Spleen with a side of bile.

It’s safe to say that Maureen Tkacik is exploring a new form of hate journalism with this piece on Steve Jobs. It begins like this:

Steve Jobs smelled so foul that none of his co-workers at Atari in the seventies would work with him. Entreating him to shower was usually futile; he’d inevitably claim that his strict vegan diet had rid him of body odor, thus absolving him of the need for standard hygiene habits.

It continues like this:

In 1982, he was so repulsed by the “messy and inelegant” sight of so much “work being done by hand” in a Tokyo Sony factory that he refused to order their disk drives. His underlings circumvented this particular decree by hiring a Sony engineer whom they banished to the closet whenever Jobs visited.

And it ends like this:

But like all the other internal contradictions that seem to endlessly fascinate the punditry elite about Steve Jobs, this apparent conflict between Jobs’ profound affinity for technology and his bizarre unwillingness to allow it to save his life is another pointless straw man that only serves to further elide the very Jobsian simplicity that lies beneath:

There once lived one of those really obstinate assholes who will constantly tell you he couldn’t change his assholic ways if it killed him. It killed him.

And you know what? I read every word. It ran in the blog section of Reuters’ site, so I guess it didn’t have to be “balanced” or anything. It most assuredly isn’t. But most of the hagiography we’ve been reading since October isn’t very balanced, either. So here’s some balance, a piece that throbs with life, if a bile-infused form of it.

She says some mean things about Phil Knight, too. Now that I can get behind.

It does raise the question, though: Why are we so intent that people who do one thing well have to be “good,” too? Miles Davis played trumpet like a dark angel when he wasn’t bouncing Cicely Tyson off the walls. We all know how Bill Clinton blew off steam. One of the things I admire about Apple is how it doesn’t sit around waiting for a focus group to tell it what comes next. No, you don’t need a floppy drive, it told us, and gave us a floppy-less iMac. Now it’s saying you don’t need a CD drive, either, and voila, MacBook Air.

Jobs was an asshole, for sure. (Or maybe he just had “assholic ways,” a phrase I’ll be stealing, I think.) But he moved the game forward in a significant way. We don’t have to like him, but we should give him that.

Another day, more Truth Squad-ery. The Club for Growth is really pounding that “he voted for the bridge to nowhere” thing in ads these days. I understand the boys mixed it up on the very same in the CNN debate. I’m going to write a blog about this for 42 North, I think, but let me just break the sound barrier here first: I agree with Rick Santorum on this. The bill that contained the BtoN was SAFETEA-LU, a giant highway appropriations omnibus, loaded to the roof with cash, trundling around the country leaving piles of it for local projects. OK, the BtoN wasn’t the wisest way to spend $368 million, but it was never built and besides, who should decide where Alaska should spend its federal highway money? Washington, or Juneau? Rick Santorum, on this we can agree. This one thing. Maybe there is a god.

Any bloggage? How about this: I love it when I read a headline that tells me, you need not waste another second of your time reading more. In this case: Will a dash of bitters do anything at all? Thanks, copy editors.

In Fort Wayne, an antidote to Cookie Bob: Man saves 11-year-old from double dog attack, using a discarded bottle. What a mensch. And a nice job by my former colleague Ellie Bogue, who got the story, got the pix and even included one of the dead dogs.

But here’s a live one. Because not all pit bulls are bad. From the Dogs Against Romney pack, who bring the energy of a thousand terriers to their work:

I ride inside, too. Snowstorm tomorrow night. Finally!

Posted at 12:27 am in Current events |
 

66 responses to “Spleen with a side of bile.”

  1. Crazycatlady said on February 23, 2012 at 1:34 am

    Yea! Snowstorm tomorrow. I’m going to make some vegetarian Mushroom soup, drink some hot cocoa and read a good book.

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  2. Linda said on February 23, 2012 at 3:30 am

    Well, we found out where the outrage was that you were searching for, Nancy: the internal ultrasound test of the VA antiabortion law is dead, after the governor tapped danced around it for a couple of days.

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  3. Deborah said on February 23, 2012 at 6:51 am

    I read the Jobs piece, while bilious I found it well written.

    Off topic question: is there a way to refresh the screen on an iPad?

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  4. caliban said on February 23, 2012 at 7:05 am

    How did anybody that never met Steve Jobs, come to despise him so. Because he made better machines? Which he sure as shit did. This sorta strikes me like the lady that wrote the chick-nonfiction about the Obamas. She interviewed them about ten years ago. That doesn’t even rise to Woodward/Shrub standards. This woman should have stuck with Kitty Kelley whatever. What a maroon.

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  5. Suzanne said on February 23, 2012 at 7:09 am

    I’m not sure what I think of Steve Jobs. Yes, he was brilliant and his computers are great, but does being brilliant give you a free pass to make the lives of everyone around you a living hell? I guess I don’t think so. I also think it’s a sign of the times that those people that excel at technology type stuff frequently get to exhibit assholic behavior with little or not consequence. I definitely saw it when my kids were in school. The athletes and the STEM people were put on their little pedestals far too often for my tastes, while the kid who was a decent person and could string 5 words together in a coherent sentence was pushed by the wayside.

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  6. caliban said on February 23, 2012 at 7:56 am

    How these assholes Shitheels, right?

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  7. Linda said on February 23, 2012 at 8:04 am

    I’m kind of surprised that the stuff you excerpted was not even close to the meat of the article. It has some petty stuff on his personal life, but a lot on how Apple exploited and damaged its workers and those who work for companies who contract with them:

    Working at Foxconn is nothing like that. Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous; “military” protocols the sneaker factories abolished in the early nineties govern every little process; countless rules seem intended purely to subjugate; and security guards are friends with no one, as Sun Danyong learned when an iPhone prototype in his car went missing in the summer of 2009. Foxconn security searched, interrogated, and tortured Sun in episodes he described bitterly to friends.

    The main point of the spleen was how he treated thousands of others who created his products with the same bullying and narcissism. That seems like a fair target, especially since so many feel Job is a god for creating good product. Screwing over workers is part of your karmic balance, too.

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  8. beb said on February 23, 2012 at 8:17 am

    Steve Jobs wasn’t just a vegetarian, he was a fruititarian, and it was his belief that eating fruit made him not stink. Also why he named the company “Apple.” I don’t recall where I read all this perhaps it was “Barbarians Lead by Gates…” a book on the early days of the computer industry. It’s worth keeping in mind that Bill Gates wasn’t an easy person to work with either.

    By the way did the CD-less MacAir come before or after the CD-less “netbook” computers?

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  9. caliban said on February 23, 2012 at 8:28 am

    For them smokers among us:

    http://obituarytypo.blogspot.com/2012/02/listerine-cigarettes.html

    The thing about FoxComm is that it seems like the FOPer idea; bor yhe Murrican grunts to support the rich folk that inherited wealth and so deserve it more. Like Mittens Got it from Daddy and used it to screw everybody else over.

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  10. Lex said on February 23, 2012 at 8:40 am

    Why are we so intent that people who do one thing well have to be “good,” too?

    — “Trust the song, not the singer.” — Bruce Springsteen

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  11. Julie Robinson said on February 23, 2012 at 8:43 am

    This may have been a fabrication, but I once read that Jobs chose Apple randomly from the phone book, noting that it would be listed before Atari.

    Yep, lots of geniuses are assholic. In other news, the sun rose today. (Though here in the Fort, it was obscured by fog.)

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  12. 4dbirds said on February 23, 2012 at 9:54 am

    Put me in the no fan of Steve Jobs camp. He wanted American workers to be more like the Chinese and said he would NOT bring jobs back to the US until we were. Sorry but I don’t want to live in a dormatory next to my job and be at their service 24/7. I know a lot of companies are like that but I don’t own a single apple product and won’t until they start making more products in America.

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  13. Bitter Scribe said on February 23, 2012 at 10:08 am

    I know there are a lot of pit bull owners who love their dogs and say they’re unfairly maligned, you can’t stigmatize an entire breed, yada yada. But why is it that whenever you read about an incident like this, more often than not, it’s a pit bull?

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  14. Bob said on February 23, 2012 at 10:22 am

    You got it right on the story about the dog attack interrupted. It was a great break in Day 3 of weary, bitter sarcasm about a free-range jackass at play in the General Assembly. It’s beautiful to hear people say, “What a hero,” with beaming admiration.

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  15. MichaelG said on February 23, 2012 at 10:37 am

    What is this snow of which you speak? The high country here is pretty bare. In Sacto we’ve had about 6.25 inches of rain since July 1 when the season began and there’s none on the horizon.

    I never met Jobs and don’t much care about his personal habits one way or the other. There are plenty of assholes to go around and one more doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ll let his accomplishments speak for themselves. I remember having a tour of the original Apple manufacturing facility in Fremont. Boy was that a long time ago. The sight of hundreds of those things sitting there silently with their screens on was something. That was the first time I heard of “burn in”.

    I’m with Bitter on the pit bull subject. Nobody’s saying that every example is a vicious killer but there’s no denying that the breeding and the proclivities are there.

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  16. Deborah said on February 23, 2012 at 10:51 am

    My take on the Jobs bile: A while ago I read about something called “the tallest poppy syndrome”, it was in regard to Jane Campion, the director of “The Piano” and other great movies. She was subjected to a lot of rancorous press etc because of her incredible talent and her success, or at least that’s how it was explained. Jobs may have been quite an eccentric, to put it mildly but he was also amazingly successful which pisses some people off.

    I wonder if the tallest poppy syndrome is part of why the right wing is so pissed off with Obama.

    Regarding things made in the US: I have never been one to think about this issue when I buy products, but lately it comes to mind. We’re buying an American car for our New Mexico experience, a Jeep. Not really because it’s made in America, but that’s a nice bonus.

    edit: From wikipedia – Tall poppy syndrome (TPS) is a pejorative term primarily used in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Anglosphere nations to describe a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers.

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  17. Icarus said on February 23, 2012 at 10:53 am

    I’m surprised at your viewpoint toward the Maureen Tkacik piece. Your colleague Eric Zorn seemed to enjoy it.

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  18. Sue said on February 23, 2012 at 11:03 am

    The last sentence that you highlighted from the Tkacik piece was, in my opinion, very Nancy Nall.
    And I remember being unable to finish a biography of Thomas Edison because I got so mad at his… assholic ways.

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  19. nancy said on February 23, 2012 at 11:17 am

    I don’t know where you guys are getting the idea I didn’t like the Jobs piece. I did, very much.

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  20. Sherri said on February 23, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    Jobs was an asshole, well known for being an asshole in Silicon Valley long ago. Not the worst asshole in the Valley, though – that distinction probably belongs to Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle. Talk about spleen; there was once a book written about Ellison called The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn’t Think He’s Larry Ellison.

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  21. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    Steve Jobs pissed in that woman’s Wheaties, and it was yeasty. But the odor was probably more like patchouli. She is still PO’d. Steve Jobs made a better machine. People should try to get over it. BFD. He was also generous with his ill-gotten gains. as is the Windows guy. Thank you, gentlemen. So did Henry Ford, and he believed in the evil that is The Elders of Zion. William Shockley invented the transistor, more or less, and he was an unreconstituted racist pig. Linus Pauling had no clue whatever when he banged the gong for Vitamin C, but he was a Nobel laureate. Having one good idea doesn’t make anybody a genius and certainly not a saint.

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  22. Deborah said on February 23, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    Carey, Was wondering what new name you would choose. Leftover from yesterday’s comment string, I did see Julia with Vanessa Redgrave, excellent movie and I agree with you and your mom about Pentimento being Lillian Hellman’s best book. In fact now that you’ve reminded me, I’m going to reread it.

