The Quotation of the Day -- and Slang Vocabulary Enrichment -- comes from John Waters

Maybe you knew before today, but until I read this in The Guardian, I had no idea what a 'Hair-Hopper' was.

When John Waters says that he has never watched a reality television show, Rebecca Nicholson asks him if he has really never seen The Apprentice, the show that brought Donald Trump to national prominence among America's couch-potato demographic.

 He answers:

“Never. No! I hated him before. I hate a hopper. A hair-hopper is someone who pretends they’re rich, who really wasn’t brought up very wealthy but now tries to brag that they’re rich, and they spend too much time on their hair.”

The Tweet of the Day for January 30, 2017

The True Blue Liberal Tweet of the Day came from @TeaPainUSA who distilled two important events into a truth bomb of less than 140 characters: 1) Donald Trump's illegal and chaotic ban on refugees and people from seven countries, and 2) The terrorist attack on the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Center yesterday, where six were killed and 17 were injured, by Alexandre Bissonnette, who seems from early information to be an anti-immigrant activist who was inspired by Marine Le Pen speeches and the timing of Donald Trump's Muslim ban.

More Muslims have been killed by Trump supporters in the past 24 hours than Americans killed by refugees from banned countries in 30 years.

— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) January 30, 2017

As a bonus, I also have a True Blue Liberal word of the day that came from Twitter. Tonight there were massive anti-Trump demonstrations all across the U.K. inspired by Trump's draconian immigration policy alterations. I saw photos online of massive crowds in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Brighton, and elsewhere, but this photo from Scotland in a tweet from @TotallyCarolyn stood out for the poster it featured. It had nothing to do with the artistry of the hurried black scrawl on cardboard, but the words are priceless, especially the last one, which was new to me: "Yer Maw Was An Immigrant Ya Fucken Bawbag."

A message to @realDonaldTrump from Edinburgh #MuslimBan #ScotlandAgainstTrump pic.twitter.com/m0OdQvDlMQ

— Carolyn Scott (@TotallyCarolyn) January 30, 2017

Bawbag, n. Scots. Literally a scrotum (i.e., a "ball bag") and figuratively used for any annoying, useless, or stupid person. It should be used regularly in sentences about the half-Scots Donald Trump.

Social Notworking

There are a lot of Facebook pages visible on screens around my office this week, and not just among twenty somethings. There are pictures of Christmas puddings and snow drifts that just MUST be shared with all of one's "friends". I've avoided the Facebook so far only because they ask you to register your name when you're sent a link of someone's vacation snaps (and there are "friends" and relatives there to whom I'd prefer to remain invisible).


While looking for uses of the term "Social Notworking" just now, I stumbled on a British blog dedicated to the fad, "Social Notworking: Tired of the social networking malarkey?" at www.socialnotworking.co.uk. They have to be given special compliments for posting a couple of entries in 2007 and then losing interest in this stupid blogging fad as well.

I'm making "Social Notworking" my phrase for the fin de l'année, with the hope that looking at family slide shows online hasn't been replaced by something even more stupid by the end of twenty eleven. I still don't understand why the Facebook didn't die on the day that the first student was "friended" by a parent, but I think it's just an age thing. I don't know why college students of the 21st century call their parents on the phone either.

Happy New Year.