Vacation Mode Activated

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
─Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Back in mid-October of last year I received an alarming phone call at 6:00 AM from my best friend of 40-plus years.  She informed me she was having her daughter-in-law take her to the emergency room.  Her son rushed to her side and called for an ambulance instead.

I travelled to the beach to visit her in-hospital for what I thought would be the last time I would ever see my best friend alive.  

To make a long story short, she was placed in intensive care and very nearly died.  She was released from the hospital 18 days later.  She had suffered from cerebral hypoxia, a depravation of oxygen to the brain, and suffered substantial memory loss.  Mercifully, her memory has mostly returned.

Its time to visit my friend again so, I am packing up the PT Cruiser and Sophie The Wonderdog and heading to the beach to see my best good friend for a couple of weeks and celebrate her 77th birthday. 

While I’m away, co-bloggers Proof and Sig94 will keep an eye on the place. I have queued up the ladies for the regular Monday feature “Flowing Curves of Beauty”.  The rest will be up to the guys.  

Carry On My Wayward Son

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed something terribly important has been missing.

The last time co-blogger Sig 94 published a blog post here was on May 24th. Since that time, he lost something soft and beautiful and bright; his beloved mother.

He didn’t feel like posting here at or at It Don’t Make Sense.  It’s been ten weeks and Sig announced yesterday he’s back.  After buying two new fishing rods and “some tasty lures” he has turned his grandson into a fishing fanatic.

We’d like to welcome back our old friend.  He has a post scheduled to go up here at 4:00 PM today.  I hope everyone will leave a comment letting him know we’re glad he is returning with his wit and wisdom.

Why Don'tcha Comment and See Me Sometime?

Just on a personal note, I like interacting with blog commenters. Some of you folk are pretty darn smart and make very funny and insightful remarks. And I figure, anyone who takes the time to make a comment any of the places my stuff shows up, I like to respond in a timely manner. 

When I have a piece up, I try to check at least daily... more often if I'm in front of my 'puter, but, the trouble I've been having with Disqus here is more than a little frustrating. Some of the comments made here were totally invisible to me for almost a week. Now, as far as I can see, they've disappeared again. I can't see that there are any comments at all on the last three pieces I posted, some of which I made. 

This is not any kind of whiny, 'feel sorry for me', but while the Curmudgeon's away, I didn't want anyone to think your comments were being ignored, at least by me. From the looks of some of the comments, last time I saw them, y'all could see each other just fine. I think it's a technical glitch brought about by my Pakistani IT guy, who came very highly recommended to me by Debbie Wassermann Schultz. 

I blame the Russians.

No Co-Inky Dinky

President Trump will be embarking on his first foreign trip on Friday May 19th.  His first stop will be Riyadh, Saudi Arabia before heading on to Jerusalem and Rome.  While in Israel, the president will begin the process of negotiating a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.  Following his visit to the Vatican, the President will attend a NATO meeting that opens on May 24.  At the conclusion of that meeting, he will travel to Sicily where he will meet with leaders of the G7 on May 26th.

It is not a coincidence that yours truly, Curmudgeon, will be heading out of town on the 18th and will return on May 30.

PT Cruiser One will be co-piloted by Sophie The Wonderdog.  Our mission will be to bird watch at Atalaya Castle and seek the surrender of delicious sea life from a beautiful yacht with massive carbon-intensive diesel engines.  Joining us later will be a friend whom I have not seen in years.  Our itinerary will include oodles of shopping and a spaghetti dinner with all the fixin’s and plenty of handing tasty tidbits under the table to Sophie and her little friends Tika and Teddy. 

The remainder of my itinerary is super-secret.  I like to infuriate Chuck Schumer so my press secretary has purposely been kept out of the loop to prevent any leaks and will no doubt be lambasted on SNL as a result.  In case that North Korean fat kid gets lucky and gets another missile up, my travel agent will contact my personal bodyguard who will deliver my daily brief in a manila envelope sealed with half a roll of duct tape and Gorilla Glue®.

During my hiatus, co-bloggers Proof and Sig94 will be in charge just like Alexander Haig thought he was when Reagan was shot.  They have been given the keys to the liquor cabinet.  I have already notified the local chief of police to monitor Casa de Curmudgeon to insure neither of these guys demolishes the joint.

There will be no tagging the boulders in my rock garden with graffiti.  There will be no peeing in the Koi pond.  There will be no allowing the g-d squirrels to belly up to the bar.  There will be no charging a topless maid service to my credit card.  There will be no ashes, beer cans or peanut shells littering the floor.  There will be no placing calls to phone sex centers and no visiting pay-per-view porn sites on my Internet connection.

Our regular Monday morning feature “Flowing Curves of Beauty” are all queued up, so no worries there.

I hope everyone enjoys a safe and Happy Memorial Day weekend.  Just remember it is a day to honor America’s bravest sons and daughters who answered the call to defend their nation and, in so doing, made the greatest sacrifice of all.

Prayers For A Friend

Sunday was Mother’s Day.  Those of us whose mothers are gone note the day with a bitter sweetness.  If your mother is still living then you know all love begins and ends there.

I just learned that co-blogger Sig94’s mother was placed in hospice care last week.  He thanked God for his mom in his blog post noting she had a hard life as a young mother of four.  He is steeling himself for the goodbye that is coming.

I hope you go by his place and offer your prayers, comfort and encouragement.  An old Irish proverb says, “A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”

Clever As The Devil And Handsome Too

Sig94's avatar is Braveheart's William Wallace

We here at Political Clown Parade have a cunning plan.  When I noticed this fella who’d come here posting comments that were razor-sharp and witty as hell, it was decided we needed a fearless master of witty dialogue.

Allow me to introduce Sig94.  Sig used to contribute to a blog called The Goomba News Network before it was bequeathed to him in 2010 and gave it a new name: “It Don’t Make Sense”

Sig lampoons the world effortlessly.  When he agreed to come on board he told me, “I still miss the challenge and interaction of competing intellectually, politically and comically in a blog environment.”

Sig joins Proof who signed on January 6, 2014.  He’s already posted Soylent Black, Federal Clown Judges and Who Put The Fun In Funerals.

I hope you’ll join me in welcoming Sig to our merry band of pamphleteers.  He’ll bring fresh content to our readers—something they richly deserve.  I know you’ll love his work.

The 2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Award Winners

Doug Ross announced the 2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Award winners on New Year’s Day.

These awards recognize a variety of blogs and websites operating in the conservative blogosphere, all of which have worked tirelessly to promote conservatism, free market capitalism, fiscal sanity, the sovereignty of the individual, and otherwise protect America from the “cockroach-like Statists—some in very unique ways.”

I am as proud as a peacock to say I am friends with two of this year’s winners.

The Pirate’s Cove was awarded the Best Climate Blog, but the “Admiral” is a well-rounded citizen journalist who unwaveringly links to this blog in his weekly feature “Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup”.  He was infinitely helpful in getting our “Flowing Curves of Beauty” feature off the ground.  I am deeply grateful to William Teach for his support over the years.

The Best Illustrated Satire blog award was bestowed on my dear friend and SEC sister Diogenes who is the proprietor of Diogenes’ Middle Finger.  She describes herself as someone who “casually shrugs off a promising career as a technical innovator and major driving force in the recording industry to write about politics.”

As a bit of a Photoshop™ enthusiast myself, I appreciate the snarkiness Diogenes will add to a graphic and then hang it proudly on the walls of her blog.  Some of them are pure comedy gold.

Congratulations to all the winners but a big ol’ hug goes to these two wonderful bloggers for being recognized for their labor of love day in and day out.  Thanks for standing guard over liberty.

Marco Squirrel-O

A week ago this past Friday I headed to the beach with my little furkid, Sophie The Wonderdog, for a mini-vacay with friends.  I left the place in the capable hands of Adrienne and Proof.

The problem with leaving the keys to the liquor cabinet with these two blogger friends is Proof lets the squirrel population at Casa de Curmudgeon have free reign of the place while he and Adrienne sample swill all the good liquor.  Adrienne at least tries to tidy up the joint before I get home.

I left the beach early this morning unbeknownst to my party-hardy friends.  When I pulled into the driveway I heard someone in the backyard hollering “Polo, Polo, Polo”.

There, in my pool, I found some Italian guy with all his clothes on, a water-skiing squirrel and one on Adrienne’s cats taking a dip.  What the…

There were nuts on the bottom of the pool and cat hair stuck in the pool filter.

Usually, Proof charges my credit card to hire topless maids to clean up the mess he leaves.  This time there wasn’t a trace of anyone trying to tidy up.  What am I gonna do with these two?

Proof And Adrienne In Charge

Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.

I’m taking a week away from blogging.  I just celebrated my 64th birthday and the second anniversary of my retirement.

Sophie The Wonderdog will be riding shotgun in the PT Cruiser as we head to the beach to visit my friend of 40-plus years.  The plans include attending a bridal shower for a friend, binge-watching movies and pigging out on some fresh seafood.

While I’m away Proof and Adrienne have the keys to the liquor cabinet.  I suspect Proof will let the squirrels belly up to the bar and take a dip in the pool.  Adrienne will try to keep Proof and the squirrels from wrecking Casa de Curmudgeon.

You fellas out there don’t need to worry.  I’ve got our regular Monday morning feature “Flowing Curves of Beauty” queued up. 

As always Proof, Adrienne and I appreciate your loyal readership.  Take care everybody.  See ya on the flip side.

Whenever You Help Somebody Stand Up You Are Helping Humanity Rise

A blogger friend is excited about school starting.  Teaching is a difficult yet rewarding career if you love kids.  She teaches in a high poverty school.  She’s been doing it for 20 years.

She recently headed over to her classroom to get it ready for the new school year checking to make sure the computers and audio-visual equipment were functioning properly.  She cares enough about “her kids” that she strives to make the classroom a “comfortable, welcoming place” where they can feel “something good could happen at any moment.”

Pat knows a lot of her kids’ parents just don’t have the money to buy school supplies and she has a post up at her place asking for help.  She’s already opened her wallet to buy hand sanitizer, notebook paper, pencils, colored pencils, rubber bands, paper clips and other basic items.

She’s got links to Amazon for the things her students need, but if you’d rather send cash you can click on the PayPal button located on her sidebar.  I did that this morning and Pat emailed me right away to say she was going to buy a class set of The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan as a companion book to read with The Grapes of Wrath for her English classes.  She has wonderful things planned for her students.  Won’t you please help Pat’s dream of “wonderful things” come true?

And The Winners Are…

I must begin our announcement of the winners of the 2016 Paul Revere Award by humbly apologizing to Odd Job who nominated Xenophilic The Return.  Somehow his nomination was inadvertently omitted from the list of nominees.  It was an honest mistake for which I am truly sorry.  I hope a gift card from Amazon will demonstrate how deeply I regret the oversight.

There was strong participation this year in both the nominating process and in the voting.  Some bloggers were only too happy to put up posts on their blogs to help call attention to our efforts to recognize the proprietors of small conservative sites—whose work was filled with “the breathings of their heart”—who fed our souls with laughter, championed the freedom of expression and restored our buoyancy in a troubled world.

Our award honors these bloggers because they, like Paul Revere, were not born to wealth.  They are ordinary men and women who are involved citizens keeping their readers informed of events which may touch their lives.

Revere is credited by the Central Intelligence Agency as the creator of the first patriot intelligence network on record.  An obituary in the Boston Intelligence solemnly noted, "Seldom has the tomb closed upon a life so honorable and useful."

Voting closed at midnight last night.  I kept a screenshot of the final results.  We utilized polling this year to keep things fair and square. 

Our elves are now busily engraving the statuettes with each winner’s name.  An email will be sent to the winners with their official badge which they can place on their site if they so choose.

So, without further ado, here are the Top 20 Winners of the 2016 Paul Revere Award as well as our Honorable Mentions.  Congratulations to one and all.  Thank you to everyone who participated in honoring these fine bloggers.

TOP 20 WINNERS

Woodsterman

The Last Tradition

The Feral Irishman

Diogenes’ Middle Finger

Earl of Taint

90 Miles From Tyranny

Patriot Retort

Proof Positive

Adrienne’s Corner

A Nod To The Gods

Self Evident Truths

The Blog of Monte Cristo 

Always On Watch

Bunkerville

Goodstuff’s Cyber World

GoodShit

Bluebird of Bitterness

The Right Way

Diary of a Right Wing Pussycat

PoliNation

HONORABLE MENTION

‘Nox & Friends

TOTUS

Virtual Mirage

Brig

Lone Star Parson

Nobody Asked Me

Zilla of the Resistance

Fredd

Peace or Freedom

Comedy Plus

Fix Bayonets

GeeeZ

Voting For The Fourth Annual Paul Revere Award Has Begun

A week-and-a-half ago we began taking nominations for The Fourth Annual Paul Revere Award.

Blogger friends Adrienne, Pirate’s Cove, The Right Way and BeforeItsNews helped get the word out and we have a rather prestigious list of 34 small blogs that were nominated.

The nomination process ended at midnight last night and now the voting begins. 

I set up a poll in order to keep everything fair and square.  When voting closes on June 25th, everyone will be able to see exactly who garnered the most votes from their loyal readers and blogger friends.

NOTE:  You can choose several blogs.  You may vote only ONCE.

Next Saturday, when the results are tabulated, our trusty minions will get busy “engraving” each Paul Revere Award with the names of the Top 20 blogs.

The winners will be contacted via email to congratulate each of them for their dedication to citizen journalism and will receive their personalized badge to place on their site if they so choose.

I hope the winners will be as honored to receive the award from their peers as I have been in hosting this event for our compatriots.

Best of luck to everyone and thank you for supporting our effort to recognize our friends in the conservative blogosphere.

12:01 AM JUNE 26:  VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.  A SCREENSHOT OF THE RESULTS HAS BEEN TAKEN OF THE FINAL RESULTS.  ANY VOTES CAST AFTER THE DEADLINE ARE INVALID.

Please cast your vote for your favorite blog for the Fourth Annual Paul Revere Award

Adrienne's Corner

Always On Watch

A Nod To The Gods

A Texas View

Bluebird Of Bitterness

Brig

Bunkerville

Comedy Plus

Diary Of A Right Wing Pussycat

Diogenes' Middle Finger

Earl Of Taint

Fix Bayonets

Fredd

GeeeZ

GoodShit

Goodstuff's Cyber World

Lone Star Parson

McNorman's Weblog

90 Miles From Tyranny

Nobody Asked Me

'Nox & Friends

Patriot Retort

Peace Or Freedom

PoliNation

Proof Positive

Self Evident Truths

The Blog Of Monte Cristo

The Feral Irishman

The Last Tradition

The Right Way

TOTUS

Virtual Mirage

Woodsterman

Zilla Of The Resistance

Survey Maker

What? Another Vacay?

Sophie The Wonderdog and I are headed to the beach to visit my best friend.  While I’m away, good friends Proof, Grunt and Adrienne will be keeping tabs on the ol’ blog for me.

The photograph above was taken on my phone last summer, but you can see the view is peaceful.  The patio has deck railing four feet high which is just tall enough to keep my friend’s two furkids, Tika and Teddy, safe and sound.  A great deal of time will be spent sitting under the shade of the pergola watching the carefree geese and mallards swim by.  The only disturbance in The Force will be when Skeeter, who lives next door to my friend, gets let out.  She makes a bee-line for the water to harass the fish and turtles living in the little canal you see in the photo.

Adrienne just joined our merry band of bloggers and has promised to keep the boys in check this go ‘round.  Each time I hand them the keys to the liquor cabinet while I’m away it seems they invariably trash the joint including shooting up my Hummel collection.

Adrienne has fervently assured me she will make sure the beer cans, Cheetos dust and peanut shells will be cleaned up before I get back.  No squirrels swilling the scotch either!

My friends will continue to add content in my absence.  Proof and Grunt are mischievous characters so don’t be surprised by anything they post.

I hope you’ll welcome Adrienne.  She has her own blog as well and has graciously consented to help us out from time to time.

I have made sure the regular Monday feature “Flowing Curves of Beauty” is queued up for the next two Mondays.   One time I failed to do that and Proof put up Star Trek babes.

I hope everyone has a great week.  Take care out there.