I was a little nervous at first, after Ted Cruz made his big announcement.  He knows for a fact Democrats commit more crimes of violence, like way way more, than Republicans. http://www.politicususa.com/2015/11/30/ted-cruz-completely-insane-claims-democrats-commit-violent-crimes.html.  I’m a Democrat, I think.  Or at least I have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate lately.  And after thinking about what Ted Cruz said, I started to worry a little bit.  Just the other day when the Packers lost another game I was really, really pissed.  I mean really.  I was seriously thinking about sending a hate letter to Aaron Rodgers and giving him a piece of my mind.  But then I had second thoughts and realized I really should be sending my hate letter to the entire offensive line. Their protection was leaking like a sieve and he was getting clobbered.   I was going to tell them how much they sucked, but again I stopped myself.  I was suddenly struck by how out of control all my hatred had become.  It had escalated from hating one guy to hating six guys.  I counted the tight end too.  I know he’s not really an offensive lineman, but I thought he was doing a pretty shitty job as well, so I threw him in the mix.  So there you go.  You can see how I would be concerned.  This is so unlike me.  At least when I’m sober.  I didn’t reach the point where I wanted to go out a buy a gun or anything, but still.  Maybe Ted is onto something.

     CRUZing OUR AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES  

REPUBLICAN                                                                                                           DEMOCRAT

That all happened last week.  Today I just remembered something.  I’m a Republican!  At least I should qualify as a Republican in Ted Cruz’s eyes because I am officially registered as a member of that party.  I rarely admit that, but that’s how it all went down back when I first voted.  Why I did that is a long story.  For now let’s just say I made a mistake.  But the fact remains every time I go to vote, there I am, listed as a Republican.  It’s kind of amazing to me how that keeps following me around.  Should I be worried about that?  I know I should go somewhere or get online or something and change things around.  But the simple fact is it just doesn’t matter, I don’t think.  I’m really not a Democrat either.  I have problems with both parties.  I guess I could register as an Independent, but it seems like the end doesn’t justify the means since everything is working out fine for me at the voting booth anyway.  I suppose there is that tiny, remote possibility I could fuck over some poor Democrat that ends up loosing in a primary by one vote because I didn’t get the correct party ballot.  Let’s not go there.  The point here is I am sort of a Democrat disguised as a Republican, safe from Ted Cruz’s scrutiny but thanks to Ted Cruz wondering if I am safe from myself.  Who knows when I might pull out a screw-driver and attack someone. Or I might use my rubber mallet.  It’s pretty big.  Here’s a picture of some things laying around my house I might be able to hurt you with.  I know because I have hurt myself with all this stuff.  And this is just a short list.  Some close calls I’ve had with lawn and garden equipment come to mind as well.  

I was kind of bothered about all of this so I started making a few phone calls. I figured anyone who has been in jail at some point in their lives would be able to help me out.   The best I could come up with were acquaintances of mine who got hauled in for DUI when they were in college.  I know that’s actually not a violent crime, unless you happen to be really plastered and cause some horrific accident.  Thankfully that was not the case with my two buddies.  But still they shouldn’t have been driving around.  Anyway I asked them if they remembered filling out a form or something when they were in jail that would document the fact that they were a Republican or a Democrat.  That’s all I really wanted to know.  I figured if you end up in jail all those forms have to be the same, right?  Doesn’t matter if you are in there for shoplifting or assault, the form would be the same.

My friend Bob (below) said he didn’t recall any such question at all, just address and phone number and stuff.  But he did remember right after the sex question he wrote “Last night, if a date with Rosey Palm counts.”  He was always like that, especially when he was tooted.  Unfortunately for him all that scribbling on the form got him cited for defacing county property and he had to spend an extra night in jail.

The other friend I called was Johnny (at right).  I am pretty sure when he got hauled in to jail for DUI when he was in college there was something other than alcohol influencing his driving.  Back in the 60’s he experimented with anything he could get his hands on, uppers, downers, LSD, PCP, peyote, you name it.  As he recalled, there actually was a question about being a Republican or Democrat, and it came right after the question about being a citizen of Neptune or Saturn.  Then he said he really had to go because he wasn’t feeling too hot and thought that might be related to his snacking on a bad batch of brownies he had recently brought back from Colorado.

Realizing I really wasn’t getting anywhere with my research, I called up Henry (below) an attorney friend of mine,  He emphatically stated there was nothing on any form you would fill out for any crime you committed, violent or non-violent, that would ask you a question about your political affiliation.  He then went on to emphatically state what a piece of shit Ted Cruz  was, and that progressed to a savagely hateful tirade about the presidential hopeful that went on so long I had to hang up.  I took that as verification of what I suspected all along, that there is not a politically oriented question on any prison intake form.  From that conversation I also suspected that first, Henry was a Democrat and second, there thus might be something to Ted Cruz’s basic premise that Democrats are more inclined to violence than Republicans.

