Blog #261                                          March 10, 2022

 

I want to talk about this buying oil from Russia thing.  Putin is a monster; we hate him and want to hurt his economy and make him stop.  But the United States continues to buy 600,000 barrels of oil from Russia every day.  At $100 a barrel, that’s $60 million a day.  (Sorry for the math.)  STOP BUYING OIL FROM THIS CRIMINAL.  And don’t tell me oil is fungible and a bunch of other crap.  Fungible is a Weekly Word you need to understand.  It means able to be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.  So, these so-called smart people say, if we don’t buy it, somebody else will because nobody knows where their oil is coming from.  And oil is fungible.  Well, I’m just a poor, ignorant poet, but FUNGIBLE MY BIG FAT BARREL OF CRUDE!  If nobody buys Putin’s oil, he can’t ship it anywhere or get paid for it.  If oil were fungible, then why is there a statistic about how much we are importing from Russia?  If we stop buying Russian oil, and maybe Europe stops and Japan stops, then Russia will either go bankrupt or lower its prices to attract buyers.  Either way, it would be bad for Putin.  And that’s what we want.  MAKE IT BAD FOR PUTIN.  STOP BUYING HIS OIL.

 

Since I wrote the above rant, President Biden has cancelled purchases from Russia.  Good for him.  He listened to me.  And, immediately thereafter, we brought out the big gun, the weapon that will force an end to this war. That’s right, McDonald’s has closed its stores in Russia. 

 

These sanctions will not be the keys

To bring Vladimir to his knees

So listen up, Putin,

If you don’t stop shootin’

There’s no Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

 

That should end this war by lunch.

 

With Covid waning and the weather warming, we are all becoming more inclined to go out to restaurants and movies and even events like the Symphony.  St. Louis has a wonderful symphony orchestra and my wife likes to go.  Sometimes, she goes with her girlfriends.  You know what I mean by the word girlfriends.  But if I asked my granddaughter if she went to a concert with a girlfriend, she’d say she went with a friend who is a girl.  Girlfriend, to her, connotes a homosexual relationship.  I find that connotation strange, but then I find anything younger than Lawrence Welk strange.

 

Back to the symphony.  My wife went with a group of girls who were friends.  The seats were close, but too far to the left and all they could see were the violins, so they moved closer to the woodwinds and . . . well, I never thought the symphony was a visual experience.  It’s the music I go for, not the scenery.  Classical is not actually my favorite kind of music, but I can handle (Handel) most of it.  I’m really not a big fan of most art (Mozart), so when I go, I just close my eyes, lean back (Bach) and relax.  But to Carol and her friends, the visual is everything.  It thrills them more than shopping (Chopin).  I’m pretty sure it’s a sexual thing.  They just love the pipe organ!  And they all swoon over the piano player, which, I must admit, makes me a bit jealous – must be a case of pianist envy.

 

Howdy, Y’all and welcome back.  That’s a little Southern lingo because so many of my friends are still south for the winter.  Are you still down there in Scottsdale or Naples or Palm Springs?  Well, wherever y’all are hidin’ (Hayden), I’ll find you and try to make you laugh.  I hope you’re feeling well, staying toasty and keeping busy (Bizet).

 

I had to call an insurance company yesterday, so I called the 1-800 number.  I was instructed to “press one” if I wanted to proceed in English.  I guess if I hadn’t done that, it would have instructed me, in Spanish, to press dos.  Then press 3 for Mandarin, 4 for Vietnamese and subsequently to Korean, Hindu, Arabic, Swahili and a list (Liszt) of eighty other languages until it gets to Cherokee where it tells you, in Cherokee, that if you hadn’t let all those white sons o’ bitches immigrate in the first place, they could have done the whole message in Cherokee from the beginning.  Poor Indians!  That was the first Amnesty – let those white folks land here; there are only a few of them.  They work hard and they’re good for the economy.  Press 89 for Cherokee.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I am the best of them that speak this speech (The Tempest).  All cats speak the same language.  I can understand Siamese cats and Persian cats and Himalayan cats.  I’d like to be a Himalayan cat because him a-layin’ on the couch all day.  Sorry.  Cat jokes are not very funny.  Purr.

 

I love my cat, of course.  He has a cat tree and lots of toys.  I leave a window open on the porch so he can watch and listen to the birds.  But he also likes fish.  Often, I put on YouTube videos of fish television.  Shakespeare’s favorite shows are Dancing with the Starfish -- Eel of Fortune -- and Orange Roughy is the New Black Roughy.  Or I just put on South Pacific.  His favorite song is Salmon Chanted Evening.

 

We’ve had a lot of fun today with little puns and stories, but there is something tragic and very serious in our minds and our hearts.  The pictures from Ukraine are heart breaking.  The Ukrainians look like us.  They dress like us.  They live in homes and apartments and have cell phones and little children with teddy bears.  We wonder how this has happened to them.  We don’t understand what kind of monsters could inflict such a tragedy. 

 

Will Rogers, humorist and social commentator, said, “There has been war since the beginning of time and we are no smarter than the people that have gone before us.”  The author Richard Russo said “The worst in man is commonplace.  The best is rare.”  The Ukrainian people are showing us the best.  My grandmother and grandfather came from Odessa.

 

There are many fine charities helping the people of Ukraine.  My synagogue recommended HIAS.org, if you are so inclined.  Stay well, y’all.  Count your blessings over and over.  We’ll be together next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com