Time to Come Clean

March 14, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

Being on the road again, I had hoped to bring you some Americana sightseeing tales and pics. However, inclement weather interceded, so I will bring you another travel tip. I know what you’re thinking, “Please, not another post about hotel soap.”

“But … but … hotel soap is an integral part of my business travel,” I protest. How about a Trumpy soap post? I know you want it. Let’s go.

When presented with 2 soap choices, always use the smaller one and take the larger soap home.

Now, I know Trump supporters may struggle with how to determine which is larger and which is smaller. I’ll try and make it relatable for them.

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Is America Great or Not?

March 13, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

I saw this on Twitter this morning …

What happened in that one minute to change America from having to be made great to being great? Maybe Fox & Friends said something. Maybe nothing. Maybe he is tooting his own horn while still trying to sell more of those MAGA caps. Maybe his brain just continues to melt into dementia.

Bible Babble

March 13, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

This past Sunday, one of our church minister’s sermonized that children are a gift from God. I couldn’t believe I heard that, because normally I never hear any part of the sermon. In fact, I wrote my last post during the sermon. Anyway, that part of the sermon about children puzzled me, but not because I doubted the Bible has some verse like that. It seems to have a verse about everything. For example, I was considering supporting Senator Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for President, but …

Timothy 2:11 “I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent.”

Oh well, there are plenty of male candidates, so no worries.

I did check the Bible to see if children are truly a gift from God. Sure enough …

Psalm 127:3 “Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord.”

In the course of raising five children, I have often questioned if my kids are gifts, then where are the gift receipts?

Oh well, if those “gifts” don’t work out and you can’t find the gift receipts, there’s always this child-rearing/bashing tip …

Psalm 137:9 “May the Lord bless everyone who beats your children against the rocks!”

So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

The Weighting Game

March 11, 2019March 11, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan ~ 2 Comments

With the weather finally showing signs of Spring, I took some time to assess the weight-gain damage I inflicted upon myself this winter. It’s not good.

I topped out at 2 pounds higher than my former record, so I guess I set a new maximum weight record this winter. Yay?

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Mite Be Funny #107 – Spring Ahead Edition

March 10, 2019March 9, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

Winnowing the Candidates – Part 1 Revised – Pete’s Back, Back Pete

March 9, 2019March 9, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

Thankfully, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has taken his sweet time to officially announce he’s out of the Democratic race for President after I cut him last week. I’m certain he’s not ignoring me, and has just been getting his campaign in order before withdrawing gracefully from the race. Hold on, Mayor Pete. You’re back in.

My decision is partially because there was a winnowing of potential candidates that organically took place over the last week. Just take a look at this list that announced they are not running:

Michael Bloomberg. He will have to find solace with just being a billionaire and the 9th richest person in the world. Poor guy.
Hillary Clinton. She will have to be satisfied knowing that she could win the popular vote against Trump … again.
Senator Jeff Merkly. I like him even more after he pranked us with this video announcing he will not run.
Senator Sherrod Brown. He took Ben Carson’s advice at the 1:00 minute mark in this video, and he’ll be reprising Peter Falk’s role as Columbo in a new Broadway play.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder. He is the main reason Mayor Pete is back in the race. I’ll explain.

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New Music for Old Rockers – Black Keys Edition

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

Five years. I guess it could have been worse. It took Vampire Weekend six years to release new music. That’s right, this is the first new song from the Black Keys in five years. How did the Beatles crank out so many memorable albums in the span of just a few years? They were releasing albums less than one year apart. Good examples:

Rubber Soul – December, 1965
Revolver – August, 1966
Sgt. Pepper – June, 1967

That’s kind of crazy. They may have been just a bit more talented than Vampire Weekend and Black Keys combined. I know, the Vampires and Keys were busy with other stuff. Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys put out some very nice solo music. I can see that a solo album might take a year. But c’mon folks, make with the new music already. Are they so busy and tired because they have second jobs at night working the drive-thru at McDonald’s to make ends meet?

I guess times have changed and musicians don’t make their money off selling records with new songs like they used to. Now they make their money from touring. There is less incentive to make new music when you can tour and make mega-bucks playing old songs. Welcome to the digital age of music.

Speaking of the digital age of music, the new Black Keys tune Lo/Hi is available on YouTube …

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Kickin’ Some Ash

March 7, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, was an altar boy, got buzzed on sacramental wine, and even got a chance to leaf through a priest’s Playboy magazine while he looked on. That last one sounds worse than it was. There were lots of us young boys he let look at it. Okay, that sounds even worse. Nothing happened to me, except for being exposed to soft-core porn at a young age, which I wanted.

Anyway, getting ashes for Ash Wednesday was always a big deal when I was a kid. It was the one day I was allowed to go around with a dirty face. These days I’m technically a member of the Lutheran church, although also an ordained Dudeist minister, and really consider myself more of a Spiritual Humanist. Suffice to say that I am conflicted when it comes to religion, but not to faith. Hey, that’s kinda’ deep. This dude abides with deep thoughts.

I had no thought of getting ashes for Ash Wednesday yesterday. I didn’t even know it was Ash Wednesday until I saw some cable news guests with ashes on their foreheads.

No matter how hard I tried, I didn’t hear a thing they said. I just kept staring at the ashes, wondering why they didn’t wash before going on TV. I was fascinated by the diversity of the ashes. There was the bold …

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Good vs Bad Ideas

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

I fancy myself an idea person, although I readily admit that most of my ideas are bad. I like to think that I have had so many bad ideas in my life that I have become a pretty good judge of ideas. I’ll give you an example.

Area Democrats are marching in the local St. Patrick’s Day Parade this Saturday. I will be marching with my daughter, unless it is too cold, or rainy, or if she gets a better offer. Then I’ll be proudly walking without my daughter and just with my fellow Democrats, flipping off anyone in the crowd with a MAGA hat on. Just kidding. I wouldn’t do that. But a MAGA-hatted parade watcher was flipping off Democrats in the last parade I marched in. Those MAGAts are class acts.

Anyway, a fellow Democrat offered the following ideas for the parade via email …

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Swing & Miss(ile)

March 6, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

We already covered Donald Trump’s disastrous summit in Vietnam with Kim Jong-un. Now we get word that North Korea appears to be rebuilding a nuclear missile test site.

I can’t tell anything from that picture. That could be an overhead pic of a mile away from my house for all I know. But the experts seem to think it looks fishy. Regardless of whether North Korea is actually rebuilding its nuclear test site or not, I saw this on Twitter and thought it just so perfectly summed-up the Trump-Kim relationship.

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Well, this is a complete waste …

March 5, 2019March 5, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

Surprisingly, that title does not refer to this blog, although one can make a convincing case. No, I’m writing about this creation from my wife.

I like it. She painted this spoon holder and placed it on the counter next to the stove for immediate use by the family. I can’t bring myself to use it. I would consider placing a goopy, drippy spoon that I use to stir my winter stew concoctions on what I view as a work of art created by my wife to be a desecration. You don’t see people intentionally destroying art, do you?

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Mite Be Funny #106 – YUGE Multi-Panel Edition

March 3, 2019March 2, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

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Winnowing the Candidates – Part 1

March 2, 2019March 2, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan ~ 2 Comments

There are already too many Democratic candidates for the 2020 Presidential race. So each month, I will reduce the field by one candidate through an announcement in this blog. If more keep joining the race, we may have to eliminate a candidate every two weeks. After my blog post, the candidate named in the post will be notified and expected to withdraw from the race. Maybe by the 2020 convention, we’ll have the field whittled down to a single, strong candidate to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

The first candidate I am eliminating from the race is …

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Calamari Appeteaser

March 1, 2019March 1, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan

I am always eager to order calamari as an appetizer when I eat out. Yum. I enjoy the chewy texture which makes it seem like the calamari is fighting back a bit when I’m eating it. Give up calamari. You cannot defeat my jaws of steel and digestive juices.

Michael Cohen threw us a calamari appeteaser with his testimony when he dropped the name of Matthew Calamari numerous times. Who? Was Michael Cohen talking about a favorite character in Good Fellas or The Godfather?

Calamari is apparently former security muscle and now the COO of the Trump Organization. Do you think he knows some stuff that Americans would like to know? Get ready to see this guy Matthew Calamari in front of some House committees being grilled in the near future.

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Some Summit

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019 ~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

The Donald Trump – Kim Jong-un Summit in Vietnam is over quicker than expected. Trump left earlier than planned and looked grumpy. Maybe it was the chairs?

Were the chairs chosen to make Kim look slim and tall while Trumpy looks short and fat? If so, that worked perfectly. And speaking of fat, here’s an artist’s conception of possibly why they could not reach any agreement …

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