Like so many cinematic labors of love, Robert Weide’s Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time took forever to make. Nearly 40 years to be exact. (So it goes.) Thankfully, the lights will dim and the projector will roll this month, and I for one can’t wait. A preview:
More about the movie, and the friendship that developed between Weide and Vonnegut here. Opens November 19th. And now, our feature presentation…
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Note: A quick reminder that I don’t know what I’m doing with all this new technology. If whatever device you’re reading this on blows up while you’re reading it, call Obamacare and put it on my tab.
Factor by which voters polled by NBC News believe Democrats are better on the issue of preventing catastrophic climate change than The Cult: 3:1
Percent of U.S. adults, as of Monday, who now have at least one shot from President Biden’s vaccination campaign: 80%
Number of adults who are fully vaccinated, up from 2 million when Joe took office: 190 million
Number of drivers or passengers not wielding a weapon, and who weren’t under pursuit for a violent crime, who were killed by police officers over the last 5 years: 400
Letters in “nurdle,” the name of the blob of toothpaste that sits on your brush:6
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Mid-weekRapture Index: 186 (including 4 shenanigans in “Persia” and 1…um…Pimp Francis?). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
CHEERS and JEERS to a mixed bag of results. Time to pick over the post-election carcass and see how things shook out hither and yon. 2021 had its share of hits and misses, so let’s start with the wins:
Maine In a closely-watched citizens referendum, Mainers voted against clear-cutting a path through the North Woods to install an electric transmission line from Canada to Massachusetts. And I didn’t check the exact number, but I believe we also passed a bond for $3.5 trillion to give ourselves all the shit that we ain’t ever gettin’ from Build Back Better.
New Jersey An unexpected nail-biter, but Phil Murphy is on track to be the first Democratic governor reelected in over 4 decades, giving him another four years as governor to continue de-Christie’fying the state.
KansasTossing this in from our own Chris Reeves via Twitter: “Democratic local candidates overperformed my expectation, with pro-mask, pro-vaccine candidates winning by big margins.”
Boston Michelle Wu becomes the first elected woman mayor in the city’s history, and Asian-American to boot.
New York CityFormer cop and Brooklyn borough presidentEric Adams becomes only the second Black mayor of the Big Apple. And Alvin Bragg will be Manhattan’s first Black district attorney (succeeding Cy Vance, Jr.), and he’ll inherit a case against former president The Thing.
Oh, I almost forgot: In my city council district the liberal defeated the other liberal and the other other liberal. It’s good to have choices.
JEERS to the results we did not want but still have to live with. For all the elections that didn’t swing your/our way—like Terry McAuliffe losing to a Trump clone, which disappoints me because even The Cult said McAuliffe had stolen the election days ago—follow the same drill as last year. Step 1: Spend the day with one of these…
Step 2: See Step 1. I hear it’s clinically proven.
CHEERS to a pleasant evening at the ballpark. My choice was scientific—I was rooting for the state with two Democratic senators over the state with two Republican senators. There’s nothing in the Book of Life that says I gotta be rational about it or even know anything about—[checks notes]—baseball. And as it turns out, my logic was flawless and airtight because ATLANTA WINS THE WORLD SERIES!!! ATLANTA WINS THE WORLD SERIES!!! ATLANTA WINS THE WORLD SERIES!!! Four games to two. Which, coincidentally, is what the margin of victory will be for Boston next year over Atlanta. Ain’t life freaky sometimes.
CHEERS to cleaning up the gas. President Biden stopped short of forcing the underwear industry to install fart filters—for now. But it may be necessary if his latest move to rein in the fossil fuel industry’s gaseous emissions isn’t enough to prevent us from cooking to death here on Planet EZ-Bake. Yesterday he grabbed a hot mic at the climate summit in Scotland and said dammit, methane, your days are numbered…eventually:
The new rules, proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, aim to curb methane emissions for new and existing oil and gas infrastructure, thereby reducing a significant source of pollution from fossil fuel companies. The regulations target methane leaks and instances when methane gas is purposefully vented, or flared, during the production process. […]
An estimated 75 percent of the country’s methane emissions will be covered by the new EPA rules, according to senior administration officials. … The EPA rules will be stricter than regulations on methane emissions that were set in 2016 during the Obama administration. Those rules were relaxed by former President Donald Trump, but methane standards were reinstated shortly after Biden took office.
[M]ethane has 86 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
When informed that he had no power to throw a wrench into Biden’s executive action, Senator Joe Manchin quickly retreated to his luxury sea palace…er, “houseboat.” He hates to be seen sobbing in public.
CHEERS to a very bad day for the GOP. Eighty-five years ago today, on November 3rd, 1936, FDR was re-elected in a landslide over Alf Landon by—get this—523 electoral votes to 8.
What a headline to wake up to.
On this date twenty-eight years later, the papers trumpeted Lyndon Johnson’s victory over Barry Goldwater 486-52. Twenty-eight years after that Bill Clinton dispatched George H.W. Bush by a less-substantial but still impressive 370-168 margin. Sixteen years after that, Barack Obama disposed of John McCain 365-173. And 12 years after that, Joe Biden cleaned The Thing’s clock by an embarrassing 306-232. Grand total: 2,060 to 535. Takeaway message: revenge is a dish best served lopsided.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 3, 2011
CHEERS to dispatches from the divine mailbag. Sent via Clarence the Angel:
Dear Speaker of the House John Boehner,
I saw that you voted to reaffirm the state motto of the United States—”In God We Trust”—this week. This is good.
But then I read that it was a ”non-binding” resolution. Really? My all-encompassing power and indisputable wisdom aren’t worth a binding resolution? Non-binding means “does not stick.” That’s great for frying pans, but a real cop-out when it comes to acknowledging my omnipotence.
Best regards,
God
P.S. You’ve been sucking wind lately fighting the War on Christmas. Step it up, Corporal.
But at least he hasn’t been wasting his time on things like jobs. That’d be silly.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to blowing this popsicle stand. Whenever the shit gets too deep here on the bluish-brown marble, I head over to NASA’s site to see if our new Space Force is conquering every ball of gas and rock in the known galaxy. Sorry to say the answer is no, so we’ll just have to spend our days and nights gazing yonward and dreaming. This month’s major celestial events are a partial lunar eclipse, and the return of the winter star clusters to keep us company for the next few months. Here’s NASA’s Preston Dyches with a preview of what you’ll be seeing in November:
