Guess what time we ate dinner tonight? Why, 8:30, which I think reclassifies it as “supper.” It couldn’t be helped — those weird bands of snow squalls that killed three people on I-75 in the morning continued all day. One minute you’d look out the window and it would be a regular old boring winter day, and the next it would be a spinning whiteout. A night to stay in, but Alan and Kate didn’t. (Bass lesson.) Hence, a late dinner.
Roast chicken, mashed potatoes and Mark Bittman’s spicy-sweet green beans. Pretty good feed for a snowy night.
The best thing I saw today was this, a Conor Friedersdorf piece on the problem with conservative cultural criticism. Roy Edroso has gone into this at some length, working from the assumption it’s difficult to consider art critically when you see it as merely another opportunity to propagandize. (I’m not going to look up links, sorry.) Truth be told, the one thing I tend to avoid, in political journals at both ends of the spectrum, is the arts coverage. The New Republic has had some good critics over the years, but ever since I sprained my eyes rolling them over a piece about “The Untouchables” in the Nation or one of those, I haven’t bothered.
It sounds like nothing much has changed:
There isn’t anything wrong with lamenting the effect songs like “Sex Room” might have on teens hearing it at their first dance. But how absurd to reduce rap to Ludacris and Sir Mix-a-Lot. And how impossibly, comically uninformed to assert that the entire genre is bereft of “human feeling.” Did the right learn nothing from its panicked, reductive reaction to Elvis Presley and the Beatles?
Friedersdorf is describing a National Review podcast featuring Mark Steyn, Jay Nordlinger and that old waste of space, Mona Charen. At one point they wonder why Kids These Days aren’t interested in the old standards. To which one can only say: Sheesh.
Much more amusing, in a good way, was the end of “30 Rock.” In honor of its last episode, a glossary of all seven years. I’d forgotten about many of these.
Oh weekend! Let me fall into your arms. I have plumb run out of gas.
MaryRC said on February 1, 2013 at 1:02 am
Am I the only one who wanted Liz and Jack to wind up together? At least they finally said “I love you”, or Liz did anyway. As for Jack’s clear dishwasher, pure genius. You can bet I would buy one.
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Dexter said on February 1, 2013 at 1:55 am
Tuesday, February 12 is Paczki Day, 2013. On January 30 I saw Walmart was selling Packzi; they had hundreds of boxes filled with the giant jelly rolls , ready for sale.
And Gomer isn’t here anymore to assist me with a CITIZEN’S Uh-RAY-est!
Well, I only eat Packzi on Fat Tuesday. Lange’s Bakery in Archbold , Ohio makes them in the wee hours of Fat Tuesday and they sell out quickly. I will have to remember to order a box a few days before. I just love those damn pastries.
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Hattie said on February 1, 2013 at 2:10 am
Well, after spending some dark days in Seattle, I got home to Hawaii, where it’s warm. But I had to endure the worst bumping around ever in the plane on the way back. So we all suffer.
Hope the weather eases up on you.
And I can’t stand Downton Abbey. One episode was enough for me to decide it was completely phony. A minority opinion, I know. I’ll take real life any day, lousy as it can sometimes be.
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Sherri said on February 1, 2013 at 2:41 am
So sorry you only had dark days while you were here in Seattle, Hattie, but there aren’t many light days in January in Seattle!
Did anybody else watch The Americans? Who knew Keri Russell could act like that?
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ROGirl said on February 1, 2013 at 5:28 am
The right wing cultural critics sound like the stuffy old farts from the era of the Beatles who tried to explicate the popularity and impact of their music on the young folk who didn’t care about chord progressions or harmonic complexities.
I was watching 30 Rock and managed to doze off for the last 15 minutes or so. Blerg.
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alex said on February 1, 2013 at 7:48 am
Never saw a single episode of 30 Rock. Saw one episode of Downton, the one where a bride got stiffed at the altar. There’s not much that can rope me in to regular viewership anymore.
As for cultural criticism, the last thing I ever read was a fawning piece about a show at the Guggenheim called the Cremaster Cycle which was by itself unwittingly damning of the phoniness of the whole contemporary artistic enterprise. If the name of the exhibit doesn’t give it away, it was intended to conjure the specter of spooge. I subsequently heard from some who had attended—and these were not philistines by any stretch—that it was so bad it was good, but not worth the price of admission or the damage to the reputation of fine art.
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beb said on February 1, 2013 at 8:06 am
I dmit to being a cultural phillistine. So Downtown Abbey, rap, 30 Rock. Couldn’t care less.
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coozledad said on February 1, 2013 at 8:16 am
Between arguing that Monty Python “unwittingly (or not) destroyed England in a way the Luftwaffe could have only dreamed of” and demanding a white history month because whites be inventing rockets* and teevee, Republican culture warriors just don’t have much range. They know in their simple little hearts their cult of the perennially aggrieved xenophobe toting a gun is the antithesis of creativity, and it aggrieves them some more.
*I wonder how it is that high school degrees can be awarded to people without at least a full survey course in the History of China(or India, or Turkey). I wonder if it has anything to do with a couple of millenia being a hair on a gnat’s ass to the inhabitants of the nation that invented paper, bureacracy, rockets, large scale cooperative organic farming, etc. etc. while the West was wiping its ass on its fingers and tossing shit on the streets of its inimical gothic hellholes.
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 8:20 am
Beb & Alex – same here; none of those shows have ever pulled me in. Even the msnbc shows that I enjoyed all through last year (mainly Rachel and Lawrence) only pull me in occasionally now. The oddball shows that still DO pull me in are semi-‘reality’ shows like The Voice and Amazing Race…or re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond
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alex said on February 1, 2013 at 8:36 am
cooz, your vocabulary and encyclopedic knowledge are the envy of the nations. Why don’t you take Frank Rich’s job and let him chill out on the farm for a while?
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coozledad said on February 1, 2013 at 8:45 am
alex: I been reading me some Chinese history to try and counter incipient what is probably early onset Alzheimer’s, or just early onset old fuckhead.
There is, as one of my Asian acquaintances says, an awful lot of it.
I’d never heard of Wang Mang before, or the Red Eyebrows Rebellion, or Erlitu. I was a history major, and never knew those things existed. that’s the kind of cultural chauvinism we used to laugh at the Soviets for.
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 8:49 am
So, I tripped across this in a trade publication, and thought ‘What the hell?!’ – hadn’t heard this on the news this morning…
http://www.petrolplaza.com/news/industry/MiZlbiYxNDcxMiYmMQ==
The first news of the incident at Pemex came from a Twitter message from the company that it had evacuated its skyscraper due to a power outage. It later said the evacuation was due to an explosion. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said in a message on Twitter that he was headed to the complex to see first-hand what was happening. Pemex, which runs all oil operations in Mexico from exploring oil to gasoline stations, has a spotty safety record.
SO then I went to CNN and found this –
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/31/world/americas/mexico-pemex-explosion/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Mexico City (CNN) — An explosion rocked the offices of Mexico’s state oil company Thursday, killing at least 25 people and injuring 101, Mexico’s interior minister said.
Dozens of people were trapped in the building after the explosion, Foro TV reported. It was unclear how many of them had been pulled to safety, or whether anyone remained stuck inside late Thursday, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told reporters.
this certainly looks like the major news story we’ll hear all weekend.
Being Mexico – there’s always the chance that this is an attack from the all-powerful drug cartel, in which case it actually does come a step closer to – what? – an overt civil war for control of the Mexican government and all their oil revenue?
Or maybe it’s our old nihilisitic friends who have no goal other than death and destruction?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 1, 2013 at 8:56 am
Hey, I’m interested in what anyone else knows about “enterprise reporting.” When did this two word phrase become the norm for, oh, reporting? Apparently it’s the right and proper way to talk about a story that isn’t in response to either breaking news or a press release/output of a media relations office follow-up, but isn’t quite “investigative journalism,” which I guess is the phrase for “I’m trying to catch a public servant doing something” now.
Our newest crop of 20-somethings at the paper all use “I’m doing some enterprise reporting, and I wondered . . . ” when they call me, and I’m wondering — has this been around a while, and I missed it until we had our latest major turnover of staff (hey, I walk into the actual newsroom maybe two times a year, tops), or is it the latest flavor of the merde?
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Snarkworth said on February 1, 2013 at 9:10 am
Jeff(tmmo), In my experience (which was long ago and far away), “enterprise reporting” was as you describe, but the term was rarely seen except as a category in journalism contest applications. Never heard of reporters identifying their work as such to the outside world.
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Connie said on February 1, 2013 at 9:16 am
Never watched 30 Rock. Or Mad Men, or Breaking Bad or most of the shows you all seem to love. Watched a few episodes the first season of Downton Abbey. For a long time I said I had never watched a reality show, but I’ve become a regular watcher of Dancing With the Stars, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and Love It or List It (HGTV). No survivors, races, voices though.
http://detroitnews.com continued to update their crash photos through the day. I was fascinated by the photos of the big equipment taking that mangled mess apart in order to clear the freeway.
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 10:05 am
Connie – Those pawn star/storage war-type shows are interesting. Over the holidays with the extended family, that stuff is pretty much non-stop.
Of the lot, I like the one where the guys go around the countryside buying odds and ends where they find them. Old pin-ball machines, odd signs, bizarre farm equipment, and so on.
The pawn broker show gets old because, really, the bald guy is simply out to hose people over…and the storage show (aside from being fairly obviously rigged) is clearly about vultures picking over the bones of other people’s misfortune.
Dancing With the Stars had me for a couple seasons – gotta love the old guy judge
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Connie said on February 1, 2013 at 10:25 am
Indianapolis had its own major pileup accident yesterday. Best headline in today’s Indy Star: Elephants briefly unloaded on I-70 after truck slides off roadway. No one got a picture or even many details.
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Connie said on February 1, 2013 at 10:27 am
Oh and Brian, those guys are Auction Hunters. The new season started this week and they have opened their own pawn store. The thing I like about them is that you actually see them sell the stuff, unlike Storage Wars where they just estimate what they think is the value.
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Chris in Iowa said on February 1, 2013 at 10:43 am
I absolutely hate American Picker, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, Top Chef, Chopped … all of those kind of shows. I like 30 Rock even though I haven’t been a regular viewer for a while.
Like Sherri @4, I watched The Americans. If the first episode is an indication, it’s going to be very good. I really liked it.
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Dorothy said on February 1, 2013 at 10:48 am
I’ve only seen a few episodes of American Pickers but I have friends whose 11 year old son loves the show. Are there several such shows? I’m always surprised there are audiences for multiple versions of the same theme.
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Bitter Scribe said on February 1, 2013 at 10:52 am
Nancy, your dinner/supper distinction at the beginning has me confused. AFAIK, people in England, Ireland and (oddly) rural and Southern America used to say “dinner” to refer to what the rest of the world calls “lunch.” I don’t know if they even still do that.
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 11:01 am
Bitter, my understanding always was that “dinner” was the biggest meal of the day (hence Sunday dinner), whereas supper is then evening meal…which could be dinner, too, if you didn’t have a big deal at mid-day. But I wouldn’t argue the point, because I have no idea whether any of that is true.
Aside from that, our oldest daughter got me a ‘history day-by-day’ calendar for my desk, wherein each day you pull the previous day off the pad, and you learn what interesting thing happened on this date. Today I learned that 223 years ago, the very first meeting of the United States Supreme Court was scheduled (bad weather in New York City – they convened at the Royal Exchange building on Broad Street – caused the actual session to be delayed until the next day)
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Prospero said on February 1, 2013 at 11:06 am
We thought The Americans was very good. I’m wondering what shit will hit the fan when Kerri Russell decides to cut her hair short halfway through.
Reality TeeVee is an abomination. Newton Minow is turning over in his grave. Duck Dynasty? Holy crap.
Paintings of bunnies and chairs.
I’ve gotten a heavy dose of Chinese 20th Century history reading Red Sorghum. Or why Chinese People Despise Japan. A very fine book, and I’m looking forward to some Mo Yan.
Did anybody else think McCain acted like an utter shitheel questioning Hagel and refusing to let him get a word in? When McCain ran for Prez in 2008, Hagel was a campaign co-chair, and McCain cited Hagel as SecDef as an appointment he would make. McPoopypants is the bitterest old man pol around, maybe ever. He questions Hagel on “the surge” when everyone with a brain can see now that whatever success the strategy produced was about buyin the friendships of warlords and tribal panjandrum Hooples with palettes of cash, while managing to get more Americans killed or maimed, while pumping another trillion into the coffers of war profiteers like Halliburton. Certainly, the idea of asking for yes/no on the subject is idiotically simplisitc and antagonistic. The problems that Sens. Oldtimer and Lindsey Fauntleroy have with Hagel seem rooted deeply in the obscene alliegance both hold for Netanyahu and AIPAC, as well as the fundiegelicals that want to see the Jews reunited in Jerusalem so they can get along with gettin’ rapchaed. Really embarrassing to see the US Senate reduced to a witch hunt Tail-gunner Joe would have loved.
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Connie said on February 1, 2013 at 11:13 am
And what’s with all the baking competition shows? I don’t watch Iron Chef or any of the cook/bake competitions.
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Catherine said on February 1, 2013 at 11:23 am
Sometimes it seems like entire Senate is turning into a bunch of whining old white male farts, led by McCain. Here is an amusing take on Hilary’s responses to all the mansplaining she endured: http://feministing.com/2013/01/24/how-to-deal-with-a-mansplainer-starring-hillary-clinton-in-gifs/
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 11:24 am
Connie – agreed. The thing is, on a singing show, or a dancing show, we (the audience) get the goodies, while the cooking shows leave the good stuff to one’s imagination. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a little of that goes a long way.
Although I suppose the Beyonce’ thing raises the question of how fair the singing/dancing competitions really are, given all the different staging choices that the show makes.
Really, the bottomline is that TV did about all it could ever do back in the ’50’s and ’60’s – with the big variety shows; and now we have segmented those shows down to their constituent parts – replacing the professional talent (in many cases) with unprofessional talent
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coozledad said on February 1, 2013 at 11:36 am
McCain doesn’t strike me as a man who could endure five minutes without a nappy and a ba-ba, much less torture. I still think he’s a complete fraud.
Nothing about that old fucker is right.
I’ve known some military brats who spent their adolescence just begging for an ass whipping, but once they got it, they stopped. What’s his problem?
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Chris in Iowa said on February 1, 2013 at 11:42 am
I agree with Connie @24 110%, which is why I’m grateful to have more than one TV in the house.
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Minnie said on February 1, 2013 at 11:48 am
It’s obvious that some of these committee members weren’t raised right. Did their mothers not stress that interrupting a speaker is rude?
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Charlotte said on February 1, 2013 at 11:52 am
Cooz — re:Chinese history etc … I did my MA at UC Davis, in large part to study with Gary Snyder (even though I’m not a poet). So Gary taught this amazing class in ancient Chinese and Japanese poetry and zen — one of those grad seminars that are about half filled with other professors. He’d come in once a week, give us a dharma lesson, and we’d talk about (mostly) classical Chinese poetry (most of which written while European society was still living in the darkest of dark ages). Fast forward three years, I’m at the University of Utah, where the profs are almost universally trained at the Ivies, especially Princeton and Yale. In a Melville seminar, discussing Thoreau, and I try to make a point about how both Thoreau and Emerson were influenced by Buddhism, which was just starting to become known in the West. Prof dismissed the entire line of inquiry as being somehow “hippie stuff.” I was shocked, really. In the UC Davis/Berkeley lit crowd it was simply assumed that Asia was a crucial part of literary history and that of course there’d been significant influence … sigh. One of the many many things that made me miserable in that Utah program.
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Dorothy said on February 1, 2013 at 12:10 pm
In the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, the meal they had at noon time was dinner. (It’s probably that way in the book, too, but I only read it twice – I’ve seen the movie lots more.) I used to think this was a Southern thing. Growing up we called the 5-6 PM meal either supper or dinner – they were interchangeable. Lunch is what I eat around mid-day.
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coozledad said on February 1, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Charlotte: That guy would have thought Melville was a hippie if the academy hadn’t told him to think otherwise. Did he even read Typee?
That’s why Moby Dick didn’t become part of the canon until Rockwell Kent drew some pretty pictures for it: it contained too many unfavorable appraisals of bullshit western morality.
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Julie Robinson said on February 1, 2013 at 12:21 pm
When I’d visit my grandparents in rural Iowa as a kid, dinner was at lunchtime, supper at night, and lunch was the snack my grandma ferried out to the field workers in the middle of the morning and afternoon. No matter what else was on the menu, every meal eaten at home featured fried potatoes. I peeled a LOT of potatoes and I still hate that kitchen chore above all others.
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Chris in Iowa said on February 1, 2013 at 12:35 pm
On the Iowa farm where I grew up, dinner was served at noon and supper was served in the evening — sometimes as late as 9:30 or 10 until my mom put her foot down and told dad he could stop working long enough to eat at 6 or fend for himself.
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Basset said on February 1, 2013 at 12:42 pm
Here’s just the house for you, then, Julie:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5301-SE-Tater-Peeler-Rd-Lebanon-TN-37090/42679859_zpid/
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alex said on February 1, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Connie, that Love It or List It show can certainly be addicting. I love watching interior decor transformations. Also enjoy seeing what a shitty house you can get for three quarters of a million dollars these days in Toronto, which is where I presume the show is taped. Makes me feel good about living in Fort Wayne and what fabulous digs you can get for a whole lot less.
Saw a funny headline this morning about Chuck Hagel having just earned his third purple heart.
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coozledad said on February 1, 2013 at 1:09 pm
Another Elvis sighting.. These guys are all over the place down here.
Ding dongs and pork skins make your ass stupid.
My wife says to be sure and watch this with close captioning. It reminds me of Kingsley Amis trying to phonetically reproduce Southern English.
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Sherri said on February 1, 2013 at 1:12 pm
My daughter’s school district requires two years of world history (the state requires one) specifically so they can spend one year focused on China, India, Japan and the Pacific, the area that tends to get short shrift in standard world history survey courses in high school. I think the West Coast tends to be more open to spending time studying the neighbors around the Pacific Rim.
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LAMary said on February 1, 2013 at 1:13 pm
The school cafeteria ladies in England are called dinner ladies.
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Julie Robinson said on February 1, 2013 at 1:22 pm
That’s hilarious, Basset. But 400K for a house on Tater Peeler Road?
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Peter said on February 1, 2013 at 1:28 pm
Alex and Connie, we watch a lot of women’s porn as well, and whenever Love It or List It is on, my lovely spouse always wants to know why real estate is so expensive in Toronto. Some of those prices make you think you’re in San Francisco or NY.
I can understand Vancouver being expensive, but there’s plenty of land in Toronto. What gives?
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Peter said on February 1, 2013 at 1:35 pm
Oh, and in honor of Ed Koch’s passing away, something I read in Time Magazine many years ago:
Ed’s in the hospital after having heart problems, and his first visitor is Mother Theresa! She’s in town with her order, heard about his problems, came to the hospital to offer him some prayers. At the end of praying, she tells him that the local nuns have run up some tickets and violations – hands them over to him and asks if he can take care of them.
Getting asked to take care of some tickets. While you’re in the hospital. By Mother Theresa. Boy, New York’s a tough town.
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Hattie said on February 1, 2013 at 1:40 pm
When I look at McCain, I see the ruin of a potentially great man.
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Connie said on February 1, 2013 at 1:52 pm
And are those Love It or List It prices Canadian or American dollars? Actually they are so close these days it probably doesn’t matter. And how do those relatively young couples buy that first house for $600,000 for a pretty standard older style three bedroom. To me that is the real question.
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Jeff Borden said on February 1, 2013 at 1:54 pm
I second the assessment of Cooz’s knowledge base. It’s not only impressive, but useful. And any assessment of world history gives the lie to the oft-repeated wingnut mantra that America is the “greatest force for good” in the history of the world. Really? Might the Chinese. . .Japanese. . .Greeks. . .Persians. . .have something to say about that subject?
The Cincinnati Public Library warehouse that was cited in the NYT story that quoted me is a treasure trove of non-fiction books, so I picked up a fairly interesting tome that looks like it might be a high school level book on World History. The gaps in my understanding of so much are large enough that Donald Trump’s ego would easily pass through. I hope this book will help at least paper over the many areas of my ignorance. I intend to begin after I finish another non-fiction title from the warehouse: “A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.” It is a slog, but also a fascinating study of plate tectonics and other forms of geology that are truly recent, like this didn’t really start in earnest until the mid-1960s. After reading the descriptions of the chaos that lives below the New Madrid, Missouri fault, I’ll not be chiding Californians about earthquakes any time soon.
Regarding conservatives and their cultural obsessions, they really do piss me off royally. Christ, just enjoy the fucking song or movie or book or don’t. I’m a very liberal liberal who loves Clint Eastwood shoot `em ups, John Woo’s crazy Hong Kong gangster films, any Quentin Tarantino flick, old school gangsta rap (from the Dr. Dre days) and I abhor real life violence and have never fired a gun. What would these douchebags make of me?
When I see these nutjob conservatives weighing in on the value of “Transformers” because the film treats American military might respectfully while trying to demolish “Hurt Locker” as anti-American propaganda, I want to scream.
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Kirk said on February 1, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Crazycatlady from previous thread:
Johnny Mathis’ long-time manager/companion was a feller from my hometown of Washington C.H., Ohio.
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Scout said on February 1, 2013 at 2:38 pm
McCain went from being a somewhat sympathetic character after the 2000 primaries to a big fat joke when he picked $Palin as his running mate to the perpetually grouchy, scolding old poop he is now. He should have quit while people still thought he was a maverick instead of an old nag.
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Deborah said on February 1, 2013 at 3:07 pm
In NY went past a theater with a bunch of News vans parked at the curb. Turns out it’s the day the documentary about Ed Koch premiers. Talk about timing!
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 3:09 pm
Scout – I think you’re exactly right.
Almost any other year, I think I’d have had to seriously consider voting for McCain. He flew off my dad’s aircraft carrier, and (as you say) was still more or less perceived as ‘his own man’, and not some brain-dead talking-points-spouting hack (like Romney). The Sarah Palin thing was a desperation move from the start, and one that he might not have been forced into, absent Senator Obama. In fact, I’d almost say – even versus Senator Obama – McCain may have won that race if he’d have picked Senator Kaye Baily Hutchinsonof Texas, back then….but here we are.
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Prospero said on February 1, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Ol’ Dan Tucker, the difference between supper and dinner.
Supper’s over, dinner’s cookin’, Ol’ Dan Tucker, standin’ there lookin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-adnK_jZn0
Then there is the first line of The Lady is a Tramp:
She gets too hungry for dinner at eight.
McCain is apparently unaware that video tape can bring his every utterance back to haunt his ass at the drop of a hat. In 2008, he touted his campaign co-chairHagel as a potential member of his prospective cabinet, as, oh the hilarity, Secretary of Defense. Does the loopy old fart not understand how them video cameras work? He’s like Carl the Lion embarrassing himself trying to stalk the antelopes with the night vision goggles in the TeeVee ad. You’re embarrasing yourself Gramps. And McCain crashed more planes than the entire Shrub fambly.
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mark said on February 1, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Hagel’s performance was horrible. If approved, he will have little authority. All of Washington is laughing at his testimony, with the ecxception of Carl Levin, who had the embarassing task of reminding Hagel of the Obama polic toward Iran.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/02/01/republican-leadership-all-options-on-the-table-on-hagel/ “It’s somewhere between baffling and incomprehensible,” a member of Mr. Obama’s own team of advisers on Iran said on Thursday night when asked about Mr. Hagel’s stumbling performance on the question during the all-day hearing.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/whose-terrible-idea-was-hagel-anyway.html?mid=google “Hagel repeatedly ran away from his own statements, at one point explaining that he wished he could ‘go back and edit that, like many of the things I’ve said, I would like to change the words and the meaning.’”
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Basset said on February 1, 2013 at 3:41 pm
>>But 400K for a house on Tater Peeler Road?
Walking distance to Wal-Mart, though, if you don’t mind hopping the fence and coming in the back way.
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nancy said on February 1, 2013 at 3:55 pm
That little spread on Tater Peeler has room for a couple of saddle horses, too, but I think any well-bred horse would die of embarrassment at having to put such a name on his change-of-address cards.
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Prospero said on February 1, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Sure Mark. Ya think maybe McCain wishes he could wipe out his promotion of Hagel as SecDef were he to have been elected in 2008? McCains questions about the surge were flat out stupid, uninformed, and decidedly unprofessional. GOPers will not be happy until they get somebody entirely beholden to Netanyahu and AIPAC over Iran. That’s no way to run the US military. Anybody that doesn’t find McCain’s behavior bizarre, rude, and incompetent is a poor judge of character and behavior.
