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Oct 11, 2020
This week’s theme
Words coined after mythical creatures

This week’s words
unicorn
bunyip
gremlin
snark
Bigfoot

How popular are they?
Relative usage over time

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Index

Next week’s theme
Words about words and language

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AWADmail Issue 954

A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and Language

Sponsor’s Message: Coronavirus got you down? Feeling cooped up? Going stir crazy? WISE UP! -- is the perfect cure for cabin fever -- it’s a Wicked/Smart Party Card Game that asks tons of devilishly difficult questions that’ll give you know-it-alls plenty of life lessons in humility, history, sports, science, literature, and geography. And wit. For example: Everyone knows the First and Second Amendments -- what’s the Third? Sleeping Beauty’s real name? How long is a furlong? But beware, there’s also a slew of “challenge” cards that chuck Darwinian physical and mental wrenches into the works, e.g., “Throw this card on the floor and pick it up without using your hands.” Just what the doctor ordered, especially for this week’s Email of the Week Winner, Eric Kisch (see below), and hunkered-down brainiacs everywhere. WISE UP! NOW.



From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the Net

In Many Asian Languages, “LGBTQ” Doesn’t Translate. Here’s How Some Fill the Gaps.
NBC News
Permalink

The Battle Against Racist Language Is Too Important to Trivialise
The Economist
Permalink



From: Grant Agnew (ggttwwaa gmail.com)
Subject: Opening text, 5th October

Puh-lease. No one can read anything in the voice of David Attenborough if the text fails to contain the words, “Even here”.

Grant Agnew, Brisbane, Australia



From: Steve Benko (stevebenko1 gmail.com)
Subject: Amazing animals

You wrote: “But sometimes real life is not amazing enough and we have to use our imagination.”

Only if we haven’t looked around us hard enough. I recommend the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher, about the friendship between an undersea photographer and a octopus living in shallow waters near his seaside home. It’s more amazing than anything most of us could imagine. I hope readers will never eat an octopus again after viewing it!

Steve Benko, New York, New York



From: Helen Ross (h.e.ross stir.ac.uk)
Subject: Unicorn

The unicorn is an emblem on the Royal Arms of Scotland, while the lion is an emblem for England. I am reminded of the nursery rhyme, The Lion and the Unicorn. “The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown/The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.” The lion still does exactly that, being stronger in voting power.

Helen Ross, Stirling, Scotland



From: Judith Judson (jjudson frontier.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--unicorn

An obsolete usage of unicorn is to describe a three-horse team (video, 2 min.), two wheelers and one leader in front -- thus making a triangle. It was a difficult feat to control such a rig, and therefore (as we know from Georgette Heyer’s Regency novel The Unknown Ajax), it could also be called “Sudden Death”. We commonly think of a three-horse team as the Russian troika, but that is driven with three horses abreast.

Judith Judson, Pittsford, New York



From: Nava Tal-Launer (navatallauner gmail.com)
Subject: Unicorn

Also means a bisexual female invited to join a couple in a threesome.

Nava Tal-Launer, Tel Aviv, Israel



USS Narwhal SSN-671.jpg
From: Bill Wesley (wcw1066 yahoo.com)
Subject: Inspiration for unicorns

There is some thought that the narwhal, a toothed whale whose males have a long, pointed tooth protruding from their head, might have been the source of the myth. Also, there was the USS Narwhal.

Bill Wesley, Canton, Georgia



From: Andrew Pressburger (andpress sympatico.ca)
Subject: Unicorn

Is the unicorn really mythical? What about its natural counterpart, the rhinoceros? I am sure a lot of people will agree with me on this. There are plenty of videos available to prove the point.

Andrew Pressburger, Toronto, Canada



From: John D. Laskowski (john.laskowski mothman.org)
Subject: Unicorns

We have a unicorn deer in central Pennsylvania. And we are not just horsing around!

John D. Laskowski, Carsonville, Pennsylvania



From: Peter Gross (plgrossmd gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bunyip

A bunyip presidency immediately comes to mind.

