Category: snivelry

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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Gridlock

4 January 2023:
Kevin (not the good one) McCarthy seems to be yet another Nancy Baloney in the mold of Cryin’ John or Paul R’Ayneau (as does suggested alternative Scalise). Donalds or Zeldin or Jordan or Mace all seem viable, and Trump, followed by cute matching impeachments for Jomala, remains plausible, desirable, and highly unlikely.

Six More Years!
But only because Lefties would hate it so much.

5 January 2023:
Given their narrow majority in the House, Republican conferees would be well advised to consider all their options from Amash to Zeldin by which they might settle on a Speaker AND preserve a floor vote (as Speakers typically refrain from floor votes themselves, leveraging their influence more directly with threats and bribes). Mr Gaetz has already launched his ill-fated Trump-balloon, contrary to El Donaldo’s own preference, in fact, so they (other than the most ardent of Sixthmas Celebrants) may put that behind them.

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But what if the cost is TWO lives?

24 December 2022

correspondent Gommil Jelug points out that while “many people argue for freedom [and decry] safety as a value, any person of reason has those they wish to protect,” and that to ignore “the value of safety is foolish,” and perhaps “hypocritical.”

Of course, every rational person values both safety and liberty. However, we will pit those values against each other with every thought and act. “If it saves just one life” is a contemptible lie, and any thinking person sees right through it. Very few parents build cinder block walls around their front yards to insure against automobiles running into their yards. They have placed the costs of construction and subsequent devaluation of their property against the lives of their children. They regularly put their own (and others’) lives at risk every time they drive down to the QuikkStopp for a six-pack of Coors Slight or a fist full of lottery tickets.

Ridiculing people who pretend that liberty and safety are not in conflict, or who pretend that their hyper-vigilance isn’t dangerously counter-productive, is both logical and coherent. Just not very generous to the mentally deficient.

Jelug adds that one of the (often prohibitive) costs to protecting their children from errant traffic and other dangers are institutionalized zoning and housing authority ordinances, once again revealing an opportunity for libertarian solutions.

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On “States’ Rights”

15 December 2022

Suction, coldness, darkness, centrifugal force, and states’ rights have one very important thing in common. They don’t actually exist. They are all convenient constructs that help to simplify the analysis and application of natural or social phenomena. “Suction” refers to a pressure differential; vacuums don’t suck, higher pressure pushes. Coldness and darkness respectively are simply the absence of heat or light, measurable physical phenomena, and centrifugal force is just an easier way of understanding the effect of constantly changing momenta.

A moral theory of rights denies the existence of a state having rights, as its existence is predicated on usurping the rights of individual actors, and only individual actors can have rights. Some may argue that rights themselves also don’t exist, and their argument has merit. Rights are an emergent property of (so far) human intelligence. Just as Kepler and Copernicus could wring a coherent understanding of astronomy from the observations of ancient astrologers, and Priestly and Lavoisier could craft chemistry from the bones of alchemy, so too could secular ethicists divine a theory of rights from our mystical forebears. As briefly as bearable, I would define rights as the reciprocal protocols of expectations shown to result in the greatest measure of prosperity, longevity, and liberty to human societies. Reciprocity, of course, is essential. We clearly do not respect the chicken’s “right to life,” any more than said chicken respects the rights of the bugs that it eats. But when a person violates the rights of a person, he has demonstrated his abandonment of the protection of rights. He has surrendered his rights through his own misbehavior. Boiling it down further, some might equate rights with the most basic set of kindergarten rules: Don’t hit people and don’t take their stuff. Refining that thick syrup into finer crystal, I would just say: No Trespassing.

“States’ Rights” are the powers retained within a confederation or a compact, which is the voluntary agreement between states to delegate some powers to a confederate or constitutional body. Within the context of their agreement only do states’ rights actually exist. They are constructs designed to simplify our understanding of federal relations. No sensible libertarian would ever suggest that a state has rights, but an honest reader of the Constitution will see that through their ratification of federal union, states assert and retain their prior authorities.

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Reparations, Bond Villains, and Git’Tars

3 July 2002 — Reparations (or “Just how much do I owe me?”)

I oppose the (Senator Dan) Akaka Bill for the same reasons I oppose Reparations for Americans of African descent. History is filled with the crimes of cultural expansion — genocide, slavery, dispossession — but nothing can be done about the past but to learn from it. There is no good reason for Americans to look to the Federal Government for special protection or special consideration. The tragedy of native peoples on the mainland shows us that tribal recognition leads inevitably to eternal welfare bondage. All Citizens must stand equally before the law. Questionable property claims must be addressed without delay, but without needless rancor.

7 January 2018 — Real Life “Bond Villains”

They may not be what Ian Fleming had in mind when he first started minting the iconic archetypes, but once you’ve been acquainted with the notion, you’ll have a hard time not seeing them. Some become living parodies, others, touchstones of cultural phenomena. For example, I hesitate to buy into rumors of government misbehavior, at least until James (“Not Wittingly”) Clapper officially denies it.

I don’t pretend to know what’s in a man’s heart, my designation of “Bond Villainy” is based mainly on public persona, though an unusual name and an exotic accent (Henry Kissinger, Sebastian Gorka) sure help. Of course, actual villainy helps even more! (Henry Kissinger, James Clapper)

The reigning king of TV’s Bond Villains is on the ropes this week, being challenged by my new fave Michael (“Dr Evil”) Wolff. But not to worry, Sebastian (“Sebastian Gorka”) Gorka has serious legs, gravitas, and a wicked cool accent!

30 May 2022 — No Violins or Guitars

I love pop music and I love country and western music, and while bad pop is annoying, bad country is worse. I used to think there was nothing worse than bad country. Then I met hiphop. (High fop?) Fortunately, on popular commercial radio, bad country is more common than bad hiphop. One thing that bad country makes clear is that no country music group would ever have any instruments on stage that might be called a “violin” or a “guitar.” Clearly, and emphatically, they are “fiddles” and “git’tars.”

On talk radio, there’s even less annoyance. Of THAT particular variety anyway. However, before I can get to the radio to turn it off, I have been regularly subjected to Sean Hannity‘s current opening score:
Yeah we’re comin’
To your sit-tay!
We’re gonna play our git’tars and sing you a country sowng!
We’ll all be flyin;’
Higher than a jet air-liner!
So if you want a little thang in your ying yang come alowng!
I’m not precisely sure what a “thang” or a “ying yang” might be, so I’ll guess. Even so, if I HAD a “ying yang” and I wanted a “thang” in it, I’m not altogether certain I’d be satisfied by a LITTLE one.

7 December 2022

Applying for Medicare in February of 2021 turns out to have been LESS than useless. (Of course, this was prior to the eviction notice, so I still thought I could curry favor.) Since August of ’22 I’ve been trying to apply for reparations (aka “Social Security”). It has been a relentless nightmare.

To be fair (for those to whom “fairness” outside of a casino or a courtroom are adult considerations) during the same almost two years that I’ve “had” Medicare coverage and not used it, I also haven’t cashed in on the car insurance, I haven’t used my fire extinguisher, and I haven’t shot anyone sneaking into my house. That’s arguably been a waste of my resources also, but still a wholesome trend that I hope continues. But I said, “LESS than useless.” My car insurance didn’t prevent me from changing the oil, and my fire extinguisher didn’t prevent me from starting a blaze in the fireplace, and my guns didn’t spend their free time shooting innocent strangers.

Medicare, on the other hand, has effectively blocked my attempts to apply for reparations on-line. Between my own cybernetic incompetence and the perverse protocols of computers, I kept getting stymied, locked out, and admonished for attempting to update my data on my own alleged account. Seeking permission to proceed, I consented to e-mail updates, which would presumably allow me to continue, but they were sent to the obsolete e-dress. It wouldn’t let me update e-mail without an authorization code, and it would only send such codes to an e-dress that I could not access.

4 September 1991 — On Getting What She Demanded

For the past few months, Drama Queen (or Diva Dearest?) has been enjoying a tryst with Maintenance Man. That was never a problem for me. Since beginning to think about such things I have been strictly heterosexual and polyamorous. Such considerations were hammered out in my marriage contracts, and I never betrayed them, though they, respectively, got fed up with me after Thirteen, Thirteen, and Twenty-two years. Anyway, on this particular evening (last night) Drama Queen was excoriating me over how neglectful I’d been. As a father of three (two teen-aged boys and my infant daughter) I felt I had my hands full with rent, groceries, school activities, and child-care. How little I know.

