I will begin this article by "dating" myself, to prove what a fuddy-duddy I truly am. I do this to avoid anyone who might confuse me with a starry-eyed tween fan of Taylor Swift (not an easy mistake to make, but still...). To wit: the first time I heard the more-modern usage of the term "Swifties," I was confused. To me, a "Swifty" referred to a piece of writing -- a rather amusing juxtaposition of a statement and an adverb, usually used to punnily poke fun at some flamboyant or way-too-cute sentence. The nomenclature comes from the fuller form of the put-down, a "Tom Swifty." This references the main character in a series of young-adult books written a very long time ago about a teenage supergenius with unlimited financial resources, who invented all sorts of futuristic things and battled the forces of evil (who were always ready to thwart Tom's plans to use his inventions for good).

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Over its first three days, the Democratic National Convention kept building on one overriding theme: joy. Or, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained to Stephen Colbert last night, for Democrats it was "the rebirth of hope." I almost expected Beethoven's Ode To Joy to be played at some point, but I guess the various DJs didn't have a copy. A far different Alex -- the main character in A Clockwork Orange -- would have been seriously disappointed by this omission, since (as he put it) it would have added: "all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy Joy." The lack of "Ludwig Van" aside, though, it certainly was a joyful event for the first three nights.

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So the first night of the Democratic National Convention has come and gone. It was a night featuring two memorable swansong speeches. The first came from Hillary Clinton, who in an alternate universe would be finishing up her second term as president right about now. The second came from Joe Biden, who is currently finishing up his first (and only) term as president right now. It was a night for passing torches, in other words.

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We will admit, right here up front, that we did not think up today's headline ourselves. It came from an extra-snarky press release from the Harris/Walz team. Following Donald Trump's bizarre appearance before the news cameras yesterday, the Harris camp put out a press release titled: "Donald Trump's Very Good, Very Normal Press Conference." The subtitle was: "Split Screen: Joy and Freedom vs. Whatever the Hell That Was."

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To dot or not to dot? That is the question....

Since it seems like a week for Silly Season columns, today I thought we'd examine an editorial quandary we've been faced with. Because the Republican vice-presidential candidate presents us with a challenge. He would now prefer to be known as simply: "JD Vance" -- sans punctuation, in other words. So do we respect his wishes or continue (as we started doing when we first wrote his name) with our standard style-guide form: "J.D. Vance"?

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Things are getting weird in politics. Or, to be more accurate, lots of people are now commenting on how weird things have gotten. Democrats have newly fallen in love with the word "weird," to describe Donald Trump and his running mate. Which, of course, reminded me of the best weird quote of all time, Hunter S. Thompson's immortal: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

-- Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

That line will be widely quoted across this land today, in parks and bandstands, on radio and in newsprint, from California to the New York islands, in countless big-city parades and from a myriad of small-town gazebos.

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Again, we open with a joke or two. From last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner, President Joe Biden got off a few good burns on the man he's running against:

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This week was supposed to begin (for us, since we measure weeks from Friday to Friday) with a Donald Trump rally in North Carolina last Saturday. After being cooped up in a courtroom all week listening to the lawyers haggle over jury selection, Trump was going to hit the campaign trail again to bask in the glow of adulation from his MAGA faithful (even the Proud Boys showed up!). That was the plan, at any rate.

But then the rally had to be cancelled at the last minute...

[...wait for it...]

...due to stormy weather.

[pause for rimshot]

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So far the biggest news (other than today's horrific events) has been that Trump can't seem to stop falling asleep in the courtroom. He drifts off, closes his eyes, his head slumps down on his chest, his mouth goes slack... and then eventually he snaps back awake. It hasn't happened every day, but one does wonder if he's going to be this lethargic when the actual case gets rolling. Jury selection is a repetitive process than can get monotonous at times, but hearing the case presented by both the prosecution and the defense might be a little more interesting to Trump, so we'll just have to see.

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