Martin Simpson

So here’s my Top 5 favorite things that happened in the last half of August:

1.I’ve got to start with the obvious.  In a feat of thick-headed leftist insanity that would rival the average Tuesday at CNN, ESPN decided that they could not have one of their broadcasters give color commentary on a UVA football game because his name was Robert Lee.

Never mind that this Robert Lee’s middle name didn’t start with an “E.”  And never mind that this Robert Lee was Asian.  (Fun historical fact: surprisingly few Confederate generals were Asian.)  And never mind that the civil war ended 152 years ago.   They nixed his coverage of the game because he shared his name with a famous Confederate.

Many pundits have had a lot of fun with the stupidity of this move.  But those pundits don’t have my top-secret access to a recording of ESPN’s board meeting at which this programming decision was made.

Because I love the members of CO nation – especially Gail Patty, and she knows why – I give you the transcript of that meeting:

CEO:  “What a mess!   How did we even hire Robert Lee in the first place?”

Minions around the table look at each other sheepishly.

Minion 1 (squirming):  “We never noticed the name.  I mean, come on, you’re looking at an Asian guy, you don’t think, ‘I wonder what Confederate general he’s named after.’”

CEO (loudly):  “I guess that’s how we ended up with Stonewall Chang scheduled to anchor the half-time coverage?!”

Minion 2:  “We probably should have caught that one.”

CEO: “What about Nathan Bedford Wong, who was all set to do on-field interviews in the same game?!”

Minion 3 (shrugged helplessly):  “We made a few mistakes…”

CEO:  “A few?  A FEW?  Help me out here.  Remind me who was in the lineup on the desk in New York?  The guys who would be anchoring our day-long coverage of ALL of college football?!”

The minions all stare at their hands.

CEO: “Remind me!”

Minion 1 (clearing his throat, and keeping his eyes down):  “Jeff Hitler, Tommy Stalin, and Keith Bin Laden.”

CEO:  “That didn’t send up any red flags for anybody?!”

Minion 2: “I mean, in retrospect—”

CEO:  “Ugh.  Nevermind.  Lee is out.  Who can we sub in for him?”  Minion 2 raises a hand, but the CEO fixes him with an icy stare.  “If you say Billy Gosnell, I swear to God…”

Minion 2 slowly lowers his hand.

CEO:  “Great.  I’m surrounded by idiots.  Everybody OUT!”

As the minions file toward the door with slumped shoulders, the CEO stabs a button on his intercom.  “Get me Fred Mengele from the PR team.  We’ve got to do some damage control!   Who’s the new hire in social media?”

Intercom voice: “Bobby Goebbels?”

CEO: “Yeah, I’ve heard good things.  Get him, too.”

And, scene.

 

2.  Trump’s Afghanistan speech. Even though Lindsey Graham praised it – usually a benchmark of all that is crappy – I liked it. He explained why he had changed his mind – from wanting a complete pull-out, to seeing the wisdom of leaving a big enough force to prevent the kind of dangerous collapses that have happened in Syria and Iraq.  He also had the common sense to defer to his generals, and he gave a verbal rib kick to Obama’s decision to put a timeline on a withdrawal, rather than letting conditions on the ground dictate future moves.

By the way, that’s another idiotic mistake of Obama’s that the MSM has somehow managed not to notice.  When he announced his surge in Afghanistan, he said that he’d also be pulling the troops out again in 18 months.

You don’t have to be a military genius to know how stupid that is.  If you’re facing a determined guerilla force that cannot oppose you in fixed battle but can only hope to out-wait you, you don’t announce a new force deployment while at the same time saying, “Oh, by the way, you only have to wait for 18 months, and we’ll be leaving.”

Thanks, Barack von Clausewitz.

 

3.  Speaking of idiotic decisions, some publishing house inexplicably paid Hillary Clinton to write a book on her spectacular failure in the last election. If you haven’t seen that book yet, take a look at the cover:  The top half says, “What Happened,” and the bottom half says “Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

May I suggest that if you put a question mark after the first half, the cover of the book is a question that answers itself?

Anyway, the first excerpt from this horrible book focused on her reaction to Trump during one of her debates.  She says what a “creep” he was, and how he “loomed” over her, and made her “incredibly uncomfortable” by “invading her space.”

And she knows what she’s talking about.  Because she spent 8 years in the White House with a huge creep looming all over the place, invading intern’s spaces (among other things) with a cigar (among other things) and making any female within groping distance “incredibly uncomfortable.”

Don’t you love it when leftist gender feminists proudly proclaim what strong women they are, but then get the vapors and stagger toward the nearest fainting couch when a big mean man gets too close for their fragile sensibilities? Put on your big girl pantsuit, Hill-dog!

The best part of this story:  guess who they got to read the book for the audio version?

Gilbert Gottfried was apparently unavailable.

Fran Drescher wasn’t returning calls.

All of the teenage girls who sprinkle their speech with “like” were too busy taking selfies.

Crows – who can caw in just the right grating, unpleasant manner – cannot read English.

Not even poor, pedestrian Chelsea Clinton, whose terrible childhood at the hands of horrible parents has drained every bit of life force out of her, was up for this task.

No.  The publisher’s staff — saddled with a book filled to the brim with leaden, dishonest, mind-numbingly banal, sludge-like prose – decided to steer into the skid when choosing a reader for the audio book.

They picked Hillary Clinton.

Ugh.  Imagine that voice.  And then imagine listening to that voice, reading those badly written thoughts, from that mediocre mind.

This book raises so many questions.   Such as, “Why on earth did she write it?”  And, “Who on earth is going to buy it?”

And, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

 

4.  After the last two weeks, I think it’s time to start commissioning a bunch of new confederate statues. Who’s with me?

No one?  Really?  Wait — hear me out.

Did you notice anything that the MSM did NOT mention during the entire Charlottesville statue kerfuffle?  Here’s a hint, in the form of the news copy that I would write about this story, if I somehow had a job as a journalist:

“Over the past several weeks, crowds have been outraged by various slavery-supporting Democrats commemorated in hundreds of statues and memorials throughout the southern states.  Protesters have called for the removal of artwork that honors Democrat Robert E. Lee, and Democrat Stonewall Jackson, and Democrat KKK-founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, among many others, every last one of them Democrats.

A few of these statues were put up by Democrats after their slaves were freed by Republicans after the Civil War, but many more of them were put up by Democrat mayors and town councils and governors in the 1920s, when Democrat-invented and -enforced Jim Crow laws held sway.  Many were also put up and/or celebrated in the 1960s — by Democrat politicians and racists such as Orville Faubus (D), George Wallace (D), Al Gore Sr. (D), and Bull Conner (D) — angry about the Civil Rights movement.

We reached out to all of the national Democrat leaders who had total control of the White House, House and Senate from 2008 – 2010 and yet did not say a word or lift a finger to do anything at all about the plague of Confederate monuments dotting our landscape.  But all of those Democrats were all unavailable for comment.”

Do you see the subtle theme?

So let’s move all of those statues – and maybe make a few more – and display them all in a grand building called “The Hall of Famous Democrats.”  I hear that Hillary had a huge presidential library half-built, until November 9^th happened.   That sounds like the perfect venue!

 

5.  Finally, a great story about academia!

After what seems like decades of stories about spineless administrators capitulating to leftist loon professors and know-it-all brainwashed undergrads, and Antifa thugs preventing free speech, and safe spaces and trigger warnings and infantile demands that various privileges be checked, there comes a story that starts the same way.

But oh, how this one ends!

Several years ago, a handful of ne’er-do-wells and jack-a-napes and cranial-rectal-inversion sufferers at the University of Missouri got it in their heads that Mizzou was a hotbed of hateful racists devoting their lives to oppressing the perpetually oppressed types.

