Winky

Years and years and years ago I used to enjoy the comics in the newspaper.

 

I was a youngster way back when – I’m so old my blood type has been discontinued – my daily routine began with reading a newspaper.

 

Back then, newspapers offered two editions: one morning and one evening, each providing unique information on the day’s most recent stories.

 

I don’t recall if the evening edition included comics, but the morning was chock full o’ amusement.

 

In any case, this display of levity made me smile as I’m sure it did countless others.

 

When I reached my 12^th birthday and I began contemplating my future endeavor that I quickly realized any potential would likely combine my quirky sense of humor with my enjoyment of art.  I could grow up to be a cartoonist.  Unfortunately, I had trouble drawing a straight line.

 

It would be another few years before I began smoking cigarettes that I discovered the solution to my problem: Winky.

 

Winky was a character of a deer that appeared on matchbooks.  Matchbooks were necessary to dispensing matches which were necessary to lighting cigarettes in lieu of a lighter, and they were cheap ways to advertise.  It was the advent of the “Draw Winky” campaign.

 

The time was subsequent to World War II, and the Korean War, when GI’s were leaving service and searching for work.  Most smoked, and many lacked marketable skills, hence the cartoon art effort.

 

Along with Winky, Cuddles, a pirate, Spunky, a GI, a boxer dog, and a clown – no, not joe biden – also appeared on these valuable passports to gainful employment.  In retrospect, all now seem pretty easy to draw, but these mail-order art schools made the task seem otherwise without their classes.

 

Whether this inaugural “distance learning” effort was successful is open to opinion, as there were several, each offering a different character to replicate in order to judge the applicant’s abilities.  I’ll bet anyone with a check or money order was instantly qualified.

 

I never did submit an application because I was preoccupied with sixth-grade, which made my cartoonist career a mere pipe dream.  Besides, by the eight-grade I has my sights set on a professional baseball career.  But I digress.

 

But things have changed throughout the years.  Newspapers cut back to one edition per day, humor became politically correct, comics evolved into unfunny topical matters, all leading to fewer job opportunities for “matchbook artists.”

 

In retrospect it appears to be a good thing I didn’t pursue a career in drawing.

 

Still I wonder if I could have graduated from inking a cute deer to more timely political tripe.  Hopefully all my drawing wouldn’t closely resemble a turtle wearing a newsboy cap or a gruff pirate.  Unfortunately we’ll never know.

 

On the other hand, my “plan B” baseball skills excel over those cartoonists that likely need the fresh air.

 

 

 

 

Squeeze Play

 Since 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been trying to “find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in an equitable way.”

 

Through this Convention, “every country on Earth is treaty-bound to ‘avoid dangerous climate change,” and has done so via regular gatherings.  The most recent was only weeks ago, entitled Council of the Parties, or COP26.

 

Sounding very important, COP26 was well-attended in Glasgow, Scotland, by world representatives including President Joseph Robinette Biden and John Kerry, from the United States.  Both American representatives agreed that climate change represents an existential threat to the Earth, a sentiment agreed upon by most attendees.

 

Forget the existential threat of systemic racism, or systemic economic inequity, or education disparity, or systemic crime, or energy, jobs, or corruption, this COP26 was laser-focused on climate change.

 

Boltneck Kerry piously addressed the Council on America’s sin of using irreplaceable fossil fuels to keep our citizens warm, lighted, and able to prepare food, through electricity.  Sins, indeed.

 

Poor countries seem to be given a free pass on their pollution transgressions because of their inability to be financially extorted the way more affluent nations have been.

 

Kerry’s horse face explained that the United States was willing to sacrifice comfort for long-term global goals toward climate stability which, by “expert” estimates, would mean great discomfort and sacrifices primarily by American citizens.

 

Gone would be the days of spacious vehicles, recreational boats and jetskis, and thermostats set at comfortable levels.  But all would be for the common good of attempting to avert climate change.  Yea!

 

President Biden mumbled his way through his allotted address time at COP26 to make similar concessions and promises of austere future existences of hard working Americans who have earned their place at the table of rewards of air-conditioned summers and warmer winters.  Alas, both Biden and Kerry felt otherwise.

 

Promising that major American automobile manufacturers would be making electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030, to appease this punitive Convention left me with more questions than answers for this climate change brain trust.

 

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has been a dismal failure for decades, losing a pleasantly surprising $9,200,000,000 in 2020.  That figure is “pleasant” because it was expected to lose billions of dollars more.

