46 Comments
Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Thank you, Greg. Very interesting article. I have not seen the movie "Petereloo" but it sounds more interesting now. I feel that MangoWanker's main goal for the last 40 years has been to evade prison in the USA, or murder by the Russian mob.

As faux-president, he actually did have a quite clear and ruthless plan to disable or destroy many organs of government, in service of evading prison. His financial crimes were desperate attempts to steal enough money to pay the mob and evade death. And, of course, prison for Trump means execution in prison by that same mob.

At this point, night after night, he either cannot sleep for fear of handcuffs, or has dreams of prison rape and torture. That is, at least, partial justice.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Trump is for sure a Coward.

So he has to run for president

His only Escape will be Russia.

But only if Putin stays in power.

I wonder if Donald would get to live next to the Snowdens?

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Sep 25, 2022·edited Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

I can imagine MangoWanker in a chef's hat making waffles in Vlad's dacha for Russian mob buddies.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Putins buddys are tattooed killers resrmbling a young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Fear no person, as Death is no respecter of persons

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He could go to Saudi Arabia, too, and maybe UAE.

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Only if Jared approves

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Excellent assessment

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Thanks, William. I'm not so sure he has trouble sleeping, any more than he ever has. He doesn't seem capable of feeling guilt or shame, at least now how you or I would. It's one of the frustrations about him. But I do relish the prospect of New York taking away his money.

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The more I think about this, the more meaningful it becomes. Prescient, certainly apropos . And then, the last stanza

on a diaper dispenser, no less.

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Right? The disparity between quality of poem and where I read it is rally something!

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

It has been clear to me for a while that females will have to bring the changes to Mohammedism.

Wahhabism will be the hold out fueled by the worlds consumption of OIL.

And today it has become clear that women and their right to make decesions about their bodies has whacko religious screaming thst abortionists are anarchists on their way to a Dante descent.

I'm comfortable with the word Anarchist. Some of my best friends and a number of others were or are good Anarchists, attempting to bring equality to the planet, Earth.

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Trouble is, the sheeplike masses won't fare well without a Leader. As with all things in their season, some will be Dear Leader or Fuhrer

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Zombies abound

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Sigh.

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Yes, the anarchist literature of the late 19th century is all grounded in equality and love of fellow humans. They get a bum rap.

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A great find this Sunday! And more thanks for the other links gtg

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Thanks!

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Stephanie is wonderful as ever

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

The Feminine energy creates. The Masculine energy puts that creation into action. We need both to have balance and peace and innovation and to move humanity forward. I’m not talking about the genitals one is born with. Our world has been dominated by the Masculine energy for too long - this throws things off-balance. Action without creative spark is destructive and pointless. “Lack” mentality results in Greed - which I believe is a hoarding disorder. The idea that there is not enough to go around and one must hoard as much (money, power, property, things..) as possible to have power. But this is not authentic power. This is false power that can disappear in a moment. So they hoard it and hide it thinking it will save them.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Masculine energy tends to harden into destructive testosterone violence at the sight of vagina dominance.

What does it say when one of the planets wealthiest men and his father have sired 20 children? And may breed more? To be fair i guess I should ask the women involved.

Sadly, I know men that still think women shouldnt be able to vote.

I think women must continue the struggle to achieve equality. Time to remove the Burqas and take up the political sword of Anarchy tempered by wisdom.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Masculine energy without synergetic Feminine energy is destructive. That is why the Patriarchal system is on it's way out. If it were to stay, our society would implode. I think the 20 children is an example of Greed. They are hoarding children. As a parent of two children I can tell you that I cannot imagine having the energy for more than two. My attention and energy is stretched thin on a daily basis with just the two. There are not enough hours in the day to parent multiple children, especially if they are spread out in different homes. This is the ultimate in selfishness and ultimately destructive to the children. And money cannot compensate for lack of parenting.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Hmm. It seems Joyce Carol Oates book, "Blonde" digs into the gender equality issue.

"All dead birds are female. "

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If you have three, you're playing zone, and any good QB will eat that defense alive. I don't know how people do it.

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

100%, it’s not pie.

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Excellent assessment. It also tracks back to Pam Murtaugh's thinking of the sides of the brain. Our left brains have too much power!

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Oh Shelley. The scansion is almost experimental, isn’t it. Regular quatrains of 4-beat lines except where they end in 3 beats, and mostly trochaic instead of iambic, with dactyls, anapests, and ionics (4- syllable foot of two unstressed followed by two stressed) (John Masefield’s Sea Fever is a hugely successful use of the ionic foot). Much could be made of Shelley’s use of prosody here, and if you try you can hear his actual voice speaking to you, his troubled, rebellious voice, forcing you to pronounce words the way his Oxonian voice did. Overall it goes to show that it’s not history that repeats, but people. People regardless of century are always the same. Only their methods vary: from broadsheets in the streets to Twitter feeds, from crucifixion to death needles. From demagoguery to reason. From fraud to honesty. I wait with longing for the pendulum of the public to swing back to morality and common cause for progress. I hope it doesn’t take a war with Russia to do it. Meanwhile, my new book is out: “Jar of Pennies”, based on a true story of murder in East Texas. And G: how was “The Dawn of Everything”?

