Tag: politics

An Open Letter to Donald Trump Regarding my Outstanding Concept of a Plan to Serve as the United States Egg Czar

On By aftheadIn Chickens, politics, Rants, satire, Tickles my aftheadLeave a comment
Five eggs in a variety of brown shades

Dear President Trump,

At the grocery store last week, I paid $14 for a dozen organic free range brown eggs. It was the only carton left. I realize you are busy writing executive orders and antagonizing foreign countries, so I wanted to offer my services as your new United States Egg Czar.

I own six chickens ranging in age from two to six years. Yes, the chickens have names: Shadow, Speckles, Acadia, Sequoia, Delaine, and Keeley. (I know! I thought the same thing. The last two totally sound like they could be your White House press secretary.) 

Having been a chicken tender for almost a decade, I am the expert you need.

Let me start by explaining how we arrived at this crisis point. It’s a problem you know well. DEI. In the 1970s, there were no brown eggs. Eggs came in a cardboard carton with 12 perfect white orbs. Today we pay extra for blue and brown eggs. That’s right. Colored eggs cost more. Absolutely offensive. My first act will end egg diversity. Let’s make eggs great again.

Wait, less eggs? Won’t that make the cost of eggs go up even more? No. Because the DEI issue runs deeper than shell color. The shocking truth is that the entire egg production industry is made up of girl chickens. Boy chickens are not included in this important work. Our country was so busy making opportunities for girl chickens under the auspices of equity they forgot about the roosters. We could double our egg generation capacity by stopping this woke practice.

Personally, I can tell you the female chicken problems are insidious. Remember I said I had to pay $14 for eggs, but then I mentioned I have chickens. Shouldn’t my girls be pooping out free eggs? They should. But my lazy hens laid a total of four eggs from Election Day to Inauguration Day.

It’s tempting to blame Shadow and Speckles, because old lady chickens stop producing eggs. But you and I know that the elderly deserve respect, even if they have limitations. My young chickens, Acadia and Sequoia, are the problems. At two years old, they are the equivalent of human teenagers. In November that young fertile duo decided their look was mid and dropped all their feathers. Thinking only of themselves, those selfish fashionistas ran around naked, knowing that chicken bodies can either make eggs or new feathers. This feather shedding even has a repulsive name: molting. No, the problem isn’t limited to my coop. All hens are vain.

Furthermore, experience tells us that hens do not lay eggs unless there is enough light. I hypothesize this is because chicken ladies are weak and afraid. They want to huddle together and gossip, not sit alone in the cold and dark producing food for humans.

Teenage boy chickens wouldn’t care about fashion. They wouldn’t be afraid. They’d strut around in their long shorts and hoodies and do their damn job. Let us start a program to get roosters in the egg production business and show these hens what real egg laying looks like. (Ignore the naysayers whining about biology.)

Ugh. The whining. Seriously, only an idiot wouldn’t see this price spike coming. I would go so far as to say eggs should cost $14 each given the discrimination, aging, molting, and darkness. No. $1400 each, all winter long. Only worthy billionaires should be able to afford luxuries like French toast casserole on Christmas morning. We live in a capitalistic society. This is basic supply and demand.

I know. Americans don’t care about poultry science or economic systems. They want cheap eggs. Too bad. Thankfully we are visionaries with multifaceted plans. We know how to justify expensive things. Tariffs. I don’t exactly understand how tariffs work, but who does? Let’s tariff the heck out of all French sounding foods then rebrand eggs as œufs (French for egg). Then if some “American” wants a meal of fried œufs with a side of brie, poutine, and escargot, bon appétit. It sounds disgusting and will cost them a pretty penny. (Oh, sorry, you got rid of pennies.) It will cost them a quality quarter.

Now for the pièce de resistance. This will all fix itself soon. There is a reason all springtime rituals include eggs. When chickens aren’t being vain and fearful, when their feathers are full and fluffy, and when the sun is shining, eggs flow like manna from chicken butts. It’s true. By Easter and Passover, Americans will have their $2 a dozen eggs. Really. Just yesterday I skipped out to my back yard and collected five eggs from my girls. Like magic, your campaign promise will be delivered. 

If anyone mentions the bird flu just ignore them. I’m sure it’s a hoax.

God Bless America,

Johanna Levene

Why this Election Matters to Me

On By aftheadIn Meet Afthead, politics, Rants, Tiny Knit Presidential Election, Uncategorized1 Comment

January 2021 things were still strange in my world. I was working at home. My daughter’s school delayed their winter start, trying to figure out executing in-person and remote school, so we were both home. She was in sixth grade.

I’m a bit of a political junkie and January 6th, 2021 provided an excellent opportunity to witness something I’d never seen before. The counting of the electoral college votes. I had a light day of meetings and lots of busy work, so I decided to sit with my computer and kiddo to watch the process as an impromptu civics lesson.

MSNBC coverage of the simple process that was supposed to happen to certify the 2020 election

I knew shenanigans were planned for the floor. Republicans were going to protest the count and try to avoid certifying the results. A potentially additional lesson on how the foundation of our government, the peaceful transition of power, would be tested.

I can’t believe how badly we bombed our national test. I remember flashes from watching the news broadcast with my daughter. I remember the interns, young women in suits, protecting the electoral college votes and whisking them away from the mob storming the capital. In my memory the votes were in wooden chests that invoked the history and importance of their contents. My memory is not wrong. I remember watching a gurney rolled out of the capital building and my daughter asking me, “Did someone die?” With the sheet pulled up over the body, I could only respond, “I think so.” My memory is not wrong. Windows were broken in our capitol and men wearing dead animals on their heads walked the floor of the House and Senate. As a lover of dystopian novels, reality stretched the bounds of my imagination that day while I watched a mob vandalize and disrespect our capitol, our country, and our system of government. I watched start to finish. It was not a “day of love” and those people were not “patriots”.

Image of my television showing the January 6th riot. One man holds Trump flags while another holds a Confederate flag in the United States Capitol.

It was a civics lesson that would continue. I remember the day last year when my daughter came home from her AP US History class ebullient about the importance of the peaceful transfer of power. Her knowledge had finally caught up with her experiences and she went on and on about how January 6th was the antithesis of the principles that make our country special. In two years she’ll cast her first ballot, and she can’t wait. Already she’s a highly informed voter.

My first election in 1992 I was a single issue voter. Straight democrat to protect abortion rights. When I was in my late teens and twenties unwanted pregnancies weren’t about a late term abortions to save the life of the mother. They weren’t about fetal abnormalities or ectopic pregnancies. They were about boyfriends who already broke up with you, and you didn’t want their baby. They were about being on the precipice of starting your own life and knowing your newly hatched dreams wouldn’t be possible with a child. They were about your parents, who wouldn’t understand. They were about getting loans from your friends for the $300 procedure, because if you couldn’t afford an abortion how were you going to afford a kid? They were about not wanting to be a mother and not wanting to join your life to a partner. That precious potential of young women was the most important thing in my world, and I voted to protect myself and my friends.

Now that protection is gone. Thank goodness pharmaceutical abortions were developed since my first election in 1992. When Dobbs took away our constitutional right I immediately ordered abortion medication. Not because I was pregnant. Not because anyone I knew was pregnant. But because I have had friends show up on my doorstep, needing help, and I wanted to make sure that help was available in the future. While mine and other woman’s rights to bodily autonomy are protected in my state, and hopefully will soon be in our constitution, I don’t trust that my country will continue to protect my right to choice.

My memory is not wrong. In high school I was told that abortion rights were protected by Roe and would never go away. Now I am told that January 6th wasn’t a riot incited by a Trump supporting mob. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees have revoked my rights as a human being. Trump’s followers desecrated our capitol and the ideals of our country.

I want to be able to remember how in 2024, we rejected violence and authoritarian control. I want to remember sitting next to my daughter and watching as we elect our first woman president. I want to remember what it’s like to have a leader who has lived in a female body with female vulnerabilities for 60 years and how that changed our country for the better. I want us to remember how to celebrate our differences and learn from each other again. I’m ready to remember the first moments of a Harris presidency.

Even the dorks get a vote

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized10 Comments

i voted
My mother.  Her lessons on how the world works are tiny seeds planted throughout my life that grow and change producing new life lessons as the years go by.

In grade school, I think third grade, I got a hankering that I needed to run for Student Council: some minor position, like Treasurer or Vice President.  I put my campaign posters, buttons and speech together with the idea that I had a few key people I needed to impress and I’d win for sure.  My target were the kids that everyone wanted to sit with at lunch, play with at recess and get invites to their birthday parties.  As my mom helped me get ready to run she offhandedly mentioned this life lesson-to-be, “You need to remember, even dorks get a vote.”

I remember being affronted by this at the time.  Of course you had to get the popular kids to vote for you because everyone does what the popular kids do.  As the popular kids go, so goes everyone else.  They were the ones who dictated that Outback Red and Forenza were the things to wear, and the next year when the rest of us wore our new Outback Red sweaters the first day of school they showed up in OP.  My mom, what did she know?

Well, she knew a lot.  She was head girl of her senior class in high school, so I should have known that she understood a thing or two about rallying people around you.  Of course, being a kid growing up in the 1980s, I had no idea what a head girl was and wasn’t curious enough about my foremother’s accomplishments to find out.  My only student council campaign run ended when I was beaten by the cool kid running against me.  I had neglected to realize that my opponent already had ties to the kids I was trying to impress: the same kids who didn’t notice me on a daily basis.

When I look at the United States national political scene today, I realize that all the candidates – no the  major political parties – need to sit down and talk to my mom, because the backlash they are seeing is that the dorks are tired of not getting a vote.  The dorks are wising up to the political process and realizing that their right to a vote has been absconded with and they want it back.  The dorks are worried about their families.  The dorks want to ensure a world where their kids have a chance at a better life than they had.  The dorks don’t understand why they keep working harder, longer hours and can afford less each year as the cost of living rises more than their annual piddling raises.  The dorks wonder why the people who run our country spend most of their time rubbing elbows with themselves, the top 1%, and lobbyists, and only bother to talk to us when they sit down at a diner on the campaign trail.  The dorks really just want to eat their eggs and drink their coffee and not be a sound bite for the candidate’s daily propaganda.

The dorks don’t understand PACs or SuperPACs, but are willing to throw a hard-earned buck or two to Bernie Sanders because he’s a dork like us and maybe he thinks our lives matter.  The dorks support Donald Trump because he’s different.  He may not say the right thing, but the dorks are tired of polished mealy mouthed politicians and want someone who speaks the language of the people, which is angry and sometimes crass right now.  I find it hard to believe that anyone really wants a wall, but everyone wants something big, something different, and something to change because we are frustrated.  I can only imagine the backlash if the Republican Convention goes to a brokered convention and the cool kids get to pick whatever cool kid friend they want for the nomination.  Talk about denying the dorks their vote.

So listen Hillary, Ted, and whatever Republican candidate that is waiting in the wings to claim the cool kids nomination let me try to channel my mom here.  You’ve made a great run at building an exclusive club of insiders that kowtow to the privileged few in this country, but the dorks are tired of being ignored.  Even if an establishment person becomes president, it’s not going to make the dorks happy.  You may go live in your big white house, but if you don’t start doing your job representing the entire country’s needs and keep pretending that bickering with the other party is your most important job, there is going to be hell to pay, because the dorks are ready.  We are ready for a collaborating centrist leader and we will support him or her with our votes, our pocket books and our voices.  We are hungry for one brave leader to eschew the big dollars behind the two major parties and stand up and represent us, the no longer silent majority.

It may not happen this year, but it will happen if the dorks continue to be ignored.  This isn’t elementary school anymore.  We are done with the cool kids.

Photo courtesy of jamelah e. and provided under Creative Commons License.  My apologies to the photographer if the dork movement does not correspond to his/her views.