From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Life Lessons and Other Bon Mots from May Birthday Kids
“Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.”
---Sen. Al Franken
“I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so I'm on my way home.”
---Bob Dylan
“When I first met him, he had a recurrent nightmare that Henry Kissinger was chasing him with a knife, and I said it was really his father, and he said it was really Henry Kissinger, and I said it was his father and he said it was Henry Kissinger, and this went on for months until he started going to the Central American shrinkette, who said Henry Kissinger was really his younger sister.”
---Nora Ephron
“All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.”
---Harvey Milk
“To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.”
---Tina Fey
“When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.”
---Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Heineken?! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!"
---Dennis Hopper
Happy birthday to all of the above. And a safe holiday to the rest of ya. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 27, 2016
Note: C&J will not appear on Monday. Back Tuesday with a brand new Yoda beer hat. (Despite the holiday, Monday trash pickup in Portland will happen normally. I’ll make a note to make sure Governor LePage goes in the non-recycle bin.) ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Garrison Keillor's final broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion: 36
Days 'til the Omaha Beer Fest: 14
Date of the first Memorial Day: 5/30/1868
Increase in new home sales during April, the highest level since January 2008 according to the Commerce Dept.: 16.6%
Percent chance that Cuba is now legalizing privately-owned small- and medium businesses, thanks in part to effective persuasion by the Obama administration: 100%
Percent of Mexicans who agree with “approving marriage of persons of the same sex at the national level” accordingn to a new BGC-Excélsior poll: 65%
Date by which the Pentagon says its Strategic Automated Command and Control system will be upgraded so it won’t depend on 8-inch floppy discs (!!!) anymore: 12/31/16
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Iconic image taken at the War Dog Memorial and Cemetery in Guam…
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CHEERS to your iconic image of the day. While most of us were sleeping, President Obama was doing something in Japan that no sitting post-WWII president had done before: visiting the city where the world's first atomic weapon---one of ours---was used to horrific effect:
Wrote Obama in the Peace Memorial Museum visitors’ book, next to which he left two paper cranes he'd made: “We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace and pursue a world without nuclear weapons." Yes. That would be a good start.
CHEERS to multitasking. As our endorphins go wild over the prospect that our first warm-weather holiday weekend is upon us, some letter writers to USA Today remind us of the solemn reason for the occasion. I give the editors kudos for posting the sobering number of U.S. war dead, and for publishing this letter by Arsala Ahmad Khan of Virginia:
Millions of Americans serve our nation and swear to protect this country with their lives. May 30th is Memorial Day, a day to commemorate those who have given their lives serving in the armed forces.
As Ahmadi Muslims, we are thankful for the freedoms provided to us by this country, such as allowing us to freely and openly practice our faith. Since we face persecution in many so-called Muslim countries, we love this nation for the many rights and privileges it provides us. We understand that these rights would not be possible without the critical roles our veterans played. I implore service men and women and our country’s leaders, to act on the principles of justice and aim to prevent the loss of innocent lives in all military operations.
And while you're at it, take a few extra moments to reflect on Dwight Eisenhower's words: "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Me, too. Minus the living it part, but I'll take his word for it.
JEERS to our November opponent. Well, Democrats, you were wishing and hoping he'd be the nominee more than any other GOP candidate, and you got your wish:
Donald Trump reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination for president Thursday, completing an unlikely rise that has upended the political landscape and set the stage for a bitter fall campaign.
There will be a lot of analysis and historical discussion about the 2016 Republican primary season, but for now there's one thing we know for sure as of yesterday: their "deep bench" was located at the bottom of the barrel.
JEERS to petty stooges. Speaking of the bottom of the barrel... In a proud moment for the Republican party, forty-four years ago tomorrow, in 1972, the White House "plumbers" hit the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, setting in motion a series of events that would lead to Nixon's resignation in disgrace. The first clue that something was amiss: their bill was reasonable.
