It’s been a few days since we hosted the Donk ward meeting and El Rancho Pendejo remains in a state of disarray.
We had to shift the furniture around to accommodate the throng and speakers, and the plan was to put everything back in its proper place on Monday. Until Herself had to go in to the old job site to piss out a number of fires, that is. Ordinarily Monday is a work-from-home day with a little leeway built into the schedule.
So here it is Wednesday, and if I were the sort of geezer who wanders around the house at night, leaving his eyeglasses back on the nightstand while hunting the source of some strange noise and/or peeing on the floor instead of in the toilet, I’d be doctoring a number of lacerations, contusions, and abrasions from stumbling into this and that instead of entertaining you lot over the second cup of joe.
Meanwhile, I see our national house remains out of order as well. We are shocked — shocked! — to learn anew that barring some random act of god or man we’re looking at a Joe-NotJoe contest come the fall. This, after a thundering herd of 410,000 Republicans in two states has expressed its preference. That’s about 151,000 people less than live in The Duck! City, according to the latest U.S. Census estimate, from 2022.
Well, cultists gotta cult, y’know?
Nobody else in the cult was actually running against The Leader. They were pitching themselves as The New and Improved Him. And doing a piss-poor job of it too. It was like watching a bunch of home-schooled thumb-suckers auditioning to play the Joker with Joaquin Phoenix standing right there, smirking. “Aren’t they just darling?”
One by one they bend the knee, kiss the ring, and wander off to seek some other role better suited to their talents, or lack thereof. All the world’s a stage, y’know.
Mad Blog Media 
First, kudos to yourself and Herself for being active participants in this democracy.
Second, the presidential field is indeed pitiful. And the congressional picks here in Aridzona, save for Mark Kelly, are also pitiful.
Third, Iowa had a 15 percent turnout of registered republicans in the caucuses. New Hampshire had a 30 percent turnout of registered voters for this year’s primary. The two states have a total of 11 electoral votes. Are the winners a prediction for November? Not hardly. Like you said in an earlier post, all this political coverage is just bullshit to fill up dead and empty newsprint.
Shucks, ’twas none of my doin’, Hoss. Herself is chair of our ward and sprung it on me. Like a feral mutt in a trap I was. I moved furniture around, dressed not like a hobo, and smiled at people, which hurts my face. Six Il Vicino pizzas we had and I got one (1) slice. It’s enough to make a Republican of ye so.
Speaking of turnouts, Hizzoner reminded us of why he must deal with a red city council in an otherwise-blue environment. We Donks couldn’t rustle up any suitable candidates for the last go-round; council elections are staggered, and held in off-years; and turnout was in the order of 15-17 percent. You could get a bigger crowd for a goat-roping at the Vatican on Sunday, Christmas Day.
PO’B: But just think of the jobs created by these perennial, eternal political machinations, ruminations, and fabrications. The media, polls, consultants, pundits, etc.
Is it “busy hands are happy hands” or yet another data point for Parkinson’s Law (“Work expands to fill the time available.”)?
I call it the “Three C’s of Creative Journalism: create Conflict, Controversy, and/or Conflict.” Even if it’s not there. 🙂
And 70% of Haley’s votes came from “Undeclared”! Go refigure the number of Repugnants. Jus’ sayin’
Undeclared, no preferred party, voters are 40% of registered voters in New Hampshire, and they have open primary elections as we do in Arizona. Last I looked, Arizona has about 35% undeclared registered voters, I suspect most undeclared voters in the are conservatives. They just like to think they are independent.
In Crusty County, where Hal lives, the only way to have a say in who runs the gummint is to vote in the GOP primary, which decides everything. Those peckerwoods wouldn’t vote for Jesus Christ if there were a D after his name. Hal’s registered as a Republican a time or two, though I think he’s presently a Green.
The undeclared in NH are not Repugnants in oak leaf camo.
That’s good to know! They are here in Aridzona based on election results.
Patrick, I take my hat off to you for hosting a political event. My better half once threatened to have the place fumigated if I hosted a politician or two in our place.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for Keller and his laments about a “red city council”. I suspect most of those “reds” are not crazy as bedbugs but you know better than I. In a city, you actually have to make shit work. Wish we did more of that in these parts.
Up here in the City Indifferent, the Progressive crowd is only progressive when it works in their favor, otherwise hiding late budget audits, isolating councilors who ask hard questions, building el cheapo public housing that my left of Karl Marx spouse refers to as Soviet Style, and failing to fix the streets, all the while hiring DEI committees to do…something or other. What prevents diversity or inclusion up here is that unless you are wealthy or bought in before prices went stratospheric, you live under a bridge and post up at major intersections asking for spare change.
Was not the ideal day for that seventy mile/kilometer/minute ride. I started out cold and pushing through rain which turned to sleet, corn snow, snow, sleet, rain, and then back again several times. My hands felt like they were falling off due to my gloves being soaking wet. Did get in about an hour fifteen as it cleared for a while but then decided to bag it, which was a good idea as about the time I got home the real deluge began. But all ended well with dinner at Restaurant Martin, courtesy of my long suffering spouse. Turns out the bartender is finishing a psychology Ph.D., so we had a nice chat.
Might be the last decade racing around the sun. Who knows? Getting to wonder how many more laps are left, but will keep doing them, Lord willing and the Creek don’t rise.
Well done, sir, and a happy 70th to you. I dithered and dallied — should I ride? Run? Have another cup of tea? — before finally heading out for a leisurely 5K jog on the foothills trails. On the way back I noticed what looked like rain drifting down from some mildly ominous clouds dead ahead and so picked up the pace a bit and just made it home before a short downpour hit. We got 0.03 inch in about five minutes. Not much, unless you’re out in it wearing some unsuitable kit.
This place, like Fanta Se, has problems (surprise, surprise). There’s more about the DUI thing in today’s Journal. And the hangover (ho ho ho) from the Albuquerque Rapid Transit electric-bus debacle is still evident along Central, with the drug-crazed, homeless, and drug-crazed homeless perched like raggedy-ass zopilotes all over those nifty e-bus platforms, which are now grimy and tagged and covered in trash.
There has been some gentrification around Nob Hill but otherwise the Mother Road looks like a scene out of “The Last of Us” from San Mateo east to Tramway. Nobody has ever taken a hit for the e-bus bust, as far as I know. I don’t know much about ART, but I know what I don’t like.
Is it any wonder we have trouble finding people to run for council? Sisyphus had it easy by comparison.
I’m in the 1st Council, “we’ve got ours” district, home of the failed sugar tax idea and the current mayor’s stronghold. I’m no longer as much of a fan as I see a lot of self promotion but not a lot of good governance up here. Hang a sign over your head saying you are “progressive” and nothing else seems to matter, even if the potholes swallow your car, no one knows how the money is spent, government is as transparent as a WW II battleship smoke screen, panhandlers cover every corner, and The Brown Box still sits in the Plaza attesting to our inability to come to consensus on whether the sun rises in the east. My favorite councilor is in the 2nd district and he is always rattling cages, which I think is Council’s job.
I think a lot of folks don’t run because they are too busy making ends meet. We do have one young one from my district now. Let’s see how she pans out. Most of the folks on the two city committees I am on are heavily into grey hair.
One thing I liked about Asheville is it looks more like a real city rather than a retirement community. Traffic was heavier but drivers were nicer. People actually stopped for red lights. When I plodded down the street to get my morning Java in West Asheville, where I was staying, I seemed to be on the old side. Up here I seem to be median. Of course every place has its warts.
Happy birthday buddy!
Sadly, more than a few good candidates for government offices and even appointments are backing away due to the threats of violence by mostly MAGA Nuts. Ya gotta have some courage to put up with that shit not to mention a CW permit. I thought MAGA would run its course but it looks like we will physically have to beat them down since outvoting them isn’t quite working. My tolerance is totally gone and as in the Big Lebowski….this aggression will not stand ,man.
The mind, it boggles. If you have enough money to herd the giant lifted diesel dually out of the three-car garage to go bomb-shelter-shopping after spending the morning slobbering over Faux Noose on the 72-inch TV … well, shit, what do you have to bitch about? Seems like Tyranny is treating you with kid gloves.
This is why whenever I think about getting rid of all my guns, I think again.
Guns or not. I figure if it gets that bad, someone will pop me from behind.
At this stage of life, I am not willing to shoot anyone. I don’t see a threat in every shadow. I refuse to live in constant fear like most of the gun carrying folks I know. None of them have the training needed to effectively use their handgun. I might trade my last gun for a microphone.
I just figure it’s like keeping a couple of screwdrivers handy. You know, in case some screw comes loose.
You know me, ole black or white Pat living in a gray world. I have one gun left, and it would not be of much use in a gun fight or even home invasion. And, the risk of both of those events is miniscule. I haven’t shot the thing in over 7 years. Am I going to trade it and spend more money on a gun that is more suitable for an event that will likely never happen? But, I don’t live in Duck City neither. I live near the border where it’s safe.
Just for shits and giggles, here’s Kevin Drum arguing that things aren’t nearly as bad as some of us would like to think. He’s the kind of dude who always takes a deep dive into the data instead of just glancing around and going all like, “Holy shit! We’re all fucked!”
And mind you, he thinks that as a species we have little to brag about: “I mostly think the moral character of the human race has only barely improved since we were fighting over bananas in the treetops.”
So, if you had $400 or so and wanted to buy a microphone for live performance use on an acoustic guitar, what would you pick?
One option is this one.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SM81–shure-sm81-small-diaphragm-condenser-microphone
O, man, I am exactly the wrong dude to answer that question. I’ve not been very good at mic’ing myself, much less a git-fiddle. Have you consulted the other musicians you know? The Sweetwater guys are not shy about giving advice, either. Hal knows a few pickers who might have a thought; I could tug on his coat for you.
No worries buddy. I thought maybe you had diddled with condenser mikes and had some opinions. The SM81, like all the other SM series Shure mikes have stellar reps. But they make some less expensive series that I may try. Acoustic guitar pickups are a bitch to EQ on an amplifier except for the LR Baggs Stagepro Element in my Raisnong. Just plug it into the amp, turn down the presence, and Bob’s your uncle.