Friday Funnies.

 *don't make me have to put the blog on Adults Only again...

Sophomoric Humor.

Either all the gay people at the NYT are on holiday*, or they have effectively silenced the voice of common sense inside the once-respected paper.  I like funny as much as the next guy, but this is college-newspaper humor -- in the conservative campus 'zine, not even the student daily...   

Monsanto

Spread Your Seed, Carefree!

To celebrate Pride, we’ve developed extra fruity trees that can’t bear their own fruit but are just as valid as fruit-bearing trees.

* They really should have stopped with the Barbie Dream-House exclusive, and called it a month. This really isn't as funny a feature as whomever sold them on it.  Really.  What's next? Fart jokes? Gape graphics? Who are you really targeting here? Not the corporations, friends...  (Look at how the Times has pandered by running "throuple" stories and deviant disclaimers about the community all month long as part of their "contribution."  No thanks. You're not helping, you're harming by piling fuel on the fire.  Same as America is doing in Ukraine...  Take care the conflagration doesn't one day blow back on you or yours, NYT elite...)

Dairy Queen

Serving Ice Cream and Realness

This month only, we aren’t Dairy Queen; we’re Dairy Drag Queen! Get your sloppy toppings all June at a D.Q.I.A.+ near you. Each order comes with a free Harvey Milkshake of your choosing.

Carhartt

We Like It Rough

This June, Carhartt is celebrating the L.G.B.T.Q. kink community with canvas trousers, boots and outerwear that have even more loops and straps, for all the tools of your trade.

* Let's piss off more regular Americans who use these products, and blame it on the gays!  Ain't that funny... *hoot hoot* --  I work at the NYT.  Dividing the nation is what we do, keeps us empowered...  #DeSatan for Prez! heh heh

Harvard to America:

"John Roberts has made his decision, now let him enforce it."

"We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision," the prestigious university said in a statement.

"In the weeks and months ahead, drawing on the talent and expertise of our Harvard community, we will determine how to preserve, consistent with the Court’s new precedent, our essential values."

George Will:

During oral argument in October, Harvard’s lawyer said that “for some highly qualified applicants” race can be “the determinative factor” just as being an oboe player can be if the university’s orchestra needs one. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. tartly responded: “We did not fight a civil war about oboe players. We did fight a civil war to eliminate racial discrimination.” Thursday’s ruling is a helpful skirmish in today’s intensifying struggle against progressives who, in the name of “equity,” seek not elimination but expansion of racial discrimination. 

In my opinion, the WhitePeople in power because of legacy privilege are determined to hang on to their artificial power base by controlling who ... "gets in" and is able to access the societal benefits most Outsiders can't/couldn't legally access for a long time.  If it's theirs to control, the legacy white people will let in their hand-selected jackpot winners -- but no more; don't try working your way in. no matter how good you are, that door is firmly closed to some not selected -- who are determined to uphold the system that produces such natural inequities...  

(Newsflash: It's not theirs to control.  They who have money should not be vested with all the power, particularly if the reason they have a seat at the table is because their ethics enable them to find "loopholes" others refuse to exploit because we find such compromises unethical to ourselves and undermining our communities...)

"Well it seems like I've been playing this game for way too long... and it seems the game I've played has made you strong.  But when the game is over, I won't walk out a loser, and I know that I'll walk out of here again..."

Talk about having to ride your race....

Oy

 “I know you think you can whip me and make me go from saying Kunta Kinte to Toby, but damn it, Kunta Kinte is all I know,” the mayor said at a Juneteenth celebration at Gracie Mansion after receiving criticism for the abrupt departure of his police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, who announced her resignation earlier this month.

Mr. Adams also claimed recently that there was a “coordinated” effort to prevent him from winning a second term. When asked who was coordinating that effort, the mayor again compared himself to Kunta Kinte and said, “There’s a body of people who were pleased with 30 years without having a mayor that looked like me.”

Workers got a win today too.

Supreme Court Sides With Postal Carrier 

Who Refused to Work on Sabbath

OMG!

Hunter Biden Settles Child-Support Case

The child will receive some of Hunter Biden’s paintings as part of a settlement that ended a yearslong court battle.

