Mercy me, it’s Thursday already? That it is, and I completely missed on the midweek blog. Sorry about that.

However, others have been gathering string on my behalf. On someone’s behalf, anyway. While I strive to find the top of my desk under a shifting stack of work, please enjoy:

Eric Zorn, a Chicagoan, justly praises Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stirring call to action, delivered in New Hampshire on Sunday. You probably saw piece of it here and there, and if you didn’t, rest assured: It was a good’un:

Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.

They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact — because we have no alternative but to do just that — that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors. … I’m telling you what I’m willing to do, and that’s fight for our democracy, for our liberty, for the opportunity for all of our people to live lives that are meaningful and free.

Being in Chicago, he was able to report the Tribune’s, and the Illinois GOP’s, ridiculous reaction:

The Illinois Republican Party rushed to the fainting couch in a news release Monday headlined, “Pritzker Calls For Violence Toward Republicans.”

JB Pritzker’s attempt to woo New Hampshire Democrats as he barrels towards the 2028 Democrat primary was full of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric. Pritzker’s obsession, to insult and to chastise President Trump, showed forcefully as he stoked the crowd in calling for political violence against Republicans.

The Tribune reported:

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, reposted a clip of Pritzker’s speech on social media and asked, “Are you trying to inspire a 3rd assassination attempt on my dad?” And deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller in Washington also criticized the remarks, saying they “could be construed as inciting violence.”

“The destruction of property sits directly adjacent to the — to attacks on humans, physical attacks,” said Miller, who also cited the past assassination attempts on Trump.

Easy there, Grand Old Paranoids. Fighting with “every microphone and megaphone that we have” is call for protests and rhetoric, not a call to take up bear spray, baseball bats and flagpoles, as those who answered the call from Dear Leader did on Jan. 6, 2021.

When you’ve pissed off both Don Jr. and Stephen Miller, you know you’ve hit a nerve. Keep it up, governor.

Eric’s Substack is pretty good, btw. He publishes twice a week, with the Chicago-heavy content going in the Tuesday edition, the paid one. Thursday’s is friendlier to non-Chicagoans.

Bonus Zorn: Exploring the origins of the word “tilt” as a synonym for malfunction, and its roots in pinball, he quotes from “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s book:

In his 1984 book “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi,” author Bob Woodward described the coked-up actor at one point as “like a pinball machine on tilt, out of control.”

The quote made me wince, because it’s such a perfect illustration of what a leaden writer Woodward is. I remember reading “Wired” and thinking, how can a book about a comedian be so unfunny? FWIW, a pinball machine on tilt is not “out of control,” it’s dead. Activating the tilt sensors makes the machine freeze and lets the ball roll out of play. But the book was full of passages like that. Probably the worst was Woodward on the chizborger-chizborger sketch, an SNL classic, which he lays out in such excruciating detail that it isn’t even mildly amusing.

In other news, I recently became aware of a publication called Michigan Enjoyer. Hmm, what’s this, I thought, and clicked on their About page, where I read:

Michigan Enjoyer is Michigan media for those who relish the beauty of life here and are tired of apologizing for it.

Wha-? Huh? As one who enjoys the beauty of life here and has never once apologized for it, or even thought I should, I read on:

An antidote to the boring, biased, and out-of-touch local media, we’re here to breathe vitality back into a state that used to overflow with it. You “problematic” Michiganders too busy building to be depressed and offended—you’re our driving force.

Oh. OK. If you scratch someone upset about the boring, biased and out-of-touch local media, nine times out of 10 you’ll find a right-winger, and whaddaya know, I’m right. Here’s a recent headline:

DTW Is the Democrat Dream

Subhed: It’s an ultra-safe surveillance state full of high-end luxuries, so why do we all hate being there?

What follows is a glimpse into the mind of an editorial team who thinks some people go around apologizing for enjoying the beauty of life in Michigan. While I despise the early-2000s habit of dissecting blogs line-by-line, once known as “fisking,” I must say this column was just one jaw-dropper after another:

Detroit Metropolitan Airport is a leftist utopia. Everything is pre-packaged, arbitrary rules are strictly enforced, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s voice even blares over the loudspeakers.

That’s the lead. First of all, it’s a what? And how does pre-packaged everything make it so? At a time when having the wrong tattoo and a Chicago Bulls cap can get you sent to a concentration camp, is this the time to whine about arbitrary rules from a conservative corner? As for Benson’s voice, he’s objecting to a recording played every so often in recent weeks, reminding travelers that the Real ID deadline is absolutely coming for real this time, and they should be mindful. We heard it when we went to New Orleans. I don’t recall it being all that frequent, or in any way blaring.

I should stop here to confess my prejudice: I like our airport. I don’t like that it’s on the other side of the county, but I can live with that. The entrances and exits make sense, there are plenty of restrooms, moving sidewalks, a tram, lots of food choices and it’s never less than reasonably clean. But most important, it’s a hub. You can fly nonstop from Detroit to Tokyo, for crying out loud. Spend 20 years of your life in someplace like Fort Wayne, and then come back to me with your complaints. In that city, the choice was always to either pay significantly more to book a vacation flight out of there, or save the extra dough by driving to Indianapolis or Chicago, which isn’t so bad when you’re departing, full of we’re-on-vacation high spirits. When you return, tired and road-weary, you now face a 110- or 150-mile drive to your house, and that part sucks.

But it’s the nature of this guy’s complaints that blow my mind:

(Airports) are always regulated by county- or city-port authorities and almost always located within or adjacent deep blue urban hubs. They even have special police forces and federal TSA security apparatchiks enforcing terminal access.

…When faced with overt government regulation, travelers are forced through a slightly humiliating screening process, as frequent flyers pay for quicker security sweeps.

…The McNamara and Evans terminals look less like airports and more like suburban malls. The PGA Tour Shop, Johnston & Murphy, Estee Lauder, Brookstone, and iStore Express. These are global brands for a super-striver consumer. But it’s a command economy with a neoliberal flavor. Travelers are captured and repeatedly price gouged due to a lack of competition.

Welcome to every single airport in the country, except for the smaller ones like Fort Wayne, which probably doesn’t have a Johnston & Murphy, Estée Lauder, etc. The big thing everyone mentions about FWA is this: A crew of greeters offers warm cookies to arrivals. This is nice! I’d love a cookie. It would sustain me on my 150-mile final drive to my destination.

But so many questions have I! The terminals “look less like airports and more like suburban malls?” What should airports look like, because in between those mall stores and restaurants are gates with windowed walls where you can see planes. Would you prefer a three-sided shed, a wind sock and a crew that starts the planes by pulling on the propeller, the pilot in a leather helmet giving a thumbs-up from the cockpit? I prefer the modern version, even if it comes with a neoliberal flavor. And price-gouging? People don’t shop at the airport for bargains — it’s on the other side of security. You shop there because you forgot to pack something, or you’re bored, or you have money to burn. Expect to pay a premium for this.

Then he bitches again about Real ID, claiming “what it really appears to be is a state (and federal) cash grab to force adults over the age of 18 to get brand new state ID cards that are somehow harder to falsify.” Why do we have this law? Because the 9/11 Commission recommended it. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by, anyone? George W. Bush. Full implementation has been delayed now for 20 years. If it were a cash grab, it’s a pretty shitty one. But I’d point out to this writer that it’s no more onerous than the requirements they want to enshrine in the SAVE Act, the one that will require new voters to prove their citizenship to register. 9/11 actually happened. But non-citizens voting is vanishingly rare.

Oh, well. Some people will never be happy. I’ll offer this miserable traveler one pro tip: TSA Pre is the single best $80 I ever spent, even factoring in the hassle of having to be fingerprinted. It’s good for five years, and every time I fly, which isn’t often, I’m glad I did it. But then, I’m a Democrat. And I like having a cocktail before I board, even if it is overpriced.

The last thing I’ll say about Michigan Enjoyer: It’s the latest stop on the downward spiral of Charlie LeDuff’s career. And he’s doing the same thing to them that he did to Deadline Detroit: Cut/paste his column into his own social media, thereby depriving his publisher of the click. What a guy.

OK, it’ll be Friday in 24 hours and I still have work to do. Enjoy the weekend, and let’s hope there’s fewer chores next week.

Certain decisions must be made with one’s own mental health in mind. And so I am consciously choosing not to even furrow my brow over the fact the president of the United States chose a blue suit over a more diplomatic black to wear to Pope Francis’ funeral. That he’s a boor is not news, so why would anyone expect him to start paying attention to protocol now? Besides, the one he wore to this papal audience…

…may not fit him anymore. And no one would prefer the ridiculous white-tie getup he sported at Buckingham Palace:

Ah, memories. That was the state visit where he told the queen his children were interested in a “next-generations” meeting with William and Harry. For maintaining her composure when confronted with this request, I think we should put Elizabeth’s face on the $20 bill. And Pope Francis? Fast-tracked to sainthood.

I said at the time of the papal audience that Ivanka looked like she got her headpiece from a Goth Bride package at Spirit Halloween. Perhaps, as an observant Jew, she felt she didn’t need to wear a mantilla, but that veil is ridiculous. The point of covering one’s head in a religious setting differs from faith to faith, but in general, it’s about covering it, somehow, not sporting a fun piece of netting on the back of your bean.

Back to the papal funeral: At least he didn’t wear a red tie.

Thanks to all you Hoosiers who offered interesting tidbits on Zion Lutheran. It jogged a memory for me, of going to their school for a story, and I can’t remember anything about the story, but I do remember the school. (I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this here before, but can’t find it in the archives. Apologies if so.) As others noted, it mainly served neighborhood children, and the neighborhood was decidedly lower-income. I was there through lunch, which was a plain hot dog and a scoop of baked beans. Nothing wrong with that, and the kids didn’t seem to mind it, but then the principal said, “We used to have silent lunch, but we recently changed the policy.” “Say what?” I replied. “What is ‘silent lunch?'”

Basically, it’s exactly what it sounds like: Children are forbidden from speaking during lunch. They get a short recess after they’re done, but while they’re seated at lunch tables? SILENCE. That struck me as cruel, and I use that word deliberately; socializing over food is a deeply human experience in every culture on the globe, and combined with the prison-like meal it really rubbed me the wrong way.

“Do you talk to other people when you’re seated together at a meal?” I asked, probably bitchy-like. Yes, but, if they don’t have to be quiet, they might leave food uneaten or get distracted or whatever, and that would be terrible. It never occurred that learning to talk and eat at the same time might be a skill worth, you know, teaching.

Julie’s recollection that a stab at “classical education” flamed out there was interesting. That is, of course, the latest trend in charter-school education. One has been floating around hereabouts, threatening/promising to open “soon,” but I just looked at their website and they haven’t promised anything since 2023, so I’m guessing the flame has gone out.

And yes, it was “cruciform” that Timbo was looking for, not cuneiform. Every day I see evidence that every editor at a newspaper that isn’t the NYT or WP has either been driven from the building or so beaten into submission that they just go to meetings all day and wave all sorts of shit through. It’s depressing.

And a final note: I did my grocery shopping today and noted prices are up sharply. Hmm.

OK, let’s see what horrors await us this week. Will we deport more children with cancer? Tune in and find out.

I told you I’m taking this swim-instructor course? So last night the woman teaching it called me over to explain butterfly stroke to a bunch of level 3 kids, which is to say, 8 years old and younger. I bent over at the waist, held my arms out and said, “Your hands should enter the water at 11 and 1,” among other things. And then I thought: Noooo, not an analog clock reference!

If you have young people in your life, be advised: They don’t understand analog clocks until they get older, some as old as fourth grade. I first learned this lifeguarding in 2023, when I was the only one who wore a watch and my colleagues, deprived of their phones, were always asking me the time. “Ten ’til one,” I might say, to a blank stare. “Twelve-fifty?” I’d say, and they’d nod. “Quarter after” meant nothing. You had to say “two fifteen.”

The wonders of technology. So I told the kids, instead, to start the stroke with their arms close to their head, like so. It’s humbling, when the world moves on without your permission.

Welcome to the end of the work week, a very long one for me. How to cheer myself up? Hate-reading another Tim Goeglein adjective party about a notable Lutheran church in Fort Wayne!

Zion Lutheran is indeed a lovely church. I don’t know what it did to deserve this, however:

As you drive down Creighton, Zion’s beautiful and lithe central spire rises like a phoenix as if welcoming an old friend.

I have found that steeple most inspiring on semi-foggy, semi-misty Hoosier Sunday mornings when the spire seems to lift itself heavenward as if peeking out of a cloudburst.

Zion’s sheer dimensions are awe-inspiring, and you can clearly see its unique cuneiform shape from the top of the Lincoln Tower when glancing southeast: 124 feet in length with its landmark transepts jutting out 80 feet.

Tim struggles with basic vocabulary. “Lithe,” for instance, means “slim and flexible,” which would seem to be the last thing you’d want in a church steeple. As for “slim,” aren’t all spires? Here’s the church in question:

Looks pretty standard churchy to me. But never mind that. The rest of that sentence is a disaster. For the thousandth time to the hundredth writer, a phoenix is a mythical bird that rises from the ashes of its own pyre (depending on the version of the myth) in rebirth, not to “welcome an old friend.” And again, flames are exactly what you don’t want near a historic church; ask the folks in Paris about that. Anyway, a building that’s been there for more than a century cannot be said to rise, even in a metaphorical sense. Let’s count the various mangled metaphors here, and on second thought, let’s not. As Alex said when I sent him this earlier this week, “Tim’s a late starter, having been a plagiarist until now.”

Indeed. Also, what is a cuneiform shape, in a building? One of you architects tell me.

We’ve had a lovely stretch of warm weather — high 70s on Thursday — and that has officially launched this tardy spring. I’m looking out the back windows at blooming trees and hostas in overdrive. The birds are already chattering when I leave for the pool or gym in the early dark. My plan to throttle down my paid work in favor of having more time to enjoy my dwindling number of springs and summers could be going better, but oh well.

Some miscellany ahead.

I don’t like to make too much out of women’s appearance, but mercy, has anyone seen Sarah Palin recently? What a tragedy, and I’m not talking about natural aging, but what plastic surgery has done to someone who was once strikingly pretty…

…and now looks like this:

She was a silly woman, wrong about everything, but she had the gift of a pleasant appearance. Looking at the 2024 version, I see evidence of chin, cheeks and lip work. The sunglasses are hiding her eyes, but likely there’d be something else going on there. And what on earth is a serious person (see above; she’s not) doing with a cartilage piercing that deep in their ear? You’re 61, not 17. Shudder. But this is what MAGA beauty standards can do, even to beauties, and say what you want about her, but Palin had that, at least. For a more standard-pretty girl like Kristi Noem, it just spells disaster:

Note: Eyebrows drawn with a Sharpie, those ridiculous false lashes (WHY?), and enough foundation to make her uneven complexion look even worse. Again, let’s compare and contrast. 2011:

And 2025:

Which one looks like the human being, which the fembot? Her eyes are disappearing into caves lined with kohl, and good lord, that hair. Nothing wrong with it, except that it’s the same hair every woman who passes through Trumpworld ends up with, the . High-maintenance bed hair, the tonsorial equivalent of a flag pin and MAGA hat.

OK, enough snarking for one day. The announced retirement of Dick Durbin prompted Neil Steinberg to unearth a few columns the senator appeared in. This passage, from 2006, was striking:

Had breakfast the other morning with Sen. Dick Durbin and Dan Seals, the young Democrat who just might unseat Mark Kirk in the 10th Congressional District next week. We were discussing that age-old question of whether the current election really is the most mean-spirited in history or only feels that way. Conversation naturally moved to George Allen, the Virginia senator who, having pretty much dug his own political grave with his mouth, is desperately lashing out at his opponent, Jim Webb, by pointing shrilly to salty lines culled from Webb’s war novels as if they were evidence of perversion. Durbin used a phrase I hadn’t heard before.

“George Allen is a spit tobacco senator,” he said. “One of four in the Senate.” Meaning that he dips and chews tobacco, a vile habit better left in the barn. But Allen doesn’t leave it in the barn. Durbin entertainingly described a flight down to Guantanamo he and Allen shared on a military airplane, and the cringing revulsion the clean-cut, dignified and ramrod straight military hosts extended toward Allen, a drooling nicotine addict dribbling brown saliva into a plastic cup. That’s a grosser image than anything in Webb’s novels.

Ewww. Happy weekend, all.

I had a shit-ton of work dumped on me in the last few days, so here’s more shortened shrift. First, be advised there’s a colt entered in the Kentucky Derby this year named Sandman. He has an excellent social-media team, or maybe it’s just Churchill Downs’. Whatever, he’s been popping up on my socials a lot in the last two days. With his name, as you could guess, he has fans in Metallica, who sent over a bunch of merch for the barn crew:

That’s Sandman, obviously. I love grays. What a beautiful boy. And look at all the faces in his team, overwhelmingly Latino/a. (I refuse to use Latinx, sorry.) I wonder if ICE will be dropping by to fuck up the Kentucky Derby this year, too. Of course, many of these people may well be Puerto Rican; racing is big there. Trust our ICE team not to understand they’re Americans too.

Horses don’t have walk-on music, but if they did? Man oh man, Sandman would have that race in the bag.

