Like Alex, I need a new coping strategy for dealing with the news. I’m glad the weather has finally turned, because I need the next few months for a hard reset. More music, fewer headlines, maybe some time limiters for social media, with allowances for the work I need to do. At the same time, I freely admit to getting real pleasure from sneering at Secretary Croaky and the rest of the crew of idiots, but mostly as a way to mask my very real suspicion that all of us aren’t actually standing at a crossroads, but well beyond it, looking at a diminished America where an idiot buffoon like Donald Trump can become its leader. And all that lies ahead is more diminishment.

That’s not healthy. But it is reality.

Lately I’ve been allowing myself five minutes of our local talk station on my way to work at the pool, at an hour that coincides with Mitch Albom’s show. Yes, yes, still picking that scab, but it has shed some light on why his columns are so lame: He long ago ceased to be a newspaper guy and is now fully a talk-radio guy, where every extended bit of chitchat sounds like the worst elevator exchange you ever endured. The other day he and his sidekicks were talking about a matter of some local interest, the lawsuit filed by four former housekeepers for Smokey Robinson, alleging he was sexually abusive to all of them. What a terrible thing, the men agreed, that these women, who never called the police, could gang up on an 85-year-old music icon and ruin what should be the happy, last years of his life. Terrible, terrible. Why did they keep working for him, if he was so awful. Of course we can’t know the truth, no one does, but it’s a shame, just a shame. The man is 85 and has brought so much pleasure to so many. What a shame.

Here we have a talk-radio discussion in its purest form: Cliché, truism, assumption, stupidity, lack of curiosity, etc. And this is, increasingly, the way most public discourse is, and I need to step back. It’s like feeding at a trough of stale potato chips.

Things to consider: What will I write about here? What will we complain about here? Topics for further discussion.

So. What is today’s outrage? The Omaha mayor’s race was interesting, no? A moderate-ish Republican going for her fourth term in a bloody-red state loses…why?

As she campaigned for a fourth term, Ms. Stothert, who is the first woman to lead Omaha, emphasized her record on development and public safety. But she also waded into cultural issues by trying to make bathroom use and sports participation by transgender people a campaign issue. Mr. Ewing’s campaign has told local reporters that Ms. Stothert made baseless claims about his stance on transgender issues.

Ms. Stothert has told local reporters that she voted for Mr. Trump, though she has sometimes tried to distance herself from the president.

:::strokes chin::: Interesting.

Now let’s wait for the Democrats to fuck this up.

OK, I have work to do. Happy Wednesday.

Today I came downstairs dressed for my Mothers Day brunch date with Kate, and told Alan it was such a thrill to go someplace where I wasn’t wearing workout clothes or a swimsuit. I had on the excellent red lipstick she gave me for Christmas, a black jumpsuit and full eye makeup. Such a crazy getup in this dressed-down world.

It was an excellent brunch — mushroom flatbread for me, fish and chips for her — and a spicy margarita. And it would have been perfect, but just before I left, I learned that the motherfucking president of this stupid fucking country plans to accept the gift of a Qatari 747, and has greased the skids with his stupid motherfucking toadies who have all signed off on it, and I’m sorry, but it pissed me off. Excuse my language.

I will say it now: I cannot wait for this asshole to die. His casket will float to the surface of whatever golf course his wife decides to bury him in, the ground will be so soaked with urine. And then we can drag it into the street to be set on fire before shooting what’s left of him into deepest space with a warning note in all the languages of the world and some digital space language we can invent, that whoever finds it should do the same, and then whatever asteroid it lands on should be targeted by a nuke and blasted into so many shards that not one shred of his DNA should remain.

Not that I am terribly angry. If I were, I’d suggest we do the same to his entire issue, including FSWOUS, Melania.

How in the world is this OK. HOW? The limits on presidential gifts aren’t that high. I know others have ignored them in the past — Ronald Reagan alone collected enough expensive horses to hold his own rodeo — but they never belonged to him, and when he died, the survivors went to retirement arrangements, as far as I can tell. But even a blooded horse is not a half-billion-dollar jet, no doubt equipped with state-of-the-art listening devices, all for a man who’s spent the last week gibbering nonsense about dolls and pencils as he gilds the White House like a fucking casino and you can tell I’m upset because I’m writing run-on sentences.

