Category: Current Events

What Does the Comey Firing Mean?

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If you look at the various news aggregation sites, you’ll find any number of articles that explain how Trump’s firing of Comey will either:

  1. Cause the end of democracy in America, or
  2. Trigger Trump’s impeachment and guillotining

So, where does this leave us normal people? Well, as I usually exclaim in my magisterial fashion, “Damned if I know.”  Does Comey and Obama’s people have some kind of deep game that they are trying to play that will hobble or destroy Trump and his administration?  Maybe?  Is Trump counterattacking with the full force of the executive branch’s formidable resources?  Could be?  Or is this just Trump clearing the decks to get his own guys in there to move on to new business?  Sure, why not?

For even a staunch supporter of the “Troller-in-Chief”, such as myself, it sometimes seems like this administration punishes its supporters as much as its enemies. Honestly, on a daily basis I reach the giddy heights of schadenfreude with the release of the latest Hillary rant, followed by a plunge into the stygian depths of terror when a sophomoric presidential tweet erupts onto the media scene.  It’s exhausting.

But I’m in this thing for the long haul and Trump’s is the star that I’ve hitched my wagon to. I’m gonna give him as much slack as I have and let him get it done.  Firing Comey seems like exactly the opposite play from a JEB! or Romney move.  This tells me it’s probably smart (or at least brave).  Some people are saying that Trump’s motive is to get a team into the FBI to start pursuing Hillary and/or the leakers from Obama’s people.  These sound like high risk moves.  And that makes me think high risk/high reward.  It’s entirely possible we have someone with guts in the White House.  Good.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few days. Right now Schumer is calling for a special prosecutor.  Blumenthal is accusing the administration of treason.  I’m guessing if the democrats weren’t all atheists there would be charges of heresy.  What would be indicative of Trump effectiveness would be if the administration can start getting ahead of the democrats in the news cycle and produce indictments of someone on the other side.  I’d love to see some democrat operative testifying under immunity and naming names.  Can you just imagine the howls of pain if some of the actual villains were unmasked and the sausage making that went on in the White House last year came to light?  Who knows?  Maybe even Saint Barack might appear with his halo slipping down a little if enough prosecutorial pressure was applied to the right Obama flunky.  Admittedly that’s just my dream version of how the post-Obama landscape could play out.  More likely it would just tend to silence the press if they thought that pursuing the leaks would go away if they gave Trump some good press.  So let’s see who’s winning and who’s losing.  We should know soon.

Bathtub Nitroglycerine and Perpetual Motion Machines

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Families are a great invention.  They allow us to remember stuff from long ago and be young again.  Case in point, I have a descendant who is in middle school.  He is forever describing to me machines he has invented that turn kinetic energy and wind and sunlight into potential energy stored in batteries and flywheels and allowing him to perpetually power the imaginary kingdom he rules with an iron hand.  On a fairly frequent interval I remind him of the three laws of thermodynamics and the scourge of entropy.  He laughs it off as fake news.  Apparently, his generation has formulated the fourth law, magic.

All of these flights of fancy reminded me of my own early technological history.  As a youngster, I had a fascination with chemistry.  I quickly graduated from the hobbyist set up with a few bottles of sodium bisulfate, test tubes and an alcohol lamp to a professional ground glass distillation set up, temperature controlled electric heating, reagent bottles full of mineral acids and even some formidable organic solvents.  I searched in arcane book stores for the organic chemistry recipes and set-ups that allowed for practical synthesis of various compounds that in my young mind were interesting.  At one point, I obtained an old organic chemistry text that was part of a medical school curriculum from the 1920s.  It included a number of compounds that interested me including nitroglycerine and trinitrotoluene.  I went as far as obtaining all the reagents, equipment and vessels I would need to perform the reaction.  On the day I had set for producing the first batch I was walking down to the supermarket to buy the fifty pounds of ice I needed to cool the reaction when it occurred to me that this might just possibly be a “bad idea.”  You see I remembered that nitroglycerine was a material that wasn’t just dangerous during production but remained sensitive to heat and vibration at all times.  Not owning a reinforced concrete bunker, I realized that after I manufactured the “soup” I had no place to keep it.  Well, no place that would survive a detonation.  Now you might think that this kind of rational evaluation would have steered me clear of all pyrotechnic and explosive materials.  You would be wrong.  The extent of my caution was to shift over to something less unstable but equally exothermic.  I started working with thermite.  In these post 9-11 days I imagine my experiments would probably fall under the heading of possible terror activity.  Back then they were the stuff of Fourth of July celebratory hijinks.  But even these relatively tame and successful forays into amateur pyrotechnics now give me pause.  Just precisely how stupid is a teenage boy when it comes to unsafe activities.  The answer comes back loud and clear.  Infinitely stupid.  I can remember what back then seemed to me to be failsafe precautions.  In hindsight what I see was ignorance and just plain dumb luck.  And that really frightens me.

