Opinion: Stubbed toe was Biden's doing, Trump tells Martian…

 

Opinion: by Jim Heffernan- published in the DuluthNewsTribune/May14, 2025

Here’s the latest fake news that’s unfit to print...

 WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, seen limping on the White House lawn, said today that he stubbed his toe in the Lincoln bathroom due to a remodeling project in 2003 ordered by former President Joe Biden.

 

“It’s Biden’s fault,” Trump asserted. He assured reporters that his stubbed toe would “heal soon” and his gait would return to normal. He said the injury would not prevent him from golfing. “That’s what golf carts are for.”

 

Describing the incident, he said he had just emerged from a shower in which “I washed my beautiful hair despite an inadequate shower head” when his bare foot hit a commode that had been ordered moved by Biden, resulting in the injury.

 

Observers said this is the first time in American history that toilet routines of a U.S. president had been a subject of public discussion and concern. A president’s bare feet have never been an issue in the past.

 

It was the latest surprise incident involving the 78-year-old president who had recently completed the first 100 days in office in his second term. Observers were shocked when the patriotic president appeared in public without an American flag lapel pin on his blue suit.

 

When it was pointed out in the daily press briefing to raven-haired press secretary Dartha Vader, the session was immediately ended and media members were ushered from the White House as Secret Service personnel converged on the Rose Garden, sunglasses affixed.

 

When the area had been secured, it was announced that the lapse was the fault of former President Biden whose remodeling project in the Lincoln bathroom had discombobulated President Trump, who was still groggy after his usual three hours of sleep. “He just woke up…er, not woke but he’d just awakened,” a spokeswoman said.  “The president is never woke.”

 

The American flag pin was returned to his lapel a few minutes later as the president presided over an Oval Office gathering honoring aliens from Mars whose arrival by flying saucer after the 2024 election had been covered up for security reasons by former President Biden before leaving office.

 

“These are fine aliens who are a great credit to Mars, where the United States soon will visit,” Trump said. “Biden placed the United States at great risk by not welcoming them to the White House when they demanded: ‘Take me to your leader,’ although Biden was no leader,” Trump went on.

 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other cabinet members praised Trump for his effusive welcoming of the Martians. “You are the greatest greeter of space aliens since the cast of ‘ET’,” Rubio asserted to the smiling president who adopted a humble demeanor for the first time since his inauguration in January. 

 

Close associates of the president said it was likely the Martians were sent to America by God when the country finally elected a leader worthy of the title “leader” in intergalactic terms. “God would never have done such a thing when Biden, who was more interested in remodeling the Lincoln bathroom than making peace with the universe, was president,” an aide rhapsodized.

 

For his part, Trump reportedly asked the space visitors if they’d ever stubbed their three-inch toes.

 

Film at 10.

 

jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Largely true confessions of a classical music nut...

Johann Sebastian Bach (Wikipedia)

Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/5-3-25 It’s not exactly Bob Dylan or Prince, I was thinking as, arms waving, I conducted a large symphony orchestra. Resounding through the concert hall was the second movement of Beethoven’s sixth symphony (the one with the great thunderstorm). The concert hall was our living room, with nobody home, the CD player blaring. My own Homegrown Music Festival.

 

I wouldn’t dare do such a thing if anyone was watching. Enter the men in white coats. (They’ll be back!)

 

Can’t help it though. I’m a classical music nut, have been since childhood, a proclivity that has survived through dozens of musical genres I have listened to during my long life, including the estimable Mr. Dylan — more on whom later.

 

I was in my teens in high school when Elvis hit and he changed everything in popular music. I thought he was great, even though I maintained my suppressed love of classical music in my high school years, attempting to be “cool” (and failing). Brahms is great, but not cool, like Chubby Checker.

 

Before Elvis, much popular music could only be looked upon today as “sappy.” The 1950s radio was humming with such songs as “How Much is that Doggie in the Window (arf-arf)” and “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane” (tribute to a newborn). How about “On the Baby’s Knuckle or the Baby’s Knee, Where Will the Baby’s Dimple Be?” Great questions of our time. Or that time, I guess. Oh, can’t forget “The Shrimp Boats are a-Comin’, There’s Dancin’ Tonight.” But not the “Peppermint Twist.”

 

I always had classical music to fall back on though, earworm-wise.

 

It goes back a long way in my life, to fairly early childhood. There was a lot of classical music in my growing-up home because my mother was an accomplished pianist who played it on our piano. Plus, we had recordings of some of the great composers.  Bach was big, Bing not so much.  

 

Once as a child I was on a program in our church parlors in which Sunday school kids were interviewed. I was six or seven years old. When they got to me, the adult interviewer asked me several questions and it came out that I liked music. 

 

“What kind of music do you like? I was asked.

 

“Certainly not Shostakovich,” was my response.

 

People in the audience roared with laughter in appreciation of this rebuke of a Russian composer. One woman hugged me. It was when the Cold War was heating up right after World War II and anything anti-Russian was appreciated in America. 

 

At that moment I decided I would grow up to be president of the United States but it turns out I had to settle for living room maestro. Ironically, later in life I grew of appreciate Dmitri Shostakovich’s music, although I’m not that crazy about trying to spell his name. Google knows how.

 

Still, the music goes on and on, as do the years. I thought the folk singing Kingston Trio was pretty cool in the early ‘60s and also embraced some jazz — Shearing, Brubeck — but classical music from the romantic era (largely 19th Century) has remained my staple although I also can also go for baroque and dip into the 20th Century. Remember that century?

 

Beatles? I missed being a fan, but they have their moments. What about rock ’n’ roll? It can’t be avoided. If it could, I would. I once I wrote “I’ve got a right to hate the blues” in a column and got hate mail. Prince is huge, but not for me. My rain ain’t purple. Sorry, kids. (My own kids, great fans.)

 

Can’t forget Country/Western. It’s tuneful, I admit. I once wrote a Country/Western song called “It’s a One Woman Kitchen/She’s Out There Cookin’ All the Time” that went over big in the doghouse.

 

Moving on in the world of music: What about hip-hop? Many of my generation are hopping to their orthopedic surgeons to see about getting new hips. Being a registered geezer, that’s all I have to say about that genre. (Don’t tell my grandchildren.)

 

Why all this now? Bob Dylan has suddenly reappeared in our lives with a recent concert in Mankato, Minn, that has received quite a bit of attention in his home state, as has the movie about his early life, “A Complete Unknown.” Saw it. Liked it.

 

Being such a stuffy classical music guy, it has taken me a long time to appreciate Dylan’s art but I have come to realize he is a brilliant thinker, a gifted poet and a talented musician with a plain singing voice for conveying his thoughts. Grand opera it ain’t, though.

 

Dylan’s ability to stay in the public eye and maintain his enormous popularity for 65 years while seeming not to care is unique. He has never sought glory in his birth town or where he grew up — Duluth and Hibbing. If I had done that well, I’d have demanded a ticker-tape parade.

  

My sticking with classical music in these troubled times can be upsetting though. In a restless overnight dream, I failed to pull the drapes while conducting the massive Gustav Mahler Second Symphony (titled “Resurrection”) and somebody must have seen me waving my arms and reported it.

 

Glancing outside in my dream I noticed two strange men approaching the house. They were wearing white coats. That was okay, though. “I’ve always trusted the kindness of strangers,” as Blanche said in “Streetcar” when they came to get her. (Oops, don’t get me started on theater.)

 

Rrrrring went the alarm clock. I was resurrected.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.