Not sure where to head on this Sunday and more story blogging (part 2)

 

Some of you might be aware on occasion I release a podcast, just random madness similar to this blog. Every now and then I think I should spruce it up and add music. If I ever decide to pry open that little bitty wallet of mine and find a dollar to two I would pay the copyright fee or whatever you have to do to add some. My idea would be to play Ten Years After’s “I’d love to change the world”.

And I would use some of the music and let the refrain appear: “I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do, so I’ll leave it up to you.”

Or just might use it as the lead in, who knows, yet I have always like that song. Another song came to mine this morning was Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ “What’s so funny about peace love and understanding”. And after pulling up the lyrics were they more prescient then that we first thought or are the lyrics just timeless. Y’all can debate that amongst yourselves.

Yet I also thought it would be fun to post a link to the song on “X” and see how much it triggers MAGA. Then I became a better person and realized you cannot lump MAGA as one group of the crap that gets posted on “X”.  This is me practicing what I preach against. We cannot point fingers because that just fuels the fire of us versus them that is destroying our country right now.

MAGA isn’t the hate filled and/or lie spewing world of Catturd, Laura Loomer, Guenther Eagleman, Janice what’s her name and certain members of Trump’s administration. They are just the loud voices that fuel problems and discord. Most of MAGA are everyday Americans who for a variety of reasons supported Trump in 2016 and then doubled down on him as time went on. They are working class Americans felt left out first by the Democrats then Washington itself, they are people who watched too much Fox and became baptized by its demonization of Democrats, some mid Americans and Republicans who were fed up with Democrats demonizing them by pretentious elitism, in 2024 who were burnt by the inflation of 2020-2024 and didn’t hear a viable plan from the Democrats to solve a problem Donald Trump so easily (and falsely) attributed to them. There are more of course, yet the point is MAGA is not primarily some easily grouped together lump of people that are the hate filled monsters you see on social media.

Of course the same goes the other way also, most Democrats aren’t pompous clueless elitists, just people seeing problems facing them and looking for an alternative to the hate filled world of social media. They just prefer leftists ideas.  I am not a big fan of left wing economics, yet it is easy to see why people are swayed by them when you see the wealth gap, the diminishing education, the concerns over social security and the cost of healthcare. Democrats don’t have the answers, but they definitely have the verbiage.

All that aside I decided not to post on X that wonderful song by Elvis Costello and the Attractions at the moment, yet I still might hoping not to trigger MAGA, but to encourage people to rethink their world.

 

I am about to get to my story, but first as some of you know I am Catholic so writing about “Gods” on a Sunday feels a bit sacrilegious, yet hey God knows the truth. So to balance my brain, here is today’s first reading which also goes along with wanting to hear the song What’s so funny about peace love and understanding. Things just work sometimes:

From the Prophet Habakkuk 1:2-3;2:2-4 “How long oh Lord? I cry for help/ but you do not listen!/ I cry out to you, Violence!/ but you do not intervene./ Why do you let me see ruin;/ why must I look at misery?/ Destruction and violence are before me;/ there is strife, and clamorous discord./ Write down the vision/  clearly upon the tablets,/ so that one can read it readily./ For the vision still has its time,/ presses on to fulfillment and will not disappoint;/ if it delays, wait for it,/ it will surely come it will not be late./ The rash one has no integrity;/ but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.

And yes the song popped in my head first, then the better half showed me today’s readings. Strange but true.

 

And now to part 2 of the story. As mentioned I just post and go so now this second part is well just what comes next.

The first mortal was confused. He followed his friend home to his house. He watched as his friend placed the stone onto the growing fence. His friend had been working on this for seven cycles of the sun. Now he was proud that it was half way done. Sometimes he would bring two or three smaller stones, but mostly they were the larger ones, heavy to carry. He was very particular though on which stones he choose. Sometimes taking a whole day to find the right one. It was his fence though and it was his home so he wanted it to be just right. When he started he had invoked to Gods help him. Yet even then the Gods were not part of many people’s lives.

Once the stone was placed they ate and shared wine. His friend toasted to the Gods then laughed saying I guess I don’t need to do that anymore.

The next morning the first mortal went to the Priests. They were no longer at the temples on the dividing ground. They all had moved into the city and built temples there. Now though not much went on. The priests still celebrated on the holy days, but mostly they sold wares in the marketplace to survive. No one gave to the temples. Well a few did, the most devout of the worshippers still attended the temples, but it was a small minority of the population. The priests were left with earning money like everyone else to eat.

He went up to the largest temple and asked the guard to speak to the priest. The guard looked at him quizzically. No one really wanted to talk to the priests anymore. He had been a guard for as long as he could remember. A long time ago, he would receive tribute to make an appointment to see the priests, now he went with the priests to help them sell in the marketplace.

