Against Principalities and Powers

As noted poet/philosopher Bob Dylan once observed, "The Times They Are A'Changing."  And I'm not talking about the news. I had an uncomfortable ride home from the food bank today with a 350 pound person of unidentifiable gender. I almost asked him/her/they/hir/your highness/o' "arbiter of all that's woke" what the person's pronouns were. The person of massive girth and unidentifiable gender was quick to let me know the person who did not share that person's pronouns with me lived with "my" partner.

I had to rush getting my food because the line of cars at the food bank line was so long today and my driver was early and impatient to get home. It gets crowded at the food bank right after prices at Walmart get bumped up. And I'm pretty sure they did this week, since I had to run by Walgreen's on the way over to get some laundry detergent and saw very quickly that the other Wal store's prices had taken a bit of a jump themselves with a 12 pack of sodas up in the teens now.

I made the mistake of saying something about inflation and this driver person quickly let me know it wasn't the Democrats fault and that inflation was mostly in my imagination. I said, "Well my grocery bill has doubled since 2020 and I don't have enough imaginary money to keep up with that level of spending. I'm not the US government after all, hence the food bank. Anyway," I added, "that was going to happen when the minimum wage for entry level jobs jumped to $15 to $20 an hour." 

I thought this gender unaffiliated person was about to have an attack of the vapors.

That had nothing to do with it according to my driver and the driver person quickly let me know he would never agree with me about that anyway. "Besides," he sneered. "I make $15 an hour and without me you wouldn't have a ride home." I wanted to get home so I didn't point out that without me, he'd be able to get behind the wheel of the van more easily. I also didn't bother telling him that's what drivers were making before the minimum went to $15 here. Experienced drivers didn't get a raise after minimum was bumped up because they were already making minimum. All that happened to my driver was he quite suddenly was reduced to a minimum wage worker with the stroke of our very blue governor's pen. Entry level staff were all of a sudden making more than they are worth and everybody's grocery bill doubled. Of course, my person of unisex attire again insisted it was all in my imagination. Silly me!

Having worked more than 4 decades setting up nonprofit organizations to address problems the central planners in Washington overlooked when designing their programs for the proletariat in my neck of the woods, I had a good deal to say about transportation and the massive embezzlement of taxpayer funds that goes into the pockets of bureaucrats in the business of government funded transit. I saw it first hand. I helped triple the budget of our regional rural transit provider due to the unfair distribution of funds in Texas for rural transit. The Republicans had just taken over the state legislature and I helped the Democrats working with us on our rural transit initiative learn how to speak Republican. We were about the only such initiative to get what we asked for that year to the benefit of our region. East Texas is the most densely area populated with seniors and disabled folk in Texas. One in five East Texans were driving challenged or didn't own cars at all at the time. That was 20 years ago. By now it's probably much worse.

East Texas is sort of the Old Texan's graveyard. In our senior years we Texans move there to fish and subsequently die. Lots of lakes and medical facilities in East Texas. All we lacked was transportation for folk living in the country around the lakes. We were the second largest rural transit district and were getting the smallest appropriation. The largest appropriations by 4 to 10 times were the areas around Houston and Austin. It's where we keep our Democrats and their lobbyists so we can keep an eye on them. 

When I helped get the East Texas Council of Government's rural transit budget tripled, I got a nasty letter from the president of the COG and he actively worked to get me off the Public Transportation Advisory Committee for the state of Texas. I was warned by a lawyer friend to check under my truck before I started up in the morning to look for any funny wires or boxes. The thing was that when the budget tripled, it triggered an audit and apparently someone at the COG didn't want to do THAT paperwork on the transportation program. 

At any rate, my driver, of course, was secure in his knowledge that the Democrats and particularly their genius leaders like Kamala and Tim would take good care of him. He/she/it or whatever pronouns the driver is going by, conveniently keeps his brain oblivious to the blatantly obvious Marxist themes the Harris campaign is embracing, and echoing the same themes in speeches and banners and such by the US Communist party. 

Already the Democrat party's socialism lite has attracted wealthy elites drawn to the leftward political movement by the kind of power socialism always puts in the hands of a few powerful people. And who better to rule than powerful rich folks, corporate barons, and power brokers is the thinking. After all, like me and my driver, the masses can't be trusted to think correct thoughts nor take care of themselves. And my friendly neighborhood driver/person of indeterminate sex defends the future enslavement of the proletariat with eyes tight shut. "You're not going to convince me otherwise!" the young person of indeterminate gender assures me.

You'd think all this, the solidly leftist news spewing from the big media companies, the corporate/government collusion, not to mention our leader's taking bribes and colluding with China, Russia, Ukraine and whoever else will slip a few million bucks under the table would discourage me. It doesn't. The more it looks like the seriously evil left appears to be about to seize power totally, the more certain I am that Christ's return is imminent and we'll be going home soon. The devil's been getting panicky and he's become a lot less subtle these days. He's in a lot more hurry to secure his position as Prince of this world because he knows his time is short. Besides being left behind isn't going to be fun for anyone even if they get a seat on the politburo. They don't make asbestos long john's anymore, so I'd rather not be in their bootsies or around after the good guys have gone off to heaven with Jesus. Nukes tend to warm things up pretty good.and now that we humans have the means to annihilate ourselves, I suspect we're gonna finally collect the wages of sin much of mankind has been earning over all these millennia.

