Whatever

SoCS — Jail

Fandango15 Comments

For today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill, we are asked to “open a book, a newspaper, or whatever is handy and close your eyes and point. Whatever word or picture your finger lands on, make that the basis of your SoCS/JusJoJan post.”

Alrighty then. I reached for the latest edition of The Week magazine, closed my eyes, opened the magazine up to a random page, placed my finger on that page, and then opened my eyes. My finger was on the word “jail.” It was contained in a short article about a Vermont home listed for sale that includes a jail in its basement. Here’s a picture that accompanied the article.Why anyone would want a home with a jail in the basement, I surely don’t know. But the article went on to say that the real estate agent who listed the house was encouraging prospective buyers to dream up new uses for the jail cells. “Bring your own ideas on what this 28’ x 40’ wing could be,” the circular advertising the house said.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll buy the place and offer to lease the basement to the U.S. government, just in case they’re in the market for a venue to house a certain corrupt former President.

Photo credit: Realtor.com.

One-Liner Wednesday

Fandango5 Comments

“When we’re done with you, you’ll be able to stand up and slaughter your enemies like civilized men.”

Actor Sean Connery in a scene from the movie “The Man Who Would be King.”

Sean Connery was one of my favorite actors and “The Man Who Would Be King,” starring Connery, Michael Caine, and Christopher Plummer, is one of my favorite Sean Connery movies.The movie is an adaptation of the famous short story by Rudyard Kipling that tells the story of Daniel Dravot (Connery) and Danny “Peachy” Carnahan (Caine), two ex-soldiers in India when it was under British rule. They decide to seek their fame and fortune by heading off to Kafiristan in order to become kings in their own right. Kipling (Plummer) is seen as a character that was there at the beginning and at the end of this fascinating tale.

I just happened to watch it again this weekend and it is just as entertaining as ever. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt.

My Last Photo in November

Fandango7 Comments

Brian, aka Bushboy, posted a prompt today that asks us to “post the last photo from your cameras SD card or the last photo from your phone taken on the 30th November.” Brian explained that all we have to do is…

1. Post the last photo on your SD card or last photo on your phone for the 30th November.

2. No editing – who cares if it is out of focus, not framed as you would like or the subject matter didn’t cooperate.

3. You don’t have to have any explanations, just the photo will do.

4. Create a Pingback to this post or link in the comments.

5. Tag “The Last Photo” or #LastOnTheCard.

Okay then. Now I know that Brian said that no explanation is needed, but the last photo I took yesterday might seem a little weird. So I’m going to give just a little bit of an explanation.

We have a Google Home Hub in our family room that we primarily use for video calls with our kids. On Friday morning, the device’s video camera suddenly stopped working, so I called Google support and spent about four hours with various tech support folks trying to troubleshoot the problem. Unfortunately, they couldn’t come up with a resolution.

But early yesterday morning I received an email from a guy named Ian from Google. He provided detailed instructions and said that if I diligently followed his instructions, it should restore the video functionality on the device. So I followed his step-by-step instructions and, sure enough, the video capabilities were restored.

However, there was something new on the Hub’s display that was not there before. And so I took this photo, added the red arrow to highlight what I was talking about and emailed it to Ian.This morning I received an email from Ian, who wrote, “Hmm. That is odd. Lemme check with the team and I’ll get back to you.”

Sorry, my brief explanation went on a bit longer than I anticipated, but I felt I couldn’t just drop this photo on you cold turkey.

SoCS — Mmm!

Fandango23 Comments

m&mMy, my, my. For today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill wants us to use any word that begins with the letter “m” as the subject or theme for our posts.

Maybe I will or maybe I won’t. Ha! Just kidding. My mission is to mobilize as many words as I can starting with the letter m for this post. But first, I may have to break into my Halloween stash and open up a fun-sized bag of M&M candies — don’t you love M&Ms? — in order to manufacture more energy, as I woke up this morning with a serious migraine and it’s made a mental case out of me.

I’m just kidding again. I never get migraines. I just tend to let my mind wander and I make things up sometimes.

But speaking about migraines: Donald Trump. What a madman he is. I believe that he is, by an order of magnitude, the worst president in American history. Some say he’s a monster. His malfeasance in the way he has failed to manage this COVID-19 health care crisis is momentous. And yet, he may just win the election by hook or by crook. You know that he and his Republican cronies are doing everything they can to manipulate the vote. I’ve never seen such malice toward the voting public. And they’re turning a blind eye to the menace of Russian hackers who are trying to break into the voting machines in order to subvert the will of the majority of mainstream Americans who want to end the madness and restore sanity, ethics, and integrity to the White House.

If Joe Biden can maintain his momentum and does manage to win, I will be almost manic in my excitement. The misery of four years with Trump as president will be over and I will feel as though a mountain of fear, doubt, and concern for the future of my country will have been lifted from my shoulders. And I will, once again, be able to feel happy and proud to be an American.

And wouldn’t that be magnificent?

Okay, I think I’ve used enough words that begin with the letter m in this post. And all modesty aside, I’d say that this post has been right on the money in that regard, right? Besides, it’s morning and I need to make myself a cup of coffee so I may prepare myself for whatever mayhem this Saturday has in store for me.

I hope you all have a marvelous day.

Presidential Purge

Fandango28 Comments

What do George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, Teddy Roosevelt, William McKinley, and Herbert Hoover have in common?

If you said that they were all American presidents, you’d be right. But what else do they all have in common? Yes, they were all old, white men. But, come on. What else do they have in common?

Give up?

They are all historical figures who have San Francisco schools named after them.

Cool, right?

Well, apparently not. The San Francisco School Names Advisory Committee has identified more than a third of the city’s public schools that are named after people and places that don’t meet its exacting criteria for the honor. This august committee scrutinized every school’s name for any association with genocide, slavery, colonialism, exploitation, oppression, racism, or environmental degradation. The result is that the schools named for those presidents listed at the top of this post do not fall within the framework of what the committee deems acceptable and the committee wants to change the names of those schools.George Washington, one of the Founding Fathers and the first President of the United States, and Abraham Lincoln, who saved the union, are two of our most revered and respected American president. Yet the committee wants to blackball them and remove their names from the schools because the former owned slaves and the latter perpetuated brutality toward Native Americans.

It’s one thing to purge Confederate statues, monuments, and school names. Those “heroes” fought against the United States during the Civil War in the cause of slavery and lost. They don’t deserve to be memorialized. But American presidents? They founded this nation. They saved this nation. Were they flawed humans? Sure? But the “sins” they’re now accused of were, right or wrong, the customs of society at the time. Trying to erase these America icons from history is ludicrous.

All I can do is shake my head and wonder what has become of common sense.