Bits of Snarks ‘n Snippets

Posted on January 30, 2021 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I tried to come up with something fun for a Saturday Surprise post, but sadly the snarky angst is bubbling over, so please forgive my lack of humour today. Perhaps there will be a Sunday Surprise – who knows?

The not-so-great State of Ohio

I hate the state I live in – Ohio. I have always hated it, and had it not been for a job offer from Honda back in the 80s, I would never have moved to this state. I’ve lived in the State Capitol, Columbus, and for the last nearly 30 years, have lived in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati. The state is heavily republican, and about 80% of the people are arrogant bigots. But what I read today makes me more determined than ever to get the hell out of this state!

This memo put out by two state legislators says it all …

One of the “greatest presidents in American history”????? WTF????? If this passes, then I am definitely leaving the state, if I have to live in a lean-to in the mountains and forage for wild berries and mushrooms to eat!

Jon Stewart on Twitter

Comedian Jon Stewart, a long-time favourite of mine, joined Twitter two days ago, though he has long said it would never happen, and already he has nearly one million followers! Wow … I’ve been on Twitter since January 2009 – 12 years – and I have only 140 followers! And he’s only tweeted twice! Hmmmm … wonder what I’m doing wrong?

Reward for bad behaviour?

Yesterday I wrote a rant about newly-elected representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene. She is a conspiracy theorist, a gun-totin’ bitch, a Trump loyalist, and played a role in the attack on Congress on January 6^th. Many, including myself, have called for her to be removed from the House of Representatives, for she is not somebody I want making the laws that I live under.

She is not, in fact, lawmaker material, but rather troublemaker material with her many nasty remarks and allegations that 9/11, the Sandy Hook school shootings, and the Parkland school shootings were all hoaxes. More recently it has come to light that she said that ‘wildfires in California were not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project.’

But now for the worst of it!

The only education this woman has is a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. She does not have a degree in education, has never been a teacher, and yet she was placed on the House Education and Labour Committee! She would be making the decisions about what is taught and how it is taught in our public schools??? NO! Just effing NO! After her committee placement was criticized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and in light of Greene’s spreading of conspiracy theories regarding school shootings, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz introduced a motion to remove Greene from all committee assignments. I want her removed from Congress … hell, truth be told, I want her removed from the planet Earth! Send her to join her alien friends somewhere way up in space! See if Elon Musk can help.

A breath of fresh air … literally

President Biden has nominated Deb Haaland to be the new Secretary of the Interior, replacing Trump’s fossil fuel entwined David Bernhardt. Let me tell you just a bit about Deb Haaland …

Ms. Haaland is a politician who has been the U.S. Representative from New Mexico’s 1st congressional district since 2019. The district includes most of Albuquerque, along with most of its suburbs. Haaland is a former chairwoman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico. Along with Sharice Davids, she is one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress. Haaland is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo and a 35th-generation New Mexican. Haaland is a political progressive who supports the movements to abolish ICE and to implement the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.

When President Biden picked Representative Haaland to be his Interior secretary, the positive response to the historic choice was so enormous, it virtually overshadowed any meaningful dissent. But now that the bulk of the confirmation hearings are due to start next week, the naysayers are coming out of the woodwork. Why?

Two words: fossil fuel. Senator Bill Cassidy, a republican from Louisiana who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will oversee Haaland’s confirmation proceedings, and appears ready to hold Haaland to account for the Biden administration’s plans to stop issuing new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands. THOSE LEASES NEED TO BE STOPPED! Fossil fuels are just that … fossil: a relic of the past! Renewable energy is where we turn our sights now, Mr. Cassidy!

Ms. Haaland stands for strong conservation, climate action, and tribal rights … all in direct contrast with the fossil fuel industry, in whose pockets are many of the republicans in Congress, obviously including Mr. Cassidy. I have sent an email to both of my state’s senators urging them to confirm the nomination of Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior, for I feel strongly that her values are what this nation needs more of.

A laugh or two

And last, I give you a bit of humour about … well, about so many things. This clip from Jimmy Kimmel actually made me laugh, so watch it – it’ll be good for your blood pressure!

Saturday Surprise — Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 17, 2018 by jilldennison under Holidays

Last Sunday I was at the grocery store doing my usual weekly food shopping when I noticed at the back of the store where the butcher shop and meat reside, a coffin filled with turkeys. Hmmm … my thoughts were that they were jumping the gun a bit, that it was too early for turkeys to start appearing. Then on Wednesday I had an email from Betty Crocker, the subject of which read “Only 8 more sleeps ‘til Thanksgiving”. Say WHAT??? No way! It can’t already be … I looked at my calendar … FORNACAZONI!!!

Where did summer go? Where has the year gone? How did this happen?

Well, the reality is that Thanksgiving is only 5 days now, and I, who am usually well-prepared, with menus planned, supplies and groceries bought, am wondering if the local pizza place delivers on Thanksgiving. Sigh.

Well, knowing that I wasn’t going to make it go away by ignoring it (I tried that once – it didn’t work), yesterday morning I bounced out of bed, cleaned out the fridge to make room for a 24-pound turkey, spent a few minutes with our friend & neighbor, Maha, discussing the arrangements, and then trotted out after Chris got home to buy the turkey. I haven’t named him yet, so feel free to offer suggestions. Last year’s was either Ralph or Rusty … I forget which. What? Of course I always name our turkeys! How else would I distinguish this one from another one? He died just to grace our table and fill our bellies … the least we can do is give him a name!

So anyway, in honour of the fact that next week is Thanksgiving, I thought I would make today’s post a bit of Thanksgiving humour!

I really loved this one … especially the punch line …

The Turkey Popped Out of the Oven

🦃

The Turkey popped out of the oven

and rocketed in to the air;

It knocked every plate off the table

and partly demolished a chair.

It ricocheted into a corner

and burst with a deafening boom,

Then splattered all over the kitchen,

completely obscuring the room.

It stuck to the walls and the windows,

it totally coated the floor,

There was turkey attached to the ceiling,

where there had never been turkey before..

It blanketed every appliance,

it smeared every saucer and bowl;

There wasn’t a way I could stop it;

that turkey was out of control.

I scraped and I scraped with displeasure

and thought with chagrin as I mopped,

That I would never again stuff a turkey

with popcorn that hadn’t been popped.

written by Jack Prelutsky

No Turkey Died – But….

When I was a kid in Indiana, we thought it would be fun to get a turkey a year ahead of time and feed it and so on for the following Thanksgiving. But by the time Thanksgiving came around, we sort of thought of the turkey as a pet, so we ate the dog. Only kidding. It was the cat. – David Letterman

From the Butterball hotline …

Thanksgiving Dinner on the run. A woman called 1-800-323-4848 to find out how long it would take to roast her turkey. To answer the question, the Talk-Line home economist asked how much the bird weighed. The woman responded, “I don’t know, it’s still running around outside.”

Then there’s the time a lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but couldn’t find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?” The stock boy replied, “No ma’am, they’re dead.”

And how about a few Thanksgiving ‘toons …

Have a fun ‘n tasty holiday, my friends, and if you travel for the holiday, do so safely!

Racism at its Finest … Charleston, South Carolina 2015

Posted on June 19, 2015 by jilldennison under Rants, Social commentary

I had almost completed a humorous post for this blog about Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency and had planned to post that today. However, I am afraid that I don’t feel very humorous today in light of yesterday’s tragedy at the historic African-American AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, and I think it would be inappropriate and nearly a sacrilege to mock and make jokes today. Instead, I want (need?) to voice my opinion about yesterday’s horrific tragedy.

I watched Jon Stewart’s monologue about the tragedy and several things he said really resonated with me, but one in particular took my breath away with the truths he told. He said “… I’m confident, though, that by acknowledging it, by staring into that and seeing it for what it is, we still won’t do jack s—. Yeah. That’s us.” And he is so right. This could segue into a commentary on gun control vs gun rights, but that is a topic for another day. This post is simply about what happened in Charleston and what it says, not only about the southern states, but about the nation as a whole.

To any who cared to listen, I have been saying for about the past year that our society is going backward toward a return to the racism and bigotry of the 50’s and 60’s. Many have pooh-poohed this notion and told me I was making a federal case out of a few minor incidents, a mountain out of the proverbial molehill. Still think so? Who among you remember the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15th, 1963? I remember it well. Four young girls were killed, and many others injured in what would today be called a “terrorist attack”. Are there parallels to the 1963 bombing and yesterday’s shooting? Sure there are. Both are a result of the murderous actions by those who think of themselves as “white supremacists”, who think themselves better than others simply because of the colour of their skin! Make no mistake: this was a racially-motivated hate crime. This, my friends, was racism rearing its ugly, ugly head again nearly 52 years after the Birmingham church bombing, nearly 51 years after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.

Twice in the past 24 hours, somebody has accused me of “playing the race card”. WHAT???? When a young man, a child really, goes into a church stating he’s there to kill black people because, in his words, they “… are taking over our country.” He claimed that he was “on a mission”, a “mission” that he almost called off because the people in the church were “… so nice to me.” So how in hell am I playing the “race card” when I state that this was a racially-motivated hate crime? And why do I keep reading that he was a “smart kid”, a “normal kid”, and a “typical American kid” who was simply “mentally ill”? No, this was an evil, malignant individual who had been planning this act, according to a former roommate, for some six months and intended to “start a civil war” and then kill himself. Make no mistake, mental illness or not, this was a deranged and evil individual. He has confessed with no sign of remorse. I do not ordinarily support the death penalty, however in this case, I will make an exception. Or perhaps I would prefer that this “all-American, smart kid” be tossed into prison with a bunch of rapists and murderers and left to rot for the next 70 years or so.

Where did this boy get these ideas? Well, he was raised in one of the most racist states in the union, South Carolina, where the confederate flag is still revered and the streets are named after confederate generals from the Civil War. But I think we must look closer, to the parents. Parents are the ones who teach children their values, or lack of. Nine times out of ten, a young person will tend to follow the same political views are his/her parents, believe in the same social norms, ascribe to the same religious beliefs. Racism is more open and more prevalent in the southern states, but make no mistake, it exists in every single state in this nation and until we unite to confront racists, to shun them, we will not conquer this national cancer.

What have we learned in the last 50 years? 100 years? Apparently nothing. Today we are experiencing a return to an era where white supremacists walk freely among us, where the KKK is making a concerted effort to increase its membership, where racial profiling is the norm in police departments in every state, and where those of us who protest police killing unarmed young black men willy-nilly are called “agitators”. I am only one voice and my voice is not heard by many, but believe this: I will make sure that my voice is used to fight racism and every other form of bigotry in this nation for as long as I live.

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

Tag Archives: Jon Stewart

Saturday Surprise — Thanksgiving!