Andy's Custard is Dead to Me: Reflections on the Decline of the American Work Culture

 My hometown had an old-fashioned Dairy Queen when I was a kid, one of those vintage establishments that required customers to stand on the sidewalk and direct their food orders to a soda jerk through an open window.

Anadarko's Dairy Queen sold "soft serve," not real ice cream, but delicious nevertheless.  A small soft-serve cone only cost a nickel, which fit my childhood budget. If I was broke, I could always find at least three empty soda bottles I could redeem for two cents at the grocery store. And voila! I had the scratch to get a soft-serve cone.

My local Dairy Queen only sold two food items: a chili dog, which cost fifteen cents, and a footlong chili dog, which cost a quarter. The footlong came encased in a paper wrapper with a printed ruler attesting that the footlong chili dog was indeed twelve inches long. Truth in advertising!

My favorite food item at the Anadarko DQ was the soft-serve chocolate malt. A chocolate milkshake cost twenty-five cents during my childhood years, but the malt was pricey--thirty cents!

The extra nickel was worth it, however, because the tablespoon of powdered malt transformed an ordinary milkshake into the nectar of the gods.

Growing up, I consumed a couple hundred soft-serve chocolate malts, and I don't recall the soda jerk ever getting my order wrong. The powdered malt and chocolate syrup were always in the drink I ordered.

Now, chocolate malts cost a lot more than thirty cents. Andy's Custard, which I once patronized, charged me $6.95 (including sales tax) for a malt about the same size as the malts I slurped at the Anadarko Dairy Queen a half-century ago. 

I didn't begrudge the cost because Andy's custard is premium quality. Nevertheless, I insist that my seven-dollar malt includes malt flavoring.

The server at Andy's gets my order right about 60 percent of the time. Other times, however, I get a chocolate milkshake, not a chocolate malt.

This is unacceptable to me. When I pay seven dollars for a chocolate malt, I want a chocolate malt.

I do not mean to single out Andy's Custard. My experience there is similar to my experience in all kinds of fast-food establishments. Too often, the person who takes my order has a faraway look, and I know he or she is not listening to me. I'm distracting my server from TikTok or a text message conversation about last night's keg party.

Same phenomenon in the grocery store. I was in Albertson's a while back, and the cashier was having a personal conversation on his hands-free cell phone. He never acknowledged my presence or paused his phone chatter. I was a distraction from his social life.

COVID wrecked the American work ethic. When the federal government began paying people more not to work than to show up and do something useful, people asked themselves why they should exert themselves just to have money in their pockets. Just send me a check!

This new attitude hurts our whole society. When I order a chocolate malt, it's no big deal if the Andy's Custard worker gives me a milkshake. It's more serious, however, when the Social Security Administration tells the American people it can't say for sure when it will implement the directives of the Social Security Fairness Act.

Weaponizing free speech: Nonsense and blather from the unhinged left

 I have long believed no one should graduate college without reading William Shirer's magisterial book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. 

Shirer, a journalist who witnessed Germany's descent into terror, was a journalist, not an academic. Perhaps for that reason, his account of Hitler's rise to the German chancellor's office through parliamentary means and his use of assassination and concentration camps to secure total power has never been seriously challenged.

Margaret Brennan, CBS host of Face the Nation, obviously never read Shirer's masterpiece.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have made the inane comment that the Nazis weaponized free speech when she interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

Rubio, who has a firmer grasp on history than Brennan, set her straight. The Nazis didn't weaponize free speech, he tutored her; they abolished it.

Brennan's weaponizing free speech comment did not come out of thin air. Brennan probably read Adam Litvak's story in the New York Times titled "How Conservatives Weaponized Free Speech," in which Litvak quoted Associate Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote in a dissenting judicial opinion that conservatives were "weaponizing the First Amendment."

Indeed, the bizarre assertion that free speech can be weaponized has entered the mainstream of legal scholarship. Catharine MacKinnon, a law professor and feminist legal scholar, published an article in the Virginia Law Review that made this astounding claim:

Once a defense of the powerless, the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful. Starting toward the beginning of the twentieth century, a protection that was once persuasively conceived by dissenters as a shield for radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists, the excluded and the dispossessed, has become a sword for authoritarians, racists and misogynists, Nazis and Klansmen, pornographers, and corporations buying elections in the dark.

My guess, then, is that Brennan's addled notion that the Nazis weaponized free speech can be traced back to balderdash disseminated by Justice Kagan, Professor MacKinnon, and the New York Times.

With due respect to these august authorities, I believe the assertion that the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, and pornographers weaponized the First Amendment is fruitcake logic--the very kind of blather we've come to expect to come from academia and the legacy media.

However, I'm just a guy who lives off a gravel road in Flyover Country, so what do I know? 

Professor Catharine MacKinnon, Fruitcake Extraordinaire

Take this job and shove it! Elon Musk tries to prune the federal bureaucracy

 Take this job and shove it

I ain't working here no more.

Sung by Johnny Paycheck

America's budget deficit is on track to hit $1.9 trillion, which will be added to the nation's accumulated national debt of $36 trillion. 

