Archives for December 2018

Day 724

December 31, 2018 by Rick Kinnaird 1 Comment

Rick and Shelby at Teotihucan — Happy New Year

Day 724 New Year’s Eve Monday December 31, 2018 867 Days to Go

Well, this is a time of reflection and hope.

Here’s my list:

I hope I stop spitting up phlegm and sounding like a horse in its death knell.

I hope that the family Trump will look good in their orange prison jump suits.

I hope that a bolt of lightning spreads out across our country bringing sanity back.

I hope you read our marvelous Holiday letter:

Holiday Letter 2018

That is all, carry on.

Happy New Year!

PS Many have wondered how I got my wife to go to Mexico and stand near this pile of rocks.
Answer: Food tour bribery.

College Football Playoff Review

December 30, 2018 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

College Football Review 2018

Actually, I’m just reviewing yesterday’s five bowl games**. I saw them all, and I’m here to tell you about them.
First, if you are a big time college football fan I suggest you stop reading right now.
Second, if you are not a big time college football fan, or if you have no interest in the game, this review is for you. It will help you understand the subtlety of the game and allow you to make comments, which will appear to those who are big time fans, to seem like you know what you are talking about. This will lead to acceptance, which is better in most social situations than ostraization, which is akin to being ostracized. However, the difference is that while one is a term of social shunning, the other is dressing you up in a chicken suit or similar bird like costume and making you run around and do idiot team mascot like behavior inappropriately at social occasions – if not in reality, at least in their mind’s eye, which is worse.
First to really understand college football you must know the teams and their coaches. Some teams and their fans have bad reputations, usually justly deserved. West Virginia fans throw nine volt batteries and burn sofas. Most college coaches are dicks, or at least have shown a level of dickishness at some point in their careers, which begs the question, “Why are they still coaching?”
Let’s take Jim Harbaugh, currently the coach at Michigan. Apparently, most college teams swap team rosters before the game. The roster gives the name, number, height, weight, and position of each player as well as the starting line up both defensively and offensively. Harbaugh doesn’t give out his roster. It has gotten to the point that other teams make fun of him by giving him their rosters with wacky positions listed. This annoys Harbaugh, but so what? He’s a dick.
Michigan played yesterday against Florida. Florida’s team is known as the Gators. This leads to giant stiff arm moves like alligator jaws clamping open and shut by their fans. My good friend dean is a huge Gator fan. He has to be, he lives like two blocks from the stadium and everyone in his family for generations have been Gator fans. I like to tease him about it. One year when they were playing for the National Championship I called him up seconds before kick-off and talked like a buddy of ours who has cerebral palsy and takes forever to ask a question of you, which is usually preferenced with your name followed by a tortured, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” dean laughed and hung up the phone.
Okay so Florida was playing Michigan. dean’s assessment of his team, “We really suck.” This is saying something if you are a Gator fan. But in Florida’s defense, they may suck, but not as bad as Michigan. Florida won. They were on at the same time as another bowl game, which I kept flipping between the two. That game was Virginia and South Carolina.
This leads me to tell you about one of my fantasies, I wish I had made a lot of money so my company could sponsor a bowl game. Specifically, I wish I had made money selling sexual prosthetic enhancement devices because I’d love to hear the announcers say over and over again, “Welcome to the Sexual Disfunction Bowl sponsored by Dr. Johnson’s Penal Insertions” or some such.
Any rate I’m a Virginia Tech fan, by marriage. Their team’s mascot is the Hokie bird. A fictional look alike to a turkey. VT plays Virginia in most sports as they are in the same conferences. I went to Johns Hopkins whose only nationally ranked team is in lacrosse and when I went to the Hop, Virginia was ranked #1 in that sport. So there’s animosity there. South Carolina? They used to have Steve Spurrier as their coach. I’ve always liked Steve. The SC mascot is “The Gamecock.” Naturally, this leads to all kinds of cock jokes. Like, “Nobody licks our cocks” or “If you can’t beat us on the field beat us off” (Wait, that could be anyone’s sweat shirt, oh well.)
So in the game between VA and SC I didn’t really care too much. Shelby liked Virginia because they are in the same conference as Tech so it’s better to have bragging rights for your conference over SC which is in the SCC, not Tech’s ACC, and anyone in the SCC is a dick.
Virginia won. For me the best play of the game was a pass the Virginia QB threw for a touchdown. They were near the goal line. He was about to get sacked and then, somehow, he threw a bullet right to his receiver. I can’t bring myself to root for Virginia, because of their dominance when I was at Hopkins and because of Uncle Larry. He’s been dead for several years now. But when I was new to the family I married into we went over to Larry and Gretchen’s. Larry said to me, “You went to Hopkins, right?” I thought, “How nice of him to remember.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Then he said, “We beat you pretty good last week.”
That’s when I learned Larry was a stinkin’ Wahoo. (The term for Virginia players and fans.)
I know this sounds harsh but you haven’t heard the pre-game analysis that Virginia Tech fans heap on Virginia.
What was a Tech fan’s analysis of the outcome of their loss to Virginia this bowl game? “That’s what South Carolina gets for putting mustard in their cole slaw.”
Football fannery is vicious, no doubt about it.
Now we get to Clemson and Notre Dame. This is the #2 team in the nation versus the #3 team playing for a berth in the National Championship. My son went to Clemson. Notre Dame has a great football tradition, but as my son once said when he looked at going to a Roman Catholic school “too many wafers.” Notre Dame had a great running back. Clemson had a huge defensive tackle that had to sit the game out because they found trace amounts of a banned substance that no one had ever heard of before, and no one knows how he got any of whatever it was in his system. Notre Dame also had a great defense. The question was, “Would Notre Dame give up the big play?” The answer was “Yes.”
At the very end of the first half Notre Dame gave the ball back to Clemson with something like 55 seconds left. Clemson was ahead, but not by that much. Then came the big play with fourteen seconds left: huge aerial pass to the far side of the end zone, almost out of bounds. The player was expertly covered. He went up and made a one handed grab coming down barely inbounds. Touchdown!
In the second half Notre Dame played valiantly, but the game kept slipping away. Any close call seemed to go Clemson’s way, it was tough for the Irish. They even had on shiny gold bottomed shoes. Oh well.
The big game was Alabama (#1) against Oklahoma (#4). Oklahoma’s QB won the Heisman; Alabama’s came in runner-up. Alabama was expected to win going away, but their quarterback had a bum ankle. How would that play out in the game? Answer – not much. It also helped that Oklahoma was asleep in the first half and part of the third quarter. When their team woke up it was too late, but it was a heck of a show. At one point the OK QB threw a pass, on the run, while jumping in the air, 55 yards. It was something. I think the receiver didn’t catch it. I forget.
So it’s #1 Alabama against #2 Clemson for the National Championship, which we may not be able to see because ESPN and Verizon are feuding. Great.
I hope Clemson whips Alabama, because my son went to Clemson, and it goes without saying Alabama is dicks. I loved the year Clemson beat ‘bama on the last play of the last game of the year, becoming #1 for the year after being #2 the whole year, until that play. I hope they do it again, because, well, you know.