The guard asked the mortal what he wanted. He said it was of dire importance and the priests needed to know immediately. The guard brushed him off. He tried persuasion, yelling, guilt all to no avail. The guard couldn’t care less.

He went to the next temple and encountered the same scenario. A guard who didn’t want to give him an inch. The third temple was just the same.

He was tired and frustrated. How could no one care about the Gods anymore? They were the creators, the power over all, the dispensers of justice, blessings, riches, and punished the wicked.

Then a strange thought hit him. If the Gods are dead, who is doing all that now? He looked around. He decided he really needed to speak to a priest. He had many questions about the Gods. It was late so he went home to sleep. It was now two full days since the Gods had died and nothing really changed.

The next morning he headed to the marketplace hoping to run into a priest. And he did. He did not recognize the priest at first, mainly because he was dressed in clothes like himself, not the usual robes. It was only because the priest was arguing with someone about the price of something that the customer yelled I don’t care if you are a priest, I will only give you so much. The priest eventually acquiesced and took what he could get. The mortal approached the priest.

I beg to have a word with you he said. The priest looked at him incredulously. It was bad enough to have to sell in the marketplace, but to be hounded by someone who was not going to buy anything was worse. The priest looked at him waiting for him to go on.

He told the priest what had happened. Well he left out many of the details, but said all the Gods are dead. The priest laughed. That cannot be true. I am still a priest of the Gods so they are alive.

I beg to differ said the mortal. The priest said, well if you think you are so special to go to the land of the Gods, which I doubt you did, then bring proof of their demise. The man remembering the fear he felt when he first went thought about letting it go. If the priests didn’t care, why should he? And was he sure. He was lucky not to get caught the first time. And even though he felt sure the Gods were all dead, it was frightening to think about going again. Not only that it was a long climb up the mountain to get there.

The priest was angry this mortal just stood there thinking. He barked at him. Either go bring proof or leave me be. I have things to do, meaning he needed to sell more so he could eat. The priest then asked for donation to the temple. The mortal looked at him. He had no money. He barely had food at home. His work was sporadic like most people’s. Everyone in the city struggled except for a very few.

The mortal knew he had the time to go since he wasn’t going to work for three more days. He asked the priest what proof do you need? This made the priest pause. What proof would be needed? It actually occurred to him that if the Gods were dead this changed everything including his position in society. Sure no one had money, but he still could command certain favors and attention in the temple, on the holy days, at weddings, funerals, his place in society would be put in great jeopardy. He realized he needed to know if the Gods were dead or was this person mad.

He asked for one of the swords of the Gods. The priest figured that if a mortal could get a sword then the Gods were truly dead. The mortal blinked. He saw the two Gods kill each other with their swords. The Gods were huge so were their swords. He wasn’t sure he could bring them down the mountain.

He asked is there anything else. The priest thought for a moment. No, it must be the swords. Now the priest wasn’t thinking about the size, but did say do not bring them into the city. Just bring them down to the bottom of the mountain and not on the holy grounds. The priest had immediately realized he wouldn’t want anyone else including the other priests to know just yet.

The man went home and ate a small dinner. He packed the rest of the food he had into his old torn knapsack to journey with tomorrow and slept.

To be continued

It’s been a long time since I rocked and rolled, well sort of…

 

Never hurts to have a little Led for the head every now and then, but this isn’t about rock and roll.

For years I would occasionally write a story within my posts. This wasn’t very often, but I created a few short stories that basically went nowhere except they had a start and finish and were fun. Basically I would take any wild idea that hit my head write a few paragraphs on what I felt at the moment and then in the next blog post would add to it, not necessarily with a plan. I would reread what I wrote previously and just pick up where I left off creating the story as I went. So over four or more posts some semblance of a story existed. There were even a couple I liked and if I ever want to spend some time I could go back and edit them and see what I have. Actually somewhere in lost computers over time I think there is one story I tried to polish up so to speak.

Recently I thought about asking readers to give me ideas to start another one. I say this because years ago at work someone that knew I try to write gave me an idea for a story. Just a one sentence thought. I actually finished that and have made attempts to edit and publish it. As of right now, no luck, but that story is much further along in my short stories than what I wrote in this blog. Now there are other short stories where I also made effort and am trying to get published also, but looking back at them they need work. Right now, though in my hazy and lazy days I am working on four books simultaneously with two working drafts on my computer where I actually spend time putting words on a computer screen. One of these days I may get ambitious and really finish them up. Yet I thought it was always fun just to write away with absolutely no path in advance, just sit and type and see where the words take you. Again, I thought about asking readers for ideas, but while thinking about doing this again I was reading another book when an idea sort of popped in my head. The idea shocked me because it is not something I would usually entertain. And since it is not something I would usually entertain, I am going to story blog it.

