Things I Pledge to Do for Mother Earth
Today is the 50th Earth Day, an event we celebrate every year—online for 2020—to remind ourselves that we do not, in fact, have to be the biggest parasites on the third rock from the sun. We choose to be. Unlike the other parasites, we know what we're doing to this planet…and how…and why…and the kinds of things we must do to stop turning it into a ball of uninhabitable human-made garbage. (Awful as it is, the pandemic is at least providing us a glimpse of the cleaner planet we used to know.) To mark the occasion, this year I pledge to...
☼ Save water by enlisting the cat to teach me how to switch over exclusively to tongue baths.
☼ Encourage "teachable moments" by pointing at people drinking out of plastic water bottles and yelling into a bullhorn, "You resource-sucking energy whore, you're killing us!!!" And then use six-foot tongs to hand them an educational pamphlet.
Continued...
Plus:
☼ Restrict my use of "fracking" to its handiness as an adjective paired with the word "idiots" to describe people who displease me.
☼ Contribute to healthy forests by teaching Trump cultists that watering trees "with the blood of tyrants" actually kills them. Fracking idiots.
☼ Rent a chopper and drop thousands of large plastic bins over the city to remind people that Portland recycles. (And fill them with loose change to remind people that recycling saves money!)
☼ Fart only on odd-numbered days. (This one will be tough. I may need to attend support group meetings.)
☼ Vote for Democrats.
☼ Continue not interfering with the coal industry’s timely demise.
☼ Retrofit our car with hybrid technology so it only runs on gas when the team of kittens gets too tired to pull it.
☼ Clone a grand army of Greta Thunbergs in my lab. Or, to be more precise, continue cloning an army of Greta Thunbergs in my lab.
☼ Dispose of my spent fuel rods properly instead of selling them to children as glow sticks.
In short, as an inhabitant of this spectacular planet, I'll continue to try and treat it with the respect it deserves, mostly by following the Four Rs: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rout the Republicans." Or does that count as five Rs? Discuss.
P.S. Good decision:
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Note: Today's C&J is written with 100% recycled pixels. Please don’t ask what they're recycled from.
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By the Numbers:
Months 'til Trump leaves office as of Monday: 9
Coronavirus-related deaths in Maine so far: 36
Drop in approval of Trump's handling of the economy over the last month, which now stands tied at 48% approve, 48% disapprove according to a CNN poll: 5 points
Percent chance that Georgia is opening up its sweaty gyms again Friday on the Republican governor's orders: 100%
Expected growth in 2020 legal cannabis sales in America before the pandemic hit, according to BDS Analytics: 31% ($16.3 billion)
Estimated number of Americans not paying their mortgage now, an unprecedented number according to CBS News: 3 million
Normal daily production of saliva: 0.5-to-1.5 liters
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 185 (including 3 occults and 1 coronavirus created by gay marriage). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Sausage monster marauders…
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CHEERS to unambiguous messages. Real Americans have something to say to Trump's gun-toting cultists who think they can take to the streets shouting "Fuck social distancing" on the impeached president's orders during a pandemic and convince normal people to follow suit: "No, fuck you!"
An overwhelming majority of Americans, Republicans included, are rejecting right-wing protests—encouraged by President Trump—to immediately “reopen” the country in the midst of the world’s largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll. […]
Only 22 percent of Americans say they support the protesters. Despite Trump’s messaging, even Republicans oppose the protests 47 percent to 36 percent. Asked whether they agree or disagree with Trump’s “LIBERATE” tweets, only a quarter of Americans say they agree. … [T]he public’s dismissive attitude toward them reflects a deeper sentiment: Americans strongly disagree with those who claim the country is ready to reopen for business.
So all the protest signs you saw during those pathetic demonstrations ("Jesus is my vaccine," "Social Distancing = Communism") can safely be stowed in the garage in favor of a new one: "I ignored medical science to own the libs and all I got was this lousy backlash and probably the coronavirus too." And thus endeth the Cletus Rebellion.
CHEERS to good ol' Uncle Joe. America likes Joe Biden. He's smart, tough, honest, experienced, sincere, personable, optimistic yet realistic, scrappy, competent, and as American as apple pie. He's also a fearsome foe to his Republican rival because Donald Trump possesses none of those qualities. And given #45's performance over 3+ years, the ads write themselves:
Also: Joe out-raised Trump with a $47 million haul in March, leads in the top 11 battleground states, and has respected Republicans horrified at the prospect of a second Trump term covering his right flank. Not a bad place to be six months out: the business end of a blue wave.
