I'm waiting for Julie to arrive. She's now almost two hours late, and since she lost her phone, I cannot contact her. I'm very worried. Phew, she made it 2 1/4 hours late. We made me a polished puddy tat, did the dreaded task, cleaned the apartment, made a 4 – 5 day supply of γέεννα chili, and talked. Now it's late and I'm pooped, but that's OK.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today;s took me 5:03 (average 7:30). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: While washing her hands in a Connecticut Walmart bathroom, a woman named Aimee Toms, 22, was harassed by another customer who said:
“You’re disgusting!”
"You don’t belong here!”
We can put her argument against Republican bigots another way. "Thou shalt not commit TEAbuggery!!"
From KP Daily Funnies: The Liberal Redneck tells conservatives how it is in language they can understand
Even Bubba Bagger could understand that!
From Daily Kos: Louisiana state Rep. Kenneth Havard from Jackson proposed an amendment to a bill yesterday, then pulled it, which would limit the age and weight of exotic dancers. The Louisiana House was discussing bill No. 468, that would raise the minimum age of exotic dancers from 18 to 21. But that wasn’t what the amendment was about.
AMENDMENT NO. 1
On page 1, line 14, after "shall be" delete the remainder of the line and insert the following:
"between twenty-one and twenty-eight years of age and shall be no more that one hundred sixty pounds in weight."
In my younger days, I knew a stripper, who went by "U.C. Moore". She weighed over 250, had a humongous chest, and was far a far better comedienne than this Republican asshole is a Representative.
Cartoon:
Given the chance, Rump Dump Trump will guarantee that more will be exploded.
Just one article this week which seems to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with it. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."
I saw on AlterNet and traced to Raw Story the report that a teacher at a private Christian Science high school in St. Louis, MO was fired after reporting that her underage daughter had been sexually abused by a school employee. Looking for more information, I found the Courthouse News Service website to have a great deal more on the story, and after checking their Terms of Use, which explicitly grant permission to other blogs to copy an individual article provided Courthouse News Service is credited, I will be quoting their coverage of this complex story. (Any emphasis – bolding – will be mine.)
A former teacher at a Christian Science boarding school claims in court that she was fired after reporting that a fellow faculty member raped her daughter.
Phoebe McVey sued The Principia Corporation in St. Louis County Court on Thursday.
The Principia operates a school and college in suburban St. Louis.
Neither the School nor the College is affiliated with the Christian Science Church, but the principles of Christian Science form the basis of community life at Principia, according to Principia's website.
McVey claims 31-year-old Zachary Retzlaff began sexually assaulting her daughter, M.M. in the lawsuit, when she was 16. Retzlaff is not named as a defendant.
McVey, who now lives in Arizona, lived on the Principia campus at the time with her husband and daughter. She says Retzlaff was Principia's director of telecommunications and related to several people at the school. He [is a] nephew-in-law of Adriane Fredrikson, the dean of admissions, and Hans Fredrikson, a former trustee, and also nephew-in-law of Bill and Cheryl Whitney, who both worked with Retzlaff in the computer information department.
None of them are parties to the lawsuit.
McVey says the sexual abuse went on from July 2014 to May 2015 and that Retzlaff spent time with M.M. at the Fredriksons' home during that time. She says she found out about the relationship while chaperoning a class trip to New Hampshire and Boston on May 21, 2015.
She reported Reztlaff to the police the next day.
A grand jury indicted Retzlaff for statutory rape in the second degree on July 22, 2015. He pleaded not guilty and is free on $35,000 bail. The criminal case is pending. Two days after she reported the rapes, McVey says, the school told her she would be terminated effective July 31, 2015.
"Just prior to her termination, plaintiff had reported to the police that one of Principia's employees had committed the criminal acts of sexual intercourse with a minor, her daughter," the complaint states. "Such criminal acts were in violation (among other statutes) of Section 566.034 RSMo. As a result of McVey's reporting of illegal conduct, Principia's employee, Retzlaff was indicted on July 22, 2015.
"Any other reason offered for Plaintiff's termination is pretextual to cover up Principia's illegal conduct."