Elon Musk, chief of President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is moving savagely to prune the federal workforce, which he urgently needs to do.  

He began by offering buyouts to entice federal employees to resign--a classic corporate tactic to trim payroll costs. So far, roughly 75,000 people have accepted the offer, a tiny percentage of the nation's 2.3 million federal workers.

Unfortunately, the employees who accepted the offer include some of the nation's most efficient bureaucrats. That's because the people who left federal service have job skills that can transfer to the private sector.

Most civil servants are hanging on to their federal jobs despite a pointed invitation to leave.  These include those who don't have the skills or experience to find employment outside the DC swamp. They will dig in at least long enough to reach retirement age.

DOGE will be forced to fire thousands of government workers to trim the workforce. Many will file lawsuits challenging DOGE's authority to make the government more efficient. They'll also avail themselves of the elaborate civil service regulations that protect their constitutional right to due process.

In short, it will be months or even years before the federal workforce shrinks. Meanwhile, the primary beneficiaries of the DOGE initiative will be lawyers--lots and lots of lawyers.

In the near future, we are likely to see the passive-aggressive nature of the federal civil service rear its ugly head as the apparatchiks of the DC swamp begin a work slowdown. We can't fulfill our duties, the bureaucrats will moan, because the workforce has been slashed by a "Nazi nepo baby."

Indeed, we are already seeing worksite sabotage in the Social Security Administration. Senior SSA administrators say it will be more than a year before they implement the directives of the Social Security Fairness Act, which is intended to benefit retirees who have been unfairly penalized. 

Why? They're understaffed.

Take number. A federal bureaucrat will assist you sometime in the next century.

SNL's 50th Anniversary Show: Bingo Night at the Nursing Home

 I watched Saturday Night Live's  50th Anniversary Show last night on NBC, one of the Deep State's propaganda networks. Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Andy Hoglund described the program as "the ultimate victory lap--a night packed with nostalgia, humor, and some surprise moments."

Hoglund and I live on different planets. I found the show tedious, self-congratulatory, and distinctly unfunny.

In the "Scared Straight" sketch," Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy, playing incarcerated criminals, repeatedly made jokes about anal rape in prison. Who found that funny?

A satire on the Lawrence Welk Show portrayed a disfigured thalidomide victim dancing provocatively. I didn't laugh.

Robert De Niro showed up for a cameo appearance--the avuncular De Niro, not the Trump-hating angry grandpa. Someone needs to tell SNL that inserting a faded celebrity in a sketch doesn't make it funny.

And then there was Lil Wayne's rap performance, which Hoglund described as "the superior musical medley of the night."  

That was a musical medley? Thanks for enlightening me. I thought it was an atonal, incoherent rant. I guess you've got to be a coastal elite to appreciate Lil Wayne's charms.

Finally, I found Tom Hanks's "In Memoriam" intro mildly offensive. Before showing a montage of sketches featuring racial and ethnic stereotypes, Hank suggested that the audience should be canceled for laughing.

The audience for last night's SNL homage didn't include representatives of the show's millions of fans. No, the auditorium was packed with celebrities from days gone by: Cher, Keith Richards, Al Sharpton, Alec Baldwin, etc. 

Hoglund called the production "the ultimate victory lap."  I would describe it as Bingo Night at the Nursing Home.

There was a time when SNL entertained Flyover Country and made the yokels laugh. Now, the glitterati of Manhattan only entertain each other and laugh at the rest of us.

Thalidomide isn't funny

 

White Dudes For Kamala: Aren't You Ashamed of Yourselves?

In her interview on 60 Minutes, Kamala Harris, the Democrats' presidential candidate, said this: 

Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. 

As Americans later learned, CBS doctored the transcript to make Harris sound less incoherent, and Donald Trump sued the network for biased reporting. 

Harris's 60 Minutes babble was just one example of her inability to speak clearly and forthrightly. Nevertheless, more than 70 million people voted for Harris to be the next leader of the Free World.

Presumably, this number includes all those male Democratic sycophants who showed up (via "live video call") for a "White Dudes for Kamala" rally last July.

According to the New York Times, 60,000 men attended this video event, which was headlined by Jeff Bridges:

Kicking off the White Dudes call was, of course, the Dude, the actor Jeff Bridges, abiding in a comfortable-looking chair. He had seen a link for the “White Dudes for Harris” trucker hat and wanted one. “I qualify!” he said. “I am white. I am a dude. And I love Harris!”

As reported by the media, the White Dudes rally was a stunning success and raised $4 million for the Harris campaign--enough to cover the fees the Harris team paid to production companies owned by Ophrah and Beyonce for their efforts on Kamala's behalf.

We know how that turned out. On election day, Donald Trump soundly defeated Harris. Indeed, he made gains in key demographic groups compared to previous Republican performances, including white, black, and Hispanic men. 

Is anyone embarrassed?

Why did so many celebrities publicly support Harris for president when she was clearly a dud? I think the glitterati were just lazy.

