Going Postal

Ode DeJoy

(written and sung by George A. Denino, with apologies to Ludwig von Beethoven)

He’ll delay your mail-in ballot
Slow things down so Trump can win.
Your prescription? Not his problem.
Tell it to your next of kin.
He’ll force you to vote in person,
Catch corona, maybe die;
Such a tiny sacrifice so
Louis can support the lie.
Though you may die,
He’ll never cry.
And your death will surely validate his campaign buy.

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Coming To Terms With Religion in America

Christianity or Sanctimonious Cultism?

Definitions:

freedom of religion: The right to choose a religion (or no religion) without interference by the government. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment (see also First Amendment) to the Constitution. (See separation of church and state.)

Christian: Etymology - The Greek word Χριστιανός (Christianos), meaning "follower of Christ", comes from Χριστός (Christos), meaning "anointed one",[13] with an adjectival ending borrowed from Latin to denote adhering to, or even belonging to, as in slave ownership.[14] In the Greek Septuagint, christos was used to translate the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Mašíaḥ, messiah), meaning "[one who is] anointed."[15] In other European languages, equivalent words to Christian are likewise derived from the Greek, such as Chrétien in French and Cristiano in Spanish.

cargo cult noun: any of various Melanesian religious groups characterized by the belief that material wealth (such as money or manufactured goods) can be obtained through ritual worship 

The American Constitution grants and guarantees freedom of religion to its citizens, a majority of which profess to be Christians. Yet one would hardly recognize the political policies and cultural actions embraced by today's evangelical Christians as in any way consistent with the words and actions of the Christ they claim to follow.

The anointed one of the New Testament is the exemplar of the bleeding heart liberal today's evangelical Christians mock.

He gave His life for others. They proclaim the superiority of conservative values and trickle-down economics in order to begrudge every penny collected and spent on those less fortunate than themselves.

Misled by wolves in shepherd's clothing in a church aligned with a political party whose policies are shaped by greed, the sheep of America's self-righteous right have turned Christianity into little more than a capitalistic version of a cargo cult with Donald Trump as their messiah.

A Prescient Peanuts Prognostication

Play Ball

Charles Schulz died on February 12, 2000. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was ten years old, and acceptable behavior for women was still defined by a culture which generally viewed them as inferior to men. If women didn't like that situation, they were free to complain, but they were undeniably expected to play ball politely in a game with rules rooted in male chauvinism.

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In a series of comic strips inked in 1973, Schulz foreshadowed the day when women like AOC would reject culturally assigned second-class citizenship and respond to belittling attacks by chauvinistic men not with polite acquiescence, but with strength and conviction.

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Killing Two Birds

Snowflakes

With a single word, this Jesus & Mo comic posits a beautiful, crystal clear, ice-cold refutation of the Creationist argument against evolution and demonstrates how zealots use claims of victimhood when they are confronted by facts and logic.

link to all Jesus & Mo comics

Trump, The Pitcher

Trump's Situational Pitch Selection

Fast Ball

Shortly before Dr. Anthony Fauci threw a wild first pitch at the Washington Nationals season opener against the New York Yankees on July 27, Donald Trump announced at a White House briefing that he had been asked to throw out the first pitch for the Yankees at a game on August 15.

Curve

Trump was pitching a a lie, of course; but using Trumpian logic, he could legitimately claim his pitch was superior to Dr. Fauci's wide toss because his lie hit its target and deflected attention away from the doctor and toward himself.

Slider

When the news broke that the Yankees had actually never asked Trump to throw out a first pitch, he announced that he had cancelled his mound appearance because he was booked solid on August 15, the day on which it had never been scheduled to occur. 

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The Umpire's Calls

Balk

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Screwball

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Trump's Favorite Pitch

A Timely Tune

Note (actually twenty-eight measures of notes): This post is apolitical and consists of blatant self-promotion of a short, original musical composition about the coronavirus lockdown.

I am a frustrated fifty-four year member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS). I direct one chorus on Mondays and sing in a second chorus on Thursdays. Well, I used to until the COVID-19 virus shut them both down in March. 

Because I dabble in composing original music and had nothing better to do, I finished a song I started writing forty years ago. It was supposed to be a show opener for "Denino’s Home-Grown Harmony,” the quartet I sang in with my three sons in the 1970s and 80s. The melody and half of the lyrics were in my head when the quartet broke up.

Thanks to boredom caused by the forced lockdown of the global pandemic, I located the unfinished song in a seldom-visited corner of my memory,  dusted it off, and and completed it using my trusty iMac.

The theme of the story told in the lyrics is new, but the question asked at the beginning and the answer at the end are forty years old. Some might even say the answer is timeless. 😎

Click the song title below to hear the virtual singer module of Harmony Assistant, the music composition software I used sing...

COVID Caprice

(A lockdown lament becomes a pandemic paean.)

What can you do when you want to sing,
but COVID ls lurking around?
You need a barbershop chord to ring,
but alone you can’t make that sound.
Sing in the shower, and what do you get?
Soap in your eyes and a sound that’s all wet!
So, what can you do when you miss your quartet
and you find yourself all alone? 

Can’t see your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother ‘cause you’re stuck at home all alone with your honey. 

I tell ya, “You can make music.
Two can make music, beautiful music at home!”

Enjoy!

George

"They" and "Our"

Donald J. Trump is using these two dog-whistle words to call out to his brainwashed base for acts of violence that will help him become a dictator in fact as opposed to the dictator by presidential decree and executive order he has been since his inauguration.

If you don't recognize that reality fter nearly four years of his divisive rhetoric, government chaos, and attacks on those who have tried to defend the rule of law, you are part of the problem.

Down In The Polls, Trump Pitches Fear: 'They Want To Destroy Our Suburbs'
July 22, 2020 5:00 AM ET
Tamara Keith

President Trump is making a play for suburban voters by trying to convince them that if Democrat Joe Biden wins, then crime will be rampant.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

 To read and/or listen to the Tamara Keith's NPR article, click here, or on the title above.

~ ~ ~

Trump is pitching fear to his base, but the real threat to America comes from Trump himself.

This rewrite of the Pledge of Allegiance cuts to the chase to make clear where Trump, his supporters, and his enablers in the GOP will take us if he is reelected in November.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Divided States of America, and to the Theocracy for which it stands, one Plantation under Trump, inconsolable, with fascism and bondage for all.