Neo-Jacobins

Image by Richard Duijnstee 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

"Terror is only justice: prompt, severe, and inflexible. It is then an emanation of virtue." -Maximilian Robespierre  


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

According to Wikipedia: "Today, the political terms Jacobin and Jacobinism are used in a variety of senses."

"...it is sometimes used as a pejorative for radical left-wing revolutionary politics, especially when it exhibits dogmatism and violent repression."

Just so.

[Wait-wait-wait. Let's try something new. State the point of this missive before circumnavigating the universe to get to your destination, the way they recommend in English 101. How's about a thesis statement?] 

Harumph! I can't tell you how disappointed I am that you don't appreciate the charming literary devices I employ to express the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer... 

[You don't actually have a point do you? You just start writing and hope that...]

My point is that the American Wokies aren't conservative, middle of the road, or progressive. They're not Republicrats or Depublicans. They are the Neo-Jacobins.

[What happened to liberals?]

Good question.

[Hold up a sec', I can't argue with dogmatic, but as for violent repression...]

If you're canceled and lose your job, perhaps your career, because the Intersectional Inquisition finds you guilty of heresy I'm guessing you're gonna feel violently repressed.

[Well, maybe, but it's not as if they literally... ]

Yeah? Talk to a small businessperson in downtown Wherever, USA. Someone that was working 16 hour days trying to make a buck when their dream was destroyed by a roving band of postmodern Hitler Youths claiming to be antifascists.    

Do you think they're grateful for all the free time they now have?    

The American Revolution, in my semi-humble opinion, turned out reasonably well. The French Revolution, which culminated in the dick-tatership of Napoleon, not so much.

America's homegrown (Neo)Jacobins don't think the American Revolution turned out well at all, that it's past time to burn everything down — metaphorically, literally, or both — and start over.

Some background for the historically/memorically challenged if you please. 

The French kicked their king to the curb shortly after helping us to kick the king of England's minions out of the colonies that were the beta-version of the USA.

The original Jacobins — the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality — was a gang political club that rose to power when France's fractious factions were fighting for turf.

Original Jacobins (OJs) were easily identifiable because of their gang colors. They wore blood-red capes and cloaks with guillotines embroidered on the back.

[You made that up.]

Yes, Dana, I did. But I am working on a business plan for a store called Guillotines-R-Us — heads will roll.

You've probably heard of the Reign of Terror and the Jacobin's most famous shot-caller, Robespierre? Eventually, even he was deemed unworthy of heading the club. 

According to Wikipedia, the final score was 16,594 executions and another 10,000 or so dead at the hands of their captors in the prisons they had been locked up in without a trial.

[Wait-wait-wait. The Neo-Jacobins have only decapitated a statue or three. How can you compare them to the OJs? And most Wokies don't embrace, at least officially, the break and burn strategery occasionally employed at the "mostly peaceful protests."]  

True, instead they like to blame the ongoing violence on Daffy Donald sending in forces to keep the mostly peaceful protestors armed with laser pointers, rocks, bottles, hammers, fireworks, Molotov cocktails — and lately, guns — from burning down federal facilities that the local gummits won't or can't protect.

I wrote a note seeking comment on the protests from Uncle Joe, who is still hiding from Covid-19 (and Chris Wallace) in his basement, and attached it to a rock that I tried to toss through a basement window in keeping with the spirit of the times.

[Nuh-uh! You're lying again.]

It bounced off, armored glass I'm guessin'. 

I also asked the IUPPPP&PPVTTOT for a comment (whose offices were recently burned to the ground by a splinter group) but they didn't respond. 

It's getting really hard to concentrate. There's a helicopter in Mr. Cranky's neighborhood that's so loud it sounds like it's hovering directly over my house so I'm going to close with a quote from an editorial written in the Washington Post by the Rev. E.D. Mondaine, president of the Portland, Oregon NAACP.

"Unfortunately, 'spectacle' is now the best way to describe Portland's protests. Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention — but how do these actions stop police from killing black people? What are Antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of black equality?"

Well, gotta run, someone's at the door and I'm expecting an Amazon delivery from... 

