Plenty of sunshine burning orange this early-evening Wednesday here in California’s Central Valley — another gorgeous day in a growing line-up of beautiful days that could easily spoil us rotten. This is still winter, remember?
Although some rain is forecast for maybe over the coming weekend, nothing heavy-duty in the future picture weather-wise, except the sun and growing heat.
Whining is second nature.

In a quick COVID update — I’m feeling much better, but still a little weak and achy. My daughter finally tested negative is off to work again this week. Her Significant Other felt good enough to attend in-person classes at Fresno State this morning.
Hopefully, the raw shit off the virus is behind us. I’ll re-test tomorrow or Friday.

Despite the horror of the nowadays, was back to doomscrolling again the last couple of days — out of all the shit, did spy this look at T-Rump’s April Fool’s Day idiot.
He’s on the campaign trail again, and foolish is his total name:

No question lots of April Fools' Day pranks can seem aggressive and angry and mean. But some are pretty funny. You hate the Google or Netflix pranks too? I think they are pretty funny. https://t.co/DUecgsqvVZ

— Sophia McClennen (@mcclennen65) February 1, 2023

Sophia A. McClennen, professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University, noted the foolish acting T-Rump in a piece this morning at Salon — some snips:

Here is the real takeaway though. We have long known that Trump doesn’t understand comedy and can’t process jokes. In fact, we know that the only thing that really animates Trump when it comes to jokes is whether or not he thinks they flatter him (even if he often isn’t right about that). We also know that Trump’s trouble with comedy, irony and satire is common among Republicans who have been shown to have less capacity to process complex forms of comedy that include irony.

Even worse, we now see that Trump equates pranks with evil intent. For Trump, the jokester of April Fools’ Day is akin to a cruel bully who intends to do damage, not play a prank that might get missed by the audience. Even more, under Trump, the prankster isn’t just a cruel bully, he gets pleasure from it. The fun is in hurting others.

So, Trump isn’t just flat-out wrong about the point of April Fools’ Day; he is actually describing himself. This is the same guy who viciously mocked a disabled reporter and then claimed he would never do that. Under Trump, mockery is aggressive and angry and mean. The possibility of a prank used to poke fun in a productive way is lost.

A fool can be silly or stupid, but most importantly, a fool lacks judgment and common sense, which is why the April Fools’ Day prank works, ideally, to help them see their foolish ways. The fool is also the playful trickster. The term captures both sides of the game. In the best sense of how this works, the jokester fool plays the prank on the unwitting fool, and when the game is revealed there is mirth, even if the pranked fool feels foolish at first.

But, under Trump, all of these concepts shift. Just as his administration redefined words like “great” and made other ones up like “alternative facts,” with Trump the fool loses all of its play and acquires a terrifying severity. He may be describing Biden as the fool playing a game on the public, but we know that all he is doing is describing a projection of himself.

Trump doesn’t just misunderstand the purpose of April Fools’ Day; he is warping it in a way that makes it deceptive, dangerous and designed to help him play us all for fools. How else to understand his reference to April Fools’ Day in a speech filled, yet again, with deliberate misinformation?

As the speech in New Hampshire showed us, Trump will run a campaign based on lies, deception, faulty logic and hubris. But it also served as an excellent reminder that Trump’s entire campaign depends on pranking voters into believing in him.

We’re in a run … again!

April Fools in February as the T-Rump began in South Carolin this past weekend — again the idiocy:

In on the joke, or not, once again here we are…

(Illustration out front: Edvard Munch‘s ‘The Scream,’ lithograph version, found here.)