Hold On Now, New Study Claims Grandma Is More Important Than Me!!??

Prologue to this post: If you are my grandma, wife, mother, daughter, or any other female lady person, close your browser immediately. Do not read any further. This post is not for you. Thank you.

Now then guys, you won’t believe this, but I just saw a new study, as reported on NPR.org, that Grandma is more important than we are. Now I’m mad. Yes, that’s right, a lady Prof at the University of Utah by the name of Kristen Hawkes has published a study that contradicts the prevailing-until-now theory called Man The Hunter. Up until now the theory has always been that back in the day, when mankind lived off the land, the man of the clan was the most important and critical member of the family and of society. When everybody gathered around the dining room table, they were dining on that haunch of elk, or that wild turkey, or that raccoon on a rotisserie, that the man of the clan had hunted down and killed a few hours before. Furthermore, since there were no refrigerators, it has always been obvious that the he-man of each family or clan had the unfailing ability to saunter forth and hunt down that game virtually on-demand. He was as reliable as the Domino’s Pizza Delivery guy. Now Professor Hawkes (Did I mention that she’s a she?) has the audacity to suggest that if families were waiting for dad to arrive back at camp with supper, they’d go to bed hungry 96.6% of the time. Not 20% of the time, not 30% of the time, but 96.6% of the time! The family would literally starve. Instead, this obviously biased lady prof says the family mostly relied on grandma to come home with grocery bags full of nuts, berries, and edible roots. Just think about that. Grandma. Grandma! I’m okay with the idea that the wifey figure might find a few berries here and there, but this study goes much farther down its twisted road. It suggests that once mom had her first child she didn’t have so much time to gather food, so much of the burden fell to grandma.

Furthermore, this study suggests that ancient society’s dependence on grandma had profound effects on the development of modern mankind. For example, the prof postulates that societal dependence on grandma’s food gathering ability might explain why, even today, women live longer than men. The forces of evolution would naturally perpetuate families in which grandma lived a long, long time. Interesting theory, if you believe in evolution. I suspect it’s more about grandma wanting to hang around long enough to get the car keys all to herself.

This theory cannot lead to anything good (for men.) If we accept that women were the primary breadfruit winners back then, we may have to theorize that they held true power in society. And if women come to think their great-great-great-great-great grandmothers held true power in society, as mankind progressed to modernity, maybe they might think they should have true power now. You can see where I’m going with this, guys. This is really bad.

The first order of business then, is to examine and debunk this whole thing, and fast. Number one; the idea that daddy came home empty-handed 96.6% of the time is pure nonsense. Quite the opposite; I know a guy who can hit a clay-pigeon with his shotgun 96.6% of the time. Of course, clay pigeons are kind of chewy, but you know, it’s just an example. Let’s not forget that guy on Naked and Afraid who caught that really scrumptious snake on only his second day. And snakes are good eating; better than raccoon any day. That’s not even to mention the fishing side of this whole thing. Guys are such amazing fishermen. We all know guys who are so good, the fish actually grow in size after they catch them, every time they tell the tale of exactly how that amazingly huge fish was caught. And then there are deer hunters; so many expert deer hunters. Why, I myself personally shot at deers lots of times, back when I was a deer hunter. (I unfailingly picked up a sub sandwich for supper on the way home. I was very good at that.)

Guys, I’m telling you, we can’t let this thing get away from us. We’ve got to come out with an alternate study. Professor Hawkes based her findings partly on the practices of aboriginal tribes who still live in the old way, such as the Hadza tribe in Africa. But come on, does she really expect us to extrapolate from the ancient ways to the modern? Are we supposed to arrive at conclusions about the ingrained nature of mankind based on people without aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons? I think not! Let’s move into the modern era for proof that man is the superior bread winner. We all know that men get paid 30% more than women, while doing 30% less work. I mean, how can you argue with that? That is pure talent!

Postscript to this post: If any of you lady people out there disregarded my strict instructions, and read this post anyway, please know that, yes, I am winking at you as I write this. But that’s just because I think you’re cute. 😉

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A Royal Wedding, But He’s 6th In Line For The Throne! Does That Even Count?

Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, and it was another amazing royal wedding, to be gushed and drooled over for days. But hold on, Prince Harry is only sixth in line for the throne of England. Ahead of him are his dear old daddy, Prince Charles, and his older brother Prince William. But did you know his brother’s three children are also all ahead of him? That includes little Prince Louis, who was born less than a month before the wedding. So Prince Harry has to stand in line behind his nephew who was less than a month old as of this writing. That has got to sting don’t you think?

And what about poor Prince Charles? He was once the center of attention (albeit all of it bad.) Now he’s just a lonely old man in the back of the room. Cheer up Prince Charles, the good news is that someday the spotlight will swing back your way. The bad news is, that will be at your funeral.

I can picture Christmas dinner at Buckingham Palace. The royal family is seated around the banquet table. All eyes are on the turkey platter. There is only one drumstick left.

Prince Harry (speaking to Charles): Hey Pops, Your Highness, did you want that last drumstick?

Charles: Not at all, Your Highness My Princely Son, please do help yourself. Or rather, of course, allow the servant here to deliver that last drumstick to your plate.

Little Prince George (Prince William’s oldest): But Grandpa, I want that drumstick. Why can’t I have that drumstick? I’m third in line to the throne, and Harry is only sixth in line!

Harry (eyes glued to that drumstick): Well now, little nephew, I will point out that Your Highness already has more on his plate than a five year old can possibly eat. (He reaches toward the turkey platter).

Little Prince George (stabbing at Harry’s fingers with his salad fork): No Uncle Harry, no! You give me that drumstick, or I’ll have you locked up in The Tower.

Harry: We don’t really use The Tower anymore Your Highness Little Nephew Prince George. That would be considered bad form these days.

Prince Charles: It’s proper that in such weighty matters the Queen shall decide. What do you say Mum?

Queen Elizabeth: Yes I’m terribly sorry Harry, protocol must always be followed. Little George is third in line to the throne. Have the servant give him the drumstick. That is my royal decision for this year.

Little Prince George (sticking out his tongue at Harry and speaking in sing-song fashion): Nya, nya, nya, nya, nya! I am third in line, I get the turkey leg!

I do find myself wondering why we freedom loving Americans are so enamored of all this British Royal Family stuff. After all, we fought a war to get rid of these people. And with good reason; that King George was crazier than a coot. Even the British were trying to keep him under lock and key as best they could. Yet here we are, watching a Prince who is only sixth in line for the throne get married, and gushing like gushers gushing slobber all over the place. I thought Anderson Cooper was going to drown in his own slobber! Yes I know the bride was American, but please, every single celebrity from these United States who found a way to sneak in the back door was there, from Oprah to George Clooney to Serena Williams. Was this a wedding or one gigantic photo op? Is it just me, or did that fully bedecked priest leading the bride up the aisle look exactly like Rudy Giuliani? Come on Rudy! I know you love the spotlight but really, you’re dressing up in red vestments and posing as a royal minister? You’re sneaking into the picture again, like a little weasel scurrying across the outfield of a baseball game?

Why do we admire these people so much? After the church ceremony the wedding party made their getaway in a horse drawn carriage. I mean, holy crap, these people can’t even afford cars anymore. I know they all live in castles, but let’s face it; those are all just hand-me down houses from their ancestors. These days the Empire is just a bit bigger than my living room. Is there anything even left of the British Empire? As recently as 100 years ago, Britain ruled over almost one quarter of both the land area and the people of this earth. Today it’s basically the Falklands and Guernsey Island. The Falklands offer little more than a bunch of sheep, and I’m not sure there are even any cows on Guernsey anymore. I’m thinking the Royal Family has to buy their 2% milk down at the corner Kwik Trip, just like the rest of us.

I suppose the tens of millions of us Americans who watched the Royal Wedding did so because the bride was American actress Meghan Markle. The Brits seemed to make a very big deal of the fact that she is African-American. No actually, on second thought, it was mostly we Americans who made a big deal of that. But I do suspect the Brits were put out that she is a commoner. I’m wondering exactly when that became okay, because I know at one time that would never have happened. Once-upon-a-time European Royals were only allowed to marry European Royals. And if the bride was your first cousin, so much the better. Did you know that back in the day the royal families of Britain, Germany, Russia, and pretty much the rest of Europe were basically one big happy family? Well, maybe not always happy, because you know, World War One. But then every family has its little disagreements now and then.

Now that the royal wedding is over, who and what are we all going to watch? Our own eminent luminaries, like that crazy cast of characters on cable news? Do we really have to go back to that? Holy crapoly, I don’t think I can bear it. What about little Prince George? Is it too soon for Prince George to get married? I’d much rather watch that.

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Now I Just Have to Talk About Kim Kardashian, Please Forgive Me

When I started this blog I promised myself I would never, ever, ever talk about Kim Kardashian. But now, OMG, I can’t help myself. The catalyst for this catastrophic moment was a story in the online magazine Glamour.com (which I read regularly, I assure you.) There was a big shindig in the Big Apple recently called the Met Gala. From what I can gather, it is basically an excuse for the rich and famous to get dressed up and sashay across a red carpet. And Kim Kardashian is not going to miss such an opportunity, because after two weeks or so with no sashaying she goes into red carpet withdrawal. Well it turns out that in her travels Ms. Kardashian forgot her press-on nails in Los Angeles. But never fear; tragedy was averted when her buddy Katy Perry flew them out to New York City on her private jet. Not only did this save the evening, but it gave Kim something to Tweet about the next day. And that was huge, because without such an interesting and heartwarming story to tell, she might have had to Tweet about something boring, like child poverty, or world peace. So all ended happily as Kim took delivery of her press-on nails, which let’s face it, did go beautifully with her capped teeth, false eyelashes and hair extensions.

The theme of the evening was Heavenly Bodies: Fashion And The Catholic Imagination. (I promise you, I am not making this up.) Now I was raised Catholic, but let me tell you, I never saw any Heavenly Bodies in the church basement over at St. John The Baptist dressed like those pics I saw on Glamour.com. (And I inspected them all very closely, just to make sure.) When I was thirteen I had quite an imagination, but I never imagined anything like that. Kim Kardashian wore a gold shiny sausage skin which was almost too long on the bottom, but was definitely too short on top. It barely reached up to those two funny looking things that sort of popped out of her dress up there. (Well, that’s how I thought about those things when I was thirteen.) I don’t know that her attire was all that Catholically, but she did have a couple of Christian crosses stitched into the design. So I guess it’s all good. Glamour.com pointed out that it took six people several hours to get her dressed-up, made-up, and ready for the big night, and it’s not clear that included two manicurists who handled the press-on nails. I used to hate putting on a clip-on tie for church.

However, like many of us, Ms. Kardashian decided to get casual as soon as church was over. To the Met Gala after party (what’s a party without an after party) she switched outfits to a black mini-skirt with no middle and a barely-there top, all held together by, as Glamour described it, bondage inspired strapping and gold buckles. After all, nothing says Catholic like a little bondage now and then. Even Hot Susie never wore anything like that to the Monday night C.Y.O. meets.

But Kim Kardashian was tame compared to the aforementioned buddy, Katy Perry. Let’s let Vogue Magazine describe it. “With a blinding gold lamé minidress, thigh-high boots, and towering feathered wings so large that she had to enter the museum sideways, Perry was at her excessive best.” If the pic in Vogue was accurate, the gold lamé minidress was basically see-through. And I believe the pic was accurate because, well, I have a magnifying glass. Oh yes, that is exactly what Sister Mary told us the angels would look like when we went up to heaven. That is why I was such a good boy for a very long time.

It wasn’t all about the ladies though. My favorite comedian, Stephen Colbert, wore this garish whitish jacket with dark gray patterns of some sort all over it (not sure what they were because I didn’t inspect his pic quite as closely as Katy Perry.) Maybe it’s the kind of thing a funny man wears to a fancy party, I don’t know. What I do know is I had one just like it when I was a teenager. So yeah, it was cool.

It turns out not everyone felt love and smiles that night though. An autograph seeker was allegedly beaten by the bodyguards of Cardi B and Offset after the Gala. To which I say, who the hell are Cardi B and Offset? To which Google says, some kind of superstar rappers. There was a happy ending to this story however. The beaten man will get his autographs after all. They will come in the form of Cardi B and Offset’s signatures on the settlement of his lawsuit. It turns out Cardi B is a girl, and furthermore she is preggers. Apparently she told Ellen DeGeneres, after being shown a video of her twerking, “I was just trying to show the world how I got pregnant in the first place.” I got news for you Cardi B, that ain’t how it works.

I was having a hard time following this whole Met Gala story because I don’t know who half of these extremely famous people are. I remember when the famous people were Jimmy Stewart and Julie Andrews. Now it’s Cardi B and Offset. I got on the internet machine and did some research. I reviewed the public record of Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Cardi B, twerking, you name it. Especially the twerking. That took a lot of research. I had to watch a lot of video to figure that one out. But it’s okay though, because I am a life-long learner. I made the sacrifice for the sake of knowledge.

Now that I have spoken of Kim Kardashian, I hereby take a solemn oath to never do so again. I can’t make the same promise about Katy Perry though. And you can betcha booties I’m going to keep my eyes on the pixels of Glamour.com. They’ve got some pretty hard hitting reporting going on over there. I’ll be looking for their coverage of this up and coming superstar right here.

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Travel With Crabby And Travel With Charles Kuralt Are Not The Same Thing

I love to travel, and that means just about anywhere, except of course, East Chicago. But travel with Crabby is always an adventure. I like driving vacations. And when I’m on a road trip, my favorite place to eat is Kentucky Fried Chicken. The thing is, when you get into Kentucky you pass by a KFC about every two miles. And by that I mean you pass by a KFC every two miles. I stop at them all. It’s about 135 miles through Kentucky on I-65. I can make that in six hours and twenty minutes flat. (Two hours driving, three hours for chicken legs, and the rest for mashed potatoes and gravy.)

If you’re going to take a road trip, you’re going to hit road construction. And that is exactly what I did on my last trip to Florida. I mean I literally hit the road construction. When I stopped for the night I had to grab a broomstick and poke the orange barrels out from under my trailer. They had been dragging along under there for the last ten miles. Good news! I turned them in for recycling, and it paid my gas bill for the day. Lamentably, I had to do my orange-barrel-poking in the dark. The story goes more or less as follows:

Me speaking, “There’s a KOA twenty miles up the road, I think we’ll stop there for the night.”

The wife speaking, “There’s a KOA at the next exit. Let’s stop there, have a nice dinner, and get some sleep.”

Me speaking, “It’s only 5:30. We can make the next twenty miles and be in the campground by 6:00. That’s twenty miles less to drive tomorrow.” (Me not speaking, “Plus there’s a KFC at that exit.”)

The wife speaking, “You just want to go there because there’s another g@dd@mn KFC at that exit.”

Me speaking, “Well, anyway, it’s too late. This exit came up on me kind of fast and I missed it.”

Thirty seconds later we saw brake lights everywhere. The six lanes of highway narrowed down to one, and it took four hours to drive those last twenty miles. I had to set up camp in the dark. And worst thing of all? By then the KFC was closed.

The wife speaking, “I’m sleeping in the camper. I have no idea where you’re sleeping.” (Door slamming. Door latch turning.)

Did I mention my tow vehicle is a big old van? You can sleep in the passenger seat, if you have to.

But I don’t always drive. A few weeks ago we flew out to Las Vegas for a wedding. That is just the capitol of crazy town. And most people leave there as losers. Not me though. I avoid the table games and head for the machines. But instead of the slot machines, I pop my ten dollar bills into a change machine and listen to the satisfying sound of forty quarters clinking into the cup. It’s amazing. I break even every time.

Remember that old TV show, On The Road with Charles Kuralt? It was very soothing, and calming, and sweepingly beautiful, and educational. That ain’t me. Well, maybe educational is me. You can learn to swap out an alternator on my van in the dark parking lot of a strip-mall in suburban Atlanta. You can learn to enjoy the middle seat for six hours because I saved five bucks on the plane tickets. You can learn how to pull a twenty-four foot travel trailer through a fast food lane while people stare at you. (When a guy needs a cheeseburger, he needs a cheeseburger.) But my travel adventures, as I like to call them, are not all my fault. I just seem to attract crazy like a magnet. Like that time I got on a plane at six in the morning and watched in horror as the large crazy man wandered up the aisle and plopped down right next to me. When the flight attendant asked if we wanted anything for breakfast he said in his very loud and nasal voice, “I’ll have a bagel…. aaaand a Budweiser.” He then proceeded to blabber the entire flight from San Diego to Milwaukee, first to me, then to himself. A lady in the row in front of us turned around and said “Mister, mister, you are very annoying!” It didn’t even slow him down.

I have a great talent for travel. I can sleep on a plane, I can sleep in a car, I can sleep on a train. It’s like those people in the science fiction movies who go into suspended animation on their star ships. I settle into my seat; I fall asleep; when I wake up I am on the other side of the state or the other side of the country. It’s just great. But I’m glad I’m not actually on a star ship. My wife might push me out the air lock because, well, snoring.

