Lucifer.

Man, you can take your let-us-treasure-these-final-warm-days-before-the-snow-flies and stuff it. It’s 88 degrees as I write this, and I think I speak for many here: This weather blows. Two more days and it’s over, and after seeing a Christmas tree at Costco this afternoon, I say bring on the pumpkin spice and all the rest of it.

(I realize the pumpkin spice arrived the day after Labor Day, yes. And we had a few cool days in there before Lucifer arrived. But this shit is miserable.)

This weekend was Dlectricity, a biennial art festival that takes place after dark along Woodward Avenue and a few surrounding blocks. They’re light installations, mostly. There are several such events like this, the other being Noel Night, and last year I told Alan that Noel Night had joined the lengthening list of Things That Used to Be Fun, But Aren’t Anymore. Which is to say, parking is a nightmare, every attraction has a long line, etc. We decided to park about a mile or two away and use the new bike-sharing service to get close to the action, which is what we did, but about that weather? After we arrived, I looked down at my shirt and it was wet, in one of those Vs like you see in the movies when the handsome leading man is interrupted in the middle of his morning run.

However uncomfortable, it was still a good idea. Rode down, docked the bikes, walked around the installations, picked out another couple bikes and rode back to the car. The way home was in the new protected bike lanes, which was awesome.

As for the exhibits, I liked the bunnies best.

Two more days of this, then we drop below 80 for a daytime high. Maybe we can turn off the air conditioning.

Today I made the mistake of looking at some Twitter and Facebook posts about #Takeaknee, and it has dispirited me mightily. I have but this to say: God bless Martha Ford, that raving Marxist. She linked arms with her players while wearing sunglasses. I’m not inclined to tumble for WASPy matrons, but I did this time.

I have nothing blogwise, do I? Maybe:

How Trump bungled what could have been a first down. Why? Because he doesn’t understand football.

The latest heat-n-serve repeal from the GOP kitchen looks to be in peril. We shall see.

I don’t make it a point to watch the first lady’s speeches, so this piece was interesting. Turns out her observations are correct: She did appear to be on the brink of tears throughout. What’s going on in that lady’s head? (Never mind the outfit.)

Happy Monday. I hope wherever you are, it’s not as hot as it is here.

Posted at 6:49 pm in Current events, Detroit life, Same ol' same ol' |
 

28 responses to “Lucifer.”

  1. Sherri said on September 24, 2017 at 7:41 pm

    Because he doesn’t understand ________.

    Fill in the blank. Almost anything other than resentment fits.

    Anything trump says is to make the people in front of him right that second either love him or fear him. He has no larger game plan. He knew that the people at his rally would eat up what he said, and that anyone else would find it offensive is the fault of the lying media, or something. Fox and Friends will tell him what a brave truth-teller he is, and if you don’t think so, you’re a son of a bitch, too, so you should be fired, too. After all, he won, which means that you all should love him, right?

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  2. Deborah said on September 24, 2017 at 8:11 pm

    My 98 year old mother-in-law thinks Trump has started in on disrespecting athletes so we are distracted from the upcoming failure (hopefully to me) of once again the Obamacare repeal and North Korea. Seems plausible.

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  3. brian stouder said on September 24, 2017 at 8:54 pm

    And for the record – I was somewhat taken aback when I saw a bizarre Stars and Stripes flag at the Allen County Court House, above the reserved parking spot for Allen County Sheriff’s Department cars.

    Uncle Google pointed me here –

    http://news-sentinel.com/news/local/Car-displayed-at-Allen-County-Courthouse-of-sheriff-s-sergeant-who-died-on-duty

    and all I could do was shake my head.

    So – white guys doing things to traditional (not to say ‘official’!) American symbolism is A-OK, but professional football players who are not white are “sons of bitches” that should be fired?

    Really?

