That’s a funny headline from the Onion, but the ancient Iowan seems safe for re-election to an eighth six-year term …

… assuming he lives one more week until election day, which is probably an even-money bet.

Grassley is 89 years old and will probably be the president pro tempore of the Senate if the GOP wins. It is an honor usually accorded the senior senator of the majority party, and a position Grassley previously held. That’s largely an honorary position, but we often forget that it stands third in line to assume the Presidency behind the VP and the Speaker of the House. The current order of succession is Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Patrick Leahy. If the GOP takes control of both houses, the order of succession would likely be Kamala Harris, Kevin McCarthy, Chuck Grassley. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not really our all-star team.

Grassley would not be an automatic selection and there are no constitutional mandates to guide the selection. The choice of the senior senator of the majority party as pro tem is merely a tradition, not a requirement. The constitution does not even require the position to be filled by a member of that chamber. As senate.gov notes, “Although the Constitution does not specify who can serve as president pro tempore, the Senate has always elected one of its members to serve in this position.”

The same is true of the Speaker of the House. The members can vote for absolutely anyone. To make a radical example, a GOP-controlled House could elect Donald Trump as Speaker, which would give him a tremendous amount of power over investigations of himself and his enemies, as well as great power over the government’s purse strings. (Despite the fact that we have lionized and even apotheosized the Founding Fathers, they could not possibly have foreseen every possible pitfall of democracy.)

Speaking of ancient politicians, why did we start to elect these old geezers?

Joe Biden is the oldest man ever to sit in the oval office, and he assumed that title on the day he took office. Biden was already older at the beginning of his term than Reagan was at the end of his.

At 78 years and 61 days, he was by far the oldest man ever inaugurated, breaking the previous record by 7 1/2 years.

but …

Should Donald Trump get elected in 2024, he will break the record for oldest inaugurated, and should he live through that term he will then break the record for oldest ever to hold the office!

(And of course Biden would also break his own records should he run again and win.)

There are not many up-and-coming young political superstars. Ron DeSantis is 44, Buttigieg is 40. Behind them the ranks are thin.

Her married name is Nicola Peltz Beckham. Her parents-in-law are Frowny Spice Beckham and Bendit Like Beckham.

In terms of good looks, Brooklyn Beckham is average


That’s kind of a surprise, considering that his mother is considered quite attractive and his father has often been named as the world’s sexiest man.

I would guess that his real father was Jay Leno, but I can’t imagine Frowny Spice waiting for sex as Leno gets out of his mom jeans.

Christina is not only an underrated beauty, but is also a polymath. She is a MENSA member, a self-professed science nerd, an author on subjects in both the arts and sciences, and a member of a famous family of intellectuals. (Her dad is a renowned sculptor, and her grandfather’s brother won a Nobel Prize for his studies of DNA.)

Here is a .gif of that scene

and another scene from that short film

She also has a mighty cute rear, as she demonstrated as recently as this past summer in an episode of Animal Kingdom (s6e8)


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Here is more of her in that episode

This is a ridiculous 1985 film in which Nasty Kinski is kidnapped into the 30-woman harem of Evil Sheikh Gandhi, then falls in love with him and tries to teach him that good is better than evil, or at least comparable in certain situations. When he becomes Good Sheikh Gandhi, we see the power of love, and we are all a little wiser.

Or something.

That’s a perfect example of a storyline that could not fly today.


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She was a child star. She disappeared for five years, then re-emerged as a softcore star – for about a minute. Then she disappeared for good.

All comments and collages by Brainscan

Jennie Lynn appeared in two movies in 1970, when she was 18 years old. She disappeared after them, but had an impressive history as a child actress before them. Among her many credits on several tv shows were guest appearances in Leave it to Beaver


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and My Three Sons.


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From 1965 to 1970 Jennie made no movies or television shows but my oh my, did she ever grow up. Yessiree, grow she did in ways that are sure to impress any reader of the Funhouse.

Matinee Wives (1970) is a California grindhouse movie, packed with unclothed women, but I want to focus for now on Jennie. Her role was as a topless cocktail waitress.


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‘Tis a brief scene but in the end credits she reappears as a topless and bottomless dancer.


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The movie is available only in DVD from a very poor source (obviously a theater copy rather than the original print), so the clips and the screen grabs are pretty damn short of our modern, high-def expectations.

More impressive were Jennie’s many nude scenes in Getting Into Heaven (1970).


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This, too, is available only in DVD, but the source material is much cleaner and brighter and better. I grabbed a clip and did a few collages of one scene (you can find caps and clips of other scenes – including a girl-girl encounter with Uschi Digard – in the back issues of the Funhouse), and you can bet the moment this movie shows up on Bluray, you will be hearing from me again.

OK, perhaps I can save you the trouble of reading further. There is no nudity.

Tuna was the most prolific contributor of images, and the second-most prolific wordsmith during the first 15 years of the Fun House. Like all of us, he was interested in many things besides celebrity nudity, and there are only so many cheapjack horror films and confusing Italian gialli one can watch without becoming brain dead, so the Big Fish would occasionally stray into some offbeat territory for his contributions. He loved the kitsch from the 50s and 60s, and as I recall, he once submitted a massive contribution of images from The Music Man! He also loved anything with some visual razzle-dazzle, and visual art of all kinds. He was a great photographer in his own right, having been featured in at least one solo exhibition of his work in the SF Bay area.

Well, since he loved the kitschy 60s show “I Dream of Jeannie” and visual invention, is it any wonder that he once did a set of captures of Barbara Eden in 7 Faces of Dr. Lao? There’s no nudity, but a lot of warm memories!

Barbara Eden?

Yes, master.


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She is now playing in her 21st season in the WNBA, and shot .911 from the free throw line one season.

Some of the women in the WNBA are exceptionally good at free throws. Elena Della Donne, for example, has an unreal lifetime free throw percentage of .937 after ten years in the league. (Among the men, even dead-eye Steph Curry is “only” at .909.)

Becky Hammon shot .897 over 16 years, including a perfect 1.000 in her final season. (The male record in .981 – only three misses in 154 attempts. Oddly enough, that guy dropped below .800 the following year.)

Another woman, Kayla McBride, has been over .900 in five of the last six seasons, including the current one – and the other season was .897! (Curry has actually bested this one. He’s topped .900 in eight of the past nine seasons, and his off season was .898.)