1918 The Issue is Character

Being a lousy human being is not an impeachable offense. But they’ll find a twist of law or something… uh… trumped up charge against trump like they did with Clinton. Whether some obscure quirk they throw against the wall during the Senate trial sticks depends on who wins the majority vote in November.

What might they consider?  Well, chaos. Running the White House like the casting cattle call for a reality TV show.  Then there’s the grabbing of women's private parts.  Or talking about it.  Or having an affair while your wife is just out of the delivery room.  How about tariffs that shouldn’t be?  Or understaffing?  Or golf outings at seven figure public expense? Or profiting from the hotels where supplicants and sycophants are expected to await their audience with his Holy trumpedness?

Then there’s the nepotism tango that goes on in the administration’s inner sanctum.  The failed realtor son-in-law and the dress and jewelry saleswoman daughter.  How about the cabinet bashing?

How about the lies upon lies, those easily verified and those not?

And the tweets.

And finding virtue in skinheads and other racists.

And the slump in national morale.

And the thinly veiled laughter of our allies who now make fun of us in private and will soon go public.

And Russia.

Draining the swamp?  The mosquitos are feasting.

Biggest brains in the cabinet in our lifetime?  You mean like Betsy DiVorce and Ben Carson and Rick Perry and Tom Price? McMahon? Shulken?

These guys make Sessions look like Clarence Darrow or William Brennan or Perry Mason or Jack McCoy.

Firing Preet Bharara. And Jim Comey.  

Hiring Gorsuch.  And heaven help us if Ginsburg or Kennedy retires. Hiring non economist Larry Kudlow because he’s a radio and TV star.  Hiring convicted pedophile George Nader to do who-knows-what in the Middle East.

Had enough?  No? Okay. How about climate change denial, cheating his workers, stiffing his creditors. Employing undocumented workers. Denying rentals to African Americans. How about reneging on promises.  The president’s word is his bond?  Not in this lifetime.

No dignity either. “Little Marco,” “Rocket Man,” “Al Frankenstein,” “Crooked Hillary” “Pocahontas.” Former president “W” at least had the dignity to call Karl Rove “turd blossom” only in private.

And boasting, boasting, boasting.

Now will come the attacks on Mueller.  That will only strengthen Mueller’s prodigious stubborn streak. It will do no good.  President trump is history one way or another. 

Because the issue is character.

SHRAPNEL:

--Declaration: I am a mathematician though I have never gotten a degree in the subject. But I once balanced my checkbook and I hang out with others who can do that. If that kind of credential allows Larry “Cokey” Kudlow to call himself an economist, that why not this?

--Kuddles Kudlow the new econo-maven says he’s an economist but isn’t, even if he hangs out with Charles Laffer.  He is the carnival barker propagandist for a failed economic theory that has proven itself wrong in almost every case and has credentials that are irrelevant to the job description.  Even the Reagan supply siders don’t believe in it anymore, but no one’s listening to them.

--The bankruptcies of iHeart Radio and Toys R Us isn’t Amazon’s fault. It’s the fault of Bain Capital and other private equity funds that buy businesses and then garrotte them with debt. With the debt load of these two companies, you could provide health insurance for ten million people.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

1917 No School Today

Across the country, the children play hooky. They’ll probably get dinged for leaving to demonstrate for freedom from being shot. But they’ll raise a stink that can only smother their enemies.

You know who you are.

And in many ways this country was built on the backs of people in the streets.

If it weren’t for public demonstrations, we’d still be living under British rule.  Well, you might say, at least we’d have universal health care and likely no “big beautiful wall.” And we’d be driving on the left.

But it was the call to the streets that started and won the American Revolution.  And the formation of the America we love and are tearing apart today.

Demonstrations in major cities brought about safety for workers.  They brought about the labor movement which was what gave employees’ rights that now are law.

They brought about a civil rights movement which at the very least raised awareness of civil wrongs and gave us some legal tools to fix this. Some of those tools have been left out in the rain too long and have rusted. But still…

Demonstrations ended the Vietnam war. (No, it wasn’t Paul Harvey and Walter Cronkite.  But they helped bring on board the lame, the halt and the chicken.)

Now we have school children leaving the building and demonstrate against gun violence.  And once again, the cowards of the right are distorting their purpose and chiding them for “leaving school instead of staying inside and ‘learning.’”

Learning?

Let’s stop here and throw in ...

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“If I think back to all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” --Paul Simon (“Kodachrome.”)

Okay, we’re back.  Simon’s view is extreme.  But it’s not completely wrong, either.  Hands-on experience sometimes is a greater educator than school.

