If the English Language were Mine…

My wife was proofing my next novel and began chuckling.

Nothing too unusual in that as I try to make most of my stuff kind of vaguely humorous, though she rarely laughs at much of it.

Anyway, I asked her what was so funny.

“This line,” she said and then read, “‘What’re you looking at, chucklenead?'” She shook her head. “Where did you come up with that word?”

“Chucklehead?” I asked. “I just made it up.”

I often like to create new words in my stories. So much so that at one time – many years ago – I started to write a volume called If the English Language were Mine…

I’ll never know how it would have been received because I shortly thereafter received a court injunction forbidding me to proceed with the project. Apparently Merriam-Webster had gotten wind of the planned volume and nipped it in the bud.

It seems that they owned the language and would brook no infringement.

Poetic license and all be damned, I guess.

Public Service Announcement

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cleft palate; permanent snear; inattentiveness; espousing a belief in aliens, bigfoot, pre-Clovis people, or the Loch Ness Monster; professes a desire to run for political office or become a professional football player; or mumbles a great deal usually including phrases like “dumb mutha fo” or “stick it to the man”,

you may be eligible for a cash settlement. Please call the number on your screen and be connected with a lawyer at Kwagmeier, Stensch, & Boggs.

Millions of others have filed their claims. Don’t miss this opportunity and call today. Remember: no child should have to suffer with the effects of tryptochlorfloristanemordol.

Random Idea for a Cartoon

Stranger: Excuse me, are there any casinos in town? I’ve got a gambling urge.

Attendant at counter: No, we don’t have any casinos here.

Stranger: Well, darn! How am I going to satisfy this urge?

Attendant: I could give you the number for an insurance company…

the Latest Thing

For all the trying times we are facing…
Jesus action figures! They bend, they pray, they kneel!

Act out your favorite scenes from the New Testament!

And so lightweight that it actually floats on the water!!

 

(and I received no monetary inducement for this message)

a Joke from an Electoral College Drop-Out

 

 

I rarely blog about politics as any such discussion is a losing proposition. That said, I simply could not let this pass without a comment:

America has always had a good foundation in ignorance.

The number of truly ignorant people has been large but it has never really affected much because they were rarely in positions to influence anyone.

Mostly they sat on rockers around the coal stove and muttered about the evils of the world. Later this progressed to those who would gather around the water cooler and parrot the ignorance.

Most of their more intelligent compadres knew better than to try and bring some sense into soil where it had yet to sprout.

Doing such has always been known to be a classic waste of time (even the ancient Greeks understood this) and very few people desired beating their head against walls attempting to bring such people into the current century.

Even this was never much of a problem.

Ignorant bigots were everywhere but we just never got to hear much from that portion of the population except in small news articles about violence being visited on the isolated unlucky who found themselves outnumbered by such brave proponents of whichever ideology they latched onto this week.

And then we had the internet…

Suddenly, the ignorant were tag-teaming web-pages, blogs, and Facebook streams with wild abandon, showing their toothless minds and their lack of learning or mental agility in posts of vacant vocal invective exposing their complete ignorance of the language and the subject on which they would presently expound.

But even that was not much of a bother. We could simply chuckle at such infantile ravings, turn the other mental cheek and move onward.

Now, however, crass stupidity has been institutionalized.

The Republican Party – long known as the party of the underdogs, the disenfranchised, the shunned – has now turned their back on their heritage and embraced bigotry, small-mindedness, vindictive striking out at those who cannot strike back… yes, the same group of bullies closing the circle on an isolated prey, whether male or female, of whichever “other” ethnicity they have chosen to hate this month.

It matters not if they are Black, or Hispanic, or Gay, or Muslim, or Female, or Poor… just anything that is as intolerable as being something other than THEM.

Yes, a crime of the worst possible sort.

And the institutionalization of this buffoonery: Donald Trump running for President.
It is a poor joke – a laughable happenstance certainly – a rather tasteless attempt at some form of new Reality Television about an apprentice politician but the ratings on this travesty run far too high to be dismissed lightly.

What has been pretty much a personal problem, a rather private shame until now, of the ignorant masses yearning to beat others senseless for not being or thinking like they do, is now being displayed for all the world to see what America really stands for.

Land of the freaks and home of the broken… We seem to have forgotten what has brought us all together and made that accumulation great. It is the diversity that is now disdained, the variety that strains to be homogenized, the vision that is now being blinded, that has brought us to such a marvelous place that many seem to be willing – nay, adamant! – to set aside and guide this country to a modern dark age.

As a nation we seem to have lost our focus.

Rather than keeping our eyes to the future and to the best of what the collective us can offer, the conscious decision is being made to enlarge the minutiae and overlook the gifts offered.

Many claim that this is the promised land, the country that the Divine has set aside for His favored few.

Many in this country tend to put Country even before God and Family, compelled to the truth of Manifest Destiny… saying that since God has chosen this country for greatness, serving the nation’s interests first IS serving God’s plan.

This is the first election I have ever seen where the leader in the polls is the most un-Presidential person on the block.

The man is a laughingstock, certainly, but the message his soaring popularity is sending to the rest of the world is giving us a black eye which we will be quite some time recovering from.

Around the world, people will be able to point to their televisions and newspapers and say, quite convincingly, “See? I told you the Americans were a bunch of idiots!”

Now all we require is Trump naming Bozo the Clown as his running mate.

Then the joke will be complete.

 

A Duggar Universe

If the Duggar kids had 19 kids each, and their kids the same, and so forth, by the eighth generation the population of Duggar descendants would equal the population of the planet.

They could successfully populate another planet or another universe.

Population Zero Growth has always been a pipe-dream.

an Interesting Year

Wow! What a year this has been, huh?

