From the moment she stepped on stage at the presidential debate held at Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, PA on September 10, 2024, Kamala Harris dominated, striding purposefully across the platform to force Donald Trump to shake hands with her as an equal. Trump had been evading that moment (as indeed, he avoided even glancing her way throughout most of the debate), but she walked directly into his space and demanded compliance with the time-honored norm.
Ah, back to school! I remember it well – the bookbags and lunchpails that had to conform to what was currently “cool” to avoid merciless taunting; catching up with what friends did over the summer break; the new pens, pencils, notepads and markers; readjusting to subpar school cuisine; the new clothes that were another potential pitfall of derision; and of course, the mass shootings.
No, wait – that one’s new. Well, new-ish; it’s been a quarter century since Columbine inaugurated a whole new rite-of-passage for American schoolchildren, replacing dodgeball with dodgebullet, and each year since, it seems we just keep upping the ante.
Hurricane Debby made landfall as a Category 1 storm in the small town of Steinhatchee, in Florida’s Big Bend, at about 7 AM EDT on August 5, 2024. Debby had been named as a Tropical Storm just two days before, an unusually short interval between naming and effect. Winds began falling rapidly shortly after Debby went inland, and she was downgraded to Tropical Storm status again within a few hours, but Debby’s impact is expected to be felt in the arena of rain, with as much as 30” predicted in some regions. Already as of this writing (August 6), Debby has dropped some 16” in Manatee County, Florida, and historic flooding is expected in Georgia and the Carolinas.
On August 3rd, 2024, aspiring Olympian Anthony Ammirati coined a whole new meaning for the term “cockblocked” after failing to qualify for a pole vault event when his penis collided with the bar on the way down, knocking it to the ground (the bar, not his penis). The embarrassing footage of the phallic fail immediately went viral, and though Olympic authorities later confirmed that Ammirati would have been disqualified regardless, as other, less intimate portions of his anatomy had touched the bar prior to its dickish dislodgment, there was no stopping the cock-a-hoop hilarity that ensued. The French athlete, with no apparent irony, later described the incident as “a big disappointment.” Cheer up, Anthony – a manly manhood has its compensations!
Italians in Florence were livid after disturbing footage went viral on the internet, of a female tourist simulating sexual acts with a statue of Bacchus, Roman god of wine and revelry, in the streets of Firenze, as the city is known locally. A fully dressed blonde had mounted the plinth that holds a copy of the original sculpture by Giambologna, kissing it lasciviously, then miming fellatio and penetration from the rear. Outraged locals have been outspoken in their condemnation of the incident, revealed in grainy still shots that were captured from the internet, but authorities have not been able to identify the tourist or her friend who took the pictures.
When Kamala Harris announced her run for president in 2019, she looked like a long shot. And she was, with a troubled campaign that ended before the first primary votes were cast. But looking at her birth chart then, it seemed to me that she was going to get to the Oval Office at some point, however distant. When Joe Biden chose her as his running mate a year later, she took a major step towards that goal, and when they won that November, a giant leap was made.
But there were still a number of hurdles to cross in the race to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, such as waiting her turn after a successful re-elect gave Biden a second term (should that even occur), and then fending off Democratic competition for the open seat in 2028, and winning that election. US Vice Presidents don’t have a compelling track record of succeeding to the office, barring the death of the boss mid-term, and she still faced a strong headwind.
