#It's not like I posted my work address anywhere. I worked at a fucking Walmart.

[scarletfasinera]

I will tell you what I did today after I do it. See you soon.

[carmensandiego-dreams-collection]

I completely forgot to say anything about Mystère au bout du monde, the most Game I’ve ever sat through. My full review of it below the cut:

-Everyone in the older Carmen fandom has said that this game is the worst, so naturally I had to go see for myself -It’s a sort-of reboot of Treasures of Knowledge but all the changes it’s made are bad, if it were a movie it’d be a direct-to-video sequel that you’d find in a walmart bargain bin -Shadow Hawkins is now Adam Shadow, and is now an asshole weirdo

-There’s a scene in the Louvre where he’s told not to touch anything and he IMMEDIATELY goes to pick up an ancient statue barehanded because he thinks it’s broken. The museum curator yells at him and tells him it was discovered in that state. It was the only funny joke in the game

-Jules picks Adam on purpose to be her partner but does nothing but rag on him the whole game. She’s also weirdly abrasive at times

-Neither of them are all that likeable in this, to be perfectly honest. Treasures had awkward moments, sure, but Jules and Hawkins were still fun and their rapport with other characters was interesting, especially with Jules and Carmen. This had absolutely none of that, everyone’s an asshole for some reason

-Everyone’s outfit/hair/aesthetics just......sucks shit, there is no nice way of putting it. Like I made fun of Jules’ character design a while ago but there’s MORE you guys, there’s more

-The plaid turtleneck. The JC Penny statement necklace. The high heeled leather boots. The skinny jeans. The hair. The clownishly proportioned women’s jacket. God.

-What the fuck is going on with this shirt??? the sleeves????

-I have a new drawing challenge that I’m proposing right now: take ANY outfit from this game and try to redesign it to be good.

-Some of the art looks unfinished, too, like nobody inked it properly and they just rushed sketches out to ship with the game

-It’s a personal gripe, but IDK why every reboot/reference to TOK feels like it needs to make Jules pointedly not-butch? CS2019 is light-years ahead of this game but it’s sort of guilty too

-Wow Shadow, your partner looks GNC af

-I think the only game that doesn’t do this is Hidden Drums?

-Adam’s outfits are better, but they’re still kinda bland.

-They took away all of his pockets. Fuck you. I hate you

-Shadow needs to look like a 7 year old boy that was allowed to dress himself at all times, you can’t do this, game

-The artstyle in general is also super awkward, the expressions look awful. A collection my favorites:

-There’s this weird love square going on?????? There’s no development for it, but it’s there regardless:

There’s this weird redditor/incel-type guy working in the lab who gives off Viktor from Despicable Me vibes. He constantly flirts with Jules but Jules isn’t into him, and he’s also relentlessly passive-aggressive towards Adam and hazes him because he probably thinks Adam is a Chad because Jules likes him more

Adam also constantly makes passes at Jules but she’s also not that into it, except when she is?? Half the time she brushes him off, but then she’ll turn around and flirt with him. I think the writers were trying to do that thing where a woman plays “hard to get”, except no woman ever has acted like that

I guarantee this was written by men

People call Jules and Adam up and they’re like “haha don’t get too distracted by each other you lovebirds” but they’ve only know each other for like two days max, what are they talking about

You think this shit is over, but then Carmen shows up in the ring with a steel chair and is like “Oh Jules, I find Adam attractive as well, oh hohoho! :3″ and you have to sit there and take it

I’m not really one to have strong feelings about “ships” either way, but honestly the aggressive attempt to remove the personal connection Jules and Carmen had in the first game and redirect it to be a fight over some Bland Dude is an act of homophobia, I’m sorry fjkdsl;afd

Thankfully none of this goes anywhere, but it’s uncomfortable nonetheless

- Carmen is barely in this game for some reason? The first time we see her in at least 20-30 minutes into the playthrough

-There also.... hints of racism? Like, all of the non-white people are sort of unhelpful, and there’s a moment where Carmen steals a mask from a Maasai Tribe and one dude sees her doing it, and instead of stopping her he’s like “her willpower and coat of red fire hypnotized me, so I came her to warn you instead”

- :/ idk man

-anyway, it turns out that all the items Carmen has been stealing are embedded with...microchips? And that when put together they lead to....atlantis??

-like, the honest to god atlantis

-ACME finally puts all the chips together and find the map, but then Carmen hacks in and get the map

-They race to an island that I guess does have the doorway to Atlantis, but right as Adam is about to catch Carmen, Jules falls off a cliff and has to be rescued

- To imply that this is a tense moment, rather than play intense music or have additional art with dialogue, the game instead flashes between these two images as fast as possible in dead silence

-Then, instead of addressing that the game just implied that Atlantis exists in this world, the game ends before we actually get to see Carmen, or even if there’s anything on the island

-After all is said and done, this game was entertaining to watch. I love bad media so much, although it’s a piss-poor game if you actually want something good about the characters. I’m hoping the recent show will spur HMH/Netflix to maaaaybe make another game, although who knows.

-A big thank you to fycarmensandiego for posting the walkthrough on youtube, I’m not sure if I could have sat through this on my own. If you like Carmen stuff, or would like to play this game yourself, you can check out their blog here on tumblr, they’ve done a lot of neat archival and emulation work!

[alyfawx]

My Thoughts on  Shane Dawson/Jeffree Star/Tati/James Charles

you guys don't get to make decisions on who people choose to watch or support...its not up to you guys...and hating won't get anyone anywhere...so why not move the fuck on already god damn...i believe shane wants to change and will change...yes he did a lot of shitty things but he has the right to grow and learn from them...not be pegged forever as the things you call him...(you'll get blocked if you reply without having an open mind about it so don't try) i'm so tired of people just saying one liners or what everyone else says"he's a racist..he's a pedo...your a pedo for sticking up for him...for one...no i'm not...for 2 i just believe people can change and not put them in a box forever as this one or 2 things and not trying to see the prospective in a new light...and just closed minded af...i don't condone pedophilia but i truly don't think he like children in that way in the first place...he made a really bad joke...a REALLY BAD JOKE but it doesn't excuse it was wrong..but i'm not calling him a pedo for it...2 as for the black face situation...i don't like that he did it and it was also a bad take back then but i do not think he should always be in a box as a racist because he grew up and stopped that shit and never did it again...and i'm not black so i guess i don't have a say in forgiving him for it but still i think he learned from it and moved on...now you guys can keep the grudge fine...but stop harassing him about it...it won't do anything good just stress you out and put you in a low vibration...and as for the James thing i don't think Shane will bug him again and James is even more popular then he was before...and as for the suicide thing...Shane is wrong for that...but also why put him in the same situation as James...it doesn't help James or Shane...though if your a hater who cares right...fuck Shane let him commit suicide because thats justice in your eyes...no...your just as bad as he was...i don't think people really think when they post really...same goes for shane and whoever posted drama or hate...because hate seems to be so easy to spread now a days...like where is the love..why can't we move on from things...and i feel like...no one is gonna read this far...and just skim it see that i'm a fan of shane and just spread more hate to me because i'm trying to defend someone who did shitty things...we all do shitty things...some offends more then others but its all the fuck the same because its still hate...and this is what i dislike about how the internet works...its always jump on the band wagon and destroy this person because this person said this and did that and what not...we never really think hay...maybe spreading hate won't get you anywhere...it will just put more fire to the flame and than we act as if its this persons fault i hated this person because they shows me this and told me that...and weren't you all the same people who attacked James when dramageton happened...right we never take accountability for our actions its always some one else’s fault not our own...and Shane said you don't have to forgive him and you can say all the hateful shit you want about him because he deserves it...but even so...how bout we don't and just leave the damn dude alone..and anyone else...i just don't get it...its not hard to walk away from a situation that you have no control of...why waste time spreading hate when you can instead spread love somewhere else which will do far better then sitting here saying all these things to someone you don't really know..all you know is he said and she said and clips and fabricated evidence and accusations and shit...because you have been wrong about someone before...James is one of them...is he an angel...no...but hey lets stick up for him because everyone else is...cuz now that you were proved wrong about something you feel bad and want to fix it by making excuses for your actions by trusting someone else’s story...instead of doing your own research and your own evidence and intuition....no lets blame shane,tati,jeffree for lying about someone...i didn't know...it was fake...so its not my fault...but no it is cuz you assumed without real evidence...and now you just want to put the blame on someone else for your actions...

