Of Bowling and Democracy

------=_Part_1795281_1263256380.1521144635881 Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable [SUBSCRIBE - Get Print and Full Digital]( [View in your browser](%%view_email_url%%) March 15, 2018 [Of Bowling and Democracy]( Speaking at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday in Missouri, President Donald Trump criticized Japan for unfair trade practices, and offered this... [Read More]( [Feinstein, McCain Want Info About Haspel's Role in Rendition and Interrogation Programs]( California senator Dianne Feinstein is calling on the CIA to release documents detailing the involvement of Trump’s pick for CIA director, Gina... [Read More]( [Congressman: Child Sex Dolls Are Coming—And We're Not Ready]( One of the great legislative challenges of history, from the Hittite abominations to the regulation of internet porn, has been anticipating the... [Read More]( [TWS CRUISE 2017 FALL]( [Doggie Death in the Skies, the Theranos Fraud, and the Democratic Wave Gets Bigger]( Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Jonathan V. Last and Christine Rosen discuss the recent uproar over a dog who died on a plane, the natural... [Read More]( [The Substandard on Death Wish, the 1970s, and Girl Scout Cookies]( In this deadly serious episode, the Substandard discusses Death Wish, the original versus the reboot—Sonny gives the latter a million stars... [Read More]( [Free Flag Pin]( Afternoon Links I don't want to grow up... But poor Geoffrey the Giraffe will have to, as Toys "R" Us bids adieu after a 61-year run. (Bankruptcy is causing them to close all of their stores.) I loved TRU as a kid, and [my first and only magazine casual]( has a tie-in. Alas, all good brands eventually die. Something I did not know was that TRU's[origin story begins in our nation's capital]( (Who says #TheSwamp doesn't produce anything?) The blog Ghosts of DC reports: Charles Lazarus, the founder of Toys “R” Us started out with a small store at 2461 18th St. NW. He had returned from World War II, and in 1948, at the age of 25, saw an opportunity to capitalize on the growing baby boom with a store to capture this market, Children’s Bargain Town. So, every time you order another round at Madams Organ, think about all the happy children who used to roam the building, looking for new toys. Yes, the first toy store run by the founder of TRU is now a bar. .GIF-based marketing is now a thing. I've made a lot of hand-crafted, artisanal .GIFs over the years. (.GIFs, for the uninitiated, are image files that depict motion. Silent movies, if you will...) Mainly, they're used for reactions on social media, and I've created ones from obscure movies, like PCU, that don't already readily exist on the 'net. Most people (except me, who has his own redundant cloud storage archives), go on .GIF hosting websites. Twitter and Facebook now work with these sorts of sites to make inserting .GIF images into posts very simple. In the old days, people would have to search for, download the file, and upload it to respond. Now there are .GIF search engines, like Tenor. As BusinessWeek [observes in an interesting report]( #brands are now trying to get good placement in the search algorithms: On Valentine’s Day, if you entered “love” into popular GIF search engine [Tenor]( the top results would have included a doughnut leaning on a coffee cup with the slogan “We’re better together” and a heart-shaped dessert with the phrase “Donuts before dudes.” While neither may represent most people’s idea of amour, they’re top of mind for [Dunkin’ Donuts]( which paid to have the GIFs created and placed in the hope that viewers would pass them along to friends. Six figures(!) for .GIF product placement? Yikes. Small world, China edition. A married couple in China has discovered that they both were in the same place at the same time, according to family photos. [Neat](. How narcissism is killing democracy. Tom Nichols [joins "The Opposition With Jordan Klepper"]( to discuss his instant classic book The Death of Expertise. I don't find Klepper's show very entertaining, but Nichols is always worth hearing and comes across even funnier than Klepper does. The Real Genocide. At the Washington Post, George Will [has a must-read]( on the troubling growth in popularity of aborting children with Down Syndrome. Family matters. The sister of racist mass murderer Dylan Roof was [arrested and charged for bringing weapons and drugs to school](. Her social media posts, too, have been utterly despicable. Save the date! Join us at the 2018 Weekly Standard Summit. This May 17-20 at the historic Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, join Stephen F. Hayes, Fred Barnes, and Michael Warren and special guests Bret Baier and A.B. Stoddard as they discuss the future of American politics. [Book your tickets now](. —Jim Swift, deputy online editor. Please feel free to send us comments, thoughts and links to dailystandard@weeklystandard.com. —30— This email was sent by: The Weekly Standard A MediaDC Publication 1152 15th Street, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005 We respect your right to privacy - [View our Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( ------=_Part_1795281_1263256380.1521144635881--