21 November—Congratulations are in order:

To Joe Biden for making it to 79 yesterday. So maybe there’s hope for Bob Tucker and me.

And to Litchfield.bz for garnering 500 paid subscriptions after only six months. If LitchfieldMonitor.com went the paid-subscription route, I’d also lose readers. Nah . . . don’t worry, I’m too lazy to do bookkeeping. It’s easier—if considerably less lucrative—to be an impoverished scribbler and hurl my invective for free.

Harking back to Consumer Reports, then, I neglected to mention that the three times I paid for their car-pricing service, in 1991, 2005, and 2010, as I recall—twice for friends, once for myself—the first prices the dealers offered were actually lower than the lowest prices Consumer Reports had suggested for the identically equipped cars. All three times. With no negotiating—which I did anyway, of course.

While on passionate consuming, can you believe that Stop & Shop is selling teensy weensy packs of foot-long fire logs for $6.99? And that people are actually buying them? At that price, a one-foot-deep face cord would cost about $250 and a full four-foot-deep cord would cost $1,000! And I give away cordwood.

Four things irk me about Aldi’s in Torrington: First, it’s not in Litchfield. (Same goes for PriceRite.) Second, many shelf cards post high alleged pre-markdown prices that were never charged. Third, it tests price points by fiddling around with prices far too often. Fourth, like PriceRite, among others, Aldi doesn’t offer rain checks, in contravention of Connecticut law; local management has always been cooperative when approached, but corporate suits don’t give a damn. One of these days I’ll have to take it up with the Department of Consumer Protection, if only to see what happens.

Lately, I’ve been seeing on websites “too low to show” instead of prices actually being shown in the bodies of ads. Prices aren’t shown until you go to checkout pages. And—wouldn’t you know?—prices aren’t low at all, let alone too low. So you don’t buy. Right? Do the marketing experts really think consumers are that stupid?

And Amazon.com, which doesn’t offer price matching, is being undercut more and more these days. I wonder how many people realize that and shop around online . . .

20 November—Litchfield first selectman Denise Raap ought to be ashamed of herself. Does she really have to read checks before signing them? Does she really have to know about the town she’s leading? Had it not been for Denise’s shameful diligence, town garage foreman and Torrington resident Richard Jespersen wouldn’t have been fired for ripping off the town.

I don’t say allegedly ripping off the town because Jespersen, a 24-year typically underpaid town employee at over $82,000 a year (plus meager fringes, of course), has admitted to at least a part of the ripoff, citing what amounts to standard past practice among public works employees.

But will Richard Jespersen stay fired? Anybody’s guess. Yesterday’s excellent editorial in the Republican-American raises the persistent specter of public employee unions in Connecticut coming to the rescue of guilty but paid-up members who, were they not union members, would be fired, arrested, tried, convicted, fined, and sent up the river for committing crimes. Jespersen’s possible two-year haul of goods and services could top $17,000. That’s a possible Class C felony, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $10,000. But Jespersen belongs to AFSCME Local 1303-094. And he’s filed a grievance against Litchfield.

The gods of labor invented grievances for a good reason. We certainly need unions; and unions—and employees in general—need the right to grieve their employers. But, come on. Let’s be reasonable. I know it’s tough for omnipotent AFSCME to be reasonable—especially in Connecticut, where unions pull Hartford’s strings—but defending criminals to the detriment of justice and taxpayers is going way too far.

A felony conviction could also cost a state or municipal employee his pension. That’s why State Police Sgt. JohnMcDonald, for instance, got the alacritous cooperation of the friendly prosecutor to reduce his obvious 2019 felony to a misdemeanor conviction earlier this year. (And McDonald resigned under a cloud earlier this month, but why should he care? He’ll be collecting his handsome pension in no time.) And felony or misdemeanor is doubtless going to be one of the bargaining chips in whatever happens to Richard Jespersen, along with jail-time (probably none), fine (probably minimal), reimbursement (lotsa luck).

I haven’t read AFSCME’s contract with Litchfield, but even though state law trumps collective bargaining terms, don’t count on justice being done . . .

19 November—It must be a mere coincidence that just after Ned Lamont announced his intention to run for a second term as Connecticut’s (currently autocratic) governor, he proclaimed that he was abandoning his previously touted but highly unpopular plans to put tolls on the state’s roads and stick another tax on gasoline with his silly, fraudulent Transportation & Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P). Right?

