Leftovers.

Yeesh, a wearing day. Let’s go for some links and leave it at that, eh?

I wish I could code stuff like this.

Seriously, when we talk about how to do news for a distracted, digital audience, this is the sort of thing they’re talking about, although granted, this isn’t exactly news-news, but more of an argument on behalf of the Democratic National Committee. Content aside, it’s just a cool way to pack a lot of information in a fast, clickable presentation. Thanks, Eric Zorn‘s second, Megan Crepeau.

Ever do a Google image search for “bite the medal?” You should.

The London Olympics Sap-o-Meter. Funny.

Sorry for the short shrift, but I’m done.

Posted at 12:21 am in Current events |
 

47 responses to “Leftovers.”

  1. jcburns said on August 1, 2012 at 12:52 am

    There’s more than coding involved, Nancy. There’s actual graphic design. Probably several designers. And money. And time. (But other than that…)

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  2. Dexter said on August 1, 2012 at 1:44 am

    Monumental, important, awesome, fiery, confrontational…and he will be missed and not forgotten for many years. One thin is sure, he was never boring. Eighty-Six years of age, and of course, as his dying partner said from his deathbed, it went by all too fast. Gore Vidal, 1925-2012. Adios, you Crazy Diamond.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all

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  3. Sherri said on August 1, 2012 at 3:46 am

    The great Gore Vidal vs Norman Mailer fight on Dick Cavett’s show, as described by Cavett: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/in-this-corner-norman-mailer/

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  4. beb said on August 1, 2012 at 8:29 am

    My complaint with most news sites – ok, mostly the Free Press and Detroit News’ sites is the embarrassing lack of … news. There are about ten headlines, and five of them are about sports. There are links to other stories but instead of putting them in a small headline font, they use the same body font as the rest of the page, and all in such small type that an old guy like me tends to glance over them because they’re too hard to read. The “Protectingthe vote” site has a slick infographic but as JC notes it reflects a lot of graphic design applied to individual powerpoint slides, which means a lot of time and money. Two things newspapers don’t have.

    Gore Vidal, RIP. I read a lot of his fiction back when I was in my 20s. His historicals, never read Myra Beckingridge, never saw the movie. At the time I thought he was being outrageous for suggesting, in his historicals, that there was only one party in Congress, the “incumbent party,” but over time I’ve come to see that he was right.

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  5. Bitter Scribe said on August 1, 2012 at 9:58 am

    That bite-the-medal stuff gave a lift to my day.

    Regarding Gore Vidal: Bah. He was the only thing I’ve ever agreed with Michele Bachmann about. (Although we got there by different roads at different times. She came to despise him after reading “Burr,” which I loved; I didn’t get all the way there until I read his horrible essay about Timothy McVeigh in the Sept. 2011–yes, Sept. 2011–issue of Vanity Fair.)

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  6. alex said on August 1, 2012 at 10:02 am

    Myra Breckinridge was one of my favorite novels. The 1970 movie, starring Raquel Welch and featuring budding starlet Farrah Fawcett and by then quite dotty Mae West, was an epic disaster. In the 1974 sequel, Myron, Vidal wrote a rollicking foreword about the making of the movie, which he had no part of and which he said single-handedly destroyed the sales of his best-selling novel in only a week’s time.

    Here’s a rather good essay that gives some background.

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  7. Jolene said on August 1, 2012 at 10:19 am

    The Post has a good article about the origins and practice of dressage–just in case you’d like to bone up before Rafalca’s appearance tomorrow. The article contains a link to a video of a dressage champion in action.

    It’s amazing to think about shipping horses from all over the world for these games. Saw a bit of the eventing competition yesterday. The horse I was watching was from Australia–a looooong way from England. Does anyone know about their travel arrangements? Are there commercial shippers? Do the horses have to be drugged to stay cal on long flights?

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  8. Judybusy said on August 1, 2012 at 10:21 am

    Don’t know if it got mentioned yesterday, but Maeve Binchy died on Monday, at age 72. I came to appreciate her charming, often funny stories. The twins, Simon and Maude, who are introduced in The Scarlet Feather, remain two of my favorite fictional characters.

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  9. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 1, 2012 at 10:21 am

    NPR had a piece on TotN with their correspondent, Julie Rovner who, as it turns out, does dressage; answered all yer questions, Jolene. Easy enough to find, I hope — (EDIT: it was) http://www.npr.org/2012/07/31/157663735/equestrian-events-charm-horse-lovers-at-olympics — heading to Ohio State Fair with son. I’ll have a deep fried pickle for y’all.

