Wednesday, October 22, 2014

1399 Let's Get Ready to Rumba!

Television performer and artist, Roger Price, once speculated that if all the rumba dancers on earth hip-checked in the same direction at the same moment while simultaneously grunting “Uhhh” the earth would fall off its axis.

Having no significantly better explanation for the current state of things, a rational thinker could consider that Price’s theory has been proven experimentally.  The Price is right?

America’s president has shown himself to be a liar, incompetent and impotent.  And the republican party in the House and Senate want to take us back to a time that never really was… when (white) men were men and everyone else “knew” who the Master Race was.

In the Middle East, a rump state is trying to rebuild the Caliphate on the backs of ordinary Syrians and Iraqis.  And we are sitting on our rumps.

Many people are busy-bodying in the Middle East, building false moral equivalence between Israel and and another rump state, while in New York a new opera by a seedy little man with a chicken neck and a permanent sneer glorifies as folk heroes the terrorists who pushed wheelchair- bound Leon Klinghoffer off a boat and to his death.

Poison Putin is busy disrupting Ukraine, after which he’ll be busy doing the same in Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.  And don’t think he’s going to ignore Poland, either.

Ebola has swum the Atlantic and our seaports and airports remain open to the infected, although the usual suspects may only land at one of only five airports. They are JFK/New York, Newark, Washington/Dulles, O’Hare/Chicago and Atlanta.  Wisely, they have not chosen Teterboro or Dayton International.

Serial killers are so numerous and prolific that they’re lobbying for their own history month.

School shootings are on the rise, but “zero tolerance” weapons policies can get a kindergarten kid suspended for carrying a rubber knife.

Last month was the hottest September on record.  Climate change deniers say it’s not the fault of human beings.  Maybe they’ll think differently when the Atlantic works its way to Cincinnati and the Pacific to Denver.

Okay, now who has all those old Xavier Cugat records, and can you copy them for use on an iPod?


Shrapnel:

--Roger Price (1919-1990) was well ahead of his time.  And to call him a “humorist” as so many articles about him do, is both inadequate and an understatement. He was a writer and artist (sort of,) and picked up some nickels and dimes as a publisher.

--Price invented Droodles, a strange set of line drawings which you don’t understand unless you can guess what they represent.  If you read the answer and don’t at least chuckle, there’s probably more wrong with you than there was with Roger. They appeared in newspapers each day and later were collected in a book or two.

--He also co-invented MadLibs. And in 1956 he wrote The Secret Handbook of the Me First Party (Ballantine Books.)  All though absurd and funny in its time, it has become a chilling description of American politics in the 21st Century.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please send accusations to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1 comment:

Andy Fisher said...

Watching TV with the "mute" function engaged, I had concluded that Putin was running against Andrew Cuomo for governor in New York. Shows how much I know...

4759 The Supreme Court

  C’mon, guys, we all know what you’re doing.  You’re hiding behind nonsense so a black woman is not the next Associate Justice of the  U.S....