My so-called life.
Ebony and ivoreeee live together in perfect har-mo-neeeee side by side on my formica kitchen table, oh lord, why don’t weeeeee?
For the record, I thought the grilled-cheese sandwich thread was hilarious. Tacos. Ha. Otherwise I didn’t keep up with much news yesterday. My day was full to the brim with activity and hostessing, so I didn’t really learn about the Holocaust Museum shooting until this morning, not to mention the David Letterman kerfuffle among the rightbloggers, and you know what? There’s nothing like a day away from the news to let you know what’s important. Of course, any day that begins with a trip to one of the automotives is always well-spent, especially when they take you driving on one of their proving grounds. You learn the most amusing things, like the names of certain stretches of test pavement — “sine wave,” for instance, and “pitch and jounce.”
But the best thing was the entrance and exit ramps, which were banked. Seriously banked. Nothing like flying through a banked turn to make you say wheeee.
Then it was lunch in Mexicantown and a stop at the Honeybee Market for mangos, and home to make agua fresca and wait for John and Sam. The New York Times featured agua fresca in its Recipes for Health column a few days back, Laura Lippman Facebooked it and credited it with all sort of miracle-working powers, so I thought, OK, I’ll bite. I even made two pitchers — one mango, one watermelon. And both were fabulous, but the mango went dry first. I’m old enough to have relatives who think a mango is a green pepper, and here they are, years later, readily available in any old Kroger. I think, how long did Latin America keep these fruits to themselves, and can we bring action for this in some sort of international court?
I also think: You know what would go well with this? A shot of vodka.
Tip: Make it with the smaller, yellow mangoes. They’re sweeter. Although I’m sure the big red ones would work splendidly, too. You really can’t go wrong with mangoes.
Agua fresca was only one thing on the menu, however. The other beverage was wine, which may explain why I forgot to make a salad. Also, one of my students stopped by — long story, not interesting — and when he left, his clutch failed, so there was 10 minutes spend bleeding the air out of something under the hood, and long story short, dinner was sort of a blur. But a fun blur! Who cares when your friends are in your kitchen?
Oh, and for all you Detroit haters? The car with the bum clutch was a Honda.
After dinner we ate ice cream and watched the first two episodes of “Nurse Jackie.” Edie Falco is great, isn’t she? They really worked to wash the Carmela off of her — that frosted-tips haircut is just inspired — although her scrub tops looks suspiciously…fitted. But she transcends the costume, I’d say. Our one-year arrangement with Comcast expires in August, at which time I figured I’d boot Showtime and Starz, the two premium channels they threw in gratis when we switched our phone service. Not being a fan of either “Dexter” or “Weeds,” I thought this would be easy to do. Now? Damn.
So what happened in your neck of the woods yesterday?
If you didn’t see Connie’s husband’s heron pictures, you are missing a treat. Big file, long download even in broadband, absolutely worth the wait.
Look, the museum shooter thinks the president isn’t a natural-born citizen. How shocked I am to learn this.
And now I am off. But I’ll be back.
(Order your Amazon through me and I earn 4 percent. Click the “powered by Amazon” logo.)
Connie said on June 11th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Thanks for the link Nancy. To me the most amazing thing is that the heron pics were shot in the center of the city, just two blocks from my office. Guess it helps to have two rivers downtown.
I live with a 59 yr old guy who has a 13 yr old boy brain in many ways, and, well I just knew I didn’t need to read the grilled cheese thing.
Deborah said on June 11th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I love mangos. I grew up in Miami, FL so naturally we had a tree in our backyard, everyone did. It seems like mango season lasted all year, but I was a kid so everything seemed boundless. all our neighbors were trying to get rid of mangos, taking large paper bags of them to work but nobody wanted them because they all had their own to get rid of. My family moved to FL from Iowa so we thought mangos were very exotic. I remember my mother bragging to her sister that Jackie Kennedy said the pres liked to have mangos with his breakfast occasionally and here we had them everday.
Dorothy said on June 11th, 2009 at 10:41 am
How the heck did you get to see two episodes of Nurse Jackie? I thought only one was out so far? I’m jealous.
Didja see the positively creepy mugshot of Phil Spector? No wonder he wears those ugly wigs: http://blogs.usatoday.com/.a/6a00d83451b46269e2011570efa651970b-pi
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 11th, 2009 at 10:54 am
My mom used to always drink Fresca.
beb said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Calgon, I mean, Nancy, take me away…. I just discovered that, according to my insurance company, I was born on the wrong day. I’m feeling a little disapated right now. Do I even exist. Was Franz Kafka channeling my life?
