Pen-pricks
• The Los Angeles Times ran an article last week questioning why President Trump was the first president in decades never to visit California once during his first year in office. It’s not exactly his tribe out here. The Starbucks in Hollywood is located at the corner of I’m Offended and That’s Racist.
• President Trump was called a racist by Hollywood stars for referring to Third World countries as s-hole nations. In 2016 the same stars threatened that if Trump won they’d move to Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Leave it to Hollywood to protest racism by moving to the White Dominions.
• The Tide Pod Challenge swept the internet in which Millennials post video of themselves eating a Tide Pod, then showing how sick it made them. Its chemical causes violent stomach upset and liver damage. In response, the Millennials point out that Tide Pods are gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan.
Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood and a speaker. His email address is argus@argushamilton.com.
Thank you for your Jan. 14 Yuma Sun Editor’s Notebook: “Profanity may be common, but not here.”
What an inspiration. The past year or two have caused me to loudly disavow my former profession — journalism. After 20-plus years as an Air Force public affairs technician, I was proud of my accomplishments as a public affairs airman third class (yes we used to have those) and retiring as a senior master sergeant. I served in numerous capacities including newspaper and magazine reporter/ editor, media relations NCO, news media release writing, station manager (Armed Forces Radio) and as a TV news videographer.
As a master sergeant, serving at Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of South Vietnam, in 1969 to 1970, I saw a lot of “man’s inhumanity to man” as a combat news photographer/reporter. Many today say that we Vietnam veterans “need to get over it” — “it” being not being properly welcomed home. WOW!
In the ’80s, as editor of an Army newspaper, staffed by young women and men coming out of the Defense Information School and bringing them up to speed in photography (before the advent of digital), writing and editing was a challenge.
But this is not about me; it’s about journalistic character and responsibility; we had — responding to your editorial — rules. We had an AP (Associated Press) style guide. Even as military journalists we had people in command over us; but we had strong command support. Not restricted to what we could or couldn’t cover, we considered our task to find the positive in the negative — and vice-versa — and to use our medium as an informational teaching moment; taking the opportunity to get the word out regarding things that affected the lives of our readers and the community.
Profanity was a definite NO! We, too, replaced unacceptable words with asterisks to communicate the obvious. Our country today,
We would like to express our deepest thanks to Dr. Danielle Munoz and the staff at Desert Veterinarian Clinic for their heroic effort to save our little dog Barkley (a spunky Brussels Griffon). Barkley had been treated by a well-known vet for seizures for the last 5 years. He was on medication that pretty well controlled his seizures, but every once in a while, he still had them. His last episode occurred at 1:00 a.m. and he just never really recovered. We called our regular vet during normal hours, but they would not see him and instead referred us to an emergency doctor in Phoenix! We were shocked as they had treated him in the past. I randomly called a vet I found online. I think there was divine intervention as I found Desert Vet and Dr. Munoz. While she could not save our Barkley, she tried her very best. She even took Barkley home with her on the first night and treated him when he had multiple seizures. She also worked for us on her day off doing everything she could. We are extremely grateful to Dr. Munoz and the staff at Desert Veterinarian Clinic; our angels on Earth!