Calamari on the beach

[Representative Joseph McNamara and chef John Bordieri, from, yes, Rhode Island. Click for a larger view.]

Said Representative McNamara,

“Our state appetizer calamari is available in all fifty states. The calamari comeback state of Rhode Island casts one vote for Bernie Sanders and thirty-four votes for the next president, Joe Biden.”

I grabbed my phone and took a picture to send to the kiddos. I waited until this morning to get a better shot from C-SPAN.

Many people found Rhode Island’s presentation delightful. But mileage varies. I found this bit deeply, unintentionally weird, in that low-budget-TV-commercial way.

[Do you remember the This American Life look into “artificial calamari”?]

Halt!

From The Washington Post:

The U.S. Postal Service will halt its controversial cost-cutting initiatives until after the election — canceling service reductions, reinstating overtime hours and ceasing the removal of mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced in a statement Tuesday.

Recently updated

A post about the post Now with the names and e-mail addresses of the members of the USPS Board of Governors.

“Be a hummingbird”

[Wangari Maathai, speaking to Botanic Gardens Conservation International, February 2007.]

I heard an excerpt from this storytelling in a an episode of the BBC podcast Great Lives devoted to Wangari Maathai, environmental activist, political activist, and winner of the Novel Peace Prize.

“Be a hummingbird”: that’s just what I needed to hear in these times. And: “I’m doing the best I can.” So must we all.

“It is what it is”

Michelle Obama, speaking last night, offering “the cold, hard truth”:

“Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”

A nice repurposing of Trump*’s heartless remark about coronavirus deaths: “They are dying. That's true. And you — it is what it is.”

Colder and harder still, Kristin Urquiza’s comments on the death of her father, who contracted the coronavirus after going to a karaoke bar:

“My dad was a healthy sixty-five-year-old. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.”

Trump* = death. We must vote as if our lives depend on it.

Theater of War, tomorrow

A Theater of War event for frontline medical providers:

This event will use Sophocles’s Philoctetes and Women of Trachis to create a vocabulary for discussing themes such as personal risk, death/dying, grief, deviation from standards of care, abandonment, helplessness, and complex ethical decisions, the project aims to foster connection, community, moral resilience, and positive action. The project aims to foster connection, community, moral resilience, and positive action.

It’s a Zoom event, free, open to the public, scheduled for this Wednesday, August 19, 12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. EDT. Reading from the plays: Jesse Eisenberg, Frankie Faison, Frances McDormand, and David Zayas. Register here.

Related reading
All OCA Sophocles posts (Pinboard)

A post about the post

I see from my stats that the 2017 post “The Letter,” revised, is getting a good number of visits. The post has the text of “The Letter,” a poem by Charles William Eliot, revised by Woodrow Wilson, and revised once again by Eliza D. Keith, teacher and suffragist. The poem celebrates letter writing, and the Wilson version is inscribed on the façade of the Old City Post Office, now the National Postal Museum, in Washington, D.C.

Have you called or written to the six members of the USPS’s Board of Governors? Their numbers and addresses are easy to find.

SOUSPS.

*

August 18: To make it easier, here are names and e-mail addresses:

Robert M. Duncan, chair: mduncan@inezdepositbank.com

John M. Barger: barger.jm@gmail.com

Ron A. Bloom: ron.bloom@brookfield.com

Roman Martinez IV: roman@rmiv.com

Donald L. Moak: lee.moak@moakgroup.com

William D. Zollars: DirectorAccessMailbox@cigna.com

I put six letters in a still-extant mailbox yesterday, but I added six e-mails today.

Roger Angell, closing in

A celebration for the writer Roger Angell, who’s nearing his hundredth birthday.

Angell’s essay “This Old Man” is one of the best things I’ve ever read.

Related reading
A handful of OCA Roger Angell posts

Michael Rosen, on the mend

The BBC Radio 4 podcast Word of Mouth comes and goes, with weeks of episodes followed by lulls. But when the show returned after its most recent lull with guest hosts filling in for Michael Rosen, I thought that something must be up. It turns out that Rosen had a dreadful encounter with COVID-19. He’s now on the mend, and he’s written another book for children. All best wishes to Michael Rosen for his continued recovery.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

I think I get at least partial credit for doing today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Andrew Bell Lewis. It started so well, with 4-D, five letters, “Name on the first side-by-side fridge.” Hail, appliance manufacturer familiar to all crossword solvers! And then 5-D, three letters, “Napa nickname” and 1-A, eight letters, “Twisty underground passageway.” Followed by 6-D, four letters, “Tiramisu treat just for 2020.” Hail, treat familiar to all crossword solvers! Though the idea of a treat made just for this hellish year seems pretty cruel right now. And 7-D, seven letters, “Spheroid sweet.” Hail, more quietly, to a more obscure treat, one I enjoyed greatly in my sugar-rich childhood.

Later in the puzzle: 35-D, eight letters, “Single-serving desserts” and 59-A, nine letters, “Yuletide fruitcake.” This puzzle will be receiving a visit from the ADA.

The clue that had me stumped: 43-D, six letters, “Misspend one's time.” I was so baffled that I never saw the obvious answer for 43-A, three letters, “Fostered.” At least not until I began typing through the alphabet to figure out what fit. A little like answering a multiple-choice question by circling and erasing each answer until a bell rings and you get some sort of treat. Of which there are many in this puzzle.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.