CHEERS to rebuffing rabid Republicans. Sixty-six years ago today, the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began. The villain was Ann Coulter's hero (really, seriously)—a first-class jerk and pre-Ted-Cruz Ted Cruz named Joseph McCarthy, aided and abetted by future Trump lawyer Roy Cohn—for whom it went very badly:
[T]he Army–McCarthy hearings ultimately became the main catalyst in McCarthy's downfall from political power. Daily newspaper summaries were increasingly unfavorable toward McCarthy, while television audiences witnessed firsthand the unethical tactics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin.
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67–22 to censure McCarthy, effectively eradicating his influence, though not expelling him from office. …
After his censuring, Senator McCarthy continued his anti-Communist oratory, often speaking to an empty or near-empty Senate chamber.
Turning increasingly to alcohol, McCarthy died of hepatitis on May 2, 1957, at age 48.
Spoiler alert: At long last, he had no sense of decency.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to news from the world of the world. A few international notes to remind ourselves that there's still other countries out there to make international notes about:
» Canada A gunman in the placid Canadian province of Nova Scotia killed 16 19 people over the weekend. Our neighbors to the north are apparently so full of hate and lax gun laws that they could only manage to go without reaching that high of a single-incident body count for a mere—[checks notes]—147 years.
» Russia The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee has finished its investigation and concluded: you’re damn right Putin interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of the Trump crime syndicate.
» Israel Certified crook Benjamin Netanyahu, who couldn’t win a majority over the course of three elections in one year, has reached a power-sharing agreement with his rival Benny Gantz. It's basically an equal partnership: Netanyahu gets to keep being corrupt prime minister, and Gantz gets to allow Netanyahu to keep being corrupt prime minister. Vive le compromise.
» North Korea Dictator Kim Jong Un is apparently in the advanced stages of reaching a power-sharing agreement with cigarettes, booze, and junk food. It's basically an equal partnership: cigarettes, booze and junk food get to kill him, and Jong Un gets to be dead. We'll see what happens.
And this just in: if Trump goes through with his immigration shutdown threat, no one from any country anywhere will be able to come to the United States. "That's okay, we're all good," said everyone from every country everywhere.
CHEERS to the miracle workers the boss can't live without. Today is Administrative Professionals Day. It's been around, by different names, for a long time. You might say it's evolved…
The first National Secretaries Week was organized in 1952 in conjunction with the United States Department of Commerce and various office supply and equipment manufacturers.
The Wednesday of that week became known as National Secretaries Day. As the organization gained international recognition, the events became known as Professional Secretaries Week and Professional Secretaries Day. In 2000, IAAP announced that names of the week and the day were changed to Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professionals Day to keep pace with changing job titles and expanding responsibilities of the modern administrative workforce.
Here at C&J, we have two administrative professionals on staff, and we couldn’t maintain our empire without them. Later this morning we'll show our appreciation by presenting them with a fresh Purina Busy Bone and Little Friskies catnip toy. Right after they fetch the Penske file. Which, given their lack of opposable thumbs, might take awhile.
JEERS to God's currency. 156 years ago today, on April 22, 1864, Congress took a bold stand for the separation of church and state by passing an act that required "In God We Trust" to be stamped on all our coins. Since then we’ve gone through a Civil War, two world wars, a bunch of other wars, a Great Depression, a Great Recession, and two catastrophic pandemics. I don’t want to seem pushy or anything, but I think maybe it’s time to change it to something more useful. Like, say, anything.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 22, 2010
JEERS to slow-waltzing to the poorhouse. Goldman Sachs announced yesterday that it made so little money in the first three months of the year that all they could afford to wring out in bonuses was five billion dollars. Today I'm holding a bake sale on their behalf. The blueberry muffins are delicious—and at only $500,000 each, a real bargain.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to our April 22 national anthem. Please rise. Or sit. Or take a knee. Or, y’know, whatever’s comfortable:
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And to answer your question: no, Trump doesn’t know the words to this one, either.
Have a hermetically-sealed humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Bill in Portland Maine Can't Get Bacardi-Drunk In The Cheers and Jeers Kiddie Pool, And HE. IS. MAD.
—Wonkette
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