So what will His Excellency do next? Increase the mill rate credit on state income tax? Eliminate sales tax on clothing? Dump the gross receipts tax on gasoline? He’s sure to get Republican cooperation on those election strategies.

But will he stop kissing the asses of the state’s labor unions, especially those that represent state and municipal workers and abuse taxpayers the most? Will he stop stealing money from well-managed smaller towns and giving it to poorly managed cities in classic Marxian tradition? Don’t count on it. He needs his disadvantaged-voter base.

And what will Connecticut Republicans do to (re)gain even a modicum of power and influence in Hartford? Unless the GOP can come up with a good candidate for governor, which they haven’t had since Jodi Rell, the state is screwed. So far, it doesn’t look too promising.

Then there’s the General Assembly. Even if Lamont stays in the Governor’s Residence, if Republicans can take even one house, Connecticut can be saved. (Not that it will be, of course.) But so far, that doesn’t look too promising either.

Hope should spring eternal. But this is Connecticut . . .

18 November—The yellow ribbons are still on the Green—as well they should be, though they may not all be on ole oak trees—and those nasty Litchfield burgesses are still embarrassing the Borough by insisting they be removed by the new year. But not only have Litchfield’s selectmen unanimously endorsed the ribbons, Audrey Blondin, Litchfield County’s redoubtable pre-eminent Democrat and a former Litchfield selectman, also has weighed in from her outpost in Goshen on the side of the ribbons.

Audrey writes in yesterday’s Republican-American essentially what I had written last month—but more eloquently than I—that in addition to totally ignoring the symbolic value of the ribbons, rookie Senior Burgess Gayle Carr’s arrogant ukase on behalf of her coterie of rookie burgesses poses a fundamental First Amendment issue, what Audrey calls “political free speech.”

“Like the yellow ribbons or not,” I wrote in the Republican-American, “if the Litchfield borough authorities demand or cause the ribbons’ removal, they will clearly be abridging the ribbon advocates’ freedom of speech. And that will be a splendid opportunity for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut to join the fray and get the borough back in national headlines—and waste even more of the hard-pressed borough taxpayers’ money.”

Will Gayle Carr and her cozy coterie continue to be autocratic royal pains in the ass about the yellow ribbons just to show how powerful they are in their silly little fiefdom? Or will they relent in their obdurate insensitivity and show some decency? I like to think so. On the other hand, who cares? It doesn’t matter. If Gayle and her girls don’t do the right thing but Val and Leslie Caron refuse to remove the ribbons, what are the Borough’s options?

There are two immediate options that come to mind. First, Gayle’s girls can amerce the Carons whatever fine they bloody well please. And after the Carons stop laughing, they will certainly tell Gayle’s girls where to go. Because the Carons have the good fortune to not live in the Borough. And I’d like to see the burgesses try to collect the vexatious fines through the courts.

For the second option, Gayle and her girls can gambol over the Green, ripping off the yellow ribbons as they go. In that case of misdemeanor vandalism, I’d help the Carons hang new ribbons. Time after time after time, as necessary. But I’m sure I’d have to stand in line.

There’s also a third option: forcing a borough meeting. That would require 50 signatures on a petition. (Only 20 signatures are needed to force a town meeting in Litchfield.) But a borough meeting would be a waste of time in all events because it’s the burgesses who are the legislative body and call all the shots in the useless borough. And the borough charter lets those autocratic assholes shoot whomever and wherever they damn well please.

Incidentally, the minutes for the 9 November meeting of the Borough of Litchfield Board of Warden and Burgesses, at which the yellow ribbons were yet again defamed, are not yet available, after a week, even in draft form. That’s a no-no according to Connecticut General Statutes. But do the arrogant autocrats give a damn? Not yet, anyway.

Another great reason to dump the borough . . .

17 November—I first subscribed to Consumer Reports, the publication of Consumers Union, some six decades ago; and I read it religiously. When I lived in the UK, I subscribed to Which?, the publication of the Consumers’ Association; and I read it religiously.

When I came back to the United States, a regular roll of Charmin (the only size available at the time) contained 650 sheets. Now that’s the sheet count of one of Procter & Gamble’s Charmin super-size rolls. You’ve got to hand it to P&G and their ad agency.

