{"id":51,"date":"2002-02-07T09:40:39","date_gmt":"2002-02-07T14:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/poker_night_invasion"},"modified":"2002-02-07T09:40:39","modified_gmt":"2002-02-07T14:40:39","slug":"poker_night_invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2002\/02\/poker_night_invasion.html","title":{"rendered":"Poker Night Invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nRemember Charlotte Raven<\/a>?
\nWell, she’s baaack<\/a>.
\nThis time she’s gushing about Muhammad Ali for telling an anti-Semitic joke at a recent
\ncharity banquet. (What’s the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe
\nalways tips. Yuk, yuk.)\n<\/p>\n

\nRaven is, of course, thrilled with Ali. In fact, she goes so far as bestow Ali with the
\nhighest praise possible in the postmodern universe. Yes, she calls him “subversive”.
\nNope, sorry, Ms. Raven. Telling anti-Semitic jokes is mainstream… and
\nboring, to boot. Hiding Jews from the SS: now that’s<\/em> subversive.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn Other News: Gregg Easterbrook is not a happy camper.
\n“Where’s my<\/em> Enron bribe?<\/a>” he
\ndemands. After all, he’s been writing long boring energy policy pieces for
\nyears<\/em>. But nobody cared. Here’s his account of trying to sell
\nan energy deregulation piece to
\nThe Atlantic<\/a> in 1992:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nBill Whitworth was silent for a long pause and then said in his
\nmodified Arkansas drawl, “Gregg, don’t you think that topic is — a little dry?<\/em>”
\nWhen Bill Whitworth, the most bookish and circumspect in a storied line of bookish
\nand circumspect Atlantic editors, tells you your topic is a little dry, that’s
\nlike the pope telling you that you need to get out and meet some girls.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAs for my life:\n<\/p>\n

\nSarah got pretty sick last night. With Mom and Dad both<\/em> out of town,
\nI was the only one left to take care of her. She has some variant of the flu
\nwith a nasty fever. Poor kid.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn Tuesday, we had a major Invasion on Poker Night. Our old friend Phil
\nwas in town, and that brought out a number of friends from all over the bay,
\nincluding a couple of significant others. Well, just one significant other.
\nThere was another cute girl (a cute Mudd<\/a> alum!!) who I thought<\/em> was
\nBrian Cheney<\/a>‘s spouse, but
\nturned out not to be. Believe me, I was emphatically not-crushed to
\nlearn I was mistaken. Unfortunately she’s moving to Albuquerque, NM in a matter
\nof days. At least that’s what she said<\/em>… hmmmm….\n<\/p>\n

\nAnyway, we had ten<\/em> people for poker. We played with two decks,
\nhigh-low split on nearly every game, with very few wilds. It worked out
\npretty well. I even came out a buck ahead, although Lord knows I didn’t
\ndeserve to. On one game of
\n“Pass the Trash<\/a>”
\nI had the winning high hand, but I folded on the first round. The hand that
\nactually won was a straight. A freaking straight<\/em>. It was agonizing to
\nrealize on the third round that half the pot should have been mine. Mine!<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nAt least I played it
\ncool at the time. I was simply too embarrassed to let everyone know how high my
\nhand was. I’m still<\/em> too embarrassed. I must be the Worst Poker Player
\nEver. Grandma Ruth, if she were still alive, would definitely not approve. And
\nI don’t care for basketball, either. Oh, the shame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had the winning high hand, but I folded on the first round. The hand that actually won was a straight. A freaking straight<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}