There is nothing inspiring about the Trump presidency

 The dismal 2nd term continues.  I honestly thought Marco Rubio was a decent choice for Secretary of State but he's turned into a dick.  He's boasting he revoked 300 Visas of foreign students who have engaged in pro-Palestinian protests on campus.  Actually it may be more he lost count.  He says those coming here from abroad to colleges and universities are here to study and learn and to earn a degree.  Has he never heard of intercollegiate sports?  The Vietnam War protests?  Thou Shalt Not Criticize Israel.  Rubio somehow conflates condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza with support for Hamas.  Expect more judicial spanking.  Meanwhile RFK Jr. in his mission to make America healthy again has cut about 10,000 jobs from his own agency.  So where are all the Fruit Loops cops gonna come from?  On the Greenland front Trump is now making almost daily veiled threats against the island nation.  Denmark is not amused.

You can't make this shit up.

Maybe next time add a Houthi to a group chat?

 Maybe someday you'll be able to get Yemen war plans on your Smart TV.  If I was new to blogging struggling to come up with a name during the early days of the 2nd Trump Administration it would have just hit me in the shower,

You Can't Make This Shit Up

Meanwhile JD Vance is going to join his wife Usha in Greenland for a creepy visit upcoming. See the sights dine on whatever Greenlanders eat and exert some pressure.  A kind of friendly Mafioso sitdown.  Is  Musk going to abolish the DMV?  The dismantled DOE workers where do they wind up slicing deli meats?  I get the OAN channel crystal clear in these parts and some nights host Riley Lewis looks like he's going to uncork one.  The erstwhile sensible National Review is all MAGA now.  Lonely.  Maybe I'll go smoke a pipe with Mitch McConnell. 

You know it would all make sense if I was involved in a horrible car accident and wound up in a comatose state and this was all a bad dream.  The Orange Man is real though.  It'll all be over in 3 years and 10 months if we have a country left.

Will probably go down as the weirdest Administration in U.S. history

 At the risk of making a low-effort post scanning the newsfeeds this morning and it's hard to make a coherent post about Trump because his actions are incoherent.  Do you want to spend an extra 12K for a new car?  Would Kamala Harris have pushed us into a recession?  Meanwhile Bibi has cut off all food, supplies and electricity into Gaza (again) but Trump wants to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech on campus instead.

If Biden truly was the worst president in U.S. history as Trump says Trump seems to be vying for the #2 spot.

Government by executive order

 Trump's executive orders continue at a dizzying pace.  Covers all situations and issues great and small.  Might issue an order stating SNL should go off the air.  Trump operating in this make-believe monarchical framework of his.

Reading A LOT about ICE raids.  One news item said they went into some Chicago elementary school later amended to oh no that was the Secret Service.  What would either of them be doing at a grade school?  Is Trump planning a visit?  Did some student write an anti-Trump essay?

Not getting the TikTok ban temporarily on hold.  Has to do with data mining by the Chinese government.   So the Chinese government peers into my boring life and today learns I plan on cleaning the attic.  Not sure how this violates the national security though but I'm not as bright as the smarty-pants over at the National Review.  YouTube is funny.  Watched some attic ladder installation videos last night.  One said so easy a 10-year old could do it all you need is a drill a saw and a couple of other things then you'll see some false comment like "thanks Frank the Handyman I did it."

I'm just a rambling man;)

Don't know if this is a false issue or not

 I wasn't actually going to say anything about Jimmy Carter.  Am I required to?  So the latest Trump controversy is the President-Elect is upset that the Dems want to fly the flag at half-staff on the day of his inauguration to honor the recent passing of Jimmy Carter.  So my thing is today is January the 4th.  The inauguration is still slightly more than two weeks away.  HOW LONG are the flags supposed to fly at half-staff anyway?  What's the rule on this?  Sure when a former head-of-state dies there'll be three funerals and the whole thing will go on for a month so I guess the funereal feelings can well wash up against Jan. 20 but again if anyone knows the rule on the flag thing let me know.

There's always been a kind of rough consensus that Jimmy Carter wasn't a great president but a decent human being.  There were the long gas lines and the Iranian hostage crisis but he also negotiated the Panama Canal Treaties and of course is well known for the Middle East peace accords.  He did better work post-presidency.  Took up a hammer and nail for Habitat for Humanity and put his work pants on.  A devout Christian also taught Sunday school.  Made it to the 100 Club with Kirk Douglas.  Must've been all the peanuts.

Thoughts?

A Room With A Liberal View

 Lots of people wondering how "The View" has been on the air for 30 years.  Basically a bunch of liberal chicks sitting around a table with one token conservative.   Sometimes they start yelling.  I thought "The View" was supposed to be a light and frothy show.  Instead you get Whoopi Goldberg's anti-Trump meltdowns.  The other one Sunny Hostin who I never heard of before says uneducated women voted for Trump meaning they never went to college.  So wait a minute your WHOLE education up to but not including college doesn't count?  Then she says racism and misogyny also were big factors that got Trump in.  The price of pet food had nothing to do with it?

Word on the street is "The View" might be on the chopping block along with Morning Joe.  Elon Musk might buy everything that's not nailed down.  Maybe buy Yonkers who knows?

The existential meltdown continues

 I have actually read in some online forums about people who have broken down emotionally and mentally over the Trump victory and have to be counseled.  I kid you not.  Now let's remember Trump also won the popular vote and his victory was big enough you could call it a mandate.  The legacy media is pretty much dead at this point as they're not as influential as they thought they'd be.  People are gravitating more towards alternative independent media like Joe Rogan and not even giving a passing thought to what the New York Times has to say these days.  Ole Gray Lady hubris.

Whither this blog?  Start any post even mildly favorable to Trump and there's threadshitting.   I don't plan on this place becoming a dumping ground or landfill for Trump hatred over the next four years.  Criticism yes but there's a fine line between that and unhinged, valid takes and deranged rhetoric.  I'm also seeing a lack of critical thinking skills like Trump wants every Latino person who voted for him to leave the country.  That's just low-effort shitposting.  Another one people who haven't gone to college don't know how to vote that's just plain intellectual snobbery.  You know some calculus and some Nietzsche that makes you special?  Saw a bumper sticker once that said "Without Truckers America Stops."

Word of advice to the Democrats:  Next time leave Taylor Swift out of it.

Does your vet need to know Shakespeare?

 Does your gastroenterologist need to know calculus?  How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb?  You do not need to be a well-rounded individual unless you're Chris Christie.  Many conservatives like Charlie Kirk are now making the case that you do not need a liberal arts college education to get ahead in life.  Worked under a young and talented chef back in the day.  He had a little higher education under his belt but he preferred to dive into the labor market at an early age.  You learn by doing.  Teach kids how to make money.  I vastly recommend trade schools over college unless college is your thing.  I'll never forget the tour our chef friend took us on at the famed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park New York.  Young people zeroing in on their passion that's what it's all about.  In France our chef friend said chefs are practically revered.  He also said if you're a chef you'll never be out of a job.  College graduates on the other hand often have trouble landing their dream job right away.  Paying back student loans another current issue although the CIA costs a pretty penny too.

College.  What a racket.

What a fracking interview

 The CNN Interview of Kamala Harris/ Tim Walz with Dana Bash asking the questions:

Walz reminded me of a contestant on Jeopardy who just stands there and hardly rings the buzzer.  Moral support for Harris clearly although he did dodge the question about his military service and said something about his wife correcting his grammar and he was proud to be a public school teacher.  Harris basically answered Bash's questions vaguely but got poetic towards the end when she said the true strength of a leader is lifting people up.  We'll just leave everything else for the chat.  I do try to be fair here at Stranded but imo it was a weak interview, inadvertently funny in spots and probably says to most thinking people anyway she shouldn't be the leader of the free world.

What. The. Actual. Frack.

Cheech & Chong MD

As you know NY is only the latest state in the union that wants to jump on the medical pot bandwagon. Well actually it's Gov. Andrew Cuomo who wants to by reactivating some kind of dormant pro-medpot law that's been on the NY books for some time now so it's more of a fiat thing but there's something unintentionally funny about a bunch of 60-70 year-old patients on the cancer ward toking together in the midafternoon in the sunroom overlooking the river. It is in my view a very paradoxical and contradictory public health message to be drumming into our skulls on practically a daily basis the unmitigated evils of tobacco use and yet somehow pot under certain circumstances may even benefit you healthwise. Even if it does help some folks manage certain types of chronic pain better risk/benefits ratios should be better explained by the health establishment which they don't seem to be doing imo e.g. maybe you'll live with your glaucoma better but you might do some damage to your brain. Over on the free speech front I was reading over on Drudge today how Fox News' Megyn Kelly got in some hot water for saying Santa was white. I'm always of the view that you should be able to say what you wanna say and anyway since we wanna do the right thing we can make Ole St. Nick black if you want, have him divorce Mrs. Claus because he's been a closet gay all his life and also put a roach in his hands.

How reliable a source of knowledge is Wikipedia?

What's missing in this picture is the laptopper on the park bench, they're all at the public library. Do a typical google search on any subject under the sun, say twerking or the Skunkape, and wiki is ALWAYS the first or second entry. Is this scholastically justified though? It's like the Amazon.com of Knowledge, links leading to hyperlinks, a veritable feast for the mind but is the whole enterprise shaky?

The very liberal NYC Mayoral race

The very not-afraid-to-say-it liberal Bill de Blasio is leading the Democratic pack to replace Bloomberg. You'd think Stop 'n' Frisk were the most important issue facing NYers as they're all running ads against the practice but de Blasio is also touting in commercials he's gonna tax the rich more in order to pay for after-school programs. The thought occured though doesn't he need the rich vote too as there's quite a few of them on the upper sides of the Island? Christine Quinn the Speaker of the NYC Council is second or third in the polling I've seen and Bill Thompson is right there with her and because he's black he's gotten certain major endorsements from other key blacks like the Rev. Calvin Butts. Anthony Weiner is one of them lower-tier candidates always around 8% although he has interesting positions like stop the ban on gay men donating blood at the same time touting the conservative position of more discipline in the public schools. I really don't think NYers are all that jazzed up about the Republican side with Catsimitidis of Gristedes fame and former MTA Chairman Joe Lhota who said he wouldn't hold up the subway lines for a couple of damn kittens. For Comptroller all Scott Stringer has to do is put ads against Spitzer saying "I'm the normal guy." Oh God though am I glad to see Bloomberg go! can't you just picture him on one of them court shows?

Chris Christie, gay politics and 016

I've heard of gay conversion therapy and feel folks should be legally able to freely choose it as their therapy of choice.  In NJ Gov. Chris Christie just signed a law banning the practice and the focus seemed to be parents choosing it for their children.  By my math Christie doesn't go very far in the Republican primaries in 016.  We already know he's not appealing to the more socially conservative base but he's also gonna turn off the more libertarian element in the party who'll see his actions as increasing the power of the State to direct parents re the moral and social upbringing of their children.  As usual Saty and BB will completely miss the point on this one and my smartphone should be burning up later.  Oh btw I had to abort Publius last night.

The Ole Gray Lady, for my money the most biased paper in America

Media bias is often in the eye of the beholder but I think it's getting harder to deny. The homepage of my mobile browser has been revamped nicely and so I clicked on the NY Times mobile site and read this and there seemed a most definite skewing. The debate is not a new one and it's not really like I mind media bias just be upfront about it. If FOX swings to the Right and provides a kind of counterweight to the predominant leftward tilt of the press it would seem to be a good thing like a menu.  Media bias, why care?

The Next Generation

When I was a kid I was out there collecting snakes, with today's kids it's the iPad. Playing on Mom's smartphone the next gen is gonna be more techno-literate than I was. Having this discussion here recently should the Gov't teach kids about sex or Mom and Dad? Well today there's a third option - Siri.

