Lick and a promise.

I have a meeting at 9 a.m., which is to say, in eight hours. That’s followed by another meeting, an interview and the usual family obligations. My plan to have Me-Time Friday — or even a quiet hour to update my stupid blog — just collapsed, but ah well. Here, have some bloggage:

Roger Ebert, making a little list.

What is Christian Reconstructionism, and is that why Sharron Angle is such a nut case? (Some of these alarmists need to spend a year in Indiana. This stuff is just normal there.)

As seen on TV, all you people just need to get your minds out of the gutter. It’s a shake weight, OK, you shake it. Sheesh.

I may not have much today, but maybe if MMJeff isn’t too busy, he can lay out the Holy Stones of Newark/Glenn Beck story in bullet points. It’s actually kind of fascinating.

See you next week, all. Or maybe at Saturday morning market.

Posted at 1:20 am in Current events |
 

27 responses to “Lick and a promise.”

  1. beb said on August 20, 2010 at 8:08 am

    As Nancy heads off to her 9 am appointment I have to echo her sentiment – what am I doing up at this hour?

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  2. beb said on August 20, 2010 at 8:17 am

    I like Roger Ebert’s point #5
    The Bill of Rights has a parallel with pregnancy. You can’t be a little pregnant, and you can’t be a little free. Nor can you serve yourself from it cafeteria style.

    Though the cynic in me notes that the Bill of Rights is an A la carte collection of amendments.

    Also I think he has a good point that hysterics over a community center is small potatoes to the denigation to the site caused by a mall at Ground Zero.

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  3. brian stouder said on August 20, 2010 at 9:40 am

    I look forward to Jeff’s Cliff’s Notes version. I went from knowing precisely nothing about the “holy stones” thing to recognition of the general issue, in just the opening paragraph of the article Jeff linked yesterday:

    The Newark “Holy Stones” are one of the most infamous frauds in Ohio archaeology. [now THERE’s a great thesis statement, with which to open an essay! Bravo!] Long dismissed by professional archaeologists simply as a crude effort to support the ethnocentric notion that the so-called “Lost Tribes of Israel” built the mounds and earthworks of eastern North America, when examined in their social context, they actually shed light on an historically significant debate in 19th century anthropology (Lepper 1992; 1999; Lepper and Gill 2000). The champions of polygenesis believed African Blacks and American Indians were separate species and legitimately could be displaced from their homelands and enslaved. Supporters of monogenesis argued that all humans were descended from Adam and Eve and human slavery was a moral and spiritual outrage. When viewed in this context, the “Holy Stones” appear to be scientific forgeries designed to refute arguments for polygenesis and to undermine the scientific support for slavery promulgated by the “American School” of Physical Anthropology. With the outbreak of the American Civil War, which ultimately would end slavery in the United States, and the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the monogenesis vs. polygenesis debate became irrelevant and the “Holy Stones” dropped out of mainstream anthropological discussions.

    Funny how this dovetails w/Nance’s link to the Sharon Angle “Christian Reconstructionism” link, eh?

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  4. Deborah said on August 20, 2010 at 10:16 am

    And Jeff tmmo, please start from the beginning if you have the time. I have no idea what any of this is about.

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  5. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 20, 2010 at 10:18 am

    …and today, it’s me, Brad Lepper, and Ken Feder up against Erich von Daniken, Barry Fell, constitutionalist Mormons, and now Glenn Beck.

    If you have access to the Ohio Historical Society magazine Timeline, our main extended article is in this issue, which cursedly isn’t online (they’re slowly scanning in and posting, but 50% budget cuts slow down even an archivist):

    Timeline
    May-June 2000
    Volume 17/Number 3

    OHIO’S RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE
    by Peter W. Williams
    THE NEWARK HOLY STONES
    by Bradley T. Lepper and Jeff Gill
    A PAINTER AND A GENTLEMAN
    Ralph Fanning
    by George W. Paulson
    BRIGHTEN THE CORNER WHERE YOU ARE
    Homer Rodeheaver
    by Carl M. Becker
    IN MEMORIAM
    John J. Barsotti, 1914-99

    I’ll try to post a bullet pointy thing later today, can’t now — the CVB offices are getting calls like you wouldn’t believe, and walk-ins from all over Ohio. For a bit of the background of who Glenn is getting his prehistory from:

    http://www.firmlds.com/

    http://www.firmlds.com/profile.php

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  6. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 20, 2010 at 10:21 am

    This is still the best short take I can link to for “what the heck are the Newark Holy Stones.” Regrettably, you can quickly find online forty-leven very graphics rich websites explaining how the Holy Stones prove that the Ten Lost Tribes were here, that the better class of Indians are descended from Prince Madoc of Wales, and of course the Book of Mormon. These groups don’t all agree or get along at all, even though they do overlap rhetorically quite often. I really wish I could get the Timeline article online — at least it has good pictures!

    http://www.ohioarchaeology.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=255&Itemid=32

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  7. Bob said on August 20, 2010 at 10:30 am

    Jeff TMMO, sounds like you’re getting a taste of the work life of the poor guy at NASA who has to field the “Come clean — you guys didn’t really land on the moon” phone calls. Good luck defending the boring old facts against the Beckolytes.

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  8. deb said on August 20, 2010 at 10:38 am

    i hope sammy, our resident archaeology expert, will weigh in on this, too.

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  9. judybusy said on August 20, 2010 at 10:51 am

    I’m off on a sight tangent, to recommend a great book about what things were like before 1491. I read it a few years ago, and one of the more amazing things I remember is that it is believed that people in the Amazon basin substantially altered the soil by adding ground up pottery to boost fertility. Overall, the book is very sad, of course, given what happened to millions and millions of people and their incredibly varied cultures.

    So everybody, let me get this right: Jeff TMMO’s office is getting flooded with calls about some stones that are one of the greatest hoaxes of American archeology? Wow. Sometimes my social work job is nice because the people I deal with are really mentally ill (“truly crazy” is funnier, but not very nice.)

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  10. Sue said on August 20, 2010 at 10:56 am

    Nancy, do you have an MG, and are you really trading it for a white Chrysler LeBaron? And will you wear the short skirt/long jacket combo that goes with it? Because even though you’re neither a Kitty or a Karen, those lyrics are YOU! (Well, most of them… maybe not the uninterrupted prosperity part, but I’ll bet your fingernails do shine like justice.)
    I’m going to be singing that song in my head all day. That’s actually good for a busy Friday.

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  11. LAMary said on August 20, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    All day Wednesday I had the song “Doing the French Mistake” stuck in my head.

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  12. Sue said on August 20, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    LAMary, that wouldn’t be so bad except for the mental images that go with it, so that you’re sitting there laughing to yourself for no apparent reason.

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  13. LAMary said on August 20, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    My co-workers are used to that.

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  14. Rana said on August 20, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    That ShakeWeight ad cracks me up. It’s not so much the motion as the expressions on the women using it, especially the first one. Oy.

    For your writerly and copy-editorial amusement: http://learnyourdamnhomophones.com/

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  15. Dexter said on August 20, 2010 at 1:56 pm

    The first time I saw the shakers a-doin’ their thang, I thought it was quite an attention getter, and I thought it was a bit from an old SNL gag-fest.

    Just now I thought the rep said “no boners” when she said “no motors” while ‘splainin’ this magic wand . And when one of them says “if you had a shaker in your hands right now, you’d be feeling it before this commercial is over”, well, I truly understood her.

    I wonder if the magic is over. Yesterday’s fresh peaches didn’t wow either one of us, and today’s cantaloupe was so bland I may as well have been munching on a soft boiled potato.

    I was watching an old “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Cousin Andy was holding up the golf outing as he was waiting for his special order in the restaurant, crispy onions.
    I became curious and found a simple recipe , and have made them four times. They really are great with eggs and coffee. I just slice an onion thin and shake with enough flour to coat the onion slices.
    A liberal coating of oil in a pan, almost smoking hot, add the onion slices and stir fry over medium-hot for ten minutes or until very crispy, maybe damn-near burned, what the hell. They’re just great with scrambled eggs.
    I know…who doesn’t stir-fry onions? But it’s just the flouring that makes it easy to get that burned coating taste. My fave cooking lingo: “caramelized”

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  16. Dorothy said on August 20, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    The ShakeWeight commercial was running on an ESPN channel a couple of months ago when we were out to dinner with our son and his girlfriend. We all about peed ourselves laughing at it. I was dumbfounded that it was an actual product and not some parody running on the Comedy channel.

    Everyone have a lovely weekend, please. We’re off to Pittsburgh tomorrow to see our kids and their mates, then driving a little further east to Indiana PA to celebrate my sister and her hubby’s 25th wedding anniversary. Family time is the best time for me – I’m so glad I like my relatives!

    Edit to add: Rana that link is so damn funny!! I’d love to share the link on my Facebook page but a few of my friends are holy rollers and would probably be offended. Still, it’s awfully tempting….

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  17. Sammy said on August 20, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    People are curious critters. Imitation—to honor, to deceive, or as propaganda—are a favored practice; history is chockablock with examples. As to stones, I rather enjoy the Georgia guidestones (New Georgia Encylopedia and WikiPee).

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  18. LAMary said on August 20, 2010 at 3:52 pm

    And there is this:

    http://www.carhenge.com/

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  19. moe99 said on August 20, 2010 at 7:39 pm

    Dexter, try pancake mix on your onions next….

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  20. Jean S said on August 20, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    oh, Prince Madoc; cool! He’s been out of the limelight for a long time…

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  21. beb said on August 20, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    The shake weights first came to my attention on a Colbert Report and there was no way not to think of them as pornographic devices.

    LAMary @11: I’ve always found the ending to Blazing Saddles problematic but the whole “Doing the French Mistake” with Slim Perkins yelling “I work for Mel Brooks” hilarious. I don’t think it was the right way to end the movie but that little bit was so hilarious that it had to be filmed and put somewhere.

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  22. prospero said on August 21, 2010 at 11:07 am

    Newt claims to be an intellectual. How exactly does that play when he puts himself squarely in the Ananias Club about Islam? I mean, he just makes shit up, and morons buy it. The thing this disgusting POS ever did that defines him is serving divorce papers on his wife dying of cancer. Making up some outrage about the WTC, that’s even low for this despicable, pluperfectly cynical jerk. He cares nothing about anything but Newt’s political career. How is Ensign not in jail with mom and pop?

    And the President’s a Muslim? Conjoining Muslim with Terriss is about as anti-American as you can get, short of invading Iraq and claiming it’s revenge for WTC. And that’s exactly what Cheney did. Nefarious lying asshole, enriching himself.

    What is wrong with Americans. Two wars off the books that created the deficit along with moronic tax cuts for people who’s income was $1Nil and shattered American economy. That was the W puppetmasters, you fucking idiots. And Mitch “I wish I could have obstucted more” McConnell.

    The small bidnesses Republicans chant about: mostly law firms and hedge fund managers. Not producing any jogs, mon.

    Is there a Republican agenda besides more money for rich people?
    Well, yeah. You could fool me.. It;s moving the CEO level compensation to 300 to 1 in the last 30 years. These assholes lay off workers and run companies into the ground, and then they try to buy office in California. And Republicans and teabaggers think this is the American Way.

    Sharron Angle. If the chickens for health care didn;t convince you, everything else she’s said ought to convince you she’s certifiable. Don’t like Harry Reid. Me neither. Why doesn;t he do something about bullshit Senate rules? Make those aholes actually stand up and filibuster against helping unemployed folks. Devoid of mindless and destructive Senate obstructionism, what does a single Republican have to offer?

    Nothing but letting millionaires get away with contributing nothing to Ameerican eonomy while reaping financial benefits. Rich people don’t make jobs. and whoile white shoe law firms are technically small businesses, so are hedge fund managers.

    These are the small bidnesses Republicans represent. How are Americans so dumb they con’t get this? It’s like the famous campaign against tj “the death tax”. Your mom and dad didn’t make that much money, you idiots. No family farms involved, and Archer Daniel Midland ian’t paying taxes. You know, fuck htis shit, these people are lying an taking free plane rides.

    The Bush tax cuts were written and passed in lame duck congresses. Shit, the Clinton hooha was lame duck Those were Republicans. Now they want to claim their work is Obama tax raises? I’ll say again, anybody stupid enough to buy this horseshit is way too dumb to be allowed to vote.

    My personal feeling about all this is that Americans are morons and deserve an idiot like W. He fucked the economy with off=books PNAC invasions and occupations. His tax-cuts for very rich people were so moronid and politically directed it’s almost hard to believe, and the guy that inherited this shit is at fault?

    I mean, previously, all the right companies were raking in cash.

    The deficit hit the roof when Obama included the costs of the invasions. W had them off the books. Bush had already destroyed a budget surplus with his idiotic tax cuts. Tax cuts? Like taking a gran or two to allow your government to behave like war criminals. How was running the invasions and occupations somehow not part of the budget for eight years?

    It’s one thing to be to be an idiot, it’s another to drag hordes of semi-literatehordes of Americans with you.

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  23. brian stouder said on August 21, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    Well said, Prospero.

    If the Republicans were on board with President Obama’s initiatives for small businesses, it would make their stance on extension of at least SOME of the tax cuts coherent; but no.

    Honestly, truly – I think that Dr Laura’s conciously-contrarian (and utterly wrong-headed) insistence on saying the word “nigger” again and again and again (supposedly in the service of making some “larger” point) very much captures what the national GOP (and its band of flying monkeys on the rightwing airwaves) is doing, with regard to our president.

    Look, kids! It’s Good Ol’ Prejudice; brought to you by the Grudging Obstuctionist Party!

    The inherent risk one runs with freedom of speech, is that one is perfectly free to speak and speak and speak, until everyone is simply sick and tired of hearing anything more from them.

    Afterall, every day Uncle Rush says things every bit as spiteful as Dr Laura said, but he has the good sense to spew his invective on individuals that his nodding listeners already hate, and not upon his callers (and listeners) themselves.

    If Dr Laura had only learned Rule 1 about the proper way to conduct free hate speech, her radio career would still be flying high….maybe way up there with the B-list mongers like “Michael Savage” or that Levin fellow. But instead, she has become the Andrew Dice Clay of the radio, and she has descended into the land of laments and regrets.

    (she DOES have a pleasant voice, so there’s that)

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  24. prospero said on August 21, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    Brian,

    The real problem seems to be self-identified Progressives. Not good enough and wave the magic wand. Like it or not, and I don’t like it at all, Wall Street, driven by pure Republican greed created the economic mess,and the deficit is largely the product of pursuing invasions and occupations with no apparent purpose but enriching chicken-hawks like Cheney and the rest of the PNAC. Might take a while to fix that.

    What exactly is the President supposed to fix that he hasn’t made giant inroads on? The most idiotic navel-gazing dumbass would have to admit that government option never came up during primary or election runs. Camel’s noze in the tent DADT? Deader than doorMear. Just shut the hell up. This Deanie-babyshit is counter-productive. If things aren’t happening immediately enough, chedk on history,

    If you think the health care bill is lacking, consider the 100 years it took to get anything done. Consider the fact that the current Senate is so opposed to anything whatever proposed by a black guy people claim in large numbers, is a Muslim and that equals a terriss

    Every independent economist says things would have been monstrously worse. In fact they say there should have been more cash. They are obviously right. So Teabaggers that think TARP was a plot hatched by Muslims in Indonesia several Decades ago, and not the work of W, we’re supposed to listen to that shit because Chris Cillizza thinks the President should go to church more often? Consider the idiotic idea that when the President tries to get something done, he’s dealing with a majority. Consider the anti-democratic behavior and the moronic rules of Senators like John Ensign, who should be in jail, with his Ma and Pa.

    Of course, why aren’t Cheney and Rummy in jail? Meanwhile, they ran two invasions W never counted on the books. more than $1trillion. So, who fucked up the economy? Who trashed the surplus? Who was left to try to clean up the mess? The black guy.

    Sherriff Bart. FUBAR when he got there. Might have been Komissar Karl’s plan all along. Fut seriously, Senate rules? Somebody here thinks tat comports with the Constitution and these aholes haven’t thwarted the will of the people? On health care? Most people support national health, and looney tunes objected to the President over a twinge he never supported nor proposed. Look how that reads in polls.

    Tell you what. If Obama says he’d like the economy to improve and people have more jobs. 33% will disapprove, because he’s black and a Muslim, and a Democrat. 33% won’t have an opinion. 33% percent will disagree because We’re so disappointed and wanted instant gratification. One way or another, he can’t win. No magic wand. Ad MS reporters report you morons as disapproving, you fucking idiots.

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  25. brian stouder said on August 21, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Con­sider the idi­otic idea that when the Pres­i­dent tries to get some­thing done, he’s deal­ing with a major­ity. Con­sider the anti-democratic behav­ior and the moronic rules of Sen­a­tors…

    Ding Ding Ding Ding!!!!! Give that man a cigar!!

    THIS is THE key point; this is the thing; this is the rub.

    The teabag/bug-eyed Beck/knownothing right has fallen into assuming that THEY have a sacred mission, based on what’s really right and just; whereas the MAJORITY party in power is somehow a bunch of untethered usurpers.

    In so doing, they are seeking to justify disenfranchsing millions of their fellow citizen voters, who elected those majorities.

    President Obama, as the president of all the people, has (rightly) worked to compromise with those in basic opposition to his initiatives, and in so doing has offered genuine and significant respect and deference to the millions of citizens and voters who did NOT vote for him. This is altogether proper, and indeed what we want from our national government.

    For our bug-eyed Beck/ teabag faction, the concept of “compromise” with those one has worked and worked to demonize cannot be sustained.

    I think the real test of an elected official comes before they vote on key legislation. Talk to the other people, trade ideas, modify the bill, see if common ground (even if it’s uncomfortably between the entrenched positions) can be reached.

    And at election time, take the opportunity to explain to the voters that compromise is not a sin in the secular world; that, yes, one must have principles. But also, one must govern, and not simply obstruct on every damned issue that arises.

    I think Nance’s link on the Angle “Christian Reconstruction” thing comes into play here, since faith doesn’t ever have to compromise. Indeed, faith must never compromise.

    But we elect people to govern the nation, and not to display (and polish up) their personal faith journey

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  26. prospero said on August 21, 2010 at 8:10 pm

    Why bring this up now?
    ? Oh, there’s an election. I don’t doubt there are people that care about this. If they are so dumb they think these bastards give a shit and aren’t doing the Giulliani, they need custodial care.

    Newt famously had divorce papers delivered to his wife while she was cancer-ridden in a hospital, He’s worried about how this looks?

    The hypocrisy of the alleged outrage would be hilarious if it weren’t for the intentional racism.

    Muslims didn’t blow up the WTC, a bunch of whacko Saudis that belonged to al Quaeda did. I think al Quaeda did that and not Muslims. You fucking assholes. and many were hand=holding level. You don’t bow to them according to protocol, you actually kiss them abd hold hands.. And their families were in America ar the time, and W Bush had them spirited safely away. Then he basically spent the next several years convincing idiots that Saddam did it, killed 4thou p;us American soldiers for Halliburton profit and turning a budget surplus into a spectacular deficit, only to have his lackeys blame the spending spree on a black guy. Born in the USA.

    Republicans made the deficit. And without a doubt they were the sort of chickenhawks that eschewed actual military service. Does anybody believe W didn’t run out on his commitment to the Tejas Guard? Hell yeah he did, Does anybody doubt W and his supporters made up the Swi

    Blind trust I’m sure.

    These assholes are bona fide war criminals. The invasion was illegal in the first place. Try to prove that’s wrong, without bringing up a hilariously duplicitous shadow minister from Kuwait,

    Look, ideologue assholes on the Supreme Court appointed an idiot and an evil guy with his hand up the idiot’s ass making his mouth move that appointed himself. For eight years. It’s no reason to allow an OOmpah-Loo,pa and the most venal politician of the last two centuries. It’s pretty much an asolute fact that everything Charlie Rangel did wrong, well Mitch invented that shit,

    Put it this way. I’ve had with idiots. If you’re an idiot, You should not be allowed to vote, If you believe the President is Muslim (as if that makes you a terries) or you believe he’s not Merricun, that makes you an idiot AND a Racist.

    Things have gotten to the point of satire when Foxnews transfers cash within the company and peoplee get upset.ftboat bullshit for cash and prizes to be named later? Mot if they have working brains.

    So how do these war-mongering chickenhawk profiteers get away with this sort of incredibly slimy shit? Seriously, Americans believe in any inane bullshit Republicans feed them. W was a VietNam war hero while Kerry was faking injuries in Cambodia, If you put that on the net, it must be true.

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  27. prospero said on August 22, 2010 at 10:45 am

    Ground Zero Mosque. Killer phrases? Am I nuts, or is the tone of this fawning and adulatory? From NPR?

    How about if we all agree to call it the decrepit Men’s Warehouse fire trap nobody wanted that will probably end up an anchor for a rejuvenated neighborhood two blocks and invisible from the WTC site, which, by the way, remains an eyesore because all those wounded Americans that claim it’s hallowed ground haven’t figured out how to max profit on it and who gets what cut.

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