Needless to say, these memories inform my present situation.  It occurs to me that the adults around when I was hatching my munitions program thought that my forays into chemistry were altogether benign and to be encouraged.  Hmmm.  Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  Not just the Shadow.  Any man who was ever a fourteen year-old boy knows too.

I intend to monitor my young Archimedes’ progress with an eye for safety.  I have gotten him some books on electricity and machines that stress safety and standard components.  I know he has an interest in robotics.  And I know he enjoys BattleBots so I will keep an eye out for any indication that his creations will include cutting surfaces or kinetic devices such as circular saw blades or pneumatic hammers.  If my cautionary tale rings any bells in your own case, remember, the apple does not fall far from the tree.

TCM Goes Full Nitwit

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Like many right-wing folk I was raised on the movies that were made in the Golden Age of Hollywood.  Many of the movies made in the ‘30s and ‘40s possess a charm and appeal completely lacking in later decades.  They reflect (or maybe echo) qualities of a culture and people that are appealing even to the decadent descendants of that world living in the tattered remains of today.

That’s why even though Robert Osborne, the late host of Turner Classic Movies, was an obvious member of the Hollywood leftist fraternity it was still worth my while to tune in to TCM and watch the films.  For the most part I didn’t even mind listening to him discuss the movies either directly to the tv audience or as a dialog with some other Hollywood boob.  As annoying as it was to hear Osborne discussing aspects of the film with the likes of Alec Baldwin or Sally Field it was still bearable for the most part.  Osborne rarely went full tilt commie during these discussions so the tooth gritting quotient was still acceptable.

As Osborne aged, management must have decided that they needed a succession plan.  To this end they installed an auxiliary host in the person of Ben Mankiewicz.  Ben is the grandson of a Hollywood screenwriter and a strident leftist who appeared alongside the “Young Turks” during the 2016 presidential election results while they were melting down on camera.  Occasionally his moonbattery has been on display but like Osborne he was usually able to keep his affliction under control.

Well, last month Osborne died.  I guess Mankiewicz is nominally the host now.  But several new hosts have been trotted out.  Diversity, of course, is being touted in the choice of genders and races on display for these new hosts and based on the complete lack of name or face recognition associated with them I’m guessing they are essentially unknowns and therefore extremely economical employees for TCM to utilize.  Well, what can you do?  It’s not as if Osborne was any big star.  I think his claim to fame was that he knew some of the golden age actresses personally and was able to get them to appear on the show for interviews.  These new hosts blather on from their points of view but they’re not that much worse than the old act.

But now we’re reaching a new level of abuse.  Tonight, the presentation of “The Bad and the Beautiful” was co-hosted by Alec Baldwin and David Letterman.  Now this is a level of toxic television viewing that I would compare with having to listen to Sauron chatting with Saruman about the latest advances in orc breeding.  We have reached the limit.  I assume a meltdown is imminent.  It will probably occur during a John Wayne western and will involve words like imperialism, cultural appropriation, patriarchy and racial genocide.  At that point, I’ll either have to cancel TCM or shove my foot through the LED screen.

To combat the sense of loss I feel at having to cede yet another familiar cultural facet to the leftist demolition brigade I have decided to add classic movie reviews as a regular part of this blog.  In the past I have endeavored to mix in a few sci-fi and western movies into my normal “current events” posts.  Going forward I propose to increase them and expand the selection to golden age and equivalent quality later films that I think will be of interest to my readers (and you know who you are!).

So farewell Robert Osborne, you were a mostly benign lefty host of TCM.  You are sorely missed now that we know what’s coming next.

You Mean the Sky is Not Falling?

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Andrew Klavan has been making me laugh and think since I found him at PJ Media about a decade ago.  His “Klavan on the Culture” videos were hilarious and brilliant skewering of leftist thought and action that brightened up many a depressing day of the Bush and Obama presidencies.  He continues his video presence on the Daily Wire but he put up an article at PJ Media that was linked on Real Clear Politics     ( https://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2017/05/05/thanks-gop/  ) that I think addressed the endless negativity that not only defines the MSM but also infects right wing publications on a daily basis.  Klavan is far from a Trump cheerleader.  He’s a smart guy who sees the contradictions we are living with.  The alleged intellectual leaders of the republican party were complicit with the progressives in handing over the government (all three branches) to radicals who have basically dismantled our world and reassembled it into a grotesque parody that assaults our moral and physical senses with its depravity.  The spectacle of men masquerading as women in every corner of the public space is only the latest symptom of the systemic infection that has been allowed to overrun the normal outline of our world.  It’s a case of life outdoing art and so much so that a Fellini movie would now be considered a taming down of the real world.

So, the thesis of his article is that Trump and the Congress should be cut a little slack.  They have lately been making headway in reining in the excesses of the former administration and have even made some progress toward improving the situation.  One point that I thought was important, was that Trump took advantage of a rule (the Congressional Review Act) that allows any government regulation less than 60 days old to be deleted with almost no effort at all.  He set about the job of negating all the poison pill regulations that Obama enacted after finding out Trump had won the election.  Klavan noted that the New York Times (“a former newspaper” as he always adds) decried this Trump action, in a tear drenched article, as a part of the demolition of the Obama legacy.  This panic on the left hardly jibes with the non-stop lamentations that the right wing has been ululating for the last week or so.  So, what is going on then?  Who is right?

Isn’t it lucky for all of you that I’m here in all of my Olympian objectivity and divine wisdom to pronounce on who is right and who is wrong and the generic whichness of what?

Of course it is.

Well they’re both right (of course).  The right wing faithful are rightly aggrieved at the current state of affairs and the slowness of improvement.  With the Presidency, the Congress and the Supreme Court all nominally under right wing majority you would expect the guillotine working overtime piling up the severed heads of progressive malefactors at the base of Capitol Hill.  You would imagine Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and Barney Frank would be in the docket trying to plead for clemency while a special prosecutor was loading up a list of high crimes and misdemeanors long enough to reach the orbit of Mars.  Rats like Stephen Colbert, Lena Dunham and Al Gore would be reduced to pushing shopping carts around on the streets of Los Angeles hoping to score a cheese rind or grapefruit peel from the dumpster behind the local Trader Joe’s.

And the republicans in government are right to remember how the American people punished them for shutting down the government when Clinton rejected their budget balancing work in the 1990s.  That left a mark that they never forgot.  Careers were ended and democrats took seats in red states.  It’s pretty much a truism that people get the government that they deserve.

So I’m going to throw the tie to Trump on this one.  He’s making a dent.  And one other thing Klavan notes in his article, Trump’s continual trolling of the left is a gift that keeps on giving.  It enrages them and provokes them to ever higher heights of moonbattery (e.g. Colbert’s recent ravings).  These people have reached a frothing state that’s bound to take a toll on their public image.  Whereas Trump’s rating seems to be slightly rising.

So in conclusion, the sky is not falling and I’m not even close to being tired of winning.

Wherefore Art Thou Shmoe-meo?

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The Last 1360 Days of the Trump Presidency

 

Lycra Spandexy (LS) – Oh Shmoe-meo, Shmoe-meo, wherefore art thou Shmoe-meo?

Morning Shmoe (MS) – I’m right here at the teleprompter and it’s 37 seconds past the quarter hour my dear Lycra.

LS – Oh, Shmoe-meo renounce thy father’s name, for I refuse to become Lycra Spandexy-Browfurrowed.  A girl can only endure so much.  You’re a modern metrosexual man.  Take Spandexy as your last name. Shmoe Spandexy has a kind of alliterative magic to it.

MS – Sure baby, a rose by any other name would blah, blah, blah.  Just as long as we tie the knot before Chris Cashews is on the show again.  He’s getting that tingle up his leg again and I don’t think either one of us is safe alone with him during commercial breaks.

LS – Wow, that’s grim.  Okay I am sold oh Shmoe-meo.  I’ll make the announcement on-air and the joyous huzzahs will resound around the set.

MS – Uh, yeah sure.  And three, two, one!

LS – And we’re back.  During the break, Morning Shmoe agreed to become my husband and equal partner for life.

MS – You said it toots.

LS – And since we’re both delirious with joy, we wanted our audience to be the first to know.

MS – And since this is the network that never stops pushing, we’re going to turn today’s show into a forum devoted to giving us the best advice for our life together.  Lycra, who do we have scheduled for the panel?

LS – First up is our very own Snarkful Sadclown.  And who better than an androgynous lesbian to help me pick out my wedding dress?

Snarkful Sadclown (SS) – Well, Lycra, if you really intend to degrade your body by becoming a walking biological function and a chattel handmaiden for the patriarchy, the least I can do is make sure you arrive in comfortable loafers and a sensible pantsuit from the Hillary Collection.

LS – But Mommy and Daddy said I’d look like a princess!

SS – This ain’t your Mommy’s network Princess.  And I’d recommend a number two buzzcut for the hairstyle.  That’s right, this is real, you aren’t dreaming, this your life.

LS – Why do you keep saying that?

SS – You-Tube said it gets clicks.

MS – Next up is noted gender studies authority and NY Times bestselling author of, “Painful Changes, Wardrobe Choices,” Dave-Sue Haddgonadds.  Good morning Dr. Haddgonadds.  Am I pronouncing that correctly?

Dave-Sue Haddgonadds (DSH) – The dees are silent, you silly man.

MS – My apologies.  Dr., what can I learn from you to make my marriage more fulfilling?

DSH – First of all, Shmoe, be aware that even contemplating yet another marriage between white, heterosexual, cis-gendered people is a crime against all LGBTQ and people of color.  You are transgressing against the gorgeous mosaic that is the American life of today.  It is vibrant, it is diverse and it will not be flouted by your retrogressive, hate-filled choices.

LS – Yes but we are white, heterosexual, cis-gendered people.

DSH – That’s no excuse.  Nowadays, options in transgender hormone therapy and transformative surgery allow any number of alternative body choices.  For instance, Shmoe, I envision you as a five foot three inch tall black woman with a penchant for shall we say alimentary amorous pursuits.

MS – Five foot three?

DSH – Yes Dr. Farber is a virtuoso with the bone saw.

MS – I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of gender reassignment surgery.

DSH – No problem.  There’s no pressure whatsoever.  Our motto is “If you like your genitalia you can keep your genitalia.”

MS – Somehow, that’s less than totally reassuring.

DSH – And you, Lycra, would be just a stunning creature at 6’ 3’’with a Douglas Fairbanks Jr. mustache and a Heidelberg scar.

LS – But I want to be a princess!

DSH – Fine.  We’ll compromise You can be bi-sexual.  See I’m willing to meet you half way.

MS – Dr., I hope during the break we can find some common ground on our vision of married life but first let me introduce our next panelist.  He’s the greatest living authority on pre-nuptial agreements Tad Litigious.  Good morning Counselor, am I pronouncing that correctly?

Tad Litigious (TL) – No, Shmoe, the vee is silent.

MS – But there is no vee.

TL – That’s why it’s silent.

MS – Okay, Tad, what do I need to know about the legal aspects of marriage.

TL – Well, first off Shmoe, you’re gonna need an ironclad pre-nup before you sign up for this rodeo.

MS – Why?  Lycra and I are modern people with deep empathy for each other and compatible views on life and social responsibility.  I respect her as a strong independent woman and I embrace her life choices both personally and professionally.

TL – Sure you do Poindexter.  But listen to Uncle Tad for a minute and I’ll set you straight on a couple of items.  So, you two are on the same wavelength and believe in all the same touchy-feely talking points.  Super-duper.  But let’s look about five years down the road.  By then little blondie over there is just a skosh less perky here and there and your network will be replacing her with the twinkie du jure.  Now based on what I’ve heard from the two of you, Little Miss Muffet over there isn’t going to go into the baby raising business for you.  She’s gonna shop her act around the networks and she’ll end up parked on the Home Shopping Network with the rest of the over the hill bimbos and probably putting down about a pint of gin every a.m. before curtain.  My guess is you’re the kind of old boy who’ll find the twinkie du jure sort of interesting and with one thing following another, I’m guessing you’ll be calling me up and handing me a seven-figure retainer to help you switch around Mrs. Browfurroweds.  Now, if you don’t have a pre-nup in place, she’ll get 85% of your stuff.  If you have one she’ll get 55%.  So, it’s your call.  I get paid either way.

MS – Well Tad, that all seems very unlikely, (sotto voce) call me later.

LS – Hey I heard that!

MS – Well that’s all the time we have, but I just want all our guests to know that we valued their advice and with any luck at all we will have a full and happy life as man and wife.  Or as something and something and for some reasonable length of time.  But for me and Lycra…

LS – Up yours Shmoe!

MS – Here’s to a happy and progressive today.

The Last 1360 Days of the Trump Presidency

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Morning Shmoe 2

(The set of the Morning Shmoe News Show)

Morning Schmoe (MS) – It’s sixty seven seconds past the quarter hour and we’re back at the Morning Schmoe Show.  I’m the eponymous Schmoe Browfurrowed and I’m joined by my lovely and enthusiastic co-host Lycra Spandexy.

Lycra Spandexy (LS) – I am lovely and enthusiastic, amn’t I?

MS – Yes you are Lycra and we wouldn’t have you any other way.  It’s actually in your contract.  And now here’s the rest of our panel.  First up, former disgraced journalist and now shameless democrat shill Mike Carbuncle.

Mike Carbuncle (MC) – I like to say semi-disgraced.

MS – Yes you do. Next up, my fellow network superstar host and advocate for comfortable women’s shoes Snarkful Sadclown.

Snarkful Sadclown (SS) – Everyone should wear them.

MS – Well almost everyone.  Not you Lycra.

LS – Oh thank God.  No offense Snarky.

SS – Almost none taken Lycra.

MS – And finally my other fellow network superstar host Chris Cashews.

Chris Cashews (CC) – Ooh, just hearing my name gives me that tingle up my leg.

SS – Please try to pace yourself Chris.  It’s a three-hour show.

MS – Well gang, let’s get right down to it.  Fraudulent and illegal President Trump has just passed the 100-day mark of his fraudulent and illegal presidency.

LS – He’s so not good!  If I was allowed to hate people I’d hate him.  And I’d hate his wife who is older than me and not young like I am.  I’m not old yet you know.

MC – That was very well put Lycra.  You are very young.  And your platinum blonde hair reminds me of the time I interviewed beautiful Hollywood blonde bombshell Jean Harlow right after she starred with Clark Gable in 1933’s Red Dust.

SS – But you would have been four years old in 1933.

MC – Yes, I was quite precocious.

MS – Getting back on track.  We are here to look objectively at the events of the last 100 days and without bias decide exactly where it became a failed presidency.

CC – That won’t be too hard at all.  Back when I was working for storied Speaker of the House, Slip  O’Peel, we had a saying, “The buck stops here.”

SS – Didn’t well-known racist and US President Harry S. Truman say that?

CC – Oh, he said it too but he stole it from us.

SS – But O’Peel would have only been 13 when Truman was quoted as saying it.

CC – Yes, he was precocious.  Anyway, my point is that obviously, Trump’s presidency became a failed one on Inauguration Day when he failed to use his entire speech as a hymn of praise to Barack Hussein Obama, the most gifted and beloved person ever to occupy the Oval Office.  Did I ever tell you the time I got this tingle up my leg during one of his speeches?

MS – Yes, Chris you have.  But we’ve really got to move on now.  Well, folks, Chris says Inauguration Day.  Any other opinions?

LS – Yes Shmoe.  I think it happened later.  I think it happened when he was mean to those reporters on TV.  Reporters (and TV people in general) are the best and nicest people in the world.  Being mean to them is like really not good.  That is when I feel his presidency failed.

SS – Wow Lycra, compared to Chris and Mike your thesis was surprisingly free of anachronisms.

LS – Thanks Snarky I can see that you respect my intellect.

SS – Sure.

LS – By the way what’s an actronism?

SS – Never mind.

MS – Okay Mike care to share your opinion?

MC – Certainly Shmoe.  This presidency officially ended when Trump nominated Gorsuch.  When Trump told the country that Gorsuch represented the highest standards of judicial competency he overplayed his hand.  To quote from my highly popular and respected blog post of that day, I extemporized, “Mr President, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”  Man was I on fire in that post!

SS – Wait, Abraham Lincoln said that!

MC – He stole it from me.

SS – But that would make you two hundred years old!

MC – I don’t think it’s polite to discuss people’s age.  Even if they aren’t nominally women.

LS – Yes, Snarky.  That’s wrong and hurtful.

SS – Oh good grief.  This is almost as bad as election night.  This is not a dream and this is really happening.  Maybe I should cut a deal with Fox.

MS – Mike, Lycra that’s enough.  We can’t work out the chronological details of all these people right here and now.  Let’s just agree that the Trump administration is already over.

All Participants – Oh yeah;…  That’s for sure;…  Damn straight;…  I’ll say.

MS – So the question that has to be answered is what exactly is going to be going on for the next 1,360 days?

LS – Well Shmoe, don’t you think that evil Trump and his evil people will see that they’re beaten and run away?

MS – Well Lycra, you might think so but it’s a funny thing.  Not everyone is as reasonable as we are.  I’m afraid Trump thinks that elections have consequences.

MC – Hey he can’t use that line, it’s an Obama copyright.

