Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, June 20, 2021
ISSUE #1067
Who’s No. 17? And can Victoria’s Secret Thrive without Angels? Plus Juneteenth

President Biden got serious with Russia’s Putin on cyber-attacks. A pipeline company and meat processor recently paid millions in ransom. Biden gave Putin a list of our Top16 critical entities and ordered him to call off the Russian hackers. Putin glanced over the list, pondered a moment, and thought, “Which is Number 1?”

Americans are pondering, “What is Number 17?” And how would President Biden retaliate?

In case you are wondering, the Top 16 includes energy, food, dams, banks, trains, manufacturers, hospitals and nine more.

But it’s personally scary to realize that comedians and professional speakers are not on the protected list. But we may be safe from attack anyhow. It would take a whole passel of us to come up with, say, a $20 million ransom payment. Considering how many motivational messages, worn out starfish stories, and old jokes they would have to endure to collect, Putin would decide it just ain’t worth it.

Victoria’s Secret is famous for their provocative lingerie. They have stores in almost every Mall in the country (but oddly, not in Strip Malls). They’re very popular. It’s a $7 Billion industry. Maybe you’ve noticed, when husbands get tired of following their wife from store to store, they’ll often find a bench opposite one of those shops. Just sit there, stare and smile, waiting for her to return from Lane Bryant or Sears.

Unfortunately, low sales have ended the runway shows with beautiful models. Instead of showcasing lingerie-clad Angels on network television, they are replacing the models with female activists. Apparently, Victoria’s Secret will interview these women and broadcast only in audio. Based on the list of women I’ve seen, there aren’t many men, even old husbands, who would be captivated by seeing them in lingerie. (I made up my own list but my Editor made me take ‘em out, to keep me from being canceled.)

Are you annoyed by the WOKE notion that seems to permeate life today? The 99 percent of us need to ignore the self-proclaimed WOKE police and stop giving them a platform. A few people are scouring through huge, fifty-year old unabridged dictionaries searching for words to be offended by. In the old days, these overly zealous, pretentious people would be ignored or sent to an institution. Now, with Twitter, they claim “Mother” must be replaced by “birthing person.” I guess that relegates “Father” to “birth contributor” or “sperm donor.”

One of the things Americans can do well is come together in a crisis. Of course, it depends on the crisis. Sometimes when an essential, critical, positively “must act now” emergency comes along the House, Senate and President can git ‘er done. Take this week, for example. It was not the virus from a China Lab, nor higher payments to NATO, nor retaliation for Putin’s hackers. No, it was a different issue that required (and received) rocket-fast action: On Tuesday, the House passed the bill; Wednesday, the Senate passed the House bill; Thursday, President Biden signed it; and Friday, yes Friday, all federal employees got a new day off because Saturday became a National Holiday! Juneteenth.

Although most schools are out before mid-June every year, the #1 question students will be asking is, what day is Juneteenth? And #2, then why isn’t it called Junenineteenth?

A better question is: Why isn’t the day Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves, named as the official holiday. That was January 1, 1863. But because they didn’t have long-distance telephones or internet, it took two and a half years, until June 19, 1865, for the news to reach Galveston, Texas. Now, I can poke fun at the “slow speed” in the 1860s and the “super-fast speed” in 2021. But establishment of this national holiday has been in process for over 150 years.

And today is Father’s Day. It’s always on Sunday, so no paid time off. I recently learned the first Father’s Day in America was held in Fairmont, West Virginia. It was in memory of more than 350 men who died in a coal mine disaster in 1907 at nearby Monongah, leaving a thousand without fathers. Father’s Day slowly caught on across the country, mainly promoted by commercial interests selling items such as fishing gear, tools, and ties. It became an official national day in 1972. Those “commercial interests” collected about a billion dollars today.

Happy Father’s Day!

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

(A day after FDR’s inauguration) “Say, this Roosevelt is a fast worker… this President closed all the banks and called Congress into extra session.” DT #2055, March 6, 1933

(Ending Prohibition, unofficially) “Roosevelt says, ‘Let ‘em drink.’ That’s all. And he collected $10 million in revenue in the first two weeks. And if he’d had good beer, he’d have paid the national debt by now.” Radio, Apr. 30, 1933

(In a tribute on Mother’s Day) “Father had a day, but you can’t find anybody who remembers when it was. It’s been so confused with April the first.” Radio, May 12, 1935

X

    Contact Randall Reeder