The details are not important, because they are well-nigh universal in these morality plays: some folks from the wrong group looked askance at those from another group, and complaints were made, and administrators groveled, and a creepy ginger leftist prof solicited male students to assault people who were filming the protest.  The mediocre school football team (“the Fightin’ Kapernicks”) said they wouldn’t play again until confessions were forced and demands were met and reparations doled out.  And all of that happened, and it wasn’t enough, and spineless administrators were fired, and the whole world was watching.

And the part of the world who were Mizzou alums and benefactors said many words of Anglo-Saxon derivation, and sent some of those words to school officials in emails and letters and phone calls.  And then they closed their wallets, and kept them closed.

The delicious, satisfying result?  Google it, and behold the headlines and details:  “Mizzou Misery.”  “Catastrophic 35% Drop in Mizzou Enrollment.”  “Seven dorms closed, 400 positions lost.”  “Tumbleweeds rolling through empty campus.”    “Mizzou Alumni: Why didn’t Administration listen to Martin Simpson, and break out the tear gas, rubber bullets and industrial drums of Whup-ass in response to student protests?”

All but the last two headlines are real.  And they should be.

The moral of the story: the next time a bunch of faculty and student crybullies try to take over your campus, stand up to them.  Fire the profs, expel the students, and toss them off campus like you were John Wayne running the town bully through a pair of swinging saloon doors and pitching him out into a muddy street.

Or else prepare for your school to be crippled by idiots.

Call this “The Tale of Two Columns.”  Because it was the best of times (I’m going to introduce you to a new hero) and the worst of times (Charlottesville).

Let’s take our medicine first.   But I’m not going to say a lot about Charlottesville, because:

1. Some people have complained that my pieces are too long. (How dare you!  I slave all day over a hot keyboard, and this is the thanks I get?  I’ve got half a mind to go back to mother.)
2. Lots of people who are smarter than me (including CO) have already commented on it.
3. I’m sick of everybody involved.

But here goes:

White racists are a sad little group (emphasis on both “sad” and “little”).  Hateful Antifa jerks are equally sad, but I fear/know they are more numerous, and more influential on their side of the political aisle.

Taking down confederate statues is 10% understandable and 90% ill-thought out.  Already, some are wondering where this might stop.  Bulldoze the Jefferson Memorial?  Blow up the Washington Monument?  They both owned slaves.  And Lincoln didn’t make a move to emancipate until very late.  Plus, he was a Republican – so…

Anyway, if we do decide to take down confederate statues — because racism — that won’t break my heart.  But I hope that we can then also agree to take down any statues or plaques and change any roads or buildings named after whitey-hater Malcolm X, and genocidal anti-black racist (and Planned Parenthood founder) Margaret Sanger.  Plus at least half of our Democrat presidents. (Have you heard how LBJ talked about blacks, or Wilson talked about any non-WASPs?)  And half the public buildings constructed in the South in the last 30 years are named after Grand Wizard (and member of guess which party?) Robert Byrd.

So gentlemen, start your jackhammers.

The most aggravating part to me is that the far-far fringe white racist groups are such a small and impotent group.  But our horrible MSM has a vested interest in hugely exaggerating their numbers and influence, and trying to tie them to mainstream conservatism, with which they have nothing to do.

That’s not just galling because they are trying to smear all of us – though Lord knows it’s galling for that reason!

It might be even more galling because for the last several years, the MSM has gone out of its way to NOT notice or cover all of the violent leftist hate groups – Antifa, BLM, Occupy Wall Street, plus a menagerie of various “red” subgroups flying hammer-and-sickle flags — and their consistent hateful rhetoric, violence, and crimes against persons and property.

The murderous loser in VA who drove into those people – and I’m an old school (even Old Testament!) conservative, so here’s hoping he hangs himself in his jail cell – has gotten wall-to-wall coverage.  But that John Goodman-figure who opened fire on GOP congressmen on the softball field while screaming, “Bernie Sanders Akbarrrrrrrr!”?

The MSM covered the story, because they had to.  But remember that flood of stories about him being a Bernie devotee, and a symbol of a threatening and disturbing trend on the left that the entire Dem leadership is complicit in, and must answer for?

Me neither.

Anyway, to quote Mr. Gump, “That’s all I’m going to say about that.”

 

And now for something completely different:

I have a new hero.

Usually, being dead is almost a prerequisite to be a hero, partly because it often takes a lifetime of good deeds to qualify for hero status, and partly because having passed confers a kind of fixed, larger-than-life gravitas.  Thus, most of my heroes – Johnny Cash, Walter Payton, Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, my dad – are no longer with us.

But this new guy is alive and kicking.  Despite the fact that he shot himself in the heart with a nail gun.

You read that right: Shot.  In the heart.  With a nail gun.

Let me introduce you to Doug Bergeson, 52, from Green Bay, Wisconsin.  His story is here: http://abc11.com/man-accidentally-shoots-nail-into-heart-drives-to-hospital/2313245/

I first learned of him while avoiding work by browsing the internet, and coming across this arresting headline: “Man accidentally shoots nail into heart, drives himself to hospital.”

It’s not the nail-in-the-heart part that got me.  I mean, we’ve all been there, right?  You’re doing some rough carpentry, your focus drifts for a moment, and bing/bang/boom – you’ve got a cement-coated ring shank stuck in the old aorta.

It’s the driving-himself-to-the-hospital part.  Read the amazing story, because each paragraph is better than the last.

After the nail ricochets off some wood and lodges in his chest, Mythical-Olympian-Figure Bergeson says, “I thought it just nicked me. I looked down. I couldn’t see anything.  I felt OK. I wasn’t worried about the injury. I couldn’t feel any pressure or blood building up.”

But when he found the nail, “he realized only about 1 inch of the 3-inch nail was sticking out of his chest.”   Then, in the second-best quote of 2017 (Maddog – and I don’t mean Rachel – is still on the gold medal platform with, “Nothing.  I keep other people awake at night.”), Bergeson said, “I could see the nail moving with my heartbeat. It was kind of twitching with every heartbeat.”

Read that again, puny mortals.  The nail.  In his chest.  Was TWITCHING WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT!

The next lines of the story: “He was more annoyed than worried. He knew he had to go to the ER.”

Because you know how annoying it can be when you perforate your pericardium with a piece of sharp metal.  I mean, I wouldn’t exactly get “worried” about it.  Let’s not get carried away.  But annoyed?  Sure, I guess.

“I was frustrated because I knew I wasn’t going to get home until late and I couldn’t get anything done,” Bergeson said, adding that “common sense” told him not to pull the nail out.”

He calls it common sense.  I call it the most counter-intuitive thought since Napoleon said, “Hey, winter’s coming on.  Why don’t we attack Russia on horseback?”

What would I have done in that situation, you ask?

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I would have run around in circles, waving my arms over my head and defecating all over myself, squealing like a 10-year-old girl, “Get it out, GET IT OUT, GETITOUT!”  Then I would have closed my tear-filled eyes and pulled out the nail.   Then I would have staggering around the room in quickly degenerating figure-eights, splattering my DIY project with arterial spray before collapsing to die in a mound of sawdust and ignominy.

(And, scene.)

Not Achilles Bergeson.  He “washed up, hopped [HOPPED!] in his truck” and drove himself to the ER.

I must interrupt the story for just a moment.  If you don’t know the work of comedian Brian Regan, you must watch one of his routines on YouTube right this minute.  Google “Brian Regan” and “Emergency Room,” and watch the funniest 8 minutes of comedy since Sam Kinison died.  Regan also drove himself to an ER, and the story, though not as amazing as Bergeson’s, is hilarious.  (Full disclosure: I want to be a cross between Brian Regan, Clint Eastwood and Doug Bergeson when I grow up.)

Back to Samson Bergeson.  He parks, walks into the ER – because wheelchairs are for wussies — and alerts a security guard to his annoying situation.  “If you could find someone, that would be great, I’m just going to sit down.”  Then he texts his wife, Donna (whom I can only assume requires weeks to recover from each time her bad ass husband has carnal relations with her), “to bring him a new shirt because medical staff had cut off the one he was wearing.”

