We’re back, after a hiatus attending to family matters, with a round of 20 questions.

As explained in a previous edition, in our version of 20 questions we think we already know the answers, but are just provoking thought by asking.

1. Since anytime the nation experiences a heat wave we are told the grid is in peril and we should cut back on energy consumption, have any of our enviro geniuses stopped to think about the demand if the majority of people were driving electric cars?
2. If your name is Hunter Biden, are you immune from any legal jeopardy, no matter your actions?
3. If your name is Donald Trump, are you subject to prosecution for crimes real or imagined, ranging from jaywalking to being abrasive?
4. Why are so many of the same names in the Johnstown area involved with begging for money, manning political offices, manipulating officeholders as behind-the-scenes puppeteers, and/or collecting big paychecks from nonprofits and not-for-profit vehicles?
5. Why are so many of our elected federal officeholders – Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, John Fetterman and now Mitch McConnell – subject to freezing while speaking, generally being incoherent, and seemingly lacking the mental facility to do their jobs?
6. Is anyone else disappointed that Jason Aldean and handlers, apparently bowing to Woke outcries, have edited out Black Lives Matter protest images from the video for his song “Try That In A Small Town”?
7. If you are not worried about our $32 trillion national debt, can you come up with a cogent explanation for your lack of concern?
8. Can Mitt Romney have the decency to stop identifying as a Republican after this serial disappointer now has gone on record as approving governmental censorship of social media in cahoots with big tech firms?
9. Does anyone else find it sickening that Bud Light’s parent company, after getting an economic wakeup call following a full-Woke commercial, is trying to bamboozle the buying public with a return to patriotic themed advertising?
10. When are we going to have heterosexual pride day, week, month or year?
11. Should we be surprised that the Pittsburgh Pirates, despite misplaced optimism earlier in the season, are sellers yet again at the trade deadline?
12. Should we be outraged that the partisan federal justice system is not going to pursue campaign finance violation charges against Sam Bankman-Fried, who shipped most of his campaign donations to – surprise – Democrats?
13. Should hate crime charges be filed against black woman Carlethia Russell, who has admitted to making up a story about being kidnapped in Alabama by a white man with orange hair (Trump reference?) and fueling a flood of kneejerk reactions from the media so eager to play the race card when it benefits them?
14. Has anyone else noticed breathless updates from Ukraine haven’t been so positive lately and thinks maybe Zelenskyy and his backers might be in over their heads?
15. Is there a better entertainment value than the $12 admission fee to the Bedford Fair, which includes all rides, shows and grandstand attractions?
16. Are you surprised to hear that the military coup in Niger could be the 11^th in any West African nation since 2008 that has been led by U.S.-trained troops?
17. Was I a fool to pay for life, health, car and homeowners, insurance through the years instead of just depending on the GoFundMe route to bail me out should adversity hit?
18. Is there a greater sign of Democratic voter idiocy than the fact that polls indicate a majority of them do not want Biden to run for re-election, yet would vote for him again?
19. Are these ideologically blind people aware that, despite a full-fledged media campaign to assassinate his character, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is a viable alternative for these left-leaning donkeys?
20. Does writing for The Washington Post, even if using crayons like Jennifer Rubin, mean you never have to admit you’re sorry, or wrong?

As a followup to the previous car-oriented post, here’s a primer for dealing with online sellers, specifically on Facebook Marketplace.

I’ve written about this in the past, but it warrants updating. And, for those who are familiar with my stated detachment from social media, allow me to reiterate that I use my son’s account for my car searches and interactions, all with his knowledge and approval.

Craigslist once upon a time was a good resource, but has deteriorated badly through the years.

Facebook Marketplace seems to be following that same path. But, I’ve been able to purchase three of my current fleet of five cars through Facebook — two hobby Mustangs and my wife’s daily driver, a 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix acquired with 14,000 original miles.

My son also purchased a Chevrolet Equinox I’d identified from a Facebook posting.

Those experiences were great, with forthright, honorable, reliable people who provided information and did what they said they would do. But I’ve encountered a lot of other types of sellers.

Just last week I got to make a 120-mile, totally fruitless, roundtrip to Apollo, Pa., to look at a Pontiac Fiero. The owner wasn’t there, having had his work schedule changed the night before. But, did he call me as he promised he would do should something come up? Why, no. No, he didn’t.

This jackass – and I use the term with all due respect – actually messaged me later through Facebook wanting me to come back another day. I kept it clean in my response, since it wasn’t my account, but I did tell him after this outrage I wouldn’t cross the street to look at his car. I also suggested his lame excuse of forgetting about his promise to me, or even having participated in the call, spoke volumes about him in terms of mental illness.

On a side note, one of those countless YouTube “influencers,” this one specializing in cars, made a salient point in a video I watched – never buy a car if you don’t like the owner. Commit that to memory and refer to it often if you want to buy cars from Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or the like.

Now, here are some familiar ad themes and how to deal with them.

What they say: Don’t ask me a lot of silly questions.

What they mean: I don’t want to go on the record having to deny the vehicle’s existing problems of which I am knowledgeable.

What you should say: How would you define a silly question?

What they say: Don’t try to lowball me. I know what I have.

What they mean: Actually, I have an inflated idea of what this car is worth, which demonstrates my generally loose association with reality.

What you should say: I think I will pass on your vehicle.

What they say: I’m not necessarily looking to sell, just testing the waters.

What they mean: I’m playing hard to get. But if you offer me a ridiculously high amount for my piece of garbage, I’d gladly unload it on you.

What you should say: Get back to me when you are looking to sell.

What they say: No joyrides. Cash in hand only.

What they mean: I’m putting the pressure on you to buy a car without thoroughly test-driving it and maybe even setting you up for robbery of your “cash in hand.”

What you should say: I don’t travel hundreds of miles to get my jollies driving someone else’s car. I could just rent a Mustang GT if I wanted that. But, since I’m being asked to trust you without verifying the state of the car, perhaps you can return the favor and I can just have the title transferred to my name and drive it home if I promise, maybe double pinky swear, to send you the money sometime down the line.

What they say: I wouldn’t be afraid to hop in this car and drive it to California tomorrow.

What they mean: By extension, you should have absolute faith in this car I’m trying to sell you.

What you should say: Your confidence in expecting to get in a perhaps decades-old, high-mileage car and drive it cross-country without incident suggests you are a tad delusional.

What they say: The car is not currently inspected, but it will sail right through.

What they mean: And if it doesn’t, well, tough luck. Buyer beware.

What you should say: Since there will be no inspection expense beyond the base fees, how about you get it inspected and emissions checked and I’ll bump the sales price by $150?

What they say: Don’t ask if it’s available. If it’s listed it’s available. If you ask if it’s still available, you will be ignored.

What they mean: It’s available. Its available. It’s available. It’s available.

What you should ask them: Is it still available?

Like many Baby Boomers, I’m addicted to cars.

This addiction includes lusting after the cars of my youth, plus the cars of my adult years that I couldn’t justify owning when they were new due to the priorities of raising a family.

My first car was a 1967 Mustang coupe, purchased for me by my dad in 1972. It was just a straight 6-cylinder, three-speed manual transmission, but I always had loved Mustangs and I was hooked. The Noble Blue Steed, a friend used to call it.

Three of my cousins owned Mustangs at one time or another, as did one of my uncles.

By 1979, I’d graduated to a new Jeep CJ-7 hardtop as my daily driver, but I also acquired a 1967 Mustang Fastback that year as a hobby car, sending my brother to Schellsburg with my money to check it out and purchase it, because I needed to go to work that night.

It was a 289-cubic-inch V8, stick, nonstock chocolate brown paint with white rocker panel stripes, the ubiquitous slotted dish mag wheels and white letter tires of the time, hood pins and, a black interior with highback front bucket seats from a 1970 Mustang. Most important, it originally was a Georgia car that the current owner only used in good weather. That meant the traditional rust cancer that ate through the bodies of northern Mustangs, including my ’67 coupe, did not affect this car.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Bullitt,” Steve McQueen drove a 1968 Mustang fastback, the exact same body style as the ’67. The more recent remake of “Gone In 60 Seconds” has a feature car, Eleanor, that is a heavily modified example of that ’67 Mustang fastback body style.

I’d desperately wanted one of these Mustang fastbacks since watching that “Bullitt” movie and seeing one on Jacoby Street as I played basketball on the Maple Park School playground, probably in 1967. That was a red example, with, inexplicably, some of the faux vinyl woodgrain used on station wagons of the time inserted into the concave taillight panel at the rear.

My brother locked up my 1967 Mustang fastback 12 years later and I owned it until 2000, foolishly just about giving it away to a guy I know who turned it into a Shelby clone and now wants $75,000 or so for it.

I can’t really justify the money needed currently to acquire a top-of-the-line Mustang vintage 1965 through 1970, so I’ve readjusted my sights to covet 2005 through 2014 examples, the nostalgic look cars that combine styling cues from 1967 through 1970.

When I first saw the Mustang show car on which the 2005 model would be based, I loved it and felt almost sure it never would make it to production in that form. I was wrong.

I got to drive one of these 2005 nostalgia look Mustangs during a trip to cover Penn State football at Illinois when the airport didn’t have my reserved econobox and upgraded me to a Mustang. That was only the V6, and an automatic, but I loved it, calling my wife to tell her the interior made me feel like I was back sitting in my ’67 fastback.

It took until June 2020 for me to buy one of these 2005 Mustangs, a redfire metallic convertible, V6 automatic, medium parchment leather interior, tan top, with just 41,800 miles at purchase time. It was originally a Florida car, only used in good weather up north, and was being sold because the owner was entering a nursing home.

Still wanting the V8 experience, a few months later in 2020 I picked up a 69,000-mile 2004 GT coupe, the last of the so-called New Edge Mustangs. This has the 4.6 liter modular V8 engine and a five-speed stick. It’s competition orange in color with tinted windows, black leather interior, Bullitt-style wheels, and one-of-a-kind Mustang GT rocker panel decals based on the logo for the Mustang equipment company.

The previous owner was a heavy equipment operator and got a sign shop to produce GT decals to match the Mustang logo examples he had procured.

I’m not done with acquisitions. I still dream of one day owning either a Shelby Mustang, a California Special, or one of the various tuner version Mustangs put out by Saleen or Roush. All of these would be most desirable with the 5.0-liter Coyote engine.

Also, in an affront to my Mustang loyalty, I’ve been doing a serious search for a C4 Corvette, years 1984 through 1996. I’ve looked at plenty, test-driven a few, but can’t find the right car.

Just keep that between us.

I can think of some words other than “bold” or “audacious” to describe Johnstown’s latest foray into the world of spending other peoples’ money attempting to reanimate the cadaver that is the downtown area.

But, wait a second. Maybe audacious does fit after all, if you use the second meaning, which is showing an impudent lack of respect. Those who would keep trying to put spats on this pig can’t seem to learn from the Johnstown history they do not acknowledge or respect.

The recurring theme of these periodic revitalization plans seems to be a corruption of the “Field of Dreams” mantra of build it and they will come. In Johnstown’s case, it is spend enough and they will come. Except, they never do.

This latest example of displaying fancy drawings to sell the sizzle of multiple options, flies in the face not only of Johnstown’s past experiences with downtown revitalization, it also runs smack up against megatrends in demographics that are turning once vibrant downtown areas, such as that of San Francisco, into virtual ghost towns.

Don’t take my word for it regarding San Francisco. Newsweek chronicled San Francisco’s demise little more than a month ago, recounting a tale of former workers who got to work from home during the COVID “emergency” and never came back, plus a downtown rife with crime, homelessness and drug use that has turned off would-be visitors.

Add in businesses fleeing the scene due to the crime, and population doing likewise, and all of a sudden the once extremely cosmopolitan and inviting San Francisco has taken on all the appeal of a leper colony.

Another similarity: Democratic leadership has done little to improve San Francisco, or Johnstown for that matter.

Always, it seems, our Johnstown leadership, the Myopia 25 types of any moment, feed money to out-of-town consultants – or hire such people to mismanage things – with the expectation they can somehow alter reality here with a few sweeps of pastel on cardboard.

