Hello, and welcome back to another biweekly with yours truly, your truly beloved. Iām writing at least part of this from a doctorās office where Iām having my back looked at because getting older is HILARIOUS. (Ask me about my insoles!) But no amount of making an unintentional āgrrrahhhā sound when I try to stand up could stop me from bringing you the freshest (or up to two weeks old, depending on when you grab a paper) in news and gossip. Letās get to it, okay?
This Fuckinā Guy!
Iām sick of writing about the buffoon in the White House, but leading congressional Democrats still havenāt woken us from this nightmare by commencing impeachment proceedings. So. Here goes: As we know, Trumpās favorite activities are terrorizing immigrants and harassing people on Twitter, and courts recently handed down judicial spankings on both matters. First, a US appeals court in New York ruled that, like it or not, Trumpās tweets are part of the public record, and he canāt block people from seeing them even after they deliver such crushing criticism as āLolllllll no one likes you,ā which is what got our best pal Chrissy Teigen blocked back in 2017. Teigenās restored ability to tweet this at the president every five minutes until his presidency is over is the only silver lining to his not being impeached yet.
As far as harassing immigrants go, after the Supreme Court ruled that his administrationās nonsense reason for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census was, well, nonsense, Trump gave up and grumbled some different nonsense about getting the information from a different agency. Sure, buddy. Iām sure the same agency that you recently described as being responsible for storming the airports back in 1775 can help you with that.
Other Monsters but Still with That Fuckinā Guy!
I canāt fully wrap my head around whatās happening with recently arrested billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged pedophilia. (And who knows the extent to which his buddy Trump and people in his orbit were involved.) Since accusations of sex crimes against children are nothing to make haphazardly, Iāll just wait that one out. But I did find it interesting that R. Kelly was arrested again, also for charges relating to the sexual exploitation of children, and I learned from NPR that R. Kelly lives in (where else) but the Chicago Trump Tower. But Iām sure plenty of innocent people have dozens of sexual predators linked to them in some way or another. So Iāll totally withhold judgment.
Palate Cleanser!
Ugh, what horrific news all of that was! 2019 sucks! Please allow me to turn that frown upside down with news that the Oregon Zooās Asian elephant Chendra is pregnant with elephant child! I donāt know a lot of details about the reproductive rights of captive animalsāand thatās not a rabbit hole I will bring myself to go downābut I DO know that elephants have emotions and I hope her emotions are all the best ones right now. The several hundred-pound bundle of elephant joy is due in 2020. So next year is already guaranteed to be better than this one. Congratulations, Chendraāand us!
The Controversial Mermaid
Disney recently announced that they cast Black singer and actress Halle Bailey as Ariel in the upcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. People got mad, as they do. I got mad at first, too, because I read the news as Halle BERRY, not Bailey. Even though Halle Berry is amazing, I was not on board with a 52-year-old actress playing a teenage half-fish because whereās the logic in that?! Then I realized it was a different Halle, and this was a racism conversation, not an ageism conversation. But THEN I thought, we need to have a conversation about ageism, too! So now Iāll lobby for the next live-action adaptation princess to be post-menopausal. Like, what if they do Sleeping Beauty, but the princess ages while sheās waiting for her true loveās kiss and when a thirsty young prince comes along, the princess is 52 years old. Cast Halle Berry in THAT shit!
In Local News of Beverages We Donāt Have
Amazing news: Pabst Blue Ribbon is coming out with a canned cold coffee with booze in it! :) Terrible news: The cans are only available in five states, and Oregon isnāt one of them. :( While Iām positive that getting drunk off PBR coffee would give me the worst hangover of my lifeāwhich is saying somethingāIām really mad that I canāt experience it. This is the Taco Bell hotel they only put in California all over again! Oregon never gets the fun trash!
And you know what other kind of drink we donāt have in Portland and probably never had in Portland? Cement milkshakes! After a Portland Police Bureau tweet went viral a couple of weeks ago with the unsubstantiated claim that a few leftist protesters put quick-drying cement into the milkshakes they lobbed at Patriot Prayer dweebs, Mayor Ted Wheeler joined the collection of bureaucrats who would not admit that maybe that was a bad tweet. Instead he said that āthe word āmayā or āpossiblyā probably should have been included in that tweet.ā That is such a cop-out! You can put āpossiblyā in front of anything and that doesnāt make it a responsible public statement. For example: āPabst Coffee will possibly come to Oregon.ā Itās not totally a lie, but Iām mad again!
The Last Word
I donāt know about you, but my back pain is at least 85 percent relieved by working through all this with you. Sure, much of the pain has simply relocated to my heart and brain, but my back is grateful for the distraction! Now, the real last word to this weekās column is actually going to be two words, and they are as follows: Okay, bye!