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  4. beb said on September 24, 2017 at 8:58 pm

    Judd Legum makes a good point that Trump is attacking black Atheletes because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. (via)
    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2017/09/trumps-sports-attacks-racist-and-also.html

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  5. Mark P said on September 24, 2017 at 11:59 pm

    I read something today that makes me worry even more about Trump’s abysmal ignorance. If he prodded NK to launch a missile aimed at us, we would have to rely on our missile defense currently based in Alaska to shoot it down. Even if you believe it would be successful, the relative locations of the Alaska base and NK are such that we would have to shoot towards Russia, and given the apparent intention to launch multiple interceptors, it is likely that at least some of those interceptors would continue on their trajectories to reenter in Russia. The Russians in the past have worried that we might put nukes on our interceptors, turning them into ICBMs. Also, the Russians are apparently having trouble getting their early warning radar system to reliably identify NK launches, so it is apparently entirely possible that they would not realize (in time) that we are not launching an attack on them. How does WW III sound to everyone?

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  6. Dexter said on September 25, 2017 at 2:32 am

    My car has been registering 93F the past several days, but the day it read 87F felt the hottest; my skin was as if on fire and the dog was miserable on her walks. My grandson’s dad was in Lansing about 5 days back and his Jeep thermometer read 102…I don’t know if he was just joshing or not. Anyway, he went to high school in Toledo and was an All-City tight end years go, so he loves Detroit sports, and since he has a lot of money he’s frequently at big-time events, so he was at the new Little Caesar’s Arena a couple nights ago. He was amazed, as was I , home watching the hockey game on TV. This place is fantastic. Kid Rock did not blow the roof off. Now Detroit has all 4 big teams downtown. Sports matters. But if those damn players diss America…FIRE ‘EM! Yes, the “bum” (thank you LeBron!) said to. Folks, “our” President is an ASSHOLE. A stupid clown, a buffoon .

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  7. alex said on September 25, 2017 at 6:55 am

    I watched Oprah’s debut on 60 Minutes last night and it immediately struck me that she was duplicating the Bridge’s efforts when she gathered fourteen equally divided Michigan voters to face off over the presidential election. The segment didn’t break any new ground, of course, except that it was more of a shouting match between a bunch of low-information twits.

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  8. Suzanne said on September 25, 2017 at 6:56 am

    Brian, I noticed that flag a few weeks ago and wondered what it meant. The blue stripe made me think it was some sort of blue lives matter thing. It did seem odd to me because it’s a remake of the American flag, which clearly, if you read and listen to any social media, is a sacred icon.

    Episode 6 of Burns’ Vietnam War documentary last night was incredibly depressing. It had me in tears several times. Such a huge waste of human lives.

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  9. Minnie said on September 25, 2017 at 7:31 am

    Suzanne, me, too.

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  10. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 25, 2017 at 7:52 am

    Another angle on all this: Trump likes to jump on trends that everyone hasn’t noticed, but has already begun, so he can take credit for the change just by climbing on board. The NFL has been plunging for a while, for a variety of reasons. He’s gonna take credit for the next release of ratings and ticket sale decline. My one hope in recent events is that he has knowledge that China has had enough of their relationship and is about to/is doing something to make a major change in North Korea . . . and Trump is positioning himself to take credit when it happens.

    Of course, as Trump Water and Trump Wines and a hatful of other products show, he’s often bad at this. His main claim to fame is that he picked his moment to climb onto the reality TV bandwagon fairly well, and rode it to claiming he saved a network and became a global megastar off of Mark Burnett’s (and the O’Jay’s) handiwork. He’d love to take the NFL owners down a notch after his diss from them when the USFL was crumbling in ’85 — and he knows how to hold a grudge if nothing else.

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  11. Suzanne said on September 25, 2017 at 8:01 am

    NFL viewership has gone down, but if you talk to the man or woman on the street, it’s all due to the refusal of players to stand for the national anthem. I was never a huge fan, but used to watch occasionally, but rarely now because I don’t want to watch grown men get paid lots of money to inflict brain damage on one another. My son rarely watches any more due to the number of players with assault & drug charges who are then allowed to play (guys will be guys, right?)
    But that is not the perception of so many people I meet. In their minds, it is all about the anthem.

