It's in Memorium Day

Dear America,

pro bono

if you must know, this itty bitty Latin phrase, merely explains me...G;

for this thing that I do --  and maybe not every single day -- is just about keeping a diary of America..........for the greater good of America.

Pro Bono literally translates to "for the good;" to be sure, we are more familiar with its use in the general -- defining services rendered at no charge.

[Ergo, it works for Gthing in both references, for this thing isn't exactly a means of shaking my money maker and reaping its just rewards...teehee... No matter...parvis imbutus tentabis grandia tutus when you are steeped in little things, you shall safely attempt great things -- in other words, 'once you have accomplished small things, you may attempt great ones safely.']  

....P.S. (in postscriptum:  let's give a handsome nod to The Art of Manliness, here.  

Albeit two days in the making in this response -- but this morning, with America face to face with another act of evil, in Lower Manhattan, New York -- my mind is swirling around this very idea: "for the good."  For there is a definite line between good and evil, love and hate.

In other words, there is no grey area. 

No matter what situation we are in, no matter the color of our skin, no matter our religion, no matter if we are rich or poor -- there should be no question respective of this choice we make in every thing we say or do, large or small: there is a way of good, for the greater good.....and then there is not.

This girl is also struck with learning more about the victims; the word stems from its Latin roots, victima.  Why does it sound so much prettier with the "a" on the end? -- perhaps to buffer the senses of the loss, perhaps to bring in the feminine aspects of sensitivity and grace and healing?  But never  mind, nowadays we just go straight to the heart of the matter -- v i c t i m  .  period .

In the immediate hours after the animal (according to the president) plowed through a bike lane on a beautiful fall afternoon in NYC  -- two things happened:  

1.  The mainstream media did everything possible to avoid calling the animal for what he truly is  -- a  Radical Islamic Extremist with ISIS ties and firm allegiance (knowledge of this almost immediately verified, according to the notes/and ISIS flag that remained in his truck). 

2.  And in widespread media reports, the eight victims were referred to as Americans.

IN reality -- five men were Argentine -- one Belgian woman -- and yes, two Americans -- one from New Jersey who worked at the World Trade Center, and the youngest victim, at the age of 23, lived in the West Village and was working his first real job.

Perhaps, due to my own personal connection to Latin America -- having my baby girl spend half a year in Argentina just last year --  this dichotomy of' relationship between good and evil, love and hate, here/not here becomes almost too great to reconcile.  It's as if these guys are one of my own (-- although, mathematically, let me just say, it would be impossible.)

But there they were -- nine Argentine guys -- celebrating life and thirty years after graduating from General San Martin college, in the bike lane, in New York City's Lower Manhattan, here, on American soil.   Go to this link, please, for the full story at BBC News - world-latin-america.

When my girl returned home from Buenos Aires with a backpack overflowing with memories, photos of her every move, taste buds delighted with every bite, and having, clearly, fallen in love with the city generally thought of as the Paris of South America....Deo volente, God willing, I was overcome with joy; naturally, suddenly feeling a sense of release and showing my relief in tears-- my baby responded with this:  Oh mama, nothing bad ever happens in Argentina.

And to this day, we both dream, in part, of returning to the place that nothing bad ever happens, together; imagining a beautiful life figuratively placed on a pedestal, or of another world entirely, clearly one that is divine, charming, dazzling in every way and the fashion to match; oh yes, two girls can dream.

It is just so immense, this sadness inside -- for the eight families who have lost a loved one after Tuesday's rampage, have suddenly, and without warning, without planning, without any sign from God  whatsoever,  have had all of their dreams come to a screeching halt.  Just like that.  In an instant.

Over thirty years, there are innumerable variables -- between the nine Argentine men bonding in school and graduating, to staying in touch, to building families and careers before coming to America for a visit with well laid plans to celebrate life and friendship and honoring a connection made for a lifetime...They were in Boston, then decided to go to New York City, and then decided to rent bikes, and then decided to go to the place they would meet the untimely and unconscionable intersection of good and evil.  Where is the good, God?  Where is it?

We could fall back on a couple Latin phrases for strength:  "quam bene referre, non"  "it is how well you live that matters, not how long."    "Non progredi est regredi", "to not go forward is to go backward."

For certain, quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur...."whatever has been said in Latin seems deep...sounds profound."  [again, in continuous recognition of a place called The Art of Manliness]

Speaking of manliness,

how about these two Latin phrases:  "si vis pacem para bellum'  "semper fidelis!"

As in, "if you want peace, prepare for war," and accompanied with "always faithful" -- proud motto of our very own U.S. Marines.

To think, the mayor of New York City, de Blasio -- has just responded to the president's call for the Islamic Extremist to get the Death Penalty, with this:  “I’m not someone who believes in the death penalty in general,” the mayor said at a news conference outside Stuyvesant High School Thursday. “I believe this is an individual who should rot in prison the rest of his life.” 

