WWDD, an Anti-Political Prescription

I found it heartening, if not surprising, that the news of Dolly Parton's passing was met with an outpouring of emotion and love, and a flood of fond memories from every corner of the globe - geographically, sure, but culturally, as well. Rock stars, actors, authors, everyday people, and politicians - everyone that had anything to say about Dolly did so in an overwhelmingly positive way.

Been thinking about that last category of folks ever since Dolly left us.

Nearly everything you could see on the surface about Dolly would suggest a conservative-coded person, politically speaking. From her upbringing in a poor family in a very rural environment to the way she presented herself visually as an old-school sex symbol - curvy and coiffed but never tawdry - to her accent to her "aww-shucks-I'm-just-a-little-ol'-girl-from-Tennessee" manner to the music she wrote and released, it would be easy to imagine a right-wing lean in her personal politics. I suspect more than a few MAGA folk thought she was one of them.

Just as the face Dolly showed the public belied a whip-smart businesswoman with interests far beyond music, so too did her less-obvious actions open a window into how she actually saw the world. Among many other things, Dolly Parton:

• Gave families $1,000/month for 6 months in 2016, when wildfires hit her Smoky Mountain hometown
• Supported flood survivors in Middle TN with a $700,000 donation in 2021,
• Donated $1M to fund COVID vaccine research in 2020
• Gave $1M in 2024, after Hurricane Helene, and her foundation matched it.
• Supported the LGBTQ+ community way before it was fashionable, once saying, "I've had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are and love who they love."
• She included lyrics about supporting gay family members in her 1991 song, "Family"
• She came out in support of marriage equality in 2009
• Was openly supportive of queer people visiting Dollywood, her Pigeon Forge, TN resort and amusement park
• True story: Dolly once entered a drag Dolly-lookalike contest...and lost!
• Speaking of Dollywood, in 2021, as housing prices climbed in its Smoky Mountain region, Dolly's company (motto: "Lead with Love") built a 750-unit apartment complex for seasonal, international, and temporary employees who would otherwise have difficulty affording lodging. 
• Famously donated more than 300 million books (and counting) to children across the world through her Imagination Library program.

I'm quite sure there are scores of other examples, public and private, of how Dolly lived her truth. A truth that hewed a lot closer to Jesus' teaching than does much of what passes for today's American Christianity and "conservative" values. She famously and conspicuously avoided taking public political positions, but as an online commentator said after she died, "Dolly Parton’s life is a political statement for those with eyes to see and ears to hear."

If I may be so bold, here's a short list of how I'd answer the question What Would Dolly Do?, as a personal and political prescription:

• Be yourself
• Laugh with your whole body
• Love your people fiercely, and love everyone else, too
• Care for the least among us
• Tell bigots and misogynists to go fuck themselves (in the "bless your heart" sorta way)
• Lift up children
• Support science
• Sing, dance, make music, and make fun.

I tell you what. If someone ran for office on that platform, they'd get my vote.

zbouillabaise is back

Here are a few interesting things I saw on the interwebs that aren't meaty enough to turn into a post, but if you stew them together they're meaty enough for a serving of zbouillabaise.

1. New Zealand parking lots are intense

A woman collapsed in a New World supermarket parking lot in Orewa, New Zealand.  Her heart stopped--she was dead--but a good Samaritan sprung into action and revived her with chest compressions, then disappeared into the crowd.  An ambulance took her to the hospital so the woman's car remained in the parking lot for about five-and-a-half hours.  You're only allowed 90 minutes in the New World lot so she got an $80 ticket.  Upon learning of her death, resurrection, and hospitalization, the supermarket relented ... by reducing the fine to $30.  Only upon facing public outrage did they withdraw the fine completely.  So if you're ever in New Zealand, make sure you're parked in a no-fee lot if you're planning on going to the hospital after temporarily dying.  Because New Zealand parking lots are intense.

via GIPHY

2. Dale Caldwell is insane

Mikie Sherrill, the governor of New Jersey, released an independent report confirming various improprieties committed by Dale Caldwell, her lieutenant governor, including trying to get a state job for his girlfriend and sexually harassing women on his staff.  The report confirmed that Caldwell asked one of his aides if her friend (who is much younger than him) was single and upon learning that the friend wasn't interested said that young women like them were ambitious and successful and needed a man who was in a position to help them, "but you young women are looking for young sperm."  As Johnny G once said, "I'm no Wilt Chamberlain," but in my experience women are looking for a man with nice eyes and a nice smile, or muscular arms and ripped abs, or a good sense of humor and a warm heart, or a well-paying job and his own place, or a strong sense of honesty and decency.  I've never heard a woman say "I'm looking for sperm" of any variety, let alone young.  Dale Caldwell is insane.  And twixt the time I started writing this and the time it posted, he resigned at Sherrill's request.

via GIPHY

3. Deshaun Watson does not provide good ROI

Deshaun Watson lamented the disrespect fans showed by booing him in the preseason.  "I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do about the performance," Watson said. "It's a little bit [more] personal than that. So I think it's a disrespectful thing. So yeah, I mean, I'm going to keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally on how I feel about that. And yeah, just move on."

I think it's perfectly fine to be disrespectful given his history of sexual assault, but there's also no reason to show him respect for what he's done on the field over the last four seasons.  Here are some numbers (you know I love numbers):

Allen has an asterisk because he played in 68 games but the Damar Hamlin game never finished and thus isn't included in his official stats.  In short, the Browns paid a shit-ton of money for not a lot of performance.  $183M for 19 games!  Here are more numbers:

Watson looks even worse on a dollars-per-stat basis.  $8M per touchdown!  I don't know how to put a dollar value on the picks Cleveland traded for him, including three first rounders, but it's safe to say they got a terrible return on their investment in Watson.  And twixt the time I started doing this math and the time it posted, he has a 112.9 passer rating and a fourth quarter comeback featuring a game-winning drive.

4. Caption this

I invite you to caption this photo of Donald Trump with Xi Jinping and their wives at Joint Base Andrews where Trump had US servicemen literally roll out the red carpet for China's genocidal communist dictator.

Take a Break

For the first time ever, the footballing world, men's division, is taking a three-week long break from club competition to provide time for international matches. FIFA chose to consolidate traditional September and October breaks into a single, longer period, which seems to be pretty sensible (and thus, very un-FIFA) - teams have more time to train together and gain more continuity, and the travel burden on players is halved. 

The nature of the matches in this window vary from the highly competitive UEFA Nations League and AFCON qualifiers to a bunch of friendlies between minnows (Dominica beat Anguilla, 1-0, on Monday, for example) and Lionel Messi's farewall match for Argentina on October 7. 

Here at home, USMNT skipper Mauricio Pochettino is using the extended break to integrate a number of youngsters into the senior national team setup. Of note, 16 year-old Philadelphia Union winger Cavan Sullivan, who's been tearing up MLS over the past month, is set to make his debut for the now aptly-nicknamed Baby Eagles. He's joined in the squad by fellow teenagers Neil Pierre (18 year-old center back), Mathis Albert (17, MF), Adri Mehmeti (17, MF), Julian Hall, (18, F), Peyton Miller, (18, D), Justin Ellis (19, F), and Zavier Gozo (19, MF). Cole Campbell (20, F) and Frankie Westfield (20, D) are relative codgers, comparatively. 

The U.S. play Peru, Chile, Mexico and Canada over the next several weeks. Grown-ass men on those first sides - the baptism could be a bit toasty.

The lengthy break gives club teams and their followers a chance to assess the season's first month and figure out what's gone well and what leaks need to be patched. It also gives me an opportunity to take a quick look at my preseason Premier League prognostications after five matches. It's too early to draw any conclusions (and thank the soccer gods, because if the season ended now I'd look like an idiot), but we can see some outlines of the story that'll play out over the remaining 33 matches.

So what have we learned?

The level is insanely high and the league is very deep. Among other evidence:

• Brighton walloped defending champs and previously unbeaten Arsenal, 3-0 in the last match before the break and has scored more goals than anyone else in the league.
• Bournemouth and Sunderland both had Manchester City dead to rights at the Etihad before the home side pulled off escapes.
• Leeds and Everton are both unbeaten (two wins and three draws)
• European results thus far are outstanding:
• EPL teams are 5-0 in the Champions League, 3-0 in the Europa League, and 1-1-0 (W-D-L) in the Conference League

Big names on either the front or back of a kit don't guarantee results. Tottenham Hotspur spent over $400m on new contracts this summer. At the time of this writing, and for at least the next three weeks, that entire roster has as many league goals as do the G:TB staff. Manchester United is off to the worst start in the club's 35-year Premier League history.

The G:TB Coaching Primacy Theorem offers mixed returns thus far. Andoni Iraola's Liverpool are unbeaten, but two wins and three draws in five have raised eyebrows at Anfield. Xabi Alonso's Chelsea team look exceptional going forward at times. They've also allowed more goals than any other squad. Spurs' Roberto de Zerbi has overseen a clusterfuck. Meanwhile, we scoffed at Enzo Maresca's potential at Manchester City, and the oddball Italian has his side top of the table with five wins in a row.

Enjoy the break and the opportunity for the young Americans to stake their claim to the future of the program. And maybe don't pay much attention to our preseason predictions.

Hubris!

You may have heard about Meta's $17.1 billion settlement with various school districts and Native American tribes who claimed that Meta knowingly hooked children on social media.  The "Perry Mason moment" precipitating this settlement was the trial judge's order to unseal a document that was partially redacted to obscure attorney-client privileged material.  This revealed information that damaged Meta's case and, more importantly, it showed that Meta's attorneys improperly over-redacted under a privilege fig leaf.  In other words Meta's craven lawyers lied that stuff was privileged in order to hide it from the other side.  You can't do that.

The judge appointed a special master to review all of Meta's privilege designations and along the way they learned that Instagram's legal team signed off on company swag hats embroidered with "a/c priv."  You can't make this up.

These fools are so crooked and so hubristic that they hubristically thought they could tout their crookedness!  But like a tragic Greek figure, their hubris did them in.  The judicial fallout isn't complete yet but I expect a hell of a bench slap on this.

None of this would've happened if these jackals watched The Wire.  If you do something bad, don't leave a paper trail.  Or an embroidery trail.

Hypocrisy in Lauren Boebert's Glass House

Rep. Lauren Boebert has been through some things.  She became a grandmother when she was 36 and her son was 17, which means she became a mother at 19.  Shortly thereafter she got divorced.  I don't know the logistical complications that required her to bring her grandson to her divorce hearing, but I suspect a 17-year-old dad isn't the most reliable, responsible dad so maybe this was an emergency child care situation.

Somewhere in between all that she was thrown out of a musical performance of Beetlejuice for some vaping and heavy petting with her date.

I can't relate to a lot of this.  I didn't have my first child until I was 37, and I cannot imagine zson convincing a woman to procreate with him now, in two years when he's 17, or even in 20 years.  Ever, really.  I don't know why there is a musical version of Beetlejuice or why anyone would want to see it.  But I have been divorced and I can tell you that some weird stuff happens.

I can also tell you that weird stuff passes relatively quickly and you settle back into normalcy, at least if you're healthy.  Boebert is still trying to find herself and it's getting surprising.

Someone recently filed a complaint against her with the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives, accusing her of having sex with three of her staffers, including her Chief of Staff, and paying one of them $200,000 to secure their silence about these improper relationships.  The most surprising part of this story is that two of the people involved are women.  I say "surprising" because Boebert has a history of homophobia.

Predictably, she denies it.  I obviously don't have all the facts so I don't know the truth, but it seems unlikely that someone would go on the record with a complaint like this unless they have the receipts (and in fact the complaint attaches some literal receipts showing how much the staff members were paid).

I hope Boebert figures things out, finds happiness, fills whatever void she has in her soul.  But this whole situation irritates the daylights out of me for the rampant hypocrisy.  Not because of the homophobia, which is awful but could potentially arise from her own ill-placed self-loathing.  I'm talking about her reaction when two other representatives were recently accused of having sexual relations with staffers.  What those guys did was atrocious, don't get me wrong, but Boebert called for their pensions and provided this gem of a soundbite: 

#NEW: Rep. @laurenboebert talks sexual misconduct allegations on the Hill "Why is everybody so horny here?" She says people need to "go to church. Find Jesus." https://t.co/KASrfx7lkc

— Vinay Simlot (@VinaySimlot) April 16, 2026

Glass houses, my friends.  Or should I say glass houses of representatives?  I look forward to Boebert donating her pension to It Gets Better.

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Gheorghasbord, Fashion is Dumb Edition

We are truly spanning the globe to bring you...some wild-ass shit, man. We've got the intersection of sport and local culture, a truly inexplicable bit of high fashion, and the ongoing expansion of pickles into every corner of our lives.

Oktoberfest (Wiesn to locals) kicked off this week in Munich, and the local football club got into the action on and off the pitch. Bayern Munich is a commercial juggernaut, so it's only natural they'd get into the Wiesn merch game. First, a special one-off kit to celebrate the festive season:

The Bavarians smoked FC Union Berlin, 7-0, while wearing these over the weekend, so maybe it may be more than a one-kit wonder.

If you're into a more traditional getup for Wiesn and you still want to rep your favorite side, perhaps I can interest you in a pair of Bayern Munich lederhosen for a cool $800:

And if you're a completist, you'll need to add a traditional shirt to match for $115:

You'll likely want to wear something underneath that getup. Leather on bare privates seems uncomfortable. But you might not want to shop at Saks. If you do, though, $875 seems a fair price to pay for something versatile:

All of that stuff seems normal enough, I suppose. Let's see what our fashion-forward friends at KFC have been up to since we checked in on their pickle-inspired duds. Still riding the pickle, is what.

KFC Australia has swapped its famous red for pickle green in Picklecore, a fashion-inspired campaign by Special Australia that turns a limited-edition gherkin menu into an entire aesthetic.

The campaign borrows the logic of fashion micro-trends, treating pickle obsession less like a flavour preference and more like something people might wear. Teaser billboards feature imaginary pickle lipsticks, watches and trousers, while a 15-second film gives the range the full high-fashion treatment, complete with techno soundtrack and glossy styling.

It really seems like they're trying to make Picklecore happen, too. Check out this video, and think about what all of this says about the world we live in.