Famous for Being Famous

Contain your excitement! Two Random Randomnesses Columns in a Row!

                                        Image by Luis Díaz from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

About 

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I am a deeply superficial person." -Andy Warhol

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

The famous for being famous artist(?) from my hometown, Pittsburgh (with an h), Andy Warhol, famously said that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."  

Welcome to the future.

While every one will not be world-famous for 15 minutes it's not for lack of trying by many ones.  

Be ye the star of a "reality" television show, an influencer on social media commanding a rabid army of "followers", or this gentleperson...

Fame, perhaps even fortune, beckons.

The internet has made it possible for any given one to be a legend in his/her/their own mind regardless of how famous he/she/they actually is/are(?). 

[Your endless lame joke lampooning pronoun obsession is getting old.]

As are we all, Dana, at least hopefully. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to insert my favorite tidbit of plague humor. Remember...

[Please, don't! I take it back! I...]

Remember folks, eat well, get plenty of sleep, drink plenty of water, exercise vigorously, take vitamin D — and die anyway.

The Notorious RBG, as you likely are aware, has died. While I wasn't a fan, perhaps now I'll look more closely. I've always meant to since I was, and still am — he gave great interview — a fan of Antonin Scalia and he and she were famously good friends.

At the risk of being accused of speaking ill of the dead, however, if we amended the Constitution so that the Supremes were limited to terms of 20 years she would have retired long before the serious health problems she's suffered from for the last several years manifested. 

I've no idea if said problems negatively impacted her performance, but, at the time the Founding Pasty Patriarchs decided the Supremes should serve for life the average H. sapien only lived to the age of 38. 

Full disclosure: If you lived to be 60 there was a good chance you'd hang on till you were 75 — but Justice Ginsburg was 87.

[Gave great interview? That sounds a bit tacky don't you...]

Well, he did, and there's a lot of 'em available on the web that I can't recommend enough to my gentlereaders. Incidentally, when asked how he, a rock-ribbed, commonsensical conservative would amend the constitution he said that it should be easier to amend the constitution.

If it were, perhaps the Wokies and Neojacobins would stop trying to turn the SCOTUS into a second legislature and instead reform the actual legislature. 

When I'm elected king my historical claim to fame will be twofold. First, obviously, for my campaign slogan, Make America Polite Again.

More importantly, my unflagging commitment to amending the constitution to include congressional term limits. I'm open to negotiation and compromise for establishing how long a given senator or congressman/woman/person may remain in office before having to vacate the swamp and rejoin the real world. 

A willingness to compromise to achieve lasting solutions so that life in America is about more interesting things than all politics/all litigation all the time is the mark of a civilized gentleperson.

As long as it's possible to be a professional congressperson from a carefully gerrymandered district or a senator in the pocket of this, that, or the other special interest group(s), for decades, we're fucked.

To fully appreciate how I wish the result of this formerly shocking and powerful word-bomb would be, you have to be old enough to appreciate what the blast radius would've been had it been uttered by Sister Mary McGillicuddy in the 1950s. 

[Gasp! You hypocrite! Always going on about how the f-bomb has been turned into a f-firecracker...]       

Guilty as charged, but yes, it has. I object to the dumbing down of profanity to the point that cussin' ain't cussin' anymore, the verbal equivalent of defining deviancy down.

I object to taking away the power of certain words so as to neuter them because everything doesn't and shouldn't go because...

[Why you gotta' be so judgy all the time?]

Because when it does, calling a painting of Campbell's Soup cans art leads to calling a photograph of a plastic crucifix dipped in urine art.    

A Tragedy of Errors. I offer no links, you're on your own. Facts won't change the minds of ideologues or the efforts of professional propagandists anyway. 

On 3/13/20 Breonna Taylor was accidentally killed when her boyfriend engaged in a firefight with police who had entered her apartment. He fired first, wounding one of the cops and they returned fire. He was wounded, she, tragically, was killed. 

One of the cops is in trouble because some of his shots went wild and endangered the occupants of the apartment next door.

The police had a warrant, originally a "no-knock" warrant that had been amended to knock and announce which they maintain they did. A witness backs them up. 

The reason the police were there is that a former boyfriend of Ms. Taylor's, a known drug dealer, had been observed picking up packages he'd had delivered to her apartment. 

Two special prosecutors appointed by Kentucky's African-American Attorney General, and a grand jury, only charged the cop that accidentally shot into the apartment next door. 

If Brionna Taylor and her boyfriend had been white most Americans would've never heard about what happened. Just the facts, ma'am.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Share this column or give me a thumb (up or in my eye) below. If my work pleases you you can buy me some cheap coffee with your debit/credit card.    

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Cranky don't tweet.

  

   

Uyghur Lives Matter

A Random Randomnesses Column 

                          Source unknown (Weibo?) - meme banned by the emperor

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

About 

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"A man can’t be blamed for not knowing, but for not asking." -Uyghur proverb

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

Uyghur lives matter. So do the lives of Hong Kongers, Tibetans, members of traditional religions, and members of spiritual movements like Falun Gong. 

...And so do the lives of the Taiwanese, nervously keeping an eye on the Chinese mainland in case one of the current Red Emperor's war games turns out to be the real thing. 

And yet...

No shortage of celebrities and hooge, globe-spanning corporate entities — Lebron James, Nike, and the NBA spring immediately to mind for some reason — who have/are donating billions in cash and pledging fealty to Black Live Matter don't have much to say about what appears to be a systematic Uighur genocide. 

Or any of the other depredations of Emperor Poo.

“Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor, Uighurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen...”

The quote is from a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute titled Uyghurs for Sale. 

Speaking of Black Lives Matter, I refer to the national organization and its local chapters, why is the purple press not covering how the donations and the moral support of Wokies and newly minted corporate allies are being used to improve the lives of African-Americans?

The media only seems interested in reporting on (mostly peaceful) protests and the antics of Antifa. I know, I know, "if it bleeds, it leads" (if it burns, it earns? if it's shattered it matters?). 

Journalists have to eat and pay rent too, but depicting how the money is being spent and how the moral support is being utilized should serve to generate more money and moral support, right?

Speaking of protests, now would seem to be an excellent time for the sort of stories mentioned above since apparently the No Justice No Peace Club, Portland Oregon chapter, is taking a breather. 

Poor air quality, caused by wildfires, has put a damper on the activities of card-carrying members of the IUPPPP&PVTTOT and their fellow brothers/sisters/H. sapiens.

Interestingly, the current fires already are the subject of a Wikipedia entry, 2020 Oregon Wildfires. Some quotes of interest from the article:

"Through the end of July 2020, 90% of Oregon's wildfires had been caused by humans versus a yearly average of 70%, possibly because of increased outdoor recreation due to the COVID-19 pandemic."  

"Senator Jeff Merkley, (D-OR) decried Donald Trump's comments blaming forest management for the fires as a 'devastating lie.' Speaking on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Merkley blamed climate change for the fires."

Speaking of protests again, check out this video:

A handful of apparently confused but determined protestors blocked a bus full of reporters from leaving Disney Word thinking it was the Los Angeles Lakers team bus — which was already gone. 

This contingent of Wokies was hoping that Lebron James and other Lakers who participated in a brief work(?) stoppage to support BLM would join them on the front lines, but they missed the bus.

This article from Yahoo! Sports explains the situation quickly and (relatively) cleanly (I'm so old I can remember reading articles not containing a single tweet). Unfortunately, even if they had stopped the right bus the players wouldn't be able to join them because that would bust the NBA bubble they're living in.

From the news that you can use but probably never heard of because our vaunted fourth estate mostly ignored it desk:  Phones used by the members of the Muller investigation into the Donald and his minions alleged collusion with the Pooteen "repeatedly and accidentally wiped phones assigned to them."

According to a mind-numbingly detailed report by Judicial Watch when the Special Counsel's Office (Fedrl Gummit lawyers) reviewed the phones for records-preservation purposes, it found 27 different phones were "reported wiped clean of all data prior to the review having taken place."

Clearly, Congress needs to investigate why it's so easy to accidentally erase all the data from a given cell phone. Is this true of all cell phones or just cell phones sold to The Fedrl Gummit?   

Thanks Cali! I'm amazed that the serfs of the People's Republic of California don't throw impromptu torch-free pitchfork parties whenever the state catches on fire and their Gaia worshiping, forest management forbidding green overlords blame the fire on climate change.

Californians have been breathing carbon saturated air for the last month or so but lately, when the sun comes up in Flyoverland, it looks like a giant full moon because left coast smoke serves as an optical filter.

Thanks, guys/girls/others! 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. Check out this page that the CDC updates weekly. Of 182,095 plague deaths (so far), 143,790 victims were 65 or older and 38,305 were under 65. 

Since 56,525 were 85 or older, and 363 were school-aged (5 - 24) out of a population of 327,167,434, why are the schools partially to completely shut down and why does the purple press keep telling us it's the end of the world?

Share this column or give me a thumb (up or in my eye) below. If my work pleases you you can buy me some cheap coffee with your debit/credit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on Cranky's Facebook page.

Cranky don't tweet.      

 

    

         

Phobophobia

                                             Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

About 

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I may have made a tactical error not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that didn't pay off." -Warren Zevon

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

The original title of this column was Phobiaphobia, not Phobophobia. I was reflecting on the currently fashionable practice (which has lost its charm) of appending the word phobia to other words to create a verbal weapon for use in the culture wars.

For example, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia — that sort of thing.

Since I find this a somewhat repellent practice, I thought I was suffering from a phobia-phobia. That is to say, the fear that the Wokies will never run out of words they can combine with phobia so as to keep expanding their arsenal of weaponized words.  

Since I'm a (more or less) conscientious columnist I went a-googlin' to discover if some other witty wordsmith had already coined phobiaphobia. It turns out that while it is used here and there, phobophobia is a commonly used term by psychologists and no shortage of other people 

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and according to psychology, there is a fear of phobias. Since I really am a (more or less) conscientious columnist I'm going to abandon phobiaphobia lest I be accused of deliberately sowing confusion in a very confusing/confused era. 

[Fatphobia? Who's afraid of fat people?] 

Speaking as a man who doesn't go to Dunkin Doughnuts for the coffee, certainly not I. Do you consider yourself calorically challenged, Dana?

[I'm a clever literary device, I'm whatever your gentlereaders need/want me to be.]

Methinks it's time to repair to my enormous private library and consult my collection of dictionaries. It's distressingly dusty despite diligent dusting by a designated dogsbody but the fireplace, huge grandfather clock, and small herd of overstuffed chairs make it one of the most comfortable rooms in Cas de Chaos. 

[Library? What library? Are you talking about your Merriam-Webster Google App?]

Did you know cryophobia is the fear of ice or cold? I need to talk to someone, clearly, I should be taking heavy drugs.  

According to Merriam-Webster, a phobia is "an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation"   

Since my distaste/disgust for the phobification of certain words is explicable and logical, and there's no fear involved, it would seem I don't have either a phobiaphobia or suffer from phobophobia. 

Phew. The heavy drugs I anticipate will be necessary to control my cryophobia is a cross enough to bear. 

The bad news is that according to Merriam-Webster (I've always wondered what  his/her/their first name is?) phobification is so common it's considered to be something called a noun combining form and defined as:  

1: exaggerated fear of _______ 

2: intolerance or aversion for _______

I added the blank spaces for clarity's sake. In other words, adding the noun phobia to the noun of your choice is so common that Mr./Ms./? _______ Merriam-Webster has been forced to tweak the definition of phobia. 

[You know, if you were half as witty as you think you are a lot more of your regular readers would be willing to buy you a coffee.] 

Phobification turns something nebulous and undefined into a verbal cudgel wielded by Wokies to bludgeon their (actual or perceived) enemies, and often, each other.

[Huh?] 

Well, "an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation" jibes with how Harvard Medical School defines a phobia -- "A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation."  

The clear and well-written article linked to above explains that a real phobia is an often serious medical condition that should be diagnosed and treated by a professional. 

Compare that article to this one from Psychology Today that notes that a "lack of inclusion of same-sex couples and particularly ethnically diverse couples in the entertainment industry, marketing materials, and advertisements" subtly demonstrates how homophobic our society is. 

Apparently we don't share cable providers and she's accessing the Chinese version of the internet. 

Also, she uses the story of the baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple (and who was persecuted/prosecuted for better than six years) as a blatant example of homophobia. What's the fear of gentlepersons with religious convictions called? Or the fear of spending your money at some other bakery?

In the spirit of if ya can't beat 'em join 'em I thought I had invented a new phobia based noun combing form, caucaphobia: the exaggerated fear of or intolerance or aversion for white H. sapiens.

However, I went a-googlin' and discovered it's already in use so I'm trying to come up with a phobia that would also simultaneously include straight, old, and cisgender males. Stay tuned.   

[But caucaphobia sounds like...]

Once I do I plan to apply to the Intersectional Inquisition for approval as a member of a certified victim group. I bet there's some money in that, or at least some heavy drugs. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Share this column or give me a thumb (up or in my eye) below. If my work pleases you you can buy me some cheap coffee with your debit/credit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on Cranky's Facebook page.

Cranky don't tweet.