CRASH!

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Fireflies

Image by ĐÔ NGUYỄN 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 Gentlereader

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."  

                                                                                              -Mark Twain

Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

What does a columnist and beloved grandfather write about when he/she/they is/are suffering from GNT (grim news fatigue)?

Fireflies.

[Fireflies? Why?]

So I'd have an excuse to write that flocks of flaming fireflies are fitfully flitting through the fields of my fiefdom this fine year.

[You don't have a fiefdom, and flocks...]

But I do have a poetic license and a song in my heart.

[Right.]

Anyways, Dana, here in the mountains of Ohio the fireflies are so numerous this year that at first I thought the IAFF-NAR (International Association of Fireflies, North American Region) was holding their annual convention in the thriving metropolis of Cleveland. 

I'm embarrassed to say that it didn't occur to me, till I did a bit of googlin', that this year's convention was canceled due to the Wuhan flu.

[Racist!]

Are you familiar with the Spanish flu, Dana?

[Are you referring to the 1918 influenza pandemic, actual origin unknown?]

I am indeed. The one that according to the CDC killed at least 50,000,000 H. sapiens while a world war was going on. But we know where our somewhat wimpy by comparison pandemic started, even the current emperor of China admits that.

[I see what you did there...]

Yeah, me too, I got sucked into talking about grim news again. Let's get back to lightning bugs...

[Hold up a sec', a bit of column housekeeping has to be dealt with. We're getting letters from people wanting to know what's up with your latest bizarre literary device, he/she/they.]

Diversity and Inclusion, of course.


When I was taught the fundamentals of reading and writing by Sister Mary McGillicuddy back in the Black&White Ages when the Patriarchy reigned virtually unchallenged, I was told that...

Well, here's a quote from Wikipedia. "The generic he serves as a pronoun whose antecedent is any noun denoting a social category under which both sexes fall: A good student always does his homework."

S'ter Mary, not woke, and thus unaware that this convention had been concocted by the Illuminati's Committee For the Suppression of Women Through Language Control, Subcommittee For English (CFSWTLC-SFE), taught us this was just a way to keep things simple.

Also, that they was reserved for plural uses. Thus: Good students always do their homework.

Once the women's liberation movement of the sixties picked up steam all sorts of people began substituting she for he to protest "male chauvinism," an oft-heard phrase at the time.

"Activism" — of minimal effort and minimal consequence — was just as popular then as it is now.


Now that the Wokies have set the college campuses on fire and the fire is spreading rapidly, pronouns have become a hooge deal because of pronoun perpetrated verbal violence inflicted upon the LGBTQ (+ this, that, and even that other thing) community.

However, many of my fellow geezers and geezerettes find that using they/them instead of he/him just looks and feels... wrong. (I'm tempted to point out that old people can be such a pain in the bum but that would be ageist.)

But with the exception of Satan's minions — white, heterosexual, cisgender, male geezers — we have to include even the Boomers in a healthy, tossed salad of diversity and inclusion to replace the high-fat, melting pot of patriarchy.   

Thus, he is for the traditionalists, she is for the formerly hip and everyone that identifies as a woman, and they is for everyone else. Hence, he/she/they. No one's left out; no one's self-esteem takes a hit.

[Wait a minute... aren't you one of Satan's minions?]

Could we get back to fireflies, please? My word allocation is running dangerously low.


I realize that my dear Stickies and gentlereaders will find this hard to believe but when I went a-googlin' to try and find out why there are so many fireflies in the Ohio mountains this year I was presented with contradictory information.

Bottom line: I found nothing about Ohio specifically but I discovered that nationwide lightning bug populations are in decline — unless they're not.

A couple of quotes from Christopher Heckscher, an epidemiologist at Delaware State University in a USA Today article, Fireflies are dying out because people are destroying their habitat.

"If fireflies are disappearing..." My emphasis.

"...the quantitative data isn't there yet to express population decline in terms of numbers of the insect..."

Since the article was published, Dr. Heckscher has accepted a position at the World Health Organization.

[Fakes news! You made that up!] 

Yup, I sure did.

Hey, I'm outta here. I'm going for a walk, lots of fireflies out tonight.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Defund the Teachers!

Image by Roy Harryman 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

"We keep hearing that black lives matter but they only seem to matter when that helps politicians to get votes... The other 99% of black lives destroyed by people who are not police do not seem to attract nearly as much attention in the media." -Dr. Thomas Sowell


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Defund the Teachers! I don't really mean it but since hyperbole rules nowadays a cranks gotta do what a cranks gotta do to get a little attention. 

After all, in an era of "alternative facts" (HT: Kellyanne Conway) wherein defund the police doesn't necessarily mean defund the police who am I to resist substituting slogans and sound bites for substance?

While I admit that Defund the Teachers! is hardly in the same league as a world-class slogan like Black Lives Matter it's (hopefully) an attention-getter and might snag me an extra reader or two.

[So you're admitting the title of this week's column is clickbait?] 

Is it, Dana? Is it just manipulative clickbait or is it clever SEO? Potato or potahto? Low road or high road? After all...

[What's SEO? No wait, we'll come back to that. Are you saying black lives don't matter?]

Of course not, black lives obviously matter. That's one of the reasons the slogan is a work of genius. Who in their right mind can argue otherwise? Who is arguing otherwise? How can you argue with a statement that any sane person accepts and simultaneously means different things to different people?

Even the international organization called the BLM Global Network has an agenda of sweeping generalizations bereft of specifics.

For example: "We disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

Alrighty then... But what, specifically, should The Fedrl Gummit, the state and local summits, and non-black fellow Americans do to improve the lot of African-Americans?

[That's not the point! The point is that...]

My point is that protests and taking down monuments, legally or by the mob, is a lot of "sound and fury, signifying nothing." I repeat myself, what, specifically, needs to be done?


As to clickbait and SEO: one man's/woman's/person's clickbait is another M/W/Ps search engine optimization. 

If you're not familiar with this term it simply refers to the tricks, tools, and techniques used to get you to find and/or click on one of the literally billions of choices available.

For example, low-rent techniques like the feeble ones I sometimes use, such as clickbatish title above (Defund the Teachers!) that's repeated in bold early on in the column and then sprinkled throughout the column to get the attention of the Goog.

As I've mentioned previously, and I'm mentioning again because the Crank is all about public service, a small but lucrative industry exists whose purpose is to find ways to get you to click on links and/or get the Goog to offer up said links when you go a-googlin'.

The Goog always wins by monetizing the data it's always collecting. The Goog never sleeps but you get some free software and services. That's fair, right?


Now, as to the title of this column, Defund the Teachers! Ever wonder how the Wokies have managed to turn American English into Newspeak (see Orwell, George: 1984) and place brainwashed, smartphone addled, whiny tattletales in every profession and on every corner so quickly?

America's education system, which consists of:

Overpriced colleges and universities, top-heavy with "critical" social justice administrators and compliance officers, as well as fake scholars teaching fake subjects.

"Mom and dad, I've decided to major in Feminist Geography." (If you only click on only one link in this missive, click on this one.)

And the schools of education staffed with "activists" cranking out woke primary and secondary school teachers for America's, um... slightly less than world-class public school system.

Which brings us back to Black Lives Matter.

[Huh? Has your brain always worked like this?]


With all due respect, and given the following, I'd like to make a specific suggestion.

BLM has been criticized because of how it spent 1.8 million dollars worth of donations in 2019.

(25% went to salaries, benefits, and payroll taxes, 46% to consultant fees, and the rest went to small grants, accounting, bank fees, information tech, insurance, and legal fees.)

Since the murder of George Floyd, BLM has received a flood of donations from both personal and corporate sources that are still pouring in.

Given that nationwide there are better than 1,000,000 kids on waiting lists for charter schools, many of which are located in underserved, poor/minority neighborhoods, why not spend some of that money on supporting or opening charter schools in neighborhoods where black kids are trapped in failed public schools?

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.









   

     

Winnie the Emperor Strikes Back

                         Source unknown - 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.

                  
-Image by Weibo 

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

"Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us." -Xi Jinping 


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

In case you're not familiar with what my favorite emperor (and second favorite dick-tater), China's president for life Xi Jinping (aka Xi Dada) has to do with Winnie the Pooh, clicking on this link provides an article that illustrates everything.

[Illustrates? Wouldn't explains be a better choice of words?]

No.

The article is world-class clickbait from an online magazine called MEL but... Is there an industry term for yet another progressive publication that claims it's not just another progressive publication, but mostly is?

[I've no idea but I do know that, No, was rude, and you didn't answer my question.] 

Sorry, Dana. The choice of the word illustrates was deliberate. The article includes four illustrations/photos that, um, illustrate Xi Dada's resemblance to Winnie the Pooh.

[You know, not everyone is amused by your wordplay.]

I suspect my gentlereaders are, after all, they're smarter than the a-ver-age bear.

[Whatever. By the way, who's your favorite dick-tater?]

North Korea's Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un of course. Now there's a psychopath. He looks (and behaves) like Winnie the Pooh on serious drugs, but he may have been deleted by the webmaster in the sky, or his sister, which would make Xi Dada number two with a bullet.

[Why are you picking on Xi Dada's looks again? After all, no one's gonna mistake you for George Clooney. Are you a lookist?]

A lookist? What's a... Oh, I get it.

I think that lampooning a dick-tater who uses phrases like "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" and "one country, two systems" with a straight face puts me on the side of the angels.

God bless you, George Orwell, wherever you are.

[You're creeping up on a point... Right?]

Absabalutely. For the record, capitalism with Chinese characteristics is Newspeak (see 1984: Orwell, George) for cronyism, mercantilism, and left-wing fascism.

[Are you going to unpack that one?]

Nah. That's worth a column of its own. But the one country, two systems claim is pure bonkercockie and there's a lesson here for my Dear Grandstickies, and everyone else.


July the first marked the 23rd anniversary of the British colony of Hong Kong reverting to Chinese control. The Chinese Gummit, which had promised not to mess with Hong Kong for fifty years — one country, two systems — began messing almost immediately.

The harder they pushed the harder the citizens of Hong Kong pushed back with pro-democracy protests.

On June 30th at approximately 11:00 p.m., the Emperor struck back with the "Decision of the National People's Congress on Establishing and Perfecting the Legal System and Enforcement Mechanism of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to Maintain National Security."

Translation and bottom line: You're now officially enslaved like the rest of us. Shortly before America celebrated Independence the emperor imposed Unindependence Day in Hong Kong.


If you've been busy watching or participating in our current national pastimes —demonizing each other, setting things on fire, and/or trying to separate pandemic truth from fiction (and politicization)  — you may have taken your eye off the (Chinese) ball.

[The billionaires and millionaires of the NBA are kissing Xi Dada's bum again?]

No. The emperor and his minions now have a vaguely worded cudgel that means whatever they say it means that they can use to keep the masses in line. You can be busted and imprisoned without much in the way of due process.

[You? I know you're uncomfortable using "one" when a "you" will do but in this case shouldn't you...]

Nope. An excellent article by Emily Feng on NPRs website reports that inciting hatred against Bejing by "... a person who is not a permanent resident of the region" (that would be you, and all the other yous on the planet Earth) is now illegal.

[Wait-wait-wait. Even if you didn't make that up, how would China go about enforcing it?] 

I didn't make it up; you can easily look it up. I doubt Xi Dada thinks it can be enforced. I don't doubt that he/she/they thinks that in a better world he/she/they could and that with a little luck, eventually might.

[Well, Assuming, for the sake of argument that it's true, I think the United Nations should get together and tell China to get stuffed.]

Here's a couple'a quotes from an article by Chris Chang, published on the website of Taiwan News. The citizens of Taiwan, for obvious reasons, keep a weather eye on China 24x7x365.

"A total of 53 countries endorsed China's national security law for Hong Kong at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday (June 30), many of which are dictatorships or economically tied with China." My emphasis.

"Meanwhile, 27 countries joined the UK-led condemnation of Beijing's legislation."

[Hoo-boy.]

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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Ain't That Ironical

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
                                       - Photo by cottonbro from Pexels -

  

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 want to see Brian Williams with no irony wearing a mustache." -Adam McKay

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

Irony, according to whatever dictionary it is that provides definitions when one goes a-googlin', is, among other things, "A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result."

I've looked at a lot of definitions from various sources and I've come to the conclusion that accurately defining irony is difficult, something is lost in the translations, so to speak.

Ain't that ironical?

[Wait-wait-wait. Is ironical actually a word?]

Yeah, Dana, it is, you can look it up. 

[Well, in that case, you should link to some proof.] 

Would you click on the link?

[Probably not, to be honest.]

And if you went a-googlin', would you be surprised if you came across a site that featured a 5,039-word essay that passionately argued that ironical is not a word, included elaborate footnotes, and that was chock full of links to other sites?

[No.]

Exactly. 

Here we are living in the dawn of the oft-mentioned information revolution and just about anything we go a-googlin’ for in the Information Ocean can and will be subject to contradiction, misinformation, and even weaponized misinformation. 

And so, writers attempt to make a case for _______ by inserting links into their work to frequently ignored sources that might be utter bonkercockie and that probably contain links to sources with links that many/most readers will not follow and...

[You’re giving me a headache.]

Sorry, I'm just being ironical, I’m all about ironicalities. 

[Ironicalities is definitely not a word.]

Are you sure? Maybe you should look it up.


As it says in the bible, "Irony of ironies, all is irony."

[Nuh-uh, it says...]

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 75,000,000 Boomers in the Republic.

[A few less every day I should think.]

As it has ever been and always will be, geezers and geezerettes spend a great deal of time wailing and teeth-gnashing because kids these days do all the same things they did when they were kids.

In their (and my) defense they have faulty memories. After all:

a. They're H. sapiens and faulty memories are a documented design flaw.
b. They're geezers and geezerettes (G&Gs). 

That's ironical, but it gets worse.


Xrs, Millies, and Zoomers are getting grumpy because...

[Okay, Boomer.] 

Because, among other reasons, they're tired of waiting for the Boomers to get out of the way.

And no, I don't mean die, at least in most cases but... well, nevermind. I refer to the fact that there's no shortage of Boomers who could afford to retire comfortably but won't.

One of the reasons kids these days continue to act like kids these days longer than in the past is because many Boomers either don't retire or if they do, take on another job.

I'm not talking about people that are just trying to maintain a middle-class lifestyle — or have to skip their meds to be able to eat regularly — and would just as soon be fishing.

I am talking about folks that hang on, and on, because they just can't imagine what they'd do with themselves otherwise.

"I'd have to quit the company bowling team!"

Surely they could find something interesting to do that doesn't deny a job to a younger person who would love to get a job, or a better job, so they can afford to make grandbabies (and pay lots and lots of FICA taxes).

[FICA taxes?]

The source of the money for the Ponzi scheme that provides me with a modest amount of cash and heavily discounted healthcare (Social Security and Medicare). 

Like many G&Gs, I like grandbabies. Like most G&Gs I have a health problem or two or 10. Like all G&Gs, I like money.    

If you can afford it, walk away. All together now... all we are saying is give the kids a chance.  

Gentlereaders, I give you, career shaming. Let's "call out" Boomers who should quit while they're, financially speaking, at the top of their game.

This is a chance for the well-fed politicians, lobbyists, consultants, university presidents, and CEOs of ginormous NPOs, banks, multinational corporations, etceterations of a certain age (and net worth) to set an example for the little people.

[But some people just love working.]

Absolutely. They should go start new firms and create new jobs. Failing that, join the gig economy and get to know the occupationally disrupted.

Did I mention politicians? Do you realize that in November our choices are Daffy Donald (74) or Uncle Joe (78 on 11/20)?

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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The Bonfire of the Statuaries

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
                                                     - Image by? -

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'm not going to waste my time worrying about Confederate statues. That's wasted energy." -Charles Barkley 

"We have destroyed 80% of the statues. There is only a small amount left and we will destroy that soon." -Mullah Omar, Taliban Supreme Leader (deceased) 


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

Some Random Randomnesses...

- The Bonfire of the Statuaries (HT: WSJ Potomac Watch Podcast) continues and the IUPPP&PVTTTOT stands firm. There will be no peace until there is justice.

[What's the IUPPP...]

The International Union of Perpetually Protesting Protestors and Perpetual Victims of This, That, and The Other Thing.

Unfortunately, as to what sort of justice, actually implementable, that will restore peace remains ill-defined. I confess that I sometimes wonder if this is tactical, a never-ending jobs program for members of the IUPPP...etc.

However, virtue flags are flying, politicians are pandering, businesses not destroyed (by brick, fire, or plague) are donating — and Congress has threatened to pass yet another law.

Unfortunately or fortunately (one never knows...), Congress being Congress, and this being an election year, it's not going well.


In other news...

The following Random Randomness should be read aloud with your best Columbia School of Broadcasting voice.

In other news that you should have heard about but likely didn't, Antonio Gwynn, an 18-year-old African-American gentleperson from Buffalo, New York, spent ten hours cleaning up the trash and broken glass on (George?) Baily Avenue in Buffalo left behind by people protesting police brutality.

Mr. Gwynn's 15 minutes, the result of a local TV news feature, landed him a car, a year's worth of car insurance, and a free ride at a local college courtesy of some other gentlepersons.

Clarence, could you please send Frank Capra down long enough to make one more movie?


- If you're killed by a heavy, rotted out tree branch that lands on your head while you're communing with nature via a stroll in a sylvan setting is that "death by natural causes"?

 "_______ departed this life for the rest and comfort of the next one on... "

Once the plague began ravaging the realm I became one of those people I used to sneer at, a compulsive obituary reader. I was surprised to find that most people die from natural causes or apparently just drop dead. 

For the record, being of more or less sound mind I declare and affirm that even if I die peacefully in my sleep it is my wish that my obituary states that the cause of my death is under investigation. If my loved ones love me when asked they will reply, "I'm not at liberty to say," look troubled, and change the subject. 

- As I've recently written, much to my surprise I, who thrived as a hippie with a job for 13 years, seem to be turning into some sort of conservative. In my ongoing attempt to define exactly what sort of conservative I am I discovered that I'm a fusionist.

[Say what?]

Well, Dana, according to Wikipedia, "...fusionism is the philosophical and political combination...of traditionalist and social conservatism with political and economic right-libertarianism."

[What's up with all the italicizing?]

In the Wikipedia entry, those words are all links to other entries. As you know it's my editorial policy to use as few links as possible, with an emphasis on self-serving links.

[Self-serving?]

Yup. Links that bring up something from my website.

[Geesh.]

Anyways, the bad news is that according to the entry, the fusion has faltered and the formerly fraternal factions are now fighting fractious factions.

[Thus, the Donald. But why are you...]

Well, as you know, I'm running for king via a write-in campaign and it's occurred to me I need a name for my party. Branding and marketing, I'm told, are everything these days. So, I give you (insert fanfare, here):

The Live and Let Live party!   

BYOI (bring your own ideology) but let's start acting like adults trying to find a way to make their marriage work for the sake of everyone in the family.


- I hate my cable company.

Over the years I've shelled out a significant amount of money to  Roadrunner/Time Warner Cable/Charter Spectrum/Spectrum or whatever their name is this week.

If I owned a company that had a gummit granted monopoly on cable services in a given area where people paid to watch content that was one-third commercials,

and I charged extra for content that didn't,
and I could force people to pay for content they never watched,
and if I claimed my content was available on-demand, when it often wasn't,

AND,

If I were running a popular "premium" (costs extra) series and knew people had been waiting a week to see the latest episode and for some reason it wasn't available this week,

I'd post a simple e-note of explanation. I might even say sorry about that. I'd whistle all the way to the bank knowing I was rich and a nice guy/girl/they.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Cranky don't tweet.

