Poetry Sunday

Thanksgiving is over for another year, but I remain thankful for many things. This poem is a wonderful summation of the way we ought to look at life ... as opposed to the way many of us usually do.

I Am Thankful – A Poem of Thanksgiving

Author Unknown

I am thankful:

For the wife

Who says it’s hot dogs tonight

Because she is home with me

And not out with someone else.

For the husband

Who is on the sofa

Being a couch potato

Because he is home with me

And not out at the bars.

For the teenager

Who is complaining about doing dishes

Because it means she is at home,

Not on the streets.

For the taxes I pay

Because it means

I am employed.

For the mess to clean after a party

Because it means I have

Been surrounded by friends.

For the clothes that fit a little too snug

Because it means

I have enough to eat.

For my shadow that watches me work

Because it means

I am out in the sunshine.

For a lawn that needs mowing,

Windows that need cleaning,

And gutters that need fixing

Because it means that I have a home.

For all the complaining

I hear about the government

Because it means

We have freedom of speech.

For the parking spot

I find at the far end of the parking lot

Because it means

I am capable of walking,

And I have been blessed with transportation.

For my huge heating bill

Because it means

I am warm.

For the lady behind me in church

Who sings off key

Because it means I can hear.

For the pile of laundry and ironing

Because it means

I have clothes to wear.

For weariness and aching muscles

At the end of the day

Because it means I have been

Capable of working.

For the alarm that goes off

In the early morning hours

Because it means

I am alive.

I am alive, and so is my Very Best Beloved. Things aren't so bad after all, are they?

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

No shortage of news this week ...

In Georgia, three men were convicted of murdering black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, and face a minimum sentence of life in prison; as if the delta variant wasn't bad enough, a new variant of Coronavirus identified in South Africa may be the "most significant to date;" in a move to stop the spread of violent behavior by commercial airline passengers, the Justice Department has directed U.S. attorneys across the country to prioritize prosecution of federal crimes that happen on commercial flights; Former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch has written "Paws Off My Cannon," a "fun yet compelling" children's book about the right to keep and bear arms, saying that says the book presents the need for self-defense 'in a fun way that kids will enjoy'; and a spokesperson for FedEx said that "the security of our customers’ shipments is a top priority and we are committed to treating our customers’ packages with the utmost care" after between 300 and 400 FedEx packages were found dumped in an Alabama ravine.

This week, in "honor" of the mess social media has made of our lives and society, a collection of jokes about that topic ...

Shadow pictures, 2.0 ...  

That would be a good sign ...

It probably needs an award ...

Bigfoot, on social media and in person ...

Bigfoot also has friend recommendations ...

The more things change ...

It can be awkward for a chameleon ...

Chicken Little on Facebeak ... ha!! ...

It does make things easier ...

Social media for artists ...

And so ends our last Cartoon Saturday for the misbegotten month of November, 2021 ... may we never see its like again.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday sees out the month on a reflective note.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

Thanksgiving is over and the holiday season is underway! Well, actually, it's been underway - at least at the local Costco - since around Labor Day, but whatever ... it's time for a new collection of editorial and signage gems ...

I guess it was the only place available ...

Warning!

The onion may have been involved in the storming of the Capitol on January 6th ...

There are contests for all sorts of odd things ...

It's an odd offer, but if it works ...

I guess this is true of health care in general ...

I think I'll pass ...

I think I'll pass on this one, too ...

I guess it was a slow news day ...

The worker shortage must really be bad if they're hiring blueberries ...

And there we go for another week. Don't forget - if you see a good sign or a good blooper in print, take a photo or make a copy and e-mail it to ol' Bilbo. 

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving yesterday with family and friends. Enjoy the coming holiday season, but above all, be safe and look out for the welfare of those around you.

More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday returns with a look at social media.

Bilbo

Thanksgiving, 2021

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been writing this blog since 2006, and some of you - masochists that you are - have been reading it for almost all of that time. You've learned many things about me over the years, one of which is that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. In a crazy world in which we too often focus on fear and negativity* and the material things in life, it's good to have a day on which to sit back and reflect on the things for which we can be truly thankful.

