Month: December 2017

Because it’s my favorite time of the year, I thought I’d discuss a few Christmas-related stories.

Everyone has either already made their Christmas list, or is working on it.  My older daughter wants a newer used car than the one she has now, my 15 year old wants some sort of electronic gadget that does something I don’t understand, I would like a few decent draft picks for the Bears, my wife wants nothing because she is already married to me and is thus blissfully happy 24/7.

And Buzz Feed UK science editor Kelly Oakes wants a godless dictatorship that oppresses, impoverishes and murders its citizens.

Oh, she didn’t phrase it that way – what she tweeted was, “All I want for Christmas is full communism now.” But “tomato,” “to-mah-toe.”

I can only hope that her Christmas wish comes true for her.

On Christmas morning, she’ll wake up and run down the stairs to find two thugs with unibrows and heavy coats standing in her doorway.  They’ll take all of her possessions and strip her naked and throw her onto a cattle car that takes her to Siberia, where she’ll work for about 10 minutes trying to turn a big rock into a little one before she expires from a combination of hypothermia and the soul-crushing realization that she brought her misery on herself by being such a blind, naïve leftist stooge.

Merry Christmas, Kelly!

And, scene.

 

In other peace-on-earth-related news, have you heard about what happened to the Miss Iraq contestant at the Miss Universe International Beauty Pageant?   (And yes, that is a thing.  And yes, there is a Miss Iraq.  And no, she does not have a Saddam-esque mustache, you xenophobic jokesters.)

Well, she took a picture with Miss Israel, and put it on Instagram, captioned, “Peace and love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”   (By the way, Google that picture.  If you say that your religion requires that either of those young women should be forced to wear beekeeper outfits whenever they go outdoors, I am going to violate CO’s rules about no profanity on this site.)

When the citizens of Iraq saw that photo, they said, “What a sweet sentiment.  We love to see Miss Iraq and Miss Israel getting along so well together.  We can learn a lot from them.”

And they all lived happily ever after.  The end.

HA!  That is not what happened at all.  In fact, here’s what happened, according to a story posted on MSN (I know, but still):  “Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, and her family had to flee their homeland after receiving death threats over a photo she posted online last month.”

I know, pick your jaw up off the floor.  You’re probably thinking, “Maybe the photo she posted was of her being baptized in a Christian church.  Or of her wearing an “Islam Sucks” t-shirt.  Or of her chowing down on a big pork sandwich.”

Nope.  It was the “peace and love” pic that caused her co-religionists to get their chadors in a bunch.

Her hot Israeli friend in the picture explained that in Miss Iraq’s home country, “people made threats against her and her family that if she didn’t return home and take down the photos, they would remove her title, that they would kill her.”

So remember this when you gather around your Christmas tree or Hannukah bush or festivus pole: we can never judge, and no culture is better than any other.

 

Speaking of multi-culti boneheads who hate our culture: the Huffington Post has put out a little meditation on the beloved Christmas tv classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Now if everyone were like me – and oh, what a paradise this earth would be if they were – everyone would have fond memories of growing up watching Rudolph.  The avuncular snowman voice by Burl Ives, the primitive animation that was state of the art animation before these spoiled kids today ruined everything with their 4-D surround sound and sex robots.  The Charlie in the Box.  Yukon Cornelius.  (Which was going to be my nom de guerre if I could ever uncover some scandalous info about Hillary and surreptitiously release it to Wikileaks.)

But never fear.  Because the leftist brainiacs at Huffington Post have volunteered their valuable time to defecate on your fond childhood memories by educating us on what a horrible racist/sexist/bigoted/homophobic piece of garbage Rudolph is.

I’m not kidding.  Here is a small sampling of the leftist commentary on Rudolph:  “Yearly reminder that Rudolph is a parable on racism and homophobia with Santa as a bigoted, exploitative p**ck,” and “Santa’s operation is an HR nightmare and in serious need of diversity and inclusion training.” They point out that Rudolph’s coach and his dad and Clarice’s dad all berate him for the schnozz that makes him different, and that the misfit toys suffer ostracism, and that the lead elf tries to force the would-be dentist elf to conform to the career expectations of toy-making.

Ugh.  Try to imagine living in the head of the type of person who spends his or her time parsing every good thing in our culture for signs of nefarious motives.  Not to mention that these knuckleheads get everything wrong!  Yes, the other reindeer bully Rudolph, and the misfit toys feel bad … until the climax of the program, when the tables turn, and everyone comes to appreciate Rudolph for his nasal diversity, and the nerdy dentist pulls the Bumble’s teeth and saves the day, and even the Bumble becomes a lovable, kind-hearted, ennobled quasi-polar bear!  Have these people never watched the program all the way through?

