Rick Perry's Report Card from Texas A & M (not so good)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor with research by Jack Brummet, Editor in Chief

Governor, and Presidential hopeful, Rick Perry did not exactly reach for the stars during his college years at Texas A & M University.  Later in his career there, he did become a student leader.  But he could only do that after he emerged from academic probation.  If you check out the transcript below, you will note that he almost never earned a grade higher than a C in his courses -- a C in U.S. History, D in Shakespeare, and a D in economics. One semester, he even got a C in P.E. 

click transcript to enlarge

The Governor also got shelled in classes in his animal science major.  In fall 1970, he received a D in veterinary anatomy, and flunked a second course on organic chemistry, and took a C in animal breeding. He did receive an A in world military systems and a class called the“Improv. of Learning," which were his only two A's in college. 

"A&M wasn't exactly Harvard on the Brazos River," recalled a Perry classmate in an interview with The Huffington Post. "This was not the brightest guy around. We always kind of laughed. He was always kind of a joke."

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Etymology Lesson: "Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass"

By Jack Brummet, Technology Editor
[thanks to Jeff Clinton for the news tip!]

The Tobacco Smoke Enema seems to have had some popularity in the mid to late eighteenth century.  It's hard to source this one because dozens of websites and blogs use the same exact wording:

"The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient’s rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims. A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase “blow smoke up one’s ass.” 

The Wikipedia claims a book by Eric Burns, The Smoke of the Gods as the source of the quote and photographs, however that book doesn't actually say that this contraption led to the phrase. That book says "To blow smoke up one's ass. Today it means to compliment in a crude and obvious manner; in the past it meant to cure in a manner even more crude." 

A simpler, more portable device: A: Pig's bladder; F-G: Smoking pipe; D: Mouthpiece to which the pipe is attached; E: Tap; K: Cone for rectal insertion. Medical monograph of 1773. Reproduced in The History of Cardiothoracic Surgery from Early Times

The Tobacco Smoke Enema was just another of the many hundreds of quack medical devices contrived over the years, often involving magnetics, the healing properties of copper, machines to jiggle pounds off, all of which ended up being just about as effective as blood-letting.    There days all our miracle cures are not mechanical, but pharmaceutical.

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang claims that "to blow smoke" as an older phrase, from the mid-19th Century or later, and the phrase "to blow smoke up someone's ass" dates from the 1950s and is a modern addition to the older phrase.  A related (and great) phrase, is used less commonly: "blowing sunshine up your skirt."

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I miss Foundphotos.net

Jack Brummet
Visual Arts Editor

I miss Foundphotos.net. They're still around:  http://www.foundphotos.net/, but they don't update very often anymore.  They do, however, have extensive archives that you can browse through if you've never been there.  There's a lot of chaff among the wheat, but they come up with some amazing gems.  Like this one:

click to enlarge

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A vintage paperback - Old Terror In New Buildings: Rumble At The Housing Project

Rumble At The Housing Project is a rare book published in 1960.  Most of the copies of this first edition 35 cent paperback original that I've found are  around $50. 

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Faces No. 241 - The Front Desk Team At The Unemployment Office

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Drawing: Faces No. 240

Drawing by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Michael Corelone and Carlo: The final meeting

MICHAEL: You have to answer for Santino, Carlo.

CARLO: Mike, you got it all wrong...

MICHAEL: You fingered Sonny for the Barzini people. Ahhh that little farce you played with my sister -- you think that could fool a Corleone?

CARLO: Mike, I'm innocent -- I swear on the kids, Mike -- Please, Mike, don't do this to me.

MICHAEL (as he pulls up his own chair) Sit down.

CARLO (sitting): Mike, don't do this to me, please...

MICHAEL: Barzini's dead. So is Phillip Tattaglia -- Moe Greene -- Strachi -- Cuneo -- Today I settled all Family business, so don't tell me you're innocent, Carlo. Admit what you did. (then, to Neri) Get him a drink.

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"Throw The Bums Out" - images from a quick web search

click to enlarge

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Do you also feel like we've been "corn-cobbed" in the last six weeks?

By Jack Brummet
Editor In Chief

As some of you know, we are political junkies.  But, alas, recent events have nearly stripped politics of it's entertainment value.   I have had many moments these last forty years of being disgusted with politics--but always on a more cellular level, not systemically, like I feel today.  I first felt disgust about Agnew and Nixon, and there have been plenty of candidates on both sides of the aisle (and with the 3rd partiers like Ralph "the dingbat" Nader, or Ross Perot).  If you're a reader of All This Is That, you may have noticed the dearth of political articles over the last six weeks.  We've felt alternately depressed, disgusted, and paralyzed with fear. It's been hard to muster the resources to even address the depressing political situation in America.

The United States of America has 537 elected officials.  It's time we threw the bums out.    All 537 of them.  BHO, Crazy Joe Biden (a personal favorite), The House of Representatives, and The Senate. It's never actually 537, since at any given time at least a few of them will be embroiled in a sex scandal, under indictment for skullduggery, caught with their hands in the till, or, sadly, struggling with health issues like Congressman Gabby Giffords, and--there's usually a couple of fossils like Senator Robert Byrd or Jesse Helms that are functionally useless.  But I digress.  It's more than time to make a clean sweep.

I don't think I'll feel this way next week, but I feel violated, as we all should.  Politics at it's highest and best, is about give and take, compromise and honest debate.  We've seen so little of that in this deficit mess that it is truly disheartening.  I like real politics; I like hardball politics.  What we have seen in the last two months is cynical and self-serving mindless bickering by 537 overpaid hacks in $2,000 suits.  I feel like I need to take a shower.

It may just be time to take it to the streets.

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Faces Drawing No. 239 - from Naxos

Drawings by Jack Brummet[drawn in Naxos, Greece, 2008]

Danger! Police in area

Police order man to stop wearing bunny costume in public

A northwest man (Idaho Falls) wearing a bunny suit has been frightening local children, according to the police.  They also reported that he sometimes wears a tutu with the costume.  Of course he does!  The cops warned William Falkingham, 34, to stop wearing the fuzzy rabbit costume in public, according to The Republic.

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