Worst Week Ever! Nov. 11-17

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Pairing of Ancient Poll Workers

Unexpectedly Results in

We must respect our elders because one day (barring a gnarly death before that chapter of our own lives comes to be) we will be like them, with hair coming out of our ears that doesn’t help us hear better and no idea how to use any of the technologies and tools that make the world go ’round. However, these ancient humans should not be blamed for the problems that plagued Election Day here in Cincinnati earlier this month. That blame should go to Tenex Solutions, the Florida-based company that was reportedly paid $1.2 million to design our election system that didn’t work very well at all. An official probe of the matter has been launched seeking to understand why anything from the state of Florida was trusted in an election, with hopes of also determining if Tenex or any other company in the world can do something to word issues on the ballot in plain and simple language so it is not extremely difficult to understand what each side of each issue really represents.

When a politician takes office, what he or she first focuses on says a lot about that individual’s priorities and what they think matters most to helping constituents’ lives become better in some way. Some might try to improve the education system; others might try to find ways to create more jobs and economic opportunity. Then there’s another kind of politician, like Kentucky’s governor-elect Matt Bevin, who wants to dismantle the Evil Satanic Overlord Obamacare system currently in place and replace it with… well, something other than Obamacare or maybe nothing at all. People in the commonwealth who will lose health coverage and maybe die if this happens might be offended by this chain of events, but since they’ll be dead their recourse is likely to be limited. Bevin’s disinterest in a currently working health-care model will be paired with another important task at hand: making sure clerks don’t have to be thrust into the spotlight like Kim Davis, who would have simply been fired for not performing her job duties were she not blessed by the Divine Father with a government job. Once Bevin stops requiring clerks to sign their names on gay marriage licenses, he is likely to hire Davis to appear as herself in historical recreations at the Noah’s Ark theme park where she will stand by the boat ramp holding a curved staff and explain to the audience that if she was alive in Bible days she would have made sure no gay animals got aboard the ark.

It used to be that after the national anthem was over, a fan at the stadium could get into the groove of moving his or her personal train down the tracks toward Blackoutville without having to worry about any other ceremonial type of thing coming up that required standing up and paying attention. These days, fans have to salute veterans at the games or risk being perceived as a crappy American who has probably never even seen The Patriot. For a while it was hard to understand how and why our beer-soaked sporting events turned into such pro-military hootenannies, but recent reports have shed light on teams’ growing interest in saluting veterans: The Pentagon has paid more than $9 million to pro sports franchises during the past four years. Many, including Arizona senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, have condemned this arrangement, calling it cheap and not right that owners pretend to salute the troops only to pocket taxpayer money for doing so. The NFL has not yet responded to Sen. McCain’s suggestion that franchises should donate the money the Pentagon paid them to host paid patriotism displays to organizations that benefit veterans, but the owners would like the American public to know that if they find this money/patriotism/sports setup inauthentic and upsetting, they’re going to be super pissed when they realize how little of the funds raised during  NFL’s October Breast Cancer Awareness Month hoopla actually goes to places other than charity organizers’ pockets.

Cleveland legislators recently created a formula for taxing opposing teams’ professional athletes for the work they do within C-town city limits while playing against local pro-sports teams. The idea of taking money from the rich people who come into one’s city and kick the shit out of your favorite athletes made sense to many in the Cleveland area, but unfortunately it sounded stupid to the Supreme Court, which ruled that this action violated visiting players’ rights to due process. Cleveland’s interpretation of the tax code being deemed illegitimate was upsetting to city politicians, but the presiding judge softened the blow by explaining to them that at least they weren’t as stupid as the coney-eaters down in Cincinnati who agreed to a stadium deal that bamboozled an entire county and was made possible by a guy who negotiated the deal for the county before becoming employed by the football team, soon after the ink on that poison-pill deal dried.

It’s hard to imagine Jeb Bush doesn’t know his chances of becoming our next president are non-existent because he is boring and unappealing to every demographic. Maybe Jeb does know that the only reason he tried to become president in the first place is because his father and brother already did so and Jeb doesn’t want to be a loser like that one Manning brother who isn’t an NFL quarterback. Either way, Bush isn’t going to let a faltering campaign get in the way of talking about funny emails he’s received, like the one that asked if he would go back in time and kill baby Hitler if that were possible. Bush recently told a Huffington Post reporter, “Hell, yeah, I would. Look, you gotta step up, man.” Bush also discussed the time he received an email asking him if he’d rather die by freezing or burning to death and that he thinks freezing is the way to go because once you go numb you wouldn’t feel anything.

CONTACT ISAAC THORN: [email protected]