PS btw the first time the Heisman was awarded it wasn’t even called the Heisman. it went to Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago. My mother went to Chicago and went to parties where Berwanger was in attendance. At one such gathering there was a guy who reputedly knew karate or judo. The crowd egged Berwanger on. The judo guy didn’t want anything to do with it, but finally Berwanger got mad and ran at the fellow. My mom said Berwanger got flipped all over the place. At the time pro football was in its infancy. College ball was the game and Chicago was the Alabama of its day. Berwanger was recruited to play pro. He wanted $1,000 per game. The owners wouldn’t pay that exorbitant price and Berwanger never played pro-ball.
Gerald Ford was, at the time, the center for Michigan. Lyndon Johnson used to say that Gerald got hit in the head too often and played without a helmet (or only a leather helmet, I forget.) But olde Gerald got a scar on his chin trying to tackle Jay Berwanger. (Little known fact, but true.*)
*Man oh man, am I a college football geek or what?

Carry on.

PS Action!
(Okay, I think it’s a street scene in Mexico City. Probably along the pedestrian street between the Zocallo and the Beau Arts Plaza, but pretty cool, right?)

** After I did a recount, there were only four bowl games, but I believed I saw five! Such is the power of college football.

Day 722

December 29, 2018 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 722 Saturday December 29, 2018 869 Days to Go

Oh man, the hits just keep on coming.
I’ll let you all in on a secret that the White House doesn’t know.
You ready?
Here it is – Nancy Pelosi is not in charge – yet.
Hysterical right?

