Now that the orange-faced spectre that previously haunted the White House is off to greener Florida pastures, or sand traps, there are thousands of delusional individuals in the country who believe the aforementioned apparition will rise up from a Mar-a-Lago dumpster this month, just like the Great Pumpkin, who has a naturally-orange face, rising from the Peanuts’ pumpkin patch on Halloween, to reclaim his God-given position as our legitimate 19th President as the cult cheers.
Seeing the golden Trump statue dragged around at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) last weekend reminded me of the scene in The Ten Commandments when Edward G. Robinson rallied the Jews to build a golden calf and go nuts worshipping it. As I recall, it didn’t work out too well for them when Charlton Heston came back. These are most likely the same groups (the ones who believe in the spectre’s return, not Edward G. Robinson’s bunch) who thought the world would end in 2012 because that’s when the Mayan calendar ended. In reality, the Mayan scribe who was chiseling the stone calendar accidentally whacked his hand, spewed out some obscenities, and tossed his hammer and chisel, thereby putting an end to the Mayan calendar. That’s not to mention how chipping out a 2,000-year stone calendar can be a real pain in the joints. But I digress.
The state of Texas, which has an official State animal is road kill, always has provided so much entertainment by way of reality detachment, and even leaves Ted Cruz out of the equation. This may be because, and this is true (isn’t everything I write here?), there is a law on the books that in Texas, you are not allowed to own an Encyclopedia Britannica. So, I probably shouldn’t be picking on the State because their officials just lack the knowledge to successfully maneuver through their daily lives. It was brought to the forefront recently by the nasty weather the people of Texas endured and the State’s lack of ability to handle the crisis. Governor Abbott wasn’t about to be the fall guy for all the systems failing, so similar to a true politician he took the tried-and-true politically-expedient route and shifted the blame elsewhere. The elsewhere happened to be the green policies enacted to protect the environment.
All along Texas has bragged about its self-reliance and detachment from the Federal government. The State refused financial help from the feds some time back when it was offered, but returned in a sniveling way now when things didn’t go so well. Independence works great when everything’s hunky dory, but not so great when problems crop up and some outside help is required from the entity you pooh-poohed on previously.
Then there’s Dr. Gokal in Houston who, rather than throw away expiring doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, used his common sense and found vulnerable acquaintances and strangers and inoculated them with just minutes to spare before the last dose expired. The next day he filed paperwork on each recipient and, in line with accepted Texas logic, was fired. According to proper Texan protocol, he should have tossed out the expiring medicine, then gone outside to swing a dead chicken at the full moon. I believe there’s a security video somewhere showing governor Abbott chicken-swinging to get the electricity to come back on.
I think if Davy Crockett, Fess Parker, John Wayne, Billy Bob Thornton, and the rest of the boys at The Alamo could have seen the Texas of today, they would have gladly let Santa Anna or Speedy Gonzales keep the territory, as long as they (Davy Crockett, et al) could lease The Alamo in perpetuity for a taco stand. To sweeten the deal, they would have thrown in Washington, D.C. and Florida.
But, one can only dream.