Life Lessons and Other Bon Mots from October Birthday Kids
"I voted for the infrastructure bill with the promise that it would be passed alongside the Build Back Better plan. That was the deal—House Progressives are right to demand that we make good on it. Investments in roads and bridges and investments in families must go hand in hand."
—Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
"God always answers prayers. Sometimes it's 'yes.' Sometimes the answer is 'no.' Sometimes it's 'you gotta be kidding.'"
—President Jimmy Carter
Continued...
"There’s a reason white supremacy attacks history. Opposition to teaching bigotry’s history and where it leads—from the slave trade to the Holocaust—is about erasing society’s tools to recognize prejudice & prevent atrocity. Holocaust denial has no place in our society. None."
—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY)
“Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion.”
—Bishop Desmond Tutu
“If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the women’s card, then deal me in.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton
“Leave every place you go, everything you touch, a little better for your having been there.”
—Julie Andrews
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"Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep."
—Mahatma Gandhi
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame."
—Oscar Wilde
“You're not really famous until you’re a Pez dispenser.”
—Carrie Fisher
"Moo."
—Rep. Devin Nunes
To all of the above and those in our Daily Kos community who made another trip around the sun this month: happy birthday and many blessings on your camels.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Note: Quick—stand there and hold this baby for me. I'll be back for it in 2039.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Halloween: 11
Days 'til World Lemur Day: 9
Expected increase in coal-fueled power in 2021, thanks to rising natural gas prices, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration: 22%
Rank of West Virginia among states with the highest flood risk, according to The New York Times: #1
Percent of Maine's population that's vaccinated: 67%
Percent of U.S. gay bars and lesbian bars, respectively, that closed between 2007 and 2019: 37%, 52%
Rank of Colin Powell, George W. Bush, and Elizabeth Dole among top presidential choices among Republicans polled by Harris in July of 1998: #1, #2, #3
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 188 (including 3 tribulation temples and 1 neighborhood Halloween killjoy). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: 5 more minutes...
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CHEERS to C&J Theater. My playwriting skills are at their peak these days, and I'm taking full advantage of it. Here's my latest one-act, which me and my muse completed late last night just as I was finishing off my third jug of "XXX":
[Curtain Up]
MAN HOLDING COVID BOOSTER SHOT SYRINGE enters from stage right; WOMAN HOLDING COVID BOOSTER SHOT SYRINGE enters from stage left; as they reach center stage, they both trip and stumble forward, accidentally injecting each other with their booster shot syringes.
MAN
Hey! You got your Pfizer booster shot in my
Johnson & Johnson-vaccinated bloodstream!
WOMAN
Well you got YOUR Johnson and Johnson booster shot in my
Pfizer-vaccinated bloodstream!
VOICE OF DR. ANTHONY FAUCI (PRE-RECORDED)
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on, folks! The FDA says you can now mix and match vaccines and booster shots for a healthy life and a happy holiday season.
I'm Dr. Fauci, and you have my word on it!
MAN
Well, that's a real "booster" to my morale!
WOMAN
I know what you mean—it's a real "shot in the arm"!
MAN and WOMAN TOGETHER
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!
[Curtain Down]
And then there’s two hours of Philip Glass exit music. My god, how do I do it?
CHEERS to blowing this popsicle stand. Ever wonder how our planet is going to end? You've come to the right place to find out because I read about it on the internet, and I have good news and bad news. First the good news: it'll likely happen gradually and naturally about 5 billion years from now…
“When the sun balloons outwards in what’s known as its red giant phase, it will likely obliterate Mercury and Venus and possibly Earth,” said the lead author of the study, Joshua Blackman, an astronomer at the University of Tasmania in Australia.
The sun will have grown too hot for anything on Earth to survive well before then, and its red giant phase will cause lakes of lava, broken continents and devastating blasts of intense ionizing radiation—if it doesn’t fragment our planet entirely, he said in an email.
The bad news: if Marjorie Taylor-Greene ever becomes president, you can move that timetable up by approximately—[Clackity clackity clack clack Ding!]—4,999,999,999 years and 364 days. Noonish.
CHEERS to 86 decent years—and 4 that really sucked. Herbert Hoover got some company recently in the form of a certain "W" Bush and Donald Trump, who now join him on the short list of worst presidents ever. But Hoover was quite the humanitarian before his disastrous (and, boy howdy, do we mean disastrous) one term as president...and he was quite the competent humanitarian for 30 years after. But his time ran out when he kicked the bucket on this date in 1964 at the age of 90. Oh, and speaking of speaking of #31 and #43 and #45 in the same breath, there actually were people who roamed the planet named Donald W. Hoover. Poor souls.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to fair seas and a light breeze. The end of Atlantic Hurricane season is now just six weeks away, and after all the crap we’ve gone through over the last couple months, this is a relief:
Nothing but deep acidifying blue sea, collapsing fisheries, and massive plastic garbage patches. [Sigh.] Back to normal. How comforting.
CHEERS to the Birthday Bab. Today is Birth of the Bab day, honoring the founder of the Babi religion, forerunner to Baha'u'llah and the Baha'i faith. According to tradition, no work is to be done on this day. Great...now they tell me, after I've spent the last hour tying my work yak skins on.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 20, 2011
CHEERS to flying the heavenly skies. Just a heads-up that tomorrow is Rapture Day, according to Rapture expert Harold Camping. You may recall his last predicted Judgment Day—May 21—was a bit off the mark. But this time, says Camping, "We can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011." I'd recommend packing your suitcase, but I know for a fact that the world isn’t going to end tomorrow. It's a workday and corporate America would never approve.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to foresight. Can you imagine being able to go back 36 years and gobble up the very first internet domain names like a kid in a candy store, and then turn around and sell ‘em for a gazillion bucks to their “rightful” companies? Remember those days? These were the first URLs back then:
Rank Create date Domain name
1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM
But no. We waited too long and had to resort to Plan B for getting ahead in life: robbing banks. In hindsight, a poor career move. Sincerely, Inmate #321775439974.
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
”Let me tell you a little story about a misunderstood hero: Bill in Portland Maine.”
—Sara Moniuszko
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