Though they thought they had the future sewn up pretty good, Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology are now looking for Cruise’s next ex. I guess the jihadists are not the only religious terrorism we have to be on the lookout against.

The NSA finally found a band-aid to cover their gaping wound but the PR work of the 60 Minutes crew was more like a placebo – or an anal suppository – for all the bleeding they’ve done since Snowden opened his mouth. And the year had started so good for those NSA fellows with the death of Aaron Swartz. But all good things must come to an end one must suppose.

In television, the Duck Dynasty clan made big news by negotiating a much bigger contract only to take one on the chin when Daddy Duck went GQ on the gays. I guess the guy did not realize the network who was paying his check. Yeah, I know, it was probably not a network his sort of people watched very often anyway.

And Congress hit a new low in their approval rating as the government ground to a halt – yet again – but they rebounded well enough to pass a new budget that will be in effect for two whole years. The reasoning for this is quite easy to see. If the shut down had happened in an election year most of those guys might have been without a job. And we all know that the electorate will not remember this year’s debacle by the time next year’s election comes along.

And Obama didn’t look too good either when his new healthcare platform train-wrecked, then his promises about those who wanted to keep their former insurance turned out to be just so much political hogwash as usual.

And it looks like there’s going to be an Olympics in Russia that we are not going to boycott. Whew! Thank goodness we don’t have Jimmy Carter in office anymore, huh? Of course, he later apologized for making the games into a political weapon… which is kinda like the opposite of what it is supposed to be… you know, in theory anyway.

So, Russia has Snowden, and gay-hating Putin, and I think they are offering some sort of asylum to the Duck Dynasty since they seem to think like Putin in that regard.

Yes, it’s been an interesting year.

I can hardly wait for the next!!

Another Race

When people approach me to donate money for cancer research, they look almost disgusted when I refuse.

It is not that I am heartless about people’s plight.

It is just that I am aware of a couple of different facts.

First, in 1931, the Nobel prize in medicine went to Otto Heinrich Warburg who was nominated an unprecedented three separate times for different achievements.

He won the Nobel for demonstrating the basics in the growth of cancer cells. And, conversely, how to combat the disease.

His work is marginalized today.

Secondly, the billions given for research into a “cure” for cancer will be patented by the developer and sold – at enormous markups – to patients the world over.

In other words, these people do not really want a “cure” so much as a proprietary treatment they can make a fortune off while the general population foots the research bills.

Yeah, I know… I’m a cynic.

But if Warburg was right and the treatment can be successful through dietary adjustments alone then no one will be able to patent any “wonder drug” and keep their stockholders happy as the capitalist clams they want to be.

Yeah, I know… I’m a cynic.

But that’s just me.

Putin’s About Face

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, had welcomed activist/whistleblower/traitor/hero Edward Snowden into Russia some time ago.

Snowden asked for asylum and Putin responded with “not if you continue to release documents that hurt the US” and Snowden withdrew his request.

Now it appears Snowden has rethought things and asked again for Russian asylum and Putin is dragging his feet.

Does the threat of damaging US/Russia relations really loom that large in the man’s mind? Is he really worried about his loss of face because Obama is arriving there next week?

Or does this really have more to do with the aliens he’s already granted asylum to… you know those ones from outer space that he mentioned last fall.

Could the aliens be directing his turnaround?

Is this a stupid idea or what?

(but I thought I’d see if it had legs)

RAt Race Problem

There is a race problem in America.

We’ve known about this for years.

The loud indignation that accompanied the creation of such obvious racial entities as the National Association for the Advancement of White People and the United Caucasian College Fund were just the start.

Then came the Miss White America Pageant and the odious White Entertainment Television and the tempers were at a boiling point.

When the jury came back with the “Not Guilty” verdict, the police were geared up and ready across the land for the ensuing riots they were sure would emerge when people realized O. J. Simpson was allowed to walk for his crime.

Yes, it is certainly sad what has happened in America.

And today we are left with the awesome fallout from the Zimmerman trial.

A century and a half ago, there would not have been such a problem. At that time, George Zimmerman would have been called a “quadroon” and would therefore have been legally a “black”.

Today, we have a more liberal and forward thinking media which portrays him as “white”.

Yes, we have made progress… of a sort.

There have been killings in America between ethnicities that have not garnered such attention but then they did not have the media coverage or a President pushing for a trial because he has his own personal agenda on the gun issue, which he continues to push in some demented context of “honoring” Trayvon Martin.

Sad. So very sad.

Now we see pictures of Martin Luther King in Trayvon’s hoodie (over protests of his daughter) and protests from Stevie Wonder claiming he’ll never play in Florida again…

Of course, he and other artists will continue to perform for other human-rights violators but – hey! – they’ve got to draw a line somewhere, right?

And now David Simon, creator of “the Wire”, has proclaimed that he is “ashamed to be an American” because of the outcome of the trial.

Personally, I’m ashamed he is an American too!

The racial bias in our country’s education system should have incensed him, or the wars in the Mideast that our President promised to stop some five years ago, or the thousands dying by the hand of our armed forces, our drones, our corporate endeavors to rape and pillage the third world nations…

Why do none of those things make him be ashamed to be an American?

Disgusting!

I agree with Bill Cosby. This case had absolutely nothing to do with race until the media made it so with a little help from the President and a few misguided individuals with their own political agenda.

Friends of mine – of all various ethnicities – expressed sadness at the death of the young man but none of them were rioting at the outcome.

They are all responsible people and good citizens, unlike those prone to violence.

As usual, the violence is a response to a general frustration of powerlessness to change conditions.

And the victims of the violence – as usual – were all different ethnicities as well.

It has nothing to do with race and it never did.

At least not that race issue.