scarf, and a throwrug.
Cold.

Often on Wednesdays I have lunch at a chachanteng, then do some grocery shopping, after which at around teatime I'll end up having a pastry and a hot cuppa while trying to converse with three gentlemen who are collectivly a century older than myself. Which, if they've listened to speechy-weechy, might be challenging. Bigly.

Having gotten up at the freezing crack of dawn, I do not need challenging.
What I need is Battenberg Cake. Sadly unavailable here.
Would go great with coffee.

It's a sudden mental insinking.
A thick slice of cake.
Mmm.



Obituaries, when you think about them, can be truly great literature.
Fiction, romance, and an imaginary world.
Staggering.


Huge. Huuuge. Huge. And bigly. It will be the best obituary ever.




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DIAPERS AND ADDERALL

It should be interesting to see what comes out of the speech tonight. No, I shan't be tuning in. I have better things to do. But I fully expect that all over the red states people will be ululating their adulation. And will then wax ecstatic, captured by Fox News, which always goes giddy over right wing blithering.

I do not watch Fox. It's not just today, but I always have better things to do.

You know, things like fighting the patriarchy, boycotting advertisers on Fox, speaking ill of Republicans, throwing eggs at cyber trucks, filling Molotov cocktails, punching Nazis, and attacking Christianity. Stuff like that. Wholesome all-American stuff.
Oh, and burning flags. To stay warm.

This evening will be no different. Smoke my pipe, have a nice cup of tea, that sort of thing. Whisky would have been on the programme in a minor way, except it might interfere with some of the pills I take, and ruin my liver, which I still kind of need. So no.

Before medication it would have been Scotch, sometimes Irish. Never Bourbon, because that fiery paint-thinner taste does not appeal to me. Which is sad, because it was William Faulkner's favourite hooch, and he is a writer I admire.

[Faulkner particularly liked a toddy: 2 ounces rotgut (Bourbon or moonshine), 4 ounces of water, 1 hefty wedge of lemon, 1 teaspoon of sugar. Fully muddle the sugar to dissolve with water before adding anything else. Absolutely no ice!]

Of course I expect folks in the red states will be quite blotto on Vodka like good Russians by the time the applause has died down. Vodka, as everyone knows, cures vaccines!

RUSSIAN REFINERY GOES UP. OH, THE HUMANITY!

Of course the acolytes in the actual audience for the speech will clap their little hands raw. They know what's best for them. Especially when the Ukraine is mentioned.


What traitorous shit-smears like Trump, Vance, Hegseth, Graham, Tuberville, and others, like to forget is that we also signed the Budapest Memorandum. Which gave security assurances to the Ukraine in return for relinquishing their nuclear stockpile. And proves (again) that United States agreements aren't worth the paper they are printed on.


"What kind of lesson do you think this instance sends” to the people of Ukraine? I think the message being sent to many nations around the world is perhaps we can no longer count on the security promises of the free world."
----- Marco Rubio, in 2014.


The big orange cowpat threatens that protestors will be locked up or deported.
That will probably be his answer to everything.
Along with Diet Coke.




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MY ENGLISH NOT GOOD

That, at least, was the impression I got speaking with her. She repeated the information several times. While also mentioning skin ointment (mimed scratching her arm lest I not comprehend), Walgreens versus Trader Joe's, and several other things. The conversation had started while I was shaving -- so I was wearing a wet bathrobe -- and continued much too long given that I was wet and away from the heated chamber where I do my ablutionary things. And I blame my apartment mate for this, because she had given the old lady a gift card to be used for groceries. But apparently there had been miscommunication because "my English not good". So she was asking me to endeavor further communication.

As I am facile in that regard. Good Dutch, English, Cantonese, and Indonesian.

I promised I would discuss the matter with my apartment mate, but couldn't guarantee anything. And fiercely restrained myself from adding "my English not good".
Which it sometimes isn't. Being occasionally quite evil.


Ma'am, I'm wet and kind of cold right now, and both warmth and soap call me. They beckon.
I must forthwith obey their command. It supplants whatever imperative you wish to lay upon me by scratching your ancient crepey Asian derma and mumbling.
Fifteen minutes of talky-talky. I am not that social.
I am a grouchy damp Dutchman, I am.