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  10. nancy said on August 1, 2012 at 10:37 am

    Jeff, add some Tom Thumb doughnuts for me.

    Jolene, the international shipping of valuable horses is a mini-industry in and of itself. They generally travel in mobile stalls similar to the “cans” that go on container ships (but smaller), on freight aircraft. Their legs are wrapped and halters padded for shipping, and they generally travel with a groom who attends to one or more of them. I don’t know whether drugging is the norm, although the groom surely has it on hand, in case things go south.

    I do know that horses have the advantage, in this case, of not being keenly intelligent. If they’ve been trained well, and their surroundings are familiar enough, they’re generally OK with shipping of all sorts.

    This all costs a king’s ransom, of course. I read recently that one of Princess Caroline’s daughters, who is an internationally competitive rider, accepted a modeling contract with one of the luxury fashion houses, just so she could afford the costs associated with campaigning her jumpers around the world. In other words, it helps to be a royal, or a Romney.

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  11. Bitter Scribe said on August 1, 2012 at 10:42 am

    In my last comment, make that Sept. 2001.

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  12. Kaye said on August 1, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Ugh! I tried to read the transcript of the NPR story re: dressage. This woman is a reporter? “ROVNER: They take it very seriously over there. It is – when I was first starting eventing and actually Zara Phillips won her – helped the British win the silver medal in eventing, they have not started the…”

    On another note, there was a time when I anxiously awaited the latest Maeve Binchy book. I will have to choose one to re-read in the memory.

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  13. Jolene said on August 1, 2012 at 11:04 am

    Kaye, Julie Rovner is an excellent health policy reporter. I agree that she starts off w/ too many topics in that sentence, but the rest is clear and informative. Thanks, Jeff, for the link and for the info, Nancy.

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  14. cosmo panzini said on August 1, 2012 at 11:18 am

    Your link to the voter suppression thing—Repugs have a long history of election-fixing, they’re getting better at it than the Dems, but I saw an interesting item in this morning’s paper about something else: seems that various European diplomats have expressed concern to some of Romney’s advisers about their candidate’s railing against Europe as a socialist state, burdened by unsupportable welfare programs, blah blah blah, the usual right wing boilerplate. The Romney camp’s response was- Don’t get too worried over things said in the campaign for domestic consumption. In other words, that stuff is for the rubes, not the rest of the world. Holy shit. Is this a presidential campaign or a comedy act? BTW–Last time I heard similar things from a presidential candidate was from Nixon’s people; Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, for you younger players out there.

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  15. Dorothy said on August 1, 2012 at 11:35 am

    Hope to see you at the fair, Jeff! We took the day off and are headed there, too. Lamb sandwiches for lunch!

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  16. Jakash said on August 1, 2012 at 11:45 am

    I agree with beb’s gripe about newspaper sites at #4. From a somewhat different angle. While that graphics-laden presentation from the DNC was very impressive and user-friendly, that’s not what I’m looking for when I go to the Tribune site to find an article that I’ve read in the paper paper. I’m just looking for a simple electronic version of the printed article that I read, so that I can send it to somebody else, e.g. For some reason, this is occasionally hard to find (something about all the different sources their articles might be coming from, I believe).

    Is there some reason why they couldn’t just have a very basic list of links, somewhere on the website, of the headlines of all the articles in the paper that day, using the headlines from the print version, from which to access the articles?

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  17. brian stouder said on August 1, 2012 at 11:52 am

    Say, here’s an example of the blunt-end of government intrusion and a totalitarian approach to community organizing; a sort of “We’ll Do This My Way, and if You have an Objection, You can go Straight to Hell, Otherwise Known as our Complaint Department”.

    Oh, wait; this isn’t an example of faceless government intrusion; this is an oil and gas company telling local governments to go frack themselves, and indeed – lining up alongside their own army of lawyers, to smash any citizen or governmental entity that dares disagree with them (sorry for the confusion!)

    http://www.chem.info/News/2012/08/Material-Handling-Driller-to-NY-Stop-Local-Bans-or-We-ll-Sue/?et_cid=2775273&et_rid=44004269&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chem.info%2fNews%2f2012%2f08%2fMaterial-Handling-Driller-to-NY-Stop-Local-Bans-or-We-ll-Sue%2f

    an excerpt:

    A natural gas drilling company is taking a new tack in the industry’s fight against local drilling bans: It’s threatening to sue if New York regulators don’t step in and extinguish the prohibitions. John Holko, president of Lenape Resources, sent a letter Thursday to state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens saying a [local] moratorium prohibiting natural gas development in the Livingston County town of Avon forced his company to shut down its wells there.

