Dicktaters

An Emperor's work is never done.

Source Unknown 

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}: Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -George Orwell 

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

Consider the plight of the Chinese historians currently writing, rewriting, and then rewriting, and then...well, you can clearly see where this is going even if the scholars involved can't. 

An article in the Wall Street Journal, China Repackages Its History In Support of Xi's National Vision, is where I discovered that Mr. Xi (aka Emperor Poo Win Nie) has taken it upon himself to oversee the current dynasty's fulfillment of a Chinese tradition, writing the history of the previous dynasty.

{Considering how often, relatively speaking, China changes emperors and direction these days, can the current era even be considered a dynasty and what will it be called?} 

You make a good point, Dana. Perhaps it will be called the Mao dynasty in honor of the psychopath who got the whole "socialism with Chinese characteristics" thing rolling... although he had a radically different set of characteristics in mind than the ones currently in fashion. 

Hmmm...I wonder if his corpse is still on display?

{Say what?}

Hang on, I'll be right back...

Oh yeah, Chairman Mao's corpse is still proudly displayed in a custom-made display case that would make your favorite supermarket's meat department proud, and is housed in a custom-made mausoleum. Various and sundry sources...

{The "columnist" favors us, yet again with a various and sundry.}

Harumph. Various and sundry sources on the Uh-huh! Nuh-uh! net (aka the internet, aka the worldwide web of all knowledge)...

{AI's gonna fix that!}

...report that our still well-fed-looking prince of the downtrodden peasantry...

{I wonder if they stuffed him?}

...is still drawing crowds of tourists. Grunge.com has a detail-packed article that includes fascinating tidbits like "...underneath him is a refrigerator. At night, Mao's body is lowered into it."

If you're in the market for a custom-made/designed mausoleum you might find this article at Mausaleums.com (ETERNAL MUASALEUMS™ BY FOREVER LEGACY) useful although ETERNAL MUASALEUMS™ had nothing to do with Chairman Mao's custom-built display case as far as I can tell.

For purposes of giving credit where credit is due, the article was written by Belinda McCleod, "...Belinda has specialized in writing for the funeral industry. Belinda has written for Cake, a funeral-planning website, nursing homes, mausoleum companies, cremation companies, and funeral homes."

The article is accompanied by a hilarious video that I suspect proves that no one from ETERNAL MUASALEUMS™ proofread it, or that someone who works there has a sense of humor.

 

And we're back.  

{I'm impressed, as far as your famous pointless but mildly entertaining meandering digressions go, this may be a personal best.}

Thanks, Dana. Anyways... 

When I first heard about Emperor Poo Win Nie tirelessly taking on yet another task, ensuring that the world understands that what looks like an insatiable appetite for expanding the size of the Middle Kingdom by laying claim to various and sundry countries, islands, and vast swaths of the South China Sea, at least from a barbarian's perspective...

<the writer inhales>

Is actually just China making sure the modern world understands that since they are an ancient country with deep historical roots that's been (often successfully) laying claim to/stealing/or conquering various and sundry countries, islands, and vast swaths of the South China Sea for thousands of years...

There's nothing to see here folks, move along everybody.  

I ordered my research department to look into it and submit a report summarizing the situation via an easily and quickly digestible report.

What landed on my desk not quite three months later, along with an expense report detailing how they had managed to spend $339,933.53 while traveling around the Far East to gather data, was the following report.

The Emperor has personally intervened in a hooge (better than 100 volumes, so far) ongoing, seemingly never-ending project, to write the official history of the previous dynasty, the Qing, which collapsed early in the last century.

It ain't easy to rewrite history to fit modern, often shifting narratives, it's hard out here for a dicktater. As if holding sham elections, having your enemies murdered (semi-plausible deniability route or bring the hammer down?), and inventing rationalizations for conquering your neighbors ain't tough enough. 

Imagine having to make sure that not only the story of the previous dynasty is told in such a way as to justify this, that, or even that other thing but also having to keep an eye on what the minions in the street are saying about the previous 5,000 or so years. 

