A hundred pictures of Jesus and a stash of gay porn

A hundred pictures of Jesus and a stash of gay porn; Grampa's secrets revealed. Grampa Bernie was a big deal at the Knights of Columbus. He was such a devoted catholic he must have had at least a hundred pictures of Jesus hanging from every wall in every room of that downtown two-storey red brick he and his wife had bought new back in the... thirties? Forties? The dude's been dead for 30 years, so where-ever he reads this blog I'm sure he's having a good laugh.We're loading up my truck with basement detritus when one of the cousins comes out with a stack of magazines. "I didn't know they had naked wrestling in the Olympics."I took a look.Whoa! They might call it wrestling, honey, but that ain't the Olympics...I've never been much of a porn consumer, gay or otherwise, but I'm guessing nude wrestling magazines from the 40's and 50's would attract a decent dollar in the collector market. Way more than the old Time and Life magazines.Crazy how you can walk through the remnants of an up-standing citizen's life when they're gone and discover that they were way more than you thought. Bernie was indeed a respected and upstanding citizen. He was also a gay porn aficionado. And somebody in that house had a very healthy appetite for pills and booze...But enough about that.Bernie comes alive in that nursing home. In fact, it took mere weeks to find a new love! That revelation was initially received with good humour by the extended family. "Oh how lovely that he has some companionship in his twilight years" and all that sort of thing.Then he bought the bitch a thousand dollar fur coat!..WELL HOLY THUNDERIN' JEEZUS IF THAT WASN'T THE END OF THE WORLD!!!She was obviously a tramp and a gold-digger and by God if this was gonna be the way he carries on there would not be a red cent left over for anybody when the old coot kicked the bucket!Unfortunately the last months of Grampa Bernie's life were consumed with frantic family desperately running interference between him and the gold-digger.He dropped dead half way through a Leafs game on CBC one Saturday night.As many of us wish we could when the Leafs are playing on Saturday night.I suppose you could say his dreams came true!In spite of the machinations of his heirs, the new gal got to keep the coat.

The solidarity among living things

The main thing I saw today was many thousands of sandhill cranes heading south. They came by in batches of several dozen at a time. The hummingbirds have departed as of a week or two ago. We’ve still got the buzzards hanging around, at least some of them. They’re like the geese; some migrate and some don’t. I suspect that as the climate continues to warm up, the population of migratory birds will diminish. After all, why fly two or four or six thousand miles each way if you don’t have to? Here’s another thing I saw - a fly crawling into my Mott’s Caesar. Then again, I’m not sure if I actually “saw” it, or just thought I saw it. Once you’ve had a couple Caesars and a toke, it’s hard to tell. I did a visual inspection and then took a cautious sip, and concluded there was in fact no fly in my drink. So imagine my surprise when, a half hour later, a thoroughly Caesar-soaked fly crawled out of the can! I helped it along a little; after all, it’s a living thing and, insofar as possible, it’s my duty as a fellow living thing to do what I can to facilitate its living longer. Last I saw, it was test-buzzing its wings in preparation to fly again. Solidarity of living things!

Mysteries of the "deep state"

