A Free Society

The Slants

The boy band, The Slants, recently won a landmark case in the Supreme Court reaffirming their fundamental rights granted by the First Amendment. For eight years, the Portland based rock group has been trying to trademark their band name which was ruled a racial slur by the Patent and Trademark Office, in accordance with the 1946 Lanham Act which prevents trademarking "scandalous, immoral or disparaging" language. The odd part in this saga is that the word "slant"  has been trademarked millions of times. The reason the band couldn't use the word was because they were Asian.

Band founder, Simon Tam, chose the name to usurp a derogatory word for Asians in attempts to change the meaning like the colonists did with the song, Yankee Doodle. British troops sang the tune to disparage American soldiers as macaronies, which were men who dressed fashionably and spoke in an effeminate manner in an attempt to appear noble. The colonists took the song as their own and sang it with pride, turning the tables on dandy shaming. In fact, the tune is the Connecticut state song.

Some people feel institutions have a responsibility to provide protections against hate speech while others think that the government should not censure any language. The Washington Redskins have been battling groups, opposed to their name, logo and mascot, who feel the label denigrates Native Americans. A recent poll by the Washington Post indicated that nine out of ten Native Americans are not offended by the football team's name. The results mirrored the same conclusions obtained in a 2004 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Institutionalized censorship is most widespread in public schools which often site the safety of the students as justification. The courts feel that minors are not capable of absorbing differing opinions so they censure students across the board. Recently, the valedictorian of a high school in Pennsylvania, Peter Butera, was stifled during his commencement speech when he got off script. Butera said,

"Despite some of the outstanding people in our school, a lack of real student government combined with the authoritative attitude that a few teachers, administrators and board members have prevented students from truly developing as true leaders."

Butera's microphone was shut off, cutting short his speech. This was not censorship rooted in safety. It was suppression based on disagreement. According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, forty percent of millennials believe that offensive speech about minorities should be prevented by law. The First Amendment specifically protects speech that people might find offensive. It's not the job of the government to protect us from what we might not want to hear or see. This is why Saint Patrick Day Parades are forced to admit a Gay Pride or a Nazi themed float. It's up to us to decide how we will react to the words we hear and the images we see, not the government.

Recently, the attorney general of California blocked state funded travel to Kentucky, Texas, Alabama and South Dakota in response to what he considers laws enacted in each state that he feels disparage LGBT groups. There are many exceptions to the ban, mainly affecting "non essential travel." One person in the California government is deciding that all state workers will be denied funding for their "boondoggle" out of office trip to Texas. This in California, a state that voted against gay marriage in 2008 on a state wide referendum known as Proposition 8.

We're seemingly always at a divide in this country. Political parties will never find common ground due to diametrically opposing fundamentals. The left believes the rich should pay more taxes. They say that the "one percenters" need to fork over their "fair share," implying that these people are somehow avoiding income tax. Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics and finance for the University of Michigan, siting 2010 IRS data, stated,

 "The top 1% of taxpayers pay almost as much in federal income tax as the entire bottom 95%, and half of that bottom group paid no taxes at all."

Upwards to 40% of tax payers get more money back from the government than they pay in through the Earned Income Credit (EIC) program. The rich who are avoiding taxes are the 0.01 percenters, that is, Warren Buffet and Mitt Romney, who realize most of their income as capitol gains which is taxed at far lower rates.

The right believes in smaller government with less regulations except when it comes to what consenting adults do in their bedroom or women do with their bodies. They believe the government should let market forces guide corporations even though in the past children worked in factories six days a week, companies broke up strikes with armed mercenaries, offered no sick nor vacation time, and often provided places of work that were so dangerous that worker died on a regular basis.

What we need is a new political philosophy not rooted in either party, but one based on the Constitution. While the cornerstone of our system of government is the First Amendment, the foundation is based on freedom. My political philosophy is,

A free society is a permissible society.

Any time legislation is purposed to restrict behavior, it should be rejected on the basis that a free society is an unfettered society. The government allowing abortion is not supporting killing unborn children. It's supporting freedom of choice. The job of preventing abortions should be left to religious organizations and activists. Access to guns should not be restricted. Reducing the clip size of a weapon supports the notion that a few deaths is better than many. If someone kills people with a screwdriver, should we ban that too? What we need is real commitment to paying for sound mental health in this country instead of letting HMOs criminalize psychological disorders because it's cheaper for them to let the prison system deal with the mentally ill.

Politicians often seek binary issues like flag burning to help bifurcate the vote. If we adopt a stance that most of what our legislators are debating about is none of their business, maybe the country can move onto more important and difficult issues. For example, same sex marriage provides a means to clarify the law and in a free society, what people do with whom is essentially none of the government's business. Local governments tie revenue to property taxes vesting them in the upkeep of your property. This has resulted in town statutes concerning lawn mowing and house repair. Fundamentally, this has removed your right to maintain your property to your own standard. A free society should not evaluate restrictions based on utilitarian aspects, but instead allow you to do what you choose. You think the house you live in is yours. Try not cutting your lawn and see what happens.

Some countries allow drug use and prostitution, but these governments don't promote these activities. Instead, they allow them while making them inconvenient to access. We should do the same with cigarettes. It shouldn't be illegal to smoke, just illegal to profit from the sale of cigarettes. If you want to smoke, you would have to join a farmer's co-op that grew tobacco and manufactured cigarettes for its members. By making cigarette's available, but inconvenient, the number of new smokers would be dramatically curtailed. The tobacco companies would never let this happen. They have too much money and power to let anything disrupt their business model.

The attorney general in California has no business refusing funds to state workers traveling to places that he perceives as unfriendly to a particular community. Not only is this not a law, it is likely that most Californians would not support this overreaching advocacy policy if it was put on referendum. This should never happen in a free society.

Sometimes, I hear people talk about liberty as if it's something tangible as in,

 "We have a lot of freedoms here."

In general, we enjoy freedom of movement, although Arizona inland border patrol are stopping people at the state border and asking them if they are citizens. Such immigration checkpoints depend heavily on people not understanding their basic constitutional rights. Most of our "freedoms" are being quietly eroded by restrictive legislation established by overreaching government entities. It's not the job of the government to protect ourselves from ourselves. In 1961 during his inaugural address, John F. Kennedy famously said,

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Today, with celebrities talking about blowing up the White House and assassinating the president, we should say,

"Ask not what you should do to the government. Ask what the government should not do to you."

Natural Selection

Thrice Wolves and Moon

My namesake uncle hates dogs. He also boycotts Wal-Mart for being on the top of the Fortune 500 heap all while historically providing limited benefits to their workforce. This has led to my favorite "blue moon" line frequently recited at family gatherings,

"I'll do that when Uncle Bob buys a dog at Wal-Mart."

Just when you'd think the country's love affair with canines couldn't get any stranger, I read an article in a local newspaper which suggested that on Mother's Day we should recognize dogs that gave birth. As a society, we're against cruelty to animals, but are we really? We swipe their children at birth, rip the testicles out of the males, perform hysterectomies on the females, then leave a pack animal alone in a crate while we go to work. All this by people who claim to be dog lovers?

Oprah took a picture with a woman and her two dogs in a stroller on Mother's Day. She uploaded it to Instagram with the comments,

"Jill and her fur children. #Happy Mothers day to Mothers of all varieties of children!"

Now, I'm not one to equate children and pets, and I especially don't like it when the childless do so. Pets are not children. First off, if the cost of treatment becomes excessive, no one ever suggests putting down a child. It's not normal to chain a child to a tree, leaving a metal bowl full of water while we go off to work all day. We also don't queue up another child when the eldest gets old. A lot of people employ this "dog on deck" strategy when their main pooch is ready to check out. You also don't get worms or giardia from your children. Some people believe that dogs suffer from ADHD, but I believe that dogs just don't have a long attention span because, well, they're dogs.

Dog's bark all day because as pack animals they don't want to be alone. I think it's cruel to crate a dog indoors or chain it to a tree. Just because your dog is happy to see you at the end of the day doesn't mean it's not affected by solitary confinement. I find barking dogs both sad and irritating. Nature has lent me a hand with noisy, unattended dogs. People who tie their dog to a tree then go to work for the day have found that this is not a safe practice when living close to nature. The problem is when you live up against a nature preserve, nature sometimes pays you a visit, and nature can be heartless. Some nature found its way into my neighbor's yard and ate Dinkles the Dog for dinner. My neighbors came home to a skeleton tied to a tree.

Once a neighbor introduced himself to us with a dog in tow, a friendly lab who in the middle of the introduction squatted to take a dump on my lawn. When he finished his business, he did that cat scratch thing to cover his tracks, but all he managed to do is mess up my grass. I thought as a human I should try this. You know, go over to someone's house to introduce my family,

"Hi, I'm Bob. This is my wife, Chris. Our boys, Aidan and William. I'm gonna shit on your lawn now."

Then bring out the Nutella fun factory. First impressions are so important.

After the dog finished pinching, he got bored and started to clean himself. Dogs have no shame. They groom their bits and pieces. They ride your leg. They indiscriminately crap. Anything goes for a dog. Nature is a big party in which the strongest gets to shit on the weakest and everyone just plays along, you know, kind of like middle school. In the wild, one animal is always taking advantage of another. They even play it safe by going after the young, the weak, the sick, the old. Nature always seeks an advantage, an opportunity to exploit the unwary.

Mahatma Gandhi said,

"The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members."

In nature, the weakest members are treated as lunch, and that works for them, but it doesn't work for us so stop referring to a pet as your child.

On the Finale of the HBO Series, Girls

Back in January, I wrote a piece about celebrities, who publically stated that they would leave the country if Trump was elected President. In it I pointed out that Lena Dunham, the creative mind behind the HBO Series, Girls, said she would move to Canada. Often when I rail on a celeb, I peruse their work first. Far be it for me to criticize something I know nothing about. So I watched a few episodes of Girls, jumping in on Season 3. Admittedly, I was hooked back then and binge watched all five seasons.
 

Lena Dunham

At first, I was puzzled by the narcissism of the four protagonists as well as supporting characters. The writing, though, was so candid and the story so tenable that I had to know where this came from and where it was going. Dunham chose to make the main characters deliberately intolerable, bucking the immutable rule that all protagonists had to be likeable. The more I despised Hannah, played by Dunham, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshana, the more I wanted to bear witness to their redemption.

The characters sometimes referenced the orginal HBO Series, Sex in the City, as in the first season when Shoshana, played by Zosia Mamet, claimed to be most like Carrie Bradshaw while occasionally releasing a wild side like Samantha. My wife, Christine, and I watched Sex in the City years ago when we were childless. As much as I disliked the themes of that series, I did learn a lot. The stories composed for Sex in the City were based on the real life dramas of the producers and writers. Sarah Jessica Parker played Carrie Bradshaw, author of a column about relationships. We learned from that show that a "fuck buddy" was a dude with a renewable yearly booty call pass. I heard of "thunder buddies," but never a fuck buddy. Carrie had a fuck buddy, and in an appropriately titled episode in Season 2, doled out the sage advice that you can never date your fuck buddy.

Sex in the City

What eventually turned me off of Sex in the City was the concept that a strong, empowered woman would unapologetically tap ass equal to that of a man. Hollywood embraces promiscuity as a power trait in women because it's more screen worthy than, say, a strong woman leading a diverse, multidisciplined team of employees in a Fortune 500 company, building a complex piece of machinery. Sex sells. Adopting one of the worse characteristics of men to establish an empowered woman may, at first, appear contrarian, but in reality it's no big deal. Fortunately, the image of women not enjoying sex and waiting for the vile experience to be over was shed in the '60's. Writers shouldn't feel that women are strong when they copy the qualities of men.

For all the inequality of pay and opportunity in the workforce today, and the lack of sexual harassment awareness and legislation prior to the 1990's, women always had one thing over us guys. It has never been empowering for a woman to get laid. That's why the overwhelming number of prostitutes are female. Sure, some prostitutes are men, but their clientele are ugly, old ladies and other dudes. The sex in Girls was never portrayed as empowering, but rather the manifestation of poor choices.

