I loved George Carlin and coming from me that is one of his greatest achievements. His comedy, except for his political views, was to me the best I’ve ever heard. Richard Pryor was right up there with him but to me Carlin was the epitome of what comics should be. His writings were just as good as his standup routine and they made you think. His English language wordplay was unbelievable and remains unmatched in my opinion to this day. He was also a better than average actor and I especially enjoyed his work in Jersey Girl from 2004. Along the way he won damn near every award possible for his work and it was richly deserved. One of his greatest moments to me was when he released his seven dirty words you couldn’t say on television. Here’s the short version of that historic event.
“I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that idea that I uh, I think is important. I love… as I say, they’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion. Words are all we have really. And the forbidden words, you know the seven don’t you? Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tit’s, huh? Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.“
Just to show you how the times are changing I’ll tell you a quick short story. A number of months back just prior to the start of the pandemic I was sitting in our local mall in one of those half-assed living room areas where husbands can wait for their wives. A large group of teens arrived and surrounded me as they chatted away about the new iPad one of them had purchased. I sat there for no more than ten minutes and overheard six of the seven famous Carlin words. He was right, we can’t say them on TV, but you’ll sure hear them said everywhere else.
As I was paging through some of my records I came upon a posting that I wrote 11 years ago. My thanks again go out to a Kansas City contributor who assisted me in this endeavor. It had been prompted by a State of the Union message by the president at that time, King Obama. My posting was initially about how democracies tend to destroy themselves financially and as I read through it again I began to realize that since Biden’s election absolutely nothing had changed from then until now. Disregarding the costs of the pandemic to this nation which have been considerable, there are many other things that need to be looked at as well. Read these and weep.
The folks who are getting the free stuff don’t like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.
And… the folks who are paying for the free stuff would like the free stuff to stop. And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting.
Now… The people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are receiving the free stuff that the people who are paying for the free stuff are being mean, prejudice, and racist.
So… The people who are getting the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place.
Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between two hundred and two hundred and fifty years after being founded. The reason? The voters eventually figured out they can vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money in exchange for electing them. The United States officially became a republic in 1776, two hundred and forty five years ago. The number of people getting free stuff is beginning to outnumber the number of people paying for the free stuff. Failure to change this terribly inequitable system could spell serious financial problems for all of us and for future generations. Do we as a people want to become another sad statistic on failed government?
Today is not just a day of remembrance for me but for the descendants of nearly 1200 Jews saved from death at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Oskar Schindler died at the age of 66 in 1974. Being a member of the Nazi party made it possible for him to bribe officials and obtain forged documents. He placed himself and his family at mortal risk and when it was all said and done he was penniless.
As a member of the Nazi Party, he ran an enamel-works factory in Krakow during the German occupation of Poland, employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the ghetto was liquidated, he persuaded Nazi officials to allow the transfer of his workers to the Plaszow labor camp, thus saving them from deportation to the death camps. In 1944, all Jews at Plaszow were sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler, at great risk to himself, bribed officials into allowing him to keep his workersand set up a factory in a safer location in occupied Czechoslovakia. By the wars end, he was penniless, but had saved 1200 Jewish lives.
In 1962, he was declared a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official agency for remembering the Holocaust. According to his wishes, he was buried in Israel at the Catholic cemetery on Mt. Zion.
I’ve collected a large amount of miscellaneous information over the years and have saved only a small percentage of it. I only keep things that are interesting to me and a little unusual. Many of you may have seen the following information in the past in one form or another but many have not. Since it’s a lazy day here in Maine I’m sending this along for your amusement and also because of my inability to motivate myself this morning. These facts are truly strange and go well beyond the level of coincidence. Read on and enjoy some gruesome American history.
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contains seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names were composed of 15 letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named Ford.
Kennedy was shot in a car called Lincoln.
Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were both assassinated before their trials.
And here’s the kicker
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time bitching and complaining about the pop culture nonsense going on in this country. Now I want to address culture in its truer form. Not your highbrow, ballet, museum, and big money culture and not some idiot celebrity worshiping pop culture, but our American societies lack of a real culture. Every country on this planet has its own distinct culture from Sri Lanka to Samoa and I thought that was pretty cool but as I gave it more thought I saw the darker side of it.
America in my view hasn’t any culture of any kind that is specific to its citizens. It’s true that people clamor to come here to live in a country most of them professed to hate when they’re in their own country. Thousands arrive here every year to make a better life for themselves whether legally or illegally. That’s great for America as it always has been but then the dark side shows us its ugly face.
People fight and endure dangerous and risky journeys to taste the freedom offered here. So what do they do first. They find an enclave or cluster of others from their home country and settle into the same culture they just left. They then proceed to organize so they can bitch about how they are discriminated against here in the land of the free and then demand America change to make them feel more at home. If you really want things to be like they were in your home country than you probably should have stayed there to begin with. But again, where is America’s culture?
Are we just Eastern Europe on steroids. Multiple cultures living on top of each other for generations, pissing and moaning about the unfairness of it all, and just waiting for the day when everyone else will see the light and recognize that their culture is the best.
How many Chinatowns are there in this country? How many Korea towns, or German towns, or Irish neighborhoods, do we have? What is America’s culture? I’m having a real problem trying to recognize it because I firmly believe there is none. America’s freedoms are a great draw for the downtrodden and politically persecuted from around the world. I get that, but so what? They bring with them all of their BS and problems and then expect us to change our way of thinking. I’m not painting all immigrants with a broad brush. I understand there are some who make the changeover easily, learning the language, and moving on with their new American lives. If you were to move anywhere else on the globe it would be expected of you to learn the language there. I don’t see any country except the US that even worries about such things.
What I am demanding is that the American government do something to help create a legitimate American culture. Make the English language once and for all the official language of the United States. Instead of printing documents with 13 languages and dialects, spend that money on mandatory English-speaking classes for all those who wish to permanently relocate here.
My immigrant grandparents came here to make a new life for themselves. There was a second language spoken but it was spoken only in the home. They understood that learning English was the only way to truly become an American citizen. So what did they do? They learned the damn language. I was raised listening to German in the home for most of my early life. I thought it was cool but I knew I lived in America and that German was an old country tradition that really had no attraction to me. I was a goddamn American and proud of it.
There never will be a legitimate American culture unless something is done and soon. We know just how bad things can get like when the ethnic fighting took place in Eastern Europe after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The first thing every ethnic groups seems to want was the death of everyone who isn’t just like them. Murder squads, rape gangs, and genocide are the three things I hope we never have the misfortune to see on the streets of America.
If these ethnic separations continue unchecked, at some point things could get awfully scary.
I love looking back at this country’s politics in my attempt to learn where all of the bad habits of our political elite have been learned. One of the major criticisms of our current politicians is that they are only concerned with “soundbites” rather than substance. Since I agree with that criticism I decided to try and pin down where it all started. The rise of the Mainstream Media has always been blamed for “sound biting” every candidate until we could just scream. What I discovered was more than just a little interesting. The use of campaign slogans began well before the media became so powerful. The following slogans are sometimes cute, sometimes hurtful, but always entertaining. This is just a small sampling of old and new campaign slogans that started the “soundbite revolution”.
Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too -1840
Fifty-Four or Fight -1844
Equal Rights to All, Special Privileges to None -1900
Stand Pat With McKinley -1900
Keep Cool With Coolidge -1924
A Chicken in Every Pot, A Car in Every Garage -1928
In Hoover We Trusted and Now We Are Busted -1948
One Good Term Deserves Another -1934
I’m Just Wild About Harry -1948
To Err is Truman -1948
Phooey on Dewey -1948
I Like Ike -1952
I Still Like Ike -1953
In Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts -1964
Never Been Indicted -1980
It’s the Economy Stupid -1992
I guess we’ve come by it honestly. Apparently we citizens always were suckers for cheesy “soundbites” even when they were just called “campaign slogans”.
HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE “TIME FOR CHANGE” AGAIN IN 2024
I’ve been called a lot of kind and unkind things in my life but the most recent nickname being overused is the term curmudgeon. It’s not a word I’ve ever used regularly and it really didn’t become well-known to me until the sitcom, Everyone Loves Raymond, made its appearance on TV all those years ago. Peter Boyle laid claim to the term and has become the curmudgeon poster boy since. I can’t forget to mention another of my favorite curmudgeons, Andy Rooney, who like Peter Boyle has long since passed away.
I’ve been branded by friends and family alike as an apparent “growler and grumbler” but I just don’t think that applies to me at all. This name calling has increased since I started blogging and thankfully no-one but my friends and family have used the term up till now. That’s not a request for any of you to start using it, so don’t.
After months and months (sarcasm on) of meticulous research (sarcasm off) I’ve discovered that since the death of Peter Boyle and Andy Rooney we no longer have any famous or infamous curmudgeons to ridicule the powers that be and that just doesn’t seem right to me. If I’m truly a curmudgeon then I must be filling a basic human need. Maybe people subconsciously need someone like me to observe their activities, comment on these activities, and to criticize them as needed. I have to admit that’s what I do and you’re very welcome. I religiously pick apart stupid and politically correct activities of people and shine the spotlight of mocking and silliness directly on them. Am I doing a public service? I think I am.
I also realize that many of the people who read this blog are bloggers themselves. I can’t put a number on it but I’m not afraid to say a large percentage of my readers are just as curmudgeonly as I appear to be. So to all of you blogging curmudgeonly curmudgeons out there, keep up the good work. This society needs to hear opinions from real folks not just paid mouthpieces of the mainstream media and the US government. And as stated by our forefathers, “It’s the duty of every patriotic American to question and criticize their government.” , so don’t stop now.
Say these following words to yourself as often as you can.
If you read this blog at all you know how much I detest political correctness. I come by that honestly due in part to a man who assisted me in setting up my first blog many years ago. His ideas and writings on political correctness are exactly the same as mine. He is what you might call my “blog father” and his name was Rob “Acidman” Smith. Unfortunately for us all he passed away on June 26th 2006. He’s been missed by me and many others and his blog remains online, maintained by his family. It will always hold a place of honor on my Favorites List. I visit him there on a regular basis to read his old postings because they’re still as pertinent to the discussion today as they were back then. If you’re interested, his blog is called gutrumbles.com, check it out. You are missed Rob.
Acidman
As you are well aware there are many bright people in this world who see the dangers of political correctness and the ongoing damage that it’s causing within the society. It’s become so ingrained in our society that it’s now the norm rather than the exception. My main question, can it be reversed? Seems to me correcting political correctness will be a long-term and difficult process. As anyone can see it’s taken a few decades to drag us down to this level and very well may take a few more decades to correct it.
It seems to me that the fault belongs primarily with academia. Public education systems in this country are being run by a liberally biased group of academics whose whole purpose is to brainwash each upcoming generation to embrace political correctness and to revile those who don’t. The amount of power wielded by the teachers unions across the country has made it virtually impossible to root out these individuals and to reclaim control over our education system.
There you have it folks, responsibility for correcting political correctness is once again in the hands of the parents. I think it’s time that PTA groups across this country become better organized so they’re able to rein in the administrators and not rubber-stamp every stupid and ignorant idea being shoved down their throats by school committees. Lazy parents concede control over school subject matter and then blame everyone but themselves for the results. Stand up, be heard, and take back control of your children’s schools. I’m all for turning the kids into productive citizens and not just people who worship social causes, the environment, and poo poo personal responsibility.
I’ve been giving serious thought to topics normally considered women’s issues. In actuality all women’s issues are really men’s issues too. If the women’s issues are addressed, approved, and implemented, we men are affected as well. I’m really not writing about women’s issues per se but more about the woman’s movement in particular.