I don't care what you do (but I also don't wanna know)

Call it libertarian respect, a kind of social compact/truce that has worked down through the years.  A few famous people these days seem to be applying the Angelina Jolie Template customized of course to their respective diseases/ailments (mainly cancer though) and we hear all about the nexus of their disease and their lifestyle choices.  Let's say in an interview a well-known person, some household name says "every time I hang upside down and someone sticks a thumb up my ass I get cancer,"  don't wanna know, not a public service imo.  Don't wanna hear PSAs about every sex act known to man.  IF Celebrity Q a woman likes to guzzle it down like a milkshake but then it gives her problems down the road, cancer of the stomach kind of deal DON'T WANNA KNOW.  Bob Dole was brave on the battlefield but I don't think he was brave about ED, he was just TMIing.  So I walk in the supermarket the other day and the newsstand is right there and I'm just standing there for about 15 or 20 seconds looking at the cover of one of the papers and the produce guy and I are talking about IT.  People call it heroic I call it TMI.  The Angelina Jolie Thing stands on its own don't try to use it, that's her you just like to share.  The orals the anals don't need it on the cover of TIME or Newsweek when I'm checking out.  Let's nip this one in the bud before it pops up all over the place.  Look I don't care but I also don't wanna know ok?

Another medical thread - Angelina Jolie

There's been an outpouring of public and celebrity support for her and the Twitterverse really cares.  Hollywood is really patting itself on the back but let's get one thing straight, Angelina Jolie is not coming across as your typical Hollywood airhead and not too many celebrities can even write a decent Op-Ed piece in the Ole Gray Lady.  Writing about her recent decision to get a preventative double mastectomy she's definitely adding substance to the discussion and I find her much more useful than K-Dash or even Madonna.  She's also hopefully helping us move past our national Hefnerized adolescence, a culture obsessed with boob jobs and longtime love interest Brad Pitt is coming across as noble, as being a good character.  I don't have a good knowledge of this area, BRCA 1&2 and the 87% chance of breast cancer and 50% chance for ovarian and all that so I'm rendering a nondecision here.  IMO breast cancer gets far more press and attention than say prostate cancer, that's another issue but having said that I find her quite articulate in her cause.  This ain't a case of Sean Penn writing down his deepest thoughts with crayons or Rodman palling around with the North Korean Psycho and so since we've been covering alot of medical ground here lately I've been thinking of starting the Z-man Foundation for the Research and Cure of Tinnitus.  I also never got the whole current conservative fixation with reading NY Times editorials, as an old Times ad used to say read what you like.

Some more post-Newtown thoughts,

since it's still percolating out there and the state of CT has just passed some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  I only thought I'd do another Newtown thread if I have any fresh insights and so let's begin with the mathematics of Newtown.  Now all these massacres of late within the last several years are being lumped together somehow but in the vast majority of shooting massacres grown adults are the victims.  That's tragic enough but what happened at Sandy Hook is on another level totally IMO, a kind of existential quirk.  In fact it's bizarre and I don't think there's a snapshot anywhere of Adam Lanza where he's not a bug-eyed bastard, such a joyless individual.  Now the math angle, if you gun-controllers want to prevent another gun massacre ok but if your goal here is to prevent another Sandy Hook you're trying to prevent something that may not happen in another 150 years or ever for that matter.  Another point - how did the post-Newtown debate/discussion somehow evolve into ONLY talking about guns and gun control with a healthy side of mental health and no mention of DRUGS whatsoever?  meds, PCP, bath salts, prescription abuse, airplane glue, whatever but it's high past time authorities lay it all on the table so maybe we can have that other discussion.  One senses just another generic post-gun massacre political debate with an angle or two being deliberately suppressed and I've been wondering why.  Lastly since I'm trying to be fresh in this blog, to look at these things from another angle when you post comments I'd like some fresh and original thoughts too, maybe give yourself an aerial view of the issues instead of same-old same-old, left/right-wing talking points.  NRA Bad, ok we get that but how can you legislate exactly against or to prevent the tragically bizarre which is what Newtown was?  Conclusion: I'm not disagreeing with you about gun control per se but could Sandy Hook have been prevented?  I'm gonna go with a no:)  

