Cultural Rambings Redux, II

Here are some more things I neglected to include in Cultural Ramblings Redux:

--  While driving to work the other day I heard a British voice pitching a new and improved toothbrush.  At first, I thought it was another of the annoyingly frequent Brit pitchmen hawking products in America.  But as I listened I realized that this person was claiming to be the inventor of the Quip toothbrush, which he touted as being better than what was already on the market.  Then it hit me:  What parallel universe caused a Brit to invent a toothbrush?

--  We see all the signs about looking out for motorcycles.  Frankly, I worry about motorcyclists when I'm driving, fearful not that I'll hit them so much as I won't see them or they'll fall in front of me and I'll run them over.  Lately, I've been on our interstates where the speed limit is 70 mph and I'm doing about 80 mph -- don't judge me -- and a motorcycle, usually a crotch-rocket, will zoom past me as if I'm standing still and be a quarter mile ahead of me within twenty seconds.  I've also had motorcycles weave in and out of lanes from behind me without little warning.  I'm very concerned about the safety of all motorists, and not just motorcyclists.

--  Can't wait for the new television season to begin.  I mean, there are about four or five shows that I anxiously await, but they're just old favorites.  I haven't seen any promos for new shows and doubt I'd be enticed anyway.

--  Why doesn't the News change its generic name to the Opinion?

--  I'm so tired of pick-up trucks.  I'm sure they have a purpose, but on the expressways they're dangerous nine times out of ten. 

--  I miss dirty rice.  Long story.

-- I don't understand women news anchors.  They want to be taken seriously as journalists, yet more and more their pasts pop up showing that they posed scantily clad for this magazine spread or that.  It's not as if being attractive physically and intelligent are mutually exclusive, but if the goal all along was to be on the news, why degrade oneself by posing for men's magazines where the last thing on anyone's mind is the news?

--  I still don't understand why, if the United States is comprised of fifty states, when a fast food joint like Wendy's has a promotion, the promotion is not good in Alaska or Hawaii.  When those two states joined the Union, was there something special in their admission that forbade promotions from being extended beyond the Lower Forty-Eight to those new states?

--  The mid-term elections are this year.  O' goody, more political ads.

--  Custer and Mosby had an epic fight the other night.  Custer is getting old, quickly, and Mosby is feeling his oats.  Breaking up a bulldog fight is no picnic.  Having to break up two fights is unpleasant.

--  I can't wait for fall.  Summer hasn't been too horrible this year, but I just like fall over summer.  From what I'm reading, though, winter could be brutal.

--  I can't recall when it took as long to bury someone as it's taking to bury Aretha Franklin. 

--  Karen watches Wicked Tuna.  I used to pay more attention.  What got to me was how these supposedly impromptu interviews with the captains and crew were so obviously scripted. 

--  Mountain Men, on the other hand.  Where was this show when I was young enough to have done something like this?

-- I enjoy writing with fountain pens, but I have to learn how to do so more cleanly.

--  We eat at both Moe's and Qdoba.  I like chips and queso.  I prefer Moe's chips and Qdoba's queso.  Figures.

--  No matter how hip it may be, I cannot and will not read books on Kindle or any other electronic device.  That's not snobbishness on my part; I have trouble reading anything beyond an email online.  I much prefer hardbound books over paperbacks.  That's snobbishness.

--   Attorney advertising leaves me cold.  It's the nature of the beast, but professionally, I despise it. Personally, some of the ads are hilarious.

(c) 2018 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Hyperbole Leftist Style

Since President Trump's election, the Left has been in a tizzy.  Everything he says or does is wrong, somehow, no matter how good it is for the country.  Certainly, there is room for honest disagreement, but the Left thinks that everything the POTUS does is wrong, hence their disagreements are borne in honesty.  Accordingly, because they claim the moral imperative, and because they're the only people, in their minds, who not only bear the responsibility but also the burden of defending the honor, integrity and existence of the country, whatever means necessary to oppose the President and his policies is fair, whether it be violence, distraction, delay...or rhetoric.

A couple of weeks ago, President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.  This would be the second Justice to be replaced by the President.  In the run-up to the 2016 election, the SCOTUS was one of a number of hot-button issues, what with the ages of the present Justices well-known.  Karen was excited more than anything at the prospect that Donald Trump would be choosing future SCOTUS justices.  She had good reason to be excited.

Neil Gorsuch is a judge of exceptional ability.  He's not partisan by any means.  He's low-keyed and well educated.  His nomination should not have been the fight that it was.  Still, the Democrats mounted such a delaying action that Republicsns chose the nuclear option and changed the rules requiring a two-thirds majority, or sixty votes, to a simple majority, or fifty-one votes, to approve a nominee.  Justice Gorsuch was approved via this method.

Now nominee Brett Kavanaugh is making his rounds in Congress, meeting the senators and submitting his materials for their review.  It's an arduous process; why anyone would want to go through this is beyond me.  To have that level of public scrutiny over all aspects of my professional and personal life just isn't worth it to me.  Yet Judge Kavanaugh as agreed to be the nominee, and now he's paying the price.

