"Your hands are mushy... Hey, you're a thick chunk."

Trump has to explain a joke.

(Kiddingly) We’re building a Wall in Colorado”(then stated, “we’re not building a Wall in Kansas but they get the benefit of the Wall we’re building on the Border”) refered to people in the very packed auditorium, from Colorado & Kansas, getting the benefit of the Border Wall!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

Are we smart enough for democracy?

I think we hurt our brain and now it's reversing....



The internet is exempt from honesty.

"Local authorities in southern China are investigating a popular coconut milk brand for once again claiming the drink would enhance women’s breasts...."

Sixth Tone reports.

Coconut Palm...  has often attracted eyeballs and ire because of its sexist advertisements and provocative packaging claiming their coconut concoction makes women “curvier” and gives them “bigger breasts.”...

The drink’s latest advertisement has also angered its loyal consumers, with many calling it “obscene” and “tasteless.” The latest social media furor comes two years after Coconut Palm was attacked for a similar advertisement, which also claimed its product could enhance a woman’s cleavage and whiten her skin.

It makes some poetic sense — milk... coconuts....

It's basically the old doctrine of signatures, isn't it?

The doctrine of signatures, dating from the time of Dioscorides and Galen, states that herbs resembling various parts of the body can be used by herbalists to treat ailments of those body parts. A theological justification, as stated by botanists such as William Coles, was that God would have wanted to show men what plants would be useful for.... Plants bearing parts that resembled human body-parts, animals, or other objects were thought to have useful relevance to those parts, animals or objects. ..

For the late medieval viewer, the natural world was vibrant with images of the Deity: 'as above, so below,' a Hermetic principle expressed as the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm; the principle is rendered sicut in terra. Michel Foucault expressed the wider usage of the doctrine of signatures, which rendered allegory more real and more cogent than it appears to a modern eye:

"Up to the end of the sixteenth century, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. It was resemblance that largely guided exegesis and the interpretation of texts; it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols, made possible knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them."

Here's the Chinese ad. I wish I could embed it, because it made me laugh, but it's in Chinese and I can't figure out how to get the code. Screen shot (I think this is a "tweet" by someone who disapproves):



And here's the great Harry Nilsson song, "Coconut" ("Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take?")(According to the Genius lyrics annotation: "The etiology of the abdominal pain is unclear, but could be due to the lime and the coconut, both the cause and the cure of this odd episode.")

ADDED: Let's hear from Melania:

"I hope you understand that we're puppets"/"You said we had free will"/"No, I didn't."

"There’s the menu. You guys order whatever you want. Chris, you and I are going to have the meatloaf... I’m telling you, the meatloaf is fabulous."

Said Donald Trump, acting out some crazy food theater with his old friend Chris Christie.

Christie chose to tell this story. He was on the  "Boomer and Carton" sports radio show. The co-host Craig Carton reacted: "It's emasculating. Another man tells you what you’re eating and you eat it? Not acceptable. I don't care who he is."*

Christie defended his deference to Trump's ordering his food for him: "The guy eats there all the time, and the meatloaf was good."

But did Trump order meatloaf for Christie's wife. No: "He didn’t suggest the meatloaf to my wife... He could have told her if he wanted to, but he didn’t."

Of course, Trump didn't order for Christie's wife? The tradition is, a man orders for his wife. That's why Trump ordered for Christie and why it's emasculating.

But the meatloaf was good. It is good being Trump's wife. If that's what you want. That may be what you want, Governor Christie, but how has that worked out for you? He's never going to marry you. You need to get over your wishing and get on with your life. Think about yourself. What do you really want?


_________________________

* Transcription by me, from audio at the link.

Bad Lip Reading at the Inauguration.

Trump is "already somewhat comical and broad, which can make Bad Lip Reading a bit less effective from where I’m sitting."

Says the creator of Bad Lip Reading to the NYT.

The more serious a person’s public persona, the better the results are when putting nonsense in their mouths. At least that’s how I feel from a creative standpoint.

The BLR guy (who doesn't reveal his name) preferred working with the footage of Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders:

Bernie, in particular, is such a distinctive character.... Hands down, Bernie Sanders is the king of gesticulation and provided so much good material. His mannerisms and speaking cadence were a dream to work with. I actually ended up basing an entire segment around the physical gestures he made while simply listening to Hillary Clinton talk; he wasn’t even speaking, he was just physically reacting to what she said, and it resulted in one of my personal favorite pieces from the election (“Time to Act”).

"I think it's fine to have a free market where the debate is on many channels and one of them has on-screen fact-checking."

"I'd like one of them to be like 'Mystery Science Theater' or 'Beavis and Butthead.' Another could be 'Bad Lip Reading.' Let the people decide what they'd like to watch."

Sometimes Barack Obama sounds like he's doing his own Bad Lip Reading.

ADDED: Here's a real Bad Lip Reading. It's Ted Cruz at the RNC:

I was excited about another Democratic candidates debate, but then I saw it was just a "forum," that is, a series of individual interviews.

Why is that called a forum? Candidates sit for interviews all the time, so what's interesting about a sequence of interviews? That it was in an auditorium full of people rather than a closed up studio? Voices reverberated. Applause interrupted.

I sat through the whole thing, not that I wasn't reading or doing crosswords on my iPad most of the time. I figured there'd be a transcript in the morning, and I could cherry pick a few things I'd remembered. When I woke up this morning, before I went searching for the transcript — never to find one — I pushed myself to remember something from last night. Come on, Althouse, think. I thought of one thing: Bernie Sanders is annoyed by the sounds high-tech devices make. It's somewhere in here...



... along with "How many pair of underwear do I have?" and "Am I really Larry David?" (which is a reference to this, on SNL). Ah, yes, the noisy tech at 1:30. He also says "People think I'm grumpy."

Now, why did I watch all that? I do not know. I also remember that Martin O'Malley said he owns a kilt, but only because somebody gave it to him, and that Hillary Clinton regards "hush puppies" as both a food and a type of shoes. I can't believe I spent my Friday night on that, but I did go out for a late lunch...



... and I sometimes wonder if anything makes sense anymore. I can only hope that Bad Lip Reading doesn't pass up this "forum" because it's not a debate. I really do look there for meaning. Meade and I have watched the last debate on BLR dozens of times...



... Can I help you?!

A little relief from the GOP debate — Bad Lip Reading does the Democratic debate.

Bad Lip Reading does the GOP debate.

"Bad Lip Reading" is a specific brand.

And this video attack on Scott Walker is just bad "bad lip reading," not — as I was hoping when I clicked, throwing away a half minute of my precious time — an actual work of the brilliant enterprise called Bad Lip Reading.