Obama's New America

Barack Hussein Obama relaxing at home.

The situation on many of America's college campuses is dire. Not only are we learning that students are brainless sheep who would literally jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if one of their TikTok influencers suggested it, or buy the bridge for a good price, but that many of them hate the Jewish people. 

Anti-Israeli demonstrations are taking place at schools including NYU, Columbia and Harvard, the latter boasting an on-campus glamping site where expensive foods are being delivered directly to their brand new tents so the naughty children won't go hungry while shouting "Death to America!" and "Free Palestine," and of course "We are Hamas!"

Since my husband and I are currently caught up in the HULU series "We Were the Lucky Ones," about a Jewish family in the clutches of the Holocaust, it's hard not to see the parallels. In Warsaw, Jews are being slaughtered in the streets, whereas in New York City, Jewish students and professors at Columbia are being told to "stay home." Why? Is street-slaughtering a growing possibility?

Here in our little town in Maine, where hating Jews comes with the territory, it won't be long before this latest wave of antisemitism hits. I am actually worried that a hostile band of youngsters sporting those black and white Palestinian scarves will come crashing through our door and hold us hostage, forcing us to get tattoos, tongue piercings, nose rings and ear gauges and eat Velveeta cheese sandwiches on white bread with Miracle Whip. (What, no Hellman's?)

Surely someone should stop all this nonsense, but with a Muslim president at Columbia it won't happen there. As for Joe Biden, well, he's just Obama's puppet, and everyone knows that Obama is loving all of this. It's exactly what he promised us back when he was in office.

 

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz

It's hard to believe that what began in 2004 as an innocent tool intended for Harvard college boys to meet attractive coeds on campus has morphed into a quasi-porn cesspool rife with commercial advertising and a bombardment of homemade videos, called Reels, shoving sometimes real, mostly fake, always nauseating big-bosomed women and vitriolic streams of political sputum into our faces. 

Sadly, Facebook has become this totally repugnant yet addictive waste of time. To me it represents the coming Fall of Man, which by the way I see as a good thing; if humans stick around much longer, things can only continue to go downhill.

So what am I doing here? I would love to quit Facebook, but then my blog (which you are currently reading) would reach nobody. And I really like it when I reach somebody, even just one person. Still, supporting Facebook sort of makes me sick to my stomach, which is why I go through so much Alka-Seltzer.

Bring On the Tear Gas

On October 12, 1969, knowing next to nothing about the situation, I accompanied three college friends to a demonstration. It was the first one I had ever attended and they convinced me it was about time, since I was after all a pot-smoking hippie with a navy blue pea coat, blue jeans, long straight hair and granny glasses who had been to Woodstock just two months earlier. 

I didn't want to go, being a hard-core pacifist and a coward, but my friends assured me that it wouldn't take too long and that afterwards we'd go get pizza. That sealed the deal since New Jersey pizza back then was astoundingly good, and as NYC residents we rarely crossed the river for anything.

The cause was named "Free the Fort Dix 38." Apparently some 38 soldiers stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey were being held in horrendous conditions on the army base there, and the demonstration was to make a scene and get them justice. Of course I had no idea what they had done in the first place to land them in army jail, but still it sounded unfair. 

"The Fort's information officer, Colonel A. J. Nealon said "it was the first time in his knowledge that demonstrators had entered Federal military property anywhere in the country." They were repelled by some of the 1,000 MPs on guard who moved into position with tear gas and fixed bayonets The demonstration ended peacefully and there were no arrests." --Wikipedia

So we got there, parked the car in a grassy field and walked onto the Army base. After standing around for awhile staring at a line of armed soldiers dressed for combat, suddenly there was tear gas everywhere. Specifically, in my eyes. It was bad. Really bad. It was a nightmare. I decided that no pizza, even one with anchovies and black olives as had been promised, was worth this horror.

Somehow we ran fast enough to escape the toxic clouds and got back to the car. I never joined another demonstration. Now I'm wondering -- why don't they simply unload some tear gas on all those anti-Israeli protesters on college campuses and be done with it?

A Dark Day At the Symphony

Yesterday I saw first-hand the blind ignorance of Mainers. Sure, there are smart Mainers, notably my dermatologist, my hip surgeon, my dentist and a few of my friends, so I'm not trying to imply that all people born and bred in Maine are dummies. Just a lot of them.

My husband and I had gone to downtown's Merrill Auditorium to attend a performance by the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Arriving early, we stayed outside for a while to enjoy the afternoon sunshine before entering the darkened concert hall. On a street corner nearby, a young man was hawking something. Curious, we approached to see what he was pitching. It turned out he was collecting signatures to assure Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a spot on the November presidential ballot. Naturally we signed, thinking that A, it didn't mean we had to vote for the man and B, the more the merrier. How could it hurt for voters to have other choices besides a senile old coot and a much-maligned bigmouth?

To our surprise, amazement and finally disgust, not one other person would sign. We watched as the young man politely approached the parade of dignified-looking, well-dressed, white-haired, mostly elderly concert-goers on their way to an afternoon of delightful music. Each one in turn pulled away in literal horror and all but spit at him: "No, no, no, no, no, never, absolutely not, no, no, no!" Following are some of their responses:

"He's an anti-vaxxer!"