Letterman should have known that it’s not right to make jokes of the children of politicians. But then, too, he was obviously joking about the knocked up one, not her younger sister. As for “slutty airline attendent make-up” f it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it can’t complain if sonmeone makes a duck joke at their expense.
jeff borden said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I enjoy David Letterman a great deal and have always preferred his more acidic approach to things over Jay Leno’s nice guy persona, but I’m disappointed he went for such an easy cheap shot on Sarah Palin in his Top Ten list.
Now that she’s a public figure, she is fair game, and there is plenty about this intellectual and political lightweight to mock. Her sense of entitlement, her tortured logic, her inability to speak in complete sentences, her shockingly shallow world view, etc.
The good governor is a walking “target rich environment,” as old Rummy would say. Focusing on her looks is truly the lazy writer’s way out.
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:07 am
In the morning, I listen to WOWO for traffic and news and Charlie Butcher – who bugged me 30 years ago when I was riding to high school, but who has since grown on me. By way of saying, when I roll off to lunch at about 12:30 each day, the radio starts right up on WOWO, and I hear Uncle Rush fulminating about whatever the hell. Often, I let him have his say until he makes me cuss, and THEN I switch away. As Keith Olbermann pointed out yesterday, I can attest that at just about the same moment a security guard at a museum(!!) was being murdered by a hate-filled man who thinks the president isn’t a natural-born citizen, Uncle Rush was making the exact same “point”.
So we have free-floating anti-semitism (personified by the remorseless shooter), conspiratorial stage whispers and lunatic ravings from radio lip-flappers, and oh-by-the-way old fashioned racist impulses (the shooter aimed his opening shots at the armed black man). I agree that the leftwing fever swamps are sore losers when ‘their side’ loses; hell, a number of the fever-swampers on the left aren’t happy with President Obama’s WIN! But what makes the rightwing fever-swampers so damned violent? Good Christ! You lost! Get over it!! Here’s a thought – maybe even work on doing better next time!! I think we, here, can all agree that the panic gun-buying/ammo stock-piling, end-of-days thinking, spurious superstitions supplementing schtick that Fox News and broadcast radio cvhurns out everyday is, at best, unhealthy. Afterall, the left wing fever swamps – the ones that are as strident as Rush and Sean and Glen – are in internet-land, and not on MSNBC or broadcast radio.
Or, maybe we cannot agree about that.
Connie said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Was your proving ground trip to Milford? My brother-in-law is a third shift test driver there, and tells great stories. My fave had to do with running a Corvette on the cobblestone road track. Also stories about the 17 employee deaths on the site over the years. He also says he’s not officially a driver, he is something like an engineer’s testing assistant.
jeff borden said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Brian,
From your lip’s to God’s ear. We only hear about the mainstream loudmouths with the big contracts: Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly, et.al. You’re quite right that there is a sub-group that is further underground, operating on the Internet and shortwave radio. One of these creeps, Hal Turner, is not that far afield from the shooter at the Holocaust Museum and he has turned up more than once on Hannity’s program.
The bastard who killed a security guard in D.C. yesterday was a long-time Holocaust denier and white supremacist, but also a member of the so-called “birther element,” which believes President Obama is not eligible for office because he actually was born in Kenya. He is as far right as you can get. So, naturally, last night Glenn Beck assured his audience that this guy was a “lone nutcase.” Beck also insisted his daily dose of rhetorical gasoline could not possibly influence creeps like the Nazi worshipper who pulled the trigger in D.C. Beck is predicting more of this kind of violence because “the pot is boiling” in America while refusing to acknowledge he helps supply the heat.
The Department of Homeland Security directive warning of outbreaks of far rightwing violence looks incredbly prescient.
LAMary said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:36 am
NPR had a story about Indian mangos this morning which has inspired me to seek out a mango tree to plant in my yard. Here you can buy mangos at the end of freeway ramps. My local mango guy gets six to ten bucks a box for mangos or papayas, depending on how much he wants to get off the freeway ramp. He’s got strawberries and those perfect looking half sized bananas right now too.
Catherine said on June 11th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Aguas frescas are God’s gift. Try cucumber: http://tinyurl.com/mas78n
Horchata, too, but not as healthy.
nancy said on June 11th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
If you have on-demand cable, the upcoming episode is available a week early. They sometimes do this with buzz-y shows like “The Wire.”
Sue said on June 11th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Ok, let’s get this over with, because you know it’s going to be part of the non-mango discussion/argument eventually: Rev. Jeremiah Wright is blaming “Them Jews” for keeping him away from Obama.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wright_11jun11,0,5532879.story
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Ok, let’s get this over with
Well, Jeremiah Wright is an idiot. Done!
(and if Jeremiah Wright’s views must be ascribed to President Obama, and ippso-facto Obama is an anti-Semite and therefore attached to the museum shooter -
then indeed all who go to churchs that are anti-abortion are similarly attached to the domestic terrorist shooters of doctors and bombers of clinics!)
Joe Kobiela said on June 11th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Jeff and Brian,
Why no outrage from the media about the soldier murdered last week? He was gunned down by a jerk that has been quoted as saying it was justified, because we are killing women and children in Muslim nations. Why does it seem so one sided in the media?
Pilot Joe
LAMary said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I don’t know what media you’re reading, Joe, but I’ve seen only condemnation of his actions.
James said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Joe:
If you mean, why no coverage, then you haven’t been reading the right papers. Why no outrage? I don’t want the media feeding me outrage… just news.
Can you give us an example of what you’re talking about?
Joe Kobiela said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I guess to me it seems that when something happens to someone like Dr Tiller or this deal with the guy in D.C. people are quick to point out that the killers were right wing leaning. Then Rush and Beck are brought up along with O’Rielly, like some how it’s their fault, but no one in the media attempts to make a connection between this killer and the left.
I just wish the coverage was not so bias, according to the factor last night, the Tiller killing generated a 10-1 story count over the soldiers murder.
Pilot Joe
Sue said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Joe, it’s possible that some of the 10-1 story count is because Tiller’s murderer has, against his attorney’s advice, spoken repeatedly to the press. The man who killed the soldier appears, at the moment anyway, to be honoring a gag order that was issued at the request of the prosecutor who stated that he wanted to protect the man’s right to a fair trial.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gQACNshVFYt6M9CDykHq6DKqPhiwD98NIFVO0
Scout said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Good question Pilot Joe. Why is it, indeed? Why is it that people like O’Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Scarborough, et al continue to dominate the national soapbox to spew their dog whistled calls for violence? Why ARE things so one-sided?
And addressing your other question – who in the so-called one sided media expressed an opinion that led to inciting the military shooter to violence? Who specifically?
There is a difference between factual reporting and a drumbeat of right wing idiocy that constantly pounds out stuff like the rhetoric that Obama is not a citizen, Obama is going to take your guns, Obama is a socialist, and on and on.
All these recent violent deaths are tragic, but what makes the PA cop murders, the Tiller murder and the Holocaust Museum murder even more so is that the shooters were driven by rage talk that seems to escalate daily from the mouths of right wing pundits with national megaphones.
basset said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Did they mention “tumblehome,” Nance? for some reason that term sticks with me.
and I suspect “slutty flight attendant” will too.
James said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Joe:
There’s no evidence that the killer of the soldier was left-leaning. Where’d you get that from? A radicalized Muslim man might be described many ways, but left-leaning is not one of them.
LAMary said on June 11th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I think Ms Palin DOES look like a slutty flight attendant. It’s that “bronzer under the cheekbones” look paired with her hairdo.
Dorothy said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I completely forgot about the on-demand cable thing. We had that when we lived in South Carolina.
coozledad said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Apparently a number of wingers, in another display of infantilism and projection, have tried to paint Von Brunn as a lefty. Here’s the refutation, in case any of the asswipes have pulled their hands from over their ears:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/note_found_in_von_brunns_car.php
So now Obama’s a member of the international Jewish conspiracy, as well as a Muslim Communofascist Illuminati scary black dude baby killer.
I don’t know how he finds the time.
ROgirl said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
He may have been a “lone nutcase,” but consider these recent events: the guy who killed the Wesleyan student in May wrote about a killing spree targeting Jews, and the foiled plot to blow up the synagogues in the Bronx.
When Obama came into office the haters and crazies took it as a sign to ramp up the paranoia and act on it, egged on by the foaming fear-mongering of the right-wing media entertainers.
I have to say, I wonder what ever drew Obama to Jeremiah Wright.
JRG said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I’ve just been card-shopping on Etsy and came across one that one of you lovers of the Great Lakes might like.
JRG said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Joe, that soldier’s death was as much of a loss and as much of a tragedy as the other horrible incidents we’ve experienced recently, but there are lots of reasons it hasn’t gotten the same play in the press. Unlike Tiller, the victim wasn’t a high-profile figure associated with a hot-button political issue. Unlike yesterday’s shooting, the site of the Arkansas shooting is not a shrine dedicated to teaching about and trying to prevent the kind of hatred reflected in the shooting, much less a shrine located in one of the nation’s media capitals.
And then, as James says, radical jihadism is not a key plank in the platform of the political left.
JRG said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
As usual, LAMary, you’ve put your finger on exactly the right details–definitely the bronzer, but especially the hairdo.
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
and not for nothing, but our ‘mainstream media’ DOES ascribe radical attitudes to mideast media (al Jazeera, et al) and loudmouthed (and loathesome) devil-may-care pronouncements from unaccountable-to-anyone-else Mullahs.
Our radicalized jihadists have their media, and our dis-satisfied fellow countrymen have theirs, too.
edit- the old joke about slutty flight attendants was the one liner: “Coffee, milk, or TWA tea?”
Sue said on June 11th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
JRG: that postcard looks like it has a fancy version of the SS Badger on it. Thanks.
Brian: Edit – that was yesterday’s topic. I think.
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Putting the lie to the latest rightwing canard( if you haven’t heard it yet, you will):
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/11/1961422.aspx
an excerpt:
An article in the Weekly Standard says the Obama administration has ordered a change in policy, requiring agents to give Miranda warnings to all detainees. In fact, agents have from time to time given Miranda warnings to some detainees who, it’s thought, might end up being prosecuted in U.S. courts. This began in the last administration.
The infectious ruminations of rightward Swine continue their unabated spread (our local radio lip-flapper is in high dudgeon over this, and has spent the past half hour whipping people up)
jeff borden said on June 11th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Joe,
I believe your points already have been refuted, but it bears repeating: There is nothing on the left side of the radio or television dial that even comes close to the kinds of rhetoric regularly thrown around by the bloviators of the right.
If Rachel Maddow or Keith Olberman or Ed Schultz or Stephanie Miller were regularly referring to our armed forces as enemies and urging their listeners and viewers onward with vicious, eliminationist rhetoric, you’d have a point. But they don’t and you don’t.
It’s not like this is anything new, Joe. I believe it was during the Clinton Administration years that G. Gordon Liddy –now there’s a great American hero if ever there were one– advised his listeners that if any federal agents ever came calling, to aim for the head because they all wore bullet-proof vests.
Joe Kobiela said on June 11th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I have never heard O’Riely Rush Hannity or Beck, Tell anyone to use violence
If you have show me where.
Pilot Joe
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
well – this took about 15 seconds; lots of talk about killing and the fate of the nation and so on
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_031809/content/01125110.guest.html
Sue said on June 11th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
No Brian, what Joe is looking for is one of these folks saying “I want you to go out there and kill [fill in the blank]“. Which you will not hear. Should any of them say that, they would not have any cover when something happens. Although I did like the part about Abraham Lincoln disliking Timothy Geithner.
Joe, be fair. When O’Reilly says “And if the state of Kansas doesn’t stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands as the governor does right now, Governor Sebelius” and “Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas”, do you not think that he might, just might, be engaging in behavior designed to incite hatred and violence? And doing it in front of a large fan base?
Hexdecimal said on June 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Brian – I too have to call you on this one. It has nothing to do with Joes request. The Rush piece only mentions killing in the title – “Obama Wants to Channel Your Anger Toward Killing Capitalism”. The rest of the piece is a rant, for sure, but no where is it even close to what one would consider hate speech.
Actually, the piece was funny in several places. When he references the teleprompter as the one telling Obama [the speech] he harkens back to when folks were saying it was Dick Cheney who was the puppet master (with his arm stuffed up Bush’s ass). I believe Obama comes out the winner because at least the teleprompter can sting together two or more coherent sentences with the correct enunciation.
Dexter said on June 11th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Cable TV…Since Time Warner took Sundance away from me , then (after FORTY phone calls!) said I could get it back, but it would cost me another ten bucks a month, I thought I had better not go ahead and order Shotime, like I wanted to.
It makes me laugh to see these ads for DishTV —” $9.99 for three months!” is the latest, when I have to pay more than that for ONE extra premium channel.
I dumped DirecTV after 11 years when I found out I could have been getting local channels for years, but my receiver was obsolete, but nobody ever told me, no emails, no mailings…and I was paying the local cable provider almost $700 a year all that time for programming I should have been receiving from my satellite dish. The cable company made me get a full package of channels if I wanted broadband. I was paying for the same stations on both DirecTV and cable. Then I was lied to by DirecTV for the last time when they told me local channels were not available in my area…when they in fact were, indeed.
Did I tell yas about my “free instalation”? $450 it cost me cuz I had three TVs. Now they advertise 4 rooms for free. Do not believe them.
moe99 said on June 11th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/31/tiller/
Bill O’Reilly on Tiller is the same effect as using a dog whistle on a dog. All the right words are there to incite someone, anyone to kill him. Just not said directly so O’Reilly can disclaim responsibility. Very cleverly done. May he rot in hell.
jeff borden said on June 11th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Since we began with riffs on the brainless and irritating Gov. Palin, let’s not forget that this overly ambitious political hack spent much of the final months of last fall’s campaign claiming that President Obama “paled (or palled??) around with terrorists” and that the only “real Americans” could be found in small towns. Her campaign rhetoric was so extreme, even McCain had to work to damp it down.
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Dexter – we spent 10 or 11 years with Dish, after dumping Comcast cable in the wake of one of their endless rate increases.
We were happy with Dish – but our equipment had worn out, too. We had found Dish remotes on E-Bay, but the receivers were giving up the ghost, plus we noticed (as you did) that the newer deals were much more capable, and for a bit less than we were paying.
We called them to asked for new equipment, and they tried to tell us how much it would cost….and to make a long story short, we fired them.
And THEN – then and only then – they SUDDENLY were willing to make concessions!
To make a long story short, THAT’S when we learned that the very first card you play with these folks is – cancel the service. Then, the powerless telephone person hands you off to a supervisor, and things begin to happen.
We’ve been with DirecTV for several years, and we noted they were offering a very nice deal (DVR/low rates, etc) for new customers, so we contacted them and informed them that we were teminating the service unless we got the new stuff, too – and voila!
coozledad said on June 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Jeff Borden: She also apparently believes “gravitas” is an anti-wrinkle creme:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/11/letterman-responds-to-pal_n_214128.html
We came way too close to having this shithead as Veep.
joodyb said on June 11th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Brian, the ‘new customer’ policy is squishy in all markets. fact is, they have to offer you the same price, but most customers never call them on it. we had the same issue with Comcast (nee TimeWarner). I had a grandfathered rate for cable/broadband bundle. when Comcast came to town, they tried to tell me i couldn’t have it anymore. i said “fine, turn it off. at my age, i’ve paid tens of thousands for cable service. you should be ashamed of yourselves.” I got a letter the next week, all status quo.
anyone can cut a deal. most people just don’t know to do it.
Dexter said on June 11th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
yeah brian st.—we get DirecTV mailings twice a week begging us to come back.
I mean, after all, I paid them $98 a month for 11 and a half years, I bought my own equipment back then, (before they stopped that) and I enjoyed trouble-free service for years. You’ve seen the ads for cable that brag they never lose signal “like satellite does”? Well, Time Warner is always going off line! Almost every week we have outages…just today, CNN was off all morning, along with about 20 other channels…complain? Why? “…no discounts off your bill unless we are off 24 hours straight.”
There’s just no easy way at all.
brian? How about a Fort Wayne Tin Caps update…like the stadium? parking reasonable? Dollar hot dogs and peanuts?
alex said on June 11th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Pilot Joe isn’t worth arguing with. I started a long, well-reasoned post earlier today and after almost finishing it I just deleted the whole damned thing because it’s lost on him anyway.
Just like the following is surely lost on devout right-wingers. But it’s bringing tears to my eyes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/11/zahra-rahnavard-iranians_n_214554.html
EDIT: And it’s “written in the sky.” Kind of like our recent election:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/opinion/11iht-edcohen.html?_r=1
Ain’t just the American mullahs running scared these days.
