Backstage from Trump's Apprentice Days

not exactly subtle

 

It's a Cookbook (Having Fun with AI Illustrations?)

 

Who's the Marxist?

 

Heroes

 There's a very low budget movie starring Sigourney Weaver called The Guys about an editor helping a fire captain write eulogies for his firemen who died on 9/11. I used to assign it to my journalism students since it's a dramatized lesson in sensitive interviewing for simple illustrative anecdotes.

This tweet says that at a New York firehouse the names of the firemen who died that day - the "riding list" - are preserved under glass. "Heroism" is a word subject to debate depending on context. But not here.

https://x.com/JaniceDean/status/1833674580679934409 

Where Have All the Dirty Old Men Gone?

In the newspaper today was a story about a California politician (female) who required a staffer (male) to provide her with sexual services, apparently strenuous enough to cause him a back injury. There was a bit of spicy detail that I thought certain male friends might find of anthropological interest.

But as I prepared a mental list of such friends, I realized how many of my male acquaintances who might enjoy such a naughty tidbit were no longer among those of us who trod the earth. I mean who are still alive even if mostly inert. It's mid morning, and I have yet to do significant trodding.

Odd - or perhaps embarrassing - that the item of information that made me aware of, that brought into focus, the sorrow of lost friends was a saucy detail about sexual role reversal. It wasn't a salsa recipe or a viral cat video.

You might say I need better friends, but I really liked the ones I had.

The Won'ts of Wills

 

Even the most innocuous of decisions can cause anguish. Our will is straightforward: a few bucks for nieces and nephews, provision for our cats, a list of charities to divide up the rest (assuming there is a 'rest.')

No heavy lifting here. But we put off the list making and put it off again, and when I finally put our decisions on paper, it felt suicidal. I did not realize the extent to which delaying the making of a will can feel just a little bit like postponing the eventuality for which wills are made. 

So many impediments to the human race evolving to the point of basic common sense. I doubt we ever get there.

First and Five-to-10

 

Appearance at the DNC of members of the high school football team that Tim Walz helped coach to a state football championship was inspirational but give Trump a year and he'll be able to bring out a football roster of his own - from The Longest Yard.

From 14 Years Ago, When We First Brought Charley Home

Darwin's California Cat : Practicing on Charley: Playing with iMovie

This Will Be Said So Many Times, And I Won't Be Saying it First But...

 The only thing worse for Kamala Harris than having RFK Jr. endorse Trump would be RFK Jr. endorsing her

Eydie is Much Amused by This, and Telling the World So ...

 

The great upstairs bathroom remodel marches on. Last week one of the contractors showed up early. Needing to consult and hearing Eydie's voice, he walked into the kitchen and glanced down the stairs to the lower part of the house, and there was I, in all my Edenic glory, emerging from the lower bathroom.

That young man has since abandoned his career in the trades to become a Mormon missionary.

Not really. We simply pretend it never happened.

Except for Eydie, who wants to turn it into a podcast and then a graphic novel.

The Kind of Fundamentalism I Can Get Behind

 J. Michael Luttig, the retired appellate judge who became one of the most famous conservative legal critics of Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, endorsed Kamala Harris in a statement yesterday.

 “In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own,” Luttig wrote, “but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.”

Remembering Pat, Remembering Rose

I Love Stories about How Old Age Makes You Wise

 Though in my case it just makes me sleepy.

Here's some words from someone named Jonathan V. Last in praise of Joe Biden, wondering where Biden got the courage to step aside when it became clear that even if his critics were wrong about his inability to beat Trump, if they were convinced he couldn't beat Trump and said said so publicly ... well then, in fact he couldn't Beat Trump! (Talk about crazy making.) 

The big question for me is: How was Biden able to make (the decision)?

I believe the answer is his age. Biden’s age was his electoral weakness. It was also his superpower.

Aging isn’t for the faint of heart. It is a process of having things taken from you. Your status. Your health. Your freedom. Eventually, your life.

But in return, a well-organized mind accumulates wisdom. If we age correctly we develop perspective: About the full breadth of the human experience. About love and loss. About what is, and is not, important.

I submit to you that it is precisely because Biden has lived a long, rich life that he was able to make those decisions which saved our democracy.

Joe Said What He Had to Say Last Night and Did What He Had to Do

 But if it had been the fourth night of the convention and the job was convincing enough swing voters and dispirited Democrats to vote for him - or just to vote at all - it wouldn't have been enough.

Writing Club Tonight

Every other Monday from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. I zoom with my writing club. We are working on fictional projects of one kind or another. I am working on a fantasy novel about a big orange cat who is in his ninth life because - didn't I mention this already - it is a fantasy novel. 

 I thought maybe it would be something appropriate for the whole family, but my characters keep wanting to have sex with one another. This is both a problem and an opportunity from a marketing standpoint.

The bartender came out of a door behind the bar about halfway down, carrying a bottle of dark liquor. He was the new thing, and she – so the cow presented and to question would have been disrespect - noticed him. She put the bottle down and leaned against the bar. She was …. Katt smiled. She was appraising him, nothing passive about that silent look, sizing him up, categorizing, arriving at conclusions. She was a cow, probably a Holstein, black and white coat, the usual huge beautiful brown eyes, full lips and full bosom, everything full measure and perhaps a little more. She gave a modest tug to her blouse – frilly, low-cut and engagingly kitschy – and sauntered over. ‘I think I’m supposed to call you stranger,’ she said. ‘What would you like? Which we probably don’t have.’ She leaned toward and he had a glimpse of one of the four nipples on her left breast.

Wow, This Blog is a Junkyard

I have *forgot how to change the settings*, which means this blog is littered with dead links and dead ends and code that has turned to gibberish. I need to houseclean so I can invite some people in.

He's Baaaaaack

Here I am beside a lake in Austria looking as benevolent as f*ck. Why should I not entertain? I see no reason why I should not spread some catnip on the carpet and set Darwin's Cat a-playing again. I call to mind a poem:

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

 Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . 

Near them, on the sand, 

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; 

And on the pedestal, these words appear: 

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; 

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! 

Nothing beside remains. 

Round the decay 

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare 

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Check out my legs. I'm back.