Vote Republican! We Solve Problems That Don't Exist!

This is what Republicans do. They conjure scary fucking threats and enemies out of whole cloth. They make shit up. Just like the Nazis.

But instead of Jews in Germany it's Mexicans and Muslims in America. Then they whip up a frenzy in their drooling, inbred, idiotic, paranoid, toothless, fundamentalist, evangelical, Tea Party base. They convince them that The Monsters are coming for them! Then they promise to protect them from The Monsters and the shuffling, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals believe them and vote for them and anything they propose.

Here are some glaring examples. Kansas governor signs bill blocking use of Islamic law

"TOPEKA, KS (AP) - Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has signed a law aimed at keeping the state's courts or government agencies from basing decisions on Islamic or other foreign legal codes.  ...Supporters say it simply restates American values. Supporters have worried about Sharia law being applied in Kansas."

OK, when was the last time any defendant requested, or any judge entertained, the application of Islamic Sharia law in a court case in Kansas? Without even bothering to do a LexisNexis search let me go out on a limb and say IT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED!

"MUSLIMS ARE MONSTERS! THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU! PROTECT YOURSELVES!

Show me 1 single fundamentalist Muslim who wants to move to Kansas and try to promote Sharia Law as the new legal standard.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.  Link to them in the comment section.  I'll look forward to it.

Here's another example of Republican stupidity: Kansas House Passes Stricter Voter ID Law Moving Up Proof Of Citizenship Date To 2012

"Under the terms of the law, which was originally passed last year, voters will need to present proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Among the 13 proofs of citizenship that the state allows are birth certificates and driver's licenses, if a birth certificate was presented when the driver's license was obtained."

The Big Fear here is that illegal aliens will flood the polling places, cast illegal votes for Democrats and for policies that favor a path to citizenship for undocumented residents, thereby skewing the results election and changing public policy in favor of the illegal aliens.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?! Undocumented residents, or, "illegal aliens" won't even answer their door or phone to talk to a seasonally employed census taker who doesn't give a fuck because they are afraid of being deported.  Do you really think they are going to go out of their way and take the risk of showing up at a voting booth to try to cast an illegal vote? SERIOUSLY?

"ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE MONSTERS! THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU! PROTECT YOURSELVES!

Show me 1 single undocumented resident who showed up at a polling place impersonating an American citizen and attempted to cast a vote.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.  Link to them in the comment section.  I'll look forward to it.

Here's another example of Republican stupidity: Alabama sets nation's toughest immigration law

"The measure will require public schools to determine the citizenship status of students -- a provision not included in an Arizona law that has been at the forefront of actions by several states to curb illegal immigration. Under the Alabama law, police must detain someone they suspect of being in the country illegally if the person cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason. It also will be a crime to knowingly transport or harbor someone who is in the country illegally. The law imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly employ someone without legal resident status. A company's business license could be suspended or revoked."

REALLY? Alabama? Let's take a look at an actual map:

If I'm in Mexico, I would have to risk illegally crossing the U.S. border into southern Texas where everyone looks like me, speaks my language and where and I could pass undetected. Do I stay there and stay safe? OH NO!

According to the Governor of Alabama, I choose to travel north and east across a HUGE expanse of Texas, and pass through Louisiana and Mississippi in order to get to the shitty little fucking boot heel of Alabama where I would presumably start breeding like a warren of rabbits and spreading north to steal jobs from lazy, alcoholic, white trash welfare bums and cast illegal votes.  Because that makes perfect sense.


1.) Why the fuck wouldn't I just stay in Texas?
2.) New Orleans or Baton Rouge are way more appealing than anything in Alabama.
3.) Mississippi...OK, I get that. Keep going.
4.) Alabama? Seriously? I've come this far, why would I stop in Alabama when I could travel just a little bit farther and be in fucking Florida!?! Once in Florida I could just tell everyone I'm Cuban and blend right in. I'm home free!

