SHEEP! Has...DIPPED

Pour a shot of Sheep Dip (yes, I have a bottle of it...a great single malt). SHEEP! is no longer in print. Baaaa, humbug.

I'd written a few articles of SHEEP! years ago, including one about the difficulties of keeping a sheep at the Central Park Petting Zoo, and another on Charlie Swaim, the legendary sheep shearer who demonstrated his skills on David Letterman's show. 

I had discussed doing an interview with Raymond Burr about his sheep raising. I met with Mr. Burr at the posh 21 Restaurant in Manhattan, but he was soon busy with the last few Perry Mason made-for-TV movies, and we lost touch. 

I didn't think a specialized magazine like SHEEP! would disappear. It was not on the average newsstand, it was subscription-based. Too bad these days people can get ALMOST all the information they need free FREE on the Internet. 

Countryside (not, NOT to be confused with the long defunct and insane Countrywide Publications) does have a website where they publish some useful articles for sheep folk:

https://www.iamcountryside.com/sheep/

But, the magazine itself is gone. I don't know quite what to make of the fact that the SHEEP magazine is gone, but you can still get their GOAT journal...and of course, the somewhat suggestive "Backyard Poultry." 

Fun at the Biden Inaugural

 

Tragedy + Time = the lighter side of a Capitol Building riot

 

The Trump-Loving Rioter at the Capitol wearing the VIKING HELMET...

Yeah, yeah, he's been on TV before... 

 

Judy Henske + Woody Allen = ANNIE HALL?

Here's a bit of a "fumetti" from a vintage issue of HELP magazine. Attempting to be a humor magazine for adults who may have outgrown MAD, each issue was an uneven mix of funny photo captions and a highlight "fumetti," where actors (usually including at least one famous comedian) offered up page after page of a live action comic strip. 

In a parody of The Untouchables, the cast not only included Judy Henske, but a key member of her band, John Forsha. And along with Woody Allen with a mustache, playing "Mr. Big" of the crime syndicate, there was a bit part for Terry Gilliam. 

It's been said that Judy opened for Woody Allen at a few early Greenwich Village gigs, while others say there was more to it than that; little Woody and big Judy were an item for a while. AND, more than that,   Woody based his "Annie Hall" character partly on Judy. Certainly it wasn't a coincidence that both the fictional Annie and the real-life Judy were both from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. 

NY POST gets TRUMPIER - INSANE COVIDIOT COVER STORY TODAY

 

Maybe the New York Post wants to boost its sales on Staten Island. The Covidiots over there (the only borough to vote for Trump) may be fairly illiterate but they would LOVE that Cuomo photo, and want to frame it. 

The Post has always been schizoid. Politically, it is conservative and slants the news that way (obviously). And yet, the paper is best known for covering juicy, if not grotesque, stories of sex and violence. Remember the "Headless Body in Topless Bar" headline? 

We've seen more than the usual restlessness from Covidiots who run bars that defy the law, or mass dangerously to protest face masks and DEMAND the right to be Typhoid Marys and spread the disease to Anti-Vacc morons and others who won't get the flu shot when it's available. 

Cuomo acknowledges that indoor dining does spread Covid but the percentage is not alarming. (Meaning, what, if 10 strangers sit in a pizza joint at a time, and the joint serves 100 people in the afternoon, only two will be in the hospital afterward??) 

What Cuomo may be saying is why put more lives at risk when many restaurants have had the money to put up elaborate shacks on the sidewalk for outdoor dining, complete with space heaters? 

Another important point is that now, the major spread is home visitation. It's parties in homes. Some reports say that up to 40% of Covid victims show no symptoms, and like Typhoid Mary, are carriers. They might show symptoms after weeks and weeks of being too close to friends and relatives, and they might skate with a mild case while someone they infect could lose their sense of smell and taste for months if not years, or have other health risks, or...die. 

Indoor restaurant dining often involves entire families sitting at a table and being loud and obnoxious for an hour. "Waiter, put these two tables together there are EIGHT OF US!" And then what? There have been many cases in the news of Covid outbreaks traced to ONE idiot who came to a party, or to a wedding, or to a festive gathering in a restaurant. 

Jesus Christ, this is the time to SAVE lives, not put them at risk. A Christmas Party for 8 or 12 or more family members crowded around a table at an indoor restaurant? 

It's responsible to be careful, but the New York Post has never been known for restraint. Anything to sell papers and get some notoriety. All publicity is good publicity to them  (including this piece). If even one life can be saved by cautious law-making, why doesn't the Post think so? 

Same day in the Daily News: 

Peace Pipe for the anti-Semitic Roald Dahl -- 30 Years Late

Roald Dahl, the beloved, BELOVED author of children's books, skated off this Giant Peach of a planet back in 1990, stubbornly sticking to his anti-Semitism. Back then, as now, hating Jews is pardonable. You don't see any "Jewish Lives Matter" banners anywhere. 

In fact, crimes against Jews are played down. When an Orthodox Jew is beaten up in Brooklyn, the perp is never identified by race and "hate crime" is rarely charged. Stats show that more bias crimes are committed against Jews in New York City than any other race, color or creed. All around the world (if you care to check any issue of the Wiesenthal newsletter, Jewish people and their businesses are targeted, and violence and deaths practically ignored. Some countries cheerfully allow posters of Hitler and offensive caricatures, if not outright lies from people or the press that would be an outrage if it was against a minority group more prone to violence and protest. 

But back to rotten Roald, who, perhaps to his credit as an honest man, spouted his "logical" hatred of Jews in various interviews. Most notoriously in 1983: “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere. Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

Seven years later, the year of his death, Dahl doubled down: “I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become anti-Semitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism.”  

Fast forward 30 years, and out of nowhere, the Dahl website now has a little apology for grandpa's nasty comments. So don't boycott buying a Dahl book, or look too closely at whether there are anti-Semitic characters with over-sized noses in any of the illustrations or movies. Just what prompted this caveat is unknown, but certainly over the years anti-Semites have seized on Dahl's words to help justify their hatred. But here it is, and it's welcome: