Showing posts with label Gryphen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gryphen. Show all posts

Sunday, June 04, 2017

In May eight people learned the hard way that Alaskan moose are dangerous.

Big nope right here.
Courtesy of ADN: 

A moose attack in an Eagle River neighborhood, which sent a woman to the hospital with serious injuries, was just one of eight run-ins with Anchorage's most visible urban animal resulting in injuries in May, officials said. 

The woman was either jogging with or walking her dogs in the Eaglewood subdivision on May 22 when she got too close to a cow moose and its two calves, said Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Dave Battle. 

"She didn't have time. … The moose attacked her, and came back twice, which is why she was injured so badly," said Eaglewood operations manager Mark McAllister. 

Anecdotally, eight moose encounters resulting in injuries is a lot, said Fish and Game public information officer Ken Marsh. There may have been more encounters, but many go unreported, as is often the case with wildlife incidents, Marsh said.

Eight does seem a little high, though aggressive moose encounters are certainly not rare in Anchorage. 

I have lived here for 57 years, and thankfully my few run ins with our giant ungulates have been relatively minor.

I was once chased back to my car after accidentally walking through an open gate which panicked the ungodly large bull moose chewing on leaves from a tree in back yard and sent it hurtling in my direction with antlers set on "skewer."

Another close call was during my paper route days when I accidentally hit a newborn calf with a carelessly tossed rolled up newspaper while distracted by its large and intimidating mother.

Fortunately she accepted my profuse apology which was delivered in hushed tones as I slowly backed away from the yard.

There have been a few others on bike trails, hiking trips, and once even on horseback, but they were less urine inducing, and not really worth mentioning.

However in Anchorage there have been some really unfortunate encounters, some quite fatal, which should serve to remind us all that just because they appear tame and even check both ways before crossing the highway, does NOT mean they are even remotely domesticated. 

Friday, April 28, 2017

Training Day.

Just so you know I am in training today, which means there may be a delay before I can publish your comments.

It might be completely unnoticeable, but then again there might be an hour or two between times when I can check my phone.

I have to admit I really hate this particular training as it involves a lot of hands on instruction and requires a lot of up close and personal interactions with people I do not know.

I think I have taken this particular class around 18 or 19 times, so though it is not new to me it is still a huge pain in my ass.

I have held this job for twenty years this June and perhaps the worst part is the yearly re-certifications.

I also hate that this is happening on a Friday which is notorious as a news dump day, but if you see anything you think I should know about put it in the comments and I will hopefully get to it later on tonight or tomorrow.

I have already written multiple posts that will show up as the day progresses, so don't think I will not provide content for you to enjoy.

Have a great day, and thanks for making IM a priority to visit in your very busy lives.

Monday, December 05, 2016

The Immoral Minority finally comes to Facebook!

So finally after stubbornly refusing to give IM a Facebook presence, I caved in yesterday and created this page.

One of my faults as a blogger is that I am resistant to self promotion.

I do not typically post links to my blog on Reddit, or HuffPo, or any other news outlets or websites.

To me that has always seemed arrogant and conceited.

And for quite awhile this blog did just fine through word of mouth and the occasional glare of national attention.

However things have now changed.

As you have been reading in my recent posts, websites promoting fake news have managed to increase their clicks by huge margins simply by using the tools available to them on Facebook.

In fact fake news has overwhelmed actual news to the point where facts and truth have been all but drowned out completely.

So in order to compete against all of that it is important that rather than rejecting Facebook we start using it as a means to inform and do good, rather than simply a place to disseminate lies and do evil.

To accomplish that I need all of you to provide a little help.

If you can help spread the word and introduce IM to a few more folks on your friends list that would be of great assistance.

Also, many of you will be pleased that on Facebook there is a "Like" button which folks have been asking me to put here for years. So now you can like IM to your heart's content.

Trust me with Donald Trump in office we have much to do, and with your help I think we can have some impact.

Oh and yes, there is a little unfinished Sarah Palin business to tie up as well.

