Morning Vonnegut Blogging
Indiana-born Kurt Vonnegut, who balanced his time between this universe and the alternate ones of his creation, died 13 years ago this week, darn it. Wrote Dinitia Smith in her New York Times obituary:
Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well? […]
Not all Mr. Vonnegut’s themes were metaphysical. With a blend of vernacular writing, science fiction, jokes and philosophy, he also wrote about the banalities of consumer culture, for example, or the destruction of the environment.
A good time to remind ourselves why he was…well…Kurt Vonnegut:
Continued…
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
"There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia."
”I am, incidentally, honorary president of the American Humanist Association. We had a memorial service for Asimov a while back, and at one point I said, ‘Isaac is up in Heaven now.’ That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order was restored.”
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
And perhaps the best from-the-great-beyond summation of the gaggle of morons currently in charge of things:
“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
And here we are.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 9, 2020
Note: Hi, friends! Bill in Portland Maine here. Folks, when it comes to preserving your health for years to come, choosy Republicans choose fish tank water! From simple backache to rickets to contusions big and small and even mystery viruses, reach for the cure that even the fish swear by. Now available in three yummy flavors: carp spleen with lemon, catfish liver with sage, and trout snout & onion. Fish tank water: pick some up today and feel fine. This message brought to you by the Fish Tank Water Producers Association of America. Mainly because their check cleared.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Save the Elephant Day: 7
Estimated number of Americans expected to die from COVID-19 between now and August, according to new modeling from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine: 82,000
What that means in terms of fewer hospital beds needed: 121,000
Percent of Louisiana residents who approve of Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards' handling of the COVID-19 crisis: 68%
Percent of Trump voters who think the economy's in the crapper, according to Navigator polling: 75%
Number of governorships up for election this year: 11
Percent of Americans who believe Alexander Hamilton was a president, according to Washington University in St. Louis: 71%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
How nice to hear from that sweet Trent Lott and Tom DeLay again, who suggested Tom Daschle was unpatriotic when he said it was OK to ask questions (gasp!) about the direction of the war.
"Disgusting," said DeLay in a one-word press release about Daschle's comments. Lott said, "How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field?" Gosh, who was that masked man from Mississippi who used to criticize President Clinton in the most vile language while we had troops on the ground in Bosnia and Kosovo? Anyone remember his name?
You may recall that Clinton dispatched a missile to take out a terrorist training camp in August of 1998--missed bin Laden by a couple of hours. Several Republicans then loyally suggested that the attack, retaliation for the bombing of American embassies in Africa, was nothing more than a ploy to take people's minds off Monica Lewinsky. Now that's supporting your President.
—April 2002
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A scoring assignment composers would kill for…
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CHEERS to game changers. With over 425,000 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and 15,000 deaths, our 2020 "Pearl Harbor Week" continues unabated. But there are a few glimmers of optimism:
New York: Microbiologists at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine are taking COVID-19 antibodies from recovered patients and injecting them into patients who still have the virus. The technique isn’t new (it was used during previous flu pandemics), but their screening methods are more wowie-zowie, so they can identify the precious bodily fluid donors who have the kick-assiest antibodies.
California: Governor Gavin Newsom, having had enough of Trump's bullshit, seceded from the Union and will now be pulling in 200 million masks per month for the nation-state's hospitals, and sharing them with other states.
Nationwide: Chef Jose Andres keeps on doing that Chef Jose Andres thing Chef Jose Andres does.
Nationwide: Some guy who runs an "influential" model tracking the virus now says social distancing is doing its thing, and that could mean a lower death toll and a need for fewer hospital beds.
Also: new CNN polling shows a solid majority of Americans are finally starting to wise up and understand that the Trump administration's response has been shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. So stick that in your fish tank and drink it, Donny.
CHEERS to knowing when to fold. Man, the news cycle's getting so short these days that a fella can't even spend a couple hours robbing houses, price-gouging toilet paper on the black market, stealing kids' lollipops, and rigging electric road-construction signs to flash “YOUR BUTT SMELLS HA HA” without missing some earth-shaking event like Bernie Sanders dropping out of the Democratic primary. But People magazine don't lie—the Democratic primary is officially over and Joe Biden is the last one standing:
In the end—as with his 2020 bid—Sanders failed to sufficiently expand his core coalition of young and very liberal voters, though he saw increased Hispanic support in his second primary campaign.
While running in 2020, he continued to press the progressive messages that had made him apolitical star of the left and pushed policies like universal health care and tuition-free college into the center of the Democratic Party. […]
Sanders saw momentum for his grassroots campaign begin to slow beginning in late February, as Biden surged back on the coattails of a litany of endorsements, support from the party’s moderate voters and a massive turnout from African Americans, who formed a crucial bedrock of Biden’s support.
Kudos to Bernie for bowing out with class after running an honorable, well-fought campaign. Now the Democratic party and its candidate have the time they need to switch into general election mode with the mission of dislodging the worst president in U.S.history. As of this morning, it’s all hands on deck. Six feet apart, please.
CHEERS to a civil end to a most uncivil war. Big anniversary today—in fact, it oughtta be a federal holiday. On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee called it quits and surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the southern traitors’ War for the Preservation of Owning Humans for Forced Labor.
Several years ago a demographic historian concluded that the death toll of the war was much higher than originally thought—750,000 versus the original 620,000. Sadly, another number has also been extended far beyond its original estimate: the number of years it's taking too many white people in the South to admit they lost and put away that damn confederate battle flag. As Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) reminded them a few years back, even slave owner and avowed racist treason-monger Lee had enough self-awareness to concern himself with post-war optics:
"When Robert E. Lee surrendered he asked all of his followers to furl this flag. Stow it away, he said. Put it in your attics," Clyburn continued. "He refused to be buried in his Confederate uniform. His family refused to allow anyone dressed in the confederate uniform to attend his funeral. "Why? Because Robert E. Lee said he considered this emblem to be a symbol of treason.”
He also didn’t want any statues of him put up, a request that fell on deaf ears as groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy erected hundreds of them (of Lee and other CSA icons, including a fresh batch in the 1960s to remind the civil rights movement to remember “their place”) as a way of living in denial of their treason. I’ll give the hangers-on credit for one thing: they sure picked the right theme song. "Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land." Mission accomplished.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to taking your bullets and going home. Strange thing about an enemy that's too small to shoot: it tends to kick you in the ass. And that's what's happening inside the domestic terrorist organization known as the Национальная стрелковая ассоциация, aka the National Rifle Association:
The National Rifle Association has laid off more than 60 employees in recent weeks, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
The move comes as the gun rights group faces acute financial challenges during the economic crunch caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The association recently took a large financial hit when the pandemic forced the NRA to cancel its massive annual meeting. The group often makes millions of dollars off the event, from the fees people pay to attend to the funds raised from the convention. Its cancellation appears to have wiped out that revenue.
Thoughts and tee-hees.
CHEERS to greenbacks for a greener globe. Catching up on some rather big news from earlier this year. The CEO of world's largest asset management company BlackRock wrote to the CEOs of the companies in which he invests to inform them that cleaning up the planet is now his top priority, and that's where his money—trillions of dollars—will be moving:
“Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” [Larry] Fink wrote in his letter. “Last September, when millions of people took to the streets to demand action on climate change, many of them emphasized the significant and lasting impact that it will have on economic growth and prosperity—a risk that markets to date have been slower to reflect. But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”
This means that before making investment decisions, BlackRock will require companies to disclose any climate-related risks for their future, as well as plans for how they would operate under limits or constraints that could arise from Paris Agreement targets to keep warming under 2 degrees Celsius.
BlackRock will also dump shares from companies in its portfolios who manage 25% of their wealth from coal production or utilization, which already costs in many places 50-100% more to maintain and manufacture than renewables.
While he's dumping all those shares from dirty companies, he should also do what he can to dump their dirty CEOs. I suggest a catapult near an active volcano.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 9, 2010
JEERS to cutting and running...from yourself. What a train wreck of a legacy John McCain is leaving for himself. The only thing he excels at these days is flying into a foamy fury as he VERY LOUDLY gets things...wrong. And now he's literally abandoning his alter ego, saying: "I never considered myself a maverick." That's like Bruce Wayne saying, "Batman? Never heard of him." Or Peter Parker saying, "Spidey? Moi?" Anyway, please make a note to stop considering John McCain a maverick. It'll be the easiest thing you do all day.
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And just one more:
JEERS to the topple seen 'round the world. Remember all the hullabaloo when that Baghdad statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down shortly after we shocked 'n awed Iraq? Believe it or not, that was 17 years ago today. I remember wincing when a U.S. soldier, unfamiliar with the concept of "How Things Look from the Liberated Folks' Perspective," tried to tie an American flag around Saddam's head. I also remember drumming my fingers on my desk as the Iraqis took for freakin' ever to try and yank the statue down by hand. (It didn’t help that live video sucked on the internet in 2003, so the buffering time was insane.) They finally decided to let our troops attach a rope from Saddam's finger to a tank, which pulled it down in mere seconds as the crowd made crude fart noises (proving that, no matter what country you're from, that gag never gets old). Then they beat it with shoes as it was dragged around the square like a cat toy.
But, as with so many aspects of that war (like the reason for starting it), things weren't exactly as they seemed. The press made it look like the entire city was there celebrating. In reality, it looked more like the size of House Freedom Caucus representation at a MENSA meeting:
If you're hyperventilating from the shock of being misled by the media, breathe into a paper sack for a few minutes. It'll pass.
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
Bill in Portland Maine assures worried Cheers and Jeers readers that it's safe to go in the kiddie pool…while dressed in head-to-toe protective gear
—Mediaite
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