My kids just don’t like to travel with me. I can’t imagine why. As they neared their last years at home, I decided to try one last time. I had to bribe them with a trip to Cancún. It started wonderfully. We spent a day on the beach, right after we settled into our second room after heavy rain brought water pouring through the light fixtures of our first room. It was all good though. There were no electrical fires. The next day we went on an outing to a cenote. That is basically a big sinkhole going down to an underground river. We changed into our swim pants and took the limestone stairway down into the cave-like place. We found ourselves swimming with tiny blind bullheads in the cool flowing underground stream. Floating on our backs, relaxing, looking at the sunlit hole far above, with jungle growth poking into view way up there and green vines hanging down the vertical stone walls; it was magical. A few hours later we got back to our room and turned on the TV machine. There we saw a hurricane. Well, what we actually saw on the TV was a big gigantic yellow spinning graphic depicting a hurricane filling the entire Caribbean from the coast of Venezuela to Cuba. Right through the middle of that was a big red flashing arrow pointing directly at our hotel room. This just goes to show the Weather Channel is very good at what they do, which is to scare the living sh*t out of you. And they can scare the living sh*t out of you even in Spanish. We soon figured out that only a few hours out to sea, at that very moment, there were 210 mile per hour winds and fifty foot waves. One glance out the window showed our hotel room to be twenty-five feet above the beach. We soon learned the airport was already closed, all buses out of town were booked, and the designated tourist hurricane shelter was a school about three feet above sea level. Long story short? I rented the last car available (just a bit bigger than a bread box) and we drove inland to the airport at Merida. $7,000 of last minute plane tickets and thirty hours of sweaty non-stop travel later, we were home. My kids just don’t like to travel with me. I can’t imagine why.

But still, I do enjoy it so. Travel teaches so much. Like, for example, that there’s no place like home. At least that’s what I’ve heard. I’ll let you know if I can figure out how to get back there. I think I’m lost…

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Courageous Congressmen Completely Committed To Convincing Concerned Constituents That Conservative Calling Can Be Completed From Cancún

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and so do our courageous congressmen. By which I mean, they’re going out the door as fast as they possibly can. Why? Because they have figured out that even the most power-packed presentation of poop chute propaganda perpetrated by pragmatic prostitutes promoting pretend parsimony doesn’t seem to be selling tickets anymore. Even perfectly propagated parody of partners in political pantomime is no longer palatable. Now they are simply protecting their private parts pending a projected progressive purge. (And many thanks to my buddy Steve for all that foregoing clevertude.)

Just over two years ago they chose a new leader to be Speaker of the House, and he is now totally proving his leadership ability. He is leading them out the door. Speaker has announced he will not run for re-election, as he wants to spend more time at home with his money. If his family is there, that will be good too. About forty other majority party congressmen have already announced that they are likewise minded. Most have said that as private citizens they will continue to pursue their conservative convictions, while some will just be trying to avoid conviction. (Check their websites for links to their legal defense funds.) Some of these soon-to-be-former congressmen are wealthy enough to simply hit the beach, but most will pretend to go back to private law practice for the required year away from Washington before becoming high-priced lobbyists. And that makes leaving Congress feel pretty okay. Being high-priced is a status symbol in the lobbyist business, same as in the hooker business. And that’s not the only similarity.

As it happens, soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House is from my beloved home Bucky Badger State of Wisconsin. This means I can easily drive down to Janesville and have a beer with him on his front veranda (Mueller Lite please.) I’d be glad to do this, just by way of helpfully helping him pass the time. You see, he has a special problem. Unlike most congressmen, he does not have a law degree. Speaker will have to be satisfied with joining five or ten corporate boards (for a retainer of $250,000 each.) But corporate boards meet only four times a year, so lots of time left over for beer on the veranda. I recommend he join the company that provides those portable pooper potties at the Cedarburg flea market, because you know, experience with that stuff.

In related news, we learned this week that current Speaker’s predecessor Speaker will be joining the board of an organization dedicated to legalized cannabis. While in office, this guy insisted cannabis was the devil. This only goes to show how horribly addicting money can be.

I’m really not sure how we’ll replace these august gentlemen of the ruling party. With great wisdom they voted into law a huge tax decrease just a few months ago, mostly for billionaires. With great courage they voted into law a huge increase in federal spending just a few weeks ago. Lo, in their great foresightedness they then foresaw the budget deficit spiraling toward one trillion dollars per year. So last week they voted, (knowing it wouldn’t become law) for a balanced budget amendment. You can’t make this stuff up.

Fun fact: In the aforementioned federal budget, just the increase in U.S. military spending is more than the entire annual military budget of Russia, and about half of the military budget of the Chinese. Our military budget is eight to ten times that of Russia, and about triple that of China. Have you ever seen that movie, Red Dawn, where the American west gets overrun by the Commies? Not gonna happen. But we need more firepower folks, we need more firepower. If Darth Vader and his Death Star appear overhead, we’re screwed.

When I saw the news about all of these seats opening up in Congress I thought wow, here’s my big chance. I’ve always thought I would make a good congressman; and now more so than ever. I’ll fit right in. I’m old, my brain is down to half-speed, and I look horrible on television. (I haven’t actually been on television since 1972 at Nixon’s second inauguration. I don’t want to talk about that.) Before I can be a congressman however, I need to find a rich guy to support me. This is a bi-partisan point by the way. You can’t get anywhere with either major political party unless you come with a rich guy in tow. (And if you’re running with the Green Party, well I love it! You’re so funny!) Unfortunately, my own local congressman is one of the few who is not yet ready to give up his seat. He’s only 110 years old, so still young for a congressman. And the people of our district hold him in high regard, likely because they think he is the sole surviving member of the Founding Fathers. Maybe I’ll move to Canada. I’ve heard they don’t have a congressman up there.

Many practitioners of political punditry think these rats are deserting the congressional ship because the party is suffering from deleterious effects of the crazy man. (Don’t even pretend to not know who the crazy man is.) I say that is a negatory. In support of my position, I give you two words; Sarah Palin. Or three words; Rick “Oops” Perry. Or, I can give you seven more words; Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell. And wait, I have fifteen more words; Richard “when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that’s something God intended” Mourdock. Or how about, Rick “man on dog” Santorum (don’t even ask). If you’re going to turn your party into a circus, don’t be surprised when the biggest clown grabs the spotlight. If you’re going to turn your party into a pigpen, don’t be surprised when the biggest hog dominates the wallow.

I am not so certain the projected progressive purge will come to pass. Because gerrymandering, voter suppression, big money, dirty tricks, and all that scary-sounding-stuff-that-will-happen-if-they-lose they keep coming up with. Why are all these congressmen giving up, just when they’re getting good at this stuff?

But don’t feel too badly for them. Prior congressional retirees have done just fine, as you can see right here.

