Gusty. Calm expected eventually.

It blew all day here, 25 mph steady and gusts a lot higher. Limbs down all over, power out to more than 50,000 customers. Knock wood and cast the evil eye aside, we weren’t one of them. Which didn’t stop me from having a fairly lousy day anyway, starting with an unexpected $300 car repair, continuing with blah-blah and salvaged only by dinner — grilled-asparagus omelets with gruyere cheese and a little slivered prosciutto. Both the cheese and the ham were odd-end leftovers. Black bean and roasted corn salad on the side, and a nice glass of wine.

And you know what? Nora Ephron is right: The best omelets are two whole eggs with a third yolk. Richer, but not too.

Remember when I said I’d be crushed for a few more days? I wasn’t kidding. Thanks anyway to my fellow Fellow Rob, who wrote yesterday to say, “your blog is still the shit.” He’s so nice. Take “the” out of that comment and it’s more accurate, but this too shall pass. I’d go dark for a few days, but I like to give y’all new threads to play in.

Any links? This:

Mrs. Romney goes shopping. In Palm Beach.

Mittens out-drawing Barry in Michigan, so far. Interesting map.

Happy Tuesday to all.

Posted at 12:30 am in Same ol' same ol' |
 

72 responses to “Gusty. Calm expected eventually.”

  1. Dexter said on April 17, 2012 at 1:24 am

    Through the miracle of the ‘nets I am friends with a progressive Jewish vineyard owner from Napa, above the East Bay in California.
    I only clarify this to point out he is a U. of Chicago graduate which in itself probably indicates he is a pretty smart fella.

    I was comparing omelet recipes with him and he chastised me big-time for using two whole eggs. He pointed out that he was advising me from the viewpoint of an eighty-four year old, and hence he has an opinion on how sixty-somethings should eat.
    He told me he has, finally, convinced his Meredith to not feed him any egg yolks, and he sternly warned me to avoid them studiously.
    I took him at the halfway point. I now use one whole egg and the whites of one egg, and I just throw yolk #2 away. Wasteful, yes. He also gave me hell for adding yellow cheese.
    Well, I know what’s keeping him alive…he can still have a glass of red wine whenever he feels like it.

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  2. beb said on April 17, 2012 at 7:53 am

    Omelets without yolks is like eating the styroform your big mac came in and throwing the sandwich away.

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  3. alex said on April 17, 2012 at 8:03 am

    beb, that might actually be the better dietary choice. Certainly more fiber and less trans fat than you’d get otherwise and you’d have better smelling breath.

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  4. Julie Robinson said on April 17, 2012 at 8:28 am

    Michelle Obama going incognito at Target vs. Ann Romney having a exclusive store shut down for four hours. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Presidential election.

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  5. MarkH said on April 17, 2012 at 9:35 am

    Can you name a McD’s anywhere that still uses styrofoam packaging for anything except for maybe a couple of the breakfast meals?

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  6. Deborah said on April 17, 2012 at 9:48 am

    Julie, so true, so true.

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  7. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 9:54 am

    Pete Shelley’s birthday, Buzzcocks front man.

    Some Catholic parish priests doing the right thing. How long until the LDS sticks it’s money and it’s Taliban envy into this situation?

    Did Macs stop using styrofoam packaging? I guess they are paragons of corporate environmental responsibility now. Except for the pig farms poisoning watersheds all over the country. All eggwhite omelets resemble frisbees. Yech. And all that styrofoam they packed eggamuffins in all those years, it’s still working up to it’s half-life in landfills everywhere, and in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Vortex. Styrofoam is similar to plutonium. It’s pretty much forever:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=pacific+ocean+trash+dump&hl=en&hs=UIp&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&

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    • nancy said on April 17, 2012 at 9:58 am

      For the TEN. THOUSANDTH. TIME. PROSPERO. ONLY TWO LINKS PER COMMENT OR IT GOES TO FUCKING MODERATION. AND I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN FREE THESE THINGS FORM THE MODERATION CAGE.