So, she spent the evening haranguing me about my neglect, and even went so far as to point out that Maintenance Man was much more attentive in his offers of small gestures and tokens. The example she cited was the beef jerky he’d bought for her earlier that day. Finally getting it all “off her chest” by dumping it all over my head, she felt much better, and we enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep. She woke up bright and jovial and went off to work. It being my day off, I slept a little later, but still woke up angry and morose. I work my ass off to keep the five of us in kibble, and she throws Maintenance Man‘s superior swain skills at me. Well, I DID listen to her, so I divined that she wants small gestures delivered to work. After tending to L’Historienne‘s diapers, I packed a small lunch, threw my best girl up onto my shoulders, and walked down the hill and across the highway to Fytyjuf Twyx, the beach resort hotel where she worked. I walked into the front office, dropped the sack lunch on the counter in front of her, said,”Here,” walked out, crossed the highway again, and proceeded up the hill to home.

That didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped. I got about halfway home when Drama Queen pulled up on the street beside me and started in again. How dare I, she wondered, endanger our daughter by carrying her across a busy street? I’d thought I was following her instructions, but in addition to reading, I’m also not very good at listening between the lines.

14 October 2022  — 
“It could be that I wasn’t trying to hide it FROM you.
Maybe I was trying to hide it FOR you.”

Many years ago, for some reason or another, Busy Body (or Early Riser?) asked me if there was something I hadn’t told her.  I tried to duck the question, because I am not comfortable with casual lies, but she persisted.  Finally, having had enough, I stood up, left the room, and fetched the new tea pot and paperback anthology that I had previously bought for her upcoming birthday.  I returned to the room, put them both on the table and said, “There!  Now I’m no longer lying to you!”  Then I left the house to walk off the anger and to smoke myself down (because at the time I was still a practicing butthead.)

I don’t remember, but I think she threw them out.
I guess winning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

8 January 2023

Because I am mask averse, and because the local Social Security office is F’eral turf (a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC), wherein mandatory muzzling remains in effect, I preferred to access their system via my home desktop. Woe betide me! That worked as well as this website works to sell my books. After months of frustration, I surrendered. I trudged down to the local SS office (on November 4th), muzzled up like an obedient little sheeple, and checked in, asking for help to get MY MONEY BACK.

The clerk was very courteous, looked at my documents, tapped her keyboard, and then asked if a telephone interview would be helpful. I responded that, in my state of helpless incompetence, just about ANYTHING would be helpful. So I was given an “appointment” for the telephone interview. I left, and days later a letter arrived recapping the discussion and advising me of which materials would be helpful to have at hand for said call. Come the morning of December 6th, I sat by my phone with all those materials at hand and waited for the call. And waited. And waited.

After waiting for what I figured was a reasonable time, still hearing nothing, I tried to call and my call was diverted to my service “provider,” whereupon I was informed that all of my time had expired. Meanwhile, the clerk tried calling what turned out to be a dead line, finally calling L’Historienne and enquiring after my existence. So she freaked out, raced over to my apartment and gave me the message that they were trying and failing to contact me. Apparently, all the time I’d been left on hold trying to resolve this, and other issues, PLUS the minutes nibbled away by annoying telemarketeers pestering me with “MediCare supplemental insurance” THAT I HAD NEVER REQUESTED AND STILL DON’T WANT.

19 January 2023

Several calls later, follow up authorization codes, and an updating of my ACTUAL phone number and e-dress, I tried again today. And was promptly locked out again.

Next step, I guess, is to show up AGAIN (after the advised “five to ten business days” that the evil IT weasels demand) with my relevant identifications PLUS checking account routing number, and just cry until I get my reparations. Or until I am arrested. One way or another, the Feds will either feed me or kill me.

