Old Enough

 

Over the past few years, there have been a few things on Facebook that annoy me.

I mean, besides all of the political arguments people get into.

New Flash!  People can have different opinions than yours!  Who would have thunk it?

Over the past three presidential election cycles, it has been proven that we are a 50/50 country.  50 percent of the country thinks Trump is Hitler with a better-looking wife and 50 percent thinks Trump was sent directly from the Lord himself.

People now express themselves through memes. The memes have a snotty tone and are often not safe for the office, car, church, loading dock, prison, or ball field due to what we used to call "dirty words".

But I'm not here to discuss memes and the breakdown of American culture which is the fault of Trump, Biden, elitists, FOX News, MSNBC, Hollywood, popular music, and talk radio. 

No, I'm annoyed at people of my generation, the older folks among us, who want to bond with our past.

For example, there is a meme that has made the rounds on Facebook showing two car keys.  One is a rectangle and one is oval. The meme says, "Who is old enough to remember when you needed 2 keys for 1 car?"

I guess I was supposed to lean back in my chair and think "I remember that" and suddenly be transported back in time to when I was tooling around Marietta, Georgia in my car listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" on the radio. (Wait a second, that was yesterday.)

The whole point is to remember how things were way back when and share them with young people.

You:  Yeah, we used to have two car keys for one car.
Young Person:  Sir, this is a Wendy's

I belong to several Facebook groups about growing up in Cobb County. The most common post is: "Hey, who remembers Gary McKee?" This happens about every other month.

Gary McKee was the popular morning DJ at WQXI-FM. The last time he was on WQXI-FM, Bush was president. The first one.

I liked Gary McKee. He was a great way to wake-up in the morning. He had Willis The Guard, Yetta Levitt, and The Birthday Monster.  The Birthday Monster would sing "Happy Birthday" in a monster voice. Or maybe it was Yetta. It was a long time time ago. You had to be there.

One of the Cobb County groups will have some of the most inane topics and threads.  Here's a couple with the Topic highlight followed by the responses.

 

"Hey, who remembers that Stop sign on Sewell Mill Road?"

 

"I do."

 

"I must have missed that one."

 

"Must be nice to have a road."

 

"Good times."

 

 "Hey, did anybody ever use a spoon?"

 

 "I did."

"We didn't have spoons growing up. We used to eat chili with our fingers."

"I used to go out with this girl that went to Wheeler who thought she was all that because her family brought down spoons from Iowa or wherever she was from.  I found out the hard way she used to stuff her bra with toilet paper.  I loved her so much"

"Good times." 

 

 

"Hey, who remembers this guy?  (A picture of either Captain Kangaroo, Richard Nixon, or Leonard Nimoy)" 

"I remember him. I think."

 

"He was in my homeroom at Wheeler."

 

"My dad used to work for him and had to break-in the Watergate complex with a bunch of Cubans  for him. His supervisor was named Mr. Greenjeans"

 

"Good times." 

 

My favorite post of all time said, "Who remembers the Martine Drive-In that was next door to Town and Country Shopping Center and across the street from Duncan's donuts? Me and my boyfriend used to do some freaky-deaky thangs in his Cutlass 442. Good times".

 

 

I don't remember the Martine Drive-In.  I remember the Martin Drive-In.  It has swing sets and the Manis family would pile into the 1962 Plymouth Valiant and watch the latest the pagans in Hollywood had to offer.  I remember we saw "The Sound Of Music" there which is just the type of movie you want to take a bunch of feral boys from East Cobb to see. 

Looking at this post, I was thinking "Duncan's Donuts"?  You mean "Dunkin Donuts"?  I could just imagine this poor person going through life thinking this great American franchise was called "Duncan's Donuts".  (But it would be a good name for rock band.)

I was going to make my typical Facebook wisenheimer remark when I noticed the person who posted the thread was a tad bit older than me and maybe I should cut the person some slack because that's what people who are old enough to know better do.

 

So I didn't comment. But, come on, "Duncan's Donuts"?  I deserve a medal.  

 

Meditations In An Emergency Five Years Later

 

My wife went in for a check-up.  The medical staff found her heart was in Atrial Fibrillation. They took her to the emergency room at the local hospital.

I went to the emergency room on December 31, 2019, at 9:30 a.m.

The emergency room was packed. People were lying on beds in the hall. I asked a nurse what was going on.  The nurse said, "It's the flu".

Later in January, my wife and I went to New York City. Every person we saw who appeared to be from the Far East was wearing a face mask.  We wondered why. 

About six weeks later, we found out.

I don't remember the exact day, but we drove by our local Publix and the parking lot was full. Everybody was buying toilet paper.

The Covid-19 crisis was in full bloom. The NBA canceled the remainder of its season. Major League Baseball postponed the start of its season. 

