She was born Betty Joan Perske, but she was Lauren Bacall. The grace, sophistication and style that name came to embody fitted her like a glove, but Lauren Bacall was never comfortable with her Hollywood moniker, and remained “Betty” to friends and family to the end of her days, though Bogie called her “Babe.” Born 16 September 1924, Lauren Bacall would have celebrated her centenary this week if she hadn’t died a decade ago.
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.
Perhaps no US election has been more fraught with consequences for the nation and the world than will be the 2024 presidential contest. It’s true that 2020’s election was pivotal as well, but the depths to which Donald Trump was willing to sink to maintain power weren’t apparent until he sent an armed mob to the Capitol to challenge those results, two months later. Now, with full knowledge of his depravity, abuse of power, and contempt for the Constitution, reinstalling this felon in the Oval Office is unthinkable. And yet, here we are.
The 2024 DNC kicked off in Chicago on 19 August, under very different circumstances than those under which it was conceived and planned. Originally intended as a re-up ceremony for incumbent US President Joe Biden, likely a fairly sedate affair (given his age and the flagging poll numbers in the race against Donald Trump), after the former withdrew from the race and passed the baton to VP Kamala Harris, things changed dramatically.
On 28 July 2024, Venezuela held a national election, voting for a six-year term for president, beginning in January 2025. Nicolas Maduro, the two-term authoritarian president, was running for a third term, and to stack the deck, the administration barred many in the opposition from even running for office, including leading candidate Maria Corina Machado. Edmondo Gonzalez Urrutia ran in her stead, representing the Unitary Platform party, the main opposition political alliance.
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!