MS – Something ironic about that.

MC – What do you mean?

MS – Oh forget it.  Well anyway, let’s just say that if we just keep saying that this is a failed presidency long enough and often enough the public will believe it.

SS – I’m not so sure.  Have you noticed that the last few surveys say the public trusts us less than Trump?

MS – Yeah but once we tell them that Trump is a greedy billionaire and we’re honest friends of the common man they’ll believe all the crap we tell them, right?

SS – But that’s what I’m trying to tell you.  They don’t believe that anymore.

MS – But why?

MC – Maybe because we backed the BLM movement and the Antifa and the White Privilege whiners and the Transgender bathroom crowd and the illegal rights groups and …

SS – Hey, those are my viewers!

MS – Yeah but look at our ratings.  They’re not that much right?  Looks like we may be outnumbered in this thing.

LS – But Shmoe, we won, didn’t we?  We’ll be all right now and Hillary will be President and we’ll live happily ever after.  Won’t we?

MS – I wish I knew Lycra, I wish I knew.

 

Wherefore Art Thou Shmoe-meo?

Morning Shmoe 2 – Trump Hates Bannon!!!  Just Saying.

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Chris Buskirk over at American Greatness is fast becoming one of my favorite reads.  He had a great article ( https://amgreatness.com/2017/04/15/foolish-choose-morning-joe-crowd-bannon-voters/ ) that has once again inspired me to revisit our friends at Morning Shmoe.

 

Scene: Studio Set at Morning Shmoe

Shmoe Browfurrowed (AKA Morning Shmoe) (MS) – It’s three and a half minutes before the quarter hour and we’re back.  Lycra have you heard the latest evidence about how Trump has already eliminated Steve Bannon and is about to replace him with Barney Frank.

Lycra Spandexy (LS) – No Shmoe, tell me all about it.

MS – Well it’s obvious to anyone paying attention.  Trump is wearing ties.  And as you all know Bannon doesn’t wear a tie.  You do the math!

LS – That’s so true!  Well now that Barney Frank is the virtual president what wonderful changes do you forsee?

MS – As first order of business, Melania will be eliminated as First Lady, either by divorce or deportation and Caitlyn Jenner installed in that position.  Next Ivanka will begin the slow, deliberate process of becoming Ivanko.  After that Trump will begin his transition which will culminate in him grabbing herself.

LS – It just writes itself, doesn’t it Shmoe?

MS – Yeah, sort of.

LS – Shmoe, what do you think caused the original loss of trust between Trump and Bannon.

MS – Well Lycra, we may never truly know but we can speculate.

LS – Can we?

MS – Oh, not only can we but we will.  We’ve still got several hundred words to add before this post is full.

LS – Post?

MS – Nothing, nothing.  Anyway, if you remember during the election it was rumored that Donald Trump had become a werewolf or possibly a loup garou.

LS – Yes, that was definitely a theory that swirled around the press corp.

MS – Well, I recently heard from someone (or possibly from a voice inside my head) that Bannon had become a vampire or some other type of undead.

LS – Well, that would explain a lot of things.

MS – Yes it would Lycra, yes it would.  After all, if Underworld has taught us anything it’s that lycanthropes and vampires are always enemies.  Also, we haven’t seen Bannon during the day recently.  And he is obviously suffering from a skin condition brought on by his vampiric aversion to sunlight.

LS – Of course, why didn’t I realize this before?

MS – Because it’s only obvious after a great mind points it out.

LS – Oh Shmoe, you are wise.  But where do we go from here.  Now that progressives are firmly in charge of the US executive branch again what is the next order of business?

MS – There are so many Obama initiatives that are languishing and that need a few trillions of taxpayer dollars to really perk up.  I would say that a new cabinet level department is the first order of business.  The Department of Black Lives Matter is the unofficial name I heard mentioned (by a voice in my head) but the name is secondary.  The important thing is eliminating this whole law enforcement and justice concept that has somehow infected our government for too long.

LS – Shmoe, that’s marvelous.  And to think, the Trump administration hasn’t even acknowledged Bannon’s departure yet.  What are they waiting for?

MS – I would guess it has to do with the cycles of the moon.  Lycanthrope/vampire interactions are far from an exact science.  My guess is the announcement will occur at the new moon.  That’s April 26th to you normals.

LS – Shmoe, isn’t it great to be living in this best of all possible worlds?

MS – Yes it is Lycra, Yes it is.

