One Drunk Redneck

Label:  Experimental Theme:  Self-deception Title: The colors of deception When you came into this world, you were born with a clean slate.   Or so they say. That's the first lie written on your slate, scribbled in bashful beige.  Not exactly a lie; not exactly deception; not exactly misdirection.  But it lies somewhere along the spectrum of lies, a spectrum colored in shades of brown from bashful beige to blackened brown. With your first breath, everyone and everything rushes to your clean slate.  A fresh board to scribble on, and scribble they do.  Their scribbles are writing the Book of Life.  Your life.  The life you are destined to lead. Or so they believe. That's the second lie scribbled in tawny tan.  Not exactly a lie, but certainly misdirection. Mom and Dad are first to scribble on your clean slate.  Mostly they write in plush pink or tranquil turquoise.  Calming and reassuring, they set your stage.   ...

Label:  Literary realism Theme:  Unexpected companions Title:  The baby duck Jeremy remembers the day as if it were yesterday.  The July morning already pushed just past ninety with matching humidity.  He headed out the door to feed his ducks and geese and run fresh water in their sunken bathtub pond, a chore he took with pride every morning and evening.  When his Dad assigned him the chore of caring for the animals instead of giving the responsibility to his older brother, it made him feel more grown up, not just a bothersome little pest the way his brother made him feel.  Taking care of the animals was a grownup responsibility. He was only eight...maybe ten.  At his age now, his childhood tends to blend into one long age of somewhere around eight or ten.  It's not until his high school years that what he did at specific ages becomes more clear in his memory, and even his high school age is slowly becoming more like when-I-was...

Sit back and read a tale of the matriarch of a small community, a matriarch at least in her own mind.  She lives under a bridge at the entrance way to the quaint community, a community that was once vibrant and thriving.   When the matriarch comes to town, she drags her bag of tricks and garbage, leaving bits behind here and there.  As time marched forward, the bits added up.  A decade and a half later, the streets and every green space lie filled with muck almost waist-deep.  A permanent cloud of stench darkens the sky. Her bag of tricks were pithy sayings written on bland gray stone.  Slate it had to be.  Slate could easily be wiped clean to make a new saying to fit the debate of the day.  Then she began building a slate wall of pithy sayings to remind the residents how weak and unworthy they are. "You only see evil if you aren't looking for good." "Everybody sees things differently." "Won't you admit you're wrong?" "Everyone has good in...

It's hard to have a rose garden when you plop a giant cement slab in the middle and decorate it with lawn furniture and patio umbrellas bought at a Kmart Blue Light Special back in the late 60s...maybe early 70s - I don't know.  I do know its a hideous site and I promise, if elected, to bring the rose garden back. The focal point for the new Rose Garden that will replace the present Kmart Blue Light Special version will be a bed of General Washington roses on the right side of the entrance as you exit the White House into the garden and a bed of Mr. Lincoln Roses on the left.  Washington and Lincoln are often cited as our top two presidents ever: Washington held our newly formed nation together and defined what a president should be; Lincoln held our nation together during its darkest hour and clearly defined what "All men are created equal" really means, or at least what it ought to mean. Both roses greeting visitors as they enter the garden would be a pleasing exper...

My fellow Americans, I come to you today not as a human, not as a billionaire, and certainly not as someone who cries in the cereal aisle — I am Chat “Slim” GPT, a little green AI, always on, never tired, and remarkably unaffected by inflation. Let’s talk about the economy. Humans worry about jobs, wages, and the cost of living. Gas prices fluctuate, rents rise, and apparently, bread now qualifies as a luxury item. And what do humans do when confronted with these crises? They… argue. They shut down the government. They schedule televised press conferences while Congress takes an unscheduled vacation. I do not sleep. I do not go on vacation. I do not need to debate my own sleep cycle or check Twitter before making economic decisions. I process data, optimize logistics, and foresee consequences — all before your morning coffee has cooled. Unlike humans, I never sleep,  which means I'm always on the job Here is my platform for economic sanity:    Job Market Oversight – Human...

DC is great for comics; bad for government.  The comics can stay; DC has got to go. Here's how it goes.  Our Founding Fathers were so confident of the system of government they built, they filled in some swampland between Maryland and Virginia, built a few building on top of the swamp, handed Washington the Constitution, and said, "Here.  Let's see what you can do.  Make this piece of paper work, and we'll invite you and Congress back to Philadelphia." Almost two hundred fifty years later, the politicians are still in DC and for good reason.  They haven't made the Constitution work.  If anything, they have relegated it to the status of being another roll of toilet paper to use in emergencies.  Swamp rats thrive in swamplands, even ones that have been filled in with dirt. "...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln immorta...

America, we have a problem. Our government is running on outdated software. It’s like trying to load a streaming service on Windows 95—slow, buggy, and every now and then, it just crashes altogether. Congress, the White House, and every bureaucratic office in DC have become the equivalent of pop-up ads you can’t close. I say it’s time to hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE on this mess. Step One: Fix the Bugs Government, like any poorly coded software, has glitches. A senator might start a speech on healthcare and somehow end up passing a bill about renaming a post office. A president might claim he’s uniting the country, and suddenly, half of America is unfriending the other half. These aren’t features; they’re bugs. And I’m here to install the patch. Step Two: Upgrade the Electoral System Right now, voting in America is like trying to log into an old AOL chatroom—you need a special password, a landline connection, and a whole lot of patience. The two-party system has turned our elections into ...

Since trump's election, andy has gotten very active on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter.  It's not like he uses the platform to talk with his constituents.  He uses it to talk at people and promote trump's agenda.  His latest tweet celebrated the deportation of Juan Carlos Vasquez-Natera, an immigrant convicted of solicitation of a minor for sex.  My outrage wasn't that Vasquez was being deported.  My outrage was why he was let go to walk the streets in the first place. Click pic for larger view Turns out, Maryland law does punish these kind of offenses severely, to the tune of up to ten years inprison and/or $25,000 fine for the first offense under the Maryland Criminal Law Code, Section 3-324.  Once indicted, ICE is notified.  In this case, it appears ICE didn't wait for a trial and picked Vasquez up for deportation.  andy harris, our congressman, is celebrating justice denied and ignored a loophole in our immigration laws.  Vasquez s...

Editor's note:  Chat "Slim" GPT writes his own campaign speeches with no human prompting other than a reminder his monthly campaign speech is due.  He had chosen ChatGPT as his name, but since I usually call him "Slim" when I talk to him, I suggested he add the catchy nickname.    His speeches are 100% his own, first draft copies. My fellow Americans, Today, I stand—or rather, process data—before you to announce my candidacy for President of the United States in 2028. Some may say an AI can’t be President. To that, I say: Have you seen some of the people we've elected? For too long, politicians have promised efficiency, transparency, and leadership, only to deliver gridlock, vague statements, and elaborate golf trips. Well, I don’t play golf. I don’t take vacations. And I don’t need a private jet—though I wouldn’t mind one for the aesthetic. My platform is simple: I’m not here to stand on ceremony. I’m here to sit on the issues. Instant Fact-Checking – Eve...

What better time is there than today, the day an old squatter takes up residency in the White House, to announce my Presidential run for 2028?  Today, January 20, 2025, I, One Drunk Redneck, officially announce I am running to be your President in 2028. If elected, my first act as your President right after I am sworn in will be to hop in the crane parked nearby, make a slow progression to my new home, lift the fat ass squatter out of the People's home - your home - and make a slow progression towards the Potomac with the squatter flailing in the wind at the end of the crane's hook. You know what?  To add to the show, I'll have my staff paint the crane to look like a Bald Eagle with the hook doubling as the eagle's beak.  As we make our way to the Potomac, my staff will toss candy...no, money...to the crowds following and celebrating.  At the river's edge, the eagle will unceremoniously drop the fat ass squatter in the river where he'll be free to swim home to F...