I fully expect to see a Charmin roll contain one sheet in the very near future. And a Charmin nine-sheet lifetime roll. I’ll leave it at that. Charmin’s ever-shrinking toilet roll speaks more highly than any other toilet paper for bidets. And when you consider that orthographically bidet is only one letter away from our saintly president’s name, how can you resist the temptation to switch? (Orthoepically, of course, bidet is closer to the French composer who died at 36 and also to the French psychologist who came up with a silly intelligence test.)

I digress, but I don’t recall Consumer Reports ever dealing with shrinking toilet rolls. Last year, I let my subscription to Consumer Reports lapse. Not because of some problems I may have with its politics, nor even with some of its rating policies, like downgrading cars because their running lights can be turned off too easily. I’m understanding and forgiving.

Consumer Reports simply became too glitzy, needlessly strong on graphics and with-it language, uncomfortably weak and far too lacking on product reviews. The selection and scope of products in any given categories are too limited to be of use. The revised magazine simply isn’t worth reading, let alone paying for. For me, anyway.

Adding insult to injury for subscribers (who are eo ipso members of the technically nonprofit Consumers Union, now called Consumer Reports, Inc.), in order to get a lot of what used to be included in the pedestrian magazine of the ancien régime, now they’re forced to buy an extra online subscription in order to read lots of what used to be right in front of them on paper.

I expressed my dissatisfaction with Consumer Reports’ nouveau régime on a couple of occasions. Never received even the courtesy of acknowledgements, let alone replies. And the only comments the magazine actually publishes are invariably positive. No surprise there. Because everybody loves it. Right?

A couple of months ago, Consumer Reports, Inc. asked me to give the magazine another chance by taking out a short freebie test subscription. No risk, nothing to lose. Didn’t even ask for my credit card information. So why not? I’ll report on it . . .

16 November—Over a half-century ago, for my 25^th birthday, a friend gave me a recently published paperback that he inscribed: “To Paul, who preserved this tradition in an oral form. Lionel.” It must be said that Lionel, a brilliant mathematician, had earlier in 1967 adjured me, “Rosenberg, why don’t you grow a chin to hide a weak beard!?” But he had never seen my chin.

Lionel’s paperback gift was an English translation of “Le Pétomane, 1857-1945, A tribute to the unique act which shook and shattered the Moulin Rouge.” Readers will probably remember Mel Brooks’s Gov. Le Petomane in the memorable 1974 flick “Blazing Saddles.” And some may even remember Lepetomane University in a less memorable flick, “Up the Creek,” from 1984.

To get to the point—finally!—Joseph Pujol, known professionally as Le Pétomane, was a flatulist, a professional farter or fartiste. I’d simply go for fartist or f-artist. The French word literally means farting maniac.

M. Pujol was a baker by profession, until he realized his unique talent and entered showbiz. It was that or politics. He was a star attraction at the Moulin Rouge, performing for royalty and Sigmund Freud and probably Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, among others, till he had a disagreement with the management and established his own popular show. He retired to his bakery in Marseilles at the outbreak of La Grande Guerre and later opened a biscuit factory in Toulon.

M. Pujol’s magnificent farts could imitate sound effects, animals, and musical instruments; he could play “O sole mio” and “La Marseillaise,” among other tunes, on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus; and he could blow out a candle from several yards away.

And his stage farts didn’t stink. That’s because M. Pujol wasn’t a conventional farter. Rather, he had the unique ability to suck in and discharge air and water through his rectum. So he wasn’t encumbered by conventional intestinal gas. Not for performances, anyway. One wonders about his gut’s reaction to overrated French cuisine.

In all events, Joseph Pujol should be the patron saint of climate alarmists, since his professional, methane-free farts did absolutely nothing to increase the threat of global warming . . .

15 November—As I intimated after yesterday’s observations about the disgusting, reprehensible Princess of Wales (The shameful old fartess), here are my observations about the United Nations COP26 climate extravaganza in Glasgow. To sum it up, what a bloody waste of time, energy, money, and whatever else you can think of.

And don’t fail to consider the humongous global warming all the airplanes and limousines that got the bigwigs and smallwigs to their soporific conferences must have caused by spewing megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Not to mention all the ginormous global warming all the bigwigs and smallwigs attending the sorporific conferences must have caused by spewing megatons of methane out their rear and front orifices into the atmosphere.