 

The Last 1360 Days of the Trump Presidency

Morning Shmoe

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I read the following article this morning ( https://amgreatness.com/2017/04/12/dont-fall-morning-joes-propaganda-bannon/ ).  It inspired the following parody.

 

Location: Morning Shmoe TV Studio

Morning Shmoe (MS) – Welcome back.  It’s twenty minutes past the hour and I’ve got to say I’ve never been more pessimistic about the future of this country, this planet or this universe.  I believe, based on the universally applicable experience I gained by being a republican congressman twenty years ago, that the Trump administration is not only doomed but that putting Gorsuch on the Supreme Court will end life as we know it on planet earth and quite probably will cause the complete collapse of the universe into a singularity or as the unscientific people would say, a black hole.

Lycra Spandexy (LS) – Wow, Shmoe.  That sounds really bad.

MS – It is Lycra, it is.

LS – But Shmoe, can we say black hole?  Wouldn’t that be cultural appropriation or white privilege?

MS – No Lycra.  It’s science.  And science is settled.

LS – Well I hope all you Trump voters are satisfied.  You’ve ruined the universe.  And it was a really good universe too.  There were stars and planets and dolphins and Al Gore.

MS – That’s right Lycra.  There were many wonderful things.  But that’s all over now.  By my calculations, the whole universe will end on April 16th at 11:47 AM, Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  This final collapse will be triggered by the complete loss of credibility of the Trump Administration when everyone realizes that the Easter Bunny is a fraud and that the winner of the White House Easter Egg Hunt is fake news.

LS – Well I guess I better skip getting my hair and nails done for Easter.

MS – That’s right Lycra.  There’s no reason to do anything anymore.

LS – Thanks a lot Trump voters.  You all really stink.

MS – Yes they do Lycra, yes they do.  But I just want to throw out one small hope.  If all the Trump voters repent of their sins and demand that Trump be impeached and expelled from the White House and Hillary is allowed to ascend to the presidency and Gorsuch is replaced with a liberal and all the senators and congress persons are magically replaced with Bernie Sanders clones, then maybe, just maybe, the universe will be spared.

LS – Oh, that would be so great.  Hillary must be president.  And she’s got that great new hair-cut and those great new shoes that look so good with her white pants suit.  Oh Shmoe, make this happen.  Make the Trump voters do this.  Make them do it now.  Then I’ll know not to cancel my hair and nails appointment.  Make them do it now.

MS – I’m sorry Lycra.  But I can’t make them obey.  They are the selfish deplorables.  They hate everything good like Amtrak, tote-bags and polar bears.  They are monsters.

LS – Oh Shmoe, why is this happening?  Why aren’t the good people winning?  We’re so much smarter and prettier than these deplorables, except for Ivanka who is really very pretty and don’t you think that is wrong.  I mean, shouldn’t she be really ugly and fat and not have her own perfume?  Shouldn’t I have her perfume instead and also her daddy’s money too?

MS – Yes Lycra you should.  And that is how we know that there is no god.  If She existed She would give you all of Ivanka’s things and she would have to toil away on this stupid show instead.

LS – Oh Shmoe, you are so wise.

MS – Yes Lycra, yes I am.

Morning Shmoe 2

Bring ‘em Back Alive by Frank Buck – A Short Review

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I’m going to reference this post under both Science Fiction and Fantasy and Current Events.  Under either category an error is being committed.  But that’s the great thing about being the proprietor.  You can break the rules when it suits you.  Frank Buck was a wild animal importer back in the nineteen twenties and thirties.  He brought back never before seen creatures to Europe and America for zoos and circuses and other exhibitors.  He brought in the first Indian rhinos out of Nepal when that country was as isolated and inaccessible as the Moon is now.  His stories are full of hair-raising escapes from tigers and cobras and he fills them with exotic people from India and Southeast Asia.    The language and the characterizations of these non-western people is extremely politically incorrect even by the standards of fifty years ago.  But they are probably closer to reality than the current over-sensitive portrayals of non-western customs in the “thou shalt not offend the non-westerner” popular press.

Now the case for putting this under sf&f is because it ties into the movies King Kong, Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young.  These movies are demonstrably some amalgam of sf&f.  The fantasy of an adventurer heading off into the uncharted jungles of the still partially untamed world and bringing back some fantastic and almost mythological creature is in part based on the popularity of Frank Buck’s stories in “Bring ‘em Back Alive.”  He goes into these jungles and using contacts with the local inhabitants locates and captures these legendary creatures.  Now granted, capturing a verified man-eating tiger or the largest orangutan is a lot less spectacular than fighting dinosaurs or shooting a fifty-foot gorilla off the Empire State Building.  But in the imagination of kids in the 1930s both were more exciting than going to school or working at a shoe factory.

