A Random Randomnesses column.
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| Image by Magic Creative from Pixabay |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.
"We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail." -Dave Berry
Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,
The title of this column is a phrase that was displayed on the screen at the beginning of a TV show I watched relatively recently. I'd give credit where credit is due but I can't remember which show it was.
{The old gray horse's short-term memory, it ain't what he used to be.}
Harumph, gray stallion is more like it.
{I was going to say gray gelding given the state of your sex life, or the lack thereof.}
Double harumph, As it happens I'm a vcel thank you very much, Dana. Unlike incels, vcels are voluntarily celibate H. sapiens who have chosen this path for a variety of reasons.
{My bad. I just assumed it was because in your case that...}
Could we move on, please?
{You're the one writing this stuff.}
The phrase in question caught my attention because I also relatively recently encountered the term representationally accurate at the beginning of a different TV show — it may have been a movie — that also caught my attention.
Both phrases are as disingenuous as the classic based on a true story but both sound way cooler. The same translation will suffice for all three.
The content you're about to consume is an allegedly more or less sorta/kinda accurate depiction that has been sliced, diced, tweaked, sexed-up, dumbed-down, and/or altered in any number of ways to make it more entertaining and hopefully more likely to make some money. It's based on a true story, is representationally accurate, and is based on facts that meet fiction.
I read... well, intensely and purposefully skim, a carefully chosen gaggle of websites dedicated to news and opinion in the course of the day to satisfy my addiction to current events and provide grist for my columnist's mill.
{Grist?}
Cool, huh? I've never written that word and I've been more or less literate for better than 60 years. Anyway, it occurs to me that the phrase based on facts that meet fiction might be a useful addition to the definition of purple journalism in my website's glossary.
Purple Journalism: Journalism as currently perpetrated by many news outlets that claim to be professional, unbiased, and factual. In reality, they are partisan, prone to sensationalism, and motivated primarily by the bottom line — and are based on facts that meet fiction.
ln case you missed it.., The IRS is going after those rich sons o' bitches that haven't been paying their fair share of taxes. Empowered by a provision of the American Rescue Plan, passed last year by the Depublicans (the party of social justice) without a single Republicrat vote, the IRS is bringing the hammer down.
Americans that received electronic payments for goods or services provided to their fellow citizens via companies like PayPal, Venmo, etc. in 2022 will be receiving some unwelcome mail next month, an IRS form called a 1099-K.
Say you sold off your late aunt Thelma's collection of collector plates this year and used an electronic payment service to get paid. The service will be sending you a form 1099-K to helpfully remind you that this is income that must be reported to The Fedrl Gummit.
They also must report this information to the IRS.
See, the reporting threshold has dropped from $20,000 to $600. Surprise! Now all of those evil, thousandaire blackguards who have been making as much as an extra unreported $19,999 a year (or $601) via the black market will be forced to pay up.
In case you missed it 2... Last May, the Black Lives Matter organization shared an IRS form 990 with the Associated Press news service. The form in question publicly disclosed BLM finances for the first time. I confess I missed the resulting AP report.
According to the AP, of the $90,000,000 in donations that were received in 2020 (when all the mostly peaceful protests were on the news every day), $32,000,000 was invested in stocks, "which is expected to become an endowment to ensure the foundation’s work continues in the future, organizers say."
BLMs 2021 fiscal year ended with $42,000,000 in net assets on the books.
My favorite phrase from the AP story is, "...the tax filing shows the foundation paid nearly $970,000 to Trap Heals LLC, a company founded by Damon Turner, who fathered a child with Cullors; and $840,000 to Cullors Protection LLC, a security firm run by Paul Cullors, Patrisse’s brother."
Patrisse Cullors is one of the founders of BLM and a well-known real estate speculator. Follow the link for a, um... highly informative analysis of the BLM organization by the Daily Beast.
Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day
THIS JUST IN! BREAKING NEWS!
{Oh c'mon!}
No, seriously, just today (12/23), Congress has postponed dropping the minimum threshold of 20,000 whopping damn dollars to $600 (In case you missed it...) for a year because we the people have been raising hell. Based on facts that meet fiction, I may or may not have had something to do with this.
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Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays; other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go!
