Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Henry Rollins: If Trump Has the Best Words, Why Does He Always Say the Wrong Thing? (LA Weekly)
Within seconds of something like this happening, it is the president's duty to make a statement. Unsurprisingly, it was the first lady who was the first to say a word, albeit via Twitter, but nonetheless: "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence."
Froma Harrop: Trump No Longer Shocks. Helpers Who Know Better Do (Creators Syndicate)
We're talking about the business leaders who remain on his councils. We're talking about Republican leaders - specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell - who still lack the courage to slap Trump's name on their rebukes of his words.
Lenore Skenazy: What's Old, Cheap and Memorable? (Creators Syndicate)
Coca-Cola. I think we can all agree that's a pretty good brand name, right? Ever think about why? It's not just the billions of ad bucks behind it. It's all the "k" sounds - three of them in quick, cute, clever secession - not to mention two soft a's. In other words, Coca-Cola is a name bubbling over with literary devices - alliteration and rhyme. The two devices a lot of people find tacky today.
Ted Rall: If You Fire A Fascist, You Are A Fascist (Creators Syndicate)
No one should get fired for his political beliefs. Not even a Nazi.
Susan Estrich: Free Speech (Creators Syndicate)
When Harvard President Lawrence Summers - a great mind, love him or hate him - wondered whether there might be some biological explanation for the underrepresentation of women in math and science, he was, very soon thereafter, no longer president of Harvard. But guess what? The problem did not disappear. Firing Larry Summers did not open up the floodgates for women. It just shut down the debate. A whole lot of good that did.
Mark Shields: The President Is Also a Moral Leader (Creators Syndicate)
[President Lyndon] Johnson concluded their nearly two-hour conversation, according to presidential adviser Richard N. Goodwin, who was in the room, this way: "Now listen, George. Don't think about 1968. You think about 1988. You and me, we'll be dead and gone then, George. Now, you've got a lot of poor people down there in Alabama, a lot of ignorant people. You can do a lot for them, George. Your president will help you. What do you want left after you when you die? Do you want a great big marble monument that reads, 'George Wallace - He Built'? Or do you want a little piece of scrawny pine board lying across that harsh caliche soil that reads, 'George Wallace - He Hated'?"
Mark Shields: Authentic Republican Wisdom (Creators Syndicate)
It is frankly impossible to imagine the 2016 presidential nominees ever personally asking their opponent to offer a eulogy at their funeral. But there really was a time, a better time, when we had campaigns that were not emotional train wrecks, when America and the Republican Party had a Jerry Ford.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Cirremt Events
Janet shared the link. Twitter throws eclipse shade on Ivanka. Such fun:
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
ROCKY TOP TENNESSEE.
R.I.P. PROFESSOR.
BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!
THE MAN WHO LOVED THE ELEPHANTS.
Trump's Racially Obtuse Transcript Highlights, Annotated
THE WING NUTS ARE COMING! THE WING NUTS ARE COMING!
"WE SHALL OVERCOME!"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late - early morning. Ack.
Steps In After T-rump Tells America To 'Heel'
Merriam-Webster
"Heal" is clearly a very difficult word to spell if you're president of the United States in 2017, but Merriam-Webster is here to help.
Following a so-called "free speech" rally in Boston on Saturday, Donald Trump (R-Grifter) tried to call for unity on Twitter but instead told America twice that it needs to "heel."
Trump ? a man with the greatest vocabulary, everyone loves his vocabulary ? eventually made his point after deleting his first two attempts. After all of Twitter witnessed the president's struggle with the four-letter word, the dictionary's social media account sent him a gentle reminder.
And as one user pointed out, heel is also a term used in pro-wrestling circles to describe a bad guy or antagonist, such as WWE's famed villain "The Undertaker."
Others just couldn't believe that the president of the United States has, yet again, misspelled a word publicly.
Merriam-Webster
Sells For Record-Breaking £17.5m
1956 Aston Martin DBR1
A classic car raced by Sir Stirling Moss and described as the "most important Aston Martin ever produced" became the most valuable British-made car ever when it sold for $22.5m (£17.5m) at the annual auction at Monterey Car Week on Friday.
The 1956 Aston Martin DBR1, is the firm's equivalent to the Ferrari 250 GTO and Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR and just five were built between 1956 and 1958. This one sold is chassis number one - a purpose-built model developed by racing design chief, Ted Cutting.
DBR1/1 was designed to win at Le Mans, but while it failed to take the chequered flag in the 24-hour race, a later model did.
It is the first of a series of five racing cars, one of which won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race. This particular car won the Nurburgring 1000 kilometre race that same year. It was subsequently sold, converted and made legal for street use in 1962.
The original engine is included in the price of the car - but it currently has a modern engine with no historical value, so it can be raced without concern. This new engine raised the car's output to 301hp.
1956 Aston Martin DBR1
Stolen In Norway Museum Heist
400 Viking Objects
Some 400 Viking objects were stolen from a Norwegian museum at some time over the weekend of August 11-13, the museum's director said Sunday, describing the loss as "immeasurable".
"If the stolen objects are not returned, this is by far the most terrible event in the 200 years of Norwegian museum history," the director of the University Museum of Bergen in southwestern Norway, Henrik von Achen, told AFP.
The items, most of them small metal objects like jewelry, "do not have monetary value attached to them" and the value of the metal itself "is also quite small," he said.
Thieves were able to enter the museum on the seventh floor via scaffolding on the building's facade.
400 Viking Objects
Woman Wins Divorce Over Lack Of Toilet
India
An Indian court has given a woman permission to divorce her husband because their home did not have a toilet, forcing her to seek relief outdoors.
The family court in the northwestern state of Rajasthan ruled on Friday in favour of the woman, who argued that her husband's failure to provide an indoor toilet during their five years of marriage amounted to cruelty.
Justice Rajendra Kumar Sharma said women in villages often endured physical pain waiting until darkness to relieve themselves outdoors.
The judge labelled open defecation -- a major health problem in India -- disgraceful and deemed it torture to deny women a safe environment for relief, the woman's lawyer Rajesh Sharma told AFP.
Divorce is only granted in India if proof such as cruelty, violence or undue financial demands are shown in court.
India
Struggles With Presidential Duties
T-rump
For Susan Bro, mother of the woman killed at a rally organized by white supremacists, the president of the United States can offer no healing words.
She says the White House repeatedly tried to reach out to her on Wednesday, the day of Heather Heyer's funeral. But she's since watched Donald Trump (R-Crooked) lay blame for the Charlottesville violence on "both sides."
"You can't wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying 'I'm sorry,'" she said in a television interview on Friday.
Like no other president in recent history, Trump has struggled with this part of his duties.
He talks about politics at odd moments - reminding Boy Scouts and Coast Guard graduates alike that he won the election and the media are out to get him - and has continued speaking to his core supporters with less effort to appeal to the rest of the country. The harsh language that turned off those who voted against him last year hasn't abated during his seven months in the White House, part of the reason his approval rating is locked in the 30s.
T-rump
Struggles With Refugee Surge
Canada
Soldiers busily assemble tents with wooden floors, lighting and heating in Canada's Quebec province near the US border to temporarily house a surge in asylum seekers from the United States.
Children run between rows and rows of the military green tents as their parents line up to speak with immigration officials and file refugee claims.
Throughout the day, school buses drop off dozens of people at a time at the makeshift tent city in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec. They walked across the border with suitcases in hand, before being picked up by federal police who deliver them here.
Most of the new arrivals are Haitians who face expulsion from the United States at the end of the year. Then, temporary asylum granted to 60,000 Haitians affected by a devastating 2010 earthquake is due to expire.
Their numbers have soared from about 400 in May to 3,800 in the first weeks of August.
Canada
Defend T-rump
U.S. Religious Conservatives
Two prominent religious conservatives defended Donald Trump (R-Perfidious) on Sunday after he was widely criticized for blaming both white nationalists and counter-protesters for last weekend's violence at a Virginia rally organized by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Evangelical "Christian" Jerry Falwell Jr (R-Unctuous) said Trump could be more polished and politically correct but is not racist. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R-Mendacious), who last week criticized the white nationalists' "evil, sinful, disgusting behavior," said unequivocally on Sunday that the faith community stood by Trump.
The responses reflect a balancing act by conservative Christians as they try to square the images that emerged from the Virginia city of Charlottesville last weekend - torch-carrying white supremacists and neo-Nazis toting swastika flags - with support for a president that failed to condemn them roundly and immediately.
Trump alienated fellow Republicans, corporate leaders and U.S. allies with his comments about the violence that broke out at a white nationalist protest against the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville. He said "many sides" were to blame and that there were "very fine people" on both sides.
But the remarks, including those at a fiery Trump news conference on Tuesday, may not dent support from his political base, where white evangelical "Christian" voters are a major component.
U.S. Religious Conservatives
New Communications Director
Hope Hicks
Others tried without much success, and now the job of keeping Donald Trump (R-Buffoon) on message has fallen to Hope Hicks, a young aide who entered his orbit not knowing the ride would eventually take her to the pinnacle of Washington politics.
Word of Hicks' promotion to interim communications director - the 28-year-old was already in charge of "strategic" communications - landed this week just as the White House confronted one of its biggest messaging challenges.
Members of Congress in both parties urged the president to forcefully denounce the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who marched through the college town. Some openly questioned his competence and moral leadership.
Business luminaries whom Trump enjoyed inviting to the White House fled advisory boards they had agreed to serve on, while uniformed leaders of the armed services denounced racism and hatred without naming their commander in chief.
Repairing the breach, or at least keeping it from growing, is among the most immediate tasks facing Hicks.
Hope Hicks
Weekend Box Office
'The Hitman's Bodyguard'
Critics loved "Logan Lucky" and gave a big collective shrug to "The Hitman's Bodyguard," but when it came to the test of the marketplace, audiences went their own way.
The two action flicks faced off this weekend, and "The Hitman's Bodyguard" emerged the victor with a chart-topping $21.6 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, while "Logan Lucky" sputtered on arrival with $8.1 million.
In fourth place was Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk," one of the summer's bigger successes, with $6.7 million, which bumped its domestic total to $165.5 million. And there were a few milestones too: The buddy comedy "Girls Trip" sailed past the $100 million mark domestically, and "Wonder Woman" crossed $800 million worldwide.
But overall the box office is still losing. As of this weekend, comScore estimates that the summer season is down 13 percent from last year, and the year as a whole is down 5 percent.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1."The Hitman's Bodyguard," $21.6 million.
2."Annabelle: Creation," $15.5 million.
3."Logan Lucky," $8.1 million.
4."Dunkirk," $6.7 million.
5."Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature," $5.1 million.
6."The Emoji Movie," $4.4 million.
7."Spider-Man: Homecoming," $4.3 million.
8."Girls Trip," $3.8 million.
9."The Dark Tower," $3.7 million.
10."Wind River," $3 million.
'The Hitman's Bodyguard'
In Memory
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis, the manic, rubber-faced showman who jumped and hollered to fame in a lucrative partnership with Dean Martin, settled down to become a self-conscious screen auteur and found an even greater following as the tireless, teary host of the annual muscular dystrophy telethons, has died. He was 91.
Lewis' career spanned the history of show business in the 20th century, beginning in his parents' vaudeville act at the age of 5. He was just 20 when his pairing with Martin made them international stars. He went on to make such favorites as "The Bellboy" and "The Nutty Professor," was featured in Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" and appeared as himself in Billy Crystal's "Mr. Saturday Night."
In his early movies, Lewis played loose-limbed, buck-toothed, overgrown adolescents, trouble-prone and inclined to wail when beset by enemies. American critics recognized the comedian's popular appeal but not his aspirations to higher art; the French did. Writing in Paris' Le Monde newspaper, Jacques Siclier praised Lewis' "apish allure, his conduct of a child, his grimaces, his contortions, his maladjustment to the world, his morbid fear of women, his way of disturbing order everywhere he appeared."
The French government awarded Lewis the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1983 and Commander of Arts and Letters the following year.
On July 24, 1956, Martin and Lewis closed shop, at the Copa, and remained estranged for years. Martin, who died in 1995, did make a dramatic, surprise appearance on Lewis' telethon in 1976 (a reunion brokered by mutual pal Frank Sinatra), and director Peter Bogdonavich nearly persuaded them to appear in a film together as former colleagues who no longer speak to each other. After Martin's death, Lewis said the two had again become friendly during his former partner's final years and he would repeatedly express his admiration for Martin above all others.
Joey Levitch made his professional debut at age 5, singing the Depression tearjerker "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to great applause. He recalled that he eventually lost all interest in school and "began to clown around to attract people's attention."
By 16, Jerry Lewis (as his billing read) had dropped out of school and was earning as much as $150 a week as a solo performer. He appeared in a "record act," mouthing crazily to the records of Danny Kaye, Spike Jones and other artists. Rejected by the Army because of a heart murmur and punctured eardrum, Lewis entertained troops in World War II and continued touring with his lip-sync act. In 1944 he married Patti Palmer, a band vocalist.
Fame brought him women and Lewis wrote openly of his many partners. After 36 years of marriage and six sons, Patti Lewis sued her husband for divorce in 1982. She later wrote a book claiming that he was an adulterer and drug addict who abused their children. Son Gary became a pop singer whose group, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, had a string of hits in 1965-66.
In his late 50s, Lewis married Sandra Pitnick, 32, a former airline stewardess. They had a daughter, Dani, named for Jerry's father.
Jerry Lewis
Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis: 30 Fascinating Photographs Capture Funny Moments of the Comedy Duo in the 1940s and 1950s ~ vintage everyday
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