AN INSTANT COLLECTIBLE?

I'm always fascinated when major corporations make really stupid mistakes. The latest is Old Navy. For some reason they thought that a great fashion item for female tots was the tee shirt above. Some wit thought it would very clever to change the word "artist" to "astronaut" or "president". Why? To be an artist is an admirable achievement. This shirt suggests it isn't. I can't think of any profession Old Navy could use that wouldn't insult someone: Housewife? Secretary? Teacher? It's a bad idea all around. Anyway, parents have expressed their outrage. Old Navy is abashed. And the item is being removed or never sent to their stores.

Note: I would have written YOUNG ASPIRING and let the parents fill in whatever they wanted with a Sharpie.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TOAST.

For most of my life toast was bread that was, well, toasted. It was generally white bread that was put in a toaster until it was golden brown. No matter where you went that was what you could expect when you asked for toast. Not any more. For some reason toasted toast is no longer available. More often than not the bread you have with your breakfast out looks like it was toasted with a hair dryer. This seems to be the standard today and I can't imagine why. It's true with bread and true with bagels. At Starbucks and Panera and elsewhere I have to request for a bagel to be triple-toasted to even make it acceptable. Is this under toasting to save time? save electricity? save money? Who knows? But it's another example of Americans being like sheep. They generally accept everything they are handed without question or complaint. I say this assuming that most people would rather have nice crispy toast than semi-warm bread. Now that I've got that out of my system, what's with these restaurants who give you one or two pats of butter for a stack of pancakes?

Look at the photo above. That's typical of restaurants today. Toast with hardly any color change at all, and two small dollops of butter for six pieces of "toast" and three pancakes. 

ANOTHER CASE OF THE D.T.s

I see where Donald Trump has dragged out the Monica Lewinsky incident as an illogical attack on Hillary Clinton. Frankly I don't see how Clinton's peccadillo (which was nobody's business as far as I'm concerned) reflects badly on her. She and Bill were married in 1975. And they're still together after 41 years. I think that speaks volumes about Hillary's loyalty, patience and forgiveness--all virtues.  Fickle Donald, on the other hand, has been married three times.  It seems that when Donald got horny, he cheats on his present wife (with not one but several women) then gets a divorce, marries the latest infatuation and eventually dumps her. Not surprised Monica was infatuated with Bill Clinton; he's a handsome guy with tons of charisma. Donald Trump's appeal on other hand is more than likely the vast fortune he always brags about.

"What, me worry?"

When is Jeb!!!!!!Bush going to accept that fact that he does not have a shot at being president? When is he going to realize that his goofy, ex-alcoholic, inside trader, Malaprop-spouting, mass murderer, war criminal brother has ruined any chance he has at such a high office? The Bush name is an anathema to political discourse. Jeb may be the smarter brother but he is not smart enough, not dynamic enough, not appealing enough. In another futile attempt to appear macho he says he'd like to square off with Donald Trump on a one-on-one debate. I assume he feels he will have better arguments that Mr. Trump. But the loud-mouthed, much divorced, boastful boor Donald is way ahead in the polls despite his lack of humanity, intelligence, logic, and class. Which means that Jeb! has nothing to fight him with but useless reality stated in his non-stentorian voice with his constant look of wounded befuddlement which does him no good at all.

I hate euphemisms. They may make people feel better about something unpleasant, but they hide the truth, which is always a bad idea. A soldier isn't "fallen", he's dead. Your son isn't "experimenting with drugs" he's taking them. He's a user, not a scientist.

NUN SEQUITUR

What a moronic commercial. The message, if there is one, is not very clear. It isn't funny. It isn't trenchant. And despite being an atheist, I find it very offensive when ad agencies use religious figures for that they think will be a funny spot, which this isn't. Why would a nun need contact lenses? According to these morons because her glasses don't go with anything. (Though the actress does not state the line very clearly.)By even suggesting that she is guided by vanity, they are insulting her calling.

VICTIM OF MURDER

What is going on? A patrolman drives up to a suspected crime scene, emerges from his police cruiser and within two seconds shoots 12-year-old, Tamir Rice to death. No questions, no evaluating the scene, no attempt at wounding the child, not a second wasted in questioning whether the gun was real or the child had mental problems. No. Get out of the car. Point your gun at this child and kill him.  Now nearly 400 days later an Ohio grand jury has declined to indict either the shooter, rookie patrolman Timothy Loehmann,  or veteran officer Frank Garmback. Both officers claim they repeatedly yelled at Tamir to "show me your hands" but surveillance video shows that to be a complete lie. This is murder. This is cold-blooded murder. This is murder without hesitation. The members of that grand jury should
be absolutely ashamed of themselves. This is a horrible crime that keeps happening more and more.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the man who many Americans are hoping will be the next president of the United States. 

More double-talk from Maw Mouth.

Rafael Cruz, who is always repulsive, was particularly so this week. He released one of his campaign commercials in which he is sitting on a sofa with his wife and two daughters. He has somehow managed to get these politically ignorant children to make comments detrimental to Hillary Clinton. (Did you expect he would do an honest commercial about what he can offer?) Then when some cartoonist drew a photo of Cruz with two little monkeys on a leash, he got all morally outraged and suddenly the monkeys turned back into innocent children. This man is so stupid he doesn't see the hypocrisy of this action. Sorry, Rafael, but if you choose to put your two daughters in a tv commercial and use them as puppets to repeat what you have fed them, then children—at least your children— are not off limits. Grind on.

The Year of the Nobody.

Wouldn't it be great if next year, we didn't have to constantly hear about the Jenners and the Kardashians. Imagine if the news media starting reporting about people who actually contributed something to society, had something to say, boasted an actual talent. How nice not to get constant reportage on a Kardashian famous for her enormous ass, or a Jenner famous for being an enormous ass. But maybe that's too much to ask for in our shallow society where Donald—God help us—Trump may become president; movies are not judged by how good they are, but by box office; and best selling books are trash like The Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Gray (or is it Grey? Who cares?). No, as long as we have a lazy media we can expect to see shallow news stories in 2016 about the same insignificant ciphers who we were already tired of in 2015. (Sigh.)

X marks the spot.

I always wondered why policemen, who have had a lot of  target practice, always shoot to kill--even for a crime as minor as shoplifting. After all if you shoot someone in the leg, they become immobile. If you've had enough target practice, you should be able to hit someone in the arm and make them drop that knife, or even shoot the knife right out of their hand like Shane. But that isn't what happens. Time after time we hear about a cop shooting someone in the heart after being threatened with a ballpoint pen or a piece of wood. Now I think I know why. It must be because at most target ranges the target looks like the one above. The goal is to hit the figure right in the middle. This target doesn't even have legs for anyone to practice on shooting.  Maybe if we started insisting on more full-figure targets, the lives of more minor criminals or the mentally ill might be saved.

Please don't offer me your seat.

The worst thing to happen to senior citizens is well-meaning people. Even at 73, I like to think I still appear, if not young, then healthy and robust. So, it is very depressing when someone on the subway offers me their seat. With that kind gesture they have spoiled any illusions I have that I do not look elderly. Frankly, I would rather stand for a half-an-hour than accept the seat that I really don't need in the first place. Just remember with many senior citizens ego is more important than comfort or even senior-discount savings. So before you play the considerate and polite role, ask yourself, "Does this person really want to be offered a seat in front of all these strangers?" In my case the answer would always be "no". I recall the mirror of aging was first held up to me ten years ago by a cafeteria cashier who offered me their "golden-age discount". I knew then and there the rest of my life would include one of the worst curses of old age—next to wrinkles, grey hair, arthritis, and endless maladies—well-meaning people!

You can't have both of them.

For a long time I have watched ABC World News for many reasons, especially their Made in America segments. But lately I find it increasingly difficult to endure. While I like David Muir, I find his sloppy diction annoying as hell, and can't imagine why the network doesn't speak to him about it. Also annoying is the transparent attempts at beefcake reporting (do all the male reporters really need to wear tight jeans?).  But most offensive is the constant promotion of Disney-released films, like Star Wars, disguised as news. ABC has enough commercials without making the news itself a promotion for the network owners. While I feel guilty about ditching ABC, I must say that the CBS Evening News offers much better coverage and superior diction.

A major cause of high blood pressure.

I have just spent 45 minutes trying to contact Comcast. They have the most annoying, ineffective, and long-winded automatic phone service in the world. And the most incompetent. I was disconnected twice, kept waiting fifteen minutes the third time, and never did get through. How does such an ineffective company continue to survive. I am sure that now that I am ready to disconnect service, they will make it impossible for me to ever reach them to achieve that desired goal. After recovering my composure, which wasn't easy, I tried again. This time I reached a girl in the Philippines When I asked to speak to someone in America, she said it wasn't possible. Now I see the problem. Comcast, like so many traitorous,  unAmerican companies is too f-ing cheap to provide service for its customers: ergo a lousy automated phone system and "technicians" in the Philippines, mostly women who get paid less.
Also every time I turn on my computer, it asks me to "enable my cookies". How to I get rid of that ever-returning message?

Note: There are many visuals on the Internet that attack Comcast, and rightly so. But this one is totally inaccurate. I don't doubt that their phone staff are this callous, I just doubt that they are this white-shirt American. 

Art

Recently when I went to The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, I was astonished by the exhibition of Vermeer, Rembrandt and other Dutch Masters. I thought these artists must have been aliens to have created such brilliant paintings and achieve the appearance of silk, wool, metal, flesh, hair and every other texture with only the use of oil paint. Every room in the exhibition held a generous collection of magnificent masterpieces. Later I visited the Contemporary Art galleries, and rather than being intimidated, I like many naive Americans, thought,"I could do that" on seeing large canvases using primary colors. Just give me the oils and some painter's tape, I reasoned and it would be easy.  But of course many other exhibits were highly imaginative, intricate and brilliant.  Still I decided that the most annoying thing about a great deal of contemporary art is its size. So many of these "creations" demand an greedy amount of space. (I once saw an exhibit with thousands of coat hangers. I always wondered how they would move that particular artwork.) With so many modern pieces taking up entire walls and, in many cases, entire rooms to themselves, one wonders what other works are crowded out to accommodate them.

Note: Not all these exhibits are in Boston. I think I would have remembered the lady in the bed

The missing ingredient.

During my recent trip to Boston, I stopped in at the Five Guys burger outlet on Huntington Avenue and ordered a chocolate shake. I must tell you that this was one of the best shakes I've ever had. Truly it was so thick, you couldn't drink it with a straw; you needed a spoon. Only problem was that Five Guys don't (doesn't?) have spoons. At first I thought the server meant that they had run out. But no. She told me they just don't have spoons. I find this very curious. Why would a restaurant that serves thick shakes not provide its customers with a means to consume them?  They had forks and knives and every imaginable condiment. Hmmm. No matter. I went next door and stole a spoon for Starbucks.

16,000 Frenchmen (and women) can't be wrong.

In Germany on June 26, 1963, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner" it was a great moment in history. Unfortunately similar statements since then have become maudlin cliches. As much as I admire Bono, I found it cringe worthy when, during a concert in the City of Light, weeks after the Bataclan massacre of November 14th, he said "If you love Liberty, then Paris is your home town." This comment received a roar of approval from the 16,000 fans in attendance. However, at the risk of arousing your scorn, my reaction was, "Gag me with la cuillere". 

The nut doesn't fall far from the tree.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. the heir to his father's insanity, is proving every bit as mad as the old man. After the tragic slaughter in San Bernadino, this religious charlatan, opined that he thinks Liberty University students should carry guns. Isn't that just what we need?  Can you think of anything more dangerous than a university filled with sexually repressed, highly judgemental, immature religious fanatics carrying weapons? Atheists and Muslims beware!

Double talker

It's not that I hate Republicans. Its just that they're mostly detestable, duplicitous, double-dealing, dastardly, dirty-fighting, do-nothings. Take for instance Representative Dan Donovan from New York. On a recent interview about the tragedy in San Bernadino, this dummy kept saying that "we are all in this together" with a sense of sincere bipartisanship while he was alternately taking nasty jabs at President Obama. Pity we have so many dirty politicians like this despicable douche bag.

Shame on you.

Not only have network news persons lost the ability to enunciate (mostly t's) leaving us with such terms as the innanet, innastate highways,the Atlannic ocean,and tenacles, but they don't even appreciate the meaning of  words. On a recent trip to Boston, I was surprised to hear a newscaster exclaim that the weather was so "frigging cold". Obviously this dummy did not know that frigging is a synonym for the a more popular "f" word and also a term for female masturbation.

"Ah! The fresh taste of Lake Erie."

If you think Americans aren't gullible, check out the sales of bottled water. Not only do "health conscious" consumers readily spend $1 to $3  per single serving sizes of "pure" water that probably comes from a tap in Cleveland, but they thoughtlessly toss away millions of plastic bottles that pollute the environment.  (Not to mention the irritating noise those bottles make when they are in use.) Unless you live in Flint, Michigan, where the idiotic government switched water supplies and cursed the population with a smelly, irritating, lead-rich water supply, buying bottled water is just a waste of money.

A witch in the White House?

Republican harridan Carly Fiorina, ever attuned to conspiracies, has overreacted again. After the November mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs in which three people were killed and nine were injured, a few liberal pundits suggested that this tragedy was the result of anti-abortion right-wing hate rhetoric (which it probably was).  Carly, more concerned with this criticism than the actual slaughter,  ranted "This is typical left wing tactics". And this pathetic paranoid Pandora wants to be our president.

Scary times.

Most people get cancer at three in the morning and are cured by 9 a.m.

A city without seasons.

I neglected to mention to my few loyal readers that I was going away for vacation. And being a Luddite, I have no idea how to access my blog away from home. Anyway I'm back, and I have lots of things to praise and complain about, which I will start doing later today. I went up to Boston this past spring hoping to experience warm weather and the the joy of renewal. It was cold and rainy every day. This month I went on my usual trip to experience bracing cold temperatures during the Christmas season, and hopefully snow. It was unseasonably warm every day and there wasn't even rain. Yes, Virginia, there is climate warming.