"I would sign to keep him off the ballot!"

"He's a kook!"

"No, never, anyone but him!"

"Even his own family doesn't support him!"

"He's a total nut!"

"I would rather sign to put Trump in jail!"

"No, oh my God, you should be ashamed!"

I was stunned at the lack of intelligence prevalent in such a supposedly intelligent crowd. After all, they liked Classical music, usually a sign of good breeding. Yet every last one of them parroted the same worn-out platitudes they had been fed by the liberal media. (What a coincidence!) Doubtless every one of them would have signed a petition to allow transgenders to use whatever bathrooms they choose in the public schools, or to allow women to abort their babies right up until their due dates. 

The thought that someone who is against government-mandated vaccinations is considered insane but someone who takes puberty blockers and surgically removes their breasts or penis and then declares themselves a member of the opposite sex is seen as perfectly sane just blows my mind.

Eventually we went inside to hear the concert but the whole time I was disturbed to be sitting among a crowd of such unthinking, uncaring, illogical lemmings who had no grasp of how our political system is supposed to work.

How to Live Longer (If You Want To)

Fernando Botero painted fat people.

It's common knowledge that exercise leads to better health and ultimately a longer life. Yeah, yeah, famous runner and author Jim Fixx died of a heart attack while out jogging at the age of 52. Okay, there are exceptions (more about those later). But that's not the norm, and according to a Washington, DC privately-funded organization called Trust for America's Health, obesity is on the rise here. They published the following report last September: 

" Over the past two decades obesity rates have climbed for all population groups with certain populations of color experiencing the highest rates, often due to structural barriers to healthy eating and a lack of opportunities and places to be physically active. Nationally, 41.9 percent of adults have obesity. Black and Latino adults have the highest obesity rates at 49.9 percent and 45.6 percent respectively.  People living in rural communities have higher rates of obesity than people living in urban and suburban areas."

I am scratching my head wondering what could possibly be a "structural barrier to healthy eating" that causes certain populations of color to have the highest rates of obesity, a.k.a. to be big fatties. Are there steel fences, possibly electrified, erected in front of the produce departments of grocery stores in black and Latino neighborhoods? What constitutes a "lack of opportunity and places to be physically active" in these same communities? And why are people living in rural areas fatter than those in the suburbs and cities?

"Physical activity reduces many major mortality risk factors including arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2, dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer. All-cause mortality is decreased by about 30% to 35% in physically active as compared to inactive subjects." --National Institute of Health

About those exceptions: If you are confined to a wheelchair or a bed, first off let me say how sorry I am that you have to bear such a burden in life. My heart breaks for you, literally, I can hardly stand to think about it. Naturally, you people will likely not get any exercise, or not much. But beyond that, if you can walk you can exercise. In fact, walking in rural areas has often been cited as the best way to exercise, especially in the woods which the Japanese call "forest bathing' and which offers other benefits to both the body and spirit. Many motivated urbanites get in their cars and drive to rural areas specifically for that purpose. 

And unless you live in a cage like a baby calf that will someday become some carnivorous meathead's veal piccata entree in an Italian restaurant, you can even exercise inside your home. All you need is a floor and a chair, and if you don't have those then exercise is not your biggest problem. So get off your big fat butt and get moving. No excuses.

Some People Did Something

This morning being Sunday, and we being Jews, my husband and I splurged and had bagels with lox and cream cheese (and onions, tomatoes and capers) for breakfast. I say "splurged" because lox is pretty damn expensive so it's a once-in-a-while thing. Anyway, you can thank the Jews in Krakow, Poland for inventing bagels in 1610, which have since become a diet staple enjoyed by people the world over, maybe even people who wear hijabs.

Besides bagels, Jews have invented or are responsible for the existence of so many things we all need, love and/or use. As Ilhan Omar might put it, "Some people did something." A few of the somethings are listed below:

Blue Jeans, Lipstick, Ballpoint Pens, Contraceptives, Instant Coffee, the TV Remote Control, Traffic Lights, Scotchguard, Flexistraws, Genetic Engineering, Virtual Reality, Hollywood movies, the Sit-Com, Comic Books, the Long-Playing Record, Woodstock Music Festival, Videotape, Color TV, Instant Photography, Holography, Psychoanalysis, Cheesecake, Cafeterias, Discount Stores, Pawn Shops, Shopping Carts, Prozac, Valium, the Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against “Hepatitis B” virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology, Google, FAX machines, the Microphone, the Gramophone, the Microprocessing Chip, Optical Fiber Cable, Cellular Technology, the Videotape Recorder, Facebook, Scale Model Electric Trains, the Pager, the Walkie-talkie, Refrigerated Railroad Cars (likely inspired by the stiflingly hot trains carrying Jews to death camps during the Holocaust), High-vacuum Electron Tubes, the Incandescent Lamp, Kodachrome Film, the Blimp, the Adding Machine and Stainless Steel, to name but a few. 

To be fair, the Arabs have also given us some good stuff: Where would we be without the harp, lyre, zither, drum, tambourine, flute, oboe and reed instruments? I hate to even think about it.

I Believe In Yesterday

This morning I spent some time reading my old blog posts. Much to my amazement, they were much funnier than the ones I have been writing recently, and by recently I mean since Biden and his pet monkey took office, and by "pet monkey" I mean Kamala because she's an idiot with not an idea in her head and not because she is "of color," so not disrespecting black people by comparing them to monkeys. 

In years past I wrote funny stories about personal experiences. Lately I write depressing stories about real life horror, including deadly pandemics and wars and political discord and illegal immigration and mass murderers and rampant crime in our major cities. 

This has got to stop. So starting today I will return to my roots and write about my nutty childhood and growing up kosher except for eating bacon and more stuff like that. Not today, just giving you a heads-up of what's coming. I promise, tomorrow's post will be hysterical.

Nuke Gaza (or at Least Ilhan Omar)

If they can say "From the river to the sea," I can say "Nuke Gaza." That's extreme, I know, but hey, do you remember the Holocaust? That was pretty extreme, and based on what I saw yesterday at Columbia University, that's what Ilhan Omar and her daughter, arrested in the vile NYC protest, have in mind.

Hell In New York City

Jew-hater.

The fat, ugly woman pictured above -- and yes she is fat and yes she is ugly -- is also an ignorant, Jew-hating racist. She was suspended from NYU for tearing down posters showing photos of Israeli hostages who are being held by the ruthless, sociopathic Hamas gangs in Gaza. Now she's "worried" that her suspension will threaten her two scholarships. (Duh.) 

She doesn't quite understand that if she committed a comparable act of aggression in Hamas territory, her arms would be chopped off and she would be raped so many times that her pelvic bones would shatter. Oh well, details, details.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away a group of similarly misguided student protesters defaced a subway station close to the NYU campus on a day the school was holding a fundraising event. (Photo shown below.)

Kids today, huh? In my generation, our parents were upset because the boys wore their hair long and smoked pot. These days the boys still have long hair, but they also shave off their Adam's apples and lop off their penises so they can be girls who wear makeup and high heels and win all the swim meets. And instead of smoking pot they take puberty blockers.

Surely Hell cannot be any worse than New York City circa 2024.

My Challenge to Katie Couric

Perky though she may be, or may have been in her younger days when she was paid to be, Katie Couric is no brainiac. Calling half of America a bunch of dummies on a recent podcast with Bill Maher makes her dumber than any dumb person I know, and believe me, I know a lot of them.

What I would like to do is challenge Katie to a crossword-off. Both of us get the Sunday Times Magazine crossword and start at the same time. I'd bet all my earthly belongings, my first-born and my Maine Coon cat that I would finish first and she wouldn't finish at all. Come on Katie, let's go!

“And the question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”  -- Katie Couric

Trump's Sham Trial

Bragg wondering what's for lunch.

What a joke! The desperate Democrats currently in office will do just about anything to keep Trump from winning the next election and send them all scurrying back into their mole holes to lick their wounds. So far all their efforts have failed, and like the T-1000 in The Matrix, Trump just keeps on coming on.

The latest farce is a baseless trial of a victimless "crime" being held in New York City, that simmering Democratic bastion, brought about by the vindictive DA Alvin Bragg, an overstuffed, baby-faced serpent who has always hated Trump and vowed to "get him" from the get-go. Trust me, amid the throngs of paid gossip hounds, network wannabes, protesters, onlookers and paparazzi, Lady Justice is nowhere to be found.

The funniest part thus far has been the process of selecting the jurors. To be chosen by Bragg's team you have to be a practicing member of the Democratic hive mind, hopefully a POC and under the age of 30. Yeah, that sounds pretty fair, doesn't it? 

If there is a Democrat alive who cannot see this sham production for what it is -- the fear of a Trump victory in November -- I pity them for their lack of self-will, their missing backbone and of course their blatant, overriding stupidity. 

What, Me A Sex Object?

Hannah and her body, for all to see.

Being a big fan of the TV series Ted Lasso, it was always tough to choose my favorite character, but I usually landed on Ted's boss Rebecca, played by the beautiful British actress Hannah Waddingham. In the show she's funny, smart, sweet and gorgeous. The only sour note, for me, was how they played up her voluptuous body by dressing her in very tight cleavage-revealing dresses, turning her into a sexy dumb blonde despite her considerable intelligence. 

Still, she can't help it if she looks like Marilyn Monroe, can she? And anyway, those were Rebecca's costumes in the show, not Hannah's own wardrobe.

But apparently in real life Ms. Waddingham also likes to display her considerable corporeal assets. Recently at an awards ceremony, she was draped in what looked like a glittery, sheer bedspread, allowing onlookers to see exactly what she's got: big breasts, an assertive tummy, a sizable butt and some fairly chunky thighs. Okay Hannah, we see you -- in all your Rubenesque glory!

Nevertheless, when a male photographer yelled out, "Show us some leg," she was visibly annoyed and, oddly enough, reported feeling disrespected. "You'd never say that to a man," she replied, adding that he should, "learn some manners" and flipping him the bird as she walked away.

I would like to point out to Hannah that men don't dress that way, unless they are drag queens. And if her goal is to be treated with respect, she might have opted for a less revealing outfit. Honestly, wasn't she asking for it?