Laughing Monkey Jar — I Laugh in Your Face

Did you hear Sarah Wannabe Sanders? Or the Mick Mulvaney? They were whining, “If only Nancy Pelosi was in town we could make a deal.” Blubber blubber, toil and trouble.
Hey Mick, Hey Sarah, FYI Paul Ryan is Speaker of the House. Make your deal with him.
Oh? What? He left town? Too bad, so sad. What’s that? “If only Nancy Pelosi hadn’t left town you could make a deal.” Oh. I see.
Hey, here’s a little sumptin’ sumptin’ from Speaker Pelosi’s office (that is still open – by the way. You know “Open” as in “Open for Business.”) This little Sumptin’ is called “a statement.” It comes from her chief of staff. Let me read it to you, you might be interested. “We have not heard from the White House since December 11th.”
Hum, what does this tell me?
1. You know how to contact Nancy Pelosi.
2. You haven’t contacted Nancy Pelosi since December 11th.
Oh wait, let me do some calculating, if I subtract today’s date from 11 why that was over two weeks ago!
Let me remember – Nancy Pelosi was in Washington then.
So let me conclude that if you had wanted to make a deal with Nancy Pelosi you could have done so over two weeks ago! But you didn’t. Hey, wait a minute, what kind of a scam are you trying to pull? This reminds me of the photo op Paul Ryan did where he got a bunch of Republican buds to sit on one side of a table to show “they were ready to work” but there was no one on the other side of the table. The Democrats weren’t there for the glorious photograph. Oh snap, he didn’t tell them about it.
In this case the White House doesn’t even have that excuse because they’ve contacted Peolosi’s office before, so they know how to do it. They didn’t contact her office so therefore they have no real interest in doing a deal.
The funniest thing about this is Pelosi is not the Speaker! Yet, she has this much power without being Speaker. Imagine what will happen when she takes control?

In other hysterical things. The Trump Administration is cracking down on Welfare Dads. You know those lazy good for nuthin’ men who sit around waiting for their food stamps so they can eat. Not anymore. No sir, Trump is cutting back. No longer will the group that uses SNAP coupons the most be able to get them so easily – white men. Yup, White men use SNAP more than any other group. Wait a second? Isn’t that the group that overwhelmingly voted for Trump? Yeah, you got a problem with that? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you, in this case that hand is slapping you in the face.

In other really really funny stuff the president has threatened to shut off the southern border completely. I don’t know about you, but I envision Trump at a giant wheel valve that he is turning that lowers a gate into a big culvert shutting off it’s flow. I mean, isn’t that the way it works? It’s a big valve right? No? It’s a giant switch. Like in the Frankenstein movies? A huge double pole, double throw knife blade job that sparks and lightning bolts shoot out of as it arcs to make or break a connection. Yeah, that’s it. All trump has to do is jump up, place both feet on either side of the switch, grab the giant knob and yank down on it and magically the border will be closed. (Simultaneously Jimi’s version of Bob’s song “All along the Watch Tower” will play. “Click, Bang, What a hang …” whoops different song.) Wah – Wah – wah – wah “But you and I are not like that. Said the …”

I think we need to have a poster of Nancy dressed as Ben Hur with six white stallions charging as she stands in the chariot, whip in hand, to save the day. Mick and Sarah being crushed under the hooves. Lightning bolts and storm clouds behind her. Mountains riven apart with stormy boiling waters flowing down. Yeah.

“You better watch out,
You better not shout,
Nancy is coming to town.
Yeah.
Nancy P is comin’ to town!”

“She knows what you’ve been sayin’
She knows what you’ve been doing.
So you better watch out.
Yeah.
Nancy P is comin’ to Town!”

“She counting her votes,
Checking it twice,
Yeah.
Nancy P’s gonna whip your ass.”

The most interesting combination in Washington is Pelosi and Cortez.
Here we have the most seasoned legislator and the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress.
Which one will Donnie have more success with?
A woman that has proven to be the most effective Speaker of the House in decades
or
a former bartender from New York?

I say neither. Personally, I think it will be a case of “slice and dice.”
He will fail miserably with both.

He ran on building the wall.
Those in the real world knew what he was saying was silly,
and it still is.
Just ask the starving white men waiting for food stamps.
Oh, It’s Pelosi and the Dems fault? Got it.

Here’s what I think Schumer ought to do. He should tell Donald that they’ve caved on the wall, that the bill he as president is about to sign has the funding for his wall in it. Listen, Donald is an idiot. He doesn’t read. All you need to do to convince him is to go on Fox and Friends and tell Steve Ducey that the funding for the wall is in the bill. No one reads it. They won’t know. I think they ought to add a provision like “The wall must be made of Flubber. Only genuine American Flubber may be used. None of that crap from China.” Then they ought to take a contingent somewhere and show them a wall being built, or a dam, doesn’t matter. Show them bricks and concrete, tell then they are on the border. The only way they’ll know where they are is if you let them take pictures with their iPhones, which will tell them they are in Newark or Spokane. So no photos other than by a designated rep.
Gotta have a ribbon cutting picture. Of course. Maybe, the pic should be in the National Park with the big stone towers behind. Yeah, it was good enough for the old western movies, it’s good enough for a ribbon cutting. Tell ‘em the border is just south of where they are standing, like six hundred miles south, but south.

Oh man. It’s going to be great. It will be the best wall. Made with steel slats. Each slat will have a stencil on it either saying “Gift of Mexico” or “Given by John Douchebag via GoFundMe” or whomever donated for the slat. Gotta go price steel slats. Inquiring minds want to know. I think we can get a good deal on slats from China, some may give off a hint of radioactivity, but the price can’t be beat.

Five days to Go!

869 Days to Go.

PS “I Laugh in Your Face!”

PS Pro Tip – I don’t usually give out useful information in these screeds, but if you ever want a calendar to look at, you can do the following:
Open up the terminal* on your Mac and type “cal” followed by the year you wish to see,
* That’s the little black box with the icon “>_” in it.

For example “cal 2018”
(Pro tip #2 after typing you must push the key marked “return” !!!)
Will give you the calendar for the year 2018.

“cal 18”
Will give you the calendar for 18 A.D.
Alternatively, you can type “cal” month year and get only the one month.
Here are two examples:

cal 12 2018
December 2018
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31

cal 1 2019
January 2019
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Here’s the calendar for 2018 and 18 A.D.
(“Houston, We have a formatting problem”)
Screw it:
You can try:

cal 2018

cal 18

It is left to the student at lab time to type:
cal 2019
to see what happens.
For extra credit, try
cal 1752
and look at September.

Holiday Letter 2018

December 28, 2018 by Rick Kinnaird 2 Comments

Christmas 2018

It’s interesting how seemingly unrelated things all of a sudden come together and reinforce one another.

Shelby has gotten more and more involved with various diabetes organizations. She is a group leader in Richmond for DiabetesSisters, a support group for women with diabetes. She is now on the Virginia Advocacy Committee of the American Diabetes Association and we have gone to Washington so she can advocate for diabetes support and funding from Congress.

I have been writing ever since the 2016 election about political events of the day. It’s my way to keep track and to exhale all the terrible stuff that is going on every day in our political landscape. Who knew that diabetes would teach me about how government functions?

Shelby has walked the halls of the government buildings that house the offices of Senators and Congresspeople. She’s learned some of the ins and outs of talking to our elected officials. She’s met with the staffs of both our Virginia senators and not only our Congressperson but others in the Virginia delegation. You can tell the folks who have been around a long time; they have the biggest offices. John McCain’s was huge with two flags out in the hallway. Paul Ryan’s is locked and you have to know “the secret knock” to get in. Our own David Brat had a staff who was willing to listen until they heard the words “health care” and “pre-existing condition.”

Shelby’s diabetes legislative persuaders

We went to a Senate hearing on insulin affordability. It’s much like hearings you see on TV where Senators float in and out. Each repeats what another just said because they weren’t there to hear it the first time. After it’s all over you wonder what, if anything, was the point. Did it do any good? It’s hard to say.

Shelby has been busy writing diabetes’ related books: one on carb counting, and one on Instant Pot cooking (coming in March 2019). She has been getting more exposure and recognition for her efforts. She was contacted by Good Housekeeping and appeared in their online version. Claire, our six-year-old niece, frequently comes over to cook with Shelby, especially before Wednesday night family dinner, when her whole family comes over to eat. Claire and Shelby were featured in a Dutch magazine that wrote about cooking and diabetes.

Family dinners also present the challenge of getting the boys to look up from their phones so we can have a conversation. Mitch, the eldest of the bunch, is now driving. Tyler, two years younger, is doing well in school and he and Claire frequently join Uncle Rick for rock climbing at the local gym. We’ve also been the good aunt and uncle, going to lots of soccer games.

