Monday, December 09, 2019

Stock

There's the stock we use for making soup. Boiling a carcass until the meat separates from the bone and all the juices have been absorbed.
Taking stock is when you take inventory. Checking to see what is left on the shelves and what may have drifted out the door.
The stock market is where shares are traded. If you have enough money, you can trade it for a tiny piece of a company.
A rifle has a stock. It comes at the end that tends to be for holding, rather than killing. Sometimes there is a compass in the stock. Sometimes there's a bump.
You could come from healthy stock. Or not. Depending on where your family originated, you might be good or healthy stock.
If you owned a farm, you might keep your stock in a pen. And not the fountain kind, since they probably wouldn't fit.
But none of these are exactly what I brought you here to talk about today. I would like to discuss "laughing stock."
More specifically, I would like to discuss how the rest of the world views our "president." At a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last week, a group of European leaders were caught on video discussing the great big orange elephant that was not currently in the room. Canada's Justin Trudeau, Britain's Boris Johnson, and France's Emmanuel Macron can be seen in a group, chatting up one another. They all have the same "can you believe it?" expression as they relate their experience dealing with the United States' chief executive. Mister Johnson can be seen turning to Mister Macron with a smirk, asking “Is that why you were late?” – only for Canada’s premier to interject: “He was late because he takes a forty-minute press conference off the top”, in an apparent reference to our "president," as Mister Macron had just come from a joint press conference with the "president." Trudeau finishes off the exchange, “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor!” A real chucklefest. 
Except this isn't an open mic, with comedians waiting their turn on stage. These are world leaders making fun of our "president." They continue to try and do their jobs as they continue to run afoul of this arrogant poseur who never met a person, foreign or domestic, that he could not offend. 
What to do? Toss him into a pot and boil him? Put him out to pasture? 
It's time to take stock.  

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