Saturday morning market.

It’s a symphony of reds.

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Posted at 10:56 am in Detroit life |
 

53 responses to “Saturday morning market.”

  1. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 11:26 am

    MMMM. Chilies.

    President Obama needs to put President Clinton in his cabinet. Or the Council of Economic Advisors, or something influential.

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  2. beb said on November 5, 2011 at 11:54 am

    my tongue burns just looking at them!

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  3. Dexter said on November 5, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    I would have killed for one of those bad boys for my omelette a couple hours ago. I made a two-egger with one sliced tomato, a few yellow cheese chunks, half a sweet onion, black and dried peppers. Those red peppers really would have come in handy.

    Au revoir, Andy Rooney. 92 years of age.

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  4. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    Dickless.

    First thing I thought of, when I read this column about Rick Perry. Texas has no ethics laws. Gaial Collins reminds me of Molly Ivins. Very funny, but without the extremely sarcastic edge. She genuinely thinks Perry is a clown, and the GOPer primary campaign is one big clown car.

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  5. maryinIN said on November 5, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    I had a wonderful, unusual, mostly farmers’ market, all organic homemade pizza last night:
    Whole wheat crust (from farmers’ market), olive oil, sour cream, dill, goat cheese (all from a regular market), tomatoes, red onion, red pepper (all from farmers’ market), and wild salmon (from an occasional farmers’ market vendor who sells it frozen at a couple bucks per pound off the supermarket price — still pricey but not as). I live in Indiana, and I swear, we have one of the best and most navigable farmers’ markets there is. Who’d have thunk it?

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  6. Judybusy said on November 5, 2011 at 1:21 pm

    My mouth waters. Our farmers’ markets shut down last week. So, did you buy any? What will you be making?

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  7. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    How long has Perry been smoking pot and drinking the Ripple from the bong.

    I mean, he sounds like the Hippie Dippy Weatherman, or share a little tea with Goldie.

    edit:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1uaw3WIOlc

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  8. brian stouder said on November 5, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    Andy Rooney, 1943, on his first trip on a USAAF bombing run over Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/rooney/wilhelmshaven.html

    an excerpt:

    Approaching the bombing run, the doors of the ships in front of us could be seen swinging open, and not far above us the yawning bomb bay of a Fort revealed more bombs, hanging by some mechanical hairpin, waiting for the bombardier to push the tiny button that sends them to the target. Lt. Owens was having trouble with his oxygen and Lt. Phillips’ fingers were nearly frozen. I was healthy but helpless. Finally the valve of the navigator’s air intake froze completely and the next thing his head had dropped to the top of his caliber .50, and his face was an unlovely greyish purple. Both of them had work to do in the nose. I was strictly cargo. The oxygen on my side was okay. We fitted the mask to Lt. Owens’ face, revived him and I started back for the pilot’s cockpit. By the time I struggled back without oxygen, with a backload of equipment that would make Santa Claus look sick, I was almost out. Lt. Casey almost yawned at what I was sure was a major crisis in my life.

    He fixed me up with oxygen and the remainder of my brief first glimpse at the war was from the pit behind the pilot.

    As we started the bombing run I was up in the nose of the ship, standing over to the right trying to keep out of the way of the navigator and bombardier. I had a camera, and that was probably the greatest underestimation, or something or other, of the Germans anyone ever made. I definitely did not feel like taking pictures. I made an effort once or twice and I got a couple of pictures of a small bunch of six little ships down on the water, but it’s elementary that you have to be able to hold a camera still to take pictures. We were well into the run and the flak was puffing to the right and left. The boys said it was not nearly as intensive as over St. Nazaire, but there was more of it, spread out in different places, they said.

    Fighter planes were always there while we were making our run. They come in so fast it’s hard to tell where they’re coming from, but frequently you could see a vapor trail start to form, like a cloud standing on end. You knew that was a fighter starting a run.

    and the ending –

    Lt. Casey and the crew began to sing over the intercom. Casey had the bends and was squirming in his seat — but smiling and singing. Next to him, Lt. Ross had to do most of the flying on the way home. Finally England was sighted and believe me, whatever you think, it is one of the most beautiful islands in all the world.

    As Lt. Casey says, “I’m an Irishman, southern Ireland, but that is still the best looking damned little island I ever saw.”

    After a roof-lifting “buzz” (hedge-hopping) over the field, not orthodox, Lt. Casey brought the ship in smoothly.

    Looking over the Banshee, we found that it had been hit in about ten places. The biggest hole was a gaping wound in her metal near the tail gunner. The chip of flak tore a hole through an English penny that Sgt. Small had left on the floor behind him.

    With the exception of one frozen finger — Lt. Phillips’ — the Banshee had what the crew called “a quiet trip.”

    I don’t want to go on a noisy one.

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  9. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 2:56 pm

    That’s some fine writing by Andy Rooney, but I sure could not abide that crap on 60 Minutes. Wah, wah, wah, you kids get off my lawn.

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  10. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    Romney on reproductive rights.

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  11. Joe Kobiela said on November 5, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    I had a chance to actually fly a b-17, It was probley the top thing I have done in aviation. I could not imagine going thru your first combat mission, coming home, and realising you had to due 24 more, later in the war 35 total, before you got to go home. Without a doubt these guys were heros.
    Pilot Joe

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  12. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    Joe, some people that renovate vintage planes flew a B-17 into Hilton Head a few years ago. I remember being amazed somebody could land a behemoth like that here but commercial airlines think we should rip up a seriously importnt historical district to extend runways. Our condo is half a mile from the airport. Wreaks hell with cell-phones. I’ll tell you whaat, that plane from the Bummer factory flew in low and close to ilent over the tennis courts in our back yard. I thought I saw Capt. Rickenbacker or maybe Billy Mitchell with an elbow out the vent and a serious bomber jacket. Mere feet away, and one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Like the Fratellis. It was truly amazing to witness, though in retrospect, there were thousands of folks at risk if they messed up anything. Anyway Joe. I know I give you grief occasionally. I don’t think you know dick about politics or economics. I am absolutely sure you know how to fly planes, meaning how to get them off the ground and back unto it. If you ever fly a gig to HHI, let me know. I’ll steer you right for a meal and a cold brewski if the ATF approves. I figured out a long time ago about driving cars and murdercycles at excessive speeds.

    This is a strange night. If Arkansas beats South Carolina “Gamecocks” shouldn’t that odious nickname put them 6 ft. under, and Georgia Bulldawgs beat Auburn, that bought Cam Newton last year for $180grand, UGA plays in the SEC championship and might put the BCS in the toilet once and for all. It’s comparative scores. If UGA beats Aubuhn and Bama beats LSU or vice versa, and UGA beats either one of them, which is decidedly possible, People will make insane claims about Boise and Texas Tech. Bring ’em on. Wait though, that Boise coach is not rational,. He might go after that insane Vandy coach.. Texas Tech or Baylor, neither. Michigan was sure a helluva 6-2 team. Boise has had more than enough opportunity over the years to actually limit the real teams they got they ass beaten by to like UGA and OSU. unning faster and being bigger tended to have some effect.

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  13. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 6:33 pm

    What sort of University names it’s teams after chickens raised to kill each other with man-made spurs? What excuse for a human being would do something so despicable? Any of y’all read 2666? I don’t think so. No shit. In South
    america and in Central America, these assholes acted like we didn’t care. When they shot the padre at the communion rail.
    we know, these assholes are evil. It just dawned on me, that was Ronald Raygun murdering a saint. Was there a difference between what Medeiros thought of as social justice and Whatever we do for the least of my brethren. Not fucking close. Ollie and his School of the America were hitmen and they raped Maryknoll Nuns and murdere Jesuit Priests, and their justification was somehow xoming before what jEWUW WQIE. THESE PEOPLE ARE INEXCUSABLY SELF-DELUDED. Not my government, yours? That’s teabanging idolatry and you can all go screw yourselves, you idiot self-righteous bastards. But, you know, they were Catholics trying to make poor people’s lives better. So they must have been the enemy. What is wrong with this shit is monumental. Catholics were evil? Isn’t that where you aholes began? Martin Luther terribly blocked in the bowels. Why was he being so afflicted? Perhaps because he was way too anal to be a normal human being.

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  14. Joe Kobiela said on November 5, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    Caliban,
    I’ll take you up on that, but it will be a diet coke for me. Up until late in ww-2 there was still chivelry among airmen, I’d like to think you and I would be like, dinner then battle. A b-17 actually need very little runway to takeoff and land, under 3000ft when there lightly loaded, as they are now. During the war they usually used 6,000ft runways. Just a quick question, was the airport there when you moved in?? Where is your airport located? what town and state?
    Pilot Joe

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  15. caliban said on November 5, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    No joke Joe, I’ll buy you lunch if you come to Hilton Head. Do you fly jets? It’s no thing. We get lotsa smaller planes, and I’d like you to see I’ve nothing against you. My feeling is if the plane was going down, you might figure a way out. Like Jetsstars, because that i what lands here. And these people give no shit about anybody that lives here. They mainly live over the bridge, in witness protection. That is the stock in trade of Pulte bullshit, right? A whole community of nutcases. People that are concerned about the HHi Airport, they are mainly assholes that couldn’t care less about HHI. So, something is wrong with that. Capice?

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  16. Joe Kobiela said on November 5, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    No Jets yet cessna 310 like sky king and also king air 200 on occasion. If I ever get down that way I’ll look you up. Northwestern over Nebraska!! Go Bama, should be a good game.
    Pilot Joe

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  17. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 5, 2011 at 10:09 pm

    Read Bolano’s “2666,” but I’ll admit it was in translation, that is, English.

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  18. beb said on November 6, 2011 at 12:01 am

    The Andy Rooney I knew was a cranky old man of 60 Minutes whining about stuff in a tone that reminds me of Mitch Albom. I can’t imagine him being a war reporter or being a good one.

    I had a friend who was a turret gunner on a B-17. After his tour they made him an instructor. Apparently that didn’t last long because he liked to show off the piece of shrapnel that came through the the “bulletproof” dome of the turret.

    A couple years before he died he got to ride on a B-17 again, during a air show at the Willow Run airport (Pilot Joe should know where that is). He had become quite heavy by then and it was a challenge getting in and out of the plane but he really enjoyed the flight. Which was surprising because as far I can tell after the war he NEVER rode an airplane.

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  19. brian stouder said on November 6, 2011 at 12:17 am

    Henry Ford built a whole lotta planes at Willow Run

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  20. Linda said on November 6, 2011 at 1:10 am

    Beb, Rooney actually wrote an interesting essay on how he changed his mind on pacifism during WWII. His debunking of Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” worship is worthwhile, too.

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  21. alex said on November 6, 2011 at 1:21 am

    Pilot Joe, it’s a shame you’re such a fag hater. My ancestors were the original pioneers in Butler Center/Butler Township. There’s so much we could talk about, except for the fact that my ancestors were Unitarians, which I’m sure you would find objectionable on biblical grounds. You can talk to me as a normal citizen. Really, I have absolutely no interest in your body despite your insistence to the contrary. I have absolutely no idea what you look like nor do I care. I’m happily married and hope you are too.

    And I’d love to talk history if you have any interest in it.

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  22. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 1:17 am

    Joe. it’s always been there and it is a thorny political question. It’s in the middle of Hilton Head and nobody uses it but those assholes off-island that call their Pulte landscape Hilton Head, even though they are on the other side of the bridge. These people are full of shit, and they inject an obsvene GOPer tinge into local politics, when Islanders don’t buy that shit for a minute.

    Well it seems as if the South Carolina Chickens shit the bed. So them dawgs kick the crap out of Awbuhn next week and get LSU in the champeenship. I know, nobody gives them Dawgs a prayer against LSU. but just wait. We can put up points. We shall see. Alex, why would anybody find Unitarians objectionable? Thar is incomprehensible.

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  23. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 1:59 am

    Seriously. aren’t Unitarians the great wide under? They accept everybodyY.Who can find a Unitarian objectionable? That is pretty much beyond my consideration or comprehension.

    what ever is slug. You can’t tell me II’M just going to give up. Bag this shit. Whatever you think.

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  24. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 2:25 am

    Everybody my age with an obscene lottery number like mine was prttty much Going After Cacciato. The fact that the Bush apparatus chose to villify John Kerry;s honorable service is particularly heinous since W more or less protected the O Club. What a joke thanks to Ken Blackwell and those Diebold machines. Ohio gave up to the GOPer onslaught. Disgraceful. Pieces of shit. What sort of hole did those votes dissappear into and how did those ahoes get away with it, Kerry had the stupendous weight of having exposed BCCI and the Reagan Plot, so he was doubly damned, bedause Nison hated him and Raygun did too, He had the fgoods on Raygun, BccI and all that. But nobody wanted to listen. Ollie North and Rummy and Cheney most certainly planned with the Ayatollahs to keep Americans hostages to prevent an October surprise. Does anybody want to claim that wasn’t so? That is what the assholes did, and that is a fact.BCCI, nobody remembers Raygun pulled that shit? And he basked in the freedom fighters, that were actually fucking murderers, of Jesuit priests and rapists of Maryknoll nuns, What a grand asshole we can all look up to. He spit on people that tried to make a difference, He was somebody we should all be ashaned of, He was a particularly heinous piece of shit, That is your neocon hero, He was a scumbag;

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  25. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 3:07 am

    Which have you ever read Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norell? Which of you were delighted? It is that sort of book. This woman needs to write another novel. This is the only book to come close to the thrills and spills of Lemprierre’s Dictinoary, which was actually slightly better and more ridiculous. Ridiculousness is a terribly underrated quality in books. I would put Riddley Walker in that subset. One of the greatest books ever written. Russell Hoban is a fucking genius and his other books are way difficult. I’m supposed to figure them out?

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  26. Joe Kobiela said on November 6, 2011 at 4:16 am

    Alex,
    Your right I do hate fags, I also hate queers, Nancy boys, rump rangers, and right wing and left wing bigots. I don’t however hate homosexuals, to me there is a differance. I dont understand a 6ft tall linbacker built man that wants to tape his nuts up put on a dress and put on ruby red slippers and play Dorthey from the wizard of ozz. I DO understand my daughters best friend that stood up for her at her wedding up here in Dekalb county in his suit and tie and I was damn Proud of it. How dare you judge me. You have no idea on how I stand. Yes I’m a christian, but I believe I don’t have the right to judge anyone on what they belive, or there life style. I may not agree with your politics on this blog, but I don’t think I have ever said anything to you personaly as hateful as you have just said to me just now. I have been married 28yrs Alex and I can only hope you have found as much happiness in YOUR marrige as I have in mine. In my Christion faith I know I can forgive you for the hateful things you say against me and I won’t judge you or your life style, I only hope you can feel the same way.
    Pilot Joe

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  27. coozledad said on November 6, 2011 at 7:59 am

    Why am I suddenly thinking about Samuel Beckett?
    Every word is a stain on silence and nothingness.

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  28. coozledad said on November 6, 2011 at 8:18 am

    If there’s one thing we can all learn from the ancient Mesoamerican peoples, it’s that debt doesn’t have to be repaid in kind. If Corzine, MF Global, and the rest of the job creators can’t seem to locate their customer’s money, they can always donate the living, beating heart from their chest cavity. Add a few dancers and some ritual feasts, and it’s a goddamn party!
    What the Aztec priests were referring to was a central Mesoamerican belief: that a great, on-going sacrifice sustains the Universe. Everything is tonacayotl: the “spiritual flesh-hood” on earth. Everything —earth, crops, moon, stars and people— springs from the severed or buried bodies, fingers, blood or the heads of the sacrificed gods. Humanity itself is macehualli, “those deserved and brought back to life through penance”.[11] A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagún reported, it was said that the victim was someone who “gave his service”.

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  29. Dexter said on November 6, 2011 at 11:34 am

    Wow…I never thought I’d see
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_After_Cacciato
    referenced here…
    I don’t think I ever read it, but Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” was such a graphic and realistic novel I recall every nuance in the book. O’Brien captures the mood and feelings a Vietnam soldier felt…if you ever want to recommend a book like that to your students or even read it yourself, that’s the one.
    I was in a chatroom with Colonel Jack Jacobs last summer and I asked him what book about the war meant the most to him, and he said “Lewis Puller, Jr.’s Fortunate Son”. So there’s that…if you can deal with suicide.

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  30. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 6, 2011 at 11:36 am

    And as I was just saying to a few folks this morning: …and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

    Words alone, as Cooze notes, don’t accomplish much for us, useful though they are. Sometimes you need a mug and bread on the table between you. I think Alex & Joe would do well to break bread together sometime, harsh words posted aside. Or not aside, but placed on the table, to sort through after the eating & the drinking. You can’t share a meal with someone without a certain amount of sacrifice – ask anyone who still goes to a family Thanksgiving dinner. Too bad the Aztecs thought they had to look for something a little more aweful & awe-full to find that meaning, when a loaf & cup can do it all.

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  31. Dave said on November 6, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    Once in awhile, I stop in here to see what the topic and the comments of the day are, which leads to much head shaking.

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  32. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    Cooze, have you ever heard the awesome stately song by Jay Farrar called Cahokian:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAF5IUrSqho

    Jay was the better half, in my opinion, Tweedy is pretty much a jerk, and unidentifiable from that ultimate poseur Wayne Coyne. Randy Newman wrote a perfect line about guys like that. “Jesus, what a jerk.”

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  33. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    Dexter, Going After Cacciato is one astounding book. Get a copy and read it. To my way of thinking, which might not seem like a recommendation to you, it’s brilliant. It’s a fever dream of what assholes like W and Nixon that glorified the asinine experience should have had to experience.

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  34. Jolene said on November 6, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    Alex, were you sober when you posted your note to Joe? Your message seemed not only unjustified, but out of character.

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  35. moe99 said on November 6, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    Dexter, I think I’ve mentioned here before that I used to work, and played bridge with Lewis Puller, Jr. He was a very smart and charming man and quite adept at hiding his demons. I was so saddened when he killed himself.

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  36. coozledad said on November 6, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Yeesh. I thought Alex won the day.
    As far as the Aztecs go, I wonder if they didn’t recognize the place you start cutting off human ambition and greed is before midlife, when men get all sad, gray-skinned and stupid, start plaguing the young, and forget what it was even like to be alive. Who knows. They were probably as ambitious and greedy and fucked up as we are. We’ll never know for sure, because a bunch of filthy Europeans wiped them from the face of the earth.

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  37. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    Pardon me? Alex was wrong, Joe was right? And Cooze, it’s the Mississippians. Built them large barrows, otherwise known as gigantic mounds, or wights. I don’t tke sides, since I once took the side of a guy in a bar fight that’s opponent had already pulled a gun. But I’d take Alex’s side.Sometimes, you have to do what’s right.

    Okay, Jeff, I read Dostoevsky and The Master and Margerita in translation too, My best friend ever was an absolutely stunning babe that had Russian and several other languages, including Icelandic, which is apparently strange and unrelated to other Western languages. She worked for me. I didn’t ever consider harrassment, so I wonder what causes men to act that way. I do have to admit I envied her for being able to read Bulgakov in the original. Like my buddy Joe, I’d like to admit a prejudice. If you have never read The Dalkey Archive or Gravity’s Rainbow, I guess you are no friend of mine. Fags welcome. Rump rangers too, though I prefer female parts for diddling. If I’m mistaking the sarcasm, excuse me. I hope Joe was being sarcastic. Always thought he was kinda a good guy.

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  38. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    Joe didn’t mean that fag-bashing. He felt he was being accused falsely. I assume we will all let him skate, because he thought he was unairly taken. He is pretty cearly not a gay-basher and would carry anybody in his plane, regardless of sexual persuasion. He would definitely not toss them over Lake Huron, Give the guy a break.

    And that was bad football at 9-6. You never played real football ahole. That said, Them Dawgs will put up a bunch on either of those Defenses. Then what will the BCS do? I’d say Dawgs in a rematch with Boise to shut those yappy pomeranians up once and for all. And I know who wins. Not close.

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  39. caliban said on November 6, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    Joe, that plane flew within a few inches of me and was one of the most astounding things I’ve ever seen whan it waw in the air. Gigantic, and how could it fly” It was beyond comprehension, and that is how I geel about flying in general. Fairly awe-inspiring. Smarter than what what we normally think of.

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  40. Joe Kobiela said on November 6, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    Apreciate the support gang, Like I said, I forgive Alex.
    Pilot Joe

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  41. Deborah said on November 6, 2011 at 9:28 pm

    I think I’m obsessed. I’ve been trying to walk 50 miles a week. 6 miles during each workday and 20 miles each weekend. This week I walked 54 miles. It makes me happy to walk, like a drug or something. I’m dreading the late winter when it’s too cold to be outside walking, and downright dangerous to do it. One of the writers on the opinion page of the NYT (Nicholas Kristoff) wrote about a running addiction a couple of weeks ago. I seem to have it about walking. When I walk alone I listen to the archives of This American Life. otherwise I walk with my husband or Littlebird and we just shoot the shit abou anything and everything. Chicago is the perfect walking city with the lakefront and the great neighborhoods. Last year I ended up with a stress fracture from too much walking on hard pavement with the wrong shoes. Now I have really expensive walking shoes, I hope to god I don’t do that again.

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  42. coozledad said on November 6, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    I am deeply uncomfortable with the Neochristian concept of forgiveness. It requires the victims to suck on it while the deeply loathsome bastards skate. These people don’t give a fuck about Jesus, they’re of a mind with Rasputin: Jesus wants you to fuck your neighbor! Sin is the path to Godliness!
    Joe: In your mythology, nobody gets to judge, nobody gets to participate in a war, nobody is better than anyone else, and the poor and despised are the anointed of God because God hates arrogant bastards. Think on it, ye motherfuckers. Think ye and consider hellfire!

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  43. MichaelG said on November 6, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    Cooz, I’m not sure I follow you. Forgiveness has been a part of Christianity since the beginning. The ancient Christian concept of forgiveness, indeed so many concepts of forgiveness, include the requirement that a penance be served. A few Hail Marys from the confessional, a pinky for a yakuza, other offerings for other groups according to the offense. But penance is required to obtain forgiveness. There has been talk of blood money, of eyes for eyes. Sometimes the results of revenge and penance are hard to differentiate, although I guess one is offered and the other is taken.

    As I sort of get your Neochristian concept of forgiveness, I see all those various contemporary American sexual deviants, all those white collar thieves and assorted crooks and liars, war criminals and shitheels wanting forgiveness without penance:

    “Mistakes were made. I’m sorry for what happened. It’s time to get on with things.”

    That close to what you mean?

    I’m a little uncomfortable here. My feeling is that Joe isn’t quite the homophobe that he might seem to some. I would guess that he didn’t express himself quite as clearly as he might have wished. Believe me, I know the feeling.

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  44. coozledad said on November 6, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    Michael G: If I never did anything else in this life, I provoked eloquence.

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  45. alex said on November 7, 2011 at 12:42 am

    Didn’t get to follow up until now because my significant other is in the hospital with an illness they haven’t figured out yet. It has been going on since about Tuesday and he’s in horrible, debilitating pain with fevers and shakes. He doesn’t have insurance and I’m sure this is going to cost everything we’re worth. If either he or I had tits and a pussy it would all be paid for because I have health insurance but it doesn’t cover your spouse unless your marriage is legally recognized.

    Joe, I appreciate that a man stood up for your daughter at her wedding and that you’re cool with it. I’ve done the same for some of my female friends. They’d do it for me if life were fair.

    In the past you’ve made some snide allusions about gays and about me in particular being some sort of sexual threat to you, and I’m still smarting over it after all this time.

    I’m actually quite impressed with the local hospitals and their personnel and their professionalism and how accepting they are of my relationship. I haven’t faced the dreaded situation that is often posited that I would be denied access or vice versa because of a lack of a marriage license and medical personnel having the legal right to exercise “religious” objections to serving people they don’t like. Then again, we haven’t dealt with life or death shit either.

    Actually, Joe, because we are practically neighbors I think we ought to meet each other. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at what nice people we are. Your daughter is a great writer and I can just tell she came from good people and a loving home. I have high regard for your brother as well.

    I guess what set me off—to be completely honest—is that you’d love to meet others in other places but I’m fairly sure you’d be resistant to meeting me, even though we are from the same neighborhood and probably know a lot of the same people. My partner used to work for the danged Auburn airport and has probably vacuumed your turds out of the shitter and wiped up your cockpit ashtrays. Heck, it’s altogether possible you’ve been to some of our extended families’ parties.

    And yes I did have a few to drink before I wrote the previous post.

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  46. Deborah said on November 7, 2011 at 2:41 am

    Alex so sorry to hear you are going through the pain of watching the one you love suffer. I hope things improve quickly for him. That is so unfair that he can’t be covered by your health insurance.

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  47. Linda said on November 7, 2011 at 6:47 am

    Alex, hope they figure out what’s wrong with your S.O, and he gets better soon. Mystery illnesses are a bitch.

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  48. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 7, 2011 at 7:40 am

    Grace and peace to you both, Alex. Our insurance system is just so dreadfully stupid from every angle.

    And on a completely different note: the regimen described here just doesn’t sound like it leaves much room for Saturday markets and bright red chilis . . .

    http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8872623/Victorias-Secret-show-What-does-it-take-to-be-a-Victorias-Secret-Angel.html

    I had no idea they, um, earned their superstar fees that thoroughly. But it all sounds like something that would be protested vigorously if we did it to al-Qaeda detainees.

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  49. coozledad said on November 7, 2011 at 7:46 am

    Damn, Alex. That sounds like dengue fever. I’m glad the hospital is treating you with respect.

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  50. brian stouder said on November 7, 2011 at 8:41 am

    Alex – here’s hoping for a speedy diagnosis and successful resolution of whatever is afflicting your spouse. I cannot imagine how hard it must be, for starters, not yet knowing what is happening.

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  51. Dorothy said on November 7, 2011 at 9:54 am

    I am so sorry, Alex, that your partner is not well. I will keep good thoughts going for both of you in hopes that some happier karma will move in your direction.

    And a gentle request to everyone from me that we all remember to treat each other’s differences with respect. We should balance our written words with the idea that something we say could be very hurtful to someone who reads this page regularly. We all “let it all hang out” and say what’s on our minds, but sometimes discretion is tossed aside. Words can hurt as much as a slap on the face and it’s important to keep that in mind when we communicate with each other.

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  52. brian stouder said on November 7, 2011 at 10:17 am

    Dorothy – agreed.

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  53. maryinIN said on November 7, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    Alex,
    I am hoping for good results soon for your partner. Don’t know where you live, but where I live both public and private hospitals got in trouble last year (with whom I can’t remember) for not offering people info on financial arrangements and assistance up front. Now every piece of paper our family gets about any medical service or bill (our only experiences are as out-patients to date) has included an explanation of and application for financial arrangements or assistance. You might want to check that out with the hospital. It is certainly an unfair situation.

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