Two hours later, fully shaved and showered, and having rubbed some lotion on dry skin areas (which I suspect many people past forty or fifty years old do --their own skin, not mine) and girded my loins, I went down to Chinatown for some claypot rice (煲仔飯 'pou jai faan') with Chinese sausage (臘腸 'laap cheung'), preserved meats (臘肉 'laap yiuk') chicken (雞 'kai') and black mushrooms (冬菇 'tong gu'). Late-ish lunch or very early dinner.

After finishing my tea and paying my bill I was outside lighting up my pipe. It had gotten colder by then. Fortunately I was wearing more than just a damp bathrobe.
Because that is what one does when going out to eat.

I'm still smacking my lips over the crusty layer.
Mmmm, nom nom nom. My goodness.



AFTERWORD: Got to observe elderly Cantonese in their native habitat happily chowing down on delicious eaties while chatting. Some of them are deaf as posts, and might need everything repeated at increasing levels of loudness, a few don't bother actually listening, they're just happy to be there accidentally knocking over their walking sticks leaning against the furniture, which clatters loudly and might startle a nearby Dutchman eating lunch.
I'm just saying, you probably didn't even notice that, did you?
Doven oude kwartel.



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HELLO KITTY NEEDS A BATTLESHIP

With the Americans having shockingly demonstrated how unreliable and unstable we are to the Europeans, and cozied up to Russia, it is time for all our allies (if we still have any) to reassess their relationship with us, with each other, and with their own part of the world.

[NATO without the U.S. will continue. It will include the Canadians.]

We cannot be trusted. We're useful, perhaps, but we're also a major liability with too many strings attached. As trading partners we are completely and flamboyantly criminal. Most of the time. Mexico and Canada have learned that.

As far as security is concerned we're leaky as a sieve, borderline treacherous at best.
We're complete opportunists, frequently unethical, and totally amoral.
As well as, at times, an embarrassment.


So it's time for Japan to rewrite her pacifist post-war constitution, which we imposed upon her, assume a more robust geopolitical posture, rearm like madmen, and permanently ditch that military non-intervention which we also imposed upon her. This may cause dismay and alarm in some quarters, but it will be in her own best interests to do so as well as beneficial to her more friends and trading partners.

It's also time, past time, that Taiwan and Korea rethink their attitudes about that. Unless they wish to be pounded by belligerent schoolyard bullies, absorbed, and permanently enslaved.

The Europeans are currently preparing for a future without the United States, as America has made itself damned well irrelevant, and it's only a matter of time before the American military presence there is firmly requested to terminate itself. We're probably going to turn Incirlik in Turkey into a casino resort catering to the Russian mafia in any case, and the longer we stay in Greece, Italy, and Spain, the greater the chance of major ecological disasters near those bases which we will refuse to clean-up, more than the toxic pollution there already.

Aside from the Phillipines, which is adept at flattering us, and a corruptocracy of monumental proportions besides, whose ruling classes want nothing more than an American passport and American quality Marlboros, Taiwan and Korea both have reason to fear bigger players in the region, and very good reasons not to trust us. Plus American servicemen raping the locals and getting stinko drunk in Okinawa are a burden that the Japanese increasingly resent.

There are many more reasons why a robust remilitarized Japan is extremely desirable, but the inevitable conlusion that Japan must ditch artical 9 is both logical and obvious.

If they act fast, and firmly, getting the United States to pay for the horrendous pollution near the soon to be abandoned bases is more likely, as well as the necessary decades-long clean-up. We won't be able to afford doing that before long.
And we'll be in no position to assist.



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TOO MUCH MARIN COUNTY

Nearly six hours of sour moronic Republican senile delinquents foaming at the mouth over Democrats, Liberals, Europeans, and Zelensky leave me with no love for Marin County, Republican crypto-Nazis, and elderly white men. Most elderly white men. The pipe club meeting is coming up, and many of them are elderly white men. But pipesmokers can be quite civilized.

Cigar smokers are largely crazed hyenas.


Marin County is not a pleasant place to miss the bus back to civilization (San Francisco) because the damned Orcs stayed too long at the inn screeching about Democrats, Liberals, Europeans, and Zelensky. It is cold and dark in early March, and there was a freezing wind blowing. While begrumbling my fate an indistinctly outlined furry creature crossed the road, and from that distance I couldn't tell if it was large rat, a raccoon, or a misshapen dog.
Or someone's inbred loin fruit, using both hands and feet to scurry.