Alabama? Does the Governor of Alabama think that his new Draconian legislation makes Alabama any less appealing to immigrants than the rampant poverty and racism they already have going for them?

"ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE MONSTERS! THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU! PROTECT YOURSELVES!

Show me 1 single undocumented resident who illegally crossed the Rio Grande, crossed eastern Texas, crossed Louisiana, crossed Mississippi for the "privilege" of settling in a "progressive and welcoming" state like fucking Alabama instead of going for the gold and making it all the way to southern Florida?. Go ahead. I'll wait. Link to them in the comment section. I'll look forward to it.

Republicans are scaredy cat, paranoid idiots.  Go cower in your Cold War bomb shelters, dry hump your deer rifles and live off Spam.  Just stay the fuck away from the polls.  You're too stupid to be allowed to vote.

My Father's Folded Flag

I posted last month about the death of father on April 1. His remains were cremated and today was the day his widow chose to have his ashes interred in their plot in Coffeyville, KS.

So young Galadriel Tanqueray Onassis (who just finished high school yesterday) and I once again found ourselves on the road to Coffeyville for a burial service just as we did last October following the death of my Uncle Joe.

Like my Uncle Joe, my father was given full military honors by a detachment from Ft. Riley. This is always a very moving ceremony. The military is very good at honoring fallen soldiers.

However, this particular ceremony had an unexpected finish.

After the honor guard presented my step mother with the folded flag, 3 shell casings tucked inside to represent the 3 volleys fired to honor his service in WWII and Korea, my step mother rose with flag in hand, turned, bowed and solemnly presented my father's folded flag to my daughter.

Did not see that coming.

Fun in Fairmount

Yesterday there was a car show in the Fairmount Business District just west of Independence n Highway 24. Fairmount has a very interesting and unique history which you can read about in "Kansas City's Fairmount Park" by John Olinskey and Leigh Ann Little.

The National Guard was there with a BIG ASS gun!

And there were a lot of very cool cars.

Obama Endorses (finally) Same Sex Marriage

For those Neanderthals who have a problem with this and rant & rage about "THE WAR ON MARRIAGE!", let me dumb this down for you morons.

Let's say I'm marketing a product that is only available to a fraction of the people who want that product due to an arbitrary marketing barrier.

Let's say that my existing available market is declining because my customers have become disenchanted with my product and are pursuing other options.

If I can remove the arbitrary marketing barrier and make my product available to a consumer base that is hungry for my product, I can grow my franchise, reverse the decline and start to grow again.

That's the heart of Capitalism, right?  Supply and demand.

But what if my "product" is "The Institution of Marriage", my disenchanted product base are heterosexuals, and my emerging market are homosexuals?

How does opening my product to a new market constitute a "war" on my product?

If The Institution of Marriage is on the decline, and there are people who want to get married but can't, how does allowing them to get married threaten The Institution of Marriage?  Doesn't it strengthen The Institution of Marriage by making it more inclusive and inviting in more participants?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm no fan of marriage.  Been there, done that (twice), probably not doing that again.

But if gay people want to share in the common heterosexual experience of being legally and financially shackled to a screaming, moody, psychotic partner to whom you have granted the power to deny you sex, make your every waking moment a living hell, and hold half of everything you own hostage to their satisfaction because you forgot to take out the trash, left the lid off the toothpaste or put the toilet paper on backwards, well, who are we to deny you your bliss?

Open the door!  Let them in!  Enjoy!

But be careful what you ask for.  You might just get it.

From My Daughter To My Dad

Copied from my daughter's Facebook page with her permission. Her tribute to her Grandpa Jim.

"All I want is just one more day. One more hug. My graduation day is coming up so fast, the one big moment in my life that I really thought he would be here for. I loved him more than anything in the whole world, and I'm pretty sure the feelings were reciprocated. I would do anything to make my grandpa proud of me. I miss him more than anyone can understand. I regret every phone call I missed, and every time I didn't go see him just because I didn't want to have to go to Olathe. No one will ever mean as much to me as this man did. I miss you every single day, Grandpa Jim. And I love you more than you ever knew. You were more than my grandfather, you were, and always will be my hero. Rest in Peace. ♥"

She and I will be making the trip to Coffeyville, KS next week where his cremated remains will be buried with the full military honors that he earned twice over (WWII and Korea).

