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Suffrage Succotash

Before you drag yourself to the polls tomorrow, let’s review the candidates for President.

The Green Party is wasting a lot of energy running candidate Jill Stein. If you want to be able to say that you voted for a woman for President, here is your chance.

Libertarian Gary Johnson is well past one toke over the line. We would recommend he be named Ambassador to Colorado or Aleppo.

Donald Trump is a nasty, thrice-married, twice-divorced loose cannon who wants to make America great again by speaking before thinking.

Hillary Clinton has an impressive record of grazing at the public trough and has been a staunch advocate for children’s and women’s rights, unless those children are still in the womb or the women in question serviced her husband.

While all the candidates will encourage the electorate to get out and vote, we here at the Dispatch are actively encouraging certain people to not vote. Please do not vote…

If you think all Republicans are racist, homophobic, misogynistic Islamophobes.

If you think there are no racist, homophobic, misogynistic or Islamophobic Democrats,

If you think Donald Trump is going to accomplish everything he promises to do in his first 100 days.

If you think Hillary Clinton is the most misunderstood person in America and is being “persecuted” because she is a woman.

If you willingly watch Joy Behar.

If you think you are the smartest person in the room no matter where you are.

If the only pronouns you use are “I”, “me” and “my”.

If you steal political yard signs of those you oppose, if you spit on supporters of another candidate, or if you dismiss everyone who isn’t voting the way you want as “stupid” or worse.

If you believe that you can say anything about anybody at any time under the guise of “free speech”.

If you get weak-kneed, slack-jawed and tingly every time your candidate opens his or her mouth.

If you think that one political party is full of science-deniers yet base your decisions on emotion.

One of these people is going to be the next, and possibly last, President of the United States.

No Time for Sorry Agents

Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded. Yogi Berra.

A few weeks back, we went to a new local eatery and waited and waited and waited for our food. We were told at one point that we were next up and then watched three other tables get their selections before ours finally arrived. The waitress was apologetic and sensed our displeasure when we motioned her to go away. The manager even came over to try to make nice by offering us dessert on her and explaining that they were very busy. You are in business to be busy, aren’t you?

This situation is easily remedied. We won’t go there again. But what to do about those encounters where there isn’t an alternative?

TSA lines are incredibly long at many major airports. They are very busy and just don’t have enough help.

One of the joys of retirement is dealing with the Social Security Administration. If you try calling them, you will wait a long time to speak to someone, if you indeed get to speak with someone. If you wait for them to return your call, you are still waiting. They are very busy and just don’t have enough help.

When you send in your Medicare acceptance (or refusal) notification, you need to give it a 2-month lead-time or you will end up paying for Part B coverage (you thought Medicare was free, didn’t you?) until they finally process the paperwork that they have received but haven’t had time to process yet. They are very busy and just don’t have enough help.

If you are a veteran, you will wait for an appointment with the VA. They are very busy and just don’t have enough help. They are not too busy, however, to cook the books on how long you actually waited.

If we could copyright the following message and get a royalty every time it is used, we would make Powerball winners envious. “Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold and your call will be handled in the order it was received”

There is a vast untapped market of potential employees out there, namely all those people who have time to go to Trump, Clinton or Sanders rallies, or those people who have time to go protest at Trump, Clinton or Sanders rallies. Give them some responsibility to go with their yen for authority.

The next time someone tells you they were too busy to help, tell them you are busy too, busy waiting for them.

Be Wishful What You Care For

Last week former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a rally of supporters for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that there is a special place in hell for women who don’t “help each other”. (We will discuss at a later time the logic of threatening eternal damnation upon a group of secularists, agnostics and atheists.) Ms. Albright served under Mrs. Clinton’s husband Bill (what woman didn’t?), and yet we have no recollection of her helping Paula Jones, Jennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick or Monica Lewinsky. We have no memory of either of these two coming to the defense of Condoleezza Rice when racist editorial cartoons were published about the then Black, Female, Republican Secretary of State. It is only about gender when you are of the correct political affiliation.

Feminist Gloria Steinem chimed in later in the week with her observation that the only reason young women were supporting Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Bernie Sanders, is because Mr. Sanders’ campaign is attracting a lot of young men. Is this not a positive indication of gender equality? If Mrs. Clinton were attracting young women, young men would come to her rallies. And does Ms. Steinem know that the young men are supporting Sanders, or are they looking for other young men?

And yet we are constantly being apprised of efforts to eliminate gender specificity. Men marry men, women marry women, universities are trying to replace pronouns such as “he” and “she” with neutral descriptors, as “xe” and “whazzit”. One institution of higher learning has a professor who has banned the terms “husband” and “wife”. They are not inclusive terms. Men who put on women’s clothing better be serious about it or risk being labeled “transphobic”.

Here’s the dilemma. If we fall prey to the notion of supporting a woman for President simply because she is a women, aren’t we abandoning the goal of a genderless and classless society where everybody makes $15 an hour?

And if these activists are so convinced about women helping women, why weren’t they “helping” Carly Fiorina? Oh, she’s a Republican. Never mind.

#Hillary Clinton #madeleine albright #gloria steinem

Braum’s Lullaby

We visited our local Braum’s the other day and had one of those Larry David/Seinfeld/Rod Serling encounters. Although not verbatim, the conversation with the drive-thru girl went something like this:

“Hello, welcome to Braum’s. My name is (unintelligible). I will be with you in a moment.”

After a brief time out for a Ritalin break, she returned.

“Thank you for waiting. Order when you are ready.” We have discussed this before, so no need to delve on the fact that we were ready when we drove up.

“I would like a small vanilla yogurt strawberry sundae and a large Reese’s Mix.”

“You want what kind of waffle cone?”

“No, a small vanilla yogurt strawberry sundae.”

“Oh, okay. Did you want anything else?”

“Yes, a large Reese’s Mix. I have a coupon.”

“Okay, what size?”

“I would still like a large one.’ The third time was indeed the charm.

“I will have your total at the second window. Please pull around.”

“Will you also have my order there?”

“What’s that?”

“Never mind.”

Money in hand, we pulled around.

“That will be $5.”

Actually, it was supposed to be around $4.75, but at this point arguing over price seemed to be small change.

We handed her the coupon. “Oh, you have a coupon!” After voiding and recalculating, she announced the new total. We gave her a fiver and she actually made correct change.

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

“You are welcome. And if you ever join the military, stay out of ordnance disposal.”

#braums

Faceless, Nameless, Useless

As part of our daily regimen to ward off dementia, we have taken up the game QuizUp. This app features hundreds of categories and is played in a head-to-head format. All questions have multiple choices, so the element of luck still is in play. Players progress through levels and are awarded little iconic badges for certain achievements and get to compare their scores with everyone in the world. Each match has a winner and a loser, unless of course there is a tie, in which case points are equally divided. But enough of this divagation.

On Saturday morning we were randomly pitted against a player named BoatGuy, who lives in Maine. We were victorious in our first match of word definitions and quickly asked the system to find another opponent. As bad luck would have it, we were pitted against BoatGuy once again. Upon defeating BG a second time, we received the following message from him:

BoatGuy is free to express himself as he chooses and to do so in the anonymous cowardice of the Internet. We don’t know if old BoatGuy is a poor loser or one of those fellows who believes that insult is the sincerest form of flattery. It matters not. The Boatster is obviously of the school of thought that teaches that if you can say something, you must say it.

To set the record straight, those who know us would be more likely to compare us to an enema bag rather than a douche bag. We also prefer our donkey balls clean-shaven and moisture free.

At least he called us sir.

Postscript: We have since given up QuizUp, as our competitive spirit does not include enabling the anonymuncules.

#BoatGuy #QuizUp

Same-Sex Margarine

The Crosspatch hasn’t been around for a while. He will no doubt go into hiding again after this one.

The Supreme Court has spoken. In a resounding 5-4 opinion, the court has determined that people of the same sex have the right to get married in any state, and that any same-sex marriage in one state must be recognized in another state. This ruling set off celebrations nationwide, with the social media marker of #lovewins, and computer programs which allow the user to put the colors of the rainbow on their favorite pictures, showing their support for federally protected nuptials between persons of similar plumbing.

This has all been done in the name of marriage equality, an expression that drives home the fact that supporters of marriage equality don’t have a clue as to the difference between equality and equity. What we now have now, at best, is marriage equity. If you want marriage equality with us, for instance, you will have to be married for 40 years, have two children through the normal biological systems, and never cheat on your spouse. You will have to accept marriage as a sacrament. A same-sex couple will never match this and thus never be equal, but since you have the legal ability to get married, you have equity.

We imagine that the next psychosociosexual cause will be for bisexuals. If you are attracted to both men and women, shouldn’t you be able to marry one of each? We could call it idiogynandrogamy. If you want more than one of each sex as a partner, then we would have polyidiogynandrogamy. This is fun!

If you are wondering about the title, there are many products on the market that claim to be just as good as butter, but in the end they are nothing but margarine. Dave and Bruce, or Gina and Rachel, can claim their union is pure creamery butter, but it is at best Country Crock.

Around here, we don’t give a tinker’s damn about anyone’s sexual preferences. If you like men, women, or knotholes in a fence, we don’t care. If you believe in monogamy, polygamy, or pantagamy, we don’t care. If you follow the Fredo Corleone school of banging two cocktail waitresses at a time, we don’t care. Keep it to yourself.

Yuck of the Irish

We have to give credit to this Nigerian (assuming facts not in evidence) con artist for persistence. These emails of concern that we have not claimed our share of $15.5 million are touching. Below is the latest plea for information. (The photo was found online and may or may not be the actual principal referred to in the email.)

Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF)

Ahmadu Bello Way, Central Business District

Abuja, Nigeria.

LONG OVER DUE CONTRACT PAYMENT TRANSFER ADVISE IN YOUR FAVOUR:

Dear Sir

I am a director with the Federal Ministry of Finance and was instructed by the Hon Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to find out before the end of this month, WHY your contract/ claim of your part payment of $15.5 Million fund have not been credited to your account.

However their is two gentlemen who came from your country to claim this fund on your behalf and the reason giving to us is that you are the one who send them that you are terminal sick and they provide account of Union Bank of Swizterland for the payment to be made. Kindly reconfirm your particulars to us and to know if you are the one that send them, for us to check with the one in our file send the below info;

(1) Your Full Name And Address:

(2) Your Age And Marital Status:

(3) Your Occupation:

(4) Your Telephone/Fax Number:

(5) Your Nationality:

(6) Your Banking information

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Daniel I. Kifasi

Perhaps if we reply they will stop sending us this nonsense. Here is the information that we are going to submit to them:

1. Drake O. Steele, Dock 1, Lake Chaubunagungamaug, Webster, Mass.

2. 104 years old, polygamist

3. Individual serving packet condiment salesman

4. (202)225-3121

5. Vulcan

6. Under a black rock that has no earthly reason to be in a field in Buxton, Maine.

We hope this answers all their questions and look forward to being swimming in dough soon.

Statutory Red-Tapist

It’s beginning to look and feel and smell and sound a lot like Christmas. Yards are filled with Chinese illumination that screams, “I shop at K-Mart”. A chill is in the air, foretelling of future adventures in shoveling and removing salt stains from trouser legs. Every recipe from now until New Year’s Day reeks of pumpkin. And the radio blares away with the only two Christmas songs in existence, Burl Ives’ "Holly Jolly Christmas", and those damn dogs barking "Jingle Bells". By the by, Jingle Bells is a Thanksgiving song co-opted by the Christmas faction for no apparent reason other than it has sleigh bells and snow and doesn’t have a lot of pesky Christian symbolism so that atheists can sing it.

Part of our holiday tradition is to get to the post office and send off our international packages. When we arrived, we encountered the predictable line of early mailers getting out their regifted fruit cake to unsuspecting victims. When our turn finally came, the postal employee informed us that we had the wrong form and needed to fill out the new form.

The new form is almost identical to the old form. Mind you, not two weeks ago we had used the old form to send a package without so much as a “hmmm” from the clerk. But the old supply of PS Form 2976-A must have finally been exhausted and the new form could be distributed in accordance with whatever laws govern the postal dimension. To be fair, there are two glaring differences in the forms. The old form has red lines. The new one has black lines. The new form does away with box 6, which asks if you want your package to go airmail or surface. Since the only surface between New York and England is the Atlantic Ocean, the choice was moot.

The biggest change to the form comes in box 5, in which you must declare if your parcel is a gift, document, merchandise, returned goods, commercial sample or other. New to box 5 are two other choices, humanitarian donation and dangerous goods. If your package contains a present, card, some stolen hotel toiletries, the book you borrowed and are now returning, a membership card for Greenpeace and a chunk of C4 explosive, you get to check all the boxes.

We returned to the counter only to be told that our package did not weigh enough to use good old 2976-A and that we must now get out of line again and fill out the smaller, less intrusive form 2976. Live and learn, grasshopper. Make sure future packages weigh over 4 pounds.

We should be comforted that at least one federal employee is following the policies and procedures and that one box has been eliminated from a form, showing the ability for bureaucratic change. We aren’t comforted, but we can rest easy knowing that these changes will get that pesky national debt under $18 trillion very soon.

We won’t know for weeks if this story has a happy ending, as the USPS (pronounced us-pass) cannot guarantee the package will arrive in time for Christmas, either this year or next.

#USPS #form 2976 #form 2976-A

Musical Chairs Men

Back in the day, the days after peach baskets and knee pads but before knee-length shorts and collapsible rims, college basketball coaches had to sit down while the clock was running during a game.

Now coaches are only limited by a coaching box that is never enforced and their own imaginations. Three of the worst offenders happen to work here in Kansas. Bruce Weber of Kansas State, Greg Marshall of Wichita State, and Steve Eck of Hutchinson Community College might just as well help their athletic department revenue stream by selling their seats, as little as they use them. Bill Self of the University of Kansas has his moments, but he does park his carcass from time to time. To be fair, it is a national malady, started we believe by Kelvin Sampson when he was at Oklahoma. We don’t think he ever knew he had a chair.

Coaches are never supposed to go onto the court while play is going on, but they do, telling the players for the umpteenth time to block out.

We would like to see the rules changed to force coaches to sit during play, if for no other reason than to allow people, who have paid 5 and 6 figure extortion payments for the right to pay thousands more for courtside seats, to actually see what they are paying for.

#Bruce Weber #Greg Marshall #Steve Eck #Kelvin Sampson

Standing Up for Sitting Down

On the perils of not having a banquette for your banquet.

We had our weekly “boys lunch out” on Friday past at our favorite Mexican eatery. The host put us in a booth. We usually eschew the booth, mostly because with aging knees we fear that at some point they will have to use a winch to get us out if the standard “slide, slide, push yourself up and count the crackles” technique doesn’t work.

The second reason to request a table with chairs is the immutable law of the universe that states if you are seated on a restaurant bench, the other side will be occupied by a little hellion who can’t sit still and the sees the back of the bench as a horizontal trampoline. So it was Friday.

We managed to time our food intake to the diastolic portion of the seat beat, thereby avoiding putting a fork through our cervical vertebrae. Before kinetosis (that’s motion sickness, in case his parents are reading this) could set in, the boy and his oblivious parents finished whatever it was they were doing and left.

We could have taken exception with the lad’s conduct and asked the parents to put an end to it, but the subset laws of social interaction now forbid that. Parents do not want the input of strangers when it comes to child discipline. As long as the kid isn’t bothering them, innocent bystanders are on their own. Besides, the boy was only bouncing on their side of the seat and they can’t be held responsible for the physical science consequences. Compounding the situation is the fact that Kansas is a concealed carry state, and we didn’t want to become involved in a potential “stand your ground” confrontation. Gunplay and guacamole do not mix.

Next week is our turn to pick the restaurant. Perhaps we will car pool the drive-thru.

Unlucky Sevens

One team wins, one team loses, unless your kid plays in one of those "everybody gets a trophy, a bag of gummy bears, a packet of Capri chemical laced soft drink and nobody keeps score" soccer leagues. So it was Wednesday night when the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals 3-2. But the Royals weren't the only losers.

The real losers are all of us poor Royals fans who had to put up with the following just to have our hopes dashed as Pablo Sandoval caught the final out and fell on his bounteous backside.

