Laughter is the Best Medicine
August 1, 2025 — Scott Johnson
You don’t have to look too far to find IDIOTS ON PARADE! Ammo Grrrll writes: Every few years in America, billionaire bankrollers and brain-dead student activists team up to try to breathe life into the corpse of “socialism,” which, gol darn it, is a great system which just has never been done RIGHT. Their efforts remind me of those wretched rolling hand towels of yore in gas station restrooms. The
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July 25, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll ups the ante from two to three exclamation points in BUY THIS BOOK!!! She writes In 1971 the late leftist lunatic Abbie Hoffman – who called America “The Pig Empire” — published a piece of drivel he called Steal This Book. He was so socialistic that he encouraged people to steal his own book. Get it? Haha. He sold a quarter of a million of them and there
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July 18, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll is talking about the weather in SHUT-INS IN HECK. She writes: A severely-disappointing real conversation in a Dusty Little Village in southern Arizona: “Whew! It’s only going to be 93 Degrees F. today! Thank God! “Honey, see? You’re looking at the LOW.” Once an Arizona summer, I give myself permission to write about the weather. It’s not controversial, it’s not time-based and everyone who has ever asked “Hot
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July 11, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll only supplies two exclamation points to the title of this column, but you might want to add a third: MILLIONS WILL DIE IN THE STREETS!! She writes: Oh Dear, not again! And I was just recovering from the prospect of having to just TELL our grandchildren about snow which will have disappeared from the earth as MILLIONS roast to death every day. MILLIONS!! To which I say, “Oh
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July 10, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The title of Walter Blair’s out-of-print classic is unfortunately obsolete, but I believe it remains a useful work. Originally published in 1937 as Native American Humor (1800-1900), it was updated and republished in 1960 simply as Native American Humor. The book was still in print when I studied it as a high school student in 1968, the year of Blair’s retirement from the faculty of the University of Chicago, where
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July 4, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll eschews PALE IMITATIONS. She writes: One time I wanted to make multiple keys to our home to hand out to visiting relatives so that they could let themselves into the casita at any time of the day or night. I went to my trusty Ace Hardware Store. The key I gave them was – stupidly – not an original but already a copy. The new youngster in the
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June 27, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has a modest request: PLEASE JUST STOP! She writes: Look, Democrats, I’m begging you, okay? As a humorist, as a person who loves to laugh, as a woman who made a fine living for several decades from comedy, I am imploring you Democrats and your ghostwriters to please stop trying to be funny. You aren’t. You are awful, hateful, enraged mentally ill people and you can’t do humor.
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June 26, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I love the screwball comedies of the 1930s as well as the Peter Bogdanovich homage to them in What’s Up, Doc?, but I hadn’t even heard of Ball of Fire before I caught up with it on TCM in 2022. I watched it again last night in TCM’s lineup of films starring Gary Cooper. This is what I had to say about it the first time around. Billy Wilder and
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June 20, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll contemplates the maternity of MOTHER FERAL CAT. She writes: Last week we had a lively discussion of Fathers and Flags. I try to make sure I weigh in EVERY Father’s Day because men in general, whether fathers or not, get such a terrible rap by the loons in charge these days. I am a nobody – an “influencer” of a few hundred wonderful people – but I feel
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June 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Lest we forget, National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar recounts the ordeal of Alex Padilla in Blehar’s weekly Carnival of Fools column. He has filed this week’s column under the heading “Wail of the Israel haters.” In the second part of his column he turns to “Alex Padilla, Forgotten Man” (links omitted): * * * * * In tales of the overtaken-by-events, last Thursday California Senator Alex Padilla (D. — like you
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June 13, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll makes a toast TO DADS AND FLAGS. She writes: Today may be a so-called “unlucky” day, but fear not, for we have two rather important days in a row to look forward to: Flag Day and Father’s Day. I had a workmate in my old type shop whose youngest son was born on June 14. For the first several years of his life, they told him all those
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June 8, 2025 — John Hinderaker
As riots continue in Los Angeles, remember this video from 2018. An Antifa rioter in Phoenix gets the perfect comeuppance: One can hope that will inspire the National Guardsmen who have now been deployed to LA.
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June 6, 2025 — Scott Johnson
SO YOU WANT TO BE A COLUMNIST? Then listen now to what she says. Ammo Grrrll writes: Once when Jon Stewart was still intermittently funny he had as a guest the lovely Posh Spice, who is married to David Beckham, a ridiculously handsome man. By some wild genetic fluke involving two very good-looking people, they produced four really beautiful children. Ms. Spice had just had a newish baby whose picture
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June 1, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The forthcoming issue of the Claremont Review of Books features Chris Flannery’s longish essay on Mark Twain and the new biography of him by Ron Chernow. The essay runs under the heading “Pure gold.” Early in the essay Chris recounts: * * * * * In his Autobiography Mark Twain tells the story of a mesmerizer who came to Hannibal in May 1850, charging 25 cents for admission to see
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May 30, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has the inside story on the Dems’ big new project: HERE, BOY! HERE, BOY! She writes: I predict that the alleged $20 Million the Democrats have earmarked to “win back young men” is, first, probably something like $200 Million, a lot of it part of the “$2 Billion in gold bars pitched off the Titanic” in the waning days of the Ceaușescu, sorry, I mean Biden administration. Not
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May 23, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll doesn’t really want you to RUN FAR! RUN FAST! THE CLIMATE IS CHANGING! AND HITLER WAS ELECTED! She writes: Is anyone else as exhausted as I am from the “hair on fire” reportage ginned up in what passes for Legacy Journalism day after dreary day? I don’t remember Chet Huntley or David Brinkley delivering the news in that snarky “sky is falling” tone. I also don’t recall any
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May 16, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I’m simultaneously laughing and singing along to THE FIRST TIME EVER I…Ammo Grrrll writes: A very long time ago in what feels like a Galaxy far far away, I was a teenage girl madly, deeply, insanely in love with the most attractive and interesting male person I had ever met up till then. And ever since, truth to tell, though I have been blessed to meet MANY awesome people. And
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