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* I have to tell you a Family Law story. Not a client, no confidentiality. A friend of Mal's, whom I knew while I was going to law school. He too had a son at Madison, an undergrad. He owed child support.  Mark for the life of him could not figure out if he shared with his son a freezerful of venison from whatever they "harvested" (or killed, for the non PC) during hunting season, why that did not count as feeding his child...  He was sending nice frozen pieces of protein to campus for his kid to cook and consume.  Which he did.    If Mark had stayed in the home, he argued, his kid would be eating what they killed, and so he would not be feeding him a set dollar amount each month.

I got it-- understood why the courts don't accept and enforce bartering arrangements like that between divorced parents (plus students cannot live on dead deer alone) -- but never could explain it to him though, get past his logic... (and nevermind that he still was paying for the child even at college, when he was over 18.  Guys sorely sometimes just see the money going to their ex-, the enforcer or collector, when he was convinced his son would have let a debt go...)

Anway, when I read of Hunter being ordered to feed his child with his paintings, I laughed.  (I get it: this is WAY above the level of the child not being fed. Likely a determination of what Hunter Biden monthly is really worth today, and a judge trying to do right and say he's worth about as much as his current art career.  Here, Mama: share in the wealth...)  (Honestly, the child might have been better off with a 1/2 freezer full of venison behind Door #1... ;-)  Have a good evening, friends, and if you are non-threatening to me, you are my friend.... 

We Call Them "Undocumented Americans" Now...

or, Here We Are Now; Entertain Us!*

Some say, Stupid -- it's contagious.  Here we are now -- Entertain Us?**

The NYT podcast team, led by Ross Douthat, talks all things aliens in today's weekly podcast of the most entertaining news stories Americans are talking about...

Wait, Are There Actually Aliens?

What to make of the latest allegations of a government cover-up.

By MICHELLE COTTLE, ROSS DOUTHAT, CARLOS LOZADA and LYDIA POLGREEN

-------------------

*  "They say Stupid... it's contagious.  Here we are now -- Entertain Us?..."   

Eyes on the prize, whitish children.  Eyes on the prize...  

Only the TradFolk, and those benefitting off their system, don't want to pay attention to what is important now.  It's not Aliens and UFOs friends, no matter what scifi, fantasy role-playing gamerboys from Yale posing as public intellectuals would tell you... Hth.  Eyes on the prize!  Don't let him distract you with silliness?  If a man can't survive his own daily life without help in the 21st century, why would we ever look to these people for answers or to lead us?

They have no idea what is happening in our country anymore.  They just know how it all looks on paper -- and as a major "paper" person myself I can tell you there is a wide gap between the work done by paperpushers (mostly unsuccessfully, but their contributions are rarely fairly measured...)  and how things go down in real life. (who is really doing the work, and carrying the paperpushers and passive income producers gaming the system that so privileges them and their offspring/downline heirs.)

The tide is turning.

If you're not a doer, but a taker and a victim, you're not going to be in leadership for another generation or two.  Connections in this country are fraying like that, as we see what is really worthy and what is wasted effort artificially pursing an equality that never seems to happen until the people living in the real world help the paper-pushing people with their work.

One way or another, a Change is gonna happen.  Teach your children well.

** A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido...

Smells like Teen Spirit

~Nirvana

(It's a headbanger for the kids who still bang head.)

Spelling correction:   It's Peavey Plaza. Excuse to rerun a peaceful picture.  Peace everyone.  Do your best to find it within yourself today... Don't make trouble for others. That is unkind, and why?  Open a book and educate yourself instead if you feel the need to go after others.  No bullies here.

Physically, Joe Biden Needs Family Close.

Peter Baker does prize-winning political analysis from an insider Washington POV.  He looks at how the political men in DC would analyze Merrick Garland and Hunter Biden at an official state party in the White House, how the ethics look bad so soon after the favored son's plea deal.

Now... try and imagine how things look to all the voters who put these men in our house.

It looks bad, like you treat White crackheads (former -- God bless him for overcoming his addiction) different from Black people who struggle with substance-abuse problems.  Maybe loving your child means disciplining him, Joe?  Letting the State enforce "Law and Order" against your child, too?

Plenty of people with children in jail or prison for less don't think Hunter should keep getting rewarded for his sins and crimes.  (He slept with his late brother's wife;  made a baby out of wedlock that he had to be pushed -- like a teen-aged boy! -- to acknowledge and support.  He wasn't even discreet, leaving his laptop where it was later "discovered" then simply denying it was his and expecting the press and prosecutors to be toothless in reporting the news, simply to enable him.

