"She makes us smile. She loves everybody. And how could the message possibly be any simpler than just that?"

I can't remember the last time we had a good nonhuman political animal in the spotlight. But this was Jim Justice, an oversized governor on the GOP convention stage with his overweight dog Babydog, summarizing the GOP message as vast unconditional love.

It really is a welcome relief to look at a fat dog and think about love, simplicity, and smiling. Here's a WaPo article about it:

"WOMEN OF THE WORLD! We are being stripped of our rights over our bodies, our lives and even of our name!"

"They don’t call us 'women' anymore; they call us 'birthing people' or 'menstruators,' and even 'people with vaginas'! Don’t let them erase you! Every human on earth owes you!"

Tweeted Bette Midler, quoted in "Bette Midler sparks debate by saying trans-inclusive language erases women" (NY Post).

"It was in stark contrast to the treatment Vice President Mike Pence received on attending 'Hamilton' in 2016, when he was 'booed like crazy.'"

HuffPo informs us, in "Hillary Clinton Showed Up To Watch ‘Hello, Dolly!’ And Bette Midler Couldn’t Cope."

Finally saw Bette in #HelloDolly and was rewarded with a visit from @hillaryclinton. #nothingbutrespectformypresident

A post shared by Johanna Fuentes (@jfuentes) on Jul 26, 2018 at 7:28pm PDT

I see no evidence in the article that supports the proposition "Bette Midler Couldn't Cope" and there's something about that locution — the form as well as the substance — that really annoys me. I'm not sure if I'm just really tired of websites that try to sound like overexcited teenage girls or if I'm still feeling uneasy about a language usage controversy that was big in the 1960s: Whether you can use "cope" without "with [something]."

Researching this old usage question, I learned that one meaning of "cope" (now obsolete) is to sew up the mouth of a ferret (which was done to keep them from biting rabbits they were driving from their holes). The word, with this meaning, was then used figuratively. For example (from the OED):

1601 J. Deacon & J. Walker Dialogicall Disc. Spirits & Diuels 214 It shall not be amisse to cope vp your lips a little....

1672 J. Eachard Mr. Hobbs's State Nature Considered 126 Roger has a vocal instrument..called a mouth, and being not muzled, gagged, or cop'd..May stretch it out as wide as he please.

"Cope" also has a meaning in falconry (to cut back the beak and talons) and in architecture (to cover with coping).

But the "cope" we're talking about in "Bette Midler Couldn't Cope" comes from "coup" in the sense of "coup d'etat" or "coup de grace," which means to deliver a blow. To cope was to compete in a well-matched physical fight, and that became figurative, as in "His nature was too gentle to cope with the bold and fiercer temper of his brother" (1847).

The usage without "with" — meaning "To manage, deal (competently) with, a situation or problem" — is traced back to 1934. You can see that it was originally intended to be jocose:

1934 E. Bowen Cat Jumps 248 Angela rang the bell wildly for someone to come and cope.
1955 Ess. in Crit. 5 62 More confidence might be placed in the writer did we not find on the same page a typical shift of tone to this, on Romeo and Juliet: ‘the kids get involved in a lively way, but then they cannot cope.’
1958 I. J. C. Brown Words in our Time 41 ‘She suffers from copelessness.’ I have heard this said of an unsatisfactory employee. The use of cope as a verb by itself to describe dealing with all kinds of situations is a recent usage. In my youth we tried, or were told to try, to cope with this or that problem. We were not required to cope in general.

I'm still trying to cope with cope in general.

Oh, Bette...

Where’s Rand Paul’s neighbor when we need him?

— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) February 9, 2018

ADDED: A poll, which assumes you understand the context:

Your reaction to Bette Midler's joke:

Laughed, but, yeah, I'm ashamed. I'm bad. But that was funny.

Laughed shamelessly. Rand's stunt was bad. If he was hurt so bad he should be resting quietly.

It would have been a good joke if Rand hadn't suffered so much. Bad taste.

Liberals have a grim taste for violence when you're not on their side. Despicable.

 

pollcode.com free polls

John Edwards, barred from entering Trinity Episcopal Church for the funeral of the woman who'd been forced at the age of 101 to testify at his trial.

The woman was Bunny Mellon, who had given $700,000, that was used in part to support Edwards's secret lover (Rielle Hunter). Do you remember what happened at that trial? I didn't.

A federal jury acquitted Edwards of one charge, and the judge declared a mistrial on the remaining five charges. The Justice Department dropped the case.

Because he'd suffered enough? Because the government's premise for the prosecution was bad? Why was it a mistrial? How did Bunny Mellon get away with giving $700,000 to a presidential candidate? We've all forgotten. We only remember that Johnny Edwards is an outcast, and now they block him from entering the church, the Episcopal church of the very rich dead lady, who can scarcely be held responsible for the federal crimes she committed along with him — I think — but no one was punished — it's all mistrials and dropped charges — so what difference at this point does it make?

But Edwards took a place in the overflow room, whence he witnessed "a moving eulogy by actor Frank Langella, and a poignant rendition of 'The Rose' by Bette Midler." Thereafter, as the NY Post's Richard Johnson puts it: "the thick-skinned Edwards — seemingly oblivious to the family’s wishes — followed the funeral procession to the cemetery."

“He was working the crowd near the graveside after the service,” [NY Social Diary blogger David Patrick Columbia said].

Working the crowd near the graveside? What does that mean? Talking to people?

By the way, did you know that when she was a schoolgirl, Bette Midler was teased mercilessly? The epithet that was hurled at her: "Haole Crab."

[Gayle] King: "Haole Crab?"

Midler: "Haole Crab," which is something that--

King: I don't know what that means.

Midler: Hawaii. Haole is the word for white.

King: Oh, okay.

How long can you work in media, work with Oprah, with all the racial issues examined on Oprah's show, including, presumably, all the tales of Barack Obama growing up in Hawaii, and never learn the word "haole"?

Midler: Or foreigner.

King: You're in Hawaii. You're poor and you're white.

Midler: Uh-huh.

King: And you're unpopular in school. That must've been really tough for you growing up.

But Bette grew up and unlike John Edwards — who also grew up poor and white — she got into the funeral of the Bunny Mellon — who grew up rich and white —  and Bette got to sing, and she sang poignantly:

Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you its only seed.

Or did John Edwards grow up poor? Was he, like Bette, bullied?

Growing up in a roughneck mill town where bullies didn't just tease you, they made you eat dirt, Johnny Reid Edwards... internalized the lessons of his father -- and of that "rough little town where you either fought or you got the crap beat out of you," as he put it. Later, that childhood message would fuel a gnawing ambition.

A gnawing ambition and an endless aching need... love, it is a flower, and Johnny Edwards spread its seed.

"I'm free and I love to be free/To live my life the way I want/To say and do whatever I please..."

Consider the use of the old Lesley Gore song — "You Don't Own Me" — for political, pro-Obama purposes:



Now, I love old Lesley and her classic song. And it's fine with me if the Democratic Party is her party — and she'll cry if Obama loses, cry if Obama loses, you would cry too if it happened to you. "You Don't Own Me" dates back to 1963 — pre-Women's Liberation, pre-Beatles. But let's consider the lyrics and the extent to which they express the values of the present-day Democratic Party.

By the way, Ms. Gore did not write "You Don't Own Me." It was written by 2 men, John Madara (who also wrote "At the Hop") and David White (who co-wrote "At the Hop" and was a member of the doo-wop group Danny & the Juniors who recorded "At the Hop"). Madera and White also co-wrote "The Fly," which was a dance that you could do at the hop, and here's Chubby Checker showing you how:



That was 1961, 2 years before Lesley sang Madera and White's declaration to female autonomy, which is no kind of dance song at all, though Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn manage to turn it into a dance for the purpose of bringing a close to the execrable 1996 movie "First Wives Club":



That movie is best described by David Rakoff in "Half Empty": "A gynocentric comedy predicated on the scenario where men are cheating bastards and middle-aged women the goddesses who best them while cementing their sisterhood with Motown-scored makeover montages, vengeful shopping sprees, warmed-over Lucy-and-Ethel hijinks, and random humiliations visited upon women who are younger and therefore by definition stupid whores."

Anyway, look at the lyrics to "You Don't Own Me," words which a couple youngish guys put in the female singer's mouth, as repurposed for the 2012 election "war on women" theme:

I'm young and I love to be young
I'm free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

Sounds libertarian to me. But it's the Obama side using this, so presumably we're supposed to hear something like:

I'm free and I want my birth control to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please and have the government pay for it