CHEERS to draining the dictionary. Another tie??? You kids these days, I swear---yah so smaht. Congratulations to co-champs 11 year-old Nihar Saireddy Janga and 13 year-old Jairam Jagadeesh Hathwar (the right-wingers are gonna have a field day with those names) of Austin, Texas and Painted Post, New York, who were the last contestants standing at the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. (Janga is the youngest contestant to ever make it into the top ten.) It's the third tie in three years. The winning words---which my spellchecker flagged with the message, "You're drunk again, aren't you?"---were: "gesellschaft" and "feldenkrais." Coincidentally, both share a common definition: the sound you make right before someone says "gesundheit."
CHEERS to masking tape. It was invented on this date In 1930. It has a million and one uses, but to shut up a Republican blowhard only duct tape will do.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's some of the haps on TV this weekend, starting tonight with HBO's Real Time, when Bill Maher talks with Bernie Sanders, Melissa Harris-Perry, Dilbert creator Scott Adams and loathsome right-wing teabagger/birther Wayne Allyn Root. New DVD releases include the sea-rescue nailbiter The Finest Hours and the return of Derrick and Hansel in Zoolander 2. The hockey playoff schedule is here, the NBA playoff schedule is here, and the baseball lineup is here. Sunday at 9: the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS. On Game of Thrones, everybody who's ever died on the show comes back to life and then dies again after eating the salmon mousse. And a bit of movie history is made Monday at 9 on Starz with the first-time-ever powerhouse pairing of Ian McKellan and Anthony Hopkins in The Dresser.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Bernie!!! Plus: Arnold Schwarzenegger on the upcoming primary in Galeephoneya. On the roundtable: Robert Costa and Neera Tanden.
This Week: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and John Barasso (R-WY); Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort; Reagan morality czar Bill Bennett will hopefully update us on how his decades-long gambling addiction is going.
Face the Nation: Bernie!!! Plus: one-term Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D).
CNN's State of the Union: Failed Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who now endorses a racist/xenophobic/misogynist nominee for president, is being billed as a “special” guest this week. No, I can’t explain it either.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: An hour's worth of pants explosions as Chris Wallace, Brit Hume, George Will, Ron Fournier and Senator James Lankford (R-OK) "parse" the State Department IG's report on Hillary Clinton's email server.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 27, 2006
JEERS to reefer madness. More evidence that we've outlawed the wrong smoking sticks: A big fat doobie of a study says marijuana---even among heavy users---does NOT cause lung cancer: "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect." Two-pack-a-day cigarette smokers, meanwhile, showed a 20-fold increase in lung cancer. Our new slogan for our campaign against the anti-pot propaganda crowd: "Just Say Bullshit."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to My Cutie. On Monday my partner Michael and I celebrate another trip (#23) around the sun together. He asked me out on my first-ever date (he was very insistent, so I guess you could say it was a "mandate"---Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!) on May 30, 1993. To put that in perspective, we met during Bill Clinton's fifth month in office as our 42nd president. And here we are now---grayer, creakier and crankier but still reasonable approximations of our younger selves, with Barack Obama sprinting toward the finish line of his second term and Bill’s wife Hillary poised to become POTUS #45. What's the secret to our longevity, you ask? I think it boils down to three things: love, shared responsibility, and accepting the fact that neither of us hears half of what the other one says. But that's okay---we're quite smooth at the art of "yupping," and we fill in the blanks by texting each other from our respective ends of the couch.
In a tradition I started a few years back, here's the annual posting of a smug snippet from "The new apostle of sanity in sex," David Reuben, M.D. Forty-seven years ago, in 1969, his mega-seller Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask---a copy of which I once found in my grandparents' attic---was published and treated as gospel (in fairness, he later took a chill pill and lightened up on us):
What about all the homosexuals who live together happily for years? What about them? They are mighty rare birds among the homosexual flock. Moreover, the "happy" part remains to be seen. The bitterest argument between husband and wife is a passionate love sonnet by comparison with a dialogue between a butch and his queen. Live together? Yes. Happily? Hardly.
For the record, in our household the proper pecking order endures: the cat's the queen, the dog's the butch, and Michael and I are their humble servants. Scandalous, I know. I hope the republic survives.
Have a safe, fun-filled, TSA-line-free weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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