We’re living in a scary time in which it’s easy to be distracted from things for which we can be thankful, because there is so much going on that is awful, and so many people who keep relentlessly reminding us of it. For me, this year the awful things included:

A political party that has weaponized fear and hatred, which accepts - and, indeed, praises and amplifies - the most coarse, violent, and angry discourse, and which works tirelessly to undermine a political system it cannot win in a fair contest of ideas and policies;

The continuing horror of realizing that many Americans continue to accept frequent mass murder - even of little children - as an acceptable price to pay for the unrestricted "right to keep and bear arms;" and

A pandemic that drags on and on, largely because ignorant fools conflate the responsibility for public health with unacceptable limits on their “freedom;”

A badly flawed legal system in which the degree of available justice is directly related to one’s skin color, political connections, and ability to pay astronomical legal fees far in excess of what ordinary people can afford; and,

A changing climate that is denied by those unwilling to see the truth around them.

That all sounds pretty bad, and it is, but on the whole, though, it’s actually been a pretty good year for ol’ Bilbo. Although there have been many negatives, I have to consider myself a lucky man for a lot of reasons:

Surviving the pandemic for another year; 

The patient and long-suffering love of a beautiful and endlessly talented wife, who is still with me thanks to the skill and dedication of the doctors and nurses who saved her life this past weekend;

Three loving and successful children of whom I am justly and endlessly proud;

Six adorable, intelligent, talented, and loving grandchildren;

A large and loving extended family;

A comfortable retirement**;

A roof over my head***;

Good health^†;

Good friends;

The good fortune to be able to live in the United States of America - a country which, for all its faults, gives me the opportunity to enjoy all of the above;

The ability to write what I wish in this space without worrying about government censorship^††; and,

The ability to enjoy the good things of the world that would be denied by those whose harsh and intolerant worship of a jealous, angry, and politicized God ignores the beauty and possibilities of the present in favor of rigid belief in a single religion and an imagined paradise in an unknowable future.

I have many things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day, and it's only proper that I should take a few minutes to acknowledge that I am, as ever, most richly blessed.

I wish all of you, Dear Readers, Friends, the very happiest and safest of holidays, even if it must be limited by the measures we need to survive a deadly disease.

Have a good day. Give thanks for the good things you have and the bad things you don't. And stay out of the stores tomorrow ... you'll thank me.

More thoughts tomorrow, when we offer a new collection of Great Moments in Editing and Signage.

Bilbo

* Yes, GOP, I'm talking to you.

** So far, anyhow.

*** As long as we keep up the payments.

† Unless the GOP regains power, succeeds in gutting Medicare, and continues its efforts to eliminate the ACA with no coherent idea of how to protect the health of Americans.

†† Yet. Given the GOP's attitude toward the First Amendment (as opposed to its undying love of the Second), I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Musical Sunday

With the news as relentlessly bad as it's been, this classic song from Bobby Ferrin is just what we need to help keep our heads up ...

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Don't worry ... be happy! 

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

What a week it's been ...

Arizona Representative Paul Gosar was formally censured and stripped of his Congressional committee assignments after tweeting a cartoon video depicting him murdering fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (after the vote, Gosar left the chamber and immediately retweeted the offending video); Der Furor's former strategist Steve Bannon defiantly entered a not guilty plea to contempt of Congress charges after refusing to give evidence about the January 6th Capitol riot; the jury has found Wisconsin vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges; House Minority "Leader" Kevin McCarthy gave a rambling and incoherent 8 and a half hour speech on Thursday night to delay the House vote on the Build Back Better Act, and succeeded only in pushing the vote to the daylight hours and getting better live news coverage as it passed on Friday; and in Michigan, an ammunition store is selling .50 caliber bullet cases laser-engraved with the coded insult, “Let’s Go Brandon.” The manufacturer of the cases describes them as a "collectable trinket" and is not worried about anyone taking offense because, “I’m not a humorless loser, and it’s not my responsibility to be concerned about the opinions of ignorant people who spend too much time reading the Metro Times, cowering in their homes, awaiting their fifth booster shot.” Wow.