Tom Hanks got it. We thought we were going to lose Tom Hanks.

They (the government) requested everybody give it two weeks to "flatten the curve". Here, they said, watch this show about an amoral zoo keeper in Oklahoma. 

They (the media) told us that the Covid virus originated in a Wet Market which sold bats and pangolins instead of a lab that just happened to study viruses.  To claim otherwise was to be a sinner. One of the knuckle-dragging mouth breathers who have soiled our good nation for too long.

Last week, The New York Times published a column titled: “We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives.” Just like Tonto said to the Lone Ranger-"What do you mean 'We' kemo sabe?"

The column should have been titled, "You Were Badly Misled About The Event That Changed Our Lives By Us".

It turns out all the really smart people, for whatever reason, decided like Colonel Nathan Jessup that we couldn't handle the truth and put forth the goofy Wet Market story. Then accuse anyone who wouldn't tow the supposed scientific line to be a twenty-first-century Bull Conner. 

The crisis elevated Saint Dr. Anthony Fauci to be the nation's PCP.  He came up with the Mask mandate. Which turns out didn't work. And social distancing. Which turns out didn't work either.

Fauci has admitted there was no science (besides him being Science incarnate) behind the Mask mandate or social distancing. Scientifically speaking, he pulled the Mask mandate and social distancing out of his butt. 

Another problem was the rules that were created for us in steerage to follow.

A lot of the rules in Covid-19 were my favorite legal phrase: arbitrary and capricious.  The government decided which businesses were "essential". Small business was not. Wal-Mart was. Funny how that works.

I was able to obtain my vaccine earlier than most because I worked for a health system even though I'm not a clinician of any sort and I never saw any patients because I worked out of my home.  Grocery store workers, who literally were on the "frontline" of Covid became eligible for the vaccine in the second stage of the rollout.

Michael Brendan Doughtery said, "It’s fearful to consider how much of our law and Constitution just seemed to evaporate and how swiftly and completely it was replaced with the Absolute Sovereignty of Liberal Professional Class Conventional Thinking, however brain-dead or self-serving. The Sovereignty of Liberal Professional Class Conventional Thinking is why kids wore masks for a year after a vaccine was available to adults. And why schools had bizarre barriers on desks, and why it suddenly became okay to congregate outside so long as it was a Black Lives Matter riot and not something else protected by the First Amendment, like a Jewish funeral in Brooklyn."

In case I'm ever in front of a Senate subcommittee, I think Trump lost the 2020 election, but the day Biden was declared the winner, a group of celebrants were outside of the White House, unmasked, and drinking champagne from the same bottle without even wiping off the top. Nobody said a word to them because the virus wanted Trump to lose.

For all his Trumpness, he did fast track the vaccine so the national could go back to normal. There were those who said we couldn't trust the vaccine Trump rushed through because, hey, you can't rush these things. You might take the vaccine and grow three heads.

Until Joe Biden became President and then you had to take the vaccine or lose your job.

I took the vaccine. I had no problem with it. I thought (and think) everybody should take the vaccine. 

But, President Biden had COVID-19 three times in two years after taking the vaccine and the boosters

I worked with an individual who went deaf in one ear after taking the vaccine. Things like that happened.

Some people were very, very against the vaccine.

In strolled in our entertainment class to scold Americans they disagreed with. 

We had a late night talk show host say  "Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in. We'll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy."

The "horse goo" was Ivermectin, which is an actual drug. NIH said in October of 2020 paper, "There were no severe adverse drug events recorded in the study. A 5-day course of ivermectin was found to be safe and effective in treating adult patients with mild COVID-19." 

Howard Stern who has transformed from a "shock jock" to our national nag said, "We have no time for idiots in this country anymore. We don’t want you,” Stern said. “We want you to all either go to the hospital, stay home, die there with your COVID, don’t take the cure but don’t clog up our hospitals with your COVID when you finally get it. Stay home, don’t bother with science, it’s too late. We want you to go away. We want you to leave the country. Go somewhere where they have ultimate freedom, wherever that is, some bizarro world where you don’t have to take the vaccine. I don’t know when nonsense became such a thing."

The man who created "Fartman" wonders when nonsense became such a thing.

I'm glad COVID-19 is in the rear-view mirror.  Did our betters, our smarty parts, our cultural influencers handle it well?

No. 

Mini Movie Review: "Conclave"

 

 

The Oscars were last week and once again, the winner for Best Picture was a movie I hadn't heard of, but don't worry, reports are bosoms make an appearance so you know it was art.

I have seen "A Complete Unknown" which was about the voice of a generation Bob Dylan.  I know a little about Bob Dylan because I have a lot of Bob Dylan records and have read many books about Bob Dylan.