COP26 was no more than a charade, typically staged to divert attention from the serious political problems troubling virtually all of the participating nations.

So what was accomplished? One of the COP26 functionaries, pontificating from Glasgow, boasted on left-wing news that he was proud he could tell his children that COP26 “achieved something for their future.” Yeah, right.

Here are the COP26 website’s own bullet points about the blessed event, posted yesterday, gone today:

• COP26 ends with global agreement to accelerate action on climate this decade.
• Two weeks of intense negotiations finally complete the Paris Rulebook.
• For the first time COP agrees position on phasing down unabated coal power.
• The Glasgow Climate Pact caps two years of diplomacy and ambition raising.

Gosh, wow, golly gee! And huh, come again? A fortnight of what ukcop26.org calls (or called) “intense talks,” after what the world press calls “wrangling,” came up with “a consensus to speed up the pace on climate action.” It agreed to “revisit and strengthen current emissions targets to 2030.” It planned for yet another “yearly political roundtable to consider a global progress report and a leaders summit in 2023.” There were also commitments to “significantly increase financial support . . . as developed countries were urged to double their support of developing countries by 2025.”

All that amounts to nothing. Zilch. Zero. Bupkes. Sweet F A.

Look at the words of COP26’s own statement: intense talks, consensus, planned, political roundtable to consider, leaders summit, commitments, urged to significantly increase financial support. The last one means the United States will be hit up to bankroll this United Nations crap just as we’ve been doing for seven decades.

COP26 is nothing more than a gelatin-clad agreement that nobody outside of a cadre of activists and dreamers takes seriously. Especially the touted participating world leaders who reluctantly—for PR purposes—pledged to do their part, with no intention of doing a bloody thing. Because everyone but climate activists knows that you just can’t fuck with Mother Nature.

But all the news from Glasgow isn’t bad. For Glasgow. Because next year the United Nations will be taking its alarmist dog and pony show to Cairo. COP27 will be doing the same old same old in the shadow of the pyramids and the Sphinx. Just another excuse for the politicians of the world to see other parts of the world at taxpayers’ expense.

Do cities bid on the COP conventions like they do for Olympic games? Does the United Nations make a profit from them?

14 November—COP26 has finally concluded and is leaving Glasgow with little more than the unmistakable redolence of methane and the detritus of the horde of climate change activists. And lots of bills.

Without doubt, the most newsworthy event at the United Nations’ latest wasted, counterproductive effort at positive publicity was when the 78-year-old President of the United States, Joe Biden, allegedly entertained the 74-year-old Princess of Wales, Camilla Parker Bowles Windsor, with a virtuoso flatulent performance described by HRH as “long and impossible to ignore.” Evidently, Camilla hasn’t stopped talking about it.

Camilla, of course, supposedly being a lady before she started screwing around with heir apparent Prince Charles—who at the time was married, however unhappily, to Diana Spencer—would never fart, even when by herself. Nor, it must be said, should Camilla have carried on about POTUS’ embarrassing public flatulence, if indeed it happened. It showed her to be totally devoid of tact and grace. But, then, she is a royal, after all, if only by injection.

Horses in the Royal Mews are not allowed to eat or drink before performances, lest they embarrass their riders—which, happily, they sometimes do anyway. The Duchess of Cornwall—one of Camilla’s many other titles by marriage—probably has a cork stuck up her own stuck-up arse [that’s a British ass], along with a hot poker, to preempt her public flatulence. They should put one in her mouth, too. Two orifices, same discharge.

This was intended to be a short digression, but my utter disdain for the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which changed its name to the House of Windsor during World War I, got the better of me. No apologies.

My utter disdain for COP26 tomorrow . . .

13 November–Here are some suggestions for a new Wokemon game:

/

12 November—Believe it or not, the sacrosanct, sanctimonious, superfluous Borough of Litchfield doesn’t have a seal. Here are two suggestions. The round seal doesn’t need explication; the Latin in the oval seal means “Our shit doesn’t stink and you better believe it.” Hey, it’s the Borough!

11 November—About a decade ago, the family’s former GP, splitting his retirement between the south of England and the Costa del Sol, emailed me this perceptive piece about our beautiful language that he had gleaned from the internet. It’s still there. He’s not.

There’s a philological explanation for it all, which I won’t bore you with. Just enjoy the orthographic vagaries.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?