Peter Gross, Falls Church, Virginia



From: Grant Agnew (ggttwwaa gmail.com)
Subject: Bunyips

Bunyips are man-eating water monsters which particularly like to lurk in billabongs (cut-off meanders; I think Americans call them oxbow lakes). A billabong is a dangerous place containing logs and weeds hidden in dark water; it’s easy to drown there. On one side of a billabong is an almost-vertical bank, and even during the day you can walk over the edge, fall in and become entangled. On the other side is a gently-sloping pebbly beach which is a good place to make camp -- but don’t go for a swim; you can become entangled that way as well. The Aborigines invented the bunyip to explain these dangers.

Grant Agnew, Brisbane, Australia



Email of the Week -- Brought to you by Wise Up! -- the family that plays together stays together

From: Eric Kisch (kischmir musicalpassions.com)
Subject: Bunyip

As an Aussie ex-pat, today’s word brought back many happy memories of childhood reading, etc. For those interested in how it has spread in popular culture and fiction, here is more info. It has even made it into Bengali fiction.

Numerous tales of the bunyip in written literature appeared in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These included a story in Andrew Lang’s The Brown Fairy Book (1904). The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek is a contemporary Australian children’s picture book about a bunyip.

Alexander Bunyip, created by children’s author and illustrator Michael Salmon, first appeared in print in The Monster That Ate Canberra in 1972. Alexander Bunyip went on to appear in many other books and a live-action television series, Alexander Bunyip’s Billabong. A statue of Alexander is planned for the Gungahlin Library.

The word bunyip has been used in other Australian contexts, including The Bunyip newspaper as the banner of a local weekly newspaper published in the town of Gawler, South Australia. First published as a pamphlet by the Gawler Humbug Society in 1863, the name was chosen because “the Bunyip is the true type of Australian Humbug!” The word is also used in numerous other Australian contexts, including the House of the Gentle Bunyip in Clifton Hill, Victoria. There is also a coin-operated bunyip at Murray Bridge, South Australia, at Sturt Reserve on the town’s riverfront.

Bunyips appear in Naomi Novik’s fantasy novel Tongues of Serpents. It also makes an appearance as the primary threat to the treasure seekers in the Bengali novel called Chander Pahar by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay.

Eric Kisch, Shaker Heights, Ohio



From: David Director (thedirectors verizon.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bunyip

Readers from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area will no doubt remember a TV show called Bertie The Bunyip, which ran in the ’50s and ’60s. We never knew where the name came from, but everybody loved Bertie.

David Director, Media, Pennsylvania



From: Sam Long (gunputty comcast.net)
Subject: Bunyip

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ariel sings “Where the bee sucks, there suck I ...” An Australian friend of mine once parodied this as “Where the bunyips, there yip I / In the wombat’s pouch I lie ...” -- but alas! I don’t remember the rest of his song.

Sam Long, Springfield, Illinois



From: Leigh Adams (lladams earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bunyip

A bunyip is also a tool used in permaculture to determine levels and inclines.

Leigh Adams, Altadena, California



From: Athena PN (via website comments)
Subject: Power corrupts

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It’s said that “power corrupts”, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable. -David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 Oct 1950)

The thought for today reminds me of another quotation, sadly applicable to our time:

It’s a terrible thing when a fool with power fools with power.
-Kelly Barnhill, author, from The Witch’s Boy

Athena PN



From: Alec Charles (via website comments)
Subject: Gremlin

Not to be confused with a bug. In computer terminology bugs are “unintended features” in software, gremlins are obscure hardware faults.

Alec Charles



From: Bill Young (billsplut gmail.com)
Subject: Russian Rhapsody

This bizarre 1944 Looney Tune was originally titled after its song, “Gremlins from the Kremlin”. It involves a Nazi air raid on WWII Moscow, led by that insane, screaming, incoherent madman with weird hair and orange-toned skin. No, the OTHER one. It’s funny, and certainly... interesting. The more human-looking Gremlins are caricatures of the Looney Tunes staff, apparently all wanting some participation in beating up that fascist loudmouth. (video, 7 min.)

