Day: June 10, 2022

Checking My Stats

Fandango13 Comments

Just for grins and giggles, I check my WordPress stats a couple of times a day. When my stats go up a little, that makes me happy. When my stats go down a little, that makes me…well, I’m still happy. It’s no big deal. Anything is better than zero visitors, views, comments, and likes, right?

But there’s another set of stats I check daily. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) on the New York Stock Exchange.

Like with my WordPress stats, when the DJIA goes up, that makes me happy. However, unlike WordPress stats, when the DJIA goes down, that makes me very, very unhappy. Because unlike WordPress stats, when the DJIA goes down, it has real world implications.

My retirement savings goal was to ensure that I ran out of years before I ran out of money. And I worked hard to make sure that when I retired, my wife I would have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of our years, with enough left over to pass whatever remained on to our children.

But since my retirement savings is mostly invested in the stock market, when stocks take a dive, so does the value of my retirement savings.

But don’t worry about me. I’m not panicking yet. After all, what goes down must go up. Or something like that.

Fibbing Friday — Alter Egos

Fandango12 Comments

Di (aka Pensitivity101) and Melanie (Sparks From a Combustible Mind) alternate as hosts for Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. This week is Di’s turn and she has given us some “also known as” and wants us to tell her who they are.

1. Who was known as The Iron Lady? The Iron Man’s wife.
2. Who was Diana Prince? Princess Diana’s doppelgänger.
3. Who was She Who Must Be Obeyed? Wonder Woman.
4. Who was The Virgin Queen? Beyoncé.
5. Who was Dick Grayson better known as? Dick Tracy.

6. Who was The Forces Sweetheart? Force Majeure.
7. Who was Sir Percy Blakeney? The guy with purple pimples on his face.
8. Who was Shirley Crabtree? A disgruntled arborist.
9. Who did Arthur Wellesley become known as? Arthur Reed, cartoon character.

10. Who was The Wizard of Menlo Park? Gandalf.

Thursday Inspiration — Peace Train

Fandango15 Comments

For his Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams asked us to respond by either by using the prompt word “train,” going with the above picture, or by means of a song. Jim selected the song “Back on the Chain Gang” by the Pretenders.

When I saw the word “train,” my mind didn’t go to that photo, which looks like a scene from a 1940s Alfred Hitchcock movie, or to a Pretenders’ song. Instead, it went to “Peace Train,” the 1971 song by Yusuf Islam, known at the time he recorded it as Cat Stevens.

Interestingly, when Cat Stevens wrote “Peace Train,” he was on a train thinking about Alfred Hitchcock, reflecting on the fact that many of Hitchcock’s film plots were set on trains.

I’ve always liked “Peace Train.” The U.S. was still mired in the Vietnam War in 1971 and this was a song of peace and hope. It became a hippie anthem, often used by protesters to spread a message of peace.

Also of note, my wife and I saw Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam perform the song live on October 30, 2010 on the National Mall in Washington, DC at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

Now I've been happy lately
Thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be
Something good has begun
Oh, I've been smiling lately
Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be
Someday it's going to come

'Cause I'm on the edge of darkness
There ride the Peace Train
Oh, Peace Train take this country
Come take me home again

Now I've been smiling lately, 
Thinkin' about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, 
Something good has begun

Oh Peace Train sounding louder
Glide on the Peace Train
Come on now Peace Train
Yes, Peace Train holy roller

Everyone jump upon the Peace Train
Come on now, Peace Train

Get your bags together, 
Go bring your good friends, too
'Cause it's getting nearer, 
It soon will be with you

Now come and join the living, 
It's not so far from you
And it's getting nearer, 
Soon it will all be true

Oh Peace Train sounding louder
Glide on the Peace Train
Come on now Peace Train
Peace Train

Now I've been crying lately, 
Thinkin' about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating, 
Why can't we live in bliss

'Cause out on the edge of darkness, 
There rides a Peace Train
Oh Peace Train take this country, 
Come take me home again

Oh Peace Train sounding louder
Glide on the Peace Train
Come on now, Peace Train
Yes, Peace Train holy roller

Everyone jump upon the Peace Train
Come on, come on, come on
Yes, come on, peace train
Yes, it's the peace train

Come on now, peace train
Oh, peace train

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — June 10th

Fandango17 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 10th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on June 10 2017. It seems especially relevant today with the January 6th public hearings now underway.

SoCS — Admit It, Donald

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Dear Donald J. Trump,

Admit it, Donald. You’re totally unqualified to be President of the United States. As Hillary Clinton correctly assessed, you don’t have the temperament the position requires. You have never before held an elected position and you have no idea what it takes to be successful in government. Even your ardent GOP defenders like Paul Ryan and Chris Christie admit that you are “new to this job” and don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to how our government works.

Admit it, Donald. You have surrounded yourself with inexperienced, clueless sycophants who aren’t doing you any good because they only share with you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. And your shameless surrogates toe your line even when you undermine them by contradicting the lies they’ve told the media on your behalf.

Admit it, Donald. You are an insecure, thin-skinned, unhinged, megalomaniacal, egotistical narcissist. All you care about is yourself, your family, and your fortune. Based upon what you want to do with heath care, tax reform, and the environment, you clearly don’t give two shits about most Americans, even those you duped into voting for you. You are a con man and a fraud.

Admit it, Donald. You are a pathological liar and wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on your ample ass. You are a hypocrite who plays golf almost every weekend after criticizing Obama for playing golf a lot less frequently than you when he was president. You were the driving force behind the totally bogus birther movement.

Admit it, Donald. You blame everyone and anyone but yourself for your frequent missteps. You deny that Russia interfered in our election despite overwhelming evidence that they did. You are critical of many well-respected, highly-regarded world leaders while expressing admiration for Vladimir Putin and other autocratics.

Admit it, Donald. You tried to convince then-FBI Director James Comey to let the FBI investigation of Mike Flynn go, and when he wouldn’t, you fired Comey. You also asked the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers to try to intervene in the FBI’s investigation. You are guilty of obstruction of justice and high crimes and misdemeanors.

Admit it, Donald. You never expected to win the election. You never really wanted the job, which you since have characterized as being harder than you thought it would be. You said you miss your “old life.”

Admit it, Donald. You have diminished and devalued the presidency and it’s time for you to resign and return to your old life before you bring the whole country down in a constitutional crisis. You know that’s the right thing to do.

But then again, Donald, when was the last time you did the right thing?

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday and the topic for this week’s SoCS is “admit.”

FOWC with Fandango — Dull

Fandango15 Comments
FOWC

It’s June 10, 2022. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “dull.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.