Most people in this country think the women’s movement started in the U.S. in the sixties with bra-burning (my personal favorite), free love (another favorite), and the birth of feminism (not so much). The truth of the matter is that that the women’s movement started many decades ago in countries around the world and is still alive and well. Places like Afghanistan, needless to say, are lagging behind by a few centuries. During those centuries women were pushed into the background, dominated by men, and we’re required to be barefoot and pregnant as often as possible. Arranged marriages were common in many cultures making a woman’s choice of just about anything impossible. Women kept inching their way forward, one step at a time, three steps forward and then two steps back. They will never stop regardless of the price they have to pay.
In the United States women’s suffrage came to a head in Utah where men hoped by giving women the right to vote they could dispose of the Mormon tradition of polygamy. As soon as polygamy was voted out the male-dominated Congress of the United States turned around and disenfranchised those same women. It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming again enfranchised women after diligent efforts by the suffragette movements at state level.
So here we are in the 21st century and probably within twenty years of seeing the first woman president of the United States. I hope I’m alive to see it. I’ve been impressed with a few women over the years who I would have voted for in an instant if given the chance. Margaret Thatcher for one (unfortunately wrong country), Jean Kirkpatrick, former UN Ambassador, and Condoleezza Rice as well. But never Hilary Clinton, OMG NEVER! We’ve now had our first black president and I’m certain no woman I know could do as bad a job as he and Biden have done and are doing.
I have a great deal of admiration for the women who came before. They paved the way for our modern women with their blood, sweat, and tears. At the same time I thumb my nose to Gloria Steinem and her ilk who turned the woman’s rights movement into radical feminism and used that organization for their own liberal political agenda. I began blogging seriously 11 years ago and during that time I’ve read and communicated with a host of women of all ages. I’ve been impressed with what I’ve read and also with the written conversations I’ve had with many of you. Women will continue to make even greater strides in the coming decades and all of you young ladies out there should remember your history and continue the good fight.
If you could make any wish and know it would be granted, what would it be? Would you be like any number of Miss America or Miss Universe contestants and ask for world peace? Some people would ask for money and lots of it. There are a million things to think about before making such a tremendous decision. Would you wish to be king or queen of the world and rule your kingdom anyway you please and God help the disbelievers.
Most of our politicians would ask for a healthy and happy electorate with a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. What they really want is continuous reelections without campaigning and the ability to act in any manner they please both sexually and otherwise without consequence. Again read between the lines. They really want total power over as many citizens and their tax dollars as they can get. They want to be able to give big money jobs to their friends and relatives without having some reporter in their face.
The Hollywood types would ask for a steady diet of big roles, big movies, and the undying gratitude of the masses. Of course, they would tell the world they really are asking for world peace, no poverty, and the rescue of the unfortunates in Africa. You must learn to read between the lines when dealing with actresses and actors too. Most of what you see and hear is smoke and mirrors but they think we’re all too stupid and believe everything they say.
The criminal element wishes for the ability to steal almost anything, find a place to sell the merchandise, and then get lots of money, money, money. They then move to a tropical island, lay on the beach, and throw the finger at the world. They don’t kid around, they wish for exactly what they want and aren’t afraid to stand up and shout it to the world, give it to me or I’ll just take it.
So where are you in all of this? What’s your big wish? Money and fame? I know, now you want me to tell you what I would wish for. Let me qualify my answer with a few facts first. I am the ultimate cynic and skeptic. I trust almost no one and I believe almost nothing I hear and only half of what I see. I expect the worst from people and when I’m wrong I celebrate. Unfortunately in dealing with people for as many years as I have, I’m not wrong very often. So here’s my answer.
Nobody’s going to give you a damn wish, so wake up! Too much Wishing and Hoping and Singing and Praying and Planning and Dreaming.
everyuselessthing.com 