Grr.

How about some pretty-pretty pictures. I almost did a Saturday Morning Market, but I was too busy juggling eggs and bedding plants.

Now get to work, plants. It’s almost mojito season, and I’m looking forward to some shishito peppers on the grill:

Have a good week. Don’t fly in or out of Newark, or maybe anywhere, huh?

Some years ago, I was kicked out of a local moms group on Facebook. It was at the very height of Facebook popularity among normies, and all sorts of drama was kicking off there. There was the woman whose marriage fell apart over the course of a morning after she sent up the alarm that her husband was missing, then revised it an hour later: No, he had apparently spent the night with a stripper, everybody stand down. That was a good one. My banishment doesn’t even compare, but it went like this:

The school district announced it would provide free FluMist flu vaccines for any child whose parents wanted it. Permission slips, etc., nothing out of the ordinary, but it set off a huge outcry on this particular mom group, who all seemed to post in all caps about VIRUS SHEDDING and BIG PHARMA PROFITEERING and WHY WEREN’T WE NOTIFIED and ISN’T THIS A VIOLATION OF MEDICAL ETHICS, and THESE COMPANIES WILL STOP AT NOTHING, etc. At the height of this back-and-forth a new voice parachuted in, a woman who said she had honey for sale from her own bees, and that this honey had “anti-viral and anti-fungal properties,” and that it could be a natural, organic, healthy way to protect your child from influenza. The clamor immediately shifted from BIG PHARMA to OMG DO YOU DELIVER and various forms of SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

And then along came me, who wondered why it was evil for a pharmaceutical company to offer a vaccine, but OK for this lady to sell her honey. Well. The honey lady complained to the admins, and I was bounced from not only this group, but another that the same admin ran.

“And that,” my friend Dustin said at the time, “is when you got your teardrop tattoo, right?” Ha ha ha.

I could not have known at the time, in the innocent era of the Obama administration, that these women were proto MAHA moms. The anti-vax movement was making itself known, but they didn’t have a spokesman other than Jenny McCarthy and some Hollywood twits, certainly not an actual Kennedy. And that Kennedy, HHS Secretary Croaky, made all their dreams come true this week when he nominated Casey Means as the U.S. Surgeon General. Means is being identified as a doctor, and she did graduate from med school (Stanford! Impressive!) but never finished her residency, which my doctor friend tells me makes her not-quite-a-doctor. His text:

You don’t become a physician in medical school. Med school is a hazing ritual that earns you the right to become a physician over the ensuing years of residency (+ fellowship, etc.) if you survive.

Whatever. Apparently Means became disenchanted with otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat, for you people who don’t speak Medical) and dove headfirst into so-called functional medicine, which many consider pseudoscientific, and I know you will be astonished to learn that she is very suspicious of these “vaccines,” and is cut from the same cloth as Croaky, i.e. it’s the pollution and the seed oils and blah blah blah. And now she’s on deck to become the nation’s top doctor. Wikipedia:

(Means’) book’s central claim is that a single mechanism which the authors call “Bad Energy”, which they describe as a uniquely common form of mitochondrial dysfunction caused by improper lifestyles (contrasted with scientifically-established, genetics-based mitochondrial diseases), which causes disorders as diverse depression, anxiety, acne, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, as well as “most other conditions”, because “it can show up in different cell types” and thus causes different symptoms.

As I believe we’ve discussed here about a million times, I have no problem with eating better, and I believe a healthy diet will improve one’s own health, but I don’t recall this being kept secret by the AMA. In fact, I think they’re the ones who are always handing us a copy of this or that diet on our way out of the exam room. And those of us who remember the Obama years also remember the conservative response when Michelle Obama dared to suggest school lunches could be healthier, and that exercise was a good thing.

