Illustrations by The Hyperbole
“Good morning, my dear. What are you today,” asked Patrice Buttle’s mother as she prepared her children’s Grape-Nuts cereal with almond milk.
“I’m xhe today,” Patrice answered sleepily.
“Hi Mom, hi ‘Trice,” said Che as he bounded into the room and sat at the breakfast nook. “Pronoun,” he asked, looking at his sibling.
“Xhe.”
“Do you remember what today is,” asked their mother.
“Kickball day,” said Che, proudly fluffing his Lakeside Lemurs jersey.
“Homework day,” said Patrice, brightly.
“And what’s your weekend homework assignment?”
“Learn about the views of a deplorable,” answered Patrice.
“And refute them,” said Che, pounding his fist on the table and causing a tidal wave in Patrice’s cereal bowl.
“Che is acting-out aggression,” said Patrice, dabbing the sploshed milk with xher napkin.
“Now, Che, honey, you know we’ve had those talks about cismale aggression and privilege.”
“Sorry, mom,” answered Che, dejectedly.
“Do you have your deplorable picked out yet?”
“Old man Weston,” replied Patrice. “He had the most Trump shit on the block when we had to make that map for school.”
“Language, dear.”
“Deplorable shit.”
“That’s better.”
“Plus, he has that cool car,” said Che, his voice cracking awkwardly.
“Che has a cruuuuuushhhhh…”
“Yeah? Well, your David Hogg action figure smells like…”
“That’s enough, kids. I’m surprised he can afford to keep that old car with all the gas vehicle taxes and home repair shop license and inspections. Now, let’s go through your safety review.”
“Stay ten feet away,” recited Patrice.
“Don’t go inside any buildings or under any cover,” said Che.
“Stay where the drone can see us.”
“Don’t look at the drone.”
“Okay, be careful.” The kids left and their mother pulled up the drone control screen on her tablet.
Che sprinted to the police call box in the middle of the block and waited for Patrice who jogged along at a more sensible pace. He looked up at the security camera and wondered if anyone was watching.
“Don’t look at the cameras, Che. Only antisocial people do that.”
“I bet old man Weston does. I bet he even shakes his fist and swears at them like he does when kids cut across his lawn.”
Che and Patrice arrived at the corner where Weston’s house was and marched up his driveway past the “No Trespassing” signs. Weston was in the garage working on his car, with the front cover up.
“It looks like a big frog eating him,” said Che.
“What the heck are you kids doing here,” asked Weston standing up and turning around. His hands were covered in something black. Che wished he knew about tools, and had someone to teach him about fixing things.
“We’re supposed to interview a deplorable person for school,” said Che, causing Patrice to elbow him.
“Are you putting on makeup to look like a person of color,” asked Patrice.
“What the… No, it’s grease from working on the car,” said Weston, all grumpy.
Che looked around the garage, which was full of clutter. Suddenly he noticed an animal, like a small dog, on the top of a shelf. The animal was motionless, its mouth frozen open in a toothy grin. There was a plastic baby doll dangling from the animal’s mouth by a leg.
“Is that your dog up there? Why did you have it stuffed,” asked Che.
“That’s not a dog, that’s a hyena. They’re vicious predators and scavengers.”
“Did you shoot it,” asked Patrice.
“Yes, and it’s a her.”
“How do you know how it identified,” asked Patrice.
“Did you get in trouble for shooting her,” asked Che.
“No, of course I didn’t get in trouble. She was scavenging bodies. Human bodies. There was an incident, and we lost some men. See that flag behind her? That’s the flag of Burkina Faso. That’s where it happened.”
“Is that why you put the doll in her mouth,” asked Che.
“Yes, it’s a joke.”
Che began giggling uncontrollably. This was the first time he had heard an adult make a joke like the jokes he and his kickball friends made.
Patrice quickly keyed a note into her phone that Che was displaying insensitivity to violence towards animals.
“So, you’re on a team called the Lemurs,” asked Weston.
“That’s my kickball team,” replied Che, “they’re named after this cool animal.”
“I know what they are. Lemur meat is delicious. You’re still playing kickball at your age? Do the Lemurs win a lot,” asked Weston.
“They don’t keep score. That promotes able-ism and aggression,” said Patrice.
“So, are you going to interview me, or what,” asked Weston.
“I’d rather hear about that place in Africa,” said Che.
“We have an assignment to do,” reminded Patrice. “Why are you a deplorable, Mr. Weston? Why do you hate people different from you?”
“I don’t hate people because of who they are,” answered Weston slowly, “the men I worked with overseas were of every color and religion.”
“Then why did you support the bad orange man,” asked Che.
“Because he wasn’t going to take my guns away,” answered Weston.
“Why do you need a gun,” asked Patrice, “there are no hyenas here.”
“And we have police,” added Che. He liked the police officers who came to school to talk to them about drugs, and guns, and gangs. They had cool uniforms, and always smelled like leather.
“Because it’s my right to defend myself,” said Weston. “The right of self-defense derives from the right of self-ownership. Both rights, all true rights, are inalienable,” said Weston, froth forming at the corners of his mouth.
Patrice and Che looked at each other. They knew they had chosen the right neighbor to interview, and would receive “A” grades for their report.
“But what about the right to be free from gun violence,” asked Patrice, as xhe had been taught to do.
“If they break into my house they initiate the violence,” said Weston. “Here, take these pamphlets.”
He walked down his driveway, put the pamphlets on the ground, then returned to his garage.
The children approached the pamphlets cautiously. They were printed in purple ink in old-fashioned letters. Che kept an eye on Weston while Patrice bravely put on a glove and picked them up, one by one, and dropped them into her Pro-Social Collection plastic bag.
“The Køøk Brothers Guide to the Economic Rights of Rich People.”
“How to Beat Campus Rape Charges by Rico Suave.”
“The Woodchipper Foundation Guide to Free Speech.”
Patrice recognized these as the worst of the hardcore deplorable things xhe had been warned about in hall monitor class, while Che was at kickball practice. “Thanks, Mr. Weston,” xhe said, backing away slowly.
“Cool hyena,” said Che.
“Okay, get out of here before that stupid parenting drone runs out of power,” said Weston pointing skyward. “And tell your mother I said ‘hello.’”
The kids ran home and told their mother all about their experience, even though she had streamed it live through the drone and their phones. They then wrote up their report, with Patrice doing most of the work, and submitted it online to their teacher, Mr. Beria, along with a picture of the bag of pamphlets.
Later that day a man in a suit rang the doorbell. He opened his jacket to show a gold badge hanging from his belt, and said he had come to take the pamphlets.
“How come you’re not wearing a uniform,” asked Che, all disappointed.
“I’m a detective. We don’t wear those. Nobody here read those pamphlets, right?”
“No,” answered Patrice and Che. Their mother looked at the detective and shook her head. The detective took the bag of pamphlets and left.
The next Monday, when the kids got off the school bus, there were several police cars and a black van outside of Weston’s house with a small crowd of neighbors gathered around, including their mother.
“Mom, what’s going on,” they asked.
“Mr. Weston was corrupting children with antisocial propaganda. The police are here to help him get the help he needs.”
Eventually, people dressed all in black wheeled out a stretcher with Weston strapped to it, his eyes unfocused. There were large purple bruises on his face. He looked lumpy under the white sheet. They loaded him into the van and sped off.
STORY WORKBOOK
Vocabulary Words:
Patrice Lumumba (PAH-trees lum-UM-ba): A very important democratic leader in Central Africa. He was killed by fascists. The Peoples Friendship University in Moscow, Russia was named after him because he was such an important person.
Che Guevara (CHE Gue-VA-Ra): A very important Latinx doctor and Cuban revolutionary hero. He was killed by fascists. June 14th is a holiday because it’s his birthday.
Sibling (SIB-ling): A gender-neutral word for a brother or sister.
Lemur (LEIGH-more): A type of animal found only on the island of Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa.
Deplorable (Dee-PLORE-uh-bul): Racist, Islamophobic, sexist, homophobic, anti-trans, people. The people who voted for Tr*mp.
Antisocial (Aunty-SO-shall): People who only care about themselves, and who ignore the rules of society. People who care about others and obey rules are called “prosocial” (PRO-so-shall).
Trespassing (“Get Off My Lawn”): A concept deplorables made up to restrict the movement of poor people and people of color.
Hyena (Hi-EE-Nah): A gentle, friendly animal found in Africa and parts of Asia. Deplorables hate them because they don’t conform to traditional gender norms.
Burkina Faso (BUR-keen-uh FAH-so): A country in West Africa. The democratic government there was overthrown by fascist mercenaries.
Inalienable Rights (In-EH-Leigh-un-ah-bul Ritez): Deplorables believe that there are no limits on their own rights, but that other people have to listen to them. Prosocial people understand that rights must be balanced. There is a right to free speech, but not to hate speech which hurts others.
Pamphlet (PAM-flett): Printed material produced by people who are not allowed to use social media. Pamphlets always contain some type of hate speech they can’t say on social media. Children receiving pamphlets should immediately report them to teachers or police.
:/
People around here are too depressing.
Wait, I thought this was going to be satire.
Especially the ‘prosocial’ vocab word. I know expect to see it everywhere.
Yay! The leftist 1950’s is going to be just swell!
That’s a fine dress you’re wearing today, Mrs. Cleaver!
Dear, you were a little hard on the Beaver last night!
Little known fact, but Hugh Billingsly was a notorious pederast, and so the dirtiest line on TV was not that Beaver one but one where Ward talked about helping the boys pack some fudge.
/Hat Tip to National Lampoon.
You mean the actor Hugh Beaumont who played Ward?
Why are you gendering the Mom?
d’oh!
Except these days Mrs. Cleaver is Ward.
That’s a woman’s penis, you bigot!
*Ahem*
Mx Cleaver.
Che wished he knew about tools, and had someone to teach him about fixing things.
Best line in a great story, Tonio.
Brilliantly done!
Funny how most of the kids my son is friends with do know how to use tools and seem happier than the average 20-year-old these days.
My son posts parts he is machining on Snapchat. I agree with you 100%.
Nice.
Full auto sears?
Prolly shouldn’t be posting that.
So true.
Your tags are wrong. One of them says ‘satire.’ This is clearly non-fiction.
Sartre.
ALOL! Kudos, sir!
It’s like a dispatch from the 3rd or 4th Harris administration.
Old Man Weston is clearly based on (the bearded version of) Westernsloper, what with all the overthrowing…
[Edit Fairy fixes HTML and separated comma]
I just told my most excellent illustrator to draw them as he saw them in his mind.
The art style is great, but the kids need more facial tats, weird hair, and adipose tissue.
I like the Steve Smith crossing sign.
That was completely Hyperbole. All I told him was that I wanted illos of the kids, Weston, and the hyena.
I dig the lemur illustration in color.
AND BY CROSSING, MEAN . . . .
#metoo
Maybe just a composite of your average deplorable glib?
I smell a lawsuit coming. You should have prefaced that with “Any resemblance to any person living or dead is strictly a coincidence.” Even if it’s not.
Oh, and for the record, I posted my comments below before I started reading the rest of the comments.
Ooops
The kids are going to get “A”s on their reports anyway because anything less might damage their self-esteem.
Oh – wait. Patrice gets an “A-” to offset her white privilege, and Che gets a “B+” for being a white male.
(And to think I missed out on a career as a teacher!)
You’ve repeatedly given thanks for avoiding a career as a teacher, so I don’t think you’re missing anything.
Men have been nearly run completely out of teaching. Too much risk. Why go do a job where you don’t make great money and all it would take for your life to be ruined is a vindictive middle/high school girl (if you can believe such a thing exists)?
We’re I to ever teach, I would be a strict adherent to the safety rules (never be alone with a kid), and I would have a camera set up and recording at all hours.
Nothing short of that is safe these days.
Don’t Stand So Close To You?
Even that might not be enough. An acquittance’s (definitely not friend) child falsely accused a male coach of molesting him in the bathroom or somewhere and got several friends to corroborate that they witnessed it. He was pissed about something the coach did (like making him run laps or something stupid like that).
The coach’s life was shattered. He only didn’t go to jail because one of the “witnesses” came forth and admitted they made the whole thing up. Then the others admitted it too.
Too late for the coach. He had already been fired and had the taint of child molester permanently attached.
It is really to the point where it is safer to let a kid bleed to death in the street than to provide emergency assistance.
um, phrasing?
Even that may not be enough #MeToo, listen and believe (unless you are a Democratic elite), etc. A complete fabrication with zero evidence is all it takes these days.
Grades? What sort of patriarchal, meritocratic bullshit is that?
We don’t give grades here.
All I got out of that word salad is 40% of the class gets “A”‘s.
Why the fuck would you need “Location Services” to “find” a wireless periferal for which you have all the connection information?
I just want to remote control my gopro, not geotag the data.
Yeah, camera apps for smartphones generally suck ass. I generally pre-configure the camera for what I want so all I have to do is push the red button before starting to ride, crawl, etc.
What I need is a way to make sure the camera is pointed at where I am looking when it’s on my hat. I’ve had worthless videos because I misaligned the camera before. The phone app is the only option with the hardware on hand.
Do you have the camera set for wide view? Also, not sure what your activity is but I prefer handlebar cam to helmet cam.
Some of the hat videos were taken at the range. I can’t mount it to the rented firearms, and I need my hands free to operate the weapon.
Others were when I was painting, and I needed both hands for that, with the camera pointed where I was looking. That Sorta worked but not really.
The autorotation meant the painting videos All came out upside down
Tripods. You can buy a tabletop tripod and set it on a shooting bench or workbench. Or for painting permanently mount a camera mount to something. For me part of the fun of photography is that all the mounts and adapters are like a tinkertoy set.
The tripod gets in the way. I own two, one is useless, the other only got used for a comparison of my cameras.
I apparently haven’t uploaded the comparison composition.
Rivet the tripod to the top of your hat.
I am not ruining either my fedora or my Gibson’s hat.
Also, not sure what your activity is
He’s trying on gloves.
I wonder if you could get the ASMR crowd going by slipping on various perfectly fitting gloves.
-1 OJ
When I set up a new hire in our payroll system, the page requires me to select a GeoCode for their home address, listing options based on their ZIP code. I have no stinkin’ idea which one is correct and care even less. No idea why they want the info unless it’s so their drones can track the poor employee down.
Local taxes?
Yeah, zip codes cross all sorts of government boundaries and HR needs to know which one the employee lives in so the proper thugs get their earned income tax.
Quite likely, but we withhold based on work location unless the employee requests we withhold for their home municipality, too. Besides, who even knows their own home GeoCode?
For tax purposes, the address should be all you need.
Database creep. “Hey, here’s a data entry that might be cool. No idea what we’ll use it for, but let’s require it!”
I knew one of my own home ones. But I was working at a place that did routing for delivery trucks.
I went to see a knee replacement doc yesterday. In addition to scanning my driver’s licence they wanted my social insecurity number.
I typed in all 7’s
Type each digit in Roman numerals. And no dashes.
Well-written software will only accept digits when prompting for SSN input, and not move on until you have entered exactly nine digits. He hacked it the best way he could. They could check for strings of all the same digit, but strings like that are often used for test data.
The tax software they use at work for certain purposes defaults to ‘Afghanistan’ and they never bother to change it.
Are you sure you’re not getting Afghan(i?) tax withheld?
It’s not the software they use for me, so I don’t care.
As a Deplorable, I approve of the fiction.
Also, digging the artwork.
Almond milk is OK, but I greatly prefer coconut almond milk.
*hides the stack of cartons of almond milk in the fridge*
I don’t care for the stuff, but wife and kiddo #1 are defectives who can’t digest dairy.
I enjoy that they managed to find an even less healthy and more sugary alternative to regular milk..
Oat milk is the best milk alternative. Of course it’s also the most questionable in terms of nutritional value.
Unsweetened.
Unsweetened almond milk is much less sugary than cow’s milk. It also taste like hell.
It’s all the cyanide.
Why not just drink Coffeemate right from the carton?
You snort it.
It’s what I cut my heroin with.
Cheaper than baby formula.
Fun fact – Coffeemate powder is highly flammable, although only if you sprinkle it into a flame. Lighting a pile of it on fire doesn’t work.
One of the less dangerous “Fun things you can do with an MRE”.
The MRE heater and a 2 liter bottle probably top the list.
AFAIK, pretty much any fine powder is highly flammable, which is why flour mills used to (still?) explode.
I learned that from Mr. Wizard, then promptly ran out to the back yard with my buddy and started making fireballs with flour.
It’s been awhile, but grain elevators used to go “boom” on a regular basis.
We used to take spoon fulls of corn starch and “Blow Fire”
Yep. My buddy’s dad worked in the industry and they had the coolest phone in their house that came from a mill. Explosion-resistant guts.
It has a high surface area so when thrown in a fire it lights very quickly. Same thing happens with flour, dust, or any burnable finely ground powder.
Good work Tonio and Hypeerbole, I can just imagine this in one of those workbooks with the tear out pages.
A bit too spot-on to really be fiction, except maybe for this part:
“Learn about the views of a deplorable,” answered Patrice.
“And refute them,”
The wokesters have no interest in learning the actual views of the non-woke, and never care to try to logically or factually refute any of them.
All in all, awesome, including the illustrations.
My mother is, sadly, this way. She spent decades as a journalist Alistair. She never turns down a chance to talk to a stranger to learn about them. I developed those habits, partly, be abuse of her experience.
Yet in the modern age, she truly believes what she hears on NPR. One point I even asked her why she believed the vast majority of Trump voters were voting based on race. She confidently replied that she learned Trump supporter views from a NY Times article.
Its sad,but at this point I now look at most peoples political views as being no different than their religion. I’m not going to change their mind, and as long as they keep their jihad to themselves, I don’t mind.
as long as they keep their jihad to themselves, I don’t mind.
Except recent experience has shown us that horse has left the barn, broke a leg, was shot, and turned into dog food quite some time ago. The left will destroy any heretics to advance their religion, by any means necessary.
“…Lakeside Lemurs…”
My neighborhood is next to the Lakeside neighborhood. They finally allowed liquor stores in the past few years.
https://www.growlermag.com/dry-in-duluth-the-story-behind-the-last-dry-neighborhoods-in-the-zenith-city-2/
Thanks for the (too spot on not to be a little depressing) excellent bit of story-telling.
To go OT, I’m not sure if I should laugh hysterically or sulk miserably at this bit of news. I can only hope and pray the Republicans have the good sense to reject her. Not just reject her, but embarrassingly so.
Lol. No chance. She’s Hilary with less charisma.
I don’t think they have their shit together enough to “anoint” a candidate like Clinton or Biden.
Didn’t she get censured by the Wyoming GOP?
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Liz! Almost as exciting as Jeb!
Christ. Jeb would be an improvement over that war-mongering lunatic.
She’ll get primary votes from writers for The Dispatch and The Bulwark and absolutely no one else.
With her on the ballot, the Repubs will be sure to win WY!
https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1386890316758847492
Coinbase and now Basecamp. And yesterday we heard about a White Supremacists group called “The Base” A coincidence? I think not!
The simulation that runs the universe has a tendency to re-use things.
I considered applying to coinbase after their decision. They had one open position that kinda/sorta fit my preferred skill set.
a White Supremacists group called “The Base”
Al kalinity?
“Well, your David Hogg action figure smells like…”
So wrong, yet sadly accurate.
“…the bathroom door on a tuna boat?”
Great story Animal, and awesome illustrations Hype
Does Tonio identify as Animal now?
leon can’t keep his bears straight.
How you phrased that…
He is not alone.
Bwuh?
One of these is not like the others.
Pizzly or Grolar bear?
Oof, i really stepped into a pile of bear skat.
Good work Tonio!
According to the BLM narrative, this brainiac should be dead.
A jacket and khakis is now ‘uniformed’?
Compared to the typical denizen of the community, it’s practically formal wear.
Since that ‘sharp’ edge was lengthwise, apparently, it could even be described as a wooden sword.
More white supremacy, or whit privilege, or something.
Anyway, it’s interesting that POCs who are supposedly so fearful of cops feel okay to pull shit like this, resist arrest, etc. It’s like even they don’t really believe the BLM bullshit.
#BLM is bourgeois. People who fight with or run from cops are not. The overlap between people who support #BLM and people who might end up on #BLM posters is pretty damn small.
The overlap between people who support #BLM and people who might end up on #BLM posters is pretty damn small.
I don’t know about that. I’d say they’re pretty supportive of #BLM’s efforts. Much as foxes would be supportive of a movement for unguarded henhouses.
Looking at Andy Ngô’s Twitter is always depressing. It’s the documentary of a collapsing civilization.
That is his shtick. He’s (at least) as much a journalist as the press who are trying to cancel him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t biased too.
That’s why I rarely peek in.
Perhaps. But, I think he’s not really trying to pretend he’s objective truth. He’s saying there’s a story, an important story, that the legacy media is ignoring or skimming over. Yes, if you only read him, the only story you’re going to get is that story. That doesn’t make it less true.
“…if you only read him, the only story you’re going to get is that story. That doesn’t make it less true.”
I have fought that fight and people don’t want to acknowledge that persons or entities that are outside their comfort/echo chamber could be onto something and in their mind, are lying.
Black-pilled, he says, and now a UK resident.
Bravo
Thanks Tonio
I LOL’d
Another OT, here’s an article identifying the obvious. Howard Stern has long descended into the realm of unfunny irrelevancy. The actual phenomenon that started the descent was, I think, identified by Gavin McInnis. Stern’s decline started with his second marriage. The new model wife wanted to fit in with all the people Stern used to mock and Stern dutifully went from storming the ramparts to a sycophant of the people he used to mock.
Happy wife . . . .
… terrible saying.
“new model wife”
As in New Model Army, or as in wife who used to be a model?
You betcha.
No radio stations in my area ever carried Stern growing up. all I knew was the aggrandized version from news reports and the biopic. When I moved to an area that carried it (2001-2003) I found it all boring and bland. I’m surprised anyone has listened for the last 20 years.
Yep. It was pretty sudden, too.
I soldiered on for a couple more years (even, uh, accessing the daily episodes online after the move to Sirius) but finally dropped it in disgust.
Sirius resigned him for $120 million a year? Why? Are there really still xm/sirius listeners who pay just to listen to Stern?
Did Howard Become Imus? No – Stern is much worse now.
The clip at 12:46 is amazing.
Are there really still xm/sirius listeners who pay just to listen to Stern?
My understanding is no. It wasn’t about any particular business decision. It was about sending a message to the stock market that they could retain “top talent”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSXrFgG2JLk
Watching this video, it is rather astounding that Germany was able to pack the punch it did in WWII for how hamstrung it was supposed to be. It also goes to show: No set of treaties and laws are so good that they cant’ be cleverly got around.
I am confident that this story is excellent, but I can’t promise I’ll read it – it seems a bit too demoralizing.
I think this is the first time университет дружбы народов was mentioned on this site. Impressive. I’m old enough to remember the times when the area around this university had the reputation to be the only place in Moscow where one was likely to see black people.
What’s that in English?
Google Translate says Peoples’ Friendship University.
(Though I probably shouldn’t take foreign phrases I find here and put them into Google – you never know what’s in the phrase and it might get flagged for who-knows-what perversion)
Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
Mentioned by Tonio under Patrice Lumumba.
Thank you.
Love the Brutality of the university buildings.
If only Wikipedia were so honest about other universities. I’m sure the page has had its own whitewashing, but it’s still a bit unvarnished compared to pages on American or British schools.
I became aware of this in HS in Government class when we had to read Hedrick Smith’s book “The Russians.” He talks about what was then called Patrice Lumumba University and how the muscovites reacted to the (mostly African) students.
After reading that, I need some SugarFree… stat!
Excuse the FB link, but this is cat-butting at another level.
Are you sure that wasn’t a link from pr0nhub? (What’s that rule number again?)
34.
Uh. Or, so I’m told. Yeah.
Grape-Nuts? Combine them with Captain Crunch to remove the outer layers of your teeth and palate.
Dental Whitening Grit?
Lacist!
Grape Nuts are awesome sprinkled in yogurt, though.
??
I like Grape Nuts
Something happened to the formulation. The last couple of boxes tasted like cardboard and ended up getting thrown away.
Kind of surprising because when they were in cardboard without a plastic bag back in the day, they were great.
Well, of course the BOXES taste like cardboard!
Hoisted by my own retard.
If you pour on the milk before bed, it should be just about soft enough by morning.
And Cap’n Crunch always had the best prizes in the box. ::waxes nostalgic for thumb tennis::
That is why a quick zap in the nuker goes great with grape nuts and milk.
I never knew you were into Phreaking.
Tablet has yet another must-read column, this time about the big business of woke school consultants. Get load of this horseshit:
Christ, even Walter Darre and Alfred Rosenberg weren’t as obsessed with race as these motherfuckers.
I read through these things and it’s hard to distinguish these people from White Supremacists.
“Pollyanna: monetizing erstwhile White Supremacy for fun and profit!”
Our society was like a rickety old roller coaster getting cranked up to the apex for its first big drop and we started to get one or two cars over, it just wasn’t enough when the chain snapped and we went rushing down to the bottom of the beginning of the ride.
I had a pretty decent education through the public school system. My kids less so. The schools included a lot of non-value-added shit for my grandkids.
The public schools are now, clearly, deeply into dangerous, destructive territory.
I tritely say that “public schooling is child abuse”, but I genuinely believe it. Even the good public schools are chewing up bright educable kids and spitting out worthless drones. Only by the grace of God are so many able to take the freight train of real life smacking headfirst into them without offing themselves, scampering back into the nest, or becoming maladjusted.
[furiously scribbles notes for the next episode]
“…with 5- and 6-year-olds using Pantone Color Charts to match their skin tone so that they might start to see themselves and one another by skin color.”
This is totally healthy behavior and not in any way an IPCRESS program for kindergartners.
It’s going to take me a minute to process that before I say something. My instinct is to say something quite enraged.