As you know, the folks who run America’s democracy theatre have a big event coming up in a few weeks; the election. You know the main characters; in the red corner, the Black Hat, Donald J Trump. And in the blue corner, the White Hat, Kamala. Due to the limited intelligence of the average American voter, the script-writers like to keep things simple enough that your typical WWE enthusiast can follow the action. Polls tell us the race is too close to call. In order to shake things up, the brain trust running the White Hat’s campaign sent her out on a media blitz recently. I’ve seen the Opra interview, the 60 Minutes interview, and her appearances on Colbert and The View. Sending Kamala out to meet the people has been, in my opinion, a tragic mistake. The woman has exposed herself as a complete airhead. “So what will be your policy priorities, Kamala?” “Well… before I address that, I just want to say how much I love the American people. I grew up in a middle class home, and you know, ambition and work ethic! I love the American people because we have dreams… we have aspirations… we work hard… we have dreams…” Other than that, and badmouthing Trump, she ain’t got nuthin! Meanwhile, what’s the Black Hat up to? As we know, Trump is a bad guy who can’t wait to end democracy in America. What do you expect from a Putin fanboy? And he’s ready to stab Ukraine in the back! Who can even imagine such an outrage? Ukraine, the plucky little country fighting Putin so democracy can survive, not just in Ukraine, but all over the world! And Trump wants to pull the plug on our support for this bravest of all democratic nations! And let’s not forget that Trump’s number one backer is the odious Elon Musk, the world’s richest man! The man who bought liberal, freedom-loving Twitter, and turned it into a hate-spewing fascist propaganda organ! There you have the broad outlines of the narrative, the plot, so to speak, for the Big Show. Now let me step back for a moment and play theatre critic. Aside from being the world’s richest man, and an enthusiastic promoter of far-right conspiracy theories, who is Elon Musk? Why, he’s the beneficiary of $hundreds of billions in financial support from the US government for his various deep-state-adjacent enterprises. Like Space-X. If you suspect NASA was privatized and Elon ended up with it, you wouldn’t be wrong. Which brings me to the Atlantic Council. That’s the “intellectual” think-tank arm of NATO. It is funded by the US government and a gaggle of defence contractors. It is 100% committed to the doctrine of American exceptionalism and is a “deep state” creature through and through. Every year, on the occasion of the UNGA shindig in NYC, the Atlantic Council celebrates a few world leaders for their service to Empire by bestowing upon them the “Global Citizen Award.” This year, one of the recipients of the Global Citizen Award was PM of Italy, Georgia Meloni. If you recall, when she was elected, the mainstream media couldn’t give you enough scare stories about how she was the reincarnation of Mussolini! Pro-Putin and anti-American! Fortunately, on winning the election, she came to her senses and soon embraced the urgency of standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And who presented her the award? None other than that anti-establishment rebel, Elon Musk! Yup, the same guy bankrolling Donald Trump, the anti-establishment once-and-future swamp-drainer! Wow! Well, clearly this two-horse race could go either way. Luckily for freedom, democracy, and human rights, these two diametrically opposed candidates can agree on one crucial thing; they both 100% support Israel, no matter what.

US-NATO betrayal of Ukraine will bring serious blowback

Zelensky has unveiled his secret "Victory Plan." Here it is folks… drum roll please! Lot’s more billions and lots more weapons and also a few hundred thousand volunteers, ‘cause he’s pretty much out of Ukrainians. We’ve been hearing this tune for two and a half years. Victory is always just beyond reach. With a few more months and a few more billions, victory is assured! Rinse & repeat. Unfortunately for Zelly, his pleas to his handlers in DC will fall on deaf ears. The entire Washington establishment has written off the Ukraine gambit now that the Holy Land is in play. They won’t come right out and say so, but everybody sees what’s going on. Zelly has joined the ranks of those the esteemed war criminal Henry Kissinger was talking about when he candidly opined that being America’s enemy was dangerous, but being America’s friend was deadly. Noriega. Saddam. Kaddafi. Shame about those half million dead Ukrainians and their destroyed country. But we gave you two and a half years and you blew it. We got bigger fish to fry, and Iran is a big fish! I have a hunch there’ll be blowback over the betrayal of Ukraine.

Indian Summer

Not sure if “Indian summer” is a phrase you’re still allowed in the age of Woke. Regardless, we had the perfect Indian summer Saturday in these parts today. Sunshine all day and T-shirt and shorts temperatures. First weekend in October means it’s Pumpkinfest in Port Elgin. That’s only a hop and a skip from Falling Downs, plus we get to stop off at Tuggies on the Rez for cheap gas and cheap smokes. The Pumpkinfest is allegedly about the giant vegetables that arrive at what was originally the Port Elgin fall fair. Fall fairs are a big deal in rural Ontario. Every two-bit hick-town has one. Even former two-bit hick-towns that have long since become suburbs of Toronto still have them. I’m looking at you, Orangeville and Shelburne. But I digress. We don’t go to Port Elgin for the two-ton pumpkins. We go for the car show. It comes two or three weeks after the Concours at Cobble Beach. That one is ten minutes down the road, and we’ve been a few times. Fifty bucks to get in the gate. A lot of world-class stuff that arrived in hundred thousand dollar trailers with quarter million tow vehicles. Who doesn’t want to spend fifty bucks to see an actual original Bugatti? The Pumpkinfest car show, on the other hand, is all stuff the owners drove there. The town blocks off a few blocks of the downtown for a day. You won’t see any Bugattis, but you’ve got the entire catalogue of North American iron, plus a good sampling of European stuff. And it’s absolutely free! So we wander around downtown Port Elgin for an hour and a half, with Bruno in tow. You can’t imagine how many people want to stop and tell you how beautiful this runt Italian mastiff is. It’s non stop. When Bruno had his fill of strangers wanting to touch him, we motored down the Lake Huron shore to Kincardine, for lunch at the Erie Belle, where they promote themselves as the “House of Fish & Chips.” I was a fan long before the gluten thing reared its ugly head, and I am happy to report the Erie Belle has gluten-free fish & chips that will rival anything you ever had. We’re on the patio with Bruno catching the shade under the table, when a gaggle of millennials comes in and settles into the far end of the patio. There’s eight of them, and they’re engaged in a quite lively conversation. This has no bearing on us whatsoever. We’re at least forty feet away. But about ten minutes in, the Farm Manager remarks that none of them appear to have their phones out. What? How is such a thing even conceivable? I was seated with my back to them, but as we were leaving I went over to check them out. I thought at least a few might have their phones flat on the table in front of them, but no! Who can imagine such a thing?! Eight millennials gathered round a table on a restaurant patio, and not a phone in sight? There is hope for humanity!

The American Empire circles the drain... make America great again!

America is the exceptional nation. The indispensable nation. The country destined to lead the world, as both Kamala and Donald will tell you. Not that they’re telling you. You probably don’t give a shit if America “leads the world,” as long as you’ve got a job that pays your bills and gives you a half-decent life. No, they’re not talking to you. They’re talking to their billionaire donors. Those are the people who matter, and it matters to them that America remains the Big Dog. A lot of the things that matter to you - affordable housing, health care, education and groceries, simply aren’t a problem for the rich. But it matters to them that their wealth remains secure. That’s why America’s cred has always hinged, at the end of the day, on the US military. When push comes to shove, the Empire is the Empire because it can muscle any and all rivals out of the way. While that’s been a dubious proposition since at least the fall of Saigon, recent events make that proposition ever more dubious. The fall of Kabul was Saigon 2.0 - just with different Asians falling to their deaths. We’re well on our way to the final curtain for the Empire. In 2014 America engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine, paving the way for a regime of ultra-nationalist Russophobes eager to curry favour in Washington by antagonizing Russia. And curry favour they did! We goaded Zelensky into a hot war with Russia with the promise of NATO membership and the solid guarantee that we would provide whatever it takes for as long as it takes to crush Putin. Meanwhile, America has given Israel a blank cheque to bully any and all possible rivals since at least the Six Day War. The Israelis are even more in thrall to their exceptionalism than the Americans, as frightening as that may be to contemplate. The decades of indulgence have brought us to the current abyss. Between the hundreds of billions in cash and weapons, and the ever-ready veto at the UN, the ruling clique in Israel is convinced it is above all laws and completely unaccountable, not even to its enablers in Washington. Furthermore, they have now painted themselves into a corner and assume Uncle Sam is coming to the rescue. From the bipartisan noises coming from DC, it looks like America will stand with Israel with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. The good news is this. Once the American Empire has collapsed, it will be possible to make America great again for ordinary Americans who couldn’t care less about leading the world, but just want a job that provides a decent life.

America's democracy theatre; the show must go on!

I watched the first half hour of the Walz-Vance debate before succumbing to terminal ennui. I thought both VPs have more going on than their respective presidents, but who cares? What does it matter? The first topic was, given the events of the day, America’s loyalty to Israel. Both candidates promised unquestioned fealty. More “whatever it takes for as long as it takes.” Where have we heard that before? And how’s that going? The CBS moderators and both candidates celebrated the joint USA/IDF defeat of the dastardly Iranian missile attack. In fact, that was the only story you heard on mainstream media. Meanwhile, the internet was abuzz with video of Iranian missiles exploding on Israeli air bases. I said at least ten years ago Iron Dome was bullshit. There is no “missile shield.” The next topic was the devastating hurricane in the southeast. The VPs went back and forth on that one. They bickered about climate change and greenhouse gasses and fracking. Nobody mentioned the bipartisan neglect of infrastructure over the last half century. Of course they didn’t! That would cost money to fix! Money we need to support our many wars. Do you want the next billion in deficit spending to build public housing, or to finance Israel’s wars? The bipartisan consensus is a no-brainer. That’s why there’s a housing crisis in America, but Israel has unlimited 2,000 lb. ‘bunker-busters’ to preserve peace and democracy in the Middle East. Great to see the VP debate unify a divided country! We have bipartisan agreement that the interests of the genocidal psychopaths steering the ship of state in Israel take priority over the interests of the American people! Democracy rocks!