I enjoyed Rudolph as a child, and it continues to speak to me today.   For example, in one scene, the exasperated lead elf tells the would-be dentist elf, “Now you come to elf practice and learn how to wiggle your ears and chuckle warmly and go hee-hee and ho-ho and important stuff like that!”

Before you judge the “Doctorate in Elf Studies” career path harshly, consider how many American kids graduate every year with degrees in ethnic studies and gay studies and women’s studies and post-colonial America-is-the-root-of-all-evil studies and journalism.  Then consider all of those youngsters coming into your office on job interviews, touting their special skills: “I can translate rap lyrics into English and prove that the biggest danger to young black males is police officers.”  “I can detect microaggressions at a distance of 100 paces.”  “I can demonstrate how reading Shakespeare  turns you into a patriarchal oppressor, if you ever read him.  Which you shouldn’t, because he’s a dead white male.”

After about 10 minutes of that, I’d be sticking my head into the outer office and calling out, “Can anyone here wiggle your ears and chuckle warmly?” and I’d hire the first person who can do it.

On the other hand, I suspect that a few of the HuffPo commenters might be conservative trolls, because they slyly display that which no lefty on these sites ever has: a sense of humor.  The piece is called “Rudolph the Marginalized Reindeer,” which is pretty funny.  In fact, it inspired me to go onto the HuffPo message board and post some other brilliant leftist interpretations of Christmas classics.

I addition to “The Grinch Who Stole Kwanzaa,” — which many of you COers may remember from my column earlier this year in response to the bonehead leftist librarian who argued that Dr. Suess books are racist — I offered these:

I’m Dreaming of a White Supremacist Christmas

Miracle on MLK Drive

It’s a Terrible, Oppressive Life

Frosty the White Devil

The Nut-Cracker Suite (with Hillary playing the lead, in her first post-election gig)

And finally, a re-vamped and de-Christianized Christmas Carol, wherein the three ghosts are played by Marx, Lenin and Saul Alinsky, with Bernie Sanders as a Scrooge who doesn’t reform, but instead keeps his fortune, and arranges for all of the poor characters to move into the work houses and prisons, where they can be cared for by the compassionate central government.  Kevin Spacey (with his limp from The Usual Suspects) co-stars as a handi-capable Tiny Tim who teaches us all a heart-warming lesson about the evils of body-shaming.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

So December is off to a great start.   There are already at least 3 stories that would each be the top story of a less action-packed month.  Consider:

1. Trump declares Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, and announces that we’ll be moving the US Embassy there. The usual suspects go nuts. Democrats and media talking heads say that this is a reckless act that will upset the utopian status quo in the normally bucolic Eden that is the Muslim world.  Various Palestinian terrorist groups promise “Days of Rage” protests.  (As opposed to their previous days of rage: Monday through Friday, and every other weekend.  They usually spend the other weekend cleaning, oiling and reloading their AK 47s and sharpening their scimitars.)

I get that the Arab street will be upset.  I think we can all identify with the dissatisfaction one feels when the targets of one’s genocidal rage have a good day.  But the Dems and MSM really should be ashamed of themselves.  As soon as the news leaked, they lit their hair on fire and ran screaming about how no responsible president would ever contemplate such a radical move.

Never mind that there is video tape of Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama (and for all I know, speech transcripts from William Henry Harrison) proclaiming that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and promising to move our embassy there.   The “Jerusalem Embassy Act” was passed overwhelmingly by both houses of congress in 1995, and while Bill Clinton gave the idea lip service (sorry for the phrasing), he didn’t sign it, probably because it was “intern interviewing season” and he was otherwise occupied when it came across his desk.  Which an intern was likely crouching under at the time.

But now that a president is actually making good on that perennial promise, it’s a radical new idea that will bring about Armageddon.

In archaeological news, some clay tablets have just been discovered, dated to around 3000 years ago.  They tell of an uprising among the Palestinians – they were called “Philistines” then – outside of Israel’s capital, some town called “Jerusalem.”

 

2. Speaking of Armageddon, that’s what Nancy Pelosi said will be the result of the GOP tax cut. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am not making that up.

During a press conference, the apparently partially embalmed California Democrat was being questioned by a reporter, who in an unexpected fit of reasonableness, said, “Democrats talk about this bill often in very apocalyptic terms.  But isn’t what is really going on is that many people are getting a very modest tax cut… but it’s not the end of the world?”

In the hands of a reasonably competent leftist politician, that’s what’s called a “softball.”  The proper way to respond is something like this: “We obviously shouldn’t exaggerate the danger of this proposal.  But that doesn’t mean that it won’t do real damage, to working people, people of color, people who want to be identified by pronouns that have not yet been invented, blah blah and etc.”

How did Madame Tussaud’s wax-figure Pelosi respond?  Behold:

“No, it IS the end of the world.  The debate on health care is life death.”  [For the record, I think she might have meant “life OR death.”  On the other hand, she seems a little zombie-like herself, so maybe “life/death” is a state that she understands in a way that we don’t.] “This is Armageddon.”  [Did I mention that I am not making this up?]  “…There’s really a very hard way to come back from this.  They take us further, more deeply into debt.” [Seriously.  Not making this up.] “What can you do but raise taxes?”

Did you get that?  Back when she was the Majority Leader and her party controlled the White House and congress, Pelosi helped run up as much debt in 8 years as the country had previously run up in 230 years.  But now she’s deeply concerned about debt.  And her last sentence – “What can you do but raise taxes?” – has coincidentally been the motto of her party for the last century or more.

Well, you’re thinking, at least the rest of the Democrat establishment would not go over the unhinged cliff with Dame Pelosi, right?

Wrong.

Extremist spokes-dirigible Michael Moore responded to news of the tax cut by saying, “The Republican Party is the enemy of the American people…. The coup is underway!”  He may also have said something about the 1%, capitalism and fascism, but his words were muffled because he was speaking while simultaneously devouring a foot-long sandwich and a turkey leg.

Pelosi’s fellow mummy Bernie Sanders said that the GOP is “looting the treasury,” and the New York Time editorial board agreed, calling the tax cut an “historic tax heist.”

Nice word choice, NYT.  I know that we all love the familiar tropes of a great heist movie: the diverse group of specialists getting together over a set of blue prints to plan the job, the musical montage playing as they prepare their weapons and assemble their vehicles and put on their disguises, the tense sequence in which they defeat elaborate security measures and escape with the contents of the enormous bank vault, only to distribute the cash to all of the bank customers who rightfully own it.

What’s that you say? No heist movie ever ends with the bank customers getting to keep their money?

Exactly.  Nancy, Chuckie, Obama, Hill-dog, et al: let’s try this one more time – letting people keep more of what they earn is NOT “theft,” or a “heist,” or “looting.”  It’s a tax cut for taxpayers.  You idiots!

 

3. The Mueller investigation is imploding right before our eyes, with one credibility-devastating revelation after another. Comey has provided tons of evidence that Trump was completely justified in firing him – not least because he actually leaked what he hoped would be damaging information against Trump. The MSM has repeatedly reported false or inaccurate information about the investigation; for example, ABC’s Brian Ross is serving a suspension, after which he will be kept from reporting on anything Trump-related.  (Hint to ABC: if you have a journalist who is so biased and/or incompetent that he can’t be trusted to report on one huge story… maybe he’s not really cut out for this whole “journalism” thing.)

Then it turns out that Mueller’s entire team was apparently hired through a “Help Wanted” blog entry on the Huffington Post, which read, “Are you a semi-employable leftist hack, unburdened by any ethics or scruples, motivated by a burning desire to destroy people with whom you disagree? Please inquire at the basement of DNC Headquarters.  Ask for Bob.”

My favorite disgraced jerk in the story (so far) is Peter Strzok.  This guy is a cross between Kato Kaelin and Zelig: his grimy fingerprints turn up at every point in the story.   He changed the crucial description of Hillary’s mishandling of classified information: he replaced “grossly negligent” — which was accurate, and criminal – to “extremely careless” – which is what my old girlfriends called it when I rode a motorcycle without a helmet.  He coordinated the interview that got Flynn on a process crime.  He apparently took breaks from his partisan hackery only long enough to text his mistress about how evil Trump is, and how much of a crush he had on Hillary.

But there are two other reasons to question his judgement.  First, his mistress is not particularly attractive.  Which pretty much misses the entire point of having an affair, doesn’t it?  If you are going to risk your marriage and your reputation for a fling, shouldn’t she be smoking hot?  What is it with these leftist pervs, who don’t seem to have mastered the basics of sexual misbehavior: Louis CK, Weinstein, Conyers?  If they’re not picking unattractive mistresses, they are gaining access to attractive, powerless females… and the gross men get naked and pleasure themselves in front of the women!

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m very much anti-affair, and not just because my wife will be reading this.  (Have I mentioned that she has the cheekbones that launched a thousand ships?)  There are few more reprehensible things you can do than to betray your spouse, and I strongly urge anyone who is thus tempted to do everything possible to dampen their libido:  cold showers, listening to Hillary’s cawing “Why am I not up by 50 points, you may be asking yourself?!” speech, googling photos of Lena Dunham with Kathy Griffin.  Whatever it takes.

But good lord, you lecherous, male sexual harassers: you’re supposed to get the beautiful women naked, while you keep your own hideous body clothed.  How hard is that?  When you’ve died and gone to the sex crimes section of hell, the demon in charge of your torment is going to ask, “What are you here for?  Raping a private plane-load of supermodels?  Installing cameras in a sorority house shower and then blackmailing the girls?  Partying with Bill Clinton and Roman Polanski?”   And you’re going to have to say, “I made hot women watch me take a shower.”  And he’s going to plunge a flaming pitchfork into your groin.  And you will deserve it.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the second reason to question Peter Strzok’s judgement.

The silent “z.”  C’mon.  English is a strange and often illogical language.  You can have a silent “p”  (“pneumonia,”), even a silent “h” (“honor”).  But you know what letter can’t be silent?  That’s right: “z.”

If you don’t believe me, tell a friend that you want to go to the “oo” to see an “eebra” and he’ll look at you like you’re crazy.  Tell him that your favorite part of hockey is when the “amboni” comes out and drives around.  Tell him that your favorite book to read after you’ve ingested a lot of mushrooms is “Thus Spake Arathustra.”  Tell him… I already used “Zelig,” right?

Okay, that’s all the “z” words I know.

The point is, I’m not buying the silent “z.”  But it might be worse than that.  I’ve seen some media reports which say that he pronounces his name “strok,” but others that say that he pronounces it “stroke.”  If it’s the latter, I would like to nominate him for “Best Porn Star Name Ever.”   (Step aside, “Buck Naked,” and hand off the baton – HA! – “Rod Johnson,” because Peter Stroke’s in town!)

But still, he’s squandering that name.  The first time I saw it, I couldn’t help but think of the old Batman tv series, in which each fight scene would be punctuated by superimposed action verbs, like “Smack!” “Splat!” and “Ka-Pow!”  Am I wrong that the only logical choice for when Robin clobbers the Riddler with a plugged-in lamp would be “Strzok!”

Anyway, Mr. Stroke is not to be trusted, and he’s only one reason why Mueller is crumbling before our eyes.

And Christmas is still coming!

Yesterday I came across a leading nominee for “the most unintentionally funny article of the year” award.  It appeared in Salon right before Thanksgiving.  I apologize for not having seen it earlier, but once I saw it, I couldn’t un-see it.

The article is written by someone name Matthew Rosza, who I can only conclude has been struggling manfully with a ferocious addiction to psychotropic drugs.  The title is, “Here’s your leftover turkey: The case for Hillary Clinton 2020.”  With a title like that, it’s got to be anti-Hillary, right?  Not so fast.  It appears in Salon, and it begins, “Are you sick of Republicans? Or just right-wingers in general?”  The tone says, “Obviously!”

Rosza cites – in what I can only imagine would be the strained voice of someone who just took a long draw on a bong and is trying to speak without exhaling – four points in favor of the Dems nominating Hillary in 2020.

I cannot stress enough exactly how much I am NOT making any of these up:

1. “Hillary Clinton is the Winston Churchill to Vladimir Putin’s Adolf Hitler.” The author refers to Putin as having a “right-wing nationalist agenda.” Because nothing spells “right wing” like coming up through the ranks of the KGB in the waning years of the Soviet SOCIALIST Republic.  But don’t let that distract you from the headline: he compares Hillary to Churchill!  And not Ward Churchill – which might actually make sense — but the good Churchill!

Other than their jowly looks and rotund build, is there anyone LESS like Churchill than Hillary freaking Clinton?!  Do you remember when Churchill met with Ribbentrop and produced that childishly gimmicky “re-set button” that was meant to indicate how the Brits wanted a clean slate with the National Socialists?  Me neither.

Every sentence in this section is a delight.  For example, “This is where Clinton offers a quality that no politician in America can beat.”  Quick, who amongst you shouted out, “Ankle girth!”  You would be correct, but that’s not what the author said, so by definition he is wrong.

2.“Hillary Clinton being elected president (at last) would monumentally piss off misogynistic trolls, and what’s not to like about that?” That’s a great reason to elect someone, isn’t it?  Not to bring forth on this continent a new nation.  Not to create a Shining City on a Hill.  Not to further our progress toward being the last, best hope of mankind.  Nope.

We just want to piss off the opposition.  Like when a bunch of 18^th century Americans voted for Jefferson “just to get Hamilton’s goat.”  Or when the Democrats voted for Douglas as a way to tell Abe Lincoln to “stuff it up his stovepipe hat.”

There are always jerks on both sides of the electoral aisle, so electing anyone is always guaranteed to anger some bad eggs – so that argument has virtually nothing going for it.  And by the way, electing Nikki Haley would also piss off a ton of misogynist trolls – and we’d get an amazingly talented candidate then, instead of an incompetent, corrupt, pudgy, cross-dressing, cawing-voiced Churchill imitator in a bowler hat.

3. “By winning the popular vote convincingly in 2016, Hillary Clinton has earned the right to be considered the presumptive nominee in 2020.” Ah yes, the popular vote.  Not the electoral college vote – which, spoiler alert, to anyone who hasn’t paid attention to American politics for lo these many decades – actually DETERMINES THE WINNER! The popular vote is like “amount of game time spent in the lead” in the NFL.  Which is why the Atlanta Falcons are the reigning Super Bowl champions.

Oh, wait.

4. “We can expect her to be a good president.” Did I mention that I am not making these points up?

The beauty of the weapons-grade obtuseness of this section is that the author actually raises the specter of Hillary having helped Bill get away with his serial harassing.  But in his mind, the jury is still out on that. To wit, “Frankly, the worst thing that can be said about a potential 2020 Clinton candidacy… is that her husband still hasn’t answered for the numerous sexual abuse accusations against him.”  You don’t say?!

And no, that’s not the worst thing.  That’s not even in the top 3 worst things.  If there were a museum dedicated to “The Worst Things That Can Be Said about a Potential Hillary 2020 Candidacy,” this thing would be on the second floor, near the back, at the end of a poorly lit hallway, right next to the transgender bathroom.

But Rosza goes on, “While it may seem unfair for Hillary to be held accountable for Bill’s alleged predations…”  — and not since Marion Berry was caught on video smoking crack with a constituent has the word “alleged” been deployed so implausibly – “…it can plausibly be argued that she played a role in helping him cover them up.”

Here’s a partial list of other things that Matthew Rosza believes “can be plausibly argued:”

• the existence of gravity
• the roundness of the earth
• the hotness of the sun
• the cuteness of a kitten just after its eyes have first opened

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not arguing with Mr. Rosza.  I hope that his insightful arguments win the day, and the Dems run Hillary again.  I even have a bumper sticker idea for them: “I’m with Her again…and then maybe one more time after that.”

Tell me where I can send my contribution, and the check will be in the mail.

 

 

Another month has passed, which means that it’s time for my traditional retrospecticus (hat tip to anyone who gets that obscure Simpsons’ reference), as I look back on my favorite stories of November.

Obviously, the biggest story of the month is – as CO and the CO nation have alternatively named it – pervnado/pervalanche/hornucopia.  In just the last week, we’ve seen the fall of Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor.  If you’re like me, your response was, “That old codger?”  “Who?” and “He’s still alive?”  But still, the hilarity is worth savoring.

In a healthy culture, these guys would all retreat from society to begin long, tortured conversations with their genitalia.  (“You see what you’ve gotten us into?  I knew that I should never have let you do the thinking for both of us, Charlemagne Lauer!”) (Yes, I think that Lauer is the kind of guy who would give a comically grandiose name to his almost certainly unimpressive equipment.) (Sorry about that mental picture I just stuck you with.)

But ours is not a healthy culture.  So Lauer has a team of lawyers working on getting him a golden parachute – not my words – in the neighborhood of $30 million.  (This is where a lesser writer might be tempted to make a “severance package” joke.  But I am way too dignified for that.)  Barely animated corpse John Conyers is clinging to the door frame of his Congressional office with his dessicated mummy hands.  Al Franken is apologizing, but he doesn’t remember doing anything wrong, but he’s deeply sorry for the bad things that he can’t recall, and now he has to get back to work for the American people.  In the Senate, where it would be an absolute outrage if he had to share that august chamber with the likes of Roy Moore.

Half of the middle and upper management at CNN and NPR and the three networks are cleaning out their desks and banging into each as they try to cram through the exit doors like a bunch of horny Three Stooges, only much less funny.   When they finally burst through the doorway, the cardboard boxes they were carrying fall apart, and they spend the next half hour on their hands and knees in the hallway, trying to sort out which marital aid belongs to which supervisor, and whose velvet-lined handcuffs are these, and is that blindfold a matched set with that ball gag?

Ugh.  If the offenders at Fox hadn’t been run out of town earlier in the year, they’d be lined up at the elevators so deep that they’d be lucky to make it out onto the street by Christmas.

