Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for October, 2024

Dear Eddie,

Thanks for coming to Family Weekend to surprise Gideon. He loved having you here and being able to talk to you about his classes.

I love that we can still spend time together like regular people/parents even though we are divorced. It’s good for us and for our kids.

Gideon and Mikayla even ditched a Halloween party with their friends to hang out with us and play cards.

(And no, you are not the reigning Uno champ in anyone’s record book. Ask Uncle Pat.)

I was glad you were here this weekend for another reason: I got to see your reaction in person to this:

“Comedy” at its finest, amirite?!

(To all people defending him and the rally in general: Explain the joke. Tell me like I’m five how it’s funny and not offensive. And if it’s that he’s a “shock comic” that took aim at everyone, tell me why there weren’t any jokes about white people. Seriously.)

I could almost see the blood boiling beneath your skin.

One thing Trump didn’t do at the rally, surprisingly, was repeat his stupid claim that children go to school for gender reassignment surgery.

Trump’s team saved the lie for a text blast AFTER the rally. Great. Also, HOW did I get on their list?

Me: Can you imagine? The school wouldn’t even give Gideon a Tylenol for a headache without a note from me!
You: But yet they have surgery suites with doctors and nurses in one of the classrooms. Sure.
Me: And all within a school day! When teachers are buying supplies out of their own pockets. Right.
You: How can anyone believe this?

It was just like old times.

The good news is that Gideon is just like us.

After I texted him what I said to a high-school “friend” who called the MSG rally “patriotic” (the same rally that one of the speakers — radio host Sid Rosenberg — called “a Nazi rally“), he texted the following. (We all curse like sailors so I sanitized it for publication.)

Thought I’m a fan of his POV, I’d love some punctuation.

By the way, did I tell you that he sent in his request for an absentee ballot back in September and Georgia (specifically Chatham County) STILL hasn’t sent it? Same for Mikayla. He’s been calling to no avail. It’s maddening. And Georgia is a swing state too. SIGH.

Anyway, thanks again for coming. It was good to see you.
Beth

*Now you’ll be singing this all day.

Read Full Post »

Dear Certain Facebook Friend,

I really think you need a hobby that does not involve using an “independent browser.” You’ve gone way down the conspiracy-theory rabbit hole.

In addition to hopping on board the HAARP bandwagon, you are, naturally, an antivaxxer.

You posted this recently. Are you really wanting to go back to 1890s knowledge? They were still using cocaine as an all-purpose pain reliever, for crying out loud!

There doesn’t seem to be a conspiracy theory you don’t embrace.

Sigh. Where to begin with this?

Oh. My.

Here are SO MANY tinfoil-hat buzzwords:

Later in the post, you mention the Deep State (of course).

AND, the grandpappy of them all, GEORGE SOROS.

Lord have mercy.

Let me get this straight:

COVID was a well-planned global conspiracy coordinated via the corrupt George Soros-owned media and search engines. The mRNA-DNA altering injections (i.e., vaccines) were sold for massive profits — killing people with the “Pfizer clot shot” while the unvaxxed were hunted.

This is what you said.

OK.

So.

Let’s put aside simple facts such as mRNA doesn’t alter DNA, the vaccines were/are free, and no one hunted unvaxxed folks. There are a couple of other issues:

All the countries of the world agreed to do this: Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, U.S., China, etc.? And they all worked together well and kept it a secret? Like I told you, I can’t even get three people to keep a secret about a Christmas present.

Who exactly benefited from this plot? COVID crashed economies. What’s the point of killing so many people with COVID or with the vaccine? Were they enemies of the DEEP STATE? Did they KNOW TOO MUCH? Somehow I doubt it.

Why is anyone hunting unvaxxed people? There’s no need. I mean, I believe in survival of the fittest. You don’t want to get vaccinated? OK. Polio, measles, cholera, etc. will take you out soon enough.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention THE LIBERAL ELITES.

Side note: All “experts” are not in academia. Look at all the scientists, economists, etc., all over the world.

You know, I have a good position at a university. Shouldn’t I be part of this club? I’ve been working in higher education for nearly 30 years. Shouldn’t I have gotten an invitation by now? I’m a little put out. How am I supposed to know how to indoctrinate students without the official guidelines?

Um … didn’t this dude go to Yale?

I’m also surprised you didn’t warn me off my Alexa. You’d be right about surveillance, though: I’m sure that old ‘ho IS listening all the time and making notes.

Fine. I don’t care. What’s she tracking? When I need cat food? Good.

If Bill Gates wants to implant a chip in me and track my movements, he can go right ahead.

It’s not like I’m plotting a global conspiracy.

Back to that.