McVey's lawsuit does not go into detail, but a separate lawsuit filed by a Jane Doe against The Principia on Oct. 16, 2015, in St. Louis County may. Though it does not name McVey as Doe's parent, it states that Jane Doe was sexually assaulted dozens of times by Retzlaff during the same time period as McVey's daughter.
That complaint says Retzlaff practiced sadomasochism with Doe.
"During several of the sexual assaults, assailant choked Ms. Doe with his hands until she lost consciousness," the complaint states. "After the child was unconscious, assailant would begin engaging in vaginal intercourse with her while she was passed out so that when she awoke, his penis would already be inside of her."
That lawsuit also accused Retzlaff of forcing Doe into group sex.
"In addition to the sadomasochism, assailant invited other minors to join him in 'group sex' with Ms. Doe, including other Principia students, both male and female," the complaint states. "On several occasions, these other minors chose to flee the group sex session because the sexual acts assailant was performing on Ms. Doe became so extreme."
That lawsuit claimed The Principia knew about Retzlaff's actions and even told him to "cut it out."
That lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in February.*
McVey seeks punitive damages for wrongful termination and breach of contract. She is represented by Brandy Barth with Newton Wright and Barth in St. Louis.
Laurel Walter, communications director at The Principia, said in an email: "We are in the process of reviewing the allegations and do not have any comment at this time."
Principia was involved a football hazing scandal involving sexual violence in August 2014. Three football players were kicked out of the school and faced criminal charges. Two were charged with four counts of first-degree sodomy and another with seven counts of third-degree assault.
In an Oct. 22, 2015 story about the first lawsuit, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Retzlaff, then 33, was accused of sexually assaulting an underage student "more than 40 times on or around the campus here, choked her as part of sex play and held group sex parties for students."
Despite the comments I have been reading on this, both on AlterNet and on Raw Story (Courthouse News Service does not appear to have comments), I trust that I don't need to remind the Erinyes, or anyone here, that any man who thinks that a sixteen year old child has the mental capacity to consent to sex is thinking with the wrong head. While Tisiphone, therefore, addresses herself to Mr. Retzlaff, I believe Alecto and Megaera are needed to deal with misconceptions which seem to be all too common in society about the nature of consent – and that sex without both parties consenting is rape.
*Incidentally the lawsuit referred to as "voluntarily dismissed in February" was specifically dismissed in such a way as not to preclude Ms. Doe from re-filing (presumably after the criminal charges have been dealt with).
I'm about to leave for PT with Courtney. Windows 10 does not seem nearly so bad as the horror stories I've heard, and much easier oi use then Windows 8, which I have hated trying to navigate on friends machines. I think I'll keep it, but I still feel angry over installing it without notifying me. In addition, the timing could have not been worse. Also, I get an upgrade to Office 365 with a terabyte of cloud storage for documents for only $35. I'm very tired, because I was up late getting it to work the way I want, so when I get home from PT, I'll have lunch, finish this, and take the rest of the day off. I'm back. Courtney was pleased with my progress, and liked the way George's new ankle is working.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today's took me 3:28 (average 4:29). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Those of us who have (or have had) hearing know what earworms are: those catchy snippets of a song or tune that loop endlessly in our heads. Well, today’s “Friday Fun” may well implant one in your brain, but at least hopefully it will be a pleasant one.
A week ago today, Friday the 13th, Bill Backer, the real Don Draper of “Mad Men”, passed away at the age of 89. Backer was the creator of what has been called by Adweek“The world’s most famous ad”– Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop/I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing”.
And since that tune is now implanted as today’s earworm in your brains, you might as well go ahead and enjoy it in the remastered version …
For those of you who were “Mad Men” aficionados, you may recall the iconic final scene of the series-ending finale with Don Draper meditating (beginning ~ the 1:45 mark) while envisioning a utopian scene of a culturally diverse, youthful chorus singing about “apple trees and honeybees and snow white turtledoves” on an Italian hilltop while wanting “to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”
But the background on how the ad actually came to be is quite a different story.
In January of 1971 Backer was flying to London to meet with his songwriting team when his flight was diverted to Ireland’s Shannon Airport because of a pea-soup thick fog engulfing London.
“[W]e were marooned in the Shannon Airport, which was not set up to handle big loads of offloaded passengers. So we were stuck in a tiny motel, sharing rooms, sleeping in the lobby, and we sat around with people from all over the world.”
At first, Backer and his fellow travelers found little to be happy about under these stressful circumstances. But by the next day Backer was surprised to see those same unhappy, irate passengers in the airport’s restaurants and cafes laughing and sharing stories of their adventure while enjoying snacks over bottles of Coke, bound together by their common experience of being grounded.
"In that moment [I] saw a bottle of Coke in a whole new light… [I] began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more than a drink that refreshed a hundred million people a day in almost every corner of the globe.
So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be — a liquid refresher — but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes."
Straight out of a movie script, he grabbed a paper napkin and scribbled: “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”
But when he finally reached London and shared what he had jotted down, his fellow songwriters complained: "Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would NOT be to buy them a Coke. I'd buy everyone a home first and share with them in peace and love"
Backer said, "Okay, that sounds good. Let's write that.…” And so was born “the world’s most famous ad”:
I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love,
Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.
I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,
I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.
[Repeat the last two lines, and in the background:]
It’s the real thing … Coke is what the world wants today.
The ad first aired on radio stations on Feb. 12, 1971. Immediately it became so popular that DJs began receiving requests to play the commercial as if it were a song. And the Hillside Singers original recording version actually peaked at number 13 on Billboard. Backer then had the New Seekers record a slightly different version of the song, titled “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”, which topped out at number 7.
The Coke ad greatly exceeded its $100,000 budget – eventually costing $250,000 to create, which made it the world’s most expensive commercial ever produced to that point. They hired five hundred people from Rome to stand on the hilltop in Manziana, Italy to lip-sync the lyrics for the aerial shot.
You may ask: “OK – I get that for many of you of a certain age it brings back pleasant memories of your youth. That’s all interesting, but what about the Koch connection?”
Well, we can now all enjoy that Coke/Koch earworm all over again – and maybe even more so with its reincarnation as the Koch parody that I saw not so long ago! It’s hard for me to choose which lyrics I like better – but I think I’ll go with the new Koch parody version:
I’d like to buy the Kochs a world – So they’d leave ours alone
Then go back to Park Avenue – And crawl beneath their stone
I’d like to teach the Kochs about – A true democracy
Where working class kicks corporate ass – From sea to shining sea
They’re the Evil Thing
I’d like to give the Kochs the bird – From my whole family
Just keep your phony culture war – And keep your f*cking tea
They’re the Evil Thing – Make them go away
EPILOGUE:
To honor Mr. Backer’s memory, let’s close by revisiting some of his and his team’s most memorable jingles and slogans:
“Things go better with Coke”
“Coke – it’s the real thing”
Miller Lite “Everything you ever wanted in a beer… and less”
Campbell’s brand “Soup is good food”
… And while “Little girls have pretty curls, but I like Oreos”
I’m getting ready to leave for my MRI. I have a problem. When I woke up this morning, without the slightest provocation from me, my computer said "Welcome to Windows 10."
AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:27 (average 5:13). Ti do it, click here. How did you do?
While there is still a slight mathematical possibility that Bernie could go to Philly with a majority of pledged delegates, he would have to win almost all the ones left, and and there is no reason to even suspect that the ongoing pattern of virtual ties will not continue.
Senator Bernie Sanders prevailed over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in the Oregon primary, according to The Associated Press, while Mrs. Clinton claimed victory in a tight race in Kentucky, the day’s other contest.
Mrs. Clinton raced around Kentucky in the two days before the primary, hoping to fend off Mr. Sanders in a state that she won easily in 2008. In unofficial results late Tuesday night, Mrs. Clinton edged Mr. Sanders by about 1,900 votes, or less than half a percentage point, with all counties reporting. The Associated Press had not declared a winner by midnight.
The close result meant that she and Mr. Sanders would effectively split the state’s delegates. Nonetheless, winning Kentucky would give her a symbolic triumph that could blunt the effect of her loss in Oregon as she turns her attention to Donald J. Trump, her likely general election opponent.
With a lead in delegates that is almost impossible for Mr. Sanders to overcome, Mrs. Clinton is moving closer each week to claiming the Democratic nomination…
Now, Bernie said that he would not be put in the position of Ralph Nader, who made eight years of Crawford Caligula possible. And Bernie said that nothing is more important that keeping a Republican out of the White House. But some people are saying things like, "But how can I vote Blue if the Democratic nominee is Hillary Clinton?" Here's what to do. First, assuming Rump Dump is the Republican nominee (if not, it will be someone equally evil),.you can know with certainty that the next President will be either Rump Dump or Hillary Clinton. Next, make a list of all the positions and policies Rump Dump has in common with Bernie. If you write it on toilet paper, you'll get dirty fingers. Then make a list of all the positions and policies Hillary has in common with Bernie. The better President of the only two possible winning choices will be the one with the most positions and policies in common with Bernie. Now, that leaves you with two choices. You can vote for that candidate for the good of the country, and if you have to hold your nose, so be it! Or you can hold your nose high, maintain your ideological purity, and help throw the rest of us to the wolves. If that seems harsh, know that I love you all. It would be an extreme disservice, if I did not share the truth, as I understand it.
Yesterday was a zoo. I planned my fast so I would hit the ten hour mark when I arrived at 9:00 AM. By the time they got the doctor’s order straight, and I got done, my blood sugar was down to 60, and I was feeling light headed. Fortunately I had the foresight to pack a PB&J to as as soon as I was done. T took the regular bus both ways, because the weather was nice. On the way home, I stopped at my bank’s ATM in the mall near where I live. Both machines were Reduplicated, so I had to power chair to the branch a quarter mile away. It was my longest trip in the chair do date, but without money to pay Julie, I’d soon start to stink as bad as a Republican budget. Today Julie came a bit late, because, she lost her phone. I’m fluffed and buffed. Safeway is delivering groceries, between now and 2:00, and I’ll need to put them away. Tomorrow I have to go for an MRI on my hand, and Friday I have PT, so I may have nothing more that a Personal Update each day. Later: Groceries’R’Stowed. I’R’Pooped!!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:23 (average 5:20). To do it. click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: President Obama handed the Republican Party a gift for the general election by making a series of offensive pro-knowledge remarks at Rutgers University over the weekend, a leading Republican official said on Monday.
According to Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, the President’s inflammatory comments, in which he offered full-throated praise for such controversial fields of knowledge as math and science, are sure to come back to haunt the Democrats in November.
“If President Obama was trying to alienate millions of Americans in one speech, mission accomplished,” Priebus told Fox News. “When I watched him speak, I said to myself, ‘Well, Christmas came early this year.’ ”
While many Republicans expected Obama to walk back his ill-advised praise of knowledge, facts, and evidence, the White House as of Monday morning had refused to do so.
Dang Andy! Barack had better be careful!! They might Republicate on him!!
From Daily Kos: One of the most talented and outspoken young actors in Hollywood today, Jennifer Lawrence, did not hold back when talking about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on The Graham Norton Show this past week. When asked if she had met “the Trump,” Lawrence said no, but the 25-year-old Oscar-winner admitted to trying to get up close and personal with Trump at a concert.
There’s a gal who knows how to deal with Rump Dump!
From PRWatch: Recent articles in the national media, such as yesterday’s piece in the National Review, suggest that Charles and David Koch are less interested and less involved in national politics in the 2016 election cycle than in previous years.
This latest PR effort comes despite the fact that $400 million of the $889 pledge by the Kochs through their "Freedom Partners" network has already been invested in the outcome of the 2016 elections, with more money to be spent.
A close examination of recent campaign finance disclosures and other data reveals that Team Koch has already identified some of their candidates for 2016 and in many cases has already started spending big on behalf of candidates in races for the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, state Governorships and state Attorney General races–as the presidential tickets remain unsettled and controversial.
Click through for a list of dozens of certified Koch suckers.
