The temperature is testicular

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Smoke from various Southwestern fires is pooling down by the Rio.

Boom! And just like that, it’s officially hot as balls here at the Duke City Chuckle Hut.

We hit the century mark this afternoon, according to our Acu-Rite weather gizmo.

I got outdoors while the temperature was a frosty 84 degrees, so I didn’t explode like an unpierced spud in a microwave. I’m still not running, but a six-mile hike is a fine means of making a motheaten carcass carry its own weight for a couple hours.

Incidentally, if any of yis who commit pedestrianism have not yet tried trekking poles, you might consider giving ’em a whirl. I scored a set of Gossamer Gear LT5 poles when they went on sale earlier this month, and they give me something to do with my hands other than gesticulate while arguing with the voices in my head.

Also, moreover, furthermore, and too, they help buttress the bum ankle as I stumble up and down the rocky Sandia singletrack in my quest for the wily endorphin.

Alas, when I turned around up near the wilderness boundary a cloud of overcooked forest was obscuring the view. On a clear day it’s no trick to see all the way to Mount Taylor and points west.

Something else that’s not so hot: The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta has been canceled for this year. That’s a solid-gold kick in the ’nads for bidness and gummint. A study of the 2019 fiesta estimated the economic impact at $186.8 million, with a corresponding shit-ton of tax revenues for the city, county and state.

Tweety gets K-popped, TikTok’d

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
“We are not amused.”

Adolf Twitler was light on adoring brownshirts last night in Tulsa, and some tech-savvy K-pop fans and TikTok users say they’re at least part of the reason why.

The New York Times got the story, which has since been picked up by other outlets, including The Verge.

Seems the social-media sappers blew up The Big Comeback by acquiring a shitload of tickets with no intention of using them for any purpose beyond creating an ocean of empty blue seats. And thus a stadium that seats 19,000 had just 6,200 nutters, not counting staff, media, box seats, or additional voices squabbling inside pointy heads behind beady, close-set eyes.

In an interview with Bloomberg, campaign spokescreature Tim Murtaugh sneered: “Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they’re being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number. Every rally is general admission and entry is first come, first served. But we thank them for their contact information.”

Well, don’t start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet, Tim old scout. Mary Jo Laupp, who posted her own anti-Twitler video on TikTok, told the NYT that many of the people who shared it encouraged people to get tickets using fake names and phone numbers using Google Voice or some other internet-connected phone line.

“We all know the Trump campaign feeds on data, they are constantly mining these rallies for data,” said Ms. Laupp, who worked on several rallies for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. “Feeding them false data was a bonus. The data they think they have, the data they are collecting from this rally, isn’t accurate.”

Summer

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy … for a wall-hopping deer.

Summer is only just arriving down here, but it must have come a little earlier to this deer’s neighborhood.

We’ve been noticing deer poop in the grass, and caught glimpses on the wildlife cam of the jug-eared socialists nibbling nocturnally at the undersized fruit on the pear tree.

But yesterday, in broad daylight, I saw this one stroll casually from the street side of the house right through a neighbor’s gate. From there it was an easy leap into our back yard for a bit of tasty grass and a laydown in the shade.

Happy Juneteenth

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
What a brilliantly simple illustration for an essay on whether the “b” in “black” should be capitalized. I appropriated it from The Atlantic.

I made Juneteenth very famous, as you know.

No, I didn’t. And neither did that other peckerwood.

I’m not big on holidays. They were nothing to look forward to in the newspaper biz. Whether it’s Arbor Day or Zoo Lovers Day, the paper must appear. And no matter what capitalist fantasies motivate the business decisions at Gannett and Alden Global Capital, a newspaper won’t publish itself. Yet.

Once you’ve eaten a few dozen “holiday” meals at your desk while decoding a school-board story written by a functional alcoholic the term “holiday” loses all meaning.

Most holidays are dubious, anyway. Christmas? Sorry, not one of mine. Thanksgiving? Is that the one where George Washington threw his wooden teeth across the Potomac and killed a turkey perched in a cherry tree? Fourth of July? That’s the “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” one, right? Except for, you know, those people.

Then there’s Juneteenth. LIke Independence Day, it commemorates a beginning, a first step on a long march to a battle that seems to have no ending.

Though the celebration has its roots in Texas, I don’t recall hearing about it when I was in school down there. Too busy teaching us about how John Wayne fought Communism at the Alamo, I guess.

We never heard anything about the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, either.

And so I suffered from ignorance, a condition with which I continue to struggle. It, too, is a long march. The trick is to keep putting one foot ahead of the other while keeping your eyes, ears, and mind open.

Here’s something I stumbled across along the path. It drew my attention because I’m an old newshound, a retired copy editor, and I love watching the language as it tries to evolve to meet the times. It’s an article in The Atlantic by Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor of philosophy and law at New York University, and it’s titled “The Case for Capitalizing the ‘B’ in ‘Black.'”

Smoky, no jokey

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
I’d like air that’s just a little less chewy, please. And thank you.

It’s a bad day to be an air-breathing organism.

InciWeb shows four fires in New Mexico, two in southwestern Colorado, and an even dozen in Arizona.

The Bush Fire northeast of Mesa is the biggie at 115,000 acres. That’s pretty country out there. Or it was, anyway.

As a consequence, we in the Duke City have been awarded an “Air Quality Alert” by the National Weather Service, and I will testify that the air is of very poor quality indeed. I’d send it back, but UPS says they won’t pick it up.

And there’s no telling when we might get a suitable replacement anyway, with the Bush Fire only 5 percent contained.