Moostache
Moostache's Journal"Lions for Lambs" - 2007 film much overlooked and should be seen and discussed more
Rewatched it today - Redford, Streep, Cruise, all give great performances, but its the content that is so moving.
Yes, it is totally a part of the time - anti-Afghan/Iraq debacle, pro-home investments, but the fact is I can't stop thinking about some of the ideas in the film - especially the idea of MANDATORY ONE YEAR SOCIAL SERVICE FOR ALL AMERICANS in public or private schools...not necessarily a military or bust option either...a year of community service, designed to enrich understanding and get people working together as AMERICANS once more.
We need something similar now for sure. At any rate, if you have not seen the film, it is well worth a watch, but be forewarned, it does trigger some latent or buried anger at the Bush administration that has currently been engulfed by Trump and his malfeasance.
I am overwhelming depressed due to the circumstances around COVID-19 and its impact to my life and my family and my community and my country, but there is some glimmer of hope when IDEAS can still find ways to make being 'Americans' mean something again...more than being a political faction only...
My mother passed this morning...her memory lives on and gives me strength...I love you mom!
In the age of COVID-19, our family's suffering and story is not unique; and the fact that it is not unique makes it worse.
A lot worse. I thank all who are part of this community that read these thoughts and emotions and cannot express the thanks in my soul for such people and the comfort their empathy and compassion provides in this dark day for me.
There was no bed-side vigil, or final goodbyes in person, or around her hospital bed at the end. A positive COVID-19 test last week was the last shoe to drop in a losing fight that had been growing increasingly grim all year, permanently sealing 2020 in my memory as the worst year of my nearly 50 on this Earth. Being in the hospital was rough enough, with quarantines and policies necessary to protect the workers and staff and patients from an out of control outbreak...I understand the needs and the reasons and the horror of the entire situation, but I am still living the uncertainty, the feelings of powerlessness and doubt and the fear of my father's pending test results. I have been grieving and dreading today for a long time; but in the end, when the finality hits your heart and rends you into an uncontrollable sob because of a random memory, there are no words or comfort that assuages the pain or dulls the loss in that moment. Grief comes to us all in unique forms and durations, but we are all eventually to share in this feeling. I am vacillating between Anger and Depression now. I've been sad for days in anticipation of what we knew was inevitable before Halloween. Its terrible arrival is no comfort or release, only waves of emotion and sadness.
COVID dominated the last 9 months for my family - from the tortured journey my parents embarked on to get home (outside of Chicago) from Florida at the height of the initial outbreak in late-March; to the fear of contraction during my mother's continuing treatments for returned (and aggressive) tumors in May, to the last month of hospitals, rehab attempts and transfers. Mom was afraid of contracting it in her immuno-compromised condition, dad was scared he would be a carrier and infect mom in her weakened condition, my siblings and myself and all of the grandchildren were forced to stay away and to only communicate from afar - via phones and facetime and coldly clinical technology. I will forever feel robbed, not cheated by death and its inevitability or hurtful finality...those are the same for us all, varying only in intensity and duration...but cheated by a virus and by a society torn apart for reasons that will never make sense to me, not now, not next year, not ever. Not when the virus is eventually subdued, not when life returns to 'normal' or whatever comes to pass for 'normal' in time.
I will feel cheated and robbed of those moments forever; and that pain will not subside, nor will the seared memory of the fact that it might have turned out differently. I will NOT soil this remembrance of my mother and her life and her love of family with the names of those I believe in my soul are at least partly responsible for the amplification of pain my family - and so many more families touched by COVID or simply denied closure and comfort by its spread and nefarious nature, are experiencing. That is a wound that will never heal; and a responsibility that can never be forgiven on this Earth. I will do my level best to struggle through this, and will lean on my family and support to dull its edge and get it put into a place that does not dominate my thoughts; but that day is not today and that desired outcome feels very distant in this moment. Its very raw, very acidic, very present today and will be for some time to come.
I am consciously refusing to give the hate and anger and rage bubbling in my psyche any traction right now. It is an exhausting effort because every fiber of me wants to scream and rage and howl at the moon and the wall and the TV that this is not fair, this is not just, this is not the way it was supposed to be. And even as this struggle burns on, in the quiet times between anger and upset, between sadness and helplessness...there are moments of peace, remembrance and the undying, eternal love that my mother had for her family, my dad, my sister and brother, myself and all of her 9 grandchildren.
Mom fought an incredibly brave fight with cancer for nearly 20 years. There was despair and near certainty in me 19 years ago when we first heard the diagnosis: Cancer. Aggressive, invasive tumors. Immediate surgery and treatments are necessary. At the time, we were fearful that what had happened to her mother (dying too young from cancer in her 40's) was about to happen once more, that a horrible familial history would have its rhyme and for no reason. Grandma was only with us for a very short time in my life, passing away while I was an infant, and succumbing to the same cancer that struck mom. But mom fought through it, she recovered once and then again, and again, and again, and again, and again...until the very end - fighting and enduring pain and discomfort in a body that could no longer contain or carry her spirit.
She went through too many rounds of remission and recurrence in all over the past 18 years, chemotherapy and surgeries, up until the end when she was part of an experimental treatment protocol from May to October of this year. Mom succumbed to cancer this morning, she had given everything possible and leaves us with a lifetime of memories and decades of borrowed time that I am forever thankful for... Mom has physically left this world, but the lessons and love that she leaves behind will remain and persist even beyond my own time here. There are a million stories of her racing in my head today, but they are for future memories and re-livings in better times, amidst friends and family and in better, brighter days.
It is fitting to me that today is overcast, and autumnal. The view out the window fits my emotions and envelopes them completely. My mother's fight and pain are over, and this will take a long time to lessen...but her life and the memories and unconditional love left with those who knew her best and closest will carry on and will light the way until we find a brighter day in the future.
Rest in peace mom, your fight gave us all so many gifts and irreplaceable memories that we are eternally grateful for.
I love you Bubba, and always will...
Need help from photshop-savvy peeps...
Can someone mock up what the State of the Union is going to look like next?
(Speaker Pelosi, VP Harris, President Biden)?
LOVE THIS!!! (LeBron James)
https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/spai/w_647+q_lossy+ret_img+to_webp/
Suck it Tangerine Meance...YOU'RE FIRED!!!!
What could we expect from Trump?
OF COURSE he went out and said that "voting" must stop...hey genius, the voting IS over...polls closed, period.
NOW they get counted until they are done asshole.
This is the same innumeracy that leads to morons parroting back the lines about COVID TESTING causing COVID CASES...
I want to see him swing...
Why do people allow Trump to bloviate his way out of BS?
The Stahl interview is just the latest example, but he does the same thing CONSTANTLY...
#1 - State something untrue or ever-so-partially true as overly generalized and "fact" = "They got caught spying on my campaign."
#2 - Ignore requests for specific details with MORE generalities = "You know what they did, and it was so horrible."
#3 - Amplify the accusation = "Then they got caught and it was the worst thing in the history of our country."
#4 - Ignore the continued requests for clarification and details with insults = "You just won't print/air the truth."
Nowhere is "it" (the alleged spying or the alleged impact) ever quantified or defined.
Nowhere is the issue ever brought to verifiable actions or real reports (which all DIRECTLY CONTRADICT HIM).
And yet, he shamelessly continues the same bullshit.
It is like watching the old Monty Python skit for the "Argument Clinic" on a looped feed:
No it isn't
Yes it is
No it isn't
Yes it is
No it isn't
Yes it is
No it isn't
Yes it is
If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to give me another 4 years in office...
Health care plan?
Pandemic response?
Economy - specifically jobs for the 8M newly impoverished?
He also says something like "we just added 11M jobs and its the best ever for our country" without proper context - that came on the heels of the 20+M jobs LOST in the start of this mess...so getting back about 50% of what was lost and then stalling out and still claiming credit for it being the "best ever"? Really? Is that how people think this works?
He is a bloviating gas bag of epic proportions and as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
He lies constantly and is incapable of handling criticism or failure and has no ability to grow or change.
