November 13, 2016

What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday, I was updating my laptop computer at the McCreless Library for what I thought would be the last time as an American. Now, I'm debating on what to do with all that money I saved for an international move that thanks to Trump's victory won't happen this year.

I spent most of the last few hours updating my laptop at the library again. I updated and remastered 4 tracks from previous years on Soundcloud. It helps my still minuscule music career if I have professionally mastered tracks on my Soundcloud page. It would be great if there were a terrestrial radio station in San Antonio that actually played EDM or Dubstep or Trance. And I still don't know how to contribute to Channel 5's "Breakfast Tracks", bumper music they play during their morning newscast.

San Antonio seems to be politically divided, although not as violently divided as many other major US cities. Yesterday, the city's downtown was full of life, with the normal tourist hordes, a Veteran's Parade, the city's official car show, a Notre Dame/Army college football game at the Alamodome, and an anti-Trump rally that compared to most of the others disgracing this land was rather peaceful. Most of these other rallies are at the very least destructive, hateful and at worse, bystanders have been shot and police have gotten attacked. The DNC and liberal media have been unable to tell these protestors that the election is over, they lost, and they need to go home (or better yet, to Canada). Most of the protestors are leftist millennials. If these unruly youths are truly the future of this country and they want the same leftist anti-Catholic, anti-life, anti-economic-common-sense crap that the Democrats thrust upon the populace before this months election, then I may have to leave if they ever do take power again.

Between this broken country, my still messed up personal life, and my seriously ill uncle, maybe I need to pray more.

I did go to the evening Mass at the Cathedral last night. San Fernando Cathedral is one of the most welcoming Catholic churches I've ever been to. If a 300 year old church with a predominately Hispanic congregation can be so welcome to international and English speaking tourists, then maybe there is hope for this society.

November 5, 2016

This might be my last blog for a long while. 25 years ago today, my mother died. She had been suffering from lymphoma for about 3 years by that point. She was at the (since-shuttered) Baptist Downtown Hospital in Memphis, TN, for an (at-the-time) experimental stem-cell treatment. She died about 12 hours before she was scheduled to get out of the hospital. My mother's death destroyed what was left of my family. My father and grandmother died 4 years later, and my mother's family in Chambersburg rarely communicated with my father after that.

For about the next 80 hours, the country I currently call home faces the most divisive Presidential campaign in the last 156 years. The votes should be counted by late evening of Tuesday the 8th. By the following morning, the world should know if the next so-called leader of the free world is a billionaire idiot with some good ideas on fixing corruption and replacing Obamacare- or a corrupt leftist female canine who is anti-male, anti-Catholic, and under FBI investigation. Regardless of who wins, I see a lot more civil unrest in America's future. This election has caused deep rifts in America. Democrats blame it on Trump's caustic personality. Conservatives blame it on the corruption of the establishment. Some people believe in and advocate racial divisions (i.e. minorities against "Whitey"). Many believe in affirmative action, a deliberate form of racism. Some believe law enforcement is evil. Many believe infanticide should remain legal and be expanded. Most Democrats support government funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation's biggest infanticide provider and an organization created to prevent inferior (i.e. minority or disabled) people from reproducing. Some people believe racial diversity is a bad thing. Some think thoughts should be controlled. Some think the government should control everything and punish those who defy or oppose government regulations. Some think male nature has to be changed. Some think women are too uppity for their own good. Some think women should be beaten or killed for defying a man. Some people think guns should be banned. Many disagree, and the vast majority of those aren't criminals. Many of both parties think people of my faith (Catholicism) don't belong in the public sphere. Indeed, some of Hillary Clinton's allies (including John Podesta) advocated "infiltrating" the Church to make it more left-wing American, while others (including Andrew Cuomo) have advocated their relocation outside their political jurisdictions.