Shane is not innocent

Jeffree is far from innocent

Tati is a manipulator

and James is using this to thrive now...

no one wins...

Shane i think really wants to love on from this and wants to do his own thing away from drama and hate..he just wants to create...and he recently hasn’t done any of the things he use to do...only thing is the whole james thing but you know what...it doesn’t matter because Jame’s is better then ever and is doing his own thing so did he really lose?

Jeffree is a whole mess and he just need to like chill...get off of the internet stop doing make up...get some help and therapy and actually try to kill his ego and pride and narcissistic tendeses...and i mean actually try to come down to earth for like a year and not just dress down in walmart clothes no...actually be a normie for like a year no fancy cars or 10 Pomeranians living in a castle...actually come down from that throne see what it was really like to get on that level...no distractions or excuse...and work on himself...and go within and reflect and actually feel instead of hiding behind a paywall...

Tati needs to mind he own business and only focus on her self and leave shane,jeffree or James out of her vocabulary...actually pretend they don’t exsist...

James...he actually kinda doing well with what he’s been doing but i would like to see him actually address his feeling torwards this...of like just forgive and forget on a real tho...tell people to just stop everything about the situation and walk away...tell them not to harass or contact shane,tati or jeffree...just leave them be and let them deal with there own demons...

for me this situation has really been taken a toll on me...cuz you see Shane is really getting gutted here...and i know some things he’s done should not be forgiven..but i don’t think he should have his platform taken away...and here’s why...cuz Shane isn’t trying to spread hate...most of the time he was trying to stay silent from the situation but people keep bringing it up and attacking him...telling him to do this and that and when he does that out of pressure..he doesn’t think before he speaks...not really because he gets flustered and embarrassed and reacts with comedy at the wrong times and or say the wrong things because he really can’t react the right way because no matter what he says or does no one want’s to hear it..they already painted this image of him a really bad image and he feels like he has to be on the defend but defending makes things worse so its like...what can he do...nothing...but people don’t want him to do nothing that means he’s hiding from it...but what if its not like that at all...maybe he just doesn’t know what to say to please everyone...and come out alive mostly...i put myself in his sues and i’m an empath so its hard for me to just sit and read these cruel comments about him when honestly i think he’s trying so hard to fix this mess but no one..wants him too...they just want to just go die in a hole somewhere...and i just find that disgusting and cruel...yes you have the right to your opinion...and yes you have the right to not forgive him and yes you have the right to not like him...but is it really necessary to go on all his posts and tweets and spread this unbelievable hatred towards someone...a million times over...to the point they feel like they could probably just die and no one will care...no..i don’t like that...no matter what he said...i don’t think he deserves that...no one fucking does...especially since...he hasn’t touched a kid inappropriately on the real though...but everyone assumes he did cuz of the jokes he said...and the gestures...all an act but everyone wants to believe he’s really this way because they just hate him...until a real victim with real evidence comes out against him i refuse to call him a pedo because a pedo is a child toucher and he’s not that...and this doesn’t excuse his actions its still disgusting...but he isn’t serious about it and never was...ya’ll are protecting no one because no one is in actual real danger...he stopped that nonsense...he’s not even making money off those things anymore youtube cut his funds so move on...and as for the black face as i stated before since he stopped and never made racist slurs since...and yeah you don’t have to forgive him and i don’t have the rights to forgive him for what he did but REALLY...does it do anything for you saying he’s a racist for what he did years ago and since hasn’t even mention anything negative towards a person of color...so what if he doesn’t hang with much of them...maybe he just couldn’t find a good friend who is a person of color...that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s perposly doing it or he hates the black community...because guess what there are people out there who don’t have a single black friend but still don’t hate them...

honestly i think everyone who hates Shane should just leave him be

and the people who like him watches what he puts out...

no one should decide who you choose to watch or support...

(this was originally gonna be on Shane's Instagram comment section on his last post but i moved it here cuz it couldn’t fit and also i added more...)

