Twenty six screaming 7 and 9 year olds.  Twenty eight “adult” chaperones.

Nothing will get done.  What fun.

I will be wearing very old clothes that I will burn immediately following a very long shower after dealing with many sticky interventions, some of them with children.

How bad can it be?  Last year my relative wanted to do toilet paper bowling (you know, toilet paper for the pins).  It’s cheap, it’s soft, you need it anyway.  What could possibly go wrong?

Toilet paper Dodgeball.

Did I mention the fun?

So forget music.  You get music next week.  This week you get schadenfreude.

Obligatories, News, and Blogs below.

The Belmont Stakes are perhaps the most democratic of the Triple Crown Races even though it is held Elmont right next to Queens.  Indications of that are they can’t settle on a song or a drink.  The song has ranged from Sidewalks of New York, a charming Tin Pan Alley tune better known as East Side, West Side, to the Theme from New York, New York (as performed by Frank Sinatra and appropriated as the Yankees anthem and not the original Liza Minelli rendition), to 2010’s Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z.

This year they are back to New York, New York because Sidewalks of New York didn’t produce a Triple Crown winner.

Likewise the drink has changed from the absolutely un-potable White Carnation to the refined trashcan punch that is the Belmont Breeze.

I suggest instead the classic Cosmopolitan.

This year is the 147th running and again we have the possibility of a Triple Crown.  While the past 36 years are littered with failure I’d argue that at least as many hopes have been dashed at Pimlico as at Belmont.

There are many problems a potential Triple Crown Winner faces at Belmont.  First of all the distance.  At 1 1/2 miles the Belmont is the longest of the Triple Crown races and comes hard on the heels of the sprint at Pimlico.  It is still a subject of much controversy whether the schedule should be changed, especially since it’s a common tactic for many strong contenders (but losers) at the Kentucky Derby to skip the Preakness and other horses who are also strong but without the stamina to race all three Triple Crown events to skip both in order to rest and train.

This year from 7 contenders there are 3 who fit that profile- Madefromlucky, Frosted, and Materiality.

That said, the smallness of the field and lack of serious contenders other than those three give American Pharoh an excellent chance.

But the Belmont track surface is looser, sandier, and harder to run on than most tracks in the country.  Also the NYRA is much stricter about “performance enhancement” than most racing associations.

So you want to know who will win?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Here is the line from The New York Times.

The Field

Unfortunately, Triple Crown or not, I won’t be around to watch.  If you want to take a crack at live blogging it yourself all you have to do is post “They’re off” around when the horses break from the gate and then the results when it’s over.

Good Luck!

Post time is 6:50 pm ET on NBC.  Hype starts around 4:30.

(I might update this with my collected NYT links later, but it’s too much work for right now- ek)

Well, that’s what Atrios calls it.

I am busy this weekend visiting relatives and TMC will be out of town also.  While we will attempt to keep the content fresh there’s really no way to tell how possible that will be or publication times.

Today is especially bad for me because there is (shudder) THE FAMILY BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Seven and nine year olds at the ball park.  They are fans and all, but attention span?  It better not be a No-No tie going to extra innings because even I will be wanting to run arouund screaming.

I’m planning on being back by Monday to resume regular sucky blogging, but this condition is likely to repeat itself several times this season.  I hope our readers will forgive us and have their own great times this summer.

I’d love to show you a Larry Wilmore clip but they’re not posted yet.  The Nightly Show has the suckiest and laziest web directors ever.

Even for Comedy Central.

Thursday Nightly Grab O’ Bag (in other words pretty much what they’ve been doing all week.

Continuity

Minaj on Paranoid Style

Next week’s guests-

• Monday 6/8: TBA
• Tuesday 6/9: Nick Offerman
• Wednesday 6/10: Colin Quinn
• Thursday 6/11: Mark Ruffalo

Steve Buscemi might be on to talk about Hotel Transylvania 2, but he’s probably just going to pay tribute to Jon and yuck it up.

The real news below.

Black America is getting screwed: Shocking new study highlights the depths of economic disparities

by David Dayen, Salon

Tuesday, Jun 2, 2015 05:59 AM EST

Before being assassinated, Martin Luther King envisioned a Poor People’s Campaign descending on Washington to demand better education, jobs and social insurance. He saw it as an extension of his work on civil rights, equal in importance and scope. In “a nation gorged on money while millions of its citizens are denied a good education, adequate health services, meaningful employment, and even respect,” King wrote in announcing the Poor People’s Campaign, “all of us can almost feel the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead to national ruin.”

…

The report, released today by the think tank Demos and the NAACP, focuses on African-American and Latino workers in the retail industry. While we’re supposed to believe that e-commerce and Amazon’s dominance has destroyed retail, the industry is actually the fastest growing in America, representing one out of every six new jobs in the economy last year. And while low wages and occupational hazards define retail work generally, that experience is even worse for people of color.

According to the Demos/NAACP study, black retail workers are nearly twice as likely to be living below the poverty line as the overall workforce. African-Americans and Latinos have fewer supervisory roles in retail relative to white counterparts, and more low-paid cashier positions. Among retail workers of color, there are more involuntary part-time employees, who want more hours but cannot receive them. And Black and Latino workers make less than their similarly situated colleagues – 75 percent of the average wage of a retail salesperson, and 90 percent of the average wage of a cashier, for example.

This isn’t all that different from the broader labor force, and it suggests a racial gap that resembles the gender gap on wages and opportunity – and is far worse when it comes to unemployment. Men and women are unemployed at the same rate, but African-Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed. It’s happening despite statutes like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, intended to make racial discrimination on the job illegal. Yet despite recent high-profile racial discrimination settlements with major retailers like Walgreen, Walmart and Wet Seal, economic results for people of color remain weak. Median black family income is actually less than it was relative to white families 50 years ago, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

…

The report’s authors chalk this up partially to issues with the retail industry overall, which does not deliver its workers the financial benefits of their productivity. But black and Latino workers find themselves even more squeezed. They are occupationally segregated into the lowest-wage positions in retail: cashiers and salespersons. These jobs are often not full-time (the average retail employee works only 31 hours a week), and involve unpredictable “just-in-time scheduling,” where a worker can be sent home from their shift if business lags, or told not to come in on a moment’s notice. Erratic week-to-week work schedules make it nearly impossible to manage a personal budget or secure childcare.

In addition, the high degree of unemployment in communities of color gives them less power to bargain for better wages. As a result, Black and Latino retail workers are paid less for the same work, translating to $1,850 a year in lost earnings for a full-time cashier, or $7,500 for a full-time salesperson. Seventy percent of retail workers of color make under $15 an hour, the threshold that the Fight for 15 movement considers a living wage.

…

Workers also need reliable hours and the ability to collectively bargain, and should be able to receive full-time work if they want it, the report adds. These changes would almost entirely close the retail wage gap between white workers and workers of color, bringing millions of families out of poverty.

…

The racial wage, employment and opportunity gap erodes the basic respect for black and Latino families. It’s as much a problem on the job as it is in the streets, even if it’s carried out in a less violent manner. The nation doesn’t talk about this enough; there’s no “Equal Pay Day” for African-Americans and Latinos. But there’s a civil rights movement that can insist that earning enough money to support a family represents a basic fight for justice. The more that’s denied, the more it will be delayed.

I will be busy this weekend visiting relatives and TMC will be out of town also.  Normally (and I’m not bragging or wanting anyone to feel bad about their contribution) these take me from 3 to 4 hours to do, exclusive of the time spent reading to find the material.

What takes the time is writing the front part (sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on the depth of treatment) and expanding the news stories with quotes (always a slog and terrifically time consuming).

Anyway, while I’m on the road I’m dispensing with the tricky and time consuming (and amusing and informative I hope) bits and formating everything as blog posts (title, author, publication) which will save a ton of time better spent on napping or socializing with people who already think I’m a driven eccentric (which is of course, true).

I apologize to you dear reader for this blatant disregard of your needs and feelings and can only promise that I shall return from this exhausted and cranky (I shall be dealing with children and I like them just fine if properly prepared), and resume my normal sub-standard output as soon as I can decently get away with it.

Science Oriented Video

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News and Blogs

• Astronomers Describe the Chaotic Dance of Pluto’s Moons, By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times
• Pluto’s moons tumble in orbit, Hubble measurements reveal, by Hannah Devlin, The Guardian
• Chimpanzees Would Cook if Given the Chance, Research Says, by James Gorman, The New York Times
• Chimps like chips. They would be cooking if they could, by Henry Nicholls, The Guardian
• Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript, By MARK SCHROPE, The New York Times
• Fully dressed and preserved 350-year-old corpse of French noblewoman found, by Kim Willsher, The Guardian
• Death on the Steppes: Mystery Disease Kills Saigas, By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times
• Most dinosaurs had scales, not feathers, fossil analysis concludes, by Ian Sample, The Guardian
• Sawfish escape extinction through ‘virgin births’, scientists discover, by Hannah Devlin, The Guardian
• Pentagon Seeks Easing of Ban on Russian Rockets for U.S. Space Missions, By STEVEN LEE MYERS, The New York Times
• More Labs Are Likely to Have Mistakenly Received Anthrax Samples, Military Says, By HELENE COOPER, The New York Times
• Fooling ourselves with science: hoaxes, retractions and the public, by Roger Pielke Jr, The Guardian

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Baltimore

You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Tonightly’s panel is Dan St. Germain, Jo Koy, and Kristina Wong.  Topics?  We don’t need no stinking topics, but it might be about The whitewashing of Allison Ng.

Continuity

The Definition of Insanity

This week’s guests-

• Wednesday 6/3: Melissa McCarthy
• Thursday 6/4: Steve Buscemi

Melissa McCarthy is  probably on to talk about her new film Spy, but she recently had an encounter with a critic who was hung up on her appearance-

“Would you do this to a man?”: Melissa McCarthy destroys sexist reporter who called her “hideous”

by Colin Gorenstein, Salon

Thursday, May 21, 2015 05:02 PM EST

Turning the tables on the reporter, McCarthy asked him, “Would you do that to a man?”

