From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

A woman was ejected from Sesame Place on Tuesday after a curse-filled tirade directed at a Muslim woman, who captured the incident on camera and alleges it all began when the other woman told her to “go back" where she came from.

The video, which was gaining attention on Instagram and Twitter, begins with the unidentified white older woman in a black bathing suit giving the middle finger to the camera in front of scores of confused kids waiting in line for a water ride at the amusement park in Langhorne, Bucks County.

The woman behind the camera, who identified herself to CBS3 as Zafirah Moore, urges the other woman to “Say it again! Say it again!”

“Acting like this around all these kids. This is terrible. This is horrible. This is horrible,” Moore says on the video. “She told me to ‘Go back to where I came from.’ Wow. At Sesame Place!”

https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/sesame-place-go-back-where-you-came-from-pennsylvania-20190807.html

I have told this story to friends, but I don't want it to die so I'm telling it to all of you.

Howard Weigel of Hinton WV (known to his friends as "Monk" because he looked apish) was among the paratroopers put down in the forests inland of the beaches in Normandy to provide support for the invading forces. These men were to be dropped in deepest darkness into dense forests, and they were given those little metal clickers (often shaped like a frog) that we played with as children. The idea was that they could locate each other by the sound of the clickers, maintaining absolute silence other than the clicking.

Howard told my father, an Army Air Force tail gunner, that after he landed and disengaged from his parachute, he crouched in the undergrowth and began clicking. What had not been considered was that there would be actual clicking sounds from actual insects. Howard panicked because he could hear clicking all around him and didn't know which way to turn. He crouched in the undergrowth, shaking with fear, until by luck one of his mates found him. Howard survived D-Day, obviously, but only by the grace of god.

Am I crazy, or is something going on with the clues/answers this week? They seem to be phrased in an unfamiliar way, and the shift from easy to difficult as you move down the board seems really screwed up. I usually don't have a problem with most of the answers (not that I know them all, or can remember them all, but I understand what's being asked for) but this week seems wacky-doodle to me. Anyone else notice this?

The assumption that football players' favorite food is berders and fries may or may not be legit, but what college kid invited to the WH to celebrate a successful season wants to be fed with stuff he can buy for himself, any day? Isn't the honor of being invited to dinner at the WH the opportunity for us regular folks to sit at big fancy tables--that belong to US--and be fed with food that will impress us? How is it honoring anyone to feed them hamberders, and not even hamberders made by some fancy chef? I think DT finds this very amusing and demonstrative of his ?charm? ?sense of humor? ?understanding of what the Young Folks like?

This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for at least 99% of these guys, something they'll want to tell their children and grandchildren about, something their parents would want to brag about to the neighbors, and DT has totally fucked it up.

I wish the Clemson team, as soon as they learned they'd be fed McDonald's, had all suddenly had to wash their hair that night.

What an asshole our president is. He can't even get a simple celebratory dinner right.

gives us Merrick Garland on the SC?

I've had two treatments (of four of this kind; then I get four more of something else), so I'm halfway through what I hope is the worst. This chemo is not at all like the chemo I had six years ago--that was a breeze. This one has me totally knocked on my ass. The treatments are three weeks apart, and I'm not much better two weeks in than I am at a week in.

Today I went for blood work and told the nurse how bad I was feeling--exhausted to the point that I literally spend my time between bed and the recliner, with bathroom breaks and a shower when I can stand up long enough. My nausea has me retching until my abdominal muscles hurt, and the diarrhea, while not constant, is green (and I don't remember when I ate anything green). My mouth is full of thrush and painful sores along the side of my tongue and the inside of my cheeks, and I sleep at least 16 hours out of every 24. When I'm awake, all I can do is watch TV and bitch.

The nurse asked me if I had time for an intravenous fluid infusion, and I said yes, even though I'm drinking so much water my urine is colorless. She said sometimes getting it right into the blood vessels makes patients feel better. Three fucking hours.

And it's wonderful! I went from the chemo suite to the grocery store and bought peppers and sweet sausages (which I've been craving but hated to ask my poor husband to make), which I'm frying up right now with onions and a little garlic. I also bought ingredients for chili, which--assuming my power holds out--I'll make later today and we can eat for the next week.

Has anybody else had this reaction to IV fluids? They said I could come back for another infusion if I needed it, but not how many I can have--if there is a limit. I mean, it's just fluids, and I have a port, so no big deal, right?

I haven't felt this good since before surgery. I wonder how long it will last.

Oh, and they prescrbed for the nausea and thrush, too, but those don't seem worth the trouble now.

I had to have an echocardiogram before chemo (which will start next Tues), and the cardiologist told me my LDL (bad cholesterol) was really low. Told him I got no credit, it's all genetics, that I eat a lot of butter. He said, "Chemo isn't a time to diet--you should eat more butter!" So there's that.

I've been waiting to have my chemo scheduled, and I got the call last night. They've been holding off until they could get hold of me to make sure I would pay the $1000-plus copay for each treatment. Jesus christ--over a thousand dollars copay. Each. My husband called the insurance company, and they told him not to pay until they review what was ordered, but what the hell am I supposed to do? I've had such an upbeat attitude, even after learning I have triple-negative cancer, one which is likely to recur and which has a lower survival rate than other cancers, and the fact is we can afford to pay this, but it has for some reason totally taken the wind out of my sails, and I just want to curl up and cry--not die, cry--I just want this over with.

From the NY Times:

Stephen Hillenburg, a former marine biology teacher who created a children’s show that ballooned into an unlikely cultural phenomenon, “SpongeBob SquarePants,” died on Monday at his home in Southern California. He was 57.

Mr. Hillenburg announced last year that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the neurodegenerative condition known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Nickelodeon, the channel that has been the show’s home since its premiere in May 1999, announced his death.

According to today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Johnny Bobbitt, the homeless vet who sprang to international fame as the man who gave his last $20 to a stranded young woman motorist, who then set up Go Fund Me page for him, described a similar story in 2012. On his facebook page in 2012 Bobbitt wrote about rescuing a young woman who was stuck in a Walmart parking lot, out of gas and with a spare tire. No one volunteered to help her (and her young children!), so he used the last of his money for gas, and he changed her tire.

Bobbitt has been portrayed of late as the victim of greedy yuppies who raised tons of money for him, then used that money to fund their own lifestyle, with expensive cars and gambling sprees. It seems that they did make free with money meant for him, but it turns out that the whole sleazy idea might have been his in the first place.

For some reason, this story which appeared in the print version of today's Inquirer isn't yet posted in their online edition, but here is it from People's website:

https://people.com/human-interest/homeless-man-gofundme-scam-told-similar-story-facebook-2012/