Thank you for your years of support, and thank you for the support on Facebook that I know you will continue to provide.

Thursday, September 01, 2016

I don't always drunkenly live tweet a political speech, but when I do you can bet it is a Donald Trump crazy ass anti-immigrant speech.

To be fair I started off being perfectly sober.
But then things got crazy.





And then I went a little Gif crazy.

And then I started to go a little crazy crazy.



And then thankfully it all came to an end.
Afterwards I felt drained and like I should be searching for affordable housing in Canada.

But I pulled my shit together and realized that Donald Trump had just taken the long predicted pivot and shoved it right up the Hispanic community's ass.

And yep, they noticed.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Several major Latino surrogates for Donald Trump are reconsidering their support for him following the Republican nominee’s hardline speech on immigration Wednesday night. 

Jacob Monty, a member of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council, has resigned, and Alfonso Aguilar, the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said in an interview that he is “inclined” to pull his support. 

“I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump when I believed he was going to address the immigration problem realistically and compassionately,” said Monty, a Houston attorney who has aggressively made the Latino case for Trump. “What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate.” 

He withdrew from the board following Trump’s speech in Phoenix, which was heavy on calls for border security and emphasized that all immigrants in the country illegally were subject to deportation. 

Yeah I think Trump's chances of attracting more than a handful of Hispanic votes is somewhere between slim and no fucking way.

And any argument that he is willing, or even capable of change is now completely off the table.

In other words everything is right back to where everybody with half a brain should have already realized it would end up.

Now I am simply awaiting the sweet sweet political ads the Clinton campaign is throwing together with Trump's own words from last night.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

So let's start from the beginning.

As I am sure most of you know I had formed a friendship with Levi Johnston's sister and mother way back in 2009.

I had interviewed them, given them advice, and even managed Sadie's blog for a time.

I had at one point also hired Tank Jones to work for me at the same time that he was supposedly managing Levi's "career."

However I had only met Levi twice. Once at his mother's sentencing, and once at Sadie's graduation.

Both times he was polite but a little standoffish.

And why not? Literally everybody had told him I was to be avoided at all cost. (Except for his mom and his sister of course.)

In 2012 I had sent a friend request to Levi's wife Sunny, and she accepted.

I used that connection to send her links to articles that mentioned Levi or to keep her up to date on the things going on in the Palin's lives which might affect her and Levi, and of course Tripp. 

Through that connection I heard about the manipulations and barrage of abuse that Levi often suffered while trying to get time with his son. (Contrary to what you might have read in the tabloids, Levi NEVER stopped trying to spend time with his son.)

As you can imagine it irritated me and I offered to help multiple times.

At first Levi simply could not bring himself to accept help. (We Alaska men are known for our stoicism. Though typically Alaskan women refer to that as stubbornness.)

Late in 2013 things came to a head, and Levi wanted to take Bristol back to court and fight for a real custody deal. (Up to this point they really did not have one, and she used access to his son to manipulate Levi and keep him in line.)

However they no longer had an attorney, and nowhere near enough money to go up against the Palins in court.

But I did.

Monday, June 13, 2016

So after two and a half years there is something I need to finally share with all of you.

Meet my friends Levi and Sunny Johnston.

About two and a half years ago they came to my house looking for a little help, and what happened next I will be sharing with you over the next several days, weeks, and possibly months.

You may think you know them, and you may think you know what they have been through, but trust me when I say you do not even know the half of it.

Friday, April 22, 2016

It is not everyone who has a photograph of the exact moment that somebody decided that they despised them.

This is a still that my friend Dennis Zaki sent me yesterday from the day back in 2009 when I interviewed Sarah Palin.  (I will not bother to retell what happened as you can simply go here and read the whole wild story for yourself.)

I do remember this part in particular because though Palin had been somewhat suspicious throughout the interview, it was not until this point right here that she suddenly decided that something was up.

Look at those eyes! I swear I lost several years off my life that day.