Now if I was a dick-tater...

{And not just another di...}

I'd steal a half billion or so and get out of Dodge, but I don't think they do it just for the money and the chicks. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Dear Tiffany,

Image by Monika 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.  

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or..." 

                                                                                        -Barack Obama

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders (and Tiffany),

Hoo-Boy... I've done it again. 

I apologize, Tiffy, may I call you Tiffy? You see, I saved a quote attributed to you and I don't know where I got the quote from. In my defense, I'm almost old. I'll be turning 40 next summer and my short-term memory, as well as my organizational skills, ain't what they used to be. 

I think that it may have been in the Wall Street Journal. Their opinion page occasionally includes an item called Notable & Quotable that features a quote from someone who's not necessarily important or well-known. Regardless of where I found the quote I'm certain that you are the quotee. 

{There's no such word as quotee, and don't you mean opinion pages, plural?}

Are you sure? And for the record, the online version of the WSJ posts all three pages of op-eds that are published in the dead trees version as one long scrollable page, Dana. Anyway, I find Tiffy's quote to be interesting and worth sharing.  

Tiffany shares Mrs. Clinton's and Barack Obama's opinion of the Deplorables. Being semi-deplorable myself, naturally, her quote caught my eye.  

"I understand why they might be grumpy. After all, in all sorts of ways, especially economically, they’ve lost/are losing ground. What I don’t understand is why they don’t learn to code, or pitch ideas for reality TV shows, or something instead of whining about it all the time."

Obviously, Tiffy is not devoid of empathy, but clearly she's no pushover.

You know what? I'll wager that If she courageously decides to reproduce in spite of the many problems and downsides of doing so in a postmodern world — finding a genetically and financially suitable mate, the environmental impact of creating yet another carbon dioxide emitting H. Sapien, finding woke daycare, stretch marks, etc. — she'll be a tiger mom (tiger birthing person?) regardless of which ethnicity she self-identifies with.

{You're just recruiting um... fresh participators? The Ponzi scheme that finances your Social Security checks requires a steady stream of same.}

Is participator a real word? Anyhow, don't get her started:

"And don’t get me started on the Bitter Clingers! They may think that their “religion” gives them the right to not have anything to do with abortion, or baking cakes for LGBTQ etc., but what if it was still legal in some states to refuse to serve white, brown, etc sorts of people?"

Abort that baby, bake that cake, and shut up! A woman of principle. I must admit I'm confused though. Refusing to serve a person of pallor is the sort of discrimination actively encouraged by many of the awokend as atonement for sins real or imagined.

If the Supremes were to just wake up and start interpreting dust-covered legislation, and the moldy old Constitution for that matter, in a much more flexible way Tiffy's frustrations could easily be resolved.  

"It’s our duty to drag these folks into the 21st century for their own good!"

The last line of the quote is my favorite. It reminds me of the idealism many of my fellow Boomers and I professed a long time ago in a zeitgeist, far, far away — at least for a minute or two before most of us were mugged by reality and had to get a real J.O.B.

Unfortunately, it also reminds me of the late, not-so-great Mao Tse-Tung's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and/or any given inquisition conducted by the Catholic church over the course of several centuries. But in her defense, given the current state of the American education system, Tiffy may never have heard of either.

Fortunately, this being the 21st century — and not the late middle ages and early renaissance when the inquisition was really rockin', or the swingin' sixties when Chairman Mao was Chinese communisms comeback kid — we don't torture and/or execute heretics anymore, at least in America.

We just dox 'em, cancel 'em, and destroy their livelihoods and reputations. We've come a long way, baby. And if they profusely profess the error of their ways (and hire the right public relations specialists) redemption is theoretically possible.

{Hey-hey-hey, wait a second. You're turning 70 next summer, not 40, what do you think you're...}

Well, gotta go, Tiffy. If I don't get out the door soon I'm gonna be late for this week's Ironman Triathlon. Please feel free to contact me if you should happen to read this.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Wouldacouldashoulda

Hooked on drugs phonics profits

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.  

