Cheers and Jeers: Thursday – USREPORT

Page Turner Thursday

World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres is a gastronomical wizard with a heart of gold. He sat down to talk with Kimmel about his new graphic novel—a multi-year collaboration with Steve Orlando and illustrator Alberto Ponticelli. If you’re having trouble waking up this morning, this’ll cure ya…

If you’re interesting in ordering a copy ($5 of each sale goes to the WCK) here’s the official site. Bon Appetite. 

Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 9, 2023

Note: Please fill out and send in your absentee ballot for the 2024 elections now so we can bank those votes.  Together, we can do it.  Again!  —Mgt.

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By the Numbers:

Days ’til Christmas: 46

Days ’til America‘s Hometown Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts: 8

Drop in wholesale used car prices in October: 2.3%

Trade deficit with China in September 2022 and 2023, respectively: 37.4 million / 28.3 million

Percent of northern Greenland‘s ice shelves that have been lost: 35%

Expected amount a First Class menu from the Titanic is expected to fetch at auction: $86,000

Number of men charged with stealing an 18-karat gold toilet worth $6 million from Blenheim Palace in England: 4

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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:

Back home in Texas, and the sign outside our neighborhood strip joint says, “Hot Babes, Cold Beer, Nuke ‘Em, GW.”

My worry is that Bush is painting himself into a corner with his rhetoric. This is not a war; it’s a gigantic police operation in the face of a crime beyond all understanding.

Fear is at the root of most evil. As Boots Cooper, age eight, said after a close encounter with a chicken snake: “Some things’ll scare you so bad, you’ll hurt yourself.” These dotty proposals to breach the Constitution fall into that category. We cannot make ourselves more secure by making ourselves less free. According to reporting in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, the [9/11] terrorists got in and stayed through loopholes in the visa system, not some fundamental constitutional flaw.

When I returned from Paris, I was hoping we’d start thinking outside the box. Now I’m hoping we’ll just start thinking.

—November 2001

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Howdy, Pa…

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CHEERS to fun with numbers. The 2023 elections and all the tens of millions of dollars spent on them are finally in the rear-view mirror. Now that things have settled down a bit, it’s time for the media to advance from its “Democrats are gonna get shellacked!” mass hysteria to Phase 2: the takeaways in which they take absolutely no responsibility for their shitty predictions. Let us count a few:

Politico has 4 takeaways

CNN has 5 takeaways

The BBC has 3 takeaways

The New York Times has 7 takeaways

The Hill has 5 takeaways

The Washington Post has 3 takeaways

NBC News has 3 takeaways

ABC News has 6 takeaways

USA Today has 3 “key” takeaways

And PBS has 5 takeaways

My takeaway: Democrats rule, Republicans drool. (I’m a stickler for simplicity. And accuracy.)

P.S. Oh, I almost forgot: In our mayoral election here in Portland, Maine, the liberal defeated the liberal, the other liberal, the other liberal, and the other other liberal.  It’s good to have choices.

CHEERS to amazing discoveries. Using a new method of doing sciencey stuff (pointing the Webb telescope somewhere and flicking the “on” switch, I’m guessing), astronomers say they’ve detected the oldest black hole ever. And by their estimation it’s…

…a cosmic beast formed a mere 470 million years after the Big Bang.

The findings, published Monday, confirm what until now were theories that supermassive black holes existed at the dawn of the universe. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory teamed up over the past year to make the observations.

Given the universe is 13.7 billion years old, that puts the age of this black hole at 13.2 billion years.

Even more astounding to scientists, this black hole is a whopper—10 times bigger than the black hole in our own Milky Way. “It’s just really early on in the universe to be such a behemoth,” said Yale University’s Priyamvada Natarajan, who took part in the study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The largest black hole ever discovered in our galaxy remains, of course, Lauren Boebert’s skull cavity.

CHEERS to free choice.  230 years ago this week, in 1793, France ended the forced worship of God.  God immediately responded by renaming two of his cafeteria dishes in Heaven “freedom fries” and “freedom toast.”  Touchy, dude.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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MELODRAMATIC OVERACTING to sands through the hourglass. 58 years ago this week, in 1965, Days of Our Lives—my partner, Michael’s, favorite soap for over 40 of them—premiered on NBC. It’s now off the air and streaming on Peacock.  Which reminds me: right after I bury you alive and steal Bo’s heart I’m having your baby. Unless Rolf injects me with a coma-inducing serum first or boobytraps my plane. But not before Marlena gets possessed by the devil and torches Salem. Again.

JEERS to the most ridiculous talking heads in the world. I’m told there was a debate last night in Miami among all the MAGA cultists who want to be the next president of the United States. Well, except for the candidates who didn’t qualify because they don’t have name recognition even among their family members, and the one candidate who’s trouncing them all by 50 points and instead chose to slur his way through an incoherent rally nearby.

Did I watch it? Hell no. I can already rattle off the talking points they use to gaslight the audience about the “Democrat party.” And every single one of those sanctimonious jackasses on stage probably criticized Trump a bit, but pledged to vote for him in 2024 anyway after he kicks their asses in the primaries. So it became a question of did I want to contribute to the ratings of a MAGA debate? No, I did not. But be sure to watch for my completely made-up debate summary tomorrow. I wrote it six weeks ago and I think you’ll agree it captures what we didn’t see quite well.

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Ten years ago in C&J: November 9, 2013

CHEERS to today’s list of apologies.  Here we go…

60 Minutes: Sorry about that bullshit Benghazi story.

President Obama: Sorry if you got kicked off your insurance plan because of the Affordable Care Act.

Israel: We did not assassinate Yasser Arafat with poison! (But if we did? Sorry.)

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: Sorry I’m a crack-smoking asshole who wants to murder my enemies.

God: I’m sorry I sneezed and caused the most violent weather event in world history.

Brenda Lee: I’m sorry that I was such a fool.

Fine.  Don’t do it again. Now go to your room.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to knockin’ that sucker down. Thirty-four years ago today, the world witnessed a surreal scene: Berliners hacking away with pickaxes and hammers at that damned wall that had divided their city for decades—a mind-blowing moment that briefly galvanized the planet in celebration.  And what sparked it wasn’t the pope or the U.N. or even ex-president Saint Ronald Reagan—it was this awkwardly-delivered comment by Politburo member Guenter Schabowski a day earlier:

“Therefore…um…we have decided today…um…to implement a regulation that allows every citizen of the German Democratic Republic…um…to…um…leave East Germany through any of the border crossings,” said Schabowski.

He appeared scarcely to believe his own words and we were all dumbfounded.  What did he just say?  Schabowski was asked when the new rule would take effect. “That comes into effect…according to my information…. immediately, without delay,” Schabowski stammered, shuffling through the papers spread in front of him as he sought in vain for more information.

I had the chance to visit Berlin a couple times in the 70s when I was kid. I had a middle-school knowledge of the post-war history of Berlin, but nothing could prepare me for the contrast I saw in person: vibrant and colorful on the western side…oppressive, gray, boarded-up and barbed-wired on the eastern side.  In some ways it reminds me of what this country has become: reality-based, education-oriented and live-and-let-live on the left…authoritarian, trigger-happy, reality-averse and homogenous on the right. But my main point is: Happy Reunification Day, Germany—let’s all drink beer.

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 could pick our next president. Are Americans and Kiddie Pool Splashers ‘Ready For It?’

—EJ Montini

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