2019: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Here we are at the end of 2019.

I think I can speak for everyone and say, man, what a stupid year.

Everything was stupid.

For example, in the NFC Championship Game, a Los Angeles Rams defensive back ran over a New Orleans Saints wide receiver with a pickup truck, which according to the rule book is pass interference.  But the referee, who was standing right there, didn't see it.  The missed call cost the Saints the game and with it, a trip to the Super Bowl.

So the Saints were stuck at home, watching The Super Bowl, which included commercials by Gillette razor which tried to talk men out of "toxic masculinity", whatever that is.

Speaking of stupid commercials, 2019 still saw its share of stupid commercials featuring a gecko with a British accent that is really interested in auto insurance and not to be outdone, Liberty Mutual has a commercial that pairs an emu selling auto insurance with a hapless agent named Doug.
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A lot of people had some stupid things happen to them in 2019

• A Florida man was arrested and spent 41 days in jail for heroin that turned out to be detergent.

• One family owed $500 in unpaid taxes and fines. County officials used this as justification to seize and sell their house to pocket $108,000.

• There are people that paid money to see the movie Cats.

• This is an actual tweet from Popular Science magazine:  Can you really absorb solar energy into your anus?  The short answer: No.  Your butt is not a plant.

• Apparently, there is a rumor out there that you can absorb solar energy into your anus and Popular Science had to tweet out an answer.  Besides everybody knows your anus stores wind energy. [Thank you, good night, you've been a wonderful audience]

However, if you want really stupid, just hop on over to your favorite social media platform.

In 2019, Facebook has booted “pro-white groups” and countless other “subversives” including  Jordan Peterson, Candace Owens (who is an African-American), and, Elizabeth Warren. The reason for this is some (stupid) people blame Facebook for every imaginable sin despite the fact Facebook provides an outlet to old people like me who want to know if ANYONE REMEMBERS GARY MCKEE. (Answer yes, he did the Shower Stall singers on Fox-97.  No, wait, that was Randy and Spiff. Hey, does anyone remember Channel 2?)

Anyway, there are some people who think the BAD ORANGE MAN in the White House is the fault of Facebook.  Exactly how Facebook did it is kind of murky, but apparently, it has to do with taking tests to see which Sweathog you would be on "Welcome Back, Kotter".  (This blogger was Arnold Horshack. Don't laugh at science)

Twitter is the King of Stupid right now. The great Dave Barry in his 2019 Year In Review, describes Twitter as "a medium that has the magical power to transform everything it touches, no matter how stupid it is, into something even stupider"

Back in February, Twitter alerted us to a new devious form of trouble: Catholic High School Boys Wearing MAGA Hats That Smirk.   Twitter jumped all over this story like a duck on a June bug, as we say in the South, especially the "blue checkmark" people which in the Twitter world means you are some sort of important person. The story about this incident turned out to be nothing that Twitter originally said it was about.

Then Twitter alerted us about Jussie Smollett who is a gay African-American actor who said he was attacked by White Racists early in the morning. The story showed how racist and homophobic America still is except that it didn't happen and Smollett made up the story for some unknown reason.

Of course, the person that has weaponized Twitter is President Trump who prefers Twitter to go above the American news media and get his message out with BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS, exclamation points, and even correctly spelled words on occasion. For example, The President tweeted about his dinner for the National Champion Clemson Tiger football team: "I served them massive amounts of Fast Food over 1000 hamberders".

It would be wrong to say President Trump has the market cornered on stupidity. Nope, Democrats were pretty stupid too.

Democrats have spent a good part of three years stating The Mueller Report would definitely, without a doubt, prove that Trump colluded with the Russians to manipulate the 2016 election with carefully targeted Facebook memes designed to deceive the dunderheads that couldn't even get into an Ivy League school. This would lead to impeachment, baby, yeah!

The Mueller Report came out and didn't really prove anything.

But don't worry, Trump made a phone call that somebody overheard and told somebody who filed a "whistleblower" compliant. Now this lead to impeachment, we think, because as of this date, Nancy Pelosi hasn't filed it with the Senate. Depending upon which cable news channel you watch this tactic by Pelosi is either: A) The smartest thing ever done or B) The dumbest thing ever done.

To top it off, the Democrats have 450 candidates for President, none of which is exactly inspiring.

Joe Biden is the front runner mainly because, well, have you looked at all of the other guys?

Elizabeth Warren trumpeted that she was a true, for real, a descendant of Native Americans except if she ever has a nosebleed she's out of the tribe.

Many of the 450 have imploded and I can't figure out which implosion was my favorite.  I liked it when Beto O'Rouke got out because he was such a dweeb.  I laughed when Kamala Harris got out because she said she was in favor of school busing to achieve integration, which everybody of every color hates.

In Virginia, it was discovered that the governor wore blackface in a photograph for the medical school yearbook back in 1984.  He was about to resign when it was learned the Lieutenant Governor had been accused of sexual assault.  If the governor and the lieutenant governor resigned, the Attorney General of Virginia would become governor but it turned out  HE TOO HAD WORN BLACKFACE FOR A PHOTOGRAPH.   Now, if the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general resigned, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau would become governor. As luck would have it, Prime Minister Trudeau had been photographed in blackface. Everybody forgot about their original outrage and all of the above kept their jobs.

Probably the dumbest scandal involved that TV star who is married that guy who is on that show on Showtime and another TV star in that show from a long time ago trying to get their dopey children in "good" colleges by lying and cheating. What do they think these kids are, football players?  The crime including paying people to take the kids' ACT and SAT exams and bribing "rowing" coaches to accept the kids on the rowing team even though the kids have never been on a boat.

Not everything was stupid in 2019.  There was one prospective mom and dad who DIDN'T do a gender reveal party.  Thanks, guys, you brought back my faith in humanity.

Hoya Saxa

Something big happened this weekend in my part of Cobb County.

For your information, Cobb County is basically split into four sections: North Cobb, South Cobb, East Cobb, and West Cobb.

I was raised in East Cobb and it starts at The Big Chicken (of course) and goes east to Fulton County. I live in West Cobb now which is west of The Big Chicken and heads towards Paulding County.  If you are under the impression that The Big Chicken is the center of Cobb County, well, you're probably right.

East Cobb is referred to as "East Snob" because it (generally) has a lot of people who live in fancy houses and drive fancy cars that believe, in all sincerity, that they are better than you because they are better than you.

West Cobb is referred to as "West Slob" because we have that same amount of people who live in fancy houses and drive fancy cars but don't live in East Cobb.  If that doesn't make a lot of sense, welcome to my life.

But like I said, something big happened in West Cobb. We had not one but TWO high schools win their respected classifications championships in football: The Harrison Hoyas and The Marietta Blue Devils.

It is important to remember that in the American South, football is not a religion. No, it is more important than that.  It is life itself, at least with some people.

In Georgia, though, we are not like Texas.  We don't have humongous stadiums for high school football.  We have perfectly reasonable stadiums.

When my son (BEN MANIS #38) played for the Kennesaw Mountain Mustangs, Harrison was their biggest rival.

I use the term "rival" advisedly because while the two schools were only three miles apart, Harrison was always better. The kids were smarter. The parents were richer. The moms were prettier. The dads were more handsome. Their teams almost always beat Kennesaw Mountain.

It was like when I was growing up in East Cobb and going to Wheeler. Our rival was Sprayberry. We were better. Sorry, we were. We called Sprayberry "the redneck school" because, well, they were rednecks, unlike us aristocrats at the school on Holt Road.

Of course, the head coach of the Kennesaw Mountain Mustangs when my son played was a graduate of Sprayberry.

As Joe Biden would say, the yearly game versus Harrison was a Big (Really Bad Word) Deal

The week of the Harrison game was always intense, especially when it was a Kennesaw Mountain home game.  It drew the largest crowd and made the most money for the program.

My son said the head coach would conclude the Monday practice by saying "Men. As you know, the Hoyas (Note: there is no such a thing as a "hoya". It is a Greek word meaning "what". So they were playing the Harrison Whats) will be here Friday night.  There will be 15 thousand people in the stands."

Tuesday:  "Men, there will be 25 thousand people in the stands".

Wednesday:  "Men, there will be 50 thousand people in the stands"

Thursday:  "Men, there will be 100 thousand people in the stands, ESPN is covering the game and CNN will have a reporter on the sidelines."

Then the game was played on Friday and Harrison would always kill the Mustangs.

Until one Friday night in October.

It was Harrison's homecoming.  As the 100 thousand, (give or take 95 to 98 thousand) packed into their stadium, we watched as the Hoyas were coming onto the field.   The cheerleaders held the big paper "run through". On it read THERE'S A REASON WHY WE CHOSE YOU FOR HOMECOMING.

You can imagine how great that went over with the Mustang folks.

I can't give you a play-by-play about the game.  It happened a long time ago and there's been a lot of water under that bridge. However, the Mustangs won the game in sudden-death overtime.

In the visitors' stand, it was sheer pandemonium. We were all jumping up and down acting ape crazy. I 'm surprised they didn't take away our driver's licenses and voting rights.

Over on the home side, it looked like a still life painting.  If it was a painting it would be titiled "I Can't Believe It".

Yes, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. The guys on both teams are marrying, buying houses, and having kids. High school is a memory for them. Not as distant as it will be, but it is distant.

They had both Championship games on Georgia Public Television so I was able to watch Harrison's and Marietta's victories.

I was happy for them.  In the grand scheme of things, it may not matter all that much, but it is still nice to see young people, working as a team, and accomplishing something.

Congratulations to the Blue Devils and the Whats Hoyas from this old Wildcat and Mustang dad.

As It Stands Now

Are you excited gang?  It is only 57 or so days away from the Iowa Caucus.

Allow me to put on my History Major hat. Years ago, the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties were selected in "smoke-filled rooms" (I'm sure you've heard that phrase before).

The party hotshots would get together and they would try to figure out who best represented their party in the coming Presidential election. They would meet in rooms, smoke cigarettes, and pick their nominee. Sometimes the selections made some sense (think FDR), then other times, it didn't (Alf London).  But the whole point is John Q. Public was blissfully left out of the loop until the nominating conventions.

There are many reasons for this change, one being Jimmy Carter winning the Iowa Caucus in 1976 despite nobody knowing who he was and where Iowa was and why they had a caucus in the first place.

Every four years since 1976, candidates have been schlepping up to Iowa to look at cornfields pretending to know what they are looking at.

It is important because it is the actual start of the Presidential election season, even though it has been underway since the last Presidential election.

There have been some changes in the Democratic party flock of candidates.  Several people have dropped out and several people have jumped in.

Here's a couple of the ones that have dropped out.

Beto "Beto" O'Rourke. O'Rourke became famous last year because he almost beat Ted Cruz. You know who beat Ted Cruz?  Donald Trump.

If Hyde on "That 70s Show" ran for president, he would be Beto O'Rourke.  He was for confiscating guns, taxing churches if they don't follow the current LBTQRSTVWXYZ mandate de jour, and whatever the Twitter trolls said he should do. Soon it became pretty clear that he didn't represent a "lane"  (moderate or progressive) of the Democratic Party unless you consider "goofball" a lane.

Beto dropped out and I don't think anybody noticed.

Speaking of people trying to please Twitter, Kamala Harris dropped out of the race last week.  In the beginning, Harris had what Obama had (race) and what Hillary had (gender).  What she didn't have: a reason why anybody that voted for Obama twice but for Trump in 2016 should vote for her. Soon, she got lost in the gaggle of candidates and became just another voice.

However, two other candidates have jumped in.

One is Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York.  Just what the Democrats need: another 77-year-old candidate. Bloomberg is the type of leader that unites people, mainly in disliking him. Liberals hated his "stop and frisk" while Mayor of New York. Conservatives hated his plan to confiscate guns.  Everybody hated his Big Gulp ban because it is just another example of the big old Nanny state wanting to control every aspect of a person's life.

I will say this. I have been to New York City when he was Mayor and I have been to New York City under Mayor Bill De Blasio.  It is like night and day.  Under Bloomberg, the streets were clean and everybody acted like they had some sense. Under De Blasio, people are sleeping on the sidewalks, bathing in fountains, and women are walking around topless with painted chests.  By the way, De Blasio was once running for President, too. He's dropped out because nobody likes him.

Another new candidate is Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts. Patrick is now working for Bane Capital and if there is one thing we have learned is how popular former governors of Massachusetts who work for Bane Capitol are.

The rest of the candidates are sort of plodding along.  Elizabeth Warren had a surge there for a while until it was determined that most of her "plans" included a "money tree" that only rich people have and that she's still coming up with a definition of rich (oddly enough, it probably includes you).

Bernie Sanders is still plodding along, shouting at the American people like we can't hear. We hear you, Bernie. You want us to be Sweden. Gah.

Joe Biden is plodding along too. He's becoming more like Uncle Joe every day, except not in a good way.  He's telling stories about "Corn Pop" who was a "bad dude" and calling fat people "fat".

Trump can say some crazy things, but you are pretty confident that he's oriented to time and place. You're never quite sure if Biden knows where's he at half the time.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is making some waves. He's everything the Twitter world loves: young and gay. However, he has little or no African-American support and he is the mayor of the fourth largest city in Indiana.

Just this past week, Buttigieg was blasted for, now hold on to your hats, ringing the bell for the Salvation Army Christmas kettles.  The Salvation Army is on the "naughty" list because of their belief in traditional marriage.

That's where the Democratic party is now: criticizing the Salvation Army Christmas kettles.

2020 is going to be a long year.