So it was back to square one.  And actually I am still stuck in that square.  After all my research I figured out one thing though.  The conclusion I arrived at was that this was one more example of the political genius of Ted Cruz.  I’d seen it before (see my July 2015 blog “Trouble in Texas”).  Ted is after all a presidential candidate, and except for Donald Trump those people aspiring to the highest public office in the land don’t go around just making shit up, at least without a motive.  And Ted recognizes opportunity when he sees it.  Fact or fiction what Ted has going for him here is a chance to close the gap he has with Trump in the polls by utilizing one of Trumps own tactics.  To protect our citizenry, Donald Trump  has the Muslim community in his sights to federally surveil, and now I can only conclude Ted Cruz is about ready to unveil his program of surveilling Democrats if he is elected.  And the best part of his plan is he already has a database of registered troublemakers, something Donald Trump has yet to work out.  And the numbers!  No comparison.  You’ve got maybe ten million Muslims in the U.S., but over one hundred million Democrats to select from.  I guess that will require a lot of policing manpower, but just like his tax plan, numbers are of little importance.  What counts is what sounds good at the moment.  Anyway, if you’re a Democrat and in January of 2017 we have Ted Cruz as our president, that funny clicking sound you hear on your cell phone is just Ted listening in.  And as far as my political party registration goes, well I am going to leave well enough alone till the dust settles.  I might as well play it safe.  I have a feeling there will be an irritating cloud of some sort enveloping our political landscape for a very long time.

We are getting creamed!  ISIS has taken us to the cleaners and it seems the war against them is lost.  This is the United States of America for god’s sakes.  There is not a country on the entire planet that can match our military might.  How can we be taking it in the shorts by a bunch of lunatics living in the 8th century.  Somehow there has to be an explanation.  There is just no way we should be losing any kind of war to any kind of transgressor.

This very scenario is starting to look eerily similar to one that transpired before.  I read about it somewhere, I think it was back in grade school.  I kind of forget.  It might have been high school.  Oh Ya!  I am starting to remember now.  There was this guy who came out of nowhere and took over not only his own country but several surrounding ones.  It was an extraordinary rise to prominence if I remember right, an unparalleled accomplishment in the annals of history.  Here was this guy, with absolutely no  formal qualifications, who somehow slipped through the cracks and took over a political group of extreme nationalists and become their leader.  He was able to capitalize on that coup and become the leader of his entire country by taking to the streets and working up the masses with perplexingly vitriolic speeches about a particular religious group that he felt was responsible for their country’s defeat in a previous war it had recently been involved in.  Do you guys remember this?  I think it all happened back in the mid 20th century.  I just did a little research and I found a picture of this remarkable individual.   Believe it or not, we have a similar rising star right here in America.  He has an amazingly comparable political background and is using amazingly similar acts of fomenting speachafying  to amazingly be tracking politically in the same manner his mid twentieth century mentor did.  I found a picture of him too.

Just so you see where I am coming from, here are those pictures of these two political look-alikes.  Test your knowledge of history and current events and see if you can identify which one of these guys lived back then and the one moving along nicely in U.S. political progression now.     

How did you do?  I kind of gave things away I guess.  Color film developing was pretty labor intensive in the mid 20th century.  Of course the guy in the black and white picture has to be older.  And if you recall in the end things didn’t work out so well for him or his country.  Maybe this other guy will study up on stuff and be able to maneuver history down a different path.  I kind of doubt it though.  History just has a way of repeating itself and I have to tell you this kind of history makes me kind of nervous.

Related:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/news/64909/donald-trumps-9-11-celebration-claim-widely-disputed

What an interesting development all this campus unrest has created.  So many memories for me.  Ah, the 60’s. and 70’s  Who can forget.  Protests galore.  Vietnam and flag burning.  Selective Service and draft card  burning.  Women’s rights and  bra-burning.   Gay rights.  Civil rights.  Campus rights and rules.  Academic restrictions and practices.  You name it and we were there for the revolt against it.  Compared to today though we were severely handicapped.  What we would have given for all the social media avenues available now.  Only thing is none of it would have done any good anyway on my campus.  All the screaming and shouting and phoning and texting would have lost traction and evaporated like always.  That’s because Creighton University suspended its football program in 1942.

Student Protest 1965       Student Protest 2015

Football rules.  Yale, Princeton- wake up!  You have the blueprint for successful  protesting right before your eyes.  Your rebellions need a serious upgrade.  Get your football team involved like those Missouri students did.  You should know this.  You’re going to school at Yale and Princeton for Pete’s sake.  What was your SAT score anyway?  Same goes with Ithaca College.  Oh shit!  Sorry.  I forgot.  Your football team sucks and you probably hope to keep the limelight off of that dismal bunch.  But Yale and Princeton, come on.  Your guys aren’t doing too badly.   I guess I don’t know for sure if records hovering just above mediocrity fill up your stadiums,  but that Ivy League tradition has to count for something.  I bet just like Missouri your administrators aren’t about to kiss off a million plus bucks by not playing a football game.  I know it’s the Ivy League and maybe contractually a million dollars per game is not exactly the standard that the league signs up for, but if your football team doesn’t show up there has to be some kind of very serious penalty, not to mention the lost revenue and fan hysteria.  You should grab that leverage by the balls and run with it.  You would get what you want before the sun sets.

The power of football is so glaringly obvious I am surprised it has taken this long for someone to utilize it.  Sure there is that ongoing threat of student athletes unionizing, but that shit will be tied up in litigation for years.  The real iron in the fire readily available to strike is not the unionization thing.  It’s simple modern student activism coupled with confusingly germane athletics.  If something is  bothering you, pick up your cell phones and get the word out to your football team.  They’ll give those administrators such a fucking migraine your demands will be boxed up and gift-wrapped and delivered right to your door.

Student Advocate  1965                                               Student Advocate  2015

The threat of a football game being canceled has so much potential.  Outside of a nuclear bombing,  from my perspective there is nothing in existence that possesses the negotiating leverage of football.  Its attraction is so powerful I think there is a distinct possibility we could harness that energy for the common good.  Every country in the world should have a football team.  And I’m not talking about that soccer shit.  That just won’t fly here.  Well maybe if we want everybody to take a nap it would work out.  I know that sport is huge everywhere except here in the U.S., but believe me if we get everyone on board with American football the sky is the limit.  We’ve already been infiltrating Europe with NFL games  If we are persistent enough we can get the whole world exposed and addicted.  It seems to me we are doing a pretty good job on that front.

When every country finally has its own national football team, the world is bound to be a better place.  If some country feels there’s some kind of shenanigans going on in another county all that needs to be done is to threaten to cancel the upcoming football game.  Dignitaries will be making phone calls and flying all over the place to broker a quick resolution.  And think about it.  If some shit-ball organization like ISIS comes around fuckiing with our football, the entire world will raise up in indignation and exact hell-bent revenge.  This is just one of my really good ideas that I think should be given some serious consideration.

My mother broke her hip so I am here with her in beautiful St. George Utah doing various things to help out with her transitions from her regular life to hospital life to rehabilitation life and back.  And she will be back.  She is remarkable.   96 years old and never complains.  She is still as particular as ever.  She has me running back and forth to her assisted living facility, where she normally lives without assistance, to pick up this and that for her stay in the rehab center.  It took me three trips to finally retrieve the correct white blouse she indicated was a complete necessity for stylish strutting up and down the hallways in her two wheeled walker.                                                 

Jimmy Walker- Funny              Johnny Walker- Not too Shabby     Wheeled Walker-Not Funny at all

More on that later probably.  I love St George.  The scenery is stunning and though I avoid the place in the summer if at all possible because of the relentless heat, this time of year the weather is perfect for me.  There is one thing you should prepare yourself for however if you some day do decide to visit here.  In this valley of the octogenarians what you will be completely bombarded with will be the constant presence of the Fox News channel.  I actually caught a break with my mother for awhile.  The various incapacitations of her predicament evidently caused her to kind of forget about Fox News and I was able to sneak in a considerable amount of football viewing the first few days.  That all changed yesterday as she settled in to her rehab accommodations.

Of course the next Republican debate is coming up, tonight as a matter of fact, and the entire Fox News organization is giddy with excitement since they are hosting the event.  I have to admit it holds some interest for me since the last one caused so much consternation among the candidates.  I’m kind of surprised some of them didn’t dial up their mothers on their cell phones and complain to them right up there on the stage.  It’s a debate.  Answer the questions.  Sure some of them are borderline ridiculous but behind most are the desire to find out if you are a nincompoop or not.

The big complaint from most of these presidential hopefuls was that the questions during the last debate were too personal or off topic, at least from what I can gather.  Personally I didn’t see a lot of that, but that’s just me.  But Fox News apparently got all lathered up about it.  I don’t know for sure because I never watch Fox News.  But that’s what I hear.

While shifting around uncomfortably in my chair listing to Bill O’Reilly last night, something he said caught my attention.  He was interviewing one of the moderators of the upcoming debate and of course handing out his advice on what the line of questioning the moderators should use.  He was insistent there should be some “entertainment value” offered, that there ought to be some “zingers” thrown out there to keep the audience’s attention.  And the moderator could’t agree more.  Maybe it’s just me but I think that is what all the complaining was about over the last one.

So you should pay attention tonight.  Maybe the moderators will take Bill’s advice and we will be in for a real treat.  I know I’ll be watching.  I’m here in St. George Utah.  I have no choice.