15 February 2023 — Perpetual Emotion Regime?
Correspondent and Creditor Expectoranzo bemoans my pegging his loan to the CPI, protesting that his Catholic guilt nags him insofar as his other ready accounts were paying him less than that. I assured him that I had no quarrel with the arrangement. In fact, I think I’ve gotten a pretty good deal, but if he INSISTS that I pay less I suppose I should oblige him. Meanwhile, I’ve advised him that if he wishes to assuage his usurious pangs, he should consider supporting some local animal shelter or strip club. (Unless that leads to more Catholic guilt. Do they feel guilty about feeling good, or good about feeling guilty?)

17 March 2023 —
Texas More (in)Secure than the Strategic Air Command?

So, the bureaucratic nightmare continues. Still no reparations, Feds still insist that we all continue to pretend that we’re surgeons, so maybe my savings (supplemented by part time at the QuikkStopp) will last until Mr Bushbiden’s SCHEDULED end of the Wuhan Flu “emergency.” (So, since when are “emergencies” SCHEDULED? “This virus is so deadly, the circumstances so dire, disaster so imminent that, BEGINNING NEXT TUESDAY…” Sheesh! If ya’ll were paying any attention you’d have seen them giving away the fraud at the start of it all.) Or, if the math doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll go ahead and muzzle up again. Haven’t decided, maybe I should drink it over.

But anyway, back to Texas and SAC and who’s more secure. My Buckeye Driver’s License expired on my birthday, of course, and a week or so prior to then I showed up at my local DMV (or DPS?) to hopefully upgrade my ID to a local model. I was met by a friendly clerk (Texans so far seem generally friendlier than most other Americans) who informed me that this office was a strictly by-appointment affair. She offered me a helpful brochure detailing Texan requirements for exchanging drivers’ licenses, so I returned home, gathered the materials listed (I thought!) and scheduled an appointment for two days prior to expiration. All very timely and responsible.

HA! As it turns out, the “birth certificate” provided to me by my parents, though good enough for the USAF, Beaver Tech, and getting me licensed in the states of South Dakota, Oregon, Hawaii, and Ohio, is trash. It is not a “verified” or “official” copy, so it’s not good enough for Texas. Goodness Gracious! The F’eral government trusted me to work on their jets, but Texas doesn’t trust me on the road.

Well, there’s no point sprinting if I’ve already missed the bus! So, I turned my attention to more pressing matters, like impending surgery for my intermittently painful and ever more sensitive herniated inguinal wall, or contemplating “the letter” (a seemingly contentious missive that arrived in an untimely fashion insofar as my heart and head were focused more on my immediate physical issues; delicate little feelings, especially mine, would have to wait.

So I spoke to the Washington State department of vital records (or whatever they call themselves in that jurisdiction) today, put in my request so I can sooner stop defying Texan traffic dicta, pledged them sufficient electrons from my checking account, and now will await the “approved” document, then probably retest (because my DL has expired) both on paper and on the road, and maybe even bring L’Historienne with me in case I fail one of their tests and do not wish to be seen driving illegally thereafter.

Ever try to do one thing?

21 March 2023

Yet another delay. Thought I had the physical and mental capacity to try to apply for Social “Security” again. Still locked out, tried applying the “new, improved” access code, but…

“You need your reset code letter in order to continue.

Please allow 5-10 business days from the time of your original request. (If you’ve lost or misplaced your letter, you may request a new letter to be sent to you.)”

So, back on delay, until yet another letter arrives to mislead me.

Well, at least, post surgery, I am even more fit to work than before (though still just two days a week), so I’m not eating my savings quite as fast as I could. Maybe once the Feds decide it’s safe (from baseless criticism) to stop insisting that we all pretend to be surgeons, maybe I can just show up in person and slog through the whole humiliating process step by arbitrary step.

(“The letter” will just have to wait for a little more.
Seems like more crap I don’t need just yet. Still.)

cover illustration by Frank Frazetta.  Used without permission.  Piracy Press is a non-profit enterprise dedicated to the preservation and distribution of great art and ripping good yarns.
Digital Damage by Lethargy Lad.
Price per issue:  Ten Centigrams Gold.
Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  Reader discretion is advised.

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Behind Two Lines

1 September 2021

I seem to have two lines of tolerance.  The first one is like the Amber Alert (or yellow traffic lights.)  It warns me that I’ve been pushed, but not too hard.  That one is annoying, but tolerable.  I’ve straddled that line for years.  I can be pushed over and over, and I usually bounce back.  That’s probably how I stayed married as long as I did.  I like what’s on the sunnier side of that line.

The second one is more dire.  That’s the Red Alert (or “Battle Stations!”) line.  It’s the line of, “I’m fed up and I’m not taking any more of your shit.”  Or maybe it’s, “I’m now going to give you more shit than you can tolerate,” or simply, “I don’t trust you.”  There’s never an answer to, “I don’t trust you,” because I have no control over another’s mind.

After I’ve finally been pushed over the second line, I seldom return to the first.  If I did, I’d risk getting close enough to be hurt again, and I don’t care for that.

For a while I thought these lines of tolerance applied solely to my love life but I’m now finding the thoughts of muzzling up and surrendering my weapons for the sake of air travel to be equally onerous, and unless I am overcome by duress, I expect I won’t be flying commercially any time soon, even if the facial diapering were to be suspended.  When the TSA (They’ll Steal Anything) stripped me of my knives a generation ago, I relented because I lived on Hawai’i and yearned to see my mainland friends as well as to conduct business on the neighbor islands.  I presently live on North America along with most of the rest of my scattered social set, so I reckon I’ll mostly manage via surface travel.  Unless sanity prevails.  Then I can go back to packing while flying.

I guess I have a wide margin of tolerance.  At least in the matter of air travel, by a couple of decades.  In more personal relationships the margin is more like a couple of years.  I’m stubborn.  And optimistic. 

But eventually I stay pushed.

“It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.”
— Oscar Levant

230404 — Remind yourselves of my failures, as you would not want to forget them.
People try to warn me against being “left behind” by new tech (I’m retarded), new trends (I am not impressed), and new fantasies (I’m ALREADY too nice to be a Democrat® and too smart to be a Republican®, you think I’ll fall for THAT nonsense?).
Don’t think of it so much as being “left behind” but more as “not being bugged by you idiots.”

above: image attributed to Steven Stahlberg by Chupapi Prank

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Return of the Angry Fan

22 September 2022

“How do you remain so cheerful,” ask many a customer at the QuikkStopp®, “with all these jerks giving you a hard time?”

“It’s because I know that life is harsh, people are stupid, work sucks, and that making things worse doesn’t make them any better.”

Like many of my quick quips on the job, that usually elicits a laugh.
Humor is truth.

One of the things that make my job bearable is the opportunity to interact with customers and to get them to laugh at important truths (and to get them to stop blaming US for constantly rising prices.) When customers are ready to settle up, and they haul out their bank cards I will often advise them to: “Check in with our cybernetic overlords and give them a chance to gossip about your credit,” or “Report to our robot rulers and entreat their mercies,” or “Deliver your number up unto the Beast and let Leviathan look you over.” Most will then slide or insert their card, tickle the keypad, and otherwise not overtly react to my riff. Others will laugh, and many will comment something on the order of “Isn’t that the fuckin’ truth,” or “You got that right!”

Like Tom Joad, the Angry Fan can appear anywhere and anytime. Whenever individualist rhetoric, proper English, precise speech, colorful metaphors, or accurate descriptions are employed, he is there to piss on your picnic.

It was near the end of my shift a couple of months back, and a customer finished perusing our aisles and brought his purchase to my till. I added it all up and bagged it, then quoted our price. He whipped out his card and I reflexively went into my routine. I don’t remember specifically which schtick I used, but his reaction was odd.

“Do you always talk like that?” he asked, though maybe not in so many words. I wasn’t taking notes.

“Speaking English and telling the truth? I hope so.”

Again, paraphrasing from imperfect memory, “I don’t need to hear about any goddam machine masters (or robot rulers?). I saw my buddies killed in combat, and for you to just sit there…” And he trailed off. There were other details that I forget, but that was his apparent gist. As he seemed to channel Sean Hannity or Keith Olberman or some other sage pontificator in his vigorous denunciation, he stopped. Perhaps he realized that he would actually have had no opportunity to see me sitting. I get very little sit-down time on this job and have zero guaranteed uninterrupted breaks. Maybe he was embarrassed, which I doubt; entitled children are rarely embarrassed by their misbehavior, they just don’t like getting caught. And it sounded like he’d caught himself, so he wandered off leaving me to puzzle over what had set him off, or what made him think that citing his combat experience would sway such a rigid peacenik as I. Eventually, like most other ephemeral nuisances, I put him out of my head.

Last night he returned. I guess. I didn’t recognize him from our previous encounter, but I’m retarded, so I don’t remember people’s faces, voices, names, or proclivities until after I’ve dealt with them three or four times. Or it may have been an equally cranky ex-GI with similar issues. At any rate, not being forewarned to tiptoe around his delicate little feelings, I simply continued the same routine I’d been practicing all night. So I added up his stuff, quoted the price, and upon seeing his card, encouraged him to “Go ahead and slide it, plug it in, or tap it, whatever it takes to activate your account, and give the computers a moment to discuss your credit with their electric friends.”

“Stop that!” he said.

“I would so love to,” I answered.

“I served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I know they’re always watching us! I don’t need you to remind me! What’s your problem?”

I love questions more than statements at times like these, because questions (if taken one at a time rather than multiply as a rhetorical assault) at least offer some direction. I attempted to answer him by way of listing my problems. I started: “Caries and presbyopia…” and before I could get to pointing out that former arch nemeses (aka ex-wives), among others, also thought I had Asperger’s, he interrupted. Loudly.

“Fuhfuh fuhfuhfuhfuhfuh!” he said. (If that’s how he heard “caries and presbyopia” then perhaps he also misheard “report to our robot rulers” as “I will fuck your mother until she’s dead and then I’ll murder your children.” Or something. I don’t understand elective anger.

But he wasn’t finished with me yet, or so he thought. He began to escalate when the assistant manager of the shop, with whom I was working last night, suddenly appeared at my shoulder and said, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the store.” As AssMan led him out he continued loudly spewing his anger and distress to the world and I attended to the next customer in line, quivering and shaking inside from the encounter, but not affecting my customary good humor externally. AssMan returned to the shop and asked me if I was okeh, and I assured him that I was. “I can’t tell what set him off,” said AssMan. “Maybe PTSD.”

“You’re very generous,” I said. “GIs tend to be less sympathetic than civilians are about such things. We’re supposed to be trained better.”

“Roger that!” said a customer who’d witnessed the ugly episode. “In fact,” she continued, “I’m just the person you wanted on the scene in case that asshole went sideways on us. I was an MP in Iraq, and I had to deal with a lot of jerks like that.”

AssMan nodded, and said, “Yeah, well, we just can’t have that kind of noise in the shop. I’m sorry if you feel I interrupted.”

“Nah, I get it,” I answered. “I think maybe I’ve got a higher tolerance for noise than you have. I’ve raised three children, and sometimes you just have to let baby cry it out. But thanks anyway. He was a putz.”

“You need to take a break or something?”

“Uh… yeah. It’s about time I took a stab at lunch anyway.” I closed up my till and fetched my poke out of the cooler. After managing to get a few bites down I gave up on the attempt and returned to my station. “I’m not always as calm as I appear on the outside,” I told AssMan. “My guts are still too clenched up for me to eat anything right now, so I might as well get back to work.” After a while, and several customers later, I said, “You know, not everybody who uses a crutch is a pathetic loser. But if that crutch is ‘I’m a vet’ and is being brandished as a license to be a jerk, he almost certainly is.”

update 221019: AssMan reports that the Angry Fan returned to our shop a few days ago and apologized, describing his own behavior as buffoonish. As AssMan was only one of several of us exposed to that passionate tirade, he thought that the one apology was insufficient. I pointed out that it was a good start and a wholesome sign. I like to be optimistic about people, and I am particularly pleased when such hopes are vindicated, even if only in part.

thoughts on 230312: It’s possible that none of this is true. It could just be some deep subconscious allegory for the smoldering resentment one feels for other angry fans. While “the Angry Fan” may have been intended as a generic construct to embody a variety of irrational and over-wrought emotional responses to innocuous “offenses” (kneeling for the anthem, spitting on the sidewalk, disrespecting the troops, not being as a-scared of the latest popular terror as we should) I’m beginning lately to discern the talents of the eagerly aggrieved and their understanding that it is at all times always about them.

