We are well and truly fucked. Oprah Winfrey gave a moving speech at the Golden Globe award show last night, and it’s already fueling the “Oprah for President” chatter. This notion, by definition, assumes that our problem wasn’t choosing an unqualified celebrity for the presidency, it was choosing the wrong unqualified celebrity.
The gynocracy hasn’t won yet, though. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is learning that knifing a colleague for the publicity might not be the best way to distinguish yourself from the Democratic field. More people are starting to complain about the Franken ouster being a mob act, including a major Democratic Party donor who says she won’t support those who called for rushed justice. Sorry, Kirsten.
The Book is still consuming the chattering classes, and a fair amount of the coverage has been of the “Michael Wolff: Prevaricator or Dissembler?” variety. The Columbia Journalism Review does a good job of explaining why beat reporters can’t do what Michael Wolff did.
Not all environmental degradation comes about because of global warming. Some of it comes with the invasive species introduced by global trade, such as Delaware’s newest insect pest, the spotted lanternfly, which apparently has spread here from its initial outbreak point in southeastern Pennsylvania.
I have been asking this question for several years now: Why are our educational institutions, high schools in particular, investing tax dollars in a sport that has demonstrated a strong correlation to impaired cognitive functioning? I’m talking, of course, about football, which also has the drawback of its high cost — fielding a football team is the most expensive athletic undertaking for our educational institutions. UD associate prof Mark Serva doesn’t even bring up the cost angle in his News Journal op-ed calling for an end to high school football. IMHO, the cost angle is just as important as the brain-health objection, because so many of the grumpy old men who support football also like to complain about their taxes being too high.
If you’re following the Trump Show, White House aide and Bannon acolyte Stephen Miller got into a lather about The Book on CNN with Jake Tapper, and Bannon groveled in a public show of remorse for being the source of so much of its material. Trump is also taking crap for getting up at the crack of 11, a criticism to which I take personal offense.