The Hog Ball Lady

Joni Ernst is drawing more attention lately, but I'm told her rallies are a little funny-looking. All the guys sit with their legs crossed.

"I'm Joni Ernst and I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm," she reported in the now-viral teevee spot. The conclusion is left to the viewer : Ergo Joni really needs to be a United States senator, so let's all send her some money."

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It's part of the 2014 through 2016 Iowa political circus. The ultimate purpose is to decide which president-thing-hopefuls you will be allowed to vote for if perchance the nation survives  the remaining 32 Obamanation months.

It's a dreary show, a reprise of the banal. but this time without the interest of a Ron Paul semi-libertarian presence. Joni's cutting remark may be the only noteworthy snark of the revue, and she must concede some credit to  congresscritter Bruce Braley. (Joni is in a GOP primary fight; Bruce has been slated by the White House Office of Iowa Affairs and will be the statist nominee.)

They both want to replace Tom Harkin who is retiring to his Bahamas home after 30 years of pretending to represent Iowa as water carrier for the Ted Kennedy  senate tribe. (As a frame of reference, he was elected to the senate when Pete Rose was still hitting homers for Cincinnati instead of dodging process servers; the same year Madonna was still singing on American Band Stand. And, get this, he is still Iowa's junior senator.)

Braley's handlers made the fatal mistake of letting him speak without a teleprompter, and he decided to bitch slap our senior senator, Chuck Grassley,  as an "Iowa farmer who doesn't even have a law degree."

Joni's surgical line is a direct result of Bruce's ad lib, and Braley operatives spent the next three nights foetally under their blankies, sucking thumbs and wondering if things were as bad in the private-sector job market as they were hearing.

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And there it stands as a soft April rain nurtures the fresh grass seed on the Camp Jiggleview grounds; as the Trail  (phhbbbtt)  Trial Lawyers Association rallies with massive Citizen's United cash to redeem their artless colleague; as the evil Koch Brothers lurk behind the barn, trying to decide which of the primary Republicans would be their best senatorial buy.

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All of this overlays something I need to get to before long. Libertarian forces are in disarray around here this season. They had a decent presence on the state GOP Central Committee, but it has just been recaptured by the church-basement faction.

Danny Caroll is the name you want to Google. I know him only second-hand, but I hear he's a very nice guy if you can get him to quit quoting Genesis 1:1 in response to any question, from farm bills to Russian expansionism to making Janet Yellan slow down the goddam printing presses.

Resurrection Day, 2014

Religious feast days can be difficult for non-celebrants, particularly apostates living among the faithful. Even hard-logic skeptics, however, can surely find room for a sliver of poetry, a sense of renewal.















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Without ambition to play St. Francis, I have nevertheless created a local congregation of happier birds. It happened this way:

For three or fours years a simple auto tow-bar lived in the large-project pile. The intent, finally fulfilled on Wednesday,  was to bolt on a spike-studded timber, creating a tractor-drawn groomer for the gravel lane which might also serve as a dethatcher for the unruly grass and weeds which make up the Camp Jiggleview grounds. It works better than expected.

The was no aim to fatten the the robins, but that unintended consequence occurred, Oh those lovely little worms and grubs and other tasties, all freshly exposed for easy hunting. The tweets are deafening but wasted, of course, on a no-account man.

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Part of my Easter pleasure has for years been dinner with the incomparable C's. Sometimes I contribute wine, sometimes the regionally famous baked beans a la Jiggleview. This is a bean year, speaking of the Boston Marathon.

May it pass without new drama, although we can depend on our electric media to resurrect every tear, every fear, every snippet of 2013 Oh-My-God! tape.

In the 1980s it occurred to all sentient humans that people running down the street for hours had decidedly limited news value and entertainment potential.

The same thought penetrated teevee producers' skulls about 20 years later. As much as they may personally abhor violence, it is not lost on them than a bomb here and there does wonders for the Neilsons.

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Happy Easter, Friends.

God: Bought and Paid For

A nice boy from the Jewish tradition, MAIG boss Michael Bloomberg certainly loosens jaws when he lines up with the most anal of the Calvinists and Weberites; you know, the folks who deem Tesla drivers holier than poor schmucks  tooling around in rusty pickups.

Bloomberg is going to Heaven because wealth is a sign of God's favor, don't you know?

Honey, I shrunk the camel.

His Gate pass wasn't free. He bought off St. Peter with deposit of  $103 million to pretend to clean up the coal and motivate fish to fuck more frequently. He now  announces he  getting his halo out of layaway with another $50 million to ensure that only criminals are armed.

No one is making this up:

I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.

So be it, and we can hope that former mayor Bloomberg enjoys an eternity in close companionship with Abner Scofield, of whom our friend Mark Twain wrote.  You'll recall, of course, that the wealthy coal dealer secured his seat near the Throne of God as a reward for sending $15 to his impoverished sister. The Recording Angel confirmed the arrangements in a personal letter to Abner:

"... (St.)Peter, weeping, said, "He shall be received with a torchlight procession when he comes"; and then all heaven boomed, and was glad you were going there. And so was hell."

Which Twin Has the Sanctimony?*

I don't know why an excellent science site is running the story this week. There's no news peg I can see, and the space launch doesn't happen until next spring.

But it is still interesting that identical astronautical twin brothers are teaming up to let scientists compare human bodies in space to those on the ground.

Scott Kelly will fly to the ISS for a year. Brother Mark will stay down here with Gabby. Each will be poked and prodded and tapped to observe and compare  physiological changes.

It sounds like a reasonable experiment to me, but I note a flaw. Let's reverse the roles and send Mark up there, sparing Earthlings a full year of his pestering us about new gun laws.

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*I told you early exposure to electric teevee sets makes you weird.

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H/T to brilliant No. 2 grandson (to brilliant No. 1 grandson on Facebook)