by John Walters
Tweet du Jour
WITCH HUNT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2018
Apparently, witches do exist.
Starting Five
Worst Responder*
*The judges will also accept, “Donald, Duck!”
Cadet Bone Spurs, who received five deferments from Vietnam and who literally took an escalator down to announce that he’d run for president, boldly proclaimed yesterday to the nation’s governors that, unlike those Broward cowards, ” I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would’ve done that too.”
Rrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhht.
Not coincidentally, Robert Mueller once did charge through machine gun fire to retrieve a wounded fellow Marine in Vietnam. Maybe he can tell Donnie boy all about it if they have a one-on-one chat.
2. No-Gun Warriors
Here’s the thing about comic book superheroes. They’re out there fighting the worst villains imaginable, and all of them are unarmed. Superman? Faster than a speeding bullet, but he never fires one. Spider-Man? Nope. Captain America? Carries a shield to deflect fire but he’s never packing heat himself.
And the list goes on. Kinda makes you wonder what the D.C. Comics and Marvel Comics folk were trying to say to youngsters, no?
3. Davis Love
The Pelicans’ Anthony Davis puts up 53 points in a 125-116 victory against the Phoenix Black Hole Suns. It’s the sixth-year big man’s fifth 40-plus point effort in the past 10 games, all wins, which shows you what happens to Davis’ offensive game when Boogie Cousins is off the floor.
Davis is averaging 28.2 ppg now, second-best in the NBA. He’s also second in the NBA in blocked shots. He’ll be getting some MVP love at season’s end.
4. Welcome To The Big East
Saquon Barkely would’ve been the Big East’s best player last season.
Have you ever made one wrong turn and then, instead of going back to a point where you knew where you were, plowed ahead hoping that somehow you’d find the correct route, only to make more wrong turns and be seriously lost? (Didn’t you just describe your career, JW? Hey, shaddup!).
Anyway, as we saw that the Midwest-centric Big Ten is holding its conference hoops tourney in NYC this week and looked at Power 5 conferences last night, with Rutgers in the Big Ten and Missouri in the SEC and West Virginia in the Big 12, that’s what we thought of. Now, number one, it’s basketball season and not football season, but this is a football season idea. And number two, we’re not here to solve all the nation’s problems, just our little quadrant. But here’s our idea, and there is no good reason that this could not happen.
Create a sixth power conference, the Big East. The following schools would be members: Penn State (currently Big Ten), Pittsburgh (currently ACC), Temple (AAC), Rutgers (Big Ten), UConn (AAC), Syracuse (ACC), Boston College (ACC), Buffalo (MAC), Maryland (ACC), Navy (AAC), UMass (independent) and Army (independent).
A dozen northeastern schools, from as far south as College Park north and as far west as Pittsburgh. Easier travel. Greater fan interest in the northeast quadrant. Right now you only have one super-sexy school among the dozen, but that might change as these schools played in a league whose identity matched their geography. That’s a freebie for you, FBS.
5. Cornutopia!
The U.S. News & World Report has just named Iowa as the Best State for 2018. Iowa, which as a friend once informed us is an acronym for “Idiots Out Walking Around,” is home to numerous caucuses and zero national parks. Iowa also has zero major professional sports teams, which we believe enhances the quality of life, i.e. the absence of such.
Now, we’ve been to Iowa a few times and found it exceedingly pleasant. Kinda cold in the winter time, but we loved Cedar Falls and Des Moines, too. Still hoping to make it to Ames. But “Best State?” Somewhere Vermont is hemming and hawing. As is Oregon.
The top five, according to the ranking: Iowa, Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, New Hampshire. The bottom five: from 46-50: Alabama, West Virginia, New Mexico, Mississippi, Louisiana. “S-E-C! S-E-C!”
Music 101
Green Grow The Rushes
There are quite a few songs that you could nominate as REM-iest REM tune (“The Flowers of Guatemala,” “Camera,” “Pilgrimage,” etc.), but this track’s sweeping harmonies near the end merit its inclusion. From the 1985 Southern-Gothic vinyl, Fables of the Reconstruction.
Remote Patrol
On The Waterfront
8 p.m. TCM
“You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.” And that’s how you get a one-way ticket to Palookaville. In this 19564 classic, Marlon Brando, in one of the greatest performances in Hollywood history, gets the short end of the stick in dealing with organized crime. Eighteen years A quarter century later, in an even more highly acclaimed film, he would become the head of organized crime. For both roles he deservedly won Best Actor Oscars.
“
On the Waterfront was 1954, not 1956. And The Godfather came out just 18 years later, not a quarter-century.
The Midwest is well represented in that top 15. A few thoughts:
1) Rankings, based on the “metrics”, are skeptical at best. With that being said, however, I can’t wait to see what these rankings look like in 20 years, when truck driving and many labor jobs are nonexistent.
2) It is ridiculously cheap to live in the Midwest.
3) The majority of the people are very kind, although there is a lot of hypocrisy.
4) Diversity lacks, but universities (for example, the University of Nebraska – Lincoln) garner a lot of interest from international students – especially from Asia.
5) If you’re not of the attention-seeking ilk and like quiet, I don’t think there is a better place to be on a Fall or Spring day than some remote area in the Midwest. Talk about reaching your Buddha state…
6) Education will, in theory, always be better. My graduating class from high school in 2013 was 27. And that was considered large. My little brother, graduating this year from the same high school, has a class of (guesstimate) 15. More one to one attention.
7) As far as business opportunities, it is interesting. It really depends what type of industry you are in. I think the Silicon Valley is vastly overrated and if you have a good product or service, it really doesn’t matter where you live. When flying, you don’t have to go cross country, because you are conveniently located in the middle.
8) You need a car to live a functional life. That, to me, is the worst thing about the Midwest.
As for 8) , having lived there 4 years, I’d sub in “winter” as the worst thing about the Midwest. But I did love living there.
You are correct. That’s a terrible aspect, too. It was 55 degrees yesterday, so I’m trying to not think about that right now…
Winter is nice during the holidays, as it makes everything seem more jolly. Everything after January 1st is brutal. If you are someone that has a lot of friends, family and a good supporting cast, it isn’t nearly as bad. I tend to think winters take a tremendous mental toll if you let them. I’d presume the experience can’t be that great in Chicago, Boston or New York, either.
Also, you can only go to the mall so many times to walk around before it gets boring.
If I had the money, I’d say the perfect scenario would be to have a cabin near the mountains in Denver for the Fall & Spring (perhaps for one week during the holidays, too), where your office overlooks the mountains. And then either have a residency in Austin or San Diego for the winter. Living in Spain for awhile would be cool, too.
Another amendment: I think farmers are d*cks, too. Not the most pleasant folk to be around.
And true story: While at my little brother’s football game in rural town Nebraska, a kid had a raccoon as a pet. It literally had a leash on.
I’m assuming you’re talking about MIDWESTERN farmers? Because my father was an East coast FARMER & my grandfather was a FARMER but my great-grandfather was what they called a “gentleman” (circa 1860s-1900); which from what I was told meant he did a lot of “riding to the hounds”, gambling & overall “laying about”. His gambling & dislike of actual work meant the family farm was under threat of being “lost” repeatedly & my grandfather saved the day (& the farm) multiple times. Of the 3 men, the only DICK was my great-grandfather, the so-called “gentleman”.
My grandfather, farmer & inventor, was named JACOB. 🙂 One final tidbit – in the early 1900s, my grandfather damned up the creek that was one of our property’s boundaries, BUILT a generator & strung wires up a large hill & thru 2 fields to electrify the barn & house. Ours was the only property with electricity for many miles. Eventually, he was “bought out” by PEPCO (the local electric utility company in our area) back in the 1940s.
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once observed, there appears to be a highly positive correlation between the distance of each state to the Canadian Border and a stellar ranking.
Okay, I’ll bite. When I first saw the 2018 Iowa Best State story, I thought it was fake news customized on my feed to insure a click-through. Sorta like the news reports that Brad Pitt has moved to Sioux City, Iowa. Ha!
Looking at Iowa through my rose-colored glasses, I grew up in a small college town with one public high school and one mall. (gasp!) Our biggest thrill in life was to drive to the metropolis of Des Moines, for a slice of chocolate whipped cream pie at Bishop’s Cafeteria, and lunch in Younker’s Tea Room if you were dressed for the occasion.
I grew up on an acre in the woods, with a toboggan run in the backyard that led to a river. All of my best friends’ parents had buildings named after them at Iowa State University. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were living in a bubble. If that makes me an Idiot Out Walking Around, I’ll gladly assume the title. Ames High, Aims High! #CornBred
Did you go to Adventureland?!
Jacob, I’m not sure why we weren’t fans of Adventureland, but Worlds of Fun in Kansas City was a blast! You?
We never made it to Worlds of Fun. Every summer, my family would jump in the car and drive three hours to Adventureland and camp out and go to the park for an entire day.
I’m going to presume Worlds of Fun is larger, correct? We went to the Great Wolf Lodge once in Kansas City, does that count? I’m happy to know there are others out there reading this everyday that know what it is like to drive miles upon miles and only see cornfields…