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  23. Hattie said on February 23, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    My husband works in high tech, and it has been my great luck to have met many an asshole like Steve Jobs. It’s a type. He’s just the best known one. The thought that anyone could be jealous of these men, or grateful to them, makes me laugh. You take them for what they are worth and make sure you get yours, that was always our attitude. You don’t think they created all that stuff and all that wealth on their own, do you?

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  24. Dorothy said on February 23, 2012 at 1:22 pm

    OT but I have to ask this of anyone watching “The Walking Dead.” Did anyone else realize the actor playing Hershel also played Dick Hickock with Robert Blake playing Perry Smith in “In Cold Blood”?! I just found this out and am feeling gobsmacked that I didn’t recognize him. And I’m usually pretty good at recognizing actors.

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  25. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    Delusional, flat-out liars, or fracking nuts? It’s one of those.

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  26. MarkH said on February 23, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Well, Dorothy, it has been 45 years and even Scott Wilson has to change. An underrated actor, imho.

    Strictly OT, but I saw this the other day on one of my favorite sites to surf. For us motorheads here (and anyone else who has an opinion):

    http://jalopnik.com/5884022/ten-automotive-stereotypes-that-need-to-die/gallery/1

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  27. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 1:37 pm

    Deborah, It’s always pretty amazing to find that an exceptionally accomplished famous person has been involved in something extraordinary outside their realm of expertise. I’m a fan of the baseball player spy, Moe Berg. A catcher, no less. I’m no fan of non-fiction writing, but Pentimento is awe inspiring.

    Here’s an assholc that thought Lillian Hellman was just too pink:

    http://www.nysun.com/arts/lives-and-lies-of-lillian-hellman/23534/

    What a maroon. He should know. He was obviously there. And Joe McCarthy was actually a tail-gunner.

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  28. Bitter Scribe said on February 23, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    Carey Hackett: That N.Y. Sun review of a Hellman bio (by someone who wrote his own Hellman bio, no less) is interesting and a bit more nuanced than you imply, IMO. But it does seem heavy on guilt by association:

    That Hellman was able to place her puffery with Collier’s is telling. The same magazine suppressed a piece by Martha Gellhorn in which Polish soldiers told her how they feared for the fate of postwar Poland.

    GbA was a favorite tactic of Commie “hunters,” of course.

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  29. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    Scribe,

    That guy’s game is she was friends with the Rosenbergs, and a fellow traveller.

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  30. Bitter Scribe said on February 23, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    Carey: Well, she was sympathetic to Stalin, which induced a lot of pearl-clutching back then. Seems kind of quaint now. In any case, I prefer her to Mary McCarthy, who impressed me as an intellectual snob who was always ragging on the left to show that she wasn’t one of those bad liberals, no siree.

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  31. Hattie said on February 23, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    Mary McCarthy got where she was by trashing other women to the point where she could be considered an honorary man. But even so she had her strengths as a writer.

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  32. Dorothy said on February 23, 2012 at 2:37 pm

    Have to blink a couple of times when you guys are throwing around the names of Joe and Mary McCarthy. My mom was Mary McCarthy before she married my dad in 1944; my Uncle Joe McCarthy just died on Feb. 6th. SO glad we’re not related to those McCarthys!

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  33. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    Mary McCarthy wrote Godawful sludge like The Group, and fed herself on her envy of Lillian Hellman.

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  34. John (not McCain) said on February 23, 2012 at 2:53 pm

    Regarding the generosity of Steve Jobs:

    “Writing for the New York Times, Andrew Sorkin was puzzled that he couldn’t find any evidence that Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder, had given away any part of his significant $8.3 billion personal wealth. What he did find is that when Jobs returned to his old company in 1997, he canceled Apple’s philanthropic programs and they have remained dormant ever since.