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I have worked out that I am virtually Chinese, because everything I own is from China." -Sean Lock

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

I'm so old that I can remember when Chairman Mao's Little Red Book went on sale here in the home of the free and the land of the brave. 

Given the fact China has rapidly gone from an enormous, dirt poor, overpopulated, retro-kingdom run by a ruthless emperor to an enormous, rich, fertility challenged, postmodern kingdom that's embraced capitalism/mercantilism with "Chinese characteristics" run by a different ruthless emperor... 

"...mercantilism, economic theory and practice common in Europe from the 16th to the 18th century that promoted governmental regulation of a nation’s economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers." -britanica.com

...I wonder if Henry the K suffers from Wouldacouldashoulda Syndrome?

{What on Earth are you...}  

Time for a long story short, Dana. 

In 1949 Mao Zedong (a.k.a. Chairman Mao) and his merry band of communists won the Chinese Civil War, set up a socialist paradise, and Mao became the first emperor mentioned above. But you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs and by the time he dropped dead in 1976: 

"The government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions." -Wikipedia

The Little Red Book, a.k.a. Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, was/is a compilation/distillation of the wit and wisdom(?) of the emperor, a collection of quotable quotes to guide the lives of the peasantry. It was eventually distributed globally and literally was/is a little red book. 

Ironically, early editions are now collector's items in certain capitalist circles.

{Was/is?} 

It's still for sale, and there are various versions of Maoism/Maoists loose in the world although China now regards Mao as a lovable but crazy uncle who made some honest mistakes. Nowadays, the Chairman is a tourist attraction. 

 China's current emperor, Xi Jinping, a.k.a. Xi Dada, a.k.a. Winnie the Pooh...

has, so far at least, killed a lot less people. His cutting-edge surveillance state that the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and the Goog), so far at least, can only dream of makes it possible to enslave his techno-peasants with much less wetwork, with the notable exception of the Uyghurs. 

But they're not actually Chinese, so... and are in process of being swallowed whole like the Tibetans before them.    

Henry the K(issenger), repeatedly declared the H. sapien with the most boring voice on the planet Earth by the Guinness people...

{You made that up!}

Perhaps. In his defense permit me to point out that he's allegedly a ladies man, or at least he was, but that would prove that women are biologically attracted to men of power and accomplishment regardless of...

{Would you stop!}

What? I was just going to point out that this serves to keep those of us who have never been famous for our good looks to strive for power and accomplishment... or at least to try and convince the ladies we're bad boys. Anyway, Mr. Kissinger is, and will forever be, famous for being the diplomat that "opened" China, among many other accomplishments. 

Big BUT...  

Given what's happened since, I wonder if he's ever subject to bouts of Wouldacouldashoulda syndrome given that Cold War II has broken out and our adversary is much more powerful than in the last cold war. Well, at least we don't need a younger version of Mr. K. to declare peace in some Vietnam-like situation and then get out of Dodge. So far at least. 

{What about Afscamistan?}

All that was declared this time was that we fucked up again and we're outta here by both the Donald and Uncle Joe... who preceded to fuck up the fleeing.

{GASP! Didn't you write somewhere this is a family-friendly column?}

I believe I used the phrase "well, mostly".

In case you somehow missed the intensive coverage by the American media, in other news from the Middle Kingdom, a former NBA player, Sonny Weems, who nowadays plays for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association was verbally assaulted after a recent matchup with the Liaoning Flying Leopards.

 According to Vice.com, "Racial slurs against Black people are commonly seen on the internet and often ignored by censors [the emperor's minions] who otherwise diligently remove politically sensitive content."

And people claim there's no such thing as free speech in China. 

I went a-googlin' and curiously, as far as I can tell, neither the NBA nor LeBron James has commented or issued statements about the matter. Go figure... 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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