Poetry Sunday

It has been so beastly hot and humid here in NoVa for the last few weeks that I thought a poem about snow might be nice. Of course, come winter we may be looking for poems about warm summer days, but what the heck. Here's a classic poem for this baking hot Sunday ...

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Crank up the AC and you'll sleep better on those terribly hot summer nights.

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

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

How many more weeks like this can we take?

Representative John Lewis, a titan of the Civil Rights era who had served in Congress since 1987, died at age 80; in Portland, Oregon, unidentified and heavily-armed men in military-style uniforms are abducting protestors on public streets, shoving them into unmarked vans and carting them off to Federal courthouses; a blaze suspected of being deliberately set destroyed stained glass windows and the grand organ at the 15th-century Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral in Nantes, France; Ramsey BethAnn Bearse, a former Miss Kentucky who admitted to exchanging explicit photos with a teenager has been sentenced to two years in prison; and the government of South Korea has revoked the licences of two organizations that regularly fly propaganda balloons across the border into North Korea for "seriously hindering the unification policy of the government"... easy enough to do there rather than here, because Der Furor has no unification policy for the United States.

This week, for no particular reason other than we need something other than Der Furor's administration to groan about, a collection of cartoons featuring really awful puns ...

This is probably what Der Furor has in mind, though ...

Just finishing the paperwork ...

It would be more interesting if Mr Jenkins were right ...

Is it better to be a backer or a front man? ...

Not too far ...

He must support Der Furor ...

That must be why it was marked down ...

It's a legitimate question ...

Do chemicals have casual Fridays? ...

If they can sell canned gin and tonic, this ought to move, too ...

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns.

Bilbo

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020

It hardly seems that two weeks have passed since we announced the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for the month of July, which we all hoped would be a better month than June. We were wrong about that, of course, and here we are - stuck in the middle of a July that is bursting at the seams with ass clowns screaming for attention. It’s always been hard to single out a single ass clown (or group thereof) for condemnation, but as America has gotten crazier by the day, so has the task of identifying our awardees. I’ve come close to giving up, but if I don’t do it, who will?

And so it is that I’ve once again put on my intellectual hip-waders and plunged into the churning muck of the moral and ethical quagmire that is 2020 America to seek out the second awardee for July (which, because of a quirk of the calendar, offers not two, but three award opportunities). Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, I give you

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020

And the award is presented to

Der Furor

Yes, Dear Readers, I have finally found it necessary to suspend the lifetime achievement award I presented to Der Furor in October of 2017 and dishonor him yet again.

While I can, up to a point, sympathize with the feelings of many Americans that a change was needed in the direction of our national government, I am appalled beyond words at the blatantly corrupt and - arguably - traitorous actions of the utterly incompetent and useless buffoon they elected in 2016 and continue to support today.

In just the last few weeks, Der Furor has:

- Commuted the sentence of his political crony Roger Stone;

- Ignored credible reports that the Russian military intelligence service paid bounties to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan for the murder of US service members and continued inexplicably to suck up to the government of Vladimir Putin; 

- Posed at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office with a display of products by a major campaign contributor in a shocking display of ethical bankruptcy (see photo above);

- Presided over the death toll from Covid-19 as it neared 140,000, while hawking useless remedies and consistently undermining the work and advice of scientists and medical professionals working desperately to save lives;

and,

- Delivered an incomprehensible, rambling campaign speech at a Rose Garden “press conference” that was supposed to highlight his signature of the Hong Kong Autonomy act; 

When I gave Der Furor his lifetime achievement award three years ago, I was already disgusted with his years of despicable behavior, long predating his inexplicable ascension to what was once the world’s most powerful job. In the three years since, he has ruined America’s standing in the world, wrecked the economy, demolished years of environmental protection, and turned our government into a kleptocracy that benefits the wealthy and big corporations at the expense of ordinary Americans ... all too many of whom happily let him get away with it. The man is a disaster of the greatest proportions, and the nation will take decades to recover from his inept, greedy, and feckless administration.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, Der Furor is once again selected for dishonor, this time as our Left-Cheek Ass Clown for 2020. Nothing more needs to be said.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. You know you need it.

Bilbo

Musical Sunday

You really can't, nowadays ...

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming, but only if you wear a mask and wash your hands.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Maybe August will be better ...

In Mississippi, dozens of state lawmakers have contracted coronavirus after weeks of refusing to wear masks; in Helena, Montana, 28-year old Cody James Wortman was arrested and charged with multiple felony counts of criminal endangerment for firing his six-shooter into the air at a rodeo ... oddly enough, a crime in that state; Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the world-famous Hagia Sophia museum in Istanbul - a World Heritage Site originally founded 1500 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral, converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul in 1453, and then converted to a museum in 1934 - has been turned back into a mosque; the Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy abuse cover-ups; and in Washington, Der Furor on Friday commuted the sentence of his friend Roger Stone on seven felony crimes, using his power to help Stone just days before the convicted felon was to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month terms do ensuring that Stone could not be compelled to testify against him later.

This week I’ve heard enough about red meat for Der Furor’s base - let’s go to a better place - a collection of cartoons about gardening ...

This is the right kind of garden for 2020 ...

Somebody has to harvest all those ‘baby’ vegetables ...

In honor of Der Furor ...

You mean that’s not how it works? ...

Next year, I’m planting croutons to go with the greens ...

He got the seedling from Stephen King’s garden ...

With my luck at growing tomatoes, I should be able to cash in on this, too ...

He’s going to do some gAAARHdening ...

Important use and care information ...

This is why I don’t mind weeding the garden every day ...

And that’s it for this green-thumb edition of Cartoon Saturday. I hope it helped you get over another week of Der Furor’s mania.

Have a good day and a great weekend. Come back tomorrow for a parody edition of Musical Sunday ... more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

The first collection for July ...

People have to do what they can to save money nowadays ...

This is flat-out the best promotion I've seen in a while ...

I'll help, too ...

From Chef Sweeney Todd ...

But only for the English classes ...

Is this what people mean when they complain about "cultural appropriation"? ...

If prices are calculated in base eight, you're golden ...

No personal chicken! ...

I'd have thought the stickiness would have been a hint ...

I hope the food is better than the spelling ...

And we're off to the races with July! Have a good day and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday ... more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

Sometimes, I think I could be a luddite, eschewing all the electronic wizardry that makes life easier while complicating it more than we can sometimes handle. But then I think, no, the gloss would wear off that pretty quickly. I'll just take the world as it is ...

As It Is

by Dorianne Laux

The man I love hates technology, hates
that he's forced to use it: telephones
and microfilm, air conditioning,
car radios and the occasional fax.
He wishes he lived in the old world,
sitting on a stump carving a clothespin
or a spoon. He wants to go back, slip
like lint into his great-great-grandfather’s
pocket, reborn as a pilgrim, a peasant,
a dirt farmer hoeing his uneven rows.
He walks when he can, through the hills
behind his house, his dogs panting beside him
like small steam engines. He's delighted
by the sun's slow and simple
descent, the complicated machinery
of his own body. I would have loved him
in any era, in any dark age, I would take him
into the twilight and unwind him, slide
my fingers through his hair and pull him
to his knees. As it is, this afternoon, late
in the twentieth century, I sit on a chair
in the kitchen with my keys in my lap, pressing
the black button on the answering machine
over and over, listening to his message,
his voice strung along the wires outside my window
where the birds balance themselves
and stare off into the trees, thinking
even in the farthest future, in the most
distant universe, I would have recognized
this voice, refracted, as it would be, like light
from some small, uncharted star.

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

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Well, the hope that July would be better than June didn't last long, did it?

Ghislaine Maxwell, the partner of disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested and charged with recruiting, grooming and sexually abusing underage girls as young as 14 for Epstein's alleged criminal enterprise; in a dark pre-Independence Day diatribe at Mount Rushmore, Der Furor worked to exploit the nation’s racial and social divisions and rally supporters around his uncompromising law-and-order message; three Colorado police officers have been fired after they shared photos re-enacting a chokehold used on a black man who later died; one of the last great classic comic geniuses, Carl Reiner, passed away at 98; and after complaints by animal rights group PETA, a number of supermarkets have removed some brands of coconut water and oil from their shelves after it was revealed that the products were made with fruit picked by monkeys.

This week, a shortlist of cartoons related to what used to be an occasion for fun, togetherness, picnics, and a celebration of how great it is to be an American ...

How the smartphone generation safely celebrates ...

Try again later ...

You wouldn't think he'd need it ...

She may have been celebrating ...

Budget cuts had to be made to provide funds for Der Furor's wall ...

The way it was? ...

It's the forecast for some Karens, too ...

Have a good day, a Happy Fourth of July, and a great weekend. Celebrate responsibly ... not like the examples set on high.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020

How can I possibly make a decision on this topic? There are so many ass clowns swarming out from under the rocks turned over by Der Furor that it's all but impossible to identify a single one. At this point, it's easier to identify not one ass clown, but a general class thereof ... and so it is that I have decided to designate

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020

as

The Karens

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, a "Karen" in the woebegotten year of 2020 is defined as: "a woman perceived to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is considered appropriate or necessary. A common stereotype is that of a racist white woman who uses her privilege to demand her own way at the expense of others."

There are a number of behaviors illustrative of a "Karen," including (but not limited to):

1. Displays of Overt Racism: Generally acting like a moron. Examples include: immediately calling the police to report a minority person perceived as threatening, in the 'wrong' place, or otherwise objectionable; and using ethnic slurs without thought or concern for the feelings of others.

2. Belief in Extreme Entitlement: demanding service or attention beyond that provided to others, particularly those who are members of a minority. Examples include: loud use of the expressions "Do you know who I am?" and "I want to see a manager!"; and demanding priority of service over others, regardless of how long those others have been waiting.

3. Insistence That Personal Rights or Privileges Override the Rights, Safety, or Privileges of Others: refusing to behave in a safe and reasonable fashion by claiming that actions considered unsafe or threatening by others are unconstitutional abridgments of one's god-given, inalienable rights as an American citizen. Examples include: failure to wear a mask or observe social distancing in public places; refusal to vaccinate children; and ostentatious carrying of large and powerful weapons in public places. 

It should be noted that while the term "Karen" refers to women, there are plenty of male equivalents, who are known as "Kens" or "Kevins" and are equally as obnoxious.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Group Award for Right-Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020, is presented to The Karens, and to their male counterparts, The Kens. At a time that cries out for good behavior and decency toward each other, they have worked hard to earn our condemnation.

Have a good day. Don't be a Karen or a Kevin, wash your hands, wear a mask, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. See you then.

Bilbo

Musical Sunday

This song was popular in 1965, but it seems even more timely in 2020.

I get this feeling when I listen to Der Furor rambling over and over and over again, my friend.

Have a good day, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and just wear the damn mask. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo