Category Archives: All The News You Need

Keeping Our Heads for Four Years

If you were a news junkie during the George W. Bush era, you’re already experiencing deja vu.  That sinking feeling already makes your eyes roll automatically when Putin’s President appears.  It settled into the back of your neck from the whiplash as you shake your head and shout “no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” over the latest outrage or tweet.  And it’s there in the pit of your stomach, when you try not to vomit whenever you see the color orange.

Yup, it’s started.  The Deluge.  The Flood.  The Trump shit storm.

trump-and-putin

During the Bush years, I would just be ready to pounce on one issue, when another hit the fan and took the wind out of my sails. Resistance is hard if there is just so much to resist.

How, I worried in the days since November 8, will I survive Trump.  I feared a heart attack.  A stroke.  Getting so scared I’d shit in my pants.   Of course I worry about the last one sometimes during a scary movie.

Anyway, I’ve come up with a strategy for a hybrid Resister/Surviving Human.  I’m going to become a political centaur!

centaur-female

Google Image.  No shit will be given by this filly.

 

I’m going to take my mother’s marital and parental advice and apply it to my activism.  She said:

Choose Your Battles!

Me, I’m going to try to focus on issues I know about and/or that are closest to my heart.  The ones I write about here on FiftyFourAndAHalf.

But that won’t be all I do.  I will look for and follow the lead of others who are knowledgeable about other issues, and I will try to help to the extent I can.  It’s not hard, really, to make calls to Congress and the White House.  Really, it just takes a minute.  You or I can even just cut and paste and hit “send.”

But I will try my very best to keep my blood pressure — and my outrage to livable levels.

George W. Bush kept us all off balance because there were so many things to be outraged about, that we couldn’t keep it up.  Different bad presidents need different tactics.

And Trump will make the Dubya years look like a walk in the park.  And that park is in Baghdad.

 

 

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Smitten-ish

As I’ve told you, comedy always comes in threes.  And today?  Today was a veritable shamrock of humor.  And you know what?  Just when I had had a long lapse in providing all of you with the information that brings you here, it was all poop-related humor.

You’re welcome.  It’s my new years’ gift for you.

It started just as soon as I got up and, ummmm, and checked the news headlines.  I learned that the Japanese are wiping up.  Literally.  They are supplying antiseptic wipes for your phone in public bathrooms.  Now, I personally wipe my phone quite frequently, so I actually thought this was a great idea, right out of the, ummm, gate.

But then I saw that they provide video instructions.  On how to use toilets, different butt wiping techniques, and step-by-step guides for how to wipe your phone.

I know you didn’t click on that.  But you should have.  At first, I admit that I only watched part of it, because I consider myself a toilet expert.  Nobody does the elephant or the horse style better than (or as often as) me.  However, the full international experience is worth your 2:11.

You know what?  The day got better.

Because I also learned about special-use mittens.  They are wet-wipes in the shape of mittens to keep your hands clean while wiping.  They’re called “Shittens.”  Really!  Here’s the product description:

If there’s one great universal truth that we can all agree on, it’s this: No one wants poop on their hands.

And yet, we laugh carelessly in the face of danger every time we take an old fashioned wet wipe to our heinies, flying completely blind in the critical poop-to-hand spatial relation.

How many times have you taken one of those substandard wet wipes to the posterior of a child, risking major contamination from that flailing poop cloth? And how many times has your dog’s “number two” been a little closer to a number one “and a half”, requiring a deadly grab & pull maneuver with whatever’s laying around? Enough is enough!

With new Shittens, you can fully protect your hands while tending to the dirty deed.

If you’re 12, or are generally short on bathroom humor, just go to the Shittens’ Amazon Q&A page/Customer reviews.  You won’t be disappointed.

Lastly, I read an article that might just give me nightmares:

A woman called Animal Control last week after she found a snake in a toilet in an Arlington County apartment. To repeat: She. Found. A. Snake. In. A. Toilet.

snake-in-toilet

Photo Credit:  Arlington County Animal Shelter.

At a minimum, it will make me use the buddy system whenever I skip to my loo.

The snake is a juvenile Yellow Anaconda.  Researcher that I am, I looked up Yellow Anaconda snakes.  Here’s what I learned:

They belong to the family of snakes, Boidae, which contains pythons, boas and the green anaconda, the world’s largest snake. Even though yellow anacondas are much smaller their cousin the green anaconda (Eunectes murinus), they can reach a length of up to 4.6 meters, but the average adult size is around 3 meters.  [Shit, I had to underline that.]

Thanks for the info, Snake Facts!

All I can say is that if I found a large snake (or even a small snake, now that I think about it) in my toilet, I wouldn’t call the animal shelter.  I’d call Amazon for a shitload of Shittens.  

shittens

Because it would be “cleanup on aisle 3,” for sure.

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“Cyber Brownshirts”

If he did it in a vacuum, it wouldn’t matter.  If nobody listened to him, it wouldn’t matter.  If nobody took it upon themselves to act on his comments, it wouldn’t matter.

But people do.  When Donald Trump Tweets, others act.

And it’s never pleasant.

We’ve all heard the stories.  Most recently it was this one:

Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!

What happens after Trump Tweets?

Threats.  In phone calls, on social media, in the mail.

Trump himself doesn’t threaten.  Like the folks who clean his toilets, he has people for that.

“Cyber Brownshirts” will do the dirty work.

Buckle Up.

I know he’s a Hitler Youth, not a Brownshirt.

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There’s a Big Difference

Two occurrences in the same neighborhood really point out the difference between reactions of members of the two different parties.

Vice-President Elect Mike Pence has moved into a short-term rental house in the mostly democratic Chevy Chase neighborhood of DC.  When residents realized he was living there, the reaction was this, courtesy of the Washington Post:

rainbow-flag

Photo courtesy of the Washington Post, (taken by Gary Cameron/Reuters)

They put out rainbow flags.

The other occurrence took place at a restaurant in the same neighborhood, a pizza place called the Comet Ping Pong.  As written up in the Washington Post,

A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. police said. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign.

This restaurant was the subject of false news accusations that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring from the restaurant’s bathrooms.  (Who the hell believes such stupidity?)  Other than  General  Mike Flynn, soon to be Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser:

I feel very secure now, don't you?

I feel very secure now, don’t you?

Nevertheless, the gunman was arrested, several area businesses went on lock-down.

A D.C. police report made public Monday says Welch had been armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle. The report also says police seized a Colt .38 caliber handgun and a shotgun. One of those weapons was found inside the restaurant; the other in the suspect’s car.

Please wake me in 2020.

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Sometimes, I’m Passive Aggressive

Did you hear about Trump’s kerfuffle with NBC news?  At the meeting King Donald held last week with the heads of the networks, Trump harangued NBC News for using unflattering pictures of him.  Like this picture of him.  Which he hates.

donald-trump-dont-use-this-picture-he-hates-it

Photo credit:  BoingBoing.com

As they say at Boingboing.com,

Trump is angry at NBC News for using this photo of him, so please don’t use this enhanced, enlarged version of it for anything.

Please.  Don’t use this picture whenever you need a picture of our new Fearless Leader.  Pretty please with sugar on top.

Oh, and please don’t review the latest, greatest Christmas Ornament that you’re sure to want for your Christmas tree:

make-america-great-again-ornament

Image Credit:  Amazon.com

And whatever you do, don’t read the product reviews.  Or leave a review of your own.  Because I think the good ones are all taken.

 

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