Peter V. Bella Posts

In this new era, we went from political correctness to being woke- whatever that means. It is tough to express oneself without being criticized or getting in trouble in this day and age. Daily, expressions are being considered verboten.

I usually refer to elected officials as clowns. The other day, the news reported that a showman’s organization stated that referring to politicians as clowns is insulting to clowns.

Some time ago, I wrote that politics was nothing more than a great parlor game, a great magic act. I was not alone in that thinking. You guessed it. The magicians considered it an insult to be compared to politicians.

Occasionally, I would refer to someone I did not like as a dog during conversations. My late dog, Jack, reminded me that the reference was insulting to dogs. I stopped using the term in his presence to spare his feelings.

One of my favorite sayings is that person is dumber than a box of rocks. Yep, I was reminded that rocks are inanimate objects. The reference is insulting to geology.

The same holds true for referring to people as rats, horses’ asses, or pigeons as flying rats. It is insulting to rats, horses, and pigeons.

The current state of the City of Chicago is anarchy. It is anarchy when prosecutors and judges keep putting violent criminals back on the street. Is this insulting to anarchists?

This brings me to football. I refer to football players as wusses. Ever since the game changed to protect the celebrity- the quarterback- the game turned into a kinder, gentler sport. The celebrities would not survive playing against the likes of Dick Butkus or Alex Karas. By the way, football is not a team sport. The only player who matters is the quarterback. The rest are just lumps of brainless muscle doing his bidding or trying to stop him in the kindest, most gentle manner.

If you need further proof of the wussification of football, look no further than the Super Bowl. Several years ago, the league determined that the big game could only be played in warm weather areas or domed stadiums. The poor future champion wusses should not be exposed to snow, hard frozen ground, or cold and even sub-zero temperatures. Yeah, the Super Bowl sucks as much as the game of football.

I am sure that someone will proclaim that comparing football players to wusses is insulting to wusses.

Hockey players are true athletes and way more brutal than football players. It is a blood sport, as some blood will be shed during the games. The players suck it up. If they lose teeth, they swallow them to use as fuel for more energy, unlike the wussified football players. My apologies to wusses.

Baseball is a much better sport. If soccer is “the beautiful game,” baseball should be considered elegant. Baseball is consistent. Most of the rule changes over the centuries were to improve the sport. Some of the rules remained the same since the game’s inception.

I will tell you what I find insulting. The two evil political parties’ mascots. Unlike the ignoble politicians who spew their manure, the donkey and the elephant are noble beasts. The mascots should be changed out of respect for the noble beasts and to reflect reality. The copperhead snake and the rattlesnake would better represent the two parties. Like the parties, they are venomous. My apologies to copperheads and rattlesnakes.

One of the first things police officers learn is the court system is not always fair. Judges have great latitude and discretion. Lawyers know this too. You do not have to like a judge’s ruling. You must accept it. Lawyers have the option to file appeals. Getting angry or critical of judges’ rulings is non-productive.

Jason Van Dyke, the first police officer, convicted of murder in 50 years, was released from prison after serving half of his sentence. Activists and others are angry over what they consider a lenient sentence and his early release. Van Dyke is a convicted felon on supervised release (Parole). Due to his conviction and high-profile name, his life is ruined. Federal charges and possibly more prison time will do nothing except inflict more punishment versus rehabilitation. It will change nothing except to satisfy the lust for revenge versus justice. Some of those activist preachers and “Christian” activists should remember Romans 12:19- “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Chicago is a city of short, sometimes hot, tempers. Our former and current mayors are known for their public temper tantrums. So are others in this town. Blackhawks owner, Rocky Wirtz, demonstrated that the other day, throwing a fit at reporters who asked questions about the team to mitigate a scandal moving forward. Unlike our past and current mayors, Wirtz apologized. It was not enough for many in the news business or the fans. It is funny. They can tolerate loose-lipped tirades from mayors- who never apologize- but not handle a team owner’s anger, frustration, or whatever really set Wirtz off. His apology is not enough. He must be punished and pummeled in the news media and by the fans. Again, vengeance rears its ugly head.

Chicago is experiencing another arctic winter, with piles of snow and frigid temperatures. It makes one wonder why I live in a place so cold it makes my face hurt? Why do I have to risk the widow and orphan making heart-a-stroke to shovel snow? Why, at my age, do I have to walk slowly and carefully to keep from slipping, falling, and breaking something? Why do I still live here? Where would I move? I mean, in Florida, you risk death or catastrophic brain damage by having iguanas falling out of trees and landing on your head when the temps dip below suntan weather. In the South and Southwest, you must put up with freedumb loving ignoramuses who want to curtail rights and ideas in the name of “freedom.“

Living in Chicago is a constant challenge. The people who came here from someplace else drive me mad. The politics suck as bad as the weather. But I can live here knowing I am not the only vocal curmudgeon in this city. I may not change people’s behavior, but I can personally p**s them off. That is satisfying enough.

