From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Friday Will Rogers Blogging
If I was Jewish (lapsed Episcopalian is the best I can do), one thing I'd have to atone for during Yom Kippur is failing to note the great Will Rogers' birthday last month. Like Mark Twain, his observations on politics and human nature are so sharp that they refuse to become irrelevant. Enjoy some vintage Rogers:
"Things will get better---despite our efforts to improve them."
"Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat."
Best thing that ever
came from Oklahoma?
"You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way."
"If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics."
"A fool and his money are soon elected."
"An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's."
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
"If all politicians fished instead of spoke publicly, we would be at peace with the world."
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 13, 2013
Note: Michael's mother is visiting from Michigan, her first trip to Maine since forever (she's meeting both Haley and Fantom for the first time), so we won't be posting C&J on Monday. Back Tuesday with multiple pinched-cheeks-related abrasions.
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2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus as of tomorrow:
100
Days 'til the
Dallas LGBT Pride Parade:
2
Percent increase in the number of small businesses who said in August they're planning to hire more workers:
7%
(Source: National Federation of Independent Business)
Number of economists who recently urged President Obama to pick Janet Yellen to be the next Fed Chief:
350
Average cost to get a tattoo in Maine:
$75-$150
Average cost to remove a square inch of tattoo:
$50-$100
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Number of evil twins I have:
1
(Source: My
evil twin)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Now with bonus pooties!!!
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CHEERS to a fabulous quintet! Just pure unadulterated good news story: the Kennedy Center Honorees were announced yesterday:
"The Kennedy Center celebrates five extraordinary individuals who have spent their lives elevating the cultural vibrancy of our nation and the world," said Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein. "Martina Arroyo has dazzled the world with her glorious soprano voice and continues to share her artistry with a new generation of opera singers; Herbie Hancock has established himself as one of the most innovative musicians in the world, constantly breaking musical barriers and redefining the art of jazz; Billy Joel's melodies have provided the soundtrack of our lives for over four decades making him one pop music's most prolific and memorable singers and songwriters; the remarkable breadth and range of Shirley MacLaine's acting has left an indelible impression over a nearly 60-year career on stage and screen; from his legendary performance at Woodstock to his sweep at the 2000 Grammys and beyond, Carlos Santana's artistry transcends genres while entertaining millions."
Sorry, Chuck Norris, Kirk Cameron and Victoria Jackson. Maybe next year.
CHEERS to G-d's Amazing 25-Hour Miracle Diet. The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur started at sundown (which in Maine is, like, 6 O'clock now) and continues through tomorrow. According to C&J's go-to guide, Torah Tots:
Sorry, Judaism,
I'm a lost cause.
Yom Kippur is a Shabbat...no work can be performed on Yom Kippur. It is well-known that you are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking (even water) on Yom Kippur. It is a complete, 25+ hour fast beginning before sunset on the evening before Yom Kippur and ending after nightfall on the day of Yom Kippur. The Talmud also specifies additional restrictions: washing and bathing, anointing one's body (with cosmetics, perfumes, etc.), marital relations and wearing leather shoes.
The holiday is a somber one during which Jews confess their sins and seek forgiveness over the course of a day. That's why I'm not Jewish---I'd barely get started before the closing buzzer went off.
P.S. It's also Friday the 13th. Don't stand so close, man.
CHEERS to the most mangled lyrics in music history (if you don’t count Feliz Navidad or Louie Louie). On tomorrow's date in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banana after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry with bananas (source: Gorillapedia) during the War of 1812. When he signed the 1931 law making it our national anthem, Herbert Hoover performed his greatest act of compassion while in office. Namely, not making us sing the other three frickin' verses.
CHEERS to boldly going where no one has gone before (well, if you don't count the invisible pod people who colonized in Louie Gohmert's head). The spacecraft Voyager 1, which was launched 36 years ago, is breaking up with us and leaving us for another solar system:
Voyager 1
the plutonium-powered probe is more than 11 1/2 billion miles from the sun, cruising through what scientists call interstellar space — the vast, cold emptiness between the stars, the space agency said.
Voyager 1 actually made its exit more than a year ago, according to NASA. But it’s not as if there’s a dotted boundary line out there or a signpost, and it was not until recently that the space agency had the evidence to convince it of what an outside research team had claimed last month: that the spacecraft had finally plowed through the hot plasma bubble surrounding the planets and escaped the sun’s influence.
