Bastet

People's delusions of future wealth are strong. Last night I re-watched the West Wing episode where Republicans pass a bill to repeal the estate tax, and the staff are discussing whether Bartlet should veto it. The rule is you never stand against a tax cut when you're running for election/re-election, but Toby wonders what kind of voter pushback there's really going to be on vetoing a tax cut that benefits only 4500 families. Bartlet says, "It doesn't matter if most voters don't benefit. They all believe that someday they will. That's the problem with the American dream, it makes everyone concerned for the day they're gonna be rich."

Archive game for me, as I'll be watching Top Chef tonight. Thankfully, not being able to see the pictures wasn't an issue. I almost ran the entire first round, getting everything but Pope Francis and Kings. I kicked ass in DJ, too; I ran mallet and movies and got all but Leoncavallo in 'stache (seeing the picture wouldn't have helped), all but Thomas Wolfe in lit, all but South Sudan in anthems, and all but Andromeda in A. And FJ was an instaguess, so I had a great game all around.

I didn't recognize any of them by name or face, but it turns out I've eaten at one of their restaurants -- Katianna Hong's restaurant, Yangban, is a no frills Korean soup joint in L.A. It's good.

I know, I said I enjoyed Edwin and Matty's imaginings.

I had stopped watching long before then (Kristina and Adam's horrible parenting and the monster that is Max who resulted from it being a big reason), but when I read about the school, my first thought was to wonder how many students they treated unfairly in favor of Max -- expelling a kid who was the victim of Max's assault is completely on brand for them. I still wouldn't have kept watching, as everyone except Jasmine and Crosby (who had realistic flaws and mistakes) were failures at parenting, and the writers all came down with a terminal case of sexism during the hiatus after the first season, but Max was hands-down the most unbearable thing about the show, yet Kristina and Adam were, week after week, presented as the good parents the screw-up siblings aspired to be.

Thinking more about it, they could have been involved then, and it not been an affair, since the Wellbrexa case was how Olympia and Julian started dating. So if Julian and Shae fooled around during that case, it could have been before he had any commitment to Olympia.

This episode really tested my ability to not get distracted and rage "That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works!" at the case, but I loved the stuff between Matty and Bitsy. I was excited to see Julie Hagerty's name in the credits last week, as I hadn't seen her in eons, but the little we got then couldn't have prepared me for how good the sister stuff was going to be in this episode. She starts out as just this ditzy fly in the ointment, but then we get a ton of backstory. Edwin is an idiot for not locking the office like Matty told him to, but I'm glad he didn't. I also enjoyed Edwin and then Matty's imaginings of who did what with the document, especially Matty not wanting to believe Evil Olympia, and EO casually telling her she and Julian probably just switched key cards, it happens all the time and, after all, nobody has noticed she's been using Julian's for days. I would think it's going to turn out Shae, not Olympia, was using his card, but they weren't having an affair 14 years ago, so how would she have wound up with it? Plus, it's supposed to be that she was still doing marketing for Wellbrexa then, it's right before Junior poached her, isn't it?

Three great charities, so even though I was rooting for Fortune coming in based on being such a fan of her stand-up, I'd have been happy for any of them to win. Mina was my second choice; while I, upon looking him up, recognized Omar as the sheriff in the recent Halloween trilogy and from several earlier roles, but didn't know her as I'd drifted away from sports media long ago, I cheered for Mina as a woman working in sports media (and "a man who never talks" was hilarious). She played a great game. I cannot believe, even in a celebrity game, the Grand Canyon clue was a TS. Same with Champs-Élysées. None of them knowing FJ was another one.

I resented Donna being shoved down my throat, and the character often bugged me - partly due to the actor's facial expressions - but I'm still curious to hear her recollections, and appreciate the honesty in this entry upon watching the pilot:

Good lord, they ask about Trump a lot; this is supposed to be my nightly escape. I missed three in fiction and two in movies, but ran the rest of the first round. I expected to blow the myth category as per usual, but got all but Anansi. TV turned out to be my bad category; I missed three. But I still did very well for DJ; I got all but Young Italy in revolutionaries and ran the others. FJ was an instaguess, and I never came up with another one, so I was pretty confident that was it.

Like we need a new character for three of the six final episodes.

