- Gritty is the ferocious mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team (that’s hockey as in “I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out”). Gritty fits the mascot motif of weirdness but combines it with a tough, ready for a fight, borderline bully, image of the game.
Nicole Conlan writes comedy for Stephen Colbert.
Put Gritty and Conlan together and you get a story for the French public, as Conlan explains Gritty in French. Don’t worry. It’s subtitled for us rubes.
For finding this cultural piece, we are grateful to occasional contributor 4YourConsideration.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit brings us a recording of the seconds before and after the moment World War I ended. The thunder of guns stops. Then birds begin to sing. Remarkable.
- Vagabond Scholar has written many articles over the years about the absurdity and brutality of war. He links to some of them on this week’s Veterans Day, and asks for contributions written by others. I, of course, respond. I take a somewhat different tone with an article from a dozen years ago about a chance encounter in a local library.
- Max’s Dad gets beyond impatient at selfish ignorance as anti-maskers put themselves and everyone else at risk. After all, Veteran’s Day reminds us that so many sacrificed so much, often everything, to allow these modern patriots to stand tall, demanding their own independence from minor inconvenience.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has an obvious thought about Thanksgiving.
- Frances Langum is not making a joke. There is no punchline. The rest of the world is sending medical teams to rescue the US from uncontrolled pandemic. That would include Doctors Without Borders. I wonder if Trump will devote his last days in the White House bunker to getting medical rescuers thrown out of the country.
- In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson runs through the week, as a petulant president, rebuked by the voters, seeks to gum up the works. President-elect Biden calmly guides his staff, and us, through the transition.
- JoAnn Williams is an abstract artist with a talent I find remarkable. She is able to convey a wide range of emotions with what would be random splotches in the hands of any of the rest of us (the rest of us being me for now). Last week’s election based tension is caught on canvas day by day. Do take a glance.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is hearing charges of voter fraud, some amazingly technical, and gets impatient with at least one.
- Cato Institute fellow Julian Sanchez recounts one conspiracy theory, that millions of Trump votes have been mysteriously switched to Biden, and carefully, patiently slices and dices it from every angle.
This sentence carries the tone:
This is embarrassing nonsense of the sort one expects to see on fringe message boards, not emanating from the White House.
- As Trump loses one legal battle after another – something to do with evidence – Sarah Cooper speculates on what might have happened if Trump had won in court. Think you can guess? Well, do you feel lucky?
- Remember my current president’s campaign promise back in 2016? The promise that we would have so much winning we’d get tired of it? In Scotties Toy Box we discover that the speech contained a repetitive misspelling.
- Ant Farmer’s Almanac has a one headline/one sentence description of how pollsters reacted to the election results.
- Of all the adjectives we can attach to Infidel753, astute would have to soar near the top. If we want some thoughts on polling, low and high turnout, money in politics, whether Biden was the best candidate, and the future of the country, we might want to borrow some insight.
- Hackwhackers gathers election related twitter, helping us learn the lessons of the history we live. Like how the last 20 years of election totals wipes out the myth that the GOP represents real America.
- As the election goes to history, vote totals get certified, conspiracy theories are debunked, and a sullen incumbent is slowly coaxed out of the White House, there is hope of achieving national unity. North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz suggests that, when dealing with unreasoning hate, there is danger of carrying unity way too far.
- News Corpse watches Trump prepare to destroy Fox News and, for some reason, doesn’t take sides. Is there a sale of some kind on popcorn?
- Jonathan Bernstein predicts that about-to-be-private-citizen Trump may retain influence in the GOP, but may as easily be abandoned by Republicans. Let’s flip a coin.
- At The Onion Mike Pence hopefully looks to 2024, setting up an exploratory committee to find a charismatic candidate to whom he may attach himself.
I dunno. He does attract flies.
- Pence can stop the search. M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has been watching with a combination of resignation and glee as the newly elected soon-to-be Senator from Alabama is revealed to know much less abut the government he is about to join than an average fifth grade student. So I suppose he’ll be a possible front runner for the next GOP Presidential nomination. Are you paying attention, Mr. Vice President?
- This made me chuckle, and I again confess to a juvenile sense of humor. PZ Myers helps a student cram for a microbiology exam.
– Podcasts –
I love the Twitter propaganda. Thanks for this.