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Scrambled eggs.

I think I just shot my writ­ing time fir­ing off a thousand-word memo to the stu­dents staffing Grosse​Pointe​To​day​.com. It started off as a gen­eral guide to cov­er­ing small city coun­cils, and, as usual, became some­thing else. When some­thing starts with “be on time” and ends with a lit­tle story about how I over­came my fear of the New York City sub­way sys­tem, I know I’ve lost the thread. Ah, well. Some­day, kids, I’ll be famous, and that memo will be worth some­thing. If I can stop writ­ing memos long enough to get any­thing else done, that is.

I’ve got about a mil­lion things on my mind at the moment, so let’s fall back on that time-tested trick of lazy colum­nists every­where — the three-dotter. I called it Items in Search of a Col­umn when I was doing that sort of thing, but I’m repu­di­at­ing all ties with my for­mer employer, hav­ing learned yes­ter­day that they laid off the last remain­ing full-time staff pho­tog­ra­pher, along with two other peo­ple, late last week. (What’s more, they called the guy in from his vaca­tion to fire him.) A news­pa­per with­out pho­tog­ra­phers, yes. Reporters now carry point-and-shoot cam­eras and take their own pic­tures, the stan­dard bush-league model. When I joined that out­fit, it was a year off of win­ning a Pulitzer Prize and, need­less to say, writ­ers wrote and pho­tog­ra­phers pho­tographed. But that was a long time ago.

I’m chang­ing my resume, any­way. New item: 1984-2004: In a coma. It would be less embar­rass­ing.

…For the record, while I only heard it from an adja­cent room, it sounded like the Who sucked eggs at the Super Bowl. If noth­ing else, it inspired my daugh­ter to ask, “Why do only old peo­ple per­form at half­time?” Alan: “Because the last time they let young peo­ple do it, Janet Jack­son showed her boo­bie.” She did like the laser light show, but for the love of Mike, can we book some­one other than the Motown All-Stars or some other geezer out­fit for 2011? Just a thought.

…More bad news from my home­town: Casa d’Angelo on Fair­field is clos­ing its doors. “Declin­ing rev­enue,” etc. Today’s story says it’s a domino effect fol­low­ing the clos­ing of a nearby hos­pi­tal SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO, and the empha­sis should tell you what I think of that one. Well, it’s their busi­ness, they can do what they want. But it’s a loss for the neigh­bor­hood that will no doubt be cheered on by the knuckle-draggers, who have been trash­ing Fort Wayne’s south side as long as I can remem­ber. They think it’s unsafe, which struck me as ridicu­lous then and even more so now that my bad-neighborhood meter has been recal­i­brated to Detroit stan­dards. I used to despair that Hoosiers would rather buy a new house in a sub­di­vi­sion exactly like every other one than a crafts­man bun­ga­low for half the price in my neigh­bor­hood. Looks like noth­ing has changed.

…Does any­thing ever change? Some­times I won­der.

…My cheer at the Saints vic­tory, which was pre­vi­ously pred­i­cated on the sim­ple thrill of see­ing a feisty under­dog defeat their smug bet­ters, esca­lated to joy upon watch­ing this video. The fact it irks knuckle-draggers who resent the con­flat­ing of a foot­ball team with the social upheaval of Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina is just the whipped cream on my sun­dae.

…I hate the new Face­book, what­ever it is at the moment. Some­one asked the other day if I’d pay for Face­book. Most days, I’d pay to be forcibly dis­con­nected from it. Even as I con­tinue to use it, yes.

…Jezebel on unre­touched Madonna. Thanks, LAMary. I find these pho­tos as impos­si­ble to resist as choco­late cream pie in the refrig­er­a­tor, some­thing Madonna doubt­less hasn’t tasted in decades.

And with that, it’s into the shower with me. Sorry for the scram­bled eggs, but we have a snow­poca­lypse under way, and I need to run my errands early.

Posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 10:43 am in Current events, Media, Popculch. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


63 responses to
“Scrambled eggs.”

  1. Linda said on February 9th, 2010 at 10:53 am

    Nice video link. For all its rowdy rep, N.O. seems to be tak­ing its vic­tory with more grace than some of the Big Ten towns, where no couch goes unburned, or car unturned.

  2. a different Connie said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am

    I thought these pho­tos of Madonna were pretty scary:
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dkAYjn6gU2o/Sm4L1J7r4MI/AAAAAAAADuw/owDM9B_CGh4/s400/madonna-arms-photo.jpg

  3. LAMary said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:02 am

    I think the rev­el­ers and drunks in the Saints video are just happy to finally win some­thing and have a rea­son to party. When teams in other cities win it becomes a rea­son to punch the air and puff out chests and break things.

    I’m with you on the Crafts­man cot­tage in the city rather than the cookie cut­ter 4000 square foot place with the forty mile com­mute. I know for a fact my co-workers think I live in the slums. I spend 15 or twenty min­utes get­ting to work, includ­ing a stop at the wee son’s high school. The rest of this office in in the close to two hour range. I can’t imag­ine ever com­mut­ing two hours in each direc­tion every day. I love my neigh­bor­hood too. We went to a co-worker’s Christ­mas party out in gated com­mu­nity and noticed that every restau­rant was part of a chain. No mom and pop places. TGY Friday’s, Out­back, Ele­phant Bar, CoCo’s. No Senor Fish or Casa Bianca Pizza.

  4. john c said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:09 am

    Thanks for that Saints cel­e­bra­tion video. It reminds me that I haven’t heard the usual reports of trou­ble that often come with these sorts of cel­e­bra­tions. Maybe that says some­thing about a city that knows how to party happy. I lived through six Bulls cham­pi­onships in Chicago, cov­er­ing a lot of them. It was mostly crazy drunken fun. But there was trou­ble too, espe­cially after # 2, if mem­ory serves. One of my friends and fel­low reporters had every win­dow of her car smashed by chains while she sat at a traf­fic light. Not pretty. The only time in my life I’ve ever worn a bullet-proof vest was cov­er­ing a Bulls cel­e­bra­tion for the Sun-Times. I also remem­ber another night, when it hap­pened that I wasn’t on duty for the game. I watched it at a friend’s house, then walked home. My route took me past Wrigley, where tra­di­tion had it that the bars emp­tied and every­one whooped and hollered. At one point a shirt­less, shite-faced 20-something guy walked past me and did a big “YEAAAAAAAAH” right in my face. What struck me was the absolute cer­tainty I felt that, had I not responded with a “Go Bulls!” and offered a high five, he and his pals would have kicked the crap out of me.

  5. Jen said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:20 am

    In high school, I took piano lessons in Fort Wayne from a guy on Wild­wood Avenue, just off Fair­field (not far from Casa d’Angelo – I passed it on my way). I never felt remotely unsafe down there, even when I was a 17-year-old from a pre­dom­i­nately white small town dri­ving down there on my own, and I absolutely loved a lot of the houses down there. (Then again, my par­ents never taught me that black peo­ple were bad and going to kill me just because they’re black, which I’m pretty sure many of my high school class­mates were taught.) My mom did used to accom­pany me when I went to South Side High School for sax lessons, but that was later in the evening and I think it was more because she didn’t want me to get lost in the dark (I took pretty late lessons) than because the neigh­bor­hood was so incred­i­bly shady I shouldn’t be there.

    I must say, I’m glad the Saints won! (But I tend to keep that view­point to myself around here!) I love to root for the under­dog, and, plus, the Saints played very well, and the Colts really didn’t after the first quar­ter. I just loved that video, and it made me even more glad that the Saints won. They really looked like they were lov­ing it!

  6. Bob (not Greene) said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:24 am

    How in the hell does a daily news­pa­per not have an actual pho­tog­ra­pher on staff? Let’s give reporters a cam­era and have them shoot build­ings and peo­ple stand­ing still; what a fine idea. I’m assum­ing they have free­lancers to shoot sports or just pick up AP pho­tos for that and the front page. So much for cap­tur­ing the actual town you are sup­pos­edly cov­er­ing. That is a paper doing a death spi­ral.

    Oh, and for the record and as a Who fan, that was painful. It has to be the end of the geezer parade, right? I mean, all that’s left are the doo-wop groups you see on pub­lic TV at pledge drive time. Next year, the Super Bowl is in Dal­las, so I’m guess­ing we’ll all be mel­low­ing out to Kenny Ches­ney or some such.

  7. Joe Kobiela said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am

    I won’t take credit for this, but the prob­lem with the Who is they didn’t die before they got old.
    Pilot Joe

  8. brian stouder said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:26 am

    Most days, I’d pay to be forcibly dis­con­nected from [Face­book]. Even as I con­tinue to use it, yes.

    I’ve just about decided to pull the plug on the thing, and before I get com­fort­able with their clunky new inter­face, I think I shall. The FB expe­ri­ence strikes me as akin to rid­ing in the back of the school bus; mostly inane stuff, punc­tu­ated by the occa­sional inter­est­ing pic­ture. Think­ing about this a bit fur­ther, in fact many of the things that hit my “wall” (or is it “news”?) lit­er­ally is from folks younger than 18, mak­ing me the odd old man sit­ting at the play­ground. (and since Pam already rides herd on our young folks, I think pulling the ejec­tion lever prob­a­bly IS the thing to do). I would miss four or five folks (Nance and other NN.cer’s, plus Laura Lipp­man), and that’s about it.

    I’ve never under­stood the anti-south (and espe­cially anti-southeast) Fort Wayne atti­tude. It goes back 40 years at least, and indeed I think I recall a news­pa­per series that went after the red-lining that occurred way-back-when (way back when news­pa­pers in Fort Wayne DID that sort of thing! Hmmm; so as our local inde­pen­dent press con­tin­ues to atro­phy, we begin to see which group might profit more, and which groups lose out)

    And with that, it’s into the shower with me. A truly fine sig­na­ture line!

  9. paddyo' said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:49 am

    I dunno ’bout The Who. Their first “Pin­ball Wiz­ard” snip­pet (they didn’t do a full song, of course; hey, it’s the frickin’ Super Bowl show, not a real con­cert) was shaky, but they were rous­ing and in sync the rest of the show, I thought.

    ‘Course, they’re still a cou­ple of doughy guys who could col­lect Social Secu­rity now if they were Amer­i­cans (Roger’s a month shy of 66, and Pete’ll be 65 in May). And Pete’s fake-windmilling on his ax was goofy, espe­cially in the pork-pie hat. But as Pilot Joe hinted, we all know why they didn’t do “My (G-G-G-G-G) Gen­er­a­tion.”

    The tin-eared NFL is still play­ing to the Boomer throngs who fill more of the sta­dium seats than any other cohort, so no sur­prise. But those who care about the half­time show at the Super­bowl get what they deserve. It’s usu­ally a schlock­fest (the Boss, Prince, Stones and a few oth­ers excepted). Thank God they didn’t have the throng of arm-waving extras crowd­ing ’round the stage this year . . .

    Besides, coulda been a lot worse: in 1976, 1980, 1982 and 1986, the show was “Up With Peo­ple” (love Wikipedia)

  10. coozledad said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:51 am

    Those Madonna pic­tures remind me it’s about time for some­one to start crank­ing out devil movies again. She reminds me of one of the twin ghoul sis­ters who shared an apart­ment over the inter­sec­tion of East 86th street and the mouth of hell in “The Sen­tinel.”
    The ghoul sis­ters were hot­ter, though.

  11. Bob (not Greene) said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:55 am

    Just vis­ited the NS Web site for the Casa D’Angelo story link and — ta da! — bad photo of a build­ing by the reporter who wrote the story. Boo.

  12. brian stouder said on February 9th, 2010 at 11:58 am

    Madonna begins to look a bit like the Mona Lisa – slightly enig­matic smile, unde­ni­able beauty; indeed – she really needs no re-touching, in order to turn heads. Maybe the answer to the ques­tion “who keeps leak­ing these pho­tos?” resides right before our eyes

  13. Sue said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    I’d like to see Green Day for next year’s half­time show. They’re main­stream enough that all the boomers would hear the name and think, Oh, yeah, that’s the group that did that nice song they played at my kid’s grad­u­a­tion. What a sur­prise when they do Amer­i­can Idiot instead, and who knows what wardrobe mal­func­tion we can expect?
    It would still be less embar­rass­ing than all the fogies singing along to Teenage Waste­land.

  14. Julie Robinson. said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    Oh, I am so sorry to hear about the lat­est car­nage at the N-S and for the many fine peo­ple affected. The DH got out just in time.
    We used to live on the south side but never felt unsafe. Now we’re up by IPFW with a Casa’s just down the street, and I’m afraid we hadn’t been to the Fair­field loca­tion in many years. So we’re part of the prob­lem, I guess. But why drive 10 miles when you can get to one in about 3 min­utes? That’s the unfor­tu­nate real­ity.
    Madonna’s arms are scary. Who would think that is attrac­tive?

  15. Chris said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    I think Madonna is start­ing to look a lot like Madame, the pup­pet that was part of the act of the late Way­land Flow­ers.

  16. Sue said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    As they say on other blogs:
    Chris, FTW.

  17. beb said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    Madonna crashed my browser!

