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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Love is best thing to happen to us
or it becomes self-imposed prison

By David McElroy · February 18, 2019

I almost never think about Julie anymore, but she was once very important to me. She was the first woman I became involved with after I divorced years ago. She was just getting out of a very abusive marriage. In many ways, we were a good fit.

For about a year, she was my constant obsession. But she had too many issues in her life and we started drifting apart. The last time I saw her was when I’d traveled to see her and she dropped me off at the airport for my trip home. We weren’t mad at each other, but nothing was right.

We didn’t talk again for another month. I can’t remember exactly how things played out after that. The details are fuzzy — mostly because it hasn’t mattered to me in a long, long time.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: love, relationships

Widow: ‘Things that mattered yesterday do not matter today’

By David McElroy · February 17, 2019

At 1:24 p.m. Friday, Terra Pinkard received a text from her husband, Josh.

“I love you,” the text said. “I’ve been shot at work.”

Terra called Josh’s phone. There was no answer. She tried FaceTime. Nothing. Then she called the Aurora, Ill., plant where her husband was the manager. The woman who answered the phone told her she was barricaded in her office and police were everywhere.

Terra said in a Sunday morning Facebook post that her heart dropped at that point. She grabbed her children and drove to the Henry Pratt Co. plant, where police couldn’t yet tell her anything. She went to the two closest hospitals and could find out nothing.

She waited for hours. She said her pastor, chaplains, neighbors and Josh’s co-workers sat with her and held her hand. She eventually got the news she had feared. Josh was one of five people killed in the shooting.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: death, love, priorities

Why do humans run away from things we really need the most?

By David McElroy · February 16, 2019

My life isn’t what I want it to be. If I’m honest with myself, it never has been.

I have a narrative that I like to sell myself. It’s based on truth, but I can’t tell whether it’s the complete truth. I doubt any of our personal narratives are the complete truth. But here’s my persistent narrative.

I can see a time in my past when I was on the right track. It was a time when I was doing things I was proud of and I thought I had a great future. Then I got off track. I rebelled against something. Maybe it was against The Man. Maybe it was against my father. Maybe it was against culture telling me what I had to be.

I jumped off the treadmill leading to worldly success and I’ve been running away ever since. My narrative tells me that I’m just around the corner from finally succeeding — my own way — without doing what The Man said I had to do.

You have a narrative, too. It’s probably very different from mine. But we almost certainly share something important. We both know something which we desperately need — something we’ve always needed — and we keep finding all sorts of reasons not to reach out and accept whatever it is.

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  • ‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
  • When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: fear, love, psychology, success

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Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the the D.C. Reflecting Pool turning green. The dastardly deed was carried out by a specially trained squad of Antifa cats trained by the Far Left. It’s not his fault. Arrest all the cats! #satire #parody
This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmar This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmart near my house just a few minutes ago. It was a beautiful light show for just a few minutes.
Here’s proof that reality and satire are indisting Here’s proof that reality and satire are indistinguishable these days.
This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot out This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot outside of the Walmart near my house just after the sun went down Friday evening.
This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy gas a little while ago. Even at a no-name brand, the price was $4.09. If I remember correctly, it was $2.29 a gallon at the same station on the day the war started. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winning. 🤣
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
The lights and color might have been more spectacu The lights and color might have been more spectacular a couple of minutes before this, but this was the best view I had of the Monday afternoon sunset from a bridge over I-20 in Moody, Ala.
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Sam settled into a front office window Tuesday eve Sam settled into a front office window Tuesday evening to keep an eye on things. Nobody knows exactly what things he’s keeping an eye on, but he’s taking the responsibility very seriously.
Alex slowly opened one eye and then the other. He Alex slowly opened one eye and then the other. He evaluated the situation in the office late Tuesday afternoon and concluded that being awake remains overrated.
Oliver is just lying in a front window and purring Oliver is just lying in a front window and purring loudly Tuesday morning as he keeps a close eye on the neighborhood.
I’m about to have to take a brief trip — maybe 15 I’m about to have to take a brief trip — maybe 15 minutes — after midnight and this is the sort of trip that Lucy used to take with me all the time. Because I’m missing her tonight — and thinking about her because she would be coming along with me right now if she were still with me — here’s a random video clip of her enjoying a car ride. This was May 5, 2020, at 7:36 p.m. It’s been almost eight months now since I lost her.
I’ve solved the mystery of what really happened to I’ve solved the mystery of what really happened to the Reflecting Pool in D.C. I shouldn’t let these guys out of the house. 😺
Alex would like to announce that he has been awake Alex would like to announce that he has been awake for nearly seven minutes and now requires another nap.
Late Sunday night, Sam is on his back in my lap. T Late Sunday night, Sam is on his back in my lap. There’s no way he would have done this a few months ago, much less a year ago. Sam would still rather be left alone, but if I pick him up, he eventually relaxes and enjoys the attention. That’s been nice to watch happen.
Oliver sees remarkably little reason to get out of Oliver sees remarkably little reason to get out of his bed this afternoon.
This is what happens when you take a picture of a This is what happens when you take a picture of a black cat against a black t-shirt in a room that’s almost completely dark. It’s pretty heavy on the black.
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It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

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