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“THE VALUE OF THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES IS THAT IT HANGS, NOT THAT IT FALLS:” Michael Walsh: In No Apparent Rush, the Grand Inquisitor Plods On. They have to keep it going past the midterms, at least.

OTHERING: A white guy in a Confederate flag shirt stopped to help a black father change his tire. To Tariq Nasheed, this is how ‘white supremacy works.’

Plus, flashback: Oikophobia on Rise After Trump Win.

Also: I detest Trump, but a ‘redneck’ fixed my Prius with zip ties.

Another flashback: Vicious Stereotypes In Polite Society. Today’s story is really a recapitulation of this one, lacking only a feminist law professor’s rape fantasies.

DIVERSITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: How an ultra-exclusive public school has avoided a citywide diversity push. “The children of Cynthia Nixon, Samantha Bee and Louis C.K. got into this popular public middle school, while hundreds of others are shut out every year. . . . One mother said that during an admissions interview, her daughter was asked what her parents did for a living.”

SO DESPITE ALL THE OUTRAGE ABOUT THE IDEA OF REDISTRIBUTING SEX, IT LOOKS LIKE WE’VE ALREADY DONE IT: 8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man.

AMERICA’S COOLEST COLD WAR WEAPON: One late, dark and rainy night in New York –circa 1981 to 1983– on some obscure cable channel on Manhattan’s then obscure (and now long gone) cable system, I perchance heard an interview with Dizzy Gillespie in which the bop jazz great talked about playing a gig in eastern Europe on one of those “State Department” tours. The interview was in black and white video. The tv was a color tv — perhaps this is a clue to the date of the interview. Anyway, Mr. Gillespie told the interviewer the police in this eastern European despotism brought dogs into the venue to confront the crowd while his band was on stage. That struck him as, you know, awkward, and, well, awful. This is my interpretation — the cops and dogs struck him as cold and chilling and cruelly inappropriate. As I remember the interview, prior to his comment about the cops and dogs, Mr. Gillespie remarked on how much eastern European audiences enjoyed American jazz and how that delighted him. Perhaps I incorrectly recollect the specifics, but somewhere out there the video exists. I got to hear Dizzy play live twice and he was electric.

OPEN THREAD: Make me proud.

WHICH IS FUNNY BECAUSE THE ONLY TIME HE WAS AHEAD IN THE POLLS WAS AFTER HE PICKED HER: McCain says he regrets picking Palin as running mate. And then he promptly fell behind as soon as he “suspended” his campaign for the financial crisis, which was as dumb a move as any presidential candidate has ever made. And now he’s dissing his running mate — whose career was on a promising arc until he picked her — just for a little bit of last-minute favorable press. Sad.

THE IMPORTANCE OF rebuilding with resilience after natural disasters.

CHANGE: Trump’s judges are flexing their muscles, from civil rights to campaign spending.

HEY, WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT? OH, WAIT. . . Taxing Remittances Can Build The Wall.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: David Paterson says [Cynthia] Nixon needs to ‘prove that she can govern.’

—The New York Post, today.

Chaser:

“I think that even a number of people around the country who do not vote for Senator Obama will notice, should he win, what an extraordinary moment this is in American history,” Mr. Paterson said. “If you’re a woman, if you’re Hispanic, if you’re disabled, if you are elderly, whoever you are, you kind of know that your chances to succeed in your endeavor have to be better if Barack Obama wins the presidency. And for those who don’t succeed there are now fewer excuses.”

—The New York Times, November 4, 2008.

GRANDPA BILL IS A HERO:  Ohio man trips fleeing gunman with his cane.  Captured on video.

ADMIRAL CUOMO PREPARES FOR WAR:  The duly-elected governor of the Empire State has lost his ever-lovin’ mind.

NEWS FROM NASHVILLE: Lessons From the Transit Plan’s Crushing Defeat: The May 1 election wasn’t just about public transit — it was a referendum on the direction of the city.

People are posting a lot of take-aways, though, that to me seem to miss some fundamental points. As much as politicians and strategists want to and are able to separate our current financial shitshow from public transit, regular people can’t. Yes, transit would have dedicated funding, but we can’t get paper in our schools without parents buying it. There is lead in our schools’ water. If we have a very limited pool of money, I think most Nashvillians would rather spend it on adequate schooling in non-poisonous schools. In other words, let’s take care of our responsibilities before we spend on our wish-list items.

Also, no one understands why we’re in a financial shitshow. At first, it was all “Oh, too many people appealed their new appraisals,” which, okay, sure. Appeal. That’s your right. But why was every appeal granted? I mean, if every assessment that was appealed was found to be wrong, should we assume every assessment is wrong? In which case, are those of us who didn’t appeal dumb? Shouldn’t someone be fired?

If I recall correctly, Nashville’s last Republican mayor was Morton Howell, in 1874-75.

UPDATE: In the comments, T.M. Lutas corrects me — the last Republican mayor was longer ago than that.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Four Reasons why Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing Reboot Could Yield Roseanne Ratings.

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AN AWESOME MILESTONE: Wisconsin man eats 30,000th Big Mac hamburger. “Gorske says he’s eaten so many because he just loves hamburgers. He says his cholesterol and blood pressure are normal.” Honestly, he looks awfully good for 64. From the pic I thought he was a couple of decades younger.

QUITE FORMIDABLE, ACTUALLY, IN THE HANDS OF SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING: Know your melee weapons: The Victorian Police Truncheon.

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HOW TO LOSE 132 POUNDS OVERNIGHT: Doctors Remove 132-Pound Ovarian Tumor From Patient, One of the Largest Ever of Its Kind. “The tumor was removed in a single surgery that lasted five hours and which required the expertise of nearly 25 highly skilled specialists. The patient first sought medical help after she began to rapidly gain weight at a rate of nearly 10 pounds a week, Danbury Hospital reported in a statement. A scan revealed that the source of the rapid weight gain was a tumor of shocking size.”

WHICH SIDE IS JEFF SESSIONS ON, ANYWAY? Questions like that become unavoidable when Department of Justice officials who are supposed to answer to the Attorney General continue to give congressional subpoenas the middle finger.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is now warning Sessions will be held in contempt if such defiance of congressional oversight doesn’t stop. If Nunes is threatening Sessions with contempt, how long before President Donald Trump makes it a moot issue?

I DONATE MY OLD PAIRS TO THE LIONS CLUB, WHICH SENDS THEM TO POOR COUNTRIES: A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses. But that’s not ambitious enough. It’s sad that fancy philanthropists like Bill Gates don’t think that this is a sexy enough problem.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE? Study: Excessive social media use could harm female self-esteem.