I didn't learn anything new about Bob Dylan. He and Johnny Cash were big friends and Johnny would pop up every now and then in the movie to tell Bob not to wipe his feet and to sing through your nose and don't comb your hair. 

My wife and I have seen another movie that was nominated for Best Picture: "Conclave".

In years past, a long, boring, plodding movie was just the ticket to win all of the awards.  "Conclave" was not a long, boring, plodding movie. It was just boring and plodding. It clocks at about two hours long, which isn't that bad for a boring, plodding movie.

"Conclave" was about the new Captain America, who now has wings for some reason and the Hulk who is now red and not green.

(Checks notes)

Wait, "Conclave" is about how Roman Catholics select a pope.

If you are a Southern Evangelical like Moi, you really need to study how Roman Catholics pick their leaders. It is nothing like how Southern Baptists pick their leaders which usually has something to do with a couple of books and a tape ministry.

When a pope dies, the College of Cardinals meets at The Vatican and selects which conference they want to play basketball in.  Oops, check that again.  The College of Cardinals meets at The Vatican to select a new pope. They call it a "Conclave".

It is a pretty good movie in the sense that they have big time actors like Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Fiennes and John (pronounced "John") Lithgow.  

All of the actors wear their Cardinal clothes and ride in a bus to the Vatican like they were on a travel baseball team.

One candidate is Lithgow, who is just a weasel.

Another is Ralph/Rafe, who is a good guy and just wants the church to be nice and not talk about sin or lay a heavy guilt trip on the laity, man.

Another is a more politically savvy cardinal that wants to drag the Church out of the 16th century because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Still another candidate is an African cardinal who had a baby in the past when he was a young Priest, so he's cut.

The final candidate is The Right Reverend Donald J. Trump, Bishop of Mar-a-Logo, who does everything but wear a  Make The Vatican Great Again hat. This guy laments the loss of the Latin Mass, for Pete's sake (notice what I did there?).

Pretty soon, all of the candidates knocked each other out of the race except this dark horse who wasn't even on the list to be in the Conclave. He was the Bishop of Kubul or Antarctica or some place.

This guy, who nobody knows, is selected as a compromise candidate because of the highly spiritual principle, "Eh, why not?"

However.

The new Pope has a secret. That's all I'll say. It's not surprising that the Cardinals will pick the least qualified candidate. I mean, it happens.

The movie is your basic Hollywood movie. Liberals-Yeah! Conservatives-Boo!  

They lay on the symbolism rather thick when Ralph/Rafe picks up one of the late Pope's turtles (the late Pope liked turtles) carries the turtle out of the Vatican and places it in a small fountain. The church is a turtle, slow, plodding, and needs a leader to pick it up and carry it to where it needs to be.  (I must admit that I are a graduate of Cobb County Public Schools.)

No violence. No cussing. No naked people.

It is one of those movies that is done well, but Lord, it was dull in parts.

 

Clint Hill

 

 

If there is one topic I have avoided in my 15 years of blogging, it is The Kennedy Assassination.

There have been many reasons for this.

One, I was four years old when IT (and it was always referred to as "IT") and I was still taking Inez* Mandated Naps.

 
Inez always told the story like this.  "Me and your grandmother were watching our stories." (That's what people called afternoon Soap Operas back then: "stories".) "Walter Cronkite came on and said Kennedy had been shot. You (meaning me) loved cartoons back then and you kept asking when the cartoons were going to come back on. You had to live two whole days without The Popeye Club."**

Two, just about everything that can be said about IT has been said.  It was a gory, terrible event and the one moment every one of a certain age can pinpoint when everything down the toilet.

Pretty soon four guys from England came over with that old long hair, everybody got color TV sets, and girls left their bras at home.

Here's your draft card, burn it or keep it. The new President, Lyndon Johnson, was not nearly as charismatic as JFK, got us into Vietnam. Martin Luther King and brother Bobby got shot.  That old long hair got longer and soon the kids were taking drugs and getting all freaky.

Things didn't calm down until Ford became President (a long story) and all of the hippies (the boys that grew their hair out) decided to settle down and make money. 

Three, for about sixty years there has been controversy about the assassination with everybody having an opinion which may/may not have a basis in fact because, let's face it, it happened a long time ago and we are just a tad bit more cynical about "official narratives".

The official narrative is a 24-year-old man took a rifle to work and shot the President of The United States from the sixth floor of (all together now) The Texas School Book Depository.  He shot three times, hitting the President twice and once hitting the governor of Texas who was sitting in front of him.

The official narrative has this man, (all together again) Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.

People really don't believe that. They think either the CIA, Lyndon Johnson, the FBI, Russia, or the Mafia killed the President. Oh yeah, Lee Harvey was killed by the owner of a strip club, two days later, in the basement of the Dallas Police station.

