BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE

Thus, I refute all those critics who say I do not know anything! I

knew how to fill out my own report card for my parents to sign.

T-SHIRT MESSAGES #2  
 
 
 The proper term for
 senior women should be
    Queen-Agers
  
  
   Send a text
 When you arrive
 No need to knock and
 Get the dog involved 
  
  
         I’m not arguing
   I’m explaining why I’m right
  
  
     I  have red hair because
        God knew I needed
           A warning label
  
      Bigfoot saw me, but
     Nobody believes him
  
  
       I sometimes wonder
        what happened to
      people who have asked
         me for directions
  
         Thou shalt not get
            on my nerves.
                 Mood 24-7 
** 
  
  
 
 “If we behave like those on the other side, 
then we are the other side. Instead of changing 
the world, all we’ll achieve is a reflection of 
the one we want to destroy.”
                              Jean Genet
 **


CREDIT CARDS
  
     …the term credit card…was coined by the visionary 
Edward Bellamy, in his popular utopian novel Looking Backward:2000 to 1887, published in 1888. In Looking 
Backward a young man falls unconscious and wakes up 
at the millennium to an ideal world where cash has 
been replaced by ‘a credit corresponding to his share 
of the annual product of the nation…and a credit card 
is issued to him with which to procure at the public storehouse…whatever he desires, whenever he desires it,’
  
 Nancy Shepherdan. “Credit Card America” 
in American Heritage,  vol. 42 (November 1991),
   
 
 
  COURT SAYS PROTESTERS MAY NOT BURN CREDIT CARDS
  
  
       Because many Americans living in the Dominican Republic are  spending so much time outdoors at 
the beaches or sipping pina coladas at numerous 
restaurants and bars, many  tourists and ex-pats 
may have missed one of the most important news items of the past year.
        Late in 2020, the ideal of Freedom of Speech 
and the First Amendment suffered severe setbacks when 
the Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 decision, that, 
although it is now lawful to burn the American Flag, 
it is not legal for an American Citizen to burn his 
or her credit card. This 6-3 decision, one of the more controversial in Supreme Court history, has the 
effect of declaring unconstitutional the Credit Card Desecration Laws of the original 13 Colonies and 5 multinational Corporations  Until today it has been l
egal for a person to destroy his or her credit 
cards and unpaid bills.
   In the Majority Decision, Clarence Thomas  
wrote: "For decades it has been a crime to 
desecrate, mutilate, and/or willfully destroy 
American money. Credit cards obviously represent 
new money. Once credit cards burn who knows how 
the American Economy will suffer. What will be 
next? Melting down Fort Knox?"
    The ruling came in the case of EXXON VS. 
ROE, when John Jay Roe, protesting recent oil 
spills in Beverly Hills swimming pools, cut 
his Exxon card in half and returned it to 
the company. The oil company, sensing a 
environmentalist revolt upon its hands, 
immediately brought suit. The case has 
   Lawyers on Roe's behalf argued that since 
the Court had approved the burning of the 
flag (ruling no. 88-l55) that the same 
principles should 
 apply to the cutting, burning, and tearing of credit 
cards. "Not so," claimed Chief Justice John Rogers 
in filing the minority report . "The flag is a 
ymbol. Credit cards and dollar bills are not symbols. 
They are the real thing. " 
      The Trump White House, however,  reiterated 
the ex-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's 
statement at the time of the flag burning decision:
 "Surely one of the high purposes of a democratic 
society is to legislate against conduct that is 
regarded as evil and profoundly offensive to the 
majority of people..."  Certainly, the majority 
decision explained, nothing can be more offensive 
than watching a prospective customer and/or debtor 
destroying his or her buying power. The burning 
of paper money and credit cards threatens the very underpinnings of Capitalism.
      Response to the decision was , as might be 
expected, sharply divided. A. Koorp, President of 
Let's Give More Credit to Americans, hailed the 
ruling as "A victory for the American Dream. 
Everything America stands for has been vindicated." 
      On the other hand, Ms. B. Fritchie of 
Whittier, California, leader of  Project Poverty 
said:   "It does not help to heal the wounds of 
America by declaring that money and credit cards a
re more important than our Flag."
   Still left undecided is the question of 
whether the destroying of carbon  copies of credit 
card bills in restaurants is protection against 
fraud or symbolic desecration of the card itself.
       ***
  
  
 
 
 
 THE APPLE SAUCE  CHRONICLES TRY SOCIAL 
DISTANCING THEMSELVES FROM THEIR AUTHOR
 
 Fairly original wordplay by Louis Phillips
 *

  
 JECBUST –Change of subject.
  
 **
  
     Charles Portis --
     His novels transport us
     Into true Americana --i.e,ˆTrue Grit."
     (A truer verse than this 
                       has yet to be writ).
  
 ** 
  
 What’s the difference between a Rattus
 norvegicus) and the mountain Noah’s Ark
 Landed on?
  
 One is a rat, the other is Ararat.
 **
  
 ENCOUNT  -- a brief encounter
 OF – shaved off
  
  
  
  
 What is the difference between MA and a 
 Catholic service?
  
 One is half MASS, the other a full mass.
 
 **
  
  
 Ned Rorem,
 All by himself was a quorem.
  
 **
  
 SEX SURVEY
  
  Dating?
  Mating?
  Rating ?
  
 **

CHEAT AT AN INSULT GAME ON OUR
SCHOOLS' PLAYGROUNDS
'
Hinky Pinky
Hanky Panky
&&
  
  
  
 TARZEN – achieving nirvana while swinging tree to tree on a vine.
 **
  
  
 THE ANSWER: Lex Barker
  
 THE QUESTION: what do you call a person 
who sells dictionaries at carnivals & fairs?
  
 Lex Barker also portrayed Tarzan in movies. 
   
 
 PALINDROME:
  
 Telegram from a noted botanist
  
 SUE ANN ILL LINNAEUS
  
 **
  
 BRIEF REVIEW OF ODYSSEUS’S ENCOUNTER 
WITH THE CYCLOPS
  
 There’s more here than meets the eye.
   **
  
 G.O.P. –GREED OVER PRINCIPLES
  
 **
  
 FOR THE NEXT GENERATION
 OF MOVIE-GOERS
  
 Howard Keel,
 In reel after reel,
 Sang his heart out.
 (Young people have no idea 
       what I’m talking about.) 
 
21st CENTURY POEM OF PRAISE
 
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
 ;^)) ;^)) ;^)) ;^))
  **]]
  **

 Dear Editors:
 

 William Giraldi opens his review of Why I Read 
by asserting that "For writers literature is a 
talent show. Those with the most talent win." 
But what do the most talented win? Win readers? 
Sometimes.But the books that attract the most 
readers frequently are not written by the most 
talented. Win prizes? Sometimes.But for every 
prize given to a "best" book there are numerous 
non-winning books  just as deserving of prizes. 
Million dollar contracts? Sometimes, but not 
always to the most talented. Prizes and money 
are useful to further a career and to buy more 
time to write. Not much else.How many Pulitzer
Prize winning authors are no longer read?
     Nor dp I believe that when it comes to 
readers that "everybody wins" ( Giraldi's 
third sentence). Readers who read books 
that tell lies, spread propaganda, and are 
not as true as the writer can make them, even 
in fiction. are definitely losing.
     Write what you like, the way you like it, 
to the best of your ability.Try not to shame your 
craft.  If that's not winning,, I no longer know 
what winning as a writer means.
 

 Sincerely,
Louis Phillips

             
                             
  
  
   

Thou shalt not get /
On my nerves/ mood 24:7