DYING FOR DOLLARS

Some of you may remember a long-running (1950s to early 1990s) TV program called DIALING FOR DOLLARS in which the host (after announcing the password(s) at the start of the show) randomly picked a phone number to call. If the person being called gave the password, he or she would win prize money; an incorrect answer would increase the prize money for the next call, and so on. Here’s SCTV’s take on the program:

Nowadays, it seems there’s a new game on TV:  a daily game in which the host is President/Scientific Genius Donald Trump, the password is nominally COVID-19, and the payoff is whatever he says it is in order to re-start the economy at any price — ranging from billions of dollars for big business and big banks, to ingesting disease-killing disinfectants. Regarding the latter, you may be tempted to say, “You first, Mr. President.” Too late! The next day, he said he was just kidding and didn’t mean it. Hahahahahahaha.

It’s Not Fake News: Trump Did Actually Suggest That Injecting Bleach Could Be a Cure for COVID-19

Sorry, Mr. Desperate President, the joke is on you, because you’re sicker than the sickest Covid-19 patient, and there’s no cure for your virulent virus except the resounding defeat you must suffer on Nov. 3.

LETTER PERFECT

I am one of those increasingly rare and slowly-becoming-extinct creatures who still gets the local newspaper delivered to his home each morning, usually reading it spread out on the kitchen table (the newspaper, not me) while eating breakfast. I read some parts of the paper more thoroughly than others, but usually give LETTERS TO THE EDITOR just a cursory glance….unless a letter’s heading arouses my interest and incites a reading. Today, one such heading did just that, and the letter (in response to another writer’s letter) so perfectly expressed what I feel that I want to share it with my readers:

Yes, Trump is our leader, but we don’t follow him blindly

Regarding the letter, “We’re all on one team with one captain and one objective” (March 28): [that writer] wrote we need to “put aside our political hatred” and follow our “captain” (President Donald Trump) in this coronavirus crisis, as [that writer] did when he played football.
But what if your captain had never even played before and said, “I don’t believe you all need helmets. The other team is a hoax. The scorekeepers are the enemies of the people. This game will be two quarters, then we’ll get back to work. Don’t listen to my coaches. I’m a football genius.”
Would you still follow him blindly?

I will close here, since the letter speaks for itself. I only hope it speaks to you.

 

 

 

DONALD DUCKS FOR COVER — MICKEY MUSE GOES UNDERCOVER

No doubt you’ve noticed that America’s quack President, Donald Trump, ducks any probing questions he doesn’t want to answer — particularly about his many phony claims, disingenuous spins, grandiose con jobs, and cheap-shot insults. For example, on May 23 he tweeted agreement with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s claim that former U.S. Vice President Biden has a low IQ. Taking on one of my undercover-reporter gigs, I asked The Donald if a low IQ is worse than a MONUMENTAL EGO. Obviously, he didn’t like the question. Ergo, he didn’t answer. Or maybe he was too busy correcting his tweeted misspelling (“Bidan”) of Biden’s name. But I’ll give him a pass on that one; after all, even I make a spelling misteak on rare — or medium rare (but not well done) — occasions.

Pause.

My fellow Americans, I began this post intending to satirize more (out of countless) examples of Trump perfidy, but what’s the point? We all know what Trump is. Blowing his bilge back at him sticks like water off a duck’s back. It’s time to get quackin’ and get serious:

 

 

 

POST PROPOSES PARCEL-POSTING PRES TO POLE

This post is honored to note the 105th anniversary tomorrow of a notable day in U.S. Postal history. Let’s begin with a ‘little’ background, which you can take as gospel because it was written by a Pope:

https://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2013/02/very-special-deliveries.html

Yes, friends, for just 53 cents worth of stamps attached to a little girl’s coat, the precious cargo wearing that coat was shipped by rail in a train’s mail compartment, thereby saving the cargo’s parents a pretty penny in passenger fare. This got me to thinking about the possibility of saving money by restoring the mailing of humans via the U.S. Postal Service. Think, for example, of all the “border wall” money alone that could be saved by shipping President Trump to the North Pole to chill in Santa’s workshop, helping Santa make toys that insure children are happy instead of policies that traumatize them….or Santa could toy with the bright idea of replacing Rudolph’s red nose with Donald and his orange glow.

Now, I’m not saying The Donald is a worm, but if it acts like a worm, leaves a trail of slime like a worm, and glows like a worm, that may account for why so many have taken the bait.

 

SOMEONE CALL A DOCTOR – OUR PRESIDENT IS SICK

empathy, n. Identification with and understanding of another’s feelings, situation, and motives. –Webster’s New College Dictionary

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Unless you’ve been separated from the news since 2017, you’ve no doubt heard of our U.S. President’s “zero tolerance” (zero humanity?) immigration policy, whereby children (including infants and toddlers) are taken from their asylum-seeking mother and/or father at the southern border, resulting in what the New York Times reported as “thousands of migrant parents spending months in agonized uncertainty, unable to communicate with their children and in many cases not even knowing where their children are.”

