From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
August 30, 1944
Happy birthday to the late reporter, columnist, privacy-rights activist and all-around progressive shitkicker Molly Ivins. A few gems from her voluminous print legacy, every one of them as relevant as ever:
1995: One of the things that concerns a lot of Americans lately is the increase in plain old nastiness in our political discussion. It comes from a number of sources, but Rush Limbaugh is a major carrier. I should explain that I am not without bias in this matter. I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.
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[W]e've bounced back from this same mistake before---the mistake of thinking that we can make ourselves safer if we just make ourselves less free. We get so scared of something---scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens---that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It's still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.
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The American press has always had a tendency to assume that the truth must lie exactly halfway between any two opposing points of view. Thus, if the press presents the man who says Hitler is an ogre and the man who says Hitler is a prince, it believes it has done the full measure of its journalistic duty.
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9/1/05 after Katrina struck: Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now. To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives.
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December 2000: It seems to me that most of the media have a very odd take on the Clintons. You look at all those "scandals," and there is no there there. It's nonsense. Even the worst of it, the money-raising in '96, was so patently the problem of both parties. Shall we ever forget Haley Barbour explaining that sitting on the deck of a junk in the Hong Kong harbor with a Chinese businessman caused him to have not the slightest apprehension about accepting foreign money?
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Texas sign in front of a pharmacy: GENERIC PROZAC NOW IN, GOD BLESS AMERICA.
And, of course, her reaction to Pat Buchanan's 1992 Republican convention speech: "It probably sounded better in the original German."
If you haven't read the biography Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith, it's a really good account of her amazing yet far-from-charmed life that ended way too soon nine years ago at 62. And you can check out info on the documentary Raise Hell, directed by Janice Engel and now in post-production here. Even though she's no longer with us, her writing is still like Red Bull for the progressive soul.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I am paid to write C&J to promote an agenda. This month it's been Dumpster sniffing tourism. So take it from me, America: make your next vacation a Dumpster-sniffing vacation. Alone or with friends, it’s always a great time for Dumpster time!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Labor Day: 6
Days 'til the South Dakota State Fair: 2
Incidents of vandalism, wildlife harassment or other misconduct by visitors requiring ranger intervention at the top 10 most-visited national parks in July alone: 11,000
Rank of Phoenix, Tucson and Memphis among cities with the most aggressive drivers on city roads according to data compiled by Automatic: #1, #2, #3
Rank of Honolulu, Portland (Oregon) and Seattle among cities with the least-aggressive drivers on city roads: #1, #2, #3
Age of Mainer Pat Gallant-Charette when she became the oldest woman to swim the 21-mile North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland: 65
Percent chance of Serena Williams winning the U.S. Open, according to the FiveThirtyEight number crunchers: 55%
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
I haven't visited Free Republic in forever, so let's see what kind of rhetorical hairballs their commenters are coughing up:
"I will boycott the 49ers until the POS Kapernick is gone."
"Mohammedanism [shaking of head]. The West abandoned Christianity and has allowed this death cult into its lands which will cast the West into a thousand years of darkness. And alas, the warriors still around in the West are only fixated on Russian fighter planes encroaching on the air space of Baltic states. [Again, shaking of head]."
"The establishment does not care, they will continue with the sham poll numbers in order to use massive vote fraud to put the criminal hag in the WH. The question is for most of us since we can’t just move to another the country; what will patriotic America do after her coronation?"
"Pathetic black colleges that teach nothing but hatin’ whitey and diversity. Many are pretty much illiterate when they graduate. Which is the first issue with, “college degree required.” Black and Womyn’s studies aren’t degree programs. They are resume builders so people who are idiots can get interviews.”
All together now: 1…2…3… Stay Classy, Alt-Right.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!
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JEERS to racism run amok. I gotta be honest---Maine is in a state of shock right now. We have a governor who's cuckoo bananas and we don’t really know what to do about it. Let me tell you how cuckoo by using a little political comparison: whereas Mitt Romney revealed in 2012 that he kept "binders full of women" for hiring purposes, Paul LePage---the distilled essence of the tea party movement---admitted on Friday that he keeps a "binder full of blacks and Hispanics" for shooting-with-a-gun purposes.
We learned this only after he'd left a phone message the day before with a state representative that contained not only a "son of a bitch," but two "cocksuckers"---and also an insistence that said representative release the son-of-a-bitch-cocksucker phone message to the public! And that was before he told a couple reporters that he wanted to shoot the representative "between the eyes," which came after he called Khizr Khan a "con artist." And all of these dangerously racist things he said were, according to him, in response to people accusing him of speaking in "racial overtones." He hates being spoken of in racial overtones.
It got so embarrassing that Maine's largest newspaper threw up its hands and proclaimed in a lead editorial: "Message to America: Sorry we gave you LePage." For his part, LePage is huddling with his shocked family and fellow Republicans to decide how to respond to the tidal wave of outrage across the ideological spectrum. If they have any brains they'll lock him in the attic with a therapist and a lot of calm-me-down drugs. In the meantime, please everyone: pray that we don’t have an actual emergency up here that calls for leadership. We're a brain lobe down at the moment.
CHEERS to honorary Martians-in-training. A team of scientists just finished up a year in a simulation endurance situation that is part of the preparation for a human expedition to Mars:
The group lived in the dome on a Mauna Loa mountain in Hawaii and were only allowed to go outside if wearing spacesuits. On Sunday the simulation ended and the scientists emerged. [...]
The group included a French astrobiologist, a German physicist and four Americans---a pilot, an architect, a doctor/journalist and a soil scientist. They managed limited resources while conducting research and working to avoid personal conflicts. [...]
Cyprien Verseux, a crew member from France, said the simulation showed a mission to Mars could succeed. “I can give you my personal impression which is that a mission to Mars in the close future is realistic. I think the technological and psychological obstacles can be overcome,” Verseux said.
Everything went extraordinarily well under the tough circumstances---they even said that water production wouldn’t be much of a problem---and they expressed relief that they'd be able to get back to the joys of living in the real world. Then when they heard that Donald Trump was one of two people in the running to become the most powerful person in the world they re-entered the pod and wedged a chair under the door handle.
JEERS to furry ambushes. On August 30, 1979, President Carter was attacked by a 20-foot tall rabbit with laser eyes and a grenade in each paw! Or…not:
Carter was alone in a small fishing boat when a swamp rabbit, a species of large cottontail, began swimming toward his boat.
He turned the frightened and agitated rabbit away with a paddle. Several months later he jokingly mentioned it to press secretary Jody Powell, who repeated it offhandedly to a reporter. To Powell's horror, The Washington Post headlined "President Attacked by Rabbit." Carter was lampooned by turns as crazy, weak, and ineffective.
It was a low-water mark for shoddiness in journalism. Or as the AP would call it: the high-water mark for excellence in journalism.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. A reader of The Washington Post asks: "Dear Science, how do scientists find far-off planets like Proxima b?"
Google.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to High Noon in Arizona. It's primary day in the "Russia Hacked Our Voting System And All We Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" state. The race everyone will be watching: grizzled 80-year-old backbencher with 8 or 9 or 10 or I forget how many homes John McCain vs. 47-year-old former state senator who always looks like she just sniffed a ripe gym sock Dr. Kelli Ward. Here she is dropping by to say “Hi” in that assholish way teabaggers have mastered...
Given that she's behind in the latest polling by 30+ points, she'll be dropping by later to say "Bye" shortly after the polls close. Unless, of course, the Russians have other ideas.
CHEERS to "One ringy dingy...Two ringy dingy..." On August 30, 1963, a hotline was set up between Moscow and D.C. for the purpose of keeping the superpowers in constant contact during emergencies. It worked really well. In fact we hear an aide to Khrushchev is still shuffling around Red Square looking for Amanda Hugginkiss.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 30, 2006
ICK to hometown values. The guy who was the football coach when I went to high school in Mount Vernon, Ohio (pop. 15,000) got in hot water a while back for making players pray before games. Today he's a conservative evangelist fighting the good fight against pornography. So it's probably a little awkward around the dinner table these days, now that his 24 year-old son has an arrest record for downloading a bunch of "extremely graphic" child-porn on the family computer. The arrest happened on the same day Zachary Daubenmire was supposed to start teaching special ed students at...Licking Heights High School. We'll file that under T for Tsk Tsk.
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And just one more...
JEERS to the year of the lost legends. Wow---another one gone. Gene Wilder died yesterday at 83. His contribution to the world was...well, being Gene Wilder. May we all be able to deliver this classic monologue to Donald Trump in November...
With all due respect: Fuck you, 2016.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bill in Portland Maine, sad clown
---Noah Millman, The Week
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