Things I Pledge to Do for Mother Earth
Today is the 51st Earth Day, an event we celebrate every year—online for 2021—to remind ourselves that we do not, in fact, have to be the biggest parasites on the third rock from the sun. We choose to be. Unlike the other parasites, we know what we're doing to this planet…and how…and why…and the kinds of things we must do to stop turning it into a ball of uninhabitable human-made garbage. (Awful as it is, the pandemic is at least providing us a glimpse of the cleaner planet we used to know.) To mark the occasion, this year I pledge to...
☼ Save water by enlisting the cat to teach me how to switch over exclusively to tongue baths.
☼ Encourage "teachable moments" by pointing at people drinking out of plastic water bottles and yelling into a bullhorn, "You resource-sucking energy whore, you're killing us!!!" And then use six-foot tongs to hand them an educational pamphlet.
Plus:
☼ Restrict my use of "fracking" to its handiness as an adjective paired with the word "idiots" to describe people who displease me.
☼ Contribute to healthy forests by teaching the red-hatted cultists that watering trees "with the blood of tyrants" actually kills them. Fracking idiots.
☼ Rent a chopper and drop thousands of large plastic bins over the city to remind people that Portland recycles. (And fill them all with loose change to remind people that recycling saves money!)
☼ Fart only on odd-numbered days. (This one will be tough. I may need to attend support group meetings to stay on the wagon.)
☼ Vote for Democrats.
☼ Continue not interfering with the coal industry’s timely demise.
☼ Retrofit our car with hybrid technology so it only runs on gas when the team of kittens gets too tired to pull it.
☼ Clone a grand army of Greta Thunbergs in my lab. Or, to be more precise, continue cloning an army of Greta Thunbergs in my lab.
☼ Dispose of my spent fuel rods properly instead of selling them to children as glow sticks.
In short, as an inhabitant of this spectacular planet, I'll continue to try and treat it with the respect it deserves by following the Four Rs: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Reelect Democrats."
And now, our feature presentation...
-
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 22, 2021
Note: Due to a totally-foreseen accident involving a meat truck, an army of ferrets in red jumpsuits and the Jewish space laser, there will be no C&J on Monday. Back Tuesday to defer all questions about the incident to my lawyer. —Mgt.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til President Biden's 100th day in office: 8
Number of state-level bills making changes to policing that have passed since the killing of George Floyd a year ago: 140
Increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. last year: 145%
Rank of Caribou ME (104.5"), Binghamton NY (103.2"), and Worcester MA (77.7") among the snowiest cities in the eastern U.S. during the winter of 2020-21: #1, #2, #3
Americans polled by Ipsos who believe Supreme Court justices should not have lifetime appointments: 63%
Percent who support adding four more justices: 38%
Odds of being injured by a toilet, according to the CDC, versus a less than 1-in-1,000,000 chance of developing a blood clot from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine: 1-in-10,000
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I am a great admirer of John Maynard Keynes, who first pointed out that government needs to spend money during recessions, but there is a difference between frittering money away on tax cuts for the rich and using the public's money for public purposes of lasting benefit to all.
If Congress wants a public works program, here's one suggestion. Somewhere between one third and one half of all the public schools in America are between dilapidated and falling apart (many of them in rural areas as well as inner cities). This is not a problem addressed by mass testing. To put money into schools is a sound investment of public money. It pays off in the future, and you don’t have to do it again for quite some time. That would in turn give the ever-pressed school districts more leeway to hire more and better teachers.
—August, 2001
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: President Biden says we’ll be able to have backyard picnics again by July 4th. Dogs, of course, can still have them any old time…
-
CHEERS to becoming a star. The fact that the District of Columbia has more people living in it without official representation than two of our full-fledged states (red Wyoming, blue Vermont) was unacceptable long ago. But as with all things federal not having to do with buying bombs, Congress has taken its sweet time coming around to the realization that this "state" of affairs is verkakte. So once again it's up to Democrats to right the wrong and take action, which they'll start to do today if all goes according to plan:
The legislation, H.R. 51, is expected to pass in the House but is likely to hit roadblocks in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome the filibuster.
“The residents of our nation’s capital deserve voting representation in Congress and full local self-government,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s Democratic delegate in the House and the bill’s sponsor, in a statement applauding the OMB.
“With Thursday’s House vote and expected passage, along with Democratic control of the Senate and White House, we have never been closer to statehood,” she said.
