Ghetto Cat Loop

Though I knew going in that the Ghetto Cat Loop was not at all designed to encourage big, fat, out-of-shape people to attempt to run it nonstop, I did this evening. I made it to the long, steep hill up 35th Street, said the equivalent of fuck it, and walked most of the rest of the way home. It took me 27:14, with splits of 11:20 and 15:54.

I WAS INCORRECT...
...when I stated last summer that Jeb Bush would be the Republican nominee for president. Now I predict it will be Trump. To modify a phrase from Baseball Hall of Fame announcer Mel Allan, "The great Trump. There's no stopping him." The motherfucker somehow inspired Marco Rubio to say today that he "was more than happy" to do something. In this particular case, to say on PBS that he was more than happy to introduce differences between himself and other republican candidates. Yes. He said "more than happy." More than happy. What the fuck kind of state of mind would be required for someone to achieve something that was happier than plain ol' happiness? I know there's not a word for it (though it does conjure thoughts that include "insane" and "loaded"). Point is, Trump now has his best-looking rival speaking gibberish, and he's gotta be fucking happy about it

Paragraph(s) of the day from A Different Closet
In twelve years as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s managing editor, and now in his fifth as publisher, Bill Seale had never scheduled a meeting more than however far ahead of time it took him to get whoever he needed into his office. Stephen Lardner watched as he arranged this one. Seale walked past him to the door, which opened into the newsroom, and loudly said, “Hey, Noel. Do you got a minute?”

He then picked up his desk phone. “Frank, I know all y’all’s busy today, but I got somebody in here I think you might oughta take a listen to.”

Seale and Lardner were joined by political editor Frank Glass and Noel Kelleher. Lardner had never met Glass but had convinced Kelleher a month earlier to ask Keith Ingram about his voting record and his agnosticism, both of which were exposed in the Post-Dispatch, after which Ingram’s poll numbers plummeted. Ronald Hardman led by eighteen percent after the story was published. But then came editorials in the Post-Dispatch, on KMOX-AM and two St. Louis television stations, and finally on NBC’s Meet the Press, each extolling the virtue of honesty as it applied to Ingram. Hardman’s lead dropped to ten percent, and Lardner, six weeks and one day before the primary, decided the time had arrived to play what he believed was his long suit and perhaps final hand.

“Fellows, this is Stephen Lardner,” Seale said. “I know I don’t have to tell y’all who he is. Mr. Lardner, I’m sure you’ve met Noel Kelleher. This here’s Frank Glass, one of our editors. He’s Noel’s boss. Now boys, I’ll cut straight to it. Mr. Lardner come in here to tell me that Keith Ingram ain’t gay. He told me he went down to Arkansas and interviewed all sorts of people that know Keith, and that they all said they couldn’t believe it or was shocked when he said he was. He told me Keith was married, before his wife up and left him, and that he apparently had a love affair with that girl jockey that got killed a couple of years ago over at the racetrack down there. He said they’s a homosexual copy editor at the Arkansas Gazette that knew Keith real well and said they ain’t no way he was gay. Now obviously it could be that all that ain’t nothin and don’t prove nothin, but I think ya’ll oughta hear him out.”