Bill Young, Vernon, Connecticut



From: Roberta M. Eisenberg (bobbi alumni.nd.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--gremlin

There used to be a car model called a Gremlin. My uncle had one -- orange. We all called it The Shoe. Perhaps the name of the car foretold its demise.

Roberta M. Eisenberg, Douglaston, New York



From: Jim Tang (mauijt aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--gremlin

Indeed, the 1963 Twilight Zone episode, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (video, 9 min.), made great use of William Shatner’s acting chops to place the gremlin on an airliner. Specifically, on the port wing as he tore up the engine. Rod Serling, like Roald Dahl, had ties to aviation, although his were jumping out of them as a decorated WWII US Army paratrooper. His brother Robert is renowned for aviation writing that centers more on the airline builders, airplane manufacturers, and pilots. Gremlins still inhabit airplanes, even more so as we move further into the computer age. When they finally replace human beings in the cockpit, only the gremlins will remain.

Jim Tang, Kula, Hawaii



From: Bernard Dickman (bndickman yahoo.com)
Subject: gremlin

Froggy the Gremlin was a popular radio show in the 1940s. (At least I thought so then.)

Bernard Dickman, Middletown, New Jersey



From: Neal A Adolf (naadolf bpa.gov)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--snark

So snipe and snark are almost perfect synonyms, in all three meanings. When we were kids, my older sisters took several of us younger and naïve relatives on a “snipe hunt” in our pasture, leaving us there for an hour or more straining to hear the elusive call of the snipe.

Neal Adolf, Vancouver, Washington



From: William Pease (wpease sdsu.edu)
Subject: snark

When introduced into the Boy Scouts, as a harmless bit of hazing, I was sent off snipe-hunting, in other words, a wild goose chase. Later I learned that there is actually such a bird. I guess the snipe in this incident was a variation of snark.

Bill Pease, San Diego, California



From: Glenn Glazer (glenn.glazer gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--snark

The Hunting of the Snark was also turned into a musical by composer Mike Batt.

Glenn Glazer, Felton, California



SnarkSailboat.jpg
From: Peter Jennings (peterj benlo.com)
Subject: Sea Snark

Snark is a word with a special place in my heart. In the 1960s my brother and I pooled our hard-earned cash to buy a Sea Snark, the only sailboat you could buy for less than $100. It was made of styrofoam and came with a 16-page booklet teaching how to sail.

Intrepid teenagers, we learned to sail in the Niagara River. Above the falls! Revisiting the spot as an adult makes me shudder. What were we thinking? The strong current made it possible to sail across the river with no wind. But the danger from a capsize was unthinkable and apparently we didn’t think about it.

Thanks to the Snark, we found and kept the life-long joy of messing about on boats.

Peter Jennings, St. Catharines, Canada



From: Peter Clark (pkrclark yahoo.co.uk)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--snark

There’s also a recording of The Hunting of the Snark on a CD produced by First Night Records! Sir John Gielgud is the narrator, and various actors play other parts. A variety of songs were written for it by Mike Batt -- sung by the actors, including -- Sir John Gielgud (of course), Roger Daltry, Art Garfunkel, Stephane Grappelli, John Hurt, Julian Lennon, Captain Sensible, Cliff Richard, Deniece Williams, and The London Symphony Orchestra. I have it and I love it. Absolutely marvelous.

There was even a theatre production of it done in London, which I saw when I was living there -- but it had a short run.

Peter Clark, Honolulu, Hawaii



From: Edward Zimmer (ed.zimmer dof.virginia.gov)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Bigfoot

Here in Virginia, we often use the term Bigfoot when referring to a co-worker rarely seen because of always working in the field or, in the age of coronavirus, teleworking and never actually seen in-person. These folks tend to be the ones who leave their camera off during video conferences.

With so few, if any, verified sightings, they become somewhat legendary or even mythical, much like Bigfoot. Some folks who actually believe Bigfoot is real prefer to call these folks Loch Ness Monsters.

Ed Zimmer, Charlottesville, Virginia



From: M.M. Serpento (mmserpento earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Bigfoot

Here’s a real estate definition (a variation on McMansion): To bigfoot is to replace a house similar to others in the neighborhood with a much larger house. Often done by buying two side-by-side lots and demolishing the existing houses.

Bigfoot houses: The new trend in metro Detroit’s compact communities (Permalink)

Mary Margaret Serpento, Farmington Hills, Michigan



From: Kath O’Sullivan (pudsyduck gmail.com)
Subject: Bridges

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. -Ivo Andrić, novelist, Nobel laureate (9 Oct 1892-1975)

I have lived 94 years and this quotation opened up my mind more than anything I have read before. Now I realise why I loved the song “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. Perhaps we need a Nobel Prize for the builder of a bridge which allows our human family to join together.

Kath O’Sullivan, Auckland, New Zealand



From: Steve Boyd (andrixos earthlink.net)
Subject: Comment on today’s Thought of the Day

Twenty five years ago, when I was a Latin teacher in Western Maryland, I was introducing the word pontifex, meaning priest. It literally means bridge builder. I suggested first that a priest built bridges between humanity and the gods. But then I pointed out that Roman religion was animist, so each rock, tree, and hill had its own spirit or god overseeing it. I pointed out that, in that way of thinking, the purpose of a river was to keep people separated and a bridge was a grave offense to the river god, requiring prodigious sacrifices before its construction. “After all, what is the purpose of the Potomac River if not to keep West Virginians in West Virginia?” A student replied, “But Mr. Boyd, I am originally from West Virginia.” “So you have offended the god of the Potomac.” The student, and class, got a laugh.

Steven Boyd, Fayetteville, Arkansas



From: Robert Barkovitz (mrbarque gmail.com)
Subject: Bridges

BRIDGES! Nothing is more valuable than bridges! As a physics teacher, now retired, I had a hands-on project for 30 years with the kids building toothpick bridges. What fun! The bridge had to be a “suspension” style across a 25-cm (10-inch) gap, and there was a weight limitation of no more than 60 grams (454 grams = 1 lb). This weight limit roughly means one small box of toothpicks and a modest amount of glue. The preliminary competition was held in individual classes starting out with a 5-lb bucket and then 5-lb barbells added one by one.

The student’s grade started at C for a completed bridge and it rose as each barbell was held successfully. If a bridge held 25-lbs, the bridge was confiscated and put on display for the finals a few days later, which had a huge party atmosphere (crowds, music, cheering). The weight started at 30-lbs and would go up at 10-lb increments. The best bridge in terms of holding power held 185-lbs, and broke at 190. Here are two random finals in the last 10 years: 1, 2.

Bob Barkovitz, Wayne, New Jersey



From: Andrew Pressburger (andpress sympatico.ca)
Subject: Bigfoot

Might Bighead not be a more appropriate appellation, given the state of things at present?

As for Ivo Andrić in Thought for Today, his book Bridge on the Drina contains a very graphic description of the impaling of one of its builders as his punishment for sabotage. The reader can hear his death cries across the centuries. The bridge also plays a part in the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, and thus in the outbreak of the First World War that eventually brought about the unification of all the South Slav nations in Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, that country, too, fell apart in our time.

Andrew Pressburger, Toronto, Canada



The Magic of Myth
From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: Bunyip & Bigfoot

Like many Aboriginal Australian-derived words, bunyip has that rather odd (to my non-native ear), yet catchy inflection. Here, a zoologist accompanied by his Indigenous guide on an outback walkabout into Dreamtime*, has stumbled upon an elusive bunyip, wading in the shallows of a billabong. Crikey! The guide is nonplussed, while our scientist is filled with wonder and elation. *The religious life of Aboriginal Australians centers on the Dreamtime or the Dreaming, which encompasses their concepts of the spiritual, natural, and moral order of the cosmos. It relates to the timeline from the genesis of the universe to a time beyond living memory.

Sasquatch Photo-op
Springboarding off the BIGFOOT X-ING sign, I arrived at this fanciful scenario of a friendly Sasquatch, posing for a photo with an excited teen. Admittedly, some suspension of belief is in order. The joyous moment captured with this mysterious creature belies his reputation that his kind is to be feared or shunned. By the way, that’s Washington state’s majestic Mt. Rainier in the background.

Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California



Anagrams of This Week’s Words
Words coined after mythical creatures:
1. unicorn
2. bunyip
3. gremlin
4. snark
5. bigfoot
=
1. fabulous horse
2. counterfeit
3. goblin in pranks
4. wry critic
5. yeti, grand commander
-Dharam Khalsa, Burlington, North Carolina (dharamkk2 gmail.com)



Limericks

Said The Donald, “Don’t look so forlorn,
This weird virus, though strangely airborne,
Is just nothing to fear,
Look at me, I’m all clear,
‘Cause I’m quite a unique unicorn.”
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodthmw gmail.com)

The angel investors could have sworn
This start-up was the next unicorn.
But when phase-three trials failed,
Saner counsels prevailed;
They didn’t lend for a concept stillborn.
-Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai, India (mukherjis hotmail.com)

Now they say that the poor unicorn,
The rarest creature ever born,
While having a lark,
It did miss the ark,
Then drowned in the flood, so we mourn.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“With the genes of Amal and George Clooney born,
Our looks are as rare as a unicorn,”
Said the twins. “When we’re big,
All their causes we’ll dig,
But for now, to be cute is our duty sworn.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)


Our leader’s a bunyip sublime;
Hope he’s president just this one time.
Write a poem about him?
An assignment quite dim
I’m so depressed I can’t think of a rhyme.
-Joe Budd Stevens, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (joebuddstevens gmail.com)

The wolf, Granny’s cap on his head,
reflects, as he lies in her bed,
“I’d be, with just one slip,
exposed as a bunyip.
So far, though, I’ve fooled Little Red!”
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

He said, “Don’t dare give me any lip
When I call, you-know-who a bunyip.
The name fits to a tee.
Describes him perfectly!”
I said thanks for your sage voter’s tip.
-Lois Mowat, Orinda, California (lmowat1810 gmail.com)

Said the Captain, “Take hold of the ship
While I go down below for a nip.
I just need a cold brew,
Which will carry me through.
I’m an old drunken tar, a bunyip.”
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodthmw gmail.com)

Some photos the President’s staged
To show that in work he’s engaged.
It’s merely an act --
This bunyip in fact
A PR campaign has just waged.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

We wake to a sobering morn.
Of illusions and hope we are shorn.
Yes, it was a fun trip,
but he is a bunyip,
and now we’re adrift and forlorn.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

Some claim Donald Trump has done zip.
A Commander-in-Chief bunyip,
This White House resident,
Plays at being President.
I hope the election will flip.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

Like the shelling that comes from a gunship
Come the lies from our Number One Bunyip.
Michael Cohen, though, has turned;
Lev and Igor are burned;
Will we soon see a daughter or son flip?
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)


Poltergeist, ghost, or gremlin,
can set me all a-tremblin’
at Halloween,
and thus I ween
to hide when they are assemblin’!
-Mariana Warner, Asheville, North Carolina (marianaw6002 gmail.com)

The Russians are sneaky, it’s true,
And cyber-attacks they’ll renew.
Dispatched by the Kremlin,
A mischievous gremlin
With US elections will screw.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

We live each day in fear and tremblin’.
Our country is ruled by a gremlin:
We dread each new antic.
His lies make us frantic.
We need the truth -- no more dissemblin’.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

This election day, voters beware,
For the hackers they are everywhere.
Look out for the gremlin
That comes from the Kremlin.
We must try to keep our voting fair.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

In his weekly report to the Kremlin,
The Donald advised of a gremlin.
“I made everyone sick,
And they’ve turned on my schtick;
Please don’t kill me,” he begged, his voice tremblin’.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)


Most creatures had boarded the ark,
but it seemed they could not yet embark,
because they still missed
the last on their list:
the elusive, unusual snark!
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

That mean girl! What she said was a snark.
Of compassion, it showed not a spark.
It was snide and malicious
and totally vicious
(but, in truth, pretty close to the mark.)
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

“Lost my keys” was an offhand remark;
But it made her staff scan the car park.
On all fours they didn’t flinch,
they searched every square inch;
Though success was an elusive snark.
-Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai, India (mukherjis hotmail.com)

Yes, Joan Rivers’ humor was stark.
And her punchline would hit its mark.
Her keen, wicked wit
Made this nickname fit,
For she was hailed as Joan of Snark.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

“Everybody just get on the ark,”
Ordered Noah, “There’s no need to snark.”
“But I see at a glance
There are only two ants;
What’s for dinner?” complained the aardvark.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)


One night this guy seated at the bar
Told tales of Bigfoot which were bizarre.
He was talking still
When I paid my bill
Just to escape outside to my car.
-Lois Mowat, Orinda, California (lmowat1810 gmail.com)

The Bigfoot who’s now holding sway
Makes crazy decisions each day.
He thinks he’s a hero,
But he’s “Patient Zero” --
He’s spreading disease, doctors say.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

Bob Woodward is still without peer;
Into Presidents’ hearts he strikes fear.
The Watergate Bigfoot
Gets jaw-dropping input;
In headlights they’re caught like a deer
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)



Puns

Until they saw the comet again, they said it was a unicorn-ever-to-be-repeated event.
-Peter Jennings, St. Catharines, Canada (peterj benlo.com)

After a friend made a silly pun, I told him, “Unicorn-iest person I know!”
-Jim Ertner, Greensboro, North Carolina (jde31459 gmail.com)

“That spanking really made my bunyip,” the child sobbed.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

When the small dinner rolls belatedly appeared at our restaurant table, I exclaimed, “Finally, a bunyip-ee!”
-Jim Ertner, Greensboro, North Carolina (jde31459 gmail.com)

I just wish they would stop gremlin about the weather and do something about it.
-Peter Jennings, St. Catharines, Canada (peterj benlo.com)

“Don’t be afraid of your new boss; his snark is worse than his bite.”
-Janice Power, Cleveland, Ohio (powerjanice782 gmail.com)

How many of those bigfoot ball players have college degrees?
-Peter Jennings, St. Catharines, Canada (peterj benlo.com)



Crazy-Maker Trump Run Amok
From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: Trump’s Foibles & Follies

Crazy-Maker Trump Run Amok

Here, I’ve literally perched Trump on the primary plank of his 2020 campaign platform, supported by two of his most sycophantic enablers, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch “The Obfuscator” McConnell, and Attorney General Bill Barr. Instead of trying to unite the nation... attempting to quell the violence and mayhem in the streets, and tackling the coronavirus pandemic, he continues to fan the flames of discord, fear, and chaos, hoping this tack of divide-and-conquer will take him to victory in November. As Trump is wont to say... “We’ll see what happens.”

Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California



From: Dave Krueger (daveknyc me.com)
Subject: Posters for Get-Out-The-Vote!

You may be interested in a group of get-out-the-vote-posters (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), which I designed for submission to a Washington, DC, venue for a get-out-the-vote exhibit. These posters are shareable and printable, which, of course, is the purpose, physically or virtually.

Artists were given templates with brief text, mentioning an issue, and lines of credits at template bottom. We were instructed to remove no words and to add no words. There was, of course, freedom to re-arrange words, change fonts and size, but that’s it. You’ll see on the actual pieces I had little interest in reworking any text placement. I chose to finesse imagery from my work (done since the curse of this administration began to loom).

You are free to publish and share, and should you have contacts or thoughts of who I might invest further time in contacting to share, that would be my pleasure as well.

DG Krueger, New York, New York



A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people? -Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, author, and lecturer (11 Oct 1884-1962)

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