The New "Chosen People"

Have you noticed that we have a new group of “chosen people”? The Jews? They’re passé. Besides, they’re all mixed up in Gaza (wherever the hell that is). 

It’s here in the USA that God matters, and God has been slowly building up his troops. In 1953, it seems that there was only one person whom God could depend on—President Dwight Eisenhower. At least that’s what The New Yorker reported one divine claimed. 

More recently, the USA no longer has had to depend on a lone soldier like Ike; there has been an onrushing of newly-anointed saviors of this country. 

For example, Tom Parker, the Alabama chief justice, has stated that “God created government,” and claimed that he himself had been called by God to “the mountain of government.”*

Then there’s Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who expressed shock that he was elected to that gaudy post:

But despite Johnson’s shock at being chosen to lead his people, he concluded that God knew best: “Only God saw the path through the roiling sea,” he concluded. . . .

In his first speech upon becoming speaker, Johnson said, “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority.”**

But to top it all off, there’s Trump. 

This is really a battle between good and evil," evangelical TV preacher Hank Kunneman says of the slew of criminal charges facing Donald Trump. "There's something on President Trump that the enemy fears: It's called the anointing."

The Nebraska pastor, who was speaking on cable news show "FlashPoint" last summer, is among several voices in Christian media pressing a message of Biblical proportions: The 2024 presidential race is a fight for America's soul, and a persecuted Trump has God's protection.***

Trump has seemingly embraced this view of his mission in life:  

The former president has started some rallies with a messianic video made by social media influencers which opens with the line: "On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: I need a caretaker, so God gave us Trump."

Well, all I can say is: God also gave us the tsetse fly. 

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* https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/alabama-ivf-ruling-is-an-assault-on-the-right-to-privacy.html

** https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-lawmakers-moses.html

*** https://www.yahoo.com/news/god-gave-us-trump-christian-100346241.html?guccounter=1

Language Follies 11 (The Ides of March Edition)

The Ides of March

If you’re Julius Caesar, you should take the soothsayer’s advice and beware this day. If you’re anybody else, there’s nothing to fear. “Ides,” which sounds so ominous, did not mean anything like”hex” or “evil eye.” In Roman times it merely was the designation for the middle of the month; hence, for March, the 15th.

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Today’s Orwell Award for Euphemism

“Pain compliance”

“In a nutshell, pain compliance involves either manipulating a person's joints or activating certain pressure points to create sufficient pain to achieve compliance.”*

Don’t you love police talk?

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The Wisdom of the Walls

Here’s some of the latest intelligence from the boundaries of sporting venues:

“100% Guaranteed Gasolines” 

(As distinct, one wonders, from what?)

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“Defending Networks. Hunting Forwards”

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“Tawandang German Brewery” 

(Which is located at 462/61 Rama III Rd, Chong Nonsi, Yan Nawa, Bangkok 10120, Thailand)

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And, finally Dr. Cinik, the good old Turkish man-of-all-work, who offers “Dental Treatments,” “Hair Transplants,” “Plastic Surgery.”

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“Psyop”

(Or, “I am talking out of my rear end”)

“Lately,” The Washington Post, tells us,

it’s become popular in conservative media circles to brand certain things as a psychological operation, or “psyop.”

Climate change, for example. Or covid. Or the media coverage of Donald Trump. Or even the prosecution of Hunter Biden.

The Post identifies Fox News host Jesse Watters as 

perhaps the most influential superspreader of the term. In January, Watters used a just-asking-questions formula to suggest that Taylor Swift is a psyop asset of the Defense Department. 

Watters acknowledged that his show “obviously has no evidence” for the claim . . .**

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“If I Wasn’t So Wrong, I’d Be Right”

Winthrop Sargeant was classical music reviewer of The New Yorker for many years. This item from April 30,1955 beats anything else he ever wrote:

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And lest you think that a non-music music review would top the crazy chart in 1955, here’s a conspiracy theory that belongs to the world of Jesse Watters 

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* https://www.officer.com/home/article/10250067/pain-compliance-vs-body-mechanics

** https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/02/22/psyop-conspiracy-theory-conservative-media/