 

But that’s not my favorite story of November.  That honor goes to Trump vs. Pocahontas Warren, Round Two.  Was it classy for Trump to put a rib kick in on Warren when he was supposed to be honoring the Code Talkers at the White House?  Was it juvenile, and a little embarrassing?  Did it still make me laugh?  No, yes, and I’m not too big to admit it.

Warren’s response was perfect, as she stepped right into the trolling trap, calling the name a “racial slur,” and vowing that she will not allow Trump to “shut [her] up.”  Guess what, Liz?  That’s the last thing he would want you to do.   He wants you to keep talking all things Indian – What do you think of the phrase “indian-giver,” Elizabeth?  Any thoughts on the name of the Washington Redskins?  Would you consider yourself a big Columbus fan? — and as you do so, he’s rhetorically putting a huge, feathered headdress on top of your dopey head, turning you into the Native American version of Dukakis in that tank commander’s helmet.

Especially since Warren is supposed to be a leading future Dem presidential contender, we cannot stress enough the sleazy details of her egregious faux-Indian scam.  In case you haven’t followed that story, here are my favorite details.   The blue-eyed, blonde, pasty-white future Senator began claiming to be Cherokee in her 30s, got herself listed as a minority in a directory of lawyers, and ended up with a job at Harvard, where the school touted her as a prominent minority hire.  She later denied that she got any advantage from her claimed minority status – a laughable claim to anyone even the least bit familiar with the political climate of academia.

What “facts” did Warren base her claims on? “Family lore” and the fact that her grandpa had “high cheekbones.”  I’m not making that up.

Hey, you know who else has some high cheekbones?   Melania Trump.  And we all know how feared the Slovenian Sioux were, all throughout the Badlands.

You know who else has high cheekbones?  My Norwegian-descent wife.   And yes, the Slovenian Sioux were only outstripped in their fighting reputation by the Oslo Apaches.  When the war canoes took to the fjords, pioneers knew that they were in for heap-big trouble!

My favorite Warren anecdote is that she once had the gall to submit five supposed family recipes as entries in a book of Native American dishes called – and again, I’m not making this up – “Pow Wow Chow.”

But it gets funnier – and I know what you are asking:  How?  (Get it?)

It turned out that two of her five recipes were plagiarized directly from another source: a man named Pierre Franey.  I know, you don’t often hear of Indians named “Pierre.”  (Although Pierre Horse, after merciless teasing during middle school, changed his first name to “Crazy,” and went on to become a ferocious warrior.  Also, Sitting Bull’s real first name?  “Jacques.”  True story.)

“Don’t be so dismissive, Simpson,” you might be saying.  “Maybe this Pierre Franey was somehow connected to the French and Indian War.  I remember reading about that in school.”

Nope.  It turns out Pierre was connected to… Le Pavilion, a snooty French restaurant in Manhattan.

“But Manhattan was once sold by its Indian inhabitants for a bunch of beads,” you might say.

And I’ll just nod my head sadly, and point out that Pierre wrote and published these two recipes… IN 1979!!

But wait.  There’s more.  The two recipes that she stole – recipes that she claimed came from her Oklahoma-dwelling Cherokee ancestors – were for “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing.”

Because when you think of lobster, you think of Maine.  When you think of corn, you think of Iowa.  When you think of potatoes, you think of Idaho.

And when you think of crab, you think of… Oklahoma?!

The lonesome, moonlit nights on the prairie.  The wind rustling through the grasses and wheat fields, the howling of a far-off coyote.  The campfire crackling under a starry sky.  And the clacking of millions of crustacean claws, as the great crab herds make their way across the endless plains in their awe-inspiring migration.

We should never stop mocking Elizabeth Warren.

 

Also in November, I came across three other stories that add to my happiness:

1. A study by researchers at Columbia and Harvard (I know, but still) found that sarcasm – writing it and reading it – makes people more creative. So we here at CO should all be a bunch of Michelangelos, DaVincis, and Edisons. The article also said that one potential downside of being sarcastic is that it “can come across as mean.”  But what do they know? Bunch of eggheads who ought to go “F” themselves!

 

2. A study conducted at the Medical University of Graz (Austria) found that, “Vegetarians are less healthy than meat-eaters, despite drinking less, smoking less and being more physically active than their carnivorous counterparts.” Not mentioned in the story was the fact that the most famous Austrian vegetarian in history was Adolf Hitler. So let me get this right:  I get to wash down some steak dinners with some fine alcohol, while not working out, and being less prone to go on a continent-wide anti-Semitic murder spree, AND I get to be healthier too?  Move over, Mayo Clinic and whichever medical labs housed the inventions of the artificial heart and Viagra (not that I need either of those, thanks for asking), and make way for my new favorite institution: the Medical University of Graz.

 

3. A Swedish study – reported in Fortune – finds that dog owners live longer and are healthier than non-dog owners. The study pointed to reduced incidence of cardiac disease, greater support and companionship, and stronger immunity because of exposure to dirt that dogs bring into the house.

So picture how sweet it is to be me.   I’ve been in the top 5 rankings of “Most Sarcastic People in the Northern Hemisphere” for 7 years running and am thus writing and sculpting and painting and inventing things 24/7; I’m washing down burgers and steaks and pork chops with beer and wine and scotch and am Olympic-athlete healthy, and Cassie the Wonder Dog is providing me with top-shelf companionship while helping me to live into my late 100s.  Plus I’m married to a woman with the cheekbones of a Norwegian/Navajo princess, and Christmas is coming.

The world is truly my oyster, with an appetizer of Oklahoma crab bisque.

 

 

 

I’d like to revise my comments over the weekend on the burgeoning sexual harassment epidemic.  Some thoughtful CO contributors have made some persuasive arguments on two points: 1. I might have been too quick to buy the MSM attacks on Roy Moore.  2. Women might be worse horndogs than my sheltered experience has taught me.

But first, there’s been some good news this week, mostly in the death-and-disgrace category.  Charles Manson has finally died, and good riddance to him.  We should never forget how the elite left romanticized counter-cultural creeps and criminals (that’s some sweet alliteration right there) like Manson.  For one example, hat tip to Breitbart for glossing a sickening 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Manson, which included quotes from a Manson friend to the effect that, “Charlie is very Christ-like and has a Christ-like philosophy.”

Yep.  Very Christlike.  Remember when Peter came running to Christ, warning that the Roman centurions were approaching, and Christ said, “Verily, thou shalt off the pigs, and pronounce that the time for Helter Skelter has arrived.  James, John, Barnabas, Tex, go forth and slay all whom ye find!”

Me neither.

Also Mugabe is finally out in Zimbabwe.  Or is it that Zimbabwe is finally out in Mugabe?  I don’t follow African politics as closely as I should.  I can never remember whether Tanzania is a guy or a country.   I know that Congo is both a country and the son of King Kong in a great 30s sequel, and that Rhodesia is gone, but the Rhodesian ridgeback is a fine dog.  Also, Toto had a nice song about Africa.  Where was I?

Oh yeah.  I’ve read enough about Mugabe to know that he’s in the Idi Amin school of horrible post-colonial dictators who combined the worst of tribal backwardness with the dysfunctional, destructive socialism that might be the worst thing the European colonizers gave to Africa.  (And yes, that includes making the pre-existing slavery systems even worse, if that were possible.)

In other “things I’m thankful for” news, at least one more female has come forward to have her tush dusted for prints left by smarmy Al Franken during an encounter at the Minnesota State Fair.  One of the CO commenters on my last piece coined the term “schadenboner,” and though that kind of term might be beneath the dignity of an august gentlemen like myself… YES!  Man is it fun to watch some Youtube footage from just a month or two ago, in which Franken was self-righteously mouthing platitudes about how women deserve the utmost respect, and what a shame it is when powerful politicians behave badly!

If only Lil Peep were still alive, and knew the word “derriere.”  I’m sure he could rhyme that with “State Fair” in a devastating rap “song” lambasting Franken!

Speaking of lambastable jerks now caught up in the harassment-palooza, smug leftist mummy Charlie Rose is out after his harassing ways have come – you’ll pardon the expression — to light.  Even more fun, creepy octogenarian racial arsonist John Conyers (guess which party?) seems to have been an abusive jerk for many decades.

It turns out that Hugh Hefner may have died just in time.  And if things keep going the way I think they’re going to for Bill Clinton, I suspect that within a few months, he may well be wishing that he would have checked out from a massive heart attack while ensconced in an “intern sandwich” a year or two ago.

All the lefty fratricide is looking like it’s going to be the feel-good hit of the winter.  Kirsten Gillibrand suddenly discovers that her patrons the Clintons are horrible people.  Donna Brazile suddenly realizes that Hillary done Bernie wrong.  Anthony Weiner suddenly realizes that he’s not even in the top 5 most embarrassing Democrat Weiners.

Gillibrand’s transparent fecklessness is especially sweet.  Quick, tell me what new info has come out about Bill Clinton in the months since Gillibrand was sucking up to him and touting Hillary’s wonderfulness as a potential prez?  That’s right: nada.  Yet Gillibrand has reversed herself like Sulu coming across a bevy of naked green slave women on the planet Gorlok.  (Yes, I enjoyed Star Trek as a kid.  And even then, I sensed that there was something off about Sulu.)

Good times.

Anyway, I have taken under consideration the charge from some COers that I may have been too hasty to condemn Roy Moore.  It’s not that I wouldn’t put it past the MSM to try to smear a GOP pol right before an election, and it’s not that I think all female accusers are automatically believable.  For example, Anita Hill.

I think the strongest evidence that Moore might be innocent is that there are no reports of his piggish behavior in the intervening 40 years, and I think that that’s super-rare.  Generally, if you’re the kind of guy who will repeatedly prey on vulnerable women when you are young, you keep doing it for years, until you are eventually Bill Clinton.  In other words, this kind of behavior very rarely flares up for a year or two, and then goes into abeyance for the rest of your life.

On the other hand, and though I haven’t followed the story extremely closely, at least one of the women that I saw seemed pretty credible, and there are enough similar accounts that it would be unusual if there was no fire in all of those clouds of smoke.

I just think we need to resist the impulse to believe the worst of our political opponents and simultaneously bend over backwards to dismiss and overlook bad behavior on our side of the aisle.  It’s a human and natural impulse, but it can take us to bad places.

Finally, I got a kick out of some of the responses to my weekend column from female COers, including Georga Collins, Erva Mercer, Tina Smith and Vera Rivers.  They pointed out that women can be as raunchy and offensive as men, but they did it in such a disarmingly frank way, and they obviously have a point.

I’m of mixed minds about this.  Biologically, males have a greater hard-wired interest in pursuit and seed-dispersing to the maximum extent, and between that … design feature, let’s call it … and the natural size and strength differences between the sexes, and the power differential that older men often have compared to younger women, male-to-female harassment is always going to be a more serious issue.

I remember an old Larry Miller routine about male/female differences.  In response to a female friend arguing that women can be just as horny as men, he pointed to the difference between women watching male strippers, and men watching female strippers.  The former are always in giggling groups, and their groping and sleaziness is light-hearted, celebratory and ultimately non-threatening.  But the latter, whether in groups or alone, are usually creepily serious, staring at the flesh on display like a cheetah watching a gazelle for signs of a limp.   He was not wrong.

The harassment issue is so vexing partly because it includes such a mix of real victims and villains, mixed with political opportunists and hypocrites, and there are so many variations in context that it is difficult to address one type of harassment without either dismissing or exaggerating other types.  The gender feminists’ tendency to lump all sexual behavior together – from an uncomfortable stare to a clumsy proposition to a hand on a shoulder to a drunken kiss attempt to a pat on the butt to an attempted assault – doesn’t help.

I also know that perceptions of the negativity of harassment varies hugely from males to females.  Most males are rarely displeased when females – any females! — express a sexual attraction to them.  During my first year of college, I was going into the cafeteria when I thought I heard my name, and looked over at a group of 4 girls, who were looking at me and laughing.  I checked to be sure that my fly was up, and went about my business.

That evening, I asked the only one of the 4 girls I knew what that had been about.  She told me that one of the girls asked who I was, and when she told her my name, the other girl said, “I’d like to jump his bones.”  Not exactly a vulgar comment, I know, and not Weinsteinian in its offensiveness.  But to hear a lot of gender feminists talk, that would be an offensive, even devastating comment if the genders had been reversed.  But was I devastated?

Are you kidding?!  I was over the moon!  A pretty girl wanted to jump MY bones?  I told all of the guys in my dorm.  I may have told my mom, the next time I called home.  I walked around campus for weeks with the melody to Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking,” repeating in my head, as I mumbled to myself, “These bones are made for jumping, and that’s what you can do…”

I admire the attitude of the above-mentioned CO commenters.  In the case of relatively minor offenses — a clod making an offensive comment or grabbing a tush – the best response is probably a slap or a groin kick and a rebuke, following by getting on with one’s life.  If we start criminalizing every awkward and unpleasant interaction, or handle charges of harassment with one extreme (dismiss them or blame the victim) or the other (destroy the accused’s life with no attempt to determine the truth of the charge), we’re going to create a cultural mine field.

On the other hand, watching the lefty elites get into a circular firing squad over this is pretty entertaining.  Who do you think will be next?

Please God, let it be Schumer.  Or Stephanopolous.  Or Keith Olberman.  Or John Oliver.  Or Stephen Colbert.  Or…

0-0-0-

To read Martin’s other columns – or some of his short stories, more of which will be posted on his site in coming weeks – go to Martinsimpsonwriting.com