Stay Away From People Whose Nerve Endings Extend Beyond Their Bodies

This is how I feel this fine Caturday:

That’s not an aura, it’s a visual manifestation of a force field comprised of nerve endings that you don’t want to get within 6 feet of (it’s for your own safety).

Here is an alternate, less disturbing, illustration. It’s a postmodern interpretation, somewhat amusing but the complete opposite of reality as everyone knows the pins should be the other way around.

 An ironic, postmodern cactus pin cushion

In other words, I don’t feel like being messed with today.

But be sure to come back tomorrow when I will describe my recent trip to the DMV. While I can’t blame the experience for my prickly persona it surely did not help.

Don’t Be Left Behind

I can already tell this is how my day is going to go:

So I’m leaving the commentary to you today. Don’t be left behind.

We’ve Come A Long Way Baby; Thank You Madelaine

I see that Madelaine Albright has passed, may she rest in peace. Hard to say what she was most famous for: being a holocaust survivor, a first wave feminist, first female U. S. Secretary of State or for the lame comment she made in support of Hillary’s bid for Presidential nominee:  “There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.”

The full quote was:

“Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember - there's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.”

At the time she was hectoring young women for being Bernie Bro’s rather than one of Hillary’s Hadrians.

You go ‘girl’

There’s still a cadre out there that thinks women should vote their lady parts exclusively. But honestly, “gender equality” has probably run its coarse now that anything goes: women can be men and men can be women – and even compete as “female” athletes! Even “lady parts” have become optional in the great awakening of new age feminism.

When even Harvard educated feminist candidates for the Supreme Courts can’t tell a man from a woman without a biology degree I would submit we no longer need worry about gender equality. I think we’ve finally hammered that beast into submission.

‘Fallon’ Fox, transgender female wrestler and MMA fighter.

A Canadian transgender athlete, ‘Rachel’ McKinnon, who was born a male, was slammed after becoming the first to win a cycling world women’s championship in 2018.

Hannah Mouncey (right) playing women's Australian Rules football

The term “level playing field” now applies only to economics and POC. But don’t worry, the “fairness” will continue until none of us can define “woman” without a proper biology degree.

We’ve come a long way baby; that’s where good intentions without mindful consideration gets you.

Black Magic, Ju Ju and Voodoo

There has always been a strong belief amongst Nigerians in the old ways, including voodoo and black magic. There still is: The hunt for Nigerians who can change into cats.

Belief in African traditional religions and its juju components are widespread in Nigeria, with many combining them with either Christianity or Islam, according to a 2010 report by the Pew Research Centre.

Many Nigerians believe that magic charms can allow humans to morph into cats, protect bare skins from sharp blades and make money appear in a clay pot.

Questioning supernatural capabilities is taboo in much of Nigerian culture.

While this belief system sounds bizarre to “normal” people it is revered by many Africans of all social strata:

These beliefs are not just held by the uneducated, they exist even at the highest level of Nigeria's academia. 

Dr Olaleye Kayode, a senior lecturer in African Indigenous Religions at the University of Ibadan, told the BBC that money-making juju rituals - where human body parts mixed with charms makes money spew out of a pot - really work.

Jude Akanbi, a lecturer at the Crowther Graduate Theological Seminary in Abẹ́òkúta, can be unequivocal about juju.

“This capacity to be able to transform yourself to [a] cat, to fade away and reappear, these things are possible in the characteristics of conventional religion that is african. – BBC

   

Thus every year there are ritual killings to harvest “body parts” in the ritual intended to make “money fly out of clay pots” to make people rich through no effort of their own other than, perhaps, the killing of a young girl.

The voodoo and ju ju priests use the belief in the ancient slave god Ayelala, to lure thousands of West African women into sex slavery in Europe and Britain every year – thereby making money fly out of their pots if not their followers. Oddly the West no longer seems to spend much time over this atrocity, neither condemning or curtailing it. Priorities, I suppose.

