Wonderland Burlesque's Adore & Deplore Quiz Winter Edition, Part 2

Wonderland Burlesque's

Adore & Deplore Quiz

Winter Edition, Part 2

This is quite simple: five topics: what do you currently adore / deplore?

Today's focus is what's in the news.

Focus on the last six months. Think: recent events. Things that have made you ponder since late spring.

There's only five topics, so explain your choices, if you wish.

Let's dive in!

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Crime/Justice 

Adore:

The Ahmaud Arbery Verdict

A black man gets justice in Georgia. 

But he's still dead. So? 

Where's the shoorah?

Shit like this should not be happening in this country. Not today.

Stuff like this? It drives me and everybody with an ounce of humanity insane. 

What can we do? What can we say? How do we help fix this?

Talking about it is a way to start. 

But you just watch; the media and the the collective consciousness of this country is going to bulldoze right over this incident and act like it never happened. 

Like Matthew Shepard. 

Or James Byrd, Jr.

Or Yankel Rosenbaum.

Hate crimes need to be prosecuted as exactly that. And those that stand in the way of those laws or criticize them?

Run a mile in Ahmaud Arbery's shoes.

Deplore:

The Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

That Gaetz and Gospar have the hubris to celebrate this young man who took a gun he shouldn't have had to a place he had no business being - shoots three, killing two people and gets away with it with not the slightest reprimand? 

Judge Bruce Schroeder needs to be censored, disbarred and impeached.  He's a menace to society and unfit for public office. He turned that trial into a mockery. 

If Rittenhouse is O.J. Simpson 2.0, then Schroeder is Ito 2.0. 

They both should be shunned and condemned for the cowards they both are. 

U.S. Politics

Adore:

Biden's Infrastructure Package

He recently came to Minnesota to visit, appearing at a school, Dakota County Technical College. He introduced a young woman, Sarah Riviere-Herzan, who, once she graduates, plans on opening an all female construction vehicle repair firm. 

That's a dream I could support, and one Biden's infrastructure package does. 

This package? It brings to mind FDR's New Deal. It gets to the heart of what can keep blue collar workers not only working, but earning real money. And the whole country benefits. Who wouldn't like to drive on safer roads and over sound bridges? It's an idea whose time has finally come. 

We'll all benefit, for it supports the supply chain and all those white collar workers whose livelihoods depend on goods getting into the hands of consumers. And there will be more consumers because there will be more people working jobs that don't involve the flipping of a frozen hamburger patty. 

This is a win-win and Joe's greatest accomplishment, so far. Personally, I think it's underfunded and I hope, once the money is dispersed, it doesn't end up in the pockets of crooked politicians and their thieving friends.

I'd hate to see a repeat of The Great Covid Giveaway!

Deplore:

Gerrymandering.

My sister is a resident of Wisconsin, a state that is so gerrymandered that she is convinced Wisconsin will never be a blue state. Ever.

I'm glad the Justice Department is taking on Texas in this regards. 

Thing is... this is happening everywhere. Even in someplace as blue as Minneapolis. It seems if someone doesn't like the fact that they lost an election, they can go about gerrymandering ensuring a different outcome next time around. 

This 'win at any price' nonsense? It's a desperate measure by people coming to realize that they are losing power. I am hopeful for the future, only because the old guard is dying out and the younger generations are better educated and more aware. I've never been more in favor of handing this country over to younger people. 

Old, privileged, white men. They need to go the way of the dinosaurs. 

Extinction for their lot can't come soon enough.

The Environment

Adore:

Electric Cars

Electric cars seem to be catching on. Love that Biden's new infrastructure bill includes funds for recharging stations (though I hear the free public ones are rubbish and take forever to do the job.) Of course, those funds will be cancelled if a member of THE PARTY gets into office in 2024. 

Still, with manufacturers such as GMC going all in, we can feel a bit more hopeful. May be too late to do any good as far as global warming is concerned, but I would love to end our dependence on unstable, misogynistic, homophobic, cruel regimes like those found in the Middle East and Texas. 

Give 'em the finger and the boot! Go electric!

Deplore:

The Fate of the Splendid Poison Frog

The Spix’s Macaw, the Northern White Rhinoceros, the Baiji, the Pyrenean Ibex, the Western Black Rhinoceros... the list just goes on and on, unabated. 

It's heartbreaking. And terribly under-reported. 

Every time a species goes extinct, it serves as yet another reason to loathe human kind. 

We destroy their habitat. We disturb their lifecycles, their mating rituals. We're selfish and stupid and... never held accountable. 

We're terrible stewards, and I wouldn't hold it against nature if one day she retaliates and visits upon us a similar fate.

The Economy

Adore:

Retirement

People are retiring at such a rapid pace. And, despite all the cries for them to return to the workforce in order to save the economy... I think they're doing the right thing. Hand this world over to the younger generations. Let their young, bright, well-educated minds create new solutions without the old guard and their old way of doing things getting in the way. 

