“What the flip?” An insider's guide to Mormon-speak 

Praise the Lord! The Salt Lake Tribune has published a holy glossary for heathens so folks like Wilson and the band can better translate what Mormons are saying. For example: “Celestial Kingdom—When members speak of heaven, they usually mean the Celestial Kingdom.”

It's a public service for people like those moving here from Austin, Texas. To help, the staff here at Smart Bomb added more info to this new Deseret Dictionary:

Flip: The Mormon term for another F-word—e.g., “What the flip.”
Garbage: The LDS word for excrement—e.g., “Can you believe that garbage.”
Gentile: Heathens who are targets of Mormon missionaries and who must be saved by dunking them in water.
Jack Mormon: A lost soul who has strayed from righteousness and needs help to quit their sinning ways.
Apostate: A Jack Mormon who is beyond saving and must be kept away from women and children.
Baptism for the dead: Mormons can baptize anyone and meet them in the Celestial Kingdom. That way, everyone gets to heaven, including Adolf Hitler and Anne Frank. For real.
Word of Wisdom: Always take two Mormons fishing—that way they won't drink the beer.

A Nation of Slobs
America owes Fonzi a big wet kiss—or does it? T-shirts and jeans are now the uniform of … just about everyone. And this country's big dress-down has spread like COVID from Italy to Argentina and from Russia to Morocco.

John Fetterman, the recently-elected U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, is famous for the hoodies and shorts he sports around the Capitol. Last week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer relaxed the official Senate dress code, setting the stage for god-knows-what.

Hold on Wilson, the band might think that's cool, but have you ever returned to this country and landed at JFK or LAX? You can tell you're back in the states because people in the airport are wearing bad looking T-shirts, flip-flops and basketball shorts exposing rear cleavage. Yech. Land of the free, home of the slobs.

Sure, Marlon Brando looked good in a T-shirt and denim in A Streetcar Named Desire, but the middle-aged guy at the airport Starbucks in the saggy jeans and gut hanging out of his Raiders tee doesn't recall the Fonz. It's gotten so bad that gangsters don't even dress up anymore.

Rich people dress down, too, but their jeans cost $600, the sneakers $300 and the tees—who knows. At least their but-crack isn't showing. Call it “slob chic.” If you're a real slob, this could be a good year for you. But pull up your shorts—please.

The Chaos Caucus and the Grand Inquisition
Feeling dysfunctional? Cheer up. Compared to the U.S. House of Representatives—or should we say Clown House—you're practically normal. Even Wilson and the band look upstanding compared to this lot.

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan did his impression of a Grand Inquisitor looking to torch Hunter Biden, who was in scurrilous cahoots with then-V.P. Joe Biden plotting heresy and kickbacks. In the committee's dock, Attorney General Merrick Garland was roughed up by inquisitors, snarling that he dished Hunter—and therefore his father—special treatment while going after conservatives like Queen Isabella beheading Moors in the Spanish Inquisition.

Why, the Grand Inquisitor demanded, did then-president Donald Trump appoint U.S. Attorney David C. Weiss to investigate Hunter? “The fix was in.” Huh? What?

Beyond the buffoonish prelude to the impeachment of President Biden, Republicans dueled in House corridors with a cadre of far-right saboteurs who were playing government-shutdown chicken with hapless Speaker Kevin McCarthy—window dressing for their real agenda of scaling back Ukraine aid and imposing social policy dictates on abortion and gender. Oh, and one more thing—they want Kevin McCarthy's head on a spike. Call it Making America Great Again.

Postscript—That's a wrap for another spacey week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of asteroids so you don't have to. Get this Wilson, seven years ago, NASA launched an unmanned spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx to collect a sample of the 4 billion-year-old asteroid Bennu that's only one-third of a mile wide.

Hovering over the asteroid, the spacecraft's robotic arm scooped up eight ounces of space dirt and returned to Earth's orbit, dropping the stuff off in a capsule that landed in the west desert bombing range at Dugway Proving Ground here in Utah. The molecular material of the sample could provide clues to our planet's origins.

Then OSIRIS-REx flew off to its next stop—the asteroid Apophis, with a scheduled encounter in 2029. Simply amazing. Of course, we can't pass a budget or convince conservatives that Earth is imperiled by climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels. But people love science. Well, some people, anyway. Others watch TV, talk on cell phones and drive cars but don't believe in science. Vaccination—nah.

Funny, isn't it, Wilson? Did a man walk on the moon or was it just a sophisticated hoax, like 9-11? There are so many hoaxes now. With Donald Trump alone, there are dozens and dozens. Maybe we didn't go to Bennu after all.

OK Wilson, to say the Republican Party is all flipped up would be an understatement. They've got the entire country sittin' in limbo. What's a mother to do? We shouldn't worry about what we can't control but there's this existential doom hanging over us and it's not an asteroid. Well, flip it. Tell the band to crack open the beers and get us on outta here:

Sitting here in limbo
But I know it won't be long
Sitting here in limbo
Like a bird without a song
Well, they're putting up a resistance
But I know that my faith will lead me on

Sitting here in limbo
Waiting for the dice to roll
Yeah, now, sitting here in limbo
Got some time to search my soul
Well, they're putting up a resistance
But I know that my faith will lead me on

Sitting here in limbo
Waiting for the tide to flow
Sitting here in limbo
Knowing that I have to go
Well, they're putting up a resistance
But I know that my faith will lead me on

I don't know where life will take me
But I know where I have been
I don't know what life will show me
But I know what I have seen
Tried my hand at love and friendship
That is past and gone
And now it's time to move along

Sitting in limbo, sitting in limbo
Limbo limbo, sitting in limbo
“Sitting in Limbo”—Jimmy Cliff