The last time such differing and incompatible ideologies competed in the national sphere, the result was the Civil War from 1861-65. For obvious reasons, unless the elements of American politics that are openly hostile to my beliefs and existence are dealt with defeat and permanent obsolescence, I don't see a future for myself in this country. I don't believe in government over-regulation. I don't believe in legalized infanticide. I don't believe in discrimination against people of different races, and I don't believe in government sponsored discrimination in legal or hiring or immigration or educational practices. I don't believe in the government telling me I have to pay more for health care than what I presently pay in rent, and that I have to pay a huge percentage of my income in government fines if I don't get their mandated insurance. I don't believe in stifling competition. I don't believe in throwing people out on to the street and denying them shelter (partially because that has happened to me before, most recently in January 2015). I don't believe in being branded a traitor or worse because I can't support or defend a country that is at best hypocritical and at worse a growing threat to the world and trying to become as much a part of the Axis of Evil as the mad mullahs of Iran, North Korea, Putin's Russia, the Chinese Communists, and Daesh/ISIS already are.


For probably the last time, here are my election endorsements for this Tuesday:

President:

I ended up voting for Trump, not because I agree with his stands on Immigration or trade or celebrity treatment of women, but because unlike McMullin or Gary Johnson, he actually stands a chance of defeating the one candidate who will make me defect somewhere else (Hillary Hildabeest Clinton). Anyone idiotic and stupid enough to vote for Clinton should contribute to the GoFundMe page I plan on activating November 9 (if Clinton wins) to pay for my international relocation, Obamacare fee, and renunciation of American citizenship fees (approximately $2-10K, $1-2K, and $2-4K, respectively).

Congress:

District 35: Susan Narvaiz over liberal Lloyd Doggett. What idiots in Austin thought it was a good idea to put SE Austin and the east side of San Antonio in the same district?

District 23: Will Hurd over Pete Gallego. At least Hurd has campaigned against both Trump and Clinton, while Gallego spews the DNC anti-Trump line.


And I would recommend Canada, Ireland, and the UK for potential expatriates regardless of ideology. Ireland and the UK are a bit more conservative than the US, while the current Canadian government is more liberal. But all 3 are far less likely to explode into civil war than the US is right now, and all 3 are freer than America.

October 9, 2016

2016 has been a hectic year so far. But as the year draws to a close, things seem to be getting a lot worse. I got laid off from my high paying warehouse job in Austin and ended up with a lower paying paratransit driver job in San Antonio. I've released more music, and gotten more writings published in this year's Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen Writers' Workshop Anthology (all submitted before I moved to Texas). A hurricane recently killed over 1000 people in Haiti and damaged my late father's final resting place (the rebuilt Jacksonville Beach pier). Rent is significantly lower in San Antonio than in Austin or NYC, but my future in Texas (and the US in general) is in jeopardy due to the election next month.

Donald Trump has managed to keep things close against the unacceptable alternative of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But he is his own worse enemy when it comes to speaking or preparing. He focused too much time after the first debate attacking on of his former beauty pageant winners instead of debating Hillary's failed policies. Trump knew more than a decade ago about his recorded conversation that went into Clintonian vulgarity on how to pick up women. And yet, he was unprepared for the fallout when it was released, and now most of the Republican establishment wants him to quit.

But nothing Trump has done or said is anywhere near as bad as the actions of Hillary "Hildabeest" Rodham Clinton- Benghazi, Lewinsky, her rapist husband, her left wing politics, her mishandling of ISIS/Daesh that allowed them to grow into the cancer that now terrorizes the Middle East and Europe, her support of the expansion and taxpayer funding of legalized infanticide, her dismissal of her opponents as deplorables, and her hatred of men in general.

If this female canine becomes President (and most of the media and political establishment wants this to happen), then I can no longer consider myself a loyal or willing citizen of this country. Things have gotten so bad here that both sides are encouraging self-deportation of their opponents. It will be governmentally-sanctioned open season on conservatives if Hillary wins. There will be a lot of violence and civil unrest if Trump wins. Indeed, China is using this election as an excuse to explain to its people why democracy doesn't work.

I'll try posting another blog post around the election, but after November, I don't know where I'll be living or working. If Hillary wins, I'll probably start a gofundme page for an international work/residence visa and tell all the people who threatened me online about my political views to put their money where their mouth is....