Kevin Knuth said on June 11th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Goeglein alert: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/11/dobson-goeglein-bush/
basset said on June 11th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
I started to get BellSouth DSL back when I upgraded from dialup… only live about a half-mile from the switch so I figured it’d be no problem, they had a free-hookup special so I called.
Turns out it was free if you had a PC, $100 for a Mac. Told them we’d do it ourselves, we know how, really… no, still $100. Went to Comcast, not outstanding service but it works most of the time.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Marvelous story, Alex, as is the link i found in the sidebar — http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-siskind/sexism-against-conservati_b_214248.html
The descriptive rhetoric used for Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and yes, even Ann Coulter (“her bony clavicle” — i mean, c’mon, who else always gets this kind of detailed mocking physical description in political coverage?) is just ridiculous. Mocking Rush’s girth is fair because he is a kind of sideshow clown and so it comes with the terrain, but Palin’s detractors would have provoked Margaret Mead to leap to her defense. Apparently women have to be safely, markedly post-menopausal to avoid the hyper-sexualized mockery that is so normalized in political chatter.
Roger Ebert’s blogging has been a real gift to me in recent months, but his thrice affirmed links to a buddy who has painted a puerile nude of Alaska’s governor: what in heaven’s name is that about? What’s it got to do with anything, other than “non-aged powerful woman we don’t agree with — quick, take her clothes off in public to put her in her place!”
I just don’t get the left’s fascination with getting Palin’s clothes off, or their obsession with the fact that she doesn’t look like Phyllis Schlafly. She looks like eight of the last ten women i talked to today, the two exceptions being heavily tattooed and somewhat underdressed even for a June day. None of whom i’d call a slutty flight attendant, and none of whom i’d dare make jokes about the availability of their 14 year old daughters . . . and that’s who was with her at Yankee Stadium, as the NYTimes had clearly noted that day, so if Dave’s joke was about the daughter who was at the ball park, then he just can’t say “well, well, hey, i meant the one that’s slutty, anyone can tell that’s what i would have meant if i’d been thinking about it.”
Yeah, i *really* like Dave telling us who he can and can’t joke about “getting knocked up with a ballplayer.” Palin over-reacted? That’s not what any mom with a 14 year old daughter would say that i know.
Can’t y’all go back to making fun of pilonoidal cysts and Mark Levin’s voice? It would be mildly infantile, but fair enough; this gleeful cheap shotting of the Palins is really making some of you sound merely silly as you try to call foul balls as “in bounds.” Now, mocking Goeglein — well in bounds. Take your base.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
By the way, Jon Stewart has been strikingly fair and reasonable as he tees off on Sarah Palin, so it clearly isn’t “can’t talk about her if you can’t mock her looks.”
The most fair and balanced broadcaster on TV!
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Dexter – I confess I haven’t ventured into Parkview Field yet. The kids and I drove past when a game was going, and could feel the electricity.
Anyway, if we don’t get in there sooner, Pam and I will be a company event there July 15 (extra good seats, plus food and goodies), and I’ll give you a full report!
KK’s Goeglein alert was pretty funny to read; thanks!
And ALex – those Iran pieces are good stuff. I’ve been taking in the hopeful pictures and such from there – of throngs in the streets…and I’m working not to get my hopes up. But indeed, and with all due caution and so on – I think it wouldn’t be too much to say that if the Iranian electorate responds – in the coming hours – to what the American electorate did last November (and dumps Nutjob), I’m going to have some serious pollyanna reactions about how folks are folks the world over, etc etc.
brian stouder said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Jeff tmmo – let me leap to say that I am in complete agreement with you about Letterman/Palin.
Letterman’s style of humor has really never appealed to me, and his bashing of Palin’s daughter was meanly stupid.
And – I think the Palin family’s response has been more composed and reasonable than the Stouder family’s would have been, if the lanky comedian (who lives in a moral glass house, too) had slimed our daughters. Just sayin’
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 11th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Stewart is joking with Katie Couric about something that our local network news is, in fact, doing — “news bingo, then they can win stuff!” NBC4 is doing key words in the newscasts (i call them, generously), and when you have enough key words on your registered profile, you can “win stuff.”
Sorry, Jon, as Tom Lehrer said, it gets harder and harder to do satire (Lehrer said, without a smile, that he quit the satire biz when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize: “How can i top that?”).
