From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Friday Will Rogers Blogging
Dammit. Did it again. Forgot to note the August anniversary of the great Will Rogers' passing, which is always reason enough to tap into his brilliant way with words. Like Mark Twain before him and Molly Ivins & Stewart/Colbert after him, his observations on politics and human nature are so sharp that they refuse to become irrelevant. Enjoy some vintage Rogers, particularly in the context of the current primary season nuttiness:
“The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.”
"Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat."
I'm wondering if Stephen Colbert
didn't model his grin after Rogers.
"You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way."
"If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics."
"A fool and his money are soon elected."
"I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."
“If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of Congress?”
"There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
"If all politicians fished instead of spoke publicly, we would be at peace with the world."
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 11, 2015
Note: I'm sorry, but my religion forbids me from writing notes. But I'm sure there's one in the next county that they'll let you read. Have a blessed day!
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah starts:
17
Days 'til the
Dallas LGBT Pride Parade:
9
Minimum increase in visits to national parks so far this year versus 2014:
5 million
(Source: National Park Service)
Year that Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to send an email:
1976
Minimum number of views Snapchat now gets per day, equal to Facebook:
4 billion
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Cost of the new
Star Wars app-controlled BB-8 droid, which is basically sold-out forever:
149.95
Date on which my evil twin came out of the shadows and
wrote a GBCW diary:
9/12/13
NFL Season Opener
New England Patriots 28 Pittsburgh Steelers 21
(New England leads all the other teams 1 game to 0)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: 16-year-old Bretagne, the last known living search-and-rescue dog who worked at the World Trade Center after the attacks of 9/11, gets a hero's welcome...
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JEERS to the 9/11 of 9/11s. And here we are once again. That day. That date. Fourteen years ago. Ugh. But at least the guy who made it such a horrible moment in our national consciousness (Saddam Hussein…right, Bush?) finally met his fate in the raid of the century, and a new tower stands like a middle-finger salute to al Qaeda at Ground Zero. But I do have a few questions I still ask myself every year 'round this time:
Snapped yesterday evening
by NYC resident Ben Sturner.
When Glenn Beck---one of the most respected figures in the conservative movement---said, "When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up!' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining," why wasn't he banished into obscurity?
When Ann Coulter---one of the most respected figures in the conservative movement---said, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," why wasn't she banished into obscurity?
When Jerry Falwell got on TV with Pat Robertson and said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'," why weren't they defrocked and shunned for the rest of their lives?
And I also wonder how the 9/11 hijackers reacted when they found out the 72 virgins they met in the afterlife had orders from Mohammed to beat them with shoes for eternity? We'll never know. But I bet it was a Kodak moment.
Fact: you never see Markos and
George Soros in the same room together.
CHEERS to a bright spot on an otherwise somber day. Be sure to take a moment to face Berkeley, California and shout, "Lordy, Lordy, look who's fortysomething!" Yes indeed, our malevolent kingmaker and current troll slayer, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, turns another year wiser, and we wish him many blessings on his camels. On behalf of the C&J community, I got him the usual gifts: new star pin for his Che beret, new pair of jackboots, and a renewal of his subscription to
Popular Hispanic Hippie Commie Pinko Socialist Libtard Moonbat Vegetarian Cyclists Monthly. It's the least we could do. So that's what we did.
CHEERS to big bidness. Yes, the bidding is going fast & furious at the 2015 Netroots Nation online auction. There's something for everyone. On this year's virtual auction block, whose proceeds help offset the cost of putting on the annual convention (in St. Louis next July):
• Autographed books
• A front-row table at the NN16 pub quiz
• An hour of super-personality training with the amazing Joel Silberman
• Artwork with a message
• A set of White House Easter eggs
• Netroots Nation '14 exclusives, including backstage passes and photo-ops
• A Deaniac nostalgia pack with wooden "You Have the Power!" bat
And
much more. So far I'm the lead bidder for the Roman gladiator trident-hurling lessons and "8 Hours Behind the Wheel of a Steamroller," but I'm losing out on the "Escape the End Times FREE" card. Oddly enough, to Mike Huckabee.
CHEERS to great moments in music. On September 11, 1962, The Beatles recorded their first singles for EMI, including "Love Me Do." Or as it's called today, The British Hairdressers' National Anthem.
CHEERS to talkin' and textin' and takin' pitchurs…oh my! In a ritual now more widely anticipated than the unveiling of the latest Ben & Jerry's flavor, Apple unveiled its latest iPhone and other goodies this week. Among the new features of the iPhone 6S:
The new iPhone 6S comes with
this handy instruction manual.
• 3D Touch
• Second generation Touch ID sensor
• New 12 megapixel iSight camera, 50% more pixels than the prior-generation phone
• A new feature called Live Photos that leverages 3D Touch to--at the press of a button--capture just a few seconds of video and sound that accompanied the moment when the photo was taken. When one swipes across a collection of photos, each one moves ever so slightly.
• 4K video quality
• Prices at Apple retailers range from $199 to $499 on a two-year contract, or installment plans of $27 and $31 a month for 24 months
But perhaps the most useful feature of this iPhone: a hologram of yourself that stands in line waiting for the next one.
CHEERS to warbling our way through the most mangled lyrics in music history (if you don’t count Feliz Navidad or Louie Louie). On Sunday's date in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banana after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry with bananas (source: Gorillapedia) during the War of 1812. When he signed the 1931 law making it our national anthem, Herbert Hoover performed his greatest act of compassion while in office. Namely, not making us attempt to sing the other three verses.
Off to a tasty start...
CHEERS to home vegetation. Friday night TV is super cool now, thanks to the trifecta of Rachel Maddow at 9,
Real Time at 10, and now Stephen Colbert's
The Late Show at 11:30 (tonight's guests: Stephen King and Amy Schumer). As for sports, the
baseball schedule is here and the fledgling
NFL schedule is here. The new streaming/DVD releases are slim pickings this week---the
list is here. The
Miss America Totally Not A Beauty Pageant pageant airs Sunday night from Nucky Thompson's turf. (As usual, my money's on the axe juggler.) And John Oliver returns Sunday night to slay another wankerrific American institution on HBO's
Last Week Tonight.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Bernie teaches Chuck Todd
a thing or two Sunday morning.
Meet the Press: Bernie!!! Plus Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ).
This Week: Dr. Ben Carson; Gen. John Allen, Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS; House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX).
Face the Nation: Donald Trump; Ben Carson; David Axelrod; CBS News Elections Director Anthony Salvanto.
CNN's State of the Union: Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI); RNC chair Reince Priebus.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Gov. John Kasich (R-OH); Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, on the refugee crisis.
Happy viewing!
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Nine years ago in C&J: September 11, 2006
JEERS to homeland "security". Thirty nine percent of Americans say they feel less safe under the post-9/11 rule of King George the former cocaine-sniffing deserter, while only 14 percent say they feel more safe. And then there's this:
[B]y a four-to-one margin (48 percent to 12 percent), Americans think the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism against the United States worse rather than better.
On the upside, sixty two percent say they feel "very" or "somewhat" safe now that Homeland Security has lowered the color-coded
Evil Pixie Threat Level to "fuchsia with green sparkles."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the last Lone Star State governor who had more than two brain cells to rub together. Former governor Ann Richards---whose reelection campaign was thwarted in part by Karl Rove's smear tactics ("I'm not saying she's a lesbian, but…")---died on Sunday's date in 2006. Age 73. She mulled her epitaph back in '95:
"I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'"
As her headstone shows,
she got her wish. (Although it must be said that her record on the death penalty, while not nearly as sadistic or prolific as her successors', is the worst of the few blots on her record.) Molly Ivins and Richards became close friends---you can read
Molly's tribute here. In January, 1995 she wrote this after Richards lost to George W. Whatsizface:
True fact: Ann Richards is the mom of Planned
Parenthood President Cecile Richards.
Richards said in a farewell interview with the press corps that if she'd known she was going to be a one-term governor, she would have "raised more hell." I wish she had. But these are relatively minor quibbles with what is, overall, a distinguished record. My political memory of Texas goes back to Allan Shivers, and I know that in that time we have not had a governor who worked nearly as hard as Ann Richards. Who was nearly as gracious as Richards. Who made more good appointments than Richards. Who set a higher standard of honesty than Richards. [...]
What our notoriously weak governors actually do is set a tone for the state. So let it be recorded that for four brief shining years, Ann Richards gave the joint some class. Good on ya, Annie.
We need more Ann Richardses down here on the third muckball from the sun.
Have a great weekend and Happy Rosh Hashanah! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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