The assassination was back in the news when Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, died at the age of 95.

He was the man running towards the Presidential limousine after the shots were fired, somehow hopping on board the car, and pushing Mrs. Kennedy back into her seat where she could cradle the expired President in her lap.

At Parkland Hospital, where they took the President in a desperate but futile attempt to save his life, Hill took a call from brother Bobby who asked, "How bad is it?"  Hill's reply: "It is about as bad as it can get".

Hill lasted about 13 additional years with the Secret Service. In 1975, he flunked a physical and was retired from the Secret Service. At his retirement reception, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Johnson, and Mamie Eisenhower attended. 

By his account, he spent the next several years holed up in his basement, smoking and drinking. Today, we would say he had PTSD.

He eventually began talking about IT. The story was always the same. He on the running board of the car behind the President's. He heard the first shot coming from behind him. He heard another shot coming from behind him. He heard another shot coming from behind him and saw it hit the President's head. All in the span of less than eight seconds.

Hill wrote several books, of course, having to relive what has to be the worst day at work ever. 

Hill regretted he could not do more. But that's not fair to him. He did all he could do.

By the way, Hill threw his coat over the President to cover the head wound from the media. When all was said and done, he took the coat to be dry cleaned. He presented the dry cleaning receipt at work for reimbursement.

It was turned down. 

* My mom.

** "The Popeye Club" was an afternoon show that aired on WSB-TV in Atlanta from Monday through Friday.  It starred Don Kennedy (no relation to the President) as "Officer Don" and they showed Popeye cartoons.  They didn't try to teach you anything. It was great.  The assassination happened on a Friday and it was wall-to-wall news coverage until after the burial on Monday.  "The Popeye Club" came back on the air on Tuesday.

Moo Better

 

I'm sure you've heard of Killer Bees. Just a few years ago, we learned of the existence of Murder Hornets (Hornets who will kill you and drive away in a white Bronco). However, there is now something more dangerous than Killer Bees and Murder Hornets combined

Cows.

Specifically, cows who will stomp all over you.

Recently, on my Firefox landing page, there was an article from the September 12, 2024, issue of The Guardian which reports that cows were responsible for 22 deaths for people living in England, Scotland, and Wales from March 2019 to March 2023.

It is always a tragedy when somebody kicks the bucket. But can you imagine standing at the Pearly Gates and discussing your demise?

"I ran into a burning house to save a child."

"I jumped in front of a bullet to save my wife."

"I got run over by a cow."

The Guardian states: "There is something particularly shocking about members of the public – most often walkers using public footpaths – being killed or severely injured in cow attacks, but farmers are also victims: cattle are the most common cause of accidental death in the UK agricultural industry."

I'm particularly shocked cows would attack people on public footpaths like a bunch of thugs. (Do they wear leather jackets? Wouldn't that make them feel weird?)

I'm also shocked that farmers are victims, seeing that they are around cows daily and would know what would make cows mad. (Staring at their teats is probably the number one reason. "Hey, eyes up here, Old McDonald") 

One victim of the swarms of killer cows in England, David Clarke, decided to do something about it. 

Instead of suing the owner of the cows, like he should have, he formed a group called Cows on Walkers Safety (COWS). Its purpose is to "raise awareness of the dangers posed by cattle."  I don't know if his group sells t-shirts, but I would like one.

According to The Guardian, the average cow in the United Kingdom weighs 620 kg, which is around 1366 pounds in real weight. It is not known what the average weight of an American cow is, but I would think it would be more due to all of the soft drinks and junk foods they consume.

 The cows that attacked Clarke ended up lacerating his liver.  That's a pretty severe cow attack. ("Cow Attack" would be a good name for a country-rock band.)

One lady, a farmer's daughter no less, was attacked by cows and suffered multiple broken ribs, a concussion, a smashed jaw, and dislodged teeth.  Another suffered “seven broken ribs, hoof marks on her chest and legs, a broken thumb, and life-changing severe internal injuries that required emergency surgery."  

Bessie means business.

Why do cows attack?

Some people blame dogs. Cows perceive dogs as a threat because dogs bark. This scares the cow, and the cow thinks, "Let's move quickly and stomp on this human being, at least giving it severe internal injuries that are life-changing."  

Other reasons include momma cows being protective of their baby cows, some cows were never disciplined at home and now they roam around smoking cigarettes, and, of course, Trump.  

You may be asking yourself: How do I keep myself safe from the packs of killer cows and also those super pigs that are invading from Canada? Fortunately, we have some answers.

 

• Be alert: keep an eye out for any signage warning of cows on your route. Stay calm if you notice any cows playing loud music and vaping.
• Give cattle space. They have a long day starting with something yanking at their teats in the morning. Then they hear about a friend who has become a hamburger.
• You are allowed to leave a footpath to walk around cows. You are also allowed to get in your car and drive home. None of this would have been possible if the Democrats had won the election last November. You would have been legally liable to go up to a cow and apologize for all of the Big Macs you have eaten
• Walk – don’t run – through fields with cows quickly and don't make eye contact or stop and try to make friends even if they are wearing Buc-ee's merchandise.
• If you are walking with a dog, tell it to shut up and quit barking. This always works.
• If cows run towards you, don’t try to punch them in the face like Mongo in "Blazing Saddles".
• Once you’re safely home, report problems with cattle to the local authority (Kayce Dutton). 
  

Cows simply have to moo do better. 

Cliffs Notes

 

 

As I've said before, I am a graduate of Wheeler High School, which is located in East Cobb County, Georgia.

(Cobb County has four sections: East, West, North, and South. In the 70s when I was going to school, East Cobb was the Le-Te-Fricken-Da section of Cobb.  Parts of it still are to this day, but parts are not.)

My only real problem was that most kids at Wheeler ( school motto: "Where the leaders of tomorrow are smoking cigarettes between the classes of today"), were very smart.

Some of the kids in my class were so smart they would actually READ AN ASSIGNED BOOK and be ready for a test.

However, others were like me-hindered by a genetic defect called being a total dork. If not for Cliffs Notes*, I'd probably would still be in school.  A sixty-five year old high school junior.

In case you don't remember, Cliffs Notes is a "popular tool for many students seeking a shortcut to understanding complex texts. These condensed summaries provide a quick overview of books, plays, and poems, allowing students to grasp the main ideas and themes without reading the entire work." (Faster Capital Blog: The Pros And Cons of Using Cliffs Notes)

Simply, Cliffs Notes allowed the 70s high school student a shortcut in understanding complex literature that was "boring as all get out" as we would say back them.

Cliffs Notes were controversial.  I had one English teacher (not Roger Hines, although he probably agreed) say the Cliffs Notes had  "intentional errors," and you shouldn't rely on it.

In other words, you are supposed to read all of Tess Of The D'Urbervilles and not just the Cliffs Notes like "that Manis kid."  

On my Facebook page, I decided to give everyone a break about the pros or cons of the orange man and asked if anybody used Cliffs Notes.   A lot of people, now that they are long past high school, confessed that they used Cliffs Notes and tried to bull their way through the book reports.  God bless America.
 

One Facebook friend of mine, the incredible Terry McCoy, who didn't go to Wheeler, but he could have, wrote about another product that I missed:

"Monarch notes were my book summaries of choice. Cliffs notes (sic) were too common and teachers could smell a book report written from them a mile away. Monarch notes were more obscure. But let’s be honest, any teacher who assigned Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray was just trying to take the semester off and discourage any kid from reading one more word for the rest of their life. It almost worked on me."

(Why am I just now learning about Monarch Notes?  What a rip.) 

Terry is right about teachers and Cliffs Notes. Back then you did not have computer programs in which the teacher could load your book report on to sniff out Cliffs Notes usage and plagiarism  although it wasn't necessary for my reports.

"Tess of The D'Uberviiles is about a girl named Tess who lived in a house in the town of D'Urberville. It may have something to do with sex, but I couldn't tell. There were no good parts that could have spiced things up like 'Tess walked in buck naked'.  I know I would have enjoyed it more. Please give me a passing grade on this. I would hate to go to summer school." 

I will say this: sometimes a student must take a short cut because school is interfering with other parts of their lives like work, dating, and sitting around listening to records.  

I knew someone who took a short cut. 

I knew this guy in college.  He was a biology major and was an outstanding student. He had to take a French class for some odd reason. The professor gave an assignment: a book review of a classic in French literature.

My classmate chose "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."  The reason:  he had a collection of Classic Illustrated Comics and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" was in his collection. So, he reviewed the comic book. He also had to include a biographical essay on the author.  He copied the biography, from the comic book, word for word.  He made an A with a "great job" notation from the professor.

He has had a successful career as a physician.  Currently, he is a professor at a medical school associated with a large state university. He did it all without Cliffs Notes.  I think. 

 

*It should actually be "Cliff's Notes" because they were notes from Clifton Hillgass, a great American.

 

 

Things Have Changed

 

 

As you get older, you realize things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

We used to go out without our phones. There were two reasons for this. One, the phones were attached to our houses. Two, they had "pay" phones in which you could drop a dime (hence the lyric from "Operator": "you can keep the time") or, later, a quarter (from the Travis Tritt song, "Here's A Quarter, Call Someone Who cares.")*

Now, we make sure our phones are with us all of the time, and we are naked without them. 

I took my wife to an appointment and accidentally left my cell phone in the car.  I had to wait for a WHOLE 15 MINUTES without something to look at.  I don't know how I survived.

I thought about how things had changed when I watched the confirmation hearings on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. becoming the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

There used to be something magical about being a Kennedy.  They were part Beyonce, part Taylor Swift, and part Timothee Chalamet.  They were always the best and the brightest for reasons we just can't explain.

Of course, John Kennedy was the youngest President of the United States when it was cool to be young.Unfortunately, he was assassinated and succeeded by Lyndon Johnson, who, let's be historically honest, was ugly. 

History buffs remember that Kennedy's Attorney General was his brother, Robert. That could not happen today, although it would have been a hoot to have Billy Carter as Attorney General.  (Nobody under 60 understands the humor of this past sentence.)

Then, in 1968, which I contend is the year everything went to the septic tank, Robert ran for President and was assassinated, too.

You had this aura of sympathy for the family because of all the tragedy, the glitz, and the glamour.

Shoot, a Kennedy could drive a car off a bridge, leave a girl (who was not his wife) in the car to drown, and still run for President.  You can't buy that type of magic.

However, history has caught up with the Kennedys.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was carrying the torch by being an attorney, of course.  He made a pretty good living suing companies over something called torts**. According to a major legal scholar, Wikipedia, a tort is a "civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act."  

What distinguished Kennedy from all of the other lawyers, besides his last name, was he spoke out against Big Pharma and vaccines.

For years, he said vaccines caused autism. Apparently, this is not true, and apparently, he doesn't care.  He has said he wants improved science and information so people can make informed decisions.  Which means he doesn't want people to listen to a physician about a vaccine, but rather, listen to a lawyer.

I've been hearing about the evils of vaccines for years because we have a chiropractic college in Marietta and knew a lot of students who said vaccines were terrible. I also listened to the Imus in The Morning radio show, and he used to say vaccines caused autism. 

But still, as for me and my family, we chose to listen to physicians instead of chiropractic students and disc jockeys.  I know, I'm a chump.

Kennedy has been saying all of this for years.  I never heard one word. Nary a peep. Not a grunt from our friends on the left bank of politics. 

 But things have changed. One of the marvelous, wonderful, perfect Kennedys has aligned himself with one of the true all-time icks of the world, Orange Hitler himself, Donald Trump.

Kennedy endorsed Trump, and as payback, Trump nominated Kennedy to be Secretary of Health And Human Services.

Suddenly, Kennedy became enemy number one of the Democrats.

Last week, his cousin Caroline Schlossberg, the only living child of John Kennedy, said, "I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together. It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator."

 It is well known that RFK, Jr. likes the ladies, and he had a well-known sex-texting affair with a young reporter last year.   All I can say is that it is a family tradition.

At his confirmation hearings, the Democrats followed the tried and true method of yelling at people they disagree with, especially about things that seem odd.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont noted "The gist of what you are trying to say today is you're really pro-vaccine, you just want to ask questions," Sanders said. "Yet your organization is making money selling a child's product that casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines."

The onesies have anti-vaxx slogans like "Unvaxxed and Unafraid" and "Get you dirty paws off of me you dirty ape". ***

Elizabeth Warren wanted Kennedy to promise he wouldn't sue a pharmacy company for five years after he left office.  That's his jam, Liz.

I've never seen a Democrat treated in such a way  years.  It was like he was almost a Republican, which he is not. Or a conservative, which he is not.

He's just on another team.  Things have changed.

 

 

* Travis Tritt is from my hometown of Marietta, Georgia and went to Sprayberry High School. Fun fact: "Remember The Titans" was filmed at their football field. 

** The Torts was the name of Travis Tritt's band in high school.   Just kidding, Travis.

*** Just kidding again. Although, that would look good on a onesie.

First Draft

 

 

I have obtained a rough draft of President Again Trump's inaugural address on 1/20/25.

 

"Vice President JD, Vice President JD's hot wife, Little Speaker Johnson, Tall Senator Thune, Chief Justice Roberts who probably won't give me time to put my hand the Bible, justices of the United States Supreme Court including the ones I don't like, President Horndog Clinton and his awful, terrible wife, President Kid Bush, President Big Barry Obama, President Biden (if he's awake), Vice President Harris (ha, ha) and my fellow citizens:

I'm back, baby!

You thought you got rid of me, didn't you? Didn't you?

Well, you didn't.

And I'm back with something I didn't have before: A mandate!

Suck it, losers!

Anyway, the golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again by all of those dumb-dumb nations that despise us except when they need a little cash. We will be the envy of every nation just like I'm the envy of every fat 78-year-old man when they see my arm candy, First Lady Melania Trump.

Yeah, we ought to call her Dr. Melania Trump because she has a Ph.d in Hubba-Hubba. Remember, she's all mine President Clinton!

During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, make sure I'm on TV a lot. I will be interviewed by Hannity. I will have a press conference every 15 minutes even if I don't have anything to say. I'll just drop in the press briefing room, just to say howdy. I won't use buzzwords like 'circle back'. If I don't know the answer to something, which is unlikely, I will make it up.

Even though I'm in my late 70s, like somebody else up here, you will not have to worry that the President of The United States has wandered off somewhere in his pajamas like Uncle Junior did on The Sopranos.

I will issue an Executive Order to find out if Tony Soprano was whacked. The American people deserve to know!

America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more cooler than ever before.  Have you seen me dance?  How many 78-year-old men start a dance craze? I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we can put "Y.M.C.A." back on the charts. A tide of change is sweeping the country.  Pretty soon, even Americans will be answering customer service calls.

But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. We must admit that we have a truckload of goofy people trying to lead our country. We have to stop listening to them, no matter how awesome their bosoms are. We need to listen to the ugly people who had to study in their younger years because other kids wouldn't play with them.  They might have some good ideas.  

Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency because it is really hard to do.  It is also hard to do when the mayor of your city is in Ghana and not out fighting the fires—just a little beautiful editorial comment from your favorite president. 

My suggestion: if wild fires are threatening your community, you should have a lot of water around to put out the fire.  This is just a little of the common sense I'm bringing back to our country. 

Later today, I will sign some four thousand executive orders that will make America great.  I will rename the Gulf of Mexico "The Gulf of America" because we need to have our own gulf.  Let Mexico go out and get another gulf. Geez, do I have to think of everything?

I will sign an executive order stating we have only two genders and not the twelve hundred genders all the college kids think you should celebrate.

You no longer have to put your "preferred pronoun" in your email address. You can thank me later.

Yes, I'm still thinking about Greenland. Here's a fun fact about Greenland.  It is mainly ice. Isn't that wild?  And Iceland is mainly green. Crazy.  

I'm going to pardon the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, but remember, President Grandpa pardoned everybody in his family and Anthony Fauci, who honestly wasn't even on my radar. Still, it would have been a good idea to go after Big Dr. Tony because he made everybody wear a mask and stand ten yards apart.  But what are you going to do?

In conclusion, I will ask one question: Are y'all ready for this?  We're going to have a ball."

The Lonesome Death Of The Mall

 

For people of a certain age, you can remember the first time you went to a mall.

Around the Metro Atlanta Area, most people went to the Lenox Square Mall, which is in Buckhead, a section of Atlanta known for its traffic, offices, and people who are better than you.

But not us at Manis Manor.  My father could think of nothing worse than traipsing around a building of stores with his wife and his feral children.

My mother was raised in the Mississippi Delta, where going to town meant going to the store. There, you would meet somebody you knew. It was a social occasion. It was different in suburban Cobb County, Georgia, where it was just like Ellis Island with all the new people who moved here from far away lands like Indiana.  She always said, "I went to K-Mart and didn't see anyone I know."

Therefore, we didn't go to the mall.

One day, a friend took my brother and me to Northlake Mall.  A whole new world was presented to me. They had a store that only sold Levi's Blue Jeans. They had a store that just sold records. The big album on sale was Neil Diamond's "Hot August Night" to show you how long ago it was. 

Northlake had big department stores: Rich's and Davidson's. Those store sold name brands.  The clothes were fancier and didn't look like the clothes we bought at K-Mart.

Soon, we wouldn't have to go to Northlake Mall. We would have a nice mall of our own: Cumberland. 

Cumberland Mall had Rich's and Davidson's, too, but also had a Sears and J.C. Penny for us lesser folk.  It had a store called Spencer's Gifts which was full of tacky, naughty, and gross stuff. On top of that it had two bookstores: B. Dalton and Walden Books. 

There was a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor.  Do you remember Farrell's?  Before we knew it would kill us, they served all kinds of ice cream treats.

One of the treats was a sundae called "The Zoo" and was meant to be shared by a group. The Farrell's employees, all who just happened to be attractive high school girls, delivered "The Zoo"  with a big hullaballoo, sirens blaring, the whole nine yards.

I found this from Wikipedia: "Another menu item that was served in a mini pig trough was the "Trough". If the person who ordered it ate the entire sundae, employees would come out banging on a drum, announce the accomplishment to the entire restaurant, and present the customer with either a ribbon or a pinback button that said, "I made a pig of myself at Farrell's!"  I remember the "Trough" with great fondness.  I remember they oinked at you, too, but maybe that was just a Cobb County thing. And no, I never had a "Trough".

Next to Farrell's was a little shop that sold chicken sandwiches. It was called Chick-fil-A.  I wonder what happened to them.

Well, time passed on. Farrel's went away. I would go to Cumberland a lot, particularly when I was dating my wife. I also worked near Cumberland and spent my lunch hour there. Once, I went to Walden Books, and the great writer Pat Conroy was there.  I talked to the son of The Great Santini for 15 minutes because nobody showed up for his book signing.

The month my wife and I married, they opened another Cobb County mall: Town Center.

Town Center was newer and bigger than Cumberland. They had the same stores, but it was 80s bright.  It was a fun place to go. 

And at Christmas time, it was packed.

We went to Town Center during Christmas time this year. It wasn't packed.

People have, for whatever reason, given up on Town Center.  It needs a touchup and some paint. The parking lot hasn't been paved and restriped in years.  They have a lot of stores you have never heard of and kiosks out the ying-yang.  I will say, if you need a baseball hat, you can find it at Town Center.

There are many reasons for the decline of Malls.

One is that going to a mall is a great big pain. You have to fight traffic to get there, and then you remember you can order it online.

Two, and I'm going to sound like the old fuddy-duddy I am, but the youth of America killed the mall.  Roaming in packs, looking like they are part of some punk rock band from the 70s. 

It became a hangout, and many people decided not to hang out there anymore.

Rich's and Davidson's were bought out by Macy's. This week, Macy's closed three stores in Georgia, but the Cumberland and Town Center stores were safe.  For now.

There's talk of repurposing Town Center with apartments. There's also talk of turning it into classrooms for Kennesaw State. Who knows?

James Lileks said about malls: "It was wonderful! People loved it!  Until they didn't."

It is kind of sad because nobody will have a fond memory of adding something to your cart and then clicking for checkout. 

 

Do Better

 

Like most of you, I spent a good part of the holiday season thinking about the H-1B Visa Program.

Sorry, I was pulling your leg. I spent a lot of time thinking about the College Football Playoffs which is almost as complicated as the H-1B Visa Program.

The H-1B Visa Program allows US employers to hire foreign works in specialty fields like IT because Americans are fat lazy doofuses.  (This is not true.  Some Americans are skinny.)

Who is to blame for Americans being dumb-dumbs while all foreigners are really smart?  Well, according to Vivek Ramaswamy (you remember him?) it is all our culture's fault. 

In a 12/26/24 post on "X" (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter), Ramaswamy said, "The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture."

Our culture "has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer)." 

He says, "A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers."

Okay.

I went to Wheeler High School in the 70s and we celebrated our prom queens because they were easier to look at than the Math Olympiads. We were really shallow people back then.   

I'm not so sure our culture "venerates" Cory from "Boy Meets World because I'm not sure which one was Cory.  Americans do venerate Urkel because he is the only funny one on "Family Matters."  If Americans actually do not venerate Urkel, it is because he spent a good part of his time trying to get smacky face from Laura Winslow instead of trying to become an engineer.  Not that I would know that. 

Ramaswamy adds, "(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates)."

Here's a "fact".  "Multiple sets" of immigrant parents in the 90s could be two, twenty, four hundred, or a million people.  I'm unaware of any study that blamed American Youth Dumb-Dumbness on too much "Boy Meets World."  I'm not sure that this argument proves proves Hal and Helen's kids were successful STEM graduates because they didn't watch "Family Matters". But then again, I watched a lot of "Gilligan's Island" growing up and I didn't become a wildly successful STEM graduate. In my defense, I can talk for hours about why Mary Ann is way hotter than Ginger. 

Ramaswamy goes on to say, "More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.'” 

You hear a lot that adults are "stuck" in the decade they came of age in.  This is not the 90s. I'm not too sure Ramaswamy has been to the mall lately. You don't see a lot of kids just "hanging out" at the mall.

In fact, you don't see a lot of people in the mall anyway.  

On top of that, there aren't Saturday morning cartoons anymore. We have entire channels devoted to cartoons. You would think Vivek would know that. 

Ramaswamy is right to the extent that there is a culture problem.  We put too much emphasis on sports, particularly "travel" ball, which separates the talented kids from the less talented kids.  We place too much emphasis on entertainment as a career when entertainment is just as iffy as sports as a career because, often, it is just a matter of luck rather than talent.

But, as Jack Butler of National Review says, "We won’t solve these problems by disdaining possible sources of virtue, by misapprehending contemporary social realities, and by mechanistically funneling more and more people toward preset pathways of supposed success."

In the television show "Young Sheldon," ten-year-old Sheldon Cooper is placed in the local high school because of his "once in a generation intellect" (his words, not mine.)

His only friend is a South Vietnamese immigrant named Tam.  Sheldon and Tam eat lunch in the library because the East Texas high school crowd shuns them.

One time, Tam's mother left a note in Tam's lunch.  It said, "Do better".

We need people to push us to do better. And sometimes, we need to tell them to chill.