I'm witnessing this first hand at the company I work for. Not only have we diversified out work force and gone global, but we're also handing the reins over to younger people who have the skills, knowledge, integrity and drive to drive true innovation. 

It's exciting.

Especially since I'm also a stockholder. 

Yes... retirement!

Here I come, one day... sooner than I ever thought possible. 

Deplore:

Gas prices.

I despise that THE PARTY is trying to hold Joe accountable for gas prices. Really? Because facts seem to support the idea that we're getting screwed due to our over-dependence on foreign oil and the fact that OPEC is currently price gouging this country because... they can. 

Well, here's what the answer is not: we don't need to open up Alaska and our natural forest reserves to drilling and destruction in order to feed this nation's oil addiction. 

Electric cars. Let's start there. 

Ending our dependence on oil is the best thing that could happen to this nation and the world. 

International

Adore:

The Diplomatic Boycott of the Beijing Olympics

In many ways, China is much bigger threat than Russia. Russia is poorly run and unorganized. Their people? Well, just go to Youtube - they make the U.S. southerners look positively cultured. 

But China. Not only are a the human rights nightmare, but what they continue to do to the environment, unchecked, is a disgrace. 

And now they're sprinkling the world with shipping ports - which just happen to be near U.S. military bases. It doesn't take a seer to see where this is heading. 

For the world at large, China is a problem in need of solving. 

Calling attention to its sins? A start.

Deplore:

Russia on the Ukraine Border (Again)

I keep thinking they do this as a cover for something else. As in: what are they really up to? What are they doing behind the scenes. This reminds me of the orange ogre and his 'look over here' ruses. 

I must say, in this day and age, it takes pure gall to even contemplate taking over another country - especially when the one you're currently running is such a shit show. To say that Russia is terribly mismanaged and horribly corrupt is a bit of an understatement. 

Putin sees himself as James Bond, while the rest of the world see him for the narcissistic, two-bit crime boss he's barely managing to be. The man is a joke. A dangerous one.

That such ineptness will bring about WWIII and probable nuclear annihilation? 

Well, this country just spent four years under the heel spurred hoof of a similar ass. 

So just imagine all the damage and destruction a lifetime of Putin will bring.

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Well, that's all for today.

Your turn. Adore? Deplore? What's on your current list?

Leave your answers in the comments section. You know I love to hear from you.

And the wonderful thing about opinions? There are no wrong answers. It's all a matter of personal choice as filtered through our own very unique vision. So, share away. 

Until next time...

Thanks for reading... and sharing.

Where's The Shoorah? - Elton John

Cold, Cold Heart - Elton John and Dua Lipa

(PNAU Remix)

Wonderland Burlesque’s Turdscooters of the Week: ‘Rolling Coal’ Enthusiasts

Wonderland Burlesque’s Turdscooters of the Week:  

‘Rolling Coal’ Enthusiasts

File this under: WTF?

When did obnoxiousness get confused with patriotism?

I must admit, upon first learning about the current fad known as ‘Rolling Coal’, I thought it must be a joke.  But unfortunately, no. 

Sigh.  Only in Amerca.

Have you heard of this?  Apparently there is a group of people out there who consider themselves ‘anti-environmentalists’ and plan on leaving as big of a carbon footprint as their pocketbooks will allow.

‘Rolling Coal’ involves modifying a diesel pick-up truck so that more fuel than can be combusted is sent to the engine.  The leftover fuel burns, turning into soot which then billows out of smokestacks similar to those found on eighteen wheelers.   Enthusiasts like to expel this toxic stuff on pedestrians, bicyclists, and folks who drive hybrid cars. They call this nuisance soot ‘Prius Repellant’.

Say what?

It boggles the mind.

One explanation?

“I run into a lot of people that really don’t like Obama at all,” said an unnamed Wisconsin seller of smoke stack kits. “If he’s into the environment, if he’s into this or that, we’re not. I hear a lot of that. To get a single stack on my truck—that’s my way of giving them the finger. You want clean air and a tiny carbon footprint? Well, screw you.”

Have these people nothing better to do with their lives?  Their time?  Their money? 

In a way it makes sense to me. 

I have long thought that people who drive what I term ‘Stupid Trucks’ were a bunch of a-holes.  I don’t mean to denigrate the entire population of people who drive these vehicles – some of you drive respectfully and actually need all that horsepower and cargo room for work. 

But that’s a minority of truck owners.  These vehicles are marketed to lugheads who seem to feel that owning an oversized pick-up truck will:

• attract bodacious babes
• prove what masculine men they are
• empower them and grant them their rightful place in the world
• make up for their lack in physical stature
• make up for their tiny dicks

In a way, that last point is true: owning a ‘Stupid Truck’ does sort of make them a big dick.

But this ‘Rolling Coal’ nonsense? 

That is beyond the pale, granting such pollution porn enthusiasts the honor of being Wonderland Burlesque’s Turdscooters of the Week. Blow that out your smokestacks, you schmucks with trucks.  

Vroom, vroom…