Again, the rules are no set ending, no real rhyme or reason for what is about to happen and over the next few blog posts on whatever topic I write I intend to add to the story until it finds its own conclusion. I will reread the previous post then just add to it based on where my thoughts for the day lead me. So without further ado, here we go:

 

The two Gods stood face to face. Years ago they were loved as the leaders of the Gods. They were married, celebrated by both the Gods and mortals alike. This was the before times. Now the war of the Gods had boiled down to the two of them. They didn’t remember why the war started, just that they were what was left of a grand epoch where rule over the mortals was blissful, quiet, serene and entertaining. The mortals were created to serve the Gods, but also so their petty lives would be theatre. Over time and these two Gods definitely couldn’t remember why jealousy, the pettiness they enjoyed watching permeating through them, boredom maybe took over their world.  And over time these emotions grew into hate between the Gods and they destroyed each other in a brutal war that destroyed their world. Now since the mortals were given their own world it remained. The Gods so consumed by their war had forgotten about the mortals and over time left them to their own devices so the worship of the Gods had become ancient stories. Except for one mortal, who being curious had climbed up into the world of the Gods to find out what happened.

And with this backdrop the two remaining Gods faced each other with overwhelming levels of both hate and love bubbling up inside them.  They had once loved each other unconditionally, now for reasons they no longer knew they hated each other with the same level of intensity of their love. Yet for a brief moment the love came back and they made love so passionately the ground shook, the mountains felt the shudder of them together, the waves of the oceans overwhelmed the shore and at the height of their passion they stabbed each other and both feel apart dead.

The mortal wasn’t sure, but looked around and so no other Gods. Still on unsure footing, legs shaking noticeably, the smell of death in the air headed back to the world of the mortals.

As he walked along the plain that had been holy ground, the ground that separated the two worlds of mortals and Gods, where the temples were once bustling with humans bringing sacrifices to the Gods of food and wine, where the people worshipped and praised the Gods, now lay half in ruins, still standing at this point, but the finer trappings looted, the walls cracked, the doors gone, the statues either broken or toppled over he ran into a friend of his from his village.

The mortal was rummaging through the ruins looking for stones for a wall around his house he was building.  The first mortal ran up to him and exclaimed the Gods are dead, the Gods are dead. The second mortal looked at him curiously. Sir, what concern is it of yours about the Gods. The Gods have not bothered us forever.

The first mortal was ecstatic, no it is more important, they are dead, completely dead, I saw the King and Queen of the Gods kill each other. He didn’t say what they were doing when they killed each other.

The second mortal now carrying a stone he hoped would work, told his friend. Come home with me, let us drink some wine and relax. Do not worry yourself over the Gods, and whatever you do, do not alert them to the presence of us mortals anymore. It has been peaceful, no one needs to bring sacrifices, the priests are all gone. We live in peace.

The first mortal seemed disheartened. He had witnessed something well was it terrible, wonderful, unimportant or the most important news ever, yet his friend was disinterested. How can something as important as the Gods being dead not matter anymore?

To be continued

Government shutdown: are they really trying and here is a quick proposal

 Yep once again the government is shutdown and quite frankly it may be for awhile. As always I hope I am wrong, but how many of you believe they are actually working on this or are they just stuck in the mud.

Yes I hear people on the news saying they are still in DC, yet mainly it is just finger pointing to the nth degree.

They tried for a continuing resolution CR at one point and hopefully they are still working on that even if just kicking the can down the road. So let’s do something a bit different to give us a framework for a real budget.

So if we get stuck with a CR until a full budget can be worked out why not reduce current spending levels by 3 percent for all aspects of the government, yet all agencies must meet all statutory obligations. The executive branch would have to spend the money, correctly of course, already allocated by Congress. The executive branch could not make unilateral changes that affect what has already been determined. And to offer a compromise in the CR, the tax credits for the ACA be guaranteed for all of next year except they are reduced by two percent as a way along with the 3 percent reduction for the budget to show some fiscal restraint on spending.

Also some executive orders may need to be backed out or legislation enacted to prevent executive orders from overriding a real budget. Which would mean certain members in Congress would need to acquire some intestinal fortitude to do what is required of them. Sad that they have so relinquished their responsibilities that doing their job is not foreseeable.

This opens the government again, puts some restraint on spending since this is only a CR and hopefully if the members of Congress find that intestinal fortitude they might be able to work out the full budget.

Just a quick proposal to reopen the government and hopefully show certain members of Congress they can do their job with a bit of effort. It would be nice of course if they can actually accomplish all this in the current environment. I doubt it. The hate machine is more important than the people of this country right now.