Rats are profoundly social creatures. But this was Marin. So not a rat.
Marin is not conducive to any creature with social skills.
Well, except for the crows.

Daniel remarked, in response to my foul comment about what I had to eat for lunch, that there was always In N Out burgers. I'm sorry, but fastfood shit with bible verses is NOT edible, and I don't have time to queue up for that. On my days off I'll make up for lunching surrounded by suburban barbarism by having Chinese food not too far from where I live, where I don't have to put up with rightwing human garbage either. Thank you. Can you please tell those toxic hosebags in the back to kindly choke on their own body parts?

Especially Jeff and the crazed bald deviant.

I look forward to tomorrow.



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VOICES RAISED IN SONG

One more day before my weekend. And by now you've probably figured out that work is a little stressful because of the republican sewer in the back room. So I shan't mention that. Instead, I'll dwell on the possibility that a friend will drop by as he regularly does on Sunday to smoke a pipe and have a cup of tea. Which is very kind of him. There are some people there who are quite rational, and very civilized.

By and large I hate Marin and its denizens, but there are exceptions.
What I think about Trumplandia can only be imagined.
Although I will spell it out frequently.


All of America's problems could be solved if malaria became prevalent here. Just imagine the changes it would bring to the suburbs, the ellimination of much that is wrong with this country, and the wholesome positive benefits.

One could spend whole days without running into a single Christian if mosquito borne ailments were rife. Sheer heaven.


I fondly think of the red states as being the disease zone.



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RABBIT RABBIT MARCH 2025

Rabbit rabbit. You're supposed to say rabbit rabbit first thing on the first day of the month for good luck or something before you start bellyaching about things like the orange cheeto's clown circus sending everything to hell in handbasket but for various reasons (actually one main one) which are hard to explain I do not blogpost on Saturday till the evening so the first thing here today is rabbit rabbit and if you've been here before you've probably already heard whatever I have to say about the old adderall addicted fool and his passle of opportunistic hateful incompetents like that big-jawed blonde twitty poo who handles lying to the press room or his vicious Guju attack dog and that Anglo South African egotard as well as the fact that a gibberant weirdo televangelist was appointed to the White House Faith Office (good lord why does that even exist?) which pleases the Christian nutballs who think he's the damned second coming and cream in their rose coloured panties when they fantasize about him grabbing them by their feline euphemisms with his short stubby fingers.
So let's just leave it at that. Rabbit rabbit.

The demented old poisonsbags in the backroom at work aren't even believers and they're positively creaming into their incontinence pants over the man. Even the Jews among them are giddy crypto-Nazis, oblivious entirely to the contradiction that presents. Jeff almost fouled himself with glee yesterday, having lost his moral balance entirely upon marrying that vicious anti-communist refugee who has him spin around her little finger. The man has turned into saddest excuse for an intelligent Jewish boy ever.

He wasn't there today. Praise the heavens.

The two evil bald deviants and the Irishman were. Scumsucking insects.

Last week it was a darn good thing that I do not bring a flamethrower to work. This week is shaping up to be as bad. Perhaps with March madness and the eventual start of the football season they'll have their unclean little joys over something else.
Instead of a Kremlin asset pissing on the Ukraine.
Like Putin told him to.
Krasnov.

How much does a good flamethrower cost anyway?

One or two cylinders of flammable liquid, one cylinder of propellant gas, flexible hose and a triggered nozzle with an igniter. Possibly the whole deal mounted on a baby carriage for greater mobility, as well as to disguise it. So far it's just the idea stage.


Rabbit rabbit.



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PAINTING THE TOWN GREEN

In an effort to drum up some excitement for Saint Patrick's Day, two weeks hence, I struck up a conversation with a hyperactive little boy near me on the bus. I informed him that on that weekend, Reverend Ian Paisley would come down his chimney with omelettes and valium if he was good, and buckets of mud if he wasn't. I thought it was lovely thing, but his mother glared daggers at me. She'll have a hard time satisfying his questions.
In any case, he kept quiet for the duration of the ride.
Probably counting his eggs ahead of time.

You can probably understand that I myself am not particularly vested in the biggest holiday on the frat-boy calender. I have no eggs to fry in this race, so to speak. I'll dodge the sots.

Saint Patrick, as is well known, chased the able cooks from Ireland and left them nothing but plain boiled potatoes with seaweed. Which is why there are festive marches.
And charming ginger damsels hoppity dancing.

There is an Irish bar near one of the bus stops in the Financial District, which even at the best of times presents public health hazards on the narrow sidewalk outside. It will be quite intolerable that weekend, as intoxicated office workers do their best to get rid of their eggs and intestinal snakes in public. Imagine lumpy viridian snow. Which smells bad.

THE STAMPS OF DISAPPROVAL

I myself will not celebrate. Instead, I plan to stay indoors after work that weekend, Possibly sneering under my breath. Not that I harbour ill-feelings toward the Hibernian element, but having spent several years in Berkeley, I effing well despise fraternities and their alcoholic shenanigans.


Seven weeks afterwards I may celebrate Cinco De Mayo, however. It speaks to me more. The stubbornness of Mexicans wupping an imperialist force, thumbing their noses at the Trump of that era, and telling the entire world to eff off. Yes, that is worth commemorating. Far more than some fictional wussy saint throwing eggs at reptiles.


[Note: the images above are completely irrelevant to the text. Seals I carved a number of years ago.]



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THE TRAINWRECK

Half a year ago the toxic old rightwingers in the backroom were slagging masks and vaccines and saying that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin turned out to have provable effectiveness against covid 19. Which, even at the time they were stating it, was blatant crap. Plus several have sworn that they'll never take vaccines again, not even the flue shot. Which I really hope they mean, because they all take up space, use resources, and do not add anything to other people's lives.

I'm not a scientist but! I'll take the recommendations of the doctors and medical staff I know over ideologically informed rightwingers and Mill Valley naturopaths, hippies, and natural healing bozos any day.

By the way: apple cider vinegar may be good for your karma and your aura, but it doesn't do bupkes for anything else other than food. Be sure to check your chakras on the way out.


If there is no flue vaccination this coming year (because the CDC is not making a decision due to a hostile right wing takeover), take extreme physical revenge on republicans.
May I suggest a baseball bat? It's all American.

The first month of the new regime has been a bigly covefe, and if it continues in this fashion we'll probably have violent riots nationwide by summer. Which will be fully justified.
I seriously expect mayhem from both sides as we slide into disaster.


Attacks on private security should be frequent.


Mentally prepare for measles, tuberculosis, new emergent debilitating diseases, arrests, tear gas, arson, national guard and police violence, assasination attempts, scarcities of gasoline and medicines, and a barrage of stupid self-serving actions and statements from Christians and Republicans. Kind of like a sewer overflowing.



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PLEASE STOP DOING THAT!

Next week I well might give the place a miss. It's one of my favourite places to have a cup of tea and a pastry, but yesterday it got on my nerves for a whole whelter of reasons, some of which are strictly 'me' problems, some of which are Toishanese. Two of the old fellows I see there regularly are problematic due to advanced age -- one has a wandering attention span, another doesn't hear very well, doesn't listen, and doesn't let me finish my sentences much. Being, as you have probably guessed, variably on the spectrum, sometimes much so and very far sideways, finishing my sentences is hugely important. Teatime was a mess.

Not deliberately unpleasant, just rather ghastly.

One subject delved upon was whether the ninety year old should get married, so that if he croaks he can have his wife inherit his pension pay-outs otherwise it would just be a waste. But he doesn't want to live with anyone, he's happy being by himself. And his girlfriend in China hasn't even mentioned that yet, plus she'd need instruction on filing papers. He hasn't been back in four or five years, perhaps he'll go there this summer. His yearly physical came back fine. He walks forty minutes a day.

I'm not sure what the other old fellow was on about, as I wasn't listening at that point. Something about the office. He still goes every day. He's nearly ninety, by the way.

Additionally, I got to hear a Toishanese gentleman at another table doing unspeakable things to Mandarin while talking with some Northerners. For the love of all that is holy, DON'T translate word for word from Cantonese into Mandarin; it sounds appalling.

[As an example of how word for wording butchers comprehension, here are the first four lines of a sonnet by Gerbrandt Adriaenszoon Brederode: "The holy vessel, of the goon in which they are enclosed. The plagues, and the punishment of the human race: Is lastly! for me discovered, opened, unexpectedly, For I have already enjoyed many pains."]

Toishanese people high as a kite on caffeine are over the top.
Stubborness, chutzpah, and eruptive gibbering.
Ninety percent unintelligible.

But I do enjoy the pastries there. The same folks whom I encounter in the waiting room of the clinic, where they are surrounded by posters about diabetes, will often head over there to risk a diabetic episode. Very good. Their egg tarts, char siu turnovers, yiuk sung baau, and even the ham and cheese whatever that is (火腿芝士包 'fo teui chi si baau'). In addition to lovely cakes. And pineapple buns (菠蘿包 'po lo baau').

One of the old ladies there who for a long time refused to talk to me has developed into an interesting mixture of Monty Pythonesque Yorkshireman and dry-humoured Den Haagenaar. She still has problems with my Cantonese, and I have a hard time understanding more than fragments of her speech, but there is a sly tongue in cheekness whenever she speaks.


Might go there real early next time. Just after my eye doctors appointment would be good. Surprise every one, and avoid the conversational clusterfudge teatime there has become.



Maybe I should try translating Gerbrandt Adriaenszoon Brederode's poetry into Cantonese.
It would further my own literacy, while providing hours of intellectual entertainment.
As well as yield eruptive gibbering to rival yesterday's flow.
And then, into Mandarin! Excelsior!




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MANY TEXANS

Nearly three months ago Luigi Mangione shot Brian Thompson in New York, which was applauded by many people. Brian Thompson, when he was alive, was the CEO of United Healthcare, whose name absolutely contradicts what they do. America's healthcare industry is overloaded with amoral sharks just looking out for number one. As are very many other industries in this country, branches of Christianity, and the entire Republican Party.
As well as the great state of Texas.

And we're getting closer to the breaking point.

I can think of many individuals -- business people, congregations, and rapacious politicians from the Republican Party -- who would benefit from a bullet in the head.
And so can you.

Go ahead, make a list.


At the very least, it will make clear to you how many downright amoral bastards have sold their souls to big business and the church, and the enormity of the task at hand.
Plus it will encourage you to budget your time and resources.

The great state of Texas should not, however, be on that list. Because despite being redneck moron heaven, many quite decent people are or were actually from there. Lyndon Baines Johnson. Molly Ivens. Jeff Foxworthy. And Steve Fallon, beloved on the interwebs as 'pipestud', who might actually be a loss for humanity if whacked.

And many other people. So not every Texan is a braindead no neck inbred.
Yes, the place is filled with dumbasses driving pickup trucks.
Plus they're inordinately proud of their shitty food.
And they keep voting for Ted Cruz.

But some of them are okay people with whom you could actually have a civilized conversation, and probably bathe at least four or five times a month, bless 'em.


So when you start violently taking back our country, go easy on Texas.


Oh, and some of them believe in vaccination.
Which is mighty good of them.
Praiseworthy.



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THE VOICES, THE VOICES

He was audible for more than a block in either direction, loudly telling people to shut up, shut the F up, or shut up expletive expletive expletive. While also berating them for other things they were doing. Seeing as there was no one near him, those people against whom he harboured such animus may have been entirely within his cranium.
Some of them were probably passive aggressive.

In any case, the people sleeping on the sidewalks weren't it.
He had no beef with them, nor they with him.
Possibly unaware of each other.

The screamingly loopy are a fact of life here. The ones you really have to watch out for are drunks singing country music in karaoke bars. Size ten egos, size six brains, zero talent, and just about pulsating with attitude.

The karaoke joint was nearly empty when we passed by en route to hamburgers, but packed to the eaves with loud bodies an hour or so later when we headed that way. So we went to the back up joint, where my friend was greeted warmly by an ebulient fellow who recognized him from an alternate universe and miss Vivien put on the kettle for my tea before pouring out any more drinks. Other than the great good cheer from the visitor from other dimensions upon our arrival it was a mercifully calm and peaceful place.

My body disagrees, but I'm really only barely beyond my teenage years mentally. Just a bit more grumpy. And I'm bally outraged that massacring songs is allowed indoors (karaoke), but peacefully smoking one's pipe without offending anyone is frowned upon. Bad singers should be out on the street, but pleasant and equitable pipe smoking fellows should be inside where they won't be bad examples for impressionable kiddiewinkies, looking cool and distinguished. Unless you want them imitating us the moment they find out where briar and tobacco can be bought. Which we will happily tell them. With recommendations.


The snazzy looking pipe is an older Dunhill Bruyere billiard, the tobacco is a compound from Cornell & Diehl, red Virginias with a soupçon of Perique. There's a little age on it.
Trust me, young gentleman, the ladies will absolutely love it!
Or they would, if you could smoke around them.


You know, doctors used to smoke pipes, before they became hooked on cigarettes.
Which was during the fifties. Luckies and Camels.


I don't have any voices in my head.
They're all outside my body.


Good night.



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CONTRARY POINTS OF VIEW

Harshly he demanded "what are you doing here?" To which the glib response was "I am seeing a friend in the morgue". "What, a dead man?" "No." "Someone who works here?"
"No, a vampire." He could tell that this was going nowhere.

Several days later: "So you were there when he got shot, and yet you insist that you weren't a witness?" "Well, I was in the bathroom at the time." "You didn't see nothing at all, eh. How about before that?" "Bathroom." "After?" "Bathroom" "You were in there for twenty or thirty minutes?!?"

There were no witnesses. The bathroom had been crowded.

Urethral constriction refers to a narrowing of the urethra, the conduit through which urine passes from the bladder. It can cause difficulty urinating and other urinary problems. Among the possible causes are trauma from exercise, injuries, and surgical events, infections, minor (or major) inflammations, lesions, cancer and radiation therapy, and numerous medications. Plus, of course, an enlarged prostate such as is quite common among men after the age of fifty. Women don't get that. But either way, it does mean that casually taking a leak is quite out of the question; one needs a bathroom where one will not be disturbed, preferably one that is clean and well-lighted. The individual might do well to sit down, take his or her time, contemplate existence and read his e-mails. For up to half an hour.


I have taken to timing the old farts in the back, and giving them unsubtle hints ten to twenty minutes before I lock up. Because like the uncooperative witnesses in a bad teevee drama they dawdle and piss away the scant minutes at exactly that time of day when I have less time to spare and my minutes are tight.

IN LIEU OF AN ANATOMICAL DIAGRAM, A SEAL SCRIPT CHARACTER

I suspect several of them get up in the middle of the night, if they can remember, and slowly get distracted while reading their messages on their cellphones.
Or involved in long angry arguments.


Others probably go out into the backyard, and if they don't pick fights with the raccoons and coyotes it takes their kin several hours to find them the next day.

Try the morgue. He may be there.
Date night. Romantic.



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IRREPARABLE HARM

General Mark Miley's unsent resignation letter, June 2020.
I believe that this in fact the accurate full version.

He ultimately decided not to resign after the St. John's church idiocy.
And stayed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for 3 more years.


The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.

Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.

Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.

And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.


------Mark A Milley


United States Army General Mark A Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, September 30, 2019 to September 30, 2023




We once had good people in Washington. Actual patriots. Not opportunists who bounce wildly between sniveling and upsucking.



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SOCIAL ROT

It faintly drizzled yesterday afternoon, almost like fog made flesh. Returning down the slope from the laundry place the sky ahead was silver gloomy in hue, and the soft prickle of scant precipitation was palpable. Not worryingly so. My mood was a lot better than an hour before, but I still didn't feel like being human. Which is common on my first day off, after putting up with the vicious old trolls at work.

Neil asked me on Sunday afternoon, after listening to them and their senescent Nazi gibbering for a while, how I could stand it. It would drive him crazy. Um, what makes you think I'm more resilient? At this point I would like to take a flame thrower to the entire Republican Party.

What is becoming clear is how much the current administration is radicalizing the sane element in America. It's just a matter of time before a Tesla Cybertruck is torched with the driver inside. A sledgehammer is advisable, because those windows have strong glass.
Also, the sides are supposedly buller proof against light caliber ammo, up to a point.

That information is only meant advisorily and speculatively, because even though I am resolutely in favour of anti-fascist direct manifestation, I don't believe in pollutative acts.

I am, however, looking forward to the actions of Musk impacting the "self made" men with whom I come into regrettable contact when I'm in Marin. I will be there to pour salt on their wounds and viciously sneer at their pain. And lecture them on karma, bitches.

Because that will be the Christian thing to do.



They are over sixty percent water.
And fully compostible.



