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.  

   

 

News That You Can Use

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 

“Popular culture is a place where...propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.” 

                                                                                                    -Criss Jami

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

My news you can use file is filling up my hard drive so I've pulled out some of the more interesting stories. 

Wait...what? 

According to Renaissance Recovery (Effective treatment for addiction, founded by people in recovery), who would seem to be in a position to know, "There is...

{Founded by people... Now that's what I call making lemonade when life serves up lemons.} 

"There is a widespread shortage of the prescription medication hydrocodone in the United States, with drug manufacturers failing to provide clear reasons for the scarcity."

{Wait-wait-wait. Are you confessing that...}

No, I'm not, other than Ianazones Peperoni Pizza (ask for lightly baked as they tend to over-bake) my only addiction is current events and I've been unable to find a rehab that treats current events junkies. 

{Then how did...}

Someone that I'm very close to, who comes from a long line of drunks and druggies on both sides of her family, is suffering from Lyme disease that has triggered a cascade of other problems, including severe pain, told me. 

She's terrified of becoming addicted to painkillers and approaches the problem hyper-vigilantly, always careful to take the absolute minimum of her prescribed meds to get relief. 

She mentioned that there are all sorts of opioid painkiller shortages which sometimes results in her and her Docs having to get creative to keep her pain under control. She quite rightly refuses to buy anything "off the street," terrified of getting something laced with fentanyl.

{This makes no sense, I thought...}

So did I. Feel free to go a-googlin (I did) and you'll discover that the DEA, the FDA, and Big Pharma are basically stonewalling the public as to what's going on. The Fedrl Gummit has yet again dropped the public health ball, Big Pharma is afraid of lawsuits, and innocent people are suffering.

{Well, maybe. But the Princess of Wales is using AI or something to tweak family photos! What about that?!?}

N.I.M.B.Y.

According to FoxNews (I know, I know. Thank God for CNN, right? The writer emits an undignified giggle....) there's trouble in the District of Columbia school system. 

"Nearly 6 in 10 of the 500 children at Maury Elementary School are white. At Miner Elementary School, 80% of the kids are black, many of whom are in foster care, receive public assistance or are homeless." (My underlines and I decapitalized Black and White 'cause I'm not nuts.) 

In the name of DEI, D.C. officials want all students to start off at one of the two schools and finish at the other. Problem solved, yes?

No. 

Parents of the kids currently enrolled in one school or the other have gone to the mattresses in opposition to the plan for all of the reasons you can easily imagine. If you should go a-googlin' for details please advise me if you find the answer to two questions I've been unable to discover.

Has the plan been officially approved, or not?

Has anyone suggested using the vast resources of the Fedrl Gummit to resolve the problems at Miner and let the kids remain in their current schools? The knowledge gained could be used to fix problem schools all over America. 

I just thought of a third question. What's the official position of the local teachers union given that teacher's unions are well known nationwide for their expertise and unflagging dedication to educating the nation's young people?

Ban TikTok? What about free speech!

The Emperor never rests when it comes to protecting his flock. According to the Wall Street Journal, there's a citizen of the Middle Kingdom living in Italy who, via X and a website, provides news that's censored in China to over a million people still enslaved there. 

"Now, he is encouraging his China-based followers to drop him, after many of them told him they have been subjected to police questioning."

{Enslaved? That's a bit hyperbolic, don't ya think?}

Ask the Weigers, the Tibetans, millions of 996 employees (someone has got to make the sneakers and iPhones, and...), citizens with bad social credit scores, Hong Kongers, people that... 

{996 employees?}

9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. 

{My old man worked 12 hr. days.}

So that you, or anyone, wouldn't/shouldn't have to. Although... wait, you had a father? How could... never mind.

If you're too busy to follow the link and read the fascinating/horrifying article, one more quote if you please. 

"Li said in an interview that his website and X account have become frequent targets of hacking and cyberattacks and that he has moved four times in the past year for fear of being tracked down by Chinese authorities."

Checked your white privilege lately?

Did you know that marriage promotes white supremacy?

From an article in The College Fix: “I theorize that marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy,” I'll bet you're wondering what marriage fundamentalism is, right? 

Well, the quote is from Professor Bethany Letiecq, of George Mason University. "...an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development, specializing in the utilization of community-based participatory action research approaches, anti-racist research methods...and mixed method designs (e.g., qualitative and quantiative methods) in partnership with minoritized and marginalized families."

Benjamin Vogel (a student at Hope College, who wrote the College Fix article) got the marriage fundamentalism quote from a paper published by Dr. Letiecq in The Journal of Marriage and Family with the titillating title: Theorizing White heteropatriarchal supremacy, marriage fundamentalism, and the mechanisms that maintain family inequality.

{Cool, but what's marriage fundamentalism?}

Sorry for the drift, but as a public service... I'm sure that many people are familiar with the phrase "publish or perish," which refers to climbing the occupational ladder to become a full professor with bulletproof tenure and then remain at the top of the academic food chain.  

Big BUT, publish what? Where? Well, often as not it's obscure papers for obscure academic journals that almost no one will ever read. 

Anyways... as to marriage fundamentalism: "I theorize that marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy. Marriage fundamentalism can be understood as an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family." -Professor Letiecq

I suspect that some of you may be tempted to skip reading Prof. Letiecq's paper but Mr. Vogel's article helpfully supplies us with another quote that explains where Prof. Letiexq is coming from, in his/her/their own words. 

"Letiecq employs 'critical family theorizing…to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages [white heteropatriarchal nuclear families] and marginalizes others as a function of marriage fundamentalism.'"

{Well who can argue with that?}

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.  

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

 

Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski 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 

"At some point or another, everyone has felt unseen and unheard and marginalized." - Ayanna Pressley 

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I'm a member of a marginalized group.

I went a-googlin' to discover exactly what a marginalized group is having been triggered by the use of the phrase. It happened to turn up in a bunch of articles one recent morning when I was in the midst of my daily relentless need for input.

{Yeah, yeah, we know, you're a current events junkie and...}

In my defense, Dana, I'm very particular about what sort of current events I shoot up, and I'm a wanna-be polymath with wide-ranging interests beyond current events.

{Half-assed polymath... Hey, isn't that a line from a Randy Newman song?}

Perhaps I should settle for renaissance man person and make a point of pronouncing the word as ren-a'-sance. 

{This whole often crossing out man or men shtick and inserting person, not to mention making fun of the pronoun wars by writing he/she/they or the like is getting old.}

As am I, but now that I'm officially declaring myself to be a member of a marginalized group I'll have to give some thought to changing my ways.

According to CultureAlly.com ("Your diversity, equity & inclusion solutions all in one place") "...marginalize refers to the act of treating a person or group as though they are insignificant by isolating and/or disempowering them." 

Having been raised in front of an old school television (think 27" black and white box with tinfoil draped rabbit ears mounted on a cheap stand with two cat hair-clogged plastic wheels for viewing maneuverability) my isolation and disempowerment started early and continues to this day. 

{Huh. Do tell.}

I refer, of course, to heterosexual pasty patriarchs being treated with thinly veiled contempt via that all-American institution, the TV sitcom. 

Anyone of a certain age is aware of the rapid devolution of the wise and patient family patriarch type, think Ward Cleaver or Ozzy Nelson, to the likes of Alan Harper of Two and a Half Men and Al Bundy of Married, With Children, with Archie Bunker of All in the Family bridging the gap. 

For the record, I confess to thoroughly enjoying All in the Family which began in my last year of high school. It was well-written, funny, and cutting-edge for its era. 

But being a relatively clueless callowyute at the time, I never gave any thought to the fact that while Archie's hip, self-righteous son-in-law Michael (aka Meathead) went to class to study sociology, Archie, went to work. 

I went a-googlin' to jog my memories of All in the Family and discovered that I had forgotten that Archie fought in the Second World War. Worse, I had no memory of the fact he had been a young baseball star who dreamed of playing for the Yankees but had dropped out of high school to go to work to support his family during the Great Depression.  

Still, everyone knows the dads of TV Land are (usually) well-meaning dopes... except for evil ones that run hooge global empires that spend all their time ripping off everyone they can, including loved ones.

{What about Cliff Huxtable?}

Moving on...

Despite being told for decades that dads are dopes, I attempted to overcome the damage inflicted on me from being raised in a psychological ghetto in TV Land. I fell in love with, and set my sights on, a blond, girl next door type in my mid-twenties. 

I set out to become, Superhusband! Partying had become boring and my genes were crying out to be reproduced.

I spent nearly three years proving myself worthy and able to make such a thing financially and realistically possible while my love finished college by the skin of her teeth and subsequently informed me that it wasn't me, it was her. 

Later dude. 

{Oh c'mon...}

Seriously. 

"I think there's something wrong with me, I don't think I'm capable of making a commitment," she said.

It would've been nice to know that before spending three years re-enacting the Labors of Hercules.

"I know we promised to be each other's rock, but like, I'm just not up for being anyone's rock right now."

{Oh c'mon...}

Seriously.

To be brutally honest, the previous paragraphs were as far as this column got before I ran out of gas. Not having dropped out of high school to support my family and abandoning my dream of being a professional baseball player (or having fought in a world war) I was feeling like a sissy. 

 

{You're aware Archie Bunker wasn't an actual person... right?}

I definitely don't feel privileged but life and my late wife (born sick, died sick) has taught me that my life could've been way worse, perhaps I should just click on the little trash can icon.

{Uh-oh, do I smell white fragility?}

That's my new deodorant. 

But then I came across this, Thousands of Seniors are still dying of Covid-19. Do we not care anymore? courtesy of CNN.com.

"Prejudice against older adults is nothing new, but 'it feels more intense, more hostile' now than previously, said Karl Pillemer, 69, a professor of psychology and gerontology at Cornell University." 

{I don't understand.}

That one sentence tells ya everything you need to know, you don't have to read the article. Everything in the article is a variation on that one sentence.

{I still don't understand.}

I'm a victim! I'm marginalized! Get Kimberle Crenshaw on the line I need validation! I'm yet another victim of "multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage."  

According to the chicks at Womankind Worldwide, "Intersectionality is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalise people – gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, etc."

{Hey, you spelled acknowledgement and...}

You need to stop marginalizing the way folx in the UK spell. 

{I was referring to Womankind, shouldn't that be Womynkind?}

Wait, I'll be right back... Nope, that's how they spelled it.

Cool! I'm officially oppressed and marginalized! Do I get a check? Is there a softball league? An official Facebook page? Hows about reparations? I gotta go... busy, busy!

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.