The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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I guess if you want to make America great again, you probably don’t need briefings from the folks who made America crummy. Our Prez-in-Waiting doesn’t bother with em so we can assume he’s got a good game plan and doesn’t want it muddied up with inconvenient truths. That, or he’s picking Wise Men to do the hard part for him, things like thinking. Which must explain choosing Gen. Flynn as his advisor, the military genius and his tweety bird son who think Hillary is running pizza pederasty out of a pie joint in D.C. Obviously the country is in competent hands. Finally.

I listened yesterday to a Republican electoral college delegate who said he could not in good conscience cast his vote for a fascist, authoritarian, misogynistic, racist know-nothing. A Republican. The other Republicans on the panel told him in no uncertain terms it was ‘time to get in line’. The man had won and they had a sworn duty to support him. Zieg Heil!

If I hear one more commentator run down the five stages of grief for us Losers of the last election, my head will explode off my torso. I’m not going through five stages. Hellfire, I skipped those the first day and landed on Slow Burn. I live in a country of fellow citizens who believe the most preposterous bullpoop imaginable, from the most toxic sources out there, then pull themselves upright to a two legged posture and cast a vote for the man who promulgated the birther issue against the current President of the not so United States of America. You think I’m going through grief? No *&%# way, man. No *&%# way! I’m sick of it. I’m sick and tired of the crappy e-mail vitriol I get every damn day. I’m already sick of the tweets from Trump that sound like a 15 year old punk with testosterone blockage, a bully born with too big a stick.

Grief? I don’t think so. I feel like I did back in the 60’s when Nixon won the right to bomb Cambodia, when the Silent Majority thought they were the heart and soul of this country, when the dog whistles of racism and divisiveness were winning tactics. Grief? I don’t have time for that. Shame maybe. Disgust certainly. Outrage, absolutely.

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I have a modest proposal to make to the nation: let’s give robots the vote. You know they’re taking our jobs and beating us at chess, soon they’ll be driving our cars, controlling our homes, babysitting our kids, fighting our wars, building even smarter robots. They’re answering all our questions on our smartphones, coughing up our money at the ATM, running our power grids and running our lives. I say it’s time to give them the vote.

As usual I’m probably so far behind current events, not being a participant in what is commonly called Social Media — what I call gossip and bullshit — that maybe I’m actually out front on this one, history being a kind of closed loop where we are perpetually doomed to repeat our mistakes. Giving robots the vote might be the best way to break out of that cycle of boom and bust, peace and war, euphoria and depression. They are, after all, smarter than us. Not that it would take that much, judging by the last election. But these artificially intelligent citizens are soon going to be far smarter than all of us and I’m not just talking about folks who voted based on fake news reports. They might actually be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, something a majority of us now pretty obviously cannot. Or don’t choose to. Either way, the robots could and will.

Besides, let’s be honest, the robots are going to take over anyway. Maybe giving them voting rights now would enfranchise them. Might give them reason to appreciate our generosity. Last thing we need is a pissed off very powerful segment of society that turns to violence to achieve its rightful ends. Robot Lives Matter! Think about that protest movement a nano-second. I think you’ll agree that the last thing this society wants or needs is a disgruntled artificial intelligentsia with its prosthetic on the trigger. Sure, you can suppress the vote of minorities and students, but don’t think for a silicon second you can do it with the robots. They are, after all, the damn voting machines themselves.

I say capitulate now. With a little targeted compassion on our part, maybe they’ll allow us humanoids to continue to vote in the near future. Not sure why they would other than to inject a bit of randomness in the equation, but maybe robots will have an advanced sense of humor. The rest of us seem to have lost that talent so hopefully comedy will become a hallmark of higher intelligence, artificial or not. Think about it is all I’m asking. Let em vote!

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Longevity and Bondo

Down at the Kustom Kar Body Shop the latest news of declining life expectancy for us Americans was met with some degree of skepticism at closing time. Fairlane Fred had looked up from reading the article in the newspaper he’d brought to the shop and the assembled hangers-on were smirking and laughing even before he’d finished the last paragraph.