    I suppose this is an admission that “you didn’t do that by yourself”. Hell, you had to hire a legal team, for one, and then sic them onto the state government, in order to roll over the local landowners and local government.

    But I bet that guy has a nice dressage horse, too, eh?

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  18. jcburns said on August 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    Yeah, the DNC thing is more of a presentation…like a powerpoint or Keynote. They’re taking you through a political argument, slide-by-slide. It’s trickier when you’re presenting journalism, the result of a lot of research. Kinda gets to the core of “when is the best form of presentation a narrative versus a slideshow?”

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  19. Charlotte said on August 1, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    My brother shipped horses for several years — domestically, in the 80s and 90s. Even back then they had video feeds in the truck cab. For international travel — horses have their own FEI passports — a really big deal, especially when it comes to vaccinations and quarantines. As I recall, Beijing was problematic that way, which is why the equine events were in Hong Kong (am I remembering that correctly?).

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  20. Deborah said on August 1, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    Cosmo would you post a link to the article about Europeans and Romney’s comments about socialism. I’d like to read that.

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  21. Prospero said on August 1, 2012 at 1:09 pm

    No matter what anyone may think of Gore Vidal, he had the brass balls to call the fraud William Buckley a proto-crypto-Nazi on television in front of Howard K. Smith, who was also a crypto-Nazi and almost swallowed his tongue when Vidal uttered the epithet. Buckley’s civilized response? “Call me that again and I’ll sock you in the face, you goddamned queer.” Vidal ignored the vulgar blowhard in patrician fashion. I missed it live. No TV where I was in Grant Park. Years later, when asked his feelings on Buckley’s death, Vidal said

    I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.

    Brilliant Cik-Fil-A screed , very good-natured delivery.

    Nutshell: ACA and women’s health issues.

    You can understand why China would be tough on equine tourists. The Chinese are expert in exporting animal-borne viruses. A world leader.

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  22. beb said on August 1, 2012 at 1:18 pm

    I’ll walk back my comments at 4 a little bit. Newspaper used to do big investigative reports on things like corruption on the school board, or kickbacks in city contracting. These would be long, multipart articles with side bars and lots and lots of tightly packed data. This would be exactly the sort of material that would show well presented as a well designed powerpoint presentation like the voter suppression article Nancy linked to.

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  23. cosmo panzini said on August 1, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    Deborah—I confess to being a troglodyte when it comes to computers and links and all that,so instead of linking to the story you wanted, I’ll just tell you I saw it in The Columbus dispatch this morning and you can find it on their site. It appears to be a feed from The N Y Times, with the head “Romney softens anti-Europe rhetoric”. Hope this helps.

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  24. Bitter Scribe said on August 1, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    Oh, shit on Gore Vidal. He can join Buckley in hell, as well as his fanboy Tim McVeigh. There’s being a contrarian, and there’s being a complete asshole, and Vidal crossed that line long ago.

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  25. brian stouder said on August 1, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    I really do not understand the Chick-fillet thing.

    Is discrimination suddenly “in” again? How long before a major chain (so to speak) denounces Americans who are not “white”, and re-segregates their lunch counters?

    Seriously, I think this is the under-tow from the Ron Paul wave.

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  26. Charlotte said on August 1, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Vidal, Gore, Mailer, Bellow — sigh. Big noisy men taking up all the air in the room. There’s no room for me in their books, which always seem to be entirely about their dicks, and I just don’t care. My father’s generation, always blowharding on and on. Can we put a stake through the heart of the idea of the singular Great American Novel now? And of the singular (usually white, usually male) Great American Novelist?

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  27. nancy said on August 1, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Here’s the story, Deborah. Money graf:

    Several of Mr. Romney’s aides said they had heard from European diplomats and leaders who felt slighted by his words. The advisers have told foreign officials that they should not read too much into statements made for a domestic political audience.

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  28. alex said on August 1, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    Yeah, and those Palestinians are all wrong to get upset about being called culturally inferior. Really, no offense intended, folks. This was just to butter up the Jews so they’d untighten their fists from their wads of cash. –Romney spokesperson

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  29. Joe K said on August 1, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    So the founder of chic-fil-a says he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, bfd. The Prez said basically the same thing a couple of months ago.
    Pilot Joe

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  30. MarkH said on August 1, 2012 at 3:02 pm

    Here’s Buckley v. Gore. Saw it live, was 17 at the time, was as amazed as my parents were.

