It’s A Far Different World From When I Entered It

Things were far simpler in 1936, when I first experienced life. Next January, I turn eighty and each day I seem to understand less and less about the world I am now living in.

THE LEAST INCOMPETENT

We have two snake-oil salesmen leading the race to be the GOP candidate for the Presidency. One is a blustery, loud-mouthed white man, who has yet to propose a workable plan to “Make America Great Again.”  He doesn’t quite tell lies, but has perfected the innuendo style of speaking used by Richard Milhous Nixon.

That style can best be described as, “I’m not saying that my opponent is a (liar, thief, crook, dishonest, incompetent), that’s for you to decide,” statements.

The second is a soft-spoken Black man, who embellishes (or creates) tales of his wayward youth, and how he was resurrected while sitting in the bathroom after one of his misdeeds. He hasn’t exactly told the media, “You are looking for any wrong doings because I am a successful neurosurgeon of color,” and seems to be a bit more subtle in his Nixon-like campaign direction.

THE TRUSTWORTHIEST

On the Democratic side, we have a kindly, honest, fireball of a Jewish grandfather running against William Jefferson Blythe III’s wife Hillary. Some women are supporting her because she is a woman, and they say this country needs a woman President to inspire young girls to have higher goals and rise above the secretarial pool. Isn’t that what Carly did, or said that she had done? There’s a hesitancy to believe anything a politician says.

When Tuesday, November 8, 2016 arrives and I vote for the President, I will once again be forced to decide which candidate from which party, will do the least amount of damage to my country and me over the next four years.

I am fortunate enough to have safe havens to move to if the “wrong” person is elected President, thanks to my wife. She’s not only a citizen of the United States, but also of Canada where she lived for thirty-six years, and of Spain where she was born. We can either move north and be “owt and abowt,” or be “muy contento” in España, as long as there isn’t another Inquisition.

Political cartoonists will also face a difficult adjustment figuring out to incorporate the elected candidate’s ears, hair, facial coloring, pantsuit, or other attire, to incorporate within their renderings.

IS IT NEWS, OR ‘NU?’

When it comes to television news, I have had a great deal of trouble listening to Obama over his two terms as he vacillates when he talks the talk, without walking the walk. If anyone but Bernie is elected, I will have to figure out how to use the time I will gain by not watching any television news over the next four years. If someone spends an average of only thirty-minutes a day watching any and all television news programs, that would total 43,920 minutes over the next President’s four-year term, or 732 hours of time.

If I gave up watching all television news for those four years, I would have ample time to write a novel, or to write more blog posts kvetching about what’s going on in the world, and wondering if anyone is reading what I have to say.

Incidentally, has anyone read this?

THOSE WHO CAN’T 
REMEMBER THE PAST

Would you vote for a candidate for the Presidency, whose political resume included less than eight years serving in his state’s legislature?  What if he had been a U.S. Senator for little more than three years, when he sought his party’s nomination to be their candidate for President? What if he had no real experience as a Governor or another such elected position, to show that he could actually govern and lead the United States during troubled times? What if his Father had been born in another land? 

Moron Post Debate Activity

On Friday, September 18^th, these thoughts were posted about the September 16 debates and the three entities involved in the election process; the politicians, the press, and the public.

Within a few days after, some elements of each entity were once again able to display their ignorance and ineptitude.

POLITICIANS who need to be muzzled.

Fellow Detroiter Benjamin Solomon Carson told host Chuck Todd on today’s Meet the Press, that, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Carson’s wise statement tried to play to the Trump card and matched the unbiased intellect of the GOP poll leader. A few days earlier, Trump was confronted at a New Hampshire town hall meeting by a man who said, ‘We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. We know he’s not even an American. Birth certificate, man!”

He continued, “We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”

Trump again displayed his leadership, responding with a precise, Presidential-like reply,  “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things. And a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”

With a whiff of innuendo, on Sunday, Trump spoke on NBC and reiterated what Carson had said, stating that a Muslim in the White House is “something that could happen. Some people have said it already happened, frankly.”  That deflection is reminiscent of a former great GOP President’s ways, before Nixon was forced to resign from office.

Not satisfied with trying to lose the Muslim vote, John Kasich wanted to help Trump win the Hispanic electorate over to the GOP, when he spoke at the Shady Canyon Golf Club in Irvine, California. In his awkward way, Kasich made an attempt to show what pobrecitos had contributed to our economy, by blurting out, "A lot of them do jobs that they're willing to do and, uh, that's why in the hotel you leave a little tip,"

Hillary used the GOP verbal missteps to appeal to the Latino community, sending out a tweet in Español, calling Kasich “another product of the Party of Trump.”

THE PRESS should be muffled.                                                                                                                
The same Chuck Todd mentioned earlier, joined many broadcast media professionals  (and their semi-pro cohorts), when he ran to his cliché book and said that after the debate, ‘The air may have been let out of Trump’s balloon.” That balloon has been filled with both Trump’s hot air, as well as the media’s proclivity to Pump Trump up.

Dana Bash, a CNN journalist, joined others of her ilk, by repeatedly describing the GOP opposition likely to be some woman running for the Democratic nomination. She, and others, have an aversion to saying “Bernie Sanders” name, unless they add that he’s a Socialist, emphasizing the “S” word as being his primary qualification.

If you’d like to see more balanced coverage of the candidates during Election 2016, turn to TIME magazine, which not only put Bernie on the cover of its September 28 issue, but also devoted seven pages to an honest story on the man.

SOME PEOPLE should be muzzled and muffled.                                                                                
Take another look at the very negative, anti-Muslim proclamations coming from one of the GOP supporters that went unchallenged by a candidate with a hairy disposition.

Thankfully, that was counter-balanced by the wise observations of a Northern California GOP woman who is a Carly Fiorina supporter. When asked by a reporter, the woman brilliantly responded after watching Carly match her wits against her ten male opponents on the platform.  ”A lot of men seem to like Trump, but when Carly stuck it to The Donald on women — a whoop went up in the crowd.”

She knew the real reason why Carly did so well, “I knew Carly was ready to rock when she appeared wearing a suit of ‘Thatcher blue,’ and she began immediately to channel her inner Maggie.”

Stay tuned to this channel and the mainstream media for more farcical and sometimes misleading comments. Remember, there are less than fourteen months to go before you’ll have to decide which Presidential candidate to vote for. It may likely be the one you believe will do the least amount of harm to our country, while in office.