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mark said on February 1, 2013 at 4:25 pm
Pros- McCain’s erratic behavior, at the hearing, in the past and generally, changes nothing about Hagel’s poor performance today.
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brian stouder said on February 1, 2013 at 4:40 pm
Mark – honest question: did Hagel have another bad round today?
If he goes down, the president will just pick someone that the Senate R’s will be less happy with…maybe even a member of the Democratic party – and the GOP will have expended lots of energy on their own party’s marginalization.
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alex said on February 1, 2013 at 4:46 pm
Brian, McCain wouldn’t have stood a chance in 2008 if Jesus had been his running mate. He probably knew as well as anybody that he wasn’t going to win after eight years of Shrub and choosing a cheerleader for the base would perhaps save his numbers from being any more embarrassing than they ultimately were. If he’d chosen Lieberman, as he would have liked, the base would have stayed home.
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mark said on February 1, 2013 at 4:51 pm
Brian- honest answer: yes, he did. Read the NYT Or look at what Slate had to say: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/01/chuck_hagel_confirmation_hearing_the_former_nebraska_senator_performed_poorly.html
I’d still be surprised if he isn’t confirmed.
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ROGirl said on February 1, 2013 at 5:16 pm
In England what we call dinner is tea for the servants and middle class folk. Supper is later in the evening, what the Granthams are served in the formal dining room at Downton Abbey.
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Sherri said on February 1, 2013 at 5:26 pm
I think the concept of John McCain the maverick could be better stated as John McCain the asshole. I think he would have been as much a disaster as President as Bush was had he been elected back in 2000, and in 2008, he was a joke. Even setting aside his ridiculous VP choice, his response to the financial crisis was absurd.
The Nightingale’s Song, by Robert Timberg, is a fascinating profile of McCain, Robert McFarlane, James Webb, Oliver North, and John Poindexter, all Annapolis grads and Vietnam vets, and their impact on Iran-Contra.
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Prospero said on February 1, 2013 at 6:08 pm
GOPers will never be happy with anyone as SecDef these days that does not kowtow to the Rogue State of Israel, and evince every willingness to bomb the crap out of Teheran.
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Deborah said on February 1, 2013 at 6:12 pm
Today was the 100th anniversary of the opening of Grand Central Station. I had never been before but we were at the Morgan Library looking at an exhibit of Florentine drawings (including Michaelangelo) realzed we were a few blcks away so stopped by. Quite an impressive space. Also since today is the international day of the sock I bought Little Bird a pair of funny socks at a funky shop in the station. That was easy.
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MichaelG said on February 1, 2013 at 6:49 pm
I started watching the original Japanese Iron Chef back in the ‘90s. I still watch it now and then and I like Top Chef. Padma Laxmi is a goddess. The Food Channel and the Cooking Channel have both absolutely gone down in flames with all the competition shows and with idiots like Guy Fieri.
I also have to confess to looking at those house shows. House Hunters International gives a fascinating look at how people in other places live when the show isn’t featuring Caribbean condos.
And, Cooz, it’s just the Ding Dongs, not the pork skins. I like pork skins, make them myself. Well, maybe it is the pork skins.
That $400 grand Tater Peeler palace looks like a double wide with vinyl siding.
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Sherri said on February 1, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Hey Basset, you didn’t tell us about the estate for sale right across the road on Tater Peeler: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5170-SE-Tater-Peeler-Rd-Lebanon-TN-37090/42679870_zpid/
That ain’t no double-wide. Don’t think I’d pay $3.2 million for it (and the 280 acres) either, but then, Lebanon is not among my top ten cities in Tennessee to live even were I to move back to the Volunteer State.
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coozledad said on February 1, 2013 at 7:37 pm
MichaelG: I used to eat the processed ones out of the bag doused with Tobasco. That, a Mountain Dew, a pack of Nabs, a caffeine pill, and a half pack of Marlboro lights was dinner. It’s a wonder I have an esophagus.
Nobody called me fatass in those days, though.
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basset said on February 1, 2013 at 9:23 pm
Not all that familiar with the Tater Peeler area myself, I stop to get gas on that exit once in awhile and that’s about it… had to get a local I work with to identify the Wal-Mart for me.
That house is about thirty miles east of downtown Nashville, I live on the southwestern fringes and have always preferred that area for some reason. Maybe it’s the big bridge:
http://www.kennedycatalogs.com/bridges/NatchezTrace.html
I don’t do heights very well and I’m about half scared to ride a bike over it myself. When it was under construction and the rails weren’t on yet some madman from the local climbing store drove his car out on it, ran his rope through the windows and around the roof, and rappelled all the way down.
Maybe this’ll suit you a little better, southeast of Nashville on the way down to Murfreesboro:
http://www.trulia.com/homes/Tennessee/Smyrna/sold/1283700-171-Chicken-Pike-Smyrna-TN-37167
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Suzanne said on February 1, 2013 at 10:16 pm
If I could afford a million dollar and then some home, I sure as heck wouldn’t want it on Tater Peeler Dr!
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Brandon said on February 1, 2013 at 11:35 pm
Nancy, so you didn’t watch Dr. Phil and thus learn that Manti Te`o had nothing to do with the hoax and was not using it to further his chances at the Heisman. (See you “Sad, Sad Song” post) Also, your gaydar was off. It was Ronaiah, not Manti, who was dealing with same-sex romantic feelings.
There were technical difficulties during the showing of part two this afternoon so the episode will be repeated tonight at nine Hawaii time.
I’ve never watched 30 Rock so why should I have started now. Last night’s Big Bang Theory was OK, but does anyone think the Sheldon and Amy romance is a shark-jump? And Leonard is smug.
And no, I’ve never watched Mad Men, and all those shows. So I’ll watch the last episode of Victorious tomorrow night, although the episode preview suggests an ignoble ending to a rather charming show.
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Deborah said on February 1, 2013 at 11:52 pm
Saw the play Picnic with Mare Winningham and Ellen Burstyn among others this evening, wonderful. It’s cold in NY, a real biting wind. Not as cold as Chicago right now but still. Going to the 9/11 museum and memorial tomorrow.
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Brandon said on February 2, 2013 at 3:34 am
Nancy, you were wrong about Manti:
4.nancy said on January 17, 2013 at 8:15 am
Doesn’t anyone think there’s at least a halfway decent chance he was in on the deception? He was a top-five Heisman candidate, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he thought a little human-interest angle might have put him over the top.
9.nancy said on January 17, 2013 at 9:15 am
I think he’s gay. This is the tragically-dead-girlfriend plot from the gay canon: “I cannot marry, for you see, I have this tragically dead girlfriend. My heart was buried with her. So no, I won’t agree to be fixed up with your sister, for I no longer have the capacity to love. Say, is your brother still in town? We really need to catch up. Maybe have some drinks.”
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 10:57 am
Deborah, I’m envious. Great play by a great playwright (William Inge), and to of my favorite actors. We’ve got a DVD copy of the movie version, with William Holden and Kim Novak, Cliff Robertson, Susan Strasberg, and Ros Russell.
Today is the anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, in Paris, in 1917. Read it thirty years ago and have a new copy and a concordance. It’s a good book to open at random and dip into, since it relies so little literal linear sense anyway. Maybe I’ll just read Molly Bloom’s two sentence soliloquy, the first of which is more than 11,000 words, the second of which tops 12,000. Suck on that, William Faulkner. It’s hard to believe these days that Ulysses caused such a stink among early 20th Century bluestockings.
More evidence NRA is full of bull on the subject of background checks.
The sad thing about Manti Te’o is that the whole :ennay brouhaha has damaged his draft prospects. Mock 2013 drafts all over the internet don’t even show him in the first round anymore.
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brian stouder said on February 2, 2013 at 10:57 am
Brandon – I still think Manti is gay – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
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brian stouder said on February 2, 2013 at 11:08 am
Basset – 20 years ago when Pam and I got married, we honeymooned in Nashville; did lots of museums and the Opry and so on*, and then headed out on the Nartchez Trace Parkway all the way to the Shiloh national battlefield.
I remember that just outside Nashville to the southwest was that great huge Saturn plant (at Franklin?); does anything operate there now?
Anyway – when you reach Shiloh – you’re officially in the middle of nowhere. The whole place is breathtakingly beautiful (especially in March), and very much undisturbed, despite the horrors that unfolded there 150 years ago.
We spent the night in a Holiday Inn (or some such) just over the line in Corinth, Mississippi – and they were re-tarring their roof! The whole place smelled so much like oily tar that it’s a wonder the place didn’t go up in a fireball (I think Pam was wondering just what sort of idiot she had just married)
Anyway – your remark got me to remembering….and once again I can almost smell that tar
*Didn’t go to Andy Jackson’s hermitage, but we DID visit the Belle Meade plantation house, which was very interesting
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ROGirl said on February 2, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
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coozledad said on February 2, 2013 at 12:45 pm
ROGirl: Funny, I was just thinking about the ballad of Japing Jesus this morning. I’m afraid I unconsciously plagiarized it:
Born in the desert and raised by a haint
mama had a hymen
step-daddy was a saint
Circumcised without a complaint
didn’t have an arse, barely had a taint
Jeebus, Jeebus H. Christ
said it’s OK to eat pork.*
I kept thinking of what John Hartford could do with this. Fess Parker would just get mad.
*I am running a fever.
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David C. said on February 2, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Brian, GM reopened the former Saturn plant a couple of years ago to build the Chevy Equinox. I’m glad the plant is being used because it is truly one of the most flexible plants in the industry. Saturn was Roger Smith’s folly and he should have used the billions he spent on Saturn updating GM’s engines and building better Chevys.
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 1:54 pm
Probably so David C., but that Saturn convertible was one of the best looking production cars ever in the USA.
Robert Reich on why “Entitlement Reform” is a bullshit GOP smokescreen.
Brilliant magic trick.
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Connie said on February 2, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Brian, I hope you made it to the battle of Franklin battlefield site while you were there. It is my favorite of the few I’ve been too. Also the smallest.
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brian stouder said on February 2, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Connie – saw signs, but didn’t stop. I believe that’s the one where Hood’s army was simply terminated…and was it in a sleet storm? (or some such?)
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Dexter said on February 2, 2013 at 3:17 pm
My final words on Manti Teo: Notre Dame knew the whole story, according to Manti Teo, before the Heisman award ceremony. They (regents, trustees, A.D. …coach Kelly) obviously told him to keep a tight lid on the lie and just go on about with the fantasy/lie to the press. What was the administration, on all levels, thinking of? They had to know the lid would blow off the pot soon and the whole ugly scene would unfold.
Gay “friend”, madly in love with a star footballer, says he pulled a prank on a naive Notre Dame Heisman finalist, takes all the heat (because nobody really give a shit about this clown) and absolves Manti Teo of all deception and turns Manti Teo into a victim? !
Remember, the cover-up started after Manti Teo severed all contact with University of Notre Dame and hired an agent. I still have to believe a lot of dough was involved , paid to the creep who says he faked being a girl, and a girl dying of leukemia which she contracted from a CAR WRECK !
A guy said on the radio “I don’t care if those two were slapping dicks together and this whole thing was a joke, now fans have a right to know the truth…the unfiltered truth.”
He’s right.
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Brandon said on February 2, 2013 at 4:57 pm
The sad thing about Manti Te’o is that the whole :ennay brouhaha has damaged his draft prospects. Mock 2013 drafts all over the internet don’t even show him in the first round anymore.–prospero
Hopefully, NFL teams won’t let this be a factor.
I think Manti Te`o was incredibly gullible but also that the hoax was well-engineered. Ronaiah told Dr. Phil he was repeatedly assaulted sexually as a boy, and he created the Lennay character as a way of coping. I still recommend watching the Dr. Phil interview, which should be online now.
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Deborah said on February 2, 2013 at 6:18 pm
I’m currently in the hotel bar enjoying a martini while my husband is taking a pre-opera nap. I had an amazing experience today that’s really hard to put into words at the 9/11 memorial site. I really did not expect to be so moved. We went because my husband was interested in seeing the museum building by the Norwegian architecture firm, Snohetta (with a diagonal cross through the O that I have no idea how to make on my iPhone keyboard). It’s really still pretty much of a construction site overall and the museum isn’t open yet. The thing that was so amazing was the memorial pools. Seeing photos or renderings of them is totally inadequate, you really need to experience them. Every human sense is engaged in the experience, sight of course seeing the scale of the square building footprints 30 ft deep surrounded by water cascading down the sides to a pool at the bottom and then a central void that the water empties into. The sound of the cascading water is almost overwellming. You can touch the names of the lost ones that are carved into surrounding metal panels and you can taste your salty tears running down your face. Really I cannot tell you how moving and powerful it was. It is not a calm and peaceful experience at all it conjured up the emotion of the falling buildings and what a earthshattering episode that was. I urge you all to go but I’d wait until the site is finished overall. It will be a must see timeless destination. Wow, a pathetic word to tryto encapsulate it.