We had to endure 7 nights of creepy Rob Lowe and socially awkward Rob Lowe.

We had to endure 7 nights of Pat Roberts, Greg Orman, Paul Davis and Sam Brownback ads. They will never know that they are mentioned here because we refuse to tag them.

We had to endure 7 nights of Joe Buck, who seemingly does not understand that television has pictures and that he does not have to run his mouth continuously.

We had to watch Madison Bumgarner blow away Royals hitters and then blow boogers out his nose between pitches.

We had The 7 Nights of the Hunter Pence.

We have the American League championship at least. And Viagra girl did not make her way from TBS to Fox.

#Hunter Pence #Rob Lowe #Madison Bumgarner #Joe Buck #Kansas City Royals

Being Privy to Privy Privity

We received the sample pictured above in the mail the other day. We don’t know how we ended up on Kimberly-Clark’s mailing list. Maybe it was just a lucky guess on their part that everyone in the house has a fully functional alimentary canal and that none of us are using colostomy bags. More likely is that our local grocer is selling our purchase information collected through their “valued customer” incentive program. When the Cottonelle people found out we weren’t using their product, they rolled into action.

Nothing much ever changes in advertising. No matter what the product, a young blond girl pitching everything from beer to tires has become cliché. Her enthusiasm notwithstanding, we question the logic of using some Nordic vegan who probably pinches off packets of potpourri when she goes number 2. We want to see a hirsute, 300-pound gourmand living on a diet of smoked sausages and cabbage rolls who, without the technological advances of this particular product, would leave skid marks rivaling those left at an NHRA competition.

This mailing even came with an invitation on the bottom of the package.

If you are seriously considering going onto Facebook to tell America about your bathroom habits, the ship to mental health has already sailed without you.

Take our advice. Pay cash whenever possible and let the cyber-voyeurs get their kicks elsewhere.

#cottonelle #privy

Climate Every Mountebank

The United Nations is holding a climate summit this week. In preparation for this modern day Babel, demonstrators took to the streets of Manhattan on Sunday to show their support. Based on the photo below, the crowd was sated with climatologists, meteorologists and several of the 92 million Americans no longer in the work force.

If their efforts are successful, enough regulations and emission standards will be put into place to ensure an even greater number of people are out of work and available to carry signs.

Self-proclaimed experts such as Al Gore, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Leonardo DiCaprio were on hand to tell us how none of this would be necessary if all you selfish, climate denying infidels would stop heating your homes, driving your cars and exhaling.

Not that this trio is without knowledge that they can share with us. We would gladly take advice from DiCaprio on acting, from Gore on how to turn a profit through fear and loathing, and from Kennedy on how to stretch an inherited dollar.

Based on this celebrity brain trust and their legions of sycophantic strong-arm followers, we at The Dispatch are confident that we will be harvesting bananas in Bemidji come December, 2050.

#climate change #al gore #leonardo dicaprio #robert kennedy jr

Hereabout and Thereabouts, the Whereabouts of Roundabouts

This part of the country has become enamored with roundabouts, those traffic circles designed to alleviate traffic congestion and give us all an equal chance to get somewhere. The first one installed in Hutch was on 23rd Street and gives residents of that area a glimmer of hope to get home when the State Fair is in session, as the caravan of corn dog logy revelers lollygag their way out of town.

In the past two months, we have encountered two simpletons who are unfamiliar with the standard American practice of going right when entering a roundabout. Either they had a sudden onset of Anglophilia and felt the left side was the way to go, or they skipped driver’s ed the day the subject of one-way streets was addressed.

The state of Missouri has tackled this problem with more graphics. The first clearly shows the flow of traffic through the intersection. It also intimates that you never have to leave.

Since it is a two-lane affair, the second shows your options depending on the lane you occupy, even though it looks more like an IRS flow chart to determine whose return gets pulled for auditing. In this case, conservatives are on the left.

Our neighborhood is graced with the smallest roundabout in captivity. It must exist for aesthetic reasons because it certainly doesn’t expedite traffic.

We here are convinced that these chicanes are neither for expediency or curb appeal. They are part of the overall governmental conspiratorial strategy to eliminate linear thinking and replace it with circular logic, allowing us to, no matter the scope or complexity of the problem at hand, end up where we started, shorter on both fuel and time.