    Of course so did Yahoo before it uni­lat­er­ally declared that my browser is too old to sup­port! WTF? I thought the uner­ly­ing prin­ci­ple of the Inter­net was to grac­fully recress to what your browser sup­ported. That’s why you’re sup­posed to put titles on all your pic­tures, so peo­ple whose browsers didn’t do pic­tures could at least tell you what you were miss­ing. Now we have an inter­net full of web­sites that cause Mozilla 1.7 to crash (This is higher that News­cape 4 but lower than Fire­fox 1).

    And now that work has blocked YouTube and Flickr there are a lot more large blank holes on web pages as well. *sigh*

    Nancy, keep writ­ing memos and even­tu­ally you can pub­lish a book, Jour­nal­ism for Dum­mies.

    Why give reporters cam­eras when they can just use their cell phones’ cam­era!

    Smash­mouth would be a good choice for the half-time show. They’re a new band that plays a lot of 70s style music. Or go eith Pink. She hot, her songs are very pop­u­lar and unlike Janet Jack­son who was a fad­ing tal­ent, Pink doesn’t haven’t to prove any­thing by flash­ing a boob.

  18. Lex said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    God. I got out just in time.

  19. KLG said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    I thought that was the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion.

  20. Sue said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    beb, they’ll prob­a­bly go with another proven winner/dinosaur, like Harley David­son did a few years back by hir­ing Elton John as the main show at its 100th Anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion in Mil­wau­kee. Huh? Or as ‘Uncy­clo­pe­dia’ put it:
    “Harley cel­e­brates 100th Anniver­sary. Elton John head­lines at cel­e­bra­tory party after Oscar Wilde can­cels due to sched­ul­ing con­flict.”

  21. Lex said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    Pink could kick Roger Daltrey’s ass.

  22. Colleen said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    The NS story about Casa also cited the loss of South­town Mall as part of the rea­son for the “decline” of the south side. For the love of crap peo­ple, the mall has been bull­dozed and new busi­ness have been built on the site and are doing well. Get OVER it.

    The south­west quad­rant of the city has the LOWEST crime rate in the city. In any other city, this would be the quirky, arty, place to live, with a lovely assort­ment of diverse peo­ple. Now, the rest of the city just calls us “The South Side” with a know­ing look.

    I love this neigh­bor­hood and this part of town, but really, I’m get­ting a lit­tle peeved that the lit­tle gems that make it so won­der­ful are pulling out.

  23. john c said on February 9th, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    I actu­ally thought the Who started out pretty weak, but revved it up nicely. It occurred to me that Daltry’s was a uniquely hard voice to sus­tain into old age. It sounded like he was strug­gling to hit a few of those big moments.
    I’d rather see them go young. Green Day would be great. As long as they don’t go back to the “up With Peo­pleish” crap I remem­ber from the 70s.

  24. Linda said on February 9th, 2010 at 1:07 pm

    “I think Madonna is start­ing to look a lot like Madame, the pup­pet that was part of the act of the late Way­land Flow­ers.”

    There’s a whole name for that–the madamism of female celebri­ties. The link is only for the strong of heart.

  25. Peter said on February 9th, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    ZZ Top would be great for the Dal­las super­bowl.

    true story – A con­trac­tor I worked with was a big Harley guy, went to Stur­gis every year, and he attended the 100th anniver­sary con­cert. At the next job meet­ing, we asked him about it, and he said: “Well, I’m don’t ask don’t tell kind of guy, but if I didn’t know any bet­ter, I’d say Elton John’s a lit­tle light in the loafers, so if that turns out to be true you heard it first from the Moose.”

  26. Chris said on February 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    Sue, I had to ask the young­sters in my news­room what FTW meant. Thank you, I think. But the honor was short-lived and should go to Linda. That madamism link is hor­ri­fy­ing.

    BTW (I’m try­ing to be more hip), my news­room is small, but we still have a full-time pho­tog­ra­pher.

  27. judybusy said on February 9th, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    Peter, thanks for the funny story about the Harley guy. Really? There was some­one out there who didn’t know EJ was gay? Then, Harley guy would be astounded about how much I don’t know about hi world, too.

  28. Jeff Borden said on February 9th, 2010 at 2:10 pm

    I would sec­ond Green Day as a half­time act. I’m already try­ing to fig­ure out how to see “Amer­i­can Idiot” when it bows on Broad­way. It’s a great CD. Then again, how cool would it be for Death Row Records alums to per­form. Get all the guys back from N.W.A. for a rous­ing ren­di­tion of “#$#@ the Police,” then let Ice-Cube, Snoop, Dre, et​.al. do a cou­ple of solo num­bers.

  29. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 9th, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    Oh, c’mon, the answer is obvi­ous — Spinal Tap for the Super Bowl! (Yes, that cause has a Face­book page, and no, I didn’t cre­ate it. I joined it when I checked before start­ing it and found some clever soul had beaten me to it.)

  30. ROgirl said on February 9th, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    Madonna’s arms brought these images to mind.

    http://​www​.digischool​.nl/​c​k​v​2​/​c​k​v​3​/​k​u​n​s​t​e​n​t​e​c​h​n​i​e​k​/​t​u​l​p​/​t​u​l​p1.jpg

    http://​www​.sacred​-des​ti​na​tions​.com/​i​t​a​l​y​/​m​i​l​a​n​-​c​a​t​h​e​d​r​a​l​-​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​s​l​i​d​e​s​/​x​t​i​_​7​7​3​3​p​a​50.jpg

  31. LAMary said on February 9th, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    I still think FTW means fuck the world. I think this means I’m old.

  32. jcburns

    jcburns said on February 9th, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    “I thought the under­ly­ing prin­ci­ple of the Inter­net was to grace­fully regress to what your browser sup­ported.” (spelling cleaned up.) No, afraid not. It’s more like “to sup­port stan­dards as much as pos­si­ble”. But you, dear brows­ing human, have to do your part to keep up with ver­sions as best you can. Using a browser from 1999 (and demand­ing sup­port for it) is a HUGE time sink in the web devel­op­ment world. If you’re using an early Mozilla or Fire­fox right now, please take five min­utes and two clicks and upgrade to the newest ver­sion. if you’re using Inter­net Explorer 6, please set your com­puter into a wagon or on a skate­board, squirt lighter fluid all over it, set it ablaze, give it a shove down a steep street, and give it a perky salute as it crashes into a Volvo and a mail­box down at the next inter­sec­tion.

  33. nancy said on February 9th, 2010 at 3:02 pm

    Hav­ing some com­ment prob­lems, I hear. I’m post­ing this to see what hap­pens. And J.C., that was funny.

  34. Deborah said on February 9th, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    So what does FTW mean?

  35. nancy said on February 9th, 2010 at 3:10 pm

    I used to think it meant “fuck the world,” too, but our opti­mistic younger gen­er­a­tion has repur­posed it as “for the win.” An expres­sion of tri­umph, e.g. “Found a four-carat dia­mond ring on an empty side­walk. FTW!”

  36. Julie Robinson. said on February 9th, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    I’m try­ing to get with it and have been using Chrome on my new lap­top, only I still haven’t fig­ured out how to set book­marks. Obvi­ously, I’m not with it.

    Colleen, I agree about the south­west side. We didn’t live in one of the arty neigh­bor­hoods, we lived by GE and ram­shackle was an opti­mistic descrip­tion of our house. When we moved we were look­ing for a big­ger yard and one story to accom­mo­date my gimpy knee. We just hap­pened to find that north­east.

  37. Linda said on February 9th, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    When I am stumped by some­thing I see in a thread (like FTW), I con­sult the urban dic­tio­nary. Some­times, the results are scary, but I always come away hav­ing learned some­thing.

  38. ROgirl said on February 9th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    My mes­sages were dis­ap­pear­ing there for a while. Looks like I’m back.

    I had some thoughts about Madonna’s arms.

    http://​www​.dsp​.umh​.es/​c​o​n​e​c​t​a​/​h​a​/​h​a​/​t​u​lp.jpg

    http://​www​.sacred​-des​ti​na​tions​.com/​i​t​a​l​y​/​m​i​l​a​n​-​c​a​t​h​e​d​r​a​l​-​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​s​l​i​d​e​s​/​x​t​i​_​7​7​3​3​p​a​50.jpg

  39. nancy said on February 9th, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    ROGirl got a cou­ple of com­ments caught in the spam fil­ter, but they should be up now. ROG, are those St. Bartholomew, the one who was flayed alive?

  40. ROgirl said on February 9th, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    Yes, he’s wear­ing his skin draped over his shoul­ders.

  41. alex said on February 9th, 2010 at 6:28 pm

    Re: Madamism, I think Joceyln Wilden­stein takes the prize, with Dolly and Madge vying for sec­ond. Joan Rivers not so much. Hers is rather less puffy and pumped up and chron­i­cally inflamed, more like can­vas stretched around the hull of a home­made canoe. Leslie Stahl, not pic­tured there, has the same prob­lem as Joan. And Cher, well she finally looks con­vinc­ing, even if her act­ing wasn’t, as the mother of the lead char­ac­ter in the film “Mask.”

  42. LAMary said on February 9th, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    St. Bartholomew looks like one of those fig­ures from the Body­works exhibit.

  43. ROgirl said on February 9th, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    Linda Evans is another one.

    http://​hit​dawall​.files​.word​press​.com/​2​0​0​8​/​0​6​/​l​i​n​d​a​-3.jpg

  44. whitebeard said on February 9th, 2010 at 7:29 pm

    had my surgery, foot of colon gone, no pain just a nasty fever of unknown ori­gin, no biopsy report yet. cheers ftw, i did not know that mean­ing

  45. Rana said on February 9th, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    Glad the surgery went well, white­beard – I hope your recov­ery goes smoothly and the fever eases soon.

  46. nancy said on February 9th, 2010 at 8:14 pm

    Ditto, White­beard.

  47. Deborah said on February 9th, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    White­beard, good to hear from you. Been think­ing about you.

  48. MarkH said on February 9th, 2010 at 9:11 pm

    White­beard! Been think­ing about you as well; glad you’re back. Here’s hop­ing and pray­ing for con­tin­ued recov­ery and the desired neg­a­tive biopsy results!

    I applaud Bob Ker­rey for this:

    http://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​b​l​o​g​s​-​a​n​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​0​-​0​2​-​0​8​/​h​o​w​-​i​d​-​f​i​x​-​d​c​-​g​r​i​d​l​o​c​k​/​?​c​i​d​=​hp:exc

    Con­gress is in need of a seri­ous over­haul, and this is as good a start as any.

    EDIT — ROgirl, Linda doesn’t look as bad as the oth­ers, except for that colo­g­e­nized upper lip!!

  49. del said on February 9th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    Wel­come back White­beard.

    The plas­tic surgery pics remind me of Gar­ri­son Keillor’s descrip­tion of a woman who had cos­metic surgery as hav­ing “a look of per­pet­ual sur­prise.”

  50. MarkH said on February 9th, 2010 at 9:34 pm

    Madamism: I’ve always thought of Madonna as a modern-day Norma Desmond, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing Joe Gillis’ line: “There’s noth­ing tragic about being fifty! Not unless you’re try­ing to be twenty-five!”

    Alex, I’ve watched Les­ley Stahl over the years, but have not detected evi­dence of facial work, at least in a major way.

  51. nancy said on February 9th, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    Madamism is the result of the new facial plas­tic surgery, where instead of the old lifted-and-stretch tech­niques, they go in from behind with cheek implants and var­i­ous fillers. Reg­u­lar read­ers know I have my Madonna prob­lems, but lordy, that restuffed face and fat-free sinew farm below the neck looks just bizarre and creepy. Surely, with all her money and influ­ence, she could find some clothes that make her look soft and pretty. As unbear­able as her Guy Ritchie / grande dame of Lon­don period was, at least she exper­i­mented with some rel­a­tively sober dresses. All that fish­net and corsets in those pic­tures make her look weird and des­per­ate.

  52. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 9th, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    Huz­zah for White­beard, and may your tem­per­a­ture long stay around 98.6!

    Nancy, “go in from behind” re: plas­tic surgery just gives me “Brazil” flash­backs.

  53. Dexter said on February 10th, 2010 at 2:06 am

    I was glad to see The Who and they were great. Entwistle and Moon are long dead, and our gen­er­a­tion is on the high­way to hell any­way, and it’s great to see sixty year olds rockin’. I don’t hear coun­try fans bitchin’ about old Billy Joe Shaver shakin’ his ancient ass onstage, or Chris­tians com­plain­ing about those Gaithers who are old as hell itself. The stage The Who used now becomes the benchmark…who gonna beat dat?
    I’ve been fol­low­ing the Saints , the cel­e­bra­tions, the parade, the joy…a city of 600,000 had 500,000 come to the parade. For joy, for joy.
    http://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​S​e​W​B​U​E6fls8

  54. Dexter said on February 10th, 2010 at 2:24 am

    White­beard: A get well card. Bullitt’s Mus­tang.
    http://​tinyurl​.com/​y​arqgnz

  55. Mosef said on February 10th, 2010 at 2:36 am

    What is knuckle-draggers short for and how did they man­age three ref­er­ences in 500 words? The usage doesn’t reflect a com­mon def­i­n­i­tion. Unin­ter­est­ing sub­ur­ban types? Sarah Palin sup­port­ers? And the last group – WTF? There are peo­ple who don’t like the Saints because of the con­flat­ing of a foot­ball team with the social upheaval of Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina? I escaped the good-school-district burbs for my own ver­sion of the bun­ga­low, but I wouldn’t call my old neigh­bors knuckle-draggers. Although being an ani­mal rights veg­e­tar­ian means that I hardly think being placed in the com­pany of apes and chimps is a deroga­tory ref­er­ence. Love your writ­ing, but oy vay, the smug­ness quo­tient can get lethal here.

  56. Julie Robinson. said on February 10th, 2010 at 8:48 am

    White­beard, we are all pray­ing for a speedy recov­ery and good test results.

    It’s been an unusual morn­ing around here: at 6:10 the DH’s boss called to say their office was closed today due to the storm. This was a first in his life after all those years at the paper, which never closed for weather or any­thing else. DH being who he is, he was already in the shower, and when I stepped in to tell him, he said my home­town of Sycamore, Illi­nois had expe­ri­enced an earth­quake overnight!! Just a small one, and it’s way too early to call Mom, who hope­fully slept through it. So the DH has a snow day for the first time in his adult life and he has promptly taken him­self off to have cof­fee with a friend.

  57. brian stouder said on February 10th, 2010 at 9:16 am

    What is knuckle-draggers short for…?

    Sarah Palin sup­port­ers?

    Bingo.

    Mosef, if you’re a Cur­rent Events per­son, then you may have watched the for­mer Governor’s address to the assem­bled crowd in Nashville (the one that was pre­ceded by a flatly racist and nativist screed by for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tan­credo). To her cheer­ing, lilly-white, older crowd, she expounded on the need for an all-powerful Com­man­der in Chief rather than a Con­sti­tu­tional scholar in the White House. (ie – knuckle-dragging sen­ti­ment rather than ratio­nal argu­ment). She derided teleprompter-read pre­pared state­ments, while using palmed plat­i­tudes and point­edly anti-intellectual sen­ti­ments (ie – knuckle-dragging). In recent days, and on nom­i­nally ‘friendly ground’, she flip­pantly (and cyn­i­cally) opined that the pres­i­dent might just gin up a war with Iran in order to get re-elected(!!) – which says much more about her than about the pres­i­dent; and at a Texas rally a day ago she tossed off the word “seces­sion” to great cheers from the crowd – which says more about that crowd than her, except that she was chum­ming the waters with vile term.

    Now, Mosef, other NNcer’s have argued that Palin hasn’t got a chance at the pres­i­dency, and that we should ignore her (“Move along! Noth­ing to see here; Show’s over”), and I want to agree with that assess­ment of her chances, but I do not. She appeals to peo­ple who don’t want to think about com­pli­cated sub­jects, and who instead want push-button sim­plic­ity (and con­se­quences be damned!)

    Her oper­at­ing phi­los­o­phy of gov­ern­ment seems to be: Analy­sis and reflec­tion is what “elites” and “egg heads” do – and by God! – since they’ll do that any­way, I ain’t gonna!

    For bet­ter or worse, Sarah Palin is She Who Must Be Taken Seri­ously, since she draws lots of sup­port (and poten­tially, votes) from peo­ple who cheer for ideas like “lit­er­acy tests” for those “dumb” vot­ers who put a guy in the White House who maybe isn’t really Amer­i­can (he’s a darkie, after­all, don­cha know?).

    I’d like to agree with the folks here­abouts who say “ignore her”, but we can­not afford to ignore char­la­tans like her. If you read US his­tory, you might agree – national fig­ures who throw around blood-soaked terms like “seces­sion”, or who speak long­ingly about lit­er­acy tests or poll taxes for vot­ers MUST be taken seri­ously, and must NOT be ignored. Their argu­ments (such as they are) must be answered back, each and every time they are loosed upon us. This is what peo­ple who don’t want to be gov­erned BY knuckle drag­gers must do.

    edit: White­beard – very glad to hear things went as well as they did for you and yours – and, wel­come back!

  58. MarkH said on February 10th, 2010 at 9:56 am

    Brian, there are just not that many peo­ple out there that you’re afraid of. And their num­ber is dwin­dling. Just wait until she does get into a cam­paign, if she really gets that far. She will get taken apart.Some peo­ple may like her, but they’ll show their reticense(sp?) in the polling booth, where it mat­ters. I still say a cam­paign never hap­pens and she just goes on being a dollar-generating (for her­self) media queen, for as long as it lasts.

  59. brian stouder said on February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 am

    She will get taken apart

    MarkH – fair enough.

    This points to the real effect she is hav­ing and will con­tinue to have; when will major play­ers in the Repub­li­can party engage (and con­test) her ideas in a seri­ous way?

    At some point, they must “take her apart” – and when the “ener­gized base” of the GOP gets the word that they have to grow up, what then?

    Tac­ti­cally, I under­stand that the GOP ain’t gonna reign her in this year; the off-year elec­tions is exactly the time to exploit all the angst she can gin up amongst the tea-partiers. But pretty quickly after that, the next round of pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics will begin – and then the bill comes due (for Boehner and McConnell and Can­tor and the rest).

    As some field of cred­i­ble GOP can­di­dates begin pur­su­ing their party’s pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion in earnest (let alone after one of them wins it), the days of cheap shots, and glass-house-dwelling throw­ing of rocks will become more com­pli­cated – as they have to answer for what­ever She Who Must Not Be Ignored said to this or that packed house of white donors

  60. mark said on February 10th, 2010 at 10:31 am

    Why reign her in when so many pro­gres­sives waste so much time on her, leav­ing the sub­stan­tive agenda of this pres­i­dency dying on the vine? She is a use­ful dis­trac­tion, espe­cially tempt­ing to those who feel the day isn’t com­plete with­out a lit­tle ridicule aimed at those with whom they dis­agree.

  61. Jeff Borden said on February 10th, 2010 at 10:37 am

    Brian,

    The stan­dard con­ser­v­a­tive response to crit­i­cisms of She Who is that lib­er­als are “afraid” of her. Not true. I am afraid of her fol­low­ers. Mother of God, what kind of atavis­tic souls want a cer­ti­fied mes­sianic dim bulb main­lin­ing the grease from the gravy train as the leader of the free world? What sort of alleged patriot wor­ships some­one who openly mocks sci­ence, exper­tise and accom­plish­ment? And, yes, what sort of cit­i­zen extols a polit­i­cal leader so obtuse that she must write three basic talk­ing points on her palm lest she for­get? These are the peo­ple to fear. I doubt there are any­where near enough of them to swing an elec­tion, but they still count in the tens of mil­lions and they do vote.

  62. coozledad said on February 10th, 2010 at 10:45 am

    There are quite a few peo­ple I dis­agree with who aren’t racist shite. I can go weeks, months at a time with­out ridi­cul­ing them.
    The lath­er­mouths at a teabag rally fawn­ing over the inflat­able sex robot ver­sion of Orval Faubus? Ridicule is the only thing they’re worth.

  63. beb said on February 10th, 2010 at 11:02 am

    Is jcburns nor­mally as much of a jerk as he comes across at 32?

    Clean­ing up some­one mis­spelling before quot­ing them is a kind­ness. Point­ing out that you’ve cor­rected their spelling is asshole-ish. Maybe minorly asshole-ish but still cruel.

    I’ll accept that the Inter­net is more about stan­dards and stick­ing to them, but when did the stan­dards change? My default browser at work is Mozilla 1.7. It dates from 2004, not 1999 as jc assumes. Browsers changed a lot dur­ing the first ten years of the web, not so much since. And Mozilla prided itself on being a stan­dards com­pli­ant browser.

    Oddly enough, the other browseer on this com­puter, the one built into the oper­at­ing sys­tem, is IE6. When Mozilla 1.7 was being blocked IE6 was not. But it wasn’t ren­der­ing Yahoo’s home page cor­rectly. IE6, by the way dates from 2001. It’s older than Mozilla 1.7 and IE has never been stan­dards com­pli­ant. Today, while check­ing to see which ver­sion of IE was on this com­puter I decided to check to see if it was still fail­ing to ren­der Yahoo’s home page cor­rectly. The ren­der­ing prob­lem has been fixed. So Yahoo is will­ing to sup­port a ten year old browser — if it’s from Microsoft.

    BUT…. When your busi­ness model is to serve up ads to vis­i­tors to your site, as is the case for Yahoo it is cut­ting your own throat to blan­ketly block peo­ple from your site because you don’t like their browser. I go to Yahoo tp read the news. But I can just as eas­ily go to Google­News and will in the future.

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