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Advice for 2020 Democrats

Today, let’s offer some friendly advice to the Democrat nominee nation based on the results of the first debate, and inspired by things to watch for in the upcoming second debate. First, I was born in the middle of the country surrounded by waves of Republicans. I currently work on the East Coast and on the West Coast — and a lot of Democrats pay me a lot of money. I have experience flipping on both sides of this national dime, and the Democrat Party has a long way to go to defeat an anachronistic, charismatic, President who feasts on the gruel of the worst in humanity.

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The Modern Fairway Carny: Itinerant Street Vendors

Growing up in the Midwest, there was a yearly visit to the State Fair that — during my childhood, at least — was always tempered with a tremendous terror.

For many months, there was a story in the newspaper about a young boy who visited the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln and then disappeared.  He was continuously searched for on the Fairgrounds and communities in the area would get together and search other pockets of the city so the boy might be found.

A long while later, the boy’s decomposing body was discovered stuffed inside an empty train tank car in a faraway town.  The thinking at the time was that the boy had run into a carnival worker — a Carny — and something horrible happened and the boy was killed and stuffed, and sealed, into the tank out of convenience since the railroad ran straight through the Fairgrounds.

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You Don’t Fit

We all like to belong — and when we are told we are no longer part of the core, there is concern that something grander has been lost in the translation between being being and living.

Our building Super recently told me that he’s surprised we’ve lived here so long — rented so long — because we “don’t fit” in the building or in our neighborhood.

I told him I found that an odd statement to make because we have never been late on the rent, we have lived here for over 12 years, and we have never made a single complaint about anyone or requested any sort of maintenance from the landlord.

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Return of 17-Year Cicadas

As the Spring warms the air and welcomes the emergence of crawly creatures back into the light, the East Coast is beginning to buzz in anticipation of the return of periodical cicadas. From Georgia to New York, we can expect to see the winged bugs — Magicicadas — leave their underground burrows and emerge from their 17 year stay in the soil.

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The Blistering Wind

The body is an amazing mechanism.  It regulates heat and cold.  It does its best to protect us from harm.  Our bodies are our last stand against the weather.

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Why I Could Never Live in California

When you grow up cold in the Midwest, one of the first impulses is to flee from the gloominess and the misery surrounding you:  No oceans.  Few lakes.  Lots of ponds.  Faraway mountains in non-neighboring states encapsulate you and make Summers stiflingly hot and humidified.  When we reach the age of consent in our time of reason, many of us bolt West to Los Angeles or East to New York.  Not many head up North to Minneapolis or Chicago and, fewer still, move Southward to Kansas City.  If you are a tender Californian, I urge you to stop reading this article right now.  You will not be happy with the continuation of my argument.

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102 Degrees in the Sun

Do you believe in Global Warming yet?  We here on the East Coast got that religion yesterday as thermometers slammed in at 102 degrees and we tried to drown our sorrows in bottles of water.  Today offers the same boiling forecast.

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