Not-so-secret shade

It will come as no surprise to you when I state the blindingly obvious: we are living in strange, strange times, when a former body-builder and star of The Last Action Hero can rebuke the President of the United States for lack of moral compass.

It’s truly weird, because Arnold Schwarznegger has a history of being a dick. Look—just Google it, you’ll see. Literally, if you want. He’s had documented conversations that are right up there with grab ‘em by the pussy. And his inability to keep it in his trousers is as slimy a story as you’re going to encounter.

Moreover, it’s plausible that, back when the Kleptocrat started thinking about his run, he looked at Schwarznegger’s two-term stint as Governor of California and thought, “if that German asshole—he wouldn’t have made the distinction between German and Austrian—can be governor, I can be president.”

If so, Conan the Barbarian has a lot to answer for.

Whatever. You’ve probably seen this video of Schwarnegger schooling Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops on being a Nazi-hugging loser, but it’s worth revisiting.

However, it turns out that Schwarznegger is no stranger to throwing shade on politicians, as witnessed by this veto letter he sent to the California legislature in 2009 for a bill allocating funds for redeveloping the port of San Francisco:

Unremarkable, until you look at the first letter of each line.

I bring this up because we’ve been seeing this kind of thing recently in resignation letters submitted by various people the Kleptocrat had hoped to co-opt to lend credibility to his imperium. I have two examples, post-Charlottesville, from the Arts Council, and from the Science Envoy of the State Department.

Note the first letter of each paragraph—the message goes from RESIST to IMPEACH.

Naturally, the Kleptocrat will scoff that he don’t need no stinkin’ arts advisors, and we all know what he thinks about science. He hasn’t even bothered to lie about disbanding the organizations, as he did about his two CEO advisory councils.

But it is truly a bizarro universe where the immigrant has a better grasp of both our language and governmental processes than a sitting president, and where anti-regime messages hide in plain sight. I would not be at all surprised if I started seeing Vs scrawled on walls and hearing dot-dot-dot-dash tapped on coffeehouse tables.

Writing on the wall

Let’s have a bit of history by way of intro to today’s post—going back to the golden years of another Republican administration, when thousands of men moved from town to town across the country, searching for work. This being before the days of Geico, they mostly hitched illegal rides on freight trains, congregated in camps known as Hoovervilles and performed odd jobs in exchange for food.

Kind of like the men who hang out around Home Depots looking for work as day laborers.

Anyhow, this confraternity of traveling men developed a kind of hieroglyphic shorthand scrawled on various flat surfaces to communicate with those who followed, to guide them, warn them and share general insights. Viz.:

Not sure how much it will resonate with the general readership, but this updated chart of hobo-like signs for freelance writers is spot-on.

Coffee hour in the church hall

Let’s go for a different sort of lunacy today—the Twitter kind.

I don’t even know how I came across this post on Sunday, but you know that once I saw it, I had to drill down. And the Twitters-dot-com did not disappoint.

But I believe I liked this response the best:

Cosmic convergence

Well, the sun hid behind the moon today. Several of my friends traveled to the path of totality (one to Wyoming, one to Knoxville, Tenn., and one to Columbia, S.C.). I’m looking forward to their reports,* especially whether the temperature dropped, birds stopped singing and vampires came out.

Here in the District They Call Columbia, we had only 81% coverage, and none of those things happened.

Well, except for the vampires part:

(Honestly—everyone on the planet has been told a squillion times not to look into the sun without protective glasses. This is proof positive that the Kleptocrat absolutely will not learn anything.)

What a maroon.

I went out with my ISO-certified eclipse glasses (pro tip: only wear those suckers when you’re looking up at the sun; they’re as black as the inside of a cow) around 1350 and checked periodically as the sun disappeared. It was both hot and humid, so I’d have welcomed a drop in temperature, but no luck.

Le tout Washington was out there, with glasses, pinhole cardboard and aluminium-foil-covered cereal boxes. I’m not entirely ashamed to say that the thought occurred to me that Monday, at around 1430, would have been an excellent time to knock over a liquor store, because everyone was out gawping at the sky.

Look: even without the grandeur of the totality, it was still an awesome experience, watching that sun disappear. You really can understand how primitive cultures in pre-science days and in the Republican Party could puke with terror. I didn’t get any photos that were worth sharing, but here is some stunning video, courtesy of NASA, in Idaho:

But it was on my trip home on Metro, checking my Twitter feed, that the moon’s ability to throw shade was assured:

*Knoxville: "Aside from giving birth, seeing the total eclipse was the most amazing experience of my life. Literally wept in awe." 

Peace out, my brothers and sisters.

Gratitude Monday: for the birds.

On this day of a total eclipse of the sun being visible to a swath of the country starting in Oregon and running through to South Carolina—I’m grateful that yesterday, as I went about my Sunday tasks, we had an exceptionally find day for August, and I had my patio door open so I could watch and hear a variety of birds at the feeder.

Listen, after the previous seven days, this is a huge blessing.