Stories we’d like to read. April 1 edition

Remanded to Guantanamo Bay

Former President Donald J. Trump was remanded to the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay as he awaits multiple trials in state and federal courts. Trump is the first American citizen since Yaser Asam Hamdi (who was deported in 2004 after agreeing to renounce his US citizenship) to be sent to the camp best known for indefinite detainments, without trial, of those suspected of aiding the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Pundits called it “ironic”, as Trump had signed an Executive Order to keep the camp open “indefinitely” in 2018 after his predecessor, Barack Obama, had reduced the prison population and vowed to close the facility. Trump is being held as he awaits multiple trials in several jurisdictions. Federal spokespeople declined comment on the record. One official, granted anonymity, indicated that the former president has been deemed an “imminent threat” to US sovereignty due to his multiple calls for the overthrow of both federal and state governments and his continuing barely-cloaked calls for violence from his devotees.

RICO Act charges

Georgia, one of seven states to have state versions of the federal RICO (Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, has indicted former President Donald J Trump under their RICO Act for his attempt to overturn Georgia’s results in the 2020 Presidential election, when he famously called on the Secretary of State to “find” additional votes for him in order to reverse the election result. A trial date is expected to be set in the coming weeks.

TFG begins sentence

Former President Donald J. Trump became the first ex-president to report to prison today, as he begins serving his sentence for bribery, misuse of campaign funds, and tax evasion, all related to his payment of hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump vowed to overthrow the government of New York as he was carted off to begin his sentence at Attica State Prison. Trump becomes the first former president imprisoned for his crimes.

Verdict in!

The jury has returned a verdict in the second New York trial of former president Donald J. Trump. He has been found guilty of fraud and tax evasion related to his New York real estate empire. Trump was found guilty on 27 counts of overstating the value of commercial properties in order to obtain loans fraudulently. He was also convicted on 42 counts of understating property values in order to evade taxes. Sentencing is scheduled for June 3. It is not known if he will also face federal tax evasion charges.

Mixed verdict

Former President Donald J. Trump escaped conviction on charges of treason for his incitement of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. He would have been the first person convicted of treason in the US since Tomoya Kawakita in 1952. Kawakita was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Kawakita was subsequently released by President John F. Kennedy just one month before Kennedy’s assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald in November, 1963. Kawakita was deported and banned from returning to the US for the remainder of his life.

While Mr. Trump was acquitted of treason charges, he was convicted of inciting to riot and seditious conspiracy for his leadership of an armed insurrection. While Trump was never accused of taking up arms himself (he notoriously escaped the military draft in 1968 due to a diagnosis of bone spurs in his feet), he was recorded telling his followers to “fight like hell” and, in a second attempt to overthrow the US government, urged his followers to “take our nation back” after calling for “termination” of the US Constitution. He subsequently stated to his acolytes, “I am your warrior…I am your retribution.” Sentencing date for the incitement and sedition charges is pending.

It is not known if Trump will face additional treason charges for his latest calls to overthrow the US Government.

“I am the Greatest”

At the time that news of djt’s permanent exemption from the military draft was made public, Mr. Trump told an interviewer that, prior to the diagnosis, he was “the best baseball player in New York”. That status continued until he was replaced by Congressman George Santos, who is now universally acclaimed as “the best baseball player in New York”. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle were among those unavailable for comment.

Happy April

Too late for a midlife crisis

Like joining the Procrastinator’s Club, I never got around to having a midlife crisis. I always was a late bloomer.

Now I’m old, so it’s too late…but I can combine a midlife crisis with an old age crisis – so I’m making some big changes today.

Out go all of my bikes, to be replaced with a Lamborghini. Granted, it’s a 1967 Lamborghini Miura, the car I wanted as a teen, so it’s older than any of the bikes. That makes it okay.

Image from MUDETEC Museo Della Tecnologie

Out go the canoe and the kayak – too much work for an old guy. I’m replacing them with a Chris Craft, the boat that my father taught me to covet in my youth. Again, it’s older than the boats it’s replacing, so it’s still okay. All of that beautiful mahogany…

Photo by Neil Zimmerman

The espresso machine will go, to be replaced by a giant coffee urn, so I can brew that horrible church basement coffee where the water keeps circulating through the grounds until it takes like burnt mud. I’ll drink many cups every day in my old English bone china cups. (Now, bone china, that’s another story. See my friend Roy’s blog “About Bone” for that. Actually, I guess it’s in one of his books, as I didn’t find it in a blog search. Suffice to say it is made with real bones. You can read Roy’s blog anyway.)

The kids are grown so the minivan will be replaced by a Morgan Plus Four. The Morgan is hand-built on an oak subframe. The retro bikers say, “Steel is real.” I say “Wood is good.”

Image from The Morgan Experience

Of course my wife has to go. Since the theme here is “Out with the old, in with the older”, I don’t plan to take up with a Hollywood starlet as so many old men do. I can’t afford to be a sugar daddy. I’m now dating Helen Mirren. She can afford to keep me better than vice versa.

I’ve been reading a lot about micro-dosing. Psychedelics scare me, so I’m going with Rogaine. What do you think so far? Maybe Grecian Formula next? Or Carter’s Little Liver Pills? Geritol? Possibly Serutan. (“Remember, ‘Serutan’ spelled backward spells ‘Natures’.”)

It may be time to turn in the smart phone. I’m not sure what’s next. Possibly a rotary phone, though in this digital world I can only receive, not make, calls; and no one calls me except telemarketers. I thought about a tin can telephone with branches to connect the homes of all of the stalwarts of the half-fast cycling club. A telegraph key might do the trick. I can brush up on my Morse Code and the signal will travel lightning fast over fiber optics.

Image from SpecialtyAnsweringService.net

Image from The Smithsonian

Father William

  “You are old, father William,” the young man said,
    “And your hair has become very white;
  And yet you incessantly stand on your head —
    Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

  “In my youth,” father William replied to his son,
    “I feared it would injure the brain;
  But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
    Why, I do it again and again.”

  “You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,
    And have grown most uncommonly fat;
  Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door —
    Pray, what is the reason of that?”

  “In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
    “I kept all my limbs very supple
  By the use of this ointment — one shilling the box —
    Allow me to sell you a couple.”

  “You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
    For anything tougher than suet;
  Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak —
    Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

  “In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
    And argued each case with my wife;
  And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
    Has lasted the rest of my life.”

  “You are old,” said the youth; one would hardly suppose
    That your eye was as steady as ever;
  Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose —
    What made you so awfully clever?”

  “I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”
    Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!
  Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
    Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!”

“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. 
“Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said Alice timidly;
“some of the words have got altered.”
“It is wrong from beginning to end,”
said the Caterpillar decidedly, and
there was silence for some minutes.
Lewis Carroll