The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Well, buckaroos, it’s that time of year when old Skeeter provisions up and heads for the hunting fields on our annual Beer Hunt. Usually we head up into the Cascades, but after 30 years or so of these hunts, the herds are thinning and so, being the good conservationists we are, we decided to mosey down to Arizona, see what wildlife is to be had in their border wall state. No, the beers aren’t likely to be as savory, more likely warm as spit too. But in this era of anti-EPA, anti-Green, someone has to step it up a notch or three.

So as always in these difficult times, break away from the lying press awhile, forget about the N. Koreans and the Trumpster, stop worrying about WW3 and economic Armageddon, just sit back and scroll to the bottom of these 2000 plus blog reports for the Good Old Daze of those times when the world seemed so full of promise and we thought we had the filthy oligarchs where we wanted them. No, not jail, but at least at arm’s length and worried about prison time. I know you won’t … but hey, it’s your ulcer, not mine. I got beers to hunt. Vaya con Dios!

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I just saw where 40% of Trump voters this last election got all their news from Fox News. This is the station that just paid Bill O’Reilly 25 million dollars to stay on permanent vacation and leave the Fox women alone. Who knew, other than Trump, being a serial predator could pay so well? Okay, maybe Roger Ailes.

Hard to imagine most network news surviving this kind of top down malfeasance. But Fox, well, fair and balanced doesn’t necessarily include integrity. Or even truthfulness. Probably a lot of folks left feeling that Bill was treated badly. Misunderstood. A victim of political correctness and those liberal proponents who think women shouldn’t be treated to sexual harassment. Like the president said on camera, grab em by the crotch and they’ll do your bidding. And Fox, being, you know, fair and balanced, while all the other lying news media covered Bill’s untimely exit, they pretty much left it untouched, barely a mention. See? That balances the other networks who did cover it.

The Marines are posting photos of their favorite female nude soldiers. Great for morale. The few, the sexist, the Marines. The folks who think racism ended a few decades back probably couldn’t see sexism if it grabbed them by the cojones. Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump sure aren’t troubled by it. You might not either if they paid you 25 million or made you King of America. But it does make for a contentious work environment, whether it’s the Fox newsroom or the Foxholes in Afghanistan or Iraq. I realize these habits won’t change overnight, that sexism is pretty ingrained in a lot of us boyz, but c’mon, is it political correctness run amok to say we ought to treat women with respect? Personally, I’m glad the Marines are training them to use an assault rifle. A few of those at Fox News in the hands of Bill O’Reilly’s victims, we might’ve saved 25 million dollars.

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Greg Gianforte, candidate for House of Representatives from Montana: “Clearly they’ve never shot a prairie dog,” he said. “They don’t know how much fun it is.”

Well, Donald Trump Jr. hasn’t shot prairie dogs either. Not many burrowing in at Trump Tower evidently, but maybe he’s trapped New York rats or poisoned mice down in the Tower basement. I suspect we’d all enjoy a good p-dog massacre if we had the opportunity. And what better way to say Republican than putting on a National Rifle Association hat and taking up a shooting iron even if you’ve never done either in your lifetime? Think Dick Cheney with a shotgun blasting away at ducks and his hunting partner.

These are difficult times for GOP candidates. Apparently some folks who voted for Don Trump Jr.’s dad are realizing they were misled. The others probably think Don Jr. IS the man they voted for. The press corps will no doubt troupe out to the buttes, watch from afar as the safari winds its way to the DMZ separating farmers from prairie dog village and chronicle the shootout for the evening news on Fox. PRESIDENT’S SON DECLARES NO WALL NECESSARY FOR PRAIRIE DOG INFILTRATION. KILLS HUNDREDS OF THE ILLEGAL RODENTS.

Who knew how much fun it would be. Just some good old fashioned killing for the sake of killing. Buffalo hunting probably was way fun too. Leave the carcasses in a pile and move on to the next herd. The natives who needed those for food, well, that was part of the plan. They fought back so starving them was a tad easier, if not quite as much fun as killing them.

I suppose for the folks who dream of the day when the EPA is dead as a doornail, indiscriminate killing of a species won’t seem to be connected to the web of life. If it garners a few more votes for Greg, all the better. Later he can dose the village with agent orange or DDT. Save on bullets, but way less fun.

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Cadbury, the two centuries old chocolatier from Merry Olde, recently dropped its chocolate eggs from their assembly lines. Of course the ever vigilant right wing holier-than-me devotees of all things religiously correct — but NOT politically correct, no siree — screamed bloody murder. War on Easter, they cried, as if chocolate eggs are referenced repeatedly in the New Testament. In fact, when did the Easter bunny and the egg hunts get edited out of King James? I sure don’t remember them any more than I remember Santa getting a mention.

Poor Cadbury. If anyone wanted to scream, it might be us folks who get sick and tired of monetizing religious holidays. Pepsi just pulled its clever little ad with one of the Kardashian kids offering up a 12 oz. peace offering to a riot cop during a political demonstration. One sip, baby, and it’s peace on earth. Black Lives Matter, but hey, so do corporate profits. Why can’t we just all get along?

I know we’re a polarized nation these days. We don’t know our facts from a hole in the ground and apparently that’s just hunky dory with half of us. We’re a faith based country now. Proofs? We don’t need no stinking proofs. Proofs are for scientists and since we don’t trust science any longer, why try to ram a bunch of gobbledygook down our throats? We’re going to believe what we want, thanks, but no thanks to your theorems and your spurious data. And you know what, maybe Pepsi is a panacea for the world’s ills, screw those politicians who want to put a sugar tax on it.

Cadbury better wake up, is what I think. The Lord maketh rabbits and the Lord maketh eggs and the Bible mentions somewhere, maybe in coded reference or in some yet to be discovered Lost Sea Scroll, that rabbit eggs are meant to be taken as sacraments. At least if they’re chocolate covered. You blaspheme this at your peril, Cadboyz, but maybe, here’s an idea, offer your critics a Pepsi.

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Let me say right off the get-go here: I’m no pacifist, don’t play one on TV, don’t really believe in non-violence in a world that’s inherently violent. I’m no Martin Luther King and I’m no Mahatma Ghandi. On the other hand, I don’t go out of my way to get into fights and I’m happy to look like a coward if it will help me avoid one. Once, in high school our band went to some redneck town across the state and some banty hen yahoo wanted to fight me, I forget what the reasons were now, something stupid no doubt, probably the reason I forget. “Let’s go,” I said, seemingly raring to get into it. My would-be duelist put up his dukes right then and there in the pizza joint and I said, “Whoa, Tiger, I see your game. You start a fight right here in public and right away the owner comes over and stops it. You think I’m stupid, you just haven’t got the guts to fight.”

Well, this stopped my pugilist in his tracks. “Whadda ya mean?” he asked, worried that our bout was about to be cancelled. “I mean, you go out the back door first. We don’t go out together, don’t want to call attention to this. I’ll be out in half a minute and then you better be ready to take a beating like you never got before but you obviously need.” This guy was way dumber than I could believe, but he looked like he didn’t need brains to knock mine out. As soon as the back door closed, I was up and out the front, running down the empty streets of that yahoo town, hoping like hell he wouldn’t see me before I got to my hotel.

We just dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan. Taliban, I assume, the boyz we used to give SAM missiles to when they were fighting the Russians. Mother of all Bombs. Cute name, right? We launched 59 cruise missiles on Syria in response to them, somebody over there, using sarin gas to kill babies and kids and moms and dads. We don’t approve of sarin gas. We do approve of big ass bombs. Trump just sent an armada over to menace N. Korea, a show of force to maybe get them to rethink their nuclear ambitions. Okay for us to have nuclear ambitions, not for anybody else. Except maybe Pakistan. India. Oh, Isreal. Not Iran, though. Destabilize the Middle East. Did I mention Isreal?

It’s not that I’m okay with chemical warfare, don’t get me wrong. Mustard gas, sarin gas, bad, very bad. Nuclear, way bad. Bio-warfare, well, probably not okay. Cluster bombs, pretty bad. Nuclear tipped artillery, not as bad. Mines, sometimes okay, sometimes not. Saturation bombing, like in Germany, firestorms, deaths in the many thousands, nobody said much against that, so probably okay. MOAB, bunker busters, have at it. Drones, sure.

I realize the gentility of old school warfare is passe. Line up the archers on each side, let loose the longbows, next wave steps up, another round of arrows flies. At least we kept the civilians out of it. These days, collateral damage is justified, but not every version of weaponry. What I think is, killing is pretty much killing. Might be better to acknowledge that. Or just run out the front door.

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