About Face

Longtime reader and all around wonderful person, Jackie, had this to say concerning my last posting:

"I miss your "normal" blog (should I even say that....because I'm not sure that "normal" and "Jim" should be typed
 in the same sentence)....but I do miss your regular blog. I have gotten used to coming here and reading a part of what's on your mind.....(what's left of it) (you know I'm kidding!)....and I miss it. Am I being too 'in your business' with this comment? I hope not, 'cause you know that I luv and respect you so much. I just miss "you"....and your words here."

Well, of course, she's correct. I've been a hideous slug when it comes to truly blogging. I come here and write a few word, then send you off to read my stuff at some newspaper or website. That's because I'm a semi-successful hideous slug and I've had my words published. None of that would have happened without you, though, so I most certainly owe you the courtesy of giving you a bit more here than you've been receiving.

With that in mind, here's something written specifically for this blog!

(Nah, not really. I'll be honest and let you know this was rejected by five places already. However, I could have sent it out to 10 or 12 more and I like to think by the time I got down to The West Smegma Times-Courier & Hog Report I probably could have gotten it published, rather than giving it to you now. There's at least that, OK?)


PRESIDENTIAL FACIAL HAIR

With the latest Republican debate scheduled for tonight on CNN, I've been thinking about presidential politics. It occurs to me that it's been a very long time since we’ve had a President with facial hair. Teddy Roosevelt was the last and that was well over a hundred years ago. The last person to make a major party run for President while sporting any sort of facial hair was Tom Dewey in 1948 and, despite headlines to the contrary, he didn’t beat Truman.

Of the current crop of candidates, Ben Carson is the only one trying to break that streak. He sports a combination mustache and goatee. It looks rather nice and it fits him. I think it would make it a lot easier for the voters if some of the others now seeking the nation’s highest office sported facial hair that reflected their personalities and/or stands on major issues.

Donald Trump is already a pretty easy target for editorial cartoonists but would be even easier if he had a big handlebar mustache. He could be drawn twirling the ends between his thumb and forefinger, like a villainous banker from an old silent movie getting ready to foreclose on a widow’s mortgage.

Bernie Sanders should have huge muttonchop sideburns. Of course, purple-tinted granny glasses, bellbottoms, and a puffy flowery shirt would complete the image. Come to think of it, we also haven’t had a bald President in a while. That’s a strike against Bernie, but if he grew what’s left of his hair long and then tied it in a ponytail, it would match the rest of the outfit.

Jeb Bush has desperately been trying to be seen as the rational establishment candidate. He can have a very close-cropped and neatly trimmed mustache of the sort sometimes seen on military personnel.

Rand Paul, on the other hand, may be the least-liked by the establishment – at least of the Republicans – and he is almost assuredly the most pro-pot Republican candidate, so we’ll give him chin fuzz like Maynard G. Krebs or Scooby Doo’s pal, Shaggy.

Chris Christie is sometimes bombastic, like a professional wrestler, so he gets a Hulk Hogan Fu Manchu.

I don’t know that it would necessarily reflect his personality, but I’d certainly get a kick out of seeing Ted Cruz with the sort of chin-curtain whiskers seen on Amish farmers.

Despite his best efforts, John Kasich has gained little traction and nobody is paying much attention to him. I’m of the opinion that sad state of affairs would change immediately and drastically if, in the next debate, he wore one of those combination glasses-and-bushy-mustache things that make you look like Groucho Marx.

The only candidate who will not be allowed to have any facial hair is Mike Huckabee. Televangelists are always clean-shaven.

Finally, I have to assume that Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina are incapable of growing beards. That’s probably just as well for their sakes. However, Hillary’s handlers have desperately been trying to humanize her image, so maybe a little fake mustache, a bowler hat and a cane might turn the trick. I mean, who doesn’t love Charlie Chaplin?

Soon, with more barber stuff.