Zeeshan Aleem of MSNBC took public notice of Trump’s “deteriorating ability to clearly communicate.” His speeches “seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day.” [BTW, I don’t know what “discursive” means.] A reporter for The Guardian pointed out that attendees at Trump’s rallies are leaving as he rambles for nearly two hours, and complaining that he is “babbling.”
For his part, Trump says his wandering speech is deliberate. He calls it “the weave.” “I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.’”
Are these English professors, like, close friends?
For those of you who don’t have friends who are English professors, this is what they look like:
Here’s the girl kind.
The late John McCain’s son Jimmy, pictured below with his dad, switched from Republican to Democrat this week and is supporting Harris. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 and is now an intelligence officer in the Arizona Army National Guard. He made the change because of Trump’s recent disrespectful conduct at Arlington National Cemetery, which McCain said was torture to watch. He later conceded that may have been a poor choice of words.
We had to send George Santos of our staff a note asking him to get his crap out of the Owl Chatter Hall of Fame. (The girl can shop — we’ll give him that.) We need to make room for its newest member, Amanda Jones, 46, a middle school librarian in Watson, LA, a small town near Baton Rouge in which she grew up and has lived her whole life.
Two years ago members of the public were invited to comment at a town meeting on banning books from the library. Jones spoke first, and argued that libraries need to reflect a broad range of ideas. “Just because you don’t want to read it or see it does not give you the right to deny others or demand its relocation,” she said. “If we remove or relocate books with L.G.B.T.Q. or sexual health content, what message is that sending to our community members?”
In response, a group called Citizens for a New Louisiana — which, according to its website, is seeking “to remove taxpayer-funded pornography, erotica, and gender dysphoria propaganda from the children’s section of library systems” — posted a photo of Jones and asked, “Why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the kids’ section?” Another message accused Jones of “advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds.”
A relentless flood of abuse and threats, including death threats, followed. She carries mace and a handgun now, and can no longer live a normal life in her community. She has her groceries delivered and cannot eat out in restaurants. She recognized the names of some of the people who shared negative posts about her — people she had known since kindergarten, parents of her former students, members of her church, people she thought of as friends.
None of that should surprise any readers of Owl Chatter, amirite? God bless America. What makes her story different, and why we are making space in our Hall of Fame for her, is that she is fighting back. Oh, I’m sorry — here’s what she looks like. Hi Babe.
So, where were we? Oh, yeah. Jones filed a defamation lawsuit against two individuals and Citizens for a New Louisiana. She co-founded Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, which lobbies against book-banning legislation. And she’s speaking out via her memoir, “That Librarian,” which Bloomsbury published last month.
“Before all this, I was just a school librarian, but they wanted to silence me, so I thought I would do the exact opposite and become an activist.” Well, AJ, Santos should have his crap out by the weekend — so please settle into our Hall of Fame after that. Take your time. You like Fresca?
The Chicago White Sox are having one hell of a season. They just had a ten-game homestand in which they won, let’s see — none of the games. And that’s only the third-longest losing streak they’ve had. Over the past 45 games their record is 4-41, the worst stretch like that by any team in over 100 years. They are on pace to finish 36-126, out-losing the modern era record-holding 1962 Mets by six games.
I love this particular stat: When they lost a real nail-biter to Baltimore on Monday 13-3, it marked the 20th straight game they lost that pitcher Chris Flexen started. That set the single-pitcher loss-streak record for the modern era (post-1900).
“Every time I take the ball, I expect myself to go out and be competitive, have strong outings,” Flexen said. “I don’t think a lot of them have been all that great, a couple of quality starts in there; but overall, my performance has been very disappointing on my end.”
Ya think?
We’re trying to find out why he’s smiling (and get some).
At 15A today, “Top pilot” was AIR ACE. Commenter OldCarFudd shared the following: In World War I there were these new dashing heroes who dueled one-on-one in the sky. An ace was one who scored five enemy planes downed. The U.S. top ace was Eddie Rickenbacker, who went on to start Eastern Airlines. The absolute Ace of Aces was the German Manfried von Richtofen, known as the Red Baron for the color of the plane he flew (he had a choice). He had something like 21 kills. He was so well-respected that, when he finally was killed over territory occupied by our side, his body was flown back to a German airfield under a truce agreement with full honors. He lives on today as Snoopy’s nemesis in Peanuts.
The small northeast corner today is made up of NAP, UZI, and RUN. They can be used together in a sentence as follows: If you want me to get up from my NAP to RUN, you’re going to need an UZI.
At 26A, a “Spiral-horned antelope” was an ELAND. I was delighted to see it because Owl Chatter friend Vermont Liz has been known to use it as her Wordle starter on occasion. So that’s exactly what I did today and came in with a nice three!
From our fashion department: At 32A the clue was “Garment that might have a built-in bra, for short” and the answer was CAMI. That’s twice this week, I think. Who knows what moves the puzzle gods? We even learned today that there is something called a “cropped cami.”
Graham King has a question about some new carpeting that was just installed. He’s asking for advice from the Dull Men’s Club membership. Here’s his very British post, with a photo:
Nearly completed the redecorating, we went for grayish carpet. It’s how we roll, but it has an end of roll line in it. Didn’t order end of line, getting told just hoover it out. Now as a dull bloke with a kids mind it doesn’t bother me, it’s an outline of a train track in my mind. But my better half is fuming. Tomorrow beds are coming and being a dull bloke of an easy life persuasion I would live with it. My wife is all for stopping everything and have the carpet removed and start again. Any carpet experts amongst you with thoughts on if this will bounce out or have they been cheeky beggars?
Now, if you know anything about the Club’s membership, you know they will never turn a deaf eye or a blind ear to a member’s cry for help. Graham’s post generated 122 comments (so far).
Andrew Hall wrote: Its just a pole line. It will work its self out 
trust me im a carpet person. But Dan Cobb wrote: With those grammatical mistakes I wouldn’t trust you. Bruce Parker, who ran a flooring company for 30 years, said Hoovering will eventually get it out, and several folks suggested steaming it out. Several said to ice it. Mike Geraghty said to just not look at it. Peter Bell said: Paint over it with a professional carpet paint like average brown; if it doesn’t match do the rest of the carpet. Sam Mead suggested divorce.
Tim Jones said: Looks fine to me.
But Kate Viscardi was having none of any of that. “I’m with your wife, and you can’t just put a bed over it either. Cheek of the shop, charging you full whack for end of roll.”
Wendy Stone added: Trust me, as a woman I know how bad your life could become if you do nothing.
As far as I’m concerned, Geoff Jenkins had the final word: It will bother you till your dying day.
Yup. Been there.
Enough. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 