Was that the guy who kept wanting to give people a "Hypothetical"?

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Al Franken is going to run for Senate: [link]

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How I felt about Douglas Adams too.

Gosh, me too. Death doesn't generally bother me...but I choked up when I heard about him.

And thanks Corwood. That column choked me up all over again. Bless them both.

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A couple of things Ivins wrote about the Ann Richards/Clayton Williams race:

Interestingly enough, one of Williams's ads showed Ann Richards at the political highlight of her career, making the keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 1988, specifically, the famous line on President Bush: "Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth." The ad ran in August, at the start of the Persian Gulf crisis, when patriotism was at flood tide and criticizing the president was tantamount to treason. But I was astonished by how many people objected to that line and held it against Richards throughout the campaign. The line itself is already classic and will be used in every anthology of political humor published hereafter. Yet a surprising number of men are alamred by the thought of a witty woman. They think of women's wit as sarcastic, cutting, "ball-busting": it was one of the unstated themes of the campaign and one reason why Ann Richards didn't say a single funny thing during the whole show. Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist once asked a group of women at a univeristy why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She tehn asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.

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One of his most brilliant ad series would give some simple-minded, tough-talk answer to a complex problem and then close with, "And if they tell you it can't be done, you tell them they haven't met Clayton Williams yet." If they'd just shut him up in a box for the duration of the campain, he'd be governor today.

In late March, he invited the press corp out to his ranch for roundup. They got bad weather. Sitting around the campfire with three male reporters, Williams opined, "Bad weather's like rape: as long as it's inevitable, you might as well just lie back and enjoy it." Bubba, the shorthand we use to denore the average, stereotypical Texan, has been using that line for years. But it was Williams's fate in the campaign to keep unerringly finding that fault line between the way things have always been in Texas and the way things are getting to be. Richards shrewdly picked up on the difference with her endlessly reiterated slogan about "the New Texas." Claytie Williams is Old Texas to the bone.

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They've arrested someone in connection with the Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing fiasco: [link]

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On the day he died, I saw it in the Metro section-long column on the front. I immediately assumed it was a different Douglas Adams. Then ran crying to Mr. Jane, and that night we all did shots on the rooftop of the bar, under the stars and read from The Book of Adams.

Tonight I plan on whiskey, the Daily Show and "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?"

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I recall both of those campaigns, and I was a kid. And nearly coming to blows with my best friend's jackass cousin from Texas in their den over Clayton Williams, that fucking jackass. Scared the shit out of that boy, I'm happy to say.

Growing up next to Texas, with all the local stations being from Texas? Pretty close to being there. Which I'm glad of now, for knowing of AR and MI.

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They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.

...which makes us laugh, harder.

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I'm going to miss Molly. She and Keith Olbermann are Queen and King Liberal Snarkmasters in my mind.

I'm bummed for more shallow reasons now--the swimsuit I ordered in the hopes of being able to use it starting this weekend at the lap pool arrived tonight, and has proved to be cut for a woman of more traditional weight issues than mine (IOW, it's designed for a woman with hips and tits, not an apple-shaped one like me). Now I have to mail it back tomorrow and look elsewhere for another swimsuit. My sister found a few at Junonia, so I'm going to take a look over there on payday this Friday.

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This is funny:

Out of a million favorite Molly stories: her separation from The Grey Lady is rumored to have taken place after she referred to a chicken cleaning competition as a "gang pluck"

[link]

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