Suckers: My Twain Inspired Rant

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure – it was P.T. Barnum who said “there's a sucker born every minute” but Mark Twain had a few pithy things to say on the subject of chumps as well.

 In these heinous, last, fingers crossed, Trumpian days, it seems as though America has the highest number of rubes per capita.

When the rich rob the poor it’s called business. When the poor fight back it’s called violence.

White collar theft/violence is when the Trump/McConnell horror-show beast lowers taxes on the rich while slashing food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance and other programs that we peasants rely on.

White collar theft/violence is when pResident Birdshit tweets that four Congresswomen who rock a darker shade of flesh tone should “go back” to “the crime-infested places from which they came.”

All four women are American citizens, and three of the four were born in the United States (Omar was born in Somalia, and became a US citizen in 2000). (source)

White collar theft/violence is charging insanely exorbitant, leg-breaker prices for insulin and other common, mega necessary meds when they cost a pittance to manufacture.

Back in 1996, when Eli Lilly's Humalog first came out, the price for a 1-month supply of insulin was $21. As of 2001, that exact vial's price increased by $14 to $35. Now, in 2019, that vial is said to be around $275. That is a 1200% increase on the original price (source)

~~~~

A 2018 study estimated that one vial of human insulin costs $2.28-$3.42 to produce, and one vial of analog insulin costs $3.69-$6.16 to produce. The study revealed that a year’s supply of human insulin could cost $48-$71 per patient, and analog insulin could cost $78-$133 per patient per year.

The study measured the manufacturing cost only. It did not include administrative fees, sales, and research and development for improving medications. However, insulin manufacturers have not provided an adequate explanation for this large discrepancy between production costs and retail costs. (source)

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress but I repeat myself.

Suppose you were Lindsey Graham or Poodle Head Paul or that slimy dweeb Tom Cotton or the rest of those midget dicked lapdogs for the Tangerine Treasonweasel?

It’s easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled.

See Trump Suckers AKA Cult45ers.

Why anyone would’ve voted for the Peach Puke once, let alone twice astounds me. To me and every other sane, intelligent being, he’s a pathetically transparent, cheap ass carny grifter (and, Sweeties, I’ve first hand knowledge of that type). A simple review of prez shit-for-brains pre-2016 CV should’ve been all anyone needed to see.

• SIX bankruptcies,
• Myriad sexual abuse accusations 
• A rock solid history of stiffing his workers 
• The cruelty, collusion, crimes and more

And now 227,697 people are dead due to his utter incompetence but his cult will still vote for him. Hopefully his handmaidens, Billy Barr, Beer Kavanaugh and Covid Barrett won’t succeed in stealing him another four years of golfing, tweeting and destroying democracy.

Parts

I woke from a beautiful dream. I was standing on a small airfield with Obama, Biden and Bill Clinton. They were just goofing around, joking, laughing, being all chill and fun.  Dunno what they were talking about but great vibes radiated off them. That was the dream. I woke in such a good mood.

My head, by the by, looks like a road map now. I don’t have a part in my hair – no, I have parts. Plural. Many. That and my twisted mouth is starting to resemble the wriggles of the Amazon River. Why? Nerve damage from one of my 50 bazillion brain surgeries. Unlike Maria in West Side Story, I don’t feel pretty. Not this morning anyway.

I think a tiara would help. Ya know, everyone oughta have one. 

Tomorrow I’ll go in to see my bean surgeon (Doc Barker) to talk about the risks involved with another slice-age. Being part of the clinical trials for the new drug treatment (INTUITT-Nf2) is not fully off the table but it’s looking mighty dubious.  

The current, seizure sparking meningioma is much, MUCH smaller than the one he excavated this past January BUT size isn’t the only danger determining factor. Placement, is key.

Reptilicus, (a fine name for a tumor don'cha think?), that fucker, is draped right smack dab over my motor cortex. I’m guessing this means that paralysis from the neck down is in play. Big fun. At this point, I’m still under the assumption that we can hold off on giving me yet another part until spring, when I’ll have achieved recovery from the last two big-ass slice ups.

Given this and the upcoming do or die election (literally, if not immediately), I’m so stressed that I’m actually considering reading a Jackie Collins tome (fap books for unimaginative, makeup beclowned sorority sisters). Ok, I’ve never actually read anything of hers but Hollywood Wives? Sounds sordid as hell AND, like all the wives are mansion/big-diamond wealthy. You know what that means? Yes, I cheer for high body counts.

Oh wait, maybe Collins isn’t writing murder mysteries? Also, there probably aren’t any vampires, werewolves or vile demon kings either. Nertz. I suppose it’s back to Laurell Hamilton, though she’s more horror (with horror sex, i.e. S&M) to match. //shudder// Why do I think of these two author’s works if I’m not into the onanistic aspect?

I’m looking for cheezy escapism, not deep character development, not existential conundrums or swirling, relevatory epiphanies – fuck no. Cheeze is good, it’s fun. Fun is good. Need cheeze.

Charlaine Harris (of the famed Sookie Stackhouse series) has long been my go-to, guilty pleasure, escapism author BUT her latest offering, (just out this month,) is listed as “on order” by the Thomas Crane so I gotta wait.

A library website feature that I just discovered is their New Fiction page. Book covers scroll by – click on whatever appeals and you get the story synopsis. Pretty damn cool AND easier for me than standing in the stacks, climbing ladders or crawling along the floor to see the bottom shelf.

I thought, in order to take books out during these no-patrons-admitted-for-browsing plague times, I’d have to know exactly what I want (they bring reserved books out to the car). Well yes, I DO need to know and order in advance BUT I can now peruse cover art and read story summaries online! WAY cool!

I just found a GOTTA-check-out – Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by David Wong. I’ve not read him before but it sounds right up my ally

Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes. A young woman suddenly in charge of the most decadent city in the world--and her very smelly cat. (source)

Cats and a chick in charge – what’s not to love? Also, taking it out of the library means it’s free, free, FREE. Free is good.

We're in for nasty weather

How is it only Tuesday and why are there still seven more long days until the election?

I’m expecting each day to be more of an utter shitshow than the one before and doubt I'll be disappointed.

Despite rotting before our very eyes. Wrinkly Gamera (Shower Cap’s tag for Moscow Mitch) is still somehow able to carry on with his democracy destruction. He continues to pack the courts with incompetent rightwing whackaloons whose sole purpose is to return the U.S. to the good old days. Ya know, before women could vote or have ANY financial or physical autonomy; a time when LBGT folk needed to live in deep, dark closets because their love was deemed heinously wrong by a bunch of craptacularly hypocritical, bigoted Mr./Mrs. Kravitz types. MM and his team of craven shitheels miss the fine times when wearing a white robe and pointy hood was a smart fashion statement versus a billboard, advertising a desperately limited and diseased mind. 

The Republi/Facist goons are nostalgic for when they could easily be no more than milquetoasty mediocre and/or cravenly criminal and STILL rule the roost.

What’s that you say? But, but Amy Covid Barrett’s a woman – she’s been voted onto the highest court in the land (a lifetime appointment!) by Republicans. She's got a vagina so we're all good, right? 

WRONG-O, mes amis. For the Party of Predjudice, women and POC are no more than show pieces. They’re flags to fly to “prove” they're rilly, truly not a barbarous, dimwitted group of bullying asshats who’re trying to role back progress to the 1850s. HONEST!

Nice try fuckheads but I ain't buying yur half baked horseshit.

Covid Barrett’s just a useful idiot, tool like Phyllis Schlafly, Crazy Eyes Bachmann or the Abominable Snowbilly, Sarah Palin. Barrett’s nothing more than window dressing to gull and comfort the rubes. Ya know, the sort who start a sentence with “I’m all for equal rights BUT…”

Yeah, we're in for nasty weather.

Enough of all this though.

Ten’s seventh grandchild was born at 4:38 this morning. Abigail Rose is healthy as all hell and we look forward to meeting her. Ten’s son Jaxon and daughter-in-law Denise are frazzled and exhausted but happy.

When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

Nothing compares to becoming aware of the massive face of the universe hidden in a newborn’s stare.
~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

The most ironic thing in the world is having no say when your name is determined for the first time (which is also for the last time for most), because newborns are not necessarily known for speaking their minds.
~ Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy

If Chuck or Lu had just asked me (and I was able to articulate), I would’ve opted for Ruby Ocean or Ruby Reptilicus. Either one woulda been all groovy and shit.

When the Rain Comes

I’m feeling all rumbly, tumbly jumbled this morning. Warum? Eh, same reason as every other mostly sane creature in the US – I’m so, SO tired of all the lies, hyper hysteria and nutzoid gaslighting. I’m beyond sick of the Republi/Fascist tiny dicked theft of democracy FOR ALL (versus just for the micro-schwanzed rich, white men). Make no bloody mistake, 45 is just the overly cosmetic-ed head of the hate monster party that’s killing this country. And I’ll stop that rant, right fucking there.