Catherine said on June 12th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Actually, those of you who find the coverage of Sarah Palin sexist (and believe me, although I think she’s awful, the coverage is worse), I think you might want to consider whether the coverage of the Iranian candidate’s wife is a mite patronizing, too. “Never underestimate the power of a woman?” I ask you. While it’s good to see a change afoot in Iran, the role of women in it is being depicted as quaint and, well, almost to American standards — imagine that! How about we imagine an America (first) and a world (soon thereafter) in which you don’t have to be someone’s wife to be a national political figure? Elizabeth Edwards taught me, if you like the wife, VOTE FOR HER, not the husband.
rant over, sorry for the caps lock voice.
alex said on June 12th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Catherine, I don’t see the coverage of the Iranian candidate’s wife as patronizing. It’s an act of courage for her to be part of the campaign and she symbolizes an unspoken (and at this time unspeakable) promise to liberate women from the oppression of the current regime.
She is also of the generation that came of age when the Shah was in power and Iran was a much more liberal, westernized country where women could aspire to have careers and dress however they please. I remember meeting an Iranian couple back in the ’80s who were trying desperately to remain in the U.S. because their cherished way of life in Iran was no more and they couldn’t bear going back. They were educated professionals in an egalitarian marriage. I don’t know what became of them but I hope they were granted citizenship.
It is kind of cheap to attack Palin on her looks and to cast aspersions about her daughters being sluts, but it doesn’t bother me. Palin, after all, would never have come to the defense of Chelsea Clinton when Rush Limbaugh was calling her an ugly dog that nobody would want to fuck. They used to take some pretty gratuitous swipes at Chelsea on Fox. I remember a Chelsea joke on a graphic leading into a commercial break that said something like “An African prince asks Bill Clinton for Chelsea’s hand in marriage. He offers three chickens and a goat. Bill Clinton accepts. Question: Is the prince getting screwed?”
Palin, in all fairness, really is more beauty than brains. She serves herself up in the kittenish way that true feminists loathe. And while I don’t think politicians’ children should be exploited, I also don’t think politicians should exploit “family values” as cheaply and cynically as she does. For this, I think she deserves to be tweaked for having a knocked up teen daughter. Time will tell whether abstinence-only education is working for the younger one, and frankly I won’t be disappointed if and when it doesn’t.
nancy said on June 12th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Leaving out the Iranian woman, I think Alex is absolutely right. I’d be more sympathetic to her if she kept her kid off the cover of People magazine and off the morning news shows, if she acted the way she claims she wants to be treated. I think the world would be happy to ignore Sarah Palin, given the chance. But she won’t give us one.
JRG said on June 12th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Amen, Nancy. Although I admit Letterman’s jokes sort of rolled over me at first, I do see that they were probably off base. But I find her intellectual vapidity and her apparent unawareness of it, coupled with the odd combination of aggrieved victim and self-righteousness that make up her persona, so revolting that it’s hard for me to be disturbed by things people say about her and her family. I really do wish she would just go away.
brian stouder said on June 12th, 2009 at 9:38 am
For the record, last evening around 5:30 I called our local radio lip-flapper (and former media partner of the proprietress, when she tested her wings on the airwaves of the Summit City) and flatly stated (to him and his listening audience) that the contention (which he was loudly and insistently proclaiming) that the Obama administration had issued a new directive to the military in Afghanistan – ordering the “Mirandizing” of captured enemy combatants – was flatly false!
This drew no argument – and the host allowed me to continue, so I pressed the other things we discussed here – regarding the civic responsibilities that comes with broadcasting on the public airwaves, and THAT provoked a response from the host.
But the point is – he did allow me an inning, and he did not have any answer for the main contention (the falsity of the ‘Obama the deluded civil-libertarian-for-enemies-of-the United States’).
Anyway, it was refreshing to think that at least a few people might have heard the host’s point rebutted, and noted that the host had no further argument. Really, I cannot help but like our local guy; he will allow opposing views (very unlike his national counterparts), as long as one is polite about it.
Can’t ask for anything more
LAMary said on June 12th, 2009 at 11:57 am
We mock appearances of male candidates. John Edwards hair, Mitt Romney looking like Guy Smiley, Dennis Kucinich looking like an elf. Saying Sarah Palin looks like a slutty flight attendant. She chooses to look that way and spends a lot of money achieving that look.
Cathy (the Ft. Wayne one) said on June 12th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Did you see this, about the mangos?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104881449