 

 

I'm Big in Hong Kong

Rainy day in Hong Kong

I have never been to Hong Kong, nor have I ever wanted to go. It seems very crowded, at least from all the photos I've seen. And several years ago in NYC during the Christmas season when the streets were clogged with revelers and one could hardly take a step, I overheard a woman say, "This is just like being in Hong Kong." That was enough for me.

Yet, according to the statistical data associated with this blog, most of my readers are in Hong Kong. They number in the thousands, whereas here in America there are a paltry few hundred. So who knows, maybe I'd be a big hit in Hong Kong and make lots of money and get lots of comments on my blog, maybe even be an influencer, whatever that is but they seem to make a lot of money just by going online, so I could stay home and avoid all those crowds on the streets.

"Hong Kong has only developed about 25% of its total land area, the other 75% is largely untouched. It is not surprising that the territory is so overcrowded when there are 7.4 million people cramped in 275 sq. km of land (25% of 1,100 sq.km)."

But the food. Who could eat Chinese food every day? (I know, Chinese people.) My old friend Maxine, who travelled there often when she was the press secretary for Walter Mondale, always packed a jar of peanut butter and a box of saltines because she didn't like the local cuisine.

So I might be stuck here in America, unless Joe and Kamala get re-elected. Then who knows, the crowds in Hong Kong might be worth it. I'd do anything to escape that horror.

Would You Rather Be Stabbed or Shot?

Everyone gets all worked up about our gun laws, especially after a mass shooting or close to an election. But yesterday in Australia, where "to legally possess a handgun, the owner must be licensed, and the gun must be registered; the owner must be a member of a recognized gun club, and the gun may be transported only between home, range, and the gunsmith's shop," a man killed six people in a busy Sydney shopping mall by stabbing them with a knife. Not a sword, mind you, but an "everyday"  knife.

If you are killed by a gun, most likely you will die immediately. But death by knife could take a whole lot longer, and be a whole lot bloodier. Personally I would rather die peacefully in my sleep, but if I'm going to be murdered it would seem like a quick gunshot into a vital organ is preferable to bleeding out slowly. But hey, that's just me.

So gun laws or no gun laws, would-be murderers find a way. Until we face the fact that mental illness is a much bigger problem than loose gun laws, random murders of innocent people by members of their own species, for no apparent reason other than insanity, misdirected anger and personal frustration, will continue unabated.

Tik Tokking Your Life Away

Life is precious, surely most people would agree. But not all people, I'm thinking. Like the woman who recorded and then posted a video of her German Shepherd dog barking every time she says the word "ooga," which everyone but this lady knows is not a word at all. Big deal. Yet there it is, on Tik Tok, and so far the video has had 100.8K views, and many, many comments.

The poor frustrated dog is probably trying to tell her that she's a dummy, that it's not a word and she should just stop saying it and go get some schooling. Or feed him, or do the dishes, make the bed, do something -- in fact anything else. 

Tick, tick, tick, tick, Tik Tok.....the sound of time passing. 

Beware of Meal Kits!

😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝

A good friend of our family got severe food poisoning from a meal kit that arrived three days after she ordered it. She was in the hospital for A WEEK! She missed five days of work and now has lots of medical bills, and all they did was refund her $25 for the meal kit! That is shameful and enough for me to NEVER use that service, Cookunity Meal Delivery, or any like it. Nobody should! 

Thanks to DEI, You Can Be Stupid and Smart At the Same Time.

Is that your final answer, Sonny?

"Earlier this week a TV talk show host -- admittedly a low bar -- proved unequivocally that she's no Albert Einstein. Sunny Hostin, one of the five lizard-brains on "The View," said that the recent total solar eclipse (which occurs every 18 months somewhere and has since the beginning of our ability to know such things) was further "evidence of climate change," the second-favorite scapegoat of liberals after the killing of babies for all of the world's ills. Sunny also expounded on the emergence of cicadas due this spring as further proof, saying, "they haven't come out in 100 years!"

First of all, yes they have. They emerge every 17 years, somewhere. And secondly, oh my fucking God. So just how dumb is she? She is so dumb, she also thinks that earthquakes are caused by climate change.

But wait, there's more. Shockingly, besides being a talking head and author of several books, which actually got published, unlike the two I wrote that are funny and smart like me, she is a lawyer! And even worse, the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News!

It can't be, you say? As Elaine famously said on "Seinfeld," "Oh, it be." 

But how can someone be so stupid and so smart at the same time? Just a guess, but Ms. Hostin is the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a black father. That certainly explains how she got into, and then graduated from, law school. The rest is DEI history.

The Fluidity of Friendship

Earlier today a former high school friend of mine who has, in the ensuing 60 years, lived a very bizarre life quite foreign to mine and with whom I disagree politically, churlishly wrote to me on the Facebook page of a mutual friend, also from our high school, "We're not in high school anymore." 

No kidding! I will turn 78 in two months. I am very well aware that I am not in high school. Or college. Or med school, law school, or any school. (But hey Bette -- thanks for the tip.) When I was young, any warm body qualified as a friend. This particular person made the cut because she lived on my route to our school, almost a mile away, and so we could walk there together. Ta-da, we're friends!

Over these many long years, my friendship requirements often changed. There was a time when you became my friend if you liked anchovy pizza; those people were rare and truly valued. Then came the days when the parents of any child my son liked and played with regularly became family close friends (and baby-sitters). When the kids broke up, so did we.

At the present time I have far fewer friends as my requirements have tightened up considerably. I require the person to have a sense of humor, be respectful to animals, give freely to charity, show compassion, have strong morals and be in full possession of an intact, functioning brain that is capable of independent thought. 

I know, I ask too much.

How to Fundamentally Change America

When I woke up this morning and went downstairs for some coffee, I found my husband in a tizzy. Yes, you heard me, in a tizzy. (Look it up.) His Apple iPhone was not working at all. This is the same as me saying any of the following: His heart had stopped, his lungs had collapsed, he was having a stroke or his brain had shut down.

Apparently after updating to the latest required Apple update overnight (iOS 17.4.1), his phone had totally crashed. Froze. Broke. Taking Mitch's peace of mind and ability to reason with it. "I can't even tell what time it is," he bemoaned. This despite the existence of two clocks in the kitchen, one in the living room, and four upstairs not counting my watch and my phone, which I had not yet updated.

Googling the situation I found that the same thing was happening to everyone whose phone had been updated. As one user wrote on an online help forum, "Now my phone is complete garbage." 

I can only imagine the chaos on Wall Street! Is it a cyber attack? Is it the Russians? Hamas? The Democrats? Who would do this? Anyone hoping to fundamentally change America. Barack, is that you?  

The Case Against Evolution

 

Plank, Shmank -- Everyone Is Special

Okay, but what else can she do?

Big news: Recently a 58-year-old Canadian woman broke the world record for the longest plank, holding it for four hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds. What I want to know is why holding your body up with only your toes and elbows touching the ground is something to be celebrated? 

Poor humans. We all seek to be special in some way, as if coming from the union of a sperm and an egg, living inside the body of another person for nine months, and then suddenly bursting out with all the body parts necessary to sustain life isn't enough? 

I consider my very existence an accomplishment. Plank, shmank -- just breathing in and breathing out, all day, every day, for 28,105 days so far -- is enough for me to consider myself special.

Solar Eclipse/Melva's Birthday

Today was the day of the big solar eclipse we've been hearing about for several weeks now. Here in Maine, several towns were said to lie directly in the Path of Totality, meaning the sun would be 100% covered by the moon passing in front of it. But those towns were hours away from where I live, and here in Freeport we would experience 97% coverage. That seemed like it would be good enough for me.

It wasn't. 

I went outside, waiting for darkness to fall. 

It didn't. 

I looked through my certified eclipse glasses (see photo) and saw the sun getting covered by the moon, but when I took the glasses off and looked around, everything looked normal. The birds did not start chirping and flapping their wings. The chipmunks and squirrels did not get weird. The air did not get cooler, nor did the wind pick up. My cat, lying in the sun, noticed nothing and seemingly could not care less. In my opinion, hurricanes are much more exciting. So if you missed it don't feel bad, because you didn't miss much. 

Elsewhere, my husband and son reported that the total darkness they experienced, suddenly and in the middle of the day, was "awesome" and "pretty cool," eliciting cheers from the assembled throngs. So I went into a closet for a minute to see how it must have felt. It was just okay. 

A much bigger deal is that today is my friend Melva's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mel!

Enough With the Holocaust Already!

Forced out of their homes, they don't look too lucky to me.

Growing up in a Jewish family not long after WW2 ended, I heard more than my fair share of stories about the Holocaust. All too often it was the topic of conversation around the dinner table. I learned that Germans were bad and thus anything German was also bad. My best friend's German Shepherd dog was not allowed in our house. And when my father's rage eventually softened and he bought a VW bug 20 years after the war had ended, my mother threatened divorce and flatly refused to ride in it.

In school we read "The Diary of Anne Frank." Then the movies started showing up: Sophie's Choice. Shoah. The Pianist. Life is Beautiful. Schindler's List. Inglorious Basterds. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Woman In Gold. The Zookeeper's Wife. 1945. The Zone of Interest. To name but a fraction.

Okay, we get it -- six million Jews (and others) were killed by the cold-blooded, murderous, heartless, repugnant, evil, sociopathic Nazis. It's 2024, can we move on yet? Apparently not, since a brand new darling of episodic television has appeared, causing a stir. "We Were the Lucky Ones" is now streaming on Hulu. Naturally my husband and I wanted to check it out, especially with the recent rise in antisemitism sweeping the globe since the start of Israel's war with Hamas.

Season 1 starts out sweetly, a year before the war broke out. An affluent Jewish family living in Poland celebrates Passover. There are photogenic young stars who make it all palatable. The photography is dark,  moody and compelling. The costumes and sets are spot-on, evoking the past with razor-sharp precision. But hey, haven't I heard this story before? In fact, who hasn't? 

Last night's episode featured a group of hapless Jews thinking they were on their way to freedom until their truck convoy went off the road and suddenly they were in the middle of nowhere and forced to dig their own graves in front of a firing squad of sadistic Nazis. Of course all they were told was to "start digging," but anyone who knows anything about history knew what they were doing, so no surprise there.

In fact, no surprises anywhere. Jews being shot for no reason in the streets. Nazis ransacking people's homes. Ordinary German citizens spitting at Jews and beating them with clubs and bricks. Jews forced to live in ghettoes. The gold armbands. Work camps. Pogroms. Call me psychic, but I am willing to bet my entire life savings and my house and car that soon enough all the Jews will be carted off to concentration camps on trains and then gassed in group showers.

I say enough already with the Holocaust! After sniffling my way through Episode 4 of "We Were the Lucky Ones," I think I'm done with this series and may have to watch all of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" from the beginning to recover.

Words With Friends Is Nuts

When my mother died of early onset Alzheimer's at the age of 62, one of her doctors told me I should play word games like Scrabble and daily crossword puzzles as they would help stave off the deadly disease. I followed his advice and still do to this day, even though I am now too old to get early onset anything. One of the simplest to play is Words With Friends, since I can do it anywhere and on my phone. Usually I play with living, breathing humans, a.k.a. friends, but sometimes I play with the game's robots.

I have long known that WWF is sort of moronic, since many words that are acceptable I have never heard before. When I check the game's own dictionary for their meaning, it frequently says, "This is a valid word but we have no definition at this time." Pretty crazy, huh? At that point I look it up in a conventional dictionary and find out it means something like, "a thorny shrub that grows on the eastern edge of Adalar, an island off the coast of Istanbul," or "an obsolete coin used for trading by African bushmen in the 13th century."

But this latest incident made me know for sure that not only is the game run by robots, but they are dumb robots, certainly not of the high caliber as those working at the Tesla factory. The following two screen shots illustrate this point:

Bot plays EJIDOS for 18 points.

Dictionary says EJIDOS not valid.

The same thing happened when playing with a friend, with the word PEDO. The game took it but the dictionary said it was not a valid word. Go figure. I still play the game but have lost all respect for it, and for myself. But hey, I'm not demented yet.

The Path of Totally Uninterested

Normal people looking at the eclipse.

Maybe my parents dropped me on my head when I was a baby. Of course I remember no such event, but it might explain why I am not like most people. For example, Maine lies in what is called  "The Path of Totality" for next Monday's total eclipse of the sun, and everyone who is sane is buying eclipse glasses and filling up their gas tanks in preparation for the supposedly life-changing event that happens so rarely and you damn well better see it if you know what's good for you!

My husband is going to drive three hours, more likely four, to get to a prime spot in the Path (of Totality) for viewing. The actual cosmic event that will change people's lives will last three to four minutes. Then he will drive home, likely in much more traffic so let's say for four to five hours. Our adult son is going with him, and when they return they will be different people entirely! 

I'm excited to see how their lives will be changed by seeing the moon pass in front of the sun and have darkness descend for three-and-a-half minutes, then have daylight return. In fact, much more excited about that than the prospect of sitting in the back seat of a car for up to eight hours, having no place to go pee because of the expected crowds jamming into the little town of Jackman, or possibly blinding myself by looking too soon without my special eclipse glasses -- three for $23.

Honestly, I wish I wanted to go. But it all reminds me of the nightmare of being at Disney World and waiting on a line for an hour-and-45 minutes to experience a ride that lasted two minutes. That actually was life-changing: I vowed then and there to be my own person and only listen to my inner voice. (Voice, not voices.) And my inner voice says the only ways to change your life are to commit a crime, have a baby, move to another city, get a new job, get married, get divorced or lose a lot of weight. I have done all but the first, and I don't intend to do that one by freaking out in Jackman (pop. 782) when I have to go to the bathroom and all the Port-a-Potties are taken. (I have stomach issues.)

Easter Eggs

Today is Easter, a holiday celebrated by people who believe that Christ died on the cross thousands of years ago and then came back to life three days later, leading them to say, "He is risen!"

I am not one of those people. But since my son was about three or four years old, our family has dyed eggs on this day to partake in what little can be festive relating to such a dire occurrence. 

I have never known what eggs have to do with the whole story, and colored ones at that, but we still dye them every Easter, even though our son is now 36. It's fun, and so little fun is available these days, what with the impending death of democracy threatening everyone.

The accompanying photos show the results of our efforts.

Viva La Difference!

Lia Thomas, the infamous swimmer who "changed" into a woman and then entered, and naturally won, many national swimming competitions for women has finally been told the awful truth: 

She's still a man! 

Now she/he is pissed and is mounting a legal case, "asking the Court of Arbitration of Sport in Switzerland to overturn the rules of World Aquatics that prevent transgender women from competing in women’s divisions."

Thank goodness the planners for the Paris Olympics decided that Thomas could not compete on the women's swim team.  Naturally in France, they can tell the difference.

Who Cares About Tom Brady's Ex-wife's New Boyfriend?

I have an AOL email account. I got it many years ago when email first was available and I was a freelance writer in Washington, DC.  It now contains hundreds, if not thousands, of email addresses for friends and former colleagues, publishers, editors and other contacts I may need. So I have kept the account.

Over the years AOL has been bought and sold repeatedly, by people I don't know and never will, and who cares. But the last owner turned it into a gossip engine for meaningless bullshit, and when I open my account to see my email, the vapid words jump off the page at me. I hate this.

Usually I ignore them and get my mail, but sometimes I am so appalled, amazed, abashed and ashamed at the level of "news" the owners of AOL are pushing and thus have to take a peek. Today was one of those days, when I clicked on a story entitled, "All You Need to Know About Gisele Bundchen's New Boyfriend." I wondered, do I need to know anything about him when I don't know anything about her? Okay so she was Tom Brady's wife, but then I don't know anything about Tom Brady except he plays football, or did. And so what? What could anyone need to know about strangers they will never meet and who have absolutely no control over or impact on their lives? Is everyone just getting dumber?

What I want to know is who are the people who work at AOL and how much could they possibly earn that would compel them to devote themselves to writing these stories when things in the world are as dire as they are now?  Also, who decided that illegal immigrants coming into this country with no skills and possibly with nefarious plans should get free debit cards worth $18,000 a year in New York City, a so-called "sanctuary city"? And how long will it take for the USA to completely fall/fail? Will it be in my lifetime? And can that Gisele lady, or her new boyfriend, or Tom Brady do anything to stop it?

A Bridge Too Far

Many people flipped out when, a few years back, President Trump called the media "the enemy of the people." Of course, most of the people doing the flipping were members of the press. Fast-forward to today, and everyone with their eyes open would have to agree with him.

The most obvious, almost embarrassingly so, proof is the recent hiring and immediate firing of Ronna McDaniel, former Chair of the Republican National Committee, by the NBC News corporation. The talking heads on MSNBC and NBC went nuts, publicly decrying such an outrage. How dare they have an "anti-democracy election denier" on their network?

Clearly, our Democrat-controlled government owns these networks and speaks through them, sort of like George Orwell's "Big Brother" in his prophetic novel, 1984. One of the loudest things they say, pretty much constantly, is that anyone who watches FOX News is a brainwashed, idiotic, worthless moron. That's so you won't go there and learn about some of the most nefarious things they are doing, since nothing negative is ever reported by the state-run media.

America is over. In November, a total imbecile and a demented old man will once again be re-elected. Anyway, it's a shame about that bridge in Baltimore, isn't it? But it sure takes your mind off of the election.

RFK Jr: Another Crazy Candidate

It wasn't long ago that I considered voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president. He seemed sane, something we can't say about either the Democratic or Republican candidate. Then yesterday he named his running mate and I realized that, sadly, he too is nuts.

Imagine if Mr. Kennedy won and became president. Not long after, a lunatic with dreams of becoming world-famous assassinates him; after all, his uncle and his dad were both killed -- who could resist? Then suddenly we have President Nicole Shanahan, a 38-year old female, very rich lawyer on her second marriage -- her first was to the co-founder of  Google, hence all her money -- in charge of everything our country does. What a nightmare.

Mr. Kennedy said he chose her for three reasons: She believes people should have access to pesticide-free food, she understands tech and AI, and she is athletic. His fourth reason was unstated: He really doesn't want to win.

It's Challerhocker, Not Vonderdunk

In the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which aired Sunday night at 10 pm eastern time on MAX and which I watched last night, Larry drives to a fancy cheese shop in Beverly Hills and buys a wedge of Vonderdunk cheese. Apparently it is quite good and very pricey, and fit for a millionaire. Naturally I, and probably everyone else watching the show, wanted some immediately. 

So I Googled it and learned that there is no such cheese. It's a fictional name, who knows why. What Larry bought, and is seen in close-up, is actually called Challerhocker, at least according to some self-proclaimed cheese expert who seems quite credible. 

Challerhocker is available at several food purveyor sites online. I can't explain it but I want some. After all, I love cheese and I love Curb Your Enthusiasm. How could it not be great? I'd bet I'm not the only one ordering this cheese today, which I admit is sort of pathetic. But really, why not at least eat like a millionaire once in awhile?

What Was I Saying?

Most of what the general public believes about being old is a pack of lies, spread by the young who know nothing about it. Just because we don't give a rat's ass about Taylor Swift doesn't mean we've got one foot in the grave. It just means that, nearing the end, we've got better things to do than worship a stranger from afar. And no, we are not all deaf -- we can hear you mocking us. 

One annoyance happens at the grocery store when the teenaged clerk, who holds up an item and asks, "What is this?" when it's a peach or an artichoke, assumes that all older people are weak and frail. Then the doofus doing the bagging asks if I can carry a bag "this heavy" and do I need someone to help me to my car. I always say the same thing: "No thanks, I go to CrossFit." That shuts them up fast.

Just like young people are all different, so are we. We're not all crabby with dentures and hearing aids. And we don't all wear diapers. But sadly, some common beliefs about the elderly are all too true. For example, I can remember word for word my son's first sentence uttered when he was about two, which makes it 34 years ago, but I cannot remember what I had for dinner last night. This is a common occurrence for people my age, meaning everyone else who attended Woodstock has the same affliction.

Funny thing, I can remember Woodstock like it was yesterday. As for that first sentence, it was a doozy: "I was downstairs eating an ice cream cone and Mommy was upstairs talking on the phone with Aunt Irene when all of a sudden the wind blew the door shut." 

God Needs A Vacation

The fact that Kate Middleton has cancer is bumming me out big time. She's a Princess, after all, just like the ones in all those Disney movies! Besides being beautiful, gracious, kind, generous and just plain lovable, she's the mother of three small children who need her and the wife of the future King of England. 