…

McCarthy then dug into the reporter’s personal life, asking if he had children or, God-forbid, a daughter. How would you feel if your daughter came home one day saying that she didn’t get a job because she was considered unattractive, the actress urged the reporter to consider. That’s when McCarthy said she saw a look of recognition flash across his face.

“I said, ‘Just know every time you write stuff, every young girl in this country reads that and they just get a little bit chipped away,'” she said. “I just think we tear down women in this country for all of these superficial reasons and women are so great and strong. And I really think he heard that. The writer was really loving and you could tell he was a loving father. I think that it’s a bad habit that we’ve gotten into, and it’s not that people are malicious. I just think it’s so easy to take a swipe. Just go the other way; build it up.”

Bill de Blasio’s 2 part web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.

WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 “Bounty” for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters

Wanted Dead or Alive: $100,000 for Full Text of Trans-Pacific Partnership

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

“The transparency clock has run out on the TPP,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all.”

Despite unprecedented efforts by negotiating governments to keep it under wraps, WikiLeaks has been able to obtain and publish three leaked chapters of this super-secret global deal over the last two years. However, there are believed to be 26 other chapters of the deal to which only appointed negotiators, trade officials, and chosen representatives from big corporations have been given access.

“Today, WikiLeaks is taking steps to bring about the public’s rightful access to the missing chapters of this monster trade pact,” the group said in a statement. “The TPP is the largest agreement of its kind in history: a multi-trillion dollar international treaty being negotiated in secret by the US, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia and 7 other countries. The treaty aims to create a new international legal regime that will allow transnational corporations to bypass domestic courts, evade environmental protections, police the internet on behalf of the content industry, limit the availability of affordable generic medicines, and drastically curtail each country’s legislative sovereignty.”

All Hands On Deck: House Fast Track Vote Expected This Week

by Dave Johnson, Common Dreams

Monday, June 01, 2015

The vote in the House of Representatives on fast track trade authority, preapproving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before the public finds out what is in it, is coming up very soon. It is even possible it could happen later this week. The Senate has already passed fast track; if the House passes this it goes to President Obama and he will sign it. That will make TPP a done deal.

…

We don’t know much about the contents of TPP – a secret investor/corporate rights agreement negotiated by corporate representatives with labor, environment and other “stakeholders” kept away from the negotiations – but we do know Nike wants it because it will lower tariffs on the shoes they import from Vietnam. We also know that the lowered tariff will mean New Balance may stop making shoes inside the U.S. We know that it opens up Vietnam, which pays workers less than a dollar an hour, for even more “outsourcing” of American jobs. We know that it lets corporations sue governments in “corporate courts” if they think laws and regulations might hurt their profits. (It even lets tobacco companies sue governments for trying to help citizens quit smoking, because that lowers tobacco company profits.)

…

Starting this week people should call and show up at the local offices of their member of Congress. Bring a sign if you show up. Get others to come with you. (Use our click-to-call tool to contact your member of Congress. Or you can click here to find the office of your representative.)

Ask your representative if she or he has read TPP. Get them on record whether they have read it.

…

Then ask them why you can’t see the text of TPP, especially if they are about to vote to preapprove it with fast track? Why is it being kept secret? (Why are the already-completed parts secret?)

3 Ways USA Freedom Act Fails to Stop FBI Spying on Americans

Vast Majority of Spying Will Continue Despite Expiration of Patriot Act Provisions

The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.

Buh-bye Sepp.  So long Denny.

Slavery Day

You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Just in case you don’t get it, slavery is bad.

So Is Child Molesting

Tonightly our panelists are Marc LaMont Hill, Jamilah Lemieux, and Godfrey.  I have no idea what we’ll be talking about, but I’m guessing it’s not Sepp Blatter’s resignation or the prospects of Team USA in Group D (of Death) in the Women’s World Cup.

Continuity

Spring Cleaning

This week’s guests-

• Tuesday 6/2: Bill de Blasio
• Wednesday 6/3: Melissa McCarthy
• Thursday 6/4: Steve Buscemi

Bill de Blasio tonight.  Mayor and all.  I feel that in some respects he’s been a profound disappointment, TMC is willing to give him a chance and since she lives there and is usually much more radical than I (I still believe in quaint things like rule of Senate procedure and the utility of the Electoral College if you can make it work for you) I’m willing to reserve judgement for now.  Should be a patty cake interview, he’s exactly the kind of moderate liberal Jon loves.

La terreur n’est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible; elle est donc une émanation de la vertu; elle est moins un principe particulier, qu’une conséquence du principe général de la démocratie, appliqué aux plus pressants besoins de la patrie.

McChrystal off not a moment too soon, no extended at all, lying bastard.  The real news below.