From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
That Didn’t Take Long
Jimmy Kimmel turns this piece of made-in-China schlock into comedy gold after an ad for the real thing blew up on Twitter Monday:
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Tr*mpy Bear: coming soon to the 50-cent bin in yard sales and finer dumpsters across the fruited plain.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Note: Because of the stellar turnout in last Tuesday’s elections, Democrats now control a majority of words in this note for the first time since 1955. Great job!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the ACA enrollment period ends: 31
Days 'til the High 95 Cannabis Cup Awards in Lewiston, Maine: 11
Percent of the youth vote that chose Democratic candidates and Republican candidates, respectively, in the midterm elections---the highest percent support for Democrats in the last quarter century, according to Rock the Vote: 67%, 32%
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) approval rating before and after her vote for Brett Kavanaugh, according to Morning Consult-Politico polling: 54%, 45%
Percent in a YouGov poll who believe it’s acceptable to start listening to holiday music before Thanksgiving: 18%
Percent chance that Egyptian archaeologists have found dozens of mummified cats and a limestone sarcophagus filled with scarab beetles in a 4,500 year-old tomb: 100%
Age of the first major web browser, Mosaic 1.0, as of last Sunday: 25
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 181 (including 4 false prophets and 1 pope watching his credibility spiral down the drain). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Rescue among the infernos…
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CHEERS to the Maine events. Courtesy of The Portland Press Herald, a lengthy preview of what we can expect when new Democratic governor Janet Mills and the Democrat-run state House and Senate start oiling the gears of progress after eight years of rust and neglect by the current Republican governor (I already forget his name, and so will history). In a big, beautiful nutshell, this is what's coming down the pike:
» Medicaid expansion “on day one.” Instant coverage for 70,000 low-income residents and much-needed revenue for our decimated rural hospitals.
» A Marshall Plan to train and employ a new wave of nurses in Maine.
» Deal with the f*cking idiot anti-vaxxers.
» Solar, bitches!!! Sunshine gonna power our world, baby.
» Also gonna become a world leader in wind power, especially offshore turbines.
» Enact an aggressive plan to reduce planet-warming pollution in Maine by 80 percent within a dozen years.
» Set minimum teacher pay at $40,000 so they can actually live on their salary.
» Make kids smarter earlier. (Universal pre-K.)
» Declare all-out war on the opiod crisis: "hike reimbursement rates for methadone treatment, boost services in emergency departments to get patients help when they leave the hospital, increase treatment capability, improve access to the opioid antidote naloxone, expand drug courts and increase prevention programs in schools, among other efforts."
And after she accomplishes all that: a light lunch.
CHEERS to another Blue winner. Quite literally---Jordan Blue, the only kid out of 63 male seniors in that Baraboo, Wisconsin High School photo with enough sense in his noggin to not flash either a stiff-armed Nazi salute or the "OK" white supremacist sign and laugh hysterically because holocaust jokes are just so knee-slappingly hitlarious:
Said Blue, who is gay and has been the target of homophobia at his school: “I knew what my morals were and it was not to salute something I firmly didn’t believe in." If I were the president of a college or university I'd be beating that kid's door down to pay his tuition. The other 62 not-so-bright kids? Winter break internships as floor scrubbers at the National Holocaust Museum.
CHEERS to America's first shusher. 286 years ago today, on November 14, 1732, the first paid librarian, Louis Timothee, took his place behind a desk after getting hired for the job by none other than Ben Franklin. Other than that, all I know is what Wikipedia tells me:
Timothee was born (in 1699) in Holland to French Huguenot parents. Franklin arranged for Timothee to serve as a part-time librarian for the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of Franklin's first philanthropic projects.
Franklin started the library July 1, 1731. There was no librarian until November 14, 1732, when Timothee was hired as the first salaried librarian in the American colonies. He was paid three pounds sterling every trimester.
He worked every Wednesday from two to three o'clock and every Saturday from ten to four.
Or as Donald Trump calls him: a workaholic.
CHEERS to your Wednesday Helpful Hint…from me, Helpful Hint Billy! Hi, everybody! Here’s a tip that’ll make you smack your forehead and say, Why didn’t I think of that?!! Here ya go: this is Tide’s new boxed-wine lookalike but IT’S NOT WINE DO NOT DRINK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!!
Join us tomorrow for another Helpful Hint involving actual wine, a Tilt-A-Whirl, and a table saw. Until then, I'm Helpful Billy and you’ve just been helped! (Newspaper syndicators: call me---this stuff is pure gold!)
TALLY HO! to the man who would be king…or, at the rate his mom is chugging along, perhaps not. Happy birthday to Britain's Prince Charles, who turns a bonny 70 today and is now eligible for a two shilling pension increase to help cover the rising cost of groceries and rent and whatnot. I got him his usual present on behalf of all of us at C&J: a pair of commemorative Battle of Yorktown socks.
CHEERS to the Energizer justice. Using our exclusive recording technology (a microphone planted in her lava lamp), let's check in and see how 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is recovering from the tumble she took last week that cracked three ribs:
"One hundred and eighty one…one hundred and eighty two…one hundred and eighty three…"
"Um, Justice Ginsburg, ma'am, could you maybe stop bench pressing me for a few minutes so I can go pee and maybe check my messages?"
"Oh, quit being such a putz. What kind of personal trainer are you, anyway?"
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."
"Where was I? One hundred and eighty four…one hundred and eighty five…"
The mending continues. Meanwhile, Brett Kavanaugh's liver continues to wonder how everything in life went so terribly, horribly wrong.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 14, 2008
CHEERS to precious bottley fluids. Hooray---in 2009 you'll be able to fly again with all the hair gel, toothpaste and mouthwash you can carry. The TSA says it expects to have new technology (trained goats) in place by next fall so that the restrictions can be lifted. Five words from the BiPM household: Have yak urine, will travel. [11/14/18 Update: Nice fake-out, TSA. It’s still a three-ounce world. Thanks a lot.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Stan Lee. The creator of 1,082 characters populating a comic book universe that, I don’t care what the fake news says, actually exists, shuffled off his mortal coil and has taken his place among the pantheon of humans so positively influential that they actually justify the continuance of the human species. A few parting tweets as we reel from the news, even as we acknowledge that he lived an amazing, full life of 95 years, igniting our imaginations, taking on serious issues like civil rights, and spreading a Hulk-sized amount of fun, joy, and endless victories over evil around the world:
Click...
Only one epitaph can do him justice: Stan Lee was the Stan Lee of Stan Lees.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Ken Mogi, a neuroscientist and author of "Awakening Your Ikigai: How Cheers and Jeers Kiddie Pool Splashers Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day" equates the ethos for ikigai to the famous British government slogan from World War II posters: "Keep Calm and Carry On."
---CNN
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