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/flashback-gore-vidal-nearly-comes-to-blows-with-crypto-nazi-william-f-buckley-in-1968/

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  31. brian stouder said on August 1, 2012 at 3:04 pm

    Joe, in theory I’m with you.

    What has me bothered is the singularly calculated timing of this stunt, and the way people are revving up to show how proudly intolerant they are.

    I guess this may have spurred sales; certainly, the chicken guy has gotten lots and lots of free media.

    There is a real societal wen in this story, though.

    Folks are folks, and indeed, some folks have the darnedest opinions; and SOME folks flap their lips until there’s no doubt how stupid and small they really are.

    Lunchtime at a fast-food place ought not be a political decision, though, right?

    No – hell no! I’m all wrong.

    Anything for a buck/nobody helped me/keep government off my back/don’t infringe my freedom/gay people bother me/black people bother me/women bother me/other religions bother me/people who need help bother me/healthcare bothers me/where’s my taxcut?

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  32. coozledad said on August 1, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    If the Bible contained this passage, Mike Huckabee and all the other fundie douchabillies would still be sucking that fried chicken the way Lindsey Graham slides into his little black Chanel number and triple-E embroidered pumps when he’s home at the plantation:

    And Zaccheus partook from among his thirty seven wives the virgin Dorothea, his dead brother’s eldest child by his slave Intractabladda, and laid her upon a rock, to inspect her for the signs of witchery.
    The goats’ head on a stick refused to answer any questions, so Zaccheus was forced to submit the Lord’s Questionnaire in writing, to be completed in triplicate before the Flehmen response was observed in the bull, or the Assyrian was seen flogging his monkey by the waters of Babylon.

    Whereon the Lord regarded the questionnaire and said: Thou hast battered the breast of the cockerel and prepared it in the oil of the ground nut. Thus thou hath eaten uncleanly, and will surely perish from saturated fats. Get thou to the house of salads and eat of the chick pea and the raisins of Shit-em.

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  33. brian stouder said on August 1, 2012 at 3:50 pm

    looks like a thread-win!

    Imagine the drive-up

    “Say, can I get the Chick-pea happy meal, and the raisins of Shit-em salad; make that a big-sized Shit-em, while you’re at it”

    and the crackly answer – “Thou must pull ahead, whilst Sarah, half-sister of Intractabladda, brings forth more Shit-em raisins, which hath become scarce”

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  34. John (not McCain) said on August 1, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    The problem is not what Mr. Cathy says; the problem is his company gives money to people who want the government to enforce his religious beliefs on me and deny me equal rights under the law. Not only that, but one group he gave money to, the Family Research Council, lobbied the U.S. Congress in an attepmt to keep it from passing a bill condemning the government of Uganda for a law making being gay a capital offense.

    However, if conservatives want to ruin their health by choking on his cholesterol-coated chickens, go for it. It might help make America a little bit safer, a little freer and a little bit cleaner.

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  35. alex said on August 1, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    Too bad I don’t get to stay up late enough for Conan anymore. He sure filets that fundie chicken shack but good.

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  36. MichaelG said on August 1, 2012 at 4:59 pm

    Gawd, Cooz. You had me laughing out loud here at my desk. Intractabladda. Whew! More!

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  37. Joe K said on August 1, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    So what your saying is if I own a business and your, say the mayor of a major city you should be allowed to tell me I can’t operate in your city because you disagree with my political views?
    Pilot Joe

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  38. alex said on August 1, 2012 at 6:13 pm

    Daley kept Walmart out of Chicago because it was the politically popular thing to do. This is all just more of the same. It’s just politics. It’s not any different than mayors who want to keep Planned Parenthood or Islamic mosques out of their communities.

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  39. LAMary said on August 1, 2012 at 6:41 pm

    I’ve been to Chick Fil-A twice. Both times in the Denver Airport. My kids got the fun meal and the toy was a tiny copy of the The Book of Virtues the first time and a cassette of Bible stories the second time. I think I knew where the Chick Fi-A folks were coming from. Since I would have to go a lot out of my way to either support or protest what the owner of that company is about, I think I’ll just vote with my fuel consumption. They’re not getting my business.
    By the way, we chucked the Book of Virtues but kept the Bible Stories. I’m blanking on the Book of Virtues “author.” I know he was some asshole Reagan or Bush one appointee drug czar who chain smoked and had a big gambling habit.

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  40. Suzanne said on August 1, 2012 at 7:02 pm

    It was Bill Bennett. I don’t remember the particulars of the gambling thing, but I’m pretty sure he was yet another divorced and remarried family values guy. Seems there are legions of them.

