ROUND ONE
Boner Candidate #1: YOU AIN’T NO FORTUNATE SON
President Donald Trump disembarked a plane in Freeland, Michigan on Thursday night as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s iconic song Fortunate Son boomed down on hundreds of his supporters waiting below. Fortunate Son is a 1969 protest song written by John Fogerty, a musician who was drafted for military service during the Vietnam war in 1966. After completing his active duty training in 1967, Fogerty then served in the Army Reserve and was discharged in 1968. The lyrics for Fortunate Son, according to song meaning dictionaries, is built on the idea that class privilege divides America into two groups: ordinary individuals and wealthy ones “born with silver spoon in hand” who are able to easily evade a discriminatory military draft system that allegedly favors the privileged. “Some folks are born made to wave the flag. Ooh, they’re red, white and blue,” the song played as Trump descended from the plane. “It ain’t me, it ain’t me. I ain’t no fortunate one, no.” “Some folks are born silver spoon in hand. Lord, don’t they help themselves, no. But when the taxman come’ to the door. Lord, the house lookin’ like a rummage sale. It ain’t me, it ain’t me. I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no.”
Boner Candidate #2: IT’S THEM PROTESTORS… THEY’RE THE ONES SETTING ALL THEM FIRES.
Officials dealing with catastrophic fires on the West Coast have had to counter social media rumors that the blazes were set by antifascist activists, publicly pleading that people verify information before sharing it. Despite their efforts, misinformation about the origin of the fires — which have killed at least 15 people and consumed millions of acres — continues to spread on Facebook and Twitter. Several law enforcement agencies in Oregon said they had been flooded with inquiries about rumors that activists were responsible. On Thursday, several journalists reporting on fires near the city of Molalla, Ore., said they had been confronted by a group of armed people who were worried about unverified reports of arsonists in the area. The rumors appear to have started on Wednesday night, after the Portland Police Bureau warned people on Twitter about the risk of fire during demonstrations. But there is no evidence that activists have deliberately set fires.
“We’re not seeing any indications of a mass politically influenced arson campaign,” said Joy Krawczyk, a spokeswoman with the Oregon Department of Forestry. Three law enforcement agencies in Oregon did announce on Thursday that the Almeda Fire, which incinerated neighborhoods and is linked to two deaths, may have been deliberately set. No suspects were publicly identified, but the Ashland police chief told The Oregonian that no information pointed toward the loose collective of antifascist activists known as antifa.
Boner Candidate #3: WE WENT TOO FAR BUT IT’S DONE
DARWIN, Australia — The caves, set deep in a desert gorge, had yielded a treasure trove of artifacts tracing Aboriginal people’s long history in Australia: a 28,000-year-old kangaroo bone sharpened into a blade; a 4,000-year-old plait of human hair believed to have been worn as a belt. Underneath the caverns sat millions of dollars’ worth of high-grade iron ore, in a country where mining is king. In May, the minerals giant Rio Tinto decided to blow up the caves to get at the riches below. But on Friday, it became clear that Australia’s most powerful export industry had met a force it could not bulldoze: the global movement for racial justice. The company announced that its chief executive, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, would step down after a shareholder revolt over its destruction of the prehistoric rock shelters in the Juukan Gorge, which are sacred to two Australian Aboriginal groups. Two other top executives, Chris Salisbury and Simone Niven, will also leave the company, which is based in Britain and Australia. The three executives had part of their 2020 bonuses docked last month, but shareholders, arguing that the measure failed to hold the individuals responsible, called for harsher punishment.
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ROUND TWO
Boner Candidate #1: MIKE LEE ATTACKS THE LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT IN UTAH
Sen. Mike Lee has become something of a media critic in recent weeks. On his personal Facebook page, Lee has repeatedly criticized KSL.com and The Associated Press, attacking them for “bias” and inaccurate reporting. He has gone so far as to call for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to sell the news website, creating the hashtag #sellKSL. It appears the sustained campaign began Aug. 15, when the Utah Republican ripped into KSL.com for a tweet about an AP story. The tweet read “President Donald Trump’s younger brother, Robert Trump, a businessman known for an even keel that seemed almost incompatible with the family name, died after being hospitalized in New York, the president said in a statement.” That tweet comes almost verbatim from the AP story. That story also supported that statement with quotes from the president, including this paragraph: “Donald Trump once described his younger brother as ‘much quieter and easygoing than I am.’” Lee called the KSL tweet “appalling” and said KSL was “spiking some sort of political football.” He finished the Facebook post calling for the church to sell KSL. “Sen. Lee did question the civility of KSL.com’s tweet about the death of President Trump’s brother, and he did call for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to sell KSL.com if they continued to allow that kind of behavior,” said Lee’s spokesperson Conn Carroll. He noted that KSL.com has since deleted the tweet and apologized for it.
Boner Candidate #2: I HAD A DRINK TO LOOSEN UP
Angelo Boemio once again found himself in the hot seat Monday, four years after he went viral for sauntering down Route 9 in New Jersey wearing a pink Speedo. The chef and restaurant owner’s skin-baring walk of shame was an agreed-upon punishment for finishing dead last in his fantasy football league, which adopted the humiliating statute five years ago. As part of the agreement, the last-place finisher each year has to walk for 10 minutes holding a “I suck at fantasy football sign” down the popular Toms River thoroughfare. This year, Boemio sucked once again. But he found himself much more prepared for the consequences. “I had a drink to loosen up, and I just said, ‘It’s showtime,’” he told The Post. Last time, Boemio wore a Lucha Libre wrestling mask to attempt to conceal his identity, but this year he let his bearded mug be exposed.And while losers in his league have slimmed down for their bikini reveal, Boemio, 47, actually packed on more pounds. “I kept saying that I was going to be in shape this time. I had already lost some weight and then COVID happened. I put on what I lost plus another 20 to 30 pounds.”
Boner Candidate #3: WHERE’S MY COOKIE
Parma, OH — An Ohio judge sentenced a woman to jail time over a violent incident that occurred at a McDonald’s earlier this year. According to the reports, the customer climbed through the restaurant’s drive-thru window and attacked three employees because she didn’t receive a cookie. The judge sentenced Daja Tucker to 90 days in jail over the incident, WANE reports. She was reportedly found guilty of attempted assault and criminal damage. Tucker will be placed on probation after she leaves jail, and must complete an anger management class. The incident reportedly occurred in April at a Mickey D’s in Parma, Ohio. Tucker was allegedly upset that she didn’t receive a cookie and climbed through the drive-thru window. She reportedly spit on one of the workers. The judge reportedly described her actions, which included spitting on someone during a pandemic, as “truly shocking.” According to WANE, he said, “These are kids just trying to get through a night of work in the heat of the pandemic when everyone was scared to death for their lives.” At the time, the teenage victim’s mom told a local news outlet, “She asked my daughter if she had a problem and my daughter said, ‘No, I have no problem’ and then the woman said, ‘Oh we can take this outside.’”
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