The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

 

Here’s a tweet from Donald Trump on December 7, 2015 on the non-existence of Muslim sports heroes:

Obama said in his speech that Muslims are our sports heroes. What sport is he talking about, and who? Is Obama profiling?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015

He’s counting on you not knowing that they have a relationship that goes back nearly four decades and that they’ve been to several events together, from Trump presenting this United Cerebral Palsy Humanitarian Award to Ali at a dinner in 2001, or the fact that Ali attended his wedding to his third (and still current, but for how long?) wife in 2005, or the time he accepted an award from Ali at his Celebrity Fight Night in 2007.

Now that the champ has passed, he’s hoping that you’ve forgotten what he said six months ago:

Muhammad Ali is dead at 74! A truly great champion and a wonderful guy. He will be missed by all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2016

And just in case, Trump said on Saturday that he was aware of Muslim sports stars: “I know who they are. I mean, look, Muhammad Ali is somebody that I’ve liked for a long time — and I know he’s Muslim.”

As for Ali, he made this statement aimed right at Trump in December, titled Presidential Candidates Proposing to Ban Muslim Immigration to the United States:

I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.

We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda. They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody.

Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is.

My real worry is that there will come a time during this election campaign when the Trump campaign will be far more toxic, and we’ll all wax nostalgic for less poisonous moments like this one.

Earlier this morning, Matt Damon gave the 2016 commencement speech at MIT. Damon never went there; only his character Will Hunting did. This is his second fake graduation from a prestigious Boston school — he went to Harvard and attended commencement but never got a degree. “So yes,” he said, “for the second time in my life, I’m fake graduating from a college in my hometown.”

There are a lot of gems in Damon’s commencement speech, and you can either watch it below or get the highlights from Boston.com, but there’s a particular bit of life advice that he gave that really took my attention. He was talking about the hypothesis that reality is in fact a simulation, and after making a joke about it (“And if there are multiple simulations, how come we have to live in the one where Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president? Can we, like, transfer to a different one?”), he delivered this gem:

Professor [Max] Tegmark has an excellent take on all this. “My advice,” he said recently, “is to go out and do really interesting things, so the simulators don’t shut you down.”

Now then again, what if it isn’t a simulation? Either way, my answer is the same. Either way, what we do matters. What we do affects the outcome. So either way, MIT, you’ve gotta go out and do really interesting things. Important things. Inventive things. Because this world — real or imagined — this world has some problems that we need you to drop everything and solve.

Damon may only be a pretend genius, but that bit of advice was clever and inspired.

If you’re the sort of person who reads this blog, the odds are better than even that you’ve seen the video of the giant alligator wandering about Buffalo Creek Golf Club in Palmetto, Florida. Yes, the gator is impressive, but what makes the video truly Florida is the suggestion from someone off-camera that “Dave” — presumably the guy seen in the video shooting video on his phone — get next to the alligator “for perspective”.

Here’s the video with my subtitles:

The gator is a regular attraction at the course, and golfers often taken pictures of it. Wendy Schofield, a clerk at the club’s pro shop says that it “doesn’t bother anybody and they don’t bother him. He’s like a mascot for the course, which is owned by Manatee County.”

Charles Helms, who shot the video, told NBC news “You kind of learn very early on that people really aren’t on the menu. Just don’t bother it, don’t annoy it. Certainly don’t corner it — just let it go.”

And, it would seem, don’t stand beside it for perspective; let someone else do that.

Posters like this have been seen in the UK in the past couple of months. I’m pretty not sure what the URGOV logo near the lower right of the poster’s photo stands for — it looks like a modified logo for UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party. They’re a horrible lot; the British equivalent of the “alt right”.

Here’s a more direct image of the poster, with the UKIP logo modified to feature the BNP, the British National Party, another terrible bunch:

Found via Will Perkins. Click to see the source.

For those of you who are fans of the Metal Gear videogame series and the “Doge” Shiba Inu memes, this patch is for you!

Photo by the City of Key West. Click the photo to see the source.

Ah, Key West. Also known as the Conch Republic, a tongue-in-cheek micronation that supposedly left the United States in 1982 to become their own sovereign country (their motto is “We seceded where others failed”), it’s Florida’s Florida — a laid-back, offbeat place where eccentrics, weirdos, the Great Prophet Jimmy Buffett, and Judy Blume hang out and generally spend their time being odd. Since moving to Tampa a little over two years ago, I’ve been told by at least a dozen people that I should visit Key West because I’d fit right in with my accordion schtick.

How laid back is Key West? This laid back:

Yesterday, the Key West police posted a photo of what has to be to most Key West illegally-parked car ever: it looks just like Fred Flintstone’s:

They wrote on the City of Key West’s Facebook page:

This Flintstone car is in front of 828 Emma Street. It is illegally parked in the public right of way. It’s been red tagged, but the City would really like to find the owner before we have to take it away. The owner has not yet come forward. Please, if you know whose it is, let them know. Please help us find the owner of this ride… QUICKLY!

Key West citizens, being the fun-loving lot they are, made lots of funny comments, but also ended up helping the cops find the car’s owners. As they put it in an addendum to their Facebook post:

Thanks to everyone who helped on this! And thanks for all the funny remarks. This island is awesome!

While the police have identified the owner and got him or her to move the car, there are still some very important questions that remain, some of which come from this article in Miami New Times:

• It is a prop, or it is a functioning vehicle? (My guess is that it’s a converted golf cart.)
• Was this an art project? A themed pedicab designed for the purpose of enticing and overcharging drunk tourists?
• Has someone actually been picked up for a date in this thing?

I should go and visit the Conch Republic sometime soon.

If there’s one thing that people won’t stand for in ‘Murica, and especially Florida, one of the most ‘Murican parts of ‘Murica, it’s treating the Ell-jee-bee-tees like human beings. Case in point: at Tuesday’s school board meeting in Brevard County (the Orlando area), board members were voting on whether to schedule a public hearing about a proposed non-discrimination policy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. According to Florida Today, “that meeting included many outbursts from the audience, including yells, cheers, and jeers”…and one slightly unhinged guy who decided to tell some story about a teacher who showed his students a photo of his erect penis.

Because this is Florida in the 21st century, there’s video, which I took and turned into my latest “Florida” piece:

From Florida Today:

Before the LGBT policy can be voted on, a public hearing must be scheduled. Though a vote on whether to schedule a public hearing is typically a pro forma vote, this is the point in the political process when a previous version of the LGBT policy was tabled by the school board. Since February, the debate about an LGBT policy in Brevard Public Schools has been heated and emotional on both sides.

Dean Paterakis’ mug shot. Even his expression says “erect penis”.
Photo from Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.

The slightly unhinged guy I mentioned earlier is Dean Paterakis (pictured above in his mugshot, and thanks to Florida’s Sunshine Law, you can see his arrest details here). He seems to be against having a hearing on the non-discrimination hearing. He brought up some story about a teacher who supposedly showed his students a picture of his erect penis. I assume it was an attempt to show the sexual nightmare the schools would become if we suddenly treated LGBT people with the same dignity as heterosexuals.

More from Florida Today:

Critics of the policy have said that they believe an LGBT policy would legislate social values they disagree with on religious and moral grounds, and that it would threaten public safety and they have repeatedly emphasized the idea of majority rule. However, supporters of the policy say that it would give LGBT students and staff an official recognition of their dignity which would help ensure that they are treated with respect.

Paterakis was released on a $750 bond before midnight Tuesday on two misdemeanor charges.

The story does have a promising ending: the board voted 3 – 2 in favor of holding the hearing on an LGBT non-discrimination policy. Let’s hope it’s enacted — mostly for the sake of human rights, decency, and the LGBT students in Brevard County, and just a little bit for more opportunities to see Paterakis completely lose it at a board meeting.