The Silence, and Some Stuff In Between

Remember when the debate was whether Trump demanded loyalty from Comey? That was a big deal! Quaint, huh? Look how far he went- turning on Pence for not pretending he had the authority to overturn the election. Here's the thing though- he would, and might, go so much further.

January 8, 2021

Postscript- I genuinely believe that Trump would have a very hard time explaining how our system works. He couldn't possibly frame the role of the president separately from that of a king. 

...

Working class novelist Russell Banks left us today.

"Loyalty is weird, it kicks in when you dont expect it and the people who deserve loyalty least seem to get it the most."

...

TRUMP'S PERMANENTLY BANNED FROM TWITTER!

January 8, 2021

Postscript- Oh my, I so clearly remember...the silence.

...

Lately I'll be looking at somebody wondering what the heck is so weird about their face. And then I realize that it is a normal face, but that I'm looking at the whole thing! Masklessness is kind of like the 2020's version of streaking.

January 8, 2021

...

If I understand Benghazi, there was an attack on our diplomatic compound that resulted in two people dying including the Ambassador when reinforcements didn't get there in time. The CIA initially reported that it was a spontaneous uprising, and later investigations found out that it was coordinated beforehand. This detail caused years and years of consternation for many in Congress.

What's the equivalent to the Capitol Insurrection? Trump fraudulently made the case of voter fraud for months, talked about how he wanted a rowdy crowd on January 6th, he got them wound up along with Giuliani and his son, told them to go to the Capitol, where they breached security and took it over. 

Again, they took over our own Capital building. They were chasing security through the halls, holding Trump flags and Confederate flags, while our elected Representatives were finalizing the transition of power. This was a time that our Capitol should have been more secure than ever before. The seditionists could have got the ballots and destroyed them, meaning Congress couldn't confirm them.

So why wasn't the National Guard called in? Trump fired his Defense Secretary just after the election, who left saying something along the lines of, "If he does what he wants to do, God help us," and he installed a stooge who was unreachable while this was going on. Someone below him had to authorize the National Guard to move in.

Take a look at motivation for a second. To believe that Benghazi was a worthwhile investigation you have to believe that Clinton and Obama wanted our own ambassador killed. To believe that Trump wanted all of this to happen, all you have to imagine is that Trump wanted to remain in power.

So how many years of investigations are we going to get out of this? And what's the punishment for trying to take over our government?

January 8, 2021

...

What a great picture of my third great-grandparents, James and Anna Witwer, and all 13 of their kids- Kathryn, Martin, James, Anna, Magdalena, Luella, David, Eugene, Irene, Roy, Eva, Almeta, Alberta. It was probably taken somewhere around 1915. He owned hotels in Bowmansville and Adamstown. Get this... that mother is about my age. That's a hard 45 years! I'm pretty sure that my second great-grandmother is seated to Anna's right. Another child, Etta, died as a baby about 10 years prior. Eva was still with us until 2005 when she died at 97 years old. She outlived her siblings by 15 years. I wish I would have gotten into genealogy earlier. I could have met her. It's hard to imagine that my great-great-great aunt was somehow still alive when I was 30 years old.

January 8, 2020

...

Thinking back on Pinocchio, of course everybody remembers the heartwarming beginning and end. What I forgot though over the last 40 or so years, was the middle where he's kidnapped and forced into child labor, decides to take up drinking and cigar-smoking, sees all of this new friends turned into donkeys (they just wanted to go back with their mamas), he turns into a half a donkey himself, somehow ends up in the belly of a whale, a mean, mean whale, and generally has a horrendous time. Oh sorry, spoiler alert.

January 8, 2020

...

Sara Carter and Maybelle Carter performing “Cannonball Blues” in 1967. From John Cohen's documentary "Sara and Maybelle."

https://fb.watch/hWyGCNS5lu/?mibextid=NnVzG8

...

You know what they say, a scandal a day keeps the press in disarray.

January 8, 2017

...

I saw a guy smoking a pipe the other day. Every time I see that think of this George Carlin quote: 

"I'm gettin' tired of guys who smoke pipes. When are they gonna outlaw this shit? Guy with a fuckin' pipe! It's an arrogant thing to place a burning barrier between you and the rest of the world."

While I'm on the subject, I never walk through the pen section at Staples without thinking of this Mitch Hedberg joke:

"I bought a seven-dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring."

These musings really worked themselves deep into my being!

January 8, 2017

...

Here's a sentence you've never seen before and will probably never see again: 

Today when I was folding laundry, Gretel kept running off with my yellow boxers with monocled, mustachioed deer.

January 8, 2015

...

Our pipes burst and there's water all over, but the baby doesn't care!

January 8, 2014

...

Every time I rinse my rice, one gets lost down the sink drain, and every time I think about Kissinger and Nixon decided to bomb the Vietnamese rice paddies to starve the general population. Somehow that Kissinger still appears on news shows and is treated with respect.

January 8, 2011

...

The Battle of New Orleans ended on this day in 1815 when Andrew Jackson lead American forces to victory over the British. If Johnny Horton is to be believed, it was largely based on alligator artillery.

https://youtu.be/9CnPv_1SVh0

...

On this day in 1877, Crazy Horse and his warriors fought their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory.

...

A farmer reported a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France on this day in 1981. It is claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

...

On this day in 1992, President Bush threw up on the Japanese prime minister! Someone from Idaho prank called CNN hours later, pretending to be the person tending to Bush in Japan, and said that he had died. CNN was a second away from announcing it on air when someone yelled for the anchor to stop. Wow.

...

Mike Schmidt was elected to the Hall of Fame on this day in 1995 with 96.5% of the vote. How on Earth was it not unanimous???

...

On this day in 2005, the nuclear sub USS San Francisco collided at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man was killed, but the sub surfaced and was repaired. 

...

Certainly you know what happened on this day in 2010. A guy was quite taken with a double rainbow.

https://youtu.be/OQSNhk5ICTI

...

Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head on this day in 2011. Eighteen others were also shot, with six dying. One look at the culprit's face, and there's no doubt what his problem was.

...

Butterfly McQueen, a star of Gone With the Wind, was born on this day in 1911.

"As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."

...

Soupy Sales was born on this day in 1926. Here's a dumb joke he'd tell.

A stockbroker is suffering from a recurring ringing in his ears and he goes to the doctor who recommends that he have his tonsils removed. He has them removed, but it doesn’t help. He goes to a second doctor who advises him to have his teeth pulled. This too fails and the ringing continues.

He goes to a third doctor, a specialist, who says, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are suffering from a rare disease and at best, you have six months to live.”

Since the guy has no relatives to whom to leave his money, he decides to spend every cent he has. He books passage for a trip around the world. He goes to the best tailor in town and orders twenty handmaid suits. He finds a shirt maker and has twenty shirts made to order.

The shirt maker starts taking all the measurements and says, “Thirty-four sleeve. Sixteen Collar.” The stock broker says, “Excuse me, that should be fifteen.” The shirt maker responds and says, “Sixteen collar, look here at the tape measure.” The broker says, “That can’t be. I’ve always worn a fifteen collar and THAT’S what I want!”

The shirt maker replies, “Ok, but you’ll get a ringing in your ears!”

...

Elvis was born on this day in 1935, but his twin brother died. Later, Elvis's mom told him that if he sang at midnight, his brother could hear him. I guess that's one way to make your child the greatest singer who ever lived.

...

David Bowie was born on Elvis's 12th birthday.

Rock journalist, Al Aronowitz:

"The night before Bowie's Carnegie Hall debut in New York, I'm sitting with him over a room service dinner in his Plaza Hotel suite while he amazes me with the story of how, when he was a teenager, reading On The Road had been his turning point. It opened up all possibilities for him. It uplifted his spirit. It freed him to dye his hair different colors."

...

Monty Python's Graham Chapman was born on this day in 1941.

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."

...

Stephen Hawking joined us on this day in 1942, the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death. He said that he felt a kinship with him because of it.

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."

...

Eccentric baseball pitcher, Schoolboy Rowe, left us on this day in 1961.

“I’d just eat a lot of vittles, climb on that mound, wrap my fingers around the ball and say to it, ‘Edna, honey, let’s go.'”

...

Other notable deathdays- Yvonne DeCarlo (2007), Buck Henry (2020)

...

...

I strongly encourage you to read this blog entry. Your sense of appreciation of food will thank me.

https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/nil-by-mouth

January 8, 2010

...

Huffington Post- Sarah Palin Statement On Arizona Shooting Involving Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

"Grimly ironic," or an inevitable conclusion? Remember the hubbub and when that target map came out?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/sarah-palin-statement-shooting_n_806224.html

January 8, 2011

...

British versus American comedy, what's the difference?

Some insight into a difficult topic to pinpoint.

https://youtu.be/Zyv4jGWEzxY

January 8, 2017

...

Milk and movies, why do characters drink it? This is the type of thing I love!

https://youtu.be/iKDtmV5xSv0

January 8, 2017

...

Bed of nails...there are hundreds of bad things so his supporters don't notice any one of them. For any Trump supporter to have any credibility, before they overlook any of these things they need to ask themselves, "Would I overlook this if Obama was accused of it?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2017/01/06/third-lien-on-trump-hotel-brings-alleged-unpaid-bills-to-over-5-million/

January 8, 2017

...

Washington Post- N. Korea’s Kim calls U.S. ‘our biggest enemy,’ says its hostile policies never change

Damn Trump, more bad news. And he wrote you that big beautiful love letter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/northkorea-kim-us-enemy/2021/01/08/666ba97a-5216-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html

January 8, 2021

...

Prune Face is a rebel operative, and not one of Jabba's goons???

https://youtu.be/Ou7BN6NdK2E

...

Hawking- “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”

...

Trump tweet- "Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault"

...

Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent- "Can you honestly love a dishonest thing?"

...

Thomas Paine- "It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry."

That's just common sense.

...

Vowell, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States- "That, to me, is the quintessential experience of living in the United States: constantly worrying whether or not the country is about to fall apart."

...

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up- "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise."

...

Michael Faraday- "There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right."

...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning- "Silence is the best response to a fool."

...

Miyazaki- "Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making."

...

Marcus Aurelius- "You always own the option of having no opinion."

...

Camus- "Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

...

Asimov- "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

...

Hitchens- "Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.'"

...

Soren Kierkegaard- "If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence."

...

A lady while dining at Crewe

Found an elephant's whang in her stew. 

Said the waiter, "Don't shout, 

And don't wave it about, 

Or the others will all want one too."