GTO has chosen to honor her Grandpa Jim by getting a tattoo of his WWII Merchant Marine Service Ribbons. Although I would prefer that she never get any tattoos at all, if she feels she needs too, this is a pretty cool concept.

The Big Question is the placement of the tattoo.

RULE 1: It has to be somewhere that she can see it and remember.

RULE 2: It can't be somewhere so prominent that it limits here employment opportunities.

We are open to suggestions.

The "Plan B Initiative"

I've had several discussions with some of my friends recently regarding our so called "Golden Years".

They aren't looking all that fucking "golden".

For a variety of reasons unique to each of us, we find ourselves with the following circumstances in common.

1: No retirement savings. No 401K. No inheritance. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Once we quit working and the paychecks stop coming in, we are well and truly fucked. We are all living paycheck to paycheck so the end will come swiftly and without mercy.
2: We are all in our early/mid/late 50's and our 60's are looming ominously large.
3: None of us have a Significant Other or see any likely prospects on the horizon.
4: None of us are particularly keen on the idea of living the rest of our lives alone, in Section 8 Housing, living from Social Security check to Social Security check at the whim of the fucktards in Washington who don't give a flying fuck about any of us.

So we've been informally entertaining the idea of returning to our Hippie roots and starting what we call "The Plan B Initiative".

The basic idea is that if we reach "a certain age" (which we each define differently), still don't have a "Significant Other", and are faced with a drastic change in lifestyle, we can pool our resources and form our own micro retirement community. What we used to call a Commune. But with more responsible finances, better hygiene and less patchouli.

We haven't worked out all of the kinks yet. In fact, we haven't even discussed any of the kinks. We are barely past the "yeah, it might come to that" level.

But let's look at the options:

1) Living alone on the edges of substinence until we die.
2:) Living in a low rent retirement home full of ancient, demented strangers.
3:) Being a burden on our children.
4:) Forming a small community of friends with shared goals, shared values and shared resources.

I vote for Option 4.

We have about 10 years to come up with a plan and iron out the wrinkles. I think we can make this work. It's at least worth a try.

I Found Mad Max's Lawnmower

Some Pretty Flowers From Unity Village

My Father - December 21, 1925 - April 1, 2012 - R.I.P.

So, the weekend of March 24-25, my dad and my step mom were down in Coffeyville, KS overseeing the auction of my Uncle Joe's property.

They were walking into a restaurant when he fell and broke another vertebrate in his back.

In great pain, they made it back home, consulted their family doctor who advised them to get him to Olathe Medical Center. They checked in on Monday the 26th.


During the week they performed surgery on his back and repaired the broken vertebrate and gave him morphine for the pain.

He had a bad reaction to the morphine and sort of lost touch with reality.

They were in the process of weaning him off the morphine when his heart stopped on Friday morning.

They performed CPR and got his heart started again, breaking some of his fragile ribs in the process. He didn't regain consciousness. They put him on life support and the doctor told my step mom that dad probably wouldn't survive another resuscitation attempt.


She summoned the family. I called into work and spent all day Friday, March 30th sitting with the family, waiting and hoping for the best. My youngest brother started driving in from Los Angeles.

After 10 uneventful hours of sitting in the ICU waiting room it was clear that he was stable and in no immediate danger so I made my excuses and headed for home.


GTO was at a concert that night so I didn't have the opportunity to tell her what was going on.

She didn't even know he had been in the hospital. I hadn't told her because when you are 87 years old, being in and out of the hospital for this and that is pretty much routine.

This would come as a shock to her. She loves her Grandpa more than anyone else in the family. Probably more than me. I think the feeling was mutual on both sides and I’m OK with that.


Dad recently had his 69 year old WWII Merchant Marine Pea Coat overhauled and gave it to GTO, along with his Merchant Marine service ribbons. They were very close.




I once tried to talk to GTO about my wishes around Living Wills, Advance Directives and the fact that I wanted to be cremated. She cut me off and said “I’ve already made up my mind that you and Grandpa are never going to die so we don’t even need to have this discussion.”

I wasn't looking forward to delivering bad news. I actually considered postponing The Talk for at least another day. She was scheduled to have her senior photos taken on Saturday. That's a whole other story for another time.


So I was concerned about delivering such horrible news just hours before she was supposed to be posing for a set of once in a lifetime photos.

Would she be able to NOT look completely sad and devastated? Would I be sabotaging the photo shoot? Shouldn’t I wait until after?

But I also thought about how she would feel if I didn’t tell her and the worst happened. What if she didn’t even know he was sick and he died before she got a chance to say goodbye? Would that forever taint her senior photos? Every time she saw them would she remember “Oh yeah, that was the day my dad knew that Grandpa was dying and he didn’t even tell me so I never got to say goodbye.”


I knew what I had to do.

I woke her up on Saturday morning and told her what was going on. I didn’t tell her the part about how the doctors probably couldn’t resuscitate him again. I didn’t tell her about the doctor saying “I’m concerned”. I didn’t tell her about dad’s Advance Directive instructing the family to pull the plug because he didn’t want to be kept alive by a machine or lose his dignity.


I just told her he didn’t regain consciousness after they resuscitated him and they were still evaluating his condition. She cried. A lot.

I told her if she wanted me to take her to Olathe to see him I would. It was up to her. I assured her that I could get her there and back before the photo shoot.

As I was out running errands that afternoon, she texted me and asked “Are you sure tomorrow won’t be too late?”

Despite my best efforts to sugar coat things, she knew exactly what the situation was. I have a very smart daughter.

I assured her that we could wait until tomorrow. I knew this because my step mom had already decided that no matter what the doctors said, she wasn’t taking dad off of life support until my brother got here from California.

The neurologist ordered a CAT scan and did some tests. There was significant brain damage, but as of Saturday morning the neurologist wanted to give it another 24 hours before passing judgment.

Sunday morning I got the call that he had taken a turn for the worse and we should get to the hospital as soon as possible.

I woke GTO up and said “Get up and get ready. We need to go to the hospital.”

We headed for Olathe Medical Center. One of my brothers was already there. He was sitting in the room ICU room with my step mom holding vigil over our dad. As soon as I entered the room he bolted to the waiting room and I took his place next to my step mom.

My sister and nephew had come in with my brother but they were off grabbing a bite to eat.

A lot of my step mom’s family was already there when I arrived. More trickled in.

Finally, when everyone who was physically able to be present was in attendance, the decision was made.

Family members were asked to step out of the ICU unit while they withdrew the mechanical life support apparatus.

Family members who wished to return to be with him in his final moments were allowed back in. Those who were emotionally unable were excused.

None of my siblings could see it through. They all had emotional meltdowns and couldn’t go back in. One of my brothers had to leave the hospital before it even got to that point. And that’s OK. We all handle these things in our own fashion.

But I felt strongly that at least one of my father’s biological offspring needed to be there at the end. Although he had only been married to my mother for 18 years and he had been married to my step mom for 34 years, I couldn’t just drop all of this in the step families lap. I needed to be there.

I told GTO she didn’t have to go back in. She could go to the waiting room. She wanted to go back in and see it through. She’s as strong as she is smart.

My daughter and I were his only biological offspring to watch him draw his last breath.


My father passed away early in the afternoon of April 1, 2012.

Here are some memories of my dad from this blog. The first one goes all the way back to my very first month as a blogger in January, 2006.

My First Cussword

My Dad's Zippo

My Dad's Zippo Part 2

My Dad

I love you dad. You done good. Rest in peace.