We’ve done a little traveling together, and I’ve done a lot on my own. In March, I went to Belize and Guatemala on a Mayan tour.

I got home and turned around and went to Seattle to see my son, Alex, then flew to Chicago where I grabbed the group flight to Jordan so I could go to Petra. In April, Shelby and I went to Davidson, NC: I for the Maya at the Lago conference; she for the quiet and the food in town.

Noah on the ball with Katie, Jon, Lance, and Uncle Rob.

In May I went to the 50^th reunion of what would have been my graduating class had I stayed in public school. Our friends Jim and Elaine stopped in and we then went to Maine for a Kinnaird family reunion. My brother, his wife, and his two: Lance and Emily with significant other Noah came up along with me, Shelby, Alex, Katie, and her husband Jon.

Following that week the Anderson clan came up: Shelby’s brother Ben and his family: wife Karen and kiddos Mitch, Tyler, and Claire.

The cousins on the deck in Maine: Alex, Katie, Lance, and Emily

Uncle Rick and Nephew Lance celebrating Canada Day

Katie is now installed on a tenure track at Smith College.

She and Jon just bought a house in November and “they are never moving again” she says. Jon is working at a brewery, while Katie is teaching and attending math conferences around the world.

In August, we went to Baltimore for a huge diabetes event, the American Association of Diabetes Educators annual conference, where Shelby was on a panel discussion about working with a diabetes educator from the patient’s perspective. I had several days to wander through the museums of Baltimore. (I highly recommend the Walters Art Gallery.)

We also began taking a weekly yoga class from Al at Southern Comfort Yoga (SoCoYo), which has been great for building up strength and balance.

Shelby’s work on her first book so impressed the publisher that they wanted to work with her on another one. This time it was a diabetic friendly cookbook for the Instant Pot, which is a programmable pressure cooker. We had two of them going most days for several months. One week it was meat, the next vegetarian, then breakfast, and finally dessert. We bought extra storage containers and fed our nearby family all kinds of things they probably would have never eaten. I assisted as bottle washer, sous chef, and “you try this recipe based on what I wrote and let me know if you have a problem” second cook.

In September, I was lured to another Mayan conference, this time in Florida. It was on Mayan caves. Anyone who had done anything on Mayan cave archaeology in the last thirty years was there. One fellow from an engineering department had done laser point mapping of various caves and Mayan altars in caves. His work was stunning. What he could do in three or four days would have taken a traditional field archaeologist a whole season or more to accomplish.

Shelby and I were then off to Chicago for a DiabetesSisters group leader conference. (They call their groups “PODS.”) Once again I was forced to wander through museums. Ah me. I went to the Field Museum, having no idea what was there. Wow. What a great natural history and archaeology museum. It turns out that it is right next to Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears football team plays. I picked the day of a home game to go to the museum, which added an additional 80,000 folks going my way that day. The day before we got on the metro at the same time the Cubs were playing a play-off baseball game.

While in Chicago we took in two shows “Hamilton” and “Tootsie.” Both excellent. Shelby also participated in a fitness work out program – “Hip Hop Fit.” She can move her hips! The instructor looked like Jerry Rice.

In October we traveled to the far end of our Congressional district to hear the only debate between our then Congressman, Dave Brat, and his Democratic challenger Abigail Spanberger. We thought we were in the minority until Abigail gave her closing comments and three-quarters of the room was so moved that they jumped to their feet and applauded.

The election was sweet. SWEET!

The kid (that’s me) deep fried a turkey for Thanksgiving. To test out the deep fryer I tried frying donuts and empanadas the day before. I thought, “How hard can this be? Drop some dough in hot oil and be done in a couple of hours. Start at eight, be done by ten.” I got started at nine, and with Shelby’s tireless help, managed to get the frying done as the sun was going down. (I gotta tell you, to be doing something like that the day before Thanksgiving when the whole family is coming over to our house says a lot about the kindness of the woman I am married to.)

This December we are going to Mexico City. I finally talked Shelby into participating in a few days of an archaeological tour with a personalized tour of Mexico City before. I told the guide that Shelby liked food and cooking, he said, “Well, we could do the tour we did for Rick Bayless.”

“Rick Bayless?” I thought, “Rick Bayless, Top Chef Master? Yeah, that’ll do.”

Merry Christmas.

Rick and Shelby

The kid getting ready to go to El Mirador

The crew having summitted another mountain

Day 721

December 28, 2018 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 721 Friday December 28, 2018 870 Days to Go

The other day a buddy of mine sent me a joke about what he claimed was his new Dodge truck. It supposedly had an electronic assistant that would answer voice commands. After demonstrating how smart and helpful it was my friend supposedly jammed his finger and screamed, “You fucking bitch!” to which the personal assistant asked, “Which one: Nancy or Hillary?” Hysterical, right?

Hey, I got a few to add:

Donald Trump says there was no collusion with Russia. yet his campaign manager was found guilty about lying to the FBI about involvement with Russians. No? Ukrainians – same thing. Hysterical, am I right? Then there’s Erik Prince. He just happened to go to those beautiful remote islands off the coast of Africa and he happened to bump into a high level Russian who just happened to be there, and they didn’t have a meeting really. They just talked in a bar, pure coincidence. Hysterical, who would be dumb enough to believe that? Then there’s Carter Page. He’s the dufus who just happened to be in Russia having meetings or conferences or something with high level Russians, or so he claimed until he didn’t. But the high level Russians were caught on tape saying what a fool Page was and it turned out they were spies and one of them spent time in the pokie for his part in all this. God, hysterical. Then there’s Michael Flynn, Trump’s first National Security Advisor, who was simultaneously a agent for a foreign government. Somehow that slipped his mind when he filled out his forms that ask, “Are you an agent of a foreign government?” He was in Russia giving a speech. He sat next to Putin. He said he didn’t get paid. The speaker bureau got paid. Funny, right? A speaker bureau gets money from Russia and Flynn gets zero. Ha ha, oh well yeah, his firm got money and they paid him but so what? OMG, hold me back, this is sooo funny. Then there’s Don Jr. Everyone knows he doesn’t do anything without telling Daddy. Well, maybe he didn’t mention he was banging that Latino woman while married, but that’s okay because dad does it too, right? So little Donnie has a meeting with a bunch of Russians. It’s such a nothing meeting that he fails to remember much about it when the FBI asks or to tell Dad. Except he did make a call to a blocked cell phone number right after the meeting, and dad happens, by pure coincidence to have a cell phone with a blocked number. I mean, what are the chances? Then there’s all that stuff in the Steele Dossier, that’s been shown to be true, and there are somethings alleged but not proven, but nothing has been shown to be false. Funny stuff like Michael Cohen went to Prague to pay off the Russian hackers that disrupted the Dems and Hillary, Remember her, the aforementioned bitch? Except Mikie has never been to Prague or for that matter the Czech Republic. He said so. He said a lot of stuff that he’s admitted he lied about. In fact, he’s been found guilty or I should say pled guilty to just that kind of thing. Oh but here’s the funny part. His cell phone was recorded as bouncing off towers in Prague about the time Steele said Cohen was in Prague paying off Russian hackers. This is hysterically funny because, if true, it would show a direct link between the Trump campaign and Russians trying to influence the 2016 election. But even if that were true, Trump says he had no knowledge. Remember, nothing goes on in the Trump organization without Don Sr. knowing about it. Funny right?

Oh and then there’s my buddy who sends out a link to a You Tube video showing Nigel Farage being all tough and in the face of some British politician. Wow. This is the guy who thought Brexit was a brilliant economic strategy for Britain. He is also the guy who when descending the steps of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London couldn’t remember why he had been in there in the first place. I mean, the fact that Julian Assange came out with some emails on the Dems a few days later had nothing to do with “Mr. Trump is a Silver Backed Gorilla” man, right?

Now we get to the really really funny stuff. It has come out that Mark Burnett, the guy who put The Apprentice on the air might have been in some small way responsible for Trump becoming president. You see, at the time The Apprentice started it is now alleged that Trump was a washed up fourth rate real estate developer in New York. This is based on evidence. Burnett took the turd called Trump and burnished it for TV. People started to believe he was a brilliant business man. I should clarify – people outside of the New York real estate world started to believe. Bankers wouldn’t lend him money. Why? This is really funny. He didn’t pay them back! In fact, in his claimed best selling book “The Art of the Deal” he alludes to a technique to getting rich – don’t pay people. He did it to a bunch of illegal Pollacks that busted their humps to tear down the old Bonwit Teller building so he could put up his tower. When they took him to court, he threatened to deport them. That’s gratitude for you. That’s the Art of the Deal! btw Michelle Obama has sold more books in two weeks than Trump sold in ten years, but who’s counting.