Like the cinematic Big Lebowski, who was described in Sam Elliott's voiceover as "the laziest man in Los Angeles," the coastal elites always support the most liberal and progressive candidates for any public office. It's easier than thinking for themselves.

Fortunately, millions of white dudes did their own thinking and voted for Trump. Can you imagine where the country would be right now if Harris and Tim Walz were running the country?

The laziest man in Los Angeles.

 

 

 

Please, President Trump, get the U.S. the hell out of Ukraine

 "Ignorance of history," Robert Conquest wrote, "is one of the most negative attributes of modern man."

Indeed, among our woke politicians and pseudo-intellectual academics, it is fashionable to sneer at anyone who makes a historical reference.

Everything that occurred before the election of Barack Obama, our chattering class believes, is nothing more than the machinations and exploitations of racist, homophobic, and misogynistic white men. The past is irrelevant, and seeking wisdom from history is offensive to the uber-sensitive.

Ask AOC to state the dates of the Civil War and hear what she says. You'll probably get a sneer and no answer.

Ask Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren to define Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Britain,  and the years they occurred. I'll bet she doesn't know.

Now, our nation's policy wonks and military bureaucrats, apparently ignorant of history, are stoking the war in Ukraine.

As President Trump has said, it's a stupid war,  senseless and tragic.  The American public doesn't know how many people have died in the conflict because everyone is lying about the casualties. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that half a million people have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more have been maimed. Cities have been leveled, and millions of Ukrainian refugees have been driven out of their native country.

For what? To prop up the Ukrainian government, a corrupt and venal crime gang. Isn't anyone aware of Russia's long dominance in Crimea or the millions of Russian speakers in the Donbas?

Barack Obama's State Department and his CIA destabilized Ukraine in 2014 and pushed Russia toward war. Hunter Biden enriched himself in Ukraine, and then Joe Biden, morally bankrupt and cognitively ravaged, shipped billions of dollars in weapons to prop up Zelensky's corrupt regime.

And Americans don't care. Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, bleats about transgender children who supposedly fear for their lives, but she doesn't give a fuck about the Ukrainians, or at least not enough to mention it in her lecture to the President.

 And neither do the folks in the legacy media. Do you think Whoopi Goldberg could find Ukraine on a map?

Please, President Trump, stop the war in Ukraine. If you do that, you should get the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee might give you Barack Obama's. He never used it.

I Go Full Keto (Or Maybe Half Keto): Reflections on My Post-Stroke Lifestyle

I had a stroke a couple of years ago, which impaired my left side. I walk with a cane now, which is no fun, and my semi-functional left side prevents me from participating in a host of enjoyable activities.

Consequently, I've gained some weight. A couple of weeks ago, I determined to go on a formal, serious diet--the first in my life.

I was attracted to the carnivore diet that would allow me to eat nothing but meat. Consuming a lot of ribeye steaks, pork chops, and bacon--how hard could that be?

I did some Google research, however, and learned about some downsides. Joe Rogan, the famous podcaster, tried the carnivore website and reported that it gave him diarrhea.

Pretty severe diarrhea. As Joe described it:

It’s a different thing, and with regular diarrhea, I would compare it to a fire you see coming a block or two away, and you have the time to make an escape, whereas this carnivore diet is like out of nowhere, the fire is coming through the cracks, your doorknob is red hot, and all hope is lost.

Other people warn that a meat-only diet is exceptionally dull. Eating a ribeye steak every day loses its appeal over time, the carnivores say, although I'm skeptical.

I finally settled on the Keto diet--which is a "high-fat, low carbohydrate diet that aims to put the body into a state called ketosis" (whatever the hell that means).

I've been on the Keto diet for about two weeks and haven't lost a significant amount of weight. I feel better, however, as a result of giving up processed bread and sweets

I've also given up alcohol. which was difficult. I'm drinking nonalcoholic beer now, which is pretty good. Heineken's zero beer, in particular, is delicious and tastes like real beer.

Nevertheless, I've already found myself making compromises. It was impossible for me to get through the Superbowl last Sunday without a couple of brewskis.

I also found I can go only so long without a cheeseburger, and my religion requires that I quaff a Shiner when I eat that holy meal.

I decided I would enjoy a total of two alcoholic drinks on weekends and allow myself a weekly high-carb meal (cheeseburger, mothership pizza, enchilada plate, etc.)

Thus, I have not gone full Keto; I've gone half Keto. I'll let you know how it works out.

Of course, the other half of a weight-loss regime is exercise. I've resolved to walk a half mile four times a week, which I think will help me lose weight.

It is no fun living with the damage from a stroke. My duck hunting days are over, and I'll never crank another fishing reel.

There are compensations, however. With the help of my brother-in-law and a patient guide, I shot a deer last month in Alabama, and I'm feasting on low-carb venison meat.

To paraphrase William Wordsworth, nothing can bring back the splendor in the grass, but I'll find strength in what remains. Besides, the grass was not that splendid when I was growing up in western Oklahoma.

And Keto or no Keto, I'm gonna have a Shiner now and then.