When I was a kid, school was required five days a week, and I hated it.When I got old enough, I dropped out, but after that came work five days a week, which has been the story for 50 years now.Why haven’t more people noticed the rancid injustice in being allowed only two days a week to live their lives?Well, cut my chains. I’ve retired, on a small pension from nine years at an insurance company in the 2010s (the job I held longest in my life), plus Social Security that needs to come through soon, please.
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| CRANKY OLD FART #431 [archive] JUNE 17, 2024 |
The money won’t be a lot, so no trips to Bali, but my tastes have always been simple. The key to happiness is dreaming realistically. I’m going to leave my recliner sometimes, do some things and have some fun, mostly here in the Seattle area.There are 50 things on my list already, including a movie on Saturday — at a theater. Haven’t been to a movie theater in years! And do you know what’s the first liberation of retirement? No bedtime. Even on the weekends, working people need to keep an eye on the clock, to keep their sleep cycles on schedule for being back on the job Monday morning. Banish such thoughts for me, though — now I sleep with I’m sleepy, and wake when I’m wakey, with no obligations at all.Man, this is already the life.
Looking at discount prices and freebie days at the city’s museums, I came across this important rule: “No lighter-than-air (helium) balloons of any kind are allowed at the Seattle Art Museum or Seattle Asian Art Museum.”
OK, but don’t you want to know what went horribly wrong at the museum one day, to make them forever ban balloons?♦ ♦ ♦ And now the news…♦ ♦ ♦ This is Onion-level ridiculous, but it’s real: A Republican candidate for Congress used AI to fake an endorsement from Martin Luther King. 
At the height of COVID, the US military ran a disinformation campaign, trying to make Filipinos distrust the newly-introduced COVID vaccine — because it came from China.”We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective,” said a senior military officer involved in the program. “We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”So the Pentagon lied and people died — an ordinary day, in other words.
‘Qualified immunity’ is a genuine piece of judicial activism, a doctrine created from thin air by the Supreme Court, granting almost limitless immunity for almost anything police officers do. It’s why lawsuits over most of the worst atrocities by American police get tossed from court. So it’s news when a court notices that a cop’s done something so outrageous that a lawsuit will be allowed.
Google is testing a new way to make YouTube even suckier than they’ve already made it, and that’s saying something.
I’ve never been to an Alamo Drafthouse theater, because there’ve been none in the cities where I’ve lived, but the chain’s reputation is stellar. They show good movies, don’t force the audience to endure on-screen ads, eject customers who talk or text during the show, and top the popcorn with real butter. Everything most theaters do wrong, Alamo does right.Except that they’ve sold themselves to Sony. Which would’ve been illegal even a few years ago. Sony says nothing will change, but of course, things will change, and soon or in a few years, Alamo Drafthouse will start sucking.
⚡ LINKS FOR THINKS ⚡ Employers love surveillance of workers, and high-tech makes it easy News of Chomsky’s poor health prompts outpouring of gratitude What Lefty O’Doul’s career could have been Visit to Casa Bonita
♫♬ MUSIC YOU SHOULD HEAR ♫At 17
by Janis IanI Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore
by Woody GuthrieLook for the Union Label
by Joe GlazerRun from What’s Comfortable
by Pat the BunnyWho Woulda Thunk It
by Greg Brown
⚰️ DEAD PEOPLE ⚰️Bruce Bastian
WordPerfect John Everett Benson
tomb carver Rick Bevel
forgotten man Johnny Boone
Cornbread Mafia Buzz Cason
songwriter, “Everlasting Love” Paul Pressler
Christian child rapist T, a/k/a Vega
complicated but good unnamed
forgotten manBen Vautier
artist who loved his wife 
6/17/2024 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 the AVA, Bleepity-Bleep, Breakfast at Ralf’s, Chuff, Dirty Blonde Mind, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Lemmy.world, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, A Sudden Violent Jerk, Mr Souza’s Happy Place, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I’ve stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce,
Joey Jo Jo emeritus, Jeff Meyer, 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.
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