Moving on! To the Mysteries of Kristi Noem’s Purse. Who carries three grand around in a purse? The other day I read a business owner complaining on Facebook that the local parking meters haven’t been converted to an app, and still require the antique currency known as “change.” But we’re to believe our homeland security secretary was carrying around that much dough for “family activities” during Easter weekend? The most benign speculation is that she’s trying to keep her much-gossiped-about affair with Corey Lewandowski off the credit-card bills. The funniest was Roy’s, of course.

I am the increasingly rare adult who enjoys drinking milk, but I’m starting to think I should reconsider:

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality control program for testing of fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

… The testing program was suspended because FDA’s Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory, part of its division overseeing food safety, “is no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency testing and data analysis,” the email said.

Thanks, Croaky! 10/10, no notes.

Back to real work.

A number of you have asked how Bob Dylan was. Those who have seen him already know, because over a 60-plus-year career, one theme runs throughout: Bob does whatever Bob feels like doing. Also, Bob is now 83. He spent the show seated at his piano, never spoke to the crowd other than to introduce the band, and played about 85 minutes. The setlist was mostly from his most recent album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” although he took time to throw in “Desolation Row” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” The overall vibe was loping, twangy, Americana.

I’m glad I went, but if I had missed it, I wouldn’t have missed anything.

Then we were into the weekend and its many rewards. Eggs Benedict, warm temperatures, Easter. I hope yours was great.

There were no Hands Off demonstrations nearby, so I didn’t do that, but for those who did? Respect. Best sign:

Ha ha ha.

The news went by in a blur, of course. What a gang of morons. Between the oopsie Harvard letter and the oopsie another Signal group getting the top-secret military texts and oopsie Google Drive sharing, to that add the impossibly hamfisted attempt to brand the all-female space flight as “inspiring” and who knows, about a thousand more dumbass moves that probably escape notice in America’s hollowed-out newsrooms.

I mean, I get 10 NYT gift links a month, and the last one was my seventh. There are still 10 days left in April.

I’m going to do a partial screen capture of a photo in that same paper. It’s a story about Kash Patel and his jet-setting fabulous life on the public dime. Here’s a piece of a photo of the A-Team at a UFC fight:

First of all: UFC, gross, but OK whatever, no judgment. There’s Croaky and Mrs. Croaky, POTUS, Patel et al. What are they thinking? The only one with a glimmer of emotion on his face is Patel, and my thought bubble for him would be, if I were in that ring, I’d totally be winning, only far better-looking. Mrs. Croaky: I can’t believe the shit I have to go to just to make sure he’s not cheating. POTUS: Covfefe. Croaky: Mom and Aunt Jackie would have hated this, but the world has moved on.

Modern life is so exhausting.

And the week ahead promises to be the same.

Why do I do these things to myself? I signed up to take the training that certifies one to teach swimming, thereby condemning myself to another month of training that will involve one or two evenings a week, in the pool. Yesterday I fulfilled my daily exercise goal (40 minutes) by 300 percent. Got home, ate like a teenager, went to bed with wet hair. You should see it today.

Ah well, it’s just another month. And I’m not even sure I want to teach swimming. I’m not that good with children, but who knows, soon maybe we’ll need another $19/hour household income. I think I’d rather work in a weed store. Not as hard on the hair.

Anyway, one of the things we did last night was observe/participate in the pool’s weekly special-needs swim, in which children and young adults with various disabilities get wet and work on whatever. Most of them have some form of autism, and when I say “some form” I’m talking about the whole spectrum. I spotted one of my favorites from the classes I lifeguard, a gangly young man who’s making steady progress. This year he learned to dive, and believe me, that was a milestone. Anyway, he’s bright, chatty — last night he was asking his swim buddy where he went to college, high school, middle school, elementary school and preschool — and I feel very optimistic that, contrary to the remarks yesterday by Croaky, the Health and Human Services secretary who’s doing his best to ruin both, this kid will grow up to go on dates and definitely pay taxes.

I was reading about that press conference yesterday. One thin shred of hope I might have in the future recovery of this country lies in the fact these people are so goddamn bad at what they do. I know a few people with children on the spectrum, and judging from their social-media venting, they’re incensed by Croaky’s improv yesterday. One signed off on a wrenching Facebook post with, I can’t wait for this asshole to die so I can piss on his grave. How in the world did he, or anyone else, think it was a good idea for him to not just promise to find the causes of autism by the end of the summer, but freestyle about the terrible burden these people are to society? Pro tip, Bobby: When you climb in bed with actual Nazis, maybe save that for after the third cocktail at a dinner with excellent security and not in a restaurant. (Roy, as usual, finds the grim humor within.)

Throw in the secretary of education talking about “A1,” the attorney general lying through her teeth, the “gold guy” turning the people’s house into Mar-a-Lago (read that, it’s a trip; gift link) and various other fuckups we’ve seen so far, and it’s possible to think it’s only a matter of time, but who knows?

This is likely to be the last post of the week, because tonight? The Derringers and a friend are driving to Toledo to see Bob Dylan. I’ve seen him before, in Indianapolis sometime in the ’80s, and the show was terrible. Tom Petty was the opener and his band remained onstage to play with Bob, and it was one of those shows where I felt…assaulted by the sound. It was loud, it was distorted, it was painful. Today it’s a smaller venue, and I’m hoping 83-year-old Bob is in good voice and has a far quieter band. As always, we’ll see. The point of this evening is the outing and spending time with good people.

So have a great rest of the week, and we’ll see you again sometime Sunday, most likely.

I’ve been quote-unquote retired for a few years now, and I still think of the weekend as something special, look forward to it, get that Friday-on-my-mind feeling, and in fact think Friday night is the best night of the week. In Columbus, we got paid on Friday, and the table we assembled at the bar next door was long and loud. No separate checks. The rule was, you kept an approximate tally of your own damage as the night wore on and threw your cash on the table when you left, with a little extra for the tip. If you stayed until the end, you might get stuck with a bill for more than was on the table. Or, if everyone had overestimated, you might walk away winners. At a time I my life when I was on such a tight budget that I would put $5 in quarters in a mesh coin purse that I hung on a hook by my door — so I knew that whatever happened, I’d have bus fare to get to and from work, back in the days when the fare was 50 cents each way — walking away winners was like getting a little bonus.

I stayed late a lot, but mostly because I so enjoyed Fridays. I still do.

This week, I had a Friday dinner date with the friend I dogsit for. This was my thank-you for a week of service in the coldest week of the year, plus cleaning the coffee pot, a gripping take you might recall from a few weeks back. We went to She-Wolf, a spot that specializes in Roman cuisine. Had a pasta thing, and a fish thing, and gelato. It was all delicious, and it was a perfect Friday night. The rest of the weekend? Sunny, warmish, nice. Bought eggs, was thankful I already filed my taxes, ate too many jellybeans. Went to the library. The usual.

And I missed “The Ten Commandments,” but Alan is no fun to watch it with. You need to make it a party, with at least two gay men and lots of people who can say funny things about the next big moment coming up onscreen. Alan just thinks it’s dumb.

“THE TEN COMMANDMENTS” IS NOT DUMB.

OK, enough. Another thing I tried to do this weekend, and should do on more weekends: Pay no attention to whatever Tubby is up to. I stay informed, but there’s a limit to how much of this shit I, or anyone, can take. I go back and forth with my friends who practice 100 percent ignorance — and I stress that I mean “ignoring the news,” not actively cultivating stupidity — about how responsible that is. Some news will always break through, but I think to be an engaged citizen, you have to be well-informed. That said, I understand the agita that being well-informed causes mere mortals these days. I think my solution is mini-breaks. And I definitely think it’s wise to avoid shit like this (gift link reluctantly extended):

What do you wear for your first trip to space?

If you are like most people, probably whatever spacesuit or astronaut outfit the company (or government agency) you are flying with provides. However, if you are Lauren Sánchez — journalist, pilot, children’s book author, philanthropist and fiancée of Jeff Bezos, the second-richest man on the planet — you have another idea. You think, “Let’s reimagine the flight suit.”

Yes, it’s a liberally illustrated, ass-smooching feature on what Jeff Bezos’ arm candy has “reimagined” for what’s supposed to be an 11-minute trip on her boyfriend’s spaceship, and it’s about as gross as you’d expect, with quotes like this, from the designer:

“Simplicity was important, and comfort, and fit,” Mr. Garcia said. “But we also wanted something that was a little dangerous, like a motocross outfit. Or a ski suit. Flattering and sexy.”

I’ll say this for the :::checking::: children’s book author: She knows how she caught her boyfriend’s eye, and she means to keep it, if it takes all the lip filler in the world to do it.

Now, here I am getting agita again. Let’s do some yogic breathing and try to start the week off right. Happy Monday. In just four more days, it’ll be Friday.

God, what a week. I guess we could sit down and talk about…so much. So, so much. But I’m tired, and today I’m taking the easy way out. I mean, it’s Friday. We’re still allowed to enjoy Fridays, right? So here, below, is the flash-fiction story I wrote in my friend Jimmy’s monthly Sunday-afternoon writing class a couple weeks back. If you remember the last one, here are the rules: You draw a face-down index card from each of four piles — a place, an animal, and I forget what the others are. Then you take about an hour to write anything you want incorporating the four words. Mine, this month, were Mumbai, monkey, yacht, zucchini. I’m not sure whether I like this one; I certainly took the easy way out with the ending, but the clock was ticking and I’d written myself into a corner.

What I find most interesting about writing fiction, more or less from scratch, is how it’s kinda like psychoanalysis, in that it often sinks a probe into your unconscious and pulls out something you might or might not want to see. Which is to say, I don’t think it’s an accident that I’d just concluded lifeguard training and my first image is a distressed swimmer.

So, no title, just stream-of-consciousness. Happy Friday, happy weekend and happy birthday, J.C. Burns, without whom this blog wouldn’t exist.

The helmsman spotted the swimmer first, far offshore and with no obvious signs of wreckage nearby. He sounded an alarm and immediately swung the wheel, putting the boat into a wide U-turn.

On the afterdeck, four women watched the champagne bucket rattle and slide a few inches before a crew member standing nearby stopped its progress and resettled it on a towel he produced from somewhere on his person. A graceful move to shame the smoothest magician, but at these prices what else do you expect.

“What’s going on?” the oldest one said, confused to be experiencing something she hadn’t pre-approved. “The captain assured me it was a straight shot to the next island.”

A mate, maybe the second or third or who knows, the twelfth, whatever, one of those guys with braid on his epaulets, materialized at her elbow, another magician move. It occurred to me I was drunk.

“We’ve spotted a man in distress,” the mate crooned in a British accent. “It’s maritime law and custom that we assist.”

“I suppose so,” the crone said. She supposed it was OK we wouldn’t let a man drown, as long as she wasn’t delayed arriving at whatever shopping destination we were visiting next. Crew members dropped a dinghy into the water and its little outboard coughed to life. We gathered at the rail to watch the rescue, the crewman throwing a line to the swimmer and pulling him aboard the dinghy.

Just a few minutes later, he was deposited on the afterdeck, shirtless in a pair of ratty-looking shorts. He shivered in wracking waves as more crew wrapped him in blankets and the first mate, who was the medical officer, tried to ask what had happened.

“Where did you come from?” the mate asked the man.

“M–m-m-m-m-m,” he said.

“Captain, I believe he’s trying to say ‘Mumbai,’” the old woman said, smiling. Her drinking companions, daughters or granddaughters – they had the same nose – snickered a little.

“Or maybe it’s ‘monkey,’” one offered, getting into the spirit. Ten minutes ago, they were four women on a chartered yacht. Now they had a story to tell back home, at the club.

The mate paid them no attention. He’d opened his bag and was taking out a blood pressure cuff. “Bring water,” he told another crew member. “And tell the galley we need a pot of hot tea, a.s.a.p.”

“What happened to your boat?” the mate asked as he wrapped the cuff around an arm as skinny as a zucchini. “Were you fishing? Did anyone else go in the water?” The swimmer still couldn’t answer, and seemed almost ready to fall asleep, his head lolling. How long had he been fighting to stay afloat?

I figured the best thing for me to do was keep my mouth shut, although I opened it wide enough to pour in a few swallows of Red Stripe. Unlimited alcohol was included in this charter and I meant to get my money’s worth.

The crew arrived with the water, and the mate gently propped the man up and got him to sip a little. The tea came in a Thermos, and he did the same. In a few more minutes, the man seemed to be more alert, and focused on the semicircle of people standing around him. What a sight we must have been, an assortment of clean-cut crew in crisp polo shirts, the mate in his gold braid, four women with matching noses – and it was only then it occurred to me they all had the same plastic surgeon, like the Jacksons – and me, with my three-day beard and flip-flops and Red Stripe. Hey, I’m no tech tycoon. I only had a share of this charter.

“M-m-m-my boat,” he finally was able to get out. “There was a whale. A few of them. Orcas!” He seemed to be coming back to himself.

“They…they…attacked my boat,” he gasped. “Capsized it. Like a toy in a bathtub.” We gaped in astonishment, and then, from below, came the sound of a muffled but significant collision. We all looked up, first at one another, and then, just off the starboard beam, at the black and white form surfacing, its blowhole exhaling a fine mist, and just before it dove again, it rolled to the side and showed the line of its mouth. I swear it was smiling.

Oh, hey, this isn’t worrisome at all, is it?

A lawyer’s spring break trip to the Dominican Republic with his family ended on a troubling note at Detroit Metro Airport on Sunday: He was detained by federal agents, questioned about his clients, and asked to give up his cellphone, he says.

But Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, who is representing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator who was arrested at the University of Michigan last year, stood his ground. He didn’t give up his phone.

…What followed was a 90-minute, back-and-forth verbal tussle between Makled and two federal agents, who, he said, ultimately released him without taking his phone, but looked at his contacts list instead. For the 38-year-old civil rights and criminal defense attorney, it was a daunting experience that he says highlights a troubling phenomenon that’s occurring across the United States: Lawyers are getting targeted for handling issues the administration of President Donald Trump disagrees with.

What’s worse is what happened when he tried to clear passport control. This is an American citizen, mind you:

Mom and the kids got through with no problem. But when Makled’s photo was taken, a notification popped up and Makled said he heard one agent ask another agent: “Hey, are the TTRT folks around?”

TTRT? Is the Tactical Terrorism Response Team. For a Muslim lawyer coming back from vacation. The TSA people repeatedly asked him to give over his phone, and he refused because, he said, there was information therein covered by attorney-client privilege. They told him they wanted his contacts list. He ended up letting them look at it, and the encounter ended.

As I wrote on Facebook earlier this week, it’s time to stop asking whether we’re “at risk” of becoming a fascist autocracy. It’s clear we already are.

I got an unexpected work assignment yesterday, and should probably hop to it. Short blog, but sometimes that happens. How about another picture from this weekend? Not mine, but I admire its sauciness:

I want to say a couple things about media coverage of Hands Off before it gets too small in the rearview mirror. Generally speaking, it…wasn’t great. Both the WashPost and the NYT did stories, focused on their local areas but fleshed out with details from other cities. USA Today, of all things, did a pretty good job, and I suspect got their local Gannett outfits in on it, because here in Detroit the Freep kicked the News’ butt, and that doesn’t happen all that often.

But there were notable missteps. A local TV station said “hundreds” attended the Detroit march, a laughable shortfall later changed for the web story. And both the News and TV felt the need to ring up the Michigan GOP chair for a whining quote.

I don’t recall this happening during the Tea Party protests. But the two situations, more than a decade apart, aren’t directly comparable, either.

If nothing else, the shitty coverage reflects how hollowed-out local media is today. Never chalk up to a grand conspiracy what can be more easily explained by: the weekend crew. Never the A-team in any outlet, it’s likely to be all the short-straw holders in the organization — the young and inexperienced, toiling for a similarly distracted and overworked supervisor, all charged with filling a newscast or a diminished Metro page with stuff like fatal accidents, fun runs and other weekend afterthoughts. If anyone was counting on the media to help us through this, that cavalry isn’t coming. Trust me on this: I rewatched “Spotlight” Friday night, and it was almost from another century. A fully staffed newsroom! An investigative team given time and resources to work! A supportive research team, with dusty archives in a library! It just doesn’t exist anymore except in rare, rare exceptions.

Two more signs, the first salty, the second very salty:

Finally, here’s a Substack column to read and tell me if I’m crazy because I think the guy is on to something:

After the fall of the USSR, America pressured Russia and other former Soviet republics to quickly privatize their public assets, allowing wealthy individuals from America and Europe to dramatically increase their fortunes. It seems evident that similar conspiratorial forces are now seeking to do the same to the United States, Shock Doctrine-style. To understand this, we must consider who will benefit — fantastically — from the collapse of American economic stability.

Trump’s tariffs aligns with a plan to transform the U.S. fully into a serf society ruled by tech and AI interests. To create a pliant population, you must first destroy the middle class.

…I understand why Krugman wants to view Donald Trump’s trade policy—especially his erratic, often self-defeating tariffs—as the bumbling chaos of a vicious bumbling orangutang motivated by ignorance, populist posturing for FOX, and petty vendettas. But these apparently stupid and erratic policies are, in fact, logical instruments, when seen from a different perspective. They are designed to destroy the American middle class so our country eventually becomes a serf society similar to Russia or, eventually, North Korea, with no free thinking allowed. This will give maximum freedom for billionaires but no freedom for those trapped under economic and legal obligations as the country goes down in flames.

It makes sense. Peter Thiel put JD Vance in the job for a reason. And JD Vance is one heartbeat away, and 40 years old.

Shudder.

Let’s hope the week unfolds well, shall we?