I don't mind doing most household chores, especially those dealing with cooking and the kitchen, but I really don't enjoy doing laundry. It's a necessary evil, and I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish putting away the clothing and bedding that I've sorted, washed, dried, folded, and neatly piled in appropriate piles, but I don't enjoy doing it the way I enjoy cooking and ... especially ... gardening. Today's poem by George Bilgere looks at laundry and the memories it evokes of a time when our mothers actually hung laundry in the sun to dry ...
Laundry
by George Bilgere
My mother stands in this black
And white arrangement of shadows
In the sunny backyard of her marriage,
Struggling to pin the white ghosts
Of her family on the line.
I watch from my blanket on the grass
As my mother's blouses lift and billow,
Bursting with the day.
My father's white work shirts
Wave their empty sleeves at me,
And my own little shirts and pants
Flap and exult like flags
In the immaculate light.
It is mid-century, and the future lies
Just beyond the white borders
Of this snapshot; soon that wind
Will get the better of her
And her marriage. Soon the future
I live in will break
Through those borders and make
A photograph of her-but
For now the shirts and blouses
Are joyous with her in the yard
As she stands with a wooden clothespin
In her mouth, struggling to keep
The bed sheets from blowing away.
Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Don't let the dirty laundry pile up.
This week, given the chaos and uncertainty sown by Der Furor and his advisors and acolytes, I thought a collection of cartoons featuring the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ...
The updated roster ...
We know who lost ...
It always catches some of us by surprise ...
When armageddon needs musical accompaniment ...
They're definitely out there ...
It's the latest thing ...
Well, it had to be pestilence, didn't it? ...
This one is at least as bad as the other four ...
They're rallying at my place ...
Pestilence remembers being caught short the last time ...
And that's it for this week's Cartoon Saturday - I hope you enjoyed it. And yes, I know that there are a lot more than four horse's asses of the apocalypse in this administration, but for now, four is enough.
Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns.
I ran across an interesting linguistic term the other day that I hadn’t heard in a long time: semantic bleaching. In brief, it refers to the decrease in intensity of the meaning of a word over time.
For instance, when you say that somethng is awesome, as many people do in today’s usage, you mean that it’s wonderful or especially desireable. But the original, literal meaning of awesome means “inspiring dread, fear, or terror.” Over time, awesome has been semantically bleached into a far less intense term.
It occurs to me that Der Furor and his minions have semantically bleached a great many important words in today’s political and social communication. For instance:
Legal once meant “permitted by law.” As semantically bleached by the current administration, it means “permitted because we say it’s permitted.”
Constitutional used to mean “conducted in accordance with the principles of the Constitution,” whereas it has been semantically bleached to mean, “conducted in accordance with the principles of the Constitution as interpreted to meet the evolving requirements of the administration.”
Presidential once meant, “having a bearing or demeanor befitting a president; dignified and confident; demonstrating gravitas and reassuring competence.” After semantic bleaching, it means, “pompous and overbearing; delighting in the exercise of unchallenged power and the ability to harm opponents without consequence.”
Evidence was once defined as, “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.” Semantically bleached to meet the needs of Der Furor and his followers, it means, “something we don’t need to show because if you had any intelligence at all, you’d know we were right.”
Anti-Semitism originally meant, “hatred or prejudice toward or discrimination against Jews.” In the semantically-bleached form commonly used by the current administration, it means, “(1) failure to unquestioningly support the actions of the current government of Israel” or “(2) a convenient excuse to limit free speech rights on college campuses and deport undesirable persons from the United States.”
And finally, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion once meant, “a set of organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimnination based on identity or disability.” When semantic bleaching is applied, it means, “discrimination against white men.”
George Orwell created “Newspeak” as the official language of the world of “1984.” Der Furor didn’t need to create a new language for his world of 2025 … all he had to do was engage in semantic bleaching to twist the language to meet his needs.
Have a good day. Use the right words, but understand the hidden meanings.
As you may recall, after visiting Paris and watching the French Bastille Day parade during his first term, Der Furor absolutely had to have a parade of his own, bigger and better than the French one, and tasked the Army with staging a full-on military parade in Washington. Fortunately, there were enough adults in his first administration to dissuade him from that staggeringly bad idea: the DC mayor fretted about the cost of repairing streets torn up by tanks, the Army reminded him of the cost (nearly $100 million), and his more historically-minded advisors reminded him that parades of heavily armed troops, accompanied by tanks and warplane flyovers, were not a tradition observed by an America that didn't like being reminded of potential repression by a powerful military.
That was then. This is now.
