Sidetracked Charley

We are off the rails A neighbor piled tons of snow in my yard without asking. He even blocked my driveway. I thought he was a nice neighbor. We were not friends in the context beyond neighbors but he was what we call a good Christian man. He had all this snow from another property he had to get rid of and he thought he could put it there on my property above my well head where it would just melt. He didn't consider where it would melt. That the water would flood my aquifer and dig a channel across my driveway and under my house. He just wanted to get rid of the snow he was moving off of a driveway which wasn't mine. He never even considered if it was legal or if he should ask me first. He was the man with the tractor. He had often plowed my driveway for me. He thought he had the right. He was wrong. But if I called the sheriff he would maybe get a ticket. Never presented with this problem before he would ask me what I wanted done. The neighbor wouldn't do it. He ...

Let me say right up front this is not a political blog. It is not about our position in the world or the roll back of environmental protections. Or even the destruction of our democracy. This blog is how he has ruined us as humans. 1) It is now totally acceptable to be rude and racist and sexist. I fought for year to not be called sweetie or dear or honey or have my butt patted. All that effort was for naught as I discovered in a 30 minute conversation with someone trying to sell me a car. 2) People no longer accept our right to our own opinions. I have been told I have the wrong friends, that I am stupid, that we don't need respect for others or have the right to expect respect for ourselves. 3) Lying is acceptable and you have to only say it verbatim three times to have it be the truth. I am walking away or hanging up at the middle of the second repetition. 4) When caught in a bald face lie you only have to lie about the lie. "It was a perfect transcript."...

Nothing seems to be working as it should be. I certainly hope someone or multiple someones are keeping records in a locked vault should anyone want to start this experiment in democracy over. Supposedly our founding fathers put in adequate protections to keep us safe from a nefarious dictator taking over. But I guess they did not imagine a president and an entire party being in league with a foreign nation out to destroy us from within. And it only took two years of all four branches of the government being in control of one party to make it virtually impossible to rescue us even after losing control of just one branch. The other branches at the direction of the president/dictator are totally blocking anything being done to rescue us. The general population is being kept in fear, sick and poor. It is time for our version of the French Revolution. Roll out the guillotines. I went to a resistance meeting which usually gives me hope and came back super depressed. I spent much ...

Desktop is back in its place.  Thicke is thrilled. He sees morning time at my computer as his. He has his box beside me. And he has a library table and computer desk and my lap to run across. And the desktop is a center of my chargers for all my electronics. It is where I keep my coffee mug warmer, my calendar, etc. So while it feels I have come back home not all is right in my snug little center. The computer seems to have a video card issue still. I still have my cold though it is getting better. And it seems Facebook has crashed this morning. I am at last aware of all the horrid things which happened in the USA and I cannot post my outrage to Facebook. I cannot call Drumpf a deranged autocrat! on my tablet or laptop or desktop. I cannot demand impeachment for the sake of the American people. We need to go on the record about our abhorrence of what this dictator is doing with the blessing of Mitch McConnell and the GOP minions. Was being disconnected from all the drip dri...

My high school was known for its debate and drama departments. Not its sports teams. And in my five years at the University of New Mexico our football team came close to only setting one record: The most football games lost in a row. And it shot that down by winning one on a fluke. The Democrats are a lot like UNM's football team. If they can lose it they will lose it. And with less than two weeks to the midterms they seem ready to do just that. Mind you the Democrats are not my team. And not the Republicans either. I am am independent with a small i. And the only reason I am sitting in the stands watching this defeat is I care about those in this country who blindly believe in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave bullshit. We aren't. We haven't been for at least a decade. And if this goes on any longer we will never be get the chance to be that again. The worst things about college football is one horrible defeat can be quickly followed by another, and money b...

I worked for over two decades in the construction industry. My first job was as a Submittals Engineer for one of the big five. I was hired because of my bartending skills. Bartenders are not just mixologists but stand up comediennes and trained diplomats.  Three of my regular happy hour clients around the circular bar were executives for that construction company and they had a problem. Their CEO was a serious abuser of women, and the federal government, for whom they worked, wanted more women beyond the secretary level. They figured I had the skills to be one of the boys. Those skills did not come from a college course though I had my degree in an age where women were seen as going for their Mrs. degree instead of a MBA. I had worked in a Senatorial office in DC, and as an administrative assistant for a lobby group. I spent time as a manager of a retail outlet, and in the entertainment industry. I was tending bar because it was the only place I could make as much mone...

What If We dissolved both parties? No red states No blue states No electoral college No endless polling? What if There were no Republicans No Democrats Even no third parties No platforms No gang of eight? What if Instead of Red or Blue There was just Red, white and Blue No GOP or DNC Just us citizens? What if  We all voted for the people Not for some party Which has never been fun Or entertaining And in the end a disaster? What if You walked into a voting booth And saw a ballot With just the names of people Who wanted to serve Us Not their party? j.binford-bell  independent on the real Memorial Day May 2017

I think the alertness necessary for resistance is tiring. It seems so little to do in the grand scheme of things: Get up and log into the computer, review the latest news, visit my on line resistance group, check email for Indivisible battle plan, dash off emails to elected officials, share important info. Usually takes only about an hour but in an hour I am so angry I have to begin the day again with comedy YouTube to lighten my mood. I feel good I have done something to resist how things are going. Then the news hits about something dumb Trump has done or how the congress has voted. Today it was that congress said coal companies can dump their slag in the rivers which provide us drinking water. And I cry. But what I am most angry at this morning are those who want to make social media fun again. I have been instructing them how they can stay away from the political news feed. My guess is they voted for DT and don't want to know what he has done just now. They are ostriche...

National Day of Resistance on the day before the Trump Inaugural. And the 21st is the Women's March on DC and about 300 other sites around the world. Imagine that.  And yet divisions run so deep even in the midst of what appears to be a united front against the Republican agenda and the illegitimate president elect.  Now suddenly we have to show our bonafides to those who have been on the battle lines longer. Johnny and Joan come lately's are being called Lexus Liberals by some. Let me make a couple things clear: 1) I don't own a Lexus. A 1989 GMC 4 x 4 occupies my driveway, 2) I have fought for one cause or the other since I was in college and demonstrated for the Free Speech movement and after that the Civil rights and ERA and end the war in Vietnam and end the draft, 3)Equal rights for women is my heart cause but I have also researched and written about water issues and the stripping our schools of the arts. And in the midst of all that I have fought a brain i...

I had no sooner finished the previous blog when I found myself asking who was I just the day before. Or the minute before I read the article which made such a difference in how I saw my future. The glib answer is, "The same me." But I know that isn't so. If it was then the article would not have had such an impact. I knew we were facing dark days. I knew it was very important to resist the direction this clown and his party were taking our country. I knew I had zero in common with any of them. But I also knew I had friends who I cut off because after the election they became someone I did not recognize. It was as if the election of Donald Trump had given them permission to use his words and his mocking tone, and his rude and crude behavior. It was almost as if pussy grabbing was contagious or at least I was afraid it was contagious. Yesterday, I was totally fine with the loss of those few friends almost as if I believed it was a temporary quarantine. I would c...

Denial, a refrigerator magnet I own, states is a Goddess-given survival tool. And women have used that survival tool for centuries. It isn't easy to stay in denial about the verbal and physical abuse women have put up with to keep the peace or keep their jobs or stay in a relationship. But there is a cost to keeping the peace. It steals our confidence and our freedom and our aliveness. We stay married to avoid being single or we find living single works best because the men we pick are wrong. We learn to pal up with other women to do things men get to do alone like long walks in the woods.  Some of us quit our jobs we sacrificed so much to get and keep.  I could not live with the compromise of keeping my mouth shut to keep my job. Mother said I was stubborn and had not learned the lesson of keeping silent. I would be happier, she maintained, if I was not so prideful and intelligent. I even toyed with becoming a nun. My aunt told me I could become a boy if I could kiss ...

Part of the whole deadly triad of blaming others and impression management is campaigning for agreement. We are herd animals. Especially the extroverts among us. We are not comfortable being shunned or blocked of even not getting enough likes for our posts on social media. I call it the deadly triad because in just a few hours, thanks to Facebook and email, we can create opinions which once took months to spread by word of mouth and telephone. Thank heavens we have gotten beyond literal lynch mobs. But maybe what we have now is worse, because we do not even have to think about what we are doing when we post on social media. Nor can we take it back easily because once it is out there it is out there. And some organizations like the Right to Lifers who want to kill abortion doctors don't just shop for agreement but campaign for it. They post names and addresses and hit lists of those against what they believe on websites they manage. And they celebrate in a post when one of t...

Before you ask the above picture has nothing to do with this blog but no way was I leading off with a picture of Romney. And the topic has nothing to do with Obama. But it does occur to me in the Pirates of the Caribbean series that the pirates were good losers and the Brits weren't. My childhood was a lot about becoming a good loser or being good enough to not lose and wise enough to choose my contests. I had for a brother the absolute worst of winners. So it did not help me learning to be gracious at losing. I am not sure how many Monopoly boards Dad threw away before I learned to never play that game again. I am not sure how but I know my brother cheated. And I gave up tennis when I discovered it was never wise to go on a tennis date. Try as she might mother never convinced me of the wisdom of losing at anything to please a man. But I digress. This blog is not about my sportsmanship or even solely about Romney's lack there of. Though he is certainly a prime exam...