Best of the original Dandy Goat 2013-2016

How could we have elected a man who doesn’t know about possessive apostrophes?

November 11, 2016

It’s going to take a lot of soul-searching to understand Trump’s ascendency to the highest office in the land. Some of it boils down to factors beyond our control: rising disillusionment with the so-called establishment, the fracturing of news into partisan info-spheres, and decades of failure from our educational system to produce intelligent voters capable of choosing a candidate who doesn’t write like a fifth-grader.

Yet if we liberals are honest with ourselves, we, too, must accept blame. Our snobbery, our elitism, and our unwillingness to communicate with uneducated white male voters have played a role in the horrific outcome of the presidential election. Winning back popular support in the future will require humility and empathy — empathy for those simpletons who were excited by a man who believes an exclamation mark is a classy way to end a sentence.

I understand that not everyone found Hillary Clinton as charismatic as I did, but there’s one thing I don’t understand. How could 60 million adults have voted for a man who doesn’t even know how to use possessive apostrophes? I’ve been using them in my own prose since I was six or seven. Okay, full disclosure: nine. (I was late.) But still, how could anyone make it to adulthood, pass through the upper echelons of business and entertainment, and not learn the difference between “voter’s” and “voters”? Seriously.

I don’t want to dwell on Trump’s lack of formal knowledge, because that sort of arrogance is exactly why we lost the election. Who cares about apostrophes? Trump makes other, more glaring mistakes that for the life me, I cannot excuse, even if he is just tweeting at 4 a.m. and not penning essays for the New Yorker. Consider his confusion between “there,” “they’re” and “their,” for instance. My iPad is there on the table. These are my friends, and they’re both political bloggers. Their cats are named Ernest and Hemingway. Is that really so hard? Yes, for some people, apparently.

If we want continue existing as a political force, we need sit down and actually listen to the other side of the aisle. We must invite them to open up with their thoughts, fears and dreams, and we’ll do our best to make sense of their monosyllabic country gibberish. Maybe they can describe how they feel about a president-elect who uses superlatives like New York Times writers at a dinner party throwing around references to Paul Krugman. It’s very annoying. Personally, in my own writing, I restrict superlative use to one or two per week. No more than that. Overuse is the worst. Moderation is most important. (Did you see what I did there?)

Yes, my fellow liberals, it’s time we step back from our contempt for Trump and the barely literate pipefitters and truck drivers who voted for him. If we manage that, we may learn to appreciate how a casual disregard for prescriptive rules occasionally infuses one’s writing with an unexpected chutzpah. But still, how will world leaders respond when they get an invitation from President Trump to “go too the white house for my inogurashun”? Will Congress be swayed by Trump’s appeals to “do it’s best to solve global crisises”? I think not.

Let’s really try to regard Trump and his supporters as cerebral entities, even if they don’t know what either word means.

Ezra Klein is the editor-in-chief of Vox

FEMA setting up safe spaces in areas devastated by election

November 10, 2016

The federal agency in charge of disaster assistance is setting up hundreds of emergency safe spaces around the country where residents traumatized by the presidential election outcome can find safety and psychological comfort.

“These safe spaces are shelters where afflicted individuals can get free hugs, listen to soothing indie folk music with lyrics that reaffirm progressive values, and in general make the hurt go away,” said Frank Lee, FEMA’s director of Emotional Disaster Relief. “Lots of Americans have been left despondent, confused and rather whiny, and we want them to know we’re here to help.”

Trained staff in the shelters will discourage visitors from using painful trigger words including GOP, election, democracy, America, Bernie Sanders and 2016 — words that can prompt fits of moral indignation in some people and plunge others into depression.

Jaylee Haynes, a graduate student who is volunteering at a FEMA safe space camp near the University of California in Los Angeles, says that she has helped dozens of psychically damaged students, many of whom were found wandering around campus in a fugue state following an anti-Trump protest that was promised to “Dump the Trump” — but fizzled into nothing.

“They were all first-time voters who felt entitled to the outcome they badly wanted, so when it was announced their candidate had lost, they went into shock,” Haynes said. “Some were weeping, others were rambling incoherently about dismantling the Electoral College or seeking asylum in Canada, and all of them had peed on themselves — a telltale sign of election-year trauma. Very sad.”

According to Haynes, one young woman who was found unconscious outside UCLA’s Powell Library claimed to have heard a male student utter the words “pussy” and “grab” in the same sentence.

“The victim just lost it,” Haynes said. “I hesitate to cite hysteria, because that word is laden with sexism, but that’s what she was: hysterical.”

“We put her in a dimly lit room with lots of non-gendered plush animals and let her watch a few hours of Bob Ross painting a forest, and a volunteer from the political science department explained to her how elections work, and she’s okay now,” Haynes continued. “But can you imagine how things could have ended if we hadn’t been there? She’d probably be on a bus to New York City this very moment to write for Salon.”

By the end of this week, FEMA will have set up 650 temporary safe spaces on college campuses and in urban centers in all 21 blue states and four red states, according to agency officials. Construction will soon begin on 400 permanent safe space facilities, some of which might be ready in time for Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

Lee, the director of Emotional Disaster Relief, says that many of the victims of this election cycle will require long-term care and will spend months or even years maniacally cursing uneducated whites and promising to leave the country. Despite the high costs of keeping these shelters operational, he insists that his agency will continue to carry out its mission for as long as necessary. But still, he says, Congress will need to do more.

“In some Scandinavian countries, having reality conform to your expectations is a constitutional right, not just a privilege afforded only to the winners,” he added. “We need to move ourselves in that direction, because no one deserves to be disappointed.”

Vox editor casually hands out cyanide doses to staff

November 9, 2016

NEW YORK — Fearful that a Trump presidency will usher in a thousand years of jingoism and irreversibly cripple Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the editor of the left-leaning news publication Vox has casually handed out cyanide capsules to the eight writers present at what may be the final staff meeting.

“So if Trump wins, let’s immediately get something up about how white, self-appointed election observers scared away black and Latino voters in crucial districts in swing states, and I’m thinking that you, Katrina [Harrison], should start working on that right away, see if you can find witnesses willing to corroborate that,” said editor-in-chief Ezra Klein. “Oh, and these little capsules that I’m passing around contain cyanide.”

“It’s also important that we investigate premature announcements of a Trump victory in some eastern states by the usual right-wing suspects, Fox News, Drudge, and Breitbart, to see how that might have discouraged voters in blue states from trekking to crowded polling stations to vote, so if I could get someone to work on that, that’d be great,” Klein continued. “You just put the capsule in the back of your mouth and clench it between your molars.”

“Also, we need to get something up right away about soul-searching among progressives, about penitence but emphasizing a roadmap to winning more congressional seats in 2018 and getting the presidency in 2020,” he added. “All you need to do is bite down, but not before all the results come in of course, and you won’t feel any pain. Just release.”

Before adjourning the meeting, Klein thanked everyone for their unwavering support of the candidate who would hopefully be the nation’s first female president and said that, should Clinton end up winning the presidency, the first article posted on Vox should be a detailed explanation of how changing demographics in Florida and other formerly Republican strongholds made a Clinton victory inevitable.

Clinton delivers rousing speech in morgue

October 17, 2016

LARAMIE, Wyo. — Vying for the support of a quiet but ever-growing voter demographic, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivered a campaign speech on Monday to residents of a morgue in this sleepy Rocky Mountain town.

“In all of his 494 appearances on network television, my opponent Donald Trump has not once mentioned you, and that’s because he doesn’t even know you’re alive,” Clinton told an estimated 24 unanimated voters who were wheeled into a refrigerated vault for the event. “He’s more concerned with chasing hot asses than reaching out to frigid hands.”

Clinton went on to explain that she shares many affinities with those in attendance, pointing out that in 1998, at the height the Monica Lewinsky scandal, she went 17 days straight without taking a single breath.

“You may not know this, but we have a lot in common,” she said. “Proclivity for stiffness, absent or weak pulse, a tendency to look blankly at the wall when confronted with physical contact.”

Laramie bartender Frank Tadwick, 54, whose uncle Ronald passed away last week at the age of 89, says that Hillary Clinton is the only candidate with a body temperature his uncle can relate to.

“Donald Trump struts around in the winter wearing a $1500 Brooks Brothers overcoat, shivering like any other jerk with a functioning hypothalamus,” Tadwick said. “Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton could go days locked in a cold storage unit, and that’s important for Uncle Ronnie.”

Francesca Hernandez, 42, chief mortician at South Wyoming Medical Center and organizer of the event, believes that the former senator and secretary of state had the requisite temperament to stand firm in the arena of international conflicts.

“In a staring match with Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton will never blink first,” Hernandez says. “And that’s because Secretary Clinton doesn’t blink at all.”

Among other promises designed to win the deceased vote, Clinton says that she’ll push for free headstone upgrades for every late American regardless of citizenship status, and that she’ll order the Department of the Interior to take over the maintenance of all cemetery grounds.

“You might not be able to speak,” Clinton said to stifled applause. “But I can still hear you.”

‘Lives matter’ activists crushed by meteorite

September 30, 2016

OAKLAND, Calif. — Dozens of Bay Area protesters allied with the Black Lives Matter movement, along with members of an opposing group called All Lives Matter, were killed on Friday morning in a freak astronomical incident.

The BLM activists had gathered outside police headquarters to protest the shooting of a dark-skinned man in rural Afghanistan who allegedly did not drop his missile launcher when ordered to by police. The ALM activists showed up to counter the BLM group, and also to “defend all lives,” according to chapter president Lane Harrington’s Facebook page.

“Mostly white lives, though, but that’s just a personal preference,” it says.

However, their heated back-and-forth proved all for naught when a large flaming meteorite shot through the sky and slammed into the ground precisely where the protesters were hurling insults at each other. The resultant explosion created shockwaves felt as far away as Palo Alto. Authorities are still unable to determine if the 50 or so victims were crushed or simply evaporated.

“What the fudge happened here?” said Sgt. Doug McGibbons, the first officer to arrive on the scene.

Passersby rushed to the crater, shouting abuse at McGibbons and accusing the Oakland Police Department of failing to protect citizens against falling celestial objects.

Police responded with tear gas, but in a rare misstep, they accidentally used actual tear-provoking gas, which simply causes people to cry.

“This whole thing is just really sad,” said one bawling reporter from a local ABC affiliate.

In an effort to calm the angry and now sobbing crowd, Bay Area geologist Stanley Lapide was brought in to shed the light of science on the bizarre occurrence, but instead he ended up inadvertently causing further disruption.

“The victims of this meteorite came here today to insist that their lives mattered,” Lapide said through a loudspeaker. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but they were wrong, barring one or two improbabilities, in which case you could say that their lives mattered a little bit.”

“Tell us, professor,” the crowd shouted in unison.

“One: if the victims were indeed crushed, it’s possible that some bone fragments remain intact and will join the geological record, as a fossil or tightly enclosed in a rock stratum,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of years from now, cyborgs from another galaxy might unearth these bits and analyze them to better understand the nutritional habits of ancient sapient Earth dwellers.”

“Two: if the victims were vaporized, some molecules from their bodies drifted upwards and have been sucked into a jet stream,” he continued. “According to calculations I’ve just done in my head, that would yield a .00002 percent chance that they will affect the weather in some very imperceptible way, perhaps by adding a few drops of water to a light drizzle over some remote stretch of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“So, do black, white, or any lives matter?” he asked, but then stiffened and fell to the ground after being tasered by police who, due to the professor’s skin color, mistook him as a member of BLM. The esteemed professor went into cardiac arrest and was whisked away by an ambulance.

By that time, news of the unprovoked tazing had spread via Twitter with the hashtag #geolivesmatter, and dozens of faculty members from UC-Berkeley’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department showed up with signs reading “Geo Science Lives Matter” and “I’m Giving A Free Public Science Lecture, Bro, Don’t Taze Me.” When an armored police half track accidentally reversed over several of the scientists, the driver — a rookie officer who had only joined the force the day before, and had forgotten to put on his glasses that morning — was yanked out by a group of angry Stanford geophysicists who had just arrived by bus.

The young officer was beaten with his own nightstick, prompting hundreds of members of the local police union to cordon off the area so they could hold a protest in the name of Blue Lives Matter. However, by that point, it was discovered that at least one victim of the original meteorite impact had miraculously survived.

But cheers at the discovery were soon replaced by shouts as the feuding parties began to claim that the survivor was one of their own. Burned and unrecognizable, the person slowly climbed out of the crater and, with a marker, changed the police union’s sign to say “black AND blue lives matter,” a point on which all agreed until it became clear that the words were actually only referring to the minority population of bruised people.