by John Walters
PCH: Isaiah Must Go
Melania, Donald, the Vatican. Nothing to add here, just an incredible photo
Starting Five
1. The GOP Goes WWE
A Congressional race in Montana, with an election this morning because the state gets one new seat in the House of Representatives, and Republican candidate Greg Gianforte gets upset when Ben Jacobs, a reporter from The Guardian, shoves a tape recorder in his face. This from a Fox News (Fox!) reporter who witnessed it first-hand in Bozeman, Montana, last night:
“At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter. As Gianforte moved on top of Jacobs, he began yelling something to the effect of, “I’m sick and tired of this!”
Listen to me get body slammed in Montana https://t.co/I8hAUsmuWw
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) May 25, 2017
Have you been to Montana? I have, a few times. This incident will not hurt Gianforte’s chances of winning there. He may be arrested for assault, but he’ll still win the vote.
Meanwhile, the WWE SummerSlam this August has an intriguing new character.
Joking aside, notice how the Gianoforte campaign statement labeled Jacobs as a “liberal journalist.” As if that matters. And there was nothing in Jacobs’ question that was partisan, by the way. Notice how Trump has treated the media the past two years, or how Steve Bannon called them the “worst enemy” of the American public, or the Florida lawmaker who last week joked that he’d like to aim a machine gun at the press. You reap what you sow
2. Manchester, United
Man U.’s two goals were scored by a Frenchman (Paul Pogba, right) and an Armenian
Two days after the horrific blast in Manchester claimed 22 lives, Manchester United won the UEFA Europa League final 2-0 over Ajax in Stockholm, Sweden. The Europa League is the not-quite-as-good-a-finish-the-previous-year-as-the-guys-who-made-the-Champions-League-tournament tournament. Still, it was a cathartic moment for the club and the city.
Goosebumps! The amazing moment Manchester crowd joins in with woman singing Oasis – Don’t Look Back in Anger after minutes silence pic.twitter.com/Cw4mOq8yde
— Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday) May 25, 2017
“I want to dedicate the trophy to the victims,” Man U. midfielder Ander Herrera told reporters after Wednesday’s victory. “This is just football but what happened on Monday was horrible. We want peace in the world and respect. This happened in Manchester but everywhere we have to be a united world to fight for peace and to have no more attacks.”
3. The Remarkable Death and Life of John Shields
Give yourself some time to read this story. It’s about a defrocked Catholic priest, originally from New York, who found a life and purpose on Vancouver Island. Two months ago, while terminally ill, he decided to throw himself a wake before he died.
I’ve always thought about what a wasted effort funerals and wakes are. My own dad would have loved to have seen all the family and friends and to have heard what so many people said about him during his wake and funeral (“Oh, but he did….”). We’ll never know. Good for you, John Shields.
4. Lastros and Rockies! Baseball Is Terrified
Charlie Blackmon leads all of baseball with 42 RBI
The top two teams in the American and National League, respectively, with nearly one-third of the season complete are the Houston Lastros (31-16) and the Colorado Rockies (31-17). The Astros’ top hitter thus far is Marwin Gonzalez and the Rockies’ is Charlie Blackmon, and you’re probably not even sure if I made those names up. I didn’t. Meanwhile, the two clubs that played in last autumn’s thrilling World Series, Chicago and Cleveland, are 24-21.
Related: It’s early. I’ll chill.
5. Sean of the Dead
Things usually happen in threes, so could we really be just days away from Fox News’ entire prime-time lineup of just one year ago (Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly and Sean Hannity) all being gone? Kelly left late last year for NBC News, O’Reilly was fired and now Hannity is finding sponsors pulling ads from his show over his “investigation” into the murder of Seth Rich, whose own parents have begged him to stop floating his conspiracy theory.
Handy claims he is under attack from “liberal fascism.” It’s called free speech, Sean. The same principle that allows you to spout whatever you do for millions and millions of dollars each year.
Reserves
Season 7: Bring Mittens
The Game Of Thrones promo trailer is out. The series’ seventh season kicks off in mid-July and there will be but seven episodes.
Music 101
Slow Song
Do you want to own a great album/CD? Buy Joe Jackson Live: 1980-86. I’ve been listening to it since 1989 and I’m still not even close to sick of it. Jackson just released his first album of new material in seven years, Fast Forward, and begins touring in support of it next week.
Remote Patrol
Game 5: Cavs at Celtics
8 p.m. TNT
Who cares about the game? Tune in to see if Sir Charles and Shaq throw down….
“This incident will not hurt Gianforte’s chances of winning there. He may be arrested for assault, but he’ll still win the vote.”
And this is why you advocated for the Billings Bighorns! Bring on the tailgate violence.
Great unintentional humor in this article (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/sports/baseball/new-york-yankees-tickets-financial.html?hpw&rref=sports&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well) about declining ticket revenues at Yankee Stadium.
To determine why millenials weren’t coming to games, Yankee brass “spent months after that season exploring how to better reach fans 35 and under, canvassing people in various industries, including entertainment, retailing and health care, to better understand how that demographic made its decisions.” They “visited every other major league ballpark, conducted surveys of 5,000 Yankee fans and, with several outside consultants, examined ways the club could make the stadium more convivial for young adult fans.”
Their conclusion, more or less: their team wasn’t very good, and tickets were too expensive for younger people.
Stock updates – as you know, AMZN is on the move again & yesterday it became a 27-bagger for me. 🙂 🙂 Also yesterday, another of my 1st year stocks (ATVI) became a 10-bagger (whoo-hoo!). AND one of my other stocks zoomed up 32% (not this year, JUST yesterday). You would think I’d be all ‘THE QUEEN IS IN THE BUILDING!” bopping my head to the beat, high-fiving & butt-slapping, but uh, no. This stock is one of my WORST ever picks & I’m still (sigh) more than 60% in the red. Argh! But hey, now I am hopeful I won’t actually lose ALL my money in it!
Another one of my horrific picks (DDD) actually got back into the green yesterday, oh so briefly, for the 1ST time since I bought shares, back in the Fall of 2014. I had bought in a few more times (on its slide down, down down) & just when I thought it would never recover, this year has been a total turn-around. You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks but apparently a dead ‘dog’ CAN come back to life! “Never give up, never surrender!” Who knew a sci-fi comedy could inspire one’s investment philosophy? 😉
I re-watched Games 3 & 4 last night on NBA-TV & LeBron was definitely ill! My god, he didn’t move like himself at all! It wasn’t just an off-shooting night & it wasn’t him trying to teach his team a lesson, he had some kind of virus/bug/whatever you want to call it. I’ve watched that man perform in athletic competition more than any other human EVER (by a factor of 5 at least!) & he was not himself. The team is very lucky he didn’t get injured. Hopefully, the virus is out of his system tonight but I care more about his well-being than the game.