This demonstration is different from some other protests. These kids don’t have a solution.  They look to their family values parents for some guidance.  The fact is the only way to stop gun violence is to stop guns.  And that’s not going to happen.

But note that the people who are bowing to the power of the second amendment don’t have the same lust for the 8th (excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishment,) or the 16th (income tax.)

And there are people who aren’t crazy about the 13th, 14th or 15th, the civil rights and discrimination amendments, either.

And when members of the Second Amendment Marching Society also embrace the first amendment, it’s not with the same enthusiasm.  Their own free speech is okay, they say.  They’re not wild about the part that bars establishment of a state religion or group of religions.

But, then, hypocrisy and selective embrace are as American as amber waves of GMOs.

SHRAPNEL:

--Another reason to love Equifax known far and wide as the outfit that papers-over its massive data breach by offering an all-knowing search for your name on the dark web. The company that knows which side of your behind itches and when finally got a change of address. It was sent 12 years ago.

--That’s even better than the New York City Parking Violations Bureau. After paying a parking ticket I shouldn’t have received, they sent a refund… nine years later.  I am NOT making this up.

--Those old fuddy duddy scientists at Consumer Reports Magazine have swung a heavy bat at the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. They cite some dangerous ingredients, deceptive packaging and study after study that shows homeopathics are no better than sugar pills for what ails ya.  But since we no longer accept science -- or any facts, for that matter, don’t bother spending eight bucks for a newsstand copy of this tool of Big Pharma and the makers of cars, refrigerators, TV sets and other stuff that is unnecessary knowledge in the era of anti-science.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

1916 Not Your Grandfather's Clock

Your grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, so it stood 90 years on the floor.  But this clock -- the actual clock in the picture --

is different. It came from Radio Shack about a million years ago.  Instead of a pleasant chime, it has an obnoxious squealing alarm “ring” guaranteed to awaken the entire neighborhood and good to use if you need a defibrillator and there isn’t one handy. It also sets itself.  Sort of. It gets messages in its head. Well, in its antenna.

There was no instruction pamphlet. The various buttons on the side are marked with their main functions: alarm, set, that kind of thing.  But the buttons, pressed in combinations,  have other functions and it’s impossible to remember them.

This particular clock self sets only if it’s sitting near a window and facing east. So with each change to or from standard time, it gets put on the window sill, the “set” button gets pushed.  The clock sets.  And that should be that.

Though it’s in the Eastern time zone, it liked to set for either Pacific or Mountain time.  That means fiddle with the buttons until you hit the right combination and it reverts to Eastern.  This can’t be: the buttons change functions between time changes.  But it sure seems so.

It’s been dropped a few times and this most recent time, something broke and now the battery compartment is held together with duct tape.

How many times has someone said “you still have that awful, ugly thing?”  Or “aren’t you ever going to get rid of that thing?”

Nope.

It is a monument to early technology.  It’s an artifact.  It is a 20th century version of an unearthed third century scroll and as difficult to comprehend.  It’s feral.

It knows when February has 29 days and when it doesn’t.  But it refuses to change with the coming or going of Daylight time unless it’s perched on a window sill and facing east. And when it works, it tells time, date and temperature, evidently with rigid accuracy.

Like the clock in the song “My Grandfather’s Clock,” the expectation was the thing would die when Radio Shack went belly up.  It didn’t.  Maybe that’s because a handful Radio Shacks still exists, though you probably haven’t seen one since the last time you were on a successful fossil hunt. Maybe the clock waiting for me to go.

SHRAPNEL:

--There’s a special election for a vacant congressional seat in western Pennsylvania tomorrow… in the district where the former occupant preached anti abortion while urging “the other woman” to have one. The district is important to trump who has campaigned for the Republican candidate in one of those misshapen districts that almost guarantees a Republican win.  But the Democrat stands a chance and that’s scaring the president.

--The president’s… um... acquaintance, Stormy Daniels, ageing porn star, is on a “Make America Horny Again” tour, thus extending the life of an adult entertainer beyond the normal five years.  We advise caution if you plan to attend.  Wear a surgical mask and after the show discard it in a parking lot wastebasket before re-entering your car.

--The president believes Putin about not spying and that Kim won’t continue nuke tests during and after their meeting. Really? So fake news is being overtaken by fake beliefs.

--American Idol has returned to the small screen and it’s even worse than you remember.  Screaming “singers,” sob stories, the ever-present Ryan “I am Everywhere” Seacrest, and a Blake Shelton wannabe who talks like Kermit the Frog.  The only high point is judge Lionel Richie, who can speak with both warmth and authority to a bunch of no-talent kids and whose smile and intent are genuine.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“Does that mean I can write my own prescriptions now?” --Willie Nelson on accepting his honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. Quoted by Carole King on the MusiCares Award program on AXS TV.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

Your grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, so it stood 90 years on the floor.  But this clock -- the actual clock in the picture --

is different. It came from Radio Shack about a million years ago.  Instead of a pleasant chime, it has an obnoxious squealing alarm “ring” guaranteed to awaken the entire neighborhood and good to use if you need a defibrillator and there isn’t one handy. It also sets itself.  Sort of. It gets messages in its head. Well, in its antenna.

There was no instruction pamphlet. The various buttons on the side are marked with their main functions: alarm, set, that kind of thing.  But the buttons, pressed in combinations,  have other functions and it’s impossible to remember them.

This particular clock self sets only if it’s sitting near a window and facing east. So with each change to or from standard time, it gets put on the window sill, the “set” button gets pushed.  The clock sets.  And that should be that.

Though it’s in the Eastern time zone, it liked to set for either Pacific or Mountain time.  That means fiddle with the buttons until you hit the right combination and it reverts to Eastern.  This can’t be: the buttons change functions between time changes.  But it sure seems so.

It’s been dropped a few times and this most recent time, something broke and now the battery compartment is held together with duct tape.

How many times has someone said “you still have that awful, ugly thing?”  Or “aren’t you ever going to get rid of that thing?”

Nope.

It is a monument to early technology.  It’s an artifact.  It is a 20th century version of an unearthed third century scroll and as difficult to comprehend.  It’s feral.

It knows when February has 29 days and when it doesn’t.  But it refuses to change with the coming or going of Daylight time unless it’s perched on a window sill and facing east. And when it works, it tells time, date and temperature, evidently with rigid accuracy.

Like the clock in the song “My Grandfather’s Clock,” the expectation was the thing would die when Radio Shack went belly up.  It didn’t.  Maybe that’s because a handful Radio Shacks still exists, though you probably haven’t seen one since the last time you were on a successful fossil hunt. Maybe the clock waiting for me to go.

SHRAPNEL:

--There’s a special election for a vacant congressional seat in western Pennsylvania tomorrow… in the district where the former occupant preached anti abortion while urging “the other woman” to have one. The district is important to trump who has campaigned for the Republican candidate in one of those misshapen districts that almost guarantees a Republican win.  But the Democrat stands a chance and that’s scaring the president.

--The president’s… um... acquaintance, Stormy Daniels, ageing porn star, is on a “Make America Horny Again” tour, thus extending the life of an adult entertainer beyond the normal five years.  We advise caution if you plan to attend.  Wear a surgical mask and after the show discard it in a parking lot wastebasket before re-entering your car.

--The president believes Putin about not spying and that Kim won’t continue nuke tests during and after their meeting. Really? So fake news is being overtaken by fake beliefs.

--American Idol has returned to the small screen and it’s even worse than you remember.  Screaming “singers,” sob stories, the ever-present Ryan “I am Everywhere” Seacrest, and a Blake Shelton wannabe who talks like Kermit the Frog.  The only high point is judge Lionel Richie, who can speak with both warmth and authority to a bunch of no-talent kids and whose smile and intent are genuine.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“Does that mean I can write my own prescriptions now?” --Willie Nelson on accepting his honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. Quoted by Carole King on the MusiCares Award program on AXS TV.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

1915 Spending Like a Drunken Sailor

Ever hear that before? Sure you have. And now we know that like most cliché-based nonsense there is some actual sense to it.  But it’s not just sailors.  It’s all of us. Well, most of us.

Yes, in the shrinking world of studies of the obvious, in the tightening belt of silly professors who earn degrees by prodigiously quoting relevant works of other silly professors, in the world of a uncaluclated ridiculistics, we now know what Ensign Spencer taught us in the first known shore leave of the year 1345, drunken sailors and others with more drink than sense spend more than those with less.

Here is the figure:  $448 per capita.  We know it’s true because it’s baloney wrapped in arithmetic and presented by the authoritative website no one’s ever heard of, Finder.com. And baloney wrapped in arithmetic must be true.

More shoes, more booze.  

The new figure -- 448 -- is more than twice the amount we drank and spent in the previous year, says the website.

Bigger phones. Ice cream cones.  

