In the 1975 movie Three Days of the Condor Robert Redford plays a CIA researcher who thinks someone is trying to kill him (only because they are) and goes on the run and his bosses are trying to find him and bring him in and it’s turning out to be way harder than they think it should be and one of the people trying to catch Bob asks what’s the deal on this guy and why is he constantly one jump ahead of us and Cliff Robertson, who’s in charge of catching Bob, says:
“He reads.”
And when Cliff is asked what Bob reads, Cliff says:
“Everything.”
Obviously that line stuck with me and I like it because it makes reading sound like a super power which it pretty much is and when people meet my family (3/4ths of whom are Trump supporters who don’t vote and, let’s face it, that’s the very best kind of Trump supporter) and ask how I turned out so different I say:
“I read.”
And I’m currently thinking about all this because political cartoonists often get asked where we get our ideas and we get them from reading and in this case I was reading an article about the seemingly inevitable government shutdown (and it seemed inevitable because it was) and the article listed what would close and what would stay open and my next thought was: “I’m pretty sure I know what will stay open.”
And that led to the cartoon you just looked at.
Trump loves the sound of his own voice and can’t shut the fuck up and I could be accused of the same behavior (as the Days Dwindle Down To A Precious Few I’m getting somewhat better at shutting the fuck up which, considering the timing, is like learning to swim after the Titanic sinks) but better late than never.
BTW: While looking up that Robert Redford picture I stumbled across an article that argued Three Days of the Condor was a Christmas movie just like Die Hard and even if it’s not you should watch it and I just put it on Hold in the Kansas City Public Library system and I’m tenth in line for a movie that came out fifty years ago.
Jesus, they don’t make presidents or movies like they used to, huh?
Y’know…a government shutdown might be OK if they shut down the right parts of it, but they never do.
We’re in the third day of the government shutdown and hundreds of thousands of workers have been sent home without pay, but guess who keeps getting paid during a shutdown and if you said “Our asshole president and the assholes in Congress” you’d be right, but you really need to clean up your language.
Just a hunch, but I’m guessing if Congress didn’t get paid during a shutdown they’d be more willing to compromise, but the last government shutdown under Trump in 2018 lasted 35 days and now “compromise” is a bad word and politicians brag about the fact that they’re unreasonable.
I’d say “What could go wrong with that system?” but we’re currently finding out.
And while we’re on the subject of Donald Trump’s inability to shut the fuck up:
According to W.J. Hennigan—who is either a New York Times opinion writer or a cognac popular with rappers—over 800 senior military officers were required to fly from all over the world to sit through a two-hour Donald Trump political rally in which he sounded like a first-time comedian bombing on Open Mike Night.
Here’s a sample and I didn’t make it up:
“I never walked into a room so silent before. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that. Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. But you feel nice and loose, OK, because we’re all on the same team.”
But Trump got the crowd back on his side when he said:
“I just flew here from Las Vegas and boy, are my arms tired. Las Vegas? It should be called Lost Wages!”
As you can see he had the generals in stitches and if you want to read just how crappy Trump’s reception was, here you go:
His warm-up act was Pete Hegseth who declared the rules of engagement “stupid” (he didn’t offer details so he may have meant it was stupid that engaged women aren’t supposed to have a quickie with inebriated cabinet members) and Hegseth also said it was really important that U.S. Service members be “clean-shaven” (I didn’t even know the Ozark Mountain Daredevils had enlisted) and they should also have daily workouts and conduct fitness tests twice a year and the military should have no more “beardos” which my laptop and I both think isn’t a word and maybe he meant “weirdos” and he was also fed up with “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals” and he was going to eliminate “woke garbage” and “political correctness” within the ranks.
Man, I bet if you were a three-star general with something better to do (which might include inspecting the troops for venereal diseases) you were probably thinking, “I’m really glad I was required to fly 9,000 miles from Diego Garcia to Quantico, Virginia because I really wouldn’t want to miss this.”
Flying generals from hither and yon (and if you look at a map, “yon” is twice as far away as “hither”) cost millions of dollars, but Trump said it was worth it for a “great spiritizing” which my laptop once again doesn’t consider a word, so all things considered my 15-year-old Dell laptop is more informed than our 47th president and if you’re the type of person who reads this blog you already knew that.
Anyway…
After Hegseth announced the U.S. military will no longer be “politically correct” that led me to the obvious conclusion that we’ll now have politically incorrect leadership and if that’s their goal you have to hand it to the Trump Administration, they’re batting 1.000.
Apparently having nothing better to do (which seems to include keeping the government up and running) the Trump Administration made sure former Director of the FBI James Comey got indicted and they had to remind us what he said and why he’s been indicted because the rest of us don’t remember and/or give a crap.
Bottom line; he pissed off Trump.
Trump said it wasn’t about revenge, it was about justice so that remark goes on the list of unlikely statements Donald Trump has made over the years, somewhere in-between “I have bone spurs” and “Who’s Jeffrey Epstein?”
So now I’m thinking about revenge and the quote “Revenge is a dish best served cold” which was either said by Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker or Nanook of the North and my money’s on Nanook because I’m guessing he served every dish cold.
And Now One of My Famous Digressions
Inquiring minds want to know and so do minds who need to fill out an essay, so I looked up Nanook of the North and it’s a documentary (supposedly the first one) that came out in 1922 and before that if we wanted information we had to sit around and listen to old men sitting on front porches, whittling and occasionally spitting tobacco which let’s face it, is pretty goddamn disgusting even if you’re the one doing the spitting.
Anyway…
Nanook of the North was later criticized for an inaccurate portrayal of the Inuit people and Thank God we stopped doing that because I’m sure Dances with Wolves was a big improvement.
(As I understand it, the American Indian tribes were lousy with White MILFs and also got along famously with members of the U.S. Calvary and here’s the DWW wedding scene and afterwards all the Indians stamped on a wine glass and yelled “Mazel Tov!” and I just googled why they do that at Jewish weddings and apparently breaking a wine glass is a reminder to temper the joy of a wedding with the suffering of the Jewish people because some janitor is going to say “Oy vey” and have to clean that shit up.)
Moving on…
Underneath that information about Nanook was that annoying Google section People Also Ask and here are their questions in order:
What animal is known as Nanook of the North?
Did Nanook have two wives?
What was the first documentary ever made?
And…
How many miscarriages did Yoko Ono have?
So let me add one more People Also Ask question:
WTF?
How did we jump from polar bears and Eskimos to Yoko Ono and if this is the kind of quality material AI is going to generate, maybe the robots aren’t taking over because the T-1000 will be confused about the difference between polar bears and people and stop and wonder why Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles.
And while we’re not on the subject: what kind of ridiculous ego do you have to possess to listen to the Greatest Rock Band of All Time and the Two Greatest Songwriters of All Time and then say: “I have suggestions.”
Talk about someone who didn’t know when to shut the fuck up.
Today’s Lesson
In reverse order: when you don’t know what to say, say nothing because the alternative is saying something stupid, don’t force people with better things to do fly 9,000 miles to hear your shitty standup act and you need to put Three Days of the Condor on order right now this minute so you’ll have it by Christmas.
You’ll thank me later.
Your 15 year old Dell and my Radio Shack Tandy computer have a lot in common.
Reading is definitely a superpower! Did a librarian write the script for “Three Days of the Condor?”