Sunday, April 30, 2023

Holy Hell: Ron DeSantis and the Future of Florida

As a Floridian, it’s hard to leave Florida knowing I will not come back. Not as a resident at any rate. While Ron DeSantis won’t be Governor of Florida for much longer, it might even be worse; he might be the new King of Florida, living with his select disciples in the Magic Kingdom castles once inhabited by the Disney organization.

His political confederacy just submitted a new bill to the Florida legislature to allow him to remain as governor of the state while he runs for office as the President of the United States. Current Florida law prohibits anyone from doing that, but DeSantis and his team of political dwarfs know how to work the diamond mines of pliable legislation.

Edit - [The Florida House approved a bill on Friday, 4/28/2023, that would allow Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to remain as governor if he chooses to run for president in 2024, sending it to his for his signature. The bill passed 76-34 on a party-line vote after passing the state Senate also along party lines on Wednesday, 28-12.] 1

He’ll simply do what Donald Trump wanted but could never achieve, DeSantis will simply write his own laws! How, you ask? Easy, simply swing the majority of undecided white voters into thinking being “Woke” is something unchristian or detrimental to whites, and Viola, let’s all crown the new king Ronald.

While the majority of people I lived with on Florida’s west coast have no idea what "Woke" is, a few think it is simply bad grammar for something about Black Lives Matter. I do know they don’t care what it is either, as long as it doesn’t make them spill their margaritas while they jostle to get to the best seats at the Tiki Bar.

Critical Race Theory? They’re not sure what that means either, but they think it has something to do with giving their tax money to the non-whites they don’t want living in their neighborhoods anyway. Banning books about it won't stop them from meeting their friends for an evening of reliving old memories and creating new ones in the land of fun and sun. Schools? Naw, our kids are all grown and besides, they live up north, anyway!

All DeSantis and his Bible-thumping hypocrites have to do is sprinkle the glitter of being snow-blind and sublimely infer "freedom” includes carrying guns without a license but not sharing their tax money with non-Christians or other undesirables such as gays and transvestites, abortion seekers, cartoon characters with big, yellow shoes, or any other form the liberals may take. Both the legislature and the executive branches of Florida's government are basically anti-vaxxers as opening businesses was far more important to them than preventing the spread of COVID. They are harmful to our health.

Let the distracted newcomers half-bake in the Florida sunshine and they won’t notice the mandatory, state-wide new-roof scam or the tripling and quadrupling of home insurance rates. Convince them the rising sea level is natural while being “woke” isn’t. Taking over Florida is a recipe that’s not only easy to prepare but also easy to deliver. All DeSantis has to do is follow Trump's lead and wrap it in the American flag. 

That’s one of the major reasons, after growing up in Florida since 1953, living there for over 70 years – except for the eight years I was in service to Uncle Sam – my wife and I made a major decision and sold our house and moved out of Florida. 

The other major reason is Hurricanes. We went through Andrew in Miami, sat out Charlie in Port Charlotte, and watched on National news in Athens, Georgia, 500 miles away, as Ian's eye went directly over our house in Florida. If predictions are correct, the storms will intensify in strength and in frequency in the future, and I have a tendency to not challenge experts even though the ruling political party in Florida pooh-poohs them. 

It took us over six months to clean up the mess this last time and we simply aren't up to doing it again. Would we have moved if it weren't for the storms? Yes, the storms simply accelerated our schedule. The last clean-up was brutal at our age, I simply can't do it again. Besides, the financial atmosphere of State government favoring insurance companies and huge development projects in spite of public demands told us it was time to look elsewhere. 

Will DeSantis win the Presidency? I doubt it, most Americans will balk when his team begins burning witches, but then again, if he learns to cover the smell of his sins, maybe New Zealand isn’t that far away after all.

Where are we going? Not backwards. I refuse to go backwards. That’s the real reason we left Florida.

1https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3979092-florida-bill-allowing-desantis-to-stay-governor-and-run-for-president-heads-to-his-desk/#:~:text=The%20Florida%20House%20approved%20a,on%20Wednesday%2C%2028%2D12.

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Mr. Electron and Me


I tend to keep my religious discussions between me and my dog. He wags his tail when I talk to him and all is good on earth. Having a discussion about why I don’t believe in religion with a deeply religious friend has always been fraught with danger. The danger is loss of respect, or more correctly stated, a consequential, damaging change in opinion of either myself or my friend.

Is there a superior being who dictates our lives? Is there a power above what we can see and comprehend? How about an energy that we have never imagined, or even a possible universe we may have glimpsed but failed to understand. How about something that is invisible, has no odor or sign of its existence? Enter my friend, Mr. Electron.

I know Mr. Electron exists: He jolted me from my forefinger to my armpit just the other day when I accidentally, although foolishly, violated one of his Commandments: Thou Shalt Insure Mr. Electron is Insulated From Your Wretched Soul When You Touch His Conduit of Life! I was helping a neighbor replace a rather large electric motor when he turned on a 220 volt circuit breaker without telling me and I was spectacularly reminded of the often misunderstood Commandment that will make a devout, true believer out of any technical Pagan.

The difference to me between god-power and electricity isn’t all that complex. I know electricity exists even though my dog doesn’t. I know there is evidence of powers or abilities or conditions we simply do not comprehend as humans. I can not see or detect these invisible powers either, as I can not look at a piece of copper wire and see electrons, at least not without human intellectual intervention. 

While I deeply, reverently respect electricity, I do not worship it. I can not see the existence of the unknown prowess that subjugates the religious believers either, but the difference between me and them is I do not worship this unknown power any more than I worship electricity. My dog doesn’t worship me because I can turn on a light and banish darkness, he worships me because I love him and he in return, loves me. Well, maybe food, too.

I find religion is a communal attitude that ensures strength in numbers, a unified defense, or quite often offense, designed to protect the whole from the unknown dangers from outsiders. It inherently creates a competitive, tribal type of isolationism that either has to convert and then absorb any non-compliant beliefs, or to at least dominate them. The worst case scenario in my lifetime was when the Christian Germans annihilated over six million non-Christians – the Jews – systematically without remorse while believing they were within bounds of one of their own covenants: Thy Shall not Kill.

So, I tend to keep my religious discussions between me and my dog. He wags his tail when I talk to him and all is good on earth.








Featured Post

Donald Trump: Mythical White Knight on the Dark Horse of Hypocrisy

[In his highly publicized, and criticized, campaign, Donald Trump has ignited a firestorm of world-wide controversy.  I wrote this in Dec...