The matter doesn’t matter, just the spending.   So, maybe Sears, Penney’s and other failing retail goliaths should offer free adult refreshments at their entrances and set up a cash bar at mid-store where that little taste at the entrance made you remember how much you like Johnny Walker or Jim Beam.

Mandolins and SCUBA fins.

All kind of stuff you decide on the spot you can’t live without, you get to live with. Oh. Did I say “cash bar?” The real smart merchants can accept MobsterCard with the vigorish of 26.78 percent issued by one of those “banks” with no branches no savings or checking accounts and odd names like Synchronous or Commanderly -- you know, the ones that do nothing much but issue credit cards with department store names affixed under license.

Now where are those smart retailers, longing for customers with open wallets? Why, they’re wringing their hands instead of ringing their registers, figuring out what to do next.

This is what to do next.  Take a lesson from the Navy, the Merchant Marine and anyone who has swamped your canoe by crossing it with a speedboat traveling at 49 knots and leaving a wake as high as a jailhouse wall. Drunken sailors aren’t all in the Navy. And the actual Navy doesn’t do things like swamp civilian watercraft on Lake Connawestaki.

Statistical sleight of hand is one of the great secrets of mathematical mystics.  So keep in mind that there were only 2,000 drunken shoppers questioned in this survey and probably some of them lied! (Can you imagine?)  But you probably know that when under the influence, you’re more likely than usual to say “yes” to a proposition you might reject while sober.

So, things like this happen: Sign right here, pal, and this beautifully hand crafted scale model of a 1927 a North Shore Long Island lighthouse can be yours for three easy payments of just $95.99. It’s just like the one John Hay Whitney could see from the upper floors of his Shelter Rock Road estate. (Note, the estate is nowhere near a body of water.)

Or this:

Her: “Are you sure you’re single?”

Him: “Of course Charline, would I lie to you about something like that?”

She: “Charlotte. And I hope the room has a nice view and a good mini bar. Anchors aweigh and rough rolling seas ahead.”

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

1914 The Class of '59

GREAT NECK NY -- About a year from now, the high school class of 1959 is going to hold its 60th anniversary reunion.  The school was and is on New York’s Long Island.  But the shindig will be held in Miami.

Huh?  Well, it’s easier to reach Miami and the parking’s better. Plus half the old duffers live somewhere in Florida for at least part of the year.  They’re the ones driving 38 in a 65 mph zone in the far left lane of a 12 lane highway and then stopping traffic by worming their way into the far- right lane two minutes before getting to their exit.

Apparently, they held several previous reunions that escaped notice. But there are pictures.  It’s a good thing they have captions, because if you haven’t seen someone for 30 or 40 years, you’re unlikely to recognize them, even with your “good” glasses.

It was a big class. So big, they’d split the school into two locations.  The worm lived, as they do when they’re cut.  But since everyone knew everyone in both halves of the worm, we reune as one.

The population is shrinking.  Many of us have died. Too many.  And often, the wrong ones.

The class’ spiffy new website has the complete ‘59 yearbooks online. Nice.  Now we can look back and be reminded what dummies some of us were… who we liked.  Who we didn’t like. Who liked us. Who disliked us.

A high school class is really a bunch of strangers thrown together by accident of geography and probable socio-economic similarity.  Ours certainly was, though some were in higher tax brackets than others.

There’s just so much wondering you can do about what ever happened to your junior prom date or whether Coach Crank finally died of overweight.

Miami in March?  Not a bad change of weather for those who remain in the Northeast or who have moved to the upper midwest.  But the neo-southerners and the neo Californians don’t have that excuse.  Of course, we could all use the experience of driving on those wide Florida highways.  But you can’t get a decent bagel or a decent pastrami on rye in Miami any more.  And you can get a Dominican Cigar with leaf grown from Cuban seeds anywhere on the planet.

Receiving the reunion announcement strikes chords.  But at a certain age, the chords don’t sustain. They quickly decay.  Especially if you’re not wearing your “good” hearing aid.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

1913 My Little Town

GLOCCA MORRA PA -- If you want to live in the sticks, go right ahead.  I do. It’s not bad. Pleasant scenery, friendly people for the most part. The usual bell curve of smarties and dummies, crazies and sanes.  Kind of like a couple of blocks of Queens only with some low lying mountainettes, cleanish air and “high rise” means eight to 12 floors, tops.

But the boonies also are the cradle of corruption.  They’re a training bike for future members of congress, judges, prosecutors, personal injury lawyers, corporate executives and anyone else who wants to go-big eventually. Not necessarily this town.  But there’s enough boonie to go around.