(Cul-de-sac: A friend sent me a years-old story about a school lunch staple of our youth — Johnny Marzetti. This story goes into the rise and fall of Johnny Marzetti, best described as sort of a baked ziti, but more downmarket. Apparently it has nearly disappeared from school cafeterias, driven out in part by the nutritional reforms pushed by Mrs. Obama. I had NO idea.)

Conservatives bitched up a storm over those reforms, and now they’ll be obligated to support a quack who believes Bad Energy is what causes illness. Tell that to the sick folks in Kentucky and West Virginia, you cowards. Offer them a jar of honey instead. It’s delicious on toast.

Best social-media joke I heard this week: I don’t want to alarm anyone, but the orcas now have two F-18 Hornets.

The weekend awaits, doesn’t it? Think I’ll clean three bathrooms and go for a bike ride. You do what you like.

I was almost feeling sorry for NPR and the CPB until this morning, en route to the grocery at 7:45 a.m. because that’s how I do things, and I heard some chirpy report from a Washington correspondent, who made reference to the presidunce’s talk of “annexing Canada.” Her words, not his.

And I thought, shit, just stick a fork in this outfit now. Let them go under. I’d rather listen to music.

This is what we’re talking about when we talk about “sanewashing.” Canada is not available for annexation. It isn’t an unincorporated suburban area adjacent to a growing city, it’s a sovereign nation. And it’s pretty clear it intends to stay a sovereign nation. Making Canada part of the U.S., or attempting to do so, would be an act of war. It would require military troops, gunfire and death. If Cheetolini won’t stop talking about it, you have to report it. But report it correctly. Use the English language, where words have actual meanings.

Remember when NPR was good? I do. Now it’s like you can identify the big funders by the news budget. Oh, a boring story about wind energy? They’re pleasing an environmental nonprofit, hoping for a grant renewal. An endless piece on diversity efforts of no great consequence, in a place or field you don’t care about? Someone’s checking a box for their year-end goal list. Which is to say, I miss the personal essays, offbeat stories and other weirdness you used to hear on All Things Considered and Morning Edition, or the stuff they used to call “driveway moments.” They don’t do those anymore. There are no driveway moments.

That said, I do not miss Susan Stamberg’s stupid cranberry relish recipe at Thanksgiving, and in fact I don’t miss Susan Stamberg at all. If smugness had a voice, it was hers.

I woke up with a cold this weekend. I never get colds during the warm weather, except when I do. Thought it was allergies at first, but three days of antihistamines haven’t made a dent, so I suppose it’s a cold. (It’s not Covid; I tested.) So it was with a particular grumpiness that I noted the juxtaposition of two stories in Sunday’s NYT. The first, a story about the breakdown of the news ecosystem in one California town, Oakdale:

First the nearby newspapers shrank, and hundreds of local reporters in the region became handfuls. Then came the presidential elections of 2016 and 2020, and the pandemic; suddenly cable networks long deemed trustworthy were peddlers of fake news, on the right and the left.

…Now, in place of longtime TV pundits and radio hosts, residents turn to a new sphere of podcasters and online influencers to get their political news. Facebook groups for local events run by residents have replaced the role of local newspapers, elevating the county’s “keyboard warriors” to roles akin to editors in chief.

..As local news outlets shrank throughout the Central Valley in the 2010s, Facebook groups dedicated to local events started popping up in their place. And for years, they were harmless. But that changed in 2020.

What this story describes — misinformation, followed by attempts to correct/control it, followed by the flowering of even more Facebook groups, with names like UNCENSORED or UNFILTERED — is pretty much what’s happened in my own community. On the one hand, you could say it represents healthy pushback to narratives some find infuriating. On the other, it also represents the death of fact-based media. Here in Detroit, there are people who listen to police scanners all day and night, and report on what they hear on various social channels. Sometimes this is useful. Sometimes, when it’s slow, they throw in their own racist analysis. This is not useful.

The second story was pegged to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s latest real-estate purchase: A $23 million house in Washington D.C. This follows his Tahoe house, his Hawaii house, and god knows what other houses. He has become one of the richest people in the world off a technology that has ruined the news media and leads the people of Oakdale, California to fly at one another’s throats.

What a legacy.

I cannot wait for this cold to run its course. Have a good week, all.

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.