230611 — Are Angry Fans still “feelin’ (bomp bomp) [mad] all over (bomp bomp) [mad] all over, now that [I’m gah-ah-ah, ah-ahne]?”

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Organic Chicken Milk

13 September 2022

correspondent Yogup Vigow “loves that such progress has been made with GMOs, and can’t wait for low-fat carrots.”

I attempted to cackle at the actual photograph, captured in the wild, but only guffawed. Still, it piqued some thoughts.

Chickens are omnivores, and free ranging often provides the best eggs, whereas cattle are herbivores, so “vegetarian based” milk is stupid and redundant, but probably stupid intentionally for purposes of marketing, which leads me to…

The words “organic,” “natural,” or “non-GMO” often appear on products that I buy, but only incidentally, as I don’t care. As a genetically modified organism myself (thanks evolution!) I appreciate the bounty that human interference has wrought! I read the labels for amusement, and the listed ingredients for guidance.

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The Ups

24 December 2017

As long as I can remember I’ve been beset by The Ups.

Because I am lazy and averse to confrontation, I tend to let small offenses slide. Since many nuisances are ephemeral, there’s often no practical benefit to correcting the thoughtless and the discourteous. Rather than SPEAKING UP about a small issue, I’ll blow it off. Unfortunately, to the commonest form of ignorant savage, such a demeanor is oft taken as approval of their misbehavior, so they “think” that “it don’t matter.”

Then, once I’ve reached my saturation point, I will elaborate over what I see as an accumulation of offenses, and what the malefactor feels is an isolated incident. So I’ll go on and on and on to the point of hectoring tedium. In short, I have a hard time, once I get started, with SHUTTING UP.

Finally, as a frequently stubborn monomaniac, I can immerse myself in a puzzle or problem or project, often to the point of oblivious unconcern for other pressing issues. Once I get my teeth into a problem I am disinclined to let it go. As an engineer or an accountant, I understand that we will reach an “optimum solution” to a problem, or a realization that said problem is not really worth pursuing, but as an up-challenged fellow, I still have a very hard time GIVING UP.

I rarely quit, and if it appears from the outside that I have, I would caution observers against mistaking giving up for chickening out. I’m no quitter, but I am a coward. And that explains my relationship with tobacco. I love tobacco. I love the smell, the taste, and the psychoactive effect. It’s a wonder drug! I did not love the rattle in my chest when, as a much younger man, I had simply trotted up two flights of stairs. I have not tasted it since 1989, and, like Killer, what I miss most about it is blowing smoke in the faces of people who tell me I should quit. But I’m no longer a practicing butthead, so I don’t get to do that anymore.

above, Killer and his pal Beetle Bailey hitting on an Italian babe.
by Mort Walker

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Contra Krugman

23 August 2022

Bob (“The MurphDawg“) Murphy is like the zestiest of spices. I don’t want a pure diet of him, but when he’s not there I miss him. Why can’t “Contra Krugman” (and the Contra Cruise) be revived with a rotating roster of analysts, featuring occasionally, among others, Bob & Tom (“The Old Man“) Woods themselves?
(and because I’m vain, and prideful and lustful &c… I’d like credit for suggesting it)

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Injecting a Third Dimension

19 August 2022

Give the Yang Gang credit for their latest shot at relevance.

The present political landscape, dominated as it is by Repucrats and Demoblicans, is pretty flat and two-dimensional. Still with only two dimensions, we have identified a number of directions. Broadly speaking, Dems go left, Reps go right, Reds and Greens go down, and Libertutionists and Constitarians rise above.

But now we have Andrew Yang showing us the way Forward.
Smells to me like that Progressive scam that’s been skewering us for the last century or so.

(credit where it’s due: Responding to Yang’s consistent citation of “common sense consensus,” Jolly Jimmy Acosta describes the group as a “fill in the blank party.”)