Blogs, Part IV

Kenneth Cauthen

Humor and Miscellany

Saturday, June 16, 2007
Old Keys and Cosmic Laws
When you have been living in a house five years or longer, you have them -- a collection of old keys you can no longer identify. They hang on hooks out of sight here and there or have been put in drawers, trays, or little boxes. You didn't identify them when you put them away because you knew what they were, and now you have forgotten. So periodically you try to satisfy your curiosity. You try them in in all the locks you suspect, but few fit. Here a major temperamental divide arises: the bold and daring throw them away and risk needing one that is gone -- which they will once they get rid of them. The timid and cautious put them back in the fear they may need them, but they never do, thus the pile grows.

Eventually these objects will have to be dealt with by your children after you die. You always intended to get rid of all the junk and identify all objects, but you never did, prompting exasperated comments like, "What the hell are these keys for, and why didn't they dispose of them or at least identify them."

It's a comic law. You throw them away and need them within a month, or you keep them and never need them. Don't fight it.

Multiple Choice Health Quiz
Saturday, June 16, 2007
If a man who has been taking one of the ED drugs has an erection that lasts more than four hours, he should:
A. Go to the emergency room immediately.
B. Call his doctor the next morning at the latest.
C. Ignore it, unless he has an appointment to see the Pope or Queen Elizabeth.
D. Call all the loose women in the neighborhood and schedule appointments.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Learning from Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton's mother, on the occasion of her daughter's imminent time behind bars, said that perhaps young people who look up to Paris could learn something from this. One thing they could learn is not to look up to Paris Hilton!

Her mother might also ask whether Paris could learning something from this.

Saturday, March 31, 2007
Limerick for Today
There was a girl named Petula,
Who detested a boy named Shula.
He invited her to bed.
She said."Drop Dead."
But relented when he offered her moolah.

Monday, March 12, 2007
Underwear Crisis: Mine, not Britney's
The message struck terror in my heart. The email was a long, apologetic piece of information from Jockey telling me that the underwear I have worn for more than fifty years (the style, silly, not the same pair) was being discontinued. They were very sorry, but despite all their marketing efforts, dwindling sales of the Classic Midway brief, which they have made since 1937, had forced them to this extremity.

However, I could still buy from their remaining stock as long as supplies lasted. So I called my doctor and asked her how long I would live. Armed with this information, I made the requisite calculations and ordered a lifetime supply. A major crisis was averted. I am 77 years old.. A man that old should not have to change his underwear.

Monday, March 12, 2007
Designer Vagina? Limerick for Today
News item:
"Cosmetic vagina surgery is becoming a hot business. Sample procedures: "laser vaginal rejuvenation," "designer laser vaginoplasty," and "revirginization." Cost: $3,000 to $9,000. Slate," March 7, 2007. http://www.slate.com/id/2161289/

There was a woman named Dinah,
Who wanted a new vagina.
Brimming with elation,
She went for revirginization.
A designer vagina? What could be finer?

Saturday, February 17, 2007
Mini-Sermon for Today: The Virtue of Showing up
Woody Allen, when asked what a woman needed to do to attract him, replied, "Show up!" Much of the good that is done in this world comes from people just showing up. I propose as a hypothesis for debate that 60% of doing ones duty consists in just showing up.

The world would be better off if more people shut up and just showed up.

Selah!

Sunday, February 11, 2007
For the Record
I would like for the record to show that I am not the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby. However, I will recheck my schedule over the last 18 months. And I wonder what happened to that missing page in my diary. What! This kid might possibly inherit as much as $400 million? I would like for the record to show that I will submit to any proper court-authorized DNA testing.

Thursday, February 01, 2007
Hillary: on both sides of every issue
Overheard in the Junior Senator's bedroom one night.

Bill: Honey, I'm just real horny. Interested?
Hillary: Well, sure, but not really. Oh, maybe. I am too tired, but we could sleep in in the morning. And I have a awful headache, but it's really not that bad. Why don't we wait? Or maybe just a quick one. Hey, I didn't mean that quick!

Monday, October 31, 2005
Sam Alito: Will Bring Out the Battering Ram
First impressions of nominee Sam,
He ain't worth a federal damn.
Democrats will pitch a fit.
Wanted a moderate, but Sam's not it.
Time to bring out the battering ram.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Rove, DeLay, Bush: More Limericks for Today
Let there be no DeLay_
With his great power,
He built a great tower.
Now at last he's been arrested,
Now at last he will be bested.
The tower is crumbling by the hour.

He used his power, so they say,
To crush opponents who got in his way.
But now the jerk has been indicted.
Cosmic justice is much delighted.
The country will get better without DeLay

The Republican party is falling apart.
Warms the cockles of my Democrat heart.
Soon the worst will all be jailed.
The rest have miserably, constantly failed.
2008 we make a new start.

The Republican Party is all debacles.
Warms the heart of my Democrat cockles.
Let us toss them on their tails.
Send the worst to distant jails.
Only for money or power do they have ogles.

From your Roving Reporter:
Round-faced Karl in a business suit,
With a political brain that is mighty acute.
Without scruples he does his work
Of enhancing the power of a presidential jerk.
Hold on, it is about to go kaput.

A Little Devil Unbound
Since a Rove named Karl blew into town,
He's tried to bring his enemies down.
With scurrilous, nefarious, unfair attacks,
And skillful stabs in their unsuspecting backs,
He's earned his infamy in the world of renown.

Limerick inspired by a dam crisis:
News item: Dam may break in Taunton, Mass.

There was a young woman from Taunton,
whose mores she was always flauntin.'
She committed lascivious sin with 86 men.
The broad was thoroughly wanton.

OK, OK, I wrote it. I couldn't resist when I heard the name of Taunton.

Monday, September 11, 2006
American TV, 9/11, and Sesame Street
It is September 11, five years after 9/11. The morning shows and news channels were not the same. Well, one thing was the same -- the barrage of commercials. Ah, yes, after all this is America. All commercials are obnoxious, some just relatively less so, and a few -- like Ralph who couldn't believe he ate the whole thing -- are funny enough to make them endurable. Otherwise, bless you, mute button.

All that drove me to C-Span, where I came across an interview with Newton Minow, former Chair of the FCC, famous for his characterization of TV decades ago as a "vast wasteland." He said things had improved in that many more choices were available, but standards had fallen -- too much sex and violence, e.g.

He told a story involving a series of events involving happenstance connections of people who chanced to know each other that ended in a phone call from Barry Goldwater -- arch conservative and libertarian -- to a government agency that secured funding for Sesame Street. After all, it's not what you know but who knows whom. But who would have thought that Barry Goldwater would be instrumental in getting public funding for a PBS program!

Big Bird thanks you, Senator Goldwater, and I thank you. We'll be right back after a this commercial . . . .

Friday, July 21, 2006
My New Philosophy: Stop Doing This Sh*t
When Lucy of Peanuts gains a new bit of wisdom, she calls it "her new philosophy." Well, I have a new philosophy. Those who know me will be surprised to know that I learned it from President George W. Bush. It is contained in the notorious open-mike gaffe:

"See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this sh*t and it's over."

What an insight! Problems can be solved if the perpetrators will just "stop doing this sh*t" That is my new philosophy. Its applications are endless. A few examples:

Running up the deficit, increasing economic inequality, and reducing the amount available for useful social purposes by making the rich superrich with massive tax cuts.

Letting the Israeli lobby determine our policy toward Israel.

Starting unwise, costly wars, e. g. in Iraq, on false philosophical premises and manufactured facts with disastrous results.

Fostering policies that redistribute income from the poor and middle class toward the already obscenely rich.

Letting the idolatry of free market philosophy and the big insurance and pharmaceutical companies keep us from having universal health insurance that would be more efficient in getting better health for less money.

Letting the country be dominated by the selfish plutocracy and the cultural backwardness of a reactionary philosophy with right-wing Christians in the forefront.

You get the idea. The most important application is yet to be mentioned.

Since Congress and the President could correct the aforementioned ills, the people need to elect officials who will be guided by the noblest American dreams of liberty, equality, and justice for all so that every citizen can engage in the pursuit of happiness in a world of peace..

When I figure out how to get the voters to do this, that will be my new philosophy. For now I can only say to them: "Stop doing this sh*t."

Thursday, October 20, 2005
Football: Things that Don't Matter Much
A team has won two championships and may win again. The clever sportswriters will inevitably ask what? Of course, Will we see a "threepeat" here? OK the first time it was clever, even cute. A few more times were tolerable. But enough already! After the 10,000th repetition it wears thin, yea, becomes obnoxious, barbaric. Testifies to a limited imagination in the authors.

I once heard a pro football player say that if you are not in the Super Bowl, all the rest is nothing. Nothing? Does he realize what he is saying? If all the other games amount to nothing, then the Super Bowl amounts to nothing, since no matter how many times you multiply nothing, it is still nothing, zero, zilch. What is the Super Bowl anyway? No matter how you cut it, it is one more football game, although in some respects more significant for some people than others. Often it is not even a good football game. Even with a "threepeat," winning the Super Bowl is finally winning one more football game.

Some sports commentators think it is a crying shame approaching a national, even cosmic, tragedy that we don't have a playoff to determine the national collegiate champion in Division 1A football This logic is as faulty as the sentiment that all other games mean nothing, the Super Bowl is everything. OK, I like the NCAA tournament in 1A college basketball, but football is different. You play one game a week making the logistics of having a meaningful playoff formidable indeed without extending the season until Easter. I hesitate to introduce this notion when speaking of football, but colleges are, after all, gasp, educational institutions. But leaving all that aside, suppose we just forget about who is number one after the regular season ends and just have the bowl games for the entertainment they are and leave it at that. Would the sun cease rising, the oceans vanish, the laws of physics fail, or the common life of human beings eating, sleeping, dying, laughing, crying, getting in wars come to an end? No, life would go on. This is one alleged tragedy that is all in the heads of those who think so. So get over it!

