From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Webbys: Five Word Acceptance Speeches
Just as I look forward to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest awards, I eagerly await the five-word Webby Award acceptance speeches every year. And just like Bulwer Lytton, I always miss 'em when they come out. But this year I'm only a month late, so that's progress in my world. Here's some of the "brevilarity"* from this year's batch:
"Why 5 words? It doesn't..."
---Jerry Seinfeld (Outstanding Comedic Performance)
Ha ha! That's SIX words, you hack!
"We predicted this in 1978."
--- Nate Silver/fivethirtyeight.com (Political Blog)
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"Made possible by Mitt Romney."
---Obama for America 2012 (Breakout of the Year)
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"Curiosity kills ignorance. Encourage science."
---Mars Rover/NASA social team (Overall Social Presence)
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"It's pronounced 'Jif' not 'Gif.'"
--Steve Wilhite, inventor of the GIF file format (Lifetime Achievement)
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"Only get lost on purpose."
---Google Maps for iPhone (GPS/location technology)
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"No more jokes about Uranus."
---NASA Solar System Exploration (Science Website)
Eat yer heart out, haiku.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
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*I call dibs on the word brevilarity. It's brevity + hilarity, get it? Take note, Merriam-Webster.
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, June 14, 2013
Note: Services for this little piggy who had roast beef that turned out to be tainted due to a sequester-related lack of food inspection will be tomorrow at noon, during which the little piggy who had none will feel sad, angry and a little bit fortunate.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next perigree full moon, aka SUPERMOON!!!: 8
Days 'til the Malad Valley Welsh Festival in Malad City, Idaho: 13
Number of Supreme Court Justices who ruled that isolated human genes can not be patented: 9
Number of people who are in space right now: 9
(Source: howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com)
Points by which Newark Mayor Cory Booker leads his nearest Democratic primary challenger in the special election to fill Frank Lautenberg's seat: 53
(Source: The Wire)
Year by which whites will be the minority in America, per God's plan: 2043
(Source: NBC News)
Number of people who went to emergency rooms between 2002 and 2012 because they got their pee-pee caught in their zipper: 17,616
(Source: Details)
NBA Finals:
San Antonio Spurs 2 games Miami Heat 2 games
Stanley Cup Finals:
Chicago Blackhawks 1 game Boston Bruins 0 games
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Puppy Pic of the Day: It's Daniel Day-Lewis reprising his role as Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York…as a dog!!! ("And the Oscar goes to…")
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Oops.
CHEERS to Jenga Fail: Darrell Issa edition. Two of the House Oversight Committee chairman's BIG GIANT SCANDALS that he'd hoped to use to IMPEACH OBAMA crumbled to dust this week. 1) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says there was
no order for special ops to "stand down" during the Benghazi attacks and 2) the conservative Republican who runs the now-infamous Cincinnati IRS office that focused on tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status says
there's no there there as far as Obama is concerned. That leaves the AP controversy, which has disappeared from the radar, and the rancorous NSA debate, which to the average American is like watching angry squids playing a game of Twister. Tonight on Obama's agenda: sleeping soundly.
JEERS to notable dates we wish weren't necessary to note. Today marks six months since the assault-rifle massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Tucson massacre survivor Gabrielle Giffords, who knows just a wee bit about these things, offers some perspective in the Newtown Bee:
The grief of the parents of children killed in Newtown---like the families of those killed in Tucson---doesn’t diminish with anniversaries. It takes no holidays. It is not diluted by the passage of time, in contrast to its impact on our leaders, who have promised action, but were stopped by special interests. … Today is also the one week anniversary of the shooting in Santa Monica, CA, a shooting eerily reminiscent of the Tucson and Newtown shootings. …
What the grieving families with whom we share a terrible bond all know is that they did not fail their children in the hours and moments before their deaths. What they now expect is for the government to do its job and to care for families throughout this country---any one of us---who could be the next victims of random and tragic gun violence.
The gun lobby spent the day being very, very, quiet.
JEERS to the difference between then and now. 80 years ago this Sunday, Congress passed the bulk of FDR's ambitious "New Deal" program. When faced with his own economic calamity 75 years later (no thanks to his asleep-at-the-switch predecessor), our current president was met with a wall of GOP resistance in the pursuit of one goal: making him fail. But it was a bit different back in 1933:
Like Obama, FDR had
to clean up after an
incompetent Republican.
Raymond Moley, a member of FDR’s "brain trust," said many lawmakers "had forgotten to be Republicans or Democrats" as they dealt with the burgeoning crisis.
Sen. Hiram Johnson (R-Calif.) said: "The admirable trait in Roosevelt is that he has the guts to try. ... He does it all with the rarest good nature. ... We have exchanged for a frown in the White House a smile. Where there were hesitation and vacillation, weighing always the personal political consequences, feebleness, timidity and duplicity, there are now courage and boldness and real action."
The Democrat-inspired New Deal was necessary, visionary, humane, functional, morale-raising, and focused on the downtrodden. Or as the modern-day GOP leadership (Norquist, Rush, Koch & Koch) calls it: a stain on our nation's history.