It’s where country lawyers -- mostly young -- start political careers that eventually can take them on the road to the state capital or the real big time, Washington.  Here’s where they hone their skills. They learn how to take undiscoverable bribes, they learn how to speak in bromides, cliches and jargon.  They learn how to speak convincingly and simultaneously out of both sides of their mouth in “Living Stereo!”

And it’s where they learn the Manly/Womanly art of Plausible Deniability.   

Then they carry these things to big places and start turning them into little places.

Our esteemed president is an exception.  He is the living, breathing motherlode of sleaze and paper empire building.  The fountainhead. He needed no teacher, though daddy helped a bit.  It all came naturally. And he did it in ...Queens of all places, where a high rise really is a high rise, but with no mountains and imperfect.

They are turning the national government into Boise and Boise into Bell, California a gorgeous small chunk of land covering over a sewer of public thievery so grotesque and bizarre that they had to actually fix it.

The ones that get caught commit what’s called in some circles “the Nixon error.” That is… their actions are so brazen and blatant and easy to spot someone had to do something.  In some places, this is called the Madoff error.

So, you may ask, doesn’t this happen in cities too?  Of course. But it’s easier to see out here. The air is clearer.

SHRAPNEL:

--Hooray for Hollywood.  The cheer is because Oscar madness is over for the year. The bad news: the runup to 2019 has already started.

--Finally figured out why those California award shows always run overtime. It’s only 8 or 9 o’clock out there so there are fewer sleepyheads than in the east where it’s between 11 and midnight. Oscar, take a hint from Emmy … start the nonsense in the early morning hours.

--The Dolby Theater (nee Kodak) is a nice clean 3-thousand capacity hall and a good place to hold the Academy Awards.  It’s in a shopping center, adjacent to historic Grauman’s Chinese Theater in a dump of a neighborhood near the Ripley Museum and the world’s worst iHop. Talk about an appropriate locale.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“He keeps his hands where you can see them. Never says a rude word… and has no penis.”  -- MC Jimmy Kimmel on why the Oscar statue is good for Hollywood in the 21st century.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018

1912 A Schism in the Church

Uh oh, problems in the Church of Guns.  At long last.  And a good sign.  When you cut a worm in two, both halves live.  When an amoeba self replicates, both cells live.  When you cut an organization in half, it’s the beginning of the end.

The Free Enterprise division, now a full and self declared denomination has broken away from the Governmentalists.  There’s trouble in Semiautomatic World.

Dick’s Sporting Goods announced this week it would no longer sell long guns of mass destruction. Their motive sounded public spirited, but in the long gun long run, it’s going to be good for business, according to advocates of corporate responsibility.

Wal-mart, much bigger than Dick’s, has taken a baby step. But at least it’s a step. Its raised the age of consent to buy a gun to 21 from 18.  That won’t do much to change the spread of the Faith, because teens will still hang out in doorways and parking lots. They’ll find adults to do their dirty work just as they do with alcohol.  But it’s something.

Then there are the Governmentalists, technically the Church of The Holy Second.  They’re outraged.  They feel betrayed.  And trump, a sect of his own, seems confused about where to go with this.  The other day he said “something” needs to be done about gun proliferation.  Stand by for the Huckabee briefing in which she says “here’s what he meant…”  And maybe trump will issue his own statement saying, essentially, “I never said that.”

NBC and the Washington Post will promptly locate the quote and the recording of it, play it 20 minutes after the denial and no followers will care. Just the Donald being the Donald.

The National Rifle Association has proposed a peace meeting. If real religions can hold associations of rivals, why not gun worshippers?  These groups are well intentioned, but eventually they start fighting about the shape of the table.

And the NRA has its own problems.  Corporate sponsors are fleeing in the same way they fled when Limbaugh linked medical assistance for birth control to prostitution and when Don Imus slurred up college women’s basketball players.

Both men survived, and the NRA will too. But both survived with diminished capacity.

And so will the guns & ammo makers’ mouthpiece.

SHRAPNEL:

--Republican legislators in Georgia have denied a big tax break promised to Delta Airlines for severing its ties with the NRA. Gee.  Government getting involved in the business decisions of private companies… who knew?

--It didn’t take the NFL long to replace Papa John’s which had severed ties over the way the league handled kneeling players. Pro football’s new BFF is Pizza Hut.  Gee… they could have picked Ray’s Famous or Ray’s Original Famous or Famous Ray’s Original or 100 other joints where the pies are actually real pizza instead of replicas.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this site is parody.

© WJR 2018