Monday Clutter: Florida Rejects Math, Sarah Palin, Elon Musk, Boston Celtics, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Kirk Hammett, and more
04/18/2022
Hi folks,
How was the rest of your weekend? Yesterday's Doctor Who episode was fair, but we still enjoyed watching it. Now we wait for Jodie Whittaker's final episode this fall. In the meantime, it's a little chilly this morning, but the heat just kicked in, and the birds are already chirping, so BDH and Little Buddha are happy. I think this week should start on a pretty quiet note. We might have to take a trip to the store later to see if any decent Easter candy is on sale. Other than that, we'll just try to ease into things. First up, today's headlines. The guys made coffee, so grab yourself a nice medium DD, because it's time to clear out some Monday Clutter.
Florida is now using critical race theory as an excuse to reject math textbooks. It was already clear that Florida officials don't care about the health of students. They've gone out of their way to make kids as vulnerable as possible during the pandemic. Now it turns out that Governor Ron DeSantis and his extremist cronies are apparently also determined to make students in the state as ill-equipped to function in society as possible in order to push the GOP's radical agenda.
Governor DeSantis is afraid of math. (pic via npr.org)
A legitimate political party with actual ideas doesn't run away and ban books to suppress discussion and debate. A legitimate political party actually encourages the exchange of information and doesn't try to stop people from being competent citizens. A party that tries to stamp out knowledge and understanding of the world is a party that isn't interested in anything besides protecting its power. That's a threat to this country.
This NPR article indicates that Alaska conservatives are tired of Sarah Palin. That could certainly be a problem for her congressional campaign, but given that there are 48 candidates in the primary, she could make it to the general election with about 3% of the vote. Are these voters determined to keep her at home, or will they send her to Washington if their preferred candidate doesn't make it? The last thing Congress needs is another Marjorie Taylor Greene, a woman who is only in office to serve as a professional troll.
A group of Tesla shareholders who are suing Elon Musk want the judge to make Musk stop talking about the case until after the trial. The plaintiffs say Musk's 2018 tweets about taking the company private were an attempt at stock price manipulation, and Judge Edward M. Chen has already ruled that they were false and misleading. Musk's lawyers have until Wednesday to respond. However, given Musk's apparent belief that the rules don't apply to him, we'll jump ahead and ask, what will be the punishment when he breaks any gag order?
Privacy experts warn that the possibility of Elon Musk having control over all of Twitter's user data is "incompatible with democracy." That's too much personal information for any one individual to have, which also highlights a larger problem with social media platforms: Twitter and Facebook are both too big and too intrusive, and they should be broken up by regulators.
A man who deals with anxiety issues told his employer that he didn't want a birthday party, which was the company's custom. His bosses ignored his request and gave him a surprise party a few days later, which triggered a panic attack. Kevin Berling was later dressed down by management for his reaction, which triggered another panic attack, and he was subsequently fired. A jury just awarded Berling $450,000 for suffering disability discrimination and retaliation. First, people need to understand that anxiety is a serious mental health issue and should not casually dismiss it. Second, don't force someone to have a birthday party after they explicitly told you they didn't want it. That's just rude, and it shows the party is more about you having a good time than celebrating the individual in question.
Good luck to everyone running the Boston Marathon today! That's something we have never considered as a goal, even for a second. However, we have all the admiration in the world for those of you who are up for that challenge!
The Boston Red Sox crushed the Minnesota Twins 8-1 yesterday to improve to 5-4 on the year. Boston's starting pitcher Michael Wacha threw five innings of one-hit ball, and it was a close game, until the Sox exploded for 6 runs in the 8th inning. You know this team is going to score runs. It's all about the pitching. Since today is Marathon Monday, the Red Sox and Twins will close out their series with an 11:10 a.m. start time. (There was a time where that meant we'd be starting our annual bit of day drinking. Now it just means we may have an extra cup of coffee.) Rich Hill takes the mound for Boston.
The Boston Celtics beat the Brooklyn Nets 115-114 in Game 1 of their playoff series yesterday, thanks to a buzzer-beating layup by Jayson Tatum. The Celtics were up by 15 points in the third quarter, but it started to look like Brooklyn, led by Kyrie Irving, would steal a win in the final minutes. That could have been a devastating defeat. However, this team showed a resiliency it's had since January and refused to quit. Now it's on the C's to keep up the pressure in Game 2 on Wednesday night at the TD Garden.
Benedict Cumberbatch will be busy in the first week of May: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness finally comes out on the 6th, and then Cumberbatch will host SNL for the second time on the 7th.
Side note: We were just reminded that Multiverse of Madness has been hyped as a "MCU horror movie." BDH and Little Buddha are starting to wonder if maybe they should wait to watch the film until there's a streaming option. The guys want to see Doctor Strange back in action, but they really aren't a horror movie crew. Should they see the movie on a big screen or wait until they can watch in the living room in the middle of the day?
We want to wish a very happy birthday to Clutter favorite/former Doctor Who star David Tennant, who turns 51 years old today. We're really trying not to obsess over the fact that we're finally going to meet the 10th Doctor at the FanExpo Boston in August. That's a legit bucket list item, but it's still about four months away, so we'll do our best to focus on the present instead.
(Seriously, we're going to meet David Tennant in August!)
Executive producer/former Supernatural star Jensen Ackles promises plenty of surprises in The Winchesters. Of course it's his job to make sure Supernatural fans check out this prequel/spin-off, so he's got to stay stuff like that. However, we're optimistic that Ackles understands how to make this an engrossing show, given that he had 15 years to work with the story as Dean Winchester.
Okay kids, that's going to do it for now. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has a solo EP called Portals coming out later this week. Let's close things out by checking out the first single. We leave you with, "High Plains Drifter" for today's, "Song of the Day."
Hammett has previously stated that the songs on this album are designed, to be "soundtracks to the movies in your mind." We'd say he nailed it with that one. You can still hear some Metallica flavoring. That could have been track off the Load or Reload albums, but it's fun to hear the talented guitarist go off in his own direction without James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich controlling everything for once. We're looking forward to hearing more material.
Thanks for stopping by, everyone. It was great to see you, as always. Enjoy the rest of your day, be good, and we'll catch up with you again soon. Until next time, that's today's Clearing out the Clutter, and we are outta here.
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