Thursday News and Commentary Through a Wellness Filter

Good afternoon from my Hunker-Bunker overlooking the Puget Sound from West Seattle.  My pill caddy tells me that it is a Thursday, and I plan on being home here for the next three days, if not longer — if’n I happen to win one of the Lotto drawings, which can only work if I leave the Bunker long enough to buy some tickets…

Speaking of tickets…    I had tickets to last night’s Rolling Stones concert at Lumen Field, and I gave them — along with backstage passes — to my niece and her husband, who are both Mick Jagger freaks.  It’s almost embarrassing, considering that while the Stones were a major band among my generation, I was never really that much of a fan.  I don’t know why the Stones never really did it for me — most of their contemporaries are among my most favorite.

But hey, maybe you ‘have the moves like Jagger’, and for you I give you an image from last night’s concert:

I have a few things to do here in my Hunker-Bunker today.  For one thing, I have to finish my “Spring Cleaning” to rid the place of the excess fur from my cat.  After an entire winter, I have bits of cat everywhere…

I don’t know about any of you, but I need a break from the usual stink that makes up the daily headlines.   It is all so draining on the soul.  So today, I am going to try and stay away from talking about that shit today.  Not that the shit left over isn’t bad enough, but it’s not the same-O same-O.

Headlines That Caught My Eye This Morning

Item 1:  President fears first son Hunter will serve prison time over gun case

Does he “fear” this?   I doubt it.  Would he rather his son didn’t go to prison for up to a year?  No doubt.  I don’t think any parent would relish the idea of their kid in a jail or prison.

I don’t know how many times I am going to have to point this out, but if Hunter Biden gets ANY kind of sentence that involves serving time, it will be for under one year and most likely either in a halfway house or home confinement.  He will most likely end up with a guidelines sentence of between zero and ninety days, with the requirement that he serve at least 85% of it before being released from sentence onto what I suspect will be a three-year ‘tail’ on probation.

I seriously doubt that Joe Biden will pardon his son.

The one thing most people can say about Joe Biden is he has a strong sense of propriety.   He still believes in the sanctity of the office putting the nation’s needs above himself and his family.  I know, it’s a rather quaint attribute following the last person occupying the Oval Office, but it still will boil down to Biden not giving Hunter an ‘out’.

And for what?  Because he lied on a gun application about using drugs and/or alcohol?  How many of you told that white lie and got away with it?  Most people DO get away with it, much like you scroll past all of the EULAs on your software and some membership websites without ever reading the fine print.  You click the “I have read and understood” checkmark and move right on…

Apply for Medicare or Social Security lately?  Did you read all of that fine print on the website?  Raise your hand if you’ve ever driven with a bit too much alcohol or have taken some kind of prescription drug that explicitly states you shouldn’t drive or operate machinery?

We tend to fudge a lot of things we deem ‘harmless’ in our lives.  You should see me drive around here at 0400 in the morning.  Red lights won’t even slow me down, and I’ve blown past Seattle cops doing fifty down a 25 mph hill…

So does Joe Biden ‘fear’ that his son is going to prison?  I’m afraid the word “fear” is the wrong word here.

Item 2:  David Copperfield accused of sexual misconduct by 16 women

Item 3:  If you thought the OpenAI ChatGPT GPT-4o demo was impressive — it now has a face

Item 4:  Google’s AI search revamp puts publishers in a quandary

Publishers are going to have to learn to adapt, just like everyone else.

Item 5:  Slovakia PM Robert Fico in stable but serious condition after shooting, doctors say

The entire planet is coming apart at the seams.  The next major world war was never a matter of if, but when.  Mainly when the status quo would eventually collapse under its own weight.

We worry about our own future following the next election in November.  Each side believes that the nation will come to a bloody end if ‘the other side wins’ in November.  “Democracy is under attack,” and “Tear it all down” are common phrases no matter where you look.  There’s “us”, and the “others”, and we need to rid ourselves of those “others”.

This is both sides of the political spectrum right now.

We have trust issues in this country, that’s for sure.  I blame the partisan rhetoric.  The “otherizing”.

But it isn’t just this country, it’s going on all over the world right now.  Vast populations are fed up with the status quo, and they are lashing out.

I blame social media.  I blame these blogs, to some extent.  I blame the people who will believe just about anything they read on the internet, as long as it matches their preconceived biases.

Facts are lost in the noise.

Item 6:  Sheriff faces questions from Arkansas lawmakers over Netflix series filmed at county jail

I watched “Unlocked: A Jail Experiment” on Netflix the first day it came out.  Literally, I watched the entire series on the first day it came out.  Eight hours worth.

First of all, this show stayed on Netflix “Top Ten” for almost six weeks.  For some reason, real-life police and prison shows are very popular with a lot of people.  We are drawn to these shows for different reasons — some, who’ve experienced this world either from one side of the bars or the other, are drawn to these shows much like people are drawn to epic war flicks.  It is like seeing a familiar trauma from a distance.  Others are just fascinated by the life in the Human Zoo.

Is it REAL?  Sure, if you believe that a week’s worth of action can be boiled down and rendered into a 47-minute episode like what you see on television.

Remember COPS?  Same thing.  If you watched COPS, you tended to believe that the life of a patrol officer is chalked-full of mad adventures.  What you weren’t realizing is that those forty-minute episodes usually took a week to film, and another six weeks to edit and produce.

The daily life in a county jail is as boring as fuck, whether you are locked in a cell or out in a dayroom or “tank” with others.  For the most part, if a person is in jail awaiting trial for a crime he’s committed, then he is going to try like hell to plead guilty to something so they can either get out or get on to a prison where life is more like being in the military than a lock-down.

Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.

What In The Hell Did I Just Watch?

The Outlander – Netflix

Memes From the Meme Box

Do tell…

I am this old…

The 2024 presidential debates

Putting this shit together…

Gee, I wonder why…

When the AARP Starts Promoting Rock Concerts…