Colin Kaepernick and other athletes have received unmitigated grief from the late Bob McNair to none other than The Donald about protesting police brutality during the national anthem at their games.  Up until a few days ago, league owners and commissioners have responded to such protests with everything from benign neglect to outright hostility.  Fox Noise and their ilk have vilified protesting athletes by lying that they’re “disrespecting the flag” and other false equivalencies.  Now it’s all stirred up again after the murder by Minneapolis police of George Floyd where the nation’s conscience was truly moved to actually doing something about systemic racism that is pervasive and especially manifest through the violence visited upon ethic groups, especially African Americans.  States are finally removing Confederate monuments that were erected decades after the Civil War; policing policies are being changed all over the country.  Colin Kaepernick is actually in discussion with the Seattle Seahawks after 4 years of being exiled from the NFL for daring to protest actual and deadly police brutality.

And here we go again.  As the big athletic leagues finally retreat from their white supremacist stance in the name of unity, all the right-wingers on social media are most indignant about “disrespecting the flag” and other such drivel.  This is one of those subjects where everyone gets offended.  Right-wingers get pissed about people not standing at attention with hand over heart for the Star Spangled Banner, but then get oddly just as indignant when not allowed to wave the main flag of treason against the US, the Confederate battle flag.  I’m like, make up your fucking mind.  Do you support the US or treason? You can’t do both.

So, here’s my idea – Let’s just go back to the way it used to be…let’s just play ball and leave the jingoism at home.  No national anthem, no marching soldiers, no football-field-sized American flags, no cynical teary eyed reunions with Dad just home from active duty posing as the catcher for little Johnny to discover after the first pitch.  We can leave all the fighter jets in their hangars while their pilots can spend their weekends with family instead of smoke trailing flyovers over 100,000 drunk rednecks with blazing barbecue pits ready for NASCAR racers to drive in circles for hours in cars plastered with beer company and M&Ms advertisements.

Just dropping all these fake patriotic rituals would be a great relief for millions of us, not force professional athletes to choose between obedience and conscience, and would save thousands of hours of airtime on television, not to mention the millions of dollars spent by the US government showing off it’s latest example of overspending on new war toys.  And, how refreshing it would be to get baseball games back to under 4 hours.

Enough already.  Let’s just stop all this goofy jingoism.  Problem solved.

Our friend Kary found a real jewel that will make you smile with delight.

Chris Sevier has seen pornography but still wants to marry his computer. It’s real confusing.

Two people are suing the Mayor of Washington, DeeCee, because the Black Lives Matter “banner” is establishing a new religion.

The three folks suing are Pastor Rich Penkoski, attorney Chris Sevier, who sued Apple a few years ago because its computer let him access pornography, and Tex Christopher, who is identified as “a former bull rider” but I don’t think there’s any “former” to it – he’s still riding bull all over the damn place.

Go on – enjoy yourself and read it all.

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Goodness sake.  If you go to Trump’s pro-virus Junetenth rally in Tulsa, you have to get a reservation.

To get a reservation, you have to sign this:

Okay, if the virus is under control or gone away, why do people have to sign away their legal rights to go to the Trump rally?

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

This is an honest-to-gosh email I got today.

Trump is complaining about ugly protesters. As America’s -and the World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, it’s your obvious responsibility to provide beauty tips for demonstrators.

Peter

I take my beauty mission very seriously, Peter, and while I generally don’t feel any responsibility for Trump’s vision of beauty (I mean, have you seen his Christmas decorations?) (And those ties, ferpetesake), I do feel a duty to insure that America’s streets are filled with wowza! people.

I have fretted over this all morning. Coming up with something that wears well on all races, genders, body shapes, and ages is not an easy task. If it were, there would be no need for highly trained and fantastically expensive people like me.

But I think I have roughed-out a plan. It’s still in the toddler stage, but I think it just might work.

Demonstrate naked.

Now, now, don’t get carried away before I explain the benefits.  The human body is beautiful.  It’s a work of art. I’ve been to museums; I know these things.

Wear nothing but your name and your lawyer’s phone number written on your arm.  And a mask.

Think of the benefits.  First we can get America used to seeing bodies without immediately thinking nasty. Second, it’s hot out there and the cops are wearing seventeen layers of clothes. Who’s gonna pass out first?

Third, it’s easy to see you don’t have a weapon so the use of unnecessary force will look even worse for the cameras. Here are these guys looking like the offspring of Darth Vader and The Terminator. And here you are looking innocent as the day you were born.

But the main reason:  You cannot out-camo or out-ammo them.

And the last reason:  Honor thou hippie grandparents.

Guys, I’m usually pretty good at understanding, and when I look at things I can semi-acknowledge what I am seeing.

But Antifa stumps me.  Nobody can seem to explain to me what the fool tarnation it is and why it does terrible things in secret. I don’t get this secret thing. How does that happen?  There are supposedly thousands of Antifas all over the country who operate in complete silence.  I know for a fact that’s not possible.

Take Thelma, for example.  Thelma, who is known as The Texas Chainsaw Manicurist, knows every damn secret in this town and can keep a secret like it was her grandma’s heart.  But if you offered Thelma a fully equipped pink Winnebago with the Dolly Parton interior package and $10,000 cash money, she’d tell you everything she knows.

People can’t keep secrets.  And if you don’t believe that, look at Donald Trump.  Everybody he’s hired at the White House eventually rats him out.

There’s a thing in Texas that there’s no such thing as a live armadillo. Nobody has ever seen one – all you see are dead ones in the middle of the damn road.  Somebody out in West Texas goes all over the state leaving dead armadillos in the road.  Those suckers are born dead.  It’s a big conspiracy and I’m surprised if you haven’t heard it.

Which brings us to Antifa.

I figure I’m anti-fascist as anybody.  I’m also anti-Trump, which is pretty much the same thing.  So, I have decided that the beauty salon can be the Antifa World Headquarters.  We’ll get a banner and everything. Let’s see who shows up.

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Okay, I’ve decided to sue CNN for creating Coronavirus.  If they hadn’t talked about it, nobody would have died.  And if they don’t stop talking about it, I’m gonna stomp my foot and call my lawyer.

Yeah, Trump wants to rename the San Andres Fault the CNN Fault.