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Wit Love, Kath

~ My love letters about the funny side of life

Wit Love, Kath

Tag Archives: news reports

A Smart Choice

23 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by Kath Carroll in Humor, News, Politics, Satire, Shopping

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

grocery shopping, humor, Marty the robot, news reports, Politics, satire, Shopping

wit-love-kath-marty-the-supermarket-robot

Marty works the aisles, keeping people safe from hazards

In the wake of a lukewarm response to his naming Richard Grenell as acting intelligence chief—with some citing Grenell’s unconvincing performance ability: “He’s no Clark Gable,” opined Mitch McConnell—President Trump today chose Marty the Supermarket-Cleaning Robot to permanently fill the post of Director of National Intelligence.

During the announcement, made at a New England grocery chain, Trump noted Marty’s loyalty and superior communications skills, stating, “Marty’ll say whatever we give him to say. He knows when to talk and when to just lurk around creepily. Enemies never know where he’s going to show up next. He’s very effective. Sure, right now, he can only say two sentences. But he says them good,” Trump went on. “He never slurs…although my supporters love that when I do it, whether it’s what I’m saying or how I’m saying it. Marty, though—ya gotta love that guy—he talks very clearly. And loudly. He makes his presence known.”

As if on cue, Marty’s voice could be heard above the din: “Hazard detected. Clean up needed in the produce department. Hazard detected. Clean up needed in the produce department.”

“See?” Trump crowed. “He knows how to clean house.”

Marty, known throughout the northeast United States as an unflagging worker and admired for his ability to operate not only on both sides of the aisle but in every aisle, was characteristically stoic when asked for a statement. Keeping his large googly eyes focused on the days ahead and his paper smile firmly pasted on, Marty glided past reporters without comment.

Trump’s allies in Congress were quick to praise his choice. “Marty’s very good with dirt,” boasted Lindsay Graham. “He can find it. He can get rid of it. Two very important qualities the president values. He will be an asset to the department for sure. Especially going into the election,” Graham added.

Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) was equally enthusiastic. “I’ve never seen anyone more attuned to danger than Marty. No matter whether the menace is a small leaf of parsley underfoot, a wayward shopping list, or a person blocking the way while deciding between lemon merengue or raspberry yogurt, Marty spies it and sounds the alarm,” Jordan said.

And, indeed, Marty’s monotone voice once again resounded through the store: “Hazard detected. Clean up needed in the natural foods section. Hazard detected. Clean up needed in the natural foods section.”

wit-love-kath-marty-image-sees-garlic-skin

Marty spies danger and alerts shoppers and staff

Jordan nodded in appreciation. “If Marty can alert us to those kinds of risks, he can certainly root out threats to Trump’s vision anywhere. And I like that he’s confident in his body and never wears a jacket.”

In an interview late yesterday, Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and GOP leadership echoed these sentiments. “If you’ve spent some time in a grocery store, you have a lot of exposure to international tastes, employee meetings, and other things and he’s a very smart, capable guy. President Trump is very comfortable with his choice. He knows he can rely on a bot.”

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So, What Up Wit Wit Love, Kath?

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Kath Carroll in The Formative Years

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Broward County, Connecticut, Florida, humor, Miami, New York Giants, news, news reports, optical illusions, tourists

Hi, and welcome to Wit Love, Kath, my love letters about the funny side of life. Here I’ll look at the quirks and absurdities of family life, national and world news, entertainment, politics (oh, wait, I just mentioned entertainment), sports, and all those unexpected, bizarre moments that make life worthwhile with humor, with skepticism, with irony, and always wit love.

I grew up in a pink stucco house in Hollywood, Florida, surrounded, not by the radiance of celebrities as in that other Hollywood, but by the relentless sun (except for the daily deluge), which produces, like a science-fiction laser, grapefruit you can use as bowling balls, dachshund-sized avocados, and toads as round as dinner plates.

School field trips were spent at Parrot Jungle (once home to Pinky, the “high-wire, bicycle-riding cockatoo,” where we each had our picture taken with 5 macaws perched on our scrawny outstretched arms); Monkey Jungle (“where the humans are caged and monkeys run wild”), and Gatorland (“when the sun goes down, the swamp comes alive”). Try fitting education like this into the Common Core.

Spending your formative years in this over-the-top, larger-than-life (see, even the adjectives are abnormally big) weirdness-incubating local does something to you. One can only witness so many middle-aged and end-aged tourists in speedos before the mind is irreversibly warped. Same goes for the absolute cemetification of every square inch of available land. Even the strip malls have strip malls. The blistering sun bouncing off all that concrete really does fry your brain.

Don’t believe me? How else to explain this recent development: towns in southern Broward and Dade counties are using the optical illusion of decreasingly spaced lines to trick drivers into believing they are going faster than they are, thus causing them to “tap the break,” according to a local official. What’s next? M.C. Escher as stairwell architect?

And when your newspaper has a regular category called “Snakebites,” you know there’s something twisted going on. Here’s the latest headline from the Miami Herald, printed Sunday, October 13: “Man Bitten by Rattlesnake in Broward County while Helping Turtle Cross 1-75.”  Couldn’t this unfortunate scout find any old ladies to help across the road? In South Florida?

With these kinds of daily, riveting reports, it’s no surprise that I became a news and comics page junkie at a young age. I read the Miami Herald before school and the Hollywood Sun-Tattler when I came home. I listened to Dan Rather before he had “courage” (I suspect he spent time in South Florida before this pronouncement, as I and my friends fully understood his counsel). Garry Trudeau taught me more about politics than any civics class, and Dave Barry and The Far Side’s Gary Larson gave me laugh-out-loud validation that I was not crazy.

In college I studied absurdist literature—the likes of Samuel Beckett and Nikoli Gogol. My adviser couldn’t understand what I saw in it, but I never blinked an eye. Two tramps eternally waiting? A human pack mule? Disembodied voices? Got it. A man who loses his nose? Check. In fact, I think it was found floating in a canal along Alligator Alley.

I now live in Connecticut, where the state flower is the rock, squirrels think they’re birds except when they’re playing kamikaze in front of a moving car, and on any given day deer, wild turkeys, chipmunks, squirrels, foxes, ground hogs, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and/or fisher cats can parade through our yard and nom our garden. It may not be as exciting as Florida, but, hey, at least none of them are wearing speedos.

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