NYT Celebrates Our Kansas City Chiefs Today

Yes sir, the one and only New York Times has a very prominent, front sports page article on our own Kansas City Chiefs, our Patrick Mahomes and how we naturally, rightly like--love?--him.

‘He’s Ours. Patrick Mahomes Is Ours.’

Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, accustomed to football disappointment, now have the most exciting player in the N.F.L. on their team, in their town.

And it's a great and of course, true article, we love our Patrick Mahomes and all this winning he's doing but in the print edition of the paper, the headline reads: "Kansas City finally found something to love."

Excuse me?

Excuse me, New York Times.....  Excuse us??

We have LOTS to love around here, make no mistake.

We love our Kansas City Chiefs, for starters. And that's all the time, not just when we're having a stellar season, like right this moment. Sure, we prefer winning them all, including the Super Bowl, like anyone and everyone else but we love our team ALL THE TIME.

Going on, we love our Kansas City Royals. For sure. Absolutely. And that's all the time, too. Sure, we prefer "going all the way" seasons like 1985 and 2015 but we love our team, let there be no doubt.

Going on from there, things we Kansas Citians love:

Our barbecue

The

Country Club Plaza 

All our fountains

Being the "Paris of the Plains"

Ward Parkway and our boulevard system

4 seasons--especially now that winters are milder

Mostly clean air, nearly all the time

Low traffic

Having and being two cities, not just one

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

Union Station

American Jazz Museum

National WWI Museum and Memorial

Kansas City Museum

The Arabia Steamboat Museum

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Arthur Bryant's Barbeque Restaurant

Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que

And a lot more, to be sure.

So thanks, New York Times for the article and coverage but please, ladies and gentlemen, give us more credit than this.

Please.

White Males Against Abortion, Unite!

I saw yet another very privileged, white, middle-class male railing on Facebook about abortion today.

Jeezus Effing C.

Unbelievable.

This guy was a high school friend. I believe he's college educated.

In spite of that education, he rambled something briefly--incoherently?--about "60 million abortions." I've no idea what that was an attempted reference to.

But wow. Freaking wow.

So I decided there needs to be a group for these people.

They need to call it White Male Patriarchy.

WIMP for short.

A white, middle class, at least, if not upper middle-class male, devoid of attachment to the female's situation, of course, since he hasn't and couldn't possibly have or understand that perspective, but also completely void of any lower-class and/or minority situation or issues. But by gosh, rail against abortions! Sure! Makes perfect sense.

The fact is, the numbers of abortions in the nation have been dropping, and steadily, for years.

More importantly, the Right Wing and Republicans have been whittling away at women's legal rights for abortions for years, as we know. Additionally, however, they've also been under-cutting funding for sex education for our children, nationally and locally, in our schools. Added to that, they've been fighting the development and use of "day after" contraception pills, which is really insane. With the availability of these, we could at least reduce, if not even possibly eliminate abortions in the nation if those were available.

It's insane.

It's irresponsible. It's unconscionable. It's certainly immoral--yes, immoral, I'm saying it--on their part.

So here's for all the WIMPs out there!

Long live WIMPs!

And now they have a real "leader" for them, with this Trumpian in the White House.

Wahoo.

"Pity the Nation"

A friend on Facebook posted the following poem written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

I thought it uncannily appropriate and timely.

"PITY THE NATION"

(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep

And whose shepherds mislead them

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars

Whose sages are silenced

And whose bigots haunt the airwaves

Pity the nation that raises not its voice

Except to praise conquerers

And acclaim the bully as hero

And aims to rule the world

By force and by torture

Pity the nation that knows

No other language but its own

And no other culture but its own

Pity the nation whose breath is money

And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed

Pity the nation oh pity the people

who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away

My country, tears of thee

Sweet land of liberty!

Mr. Trump Assures You His Supreme Court Nominee Is "Only the Best"

Can you imagine the Right Wing and Republican Party response if even ONE of the following were true of Barack Obama in his Presidency?

This, apparently, is "only the best."

Midterm Elections Weeks Away!

The midterm elections are only weeks away! November 6!

Are you registered?

If you aren't, did you know you can register at the local Kansas City Public Library?

Go! Go now! Register!

And vote!

And VOTE BLUE!!

We need that BLUE WAVE!!

Republican Party Song of the Day, Week, Month, Decade. Century?

That these Republicans today are outraged, OUTRAGED! at the treatment of this, their party's nominee for the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, this Brett Kavanaugh, in these hearings when they didn't even allow---remember that--didn't even ALLOW hearings for the previous President's pick for the court is the epitome of chutzpah, irony and hypocrisy, all.