Let’s say, just for kicks, that you are right — that you and the rest of the 5G nutters have stumbled onto the truth of a cabal and exposed their machinations. (You haven’t, but let’s pretend.)

So what?

What are you going to do about it?

What if the earth IS flat? (It’s not.)

So what?

How does it affect you?

What if the moon landing WAS fake? (It wasn’t.)

So what?

How will your life change?

It won’t.

It genuinely does not make a difference to you or to me or to anyone in our daily lives. We are still going to go to work, hang out with friends, take care of our families, clean our houses, plan vacations, pay bills, go to dinner, etc., every day whether George Soros buys another TV station or not.

So my recommendation is to get off the Internet (dark web, light web, private browser, whatever) and go get some fresh air. Have a few analog days. Or weeks. Or maybe even months.

When you come back, take a page out of Finland’s playbook for its schoolchildren and practice critical-thinking skills.

With genuine concern for your health,
Beth

*He didn’t. Obviously.

Read Full Post »

Dear Blog,

I’m so glad I have you. I know I ignore you sometimes. But Stella always gets her groove back.

I get sand in my shell, and my posts become my pearl. Well, they are pearls to me.

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself … It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”
–Harper Lee

What’s interesting to me is that what some readers find pearls are the exact posts that others find to be sand still.

For example, in election years, my posts seesaw between some kind of topical outrage and mundane daily life. Those who love the former also seem to like the latter.

But not all who like the latter also like the former.

I’m sure it depends on whether the person agrees with me or not.

However, if I don’t write, I might die.

 “Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.”
–Ayn Rand

It’s my chief creative outlet. It gives me a reason to get out of the house. (Sometimes it is the only reason.)

And through the magic of technology, I can schedule posts — a fact a former coworker (aka Mean Girl) didn’t understand. I’m convinced she friended me on Facebook just to spy on me. She complained about me to my boss, saying I was using work time to write. My boss told me. I was incredulous.

“Does she not understand how this works?” I asked him. He shrugged.

“A word after a word after a word is power.”
–Margaret Atwood

Here I get to vent my spleen about her and others.

“I write to discover what I know.”
–Flannery O’Connor

I also get an excuse to do research like I did when I was a full-time journalist.

“When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time.”
–Lady Gaga

Ultimately, this blog is for me. Maybe it’s for others too. It’s not for everyone. I’m OK with that.

Love,
Beth

*The other Elvis

Read Full Post »

Hey kids!

Auntie Beth is back to help you make sense of the weather.

If Marge from the holler is trying to tell you the gub’ment is controlling the weather, don’t believe her.

This is the same person who thought that Jewish space lasers caused California wildfires.

Also, she’s PART of the government.

Also, she’s said humans don’t cause climate change (but if they did that it’s good for us.).

But humans DID cause Hurricane Helene?

Really, it boggles the mind.

But MTG isn’t the only halfwit out there tweeting (er .. Xing) nonsense.

  1. Application (louder for people in the back)
  2. Abandoned
  3. Sound waves
  4. Joins applications for fun things like time travel and invisibility cloaks and urinal headrests
  5. Can’t we get rain over deserts?

But wait, here’s more:

Ok, y’all: I’m going to address just one thing to bring the rest of this nonsense into focus:

These storms brewing in the Atlantic at the same time? Not a coincidence.

That’s right. That’s because IT’S HURRICANE SEASON.

Hurricane season runs June 1-Nov. 30 EVERY YEAR.

It’s at its most active in late August and September when water temperatures in the Gulf and in the Atlantic are at their warmest.

(Reality check: When was Hurricane Katrina? Aug. 29, 2005. Who was president? George W. Bush. When was Hurricane Andrew? Aug. 24, 1992. Who was president? George H. W. Bush.)

Facebook reminded me I was worried about the path of Hurricane Matthew at this time eight years ago.

So a little check back around this time every effing year would find a few storms brewing in the Atlantic. These storms have gotten more intense. Why? CLIMATE CHANGE, YOU ABSOLUTE TURNIP.

(Ok. I’m breathing. I’m breathing. In with the good air. Out with the bad.)

Back to the U.S. government controlling hurricanes. Does it? No. Did it? If you count some light cloud seeding back in the 1960s-1980s? Still no (it didn’t work).

Auntie Beth recommends you stop believing complete buffoons and liars and start believing and helping people who want to do things such as:

  • Reduce carbon emissions
  • Replace and repair critical infrastructure
  • Find and fund insurance for homeowners and renters in areas potentially most affected
  • Build storm-resilient structures
  • Develop new clean-energy sources and technology

If you can’t do that, at least stop sharing misinformation on Leon’s sinking barge of barf.

Auntie Beth thanks you.

*Sorry, Cher.

Read Full Post »