Smash Wednesday

I just watched the demolition of the El Trumpo Casino Hotel in Atlantic City.  I've never heard sustained cheering for a planned implosion before.

If you gave up drinking for Lent you may be kicking yourself right now, as word comes of the long-anticipated death of Rush Limbaugh.  He was 70, which is 164 in reptile years.  To paraphrase Bette Davis, "You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good.  Rush Limbaugh is dead.  Good."

Texas has frozen over.  I have deep compassion for the state's many good people, whose suffering is made worse by the incompetence and blame-hurling of their politicians.  Unwilling to excoriate the Christian god, Governor Greg Abbott is blaming his state's lack of preparedness on the "Green New Deal" and its proponents, especially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  A glance at the numbers shows this to be vicious nonsense, literally politicizing the state's failure to regulate just about everything.  The sun is shining and the wind is blowing, while refineries all over the state are closed for lack of power and water.  And I'm trying not to remember the 1970s oil crisis, when Texas cars sprouted bumper stickers that said "LET 'EM FREEZE IN THE DARK."  That meant us Yankees.  Fuck you, Abbott, but I hope your people survive, even the ones who voted for you.

Oh, and the first chucklehead who says "What global warming, look at all the snow, hur hur" will feel my size-nine boot up his trumpward end.

Abbott voters are not the only ones feeling like mutts right now.  The residents of Colorado City were chatting on Facebook about the possibility of warming centers being opened when Mayor Tim Boyd got tired of their whining and posted a uniquely-spelled letter that climaxed with "Only the strong will survive and the weak will perish."  It's all the fault of their "raising."  He may not be mayor anymore (the Dallas Morning News wasn't sure), but that doesn't mean he won't get re-elected.  Forget it, Jake, it's Texas. 

The aristocracy of white privilege mingled with the proles on 1/6.  L. Brent Bozell IV, known to his entourage as "Zeeker," has been charged with "obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct," which makes sedition sound like putting a horse in the dean's office.  I doubt he'll do any time but what would Great-Uncle Wm. F. Buckley, Jr., say?  Something pompous, I expect, although he could express himself in one-syllable words when provoked by Gore Vidal.

We've got a peach of a Florida Man story, or rather Men.  Two guys checked into the Wyndham Deerfield Beach Resort and began flashing fake credentials (including "U.S. Marshal" and "Cherokee Nation Marshal") and threatening people with arrest.  Were they after free rooms, or an upgrade, or exclusive use of the pool?  No, they just didn't want to wear masks.  And now they're under arrest.

So Mitch McConnell voted no on impeachment and then he got up in the Senate (where he used to be a big shot) and made a speech saying Trump was "practically and morally responsible" for the 1/6 terror attack.  So then Trump, who is still banned from all semi-respectable social media, put out a statement calling McConnell "a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack" who "begged" for his help to be elected to his eighth term in the Senate.  So then Lindsey Graham went on Hannity and said McConnell was "indispensable to Donald Trump's success,"  by which he meant losing the popular vote in two consecutive elections, I guess.  Right now Lindsey is a lapdog without a lap and is apparently hoping McConnell will adopt him and scratch his ears the way John McCain and Trump did.  It is all highly entertaining, too much for such a solemn day.  I will now do penance by reading T.S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday."

Who wants to close by joining me in a chorus of "Round and around Limbaugh's grave"?  If you don't know the melody, Pete Seeger will teach you.