Day: October 30, 2019

Talk About Fake News

Fandango8 Comments

740DE7BB-1519-4B9C-91C6-0FB57F6B4A69Donald Trump tweeted a photo showing him allegedly putting a medal around the neck of the “hero dog” that participated in the raid that ended up in the death of ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The reality, though, is that the photo didn’t really happen. Someone photoshopped a picture of the hero dog over an Associated Press photo of 2017 Medal of Honor recipient James McCloughan.155D33C6-1612-480B-A824-C872149925DCIn fact, the hero dog has never been to the White House and is back on duty despite being injured by an electric cable during an explosion at the raid, according to U.S. Central Command.

And, by the way, this was not the first instance of photoshopping of official White House photos. Here’s one that photoshopped Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton out of a photograph, replacing him with Attorney General William Barr.6C1003F6-A4CD-4AE3-99CD-BD9EC58EA958Well, as Trump once said, “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. … What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Don’t Judge Me

Fandango45 Comments

Don’t you hate it when you’re going through the checkout line at the grocery store and the cashier runs your items through the scanner and then gives you a look that silently says, “Seriously, you’re buying this shit?”

That happened to me this morning when I purchased these items:DCFB1311-DA08-4A4B-A49E-0775F0047872Now before you, too, judge me, let me explain. We have a 14 year-old dog who is suffering from arthritis. So we have to get her to swallow two different capsules twice daily to provide some arthritis relief. Unfortunately, neither of the pills is chewable, so we’ve got to hide it in food that she will eat.

After much experimentation, we discovered that our dog likes Spam and Gerber’s chicken and turkey “sticks” (little sausages). So we poke holes in one or the other, insert the capsules inside of them, and beg her to eat the Spam or “sticks” with the embedded capsules, which she does, thus allowing us to solve the challenge of getting her to take her medicine.

And just for the record, I have never in my life knowingly eaten Spam, nor Gerber’s chicken or turkey sticks. So don’t you dare judge me by what’s in my shopping cart, thank you very much.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #46

Fandango28 Comments

FPQWelcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration. I missed posting last week’s provocative question because I was busy hosting out-of-town guests and didn’t have time to come up with one. But I’m back this week.

Anyway, by provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

I was watching “Jimmy Kimmel Live” last week and he and his sidekick, Guillermo, paid a visit to the New Yorker magazine in an effort to get a cartoon published in the magazine. Neither was successful, but Jimmy came up with this cartoon, which serves as the inspiration for this week’s provocative question.CDAE46BB-E23E-40BF-BDB9-14331575A5F4The cartoon shows a picture of a young man sitting in a jail cell with headphones on. He’s busy using his smartphone when the prison guard apparently advises the guy in the cell that he’s entitled to a phone call. The guy then asks the guard, “What’s a phone call?”

This got me thinking. According to my iPhone’s screen time tracker, I typically spend eight to ten hours a day using that device. But I spend almost zero time talking on the phone. I don’t answer my phone unless I know who’s calling. And these days, I rarely get phone calls from people I know. My adult kids communicate with me exclusively via text messages. On those rare occasions when I use the phone to call them, the usual response I get is, “Why are you calling? Why didn’t you just text me?”

It seems that, increasingly these days, people of all ages are shunning phone calls in favor of chat apps and texting. So my provocative question this week is:

Has using a telephone for making calls become obsolete? For those of you who grew up without the internet or smartphones, is calling and speaking with people on the phone still important? For those of you who grew up only using smartphones, is it necessary to call anyone anymore?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Solve

Fandango19 Comments

FOWCWelcome to October 30, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “solve.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.