My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Deliveryman (NYT)

(dedicated to Andy Newman)


I ordered fried ancient grains with a carton of milk thistle fed pork barbecue. the delivery guy was at my door within ten minutes. he was tall and muscular, with a soul patch and green sorcery in his eyes. I thanked him for the food, then handed him twelve Kennedy half dollars for a tip. 
"what's this, man?" he demanded.
"your tip" I said simply.
"I gotta carry this bunch of metal around wid me all day?" he asked testily. 
"well, yes, I suppose you do" I said. "they're getting rarer and rarer -- could be worth a deal of money someday." I added helpfully.
"I ain't workin' for someday -- I work for today; and today you have weighed me down with ten pounds of metal."

and that's why, officer, I am hiding under my bed right now after dialing 911.   

‘He always doubles down’: Inside the political crisis caused by Trump’s racist tweets

I met a fair haired man walking out of the woods. he carried nothing with him but a bag of banana chips. 
"where are you going?" he asked me.
"I am undecided about that" I replied honestly.
"come with me, then. I am going to step on people's toes. it's excellent sport!"
"doesn't sound such an excellent sport to me" I told him. "what if somebody punches you in the face for doing it?"
"they never do that; they just hop away to tell others how rude I am."
"and you like that?" I asked him.
"like it? I love it! the big plus is that a lot of other people will defend my actions and build me up as a hero. So come with me and step on toes and you'll be a hero too!" he held out his arms imploringly.
what the heck, I thought to myself; I'll stomp on a few toes and see what happens. I ground my heel into the toes of an old man who was wearing sandals. his toes started to bleed. this was bad. I tried to apologize to him but he wept as he took out a bag of banana chips to give to me. He thought I was trying to rob him. I went home after that, to think about my actions. those banana chips sure tasted good. 

An onslaught of pills, hundreds of thousands of deaths: Who is accountable? (WaPo)

three sailors brave went searching for accountability on the green sea. their ship was unnamed and their captain was unknown. but away they went to find out who was accountable, and for what.
the first sailor, named Ben, spotted a narwhal and harpooned it with a boat oar. they drained the narwhal of blood, sliced away its blubber, and unscrewed its horn. but didn't find any accountability. so Ben had to walk the plank.
the second sailor, Terri, dragged the sea bottom with a net, bringing up brine worms and bottle caps -- and one chest of pirate gold. but the gold could be accounted for by the reputable CPA firm of Hoskins & Battleworth. so not only was Terri denied any gold but she had to go home to her parents without a merit badge.
Khun Praphan was the third sailor brave. he had indecent tattoos on his fingernails and smoked a conch shell pipe. he did not look for accountability, but waited for it to come to him -- which it did, in the form of a sea gull. inside the sea gull he found incriminating evidence that was turned over to the proper authorities. now Khun Praphan has a condo in Miami, where he makes origami party hats.

Two senators want antifa activists to be labeled ‘domestic terrorists.’ Here’s what that means.

domestic terrorists have struck again. this time they've raided countless supermarkets and grocery stores, ripping the labels off cans and scattering them everywhere. there's no way to know now if you're buying a can of corn or a can of vienna sausages. or dog food. it's a terrible crisis that capital hill is handling as best it can. yet it points up a glaring deficiency in our labeling technology that needs to be addressed immediately.
that is why Clark County Visionaries for a New America have begun a grassroots campaign to have all canned goods rigged to explode when anyone tampers with their labels. any godless terrorist who tries to yank the label off a can of Chef Boyardee Beefaroni will have their hands blown off -- and serves 'em right, too. of course, there is a slight chance of collateral damage if a child or careless adult mishandles a label, but that is a small price to pay to keep America fed.
the frozen food industry issued a statement today that said, in part, "There's never a snag if you use a bag!" 

Democratic presidential hopefuls call for Puerto Rico’s governor to resign

I was recently called on to resign, so I held a press conference.
"I am holding this press conference" I told the assembled journalists "because I have nothing to hide -- and, more importantly, I currently hold no positions from which to resign."
 I chose a Ms. Sardiness from the Wire Cutters League for the first question.
"Why are you not interested in meeting your detractors half way?" she asked.
"What detractors? I'm retired and work crossword puzzles to pass the time. How could I have any detractors?" I said indignantly.  then I picked Mr. Hemenhaw of the British Railways. He asked "Is it true you were once arrested for public exfoliation?" "That was from a previous poem" I replied promptly. that seemed to satisfy the sixty or so reporters, and they all left. wagging their tails behind them. I paid the landlord for the use of his hall and the caterer for her hard boiled eggs and nuts, and since I was the last one out I also turned off  all the lights. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/20/democratic-presidential-hopefuls-call-puerto-ricos-governor-resign/?utm_term=.9c93e95a2c8d

Only 38% of Utahns ready to vote for a second term for President Trump, poll finds. (Deseret News)

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nobody's ever asked me what I think about anything. 65 years old and there's never been a poll or a questionnaire or even a census form for me to answer to, to give my opinion about something, anything. consequently I have no opinions or ideas about anything at all. I live in a void, where there is only eating, sleeping, working, and Hulu. 

I tried buying a prejudice on the black market down a dark alley one day, but the guy in the trench coat I talked to had bad breath so I figured his product would be unbearably shoddy and threadbare. I was in the market for an original hand-made prejudice, so I broke off negotiations and turned him over to the Fraternal Order of Eagles. 

as for regular homegrown opinions, forget it. those are rarer than prunes in a pot roast. I came close to trapping one once; it was out on my patio grazing on the bread crumbs I leave for the sparrows. but when I tried to throw my net over it I miscalculated and caught a bunch of indignant sparrows instead. I still haven't heard the last of that from the Audubon Society.

Willa Cather: The Perfect Antidote to Trump. (NYT)

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I borrowed some prairie from my daughter and went to live on the land again. I bought some nails, a barrel of molasses, a tin of lard, and a long twine rope for my journey. while traveling across acres of sunken hops I met a man going the other way. "Where you off to, stranger?" I asked him. "Back to civilization" he replied, taking off his hat and wiping a rattlesnake from it." "Why's that?" I asked. "Too many dang writers comin' in and scribbling away all the good bottom land" he said, with half a sneer. "You a writer?" he asked me.

"No" I said honestly. "I'm a dreamer with a barrel of molasses." He shook my hand then. "You'll do well, pardner" he told me cheerfully. then he walked on back to civilization. the dope.

next I came across a family of cottonwoods taking a long drink from a small stream. they nodded at me in a neighborly fashion, letting their cottony seeds drift down on me. so I settled in to farm the land and sing the songs. when the drought came and killed off all the cottonwoods I still had my barrel of molasses. 

Someday, a turtle may end up with a Trump-branded straw in its nose. Here’s why.

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animals will put anything up their noses. when I was with the circus we had an elephant that snorted up a length of garden hose one afternoon just before the matinee. the trainer tried everything he could think of to get the elephant to blow it out, but the dumb beast refused to listen. eventually they had to perform a trunkoptomy. then there was the chimp that put saltines up its nose until it nearly suffocated. and the Russian bears loved nothing better than to poke circus peanuts up their noses when it was time to hibernate down at winter quarters.

in the wild, so I've read, the three-toed sloth slowly inserts pine needles up its nose to cure sinus infections. snakes are always slithering into wood splinters, ramming them up their nose. deer get their nostrils plugged up with tiny fruits while stripping barberry bushes during the early spring. and remember that golf ball that obstructed the whale's blowhole on Seinfeld?

all I'm saying is that nasal obstruction is a fact of life. animals need to accept that and get on with their mating rituals. we humans do.  

School district to parents: Pay your lunch debt or your children might wind up in foster care

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the letter said I was in arrears down at the bowling ball store. it said I better pay up or they'd take away my bowling shoes and put a sign on my door reading "Deadbeat Bowler."

I wasn't that much behind in payments. I mean, come on, everybody has to have a bowling ball these days just to survive, and I couldn't afford to pay full price, so I was on an installment plan. so much per month. but now I was 3 months behind and they were going to do this to me? I called the Better Business Bureau to complain, but they didn't answer their phone -- the voicemail said they were all out bowling. then I called the Justice League of America -- but they were in bed with bowler's elbow. as a last resort I went downtown to the mayor's office, but she was out unveiling a memorial to the Unknown Bowler. 

now desperate I went to Walmart and bought a croquet set. my way of protesting this grave injustice. I played eight straight games on my front lawn before the school board condemned my property as a public nuisance and I had to move back in with my third grade teacher.

she lets me feed her gerbil.

After Dan Le Batard ripped Trump, ESPN again faces a political mess

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it's wonderful, what's happening to newscasters around the world. it began with a sports announcer a few days ago; he started saying something about the president, but then stopped a moment and when he opened his mouth again a lovely group of monarch butterflies flew out and circled his head for a minute before flying up into the studio lights and burning up. next day a radio talk show host was arguing with a caller about Iran when they both suddenly broke into a medley from Fiddler on the Roof. they both had quite pleasing tenor voices. then on the CBS Evening News everyone started emitting bubbles, and on NBC they all spewed rose petals. at Fox News the broadcasters started spitting out dreidels, and Rush Limbaugh now gives out soft serve vanilla ice cream whenever he opens his mouth. it's a miracle, is what it is. America is now once again as peaceful and serene as it was when Eisenhower sat in the White House. the golf courses are full. hamburgers only cost a nickel a piece. they give away five gallons of gasoline when you get a car wash. it's so beautiful I feel a flock of helium balloons rising up in my throat right now . . .