No, not a reference to a now-famous article of amendment to the US Constitution. One of my favorite movies, The American President, was released 25 years ago today.
I plan to watch it again tonight.
Because it's 2020, we're still counting votes. And that's not all:
And the counting goes on...
Milestones today:
Also, this is the 600th post on the Daily Parker since last November 1st, and the 7,600th since May 1998. In each of the last 6 months, the 12-month running total has hit a new record, mainly because if I post once more today, this will be the 8th month in a row of 50+ posts. In the 22-year history of this blog, I've only posted 50+ posts 13 times, including those 8. So in future, when I look back on 2020, I'll have at least one good thing to talk about.
Today's lunchtime round-up only had one article about current politics:
Finally, I came across an interview actor Michael Shannon gave Playboy in 2018 that's worth the read.
The sun came out today for the first time since last Sunday, it seems, so I plan to spend most of my day outside. But I have these to read as I sip my morning tea:
And finally, tomorrow at the office I'll listen to the Nerdette Podcast's breakdown of Pulp Fiction.
I'm going into my downtown Chicago office twice a week, even though I'm the only one on the floor, just so I can get some variety and also more monitors for my work laptop. Last week the building started piping classical music into the main lobby. They, or the streaming provider, have chosen pretty basic stuff: Mozart piano concerti, Haydn symphonies, the occasional string quartet.
Today the walk-on music was Barber's Adagio for Strings. Think about the movies that used this piece and ask yourself, is this what people want to hear walking into their office building at 8:45 on a Monday morning? During a global emergency? Ten weeks before the most consequential election in the last 75 years?
I will now sob briefly before coding a fun demo.
This colorized and upscaled video is fascinating:
– He lollygags around the Rose Garden. He lollygags on his way to the Hill. He lollygags in and out of the Oval. Do you know what that makes him? Larry?
– A lollygagger!
– A lollygagger. What's his record, Larry?
– Won in '16!
– Won in '16. How'd he ever win one?
– It's a miracle!
– It's a miracle. This is a simple game. You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. You got it? Now we have got a global pandemic raging for months. Hearing's at 8 in the morning.
– Ball, catch, throw, elephant, TV!
– ...
– ...
– Donnie, this is the toughest job a country has. But...the electorate wants to make a change...
(Original here.)
Just when you thought the Republican Party couldn't become more anti-science and pro-profit (at the expense of workers), the Wisconsin Supreme Court just struck down Wisconsin's stay-at-home order on a 4-3 party-line vote.
If only that were all:
- Jennifer Rubin points out that "Trump's abject hypocrisy shows us where he's failed."
- Not only has Trump "lost the plot," he "has no plan," according to two articles this week in The Atlantic. How is this news cycle different from all other news cycles?
- The US Supreme Court listened to arguments this week about the electoral college and Trump's tax returns. It seems likely the nation will lose both cases.
- The judge presiding over Michael Flynn's case has asked a retired judge to brief him on whether to hold Flynn in criminal contempt for perjury, after the Justice Dept. sought to end its prosecution of Flynn.
- The City of Chicago has ordered food delivery services to disclose the fees they charge restaurants so consumers have more transparency. Restaurants have complained about price-gouging from GrubHub and others.
- Meanwhile, Uber is in talks to buy GrubHub. If we had a functioning FTC, this would never happen.
- David Kamp brings back my childhood with his paean to Zoom, the children's television show I watched religiously when I was a kid.
- Anthropologists have found a 45,000-year-old midden containing homo sapiens tools, bones, and jewelry in a cave in Bulgaria. It's evidence of the earliest modern humans in Europe.
- The New York Times has an oral history of Mad Max: Fury Road, which the author calls a "modern action classic." (It's one of my faves as well.)
Someday, we'll all look back on this time, laugh nervously, and change the subject.
Julie Nolke is a Canadian actor, comedian, and writer: