We now join The Joy of Painting, already in progress...
"Hello, friends. Today we're making a few little changes to last month's portrait of the Russian victory-over-Ukraine celebration. Just a few minor adjustments. First we'll dab the corner of our rag in some turpentine...[dab dab]...and we'll just wipe the smiles off the faces of these happy little Russian generals on their Red Square balcony.
Then we'll take our brush and turn those smiles upside down...[dab dab dab]...just like that. Happy little frowny faces. You can make 'em any way you like...and that's okay. Doesn’t matter. [dab dab] There we go. And we’ll replace the flowers down here by taking some grey with our trowel and adding...[skritch skritch skritch]...seven little headstones for the seven little generals who forgot to duck.
Continued...
Now, let's make a few changes to Vladimir Putin, looking so invincible and victorious on his balcony. We'll take a dab of white...and another dab of white...and even more white...and let's give ol' Mr. Putin a big old dunce cap, shall we? [skritch skritch skritch] Nice and pointy and duncey… [skritch skritch dab dab skritch skritch]. Next we'll take some gold and silver and replace his Order of Lenin with a Doofus Dictator of the Decade medal…[dab skritch dab dab skritch]…and maybe add some little oak leaves to show that he's a doofus dictator with distinction. And then maybe we’ll add some smoke coming out of his ears…just like that.
One final change to our Russian victory-over-Ukraine celebration portrait. Just a little change to reflect the new circumstances over there in Mother Russia. Some people call it Mother Russia, some people don’t, and that's okay. It's whatever you want to call it. So let's just take this bucket of Elmer’s glue and heave it right at our canvas: [SPLORP!!!] And then we’ll pull the cord on our confetti cannon filled with sunflower seeds sent to us by a happy little grandma in Kiev: [Fwoosh!!!] Lovely. Almost photo-realistic, isn’t it?
And we're done—Putin and his generals covered in Grandma’s Ukrainian sunflower seeds having quite a time with their frowny faces and tombstones and dunce cap and doofus medal. What a proud moment. Thank you for joining us. Until next time, happy painting and God Bless."
[With apologies to the late Bob Ross, whom I adored in all his frizzy-haired serenity.]
And now, our feature presentation...
-
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, March 31, 2022
Note: April fool!!!!! Ha Ha Ha Ha, We got ya. April Fool isn’t until tomorrow. You’ve been so owned, we can’t believe you fell for it. Also while you were asleep we put creamed corn in your shorts.
—Highest Echelon of C&J Mgt.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Adopt A Ferret Month: 1
Days 'til the 69th annual Pear Blossom Festival in Medford, Oregon: 8
Percent of Americans who have received at least one Covid vaccine dose: 77%
Size of President Biden's proposed budget, including $100 million to patch the hole in the C&J kiddie pool: $5.8 trillion
Job positions available for every American seeking one, matching December's high according to the Bureau of Labor Management: 1.8
Estimated age of Saturn's rings: 10-100 million years
Estimated years 'til Saturn's rings disappear unless we do something immediately: 300 million
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Gosh, it was good to hear from President Bush's alternative universe in the State of the Union address. "Jobs are on the rise."
As we say in Texas, "No shit?"
At the December rate of 1,000 new jobs a month, it would take 166 years just to replace the two million jobs lost since Bush became President, and that, of course, would be 166 years of not creating enough jobs for new workers. Or as John Kerry puts it, that leaves us only 249,000 jobs a month short of where we need to be and where, incidentally, the President promised we would be by now.
But then Bush also promised to cut the deficit in half. Instead, it grew by 100 percent from his prediction of last year. The guy is not exactly on target. And didn't you love the weasel-wording of "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities"?
—March 2004
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: A sweet Haley & Fantom moment in the BiPM household…
-
CHEERS to the dick in the dock. Oh, he done it now. Jared Kushner, the 6-foot-10, 75-pound son-in-law and "senior adviser"—[cue laugh track]—of the previous Republican president, will face the House January 6th Committee today, assuming he's not swept up and carried away by a gentle breeze:
Kushner was returning to Washington from Saudi Arabia when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, and he didn’t return to the White House after he landed. He avoided Trump after the insurrection because he feared they would “get in a fight,” he told a Republican lawmaker, ABC News Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl reported in his book “Betrayal.” […]
But Kushner also reportedly expended no energy trying to end the insurrection. He rebuffed a desperate plea from the chief of staff of then-Vice President Mike Pence to intercede with Trump on his “dangerous” push to overturn the presidential election, Karl reported in his book. […] Despite his apparent lack of effort to to prevent or end the violence, Kushner could nevertheless have valuable information for the committee about the events leading up to the attack.
Upon advice of counsel, he'll invoke the 5th amendment several dozen times after he discovers that "I want my mommy" is not a valid legal defense.
CHEERS to keeping the faith (to yourself). The downward spiral of participation in organized religion continues in America, as a combination of church leaders behaving badly, outdated dogma (insert "got run over by my karma" joke here), and unwashed rabble with more important things to do lead to empty pews and dwindling coffers. And PRRI’s latest numbers are not good for Team Afterlife...
A new report released Thursday by the American Enterprise Institute shows that...Americans are increasingly leaving organized religion with each subsequent generation and the majority aren’t coming back.
Generation Z, born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is now the least religious generation yet, with 34% of them identifying as religiously unaffiliated.
Among millennials, 29% identify as unaffiliated, while Generation X stands at 25%. Only 18% of baby boomers and 9% of the silent generation identify as religiously unaffiliated.
Golly. I'm worried. If the bajillion different gods humankind has come up with over the millennia to scare humanity into unquestioning obedience ever decide which one of them will be the one to smite us for going rogue like this, we're in big trouble.
P.S. You have a speck in your eye! Ha Ha look at that! I mock you and your eye speck! Sincerely, Log Man.
CHEERS to champions of the little guy. Happy 95th birthday to the late Cesar Chavez. He founded the National Farm Workers Association, which gave a voice to migrant farm workers. He also had a spiffy motto that might sound familiar: "Si sepueda!" (Yes we can!) These days we could use all the Chavezes we can get. Pay your respects here. Today in his honor: total boycott of lettuce and grapes.
-
BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
-
END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
CHEERS to fun in the sun. On March 31, 1917, the U.S. took possession of what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands (not to be confused with the inferior British Virgin Islands) from Denmark for $25 million. Residents there—who are considered U.S. citizens—are allowed to vote in presidential primaries but not the general election. Which is like your parents giving you a scoop of freezer-burned vanilla ice cream on your 5th birthday while your siblings get a big bowl of Chunky Monkey with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, nuts, Oreos, and gummi bears wrapped in hundred-dollar bills. Damn. I thought I'd blotted that day out. Time to ring up my therapist on Zoom again.
CHEERS to the Big Thaw. The end of March in Maine means the end of snow season. Yesterday we officially put our shovels and barrels of ice-melting pellets in storage and broke out our thongs. Also yesterday, the neighbors officially began lowering their blinds.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: March 31, 2012
JEERS to cowtowing to Big Cow. Last week three Republican governors—including Rick Perry and Sam Brownback—traveled to a factory that grinds, shreds and gasses beef byproducts, then flattens it into an unrecognizable substance called “pink slime” that renders it edible only to the people who pay attention to its contents the least. A reporter asked why they were visiting. "Oh, just to look around," said the governors, as they quietly checked to make sure the state constitutions in their back pockets weren't showing.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to Bill in Portland Maine: Prediction Man! I wish to point out that one year ago today I linked to this story about President Biden's unprecedented commitment to putting forth a diverse slate of super-qualified judicial nominees to counter his predecessor’s four-year campaign of throwing super-unqualified white men behind various federal benches. In his first 15 months Joe's gotten a whopping 56 judges confirmed, the majority of them women and over half of them minorities. I also posted a photo and a caption, and we're posting it exactly one year later to prove yet again that my technologically-advanced prediction powers are downright scary…
Yesterday Senator Susan Collins managed to break free from the giant MAGA amoeba infecting her Swiss-cheesed brain long enough to announce that she's voting "Ayuh" on KBJ's confirmation when it comes up for a vote in the full chamber. So she’s a shoo-in. Am I a total genius for calling it?
[Shakes Magic 8 Ball]
"You're An Old Man Who Yells At Squirrels. Don't Push Your Luck, Gramps." I'll take that as a yes.
Oh, and happy birthday to our other Maine senator, Angus King, who has the most unintentionally egotistical party-state designation in the chamber: (I-ME). And many blessings on your camels. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Another Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool, another string of beautiful people wearing designer swimsuits, with glam squad-produced hair and makeup. But wait! There's Bill in Portland Maine looking beautiful and OUTRAGEOUSLY AMAZING.
—USA Today
-