JEERS to conservative family values. Rupert Murdoch has fired his wife. Film at 11…except on Fox News.
CHEERS to swishing towards Gomorrah Deering Oaks Park. Southern Maine's 27th annual LGBT pride parade and festival is tomorrow in Portland:
Last year we had a unicorn!
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For years the annual Southern Maine Pride celebration has been a rallying point for people protesting discrimination and trying to change laws and societal attitudes. But this year’s Pride celebration will likely be a little less about protest and more about celebration, due to the passage of Maine’s law allowing same-sex marriage late last year.
The day starts off Saturday with a parade that will leave Monument Square at noon. From there the parade goes west on Congress Street, down High Street, and then onto Park Avenue toward Deering Oaks. The parade will include some 40 entries – with a total of 200 to 300 people – on colorful floats or cars, or marching in groups.
As usual, Michael and I---plus our pup Haley in her first Pride appearance---will be marching in a pair of sensible 14-inch stiletto heels and sporting our Eagle Scout badges with the
PFLAG contingent. Also as usual, if you show us some leg we'll toss you some candy.
CHEERS to Things That Bounce for $400, Alex. On tomorrow's date in 1844, Charles Goodyear got a patent for better rubber, which would prove wildly successful in the production of tires. Not so successful was Goodyear's follow-up: steel-belted condoms.
CHEERS to home vegetation. True fact: if George Washington was alive today, here's what he'd be watching on TV this weekend. He'd start with HBO's Real Time, where Bill Maher hauls in Josh Fox, Jonathan Alter (in full book-hawking mode), Patrick Kennedy and Republican dolt Kellyann Conway ("I guess to some it's more important for a moose to have a happy habitat than to protect the American family," she once said about her love of oil drilling). New DVD releases include that Wizard of Oz remake in which James Franco has to cut his own arm off with a pen knife after getting it caught in the Wicked Witch of the West's castle doorknocker, and the 40th anniversary edition of Bruce Lee's classic Enter the Dragon.)
Oops! How did
this logo get here?
Big weekend for sports! The
U.S. Open golf tourney continues in Ardmore, PA. Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals between Boston and Chicago is tomorrow, and Game 5 of the NBA finals between the Spurs and the Heat is Sunday. The baseball schedule
is here. (The Red Sox will "ground" the Orioles ha ha ha!) And although it won’t be televised, I'm hosting the Billy Derby with 30 thoroughbred donkeys in my neighbors' back yard tomorrow---I hope they don’t mind.
Lawrence Lessig joins Bill Moyers & Company to talk about how computer-system coders can protect our privacy. On 60 Minutes: busting a mega drug cartel!!! And, purely for shits and giggles, here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Mark Udall (D-CO); Jonathan Alter in book-hawking mode; and the only person on the roundtable worth more than a warm bucket of spit is Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA).
This Week: Creamy McDreamy Senator Marco Rubio, whom the right-wing base is quickly souring on because he doesn't want illegals to drown in liquid fire like they do, tries to save face by explaining that he does want gay people to drown in liquid fire and isn't that good enough? Plus: JEB!!!!!!!!! And the only person on the roundtable worth more than a warm bucket of spit is Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL).
Fox loves its war criminals!
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: I've always said that it's important to get the viewpoints of war criminals, so I'm glad Fox News obliged by booking Dick Cheney this week. Plus a roundtable with no pundits who are worth more than a bucket of warm spit.
Face the Nation: Republican Congressman Mike Rogers gets booked so often on Sunday morning now that he's getting close to out-John-McCaining John McCain. Plus White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, who bears a creepy resemblance to Grand Moff Tarkin. I'll leave it up to you whether watching the smart and sane David Corn (Mother Jones) on the roundtable is worth putting up with insufferable concern troll Peggy Noonan.
CNN's State of the Union: Oh, look---it's Mike Rogers again! Plus Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and a roundtable with no pundits who are worth more than a bucket of warm spit.
Happy viewing...and spitting!
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Five years ago in C&J: June 14, 2008
CHEERS to a good run by an odd man. Ron Paul---the guy whose followers made a spectator sport out of chasing Sean Hannity down an abandoned sidewalk at night---is "suspending" his campaign. BUT...he's not endorsing John McCain until he agrees to "change some of his positions." We have three words for the Texas congressman: wait five minutes.
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And just one more…
What we'll be throwing tonight
in the DKos pie fight du jour.
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CHEERS to stars and stripes 4EVUH. Hope you got your holiday shopping done in time for all the flag lovers on your list---today is Flag Day!!! According to the mighty Wikipedia, "Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened on that day in 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress." In case you're wondering, yes, we support your first-amendment right to burn it in protest if your soul hates America...just as we support your right to strap it on to express how much
your ta-tas love America. Meanwhile, per federal law, you must say this at least once out loud today:
"What did one flag say to the other flag? Nothing---it just waved."
And then, bask in the awkward silence.
Also too Happy Father's Day Sunday! Your socks are in the mail. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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