1/ Andrew Sullivan with a very disturbing column on tyranny and Trump....and it could very easily happen. One of his best yet....
Every now and again, when I find myself buried in the latest blizzard of invariably disturbing news emanating from the Trump White House, I go back and remind myself of the core narrative. I read Plato’s Republic again, the prism through which I first raised the alarm about Donald Trump’s emergence. The prism is essentially how a late-stage democracy, dripping with decadence and corruption, with elites dedicated primarily to enriching themselves, and a people well past any kind of civic virtue, morphs so easily into tyranny.
2/ Hmmmm....
3/ The Wall Street Journal looks at our economy after the 2008 crash, 10 years later. What's changed? The answers will not surprise you, the rich are getting richer, and the middle class is stagnating. This is real news from the WSJ, not yer liberal rag but a Murdoch paper....
It's done in graphical format, very easy to read....
The financial crisis and the massive federal response reshaped the world we live in. Though the economy is in one of its longest expansions and stock indexes have hit new highs, many people across the political spectrum complain that the recovery is uneven and the markets' gains aren't fairly distributed. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at some of the most eventful aspects of the response and how we got to where we are today.
4/ Bill Maher with a "New Rules" on right wing show business personalities and politics.......a fairly good one....five minutes....
Before wrapping up his show Friday night, Bill Maher took aim at a particular group of conservatives who’ve expressed animosity for Hollywood.
“Republicans have to stop pretending they hate it when celebrities give their political opinions,” Maher began. “Please, you’re the party that made Reagan president! It’s not our fault that your celebrities are Ted Nugent, Pat Sajak, and Donald Trump. James Woods? His last credit was on a MasterCard bill. Scott Baio? The only thing he’s been in recently that made headlines… was his co-star.”
5/ I love these - "Bad Lip Reading NFL 2018".....a most amusing six minutes....
6/ Tom Tomorrow on our very own Captain Kirk.....without the brain....
7/ Stephen Colbert had John Bolton on his show, with predictably hysterical results......a very funny five minutes thanks to Dana Garvey....
Dana Carvey, iconic Saturday Night Live impressionist and the titular Master of Disguise, tackled someone Stephen Colbert called “more unstable than Donald Trump”: new national security advisor John Bolton.
“Come on, Stephen. I’m not the madman the media, my words, and my behavior make me out to be,” Carvey’s Bolton said on The Late Show Wednesday night. “I’m a very gentle and nurturing man. To prove it, I’m going to breastfeed a puppy.”
Colbert was concerned because the real Bolton once made a case for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea, and additional reports state he has a history of verbal abuse. An op-ed in the Spokesman-Review also pointed to a former government contractor who testified in 1994 that Bolton once “threw a tape dispenser at her, made offensive comments about her weight, shouted threats, chased her down a Moscow hotel hallway, pounded on her door, and ‘generally behave[d] like a madman.'”
8/ Your Easter cartoon....
9/ Not often you read about a "good" prosecutor in the South....but there is one incredibly enough in Mississippi....an uplifting story...
Several times a day, Scott Colom, a 35-year-old district attorney in northeast Mississippi, walks past a Confederate monument in front of the courthouse. He rarely glances at it, but he knows that from one side it looks startlingly like a hooded Klansman (from the front, it’s a Rebel soldier carrying a flag, which is perhaps bad enough). His twin brother pointed out the resemblance several years ago. Yes, Colom says, it’s at the least irritating to be constantly confronted with a symbol of white supremacy. But then, “Look how far we’ve come. Whoever put that statue up, back in the day, this” — he looks himself up and down, a black man dressed for court in a trim charcoal suit, a black man who’s the area’s top law-enforcement official — “this is their worst nightmare.”
10/ Seth Meyers on cybersecurity and Jared.....quite good, about seven minutes....
On “Late Night” on Tuesday, host Seth Meyers devoted a new edition of his “The Check In” segment to the ongoing non-attempts by Donald Trump to do something about Russia’s efforts to manipulate American elections.
It’s a timely topic after Vladimir Putin’s apparently shenanigan-filled re-election over the weekend, and Meyers took a big picture view of the situation, including detailing exactly how little effort the Trump administration is actually putting forth.
“NSA chief Mike Rogers, who’s actually retiring this spring, also indicated that he hasn’t received orders from Trump to disrupt Russian cyber attacks targeting elections,” Meyers said. “And after months and months of inaction, the State Department was finally given $120 million to fight Russian election meddling. And of that $120 million, it has spent zero dollars. Now, to be fair, the Trump Administration is probably saving all that money for goodbye cakes for all the people leaving the White House.”
11/ Benjamin Studebaker with a look at why our students are protesting the wrong issues. Some excellent points, clearly written. Good article....
In West Virginia, teachers whose wages had stagnated for years struck for–and received–a 5% pay rise. In Britain academics struck for–and it appears shall receive, at least for now–the continued maintenance of their defined benefit pension plans. But in much of America the students are walking out not to fight for public education but to fight for gun control. At a time when American students are saddled with unsustainable student loan debt, when voucher programs divert public investment away from public schools, and when states respond to teacher shortages by lowering standards and hiring scabs, American students are focused on a social issue.
It’s not like this in Britain. In the UK, students and faculty get political explicitly to prevent the education system from being “marketised”. British student politics is about fighting to make sure public schools get funded, teachers get paid, and students don’t get burdened with debt. It’s about preserving education’s independence from market forces.
12/ A three minute clip from Bill Maher's panel discussion that is pretty good commentary on Fox News and how they own Trump.....
Bill Maher expressed some alarm tonight at how much influence Fox News had on President Trump.
As he talked about Republicans potentially going down the road of trashing Robert Mueller, Maher said, “It’s scary how much Trump takes his cues from Fox News.”
“Putin has state TV,” Maher said, “but Putin’s not an idiot. So state TV does what Putin wants. I think it’s the other way in this country! America’s being run by Steve Doocy!”
13/ There is a lot of BS about what we all should be eating, so I found this article to be quite refreshing and full of common sense.....
Mary and I go with the following - if our grandmothers wouldn't recognize it, we don't [or try not to] eat it....
Good article...
It’s beyond strange that so many humans are clueless about how they should feed themselves. Every wild species on the planet knows how to do it; presumably ours did, too, before our oversized brains found new ways to complicate things. Now, we’re the only species that can be baffled about the “right” way to eat.
Really, we know how we should eat, but that understanding is continually undermined by hyperbolic headlines, internet echo chambers, and predatory profiteers all too happy to peddle purposefully addictive junk food and nutrition-limiting fad diets. Eating well remains difficult not because it’s complicated but because the choices are hard even when they’re clear.
With that in mind, we offered friends, readers, and anyone else we encountered one simple request: Ask us anything at all about diet and nutrition and we will give you an answer that is grounded in real scientific consensus, with no “healthy-ish” chit-chat, nary a mention of “wellness,” and no goal other than to cut through all the noise and help everyone see how simple it is to eat well.
Here, then, are the exhaustively assembled, thoroughly researched, meticulously detailed answers to any and all of your dietary questions.
14/ SNL had a take off of "The Bachelor" which got little attention, but is actually pretty good......Kate McKinnon plays Robert Mueller!
The show’s opening sketch seemed to promise a parody of the season finale of “The Bachelor,” the ABC reality series, from earlier this week, in which Arie Luyendyk Jr. first chose Becca Kufrin as his bride-to-be, then broke up with her and proposed to another contestant, Lauren Burnham. (As a consolation prize of sorts, Ms. Kufrin was named the star of “The Bachelorette” for a new season later this spring.)
Playing a “Bachelor” contestant named Becca K., the “S.N.L.” cast member Cecily Strong told the cameras, “The past few months have been such a whirlwind, but I finally feel like I’m in a place where I can see the future so clearly. I just want to get to the point where this is all over and life goes back to normal. I’m excited to see him.”Enter the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, played by Kate McKinnon in jowly prosthetic makeup. “How do I start this conversation?” she asked Strong
15/ The Simpsons do a two minute short about Trump having a dream.....mildly amusing....but even as a cartoon I can't look at this bastard....
President Donald Trump endures a cartoon nightmare in a new short from “The Simpsons.”
Trump takes a hard look in the mirror in the amusing “A Tale Of Two Trumps” clip that Fox shared online Friday.
“You’ve been acting like a narcissistic sociopath and 64 percent to 67 percent of the people hate you,” Trump tells himself, as he finally appears to find the benefits of being brutally honest.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com
16/ I know some of our readers should start thinking about this next story, as indeed should I, but I have to say I have never heard of a "green" funeral....anyway, an FYI....
A typical American funeral usually involves a few hallmarks we’ve come to expect: an expensive coffin, lots of flowers, an embalming for the deceased and a number of other add-ons.
But how necessary are those embellishments? Enter the “green burial.”
The specifics of a green burial vary widely, but typically they require far fewer resources for the care of the body and skip a number of the traditional steps, making them better for the environment. Plus, they can save families on funeral costs.
Interest in these pared-down, eco-friendly options has grown as people look for ways to cut their carbon footprint. Nearly 54 percent of Americans are considering a green burial, and 72 percent of cemeteries are reporting an increased demand, according to a survey released earlier this year by the National Funeral Directors Association.
Death planning may not be at the top of your mind, but if you’re curious about looking into a green burial, here’s what to know
17/ A not so friendly look at the "Roseanne" reboot.....
Rob Sheffield on why the new 'Roseanne' reboot just plain sucks – and how this Trump-era revival drives a stake through show's compassionate legacy.
Let's be real for a second: The real Roseanne reboot had already happened long before this past Tuesday, and it was called Lady Bird. Darlene was now going to Catholic school; Aunt Jackie was playing the mom. But otherwise, Greta Gerwig's film had all the tropes that made the original Roseanne great: grit, compassion, family fireworks, blue-collar heart, feminist soul, a lovable lunk of a dad and Laurie Metcalf's sarcastic sneer. In other words, it had everything that's missing from ABC's new reboot version. Gerwig made a movie that did for that groundbreaking late-Eighties sitcom what the Coen brothers' Fargo did for Columbo – a brilliant film that plays as a 90-minute episode of a classic TV show. It makes the new version look spineless, toothless, soft, just kind of Fake Becky-ish.
18/ The new Spielberg movie "Ready Player One" is out, and this review from Rolling Stone says it's amazing.....
The gamer kid in Steven Spielberg lets his VR freak flag fly in Ready Player One,a mindbending joyride that jacks you into a fantasia bursting with CGI wonders, dazzling cyperscapes mixed with live action, hidden Easter eggs and infinite pop-culture shoutouts to the 1980s. (Better brush up on everything from Aliento Zemeckis if you don’t want to be left behind.) The legendary director's aim in this go-for-broke adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 sci-fi novel, a geek touchstone, is to get you in the game, and it's a blockbuster that aches to be interactive, Forget about headsets, however: Spielberg is in control. And why not? He's the maestro at this kind of stuff.
But first, some harsh reality: It's 2045.
19/ And coming April 22nd, Season 2 of "Westworld".....the trailer looks most interesting, and if you haven't watched season 1 get to it....
Humans and hosts prepare for battle in the chilling new trailer for Season Two of Westworld. The hit HBO series returns on April 22nd.
The clip picks up the various narrative threads left dangling at the end of Season One. Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) grapples with the knowledge that he is a host, not a human; Maeve (Thandie Newton) sets out to find her daughter, even though she's been told the child may have been programmed into her imagination.
Todays video - ever heard of a Youtube Magician? Well there is one, Zach King, and the stuff he does is pretty clever....
Todays jokes - a pun collection....a little different because it's a link, and visual.......
Todays golf joke....
A golfer, now into his golden years, had a lifelong ambition to play the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedre, Florida, exactly the way the pros do it.The pros drive the ball out over the water onto the small green that is on a small spit of land. It was something the golfer had tried hundreds of times without success. His ball had always fallen short, into the water.Because of this, he never used a new ball on this particular hole. He always picked out one that had a cut or a nick, as did many other "average" golfers when negotiating very challenging holes.Recently he went to Sawgrass to try again.When he came to the fateful hole, he teed up an old, cut ball as usual, and said a silent prayer. However, before he could hit the ball, a powerful voice from above seemed to be booming out from the clouds, saying,"Wait! Replace that old ball with a brand new one, a Titleist ProV1 if you have it."The golfer complied, with some slight misgivings, despite the fact that this same force seemed to be implying that he was going to finally achieve his lifelong ambition.As he stepped up to the tee once more, the voice came down again,"Wait. Step back. Take a practice swing."So he stepped back and took a practice swing, certain now that this heavenly force was going to make his dream come true.The voice boomed out again, "Take another practice swing."Dutifully, he did. He stopped expectantly and waited; a long silence followed.Then, the voice again, "Use the old ball."
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