Don't laugh at the Palin curse folks, it's real.

For my part I thought I had handled the whole thing quite well considering it was my very first on camera interview and I was coerced by Dennis into doing it.

Of course the fact that during the entire interview I was worried that she would suddenly drop Trig, point in my direction, and scream "GRYPHEN" in that high pitched scream from the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," did nothing to quiet my nerves.

And of course it was right after this that she chased us out into the parking lot.

Ah, good times.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

I am not sure that Dakota Meyer understands parenting.

I was really only able to make it to the minute mark in the video.

If I had actually seen them strike that child I would have lost my shit.

They are hitting that young boy with a paddle. Do you have any idea the psychological damage an incident like this can cause?

Well I do, because that was done to me.

In fact I was not only spanked by a school principal, I was spanked by my mother, my grandmother, babysitters, and the men who were dating my mother before she remarried.

One time I had cuts on my legs where a guy had used an electrical cord to "punish" me for not falling asleep fast enough. That school principal used half of a baseball bat sanded down with the words "Louisville Slugger" on the handle.

Five strikes, I remember every one of them.

Do you want to know how that approach corrected my behaviors?

It didn't.

But it made me an angry and violent young man, who often engaged in physical confrontations with my peers to the point where I sent more than one of them to the hospital.

I trained up to four or five hours each day, so that I would be a more effective fighter, and then I looked for trouble virtually every day so that I could punish the world that at the time I felt had horribly abused me.

Don't get me wrong I was not a bully, at least not in the classical sense. I wanted to fight tough guys who bullied or intimidated others.  But I was a raging asshole, of that there is no doubt.

This lasted into my late teens.

After that I was able to gain some perspective. which came as the result of some very caring teachers and school administrators who did not want to kick me out of school and destroy my life because, thankfully, they felt I was worth saving.

I owe them everything.

Today I care for the children who have been brutalized, neglected, and psychologically damaged by parents and others without the education or intelligence to deal with challenging behaviors.

Apparently this child was paddled for spitting and aggressive behaviors.

I have dealt with spitters before. Do you know what you do?

You get a bucket and you ask them to fill it up with all of their extra spit.

After a little bit their mouth goes dry and they ask to stop, at which time you simply say "Are you all out of spit?"

They answer in the affirmative, and you tell them "Well I am going to keep this bucket handy and the next time you need to spit we will come right back here and you can try to fill it again."

I have never had a child spit again after that.

Somebody needs to let Dakota Meyer know that there are many, many, many effective methods for teaching a child that do not involve scarring them for life.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Yes everybody I am fine. The earth in fact did NOT swallow me up.

Safeway store on the Kenai Peninsula.
So last night, at a truly unreasonable 1:30 AM, the ground beneath my feet doth shake, waking me from my most blissful slumber.

I'm not gonna lie, even for this veteran of a hundred or more earthquakes, THAT was a serious wake up call.

According to Alaska Dispatch the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and was centered at Anchor Point which is a little over two hundred miles from Anchorage.

Anyhow besides being awakened in the middle of the damn night, the only real damage done at the Gryphen Fortress of Fearless Blogging, was that a picture fell off my daughter's wall.

However thanks for checking in on me everybody, I appreciate the concern.

Friday, December 25, 2015

Ho-Ho-Holy crap are we done with this Christmas thing yet?

(Just a family celebrating the conservative tradition of the showing of the firearms to ward off bad spirits and Democrats.)

I know I said earlier today that I love Christmas, and I do. Up to a point.

But right now I am all Jingle Belled the fuck out.

Sure it was fun at first. Visiting the family, opening the presents, bringing up embarrassing stories about my brother's past just to humiliate him.

All good.

But now I'm over it.

For one thing I had to drive all the way out to Palmer, where my mother and brother now live, which meant no holiday beverages. (Uncle Gryphen cannot afford a DUI on his spotless record.)

I'm not saying that drinking alcohol makes every thing better, because everybody already knows that drinking alcohol makes everything better. (Except child rearing of course, not that my father did not give it the old college try.)

Anyhow before I go all Grinch that stole Christmas and harsh everybody's mellow, let me just say that I had a lot of fun today. (You know as much fun as you can have without a drop of alcohol and your brother telling everybody that story about how you used to sing out loud to Bee Gees songs. By the way Too Much Heaven is a classic!)

I got a lot of nice gifts, gave more expensive ones to others so that I looked cool, and enjoyed my visit with my family.

Now I am back home contemplating the upcoming year.

And while I have literally no idea what is in store, I know that it will undoubtedly be a wild ride and I could not imagine a better group of people to share that experience with than all of you.

Happy Holidays! (That's right Fox News I said "Happy Holidays," bite me!)

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Literally.

Okay so I live in this amazing place surrounded by breathtaking wilderness, but I rarely actually take advantage of that fact.

I mean sure I like to go hiking in the Glenn Alps near my house quite often, and I have certainly spent a lot of quality time camping in years past, but lately I have not really done that many "Alaskan" things.

So when a friend offered to take me fishing my first thought was "Don't they sell those things already breaded and shaped like little sticks?"

But then this thought occurred to me: "Gryphen when was the last time you sat in a river getting eaten by mosquitoes and trying to catch one of your slimy evolutionary precursors so that you could bludgeon it to death on the floor of a leaky boat? Seriously how can you pass this up?"

And is turned out I could pass it up pretty easily actually, but then my friend kind of shamed me, and nobody shames me except my mother who apparently never forgets anything. So right now I am sitting on a river somewhere in the MatSu Valley uncomfortably close to the home of you know who hoping that crazy bitch never learned how to use that rifle scope.

"It looks like bloggers are back on the menu boys."
Seriously I am not really worried about "you-know-who." Especially when I can instead worry about the very real possibility of drowning, being eaten by a bear, or getting a fishhook through my eyeball.

Now since this is me, you can all rest assured that there is more to this story.

However it is something that I have to keep under wraps for a little bit longer.

But once I get to talk about it, holy shit!

I will try to check my comments as often as I can but since I am in the Valley, and I think they are still communicating with smoke signals and bird calls, it may be intermittent.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

So what do YOU think I should do with it?

I mean I have some ideas but I'm not sure how many of them are viable or even worth my time.

Oh wait, some of you might be a little lost.

Go below the fold if you are confused.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Andrew Sullivan speaks out: "Blogging nearly killed me."

Courtesy of CNN:

"The truth is, I had to stop primarily because it was killing me," Sullivan said Sunday night at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. 

"I used to joke that if blogging does kill someone, I would be the first to find out." He described the grueling pace that he maintained along with a small editorial staff. 

"This is 40 posts a day -- every 20 minutes, seven days a week," Sullivan said.

After closing down his blog in January Sullivan took some time to "detox." But on Sunday he agreed to an interview with Jeff Greenfield.

 "Here's what I would say: I spent a decade of my life, spending around seven hours a day in intimate conversation with around 70,000 to 100,000 people every day, " Sullivan said. "And inevitably, for those seven hours or more, I was not spending time with any actual human being, with a face and a body and a mind and a soul." 

"I couldn't imagine blogging the next election," he said. "I will not spend another minute of my time writing about the Clintons. Period. Or the Bushes."

Wow, you that really hits home for me, and I totally understand where he is coming from.

Personally I keep my blog posts to a manageable seven a day of the most, part but since I have no staff that means that each post must be researched, written, and edited all on my own.

And as many of you know, sometimes mistakes slip past my attention.

Also unlike Sullivan I do work out at least five to six days a week, and usually space out the workouts so that I have a reason to leave my desk and get some exercise. Since my other job also requires time on the computer it is easy to spend up to ten hours at my desk a day. And I often do.

However much like Sullivan I also find that most of my interactions with other people take place online in the form of texts, blog comments, and e-mails. I do get a few phone calls a day to break up the monotony, and I have several face to face conversations with my daughter when she is here, and others who live with here as well. So I am not completely isolated.

What's more I rarely ever feel alone, even when I am completely alone in the house.

That may have a lot to do with the constant ideas that bounce around inside of my head.

I don't actually hear voices or anything, but I have been known to talk out loud to myself when I am trying to flesh out an idea. (My daughter gives me grief about that constantly.)

And unlike Sullivan I have no plans to walk away from blogging at this time even though I have also been doing it for ten years now.

There are some changes coming however.

My buddy Dennis Zaki builds websites as a side job, and he has convinced me to upgrade IM in the near future. I am somewhat resistant as I don't usually welcome change, but he assures me the site will be much improved and more user friendly when he finishes with it.

So let me take a moment here to thank all of you for your patronage. I am well aware that there are sharper, sleeker, more content heavy websites you could be visiting, and yet I know many of you camp out here on a daily basis and I want you to know that it gives me the inspiration to keep on plugging away.

And have no fear, changes or no changes, I will still be the un-apologetically liberal firebrand you have all come to know and barely tolerate.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Happy New Year!!!

Okay well that is another year now in the rear view mirror as my own mortality looms before me on the horizon. Whee?

Okay seriously that was a pretty damn good year.

I mean sure it had its ups and downs, but it featured the Palin family brawl so fuck everything else.

I have made some New Year's resolutions and they are as follows:

I resolve to spend less time worrying about politics and more time worrying about the environment.

I resolve to exercise more and eat less.

And since I make that last one every year, I promise to really do it this time.

And since I always say that second part every year I promise to really, really do it this time.

I resolve to do more housework this next year. (Yeah I have already decided not to do this one.)

I resolve to spend less time in front of my computer and more time interacting with people face to face. (Probably on Skype.)

And I resolve to continue revealing the truth about Sarah Palin until there is nothing more than a smoldering crater where her reputation use to be.

Gonna be a good year folks, I can feel it in my bones. My rapidly aging and increasingly brittle bones.

Monday, December 29, 2014

You ever have one of those nights?

For those confused as to what happened with the simple little Happy Birthday Tripp post on Saturday night, let me explain.

Originally I had the Sea of Blue post scheduled for that last slot at the end of the night.

However when I visited Facebook to see what my family was up to I happened to see a post from Mercede wishing her nephew a happy birthday.

"Oh yeah it's Tripp's birthday" I thought so I quickly put up a simple post wishing him a happy birthday, which I have done several times in the past. No biggie.

After that I kind of turned away from my computer and started doing other work while watching Netflix in the background.

At around 8:04 I received a comment suggesting that Tripp's birthday is actually two days away.

Wait, what? So at this point I have also had a glass or two of wine and am exhausted and not thinking at all clearly.

So I Google Tripp's birth date and find this. In my somewhat bleary eyed state all I do is read the date, which is December 29th, and think "Oh crap I might be premature." (The article actually says that Tripp was born on Saturday which would have made it the 27th. But hey. who reads the articles?)

I then went to my post on the day that we all learned that Bristol gave birth, and once again only read the date it was posted, December 29th. (The actual ADN article listed the birth date on the 28th. More confusion.)

So at this point I have confused myself completley since I am literally running on fumes. In response I quickly write a post saying that I might be wrong, and how weird it is that Mercede would have Tripp's birthday wrong.

Then I post that and go back to Facebook to ask Sadie about it. When I get there I see that Sunny has also wished Tripp a happy birthday and talked about spending the day with him to celebrate.

After that I changed the post once again to what most of you saw Saturday night and Sunday morning.

When I woke up in the morning I went back to see where I had screwed up and was able to figure out where I had, if you pardon the term, tripped up.

Tripp's birthday is, and always has been, December 27th. Which is something I have known because I have wished him a happy birthday several times in the past.

So let me apologize for my rather confusing post, and remind all of you that drinking and posting never mix.

I would also like to mention that though I may have bungled my birthday post for Tripp, at least I took the time to make one.

As of right now neither Bristol nor Sarah have bothered to do the same.

P.S. For those of you who are curious about the next post coming from my source, I will let you know that I sent her a list of the questions that many of you left in the comments and she has responded. I am still working on followups and clarifications, but the post is planned for January 2nd which will place it outside of the holiday slow period when blog traffic is traditionally down.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

So this just happened.

It's perfectly fine of course, as well as a good way to track what I write since I usually tweet all of my posts.

However I certainly hope that Ms. French has all of her anti-anxiety medications filled.

Because she's definitely going to need them.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Just a reminder that you can pause a video to make anybody look stupid.

I sometimes get angry feedback due to my propensity for finding really terrible pictures of Sarah Palin and using them on this blog. Many of them are ones I create myself by taking screenshots and posting them here.

You know like this one.

And this one.


And this one.

Okay fair enough.

However in my defense I would like to point out that when you hear Professor Tyson speak it immediately dissuades you from believing that he is intellectually impaired in any way.

Yet when you hear Sarah Palin speak people instead think, "That screen capture really failed to fully grasp the stupidity of this woman."

And the defense rests.

Monday, November 17, 2014

I think I found my next computer keyboard.

Courtesy of Fast Company:  

If you've ever been so frustrated with work email that you wanted to punch your computer—or toss it out the window, à la the Office Space printer beatdown—you might appreciate this new keyboard design. Designers replaced each letter with a punching bag, so if you want to write anything, you'll have to kick or bodyslam it out. 

For the designers, the "workoutcomputer" was a more interesting way to approach our sedentary work lives than a typical standing or cycling desk. "We were inspired by personal needs for physical activity during daytime, and back pain in the evening after a full office day in front of the computer," say designers Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag, from the European design studio Bless. 

Instead of splitting the day into time for working and time for working out, the designers wanted to combine both simultaneously. Of course, it's not exactly the most efficient way to type a page. 

"If you were using it the first time, it might take approximately two minutes per word, depending on the length," say Heiss and Kaag. "But when you know where all the keys are, you could actually write relatively fast. Of course, it still takes 10 times longer than using a normal keyboard, seeing that the distances between the keys are vaster."

As much as I like this concept, using it would probably mean I could only get out two or three posts a day. But damn those would be hard hitting posts. If you know what I mean.

Ah, but just imagine how much more satisfying it would be to type up a post on Republican trickery or Sarah Palin shenanigans with this bad boy.

I am actually fairly good at staying on a workout schedule and do a combination of resistance training and cardio at least five times a week, if not six.

And I actually used to box when I was younger, and fought in full contact Karate matches as well, so I am no stranger to the heavy and speed bags. Still I am trying to imagine my success at typing on this while trying to enjoy my evening glass of wine.

I am guessing it would even more full of typos and run on sentences than usual.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

For those who missed it here is the audio from my visit with the folks over at Turn Up the Night.

As you can hear my I-Phone connection was not the best, and I clearly talk way too fast for radio.

But all in all I think it came out alright.


Friday, November 14, 2014

The Immoral Minority goes talk radio.

Okay so in a few minutes I will be talking to Kenny Pick of Turn up the Night fame, and of course the creator of the brilliant "Thonghazi" which we have enjoyed so thoroughly here at IM.

I have not actually done any radio since way back in 2009, when I made a few appearances local progressive radio with the likes of CC and Shannyn Moore. Therefore I am probably a little rusty.

I do not know exactly what we will talk about, though it seems a fair guess that a certain half term governor's name will pop up a time or two.

If you want to listen just click here, and hopefully there will be no unexpected DDOS attack this time.

Let me know what you think in the comments and of course Kenny Pick has a comment section as well that you can access by clicking the link above.

Hopefully after the show Kenny will provide a Soundcloud link that I can embed so that all who missed it can listen to me hemming and hawing, and repeatedly clearing my throat, for themselves later.