Crabs and Beer

Jan

2021

And There They Go!

Rats fleeing the sinking ship : PoliticalHumor

I’m not surprised to see a lot of resignations in the Trump administration although, at this point, I think they’ve just decided to use up their vacation days before the 20th. Let’s take a look at who resigned.

Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, who stood beside President Trump while he praised the white supremacists who brought mayhem to Charlottesville as ‘Very fine people’. Chao, who of course is married to Mitch McConnell accomplished virtually nothing to improve or maintain the country’s infrastructure during her tenure and instead focused on weakening greenhouse gas rules and supporting her father’s shipping business with many public appearances and trying to cut funding and loan guarantees from competing, American, shipping companies. Her father made a gift to Chao and her husband valued, according to Federal disclosures, at between $5 million and $25 million. She was being investigated by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General over whether she gave preferential treatment to projects in Kentucky – her husband’s home state. Trump ended that investigation by firing the Inspector General. Good riddance to that rat.

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education who redirected millions of dollars of Coronavirus funds intended for public schools to private and religious schools. She also cancelled regulations intended to protect students from predatory practices. She cut the size of the team investigating abuses and fraud by for-profit colleges and then, to put the icing on the cake, appointed Julian Schmoke as the team’s new supervisor. Schmoke is former dean of DeVry Education Group, one of the organizations being investigated. in 2019, Devos unsuccessfully attempted to cut funds for the Special Olympics. This was her third attempt. DeVos took many other actions to reduce funding for public schools and public education and redirect it to private and religious schools. Her family is among the 100 richest in the country. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder of Blackwater USA. Good bye to this rat.

Who else has resigned…Mick Mulvaney, former chief of staff to Trump, Matthew Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor, John Costello, Deputy Assistant Secretary at Commerce, Tyler Goodspeed, Council of Economic Advisors, Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s Chief of Staff, Rickie Niceta, Social Secretary at the White House, Sarah Matthews, Deputy White House Press Secretary. I’m sure there will be more soon. It’s the nature of rats.

Jan

2021

Finally Friday

I’ll have another post about Wednesday’s events later today but, in the meantime, we all need a little humor in our lives.

Here’s how to sort fruit by size:

How the subway starts…

Nicely done:

Design flaw:

and this great ad!

Lots of musical birthdays today. I might try to catch up with them over the weekend but lets start with this guy, born on this day in 1935:

Jan

2021

Nothing Funny

A mob acting in President Trump’s name stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.

Sorry, no humor today. I can’t think of anything funny. Instead let’s talk for a second about the mob of insurrectionists who stormed our Capitol yesterday to try to prevent Congress from carrying out its constitutionally-mandated duty.

First, we know that if this had been a mob of black people storming the Capitol, the police would have opened fire with deadly force. BLM protesters have been routinely met with rubber bullets, beatings, tear gas and worse. After George Floyd’s death, Federal law enforcement officers swept people up in unmarked vans and used troops and pepper spray so that the President could pose in front of a church.

Second, how could the police be so unprepared. During the recent BLM rally, the city was in virtual lockdown but yesterday the police seemed to be unaware that anything was going to happen. This, even though the event had been advertised on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and various other social media channels. It’s hard not to believe that some of the police were complicit with the rioters, especially when you see Capitol police posing for selfies with them. The police reported that they arrested some 50 people. I can remember some anti-war protests where thousands were arrested. I guess the police thought that these insurrectionist thugs were okay guys.

Third, it’s interesting to see all those who have been enabling Trump and his lies and dismantling of our governmental institutions now pretending to discover that he’s not a nice guy. We can start with Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell both of whom seem to have rediscovered democracy and the constitution after four years of supporting the man who tried to dismantle both. Then there are organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and so forth which were quite happy to bask in Trumps benign gaze and wallow in his money but now see which way the wind is blowing. What hypocrites! There are also those who repeated his lies to curry his favor even though they know they weren’t true, they knew the election wasn’t fraudulent and there weren’t millions of fake votes and Trump didn’t win by a landslide. But they repeated these lies anyway. They need to go.

Fourth, there are the social media companies which made lots of money repeating and amplifying his lies and the lies of others. We know that Facebook and Twitter and YouTube make money every time one of those lies is repeated and read again. It’s amusing that some of them have now decided that maybe Trump’s ungrammatical squeekings and calls to violence need to be…moderated.

Finally, there are the rioters themselves. How ironic to see them wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ hats while actually making America look like some third-rate banana republic. They should be ashamed of themselves. I’m certainly ashamed of what they’ve done to our country and its image abroad. They acted like ignorant thugs. They need to go home and shut up.

I should add that all of this took place on a day when almost four thousand Americans died of Coronavirus. Truly a sad day.

Jan

2021

Shuggie Bain

I just finished reading ‘Shuggie Bain’, Douglas Stuart’s first novel, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize and finalist for the National Book Award. It’s a great, wonderful book that I enjoyed but not the book to read if you’re looking for an uplifting tale or a happy ending.

Set in the dreary Glasgow of the 1980’s when the shipbuilding and coal industries had been destroyed thanks, in no small part, to Margaret Thatcher and her cronies.

Shuggie Bain is the story of a young boy growing up in a dysfunctional family amid disastrous economic turmoil. Shuggie’s mother, Agnes, is an unrepentant alcoholic, and his father, Shug, is a taxi driver who despises his wife’s addiction to “the drink,” cheats on her whenever the opportunity arises, and ultimately abandons her to a low-income housing development called Pithead, a depressing colliery where residents survive on government handouts.

Shuggie’s half-brother and half-sister soon manage to escape from an environment they recognize as untenable, leaving Shuggie to take care of a mother who, for the most part, is so inebriated that she is unable to attend to herself. At the same time, Shuggie is forced to face his inability to be like the other boys his age and, as he enters his teens, begins to struggle with his own sexual identity.

Early in the book there’s a scene where little Shuggie is playing with empty cans of Tennent’s beer that have pinup beauties on the side. He strokes their tinny hair and makes them talk to each other. His father is proud, thinking the boy is going to be quite the lusty man but his mother looks on realizing what’s really going on.

It’s a desolate existence for the most part. When Agnes spends all her government support money on drink, they pry open the electric meter to get the coins inside. All the while, Shuggie is loyal to her and takes care of her to the end. It’s a story of hope and despair. Some things can be fixed or overcome; others cannot. Most of the people in Shuggie’s life think they don’t count anymore, that they’ve been cast aside. It’s a feeling I believe some in our own country have and it’s not good.

There’s plenty of Scottish working-class dialect in the book and it takes a few pages to get used to it, but the book is very well-written and you’ll get used to it.

It’s a great book, immersive and affecting. You will say ‘wow’ when you finish it.