Reading the New York Times Magazine Trump Balloon Cover

• The run-away winner of the Summer ’15 County Fair Primary.

• More crippled conventional wisdom channeling the political establishment. That he’s just going to just float away.

• Helium: an inert, gaseous element present in the sun’s atmosphere and in natural gas, and also occurring as a radioactive decomposition product, used as a substitute for flammable gases in dirigible balloons. (Dictionary.com)

• The Wizard of Oz. (More terrifying, though, is that he left the curtain open on purpose.)

• Pumping him up still further. (The near one actually looks like a condom.)

• …What the media STILL doesn’t get in singling him out for ridicule: He rises or falls on one thing, and one thing only — that the whole process is hot air.

• I could also see it as a pillow. Yeah, his campaign as pillow talk. And, after all the lies and faithlessness from the others, people actually like it when he talks dirty.

(photo: Jamie Chung. portrait illustration: Stanley Chow. Design Director: Gail Bichler. And, a little bit more for you folks who read the credits.)