Conspiracy and Chaos in Oklahoma

There is a conspiracy afoot in Oklahoma. I know this because for the last two months I've been trying to get my driver's license renewed. Little did I know when I started this quest that the dark forces of the bureaucracy and dare I say, evil itself, would thwart me and perhaps thousands of others from achieving our goal.

If you are to believe the perpetually surly clerks at three different tag agencies, the place you go to renew, there are a variety of reasons for this on going nightmare. COVID-19 began it all with shortened business hours and social distancing which limits the number of people allowed inside each agency. It also caused scads of people to put off  renewing because of virus induced cases of Agoraphobia. Now that the vaccines have arrived and flat out desperation has set in the fear has been overwhelmed by those, who like myself, understand we've become moving traffic violations.

In addition there is a mad rush to secure the federally mandated Real ID by October of this year. By then you'll need one in order to fly the friendly skies So even the people with valid licenses are thrown into the mix, because--you know--driving to Honolulu for that much anticipated holiday vacation isn't really an option.

Finally, according to a least two different agencies I've dealt with there are software problems and glitches in the new programs meant to issue DL's and the Real ID's which have slowed processing times to a crawl. According to one tag agency web site once you do get to the head of the line, the wait is 15 minutes, "if the software is up and running." The site declined to speculate on how long it would take if the system was down. 

Such cautions are a tad less than confidence inspiring. However the real problem remains getting to the head of the fucking line in the first place.

The insanity is so rampant two of the agencies I've contacted curtly informed me they no longer issue any sort of Ids at all. They will sell  you new car tags and process your auto's title and registration, but if you want a new DL hit the road, Jack.

Broadway Tag in the suburb of Edmond takes walk ins between the hours of 8:30 and 10:30am only. Once the witching hour hits they stop and go to reservations only. The last time I showed up there the walk in line began forming at 7am. They take reservations for the following week exclusively on line at 5pm on Fridays. When I tried to book the mad dash for a spot was so severe their web site crashed about four minutes after it opened up. 

The results were similar with the Northside Tag Agency in Oklahoma City. They take reservations at 9am every morning for the next day. 

My favorite place though is the Village Tag Agency, also in OKC. To get a reservation for the following week you have to show up in line before 8:30am on the prior Wednesday. They charge $10, cash, or check only, just to book the reservation. 

Who says capitalism isn't great?

Despite the scam I showed up there at 7:45 last Wednesday. There was already around 100 people in line. I took one look then drove to a bagel shop about a block away. The bagel with cream cheese and a coffee cost me less than six bucks.

Yes, and there are actually people complaining how difficult it is booking the shots. They're all weak. Tell those two bit whiners to come to Oklahoma for a driver license renewal. Then they'll understand what chaos and frustration really is.

sic vita est

3-31-21

The Political Power of Raccoon Killers

 That didn't take long. A mere six days after Robert Aaron Long went off his nut in Atlanta another 21 year old, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa ran amok in Boulder, Colorado. By the time he was wounded and surrendered to police nine people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and one cop who responded to the shooting were dead.

Long, despite substantial statistical evidence to the contrary, claims his crimes weren't inspired by racial hatred, but rather driven by an attempt to purge himself of a sinful addiction. As of this moment there isn't any word about Alissa's motive, although one of his brothers was quick to point out there have been signs of deepening paranoia for years.

The media, politicians, and forums like Twitter responded to the two nightmares differently. In the case of Aaron Long, who used a hand gun in three different locations, the focus was on race and bigotry. Six of the eight victims were Asian and the three establishment which were so dangerously tempting to him were Asian owned. His weapon of choice seemed entirely secondary to the narrative. Perhaps that's because even the most zealous anti gun crusader knows there is no fucking way to get any sort of pistol banned in this country.

Then along came Brother Alissa on Monday in Boulder. He stepped into the parking lot of the King Sooper's grocery store at 2:30 pm armed with a variation of the AR-15, the preferred weapon of deadly American psychos from sea to shining sea.

