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King George Costanza?

“Why George Alexander Louis?” rhetorically questions a BBC website headline as to why the Royal Baby was given the name by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Yes damn it! Indeed! Why the #@$& did Willie and Kate saddle the newest future King of England with a trio of dull past names guaranteed to make even the Queen yawn herself into a coma? King George VII, or King George the 7th for all of you Roman numerically-challenged nitwits, harkens back to an older time. So old in fact that it happened to be the time the sixth version of King George saw the death knell of the British Empire.

"Can't Stand Ya!"
“Can’t Stand Ya!”

One can only be happy for the Royal couple and their “lit’el bundel o’ joy.” Even though Kate looked as if she was about seven months into another bout of pregnancy when she and good (future) King William came out to show everyone in the world that they indeed had a cute lit’el bugger and not the spawn of “Paw-Paw Charles.” Those “magnificent” Spencer genes one must imagine.

Nonetheless, George? George Costanza, the “Lord of the Idiots” perhaps. Ah, but Costanza “Can’t Stand Ya” is recognizably a secret genius between major idiocy making perhaps one of the best television character in history. Costanza was played by the stocky character actor Jason Alexander which makes one wonder if the modern Royals were secret fans of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer.

How about just “Prince?” I speak of Prince Rogers Nelson, the uber-talented yet somewhat icky rock and R & B virtuoso whose 80s hit “1999,” seemed like a good idea until the real ’99 and on into 2000 happened. Then the guy decided to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol that led to his being dubbed “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.” Suddenly, everyone was “The Something or Other Known As Something.” That was pretty cool. Still is.

Louis? Louis Armstrong was cool. Played an awesome trumpet doing that “St. Louis Blues.” Of course, I must remember the couple are Brits and not 20-21st century Americans.

George is a splendid name although some might see it as a bit dated. I know a number of Georges though, many good, like my first cousin, and others, well, who knows.

Here is good luck to the new lit’le bundle. Good health and prosperity to Will, Kate and young George. Hope fer good times ahead and weather the bad. What’s in a name anyway? Right now, little Royal George looks like a miniature version of George the Costanza. Hopefully, the little king-to-be stands to grow out of that look. Of course, one must remember his Spencer blood ran through Sir Winston Churchill. Sir Winnie was no doubt, a very admirable Brit, though a bit Costanza-appearing himself.

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Texas AG: My name is “Sue.” How do you do?

Fate would seem to guarantee that had Gregory Wayne Abbott been born a girl his parents would have named him Sue. Or so one would think.

As of September 2012 the Texas Attorney General “Greg” Abbott had run through more than $2.5 million of the taxpayers money from having filed 24 lawsuits against the United States. It also appears that Abbott hasn’t run out of things over which to sue the federal government.

An article today in the right-wing Washington Times says Abbott is once again threatening to sue Uncle Sam. This time Abbott plans to waste more scarce tax dollars in litigation should President Obama sign a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.

Earlier today the UN General Assembly approved the treaty over 23 abstentions and “no” votes coming from North Korea, Iran and Syria. What great company Abbott is in with his animus toward the treaty!

The UN News Center, the official news site for the organization explains what the treaty will and will not do:

 “The treaty regulates all conventional arms within the following categories: battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large-calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arms and light weapons.

 “According to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, the treaty will not do any of the following: interfere with domestic arms commerce or the right to bear arms in Member States; ban the export of any type of weapon; harm States’ legitimate right to self-defence; or undermine national arms regulation standards already in place.”

Those darned Europeans and their “misspelled: words such as “armoured,” “calibre,” and “defence!” Why it would make a pure-D, red-blooded American want to go buy a big batch of Freedom Fries.

It’s that Second Amendment right of U.S. citizens which has the AG’s boxers in a bunch. Well, I’m not sure he wears boxers and I suppose men’s undies really shouldn’t be a topic here since Abbott is partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. That’s not to say Abbott is a great leader in rights for the disabled. He’s not. And even though he is of the Republican religion whose tenets say “thall shall not sue,” Abbott started off his career as a de facto serial plaintiff’s lawyer by suing the owner of the tree that fell on the future Texas AG as he was jogging by.

