There's Nothing Like a Damien

Proving once again that she has way, way too much time on her hands, Alexandria Ontario-Canadez is now complaining that a US Capitol Building statue of Father Damien, a Catholic priest who devoted his life to caring for the wretched residents of a leper colony in Hawaii before contracting and dying of the illness himself, represents "patriarchy and white supremacist culture."

The fact that Father Damien was a racist asshole no doubt comes as a shock to the Catholic church, which made him a saint, as well as to Hawaiian historians who are aware that Hawaii's Princess Lili'uokalani visited the leper colony on Molokai to personally honor the selfless priest. In 2009, then-governor of Hawaii Linda Lingle proclaimed October 11 to be Saint Damien Day, to celebrate a man who "remains a spiritual hero and an icon of love, compassion, courage, humility and humanitarian service."

None of which, in AOC's unforgiving eyes, excuses him for being white.

NAME GAME

Joe "Who's Joe Biden?" Biden will reportedly name his choice for a VP candidate sometime this week. Or maybe next week.

Okay, the timetable is fuzzy but he's got a reminder written in bold, block letters on a Post-it note so it will definitely happen pretty soon. Probably.

Insider speculation is that his choice is most likely to be Senator Kamala Harris. Insider speculation is also that the announcement has been delayed because he keeps mistakenly calling her "cameltoe."

UPRIGHT POSITION

According to newly-released documents, Bill Clinton did indeed spend time on Jeffrey Epstein's so-called "Pedophile Island" in the company of "young girls."

The former president, fabled hound dog, and pathological liar has adamantly denied any wrongdoing, shaking his stink-finger for emphasis. According to unconfirmed sources, Slick Willy has said "If I ever was on the island, and I'm not saying I was, it would have been because of my  well-documented interest in gardening." When pressed to be more specific, Clinton replied "deflowering."

Fool Disclosure

Scotch and water, anyone?

It's likely that publishing here at Stilton's Place is going to be a bit more sporadic for awhile, and I want to fill everyone in on what's going on. No need to hold your breath - this doesn't go anywhere particularly bad!

Several weeks ago, Mrs. J injured her back in a freak accident involving maggots and a city trash receptacle (but haven't we all?). We initially thought it was just a strain or sprain, but it wasn't. Rather, it was a compression fracture in one of her vertebra, which has severely limited the things she can do and her ability to get around (she can walk, but not for very long, and can't drive). Additional tests have shown other small fractures which previously hadn't been a problem, and osteoporosis.

She's forced to wear a championship wrestling-style belt/brace, she started physical therapy today, and she'll be having multiple sessions weekly. Other treatment options will depend on what we learn. There will also be multiple doctor visits, scans, tests, and other mischief related to all of this... and, being old farts, we were already doing frequent doctor visits as a form of geriatric recreation.

We're doing fine, but I'm going to be doing a lot of driving, minor caregiving ("peel me a grape!"), and attending to chores that Mrs. J handles when not infirm. And trust me, that's pretty much everything around here! Even with Daughter J's help, we're hard put to keep up!

But of course, that's not ALL that's going on. Covid-19 is still rolling across the nation and doing more damage than is generally recognized. That would be an important topic to talk about, but due to the politics and misinformation, no one really seems open to ideas or new, genuinely scientific information. And without a smart consensus, this plague is a long way from over. Frankly, it's tiring to try to ignore this huge story and find other topics to write about.

Although there are plenty! It's just that they're all depressing as Hell. Seriously, I frequently feel like I'm an older, uglier Charlton Heston and my spacecraft has somehow managed to trap me on the Planet of the Assholes. Preposterously biased "news" reports, Trump's tweets, riots in the streets, a collapsing economy (currently held aloft with imaginary money from the Fed), the unending perfidy of Democrats (between Nadler interrogating Barr and Obama turning John Lewis's funeral into a political rally, I can't even LOOK at these SOB's lately), cancel culture, racial animosity, social media tycoons digitally erasing freedom of speech, a nationwide attack on police officers, etc, etc.

Depending on how ALL the events in my life are going on any given day, these things could quickly and effectively be turned into prickly humor...or they could suck the life out of me for hours as I try to do enough clumsy self-surgery to find my funny bone. I can't really do that and still attend to my most important priorities, so I'm working on finding the best balance.

WHAT'S GOING TO ACTUALLY CHANGE HERE? Probably very little! I'm still as snarky as ever, the world is certainly as crazy as ever, and I really enjoy our interactions here. But for awhile, I'm going to occasionally post things along the lines of "sorry, I can't play today," and I don't want that to take anyone by surprise. I'm not going anywhere - I'm just stretched a bit thin for awhile.

Of course, the best way to know for sure when there's tasty new content on the page is to be signed up on my spam-free mailing list!

BONUS: RED SKIES AT NIGHT...

Just to say "thank you" for reading this far, here's a lovely sunset I spied from the back yard last night. Idyllic, except for the skeeters, sweltering heat, and the mine field of dog poops...

Time Off for Bad Behavior

Remember a couple of weeks ago when we said we were going to take time off to "catch up on things?" Well, that was pretty much a disaster. So we're trying it again for today and Friday.

All is fine - we just need to turn the tide on all of the undone things which are stacking up around here. We'll see you in the comments section - and here's a little foolishness just to say "thanks" for stopping by!