Stamping out ‘cancel culture’

Cancel culture?

Can we start with Boy George and the Culture Club?

What is going on here? Has a part of America lost their liberal minds?

Tear down statues and history?

Let me give you some help!

First, slowly if necessary, back away from the cancel button. You can do it. Hum Yankee Doodle Dandy and walk out of grandma’s basement.

Don’t be afraid of those things darting through the sky, they are called birds. And that green stuff around your feet if you go outside, that’s just grass.

It’s a harmless form of vegetation that looks cool if you water it and mow it.

What does mow it mean? Wow, this may be tougher than I thought.

Ah shoot, I haven’t got time to deal with morons at this point in my life. Instead let me offer a few fun, effective and rational tips on how to stop this cancel stuff.

First, let’s protect the statues. I have some valuable experience in protecting things from senseless destruction.

Awhile back, I owned a home that had a covered patio which extended the length of a detached garage. Under that covering I hung a bird feeder that was handmade by my brother and hand-painted by one of my daughters in a cool sky, clouds and trees pattern.

Birds would flock to the feeder and the tasty seeds inside. But so would the squirrels. Interesting correlation to the statue busters out there today, eh?

The squirrels, whom I’m pretty sure could not fly, figured out a way to climb up the 4X4 wooden posts that held up the patio covering. They would then shimmy across the horizontal support posts and drop down onto the feeder. While they were there, they would gnaw on the feeder, causing great damage.

What, I thought, could I do to stop this madness?

Then it came to me! I coated each vertical post with a layer of Vaseline. Imagine my delight when I would watch from inside my house as squirrel after squirrel would try in vain to climb up the posts. It was like an upright slip and slide.

This provided me with hours of fun.

Why not take that same idea to statues of such evil people as Abraham Lincoln? A good coating of Vaseline and you would have a “viral” video of hooligans trying to climb a vertical slip and slide.

Hours of fun for sure!

Let’s not forget the looters. Once a few years ago I lived in an apartment building in a large coastal city. The morning newspaper that was delivered to my doorstep daily began disappearing without a trace. I was assured by the newspaper office that the paper boy was indeed putting one at my door every morning.

How to stop this, I wondered? Then, again, it came to me.

I noticed that some renters were not very good at picking up their dog poop when they walked their pooches around the building green space. Hmmm.

So, I scooped up some of those doggie piles and bought a newspaper. That night I folded the paper with a nice helping of dog crap inside and put a rubber band on it like the paper boy would.

I then placed it early the next morning exactly where the paper boy always did.

Now I never did see who took the paper, but they stopped doing it.

My thought would be to insert similar piles of doggy do into key items your typical looter might take when they were exercising their right to destroy.

Viral video material for sure when they looked inside those stolen Nikes, or hopefully put them on without looking.

Or, you could remove the athletic shoes before locking up for the night and replace them with work boots. Your basic looter would have no idea what work boots are for.

One last suggestion, make flags out of asbestos. Again, entertainment for hours.

Chuck Kvelve Bandel is a reporter for the Mineral Independent and Clark Fork Valley Press. Look for his “Kvelve’s Comments” column weekly.