“Don’t look at the cameras, Che. Only antisocial people do that.”
“I bet old man Weston does. I bet he even shakes his fist and swears at them like he does when kids cut across his lawn.”
I like OId Man Weston. I haven’t finished the story. I wonder if I will regret posting this?
Bored at work so I wander over to Huffpost…
This is their headline, taking up the whole screen real estate
FEAR: THE FAR RIGHT PLOTTING TO UNLEASH CONSTITUTIONAL CHAOS
Along with a graphic that, if I bother to look at where they put their red marks on, would probably hint at what they are getting at.
Democrats not getting what they want and what they want NOW is a constitutional crisis. Government running according to the constitution and the rules set by the governing bodies for themselves (i.e filibuster) is Constitutional Chaos. We must destroy the constitution to save our constitutional democracy! They have leveraged Truth as a weapon against us!
It is FEAR! when repubs or ‘far right’ suggest utilizing the legal mechanisms to amend the constitution. Go fucking figure.
Silly people, just ignore the paper like before; cause no convention of the States is going to draw back the seized power freely.
LOL read the article. It’s terrifying!
Apparently a bunch of troglodytes got together and had a mock constitutional convention where they
AND IT COULD HAPPEN! TREMBLE!
The horror. The horror.
They always say it could never happen here, but it really COULD!
Stop it, I’m getting hard.
Army Wants Electric Combat Vehicles
I find it funny that the other day i heard we don’t have enough money to pay to update the Nuclear defenses, but we can splurge on this stuff…
(SLD and whatnot about military spending being “Too Damn High”)
That is great and all but I suspect like all our knowledge of the past, we must start anew and just ignore the logistical nightmare such vehicles would be – unless you can truck along a portable nuclear reactor to generate the electrical capacity needed to keep moving forward.
Most military blunders have started with the Commanding General saying “Shutup” to his logistics staff.
Well, we have thrown out our medical and biological knowledge, so why not our warfare knowledge also.
For the record, I’m totally down with this program if it results in a portable nuclear reactor.
Forget the backup generator for the house…
“Back off or i blow this whole town to smithereens!”
I’ve seen this in a video game, it doesn’t end well.
Well there was the Davy Crockett. Just hadn’t figured out all of the details of the electrical generation…
Maybe this is the move that gets us to Mr Fusion. Each vehicle has its own fusion reactor. No more logistic chain. Fuel is everywhere.
Molten Thorium Salt is much more doable quickly and on that scale. The usual enviro-weenies would shit themselves, of course, but after the military has used them safely and successfully for a decade we might see some traction in the commercial utility sector.
My social media feed has been awash in some obvious dark-money pro windmill, pro regulation stuff. Dominion Power seems to be countering with pro-nuke ads. Dominion wants to build another reactor at the North Anna site. All those server farms in NoVa need power.
after the military has used them safely and successfully for a decade
I’d say 50/50 when it comes to the military, to have incident after incident, some involving alcohol or bored Joes.
Navy has a good nuke record, no?
Yes they do, or certainly the reputation, but on a limited scale and quite a lot of support.
When it comes down to individual tactical vehicles, there isn’t that degree of care. I may or may not have first hand experience with not quite approved uses of such vehicles. Then there’s the pencil whipping of PMCS because it’s fuck off Friday…
True, I’m sure it’s easier to find some responsible guys for just the dozen or so nuke plants on the aircraft carriers.
A bunch of mini nuke plants at the company level or below would be a whole other scale.
Stopping for 8 hours to charge vehicles using a 100 mile long extension cord will not slow you down. I guess all the manpack equipment will also need cords. On the plus side, the tanks will be able to sneak up on the enemy.
Damn.
I started to think that Weston was modeled on ‘sloper given Weston’s involvement in foreign countries, though I think ‘sloper would have some way out of getting beat.
I don’t regret saying I like Weston.
Let’s just say he was a fun character to write. The story really started to gel when I switched out my original planned antagonist for Weston.
Good.
I’m disappointed he didn’t have his house rigged to detonate.
Doesn’t everyone?
Am I the only one that took notes while watching “Enemy Of The State” ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnZXxJH26kI
Sequels, bro.
Yo- I was off last night. I went t sleep drunk af, woke up, drank more, went back to sleep, woke up drunk, drank some more while I did things around the crib (and cut the grass @ Chez Tres). Hell, Ill fucked-up now while I wait for my DoorDash order. But the only thing that made puke in my mouth all day was this gem:
WATCH LIVE: Gov. DeWine announces no more quarantining for fully-vaccinated Ohioans
Fuck that asshole.
Maybe this will help you feel better.
“In a slap at the governor’s coronavirus safety orders” should be written a bit more positive, but we know that TMITE and they see it truly as a slap against the governor and not a piece of freedom back to the people.
Excellent.
A similar measure is part of the budget policy bill, HB 2, here in NH.
Sununu has threatened a veto if the measure is in the budget policy bill when it gets to his desk, but given current political reality, I see that provision staying in the bill and Sununu quietly allowing the bill to become law without his signature.
We’ll see what happens over the next two months.
About 35 days into the 90 days before the bill that was passed overriding DeWine’s veto stripping him of the ‘vid powers goes into law.
One of the things I hate is hearing reporting about how “a majority of people favor [policy X]”. It’s an idiotic argument. Yes, you have the obvious issues about how popularity doesn’t make a policy right. And you even have the issues about how those majorities can be fleeting. But, those don’t bother me nearly as much as another element. An element that discussions about numerical majority support overlook and confuse the public about the nature of why such policies don’t prevail. Sure a majority may support policy X. But, breadth of support for policy X and the intensity of support for policy X are two different matters. A majority may favor some policy, but not really feel strongly at all about it. On the other hand, the minority may feel really, really opposed to policy X.
I’ll give an example. In a choice between chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream and rum raisin ice cream, I’ll go with the chocolate-chocolate chip. But, it’s not a big deal. Now, let’s say I’m sharing a half gallon of ice cream with two friends, one just like me and another that is allergic to chocolate. Well, me and the friend just like me will be a majority. But, we’d go with the rum raisin because the chocolate-chocolate chip would mean the one friend would have to go without. The preference of the majority doesn’t capture the intensity of the preference. Scaled up to a political debate, the back and forth isn’t so friendly or so direct, but the intensity of the preference matters.
Who needs two flavors of ice cream?
I saw that Joe Biden’s admin is coming out in favor of the school that kicked a cheerleader off their team for stuff she said off campus, during a weekend, online. Is there nothing that this administration will not be predictably authoritarian about?
Probably not.
I do think the school was right in their response and the fact there was a case at all speaks to failure of her parents and excessive legalism today. Consequence free actions is the last thing kids need to learn.
What happened?
JV cheerleader didn’t get spot on varsity team, made a Snapchat post swearing at the school groups, school responded by removing her from the JV cheerleading squad.
I have a feeling the school isn’t content-neutral, however.
The school may have had a reason if it just had persued the “Hey she broke the rules we had put in for being on the team”, But they asserted and do assert that they have every right to police speech by students anywhere and at anytime.
Pretty much. The thing is, nobody should be surprised. They telegraphed this when they were running. That’s why I have to wonder about the libertarians who supported them over the Bad Orange Man.
🙁
After three days of three miles a day, I only make it 1.8 miles today.
It’s one day. Get after it tomorrow.
Tomorrow is when it’s supposed to rain. Today had the better weather.
It’s only water.
I’ve gotten on a daily walk kick. Weather don’t matter. Distance doesn’t matter. Around the block is good enough. Doing it every. single. fucking. day. is what matters.
This times a million.
1.8 > 0
If it makes you feel any better, I just succumbed to the siren song of the Grandma’s Chocolate Brownie cookies.
Not really… I just ordered a pizza.
Magic brownies?
Sadly, no – at work.
Me too.
Then again my office is an office of one. Commute is great but the parties are really boring.
Do get to do the 3×3 Zoom Brady Bunch meeting every day! Yay! I’m just waiting for someone to ask me to stand up…
Don’t get discouraged. Do whatever you can when you can. If you tire yourself out, you’re more prone to injury. So listen to your body and walk when you feel good, and rest if you get tired.
Park at the very back of the parking lot at the grocery store, then go buy a small snack.
Thanks to everyone who had kind things to say about my second rate illustrations, It’s been a long time since I did any drawing and it was fun. Thanks also to Tonio for allowing me to tag along on his project.
They were better than what many professionals produce.
Very nice of you to say, I’m always my own harshest critic, I see every shaky line and every “off” part.
May I offer a correction:
Sibling (SIB-ling): A gender-neutral word for a brother or sister or broster or sisther.
Tonio–love it! Hyperbole, also love it!
Bravo! Well done, on both the story and the illustrations.
OMG this is the best!