Salty and Sweet

Thank Baihumon It's Friday!

"Rawr, and stuff!"

Food Fascism

The human face of pure evil.

It went mostly unnoticed in the national news media, who are way too busy covering asshat Donald Trump's latest idiocy and trying to explain away black-eyed skank Hillary Clinton's illegal behavior, but the "war on salt" took a significant step forward this week.

The lobbying group that has been pushing for this ruling is the so-called Center for Science in the Public Interest. Despite its name, the organization has nothing to do with actual science, and in fact ignores science to pursue its political objectives, which mostly have to do with telling people what they should and shouldn't eat.

The co-founder of this organization is an authoritarian nitwit named Michael F. Jacobson, whose devotes his energies to forcing his own food preferences on all of us.

Never mind that the science doesn't support his views, he's only interested in power. He wants to decide what we get to eat and drink, because he knows better than we do what is best for us. It is really that simple. Just read what he writes and you'll find the whiff of fascism on every page.

And since he can't persuade us with arguments and evidence, he chooses to use the coercive power of government to achieve his ends.

People like Jacobson are why it is absolutely imperative that we reduce the size and scope of government. I'm reasonably sure that our Founding Fathers did not intend to establish a national government so powerful it could regulate what foods and beverages we are permitted to consume. The kind of power Jacobson wants government to wield is entirely inconsistent with the principles Americans hold dear. He is an evil man.

"Don't sugarcoat it, Shu, tell us what you really think."

People like him have to be resisted vigorously, and at every level of society...

National Doughnut Day

Today is National Doughnut Day 2016,
a great celebration of one of humankind's most awesome inventions, the torus-shaped and deep-fried bit of dough that brings pleasure to millions every single day.

If you're interested, lots of business are celebrating by giving away doughnuts, but
I don't mind paying for mine. It is the least I can do for the artists who create these little bits of Heaven.

I'm not a huge fan of the trend for having every single day on the calendar being designated "National _____ Day," but this particular observance is one I can certainly get behind.

"Speaking of 'behinds'..."

Mind your own business, please...

Wild Kingdom Bed & Breakfast Update

"Just a little bling to attract the ladies. You like?"

It has been awhile since I've noticed a new species stopping by the B&B, but yesterday we got a visit from a male red-winged blackbird.

I see these guys all the time over near the mall, as there is a creek that runs just south of the mall's parking lot and these guys tend to like areas near bodies of water.



He spent most of his visit eating bugs just off the edge of the patio, but he did hop up and check out the seed offerings before departing. Quite a handsome fellow...

Trump Cuts a Promo

From the pen of Henry Payne, whose editorial cartoons you should read often, as I do.

Until Next Time...

As often happens in adolescence, a kid I couldn't stand in 9th grade became my best friend in 10th grade. When I got to know him, it turned out that we had common interests in chess, cute girls, and popular music. We were pretty evenly-matched at chess (we played a 100-game match our senior year, in which the final score was 47-46 in his favor, with 7 draws). When it came to cute girls, he was vastly more successful than
I was at getting dates, although he did his best to teach me. And then there was music. Several of the bands he introduced me to are still favorites, and I know the same is true of music I shared with him.

One of his enthusiasms was the English band Jethro Tull. We spent a fair amount of time at his house playing chess and listening to Tull albums This Was, Stand Up, and Benefit, which were all released in a 15-month period that basically spanned our junior year of high school. We spent quite a bit of time debating the relative merits of Tull versus The Who (my favorite).

The first time we saw the band perform live was about a month after our high school graduation, on June 29, 1971 at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas. The band was touring in support of their Aqualung album, widely considered their finest achievement and the album that launched them as a major concert draw and radio presence.

The second time we saw them we actually brought dates (yes, me included). The concert was on June 15, 1972 at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. (This was so long ago that their opening act was the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame-bound band
The Eagles, whom hardly anyone had heard of at that point.) They were promoting their latest album, the so-called "concept album" Thick As a Brick, which was among other things something of a spoof of pretentious concept albums, of which the band felt there were too many flooding the marketplace.

On June 3, 1972 Thick As a Brick hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, a position it would keep for two consecutive weeks.

Seeing the band perform the material live was a remarkable experience, one of the highlights of my concert-going career. And it's a good thing the music was awesome, as the relationship I was hoping to establish with the young lady who accompanied me never quite worked out. (Shocking, I know.)



Today's send-off is the 1997 25th Anniversary remaster of "Part I," which occupied the entire first side of the vinyl album. Enjoy...