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  12. Peter said on September 25, 2017 at 9:19 am

    It’s great that Ken Burns’ Vietnam Opus is being broadcast now, because what really pisses me off to no end about this latest gripefest is how some people just go out of their way to be offended.

    I wasn’t a big fan of Colin Kapernick kneeling before the game, but really, how offensive a gesture is that? People aren’t rioting like in ’67 and ’68; people aren’t leading mass protests and calling for insurrection; and what are the players protesting? 40 acres and a mule? Reparations? Income redistribution? No, their main grievance is NOT TO BE SHOT TO DEATH BY POLICE ON THE WAY TO WORK. Is that really too much to ask? To hear Fanta Fuhrer and the folks at Fox, yes, yes it is.

    I had a dose of alternate reality this morning – a caller on the radio was ranting about the players and their socialist agenda, and warning about repercussions, using Starbucks as an example: “They pushed their liberal political agenda on their customers, and now they lost 20% of their business”, and the host kept saying “WHAT agenda? WHAT were they pushing?”, but this guy could not spit it out.

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  13. brian stouder said on September 25, 2017 at 9:49 am

    Peter – well said.

    Here’s something entirely different. Our fine young daughter, who is a freshman at IU, was – no fake – considering joining a caving/spelunking club, last week.

    And then – as if on cue – this news broke, this past weekend

    http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/09/iu-freshman-found-after-surviving-three-days-in-a-cave

    the lead:

    For three days, the IU freshman was trapped in the cave, wondering why the other students had left him behind in the darkness. He licked the moisture off the walls that surrounded him. He licked the wrappers of Clif bars and debated eating crickets. In the dim light of his iPhone, he tapped out goodbye letters to his family. After the battery died, he carried on imaginary conversations with the friends he thought he’d never see again.

    The story is fairly amazing; indeed, there are compound failures that leas to this – but it has a happy ending, so there’s that!

    (and indeed, Shelby is now off the idea of the caving club!)

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  14. Deborah said on September 25, 2017 at 10:02 am

    Never, never would I ever go spelunking. My husband went once with his son-in-law and some of his s-i-l’s friends. He crawled through mud for hours on his belly, squeezing through tunnels barely bigger around than he is. At the end they had to crawl/climb up a chute that my husband said his spelunking mates had to literally push him up through from behind/underneath, he was so exhausted. This was a few years ago but he was in his 60s so what did he expect. He’ll never do that again. He bought a pair of cheap boots at Target and wore the oldest clothes he could find because he had to throw everything away after the experience, including his underwear because it was soaked through with mud. No thanks.

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  15. kath said on September 25, 2017 at 10:05 am

    I saw the above mentioned flag in my neighborhood a few months ago. I thought it looked like a cross between the flag of Brittany and the leather pride flag. French leathermen as neighbors would be great. But then I googled it and was disappointed.

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  16. Icarus said on September 25, 2017 at 10:15 am

    Fun Fact: There have been more 90+ degree days this Fall than all of Summer. Not sure if that is really true but it certainly feels that way.

    I admit I was ambivalent when Kapernick started his kneeling. I defended his right to do so against my Facebook friends who feel entertainers, sports figures and other celebrities should be seen and not heard unless they are saying what these friends want to hear. But I didn’t think much would come of the kneeling.

    The right played it wrong. If they had ignored him or gone with “well he has the right to do but there are better ways” angle, this might have blown over. Instead they attacked him and he’s gained more supporters and momentum.

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  17. Jeff Borden said on September 25, 2017 at 10:28 am

    There’s pretty much no such thing as unlimited growth. While the NFL may indeed be seeing lower ratings and fewer ticket sales, it still attracts audiences that dwarf MLB, NBA, golf, Nascar, etc. and likely will for quite awhile. Ticket prices are heinously high, concessions and parking are also pricey, making it a very expensive proposition for fans to enter a stadium. Broadcasts are so stuffed with advertising the games run well past three hours. And the goal of parity has produced a great many mediocre teams. Even a juggernaut like the Patriots can get knocked off on any given week. Hell, the laughably inept Bears beat the usually excellent Steelers yesterday despite playing absolutely terrible football.

