Summer Reruns Continue

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

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 

"Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach...I'll go over to a little baby and say 'What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!'" -Steven Wright

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders), 

Yup, I'm still on vacation in the South of France. If you're unaware of how this came about last week's column explains all. 

I'm embarrassed to say that I fell asleep on the beach at Village Naturiste Oasis Village while Collette was shopping and I'm so badly sunburned that I can hardly move. However, I was able to dictate this explanation and instruct her on how to post what follows below. 

I've recently been made aware that many of my gentlereaders see no reason to click on the link that is the closing of my weekly letter, having done so years ago, and which, by the way, is based on an old column written when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and has been tweaked just a bit.  

Also, believe it or not, I have fans who read my column via the dead trees format who have likely never had a chance to discover the origin of "have an OK day." 

Given all that, this week's summer rerun is what gentlereaders encounter if they follow the link in question. I'm feeling better and promise that next week's rerun will be a rewritten, full-fledged column originally published in 2015 about an issue that never seems to go away. 

When I'm king of the forrrest, the insipid phrase have a nice day will officially be changed to have an OK day. Hang in there will also be acceptable. Life is sometimes brutal, sometimes nice, but mostly, it's just SBDD (same bonkercockie, different day). So, Mark, how was your day? Well, some of it was nice, some of it was brutal, mostly it was somewhere in between. It was OK. I didn't win the lottery, but I wasn't tortured and killed. I hung in there.

"Have a nice day!," saith the fast-food worker as she shoves the bag containing my (often jacked up) order in my general direction while not making eye contact because her focus has already shifted to the next customer and she's hoping to get the drive-thru window closed before I ask for salt, a bunch of it. 

I always ask for a bunch, so that if I get lucky, I may get two or even three packets instead of one (or none) before she snatches her hand away and the window slides shut. Now, if I'm in a reckless mood, or I'm feeling annoyed because I've tapped on the window and received a what are you still doing here glare before she reluctantly slides the window back open I may exercise the nuclear option. 

As she reluctantly hands me my salt packets (apparently salt volume is the key determinant of profit or loss in the fast-food industry) I'll call up the warmest smile I can muster and say, "I'm sorry, may I have a few more, please? I define food as a salt delivery mechanism" in a charmingly self-effacing tone. I've even been known to chuckle. From the look on her face, I'd have to say that having to hand me salt (again!) has ruined her perfectly nice day.  

This is the second most effective way I know of to gently remind a fast-food employee associate (though chances are it will, at best, be a subliminal reminder) that there's a customer – the source of all revenue – right here, right now, and in spite of the odds, seeking satisfaction. 

Sometimes, you have to look for it, you'll get an almost startled reaction. Wow, it's one of those sources of all revenue! I've heard stories, but I never thought I'd actually have to do more than toss the bag and chirp, Have a nice day!  

I know, I know, she works hard for the money and is definitely not being overpaid. I have a similar problem. However, no customers = no pay. If you want me to have a nice day, gimmesumsalt, and don't jack up my order. Say thank you and I'll dance at your wedding (or divorce). 

What's the number one most effective way to gently nudge an FFA (fast food associate) onto the same level of reality as oneself? Order a sundae, and ask them to make it with half strawberry and half chocolate syrup. Awkward pause. But...but there's no button for that! Hilarity ensues. You may get to meet the manager on duty.

Now, if I manage to get more than one salt packet, with a minimum of hassle, this will indeed be, at the very least, a nice moment. If I get a thank you for giving up some of my hard-earned money I'll know it's a sign from God and buy some scratch-off lottery tickets. Maybe I'll win big... wouldn't that be a nice day? 

Alternatively, it could turn ugly and snowball downhill into a brutal day via not enough salt, a jacked-up order, flat soda pop, stale buns, fries that have cooled off and reverted to their natural state (plastic), etc. And, of course, having to deal with me could nudge her day in a brutal direction.

The point is that Destiny (we've become close) and I have fairly limited control over who or what wanders into our personal reality zones and sparks a nice or brutal moment or day. Also, nice or brutal can easily morph into their opposites. 

If I win big in the lottery it might ultimately result in my degeneration into a perverted libertine and slobbering drug addict, which would be (mostly) a bad thing. If I were to be kidnaped by ISIS operatives and tortured for information because they've mistaken me for the head of the drone pilot training program but I was rescued by Leroy Jethro Gibbs and his team, that would be a nice thing and me and my work might go viral.