#roundabouts

A Tale of Two Laxities

The Crosspatch took the summer off in search of peace, love and harmony. So much for peace, love and harmony.

Heading for the check out lane, we noticed that someone had had second thoughts about purchasing those processed flour, calorie laden, carb filled bagels that looked so enticing only four aisles back. But rather than showing their commitment to their new healthful living regimen, and a respect for store order, by putting them back where they found them, the bagels ended up in the sports memorabilia section. Compounding the laziness is some obvious ignorance. A bag of boiled and baked zeroes should be put in the MIssouri section.

It is one thing to not return goods to their rightful place when that place is hundreds of feet away. It is quite another to just drop the stuff you don't want on the floor in front of where you found it. Maybe these folks will be featured on our latest reality show, "Bathrooms of the Chronically Lazy".

#lazy #laxity #bagels

Loblolly Pop Quiz

Although his CNN show has been cancelled, he is still around. If we return the original 13 colonies to England, can we get them to take back Piers Morgan as part of the deal?

Will the Chicago Cubs ever play in another World Series?

Whatever happened to the G in HGTV?

Why do some narcissists, usually bodybuilders and middle-age divorcees looking for Mr. Right-Now, hang around swimming pools to sunbathe and fly off the handle if someone gets them wet? If you want to avoid water while tanning, we suggest laying down in the middle of SR 127 in Death Valley.

Has anyone copyrighted the "One Weird Trick" come-on used with Internet pop-ups?

If Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2016, who wants to immigrate to the Cayman Islands?

If you don’t have a moral code, are you a hypocrite if you do something charitable?

Why do drivers crossing a highway speed across the intersection in front of you when there is no one behind you for two miles and a simple 5-second wait would make it safer for everyone?

Why do desk calendars put the two most important days of the week, Saturday and Sunday, on the same sheet?

Will Obamacare become an aptronym, such as “nice job wrecking the car, Little Miss Obamacare?”

Has your version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah gone viral yet?

If you are wearing a do rag, doo rag, duu rag, skull cap, headwrap or other pate covering under your ball cap, should you take it off too during the National Anthem?

Can Harry Reid? Really?

Are those two guys in the Sonic commercials the Laurel and Hardy of our times, or two jerks who can't cook and apparently never get out of their car?

Worst trade ever - Lou Brock to Chicago for Ernie Broglio, Herschel Walker to Minnesota for 5 players and 8 draft choices, or Bowe Bergdahl to the U.S. for 5 Taliban leaders and a terrorist to be named later?

#hillary clinton #piers morgan #obamacare #do rag #hgtv #sonic

The 3 Dumigos

With May drawing to a close, here are our nominees for stupidest persons of the month.

Columnist Eleanor Clift stated on an edition of The McLaughlin Group that U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was not murdered in Benghazi. He died of smoke inhalation. Following Ms. Clift’s reasoning, many of those who died on 9/11 weren’t murdered but rather died of smoke inhalation, third degree burns and blunt force trauma. Those who jumped from the building to escape the flames must have been suicides. We hope that in her fool’s golden years that Ms. Clift learns the difference between the medical term “cause of death” and the legal term “murder”.

Former Vermont governor and failed presidential candidate Howard Dean stated that those who want to make voter ID cards mandatory want to take away the right to vote of minorities and thus are “not Americans”. We suspect Mr. Dean would change his cacophonous tune were it discovered that the majority of votes cast illegally were cast for Republican candidates. We are undecided as to which is scarier – Dean for saying this or the people in the audience who believed it. The purpose of voter ID cards is to ensure that the person voting IS American, or at the very least alive.

On the local level, we want to acknowledge the knuckle dragger that decided to use the drinking fountain at our YMCA for a spittoon. There is nothing quite so appetizing as bending over to get a drink and seeing a viscous mass quivering on the drain screen. One step from the fountain is the door to the mens room, where one could easily expectorate in the sink and rinse away the evidence. We pray that this person does not need an explanation of the proper disposal of toilet paper. We apologize if the images elicited have ruined your appetite.

#eleanor clift #howard dean #spittoon

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