 

What could possibly turn this economic boondoggle around?  The definitive answer is new postal vehicles.

 

This brilliant idea will buy as many as 165,000 new trucks for the USPS, some of which may be hitting the streets in 2023.  The contract was awarded to a Wisconsin company through the equally genius Build Back Better plan which awards $6,000,000,000 to help speed production of the mail trucks.

 

According to The Daily Times story, appearing its November 12, 2021 issue, “Climate activists have pressured the USPS for the better part of a decade to retool its fleet.”

 

A Democrat California representative, Jared Huffman, put this legislation together.  His take was, “we ought to step up and do something.  This isn’t gonna fix everything.  But it’s a very nice first step.”

 

Not being sure what the second step will be, $6,000,000,000 is lot of money.  But the kicker is that this “first step” was rued by Huffman because “the USPS contract that allows for the production of gas-powered vehicles undercuts the climate goals.”  Uh, oh!

Sweet new USPS non-EV truck

 

“Gas-powered vehicles” you ask?

 

Yep.  Those 165,000 new USPS vehicles are NOT EVs, rather they are nifty-looking gas-powered trucks that the COP26 was promised would disappear in order to save the planet.

 

Maybe Biden and Kerry will have continued luck goading Congress into squeezing more money out of United States citizens for other hare-brained projects in the future.  Let’s hope they don’t run out of other people’s money, though.

Hilarious, But Not Funny

 “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

 

That sentence is attributed to the late Groucho Marx of the wonderfully funny Marx Brothers comedy team, and couldn’t be truer.

The Marx Brothers

 

Although active for 44-years, until 1949, the Marx Brothers could make a garden rock laugh.  Sometimes known as the ‘Thinking Man’s Three Stooges,” Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo Marx used rapid-fire dialog to evoke chuckles, rather than slapstick comedy methods.

 

Since the demise of both the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges decades ago, the world was left with a void in the comedy arena that seemed impossible to refill.

 

Until the Congressional elections, that is.

 

It seems as though there are many Congress people who appear to have taken the above-mentioned comedy chasm as a personal crusade to fill with their own brand of levity. And they have done so with aplomb.

 

The first on this list of aspiring entertainers is Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA).  Rep. Schiff found his inspiration in comedy when Donald John Trump was elected President in 2016.

 

Through a series of fact contortions, Schiff, along with other smarmy Democrat politicians, began a campaign, instigated by Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, to discredit President Trump’s election.

 

“Collusion” was the catch-word of the succeeding four-years in Democrat efforts to dishonor President Trump and his constituents.  During that time, Schiff made one joke after another.

 

Claiming to have “irrefutable evidence” of collusion with the Russians, to steal the election from Clinton, Schiff repeated such baseless claims nearly daily until successor Joseph Robinette Biden was sworn into office in January 2021.

 

Even then, Schiff insisted he was correct and many of his claims were taken out of context; unfortunately, the Congressional Federal Record printed every word from Schiff’s lips, and are now a matter of, well, federal record. 

 

Next up is a woman named Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX).  Congress woman Lee is largely known for her arrogance among staffers and people not-of-color.  Quick to rally the troops around topical matters, Lee seems to have a deaf ear when it comes to sexual harassment and workplace abuses.

 

Demanding to be known as “Queen Jackson,” Lee once forced a woman on a united Airlines flight to cede her seat to Lee.  A subsequent social media post by the relocated flyer resulted in a public accusation of racism against African-American Lee, in reality, an African-American bully.  But why be left out of the racism arena?

 

Being drunk with power and a limited vocabulary, Lee often uses words such as “racist,” “bigot,” “racist, and “racist,” to make her points, always humorous for people with an IQ above room temperature.

 

And then we reach Congressman Henry Calvin Johnson, Jr., aka: Hank Johnson (D-GA).

 

Johnson is best described as ‘a hoot.’  In 2010, Johnson raised eyebrows during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.  That discussion regarded a planned military buildup of Guam, a U.S. territory island in the Pacific.

 

In a seemingly feeble attempt to exude his intelligence, Johnson expressed concerns about this buildup to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet.

 

Johnson stated his “fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”  No lie.  Mentally likening Guam to a swimming pool raft, Johnson proved why a college education is not really worth much.

 

Willard – with a semi-smile and semi-look of disbelief – tactfully responded, “We don’t anticipate that.”  And that is why Willard is an admiral and Johnson is a laughingstock.