I thought Trump gaining the White House would be the worst that could and would happen.

I was wrong.

So deeply wrong.

How Bad Are Trump and the Republican Party?

This bad.

Even old, rich white guys are bailing now.

First this one.

Money Talks. Will the G.O.P. Listen? 

Seth Klarman was once the biggest donor to the Republican Party in New England. This year he’s giving some $20 million to Democrats.

Not done there, this is today.

Wealthiest Republican supporter in Ohio 

quits party 

The wealthiest supporter of the GOP in Ohio said Thursday that he is no longer a member of the Republican Party.

"I just decided I'm no longer a Republican," L Brands CEO Leslie Wexner said during a panel discussion at a leadership summit, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

Wexner, who said he's been a Republican since college, added...he "won't support this nonsense in the Republican Party" anymore.

Note, too, these two articles both came out just this week, in the last two days.

I tell you.

It's enough to give a person hope.

(That said, VOTE!! And VOTE BLUE!! #BLUEWAVE )

Entertainment Overnight -- Birthday Edition

Patsy Cline was born this day, September 8, 1932.

Best Supreme Court Nominee Money Can Buy

From Daily Kos today.

On This Supreme Court Nominee

What Most Americans Don't Know About Our National Defense Budget--But Should

There is an excellent, even important article out presently at Alternet I wish all adult, voting-age Americans would read. It is this.

How to Blow $700 Billion and Lose Wars

A Guide to America's Exploding Defense Budget and Military Failure

Step 1: Buy the most expensive weapons in history. Step 2: Don’t use them, since they mostly don’t work

And before any military patriots or just disbelievers dismiss the article, out of hand, before reading it, they should know it's written by a Veteran and who served in Iraq, on the ground. It's not from some "Left Wing" "librul" they can or should dismiss.

A bit from the article:

This year, President Trump signed the largest defense budget in our history: $700 billion. The budget includes $13.7 billion for 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which according to CNN are “in service and mission capable only 26 percent of the time.” Not a single F-35 jet has yet to see combat duty.

The budget will provide $4.5 billion for the construction of a new Ford class aircraft carrier, $450 million for three Littoral Combat Ships, $4 billion for two new guided missile destroyers, $5.5 billion for two new Virginia Class submarines, and tens of billions more for upgrades and repairs on various aircraft and naval vessels. Two of the guided missile destroyers already in service were involved in deadly collisions with cargo ships in the western Pacific last year. A Navy investigation revealed that for all of the hundreds of billions spent on defense, there was apparently not enough in the budget to provide for adequate training in standing watch and driving Navy combat ships...

He finishes the article perfectly, to me. It's something I've been saying for some time.

Fifteen years in Iraq. Seventeen years in Afghanistan. There is no end in sight.

From 2011 to today, 2018, we more than doubled our national defense budget from 354 billion dollars to 700 billion.

We have no new enemies. No new group has attacked us or is attacking. Or is going to.

We are weakening, actually weakening our nation with all this absurd, obscenely expensive and very wasteful spending.

Understand this:

Our defense budget is very huge, very bloated and very wasteful and is actually making the nation weaker.  Not stronger.

What are we going to do about this, America?

Links:

The Secret Side of Military Spending & The Wastes of War

We Are Spending a Trillion on War 

and We Need to Own Up to It

The 10 Most Blatantly Wasteful Defense Items

Note this next article is from the American Conservative magazine:

Expanding the Military Budget Is 

Wasteful and Unnecessary'

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion 

in bureaucratic waste

The F-35: A Weapon That Costs More 

Than Australia

Quote of the Day -- Timely

"The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again."

--Meghan McCain, today, at her father's funeral

Entertainment Overnight -- Donald Trump Version

Big man, pig man

Ha, ha, charade you are

You well heeled big wheel

Ha, ha, charade you are

And when your hand is on your heart

You're nearly a good laugh

Almost a joker

With your head down in the pig bin

Saying 'Keep on digging'

Pig stain on your fat chin

What do you hope to find

Down in the pig mine?

You're nearly a laugh

You're nearly a laugh

But you're really a cry

Bus stop rat bag

Ha, ha, charade you are

You f*cked up old hag

Ha, ha, charade you are

You radiate cold shafts of broken glass

You're nearly a good laugh

Almost worth a quick grin

You like the feel of steel

You're hot stuff with a hatpin

And good fun with a hand gun

You're nearly a laugh

You're nearly a laugh

But you're really a cry

Hey you, Whitehouse

Ha, ha, charade you are

You house proud town mouse

Ha, ha, charade you are

You're trying to keep our feelings off the street

You're nearly a real treat

All tight lips and cold feet

And do you feel abused?

You got to stem the evil tide

And keep it all on the inside

Mary you're nearly a treat

Mary you're nearly a treat

But you're really a cry

(Scathing) Quotes of the Day on Donald Trump -- From a Long Time Republican

Fantastic, spot on writing today on this President and what he's doing to us, all of us, the Presidency and nation from the New York Times.

The Full-Spectrum Corruption 

of Donald Trump

Just a few---of the best--quotes.

First up, just the byline alone:

Everyone and everything he touches rots.

Going on from there.

A party that once spoke with urgency and apparent conviction about the importance of ethical leadership — fidelity, honesty, honor, decency, good manners, setting a good example — has hitched its wagon to the most thoroughly and comprehensively corrupt individual who has ever been elected president. Some of the men who have been elected president have been unscrupulous in certain areas — infidelity, lying, dirty tricks, financial misdeeds — but we’ve never before had the full-spectrum corruption we see in the life of Donald Trump...

...the moral indictment against Mr. Trump is obvious and overwhelming. Corruption has been evident in Mr. Trump’s private and public life, in how he has treated his wives, in his business dealings and scams, in his pathological lying and cruelty, in his bullying and shamelessness, in his conspiracy-mongering and appeals to the darkest impulses of Americans. (Senator Bob Corker, a Republican, refers to the president’s race-based comments as a “base stimulator.”) Mr. Trump’s corruptions are ingrained, the result of a lifetime of habits. It was delusional to think he would change for the better once he became president...

In any case, the Republican Party’s as-yet unbreakable attachment to Mr. Trump is coming at quite a cost. There is the rank hypocrisy, the squandered ability to venerate public character or criticize Democrats who lack it, and the damage to the white Evangelical movement, which has for the most part enthusiastically rallied to Mr. Trump and as a result has been largely discredited. There is also likely to be an electoral price to pay in November.

But the greatest damage is being done to our civic culture and our politics. Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are right now the chief emblem of corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right. Dehumanizing others is fashionable and truth is relative. (“Truth isn’t truth,” in the infamous words of Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.) They are stripping politics of its high purpose and nobility....

A warning to my Republican friends: The worst is yet to come. Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller — a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a “group of Angry Democrat Thugs” — we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump’s corruption. When we do, I expect Mr. Trump will unravel further as he feels more cornered, more desperate, more enraged; his behavior will become ever more erratic, disordered and crazed.

And the source.

By Peter Wehner
Mr. Wehner served in the previous three Republican administrations and is a contributing opinion writer.

The Star Has It Right Today About Any Possible Panhandling Ordinance

Yes sir and ma'am, I think our Star newspaper has this correct today.

Kansas City's panhandling proposal 

would wage war on the poor

Not only is this obviously and logically an abridgment of people's First Amendment Rights, as the Star so rightly points out, but what, exactly, are we attacking here? What are we, as a city, trying to correct?

If they're out there, possibly humiliating themselves, begging, after all, frequently either in boiling hot or freezing cold temperatures, and harming no one, what's the problem? As a supposed "Christian nation", why wouldn't we leave them alone? Where's the harm? Or are we just ashamed we have poor in our midst and don't want to be reminded? Or, worse, we don't want outsiders, visitors, seeing we have poor?

What is it, exactly, Kansas City?

They inconvenience us while we sit at the traffic lights?

The writer/author Studs Terkel once said he intentionally kept money on him in case he crossed paths with anyone asking for help. He said he knew it was tough out there and they didn't do this because it was fun. Or easy.

But we'll have none of that in our evirons, eh, Kansas City?

How dare they be poor. Or mentally-challenged. Or to have made poor decisions. Or whatever.

Right?

This Orwellian Presidency

Did you see this? The latest out of Rudy Giuliani's mouth? And in public? On tape, no less?

Giuliani says 'truth isn't truth' 

I'm telling you, beyond all the rest of the bizarre acts and behaviors and statements from this President and people in his administration, it's clear this is the most Orwellian President and Presidency ever.

Never forget:

Which reminds me of another quote that so predicted and reminds me of this man, this supposed leader, this President, tragically.

God help us.

And if he or she can't help us then forgive.

#vote

I Have Great Neighbors

Check that out.

I've no idea who they are and they don't know me but these are some great neighbors, that's all I can say.

Smart. Educated. Intelligent.

Heck, I bet they're even good-looking.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone.

Entertainment Overnight -- Birthday Edition

Happy birthday, Shelley Winters, born this day, 1920.



This, boys and girls, is what TV used to look like, believe it or not.

Whither Boomers?