How non viriliter agite, eh?   De Blasio fashions his response to an enemy combatant with a general rule of liberal gobbledygook.  De Blasio -- An Islamic Extremist soldier drove his truck over innocents -- killing eight and wounding many more  -- and you can't see the direct action of lawful purpose, manifesting a cause and effect for the ages?  The actions of this radical deserves being answered like men --  with right reason, just cause, and in absolute order; eye for an eye is the only answer.  It separates the good from the evil with a clear line for all the world to witness.

Oh, there is more to say; but a bit of normalcy is calling my name.  

tempus fugit

time flies....

heavy sigh

I have a job to do, so I must go.

heavy sigh

The distraction will do me good.

heavy sigh

virtus tentamine gaudet

strength rejoices in the challenge

vivere est vincere

to live is to conquer

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a Dirty Preoccupation Thing

Dear America,

"The words of a man's mouth are deep waters, 

but the fountain of wisdom is a babbling brook.  

It is not good to be partial to the wicked 

or to deprive the innocent of justice. 

A fool's lips bring him strife, 

and his mouth invites a beating.  

A fool's mouth is his undoing, 

and his lips are a snare to his soul.  

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; 

they go down to a man's inmost parts."  

Proverbs 18:4-8 

Written by King Solomon, 

sometime during his reign (c. 970-931 B.C.)  

acquiring dirt is a cheap way to get ahead in life; and yet, go figure, it's precisely this kind of luscious morsel, this little nugget of debauchery or shadiness back behind the man, that supplies the sustenance of nearly all political campaigns.

Even though,  

finding dirt, amassing dirt, building dirt into a mountain of garbage -- 

whether it's source comes via foreign or domestic hybrids, having grown from devious seeds -- 

runs counter to who we are as a people of character, both individually and collectively (no pun there).

What's more, bonafide media outlets -- purveyors of all things news worthy and pertinent to the American people --  have done nothing more than disparage themselves and the business they are in by continuing to dispense ridiculous, hypocritical, politically motivated, run of the mill, gossip. 

It's a pathetic waste, and I mean waste, of precious time and energy.

Point of fact -- the DNC provided their own dirt, organically, from within their own organization!  Such is the case, of the leaks of John Podesta's email communications between the powers that be.  Who cares where it came from, or who unearthed it!  It doesn't matter when the truth is, these words spoken between trusted confidants in the middle of a presidential campaign were actually SAID.  The sad reality is, the sentiment and messages between multiple DNC upper echelon, were words spoken, and not only that, they display exactly their motivations -- getting Bernie out, among many other things... SEE a nice list of 18 revelations from Wikileaks, here (thank you, BBC News)....Dated October 27, 2016, by the way.

oh, what have we got here....oooooh here's a morsel now:

 In excerpts from one of Mrs Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street bankers, she said: "Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. 

"But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position."

OOOOOOh and here's another tidbit, and this one courtesy of Paul Bedard at The Washington Examiner, January 12, 2017:

So 412,000 dollars later...

The lengthy investigative report, which described Ukraine as concerned that Trump would favor Russia if he won, said that the effort was coordinated with the Clinton campaign, raising questions of foreign involvement similar to the charges that Russia worked to help Trump. 

"Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country," said the Politico investigation... 

It said that she [Alexandra Chalupa]  pushed information about Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort to reporters including Yahoo. Manafort was replaced by Trump amid concerns about his work for Ukraine's former leader, Viktor Yanukovych.

In that Politico investigation post, linked above:  "[the] investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections."  Translation: and it's not the Trump camp.

real evidence found, huh.

Oh, and just who is this Chalupa?  Politico answers:

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort’s role in Yanukovych’s rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych’s political party.

oh okay. that's going in the good to know pile.

Returning to the piece by the BBC,

Here's one for compiling that which concerns....speaking out of both sides of the mouth:

"In a leaked 2013 paid speech to the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Mrs Clinton said that Jordan and Turkey "can't possibly vet all those refugees so they don't know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees".

and another:

"In May 2015 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook pointed to a report that the Clinton Foundation had received money from one of the project's backers, emailing that "the enviros may latch onto this going forward. Have we discussed when she will come out against Keystone?"

He also asks if they should wait until after President Obama vetoes the pipeline, which he did in November 2015. Mrs Clinton announced her opposition in September.

Of course, there is this little bocado hermosa (beautiful morsel), via Eddie Scarry of The Washington Examiner:

Media yawn at Podesta's 'needy Latinos' email

ya see how the media picks and chooses it's dirt?

Clearly, the main stream media [that which is aggregated daily, agriculturally speaking, to be a compound of  80% liberal -- and of those,  an astounding 99.9% hypocrite, and hellbent upon using the medium of manure shoveling and leftist groveling, feeding one another the same slop over and over again, like pot belly pigs]   is uber selective.

