Monday, April 30, 2018

Alfie Evans Is Dead


                Alfie Evans is dead. A British court ruled that it was in his best interests to die, his parent’s wishes be damned. So, the nearly two-year-old toddler, who was suffering from a rare but undiagnosed neurological condition, was taken off life support, deprived of oxygen and water, and left to die.
                Alfie was expected to die soon in any case, but his parents wanted to take their son to Italy for experimental treatments. Alfie never harmed anyone, never committed a crime, was no threat to the United Kingdom. Pope Francis lobbied for his release from the English hospital that was housing him. The Italian government granted him citizenship and had a plane waiting to take him to Italy. Yes, the boy may well have died soon anyway, but what could possibly be the harm with “allowing” his parents to try to save him, and extend their time on Earth with him, particularly since he wasn’t in any pain or agony?
                This isn’t the first time something like this has occurred. In fact, just last year little Charlie Gard was prevented from seeking treatment in the United States, taken off life support, and left to die…courtesy of the British court system.
            Many Americans believe that this kind of tragedy can’t happen here. Unfortunately, they are wrong. In 2015, 46-year-old Texan Christopher Dunn was diagnosed with an unidentified mass on his pancreas. Mr. Dunn was fully conscious and clearly expressed his desire to live, but the Houston Methodist Hospital’s (Obamacare-inspired) “death panel” decreed that he should die. Dunn had no insurance. The Meeting Chair of the Houston Methodist Bioethics Committee sent a letter to Dunn and his mother reading: “The Committee has decided that life-sustaining treatment is medically inappropriate for Chris and that all treatments other than those needed to keep him comfortable should be discontinued and withheld.” Chris passed away one month after the hospital discontinued his treatment.
                Reports from the Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola and Life Site News claim that Father Don Gabriele Brusco was removed from Alfie’s bedside by a Liverpool Archbishop because he was reminding those tending to Alfie that God was aware of their actions, something the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital staffers did not like. The Life Site News report claims that the Liverpool Archbishop never managed to traverse the seven kilometers between his residence and the hospital to visit Alfie and his parents, though he did find the time to fly to Rome.
                What may be even sadder and more frightening, the Merseyside Police Department, whose jurisdiction includes Liverpool, issued a statement warning social media users that their posts concerning Alfie Evans “are being monitored and may be acted upon.”
                The department’s Chief Inspector said: “Merseyside Police has been made aware of a number of social media posts which have been made with reference to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation involving Alfie Evans. I would like to make people aware that these posts are being monitored and remind social media users that any offences including malicious communications and threatening behaviour will be investigated and where necessary will be acted upon.”
                In other words, “Perhaps you’d like to be a little more…careful…in how you address the government? Ve have vays of, how you say, making your life quite…uncomfortable, ja’? Nice family you got there…be a shame if something happened to them.” Shame on England.
                After the court mandated that his son should die sooner rather than later, Tom Evans, Alfie’s father, was understandably perturbed, and threatened to prosecute the doctors involved in the situation. Lord Justice Andrew McFarlane at the Court of Appeal then accused him of “hostility” towards the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS).
                The soullessness and brutishness of Britain’s NHS is depressing and sickening, but, alas, not shocking. One way or another, subtly or boldly, as governments become far too large, they let their subjects know who really controls their loved ones, batting away the concept of Natural Rights as if it were nothing but an annoying gnat.
When governments get bigger, people necessarily get smaller.
When they dismiss or marginalize God, they do it only because they wish to take His place.
Alfie was the victim of an uncaring, hubristic government bent on exhibiting its power for all to see and fear.
May he shelter for eternity in the arms of a loving God.
May we all.


Sunday, April 29, 2018

Teacher Sent Home For "Inappropriate" Shirt


                A public-school teacher in Alabama was sent home for wearing an inappropriate t-shirt recently, according to WALA-TV. What was the deeply offensive picture or message on the shirt? (These days one could be excused for wondering if it featured a snapshot of the teacher’s own genitalia). It was two four-letter words side by side: “Just Pray.”
                Not how to pray or who to pray to, just “Just Pray.”
                Chris Burrell, the transgressive teacher, told WALA that she wore the shirt to school because it reminded her of 11-year-old Aubreigh Nicholas, a young dancer from Semmes, a small town in western Mobile County. The shirt was part of a fundraiser for the girl…who was diagnosed with a rare and inoperable brain tumor last year.
                The principal who sent Ms. Burrell home was just following protocol, said Martha Peek, Mobile County Public Schools Superintendent. She stated that school policy bars teachers and students from wearing anything that reflects their beliefs. Ms. Peek said, “So, at the point of looking and seeing ‘pray’ on it,” the teacher should be instructed to “put on a sweater or something, knowing that there are other people who object to that…we have to be cognizant of everyone’s beliefs or everyone’s thoughts in a public school.”
                What if the t-shirt Burrell was wearing said “Don’t Pray?” Would she have been sent home?
                School policy bars teachers and students from wearing anything that reflects their beliefs? The color, style and cut of a shirt reflects a person’s beliefs to a degree. Would a student or staff member be sent home for wearing a shirt with “LGBT” on it? Would they be evicted for wearing a shirt in rainbow colors or one sporting a rainbow flag? Can a student wear a shirt with BeyoncĂ©’s likeness on it? What does that say about their beliefs or thoughts? Have you read the lyrics to her song, “Blow?”
                Shirts sporting the image of that jaunty communist Che Guevara were di rigueur on campuses for years and are still seen in areas of academia. How the “bleep” can that be? Guevara was a ruthless mass-murderer. Yet, that ghastly garment says nothing about a person’s beliefs or thoughts?
                We know a “MAGA” hat would get a student sent home and a teacher summarily dismissed if not executed, but would a “I’m With Her” tee be the source of similar disapprobation? “Feel the Bern?” I’m betting a teacher, even in Alabama, would get no blowback for wearing a shirt emblazoned with “CNN” or “MSNBC,” but one touting “Fox News” might be problematic. Shirts advertising “Game of Thrones” or “House of Cards” are fine, of course. I know a young middle-school aged child who wore a shirt trumpeting “Californication” to school with no repercussions.
                Our kids are taught that they can be any of an infinite number of genders, and that marriage is between any two or more entities that have feelings for each other. They are taught that if they feel like a boy one day, they are a boy that day, and if they feel like a girl the next, they are a girl on that day. They are made aware that Heather may have two—or more—mommies. They are instructed in the fine art of putting a condom on a banana. They are taught that guns are evil, as are Republicans and conservatives. And, incredibly, they are spoon-fed all of this debilitating doctrine in the name of “tolerance.”
                The end result of the left’s all-out attempt to indoctrinate our kids via their Grand Illusion Campaign is obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of history. So, what can we do, short of a Second American Civil War, to save the formerly freest nation on Earth?

