On Monday, August 1, Rep. Shadracch Abednego (R-God’s Mills) proposed that Maine enact an annual Patriarchy Day to celebrate man’s achievements and mourn his sufferings at the hands of the enemy sex. His list of achievements runs to 38 pages. The list of grievances runs to 85. Representative Abednego agrees that the lists were significantly skewed, but points to twenty-first century America’s intense competition for Number One Victim status. He does not wish to see his ‘Brothers’ cede that battlefield.
On August 3, the University of Maine at Beans Corner became the first institution of higher education in the United States to announce a campus-wide Inclusive Mustache policy. The Tolerant, Empathic Sensitive Diverse Inclusive Bigotry Suppression Committee (TESDIBSCom) has ruled that mustaches are sexist, misogynist and racist unless accompanied by “Afros” of adequate height, width, and density. “Afro” specifications can be found in UMBC’s Authenticity Deportment Manual.
On August 4, Donald Trump tweeted that he has already received more votes than George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Chester Allen Arthur, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson and Richard Mentor Johnson put together.
On August 5, Donald Trump tweeted that he felt humbled at being compared to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Chester Allen Arthur, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson and Richard Mentor Johnson. He also pointed out that he was probably the humblest man ever to run for President of the United States of America.
On August 8, Anthony Weiner….Oh, never mind. Same old déjà.
On August 15, Rebecca Schoenkopf, better known as Wonkette, explained how rape can be compatible with feminism. “To sum up, I think Bill Clinton could very well have raped Juanita Broaddrick; that it doesn’t make him an evil man, or irredeemable. It doesn’t even necessarily make him a bad feminist — you know, later, once he stops doing that.” She goes on to explain why Donald Trump, by contrast, is forever irredeemable.
On August 16, Hillary Clinton promised that if she was elected president, she would never lie again.
On August 17, Austin Harrouff, exasperated by slow service, stormed out of the Duffy Sports Grill in Jupiter, Florida and knifed a couple to death. Police found him with a red “Make America Great Again” cap on his head. This supports Donald Trump’s March celebration of ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson’s endorsement: “You know, all the tough guys endorse me. I like that, OK?” Mr. Harrrouff has not formally endorsed The Donald, but the cap seems conclusive. OK?
On August 18, the Clinton Foundation promised that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, it will no longer accept foreign and corporate donations.
On August 19, Reverend Cokie Roberts, preaching from her pulpit at ABC, condemned Donald Trump’s supporters as “morally tainted” and foretold eternal hell fire.
On August 20, an obituary that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune speculated that Mr. William Ziegler deliberately died at age 69 “in order to avoid having to make a decision in the pending presidential election.” Alerted by the Ziegler obituary, the American Academy of Vital Statisticians has sent out an alert to its members asking them to track death rate spikes until November 8.
On August 21, Hillary Clinton pointed out that she has never lied to anyone anywhere at any time.
On August 22, Senator Angus King (I?-Maine) spent ten minutes gaping inscrutably at the Jacobshavn Glacier during a Greenland fact-finding mission. He was wearing stuff from L.L. Bean. Photographs were taken.
On August 23, Resmiye Oral, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Iowa, wrote an email asking the athletic department to modify “Herky the Hawk’s” expression. As she explained, “…our campus community is doing a great job in that regard when it comes to words. However, Herky’s angry, to say the least, faces conveying an invitation to aggressivity and even violence are not compatible with the verbal messages that we try to convey to and instill in our students and campus community.”
The University of Maine at Beans Corner crossed that bridge and burned it twenty years ago. UMBC adopted a genial, mellow, peaceful, co-operative, industrious ant as its athletic team mascot in 1996. A dozen effigies of “Antonia the Ant” are ready for display whenever UMBC’s athletic teams revive.
On August 24, Barack Obama, by virtue of the authority vested in him by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, proclaimed Presidential Celebration Day, calling upon the people of the United States to celebrate his many gender-equality achievements. He established a White House Council on Women and Girls to ensure a full hearing for women’s concerns, insights, complaints, and gripes.
In 2016, he hosted the first-ever United State of Women Summit. He set up the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. He has taken steps to protect transgender women from escalated levels of discrimination and violence. He has taken many other steps to secure their civil rights. He has provided guidance to educators that can help rid school environments of discrimination. His Department of Justice has urged law enforcement agencies to address any form of gender bias that exists in responding to domestic violence and sexual assault. He has hosted forums to discuss ways to promoted opportunities for women and girls of color. He has made advancing gender equality a foreign policy priority.
He did all these things in between playing 270 rounds of golf!
Barack Obama made August 26 Women’s Equality Day by the same presidential proclamation.
Although the president called upon the American people to celebrate women’s achievements, his proclamation is almost entirely devoted to mourning the failures of the countless advocates and leaders who have worked with boundless courage and relentless commitment to achieve exact equality.
Women are still almost six inches shorter on the average than men. The oppressor gender still refuses to lactate. Women are expected to look after their children in sickness and health, free of charge. Worst of all, they are hampered in the disposal of unwelcome children and are absolutely forbidden to dispose of them after birth, no matter how burdensome and obnoxious they turn out to be. Some of these brats hang around for as much as sixty years, tugging on their mothers’ apron strings.
We may have made significant progress in exposing women to small arms fire, bombs and artillery fire in combat roles, but nearly one-in-four American women has suffered physical domestic violence. This deprives its victims of their autonomy, liberty and security as effectively as being blown into numerous bits by an IED.
Fathers are still allowed to send their daughters to “co-educational” colleges where approximately one-in-five are sexually assaulted on a regular basis. There’s a lot of work still to be done.
On August 28, reports of gunfire at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) led to panic and the evacuation of passengers. The gunfire reports were false but police spotted a man dressed as Zorro and overwhelmed him with non-lethal force. He had shouted that his sword was just a toy, but it wasn’t the toy that had led to dread. It was his menacing Zorro hat. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is already preparing legislation to ban menacing hats from airports.
On August 28, former Obama advisor David Plouffe called Donald Trump a psychopath.
On August 29, Donald Trump tweeted that David Plouffe has a really silly name. “What kind of loser goes around calling himself Plooof? So sad! What’s still sadder; the loser admits he was a former Obama adviser.”
On August 30, the Procrustes Foundation announced the award of a “Genius Grant” to Professor FiFi Fyffe-Faux of the UMBC’s Inclusivity Institute. Prof. Fyffe-Faux has won international fame with her pioneering investigation of the Oxford English Dictionary as an instrument of post-colonial, heteronormative, misogynist, ethnocentric, racist, capitalist oppression. She plans to put the Procrustes funds to work creating a truly universal and inclusive language accessible to all.
