California deli owner offered a free side dish to customers who said ‘send her back’

(dedicated to Tim Carman)


the recipe for venom soup is as follows:

take one foreign scapegoat. make sure it is young, tender, and idealistic.

flay it on social media until softened to the consistency of puerility.

marinate it in self righteous bile and xenophobia. salt and pepper to taste.

meanwhile mix bitter herbs with plenty of vinegar, sour grapes, and spilt milk. set aside long enough to post a decent amount of balderdash on Facebook.

combine all ingredients and let it stew in your mind. after several hours add some cracked brains and serve immediately, garnished with ignorance. 

A glacier is dead. A monument will tell visitors whose fault it was. (WaPo)

(Dedicated to Morgan Krakow)

my friend Crazy Henry got 2 tickets from Icelandic Airlines for a round trip to Reykjavik and back. I don't know how he got them; he's always getting stuff for free. one time he got a live turkey in December and kept it in his garage because he couldn't stand the thought of killing it. it finally escaped through a broken window and terrorized the neighborhood for months with its strange threatening mating cry. 
in Reykjavik we found an economy hotel with free cereal and milk in the morning. I asked the clerk how to get to the nearest glacier.
"they're all gone" he said, in perfect English. "what do you mean they're all gone?" I asked. "the last one melted away last spring" he said, snowflakes trickling down his cheeks. when I told this to Crazy Henry he said no use crying over spilt glaciers let's go see some volcanoes. but the same clerk told me there were no more volcanoes, either. they had all moved south to Italy. he was a total wet blanket, was that clerk.
so we toured a lichen farm and watched the sardine migration from a lighthouse. now that we're back home Crazy Henry is trying to grow a glacier in his backyard. "it only takes one ice cube a day and infinite patience" he says. while we were gone he lost his job at the Creamette factory. He didn't bother to tell them he would be gone for two weeks. 

Campers stay overnight to snag a spot for Salt Lake's Days of '47 Parade (Deseret News)

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I passed a man sitting in a lawn chair on the street this morning. I myself was feeling fine, so I stopped to ask him what he was doing, instead of hurrying on and muttering about all the crazy people in the world.

"I'm waiting for a parade" he said.

"what parade?" I asked.

"oh, any parade that might happen by." he said.

"you expecting one soon?" I asked.

"there's no telling when a parade might come lolloping past here, so I want to be prepared." he replied brightly, nothing daunted by my mounting skepticism. 

I decided he needed some grounding, so I told him that you can't have a parade down a busy street without a permit and that, what with social media nowadays, there would be notices of an upcoming parade all over the place. in other words, he was wasting his time just sitting there. It was warm out, so I started to perspire as I tried to convince him of his immense folly. he just smiled back at me and said "looking for a parade is better than missing one." I went home for a lawn chair and now we are both on the lookout for a parade. 

Trump and Johnson: Allies in Disruption

I'm losing my grip on the English language. maybe my interest, too; since it no longer is used the way I like it.
what's the deal with disrupt and disruption? when I caused a disruption in class I was sent to the principal's office. you never wanted to be called a disruptive influence at work -- you could lose your job. communists are disruptive, not patriotic Americans. but now it's apparently a good thing to be disruptive. disruptive marketing and disruptive startups and disruptive planets breaking us out of orbit. my son does stuff with social media, which makes him enough money to buy a big house freshly painted and with clipped hedges -- he asked me to write 500 words on disruptive advertising for one of his innumerable blogs. "what's that?" I asked him. "it's anti-advertising; going against the perceived wisdom and experience of marketing to establish a whole new level of consumer consciousness" he said. I turned him down. I told him there's no positive in disruption. not in this world. and I would stick to my guns and deplore disruption in high places and low, until the forces of disruption come to get me.

Theresa May to step down, Boris Johnson to become U.K. prime minister, in elaborate transition of power

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I rarely initiate an action, but I'll usually join in once it starts. like the other day when I was over at Crazy Henry's house. it's an old weather beaten place that needs a new roof and has squirrels running through the attic. "we should rename the mayor" said Crazy Henry. I paid no attention; there was a Twins game on. they were winning for once. "I'm going to hold a plebiscite to change his name to Junior" said Crazy Henry a few minutes later. now the Twins were losing, so I turned towards Crazy Henry.