Saturday, April 23, 2005
Quasi-Acerbic Oddities for the Day
Ann Coulter on the cover of Time Magazine? They must be desperate for news. Having her around is like visiting the zoo. Everybody likes to have some fun watching the monkeys now and then. But you wouldn't ask them for political advice or invite one home for dinner.

One solution to the shortage of troops provided by a voluntary army is to stay out of unnecessary wars based on lies, deception, and false premises. Having Saddam out of power is a gain, but the price in money and in American and Iraqi lives has been grossly excessive. A majority of Americans agree that the Iraq war was not worth it, but where was their moral outrage at the president who started it last November? President Bush worries about the innocent deaths caused by abortion, but does he worry about the loss of innocent babies, children, and adults in Iraq because of his immoral war?

Let's get this straight. The major drug problem is this country is not the illegal ones -- marijuana, cocaine, heroin -- but tobacco and alcohol, both perfectly legal.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Rumsfeld Now and Then
RUMSFELD 2006
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently the world faces “a new type of fascism'’ and likened critics of the Bush administration’s war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis in the 1930s. In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral or intellectual confusion'’ about what threatens the nation’s security.

RUMSFELD 1983
He was shown in a picture shaking hands with SADDAM HUSSEIN as a emissary of the Reagan administration seeking to align the US with Iraq in its war with Iran.

CHAMBERLAIN 1938
He was shown in a picture shaking hands with Hitler for the sake of "peace in our time."

Monday, December 18, 2006
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld
Dick Cheney said that Rumsfeld was the greatest Secretary of Defense of all time. And Bush fired him? George, how could you?

Saturday, July 15, 2006
TV Hogging Good-Looking Women
The TV industry is using up too many of our good-looking women. This is a national and natural resource that should be distributed equitably. But TV is gobbling up more than its share. Pulchritude should be spread around more evenly.

The pretty, shapely ones are everywhere, no matter what type of program you tune in on, no matter what channel or what time of day or night, they are there. Good-looking women are present as news announcers, reporters, on sitcoms, commercials, drama, soap operas -- you name it -- they are all over the place. Before appearing on camera, they have all been subjected to state of the art cosmetology to get the skin, eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair just right.

Now TV deserves its share of the gorgeous, but it is using up far too much comeliness.

I don't mean to criticize the talent or competence of pulchritudinous women on TV. Most of them are quite gifted and do their jobs well. That is not the point.

Is there a cure for this? Well, TV could hire women for their competence and talent only without regard for their looks. The mere suggestion of this sounds so strange and off the wall that it makes my point about our cultural values more eloquently than I could any other way.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Ann Coulter
Which of the following are true?

1. Ann Coulter makes one wonder whether women's liberation is a mistake.

2. If we descended from monkeys, Ann Coulter is evidence that the descent has been regressive.

3. Ann Coulter would have no interest in insulting people if there were no money or fame in it.

4. The existence of Ann Coulter should assure Phil Mickelson that he is not the only idiot in town.

5. Ann Coulter is proof that freedom of speech is not always a good thing.

6. Ann Coulter should wear a dress that is long enough to cover her knees, keep it pulled down, and shut up.

Tuesday, 25 April 2006
Small Scale Frustrations
In the cosmic scheme of things rebates and manufacturers' coupons are a minor evil but nevertheless deserve indignant renunciation.

Rebates are a way of fooling you into thinking you are getting a special deal. It only means the price has been lowered, which is always a good thing, of course. But rebates are an inefficient means to achieve this end. They are trouble for the manufacturer, the retailer, and the customer, adding unnecessary time and cost to a transaction that could be simplified. The giver of the rebate puts off sending your check as long as possible, which means they get your money interest-free for 6, 8, 10 12 weeks or more. Moreover, frequently they resist honoring them anyway. The find all sorts of things that make them invalid. I have been told they have no record of a claim when it was sent with another claim -- which they did honor -- at the same time in the same envelope to the same place on the same deal. I have been told the check has been sent and cleared when I never saw the check at all. I could go on. They are a nuisance and add unnecessary costs that could have been avoided by simply lowering the price. On retailer said to me, "I hate them."

Manufacturers' coupons are even more inefficient. They have to be conceived, designed, printed, distributed, and redeemed. The customer has to look for them cut them out, organize them, search for the exact product, and wait while they are scanned. The manufacturer pays the store about 7 cents each to process them. This adds up to a whole nest of inefficiencies. The customer is forced to use them or end up subsidizing those who do.

Whey, then, do rebates and coupons flourish? Apparently because they work for the advantage of the seller. It seems there are enough people out there who think they are getting something for nothing to sustain the troublesome process that ends up costing the consumer more in the end. Somebody (probably not P. T. Barnum) said, "There is a sucker born every minute." Those of us who hate them are caught up in a system where we must act defensively by using them to keep from losing more that we would otherwise. Everybody who agrees say, "AMEN."