SP bitched last night about packing and moving, so I’ll just spare you more kvetching by saying “Ditto!” But be assured that I will take a pause today to watch the Baltimore Ravens beat the quasi-San-Diego Chargers. And cringe when Lamar Jackson gets interviewed- let’s just say that he’s unlikely to follow Tony Romo into the broadcast booth. Well, he’s being paid to be an exciting player, not an articulate spokesman. And damn, he is an exciting player.

Birthdays of note today include Heinrich Schliemann (who, as I dig though our possessions for packing, has become my spirit animal); proto-cowboy star Tom Mix; a famous physician I’ve never heard of, but who had the delightful cognomen Helmut Poppendick; actor/comedian and true humanitarian Danny Thomas; gassy guru Alan Watts; the guy who taught me that “grampus” means “orca” and that “eria” means “silkworm” Eugene Maleska; banjo god Earl Scruggs; and global warming rationalist Bjorn Lomborg.

 

On to the news.


 

They’re baaaaack. And their demands are just as consistent and logical as Occupy Wall Street. But it is a good way to pick up girls, I suppose.

 

Brexit really needs a better spokesman than this.

 

Apparently, if I ever get elected to Congress, I’ll be able to wear a yarmulke. And ironically it will be because of deference to Jew-haters. It does strike me as weird that headgear must be religious- would my Baltimore Ravens cap qualify?

 

Quote of the day: “You like the Vatican, Nancy?”

 

Team Blue honors the spirit of pointless symbolism. I wonder if Team Red did the same stupid sorts of things, and I’ll guess they did, but the article is silent about that.

 

Gee, this couldn’t POSSIBLY be a money-grab, right? The ADA is Poppy Bush’s continuing “fuck you” to the US.

 

If you can’t find something #metoo to be outraged about, you just have to dig deeper. And here’s more appropriate music for that story.

 

I can’t remember, are Hungarians considered Slavs? Or are Magyars sui generis?

 

“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” “That trick never works.” “This time, for sure!”

 

Not exactly a “man bites dog” story, but close.

 

This was probably covered while I was gone, but it’s new to ME, at least. I hope Chairman Kaga uses this for a theme ingredient. As someone who has traveled extensively in my career, I have to say that Japan was the only place where the more time I spent there, the less I felt I understood it.

 

An astonishingly sensible article in the NYT. And it hits all the reasons I still use an iPhone 8 and have no intentions of upgrading. The sort of quantum leap thinking that Jobs could do has been lost on the current generation of management there.

 

I… just… can’t… even. Is this a thing here in the US as well?

 


Old Guy music, as expected. We did an Iris DeMent song yesterday, so it’s only appropriate to bookend that with Greg Brown.