All serious and sanctimonious

 

CRANKY OLD FART #315

leftovers & links
Sunday, May 14, 2023

Retyping my old Pathetic Life zine, once in a while I find a typo that I didn't catch 27 years ago. Thursday's entry originally said, "Too tired and to busy to run to the maildrop…". Jeez, "to busy" — I am so embarrassed.

Here's a typo that's a little more problematic. The word I wanted was 'bigger', but I accidentally clicked the 'n', which is right next to the 'b' on a standard qwerty keyboard. That's a one-stroke error that produces perhaps the most vile word in the English language.

Accidents happen, but what startled me is that my spellchecker didn't flag it. The typo sat in my rough draft for days, and could've been published if I wasn't so far behind on my writing.

At the very least, wouldn't you expect the n-word to have little red squiggles under it, like any misspelled word? It's a word that cannot be spelled 'correctly', by civilized people.

What annoys me more is, I can't find a way to remove n*gger from my word processor's dictionary of approved English-language words.

And now that I'm prepping this for publication, I see that n*gger is also an approved word in Google's Blogger software. And again, there's no way to un-approve it.

It's a word that belongs in no software's 'standard' spellchecker as an AOK word. That I can accidentally type it and get no warning — like the warning I'm getting for AOK, above, or for n*gger, which the software considers misspelled — is seriously pissing me off, so where do I send a complaint that nobody will give a damn about anyway?

French actress Adèle Haenel, at very much the peak of her career, has announced that she's done, and why. She's sick of the rape and abuse, and how the French movie business has protected the most famous pervs, monstrous men like Gérard Depardieu and Roman Polanski.

What Haenel has done requires bigger balls than mine, and if you're not impressed you don't understand show business, or France. Even in Hollywood, the American film industry tries to be embarrassed by the ongoing rapes. In France, they don't even pretend.

Getting all serious and sanctimonious wasn't my intent today, but I'm enjoying it and there's more.

I didn't see a moment of the telecast, of course, but I'll mildly dissent from everyone's outrage at CNN, for holding a Trump 'town hall'.

It's CNN, so my assumption is that they handled everything poorly, probably on purpose, ran the event like Wrestlemania, and barely pushed back, or didn't, against Trump's lies. For all that, absolutely, blame CNN — they deserve every ounce of criticism. 

But it's bullshit to say, like this article, that CNN's telecast "normalized Trump's lies." Trump's lies have been normalized for years, CNN played a big part in that, and Wednesday was just another day for CNN and Donald Trump. They "didn't hold him accountable," but I don't remember CNN ever holding a politician accountable.

Lots of complainers are saying CNN shouldn't have given Trump a platform, but that's wrongheaded, too. You can't hate Trump as much as I do, but he is a former President of these United States. Covering him, especially as he's running to get the job back, is part of the news. 

All the major candidates will get their silly CNN 'town hall' telecasts, and Trump is a candidate so he gets one too.

CNN, meanwhile, will continue sucking, but not because they put an ex-President on TV. They'll suck because they're CNN, and sucking is what they do.

Tell me, please, why I should give a sliver of a damn about "the potential indictment of Hunter Biden."

"Here’s what we know about the investigation," says Vox, usually a credible source for news and analysis, but why does any of it matter to anyone not named Biden?

If there are grounds to indict him, indict him. Give him a trial, and if he's guilty, give him a prison cell. Nudge me when there's a verdict; maybe I'll care then.

It's Mother's Day. Do I gotta call my mom? 

Sigh. Probably.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• NY AG doles out wrist-slap fine to companies that helped telecom giants use fake and dead people to lie about net neutrality 

• Health insurance claim denied? See what insurers said behind the scenes. 

• New FDA blood donor guidelines end "no sex for three months" rule for gay men 

• Astronomers capture largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed

• Kagan worried about ethics of free bagels as Thomas accepted lavish trips from billionaire: report 

• Pansy basketball-player apologizes for calling Taiwan a country 

• Seattle Int'l Film Festival acquires and will re-open shuttered Cinerama

• FCC low income broadband program is a huge windfall for monopolies causing the broadband affordability problem we're pretending to fix 

• Hundreds of endangered seahorses released into the wild 

• Climate change, human misuse threatening Nile River, with flow of water likely to fall 70% by end of century 

• Multi-billion-dollar natural disasters are the new normal 

• Video showed an officer trying to stop his partner from killing a man. Now we know police investigators never even asked about the footage. 

• Mississippi deputies already under investigation for possible civil rights violations are now also accused of attempting to assault him and a second Black man with a sex toy during an interrogation 

• Police officer responded to man's 9-1-1 call, then stole his credit card information, authorities say 

• South Carolina man sues police after being shot at 47 times during mental crisis 

• Subway strangler's lawyers seek donations on the same right-wing 'Christian' fundraising site that's raised money for Jan. 6 defendants, Kyle Rittenhouse, etc. 

• Oregon Republican boycott threatens key bills on abortion and gun control 

• Tucker Carlson gets a new show, on Twitter of course 

• Why some people are spreading false rumors about the Texas gunman 

• Thomas's pal obstructing Senate probe 

• US soldier who shot BLM protester gets prison; Republicans object 

• In Brazilian court, US Rep Santos admits to theft 

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

• Click • Click • Click •
• Click • Click •

My browser history
without the porn

• The colored entrance is still there 

• Eric Burdon was the Eggman? 

• Rate the landlord.org 

• The world's oldest drag queen tells her story one last time 

♫♬  It don't mean a thing  ♫
if it don't have that swing

• Can You Read My Mind? — Margot Kidder

• Dream Weaver — Gary Wright 

• I'm Not Gonna Miss You — Glen Campbell 

• Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) — Kenny Rogers & The First Edition 

• Piano Man — Billy Joel 

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

• Dorothy Bohm 

• Rosemary Crossley 

• Don Denkinger 

• Yvonne Jacquette 

• Jack Rebney

5/14/2023   

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.  

Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, Dumnezero, Katameme, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration. 

Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, 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.

Cranky Old Fart
← PREVIOUS          NEXT →

itsdougholland.com
← PREVIOUS           NEXT →