Go phish

Yesterday morning (local time), over the span of an hour, an anonymous commenter on a distant shore left this comment on ten different sardine-centric OCA posts:

I have always fancied taking sardines, bread and a bottle of milk for breakfast every morning. I guess anyone would say i am addicted to sardines. Reading this article, i had a new perspective. Thanks, Amigo!

I am moved, deeply, to know that a fellow sardinista would take the time to say thanks, again and again and again. I’m sure my commenter won’t mind my posting this comment here, where it will receive the attention it so richly deserves. And I’m sure my commenter will thank me for omitting the sketchy credit-card-application URL that somehow found its way into the comment, again and again and again.

Thanks, Amigo!

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

[Someone took the time to create a Blogger account and deal with reCAPTCHA in order to leave these comments. What was that person thinking? “I’m being paid.”]

Trump* in Colorado

If you can stand it, Aaron Rupar has short clips from Donald Trump*’s rally last night in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The president is not well. And unlike everyone else’s crazy old relative, he’s the president. And he’s not well. And unlike everyone else’s crazy old relative — well, I could go on.

“The truth still matters”

United States District Judge Amy Bergman Jackson, sentencing Roger Stone today: “The truth still exists. The truth still matters.”

And she called Stone’s insistence that truth doesn’t matter “a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy.”

Cf. Adam Schiff: “If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost.”

A related post
Truth, “theory,” and Donald Trump*

[Source for Jackson’s words here.]

Make it new

In the “news”:

Shortly after the Democratic Presidential debate on Wednesday night, aides to Michael Bloomberg announced that he would spend ten billion dollars to buy an entirely new personality.

Acknowledging that some attributes of the former New York mayor’s new personality have yet to be ironed out, campaign advisers indicated that the eleven-figure outlay would be used to purchase warmth, empathy, and humanity.

Domestic comedy

[Of a correspondent on the news.]

“He looks like a boy.”

“He does look young.”

“But he has gray hair.”

“Then he’s a boy in a school play.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Disses, digital and analog

In tonight’s debate, Elizabeth Warren called Pete Buttigieg’s healthcare plan “a PowerPoint.” She likened Amy Klobuchar’s healthcare plan to a Post-it Note.

In her response, Klobuchar pointed out that the Post-it Note was invented in her home state of Minnesota.

“Fellows of the first importance”

Young Dunstable Ramsay aspires to the life of a magician:


Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (1970).

Fifth Business is the first novel of The Deptford Trilogy, one of Elaine’s favorite works of literature. The trilogy is now the stuff of the Four Seasons Reading Club, our two-person adventure in reading. Ninety-eight pages in, I can say that Fifth Business is indeed a wonderful novel, mysterious in small ways (so far, at least, they’re small), and highly Dickensian. How can you not love a novel whose second section is titled “I Am Born Again”?

[David Copperfield, Chapter One: “I Am Born.”]

EXchange name sighting

[Safety Last! (dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923). Click for a larger view.]

A list of Los Angeles County exchange names drawn from the now-offline Telephone Exchange Name Project has no BRyant on record. The numbers on the most famous Hester Street, in Manhattan, never ran to 1110. So where was Uncle Ike’s Pawn Shop? The best answer: in the movies.

More EXchange names on screen
Act of Violence : The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Armored Car Robbery : Baby Face : Blast of Silence : The Blue Dahlia : Boardwalk Empire : Born Yesterday : The Brasher Doubloon : Chinatown : Danger Zone : The Dark Corner : Dark Passage : Deception : Deux hommes dans Manhattan : Dick Tracy’s Deception : Down Three Dark Streets : Dream House : East Side, West Side : The Little Giant : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Modern Marvels : Murder by Contract : Murder, My Sweet : My Week with Marilyn : Naked City (1) : Naked City (2) : Naked City (3) : Naked City (4) : Naked City (5) : Naked City (6) : Naked City (7) : Nightfall : Nightmare Alley : Out of the Past : Perry Mason : The Public Enemy : Railroaded! : Side Street : Stage Fright : Sweet Smell of Success : Tension : This Gun for Hire : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Trump* pardons miscreants

He wants the death penalty for drug dealers. Not so much for white-collar criminals, a number of whom just received presidential pardons or commutations. One miscreant whose sentence Trump* commuted: Rod Blagojevich, ex-governor of Illinois.

I can think of four reasons for Trump* to issue pardons and commutations today:

1. Send a message to Roger Stone.

2. Exercise power, because that’s what Trump* likes to do.

3. Eat up news time and distract attention from the Democratic primaries.

4. Send a message to Roger Stone. I have your back, Roger, Nixon tattoo and all.

And did you notice Trump*’s use of a plural pronoun in speaking of himself? “Yes, we commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich.” As in “I would like you to do us a favor though.” Himself, not the country.

And now that the disgraced Illinoisan is back in the news: How do you pronounce “Blagojevich”?

Related reading
All OCA Blagojevich posts

Stop-and-frisk in LA

Elaine and I shared in a long, lively conversation riding to LAX last fall. At one point our driver, an African American man, was talking about his daughter, fourteen, an honors student, and wondering what to say to her about current events. It’s crazy, he said. And he took care to add, “whatever side you’re on.”

“Oh,” I said, “I suspect we’re all on the same side here.” And we were.

The talk turned to one Rudolph Giuliani, whom our driver knew as the good guy of 9/11, “America’s Mayor.” What happened there ? I took the opportunity to point out Giuliani’s role in the development of stop-and-frisk policing. Not exactly a good guy. Our driver had no idea.

It didn’t occur to me last fall that it would be helpful to know about stop-and-frisk in thinking about 2020 presidential candidates.