The Invitational Week 80: Same Difference

We give you a random list of things, and you tell us how any two are alike or different. Plus for tl;dr types, history as two rhyming lines.

Cargo shorts are like an ear hair how? Tell us in this week’s Invitational contest. (temu.com)

Hello. It’s another lovely day out on the links — as we return to one of our favorite contest tropes, one we’ve used many times with uniformly gonzo results. It’s the beloved Compare & Contrast (or otherwise link) two items on a wacky random list. Here’s this year’s list, followed by a couple of examples.

• The Alitos’ flagpole

• Steve Bannon’s cellmate 

• That one ear hair that keeps growing back

• Rizz

• Shrinkflation

• A Chat GPT love letter

• A tube of Crest 

• Pickleball 

• Left-handed scissors

• A mask you still have from 2020

• A runny nose 

• 6-3

• An outie bellybutton

• Cargo shorts

• Commander Biden 

• Earth’s molten core 

• The Hawk Tuah Girl 
  

A tube of Crest vs. shrinkflation: The second one puts the squeeze on you.

Cargo shorts are like a runny nose: They both tend to fill up with gunk that makes their possessor even worse to look at.

For Invitational Week 80: Tell us humorously how any two (or more) items on the list above are alike, different, or otherwise linked, as in the examples above. We selected most of the items from a multitude of random noun phrases offered up last week by the lively Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook. See last year’s results here.

Deadline is Saturday, July 20, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, July 25. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. 

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-80.

There’s no special formatting this week except the usual request not to break up any individual entry with a line break (i.e., don’t push Enter within a single entry). This way the Empress can shuffle all the entries and not know how many she’s choosing from any one person.

This week’s winner gets a special something donated by Dave Prevar. Dave, it was noted last Sunday at the Loser Community’s annual awards “banquet,” the Flushies, has donated more than 125 Invitational prizes over the years. Not so coincidentally, Dave is only 30-some blots of ink away from the 500 lifetime inks (including prize donations) that get you into the Losers’ own Invite Hall of Fame to enjoy its attendant benefits (none). And so this week Dave is going above and beyond: He is donating a kidney.

This week’s prize: Dave Prevar’s kidney.

Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.

Meanwhile, send us questions or observations, which we hope to deal with in real time today. You do this, as always, by sending them to this here button:

Metrical History Tour: The couplets of Week 78

In Invitational Week 78 we asked you to sum up a historic event in two rhyming lines.

Third runner-up:
1876: That dandy Custer looked his best, succumbing in the dirt
At Little Bighorn, where he wore his brand-new Arrow shirt.  (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

Second runner-up:
1776: “Unalienable rights,” yadda yadda yadda …
Except for the slaves, who have nada, nada, nada. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

First runner-up:
1960: A spy plane’s shot down; it’s a major snafu.
Says Nikita to Ike, “We’ve been watching U-2.” (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

And the winner of the toilet-plunger earrings:
1776: The LAW is king, wrote Thomas Paine — it caused a great commotion.
Thank God our wise, enlightened Court struck down that foolish notion. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

As always, if you feel none of those is the best among today’s inking entries, shout out your favorites in the comments.

The Dustbin of History: Honorable mentions

44 B.C.E.: Caesar deemed himself anointed.
His friends’ response was rather . . . pointed.  (Marshall Begel, Madison, Wis., a First Offender)

200 B.C.E.-1644: For two thousand years China built a Great Wall;
Still waiting for Mongols to pay for it all. (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)

1066: Some Vikings first learned French, then conquered Britain,
Which explains the crazy way English is written. (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

1184: King Henry’s church assembly was, they all agreed, a hit
Until the floor crashed through a cesspool, drowning them in shit. (Frank Osen)

1212: The Children’s Crusade got to Genoa, Italy.
When the sea didn’t part, it amounted to diddly. (Chris Doyle)

1271-95: Marco Polo journeys, sees Far Eastern rule,
Returning with tales and a game for the pool. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

1535: When Thomas More an oath would not profess,
King Henry’s headsman made him Thomas Less. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

1536: We know Henry and Anne had their problems in bed:
Only once, and belatedly, Anne gave good head. (Kevin Dopart)

1620: The Mayflower docked at Plymouth Rock, one journal makes it clear,
Because the Pilgrims had drunk up the ship’s supply of beer. (Frank Osen)

1773: They dumped plain tea, no bubble mocha,
A harbor free of tapioca. (Jeff Rackow, Bethesda, Md.)

1726: Gulliver’s Travels told tales of a sailor—
Best work by a Swift till the era of Taylor. (Jesse Frankovich)

1775: He rode much farther than did Paul Revere, so what’s with his dismissal?
Longfellow couldn’t scan the line “The Midnight Ride of Israel Bissell.” (Frank Osen)

1776: King George III was not the sort of royalty
To inspire loyalty. (Frank Osen)

1776: We declared independence the fourth of July
In the year MDCCLXXVI. (Jesse Frankovich)

1784: To save this Venezuelan Lenten dish
The Pope said capybaras can be fish. (Kevin Dopart)

1788: In the Battle of Karansebes, although it sounds barmy,
The Austrian army fought against the, um, Austrian army. (Frank Osen)

1860-61: The Pony Express sped the mail to tough spots,
Then was quickly replaced by some dashes and dots. (Kevin Dopart)

1861: It’s the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s man,
It’s not clear if his body’s interred in a can. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)  

1863: “Fourscore and seven years ago,” Abe Lincoln had begun.
And by the time they did the math, the entire speech was done. (Jonathan Jensen)

1883: The erupting Krakatoa
Meant the island was no moa. (Kevin Dopart)

1903: They planned out a canal through which the cargo ships would roam, 
Which meant (much more importantly) a nifty palindrome. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

1903:  They first took off at Kitty Hawk and then just kept on going;
The brothers would be crushed to see what’s happening at Boeing. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

1911: He went over Niagara and lived to tell all:
Bobby Leach met his end from an orange peel fall. (Kevin Dopart)

1915: Antarctica is beautiful, with penguins, whales, and ice;
But when you’re stuck without a ship, it’s really not so nice. (Beverley Sharp)

1919: In terms of social progress, Prohibition wasn’t fruitful.
Who hit on such a dumb idea? They must have had a snootful. (Jonathan Jensen)

1921: As tipsy Winston Churchill mapped the new Jordanian nation
He hiccupped, and its border got a giant indentation.  (Frank Osen)

1953: Edmund Hillary was the first to scale that Everest mount
(That is, as long as all the local Sherpa guys don’t count.) (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

1960: Psycho comes out, and a lot of gals sour
On the need in motels to get into the shower. (Chris Doyle)

1989: When the Exxon Valdez spilled its load in the water,
We learned that it’s bad to mix oil and otter. (Jesse Frankovich)

2008:  The government showed: when the stock market tanks
The people can suck it, but let’s save the banks! (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

2021: Some folks were bummed: Trump never got a chance to put his fence up,
And so they built the next best thing: a place to hang Mike Pence up. (Duncan Stevens)

The Early Times: Noah took ’em all; he did not judge, he spoke no vetoes.
But damn it, did he absolutely have to save mosquitoes? (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

The headline “Metrical History Tour” is by Jesse Frankovich; Jesse and William Kennard both submitted the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, July 13: our Week 79 contest to suggest alternative ways to celebrate Independence Day. Click on the link below.

The Invitational Week 79: The Farce of July

Now we enter the real-time portion of the Gene Pool, where Gene will take your questions and observations, and respond to them, in real time. Send your stuff to this awesome creamsicle-colored button:

Many of today’s questions and observations were the result of Gene’s call on the weekend for examples of when you realized you were turning into a geezer; also, the crisis at Columbia University, where three deans were fired for allegedly antisemitic texts they exchanged with each other.

