Donald Trump

Tori Releases her 15th Album for my Birthday

/ Paul Sears / Leave a comment

tori amos

She didn’t really, but it just happened to fall at the same time my birthday came around. It was a true treat to have new music from her. The last few albums have been a little hum drum for me so I didn’t go in with a whole heart. Once the first track got on it’s way, the lyrics, and piano, it was like heaven. I was connecting with her like I had once done many years ago. Tori’s music runs deep for me. I feel this album has circled it for me, I feel like her last albums were too mature for me, since I didn’t feel I was at a place in my life where I understood them, but this past year I have grown mountains and I’m looking at things differently.

I haven’t published anything in awhile, not because I don’t have anything to say, I have so much to say, but I’m filled with such anxiety over our current state of affairs. Everyday it’s something new, I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older that I’m so effected by this or if it’s just really that bad right now. It was only a year ago I was living a blissful life, and maybe that was ignoranance, but I trusted 44 wasn’t leading this country down a dark path of no return, now I’m not so sure.

Weeks feel like months, months feel with years with this guy and his administration. Everyday he tweets out some bullshit that the media runs with. He’s like an old man who just can’t let things go. He gets mad at someone or something and just goes on and on about it till something new comes along to fill him with rage. It’s exhausting to me. It’s only been ten months, ten months!! Not even a year and I can’t remember what it was like before he came along. It feels like I’ve been living this nightmare for as long as I can remember.

I honestly didn’t think it would last this long. I thought for sure he would have been plucked out of office just as fast as he sat down. Who’s to say what the near future holds for him and his administration, but more so this country. It seems the damage has been done, even if he is cast away to the shadows the country is in a rough place. What we need is someone who can bring together the great divide that has been forming in this country long before Trump came into office. I wish I could say that this will all pass over, but I don’t see an easy way to move forward.

I don’t know what tomorrow brings, more negative news, more division, more hatred. I have a sinking feeling that it’s going to get much worse before it starts to get better.

Did 2016 Finally Wake the Beast?

/ Paul Sears / Leave a comment

2016 is going to go down in the books and studied for years to come. There has been nothing like it before and with the grace of God there won’t be anything like it in the near future. This year has opened so many closets and aired so many dirty secrets. Not to quote Mtv via the 90’s but I think this time it’s kinda for real. Thanks Mtv for dramatizting your bullshit back when you were important. You failed. Thank you for being a part of the corporate bullshit you claimed to fight against.

Getting back to 2016, Mtv has no real pulse in America, I could go on and on about how the world outside our borders has changed so much, but I won’t, I’m going to stay a bit local, talk mostly about how this year has affected me and my surroundings.

First thing I have to mention, as it just happened, a police officer in Fort Worth found it upon himself to judge his fellow Americans. It’s not my place to quote his bigot statements or condone his racist behavior, so I won’t. The cop looked like he didn’t give a shit. To him, they were just a bunch of black folks. I don’t know, if that was my child, I’d be pretty pissed if someone put him in a choke hold. In fact, I don’t think I could be held responsible for my actions if someone did that to my child.

People on Facebook called for the death of all white cops. This being the most extreme statement you could make over one asshole cop, but someone did in fact take it upon themselves to take action into their own hands and killed several cops in Dallas a few months ago. Micah Xavier Johnson killed five cops and injured nine others. He was later killed by the same people he was trying to murder.

Donald Trump, a shady business man, has become the next president of these free states. With each passing day the words that come out of his mouth undermine and destroy the words he spoke before being elected. I don’t know what to say about this. I’m scared. So worried for this country, for this world. Yesterday he claimed America would compete and win any nuclear arms race. Why is this even a topic in 2016? The cold war is long gone and with that this bully minded behavior.

One of the most laughable things to come out of this year, and probably my favorite thing, is the conversation being had over a 1944 song for the movie, Neptune’s Daughter, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and the sexual undertones it has. There is a group, not sure how large it is, who want to ban the song on claims it perpetuates date rape culture. The song has been recorded by countless people since 1944 and has become a regular on the Christmas songs list. To anyone who agrees with this, I ask you to watch the movie from where it originates from.

After Britain voted to leave the EU, the term brexit was coined, shortly after, texit was trending on twitter. For those folks not living in Texas, certain officials want to secede the union and become its own country. There are still plenty of rednecks that hold up the Texas flag with such pride and believe this to be something to strive for. Even in the Dallas metro which is pretty cosmopolitan compared to, lets say, east Texas. If these people opened a book or ever watched the news they’d know Texas is a huge sponge on federal funding. Without it, this great state would simply fall into despair within months.

I could go on and on about all the major fails and setbacks this year has created, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Kayne, Harambe, the Oregon Militia, Pokemon Go, but whats the point? It’s Christmas Eve, tomorrow will come and hopefully you’ll be spending your time with loved ones enjoying a day that means many things to many people. In a week we will bring into the New Year and with that this will all be something the historians can argue. We’ll go into 2017 like uncharted waters. There is so much on the line with the new administration coming into the presidential office, global warming, over farming, over population. If I’m going to be honest with myself, I am loosing hope. The hope I’ve held on to for mankind is dwindling and it saddens me.

I don’t know what will happen in the New Year, but it’s my hope that as a nation and a species we will wake up and really look at ourselves and what we are doing. It’s time to ask questions. It’s time to get answers. It’s time to look at the way we do things and see if there is a better way. I say we should start living for each other and stop running after green paper. We have a short time on this planet, but what do I know? People have been rewriting the same message for years and it just gets worse. Go buy an eight dollar coffee and do your target run. Leave the mess for someone else.

And So It Is, Our 45th President of The United States

/ Paul Sears / 2 Comments

Even though everyone said it could never happen, it won’t happen, there’s no way it could happen, it happened. Donald Trump is going to be the next president of these United States. On Election Night I went to bed long before the race ended knowing full well when I woke up we would have a female president come January but as we all know, that did not happen. Wednesday was a somber day for me and many of the people around me. It just didn’t seem possible. Every magazine, news paper, celebrity was certain (86 percent certain) that Hilary Clinton would win in a land slide. So what happened? How did America fall under the spell of an old rich man?

I’ve tried to find a reason how this could happen, how someone who spewed so much hate could attract the amount of support he did in a country as diverse as this one. We all heard what he was preaching and yet he still won (not by popular vote). In hindsight it’s easy to say we could have done this or we should have did that. More Hispanics should have voted, more black folks should have been out there. I could spend my time typing a long whiney blog about all the things I think led to this mess we are in, but whats the point? Come January Donald will be the leader of the free world.

All we can do now is move forward. Many people are frustrated, myself included, but we have to pull together and make it work for everyone. Donald said in his victory speech Wednesday morning he will be “President for all Americans.” As Americans we need to hold him to this. The scary part about him is we know nothing about his political stance because he doesn’t have one. He’s never been in public office, he’s never served in the military and his running platform told us almost nothing about what he stands for besides ridding the country of Muslims and Mexicans.

What we do know as fact is what he plans to do his first 100 days in office. When you read what he wants to do, if this is what he’s going to do, then you can see where he is and where he wants to take America. I can understand why so many people voted for him. What he plans to do to bring jobs back in this country is not practical but its a good start. He has vowed to rid Washington of career politicians. He says he will spend billions fixing the highways and bridges that are falling apart through out the country.

There are also many things on the list that seem deplorable and unconstitutional. He wants to end federal funding to Sanctuary cities, remove illegal immigrants that are already here, move forward with the keystone pipeline project, seek out and label countries as currency manipulators.

The one that frightens me the most is what he plans to do on the seventh day, taking billions away from the United Nations climate change programs. This is a man that doesn’t believe in global warming, a man that doesn’t think the burning of fossil fuels are destroying the planet.

It’s been three days now since he won the election and doesn’t take office till mid January and he has already loosened his stance on several things he spoke of on the election trail. Just this afternoon he said trans people can use what ever bathroom they choose. The only thing we can do as a country and as a society is watch this unfold. Over the years he has publicly changed his stance on where he sides. Sitting in the White House with Obama on Thursday hopefully has shown him the seriousness of the undertaking his is about to do. How many lives will be affected by his decisions should sit on his conscience while he’s falling asleep at night. That is the hope I have for him, that he takes this as serious as the people he will govern over.