The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Yes, you heard right, folks are clamoring in the heartland for their hero to be nominated for the Peace Prize. The dotard who threatened to obliviate the Little Rocket Man’s country. The pacifist who stands up to Russian aggression in the Crimea and Ukraine, not. The bully who uses his office to berate those individuals he dislikes. The boy who wants to build a 2000 mile wall between us and Mexico. But let’s stop, you know who I mean.

The man is many things, but a promoter of world peace, let’s dial down the meds, okay? Next thing you know, we’ll be giving him the Literature Prize for his tweets. And the Physics Prize for that impossible comb-over. I know you like the guy, all that tough talk and swagger, but c’mon, let’s stay in earth orbit.

But, you say, he has brought North Korea to heel. They’ve got a rapprochement with the South, they’ve quit testing their nukes, they wilted in the face of the Man who embodies the art of the deal. So what if their testing facilities had collapsed completely? So what if the South brokered the deal? The man is taking full credit. Not really sure yet for what, other than a meeting to discuss some kind of deal, but why not give him that Nobel right now anyway?? We’re working on blind faith obviously. The coal jobs are coming back (Economics award!), the tax cuts are fueling the American Revival (can we give him two Economics Nobels???), his golf courses are doing bang-up biz (Sports Nobels, anyone? or at least some kind of Olympic medal), he’s drained the Swamp (Biology?) and he’s turned facts and science on their heads (Philosophy).

Obviously some folks must think this is the Messiah. I know, he doesn’t seem very religious, but … this must be a New Religion. Maybe, let’s fly with this, maybe we should anoint him Pope or …. Guru … or … World Archbishop or, well, honestly, who am I, a mere mortal, to imagine the exaltedness? I have no doubt he will let us know when the time is right. Probably soon. Expect New Commandments, tweets five times a day, prayer rugs to face Mir-a-Lago, a Pyramid on top of the Lincoln Memorial. Ramses will pale in comparison. Meet the new Caeser, Pharaoh of the Universe. Pay homage. Tremble in his shadow. He is the Mighty and Powerful Oz.

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When the Great Orange promised us he’d drain the swamp, I guess some folks thought he’d be cutting waste, encouraging efficiency, removing the dead asses, cleaning up government. A leaner and probably meaner machinery. Instead he hauls in his pals, the rich boyz, and they roll in expecting all those perks they figured every agency head and cabinet secretary has always gotten. Otherwise why would they take a pay cut. These aren’t folks whose value system ranks Public Service at the top of their list of virtues.

Scott Pruitt could be the poster boy for the Swamp Monster. He travels first class on the government dime, coach when he’s paying. He uses his staff to hunt down a sweetheart deal on a D.C. apartment and doesn’t mind that the landlord is the wife of a lobbyist, no conflict of interest there so long as the rent’s cheap. He orders himself up an SUV with bullet proof seat covers. I know, you didn’t realize that was an option at the dealership when you bought your last car. Kevlar in plaid. Pricey, but when you’re as important as the head of the EPA, an agency you are doing your damndest to gut, you worry about pissed off folks maybe drill baby drilling your Chevy with a spray of rounds from an AR-15 equipped with bump stock. He travels in the car with a full security team, runs red lights if he’s in a hurry to get to the opera, detours his planes to Disney, all those activities that the Swamp is notorious for. Mr. Pruitt has champagne tastes to go with his paranoia even as he demotes his staff for questioning the prudence of spending like a drunken sailor.

So when he orders up a custom phone booth, sure, eyebrows were raised. $40K for a bulletproof, soundproof phone booth. Why not? People are listening in. Enemies are eavesdropping. Terrorists may be bugging his Apple. These are dangerous times in government offices, for sure. A man, a very Important man, can’t be too careful. So what’s a guy like this to do??? You got it, he orders up a Cone of Silence. Maxwell Smart, the undercover agent with the clandestine phone in his shoe, but when you need maximum security, he demands, well, he demands the Cone….

Pruitt, the Maxwell Smart of this generation, is equally clueless, equally unapologetic, equally bumbling. His boss is sticking with him, at least for the next 24 hours. After that, who knows? Cones of Silence for every cabinet secretary?? Or just stick with the shoe phones? Calling all alligators….

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Let’s be honest with one another, can we? Sure, Donald Trump has made a few mistakes before and since taking office as the world’s most powerful man. Some are pretty embarrassing, like those women who accused him of sexual harassment or even rape. At least he didn’t drug them like that Cosby freak. The golden shower stuff, well, nobody wants to visualize that so better to let leaking dogs lie, agreed? Course, we have the payoffs to porn stars and Playboy models to keep quiet, something that might be construed as unreported campaign expenses, but hey, you guys out there, wouldn’t you like to be in his shoes? Sure, just good old American male hormones slightly unchecked, let’s not pull an Al Franken here.