This reminds me of the time decades back when an out-of-town consultant called me at the sports department of The Tribune-Democrat looking for my ideas to revitalize Point Stadium. This was before the stadium upgrades.

I told him then that we had a baseball stadium without a baseball team, and a facility that was in a total state of disrepair at that. But, I also chronicled for him how past minor league baseball operations here had failed, even in much more flush times economically, so I didn’t think landing a team would help.

The consultant apparently heard nothing beyond a stadium without a team, and so it goes. We’ve had several attempts at hosting teams before and since and the current one seems to be following the tradition of failing both on the field and on the financial ledger.

I also got plenty of up-close-and-personal experience with out-of-towner managers and their misguided attempts to alter Johnstown with a continuing succession of chain management at the Tribune-Democrat before I left in 1994.

They all had a better idea and were going to educate us heathens with their worldly ways. They failed, and continue to fail in 2023 if circulation or product is any measure of success.

Two humorous asides from the day it first was announced that The Tribune-Democrat had been sold to an out-of-town chain. I was trying to talk to the sports editor about the Steelers story I was writing and an old guy who looked like Yoda in a three-piece suit, kept interrupting me. I was about to tell him off when the sports editor, knowing me, interrupted to tell me the old guy was one of the new owners.

Later that same day, in one of those cliché meetings held in the newsroom, when new ownership keeps insisting things were going to change little, the time came for questions.

This “owner” conducting this session was a young, pudgy faced type (the old guy was the money man).

“Why buy this newspaper, Dean?’ I asked him.

“Probably for the same reason you’re here,” he replied.

“I was born in Johnstown, lived here all my life,” I told him.

“Next question,” he said.

People who lived in or around Johnstown in the 1960s can remember what a vibrant downtown was like, anchored by mammoth department stores such as Penn Traffic and Glosser Brothers, even Sears, as well as furniture stores and a wealth of small businesses.

Thursday night, the stores stayed open late. In general, it was easier to cross an LA freeway on foot than it was to belly up to the counter at the old Coney Island (across the street where the parking garage now sits) at shift-changing time for the steel mills.

As much as I’d love to go back to a time when the blast furnaces illuminated the night sky like a sunrise coming up over Daisytown hill, and the city’s crime rate was something to brag about, not try to rationalize, it’s not happening.

Even the trend to move retail out of town and into shopping malls is a loser, witness the demise of Richland Mall and the slimmed down profile of The Galleria.

You could make Central Park into a mini-Disney World (and FYI, the word this summer is that even that famed attraction has flagging attendance) and you’d still need to get past the reality that a lot of people from Johnstown’s suburbs or beyond don’t want to venture downtown, fearing they might not return home.

That fear is overblown, I agree. But it is the perception and perception shapes reality. I’ve heard this fear from many people, even when I used to work nights downtown and they thought I was taking my life into my own hands on a constant basis.

It doesn’t help that today’s newspaper front page, boosting the latest downtown revitalization effort, chronicled yet another city murder and arrest.

The murder story should have been displayed there, a rare nod to reporting news over boosterism and social justice warrior propaganda that usually prevails. Just unfortunate reality.

So, string those lights over Main Street. Spiff up Central Park, Put out the word that Johnstown is open for business, and tourism.

Just don’t be surprised when all this changes nothing, other than propping up the bottom line of yet another out-of-town consultant.

This is a story about baseball and big money, but not in the traditional sense that Major League teams spending the most money on salaries tend to win championships and those that try to get by on the cheap mostly are destined merely to fill out the regular-season field.

Instead, we endeavor to draw a parallel between how baseball teams and the real big money show – financial markets — both can exhibit uncanny periods of out-performance, followed by crashes back to the norm.

That connection between big spending and success is an immutable truth about modern baseball. But baseball proves other realities about money, such as many big spending organizations still find ways to fail, current examples being the New York Mets and San Diego Padres, among others.

Also, even when free-spending does produce titles, the success seems to be unsustainable. Witness no repeat World Series winners in the sport since the New York Yankees won three straight from 1998-2000.

But all that is long-term thinking. In the short term, almost anything can happen. Recall that mere months ago the Pittsburgh Pirates were the darlings of 2023 MLB, going 20-9 in April and leading the NL Central Division.

Fast-forward to today and the Pirates have collapsed into the basement of their division, a 41-54 team sitting 11 games behind division-leading Milwaukee.

And I can’t help but think that the Pirates are the personification of the financial world in general, which is experiencing outsized, largely inexplicable gains flying in the face of investing’s immutable truths.

Some of those truths:

Long periods of yield curve inversion in debt instruments (long-term interest rates lower than short-term rates) such as we have been in for the past year or so, produce recessions.

Periods of dramatic interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, such as we are in now, produce recessions.

Rampant indebtedness, both public and private, as we are witnessing now, leads to economic slowdowns when credit demand no longer can be met.

Bank failures, and we’ve seen three of the four largest in U.S. history since March, are the sort of thing that speaks of stress in the financial system and economic dislocation.

And yet all is thought to be well in the investment world.

Long-deceased British economist John Maynard Keynes, patron saint of government deficit spending to produce economic vitality in the moment with nary a worry about long-term repayment problems (his pithy quote on same: “In the long run, we are all dead.”) would be rubbing his hands in glee at the current state of the world.

The United Nations reported recently that 52 countries worldwide are approaching debt default, unable to pay their mounting debt obligations with their current level of economic productivity.

The United States stayed off the list courtesy of yet another bump of the federal debt ceiling. But it’s long been noted that the United States would find itself on that list of default risks were it not for our dollar being the dominant world reserve currency. Along that line, nations such as China and Russia are said to be collaborating on a gold-backed currency to challenge the dollar on the world stage.

Yet investment markets seem to be able to ignore interest rate increases, mammoth debt levels, yield curve inversions and a raft of other traditionally negative markers as they race ever higher.

Speculative investment bubbles are mob mentality at its finest, with cautious voices being shouted down and marginalized.

Just last evening a daily show on CNBC, Fast Money, had a guest panel largely composed of bears (those expecting market declines) and they were called upon to account for themselves.

One additional guest, Sheila Bair, was yet another investment bear. This former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which guarantees bank deposits of small account holders ($250,000 per depositer per insured bank), has her worries about the future, too.

These doubters are not unlike those of us who earlier in the baseball season were confident the Pirates would sink in the standings, that baseball’s laws of economic reality had not been repealed.

Similarly, it would do the populace well to consider that economic reality in general also remains lurking behind the current mania.

It would not be wise to put a firm expiration date on what we are witnessing in the investment world. Keynes also weighed in on this sort of thing by stating, “Markets can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

But, eventually, the irrational gives way to the rational. The Pirates don’t win the division, but instead plumb its depths. Financial markets thought to be on their way ever upward, find themselves making like Humpty Dumpty, he of the great fall.

Word comes of the declining health of a member of the extended family.

First, some background.

Those of us who grew up in the area and attended the elementary schools of the Greater Johnstown School District in the 1960s got periodic news reel films courtesy of the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat that would be played in class to keep us up on world events. The recurring tag line repeated by the narrator was “The Tribune-Democrat, another member of your family.”

Back in those days, it sort of rang true. Everyone I knew subscribed to the newspaper. Many of my friends made a few bucks delivering the paper, and would try to recruit me or my brother to fill in for them when they went on vacation.

There were both morning editions and afternoon editions, but none on Sunday. That all changed in 1977.

My dad always got the afternoon edition and I was astounded to read the morning edition that my maternal grandmother subscribed to and find no scores on west coast Pirates games or other sporting events– too late for the press run. But if you got the afternoon edition, you got the complete results, albeit with a delay of maybe eight hours.

Remember, this was an era well before the internet, 24-hour sports cable networks, or cable news networks, or anything other than traditional broadcast networks. The evening news was half an hour of local stuff and half an hour of network feed.

The newspaper was a vital source of national as well as local news and sports.

These days, not so much. The aforementioned explosion of cable television outlets, the growth of the internet, including outlets such as Twitter that are fountains of breaking news, and changes in demography have rendered newspapers to a tiny, declining shell of what they once were.

