Mitch's Blog

Historians and journalists love to speculate on what was the MOST! CONSEQUENTIAL! ELECTION! OF! OUR! LIFETIME! But I recall an interesting discussion a few years ago about what was the LEAST consequential Presidential election of our lifetimes?

The answer: Clinton vs. Gore, 1996.

I voted for and supported Clinton but if Gore had won it history probably would have not turned out much different. We would have had less noise about oral sex, but maybe Gore’s opposition would have ginned up some silly controversy to harry him with (though it probably would have been less titillating than Monicagate).

Microfiction about AI gone rogue, with an outcome terrible to contemplate.

I had a great time marching in the La Mesa Flag Day Parade yesterday with the La Mesa Lodge 407 Free & Accepted Masons, and enjoying a delicious lunch and fellowship afterward.

I missed getting a good photo of Deadpool, Superman and a women in a red-white-and-blue gown with like tentacles for hair, marching together. What do those things have to do with Flag Day? Deadpool isn’t even American — he’s Canadian! Who cares? ‘MURICA!!

And there will be no Christmas special this year, but the show will return, presumably in 2027 or later.

I have mixed feelings. RTD was the man who brought the Doctor back to life more than 20 years ago. He and his team were brilliant. And that was my introduction to the Doctor; I never got into the series in the 20th Century.

But the previous two seasons, with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, didn’t work for me. Nor did Jodi Whittaker’s seasons, nor Peter Capaldi’s overall, though he did have some excellent episodes and arcs. The last Doctor I loved was Matt Smith, and he left the show in 2014.

I’m ready to give the show a good long rest. But I’ll give it another try when it returns.

Be sure to use AI when making
your next, I don’t know, meal plan,
for example. Definitely do not call
your friend who loves to cook and ask her
for her favorite recipes or tips or ways
to save time making meals,
because you will end
up talking for longer than you had hoped,
hearing, perhaps, about her father’s cancer
diagnosis or how lonely she’s been or even
what she’s planted in her spring
garden and then lost with the early frost.

Read the full poem here

Today I received PR pitches from a Kayleigh and Kailee. I asked CoPilot to go through my emails and find other variations and it came up with the following: Kayleigh, Kailee, Kaylee, Kailey and Kailem. CoPilot also offered to set up a filter to group all these messages together. This was absolutely a productive use of my time and CoPilot resources.

In “The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy,” author Kliph Nesteroff makes the point that comedy often doesn’t age well. Sometimes things that one generation finds hilarious fall flat to later generations. I have found that to be true, myself, when watching silent comedies, Laurel & Hardy and even the Marx Brothers.

I’m rewatching ”Animal House” and wondering whether that movie is an example of the phenomenon Nesteroff describes. Because I still find that movie delightful, but Millennials and Gen X hate that movie — they think it’s stupid and offensive. I haven’t talked with any Gen Z about it but I imagine their reaction is the same.

“MAGA has worked to impose the ideology of evangelical religion on America. In the military, [Nick Mordowanec of Military dot com] notes, Hegseth has pushed Christian theocracy through extremist Christian-based prayers services with a Christian nationalist preacher who has said women’s suffrage was a bad idea and has defended slavery, and has described Trump’s war on Iran as a holy war. Michelle Boorstein and Sammy Westfall of the Washington Post add that Hegseth has urged chaplains to focus on scripture rather than psychology and has said those who disagree with him are God’s enemies.” — Heather Cox Richardson