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Deborah said on February 2, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Overwhelming.
Also later in the afternoon we went to a party at a friends place. This is the same guy who is friends with Tina Louise. He has this party every year and I keep hoping she will turn up again like she did a few years ago, but not this time again.
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 6:38 pm
I watched nearly four full ND games this year, and played football a lot back in the day, and have grown accustomed to watching future NFLL talent in college competition. My overwhelming impression of Te’o is that he’s kinda slow and slew-footed, and not a big hitter. In the grand scheme of things, so what. But if he’s gullible as a toddler, his NFL future is not fantastic, and I’ll be happy for the guy if I’m wrong. But inside LB? Ogletree can run rings around Te’o and he’s much stronger. My sole interest in Manti and Lennay was that it had been bugging me this guy got all the ink when there were much better college LBs, Jarvis Jones and Alec Ogeltree among them, and it appeared to be solely a function of playing for TD Jayhoo. Manti’s standout stat this year was INTs. QBs throwing INTs to MLBs are dogass QBs, or the MLBs are way out of position.
If Brandon wants to defend his fellow Islander, I won’t argue. But from a football point of view, Manti was made out to be a whole lot more than what he ever did on a field. Like the famous overrated NDer Nick Buoniconti. Slow afoot, somewhat stupid. Since I hope everyone’s life goes well that doesn’t actually cause another’s to go not well, I’m hoping for the best for Manti. I just don’t think he looks that good playing football.
Deborah, I’m enjoying your adventure and your description of the “in-flight” monument site @82 is beautifully written and evocative. My druthers would be making the pools several hundred ft. deep. You quick ctiique is eloquent and actuall caused me a frisson. Thanks greatly for the observation. Really beautifully reported. Please make sure to report your impressions wherever you wander.
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 6:54 pm
Deborah, Not to be non-PC about it, but does Tina Loise have non-gay friends. I just mean, she strikes me as an icon like Kim Hunter or Liza? Please forget I said anything. After invoking JJ, I actually got to work for the first time in a few months, On a stupid idea. An adult novel about a sentient animal companion to a hero of a great novel. And I think Kim Hunter was as good an actor as Judie’s kid was a fracking trainwreck.
Lot’s of y’all know about knitting etc. Why is it when one buys a raglan tee-shirt does the body sink to nothingness on the first wash?
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 7:02 pm
I know something about football, from having played the game. I know how to be fast and hard, mean. You probably never played, so it really doesn’t mean shit what you say, because you didn’t do it.
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 7:03 pm
Whatever you think you
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Prospero said on February 2, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Whatever you think you think. How do we look at this? You are a moron.
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Julie Robinson said on February 2, 2013 at 7:14 pm
Deborah, my husband had a similar reaction to the 9/11 memorial and echoes mine at the Vietnam War wall. What power the memorials have. I’m also enjoying the travelogue and living vicariously through you. Some day I will get there and I hope to see half a dozen shows on Broadway just to start.
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basset said on February 2, 2013 at 7:47 pm
Pros, go do a couple more shots and pass out for awhile, OK? Or at least be quiet.
Brian, we would have been in Nashville when you passed through… in 1993 I was a second-string local tv reporter, working mostly nights and weekends and never showing up in the here’s-our-wonderful-news-team promos but it was a paycheck. We live about six or seven miles from Belle Meade Plantation, and our tract house sits on what used to be Belle Meade farmland.
We had two Saturns one after the other, Mrs. B. wrecked the first… GM had owners’ conventions on the factory grounds at Spring Hill, just south of Franklin, and we went to both of them, drank the kool-aid big time and I wish GM still made em. A small part of the plant kept going after the end of Saturn making engines for other GM plants, and as David said they are now making the Equinox there.
Deborah, the general manager of the station under different owners a few years prior used to date whoever it was that played Mary Ann, never saw her at the station Christmas party though. Last I heard she was in the apparel business, specialized clothing for people who use wheelchairs, braces, and so forth, constructed so it’s easier to put on and take off.
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jcburns said on February 2, 2013 at 8:58 pm
The creator of the Etch A Sketch dies. Are flags flying at half staff in Bryan, Ohio? (Or are they shaking it off.)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 2, 2013 at 9:36 pm
What power well designed memorials have. I had a funeral today, a fit and happy and healthy 93 year old killed in a freak accident that was somewhat his fault, largely the fault of some young EMS staff. As the snow fell across the “memorial gardens,” I was almost irritated by some of the sculpture, rote and feeble in execution. The usual set of pre-cast Jesus in the garden, Jesus on a non-existent mountain looking down at the level ground around him as if looking for his dropped reading glasses, Jesus hailing a cab. It almost was worse than, no, it *was* worse than just a simple snowy hillside with a scattering of low markers and shrouded urns.
The military honor guard (the deceased had been at Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Manila, the assortment of stars to show for it, never discussed with his kids) was shaky with the cold by the time we arrived; their bugler is the new normal, a MIDI chip inside a bugle shaped delivery system held to a veteran’s alliance member’s lips and a button pushed to summon “Taps.” It sounded too perfect for a broken day like this, and thought how we might just owe Beyonce an apology, if this is good enough for today. And maybe it is. There probably aren’t enough high school trumpet soloists proficient and available each weekend to cover the steady fall of the WWII era into their graves. And the flag was folded and handed over, with the thanks of a grateful nation, on behalf of the President of the United States. Those rituals are, at least, a well-designed memorial.
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brian stouder said on February 2, 2013 at 10:40 pm
Jeff – well said. My sister-in-law’s father, another Ohio farm boy from Pioneer, passed away last year. As a kiddo he joined the USMC in 1944, in time to find himself at God forsaken Iwo Jima.
And as you say, he never spoke of it; he came right back to his northwestern Ohio farm, and did his work.
But he DID, just a few years ago, get one of those veteran’s flights to Washington DC, to see the Marine memorial and all the rest.
