Lancelot Links Gets Bun Cha in Hanoi

Tuesday May 24, 2016

Lancelot Links Gets Bun Cha in Hanoi

My president. Obama wins hearts and minds in Hanoi with bun cha�at a restaurant we maybe visited, or certainly passed by, during our visit in 2010. Next up? Cha ca la vong. Or human rights.�
Is the mainstream media helping Donald Trump? Feeding him questions that lead toward more reasonable ground? The Washington Post ponders this. The Scarborough example is particularly damning.�
Related: George Packer's “Talk of the Town” piece�is the best thing I've read on the Trump nomination.
Related: Adam Gopnik lets loose with a terse, angry piece: The Dangerous Acceptance of Donald Trump. “One by one, people who had not merely resisted him before but called him by his proper name�who, until a month ago, were determined to oppose a man they rightly described as a con artist and a pathological liar�are suddenly getting on board.”�
Related: Stephen Colbert on the 2000 dangers of Ralph Nader.�
Related: John Oliver takes down the various idiocies of our primary process.�Washington, my state, doesn't come off well. I wondered why I filled out that ballot two months after the caucus.
Related: The Daily Kos on the 11 reasons Bernie lost fair and square. It's 11 reasons his supporters will howl to the heavens about. Often with CAPS.
Missed this the first time around: Samantha Bee on the five Seattle City Councilwoman who voted against another publicly funded stadium in downtown Seattle (for a basketball team this time), and who had the usual online misogynistic abuse heaped upon them as a result. Bee makes comedy (edged with anger) out of it. The intros/nicknames are my favorite.
Why were the Astros called “Houston” on so many 1960s-era baseball cards? Why did the '68 and '69 cards often use the same photo? What does any of this have to do with the hiring of Marvin Miller to head up the then-toothless Major League Baseball Players Association? It's all right here.�
Team #GiveElsaAGirlfriend or Team #CharmingPrinceForElsa? I think the latter's been done before.�
David Schoenfield's “Five things we learned Sunday” about MLB. Loved #4. Could do without #1.�
ESPN's 30-for-30, a great source of sports documentaries, takes on the hapless Cleveland team�er, teams. No championships there in any major sport since '64.�Joe Posnanski, himself from Cleveland, laments. �
Someone took Bartolo Colon's homerun, the first and only in the 20-year career by the suddenly beloved, rotund pitcher, and turned it into the final homerun in “The Natural.”�Something about his homerun trot, in slow-mo, reminds me of that old Steven Wright joke: “Put some Minute Rice in the microwave; went back in time.”
James O'Keefe stings himself, via Jane Mayer. Couldn't happen to a nastier guy.
I always loved Morley Safer, an even-tempered true journalist with a twinkle in his eye. Rest in peace.