How ANY woman could vote for Mr. "Grab 'Em By the Pussy" is totally beyond me.

But then again, listening to the weasel-ass excuses offered by the female Alabama governor who claims she believes the women accusing Roy Moore of being a sexual predator (especially predator of young teenage girls), and then declaring she's gonna vote for him anyway, I guess that's where we are now.

Machiavelli is alive and well...

And a totally nerdy guy, too. Shit - sure didn't see that one coming.

Good grief...

Hurts even to think about it.

Like it!!!

This is EXCELLENT! Mighty glad they're on our side!

Aside from the other accurate observations here, I'm sorry, but - it's just ODD.

Was she trying to put a modern twist on some greater Thanksgiving theme? Okay with the little pumpkins (I believe they're actually gourds) and pine cones. I LOVE pine cones! Nearly obsessed. I must have worked on eleventy-bazillion craft projects with pine cones by now. But - driftwood and a jumbo clam shell? Is this for some upcoming Holiday-at-Mar-a-Lago thing? These are visual mixed metaphors that just don't mix well. Unless the theme is "A South Sea Island Thanksgiving!" in which they've stuffed the turkey with pineapple and other tropical fruit, and they're serving the big family meal on banana leaves or something.

I'd be more tempted to fill that clam shell with a whole lot of shiny plain round mini ornaments, in different colors. No texture. It is a nice shell (says one who enjoys collecting them). The driftwood makes it look trashy, though. But the big shell thing is a misinterpretation. Doesn't fit. If the big white shell is the main design element, then everything else needs to be holiday-colored. How 'bout gold, red, and green?

Ivanka's taste and style choices are often questionable. For example, the tight, sexy, asymmetrical dress she wore to Daddy's State of the Union speech was celebrity cocktail-party stuff. NOT for an event of this kind. This table theme really misses the mark.

Welcome to DU, deancr!

I copied that image and the file name is "Have no idea how to tolerate another cutesy tweet by Ivanka Trump?"

Indeed. It IS different, in a LOT of ways.

The nature and content of his response is so telling. He DID INDEED make the point that - if it bothered her, that was enough. Didn't matter what he thought. It was HER opinion that counted. That mentality should tell the whole story. You take THE OTHER PERSON'S VIEWPOINT into consideration. It's being considerate. You try to view something through THEIR lens. Walk around in THEIR shoes.

Isn't that a fundamental tenet of the most basic, entry-level, garden-variety morality? "Do unto others..." and all that? Isn't that THE guideline? The "Golden Rule," the foundational truth spelled out in Matthew 25: 35-45 - "whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Me" and all that? Taking the other person into account.

So if somebody makes that kind of observation in, I take that seriously, and I regard it as a "tell." If that's how he governs his morality, and if that's what motivates his contrition, then I totally accept. Particularly when others are coming forward now to attest to Franken's sincerity, character, and conscience. His track record over years speaks loudly for him, and hardly in a bad way. Context dontchaknow.

Everybody makes mistakes. None of us is perfect. There's a rather freewheeling atmosphere to a USO tour, particularly when it's at an end. Just imagine. You've been shlepping around in this really crazy traveling minstrel show to some really crazy places some of whose names you've never heard before, thrown together in the small troupe of people you never knew before, all of you far from home, amid ridiculous scheduling, jet lag, time zones, insane work hours, catch-as-catch-can meals (if you're lucky to get there before they run out), heavy baggage to lug around and keep track of, and in many cases no sleep, while you haven't been eating your vegetables and your skin starts breaking out and you've had no time for a bath - a quick few minutes with a bar of soap and MAYBE a washcloth might be the best you can do. Toward the end, especially, you get a little slap-happy. Emotions are all askew, the littlest things are ridiculously funny or ridiculously horrid, depending on the moment and the company, and everybody's crazy. And the camaraderie, wild behavior, and recklessness that can develop, very quickly, in that intense little crucible, can really be powerful, and easily drive one to do goofy things.

I remember hearing from audio and video crew people who went on the road covering the presidential campaign in 1980. They were gone for weeks. running from gig to press bus to tarmac to find-a-seat in the transport plane, almost literally thrown together. Toward the end, nobody knows what time it is, where they just were, where they were a week ago, or anything. One of the guys told me that the "Zoo Plane" (that's what they called the jet with all the newspeople on it - that accompanied the Reagan campaign plane from stop to stop) was NUTS. Loopy as hell. On their last takeoff from their last campaign stop before heading home to Southern California, NOBODY was seated or strapped in. They ALL were up, on their feet, yelling their brains out, whooping and screaming with laughter. Buncha wild 'n' crazy people. Katy Tur's book about life on the campaign trail is a MOST illuminating read.

