kanesrealm

You probably have noticed that I've been silent for over three months. Frankly, I'm disgusted by the political landscape of America. The fish rots from the head down and our head is Donald Trump. In a few days we will celebrate our independence as a nation. We are 241 years old. At the beginning of any great experiment there is the good, bad and ugly. Haven't we had enough of the bad and ugly? Our failure in the area of medical care is disgraceful. Many efforts in modern America dating back to President Harry Truman have tried and failed to address this issue, with the exception of Medicare which passed in 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson, it was passed because he was a master of the legislative process and because enough Americans finally recognized that it was immoral to look the other way at the plight of elderly citizens. The program works and works very well, in spite of those forces who have attacked it non stop since it's passage and continue to do so. The majorit...

There's an elephant in the room. No it's not the Republicans or the pistachio elephant. I have returned to Facebook. To those who have noticed this I applaud your alertness. For those considering a rebuke and feeding me my own words, I must disclose that I have often eaten my own words and they are delicious. It would be disingenuous of me to disavow anything I have written about Facebook, to the contrary, I stand by every word I have written about that platform. A blog is a snapshot of thoughts in the moment and I only make adjustments when I get a fact wrong or a situation has evolved to unveil new facts. I never alter the original post, I acknowledge the mistake and set the record straight. There are no mistakes to correct on what I've written about Facebook. However, the break I took gave me an opportunity to reflect and conclude that my expectations of Facebook were too high. It can provide a sliver of engagement and pleasure if approached with a narrow lens and a di...

Milo Yiannopoulos, now that's a mouthful. That's not an oral sex joke. Okay, it was an oral sex joke, aren't I outrageous? No? You're right of course, I'm very boring compared to Milo. Like Cher or Prince, you only need to say one name, Milo. I freely and proudly admit that up until about a year and a half ago I really didn't know who Milo was. His name and contribution to public dialogue was on my periphery. So I did a little research to see what all the chatter was about. A young gay guy from Britain with Greek heritage who's political opinions are slightly to the right of Attila the Hung, I mean Hun. That phrase to the right of Attila the Hun, is that really accurate, I can't see how. Milo is a self described provocateur and champion of free speech. He debated Boy George on British Television over gay marriage. Milo was opposed at that time and yes he was an out gay man. At the time he wrote for a Catholic newspaper, yeah I know, go with it. He did s...

Today is International Pipe Smoking Day. It's also a Federal holiday here in the U.S. for something else...I choose to ignore that and celebrate I.P.S.D. I hope you're celebrating with a fine pipe and your favorite tobacco, letting your troubles waft on high to better places. There's nothing more enjoyable than to sit back, gently put fire to the great leaf and think of nothing else but sublime billowing clouds of joy. Take unto thyself a hobby and find peace of mind. I don't remember who said that but I agree and pipe smoking is one of mine. Have a wonderful I.P.S.D. and stay smokey!

President Trump says his Administration is running like a finely tuned machine, not at all chaotic like the evil minions of the media are reporting. Trump is right, if your definition of a finely tuned machine is one that is spewing oil, springs popping off, gears locking up and billows of smoke filling the air. We learned this evening that Trump's pick to replace Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser, Vice-Admiral Harwood, turned down the offer. The lying media cites Harwood as being conflicted between the call of duty and the chaos surrounding National Security matters in the Trump Administration. Trump and company have of course cited other reasons, namely financial and personal. I'm sure that's it. We have also learned, through the evil minions, that apparently Flynn lied to the F.B.I. on January 24, 2017 about speaking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. Lying to the F.B.I. is a felony and if prosecuted and found guilty serious jail time can follow. Today ...

I am really sick of politics...so here's some more. President Trump held a news conference today which lasted seventy-seven minutes. That length is somewhat rare for Presidents. It was scheduled to announce the new nominee for Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta. Acosta himself was not present but it's a safe bet that he should easily make it through the nomination process based on a cursory examination of his record and the fact that he has been approved by the Senate on three other occasions. Trump made that brief announcement and then began the press conference with an opening statement about how great he is and how horrible the mess is that he has inherited. If you didn't see it, please watch it in it's entirety. Don't just catch a snippet or two and listen to your favorite media outlets discuss it. I know it's hard but you need to do it. Whether or not you like him or not you must admire his consistency as one of our greatest illusionists on the scene t...

If you blog, you're familiar with that phrase. It's a part of the behind the scenes information all bloggers track. I learned from my first blog to not allow any comment to automatically post without my prior approval, not to stop opposing views, but to filter out inappropriate drive by hits and babbling about things unrelated to the specific post. There are rarely comments left on this blog so it hasn't been a hectic reviewing process. But something strange has occurred in the stats section which tells me how many people have visited the blog. Today a very large number of people supposedly read my little plop. Here's the rub, this happened about a week and half ago with a day of large numbers of views, exciting, except when I checked back a day later, those numbers were gone and it showed zero for that day. I will of course be checking on today's abnormally high number. Exactly what is occurring I don't know. Is it a glitch or something else? Frequently the po...