         

  

The Supremes Poor Performance

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to 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

                                       -Image by 272447 from Pixabay-
                                                  
                                                   Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I never want to be in the business of predicting what the U.S.Supreme Court will do." -Neal Katyal 

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

Please Note: I wrote the original version of this column prior to the tragic death of George Floyd. It fell behind the shelf I stack my columns on and I just found it while doing some late Spring cleaning.

While "columns shelf" is just a charming metaphor, I did write it over a month ago and promptly forgot about it. I've decided to tweak it and publish it now because it's about something conservatives, liberals, and progressives should be able to agree on.   

Having come across the word cert in the course of my relentless pursuit of current events and having only a vague notion as to its meaning, I went a-googlin'. Cert is an abbreviation for the word certiorari, a Latin legal term that means to be made certain in English.  

[What are you...]

One of the reasons I'm a current events junkie is because Sister Mary McGillicuddy taught me that paying attention to what's going on in a complicated world enables you to function optimally.

[Cool, however...] 

WARNING! Fading Boomer Cultural Reference Ahead

For example, I accidentally discovered that Certs:

"It's a breath mint!" 

"No, dumb bum, It's a candy mint!" 

[The second quote is wildly inaccurate, you added...]

I discovered that Certs, a 62-year-old product was quietly deleted last year, most likely (I was unable to confirm) because they contained partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, a health hazard, which is now banned by the FDA.

The bad news is that Crisco, from 1911 to 2004, was made primarily of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. Therefore, if your childhood, like mine, included no shortage of Crisco, well, good luck buddy.

[For the love of God! What has any of this to do with the Supremes?]  

Well, nothing really, Dana. In fact, the title of this missive is clever clickbait (or at least one hopes). This column is about the other Supremes, as in Supreme Court judges.

The point of the preceding was to illustrate that Sister Mary was doubly correct. Not only does paying attention enable you to function optimally it can lead to additional and useful information.  

[Certs and Crisco ain't...]

Facts about Certs and Crisco are useful and interesting to me (and anyone wondering if their arteries are lined with Crisco). The fact that the Supreme Court recently passed on a chance to reconsider a previous decision that promotes injustice is useful and interesting to everyone. 

[More clickbait?]

Sadly, no.   

Now, while the Purple Press and the Orange One were busy proving that so-called real life is high school with money — in the midst of a global pandemic — your friendly neighborhood crank was busy trying to get occasional peaks behind the curtain. 

While you were (hopefully) social distancing America's sweetheart, and possibly the anti-Christ, Alyssia Milano was showing off her crocheted face mask which triggered a frothing flock of twitterers. She then revealed it cleverly concealed a charcoal filter, which triggered a secondary Twitter triggering... 

The Supreme Court of the United States of America turned down the legal equivalent of a whole roll of certs asking them to reconsider what something called Sovereign Immunity is doing to the republic.

Long story short (I'm in the middle of a Charmed binge): 

The certs that I'm referring to are the certs pilled up in the Supreme Court asking that they reconsider a 1984 ruling that gives "qualified immunity" to gummit officials. You can't sue cops, for example, in civil courts for taking a shyte on your life unless they violate "clearly established law." 

[You're making up words again, and, it sounds like the Supremes got this one right so why...]

Actually, its an alt-spelled version of a real Irish word that's the Irish version of a crude English word. In my semi-humble opinion, it almost renders it poetical.  

The problem is with a legal phrase, clearly established law. Lower courts, I know not why, have interpreted this to mean that unless there's a specific law against, say a couple of cops turning a police dog loose on a suspect kneeling on the ground with his/her/their hands up you can't sue him/her/them.

[That would never happen.]

It happened. The cops were granted qualified immunity because there's no specific law against what they did. This and 12 other cert petitions asked the Supremes to take up the problem. They said no.

[Why?]

They don't have to say why they accept some cases and refuse others.   

[Somebody needs...]

Congress could fix it, today, with legislation. 

[Nevermind.]

Update, 6/14/20: From CBS News: "Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, said Sunday that limiting qualified immunity for police officers in future legislation that aims to address officer misconduct would be a 'poison pill' for GOP lawmakers and effectively sink the measure."

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.