I myself have been out in the field away from home for days, covering extended stories. It's like riding INSIDE a kaleidoscope. There's always at least one wise-ass in the group, and when there's more than one, they compete - to the death! There's always at least one dirty jokester. There are pranks. You get punchy and goofy. And you fall into anything that might break the hurry-up-and-wait boredom and the tension and the loneliness and the mood swings and the sense of being totally disconnected from everything, in your own little microcosm with the other weary travelers schlepping along on the same journey with you.

I also have been on tour, when my kid got a gig with a studio-backed youth band, and we were sent off to performances at a slew of schools throughout the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Even just two weeks of that left you slap-happy. "Where are we?" "Uh - when are we supposed to be there?" "What/where/when are we playing?" "What school is this?" "Uh - who-am-I-where-is-my-car?" And there were fights, tears, hissy fits, bouts of homesickness, hundreds of miles of crabby and moody, etc. At one point, we headed out at the crack of dawn for bookings in the next state, and forgot the studio teacher who was also on the tour because the kids were still school-age! She overslept, and got left behind, and had to find her own way to the next stop! And THIS tour was absolutely across-the-board G-rated. One parent per band-kid was present. So everything remained rather militantly on the up-n-up.

Later, when my son started touring with his own band, man, there were pranks! Didn't even require female involvement! Headliner to new opening band, in Bakersfield CA on the last night of the tour, for example. MY boys were invited into the headliners' tour bus to hang out before the show started, and they were over-the-moon about that, since this kind of honor, from these headliners, was rare. Meanwhile, unbeknownst, the roadies for the headliners pranked the stage. Baby powder on the drum heads. Vicks Vap-o-rub on the microphones and Vaseline on the mic stands. Filled water bottles and soda cans set up, ready to be sprayed all over everywhere. A box of Saran Wrap ready to attack the bass player and mummy-wrap him from the waist up INCLUDING his bass (which they did WHILE my boys were onstage!). My boys were even higher over-the-moon - THRILLED, even! - at having been pranked like that. They felt like they were initiated into some sort of exclusive fraternity! And whenever they were out on the road somewhere and had a Halloween show scheduled - miles and miles of 70mph craziness. There was one headliner band they toured with, whose members specialized in gross pranks. The more disgusting the better. Fortunately, they preyed upon each other and it didn't extend outside the confines of their own tour bus. None of the other bands on the bill were targeted. And no women were ever around for that kind of thing. That headliner band turned out to be rather kind and generous to my boys, ironically enough. But man, the stories...

A friend, indeed.

So often I find myself wondering why our furry friends aren't allowed to live longer. They DO bring us such love and joy.

Aw damn.

So sorry to hear this. Another good DUer gone. Much love and solace to his family.

Thanks for letting us know, greataunt.

What the website LARadio.com published yesterday, 11/17 re: Franken's KABC-AM accuser. And photo.

KABC Morning co-Host Says Al Franken Groped Her

(November 17, 2017) Leeann Tweeden, KABC morning co-anchor with Doug McIntyre, posted on the KABC website that Senator and former KTLK (1150AM) Talk show host Al Franken kissed and groped her without her consent.

"Franken had written some skits for the show and brought props and costumes to go along with them,” Leeann wrote. “Like many USO shows before and since, the skits were full of sexual innuendo geared toward a young, male audience. As a tv host and sports broadcaster, as well as a model familiar to the audience from the covers of FHM, Maxim and Playboy, I was only expecting to emcee and introduce the acts, but Franken said he had written a part for me that he thought would be funny, and I agreed to play along.

"When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd. Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, “We need to rehearse the kiss.” I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, “Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.”

"He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable. He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth. I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time. I walked away.

- snip -

Franken, who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, almost immediately released an apology to the Tweeden. After initially apologizing without fully acknowledging all of her accusations, he then released another lengthier, more contrite statement that contested nothing.

http://www.laradio.com

And here's the photo that the website owner put with this:

[img][/img]

I'm guessing this must be a press photo of hers. I don't know anybody at KABC-AM anymore. It's literally been decades (late '70s, so that means FOUR decades) since I worked across the hall at the FM sister station, KLOS. She's one of many who spent some of her early career as a Playboy bunny, and doesn't seem to mind exploiting her former persona if it serves some purpose. Gloria Steinem did some time in that capacity when she was younger, too.

The owner and manager of LARadio.com is a local broadcast veteran who's now retired. He's white, and in his 70s, and he remains very wired in. He's been chronicling the L.A./SoCal radio scene for YEARS, the ups 'n' downs, hirings and firings, ratings, mergers, gossip, scandals, weddings/births/award banquets/passings, and "where are they now" stuff. Everybody I know in L.A. radio subscribes, even slews of retirees like me who check in with this column every morning to stay connected. It's widely considered must-read stuff.