"Cheap Fakes," Stonehenge and the "Hawk Tuah" girl
Also ... Oakland mayor is raided by the Feds ... your tax dollars (not) at work ... and the Ten Commandments
I read a lot. There are several reasons why. First, I’m retired and have oodles of time. I choose to spend some of those oodles reading rather than watching television, particularly any network or cable news. That ship of trust sailed long ago.
Second, I have a slew of subscriptions — a dozen at last count — including The Atlantic, an abridged version of the New York Times, TheFIRE.org, internet news outlets such as Reason (Libertarian), The Free Press, Racket News and a bunch of fellow Substackers, many of whom write about music and the arts. Meanwhile, my bank account slowly dies by a million cuts.
Throw in a few selected podcasts, maybe a real book (with pages and everything) and by nightfall, my eyes are bleeding. Hopefully, there are enough brain waves left over for writing something constructive or remembering to feed the cat.
This week, rather than summoning something creative, or wrestling with my usual snarkiness, I made a few mental notes from the week’s news and thought to relay them to those who don’t share my penchant for destroying their optic nerves.
Random observations from this past week …
Uh-Oh, Oakland
You know things are bad when the FBI comes calling and doesn’t even knock.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao allegedly has been caught up in a pay-to-play scheme, divvying up commissions and appointments. Her chief of staff resigned over it and complained to the city council and ethics board. Nothing happened. Now, last Thursday, the FBI raided Thao’s home and the homes of two of her relatives.
As if things aren’t bad enough in Oakland. Robberies grew 38 percent last year. Burglaries increased by 23 percent. Motor vehicle theft jumped 44 percent. Roughly one of every 30 Oakland residents had a car stolen last year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Kingston 11, a community food center for low-income families, was vandalized and its glass doors smashed.
But it’s not all bad news. The Oakland City Council recently passed a resolution for a cease-fire in Gaza.
“Cheap Fakes”
I noted an Associated Press story that a Secret Service agent was robbed at gunpoint last week while President Joe Biden was attending a mega-fundraising event in Los Angeles.
One of the themes of the fundraising gala was about how crime was down in the United States.
Speaking of the Oval Office, the White House and its minions at MSNBC, CNN and the usual suspects in print are now calling footage of Biden’s numerous senior moments “Cheap Fakes.” The commentariat claims that videos of the Meanderer in Chief strolling around La-La Land are diabolically edited and digitally altered.
For non-linguists, “Cheap Fakes” is another example of dialectical fuckery under the guise of Misinformation.
Interestingly, CBS News cited one embarrassing clip as a “digitally altered video,” yet it was the same raw footage shared by the White House with the press corps.
But the message is clear: next time you see the POTUS try to shake hands with a ghost, read aloud instructions from a teleprompter, or mumble incoherently, remember … “ya been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok.”1
As my father used to say: “Don’t piss down my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
The Senate approved new nuclear power legislation last Tuesday by a vote of 88–2.
Who were the two dissenting senators? (answer below)
Climate Change Chicanery
You’ve probably seen the footage of the two members of Just Stop Oil who tried to deface Stonehenge last week. Seems they couldn’t glue themselves to the 5,000-year-old monument, so they spray-painted it with an orange powder.
Harmless, you say? Biologists note that the monuments are made of two types of stone: sarsen and bluestone, and are embedded with lichens, which help preserve trees and rocks from extreme elements such as rain, wind, and snow. Any corrosive agent could easily damage these protective mosses and fungi.
May the Gods of the Ancient Druids or Mother Nature herself take action and make these people spontaneously combust.
Meanwhile, Dame Emma Thompson, the British actress who I admire greatly, joined in a Just Stop Oil rally in London on Thursday. Just a few weeks ago, Thompson was photographed waving from the deck of a 300-foot long, £200 million superyacht owned by billionaire Fox News co-founder Barry Diller in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy.
Ciao, Dame Emma!
Your Tax Dollar$ Not at Work
A couple of weeks ago, I noted a report about the federal government’s $7.5 billion electric car charging station plan, which, after almost three years since its passage, has installed a grand total of seven charging stations.
Think that’s bad? Well, remember the $1 trillion Infrastructure bill passed in 2021? Part of that spending orgy included $42.4 billion to deploy high-speed internet to rural areas of the U.S., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Mariana Islands.
Three years later, not a single person has been connected with those funds. In fact, the Department of Energy now says that no construction projects will begin until 2025, at the earliest.
Thou Shalt put it over there!
I see that the governor of Louisiana just signed into law that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state.
Meantime, Thomas Jefferson and several other Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves as the Constitution bursts into flames.
“Hawk Tuah!” — the meme heard round the world
If you haven’t seen it yet, the funniest video meme of the year by far is the “Hawk Tuah” girl.
Katie Vickers, 25, of Paducah, KY skyrocketed to the Internet Hall of Fame last week after YouTubers Tim and Dee posted her response to an on-the-street interview while she was out on a night in Nashville. A semi-normal conversation went wild after she was asked about “the one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time?”
Katie’s answer was … well … you decide …
The video has more than 400 million views on YouTube, X, Instagram and TikTok, and is still averaging 50,000 downloads an hour. It also has spawned hundreds of wildly funny memes now being shared online.
Within 36 hours, enterprising capitalists around the globe began selling “Hawk Tuah” merchandise — T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers, hoodies and jewelry. Supposedly, Ms. Vickers is getting a cut of the action.
Finally: The Best Story of the Week
Virginia "Ginger" Hislop earned her bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1940 and immediately started work on her master's at what is now the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
Hislop's boyfriend, George Hislop, was called up to serve in World War II, leading the couple to get married and leave campus just before she would have turned in her final thesis. Though she worked in education for most of her professional life, she never returned to finish the advanced degree.
Last week, Stanford awarded Ginger her long-awaited master’s degree in Education … 83 years later … at the age of 105.
New Nuke Dissenters: Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (D-VT).
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Jim Geschke was inducted into the Marquis Who’s Who Registry in 2021.
Malcolm X’s Address to the People of Harlem
Thanks for cluing me into that HILARIOUS video and ensuing memes!
I love this! Hopefully you can do one of these on a regular basis?