The Buzz: We’d change our logo, too, but first we’d have to get one

Published 1:30 am Friday, August 29, 2025

By Jon Bauer

Herald Opinion Editor

So here we were, all set to update our old logo, which featured a certain old man leaning against a Honey Bucket, when the whole Cracker Barrel mess erupted. In other thoughts that should have been rethunk this week:

Still perfectly legal to smother and grope the flag, however: President Trump has signed an executive order requiring the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people for burning the American flag. A 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision determined that flag-burning was legitimate political expression, protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, meaning the Justice Department would have to bring the matter back before the court. “You burn the flag, you get one year in jail … and it goes on your record, and you will see flag burning stopping immediately,” Trump said.

So, that’s not the smoke from flag burning you’re smelling; just the scent of smoldering animal parchment from the Constitution.

‘Calm down’? You’re not familiar with the meaning of ‘hygge,’ are you? After Denmark summoned the U.S. envoy over reports that three Americans with ties to President Trump had been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland, a Danish territory, the White House responded: “We think the Danes need to calm down.” One of the three Americans in Greenland had compiled a list of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders and another of those opposed to Trump, who has expressed keen interest in annexing the mineral-rich and strategic North Atlantic island. The other two Americans were said to be nurturing contacts with Greenland officials, businesses people and locals. Trump has previously said he had not ruled out seizing the semi-autonomous country by force.

While we Danes are typically low-key people and known to be among the happiest people in the world, telling us to “calm down” isn’t a wise idea, as we will throw Legos, proudly made in Denmark, down the dark hall between your bedroom and bathroom.

This space for rent: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in turmoil with several senior leaders resigning after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the CDC’s director, Susan Monarez — who had served only a month — over her refusal to follow what she called “unscientific, reckless directives” on vaccine policy imposed by Kennedy. An example: Kennedy has criticized the use of hepatitis B vaccine for some infants, even though it’s most effective when given at birth, because, he said, it was developed for “prostitutes” and “promiscuous gay men.”

Among those joining the resignations and marching off the job was Kennedy’s brain worm, who complained there was nothing left to eat there anyway.

You can have my peg game when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands: Cracker Barrel, the Kentucky-based home-style family restaurant drew the ire of MAGA world and conservative pundits over its push to freshen its logo and signage, which dropped the figure of a farmer — dubbed Uncle Herschel or “the old timer” — leaning against a barrel for a simpler design with the restaurant’s name against a barrel-shaped background. This was widely interpreted as a “woke rebrand,” with President Trump weighing in to suggest that the company should restore the old logo and “admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll).”

Cracker Barrel went that one better, announcing that its new logo would feature actress Sidney Sweeney — late of the American Eagle jeans-genes ad — naked, wearing only a barrel and suspenders.

Thanks, there, Big Balls: A whistle-blower has alleged that the U.S. DOGE Service, ignoring safeguards and a court order, has uploaded a copy of the personal Social Security information — including names, birth dates and other information — for more than 300 million people into cloud servers where they have been potentially exposed to security breaches that could result in identity theft for millions of Americans.

So, while former Special Government Employee Elon Musk™’s tech-bro progeny have exposed you to identity theft, you should definitely be railing against the removal of a drawing of an old white guy from a sign for a chain restaurant that drowns its biscuits in an over-salted congealed slurry of grease, flour and milk.

Henceforth, the Pentagon is now ‘That Building with the Five Sides’: Saying it “just sounded better,” President Trump said he is considering changing the name of the Defense Department — the name it has used since 1949 — back to the War Department. “I think we’re going to have to go back to that,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting, calling it a reminder of the country’s record of victories in conflicts under the old name, citing World Wars I and II. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Trump that the change was “coming soon.” Trump has already taken to calling Hegseth his “Secretary of War.”

Renaming the department and the secretary would take an act of Congress, but Trump already is planning to rename Congress as Those Flunkies Who Have to do Whatever I Say. (And for his Secretary of War, Trump has ordered a Roman centurion helmet with a red crest plume and “MAGA” across the front.)

Do you know how hard it is to get mustard stains off body armor? Failing to convince a grand jury to indict him on a felony charge, federal prosecutors reduced the charge to a misdemeanor against a man who threw a submarine sandwich at a federal officer after President Trump sent National Guard troops and federal agents to the nation’s capital in response to the president’s allegation of a crime wave in Washington, D.C.

While the grand jury declined to indict the man arrested for the assault, the jury did, of course, indict the ham sandwich.

Email Jon Bauer at jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on Bluesky @jontbauer.bsky.social.