Everywhere I go I find a pal

Peter Weinschenk, Editor, The Record-Review

I am looking into a conspiracy. And, no, it has nothing to do with elections.

Rather, it has to do with pizza.

I am convinced that somebody, perhaps even centuries ago, invented the round pizza with a nefarious motive. It was to skimp on toppings.

Anybody who has made a homemade pizza knows that you can put a ton more toppings–cheese, sausage, ham, onions and pineapple–on a rectangular shaped pizza than on the standard circular pie. It’s just a fact of geometry.

My guess is that the original pizza was square. It offered plenty of toppings. Over time, pizza makers literally cut one corner after the other because they were stingy with toppings. After many years, the square pizza was round.

These days, we accept the round pizza as standard, a square pizza as an impostor. That is only because nobody will believe in the Great Pizza Conspiracy.

Now, not all pizzas are round. There is Detroit-style pizza, which is rectangular. It, however, uses brick cheese. Weird.

What we need in the world of pizza is a new geometry with a new rallying cry “Pie Are Not Round, Pie Are Square!”

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I spent seven hours on Saturday listening to a joint Wisconsin senate and assembly committee investigate the Nov. 3 presidential election.

It was a marathon session of angry and frustrated complaints, but, in my view, no evidence was presented that could conceivably be the basis of overturning Joe Biden’s win in the state.

My state senator Kathy Bernier, a Republican, a member of the committee, said that both legislators and citizens needed to listen to one another and treat each other with respect.

I am sympathetic to that, but I do have a question.

As a taxpayer, I pay for my local poll workers, the county voting machines, the county canvass committee, the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the federal and state courts, including the state Supreme Court. I do so happily. I want to support our democracy and have accurately counted elections.

But now people, including some in Sen. Bernier’s own party, continue to fight the result that the election system I helped pay for came up with and, under challenge, has repeatedly confirmed.

How does that respect me as a taxpayer?

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I just spent the last three weeks deepcleaning my wood shop. After my big back porch project, my entire shop was covered with a fine, greasy yellowish African exotic wood dust. I really wanted to get rid of that dust, fearing it could be a bit toxic.

So I vacuumed and washed every machine, every inch of wall and floor and even took the shop vac to 36 open containers of bolts, screws, Allen wrenches and miscellaneous stuff. It was mind numbing, slow work.

But now my shop glistens and even has a springtime fresh smell.

There is, course, only one thing to do with a perfectly pristine, dust-free shop.

Make her dirty again.