Donald Trump, a badly manufactured causus belli, John Bolton’s mustache, and other inflammatory bull-oney

An abandoned protest picket sign in the New York
subway, some years ago. Hey, if we can picket for
any crazy thing, we can have a world war for any
crazy thing, too. Right? (Photo by The New York
Crank.)

So we’re heading for a war with Iran! At the risk of finally wearing out a cliché that’s been incurring considerable wear and tear since Donald Trump became president, what could possibly go wrong?

In case you missed it, there’s this video, taken from somewhere or other, purporting to show Iranian military removing an ocean-going mine from the hull of an oil tanker. Bit of a problem there, folks.

The mysterious case of

the airborne sea mine

See, the thing about sea mines is, they float in the sea. But if you look at this footage, you can see that the mine — if it is a mine — appears to be roughly ten feet above the waterline. In order to lodge in the ship’s hull where it is, the mine would have to leap out of the water, open its mouth wide, and bite into the hull as hard as it possibly can, afterwards holding on for dear life.

I’m kidding, of course. But also, I’m not kidding. That mine is ridiculously high above the waterline. And sailors on the ship — a Japanese, not an American vessel — said they saw “flying objects” heading toward them at the beginning of the incident that forced them to abandon ship for safety. Sea mines don’t fly. Moreover…

• The president of the Japanese company that owns the ship is reported to have said that claims of a mine attack are “false.

• Japan’s minister of defense said his government has no intention of responding to this incident with Japanese troops. He claims nothing here is an imminent threat to Japan.

Not to worry, Mr. Defense Minister, we here in America will respond for you, whether you want a response or not. 

This is just what President Trump has been looking for — an excuse to start a war with Iran. You know — send over more young Americans to fight, die, or get maimed for what years from now will turn out to be a tempest in a powder puff. Kill a few thousand, or hundred thousand, or millions of Iranians. Get to a stalemate after ten or twenty years of fighting. Expend treasure. Cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for it.

Also the excuse Iranian

hard liners needed

It has been pretty clear The Trumpster has been spoiling for a fight since the day he abrogated the nuclear deal that kept Iran from developing nuclear weapons. This got the United States nothing, while it got Iran an excuse to go back to manufacturing A-bombs again if they decide to.

All the same, the Iranians remained, as Elmer Fudd might say, vewwy, vewwy cautious about restarting their nuclear program — annoyingly cautious for Trump. Heck, even though Trump reportedly hates and despises John Bolton’s snowy white mustache, the President fired H.R. McMaster and hired Bolton in his place as national security adviser, perhaps because Bolton never met a war he didn’t like. Mustache and all.

Of course, it helped that Bolton also was appearing regularly on the Fox network, which also happens to be where Trump more than occasionally goes to recruit top governmental officers. I mean, I can see the logic of it. If you can regularly shoot off your mouth on Fox, you can probably start a shooting war, too. Maybe Trump thinks this is his big moment to have his very own war.

But even Bolton needs what they call a causus belli, some kind of excuse that lets the United States whine, “Whaa whaa, they provoked us. We had no choice.”

Causus Klutzi

Unfortunately, some klutz somewhere, instead of attacking an American ship with an American crew aboard, got a Japanese ship with a Philippine crew, and then aimed the rocket, or whatever it really was, too high.

Not to worry. Worst case scenario, somebody or other out there in the Persian Gulf will make it happen to another ship, presumably the right way this time. And then we can have anything from an invasion of Iran to a nuclear war. Or maybe WWIII.

Y'know what? Life ends quickly when the crazies are having fun.

Update, 3:40 PM, June 17th: Evidently, in an attempt to reinforce dubious information, the war-makers in Washington are adding more dubious information. According to an article just published by the right wing Washington Times, the surveillance drone that was surveilling the alleged Iranian attack on the Japanese vessel whose owner denies it struck or was struck by a mine...that drone was itself "attacked" by Iranian missiles. The Washington Times reports:

During the drone operations, “a modified Iranian SA-7 surface-to-air missile attempted to shoot down” the U.S. aircraft but missed its target, Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Earl Brown said in the statement.

“The SA-7 was ineffective and its closest point of approach to the MQ-9 was approximately one kilometer,” Lt. Col. Brown said.