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I DON'T THINK PISSED REALLY COVERS IT

The following is reposted because I wholeheartedly agree with it. And I'm certain that everybody who is approaching retirement age does too. Unless they're republicans living in gated communities driving expensive cars, many of whom are financially secure because of a lifetime of questionable practises, or technoyuppies, corporate pimps, and dumb-ass chuckleheads in the red areas.

[REPOST BEGINS]

Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. Here's a response in a letter from PATTY MYERS in Montana ... I think she is a little ticked off! She also tells it like it is!

"Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight!!!

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (tit) for FIFTY YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and "your ilk" pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age, 67. NOW, you and your "shill commission" are proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now "you morons" propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because "you idiots" mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal our money from Medicare to pay the bills. 6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you "incompetent bxxxxds" spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bxxxxxxt" to your incompetence.


Well, Captain Bxxxxxxit, I have a few questions for YOU:

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bxxxxxxt, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcase thieves who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes and your job and retirement security at our expense, you lunk-headed, leech.

That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic, political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bxxxxx.

P.S. And stop calling Social Security benefits "entitlements". WHAT AN INSULT!!!!
I have been paying in to the SS system for 45 years “It's my money”-give it back to me the way the system was designed and stop patting yourself on the back like you are being generous by doling out these monthly checks .


[REPOST ENDS]

As an afterthought, I should mention that it's relatively easy to find out where your political representatives live, as well as how to make incendiary devices, and thanks to the ARA guns are widely available too. And older people, such as the American citizens getting screwed by elected representatives bankrupting the system, have comparitively less to loose.

Just remember, add a gelling agent to the gasoline to make it stick and perform better, and phosphorus to make it burn through to the bone.




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CONSIDERING LUNCH: IT SMELLS

Sometimes it's hard to remember that unlike our own balmy weather here, much of the rest of the country is a wintry hellscape straight out of ragnarok. Positively Breughelian. Today it will be sixty degrees or thereabouts in San Francisco. In fly-over territories it will be so cold that they'll kill the family bison and crawl inside for warmth. People will slaughter municipal snowplows for combustible whale oil. Little kiddiewinkies will cluster around their overweight mothers and suck out all of her body heat. Family pets will eat deceased grandpa because they are starving, starving, starving .....

I've never been to Milwaukee, but that's how I fondly imagine it.

It's so cold that Ted Cruz has flown to Cancún.

Where it's mid eighties.


Imagine America's favourite Texan luxuriously smearing sunscreen over his pallid flesh, getting the unguent deep into the pores and creases around the scales lest he develop spiderweb-like sunburns. Become all crackly.

My second cup of coffee is infecting my brain. There are Chinese-speaking working men in the garden next door scraping and chipping away at old paint. Distantly a police siren rises and fades. And now that my apartment has left for work -- she has a normal schedule unlike myself -- with her bedroom door shut and windows open I can smoke my pipe indoors.

Yesterday someone brought up classic pipe tobaccos such as were common in the early fifties, such as John Middleton's Sugar Barrel, a Burley forward blend with some Virginias and a "subtle" molasses topping, or Rum & Maple, plus things like Carter Hall, which is now made in the Dominican Republic of all places, even Lorrilard's Briggs Mixture, a simple slightly topped mostly Burley mixture.

That was the day when American men at least pretended to be civilized: sportscoats and clean shirts, polished shoes, sometimes ties. A pipe, a new station wagon visible in their driveway through the picture window, and neatly combed hair.

They smoked a pipe to drown out the smell of their perky aproned wives in the kitchen cooking up a wholesome meal of tuna pineapple casserole with canned stringbeans.
Or similar nutritious good housekeeping dishes, modern dining at its best.

Neither his nor my mother were good cooks.
I mention this in passing.

Nowadays such strategems are not needed, as vegan cuisine usually contains nothing olfactorily offensive. Nothing at all. No garlic, no shrimp paste, certainly no gluten.


I still smoke a pipe because I'm a dinosaur.



Fine Virginia with a touch of Perique whiffs of carotenoids, plus benzene, arsenic, phenylacetic acid ethylester, alcohols, aldehydes, esters, and terpenoids.
Faintly fruity. A discreet fragrance. Old school stealth tobacco.
Some manufacturers add subtle tweaks.



