A little different this issue - more stories than comedy, and #11 is a must read folks...
1/ Publix - where shopping is a pleasure.....for the NRA. A disturbing story from the Miami New Times on not just the Adam Putnam/NRA issue, but other bad things Publix does........
In Mount Dora we are pretty screwed for choice, but consider the MD Farmers Market on Sunday for fish, meat, breads, farm produce and fresh eggs, Hometown Market [near Big Lots] has a great produce section and a deli, Health Basket [E. Crooked Lake Dr. and #441] has some organics and there is always Whole Foods in Winter Park once a week as well as the Winn-Dixie in Tavares....
Also Lake Meadow Naturals is off #429, exit Clarcona-Ocoee road. It's a farm and they have a wonderful range of natural chicken, meat and dairy....
If you are forced to go to Publix just remember supermarkets make money from the "inside" items, packaged foods, canned goods etc which are all on the inside aisles.....they make less money from the "outside" choices like produce, meats, dairy etc. You can get a lot of this stuff at Costco, even [gulp] order from Amazon.....
Let's show those Lakeland racist rednecks we're on to their politics...
Five Reasons to #BoycottPublix Besides Supporting
"NRA Sellout" Adam Putnam
Two years later, New Times is still getting hate mail for telling Floridians in 2016 to "stop loving Publix." You all yelled at us then and called us "carpetbaggers" for pointing out that the beloved supermarket chain has abysmal politics. But now, after the Tampa Bay Times detailed the gobs of cash the company is throwing at NRA-loving gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam, an official #BoycottPublix movement is brewing, and, honestly, we're a little bitter. Now you all realize that Publix isn't the beloved, benevolent multi-billion-dollar corporation you thought it was?
The Times revealed Publix and others tied to the company have given $670,000 to Putnam in the past three years. Putnam is running a far-right campaign for governor complete with attacks on the so-called "fake news" media, cash from the state's hated utility and Big Sugar companies, and some terrifyingly white campaign ads.
1/ Every now and then we get a story that is so important, so insightful it's an epiphany - this is one of those. It's long but well written and even non partisan, but if you are reading DDD you are probably in the 9.9%.....
This is an excellent, excellent article and well worth your time....
1.
The Aristocracy Is Dead …
For about a week every year in my childhood, I was a member of one of America’s fading aristocracies. Sometimes around Christmas, more often on the Fourth of July, my family would take up residence at one of my grandparents’ country clubs in Chicago, Palm Beach, or Asheville, North Carolina. The breakfast buffets were magnificent, and Grandfather was a jovial host, always ready with a familiar story, rarely missing an opportunity for gentle instruction on proper club etiquette. At the age of 11 or 12, I gathered from him, between his puffs of cigar smoke, that we owed our weeks of plenty to Great-Grandfather, Colonel Robert W. Stewart, a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt who made his fortune as the chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana in the 1920s. I was also given to understand that, for reasons traceable to some ancient and incomprehensible dispute, the Rockefellers were the mortal enemies of our clan. Only much later in life did I learn that the stories about the Colonel and his tangles with titans fell far short of the truth.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ma
2/ A great column from Thomas Frank on how the teacher strikes could be the start of change, from the bottom up.......a good story...
What I like best about the wave of teachers’ strikes that have swept America these last few months is how they punch so brutally and so directly in the face of the number one neoliberal educational fantasy of the last decade: that all we need to do to fix public education is fire people.
Fire teachers, specifically. They need to learn fear and discipline. That’s what education “reformers” have told us for years. If only, the fantasy goes, we could slay the foot-dragging unions and the red-tape rules that keep mediocre teachers in their jobs, then things would be different. If only some nice “tech millionaires” would step in and help us fire people! If only we could get a thousand clones of Michelle Rhee, the former DC schools chancellor who fired so many people she even once fired someone on TV!
Now just look at what’s happened.
3/ Paul Krugman gives mainstream media exposure to the blatant corruption in Trumpland....
Did the president of the United States just betray the nation’s security in return for a bribe from the Chinese government?
Don’t say that this suggestion is ridiculous: Given everything we know about Donald Trump, it’s well within the bounds of possibility, even plausibility.