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  8. coozledad said on April 17, 2012 at 9:57 am

    Rags to riches.
    I’ve met a few trustafarians who have a clue, and therefore some humility. Then again, I’ve met a lot more who will never be anything other than vulgar arrivistes. Some families can pump out a whole bag of Kraft marshmallows, and not a one of them will ever develop a conscience. I’m betting the Romney sons Buzz, Tickles, Flakers, Scampi and Derailleur joke with each other about “that time they fought in Iraq”.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/16/1083802/-Ann-Romney-s-tale-of-struggling-We-learned-hard-lessons-living-off-our-stock-portfolio-

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  9. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 10:13 am

    Sorry, I didn’t realize when i tacked the Garbage Patch photos on.

    How is it that GOPers get away with flagrant activity intended to damage the US economy? How can anybody self-justify voting for these outright traitors? How can anybody that live-in Michigan support Willard Windsock after he did his best Press. Ford to NYC impression: Drop Dead.

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  10. Icarus said on April 17, 2012 at 10:31 am

    something I read the other day (sorry don’t have it handy to link to) said that Leonardo de Vinci around the ripe old age of 50 limited his wine intake and gave up women and meat. It doesn’t explain why?

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  11. brian stouder said on April 17, 2012 at 10:35 am

    Gusty. Calm expected eventually

    Prospero, I bow to you, sir

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  12. Sue said on April 17, 2012 at 10:49 am

    Note to Bassett from yesterday:
    You’ve mentioned a couple of times that you aren’t getting responses from us, so, just to let you know, you ARE a valued member of this community. I’ll bet if someone analyzed responses there would be a percentage of everyone’s comments that don’t get ‘picked up’. I think it happens to all of us, so don’t worry, ok? And don’t leave.
    As for myself, I frequently contribute comments of such awe-inspiring brilliance that I have to sit back and savor them before I hit the “submit comment” button. Oh, wait, that’s Cooz and he does get his due most of the time. But you know what I mean; most of the time I say something and it just sits there and sometimes it takes off, and I think that’s the way it is for most of us.

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  13. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 10:54 am

    I would have had no problem with Swamplandia winning a Pulitzer. Excellent book. Pale King was a bad joke perpetrated by the publisher. Almost unreadable. Jim Carroll’s posthumous The Petting Zoo was more like a real novel. 1Q84 would have been a good choice. Some Pulitzer fiction history:

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2017994445_apuspulitzersarts.html

    Gravity’s Rainbow was passed over though nominated. Dumbasses needed the concordance to come out before they could understand it.

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  14. Julie Robinson said on April 17, 2012 at 11:02 am

    Sorry if we make you feel that way, basset. There are a lot of times when I agree with people but don’t have a new take on the issue, and I don’t want to be a dittohead.

    And I see that I used a instead of an in my earlier comment. Typos like that make me nuts.

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  15. Deborah said on April 17, 2012 at 11:21 am

    Am I missing something? I don’t see a Basset comment in this thread.

    edit: Oh I see Sue’s comment here and that explains it.

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  16. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 11:26 am

    Arizona enacts most idiotic law in the history of laws. Does this mean Goober-nor Brewer can be held responsible for endangering an unconceived foetus when she shows up loaded at the airport in Phoenix to lecture the President?

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  17. Dorothy said on April 17, 2012 at 11:27 am

    I read nearly every single word (with one obvious exception) of comments here, and even though I nod and smile at the screen frequently, I don’t always have time or the wherewithal (is that a word?!) to reply. I did it for the first time at Julie’s comment about the shopping habits of Shelly O and Mrs. Money…err, Romney. And then I did it again on a few more of the last comments. Basset you’re a good egg (yolk included!!!) and please don’t ever think you’re being ignored. Sue @ 12 said it PERFECTLY. Sometimes we just free associate around here and if someone comments, that’s a plus, but I don’t let it offend me if I don’t set the comments section on fire with my opinions. Come sit by me, buddy. We’ll keep each other company on the sofa!

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  18. Charlotte said on April 17, 2012 at 11:29 am

    Just ruined my morning 3-minute egg because I had to run out into the yard and chase off a chicken hawk who was after the producers of said egg.
    Dexter, your old man might be right, but I’m going to follow my 101 year old grandmother’s example — chocolate, eggs, cheese — she’s still here, still bright-eyed, and still making my mother crazy.

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  19. LAMary said on April 17, 2012 at 11:38 am

    I love that photo of Ann in Palm Beach. Lots of hot pink and blue going on, and the nice touch of a areca palm obscuring her face.

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  20. Judybusy said on April 17, 2012 at 11:59 am

    I’ll toss in my two cents to Bassett–please continue to comment. If I replied to every comment I’d like to, it would become tiresome rather quickly. I also sometimes wonder if anyone notes what I say, but I just assume they do, but are restrained for the sake of a clean thread. That’s just good manners. Has anyone else wished for a “like” button ’round here?

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  21. basset said on April 17, 2012 at 12:03 pm

    I’m just being over-sensitive, thanks for the support… posting can be a challenge here, this is pretty fast company but that’s what makes it fun. particularly when I’m in the same shape as Prospero but trying not to show it.

    and I put a left arrow, capital G, right arrow in there to stand for (grin), used to do that back in the days of the 300-baud modem… but I don’t see it on the page, probably did something terrible in HTML.

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  22. beb said on April 17, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    Hey, Basset. we all need a little reassuring from time to time.

    While angle bracket “G” angle bracket isn’t an HTML command that I know of, but pretty much any time you use the angle brackets it’s going to interpreted as HTML. Use the square brackets instead. In fact I tried surrounding the angle brackets in quotes and it still treated the block as an HTML command.

    Pausing to google… The commands we’re looking for are the & sign and gt; for greater than or lt; for less than, followed by a semi-colon

    so: < G >

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  23. jcburns said on April 17, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    Comments can be just wonderful even if devoid of html frivolities and linkage aplenty and emoticons everlasting. Just, y’know, use your words, folks. Those fine, wonderful, evocative words, dashed with a punctuation mark or two.

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  24. beb said on April 17, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    Atroit has finally announced is wanker of the decade. I was beginning to think it would be the ever disapproving David Broder but I was wrong, forgetting that the definiting event of the last ten years has been the Iraq war and who was it’s #1 cheerleader….?

    Tom Friedman
    http://www.eschatonblog.com/2012/04/one-true-wanker-of-decade.html

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  25. LAMary said on April 17, 2012 at 12:55 pm

    Off topic plug for a friend. My old bud Gerald Kolpan’s new book is coming out May 1, but I think it’s available on Amazon now. The title is Magic Words and it’s had good prepublishing reviews.

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  26. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 1:06 pm

    Just when it seemed eminently apparent that Ricky Frothy could not get any stranger…, the weasel-faced jerk enrollls his three-year-old kid as a lifetime NRA member.

    RMoney’s tax plans would cut his own taxes by about half. And all his savings would go immediately to job creation, of course. Willard’s lies and the blithe facility with which he spouts them and contradicts himself is breathtaking. It’s mindboggling that anybody is dumb enough to buy his line of Pure D shinola. Of course, that cut woulld be when he gets around to filing. Filing for an extension when you have all the money in the world for sticky-fingered accountants AND you are running for President is just godawfully lame. This guy is like the political version of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless, only not that good looking.

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  27. Jeff Borden said on April 17, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    I won’t dispute that Tom Friedman is a wanker of the highest order, but think Fred Hiatt was robbed. The oped pages of the Washington Post are home to some of the shittiest commentators ever assembled in a single space. . .even worse than the loadasses who inhabit the pages of the NYT. (Man, do I miss Frank Rich!) And, of course, there is the ongoing hawkishness of the editorial department, which played no small role in our little misadventures in Iraq along with the NYT, Bill Keller and Judith Miller.

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  28. coozledad said on April 17, 2012 at 1:19 pm

    The story of Tom Friedman’s life is that old They Might Be Giants song, “Three”.
    There’s only two songs in me
    and I just wrote the third.

    Although it’s a bit of a stretch to say he had two.
    The next time they do a Twilight Zone movie, one segment ought to be Tommy getting the pulse of the nation on the eve of the war by taking various cabs, all driven by Joe Lieberman.

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  29. Bitter Scribe said on April 17, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    basset, if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a writer, both professionally and in just-for-fun things like blog comments, it’s that you never know what will get a reaction. I’ve crafted very well-thought-out (or so I believed) posts and got nothin’, then tossed off some silly thing that blew up a thread. Just write what’s in your head and your heart, and the reaction will come.