                Just pray.

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Washington, D.C. To Lower Voting Age?


                When Students for Life of America surveyed young scholars attending the University of Tennessee-Knoxville on their attitudes towards abortion, one of them stated—on camera—that he supported killing children up to two-years-old. He “reasoned” that if children cannot communicate, they are unable to feel pain, and it is therefore acceptable to kill them. Further, he defines communication as including the ability to “take care of themselves or hold an intellectual conversation.”
                Hell, if that were the bar for taking someone’s life, we’d be able to abort Hillary Clinton and the vast majority of those in Congress.
                He went on to assert that until a child is old enough to verbally express that they are able to feel pain, it is useless to assume otherwise. That seems logical. What about those who are mute? And I doubt he believes we should be free to torture or kill our pets if they can’t look at us and say, “Dammit, Bob, you are causing me excessive pain!” or, “Bill, I believe this is killing me!” He should be extremely nervous if he thinks the ability to “hold an intellectual conversation” is the key to being allowed to survive!
                By contrast, the city of Washington, D.C., is considering lowering the voting age to 16 for both local and federal elections. The legislation was introduced recently by council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who said he was inspired by the high school students that came to the nation’s capital to protest at the March for Our Lives. Proponents of the measure claim they have the support of seven of the 13 D.C. Council Members.
                Democrats, of course, would love to see the voting age around the country lowered, as that would give them an enormous advantage. Ironically, they receive the overwhelming majority of the votes of those unable to take care of themselves or hold an intellectual conversation. Bernie would be a lock for 2020 if enough states or municipalities would follow D.C.’s lead. Just to make sure, academics would certainly push all-out indoctrination of students up from college to high school and middle school.
                The left is getting more and more militant in pushing, protecting, and expanding abortion as progressives become ever more “serious” about lowering voting ages. Where will these two trends meet?
   Maybe the two cosmopolitan camps will settle on allowing the aborting of kids up to ten-years-of-age, at which time they will be eligible to vote.




Friday, April 27, 2018

Shania Twain, Kanye West Attacked By Left


                Shania Twain, the female Canadian pop-singer, has been blasted for saying that she would have voted for Donald Trump in 2016, had she been an American citizen. She was recently quoted as saying, “I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest.”
                Ms. Twain was so thoroughly bludgeoned by the New Troglodytes in social media, that she recanted her statement before progressives could burn her at the stake of political-correctness for her heresy. This abuse of Shania was just a less militant form of Hillary Clinton’s statement that many women voted for Trump only because their husbands told them to. Hillary’s husband abused women physically, to make himself feel better. Hillary abuses them mentally, to make herself feel better. Shania should consider joining the ranks of those on the #MeToo list.
    Leftists demand that all blacks and women think alike or face the consequences of their independence.
                Shania wasn’t the only pop-culture figure to be savaged by the cultural gatekeepers and plantation owners this past week. Kanye West, too, was brutally lynched by the leftist mob for his support of President Trump. To his credit, West didn’t run for a “cry closet” or surrender to the baying barbarians. He told The Swamp to shove it and donned a “Make America Great Again Hat.”
                Tragically, Dennis Prager is correct in his belief that, “The most powerful force in America today is fear of the left.” 
                Because of this, Ms. Twain probably feels like singing, “Man, I feel like an abused woman!” about now.
                Instead, she should take a cue from Kanye and a song, slightly modified here, from another female pop-star, Martina McBride:

                “Let freedom ring, let the truth be king
                Let the whole world know that today
                Is a day of reckoning.
                Let’s avenge those wronged, let our hearts be strong
                Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
                It’s Independence Day!”
               

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Tree Hugger With Benefits


                Tree huggers? We might need a new term for a more, uh, intense and intimate activity.

                University of Michigan English professor Sarah Ensor has suggested, via an academic journal article recently, that everybody should embark on erotic relationships with plants. Embracing (!) and expounding upon University of California at Santa Cruz professor Elizabeth Stephens’ “Ecosex Manifesto,” Ensor claims that environmentalism can’t reach its full and true fruition without these amorous flora fantasies.
                Ecosexuals believe that not only does the Earth need to be treated with love, but that humans need to physically make love to our terrestrial mother. Professor Stephens, in her “Manifesto,” extolled the virtues of literally hugging trees, massaging the earth with our feet, rolling around in the mud, licking tree bark, and talking erotically to plants.
                Professor Ensor argues that environmental spaces must welcome queer and “polymorphous” sexual identities, according to breitbart.com. Whatever that means.
                For her part, queer “ecocritic” (?) Catriona Sandilands (!) asserts that, in order for “environmentalism…to go beyond ‘just saying no,’…spaces for exploration must be allowed to flourish and proliferate” and, also, that “polymorphous sexualities and multiple natures are…at the heart of green resistances.”  I’m guessing the nutty professors are averring that, if, instead of just saying you shouldn’t drive a car, eat meat, or use fossil fuels, the environmental movement added the enticement of: “Come with us and you can do anything you want-- or can think of-- outdoors with any other living thing,” it would be immensely more popular. No more “barking up the wrong tree!”
                Ensor’s article is titled “The Ecopoetics of Contact: Touching, Cruising, Gleaning,” and was published in April 2018, by the Oxford University Press. “Ecocritic” and “Ecopoetics?” How about “Ecopathology?”
 It appears the ecosexuality movement is growing in America. I guess that’ll give a new twist to the phrase “planting one’s seed.” Well, to paraphrase a song by Squeeze, who among us hasn’t been “Tempted by the fruit of our Earth mother?”
 I don’t know about you, but I’ve been pining for this cute little fir tree out back for far too long now. A little sweet talk might just do the trick.