Last week Senator Corey Booker said this about Judge Kavanaugh:

There is so much at stake here; this has nothing to do with politics. This is to do about who we are as moral beings. And so I wanna call on everybody. I’m not here to tell folk just what they should know, I’m here to call on folk to understand that in a moral moment, there is no neutral. In a moral moment, there is no bystanders. You are either complicit in evil, you are either contributing to wrong, or you are fighting against it.

There’s a saying from Abraham, the face in one of the Psalms, “yay though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. But that doesn’t say, though I sit in the valley of the shadow of death. It doesn’t say that I’m watching on the sidelines of the valley of the shadow of death. I’m walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I’m taking agency. I’m going to make it through this crisis.

And so I’m calling on everyone right now who understands what’s at stake, who understands who Kavanaugh is, Maya Angelou says it, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

He has shown us who he is when he rules on a woman’s right to control her own body. He has shown us who he is in his perceptions that corporations are more powerful and more important than people. He has shown us who he is on the abilty for workers to organize. He has shown us who he is on civil rights and voting rights. So the question isn’t who he is, the question is who we are. In a moral moment, will we do nothing?

To put it mildly, this is crazy.

In the first place, when he's confirmed as a Justice, Judge Kavanaugh will be one of nine votes.  He will be the most junior Justice on the Court.  He may have a vote, but the way the Court works means that he will vote first every time a vote is taken, until another Justice is appointed.  So he's not even a swing vote; he starts the voting.

Second, his record belies everything Booker alleged.  If the senator had taken the time to read through the 900,000 pages of materials that had been submitted -- which he obviously didn't, even if he's related to Evelyn Wood -- he'd see that the judge is nowhere near the evil being Booker alleges.

But that would detract from the message:  Conservatives evil, liberals good.  To use phrases such as complicit in evil ranks right up there with Michael Moore's likening of Trump supporters as enablers of rape.  It's highly irresponsible and dangerous.

The Leftists are beating a drum about Roe v. Wade being overturned, even though there is no case on the docket for the next term involving abortion.  They seem to be confusing the legislative with the judicial branches which is understandable given the fact the Left favors activist judges who interpret the Constitution to fit their whims.

But it's the rhetoric at issue here.  Complicit with evil?  Seriously?  That's tantamount to likening the man to Hitler, and nothing in his record suggests such behavior.

This rhetoric, when combined with the violence of the antifa that the leading Leftist politicians refuse to condemn publicly, will lose the election for them.  It's absurd, it's wrong and people with functioning grey matter will turn away the longer these statements are made.

(c) 2018 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Cultural Ramblings Redux

I've been mulling over some of the less important features of life recently, and since I don't have the time to launch into the tirade I'd planned, here goes:

--  I'm not a huge Nickelback fan by any means -- I can't even spell it right half the time -- but what's behind this inside joke everyone seems to throw around bashing the group?  Did they do something heinous about which I'm unaware?  Is there music routinely panned?

-- The retirement of Flo from the Progessive ads is long overdue.  Other companies have ridden the horses they put before the public for long periods of time, and others -- hello, Snapple -- have retired their spokespeople way too early.  Flo was cute at first but she's turned into someone who is the only person who finds herself funny.  The bits she does to pitch the insurance programs seem more like platforms to pitch Flo, with Progressive there only incidentally.  If she's trying to showcase her talents for a greater gig, it ain't working.

--  Is SNL relevant any more?

--  Growing up, The Gong Show was hilarious to our teenaged minds.  Chuck Barris portrayed the somewhat aloof emcee, and the Unknown Comic even made it to our honors Spanish class one day, bringing out teacher to tears when she walked into the room to find a class full of students wearing paper bags over their heads.  The reincaration with Mike Myers is a lame effort that exists simply to give Mr. Myers an excuse to effect a British accent and act goofy, since the Austin Powers franchise seems to be kaput, and to allow three erstwhile celebrities the chance to prove how hip and urbane they are as judges.

--  A sign that the apocalypse may be upon us:  Dr. Pimple Popper.  I bet her med school classmates are so envious of her now...

--  Autumn is fast approaching and so is the new TV season.  God help us.

--  Karen told me about an offer from our cable provider to get HBO and Cinemax for $15 per month for a year.  Years ago I might have jumped at it.  Now, I'm ambivalent about it at best.

--  If one is a male celebrity these days, isn't he frantically running through his memory bank to see whom he may have sexually assaulted or even acted rudely to in a suggestive manner?  It seems that not a week goes by without yet another charge of unacceptable behavior surfaces.

-- Speaking of watching one's back, what in the world would possess a guy to date Taylor Swift?  Wasn't Alanis Morrissette enough of a warning?  Taylor Swift has made a cottage industry out of revenge songs against exes.

--  And speaking of Taylor Swift, I'm glad to read that she and former bestie Katy Perry have patched up their differences.  That I even know this is attributable to the gossip magazines Karen keeps in the bathroom, which can be considered a link to the importance of that story.

--  I detest the term bestie.

--  Although it's sports related, this is humorous in a cultural aspect:  So I decided to see my Cubs when they're in town and chose not to attend the game that was a Harley-Davidson night because I don't like dodging cycles as they weave in and out of traffic, typically from behind me in my blind spot.  So I chose the next night and bought my tickets.  The hometown team just announced a couple of weeks ago that the game for which I bought tickets was now going to be Gay Pride Night.

(c) 2018 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles