"Greeley, Colorado, circa 1950 was the last place one might think to look for signs of American decadence."

"Its wide streets were dotted with churches, and there wasn’t a bar in the whole temperate town. But the courtly Qutb (COO-tub) saw things that others did not. He seethed at the brutishness of the people around him: the way they salted their watermelon and drank their tea unsweetened and watered their lawns. He found the muscular football players appalling and despaired of finding a barber who could give a proper haircut. As for the music: 'The American’s enjoyment of jazz does not fully begin until he couples it with singing like crude screaming,' Qutb wrote when he returned to Egypt. 'It is this music that the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires.'"

From "A Lesson In Hate/How an Egyptian student came to study 1950s America and left determined to wage holy war," a 2006 article in Smithsonian, which I'm reading this morning as a result of the conversation we were having about "You Hate Leaf Blowers, Your Neighbor Uses Them: How One Town Seeks Middle Ground." I won't bother you with the logical links that connected these subjects.

Donald Trump's "Saturday Night Live" stint.

1. This was the best part:



That's very funny even without knowing the original video that it spoofs, but you can watch that here. Spoofing that isn't original. It's already much spoofed.

2. For the commenter who asked at 11:05 PM last night, "Why aren't you live blogging SNL?" You have no idea how early I go to bed! I was up at 5, however, and I watched the DVR of the show over breakfast.

3. We loved seeing Ed Grimley! Too bad they had to put "Ed Grimley" in big letters on screen... presumably to help the kids out there whom they must have imagined all saying "Who's that guy?" Here at Meadhouse, Ed Grimley is imitated approximately every other day.

4. Trump did a nice job. He wasn't just a good sport about getting flanked by 2 Trump impersonators in the opening monologue. He seemed to enjoy it. And he accepted Larry David yelling "You're a racist!" at him. Laughing at the idea of being considered a racist. That's edgy. [ADDED: "A Hispanic advocacy group had offered anyone in the SNL audience a $5,000 reward if they called Trump a 'racist' during his opening monologue."]

5. I skipped over the musical act, but Sia stole my 1965 hairstyle.

6. Lots more Larry David in the cold open. David owns the Bernie Sanders impersonation. I wonder if that was the first time the line "It's Saturday Night!" was skipped. Cranky old Larry/Bernie says "Live from New York, eh, you get it."

7. Late in the show there's a fake ad for Donald Trump done by aging porn actresses. The punch line is Donald Trump walking on and saying "I'm Donald Trump and I in no way, shape, or form approve of this message," but the most interesting thing is the shot at Bill Clinton that comes at about 3:00. One of the messed-up ladies dreams of getting to visit the White House: "I haven't been there since the 90s," and the other says, "Oh, yeah, I hit my head on the desk." For a show that's seemed so in-the-tank for Hillary, that's some serious balance.

"On Tuesday, Achan, joined by Aicheria Bell, another African-style hair braider, and the Institute for Justice, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Iowa Board of Cosmetology Arts & Sciences."

"Their complaint asserts that the state’s licensing laws are 'burdensome and arbitrary…causing great and irreparable harm' and violate their rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."

... Iowa’s cosmetologist license is more burdensome than the training requirements for dental assistants, bus drivers, emergency medical technicians, animal control officers, child care workers, security guards, pest control applicators and animal breeders—combined. 

"It's one thing to say you're going to let go. It's another to actually do it. To loosen your grip, to let yourself fall."

"So when I walked into the haircutting place, I was taking a leap. But I wasn't doing it for a guy or because of some list. I was doing it for me."