My left hand is cramped up like a claw and I refuse to fold the sheets in the dryer.

In this post: Kvetch report, a twerking Einstein, another Putz of the Week.

I’m having one of those days. You know, with a growing list of irritating crap that I can’t do anything about. So far I’m dealing with my typical diabetic autonomic neuropathy issues — lousy bladder control, I can’t taste my food, I’m lightheaded every time I stand up and low body temperature — in addition to way too much sneezing, my right eye is dripping, my head hurts, my left hand is cramped up like a claw and I refuse to fold the sheets in the dryer.

On the plus side, however, I’m having a much better day than the Einstein in this video, who was trying to make a sexy “twerking” tape for her boyfriend. Turn down the volume if you’re wearing headphones!

For our latest Putz of the Week award we’re honoring a school counselor named Thomas Kersting, who told an interviewer this week on Fox News that hungry students would have a “teaching moment” if they were turned away in the lunch line because mom or dad hadn’t filled out the right paperwork to secure their free or reduced-cost meals. He also agreed wholeheartedly with a jackass school superintendent in New Jersey who instructs lunch room staff to wait until the poor little kid gets to the cashier and then dump his tray of food in the trash if he doesn’t have any money. Kersting’s actual comment was: “We have more food than any other nation. No kid is going to starve. You know, if one day a kid doesn’t have lunch, maybe that’s a teaching moment ... we’ve got to get people to start being responsible for themselves.”

This smug moron is a SCHOOL COUNSELOR, people, who earns his living as a student advocate and therapist but obviously hasn’t got a clue that, for most poor children, a free school lunch is usually THEIR ONLY MEAL OF THE DAY. Would he want somebody to withhold lunch from his hungry six-year-old? This is such typical, tragic, right-wing horseshit ... WORSHIP THE FETUS BUT STARVE THE CHILD. Wouldn’t Kersting’s face look better with two black eyes?

I’d better move on to other subjects now before I have a stroke. New fonts first.

And now, a movie review! A couple of days ago Sam and I saw Juarez, a 1939 Warner Bros. biography blockbuster starring Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne and an all-star supporting cast as they attempted to intertwine several uninteresting plots.

The setting is Mexico in 1863. Paul Muni is Benito Juarez, the country’s president on-the-run (his office is actually a moving stagecoach “concealed” under a white bedsheet) who dresses like a midget Abraham Lincoln and spouts prose about democracy with lots of background music. His right-hand man is John Garfield. He’s painted brown and has a Brooklyn accent.

Also in the cast are Brian Aherne and Bette Davis as Emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlota, Austrian royals who get shipped to Mexico by Napoleon III to unseat Juarez and establish a monarchy that’s friendly to France. Claude Rains plays Napoleon, who’s basically the same character as his snotty Prince John in Robin Hood the year before. (Claude Rains really nails the snotty thing.) When Maximilian and Carlota finally figure out that their reign is a fraud, she: 1) hops a fast boat back to Paris; 2) has a screaming fit all over Claude; and 3) goes insane. Max stays home to face a firing squad. (I don’t think this is a comedy.)

Others in the talented cast included Gilbert Roland, Donald Crisp, Louis Calhern, Gail Sondergaard and Harry Davenport ... none of whom could save this insufferable dud of a film. The only real stars were Brian Aherne’s insane hair and beard, since the studio apparently insisted on making him look exactly like the real Emperor Maximilian, who appears below.

Wow. It’s already 7:30 p.m. and I haven’t done much of anything today except eat canned corned beef and take a nap! Maybe it’s not too late to actually get something done around here, so I think I’ll start with the dishes in the sink and move on from there. Thank you for reading this and please have a pleasant evening.