I’ll let you evaluate what I’m about to write based upon which side of the Woke spectrum your views fall, but few observers of any political persusasion think Joe Biden aced his first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. In fact, the universal verdict seems to fall somewhere between professional embarassment and dementia.

To me, the spectacle brought forth recollections of two literary classics. You can choose whether the president or the nation’s predominant (left-obsessed) media fall into which one. The first literary reference I drew from the debate was to Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” wherein a vain ruler hires tailors who create imaginary clothes to update his wardrobe, the results of which he wears in public. The public goes along until a child (leave it to the mouths of babes) blurts out that “the emperor has no clothes.”

The other literary touchpoint is “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” which became a Judy Garland-starring movie titled “The Wizard of Oz.” This children’s tale by L. Frank Baum consists of several characters, many of them being the creation of the fictional Wizard himself, who ruled over Oz, or what was also called The Emerald City. Toward the end of the story, the Wizard is exposed as a phony and his creations — the Tin Woodman, the Lion, the Witches and the Scarecrow — are revealed as likewise.

As I mentioned earlier, both Joe Biden and the nation’s media masters could fall into either or both tales/camps. I guess we will have to leave it to Judy Garland to find the answer for us somewhere “Over the Rainbow.”

Dr. Ben Carson on a TV show brought up the name and memory of inventor Elijah McCoy as the derivation for the phrase “The Real McCoy,” which is used to signify that something is genuine, the real deal (another phrase worth investigating), and generally a word construction signifiying authenticity.

Eljiah McCoy was an engineer of African-American descent who invented, among other things, a lubrication method that facilitated train travel. He also developed designs for an ironing board, a lawn sprinkler, and other devices. His oil-drip cup, the device that facilitated lubrication on trains, was quickly ripped off and employed by competitors using their own variations. His original design, according to legend, however, remained “The Real McCoy.”

That is just one explanation for how the phrase “The Real McCoy” came into existence. Another namesake for the phrase — which I find interesting as a one-time bon vivant of alcoholic beverages (I am Irish, after all) — is a smuggler named Willy McCoy, who brought Irish Whiskey into the U.S. during prohibition. His whiskey reportedly became famous as “The Real McCoy.”

I’ll drink to that, but iced tea only in my teatotaler days.

I’d never vote for the guy, but I must say that “Bernie Sanders is right!” (to copy a much-used and -abused construction from “Blazing Saddles”).

Every nation should copy Sweden, not because it’s what The Bern thinks is the perfect socialist society (which it’s not, being instead a highly capitalistic but highly taxed nation). It’s because Sweden was the only nation that got the pandemic response correct: Do as little as possible except take those in most danger out of harm’s way. Sweden now has herd immunity, which is far superior to any vaccine, which at best will be 50 percent effective and which 40 percent of Americans say they’ll never take.

Recent studies (see today’s Wall Street Journal) affirm that, in the U.S., those states and communities that locked down the hardest ended up killing off the most people by percentage of population, while those that did the least lost the least. Hmmmmm….

Which brings up my headline about “an abundance of,” which throughout the pandemic was used by politicians with “caution,” to signify, “We’re going to save your life by locking you up at home.”

(Now critics will point out that Sweden had more deaths than its neighboring countries, such as Norway, which locked down, but remember, Sweden has perfected Bernie’s “Medicare for All” approach by rationining health care: If you’re too old and too expensive to keep alive: “Here’s some morphine. See ya later.”)

The next time someone says they’re doing something for you out of “an abundance of” whatever, run as quickly as you can and do just the opposite of what they’re proposing.

I always wondered why a super-sale event would bear the name “Black Friday.”

Thanks to my friends at Numerologist.com, I now have an answer, to wit:

In the 1950s, Philadelphia would host the annual Army-Navy football match on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Fans would begin arriving the day before, thronging to shops and eateries and you name it. Store owners were overwhelmed, and soon began complaining about Black Friday — the deluge of shoppers and lookie-loos that they could barely handle.

There ya go. However, the Army-Navy game is no longer held on the Saturday after T-Day, so we’re left just with Black Friday. Nationwide.

Answer: Ignorance? Snobbery?

GIF (or Graphics Interchange Format) is a file compression standard that allows images to load more quickly on a webpage.

Note that the word graphics uses a hard “g” sound, not a soft “g” or “j” sound. To this day, though, the web cognoscenti (snobs, in other words) insist that the word should be pronounced JIF.

Prove why. There’s nothing in the originating words to support a “j” sound.

Or, better yet, who cares? If they want to JIF themselves, let them.

This is what I get for living in a city that rolls up its sidewalks at 7:30 a.m. every morning (after they unroll at 7:29) and that goes completely dark on Easter and Christmas (i.e., every bar and restaurant shuts down):

Driving around Riverside (Calif.) this Easter Sunday, I saw a temporary wall encircling a new establishment, with the announcement: “Rising Soon: Donut Bar,” so I figured it would be a donut shop,  you know, with coffee and stuff.

Then it hit me. At the very end of the wall was the photo shown here: A glass of beer with donuts! Are they serious? Are they onto something new, or just plain nuts?

Find out at donutbar.com. (And no, I’m not getting free fat pills to promote their new shop.)

This is an easy one. Use whichever one sounds better in your writing. They mean the same thing.

Point to remember: Till came into use before until, so it is not an abbreviation of the latter. It must always have two l’s.