All right, I know you’re upset he didn’t show you his taxes like every other President. You don’t show yours to every Tom Dick and Harry. And okay, he makes a little money off his businesses while he’s in office. It is a capitalist country, c’mon, give the guy some credit for using his golf course as a second Oval Office. He’s rich already, who cares if he gets a little richer while he’s running the country. And the kids, they’re making some too, get over it. Think how hard it is to run your own companies while you’re problem solving the Middle East and all those other hotspots they’ve been assigned to clean up. Plus, they’re inexperienced and honestly, a little over their heads. Cut em a break, why don’t we?

You think maybe he’s a little palsy-walsy with Putin, I know, maybe something there that’s being held over him. And yeah, he sort of dissed our allies, but he did say he was going to overturn the apple cart, drain the swamp, all that less government talk we all like to hear. Sure he’s still going after those rapist immigrants. Just talk. There’s probably one or two who were rapists, you don’t think they’re all saints, do you? And those cabinet appointments, mostly lobbyists and amateurs, but you have to learn on the job sometimes and if you want to skim the top off Deep State, how else you going to do it??

And yeah, there’s this Mueller investigation, this witch hunt. Okay okay, you think maybe there’s something to it, something that might come to light that proves all the terrible things you thought about Donald were right. Sure, Flynn and Manafort and those others, are being indicted. But in America you’re innocent until proven guilty, agreed? No collusion! No guilt! Nothing! We should stop that witch hunt right now, it’s all over, nothing found, no guilt, no collusion! Let the man run the country for godsake and let’s get back to investigating something real. You know what I mean. Benghazi.

Those Facebook revelations, I knew you’d bring them up. Okay, that consulting firm harvested tons of data from Zuck, then used them in the campaign to elect Mr. Trump. So what? He didn’t know about it. He told you that. And if you can’t believe the President of the United States, who can you believe? If you want to clean up politics, how about getting those e-mails from Hillary. No, not the ones Comey and the FBI looked at, those secret ones she washed. How about that? How about we go after Hillary Clinton? She’s the traitor! Lock her up!! And that crap about her winning the popular vote?? Fake news, pal. Illegal votes. Take away those illegal votes and Trump would have won in a landslide. That’s the truth and if you can handle the truth, check out Breitbart, listen to Fox and Friends, they have the facts, the real ones. Donald J. Trump, the right man for the times. You know it in your heart. Even if you won’t admit it.

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I’m the sort of person who doesn’t mind making mistakes. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, is my motto. I got a lot of friends who figure the opposite, nothing ventured means no screw ups. Life is for learning, I’d reply, but they’d probably tell me, play it safe.

It’s not like I’m a risk taker. I don’t climb Half Dome in Yosemite with no ropes. I don’t have any interest in exploring the back country of the Amazon or summiting Mt. Everest. I don’t sky dive or bungee jump. My idea is to see if I can live long and if missing some thrills is part of the plan, okay by me. But I do think we should challenge ourselves a little. Otherwise we relegate ourselves to cable TV and the vicarious lives virtual reality is soon going to make normal.

I built a kayak back about 1990, then took it out into the Puget Sound and up into the San Juans. Two years later I built a sailboat and the next year built our house. These were leaps of faith and if you knew me back then, you’d understand how far the leap was, me being a non-tool user of the first order. I grew up without the usual male oriented skill sets of my peers. When I asked my guidance counselor in high school if I could take shop class, I was told I was on a college career track. Sadly, I listened to him and opted to take advanced mathematics.

Not saying calculus didn’t help me build our house, but … let’s face it, woodworking might have been far more germane to my efforts. Nevertheless, necessity is the mother of, if not invention, at least improvisation. Ironically, my life gravitated toward the skills I didn’t have. But you learn that if you set aside the desire for perfection and aim a bit lower, most things are possible. You know, before the Digital Age made hand skills obsolete.

I built myself a guitar last winter. What I learned, other than how unprepared I was for such an endeavor, was how much there was to learn other than just slapping wood together. The science of audio physics, to name one obvious aspect. So when I finished my little project, I was disappointed in the sound my guitar projected while weeping. Which, I confess, propelled me to violate my vow never to make another guitar again and try one more time, maybe see if I could create an improved audio landscape. Maybe put that calculus to use.

Halfway into the second guitar I came across a You-Tube video showing a guy tapping the soundboard as he shaved the braces underneath. By the end the difference from a dull thud to a ringing sustain was downright impressive. I realized my first guitar was more like the dull thud, so naturally, in the middle of the second’s construction, I disassembled the first one. One step forward, couple steps backward into the realm of luthier repairman.

I just finished both yesterday. The first one sounds much better. Meaning, if I had done that earlier, I would’ve saved myself the month I spent on the second. But now I have two handmade guitars, both of which I’m happy with. Maybe I should take some time now to do something else. You know, maybe learn to play one…

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