Abbott said in a letter to the president that the treaty fails to recognize an individual’s right to bear arms and to protect their families. He claims the treaty will be carried out by bureaucrats who are not accountable to U.S. citizens.

“I recognize that the ostensible purpose of the treaty is to combat the illegal international trade of weapons into third-world war zones,” Abbott writes. And writes. “The treaty could, however, draw law-abiding gun owners and gun store operators into a complex web of bureaucratic red tape created by a new department at the UN devoted to overseeing the treaty. For instance, the treaty appears to lay the groundwork for an international gun registry overseen by the bureaucrats at the UN.”

His legal rant to Obama is an example of the “black helicopter” style of paranoia that Abbott taps into for furthering his political career. How can one forget his threat during the 2012 elections to order any international election observer arrested who would dare show up at a Texas polling place?

Was it not that the AG was playing to his Tea Party base the litigant-averse Republicans would burn Mr. Abbott, and presumably his wheelchair, in effigy for the filing of frivolous lawsuits. In fact, a law signed in 2011 by fellow mad dog Republican Gov. Rick Perry seeks payment for court costs in suits in which the loser must pay.  Would that happen with all the frivolous suits filed by Greg Abbott?

Well, it is like that old saying that old sayers say all the time, at least Democratic ones: If hypocrisy was a crime, most of our Texas elected officials would be behind the cross bars!

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My un-April Fool’s Day joke: I give you Kim Jong Un

Here it is 1 April and I haven’t got a fool anywhere. Well, that’s a fool itself because plenty of fools exist around me and sometimes I think I am the biggest fool of all.

Practical jokes, as opposed to impractical jokes, have never really been my forte. Oh I can write funny lines, at times. I can tell funny jokes, although I confess to having a terrible memory for anything but absolutely nasty jokes that you wouldn’t want to tell just anyone.

But the type of joke that raises to the occasion of the great “April Fools!” Uh-uh.

“Hey,” my mother said. “Wake up. You don’t have to go to school today.”

“Huh?”

“April Fool!’ Momma said.

My parents were great April Fool pranksters. Their jokes were not the grand but the ones just close enough to reality to turn into a classic fool-tommery. Something, like tom-foolery. Already.

What kind of April Fool joke would this news be: The revelation that North Korea has Austin, Texas, in its nuclear sites? I mean, Austin can be a rather pretentious city at times, you know, hipper-than-thou? The traffic probably could use an explosion to blow it up and start all over again. Kids, don’t try this at home. Or in Austin.

I don’t need that ol’ “Keep Austin Weird” jive. Believe me, I’ve been to much weirder places than Austin.

Austin is a lovely town with its roller-coaster streets. The old “Pink Dome” of the State Capitol stands out for the world to see driving south on I-35, even with Darrel K. Royal and God-knows-who-else Memorial Stadium almost blocking the seat of state government out. Then there is Barton Springs Pool with its “just-right” temperatures year-round and nekkid bodies here and there.

I mean, that isn’t even a good April Fool joke, what the idiots running the communist North Korea government have suggested. It’s sick.

See what I am talking about. I never could do an April Fool’s prank for all the non-existent food in North Korea.

 

 

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Where does time go (on vacation?)

No, I didn’t go away. I’m still here. But I have to head out to work in about 30 minutes as I am working until 2000 hours. That’s 8 p.m. I don’t know why I used 24-hour time. I hardly used 24-hour time while in the Navy. It’s really easier, though, to use a 24-hour clock as opposed to 12 hour. The whole 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. thing can get confusing.

Why I am rambling on about time, I don’t know. I suppose it has something to do that I have 35 minutes to get to work. All I have to do is pack up my computer and a few things, head to the Sam-mobile and drive about six miles to work. Usually I wait to the last minute to leave though. I am sure that is all of supreme interest to you all, whoever you all are. Anyone out there from out of town? Let me take a look at Stat Counter and I will see.

Well, I see visitors from 28 different countries, the last being the Dominican Republic. The top five countries for visitors to EFD are:

United States. No surprise.

Canada. 25 hits. That’s pretty good.

South Africa. 11 hits. I bet most are trying to find out if Bishop Lekganyane made it rain. That was eight years ago and people are still inquiring.

France. Freedom fries anyon

United Kingdom. Queen Elizabeth personally reads my blog.

I have put off my departure for work too long. Time to go. Later gator.

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Pope Francis emerges from the Vatican balcony onto the global stage. Live blogging a new Pope.

Here I am sitting, waiting to see who will emerge from the Vatican balcony. I really haven’t been out of bed for too long. I “slept in.” That translates to my arising just before 8 a.m. and making calls for 30 minutes trying to find someone to whom I might report my sick leave for the day. Upon completing that one task, I promptly hit the bed once more. Sleep is vastly underrated.

During the middle of the night I slipped on something by the stove and did a split, just catching myself on the counter which prevented a fall. As a result though I am kind of sore today but otherwise all right. So I didn’t play hooky to see if a Pope would be chosen. Cheese Louise! I don’t think I have ever called in sick for some televised event though I can admit to having announced my sickness for a day for reasons of much less import. Some folks don’t play hooky. I do. It’s good for you. Not habitually mind you. But I think it was Ann Landers or perhaps her sister, Dear Abby who advocated taking a sick day. Hey, people get sick of work.

I am not Catholic …  Wait, someone is peeking out the curtain of the Vatican balcony. It doesn’t matter to me, in a spiritual sense, who is chosen Pope.

But to some of the nearly 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide it does matter who steps out on that balcony. And whether you want to believe it or not, our world is not of a one-world government but rather an interconnected community. There are perhaps two handfuls of people whose ascendancy to a position of leadership has significant global effects. the president of the U.S. is one, the leader of the Russian Federation is another. China, India and a few other world leaders of other significant countries are also among the governing “elite.” And then there is the Pope, the leader of the teeny, tiny nation, The State of Vatican City.

Oh, here it is now.  To paraphrase the late great Pigmeat Markham, “Here comes the Pope, Here Comes the Pope … ”

The name announced: Cardinal Mario Bergoglio, from Argentina, born Dec. 17, 1936, Pope Francis. The first Catholic leader from the American hemisphere.

“Brothers and Sisters, good evening,” said the now former Archbishop of Buenos Aires. “You know that the charge of the conclave was to give a bishop of Rome. “It would seem that my brothers went to the end of the world to choose him,”

Ba-dump!

I am watching NBC coverage. All major networks are covering it. He is the first Jesuit priest to become Pope, from what we gather from that coverage. Gazing at his entry in Wikipedia, Pope Francisco, had his share of controversy. He was accused of conspiring with the brutal dictatorship, which took over Argentina in 1976, of the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests. No evidence was ever found to prove the allegations. This was also during the era of the so-called “Dirty War” in which 20,000 people were killed or “disappeared.”Bergoglio also was likewise stung by criticism of failing to stand up to the state-sanctioned brutality.

Argentina is 77 percent Catholic, according to NBC’s Brian Williams, although the CIA World Factbook stated the country is 92 percent “nominally” Catholic. Wikipedia says 89 percent of the Argentine population is Catholic. So, there’s no telling I suppose. The nation’s ties with the church go all the way back to the South American country’s beginning. The first Argentine constitution of 1853 allowed religious freedom and offered state financial funding to the church. That document also started a state patronage system for religious authorities which was only changed in the mid-1960s.

Bergoglio is seen by church observers as being very conservative on issues which include abortion, gay marriage and birth control. He has stood at odds with current Argentinian leadership on some of those matters. The stance of Pope Francis on just those three issues will say a lot about the future relationship between the world’s Roman Catholics and the rest of the globe. He is also known for his compassion. What will that say about his leadership in the future?

On a personal note, I find the history of the church and of its leaders fascinating on certain levels. I am not Roman Catholic. My background is Southern Baptist, some of whose members aren’t the biggest fans of papacy from the start. Millions of people both nationally and worldwide have followed this story and will continue to devour this story. I enjoy writing about large stories and applying my thinking into these events. I still like to learn.

That is it! Time to edit. I hope to write about a different topic next time. Happy Pope Francis Day.