Der Furor has told the Army that this time, he wants his parade, and he wants it on his 79th birthday. Of course, even as towering a narcissistic buffoon as Der Furor wouldn't come right out and say that ... instead, he takes advantage of the fact that his 79th birthday - June 14th - happens also to be both Flag Day (celebrating the day in 1777 when the Continental Congress adopted the stars and stripes design of the American flag) and the official birthday of the US Army (celebrating the day in 1775 on which the Continental Congress authorized the enlistment of expert riflemen to serve the United Colonies for one year). He can have his motorized phallic symbol without making it obvious that it's his birthday due (although, to be fair, I would never accuse him of being that subtle).
I love a parade as much as the next guy, but my idea of a fun parade is marching bands, colorful floats, smiling, waving celebrities, and maybe a clown or two. Not rows of marching soldiers and lines of huge tanks churning their way down the streets of Washington while warplanes zoom overhead, distracting the observers from the erosion of their freedoms and the cratering of their economy.
I'm a veteran. I never actually saw combat*, although I spent 23 years in the Air Force and am proud of my service and of my country ... at least, my country as it was before the present maladministration. I don't need to have a wannabe alpha male president taking time out from his golf weekends to wave his military around as if it were a gigantic ... uh ... appendage to remind us of his desire to be a 21st century Napoleon.
Our "leaders" waste enough money buying elections. We can save quite a bit of it by not staging useless parades to stoke the ego of wannabe dictators.
* I did get shaken like a rag doll by a drunken helicopter mechanic one time (it's an interesting story, best shared over a beer), but I don't guess that really counts.
I read an interesting Time Magazine article the other day titled "Are You a Hostile Punctuator?" With a title like that, I just had to read on.
Author Angela Haupt wrote in a concise, one-word summary, "As digital communication has evolved, punctuation’s job description has gotten more demanding."
E-mails, texts, tweets, and other forms of digital communication can deliver the basics of the message we want to get across, but they lack the social context, verbal cues, and body language that provide the subtle (or not so subtle) additional layers of meaning we may wish to convey. As Dr. Anne Curzan, a professor of English, linguistics, and education at the University of Michigan quoted in the article explains,
“'You don't have facial expressions, you don't have tone, you don't have the shared context of a physical space and gestures.' Is the person you’re talking to happy? Are they joking? Are they angry? Are they drop-dead serious? If you were face-to-face, 'You’d have all of this context to be able to figure it out, [but] in texting, you have very little—so what young people in particular have done is repurpose punctuation.'”
Modern digital communicators have replaced visual and tonal cues with that "repurposed punctuation." As an example, when you're preparing to leave for a dinner engagement, you might send a text message to your partner asking, "Are you ready yet?", but if you write the same message as "Are you ready yet???", the use of multiple question marks implies a degree of impatience the words alone don't give.
The use of multiple exclamation points can likewise be used to imply anger or disbelief, as in "You've got to be kidding me!!!"
A third example is the presence, absence, or strategic use of the period. In ordinary usage, it symbolizes the end of a sentence, but when used after every word of a sentence, it can indicate an angry or threatening response, as in "You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me."
These are all examples of what is sometimes called hostile punctuation.
Emojis enter the mix, too. There are now thousands of emojis out there which convey various shades of meaning, to most of which I am clueless. A few years ago, we watched a report on the German TV show Galileo in which a pair of the show's reporters tried to guess the meaning of a series of emojis that were all variations on the classic "smiley face," but which represented a wide range of subtle differences of meaning. Neither of them accurately interpreted the meanings. So, what happens when you respond with an emoji that carries a meaning you didn't intend? Are you Hostile emoji-ing?
And, moving beyond punctuation and emojis, using excessive capitalization in digital communication is the equivalent of shouting or attempting to dominate the conversation. When combined with multiple punctuation marks or serial periods, it can emphasize anger and threats. Der Furor is, of course, a master of this, using capitalization as a form of alpha male verbal chest thumping, as in this "Truth Social" post (shared on Twitter/X) about his massive tariff broadside:
One of the funniest (and completely clean!) comedy pieces ever belongs to the wonderful Danish comic Victor Borge and his routine on "Phonetic Punctuation." If you haven't seen it, it's worth your while to take a few minutes and watch ...
So the lesson, if there is one in all this, is to be careful with your punctuation, capitalization, and use of emojis in digital communications. It's a whole new digital world out there, and we're not always speaking the same language.
Today marks our second presentation of an Ass Clown Special Award this year. As I've noted before, I prefer not to present too many out-of-cycle special awards for fear of diluting their meaning and impact, but sometimes an individual's gotta do what an individual's gotta do*.
That said, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, we present this
Maybe ... just maybe ... it isn't a great idea to let the man who sent six businesses into bankruptcy (including a casino, for gawd's sake) make crazy economic decisions for the nation and the world, egged on by billionaires with no concept of what their decisions mean for everyday working class Americans.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, we present a well-deserved Ass Clown Special Award to Der Furor and his Economic Advisors. You may be able to afford things like food and living indoors for the rest of this administration's term ... maybe even for the rest this month ... but I wouldn't bet on it.
Have a good day. Expect better, but prepare for worse.
More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
* I'm saying it that way because I must now legally avoid anything that might hint at any sort of singling out of a particular sex, color, religion, nationality, species, or anything else for special treatment. The Orange Airhorn and his DEI police are on the alert, and a vacation in El Salvador is not on my bucket list.
I wanted to start April off with one of the more beautiful songs from my collection, but the time just doesn't seem right. I think we're better off with a NSFW song more appropriate to the ongoing destruction of our government, our freedoms, and our international reputation. Take it away, Grace Jones ...
Here are the lyrics, for those of you interested:
And if I wander down the wrong road
It's alright baby, just let me go
If I get tired of all those assholes
It's alright cause' I want them to know
I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit
Rough shit, same shit
Hey Jesus come on down and save us, save us, rave on
And on the road I ride through Richmond
Rich man, You know the business I'm in
And feeling sorry, makes me feel mad
Someday, uh baby, I play to win
I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit
Rough shit, same shit
Can't Jesus come on down and save us, save us, rave on
I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit
Same shit, wrong shit
Hey Jesus come on down and save us, save us, rave on
And if I wander down the wrong road
It's alright honey, just let me go
If I get tired of all those assholes
It's alright cause' I want them to know
I'm with you, Grace.
Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.
This week, in honor of the professionalism and dedication of President Musk, PINO Der Furor, and their amazing appointees, I thought a batch of cartoons about clowns would be appropriate. But because there are a great many sub-genres of clown cartoons, we'll narrow this week's selections to cartoons about famously-overstuffed clown cars.
I actually have at least two more cartoons in my collection that riff on this idea ...
Yes ... yes, it is ...
Clown cars have stupid decals, too ...
I've known a lot of used car salesmen who were clowns ...
It's not a question he gets every day ...
Busted! ...
Starting early ...
Didn't you wonder how they did the trick before cars were invented? ...
It would surely help ...
It's job security of a sort ...
And that's it for this first Cartoon Saturday of the new month ... sadly, we now have to go back to dealing with real clowns. And they're not funny.
Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when we open the door to Musical Sunday and usher in a timely classic from Grace Jones. See you then!
"How low can you go?" used to be the question asked at limbo contests; now, it's the north star of President Musk and Der Furor's mindless assault on the government and society of the United States ... a time when the limbo bar of decency, honor, respect, and compassion is essentially level with the ground.
As much as I have tried to identify Ass Clowns from various walks of life to receive these awards, the utter awfulness of the administration for which 77 million of my fellow citizens voted has led me to focus on it as the lowest of low-hanging fruit for selection ... and so it is this week.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the tinfoil and toilet paper crown designating
The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for April, 2025
is presented to
Secretary of Defense
Pete Hegseth
There's not much point in rehashing the nearly criminal incompetence exhibited by Mr Hegseth in the so-called "Signalgate" fiasco; suffice it to say - as have commentators wiser and more esteemed than I - that had any military member exhibited the towering level disregard of classification, operational security, and simple common sense demonstrated by Mr Hegseth, they would have been fired at the very least, and probably court-martialed and imprisoned.
The incident itself was bad enough, but the ho-hum-no-big-deal-nothing-to-see-here-everybody-makes-mistakes-and-Hillary's-emails-were-worse-anyhow reaction of the PINO and his lickspittle cabinet officers, press spokesdrones, and other apologists have made a mockery of an administration that misses no opportunity to loudl trumpets its worship at the festooned altar of "accountability" and "merit." If Mr Hegseth had the least shreds of dignity and respect for his position, he would resign if the PINO didn't fire him. But, of course, in this administration, unflinching and unquestioned loyalty to Der Furor are far more important than basic competence, gravitas, or qualification for the office to which one is appointed.
When I sat down to write this period's award, I was strongly tempted to present it to "Vice President" JD Vance for his shameful, bullying behavior during his uninvited visit to Greenland, which accomplished nothing but driving our allies farther away and further tarnishing what little remains of our international reputation. I finally decided on Mr Hegseth because his childish and thoughtless action had the potential to compromise a military operation in progress, costing the lives of American service members he sent into harm's way.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for April, 2025, is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth - a man out of his depth, lacking mature judgement, and utterly unqualified for one of the most critical cabinet positions.
And, by the way, the attire worn by Mr Hegseth in the photo above violates 4 USC 1, Section 8(j), which states that "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform." But at least it covers all his offensive tattoos*.
Have a good day. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
* Some of which would probably get him deported to a prison in El Salvador if he weren't white and connected.
%20copy.jpg)
.jpg)
