Accidental Monster

 Part of my misspent youth was shaped watching movies on a local television show, Creature Feature. Evidently many local stations had adopted this kitschy theme of showing old, black and white movies at 11:30 on Saturday nights. I need to add that at this point in technology, there was no such thing as color TV. But I digress.

One of my earliest memories of Creature Feature was a movie called “Frankenstein.” I was likely nine-years old and very impressionable. The darkness of the night combined with the eerie glow of the television, augmented by the occasional neighbor’s dog bark, made this weekly scare-fest extra scary.

If you’ve never heard of, or seen the book “Frankenstein,” it was penned by Mary Shelly in 1818. I’ll skip over most of the details, but the gist of her book was the danger imposed by man acting as God.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein was a doctor who attempted to give life to the already dead. Doctor Frankenstein sent out his money-hungry henchmen to the local cemeteries to exhume the recently deceased and return with those cadavers for the experiment.

He took pieces of various bodies and mixed them together to form a creature known as “The Monster.” A bolt of lightning during a violent electrical storm provided the energy – since there was no such thing as electricity at the time – to give life to The Monster.

The rest of the book twisted around The Monster’s trek through the local village and how he was hated simply for his appearance. Eventually, in my humble opinion, The Monster was misjudged for no particular reason other than he was, uh, different. And different he was.

In 2016, the Republican presidential primaries were filled with a horserace style of candidates. Not unlike previous Republican contests, dotted throughout were staunch Republicans as well as RINOs, Republicans in Name Only.

And because this was a contest, all candidates were vying for THE SEAT on the podium for a chance to debate the Democratic nominee, St. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

St. Hillary was the predicted shoe-in for President, no matter who the Republican nominee was. Standing firmly behind her, just as were her sins and nefarious deeds from decades past, were the main stream media (MSM). She couldn’t possibly lose. Amen.

The Republican list of contenders included Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Scott Walker, and lastly, Donald Trump.

It seemed an appropriate time to for the MSM to begin their awkward game of cat-and-mouse. In this game, the MSM began to magically find information and photos and tax returns and romantic buddies who would be damaging to any particular candidate.

One by one, the MSM started eliminating these candidates from the race by giving Democrat “experts” and pundits the stage. Each candidate was exposed for something, albeit trivial, quickly opening the proverbial exit door to oblivion.

The MSM has a gift for sneakily turning lies into “truths,” and for making a minor faux pas resemble an Earth-shaking tragedy.

Democrats have long excelled at mining this type of yellow journalism; Republicans, not so much, as they play by a different strict set of rules to maintain a sense of decorum. That’s too bad.

Imagine fighting a hungry 15-foot shark in the ocean, armed only with a stick. Now imagine who will win. Hardly fair. But I digress, again.

Eventually, the MSM arrived at the last standing Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump was many things including a real estate developer, builder, real property holder, hotelier, golf course owner, entrepreneur, TV show host, and all-around capitalist.

But one thing Mr. Trump was not was a politician. He never dabbled in local, state of federal politics, which left him at a giant disadvantage. And the MSM were prepared to pounce.

As the last man standing in a political race that was supposed to be one-sided, Mr. Trump as though he was the easiest candidate to topple. He had no political experience, no insider knowledge, and no hope to overcome the garbage about to spread over his campaign and name.

MSM tripe magically surfaced about possible illegal activities, illicit affairs, unbecoming lewd behavior, while potential tax fraud began to dominate the air waves and print media.

Quiet words were leaking out of anointed intelligence organizations that Mr. Trump was under investigation claiming he was caught with a Russian sex worker with an affection for bodily fluids, while his personal attorney attempted to make restitution with nefarious figures for questionable activities. Alas there were none.

Morning newspaper headlines and television news broadcasts bled sensational stories about Mr. Trump hating the military, disrespecting Latinos, and thinking poorly about Blacks. It was time for the voters to turn their backs on this fellow without a clue about running a country. After all, he was a game show host. Ha-ha.

Mainstream media creation

Meanwhile, St. Hillary decided to take a three-month respite from campaigning to appear on Leftist TV talk shows and radio programs geared toward intellectuals. Throughout this time, Mr. Trump took advantage to fight back against all the lies and hate, and began appealing to a large portion of Americans who weren’t as elite or educated as most Democrat voters.

Polls had St. Hillary ahead by a dozen points virtually assuring her a win for the Presidency to make her the first woman to be President of the United States. And the identity politics fight began to rage.

Although always there, with a win assured, women and wanna-be women began celebrating their victory. It was undeniable. It was undeniable.

Donald Trump was lambasted by Democratic pundits and MSM-types; the attacks were relentless. Day-in and day-out the smears persisted while anything positive was trashed as lies and fabrications.

Eleven days before the 2016 election, though, a major leak squirted out of the FBI Cone of Silence relating to St. Hillary’s illegal email system use. Alas, FBI Director James Comey’s days were now numbered.

But behind the scenes, that same FBI was using questionable information from fake dossiers and contrived quality assets to create a counterintelligence case against Donald Trump. Now Director Comey appeared more like a canonized elite member himself ready to save St. Hillary.

That intrusive MSM propped Mr. Trump up because they saw him as weak and unable to win. Their “free” advertising and countless hours of exposure, although negative, allowed potential constituency to get a better view of this guy with whom the voters could more readily identify. They liked what they saw.

The average American – hard working, honest, loyal, all inclusive, charitable, non-confrontational – overwhelmingly voted for the outsider, the non-politician, Donald Trump.

The day after he was elected in 2016 angry, hateful racists began to immediately call for his impeachment and a physical disruption in the daily activities of his supporters. Rep, Maxine Waters led the charge in an embarrassing rant that continues today.

Smarmy perpetual Democratic politicians such as Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Gerald Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Swalwell, and the aforementioned Maxine Waters, eventually revealed the reason for impeachment: collusion by the Russian government to steal the election. Of course there was no collusion, only lies, lies and more lies from the Democrats.

Each day of vile fabrications divided a fractured nation even more, just to encourage hate and distrust among Americans. Their plan worked for a few long years until the truth about this massive deception escaped leaving President Trump virtually unscathed.

Count them: four-years of their bald-faced propaganda resulted in nothing but a severely divided nation which was compounded by an influenza pandemic.

Not unlike Mary Shelly’s story, the ugly townspeople represented by smarmy perpetual Democratic politicians wanted nothing more than to kill The Monster created by the MSM Victor Frankenstein. You see, The Monster was not like them in that he had no desire to be a career teat suckler; he only wanted to make past inequities right, then be left alone to live in freedom of the past.

But with the complicity of the MSM, his job was nearly impossible. His tenacity, drive, loyalty, conviction, and character proved unmatched by government established lawyers-turned-politicians who knew nothing about “getting the job done.”

Their specialty was slow-walking legislation or pandering for votes, usually against the will and wishes of their constituents. But they miscalculated and accidentally helped elect The Monster who, against all odds, survived.

RINOs stood by idly to watch The Monster be berated while the MSM cheered for his demise. But he was much too strong and was beholding to no one but his constituents.

One term – four-years – later he is leaving because he “lost” his bid for re-election.

And to this day, he refuses to die because he has hurt no one except those townspeople that were repulsed by his looks, his being different. Although he is gone, those vindictive townspeople are now chasing The Monster down the road out of town.

But it is not because they simply hate him, they also fear him. That fear is because The Monster is a much better person than the entire town as a whole.

This is the end of my story; I hope this is not the end of The Monster, though, as there is still much hard work to do. Time will tell.  And God Bless Donald J. Trump.

What Ifs

 Some five decades ago, an old girlfriend gave me, as a gift, a sweater.  I’m not a sweater guy; if she was more attuned to me rather than her own extra-large ego, she would have known that.  But I digress.

 

Not long after, that same sweater found itself with a snag.  After a few more wearings, the snag developed into a hole.  Eventually the hole transformed the sweater into a yard work garment because the previously mentioned hole kept unraveling.

 

Soon, that sweater wasn’t much more than a ball of cat toys which inevitably found its way into the garbage where it belonged.

 

And for nearly a half century – that’s fifty-years, in case you’re Canadian – America has been burdened with the likes of a fellow named Joseph Robinette Biden. Beginning as a Senator from Delaware, Biden has been spinning tales about his wonderful accomplishments to the delight of everyone unfamiliar with his inability to tell the truth.

 

Biden’s fabrications started somewhere around – oddly enough – fifty years ago.  December 2022 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the tragic death of Neilia Biden, Joe’s first wife; she was killed in a traffic collision in which their daughter also died.

 

According to the website Independent.co.uk, “Neilia [nee:] Hunter was a Republican, Neilia Biden registered as a Democrat, according to The News Journal.”

 

What if:  this terrible life-changing accident had never occurred.  Would Joe’s brain still be scrambled?  Joe Biden, in 1975, “Senator Biden called for broadly reviewing every federal program to weed out wasteful spending.”  Two of those programs, mentioned by name, include Social Security, and Medicare

 

What if:  now-President Biden was able to distinguish fact from fiction.  He would not be blaming Republicans for the alleged ache to dissolve Social Security, and Medicare.  Apparently he is intentionally misleading or is cognitively incompetent

 

What if:  President Biden had to personally pay for all the munitions and arms and military hardware being given to Ukraine

 

What if:  America had an extra $113,000,000,000 to use domestically, rather than for Ukraine’s war, for Americans to aid with hurricane relief, railroad disasters, and chemical spills

 

What if:  the President had a map to East Palestine, Ohio, rather than Warsaw Poland and Ukraine; he might be able to travel there to show support for those residents who pay taxes for protection and support from the federal guvment

 

What if:  Biden understood economics – better than either Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Elizabeth Warren – perhaps he would realize his over-spending money we don’t have only contributes to our already sky-high inflation and seemingly deepening recession

 

What if:  the “Great Uniter” tried uniting America rather than dividing it based on race, sex, country of origin, age, sexual proclivity, and, above all, political affiliation

 

What if:  sanctuary cities – promoted and applauded by President Biden – stopped drowning the United States in illegal aliens who refuse our FREE housing, transportation, gift cards, telephones, and education

 

What if:  President Biden ceased the release of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to our sworn enemy, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  Perhaps we’d have our own petroleum in the event of a national crisis.  But maybe his saintly son Hunter is getting rich off the proceeds of his deals with China

 

What if we began shipping petroleum via the Keystone XL Pipeline – the pipeline Biden shut down seconds after his inauguration – that caused fuel prices to skyrocket, only to blame it on Vladimir Putin

 

What if:  the United States is dragged into a war with Russia and/or the PRC.  Will Ukraine help us out militarily, as with Afghanistan who found themselves with $84,000,000,000 in military arms, tanks, helicopters, and uniforms

 

What if:  Code Pink devoted as much time to protesting our involvement in Ukraine as they did protesting our involvement in Iraq

 

What if:  Joe Biden, Barack Hussein Obama, and John Kerry, are equally stupid for buying multimillion dollar houses on direct waterfront land, while preaching how the rising oceans will drown everyone from the continuously melting glaciers

 

What if:  Bill Gates is intent on eliminating tens-of-millions of Earth’s inhabitants to save the Earth.  He’s gung ho on ridding the world of livestock and other meat animals to protect the planet.  Damn the people

 

What if: Biden and the balance of non-deep thinkers are able to disarm American citizens, while they trust ragtag Ukrainians and Afghanis with U.S. military arms

They supposedly want to “save lives.”  Again, the nitwits in this administration, along with stupid coeds and their secular parents feel the need to keep abortion legal

 

What if: the word “abortion” actually appeared in the dictionary, or a medical textbook.  Could people understand that Abortion = Death

 

What if:  Biden had selected competent, capable, skilled people to his administration, rather than the firsts, such as foreign-born lesbian; gay immigrant; transvestite; transgender; black; transgender black; and so on.  Things may be running more overtly

 

What if:  the Secretary of Transportation had been a man, rather than a gay person who needed to stay on extended paternity leave to care for their twins.  BTW, he WAS a man at one time

 

What if:  white teachers stopped identifying as “educators,” since they don’t appear to be educating anyone except the taxpayers who aren’t getting their money’s worth, by them teaching kids to hate white people because they’re white, while demanding respect for the other kids

 

What if:  cultural appropriation was as big a scam as critical race theory is.  Society hasn’t learned to not trust the guvment – even after the lies about COVID-19 and associated vaccines and masks

 

EV Charging - no tripping hazard here

What if:  America switches to electric stoves from gas, eliminating propane, outlawing gasoline vehicles, banning diesel cars and trucks, prohibiting gas lawn equipment, forbidding fireplaces and fire pits, as well as boats, all in the name of the environment

 

What if:   We had a Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, who idealizes America as much as she does the People’s Republic of China and its energy/climate policies, who might actually see China as a genuine threat to America, and the balance of the world with their pollution and wholesale environmental destruction          

 

What if:  our nation’s population cannot transition nearly 400,000,000 residents to electric EVERYTHING within a few short years.  We need Russia, the PRC, and Afghanistan for components to make batteries.  Go back and reread who our enemies are.

 

This isn’t much different than my sweater.  Everything sounded so good, and looked even better.  But the material and workmanship was less than expected, so eventually it began to fall apart.

 

And fall apart it did.

 

Our once great country has transitioned from a beacon of freedom and unity into one of overregulation and animosity, with seemingly no recourse.  Let us not accept sweaters that are imperfect, unless we are prepared to live with the substandard conditions for which we voted. 

What Are You Selling?

 Television ads are the biggest bane in my lackluster life.  The average TV program uses the 1/3 rule when it comes to advertising.  As a rule of thumb, every thirty minutes of programming contains ten-minutes of ads; a sixty-minute show fills 20-minutes with ads.

 

If you are a realist you should be able to easily understand the who, what, and why, of advertising.  Sponsors create advertising to promote and sell their products.  Let this sink in.  That’s the reason for all those annoying ads that make you turn the TV off.

 

On the other hand, if you have a product in high demand, you have no need to advertise.  Have you ever seen a television ad for a Ford SUV?  Sure you have.

 

Have you ever seen an advertisement for a Rolls Royce?  Of course not because, although they are terribly expensive and of limited production, they can’t keep them in stock – unlike the Ford SUV.

 

Ads have come a long way since I began watching television as a child.  Back then, TV shows and commercials were in black and white; color television hadn’t yet been invented.  And back then, ads were 30-seconds in length, and since most shows were 30-minutes long, ads therein were very limited, too.

 

Catch a re-run of an old program such as Andy Griffin, the Adventures of Superman, or I Love Lucy, ads were 30-seconds, as well as containing only one or two 30-second spots.

 

Today, commercials hawking life insurance, pet rescues, cosmetics, and medicines, often run 2 ½ minutes in length, and longer.

 

The bottom line is that the more commercials, the more revenue the program makes. Rather than just a few paltry minutes of advertising in yesteryear’s black and white, today’s ads stretch long enough to write an opinion essay.

 

But content of ads have changed throughout the decades, too.  Soft drinks were promoted by uncapping a frosty bottle, then pouring the beverage over a sweating glass filled with ice cubes, anxiously awaiting the prize of thirst quenching soda.

 

Today’s ads have now morphed into short stories being told in a limited 30- to 60-seconds.  And the contents have changed, as have the times.

 

A modern commercial begins with a clearly open-minded black man carrying a beautifully cooked turkey to a smiling white woman who is surrounded by mixed-race children, along with a few aging Asian people and a wheelchair-bound woman.

A typical American family, according to
Madison Avenue

 

By the time my mind deciphers the association betwixt and between this unusual mishmash of characters, the expensive ad is over without leaving so much as an inkling of name recognition behind.

 

This idea of product appeal crosses the line of the sexes, too.  Now we see women allegedly in the military, launching rockets, flying drones, and commanding large ships, with aplomb.

 

Equally visible, but seemingly misplaced, are depictions of white men who are regularly cast as dolts needing their insightful 10-year old kids, and mixed race significant others, to point out how inept they are.  There’s nothing like race and sex shaming to make America smile while recalling a product’s name.

 

A few years ago, Cheerios, a cereal, began promoting their product as “heart healthy.”  That was a wonderful campaign, until every character on every Cheerios commercial was clearly black.

 

After criticism, Cheerios, a General Mills product, defended their advertising onslaught which featured only minorities, because blacks suffered from heart disease.  Indeed, but whites, browns, and other races suffer from heart disease, too.

 

Here’s some interesting trivia for your cereal making military officer, General Mills: “Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States,” according the Centers for Disease Control.

 

Please re-read that last paragraph.  I’ll wait for you.

 

The CDC was not at all nebulous as to who is affected by heart disease.  By the way, it’s not only blacks, not only whites, not only men, not only women…

 

If General Mills is stuck on selling their products to, or merely directing their advertising at blacks, simply say so.  But they couldn’t possibly make it more visually apparent.

 

Meanwhile, if you were a just-landed space alien who turned on a television, you’d think black men and white women appearing together in ads was the law; you might even be mistaken that such a scenario was an honest reflection of society.

 

Speaking of which, there are seemingly endless commercials touting various drugs from pharmaceutical companies advising viewers how to treat everything from ring worm and hoof and mouth, to HIV/AIDS and eczema.

 

Of course what you’re not told is that these life altering drugs require a doctor’s prescription from a subsequent doctor’s office visit.  By the way, I dare you mention a TV ad for a pharmaceutical to a doctor before you ask your doctor for a ‘scrip.

 

Society has come a long way from the early days of advertising to where we stand today.  And as of right now, I have no idea to whom ads – biased or not – are targeted or sometimes what they are even selling.

 

While advertisers are welcome to ply their goods, I remain happy because I’m a capitalist.  But I also have a television remote control with a mute button, which makes me happier.