The Week In Pictures
April 4, 2020 — Steven Hayward
April is going to seem even longer than March. How do I know? Simple: SiriusXM satellite radio has added the Billy Joel Channel back into rotation. Maybe someone—Al Yankovic perhaps—can offer some modifications, such as “We Didn’t Start the Fire—China Did!” Or “The Great Suburban Showdown in the Paper Products Aisle.” Or, “Joe Biden Is Proof That Only the Good Die Young.” And for Congress, “Last of the Big Time
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April 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Well thank God March is finally over. It only lasted longer than the Thirty Years War. And now April, T.S. Eliot’s “cruelest month,” which will likely seem longer than the Hundred Years War. Where is our Marlborough, who led the War of the Spanish Succession? A Marlborough is obviously what we need for the War of the Spanish Flu Succession. (Thanks, I’ll be here all month. Try the roast beef.)
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March 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
I remember when I was a kid we were promised flying cars and videophones. Well, we finally got the videophones, and how do we like living the life of Zoom? And why do have this uncontrollable urge to put Kleenex boxes on my feet like Howard Hughes? Maybe it has something to do with solitary confinement. And flying cars would come in handy now to enforce “social distancing.” Incidentally, why
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March 25, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The coronavirus martial law lockdown has turned into a real-life version of Groundhog Day, as we’re stuck inside and hearing pretty much the same news every day. Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face! Orange man bad! Anthony Fauci for president! ESPN hosts getting ready to stab each other for lack of any sports news to talk about. Meanwhile, I hear rumors that there are supertankers full of toilet paper
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March 21, 2020 — Steven Hayward
I suspect that when the economic statistics for this period are assembled, they will report one huge growth industry: meme creation. The creativity of the meme-isphere is truly impressive, and a great reason to hope that we’re going to come out of this mess just fine. I’ve got enough material in the inventory to fill out TWiPs for weeks to come. Which may come in handy since it looks like
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March 19, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Almost week into solitary confinement, and the world is still hunting toilet paper to extinction. It’s as though people think Bernie Sanders is president. In any case, while the economy is taking a huge hit, the meme sector is surging to new highs. I am overwhelmed with the endless creativity of the army of meme-ists on the march right now. I have more material than I can use in a
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March 17, 2020 — Steven Hayward
So if we’re all keeping proper social distance, why the excessive concern about toilet paper then? And “social distancing”? What’s the big deal? It’s what writers call “Monday.” Also Tuesday through Friday. And the weekend, when you’re too grumpy to interact. “Shelter in place” for introverts with a large library and wine cellar like me has a different term: Nirvana. See everyone again on Thursday. And Saturday. Headlines of the
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March 14, 2020 — Steven Hayward
So let’s see if I have this right: washing your hands vigorously with soap and water kills the coronavirus because soap shatters the lipid membranes of the virus? In other words, the virus is fat. Can it be fat-shamed then? Is the CDC not recommending this because fat-shaming is not PC? I’m skeptical: I wash my whole body vigorously with soap and water in the shower every day, but it
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March 12, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The popular humours of a great city are a never-failing source of amusement to the man whose sympathies are hospitable enough to embrace all his kind, and who, refined though he may be himself, will not sneer at the humble wit or grotesque peculiarities of the boozing mechanic, the squalid beggar, the vicious urchin, and all the motley group of the idle, the reckless, and the imitative that swarm in
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March 8, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Are there really conversations like this going on in America: “Honey, I’m going to head out to five stores and buy all the toilet paper I can, because coronavirus!” “Good idea—I hear toilet paper prevents the transmission of the virus.” “Also, lots of bottled water, because we can’t trust the tap water. I hear on the media that the alligators in the New York City sewers are spreading the virus
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March 7, 2020 — Steven Hayward
You know The Thing: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Joe Biden is a complete dufus, endowed by Darwin with certain undeniable liabilities, among which are lies, liberty with womens’ and childrens’ hair, and the pursuit of word salads about Corn Pop, leg hair, and other deeds that got Chris Matthews fired from MSNBC. And finally. . .
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February 29, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Finally—a stock market I can like! As the legendary investment guru Benjamin Graham argued, in the short run the market is a voting machine; in the long run, it is a weighing machine. This week the market voted for Bernie. I love it when good companies go on sale for 20 percent off! A bit sorry I gave up my VIX position last year though. But the stock market is
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February 22, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Get your popcorn ready, because today is the Nevada caucuses, which features only a lot of old rich white people in the Democratic field, which is not supposed to happen in this age of intersectional diversity. I think the DNC ought to disqualify the entire field and start over, on the grounds that the field is now the biggest bunch of bumbling buffoons since the borscht belt belly-flopped. But it’s
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February 15, 2020 — Steven Hayward
To paraphrase Will Rogers, it’s no trouble being a humorist when you have Joe Biden working for you. “Lying dog-faced pony soldier”??? This is going to go down in the annals of all-time political gaffes. It’s the verbal equivalent of Michael Dukakis riding in a tank, or Gary Hartpence sailing on the “Monkey Business,” or George Romney admitting he had been “brainwashed” over Vietnam. (Funny how that problem seems to
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February 8, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The results of our reader survey about adding a regular mid-week TWiP are in and have been tabulated by the Des Moines Register and the Iowa Democratic Party. While adding a mid-week TWiP won the popular vote, it lost both the electoral college and new and “transparent” party allocation rules, so for now we’re going with the status quo, and only doing a mid-week edition on weeks like this. And
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February 5, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The Des Moines Register has not yet signed off on our reader poll of whether we should institute a regular Mid-Week in Pictures, but this is one of those weeks where a special edition, which we have done several times in the past, is fully justified. We’re already overloaded with TWiP material, and by Saturday a lot of it will seem like last year. Has there ever been a 72-hour
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February 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Congratulations to Britain for its exit from the European Union yesterday. Next up: the United Nations perhaps? Trump should propose it, just to watch the media . . . what? Lose their mind? How can you lose something already lost? Speaking of lost, how’s that whole impeachment thing going? Coronavirus seems to be more popular. Strap in folks and order a double espresso, because we have extra special bonus video
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