I read independent media pretty much exclusively, so this story is a daily headline, but I just did a quick search and see it's being covered by the NYTimes, CBS News, USA Today, CNN, Forbes, etc., so, yes, MSM is also covering it. I picked CBS News at random to see how they're covering it, and it's the typical mealy-mouthed "X says this, but Y says this" stenography.

Probably this article from Associated Press: Trump loves the Gilded Age and its tariffs. It was a great time for the rich but not for the many There's also a lot of information in the article about the history Trump is too dumb to understand (what McKinley actually did and said, how commerce was different back then, etc.)

No, but I did somehow manage to break a toe by walking into the corner base of my coffee table. Hit it so hard that toenail split in the middle. You'd think I kicked it with all my might, but, no, I was walking.

The way Andy rolls his eyes when Julio says yeah, he does know him, indicates he had a legitimate reason for asking, that he wasn't making the stupid assumption all brown guys in L.A. know each other. I've just always been curious what that reason is.

It will never fail to infuriate me that Bartlet didn't tell C.J. himself about the MS. Outside of the First Couple, it's her actions that will be the most scrutinized. She briefs the press twice a year about his semi-annual physicals, and when he does things like ride his bicycle into a tree. Every news agency in the world promptly assigned an intern to put together a package of every time she spoke on camera about the president's health. That coward has Leo tell her -- second to last among senior staff to be told (with Sam only being last because they didn't want to distract him while he was writing a speech). There are so many big events and speeches during the MS reveal arc, but one of my favorite moments is after C.J. tosses her glasses on the desk in frustration with Sam -- when someone hands her a note, Toby picks up the glasses and hands them to her so she can read it.

I have no idea why Andy thinks Julio might know him (maybe he recognizes Manny's address - since TV cops know immediately where every single address in their city is - as being in Julio's neighborhood), but Julio's street accent and walk as he answers him is absolutely hilarious.

I wouldn't look to the British royal family for guidance on any life choices and don't take exception to people finding out the biological sex of their fetus (I will, however, never in my life attend a reveal party [thankfully, I do not have among my current associations anyone who'd throw such a party]), but if they're using that as a basis to go out and buy pink or blue, or doll or football, they're perpetuating tired bullshit before the baby even comes into existence, and the likelihood of them bombarding the kid with unexamined sexist stereotyping during her/their/his formative years is a potential problem.

I think we heard about the Reddit post more than once, but it's referenced in the episode with the flashbacks to Olympia and Julian's first crack at the contaminated baby formula case, which is also where we see the flashback of Matty bumping into Olivia. Episode six, "Sixteen Steps".

Great game by James and Emily in DJ; I was rooting for her over him, though, as I have a completely irrational hatred of bow ties with anything other than a tuxedo. It always bugs me in categories like 3-named-people that all three names aren't required. The abs TS surprised me. I was terrible in chill, only coming up with "Riptide" (I almost got Sublime, but couldn't get it from brain to mouth fast enough), but if I could have swapped that out I'd have had a fantastic first round; I got all but Keith Haring in stamps and ran the rest. Same with DJ -- books was my disaster category, in which I only got Rob Roy, but I ran everything else. FJ was close to an instaguess, and I figured it had to be correct.

It's a tough task to make me like a CJ-less episode, but, boy, did they pull it off with "17 People". I FF through Ainsley's bullshit and I don't care about Josh and Donna, but Toby's righteous fury in the face of Bartlet's flippant arrogance and Leo's delusional downplaying is riveting. All these years later, and I cannot look away for a second. "The National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State didn't know who they were taking their orders from. I wasn't in the Situation Room that night, but I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that it was Leo. Who no one elected! For 90 minutes that night there was a coup d'état in this country." Ah, back when we could all agree coups were bad. And then Richard Schiff's face when Toby meets with the speechwriters and has act as if all is normal is the perfect ending.

Oh, yeah, I looked her up when I looked up the other contestant whose name didn't ring any bells, so I know what she does, but, unlike with him, I've never watched anything she's on (I quit watching sports media quite some time ago).

I love Fortune Feimster. The others I don't recognize by name, but, looking up Dorsey, I've seen him in several things. (Kimes, I got nothin'.)

Long ago, I asked my dad what he'd do if a boyfriend came to him and asked if he could propose to me, and my dad said once he stopped laughing, he'd tell the guy it had been nice knowing him, because once I found out about this, there would be no more relationship, never mind marriage. 100% accurate.