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  30. basset said on April 17, 2012 at 1:26 pm

    Meanwhile, we all just stopped work for a minute to watch the police block off the street out front so Michelle Obama could ride by. Expected a limo but it was all Yukons, Suburbans, and police Impalas, she is fundraising somewhere downtown.

    And, pasting in what Beb said:

    < G >

    that’s what I had earlier but I left out the extra spaces.

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  31. Laura Lippman said on April 17, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    Am I the only person who clicked through to the Ann Romney story and then Googled “Helga Wagner” necklaces?

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  32. Sue said on April 17, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    Ted Nugent’s threatening Democrats again, including the President. Must be an election year, or a day that ends in “y”.
    But OMG, did you hear that someone was mean to Ann Romney last week?

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  33. Jolene said on April 17, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Just heard a Elijah Cummings, a black congressman from suburban Maryland, being interviewed re the Secret Service flap on MSNBC. He said one of the concerns that arises most often in meetings with constituents is the safety of the president. Isn’t that interesting? I wonder how many white congressmen hear that concern from their constituents.

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  34. Dorothy said on April 17, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    Dammit, Laura, I meant to do that when I read the article but got interrupted! I’m off to do just that now.

    Ehhhhh, they aren’t so hot.

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  35. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    Mary, the book sounds excellent, but the full title is amazing: Magic Words: The Tale of a Jewish Boy-Interpreter, the Frontier’s Most Estimable Magician, a Murderous Harlot, and America’s Greatest Indian Chief. Sounds like Kavalier and Clay meet Little Big Man at the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Robertson Davies. I ordered, and looking forward to it. I’m getting his first novel, Etta, too. It sounds terrific.

    Borden, at NYT, they call those littlemissrunamucks. David Broder would have been an inarguable pick. Fred Hiatt too. But WaPo does have Charlie KrautHammer, who is as perfectly odious a political commentator as anybody has imagined. I know it’s cruel to say, but I can’t even look at his thumnail byline picture without immediately thinking of Will Shakes regarding Richard III: “a poisonous bunch-backed toad”. George Will is an entirely insufferable professional sophist without Bill Buckley’s wit, erudition and talent, and the ahole pretends to know about baseball, and thinks Tony LaRussa walks on water. Of course, the Post has EJ Dionne and Gene Robinson, both of whom are admirably objective compared to some of their colleagues. Exra Klein is the best nuts and bolts policy analyst and explainer around IMO, and I enjoy Greg Sargent’s political insights in the Plum Line column. Anne Applebaum is a superb writer not blessed with a sometimes stuck in the 19th Century Euro attitude. The main problem WaPo has is frequently turning over column inches to partisan jackasses like Cheney to spew propaganda. Fareed Zakaria is solid, Dana Milbank is too cutsie to believe, and Robert Kagan thinks the Cold War is still game on. In general, the rightwingers on WaPO are strident and polemical, the lefties not really.

    Most notable about those quotations from Friedman columns in the Eschaton piece: he still believes in the thoroughly debunked idea that Al Quaeda in Iraq actually had anything to do with the actual Al Quaeda. Juan Cole called bullshit on this canard immediately when the phony name popped up. Professor Cole is a lot more credible on any subject than Tommy Boy, and particularly anything to do with the Middle East. Friedman always seemed like one of those doofuses that could never get the hang of keeping Shia straight from Sunni.

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  36. Dexter said on April 17, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    Here’s a comment that may catch the eye of one person here, maybe not enough for a response, but it’s sort of on-topic for our dear leader.
    My elderly uncle and I have been aficionados of Volkswagens for decades. His farm in Indiana is home for a whole bunch of burned out VW Bugs. My last Volkswagen, a 1969 Microbus, was towed away for parts a couple years ago. I am now probably done with Bugs and Buses , Karmann Ghias and Squarebacks.

    Here’s my wise uncle’s quote, told to my brother: “Dexter and I would both be better off if we had never heard the word “Volkswagen”. ”

    So goddam true!

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  37. brian stouder said on April 17, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    Laura and Dorothy – I confess, when I scoped out that photo (and again just now) all I did was look at Ms Romney’s gams.

    Gotta say (and I rarely say this about women who are not brunettes) – Ms Romney is hot! (although the palm leaves obscuring her face reminds me of Arty Johnson). And the woman walking the other way is color-coordinated.

