1/. This is an excellent question....why are Amerians getting shot for knocking on the wrong door?
‘In Kansas City, Missouri, Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot in the head and critically wounded by 84-year-old Andrew Lester, whose door Yarl knocked on, in error.’ Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP It’s hard to imagine someone being shot for knocking on a stranger’s door in Finland, Spain or Canada
n the past week, two people have been shot, in separate incidents, for making an innocent mistake. In Kansas City, Missouri, Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot in the head and critically wounded by 84-year-old Andrew Lester, whose door Yarl knocked on, in error. Yarl had come to pick up his younger brothers, who turned out to have been with friends at another house with a similar address. In rural upstate New York, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed when she and her friends, having lost their way, drove up Kevin Monahan’s driveway. The car was turning around to leave when Monahan, 65, fired two bullets through the car window.
2/. Chris Hayes had an interesting interview with Jeff Jackson, the Democratic Congressman from Charlotte who is the #1 followed politician on TikTok .....
3/. For my money, the smartest story on Tucker Carlson in the last couple of days is this one, from Bob Lefsetz......nails it!
He was working for the man.
I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you’re on, that’s not what this is about. This is about the fact that Tucker Carlson was an employee and now he lost his job. As Bob Dylan so famously sang forty years ago, we’ve all gotta serve somebody.
So if you go back in internet history, everybody with a gig jumped ship for fame and fortune elsewhere. Sasha Frere-Jones left the “New Yorker” for Genius.com. A dumb move. He soon left and then ended up at the L.A. “Times,” where he was quickly let go, supposedly for expensing 5k at a strip club. Heard about Jones recently? No, crickets.
4/. Jordan Klepper went to a gun show in Tulsa, and his report is an excellent example of comedic reporting.
What the gun industry is doing will make you sick.....
5/. Got some time? The intellectual Benjamin Studebaker and others examine deaths of despair in the US, and explain
why our statistical longevity is going down.....
Deaths of Despair (DoD), or mortality resulting from suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related liver disease, have been rising steadily in the United States over the last several decades. In 2020, a record 186,763 annual despair-related deaths were documented, contributing to the longest sustained decline in US life expectancy since 1915–1918. This forum feature considers how health humanities disciplines might fruitfully engage with this era-defining public health catastrophe and help society better understand and respond to the
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2023/04/15/deaths-of-despair/
6/. Jordan Klepper was hosting the Daily Show this week, and had this amusing report on the Fox verdict.....he's very good....
7/. The headline on this column is a damn good question - are you a good parent [or grandparent]?
So what are you doing to stop climate collapse to protect your children?
Extinction Rebellion activists stage a funeral march with white painted children's prams, London, 31 August 2021. Photograph: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock An important part of parenting is securing children’s future. Too many of us are reading bedtime stories in a house that’s burning down
Parents do a lot. We spend hours reading stories or freezing on the edges of sports pitches. We buy food, clothes, buggies, car seats, bikes, music lessons, gadgets, parties, holidays, not to mention hundreds of toys. But here’s the bad news. While we obsess about our kids as individuals, we’re missing a last-ditch collective chance to save them from environmental catastrophe.
Take that seriously, and being a “good” mum or dad is about much more than what you do with your child or the opportunities you buy them. It becomes political.
8/. Bill Maher hosts the "Cojones Awards", giving trophies to people standing up to political correctness.....pretty good....
9/. Dylan Mulvaney - who the hell is this, you ask? She's the Bud Light girl on the can that has driven the right bonkers.
Andrew Sullivan gives us his comments......interesting! And there's a video sampler too....
I’ve largely ignored the entire Bud Light tempest in a toxic teacup because social media outrages and brand boycotts come and go and tend to leave little trace behind. But the fuss over the beer brand’s brief commercial dalliance with trans newbie Dylan Mulvaney — with her 10.8 million TikTok followers — nonetheless fascinates. It shows, it seems to me, just how much everyone is projecting, and how (almost) everyone is getting it wrong.
There are, it seems, many layers to Dylan. To countless straight people, left and right, Dylan is a transgender star — because she is biologically male, and yet has been saying she is a girl now for more than a year, wears women’s clothes and is pretty and charming and full of manic energy.
10/. Republicans are easing child labour laws...
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11/. I know I go on and on about the Mediterranean diet, but it's REALLY healthy.
In the 1950s, researchers from across the globe embarked on a sweeping and ambitious study. For decades, they scrutinized the diets and lifestyles of thousands of middle-aged men living in the United States, Europe and Japan and then examined how those characteristics affected their risks of developing cardiovascular disease.
There's a case to be made for gun ownership, but the dialogue has been poisoned by the gun lobby - see Jordan Klepper #4.....
12/. Dame Edna has gone......one of our favourite characters....
Oh, Possums, Dame Edna is no more.
To be unflinchingly precise, Barry Humphries, the Australian-born actor and comic who for almost seven decades brought that divine doyenne of divadom, Dame Edna Everage, to delirious, dotty, disdainful Dadaist life, died on Saturday in Sydney. He was 89.
Love his humour.....so did Prince Charles!
13/. Don't be fooled by the Supreme Court's decision to allow mifepristone to continue
to be sold - they have NOT become more reasonable!
Abortion-rights activists hold up signs outside the US supreme court building on 19 April in Washington DC. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Image n a way, Matthew Kacsmaryk – the Trump-appointed federal district court judge in Amarillo, Texas, who issued a sprawling and aggressive injunction on 7 April that would have removed the abortion drug mifepristone from the market – did the supreme court’s conservative majority a big favor: he made them look reasonable by comparison.
14/. A classic SNL skit - "What's That Name" with Bill Hader and John Mulvaney....really funny.....
15/. We don't normally comment on the theater, but this review of "Prima Facie '' currently on Broadway with Jodie Comer is exceptionally good.
You may remember Jodie Comer from "Killing Eve", she played a psychopathic killer.....
‘In the first half of the play, Comer is all swagger, an absolute player who sees the law as a game.’ Jodie Comer in the London production of Prima Facie.Photograph: Helen Murray It comes around intermittently every few years; a show on Broadway that reminds us why theatre beats every other medium hands down and almost justifies the cost of the tickets. So it was last night, walking down 45th Street in New York past foyers sparse with patrons, to something as close to a mob scene as a person with one eye on their phone for the babysitter can get.
16/. Guys - a movie for you...."The Covenant"....
“Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant,” the saga of a U.S. sergeant (Jake Gyllenhaal) honor-bound to his Afghan interpreter (Dar Salim), starts like most other movies about the ultimately unsuccessful 20-year effort to suppress the Taliban. There’s aerial footage of parched mountains, sudden explosions of violence and an outdated wail of classic rock exposing a younger generation’s as-yet-unrealized ambition to make war pictures able to stand alongside those that sprang from Vietnam. Sincerity is an unusual tone for its director, Guy Ritchie, who specializes in laddish shoot-’em-ups. Here, Ritchie is not just earnest — he’s morally outraged about the broken promises made to thousands of Afghans who believed they’d earned Special Immigrant Visas only to be abandoned to fend for themselves. For all its clichés, this furious and discomfiting film tugs on your conscience for days, making a powerful case to turn the American public’s attention back to a conflict it would rather forget.
17/. The best TV on HBO Max.....interesting to read this list, as HBO has had some of the best TV series ever made....
While the headlines have been more about what’s been pulled from HBO Maxand how it’ll soon be going away after its merger with Discovery+, there’s still so much television greatness on the streaming giant. It helps to have the (mostly) the entire catalog of the best cable company in history to pull from to populate a streaming service. HBO changed TV, and they’re using the power of that legacy to try and change streaming too. To keep this list in check, we decided to limit it to shows that are all wrapped up: either mini-series or multi-season shows that have aired their finales. So, yeah, you can use HBO Max to catch up on The Last of Usand Succession too, but they won’t be on here until they’re done. (Although ongoing HBO Max originals like Hacks are included.) Expect regular updates with new gems.
Today's jokes - I love puns!
Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.
Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.
A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.
A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead give away.)
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia - the LAN down under.
Every calendar's days are numbered.
A lot of money is tainted - 'Taint yours and 'taint mine.
A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
A pun is its own reword.
He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.
Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
Acupuncture is a jab well done.
Today's traffic joke
The light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, ''I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally I assumed you had stolen the car.'' |
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Today's redneck jokes
10. I Hate Every Bone In Her Body But Mine
9. I Ain't Never Gone To Bed With an Ugly Woman But I Woke Up With A Few
8. If The Phone Don't Ring, You'll Know It's Me
7. I've Missed You, But My Aim's Improvin'
6. Wouldn't Take Her To A Dogfight 'Cause I'm Scared She'd Win
5. I'm So Miserable Without You It's Like You're Still Here
4. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend And I Miss Him
3. She Took My Ring and Gave Me the Finger
2. She's Lookin' Better with Every Beer
1. It's Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night That Chewed My Ass All Day Long
Today's Wal-Mart joke...
Wal-Mart announced that, sometime in 2011 it will begin offering customers a new discount item; Wal-Mart's own brand of wine. The world's largest retail chain is teaming up with Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery of California to produce the wines at affordable prices in the $2 to $5 range.
Wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to put a bottle of the Wal-Mart brand into their shopping carts but, 'There is a market for inexpensive wine,' said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at University of Arkansas, Bentonville. 'However, branding will be very important.'
Customer surveys were conducted to determine the most attractive name for the Wal-Mart wine brands and varieties.
The top surveyed names in order of popularity were:
10. Chateau Traileur Parc
9. White Trashfindel
8. Big Red Gulp
7. World Championship Riesling
6. NASCARbernet
5. Chef Boyardeaux
4. Peanut Noir
3. I Can't Believe it's not Vinegar
2. Grape Expectations
1. Nasti Spumante
The beauty of Wal-Mart wine is that it can be served with either white meat (Possum) or red meat (Squirrel).
P.S. Don't bother writing back to tell me that this is a hoax. I know possum is not white meat.
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