Folks, this is going to be the shortest “Obsession” post in history. I was perusing Fark the other day and saw this comment on a thread about a Herman Cain award-winner entitled “Young and healthy? Check. Unvaccinated? Check. Punisher t-shirt? Check. Dead from Covid? Check ” : . I got nuttin. . See ya next Monday. Continue reading Today on Tommy T’s obsession with the Freeperati – holy Fark edition
Hail & Farewell. Continue reading Time To Ring Some Changes
Got this in the mail the other day: (Yes, it’s a screenshot of the message on my phone, I switched computers recently and can’t figure out how to edit files yet, gimme a break, there’s a pandemic on.) You guys are the best blog EVER. A. Continue reading THANK YOU!
I gave you a week and you did it in almost a day: Every year they do a MASSIVE toy drive for the little kids so they can have some holiday presents and they’re well-supplied, but need $500 for gift cards for the 50 or so older kids. Think about how in high school your buds want to go out for a burger, or over to the Starbucks to study, and you don’t have any money to buy anything. Wouldn’t you like to be able to give some kid the ability to feel normal for Christmas? You raised $500 for the … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks: YOU DID IT!
Please donate to First Draft. Continue reading Ten Years Of Stuff & Nonsense
Let’s just turn today over to JTO, from my Sunday post, reminding me to get off my ass, shall we? The hour is running late, that is true, but it is also just as true that it is still early. It is true that this is a frustrating, infuriating fight – but it is the fight that we have always had. It was the fight for the recognition of every working man’s humanity, of every woman’s suffrage and every POC’s equality. And those we fight are never defeated, they simply retreat, regroup and try again – just like we do. … Continue reading Our Commenters are AWESOME
Every time I ask you guys I think this time it’s not gonna make a dent and oh boy did you ever make a dent: #Uglydogs OMG OMG 4 trips to the post office dragging a sled behind to pick up all our goodies. So far we have opened garden supplies, glue sticks, legos, clorox wipes, finger paint paper and more more more! I will post pics by Friday. Thank you to all you wonderful doggies! — Angela Dunton (@MissAngelaAK) March 26, 2019 You’re all just so great. A. Continue reading So We Mailed Some LEGOs to Alaska, Guys!
You ever get shown up thoroughly by someone twice your age? Tom Butler and his wife June did that to me in 2007 in NOLA. Longtime readers may remember we assembled a bunch of Internet people who’d never met (pictured above) to go to New Orleans to gut a house in the aftermath of Katrina. Tom, second from left up there, absolutely kicked my ass. He and June, beside him as always, hauled out barrow after barrow, bucket after bucket, of filth from this roach-ridden rotting hulk of a flooded home in 90-degree heat and 90 percent humidity, working dawn … Continue reading In Loving and Awed Memory of Tom Butler, First Draft Krewe
It’s that time of year again: Listomania is in the air. One of my favorite bloggers, Batocchio is carrying on a tradition started by the late Jon Swift/Al Weisel: a roundup of the best posts of the year as selected … Continue reading Jon Swift Roundup 2018
Thanks to your generosity, First Drafters, you paid for Christmas gifts for 85 KIDS. The money you raised for the St. Hyacinth Food Pantry bought gift cards, toys, games, mittens and other necessary stuff for the children whose parents shop there each month. I’m heading up tomorrow to help them sort through some more donated things, but this is the nicest part: They’ll all get something new and nice for the holidays, thanks to you! They’ll be able to go get a snack or a treat or something frivolous with their friends without having to worry about it for once. … Continue reading Lookit What You Did!
Fight the power. Continue reading Words To Live By
She always finds a way to turn lemons into a reason to help other people, as witnessed by the food drive. I figured she deserved something for herself, so I headed to the local pet store and shot this. Pay particular attention to the fat one near the end who gets his head stuck in a plastic toy and decides to try to get out of there by beating his head into the floor. Love you, Chief. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging: This one’s for A
THANK YOU ALL! This is a message from the St. Hyacinth Pantry’s director to everyone who donated:
I want to thank you and all of your generous friends for their overwhelming support. With the money already raised, we can provide emergency food for over 300 families this month, which is especially important during this very busy holiday period, our busiest time of the year. Separately, if anyone is in the Milwaukee area, and would like to visit the Pantry to see our facility or see us in action, please feel free to contact me.
Respectfully submitted – Steve Pollock, Acting Director, St. Hyacinth’s Food Pantry
300 families. That’s something, guys. Great job.
Adrastos on the post-election landscape. Continue reading Confessions Of A Keyboard Maquis
First Draft has a book finally! If you didn’t contribute to the Kickstarter, you missed all the updates about the shipping for the first edition, which is almost done (will you last group of lazy people please fill out your surveys?). Since that’s just about done, additional copies are on sale at Lulu.com, where you can read all about the bad early days of political blogging from me and our benevolent blogfather, relive the time Tena and I got wasted and liveblogged (there WAS NO TWITTER, YOUNGS) a presidential debate, and the origins of the whole “our fate is your … Continue reading In Case You Missed the 7,000 Posts Last Fall
I always know where it is, unlike almost every other object I own. I rarely, if ever, however, go looking for it. And yet occasionally, you find yourself doing something that you know will evoke a response that you hate because you need to have that response. So, this morning, I opened the door to my night stand and extracted the battered shoe box. Beneath the “Thank You” notes from past students, the love letters my wife wrote me over time and surrounded by the pin-based honorifics I received or inherited throughout the years, I found it where I always … Continue reading Living Life, Chip by Chip
Josh Marshall on the Insult Comedian’s big mouth. Continue reading Headline Of The Day: Josh Marshall Edition
Adrastos on the latest developments in the Gret Stet Goober race, including Jason Berry’s reaction to the latest spy vs. spy controversy. Continue reading Louisiana Politics: Of Gumshoes, Gobshites, and Goobers
Della Street is not running for President. Continue reading Lagniappe Catblogging: Thanks For Kicking Into Our Kickstarter Kitty
Oscar Meets #SaintsCat. Continue reading Friday Catblogging: Oscar Stands Up For The Anthology
There is a terrific piece by David Lehman at the American Scholar that I originally planned to post on a Saturday but there’s no time like the pulpy present. The Radical Pessimism Of Dashiell Hammett is an incisive look at one of the founders of hardboiled crime fiction, which made me decide to Hammett up this Thursday. I hope that pun doesn’t make you want to Dashiell to the nearest exit.
More after the break. I always did like a nice hammett and cheese omelet for breakfast.
UPDATE: You all have been incredible! Our Kickstarter for the First Draft Anthology is 90 percent funded, and we have 8 more days to get this thing done. Just ten more backers, ten more copies, and this book will be a reality. I can’t wait to share it with you all. Thanks so much!
We survived the influx of teevee crews, MSM reporters, carpetbloggers, disaster tourists and former Presidents. I stuck to my guns and avoided the hype as much as possible. I did, however, make an exception for President Obama’s outstanding speech last Thursday wherein he acknowledged the man-made nature of our post-K disaster. That was something his feckless predecessor never did. Other than the sign I posted last Friday, I ignored the Texas Napoleon’s return to his Waterloo. I made an exception, however, for pictures of W dancing with a high school principal. He moves like a white preppie who went to Yale and learned … Continue reading Not So Stormy Monday
I would sing to you, but I think it might be against the law: A. Continue reading Happy Birthday, Adrastos!
The appeal of the entire homeschooling phenomenon has always eluded me. I think that kids need to be socialized as much as they need to be educated. It’s become a right wing evangelical thing over the years; one that erstwhile Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is eager to tap into in his upcoming run for the GOP nomination. The key player in this strategy is PBJ’s right-hand man, Timmy Teepell who was homeschooled himself. My old friend Lamar White Jr. has written a swell post about Bobby, Timmy, and the homeschool movement at Salon. Check it out. Btw, neither Lamar nor I … Continue reading Homeschooled
The Louisiana lege is in session, desperately trying to divert attention from the destruction it and Gov PBJ hath wrought in the last 7 years. (Contemplating the wreckage makes me feel all Old Testamenty hence the hath.)And what do GOPers do when they’re in such a fix? Find a social issue hot button to mash down on via legislative resolution. Ain’t no hotter button right now than marriage equality, and while you’re at it, demand the two Jewish female Supremes recuse themselves. Here’s Josh Marshall’s headline on a post linking to the TPM story linked to above about the whole mishigas: I decided to … Continue reading Headline Of The Day: Josh Marshall Edition
I’m back for another bite at the Saturday apple, hope y’all have a Gala time. This week I have a compendium of reading suggestions and the odd musical selection. Speaking of odd, that brings us to this week’s theme song courtesy of one of the forgotten founders of rock and roll, Mr. Louis Jordan:
I’ve long thought that Jordan is underrated because he was funny. Funny people are usually underrated, especially in the realm of popular music where the solemn often win the day. Just a crackpot theory, more oddity and soddity after the break. Continue reading “Odds & Sods: Saturday Night Fish Fry”
Yeah, I know, epiphany aka 12th Night was yesterday. I’m an atheist, so what do I know from magi? Not a damn thing. It’s like asking Rickles about Easter. I’ve also had a pesky cold, which has interfered with my writing except on the Tweeter Tube. It’s the greatest time suck known to humanity. If Alexander the Great had had a Twitter account he would have stayed in Macedonia glued to his smart phone. And if Grover Cleveland Alexander had been on Twitter, he would have stayed drunk. Wait a minute, he usually *was* drunk. That brings me to the first topic on today’s agenda, which I’ll explore after the break. But before that, a picture of Ronald Reagan playing Old Pete Alexander:
Just when I take a wee blogcation, they drag me back in again. (If you get the reference, I’ll buy you an adult beverage some time. Make that a beer. I’m a cheap motherfugu.) I’d been largely off the grid, and then I learned that my old blogger friend (I almost called him my little buddy but I don’t want to be the skipper to his Gilligan) Lamar White Jr. had broken a story about past malaka of the week Steve Scalise giving a speech to David Duke’s group EURO. The story has, of course, gone viral as the kids would say. Jeez, … Continue reading Lamar Strikes Again
I’ve finally learned something interesting about Mary Landrieu’s dull and robotic challenger, Dr. Bill Cassidy. He’s been billing LSU Health Sciences Center for time when he was “working” on Capitol Hill. This is not allowed by LSU’s own rules and is being done at an institution where nobody has gotten a raise in 7 or 8 years. This is clearly unethical and may well be payroll fraud. It’s a familiar story: a Goper campaigns against one big guvmint teat whilst suckling on another one. This development is unlikely to change the outcome of Saturday’s election but it’s making the last week pretty … Continue reading Double Bill Cassidy