Said Rep. James Comer (R), who gets to freely access federal resources to serve his constituents in Kentucky: "D.C. statehood is a key part of the radical leftist agenda to reshape America, along with the Green New Deal, defunding the police and packing the U.S. Supreme Court.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, sir. Let's get busy.
CHEERS to great moments in gravity defiance. Just a heads-up (literally) that the second SpaceX Crew mission—with real people inside taking off from American soil—has been slightly delayed I SAID SLIGHTLY SO JUST CALM DOWN OR I'LL TURN THIS OFFICIAL NASA FUEL TANK DELIVERY VEHICLE I STOLE AROUND AND YOU CAN ALL GO TO YOUR ROOMS. It was supposed to happen today, but God, who hates science, threw some "unfavorable" weather conditions at the Kennedy Space Center. So the launch will happen at 5:49am tomorrow, and as Crew-2 arrives, Crew-1 will prepare for departure:
Following a launch Friday, the Crew Dragon carrying NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet is scheduled to dock to the space station at about 5:10 a.m. Saturday, April 24.
Crew-1 NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, will undock Crew Dragon Resilience [next Wednesday] at 5 a.m. and splashdown off the coast of Florida 7.5 hours later at about 12:35 p.m., after 164 days in space.
Among the new crew’s experiments: maximizing the space station's solar-powered electrical grid and experiments on human organ tissue. "Can’t wait to get started," said mission leader Colonel Frankenstein.
CHEERS to rebuffing rabid Republicans. Sixty-seven years ago today, the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began. The villain was Ann Coulter's hero (really, seriously)—a first-class jerk and pre-Ted-Cruz Ted Cruz named Joseph McCarthy, aided and abetted by future Trump lawyer Roy Cohn (really, seriously)—for whom it went very badly:
[T]he Army–McCarthy hearings ultimately became the main catalyst in McCarthy's downfall from political power. Daily newspaper summaries were increasingly unfavorable toward McCarthy, while television audiences witnessed firsthand the unethical tactics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin.
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67–22 to censure McCarthy, effectively eradicating his influence, though not expelling him from office. …
After his censuring, Senator McCarthy continued his anti-Communist oratory, often speaking to an empty or near-empty Senate chamber.
Turning increasingly to alcohol, McCarthy died of hepatitis on May 2, 1957, at age 48.
Spoiler alert: At long last, he had no sense of decency.
-
BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
-
END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
CHEERS to Mr. Bipartisanship. Some Texas guy emerged from his hole to say something this week:
Former President George W. Bush on Tuesday described the Republican Party as "isolationist, protectionist and, to a certain extent, nativist," his strongest and most direct criticism yet against his own party since leaving office in 2009.
Bush's comments are notable not only because he's a former Republican president, but he has largely kept quiet on politics since he left Washington.
In response, Republicans, Democrats and Independents issued a joint statement: "We all agree, Captain Codpiece, that you can go back to keeping largely quiet in your bathtub again with all your pretty watercolors and indelible shame." And happiness was brought to the land. What a wonderful two seconds that was.
JEERS to God's currency. 157 years ago today, on April 22, 1864, Congress took a bold stand for the separation of church and state by passing an act that required "In God We Trust" to be stamped on all our coins. Since then, our trust in God has gotten us into a Civil War, two world wars, a bunch of other wars, a Great Depression, two Great Recessions, and two catastrophic pandemics. I don’t want to seem pushy or anything, but I think maybe it’s time to change it to something more useful. Like, say, anything.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: April 22, 2011
JEERS to things that are still acceptable to say in polite company. Letter to the editor published last week in the Portland Press Herald:
Transgendered boys and girls are confusing everyone, and those facilities that have to offer restroom accommodations have been put in a legal quagmire and are vulnerable to all kinds of lawsuits. King Solomon would offer a solution to this problem. This solution would eliminate the need for the [Maine Civil Liberties Union] and expensive lawyers.
He would decree that those who have an Adam's apple would be sent to the men's room. All others would use the alternative. A little common sense and the problem is resolved.
I don't know what's worse: the letter itself (is that you writing under a pseudonym, Governor LePage?) or the fact that the paper published it. But anyway, what he just proposed, in the most insulting manner possible, is that men and women only use the men's room. Wow—I didn’t know King Solomon was such a swingin' guy.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to our April 22 national anthem. Please rise. Or sit. Or take a knee. Or, y’know, whatever’s comfortable:
-
And to answer your question: no, Trump still doesn’t know the words to this national anthem, either.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"There's so much about Cheers and Jeers that deserves to be celebrated considering how it really did change our perception of blogging and the power of mediocrity."
—Jared Mobarak
-