[cleocazo]

pls signal boost ! i’m seeing this rp getting recced as the next best place to be, but this is only the TIP of the problem iceberg !

so uhHhHHhhhhHHh hey everyone ! karma got its kiss for me ! we here tonight to present y’all with a kinda callout post for @cityofepcothq​ - which has committed more crimes this night than being an obvious downgrade from my rp @wdacademyrp​ !! there really isnt all that much for part one but uh - lets begin !!

let me start by saying- i rly do not give TWO shits abt these people - past problematic members of MY rp who had to leave MONTHS ago - making their own inspired version of it. whatever, man. i sure did NOT invent next gen disney roleplays. they can do whatever they want with their concept stolen rp ( and admin gifs, but who’s counting sins here ), but i’ve got one ( 1 ) problem that needs addressing - and since they’ve yet to answer my im’s and i don’t think they will, we going public w this bitch !

whom the FUCK do y’all think you are for page sourcing a whole FCKING page from MY rp !!! 

THE ISSUE: PAGE SOURCE CODE STEALING :

so. after seeing kat’s FINE ASS work on patientshq.tumblr.com with this theme - you can see her page here, and how she edited what were links to be those goRGEOUS pop ups - i decided .. ya know what ? that’s a concept i would like to get in on. i was a MEMBER of patientshq ! i know for a #fact i wasn’t the only person interested in doing the same thing and i hope to FUCK i asked for direct permission from kat back then, but . long story short . i woulda NEVER page sourced directly from her work, even if i wanted to try and achieve the same look. 

instead, i spent YONKS tryna make a popup of my own. and then i gave up, bc i don’t do well w html, and i brought in a friend who is a html wizard and spent even MORE time on it - and realized the code i was using in the first place was shit, coded a whole thing from SCRATCH, for me and my rp, and left me instructions on how to do it. she even included a strip of black in the code itself so that the title on the left would have something to rest against, bc with my chosen background image, it was difficult to see. 

u heard it here FIRST, my dudes. wda’s map page was a concept borrowed from patientshq - but the code we used was coded for us, by a friend, included the color strip down the side, and was NOT posted anywhere for any kinda public use. we weren’t reposting that shit. we ain’t THIEVES tryna cash in on other ppls ideas. we were just ppl who wanted to try and do something cool bc it is cool. and here u go !click here to see our page, live ! and here’s some screenshots ! 

keep what i said in mind about our edited code never being reposted or out for public use, and know that we were NEVER asked for it, or asked could they use any parts of it when they made their rp’s map page - which you can view live ( for now ) by clicking this sentence !

wow : ) that strip of color sure looks : ) familiar : ) so does that sidebar : ) which i had to edit the settings of to make it look right : ) haha : ) i wonder : ) what : ) their : ) popups : ) are : )

how abt we .. put them side By side ..

wow that .. rly doesnt make it look any better .. does it ?? haha 

if u click around on both our map pages, you’ll notice real quick on ours there’s a flaw - when you click a popup and then click the ‘x’ to close it, you can’t click another popup first try - you have to scroll away and come back to it. idk if its on every browser ! but it is on mine ! 

if u needed any more confirmation they certainly didn’t make this code themselves and we didn’t give it to them, then all you have to do is click around on theirs. there’s the same flaw. 

i asked ‘em to take it down - that’s still all tf i want and if they stop ignoring me and shia labeouf vc do it - we won’t have another problem ! but if they dont .. we got another callout coming ur way, fam, and this one includes even MORE thievery from walmart wda ! 

[toshootforthestars]

Hey so...

I have very little faith in the future right now.  Honestly I have reason to suspect that this new decade, the 2020′s, will be a total shitshow.  A shitshow of human suffering and misery unlike anything anyone alive has experienced.

I speak in regards to how things will pan out in the good ol’ USA, although I suspect things will turn to further shit across the globe. 

I just don’t see anything good on the horizon.  Politically, socially, environmentally, financially, nor spiritually.  The 2020′s will be a calamitous era without any analogue to any previous decade in our kids’ textbooks. 

Over 100 years of hard-fought social progress absolutely will be undone by the leadership in Washington, but precious little else will even be addressed.  Take-home wages will continue to stagnate or even fall. Environmental degradation will continue at an exponential rate.  Public infrastructure will largely collapse if is isn’t fully abandoned.  Democratic governance will be largely abandoned. Human rights, already a concept on the decline, might not exist in 10 years time. Pandemics and resistant disease may both flourish this decade, unabated.  Plus: the pension crisis, social security insolvency, predatory capitalism, increasing barriers to internet access, the insecure IoT, election hacking, the health care crisis, and microplastics.  And more!

There are so many urgent problems that affect everyone, and there’s absolutely no will to solve them.  It’s a crisis of leadership seldom seen.  Too few people in a position to create change even cares.  No shitty action has any consequence of merit.  It’s the “fuck you” society.  A teenager from Sweden pleas for action on the world stage and she’s roundly mocked, debased and ignored.

Each individual is on their own... and as it should be, most will say!  Social darwinism, the “rugged individualist” ideals far too many people are returning to, combines with the horrific transformation of our society from one of ideas, virtues and progress to this insular, post-truth, anti-science dogmatic and authoritarian sandbox game.  Perhaps this was the way society used to be like, if not for the apathy of our parents and grandparents to fully impart this to us.

If the world is full of people whose only motivation is self-interest, people with no compassion, no capacity to understand, no capacity to think critically, will society even stand in the face of crisis?

The future feels like a hellscape almost beyond imagination.

I think back to all the times that I’ve heard, first-hand or second-hand, an individual claim that “there’s far too many people in this world” or that “we need to thin the herd,” clutching vainly to this merit-based existence where everyone’s life is a privilege that must be earned, that must be proven to others, day in and day out.  This argument wins the day.  It grows more adherents.  People are in cages on the U.S./Mex border and the false assumption that “it can’t happen to me” wins the day.  The planet is on fire, but “fuck you--got mine.”  It’s great. It’s fantastic.  I need to watch what I say now because the silent majority is fed up with our shit.

So much will be radically different by 2029.  The internet will still be around, with facebook and instagram, Apple and Amazon, plus a handful of general interest websites. NewsMax too, I suspect.  But no tumblr. No Wordpress. No AO3. No blogs. No twitter. No tiktok. No more....  many things.  But the ones still standing by 2030, they’ll still have Walmart, DuPont, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Verizon, Disney and pickup trucks. 

You know, I very strongly doubt there will be free and abundant potable water, anywhere, by 2029.  Tap water will become a thing of the past, just like the landline phone.

Hell by 2060 I wouldn’t be surprised if 75% of the world’s population to have perished, while planetary-scale geoengineering will have begun in earnest by then, by a largely robotic work force.

I very much want to be wrong about this and more.

I won’t get my hopes up.  At my apartment, I no longer separate the recyclables from the trash.  I’ve been told in confidence by people I know, from work and from the community, that everything in the town I live in is being landfilled now, for reasons, and has been for many years now.  All the surrounding towns too.  Among the reasons: near-zero public compliance with the recycling rules, plus no interest in hiring people to hose out all the crusted & moldy remains from those recyclables.  Largely, it’s the long-standing, steadfast opposition to recycling from the get-go.  Recycling is and always has been some liberal bullshit, like Earth Day, and plastics actually do biodegrade in landfills (they don’t but fuck science and evidence), and asking at all about what happens to the trash to begin with is stupid and I shouldn’t do it.  Facilities to melt down plastics for reuse, well, there’s none near where I live. That’s why some recyclables not landfilled here are sent dumped overseas. No one can tell me if there is any such reuse industry at all for plastics and glass like there sorta is for paperboard. If I trash all my garbage, it’ll be landfilled locally instead of being dumped across the world. It’s the least bad option.  I hate it.  I hate it all.  I hate the total lack of any regard for other people, for the planet, nor for the future.  I hate that there’s so little I can do except complain.  But only to the right people.

(Rethink the supply chain? Rethink consumer goods?  Reusable container for everything?  I get dirty looks just for using a reusable Whirley mug for gas station coffee, instead of the polystyrene cups provided because I’m “cheap.”.  The state I live in has a partial ban on plastic bags that *may* go into effect in a few months if the law isn’t struck down in court.  It’s great.)

No one cares and I shouldn’t either.  That’s the answer I get. That’s the solution I read is being agreed upon.  Just as long as the dump doesn’t smell too bad. 

