Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Dahlia Lithwick: Stop Trying to Understand What Trump Says and Look at What His Followers Do (Slate)
At the end of a week of hate crimes in America, it's time to let go of trying to prove causation and instead assess the facts that are plainly in front of our eyes.
Matthew Yglesias: "Democrats need to learn to name villains rather than vaguely decrying 'division'" (Vox)
The American people were not crying out for the Trump administration to legalize a pesticide that damages children's brains and then follow it up with a ruling to let power plants poison children's brains, but the people who own the pesticide factories and power plants are sure glad that we're screaming about a caravan of migrants hundreds of miles away rather than the plutocrats next door. Combating this strategy of demagoguery and nonsense is difficult, but the first step is to correctly identify it rather than spouting vague pieties about togetherness.
Ted Rall: The Left Will Never Thrive Without Its Own Smart, Entertaining and Well-Funded Media Organization (Creators Syndicate)
First, we need a huge left-wing media group to educate people about what's going on. You can't expect people to get riled up about what the U.S. is doing in Yemen if they don't know what's going on there. Second, to redefine what's "normal." In the current media landscape, opposing war is abnormal. When's the last time, during a foreign policy crisis, that a mainstream pundit suggested the U.S. simply stay out of it? Third, to showcase activism and direct action as feasible, fun and effective.
Lucy Mangan: "The last few weeks have been overwhelming - but women must keep fighting" (Stylist)
The Kavanaugh hearing and then confirmation (my fingers weaken with fury as I type this) was almost too much to process by itself. And of course, it is not by itself. It is simply the biggest turd floating on a rising tide of sh*t, comprising things like …
Joe Bob Briggs: I'm Calling for a Stupidity Boycott (Taki's Magazine)
"Mansize" was history, said the Social Compliance experts at Kimberly-Clark. Henceforth the big fluffy Kleenex would be called "Extra Large." They didn't give a reason. The statement was, in fact, kind of sheepish in the rationale department, especially since the "Mansize" brand had served the company so well.
David Prologo: Is exercise still important to weight loss? Absolutely, a doctor says (The Conversation)
For 10 years, I have been studying the epidemic of failed weight loss attempts and researching the phenomenon of hundreds of millions of people embarking on weight loss attempts - then quitting. In the meantime, exercise remains the most common practice among nationally tracked persons who are able to maintain weight loss over time. In fact, 90 percent of people who lose significant weight and keep it off exercise at least one hour a day, on average.
Linus Owens: Why has Halloween become so popular among adults? (The Conversation)
Historian Nicholas Rogers has argued that many of the trends and rituals of the holiday are actually tied to conflicting social values. For example, urban legends about razor blades in apples in the 1970s reflected cultural anxieties about loss of community and fear of strangers. More recently, debates about skimpy costumes tap into broader concerns about young girls growing up too quickly.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• As kids growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, Yogi Berra and his friends had little money. Fortunately, Yogi was smart and figured out a way to get footballs to play with in the streets. St. Louis University had a football team which played its games only one mile from the kids' neighborhood, and Yogi and his friends stood in the street outside the stadium. They formed a relay line with the kids standing about 30 feet apart, and whenever a football came flying over the stadium wall, Yogi would grab it and throw it to the next kid, who threw it to the next kid, until the football was safely in the kids' neighborhood and no student manager had a chance of retrieving it.
• At a football game between Harvard and North Carolina, Harvard took the lead in the first half, but in the second half the North Carolina team dominated, rolling right over the Harvard football players. After North Carolina had won the game, a reporter asked the coach what he had said to fire up his players at halftime. The coach said, "I told them not to forget that every man on the Harvard team was a Republican."
• During the 1946 game between Notre Dame and Army, Notre Dame quarterback Johnny Lujack was intercepted three times by Army safety man Arnold Tucker. After the game, Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy asked his quarterback, "Tell me, Johnny, why did you throw so many passes to Tucker?" Mr. Lujack replied, "Coach, he was the only man open."
• In 1952, fumbles resulted in an Oklahoma loss to Notre Dame. All during during the first half, the Sooners just couldn't hold onto the football. At halftime, the Sooners waited for the band to get off the field. An Oklahoma majorette threw a baton, and when it came, she dropped it. A fan witnessed the fumble and told Coach Bud Wilkinson, "I see you coach the band, too."
• In 1952, Notre Dame player Johnny Lattner played badly in a game against Purdue, fumbling five times. His coach, Frank Leahy, was not pleased. As punishment, he ordered that a special football - one with a handle for easy holding on to - be manufactured, and he ordered Mr. Lattner to carry it around campus.
• Gymnasts tend to be small. When Kurt Thomas was a hall monitor in school, he worked with another boy named Elvis Peacock, who became a star football player at Oklahoma. Mr. Thomas remembers, "If I asked a guy for his pass when Peacock wasn't around, it was like I wasn't even there."
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Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
WTF CBS!!!!
WHY did the CBS morning program booked Predator strategist Brad Pascal? But if they were Republican enough to do that, why did they agree to air, as part of the program, 30-seconds of a Republican ad?! Seriously, WHY are you airing Republican commercials as "payment" to a "guest" on your supposedly news-oriented program. What sell-outs. What a disgrace!
Since when do you pay guests to appear? How is airing a partisan commercial appropriate on any level?
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE NEW FASCIST KID ON THE BLOCK.
THE MUSSOLINI OF SOUTH AMERICA
"NOT WELCOME!"
TRUMP WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE PRESIDENT WHO BROUGHT FASCISM BACK TO THE UNITED STATES.
THE RACKETEER.
THE RACKETEERS APPRENTICE.
THE RACKETEERS ARE EVERYWHERE.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another really foggy morning.
To Tour With Orchestra
'Weird Al'
"Weird Al" Yankovic is returning to the road in 2019, where the musician will employ a full symphony orchestra for every show. Unlike this year's Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour - where he played a set consisting almost entirely of his lesser-known original tunes - he'll be breaking out all the classic parodies this time. "We're going directly from my most scaled-down, low-key show ever to my most full-blown, over-the-top extravaganza ever," Yankovic wrote in an Instagram post announcing the tour. "We bringing back the costumes and the props and the big video screen."
Tour dates won't be announced until November 12th, but Yankovic did say that the Strings Attached tour will only hit North America. It will feature his longtime bandmates Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, Steve Jay, Jim West and Rubén Valtierra, but this time they'll be joined by backup singers Lisa Popeil, Monique Donnelly and Scottie Haskell. The three women have sang on many of Yankovic's studio albums, but have never actually toured with him.
"No, we're not cramming an orchestra on our bus - it'll be a different orchestra in every city," Yankovic wrote. "Sometimes it will be a 'branded' local orchestra (like, say, the Colorado Symphony), and other times we'll basically just be putting together our own orchestra with local musicians. And yes, we're back to PLAYING THE HITS…but we'll also throw in a few deeps cuts too (including a couple songs that we've never played before - not even on the Ill-Advised Vanity Tour!)"
Yankovic did a test run of this concept in July 2016 when he played the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
'Weird Al'
'Ballad of the Incel Man'
Tim Heidecker
Tim Heidecker mocks the MAGA-loving, "involuntarily celibate" Trump supporter in the comedian's new song "Ballad of the Incel Man."
"Wear my 'Hillary for Prison' shirt / Like a good boy should," Heidecker's rally attendee sings. "Got my picture of Obama / Which we'll burn in effigy / And I hope I find a like-minded girl tonight at the Trump rally."
All proceeds from the song, available through Heidecker's Bandcamp, benefit HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers criticized HIAS in a series of anti-Semitic rants on the social media network Gab before opening fire on the Tree of Life Congregation Saturday, killing 11 people.
While Bowers was allegedly not a Trump supporter, "Ballad of the Incel Man" draws a parallel to the dangerous, divisive rhetoric spouted by the president. "Sometimes it scares me / When he goes on one of those rants," Heidecker's incel sings of Trump. "Sometimes I don't know what he's talking about / But it makes them liberals shit their pants."
"The Ballad of the Incel Man" follows Heidecker's similarly lacerating charity singles "Q," which mocked the Qanon conspiracy theorists, and "The Ballad of ICE Agent Ray." The latter track benefited Families for Freedom. Heidecker also released his Too Dumb for Suicide: Tim Heidecker's Trump Songs in 2017.
Tim Heidecker
Man With An Opinion
Jon Bon Jovi
So, Jon Bon Jovi definitely doesn't have his DVR set to E! on Sunday nights. The 56-year-old rocker put the Kardashians on blast while condemning the modern-day cult of celebrity.
"I think it's horrific that we live in that world, and I can tell you I've never given 60 seconds of my life, ever, to one of those 'Housewives of Blah Blah' or Kardashians," he said on Australia's The Sunday Project. "I don't even know their names. I've never watched 60 seconds of their show."
But the "It's My Life" singer has certainly heard all about Kim Kardashian, saying the only way she's made a name for herself is from that 2007 sex tape.
"What's going to be in your autobiography? 'I made a porno and guess what? I got famous,'" he quipped. "F*** sorry, I'll pass."
Bon Jovi's advice for any youth seeking fame is simple. "Go and write a book, paint a painting, act, study, sing, play, write," he said.
Jon Bon Jovi
Returns To ABC
Bob Saget
Perhaps the greatest proof that the scientific concept of entropy is an outright lie, America's Funniest Home Videos (now abbreviated to AFV) is still on ABC's airwaves after 29 seasons, trafficking in embarrassing home videos of parents getting hit in the nuts and children saying no-no words long after YouTube fail videos made the show irrelevant. Now, original host Bob Saget is coming back to ABC to launch an "edgier" video clip show to air later at night.
Videos After Dark is set to be a raunchier, less family-friendly version of AFV, according to the network: "the hits are a little harder, the language a bit saltier, the animals a little less cute, the kids a tad less adorable and the embarrassing moments are way more revealing."
We can only guess what that truly means, but given Saget's reputation as an edgy comic (one which clashes with the family-friendly persona he cultivated in the '90s through Full House and the original run of AFV), the concept alone sounds like his kind of jam.
Of course, Videos After Dark doesn't seek to replace the original show; AFV was also renewed for a 30th and 31st (!) season, meaning the two shows will air in tandem. Senior VP of alternative, late night and specials at ABC Rob Mills says of the pairing, "AFV has been a fixture in households across America for decades, and we are so happy that this show still resonates. Now the generation that grew up with the hilarious Bob Saget as the host of AFV is old enough to stay up past 10 p.m. to see him on Videos After Dark."
No premiere date is set for Videos After Dark, which will be executive produced by Saget, longtime executive producer Vin Di Bona, and Michele Nasraway.
Bob Saget
Blames 'Late-Night Comedians'
Kellyanne
In a Monday morning appearance on Fox News, Kellyanne Conway suggested "anti-religious" late-night comedians fostered an environment for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting to take place.
"The anti-religiosity in this country that is somehow in vogue and funny to make fun of anybody of faith, to constantly be making fun of people that express religion - the late-night comedians, the unfunny people on TV shows - it's always anti-religious," Conway said, without naming particular hosts.
"These people were gunned down in their place of worship, as were the people in South Carolina several years ago," Conway continued, referencing the nine people killed at a Charleston church in 2015. "And they were there because they're people of faith, and it's that faith that needs to bring us together."
Conway's statement comes after 11 people were killed on Saturday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The FBI is investigating the attack as a hate crime after the suspect, Robert Bowers, had routinely posted anti-Jewish comments and memes on his social media accounts. Bowers was a vocal critic of President Trump online, believing the president was controlled by Jewish special interest groups.
Kellyanne
Approval Rating Plunges
Pre-Midterm Violence
President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Deplorable) job approval rating plunged 4 percentage points last week amid a wave of violence, the latest troubling signal for Republican chances in upcoming midterm elections.
Forty percent of Americans approved of Trump's performance as commander in chief, according to Gallup polling during the week ending Oct. 28. That was down from 44 percent the prior week, an unusually steep decline for the poll, which is based on a survey of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted Monday through Sunday each week.
Some of the polling was done before the attacks. The drop was the sharpest since June 24 -- when Trump's weekly job approval declined to 45 percent from 41 percent the previous week -- amid controversy over his administration's policy of separating families apprehended illegally crossing the U.S. border with Mexico.
A series of mail-bombs to prominent Trump critics and a deadly attack at a Pennsylvania synagogue have stirred criticism of the president's polarizing rhetoric, especially as the November midterm elections approach. Trump has in turn blamed the news media for fomenting public anger and on Monday revived his characterization of the press as the "Enemy of the People."
Trump has held a series of rallies for Republican House and Senate candidates across the country in recent weeks. White House officials, however, are largely resigned to losing Republican control of the House, and the mood around the president has darkened as many challengers continue to out-raise seasoned Republican incumbents, and Democratic enthusiasm surpasses that of the GOP.
Pre-Midterm Violence
Calls Ou 'Pure Fascism'
James Cromwell
James Cromwell spoke critically of Donald Trump during an appearance at the 2018 Carney Awards, issuing a grave warning that violence will continue throughout the country and could even get worse if Trump remains in the White House. Cromwell was attending the Carney Awards as one of six honorees this year. The ceremony honors the best character actors in Hollywood.
"This is nascent fascism," Cromwell told Variety about Trump's presidency. "We always had a turnkey, totalitarian state - all we needed was an excuse, and all the institutions were in place to turn this into pure fascism. If we don't stop [President Trump] now, then we will have a revolution for real. Then there will be blood in the streets."
During his acceptance speech later in the evening, Cromwell continued, "We're living in very curious times, and something is coming up which is desperately important to this country and to this planet, and that is an election, in which hopefully in some measure we are going to take back our democracy. We will have a government that represents us and not the donor class. We will cut through the corruption, [and] we won't have to do what comes next, which is either a non-violent revolution or a violent one, because this has got to end."
Cromwell is the latest actor using recent public appearances to champion people to go vote on November 6. Robert De Niro did the same after being mailed a pipe bomb, writing in a statement, "There's something more powerful than bombs, and that's your vote. People MUST vote!" Cromwell has long been outspoken about political and environmental issues. The actor's most recent roles include supporting turns in "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" and a two-episode appearance on HBO's drama series "Succession."
James Cromwell
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