The sooner he dies of a massive stroke, the better the universe becomes before his corpse is even cold and stiff.
R.I.P Eddie Van Halen (1955-2020)
Tragic loss to music and his family.
Rest in Peace Eddie...your talent and music touched millions around the world.
You will be missed.
Rick Beato's live memorial for EVH...
Tonight I lift a glass on high and toast the universal karma...
My daily prayers are one large step closer to coming to fruition.
May COVID-19 ravage that asshat with the full force of every one of the nearly 210,000 dead Americans he has contributed to and sullied their memories.
He OWES more than money, and I want to see the bill collected - in full.
I do not want a recovery for him, I want a full blown infection and progression.
I want video of him being wheeled out of 1600 and airlifted to Bethesda, a sickly shade of purple instead of unholy orange.
May karma ever be minded because when she comes, she comes with force.
So what is Trump going to do when he loses same day voting as well as mail-in?
His gambit right now is obvious - he believes that he will have a lead on election night in votes cast and counted on Nov. 3rd. He then plans to claim all votes NOT counted by sometime on the 4th (presumably he does not plan to wait until much past Alaska and Hawaii closing their polls? It's not really clear now, but most of the rest is...) are somehow illegitimate and should NOT be counted, thus suing his way to the Supreme Court and a 6-3 partisan ruling installing him for a second term.
The pure lunacy of that is obvious after more than 30 seconds of reflection, but that is not stopping him from promoting it as his "strategy", now obviously since he stopped campaigning FOR the Presidency and is just actively torpedoing everything in sight now in an attempt to bring down the entire voting system at all.
But this all hinges on him actually winning in same-day totals and that is far from a sure thing at any rate. So what does he do when he finds out that not only do people hate his guts, but that are voting him out of office and into prison?
I hope he takes the coward's way out...
So, I guess social distancing and COVID-19 are officially "no big deal" now?
Before I get completely flamed for being insufficiently sympathetic or understanding of the underlying injustice and hate that drives this behavior...
1) The FOUR (4) officers should be charged and await trial in a cell. That was murder on tape and disregard for human life, period.
2) NOTHING excuses the actions of the officers OR the looters. Not "resisting arrest", not very real oppression. Nothing.
3) Systemic racism is REAL and has been for a very, very long time. This is beyond debate.
BUT...why has everyone suddenly 'moved on' from the pandemic and the risks and dangers of these mass protests and marches?
A month ago, no one could go to the store without fear of COVID-19...now? Its riot and protest season? It makes no consistent sense...the danger is/was real or it was not...pent up frustration and legitimate anger not withstanding.
I am seeing "protest rallies" on CNN from major cities with hundreds of people on top of each other, chanting, breathing the same air (and tear gas and pepper spray from the pigs) without any seeming recognition of the fact that there is STILL an active pandemic, that their actions are serious risk to viral outbreaks and then more death and devastation
So is that it?
Have we just collectively decided to shrug, sacrifice the old and the weak and put everyone on god's good humor if they contract?
The virus is highly contagious and opportunistic at spreading...it also does not make many people whi contract it sick enough to even know they are shedding virus and making the death of an innocent 'other' more likely...
FULL DISCLOSURE - I am a hypertensive diabetic with a history of renal cell carcinoma (remission for 11 years...but lost 1/2 a kidney to the disease)... COVID-19 for me is a 50-50 coin flip to live or die, so its obviously personal to me in ways that many who are angry and oppressed and right to feel aggrieved and desiring to lash out in rage...but the media has not mentioned this ONCE - on three channels over HOURS of coverage last night and today...
At some point there are real world consequences to this disregard of real risk...this is also an issue that conservatives and the GOP will be sure to point out in short order...."see...those damn libtards just hate America, when there was no riot or looting, they wanted masks and distances and fear, but as soon as the riots started, the concern for health was NEVER mentioned..."
If you thought last week that the pandemic was a legitimate concern, then why is everyone suddenly silent about it for the last 6 days?
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Member since: Thu Jan 22, 2009, 04:35 PMNumber of posts: 9,895
