Mothers Against V-Chip News (MAVINS)

By Rose A. Valenta

While the FCC has adopted rules for the use of V-chip technology in television sets with screens that are 13 inches or larger; no one has restricted the behaviors of politicians and public figures with shorter penises and a deficient supply of grey matter.

Mothers can’t V-chip prime time news, people, and we need a strong activist to help launch MAVINS - Mothers Against V-ChIp NewS. The evening news is always on in the living room while youngsters are supposed to be doing homework and it will only get worse over time.

I first noticed something was wrong during the Clinton administration, when little Johnny came into the kitchen asking about protractors, sexual harassment, and oral sex.

“I can help you out with the math manipulatives,” I said “but the other questions you’ll have to run past your father. Where did you hear that anyway?”

“It was just on the news,” he said. “They want to fire the President for sexual harassment and oral sex.”

“That’s ‘impeach’ the President,” I said, “Not ‘fire’ him.”

That scenario continued non-stop from about January of 1998 to February 1999. Obviously, our President was deprived in his youth from what the Amish call "Rumspringa." As a result, little Johnny had enough sex education to CLEP credits on the topic.

He wrote an entire Dissertation on “Cheating and Sexual Mating Behaviors of Public Figures Based on Income and Risk” for his friends, while still in middle school.

Twelve years later, it gets worse. Recent sex scandals brought to us family-oriented viewers, during prime time news, involve Herman Cain, Barney Frank, John Edwards, Jim McGreevey, Governor Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner and Tiger Woods.

It was reported on the national news last year, that the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter sex video previously leaked by former aide, Andrew Young, was going viral online.

News of the video made me cringe, as Professor Johnny is now a college student and also a YouTube junkie. He thinks it is “sick,” not a bad term in this generation, and posted it on Facebook and Twitter to his 3,000+ sick followers.

When he is home from college, he uses the computer in my kitchen.

Just what I need while I’m cooking:
“Hey, Mom, what do you think of 'The Evolution of Cheating Self-Sabotage and the Sexual Mating Behaviors of Public Figures From a Darwin Perspective”?

“Go ask your father!”
▪
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National Columnists' Day Celebrates Ernie Pyle (1900 – 1945)

by Rose A. Valenta

“The anniversary of the April 18, 1945 death of the great Ernie Pyle is a time to reflect on the way newspaper columnists connect, educate, comfort, encourage, celebrate, outrage and occasionally even amuse readers and a time to express appreciation for them for their hard work.” ~ National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) April 18, 1995.

And work hard Ernie Pyle did, crunching out 1,000-word essays six days-a-week non-stop for 10 years, until his untimely death on the front line in 1945.

Since this is a humor blog, I chose to honor Ernie Pyle this month by posting a column that he wrote about the famous cartoonist, Bill Mauldin, in 1944. I remember seeing those Willie and Joe cartoons for the first time, while leafing through some old Life Magazines. I saved a few of them for inspiration.

Bill Mauldin, Cartoonist
by Ernie Pyle

IN ITALY, January 15, 1944 – Sgt. Bill Mauldin appears to us over here to be the finest cartoonist the war has produced. And that’s not merely because his cartoons are funny, but because they are also terribly grim and real.

Mauldin’s cartoons aren’t about training-camp life, which you at home are best acquainted with. They are about the men in the line – the tiny percentage of our vast army who are actually up there in that other world doing the dying. His cartoons are about the war.

Mauldin’s central cartoon character is a soldier, unshaven, unwashed, unsmiling. He looks more like a hobo than like your son. He looks, in fact, exactly like a doughfoot who has been in the lines for two months. And that isn’t pretty.

Mauldin’s cartoons in a way are bitter. His work is so mature that I had pictured him as a man approaching middle age. Yet he is only twenty-two, and he looks even younger. He himself could never have raised the heavy black beard of his cartoon dogface. His whiskers are soft and scant, his nose is upturned good-naturedly, and his eyes have a twinkle.
His maturity comes simply from a native understanding of things, and from being a soldier himself for a long time. He has been in the Army three and a half years.
*
Bill Mauldin was born in Mountain Park, New Mexico. He now calls Phoenix home base, but we of New Mexico could claim him without much resistance on his part. Bill has drawn ever since he was a child. He always drew pictures of the things he wanted to grow up to be, such as cowboys and soldiers, not realizing that what he really wanted to become was a man who draws pictures. He graduated from high school in Phoenix at seventeen, took a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, and at eighteen was in the Army. He did sixty-four days on KP duty in his first four months. That fairly cured him of a lifelong worship of uniforms.

Mauldin belongs to the 45th Division. Their record has been a fine one, and their losses have been heavy. Mauldin’s typical grim cartoon soldier is really a 45th Division infantryman, and he is one who has truly been through the mill.

Mauldin was detached from straight soldier duty after a year in the infantry, and put to work on the division’s weekly paper. His true war cartoons started in Sicily and have continued on through Italy, gradually gaining recognition. Capt. Bob Neville, Stars and Stripes editor, shakes his head with a veteran’s admiration and says of Mauldin: "He’s got it. Already he’s the outstanding cartoonist of the war."
*
Mauldin works in a cold, dark little studio in the back of Stars and Stripes’ Naples office. He wears silver-rimmed glasses when he works. His eyes used to be good, but he damaged them in his early Army days by drawing for too many hours at night with poor light.

He averages about three days out of ten at the front, then comes back and draws up a large batch of cartoons. If the weather is good he sketches a few details at the front. But the weather is usually lousy.

"You don’t need to sketch details anyhow," he says. "You come back with a picture of misery and cold and danger in your mind and you don’t need any more details than that."

His cartoon in Stars and Stripes is headed "Up Front . . . By Mauldin." The other day some soldier wrote in a nasty letter asking what the hell did Mauldin know about the front.

Stars and Stripes printed the letter. Beneath it in italics they printed a short editor’s note: "Sgt. Bill Mauldin received the Purple Heart for wounds received while serving in Italy with Pvt. Blank’s own regiment." That’s known as telling ‘em.
*
Bill Mauldin is a rather quiet fellow, a little above medium size. He smokes and swears a little and talks frankly and pleasantly. He is not eccentric in any way.

Even though he’s just a kid he’s a husband and father. He married in 1942 while in camp in Texas, and his son was born last August 20 while Bill was in Sicily. His wife and child are living in Phoenix now. Bill carries pictures of them in his pocketbook.

Unfortunately for you and Mauldin both, the American public has no opportunity to see his daily drawings. But that isn’t worrying him. He realizes this is his big chance.

After the war he wants to settle again in the Southwest, which he and I love. He wants to go on doing cartoons of these same guys who are now fighting in the Italian hills, except that by then they’ll be in civilian clothes and living as they should be.

Ernie Pyle
~~~
Source: "Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches," edited by David Nichols, pp. 197-99. Pictures courtesy of The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
*
To learn more about the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and National Columnists' Day, click here: NSNC

Transporting Sasquatch

by Rose A. Valenta

“A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.”~ Helen Rowland

CNN recently reported on the continued search for Sasquatch, The Abominable Snowman. Uncle Harry was at my house reading the same story in the local newspaper. He was so tickled by the large Sasquatch footprint photograph that he cut it out and hung it on my refrigerator with tape, waiting for a reaction from Uncle Dick, who was expected to arrive for dinner any minute. These two single seniors in my life like to prank each other and have never quite grown up into manhood.

Apparently, way back when Christ was a Corporal and the two of them attended their Senior Prom, Harry’s date Matilda earned the nickname “Sasquatch” when she poured her size 24 self into a size 18 ½ brown chenille A-line gown, complete with large gaudy feathered accessories, for the Prom.

They traveled to the dance in an old Ford Roadster. Matilda weighing in at 240 lbs. had to literally back into the car to get into position for the seat. Dick’s date looked more like Olive Oyl, in her size 5 spinach-green Edwardian-style gown.

After Harry finished waltzing Matilda and before the night was over, she had literally punctured the floorboard in the Ford with her high-heels. Harry swore that there was no necking room inside the car and that he had to stretch like a deer forging for figs, to reach her face in the moonlight.

He noticed that you could actually see the dirt road whizzing by though the holes in the floorboard on the way home. So, he went to the local bakery and talked the head baker into selling him a sheet pan to cover the damaged floor in the car. The next day, he and Dick repaired the floor and hid the pan with a throw-rug for future use.

Dick told him that he should seriously consider dating thinner women, but Harry wouldn’t listen. In later years, Dick would tell Harry that all those “No Hazmat” signs on the highway were there because of his old dates, rotted floorboards, and general taste in women. As I recall, Harry’s first wife actually did look like an Abominable Snowman in her wedding dress. Her maid of honor wore a gown that rivaled Tula’s bridesmaids in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

Just then, the doorbell rang. Dick came in with a bottle of Chardonnay and a case of Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat that he promptly put in the refrigerator. He immediately saw the photograph of the alleged Sasquatch footprint.

“Harry, you never told me that you took Tildy out for barefoot walk on the beach on Prom night,” he said.

One story led to another and they had me laughing all night. I figured that "Transporting Sasquatch" would make a great episode for Shipping Wars.

I’ve never been quite sure if Helen Rowland, author of The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor, actually knew my Uncles Harry and Dick.

© 2013, Valenta, All rights reserved.

To read my column Skinny Dipping click here

To buy my book “Sitting on Cold Porcelain” click here

Fluster Chuck

by Rose A. Valenta

Super Bowl Sunday dinner is destined to turn out like the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Believe me; it has nothing to do with the Ravens, 49ers, or Shannon Sharpe. The fluster chuck and icebergs being our two young grandsons vs. our daughter Sally’s in-laws, Dwight and Margaret Stern, a surly couple equipped with the combined personalities of two flat soufflés.

Margaret is a retired country club groupie, who once thought Warren Buffett was the sexiest thing since Aristotle Onasis, and Dwight used to stuff shirts for a living. They met at a charity play – a match spawned from a remake of “Les Miserables.” I found all this out a few months ago, after they drank too much champagne at Sally and Mel’s wedding and dumped on me. It was better than a Joe Biden Gaffe. Now, they stick with non-alcoholic cantaloupe horchatas. They should drink more alcohol. 

Our other guests include Sally’s husband, Mel; our 12 and 14-year-old grandsons, Glenn and Earl, whom we call Loaf and Domino because they are lazy and always into mischief; my husband’s best friend, Vince Lubelli, who is divorced and unemployed with an IQ low enough to make Ripley’s; and my sister, Berni, who is 50 years old, going on 12, and still dates college guys. 

Our oldest daughter is away. We are babysitting our grandsons and have no choice in the matter, we’re stuck with them for Super Bowl Sunday. I quickly determined where to hide the mashed potatoes, so they can’t have a food fight and play “zit” in front of the Sterns. My husband and I were uneasy about inviting them, but Sally had called earlier and insisted.

“Mom, can you invite Mel’s parents over for dinner on Super Bowl Sunday?”

“Are you nuts?” I asked. “The Domino Effect, Vince ‘The Zoner,’ and your Aunt Berni ‘The Cougar,’ will be here.”

“It’s Okay,” she said. “I’ll keep the boys occupied with Xbox games. Margaret and Dwight are in town and it would be impolite to leave them alone at our house, while we come over and party. Just make sure Aunt Berni doesn’t bring her latest Nick Jonas look-alike; and ask Dad not to torment Vince with his usual Jay Walking game. I was totally embarrassed the last time Dad grabbed the salt shaker like a mic and put it in Vince's face, asking 'Who wrote the motivational book,  Who Moved my Cheese?' and Vince blurted out ‘Chaz Bono?"

“I don’t know,” I said. “Remember the last time we all had dinner together and Loaf kept pelting Margaret with Spanish olives? The boys swing from trees at the mall. Your sister never trained them for anything civilized. When they play Xbox, they use all seven Urban Dictionary words that Carlin said are banned on TV."

“Mom, I promise to keep them calm and occupied.”

“Okay,” I said. “This I have to see.”

“Thanks, you’re a gem.”

“You’re welcome," I said. “The disclaimer will be hanging off the front door, just below the Harbaugh jersey. Your father is leaving nothing to chance."

We decided to serve dinner buffet-style, so that we could keep the Sterns at a safe distance from Loaf and Domino, who never mastered social skills or how to put the toilet seat down.

“Five dollars says one of the Sterns will end up sitting on cold porcelain in the bathroom before the night is over,” I yelled out to my husband, who was outside trying to blow the dust balls off the fleur de lis candlesticks that haven’t been out of the china closet since Super Bowl 44. He finally resorted to artfully using the potato peeler to shave them; then, he added two plastic ravens.

“You're on,” my husband laughed.

Well, he should have just handed me the five dollars, as half-way through dinner we could hear Margaret’s loud screams in the bathroom drowning out the entertainment system, which was blasting Domino's favorite Steelheart recording, “Love Ain’t Easy.” Margaret prefers Luciano Pavarotti's "A Te, O Cara" from I Puritani, so she was doubly traumatized.

Kick-off was still a few hours away, so I gave her a towel, two aspirin, and a doggie bag.  I gave Dwight a desperately needed 12-pack of Blue Moon. He was so upset, his testicles receded and he was in a great deal of pain. Vince gave up his Ravens hat and Mel drove them back home.

I turned to Sally and she accurately read the I told you so look on my face.

“I know,” she said. “Just like savoir-faire, Fluster Chuck is everywhere!”

© 2013, Valenta, All rights reserved.

To read my column Skinny Dipping click here

To buy my book “Sitting on Cold Porcelain” click here

A 'Little Chicago' Story

by Rose A. Valenta

When I was growing up, I used to spend most of my summers visiting my Grandmother in Olean, NY. If you have never heard of Olean, it is a great little community just over the New York State line from Bradford, PA. It was also a major bootlegging stop during Prohibition. In the 1920s, the press nicknamed the town "Little Chicago" because of its connection with organized crime, bootleggers and Al Capone; who often visited there.

My Grandparents were born and raised near Olean, before 1900. They married in Olean and raised seven children there. Unfortunately, Grandma was widowed young and had to obtain a position as a baker at The Olean House, an upscale hotel, to support her children; where she managed to get promoted to head baker. She was well-known in the community for her expertise at baking the best cakes and pies. Whether she ever baked an Italian Rum Cake for Capone, she never said. However, she always brought baked goods to family gatherings, her NSDAR ladies (Olean Chapter 1117), and often donated recipes to church cookbooks that were being produced for charity.

One could describe her as the Walter Staib of Olean - traditional recipes using original methods of baking.

I was her youngest granddaughter and she took me under her wing in the kitchen. It was a lost cause, however, because even a simple thing like cupcakes turned out like hockey pucks when I tried to make them. I remember once, she actually stood over my shoulder while she dictated a cake recipe. It was one of her famous orange Bundt cakes with orange glaze. Sure enough, it came out of the oven like a paper weight. It had risen less than an inch. I wrote an essay about it in my book, Sitting on Cold Porcelain, called “Thanksgiving Plans – Remember the Titanic.”

I got married in Philadelphia, Grandma retired from the Olean House, and we visited regularly. She was still sharp as a tack at 90 years old. She managed to take several solo trips to Florida to visit her younger sister before she passed in 1978.

Somehow, during that time, a light bulb went on in my head and I learned how to cook. I never did get the hang of baking a good cake, however, but there was Duncan Hines and the box cake only turned out lop-sided once. That’s when she put me wise to turning the tins upside down and icing the flat sides together.

I remember Grandma being very active at her Church. She was a member of the United Brethren Church and the Eastern Star. I think about her often during the holidays. So, it must have been ESP when I logged on to eBay just after Thanksgiving last year, and did a search for my grandmother’s name and “Olean,” because I found a church cookbook up for auction that she had contributed to almost 40 years ago. In it was a brown bread recipe with brown sugar, raisins, and nuts. I was thrilled. I’ll make my girls one of Grandma’s recipes for Christmas, I thought. Then, I groaned, remembering how it could turn out.

Surprisingly, not bad!

My daughters are grown now and have children of their own. Two of them only have a vague recollection of visiting their Great Grandmother in Olean, but they know all about her from my stories. This past Christmas, they had a special gift from Great-Grandma that I would like to share with you. You can make it anytime for sandwiches as a delicious substitute for whole wheat. It is not sweet:

Millie Chappell’s Brown Bread

1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups buttermilk
2 cups flour
3 cups graham flour (order online, I can’t find it anywhere else)
4 tbsp. shortening (melted)
4 tbsp. molasses
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
Add raisins, nuts, or dates as desired. I used raisins and pecans.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together, except the brown sugar. In a separate bowl, mix all of the liquid ingredients and the sugar. Combine them both making a batter. Grease two bread tins and fill them slightly more than half full with the batter. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for one hour. It makes two loaves… and all that jazz.

Yay! I’m Roxie Hart in the kitchen!

© 2010-13, Valenta, All rights reserved.

To read my column Skinny Dipping click here

To buy my book “Sitting on Cold Porcelain” click here

Video Source: YouTube - Copyright: Miramax

Juicing the Fiscal Cliff

by Rose A. Valenta

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." ~ Mark Twain

The President has been working hard trying to get Democrats and Republicans to come to an agreement to avert the fiscal cliff. It wasn’t until Biden showed up with a bipartisan punch bowl, a keg of Blue Moon and White House Brew on New Year’s Eve that they finally reached an agreement.

He got Eric Cantor trashed first, then Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner until they reached a tentative vote, as Brendan Buck was picking Boehner up off the floor.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) said "the president gave up a lot; more than I would have liked, but I can understand what we're dealing with and I'll probably vote for it, hic!"

Just then, BO got a text message from MO in Hawaii, "Take your time, here comes Honey Boo Boo."

"I wish I could say this was a proud moment," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), "but it is the smallest finger in a dike that has in fact a hundred holes in it. Much like Biden’s keg." Nancy Pelosi didn’t exactly know what was in it either.

The Senate cleared the package with an 89-8 vote about 2:00 AM EST on Tuesday after President Obama broke out the Scotch whiskey (Boehner's favorite).

At 2:01 AM, Harry Reid injured his face trying to open a warm bottle of champagne that his pet, Coons, gave him because he thought drinking the White House ale was "tacky."

The House convened at noon on New Year's Day, but everyone was so hung over, they couldn’t say when they would debate the budget deal.

Then, Nancy found a dance partner and everyone decided to reconvene on Thursday with the 113th Congress. Nancy instructed staffers to launch a Photoshop app called "You Go, Girlfriend!" for the official photo as a Just-in-Case (JIC) strategy to paste in members, who couldn't show up on time.

Better Than NORAD?

"There are three stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus; he doesn't believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus."

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) did a great job tracking Santa again this year; but it didn't compare with the early Christmas Eve reports of reindeer poop on the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State building that circumvented modern technology and allowed kids to track where Santa and his reindeer really had been. These sightings are based on help desk reports from the North Pole. As you know, reindeer poop was in demand during the past few years for those folks, who were put on Santa’s naughty list. Entrepreneurs even packaged the stuff with poems like this one:

Santa saved a precious gift
and it's especially for you.
Just a little something extra
and it comes from Rudolph, too!

He knows that you've been naughty
instead of being nice.
Once again you're on the bad list
and he's checked it over twice.

Santa hopes this little poem
doesn’t throw you for a loop.
All you’re getting this year
is a bunch of reindeer poop!

The Elves

Recycled reindeer droppings can be used for mulch, potting soil, pranks, fertilizer, and fiberboard. You can contact the North Pole directly for Reindeer Poop® franchise information. Proceeds from the franchise initiative support Santa's workshop.

While 10 million people from 212 countries had a good time tracking Santa Claus via NORAD, Google Maps and Google Earth, and the Twitter microblogging service, including 24 "Santa cams" around the world that were later put up on Youtube; some small folks were still having fun learning where Rudolph and friends really made pit stops.

I went online to see if there were any web sites dedicated to reindeer poop sightings, as Santa was feeling a bit guilty about some of the splatters, especially the one dropped in mid-town Manhattan at about 11:00 pm EST, flattening the roof of a taxi, plus, the hoof and Claus marks on the forehead of an old lady in Skidmore, Texas; but there were none to be found.

By the time the sleigh reached the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Santa and the reindeer were feeling the side-effects of all those chocolate chip cookies. In an act of desperation, Santa began dropping notes asking kids for nachos and beer, instead of milk and cookies.

You always wondered why the Washington Monument faded in two-tone, right?

Volunteers at the North Pole help desk fielded nearly 195,000 phone calls reporting a need for WINDEX®; over 940,000 e-mail complaints demanding that a pooper scooper be installed on the sleigh; and one from irate House Speaker, John Boehner, who is still running his mouth about it hitting the fiscal cliff.

The root cause analysis?

The 24-hour marathon of "A Christmas Story," interference by Randolph, and Christmas!