Archie Bunker in a cowboy hat

Way out in a tumbleweed corner of Nevada is a rancher named Craven Bundy—I mean Cliven Bundy. By now you've probably heard about his staredown of the BLM over his theft of $1 million in grazing fees he owes. He was backed up by a ragged mob of red necks all armed to the teeth. They fantasized that they were at the OK Corral but in reality they were nothing more than the moronic townsfolk in “Blazing Saddles”. The whole thing was a hit of the week on Fox News and CNN. They were even called patriots by our first term second rate Senator Dean Heller. Not content with his 15 minutes of fame, Craven, I mean Cliven Bundy rattled off a full throttle statement about negros, welfare and the Federal government plus authentic gibberish about freedom and the social benefits of slavery. Oh oh this frightened off the right wing media and made Dean Heller swallow his words. Meanwhile, our long term first rate Senator Harry Reid, who had called the mob domestic terrorists, didn't have to retract a syllable of what he said. My disappointment with Bundy is that he isn't funny, wise or thoughtful-- just an old windbag wearing a ten gallon Stetson on a two gallon head. Where does all this take place—in the wonderfully-named Bunkerville where the spirit of Archie now resides.

Why I still read the local newspaper

It's certainly not for the police blotter with all the stabbings, beatings and murders. Not for the melancholy of the dozens of pedestrians killed on the roads including 2 year old toddlers. Not for the tiresome right wing diatribes. No, it's for the comic strips, especially one called “Frank & Ernest”. They misuse the language in a delightful way, including “Malaprop Man” who is a caped klutz who mangles his words and syntax. This week Frank instructs Ernie that the longest waterway in the Ukraine is the Dneiper, not the Crimea River (see my last blog and listen to Julie London) and at the F&E bakery Frank questions a seasonal promotion titled “April is the crullerest month” (TS Eliot's Wasteland). I also like Hagar the Horrible but he is in the category that Marshall McLuhan liked least: the berated husband nagged by Maggie on Jiggs, Dagwood's boss Dithers and the sarcasm of Hagar's wife Helga. But hey, I like to laugh at something in the paper. I mean besides Senator Ted Cruz.