Welcome to the November assembly of the Capitol Middle School Student Government Association. My name is Mr. Johnson, and as part of my probation, I’ve been ordered to guide you the rest of this year. It was either that or clean the orangutan area at Zoo Atlanta, so please don’t make me regret my decision. Yes, Marjorie? MARJORIE: I just wanted to … ME: Um, please stand up when addressing everyone. MARJORIE: I am! ME: Oh, OK. Proceed. MARJORIE: I have it on good authority — or as we say in my neighborhood, I seen it on them interwebs — […]
Enter the crazy old uncle; exit the nuance
I’ve been asked the following questions many times, and I believe it’s time to set the record straight once and for all: Are you conservative or liberal? Are you pro-life or pro-abortion? Israel or the Palestinians? Do you support gun control or the 2nd Amendment? Frozen or on the rocks? The answers are, in order — yes, yes, yes, yes and frozen. In this age of extreme polarization, America has become a this-or-that society. There’s no room for discussion in the gray areas of complicated issues. There are really only two political parties at work … and, yes, I use […]
The brrr-fect sleeping temperature
You folks in my neck of the woods may have noticed that the temperature has dipped a bit at night — temporarily, I’m sure. Granted, temperatures have dipped across much of the U.S., but when it gets down into the lower 30s in the South, even for just a night or two, folks around here basically act the way you normal folks would if they were stranded on the planet Hoth. I’m just kidding, of course. I’ve been out of the South many times, and y’all ain’t normal. I mean, sure, we’re crazy from the heat down here, but y’all […]
A ruff morning at the pet-friendly hotel
The older I get, the less I like noise. Granted, “noise” is a relative term, but for me it means just about any sound that I don’t want to hear at that very moment. One of the noises I loathe is the incessantly barking dog. Now, I know some of you doggie lovers are having some knee-jerk reaction like, “He hates dogs! Who hates dogs?! Must love cats! Weirdo!” I don’t hate dogs. I don’t love cats. I merely hate noise. I actually like dogs if they understand when a bark or two is OK — such as when a […]
Some old song titles just don’t cut it anymore
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the Speaker of the House, Ukraine, the border, inflation, Donald Trump’s legal woes, and President Biden’s sweet little attack dogs. And now my head hurts. So, instead of writing a blog today, I’ve decided to tell you a little about my debut album. Yes, I strum a little guitar and sing like a ferret being run over by a garbage truck, so I’m totally qualified to make it in today’s music scene. Who knows? I could make it so big that I wind up dating Travis Kelce. My album is called, […]
Minor issues like dress codes have a tendency to Fester
When I write about dress codes, a lot of folks — especially women, and specifically among this particular group of humans, my wife — tend to get all upset with my opinions on how folks should be able to dress. With a few exceptions here and there, my general opinion is that you ought to be able to dress however you dang well please. I’ve always been the guy pushing dress codes to the limit. In school, I found board shorts that I could pull down just enough to barely meet our vice principal’s measuring stick to determine if they […]
If y’all would stop being so gullible, that’d be just super-duper
There was a day and age when you could turn on the television and know that whatever you saw was absolutely 100 percent true — Walter Cronkite’s news, Oral Roberts’ warnings that God was gonna take him if you didn’t send enough cash, Georgia Championship Wrestling matches, and, most terrifyingly, that some weirdo named Mr. Whipple was going to accost you if you squeezed toilet paper at the grocery store. To this day, you still won’t find me squeezing toilet paper at the store. Today, though, we have 347 channels. In many ways, that can be a good thing. But […]
Absolutists on both sides interfere with progress and understanding
Americans have become so polarized that they have pushed themselves into camps, built walls and locked their brains to the point that every issue to them is utterly simple. You’re an idiot if you get your news from that source. Republicans don’t care about the working class and poor. Democrats want to control you. Bud Light is indoctrinating your children. Everyone at the Capitol on Jan. 6 deserves to be in prison. Mickey Mouse is too woke. Dave Chappelle is a transphobe. Joe Biden runs a crime family. Bill Maher is an Islamophobe. These are the kinds of things you […]