T P O

T   P   O
The Patient Ox (aka Hénock Gugsa)

G r e e t i n g s !

** TPO **
A personal blog with diverse topicality and multiple interests!


On the menu ... politics, music, poetry, and other good stuff.
There is humor, but there is blunt seriousness here as well!


Parfois, on parle français ici aussi. Je suis un francophile .... Bienvenue à tous!

* Your comments and evaluations are appreciated ! *

Monday, February 22, 2016

Speaking my Mind - by Hénock Gugsa


Filming the production logo for MGM
Speaking my Mind
- by -
Hénock Gugsa
//// ~~~~ ////

Recently, I spoke my mind honestly when I posted something on Facebook about a politician running for the presidency, and I questioned his intelligence.   I said, in essence, he is a "pendejo".*

An old high-school classmate, now an old wealthy socialite, was up in arms calling me a "hater" and everything. Then she sent me a pm that I should refrain from posting my "liberal" views because she does not like seeing them in "her" Facebook. 

She said if I continue this way, she might have to "unfriend [me] at least until after the elections." 

I decided I will save her the bother ... I "unfriended" her on the spot.

Then I told one or two of my friends and explained about the old Ethiopian (Abyssinian) saying: Less beans, less farts!!  ...

  " ባቄላ ቢቀር ፈስ ቀለለ !! "
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* "pendejo" - (Spanish) asshole


Peter Sellers dancing

 

Thursday, February 18, 2016

The Self-immolation of the Republican Party - by Hénock Gugsa



The Self-immolation of the Republican Party 
- by Hénock Gugsa -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ///// ~~~~~~~~~~~~
[extracted from "The G.O.P Created Donald Trump" - by Nicholas Kristoff, NY Times]
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.... 
So how did we get to this stage where the leading Republican candidate is loathed by the Republican establishment?

In part, I think, Republican leaders brought this on themselves. Over the decades they pried open a Pandora’s box, a toxic politics of fear and resentment, sometimes brewed with a tinge of racial animus, and they could never satisfy the unrealistic expectations [of smaller government] that they nurtured among supporters.
....
[An] echo chamber deluded its believers to the point that it sometimes apparently killed them. During the 2009-10 flu pandemic, right-wing broadcasters like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck denounced the call for flu shots, apparently seeing it as a nefarious Obama plot.

The upshot was that Democrats were 50 percent more likely than Republicans to say that they would get flu shots, according to a peer-reviewed article in The Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. So when the pandemic killed up to 18,000 Americans, they presumably were disproportionately conservatives.
....
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William Holden - "Bridge over the River Kwai"