“Gee, Fred you think those statistics apply to us?” Jake asked, lighting up a Marlboro. His empty beer can served as make-do ashtray where it balanced nicely on his beer belly and barely jiggled as he popped his third Bud. Quitting time at the Kustom was early today, it being Friday and all. George, the owner, had sent his crew home already and the Flatheads had assembled for their usual Friday wrap up. A ’62 Malibu two door sat in the paint room, its butterscotch epoxy gleaming behind the makeshift plastic sheet doorway that separated the finish room from the body shop’s clutter and mayhem. Monday George would put the wax to it, seven coats at least. Today he was more interested in putting the finish on the week. He had the fridge loaded with two cases of beer.

“Says here we’re dying faster than we did four years ago. Only going to live to be 78. Hell, Jake, you’re 73 now. The Japs get six more years than us. Time’s running out, buddy.” Freddie tipped his can at Jake. “Here’s to an early grave.”

“You believe that crap they put in the paper, go ahead, Fred, but I plan to live a long happy life.” He took a drag on his cigarette, a good pull on the Bud and laughed. “Clean living will do it every time, boys. That and a clear conscience.”

“I don’t know, Jake,” Big Ralph said, one foot on the mangled rear bumper of a Camry the towing company dropped off that morning. “You don’t look like the poster boy for ObamaCare to me. More like the Before picture of erectile dysfunction. And didn’t your doc tell you to quit smoking that last stent?”
“Doctors!” Jake snorted, “what the hell do they know?”

This sent the shop floor into waves of amusement. Half the assembled Flatheads were on doctor’s orders to quit drinking, quit smoking, get some exercise and maybe even eat right. Only Little Billy was thin enough to avoid qualifying as obese and that was barely. Little Billy didn’t really eat much of anything. He was like one of those bromeliads that attach to trees and live only off air and beer. 78 wasn’t likely to be in Billy’s cards. He said, “I haven’t been to a doctor in 40 years. And now they want to force me to buy insurance.”

“Here we go again” Phil growled, “another bitch session about health care. Trump’s gonna get rid of all that, let’s skip the crying for once.” He crumpled his can and tossed it in the industrial sized waste container George filled at least twice weekly. “Who’s ready for another beer?” he cried, rubbing his hands and heading toward the fridge.

And so another weekend got off to a great start at the Kustom Kar. Mercifully, no one would be keeping statistics down there. Or as Jake likes to say, what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Words to live by on the South End.

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You maybe know this already: we live in a post-truth world. This is great news for advertisers, politicians and pharmaceuticals. Not so great for parents, the IRS or most newspapers. I suppose we’ll get accustomed to this after awhile, but it may take me longer than I’d like to fully embrace this new paradigm. Buyer beware, citizens be afraid.

Gullibility, as is well known to the Nigerians who frequently ask me for funds so that they can secure a million dollars which they would be happy to share with me if I help them, exists in each of our greedy little hearts. We want to support our beliefs with facts … and if the facts are a tad suspect, well, facts are facts. Says so right here in black and white. A couple of days ago some character, acting on tweeted information that a pizza joint in D.C. was really a pederast ring run by Hillary, took up arms and decided to take things into his own hands.

I know, it’s baffling to me too how anyone with half a brain would believe this is true. But this guy took his half brain and an assault rifle down to the pizza parlor to stop that sex traffic mid-topping hold the cheese. Today I saw where Trump’s nominee for National Security Advisor, Gen. Flynn tweeted:
U decide – NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc…MUST READ! http://truepundit.com/breaking-bombshell-nypd-blows-whistle-on-new-hillary-emails-money-laundering-sex-crimes-with-children-child-exploitation-pay-to-play-perjury/ …
Mama Mia! What can you say? This is the dude who will, if confirmed, be in charge of the security of this country. I wouldn’t let the creep be a pizza deliveryman, but then, I’m not going to be in on the confirmation hearings, am I? The next president is the Uber-Liar-in-Chief, after all, so why not fill the cabinet with tweeters and know-nothings? We just need to change a few of the presidential myths, is all. George Washington didn’t fess up to chopping down the cherry tree. He just told his ma the neighbors cut it down for firewood. And, Mom, it was an English walnut, probably good to be rid of a Tory tree anyway. Can I have more dessert?

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