Trenchant commentary

A final trench coat.

If trial, conviction, and a long-overdue fatal stroke proceed apace we have a fine disposal site in the back yard for Cheeto Benito.

He would spend eternity in crucifixion pose, too, which should suit his persecution complex. Some might call it Death Yoga for Traitors.

I know, I know — it looks awfully narrow for his bulk. But it may actually be a size or three too large once Jack Smith is finished with him.

The biggest downside I can see, other than the strong likelihood that none of this will ever come to pass, is that all the poison he sucked through his pursed little piehole during a lifetime of culinary sins would probably kill all our new plants, shrubs, and trees.

Good reads

• Tom Nichols at The Atlantic. You have to love a guy who writes so clearly and forcefully, while throwing in a bonus reference to “The Verdict,” one of my favorite Paul Newman flicks.

• Michael Tomasky at The New Republic. Don’t mourn, party, sez he.

• Charles P. Pierce at Esquire. My man Chazbo, never at a loss for words, writes thusly:

In fact, it is in its precision where lies this indictment’s real power. In no place, does Smith get out over his skis. It is monumental as a historical document, but, as a legal document, it is carefully crafted, almost delicately etched. For example, there is no talk of citing the former president* for treason or for insurrection. Smith clearly has crafted an indictment precisely drawn to conform to the whopping silo of evidence he has compiled and nothing else. And it is precisely drawn to sit the former president* down under a swinging lightbulb in a dark interrogation room.

• Peter Baker at The New York Times. He’s covered five presidents, so you know he’d have some thoughts on this guy. Here’s one.

George Washington established the precedent of voluntarily stepping down after two of those terms, a restraint later incorporated into the Constitution through the 22nd Amendment. John Adams established the precedent of peacefully surrendering power after losing an election. Ever since, every defeated president accepted the verdict of the voters and stepped down. As Ronald Reagan once put it, what “we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

Until Mr. Trump came along.

R.I.P., Paul Reubens

Pee-wee Herman has pedaled off for that final Big Adventure. He was 70.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Reubens wrote on an Instagram message posted today. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

It was cancer that did for him, according to his estate, and Reubens kept quiet about it, which I find oddly admirable in an era when anyone will say everything about anything, including me. Peace unto him, his family, friends, and fans.

Dogfights, flies, and hummingbirds

Our backyard hummingbird shower.*
*Hummingbird not included.

The GOP pestilential dogfight is shaping up into something like “The Lord of the Rings” as reimagined by Charles Bukowski with an assist from William Gibson.

Thus we get Scum Baggins, Douche Baggins, Colostomy Baggins, and so on.

In this Bukowski-Gibson cyberpunk edition the Shire is a casino built on a Superfund site, a former dogfighting venue called Slobbiton.

The Wizards are all off somewhere dicking around with AI, social media, and first-class-only rocket flights to nowhere special for the Elves (Dwarves can’t afford a ticket).

The Rings of Power are not limited to the Elite — they’re Watches of Power, and can be acquired by anyone with the do-rei-me — but all they do is let you answer the phone that’s perpetually in your hand anyway and tell you to get out of the La-Z-Boy for a couple minutes every hour, you great fat bastard. Mostly the Ring-wielders use that time to go to the fridge for some tasty Boar’s Head snacks.

Speaking of pigs’ heads, at some point our revised narrative careens off piste entirely into “Lord of the Flies” territory. The Wizards and Elves get voted off the island on charges of being woke, trans, or both; everyone left is some variation on Jack or Roger (though George Soros makes a brief cameo as Piggy); and the Royal Navy never turns up to set things aright because THIS IS AMERICA BUDDY! YEAH, BABY! USA! USA! USA!

All things considered we’d rather watch a sprinkler in the back yard. Now and then we get to see a hummingbird enjoy a brief shower.

Landscraping

Just take a little off the top, please.

July has been a scorcher, with 12 triple-digit days and one record high (104° on the 17th).

It was 103° yesterday. Not a record, but still, damn. Today, at 3 p.m., it’s 97°.

And I’m gonna try real hard not to bitch about it because I’m not one of the landscapers trying to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear that is our back yard.

I didn’t even go out to sweat for fun yesterday.

But the landscapers were out there bright and early under Tōnatiuh’s broiler, with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, excising scorched swaths of grass, excavating edging stones gone all wobbly like a meth-head’s dentition, and wheelbarrowing railroad ties off to … who knows? A railroad, maybe?

All the livelong day, too. As an expression of solidarity while motoring to the grocery for some grub that would not require cooking I refused to turn on the a/c in the Subaru.

Brew-haha

Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Phineas and Fat Freddy
discuss labor issues while grocery shopping.
© in perpetuity by Gilbert Shelton, all praise to his name.

“What more could anyone ask for than to work for a beer company?” Fat Freddy wonders.

Well, a living wage might be nice, say the brewery workers on strike against Leinenkugel’s in Chippewa Falls, Wis. It’s the first strike against Leinie’s since 1985.

“We’ve just fallen behind every contract,” [John] McGillis said after wrapping up a strike shift next to a rushing creek, where neighbors have been dropping off doughnuts, pizza and words of encouragement. “We’re behind what everybody else in this area is paying.”

The corporate bigwigs at the Molson Coors mothership disagree, because of course they do. They’re about making money, not beer, and probably up to their third chins in a scheme to have A.I. brewing virtual lager for digital pubs on Facebook. Dispense with that irksome human element, don’t you know.

Or maybe it’s worse than we think. While the Teamsters are out in the streets some scab plumber is probably rerouting the toilets to the taps. And for minimum wage, too.

Remember your W.C. Fields: “I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.” People do those things, too, W.C. old scout. Say, does the “W.C.” stand for “Water Closet?”

• Java jive redux: In other news from the morning side of the beverage industry (for those of us who are not day drinkers, anyway) maybe I have to reconsider that occasional Starbuck’s Americano.