Wait, wait, just wait a second! The SA-7 rocket never got closer than a kilometer to the drone it was supposedly attacking. So how do we know that this kilometer-away rocket, if it existed at all, was even going after the drone? And how, from that distance, do we know it was a SA-7? And how come the Pentagon didn't think to release this information until now, more than a day after it released its story about the busy drones photographing alleged Iranians allegedly removing the flying sea mine? Inquiring minds want to know.

“West African” kidder tries to kid The New York Crank. Linguistic chaos ensues.

I assured Mr. Akpukpor that my very fine "product" is free of body parts from

critters like these. But I suspect he was more interested that I was quoting a price

of over a million bucks, and therefore I probably had plenty of dough in the bank.

Remember the old Ghanian widow trick? 

You got an e-mail from someone purporting to be a Ghanian widow.  She told you her husband had died leaving $50 million. She would split it with you 50-50 if only you’d send her $10,000 to pay a lawyer to clear up the estate. 

You don’t see as many of those letter as you used to. I’m guessing that, after many years, that game has finally worn out.

So I am happy to report that people who send me e-mail have taken things to a new level. I know this because one of my alter egos, a certain Mr. Etoain Shrdlu, recently heard from Ghana again.

I should explain that, with the exception of two reversed letters in Etoain’s first name, etoain shrdlu was the first two vertical rows of the Mergenthaler Linotype keyboard. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re probably younger than 50 and never spent time in a print shop. However, you can learn about it here. 

At any rate, Etoain Shrdlu maintains a mailbox on AOL where he and I receive vast amounts of junk e-mail, and a very occasional foaming-at-the-mouth death threat from an irate wing nut who has seen this blog and then informs me that he knows where I live, where the Shrdlu kids go to school, and where Mrs. Shrdlu works, and that he’s coming to get me.

I should also explain that in real life I am a semi-retired, fairly ancient advertising copywriter, journalist, and general-purpose hack author who has lived alone since The Crank’s Beautiful Girlfriend died over nine years ago. I should also point out that my sole product is words, which come in various arrangements. 

Anyhow, over the years I’ve probably written many carloads of words. Which brings me to the e-mail I recently received from a Gmail address in Ghana. I reproduce the correspondence here verbatim, with syntax and punctuation unimproved, despite my temptation to fix both:

On Jun 7, 2019, at 10:33 AM, williams Akpukpor wrote:
Dear Friend,
Your information was sourced through a search.I am an  accredited Agent /Publicity  to the procurement/tender board
here in  West Africa . l source suppliers,Manufacturers and distributors  internationally whenever there is a notice to bid for tenders. I am  inquiring on your products  as Agent of the  above committee .
The committee are    interested to buy your products  in a large
quantity up to a  1x20''  TO  1x40''container Load . We therefore need your FOB price per specifications ,minimum order
quantity ,Quality Standards,Packing ,PRODUCTION ability/volume  in a month and finally  your preferred payment method for our expert teamevaluations since the contract Board has Planned 100% Telegraphic WireTransfer  by Bank To Bank .
Kindly reply back to me  for more details and feel free to ask me
question  for any area you needs  clarifications  and reply directly
to this email id; williamsakpukpor@gmail.com
Regards and best wishes.

Mr Williams Akpukpor Rado Gosch  .
Company: TimeRadoGoschGhana Ltd.
Address:No.92 Gulf Park,Achimota ,
P.O.Box  8080 NT, Sakumono, Tema
Telephone: 8100966538./200 999 48

Wait, wait, what’s that? They don’t mention what product I make. They don’t even know my name, which is why they address their letter “Dear Friend.” (Friend? Friend of whom?) And yet they’re going to transfer money into my bank account for a “container Load” of my product? 

Clearly, for some odd reason, they want to buy an entire container full of my words.

Well, let’s be honest here. More likely, I suspect, they want to get their hands on my bank account number so that they can transfer money out of it. 

Naturally, I wrote back to them immediately. I mean, it’s not often that I can find a market for so many of my words at once. I couched my offer in as many pseudo-legal and business terms as I could work into a few sentences, to make it all sound authentic

Dear Mr. Gosch,
Thank you for your inquiry, to which I am delighted to respond.
For a single standard American carload of my product, which happens to be the minimum order I will accept, delivered FOB but not counting any duties, charges, taxes or other fees levied by your government or any other governing body or commercial entity, whether upon or prior to delivery or at a later date, the price is U.S. $1,025,000 (one million and twenty-five thousand United States dollars). I am certain that you and  your Procurement Board will agree that this price is well in line with current International market expectations and standards.

But of course, because I’m an old ad writer, I felt I ought to do a little selling, too, to enhance the marketability of my fine product. What could I possibly say about a carload full of words?

I  offer only Class A product, certified free of rodent, cat, or dog hair, insect body parts, or other tangible impurities, which is shipped “loose" rather than in packaging since until now all of my customers have custom-packaged it for their own distinctive purposes and markets. While my production capacity is proprietary information, if you give me a clear idea of the exact  quantity you wish to purchase, I will be happy to inform you as to whether we can meet your expectations.

But then, I felt I ought to make it clear that I wasn’t going to be sending any bank account numbers. You know, truth in advertising:

However, I am also certain you can understand that I cannot commence delivery until 72 (seventy-two) hours  after your check has cleared my bank and its sum has been credited to my bank account. I am also sorry that, on the advice of my attorneys, I cannot accept wire transfers from overseas business entities with whom I have not previously done business, such as yours.
Here's to a a long and prosperous relationship!
Cordially,
Etoain Shrdlu
Executive Chairman and Sole Prop

I thought that would be the last I’d ever hear from my correspondent, wherever he is. Once he learned I wasn’t sending any bank account numbers, he’d be gone. 

But no! 

Courageously beating his way through dense thickets of the English language, with which he clearly has some difficulty even though English is the official language of Ghana, he crafted the following. (Warning, read slowly, and try not to break your brain struggling with his syntax as much as he clearly did. Ditto punctuation and letter spacing.)

 Dear Etoain Shrdlu
Thanks for your mail and contents well noted and understood.
However and regarding of the delivery and supply duration,it is negotiable between you and the AUCAC being the procurement board.
It is not compulsorily that the goods must ship in one time manner  ,on your inability to this could be negotiated  at your  convenient time the goods could be delivered ,manufactured, produced or shipped .
so note this very well and that should not constitute any problem to you.
Regarding of the quantity needed, we will start with 1x40'' container load with your company as a trial order .
The delivery time can also reach up to 6-8 months  and if unable,it can still re-negotiated hence we accept partial delivery.
insurance  transport etc expenses  will borne  on the buyer  and we can also buy on FOB with your company  finding shipping agent to deliver to us.

And then, he did it. He shot a tranquilizer dart straight to my jugular vein, instantly relieving my distress — which he had clearly detected between the lines — about giving him any bank account numbers.

Regarding disliking of wire bank to bank transfer,there is no risk provided is a confirmed first class bank having a corresponding bank  offshore.

And then he offered to send me a certified check after all:

And we can also set up another form or method of payment to you  LIKE the certified bank cheque or another payment mode that you may wish.
so no fear in that provided your oversea bank will confirm the payment from us and our accreditedpaying  bank before the transfer of your contract payment commences.
This is a pure open business that has to deal with any form of investigation specially on the side of the payment of your contract after reading and signing of contract agreement that will be bidding you and us.
Lastly,the committee is capable is giving you out-payment of any amount  that your contract payment will attract so don't be skeptical.

Who, me skeptical?

But then he twisted my rope a little bit, with a not-so-veiled warning that I’d better hurry up, and ignore my lawyer, or I’d lose this valuable opportunity to sell my words by the container load:

And it is up to you to decide to follow this supply with your full mind before your lawyer's advise because we will not have time to wait any of your mail with content saying  that your  still in-wait of your lawyer's response..
Thanks and stay blessed with keeping responding back on daily basis  at-least twice a day as to help fasten the process and all your replies 
CC: COPY TO williamsakpukpor@gmail.com.
 Mr Williams Akpukpor Rado Gosch.
Williamsakpukpor@gmail.com
williamsakpukpor@yahoo.com
Mr Williams Akpukpor Rado Gosch  .
Company: TimeRadoGoschGhana Ltd.
Address:No.92 Gulf Park,Achimota ,
P.O.Box  8080 NT, Sakumono, Tema
Telephone: 8100966538./200 999 48

I decided to immediately accept his offer of a certified check, and while I was at it, to do a little more selling of the purity of my product:

Dear Mr. Williams Akpukpor Rado Gosch,
Thank you for your most recent correspondence. While I don't ordinarily work on Sunday, I note your comment that, "we will not have time to wait any of your mail with content saying  that your still in-wait of your lawyer's response.."
I also note your statement that, "And we can also set up another form or method of payment to you  LIKE the certified bank cheque or another payment mode that you may wish."
Fine. I accept. Please immediately remit your certified check for US $1,025,000. Upon receipt of your check, I will deposit it to our account and arrange  for a carload of my product, free of insect parts (now including beetle wings due to the re-emerging plague of Colorado Potato Beetles) to be shipped FOB to any seaport destination that you provide me. Delivery arrangements shall commence 72 hours after the check clears my account. Typically, shipments arrive well before the six-to-eight-months delivery time your letter mentions.
I look forward to your certified check in the post. Incidentally, if you wish to speed up the process, feel free to FedEx your check to me. Use the same address you found during the search you mentioned in your first e-mail.
Once again, I look forward to a long and mutually profitable relationship.
Cordially,
Etoain Shrdlu
Executive Chairman and Sole Prop

Of course, my correspondent, who has suddenly shortened his name to simply “Williams Akpukpor” replied. He seemed incurious about my postal address (Etoain Shrdlu doesn't have one) and he never tried to confirm the nature of my product. 

Instead, he got right down to administrative details. And he got down them in all-capital letters.

YOUR MAIL IS RECEIVED  BUT BEFORE POSTING ANY CHEQUE ,THERE MUST BE SOME PROCEEDURE TO UNDERGO WITH THE CONTRACT BOARD  BEFORE COMMENCEMENT OF CHEQUE .
THEREFORE DO MAKE PROFORMA INVOICE COVERING THE ORDER  AND THE PI IS TO BEAR THE  END BUYER;S DETAILS  WHICH CAN ALSO BEAR MINE ONE SIDED WITH SENDING TO THEM AND A COPY TO ME FOR FUTURE REF  ALL BY EMAIL ATTACHMENT.
LET ME KNOW IF THIS MEETS YOUR COUNSET AS TO REFORWARD THE  CONTRACT BOARD DETAILS  FOR YOUR PI.
THANKS 
WILLIAMS AKPUKPOR. 

Forget that his demands are now teetering on the edge of unintelligibility. Forget that he vacillates between writing in all caps and lower case. Forget his grammar and syntax.

What's important here is, I haven’t posted to my blog in nearly a week. This story needs to come to an end so that I can write about it. 

In a worst-case scenario I can simply cut him off and post. But maybe I can get him to fire me. So I write back:

Dear Mr. Williams Akpukpor,
I am running out of patience. You ask for a Proforma Invoice covering the order "to bear the end buyers details.," but you have not specified the buyer, nor his location, nor his shipping information. Therefore, I am unable to draw up the invoice you demand.
Quite frankly, I am getting a bit annoyed. Are you playing games with me? Either provide all information, in clear grammatical English, or I will be done with this. I am expecting an extremely large order very, very shortly, and if I am bogged down with all this nonsense, I will have to choose between the nonsense and doing business with a genuine customer, with whom I am familiar, and who does not require all this blather and drivel.
How dare you enjoy a joke at my expense! What kind of business do you think I'm in, anyway?
Yours furiously,
Etoain Shrdlu
Executive Chairman and Sole Prop

Nope, he didn't fire me. Instead, the next day I heard back from Mr. Akpukpor, who had for some reason switched over from his Gmail address to a Yahoo address. His attitude was one I might describe as “more offended than thou.” Also, he had again gone to upper and lower case. Maybe his persona had been taken over by a worker on a different shift. At any rate, here’s what my correspondent had to say.

From: williamsakpukpor <williamsakpukpor@yahoo.com>To: etoainshrd <etoainshrd@aol.com>Sent: Tue, Jun 11, 2019 3:30 amSubject: Dear Etoain Shrdlu .
What do you mean by writting Yours furiously, etoain?????????
Whom are you furious with  and for what?
if i mentioned  sending end buyers details and forgotten to include doesn't mean that you should address me in the manner your  speaking it is very wrong . and why should i present a joke and nonsense deal as you may call it?
Can i have your phone number  and can i as well have a  phone call from you?????????????.
i did mention that the end buyer's name is AUCAC,African union contract awarding committee and which other name do you expect me to  call again.
Is like your not reading my message completely  even without  interest  otherwise you shouldn't have mentioned all these  that had been cleared.
Anyway,i apologize if i did not include the details in my previous mail  and ready to resend the details after your response .
i will use  a special subject  message for it .
And what should be the delivery and supply duration  period  by you for the  quantity proposed  of the goods?
Remember also that we must not meet one on one  before business can transact hence internet is concerned so if your expecting to see a customer  or know a customer  first before  attentioning to his business inquiry means that your yet to be a complete business man ,i am sorry if you may take this very word somehow and is not an abuse.

i am 24hours  ready to answer your mail.
regards,
WILLIAMS AKPUKPOR 

Enough was enough. Nearly a week has gone by since I last posted to this blog, and besides, the whole thing was getting tiresome. So I decided not to string out Williams Akpukpor Rando Gosch any longer.

Dear Williams Akpukpor,
I met with my Board of Directors this morning, and there was general agreement that in light of your last correspondence, especially with a very large order pending elsewhere, we should not deal with the vicissitudes of business with you. Therefore, this relationship is now terminated.
Yours very truly,
Etoain Shrdlu

So far, I have not heard back from Mr. Willians Akpukpor, who was previously Williams Akpukpor Rado Gosch.

In any case, for any reader out there contemplating yet another variation of the Ghanaian Widow Scam, let me offer some advice:

Never kid a kidder.

Bad writing, Brits deflate Donald Trump with a tiny prick, and other tidbits for your delectation. Or not.

All it took was one little prick — as you'll
learn if you keep on reading for a while

Minimus maximus, or, Who says you can’t be the world’s worst writer — and still get a job writing junk e-mails? The following is a verbatim excerpt (except for bracketed matter) from an item that popped up in my e-mail this morning from the American Marketing Association:

Hi [Crank], The AMA Marketing Services Search is a mobile-optimized platform with advanced search capabilities enables [sic] you to maximize the way you engage marketers as they make purchasing decisions….This month, you can receive exclusive access to these 3 bundle packages [sic] if you’d like to maximize your exposure on the site….”

In the old days, we used to cure people of their predilections for clumsy writing by smashing their typewriters on their fingers. These days they wouldn’t even know what a typewriter is, and computers are far too expensive. So I’d suggest that the AMA find the guilty writer and send him or her back to the mail room for permanent retraining.

Prickly Brit Pricks Trump’s Baby Balloon. On his trip to England to visit the Queen, Donald Trump has once again proved himself to be the worst nightmare any host or hostess could have since the Broadway play, The Man Who Came to Dinner.

In case you’re not familiar with that ancient theatrical romp, supposedly based on the obnoxious character of a writer and critic named Alexander Woollcott, an out-of-town celebrity gets invited to someone’s house for dinner. He slips, falls, injures himself and is then forced on to stay on for a month. In the course of his stay, Wikipedia tells us, the unwelcome guest “drives his hosts mad by viciously insulting them, monopolizing their house and staff, running up large phone bills, and receiving many bizarre guests, including paroled convicts.”

And so, on to Donald Trump, who God gave to us undoubtedly because he thought that if he tried just a little bit harder, he could go a lot further over  the top than he had with Alexander Woollcott. 

Trump arrived in Britain where he had only recently upstaged the queen. This time he insulted both the Lord Mayor of London and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex, aka Megan Markle, by calling her “nasty.” 

Unsurprisingly, Trump denies the latter insult. But no matter how hard he tries, even an incorrigible liar like Trump can’t effectively deny what has been electronically recorded. In one of his most recent interviews on the subject, Trump not only denies he said it, but also seems to be saying he didn’t mean to say what he clearly said, which seems to be, in his mind, the same as not having said it at all. Yes, it's almost as confusing as it sounds. Or as the poet said, "O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."

England’s Trump haters, evidently more plentiful on a per capita basis  than even Trump haters in the United States, of course paraded around with their 20-foot “baby Trump” blimp, which depicts him as a diapered infant holding a cell phone. 

That lasted until a pro-Trump Brit took a sharp object and pricked the balloon with it, causing it to deflate. But a deflated Trump is an anti-Trump symbol, too. The moral, I suppose, is that only takes a tiny prick to deflate a demagogue. And you can interpret that thought any way you want.

Come to think of it, let’s not do lunch. Surely, we’ve all committed the same little white lie, which I’d call "the well-intentioned non-invitational invitation." Variations of it include, “Let’s do lunch one of these days,” and “Let’s have a drink  sometime soon.” Both are really nothing more than  genteel variations of, “Well, nice running into ya. See ya around.”

Now Adweek Magazine reports that the Swedes, who evidently suffer from the same syndrome, have had enough. One beer maker has come up with a contract that makes “let’s grab a beer together: a legally binding contract. So if you say, “Let’s have a beer,” and then don’t get together for a beer, you can get sued.

It all gets managed electronically, with cell phones playing a key role in enabling your wannabe friends to sue your beer-less butt off. So from now on, if you see a friend who you haven't spoken to in a long time, cross to the other side of the street as quickly as you can.

And finally, mothers, here’s another reasons not to let your sons grow up to be admen. This time it involves the once-honorable advertising agency, Leo Burnett, inventors (many decades ago) of the Jolly Green Giant, ho ho ho. 

These days, Burnett seems to have abandoned its former sweet midwestern charm for cutting edge and completely cynical sleaze. In order to attract attention to their outwear client, North Face, Burnett hacked into Wikipedia and replaced images that belonged on various Wikipedia pages with images of North Face products. And then gloated about it in a video. Ho ho ho indeed!

Wikipedia took the images down, and rightfully likened what Burnett did to “vandalism.” Burnett finally apologized, but apologies aren’t enough. They and their client got tons of awareness, by vandalizing an innocent  third party. So both Burnett and their client make money, while an apology costs them nothing.

Seems to me this calls for real punishment. Otherwise they can do it again, and simply apologize again when they get caught. It's time for a boycott of all Burnett advertisers including not only North Face, but also Buick, HDFC Life, Samsung, Brita, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and General Mills Cereal. Let these advertisers know that if they continue to avail themselves of Burnett’s sleazy services, you’ll buy somebody else’s products. As the saying goes, lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

The bad news for us is, humanity is doomed. The good news for planet Earth is, humanity is doomed.

Do you like cockroaches? In the future they may like you — in a salad.

Let’s face it, humanity is a pest species. 

Directly or indirectly, we destroy forests. We wreck and pillage the natural habitats of other animals and plants for what we perceive as our own benefit. We foul and clog rivers and streams. We pollute oceans. We poison the air. We gas the skies. We chop down mountains, to get the coal inside of them, to burn and add to both air and water pollution. We endanger other species. 

Wherever we go, anywhere on the planet, our modus operandi, intentionally or otherwise, is to upset nature’s setup.

Do other species find us disgusting?

You could probably make book on it.

In all probability other animals, with the possible exception of dogs and cats (and I’m not all that sure about cats) find us repulsive and loathsome. Yes, we leave behind a lot of rotting trash which is a useful source of food to rodents, raccoons, ants, maggots, and cockroaches. But to the millions of other life forms on the planet — or what is left of them — we are the equivalent of what those same cockroaches mean to us. Moreover, the vermin could, if need be, get along without us.

Fortunately for Planet Earth, Mother Nature has a nasty trick or two up her own sleeve to keep the damage we’re doing under control. 

When the dinosaurs became too plentiful, too massive, and too voracious for the planet, she whacked Earth with a giant meteorite that changed the weather and killed off the dinosaurs. In time the planet healed. It gave up on most lizards, leaving behind only enough snakes, crocodiles and other reptiles to limit the growth of some other varieties of living protein. 

Meanwhile, instead of dinosaurs, she gave monkeys a shot at being the dominant species, which with a few eons of evolution is how we came to be in charge of screwing things up.

Now most scientists are telling us that humanity has a dozen years, and maybe less, to fix the mess we’ve made, or most of us are goners.  Deserts and oceans will expand. Arable land will contract. Glaciers and polar ice caps will vanish. Vast populations of the ocean-going species we devour will become extinct, along with the coral reefs that nurture them. And the air will be rich with an aromatic blend of sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane-rich cow farts.

Who will you be killed by

when the global famine arrives?

You know perfectly well where all that leads. It leads to famine. It leads to war. It leads to desperate people raiding each others’ nations for food. Which will lead to nuclear strikes. Which will lead to retaliation. Which will lead, inexorably, to the obliteration, or near-obliteration, of homo sapiens — along with a huge bunch of innocent bystander species.

In fact, self-extinction as a cure for over proliferation of humanity seems welded into our DNA. How else to explain Donald Trump and other nationalists around the world working so hard to dissolve the bonds of cooperation that could save us from our own offal — bonds ranging from the UN, to the Iranian nuclear treaty, to such basic stuff as civil discourse and human decency? 

It’s the baked-in drive to self-annihilate. Nursing mice, when disturbed, eat their own offspring. It’s in their genes. Humanity eventually kills itself off via war, or self-suffocation, or self-poisoning. It’s in our DNA. 

Nature gives lemmings a suicidal urge. It gives moths a deep yearning  for self-immolation on light bulbs. It gives rodents and guppies the notion that all will be well for a while if only they eat their own offspring. And it gives us the immutable urge or incompetence to hand control of the planet over to the likes of Donald Trump. Or to that thug of a prince in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who Trump so adores. Or to Kim Jong Whatzisface. Or insert your own favorite political thug’s name here. Or his hive of enabling lackeys.

Humanity is dead!

Long live the bugs!

And what will take our place after humanity cooks its own goose? I can’t know for sure, of course, but if I were a betting man I’d put my money on the cockroaches. They can live almost anywhere. They can dine on almost anything. They are tolerant of heat, a useful trait in a warming planet. Some of them can swim. Others can fly. And while they’re doing fine just as is, my bet is that, over time, unhindered by hordes of humanity who now keep trying to poison them, they’ll flourish and develop bigger brains.

Write this down and preserve it for any of your progeny — although they will be the rare exceptions — who survive humanity’s near total disappearance: 

In time, ten-foot-tall cockroaches with IQs in excess of 250 will breed and herd human beings for food. In fact, that may be the only way our species will be able to continue, from the few of us left after the one-two punch of self-imposed nuclear and climate holocausts.

The gourmet cockroach

Some of us will of course try to hide under rocks, on in the empty spaces inside cockroach computer keyboards. But they will get us anyway, and trap us, and mate us. And when we are old enough and big enough, they will pick us up, masticate us and mix us with their saliva between their evolved mandibles, and swallow us alive and writhing. 

Perhaps there will even be cockroach gourmets, and cockroach master chefs who will figure out appetizing (for a cockroach) ways to prepare us and serve us. Like semi-dismembered human, writhing on a fine coulis of sun-warmed vulture turds.

Thank you, Mr. Trump, arrogant humans, and climate deniers everywhere. And bon apétit!

Gimicky back stories, a mean military school, the secret of Donald Trump’s character, and the stripper who blew a bugle

The Crank’s brother attended  the same military school as Donald Trump. 

When my brother tried to quit, the school made him an 11-years-old corporal, in an

attempt to change his mind and keep collecting his tuition money. They failed.

But first things first. Back in 1960, as a young reporter for a New York tabloid, I was sent off to interview Faith Dane, the stripper who created her own featured role in a hit Broadway show. 

Seems some producers were casting for strippers for a new Broadway production called Gypsy. (Yes, that Gypsy.) Dane showed up at an audition and took her clothes off while blowing a bugle. The show’s producers and director cracked up and created a whole show number around her act. It included a specially-written song, "You gotta have a gimmick, if you want to get ahead."

Metternick, von Clausewitz

and the stripping bugler’s father 

It also turned out when I interviewed her that Dane’s father was the strict little martinet who taught my European history class at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. I remember to this day sitting in terror in his classroom while he barked eminently barkable names like Metternich and Von Clausewitz. I took to wondering if somehow his rigid humorlessness produced the rebellious spirit that led to his daughter becoming a bugling stripper. Accordingly, I wrote a ruminative feature story about it. 

To say that my city editor wasn’t interested is a gargantuan understatement. The story ended up, quite literally, on a brass spike on his desk, a mere six seconds after he began reading it.

If you’ve got five and a half minutes to spare, I commend the following video from the film version of Gypsy for your delectation. But then, pick up the story after the show.

The New Yorker magazine online recently published  an article on presidential candidates, each putting out some kind of back story in the effort to become a frontrunner. Essentially, in Presidential politics, as in stripping, you gotta have a gimmick. Here’s just a sample of the kind of self-revelatory gimmickry you have to tell on yourself to be a front-running Democratic candidate for President these days:

Back stories for 

future presidents

…When Julián Castro was in seventh grade, in San Antonio, he poured Elmer’s glue into a school aquarium to see what would happen to the fish, and his mother—a Chicano activist who once ran for city council—set him straight about the consequences of cruelty. Cory Booker’s parents fought against housing discrimination, braving the bared teeth of a real-estate agent’s Doberman pinscher, and when they moved with Cory and his little brother into an all-white neighborhood in New Jersey his father said that the Bookers were “four raisins in a tub of sweet vanilla ice cream.” Kids in Scranton, Pennsylvania, mocked Joe Biden because of his stutter; so did his seventh-grade teacher. “Mr. Bu-bu-bu-bu-Biden,” the nun taunted…

All this led me to wonder about Donald Trump’s back story. No, I’m not talking about The Art of Hiring a Ghost Writer. I mean the real Donald Trump.

As a boy, Trump attended New York Military Academy, same as my brother. At the time, that institution served primarily as three things:  1) a dumping ground for orphans who had both trust funds and distant uncles who didn’t care to see them much. 2) The sons and nephews of Latin American dictators and junta members who were training to go back home and continue the ancient and time-honored practice of making enemies disappear, sometimes from airplanes flying over the ocean And 3) as a reform school for rich American juvenile delinquents, so that they wouldn't have to end up in real reform schools. 

School for scandalous bullies

By chance, the Crank’s younger brother, who was none of those things, attended that same military academy for two years as a ten- and eleven-year-old, after our father played what might be described as an elaborate and expensive sadistic joke. (It’s a long story.)

Within days, the Crank’s little brother was calling home in tears. He was subject to daily bullying delivered by adolescent Torquemadas with higher rank. It was Lord of the Flies with adult encouragement. For example?

So-called “Upperclassmen,” themselves no older than fifteen or sixteen ,would walk past the refectory table where my little brother sat at rigid attention eating breakfast each morning, grab the pancake off his plate, and stuff it into his glass of milk. (“Hurry up and eat your breakfast,” they’d tell him.) They would force him to scrub latrines with his tooth brush. He was ten years old at the time and there was no appeal. 

There's nothing like beating up 

scared little kids

How The Donald must have thrived in this savage environment! Imagine being able to brutally push little kids around. And imagine being a terrified little kid, too afraid to speak a word of complaint.

Is it any wonder that these days Trump puts little kids in cages? Or gets upset when somebody in Congress calls him out, even though Trump ranks higher? 

When my little brother finally persuaded my father to let him come home and go back to public school, New York Military Academy balked. He was worth six more years of tuition to them. In attempt to change my brother’s and our parents’ minds, they promoted my brother to Corporal and gave him a great big certificate.

Today it hangs over his toilet, where it has been displayed with thinly-disguised contempt for military school culture for more than a half century.

And we have a bullying juvenile delinquent in the White House.

Is the dog starting to wag?

Prediction: Donald Trump will get us into a new shooting war.

If the hounds of justice in Congress, the Senate,  the New York Attorney General's office, and others get any closer to Donald Trump's many possible transgressions — or if, as is possible, Trump's tariff war with China plunges us into a recession and stock market crash — I predict he will try to throw everybody off the track by starting a shooting war somewhere in the world.

He will claim that the country must unite behind him because America is "under attack." Those who join him will be declared patriots. The rest will be called traitors. There are already signs that he's looking for a fight in Iran with which to wag the dog.

If he does this, tens of thousands of people will die, including thousands of Americans, so that Trump can have his distraction. (Another possibility for a create-your-own-war is North Korea. As is Venezuela.) If we get two wars at once, say Iran and Korea, don't be surprised if Trump reinstates the draft.

This is one of the shortest pieces I've ever posted here.

It's also the scariest.