Roll Out the Barrels

Bottomless Pit, Weekend Whats, Feel Good Friday

It's hardly breaking news that as we approach the election, Trump is hitting new behavioral lows. Sadly, it's also not breaking news that most of the media will simply lump this behavior into the bottomless pit of affronts to decency and democracy we've seemingly accepted as Trump being Trump. His enablers will explain it away. And the silent Republicans will fail to speak (I'm looking at you, W.) But when a serial woman abuser who has vowed to protect women "whether they like it or not," and threatened retribution on his enemies fantasizes aloud about one of his female opponents having guns trained on her face, well, I lead with it. "Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face." Let's see how American voters will react with nine barrels shooting at our democracy. The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Suggests Training Guns on Liz Cheney’s Face.

+ Maybe this violent speech doesn't get the coverage of a Biden garbage comment gaffe because it's such a dog bites man story. (Or in today's parlance, a "They're eating the dogs" story.) The Atlantic (Gift Article): A Brief History of Trump’s Violent Remarks.

+ "'I don’t think any of my friends had heard it,' said Kate Sullivan, a 21-year-old student in Ohio who heard the tape for the first time on her TikTok For You feed this week. 'We all felt equally shocked.'" WaPo (Gift Article): Trump’s ‘grab them’ comment was history. Now TikTok is showing it to young voters. (And when they ask us how we could have elected him anyway, what will we say?)

+ And how will we explain that Americans seemed cool with watching Trump and Vance make nonstop anti-trans ads central to their closing argument?

+ "Earlier this year, Wally Nowinski and his buddy Matt Curry were texting back and forth about what they — two regular voters with no ties to any political campaign — could do to defeat Donald Trump in the presidential election." They decided to target white males in the one place they weren't already being hit with political ads. P-rn sites. Meet the Democrats using p-rn ads to convince Trump voters to stay home.

+ If Trump is turned back next week, the most likely reason will be a strong turnout among women. And in 2024, we've seen a marketing and media battle over whether or not women should feel free to vote for a candidate regardless of their husbands' wishes. One Fox anchor argued that his wife voting for Harris would be the equivalent of having an affair. Women are voting — and it’s driving MAGA men mad. (I don’t need to control my wife. As long as she watches three hours of MSNBC a day and yells Maddow at the point of ecstasy, she can vote for whoever she wants.)

+ Here's a Mike Luckovich cartoon that sums things up pretty well.

2

Not Set in Cement

"Once merely dumped, these ashy-grey, fist-size chunks — called slag — were the unloved scum left over from a century of making steel. But, it turns out, this mountain of waste contains the base ingredients that could make a greener version of one of the major sources of planet-warming emissions today: cement ... Cement is the binder that makes concrete — and concrete is the second-most-used commodity on Earth after water. If humans progressed from the Stone to Bronze to Iron ages, it is fair to say that today — by raw tonnage — we are living in a Concrete Age." WaPo (Gift Article): Reinventing the world’s favorite building material. "Concrete, the second-most-used material on Earth, generates about four times more CO2 emissions than planes."

3

Boarding Pass Yards

If you're a student-athlete in a big time sport, your travel should earn you credit for your math and geography courses. Consider UCLA football players, now in the Big Ten Conference. "In all, the Bruins will travel 22,226 miles this season — nearly enough to circumnavigate the globe. It is the equivalent of 33 round trips to the Bay Area to play Stanford or U.C. Berkeley, UCLA’s former rivals that have moved to a newly bicoastal league of their own." Being a College Athlete Now Means Constant Travel and Missed Classes. (Hopefully the NIL money will pay for a cabin upgrade...)

4

Weekend Whats

What to Watch: A good story and some excellent performances highlight the Netflix suspense series, A Nearly Normal Family. "The world of a seemingly perfect family shatters when a shocking murder proves that they're willing to make desperate moves to protect one another."

+ What to Doc: "We’re told if you’re a victim of a crime, to go to the police and report it. But what happens when they don’t believe you? From the Center of Investigative Reporting, Rachel de Leon tells how far one child had to go to prove her innocence." From The Center for Investigative Reporting and PBS: Florida teen forced to collect her own evidence to prove she was sexually abused. If you missed CIR's excellent (and disturbing) documentary on this topic, check out Victim/Suspect on Netflix. You'll find out how often women report a rape and then there's an arrest. Of the victim.

+ What to Read: "On 29 October 1969, two scientists established a connection between computers some 350 miles away and started typing a message. Halfway through, it crashed." BBC: We were just trying to get it to work': The failure that started the internet.

5

Extra, Extra

Death in Texas: "It took three ER visits and 20 hours before a hospital admitted Nevaeh Crain, 18, as her condition worsened. Doctors insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm 'fetal demise.' She’s one of at least two Texas women who died under the state’s abortion ban." ProPublica: A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms.

+ Front and Central: Think you're stressed about the election? Imagine how the Ukrainians on the front lines must feel. US election weighs on Ukraine's frontline soldiers.

+ It's the Campaign Economy, Stupid: Seem like you're seeing more election marketing this year? Consider this from Bloomberg(Gift Article): 11,000 Political Groups Spent $14.7 Billion to Influence the 2024 Election.

+ Landline Landmine: "Pew Research Center’s Courtney Kennedy is one of the nation’s most-cited polling methods experts. When she started in this business two decades ago, you had to call about three random numbers to get one to answer, a low response rate that already was sending tremors through the polling industry. By last year, Pew had to hit up about 140 random numbers to get that one response." WaPo (Gift Article): How can polls be right if nobody answers their phones?

+ Peanut Case: "A New York man who turned a rescued squirrel into a social media star called Peanut is pleading with state authorities to return his beloved pet after they seized it during a raid that also yielded a raccoon named Fred."

+ TV Series: World Series ratings: Dodgers' win in Game 5 draws largest audience in 7 years. (That said, it was about two-thirds the size of the audience for the NFL's first game of the season...)

+ XCX Marks the Spot: Brat crowned Collins Dictionary 2024 word of the year.

+ The Latest Buzz: Animals are consuming more alcohol than we realized. (Maybe they have election seasons too...)

6

Feel Good Friday

"In the end it may have just been too much cheddar to make a clean getaway. A 63-year-old man has been arrested after more than 24 tons of artisanal cheese from one of Britain’s most famous dairy companies was stolen, authorities said."

+ "He wanted to take some swings in preparation for a live batting-practice session. His side tingled with each of his first dozen swings. On the 13th swing, Freeman felt a jolt through his body and crumpled to the ground." Freddie Freeman's World Series story is even crazier than you thought.

+ Is the miracle drug already here? NYT: Obesity Drug Shows Promise in Easing Knee Osteoarthritis Pain.

+ A Missouri elementary school building has been renamed after its beloved longtime custodian.

+ Lost Chopin music unearthed nearly 200 years after composer’s death. (I've got a few headline puns buried in my backyard...)