 

So when you hear pious politicians pontificating about vaccines, higher taxes, inflation, critical race theory, defunding the police, border control, Russian collusion, the supply chain, Ukraine, and climate change, realize what Groucho Marx was saying.

 

He may have been the great thinker before his time.

For Thee, Not For Me

 Anger seems to be abounding, evidenced by near daily news stories about random killings and assaults, school board meeting brouhahas, and fights aboard flying airplanes.

 

With everyone on edge over inane COVID vaccine regulations, soaring consumer costs, and uncontrolled southern border crossings, the words “short fuse” don’t begin to describe the brink on which our nation is teetering.

 

Of course, these public and private demons are usually handled quietly as a family or internally.  Until some outsider feels the need to interject their wisdom in your business, that is.

 

Being reared in a religious family, I studied the catechism and the Bible to reinforce my beliefs, which are strong and devout.  Amen.

 

But as of late, non-Christians, and Christians alike, have felt the unchecked need to attempt to impose their thoughts and feelings upon my own sensibilities.

 

An example would be my belief in most of the Bible.  Therein is a parable mentioning a fellow named Noah.  Without building you the watch to tell you the time, Noah was instructed, by God, to construct an ark, in preparation for a coming devastating flood.

 

Noah dutifully complied and gathered breeding pairs of animals to assist in the repopulation of the Earth. 

 

This story usually garners more disdain than other biblical writings because of its outlandish claims of a global flood, the volume of passenger creatures, and the actions of God.  However, being a Christian, faith is part of not questioning God or His deeds and actions, because He is almighty and infallible.

 

Such staunch beliefs are commonly mocked, and its adherents berated as being of low intelligence and easily misled.  Plain and simple, those atheists are wrong.

 

As an example, they claim my God cannot be proven as He cannot be seen, scripture is too nebulous and unbelievable, and a loving God would not subject His followers to pain and suffering.

 

As such, Christians like me are often condemned for having false beliefs in a pretend God, largely because the disbelievers have no faith.  Period.

 

On the other hand, those very same atheists – disbelievers – have their own “religion” by which they live and breathe and expect me to blindly follow, without question.

 

Their ersatz religion is “climate change,” a false god practiced at the altar of Mother Earth.

 

Yes, climate change is a notion that morphed from a half-baked idea into a multibillion dollar, organized crime-like, world-wide operation, using the Earth’s inhabitants as suckers.

 

IF YOU ARE NOW GRASPING YOUR CHEST IN PAIN, PLEASE STOP READING AND RECYCLE SOMETHING.

 

As I am writing this, world leaders are meeting in Scotland to discuss many issues concerning the entire planet, including climate change.  Yea!

 

In fact, President Joseph Robinette Biden is speaking to the assembled pious attendees, laying the groundwork for their Church of Climate Change religion to address this “existential” threat to humanity.  Existential, I say.

 

Yes, these same people who mocked Christians in an attempt to drive people away from their established religions are now promoting their own version of a religion, in a way P.T. Barnum could only dream.

 

School children and parents, alike, as well as teachers, corporate executives, bankers, and politicians, have all accepted the Church of Climate Change as their official mode of transportation toward the future.  And this gravy train is full of enticing money, as an aside to its socially conscious message.

 

My plan: Two for me, none for you

Keep in mind that these heathens mocked others for worshiping an entity that is invisible and, according to them, uncaring.  Those same traits can be found in the Church of Climate Change, but likely won’t.

 

For the record, since its inception, the Church of Climate Change has always been an exercise in transferring money and lame actions into so-called noble measures directly attempting to correct their claims of man-man ruination of our planet.  Once again, they are wrong.

 

If you really want to see how sincere those anointed few Church of Climate Change leaders are about correcting environmental problems, read on.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, both skipped this critical meeting to control the Earth’s destiny and that of its inhabitants.

 

And just ahead of his G-20 gathering in Scotland, President Biden was given an audience in Rome, Italy, by Pope Francis, at the Vatican.  President Biden, whose brilliant domestic energy policy has driven up gasoline prices by more than a dollar, clearly had no issue with that.

 

In fact, Biden’s caravan wound its way through Rome – all 85-vehicles.  Yep.  Eighty-five. 

 

Not as environmentally-conscious at someone from the Church of Climate Change would have you believe.  Too bad I’m not as smart as these climate change mental weaklings.