This is world I live in today. 

Happy 2020.

[theliterateape]

American Shithole #2 — How Deep Is Our Shithole?

by Eric Wilson

Ugh, what a week already.

I have entertained adding the occasional silver lining/ray of sunshine to a column that could likely depress more often than elate. This would require a subheading. American Shithole: Turds of Wisdom, or American Shithole: Kernels of Truth, perhaps.

Or, American Shithole: I Just Can’t, Today.

If I do include any rose-tinted hangover editions, they will be few and far between, because this country is a hot mess on a lost weekend. America has tossed its keys in the sewage drain, taken its shirt off, and is wandering around a Walmart somewhere with one flip-flop on, looking for paint thinner.

What’s worse is that when we survive this administration, a lot of our issues will still be here. They were here long before too many of us got drunk on fear, populism and stupidity.

So I watched the State of the Union, and if you had happened to be listening from the next room, you would have been privy to cackles, expletives, and you might have even heard an eye-roll. The President did actually address a few of the following issues that ultimately he will do nothing about:

Our infrastructure is indeed collapsing, as it has been for decades. Our interstates and bridges are in dangerous disrepair. When the Eisenhower administration — a republican administration mind you — set in motion a tax plan requiring the wealthy to shoulder significant expense for new infrastructure, the plutocrats in response undermined middle-class and poor families for three generations; in what has become an ongoing effort to maintain a conservative voting bloc by pitting Americans against each other.

We haven’t adequately invested in infrastructure since.

Public schools have been shortchanged at every turn by the ruling class. It only requires a reporter to shove a microphone into the face of a Trump supporter for evidence of an undervalued education. Or, if you are feeling particularly courageous, a Jimmy Kimmel street interview.

The only true danger to any aristocracy has always been an educated and well-informed populace. We’ve had nearly three generations now of Americans voting against their own self-interests, and the dumbing-down of rural America in particular seems to be worsening.

Healthcare is a joke without a punchline. If keeping the citizenry ignorant isn’t sufficient, or if you can’t keep them all dumb enough, then keep them scared for their lives. Nothing works better — if scaring the shit out of people is your intent — than the indifferent bureaucracy of insurance companies and America’s special brand of super-capitalism strip-mining human misery for market value.

The real danger posed by Obamacare is that it offered hope to the hopeless. It is as if the healthcare available prior to the Affordable Care Act — basically unaffordable access to bottom-of-the-barrel health services, and the crippling debt that still somehow followed — was expected to be taken as a blessing, a kindness from our benevolent benefactors, and not an insidious effort to leverage struggling Americans into quiet submission.

Powerful people like the Koch brothers were very angry that the poor and needy of our country were able to taste the merest hint of true freedom that Universal Healthcare would provide.

This too is the ultimate function of student loans, where America stands again as an outlier, saddling our best and brightest young people with an albatross right out of the gate. The only purpose of these enormous debt burdens on our youth is to create leverage and fear.  

Speaking of scholastic environments, as of January 23rd we have had eleven school shootings this year. This year that started, this month. Eleven. That’s more than the rest of the western world’s countries combined. Let that sink in a moment — if anything can sink in amidst this ceaseless maelstrom of fear, greed, lies, horrific violence, and profound stupidity.

“Where’d you get your figures, Librul?”

We have access to data for school shootings worldwide, for one, because these atrocities rarely happen anywhere else — I am assuming this is because in non-shithole countries, the images of your own dead children in classrooms is so fucking horrific, people actually do something about it.

Or we could just keep flooding our communities with bump stocks and military-grade assault weaponry, because you know, freedom.

We are one of the only western countries where opioids are only available from a physician, and somehow unrelated, we are the only country suffering from a catastrophic opioid addiction crisis. A crippling death sentence that has no geographical, class or racial barriers has already shuffled a few of my favorite artists off this mortal coil. I guess that song I wrote for Tom Petty “Running Down a Fentanyl Prescription” will have to remain unrecorded gold.

The situation is already so toxic in some smaller communities that literally no family has been left unchallenged and unchanged. Why are rural communities hit hardest? Infrastructure, in part. Everything is connected.

Drug distributors that saturated this small West Virginia town with 20 million painkillers probably sleep like kittens.

Weaving like a drunk on a highway throughout this quagmire of poverty, ignorance, poor health, drug addiction and despair, we have our embarrassing legacy of racism and prejudice. Thriving, it seems, in the basements of weary mothers everywhere. Along with a disgusting resurgence of misogyny that I was not expecting either — certainly not from those significantly younger than I am. Throat-punching these mongoloid fucks should be considered civic duty.

And then we have men, some once-revered, that turned out to be rapists — that have in some cases, systematically abused power and position over the course of decades. If the situation were normal, I would probably take weeks to unpack how disappointed; disgusted I feel by Charlie Rose, and others I admired. Or even linger over the Schadenfreude I have experienced for shit-bags I never liked in the first place. I’m looking at you, Matt Lauer.

We just don’t have the time to reflect, not these days.

Ultimately, in Machiavellian fashion, moderating and doling out most of this misery we have the billionaires, whose lives are so far removed from anything remotely representing normal human existence, it begs the question: who are these greedy fucking assholes? In my opinion, billionaires are the real dead weight for humanity. Dead weight created in a soulless economic construct gone haywire.  

A report in Newsweek recently shared some numbers that I find most troubling for a group of people I already despise. If the billionaires of the world were to share just 1/7th of what they earned this past year — not the billions they already horde, just 15% or so of what they accumulated on top of that this year — extreme poverty and starvation would end.

Instead, the Koch brothers will invest more than they ever have before in an attempt to win 2018 elections for the republicans that they have already pocketed long ago. All just to stay as rich as possible. That is what this has always been about. This is about obscenely overvalued gluttons staying obscenely overvalued, no matter the human suffering.

We — and by “we” I mean those of us that are influenced by generosity and compassion, and some sense of fucking decency — must truly resist. We must find ways to rise above our own instincts as Americans; with our seemingly ingrained worship of the ultra-rich. Look, I don’t want to have to keep breaking it to you, but these guys are fucking assholes.

These (547 or so) comically overvalued and overpowered individuals aren’t all evil, but the damage done by the worst among them (Koch Brothers, Mercers, etc.) is incalculable. There is also the stifling effect of having that much value out of circulation; even if they weren’t guilty of tampering with American politics — creating the Tea Party, for example — their greed manifested is strangulating the pursuit of happiness for nearly everyone else.

On top of the heap we have Trump — dumbest, luckiest douchebag of them all. Faux billionaire, if there ever was one. The Giant Orange Idiot is nearly universally despised by friend and foe alike — with the notable exception of his base, that bastion of intelligence worried about brown people coming to take their dirt piles. Hey Cletus, no one is coming for your fucking shitty dirt pile in Bumblefuck Nowhere, U.S.A.

Trump also has the support of the evangelicals, who as I have stated, are one rung above the flat-earthers in problem-solving and critical thinking capabilities.   

If we continue down this path, the United States is in danger of becoming this century’s answer to Nazi Germany, or at least an oligarchical, nationalist, modern-day version of it. And if you think that’s bombastic, then I suggest you review your history books, and perhaps take another look around you right now. This hollowed-out husk of an American Dream — is ripe to turn dystopian nightmare — and that is something to which I hope we will not silently bear witness.

Before this starts reading like a manifesto, or a really painful civics report, I think it’s time to wrap this one up. What can I say? Being forced to watch Trump speak for 90 minutes makes me chatty. Or barfy. Yes, by Thursday’s posting, I am sure that the memo has already blown up.  Be strong my beautiful brothers and sisters. Find your line, and fucking hold it.

I would like to close with a pleasant thought that came to me a year ago now:

There will come a day, perhaps you’ll be on a date or spending the evening with a good friend, you’ll be enjoying a quiet exchange over a comforting meal, and the conversation will turn. One of you will inhale sharply and say, “wow, we haven’t heard that name in a while.”

A moment of silence may pass with reflection. You’ll both sigh, perhaps grin, and that grin might broaden into a smile.

I don’t know what year it’s going to be. I don’t know if I will live to see it, but the collective ‘we’ are going to have this moment. It’s going to be a magical moment.

I hope this thought brings you some comfort, my fellow Americans.

Stay tuned next week for American Shithole: Skid Marks of Justice?