Why put him on display though and invite him to the parties at pop's place? (it's our house really; you're just temporarily residing there, Biden family, rent free...)

Because its still a very "in-your-face" White privilege that is in power in America today. 

The immigrants haven't really hit out East yet, I don't think.  California and Texas are really the populist power centers of the Americas today.  The coyotes are writting USA's immigration policies, turning the valves to let so many people -- men, women and children -- in today, and so many tomorrow.  Like with corporations, if they get "caught" not playing by the rules, they simply pay fines...  

The criminal trials taking place today for the heat deaths in Texas last year are an abberation -- usually the money changes hands, people come and go, and any deaths are absorbed as the costs of doing business.  America, we know who you are...

Joe Biden, and Jill, likely can't quit Hunter now.  They can't love him, but make him accept responsibility on his own two (feet) , because physically, our president can't be left alone without a personal caregiver close.  That's obvious to anyone who has been around elderly people, who has seen the footage of Biden's physical and verbal stumbles of late...

It's a family drama being played out in public in our house.  Who cares how it plays in Hunger Games DC, Mr. Baker? They're not the swing voters the Dems need.

You ought to know what it does to a parent whose child doesn't get the breaks because they don't have the money or the connections of those currently politically in power under the systematic racism/classism we currently have in place here.    They don't vote for your kid to go to the parties when theirs is in the grave, and the (acknowledged and loved) grandbaby left behind is being raised ... in the home.  That child deserves to stay with family.  Yours doesn't Mr. President.

Get that lil birdie out of the nest already.  Plenty of boys have lost their  mother at his age now.

That's a Banana, Not a Moon.

Nttawwt. *shaking my head*

Can't fool me...

Lol

Putin condemns the Wagner revolt as a failure

Tonight, watch the new season of “The Bachelorette”

The Joy of Being.

Margaret Renkl in today's NYT: 

 To understand that we all exist in a magnificent, fragile body, beautiful and vulnerable at once, is not to ascribe human feelings to nonhuman animals. It is only to recognize kinship. We belong here, possum and person alike, robin and wren and rabbit, lizard and mole and armadillo. We all belong here, and what we share as mortal beings is often more than we want to let ourselves understand. We all have overlapping scars.

Look at me.

Another old blog post found:

FRIDAY, JUNE 19

Happy Birthday, America! Freedom Day.

As much as Columbus Day is a part of our national celebration, so too is Juneteenth!
(and yes, many of us white folk indeed knew of it before this year, but now we are celebrating...)

A little Kool and the Gang to kick us off then; don't be a snob, it's a song we all know to get the party started.  No Chinese fireworks, but a summer Friday, the outdoors, some food, friends, family, friends as family, and.... F-R-E-E-D-O-M !!!!

It's Time, to come together...
It's up to you: What's your pleasure?
Every One Around the World... Come ON!

America should indeed keep a formal Independence Day (July 4), but add Juneteenth to the calendar as a national holiday too -- Freedom Day!  There's plenty of room for both, really. And it honors, and acknowledges, our shared histories -- on paper, and in reality.
-----------------------

Happy weekend!
Happy Father's Day!
Happy Juneteenth!
and... Happy Birthday!

"Free Yourself...
and the Rest will Follow..."

Be. Not. Afraid.

 

Found an Old Blog Post from Years Back...

Who dat?!? ;-) and damn, I miss my dog!

SATURDAY, JUNE 21

Sum-Sum-Summer !

Ah, cold freshwater swims.
Berries.  Crunching peas, in the pod.
Waking up, windows open, to the pre-dawn bird chatter.
Pulling in a fish on a line, cleanly hooked, fat and fresh.
Driving with the windows down, and the radio on.  Rollercoasters!

Summer's here, many things to many people.
Looking forward, I hope, to visiting the family in Illinois soon, and hopefully hosting them up here, later in the summer.  The county fairgrounds are a dog walk away, and the girls were out there in the ring last night, one at a time, practicing with their horses under the watchful eyes of parents, with the horsetrailers parked to the side.