Politicians, left and right, and every sort of media known to humankind immediately charged head long into the gun control shouting match. Over the last 48 hours the shit, as they say, has hit the fan.

As if to provide brief sideshows to the main event at least one right wing publication claimed Alissa's very presence in the country was Barack Obama's fault. He arrived, "The Daily Truth," wrote when Obama threw open the borders to Muslims. Yeah, well the only problem there is Ahmad Alissa's family arrived in the United States when he was two years old during the first term of George W. Bush. Others, of the Q variety, began posting--you guessed it--the entire tragedy was faked.

Today on CNN a Colorado congressman, in response to a question about why anyone would need one, maintained many of his constituents owned AR-15s in order to shoot, "raccoons and other pests." Fellow Colorado representative, Lauren Boebert waited two whole hours after the shooting stopped before sending out a fundraising email saying she needed financial help to stop Beto O'Rourke from taking all, "our," guns. Yesterday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, late of Cancun, told Congress that, as always, democrats were using the shooting to, "conduct useless acts of political theater." He offered the families of the victims, "his thoughts and prayers."

The democratic controlled house pushed through a bill which would require stringent universal background checks, but passage in the senate is problematical. In truth the only way democrats will pass any meaningful gun control legislation is to nuke the senate filibuster rule. It's a strategic maneuver needed for more than the gun issue, but, thanks to WV democrat Joe Manchin's opposition the odds of it happening are slim to none.

So there we have it. The same old response to the same old horror. Nothing. Biden can talk about banning assault type weapons all he wants, but democrats can't even get a bill for background checks passed. How well do you think an outright ban on certain weapons will fare? 

Yes, despite most polls showing at least 60% of Americans desiring some sort of meaningful gun control republicans won't budge. Indeed you can say many things about them, but you will never be able to accuse the bastards of being responsive to the majority of people in the United States.

But hey, at least we know all those raccoon killers will remain happy. Who knew they've become such a political force?

sic vita est

3-24-21

Having a Really Bad Day in Atlanta

 Yesterday was a really bad day for him...

Cherokee County, GA sheriff's department spokesperson, Jay Baker describing suspected mass shooter, Robert Aaron Long.

Well, Long's day wasn't nearly as bad as the one experienced by the nine people he allegedly shot. Eight of them are now dead. Seven of the victims were women, six of them of Asian descent. All were located in Asian themed massage parlors, or spas.

The media and politicians from Atlanta to Washington immediately labeled the the murders as hate crimes. The police involved in the investigation have so far refused to give a definitive motive, other than the, having a really bad day, hypothesis. This reluctance has infuriated many on the left side of things who are quick to point out Asian and Pacific Island Americas have been increasingly targeted by raging idiots who blame them for the COVID virus.

As if to confirm the liberal suspicions, within hours after his first TV appearance it was found Cherokee County's pride and joy, Jay Baker had been hawking tee shirts earlier this year that read, "COVID-19, Virus Imported from Chy-Na." Other social media reports claimed he was a former employee of Blackwater U.S.A. the nefarious outfit owned by Erik Prince, but at this time that rumor remains unverified if not a tad irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the suspect himself, has, according to the authorities, confessed to the crimes. Young Mr. Long stated, however, the race of the victims had nothing to do with his rampage. He reportedly claims he has a sex addiction which made him go a little funny in the head. The reason he attacked the three Asian owned and staffed businesses, he says, is because they were temptations to him which needed to be eliminated. When he was busted on the evening of the killings he was southbound on I-75, according to him, heading to Florida to shoot up some porn industry locations.

Nancy Grace, an always questionable source, seemingly confirmed the sex addiction angle. She claimed Long's parents, both deeply religious, had kicked him out of their house because all he did was sit around during the day watching porn.

