Good Grief: TN Mayor Watering the Flowers of Hatred

As if TN didn't have a bad enough national image already (see this post and that post), now a mayor of a Memphis suburb has brought being irresponsible to a new level of art. The story has gone nearly-viral today in the media and the blogosphere.

Talking Points Memo reports that Arlington, TN mayor Russell Wiseman, obviously disturbed by the fact that A Charlie Brown Christmas was pre-empted by President Obama's speech on Afghanistan, ranted on his Facebook page:

"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'...."

Adding...

"...you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America...pitiful...you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different..."

Good grief!

You might ask "How could this be worse?" Well... an ongoing online poll at Memphis' Commercial Appeal shows that the majority of respondents feel the mayor's comments "speak for a lot of Americans who are frustrated with the President". Sure, the poll is self-selecting, but we at BFK are still, even in this era of Limbaugh and Beck, stung that such blatant and unapologetic racism and un-democratic elitism can come from an elected official in this day and age.

However, even (God forbid) were one sympathetic to Wiseman's thoughts, would one want a mayor so obviously out-of-touch with the consequences of modern communication technologies? Would one want a mayor willing to openly dismiss the dignity of human beings with different political opinions on the basis of things he surely knows are utter falsehoods such as "Obama is a Muslim" or that a sitting President of The United States is so bored that he would obstruct a cartoon television special?

It maddens a thinking-person's mind trying to figure out what could be a rational goal behind this kind of irrational behavior. Perhaps he has an anger problem. If so, we feel sorry for him and hope he seeks counseling for that. Perhaps he is going for Joe Wilson-style media infamy. Perhaps he really believes in what he said (the scariest option since, Obama aside, he apparently believes in the anti-democratic principle that non-property owners do not get a say in any process of governance).

It doesn't take long to realize, however, that this man is a cancer on civil society. It is one thing to have political disagreements based on worldviews. It is another to use disagreement as a seed for needless intolerance and hatred. Wiseman is watering the flowers of hatred. Let's hope the voters in Arlington, TN turn off his spigot in the next election.

The Evil of Elk, Pt II

In an earlier post, we brought to you the case that elk are likely evil. For example, we produced highly believable information that the elk in Sweden run the puppy mills in that country -- grinding the puppies too sick or weak to make it, into Swedish meatballs.

Well, here comes round two. The BBC reports that "A Swedish man who was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife has been cleared, after police decided she was probably killed by an elk." The case against Ingemar Westlund, 68, was dropped after "forensic analysis found elk hair and saliva on his wife's clothes".

The lesson?
If you are a Swedish woman, don't play with animals.
Especially elk.
Or Tigers.

Greatest Christmas Album Cover

Ladies and gentlemen...perhaps the greatest Christmas album cover of all time...

Holy Image or Bucket of Filth?

We know we don't know where is that damn Waldo.

We know Elvis is alive; based in an East Texas nursing home and fighting evil Egyptian entities.

But this...Jesus. What do we know of where he is? Apparently he is everywhere and in everything but, at the same time, not anywhere you might expect....

Carla, Sitting Still

As Carla walked through the door of her most-local Starbucks, an act that has become almost muscle-memory routine, she thought to herself "The last time I walked in here was before I knew that". Shaking off that must, she tapped and asked a happy-but-smelly man in a dirty plaid shirt whether he was in line, and took her place in front of him after he told her to go right ahead of him, explaining how it was hard to see the board without his glasses. He had broken the frames and couldn't afford a replacement at this time. It's funny how one can have the luxury of being able to afford over-priced coffee, but even spurning that small pleasure for a long period of time can't help secure much-more-expensive necessities.

Carla was certainly able to see the board, and thought to herself as she read it "The last time my eyes rolled over these familiar names was before that happened." Again, almost automatically, she suppressed the introspection and arrived at her daily dilemma -- a Venti Pike's Place or that Lorelei of a beverage, a Venti Caramel Mocha with whip. Just as readily, she snapped her mind to the task when asked her order by the barista, "Venti Pike's please". She took a moment to seethe, having not been asked whether she wants "room," knowing she'll be pouring an inch of coffee into the trash to make room for her skim-milk, and that a lot of that near-boiling liquid will run down the side of the cup, over her fingers. Same as always.

Handing over her debit card with a readiness with which diplomats hand out platitudes, she declined a receipt and took her drink to the "fixins bar" where, as her hands shoved deep into the bin to grab the last few Splenda packets, she thought to herself "The last time my hand was in this physical space was before I said that." Funny, she always thought of herself as quite a progressive woman, how could she have let that one slip? "Damn... If only I was less...well, less whatever...," she hummed in tune with the equally-vague tragic-folkster pop music dripping from the ceiling.

She wondered how much more seating there would be were the place not infested with car-deprived kids looking for a place to escape the void that is being too young to drive. She laughed, knowing that in a year or so, they'll be just as bored -- however, in more places and farther from home. Regardless, she found a small round table at which to sit and plan.

Some college kids were joking around, one of the young women saying that she wouldn't eat that cookie being ingested by her young male companion, as it is full of junk and "we are what we eat," after all. A particularly-goofy-looking member of the group, no-mean-feat when sitting at a table inhabited solely by awkward-aged youths, shot back -- looking at her neon-colored frappucino drink -- "Well, remember, you are also what you swallow, angel-face!"

The accidental wisdom of the frat boy's inadvertent triple-entendre was lost on Carla, sitting still -- earnestly perched at her table with her planner like Melville's Bartleby -- unconsciously trying hard to shake going back and never quite going forward. Just Carla. Sitting. Still. Swallowing before she ever put a drink to her lips, and drowning. One visit at a time.

Go-To-Hell Day

BFK History Lesson #13: Today, in 1875, United States President Hickory Glebfletch (or something like that, as who can remember the names of those late-1800s guys?) signed legislation designating November 9th as National Go-To-Hell Day. One of the lesser holidays in the constellation of nationally-enshrined dates, GTH Day is today shunned by major cardmakers such as Hallmark, and even pathetic mall-based wannabes like Carleton Cards. Hell, good luck even finding an e-card for GTH Day.

President Glebfletch noted in his then-private diary that the idea came to him during the Civil War, while engaging in one of his nightly sessions of auto-erotic self-asphyxiation. These sessions were typically held in a large broom closet in front of a lit tapered candle, a daguerréotype of former-President Franklin Pierce, and a copy of a letter he wrote to Pierce, calling him out for being what was then referred to as a "doughface" (e.g., Sen. Joe Lieberman would qualify for this label these days). Thinking back upon the exchange, Glebfletch wished he had simply told Pierce to "go to hell", as had he done so, he might not need these nightly sessions to get by, day-to-day.

That feeling of lost opportunity for liberation evolved over time into a personal moral code based on what Glebfletch referred to as "cathartic expressionism". Displaying the awesome and unique power of a typical late-19th-century Presidency, he routinely invited Congressmen to the White House, only to beat them savagely with a tobacco stick made of oak. While certainly contributing to his one-term Presidency, these routine beatings also contributed to many votes in favor of his pet piece of legislation, National Go-To-Hell Day.

Thus, to properly honor our political ancestry, we at BFK bid you to go to hell. Good day.

iHate You, iPod

Dear iPod,

You took your own life, you selfish bastard, and you took 20G of my tunes with you. So, iWanted to let you know that iHate you. No, iLoathe you. Rest in pieces, asshole. My only consolation is that you were Catholic, meaning that since you took your own life, instead of being reconditioned the only thing you have to look forward to is the damnation of waiting hundreds of years until WALL-E picks up your guts and shits you out in a brick. iWish iCould be around to see it.

-C.B.

Stick it to Sweden: Burn the Elk

The BBC reports that cute, fluffy little bunnies are no longer just warming the hearts of Swedes, but now their homes, as well!

Residents in Stockholm are divided over reports that rabbits are being used to make biofuel. The bodies of thousands of rabbits are fuelling a heating plant in central Sweden, local newspapers say. ..."They are a very big problem," he said.

"Once culled, the rabbits are frozen and when we have enough, a contractor comes and takes them away." The frozen rabbits are then taken to a heating plant in Karlskoga which incinerates them to heat homes..raw animal material is crushed, ground and then pumped to a boiler where it is burned together with wood chips, peat or waste to produce renewable heat.

We at BFK are offended by these cold-hearted Swedes. "Why not burn elk?", we would ask. Elk are bigger and would produce a lot more heat. Oh ...wait ..damn... Elk are the national animal of Sweden. Elk are clearly more equal than other animals (e.g., bunnies) in Sweden.. so we surely wouldn't want to offend the elk and their cold-hearted protectors.

Even on a superficial level, do elk deserve this privileged status? Let us share this clip with you about what nasty pieces of work are elk:



BFK has it from a mysterious Swedish source, who only asked to be identified as "Elke Elkinson," that the elk in Sweden are actually the muscle behind that country's large underground network of puppy mills. A large part of the profit from the sale of abused puppies goes straight to Sweden's corrupt political underbelly as protection money for the elk.

Sure, if you look it up online, Sweden appears to have no puppy mills. As we know all-too-sadly, a large percentage of those puppies die before sale or after whelping their millionth litter. Thus if Sweden had puppy mills, there would have to be some evidence, but there appears to be none! Or...is there? Swedish meatballs, anyone? Have you ever asked a Swede what exactly is in those meatballs? Not only are the Swedes letting the elk dictate the mass slaughter of fuzzy, cute, puppies and bunnies, but they are shipping that "food" over here, corrupting the purity of our natural bodily fluids.

Crazy, you ask? No, our friends, not crazy. Look, did you know that Sweden is a "cruel Maoist state"? We think you should have a look at the evidence over at http://swedenamaoiststate.blogspot.com. If that doesn't get you walking towards the truth, we don't know what will.

We at BFK are proposing June 6th (Sweden's National Day) as "International Burn the Elk Day". We need to stick it to these cruel Swedes to show them we mean business. It's the puppies/bunnies or the elk.

Death Jam

OK, so today's post is a poll / survey, and NOT a how-to column!! This is merely an intellectual exercise in combining art and fate.

Question: If you knew you were going to do yourself in, what would be the soundtrack to your demise? Send in your top-three, in order (1=first choice, 2=second choice, etc).

BFK will go first:

1. "Please Mr. Postman" from The Beatles' Second Album, The Beatles
2. "Vera Lynn" from The Wall, Pink Floyd
3. "The Sounds of Silence", 45 r.p.m. single, Simon and Garfunkel

Recent Signs of the Apocalypse #1

Craven narcissists like Senators Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson are able to hold the public option hostage like it's some easy-mark cheap-dime street girl they saw rummaging through the top-end trash at Starbucks for cookie leftovers when no one was looking. It's probably even chained to a radiator in one of their D.C. townhouses. Sources in our head tell us the chain is coated with velour, of course.

Choco-Crack

As some of you know, I am away on assignment through December (at least ;-)); stripping off the layers of barnacles having grown on me from living in shit-town for the last four years.

Yesterday, a small quest was completed, as I finally found a store carrying TASTYKAKE! It wasn't a complete display, but it did have Tastykake's form of choco-crack known as "chocolate cupcakes". These are the richest, most dense, best frosted cupcakes available. They were addicting when I was a kid and they are every bit as good now.

Oh, there are competitors, but they are black holes next to the beatific light of Tastykake. Hostess? Grossest. Drakes? Fakes. Little Debbie? What the fuck does she know about anything, that saccharine little sot.

If you've never been in "the presence", do yourself a favor...mmmmmmmm.

TN: The Worst Getting Worserer

Tennessee continues its bid to be officially named the worst place on earth. Today, news sources report that at the TN statehouse in Nashville:

For nearly two hours, lawmakers discussed and heard testimony on a bill allowing people with handgun-carry permits to keep their guns in their vehicles on the parking lots of their workplaces -- regardless of their employer's policy on the issue.

It makes complete sense that in a state with unemployment at 10.8% and rising, that crazy debate over crazier gun laws would be the priority. You'd think the Volunteer State would have gotten the crazy out if its system this past spring when it legalized guns in public parks, restaurants, and bars.

In other news, BFK reporters on hand at the statehouse learned from anonymous GOP sources that a deal was near with Democrats to allow state funds for stem-cell research. The possible deal is based on the provision that half of such funding go toward research aimed at using stem cells to allow people to grow gunracks on the back of their heads.

Ask Grumpus: Beatles vs. Snoopy

Dear Grumpus,

In the 1960s, John Lennon blasphemed that The Beatles were "bigger than Jesus". Comparing a rock band with our redeemer is sin of the worst sort, but are the Beatles bigger than Snoopy?

Tidings of comfort and joy,
Moe
Pigeon Cutlet, Arkansas


Dear Moe,

I am thanking you for the words ending in ? that you ask me. Grumpus can be answering your question, yes. Quite.

Google Trends is making graph below of search volumes. I type in "Beatles" and "Snoopy" and Google makes it so. Graph telling Grumpus that indeed, Beatles being bigger than Snoopy -- every day. However, Grumpus doing sublevel analysis and seeing that there is ONE place in world where Snoopy being bigger than Beatles. That'm place being Guatemala. Grumpus would be reminding Moe that in 1980s, Amnesty International calling Guatemala "...peerless cesspool of human rights abuse". That being gooding reason forced people liking Snoopy more than Beatles.


Also, Moe -- Grumpus pointing out that biggest of beagle height being 1' 4", and average height of Beatle being 5' 11" (not counting star of Ringo). Thus, Beatles being bigger than Snoopy.

Moe -- by same Grumpus process of logicating, Beatles also likely bigger than Jesus, as in his'm time men being average on 5' 1".

So...Snoopy bigger than Beatles? That'm ridickling.

Your friend,
Grumpus

You Want Thrust? You Got It....

...and NASA's got 3.6 million pounds of it (22,000,000 horsepower) for you...