47 responses to “Discuss.”

1. 

   Mindy said on April 1, 2008 at 8:44 am

   What a load of merde, there’s not that much cussin’ here. Can’t even remember the last f-bomb dropped, or else I’m so used to it that it doesn’t register.

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2. 

   Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 1, 2008 at 9:02 am

   This is the official Nancy’s April Fool joke, right?

   Two notes from a McCain supporter — I can find you half-a-dozen UCC pastors, white, in rural Ohio, who say all the same things Wright does, with culturally discrete word choices, but the exact same meaning. And Trinity UCC is the counterweight on Chicago’s South Side to Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam Temple #2, Mosque Maryam. No one did as much day to day good for residents as NOI did (see entry, Hamas, strategy in Palestine) until Wright came along and figured out how to do the same thing under a Christian rubric.

   If you think that duality in the urban empire of south Chicago didn’t shape Rev. Wright’s approach, you don’t know anything about community organizing. If Hillary’s pastor, Phil Wogamon (also a good, decent guy, whom i’ve met and talked to as well) was dropped from DC’s Foundry UMC into Stony Island and 79th, he wouldn’t build a large and vital ministry the same way he has just off of Lafayette Park.

   Me, i’d be much much happier if John McCain would disavow Rod Parsley, but the fact that he didn’t just isn’t that interesting. You can argue that Obama’s choice to worship and work through Trinity is cynical and opportunistic, but you could say the same about Sam Brownback becoming Catholic — for both, i think a sincere spiritual seeking intersected with the realities of their environment to place them where they are. Both could have made their lives easier and more trouble free by making different choices, but some choices just aren’t even available in certain settings.

   Tell me what you’re going to DO as president, and what you know you can’t do, but will try to effect. Then we’ll talk. Go worship wherever you and your family need to, and i’ll help put up your privacy wall of separation between church and state.

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3. 

   del said on April 1, 2008 at 9:26 am

   Changing the subject a bit, how about the missing pastor who was lost but now is found, at a strip club in Ohio?

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4. 

   John said on April 1, 2008 at 10:23 am

   Folks most into “April Fools Day” hail from Wisconsin.
   Is this true?

   We are a potty-mouthed lot here sometimes.

   Jeff, I would have been more impressed with Brownback’s conversion if he were knowledgeable of the church’s position on evolution.

   Rain out at Yankee Stadium yesterday. Bummer! We sat in the cold (but dry at least) for two hours waiting for the announcement to come. Traded (can’t go tonight) our tickets in to see Junior play on the 20th of June. C’est la vie! Best part of the day was the block walk through Harlem, from the Metro North Station to the 125th Street Lexington Avenue subway stop. I couldn’t have been more than a block from where the opening scene of “Shaft” was shot.

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5. 

   Sue said on April 1, 2008 at 10:39 am

   WTF, Nancy? This is the g*****n best you can do? F*** this, gimme more words! Where the h***’s my daily dose of snark, sarcasm and scathing wit? Sorry, it’s the f*****g ex-Catholic in me, looking for something to be p****d off about.

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6. 

   Danny said on April 1, 2008 at 10:55 am

   I was sitting around this morning reading the NY Times, listening to NPR and sipping a latte and it dawned on me: Obama and Clinton would make great presidents. I can’t chose. And as the tears of joy welled in my fresh-seeing eyes, I realized that the love and respect I feel for both candidates is going to make it difficult to decide. I just wish I could get a hug from both of them.

   Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run to the post office to mail my donation to “Free Tibet,” then go to my power-yoga class and my salon appointment for a jalapeno-habanero high colonic. Caio.

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7. 

   Danny said on April 1, 2008 at 10:56 am

   I love it when Sue channels the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket.

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8. 

   Peter said on April 1, 2008 at 11:15 am

   Lee Irmey? One of my favorite lines from that movie: “You’re so ugly you’re a %*#@!* modern art masterpiece!”

   That minister reminds me of an Irish joke.

   Two guys are digging a ditch accross the street from a bordello. Sean notices a Protestant minister sneaking into the house; he nudges the other guy “Seamus, will you look at that. That good for nothing Protestant is such a hypocrite, I tell you!”

   Later, Sean sees a rabbi sneaking into the house; “Seamus, Seamus, will you look at that; that lousy Jew is going into the whorehouse – no morals, I tell you, none at all.”

   Later, Sean sees a priest sneaking into the house. He takes off his hat and nudges Seamus: “My, what a shame, one of the girls must be needing last rites!”

   Thank you ladies and gents – don’t forget to tip your altar boy!

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9. 

   Joe said on April 1, 2008 at 1:04 pm

   Make Detroit anarcho-capitalistic!. Cain’t hurt to try.

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10. 

    Harl Delos said on April 1, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    I’ll give your post a 78, Peter. Nice tune, and you can dance to it.

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11. 

    Kevin Knuth said on April 1, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    Well shit……what the hell are we going to do about this?

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12. 

    Danny said on April 1, 2008 at 1:14 pm

    We could then get an idea of whether extreme libertarianism works. I’m not saying it would or wouldn’t, but I think the idea has enough merit to deserve an experiment, and it’s not like it’ll make things worse in Detroit.

    Joe, I loved that line. Yesterday I read that Detroit schools have almost a 75% drop-out rate. Wow.

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13. 

    del said on April 1, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    Joe, just went to your link, and wow. I know the blogger, Eric Scheske. We worked at a law firm in Detroit together 16 yrs ago. Just saw him for the first time in years last summer in Michiana. He’s from Sturgis. He’s a very funny guy who takes his religion very seriously (he’s a convert who went to ND law school). Oh well, small world.
    Peter, your comment at the end made me Laugh Out Loud.

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14. 

    Danny said on April 1, 2008 at 1:28 pm

    Ummm, question. Did anyone get my first post as an April Fool’s? ‘Cuz it’s not like I was trying to be overly subtle.

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15. 

    del said on April 1, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Gee Danny, I was getting all verklempt, and now this. Curses. Or cusses.

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16. 

    john c said on April 1, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    My favorite Full Metal Jacket scene wit the drill sarge is when he leads them all singing “Happy Birthday to You” to Jesus on Christmas.

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17. 

    alex said on April 1, 2008 at 2:33 pm

    Danny, earlier I was going to respond that this morning as I was watching Fox…

    Then I thought better of crudely stereotyping the intellectually challenged. Must be my bleeding heart.

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18. 

    Harl Delos said on April 1, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    Then I thought better of crudely stereotyping the intellectually challenged. Must be my bleeding heart.

    Subtle stereotypes of the intellectually challenged are overrated.

    It’s skillful and subtle, but will the intellectually challenged recognize this as an April Fool’s joke?
    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg1apr01,0,5893988.column

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19. 

    Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 1, 2008 at 4:55 pm

    Darwin fish are lame, but i don’t despise those who stick ’em on their bumpers. I work among social service folk and on/around two college campuses, where i’m better known as the guy who started our county’s primary homelessness program than i am a Christian minister. No problem that, except the darnedest stuff gets said in my presence, which always leaves me wondering exactly how i should point out that one of the knuckle-dragging Neanderthals is in the room (and that i regularly appear on panels debating evolution on the pro- side, sitting with the archaeologists).

    Since i also write the local paper’s religion column, someone usually saves me the initiative by pointing out who i am, which always gets me a “oh, i don’t mean people like you.” Somehow, i’m not comforted by that. I am very interested in putting some space between me and Rod Parsley, but most people who whack on him are less aware of what he actually believes and says than they are concerned that he has so many followers.

    Which is a creepy undertone, to my ears, with the whole Obama/Wright controversy. Aside from my displeasure that he’s likely to lose not on his platform’s merits, but because of racism, we’ve now got the unedifying intra-Democrat wrangle over — as i see it, with my prescription bifocals — the realization by a big chunk of his party that Obama doesn’t just have safe, mushy, inoffensive beliefs, which they could overlook as a charming flaw, like having no taste in after dinner wines.

    Instead, he has a vigorous faith which motivates him, and like most worldviews held fervently, can be prone to excess (see Blake, William), but the real problem is that to some folks, religious fervor is suspect in any brand or species (see Hitchens, Christopher, or Harris, Sam).

    But i think the national interest is well served by having a bigger contingent of Obamas in the Senate, and i hope he learns how to be the next Dick Lugar or Sam Nunn or Paul Wellstone.

    Danny, it’s “Ciao.” And Happy St. Hugh of Grenoble Day!

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20. 

    Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 1, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    Oh, if you check out Gene’s story, make sure to click on the chat that followed (linked at the end of the story) to learn a vitally important fact about the justifiably contemptible Michael Savage. No, really, you’ll be glad you did.

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21. 

    Dexter said on April 1, 2008 at 6:13 pm

    In the days before “Dude!!” meant everything, I worked with a man named Lee. Lee was from Philly, originally, later in life he moved to Chicago, then NW Indiana.
    Somewhere along life’s path he adopted the word “cocksucker” as his own. “Hi there, c/s!” Hit his thumb with a hammer?
    “C/S!!”
    Here is a typical sentence he might utter: …an’ the fuckin’ Bruins, cocksuckers!—did you see that cocksucker trip Lindross with his stick? COCKSUCKER ! The Flyers, though…cocksuckers checked hard and that goal that new kid scored…can’t remember the cocksucker’s name…anyway , what a goal! Then the phone rang and the cocksucker-foreskin bastard asked me to come in early…at three o’clock! COCKSUCKER! What’s that cocksucker calling ME for?…he knows I never come in early!
    Days led to years, then several decades. Now he’s dead, the old cocksucker.

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22. 

    John said on April 1, 2008 at 6:26 pm

    Favorite Movies:
    Midnight Cowboy, Battleship Potemkin, A Clockwork Orange

    Cocksucker! You have great taste in movies!

    For some reason, I think “Lenny” should be mentioned here.

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23. 

    Dexter said on April 1, 2008 at 6:34 pm

    …and then there are the ones who never cussed in their lifetime.
    I have an uncle who , when irritated or frustrated, spouted off with “FIDDLESTICKS!” His wife picked it up, also. I never got used to it.
    Their “cool” kids just said “Fiddle!”
    My sainted grandma, called “Grandmaw” by us kids, when something tickled her funnybone would blurt out “Oh SHIT THE BED!” I loved that!
    Here’s Casey Kasem’s outburst,censored.

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24. 

    Dexter said on April 1, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    John, I loved “Honey Bruce” in that movie! Valerie Perrine, sex queen of 1970s films, indeed. She was so HOT as Montana Wildhack in “Slaughterhouse Five”, too.

    The movie wasn’t all that hot, however. It was sad to see Lenny deteriorate like that. Andrew Dice Clay tried to be a “Lenny” and sort of bombed.
    “Little Jimmy” Norton is as close to that as we have now.
    Jimmy is funny at times, but even after Pat Cooper set him straight about Norton’s “humor” about female body parts, Norton ignored Cooper.
    Norton is just way to raw and downright juvenile to be anywhere near Lenny’s class.
    Sometimes ya just wanna hear Bob Newhart, like we used to like Mort Sahl. (Sahl played at IUPUFW once, in the cafeteria.)

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25. 

    Scout said on April 1, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    I absolutely LOVE “OH SHIT THE BED!” That just cracked me right up. No April Fools, either.

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26. 

    Connie said on April 1, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Danny, April fools? I just figured it was another putdown of liberals. Though the only one that fits me is NPR.

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27. 

