I think I’m basically done moving everything over. We will wait a few days to make sure, but I think basically all the content has been moved. Very exciting, believe me, it is as it will save me $5 a month charged unfairly by my previous host, “Dreamhost,” which seems to no dream indeed but a company that likes to find every reason possible to upcharge. I have a lot of time to say “you’re fired,” but firing a service provider like this can take some time if you care about your content.
The nice thing about moving blog entries from one host to another, as I hope to have completed by Sept. 7, is that sometimes, when you’re reviewing your migrated entries for clarity, you recover a forgotten gem. For instance:
“Trump is a hemorrhoid.
“Let me explain. Hemorrhoids, also called piles, are enlarged veins in your rectum and anus. They can lead to itching, burning, bleeding, and discomfort, especially when sitting down. A hemorrhoid is something that annoys you for doing nothing more than simply sitting down. That is Trump.”
This is an excerpt from the latest blog post from Margaret and Helen, an old favorite of mine. They’re still an active blog, so they’ve been added to the appropriate blog listing to the right. Those old ladies are a scream. Go check ’em out.
So, Thom Hartmann on his fine radio program today uttered a thought that’s a little unsettling.
As you know, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, erstwhile coach of college gridiron football, has been blocking senior military nominations, for the reason, he says, of protesting the military’s practice of offering resources to women/pregnant people who are stationed in anti-choice areas of the world so they might travel to receive care.
But, Hartmann wondered today, what if that’s not the reason?
What if Tuberville is holding those spots open hoping that Preznit Carnage, twice-impeached, thrice indicted of the Orange, will be able to one day soon fill those spots with lunatics who, shall we say, don’t really respect posse comitatus?
I’m tired of seeing him on my TV all the time. I’m tired of him, living rent free in our brains. I’m tired of seeing his ugly, conceited, swelled-up orange face everywhere. I’m tired of hearing the audio of him shaking down Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for 11,780 votes. I’m tired of seeing new tell-all books coming out about Donald Trump from authors who should have told what they knew back when it would have made a difference. I’m tired of a Republican Party that could, any day they wanted to, excise themselves of this cancer just by having 20 to 50 of their members start getting in front of a camera and telling the truth. I’m tired of it. I’m sick to death of it. Just tell me when he’s been arrested. Otherwise, Joy Reid, otherwise, Chris Hayes, otherwise, Nicolle Wallace, talk to the hand. I’m done with your speculation and your Claire McCaskill and former part-of-the-problem Michael Steele and your giving Donald Trump more oxygen than he deserves. Done with it. Call me when he’s in jail. Otherwise, fuck all ya’ll.
Seriously. Knock it off.
I remember in 2015, when I was working one of the shittiest jobs I’ve ever worked, but at least I got 45 minutes for lunch, so I would get in my car and drive it to a remote part of the parking lot and eat a sandwich and listen to Chris Matthews on MSNBC on Sirius/XM. And he would cover Trump rallies gavel to gavel, and this was held over from the previous hour. They didn’t cover shit about what President Obama was doing, nor did they cover the other candidates like that. Nope. Just Trump. Trump Trump Trump Trump. And now, they’re doing it again.
Well, shove it up your ass, MSNBC.
And let’s get back to a point I glossed over earlier: The “Republican Party” could excise this zit off of its bum any time they want to. Any time. It would take maybe a dozen of them to just get in front of the camera and talk some sense. Like, Joe Biden won the election and is the real preznit. Like, maybe an outgoing preznit shouldn’t lead an insurrection. Maybe that’s bad. Like, maybe theories about my political opponents lusting for the blood of children is something we should discourage. Maybe. Just maybe.
Even just a scintilla of truth from a dozen of these assholes could send Donald Trump into the trash heap of obsolescence that he deserves. But they won’t do it because they are chicken-shit pussies. Or, they’re not and they’re just Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a golem made of corn chips. Regardless.
I often find myself thinking, with as much hope as I can muster, with as much hope I sometimes have that a banana split will magically appear before me with a spoon, I find myself thinking, well, he has to die sometime. He’s 77, he’s fat, and he’s stupid enough to flush himself down a toilet. He has. To die. Sometime.
But I think it’s too late. Trump is the center of Trumpism, but he’s not the spring from which it flows. Trump would die and become a weird martyr rumored to have special superpowers like Jesus. Did you know Trump can turn a single quarter pounder into hundreds of double cheeseburgers just by farting through his bellybutton? Did you know that Trump could declassify classified documents just by thinking about it? Did you know that Trump was secretly The Buraq and while Muhammed rode his steely back to Mecca, Trump told him lots of funny jokes about Mexicans?
This country is fucked, people. Get out and vote for Biden/Harris in 2024. Meanwhile, put on an Erroll Garner album and chill. Let Joy Reid talk to herself for a bit.
Fans of the Apple TV behemoth “Ted Lasso” show don’t just watch the show, and we don’t just watch the show once. We’ll binge watch all three seasons countless times, looking for puzzles, looking for clues, I mean, why does Isaac count to 12 and skip 8, and why so many “Cheers” references snuck in? What is the significance of the number 1,236?
(I have my own personal theory on that last one and will share it at the end of this post just for fun, Tod Rundgren.)
I mean, “Ted Lasso” watchers are maniacs, myself included. And, with good reason. Television shows this good do not litter our cultural landscape. They are occasions. The writing is excellent. (Rebecca: Oh, do you believe in ghosts, Ted? Ted: I do. But more importantly, I believe they need to believe in themselves.) or (Beard: We have a saying in Codependents Anonymous. The room: What? Beard: Oh, Jane makes me go with her.) The characters, each of them, well developed and greatly acted, from Ted himself to Paul, Basil and Jeremy.
What’s astonishing is the origins of this project. SNL alum Jason Sudeikis started it as a jokey way to promote NBC Sports’ coverage of England’s Premier League.
I mean, he and his writers could have left it there, but they didn’t. They somehow saw more in the concept. They developed it. They altered its tone (Sudeikis has said that part of this was indeed a reaction to his witnessing our increasingly hostile political climate). By 2020, “Ted Lasso” was fully realized and running on Apple TV. From that silly promo to a beloved, scrutinized television program. It’s quite a feat.
Some of those responsible: Writer and producer Bill Lawrence, previously creator of “Scrubs” and co-creator of “Cougar Town,” and “Spin City.” Jason Sudeikis, SNL writer and eventual cast member from 2003 to 2013, subsequently a film actor and eventually writer and producer on “Ted Lasso.” Brendan “Coach Beard” Hunt, theater student and Second City and Boom Chicago alum, film actor, and creator of his own one-man show, performed in Edinburgh, Aspen, Chicago, and New York. And, SNL writing staff alum Joe Kelly, also a writer and story editor on “How I Met Your Mother.”
I summarize the “Ted Lasso” creators’ credits because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the SAG-AFTRA strike.
For various reasons, summertime is my least favorite time of the year. It’s hot. The sun is entirely too bright. The air conditioning in my apartment is useless, and the cat won’t let me put it on most of the time anyway. And, there’s nothing on television to watch. I usually spend July and August sweating a lot and waiting for football to start.
The strike didn’t help. SNL wrapped sooner than it would have, and I’ve been driven to the milquetoast legal drama “Suits,” the show what gave us. Meghan Markle. But, then again, the future the studio bosses are presenting sure does seem bleak. I mean, doesn’t quality suffer without a full writers’ room for the entire life of a show? Where does the next “Ted Lasso” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” come from if talented writers don’t get the experience of working on a show from start to finish, and if they’re getting paid peanuts? Not to mention if you can just spit a premise into a computer and have it barf out a script?
I note this morning that the Teamsters and UPS have come to an agreement. That is excellent; that strike really would have mucked up this incredible Biden economy. But I would have supported them, and I certainly support our writer and actor compadres. Am hoping these events portend a great wave for labor in this country.
Now, regarding 1,236. This is a number mentioned twice in season 2, episode 1, “Goodbye Earl.” It is mentioned once as the ongoing tally for Pheobe’s swear-penalties for her Uncle Roy. Keeley asks how much she’s accrued, and Pheobe says, “1,236 pounds,” to which Keeley replies, “impressive.” The second instance is in Ted’s office, where these screwballs are playing a game where they pass a crumpled up piece of paper. On her way out, Dr. Sharon Fieldstone asks what their record is. The reply is 1,236, to which the good doctor replies, “impressive.”
Ted Lasso fans are a little nuts, and all over the internet, we’ve been speculating over this number’s significance. Some say it’s a prime number, or something in numerology, blah, blah, blah. But I think I have the real poop on this one.
In 1972, running back Steve Jones, who would be that year’s Player of the Year in the ACC, became the first in Duke’s history to best a thousand yards in a season. His record: 1,236 yards.
Impressive. In fact, this record stood until it was beaten by Mataeo Durant in 2021. That, in my humble estimation, is the significance of this number in “Ted Lasso.”
I mean, it’s par for the course since she’s a Republican running for Preznit. But she’s basically like, so Biden has announced he’s running. Dude’s gonna die anyway. Seriously.
“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” is something she felt quite comfortable telling Fox “News.”
What a ghoulish, awful thing to say about our nation’s chief executive. Sadly, while Haley said it in the worst way possible, it is not an uncommon sentiment.
President Joe Biden has barely thrown his hat into the ring, and the clamoring over his age has already begun. Biden is 80 now, would be 82 when he’s sworn in, and would be 86 at the end of his term. Polls are showing that even Democrats are feeling lackluster for Biden’s run for a second term, many citing his age as a reason.
If only there was some sort of public report people could read offered by the President’s physician that summarized the current state of his health.
Oh wait. There is.
Kevin C. O’Connor, D.O., FAAFP, and no, I do not know what all of those letters mean, released in February 2023 a document detailing Biden’s health to the American public. Previously, O’Connor had released this report in 2021.
The report first discusses Biden’s bout of COVID, noting that he was fully vaccinated and experienced mild symptoms with no signs of long COVID. Biden is up-to-date on his boosters.
The report discusses Biden’s heart health, cholesterol, a condition called gastroeesophageal reflux, which is why Biden often needs to clear his throat, seasonal allergies, conditions that contribute to Biden’s more labored gait, mild peripheral neuropathy in his feet, dermatology evaluation, eye health, dental health, medications, no tobacco, no booze, and he continues to work out five days a week.
Here’s the link, you can go read the thing yourself.
My point in going over all of this is: Where is Trump’s?
There isn’t one. Because twice-impeached once-indicted disgraced former President Carnage has never produced a serious health disclosure.
Let’s remember the now-late Dr. Harold Bornstein, a gastroenterologist, who later admitted that Preznit Carnage himself had dictated the 2015 absurd statement, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Really?
Let’s remember Carnage-man’s subsequent appearance on Dr. Oz on television, which Vox described as “surreal” and “disturbing.”
Let’s remember in 2020, when Dr. Sean Conley did somersaults to avoid discussing former Preznit Carnage’s health. This followed TFG’s helicopter voyage to Walter Reed and his bizarre return to the White House where he defiantly removed his mask for the cameras and went inside, presumably to recklessly infect more of his staff and loved ones.
Conley would not even confirm for the press when former Preznit Carnage’s last negative COVID test was.
As previously noted, President Biden’s disclosure thoroughly discusses Biden’s bout with COVID and reassures that he is not suffering from residual effects. Is TFG suffering from brain fog? Respiratory problems? Depression or anxiety? Fatigue? We, the voters, don’t know, and it is not likely that any serious attempt will be made to brief the public.
Don’t assess Biden based on the image he projects when he appears on television. Assess him on his record. Under his leadership, this full-stopped country got moving again. People got vaccinated. They got help. The economy got help. Jobs numbers improved dramatically. We ended a decades-long war. Actual infrastructure investment. The first black female Justice of the United States. Support for a besieged sovereign nation overseas. Investment for the climate. And, I would be remiss if I did not mention, first woman Vice President, first Vice President of color.
Regarding his fitness for the office, there’s facts. You can look them up.
They keep showing his picture over and over again on MSNBC. He was beautiful. He was gorgeous. He was so pretty. And his death makes me think of a quote from the infamous movie called FIGHT CLUB. Where the guy beats the living shit out of Jared Leto and justifies it by saying: I felt like destroying something beautiful.”
Those cops. Those cops destroyed something beautiful. They did it yards away from his own home. While he was, as President Biden would says, was LITERALLY, LITERALLY, HE WAS LITERALLY calling out for his mom. And by that I mean literally. He was hards away from her the he was lynched. He was not calling for her as a spiritual exercise. He was really asking for her help.
I remember where I was when I first witnessed the video tape where the LAPD beat the living shit out of Rodney King. I was in a corporate apartment in Virginia. And we all watched it, we all did. And the visuals are remarkably similar. What is it, 34 years later, something? And we haven’t learned a fucking thing. We’re still killing people in the streets with batons and kicks and punches and tear gas and tasers, and most of the people suffering that fate are black people. Just like Rodney King, just like now, just like handsome, skateboarding Trye Nichols, who came home every dinner to eat with his mom and who skateboarded and was a father.
When does this stop?
When do we stop being afraid of our policemen?
Fortunately for me, I have the invisible blanket of whiteness. I have talked a cop out of arresting me at least once, Maybe twice. This is not the honkey you are looking for. That kind of thing.
That poor man. I watched the video of it. Did you?
I watched a man who was sometimes throughout the brutal torture that would lead to his death, I watched him stood up in his pain at times, only to be fallen. I heard these incompetent peace officers claim to ask Nichols to give the his hands despite that he was prostrate and obedient. I saw batons.
I do not understand how this happens. It is violence and I do not understand why people tend to choose violence.
Ketchup Is A Vegetable 