Every high school classmate who has been interviewed began their descriptions of  Aaron Long by saying something like, "I didn't know him very well, but...". Yes, we've heard it all too many times before--he was quiet, he didn't socialize that much. Only this time those descriptions might not be completely accurate.

According to others Long, himself, was quite religious. He was not only active in church groups, but was a key member of his school's chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He had told other students God had a plan for him to speak the gospel.

Predictably his second love was guns.

All this paints a confusing picture. What we do know for sure is Long's face was caught on security cameras at one of the locations. The photos went out over the internet. Members of his family took one look, then called the police. They even gave them his cell phone number. It's how the cops were able to track him down on the road south of Atlanta so quickly.

What we also know is hate crimes against Asian and Pacific Island Americans are on the rise, encouraged by people's ignorance about the nature of the virus and enabled by a certain former president. 

Indeed, given what has gone on the past year and the identity of the victims dismissing what happened in Atlanta on Tuesday as something other than a hate crime is difficult to do. 

No matter how bad of a day Aaron Long was having.

3-18-21 

A Long American Tradition Continues

 In the summer of 1947 the Roswell, New Mexico newspaper, The Roswell Daily Record ran a headline saying a UFO had crashed near the local Army Airforce base. A large chunk of the public went nuts over the news, much of it still is.

The Army Air Force quickly issued a statement which said it wasn't an alien spacecraft that had pancaked out in the wilds of New Mexico, but rather the wreckage recovered was that of a weather balloon. Their denial quickly spawned speculation that they were trying to cover things up. Within a few years rumors of alien bodies and autopsies began to circulate. There was even talk of some super secret U.S. agency, one presidents don't even know about, hiding the truth from the American people. 

Later came the mysteries of, Area 51, a place so secret the military refused to admit it even existed until 2013. That was 16 years after the movie, "Men in Black," was released. It was a comedy which revolved around a secret agency hiding the presence of aliens among us--you know, like the X Files on steroids. It was also 50 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy which inspired conspiracies which ran off in so many different directions it is nearly impossible to list them all. 

At the moment more than a couple of cable TV networks run a number of series touting grand conspiracies. One of them, OAN claims to be a news outlet.  

The point being as far back as 74 years ago segments of the American people were starting to believe their government was hiding something from them, that there were unseen powers controlling the press and manipulating the information we were seeing and hearing. It didn't take long for the phenomenon which began with UFOs in Roswell to morph into murky cabals pulling the strings of presidents, prime ministers, and just about anyone else who publicly held power. 

Throw in solid doses of racism, anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism, and good old stupidity and we've arrived at a place where everything is a conspiracy. 

Indeed, if we don't like it, no matter what it is, some evil force outside of public view must be behind it. If you wanted Trump to win last November, battalions of conspirators came together to coordinate his downfall from Georgia, to Pennsylvania, to Michigan, and finally Arizona. If you were desperate to see Mitch McConnell lose his Senate seat the election in Kentucky must have been rigged because he kept it. 

The right wing of this country seems more prone to believe in conspiracies perhaps because they remain in perpetual states of victimhood and outrage. These aggrieved conditions appear to come naturally to them, although they were aggressively nurtured by the former President and his political minions.

So much so, on the 6th of January this year they tried to forcibly steal back what they claimed, without any evidence other than Trump's caterwauling, was a stolen election. The irony of attempting to destroy the constitution which they claimed to have wanted to preserve was utterly lost on them.

Yes, things get weird with conspiracies. The problem is, like opioids, the more you involve yourself with them the more outlandish they must become. The pizza joint basement thing is passe, as are the deaths of Vince Foster and Seth Rich. 

Yes, we must move onward and, let's face it, into the beyond. 

The latest from QAnon: Joe Biden isn't in the White House at all. He is on a sound stage made to look like the Oval Office at an unknown location. Donald Trump remains in charge of the military and he's just waiting for the right time to strike.

Ah, a long and unbroken American tradition continues.

3-10-21