February 13

February 13. As you might have expected, Facebook friends, the Jourmudgeon this week offers his expanded New Hampshire Primary and Super Bowl coverage. Other news — continued armed anarchy and a key discovery about the nature of the universe – obviously could not compete in importance:
1. After leading in the polls for months, Donald Trump won the New Hampshire Republican Primary convincingly over surprise second-place finisher John Kasich, 35-16. Those aren’t percentages, those are actual vote totals, numbers that validate the emphasis placed on New Hampshire by candidates, cable news networks, pundits and the handful of big donors who spend nearly a billion dollars every four years to buy a president. Ted Cruz, who finished a distant third after narrowly winning the Iowa caucuses a week earlier, cried foul. “I can prove that the Kasich campaign drove several carloads of sane people to the polls,” Cruz said. “I am an expert on the Constitution, and the Constitution clearly bans sane people from voting in Primary Elections.”
2. In the Democratic Socialist primary, meanwhile, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton 60-38. Instead of a concession speech before cheering supporters, Clinton abruptly reversed her stance on gun control, called former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and feminist icon Gloria Steinem to the stage, and invited them to take turns repeatedly shooting her in the foot. They were happy to oblige.
3. The day after finishing a distant sixth in New Hampshire, Chris Christie decided he had had enough fun as the class bully, most recently at a hapless Marco Rubio’s expense in Saturday’s Republican debate. Christie dropped out of the race Wednesday after his campaign staff convinced him his run for the president was a traffic-snarled bridge too far. Carly Fiorina’s campaign ended the same day, as voters did what Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors did 10 years ago: They fired her.

Fortunately, the networks were able to pay for their New Hampshire fetish because of the size of the carryover audience from Sunday’s Super Bowl:
1. Anticipating the usual outcome of the World’s Greatest Sporting Spectacle Except for a Bunch of Things That Happen Outside the United States That Americans Naturally Don’t Care About, organizers of this year’s landmark event switched from the iconic Roman numerals that had characterized the first XLIX games to “50” when they realized that “L,” the corresponding Roman numeral, was hip slang for Loser. But another crisis arose when NFL officials realized that 50 is an Arabic number.
2. In a co-opting of hip slang that wasn’t suppressed, however, millions of Carolina Panthers fans adopted Quarterback Cam Newton’s signature “dabbing” to celebrate a touchdown, not realizing that the gesture, supposedly a dance move originating in the Atlanta hip-hop culture, actually mimics the coughing fit stoners engage in after a really awesome toke of reefer. When it comes to co-opting stuff, middle class old white people need to learn to just say no.
3. The NFL’s long-standing support for youth sports and promoting family values once again manifested itself as the three-week-long pregame show featured the finals of the annual Punt, Pass and Traumatic Brain Injury Competition, played out by unusually large 13-year-olds from all over the country. The winner had to demonstrate, in the best of three tries, that he was able to remember his first and last, but not middle, names.
4. A performer who calls herself Lady Gag and whose hair, makeup and costume were apparently done by Helen Keller proved to 110 million viewers during the pregame show that “The Star Spangled Banner” is really a torch song, and is meant to go on forever.
5. A moving ceremonial coin toss featured every NFL team’s designated spouse or partner abuser. Each player in turn called “heads” or “tails” to determine where he would be allowed to strike his victim.
6. As it does every year, the Super Bowl broadcast attracted millions of viewers who care little about football but tune in for the combination of wit, whimsy and controversy that have become the hallmark of Super Bowl commercials. This year’s didn’t disappoint. Among the highlights were a Marmot ad celebrating the adorable side of bestiality, and a snack-food commercial that brought immediate protests from right-to-life groups for demonstrating how a bag of Doritos can be used to perform third-trimester abortions.
7. The sum of all fears of millions of Tom Clancy fans that the game would be the target of a terrorist attack was briefly realized when a band of huge helmeted figures in uniforms seized control of the field and began trying to play football. After brief but intense contract negotiations, NFL authorities were able to blunt the offensive, and the halftime show went on as scheduled.
8. Fans were delighted by that traditional extravaganza, which this year featured the band Cold Sore. But the start of the second half was delayed for 20 minutes while a phalanx of workers attempted to roll Beyonce’s thighs off the field.
9. The game itself finally lived up to all the hype. In one of the broadcast’s most spellbinding moments, Maggie Smith had to be helped off the Downton Abbey estate and treated for a concussion after she suffered a blindside hit by Penelope Wilton. The hit happened during a play in which the central authority in York took over the village hospital, long controlled by the Grantham family. It was without question the most exciting thing to happen on prime-time television Sunday night.
10. In the postgame hagiography for winning Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, it was revealed on Facebook – so it must be true – that Manning had paid for a tailored suit for one of the Broncos’ practice players so the young man could wear something decent on the team bus. Not to be outdone, Cam Newton hurried away from the post-Super Bowl news conference to offer the guy his spare laptop.
11. Finally, in a much-anticipated denouement, Manning tearfully announced his retirement from making TV commercials. “You can’t sell millions of people all that crap they don’t need if you’re not willing to give 110 percent all the time,” Manning said. “You could probably see in my postgame interview that when I said I was going to drink a lot of Budweiser, my heart just really wasn’t in it. But while I am retiring, I hope I can continue to be involved in separating gullible fools from their money in some capacity. The ad game has given me so much, I hope to give something back. Not money.”

And, finally, the less important stuff:
1. Scientists who spent billions of dollars on a highly sensitive antenna instead of signing up for iTunes detected a noise from a billion light years away (nearly the distance from Iowa to New Hampshire) that they say is the gravitational wave resulting from two black holes colliding. They say the noise took so long to reach Earth that the insurance companies for each black hole actually have had time to reach a settlement. Also, both objects have had Starbucks for 400 million years. But, reassuring the public that the objects are nowhere near as advanced as Earth, scientists say they still don’t have soy milk.
2. The last four holdouts who were protesting the low prices they pay the United States government for grazing rights surrendered at a federal bird sanctuary in Oregon. Vowing to take to court their fight to privatize government land so they can pay through the nose to use it, three protesters walked out together on Thursday morning. A fourth carried on a rambling exchange that was streamed live for another 90 minutes. The 27-year-old finally gave up when Evangelist Billy Graham’s son Franklin assured him that the federal government would never, ever again make him do anything he doesn’t want to, including going to bed early, and FBI agents assured him that he could keep his animal crackers and his blankey in jail, but probably not his rifle. Unless Congress changes the gun laws again.