Congressional Term Limits Might Break Congress. Jamelle Bouie makes a case against legislative term limits.
We have legislative term limits here in California and it’s not great. You end up with government by bureaucrats and lobbyists. The solution to legislative calcification is to make challengers more viable. Make incumbents have to work to get re-elected.
A wonderful, playful look at more than a century of Jewish ethnic humor in Hollywood, triggered by the minor (and silly) controversy over Bradley Cooper, who is not Jewish, portraying Leonard Bernstein while wearing a prosthetic nose.
Author Jody Rosen, writing in The New Yorker notes that much Jewish ethnic humor, particularly at the turn of the 20th Century, gave gentiles an opportunity to ridicule Jewish immigrants, often cruelly. But this form of humor was different from other minstrelsy in that it was often performed by Jews, and Jews themselves loved it.
People are saying “whom of which” now. Alrighty then.
Rand = Buffy.
Moiraine = Giles.
Lanfear = Cordelia.
Mat = Xander.
Egwene = Willow.
Hopper = Oz.
Liandrin = Principal Skinner.
New PEN America Report Documents Surge in ‘Educational Intimidation’ Bills
a new report released this week documents the rise of a new wave of state legislation designed to force librarians and educators to self-censor.
LGBTQ content is particularly targeted, as are LGBTQ creators. And laws require teachers to out LGBTQ kids to their parents.
The Republican Party believes it’s the role of government to police sexual purity. That’s wrong.
I saw this squirrel chilling on the fence in our backyard.
If you gaze long enough at the squirrel, the squirrel gazes back at you
Finished reading: Void Moon by Michael Connelly 📚Starts slow but but worth staying with. Builds to unputdownbability.
Things that don’t get you kicked out of GOP leadership:
- Heavy petting in a crowded theater in the presence of children, on video.
- Being under investigation for sex trafficking
- Being Donald Trump, a senile sexual predator and con man who attempted an incompetent coup to overthrow the US government and assassinate the sitting Speaker of the Hous and VP, with 91 felony criminal charges.
Things that get you kicked out of your position in the GOP:
- Failure to shut down the US government.
If the Democrats can sign on six moderate Republicans, the Democrats can pick the next speaker. It’s a long shot, sure, but in today’s political climate I’m not ruling anything out.
Because today has been weird, I am just now having my first coffee of the day, at nearly 1:30 pm.
Also, my will to live has been restored.
I believe these two events to be not coincidental.
I got the RSV vaccine, flu shot and Covid booster Saturday afternoon and it flattened me the rest of the weekend. I slept 16 hours yesterday. On the other hand, now I’m fine, and sleeping a lot, reading a lot and watching a couple of movies are a great way to spend the weekend.
I got the flu shot, Covid booster and RSV vaccine all at once yesterday, and that flattened me for nearly a full day. Feeling better now.
I remember when doing shots had a similarly debilitating effect but the first hours were more interesting and enjoyable.
I usually work at a standing desk but today I did some work sitting on the couch and learned I can write for short bursts while the dog is licking my face.
Later, the dog booped the keyboard to let me know she thought there should be a comma there.
There did not need to be a comma there. Dogs are bad at punctuation.
Occasionally I get annoyed at Inoreader’s quirks and I try alternatives for reading feeds. But then I come back to Inoreader. Nothing beats it for powering through many headlines quickly to zero in on the articles I actually want to read.
News about retrieving samples from an asteroid have got me thinking about a Lovecraftian eldritch horror that has been stranded on a rock in space for billions of years and has anger management issues.
I’m thinking about “Level 7,” an apocalyptic 1959 novel that had quite an effect on me when I read it as a boy 📚
”Level 7,” by a Ukrainian-born Israeli writer named Mordecai Roshwald, is written in the first person by a modern soldier whose name was taken away from him by the state, and is now designated only as X-127. He lives in an underground military complex, and his sole job is the push the buttons that launch the missiles in the event of nuclear war. X-127’s nation, and that nation’s enemy, are intentionally left unidentified.
The residents‘ lives are regimented and standardized, with the people reduced to little more than machines themselves. And yet I found X-127’s little world fascinating, and weirdly appealing.
Next paragraph is a spoiler—cut-and-paste it into Rot-13.com to read:
Va gur zvqqyr bs gur abiry, gur rarzl angvbaf unir gurve ahpyrne jne, naq rirelobql ba gur fhesnpr vf xvyyrq. Gura gur ahpyrne ernpgbe gung cbjref gur haqretebhaq pbzcyrk ortvaf gb yrnx enqvngvba, naq gur erfvqragf ortva gb qvr bar ol bar. K-127 vf gur ynfg fheivibe, naq ur qvrf ng gur raq bs gur abiry, fpenjyvat gur svany jbeqf vagb uvf wbheany. Gung ohttrq zr jura V jnf n obl—vs gur ynfg zna ba Rnegu vf qrnq, jub’f ernqvat guvf svefg-crefba obbx. Vaqrrq, V yrnea abj gung guvf cbvag obgurerq Ebfujnyq, gbb; gur bevtvany abiry unq na nccraqvk fhccbfrqyl jevggra ol Znegvna nepurbybtvfgf jub pnzr gb Rnegu naq sbhaq gur znahfpevcg.
Roshwald emigrated to America and died in Maryland in 2015.
Despite myriad potential distractions, it’s good to see Washington lawmakers focused on what really matters, which is whether John Fetterman looks nice.
A friend’s post on social media was too funny for the simple thumbs-up or smiley emoji, but not funny enough for the laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji. I overthink things sometimes.