    The picture is almost too good…

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  38. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    Dexter, I have owned a Ghia, a Squareback, a Beetle and a VW camper in my lifetime. I liked them all. The Squareback cost us $200, hideous body but ran great. The Ghia was my first stick shift. We travelled a lot in the camper, with a canoe strapped to the top, in lieu of canine. We rolled the Beetle and totalled it in an episode that was pretty funny in retrospect after the bruises healed. Driving from Augusta to HHI, we stopped and bought some wandering jew and a spider plant in hanging pots. I was not driving, my better half was at the wheel when it became apparent our new plants had come with wildlife and there were two green anoles darting around her feet. Shortly thereafter, we were upside down in a ditch. The camper rocked, but the Ghia was my favorite. On Storrow Drive in Boston, right on the bank of the Charles, that Ghia would lose contact with the road surface with all four tires at the same time during rainstorms. What an adventure.

    Another reason it’s imperative to vote for Democrats in the Senate shitcan the unAmerican GOPer filibuster scam. Thought these bastards were Constituional originalists. Where exactly do they find the supermajority in the Constitution?

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  39. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 17, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    Laura, that’s the kind of wonderful digression that makes me cautious about checking in some days. But I think my wife’s jewelry work out of a big tackle box that tends to live on the dining room table looks more attractive, having done just what you say.

    Apparently there is much about the Palm Beach life that has escaped me. I think Florida living, and my Midwestern mind goes right to Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar.

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  40. Hattie said on April 17, 2012 at 2:28 pm

    I love your luxurious meal. I didn’t know about the tip of adding an extra yolk to omelets. Good one.

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  41. Bowditch said on April 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm

    Shades of John Muir, Dexter. His Compleat Idiot book made possible keeping an assortment of bugs, buses, even a classic Porsche Roadster that I picked up cheap in El Paso during an Army tour on the road on a grad student’s budget. The bus took the family, including dogs and cats, home to the Bay Area after my draft-tour was over, and thence on 7 cross-country trips, never the same route. Of course, the 180K miles on that van were randomly distributed over three engine rebuilds, two transmission jobs, and a decade of grease under fingernails, but Muir’s guide slew my fear of mechanical complexity forever.

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  42. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 2:59 pm

    Tennessee Tuxedo bites Gingrich’s finger. Penguin appears unharmed.

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  43. Bitter Scribe said on April 17, 2012 at 2:59 pm

    When the Republicans retake the Senate, I hope the Democrats are every bit as ruthless with the filibuster.

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  44. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 3:22 pm

    The filibuster rule, as the GOPers deploy it these days, is unAmerican and unConstitutional, and nobody could really make an argument against that claim that made any sense at all.

    Green anoles:

    http://srelherp.uga.edu/lizards/anocar.htm

    Beautiful creatures. Living pesticides of stunning grace and efficiency, with no drawbacks whatever.

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  45. Connie said on April 17, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    As a newly licensed 16 yr old driver I drove the family’s second car, a 1969 Volkswagon Fastback automatic. I saw one on vacation a few years ago, in the grocery store parking lot in Glen Arbor, Mi – colors were the same so it could have been the same one – and man was it ugly. I remember having a cool car, perhaps I was wrong.

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  46. Laura Lippman said on April 17, 2012 at 3:53 pm

    Dorothy, I agree. In ’09 and ’10, family business meant that I spent a lot of time in Boca Raton, sometimes flying via West Palm Beach. The place fascinates me, especially the notions of what is fashionable.

    I did think the society writer had a nice style, but that’s probably a prime beat there.

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  47. Scout said on April 17, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    bassett, I always love your posts. Actually, I really enjoy each and every voice around here, the latest troll (won’t give him the satisfaction of mentioning his name) excepted. Anyway, I’ve been posting comments here for at least 4 or 5 years and rarely say something that prompts reaction. I guess I just like to hear myself type!

    I checked out the Helga Wagner web page. Meh. Not my thing at all. Like Jeff(tmmo)’s wife, I prefer the do it yourself variety. I keep all my beads and supplies in a hardware cabinet with pull out drawers rather than a tackle box, but the same idea. I call myself Beadlemaniac, Classic Rock Creations. I use a lot of stone beads. (“Here Comes the Sun” just came on the radio. How’s that for synchronicity?)

    On the subject of VeeDubs… love them. Of course it helps to have an honest mechanic who is committed to keeping one’s 1998 Golf with 174,000+ miles running, and I do. This is not my first VW and probably won’t be my last. I learned on a ’68 Beetle and drove an orange Ghia for years. I always felt like Cinderella after midnight in it.

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  48. brian stouder said on April 17, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Well, my old-fogey Olds 88 has 240,000 miles, and she runs like a top. Plus, when the 16 year old wants to drive somewhere, the Olds offers more sheet metal and steel between him and whatever he’s careening toward, so there’s that, too…

    edit: “Cinderella after midnight” sounds like the title of a book that I’d pick up and leaf through

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  49. ROGirl said on April 17, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    I googled Alfred Fiandaca. Apparently he’s the society woman/politician’s wife couturier of choice.

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  50. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 17, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    I post this for no other reason than that I know we have lots of librarians around here, and I hope they appreciate the avoidance of all the usual “aren’t librarians usually geektastic mousey introverts” tropes!

    http://www.denison.edu/theden/2012/04/the-thoughtful-generalist/

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  51. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 17, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    And Brian —

    http://www.amazon.com/Cinderella-after-midnight-Fred-Zackel/dp/0698109902

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=topiSfrHA0M

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  52. Catherine said on April 17, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    I have a birthday-ending-in-0 in about 3 years, and I’m hoping that is enough time to save up and finally get my dream car, a Ghia. They can be had here in CA in reasonable condition for a few thou, and the total cost of ownership is quite low, I’ve heard — like $200/year for theft and collision. Then, I’m going to turn over the Odyssey to my kids, who will be 14 and 17 by then. It’s good to learn to drive in a whale, right? I learned on a ’78 Suburban, and only had a couple fender benders… maybe three…

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  53. beb said on April 17, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    One of the classic rock radio starions is celebrating 30 years of broadcasting with a concert of very minor rock bands headlined by… Ted Nugent. A man who hasn’t had a hit in about 30 years. I think the radio station might want to reconsider their choice of Nugent since he has now gained Secret Service attention for his violence laced anti-government comments at the recent NRA convention.
    http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/17/11249393-nugent-draws-the-secret-services-attention?lite

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  54. Scout said on April 17, 2012 at 5:32 pm

    Ted Nugent is a witch bag of pus and stupid.

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  55. Jolene said on April 17, 2012 at 5:43 pm

    There’s a memorial service for Moe in Seattle on Saturday. The announcement includes the address of the church, where, I imagine, one could send a card or memorial to be given to her kids.

    I feel so bad for them. They’re all at the launching stage of life, and they won’t be able to look back and see their mother as they graduate, start careers, get married, and have kids.

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  56. Sherri said on April 17, 2012 at 6:55 pm

    This week’s New Yorker has an excellent article on guns and America, particularly looking at how the interpretation of the 2nd amendment changed after 1980: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_lepore. One interesting factoid: the US has the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world; second is Yemen, with a rate about half that of the US.

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  57. m said on April 17, 2012 at 6:56 pm

    I’ve had ’62, ’66 and ’68 bugs. Not at the same time. I taught my daughter to drive in the ’68. I’ve had a couple of the current iteration as rentals and was favorably impressed.

    I’m not favorably impressed by the faux confidante, insider wanna be, cutesy, butt kissing, ingratiating prose written by that Palm Beach Shannon person. And fie on those mere mortals who have the nerve to be unhappy at having to wait for hours while Mrs. Romney did her shopping. And talk about patronizing your readers.

    I’ve never been to Palm Beach FL but I’ve been to Palm Springs, CA. Must be about the same if you substitute sand for water. Palm Springs has a Rolls Royce dealer, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Ferrari, Porsche, Bentley dealers and so on. All the big designers have boutiques on the Paseo. You get the idea.

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  58. Prospero said on April 17, 2012 at 7:35 pm

    The initial clause of the 2nd Amendment is clearly meant as restrictive and limiting the body of the passage. The SC interpretation defies everything I’ve ever known about grammar, and I contend it’s flat bogus. Too bad H. L. isn’t around to provide a definitive opinion.

    Anyway modern American conservative ideologues are a distinctly English-challenged group, and this is clearly a grammatical question. Sans a well-regulated militia, the Bill of Rights establishes no right to personal gun ownership.

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  59. Julie Robinson said on April 17, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    As I was taking my normal five minute stroll through Nancy’s former newspaper* I read an excellent letter to the editor, well-written and reasonable, only to see the signatures of none other than our very own Brian Stouder, along with his lovely wife Pam. Well done, sir!

    And may I mention that it contrasted sharply with the letter before it, from one of the usual suspects, which was, if I may quote, a “witch bag of pus and stupid”.

    Compare and contrast for yourselves: http://newssentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120417/EDITORIAL/120419709/1021

    *There’s so little content, that’s all the time it takes.

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  60. Jolene said on April 17, 2012 at 8:21 pm

    Ann Patchett is indignant that no Pulitzer was awarded for fiction. In expressing her frustration, she gives us a reading list—all the good books that ought to have won.

    Great job on the LTE, Brian. It’s generally the “aginners” who make noise, so it’s good to see supporters making themselves heard.

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  61. Suzanne said on April 17, 2012 at 8:40 pm

    Oh, Anne Romney. As I mentioned the other day, I know her type from interacting with my well-off relative. You don’t buy something because you don’t have any money, or you don’t buy something because you choose not to, it’s all the same thing. What Mrs. R and my relative focus on is the “not buying” part as they have no grasp of the “can’t afford to buy” thing.

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  62. alex said on April 17, 2012 at 9:04 pm

    Brian, that’s probably the only thing in years that has appeared on that page that wasn’t written by an ignorant old crank with a burr up his/her bunghole/baby chute. Good job.

    As for the Olds, it may put a lot of steel between your kid and some careening texting nincompoop but what you really need there is an airbag.

    All this talk of Karmann Ghias and such makes me long for an old Veedub except that they’re deathtraps. I had a newer Jetta but wasn’t all that impressed. Loved it and it drove beautifully but it was about as unreliable as any GM product I ever owned and more expensive to fix. I’m back to being a strictly Honda/Toyota guy encumbered with a pampered Pontiac plaything for light duty in summertime.

    Basset, you’re one of the old school here and you have a place of honor, at least in my tired old eyes, and I think for many of us your firsthand account of surviving a 500-year flood was quite impressive indeed. I hope I have your fortitude and positive outlook should I ever be faced with a disaster of such magnitude.

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  63. brian stouder said on April 17, 2012 at 9:31 pm

    Jeff, you got me laughing! I WOULD have picked up that Cinderella After Midnight book, and then been given pause by other titles by the same author, to wit:

    COCAINE & BLUE EYES, MURDER IN WAIKIKI, and TOUGH TOWN COLD CITY.

    And, I’d have paid the News-Sentinel $5.00 (or maybe more!) for the honor of (seemingly) getting to rebut Evert Moll his-own-self. That guy is the classic “Get off my lawn, ya damned kids!” sort of fellow.

    Honestly and truly, I love our school system, and especially our board and our Superintendent, Dr Wendy Robinson – who Moll dismissively refers to as a dishonest person – “Wendy”.

    Indeed, the more I read and see, the more impressed I am with our Superintendent. I am almost ready to say that she is brilliant; she’s always learning and adapting and prodding and improving. Internally, our district offers ‘choice’ and differentiation amongst the schools, and they have innovative schools co-located within schools, and they have especially challenging and specialized high schools offering advanced high school diplomas (including an International Baccalaureate program at good ol’ South Side) and college credits for selected classes; in other words, all the buzz-word pie-in-the-sky that the charlatans promise is ALREADY BEING SUCCESSFULLY DELIVERED in a very results-oriented, decisive and data-driven way.

    Our district is very forward-thinking and results-oriented, while still succeeding (magnificently) with regard to the state’s requirements. Dr Robinson and our district are more than just a step or two ahead of the Mols within our community; she’s left them in the dust.

    edit: and indeed Alex – the Olds has airbags (although not side airbags). I hope we never have to test whether those 13 year old bags actually work, though!

