The Associated Press reported Marianna Fenn and Toby Ricketts of New Zealand have solemnized the first Pastafarian wedding.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was last heard from when a Pastafarian won a lawsuit for the right to wear a colander on her head for her driver license photo here in the land of free exercise of religion except for Indians.
The Ministeroni who officiated the wedding explained the fundamental principle of the Church: “The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world. We know that. We weren’t around then and we didn’t see it, but no other religion was around to see it either, and our deity is as plausible as any other.” She admonished the happy couple to always put their cappelletti on when they have trouble, lest they turn their marriage into cavatappi.
The latest claims of the Church are that global warming is caused by pirates vanishing from the high seas, and that there is a beer volcano in heaven. None of this rang a campanelle to me.
The wedding feast was a carbo load from acini de pepe to ziti.
The happy couple wore anelli. Sealing the marriage with a kiss, they slurped up opposite ends of a noodle until their lips met.
My cousin Ray Sixkiller accused the Pastafarians of stealing that last part from Lady and the Tramp. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nWNXO3CZkU
John Kasich didn’t win the New York primary, but he made the best of it. Last week, he ate his way though an Italian deli. This week, he did the same at a kosher deli. He must be getting tired, though, because he waved off a pastrami sandwich to get to the apple strudel.
Ted Cruz was eating off the low calorie menu when he chowed down on his words, “New York values.” The Hill reported that Cruz got a “cold greeting” at a GOP gala where he followed The Donald. Cousin Ray suggested Cruz try a nice gazpacho next time he wants cold.
USA Today reported that Cirque du Soleil has cancelled scheduled performances in Greensboro and Charlotte, North Carolina, joining Ringo Starr and Bruce Springsteen in refusing to play in states where bigotry is public policy. Gregg Allman joined Jimmy Buffett and Joel McHale in denouncing the law legalizing discrimination against LGPTQ people while being unwilling to break a contract to make the point.
Speaking of breaking contracts, all-star pitcher Curt Schilling apparently broke the morals clause in his contract with ESPN when he tweeted an ugly and misleading photo with a comment endorsing the bigots. “Morals clause” is not an assertion about morality. It refers generally to conduct that makes the employer or the product endorsed look bad, and it’s a common clause in contracts for on air personalities and celebrities who endorse products.
The New York Times reported the new Speaker of the Arizona House, David M. Gowan, is term limited and so he is running for Congress.
(I interrupt this column for a political science report. The well known downside to term limits is that they shift power from elected officials to an unelected bureaucracy, but a downside I’ve not seen examined is that pols are forced to run for another office before mastering the one they hold. Being in permanent campaign mode, they have a good chance of going right up to their level of incompetence.)
In Gowan’s short tenure, he is making sure Arizona lawmakers are safe. He banned all reporters from the floor unless they submitted to extensive background checks. When notepads are outlawed, only outlaws will have notepads.
Then he took down the sign banning guns from the floor, which freed up legislators to pack heat when they come to debate public policy. An armed legislature is a polite legislature.
This was all done to keep others safe, since Gowan himself is a karate black belt. Hearing this, Cousin Ray cut loose with one of those off the wall surprises that keep me on my toes. He said Gowan the paranoid pol reminded him of something Yasuhiro Konishi said:
Karate aims to build character, improve human behavior, and cultivate modesty; it does not, however, guarantee it.
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I had to look up Konishi. He was the founder of Shindo Jinen-ryu Karate.
The Houston Chronicle reported that 22 county conventions in Texas passed resolutions asking that secession be debated at the state GOP convention. My Republican Cousin Ray objected to the debate. “Couldn’t we just secede by acclamation?”
The New York Times tattled, er, reported that the registration for the Trump Jet expired on January 31. I thought this was a much bigger deal than it turned out to be. The plane that will be grounded until this is sorted out—it being more complicated than slapping on a new license plate—is the 1997 Cessna 750 Citation X, his usual ride, when he’s not in one of this three Sikorsky helicopters. But that’s not the Trump Jet, which is a Boeing 757 emblazoned “TRUMP.” The Boeing is as much a traveling billboard as a ride, but it can’t land in many of the small airports on the campaign trail.
Operating an unregistered aircraft carries up to three years in the Club Fed and a fine of up to $250,000 and a civil penalty of up to $27,500. Trump could pay the fine out of the petty cash but Trump and the LLC are separate persons.
Cousin Ray was betting that if it involved jail time, The Donald would pin it on the LLC. Trump, by the way, came out for leaving Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill, because to remove him is to bow to “political correctness.”
“There went the Cherokee vote,” Cousin Ray spat.
Nobody is paying much attention to the historical detail that Harriet Tubman was a gun-waving Republican, fundamentalist Christian—nobody’s perfect—or that Jackson will remain on the back side of the bill. Cousin Ray was not offended by Jackson remaining in a less prominent place, but he pointed out that a lot of Cherokees are going to have to turn the twenties in their wallet the other way to avoid Jackson’s mug.
Turning from Andrew Jackson to other animals, WBAY in Wisconsin reported the story of Phillip the Duck—no kin to Donaldor Daffy or Howard, I presume—who lost both his feet to frostbite and was about to be put down at an animal shelter. An engineering teacher from South Park Middle School in Oshkosh saved the day by running off some new feet for Phillip on a 3D printer. Phillip was spared and was able to waddle off to his new home with Brandon and Alyssa Herbst, who run an animal sanctuary. They are confident they will be able to come up with a more permanent solution.
The cats attending the Hillary Clinton fundraiser last Friday were not just corpulent—they were morbidly obese. That’s what it takes to pay $353,000 to sit at a table with George and Amal Clooney. To George Clooney’s everlasting credit, when an NBC reporter asked him about Bernie Sanders calling such sums obscene, Clooney replied:
It is an obscene amount of money, the Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we have this kind of money in politics.
“It ain’t just the money,” Cousin Ray reminded me. “It’s what you find when you follow it.”
Following the money has put a job in front of old fashioned investigative reporters that is going to take years. The Wire reported the story behind the “Panama papers,” which have been source material for a number of political surprises. It becomes clear why that could go on for years and how it is they haven’t even finished reading the U.S. stuff yet.
A little over a year ago, an anonymous caller to Süddeutsche Zeitung said to the receptionist, “Hello, this is John Doe. Interested in data?”
For months, Mr. Doe or his minions sent encrypted emails to the German newspaper. At first, the paper put a mere five people on it, but they soon gave up and involved the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, with 190 writers from around the world. It will still take years.
The data still rolls in periodically, and so far 11.5 million documents detail 214,000 offshore companies created by a Panamanian law firm to hide the assets of the rich and famous.
The Internal Revenue Service has strongly suggested that U.S. taxpayers come clean before they finish looking at the papers. The U.S. parts of the papers have yet to be made public but some foreign names have U.S. connections. One interesting name doing business offshore was Marc Rich, the fugitive who was able to purchase a pardon just as President Clinton left office.
“I remember that Marc Rich guy,” Cousin Ray grumbled. “We were trying to raise money to buy a pardon for Leonard Peltier, but you can only raise so much dough with hog fries.”