The other thing I hated about Sex in the City was the concept of the "end all, be all" guy. Most woman have an end all, be all. That's a guy who is a douche who repeatedly treats a woman, who loves him, like shit. The end all, be all guy can disappear for extended periods, then reappear, and the woman takes him back. You know, like John Mayer. It takes most women their entire twenties to finally shed their end all, be all dick of a boyfriend. I know because I was the nice guy who always got bumped by the end all, be all douchebag. Big, played by Chris Noth in Sex in the City, was an end all, be all asshole who eventually married Carrie in the perfect Hollywood ending. For all the relationship advice Carried Bradshaw dispensed through her fictitious column, I don't recall her ever warning against end all, be all dickheads, but I'm here to tell women that you don't marry your end all, be all fuck wad. You outgrow him.

I thought Adam Driver's character, Adam, in Girls would be the disappointing end all, be all conclusion to Hannah's predicament as a single parent. In the final season, Hannah, pregnant with some random surfer dude's baby, gets caught up in Adam's offer to help raise her child, including a proposal mixed in with a comment about the soup served at a restaurant, but Hannah realizes that Adam is not her savior and would not be good for her and her baby. She tearfully rejects his offer in the Season 6 episode, What Will We Do This Time About Adam? The final episode concentrates on Hannah's struggles with her newborn, most prevalent in her infant's sudden inability to breastfeed.

While Dunham's depiction of Hannah was master class, Allison Williams portrayal of Marnie was so convincing, it's hard to believe the actress isn't really like that. Marnie was always reading in great detail how to do something, and consistently making abysmal, albeit educated, choices. Marnie was Hannah's last friend and appeared with Hannah's mother in the final episode which was no grandiose, two hour finale. There was no pretentious curtain call or irritating applause from a live studio audience.

While reading a book on breastfeeding, Marnie offers tidbits of advise concerning nipple position. Hannah asks if Marnie has nipples because she never saw them. Lena Dunham was ribbing her costar, who never showed her breasts throughout the series. There was a lot of nudity in Girls. In six seasons, I saw Lena Dunham's nipples more than I saw my own. With all the groundbreaking nudity and sex scenes in Girls, Allison Williams chose otherwise even though she starred in the now iconic "motorboat scene," in which Desi, her on screen husband, free dove on her sewer cap. Like Sex in the City, Girls taught me a new vernacular.

For most of the last episode, Hannah continues her narcissistic tirades until she meets her match in a younger version of herself, who is mad at her mother for forcing her to do her history homework. At first Hannah offers a safety net to the hapless high schooler, who comes off as if she just escaped an abusive stepfather. When Hannah learns that the girl is simply trying to get to her football playing boyfriend, Hannah spontaneously unloads advice that her mother is just doing what's best for her and will continue to do so tirelessly for rest of her life.

The final episode ends with Hannah's baby rediscovering his mother's milk, and the off screen sounds of a baby breastfeeding with his mother's encouragement. I remember that sound well. Typically, Girls ended with some trendy music, but the finale finished with Hannah singing a cappella, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, after stifling Marnie from doing so earlier in the episode. It was subtle and ingeniously fulfilling.

Critics say that Dunham left loose ends, but I disagree. Shoshanna married, then probably got divorced a few years later, which would have prompted her to reconnect with Hannah. Jessa, played by Jemima Kirke, stayed with Adam and likely overdosed at some time in the near future. Marnie had a go of law school, finding a new passion to match her singing. Ray made a life with Abigail under her eternal sunshine. Elijah had a fantastic run on Broadway after his stellar performance in the production of White Men Can't Jump.

More drama might have satisfied the American audience, who often needs their hand held to the very end. Some critics were angered that Hannah didn't abort her unplanned, out of wedlock baby in the series finale, expressing that it was the logical solution since Dunham stated in a podcast that she wished she had an abortion so she could commiserate with all the brave woman who made that decision. Lena Dunham addressed this by saying that she supports a woman's right to choose which includes choosing to have a baby.

Friends come and go in adult relationships. If you're lucky, one might linger. That's the message I got from Girls along with the sad fact that millennials need an extra decade to grow up. Lena Dunham told the story with the genuine flare of a genius and kept her audience unprepared for the journey ahead.

And that's the bird I had to eat for my post back in January.

Bacon, Anybody

Not more than twenty days into his presidency and the political pundits were right. Trump is going to ruin the country. The first sign of pending doom? The massive pork shortage that is looming over our country.



Artist's Rendition of Bacon

Sure, we all knew Trump would cut out waste in government and get rid of pork spending, but who knew it would lead to a nationwide bacon shortage?

As I understand it, the "other white meat" dearth was tied to Trump's immigration policy. Most refugees escape to the United States carrying a piglet or chicken. The immigration ban has severely limited the swine population. A friend of my son lives in Hong Kong. He says that farm animals are common passengers on trains in China. Farmers bring hogs, calves, pigs and chickens on trains to take them to market. He explained,

"You have to pick your train carefully."

The criteria being the train going back is far more preferable. Here in America, you can't bring a farm animal onto public transportation unless it's a "service pet," that is, an animal needed to cope with anxiety or stress.

A Chameleon

One time, I sat next to a dude on a plane who had a chameleon as a service pet. It was perched on his shoulder with both eyes looking about independently. The lizard may have calmed this guy down, but its constant scanning of the cabin with those two unfettered, beady eyes really freaked me out. He even fed the thing by opening a container of live crickets into which the chameleon launched its sticky tongue to fetch a hapless insect. At one point, the chameleon zeroed in on a mole on my arm, then launched its glue coated tongue.

I screamed like a piglet once his tongue landed on my arm. The person in front of the dude pushed his seat back, and lizard man immediately exhibited an exorbitant amount of disdain. He was mad at the guy in front of him for using the space the airline provides every passenger, all while he ignored his service iguana stuck to my arm. Apparently the chameleon wasn't working as a stress reliever because he began pushing the guy's seat back. The man in the seat stood and said,

"Dude, what is your problem?"

"You didn't ask," gecko man answered.

Seat guy retorted, "Ask what?"

"If you could move your seat back."

Now, seat guy was fuming and iguana man was angry too. I sat silently with a chameleon stuck to my arm. A steward came by and tried to sort the whole thing out. After reviewing the situation, she made the call to move chameleon man to first class. The dude unstuck his service pet from my arm, then made his way to the greener, more luxurious pastures at the front of the plane. The steward gave seat guy another bag of beer nuts. I got nothing. Not even a napkin to wipe the iguana spit off my arm.

The Law of Unintended Consequence often rears its ugly head in these situations. A woman in first class was traveling with a sizeable service pig. Apparently, it's becoming quite common. Back in October a woman flew on US Airways from Philadelphia to Seattle with a 300 lb. hog. I don't know what happened on my flight because I was in the bathroom, trying to clean the iguana junk off my arm, but apparently the pig made an inflight snack of the chameleon. I wish I had seen that unfold, but I didn't. I could only imagine what went down.

What we have now is the Law of Unintended Consequences coupled with the Butterfly Effect. The ban on refugees resulted in fewer migrants crossing into our country with small pigs in tow. This led to a less diverse swine population which became more susceptible to mad cow disease. Fewer pigs caused less methane production which led to a thicker ozone layer. Too much ozone was exacerbated by women using a pump for their VO5 hairspray instead of a can of pressurized aerosol for the past thirty years, resulting in excessive greenhouse gases, which raised the surface temperature, further killing off pigs. The increased greenhouse gases caused Global Warming. The result was less bacon in America.

I think it also killed the whales.

Take Your Vote and Leave

There are several notable celebrities that vowed to leave the country if Trump was elected. Here is a rundown of a few that should be packing their bags.

Miley Cyrus

 

Miley Cyrus Adjusting the Business
End of her Lady Parts 

Miley Cyrus used to sing songs about her grandpa while playing her folk guitar, but lately she's been twerking in Robin Thicke's crotch, licking sledgehammers, and writing songs about drug use. Her transformation from Disney star to pop, soft core, diva came with the revelation that she was just being her true self. If you followed her career, you can pinpoint the exact day and time Miley discovered penis. Miley barely got out of puberty before she started performing sex acts with blow up dolls on stage. She posted on Instagram,

"I am moving if this is my president. I don't say things I don't mean!

Spoken like a true millennial. Miley Cyrus proved to me that I don't want to see all women naked. Keep your clothes on, Miley, and pack your guitar and dolls.

Barbra Streisand

 

Funny Senior Citizen
Barbara Streisand

Singer, Barbra Streisand, who wooed us in the 80's with songs about cats, like Memories, said,

"He has no facts. I don't know, I can't believe it. I'm either coming to your country (Australia), if you'll let me in, or Canada."

First off, I thought she was dead. Streisand was a comic singer/movie star who did films like Funny Girl, the musical, comedy, drama, best known for the first portrayal of a smart, funny, Jewish woman. She would whip out a Jewish accent whenever she needed to extract a laugh from the audience, then she would sing, unaccented, when she wanted us to tear up. Her career as an entertainer is unparalleled with the exception of that stint with Don Johnson. Back in the late 80's, the two started playing hide the mezuzah. Somehow, Johnson and Streisand did a duet together. How this came about, whether it was his idea or hers, the world may never know. Streisand's wiki page doesn't even mention Johnson. Obviously, singing ability wasn't a concern for Streisand. I thought she was going to do a follow up duet with David Hasselhoff. 

Streisand should be aware that Canada is to the north and Australia is to the south.

Cher

Cher Cashing a Social
Security Check at Applebees

Cher said she would move to Jupiter if Trump won. Being a product of the 70's, I'm sure Cher spent a lot of time on other planets. She shit canned Sonny Bono back in 1975, then hooked up with Gregg Allman, who she divorced four years later after he purportedly smacked her around. She continued the humorous, variety television show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, owing to Sonny's business sense. Bono was as bad a singer as Don Johnson, but he pulled it off since he was such a likable guy. Even Cher cried at his funeral after he skied into a tree.

Jupiter's gravity is 2.5 times that here on earth. Cher is pushing into her 70's. She better pump some iron before she leaves.

Al Sharpton

 

Sharpton During
Leaner Times

The Reverend Al Sharpton said,

"I’m also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins."

For decades, Sharpton has been the tireless point man in the fight for racial equality. In the late 80's, Sharpton backed Twanana Brawley, a 15 year girl who was found smeared with feces and racial slurs written on her body. Brawley claimed she was assaulted and raped by six white men including police officers and a prosecutor. A grand jury found that the slurs written on Brawley's body were backwards, implying that they were written by someone looking in a mirror. Sharpton lost a defamation suit against the men Brawley falsely accused. He never paid the six figure fine. Sharpton got Johnny Cochran to pay the damages.

Before he leaves, he should square up with the government all the back taxes he's been evading for years.

Lena Dunham

 

Lena Dunham Getting
Her Pelvis Tattooed

Lena Dunham is the quirky writer, director and star of the HBO series, Girls. Dunham is the Queen of Self Deprecation. Recently, she referred to herself as a "sack of flaming garbage," but even the trash gets taken out once in a while. She said,

"I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will."

Then she recanted, indicating that she will stick it out in her own country. I've watched a few episodes of Dunham's comedy drama, Girls. I'm not sure what the show is about. I think it's about girls, but the four protagonists are neurotic, attention seeking, unstable, drug using women, who muddle through life, always espousing how they feel about everything. Dunham's character, Hannah, eats and calls her parents every time she's stressed which is several times a day. The girls all orbit around equally pathetic guys.

Back in the day when my generation starting dating, we put our best foot forward in attempts to attract a mate. Here's an idea. Don't marry someone who's a "hot mess." The real stress in life happens later when your kid is throwing up at 3 AM, and the mortgage and taxes are due in the morning. Dunham's show must appeal to millennials who need constant propping up just to get through a day off.

When Lena moves to Canada, I recommend that she join a gym, and put down the Scooter Pies. It's cold up there, and working out will help keep her warm.

Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg
 

Ruth Dressed as Olive Oyl
for Halloween

Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Bill Clinton appointee, said,

"I can't imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president... Now it's time for us to move to New Zealand."

Sure, she's not a celebrity, but if she moves she'll have to vacate her post as a Supreme Court judge since I'm pretty sure they can't telecommute. That will leave another vacancy for Trump to fill. 

So long, Ruth.

 

Amy Schumer



Amy Schumer
Tries Water

Amy Schumer is a comedian heralding from Comedy Central. She said,

"I will need to learn to speak Spanish because I will move to Spain or somewhere... It's beyond my comprehension if Trump won. It's too crazy."

Amy keeps photoshop techs in demand. Schumer's 2015 comedy, Trainwreck, had her in the lead role, playing a drunk, pot smoking pig. First up, train wreck is two words. Second, celebrities who play drunks are usually boozers in real life. When alcohol abusing celebrities show up on the set wasted, and the script calls for it, the production can keep moving along.

Schumer's tired act often incorporates excessive drinking. She told a story to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show that she once rented Jake Gyllenhaal's condo. After rifling through his stuff, she found a frozen cake in the freezer, which she would eat when she was drunk. It took a few bottles of wine, but she finally got through the whole thing. 

Amy should be aware that Spain is tough on alcohol and drug abuse. We wouldn't want America's new funny girl to end her career in a Spanish prison.

There's a whole bunch of other celebrities who I haven't a clue who they are, Brian Cranston, Neve Campbell, Keegan-Michael Key, Ne-Yo, etc. I'm sure they're a very talented bunch who someone will miss when they move away.

As a cross generational group, I'm not exactly sure who these people think they're punishing by their threat of a life inversion. In some of the cases, the country will be a better place without them. It's just like a celebrity to think that if they move, the rest of us, especially those that voted for Trump, will somehow be upset. As if I would give a crap if Cher moved to Spain. Personally, I would help these people pack if they asked, although they'd have to hire out the heavy lifting.

They wouldn't even have to buy me pizza.

Government Geek Squad



Putin and Obama

President Obama stated recently that the US would launch a cyber attack on Russia for their involvement in hacking emails that benefitted Trump in the recent election. His saber rattling included the warning that our cyber attack would occur "at a time and place of our own choosing."

I wonder what President Obama plans on doing to Russia with a government sanctioned cyber attack? First off, we should send Putin a penis enlargement email. Then we should call him on his cell phone three times a day from places like Munson, Ohio, and tell him that he was selected to receive a free trip to the Bahamas, or qualifies for a reduced rate mortgage. Then, he can get a phone call saying the IRS is suing him.

Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes, said.

"I don't think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it."


Oliver North

Things of consequence happen all the time here, and our leaders are unaware of what is going on. In late 80's, Olivier North, a National Security staffer, was involved in a US plan to sell guns to Iran with the profits going to the Contras, a right wing militant group, in Nicaragua. Ollie was charged with lying to Congress over the subsequent investigation. President Reagan, on the other hand, testified that he hadn't a clue that weapons were being sold to Iran even though there was an arms embargo in affect. During his eight hour deposition, the President said 88 times,

Ronald Reagan

"I can't remember," or "I don't recall."

So unlike Russia, our President is often conveniently clueless. Obama suggested that the Russian hacking only benefited Trump. He said,

"They understood what everybody else understood, which was that this was not good for Hillary Clinton's campaign."

Maybe that was because the emails released by WikiLeaks, were from Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and indicated that Hillary requires 21 approvals to issue 140 characters or less on twitter. The emails also revealed that Clinton occasionally received debate questions in advance. In another email exchange, the campaign rejected 84 possible slogans including,

"America Gets Strong When You Get Ahead"

"You Deserve Other People's Money"

"Real Hair You Can Believe In"

They settled on "It's MY Turn." It's unfortunate that we need Russian cyber geeks to finally get the truth out. In a bit of middle school bravado, Obama indicated that US cyber capabilities are quite advanced. He said,

"The United States retains significant, extensive cyber capabilities that exceed the capabilities that are wielded by any other country in the world."

This shows how naïve Obama and his team are. Taunting cyber geeks is asking for trouble. If we really do have such an extensive cyber capability, can they stop the incessant cell phone spamming we all get daily? I, for one, can't wait to hear of our proportional response by our US backed cyber geek squad. Maybe a viral video on YouTube of a Putin lookalike wiping out on a slip and slide. Or perhaps Putin's head on the Dancing Baby. Or a photoshopped picture of Putin checking out Christine Aguilera's cleavage.

The possibilities are endless.