Reading these stories recently, I am struck by the certainty that many of the details have been exaggerated to make the story more exciting.  This is especially true of the poetic justice that catches up to a cruel Maharajah in the story Tiger Revenge.  Also, it is amazing to see how primitive the methods for transporting these amazing creatures were back in the 1920s.  Tropical primates like orangutans were loaded onto freighters that took weeks to cross the Pacific Ocean and the conditions in the hold or on the deck were pretty bad.  Add into this equation storms or even typhoons and it’s amazing that he got anything “back alive.”  If any of the practices employed in those times were used today the ASPCA and the local animal welfare agencies would call for the death penalty for the importers.

But the stories are interesting and exciting on their own terms.  In one story a tiger trapper is caught in his own leg trap.  He is trapped out in the jungle at night with mosquitoes torturing him, ants attacking his wounded leg and the threat of jungle predators all around him with nothing to defend himself with if they attack and no way to escape.  Is the story true.  I doubt there is any way to know.  But the tale is compelling.

There are about twenty of these stories.  Most linked only by the presence of the author and a few other supporting characters like Frank’s Malay “boy” Ali (actually a man in his fifties) who assists him in his adventures and the directors at the zoos and circuses that were his clients.

My father read this book in the 1930s.  He gave it to me in the 1960s.  And I’ve given copies to my grandsons and nephews in the 2010s.  It seems to have a universal appeal to the male animal.  I recommend it highly.

The Natural Divide

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Last week I was watching the movie Ninotchka.  Greta Garbo portrays a scowling Russian envoy who’s in Paris to negotiate the sale of jewels confiscated from the aristocracy to provide hard currency to capitalize the communist regime.  There she meets Melvyn Douglas playing the French nobleman Count Leon d’Algout.  He is working to return the jewels to his friend the former Grande Duchess Swana.  And of course, he falls in love with Garbo.  As a good soviet citizen, she despises his mercenary business practices.  But he does what he can to ingratiate himself to her.  Finally, he manages to manufacture a “coincidental” restaurant encounter.  While attempting to lighten the mood he offers to tell a joke to get her to laugh.  Several attempts fall flat without even a smile from her sullen face.  Finally he tells her his best joke:

“A man walks into a restaurant, calls over the waiter and says I want a cup of coffee without cream.  The waiter goes into the kitchen and returns a minute later and says I’m very sorry but we’re all out of cream can it be without milk?”

The rest of the patrons of the restaurant overhear the joke and all burst out laughing at the punchline.  But from Ninotchka, nothing.  Leon is incensed.  He hectors her, “Everyone else laughed.  Why didn’t you?”  She replies, “Because it isn’t funny.”  He becomes flustered and says he’ll tell it again more slowly and make sure she understands it.  He retells it, stumbling over the details and finally asks, “Well?”  “It’s not funny” she says.  Exasperated, he tells her she doesn’t have a drop of humor in her.  He leans back in his chair puts his elbow on the table behind him and goes crashing to the floor along with the table and chair.  The whole restaurant bursts out in laughter at him.  Leon gets off the floor and tries to gather his shattered dignity in the face of the uproar of laughter.  And then he sees that Ninotchka is almost falling over with laughter at his plight.  He looks down with a scowl that combines anger and hurt pride.  Ninotchka stops laughing and seems slightly contrite when Leon bursts out laughing himself and they share a good laugh.

So why am I telling you this old movie scene?  It’s a good enough scene and the acting was fine.  But retelling movies is a waste of time.  I relate it because it occurred to me that it illustrates a dichotomy that I have seen in my own acquaintance.

The world divides itself very clearly into two groups.  People who find that joke at least slightly amusing and those who see absolutely no humor in it at all.  Within my own marriage this difference exists.  Even among my children, the dichotomy is there.  Among friends and colleagues the same thing .  Two camps.  So, what is this characteristic?  I’m not entirely sure.  Maybe it has to do with the way people use language.  It seems that those who are quieter do not find the joke funny.  It may be something well known or maybe it’s meaningless.  But I throw it out there and encourage you all to try it out.  Tell someone the joke and then ask him if it is not at all funny or at least somewhat funny.  See if you can determine some grouping within these camps that explains the dichotomy.  If you come up with a theory pass it along to me.  And tell me who you think are the happier group.  Those that laugh at it or those that don’t.  For the sake of complete disclosure I think it’s funny.