President Puppy says...

     I smell a meme. Oh, wait, forget it. I'm not cool enough to start memes. I'm only good enough to steal from without attribution.
     To the two or three people who actually give a shit what I have to say about political matters various and sundry- Sorry I haven't been around much to update this virtual ghost town (and this especially goes out to you who've been kindly kicking in to the kittie and getting virtually nothing back in return but the rapidly diminishing warm glow of satisfaction in a random kind deed well done). I was lying fallow for a few weeks there last month to early August in which I didn't write a word toward my book, Tatterdemalion. But about last week, I finally found my true north (the new cover and the confidence it gave me had a lot to do with my turnaround) and now I'm busting a nut trying to make up for lost time so I can finish the first draft right after Labor Day.
     Despite my hatred for political blogging these days, I feel honestly guilty for giving the right wing nut job air and space thieves so many free passes these past few months and for not giving my shrinking fan base (once again, that especially goes out to those who've donated) the content they've come to expect from Pottersville. Seeing my numbers shrink down to less than 200 visitors daily and knowing half of them are just surfing in during image searches, and not getting fresh readers, is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You see the lack of traffic and you think, "What the fuck's the use?" It is, to quote my old friend Archibald MacLeish in a letter he wrote me over three decades ago, "like shouting down an empty well."
     The problem with that is, I've got a big mouth and if it wasn't for this blog, I'd be screaming across the kitchen table at Mrs. JP these past four plus years (which is something I tend to do, anyway, updates or no). There's always some assclown who's just begging for a verbal brickbat in the nutsack and, despite my reluctance to get back into this mug's game, I get pulled right back in.
     And although they may be old news, I'd feel especially chagrined if I didn't commemorate Katrina making landfall, the ratification of the USA PATRIOT Act, the invasion of Iraq and, of course, 9/11. The 8th anniversary of Katrina's landfall and the resultant genocide that followed that no one but me will declare, one of the major events that helped turn me into a fulltime blogger, is coming up this Thursday. The 12th anniversary of 9/11 will be less than two weeks after that.
     Ergo, I'd be remiss in my responsibilities as both a blogger and a concerned American citizen if I took a pass on these horrible, hallowed anniversaries that unfortunately make up a part of the fabric of American history, these events that, for better or worse, brought out the very worst, and best, in us as Americans and as human beings.
     And, no matter what befalls Scott Carson, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jack the Ripper in 1888, I never lose sight of the fact that I live in the here and now and that, no matter how many calendars we put between ourselves and these transformative events, we at least have a responsibility to make others aware that we have not forgotten.
     On a more personal note, we're still way short of coming up with the $540 we still owe the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, which will have to be paid up before that swarm of vermin swoop in and put levies on both my bank accounts again as they did over two years ago (Which would be $50-60 in levy fees aside from the tax bill). As it is, we're still going to be short the means to pay our rent and other bills during the four weeks after September 1st.