 © 2024 by Tom King

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leavin' on a U-Haul - Washington State

 

The cost of living in Washington State is among the highest in the land. Every time you turn around they're taxing some new thing you can't live without. I suspect it's going to keep on and on until one day, in the name of controlling obesity, the progressive Nazis will finally put a confiscatory tax on chocolate. That, I figure, since this is such an effeminate leftist culture up here, will be the last straw. One Hershey bar too far.

But I kid you not, this is the land where it can cost you three or four Benjamins just to put tags on your car. Property taxes are confiscatory, and grocery prices have more than doubled since Joe Biden swore on some sort of book in 2020. Some mainstream pundit recently opined that a hundred dollars worth of groceries only cost you $125 after 3 years under Biden. Well I want to know what store that is and do they put a limit on how many baskets you can buy at once?

Okay, my rent only went up 25%. My landlord is kind. That's about all that's only 25% inflated. Utilities? I had to sign up for an assistance program to be able to keep up with that. Fuel prices go up and down like a roller coaster. People are putting little stickers on gas pumps all over showing Joe Biden pointing to the price on the pump and saying, "I did that!" Thank heaven my Internet Company is based out of Louisiana and I'd already signed a lifetime no price increase deal with them back during the Trump administration. Everything up here is higher than a cat's back. We gave up trying to own a car and now are experiencing the wonders of old people on public transportation. I didn't realize back in East Texas when I was doing advocacy work for senior and disability transportation, that public transportation involved so much walking. Sometimes it's miles between where you need to go and where you can be picked up. AND the cab driver's union has negotiated new regulations with the cities that have driven up the cost of Uber and Lyft.

But one area where you can still get a bargain is on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and at local garage sales. Particularly, if you want to buy, say, used guitars, keyboards, refrigerators, recliners, sofas and such, hit Craigslist or FB Marketplace up here. We refurnished our living room in all leather furniture for $140, including end tables, 2 recliners, a leather sofa and my office chair. And if you're looking for musical instruments.....

I just saw a Takamine Guitar for $100. You can also find Taylor, Ibanez, Gibson, Fender, Martin and other prime condition guitars in that price neighborhood. I think rich Washingtonians buy their teenage boys guitars so they can attract girls and maybe make them grandparents. Trouble is you have to practice and that's way too much like work for the snowflakes growing up in Seattle and the guitars wind up shoved in closets or laying around unused and the parents, forgetting how much they laid out for the things, put them up on marketplace cheap so they won't have to stumble over them anymore.

The furniture and appliances go cheap because people are fleeing Washington for red states and a lower cost of living. Most are in a hurry to get out and find they can't get it all on the truck. I got a really good Maytag fridge with an ice-maker for $50. The people were leaving the next day so they just wanted it gone. Don't you just love preying on progressives? They voted for the people that are systematically wrecking the state's economy. They are leaving en masse, escaping the fruits of their history of voting for Democrats and fleeing to where voters have elected better stewards of their economies.

Don't you love karma!

© 2024 by Tom King

The Other Sound of Freedom

I was up at 4am yesterday morning after sleeping most of the night in my chair watching Northern Exposure. I noticed after a bit that something seemed to be thumping around downstairs in the garage. I asked Sheila of the super sensitive ears if she heard it too and she confirmed that I was indeed hearing a regular thumping noise - two thumps every two or three minutes. It was the regularity of the noise that troubled me.

I got up and went out on the catwalk between our garage apartment and the landlord's house. In about a minute I heard the thumping sound again only this time it was clearly coming from outside. A couple of more double thumps and I could tell it was coming from the west of us. I've only heard that kind of sound coming from the direction of Ft. Lewis once before since we moved up here to Washington from Texas. Then, I thought it was a thunderstorm, something rare in this region. It wasn't a thunderstorm then. Nor was it now.

It was early morning gunnery practice. I confirmed it with a retired Army officer I know. It seems that the base conducts firing drills and maneuvers along with a lot of planes and helicopters flying around, which I've also noticed over the past week. My Army friend told me the military tends to flex its muscles quite loudly when things get unsettled here in the States. Apparently, they do it to impress the Chinese and Russian (and now Iranian) spies that if they are thinking of getting frisky during this period of unrest, they should think again. The military is warming up just in case they mistake some riots, flag-burning, resignations of political candidates and attempted assassinations as a sign of weakness. 

Japan and Germany made that mistake in World War II. Then we were still in the depression, half the country was flirting with communism it seemed, the president was in a wheelchair, and there were some serious anti-war protests going on. So the Axis decided to poke the bear and see what happens. 

When you poke the back end of the bear, you dang well better have a plan for dealing with his teeth and claws. And it better be one heck of a plan, because he's a huge bear and if you poke him, he's going to turn on you and reduce you to a bloody pile in short order. It was true then and though the tyrants of the world may think we're on the brink of a civil war and vulnerable, they obviously weren't paying attention in history class. 

Come after us, and they'll find us united in a heartbeat. Watch our military grow as enlistments explode. Watch our industry ramp up overnight. And see us lose patience with y'all's nonsense and come together in a breath-taking hurry.

Can't say they weren't warned. It's amazing how short politicians' memories, especially those that didn't grow up in the land of the free and home of the brave. Meanwhile, we're having howitzer practice just down the road at the break of dawn and I'm going to sleep like a baby.

Just sayin'

© 2024 by Tom King