Don’t say there’s no proof: We’re not talking about a court of law, where the accused are presumed innocent until proved guilty. Where the behavior of high officials is concerned, the standard is very nearly the opposite: They’re supposed to avoid situations in which there is even a hint that their actions might be motivated by personal gain.
4/ Don Jr. and Eric Trump on SNL......very funny indeed, three minutes....
Full disclosure: I couldn't tell you a single line Mikey Day has said in any of these segments all season. Not a one. If I learned he had been systematically working his way through the Cheesecake Factory menu all season, I wouldn't be surprised. That's because all eyes and ears have been on Alex Moffat all year, with his Eric Trump having turned into one of the truly great Season 43 creations.
I've written before about the specificity of movement Moffat brings to the table, with his gestures a half-second behind Day's at all times yielding a seemingly spontaneous performance that is in fact calibrated like a finely-tuned violin. Just watch how he turns Day's attempt at a high-five into a synchronized wave to an imaginary crowd: there's choreography at work that's amazing for both its execution and its consistency. For everything in this season finale that harped on its present state, here was one that showed its path to continued success in the future.
5/ Nicolas Kristof with a viral Times Interactive story about a black man who was framed by a California Sheriff, and he asks why no one is doing anything about it.....an excellent piece of journalism....
The first sign that something was wrong was a continuous busy signal on the home phone of Doug and Peggy Ryen.
Bill Hughes, who lived nearby, wasn’t initially concerned. His 11-year-old son, Chris, had slept over at the Ryens’ and he thought maybe they had all gone out for breakfast. But finally at noon Hughes drove over to pick Chris up and, when no one answered the Ryens’ door, he peered through the sliding glass doors — and his brain couldn’t process all the red. “This is paint, makeup,” he thought wildly.
Then reality sank in, and he kicked the kitchen door in. Blood from the five victims was splattered everywhere. Hughes rushed to his son, but the body was cold. Doug and Peggy Ryen, both nude, had also been stabbed to death, and the bloody corpse of their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, was in a doorway. But Josh Ryen, 8 years old, was moving feebly on the floor even though his throat had been slashed and his skull fractured.
https://www.nytimes.com/intera
6/ Bill Maher with a serious "New Rules", and he tells us what we are in denial about with Trump and the law....five minutes of comedic reporting with some killer zingers....
Bill Maher torched President Donald Trump, the GOP, and really all of Congress last night with Friday’s final “New Rule.” Come to think of it, he kind of lit into every American — especially those of us in the media.
“Real Time’s” latest “New Rule” is the following: “Of all the fairy tales we’ve told ourselves here in America, the one we most need to get rid of now is, ‘In America, no one is above the law.'”
“When you don’t have to follow the orders of law enforcement, as Trump clearly doesn’t, you are above the law,” Maher explained away the lazy phrase.
7/ A black man goes to a Republican candidate forum.....wow....
I've been to TEA Party events and many other Right Wing events. While these events always left me baffled, there was some modicum of reality to those past events. Trump has bred a new kind of politicians and followers. And what I saw was dangerous - an alternate reality. There is one silver lining, however.
The Candidate Forum between two Republican Primary candidates proves an important point; the Right Wing lives in an alternate state of reality. The candidates adopted the biggest Trump flaw, lying. Because they have the trust of the community and a corresponding media and Right Wing think-tank support, they can mislead a large section of society.
8/ Tina Fey revives Sarah Palin in this five minute musical skit with the SNL cast.....I rate it OK, see what you think.....
9/ A fascinating interview with Barbara Ehrenreich on health, doctors and choices for people over 60....the beginning is a little self indulgent but she gets going in the middle of the interview.....really interesting, she has made the decision not to "medicalize" her life....
10/ Jimmy Kimmel challenges people on the street to name a book, any book......oh lordy.....three minutes....
Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday cited a recent survey that said about 1 in 4 Americans have not read a book in the past year. Then he went a step further to demonstrate our neglect of the written word by having his crew ask people on the street to name a book ― literally any book.
The results may shock you.
11/ Every now and then we get a story that is so important, so insightful it's an epiphany - this is one of those. It's long but well written and even non partisan, but if you are reading DDD you are probably in the 9.9%.....
1.
This is an excellent, excellent article and well worth your time....
1.
The Aristocracy Is Dead …
For about a week every year in my childhood, I was a member of one of America’s fading aristocracies. Sometimes around Christmas, more often on the Fourth of July, my family would take up residence at one of my grandparents’ country clubs in Chicago, Palm Beach, or Asheville, North Carolina. The breakfast buffets were magnificent, and Grandfather was a jovial host, always ready with a familiar story, rarely missing an opportunity for gentle instruction on proper club etiquette. At the age of 11 or 12, I gathered from him, between his puffs of cigar smoke, that we owed our weeks of plenty to Great-Grandfather, Colonel Robert W. Stewart, a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt who made his fortune as the chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana in the 1920s. I was also given to understand that, for reasons traceable to some ancient and incomprehensible dispute, the Rockefellers were the mortal enemies of our clan. Only much later in life did I learn that the stories about the Colonel and his tangles with titans fell far short of the truth.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ma
12/ SNL with "Handmaids in the City......a "spinoff" from the Handmaids Tale and Sex in the City - a painfully amusing three minutes....
13/ Netflix has a lock on true crime stories as this most interesting story relates.....it also gives you three to watch! "Making a Murderer", Evil Genius" and Wild Wild Country....
From 'Making a Murderer' to 'Evil Genius' (pictured above) – the story behind Netflix's golden age of longform, true-crime docuseries.
Think back to the 2003 "pizza bomber" incident, and the first thing that comes to mind is probably the footage of a man sitting handcuffed next to a car, slightly blurry from a camera's long zoom. He had a device around his neck, and seemed to be getting increasingly agitated. So, for that matter, were the Erie, Pennsylvania, police, who cautiously kept their distance, not yet knowing if it was some kind of hoax. Then the device exploded, and in an instant, 46-year-old pizza deliveryman Brian Wells was dead. That was just the start of a twisted case that would also involve a scavenger hunt, two more corpses, a separate murder-for-hire plot and a deranged woman who may or may not have been pulling the strings.
Twists, turns, a stranger-than-fiction tale of homicides and bizarre human behavior – those are the building blocks for Evil Genius, Netflix's four-episode case study of a bank heist that turned into a tabloid home run.
14/ And in case you were thinking of watching the John McCain bio on HBO this coming weekend, read this stinging review first from Matt Taibbi.......
I hope my editors boil in oil in the afterlife for asking me to review John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls, the new HBO doc that premieres Memorial Day and stars David Brooks, Henry Kissinger, George W. Bush and a succession of other wax-museum escapees who line up to evade and prevaricate about things McCain-related and not.
The review copy might as well have been titled, Go Ahead, Say Something Bad About a Terminal Cancer Patient. I felt like a monster 20 seconds in.
Having covered McCain's 2008 run, I had mixed feelings about the man anyway. Just as a person, McCain came across as the kind of insistently obnoxious guy you hear complaining about the slow service in an airport bar – a type I always found oddly sympathetic.
Todays video - an incredible magic act from Britains Got Talent.....even Simon is stunned by this routine.....it's actually amazing....
Todays golf joke
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."
Todays Catholic jokeA young Catholic girl went to confession and said to the priest, "I'm pregnant."
He asked, "How did this happen, my child?"
She said, "I think it must be the second coming."
The priest, shocked by this reply asked, "What makes you think this has anything to do with the Second Coming?"
She replied, "Because I swallowed the first one..."
Todays pet store joke
A woman went into a store to buy her husband a pet for his birthday. After looking around, she found that all the pets were very expensive. She told the clerk she wanted to buy a pet, but she didn't want to spend a fortune."Well," said the clerk, "I have a very large bullfrog. They say it's been trained to give blowjobs!""Blowjobs!" the woman replied."It hasn't been proven but we've sold 30 of them this month," he said.The woman thought it would be a great gag gift, and what if it's true...no more blowjobs for her! She bought the frog.When she explained froggy's ability to her husband, he was extremely skeptical and laughed it off. The woman went to bed happy, thinking she may never need to perform this less than riveting act again.In the middle of the night, she was awakened by the noise of pots and pans flying everywhere, making hellacious banging and crashing sounds. She ran downstairs to the kitchen, only to find her husband and the frog reading cookbooks."What are you two doing at this hour?" she asked.
The husband replied, "If I can teach this frog to cook, your ass is gone."
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