This week, to commemorate the degradation of language and discourse in political life, a collection of cartoons about the language of the sociopolitical times ...

If you say it loud enough, and often enough, something is clearly "conclusively proven" ...  

Getting there first is important in childish name-calling ...

Defining "evidence" shouldn't be this tricky ...

This will probably be one of the approved school textbooks in red states ...

If "coherence" and "discernable thought" were requirements for political speech, a lot of Republican members of Congress wouldn't have a lot to say ...

It's important to understand elitist talk as well as wear a properly-fitting tinfoil hat ...

The way things are going, we'll need a lot of these in a lot of places ...

Tomato, tomahto ...

This is why I really enjoy the subject of semantics ...

The Republican National Committee gets to work on its 2024 party platform. It'll be difficult without having any actual policies, but they'll muddle through ...

And that's it for today's edition of Cartoon Saturday. We need a little humor in these trying times, right?

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Musical Sunday and a very timely song. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2021

Two weeks have passed since I bestowed the Right-Cheek award for November on the Democratic Party. That choice, given the circumstances, was easy to make. But such has been the level of monumental ass clownery over the ensuing fortnight that I have been driven to despair by the Sisyphean challenge of singling out a single Left-Cheek awardee, be it an individual or a group. Here were just a few of the possibilities:

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, for his heartlessly brutal use of desperate refugees as weapons against the European Union;

Arizona Representative Paul Gosar (who won an Ass Clown Special Award in July of this year), for his childish and vulgar use of an animated cartoon showing him murdering a fellow member of Congress and threatening the President; 

Judge Bruce Schroeder, whose churlish demeanor and laughably defense-friendly management of the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has made a mockery of impartial justice;

Steve Bannon, the enabler and mouthpiece of Der Furor whose arrogant nose-thumbing of the Congressional committee investigating the January 6th insurrection undermines the entire concept of law, order, and responsibility; 

Alex Jones, the unhinged conspiracy theorist who has finally been held liable for the defamation of the families of the children murdered at Sandy Creek Elementary School in 2012; and,

The Russian government, which tested an anti-satellite missile against one of its defunct satellites, creating a dangerous cloud of orbital junk that threatens the safety of the International Space Station ... the crew of which contains two Russian cosmonauts. 

I could go on citing potential awardees, but it will just raise my already-too-high blood pressure and I must make a decision, no matter how difficult it is to do so.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the award for 

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2021

is presented to

The Republican Party

The GOP has now won this award seven times, not counting awards presented to individual Republicans or Republican groups, committees, or its national committee. The GOP - which, for some unknown reason, still thinks of itself as "the party of Lincoln" - has become so completely unhinged that its members in Congress refused en masse to support infrastructure legislation that provides desperately-needed repairs to the infrastructure that benefits the entire country. The the sole reason for this united opposition was that supporting anything proposed by the Biden administration - no matter how popular and how important and critical to the nation - would imply some measure of support for President Biden, which the GOP absolutely refuses to do. This, of course, has not prevented GOP "legislators"* from speechifying to their constituents to claim credit for the benefits that the legislation against which they voted will bring to their districts. 

Another example of the degradation of the GOP can be seen in its refusal to condemn the disgraceful action of Representative Paul Gosar (mentioned above), while pushing to punish its 13 members that voted for the President's infrastructure bill.

At the grass roots level, the GOP has in many regions turned into a cult of personality that would make even a North Korean leader blush. Bizarre, bordering on orgasmic support for the narcissistic sociopath who certainly ranks as the worst president in history ...

led directly to a violent and despicable assault on the very foundations of our democracy - without any significant pushback from Republican "leaders." 

Those assaults continue, with Republican members of Congress actually using the new GOP catchphrase "Let's go, Brandon" (a cleaned-up version of "F**K Joe Biden") on the House floor.

At a rally in Idaho last month, the audience applauded when a man asked when he could start killing Democrats. “When do we get to use the guns?” he asked, “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” Speaker Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, an organization devoted to promoting right-wing values, denounced the question not on principle, but because he said it would play into Democratic hands. He claimed that, “We are living under fascism.”

Rather than focusing on the economic well-being of the nation, Republicans across the country focus single-mindedly on niche culture war issues, spinning up unfocused anger at school boards over perceived educational bias against imagined American values and at medical professionals arguing in favor of measures needed to stop a pandemic that has killed more than 750,000 Americans.

The nation needs a responsible, thoughtful, professional conservative party to balance the liberal Democratic party and ensure that the views and interests of all Americans have a place to be heard.

Today's outrageously extreme, authoritarian, and violent Republican party is not it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Left-Cheek Ass Clown award for November, 2021, is presented to the Republican Party and, by extension, those who support its insane trampling of American values and traditions in the name of protecting those values and traditions. The GOP also earns a score of 2,999,999 on the Gohmert Stupidity Scale, leaving a single ghm to allow for all but certain future growth.

Heaven help us if the GOP regains control of the House and Senate in next year's midterm elections.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we'll try to put a happy face on the otherwise depressing news.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* If they've actually done any "legislating" since the inauguration of the Biden administration, it has escaped my notice.

Poetry Sunday

Thoughts on a November surprise that doesn't involve elections ...

A November Surprise

by Anne Porter

Wild geese are flocking and calling in pure golden air,

Glory like that which painters long ago

Spread as a background for some little hermit

Beside his cave, giving his cloak away,

Or for some martyr stretching out

On her expected rack.

A few black cedars grow nearby

And there's a donkey grazing.

Small craftsmen, steeped in anonymity like bees,

Gilded their wooden panels, leaving fame to chance,

Like the maker of this wing-flooded golden sky,

Who forgives all our ignorance

Both of his nature and of his very name,

Freely accepting our one heedless glance.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

It's been quite a week, hasn't it? ...

Texas Representative Louie Gohmert, not one of the brighter bulbs in the Congressional chandelier, has announced that he is considering running for Texas State Attorney General; a metallurgist in Washington state pleaded guilty to fraud after spending decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make U.S. Navy submarines; in a blistering decision, a Federal judge denied Der Furor's latest attempt to prevent records of his activities related to the January 6th insurrection from being released to Congressional investigators; the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has threatened to cut off gas supplies to Europe if western governments impose sanctions over an escalating migrant crisis they accuse Lukashenko of causing; and a lawyer representing Jacob Chansley, the so-called "QAnon Shaman," has requested Chesley's release from prison for time served, beginning his 23-page sentencing memo to the court by (I am not making this up) quoting the words of noted legal sage Forrest Gump - "My momma always said, you've got to put the past behind you before you can move on."

The celebration of my 70th birthday last weekend and accompanying love tsunami from my grandchildren has inspired me to offer a collection of cartoons about grandparents ...

Once a grandmother, always a grandmother ...  

I use a list that's taped to my screen ...

This is an oldie and I've used it many times before, but it's always great ...

Oh, the horror!! ...

I'm familiar with all those noises ...

Grandchildren are smarter than we sometimes give them credit for ...

No comment ...

I recognize all those changes ...

I guess I'd better get that letter prepped ...

Perfect!! ... 

And that's the way it is for another week ... I hope this collection of cartoons has helped you get over the disappointments of the news.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when we contemplate the month of November on Poetry Sunday. See you then.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

Once more into the breach, fellow warriors ...

Um ... okay ...

How to recognize pedophiles ...

I'm glad they included the description ...

I guess I'd have been off that jury, too ...

I doubt the evangelical "Christians" will be interested when the new crop comes in ...

In case you need to secure your rat poop ...

I'd have replaced that other guy, too ...

Moriarity, he wasn't ...

You just can't make this stuff up ...

From the dumb criminals file. This one reminds me of the guy who robbed the credit union where my wife used to work, then came back the next day and tried to deposit the money in his account ...

And there you go!

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo