Mock, Paper, Scissors

And that is a hero’s welcome!

Scissorhead Mike Flugennock.

…in honor of Neil Armstrong. Scissorhead Mike Flugennock gives us a very noble tribute in honor of the late Lt.. Armstrong. That flag, in the Sea of Tranquility will be the one exception, and rightly so.

I cannot say enough to express my hero-worship of Armstrong. I think my boyhood me understood better than my adulthood me ever will that giants do walk amongst us.

AP

Is there anyone amongst us who does not know who Neil Armstrong was?

The moon shines bright tonight in tribute.

(BuzzFeed)

If I flew a flag here at The Hut (world HQs of the MPS media empire), it would be at half-mast today. Gore Vidal has passed away at age 86.

Besides being a gifted writer of novels, screen plays, and essays, Mr. Vidal was an unparalleled and fearless wit. Listening to him take on Norman Mailer and William Buckley remains a treat for me.

Mr. Vidal also was a champion of the people and the Constitution. He fought as hard against the illegal Iraq War as anyone I know–probably harder–and drew lightening for it. My guess is that his last regret was not outliving Dick Cheney.

RIP, Gore Vidal. You will be missed. (And thanks for all the words.)

(LATimes)

too easy of a line

RIP Sally – gone way too soon – a true hero, the stars will shine brightly for you

btw– how fast will the fundies pretend that Sally Ride doesn’t even exist.  Sally leaves behind her partner of 27 years – Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy. Due to the wonderful and humane nature of the GOP and religious assholes that exert way too much control on our lives – Dr. Shaughnessy is not entitled to any of the spousal benefits so deservedly earned by Sally Ride.

One of the great comedy writers that most people never heard off, has gone to the eternal Green Room.

Tom Davis was the writing partner of Al Franken both before, during, and after Saturday Night Live, and I promise you this: if you watched the original cast and laughed, you probably owe Davis a drink.

From the Coneheads to the hilarious Julia Child dying sketch, Davis had a magic touch and worked brilliantly with Franken. If you ever tried to write sketch comedy, Franken and Davis were the team to beat. He was a giant in a small, funny field.

Tom Davis was 59. Much, much too young.

I know we’ve done this before, and yes I know we are near Tax Day, and chances are good until the economic devastation ends that we will go at it again, and if not for Jurassic Pork then for another fine writer. And in my opinion there are few writers on the web that are as good as JP.

Anyway, the problems have compounded for JP and he’s again up against a wall. If we can help we should.

If you can spare a few bucks (or more), consider a donation to JP. It’s money will spent; his writing speaks for itself; he has a clarity of mind that few others have.

Do it to spite Arianna, or as we say around The Hut: “Pay the writer.”

Many thanks for all you do,

Tengrain

(Welcome Back to Pottersville)

We Love Betty White.

(She has a really fun, dirty mouth in real life. She rules.)

Our good friend and ally Batocchio of the legendary blog Vagabond Scholar is carrying on the tradition of the late Al Weisel AKA Jon Swift, in which he rounded up the best blog posts of the year as chosen by the bloggers themselves.

As Lance Mannion puts it:

Our late and much missed comrade in blogging, journalist and writer Al Weisel, revered and admired across the bandwidth as the “reasonable conservative” blogger Modest Jon Swift, was a champion of the lesser known and little known bloggers working tirelessly in the shadows…

One of his projects was a year-end Blogger Round Up. Al/Jon asked bloggers far and wide, famous and in- and not at all, to submit a link to their favorite post of the past twelve months and then he sorted, compiled, blurbed, hyperlinked and posted them on his popular blog. His round-ups presented readers with a huge banquet table of links to work many of has had missed the first time around and brought those bloggers traffic and, more important, new readers they wouldn’t have otherwise enjoyed.

It may not have been the most heroic endeavor, but it was kind and generous and a lot of us owe our continued presence in the blogging biz to Al.

Not to put too fine a spin on this, Jon Swift was very kind to me and very kind to MPS, often linking to us in his always funny tongue-in-cheek posts. You don’t have to look much past the influence of Jon Swift, my blog-father Morse (of the late and lamented Media Needle blog, alas no more), Blue Gal (the godmother of all small bloggers), and of course Watertiger to know why it is that I jumped onto the Crooks and Liars gig, which I use to help promote small blogs and less-read bloggers. I think I may have linked to a Scissorhead or two, now and then.

Anyway, please visit Vagabond Scholar and enjoy the posts; dare I say it is required reading. It’s a labor of love and your thanks to Bat are, as always, welcomed.

…and then get out of the way.

This was the #1 rule my favorite writing prof in college drilled into us. I actually try to follow that rule here at MPS and so I try to write very little about myself. (That and my family has threatened physical violence against me if I write about them or myself and it leads to them.)

I’m going to break that rule for a brief moment, but really, the story is about Steve Jobs. I used to see him every weekday morning when I was commuting to the Big Database Company.

The Caltrain would pull into one of the Palo Alto Stations, and Steve Jobs would be there with his kids, all of them usually on beat-up bikes; he would be disheveled in sweats, unshaven, bike helmet akimbo, looking like every other schlub dad. He would give them a kiss on the forehead (lifting up the bike helmet) and put them on the train (with their bikes) and wave until the train left the station.

(I remember the moment I witnessed the kids of the powerful and wealthy act embarrassed when Dad kisses them in public. I laughed watching the exaggerated wiping away the kiss, and the look of resentment. I swear I could lip-read “Stop it! You’re embarrassing me!”)

The morning I had my first iPod (first generation, the one which was about the size of a deck of cards, weighed a ton and had a mechanical click-wheel you physically had to turn — I still have it, BTW), and I held it up in the window of the train and gave Jobs a grin and a thumbs-up. He actually lit up like a Christmas tree, grinned and gave me a thumbs-up back.

If I did not have the iconic white ear buds in my ears when the train pulled into the station, he would frown until I put them on, and then he’d smile. I upgraded at some point to a Nano; he applauded when I held it up in the window.

And so it went.

In the end there will be the official hagiography, the mystical legend of an aloof genius. The stories of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field are already overblown, and his uncompromising business sense are already being studied. It will be the story of Steve Jobs that will be dissected in business schools, another generation of entrepreneurs hoping to somehow catch the tail of the comet, and not a word of it will matter, or be true.

Jobs was a good dad, always there with his kids. He was a captain of industry, riding a bike (not a limo) to the public train station to see his kids off to school every morning. He was involved in their lives and not just in a superficial “quality time” kinda way. He was the kind of guy who took the time to give a stranger a thumbs-up, delighted to see that his devices were being used, and delighting us. You cannot teach that in business school.

I think that Jobs was pretty cool.

Happy D-Day Anniversary!

As my father–WW2 Guadalcanal hero–told me: “We didn’t fight for some Americans, we fought for all Americans, even the ones we disagreed with.” To all the men and women in (and out) of uniform: from the tip of my nose to the bottoms of my toes, thank you!

(Hat tip: Scissorhead Skinny-D)

While everyone is preparing for a barbecue and whatnot, please give a moment to think about the veterans who have given their all for us. Whether we think a war is just or not, they are doing their jobs.

“We reflect on those who have gone before us. We reflect on their service and their sacrifice on behalf of our great nation,” said Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Craparotta, who commands a Marine division in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. “We should also remember those serving today who embody that same commitment of service and sacrifice. They are committed to something greater than themselves and they muster the physical and moral courage to accomplish extraordinary feats in battle.”

And yes, I do find it somewhat ironic that the day before Memorial Day the president signed into law an extension of the Patriot Act that explicitly takes our freedoms away.

“Congress has once again chosen to rubberstamp the Patriot Act and its overreaching provisions. Since its passage nearly a decade ago, the Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans’ privacy and violate their constitutional rights,” said Laura Murphy, of the ACLU, in a statement.

As regular readers know, it is difficult for me to pay lip service to anything, especially to a war that I still think was about oil and designed to benefit our corporations. However, the stark naked Patriot Act renewal makes it hard to choke out that our troops overseas are protecting our freedoms when we just let those freedoms be signed away, without comment.

So in your thoughts and prayers today, please include bringing our troops home safe, sound, and soon. It is the best thing we can do to honor them.

Foreign Policy

As Scissorhead GRS said, Let’s see a cat do that.

Anyway, the entire article is worth a read. There’s a picture of a dog-hero on each page, and, you know, its human.

(Foreign Policy)

“…I’ll be back for a second slice of cake,” Dr. Zaius said.

(Please go give the good Ape from the future your greetings and solicitation on the occasion of his birthday! I also gotta tell you: I’ve met Zaius in real life; he’s not as blond as his pictures, but he is one of the nicest apes you will ever meet. If he is our simian overlord from the future, I for one welcome him.)

Mmmm, I lurves me some Dennis-the-K.

(Hat tip: the always amazing First Draft. These peeps have been on Walker like a rug on Rand Paul.)

Reuters

The first woman candidate on a national ticket, Geraldine Ferraro has left the building, but she leaves behind a country that she helped to improve by shattering glass ceilings everywhere. There is no doubt at all that she has left her mark on the joint; Ferraro proved that women do not have to take a back seat to anyone.

>Ferraro was a smart, scrappy fighter, and she left us after a long bout with cancer. She was 75, much too young.

Read more here.

I’ve always loved her, but this totally steals my heart.

And in a related note, here’s a picture of President Carebear reading Taibbi’s book, Griftopia, and hopefully the chapter on Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers, The Biggest Asshole in the Universe.

Wanna bet he never reads the book?

Love is stronger than hate.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

We here at Mock, Paper, Scissors believe Shakespeare got it just right when he said that brevity is the art of wit. We’ve been described (accurately) as the Internet’s Band of Incorrigible Spitballers, and one critic said of MPS that it is like a small, mangy dog that runs out from under the porch, bites your ankles and runs away to bite again another day.

What I’m trying to get at is that we do not write long-format posts (or at least not often). This is by design. We admire that sort of dedication that Driftglass and others put into their work, but we walk a different path, one that usually starts under a porch.

This is a long way of introduction to a great post by Athenae over at First Draft. Yes it is a rant, and a damn fine one. If you click on the link (and please do), be sure to read the comments, too. She lays waste to someone who tries to sell her on the thin gruel of compromise, and it is as worthy a response as the original rant.

Oh, Noes! Not eyerolling at a paper towel request?!

Steven Slater, you are still a national treasure. Grab a couple of beers today and have all the sweaty sex you want. You’ve earned it, man.

PS – anyway we can lure you out of retirement for Mooselini’s next flight?