That could be taken 2 ways.

"We’re well on our way to getting the government that we fuckin' deserve."

Says Troy Jackson, in this video posted by his campaign.

That's linked to in the NYT article "Maine Democrats Take Step Toward New Senate Pick, With Jolt of Momentum for Jackson/Troy Jackson, a progressive former State Senate president, showed signs of significant strength, as half the state’s counties picked delegates to a convention where they will choose Graham Platner’s replacement."

Reminds me of that old political joke: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

"I can tell you're a Louisiana boy," says Senator Kennedy to Theo Von.

KENNEDY: You can have an AI assistant, and give them almost unfettered authority to book you a plane ticket or rent you a car or remind you to have your oil changed or, you know, buy some Fig Newtons at the grocery store.

THEO: Yeah. They're pretty, they're not bad.

KENNEDY: I love Fig Newtons.

"I was in a bad position, and they preyed on me, bro. They were chasing the money."

Said Boosie BadAzz, quoted in "Boosie Lobbied for a Trump Pardon. It Never Came. He Wants a Refund. The Southern rapper paid $600,000 to two right-wing operatives. Now, they’re in a dispute over a contract the rapper believes entitles him to at least half his money back" (NYT).

"Mr Pelosi was driving a burgundy Maserati convertible along a residential street when he collided with a black Tesla, legally parked at the side of the road..."

"... according to court documents. Police said at the time that he briefly stopped before driving on again. The suspect 'fled the scene and did not make any attempts to contact the owner of the Tesla,' a sheriff’s deputy wrote on a complaint form. His car then appears to have broken down. The deputy said she found him about half a mile away. 'He disclosed hitting a parked vehicle and intended to go back and leave his information,' she wrote. The Maserati had to be towed away, according to the complaint...."

From "Nancy Pelosi’s husband charged over ‘hit-and-run’ in California/Paul Pelosi, 86, allegedly failed to stop when his Maserati convertible struck a Tesla parked by the side of a road" (London Times).

The return of "very unhealthy" AQI.

Video by Meade. I stayed in this morning.

The sky was very angry this morning.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"In the days before the sentence was carried out, she had tried to keep living as if nothing was about to happen... She showered and wore thick felt-like clothes..."

"... to absorb the blows as much as possible.... What surprised Roody most, she said, was the appearance of the female officer carrying out the flogging. She said: 'She was an older woman in a black chador, with a thick moustache. She was religious. It was strange. If you saw her somewhere else, you would never imagine this was her job. She looked ordinary.' She said the woman seemed to be trying to be gentle, but that did not lessen the violence. 'It did not stop me from hating them,' said Roody.... 'I hated her polite, ceremonial tone,' she said, adding: 'She spoke to me as if she were doing something normal. Before it started, she even joked and said: "Are you scared? Don’t worry, the whip is very thin and I won’t hit hard." Then she took out a Quran. She prayed and closed it. They try to cleanse their own dirty work.... She had made a few promises to herself before the punishment, one of which was that she would not make a sound. 'I came home with my head held high, the way I wanted,' she said. For Roody, the punishment was not only physical. It was designed to humiliate and was part of a longer history of violence against women...."

From "I danced until 2am… then it was off to my flogging/An Iranian rapper and critic of regime was determined to show no suffering as a woman in a black chador put down her Quran and picked up her whip" (London Times).

"Trump seemed very low-T in his East Room address."

Taunts Maureen Dowd, in "Low-T, High Chair" (NYT).

I’m surprised that Pete Hegseth, who says his “High-T Department of War” will start screening testosterone levels of “war fighters” age 30 and older, didn’t rush over to shoot up the flaccid 80-year-old commander in chief with the elixir of manhood needed, as he put it, to give America “the leading edge of lethality.”.... 

There was barely a peep from Republicans on Capitol Hill about the speech.... You could almost hear the fervent wish of Republican lawmakers watching the president: Please, Donald, move on! But he can’t. His father’s admonition that there are only "killers" and "losers" plays in a loop in his head, reducing him to jelly.... 

[H]e seemed impotent, raving about nonsense....

Tearing Trump down like that, Dowd adds to the mythology of male sexuality as the center of strength, courage, and reason. That's not feminism. 

"Many of these candidates claim to espouse progressive beliefs that are similar to Graham. The thing is, it was never about the bullet points..."

"... but rather the way he was willing to speak to any issue directly and honestly that made voters love and trust him."

Said Spencer Toth, who was Graham Platner’s organizing director, quoted in "Without Platner, Maine Democrats Scramble to Keep Grassroots Energy Alive/Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate imploded last week. The activists who backed him are seeking a candidate to carry his populist message in the race against Republican Susan Collins" (NYT).

***

"Have you seen this clip?" I was asked yesterday, by a family member who texted me a clip that you might be about to link to in the comments.

My answer: "Yeah. I didn’t blog about it because I thought people would just be mean to that person who obviously didn’t belong there...."

The NYT doesn't discuss this person, Ashley Webb, but I can see that she was included in that special Democratic U.S. Senate debate. Originally, the debate was going to be limited to 4 candidates who had won at least 20% of the vote in the Democratic primaries for governor or U.S. House. When people complained about that they opened it to everyone who had filed a formal "intent to run." That was one part of the massive screwup that is ruining the Democrats’ chance to unseat Susan Collins. Laughing at Webb is low and beside the point. 

