KNOW BETTER? BETTER THAN WHAT? TO VOTE

Adults have it over kids when they say, “You ought to know better,” when something goes wrong.

Older people have seen plenty go wrong, have done plenty of things wrong.

Did they have someone explain what they ought to know?

Or did they have the grace of being stupid by themselves without the feedback?

Well, speaking for one, maybe more, I’ll say if we heard about it, it came from someone we knew.

Today we look to social media to correct course.

Do something, post about it, and see if you did it right.

Ask the question, “Is this right,” and you’ll finds strangers speaking up whether they have a clue or not.

The thrill for some in the online world is stirring the bucket with a shit-talk spoon to see who wants a taste.

Take the top pictures for example.

The question is not, “What is it?”

It’s a double serving of a Full English Breakfast on a platter.

The question was, “Would you eat this?”

It’s a bad question and they ought to know better than ask it.

Who in their right mind would gorge themselves on such food at one sitting?

The correct answer: Eat what won’t keep and save the rest for later.

‘Later’ might be two or three meals. That’s a lot of food.

Start with the eggs, toast, and tomatoes.

 

Everyone Has An Opinion To Share

Raise your hand of you want some stranger telling you what’s wrong with you.

It goes from your parents being disappointed in you, you being disappointed in your parents, to believing you were adopted because your family is too weird to believe.

You grew up in the wrong town, went to the wrong school, and moved away at the wrong time.

You found the wrong job, married the wrong woman, and had the wrong kids who look at the two of you as strangers.

Some outsider knows you better than you know yourself and they’re telling it to you like you should know?

And somehow, their opinions come to you like a breath of fresh air, a warm breeze scented with apple blossoms.

What you don’t know about them is they are coming to you from inside a port-o-potty on the fourth day of a three day music festival. (Hey Sasquatch)

There’s shit on the floor, puke on the walls, and there they are whispering through the air vent in the ceiling.

And I’m a stranger explaining how things are, how things are gonna be?

 

It’s been said that a good lawyer never asks a question they don’t know the answer to.

I like the idea, but why not be a little more daring.

The things I bring up on the blog BoomerPdx are not to get at you, the reader, as much as to get at the topic itself.

I’m not creating a problem and selling a solution.

One Nobel Laureate For Literature explained it like this:

 

I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you
Beat or cheat or mistreat you
Simplify you, classify you
Deny, defy or crucify you

I ain’t lookin’ to fight with you
Frighten you or tighten you
Drag you down or drain you down
Chain you down or bring you down

I ain’t lookin’ to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up
Analyze you, categorize you
Finalize you or advertise you

And so on.

 

Life As A Game Show? You Know Better

Young people, those just turning eighteen, have a lot of pressure on them.

 In short time they’ll be thirty-eight with two decades down the road.

Call it early middle-age.

They might be married, might have kids, might have hopes, might have dreams.

By the time they hit thirty-eight they’ll have five presidential elections under their belt. (Twenty divided by four)

They’ll be experts by then, experts in environmental science, space exploration, women’s health, and presidential elections.

Or, based on their performance tomorrow on Nov. 5, 2024, they could be complete fucking morons after ignoring an anti-education, anti-science, anti-election candidate with a tail of woe following him for the past four years.

Today’s youth have never seen a public figure like the one running for president in a red hat.

No castigation necessary.

They’ve never had a teacher like him since he would have been retired and put out to pasture years earlier.

No comment needed.

They’ve never had a pastor like him in church for obvious reasons.

Notice how, in my proper fucking decency, I don’t resort to name calling, questioning mental acuity, or make threatening remarks?

What kind of a-hole does that?

I’m not saying it’s not funny, which is a double negative way of saying funny, except it’s not funny.

It’s not funny punching down, kicking someone when they’re down, and making it funny enough that other people pick up the same bad habit.

Better to stand up for yourself and help others stand up for themselves.

You know, stand up.

 

Standing Up

Twenty years ago one of my kids was a junior in high school, the other a freshman.

George Bush ran the show with Dick Cheney’s hand on the wheel.

Bush was president, Cheney his vice president,

Together, they sent ill-prepared troops into a modern battlefield.

The part about uniforms was the biggest bother, and personal armor.

How did parents of dead soldiers feel when they learned their kid might have lived had they had modern body armor like other troops?

As an Army medic from the 70’s, 1974-76, it hit harder than expected.

As a dad with kids coming of age to join up and go to war, I heard this administration shit-talk from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

 

“You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time”

 

I called bullshit on that.

Did I tell my kids to join the Bush Army? No.

Did they join? No.

But they had a choice.

There was a choice during the Vietnam War where the local draft board started the process of signing kids up, but it didn’t seem like much of a choice.

Get drafted, or go to Canada, or jail? Were there other choices?

While no one is getting drafted at eighteen now, this election is about another choice.

It’s a vote for women to choose their own path for their own health, just like men.

Except women’s health has taken a wrong turn down Zealot Avenue.

Tomorrow, vote for the kind of country you want to live in twenty years from now, vote for the kind of country you want to share with your kids.

Be capable, and willing, to vote. Let’s Go.