By the way, this situation constitutes the first time in human history that this combination of words have ever been transmitted – by telegraph, telegram, letter or text:  “Honey, I blasted a nail into one ventricle or another this afternoon.  So my darn shirt is ruined.  Could you stop by the hospital with another one?  Sorry for the inconvenience.” (By the way again, all of the quotes in this column, except the last one, are real.) (And the Napoleon one.  You knew I made that one up, right?)

The surgeon who worked on Bergeson, Alexander Roitstein, “confirmed the nail hit [his] heart, saying it was also 1/16 of an inch from a major artery. He said it was difficult to assess how deeply the nail penetrated, but the nail left bruising and a nail-sized hole.”  (So you’re saying that a nail penetrating one’s chest would leave a “nail-sized hole?”  Thank you, Sherlock Descartes Roitstein.)

Apparently there is something in the water in Green Bay that makes men prone to stoic understatement.  Because Roitstein also praised Bergeson for letting doctors remove the nail.  “It shows the great composure this gentleman had after a very bad day’s experience.”

Yes.  A very bad day’s experience.  Like when your cell coverage is spotty.  Or when the Bears win, but don’t cover the spread.  Or when your Gender Studies prof gets your pronoun wrong, even though you’ve told him/her 1000 times that you prefer “ze.”

Or when you fire a nail into your heart, and it gyrates along with your heartbeat while you are driving and walking and canoeing and cross-country skiing your way to the ER.

And how does Hercules Bergeson sum up the experience?  “I feel pretty good. I’m back to doing things carefully,” he said. “It was a pretty awakening experience.”

We salute you, Doug Bergeson.

Now, let’s give this guy a 10 penny nail and some beef jerky, and air drop him over PyongYang, with instructions to find the guy with the worst haircut, shove the nail into his heart, then pull it out.  Then prepare for a million North Koreans to hoist you onto their shoulders and parade you thorough the city, chanting “Belgeson, Belgeson!” and make you their Emperor.

Problem solved.

I have a lot of thoughts about the North Korean situation.  Well, not a lot of thoughts.  But I do have 5 thoughts:

Thought 1:  We should probably be more worried about this than we seem to be — it should be a huge story, involving as it does the potential for someone using nukes for the first time since we provided a couple of teachable moments to the empire of Japan. (You’re welcome, Japan.  Let this be a lesson to you.)  Instead, most people’s reaction to this whole situation is muted, and I think that’s because this is a classic case of the boy who cried wolf.  Since November 9^th the left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) has been so deeply (and laughably) immersed in drama queen anti-Trump mode over every tiny story, no one is listening any more.

Trump gets petulant about the size of his inaugural crowd?

MSM:  He’s a dictator!  Dictators do that!  It’s the END OF THE WORLD (EOTW, for short)!

Trump compliments the looks of the French president’s considerably older wife?

MSM: That kind of sexism is what sexist dictators do, and it causes millions of women to have anorexia and low self-esteem, and probably shingles and psoriasis!  It’s the EOTW!
Trump says that he’s going to withhold some federal funds from sanctuary cities who defy ICE and proudly break federal law?

MSM:  This is the first step dictators take when they commit genocide!  First they force people into the shadows, and then – yada yada yada – Auschwitz!  EOTW!

Trump responds with juvenile insults to the juvenile insults from Mika Consonant-filled-last-Name?  (If you think I’m going to spend my precious time looking up how to spell Mika’s ridiculous last name, you are crazy.  I know her dad had the same last name, but that was balanced by one of the coolest first names ever: Zbigniew.  The fact that no rapper has taken that as his stage name – Z-big — shows just how stupid rappers are.)

MSM:  He’s punching down!  You know who else punches down?  (The bored-out-of-his-skull union camera operator mumbles, “Dictators?”)  That’s right – dirty, rotten, down-punching dictators.  EOTW!

So now, when an actual dictator actually does threaten to use nukes, we’re all watching Game of Thrones and tuning the MSM hysterics out.

 

Thought 2: I also have a hard time taking North Korea seriously because I’ve seen Team America: World Police a dozen times.  This probably does not speak well of me, but what can I say?

If you haven’t seen that movie yet, you are doing yourself a disservice.  Yes, it is a puppet movie.  And yes, the puppets’ every movement and gesture is as awkward and graceless as you would expect.  Yet it transcends all of that and provides what can only be called an eerily accurate presentation of Islamic terrorists (Fun fact: Arabic vocabulary consists entirely of the words, “Dirka dirka, Mohammed jihad!”  True story.) and of whichever Kim was dictator at the time.  (Does it really matter?  Am I alone in thinking that poor North Korea has been ruled by a series of interchangeable Kims for 1000 thousand years?)

(And if you mean to tell me that there is a better name for a Korean improv comedy troupe than “Interchangeable Kims,” I can only say an emphatic, “Good day, sir!” and slam a metaphorical door in your face.)

Seriously, Team America has the three essentials for drama that Aeschylus first laid out 500 years before Christ:  1. Rising tension between protagonists that is eventually resolved in the final act.  2. Disturbing puppet sex.  3. Hans Blix (“Brix”) being eaten by a shark.

Plus, it features what has to be the most impressive, nuanced performance of Matt Damon’s career.

Anyway, enough about the movie.  I’m just saying that once you’ve seen one of the assorted Kims wandering the over-sized palace hallways — in those ginormous Harry Caray glasses, singing, “I’m so  ronery!  So ronery!  So ronery and feering so brue.” – it’s hard to feel threatened by North Korea.

 

Thought 3. One other reason it’s hard to be too worried about North Korea?  They threatened to shoot a missile at Guam.

Not Hawaii.  Not San Francisco or LA or stately Simpson Manor.

Guam.

Now I don’t mean to disparage Guam, or the Guamians.  (Guamese?  Guam-bats?  I don’t know.)  But is it unfair to note that Guam has not occupied a preeminent position in the thoughts and hearts of the West in general, or Americans in particular?

Is there a Guamian dream that stirs your heart?  Have you ever choked up at the first notes of the Guamian national anthem (“Guam, Guam, Uber Alles” for all you know), or found yourself reciting the national motto of Guam (“Vive la Guam?”  “Semper Guam?” “Live Free or Get out of Guam?”)?  I think not.

Picture the scene at the White House.   The latest Kim is addressing his starving, twitchy, fearful nation.  Trump and his advisors and generals are on the edge of their seats around a huge oval table, watching a big screen as the speech reaches its zenith.  “And if America does not agree to our demands, we will attack… Guam!”

The generals and advisors look at each other for a long moment.  Then they all slump back into their chairs in relief.

Advisor 1: “Did he say Guam?”

Advisor 2: “Oh thank God!”

General 1: “I was sure he was going to say Hawaii!”

General 2: “I know, right?”

Trump (with a big sigh of relief): “Okay, how many people are in Guam?”

Advisor 3: “Dozens?”

Advisor 4:  “It’s got to be thousands, at least.  Right?”

Shrugs all around.

Trump: “How about the economic impact?  If there was a strike on Guam’s capital…?”  (looks around the room for help)

Anthony Scaramucci:  “Guadalupe?”

Trump gives him a dirty look.  “Mooch?  What are you still doing here?  I fired you weeks ago.”

Mooch hangs his head, slowly gets up, starts for the door.

Trump (to the rest of the table):  “Economic impact?  If Guam was hit, God forbid, would that interfere with our supply of…?”  (looking for more help, while his advisors study the ceiling or their shoes)

Mooch: “Guava?”

Trump: “Out!”  (Mooch shuffles the rest of the way to the door, and closes it behind him.)

Trump:  “It’s not guava, right?”

Shrugs all around.

Trump: “All right, somebody Google Guam, and we meet back here in 10.”

And, scene.

Thought 4.  It’s not the Kim haircut that makes me dismiss him.  It’s the judgment call that he made AFTER getting that haircut.

He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror – the poor barber trembling beside him, sure he was going to be executed for creating such a ridiculous look – and said, “Yeah, that’s it!  My biggest problem now is that once my people get a look at this, they’re ALL going to want it.  General Kim?  You and the other generals Kim are to issue a nationwide decree: No one else can have this haircut.”

General Kim (with a straight face):  “That’s going to be a tough one to enforce.   I mean, with that haircut being so awesome and all.”

Kim:  “I know, right?  Hey, get my publicist in here, what’s his name?”

General Kim:  “Kim?”

Kim:  “That’s right.  I need to get some publicity shots taken right away.  I’ve got to share this haircut with the nation.”

 

Thought 5:  I don’t care for the professional wrestling language going back and forth between Kim and Trump.  Kim always talks like that:  “We’ll reduce you to jelly!”  (Millions of starving Norks then begin salivating at the thought of sweet, sweet jelly.)   And Trump is usually half-way there too (“We’re bringing Fire and Fury, baby.   Believe me.  It will be like nothing the world has ever seen.”)  I find myself agreeing with Trump’s critics: a president shouldn’t talk like this.

But on the other hand, we all know how presidents are supposed to talk, right?  Diplomacy-speak:  The world community won’t stand for this.  It’s in all of our interests that we avoid conflict.  We can get past this misunderstanding.  With mutual respect, we can move forward to a settlement…

How’s that worked out for us?

After a little Trumpian tough-talk, Bill Clinton arrived at a diplomatic coup that would appease the Norks and keep them from developing nukes.  (Spoiler alert: they developed nukes.)

Bush mixed some tough talk with some diplo-speak, carrot-and-sticking the Norks to stop testing their missiles.  (Spoiler alert: they kept testing their missiles.)

Obama muttered his way through the kind of banalities that most of us outgrew by the spring of freshman year (No one wins in a nuclear war, you’ll be on the wrong side of history if you don’t agree with me, the entire world community agrees that…), in an effort to stop the Norks from developing and testing longer-range ICBMs.   (Spoiler alert: they developed and tested longer-range ICBMs.)

Bottom line: North Korea is a mess that threatens its neighbors, and that’s going to continue until the demented socialist regime that has been torturing their people is gotten rid of.  All sarcasm aside, the recent history of NK is a devastating story of incredible suffering and almost incomprehensible evil, and it’s tragic that China has enabled it, and that no other nations have been able to stop it.

But I don’t think anyone has a clear idea of how to solve this.   The only thing that seems clear is that it’s infinitely better to prevent despotic regimes from getting nukes than to try to deal with them once they have nukes.

Speaking of Iran…

I’ve been working about 12 hours a day since this month started, and I fell out of the current events loop a bit.  I’ve got a couple of old, restored rental houses in a college town, and this is the hectic time of year when the tenants turn over, and I turn from trying to fix the world through the magic of sarcastic mockery, to trying to fix the damage to a two-story Craftsman left by marauding undergrads.

I even spent less time reading Cautious Optimism than usual, which is obviously a sign of a life in danger of going off the rails.  So over the last two evenings I caught up on CO and some of my other favorite media sources.

And now I feel like I may still be feeling the effects of a Percocet hangover.  Has everyone lost their freaking minds?

Of course, one place where they have not is at CO.  CO himself continues his unerring streak of picking All-Star CO Follower of the Month selections with Don Deere.  Laura Belveal introduces me to the story of an amazing woman I’d never heard of named Temple Grandin.  (It’s a sign of our society’s decay that you can find a million people who know Lena Dunham for every one person who knows Grandin.)  And the site continues to enlighten and entertain, through the story selection and the sparkling commentary.

But the rest of the world?  Bah!

There were so many odd stories that it was hard to pick just a couple:

• Google bloviates about how much they value diversity, and welcome all sorts of divergent viewpoints. Then they fire a guy because he expressed a divergent viewpoint.
• The MSM keep up their 0-for-August accuracy record by smearing the Google guy’s memo without quoting any of it. In fact, their claims about his memo are Schumerian in their dishonesty.  They claim that he is against diversity.  (Quote from the memo, “I value diversity.”)  They claim that he says women aren’t biologically capable of succeeding in tech jobs.  (Quote from the memo: “I am not saying that women are biologically incapable of succeeding in tech jobs.”) etc.
• A German newspaper reports that the German military is now actively recruiting transgendered people and disabled people as soldiers. Now I know that Germany has a little bad karma to work through, military-history-wise.  But no matter what happened in the past, can any conceivably rational solution possibly involve fielding a Panzer division headed up by Caitlyn Hawking-Rommel?

(Okay.  I know that at this point, Caitlyn jokes are low-hanging fruit.  And Stephen Hawking is a pretty prominent disabled celebrity.  And folks who know their WWII German generals will recognize the name of the Desert Fox.  But I ask you, how many website columns have you read that have pulled off that rare reference trifecta in one joke?  Normally I would hesitate to call myself a hero, but…)

Anyway, here’s a round-up of other odd stories that fascinated yet repelled me in the last 10 days or so:

1.Al Gore is apparently still alive.  And he’s made a horrible sequel to his horrible, error-filled An Inconvenient Truth.   And it made $47 in it’s opening weekend.  And in an interview, he suggested that Trump might not finish out his term for “ethical reasons.”

That’s Al Gore, ladies and gentlemen.  Talking about ethics.  The guy who preaches an austere lifestyle, and leaving a tiny carbon footprint, while he owns one of the biggest houses in Tennessee, which uses something like 30 times the electricity of the average American home; the guy who flies everywhere in private jets, and who sold his hideous tv channel to a company owned and funded by an oil-soaked Middle Eastern emir.

None of that keeps Gore up at night.  But Trump’s ethics do.

My faith in God is a little shaken, because He has not stricken Gore with an all-natural, gluten-free, eco-friendly lightning bolt.   I think Sodom and Gomorrah are owed an apology.

2. Royal Dutch Airlines (slogan: “We’re not just wooden shoes and open-air heroin markets. We have airplanes, too!”) decided that the best way to entice people to fly with them was to tout their hyper- extra- super-gay friendliness. So they created an ad that features three sets of rainbow-colored seatbelts.

On top – no offense – is a pair of what might be called “female” seatbelts.   (Those are the ones with the handle that you pull on to release the belt in case you’ve crashed into a rocky outcropping 7 miles from Denver at 350 mph and are now experiencing discomfort, and would like to exit the plane in an orderly manner.)

In the middle is a pair of what might be called “male” seatbelts.  (Those are the ones that you would usually shove into the “female” ones – no offense – until you hear a satisfying click.  Or a less satisfying click, if both of you are tired and your mother-in-law called with some advice during supper and your boss has been on your back at work and won’t those freaking kids ever shut up and go to sleep so I can concentrate on what I’m doing here?!)

On the bottom – no offense – is one “male” piece and one “female” piece.

The tag line: “It doesn’t matter who you click with.  Happy #Pride Amsterdam”

As many commentators pointed out, the flaw in the ad is so obvious that even Paul Krugman could spot it: only one set of those seatbelts actually work, and this ad undermines its point hilariously.

If the Cautious Optimist produced videos – and really, why doesn’t he? – this would be a prime candidate for a response ad.  Here’s the scenario:  The pilot announces that there is turbulence ahead, so he (or she – no offense) turns on the “fasten seatbelt” sign.   Everybody with heterosexual seat belts (no offense) snaps them on, and lives happily ever after.

Everybody with the “alternative lifestyle” seat belts rattles and pokes and bonks them together ineffectually, and then increasingly frantically, until the turbulence hits, throwing them all violently about the cabin, breaking limbs and fracturing T-3 vertebrae hither and yon.

Tag line: “Lufthansa.  We could not care less who you sleep with.  And our seatbelts work.”

3. Some guy named Jim Chambers owns a gym in Atlanta. And because he was once bench pressing 300 pounds when the bar broke, dropping many heavy weights onto his head, he scrawled a sign in his fine establishment expressing the idea that cops were not welcome there.

You know that Jim is a classy guy, because:

1. He hand-scrawls the signs in his windows.
2. He can’t express his hand-scrawled opinions without tastefully dropping in an F bomb.
3. He is a self-proclaimed “activist” who hates cops.

But the story gets better.  When local media heard about his “cops suck” stance and asked him whether he regretted it, he conferred with his p.r. team (i.e. a poster of Arnold from his “Pumping Iron” days, but with Bernie Sanders’ head taped over the Terminator’s – which he hears talking to him on a regular basis).  Then he says no.  He doesn’t like cops.  Plus, soldiers suck too, so no military veterans, either.

When I was doing the coursework for my Ph.D. in Public Relations, I learned that this tactic is called “steering into the scandal skid.”  The textbook example was Ted Kennedy right after Chappaquiddick; when a reporter asked him whether he’d been drinking before he drove off the bridge, he said, “Yes.  A lot.  But that cold water sobered me right up.  And then I left my date to drown.  Any more questions?”

Anyway, back to Jim Chambers.  Before you dismiss him as a bigot and a moron, consider his reasons: he claims that many of his clientele “are minorities, and not comfortable around cops,” and also that law enforcement “serves capitalism and white supremacy.”

Okay, NOW you can dismiss Chambers as a bigot and a moron.

He states that he doesn’t like capitalism… in an interview given in the for-profit business that he owns.  Plus, he is doing classic niche marketing: folks in his part of town belong to a demographic which tends not to like cops, so he caters to that dysfunctional and self-defeating attitude as a marketing strategy.

It’s like Louis Farrakhan and Gordon Gekko had a baby, and that baby was raised by Karl Marx, and then had heavy weights dropped on his head.  And then he opened a gym.

Proving once again that cops are better people than me, the Atlanta PD confirmed for the media that Chambers’ sign and attitude would not prevent them from responding if he ever calls the police.   Whereas I would respond too.   But by laughing, and laughing and laughing.  And then hanging up.

4. But just as I was contemplating giving up on the world, I saw this story: During a minor league baseball game, an autistic boy tried to get the attention of Tim Tebow, who was warming up on deck. Tebow saw him, and came over and shook his hand. (The kid was so happy that he ran back up to his parents in the stands, literally crying with joy.)  Then Tebow hit a 3-run home run.

The only way that story could have be sweeter would have been if the towering homer would have forced a low-flying Royal Dutch Airlines jet equipped with gay seat belts to make a crash landing into a Radisson ballroom, killing only two of the speakers – Al Gore and Jim Chambers — on a panel addressing the topic, “How the Police, White Supremacy and Capitalism are responsible for Global Warming.”

Since my last piece for CO, a lot has gone on around stately Simpson manor.  As our national political in-fighting has gone in a more frustrating, “a pox on both houses” kind of a direction, I’ve turned toward tending my own garden, metaphorically speaking.  I’ve done a few home maintenance projects, took the girls for a visit with their grandmother, etc.   And a few days ago, I went to an oral surgeon to have a troublesome molar removed.

By the way, for all of you CO readers out there who may be studying or practicing the black arts of dentistry, here’s a little advice.  When you are part way through the process of removing a pesky molar that has roots that somehow extend down into the lower abdomen, do NOT say, “This one is stubborn, so I’m going to cut the tooth in half and then remove it in pieces.”

That information helps no one.  Especially when the patient has a powerful imagination, so much so that – numbed though half of his jaw and face may be – he can imagine the vertical sawing through of the tooth, and the violent removal of jagged pieces with what must have been pliers and a very, very small jackhammer.

Anyway, long story short, I survived the kind of violent molar-cide that would have killed a lesser man.  And for 48 hours afterward, I had the pronounced jawline swelling that made my already excellent Godfather impression even more eerily accurate.  Though now that I think about it, the effect was more like Michael after that corrupt police captain punched him in the face, and he had to have his jaw wired shut.   (If you didn’t get those references, for shame.  Stop reading this and watch Godfathers I and II immediately.)

And now, thanks to the wonders of anesthetic and Percocet, I’d like to follow in the footsteps of one of my idols, Thomas Sowell, and present a few Random Thoughts:

First, a toast.  To the inventor of Percocet, who ranks behind only Jonas Salk, Les Paul and the inventor of scotch as a benefactor of mankind.  Hear hear, and well done, Frederick J. Percocet!

Second, a symbolic groin kick to the national GOP leadership.  In my last CO piece I offered 5 options to vote for the Hypocrite of the Year, a list that included such lowlife weirdos as CNN, a Florida woman who left her kid in a broiling car and then complained that the cop car she rode in was too hot, and the national Democrats.  And the mostly conservative and wise CO readership voted about 95% for you, the leaders of the GOP.

After years of pretending to want to repeal the freedom- and health-care-degrading disaster that is Obamacare, you’ve revealed your utter fecklessness.  (Seriously, you people are completely and utterly lacking in even the tiniest morsel of feck.)   And now most of you seem determined to achieve the worst of both worlds, by producing a non-repeal that keeps many of the worst features of O-care, and calling it a repeal.  When that monstrosity inevitably fails, the corrupt media will not point out that it was originally a leftist creation.  They’ll call it Trumpcare and use its failure as a way to smear you, and an excuse to move on to the wasteful morass of mediocrity and rationing that is national health care.

Speaking of which, can there ever be a better illustration of nationalized health care than the tragic Charlie Gard story?  I know that that kid was almost certainly going to die no matter what happened.  But his parents had hope, and they had raised enough money to take him to the states, where a competent doctor proposed a treatment that offered at least a chance of improvement.

But the arrogant health care bureaucrats at the British NHS would not let the parents take their own child out of the hospital to try to save or prolong his life.  Instead, they forced the parents to go through protracted court proceedings, arguing that they had a right to their child while that child’s life slowly slipped away.

Think about that.  The parents didn’t need money or anything else from the State.  They just wanted to take their own kid to another doctor who offered to treat him.  And they had to beg for that chance, while the State kept their son from them until it was too late.

And for everybody who mocked Sarah Palin for coining the phrase “death panels?” I hope that you will one day have a stubborn molar that needs to be removed, but that you end up in a NHS hospital that is running short of anesthetic and Percocet.  And that instead of having the stoicism and strength of ten men – like a certain writer for a great web page whom I could mention – you have the general wussiness and low pain threshold of a Cryin’ Chuck Schumer.

And when you cry out, “But you said that if I liked my Percocet, I could keep my Percocet!”  I’m just going to laugh at you.  And tell you that there’s a 3-month wait for Percocet.  But that you can have this pair of rusty pliers and tiny, tiny jackhammer if you’d like.

Finally, I’ve discovered the purest distillation of a certain kind of misanthropically deranged feminism that you’ll ever see.   Please google “Jody Allard,” and read her article called, “I’m Done Pretending Men are Safe (even my sons),” and prepared to be dazzled by her contemplative open-mindedness.   Allard is a feminist writing about how horrible men are (surprise, surprise), with the added twist of calling out her two young sons as potential rapists, too.

After first throwing her boys under the gender bus in an article for the Washington Post, she writes this follow-up article in which she reports that even though her sons are “good boys,” they aren’t “safe.”  In fact, she cluelessly shows that she’s not just a sexist, but a racist too, by proclaiming, “White people aren’t safe, and men aren’t safe, no matter how much I’d like to assure myself that these things aren’t true.”

The kindest compliment that she can manage is to say, “My sons won’t rape unconscious women behind a dumpster, and neither will most of the progressive men I know.”

Gee thanks, mom.  Love you too.

And by the way, you’re probably asking yourself, does that imply that non-progressive men will obviously be raping women behind dumpsters pretty much every weekend, and on alternating Tuesdays?

Yes.  Yes it does.

At one moment in her written Rohrschach test of a screed, Allard almost achieves a tiny flicker of self-awareness, but then fights it off:  “I love my sons, and I love some individual men. It pains me to say that I don’t feel emotionally safe with them, and perhaps never have with a man, but it needs to be said because far too often we are afraid to say it. This is not a reflection of something broken or damaged in me…”

NO, of course not!  You’re doing great, just the way you are.  You just keep doing you, and I’m sure your boys — Norman Bates Allard and Ted Bundy Allard — are going to turn out just fine.

Or maybe that’s just the Percocet talking.

Anyway, read the whole thing for yourself.  And then raise your kids in the exact opposite way that she is raising hers, and you’ll be fine.

The last election was so much fun that I thought it was time for another one.  This time, we’ll be voting on the “Hypocrite of the Year” award.  There are 5 worthy nominees, so pick up your ballots and put on your hip-waders.

Nominee 1 – Serena Williams, for criticizing McEnroe for suggesting that she couldn’t beat top male tennis players, four years after she admitted in a Letterman interview that she would be destroyed by a top male tennis player. (I wrote about this one in my last CO column.)  Serena gets a hypocrisy two-fer: She implies that she could defeat the best male players while having already admitted that that’s not the case, AND she pleads for privacy during her pregnancy while also doing a nude Vanity Fair cover photo in what appears to be her 14th gestational month.  (I might be speaking only for myself, but the last time I was trying to keep a low profile in my town, I arranged to have a nude photo of myself – holding the strategically placed trophy I won in Men’s Singles at Wimbledon in ’92 – on the front page of our local paper.  Now I feel like all of the women at the grocery store are undressing me with their eyes.  Needless to say, I’m horribly offended.  Won’t anyone please just give me my privacy?!  And my eyes are up here, thank you very much.  And yes, I have been working out lately.  Why do you ask?)

Nominee 2 – This nominee is a horrible mother.  And before you can guess, no, it’s not Hillary Clinton. (Though don’t get me wrong, she was a horrible mother, who enabled her creepy husband to victimize many people, and helped to create what appears to have been a miserable childhood for her daughter, who is now showing signs of the damage, in the sense that she seems to have become a bit of a creep herself.)

No, this mother is 30-year-old Floridian Colleen Walker, who left her 5-year-old son in a hot car for 30 minutes while she shopped in a Dollar General.  And I know what you’re thinking:

1.None of these geniuses who leave their kids or pets to broil in their cars are ever parked in front of a church, or a library, or an opera house or an art museum.  It’s always a strip club, or pawn shop, or a Dollar General.

2.What could possibly take 30 minutes to find in a Dollar General?   Did she get distracted while comparison shopping among several varieties of off-brand shampoo, expired medicine, and “beef” jerky (small print: “Contains no actual beef.”)?

Fortunately an alert bystander – and we really should be posting alert bystanders outside Dollar Generals for just this very purpose – noticed the 5-year-old crying, and police and firefighters intervened and got the kid out.  The temperature inside the car when they did so was 107 degrees Fahrenheit.  (That’s 210 Celsius, or the square root of 14 Kelvin for all I know, in case you’re a self-loathing metric-system-using Canadian or something.)

Anyway, the kid’s okay, and mom gets to take a ride in the back of a cop car.  On her way to the jail, she complains to the officer because …

Wait for it…

IT’S TOO HOT IN THE COP CAR!

If I were that cop, I’d make sure that my seat belt was on, and that her seat belt wasn’t, and then I’d drive into a cinderblock wall at 80 miles an hour.  Then, when I pulled her out of the car to see if she was okay, I would bounce her face against the hot concrete repeatedly, while whispering into her ear, “How’s the temperature of this concrete?  Just about right?”

And that’s why I washed out of the police academy in my first week.

(It had nothing at all to do with my nude photo on the cover of the Police Gazette, which accompanied my editorial protesting how little respect is given to the privacy of police cadets.  Those rumors are very hurtful.  And I’m super offended.)

 

Nominee 3 – National Democrat leaders, for whining that the GOP healthcare plan is being written behind closed doors, without any of the transparency and openness that they hold sacred.

You read that right, and once again I know what you’re thinking:  It seems like only a few short years ago those same Dems marched through an elaborate series of Maxwell Smart-style doors into a secret chamber carved deep into a mountain, sequestered themselves there for months, only to emerge and begin bribing every senator in sight, from Louisiana to Nebraska.  Then they showed us the cover of a 2000+ page bill and scheduled a Senate vote on it for Christmas eve.  (I’m not making that up.  They voted to destroy 1/6 of our economy.  On. Christmas.  Eve.)

Sure, they left about 4 hours for debate.  During which they filled the air of the capitol with a heavy, malodorous fog of lies and obfuscation, and then hammered down a few pitiful GOP objections.  And San Fran Nan said that we could learn what was in the bill AFTER it was passed.

At least I think that’s what she said.  After that much Botox, she always looks like the Tin Man to me, speaking through one pinched corner of her mouth.  She could have said, “Oil can,” for all I know.

But whatever she said, it came just before they rammed through the hilariously mis-named, “Affordable Care Act.”  (Do you remember the old joke about the Holy Roman Empire – it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire?  Well the ACA was not affordable, and it prevented people from getting any care.  But it was all an act, so I guess one out of three isn’t bad.)

And now those same Democrats are offended because the GOP’s attempt to replace the “Dumpster-Fire Train-Wreck Hindenberg New Coke Edsel Peace-in-our-Time Act” (Obamacare, for short) is NOT transparent enough.

 

Nominee 4 – Media goofs at CNN (new slogan: “Where weapons-grade ignorance meets bone-deep dishonesty!”) claimed that Trump re-tweeting the wrestling meme video is going to get journalists killed!  Killed, I tell’s ya!!!

And you know, they’ve got a point.  Because just last month a right-winger inspired by Trump went to a DC baseball field, and asked if the journalists playing there worked for CNN. When told that they did, he opened fire with a rifle, nearly killing—

Wait. What’s that you say?  That wasn’t a right-winger Trump supporter, but a left-winger Bernie supporter?  And he didn’t target a bunch of CNN journalists, but a bunch of GOP lawmakers?  Huh.

 

Nominee 5 – GOP knuckleheads who promised for years to repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare, but have proven themselves to be barely more honest and transparent than the Democrats.  (That’s the worst insult I could think of, without using the kind of vulgarity that will arouse the FB censors.)   “But we need the House,” they said – so they got the house.  “But we need the Senate,” they said – and they got the Senate.  “But we need the White House,” they said.

Now they have all three, and they punt.  Bah!

Please register your votes now.

My choice, if it won’t taint the judging, goes to the GOP, for several reasons:

1. Serena is a dope who doesn’t ultimately matter to the nation. Plus, she’s about to give birth to what appears to be octuplets, so she gets some sympathy from me.
2. Creepy mom is an evil dope who matters even less than Serena. (Though her child should be taken from her and given to a loving family to raise.  Or even an apathetic family.  Or, if none of those are available, a family of raccoons.  Or even a single-mother raccoon, if she’s got her GED and is trying to get her act together.)
3. & 4. The media and the Dems (but I repeat myself) are 50 shades of awful, but we expect no better. After years of (insert your own examples here) — Clinton preaching feminism while he chased women around every desk he’s ever had, Obama promising the most transparent administration in history and then fighting off every FOIA request with both hands and a broadsword, Bernie criticizing the rich while buying 3 houses – we know that they are hypocrites.  Giving them a hypocrisy award would be like giving a life-long Spanish speaker an “A” for minimal competence in a first-year Spanish class.

But the GOP should know better, and their appalling lack of adherence to what they’ve called their bedrock principles is doubly galling.  As a conservative who is registered as a Republican only because there is no viable Conservative party, I want to support Republicans whenever I can.

But these idiots seem determined to screw this up.  So, sadly, they are my Hypocrites of the Year.

A lot has happened in the world since my last piece for Cautious Optimism.  The Supreme Court temporarily backed Trump’s travel ban, with all indications pointing to a permanent smack-down of the dopes in the 4th and 9th circuit courts later this year.

Elmo went to Jordan, and is back to report that Syrian refugee kids are just like other kids.  (Even Jewish and Christian kids, whose lives are routinely threatened by at least some of the parents of the Syrian kids.)

Trump posted a juvenile but hilarious wrestling video of him pummeling a CNN figure, after which CNN pulled its collective dress over its head and stomped around in a room full of rakes – “This video constitutes a threat to journalists’ lives!  We must find the meme-maker and give him the Otto Warmbier treatment!” — making themselves look much worse than Trump.

Jamie Galioto captured a much-deserved CO Follower of the Month award, to the acclaim of a grateful nation.

But one story captured my attention, not because it was the most politically significant, but because it might offer one of the most painfully indicative “sign of the times” in terms of our society’s growing insanity when it comes to issues of gender and sexism.

This was the mind-numbingly stupid controversy over John McEnroe’s comments about Serena Williams’ hypothetical competitiveness against the top male tennis players in the world.  There were three parts to the story:

Act 1: The Interview.

In the course of an NPR interview with someone called Lulu Garcia-Navarro, McEnroe praised Williams as probably “the greatest female tennis player of all time.”  Ever vigilant for sexist thought, the interviewer said, “Some wouldn’t qualify it, some would say she’s the best player in the world.  Why qualify it?”

McEnroe was apparently too stunned by the weapons-grade obliviousness of the question. “Oh!” McEnroe replied. “Uh, she’s not, you mean, the best player in the world, period?”

“Yeah, the best tennis player in the world,” Garcia-Navarro said. “You know, why say female player?”

Luckily, McEnroe wasn’t drinking anything at that moment, or he could have done a classic spit take, drenching Lulu, as she so richly deserved.  He said that he thought she would be ranked around 700 if she played against men, which led to howls of outrage from those who are perpetually on the verge of howling with outrage.

By the way, you’re probably asking yourself if interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro is the same Garcia-Navarro who won dozens of professional women’s tennis tournaments, and for whom the oversized crystal trophy awarded to each year’s Wimbledon champ – “The Lulu” – is named.

No and no.

First, there is no Wimbledon trophy called “the Lulu” – I made that up.  You should be a little embarrassed if you believed me.

Second, my extensive research – by which I mean, two minutes of Googling Garcia-Navarro – shows that Lulu has never played professional tennis.  Or, as far as I could tell, college tennis or high school tennis.  She may never have picked up a tennis racket in her life.

Which might start to explain – although a room temperature IQ might also be a contributing factor – why she thinks that there is no reason (except sexism, of course) to say that a female tennis player might be better than any of the male tennis players in the world.

I’m going to mention a few biological facts now.  So, I guess… trigger warning for those of you who cannot tolerate reality?  For the rest of you, stand back while I blow your mind:

Males are physically larger, with more muscle and less body fat than females.  They are faster, and hit the ball harder than females do.  Extensive research (i.e. another 90 seconds on Google) shows that the top 20 male serve speeds range from 144-163 miles per hour, compared to the top female speeds from 124-131, and that the average male serve speed is around 30 kilometers per hour faster than the average female serve speed.  (I don’t know how much that is in miles per hour, because I’m not a commie who uses the metric system, except when buying a gun or tools.  But I’m guessing that it’s a significant difference.)

These aren’t insults; they’re facts.  And there’s no reason for a rational person to be offended by them.  But sadly, it’s the mark of a certain kind of feminist to not be able to acknowledge the most basic biological differences without being angered by them.   (Full disclosure: I consider myself a feminist, but not the “all men are horrible, and women are superior” kind.)

My wife is good at many things that I’m not.  Though I sometimes envy her for that, I can’t imagine getting angry about it.  And if I point out that I can do many more pushups than she can, I don’t have to worry that she’ll go off on a spittle-flecked rant insisting that I take that back or she’ll kill me.

That was an old girlfriend.  And things didn’t end well.

Anyway, it’s a very bad sign when our society can’t acknowledge the naturally differing abilities of both genders without being infuriated by them.   I hope that one day we’ll all meet at a big Cautious Optimism convention, and if we do, I expect that many people will say things to me like, “Wow, you smell nice.” Or “I noticed you doing many one-armed push-ups earlier. Impressive.”

But if one of you – say, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, if she somehow snuck past CO’s security – were to say something like, “Simpson, you think you’re so great, with your Nobel prize in ornithology and your fashionable tuxedo.”  (I picture all of us at a Cautious Optimism convention in formal wear.) “But you, sir, are horrible at lactating.  In fact, I bet I could lactate circles around you!”

I might respond in several ways, including wondering who this crazy woman was, and how she got in here, and what circular lactating would look like.

But do you know how I would NOT respond in a million years?

I would not get defensive and say, “Oh yeah?!  Them’s fightin’ words!” And then I would NOT ball up my fists and flex like Hans and Franz, grunting loudly while I tried to force myself to lactate on cue.

Because men don’t lactate nearly as well as women.  (Cue the NBC “The more you know” theme music.)  We also don’t tend to listen as well as women.  Or have as much emotional intelligence as women do.  Or exercise basic common sense when it comes to things with motors in them.

And that doesn’t make us less worthy as human beings.  Any more than the fact that the best male tennis players in the world would dominate the best female tennis players in the world.

 

Act 2: The Coerced Apology

Well, that’s it, you’re thinking.  Garcia-Navarro is a dim bulb, but an idiosyncratic one.  Surely no one else could be stupid enough to–  Wait.  This just in from an Inside Edition interview with McEnroe a few days after the controversy broke.

Co-host Gayle King complains, “I think it belittles what women do on the tennis court, that’s why people are upset,” she said.

Because stating an undeniable truth is seen as “belittling.”  Duh.

McEnroe tries to explain himself – that is, tries to explain the obvious – when Norah O’Donnell chimes in with, “I’m just waiting… would you like to apologize?”

When McEnroe says, “No,” Charlie Rose says, “Why was it necessary to say that?” and the three hosts badger him for several more painfully comedic minutes.

In recent years everybody seems to be getting awfully sensitive on various topics, but it seems like we’ve really lost our mind when it comes to gender (and race, too).  I can’t imagine, for example, similar comments being made about someone on the Senior PGA tour, which is a league in which famous pro golfers over 55 compete against each other.  But if a commentator mentioned that he thought that some old guy was the best golfer on the senior tour, no “journalist” would be goofy enough to say, “Why do you qualify that?  Why best ‘senior’ golfer?  Why not just say that he’s the best golfer in the world?”

If anyone WAS dopey enough to say that, the commentator would say something like, “Because he’s 86!  His drives go as far as Dustin Johnson’s 7 irons!  Are you nuts?  Hold on, let me take a long drink, so you can ask that question again, and I can spit it on you in disgust.”

 

Act 3: In Which the Poor Victim Proves to be a Hypocrite

So after McEnroe initially refuses to apologize for saying something that is obviously true, the empty heads work on him for a few minutes until he cracks, mumbling about not wanting to upset Serena while she’s pregnant.

But as part of the Inside Edition piece, they quote a tweet from Serena herself: “Dear John, I adore and respect you, but please, please keep me out of your statements that are not factually based.  Respect me and my privacy as I am trying to have a baby.”

By the way, my favorite part of the Inside Edition piece was that the story cut immediately from Serena’s plea for respecting her privacy as she has her baby to – wait for it – “Speaking of her baby, look at this provocative new Vanity Fair cover: a very pregnant Serena!” Sure enough, they plaster a big nude photo of Serena in what has to be the fourth trimester, at least.

Because nothing says, “Why won’t anyone give me my privacy?!” like a nude cover photo on Vanity Fair.

Anyway, look at her tweet one more time: she objects to McEnroe’s “statements that are not factually based.”  Does that mean that she agrees with Lulu that she could beat the best male players?  It sounds like it.

But then, Serena’s appearance on Letterman from four years ago surfaced.  Letterman talked about the Billie Jean King/ Bobby Riggs match, and asked Serena, “What would happen if something like that happened today?”

Williams said essentially what earned McEnroe such scorn.  Her answer, which I’m not making up, was, “Andy Murray [at that time, the 3^rd ranked men’s player in the world] has been joking about myself and him playing a match… For me, men’s and women’s tennis are completely almost two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe ten minutes…. The men are a lot faster, they serve harder, they hit harder.  It’s a different game.  I love to play women’s tennis, and I only want to play girls because I don’t want to be embarrassed.  I would not do the tour or Billie Jean King any justice, so Andy stop it, I’m not going to let you kill me.”

Hypocrisy, thy name is Serena.

So what have we learned from this?  Maybe that men and women are different?

If you still needed to learn that, you should sue the Gender Studies program from which you received your degree.

 

I come to you today bearing only good news.  I’m back from Illinois, I had a great Father’s Day, and I’m in a great mood.  So today we’re going to stay on the sunny side.

In political news, Democrats nationwide scrape together $24 million, and then take a vote on what to do with it.  While many of them voted for

Option A – Put it in a big pile, light it on fire, and dance around it wearing Guy Fawkes masks and Antifa hoodies while screaming obscenities aimed at Trump – the narrow winner was

Option B.  Which was to donate it to the Georgia House campaign of 15-year-old Jon “Pajama Boy” Ossoff, a ne’er-do-well from two counties over.

And he wisely used it to win… (trumpet fanfare)… a moral victory… (sad trombone fanfare).

By which I mean, he lost.  In the most expensive House campaign ever.  In a bellwether contest to demonstrate that Trump is done for.  In a harbinger of the glorious leftist victories to come.

He lost.

I know, the lefties are already counter-spinning.  This was a red district, and the GOP spent a lot too, and Handel under-performed the previous GOP seat holder.  And the sun got in our eyes, and the dog ate our homework, and the Russians did it.

You’re probably right.  You just need to double-down on the Trump hatred, and things are bound to turn around for you.  But there have been 4 congressional elections since November, and you guys are 4-0 in moral victories.  And 0-4 in actual victories.

That gigantic cash bonfire idea is looking pret-ty good about now, isn’t it?

 

In happy international news, an ISIS chief cleric who called himself “the Grand Mufti” – probably because “Grand Kleagle” and “Exalted Cyclops” were already taken, and his real name was Turki al-Bin’ali – caught an air strike in the face on May 31^st.

I would like to renew my call that instead of a respectful moment of silence, we greet this kind of news with a few moments of raucous and celebratory noise.  I’m recommending a garage band playing the first 45 seconds of the Beastie Boy’s Sabotage, followed by the open to Stranglehold, followed by my dad’s 1972 Gran Torino with the pedal floored, and then a wood chipper working through a cedar tree.

(“Hey Martin,” I can almost hear you asking, “What dad joke did you tell your 15-year-old-daughter about this international incident that made her roll her eyes and slap her forehead and mimic the dry heaves?”  Since you asked so nicely: That’s one Turki who didn’t make it until Thanksgiving.  Boom!)

One news source called al-Bin’Kaboom “one of the most visible ISIS preachers.”  Am I the only one who sees the irony in a group who forces their women to wear tarps in public being done in because their Grand Mufti was too visible?

I am?  Fine.  I get it.  Everyone’s sooooo much more mature than me.  Moving on…

Crime stories don’t usually make me happy, but this week two of them did.  The first took place in Tennessee, where two felons and alleged (HA!) murderers who escaped from prison had exchanged gunfire with cops and were engaged in a high speed chase.  A local guy who lives in the area with his wife and daughter got a warning phone call from a neighbor.  He did several wise things: he “prayed like I had never prayed before,” and he “load[ed] every weapon I could,” and shortly afterwards he saw the criminals climb over a barbed wire fence onto his property.

They saw him, and before he could even show them the shotgun that he had with him, they both laid down on his driveway and surrendered.  One possible reason for their action can be gleaned from the statement of a local resident: “When you mess around out here in the county, most of us here have carry permits and carry (weapons).  And it’s our job to protect our families and our homes.”  If that statement doesn’t warm your heart, there’s something wrong with you.

(For comparison, consider a typical quote from a Chicago or New York resident in similar circumstances: “We huddled in our living room defenseless, because the leftists who run our lives have decided that we shouldn’t be able to defend ourselves.  Thanks, Mayors Emanuel and De Blasio!”)

When I read the story online, everybody in it was straight out of central casting: young Jimmy Stewart-esque gun owning father, pretty wife, adorable 3-year old daughter.  The convicts were what you’d expect: an older, mopey looking one who doesn’t have “Born to Lose” tattooed on his forehead but looks like he should, and a younger one who does in fact have prominent facial tattoos – including a sweet set of devil horns that just screams out, “Gainful employment? No thank you!”

I love every bit of this story, but my two favorite details are:

1. The dad loaded “every weapon he could.” Does that imply that of course he has more than one weapon available to him?  You’re damn right it does.
2. His name, which I’m not making up, is Patrick Hale. Obviously the bloodlines of Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale have merged to produce… this badass guy.

In the second good news criminal story, two model citizens had broken into a woman’s home in Georgia, and were in the process of stealing her tv, when she surprised them by being home, and by yelling at them.  They fled the scene, but while doing so, Genius #1, who was in the lead, fired back in the direction of the house.  Genius #2 was following him, and graciously stopped the bullet. With his head.

You’ll be shocked to learn that he was a 41-year old career criminal who was out on parole.  Maybe he’d been inside for so long that he didn’t realize that you can buy a tv now for $27 at Wal-Mart.  Any tv worth stealing would be so big you’d need a forklift to move it.

Also, if you were driving the tv away with a forklift, the bullet that your Mensa-member buddy fired your way might have struck the forklift.  Instead of your defective forehead.

Quote of the story goes to the local lawman, Sheriff Buford T. Obvious: “I’d much rather see one burglar shoot another burglar than an innocent homeowner.”

 

In a media story that threatened to intrude on my good mood, I heard that Reza Aslan was fired by CNN.  The headline that I saw said, “Aslan fired by CNN over vulgar anti-Trump tweet.”

Of course, my first thought was, “Why would a magnificent lion/Christ figure be writing vulgar anti-Trump tweets?”

My second thought was, “Why would a magnificent lion/Christ figure work for CNN?”

Then I read the story, and found out that it was Reza Aslan, and that he is an angry, angry little man.  The story is still amazing though: would you have believed that CNN would fire someone over vulgarity directed at Trump?  How is there still anyone on the air over there?

On a final, personal note, my wife got me a present for Father’s Day.

Before you can ask if it was a man romper, or a little scrunchy thing I could use to give myself a man bun, or a “Now You’ve Pi**ed Ossoff” bumper sticker, I rhetorically slap you.  (Though the bumper sticker would have been cool.  I thought of it weeks ago as a slogan for the Dems who were supporting Pajama Boy.  And I kept it to myself.  HA!)

No, my wife gave me… drumroll…a mug with a picture of Mad Dog Mattis on it, with the question, “What keeps you awake at night?” at the top, and his answer below: “Nothing.  I keep other people awake at night.”  I love looking at that mug first thing every morning.

It’s true that being a good spouse is not a competition.  But somehow, my wife is winning anyway.