The extinction-level event finally throws its hat in.
‘BIG: @538politics now forecasting #SMOD will sweep the electoral college, blanketing the map w/the charred remains of its former inhabitants’
… in the New York Times.
The hero of Don DeLillo’s 1973 novel, “Great Jones Street,” Bucky Wunderlick, is a wildly famous musician so transparently inspired by Bob Dylan that it is a wonder the author was able to make the figure into his own character. Bucky — part prophet, part fraud — is hounded into seclusion by fans, hustlers, gangsters and the world at large. I had a hunch Mr. DeLillo would win the Nobel Prize for Literature this year; he can’t be surprised Bob Dylan did.
UD thanks dmf for the link.
Scathing Online Schoolmarm notes that politicians in very deep holes often tell their followers that they suffer for the world like Jesus. Proto-Trump Silvio Berlusconi once complained
that he feels like what he called “the Jesus Christ of Italian politics”.
“I’m a patient victim. I put up with everything. I sacrifice myself for everyone,” he said.
Trump has the Jesus language down, but hasn’t yet actually pointed out his similarity to Jesus.
He’s practically, but not quite, there. SOS doesn’t know what’s holding him back. Let’s see if SOS is right that in a day or two Trump will be telling us that he’s the Jesus Christ of American politics.
… and both admitted that they cried on the metro when they read he’d gotten the prize. Not sure why Jenny cried, but mine were classic Old Hippie tears, as much about my youth as about the greatness of Dylan.
First song to start whirling in my mind? For some reason, Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.
And Don DeLillo? Well, DeLillo’s novel Great Jones Street might have been titled Great Bob Dylan.
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Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh, author of “Trainspotting,” decried it as “an ill-conceived nostalgia award” made for “senile, gibbering hippies.”
YES!!
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The full quote’s great but has a little less to do with me:
… an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.
Might have been fairer if Welsh had said:
… an ill conceived nostalgia award dragged from the wrinkled dugs and wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.
… has responded to your strong and principled repudiation of Donald Trump with shameless condescension, and with the desperate panic you’d expect from someone who recognizes he has a real mutiny on his hands. It all makes for great reading as well as great reassurance about the future of American freedom.
We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him. … He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose… Because our president has led the world to believe that Liberty University supports Donald Trump, we students must take it upon ourselves to make clear that Donald Trump is absolutely opposed to what we believe, and does not have our support. We are not proclaiming our opposition to Donald Trump out of bitterness, but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school.
Their hereditary sovereign’s response has drawn a scathe from Scathing Online Schoolmarm.
I am proud of these few students [There are many of them, and they include faculty and alumni.] [And by the way no one cares whether you’re proud of them or not. You on the other hand should be ashamed that a significant number of people on your campus are way not proud of you.] for speaking their minds but I’m afraid the statement is incoherent and false. [Nothing’s more incoherent than an evangelical Christian leader who’s all in for Donald Trump.] I am not ‘touring the country’ or associating Liberty University with any candidate. I am only fulfilling my obligation as a citizen [You’re a university president as well as a citizen; and in your presidential role your clamorous enthusiasm for Trump definitely does associate your school with him. Or, in the words of one of your students, “[H]e’s giving Liberty University a bad name… People associate our degree with the worst presidential candidate in modern history.”] to ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ by expressing my personal opinion about who I believe is best suited to lead our nation in a time of crisis. This student statement seems to ignore the teachings of Jesus not to judge others but they are young and still learning. [“Now c’mon over here you godless young’uns and first lemme pat you on the head for being so brave and speaking your minds and all! But I’m afraid you are going right to hell and will definitely not have a place at the heavenly table with me and Mr. Trump.”]
Donald Trump, To His Followers
When, in disgrace with Fortune and the Times
I, with my staff, beweep my outcast state,
And trouble Kasówitz with my bootless cries,
And look upon my press and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one less apt to grope,
Chaste like him, like him with will possessed,
Desiring this man’s heart and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented best;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love at rallies such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
TRUMP: CLINTON WIN WOULD MEAN ‘ALMOST TOTAL DESTRUCTION’ OF U.S.
“It’s unnatural for mice to die exactly every 10 days,” writes a group of online whistle blowers about a high-level Japanese research project.
—————————
Either Japanese mice are rather like Mr Bunbury in The Importance of Being Earnest —
My dear Aunt Augusta … The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live … so Bunbury died.
He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.
— or, um, “the data [was] tampered [with] to suit the theory envisioned by the researchers.”
But that’s just the Japanese way.
Big-time Republican donors are beginning to write to Donald Trump demanding their money back.
UD wishes them luck. I mean, get in line behind the IRS…
But meanwhile SOS (UD‘s evil grammarian twin) looks at two such letters and makes some suggestions.
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“… I am mortified to hear the latest issues with Donald Trump. [The latest issues is vague: Be precise: I was mortified to read that Donald Trump grabs pussy.] How am I suppose [Should be supposed.] to respect and support Mr Trump with his attitude toward women? It isn’t just one woman either. [Logic? You’ve already used the plural. And would it be better if he’s faithful to just one grabbed pussy?] I can not [Cannot.] support a sexist man. I have three young children and will not support a crude sexist man. [Ineffective repetition. Find another phrase for sexist man.] I expect a refund of my donation. [Watch your tone.] Please process immediately and I thank you for your help. [Tone is all over the place: anger, indignation, and now prissy bureaucratic cliche. Drop this last sentence.]”
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Here’s another one, and it’s much better. But there’s always room for improvement.
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“I cannot express my disappointment enough regarding the recent events surrounding Mr. Trump. [Has the same vagueness problem: the latest issues; the recent events. Just spit it out: regarding Mr. Trump’s recorded comment about ‘grabbing pussy.’]
I fear that his campaign will assure a victory for Mrs. Clinton with disastrous consequences for our party and the country’s future.
As a father of two daughters preparing for marriage, [Slightly awkward, in that at first glance it reads as though the daughters are marrying each other.], I am repulsed [Repulsed is good.] by his comments regarding women. [Drop regarding women. The sentence is snappier without it, and in a very brief letter you’ve already used the word regarding.]
I regret coming to the Trump support event, and in particular allowing my son to be part of it. [This is good, especially the anxiety about introducing his son to the language-world known (in German) as küntgrablichkeit.]
I respectfully request that my money be refunded. [Better tone than the other letter, but in both cases you can kiss the cash goodbye.]“
Now if he’d said love raping women that’d be another matter. I’d condemn that. Guy only said like.
Adviser Rules Out Trump Meeting North Korea’s Kim In Near Future