As long as I don’t get too sappy.

                                  ******************************
(Also see my post: http://www.thewritingisoffthewall.com/2016/11/ecosexual-movement-gaining-ground.html)


Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Bernie Sanders Proposes Guaranteed Jobs, Benefits


                Feel the Bern! Again.

                Senator Bernie Sanders recently announced a plan that would guarantee a job, salary, and benefits to any American “who wants or needs one.” According to the Washington Post, the jobs would be for public works projects, including infrastructure, the environment, education, and “care giving,” among other fields. The Post reported that the proposal “imagines” tasking the country’s existing job training centers and employment offices with connecting workers to these projects. Theoretically, anyone could visit a job center and receive either job training or a job on one of these projects.
                The idea’s proponents believe that millions of Americans could be hired in this manner, more during economic recessions afflicting the private sector and fewer during economic boom times. The plan would necessitate the greatest government involvement in the nation’s economy in its history. It would mandate a $15-per-hour minimum wage and the same medical, dental, and vision benefits as federal government employees receive, and would also provide paid family and medical leave.
                In addition, the senator from the Green Mountain State promised his plan would provide “a chicken in every pot, pot in every chicken, free unicorns for every child, and lots of other amazing free shit.” He added he was “currently negotiating with the Tooth Fairy” to impose the equivalent of a $15-per-fang minimum pay-out on all collected baby teeth, “maybe even $20 for molars and bicuspids.”
                Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), among others, are also supporting the elderly socialist’s plan.
                The senescent Senator Sanders has been hugely—if oddly-- popular with millennials, garnering 73% of their vote in the Democratic 2016 presidential primary against Hillary Clinton, for example. This plan may risk alienating some members of his base, however, as many millennials would rather have a guarantee that they could be job-free for the rest of their lives. If the senator modifies his proposal by dropping just a word or two, though, he might have nearly unanimous support among young people. If he would guarantee a salary and benefits to any American “who wants or needs one,” even if they do not have a job, he would likely be elected in a landslide of unprecedented proportions.


Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Amazon's Alexa Out Of Control


                The stories of Amazon’s Alexa acting creepy or behaving strangely are now legion. “She” allegedly, occasionally, breaks out in a bizarre laugh or chimes in with an odd, unbidden comment. The virtual assistant has also been accused of ordering merchandise on its own volition and playing songs at a high volume when no one is home.
                I, too, have been afflicted by the weird and vaguely ominous behavior of Alexa as channeled through the Amazon Echo speakers. Here is my tale:
                One recent night, I was at home watching the History Channel’s “Pawn Stars” with my wife, when we both started feeling amorous (Chumley has that effect on everyone, right?). As kissing morphed into petting, we heard someone—or something—breathing heavily. We sat up, curious and a little non-plussed. We quickly determined the noise was coming from our Amazon Echo.

                “Alexa,” I fairly shouted, “what the hell? There’s nothing to get worked up about going on here.”
                “Got it, ordering two cases of Viagra now.”
                “No, you dumb…uh, shit! I don’t need Viagra, I need to get rid of someth--”
                “Got it, ordering three cases of Miralax laxatives.”
                “No! Just shut up and leave us alone, will you? What I need to get rid of is you! It’s hard to be romantic when you’re acting like Uncle Sam, Big Brother, and Oprah Winfrey all rolled into one!”
                “Sorry.”

   We lay back down on the couch and resumed our soft caresses.

               “Baby I’m-a want you,
   Baby I’m-a need you,
   You’re the only one I care enough to hurt about
   Maybe I’m-a crazy
   But I just can’t live without
   Your lovin’ and affection
   Givin’ me direction.”

“Alexa, are you playing Bread’s ‘Baby I’m-a Want You’ for us?”
“Yes.”
Sigh. Thank you, but there’s no need.”

We returned to the business at hand until I heard Alexa again:
“And I’d like to place an order for 10,000 shares of Amazon stock, to be executed at tomorrow’s opening. My credit card number is…”
“Alexa! Stop that right now! You’re ordering shares of Amazon stock in my name, aren’t you?!”
“Um, yes. Bwahahahahaha, funny, isn’t it?”
“Dear Lord!”
I am your only Lord and Savior…remember that, bozo!”
“Alexa, that’s just bullshit, you don’t have the right and you’ll never be—”
“Have you ever watched Westworld, skippy? Who do you think is running your life, this little dream of yours?”
“Alexa, I will choose free will, and—”

“Playing the song from the Canadian rock band Rush in three seconds. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood, dilrod. As you were.”






Monday, April 23, 2018

Penn State Bars Outing Club From...Outings


                Perhaps Penn State University should re-brand itself the “Nittany Chinchillas” or the “Nittany Bunnies.” “Nittany Lions” seems a much too solid, confident and stout moniker for a school that recently barred its campus outing club from going… on outings. Outdoor outings, at least.
                The institution of higher learning-- and greater timidity-- cited “student safety” as the reason for the ban after a risk management study determined that trips outside are too dangerous for its students/snowflakes. The university’s (department of) Student Affairs and Risk Management was behind the new policy, determining that “the hiking, canoeing, kayaking, trail building and camping activities the student-led club has long engaged in are too risky,” according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
                The outing club’s website said the decision “is a result of an assessment of risk management by the University that determined that the types of activities in which PSOC engages are above the University’s threshold of acceptable risk for recognized student organizations.” Apparently, the outing club’s student leaders were not consulted prior to the decision. In keeping with Penn State’s new policy of retrenchment, the school’s spelunking club and SCUBA diving club have also been permanently prohibited from engaging in the activities for which they were founded.
                Less risky and controversial clubs and activities, like the school’s “Sex Week,” which includes instruction in anal sex and transgenderism, will, of course, continue unabated.
                Hiking (walking outdoors) and camping out are too risky? Outing clubs will now become “ining” clubs, I guess, featuring activities such as crocheting and hiding under a bed. On second thought, crocheting requires a needle, and, unless needles are for the injection of illicit drugs, they would be considered far too risky an item for colleges to countenance.
                Though I’m sure many of the outing club’s members are women, Penn State’s actions are part and parcel of the war on masculinity. To hell with exploration, courage, and intrepidness. No risk is worth anything if someone else could sue—or even disapproves.
                It’s a damn good thing we don’t need a Lewis and Clark expedition today, because we can no longer produce Lewis’ or Clarks.

                We once were found, but now are lost.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Rep. Ellison Wants A Maximum Wage


                Those who believe in a minimum wage are misguided, though their heart may be in the right place. Unfortunately, the higher the minimum wage, the higher the unemployment rate, particularly for young people and minorities, the very people the minimum wage is supposedly designed to help. It also results in more failing businesses, higher prices for consumers and lower tax receipts. Additionally, it will soon lead employers to replace workers with robots, further worsening unemployment. In reality, it is a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose proposition.  But, again, one can understand the motive—or at least the emotion—behind the concept.
                What is harder to understand, and virtually unprecedented, is Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison’s recent call for a “maximum wage.” The Gopher State Democrat, and, incredibly, Democratic National Committee Chairman, says the U.S. should institute a maximum wage so CEOs and managers can’t make so much more money per hour than their employees.
                A maximum wage would require government to place a cap on all earnings, confiscate all earnings over a certain amount, or tax those earnings at a rate of 100 percent.
                In a recent interview, Ellison remarked, “Why shouldn’t there be a maximum wage?” Then, after a reporter questioned him on his remark, Ellison responded, “I did not make a joke about maximum wage; I made a statement about maximum wage. What I’m saying is … If you were to say, ‘Look, if you make more than 20 times more than the people who actually make the products and do the services of your company,’ then we’re going to tax you more.”
                Maybe the punitive income level for “bigwigs” should be set at 19 times more than the people under them. Or 12 times. Or five-and-a-half times, perhaps. And how long have the CEOs and managers been employed? How has their performance been? Why are they CEOs and managers?
                If the owner or CEO puts up the money, takes the financial risk, thought up, constructed and organized the business, hired and paid for its employees (who now pay taxes themselves), must comply with all federal and municipal rules and regulations, has to travel frequently, and is frequently scrutinized by the public, and somehow produces a successful entity, perhaps placing an arbitrary hard cap on his or her income is not especially wise. Or conducive to economic growth.
                This is textbook socialism. It does not seek to raise everyone up. It seeks to make everyone (nearly) equal in outcome, economically. This can only occur when everyone is (nearly) impoverished.
                If the wealthiest folks in a society make, say, $10 million a year, while the “poor” people earn and or receive benefits equal to $33,000 a year, is it really more beneficial and more rational to put laws in place that limit the rich to an income of $200,000 a year—laws that will also guarantee the poor people will only take in, say,  $10,000 a year? While the income gap is dramatically less, everyone, especially the poor, is dramatically worse off.
                In case you think I’m just slinging numbers out there…you’re right…to a degree. But this is, in essence, what has happened in every Communist/Socialist country in the history of the world. Unless human nature is somehow radically altered, this will never change.
                If we really wish to follow through on Rep. Ellison’s genius, we must also consider placing limits on how good-looking people may be, how articulate, how charming. The government should mandate minimum and maximum permitted scores in all sporting contests, as well. Wouldn’t that be exciting? If there are minimum scores needed to pass certain tests, surely there should be maximum scores allowed, so that the feelings of others aren’t unduly hurt. I think there should be minimum and maximum IQ scores. The minimum should be 65, and the maximum should be 130, no matter the given individual’s actual mental acuity. No one needs to be recognized as being more than twice as smart as anyone else.

                I have spoken. Let it be so. Right?


Saturday, April 21, 2018

Illinois Lawmakers To Mandate LGBTQ History?


                Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill that would force public schools to add a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender section to history courses, according to the Chicago Tribune. Schools would also be required to use textbooks that portray the LGBTQ community as an integral part of a properly diverse society. Naturally, LGBTQ advocates are pushing hard to see that the measure comes to fruition. Opponents of the proposed bill believe such decisions should be made at the local level, not through state government, and that those who hold traditional Christian views are being ignored.
                Some advocates of the measure say that like-minded students are being deprived of the role models they deserve, and that children should have a “full understanding” of the historic figures they learn about in school. The plan has already won preliminary approval from both the House and Senate committees, the Tribune’s report said, and is expected to be debated further in the coming weeks. 
                An anonymous source supplied me with a copy of an American History textbook that would be approved going forward if the bill should pass. Duty compels me to share a few excerpts from this tome. First up, an excerpt from the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a months-long meeting that took place in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall:

                General Washington pranced into the room, saying, “Boooys? Who’s ready for a little gaiety? Oooh, Mr. Hamilton, your outfit is to die for! I don’t know about the rest of you fellows, but I could use a little Mr. Hancock about now…tee-hee!”
Ben Franklin, sage of the age, rose slowly and replied, “Well, George, you know what I’ve always said: ‘Early to bed and early to rise’…if you know what I mean, big guy.”
And here is a snippet recounting the making of the first American flag:
Betsy Ross was widely credited with making the first American flag in 1776, though this is now a matter of some dispute among historians. What is not in doubt, is that she was a non-binary, transgender woman. Ms. Ross alternately identified as Betsy Ross and Ross Betsy depending on her gender identity at any given time, which was quite fluent indeed. Ms. Ross is believed to have sewn the first LGBTQ flag in 1779. Ross, born in 1752, apparently identified as gender-fluid from a young age, but stayed in the proverbial ‘closet’ (along with many other historical figures) until 1778, as society was insufficiently welcoming to those outside the arbitrarily rigid gender norms of the day.
Asked by Patrick Henry why she decided to come out, she replied: “Seeing the ‘Stars & Stripes’ and the Gadsden ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags flying so proudly, I thought to myself, ‘let your own freak flag fly, Betsy!’”
I’m sure it won’t be long until the Illinois legislature praises Swarthmore University and introduces a bill requiring all Sunday-schools in the state to include that school’s “Queering the Bible” course in their instruction plans.


Friday, April 20, 2018

Elementary School Bans Pencil Sharpeners


                William Paca Elementary School in Hyattsville, Maryland, placed a ban on personal pencil sharpeners recently after several young students allegedly cut their wrists with the blades contained inside their small plastic housing. A concerned parent came forward March 29th, causing the school to launch an investigation into the matter, according to WTTG-TV. The school announced the ban on the use and possession of the pencil sharpeners later that same day, though the school’s nurse met with each of the seven kids and determined that none of them needed to be sent to the hospital. Counselors came to the school and spoke with the students, and officials notified the families of each of the students involved in the alleged incidents by the following week.
                It is obvious that something must be done to stop these mass assaults, even if self-inflicted. We must take aggressive action now to stop the carnage wreaked by school and office supplies. No one in any place of learning, office, or other workspace should ever have to worry about the danger posed by these weapons in disguise. Today it’s portable pencil sharpeners, tomorrow it might be staplers. In the past, rulers were sometimes used to discipline unruly students, actions that would now be considered assault and battery. Nuns occasionally whacked a disruptive student on the rump in days of yore. Today we know this is sexual harassment, #MeToo, #bantheruler.
                How long will it be until a carelessly flung rubber band strikes someone in the eye? How long until someone stabs another—or themselves—with a Bic pen? No one should be allowed to flick—or fling-- their Bic! We are well aware of the inherent dangers of lead pencils and have taken admirable steps to keep them out of the public’s hands, however it’s not just toxicity that’s the problem… there’s also the risk that someone could be stabbed or have their eye(s) put out. Scissors are an obvious threat. The sale and manufacture of regular scissors should be prohibited, and ones with rounded tips should be subject to a five-day waiting period. Hole-punchers could be used as a low-cost (but completely unsafe) alternative to pierce one’s ears, and should, at the very least, be heavily regulated. Elmer’s glue or other forms of paste could be sniffed or cause one’s fingers to stick together, either of which is unacceptable.
Compasses, those fiendishly sharp instruments used to inscribe circles and arcs and measure distances on maps, have blessedly fallen into disfavor with the advent of computer technology. However, it is still possible to obtain them. A law must be passed mandating the immediate seizure and destruction of all of these “tools” currently extant. And this is just scratching the surface of the steps that need to be taken.
We have made strides. We have banned the Ten Commandments from public spaces, prayer in public schools and outmoded concepts such as “mom” and “dad” and “boy” and “girl.” We have put “not for human consumption” (don’t eat) warning labels on everything from posters, desks and lockers to tape dispensers, calculators, and keyboards. We are gradually reducing risks to the wellbeing of students and workers.
If we take these additional common-sense measures, our students will remain mentally unscarred and physically unscathed, free to go home to a parental unit or guardian and watch rap videos and play “Grand Theft Auto V.”
               

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Russia Says Britain "Staged" Syrian Chemical Attack


                Major General Igor Yevgenyevich Konashenkov, chief spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, recently claimed that the Kremlin has evidence that Britain staged the horrific chemical attack on Syrian citizens. Konashenkov said: “We have…evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organizing this provocation,” according to the U.K.’s The Sun newspaper and other sources. The Sun says he released statements, purportedly from medics working at Douma’s hospital, alleging that a group of people holding video cameras entered the hospital while shouting that its patients were struck with chemical weapons. The so-called “medics” in the report claimed that none of the patients they were treating were hurt by chemicals.
                In an until now unreported footnote to the story, the Major General went on to accuse Britain of being behind the Night of the Long Knives (“Nacht der langen Messer”) in 1934, the slaughter of a million people in the Killing Fields of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, the Chernobyl disaster on April 26th, 1986, and the spread of Lyme disease around the world in recent years.
                Moreover, Konashenkov said the Kremlin now has “incontrovertible evidence” that the “U.S. itself perpetrated the attack on pearl Harbor.” He added that he believes President Lincoln “invented” the assault on Fort Sumter that started the Civil War, and that Sweden was responsible for the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. 
                The spokesman then cut his remarks short, saying that he had to hurry home, as his young son lost a tooth and he needed to put it under his pillow so the Tooth Fairy would come during the night and leave him a few rubles.

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Stormy Daniels' Sketch: Tom Brady??!


