Chris Corlett of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) shared what he called the best Father’s Day gift ever:
Bob D’cruz asked if they came in any other colors. Craig Butlin reminded folks to check the “sell by” date since the bubbles can burst after too long. And Alan Hunt noted that he really needed a new bubble, since his has split into two — one large and one small — and he can’t get them to reunite.
My post on Rex’s blog yesterday riled up a commenter named Beth who accused me of being creepy. And misogynistic!
Moi?
Here’s the story, and you can form your own opinion, or, more likely, not care, and just move on.
It started with Rex’s posting on his blog a video of a song by Ethel Cain called “American Teenager.” EC spends much of it in a cheerleader’s outfit. I posted the following:
“Rex! Please give us dirty old men some warning the next time you post a video like American Teenager. I had to send my wife running for my heart pills! (Not complaining.)”
Beth replied:
“There is nothing in American Teenager that is sexual. It seems you intended your comment to be lighthearted and funny, but it’s just creepy and misogynistic.”
Okanaganer replied:
“Beth: Her preening and posing in the video is quite sexually sensual. (Is it less creepy knowing she was not actually a teenager when she filmed it?)”
I was happy to see that “defense,” and chose not to reply myself. But her first sentence is beyond absurd. Did you watch the video? (It’s in yesterday’s Owl Chatter post.) There is very little in that video that is NOT sexual. I watched it several more times to make sure.
Phil got this nice shot of Hayden (Ethel’s her professional name), at breakfast in a diner in Florida, where she’s from.
When the g’kids were little we’d sometimes play up in our big bedroom. I’d sit my big tuchas down in the chair near the bed, put my feet up on the bed, and the kids would jump around on the bed and sometimes crawl along my legs from the bed onto my lap. My legs would be the bridge. And that’s how I learned about the lava. If they fell off the bridge it was into the lava and then, . . . well, you don’t want to know what would happen then.
I thought Zo and Leon made up the part about the lava, but, as some of you may know, it’s a pretty popular kids game: The floor is lava. You need to get around the room, or to some destination, without touching the floor. Because the floor is lava.
That was the theme of the puzzle today. Way down near the bottom (where a floor should go), the clue at 58A was “Rainy-day game for children” and the answer was THE FLOOR IS LAVA. And the four theme answers were things you would have to do in the game (with clues unrelated to the game): TABLE HOP (“Gad about at a banquet”); COUCH SURF (“Rely on the hospitality of friends for lodging”); COUNTER BALANCE (“Offset, as something on a scale”); and BAR CRAWL (“Hit the pubs”).
I can’t let the ruling of Judge Young of the Federal District Court (MA) go unmentioned. It’s hardly unusual for a ruling to come down against Trump, but this one — on the illegality of Trump’s cutting NIH grants — really exposed the administration for the racists and homophobes they are. “This represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community,” the judge wrote. “That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. How have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
Judge Young was appointed by Reagan and has 40 years of experience as a federal judge.
The anti-democracy aspects of Trump’s actions get the lion’s share of attention, and the blatant racism has not been called out enough. The purging of photos of Black war heroes by the Pentagon? Seriously?
Let’s not end so darkly. Here’s a poem by Ted Kooser to set things right.
At the Cancer Clinic
She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.
Thanks for stopping by.
The Wellington Files 