Irked In February

Peter Adrastos Athas

February 1

I'm so irked today that I'm using a featured image tied to the body of the post. That sounded almost as kinky as Mondo Bondage, but you know what I mean. The irksome things featured images are usually elliptical and often surrealistic. This time, we have an after and before picture of an atrocity committed in what was called Bleeding Kansas before the War of the Rebellion.

Let's skip the preliminaries and get down to some vexatious venting about irksome things.

I'm irked by the Jackie Robinson statue vandalism, theft, and destruction in Wichita, Kansas. Jackie is a national hero. Hell, Jackie was even a Republican of the now extinct liberal variety.

I hate vandalism unless it involves tearing down dictator statues or lost cause monuments. The motive is more likely than not racism. It would be a relief if it were some sort of frat boy prank, but it reeks of performative Trumpist bigotry.

I can't stay mad at Kansans after they supported abortion rights at the ballot box. But I'm not sure if I want to go to:

I'm irked by the fakakata wingnut madness over Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Some even claim that the AFC Championship was rigged for the Chiefs to help Biden. Say what? With a few exceptions, NFL owners are overwhelmingly Republican.

The extreme right gets stupider and crazier every day. That's what happens when you idolize a lunatic, his crazy rubs off on you.

I'm irked that House GOPers are rejecting a proposed Senate immigration compromise to give the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian an election issue. They claim there's a crisis at the border, but don't want to do anything about it. I'm appalled as are Mel Tormé and Billy May on this appalling album cover:

I'm irked by the House moving to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It's the first time this has happened to a cabinet member since William Belknap in 1876. At least Belknap was accused of some serious corruption whereas the Mayorkas move is as phony as Donald Trump's tan.

Mayorkas will be acquitted in the Senate but the whole thing is a bad joke and I'm not even a fan of the sprawling Homeland Security department. I do, however, dig this Otis Redding song and Susan Tedeschi's cover thereof:

I'm irked that the quadrennial bitching about presidential candidates is being treated as a novelty. It's as old as the Republic. For example, the choice in 1976 between two decent men Jimmy Carter and Jerry Ford looks like a good one but Ford wasn't conservative enough for some and Carter wasn't liberal enough for others.

One of the few elections in which I could have voted either way was in 1948 when Tom Dewey ran to the left of Harry Truman on civil rights. Dewey, however, was unpopular with organized labor whereas Truman had pity on the working man:

Finally, I'm irked that Lindsey Graham's rantings at the social media hearings are getting any oxygen. I'm sick of that sanctimonious shitbird. Since I began this post on a semi-kinky note, let's close with a nasty song with Carolina in the title. The last word goes to Frank Zappa and The Mothers: