A motorcycle trip from New York City to Orient Point, LI - ferry across the Sound to New London - and a trip home through the Connecticut...

Yesterday, (Wednesday 10.09.24) I made finally the LOOP, as shown on the image (on my motorcycle).

From New York City to Orient Point, LI - about 107 miles (2h 45m). And then a ferry across the Sound to New London (1h 20min trip). And then 128 miles from New London, home.

247.8 miles which should take 5 - 5.5 hours of riding, and actually took 9 hours - thanks to the traffic around New Haven, then Stamford, and from Mount Vernon right to the gates of the NYC.

BUT:

I had a pleasure to sail across the Sound on the ferry which happened to be U.S.S LST 510 - one of the boats which landed our troops on Omaha Beach during the D-Day in 1944.

I have to admit - I felt privileged...

(and the smooth ride going East through the LI Wine Country was amazing - I will have a few screengrabs from the video my GoPro was recording - in the next post...)

Andy Warhol - Eating A Hamburger (1982) - a conversation piece (a joke)

 Yesterday, I rode to Long Island (Jones Beach). I always liked Long Island, and even though the traffic is ridiculously slow (a trip of 90 miles in 5 hours and 30 minutes - with just 40 minutes on the beach) I still do it sometimes...

There is a famous, little video by the Genius of the Pop Art: Andy Warhol - Eating A Hamburger (1982)

I just couldn't refuse myself a pleasure of making a 'conversation piece' about the famous video...

I film all my riding (you never know what can come out of it) and in most cases, throw away the footage.

But sometimes:

https://vimeo.com/1009957217/d9835ed2c3?share=copy

FACEBOOK (FB) LIFE - one lives to remember...

I live on Facebook.  Since its inception, it has become the most efficient way to communicate with people who live far away, often on different continents.  

It's not an addiction, as some suggest, but a 'life line'.

I value people who I met, and with whom I have something in common - be it experiences, political views, or simply curiosity.

I live on Facebook...  However, this platform doesn't make it easy to keep track of your posts.
It doesn't even show the latest posts to some of the friends...

Last year I went on a TRIP OF MY LIFETIME - a solo motorcycle journey from New York City, NY, to Santa Barbara, CA and back.  It took me 26 days of riding (all together 27 days)>
I posted to FB every day some images, my itinerary and some comments...  
I learned later, that if I wanted to see the whole trip, there was no way to return to the early entries.

So, I copied all the FB entries about the trip and reposted them on this blog.  I created the section of this blog called:  "JOURNEY ACROSS THE CONTINENT AND BACK (2023)", so I  could return to the Journey whenever I wanted.  
It's also accessible from this link on my website:  https://www.jmk-gallery.com/across

I only wish that I started from making posts about this Journey on the blog and linked these posts to the FB.

Well, this is exactly what I decided to do now.
So, anybody who would like to keep track of my posts (if there is such a person) will have a clear and easy path.  Just log in the
INCOHERENTRANT.COM  blog (or ALMOSTINCOHERENTRANT.COM)
and you can see any post at will, and comment at will as well.  Without the FB scrutiny.

Until the next time, my friends...

ONE LINER 024: TRUMP IS A TRATOR!

For quite a few years now, whenever Donald Trump refers to the President Joe Biden, he uses a slur CROOKED.  

I think it's a high time to refer to the 'former president Trump' as:
TRAITOR DONALD TRUMP.

(participated in a coup + connived with Putin = TRAITOR)

ONE LINER 023: We, Humans (in general) are assholes.

We, humans (in general) are asholes.  

Surprised by this statement?  You shouldn't be.

At this aspect, humans divide in 2 groups - there are many other categories, but they are not the subject of this classification.

These 2 groups are:

1.  People, who think that they are better than others (for any reason, be it education, religion or lack thereof, finantial status, color of the skin, place they live... etc), and they ACT upon this belief, discriminating left and right, showing their supposed superiority, and applying harsh judgement on everybody, who have and those who have not.  Clearly bigots and zenophobes.

2.  The Second group is completely different...  People who think as above (maybe 'at the back of their heads', maybe at the bottom of their souls), but DO NOT ACT upon it, suppress it, trying to treat everyboy like 'an equal, passing judgements only on those who are openly bigots and zenophobes...  And then they 'soak in' they self-appreciation...  'until they are proony'...

It's only my opinion, but I simply do not see any other type of personalities among Humans.

When people from the Second Group get elected to the office, starting from the local level and ending on the highest rank in any system, things go in right direction.  Those who have are pressed to share a bit more, and abandon the first group, and those who do not have may benefit from the govenmental program and maybe starting to hate a bit less all those who have.  All members of the first group are shamed and themselves have to work on supressing those sadistic and unhumain tendencies.

We are only humans, and knowing what we are and what are the most primitive and tribal tendencies of the psyche is THE KEY to progress and social harmony.  Does the harmony exist - no, but we all should aspire to make it happen.
We, 'type 2' people, knowing our demons, do our best to ovecome them.  It's a constant struggle, but we are for it.  It's a process to make it better, to create a climat, where the racism, and zenophobia (and all other kinds of the discrimination) can't grow, and get eradicated.  

Completely different sutuation is created when the First type gets the power.  Throughout the history it happened repeatably in different places on the planet.  The recent history is full of it - but let me bring our attention to only two episodes which changed the world dramatically.  I am referring to the fall of the Weimar Republic with Hitler getting an absolute power in Germany, and of course the second, being Trump getting elected in the USA.  
I dare say - the two episodes in the World History which have the chance to be similarly destructive to the fabric of the world societies. 
I do not want to teach the history at this point.  The Weimar Republic fall is just a reference to show that all has been writted and done already.  We all should know it.  "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - as George Santayana concluded.  I do not believe that Trump was an avid student of history (or anything else for that matter - as his niece writes in the new bestseller book)... and his supporters?...

When the First Personality type gets in power, all 'type 1' people get encouraged.  They are angry that they had had to suppress their ugly fillings for so long, and they spew the venom of hate.  Millions of those who you even wouldn't suspect of being 'bad people' become 'bad' in an instant, and grow in power, seeing the growing number of alike characters, and responding to the encouragement from the highest office of the country.  
The fall of the Weimar Republic is just a reference.  We have been repeating the same scenario in the USA since 2016, when the dishonest, senile 'type-1' person was elected to be the President of the USA.

---
One of the Greatest Governors of the New York State, Andrew Cuomo in his more than 100 daily briefings during the hardest part of the Covid-19 Pandemic, used to say:
"It's all you, people.  Show me how you behave today and I will tell you with the high dose of certainty how we all look in 2-3 weeks, with the infection curve and the hospitalization, and the death".

How the USA and the world will look tomorrow is directly related to what 'we the people' think and do.  People are tired.  That's understandable.  We are in a deep mess, where the 'covid-19' pandemic is only a 'cherry on the top'.   
Sooner we all understand that what Trump has done already (growing uncontolled deficit even befor the pandemic, loss od the leadership role of the USA in the world, removing the US from the Climat Treaty, destroying non-proliferation treaty, and nuclear heads limit in the arselal of the USA and Russia,  Letting Putin's Russia assume control over a great part of the Middle East, etc.) is wrong and destructive to the whole world, sooner we can start preventing the unreperable damage to the fabric of our reality.

It's all you, people, who can promote the change.  This, coming elections ARE the most important elections in the history of the world, not only in our history.  Do not try to 'wait it out'... The twisted, orwellian reality will hunt us for decades.

It's all you people... VOTE.

ONE LINER 022 - MAGA AIWBT

It's self explanatory...

ONE LINER 0021 - SUPREME COURT APPOINTEE HEARINGS

In the recent weeks the Nation has been exposed to a political farse associated with the serious accusations of the sexual misconduct, against the Supreme Court appointee, and the Republicans trying to dismiss, and/or belittle the charges, and their meaning.

Yesterday, on September 27, 2018, people could witness a public hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, of the two 'protagonists' of the alleged event:  the accuser (Dr. Christine Blasey Ford), and the accused (Judge Brett Kavanaugh).

The Republicans have made sure that the FBI background check of the appointee hasn't been opened, nor any of the indicated witnesses, or additional accusers could be subpoenaed and heard.
As of this early afternoon, thanks to the motion of the Senator Flake, there will be a week postponement of the Senate vote to conduct the FBI background check - conditional on the President's decision to reopen it.  Is it a real concern about the truthfulness of the Judge Kavanaugh, or just an empty gesture.  We will know soon (I hope).

I believe that a great number of people all across the USA, were 'glued' to the TV, or pod-cast transmissions of the Hearings.  

Dr. Ford testimony was very powerful and convincing.  It seemed very coherent, careful and to the point not hiding, or covering any parts which she couldn't remember clearly after all 36 years passed.
Her face and the whole body language fit and enhanced everything what she was trying to recall and testified.
I do not want to dwell on her testimony.  

What I have found strikingly damaging to the Judge Kavanaugh, was not her account, but his own.  
A person, hand picked by the President to get a life-long seat on a bench of the highest court in the Republic - The Supreme Court should have, not only unblemished past, a history independent judgement on his current post (DC Court of Appeals), but also a balanced, controlled personality.

However, what Judge Kavanaugh showed was that he, himself is a belligerent, political hack, with so much contempt to the institution of the Senate Judiciary Commission, that he couldn't contain himself.  
His face expressions were straight from Dr. Ekman behavioral psychology textbooks.  
What Kavanaugh presented, was a uncontrollable rage and contempt to all who dared asking him any question.  He challenged Sen. Amy Klobuchar when she asked him about his drinking, or 'blocking out', aggressively reversing the question to her(!).  In some instances, he reacted like a person with a 'substance abuse' problem - which manifested in sweating, short fuse, aggressive denials of everything related to drinking, and attacking the person asking about it.

I have seen it when guilty teenagers try to get out of the 'tight spot' being confronted on their transgressions.  Every drug user, and drunk, does react that way.  It's not only common, it's symptomatic.

Do we want to have a belligerent drunk in the Supreme Court (putting aside his misguided opinions about the presidential powers, women's right to the decision if and when to bear children and so on)?  It's an easy answer: NO.