We’ve got EIGHT days until November third. No, I don’t think we’ll know what’s what, who won, on that night OR by the next morning. Still, we will have hit the mark. I gotta stop obsessing over the polls and cease with the we’re-all-gonna-fucking-die (‘cept for the 1%-ers) bullshit. We won’t know the score on 11/3 but it’s likely that shit’s gonna get even more crazy-headed, no matter what. I need to beat the rush and start attempting calm and chill NOW.

Meanwhile, Plague45 gets worse every damn day. In Massachusetts, yesterday alone, there were 1,077 new cases, 25 fresh deaths and 538 people needing to be hospitalized – thanks to Prez Giant Orange Maggot and his mentally unhinged, renfieldian Republi/Fascist sycophants.

The states in the worst shape now are North and South Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin but the Midwest, in general, is on fire too.

Idiot lap dog, Dense Pence, says he "couldn't be more proud” of how Prez Shambling Superspreader handled COVID, even as his own staff is now riddled with it. Supposedly Mother’s boy doesn’t have it…YET. Also, Mark Meadows, the WH chief of morons says they’ve given up on trying to “control” the virus. 

Question – when did they ever put forth ANY effort to control it at all?

All this and, in tomorrow’s online PT session, I need to request some kind of an organized schedule. I have a list of all the exercises that I should be doing (on top of my walking and ellipticaling) but I have a nasty habit of overdoing it. (yes, yez, why do when I can overdo?)  I'll have a great exercise day, feel Almost “normal” (as close as I ever get) and then, in the next day or two, I’m back to popping Tylenol like Pez, sparking up the heating pad and lying in bed with Coco draped over my chest and neck. I'm two and a half months post-op — shouldn't I be ALL better now?

I could PROBABLY put together my own schedge but doesn’t it make oodles of sense for a pro physical therapist to do it? Ya know?

AND, Ten just zipped out to the grocery to see if he can score me some Oreos. Why? Apart from the fact that I, just generally, enjoy the damn things, they have a new magnificently awesome commercial up. Some ratfucking, religo/fascist, asswipian, “christian,” twat group is raising a ruckus. Of course they are – birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, assholes gotta asshole.

 By the by, I found the Oreo story and the cat quarantine comic via Infidel753’s latest link round-up (Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week). I LURV this feature on his blog! He introduces me to so much interesting, weird, funny stuff that I wouldn’t otherwise see.

OK, I gotta get up and out for a walk before the rain comes.

No Rest for the Wicked

No sleep at any rate. 

And when I say "wicked" I am, OBVS, using it in the Bostonian manner. Ya know, where it's synonymous with "way cool."

Wicked can also used as an adverb. As in, Preznint Cockwomble von Shit-fer-Brains and his sycophantic Republi-Fascist party are wicked evil.

Similar modifiers? Very, exceedingly, monstro or hella.

WHY no communion with Hypnos? Beats the fuck oughta me. Given the banjaxed state of the world, it'd be more of a stunner if I could manage regular, peaceful slumber. n'est-ce pas and shit?

And while we're sorta, kinda on the subject of slang, (we were, weren't we? I coulda sworn...), I fully realize that my slang slinging is hopelessly dated. OF COURSE it is! I'm 62 and have been deaf for 16 years. I have precious (or wicked) little contact with the kids (defined as anyone 40 or younger) so I’m woefully out of touch with the new, hip lexemes. AND even if I was immediately hip to the hot, new patter I'd be loathe to use it. I'd look like one of those past-my-sell-by-date, trying-too-damn-hard-to-be-relevant, idiots like Ted Cruz who, when running against Beto O'Rourke, had a vid made of himself skateboarding. It went about as well as you might expect – badly.

Embarassingly so.

What new, (new to me anyway), slang terms/phrases do I avoid like Plague45?

Woke 

According to Wikipedia:

Woke is a political term originating in the United States referring to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It derives from the African-American Vernacular English expression "stay woke," whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.

Alternatively, Urban Dictionary defines it as:

The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue. 

When I've seen this word used it's generally been by condescending, oblivious, I'm-SO-hip-and-superior, white BernieBros types.  Yeah, //shudder//

Stan

According to Oxford Languages this can be either a noun or a verb:

noun: an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity."Aretha has millions of stans who think of her as the goddess of soul."







verb: to be an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity."you know I stan for Jeff Beck so I was super psyched to score tickets to his gig at the Orpheum."