{Gibbs is gone.}

In theory, but I recently checked in for the first time in years, and even though only two of the main characters are there it's the same show over and over and...

However, Destiny and I (who, for the record, is 76, and will be introducing me to her friends and parents when we go mall walking tomorrow), having rejected society's misguided embrace of the meaningless nice day concept, choose to embrace having an OK day, and hope you do as well. 

Brutal days are going to happen to you despite lucky charms, prayers, and positive affirmations. Nice days are going to happen to you despite curses, your boss, or The Fedrl Gummit. No matter what happens it could always be worse, and it might even get better. But there's only so much you can do about it, so why not split the difference and strive for an OK day? OK blunts the brutal and nurtures the nice.

On a personal note, Destiny and I have decided to get married, probably in June of 2025. All of my readers are invited but please RSVP and be aware that no one will be admitted without a gift. Hang in there.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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I post links to my columns (and other stuff) on Facebook so that you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me publicly flogged.

Summer Reruns

The original column was published in July of 2015.

Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

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 

“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” -John F. Kenedy

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

Greetings and Salutations from the South of France!

Very long story short, a friend of mine, who just happens to be an absurdly wealthy business mogul whose identity I've promised to not reveal...

{Does his last name rhyme with tusk?}

When he discovered that the executive staff of The Flyoverland Crank, Inc. was enjoying a most expenses paid retreat on the shores of Lake Erie to work out the details of a significant change of company policy (stay tuned) and that we would be publishing reruns of beloved columns for the next month or so...

Well, he suggested I borrow his villa in the South of France for a much-needed break and induced a... um, friend of his, Collette, to be my personal tour guide to help make the most of the experience since I've never been out of North America. 

Another long story short (forgive me) concerns the fact that when I started to "lightly edit" old columns for republication I discovered that while basic narratives generally held up, facts and my personal opinions had often changed. 

Most importantly, my writing style has changed so much that what follows is a heavily edited version of the original that's essentially a new column. Looks like my vacation is going to be a working vacation but it's better than no vacation. 

With apologies to JFK, I ask not why The Fedrl Gummit is so jacked up — I ask (all things considered) why it works as well as it does. 

I'm no wild-eyed campus-crashing Wokie. I'm merely a sorta/kinda libertarian with strong conservative impulses and undeniable leftover old-school liberal notions as I'm very concerned about what should be done to aid those left behind by the global economy.

I believe we need rules on the playground, as well as an intelligently designed safety net. But I would like the rules to be as few in number as possible and rationally conceived so as to maximize our fun and minimize our stepping on each other's toes. 

And I can't help but wonder if our ever-growing debt is going to blow up the economy because we're not willing to do what it's going to take to truly slay the inflation dragon.

{Those left behind? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Wait till white-collar jobs start being "disrupted" out of existence by AI in significant enough numbers to begin generating scary headlines and stories — written by AI! Look on the bright side, with any luck, you'll be dead before the economy collapses.}

I wonder if the arrogant, dismissive phrase "learn to code" will be replaced by learn to weld, or plumb, or build? But I've gotta stay focused on rewriting the original version of this column, Dana, my new friend Collette has made dinner reservations for us at Auberge du Vieux Puit in the Corbières Hills this evening. 

{Right. Good thing staying focussed is one of your strong points.}

Our national debt is 57,000 103,000 bucks each as this is being written, and steadily increasing as you read this. While cutting spending is always occasionally on the agenda, both parties define "cuts" as spending a little less on planned increases over a ten-year period, to make the numbers bigger.

Think about that. 

Congressperson Stumblebum looks into the camera and with steely resolve states that if re-elected she'll battle to get government spending under control. How? Simply, increase spending by slightly less than planned over the next decade, and call it a spending cut. 

She won't put it like that though. She'll tell us that under her plan spending at the Department of Bonkercockie will be reduced by a billion dollars a year. 

With a little luck, Congressperson Stumblebum will be a lobbyist long before the decade is up and she'll no longer have to dirty her hands running for office in order to get her dirty little hands on other people's money.

She, and most likely the media source that provides you with this information won't bother to remind you that we don't have ten-year budgets. We have one-year budgets, at least in theory, we haven't actually operated under one since 2010 I don't know when. 

{Ah-ha! So the number you used back in 2015 was...}

I confess I can't remember where I got it, and when I went a-googlin' to see if it was accurate I got so lost I gave up and had to take a nap. The Worldwide Web of Contradictory Knowledge (WWCK) supplied multiple answers 

{AI is going to fix that!}  

"Back in the day," President Obama created the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission (2010) to study and make recommendations for fixing our financial problems. 

You may have noticed The Fedrl Gummit long ago maxed out its credit cards, but the issuer (themselves) keeps sending out new ones (to themselves).

The commission was originally a provision of a bipartisan law that would require Congress to vote only up or down on the commission's recommendations since Congress long ago lost its ability to compromise on virtually anything. 

The law was never actually passed, in fact, some of the original co-sponsors voted against it. Mr. Obama decided to set up the commission by executive order. 

The commission figured out that if we were to plug enough loopholes and eliminate enough special favors and social engineering from the tax code we could lower everyone's taxes. Toss in some real spending cuts and entitlement reform and now you're getting somewhere!

Mr. Obama, and Congress, stuck the report in a drawer and returned to Job-1, getting/staying elected.   

Mismanaging our money is not the only task The Fedrl Gummit excels in. No private entity can hope to match the government when it comes to creating rules and regulations. 

The Federal Register is the official record of all the Rules&Regs you're supposed to follow if you have the good fortune to live in the USA.

If there was a board game about the USA called, Life In a Free Country? in addition to the instructions on how to play the game you'd need an app to keep track of all the Rules&Regs you need to follow in order to remain on the straight and narrow as prescribed by Congress and the 2,711,000 2,950,000 civilian employees of The Fedrl Gummit.

I got the new number from USAFacts — "The federal government employs almost three million people and is larger than some industries in the US." However, if you go a-googlin you will discover different numbers reported by different sources so feel free to choose the one you prefer.

Incidentally, USAFacts was founded by Steve Ballmer, a former Microsoft CEO with more money than God who picks up the tab. 

It's not a registered (tax dodging) non-profit, it doesn't run ads, and nothing's for sale. He put it together, and maintains it, because "...unlike businesses, US governments are not mandated to compile reports on their expenditures...Americans need access to government data to understand the state of the nation."

Oh, I almost forgot, The Federal Register has  80,000 90,402 pages.

How on Earth did Congress find the time to write so many Rules & Regs? That's where the 2,711,000 2,950,000 bureaucrats come in. 

Realizing that writing all those Rules&Regs themselves would be inefficient and detract from time spent on Job-1, Congress passes thousand-page laws without reading them that authorize bureaucrats to create the Rules&Regs needed to put the brilliant ideas of their overlords into effect.

That's right fellow citizens, America has 2,711,000 2,950,000 potential rule writers on the Swamp's payroll.

The good news is the Supremes are currently contemplating doing away or at least placing limits on rule by bureaucracy. Fingers crossed. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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The Elites

Image by Jo Wiggijo from Pixabay

NEWS RELEASE

For immediate dissemination

Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy — The planet Earth Inc. has announced that the battle of the New Millenium is underway. 

On the undercard: Normies vs. LGBTQ+++ 

Main event: Pasty patriarchal hegemonistic Euro-imperialists vs. Womyn and People of Various Hues 

Proudly promoted by the Purple Press: Down in power, but not out, baby!

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 

"I worked with these liberal elites for 28 years at CBS News, and they were always throwing around the term 'white trash,' by which they meant poor southerners who didn't go to Harvard. I'm not sure why that makes them trash." -Bernard Goldberg

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

The real fight, the elites of America vs. the rest of us, ain't even listed on the undercard. Let me begin by defining some terms and providing a bit of background. 

There was a more or less widely reported news story back in January that lasted about a minute before sinking in the Dizzinformation Ocean.

{I can't imagine why, but then again you're just now writing about this, who's paying you off, Sparky?}

Do you remember the Occupy Wall Street protest of 2011 that lasted for 59 days? Let's send the 1% to the guillotine? 

Till relatively recently I've personally thought that a sub-class of the 1%, people like Bezos, Gates, Cook, Zuckerberg, the Google Gang, and a relative handful of mega-billionaire businessmenpersons — infected with the Woke Mind Virus (WMV) or willing to fake it — were the sort we should all be worried about and keeping an eye on.

{Not to mention no shortage of spoiled progeny, ex-wives, and awokened foundations that have turned on the evil capitalist who started them.}

This is true, Dana, but there are people with money bins bigger than anything Scrooge McDuck could even dream of who have plenty of money and power because of the companies they run and/or control. 

They're not only gazillionaires, they're titans with global reach and the power to shape what information (and propaganda) we have access to and the ability (and willingness) to "disrupt" entire industries for fun and profit.

And here comes AI. 

Big BUT, over the years a new class has evolved, the elites. 

At the behest of an organization called The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, the Rasmussen people conducted a survey that divided respondents into two groups, the general public and the elites. Then they issued a report based on the results. 

Elites are defined as people w/at least one post-graduate degree, who've graduated from a handful of prestigious universities, earn more than 150k a year, and who live in zip codes with more than 10,000 people per square mile.

They also are often either infected with WMV, or at least claim to be, to shield themselves from the rest of us and/or justify/rationalize their power and privilege. 

{That wasn't in the report!}

No, it wasn't, but this was, "In a time when most Americans have suffered a loss of real take-home pay, 74% of elites say they are financially better off today than in the past...." 

You might think that a survey that revealed the opinions and viewpoints of these people would go viral instead of sinking to the bottom of the Dizzinformation Ocean in short order, particularly given the results. 

But these are the people who have control of and/or work for the Un-huh! Nuh-uh! machine (the internet), media of all sorts, academia, Hollywood, woke HR departments, etc.

"While 40% of Americans say their financial situation is worsening, just 20% say it’s improving."

One of the happy side effects of the American experiment was the development of a hooge middle class, our largest population cohort. It's so large we divide it into three sectors: lower-middle, middle-middle, and upper-middle.

The rich, of course, have always punched above their weight. Money = power, but the middle classes traditionally have had plenty of power of their own. 

Many of the rich started out there, or even at the bottom, and retain middle-class common sense and sensibilities. It's still possible for the poor to claw their way up the food chain but it's much harder than it used to be.

Despite the hollowing out of America's industrial base, which used to finance the masses in the middle, there are still plenty of jobs around, at least at the moment. But even the ones that pay relatively decently require too many hours and/or two incomes for everyone in the house to keep their heads above water.

{Well, maybe, but... Wait, who's raising the kids?}

A century or so of slow but steady currency debasement, systemic inflation, and now living off the national credit card is catching up with our republic. 

The average Joe, Joan, or J. Bagadonuts technically lives in the same America as the elites but inhabits a different reality.

The full report is well worth reading, but I know how busy most of you are. Since this is a full-service column, here are some of the highlights of the report listed in its executive summary. 

"Below, we highlight some of the profound attitudinal differences between elites and average Americans:

- Nearly six in ten say there is too much individual freedom in America...

- More than two-thirds (67%) favor rationing of vital energy and food sources to combat the threat of climate change.

- ...70% of the Elites trust the government to 'do the right thing.'

- Two-thirds (67%) say teachers and other educational professionals should decide what children are taught rather than letting parents decide.

- Somewhere between half and two-thirds favor banning things like SUVs, gas stoves, air conditioning, and non-essential air travel to protect the environment.

- About six of ten elites have a favorable opinion of the so-called talking professions — lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, and journalists."

- 81% report never missing one of The Flyoverland Crank's weekly columns. 

{You made that last one up!}

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down if you wish to share my work or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns (and other stuff) on Facebook so that you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me publicly flogged.  

Snifftoss and the Reluctant Guest

A sort of short short story

Image by tenario1 from Pixabay

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

"Deep breaths are very helpful at shallow parties." -Barbra Walters  

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),

Your humble correspondent has written a sort of short short story (short, short story? short short-story? a short... never mind). 

The speaker (mentally) executes a sniff and a toss of their head to one side. 

While the guest, technically speaking, can't hear the sniff or see the speaker's hair being tossed with thinly disguised contempt, the speaker's attitude is crystal clear.

The reluctant guest, a reasonably well-adjusted man of a certain age, comfortable with his introverted nature and whose social anxieties have declined in power with each passing year, had made the mistake of initiating the encounter in the first place, 

He was reluctantly attending a social function that he would've much preferred to avoid but there were more reasons to be there there than there were to stay home. Finding himself caught in a situation with the head-tossing dismissive sniffer that required small talk had led to him commenting on a television show currently enjoying quite a bit of favorable notoriety. 

Given that, nowadays idiot boxes are ubiquitous and range in size from square inches to square feet with thousands of entertainment choices on offer if you're willing/able to subscribe to enough content providers...

And that, he was old enough to remember that when there were only a handful of choices (available on a handful of devices that were fairly limited in both size, choice, and functionality) which made it possible to find common ground for discussion...  

He thought, he was on secure ground since even if the speaker thought the show in question was stupid they would have something to discuss. In fact, Snifftoss might even enjoy pointing out exactly why no H. sapin in their right mind would waste their time on such a cultural travesty. 

He thought, he was safe because he rarely watched anything that included commercials and was very picky about what he did watch, which were usually shows offered by one streaming service or another that he thought was of higher quality than the average rubbish on the menu. 

However, being smart enough, and having lived long enough to realize what he thought was a quality show would be considered rubbish by no shortage of other people had taught him to be both cautious and diplomatic about such things. To avoid hurting people's feelings when possible, but to hold his ground when it wasn't. 

Most importantly, he had learned to try and avoid feeding his ego by demonstrating his superiority to anyone, about anything. He had been paying attention long enough to have learned that it was possible to do this accidentally, that many of his fellow H. sapiens psyches, as well as his own, were veritable emotional minefields sown with an easily triggered this or that or even that other thing.

"Well, personally, I find it watchable. And obviously, they dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but there's just no there, there" said Snifftoss. 

RED ALERT! ALL HANDS ON DECK! SHIELDS UP! MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

The guest, instantly grasping that Snifftoss was eager, and would be delighted, to explain themselves politely (but cautiously) replied, "Oh yeah?" 

"People of color? Check."

"LGBT plus? Check." 

"Powerful, non-stereotypical characters presenting as females? Check."

"But what's the point? It's yet another drama that hits all the typical high points that've been around forever. Love, sex, angst, adventure, sex, violence, revenge, God and/or the gods, more sex, occasional humor for a pallet cleanser, good guys v. bad guys, etc, etc, etc."

As I said, what's the point?"

At this point, Snifftoss stops and is obviously waiting for a reply. The guest was still on high alert, but only because he was slightly worried that escaping from this encounter could get ugly. Who was this guy anyway? Crap rolls downhill. What if he was in a position to somehow take it out on the listener's host, a personal friend of the reluctant guest, if he felt he had been slighted?

"Um..., well I suppose it's possible the point is just decent entertainment. In fact, I've wondered about this sort of thing for years. Why do we like stories so much, point or no point, beyond the fact we find a given story to just be a damn good story, well told? 

He was hoping to change the direction of the subject, fearing where he thought Snifftoss was headed, but he wasn't optimistic. 

"I see where you're going," replied Snifftoss, "I guess I'm just jaded. And after all, the postmodernists have freed us from the need for meaning and/or narrative."

The guest swallowed a groan and wondered if it showed on his face. He hoped that Snifftoss would next unknowingly contradict himself and start spinning meanings and/or narratives, which might prove to be interesting.

However, he thought it more likely that he would take the trail to Nihilismberg, oblivious to the fact that this was also a narrative — a dull, dark, boring one with a dead end. Inspiration dawned and he thought he'd try cutting 'em off at the pass and lay a didactic booby trap.   

"I've settled on the notion that all meaningful fiction is a form of distilled reality that contains fundamental lessons each new generation needs to learn, just packaged in a more palatable way than say religion, philosophy, or the like. Not an original idea on my part obviously, but it works for me, and my grandkids confirm it as far as I'm concerned" he replied. 

But I think I've learned all those sorts of lessons, so I don't understand why I still enjoy good stories so much. I must admit I'm also a bit jaded but I'm hoping to live long enough to meet a great-grandkid or two, that'll help get me through to the end. In the meantime, I'm trying to learn how to play the harmonica.

Any thoughts?" 

He smiled and politely waited for a response.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down if you wish to share my work or access my golden oldies.   

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I Repeat, Let's Invade Mexico

Image by Pandanna Imagen from Pixabay

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

"Mexico has strict gun control. You cannot own a gun in Mexico." 

                                                                                           -Jesse Ventura 

{Well, technically you can, but...} 

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I've written before about invading Mexico, setting its more or less enslaved population free, taking out the cartels, and gaining a much smaller and easier-to-control border at the bottom of Mexico. 

I've also written before about sanctioning China in some form or fashion till they stop shipping the precursor drugs to the cartels who use them to manufacture meth and fentanyl and then ship the drugs, enslaved women, a likely terrorist or two, and God knows what all else, across a border everyone knows is out of control, including our alleged president.

And Canada? Canada is a mess. Thinking about suicide? The doctor will see you now. Thinking about protesting Canada's embrace of the reverse quarantine movement (locking down everybody)? Have a problem with crippling the economy and kid's lives by shutting down all the schools?

Better think twice dude, the government may confiscate your money. And be careful what you say online, eh? There's a bill pending called the Online Harms Act. You can find the details here. Hint: Are you familiar with the movie Minority Report? 

I haven't written about invading Canada — it serves as a good example of a bad example (like The Popples Republic of California), it's too damn cold, and at the moment at least the government is no threat to us, just to its own people.

{Fascinating. Um... will you be favoring us with your point at some point?}

Well of course. I always get there eventually, Dana, and in fact, here I am.

We've taken to second-guessing/blowing off allies like Israel and Ukraine to whom we previously made commitments. While we continue to debate, obfuscate, and dissemble, which will keep Mexico and the rest of the world distracted, we could plan the invasion, getting our ducks (tanks) in a row, so to speak.

An invasion will simultaneously make hooge dents in four problems: border control, fentanyl and meth addiction/overdoses, human trafficking, and bloodthirsty cartels.

Win/win/win and win. 

AMLO has finally come clean and declared that the cartels aren't his problem, they're ours, and while he's willing to keep helping us out he could provide much better service  — if the price was right.  

{What's an AMLO?}

He's a who, not a what, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the president of Mexico. A world-class weasel and a pretend populist.

{Lots of that sort of thing going around these days.}

Recently, in a 60 Minutes interview (tick-tick-tick) he laid his cards on the table and unambiguously named his price. 

$20,000,000,000 a year funneled to poor countries in Latin America, lift sanctions on Venezuela and end the Cuban embargo (currently run by a couple of his dicktater buddies), and legalize the millions of Mexicans who have already somehow made it across our buttoned-up Southern border. 

Otherwise, the huddled masses will continue to pour in. Nice little country you got here, it'd be a shame if God knows who was to kick in the back door and have at it.

{That's blackmail! Everybody knows that most of that money would wind up in the pockets of the people who run those countries and who are the reason that...}

I think extortion is a more accurate word, but AMLO says no-no-no, he's just speaking plainly, it's what populist leaders do don'tcha know. As he said, he'll continue to do what he can. After all, Mexico's our biggest trading partner, they make a lot of our stuff there. If we were to close the border prices on all sorts of things would immediately rise dramatically. Nobody wants that, right?

Like China, attempting to drag Mexico into the modern era seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, like gravity, the law of unintended consequences is always in effect.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed in 1994 but I'm not going to come down on one side or the other in that never-ending debate. Suffice it to say the cat's out of the bag/the horse is out of the barn etc. 

Technically speaking, we could've opted to be a more or less self-sufficient country as America is blessed to be one of few countries on the planet Earth that could pull it off, and more or less did till relatively recently.

However, the level of wealth we enjoy and take for granted, unimaginable to my parents (I'm a Boomer), would simply not be possible without trading with the devil(s). But since this column isn't about that, or the fact despite our prosperity many of us are miserable and at each other's throats, I won't bring it up. 

What I will bring up is that in Mexico, a country that has a long history of embracing, how shall I put this...

{Careful!}

Mexico is a country that historically suffers from many of the um... troublesome aspects of some of the countries that are considered part of the "global South."

{Not bad. Have you ever been a corporate/government spokesperson?}

And NAFTA more or less coincided with the rise to power of the infamous cartels that seem to be well on their way to having as much or more power in Mexico as the government. 

AMLO's $20,000,000,000 middlemanperson fee is instructive. Despite NAFTA, the powers that be in Mexico continue to think and act like what used to be called third-world thugs.

{Do we call 'em developing world thugs now?} 

The poor souls fleeing Mexico (and points south) are fleeing economic hardship as much or more than human rights suppression/torture by various and sundry...

{Can't help it, can you?}

Dicktaters. 

Let's make 'em all Americans, crush the cartels, and give some thought to the advantages of being a bit more self-sufficient in a world that includes powerful countries like China (dicktater), Russia (dicktater... who would be just another weenie but for his nukes), et al. 

Once the smoke clears we should give some thought to extending our border to the Panama Canal. Just sayin'... 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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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

Scroll down if you wish to share my work or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns (and other stuff) on Facebook so that you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me publicly flogged.