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

John. I read your Dad read a lot.

I must admit that from your opening

"Oh Shelly" to "his Oxonian voice did"

i know not what you meant.

Got the stuff after that.

Greg, I've read the poem twice and just when i think i speak "english" i realize i dont.

But then i failed all formal grammar instruction.

I did enjoy all the comments posted.

During my afternoon nap i dreamed of freedom as a Ancient Nomadic Hunter/Gatherer.

Back before society hammered us into Zombies.

I can recall when I enjoyed the scent of woman and the swishing taste of both her and red wine.

Well time to throw a package in the microwave.

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thanks Cal. Yeah, I was talking about how poets construct poems from "metrical feet," meaning the alternating stresses and non-stresses in English. For example, the word "alone" has a stress pattern called an iamb: when you say it you can think of dragging one foot then stamping with the next. "English"has a stress pattern called a trochee because you would stamp with one foot then drag the second. It all comes from ancient Greek drama and a stage prop called the "chorus"--a group of people who commented on the action. They were instructed to move in certain ways when they said their lines. I don't blame you for not understanding. I do things like this because I'm 30 years older than Greg and I feel like instructing him like a dad, sometimes, while I honor and enjoy his writing.

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

John. Thank you for responding. Was all Greek to me. Still i will have to research to better understand.

I found you and your fathers and your ancestors history very interesting.

A lot of history.

May your coming books do well.

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And I welcome it!

It's silly to me that the words for the poetic meters don't have the poetic meter they are describing.

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English pronunciation of Greek might have something to do with that. We pronounce "iamb" with a long I, which pretty much forces us to stress the first syllable. But what if the Greeks pronounced it with a short i--that would shift the stress to the second syllable resembling the meter it names. I'm nerdy like this, and love how Tennyson used long and short vowels to create meter in his poetry, a scheme he called "quantitative" verse. (He also famously said that "scissors" is the longest word in the English language, because you don't know where it starts or where it stops).

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I love when you get into the poetry patois. I think Shelley was like, "Fuck it, I'm writing it however it pops into my head." Sometimes a poet must trust his or her judgment and let it fly.

I kind of lost the flow of "Dawn of Everything." There is a sort of arrogance bordering on condescension that turned me off. They are so in love with their idea that they have to make it so everyone else is wrong about everything. Their summary rejection of the "great man" look at history, for example. It's not one guy who always does it all, everyone is a product of his or her environment, but without Napoleon, there's no Napoleonic Wars. Maybe I'll get back to it.

And: I bought your book! Congrats on it.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Beautifully apropos 38 verses of Shelley, indeed, trump & bannon, have always encouraged the chaos of Anarchy & kleptocracy so that their despotic cronyism could continue unabated. God bless the bathroom stall’s scribes & poets.

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Its been years since i saw

"Whose John Galt"

on a bathroom wall.

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May they go the way of Anarchy!

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Sep 25, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Remembering Hemmingway

A fiend in Montana just told me

Benjamin Curry "Dink" Bruce died.

Dink was part of the Bruce family featured in a current New York Times story about what Hemmingway left at Sloppy Joes Bar

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

That looks very interesting! Thanks for the recommendation. It’s on my list.

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

"I think a woman is part of the answer but then,

I am a man"

Charles Bowden

Blues for Cannibals

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

I ate my nuked supper and walked its remains to a deposit can in the desert.

Thanks Greg for another Historical article on a great genius who unfortunately died probably before he was old enough to shave.

Before i wander off into slumber land i like to leave you

with;

"A persons life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover through the detours of art, or love or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened."

Albert Camus

Hasta luego

Cal and his Dog Spot in their Motorhome somewhere in the Great Sonoran Desert.

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Thanks, Cal...and thanks for the Camus!

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Sep 26, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

As usual, a brilliant and unusual take on current events, not only from a historical perspective, but a literary one as well. Never a disappointment, always a mind-bender. Lordy, has history seen so many iterations of this scenario. Thank you Shelley for capturing the essence of the inhumanity in your day, and you Greg, for passing it on to us.

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Thanks, Jeri. When Shelley is on, he's ON.

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Ye are many—they are few.

School - mass shooting in Russia.

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File under: chickens coming home to roost

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"Dawn of Everything "

I have read a number of reviews.

Many critically negative.

Some positive

I found the Review in

The Washington Post to my liking

Reminded me of Jared Diamond

And my fascination with the

Nomadic Hunter/gatherers.

But at 82 and the books 700 pages

Dont know if i have that much time left

Just got a call that my life time pal.

Eddie Valdez passed. We first met when we were 14 working the fields with the likes of

Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta of the UFW.

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