February 4, 2021

YES! America is back.

America is back in its greater glory as a global leader in support of democracy, equality, freedom, and justice for all.

In addition, as our President clearly outlined, we now have LIBERAL government, of a kind we have not seen since LBJ.

Thank you, President Biden.



-Laelth

February 2, 2021

Mitch is now, officially, a post turtle.

“Have you ever met or saw someone doing a job and wonder, ‘How the hell did they ever get in that position?’

I once was told by someone that they referred to those people as ‘post turtles.’ When people say phrases like these, my curiosity is peaked.

‘Ok, you got me! What is a post turtle?’ He said, ‘Every once in a while you see a turtle on a fence post. He can’t go anywhere; he’s kind of stuck and he doesn’t know how he got there or what the hell he’s doing there.’

‘That’s a post turtle, but you don’t blame the turtle for his lack of post-sitting skills or finesse. It’s better to blame the dumb ass that put him there in the first place.’ “



-Laelth

February 1, 2021

Jen Psaki - Press Briefing - 02/01/21 - CSPAN

It’s a thing of beauty. I am intensely and repeatedly impressed by our Press Secretary.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?508510-1/white-house-briefs-ahead-meeting-republicans-covid-relief



-Laelth

January 28, 2021

Where's Jen Psaki? What is she doing? What's happening?

Anybody know?



I am starting to panic. I NEED Jen Psaki.

It’s only been 8 days, but I had no clue how addicting it would be to receive regular, sane briefings on the daily activity of the Biden Administration delivered by one of the most articulate, competent, sophisticated, emotionally-stable, (not to mention attractive) press secretaries with which we have ever been blessed.

I NEED IT ... bad!

Where’s Jen?



-Laelth

January 27, 2021

Nomination: For Extraordinary Service to the Republic

The McDonald’s franchise closest to the White House, for regularly (and at a moment’s notice) supplying the President with bountiful orders of quality hamberders and fries—comfort food that mercifully kept the President’s tiny, twitchy, index finger OFF of the nuclear button for four years. It has been reported that the franchise in question hired and retained dedicated 24-7 delivery staff solely for the purpose of making prompt deliveries to the White House.

For extraordinary service to the United States, I hereby nominate said franchise.

-Laelth

January 23, 2021

I love seeing Bernie EVERYWHERE.

For those of us on the American left, there’s a deeply-embedded truth in this meme.

Like Bernie, we’re masked and somewhat silenced. We feel separated and alone in the cold, even though the truth is that we’re EVERYWHERE. We are, in fact, the majority. We are patiently, hopefully present and watching ... just like Bernie.

It’s an historic meme.

-Laelth

January 20, 2021

This is a BIG DEAL.

It’s just a customary formality, but formalities can mean a lot in a democracy. What we just saw was this:

1) The highest-ranking Republican in the Senate, the odious and perpetually-malignant Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, publicly acknowledged the fact that Joe Biden is the duly-elected 46th President of the United States.

2) The highest-ranking Republican in the House, the obnoxious and perpetually-vile Representative from California, Kevin McCarthy, also publicly acknowledged the fact that Joe Biden is the duly-elected President of the United States.

That’s it. The peaceful transition of power has occurred, once again, in this great republic. The poor, deluded souls who hoped to overthrow our government have failed. There will be no violent revolution today. Instead, there was a peaceful revolution, as our founders imagined and intended.

Here’s to the USA!



-Laelth

January 20, 2021

Sigh.

It is done. Benjamin Franklin, upon the creation of the Constitution, advised our founders that they had birthed a republic ... “if you can keep it.”

Well, here we are, 233 years later, and our republic continues to survive. Under the 46th President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., I look forward to seeing it thrive.



-Laelth

January 15, 2021

Which is the optimist and which is the pessimist?

This thought just occurred to me recently. Traditionally, we say an optimist sees the glass as half-full while a pessimist sees the glass as half-empty. I think we’ve got it backwards.

A pessimist sees the glass as half-full. The pessimist thinks, “Well, it could be WORSE” because that’s what a pessimist naturally expects. A half-full glass is better than nothing, and a pessimist, who naturally expects the worst, can be satisfied with a half-full glass.

The optimist, on the other hand, sees the glass as half-empty because the optimist thinks, “Well, it could be BETTER.” The optimist is filled with hope—as opposed to being resigned to its miserable fate. The optimist expects better and strives to make things better because the optimist believes that “better” is possible whereas the pessimist has little faith that things can be better and comforts itself with the knowledge that things could be worse.

Just an aside.

-Laelth

January 12, 2021

"Life sucks, and then you die."

This is what my ex-wife told my children. This is what she believed. This is how she lives, and the same can be said of Donald Trump who also suffers from a Cluster B personality disorder. They’re self-interested nihilists—seeking only temporary pleasure and power to ward off their perpetual feelings of emptiness and worthlessness.

A parallel DU thread speculates about how long Trump will last after Biden becomes President. Some say suicide is likely. I think not. People with Cluster B disorders are too competitive and too selfish to commit suicide, for the most part. Some say his eating habits and general health will soon bring him down. This I also doubt. Persons with Cluster B personality disorders tend to be remarkably resilient. Trump’s father, Fred, continued to torture all those around him well into his eighties, despite otherwise-debilitating dementia. No, I don’t see Trump dying soon, but his life will suck more in the future than it does now. Naturally, his life has always sucked. He is incapable of experiencing love. He can not empathize. He sees himself as a perpetual victim. In his own, highly-limited mind, he doesn’t believe that anyone has had a harder life than he has had. He is utterly empty. He can barely sleep.

If I know anything about my ex-wife of 19 years, I feel certain that the same dynamic applies to her, just as it does to Trump and to all others who suffer from Cluster B personality disorders (narcissism-NPD, sociopathy/psycopathy-APD, borderline personality disorder-BPD, and histrionic personality disorder-HPD). To them, life sucks, and then you die. Your only satisfaction comes from beating everyone else in any way you can—whether in Court, or through shady business deals, or cheating at games, or just outright outliving them.

It seriously pained me to know that my ex-wife promulgated this life philosophy to our children. What I told them was very different. No. Life is beautiful. It is miraculous, and all life has value. In the end, life is all we have, and it’s all that is worth valuing. Yes, we will all die, physically, but think about these people—Lou Tzu, Kung Fu Tse (Confucious), Siddhartha Guatama (the Buddha), Moses, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammad, Augustine, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Lincoln, Douglas, Einstein, Elanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (and many, many others). Life is your brief chance to create something beautiful and give it back to the world. All the people I listed are more alive now than when they actually walked the Earth.

No, my children. Ignore the voice of nihilism. Life is BEAUTIFUL. Do what you can to make the world more just, more beautiful, and more loving in the time you have been granted. That is the only path to immortality.

-Laelth