COVID does not appear to be going anywhere soon. We are tired of wearing masks, showing vax docs and IDs, social distancing, and other mandates. Yet, we grudgingly go about our lives looking like bandits and showing our papers. Self-survival is the first and highest law of nature. Real Chicagoans are survivors. I survived COVID. The COVID symptoms, while annoying, were not severe. The worst part was being homebound for about ten days until I tested negative. I would rather put up with inconvenience than suffer or die. I wear black masks and like looking like a bandit.

So, bundle up, people. Wear the bandit mask. Walk or drive carefully. Try to bring some inner happiness living in this city that sucks the joy out of us.

The thought that leads me to contemplate with dread the erasure of other voices, of unwritten novels, poems whispered or swallowed for fear of being overheard by the wrong people, outlawed languages flourishing underground, essayists’ questions challenging authority never being posed, unstaged plays, cancelled films — that thought is a nightmare. (Toni Morrison)

When I was in the sixth grade, there was time out each day for reading. We could read books from the school shelves or from home. I was reading Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, which was running in the movies at the time. Sister Mary Gaudio would walk the aisles making sure we were reading. She stopped by my desk, tsked loudly, told me I should not read that trash, then moved on. She did not take the book, which she could have. She did not pull me aside later to tell me why I should not read that “trash.” She did not send me to see the principal or call my parents.

Last month, a county school board in Tennessee banned “Maus” from the curriculum. Since then, sales of Maus have been going through the roof. It is a top seller on Amazon. Now, a school board in Wentzville, Missouri, voted to ban acclaimed author Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.” We can expect sales of “The Bluest Eye” to soar.

This is nothing new. The left and right have been trying to ban books with “objectional” language and themes for years. The past few years, the right has been on a roll, not only banning books but enacting laws to keep specific “objectional” reading material and curricula out of schools. Ignorance appears to be more contagious than COVID. Ignorance is at pandemic levels.

The book and curriculum banners are ignorant about literature and history. They are clueless about young people. Young people have an innate curiosity. If the books or ideas are banned, they will find ways to obtain those books or search for ideas. Banning books or ideas only fuels their curiosity.

They choose to deny young people the chance to understand and develop empathy for others. Evidently, allowing young people to develop understanding and empathy runs counter to supposed values and morals. They want to raise their children to be as ignorant and insular as they are.

Here is a clue. If you ban something from young people, they will seek it out. If you banned brushing teeth, you would find young people in gangways, alleys, and rooftops furiously brushing their teeth. The same holds true for banned books or ideas. Curious young people will find them, even if they must hide them from adults.

We need our young people to widen their perspectives. You cannot do that in a vacuum. Our society is in constant change. Morals and values are changing. If we want our children to be good world citizens, they need to be exposed to ideas and language. They are not being converted, nor are their morals and values corrupted. Hell, the Bible is full of immorality and atrocities. Not one of those Bible-thumping book banners wants the Bible banned.

The internet opened the whole world of ideas. Young people can go on the internet and learn anything they want, even the ideas banned by so-called adults. There are no hiding ideas and concepts from young people. They can find out anything without the permission or knowledge of their narrow-minded school boards, state legislatures, or parents.

Language and history are uncomfortable. They are they supposed to be. We teach young people history without the horrors humans inflicted on the world. They learn that later in their educations, usually at university.

Young people are more sophisticated than their parents, just like every young generation was. If taught correctly, they can critically think and make their own decisions about right or wrong, moral or immoral. They can decide what is right for them. The question is will they choose to condemn others or understand and have empathy for them?

When people ban books, they are self-defeating. The same people who complain about censorship of certain ideas or cancel culture are the same ones trying to ban books. They are the bad guys not only to young people but to themselves. Knowledge is not good, evil, moral, or immoral. It is just information to produce informed citizens.

Certain kinds of trauma visited on peoples are so deep, so cruel, that unlike money, unlike vengeance, even unlike justice, or rights, or the goodwill of others, only writers can translate such trauma and turn sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination. (Toni Morrison)

We can send informed citizens with moral imagination in the world, or we can send ignorant citizens with no imagination, just like the book banners. The choice is ours. The future is theirs.

“I think they’re so myopic in their focus and they’re so afraid of what’s implied and having to defend the decision to teach ‘Maus’ as part of the curriculum that it lead to this kind of daffily myopic response,” the author said. (CNN)

I went to a Catholic elementary school run by Polish nuns. Many of the nuns were children or teenagers in Poland during WWII. Some were consigned to labor camps with their families. They told us about the horrors they witnessed. We saw movies of the Nazis using bulldozers to bury the naked bodies of murdered Jews in mass graves. We saw images of Jews in line waiting to go into the “showers,” the gas chambers. There were other movies and images of the Holocaust. I was in the fifth grade.

Our parents either fought in the war, worked for the war effort, or were displaced persons who fled the destruction and deprivations of the post-war era. There were no protests of the graphic images and tales.

Over the past few years, the right and the left have tried to ban books in schools and libraries due to language or other social and cultural issues. “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain created controversies over language. Evidently, educators are too lazy or stupid to teach literature contextually. Better to keep young eyes away from language.

The latest atrocity comes from the “enlightened” folks of the McMinn County School Board in Tennessee. They voted 10-0 to ban “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel by Art Spiegelman from the eighth-grade curriculum. It is the only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. Their specious reasoning? Profanity, an image of female nudity (A female mouse), and suicide in depicting Jewish victims of the Holocaust. How dumb are these less-ons (Lower than morons)?

“Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus,” said he was baffled by the decision. “This is disturbing imagery,” he said in an interview on Thursday, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. “But you know what? It’s disturbing history.” (NYT)

Though the vote was taken two weeks ago, the news story came out on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Maus is one of the most moving accounts of the Holocaust. It was deeply personal, as it depicted the author’s family’s struggles during and after that horrid era. It is a visual and written masterpiece.

“The values of the county are understood. There is some rough, objectionable language in this book, and knowing that and hearing from many of you and discussing it, two or three of you came by my office to discuss that” (Director of Schools Lee Parkinson/CNBC)

What values is Herr Parkinson talking about? Maybe Herr Parkinson does not realize that eighth-graders are more sophisticated than prior generations. Hell, television, cable, and streaming services have more horror. nudity, and profanity than a mere book, with what the board considers eight “curse” words and a naked mouse.

“Regarding the nudity, Spiegelman said the image in question was a “tiny image” that depicted his mother being found in a bathtub after she cut her wrists. “You have to really, like, want to get your sexual kicks by projecting on it,” he said.” (CNN)

“Board member Tony Allman took issue with how the content would be redacted, and added, “We don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff. It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy,” according to the meeting minutes.” (CNN)

Tony Allman sounds like the proverbial bark chewing back wood’s pecker head. “This stuff?” Sho Nuff.

With the right and the left fighting over what books school children should read, including race, the history of slavery, language, and other cultural issues, I wonder when the book burnings will begin? Who will be the first to burn books, the left or the right? Both are acting like OshKosh B’ gosh inbred Nazis. All they need are armbands and flags.

Both the left and the right are exhibiting the worst fascist tendencies when it comes to educating children. Like the Nazis, they are seeking educational, social, and cultural purity. Instead of teaching literature or history in a modern context, they would instead ban books or curricula. It is more personally comfortable than to admit their intellectual laziness or ignorance.

When will they go after public and school libraries? When will the destruction of public and school libraries start ala Kristallnacht? When will teachers be rounded up for going against the right or left purity models and interred in re-education camps?

The nuns did not spare us from the horrors they witnessed or the history of the Holocaust. Looking back, I realize they wanted to educate us about the past horrors through their personal experiences. They were witnesses of the Holocaust. Later, in college, I learned about the atrocities the Japanese committed during WWII. History is full of horrors going back to ancient times. War itself is horror, no matter how glorious or heroic we deem it to be.

We, as a society, have a duty and obligation to stop any group, right, left, or any other political ideology from banning books. If we do not, history will keep repeating itself.

Here are the minutes from the McMinn County School Board meeting.

I have been pondering Joseph Heller’s quote for the better part of a day. We are living in Chicago, an insane city. A city where wrong is right and right is wrong. In a town where crime is not criminal, victims or their families are blamed for their victimization. It is an upside-down topsy turvy city.

We live in a city where elected officials value criminals and their families over crime victims and public safety. Our elected officials use reckless political abandon to protect criminals from the justice system. According to our betters, criminals and their families are the victims of an oppressive social systemic institutionalized system- whatever that means. The crime victims are tolerable collateral damage until the system changes.

The victims and their families do not count. There is no justice in Chicago. There is only the insanity of violent crime, murder, looting, robberies, carjackings, and the revolving door of injustice.

“Too often we hear news of shootings across Chicago, this continuous activity makes us habituated to these types of scenes. This is NOT something we should have to be accustomed to… Please don’t let her die in vain. No more innocent kids should be killed. Mayor Lightfoot needs to make Chicago safe” (Melissa Ortega family statement/Chicago Sun-Times)

This is the insanity of elected officials doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

“Words cannot describe the pain I am feeling. On Jan. 22, I lost my greatest treasure in life. I lost my princess. She was the reason why I got up every morning. Everything I did, I did for her,” Melissa’s mother wrote. (Fox 32 Chicago)

Our elected officials are sociopaths. They have weak or no conscience. They have a total lack of empathy and the ability to stand in the victims’ or their familys’ shoes and understand how they feel. They do not care. The politicians’ empathy lies with the criminals. They care more about their feelings and welfare.