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AFTER A LONG DAY OF LISTENING TO UNPLEASANT OLD MEN

Sometimes I stumble upon a rabbit hole. It's like I'm galloping along on the high plains of the American outback when my steed pits his foot, left or right front, in a declivity and wobbles to regain his balance lest he be shot for breaking his leg. A whinied"oh crap" escapes his lips.

I came across a word that I just had to look up. The shape sent me on several wild goose chases, seeing as it wasn't under moon (月), flesh (肉), or boat (舟), which had all been suggested by the painted form as possible dictionary sections. Twenty strokes total.

Turns out it was under the horse radical (馬).

騰 To gallop, to prance. To soar, to rush with energy as horses do. To clear out or vacate, to absquatulate with all due speed. Indicative of repeated or repetitive actions.


Moon is four strokes, flesh is six. Normally the radical on the left indicates the section, but given that the meaning is horse-related, that is a more logical basket for the character

.In the seal-script version of 騰 ('tang') shown above, the boat is recognizably the leftmost component.

What, you might ask, was it that led me on that journey? Scoping out the calligraphy of 鄧石如 ('tang sek yu'), a scholar from two centuries ago famous for his mastery of the ancient scripts and his elegant and commanding renditions thereof.

His works bring infinite pleasure.



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IS NOTHING SACRED?

Yesterday evening I got booted and blocked from one of the pipesmoking groups for making a snarky comment. The administrator that booted and blocked me is, I believe, considerably younger than me. And may have been at his last straw.

Seeing as it was my first contribution in years, you can imagine how hurt I am by his decisive action. On a scale of one to ten, zero. I'm not a hip guy.


The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven.
Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. Where can you go from there? Where? Put it up to eleven. One louder. The scale goes to eleven.


Zero.

There is only one pipesmoking group where I'm an active participant.

All in all, I'm not a very groupish person.

And rather a jerk.



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LIKE THE EXAMPLE OF GANDHI

The way things are going in this country it looks increasingly likely that people will be using Molotovs, bricks, and baseball bats, for peaceful demonstrations by early summer. Comrade Krasnov may find that his goons are not the captains America they think they are. But I shall NOT be protesting. In fact, I shall endeavor to be far distant from events. For several reasons.
I am first and foremost a man of peace, a veritable Mahatma Gandhi, and I already know how to manufacture salt at the seashore. Also, the circulation in my legs is that bloody poor that I couldn't possibly run around the downtown screaming. Lastly, I really don't care if the flyovers can't buy eggs, can't sell their excess corn, can't get necessary treatment or social services, don't get vaccinations or real science based medical advice, and are filled with unemployed people who are Trump lifers but lost their federal jobs anyway.

Also, by that time bird flu will probably be circulating among the general populace.
Plus I just don't trust my fellow humans worth spit. I've seen what they're like.

[There is also HKU5-CoV-2, but that's scheduled for Autumn.]

I shall probably be in a quiet area smoking my pipe, contemplating the writtings of Heidegger and Witgenstein, and considering having a nice cup of HK milk tea later.
Heidegger and Witgenstein were foreigners.
You know, those people.

Far be it from me to discourage other folks, however. If they think that burning everything down is the right thing to do under the circumstances, well good for them! Their perspectives are different, they aren't veritable Mahatma Ghandis, and they should get in touch with their feelings. Incendiary devices can be either artistic expression, or free speech.

Om mane padme om. Peace, love, and butterflies.

Community bonfires may be just what we need. And there's so very much that is combustibe. Why, I can think of any number of targets, and find the use of gelling agents and phosphorus in gasoline a fascinating subject. They ought to teach classes about that in school! Along with punji sticks and bear traps. I applaud the creativity and inventivity of my fellow Americans (for peaceful purposes). Again, I mention butterflies. And wildflowers!

Americans are a scientifically curious lot. When faced with, purely hypothetically of course, the question "can down this shitcan burn?" they will naturally exclaim "let's find out!"
While swilling a Coors.

In Spring, young men's fancies turn to intellectual pursuits.


Warmth, love, and kindness, will prevail.


I am strongly in favour of freedoms, love, and butterflies!

Please remember that as previously mentioned I am a peaceful man.
Indeed, a veritable friggin' Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Just bucketloads better smelling than he was.
Dirty old man in a bedsheet.




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