They Talk Among Us
I thought maybe I had shared this story before but the search function says otherwise. So here goes.
There I was, a young pre-guru lad, still in my sensitive formative years, sitting on grandma’s porch out on the Taker homestead. Aw, shucks, I may even have been chewing on some amber stalks of grain.
The neighbor came over and started talking to my grandma. I was just a youngin’ so I didn’t pay no mind to their adult conversation.
Until… suddenly, the neighbor just dropped the N-word!
I sucked in my breath. Holy shit, I thought, someone is in for it now. I got the hell out of Dodge to make way for the can of whoop ass I knew my grandma was about to open.
Except… that didn’t happened. Grandma didn’t use the word herself, but she as hell didn’t kick that fucker in the nards, either. In fact, she acted like nothing happened at all.
Although I was young, I’ve never forgotten that moment. It is still vivid in my mind. I learned an important lesson that day. I guess it’s hard to forget certain moments frozen in time like when you got your heart broke. It was all part of my Intro 101 to this planet, I guess.
Fast-forward to present day where I’m, obviously, a seasoned traveler and enlightened guru in this game called life. Shit like that no longer surprises me.
What the fuck? Cliven Bundy just said what? Double dribble? Come again? The owner of an NBA basketball team just said what?
I guess I’m not as enlightened as I thought. I still can be surprised.
And, like always, this got me to thinking…
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Case studies from the X-Files
Google and Bing agree. X is for Xbox. Boring! YouTube came up with xjawz.
Relying on the auto-complete features in these search engines, I then tried “X” followed by all of the vowels.
From Bing.com:
xanax
xem phim tren mang
xiaonei
xo so
xuong phim.com
xyzal
From Google.com:
xanax
xe
xilinx
xoom
xubuntu
xylitol
From YouTube.com:
xahtt60w7qo
xe do
xil90dzih0k
xoom
xuan mai
xy
From these results I deduce that Bing is more international than Google and Google is more commercial than Bing. And YouTube is just weird. 🙂
An alien on planet Earth. It's ET! (The Extra Trumpestrial.) Credit: Gage Skidmore
The X-Files: The Strange Case of the Trumpers
Na-Nu Na-Nu!
Proving the old adage that “it takes one to know one,” Robin Williams had Donald Trump pegged long before the rest of us:
He wants to see Obama’s birth certificate? I want to see his hairline. I mean, my theory is the hair is actually The Donald. That it’s like some alien creature that landed years ago.
–Robin Williams
Interesting. Is it the hair itself which is the alien, and Trump merely some sort of host? Or is the relationship more symbiotic than that?
I have no doubt that Mulder and Scully will get to the bottom of this.
There are several critical components to wonky beliefs like conspiracy theories: an overactive imagination, an element of doubt, and a steadfast stubbornness and determination to dismiss facts that contradict the belief. In my opinion, ignoring facts that don’t fit is the key ingredient. And I’ve seen this sort of thing time and time again in my travels.
Of course, in Trump’s situation, it’s hard to know if he seriously believed the sewage that came out of his mouth or if it was all just opportunistic entrepreneurship. “Hey, look,” he probably said. “Polls show increasing numbers – mostly Republicans – who doubt if Obama was born in America. I can use that. Yes, I shall cash in on that.”
Now that Obama has produced his birth certificate, something he decidedly didn’t have to do, one thing is now certain: We can expect the focus of the birthers to shift. They will change the conversation. They’ve already proven they are unwilling to accept facts that challenge their beliefs. I highly doubt the document distributed by Obama will change that much.
Of course Trump, the classy guy that he is, had something extremely pithy to say about it during a press conference he called to discuss his reaction:
I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully, getting rid of this issue.
–Donald Trump and/or his alien hair (it’s unknown which was speaking)
Speaking of “natural born” qualifications to be president, I would very much like to see Trump’s birth certificate from Planet X.
I just scared the living Trump out of you!
And now, only because I personally thought it was funny, is my tweet from Wednesday morning regarding the Birther issue and Obama producing his birth certificate:
@shoutabyss
Tom B. Taker
Birthers: Please report to the nearest empty field to wait for relocation by spaceship. Don’t forget your Nike footwear.
April 27, 2011 via web
And, just in case the reference to Nike footwear is too obtuse, check out the Wikipedia page on Heaven’s Gate. One thing about us humans seems certain: We’ll never have a shortage of Trumpers.
This is my “X” post for the A-Z Blogger Challenge.
Killjoy the kill shot (self-inflicted)
Credit: Gage Skidmore
kill shot (noun) – A shot in various games that is so forcefully hit or perfectly placed that it cannot be returned.
The man who would be King…
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one around who can make bad decisions.
Donald Trump thinks he’s got a shot at being the next President of the United States. He even thinks he’ll earn the GOP nomination. And, if not, he says he’ll “probably” go it alone as an independent.
I submit the facts in the previous paragraph are evidence enough that the man is not capable of making intelligent decisions, and is therefore not qualified for the job. It is bound to please comedians across the country, though. It’s a gold mine of material!
Curious, I looked for polling data and found this:
A new survey from Newsweek and The Daily Beast indicates President Obama is ahead of Trump by only two percentage points, 43-41, well within the poll’s sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percent. In fact, Trump fares far better against Obama than Sarah Palin, who would lose to Obama by 11 points, 51-40, according to the poll.
Trump also performs roughly as well as former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is 2 points behind Obama in the survey, 49-47 percent. Mike Huckabee, another former presidential candidate, does best against the president in the poll: both are tied at 46 percent. (CNN.)
Of course, this far out, those numbers are almost meaningless, and will no doubt change many, many times during the lead up to election day.
When I think about Trump, I wonder about his motives. Who wants the job of POTUS and why? With him, the only answers I can see related to publicity and celebrity, and that’s just not good enough.
My naive political analysis? A Trump campaign could sully the Republican field with a lot of mud slinging and negative campaigning. I can’t imagine what skeletons Trump might have, but if they are there, I’ll bet they are good ones and they will come out. And I’m sure he can and will fling poo right along with the very best of them. The whole scenario could play out quite favorably to Obama.
At least Trump doesn’t have to worry about birth certificate issues. Like me, he was hatched. And right here, right now, I’m going to make a prediction. People who come out against him will come to be known as Trumpers. You heard it here first, folks!
Either way, come election day, I’ll take a pass on The Donald, thank you.
This is my “K” post for the April 2011 “A to Z Blogging Challenge.”
Shouts from the Abyss 
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