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Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Three Stooges Go To Madison

Madison, Wisconsin, home of hairy hippies in the sixties and sleepy-eyed stoners in the seventies. How do I know? I don’t want to talk about that. But if you want to know who is in Madison these days, all you have to do is turn on the TV machine. Have you seen that old movie, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington? I give you the sequel, The Three Stooges Go To Madison. Here in my beloved state of Wisconsin we have a Gov’nor, Senate Majority Leader, and Assembly Speaker who make the original Three Stooges look like rookies of riposte. For purposes of this blog post, they shall remain nameless. Why? You may have noticed the policy some news outlets follow when covering horrible crimes. They do not name the perpetrator for fear of inspiring copycat criminals. Same deal here.

What was the latest episode of Stooges Go To Madison? In December two state senators resigned their offices. State law calls for Gov’nor to call a special election. He refused, fearing his party might lose. We subsequently had an election day in February and another on April 3rd, but whoops, these open senate seats were not on the ballots. It went to court. A judge whom Gov’nor himself had appointed heard the case. Gov’nor argued it was a waste of taxpayer money to call a special election so late in the year (March?), being that the legislature had already adjourned for the year (March!) Now he would have to call a whole ‘nother election day. Judge lady pointed out he’d had two prior opportunities to fill these seats during regularly scheduled elections. Now go ahead and schedule this election, Mr. Gov’nor! Gov’nor expressed outrage. He appealed, twice. Judges hit him with a frying pan, twice. It was just what you’d expect in any Three Stooges movie. Then the two stooges over in the legislature announced they would convene a special legislative session to change the law regarding special elections. They would make it retroactive. But wait, the reason Gov’nor argued he needn’t call a special election is that the heretofore mentioned legislature wouldn’t meet any more this year anyway. Got that? It’s a perfect Three Stooges movie; our guys are running around in circles yelling yip-yip-yip-yip, and slapping themselves.

Take our State Assembly Speaker (please!) He is eminently qualified for this three ring circus, being that his day job is running a popcorn company (really, check his Wikipedia.) I saw him on TV explaining the logic of this retroactive law outlawing the election of new lawmakers, being that the legislature would not be meeting anymore this year and so they should call a special session of the legislature this year to get this law passed. What a performance! Completely straight faced throughout. There is no doubt that politics is truly a performance art, and this man deserves an Emmy. And he does remind me of Curly; you know, Stooge number three. He’s the guy always getting hit on the head with hammers and such, but it does no apparent damage because the damage, obviously, has already been done. Oh yes, I think Assembly Speaker has been hit on the head by too many hammers.

What really gives me hinder cramps is when these platidudinous porkbarrel politicians pontificate with such pious pomposity, claiming they obviously know best because they were elected by the people. To which I have a one word reply; gerrymandering. Most of these guys reside in districts so badly gerrymandered their political party could elect any of The Three Stooges, even one of those substitutes, like Shemp. Remember Shemp? Most people don’t. He wasn’t a true star like Moe, Larry, and Curly. How did he ever get to be one of the Stooges anyway? Answer; he got elected in a gerrymandered district.

But I am not just a whiner. I am a great solver of problems. (If you don’t believe me, click on Golden Oldies on this blog and read Socks And Tupperware Lids.) My solution to gerrymandering? If The Three Stooges refuse to move the district lines, we will move the voters. I hereby propose that we organize about 10,000 voters who all have (or can rent) camper trailers. These people would be of an independent mind, who you know, might want to watch Laurel and Hardy once in a while instead of Moe, Larry, and Curly. We move them all to Assembly Speaker’s district about six months before the election, and they vote him out of office. It’s a beautiful rural area and I’m sure we can rent a nice farm somewhere to set up a humungous campground. It could be fun. It could be like a modern day Woodstock. Preposterous you say? Not at all! Fess up! Some of you have been at tailgate parties that long.

There is a happy ending to this story. The Three Stooges gave up on their proposed legislation. But that’s like a drunk pulling up his pants after he’s already mooned the camera at the Packer game. Too late, it’s on tape! I wonder what might show up in the next episode. Will they expel liberal Madison from the state and move the capitol to Kansas? (It will save on travel expense, being closer to the Koch brothers.) Will they grant the City of Milwaukee to Foxconn, all of it to be razed for parking? Will they declare war on Michigan in an effort to annex the Upper Peninsula? Will our army of deer hunters be marching against Michigan’s army of deer hunters? Wisconsin, amazingly, has almost 600,000 deer hunters. And I know many of them. I’m confident they could defeat Vladimir Putin on opening weekend.

When it comes right down to it, only Moe knows what The Three Stooges will do next, but I do know that I want to live in a democracy. And don’t be telling me to move to Minnesota. We may have The Three Stooges, but they have that stupid Gopher.

Now, many of my illustrious readers are not from my beautiful state of Wisconsin, and may be unfamiliar with the workings of our state government. For those who wish to do further research on this subject, I am attaching a link to an educational documentary about our Gov’nor, Senate Majority Leader, and Assembly Speaker, right
here. There will be a quiz after.

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Cell Phones, Psoriasis, And Hemorrhoids

Cell phones; they have made all the world a phone booth. Holy crappoly! They are better than Google for learning all there is to know about the following topics; eczema, psoriasis, hemorrhoids, that strange itch that people can get you-know-where, how many times somebody puked on St. Patrick’s Day, gastrointestinal problems, who your neighbor voted for, and the name of your coworker’s friend’s mistress. Oh, and also her cup size, which is amazing (the cup size, not the fact that you heard about it.) You learned that your second grader’s teacher goes to Vegas a lot, and what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas. You learned that your boss cheats on his taxes (boom, you just got a raise). You learned about all these things from people in public places talking on their cell phones. Restaurants are especially bad. I went out for breakfast the other day and overheard a lady discussing…well, let’s just say I never did finish that Bloody Mary. And the volume of it all. The lady at the next table in the restaurant held the phone out at arm’s length, in front of her face, with speaker on. She was yelling at the top of her lungs. It was so loud it gave me a headache. I was going to raise objections, but wanted to hear who her sister hooked up with in the broom closet at their office. (Sometimes I get confused about priorities.)

And hemorrhoids; I don’t need to learn about no hemorrhoids from no overheard cell phone conversation. I already know about hemorrhoids. I learned about hemorrhoids the hard way. I don’t want to talk about that no more.

You’re standing in line at the movie theater, waiting to buy tickets for Game Night, when someone on their cell phone gives away the game. So now you know the ending; might as well go home. Look at the bright side, you just saved about ten bucks. (Well I saved twenty, but then I eat a lot of popcorn).

You’re deep into Family Feud on the overhead screen at the airport, trying to figure out what word the survey says best describes your wife’s underpants, when a guy sits next to you having a very loud fight with his girlfriend. But you’re in Orlando and she is in Cleveland. It’s one of those newfangled video calls and he’s holding her up to his face, arguing. You advise him not to bother; she’s so loud you could hear her from Cleveland without benefit of the phone. Now you find an angry female lady screaming at you from inside a two inch screen being pushed into your face. And then he punches you. At least you brought those lovebirds back together.

You’re at the deli in the supermarket, speaking to the guy behind the counter about what you want for dinner. The guy next to you is on his cell with his wife, taking his shopping list over the phone and repeating back everything she tells him. You tell the deli guy, “I’ll have cheddar, sliced sandwich thick.” The deli guy says, “Cheddar?” The cell phone guy says, “Pepperjack.” The deli guy says, “Pepperjack?” You say, “No, cheddar.” The cell phone guy tells his wife, “But maybe I’d like provolone for a change.” The deli guy says, “Okay, provolone it is.” “No”, you say, “I want cheddar.” “Okay, okay, make up your mind will you Jack?” “No, not jack”, says the cell phone guy, “I said pepperjack. You work in the deli, don’t you know the difference between jack and pepperjack? What’s the matter with you, anyway.” The matter is, mister, that you think this deli counter is a #%&#’ing telephone booth. And then you punch him.

But it isn’t just the speaking on the cell phones. It’s every yutz and klutz in the country texting and driving. I happen to have a rather large van, and I can see down into the cars driving by. Fifty percent of them are either texting or looking at pictures of naked women. Just the other day I saw a guy looking at pictures of naked women, weaving all over the expressway. Am I sure that is what he was doing, you want to know? You better believe it. I pulled up alongside him for five miles, and oh yeah, you betcha! (Sometimes I get confused about priorities.)

Of course cell phones can be useful while driving. They all have built in navigation apps these days, so that you can find the best route. But mine seems to equate best route with shortest route. Like last summer when my cell phone took me on a 45 minute drive through downtown Madison instead of the ten miles of bypass on the expressway. I turned it off when it took me, my huge van, and my 24 foot travel trailer into a drive-through lane at the McDonalds because it was fifteen feet shorter that way. But that’s not the worst part of this story. The worst part of this story is that I had been listening to the advice of my cell phone, instead of my wife sitting right there in the passenger seat. Have you ever heard that saying, “My mama didn’t raise no fools?” I regret to report that nobody ever said that about my dear mama.

I suppose I have to learn to take things more in stride, to be more relaxed, and more accepting of the future. And the future seems to be everybody in the country walking around wearing earbuds and holding their phones in front of their faces so they can’t see where they’re going. They’ll just be jibber-jabbering away, bouncing off walls and light posts and into each other. It could be kind of fun. If you want to meet new people, you just go out on the street and stand there until somebody bumps into you. Of course, if you want to strike up a conversation, you’ll have to call them up.

Imagine if cell phones had been invented thirty years earlier. It would have changed everything. Well maybe not everything, just all this stuff right here.

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Finnish People Are Sadly Misled Into Believing They Are Happy

Recently the United Nations released a study claiming that Finland is the happiest country on earth. What? Are we sure Finland is even a real country? I didn’t see them anywhere at Disney Epcot. Finland? This is a country where winter is real winter, even in summer. The north of Finland is above the Arctic Circle. I didn’t think you could be happy north of the Arctic Circle, but then I remembered Santa Claus. But really, we don’t know that Santa Claus is happy, do we. Finland moved into the top slot by knocking out last year’s winner, which was Norway. Now, I can understand Norway being the happiest country on earth. They get to eat lutefisk. Lutefisk is fish soaked in cold water for several days, then soaked in lye for two days, and then water again. I don’t know if you know what lye is, but it ain’t pretty. When I was a kid on the farm we used it to clear the drains in the barn when they got clogged. Holy crap, who would do something like that to a fish? I mean, even a dead one for god’s sake! Lutefisk comes out of this torture treatment with a gelatinous texture. I hear it’s great. Why don’t you give it a try and let me know? (Seriously, if you’ve had lutefisk, drop me a line, I’d like to hear about it.) But now I see that they eat lutefisk in Finland too, so I guess those two countries tied on that one. However Norway has lots of oil money, so I suppose that was the tiebreaker. (I wonder if Norwegians also soak their fish in crude oil?)

True story: My brother once visited Norway, and being the adventurous type, he had a whale burger for lunch, which I guess is a thing over there. This might seem kind of bad to my more delicate readers, but never fear, he kept his promise to “free Willy” just a few hours later. (A nod to my brother for that joke…and if you don’t get it, no, I’m not going to explain.)

Meanwhile, the United States came in 18th in this happiness study. Eighteenth place! And that was down five spots from the prior year. I can’t imagine why we would come down. (Well, maybe I can.) How could our own United States not come out on top? We are the United States! Still, this study, I don’t pay it no mind. (That was a stick in the eye to my college writing professor.) After all, it was done by the United Nations. Are we going to let a bunch of foreigners decide we are not the happiest country on earth? I think not. Due to the questionable outcome of this study, I decided to look into it, and found it was mostly based on the following questionnaire:

1.) Can you appear in a sauna completely naked without the other saunees laughing out loud?

2.) Do you live in a country that is not named North Korea?

3.) Is it too cold for mosquitos nine months out of the year?

4.) Does your country have more reindeer than people?

5.) Does your country have more trees than television sets?

6.) Does your country have ten or more aircraft carriers? (Studies show there is a direct correlation between the number of aircraft carriers a country has and the happiness of its citizens.)

7.) How many servings per capita does your country eat of Kraft macaroni and cheese in an average week? (The one in the blue box marked with a smiley face made of macaroni.)

8.) Is it necessary to post signs on the doors of your schools and churches notifying people that guns are not allowed inside?

9.) Does the more fiscally conservative of the political parties in your country run trillion dollar budget deficits?

10.) Does the President or Prime Minister of your country have an albino squirrel living on top of his head?

That last one is a trick question, I think. Some might consider a ‘yes’ to that one a negative, but I think it’s a positive. After all, it is rather amusing, don’t you think? No? Whatever your feelings about that, there is so much here in America to make us happy. We have the biggest pickup trucks, the Kardashians, the best television commercials (if you like stupid), the most television commercials, real football instead of that wimpy soccer, and of course we have the Stormy Daniels show. The Stormy Daniels show has been so good it’s now in reruns on endless loop. It’s been so good it’s now generating spin-offs. There’s the Karen McDougal show, the Summer Zervos show, and god help us who knows…stay tuned. They might have to spin up a whole ‘nother cable channel. What does Finland have? Finland has the aforementioned lutefisk, herring, Kaalikääryleet (cabbage rolls), moose (not chocolate mousse, just moose), and curdled milk. They also have lots of trees. And lakes. And snow. It’s a beautiful country I hear, if you like trees and lakes and snow more than, say, East Chicago. The United States has ten lane expressways to handle traffic quickly and efficiently at all times. Finland has sleighs pulled by reindeer. Have you ever seen the sleigh-pulled-by-reindeer version of a six car pileup? It’s ugly.

I’ve never been to Finland, and I have to confess I don’t know much about it. So I did some research on the interweb. The first thing I learned is that Ansa is a warm loving young Finnish lady who wants me bad. That information popped up in a header ad above my Google search. Further research shows that Ansa also means “trap”. That just goes to show that Finnish internet trolls have a sense of humor. Despite my misgivings, I responded to her with an email. I wanted to learn something about Finland, and she was the only Finnish person I knew, unless you count that Little Mermaid girl at Disney World. (Because, you know, she’s got fins?) And wouldn’t you know it, but I fell for her, hard! I think I’m in love. I may be a crazy old fool, but as they say, I fell for her hook, line, and sinker. I just hope she doesn’t turn me into lutefisk.

Here in America we have much to make us happy, but truthfully, so do the people of Finland. They have us. Check it out right here.

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You’re Darn Tootin’ You Should Vote For Putin

Now that Paul Manafort is wearing an ankle bracelet (two of them actually, who ever heard of that!) I see an opening in the job market. I see an opportunity to make some big rubles as a campaign adviser in Russia. At the top of the ticket is Vladimir Putin, running for re-election as President of the Russian Federation. Yes, I know there is no chance he could lose, but he’s got to keep up appearances. And election advisers are part of appearances. My first suggestion for good old Vlad? He needs a motto. May I offer:

You’re darn tootin’
You should vote for Putin
Or he’ll be shootin’
You…

What do you think? Pretty catchy, huh? And then there are the members of the Duma. The Duma is Russia’s version of Congress, and every bit as honorable. There are a lot of members of the Duma, so a good chance to sell the same motto to multiple guys. Try this one on for size:

You can presume
If you don’t put me in the Duma
You get bellyache
Worse than Revenge of Montezuma
(Much worse…)

That’s actually more like a jingle. We can put that to music and rap it. But we need a second verse. Something like:

Put me in the Duma
Helping Big Bro’ Vlad
Steal Mother Russia’s money
‘Cause we so bad

Oh crap! Now I see the next election for Duma is three years off, and that fricking tune is in my head. It’s bouncing around in there like a crazy-making Bee Gees song. Hold on, I’m taking a moment off to listen to some Abba; that should do it.

Okay, I’m back. Whew, thank god for Abba. Now where was I? Yes, mottos and jingles; they are good for drumming up excitement. They boost voter enthusiasm and turnout. And there are other measures that can be used in enclaves of your supporters. You can have a polling station on every corner. You could hand out an absentee ballot with every bottle of vodka sold. Even better, hand out the vodka for free. Finally, there is the old fashioned bribe. You control the government; you can just print a few more rubles.

Turning out the your-kind-of-people to vote is an okay, but frankly kind of old school way of winning an election. These days, instead of getting your kind of people to turn out and vote, you get the not-your-kind-of-people to not turn out and not vote. I emailed a couple such suggestions over to Russia as part of my pitch to get hired on. You know, standard stuff like having one polling station with five voting booths in a city of two million of the not-your-kind-of-people. Then there’s the making sure you hold the election on a day when all the undesirables have to work, being sure to shut down all early voting. You can purge the voter registration list, requiring anyone not on it to register anew, which is a very easy process and will take only two or three hours. And last, but certainly not least, there is the old trick of requiring all voters to produce a driver’s license, birth certificate, full police report, lab test results for all known venereal diseases, and current passport. Of course in Russia that may not work. They have to produce all that stuff just to cross the street over there. So scratch that idea I guess. Yessir, I sent them all those great ideas. Unfortunately, they came back at me and said they already do all those things, ever since they started watching American television. Plus, of course, they kill people. So there’s that.

I didn’t get the job. Bummer.

But I guess Vladimir really doesn’t need my help to get elected. Did you know there are actually quite a few different political parties in Russia? There are ten or eleven opposition parties. If none of them win over 50% of the vote, they go to run-off elections. But Russian elections never go to run-off, at least not those involving Mr. Putin. How can one man get over 50% of the vote when there are so many opposition parties? Allow me to hypotheticalize:

Phone rings in the household of Aleksey Zhuravlyov. “Da, this is Aleksey speaking. Da, uv course I am Chairman of Rodina Party. Who does not know dat? Who is calling please?”

Unintelligible voice from the other end. Aleksey’s wife cannot make it out.

“But how can I do dat? Ve are opposition party. Already our candidate has been chosen. Vat vill I tell members?”

Unintelligible voice from the other end. Aleksey’s wife cannot make it out.

“Vat? Did I hear correctly? You vould do dat?” Mr. Zhuravlyov turns green. He starts to sweat. “Da, uv course we are loyal opposition, you know dat. How can ve vork dis out?”

Unintelligible voice from the other end. Aleksey’s wife cannot make it out.

“Nyet, nyet, nyet! Dat vill not be necessary! Da, uv course, uv course! Tomorrow we will announce! Ve vill support Mr. Putin for president. Da, uv course.”

The line goes dead. Mr. Zhuravlyov stares at the receiver, forgetting to hang it up.

“Vat is dis?” his wife asks, trembling. “Vat has happened? Now you vill support Putin?”

“Da, ve vill support Putin, ve vill support Putin. But don’t vorry lyubov moya, it be fine. After election, ve go on vacation. Yes we go on very, very long vacation, to someplace very, very far away.”

Was the same phone call received by the chairmen of other political parties? We can only imagine what goes on in the Twilight Zone. What we do know is that Rodina, Civic Platform, and A Just Russia, all significant political parties over there, now support Mr. Putin for president. Funny how that works. So Putin will be re-elected. Don’t get down about it. It’s not the end of the world, I hope. Forget about Russian politics and world affairs. Look for something to cheer you up. Hey, I have a suggestion. I will even give you a link to it, right here. I hereby guarantee, it’ll make you smile.

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In The Year 2025: Driverless Car Delivers College Sophomores To Alaska For Spring Break

I hereby prognosticate that the above headline will definitely come true someday, sooner or later. Six college sophomores, piled into a four passenger driverless car, (plenty of room, with two being in the trunk)(my beloved daughter and her high school friends tried that once-upon-a-time) will arrive in Fairbanks, Alaska in March, looking for the beach. They won’t find one. But hold on, you say, the distance from UW-Oshkosh to Fairbanks is 3,327 miles. How could they possibly ride that far without realizing they weren’t headed for Florida? To which I say, they never bothered to look out the window. They all had their heads down, glued to their cell phones and video games, for two days and a three nights, nonstop. Don’t be so surprised. This is normal behavior for college sophomores. (In fact, it’s pretty much normal behavior for everybody these days, even when they’re driving.) But what about bathroom stops, you ask. Studies have shown that when hooked up to their small screens, these kids can go (or actually not go) for four days straight. It’s amazing. Finally, some silly soul will point out that there is a digital compass right there in the middle of the dashboard. Certainly, there is. There is a digital S, E, N, and W. You and I might think this stands for South, East, North, and West. Those sophomores think it’s a rating system for the drive ahead; S for smooth, E for easy, N for nasty, and I don’t know…W for wobbly? The cause of this navigational mishap was…the kid with the mouthful of metal braces who sat too close to the GPS receiver.

The wife says I already have a driverless car. Of course, she’s referring to my car whenever, you know, I’m driving it. Very funny. Will I ever own a driverless car for real someday? No way! I’m a crabby old guy. I drive my own car, thank you very much. Not only will I never own a driverless car, I will refuse to drive on any highway populated by other people’s driverless cars. I’m not going to trust my 2006 stick shift Chevy Aveo with a bunch of overgrown electric golf carts with silicon chips for brains. And yes, I do expect to still have my 2006 Chevy Aveo in 2025. It will just be getting broken in about that time. The muffler I had installed last week has a lifetime warranty. It cost me $238 at Midas, and you can betcha booty I’m not going to let that go to waste. I may have to buy a new set of tires for it, maybe get a brake job; then it’s good to go.

Tesla, Volkswagen, General Motors, even Google are developing driverless cars. I bet you didn’t even know Google made cars. Well they do, and if you want to verify, you can Google it of course (which that fact right there only goes to show the entire universe will be owned by one company someday). They spun off a business called Waymo, which is building proto-types of driverless vehicles. (I think that stands for Waymo’ crashups coming in the future.) Some are retro-fitted Toyotas, Chryslers, or whatevers. But Google also built their own from scratch. It looks like a big driving egg with a blue pimple on the roof. Each such Google-born driverless car has $150,000 worth of electronics equipment in it. Can you imagine? If I put $150,000 into my Aveo it would live forever! (It may live forever anyway. I’m sure my son will want to get his hands on that baby when I kick the bucket. Now he has a BMW. It’s time he took it up a notch.)

I confidently predict we are heading for nothing less than driverless Armageddon. Just imagine it’s the year 2025 and there are 50 million driverless cars on the road, all at the same time. They all rely on satellite GPS and computer chips. Let’s recall that computer chips are behind the fact that it now takes five minutes and fifty-three seconds to boot up my laptop every time I want to post to this blog. And what happens when your driving electric egg does the blue screen thing when you’re doing 90 mph on the Eisenhower Expressway? But that’s nothing! Wait until those GPS satellites and electronic car-brains get taken out all at once. Impossible you say? Absolutely not. I’m actually serious when I make this point. It could be anything from an outbreak of gigantic sunspots to a virus launched by those dirty Russkies. (Yeah I know, the Russians would never do stuff like that.) Whatever the cause, now you’ve got fifty million cars bouncing off each other and into the ditch at an average speed of 110 mph. (I’m basing that estimate on the speed of the clowns passing me on Fond du Lac Avenue every day.) (Sure I could pass them right back again, but my little Aveo doesn’t like to show off.)

A future with driverless cars? Allow me to extrapolate from the present. The other day I saw an ad on the TV machine that drives me nuts. In it, some bonehead sits in his big shiny pickup truck with his hands ostentatiously off the wheel while the truck automatically parallel parks itself. He smirks this big cocky smile at some admiring bystanders, apparently about squeezing that big behemoth into that little parking space. Dude! Wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your face! The g@dd@mn truck parked itself! You did absolutely nothing, you bonehead! (Am I being redundant? Sometimes once isn’t enough.) Is this the future of society? Are we going to go around bragging about our vehicles doing the crap we can’t do ourselves? Like, you know, even drive for god’s sake?

Not I, ladies and gentlemen. I will still be driving my 2006 Chevrolet Aveo, and parallel parking it every chance I get, all by myself.

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