It’s nearly October and what better way to celebrate the start of the holiday season than be sharing a picture of Fredric Wertham, the therapist who argued that horror and suspense-themed comic books were responsible for all the troubles of the world, reading the latest issue of Shock?
I just saw that today is the 83rd anniversary of the first televised football game. In 1939, NBC televised the Waynesburg vs. Fordham game. Fordham won 34-7. It is estimated that, along with 9,000 people in the stands, 1,000 people watched the game on a television set.
Needless to say, times have changed.
Whenever I’m feeling down about the state of American politics and the upcoming midterms, I go over to the Internet Archive and I use the old President Elect game to simulate the election 1984, replacing Walter Mondale with Joe Biden.
(Little known fact: Biden set up an exploratory committee to run for President in 1984 because Biden has been around forever.)
Watching Reagan crush Biden cheers me up every time. In the real world, Mondale at least managed to carry Minnesota and D.C. In the simulation, Biden has yet to even manage to win Delaware or get more than 29% of the popular vote.
It’s nice to see.
I don’t know if this version would have gotten a sequel.
The first televised presidential debate was held 62 years ago today, between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. Famously, people who listened to the debate on the radio thought that Nixon won while those who watched it on television felt that Kennedy was the clear winner.
Who can forget this moment?
Liz Cheney says she will leave the Republican Party if Trump is the nominee in 2024
Comments like this, from Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, almost make me wonder if they’re secretly trying to convince the Republicans to go ahead and nominate Trump in 2024. For all the adulation that Liz and Adam get in the press, most Republicans would be happy to see them admit that they’re no longer members of the party.
(And I suspect most grassroots Democrats would rather vote Green a thousand times before accepting Liz Cheney as a member of their team, let alone a potential leader.)
There are a lot of ways to convince voters to move on from nominating Trump. His grip on the Republican Party has diminished, though many outside of the party are loathe to admit it. If Democrats actually do well during the midterms as a result of a bunch of bad Trump-endorsed candidates, that will pretty much be the end of his power. People like to win.
But people like Cheney and Kinzinger claiming to be Republicans while mouthing Democratic talking points in an attempt to keep their careers relevant are a good example of the type of thing that led to a lot of Republican primary voters supporting Trump in the first place. If you don’t want to see a second Trump turn, stop promoting Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney as the alternatives.
A little Star Wars news:
James Earl Jones Has Retired from Voicing Darth Vader, Signed Over Rights to Recreate His Voice
This hit me a lot harder than I was expecting it would. Star Wars in general and Darth Vader in specific were a huge part of my childhood and much of that had to do with Jones’s voice. I think that anyone of a certain age can remember trying to imitate the way that Vader spoke.
(Originally, George Lucas pictured Orson Welles as the voice of Vader. It’s hard to imagine. Even with his great voice, I think Welles would not have been as intimidating or memorable as Jones.)
James Earl Jones is 91 and has a long history of great performances. If anyone’s earned the right to retire and take it easy, it’s him. I hope he enjoy his retirement and I hope he knows how much he sparked the imagination of an entire generation.
In memory of Jim Henson, who would have been 86 on Saturday.
Matthew McConaughey only said he was thinking of running for President yesterday and he’s already polling at 2%!
Of all the recent news that I’ve read, this is the least surprising. It was obvious, when he was flirting with running for governor, that McConaughey was enjoying both the adulation and people asking him for his opinions. Plus, the election of Donald Trump has caused a lot of people to look in the mirror and ask, “If he can ride his fame into the White House, why not me?” Presidential campaigns aren’t just for governors and senators anymore.
McConaughey’s not even the first celebrity to talk about running on 2024. Howard Stern declared his candidacy, though I’m not sure if he’s said anything about it recently. Kanye is still talking about running again. Dwayne Johnson obviously wants to run but I think he might be too savvy to risk his box office potential by becoming too associated with one issue or another. Jesse Ventura has been talking about running for President since 2000. (In Ventura’s defense, he actually has served as governor.) If the Constitution had been amended to allow him to run, there’s little doubt Arnold Schwarzenegger would have thrown his hat in the ring for 2008.
If McConaughey runs, I wish him the best of luck but I’m not looking forward to the inevitable rehashing of the time he got arrested for naked bongo playing. Hopefully, someone will cast McConaughey as a president in a movie and it’ll satisfy his curiosity.
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