If the Economy's so Great ...

Why are so-called dollar stores burgeoning nationwide?  Is this anther case of the less-than-1% congratulating themselves over benefits that workers and the poor can' experience?

It Gives Me Hope

Representative Ilhan Omar returned to her district in Minnesota from Washington DC Thursday evening.

After being trashed by Donald Trump and the audience at his North Carolina campaign rally, Omar was greeted at the airport  with cheers from her constituents.

It gives me hope ...

Saving Mr. Trump the Effort

I considered using this post to bemoan Donald Trump's most recent hate-mongering.  I considered using it to express my (very real) concern for the safety of The Squad, and especially that of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).  Mr. Trump's statements of the past few days make me genuinely afraid that some particularly weak-minded member of his base will take it upon themselves to carry out an attack on her.  Then, I remembered advice originally attributed to Mohandas Gandhi:

First they ignore you.  Then they ridicule you.  Then they fight you.  Then you win.

I've always understood that as saying that humor, and in the current context even satire, can be formidable weapons.  That caused me to remember  ...

Back in the day (the late 90s, to be precise) , when I was still active as a geek extraordinaire, I co-authored a book published by IDG called Hip Pocket Guide to Unix.  In the section of the book called Shell as Programming Environment, I included the complete text of a script that could generate jargon or buzz-words for almost any environment or situation.  I've modified it to act as a simulation of what probably goes on inside Mr. Trump's head, when he's coming up with his blatantly hateful buzz.  I offer it below to show how devastating humor can be, if used without malice.  (It's worth noting that Gandhi also said The weak cannot forgive.  Forgiveness is a virtue of the strong.)

One last note: if you're not a geek or a Linux-o-phile, don't puzzle over the code.  Pay attention to the lines that begin with a pound sign; those are internal documentation,that explain the techier stuff.  Read the comments, as they're known.  That will give you a feel for the overall.  And, if you have access to a Linux or Unix system, try to load and run the script.  Hopefully, few modifications will be needed.

=============================================================

#script buzzbuilder
#the next three lines
#each create another line that contains
#a tab, and the indicated message

echo "\\n\\t Welcome to the Buzzword Builder!"
echo "\\n\\t Amaze your friends!"
echo "\\n\\t Mystify your colleagues!"

#The next line, because it uses the colon ( : )
#causes the program t run until and unless the user
#presses the <ENTER> key.

while :
do
echo "\\n\\t Enter a three-digit number, or press <ENTER> to quit."
echo "\\n\\t 0  Joe Biden     1 Ilhan Omar     2 The Squad       3 Rashida Tlaib    4 AOC"
echo "\\n\\t 0  hateful     1 dangerous    2 low-energy    3 low-IQ   4 stupid"
echo "\\n\\t 0  our country     1 our Constitution    2 our way of life    3 your President   4 Donald J Trump"

#take a value into the script variable we'll call numbr

read numbr

#look for the user's signal to end the program
if test (number)  =  ""  then exit

#Otherwise, parse what the user has typed
#to create a buzz-phrase.

word1 = `echo numbr | cut -c1`
word2 = `echo numbr | cut -c2`
word3 = `echo numbr | cut -c3`

case $word1 in
0 buzz = $buzz | Joe Biden
1 buzz = $buzz | Ilhan Omar
2 buzz = $buzz | The Squad
3 buzz = $buzz | Rashida Tlaib
0 buzz = $buzz |AOC
esac

case $word2 in
0 buzz = $buzz | hateful
1 buzz = $buzz | dangerous
2 buzz = $buzz | low-energy
3 buzz = $buzz | low-IQ
0 buzz = $buzz |stupid

esac

case $word3 in
0 buzz = $buzz | our country
1 buzz = $buzz | our Constitution
2 buzz = $buzz | our way of life
3 buzz = $buzz | your President
0 buzz = $buzz |Donald J. Trump
esac

#Now, put the pieces together.
#Determine what digits the user has typed.
#Let's assume a 1, 1 and 3.
#Display the results, as a single phrase that could be
#Mr. Trump's next exercise in demagoguery.
#A bit further into the geekie weeds.
#Then we'll note that the digits cited
#would produce the phrase below
#echo "\n\\t  $word1 `is` $word2 `who wants to destroy` $word3" 
\
done

Or, in English -

Ilhan Omar is a dangerous person who wants to destroy your President.

Sadly, I probably put in many more hours on this post than Mr. Trump does on his insults.  For a very stable genius he's got a very, very limited repertoire.

Let Your Ugly Out

That's become one operating premise of the Trump Administration.  For example, this morning Kellyanne Conway:

1. called members of The Squad the dark underbelly of our society
2. asked a reporter what his ethnicity was, implying that even questioning Donald Trump was un-American
3. refused to address her alleged violations of the Hatch Act

Not to mention that The Squad continue to received death threats on an almost-daily basis.  Shades of Tree of Life ...

Meltdown in Progress

I spent several hours today researching Donald Trump's most recent pandering to his base.  As he so often does, Trump doubled down on those whom he apparently considers threats to him.

Nowhere could I find any evidence that supported Trump's claim that Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayana Presley, Ilhan Omar,and Rashida Tlaib:

1. are anti-American
2. denigrate the United States
3. are anti-semnitic
4. support al Qaeda

Mr. Trump concluded today's South Lawn Diatribe by saying he believed what he was alleging, and that others believed it as well.

Trump is as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.  It's my opinion that he fears Robert Mueller's upcoming testimony to two House Committees.  I think he's right to do so.  As today's events demonstrate, resolute, progressive Representatives will work to resist Mr. Trump's xenophobia, racism, and misogyny.  Note - all four members of the Squad sit on Committees in the House that may, or already have, investigated the Trump Administration.

The Expletive Primary

In an attempt at humor, I once tried to accumulate as many translations for the word s**t as I could.  I asked anyone and everyone how to say it in their native language.  I got responses from Bangladeshis, Chinese, Eritreans, Japanese, Kenyans, Koreans, Moroccans, and more.  Hora, my Iranian, refused to give me the Farsi equivalent, telling me she didn't want me to use language that wasn't nice.

Hora and the rest of my translating squad are light-years ahead of the current occupant of the Oval Office in niceness.  Given his xenophobia and hate-mongering, as evidenced by his tweets earlier today, I'm of the opinion that he deserves to be called every translation of  s**t one can come up with.

Go for it.  Go to translate.google.com. Then:

1. Choose English as the source language.
2. Type s**t .
3. Choose any of the plethora of destination languages.  (The site offers everything from Afrikaans through Azerbaijani to Cebuano, Chichewa, Hausa, and dozens more.)
4. Pick your favorite.
5. Tell me what it is.

 I'll tabulate, and let you know which word and language win the Expletive Primary.