The THING IS --

with regards to Don Jr. --
if all we have is a twenty minute meeting to nowhere --  serving up the same sh*t, whether foreign or domestic, as the Clinton Campaign when colluding day and night with the DNC --- then what is there to talk about?

DO WE REALLY HAVE TO KEEP PILING ON THIS REALITY?

AND!

NOT ONE VOTE WAS CHANGED!

President Donald John Trump is our president, fair and square -- no matter how dirty the shirtsleeves.

Colluding with Russia --  hmmmmm -- what have we got.....ummmmm nothing with regards to DJT.

And it's funny, the left winged mainstream media wasn't all that upset when a sitting president actually said via an open mic to a real Russian, just six months before the 2012 elections, this little tidbit from Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard:

President Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space." 

President Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…" 

President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility." 

President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you."

what?
you're gonna relay to Vladimir Putin,  the Vladimir Putin, that you just had a little conversation with the American president, and that Obama asked Russia to wait until after the election...assuming he would be re-elected, thereby paving the way for all you guys to collude once again, right where you all left off?

oh okay.

oh those pesky, needy, dirty, lousy Russians

Here's a final read for you, for today anyway; it comes via CNN -- but of course, it also comes with an editorial disclaimer that goes like this:  "Jeffrey Lord is a CNN political commentator. Previously, he served in the Reagan administration as a White House political adviser. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. For a counter perspective, read Doug Elmets' analysis."   And yes, even Doug gets the same disclaimer -- but when something IS commentary, doesn't that mean, by definition, it is someone's opinion in the first place?  And further, if actual news stories are told through a liberal bias, shouldn't that also come with full disclosure, too?  As in, "Good Evening, I'm Jim Acosta, and I'm a liberal, and here is the evening's liberal news..."  oh but I digress.  literally and figuratively.

Back to the final read, for it is good.  HERE it is.

And besides, even President Obama told Trump to "stop whining" about Russia interfering with the election...remember this?  “You start whining before the game’s even over?” Obama said at a press conference. “Then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job.”

And just why was Obama so bold to say all of this, like the arrogant little piss-ant he was, crawling up the side of the eastern palisade of dirt upon dirt like he was king of the mountain?  For like everyone else in the country, HE thought Hillary was going to win; HE felt emboldened to kill this dirty narrative likity-split in order to pave the way for HER eminence, Hillary Clinton, to BULLdoze her way back into  D.C. all over again.

You know, I've heard, "it is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the innocent of justice."


Fake dossier, anyone. See Circa.  See Circa.

oh "the words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts."  And then come out his buttocks right on cue.

The news of Russian interference with the 2016 election, as well as the lack of evidence of collusion, let alone any vote being altered or changed or added or subtracted anywhere from sea to shining sea because of it, should justifiably be reduced to trash; we might as well stock it up to being nothing more than a pile of garbage, and immediately set it on fire, sending it in the direction that all election dirt belongs, up in smoke.

Every campaign gets dirt.
Every campaign is at risk of behaving badly to get dirt.
Every campaign considers getting good dirt on the opponent to be as valuable an effort as panning for gold.   That kind of nugget is worth traveling the miles, weathering the snowstorms and all the hills and valleys such aspirations may bring; just ask those who made it all the way to California during the Gold Rush.

Show me a campaign as pure as the driven snow and this girl will still show you a drift -- whether it be of something high or  something low, whether its from lands far, far away or la la land.  The innocent snowflake begins to collect, and with just the right amount of ill begotten wind, slowly each one is carried away until the wee little snowflake becomes a mighty, impenetrable, abominable snow drift.

Adrift is adrift is a drift; and like gossip, it is collaborative, collective,  and contagious in thought, word and deed -- one globs together with another, and then another, and then another.  And so on.

Gossip is not good; it is not news; it is the pure pillaging of fresh unfettered grounds --  taking a plot potentially nutrient abundant, of sound roots, and full of righteous aspirations --  and rototiller-ing the hell out of it;  then, spreading seeds of corruption, contempt and carousal, fully ripe for contaminating the land for as far as the eye can see, and beyond, as we slowly replace living from a place of wisdom with wretchedness.

And this culture of ours -- it not only digs dirt right about now, it thrives on it.

Look in the mirror and see for yourself.

It's on your face,  as well as on mine; if we're not throwing dirt back and forth, it doesn't make it to the Drudge Report, right?  And just look at me -- of all absurdities -- aiming to measure it here on the old G Thing upon any given day.

Here's a riddle:  which comes first, the person or the politics?

Oh it's neither here nor there.
We spend so much of our time talking about things that don't matter, spending less time talking of things that do matter, that in the meantime, we bury ourselves in piles and piles of dirt.  

It's a dirty preoccupation.

It's so much on some days, we don't even realize the stench in the air, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

Who knew rarefied air would become more valuable than gold...

Make it a Good Day, G