Q: Geezerdom —When I was in college, the other kids laughed when I called a record player a Victrola.  But that's what my parents called it, so. . . Was I a fogey in that instance, or just a child-of-a-fogey?

A:  Well, er. Heh.

I OWN a Victrola.  From 1916.

And, um, a spittoon from 1920, and a clock sold in Baltimore in 1912, and (half shown) a refillable Red Star brass & copper soda-acid fire extinguisher made in Detroit in 1943.

Ignore the disgracefully modern object on the right, and the dog food.

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TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

Please remember to Observe and Question:

Also, you can upgrade your subscription to “paid” here, but only if you oppose ignorant, malevolent autocracy:

This is Gene.   I have to pass on the comment I saw to an article on Balloon Juice.  The commenter (“Jeffro’) was writing about all the people, particularly in the media, who were supplying their complex “solutions” to the Democrats dilemma. Jeffro satirically proposed this: “Joe should resign, and then Kamala should name him as her VP.  And then the following week, Kamala should resign, and Joe should name her as his VP.  Lather, rinse, repeat all the way ’til November so that our blessed Beltway punditariat can get their clicks.”  

—

Q: Wow!  I had no idea the Times had printed that don’t-vote idiocy by Walther.   I'm going to let my friends and colleagues in the field in which I work know about this.  Because, as it happens, we raised similar concerns about similar platforming of a right-wing extremist on the Times op-ed page in May.  I published my letter to the Times op-ed editor here. I certainly wouldn't rule out your theory about the Times' behavior - newspapers *absolutely* are that petty.  But I have a more mundane theory: The op-ed you cite, the op-ed I cite and the notorious Tom Cotton op-ed may simply be editors trying to show how open they are to all points of view - without checking facts and sources. – Richard Wexler

A: It’s a bad impulse by the media, the same phony equivalency philosophy that led to the butter emails overkill that helped elect Trump.  An intelligent observation does not require an unintelligent response. “Balance” is not always needed or desirable.

—

*

Q: I answered 'yes' to the question about do I trust the media.  While I'm unabashedly left, I always figured that since both sides bitched about the New York Times and CNN, they *had* to be doing a good job at being centrists.  I've believed this for over 20 years, since George W Bush got me to really pay attention.  

But the behavior of CNN and the NY Times on this Biden thing has really shook me up.  It's clear to me that both organizations are interested in seeing Trump re-elected, and don't care who knows.  And that's really really scary to me.  I've been going to HuffPo and MSNBC over the last couple weeks, which is kind of hard . . . because I know they're biased.  But evidently they are the least biased major outlets left.

A: I fear this is oversimplified.   It is true that Newspapers did far better financially during the Trump presidency because people were so terrified of what would happen, but no reputable news organization would tailor its coverage to that.  And they are reputable.  I think the previous writer is closer to the truth: A bogus attempt at “evenhandedness.”

Ominously, though, the exec editor of the NYT, in an interview with the New Yorker, said this:

If Trump wins a second term, can you outline how the Times plans to cover that? How are you thinking about this potential norm-breaking period?

Fasten your seat belts. If Trump wins again, the New York Times will be committed to covering every aspect of that story as it unfolds. It would be, as our reporting shows, a disruptive Presidency if he wins. We will have a full-time job covering the implications of that. And we’ll need a team of people who are geared up, as in the first term, but even more so, for a very disruptive presence in the White House. And what we’ll do is we’ll show up and we’ll do our jobs.

—

Fasten your seatbelts? Sounds like he’s rooting for a Trump win, doesn’t it?

—

Q: My mother's voice started coming out of my mouth when I was around 40-50-something, 20-30 years ago, and has continued ever since. "Turn a lamp on while you're reading that magazine, you can't see!" ( - stopping before her usual reason, "you'll ruin your eyes like that!". Or: "Wipe your feet at the door, you'll track sand/dirt/grass all through the house!". I also save too many plastic containers and jars for reuse because I "might need them for something", as if I had lived through the Great Depression like she did. But I didn't, I was a child of the 50s. 

A: This reminds me of when I was editing Kornheiser.  I loved the stories  he told about his geezer father.  From one of his columns:

 My father saved the Styrofoam trays that supermarket meat comes in. He washes them and stacks them by the hundreds in his pantry -- you know, in case there's ever a worldwide Styrofoam meat tray shortage. LIKE YOU COULD GO TO A SUPERMARKET ANYWHERE AND GET A PIECE OF CHICKEN WITHOUT ONE. I'll say, "Dad, what are you planning to do with these things?" He'll say, "You never know when they'll come in handy."

Have I told you about my dad's dishes? No, not the china. The china is all packed up. My dad doesn't use the china. "Who am I entertaining, the king of England?" (I told you he was old.) My dad now proudly serves guests on plastic plates with dividers for meat, potatoes and vegetables. They're plates he borrowed from the airlines 25 and 30 years ago. Last week, we ate dinner off "Braniff."

Anyway, I hadn't seen my dad in almost a year. And what I noticed this time was how short he'd gotten. Not that he was ever tall to begin with; in his prime, he was only 5 feet 6. But now, he's 5 feet tall. And the thing is, he's still wearing the pants he wore when he was 5 feet 6. Except now, he pulls them up to right under his armpits. When he sits down, all you see of his shirt is the collar. "When you get old, your body settles," he said. I said, "Dad, it's a body, not a compost heap."

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Urgent!  Thls is Gene.  This headline just came in: 

Police arrest suspect accused of breaking into west Columbus pet store 

The suspect, who police identified as Michael Pancake, was found sleeping near the Big Lots on Roberts Road. Officers found four hamsters in his pants.

—

Q: I have also yelled at kids to get off my lawn. Not sure how old I was. Somewhere between 25 and 45 based on where I lived at the time.

Now I find myself yelling at the TV. I think that started in 2016 for some reason. Definitely a grumpy old man at 63.  – 

A: I will sometimes say thank you when Alexa gives me an answer.

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Q: Fogey moments: a few months ago, I took myself for a walk down Clark Street through Andersonville, a fun neighborhood in the north part of Chicago. Coming out of a nice little independent bookstore, I passed a "paint it yourself" ceramics studio and wondered why there were two of those in the same block. Then I passed a framing shop and wondered why there were two of those in the same block, too. It took a coffee bar that looked just like another coffee bar in the same block -- three separate stores -- until the light came on and I realized I'd turned the wrong way out of the bookstore and was retracing my steps.

A:Hahaha. 

\

Q: I knew I was getting old when college women started looking more like under age girls and I had zero interest.  This was very much not the case when I myself was in college.

Currently 47 but it started happening many years ago.

A: Never quite heard that expressed. 

—

Q: Tonight, for our dinner vegetable, I warmed corn and beans on the stove.  I took a bite before allowing it to cool down, and burned my tongue.  I am succotash sufferin'.

A:Thank you.

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Q: Your point about whether this is active discrimination or just private(ish) chatter is fair, but if high-ranking administrators are dumb and careless enough to out themselves as highly insensitive on a third-rail topic, they deserve whatever (just about) comes to them, including suspension and even firing.

Yes, their behavior — holding a phone with a boorish text thread in a visible place, in the middle of an emotional event, amid an audience — is that reckless. Would they say the same things loudly to each other as they sat in a crowded pizza joint?

Separately, my initial strong reaction was about the peculiar journalistic choices.

The New York Times spent 17 paragraphs saying there were questionable texts, but never giving any specifics. Even the examples it finally gave were muted.

It was only by clicking through to the Washington Free Beacon story that I got a much more detailed account of what the administrators said and did, and it made a significant difference.

Why did the Times decline to report most of those comments in detail despite having access to them? Was it only quoting a few less inflammatory texts?

Did the clandestine nature of the photos make the Times nervous?

It makes no sense to decide to report on a blowup over the comments, but only partly describe what the comments were and why they were so bad when you knew those answers.

A: Hm.  I had read the original story, too.  Yes, The Times story picked and chose, but I STILL didn’t see any comments that struck me as antisemitic.  Highly opinionated and rude, but not antisemitic.  What did you see that I didn’t?  They all seemed to be critical only of individual speakers. The times also omitted a text saying “I’m trying to keep an open mind.”   Here’s the story.

(Even the school specified that the offending texts only “touched on” antisemitic tropes.)

—

Q: Your analysis is not wrong, but the point you may have missed is that perhaps they weren't put on leave for their actions, per se. Perhaps they they were put on leave because the publication of their actions made it impossible for them to do their jobs -- jobs which require interaction with students, trust from students, respect from students.

— Scott

–

A: I think that’s a good point.  I’d add that another reason might be even more simple:  They embarrassed their employer.   That would be a valid reason to fire them, too.   The problem is, the University didn’t put it that way.  It called them antisemites.

—

Q: Do you own any clocks that are NOT ancient?  

A: In a sense, yes,  I have one timepiece, recently bought, that was made in 1970, and is electric!

However.  There is a catch.  

It is a 1970 Bulova Accutron, the first electric tuning-fork watch.  A brilliant if primitive innovation in which the regular vibrations of a tuning fork is used to keep time.  It is a handsome, accurate  watch that had some design problems, specifically that it tends to die if exposed to water, even heavy wrist sweat.  Quartz technology overtook it almost immediately and made it obsolete. It doesn’t tick, it hums.  I love it and wear it, just not in the rain.  

—

This is Gene, with a question. It’s been mildly bothering me for a while.

All three Gene Pools every week get about the same robust readership. No real difference in tthe number of eyeballs week to week. But the Tuesday and Saturday posts tend to get 350-600 answers to the polls.

Thursdays, Invite Day, tend to get 250. Today’s is running at the same rate. Watch. By tomorrow there will be almost exactly 250.

In short, Thursday people are not submitting poll answers as much. Can anyone explain this? Are we doing something wrong on Thursdays? Are Invitees less likely to offer opinions? Please respond either in comments or in the orange button. Thanks.

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Q: I remember an article in the WaPo by a writer who traveled halfway across the country to spend a few days getting to know a carefully selected “non-voter” who turned out to have indeed voted and who actually was currently registered.  It’s amazing what people will cop to for a headline.

A: You lookin’ at me?   You lookin at ME?

Ted Prus had never voted, at least at the time I talked to him.  I believe he STILL hasn’t, despite this story.

Note that the story, not by me, also notes he had not yet voted.

Explain, please.

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Q: This is obliquely related to the fogey-moment theme:

I distinctly remember the very first time I overheard someone referring to me as a "man" - not a "boy" or a "guy" but a "man."  I was 35 years old. 

I also distinctly remember the very first time I overheard someone referring to me as an "old man." I was 37.

Apparently the full flower of my prime did not last long.

A: Haha. 

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Q: OF COURSE they should not have been fired. When we reach a point where criticism of Israel is regarded, per se, as antisemitic, we have left behind the bounds of sanity. Down with the thought police.

Anyway, prominent on my burgeoning list of now-103 pet peeves is "select 'one' for English". Like they can't find a teenager to make it the default option? A more amusing one is the old movie meme (trope?, neither?, already.) where the boyfriend is getting clobbered in a fight while his lady stands by, helpless. Geeze, pick up a lamp or poker and bash the bad guy.

A: Agreed. Especially the last one. It always bothered me. Fortunately, as you point out, this is a thing of the past. In modern movies, she’d decapitate the guy with a roundhouse kick to the head.

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This is Gene. I’m calling us down.

PLEASE keep sending in Questions and Observations here.

See you on the Weekend.