By Jon Bauer / Herald Opinion Editor
Weird times call for weird measures, so it’s our unsworn duty — for as long as we can avoid an unplanned trip to Guantanamo — to bring back The Buzz, an irreverent and sophmoronic review of the week’s news.
For those unfamiliar, when last we left The Buzz:
• President Trump — Version 1.0 — was weighing in on the controversial finish of the 2019 Kentucky Derby and the disqualification of the first horse across the line, which he blamed on “political correctness”; “woke” not having been invented yet.
• Local initiative promoter and former watch salesman, Tim Eyman, facing a third-degree theft charge for allegedly shoplifting an office chair from a Lacey Office Depot, claimed the theft was inadvertent and explained that it didn’t make any sense that he would steal a chair, drawing on Perry Mason-like legal acumen: “The reason that doesn’t make any sense is because it doesn’t make any sense.”
• Doctors in Taiwan, treating a woman’s swollen eye, discovered four tiny “sweat bees,” which crave salt and were living off the patient’s tears; proving that the Hallmark Channel is not the only thing that sustains itself on the tears of women.
That was then, this is now:
All is forgiven: President Trump 2.0, on his first day in office, announced the pardon or commutation of sentences for more than 1,500 people charged with a range of federal crimes for their parts in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol and attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Among those released were members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others, convicted of violent assaults of Capitol police officers and seditious conspiracy.
Along with the pardons, Trump is presenting each former felon with a commemorative Brownshirt to wear at upcoming rallies.
Please put your buzzer down: Prior to his swearing in, President Trump announced his plans to purchase or annex Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada and said he intends to change the names of Alaska’s Denali back to Mount McKinley and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Someone’s going to have to tell the president that the geography quiz show, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” has been off the air for 30 years and, in any event, they weren’t going to let him submit answers in Sharpie.
Putting the “me” in memecoin: Also just prior to the inauguration, President Trump announced a self-branded cryptocurrency, the $TRUMP coin, which quickly surged in value as Trump supporters jumped at the Ponzi scheme. At the same time, the family also announced a companion coin named for the First Lady — and we are not making this up, because it’s not in italics — dubbed the $Melania.
It seems obvious — now that the Trumps’ youngest, Barron, is 18 — that the family no longer has access to a 10-year-old boy to consult as to how most people are going to pronounce the dollar-sign in $Melania.
Are they on drugs? The Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, sued over its promotion of the addictive and deadly opioid drug OxyContin, are suggesting a new wrinkle in its attempt to settle the lawsuits. With the last deal shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court over the family’s demand for immunity from future lawsuits, the family is now agreeing to pay $6.5 billion and will drop the immunity request, if $800 million is set aside from the settlement for the family’s legal defense of future lawsuits.
Counter offer: The Sacklers will be provided the services of one overworked public defender and Tim Eyman as a paralegal. Pro bono.
In a pickle: State Rep. Cindy Ryu, D-Shoreline, seeking to honor her Korean heritage, has sponsored legislation in Olympia to recognize Nov. 22 as Kimchi Day in Washington state, coinciding with South Korea’s National Kimchi Day. Kimchi is the salted and fermented mixture of cabbage, daikon radish, carrots, garlic, ginger and chili.
We’d suggest that some brave Norwegian lawmaker now draft a bill for recognition of a state Lutefisk Day, but hazardous waste laws prevent us from printing the details of its recipe.
Email Jon Bauer at jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on BlueSky @jontbauer.bsky.social.
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