It's outrageous that God gave her cancer when so many despicable, horrid people who nobody gives a damn about because they are mean, ugly and selfish get to live a long life with nary a thing wrong with them. (I won't name names but the ladies on The View come to mind.) 

If a Princess can get cancer, clearly nobody is safe. The fact that this wretched disease struck one of His own angels on Earth is ample proof that even God makes mistakes. We should all stop praying for a few weeks and give Him a much needed break.

Comedy Review: ANTHONY JESELNIK

The funniest joke told by comic Anthony Jeselnik in his 50-minute standup routine last night at Portland's Merrill Auditorium was one of Norm Macdonald's, the hilarious SNL alum who died in 2021. That tells you all you need to know about the evening's entertainment.

Until last night I was one of Jeselnik's biggest fans. But no more. It was hard to forgive his chosen opening act, a chubby little woman named Kelly Ryan whose humor relied heavily on sophisticated concepts like "dick," "suck," "suck my dick," "I'll suck your dick,"  and "I was a whore." She dragged the audience through 30 minutes of warm-up with the very same material, word for word, that she was using in 2021! (Google her name and you can catch her whole act.) Finally she was gone, having made me laugh never.

Enter Anthony, looking older, thinner, more haggard and with a bright red nose. Either he had a bad cold or he was doing his W.C. Fields impression -- it was hard to tell which. He strode across the stage in his usual cocky manner, something I had always found endearing in the past. But not so last night, when many of his blatantly ironic and shocking punchlines seemed more mean-spirited than funny. Nevertheless, a joke about how he poisoned his little brother got a big laugh.

The raucous crowd seemed to love him, in part due to the venue's cash bar. The beer line was so long I never got near the front, so I didn't have a very good time. However my husband, stoned sober, did laugh four or five times, so it wasn't a total loss. Also, we had really good seats, so at least that.

Look for a polished version of the show, called Bones and All, sometime later this year streaming on Netflix. Hopefully by then the worst clunkers will have been edited out.

The Horror

News Flash: The United States has fallen off the list of the Top 20 Happiest Countries. That's no surprise, with 1 in 5 Americans suffering from a mental illness, according to statistics gathered by the NIMH. Forty million Americans suffer from anxiety, and who could blame them? Just the simple act of making a phone call to any business establishment or doctor's office these days is enough to make a grown man cry. And don't try the Suicide Hotline, I'm guessing it's just as bad. (Press 1 if you have cut your wrists; Press 2 if you swallowed a lot of pills; Press 3 if you tried that belt tied to a doorknob thing and it didn't work...)

I'm old enough to remember the good old days, and they really were better, despite the fact that anyone can now know the answer to anything in about a minute if they have access to the Internet. But I would trade my ability to win any argument, even with my husband, for a human being saying, "Hello, Dr. Rothstein's office, how can I help?"

Of course, happiness isn't everything. Like my mother always said, "As long as you've got your health," something that has eluded me since exactly one week ago today when I developed the "super-cold" currently gripping the greater Portland, Maine area. My visit to an urgent care facility offered little respite, instead advising me to "take aspirin and drink tea with honey." (Grandma, is that you?) In fact, the doctor, a pleasant young woman who looked about 22 but was probably older -- it was hard to tell since she wore a face mask -- told me that drinking tea with honey is more effective than taking cough medicines like Robitussin.

But here's The Horror: I have exactly ten and a half hours until I see one of today's funniest comics, Anthony Jeselnik, perform live at the Merrill Auditorium this evening, and I better stop coughing by then. It's scary because he is hysterical and laughing makes me cough. I better bring a big sock. And some duct tape.

Be Careful Where You Scratch

My post in this space yesterday originally was titled, "Vaginas Have Tongues Wagging." Within minutes it  was censored by Facebook as being "sensitive, offensive content," and blocked from the site. So I changed the title to "Tongues Wagging," used the same image of the iconic Rolling Stones wagging tongue and re-posted it with no other changes. 

It sailed on through, and was later actually "indexed" by the host platform, Blogger, which means it was provided to a greater audience. So what can we conclude? Obviously, "vagina" is a dirty word. Funny, I've always thought it was a body part, sort of like elbow, foot, knee, stomach, neck and shoulder.

Apparently not.

Tongues Wagging

Fresh on the heels of Emma Stone winning an Oscar for inserting all sorts of things into her vagina on-screen in her latest film comes the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, wherein Larry David is seen performing cunnilingus on a woman he has just met, following their very first date. Apparently our standards for viewing bad behavior have sunk even lower than the usual swamp-like habitats we have all become used to.

Personally I am not against vaginas or even cunnilingus, although I do find it somewhat icky-yucky to reflect on what the cunnilinguist may have eaten recently and what sort of germs are being transferred into my body, resulting in any of a number of unpleasant infections, but hey -- that's just me. What I do object to is the loss of personal pride, dignity and self-respect that is being telegraphed to young girls who watch these forms of entertainment and consequently believe their bodies are public playgrounds. 

There's even a book about it: "The Cunnilinguist is a refreshingly modern guide to oral sex with a sense of humor. Written by a woman with experience at both ends of the tongue, this guide will build your confidence in giving—or receiving—oral sex."