Sifting Through the Lies
One of the problems with the Internet is that lies can be so widely and quickly disseminated. I know this from first-hand experience. Back around 2009 or 2010, I wrote a few lines in which I compared four California female politicians — Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer — to the witches standing around the caldron in “Macbeth.”
One of the problems with the Internet is that lies can be so widely and quickly disseminated. I know this from first-hand experience. Back around 2009 or 2010, I wrote a few lines in which I compared four California female politicians — Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer — to the witches standing around the caldron in “Macbeth.”
I wrote it in an article that appeared on my website back in the days that I still had one.
Someone liked the lines so much, he sent them viral. He was so successful that I still hear from people who are only now receiving it in their email. The problem is that he claimed that I had written it for the L.A. Times, a newspaper from which I’d parted company 30 years before. He also claimed that I had written it in response to some stupid thing that Sen. Feinstein had said about military veterans. I had, in fact, written in response to everything those four shrews had ever said and done.
The reason I am addressing this issue is because twice this morning, I have been sent an email that claimed that not only Joe Biden, but Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Mitt Romney, all have offspring who are connected to a Ukrainian energy company. That would certainly have been newsworthy if it was true. Unfortunately, I looked into it and it isn’t true.
It certainly wouldn’t shock me if the kids of these influential politicians were trading on their parents’ influence. It’s surely not uncommon and it needn’t even be a bad thing so long as it’s not quite as blatant as it was with the Bidens. After all, the children of the rich and famous do not start at the back of the line, whether they’re named Rockefeller, Kennedy, Bush, Clinton or, yes, even Trump. That does not necessarily make them villains.
But whoever sent out that rumor certainly knew it was a lie. It leads me to wonder why people do it, especially when, as in the case of Kerry, Pelosi and Romney, there are so many truths that are far worse than whether or not their kids derived financial rewards from their familial connections.
It would be more to the point to recognize how much these various heirs and heiresses will receive on the occasion of their parents’ deaths and to question the source of all those millions.
On the other hand, I do appreciate all those funny memes that have come my way that have connected the Clintons to other people’s suicides. Some of them take the form of Hillary and Bill sending their notes of condolence a week or so before the actual event.
One of my favorites lately pictured Mrs. Clinton standing next to a Christmas tree. The caption reads: “Decorating a Christmas tree takes a lot of hard work. Ornaments are like Jeffrey Epstein. They don’t just hang themselves you know.”
Back when I was asking for people’s least favorite song, I agreed with those who voted for John Lennon’s inane “Imagine,” which serves as something of an anthem for those pinheads who believe the U.N. is the answer to the world’s problems, not recognizing it to be the source of a lot of them.
Imagine, if you will, that someone could actually write “Imagine there’s no countries/It isn’t hard to do/ Nothing to kill or die for/ And no religion, too/Imagine all the people/ Living life in peace,” and being hailed as a genius.
It certainly helps explain why so many million nincompoops are eager to vote for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. Speaking of the mayor of South Bend, if Hillary Clinton’s election would have, as her supporters kept insisting, meant that she had broken through the glass ceiling, will they say the same thing about Buttigieg’s election breaking the glass ceiling for homosexuals? And if so, will Barack Obama step forward and say: “Not so fast”?
It often seems to me that most people will tell you it’s silly to confuse the people you see on the screen with the actors playing the parts. The lone exception, at least among Conservatives, seems to be John Wayne. I know that Wayne made no secret of his political beliefs and his patriotism, which puts him head and shoulders above the loons currently making movies.
But he was hardly unique in the 40s, 50s and 60s. People like George Murphy, Adolph Menjou, Irene Dunne, Shirley Temple, Ernie Borgnine, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Charlton Heston, Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Clint Eastwood, Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, Ward Bond, Frank Sinatra, Robert Taylor, Randolph Scott, Fred MacMurray and, of course, Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan, were all stalwart Republicans.
I suppose it’s because John Wayne, who never served in the military and was a notorious boozer and womanizer, portrayed screen heroes for so many years, not only in westerns, but in more than a dozen movies in which he portrayed gung-ho soldiers and Marines, that people eventually came to mistake him for the roles he played.
The only other movie star who came close to matching Wayne’s number of military roles was Frank Sinatra, another non-veteran, who appeared in uniform 10 times, starting with “Anchors Aweigh” and ending with “Von Ryan’s Express.”
Montgomery Clift doesn’t come close to those totals, but considering he only made 18 movies, it’s rather remarkable that he played soldiers four times in his first 10 films (“The Search,” “The Big Lift,” “From Here to Eternity” and “The Young Lions”) though, again, never in real life, although he was born in 1920.
Jacquetta Breedlove suggests sending Beto O'Rourke south to deal with the drug cartels running wild in Mexico by confiscating their guns. As she says, “He’s not doing anything now and he speaks the lingo.”
I’ll even buy him a burro just so I can see one ass riding another.
John Trout quotes Voltaire, who might well have had Muslims in mind when he wrote: “Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Marie Colburn sent along a few aphorisms, the best of which were “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you place the blame” and “We have enough ‘youth,’ what we need is a fountain of smart.
Dennis Stockton passed along a joke making the rounds in Australia.
A driver was pulled over by a cop for speeding. As the officer was writing out the ticket, he noticed a bunch of machetes in the backseat. "What the hell are those for?”
“I’m a juggler,” the man replied. “I use them in my act.”
“Show me,” the cop demanded.
Thinking it might get him out of the ticket, the driver eagerly grabbed the machetes and began juggling them. He started with three and worked his way up to seven. He juggled them overhand, underhand, and even behind his back, dazzling the officer.
As another car drove past, its driver did a doubletake and said to his passenger: “I really have to give up drinking, Charley. Just look at that new sobriety test they’re come up with!”
I won’t mention who, but one lady had a problem with my admitting I’m not religious. Because I suspect that others thought it, but didn’t bother writing, I’ll share our exchange.
She wrote: “For the record, I don’t believe in religion, either, but I do believe in a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If I am wrong, I will rest in peace, but what if you are wrong?”
I replied: “In that case, you will still rest in peace.”
