How California makes its own citizens:
It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver’s licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word “alien” from California’s labor code.
Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship.
Oh, okay, Nate Silver has some numbers and says that Trump is not going to get the nomination just because he’s ahead in the polls, but I think we WANT him to get the nomination? Or maybe we don’t, bc people in this country are LOONS, I’m not an expert:
Twelve years ago, in August 2003, Joe Lieberman led in most polls of the Democratic primary. Eight years ago, in August 2007, Rudy Giuliani maintained a clear lead in polls of Republicans, while Hillary Clinton led in polls of the Democratic nomination contest. Four years ago, in August 2011, Mitt Romney began with the lead in polls of Republican voters, but he would be surpassed by the end of the month by Rick Perry, the first of four Republican rivals who would at some point overtake Romney in national polling averages.
Lieberman, Clinton, Giuliani and Perry, as you’ve probably gathered, are not the faces atop Mount Rushmore. Only Clinton came close to winning the nomination.
This Mother Jones investigation of America’s ten worst prisons is a few years old, but new to me, and absolutely horrifying.
Oh, man, let’s go lighter for a bit! I’m always down to talk about pink wine (I am pro.)
First stop: the 1980s. The culprit: white zin.
Poor white zinfandel. It sat in its box in your childhood fridge, completely unaware that it would be to blame for Americans’ repugnance towards dry rosé wine (as compared to the popular, celebratory rosé champagne, which we will ignore for this discussion, unless you want to pour us some). Grant Reynolds, the wine director at Charlie Bird, called white zin the “O.G. rosé in America.” The sweet, often blended-beyond-belief wine is now the embarrassing cousin we don’t want to admit was the very thing that got us into drinking wine in the first place. “Pink meant unsophisticated and sweet,” said Charles Bieler, the winemaker behind one of the country’s most popular rosés, Charles and Charles. “That’s a profile of white zin, which people like to piss on today—but let’s be honest—it was a gateway wine for so many Americans.”
Why we need to get the Fantastic Four right:
But boy, it would be nice to have a good Reed Richards parable right now. On the day the abysmal reviews of Fantastic Four first appeared, Rolling Stone ran an article called ” The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here,” and as I stared at it on my laptop screen, my chest contracting with despair and anxiety, I couldn’t help but wish that we, as a moviegoing culture, would bother to dream of being Reed Richards, not Iron Man or Captain America or Batman. Why must our big-screen crusaders wait for terrorists and mental cases to headbutt and punch? Is that truly all our superhero movies are capable of? With all of their intelligence and resources, what are Batman or the Avengers doing when their city or world isn’t being threatened? Is it too much to hope for a story where the goal isn’t to merely defend normality but to, as Reed scrawls on his laboratory wall* in Hickman’s first FF story, “solve everything”?
A Toronto Blue Jays guide for bandwagoners (by Friend of The Toast Stacey May Fowles):
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat (sorry): there is absolutely nothing wrong with jumping on a sports fandom bandwagon and anyone who says otherwise hates joy.
The kind of people who look at new fans with disdain are nothing more than grown-up versions of the elementary schoolboys who wouldn’t let you into their cool-kid clubhouse. Gatekeeping is never a good look, and what defines a “real fan” could possibly be one of the most boring topics of conversation in the world after people explaining their dreams.
My sister has made me some fighting cancer/Destiny’s Child-themed cheese straws. Beat THAT. pic.twitter.com/F0PWzjNV7n
— John (@JM_Underwood) August 11, 2015