    Harl Delos said on April 1, 2008 at 8:25 pm

    For some reason, I think “Lenny” should be mentioned here

    I’ve read a couple of Lenny Bruce biographies, and back when he wrote for Playboy, I read some of his pieces there. I don’t think I want to see the movie. It couldn’t possibly be anything but a disappointment.

    If they want to make movie of “A Child’s Garden of Grass”, though, I think that could make a good movie. They quote Lenny Bruce in there. Lenny asks someone if they’d ever done anything really perverted. I dunno, the answer comes back. I jerked off the neighbor’s dog in the back yard; is that perverted. Lenny says, I don’t know, I’d have to see the dog.

    I think a Phil Ochs biopic, would be a big hit.

    I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
    Tears ran down my spine
    I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
    As though I’d lost a father of mine
    But Malcolm X got what was coming
    He got what he asked for this time
    So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal

    I go to civil rights rallies
    And I put down the old D.A.R.
    I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
    I hope every colored boy becomes a star
    But don’t talk about revolution
    That’s going a little bit too far
    So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal

    I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
    My faith in the system restored
    I’m glad the commies were thrown out
    Of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
    I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
    As long as they don’t move next door
    So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal

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28. 

    Connie said on April 1, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    Bad Guy! At our house that is now a substitute for cocksucker. My husband took care of a 90 year old guy last year whose favorite word was CS, and my guy got to saying it way too much. So on a long car trip we decided we needed a substitute word.

    Got home from Minnesota late last night, morning was filled with slushy snow. The outside temperature shot up to 60 degrees somewhere near O’Hare and stayed there all the way home. Unfortunately it appears to have gone away overnight.

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29. 

    Mindy said on April 1, 2008 at 8:30 pm

    A friend of mine shouts “shit the bed” in moments of extreme agitation. The first time I heard her say it she was driving at night on a freshly paved road that had suddenly sprouted a new lane, and we were headed into oncoming traffic with nowhere to bail. She shouted “shit the bed!” and I laughed out loud in spite of fearing for my life. She grew up on a farm. I just assumed it was a homegrown expression.

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30. 

    nancy said on April 1, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    Alan says, “Shit the bed and roll in it!”, which I think adds just that EXtra bit of class to a fairly gross expression.

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31. 

    John Brown said on April 1, 2008 at 9:02 pm

    At the G.E. plant on Broadway in Fort Wayne, over twenty years ago, I was told about a guy who used to call everybody he worked with a cocksucker. When the first women were hired in to work there he was called into the office and told that he couldn’t use that word anymore. He asked the boss just what he could say instead. After several tries to find a substitute, they finally came up with Popsicle. He wound up with the nickname “Louie Popsicle”.

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32. 

    Harl Delos said on April 1, 2008 at 9:17 pm

    which I think adds just that EXtra bit of class to a fairly gross expression.

    Concur.

    I was told about a guy who used to call everybody he worked with a cocksucker.

    Do you watch “Corner Gas”?

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33. 

    basset said on April 1, 2008 at 10:06 pm

    my mom used to say “shit the bed!” in moments of agitation… and she was about as far from country as you could get, native Londoner who’d hardly been off the pavement before moving to rural southwestern Indiana.

    It’s a long story.

    One of her other favorite expressions was to describe a hopeless cause as “shoveling shit against the tide”…

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34. 

    brian stouder said on April 1, 2008 at 10:07 pm

    Well, cussin’ right is the trick. My dad (an old navy guy) could curse and cuss with genuine verve; and if he became angry, one could be sure that an inventive (often alliterative) stream of swearing and oaths was soon to spring forth.

    My problem always was – the power of the words invariably struck me as funny, but laughing during one of these salty soliloquies was generally not a good idea….which in turn makes it funnier! George Carlin had it right

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35. 

    Connie said on April 1, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    My husband ran his blog through the cuss-o-meter, and came out at .07%. Of course it is mostly a photo blog.

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36. 

    Dorothy said on April 1, 2008 at 10:51 pm

    In my family if someone says “SHIT!” usually someone else chimes in with “BOX!”. This is a salute to a line in “Best in Show”: “It was a shitbox!”

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37. 

    Kafkaz said on April 2, 2008 at 1:06 am

    Oh, oh–I have a story.

    So, my husband was driving along, and had completely forgotten that our son (who had no doubt been napping, gazing quietly out the window, or some combination of both) was sitting in the back, all safely buckled into his car seat. Suddenly, though, someone (undoubtedly a cock sucker of the highest order) cut the dear husband off in traffic, whereupon this fine upstanding daddy proceeded to call the offender something along the lines of “a stupid fucking idiot.” At that point, a sweet little voice piped up from the back seat.

    “Daddy,” accused our little son, “you said a bad word.”

    Uh, oh. Daddy was still formulating his really good and persuasive excuse when the sweet child continued: “You,” said the little son, “called that man stupid!”

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38. 

    Dexter said on April 2, 2008 at 1:55 am

    Good one, Kafkaz! Real zinger at the end!
    One of the funniest old guys I worked with was Clarence.
    We’d see Clarence walk in and we’d say, on cue, “Hi Clarence, you old cocksucker!”
    And of course, timing right there…Clarence piped up, feigning anger, “Hey! Don’t call me that! I’m tryin’ to quit!” Then we all laughed heartily.

    It’s funny how a little off-set joke like that was such a bonding thing between good friends. It was a routine that went on for years. Damndest thing.
    Well, it’s been fun…now I gotta revert back , away from all this sweet profanity.

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39. 

    Connie said on April 2, 2008 at 7:46 am

    Kafkaz, I have a similar story. My daughter was small, and sitting next to Grandpa at the big family table. Grandpa said “he doesn’t give a shit” and my Jgirl scolded him: “Grandpa, that’s not a nice word and we don’t use it our house.” He told her she was right.

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40. 

    Kirk said on April 2, 2008 at 8:48 am

    My father, a notoriously red-assed driver, was driving us to the Smoky Mountains one summer (I was probably 14 or 15) when some other motorist did something to piss him off. “You shit-diddling piss-willy!” he yelled. My mom, sister and I immediately exploded into convulsive laughter. That pissed him off, too.

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41. 

    Danny said on April 2, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Danny, April fools? I just figured it was another putdown of liberals. Though the only one that fits me is NPR.

    Connie, then maybe you should go bowling with my girlfriend, 4dbirds. She seems to be fragile and humorless too.

    Geesh, and people talk about conservatives having sticks up their asses.

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42. 

    Connie said on April 2, 2008 at 11:12 am

    I’m not fragile, though I have already admitted I never get the joke. Another putdown, gee thanks.

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43. 

    Danny said on April 2, 2008 at 11:48 am

    Connie, don’t go all passive-aggressive and that act like you have no culpubility in this and that it is just just me putting you down. You stated that you had no idea it was a joke (even after I told everyone it was) and instead, get in a jibe about how you figured it was just another “put down of liberals”. Like the conservatives here at NN.C just live to “put down liberals” and like we we never have any ligitimate, reasoned criticisms. Right.

    That is a load of crap. And you know it.

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44. 

    Connie said on April 2, 2008 at 11:56 am

    That’s three.

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45. 

    Danny said on April 2, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Connie, I am not pleased in the least and you know why. My question to you is why can you not respond in a reasonable manner and apologize? Is that beneath you? I don’t get you.

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46. 

    Connie said on April 2, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    Apologize for what? For taking what you meant as an April Fool’s joke seriously? I guess I don’t get you either Danny. I have admitted here many times that I rarely get the joke and take everything literally. From what little I know of you from your posts I like you and take you seriously.

    I guess maybe I am fragile, as conversations like this tend to make me cry. My last response on this one.

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47. 

    Danny said on April 2, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    Alright, Connie. Fair enough. Maybe I misunderstood your post. Sorry for that.

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