Life Lessons and Other Bits from May Birthday Kids
“Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan ‘Down With Socialism’ on the banner of his 'great crusade,' that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is, 'Down with Progress—down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and down with Harry Truman's Fair Deal.' That is what he means."
—President Harry Truman
“I'm just trying to keep things simple, and just be a little more offhand and not get so deep into things. Enjoy what you got right now, because who knows what's going to happen tomorrow?”
—Bob Seger, who turned 80 Tuesday
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
"To err is human. To mew, divine." —Birthday Pootie
—George Carlin
"I know those challenges that come up from time to time in life are our little learning tools, our little stepping stones. If we didn't have those things in our life, how would we learn anything? We would just be walking around like nothing. We need those obstacles in our life because I know one thing—I'm a much better person for them."
—Gladys Knight
"There's an old saying: don't get mad, vote. Well, I say get mad and vote. … Health care decisions should be between a woman and her doctor, not Ted Cruz."
—Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
“The final chapter is ours to write. We know what we need to do. What happens next is up to us.”
—Sir David Attenborough, who turns 99 today
“The reason I made women's issues central to American foreign policy was not because I was a feminist, but because we know that societies are more stable if women are politically and economically empowered.”
—Madeleine Albright
“I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads—fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I’m affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. And no offense meant, but if teachers are going to affect you as role models, there’d be a lot of nuns running around the streets today.”
—Harvey Milk
If you retain nothing else, always remember the Most Important Rule of Beauty. “Who cares?”
—Tina Fey
To the above and those in our Daily Kos community who make another trip around the sun this month: happy birthday and many blessings on your camels.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, May 8, 2025
Note: Due to a series of planning sessions for my August birthday parade featuring squirrels driving surplus Sherman tanks through the streets of Portland, Maine, C&J will not appear on Monday. We'll return on Tuesday to report the bizarre news that someone stole an entire division of surplus Sherman tanks from under Pete Hegseth's nose in the dead of night. (And because she’s a f*cking idiot, the person in charge of Homeland Security will blame it on the dogs.)
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2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Mother's Day: 3
Days 'til the West Virginia Strawberry Festival in Buckhannon: 2
March exports, up $0.5 billion from February: $278.5 billion
March imports, up $17.8 billion from February: $419 billion
Percent increase in the sepsis rate in second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations under Texas’ abortion ban, according to Pro Publica: 50%
Number of times Canada will be up for sale, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House Tuesday: 0
Amount by which the first post-tariff shipping containers arriving from China are filled: 1/2
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their side and want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are three they should stick to:
1) Iraq is making terrorism worse; it’s a breeding ground. We need to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. We are not helping the Iraqis by staying.
2) Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the moneylenders from the halls of Washington.
3) Single-payer health insurance.
Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.
Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.
—May 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: They finally used their coupon to Glamour Shots…
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JEERS to Planet EZ-Bake. Here's a quick and overdue update on climate change on the third planet from the sun: everything bad is happening at a faster rate than even the most pessimistic scientists are able to predict. On the bright side, the electric bills for air conditioning on Mercury are much, much higher than here. (However, thanks to our new tariffs, the actual air conditioners on Mercury are a real bargain.) Please refer to this update anytime you need a refresher update, as it is not expected to change. But do it in a different voice so it sounds new.
CHEERS to papal preparedness. Please cover your ears while we conduct a little mandatory business here:
AHHH-OOOOH-GAH!!!
This is a test of the Sistine Chapel pope selection smokestack. This is only a test:
Waft...waft...waft...waft...
If this had been an actual pope selection, the media would have had an orgasm (within the context of marital fidelity, of course) and you would have been subjected to non-stop coverage until you puked. This concludes this test of the Sistine Chapel pope-selection smokestack. Now back to Cheers and Jeers…
AHHH-OOOOH-GAH!!!
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
CHEERS to "Give 'Em Hell Harry." And happy 141st birthday to #33, the former haberdasher who said "I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me" when he became president after FDR died in 1945. Back when he had some shred of relevance, President George W. Bush liked to cling to the notion that his legacy would be vindicated over time, as Truman's was. Or perhaps not: when Bush came into office, the country was enjoying virtually unprecedented peace and prosperity and he led us straight into recession and war. Truman's situation was a bit different. From the book Rating the Presidents, in which over 700 historians and political gurus rank Truman #7 (and this description almost sounds a little Biden’ish):
Ahead of him was the task of leading a nation worn out from almost sixteen years of depression and war.
Truman circa 1959 in a reproduction of the Oval Office at his presidential library. Trump and his cult would never consider putting a sign like that on their desk. Everything they fuck up is always someone else’s fault.
Truman paid heavily for the mood of the people and the troubles of the times. Contemporary opinion polls gave him terrible ratings. He was reviled, the endless butt of jokes like, "To err is Truman."
In later, calmer years historians and political scientists assessing his standing consistently ranked him among America's ten best presidents. Our poll participants give him high rankings in all categories, never dropping him lower than ninth and in the Accomplishments and Crisis Management categories ranked him sixth.
But, golly, it sure sucked when Dewey defeated him. Titter titter.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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x
Reporter: I was watching your face during the meeting.. what was going through your mind when the President talked about erasing the border..
Carney: I’m glad that you couldn’t tell what was going through my mind
Reporter: Oh I could
— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2025-05-06T19:45:20.443Z
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to real "Mission Accomplished" moments. Speaking of Harry Truman, World War II—which got started in 1939 when Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked a kerosene lantern into Adolf Hitler's crotch (source: Conservapedia)—officially ended in Europe 80 years ago today. Truman famously said: "The flags of freedom fly all over Europe." And the head of the House cafeteria famously said: "Hooray, we can finally change 'freedom veal' back to 'wiener schnitzel.'"
CHEERS to unclogging the pipes. Pills Pills Pills! We want pills! Give us pills! Yummy yummy pills! Thanks to American medical researchers, folks having trouble controlling their "bad" cholesterol might have a new pill that can roto-rooter your arteries:
In the Phase 3 trial, Cleveland Clinic researchers found that the combination of the new drug, obicetrapib, with an established medication, ezetimibe, reduced low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels by 48.6% after about three months’ use—producing more effective results than either drug alone.
I like the reds. They’re cinnamony.
Ezetimibe is a cholesterol-lowering drug that is often prescribed with statins to reduce LDL even more. […]
Only 20% of patients at high risk of heart disease are able to manage their LDL, said Dr. Corey Bradley, a cardiologist at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. … “High LDL is one of the leading risk factors for heart disease, and we have such a poor handle on controlling that risk,” Bradley said. “Many people have such a high LDL they will require multiple agents to control it.”
Said Dr. Bradley: “I am very excited about drugs like obicetrapib.” Said HHS Secretary RFK Jr.: “I am very excited about banning drugs like obicetrapib.”
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 8, 2015
JEERS to more ankle biting. Here we go again. It's official—the umpteenth House Beating A Dead Horse Committee will grill Hillary Clinton later this month on what she knew about BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI!!! It'll be the second time she's stared down the Republican scandal conjurers. Answers will be demanded, tempers will flare, umbrage will be taken, fingers will be pointed and pointed and…[flips page]…pointed some more.
By the end of the day, committee Chair-yokel Trey Gowdy will have so thoroughly outwitted Mrs. Clinton that she'll end up fleeing the chamber, robbing a series of banks, and leading police on a high-speed chase through northern Virginia in her Studebaker, but not before ordering the murder of that Clinton Cash author (among others), granting amnesty to over 500 million illegal immigrants and draining the treasury into the pockets of the moocher class. Oh, and to you students who will be reading about this next year in American History class from a textbook approved by the Texas Board of Education: Sorry—I shoulda yelled "Spoiler alert."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to magic moments in malodorousness. Anyone who reads C&J regularly, besides having questionable taste in reading material, knows that I go cuckoo for corpse flowers (aka Amorphophallus titanum). And soon, good ol' Stinkypants (aka ”Stink Floyd”) will be opening a can of odorama at Reiman Gardens in Ames, Iowa. There's a method to its madness, according to How Stuff Works:
Unlike most flowering plants that rely on bees or butterflies, the corpse flower attracts pollinators like carrion beetles and flesh flies, which are drawn to the scent of decaying organic matter.
Stink Floyd Prepares to stir. And stink.
To maximize its chances of pollination, the plant generates heat to help spread the pungent smell, which many describe to be reminiscent of rotting fish, rotten meat and even smelly feet. This process, known as thermogenesis, ensures that insects can find the flower during its short-lived peak bloom.
Because the corpse flower’s bloom cycle is so unpredictable, visitors often have to wait years for a single seedling to mature and bloom.
To put the corpse flower’s aroma in perspective, it's what the Sistine Chapel will smell like if the papal conclave lasts more than three days.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“I think that what the president has done to Maine, you don’t have to be a Democrat or an independent or a Republican or be from outer space, you know you shouldn’t play politics with kids' school lunches and Bill in Portland Maine's C&J kiddie pool."
—Angus King III
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