To Tweet or Not to Tweet

Over at Tengrain's place, the Patron Saint of Small Bloggers posed a hilarious challenge- come up with a suitably Shakespearean spoof to describe the current shitshow. The results in his comments were pure comedy gold. While I am on record stating that Shakespeare's Macbeth was an egregious hit piece, I will grudgingly admit that it is one damn fine play. Therefore, here is an expanded take on Tengrain's joke challenge, spoofing the infamous dagger scene in Macbeth Act 2, Scene 1:


Is this a smartphone which I see before me,
The keypad toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A smartphone of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy screen and buttons tweets of bile,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Vladimir's offerings, and wither'd treason,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Twitter's ravening screeds, towards his design
Haunts like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set bowl,
Hear not my tweets, which way they wend, for fear
Thy very tiles prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I tweet, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Mueller; for it is a tweet
That summons thee to vict'ry or defeat.


Now hurry up Mueller and bring Birnam Wood to Pennsylvania Avenue!

A Horticultural Jewel

One of the botanical jewels on our properties is a magnificent trumpet vine (Campsis radicans), an ostentatious plant native to the eastern United States. These plants can grow aggressively, potentially causing damage to host trees or structures on which they grow. Our specimen is particularly beautiful:

The bright flowers are about three inches long, perfectly suited for pollination by hummingbirds- in our neck of the woods, typically the ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris):

There were hummingbirds visiting our trumpet vine, but they stuck to the upper reaches of the plant, making decent photography with a phone camera a pipe dream. I did manage to photograph an ant on one of the flowers, though- these plants recruit ants to defend themselves with nectar-filled structures.

This showy plant is one of the horticultural jewels on our property... even better, it's a jewel that attracts other jewels, the gorgeous little birds that feed on and pollinate the flowers.

A Partial Fix for a Pernicious Problem

I don't discuss Alex Jones very often, though I feel that he shouldn't be ignored. The paranoid right-wing conspiracy theories he peddles, mainly warmed over Bircher nonsense seasoned with a touch of Nebel/Bell lunacy, have had a pernicious effect on political discourse- there's no real middle ground between people who oppose child prisons on the US border and people who believe that there are child slave camps on Mars. Jones is also a major pusher of the conspiracy 'theory' that there is a child trafficking ring run by powerful Democratic Party and 'Deep State' operatives. Meanwhile, politicians caught victimizing underage individuals are typically Republicans, conservative ones.

Jones' video suggesting that he wants to shoot Robert Mueller seems to have been a 'bridge too far', and Facebook suspended his personal account for thirty days. While this is a partial fix, Jones' Infowars account has not been affected- it's as if Facebook fixed a leaky faucet while leaving a torrent of raw sewage to continue to flow into the national memescape. There are hints that the Infowars page might be yanked, but I'm not holding my breath... it's not as if Zuckerb0rg has any moral fiber.

I've Heard this Song Before

For connoisseurs of outré news, Florida is a constant wellspring of wonder. My favorite Florida story of the week (nobody died, so this is guilt-free joy) is the tale of a woman who brandished a gun and compelled her Uber driver to help her with sketchy tasks:


Deputies said a woman named “Kimberly” accepted a dispatch from Uber to pick up Betty Jo Halter from Marvin's Garden Mini Storage and Business Center in Bunnell.

Investigators said Kimberly told them that Halter appeared frantic when she opened the door of the car and started loading items from a storage unit into the vehicle.

Kimberly asked Halter to stop what she was doing, but she continued to do so and then sat in the front passenger seat, deputies said.

When Kimberly asked Halter to get out of the car and remove her belongings, Halter pulled a gun from a pink Coach bag and pointed it at Kimberly, an arrest report said.


This story immediately reminded me of one of my favorite solo efforts by Wall of Voodoo frontman Stan Ridgway. I've long been a fan of Wall of Voodoo and have an appreciation for Mr Ridgway's noir sensibilities. These sensibilities are beautifully showcased by "Drive," She Said:





The promotional video even looks like a classic scene from a film noir. Of course, the femme fatale in Mr Ridgway's song wasn't dumb enough to go home, and the song was the time before phone apps which identify users. Florida just isn't sending us its best femme fatales.

Feast or Famine?

Last weekend, I was able to purchase a package of T-bone steaks for under $4/lb. It struck me as odd at the time, but yesterday I read of a meat glut, a 2.5 billion pound surplus of beef, pork, chicken, and turkey in cold storage. This meat glut (dibs on the name for my Industrial band) could be exacerbated by Trump's trade wars, which have inspired Mexico, China, and Canada to raise tariffs on 'Murrican meat. All that meat, and no markets to dump it on.

Conversely, there are reports that the United Kingdom's government has planned to stockpile food in case of a hard Brexit- thirty percent of the UK's food supply comes from the European Union, so any disruption in trade could force English people to eat past sell-by date Branstons Pickle, though eating a surfeit of lampreys may once more be viable. If there are food disruptions, this wouldn't be the first time a horrible UK government caused a famine.

Isn't conservative governance a grand thing?

A Hail and Farewell

This afternoon, on the job, I attended at hail and farewell luncheon for a well-liked co-worker, the administrative assistant of my immediate supervisor. She started off working at my principal worksite, and I took an immediate shine to her because of her quick wit and irreverent sense of humor. When she made the switch to the main office, I joked, "Now that we're in the same department, we'll see a lot less of each other." In her office position, she would often email me about the more outré aspects of my job, forcing me to describe procedures and equipment without resorting to jargon, which is an important skill to acquire.

Her husband got a job in the Pacific Northwest a few months ago, so she was tasked with holding down the fort in New York until their daughters finished the school year and she could put their house on the market. Buying a place in Cascadia is contingent on the sale of their current home. She's a smart, feisty woman, so I have no doubt that she will handle this task with aplomb.

At the going away luncheon, I ended up at a table with a bunch of muckey-mucks- our organization's president, two vice presidents (the head of HR and our head of community engagement). Our conversation started with a joke about my profile picture in the payroll system, specifically the fact that Ginger is 'photobombing' me. I then passed around my phone to show off some photos of other workplace companions, such as this gorgeous lady... we had a laugh about her being a member of the grounds crew, in charge of pond cleanup. It was a lovely time, they are an engaging bunch of people and they appreciated a window into what goes on when the bulk of our workforce is off.

The sendoff was a good one- everybody was excited about our friend's new adventure. We will miss her, with her professionalism and comedic skills, but she's going to excel in her new environs, and that outweighs any melancholy we might have felt.

Tronc Trounces Trump Trollers

In a depressing local development, the Tronc media group has laid off fifty percent of the NY Daily News editorial staff. This is a worrisome development, especially because the Daily News has been on a roll since the election of quintessential New York asshole Donald J. Trump. Remember, we loathed him long before you did. The Daily News has, time and again, taken Trump to the woodshed.

Long considered one of NYC's 'tabloid' newspapers, the 'News' has actually done a better job of holding Trump's feet to the fire than the NY Times. The 'Times' has been an embarrassing farrago of Trump shillery, endless Cletus safaris, and the worst exemplars of bothsiderism and dank rightie hot takes for altogether too long. The 'News' was more in tune with the needs of working and middle class readers... I guess that's why Tronc had to gut it.