The helping profession.
A case of animal hoarding came to light here last week. Someone saw a loose kitten, which led to a conversation with T. Creepy Neighbor, which led to the animal-control people showing up, which is evidently the only agency that knows what the telltale smell indicates. Long story short: The kittens were forgotten in the David Lynchian scene of– are you ready? One hundred twelve live chihuahuas and 150 dead ones.
The dead ones were in freezers. Relax.
We’ve all seen these cases before. I certainly understand the attention paid to them — bizarre is newsworthy, after all — but they always make me uncomfortable. It starts with the unbearable TV coverage, where anchors who are paid half a million dollars a year to look good and act stupid furrow their brows over the teasers: “You’re not going to believe what they found in a Dearborn man’s home!” (Try me. I’ve seen it all, lady.) Then the piece itself, in which neighbors — are they all idiots? Everywhere? — tell the world what they “seen.” Also, what they told the police: “I seen it was looking bad over there, so I told them cops…”
This is followed by the newspapers, stories pitched only slightly more upmarket, filled with helpful, “reader service” details. Click here to download an application to adopt one of the rescued dogs. My personal favorite was “Chihuahua facts,” a sidebar of general information on the breed — size, description, history. Also, this line, which made me laugh out loud: “The live Chihuahuas, many of them shaking and traumatized…” Which would make them different from other chihuahuas how?
Through all of this is the guy’s lawyer, returning all his phone calls, trying to be heard, beating one drum: Hello? MENTAL ILLNESS! We’ll see how it works; most people don’t want to hear stuff like that. The neighbors will be dragged out before the TV cameras to opine he weren’t crazy, while the papers file more helpful sidebars:
Kenneth Lang Jr. simply couldn’t throw anything away – not trash, not feces, not dogs.
I like how she slips the feces in the middle of that series. And then, the Edna Buchanan jujitsu:
Not even the dead ones.
Enough. This poor man. I suggest the Witness Protection Program, perhaps to a place with a big yard, three chihuahuas and a vet who sees to it that everyone is spayed and neutered. Besides, all this talk of nervous little dogs distracts us from the real news of the day, yet another chapter in the long dick of Kwame Kilpatrick. Turns out the former mayor was personal-relationshipping with the federally appointed monitor overseeing the consent decree to clean up the police department. She’s been billing the city $287.50 an hour for years, to the tune of $10 million. Well, that’ll buy a lot of romantic weekend getaways — smart money says she was the woman who enjoyed a $500 “couples massage” with KK in Asheville, N.C., where he was keynoting a MLK Day thing.
Sadly, that also distracts the public from Martha Reeves’ latest antics:
Although Martha Reeves is internationally famous for being the lead singer of the group Martha and the Vandellas she has now decided to use her middle name on the ballot.
The flier reads Martha Rose-Reeves on one side of the flier and Martha-Rose Reeves, with the hyphen in a different spot on the back.
The flier also states, “Elect Martha-Rose Reeves and the Vandellas.”
When asked if the Vandellas were also running for council, she said, “Yes. They are running and dancing in the streets.”
Let me just say it again: I love this town.
So, a bit of bloggage?
Hank Stuever has some big shoes to fill. Congratulations. Also, scroll down to his Madonna entry. Stew bird!
Sarah Palin leaves lesser humorists baffled, but Jon Stewart always seems to step up. (Video link is hosed; I’ll try to fix it when Comedy Central does.) Best single line goes to Gawker, however:
It’s like Peggy Noonan, Jack London, and William Faulkner wandered into the woods with three buttons of peyote and one typewriter, and only this speech emerged.
Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann replaces Sarah Palin as the national sweetheart of crazy.
Breakfast time, then gym time. Then Russian time, then Hammer time!
(Order your Amazon through me and I earn 4 percent. Click the “powered by Amazon” logo.)
Peter said on July 28th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Talk about timing with the dogs – no, I’m not bringing up the Taco Bell Dog – last night we received a flyer on our neighborhood mental health center. It appears the Daley Adminsitration wants to save lots of money by closing the center down and saving – drum roll – $60,000.00 a year. Well, that will take care of that pesky old deficit!
Sorry I didn’t comment yesterday – actually had to work out of town – so I need to put my two cents in on Benjamin Button. I lost it when Ben and the British lady are having drinks after hours in a Soviet hotel bar. Don’t ask me why – I can believe that someone can be born old and die young, I can believe that for some unknown reason, the Rooskies needed a shrimp trawler from New Orleans in Odessa, but some Soviet leaves the vodka out? C’MON.
Julie Robinson said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Peter, you were still paying attention? By that point I was focusing on a cross-stitch project so that at least the evening wasn’t a total waste.
Both my mom and sister have hoarding issues. Mom’s house should be condemned; ditto for the apartment I moved my sister out of last summer. It’s a very complex issue and mental health workers will tell you that it’s almost impossible to cure even when the hoarder is motivated to change. If they aren’t, forget it. You can muck it all out but soon it’ll look the same.
moe99 said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Retiring Ohio Senator Voinovich does not mince words describing his party:
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/07/27/voinovich-slams-demint-and-coburn-for-gop-downfall-blames-the-southerners/
the money quote for me: “We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns,” Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch. “It’s the southerners.”
“They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr,’” he said. “People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?”
coozledad said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Is it too late to shop scripts for a summer pilot? I got one.
“What happens when you throw three cougars in a steel cage? BLOOD-Sarah Palin-she doesn’t blink when she’s called on to eviscerate the steaming corpse of a moose. SWEAT- Katherine Harris puts the piece in “piece of work”, and it’ll take a hot day’s work to knock her off her high horse. TEARS- there’ll be lots of them when Michelle Bachmann bares those canines. Three cougars-three contenders-only one gets a million dollar Nieman Marcus gift card. The only thing we can promise you is it’s going to get ugly.”
Peter said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Coozledad – Save on expenses – I bet they’ll do it for a $500.00 card.
Julie – a close friend of mine worked with Jewish Senior Services for many years. He had tales of what people stacked up in their apartments, but he always asked himself if they were any sloppier or bigger pack rats than he was, and the answer was always no.
jcburns said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Glad your buddy Mr. Hank is getting a great TV gig. His NYT competition, Alessandra Stanley, took the occasion of Walter Cronkite’s death to plumb new depths of un-factchecked reporting. But the Times got around to regretting the errors in a massive correction (scroll down to the bottom to read the mea culpa, or read about it at the CJR site.) As CJR points out, it’s hardly as if Stanley could be blindsided by Cronkite’s death…she might have, you know, taken a few moments when not under deadline pressure to hone her “appraisal” in advance of the anchor’s passing.
Danny said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:05 am
MarkH, Brian, MichaelG: bringing something forward from yesterday’s thread. Please, when chatting about racing, be it Formula 1, NASCAR or IndyCar, DO NOT invoke Speed Racer’s name in jest. His legacy is unimpeachable and you’d be wise to honor him and RacerX with nothing but the most hallowed choice of words. And Trixie, I mean yum. That chick can fly a helicopter and an airplane.
MarkH said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Holy s***!! What the hell was up with Stanley?? That was a mea F***** CULPA! Most of the stuff she got wrong was basic everyday knowledge, whether you’re a Cronkite student or not. And, there was still one error in the story: Cronkite exclaimed “Oh, Boy!” when the Eagle landed, not 7 or so hours later when Armstrong took the first steps.
MarkH said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:09 am
A pox upon me, Danny. And, yes, ok, Trixie is indeed yummie.
jcburns said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:11 am
When we bought the Prius, I paid extra for the ‘buttons A through G on the steering wheel’ option. Because, you know, making your car jump high over stopped traffic is priceless.
Sue said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:24 am
That Madonna pic needed a warning. Wow – there are actually worse things than flabby arms.
“Enough. This poor man. I suggest the Witness Protection Program, perhaps to a place with a big yard, three chihuahuas and a vet who sees to it that everyone is spayed and neutered.” No. No, no, no. That’s not how this illness works. Unless the vet actually lives with the man and takes care of feeding and general care, because that’s one of the brain functions that’s lacking when you are a hoarder – once you have the item you forget it. 25 years’ worth of newspapers won’t starve to death; 25 dogs, cats or horses will.
Jeff Borden said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:29 am
The most thankless job in America over the next year will be the editor who must work with Sarah Palin on her “book.” Having seen her initial announcement of quitting, and then the bizarro world presser on the day she turned over the reins, I truly wonder if this woman has ever written two coherent sentences in a row. And since she has shown no signs she can take direction well and she obviously holds herself in very high esteem, how the hell is a poor blue penciler ever going to massage her verbiage into something mildly readable?
nancy said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Sue, I stand corrected. I just don’t want him portrayed as a criminal. Which is how it’s going.
MichaelG said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I see the Feds in their tireless efforts to protect America have rooted out yet another nest of terrorists. This evil North Carolina cell apparently had no less than world domination on their mind. Thank God for our Homeland Security protectors. Or will it come out that these are another bunch of drooling inbred wannabes like the rest of the mopes the Feds have scooped up? These people neighbors of yours Coozledad?
I have to confess that I am not familiar with Trixie. Whoshe?
Danny said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
This is Trixie. She was Speed’s grilfriend, but she was also a race coordinator/team lead. She would often fly around in a helicopter or fixed wing and communicate via walkie-talkie any dangerous road conditions that were ahead.
derwood said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:58 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_racer
Scroll down to supporting characters.
^What Danny said…
Danny said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:59 am
JC, do you remember how the G button was for that mechanical homing pigeon? That thing had a camera that remoted wirelessly back to a video screen inside the Mach 5. Very high tech.
ROgirl said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Those pics of Madonna’s arms brought this to mind.
http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/1520978.html
Sue said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Well now, it looks like this is going to be another far-reaching conversation day at NN.c.
And I have a feeling that those of us who take the time to remember the names of the commenters currently crushing on Trixie will find the information rewarding in future.
jcburns said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Trixie, shown, what, praying in that picture? I kind of prefer her given Japanese name, Michi. Yeah, the mechanical homing pigeon thing never works right on the Prius. But the backup camera does a good job…I’ve yet to run over any squirrels, or Nancy’s dog.
Danny said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Sue, it won’t be too rewarding in my case. My wife is already aware of my crushes on Trixie and Donna Reed. She understands and is not threatened.
Catherine said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Jeff @12: Editor? Try being the poor ghost writer.
velvet goldmine said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Danny, I don’t think Sue is thinking of using the information to blackmail so much as using it to laugh at you.
Danny said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Laugh ALL you want. My love for Trixie is pure and true.
coozledad said on July 28th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Micheal: Well they weren’t exactly neighbors, but they were training next door. We’re at the edge of Person County, but used to be in Caswell until 1792. I thought all that automatic weapons fire I was hearing from across the road was just a bunch of bored rednecks.
“Daniel Patrick Boyd and the other suspects showed others how to fire Kalashnikov AK-47s and other weapons similar to those used in Afghanistan, authorities said.
Over the last two months, Boyd and some of the others honed their weapons skills on private property in rural Caswell County, the indictment said.”
Jolene said on July 28th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Gosh, I could use some good news. Summer is winding down; health care reform is on the rocks; everyone is pissed off at either (a) black people, (b) cops, (c) Barack Obama, or (d) all three; when I went to look at the picture of Madonna, I also found this story, which made me cry; and I’m having a hard time getting motivated to do all the things I need to do before catching a plane tomorrow evening. Any suggestions?
MarkH said on July 28th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
And Donna Reed! Danny, yes! From Mary Hatch Bailey to Alma/Lorene to Donna Stone. I’ll even accept her here, sorta:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048056/
Doesn’t look anything like the dollar coin, though.
moe99 said on July 28th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Was it here that someone mentioned that Madge’s arms have been christened by the british press as “bingo wings?”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2538375/Madonna-is-snapped-with-bingo-wings.html
LAMary said on July 28th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Madge, like many ladies her age, should keep her unsightly arms covered. Some of us have a the loose skin issue, some of us have arms that scare people to death. Either way it’s a nice cardigan over that blouse.
ROgirl said on July 28th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I couldn’t get over how smooth and rounded her face was in comparison with those knotted, sinewy, vein popping arms.
beb said on July 28th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Bingo Wings was all like last week, Moe, where were you?
Trixie. Do you mean as played by Christina Ricci in the movie, or the anime version. I thought Ricci was pretty hot in the movie, therefore required more screen time. I thought the movie was loopy and psychidelic, but in a good way and fit the source material well.
The Dearborn dog hoarder, to my knowledge hasn’t been named on TV, and not treated as someone who has done anything criminal. That he was totally crazy is a conclusion left up to the viewers.
Is Martha Reeves, I’m sorry, Martha-Rose Reeves, trying to steal Barbara-Rose Collins’ voters with her name change? Can we have an option for State Recievership in addition to the 130+ residents who want to steal from the city’s treasury?
Nancy may find Detroit an endlessly entertaining city, but I note that she doesn’t actually live here.
[EDIT: Because I do live in Detroit I don't find any of the hijinks here funny.]
And Kwame was cheating on both his wife and his mistress? The man doesn’t deserve to go to jail, he deserves to be castrated. But I’ll accept additional jail time. God, what a dick.
Danny said on July 28th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Original cartoon Trixie for me. I’m a purist.
alex said on July 28th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
So Danny likes his women one-dimensional, just the way he likes his politics.
John said on July 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Alex! Play nice! Cartoon characters are two dimensional. They just lack depth.
MichaelG said on July 28th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Sorry, Trixie doesn’t do it for me. She seems a little – limited.
Scout said on July 28th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Agreed, Nancy, the Gawker one-liner was a winner. The whole piece was worth the link click.
I hope you all enjoy this vid of William Shatner immortalizing Sarah’s speechifying in poetry form – I did!
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/28/palin-is-poetry/
MarkH said on July 28th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Video gone, Scout. NBC threatened suit, apparently.
Joe Kobiela said on July 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Heck with Trixie, I’ll take Betty Rubble.
Pilot Joe
MichaelG said on July 28th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
What, Joe? Not Penny to go with your C-310?
Jen said on July 28th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
The Shatner-Palin video appears to still be here: http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/07/conan-shatner-palin-speech.html
It’s super funny!
Joe Kobiela said on July 28th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I thought we were talking animated.
” I remember being buck tooth and skinny,writing fan letters to sky’s niece Penny” Buffett Pencil thin mustache.
Pilot Joe
Joe Kobiela said on July 28th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Heck I thought we were talking animated.
I remember being bucktooth and skinny, writing fan letters to sky’s niece Penny,
Buffett, Pencil thin mustache.
If your bored tonight, you can go to flight aware.com, put n61348 into the tail number section and watch me dodge T-storms. Leaving GWB around 5:45PM.
Pilot Joe
Dang Double posted
MarkH said on July 28th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Brian, I’ve decided you are correct. Schuey will not be back in F1. Seven titles, 91 wins; nothing to prove. Too many young lions out there more suited to Ferrari’s taste in drivers anyway, just waiting. This was totally blogosphere-driven. I see Vettl in there, if not now, in 2010.
And, yes Christina Ricci, a luscious, good choice for Trixie. Hard to get Black Snake Moan out of my head when I see her, though.
Dexter said on July 28th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Trixie to me will always be Ed Norton’s wife on The Honeymooners. Late last night I was going down the channels and I stopped at the ALN. They were showing “The Honeymooners in Color”. I had forgotten that Gleason and Carney had teamed up with Sheila MacRae as Alice for some Honeymooners musical shows in 1967, over a decade after the old TV show was history. They never lost a beat…just the same…it was great to see it; I suppose I saw it then, but I have forgotten it.
jeff borden said on July 28th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
The explosion of digital channels has been a godsend for fans of old TV shows in the Chicago area. One of our independent UHF outfits is doing marathons of old series every night. (Last night, it was the black and white episodes of “The Wild, Wild West.”) I geeked out on the “Twilight Zone” and “Night Gallery” evenings and was kind of surprised to remember how genuinely creepy “Night Gallery” stories could be on occasion. The episode where a guy gives a golddigging blonde an unusual furry broach held in place by a slender gold chain, which he removes when she blows him off in a bar, was pretty flipping scary for prime-time TV.
Not nearly as scary as “Trilogy of Terror,” of course, because nothing can ever equal that Zuni fetish doll stalking Karen Black through the dark.
Just as CD technology led to a lot of great old music getting a second chance with listeners, these additional digital TV channels are reviving some of the great (and not so great) programs of the past.
MarkH said on July 28th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I hear ya, Jeff. I have been able to memorize most of my favorite TZ lines and episodes, thanks to SciFi Channel. (“You’re a bad man! You’re a VERY bad man!”) Oops, sorry; got carried away remembering being creeped out by Billy Mumy. Night Gallery did indeed creep me out, too. I remember a number of the episodes were based on H.P. Lovecraft paintings. I just wish they’d show the original Outer Limits more often.
And Dexter, yes, Gleason was a staple in our household as well.
joodyb said on July 28th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Gawker in its entirety was the best value on the Internets yesterday. it saved my soul.
bingo wings! ha!
peter said on July 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Speed Racer – I did a job in Brazil, and when I was down there I got to see Speed Racer in the original Japanese – that theme song is fantastic!
Honeymooners – The Ford Museum has the bus that Rosa Parks sat in, and I swear it looks just like the bus from the famous Honeymooners promo photo. I couldn’t open the windows so the spouse and I could look like Ralph and Alice, and the museum employee was not amused when she asked why I was trying to open the windows.
Donna Reed – how about that librarian scene in It’s a Wonderful Life – mmmmmmm – oh wait, did I confuse that with Sarah Palin in the libertarian scene…
coozledad said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
For some reason I’m thinking of Claire Bloom as the arch lesbian in The Haunting, and as a commie ingenue in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
There’s an anime site that links to mine frequently, probably because I used to go out to Nick Curry’s blog, Click Opera, a lot. Sometimes they feature anime porn. I don’t think I’m being overly judgmental, because think it was the cartoon porn in the old National Lampoon and Heavy Metal magazines of the seventies that sold me on the idea of illustration as a possible way of life; but the anime is eerily like the vending machines in Tokyo where you can get used panties to sniff. A narrowly targeted thrill, I hope. How big do cartoon boobs have to be before the interest in them escapes simple fetishism and becomes more of a preoccupation with architecture of scale? Maybe I’ve said too much.
MichaelG said on July 28th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Vending machines that sell used panties? I feel like a hayseed. Although, now that I think of it, I can see the work at home opportunities for a busy stay at home mom with several kids. There’s all kinds of branding . . . Maybe I’ll just quit.
coozledad said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
MichaelG: I saw some reference to it a few years ago in Spy magazine. I Googled it to make sure I wasn’t misremembering it. Japan has outlawed the practice, which has led to even more bizarre manifestations of the kink.
alex said on July 28th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Once went and saw Annie Sprinkle do a live stage show and pass it off as “performance art.” It was a documentary about her career—with a guided tour of her snatch with a flashlight if you paid extra bucks. Anyway, she said she made more money selling her used panties than she ever made making movies, and to fulfill demand she had to enlist the help of others in the dirtying of drawers. Price points were assigned according to ripeness.
A guy who reviewed the show for Chicago magazine absolutely lost it and fainted, injuring his head, when Annie trotted out a female-to-male transgendered person. The surgeon’s handiwork was unveiled for all to see, and from the report it was sick-making. No such fun the night I was there. But for five bucks I got a memento—a Polaroid of Annie’s boobs wrapped around my head.
Dexter said on July 29th, 2009 at 12:23 am
test
Crazycatlady said on July 29th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Beb- I was thinking the same thing–that Martha was cashing in on Detroit voters ignorance and laziness when it comes to voting. And as for Kwame, you have to admire the ballsy ambition of a mayor who cheats on his wife, and his girlfriend with the woman sent by the feds to root out corruption in the Detroit Police Department. It takes a special kind of guy to screw his city, his wife, his sons, and his girlfriend all at the same time. Texas can keep him!
coozledad said on July 29th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Alex: That’s hilarious. You’ll have to post that picture on the “After Dark” section of this blog.
My wife’s cousin taught English in Japan as part of her student aid package, and married a Japanese guy who was studying architecture. They drove up to visit while my wife was working in Cary, and my wife took them to a Japanese grocery store. There was a small library of adult films on a stand by the checkout counter. My wife’s cousin motioned at them and said “We don’t need those. I do most of that stuff (bukakke?) anyway.”
!!!
In some ways I wish I’d seen that exchange, but I suspect it wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 29th, 2009 at 8:03 am
“Looking out across Lake Wasilla to the west, i watch the sun rise over this great country of ours. The country of Alaska is vast, with big mountains and big people and even bigger solutions to problems people haven’t even thought of yet, but not in this state, which is really a country all its own, bordering other countries, too.
I am writing this book for all of you in smaller parts of the larger country we call these United States. There, the cramped vision of government regulation may be all you can see as the sun seems to set over America. But up here in Alaska, we see the sun rising all the time, and i want you all to see that, too; i want you to have moose and elk in your back yards and eagles flying high overhead and big dreams in your heart.
When Todd gets done changing Trap’s diaper, we’re going out for a snow machine ride; people who think the globe is warming should come up to Alaska for a winter and join us for a real Iron Dog snow machine tour. Not in one of the places where the ice is melting and the Arctic Ocean stays unfrozen, where the snow machining really isn’t much fun, anyhow, but up in the foothills and mountains and wild places where the wolves are so prolific we have to hunt them with helicopters no matter what that non-singing Judd sister says.
While i hold tightly to my strong but silent husband, i’ll be thinking about what i want to say to everyone in the following pages about federalism, about lower taxes, about energy policy, and about how i wish i’d put one of those radio transceivers they put on moose for studies onto my oldest daughter, and wonder if it’s not a good idea to track all my kids that way. And since one of my kids is named Track, it kinda makes sense, doesn’t it?
We climb aboard our (BRAND NAME REDACTED), careful not to kick the shining stock of the high powered rifle with telescopic sights strapped to the side of the seat. Here in Alaska, which i’ll be leaving shortly for a long road trip with Kid Rock and many, many other stars for the USO to meet our troops out where they are working and fighting and bleeding and dying for us, even for the media weasels who have to be shooed away from the moose carcass as you butcher it out far from roads and vehicles, but are a part of Nature you just learn to put up with, like mosquitoes (of which we have the largest you’ll find anywhere), this is the kind of trip you wouldn’t take without honoring that great second amendment to our wonderful Constitution. We don’t go to the Wasilla Walmart without “packing heat”, as the kids say, and we’ve brought down an elk big enough to feed our whole family for two weeks right there in the parking lot, out by the cart racks that usually don’t have any carts in them because so many people, not all, are just too lazy to return them, which should have a consequence (in my opinion), but absolutely not any federal legislation, which i believe would be just too much.
So c’mon, join me and Todd on this ride, which you can’t actually do but in this book you can feel just a little of the face numbing cold and vibrations that shake your fillings loose as we ride across our frozen and thawed and refrozen roads, out beyond, as Robert Frost said “where the sidewalk ends,” and see a little bit of what we see for our family, for Alaska, for our country, and for you.”
Call me, Sarah, we can do this! 250 pages with wide margins, and we’ll leave them wanting more. Three books by 2012, i’m thinkin’.
coozledad said on July 29th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Blood and Soil.
moe99 said on July 29th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Jefftmmo? Was that a magical moment or what?
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 29th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Blut und Boden perhaps, but she’s missing the socialism part of National Socialism. We need to move past the nationalisms of Westphalia circa 1648, but the 1919 “self determination for all peoples” turns out to carry its own built-in self detonation fuse.
Personally, i think we’d all be better off feeling a deep loyalty to our watershed and/or ecoregion, but that’s gonna be a multigeneration educational project. Just spent a week doing my part on that, but it’s a hard sell.
basset said on July 29th, 2009 at 9:02 am
every time I hear Westphalia mentioned, I think of ham…or VW campers… or Blue Oyster Cult:
“It was dark over Westphalia/In April of ’45…”
coozledad said on July 29th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Regardless of what Jonah Goldberg’s pulled out of his ass and called a thesis, socialism refers, in the Nazi equation, to the she-wolf of the state, milking her cubs as they participate in an eternal struggle of borderline personalities leading inexhorably to some Edda-like feast of souls. To say it has anything that even remotely smacks of Fabianism or the hippie variety of pantheism is to ignore Hitler and the history of Europe post ’33. Nazism is less akin to Socialism than it is to a pyramid scheme where the base is steadily, and with mechanical inevitability, converted to corpses.
We know enough about human nature now to say that the goal of any ideology that adopts “will” or “gut-feeling” as a replacement for methodical governance is begging for a return to the killing fields of Eastern Europe 1942-45. Some people (the same people who are peddling Jonah’s mountain of shit)think it would have been somehow different if Hitler had managed to defeat the Soviets. Horseshit. The idea was always to kill and keep killing.It was the aim of the Hitler state. Hitler said he died a happy man; and of course he did. He got a world-historical plate-job at the expense of millions of dead.
Conflating Hitlerism with progressivism is the vilest, stupidest shit the Republicans have ever spouted, and you know it.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 29th, 2009 at 9:27 am
You need to read more about Woodrow Wilson; Goldberg doesn’t argue that progressivism was the same as Hitler, but that the argument ad Hitlerium has swamped the fact that collectivism and nationalism and racism have as many entwined roots as conservatism and localism do. The canard that only the right dabbles in segregation, demonizing of “the Other”, and eugenics is what his book means to refute — i’m strongly suspecting from your comments you haven’t had a chance to read it. You’d by no means agree with all of it, but there’s a well made case developed, with specific case studies, that the Left was well into stuff in the 1920s that today liberalism claims is the exclusive preserve of the conservative movement.
But he doesn’t claim the Progressive movement was the same as Hitler at all, or wanted the same outcome . . . they were, however, much more facilitators of “Mr. Hitler” and “Mr. Mussolini” in the 1930s than any other swath of the American political spectrum. It’s a point worth making as some on the Left regularly invoke Hitler to paint the Right in colors of red, white, and black (spider in the middle implied, but obvious).
And Lindbergh — whoa, the revelations just keep coming. Throw out every bio you have of him, and get ready for the next couple. It just makes you wonder what kind of hell Anne Morrow Lindbergh went through.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 29th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Basset, i wrote a long paper on the Treaty of Westphalia in college, but i still think of that song when the word/place comes up, every time. How do you make the umlaut for the O on a Mac keyboard, i wonder?
coozledad said on July 29th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I don’t recall Roosevelt or Robert Wagner making a case for Mussolini, and I don’t recall Lindbergh making the case for Roosevelt. As far as reading the entirety of Goldberg’s book goes, I spent a lot of my youth being roped into reading worthless crap that was a waste of trees. I’m not going to bog myself down in a book written by a guy who owes his place in life to a starfucker of a mom.
moe99 said on July 29th, 2009 at 9:52 am
My mother was from Little Falls MN where her dad was one of the town’s doctors and a personal friend of Lindbergh. From my mother’s recollection, Lindbergh used to fly over my grandfather’s clinic and tip his wings to Drs. Claude and Barton Holst. I’ve known for a long time about Lindbergh’s fascist impulses. This is nothing new to learn for me. And it is worth noting that Michelle Bachman represent that part of MN these days, so some things haven’t changed.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 29th, 2009 at 10:19 am
The new news is the not one, but THREE good Teutonic families he maintained all his life im Deutschland, and a total number of children between them i’m not recalling, but he was heading for two digits last i saw. Apparently he visited two or three times a year and was presented to his children as their father who was a very important businessman with a very full schedule.
I’ll say.
When it came to Aryan eugenics, he certainly walked the walk. At least in the propagation department.
[update -- apparently he got up to 7 with the three German families, 6 with Anne here back home. 13 for das Volk!]
moe99 said on July 29th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Lindbergh’s father had some problems in that department too, iirc.
Charles Lindbergh was the world’s rock star of the era. Hard not to think you could do whatever you pleased with that sort of adulation following you around.