CRANKY OLD FART #279
leftovers & links
Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023
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On Sunday I went to my brother's house for our monthly movie together, and we happened to catch a few minutes of a TV newscast.

And holy crap it was awful. The anchors were mugging for the camera, all the reports were "live!" but too brief to carry much real information, everyone's hair was perfect, the news they were talking about wasn't news, and then of course, several minutes of commercials.

It's been years since I watched TV news regularly, and it sucked then. What it does now makes the word 'suck' seem inadequate.

I'm re-typing the old Pathetic Life entries day-by-day, and on Saturday I typed the Monday entry, and thought I'd saved it. On Monday I went to finalize it, maybe add an illustration and hit 'publish', but it wasn't there. I had to re-re-type it.

It already wasn't very good. Re-typing something not very good that I'd already re-typed is double un-good. I used to be kinda slightly proud of Pathetic Life, but the more of it I re-type, the more flaws I see. Some of the entries seem OK or even worth reading, in my opinion, but a lot of it's lame, and for me all of it's a rerun.

I'll stick with it — only a few months remain — but I'm looking forward to the end of it. Probably you are, too.

My pal Leon is a football fan and he knows I'm not, so I thought he was kidding with me when he said the Pro Bowl had switched to flag football this year. He was not kidding.

"I don't see us going back in any way," [the BFL Commissioner] said of the event, which concluded Sunday in Las Vegas. "I think this is the future for us."

Hell, yeah — make it the NFL's future. Switch the whole damned league to flag football. It's less savage, less violent and warlike, less likely to cause concussions, and I can't imagine it would lead to as much heavy drinking and wife-beating as the tackle game does every Sunday.

It must be part of getting old, but I don't understand the why of it: Some days I can reach around and wipe my ass just fine, nice and tight, a clean sweep leaving everything tidy after a poop. Other days I can't quite get there.

Cal Worthington was probably the most successful of the 'wacky' car dealers, famous for his "I'll eat a bug" commercials on TV. I worked at one of his dozens of dealerships, met the guy, had lunch with him once, and he was a lot more boring in person than on the tube.

He's been dead for ten years, and now his brand name is about to be sold and die, too. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we all fall down...

For no good reason I can think of, it's apparently illegal to ride a bicycle across the Bay Bridge.

I say people, not cars, build bridges and freeways, and a two-ton ticket shouldn't be necessary for access. Bikers, skateboarders, and just plain people should be welcome on any public infrastructure.

Got a job interview tomorrow. Root for me. I usually stink at interviews.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• World leaders debate whether it's okay to kill people with terminator-style robots

• Human Rights Campaign delivers alarming brief on the state of anti-LGBTQ legislation

• "Open source" seeds loosen big ag's grip on farmers

• JPMorgan Chase is accused of inside info participating in Epstein's sex-trafficking venture

• 'Forever chemicals' have made their way to farms, says researcher

• Roald Dahl rewrites: edited language in books criticized as "absurd censorship"

Am I the only person not outraged by this? Dahl was born more than a century ago. Things have changed. Some of the publisher's changes are a tad inartful, but there's none of them draw blood. It's not a big deal, and it seems like a good idea, to make some very slight alterations when the books are reprinted.

• State cops in Georgia 'investigate' local cops after "public outcry" over brutality caught on video a year ago

• What happened to 70 cops involved in notorious killings

• A metal detectorist is suing the FBI, claiming he alerted them to 7 tons of Civil War-era gold and they took it away in a secret overnight dig

• Big-money right-wing group is spreading misinformation to stop solar projects in rural America'

• Taylor Greene wants 'national divorce' of red and blue states

• Election-denying demon-hunter will chair Michigan Republican Party

Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going

• Click

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Clicks ahoy

• Treating PTSD with psychedelics

• Media treats Ohio derailment like an act of god

♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫

• Canon In D Major — Johann Pachelbel

• Fame — David Bowie

• Nights in White Satin — The Moody Blues

• Something in the Air — Thunderclap Newman

• What is Truth? — Johnny Cash

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

• Richard Belzer

• Barbara Bosson

• Simone Edwards

• Chuck Jackson

• Jansen Panettiere

2/21/2023
Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, LiarTownUSA, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Captain Hampockets, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.