    If other politicians have used racial dog whistles, the Orange King uses a trumpet. The man who repeatedly defended “both sides” in the showdown between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville has used much harsher language directed at black athletes who have used their fame to peacefully protest the undeniable fact that black men and women are far more likely to be hurt or killed by police officers than whites. BTW, Colin Kaepernick has donated more than $1 million to charities. He is not a wife beater, a gang banger, a former felon or a druggie. He is, in short, a much better human being than our *president.

    This is our leader, folks. A small-minded, unread, illogical racist. Period. And dog help us, some 30+ percent of our fellow citizens think he is the bees knees. We are so fucked.

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  18. basset said on September 25, 2017 at 11:07 am

    I did a little spelunking when I was at IU in the 70s, don’t remember any locked gates but it’s been awhile.
    Mrs B and I went caving on the day she met my parents for the first time, they lived near Bloomington and a big Sunday meal was prepared… caving took longer than expected & we were about four hours late, that didnt go over well at all.

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  19. brian stouder said on September 25, 2017 at 11:24 am

    Started out ‘in the hole’, as they say, eh?

    We did Wind Cave in South Dakota (on the way to Mt Rushmore), and it was interesting; and lead by US Park Rangers.

    I’d do that again – but I’ve no desire to be in a cave with my own group of silly people!

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  20. Sherri said on September 25, 2017 at 11:49 am

    I do not do caves, being quite claustrophobic.

    I promised when Harvey hit Houston that while I wasn’t going to donate right then, I would donate. In the wake of Harvey, Irma, and Jose, and the devastation wreaked upon Texas, Florida, and the Carribean, I’ve now donated $1000 to the Episcopal Relief and Development Hurricane Relief Fund, which supports dioceses in the areas affected in relief and recovery work. I prefer to donate to groups already involved in the area, as they usually know the needs the best.

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  21. adrianne said on September 25, 2017 at 11:54 am

    Here’s my favorite lie from Trump over the weekend (there’s lots of competition). When asked about the NFL protests, he says, “I’ve never said anything about race. This has nothing to do with race or anything else.”

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  22. Deborah said on September 25, 2017 at 12:06 pm

    Trump is so wrapped up in himself he has no idea what is going on outside of that. He could care less about this country even though his says the opposite. It is so obvious, it’s amazing to me that people who voted for him don’t see that. As Joe said here a while back, that he and other people voted for him just did it to gig liberals, they seem to love the trash talk that Trump uses, it floats their boats. I honestly don’t think Trump understands the racial situation in the country, he only shoots off his mouth when he thinks he gets something out of it. That doesn’t mean he’s not racist, it means (to me anyway) that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he has no intention of learning something, he thinks he knows everything and we all know that is preposterous. It is very much like a cult, how can people be so blind?

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  23. Suzanne said on September 25, 2017 at 12:16 pm

    Cult indeed, Deborah. I recently read a book about Jim Jones and the similarities were eerie to say the least. Those who knew what craziness was going on in the inner reaches of People’s Temple kept mum for the most part because despite his sick/crazy behavior, they believed in his mission and thought what he accomplished was worth it. Some wrote him notes of praise and thankfulness while in line to drink poison.

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  24. Julie Robinson said on September 25, 2017 at 12:33 pm

    Sherri, I’m with you on claustrophobia. I can’t trace it to any life experiences and was in caves and mines during childhood, but I break out in sweat at the idea now. Sometimes I can’t even be in a room with a closed door.

    Anyway, news is pretty much in the periphery; I’m just trying to help my mom grieve and get all the arrangements done. There is so much to do. Jeri died intestate, and of course she was a hoarder and her place hadn’t been cleaned after the hurricane, and then she died there. We have to get biohazard cleaners and the only one that has given us a quote so far wants 7K.

    Mother started writing an obituary but could only get out three paragraphs so I did it for her. I’m calling it her life story. If you want to read it, it’s here: http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Jeri-Pigott&lc=9826&pid=186724411&uuid=2fe151d9-9a6f-46d0-9fcd-6805f10bd049. It was good to remember all the wonderful things she did before her disease took hold and changed her so much.

    Mother is a mess, and she’s going to be a long-term mess. I will make her get grief counseling, because right now she’s only functioning with the three of us holding her together and doing everything for her. She’s saying she has no reason to live, which of course is her emotions talking. But it’s rough. The rest of us understood that Jeri was under a death sentence and we are sad but accepting. I don’t know if she’ll ever get there.

    We have her cremation arranged and will shop for an urn that she would have liked. It may not happen until after the memorial service, because dear Irma has left a lot of Florida way behind. It doesn’t matter–no one at the service will know if the urn is empty.

    We’ve put together a great group of pictures for a slideshow at the visitation, and I’m also sharing it on social media. That’s been good as Mom can read everyone’s kind comments. We finally got her phone over the weekend and I’ve started calling everyone in it beginning with all the missed medical appointments. I’m on a break from that since they’re all closed over the noon hour.

    We’ve chosen a couple of hymns, then Matt will sing You Raise Me Up, as he had done on Mother’s Day and which Jeri really loved. We are also singing the her favorite Shaker song Tis a Gift, in a round with the three of us, and maybe Sarah on flute too. These will be the last musical gifts we can give her.

    The last time we were here just a couple of weeks ago we took Jeri to a concert that Matt has solos in, and the time before that we got her to her beloved beach one last time. Taking her anywhere was a major effort but I’m so glad we did.

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  25. Jakash said on September 25, 2017 at 12:36 pm

    Jeff (tmmo),

    While it’s nice to have a bit of hope, your thought regarding Dolt 45 maybe benefiting from China making a change with regard to NK seems to rest on one key, very hard to believe element: “he has knowledge.”

    Peter,

    “I wasn’t a big fan of Colin Kapernick kneeling before the game, but really, how offensive a gesture is that? People aren’t rioting like in ’67 and ’68; people aren’t leading mass protests and calling for insurrection; and what are the players protesting? 40 acres and a mule? Reparations? Income redistribution? No, their main grievance is NOT TO BE SHOT TO DEATH BY POLICE ON THE WAY TO WORK. Is that really too much to ask?” Excellent perspective.

    I think it’s interesting that even several of us here weren’t wild about Kaepernick’s original protest, but now Il Douche inserting himself into the matter has solidified our support of the kneelers. Nancy’s NY Mag. link above about ole Rumpy not understanding football is quite good in addressing the situation. And includes this gem referring to the USFL: “It was odd to hear a defense of football from the only American president — indeed, the only American, period — who single-handedly destroyed a viable professional football league.”

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  26. redoubt said on September 25, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    22–sorry to disagree, but I think he perfectly understands the racial situation in this country. (Rather than apologize to the Central Park Five, for example, he doubled down.) By way of reminder his political career was kick-started by rank bigotry–demanding that an American of African descent prove that he is actually an American. (This incidentally is one of my wife’s pet peeves–her view is that only White people get to be “Americans”; everyone else is hyphenated.)

    Also, I think he truly feels that the Constitution is subordinate to his ego.

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  27. Icarus said on September 25, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    North Korea anyone? a long and interesting read

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-risk-of-nuclear-war-with-north-korea

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  28. AndreaJ said on September 25, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    Deborah and Suzanne re:Cult – I thought the exact same thing and saw many similarities when I recently read “Inside Scientology,” specifically the personality traits of their leader and how they never apologize or defend anything said about them, they just viciously go after the reporter, newspaper, company, “others,” etc. until the topic is changed or forgotten.

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