West Africa was once also the major market for transatlantic slaves and today, in a chilling echo of that role, Benin City has become the main hub for trafficking African prostitutes to the streets of London, Rome and Paris. – Daily Mail

It’s a mystery to me why Black Lives Matter so much in the West but no so much in Africa, where you would think they would. I’m equally unclear on why we are not allowed to acknowledge that one culture is superior to another when it clearly is, as far as human rights are concerned. Either we’ve lost our moral compass, lost our way or simply don’t know where we’re headed.

Given current circumstances I’ll go with the later.

It seems the most logical explanation.

This Message Was Brought To You By The Politico-Media Complex

With inflation running rampant and no power to do a thing about it I have decided to embrace it. Therefore, with the powers vested in me, I hereby declare the third day of the week to henceforth be known as Tiny Tuesday.

We begin by bringing back the Mini-meal. This, as you may recall, was first popularized by our then FLOTUS, Lady M, known at the time as somewhat of a giant in the ranks of nutritionists .

She single-handedly brought new meaning to ‘bite-sized’ food.

Little did we appreciate at the time that this was just a drill for the real deal to arrive with the second coming of Barack, the Lightbringer, in the guise of a potato. But this time it’s apparently for real: I understand that Dunkin’ Donuts has officially changed their name to Shrunkin’ Donuts.

So embrace this new diet imposed on us by our betters for our own good.

And remember: your government has determined at various times that salt, fat, sugar, carbs, caffeine and fossil fuels are not good for you. So continue to enjoy them, but do so responsibly (as determined by our nutritional and clean energy betters).

This message was brought to you by the Politico-Media complex

And The Lion Will Lay Down With The Lamb…

Of course it’s unlikely,

but it could happen. That’s just how crazy the world is.

Who’s Pulling His Strings Today?

Everything has its own class system, and where there is a class system there is going to be a struggle. Take puppet wranglers for instance, not to be confused with puppeteers, they sit at the very bottom of the puppeteering world.

Puppet wrangling is an on-set position unique to Henson and Henson-adjacent companies like Sesame Workshop and the Muppets. It is a highly specific subspecialty that requires a varied set of skills, not the least of which is knowing how to build and repair puppets. There are only about 25 people in the world who work as full-time wranglers — and they are currently seeking union representation, something that has eluded them since the job first emerged with the rise of Sesame Street and The Muppet Show in the late 1970s. - THR

Wranglers are considered craftspeople, as opposed to  the puppeteers who work the puppets and are presumed to be the ‘talent’ and hence members of the elite SAG-AFTRA puppeteers union. The ‘talent’ doesn’t want the riff-raff craftsmen in their union. The puppet wranglers claim they are treated as an underclass, subject to abuse and unsafe conditions:

Buckets of dangerous flammable polyester resin, the stuff puppets are made of, in the Henson Creature Workshop.

The lowly wrangler is a puppet builder who works on set.

“You’re the talent coordinator for a puppet, basically,” says Rachel Burson, a wrangler herself, “You make sure the puppet’s in the right outfit, holding any props that they need to be holding and rigged to do any specialty moves.” 

Puppeteers sit at the top of the puppetry ecosystem; they are the ones who  “flap their hands around and make funny voices and are told they are the talent.”

“If a puppet breaks — which they frequently do — they toss them to us and tell us to fix it.”

Wrangles seek membership in the SAG-AFTRA puppeteers union, but the puppeteers want nothing to do with these “lesser” creatures. They suggest they recognize their place in the order of things and join the IATSE’s (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) props union, Local 44 (the same union responsible for putting a live bullet in poor Alec Baldwin’s prop gun).

I don’t know which union puppet wranglers belong in but I do understand that both unions, along with the unaffiliated ABPM (American Brotherhood of Puppet Masters) have filed suit to force all members of Joe Biden’s administration to join their ranks.

They certainly make a compelling case.

At any time you don’t know who’s pulling his strings or who has their hand up his butt, but you do know for a fact somebody does.