Tag Archives: Crazy people

April 20, 2016 · 0:00

Unusually quiet

You may have noticed that I’ve been unusually quiet about politics lately.

Ever since Donald Trump stopped being funny, well, my heart hasn’t been in it.

I will tell you that I miss candidate Barack Obama.  He inspired me, beginning before he was a candidate — when he made his 2004 speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention, I turned to John and said “Can we have him?”  In 2006, John and I spent our 20th wedding anniversary listening to the future president speak.  And in 2008 and 2012, we both worked for Obama’s election and re-election.

Hillary?  Bernie?  Eh.

In February I wrote that I’d decided to vote for Hillary:

Philosophically, I’m really in Bernie’s camp.  I’d love government-sponsored healthcare.  I’d love to make college free.  I would love to erase income inequality.

But I’m a pragmatist.

Even if Bernie could get elected (and I don’t agree with pundits that claim he can’t), well, I spent 10 years watching the sausage mill that is our government.  And I simply don’t think Bernie can do it.

Hillary Clinton has my vote because I think she will be a good president.  Because she’s smart and capable.  Because she knows the system inside, outside and upside and downside.

I didn’t know at the time that I would ever be quoting myself.

But this morning, courtesy of the Daily Kos, I found someone much funnier than I agreed with me.

John Hodgman.

You probably remember Hodgman from the Daily Show — the straight man.  Monday, in advance of the New York Primary,  he came out for Hillary for precisely the reasons I decided to support her.  He is much funnier, though.

I think her ambition is, and has long been, to be the President of the United States, like everyone else in the race, and also to make policy.

I think it’s reasonable to say based on her career that she likes making policy.

Moreover, I think she wants to make the best policy possible in an antagonistic-by-design political process that she has known and wrestled with for decades, and keep that policy in place.

Moreover, I think she wants to make policy that I largely agree with.

And I think she can do it.

Moreover, I think she can beat Trump.

At least I hope so.  New Zealand is so far away.

Hillary Aliens landing

Besides.  She has the aliens on her side.  Photo spotted at Daily Kos.  But my feet were on the ground.  Or actually on the coffee table, if you must know.

 

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April 10, 2016 · 0:00

Hey Doc? Your Education is Lacking

It used to be I was afraid of the future because of the GOP and the Pandora’s Box of hornets/hate they’ve unleashed.  But then I realized that there are, perhaps, other signs that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket.  Read on, and try to tell me I’m wrong.

***

Seven intelligent faces looked at me, blankly, their heads all tilted at a quizzical angle as if on strings.

Eagle3

Just because I’m saying “Who?” doesn’t make me an owl, ya know (Google image, natch)

 

They ranged in age from mid-40s to early and mid-20s.

At least I hoped they were intelligent faces.  Because they belonged to a team of seven doctors treating me during my recent (thankfully brief) hospital stay for Crohn’s.

I always draw a crowd.

But it wasn’t long before I questioned the intelligence of this group of gastroenterologists and medical students holding their noses and getting  through this rotation.  Because they seemed to have missed a major part of their education.

“Michael*” — the leader of the pack, put his stethoscope to my belly and listened.

“Not much noise there, Elyse.”  He let the others have a listen.

“You guys haven’t let me eat in days,” I said.  And then, as a person with a gut so noisy that it has a name (Ralph), I continued.  “I always feel like Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen!  You know, the scene where his stomach is gurgling?”

 

“Humphrey who?” one of them said.  The others nodded their heads in agreement.

“Bogart,” I said, with my eyes getting bigger as I realized that all seven of the people around me were tilting their heads at me in confusion.  None of them had a clue who Bogie was.

“I think I’ve heard of him,” one of the medical students ventured.  She didn’t look terribly certain, though.  “Wasn’t he in all of those musicals?”

Something is very wrong in the world.

 

*And when did doctors start going by their first names??  Did I miss something?

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April 5, 2016 · 0:00

Ancient Shit

It seems that while there is nothing new under the sun, there’s a lot of new stuff in bogs.  New-ish stuff.  New-to-me-and-you stuff.

Sometimes it’s just horse shit.

But sometimes it’s special.  Special horse shit.  That, apparently, is a thing.

You see, some folks dug up some old shit and decided they know who put it there.

Hannibal!

In a study published Monday in the journal Archaeometry, researchers argue that new evidence in the form of some very old poop might hold the key to solving this mystery once and for all.

Yup!  Using ancient horse shit, scientists are pretty sure they’ve figured out Hannibal’s route over the Alps.

They say that microbial evidence suggests a “mass animal deposition” (a.k.a. poop) occurred in the Col de Traversette pass in 218 B.C. — just when Hannibal was making his journey to Rome. By digging around in a peaty bog along the pass, the researchers found what they think are microbes usually associated with horse manure.

“Over 70% of the microbes in horse dung are from a group known as Clostridia and we found these microbes in very high numbers in the bed of excrement,” study author  of Queens University wrote in an article for the Conversation.

Hannibal and poop

I’m afraid I don’t know these guys personally, But Fox News tells me they are from Queens University in Belfast.  And who am I to doubt Fox?  This may be a FoxNews photo, too.  But I got it from Google.  I love you Google.  Fox?  Not so much.  I do love the Alps, though.  Does that help?

Now, you might ask, where are those legendary elephants?  I don’t know.

Here’s what they say:

Horses trudging through the Alps are suspicious, but solid evidence of elephants in their company might close this case for good. Until then, Allen and his colleagues will have to keep probing the poop and surrounding areas for more clues.

There are also reports of horsey tape worms.  But I do believe that that is a subject for another fake medical expert’s blog.  It’s bad enough that I did two poop posts in a row.  This is becoming a pattern.

Oh, and I personally have experience with horse poop of the European variety.  See:  https://fiftyfourandahalf.com/2012/05/24/me-and-julie/

Sometimes, a woman just has to accept her fate.  Shitty though it may be.

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April 4, 2016 · 0:00

I Really Don’t Look for this Shit

Yeah, I know you don’t believe me. But I don’t go looking for this shit.  Really.

It’s just that, well, I spend a lot of time reading the news.  Because after all, you depend on me to let you know which way is up.  Or which way is down.  Or maybe just getting flush with it.

Because you see, a new museum has opened up, and we all need to get our asses over there.  — Mark, are you paying attention????

National Poo Museum opens doors on Isle of Wight

Just in time for you to plan your summer vacation! Can you imagine a better reward for your children, who suffered through the British Museum, the Tower of London and Madam Tussaud’s,  than the prize at the end of the tunnel than the National Poo Mueum?  The National Poo Museum, you will not be surprised to learn, is a museum dedicated to excrement, with examples from the animal and human world.

And it’s just opened up!

There are 20 kinds of poo captured in resin — who needs to bury or flush?

Poo Museum 1BBC Photo.  Because who else would claim this picture?

Because I couldn’t possibly make this up, I will just let you know exactly what they are producing at this museum:

The exhibition at the Isle of Wight Zoo features faeces from animals such as elks and lions as well as a human baby.

The National Poo Museum has been created by members of the artist collective Eccleston George.

“Poo is all around us and inside us, but we ignore it,” said co-curator Daniel Roberts.

Twenty illuminated resin spheres show off the different types of faeces with facts hidden behind toilet lids on the museum walls.

Poo Museum 2

They have handsome men offering fun activities.  Look!  Weigh your poo!  (But I promise you, this is a contest I would win.)

There is old poo and new poo.  Dino poo.  Seriously, if you have ever dreamed of dinosaur poo, this is your golden opportunity to see it.  Well, it’s probably more like black gold (Texas tea).

And I truly believe that what they say about poop is true:

“Small children naturally delight in it but later we learn to avoid this yucky, disease-carrying stuff, and that even talking about poo is bad,” he said.

“But for most of us, under the layers of disgust and taboo, we’re still fascinated by it.”

This is why I blog.

 

 

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April 3, 2016 · 0:00

This is Reassuring?

Relax, everybody.  Nothing’s gonna change.  You see, the Congress is on it.

Well, that was the message that failed presidential candidate-turned Donald Trump spokesmouth said, anyway.  In Cairo.  To live humans there.

Lindsey Graham in Cairo

AP Image

http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=92351&siteSection=bigstory_nws_non_non_dynamic_wire_ap_wirematch&videoId=30574260

Yup.  Senator Graham was trying to reassure folks in the Middle East that Congress would continue to play a primary role in foreign policy, “regardless of what Mr. Trump says or does.”

“The Congress is going to be around no matter who is president,” Graham told reporters after meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi as part of a Republican congressional delegation touring the Middle East.

“All of us, regardless of what Mr. Trump says or does, we are going to keep being who we are, so don’t let the political scenes at home get you too upset,” Graham said.

Lindsay Graham Meme

I found this a long time ago.  I’m sure it was through Google.  And the attribution is right there on the left.  Or his right.  Lindsey’s that is.

I feel sooooooooo much better knowing that Trump is the leading candidate to have his finger near the button.  Because Congress will be there, doing the very same shit they have done to screw up the country for decades.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

Personally, I would have been more reassured if Senator Graham had gone to Middle Earth and spoken about Orcs.

 

Source:  http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7588580ba37049c1ac2f3fbb4df624ca/us-senator-tells-arab-world-us-hasnt-changed-despite-trump

 

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