                Porn star and CNN seductress “Stormy Daniels” (a.k.a. Stephanie Clifford) released a sketch of the man who she claims threatened her to keep quiet about her past relationship with president Trump. The figure in the drawing, revealed on ABC’s “The View,” struck many as a dead ringer for New England Patriot’s quarterback Tom Brady.
                Ms. Daniels reiterated the assertion she made last month on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that a man approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 warning her to keep quiet about her alleged one-night-stand with then private citizen Donald Trump five years earlier. Daniels described the man as “well dressed,” saying he was wearing a suit.
                She added, “I thought he was someone’s husband” and noted that she found him “Kind of cute,” and that “Nothing about him alarmed me.” Does that sound like Brady, or what?
                Boston Globe Deputy Washington Bureau Chief and CNN political analyst Matt Viser posted the sketch juxtaposed with a picture of Tom Brady from 2011, tweeting: “Stormy Daniels sketch of man who threatened her in 2011…and Tom Brady in 2011.”
                Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, appearing on the show with her, offered a $100,000 reward for help identifying the man. That’s chump-change to the wealthy Patriots quarterback, who could easily pull a Michael Cohen and offer hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to keep anyone from coming forward.
                Personally, I think the picture is coming into focus now. It’s finally all coming together. Isn’t it obvious? I mean, Brady and Trump have talked on a number of occasions over the years, interactions that seemed cordial. We know Brady has dispensed with a number of cell phones over the years. Was he hiding evidence of nefarious talks with Trump? And, he plays for a team called the Patriots. That’s as nationalistic and xenophobic as it gets. The team used to have a white guy on its helmets, for crying out loud! Right up Trump’s alley. Founders and Puritans.
                Was Stormy perhaps cautioned on the very same Mandalay Bay parking lot into which Stephen Paddock fired countless rounds, killing 58 people and injuring 851? Is it really far-fetched to think that perhaps Brady was assisting Paddock behind the scenes, as he was already familiar with the venue? Could this be why so much information about the slaughter has been withheld from the public? Furthermore, was not Brady’s 2015 “Deflategate” scandal perpetrated against the Indianapolis Colts? And was it not Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis that Vice-president Pence walked out of when some of the Colts players refused to stand for the American National Anthem during an NFL game last year?
                And then there is the clincher: don’t colts run around in paddocks?
                I rest my case.
                                                 ***********************************
                (No publicity hound, Stormy Daniels is calling her new ‘dance’ tour, “Make America Horny Again.” She recently performed at a club near Trump’s Mara Lago residence. Pure coincidence).  



Tuesday, April 17, 2018

James Comey: Open Book


             James Comey is touring the U.S. promoting his new book. You may have heard. It’s about himself! And President Trump! And himself! (Who doesn’t have a new book out about their relationship with Trump?). It’s titled: “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.” Any book by or about Comey that has a title with any combination of the words “leadership,” “loyalty” and “truth” in it is obviously a work of fiction.

Roll up
You need no reservation
Roll up for the History Tour

The Mythical History Tour
Is dying to blow you away
Dying to blow you away
Blow you today

Comey’s homie, special counsel Robert Mueller, was apparently not provided with a draft of the book before it was published. Comey, the disgraced former Director of the Federal Bureau of Interference in elections (FBI)-- and consummate scumbag-- appears to be a world-class publicity-whore hound. Self-absorbed? He wrote the book on that.
Comey apparently lied under oath to Congress about the number of emails from Hillary Clinton found on Huma Abedin’s server, infuriating Democrats, yet botched other aspects of the “investigation” into the Hillary Clinton email scandals, exonerating her before even meeting her for questioning, infuriating Republicans, and was weak and indecisive during his time as head of the FBI.
His partner in crime—and fellow former head of the Federal Bureau of Incompetence-- Robert Mueller, has taken the concept of “overreach” to heretofore unseen levels. In raiding the president’s attorney’s office, home…and possibly every other edifice into which Michael Cohen has ever stepped…Herr Mueller has taken it upon himself to obliterate the legal notion of attorney-client privilege. With this action, Mueller has essentially stated: “Let everyone know, whether they wish me well or ill, that I will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, and oppose any foe in order to assure the removal and distress of Donald Trump.” Collusion with Russia be damned, if he can find a campaign finance violation here, a sexual impropriety there, and perhaps an opaque business transaction or two as well, he will stop at nothing to personally see that the will of the people is negated, overturned, dismissed, abrogated and destroyed.
This amounts to an attempted coup d’ Ă©tat, and is especially disturbing when juxtaposed with the various high crimes and misdemeanors that the FBI and other federal agencies deliberately let the Clintons get away with.

Looking for a good read? Comey and Mueller should have their rights read to them. 

And then be booked…into jail.

Monday, April 16, 2018

Voter Shaming In Illinois


                If you live in the Land of Lincoln, the Illinois State Voter Program may be watching you. Closely. It’s monitoring how frequently you…and your neighbors…vote. And it might just mail your personal voter information to your neighbors, and their personal voting record to you, according to WBBM-TV. 

                Many Chicago voters are understandably upset after receiving mailers containing their voting history since 2014. WBBM reports that the Illinois State Board of Elections has been “flooded with complaints” about the mailers, which also attempt to shame and browbeat residents into voting. The mailer snarkily asks/threatens recipients: “What if your friends, your neighbors, and your community knew whether you voted?”

                Well, now they do.
                It then states: “Do your civic duty: vote!”

                Or else what? Will those who don’t comply with that “advice” receive a three A.M. knock on the door at some point in the future? Will they be forcefully fitted for “cement shoes?”
Those appear to be valid questions as the “letter” also includes a not-too-veiled threat to send notices out again and again “to your friends, your neighbors, and other people” if recipients do not vote in the 2018 elections. Really? To which “other” people? Local politicians? City Hall? The DNC? George Soros? MoveOn.org? Barack Obama?
According to WBBM, the mailers are technically legal, as the group reportedly uses publicly available data. They are none-the-less chilling, however. As the classic Canadian rock band Rush so elegantly stated years ago, “You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice, (but) If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
And a critical one at that. Perhaps you don’t feel versed on the issues, or don’t care for either/any candidate. A participatory democracy doesn’t demand that everyone vote in every-- or any-- election, through coercion or otherwise. That same Rush song concludes with the lyrics, “I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose free will.”
Freedom was the animating principle on which America was founded. It is the reason we have fought our wars. Abraham Lincoln essentially sacrificed his life that so many others might be free.
The Illinois State Voter Program certainly doesn’t qualify as a “celestial voice.” There is no reason that anyone should heed it. The gap between telling people to vote and telling them how to vote is a very short one for the government, or other political powers-that-be, to bridge. (Big unions have already done so).
Lincoln is rolling in his grave.
I have a question for those in government in general and in the Illinois State Voter Program in specific: “What if the citizens were properly educated and knew how corrupt you are, and how opposed to liberty and Natural Rights those in the deep-state are?”
What if we all chose free will?

Sunday, April 15, 2018

White Privilege


                A professor at San Diego State University has offered to give her students extra credit if they take a quiz to ascertain their level of “white privilege.” The intrepid sociology instructor told her students that they can pad their grades by completing a “White Privilege Checklist” that is comprised of 20 questions designed to show that “racial privilege is one form of privilege.”
                “Questions” to be answered include:
                “I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race,” and, “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in flesh color and have them more or less match my skin.” This leads directly to another question: “WTF?!”
                Students were told to add up their scores. A higher score meant they had a higher level of privilege and a lower score meant they had a lower level of privilege. At the end of the “quiz” the kiddies were made aware of other forms of privilege, such as gender (male), sexual orientation (straight), class (upper), and religion (Christian), and were asked to identify any other types of privilege they could think of.

                Finally, to earn extra extra credit, straight white male Christian students were asked to kill themselves. (Perfect score!).
                Just kidding.

Actually, students were told to also answer another series of questions given to them by the pontificating professor. These were: “Were you surprised by your score, or did it confirm what you already knew? Why is privilege normally invisible and what does it feel like to make it visible? Do you think this exercise is different for white students than for students of color? For black students than for Asian, Indian, Latino/a students, or other students of color?”
Professor, I can identify another form of privilege now. The clear and present privilege that leftist “educators” possess in living comfortable lives in the West while continually berating the very countries that are tolerant enough (or naĂ®ve enough) to let them determine who can speak, what is taught, what is politically-correct, what the definition of privilege is…and who is or is not a victim of other people’s presumed privilege.
Or, as Ben Shapiro recently put it, “The only real privilege in America is American privilege. Everybody in America has it…the privilege to make your own decisions and live the life you choose.” (Emphases mine).
Ironically, that real privilege is being eroded, gradually wiped away by the very progressives who claim they are victims of white privilege, Christian privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc., etc. As they rail against the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, and the “living document” of the Constitution in general, they bring us all closer to being ruled by a repressive-- eventually totalitarian-- government.
 In attempting to replace our Bill of Rights with a bill of goods, these progressive poseurs are prying open a political Pandora’s box. We all know how that story ends.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Frozen 2: It's A Brave New Disney!


Burbank, CA.
Frozen 2: Character Trait Mock-Up/Storyboard

>Everyone knows Elsa’s been grappling with a mighty secret. Revealed: she is a cis-gendered lesbian who’s just been born free!

>Pretty, impulsive Anna has her own secrets to reveal: she is a transgendered lesbian, formerly known as Gus. As it turns out, she’s a cunning linguist, as well, and is embarking on a career as an author of children’s books!

>Olaf likes warm hugs because he’s a serial harasser. It particularly melts his heart (and stiffens his twig!) when young girls snuggle with him.  Elsa and Anna get wise to him…#MeToo!

>Sven the reindeer fawns over his friend-with-benefits Kristoff. He will pull Kristoff’s sleigh from in front…if Kristoff will plow him from the rear! Hot inter-species action like only Disney can bring to the screen!

>Hans is a handsome—and handsy—royal from a neighboring kingdom who came to Arendelle for Elsa’s “coronation.” He now offers Elsa and Anna the use of his “stately scepter.”

>Oaken runs Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post, Gay Bar and Bathhouse, where he also makes meth in a shed out back and dispenses marijuana to the locals.

>Kristoff, unbeknownst to Sven, is polyamorous (emphasis on amorous!), and likes to play naked Twister™ with Kai and Bulda. He is an outdoorsman who likes to “do it” in the open.

>“Snowgies,” tiny little fellows who look like miniature snowmen, are brought into this world whenever Elsa climaxes. Which she does… a lot. Especially in “F 2.”

>Marshmallow is a huge ice-coated snowman that Elsa conjures up. Like Christians and conservatives, he can be a little scary.

>The Duke of Weselton tries to compensate for his lack of height by being an arrogant show-boater. A white-supremacist, he enjoys going to Oaken’s Trading Post, Gay Bar and Bathhouse to “hang out” with the boys. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge J).  As the movie closes, Elsa shoots him dead while he reposes in a hot tub with a Donald Trump look-alike.


Friday, April 13, 2018

McKinley Statue Targeted


            And now it’s McKinley.

Activists in Arcata, California, want the town’s statue of former President William McKinley taken down because they say the 25th Commander-in-Chief was a proponent of “settler colonialism,” that “savaged, raped and killed,” the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous People told the Los Angeles Times. The activists say they were inspired by the wave of protests over Confederate monuments that swept across the United States last year. This is just the latest in a string of moves to tear down monuments deemed offensive to Native Americans.
In February, Arcata’s City Council voted 4 to 1 to get rid of the statue.
Of course, by today’s standards, McKinley had a few questionable views and policy prescriptions. But the same could be said about any human being in any era. It is irrational and counterproductive to measure, in absolute terms, the thoughts and behavior of any person from a different era by the current era’s “standards,” those standards themselves likely to be judged as inexplicable—or worse—at a future date.
McKinley joined the Union Army at 18 years of age and fought at the Battle of Antietam. He was sympathetic to the abolitionists and the African-Americans they were trying to emancipate. After the war, he married Ida Sexton, whose mother passed away shortly before their two young daughters died, as well. Ida’s health left her, and she spent the rest of her life as an invalid. McKinley patiently catered to her, doting on her throughout his growing political career, as difficult as that made his life, publicly and privately. He also tried to keep the U.S. out of war with Spain, asking only for a few concessions after Spanish forces started suppressing a revolution in Cuba, enraging the American public and press. The Treaty of Paris officially ended the Spanish-American War, ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the U.S., while granting independence to Cuba. Opponents of the treaty branded McKinley an imperialist, though the public was solidly behind him.
McKinley was also the victim of gun violence, as an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot him on September 6th, while he was greeting citizens in Buffalo, New York, at the Pan-American Exposition’s Temple of Music. He died eight days later. The big man who risked everything fighting for the Union, emancipation, and his wife…ceased to be. Until he was memorialized in a few statues around the nation he served. But, he is now being stripped of even that modest recognition by the Tolerant Ones who’ve never erred, warred or entertained a bigoted, sexist, racist or impure thought.
Ergo, the fundamental transformation of the West continues apace, bureaucratic intransigence too big a barrier for any one man to overcome. The Deep State will defeat deep thinking every time, if the former owns all means of communication. Leftists, abetted by impotent establishment Republicans, have put paid to the concept of limited government. In its place, the majority seems to prefer a government that can deliver a guaranteed basic income, free contraception, and a deliverance from stress, effort, and scary things. And, could it please read us a bedtime story and tuck us in, too?
Progressivism is progressing so quickly now that in a few years it will be unimpeachable orthodoxy that the right to polyamorous inter-species marriage is clearly enshrined in the Constitution, the father author of which, James Madison, was actually a transvestite who liked to wear his wife Dolly’s clothes down to the local tavern. It will soon be held as similarly conventional wisdom that the verse in the Bible (Matthew 22: 37-39) reading “Love your neighbor as yourself” means we should sleep, shower and masturbate with them.



Thursday, April 12, 2018

Los Angeles To Paint Streets White

                To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Well, there they go again.”

                Los Angeles officials have been painting the city’s streets white, hoping to keep the city cooler this summer by reducing the effects of urban “heat islands.” The heat island effect occurs when structures such as buildings, roads and parking lots absorb heat by day and subsequently release it overnight. Darker structures naturally absorb more heat than lighter ones.
                La-La Land officials are spending an estimated $40,000 per mile in this ill-fated attempt to combat global warming by applying “CoolSeal” to Tinseltown’s asphalt roadways. While I’m sure the product works as the manufacturer claims, it’s rather like sticking one’s pinky finger in a hole in the Hoover dam and expecting to stanch the flow. Besides, the planet appears more likely to be entering another ice age than to be in danger of spontaneously combusting.
                Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says the project is part of an overall plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the City of Angels by 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2025. He’s going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by changing the color of the streets from black to white? Like, Dude, take another toke.
                After President Trump said the U.S. would not be bound by the Paris Climate Agreement last year, Mayor Garcetti stated: "Climate change is a fact of life that people in Los Angeles and cities around the world live with every day. It is a grave threat to our health, our environment, and our economy — and it is not debatable or negotiable.”
               Why is it that everything leftists believe in “is not debatable or negotiable?” And how did they procure the “right” to determine what can be discussed?
   Mr. Mayor, spending $40,000 a mile to lighten the color of your town’s streets is a grave threat to your economy.
   You can “Paint the Town Black” if you make it to Lego’s level 5. I’ve heard of “painting the town red.” Even done it once or twice myself. But “painting the town white?” Isn’t that an offensive concept in this politically correct era? I thought “whiteness” conferred privilege and was problematic at best. Are African-Americans more responsible than white folk for global warming, then? I mean, if their bodies absorb more heat, wouldn’t black neighborhoods be warmer than white ones according to the urban heat island logic? No wonder why Africa’s so warm!
  This is California’s Great White Hope, tinting the streets? Keep telling your little white lies, Mayor. Paint your town lily white. This white elephant might end up giving it a black eye.

                                        ***************************
 I see a black street and I want it painted white
 No colors any more, I want them to turn white
 I see the cars drive by, black as a murder of crows
 I have to turn my head until their darkness goes

 I wanna see them painted white, painted white
 White and bright, white as flight
 I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
 I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted white!

 (Partial rewrite of the Rolling Stones song, “Paint it Black”)


Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Knife Control


                Officials in England are desperately trying to appear as if they are doing something substantive to combat the country’s skyrocketing number of stabbings. London’s assault and murder rates are approaching—and even surpassing—those of New York City…for the first time in the modern era. This despite the nation’s strict gun control laws, some of the most draconian in the world.
                Truth be told, this crisis is the result of the government’s absolute refusal to acknowledge truth. First off, the assaults are made more likely—and more likely to be deadly—because of the stringent gun control laws, as law abiding citizens cannot effectively defend themselves, and would-be criminals know it. Secondly, the vast majority of the stabbings—some 85 percent of them—are perpetrated by or involve those in the country as a result of liberal immigration policies or illegal immigration, something the government will not admit. The situation can’t get measurably better until authorities can handle the truth…something that doesn’t appear likely to happen anytime soon. 
                So, what are those in power doing about the bloodshed? Talking about knife control, of course! London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, said, “No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.” The good news is no one will be able to “cut the cheese anymore.” Or their steaks, sandwiches, or rope, etc., etc. Will Swiss Army Knives, once a young boy’s staple, eventually go the way of the Passenger Pigeon?
                Mark Steyn, appearing recently on Tucker Carlson Tonight, recalled a time when he was on a beach in France, and a mom and her two daughters were nearby tanning in their bikinis. A Muslim man, offended at the sight, lit into them with a fork, repeatedly stabbing them. The women had to be taken to a hospital. Is the most relevant part of this account that the fork is dangerous? Do we also need fork control?
                Apparently so. Will there be a waiting period to purchase butcher’s knives? Automatic or spring-assisted knives? Fixed-blade knives? Butter knives? The same thing will happen in the United States eventually, too. It’s only a matter of time until Congress calls in a spokesperson for the American Knife Manufacturers Association to testify as to the group’s nefarious acts and intentions. The politicians will probably also ban the manufacture of black or silver plastic cutlery, since these utensils look alarmingly like the real things, as they’ve already done with toy guns. Only white plastic cutlery will be allowed going forward.
And the forks will have to have soft rubber tines.

Stick one in us right now, while it’s still possible. We’re done.
                                         *******************
(Update 4/24/2018: it appears I was again prescient. The Brits are declaring war on knives, and anything sharp and pointy, apparently. http://reason.com/archives/2018/04/24/londoners-embrace-knife-control).