Al Franken Still Afraid to Get High and Look in the Mirror
Al Franken was pretty funny back in the day — his Stuart Smalley character always kept you hoping for the day when he’d get high before talking to himself in the mirror and realize that he was never good enough and everybody hated him. Since leaving Saturday Night Live, Franken has been the downer Smalley never brought himself to be, pointing out as a Minnesota senator things like America’s busted health care system, stagnant minimum wages and arguing that oil companies receive too many subsidies. Last week, Franken continued to be the congressional bummer in the room, calling the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision one of the worst decisions in its history, presumably because it defined corporate and union campaign donations as free speech instead of putting them one step below criminal bribery like they really are. The Senate last week voted to debate an amendment that could overturn the decision but only if a two-thirds majority of Fortune 500 companies say it’s OK.
Where Do Cincinnati’s Rich People Live? Oh Here…
Cincinnati has a lot of rich people and a lot of nice stuff that rich people like to use. But even those of us who sometimes rub elbows with local privileged people — typically on our way to the half-priced seats at the Aronoff Center with two glasses of wine and a couple cookies in-hand — know little about where all these people live and even less about what they like to do when they’re home alone (not that we’re here to judge, smh). Last week, Business Insider magazine shed some light on the first question, releasing a map of every state’s richest neighborhood in which at least 1,000 people live, because 999 wealthy people living in one area is really just a commune where everyone acts and thinks the same while wearing similar expensive clothes instead of plain T-shirts. Turns out, Ohio’s highest-income neighborhood is a place called Coldstream, which according to Wikipedia — everyone’s favorite website for learning unimportant information like first-name origins and election results — is a place in southern Anderson Township where just under 1,200 (pretty rich) people live. For those wondering why they’ve never heard of Coldstream or accidentally driven through it during a Google map route to find an East Side Arby’s, it’s because the neighborhood is actually a secret country club where Indian Hill families send their grandparents to live in exile down by the river.
Newly Discovered Dinosaur Reportedly Huge, Terrifying
The Internet these days is filled with clickbait and videos so funny you have to click on clickbait in case they’re real (did you see the one of the ferrets freaking out in a box of packing peanuts? Lolz if ya clicked). Even though finding/understanding a solid news story is becoming ever more difficult thanks to such distractions, along with headlines asking questions reporters were paid to find the answers to (“Did streetcar miss chance for federal funding?” I don’t know… WHY DON’T YOU FUCKIN TELL ME?!?), National Geographic came through this week with a story that got straight to the point: “Giant Spinosaurus Was Bigger Than T. Rex — And First Dinosaur Known to Swim.” This double whammy of intrigue — bigger than T. Rex; floating around like an epically terrifying crocodile — followed with the evolutionary details of the biggest meat-eating dinosaur ever, one that adapted to life in water equipped with a giant spikey sail on its back (good thinking, God!). The fossil bones were found in sandstone beds in the Moroccan Sahara and included a skull, claws, crocodilian snout and dense bones that aided buoyancy while allowing Spinosaurus to kick the shit out of any sea creatures with which he was not yet familiar.
Facebook Unveils [Satire] Tag, Comedy Dies a Little
It’s no secret that a lot of people on Facebook are real dumb, many of them demonstrating on a regular basis America’s historically divisive politics and decades-long school-funding failures. And for every person using improper grammar while espousing the virtues of having an official national language (see also: “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” and “Take my gun and I’ll beat your ass…” <—- OK that one is pretty legit), there’s some idiot sharing a fake news story that is actually making fun of the very person using it to support their own misguided beliefs. Facebook recently spent some time making the Internet a safer place for such imbeciles, testing out a new [Satire] tag on stories and pretty much taking away the pleasure of understanding jokes without being told to lighten the fuck up and think about what is going on around you once in a while.
Grimes: McConnell Ain’t Even Got a Gun
It’s probably pretty tough being a woman in Kentucky (based on zero scientific or sociological data in a half-serious article written by a man). Just seems like a place where a lot of people are intolerant, many still acting and dressing like characters in the Dukes of Hazzard. (BTW: Thanks for smashing every ’69 Dodge Charger ever made, idiots.) If anyone knows what it’s really like to be a woman growing up in Kentucky … well, it’s probably not actually Alison Lundergan Grimes, the daughter of a former Kentucky Democratic chairman and state representative and the current Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. But Grimes’ privileged upbringing didn’t stop her from going all country on Mitch McConnell in a new TV ad showing her shooting a clay pigeon with a rifle and slamming him for apparently holding his gun wrong during an earlier moment in time. The TV spot — which, to her credit as a Kentuckian states that she is nothing like Obama and doesn’t want to subject coal workers to the tyranny of a doctor’s office — is set to run in some parts of Ohio leading up to the election before Grimes levies a new collection of accusations Nov. 4 about how McConnell can’t even drive a stick shift.
CONTACT DANNY CROSS: dcross@citybeat.com
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2014.
