Editor’s Note: We take a break from hard news every Saturday morning to let Hermina Hermelinda Obregon, a.k.a. Miss Mingo, share her insights with readers. She’s a recovering newspaper reporter living in a bungalow off Duval Street in Key West. At least that’s what her official biography says, if you can believe that. She answers the pressing questions of the day about life, the news, and the best happy hour prices.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
Now that the Orange Trouser Stain has issued an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, will all the textbooks in U.S. schools have to be changed? Oh, and did everyone have to get new geography books when that idiot earlier renamed the Gulf of Mexico? And how worried should we be about his behavior, which strikes me as slightly odd?
Nameless in Niceville
Dear Nameless:
Slightly odd?
As in Jeffrey Dahmer’s table manners were slightly rude? Or Genghis Khan had a small anger management issue? Or George Santos has a tiny honesty challenge?
Let’s call a spade a spade. Donald Trump is out of his ever-loving mind. He’s nuts. Over the edge. Bonkers. He should no more be entrusted with the power of the presidency than a misbehaving toddler should be given a lit stick of dynamite.
But to your larger question.
Textbooks in some red states were indeed changed after Trump issued an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Florida is singled out in that regard because Trump’s Mini Me in the governor’s mansion, Ron DeSantis, was tickled to follow suit and signed legislation requiring the state’s textbooks be revised to include the new moniker.
It should be noted that executive orders by Trump or shiftless governors are pure poppycock and political stunts. It’s still the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s still Lake Ontario. Trump or DeSantis or whichever interchangeable MAGA part can scrawl all the orders they want—and they can force their flunkies to follow those orders—but they have utterly no meaning to the rest of the world and will, soon, hopefully, be reversed when the adults return to the room
I do wonder, though, if Trump gave a heads-up through his new Truth Social “early warning” scheme to Wall Street investors that he was about to take a Sharpie to the map again. I can only imagine textbook makers rejoicing, knowing that at least in some states they now get to sell revised textbooks.
But that’s just me being cynical.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
I’m sure you’ll be getting lots of questions on this topic, but I have to wonder if this Lake Ontario business isn’t deja vu all over again. Don’t the Canadians control passage through portions of the Great Lakes? Like Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz? Didn’t Trump learn anything?
Mystified in Merritt Island
Dear Mystified:
Yes, they do, and no, he didn’t.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
Who was Jeffrey Dahmer? Sorry, but I was in a coma for several years and I’m just catching up.
Ill in Islamorada
Dear Ill:
Hope you are feeling better. When you think bat-shit crazy, you think Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a serial killer and cannibal who was beaten to death by a fellow prisoner in 1994. Before his incarceration, Dahmer spent years killing 17 men and boys and eating them. When he was finally arrested, cops found four intact human heads in his freezer. He redefined what it meant to be invited over for dinner.
Mentioning Trump and Dahmer in the same breath does not imply their behaviors mirror one another. There is no evidence whatsoever that Trump has eaten any of his victims nor that he has personally killed anyone. He has ICE agents and missiles for that.
Best we can tell, his diet consists of Big Macs with their “all-beef” patties. Which explains how he has gained 23 pounds over the past three years.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
You used the phrase “call a spade a spade.” That must be something older people say because I have never heard of it. Where does that saying come from?
Young in Yeehaw Junction
Dear Young:
Oh, to be young again especially in Yeehaw Junction.
Despite what some people may think, it has nothing to do with playing cards. The saying comes from ancient Greece, where the historian Plutarch used the phrase: “To call a fig a fig and a trough a trough.”
This got mistranslated by someone who thought “trough” was a digging tool and became a “spade.” And it stuck.
So, yes, it is a phrase used by older people. Very older people.
Got a question for Miss Mingo? About life, the news, or the origin of ancient idioms? Write to her at MissMingo@Tropic.Press.
Want to know more about Miss Mingo? How she got her start? And whether she really lives with two cats—Deadline and Dateline—and a pet iguana named Skippy? You can find her official biography, such as it is, here. If you’re bar hopping on Duval Street in Key West and spot an intriguing woman in a pink hat that you suspect might be Miss Mingo, you can always offer to buy her a Cuba Libre. Will it actually be her? Is there an actual her? Life’s a mystery.
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