The Urban Dictionary tells me the term references the Eminem song Stan. The tune is about an intensely zealos fan (named Stan) who writes letters to Eminem which go unanswered. The dude ends up driving off a bridge (with pregnant wife), because he's a nut. It's a portmanteau of the words stalker and fan.

In the instances where I've seen the word employed, it's always been in a much less, presumably, psycho manner. I'd like to avoid any confusion so, while I'm wild about Kamala Harris, I will not refer to myself as a Kamala stan.

Throw shade

To throw shade is to publicly criticize or express contempt for someone.

 Or just shade which, according to Merriam Webster means:

a subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone—sometimes verbal, and sometimes not.

I get the sense that shade and throwing shade is stylistically closer to Dorothy Parker, who's brill shade includes:

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
“Their pooled emotions wouldn’t fill a teaspoon."

versus a common Cruz or Trump.

I may throw shade (OK, I certainly do and on a near daily basis because I'm all petty like that) but I don't use the term ('cept for just now). Why not? Eh, I'm more at home with older slang AND I have no need to be seen all au courant, wildly with it and, linguistically speaking, cutting edge. 

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

~ Carl Sandburg

Be Prepared

It appears that Yertle the Diseased Turtle (AKA Moscow Mitch) is putrefying before our very eyes. Naturally, the justice jilting and democracy killing Russian asset says he “has no health concerns.” Boy howdy, if MY hands looked like rotted, oozing eggplants and my kisser appeared as though someone had sucker punched ME (ooooo, that ain’t  healing well), I believe I’D sure as shit have some “health concerns.”

Hello? Karma? Nice job, man!

I’ve been rereading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. 

 Why? Am I about to kick off some major hostilities? Nope. 

Am I anticipating huge, violent, loose turds to hit the fan when Diarrheal Diaper Don loses AND the Senate turns blue? I believe, even here in blue, blue Massachusetts, it’s a possibility. Of course it is – there are asswipian, rabid squirrel brains everywhere. Better to be prepared, to have survival strategies ahead of time than to be caught with yur knickers at yur knees, eh?

The other reason for rereading Sun Tzu is that his lessons on war can be applied to everyday life.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Do you know who you are? What your strengths and weaknesses are? Do you understand the person/org/whatev who is currently your antagonist? How does this entity handle adversity? In times of stress or trouble. How do they typically behave?

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Why fight, why risk life, limb and sanity when you can negotiate, dance, finesse and beguile.

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

Sometimes my enemy is my own damn self. Yup. Over this past year, depression has loomed large. I mean, honest to fuck mes amis, I’ve had:

• TWO big ass neuro surgeries, with a third in the pipeline.
• TWO ambulance and hospital-stay seizures.
• My ongoing bullshit eye issues.
• Plague45 has made everything more difficult, dangerous (on top of needlessly killing 224,000 Americans!) and has, more or less, made me housebound (and 10 pounds chubbier).
• The Orange Menace has become more desperately unhinged every single damn day. He continues to incite his fanbois to violence for which he, of course, denies all responsibility.
• His likeminded, soulless, sycophantic Republi/Fascist Party continues to lie, cheat and steal from the very citizens who elected them.
  

So then, there are times when I shake off how weak I’m feeling and don my titanium cloak of humor and fuck-that-shit-Imma-win-this-battle-EASY in order to make it through and sometimes just to get out of bed. I gotta appear to be strong to my own damn self.

This generally works as I’m such a hopeless sucker for my own sparkly dog and pony show.

Why appear weak when you’re not? Goodness…to bamboozle and gull the would be predators, my dearies.

To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.

Know how they think, study their actions, their behaviors. Be prepared. I don’t know how my Republi/Fascist neighbors will react when their hero, the drug addled Tangerine Toddler AND his Senate go down in flames. I will, at the least, avoid walking past their homes on my daily rambles.

By the by, I still want my money back on 2020. It is NOT functioning as advertised. Dammit!

Mr. Big Stuff

No, I most certainly did not watch the debate. Life’s way too short to spend even a brief flash of my time witnessing the fascist fuck’s lies, obfuscations and general assaults on reality.

Variety’s take is fabulously written, witty and to the point and I LOVE the title:

Donald Trump Behaved in the Second Debate, Which Gave Joe Biden the Chance to Destroy Him

In a way, tonight’s debate actually was a fine presidential debate, because it laid bare a truly coherent clash of visions: the vision of someone who wants to use government to help people, and is full of fire-tested ideas to do it, and the vision of someone who doesn’t. (source)

At the end the FPMOTUS* showed us, once again, how much she detests her bloated and flaccid, rabid orange, dumpster fire of a John.

*First Porn Model of the United States. Ya know, that acronym doesn’t flow as nicely as FLOTUS. It lacks weight and dignity. I’m glad we can retire it soon (though not soon enough).

There should, and probably will, be a Best Of compilation of all the times she’s publicly dissed him. To be clear, both of them are repulsive, rapacious, vainglorious, empathy devoid, racist as all hell, entitled doody heads. They more than deserve each other.

Apparently his kink is being publicly humiliated. Hers is passive aggressive, supercilious domination. Whatever trips your tiny, two-bit, gold-plated triggers, chums but please take it off the international stage.

God, if she/he exists RILLY fucked up with the creation of us human types. For starters, the deal with breathing and heartbeats being necessary for continued existence? Sure. Good. I get it but WHY was empathy not included on this list?

If I did the creating action, shit would be way different. For a start, can’t walk a mile in another’s Chucks? Dude/dudette, caring about/for your fellow humans is one of them serious life essentials. Don’t have it in ya? Sorry/not sorry, you don’t have what’s needed in order to share this spinning blue planet with ants let alone your fellow humans.

Elephants, dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, your dog and my damn cat all have a more evolved sense of decency than a sadly significant number of humans. What the ever-lovin' fuck and shit?!

Also too, narcissism SHOULD be a terminal, life-support-ain’t-gonna-help-your-ugly-brained-ass condition. It’d be like cancer only not so desperately sad or scary because, RILLY now, narcissists? Fuck those nasty-ass, egomaniacal twats. The world is far better off without them. Now then, to be all charitable and shit, if I was in charge, narcissism could be curable if caught early enough. Age five, fer instance.

Jean Knight – Who do you think you are, Mr. Big Stuff

Word Time Traveling

Hillel just turned me on to a VERY cool site – Merriam Webster’s Time Traveler.

When was a word first used in print? You may be surprised! Enter a date below to see the words first recorded on that year.

Like a TARDIS only for words. Neato keen, eh?

Just fer instance, the year I was born was the first time acetaminophen appeared. Huh. According to the American Chemical Society:

It was first prepared by H. N. Morse in 1878. Although many studies on its use as an analgesic were performed, it wasn’t until 1950 that it was marketed under the name Triagesic. Today, its most common trade names are Tylenol ...

But acetaminophen didn’t appear in print until ’58. OK but, seeing as it was a med ingredient for over 70 years, why not?

This hit home this morning because I’m just about outta Tylenol. At peak pain, my first month home from MGH, I was downing 4,000 mg a day.

Since spine surgery, I’ve burned through a bottle and a half of this shit. Yeah, I had a ‘script for oxycodone – a supposedly super duper but highly addictive, opioid pain reliever but, guess what? It didn’t do a damn thing for me. What the actual fuck? I thought, at first, “oxycodone –cool. I’ll pop a couple of those babies and glide through this recovery.” Nope. What's the deal? Am I impervious to addictive shit? (and that's NOT to say that I'm looking to be addicted, fer fuck's sake. I was just looking forward to a trippy, easier convalescence)

At least now, if I take acetaminophen at all, I’m down to one or two G’s worth per day, max. Also too, when the pain hits it’s WAY less extreme – even post walkies, PT exercise and painting. I’m two and a half months post slice-age and finally beginning to feel and move ALMOST like normal again.

Between January’s bean surgery and August’s spine action, it seems all I’ve done this year is work on regaining strength and flexibility – ya know, building up more of that good vibrancy shit. That and I'm dodging possible Plague45 spreaders.

Back to words though – the year Jen was born, 1970 (yeah, she’s just a kid), was the first time the phrase “bad hair day” was seen in print. Given the usual state of my mop, that shoulda come out in '58.

Oni was born in 1967 which is when ibuprofen hit the dictionary. Also, psychedelia which is pretty groovy and shit. 

Ten was born in 1955. The term acid precipitation came into being that year. The fuck’s that shit? Are we talking about showers of Windowpane? Floods of Microdot? Mellow Yellow downpours? 

Nope. Acid precipitation is precipitation (such as rain or snow) having increased acidity caused by environmental factors (such as atmospheric pollutants).

In other news, our boy Umlaut brought a friend over for breakfast the other morning. Jen refers to our new visitor as Girlfriend and she's a stone cutie-pie. It's become clear to us over the years, that Umlaut is def het so this gorgeous babe is, we presume, his new squeeze.

What word came into being the year you were born?