The Newtown Speech - Obama and Faith

The President's address last night at the interfaith prayer vigil in Newtown CT was by turns excellent, moving, inspiring, powerful, poignant and even theologically advanced.  As a conservative at odds with the president most of the time it seems these days it was still possible to have a certain amount of pride yesterday evening.  The flourishing of faith in small towns like Newtown is heartening to see even in the wake of such an unspeakable tragedy and only the most secular liberal would have been uncomfortable last night.  Folks there aren't damning God to the heavens or asking the immemorial question where was He?  I've never been to the quaint bucolic town of Newtown myself but have visited quite often the surrounding communities many times on day trips.  New Milford up Super-7 where they recently redid some of the main drag and there's their berry farm in the springtime, Stew Leonard's at Danbury a really great food experience, the Danbury Mall of course off 84 and Dick's Sporting Goods a new addition, New Fairfield and Candlewood Lake/Squantz Pond, the winding roads of Sherman......it's become one of my favorite places to spend the better part of a day and there's just something about the name Aunt Hack Road a side road off of 6 in Danbury.  When you like a certain geographical area you develop almost a mystical connection to it speaking of which every now and then I'd go to the Marian Shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes just off of Rte. 202 downaways on 25 which actually right here at this main intersection you see signs there directing you to Newtown.  This shrine is a beautiful little place to go with a nice grotto with candles and religious statues and of course the Stations of the Cross on a gentle hill with a large dark wooden cross of Christ at the apex and then lo and behold you're almost in somebody's backyard.  All of this section of upper Connecticut is quite country with the exception of Main Street in the City of Danbury which even though there's a definite touch of squalor here there's something nice about it too and then there's the nearby town of Bethel with a quite large literal supermarket of wine and spirits.  I guess I'm one of the few conservatives who liked Obama's speech last night judging by what Hannity was saying just now on my drive over to the library.  I watched a good part of the memorial with a couple fellow conservatives and even they seemed to be softening and they're no fans of the administration.  I'm saving alot more for the Comments Section but I really think it was a defining moment on the eve of his second term. 

Obama Priorities - the Rich but what about the prevalence of guns in society?

It was one of those nonissues during the campaign and Romney didn't have much to say on the matter either.  I'm talking of course about guns and not the well-to-do on which there were plenty of thoughts.  I'm kinda more concerned lately with the threat posed by guns in society and not so much on those individuals/families/entities making more than $250,000/yr. not paying their fair share.  There was lately a shootup in some mall in Portland, OR.  Before that there was of course the Batman/Movie Theater Massacre in Aurora CO.  There was most recently some weird guy who shot and killed three Brooklyn shopkeepers and he said the CIA put him up to it and then just the other day the brazen Midtown Hitman attack in broad daylight in NYC this in probably one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world today.  Just today at about 9:30 in the morning a 20-yr. old gunman opened fire on a couple of first-grade classrooms in an elementary school in bucolic Newtown CT killing 26 people including 20 children.  The gunman is now deceased but he was armed with three firearms and wore a bulletproof vest.  Historically it ranks as the second deadliest massacre after VA Tech and Newtown is quite close to the Danbury Mall so there are alot of open questions about the gunman's motivations/psychology here and why he chose a helpless group of first-graders instead of the usual throng of Christmas shoppers. 

My position on guns and gun control is rather complex and I've enough to say on the matter to piss off both sides.  I'm not against all gun control measures, would probably support many of them but also recognize their limited effectiveness.  Liberals talk as if this is the magical solution, would that this were so.  Put simply only honest law-abiding people obey laws, criminals don't that's why they're known as criminals in the first place.  Pass all the gun control measures you want and criminals will still get ahold of guns and continue to maim and kill, that's basic existential reality.  I could fill a whole blogpage with my thoughts on the subject and they ramble in all political directions at times but bottom line is Obama seems to care more about the wealthy these days and the apparent threat they pose to the country.  I wish he were just as concerned about the prevalence of guns in our society but we can't have that discussion right now because of the Fiscal Cliff.  Obama if he were a more mature and reasoned leader, not still running a campaign could have helped put all that behind us and on to more pressing matters like, say Guns in Our Society and I'd like to hear President Obama's response on the tragedy in Newtown CT and also what his mouthpiece Jay Carney has to say I mean if they have the time since the wealthy are taking up so much of their attention lately.  There will be the usual obligatory pro-forma statements of course but you would think they would at least question some of their own political obsessions/fixations of late, sober up.  The poor will always be with us and so will the wealthy and there will always be time for those discussions but the dead remain the dead.

Your thoughts? (and don't be surprised if I might agree with you at times).