    Sorkin explained: “None of this is meant to judge Mr. Jobs. I have long been a huge admirer of Mr. Jobs … because of the enormous positive impact his products have had by improving the lives of millions of people through technology…. But the lack of public philanthropy by Mr. Jobs … raises some important questions about the way public views business and business people at a time when some ‘millionaires and billionaires’ are criticized for not giving back enough while others like Mr. Jobs are lionized.”

    He then compares Jobs’ stinginess to the generosity of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in establishing a foundation to “enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty” around the world. The unstated question to Mr. Jobs in Sorkin’s article is: Why not you, Mr. Jobs?”

    from: http://thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/8915-steve-jobs-charitable-contributions-he-gave-at-the-office

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  35. Deborah said on February 23, 2012 at 2:56 pm

    I’m a fan of Mary McCarthy too, but have only read The Group and her travel writings about Florence and Venice.

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  36. Bitter Scribe said on February 23, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    “Memories of a Catholic Girlhood” was pretty good, IIRC. McCarthy could be very good when she wasn’t engaged in showing off how smart or politically correct she was.

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  37. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    Well, who’s to say what composes charitable giving. I don’t think Willard’s tithing to LDS actually counts. What, to send more windsocks to proselytize Fronch atheists? Gimme a break.

    Somebody needs to make it clear to Rick Frothy: God doesn’t belong in politics, you revolting little scold.

    A great read for Downton Abbey fans.

    And the best Abby on TV has the surname Sciutto and always will.

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  38. Carey Hatchett said on February 23, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    Why drill, baby, drill is spectacularly fracking stupid. How fracking works:

    having drilled a hole perhaps a mile deep, and then a horizontal branch perhaps half a mile in length, you send down
    a kind of subterranean pipe bomb, a small package of ball-bearing-like shrapnel and light explosives. The package is detonated, and the shrapnel pierces the bore hole, opening up small perforations in the pipe. They then pump up to 7 million gallons of a substance known as slick water to fracture the shale and release the gas. It blasts through those perforations in the pipe into the shale at such force—more than nine thousand pounds of pressure per square inch—that it shatters the shale for a few yards on either side of the pipe, allowing the gas embedded in it to rise under its own pressure and escape.

    Hell, sounds environmentally sound and completely safe to me.

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  39. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 23, 2012 at 3:59 pm

    For all you IU grads here, this Purdue alum has to admit that your campus has some elements to be proud of.

    http://www.hercampus.com/school/iu/celebrity-professor-dr-deb-christiansen

    Full disclosure: my baby sister, whose husband only just found out about this today himself and sent it around (he’s not there much weekdays, teaching vocal music over here at OU in Athens).

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  40. beb said on February 23, 2012 at 4:00 pm

    Marco Rubio’s chances of becoming VP under Romney have gone out the window. Seems he was a Mormon as a youth and is still on the Mormon ledgers as one of their own. I don’t see a double Mormon ticket going anywhere.

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  41. John (not McCain) said on February 23, 2012 at 4:32 pm

    Truly, “double Mormon” has GOT to find it’s way into Urban Dictionary or something.

    “Can’t walk today – had a double Mormon last night.” But what would it be?

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  42. Dexter said on February 23, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Moe Berg was mentioned upthread. The first time a major league runner tried to steal second base on him Berg threw a strong throw which landed firmly , stuck right under the second base bag. Whether playing baseball or spying, Berg meant business.

    How did Jobs name his corporation Apple when Apple Records was already in existence?

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  43. Sherri said on February 23, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    Apple Records sued Apple Computer over the name, eventually settling with part of the agreement being that Apple not get involved with music. When Apple came out with iTunes, Apple Records sued them again.

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  44. alex said on February 23, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    Signing in from my new MacBook Pro, and I must say this site looks absolutely fabulous through my new screen. The silvery gradients, the post numbers on the left column, the crispness of the type and images didn’t come through this well on my old MacBook and some of it not at all on my PC at work which has a much larger screen.

    My only gripe is the idiotic disappearing scrollbar on the right which is being most uncooperative. Just as I try to click on it, my cursor becomes the double-arrow that widens or narrows the object on the screen. Absolutely hideous. And they don’t include manuals in the box—you have to get all of your info online.

    I caught part of the GOP debate last night and thought to myself it’s no wonder Bob Morris doesn’t see anything wrong with his tirade against the Girl Scouts. In terms of both maliciousness and falseness, it was candy-assed compared to some of the things that were said about our president on that stage.

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  45. Deborah said on February 23, 2012 at 5:40 pm

    Jeff (tmmo) cool link about your sister. The building I work in has classrooms for the School of the Art Institute on the upper floors. It’s fun to see the fashion students go in and out from time to time. You have your own personal project runway family member.

    edit: A “double mormon” oh my, what would it be, indeed.

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  46. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 23, 2012 at 6:08 pm

    She is fabulous. But still a Hoosier!

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  47. coozledad said on February 23, 2012 at 6:20 pm

    Double Mormon- In one empty bicycle headlamp place four shots of Goldschläger and two marshmallows. Bury (in secret location). Refrain from answering doorbell.

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  48. LAMary said on February 23, 2012 at 6:49 pm

    Excellent, cooz.

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  49. Julie Robinson said on February 23, 2012 at 7:18 pm

    Jeff, I bet you enjoy visiting your sister. Despite your pride for Purdue, you have to admit that IU is approximately 900% more beautiful than Purdue. I liked wandering around the campus so much I spent five years there. Changing majors five times had something to do with it too.

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  50. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 23, 2012 at 7:36 pm

    My brother and his partner live there, too; he manages a deli downtown, and plays keyboards in a band called “The Dynamics” (Blues & funk, mostly, but he sits in for all sorts of other recording gigs whether it’s Cuban Son or Reggaeton or Great American Songbook). https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dynamics/77769139191

    Yes, it’s pretty in southern Indiana. But there are not many people in Bloomington who can solve fifth-order polynomials in their heads, right? So we’ve got that going for us in West Lafayette. That, and Von’s Book Shop.

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  51. Minnie said on February 23, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    Linda @ #2: Thankfully, the most controversial and hateful aspect of the bill has been omitted. However, women seeking an abortion still must undergo at their own expense an abdominal ultrasound and must endure an onerous waiting period. Much right wing and conservative “Christian” money is influencing state legislatures to tighten controls over women’s reproductive health. Those who wish to maintain the gains women have made in the past century need to be vigilant and ready to take action.

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  52. Julie Robinson said on February 23, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    Fortunately, not many people need to solve fifth-ordered-five-syllabled equations in their heads.

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  53. alex said on February 23, 2012 at 9:48 pm

    Bloomington’s quite the cosmopolis for as small as it is and being tucked away in Appalachia. I have friends from college who never left and I don’t blame them. Its scenic charm is being compromised, though, by a lot of new cookie-cutter condos and other architectural travesties.

    Last time I was there, I had to ask a friend, “Since when did the Von Lee Theater sprout that big heinous tumor on its ass?”

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  54. Julie Robinson said on February 23, 2012 at 10:06 pm

    Oh Lordy, I haven’t kept up. The sad, sad tale of the Von Lee can be seen in every town in this country. Proudly run by a family for years, bought by a big national chain, closed by same chain and given to city with the proviso it never show movies again, now home to not one but two franchises–Noodles & Company and Dunkin’ Donuts. Read it and weep: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4364

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  55. moe99 said on February 24, 2012 at 12:31 am

    Mary McCarthy went to Garfield High School in Seattle for awhile in the earlier part of the last century. Garfield is an inner city high school the Seattle School Board resurrected as a math/science magnet and my two oldest children received a fantastic education there.

    Her early childhood was a horror.

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  56. Dorothy said on February 24, 2012 at 6:37 am

    There’s a mighty fine yarn store in Bloomington, too! I was there almost two years ago and had a wonderful customer service experience when I shopped.