“In speaking to other mothers who’ve lost children to gun violence, Gregg said those grieving parents want justice but also to have their child’s story told and not forgotten.” (Angela Gregg, mother of 4-year-old murder victim, Mychal Moultry/Chicago Sun-Times)

We live in a city with an insanely silent population. There is no hue and cry over the rampant criminality from the populace. There are no mass protests, shutting streets and neighborhoods down over the two-year violent crime waves. Children, including toddlers and infants, were murdered or seriously wounded. The apathy of the populace is palpable.

“We came in search of the American Dream we so famously hear of, but instead, I get to live a nightmare for the rest of my life,” the statement from Melissa’s mother said. (Fox 32 Chicago)

It appears our good citizens are docile, drugged residents of Chicago’s insane asylum. The news media is self-medicating in their insanity. How else does one explain their silence? They, too, believe criminals are victims of something or other. They promote the insane policies that are causing bloodshed and murder on our streets. Their editorial board’s silence is consent. They consent to sacrifice victims, especially children, for the greater good of the criminals.

“No mother should have to bury their own child. Violence shouldn’t be something we grow accustomed to. As a community, we failed Melissa. As a city and state, we failed Melissa. As a nation, we failed Melissa,” Melissa’s mother said. (Fox 32 Chicago)

Sane people living in an insane society wonder if there is a cure. The mental health community is silent on our socio-political insanity. They have no answers and no clues. Maybe they are not the experts they claim to be.

What does a sane man do in an insane society? Every citizen should be asking that question. What to do?

“Thou shalt not be a victim

Thou shalt not be a predator

but, above all,

Thou shalt not be a bystander”

(Yehuda Bauer/Holocaust Historian)

It is past time to stop being bystanders. We should loudly raise our sane voices against the insane elected officials. It is time rational people demand the sociopathic politicians reverse course. It is time the victims and their families’ welfare trump the welfare of the criminals.

Silence is consent. If you are silent, you consent to murder, shootings, robberies, carjackings, looting, and other crimes plaguing Chicago. If you are silent, you consent to the murder of children.

I am free. I was locked down and quarantined for nine days due to testing positive for COVID. I was stuck at home. Family brought care packages. Still, not leaving home, going for walks, or hanging in the local coffee shop or bar led to long, dull days. I brag about being anti-social. I like being around humans not interacting with them.

I was vaccinated and had the booster months ago. Last Tuesday, I woke up feeling like I had a cold. On Wednesday, I woke up feeling congested and nauseous. Thursday, I felt worn out, and it felt like small animals were scratching my lungs. I went to get tested. The two rapid tests came back positive. On Friday and Saturday, it still felt like a cold. I took my temperature every few hours, and it was fine. On Sunday morning, I felt like a combination bad hangover and a cold. 

I hunkered down in the bunker took OTC meds and supplements. I had colds and regular flu worse than this, but that is no indication of anything, nor is it small comfort. I lost a few pounds. I heard some people lost between 10-20 pounds due to breakthrough COVID.

A week later, I went to get tested again. The rapid came back negative. I waited a few more days until the PCR came back. It, too, was negative. Now, I am finally liberated.

I took all the precautions, wearing masks, distancing, telling people to stay the f**k away from me, staying away from crowded places, etc. I may have been unknowingly infected, and the symptoms appeared. Like the rest of life, COVID is a roll of the dice.

COVID created havoc throughout the world. None of us is bulletproof against this disease. No matter the precautions we take or how many vaccinations we get, all of us are susceptible. Such is life. I will still take precautions. Self-survival is the first and highest law of nature. I am a survivor.

Some of my vaccinated friends caught COVID. They did not suffer much except for the quarantine. I believe the vaccinations alleviated the severe complications of COVID.

I still see some local freedumb lovers on social media who eschew masking or vaccinations. I cannot believe people can be so stupid. Then, I remember they are the same people who vote for politicians ruining this city and county.

Folks, this pandemic is not over. It is flu season, and the threat of what is known as flurona- a combination of flu and Corona- is real. Take precautions, wear the damn masks, distance, and get vaccinated- COVID and flu shots. There is no guarantee of immunity, but you may not suffer the harsher symptoms of these diseases.

Do it for yourself. Do it for your family. Believe me, being locked down with your only social contact, the phone, or the internet is no fun. Being hospitalized is worse. Why take chances? Protect yourself and your loved ones. Stay healthy. If you test positive, lockdown, no matter how good you feel.

I wrote this yesterday in the coffee shop, my first outing since testing positive. It felt good to be out and about again. Free at last.