As Domestic Troubles Mount, China Points Finger at U.S. (NYT)

Crazy Henry and I were under the Hennepin Avenue bridge to fish for river carp. something smelly had been dumped into the Mississippi that day and the carp were going crazy over it. we could practically reach out from the shore and grab them. I wanted a couple to plant with my sweet corn. we were using bamboo cane poles.
I was on edge that day. the sky was overcast in that way that feels like a prison sentence. I thought a quiet day of fishing would do my soul some good. then Crazy Henry had to start talking.
"I think we should buy Hong Kong from China" he said.
"what?" I said.
"you know" he replied. "like we bought Alaska from Russia all those years ago. let's buy Hong Kong so we got someplace to get our fireworks from and rice and stuff without a tariff. Hong Kong is pretty close to California, isn't it? Like Hawaii?"
with great self control I kept my own counsel and continued fishing. we were using kernels of canned corn for bait.
Crazy Henry tripped over a cable sunk in the mud. I helped him up and he insisted on pulling up the buried cable to see where it led. we got so involved that our poles were pulled into the river and floated away. we finally found the end of the cable looped around a tree stump twenty feet from the shore.
"huh. an old barge cable probably" I said. 

Tomi Lahren apologizes after saying Kamala Harris slept her way to the top (headline in the Washington Post)

we had this guy in clown alley who thought it was hilarious to walk around the arena dressed in a brightly stripped nightshirt and a long white night cap, pretending to be sleepy and trying to take naps while leaning up against a guy wire yawning or crawling up on an elephant tub.
his name was Scott. he did a whiteface makeup and used his own blonde hair for a clown wig. I never could figure out if he was just plain lazy and didn't want to run around like the rest of us, or if he was really an unrecognized comic genius. 
certainly the first time I saw him do his act out in the ring I couldn't help but be impressed by the originality of it. but he had no pantomime training and his actions were clumsy and unconvincing. oh, and he carried an unlit candle in an old tin candle holder too. said it added to the authenticity of the act.
circus management was unimpressed by his innovation. they wanted lots of jumping up and down, running, shouting, explosions, and were not averse to paper mache clown heads being cut off at the end of a gag. so Scott got the old heave-ho after just one season.
you could say he slept his way to the bottom. 

Universal is building a new theme park to challenge Disney’s dominance

the man knocked on my door and said "hello, I'm here to tell you that a theme park is being built in your neighborhood and we want to buy your house to knock it down so we can put up a tilt-a-whirl in its place."
I replied: "come in, please."
the man sat down comfortably, as if he already owned the place. I offered him a glass of buttermilk, which he politely refused. "would you like some mince pie?" I asked him. "no thank you" he said, "I am trying to watch my weight. we will give you two thousand dollars for your home and you must be out by midnight tonight."
"and if I refuse" I asked. "then we will take you to court and ruin your life." he said. so I sold him the house and moved across the country to a cabin on a lake. but I was only there a month when the same man showed up, demanding to buy my place so they could build a water park. this time he only gave me a hundred dollars and sent diseased moose after me as I left. I found a cave up in the limestone hills to live in, and was very happy there until that same man showed up a year later to tell me they were building caveland and my cave would be the snack bar. but this time I fooled him; my cave was full of bats, which I had trained to attack. the only thing left of him was his right shoe. 

Postcard to the President

Judgement Day

 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts.

3 Nephi 24:5

Oppression stalks the land I love;

the vulture reigns, and not the dove.

Workers watch their earnings fail;

superstition makes some quail.

Amidst this great futility

please grant me, Lord, tranquility.

I know that in the midst of sin

Thy judgments shall be heard -- and win!

Can the Joe Biden who’s leading in polls survive Joe Biden the candidate?

the last time I saw Crazy Henry he was a candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. he asked me to work for his campaign as a volunteer, doing polls. "no" I told him. "I have a full time job and besides I don't know anything about polls and I think you running for mayor of anything but Nutty Town is a waste of time."
he shook my hand fervently and said "thanks for your endorsement. the polls show I'm leading by a ten percent margin over my opponents, and fifteen percent over the gashouse gang." 
for the next five weeks Crazy Henry would call me late at night to ask how his polls were doing.
"I keep telling you I'm not involved in your dumb campaign!" I always shouted back at him. "leave me alone and let me get some sleep. I've got to work in the morning."
"that's just what I wanted to hear" he always replied. "keep up the good work, soldier, and I'll find a post for you in my kitchen cabinet."
Finally one night he called to say that the polls were showing that the election was not for 2 more years, so he was going to ride his Segway to Graceland for a brief vacation. "you know what you can do with your poll . . . " I began to tell him, but by then he'd hung up. 

Rammstein’s guitarists kiss onstage in defiant protest of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws

I saw two ghosts kissing in a haunted house. "hey" I said to them, "are you male or female ghosts -- it's hard to tell with those shrouds you wear."
"in the afterlife there are no gender roles" said one of the ghosts. "we are free to love one another in any manner we please." this intrigued me, so I asked one of them if they would mind giving me a kiss (I was between relationships at the time.) both ghosts laughed at this and slowly faded away. but then another ghost floated into the room, looking very stern. it had a badge on its shroud. "listen" it said to me, "you've broken one of our ghost laws by asking a ghost for a kiss. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you to ghost jail to stand trail in a ghost court." it tried to grab me, but being incorporeal it couldn't lay a finger on me. instead I blew on it, and it drifted out the window sobbing curses at me.
I waited around the haunted house the rest of the night to see if any other ghosts would show up -- I wanted to ask about their music preferences. but no more showed up. so at cock crow I walked over to a Dunkin Donuts for some hot chocolate and fresh crullers. and guess what? I saw those same ghosts from the haunted house sitting there, eating raw kale on sprouted wheat bread. that's when I knew the supernatural world reigned supreme. 

44 people were injured when a waterpark wave machine launched a crushing tsunami

I was enjoying myself at the arboretum, when all of a sudden the sprinklers were turned on -- with a vengeance! I mean, they were like fire hoses. I was knocked off my feet into the nasturtiums, my elbows and knees scrapped a bloody red. an elderly couple nearby were hurled into the duck pond and nearly suffocated when they swallowed some lily pads. to make matters worse the overhead sprinklers came on as well, so everyone inside the arboretum began to drown. the water came down in shoals, in tidal waves, in green thick sheets. what finally saved us all was the Saint Bernard dog that came barging through the emergency exit, dragging us out to safety one by one. without that brave creature we would all would have gone to our watery grave. 
when I gave the police my statement afterwards they were immediately skeptical. they asked me if I had been drinking. was I taking any recreational drugs at the time. could I locate a witness to verify my statements. that kind of thing. when I became indignant they hustled me into a black van in handcuffs.
"where are you taking me?" I cried in surprise and terror.
"to China" replied one of the cops. "they might swallow such fairy tales, but we sure don't here."  

When a Mega-Tsunami Drowned Mars, This Spot May Have Been Ground Zero

I look at Mars and wonder what

is the latest scuttlebutt;

Do the Martians still exist?

Are we on their own blacklist?

Maybe send them edelweiss

when we're probing for old ice . . . 

Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed

"Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed . . . "

3 Nephi 22: 4

What is there to dread, when God our lives discerns;

He knows for us what's best, and for our glory yearns.

No shame can ever touch the man or women who

grips the gospel staff and remains but true.