Let’s call this unconscionable practice what it is:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-met-family-separation-border-children-trump-huppke-20190211-story.html

In June 2018, a federal judge in San Diego directed the federal government to halt the separations and reunite children with their parents, but federal inspectors found that separations continued to occur. Furthermore, according to the N.Y. Times, the total number of separated children is unknown “because of the lack of a coordinated formal tracking system between the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the arm of Health and Human Services that takes in the children, and the Dept. of Homeland Security, which separated them from their parents.”

What is wrong with this morally sick President that renders him incapable of empathy, that blinds him to the needs of others, particularly the ‘least’ of us?

“All children old enough to recognize that they exist as separate (albeit weak and dependent) beings have a strong need to believe that their parents are ultimately good and kind. Parents appear to the child to be omnipotent figures who have everything: food, warmth, love, mobility and so forth. The child desperately needs to feel that these God-like parents are devoted to his or her particular needs and well-being: the consequences of the reverse, for the weak and utterly dependent child, are simply too terrible to contemplate.” — Scott Mann, author, HEART OF A HEARTLESS WORLD

Someone call a doctor — preferably a heart specialist — for our President.

 

SEE NO EVIL (REVISITING CHARLOTTESVILLE AS METAPHOR)

The statues you’re defending are of men who erased my history. –Kevin S. Aldridge, opinion editor, Cincinnati Enquirer

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Rick Borden said of his son, Daniel Borden, who (along with others) beat up an unarmed black man, “I absolutely don’t think my son did anything wrong.” Daniel’s mother called reports of her son’s actions “fake news” (sound familiar?). The beating victim was left with a concussion, eight staples in his head, a broken wrist, and other injuries. And we wonder why the son of such a father and mother grows up with moral blinders.

That beating wasn’t the only violent act committed in Charlottesville, Virginia, during that white supremacist rally in August 2017. An avowed neo-Nazi deliberately drove his car into rally-protesters, injuring dozens and killing 32-year old protester Heather Heyer. Her offense: actively opposing the alt-right’s racism. In her last Facebook post before her death, she had said of her activism: If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

Last month, Heyer’s killer was sentenced to life in prison. As for Daniel Borden, he was sentenced last week. The particulars? In the words of the old idiom, “Read ’em and weep”:

https://www.c-ville.com/daniel-borden-2/

Around the time of the Charlottesville madness, the opinion editor (a black man) who was quoted at the beginning of this post, wrote an editorial titled YOUR HERITAGE BEING ERASED? WELCOME TO THE CLUB. It included these words:

“There’s been a lot of consternation among some folks about this growing movement to take down Confederate statues and monuments across the United States. Even President Trump has joined the chorus of laments that removing these monuments is an attempt to erase or rewrite history and rob certain people of their Southern culture and heritage.”
“But here’s the thing that some people don’t seem to get or want to acknowledge: These monuments pay tribute to individuals who took away and erased the history of Africans through slavery, through the killing and slaughtering of innocents, through the destruction of black families by way of rape and separation  – all in the name of cruelty, white supremacy, exploitation and greed.”
“How would I like my history taken away?”
“Been there and done that, sir.”
“Most African-Americans in this country will never know the true history of our ancestors. Much of our heritage was lost when our forefathers were densely packed into slave ships and transported across the Atlantic to be sold like common goods. Many of them died and their individual histories along with them. And those who survived….had their native, ancestral names stripped from them and replaced with the ones slave masters wanted them to have.”
“Much of our African heritage has been irretrievably lost to the ravages and ruthlessness of callous individuals and traitors to this nation, such as General Lee, who fought to maintain the deplorable and murderous system of slavery. Now there are some who want to romanticize, revere and commemorate them as heroes.”
“Well, excuse me if I’m not willing to buy that brand. Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear for your loss. Sorry if it ruins some quaint childhood memory.”
“All I can say is, welcome to the club.”

Are YOU paying attention?

 

WE’RE ALL HUMAN (EVEN REPUBLICANS)

For those who pay little attention to American politics, the name of attorney Michael Avenatti may be unfamiliar, but most of you have no doubt heard of his famous client, the porn star and ex-Trump hookup, Stormy Daniels. I bring Avenatti up because I have often wondered why Democrats don’t more vehemently challenge GOP complicity when President Bully Boy acts as if the country were his own personal fiefdom to ru(i)n as he damn well pleases. On August 10, Avenatti addressed that very question:

Now, I fully recognize that the Republican faithful (at least, a fair number of them) are human and, as such, susceptible to being sold a bill of goods and/or being evangelized by a vainglorious pied piper. As an ex-Catholic, I know what it’s like to be vulnerable to vested interests in positions of authority. They seem to have all the answers at a time answers are hard to come by, but you haven’t yet grown to realize that, to those who claim to have the answers, you are part of their agenda, another recruit to their cause/beliefs. Easy pickings.

So, while I can empathize with being gullible (because I’ve been there, done that), there is a bigger issue at stake here, and that is what kind of country are we becoming? When will it prove too late to undo the divisiveness, to blue pencil the Orange Man who debases the dark place that was once The White House? What in the name of civility and integrity has become of our standards of leadership?

America has never been “a perfect union”–far from it–but in a world where almost everything is relative, we are at a new low in my lifetime. For all the faults and failings of past Presidents, has there ever been one so self-obsessed, so megalomaniacal, so utterly incapable of reflection and putting himself in the place of those who come from a different place (both literally and figuratively)?

I started this post intending to intersperse some humor into a sober matter, but despite all the Trump satire and jokes that serve as a sort of laugh-to-keep-from-crying palliative (I plead guilty to occasionally getting in on the relief act), there’s really nothing funny about this President in the long run. At the end of the day, the joke is on us….and we brought it on ourselves. Now it’s up to us–we, the voters–to get serious about an act of contrition.

November 6, 2018 would be a good time to start.

THIS IS JEP-R-DO!

As a big fan of JEOPARDY! (or JEP-R-DO!, as I like to call it), it caught my attention a few days ago that July 22 will be Alex Trebeck’s birthday (July 22, 1940). His upcoming birthday got me to thinking about doing a post relating to the program and/or its host, but I was doing little more than piddling around with the idea….until I saw this clip:

My immediate reaction was I had no clue that any member of the Trump clan had the intellectual chops to watch a program which invites seeing if your pool of knowledge is deeper than a piddle. After getting past that shock, I realized that if a Trump can be more than a bump on a log where watching JEOPARDY! is concerned, surely I can count on my followers being more players than naysayers where JEP-R-DO! (my version) is concerned.

Therefore, I have spared no expense to consult the world’s greatest know-it-alls (with the lamentable exception of the President) to put together a list of ten answers guaranteed to challenge even the amazing, incredible, great, terrific, tremendous, yuge reservoir of knowledge collectively held by you, my faithful readers. You will then have thirty seconds to come up with the correct questions. Since your time is limited, it is only fair that I use a matching format, listing the questions from 1 to 10 so all you need do is match the numbered questions in the second list with the lettered answers in the first list. Ready? Go!!!

a. The greatest businessman, politician and showman/spin meister/hoax promoter in American history (famous initials P.T.)
b. Playboy of the Western World
c. Master of the Universe
d. Disaster of the Universe
e. Demander in Chief
f. Liar, liar, rants on fire
g. Pathological Narcissist
h. Super Dupe-r
i. Bully Boy
j. Putin Patsy

1. Who is President Trump?
2. Who is President Trump?
3. Who is President Trump?
4. Who is President Trump?
5. Who is President Trump?
6. Who is President Trump?
7. Who is President Trump?
8. Who is President Trump?
9. Who is President Trump?
10. Who is President Trump?

That wasn’t too hard now, was it?

 

DUBIOUS PROPOSITIONS

I’m a big fan of old sayings, but even I concede that some sayings could no more pass the proverbial smell test than a rodent could pass a spell(ing) test. They may seem innoscent enough, but smellegant isn’t the same as elegant, and you must admit that a proverb like A turd in the hand is worth two in the tush is less than elegant. Really, close encounters of the turd kind could leave you holding your nose….if not checking your rear-view mirror.

That said, are such askew old sayings any less farcical than the twisted tweets America’s Tweeter-in-Chief oft twitters? “Fake news!”…”fake news!”…”fake news!” And if ANYONE can smell (like) a rat when it comes to fake news, it is obviously President Tweety Turd.

Leaving the President’s behind for a moment, here are some classic old sayings. Can you make out the fakeout — aka smell the rat — in these venerable gems?

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and mocks like a mocking bird, duck — it’s The Donald.

A watched pot never boils….but it may get a bit peeved.

A rolling stone gathers no animosity.

A fool and his honey are soon parted.

Faint heart ne’er won bare lady.

Oil and water don’t mix — got that, Slick?

You can’t get blood out of a turnip, but you can get honey out of two-lips.

Monkey pee pee, monkey do do (easy come, easy go).

Dead men tell no tales, but some may leave a will which does.

Friends and would-be heirs, some of the above were almost enough to make me gag, but I can assure your butt that not every old phrase strays in dubious ways. For example:

….and this:

….and this:

Oh….and I almost forgot this old saying: HAPPY NEW YEAR!