Fashion is Dumb (boy, is it ever)

We back, fellow fashionistas. 

Thank you to the Jean Paul Gaultier Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection for a gold mine of FiD content:

I will not be joining this dojo

The Inspector Gadget reboot looks... breezy.

Machine Gun Kelly gonna sue.

The sexy "M. Bison from Street Fighter" look

In case you're dying to wear the game Operation as a form-fitting top

*extreme Bluto voice* TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

I mean, COME ON

What's in a name?

I love Eddie Murphy's movies.  Trading Places was the first Eddie Murphy movie I ever saw, and also my first rated R movie, and it left a deep impression on my young consciousness.  I sought out all of his movies after that.  Some were really good, others not so much.

My friends liked his movies too and one of them had Raw on VHS.  We must've watched it a hundred times.  It too left a deep impression.

One of Murphy's not-so-good movies is The Distinguished Gentleman (not to be confused with Perfect Gentleman) in which he plays a con man from Florida named Jeff Johnson who runs for Congress when his representative, also named Jeff Johnson, dies shortly before the election.  Murphy wins solely due to name recognition and he goes on to grift while in office.  Along the way he falls in love with a do-good attorney, and when some bad politicians discover and publicize his criminal past, exposes their corruption.  He then, naturally, decides to run for president.

This seemed ridiculous in 1992 but in 2026 it holds up.  We currently have a convicted felon in the White House and I'm confident that George W. Bush got some votes from people who thought they were voting for Reagan's Vice President.

In Alaska, incumbent Republican senator Dan S. Sullivan faces a primary challenge from Dan J. Sullivan, a former teacher.  The incumbent decries this situation, natch, alleging that his doppelgänger is in cahoots with Democratic nominee Deb Haaland (no relation to Erling, she's running on a platform of "fish, family, and freedom") in an attempt to confuse voters and divert votes to the fugazi Sullivan.  The Alaska Supreme Court said both Sullys can stay on the ballot though, and Alaska has some weird Russian-influenced election process where the top four vote-getters from the primary advance to the general, so it's possible the Dans will face off a second time.  Democracy!

This confirms that we are indeed living in the dumbest possible timeline.  And I'm going to change my name to Dexter St. Jacques in advance of the 2028 presidential election so that I can run against Donald Trump Jr. when he pursues his father's third term.

'Tis the Season

We have a wide range of niche and mainstream interests here at your favorite online gathering place. Among them, an appreciate for the wonders of a good state fair. From Indiana to Minnesota to...well, just those two, we love a fair.

The Minnesota State Fair runs for two weeks around Labor Day each summer (August 27 - September 7, this year). It's the largest such fair in the U.S. in terms of average daily attendance, and more than two million people pass through its gates each year. (Texas tops the nation in total attendance, but their fair runs twice as long as Minnesota's.)  

One of the most-anticipated events in the run-up to the Fair is the annual reveal of food items that will make their debut that year. You know that we're all over this one. 

Fully 48 fair foods and drinks will be first-timers in 2026. Thirty-nine of these are new offerings from Fair veterans and nine are proffered by vendors new to the Fair. Sixteen are either sweet treats or drinks, and neither of those categories are really my cup of (bubble) tea, so we'll narrow our discussion to the remaining 32 savory stuffs, with an emphasis on the unique (so we'll skip the new french fry vendor, for example).

Let's start with the ethnic diversity. The Twin Cities are home to a surprising range of cultures, from the obvious Scandinavian to large Somali, Filipino, and Hmong communities. The latter is represented by the Hmong Corn Dog from Union Hmong Kitchen. The purveyors describe it thusly, "Pork Hmong sausage flavored with ginger, garlic, fish sauce, chili and lemongrass made in collaboration with Kramarczuk's. Skewered, dipped in a cornmeal batter and fried. Served with a side of citrus Kua Txob sauce." Would.

Not to be outdone, the good people at Lumpia City are bringing their Longanisa Cheese Curd Lumpia to the party. It's a "Homemade Filipino longanisa pork sausage combined with garlic and Wisconsin cheese curds, stuffed and rolled in a lumpia wrapper and deep-fried. Served with a side of sweet chili sauce." Lumpia, to the uninitiated, is essentially a Filipino egg roll.

A pair of vendors will offer two very different interpretations of bao buns. Rooted & Wild by Snack House brings a vegan version doused in hot barbecue sauce and topped with pineapple slaw. Meanwhile, RC's BBQ's giving us bao belly (pictured) presented as, "Smoked barbecue pork belly drizzled with RC's hot sauce and yum yum sauce. Topped with pickled vegetables and cilantro and served on folded, steamed bao buns." Fuck and yes.

Were I to head to the fairgrounds this year, one of the first places I'd have to go is the French Meadow Bakery & Cafe stall smack in the middle of the action. They're bringing Shakshuka Lamb Meatballs, which, shut the front door. If you haven't tried shakshuka, I insist you remedy that - it's a rich, thick often-spicy tomato sauce that's served with hearty bread and proteins like eggs, kabob, chicken, etc. Here's how the French Meadow folks describe their dish: "Seasoned lamb and pork meatballs stuffed with whipped garlic herb goat cheese and flash-fried. Served atop shakshuka – a blend of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions and spices – garnished with parsley and served with a side of chimichurri-spiced sourdough crostini."  

You'll want to sit down to eat it, so maybe hit the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild's tent and grab a cold one to accompany the shakshuka.

We'll close our preview with one last item, because we're running out of gas, but do hit the link above to check out all of the options. We'll stay away from the Pickle Pie offered by LuLu's Pie House, as well as the Dill With It, Cookie! from Urban Glow Mocktails. Several elote and elote-adjacent dishes look delicious, for sure, but maybe some other time. Cafe Caribe's putting lobster with garlic butter on a cheeseburger. Goddamn lunatics. Mancini's al Fresco's Walking Chopped Italian Grinder puts a whole new spin on nachos, and I would definitely try it. But the last thing we'll highlight comes from Midtown Global Market's Irie Jamaican Express.

Smothered fries may not seem all that exciting, but get a load of their Jamaican Jerk Chicken Loaded Fries. That might be a perfect combination.

I'll be headed to the Loudoun County Fair next week, if only for the pig calling. I hope at least one of our readers gets to the Minnesota State Fair this year, or at least some fair. It's a good clean gluttonous slice of Americana.

A Great One Gone

As a DMV native and news junkie of a certain age, I was bummed to learn that Pat Oliphant passed yesterday at the age of 91. For my (meager) money, Oliphant was nothing less than the greatest political cartoonist to ever smudge his hands in acerbic ink. He skewered politicians off all stripes and reserved some of his sharpest barbs for the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. 

In reading more about him, I learned that there's a recently-made documentary about his life and career entitled A Savage Art. And so now I've got one more thing to watch.

Gheorghasbord: All Filler, No Killer

Clearing the decks to get our week off to a good start. We've got dogs, and dudes, and all manner of flotsam. I'm Maine-bound on Friday to take Rootsy's place as the G:TB ambassador to its rivers and lakes, so don't expect to hear anything from me for a few days. Keep the place running, won't you.

News you can use from The Guardian, "According to the Vets Now, dogs’ brains have more cannabinoid receptors than humans’, so marijuana tends to affect a dog more than it would a human." This is relevant to Tokyo, a 25 kg (55 lb) lab who accidentally ingested marijuana left on the trail at UK's Ben Nevis mountain. The poor pup lost consciousness after he legs began to give out as she and her owner made the ascent. 

Thankfully, the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team was quick on the job, helping get Tokyo off the mountain and to the hospital, where she made a full recovery. 

We've all been there, good girl

Tributes continue to pour in for Sam Neill, who passed suddenly yesterday. In marked contrast to the way U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has been remembered, the 78 year-old Neill seems to have been universally loved for both his art and the generosity of his spirit. He also seems to have been a man of whimsy, as this pandemic-era video shows:

Very few players will exit the World Cup having burnished their credentials on and off the pitch more than Norway's Erling Haaland. The Striking Viking (just made that up, but others can feel free to use it free of charge - man of the people) scored seven goals in Norway's five matches, helping lead his nation to its best-ever result. 

Watchers of the game already knew about his talent and preternatural scoring acumen. Haaland's genuine personality and willingness to express it are what took him from Premier League star to global icon. As of today, Haaland has more Instagram followers than Manchester United. Like Sam Neill, Haaland appears both interested in the world and unafraid to be himself. So while I will continue to despise his club, I find it very hard now to not root for the man.

Gheorghe-Bait, Election Edition

We live in an era of maximalist crazy, politically-speaking. For once, I'm not actually talking about the good ol' U S of A. Across the pond, an upcoming by-election (defined as an election taking place between general elections to fill a vacant seat - you may know them from their star turn as special elections here) in England pits a fascist against a noble garbage bin. 

Nigel Farage is one of the worst people on the planet. The leader of the UK's Reform Party, he's been a Member of Parliament representing Clacton since July 2024. Clacton is a coastal constituency that skews old and homogeneously white (96.1% white, to be precise). Convenient locale for a politician who specializes in racist anti-immigrant appeals. And he's been racist from way back: his high school classmates penned an open letter to him in 2025 demanding that he apologize for his racist behavior back in the day.

As a long-time Euroskeptic, Farage was a leading voice in the movement for Britain to leave the European Union in 2020. He's palled around with Trump and French right-winger Marine Le Pen. Like Trump, he's corrupt as shit, currently under investigation for various financial shenanigans, including taking a €5m "gift" from a crypto billionaire. Unlike, Trump, he seems to prefer his greed on a modest scale - wouldn't want to be gauche, after all.

Last week, in a ploy to bolster his party's electoral ambitions, Farage resigned his seat in Parliament and announced plans to stand once again in the by-election forced by his actions. In his words, he took the action as a rejection of the fake news of his corrupt behavior, saying, “I have decided that the people of Clacton will be the judges of my actions. This will be a people versus the establishment by-election.”

The other leading parties were less than impressed by Farage's gambit, refusing to play along. One by one, they announced that they would refuse to stand a candidate in the race. 

Which left an unlikely opponent to square off with Farage in the August 13 contest. Friends, I give you Count Binface.

The creation of satirist Jonathan David Harvey, Binface is a frequent candidate across the U.K., an "independent space warrior" who runs to promote electoral participation, among other things. In an recent BBC interview, he articulated a series of policy positions that included building at least one affordable house, nationalizing Adele, and "of course, moving the hand dryer in the gents toilet in the Crown and Treaty pub Axbridge to a more sensible position because as you know it's a national issue."

Come on good people of Clacton. You know what to do. And we're all counting on you. Up the Binface!

Z, International Man of Mystery

Many of our readers will be aware of my long-ago addiction to General Hospital. I failed a college class because of the Cruise of Deception for chrissakes. 

That addiction, fortunately for my career and marriage, ended long ago. I haven't seen a daytime soap in decades. But now, news comes from Port Arthur that changes everything. 

There's a mysterious new character in town, a dashing, debonair international man of mystery. Friends, I give you...Z. (Not that one.)

For a bit more context regarding this glorious crossing of streams, I commend to you this explainer from Brian Grubb. Oh to be living John Oliver's life.