Random Observations on the New Abnormal
Fauci’s memoirs, the debates, silver dimes, Aborigines, The Bee Gees, 1-percent food inflation, The Isle of Man, Reverse ATMs, Bryson DeChambeau and wisdom from Raising Arizona.
I made a series of random cross-posts today, which I’ll now follow-up with one of my “Random Observations” columns.
First random observation: Those posts weren’t random.
Post 1 showed our Local Epidemiologist is drumming up support for Bird flu vaccines.
Post 2 was a meditation from a Brownstone Institute colleague on the bizarre popularity of people wanting to be stuck with needles over and over.
Post 3 was from a Substack author in Australia, who notes that two of her country’s leaders just received the nation’s highest honor … for imposing the world’s most draconian lockdowns and telling citizens who didn’t get a jab they couldn’t leave their house.
Take-away: While I don’t know anybody who’s still getting Covid “vaccines,” the Leaders Who Matter are pushing the needles more than ever.
Finally, Fauci publishes his much-anticipated memoirs
Anthony Fauci has now published his memoirs, proving crimes against humanity pay … handsomely.
I’ve read an excerpt and I can’t decide if Fauci’s still saying “I am science” or promoting his new fanny-covering caveat - that “science is always evolving.” Apparently, his numerous bogus proclamations were also science.
As Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer might say, this new-fangled science “frightens and confuses me.”
Cash Not Accepted!
I recently learned the world now has “reverse ATM machines,” which are available at the New York Yankees’ stadium.
The stadium, like a rapidly-growing number of retail establishments, no longer accepts cash. However, people who bring cash can deposit $200 into the machine and get a $196 debit card. This means these fans/citizens have to pay $4 for the right to buy a $10 beer.
Cash-less society is coming faster than we think.
The Great Debate is almost here
It looks like RFK, Jr. won’t be able to participate in the CNN presidential debate after all … which, according to CNN and other pundits, proves “democracy” still reigns in America.
Per the all-important rules, the debate will be 90 minutes. It will also include two commercial breaks (4 minutes). The moderators’ comments and questions will take up at least 10 minutes. This leaves us 76 minutes for “debate proper.”
Also, per the rules, each candidate can only speak for two minutes and then his microphone will be cut off. This means each candidate will have to put sentences together for a grand total of 38 minutes.
Question: Can “Joe Biden” string 38 minutes of spoken words together without the whole world knowing he has ever-worsening dementia?
Let’s be honest. This is the only “issue” anyone really cares about. Still, morbid national curiosity ensures this debate will break all ratings records.
Also, nobody’s really sure if a cocktail of amphetamines can get President Biden through those perilous 38 minutes.
When the nation learned Elvis’s doctors had been feeding the King a pharmacy of drugs for years, those doctors lost their medical licenses. When White House doctors do the same thing for The Big Guy, they get a Public Service medal from Pfizer.
Inflation is under control …
According to the Department of Labor’s most-recent CPI report, “food inflation” in May increased by only 1 percent from May 2023.
In the Rice household, I use my wife to gauge food inflation since she buys the food. I shared this CPI data with Carrie, who never utters a profanity.
Said sweet Carrie: “Well, that’s bullsh*t.”
(See what our government turns people into?)
I sometimes go to to our local Piggly Wiggly. Because of this, I know that a head of lettuce was $3.29 last week. Several months ago, it was $2.10 (not including 10-percent sales tax). Right there, that’s 50 percent “lettuce inflation” in less than one year.
Ranch dressing has gone up too. So have croutons and bacon bits. To keep lettuce fresh a couple of days longer, I used a trick my late mother taught me - I wrap lettuce in paper towels. The price of paper towels have gone up by at least 35 percent.
Bottom-line: Somebody’s lying here. Since we all know our government never lies … I guess my own eyes are lying.
(Our government made my wife start cussing and gave me Lying Eyes.)
The good news: The price of a monthly subscription to my Substack will, for now, still buy a head of lettuce.
The bad news: My readers now have to choose between buying a head of lettuce or subscribing to my Substack.
Thankfully, Grandmother lives in our town
To battle this 1-percent inflation, our family cut the cable TV chord. This means I don’t have CNN and can’t watch the debate at our house.
I think I’m going to go to my in-laws and watch it. My mother-in-law (Elizabeth) is so sweet she’ll probably make me a $5 salad … which I’m definitely going to eat since one should never refuse Found Salad.
Golfers have sold out too (but you can’t blame them with the price of lettuce being what it is)
We went to our in-laws for Father’s Day so I got to watch the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament. Poor Rory McIlroy missed two short putts in the final three holes, allowing Bryson DeChambeau to win the tournament.
DeChambeau is one of the LIV Tour golfers who makes 9-figures for playing on a golf tour funded by America’s great friends and humanitarians in Saudi Arabia.
About the only Americans who make more money than Anthony Fauci are … LIV golfers who are being paid by the Saudi Arabian Royal Family.
In his memoir, I wonder if Fauci tells his readers how many golfers (and tennis players and beach volleyball players) have died from Covid.
I think it was Jon Rahm who won a big tournament two weeks after he had to quarantine for a bad case of asymptomatic Covid. I still remember how everyone was so worried about him. (I trust readers can tell when I’m being facetious).
There’s silver in them there coins …
To help make it to the end of this month, I recently sold some of my 90-percent silver coins. I sold several rolls of pre-1965 dimes. My coin dealer paid me $1.97/dime. If I’d sold dimes minted after 1964, I would have gotten … 10 cents for my dimes.
Pre-1965 coins are called “junk coins.” Still, I’m glad I spent a couple of years acquiring this “junk.” I wish I had a lot more.
Aside: When LBJ signed the law banning silver coins, he told Americans not to hoard the old coins, assuring citizens they would never go up in value.
Random Island Trivia …
My mother-in-law just watched a fascinating documentary on the Bee Gees. I didn’t know the Gibbs family was born on The Isle of Man.
Thanks to my Substack newsletter, I actually know somebody from The Isle of Man!
Random question: Is there an Isle of Woman?
Can we even say Isle of Man these days? For pronoun correctness, shouldn’t this island be forced to change its name like the Washington Redskins did?
Disney is protecting us from traumatic speech
My daughter, Maggie, tells me Splash Mountain at Disney World is now re-open. The theme park attraction had to close for two years because it used to feature Br’er Rabbit, a scurrilous character from the 1940s Disney classic “Song of the South,” a movie that traumatized five or six people.
I still haven’t heard whether Disney is going to release its update of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the version sans dwarfs and with a Hispanic (brown) Snow White.
My favorite video clip
I hope everyone clicked on the link in my cross post about Australia (see also above). This video shows one of the leaders of an Australian territory ordering Aborigine citizens to get their Covid jabs.
To make sure these native citizens understood his order, this ruler recruited an actual Aborigine to translate his words into Aborigine.
Premier (In English): “Everyone get the needle.”
Aborigine translator (also in English). “Shot. Safe one. Get.”
***
One of my favorite movies is Raising Arizona because it has so many quotable lines. For example …
Glenn: “It’s a crazy world.”
H.I. (Nicholas Cage): “Someone oughta sell tickets.”
Glenn: “Sure. I’d buy one.”
Me to Glenn: You better find a reverse ATM.
(Thank you very much for helping keeping the Rice family in lettuce.)
Random Ko-Fi gratuities warmly accepted.
This column stood out for the random number of typos I missed. I correct them as I find them.
It's a good idea not to read one of my articles until about 42 minutes after I hit the "send" button.
Annie, my dog and newsletter partner, is supposed to catch these things, but I think her mind is on the bones and toys she's scattered through the house.
I still know several people who run for the jabs, believe it or not. One just got pinched a few weeks ago, a few days later got covid and was sick in bed for a few weeks. Had to postpone a trip.
As to the reverse ATM, is anyone still using this monstrous machine? It has always been a rip off, since it would charge you to get your own money unless you had one of your own bank. No one should buy anything from these thieves!
Any store that refuses money will lose my as a customer. And so has the store in town where I was a regular, who had a sign on the door that the unvaccinated had to wear a mask, and the vaccinated did not. I now shop 18 miles down the road.