"Theodore Roosevelt way more badass than you thought."

"Firstly, he had a fight club in the basement of the White House...."

"Very conservative messaging... once you violate the natural law, that has infectious effects. The idea that human beings are greedy and venal."

"You see that in the scene with Circe where the men are turned into pigs.... These men get addicted to eating and then she physically manipulates their bodies into the bodies of pigs.... thematically pretty interesting. And the idea is that he has to violate Zeus's law essentially one last time....  The thematic, I think, is kind of great...."

Says Ben Shapiro, strongly praising "The Odyssey," and not just because it has "very conservative messaging."

Midway through the long review, Ben turns to the supposed flaws conservatives have been talking about.

"You left them to pack their suitcase and they brought three pairs of pants.... 'Choose your battles...' Forgetting pants isn’t catastrophic."

"Tell your teens, 'It’s my holiday too, and the things that will make it feel like a holiday for me are not having to hassle you all the time, being able to read my book on the sun lounger, and not being the dogsbody doing all the work.'"

I'm reading The London Times — "How to have a holiday with your teenager — without arguments/Sun, sea… and sulking? Teens can test your patience when you go away. The psychologist Dr Beth Mosley gives her advice" — so I need to be on the lookout for Britishism. 

Sometimes they're not so obvious. I was all, what's wrong with 3 pairs of pants? Too many pants — right? — so maybe there aren't enough shirts? But, no, "forgetting pants isn’t catastrophic"? How has the kid forgotten pants if he brought 3 pairs of pants? How long is this vacation? Oh, I get it...  pants. When they say "pants," they mean underpants.

"Dogsbody" you can see is something they must say that we don't say, but "pants" flew under the radar.

"I'll have got used to being a dog's body," wrote T. E. Lawrence in 1922.

"Is that a fake fight? I find it hard to believe Tom Brady would just hit a guy."

I say, reacting to this, which X pushed at me this morning:

TOM BRADY AND LOGAN PAUL ALMOST THREW HANDS AT FANATICS FEST

👀🍿 pic.twitter.com/mks597nXn0

— FADE (@FadeAwayMedia) July 17, 2026

I was using the Grok fact check. I was told, "It's a genuine onstage slap" that might be "real emotion mixed with promotional flair, not a fully scripted WWE-style fake fight."

My next 3 prompts were: 1. "Arrest Brady," and 2. "If that doesn't deserve arrest then it's bullshit theater and we shouldn't be duped into paying attention," 3. "It was put in my X sidebar, like it's supposed to matter to me. I don't want to be used like that."

Grok told me: "X's algorithm surfaces high-engagement viral clips like this Brady-Paul moment to boost time-on-site, as fights, celebs, and drama reliably drive views, likes, and comments regardless of personal relevance." It advised me to mute keywords like "Fanatics Fest," which opened up a window on how awful entertainment is these days. "Fanatics" doesn't refer to the fans, but to a sports licensing company that stages events "to monetize collector hype and direct-to-consumer sales."

Why would X's algorithm prompt me to look at that, and more importantly, why does entertainment suck these days?

Another smoky sunrise.

That's a photo by Meade. I did not go out because the AQI was "very unhealthy." 

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

ADDED: Trump at Truth Social: "We are holding Canada responsible... the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!"

"The artist Edward Gorey (1925-2000) ornamented his correspondence with elaborate drawings."

"Each year, the Edward Gorey House on Cape Cod runs an all-ages envelope art contest. This year’s theme is 'The Utter Zoo.' You have until Dec. 1 to submit envelopes decorated accordingly. The website suggests 'a compilation of creatures, a bestiary, a compendium of the fictional, plausible, cranky, vengeful or just highly undomesticated.'... My favorite winners from last year are the ones from little children who seem deeply imaginative but not necessarily artistically gifted in the classic sense. A friend told me recently about taking a singing class with a guy who couldn’t hold a tune but who was so passionate that the teacher gave him a solo in the class’s final presentation. Of course his performance was the one the audience found the most stirring...."

Writes Melissa Kirsch, in "The Good List: 6 Things to Add Some Delight to Your Day" (NYT).

Click on that link for winners from last year. Lots of great stuff, mostly by the artistically gifted. As for singers who can't hold a tune but are powerfully passionate... reminds me of the early years of "American Idol." It's highly amusing... up to a point. And these days, what's the problem? All the singers are auto-tuned. 

"Where are the gods in all of this? They appear in the film the way they would appear to humans: through thunder and lightning, through the elation of triumph..."

"... and the experience of pain and longing. Among the major gods, only Athena is personified (by an ethereal Zendaya), but she is not the warrior goddess of the poem. She is more like a projection of Odysseus’s own conscience, materializing the way an angel might land on one’s shoulder. She represents his desire for goodness, home, and order. (In the scenes of Troy’s sacking, we return to a repeated image of Athena’s statue being beheaded, the ultimate violation.) This is all very far from the dominant film depiction of Greek mythology that I remember from my own childhood, 1981’s Clash of the Titans, in which the gods hang out together in togas on Mount Olympus, with Laurence Olivier as Zeus dictating much of the action."

Writes Gal Beckerman, in "The Odyssey Was Never About the Gods/Christopher Nolan’s largely deity-free blockbuster adaptation only highlights the humanity of the original" (The Atlantic)(gift link).