The split is amicable: we get to keep the photo album and it gets to keep the 8-track player.
Bill Nye hangs with
Bill Maher tonight.
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CHEERS to home vegetation. No shortage of small-screen goodness this weekend, bub, that's for sure. For starters, Bill Maher cranks up
Real Time again with guests Matt Taibbi, Michael Steele, Edwin Lyman, Bill Nye and Zanny Minton Beddoes (which, coincidentally, is the secret password the Koch Brothers use to activate the revolving bookshelf in their study that reveals the tunnel to their secret dance studio.) New DVD releases include---finally!---
Star Trek: Into Darkness. The baseball schedule
is here (the Yankees will get their doodle dandied again by the Red Sox Ha Ha Ha) and the NFL lineup
is here. On
60 Minutes: the 9/11 Memorial...and pot! And Sunday night it'll be a battle royale for control of the remote as the Miss America Pageant competes in our living room with new episodes of
Breaking Bad,
Boardwalk Empire, and the season finale of
The Newsroom. There won't be blood---but there
will be lots of nacho cheese splattered on the walls.
On Bill Moyers & Company, Dave Zirin talks with Bill about "the ways in which sports stories are stories of American life in the 21st century." And here's your Sunday morning lineup. See if you can spot the trend:
What George Stephanopoulos
looks like to President Obama.
Meet the Press: Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Roy "Roll Me Up A Big Fat" Blunt talk about them meddlesome Russkies! Plus: Barney Frank and Hank Paulson on the 5-year anniversary of the economic meltdown. Then there's, like, a hundred people on the roundtable, including Tom Friedman and Kathleen Parker. You've been warned.
This Week: President Obama talks with George Stephanopoulos about them dadblamed Russkies! Then the roundtable kills the buzz.
Face the Nation: Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Bob Corker (R-TN) talk with Bob Schieffer about them dangblasted Russkies! Plus: Madeleine Albright on the poison-tipped brooch she has on standby in case Bashar al-Assad doesn't behave. The roundtable includes Peggy Noonan so skip that part.
CNN's State of the Union: Reps. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) talk about them cockadoodie rat bastard Russkies!
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Texas Congressman Michael McCaul talk 'bout them goldurn freedom-hating Russkies! Roundtable with Bill Kristol, Brit Hume and....never mind, I've lost interest.
Happy viewing!
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Seven years ago in C&J: September 13, 2006
JEERS to touchy madmen. Goodness gracious, Saddam, where are your manners? At his trial yesterday, he said---quoting here---"We will crush your heads!" My question: who's "we?" No Doritos for you tonight, buster.
JEERS to the law of unintended consequences. People who wear bike helmets are more likely to get hit by motorists than those who don't. I can't help it...they look like bowling pins to me.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the last Texas governor who had more than two brain cells to rub together. Why does it always seems like the heroes among us die more often than the jerks? Former Texas governor Ann Richards---whose reelection campaign was thwarted by Karl Rove's smear tactics ("I'm not saying she's a lesbian, but…")---died on September 13, 2006 at age 73. She mulled her epitaph back in '95:
"I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone,'"
As her headstone shows,
she got her wish. Molly Ivins and Richards became close friends, and you can read
Molly's tribute here. A snip:
We hope the Guv is haulin' ass
on the open road in the hereafter.
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She was so generous with her responses to other people. If you told Ann Richards something really funny, she wouldn't just smile or laugh, she would stop and break up completely. She taught us all so much---she was a great campfire cook. Her wit was a constant delight. One night on the river on a canoe trip, while we all listened to the next rapid, which sounded like certain death, Ann drawled, "It sounds like every whore in El Paso just flushed her john." […]
Ann got handed a stinking mess: Damn near every state function was under court order. The prisons were so crowded, dangerous convicts were being let loose. She had a long, grinding four years and wound up fixing all of it. She always said you could get a lot done in politics if you didn't need to take credit.
We need more Ann Richardses down here on the third muckball from the sun. Lots more. (We shall be following your career with great interest, young Wendy Davis...)
This has been a supremely weird week. Time to crash for 48 hours. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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