"why Junior?" I asked. "because it will put him in his place" he said. "I'm going door to door right now with a petition. Wanna help?" "sure thing" I said, "as long as I don't have to do anything." 

he grabbed a yellow legal pad and a Bic pen and was out the door, with me following. 

we went to three houses before anyone answered. a man eating a raw onion refused to sign, but said he would pray for us. the next house had a barking dog in the yard, so we skipped it. at a duplex we talked to two women who spoke no English. Crazy Henry gave them each a dollar and they signed his petition.

"that's a good day's work" said Crazy Henry. "let's go back to my place and verify signatures." so we did. I couldn't make out either one of the signatures Crazy Henry had paid for, but he wanted to count them anyways. I can't abide civic fraud, so I refused his offer of Van Camp's pork & beans and walked home in the rain.

While bemoaning Mueller probe, Trump falsely says the Constitution gives him ‘the right to do whatever I want’ (WaPo)

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I saw the fair haired man again. this time he was walking through the park pulling flowers out by their roots and tossing them on the sidewalk. no one stopped him. the park police were following him in their car, taking photographs and eating pork rinds.

he went after a patch of daisies that I particularly enjoyed looking at, so I barred his path -- though my heart was leaping up my throat.

"I like those flowers" I told him. "please don't destroy them. that's a waste of taxpayer's money."

"hah!" he replied. "I am protecting tax payers against these lazy daisies that do nothing but sit around and soak up the light. they should go to work so they can buy their own sunlamps." I found his illogic strangely appealing. I felt my brow turning to brass. "we could pull up the Persian roses instead" I told him. "I never did care for them." an hour later all the Persian roses were gone and our hands were bloody. the park police finally got out of their car to ask us for our autographs. 

How to Get a $5,000 Amazon Credit: Buy a House Through Realogy (NYT)

I was bothered by muckleheads in the winter and punkies in the summer, so I decided to move. I chose a neighborhood where the fire hydrants were all painted to look like garden gnomes. my realtor, Anne, showed me several homes in the area, but none of them were quite what I wanted. Anne became a little frustrated. "just exactly what are you looking for in your new home?" she asked me pointedly. "well" I said, "outside of the garden gnome hydrants, I want a place that makes me feel it is swell with my soul. plus a double garage." "Okay" she replied. "I think I have just the place for you." we drove down a street shaded by elms to a house on a corner lot, surrounded by a white picket fence. a wonderful place, I could tell even before going inside. I told Anne she was a genius -- this was the house I wanted. when we got inside she marched into the kitchen, where a family sat at lunch, and told them to leave immediately -- their house was sold. "but we aren't selling our beautiful house" said the father. "it's heaven on earth." Anne pulled out a starter's pistol and began firing over their heads, until they had all jumped out the windows screaming and running away.
I felt bad for them, but I was able to move in that same week. and Anne filled the double garage with real garden gnomes for me. she is worth every cent of her commission. 

Postcard to the President. (by guest artist Lance Read)

The trailer for the Mister Rogers movie is out, and people are so ready for a wholesome biopic

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"I wish I were Mister Rogers" I told Professor Barbara one day, as we walked along the Provo River Trail. "he represents the male ideal." I was trying to impress her with some beautiful sentiments. we continued to walk in silence. she often remains silent and lets me do all the talking. other times she begins on something and won't let go of it for hours. I managed to say one more thing before she spoke. I said "human goodness is as rare as hare's milk."

"ewe's milk makes better cheese" she began. "in Germany they often pair it with veal or pork sausage, along with boiled potatoes or cabbage."

the wind blew her hair into a red nest of fury. I could smell sewage from the river. we sat at a wooden picnic table to watch the leaves do nothing. then we each took a splinter with us back to our separate homes. 

Trump administration proposal would push 3 million Americans off food stamps

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I cherish my connection with Professor Barbara. she is smart, vivacious, and has flaming red hair that grows brighter the older she gets. so I asked her "why is Trump such a jerk?" and she said "in the Congo they rarely have good internet connections."

I pondered this answer a good long while, and finally decided I was not smart enough to understand it. so I asked the Man on the Street the same question. he was right there on a street corner, with a cardboard sign around his neck that read "Man on the Street." his answer was "go talk to Professor Barbara some more, son." "do you know her?" I asked him. "the Man on the Street knows everything" he replied loftily, and then ascended into the seventh heaven.

I went back to Professor Barbara, who was simply radiant with red hair and kindly brain power. "is my perception of Trump all wrong?" I asked her. "is he a good man trapped in a bad situation?" "you are not wrong" she replied, buffing her nails with an encyclopedia. "in Guatemala they have a saying --"

"oh, shut up" I told her. "let me take you to Queen Anne Kiddyland."