From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
In Praise of Those Who GUS
...et tu, Kringle?
According to a recent national survey, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!
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"Gee, Dad, you always get the best of everything…even Marlboros!"
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"As your dentist I would recommend Viceroys!"
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"I'm sending Chesterfields to all my friends. That's the merriest Christmas any smoker can have!" ---Ronald Reagan
Ah, the glory days of
irrationally exuberant cigarette advertising. A time when the most trusted figures in America---doctors, dentists, scientists, athletes, actors, even Santa Claus---swore up and down that the brand of death stick they were hawking was milder, healthier, sexier and more preferred by all the really cool people. Thank god those days are gone.
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I bring this up because over the weekend my partner, Michael---a two-pack-a-day smoker for the better part of three decades---hit a big milestone:
five years ciga-smoke-free. Not a puff, not a drag, not a dent in the unopened five-year-old pack of menthol lights he keeps in the freezer and hoists his middle finger to at least once a day. Given how precisely the tobacco giants calibrate the chemicals in their product for maximum addiction potential (a trick the fast-food giants now emulate in the name of maximum profits), that's a huge accomplishment, and anyone who has quit---or tried to---over the past year deserves to be included in our annual shoutout.
In a fortuitous bit of timing, Saturday also marked the anniversary (#4) of the formation of the Daily Kos support group called GUS (Gave Up Smoking), "for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking." It's a great group of people dedicated to helping each other hop on, and stay on, the smoke-free wagon. If you're en route to quitting, or you have tips you've found useful on your road to smokelessness, they'd love to welcome you as a member.
And if you can manage to quit on a Monday, I say you oughtta get a Medal of Freedom from ex-smoker Barack Obama himself.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, June 17, 2013
Note: Thius mornbing I'm blogging in myy new Wells Lamont worjk glovers. Thbyre grest!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Independence Day:
17
Days 'til the
Alexandria's Food and Wine Festival in Virginia:
5
Rank of "retaining talent," "maintaining productivity" and "improving morale" among the top concerns of chief financial officers about staffing:
#1, #2, #3
(Source:
USA Today)
Current approval rating of Congress, the lowest of any institution Gallup has ever tracked:
10%
Portion of Arab youth who say they're more proud to be an Arab since the Arab Spring uprising:
9/10
(Source: Harper's Index)
Current standing of the Dow Industrials:
15,070.18
Rank of Allen's Coffee Brandy among Maine's most popular spirits:
#1
(Source: The Portland Press Herald)
NBA Finals:
San Antonio Spurs 3 Miami Heat 2
Stanley Cup Finals:
Chicago Blackhawks 1 Boston Bruins 1
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California Dreamin'…
Brought to you by the 2013 Netroots Nation Convention in San Jose, June 20-23. With the convention starting later this week, we thought we'd publish some phone numbers you might want to keep handy:
Police: 408-277-8900
Fire: 911
Laptop repair: Take your pick
Criminal Defense Attorney: 408-637-4775
Dial-A-Prayer: 408-259-2442
Marriage: 408-299-5658
Divorce: 408-753-9700
Stomach pumping: 408-559–2011
Civil liberties abuses: 408-462-2581
Pie: 408-269-5212
Three days 'til showtime!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Hey! Mom's back…
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CHEERS to order in the court. OMG! OMG! OMG!!! (Like, seriously.) The Supreme Court is fast running out of Mondays-in-June on which to issue its rulings, among other things, on Prop. 8 and DOMA. Today is the next-to-last one, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for any signs of white smoke coming from the Supreme Court Chapel. If we see any, we'll let you know through an ear-piercing scream. Apologies in advance if it shatters your china.
CHEERS to hopey changey stuff: Iran-style. The Iranian elections are over and, unlike last time, the actual winner won. Being the keen-minded blogger that I am, naturally I hopped in the C&J jalopy and headed over to Juan Cole's place for some IQ-raising. Comforting to me are these bits:
Who ARE you, Rouhani?
Who ARE you?!!
The poor showing of nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is a slap in the face both of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and of outgoing president Ahmadinejad. The most hard line of the candidates got only 13% of the vote … Hassan Rouhani, the hands-down winner as I write, promised more effective diplomacy with the West, and the Iranian public seems to have liked that message … Rouhani has pledged more transparency about what he says is Iran’s peaceful nuclear enrichment program.
Cole says the presidency there is more comparable to the vice presidency here, since the mullahs hold all the power. So, to put Friday's event in some perspective: over in Iran they just replaced their Sarah Palin.
CHEERS to the beginning of the end. 41 years ago today, five burglars were arrested inside DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex.
Chapstick mics,
guys? Really???
They possessed burglary tools, cameras, film and pen-size tear gas guns. In rooms the men had rented at a motel across Virginia Avenue from the burglary scene, police found electronic bugging equipment.
Three of those arrested were Cuban exiles and one was a Cuban-American. Their leader was James McCord, a former CIA agent and a security coordinator for President Richard Nixon’s Committee for the Reelection of the President. Prosecutors also charged E. Howard Hunt Jr., a former White House aide, and G. Gordon Liddy, a CREEP finance counsel, as accomplices.
It was the start of a chain of events that led to Nixon's resignation, punctuated by the now-shocking notion that prominent members of Nixon's own party would help drag the scandal into the sunlight instead of burying it in the backyard under a smokescreen of spin and faux-outrage at Democrats. When the crisis had passed, Republicans paused a moment to reflect on the fact that they'd done something right and honorable...and vowed to learn from the mistake and never repeat it.
CHEERS to that bloomin' Rose. Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania was the site of exciting U.S. Open golf action yesterday, and C&J was there to witness it (i.e. on our living room couch watching it on TV). The winner: Justin Rose, the first English golfer since Tony Jacklin in 1970 to take home the Pabst Blue Ribbon Mega Big Gulp Cup (and a $1.4 million purse). And for another year, the number of spectators shouting "GET IN DA HOLE!!!!!!" every time a club was swung who were sober remains at zero.
JEERS to one more painful reminder of the Gipper's legacy. Twenty-seven years ago today, on June 17, 1986, President Reagan announced the retirement of Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. His brilliant replacement, who never met a square conservative argument he couldn't stuff into a round constitutionally-dubious hole:
To mark the occasion, today corporations will take turns buying him anything he wants.
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Five years ago in C&J: June 17, 2008
CHEERS to rice, rice, everywhere! Yesterday at 5:01pm Pacific Time, same-sex couples in California started getting same-sex married. It couldn’t have had a better kickoff:
Lesbian rights activists Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 84, were the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in San Francisco on Monday, with Mayor Gavin Newsom presiding over their wedding ceremony. "This is an extraordinary moment in history," Newsom told a cheering, standing-room-only crowd at City Hall. "I think today, marriage as an institution has been strengthened."
Meanwhile the right-wing fundies had a little trouble coordinating their response. The locusts they hired to disrupt the proceedings did a little YMCA karaoke and then went back to bed.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to calluses for equality. As usual, God hates gay people so much that She again gave us sunshine, 75 degrees, and a nice breeze for the 27th annual LGBT pride parade in Portland, Maine Saturday. Among the highlights: the sight of ten same-sex couples getting married simultaneously under our new marriage-equality law. Meanwhile, Michael and I showed our support for the recent decision by the Boy Scouts to allow gay kids in its ranks by pulling out our circa 1982 uniform shirts (mine is more of a vest these days---it must've shrunk, ahem) and showing folks along the route that we've been here all along, we've been queer along, and ain't it nice that the BSA is finally getting used to us:
You'll also notice our six-month-old puppy Haley, who made her debut in a pride march decked out in her "Puppy Pride" shirt (provided by Kossack PoliSigh). She sniffed every dog butt---male and female---she could get her nose on, and wagged her tail at every one. We're marking her down for the moment as bi-curious.
Have a nice Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
'Cheers and Jeers' is shiny, but ultimately emotionally cheap.
---Claudia Puig
USA Today
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