But First, Let’s Light(en) Up!
Huzzah for the city of the angels, babies!
The Los Angeles city council yesterday declared the southern California megalopolis the largest US city to legalize recreational marijuana.
BTW: We just might need the buzz because….
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The First Shot In Li’l Duce’s War
C’mon, let’s face facts. President Gag wants a war in the worst way.
He gets off on conflict and, considering the fact that he’s clearly in the lifelong grip of a personality disorder, probably sociopathy or at the very least narcissism with its accompanying grandiosity and megalomania, a nuclear war would appeal to his pathological need to disrupt. And the biggest disruption of all would be that wreaked upon civilization itself by a large scale exchange of thermonuclear weapons. It doesn’t matter who we’re going to exchange nukes with (only that the putative enemy is some land with whom his clan does not do business, ergo, Russia’s out.)
That is the only possible explanation for his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It’s a gambit sure to ignite fiery tensions in the Mideast. Even now, madmen are formulating plans to attack the United States in a manner that just might make 9/11 look like a kids’ game. In other words, radical fundamentalists at this moment are trying to figure out how to acquire and deliver a bomb that’ll pretty much wipe a large American city off the face of the Earth.
Few of us can know how possible that might be. Nuclear weapons need to be constantly monitored and, for lack of a better word, nourished. Their nuclear fuel deteriorates. Their fuzing electronics break down. Their targeting mechanisms fall out of calibration. Their atmospheric sensors that determine when and how far above their targets they should detonate must be constantly tweaked. Thermonuclear bombs don’t just sit in a storage space waiting for someone to load them on a plane and drop them. It takes the resources of an entire nation to design, build, and maintain a nuclear weapon inventory.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of clever, soulless ghouls on the planet who’ll do everything they can to get their hands on an operable bomb and there are just as many craven officials and/or scientists on their countries’ payrolls who can be persuaded by greater riches or religious appeals to help them do so.
It pains me to say this but the specter of a mushroom cloud over Boston or Seattle, or even New York or Washington, DC, seems a sure bet sooner rather than later. And when that happens, should our holy land still be presided over by Li’l Duce, he’ll be certain to unleash our nuclear might on whichever country annoys him most at that moment.
And once that genie’s out of the bottle, who knows how many other itchy trigger fingers’ll reach for their nations’ red buttons.
P. Gag is frustrated because, despite his megalomania, he cannot create a world. But he can do the second best thing — he can destroy one.
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Big — And I Mean BIG — Talk
Oh well, as long as we’re still here, there are radio shows for me to air and for you to hear. For instance, this afternoon’s Big Talk features a funny, lovable, clever, ursine, mountain of a man, Troy Maynard.
He’s the author of a new book, How to Raise Viking Children: And Other Tales of Woe. His stories of fatherhood, husbandhood, and kid-dom are the equals of forerunners Irma Bombeck, Amy Krause Rosenthal, and Jim Gaffigan.
Tune in to today’s Daily Local News at 5:00pm for the feature on Troy. The broadcast comes to you via WFHB, 91.3 FM. Tomorrow morning I’ll post the podcast links here.
And, hey, keep an eye on the Limestone Post. Maynard joins me as as a regular columnist for the online regional publication. His bit is called “My Dad Voice” and the first installment ran this week. Dig it; I do!
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Gift It A Rest
Another in a series on ongoing rants about usages, idioms, buzz words and phrases, cute-isms, and other sins I detest in the speaking of the English language.
In honor of the Christmas season, I hereby condemn the use of the word gift as a verb. As in, Oh, here’s a nice bottle of wine and it’s cheap. I’ll take a half dozen bottles, keep two for myself and gift the others.
Using gift in that fashion cheapens the very act of giving.
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