For example, I’ve been told that on a night not too long ago, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat ran off just 10,000 print editions. That floored me. When I left the Tribune-Democrat sports department in 1994, circulation was in the low 50,000s.

When I first started working at the TD in 1974, I recall circulation numbers being talked about in the low 60,000s.

Memories of those days stand in stark contrast to current conditions. The newsroom back then was staffed day and night with reporters, editors and sports personnel. That was true of the composing and press rooms, too, as well as the circulation people.

There were times I reported for work while on the news staff and had a hard time finding a desk or typewriter (yes, we wrote on manual typewriters) to use.

The last time I visited the newsroom, even before the great COVID work-from-home craze, it was virtually abandoned. Same with other departments.

There used to be a photo gallery in the main floor lunch room with mug shots of all the employees. I wonder if they just bagged that now that the multi-panel display could be reduced substantially.

Expanding on newspaper circulation, those figures are a bit hard to find. I did some internet search and found a wikipedia entry for the Tribune-Democrat citing a daily circulation figure of 20,000 from way back in February 2007.

I understand that newspapers now have digital subscriptions and print on fewer days, so the print number would understate the total circulation. I can’t find any separate estimate for digital only subscriptions, but I’m fairly confident that would be a relatively small number compared to the print total, at least for The Tribune-Democrat.

Any way you slice it, The Tribune-Democrat, as another member of your family, is about as vibrant as Joe Biden.

Many current workers fear the place, now owned by yet another out-of-town chain, won’t be around in present form long enough for them to reach normal retirement.

Media retrenchment in general is only gaining steam. From ESPN axing copious amounts of staff, to CNN lightening its load, to the hallowed New York Times bagging its entire sports department, news is not good for media outlets.

It’s even worse for print media. There was a time when the smaller newspapers were thought to be relatively immune to the trend because they did not serve areas with enough population/potential circulation to attract national competition.

But rising costs and the willingness of the populace to get their “news” from questionable sources as long as it is free, have combined to hammer circulation.

Hold on to a few hard copies of The Tribune-Democrat. They are likely to be collector’s items in the not-too-distant future.

So many happenings, so little time, so here are some quick hits on topics of the moment.

• As anticipated, the freak summer snowstorm at the White House — the cocaine find in the West Wing — has been, to mix a metaphor, swept under the rug. The Secret Service pleads lack of evidence. Case closed. No fingerprints on the plastic bag? No surveillance footage? No prime suspects, such as a family member with admitted substance abuse problems? No problems with conflicting reports about where the drug was found? If you’re buying this pap, your brain has slipped out of gear.
• There was a story the other day about how Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, who played a president on a comedy TV series and now is doing the same in real life, was whining to his NATO backers at a recent summit that they have not been quick enough to keep money and armaments flowing to his corrupt country. An accompanying picture indicated Zelenskyy is height-challenged. I did some research and found his height listed as anywhere from 5-5 ¾ to 5-7. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is reported to stand between 5-4 and 5-7. What is it about little guys desperately seeking attention? Can you say Napoleon?
• Joe Biden’s handlers have hit upon the term Bidenomics as a catch-all to claim economic success under the Clueless One. Recently, they touted declining inflation numbers, with typical pick-and-choose methodology. When it suits them, they cite headline inflation, which measures a basket of good and services. That was reported at 3 percent in July, down from 9 percent a year earlier, but still above the Federal Reserve target of 2 percent. But core inflation, what the Fed actually watches and includes things such as housing costs, came in at a reported 4 percent, still twice the Fed’s target. And a report shows homelessness among Americans in 20 cities as of January 2023 had increased 37.6 percent above a year earlier. Add in mounting bankruptcies, credit card borrowing and general indebtedness and I’m not sure Biden wants to run for re-election based on the economic health of the populace.
• Still on the topic of government statistics, they are largely trash. Often revised after the fact, and toyed with in the moment, they show whatever modelers desire. For example, a report cites claims for jobless benefits falling last week, on a seasonably adjusted basis. If you take out that random “adjustment” the claims were the highest since January.
• Kudos to the local NBC affiliate for reporting news from Johnstown, not the usual Centre County menu. Alas, it is not favorable news. First, we were told how a honcho in the Cambria County Crimestoppers and his brother who has an “affiliation” with the Geistown Borough Police, have been charged with assaulting a man at a bar. Then came the report that the suspect in a fatal shooting outside another bar here, has been captured in New Jersey.
• An aside to the We-Need-Rain people, lamenting back-to-back days of good weather in our area, precipitation is on the way. I am writing this at 1:20 p.m. Thursday and accuweather.com is predicting a good chance of rain today and for the next nine consecutive days. Rejoice.

There is a longstanding tradition of blaming the messenger when the news is unpleasant.

To avoid that, there is a faction among the messengers who would put a positive spin on even the worst news. Think of the apocryphal man asking Abraham Lincoln’s wife “Besides that (your husband being shot during a performance at Ford’s Theatre) how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?”

Political mouthpieces in this country have elevated to an art form such verbal misdirection away from unpleasant news. But some unlikely sources, such as media members, are gaining on them.

Think of that widely lampooned CNN report on “mostly peaceful” protests, which was given against a background of video showing burning cars and buildings.

It makes me wonder exactly what sort of world these positive spin people inhabit. And that prompted a thought experiment, to attempt to find something positive about news — locally, nationally or internationally — from recent days.

Another Johnstown resident has been shot and killed by an out-of-towner . . .

. . . but at least the alleged shooter has been caught.

Our local Mill Rats baseball team has lost 13 of its past 14 games . . .

. . . but they scored a run in the Sunday loss.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have descended to fourth place in the NL Central after masquerading as division contenders earlier this season . . .

. . . but there was a win Sunday to warm the cockles of fans’ hearts during the All-Star break.

Even the leftist New York Times has called out Joe Biden for excluding Hunter’s illegitimate child as one of Joe’s seven (not six) grandchildren . . .

. . . but at least Joe ostensibly remembers the other six without a written cheat sheet.

Bud Light’s Woke embrace has seen the beer brand fall from ninth to 15^th on a list of most popular beers in the United States . . .

. . . dare we dream this is an early indicator that U.S. consumers are sick of having Woke propaganda shoved down their throats in the form of advertisements?

The New York Post and Business Insider separately have reported a rise in dumpster diving by consumers trying to cope with mounting food bills, even as Google reported searches for “pawn shop near me” at a record high . . .

. . . but the unemployment rates, inexplicably, continue to be reported as at or near record lows.

Paris, and France in general, continue to simmer with riots and violence, even as President Emmanuel Macron calls for bans on public demonstrations and social media shutdowns . . .

. . . but the French still make some fine wine.

Back in the days when I wrote for a living (this blog is just for fun) I had a column format Answer Man, in which I invented questions prompting answers that I also provided to make my points.

Today, no answers, just 20 questions, not to be mistaken with the deductive reasoning game in which a player has 20 yes or no questions to identify correctly a person, place or thing.

Here goes:

1. Has anyone heard official attendance/economic impact numbers from this year’s Thunder in the Valley?
2. If not, why not?
3. Who is responsible for the booming real estate market in the Greater Johnstown area in view of the area’s general economic malaise, 30-year mortgage rates in excess of 7 percent, and the area demographics of an aged population, traditionally downsizing rather than home-buying years?
4. Does anyone who is not totally in the tank for the leftists accept the lack of a explanation for how cocaine can just show up in the White House, arguably one of the most secure places in these United States?
5. And are we expected to swallow the talking point, already floated by left-wing house organ Politico, that in all likelihood the person who brought the drug in never will be identified, sort of like that Supreme Court leaker of the abortion decision just couldn’t be identified?
6. If cocaine had been discovered in the White House during Donald Trump’s presidency, how long would it have taken for him to be charged, tried and convicted, just for living there?
7. Will the stock market investors who had the incredible foresight or good luck to ride outsized first-half gains, let it ride in the second half, or begin cashing out?
8. Along that line, can we trust that market history will be rewritten and jacked up interest rates by the Federal Reserve, a long-running inversion of the yield curve, and other classic indicators of approaching economic problems will prove to be invalid?
9. Why do Clueless Joe Biden, Veep Kamala Harris and Biden’s press secretary hack all resort to laughing when asked tough questions instead of, say, trying to provide answers?
10. Is there a more representative example of the modern day Democratic Party than former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tried to turn his mediocre performance in that post into a presidential run, and now has gone public to note that he and his former (and perhaps soon to be again) lesbian wife are separating to date others, but will continue to live together?
11. Does anyone else reading about de Blasio and his wife hear a background of the Statler Brothers singing “You Can’t Have Your Kate And Edith, Too”?
12. Should we be concerned that our inept PR types of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet tweeted out a July 4 tribute to the forces with a solider saluting a surface ship and five planes in flight, odd in view of the fact that the ship and planes were Russian?
13. Is it wise to think that the more the Democrats take pot shots at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and demean his presidential campaign, the more attention we should pay to the guy?
14. While that rumored cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg seems to have been typical social media blather, can we agree that watching the two exchange barbs is probably as entertaining as the match would have been?
15. Did you ever witness a sporting competition in which you wished both sides could lose?
16. Can we really expect Mother Hubbard (Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen) to make any headway in relations during her trip to China?
17. Will the Greenies who point to Formula One and its hybrid racers (internal combustion and electric propulsion) as proof of the viability of electric cars everywhere, concede that Formula One cars also are finicky, high-strung thoroughbreds that require pit crews of 20 to 25 members, not to mention copious amounts of other support personnel to make it through a race with a minimum length of 190 miles?
18. Do you understand that if the inflation rate is 10 percent in Year A and 5 percent in Year B, yes, the inflation rate has slowed, but prices still are going up and are 15.5-percent higher after Year B? (NOTE: It’s 15.5 percent higher because the 5 percent rise in Year B is calculated on a 110 base – 100 percent plus the 10 percent increase in Year A)
19. Is it possible the Republicans could just wait for the cell door to slam shut on the Democratic scofflaw of the moment before crowing that they got him or her or it?
20. Are things soggy enough now that the area’s We Need Rain! people can take a break?

Holy Jonathan Swift, humanity hasn’t changed a lot in the just under 300 years since Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal.”

Perhaps anticipating the hoi polloi might not get the satirical point he was making, Swift had his essay published anonymously in 1729.

That turned out to be a bit unnecessary. While perhaps the very people Swift was supporting took it all too literally, this biting satire was understood all too well by the upper class types Swift was lampooning with it.

Swift wrote that the impoverished Irish might climb out of their economic despair by selling their children to the rich, who could then eat them. The point he was making, with hyperbolic absurdity, was not about selling children, but rather that the British generally treated the poor, and specifically the Irish poor, with unnecessary disdain. Their treatment, in Swift’s opinion, was no less ridiculous than his modest proposal.

We offer this history lesson because I enjoying writing satirically and/or with sarcasm, but I am told when my stuff gets cross-posted on social media, some people don’t get it. I’m trusting the handful of regular readers who come here by habit, not due to social media prompts, understand satire and sarcasm when they see it.

But, I will elaborate hoping to educate the rest of the readership.

Example: I recently wrote about NASCAR having a street race in Johnstown since we are Chicago’s smaller sister city in terms of crime and tourism. Good God, people, give me a little credit. I don’t really expect NASCAR to show up here to stage a race.

The point was that the Chicago event was not all the NASCAR spin masters made it out to be — in reality was more like spats on a pig — and that Johnstown is not the low-crime, tourism Mecca that our propagandists imagine it to be.

I’ve done a bit of internet research and see that people on Twitter help those who move their lips while reading to recognize sarcasm by including a hashtag-sarcasm. Other hints on social media in general apparently are (SARC) or an upside down smiling face emoji.

Again, if you read something here you can’t understand, please find a literate adult to translate for you. We’re not into emojis or hashtags.

And, while you are at it, look up the meaning of drama queen. There seems to be a big dose of psychological projection at work here, with one notable drama queen unable to self-recognize and instead accusing others of the behavior.

By the way, the above paragraph was not sarcasm.

Finally, to quote Joe Biden, “God save the Queen!”

If you recognized that last sentence as sarcasm, welcome to the enlightened club.