    Can’t recall ever visiting Chick-fil-A. I try to avoid fast food.

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  41. Deborah said on August 1, 2012 at 7:55 pm

    A Chick-Fil-A opened near us in Chicago a year or so ago on Chicago and Rush or Wabash I forget. Littlebird and I meant to go but never did. Now I never will. I don’t think they will be able to follow through on the city’s ban of allowing them to open a new store, but it makes for good publicity for the cause, for now.

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  42. coozledad said on August 1, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    Well “night of the sammiches” has been such a success, they ought to erect a monument to Huckabee made from the bronzed amputated legs and feet of his insulin resistant herd.
    I vote for a kinetic sculpture of a big waffle fry sawing through a femur, per Alexander Calder.

    The photographs of cars lined up at the drive-thru’s militate against the argument that the US can’t be taken in a ground war. All the Chinese, or Cubans or Palauans have to do is parachute in, fry some goddamn chicken and pile it in front of a redoubt. They could call it Operation Roach Hotel.

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  43. MarkH said on August 1, 2012 at 9:02 pm

    For the record, Suzanne, Bennett lost millions gambling in Vegas. When exposed, he swore it off, than backtracked a little later on. I don’t understand how he got away with it unpublicized for so long. Also, he is still married to his only wife, Elayne.

    The Chik-fil-A brouhaha is a free speech issue, period. I agree with Bloomberg’a admonition to Emanuel. Not liking someone’s political views is no reason to keep business out of your city. Those that support the owner’s values will flock to their local restaurant, as they are now. Those that don’t, like Deborah and LAMary, can vote with their wallets and wheels and stay away, as many others are as well.

    Alex, I don’t think it’s quite the same thing as keeping Wal-Mart out. There are economic issues regarding the displacement of smaller businesses where Wal-Mart comes in that need to be addressed and I can see where a community wants to reserve the right to keep them out. We almost had a Wal-Mart here in Jackson Hole about 20 years ago. You’d think they might have succeeded as some of Waltons kids have, or had, homes here. They had a plan to put it one of the most beautiful scenic open space pastures just south of town, and the landowner had already agreed to sell. But when the three or four suited up executives went before the county commission with their pitch, they were so arrogant and dismissive of the county’s concerns, that finally, one of the commissioners stood up and said, “Let’s get one thing straight, pal. I work for THEM [pointing to the packed chamber], not you!” The place roared, of course and the Wal-Martians eventually slinked off after their request had been denied. The interesting thing out of all this was Sam Walton’s reaction. Our local weekly got a hold of a leaked internal memo, penned by Sam himself, titled, “Why We Blew It In Jackson Hole”. It appeared to be a heartfelt request of his people for a re-examination of how they go about establishing the brand in new communities.

    Sherri, thanks for that link to the Vidal/Mailer rememberance by Cavett.

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  44. Prospero said on August 1, 2012 at 9:31 pm

    Bill Bennett is astoundingly oleagiauness, it exudes from his giblets, What a remarkable shihead. ‘Bout as smart as Some racist shit like Ty Cobb. Sqame kinda racist.

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  45. Judybusy said on August 1, 2012 at 10:28 pm

    What if Chik-fil-A were saying outloud and proud they wouldn’t hire people of color or Jews? I think we’d be having a different conversation about how that kind of blatant discrimination isn’t tolerated anymore. It’s not just “politics,” which smooths over what they’re really doing: denying citizens a right to work there. If lots of people and politicians were eating there to defend the right of Chik-Fil-A not to hire/retain people of color, would we be saying, “Oh it’s a freedom of speech issue, that’s all.” I think not. But because the conservative Christians have so successfully co-opted the language around gay rights, we all fall for it. Because being gay is “against their religion” they should get a free pass on discrimination? Hell no!

    We still do not have a national law outlawing discrimination against GLBT people. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/07/enda_history.html

    This means if I move to a state that doesn’t have a state law protecting me, I could be fired for saying, “What did I do this weekend? My partner, Melissa and I went to a couple parties and weeded the garden.” Because then my jerk, homophobic boss would know I’m a lesbian and could fire me. Like, if I worked at Chik-Fil-A.

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  46. Dexter said on August 2, 2012 at 12:49 am

    I only go to Chik-fil-A on Sundays. 🙂

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  47. Danny said on August 2, 2012 at 12:42 pm

    judybusy, I have never eaten at the chicken restaurant, but I was unaware that they were firing people for their sexual orientation. Is this true? I only heard that the owner said something like “guilty as charged” when asked if he supported traditional marriage.

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