I’ve read The Art of The Deal. There are two things I remember Trump saying he did that made him a business genius: 1) He refurbished Wolman Skating Rink in Central Park, and 2) he used high quality bronze on the edges of his escalators in Trump Tower or his casino or somewhere. Brilliant!

I’ve been to Wolman Skating Rink. I saw Led Zeppelin there. It was the summertime and I don’t remember any problem with the rink, but Donnie does. He got new concrete poured when the city couldn’t figure out how to do it, or so he claims. Maybe, nothing was wrong with the concrete? Just sayin’ You know like when wonderkin Paulie Ryan broke into a homeless shelter to wash already clean pots for a photo op? (I mean, come on, you didn’t expect him to go in there when there were homeless people there did you?)

Do you know how hard it is to get someone to pour concrete in New York?

Lemme give you a blow by blow:

Ring-ring.

“Hello?”

“Do you pour concrete?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you pour concrete on a skating rink?”

“Yeah.”

Done.

If that is Trump’s claim to business acumen, and it is, then I’m a friggin’ business savant. I mean I not only got concrete poured (for a swimming pool) but also got the walls done in gunite (that’s high pressure squirted concrete.) Okay, I didn’t have the edges of the steps done in bronze, but I put in the best aluminum stairs you can find. (Maybe, not. I don’t know. But that doesn’t stop me from claiming that they are! That’s the Trump way! Woot woot.)

Oh man. Funny right?

Hey listen, did you hear the one about the EPA chief tearing up the regulation that one of the biggest polluters in the country, a coal fired plant in Texas was told they didn’t have to put in those scrubbers? So what if 137 people’s deaths were directly attributed to that plant’s emissions? Ha. Hilarious.

Now? Did you hear about the pesticide we are still using that is so toxic people exposed to it vomit and convulse? Oh boy. Thank god Scott Pruit jetted in on a chartered jet in the nick of time to tell Dow Chemical “pesticide shemisticide – we’re cool.” Otherwise, those I’m supposing illegal Democratic voting immigrants wouldn’t be faking it in the middle of those fields.

Hey, and get this. This is really hysterical. For the few jobs the Trump administration is trying to fill, and there aren’t many, because they leave most vacant, they can’t find people to do them.

Well, that’s not entirely true. They find people to be “acting” as in “acting Attorney General” or “acting Secretary of Defense.”

I wonder if that is like the ads on television that start off with “I’m not a real doctor, but I play one on TV.”

Try this on for size, “I’m not a real Secretary of Defense. I’m just acting.” Funny, right? The largest best trained fighting force in the world has a guy who is good at getting … wait for it … defense contracts for whomever he is working for. Is he like Mikey Flynn and really working for someone else and not the American people? What if a real crisis happens? You know like White House Down type thing and this good at getting contracts guy has to act like he knows what he’s doing? Oh man, that will be unbelievable. Won’t it?

Hey speaking of the acting Attorney General did you hear the one about him lying on his resume? Yeah, he’s not what he claims to be. Oh man, funny! But who better to head up the Department of Justice than a liar? Works for me.

Oh then there’s the education secretary Betsy DeVos, sister of Erik Prince, turns out she’s under five investigations? Wow, what a scream.

Hey, in less than a week Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House. Did you see the one of her in the White House? Trumpie was going on and on about how he had the votes in the House to pass his stupid wall bill and Nancy said, “You don’t have the votes.” He said, “I do.” Then Pelosi said (basically) “Bring it.”

Guess what? Trump looked down at his shoes, kicked sand on them and said (basically) “I could if I wanted to.” Pelosi said again, “Bring it.”

Trumpie kept dawdling. He looked at Schumer and said, “It’s Chuck’s fault. I don’t have the votes in the Senate. No point in passing it in the House.”

What a pussy. He’s Putin’s bitch and Nancy’s pussy (which is a mixed metaphor if I ever heard one.)

Six days to go

and

870 Days to Go

Did you hear the one about Mitch and Paul actually doing something? No? Neither have I.

Oh btw Barrack Obama has been voted most admired man in America. Donald comes in a distant second. Ha. Ha. Hilarious.

PS The stone sentinels of Tula.