Personally, I see a lot of postings online, advertisements, promoting living abroad for retirement. (Yeah, I know. It's coming up, for better and worse). Just a few examples:

How to Retire Abroad

Best Places to Retire in 2018  

Annual Global Retirement Index

The 10 Best Places to Retire Overseas in 2018

4 under-the-radar countries 

where you can retire for cheap

5 Cheap Places To Retire Abroad

And check this out. Even AARP is pointing the way.

Top Ten Countires to Retire - AARP

And the thing is, I get the feeling a bunch of us Boomers are going to go be expats in other nations like Mexico, Belize and yes, as shown in the picture above, Portugal. Check out the reasons:

--The dollar goes further 

--Health care isn't as absurdly, obscenely expensive 

--There isn't as much wealth inequality in other nations and finally, a big factor is that 

--No other nation has as many guns and shootings and killings as we do in the US

One more thing. Better, older, saved architecture. 

Oh. Another. The food. Frequently in these places, great food.

Yeah.

I see a LOT of us leaving.

Star Wins Big Award

Yes sir and ma'am, our own Kansas City Star won a terrific award this week for its report on Kansas government keeping information away from its own citizens.

The Star earns national Pulliam 

First Amendment Award

The award is for this series:

Kansas is ‘one of the most secretive, 

darkest states’

Fantastic.

With this thought, it's the perfect time to say the Star needs to do more hard-hitting articles like these. This is what newspapers are for. This is why we need newspapers generally and the Star, here, locally. If the Star doesn't do it, no one else will. Certainly not some local blogger.

We need them to do more hard-hitting articles like these on state and local governments in the area and on both sides of the state line. This and do more articles on local people in the metropolitan area. Both types of these articles will gain far better readership for them, too. 

Total wins for all of us.

Catholicism: Sexual Abuse Over the Centuries

So one more time the story breaks. This, a few days ago.

Catholic Priests Abused 1,000 Children 

in Pennsylvania, Report Says 

Again.

One more time.

This one, below, was just last year.

Vatican Cardinal Charged 

With Sexual Assault 

This next one was from this July, before this latest Pennsylvania incident was reported.

Vatican meets #MeToo: 

Nuns denounce priests who abused them

Not only have they abused children but they've abused nuns in the religion, too.

How long are we going to put up with this?

How long are we going to tolerate Catholic Priests abusing students, children and yes, nuns, too?

How long are they going to get away with it?

How long are Catholics going to sit in the pews, listening to these men, then giving them money and supporting them?

What kind of insane world is this?

This episode, just announced, goes back decades. It's been estimated it goes back about 7 decades, to be specific. Seventy years.

Seventy years of children being abused. Boys and girls. Students. Children.

But please, keep in mind, this has been going on, as said in the headline here, for centuries.

Centuries.

Hundreds of years. Literally.

Some reminders: This one especially resonated with me due to the numbers of children found who had died. Had been killed.

Mass grave of babies and children found 

at Tuam care home in Ireland

Order of nuns that dumped up to 800 babies 

into a septic

Tuam mass grave 'contains bodies of 

800 babies' at site of Irish home

This sexual abuse of children has not only occurred through the centuries but across the globe, across the planet, nation to nation.

Catholic Church sex abuse cases by country

The Roman Catholic Church: 

A Centuries Old 

History of Awareness 

of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse

How Long Has This Been Going On?

This was revealed this week, too.

Head of Catholic Bishops Paid Pedophiles to Disappear

Too frequently, repeatedly, in fact, up to now, this is what we've gotten in response, from the Church and its leaders.

When do we all, around the world, nation by nation, finally say and demand "Enough!"?

When do Catholics?

Link:

Prosecutor: Priests 'weaponized' the faith to abuse kids 

VOTE TOMORROW!!

And Vote NO on Proposition A!


Links:

“Right-to-Work” States Still Have Lower Wages

Right to Work Would Harm All Americans

So-called “right-to-work” laws will lower wages 

for union and nonunion

How Weak Unions Can Surprisingly Weaken 

Your Retirement Future

Weaker Unions Could Mean More Income Inequality 

in States

Vote Tuesday!!

And vote NO on Proposition A!

Quote of the Day -- On This President

And note it's from a former GOP strategist. And a high-placed, long working one, too. (click on for easier reading).

With All This Plastic In Our Oceans...

I keep seeing, day after day, video on all the plastic in our oceans and on sea life, choking, killing them. Maybe you've seen some of them.







So with all this, is anyone asking what the cruise ships are doing with their waste from onboard?

Are they still dumping? Indiscriminately?

Shouldn't there be laws, international laws, all making this illegal?

Can we not all agree on that?