(Buddy loves sniffing tires that bring new country scents to his neighborhood walk.  He stinks right now, rolled in something again yesterday on the trail -- wild animal scat, not a dead fish -- that to him is perfume.  Oh, I wash him and he's not dirty, still very pettable.  Just don't have the heart to take his feral smell away, he loves it, you can tell by the way he carries himself proudly, a big bad beast of 17 pounds.  We did make a quick run to the dog park, windows down, and it was nice to see the other dogs sniffing his neck and scruff, where he had rolled and perfumed up, and not his rear end, which they often seem to just chase in circles...)

Chances are, the plans today include getting him to walk a bit deeper into the lake or river while he's drinking, so I can rub the smell off him.  The waters are running so high this year -- in places where there is usually a little shoreline created at the bottom of a wooden stairway off a walking trail, the Red Cedar river now laps at the bottom steps, but there's still a few feet of calm waters away from the rapidly moving current.

I stopped at Clear Lake park Thursday for a swim.  There's something about the minerals in a spring fed lake that does wonders for the hair and skin.  Really.  The lake too had a natural scent after all the rainfall we've been having here, and indeed it was cold, but nothing says summer to me like a good dunk and 10-minutes of floating and sculling and stretching the limbs in the water.

Maybe the kayaks will go in today...  Mal's got his out of storage already, and it's almost time for him to bring Buddy back;  he's a favored guest at the assisted living/nursing home where Mal's dad Norm resides and he visits often, when staying with Mal.  Such a good dog -- Mal uses treats to reinforce good behavior and that dog does not leave his side, except when a wheelchair woman pats her lap and encourages him up.  (Don't worry -- Mal will have that dog bathed with shampoo scents and soft and fluffy, the first day he's back.  I don't have the heart to tell him:  Buddy likes to smell like an animal, not like a people, but then we go by "your roof, your rules" in taking care of this shared dog, who seems to have done well adapting to two masters, probably allowing for the fact that he knows he's loved and we're pretty similar in our care overall.)

So there you go:  Saturday, June 21.   Saturday is such a magic word, even minus the solstice special.  I wish family was closer, but then with the new (to me) car -- I'm still chanelling my inner Sherman Helmsley driving that thing -- we'll get together soon, I hope.

Midwestern kids have finally gotten out of school, for a week or two now:  those snowday paybacks, making up for lost time in the winter by extending the schoolyear, had them standing on the bus stops many days in early June, and it even extended the hours on my testscoring job, as I was working on a project where the kids had to pass the test to graduate in their state.

(I wish I could speak more on that work, but, confidentiality rules and all.  I was pretty surprised to read recently a NYT column detailing intimate details from admission essays for an Ivy League school.  Some entrepreneur apparently had scooped up their stories for his business enterprise, even passed them on to the columnist, who identified the years the admissions reader had worked, cluing one into the year the essayist had applied..  You'd think the schools would better protect their applicants than that:  betcha they didn't like to see such stories splashed in print, those personal details being used to sell papers or somebody's essay-help services.)

But back to summer:
It's not all fun and games, of course.  You still have to make a living, pay the bills, keep up with apartment/storage organizing...  Not doing two gardens this year, and truth be told, I'm even neglecting the one.  Saturday farmers market -- and in rural areas, they're good-deal affordable -- will keep me in stock for the week, just as fresh really, as my picking and eating, with much less time invested...

The best part of early summer is the blankness of the slate:  it's all still there waiting, laid out for you to do with what you will.  What did you with it?  What did I do with it?  No skydiving planned, but my sister's family does live nearby Great America -- is this a great country or what? -- and for years, she had seasons passes to the park.  Close enough, some of those rides.

Fireflies!
How could I forget that summer staple -- no, not for eating -- and indeed, we call them lightning bugs here.  They'll be back soon surely.

Whatever you choose to do -- today or throughout your extended summer, enjoy! -- and remember, don't rush it.  These are the days, my friends, where life is all around and good things come from what we make of it.  Whether you're rolling in a natural perfume, or feeling the water course around your calves, don't be afraid to let your hair get messed up in the wind or set a new style emerging from the lake or river waters.  That's life really, kind of messed up but healthy overall.

Nobody is Above the Law?

They lock up former presidents doing crimes today in America, don't they? 

The two transactions totaling $5.1 million came within 10 days of messages uncovered Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee.

"I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight," Hunter Biden wrote in a WhatsApp message to Zhao, the CEO of Beijing-based asset management firm Harvest Fund Management, on July 30, 2017, according to documents released by House Republicans.

"And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction," Hunter Biden added in his messages to Zhao. "I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."

Never Like the Guy. Too Neo-Con-ish for My Tastes.

Too self obsessed.  Too misogynistic.  He and his staff are known swipers too. Sullivan never apologized to Trig Palin either, and that innocent child, young man now, deserves one.  Sounds like the now-American bear is crusing for company again.  Gay divorce, it's all good.  Does he still identify as Catholic, I wonder? ;-)

1.  Sullivan, Andrews (26 May 2023). "The Resistance Resists...DeSantis". The Weekly Dish. Almost two decades after we met, Aaron and I got a divorce last week. It hasn't been easy, and my heart is still somewhat broken, but we are still close, and love and care deeply for each other, and always will, and this was a very amicable agreement. His dreams took him to the West Coast and we tried to make it work long-distance, but it didn't work out. Sometimes the right thing to do is the saddest. Thanks for respecting his privacy. I'll be 60 in a couple of months. Life begins again.

Who Runs This Stuff in a Newspaper?

A reader asks: Should I intervene if a friend has become obese?
-------
Come on. Are you going to take the potato chip bag away, or what?
Putting questions on your news website like this cheapens the look of a newspaper for readers who don't consume crap.  What's next?  ("Why I'm Not a Liberal Catholic?" Lol, in what world does that pass as new fodder and not a private diary entry?)
A reader asks:  My friend is Jewish, but I am evangelical and know only Jesus saves. Should I clue them in?  A reader asks:  I don't like the color my neighbor painted their house.  Should I suggest a better color scheme to help "improve" them as I see fit?  How about:  My child and his wife named our grandbaby a "modern" name that I don't like.  Can I suggest they change it and offer an inheritance "incentive" if they do or don't?

Get it?  Some "questions" you just do not run in a respectable newspaper.  Like debating whether trans people exist, when it is a known condition in the medical field for decades. Something about lack of hormones in uetro, they think, but there have been plenty of legitimate scientific studies of self-reporting people that all the latest "I was this but then I grew out of it" and second-hand stories about personal observation (that's not science, pundit people!) can not override.
Maybe break the site up into a Hard News website for people who read the NYT for news, and a features place where all these questions (and can we be honest? content fillers like the big team graphic project on Barbie's Dreamhouse through the Years) ... can be explored without assaulting the sense of people just coming to the site for Headline News happening in the real world we share?
You could put all the non-normal 'rainbow people" news there too, without excluding so many TradNewsReaders who are turned off by your paper people telling them who they are and putting them in boxes based on personal characteristics.  Don't help divide us anymore than we already are?

Be. Not. Afraid.

Know what I learned today?  That's the number one repeated directive given by Jesus to his followers in the New Testament.  Not the most important, necessarily, but the one he buttressed us with the most..

Be Not Afraid.

Here's the full reading from today, for those who didn't make it in...

Matthew 10:26-33 New International Version 26 

“So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.[a] 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.  32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

--------------

and here are the earlier readings, from Jeremiah and Romans.

JEREMIAH 20:10-13

10For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! "Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" say all my familiar friends, watching for my fall. "Perhaps he will be deceived, then we can overcome him, and take our revenge on him." 11But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. 12O LORD of hosts, who triest the righteous, who seest the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance upon them, for to thee have I committed my cause. 13Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers. 

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Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 

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Our priest made the point(s):  God isn't saying, you won't suffer.  God is saying, I am with you through it all.  He knows suffering.  Look at his son on the cross.  He's with us, always.  What sin Adam committed on behalf of man was erased for all of us by what Jesus accepted on our behalf on that cross.  He took on all our sins, forgives them if we are repentant, and wants ALL OF US to join in his kingdom.  He's NOT forcing anyone, nor even stripping the pre-Christ brothers and sisters from the kingdom or voiding their promises, but His Kingdom is an inclusive place, much more inclusive than the newspaper pundits and online evangelics of today would lead you to believe... 

"In my Father's house, there are many rooms.  If there were not, would I have told you so?"

I kinda like too how, in God's kingdom, you can lie your head beneath the stars, alongside the oceans and stream, and on the soft green earth, and know you have a home there too, because He is always with you, in one way or another. Be Not Afraid, friends, and take no heed for those who try to scare you.  God knows suffering, and he will never leave us alone if we call on Him in the times of darkness.

"God doesn't give us what we can handle.  God helps us handle what we are given."