Family and local supporters of Mr. Biden gathered in Market Square in Ballina to celebrate his victory in the presidential election. Credit: Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York Times

By Ed O’Loughlin, New York Times

BALLINA, Ireland — As America turned slowly blue, Ballina held its breath. Was it really possible that Joseph R. Biden Jr., considered a native son of this charming town on Ireland’s west coast — albeit five generations removed — was about to become the next American president?

It was. On Saturday, the election was called for Mr. Biden, and Ballina was ready to celebrate.

The first champagne cork was popped by Mr. Biden’s distant cousins in the town’s Market Square, watched by a few hundred delighted townspeople, two hours before CNN made the call. Someone drove up in a cherry red ’57 Buick Electra coupe with Elvis cushions in the back window. A speaker played Mr. Biden’s campaign song, Bruce Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own,” and the walk-on music from former President Bill Clinton’s winning campaign, “Don’t Stop (Thinking about Tomorrow).”

Pride in Mr. Biden is strong in this town. His great-great-great grandfather Edward Blewitt was born in Ballina and emigrated to Scranton, Pa., just after the great Irish famine of 1845 to 1849, according to historians.

Now, the town can boast that it has produced not one but two presidents. Mary Robinson, the global human rights campaigner who became Ireland’s first female head of state, was born a few hundred yards from Market Square, in a house by the salmon-rich River Moy. She won election on Nov. 7, 1990 — exactly 30 years before Mr. Biden’s victory.

Read entire story HERE

Australian rocker Nick Cave interacts with his fans via his website The Red Hand Files. “In this time of illness, cynicism and cruelty, do you receive many mean or vile messages?” asked one fan. “How do you cope with that kind of negative energy?”

Cave responded: “The letters sent to The Red Hand Files are mostly beautiful, full of love and a joy to read, but I do get the odd unkind message. Generally, though, I like them and find them weirdly energising. There is nothing quite like a good death threat in the morning to get the juices flowing.

“They are a form of validation, really, as no one with a public platform and an opinion is doing his or her job effectively if they are not being attacked from time to time.” Continue reading →

Sean Connery as James Bond in the 1971 film “Diamonds Are Forever.”

By Aljean Harmetz, New York Times

Sean Connery, the irascible Scot from the slums of Edinburgh who found international fame as Hollywood’s original James Bond, dismayed his fans by walking away from the Bond franchise and went on to have a long and fruitful career as a respected actor and an always bankable star, has died in Nassau, the Bahamas. He was 90.

His death, in his sleep either late Friday or early Saturday, was confirmed by his family.

“Bond, James Bond” was the character’s familiar self-introduction, and to legions of fans who have watched a parade of actors play the role — otherwise known as Agent 007 on Her Majesty’s Secret Service — none uttered the words or played the part as magnetically or as indelibly as Mr. Connery.

Tall, dark and dashing, he embodied the novelist Ian Fleming’s suave and resourceful secret agent in the first five Bond films and seven over all, vanquishing diabolical villains and voluptuous women alike beginning with “Dr. No” in 1962.

Read entire NY Times obit HERE

Mary Jo Copeland greets people Oct. 19 as they enter before breakfast at Sharing & Caring Hands, the food kitchen and charity organization that Copeland founded and runs in Minneapolis. (Jenn Ackerman for The Washington Post)

By Mary Jo Copeland, founder of Sharing & Caring Hands, a food kitchen and charity in Minneapolis. Her story, told to Eli Saslow, was published in the Washington Post.

There’s always a line. The line gets longer. I wake up at 4 in the morning to start helping these families, but this pandemic never rests. I’ve been doing this work for 40 years, and I’ve never seen pain like there is right now. People come here from all over Minnesota because they’ve lost their jobs, their homes, their savings — their dignity. They’re carrying around the hurt of what’s been done to them. They’ve got nothing but anger, sadness and fear.

I had a lady show up the other day, another first-timer. Her life was falling apart in a hundred ways, and she started going on to me about this virus and all the protests happening downtown. She was obsessing over this presidential election. She said: “I’m terrified right now. It feels like I’m watching the whole world come unglued.”

I told her: “Okay, then stop watching. What’s something you can do?”

I’ve always tried to think like that. I’m not saying I don’t have my own anxieties. I’m 78, and this virus has already set me back in a lot of ways. I’ve lost more this year than ever, but what good have negativity and fear ever done for people? Nothing. Zero. You can waste your whole life as one endless complaint. Okay, yes, this country has big problems. But who do you think is going to solve them? It’s up to us. I believe in perpetual motion. Do something. Do something! If you see something that needs to be changed, try changing it. If you see somebody who needs help, help them. People act like that’s saintly, but shouldn’t it be basic? Why isn’t it basic?

We’re a one-stop shop to help the poor. We try to give people whatever they need: food, clothes, furniture, dental, housing assistance, money to pay their bills. We’ve been open every day since this virus hit, but it seemed like the rest of the city pretty much closed. I don’t accept government funds, which means I’m free from some regulations. We were the only place left serving meals downtown. We had five or six hundred people lining up to eat, and what am I going to do? Stay at home because I’m afraid I might get sick? Send people away if they aren’t wearing a mask? Come on. These people barely had the luxury to worry about a virus. They were jobless. They were homeless. They had nothing to eat, and they weren’t getting their food stamps because the county had shut down. I promised them: “I will not close.” We served something like 8,000 meals that first week, and it’s gone on from there.

Some days, there are 200 people waiting to see me by the time I get in to work. Each one has an emergency. I open the doors and greet everyone as they come in. I ask their names and listen to their stories. Continue reading →

Got hooked on P.J. O’Rourke back in 1988 with his blistering side-splitting book Holidays in Hell about trying to find the sliver of humor in basket case foreign countries and unbearable situations. What follows is from Reason magazine about his new book on our current political environment.

“This is the end of the world for classical liberalism,” writes P.J. O’Rourke in his new collection of essays, A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land. The 72-year-old political commentator, who cut his teeth writing for National Lampoon and is the author of Parliament of Whores and other bestsellers, is pessimistic about the future of American politics.

“I’m appalled by the choice that we’ve been delivered,” says O’Rourke, referencing the 2020 presidential election. “I am worried.”

“I have always belonged to the pessimistic wing of the libertarian attitude,” explains O’Rourke. “There are many libertarians who believe that people are ultimately rational. I am not among them. This is probably because I spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent, largely covering wars, insurrections, social upheavals, and disturbances of all sorts….We have a rational side, thank God. And I hope we are appealing to that rational side. But it isn’t the only side in our multifaceted—and sometimes pretty ugly—little personalities.” Continue reading →