The news moves too fast these days. In an effort to comment on all that was amusing and irritating last week, I present four quick takes in no particular order.
Miss America does away with the swimsuit competition.
The Miss America pageant is one of the most grossly outdated spectacles this nation produces and the sheer fact that it’s still practiced leaves me dumbfounded and demoralized. Here we are in 2018 and we continue to parade living Barbie dolls across a stage while they play dress up for a panel of mutants who judge them based on looks and answers to shallow questions in an effort to—I guess—decide once and for all who is the greatest woman in America. It’s sexual assault in formal wear and it should have been abandoned in the past with the anti-suffragettes.
Betsy DeVos says school safety commission won’t focus on guns.
You can always count on a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet to provide a nugget of policy that is at once hilarious and deeply unnerving. Last week, DeVos told a Senate committee that the school safety panel—formed in response to the mass killing in Parkland and convened by Trump—will not focus on the role guns play in school violence. This blatantly illustrates just how beholden every level of government is to the gun lobby and how tragically alone children are in their fight against being slaughtered in school.
Lou Lamoriello cleans house at New York Islanders.
Hockey executive Lou Lamoriello—who spent 27 successful seasons as general manager of the New Jersey Devils—was hired by the Islanders as president of hockey operations and immediately fired general manager Garth Snow and head coach Doug Weight before naming himself the new general manager. Beleaguered fans of the franchise that is seemingly forever in rebuild mode finally have something to celebrate other than one playoff round victory since 1993. There is finally hope—with or without star player John Tavares.
IHOP changes its name to IHOb.
The Internet lost its marbles when pancake conglomerate the International House of Pancakes—hereupon known as IHOP—was flipping the capital P in its name to a lowercase b. Or maybe it isn’t changing its name. Who cares? Here’s an idea: there are hundreds of diners on Long Island that make a better breakfast than IHOP(b). Pick one and eat there instead.
—Steve Mosco
Agree? Disagree? We’d love to hear from you! Send a letter to the editor at smosco@antonmediagroup.com.