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  57. Suzanne said on February 24, 2012 at 7:14 am

    Feeling old after reading the Von Lee comments. When I was a student in Bloomington, it still was a movie theater. So, now I’m feeling all nostalgic and want to go back in time and do it all over again!

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  58. alex said on February 24, 2012 at 9:01 am

    If you think Dunkin’ Donuts and a noodle shop in the Von Lee is a travesty, you’ll be heartbroken by the Student Union, where the venerable old cafeteria has been replaced with a junk food alley to beat all. The melange of garish signage and decor styles detracts considerably from the elegant old building and if you want a healthful meal, probably the closest such thing you’ll find is a granola bar in a vending machine.

    On the other hand, I see there’s an old house still standing that probably should have been condemned when I was living in it nearly thirty years ago, and it looks like it has been carved up into even more apartments than existed back then. It had a perpetually flooded basement due to a natural spring that had sprung one of the walls, and the occasional power failure would make the always-running sump pump go off and it required the landlords (some sleazy rental company) to come reset it manually. So we might go for days with a mildewy miasma coming up through the floorboards and green fuzz growing on the walls before anybody did anything about it. That’s the place where I was living when I noted an odd filigree on the edges of my soap bars—well worn ones, at that—and came to realize that those were the gnaw marks of rodents. (It’s not like I kept much food there as the place was so unappetizing.) It cost a king’s ransom to live there, but at least it was close to campus.

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  59. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:07 pm

    Srtrappong a estter, the most timorius dog ever bred, but one of the most politically photogenid, on cartop, is the most singularly and mindlessly cruel thing in the history of candidates and dog. Hosiing Seamus off and continuing on the trip? What was the wind chill factor yo fookin. Idiot? Who would do this t a dog? There is no conceivable excuse. Who’s to say. We always end up with Ms. Fischer srnglin thaat slug.

    He abused a dog. There doesn’t seem to be another way of xonaiswerinfg thia. Qhat a jerl. Sorrry, but noboddy that wasn’t a total ahole would do that to a dog. Guy’s ass is just fLililling at huanity. Please explain how Mitten’s isn’i an animal abuser? These people are the scum of the earth. So fuck ‘um.

    I don’t how to consider intelligent whack lesbia

    Not much sense considring me. I think about Johnny Mnemonic and whatever. You can talk about horseshit flesh and you can talk about brains. And one wat or abother brains count bigger. So your a self-immportant shithead. blow your ass up.
    It’s an interesting comundrum. How is a malw that finds females funny and dangerous supposed to consider girls. Cherry 2000 ias rhw mociw, I guess/ It’s brilliant.

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  60. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    Stupid mofo/

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  61. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:18 pm

    Dumbasse Gooseberry got his ass blown p, sir. Blown up sir.?
    Seriously, you Downton folks, you can’t tell me the gooseberrie story didn’t ticle your Briticisms. I say blow these bastards up. The Brits have no clue vs. the Irish. What ever whas eromgg with the Brits? They were full of xrP. WHAT AN IMMENSE AMMOUNT IF SHITE/ WHAT WAS THE FACT AND THE LAW.

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  62. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    FOLLOW ME UP TO CARLOW/

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  63. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:25 pm

    THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN BE SYCH A WIENIE YOU DENY FOLLOW ME UP TO CARLOW. IT’S THE GREATEST FENIAN SONG OF ALL RIMW;

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  64. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:41 pm

    WHAT THE HELL? NO SHIT? WHIW THE HELL IA RHW POINR? FOLLOQ ME UO TOI CARLOW. FIARCHOW DARE,

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  65. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:42 pm

    FOLLOW UP TO CARLOW/

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  66. Malvolio said on February 25, 2012 at 8:48 pm

    WHATEVER YOU MIGHT THINK I COMSIDER THINGS bout hobbits. Ypu must fw xonaiswrinfm nor likw XONAISWErion likw sqEA32

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