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  64. Sue said on April 17, 2012 at 9:35 pm

    Ok, this has nothing to do with anything, but I love the graphic:
    http://bloggingblue.com/2012/04/16/gop-laser-focused-on-jobs/

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  65. Jolene said on April 17, 2012 at 9:39 pm

    Just finished the article that Sherri mentioned at #56, which deals with the history of the Second Amendment and how our gun laws and practices surrounding gun ownership have evolved over time. Really fascinating. The NRA really must be the most insidious organization in America. Definitely recommend the article.

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  66. alex said on April 17, 2012 at 10:25 pm

    Brian—

    Good ol’ Evert. School board also-ran from a family that spells Everett (and everything else) phonetically. Actually, the school board that’s represented by the products of its biggest failures is Huntington’s, where people with no education whatsoever are quite obviously living out their revenge fantasies on teachers and administrators, the very sort of people who told them they were dumb and incorrigible. (And were right.)

    FWCS classed up its act and got rid of Jon Olinger, whose semi-literacy was so bad that Mitch Harper used to come to his rescue and provide much needed editorial assistance whenever Jon posted to Mitch’s blog with his half-baked libertarian rants. He only provided help with grammar, spelling and punctuation, however. Jon still needed a spin doctor and I doubt anyone could have helped him there.

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  67. basset said on April 17, 2012 at 10:42 pm

    Alex, sure do appreciate that… the way my mind works, if I say something and nobody responds I assume I’m being ignored even though I know that’s not always the case.

    I had a ’74 Beetle I bought just before Christmas one year and immediately moved to northern Michigan in. Maybe not the best car for winter up there, but they are good in the snow. Later, a ’79, I think, US-built Rabbit with a black interior and no air, we bought that one in Mississippi. Maybe I should just stay away from VWs.

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  68. alex said on April 17, 2012 at 11:18 pm

    Basset, I should add that what you said about that student advisor at IU who thought you were born into the wrong caste and should give up on college was powerful for me as well.

    I got similar messages in those days. These were, essentially, if you’re gay you won’t amount to anything and no one will want you, so you might as well just hang up your dreams and ambitions and lay down and die. Or be a hairdresser or florist but nothing else. I even got sent packing from a few jobs when my cover got blown. These days there’s a lot of focus on what gay teens go through in high school, but little thought about what happens to those who manage to survive that hell and go on trying to find their place in the world.

    I came back to my hometown to wrestle with those demons and as far as I’m concerned I have won. No one gives me any shit and I can hold my head high. People are respectful as I’d never contemplated. I can live as I always dreamt of living. And I’m always inspired when I see others who have made the best of the not-so-great hand they were dealt and trumped those who doubted them.

    I’m a better, humbler person for my experiences, and for having met people like you who’ve shared theirs. And that’s why this community here is so wonderful.

    To have watched Regina Cullen pass with such dignity makes me less fearful of my own mortality. We have all been blessed by each other’s company. Long live NN.C.

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  69. Deborah said on April 18, 2012 at 12:13 am

    Regarding the wealth of the Romneys: my husband’s older sister married well, as they say, and her husband, while not on Forbes list of the wealthiest can’t be far behind. It is often astonishing to me how much money they have. When they take trips or buy property it is mind boggling. it is so far out of my everyday reality I have no way to relate. We recently visited them and I think I spend half my time while there with my mouth hanging open because it is all so foreign to me.

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  70. Dexter said on April 18, 2012 at 12:53 am

    Like Alex, I am not afraid of the Grim Reaper anymore. I have seen a helluva lot of people leave my personal universe and move on to the Great Beyond, but I was physically right THERE when both my parents passed, three years apart. They showed me that dying could be done peacefully and serenely.

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  71. Dave said on April 18, 2012 at 1:11 am

    I was reading through the paper tonight, yes, five minutes worth, and I was struck by the tone of the first letter and thought, this sounds like, yes, and it was him. Then, started reading the second letter and I thought, I almost know him and I’m not surprised to see his letter of support, knowing what I know.

    One reason I still subscribe to the N-S is for the comics, I like some of the comics in that paper better than the other paper. Also, I grew up reading an afternoon paper, it always seemed normal to me. Just today, the renewal bill came, my wife, who barely picks it up some evenings, wanted to know if I was going to renew.

    I keep thinking they’ll fold someday but I guess the JOA keeps them going.

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