Midweek Meh-Ness [DOT 15/7/26]

This week has gone kind of fast. It’s hotter than hell again today. Not quite as hot as where Lindsey Graham is, but I digress…


Imagine dying so you can go on Meet The Press

Graham reportedly refused medical help before scheduled TV appearance

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-reportedly-refused-medical-help-before-scheduled-tv-appearance


So what I’m hearing is that it’s NOT over…

Trump again threatens to strike Iran’s power plants amid impasse over strait of Hormuz

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/15/trump-iran-power-plants-strike-threat-strait-of-hormuz


Interesting!

Daylight saving time made permanent by US House vote: ‘Americans are tired of the clock change’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/14/house-committee-advances-daylight-saving-time-bill


So the French…surrendered?

Spain sparkles to shock France 2-0 and advance to the World Cup final

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/14/nx-s1-5893692/2026-world-cup-fifa-spain-france-semifinal


What’s your sibling’s job and could you do it? Mine was a motorcycle mechanic and I could not do it; he could’ve probably done mine though!

Darline Graham, the sister of Lindsey Graham, is sworn in to serve out his term

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/13/nx-s1-5891839/lindsey-graham-senate-seat-darline-graham


The explosive diarrhea outbreak began here.

Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot.bsky.social) 2026-07-14T21:53:11.734Z

Aw Damn.


Every sentence is more deluded, and then at the bottom there’s a picture of the guy.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is getting in the way of my love life | Opinion

https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2026/07/13/dating-politics-divide-opinion/90731580007


On that note, have a great day!

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25 Comments

    • …I managed to go back to not awarding myself posting privileges anywhere online for a bit again…until I snapped somewhere in the grey wastes of kinja & it stuck…but the very first time I felt compelled to sign up for a log in to be able to leave a comment was provoked by a professor with an acute case of chronic sour grapes

      …someone I know who was retiring from a post with some “pastoral care” aspects at a fairly well-thought-of institution…who themselves was well thought of by the students they’d had involvement with as well as (if you ask me) most people who ever met them…had put a sort of valediction up online on a not-facebook-but-kinda-like-that-for-this-place…& the sole comment beneath it was this miserable axe-grinding bit of unfounded denigration of the guy styled to make him out to be illustrative of all the things wrong with the place that…I dunno…denied the moaning fuck tenure or something

      …so…I made the account…posted a reply…went a few rounds for a day or two until he quit it

      …never did bother asking the one who retired if they so much as saw the comment that provoked me to it…just couldn’t abide leaving it sat there…I dunno…uncontested…like it was the sort of last word that couldn’t be gainsaid…when at no point did anything it said pertain even adjacently to the actual person I know or the text they were responding to as written by said actual-person-of-my-actual-acquaintance-of-some-several-decades

      …not saying that guy is this guy…but…be hard to tell them apart…which is probably how I ended up with an overflow post that might otherwise have been a wall’o’text under this one today?

      • Eh. I’m dubious about the “professor” bit. Technically, I am one too, and have been for decades. So are all the instructors in the vocational fields like auto mechanics or hospitality. That’s not to belittle them. It’s just that they don’t go around calling themselves “professor” any more than I do.

        This looks like a clear case of resume exaggeration. He probably taught some vocational courses in nursing/medical services/physical therapy. And because people can frequently smell bullshit, it’s not the asset he thinks it is.

        Setting that aside, I’d speculate from his essay that he starts hectoring everyone he meets about MAGA. I run into putzes like that all the time, because they see a white guy with gray hair in Florida and assume I’m MAGA. And from personal experience, I can tell you right now that the common response is to avoid engagement and back away slowly. That’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome, that’s “you’re clearly disturbed and I don’t need your bullshit in my life.”

        • …seems worth prefacing the next part with it working out in a roundabout way as a compliment pointed in your direction…but…in any case…that last part has made me add checking over the output of carl hiaasen to see if there are any novels I’ve not read yet again…can’t claim to have read all his non-fiction stuff but based on the fun ones for grown ups I imagine if I ever pick up a copy of the one sub-titled “the graduation speech you’ll never hear”…with illustrations…AKA…”Assume The Worst”…at least some of might not altogether land like a surprise given the source?

          …having made it from the sort of wasted youth in which staff asking if they might be able to help you with anything came with a looming “you look like you might be here to shoplift” quiet part to the version where it actually is generally a polite offer to engage your custom…I strongly suspect in no small part off the back of grey hair in increasing proportion a decade or two before the mean line for that…& not living in florida, I suppose…I rarely have more than being ignored to point to on the unwarranted reactions & as often as not “you don’t bother me & I won’t bother you” might be my kind of chesterton-brand good-neighbor-making kind of good fencing

          …but…grey haired old white guys can be pretty cool to get to know…there’s one I’ve met a few times who still manages a modest royalty stream from the war memoirs of his father but spent his own career as a music journalist & one day there’s a not inconsiderable chance you could grace a coffee table with a book that’d have his name on it in which there might be things you didn’t know about bruce springsteen

          …or the californian who grew up with a parent in personal insurance in a setting that meant sometimes you come home from school & bill wyman is sitting in your living room

          …the californian…confuses me no end…& might very well find some common causes with the guy from the thing meg linked…but…generally…I don’t struggle to get along with as/when I’m around them…& under lots of circumstances is entertaining in most respects

          …the other guy…who is, as used to be said more often than I seem to hear lately…old enough to be my father…by the numbers…& therefore can claim some value of knowing whereof he speaks about such things…once made my day by telling me if I’d been around at the right time he thinks there’s a solid chance I’d have made a pretty decent hippy

          …not saying you just need to go lick toads & live in the wilds of the everglades off roadkill like a crazier-but-cooler riff on RFKjr in strict accordance with the hiaasen’s-good-guy script to flag it…but…have those sorts of retirees either thinned out or “sold-out” so badly in florida that people can’t spot you aren’t a “one of those”?

          …some threadbare readings of the social fabric required for that, you’d think…& mostly don’t you need a tighter weave before you can hold water with your cloth?

  1. That professor thing is so funny, but it really does go back to the back-and-forth @bryanlsplinter had the other day on past Republicans. Whether or not they were more “moderate” back then or not, if you say you’re a Republican now, you will face more blowback from women because voting for the GOP means they (correctly!) believe you think they should be second-class citizens!

    also, having read his writing and seen his picture, not sure lib politics would help a ton either but … yeah …

    • The second-class citizen thing is absolutely true. I have a family story (the precise details of which I will not go into) where an older family member married a MAGA and he immediately took control of all her money and assets. She worked while he watched Fox News all day. He also claimed existing assets that didn’t actually exist. That’s a pretty common scenario and it’s not surprising women are wary of a certain type. They’re no longer married and she’s learned from the experience and is no longer looking.

      • Ooof, that’s awful. And I’m sure more common among the MAGA chud crowd than the general population. But yeah, I do think broadly, people are more aware/wary of what another person’s political beliefs says about them, even on just a friendship basis.

        • It’s far worse than I’m describing. I’m not sharing details because it’s possible for someone to locate my identity (no big task there), deduce the (alleged) criminal if I say too much, and then identify the victim(s). There’s no criminal action currently pending (investigation was closed) but there’s also no statute of limitations on the (alleged) crime.

  2. So for those of us in Misery, this whole thing with Graham’s sister feels familiar.

    Our first woman Senator, Jean Carnahan, was appointed when her husband (having died in a plane crash 3 weeks before the election) won the election post-humously.

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