Strange And Eclectic Grandpa

Those Were The Days

Nine years ago the Bad Pixie started a Twitter account. Shortly afterwards I joined Twitter to follow her. After she friended me I sent this tweet. Back then our tweets were like conversations, a lot of back and forth about her children, her goats, and life in general. We made jokes with each other and even talked about her history research - a subject that was really boring to me.

What changed? The times for one. Our society continued to become more polarized politically. She had always been on the conservative side of things. The other thing was her health. She was working two jobs when I first met her along with raising a household of five girls. She was prone to seizures due to her degenerative brain disease, something that was genetic and with no cure. As her condition she gave up one job and then the other. She had a series of small strokes. Finally she has reach the point where she is bedridden a good deal of the time.

As her health got worse with time she became more bitter about life in general and like so many conservative Americans she looked for a scapegoat for her anger. At an earlier time all her venom was directed at the Watchtower Society, the Jehovah's Witnesses. Now she broadened it to include Democrats, liberals, and globalists. If you look at her Twitter feed from the past 2-3 years you will see it full of hateful comments about liberals as rapists and murderers who want to give our country to drug-dealing hispanics, one-world antifascists, and all muslims.

I found it insulting that she slandered liberal Americans that way when she knew one of her friends (for nearly 10 years) was a progressive Democrat, but our friendship meant nothing to her and I realized it never did. She used me as a convenient ear to her wit, and an occasional post to her web page. When I stopped agreeing with her; when I spoke up and challenged her beliefs, she had no use for me anymore.

If you look at her Twitter feed today you will see her few friends are an elderly gentleman who helps her research the Jehovah's Witnesses, and a few fiction writers she has befriended over the years. All of them avoid talking politics with her. She also follows a large group of extreme right-wing bigots. If some of them are not Russian-bots, then they get much of their "information" from them. These people are a small minority of Americans, with a big hatred for anything they cannot control and therefore must blame for their frustrations in life. They wrap themselves up in the flag and uniformly love Trump and hate anyone whom he hates.

When we first met ages ago on Second Life it was thrilling to make friends with people from all over the world. Of the friends I had I was able to meet two face-to-face. One of them is still a Facebook friend and sadly one other passed away. Even though we live on opposite coasts, I had always wanted to meet the Bad Pixie. I envisioned meeting her and all her family, maybe taking them all out to dinner and learning more about each other's real lives. Sadly that was not to be. Friendship cannot be one-sided. I have wasted too much time on a fiction. Goodbye Pixie.

America's Youth - America's Future

My wife and I were helping appraise our state Destination Imagination tournament yesterday. There were hundreds of wildly imaginative and creative children presenting their solutions to challenges provided by the program. It was a lot of fun and we'll keep working with the organization for as long as we are able.

If I wasn't there I would still have been around young people yesterday. I would have gone to one of the many, many marches in America as part of the March for Life. Our youth are leading the attack on gun violence and they are making their voices heard. I am excited about their energy and commitment.

In the sixties the youth of America stood up against the war in Vietnam and the fight for civil rights here at home, but we weren't as well organized. We didn't have social media to help quickly link so many people together almost instantaneously. Hell, the Internet was just a dream of a few researchers at DARPA, and Tim Berners-Lee was years away from inventing the web. On the other hand, our children were born to this digital environment. The students of Douglas Stoneman High School are a tech savvy bunch with a cause and a message, and the means to spread that message far faster than my generation could imagine. I am proud of them and I stand with them.

Art by Jim Carrey, 2018

Catching Up On Things

I've been off the radar, so to say, since the end of December. I've been focused on other things. We had a good family Christmas, snow days for the grandchildren, birthdays and remembrances.

I spent some time working with my local Democratic committee as well met with candidates and listened to their plans for taking down Dave Brat in the Virginia 7th. The district committee decided on a primary versus caucuses. The Blue Wave is coming.

Even though I live in a heavily gerrymandered district, we know we can beat Brat, by getting out the vote. His record is abysmal and his core constituency is starting to feel the pain of rising healthcare cost, and low paying jobs.

The children of America are rising up as well. After what seems like continuous mass murders with weapons of war, the students of Parkland Florida said enough is enough. They are leading a revolt against legislatures controlled by NRA bribes. Some of them can't vote yet, but they are lighting a fire of public opinion against (mostly) republican politicians who time and time again only offer 'thoughts and prayers' to the families of the dead.

I would be remiss if I didn't update you and the Bad Pixie. Since the New Year she was close to death a couple of times. She suffered several strokes. One kept her in the hospital for a week. She is homebound now and spends most of her days in bed.

I haven't written about her because I still have some positive feeling for her. God only knows why. As she lays in her bed she still spits out her alt-right, white nationalist venom whenever she can. She will die believing that Trump is the best president we ever had, that whites are superior to all other races, and that liberals are all baby killers. She bemoans her rising health costs while supporting the very people who have been destroying our healthcare system. I pity her.