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beb said on February 2, 2013 at 11:48 pm
There’s a cemetery in Detroit called Mount Hope which has always irritated me. Fir4st because it’s not a mount, just a flat field, and secondly because it’s a cemetery – that’s no hope there.
My dad never talked about his time in the war. He wasn’t in combat or anything like that but he just never talked about it. He had friends he made while in the army but they were friends, not war buddies.
I’m reminded of an actor who died recently, Charles Durning, a well respected character actor, and it turns out he was there on D-Day, and in the Battle of the Bulge and narrowly escape the slaughter of Allied POWs by the Germans, just a horrific sequence of events and he came home and acted in movies as if none of that happened. I guess the only way for some people to deal with that kind of trauma is to just never speak of it. Because it’s just too far away for other people to understand.
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Dexter said on February 3, 2013 at 12:45 am
Good question, jc, but I doubt the flags will fly low. I live just a couple hundred yards from the old defunct Ohio Art building in Bryan, Ohio.
I remember when things were going well and John Havlicek flew in to promote the company’s new toy, those little cardboard backboard and plastic-rim basketball set-ups. A few years later the Killgallons decided to ship all toy production to China. The Betty Spaghetti doll, a take-off on the Barbie doll, was showcased in the local media but I don’t think they made any, or many, of them in Bryan…I think it all went to China.
Now the building houses little companies, a paper stacking business and one or two other little businesses.
This town used to have a Pepsi bottling plant and all sorts of small businesses. You ought to see it now…the big thing here now is the $63 million hospital. And , of course…a Walmart. 🙁
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Catherine said on February 3, 2013 at 1:23 am
My 94 YO FIL normally doesn’t talk much about his WWII service on a battleship in the South Pacific. He has his war stories, but they are the amusing ones about getting married quickly before he shipped out, and bringing the ship back to the East coast after the war. But when my older daughter was in 3rd grade, she did a class report on him and his service. She asked, in all innocence and with great seriousness, whether he’d ever killed someone. Boy did that spark a conversation. I think it was cathartic for him and revelatory for us.
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Prospero said on February 3, 2013 at 3:38 am
For the trollish anti-Hagel whackjobs. Somebody that knows what he’s talking about.
And for anybody that wants to continue to run down Hagel, want to discuss Condi’s mushroom cloud or Powell’s Pottery Barn theory? The surge was bullshit and McCrabby makes a fool of himself hectoring Hagel over the failed policy. It was pure Bushit. Buying friends momentarily that disappeared overnight after the money was gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXBREk72ynM
Anybody with half a brain could see this coming.
Dexter: And then there was Hal Greer’s Isiah moment in the playoffs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4fTjcJwImw
Never happened to better fellows.
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Prospero said on February 3, 2013 at 4:01 am
Who exactly are GOPer constituents?
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Basset said on February 3, 2013 at 8:18 am
Well put, Jeff… What happened to him, can you say?
And MichaelG, where are you seeing the original Iron Chef? The US version’s no better than American Top Gear.
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Basset said on February 3, 2013 at 8:26 am
My 87-year-old FIL was just out of training and on a troopship headed for Japan when Hiroshima was bombed, you won’t find a stronger supporter of Harry Truman.
Buddy Holly’s plane crash, 54 years ago today… Joe may want to add something on the dangers of an inexperienced pilot who’s not licensed to fly on instruments taking off in a blinding snowstorm.
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Scout said on February 3, 2013 at 9:58 am
Jeff (tmmo): lovely post. And I didn’t even know Jesus needed reading glasses. Usually it’s not til one hits 40.
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Deborah said on February 3, 2013 at 10:31 am
At a Starbucks waiting to go to church in Mahattan. They have such gloriois churches here we found one that promises a boys and mens choir and decided to go. Lunch at MOMA, then the Met, then the airport.
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MichaelG said on February 3, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Basset, it’s on some deep cable channel. I notice the show when surfing without noting the channel it’s on. Next time I see it I’ll let you know.
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Prospero said on February 3, 2013 at 1:43 pm
Wit and wisdom, Earl Weaver.
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Julie Robinson said on February 3, 2013 at 2:30 pm
While he was alive Charles Durning was a staple at the Memorial Day remembrance/concert in DC that PBS airs every year. He regularly wept as he spoke. If you’ve never watched, it’s worth at least one viewing. They do a wonderful job of honoring those who serve and a realistic portrayal of the high cost of service. That’s a tricky line to walk and they do it well.
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brian stouder said on February 3, 2013 at 5:01 pm
A non-sequitur: I cannot believe that the mexico City/Pemex story is so submerged
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/pemex-explosion-mexico_n_2594493.html
MEXICO CITY — A blast that collapsed the lower floors of a building in the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, crushing at least 33 people beneath tons of rubble and injuring 121, is being looked at as an accident although all lines of investigation remain open, the head of Petroleos Mexicanos said Friday. As hundreds of emergency workers dug through the rubble, the company’s worst disaster in a decade was fueling debate about the state of Pemex, a vital source of government revenue that is suffering from decades of underinvestment and has been hit by a recent series of accidents that have tarnished its otherwise improving safety record.
You have to practically Google-search the thing to even find an update on the major news websites, and I think it’s fallen off the TV news altogether.
But I say right now – and maybe I’m becoming a paranoid old codger – but I simply DO NOT believe that an “accidental” blast can occur in a modern office building, that kills 33 people.
And indeed, this whole refrain about “all lines of investigation remain open” ain’t convincing me of anything at all.
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beb said on February 3, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Julie, I did not know that Charles Durning participated in the Memorial Day programming in DC. Good for him.
And Brian Stouder, I, too, have been amazed that an explosion of unknown origin that kill 33 and wounded 121 more has been all but forgotten by the US media. It’s possible it was overshadowed by the car bombing the American embassy in Turkey. But seriously, a massive explosion with a high likelihood, or being a terrorist act and the MSM isn’t interested…
But I cam here to pass along this idea:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-agree-with-this-lets-regulate-guns.html#links
I like the idea of applying the same restrictions to legal abortions to legal gun purchases.
And by the way, while I’m not a psychologist, but Wayne Lepierre is beginning to sound fricking insane. I think he needs to institutionalized and heavy medicated for his own good.
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Joe K said on February 3, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Bassett @ 100,
Suicide comes to mind!
Pilot Joe
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basset said on February 3, 2013 at 6:29 pm
Joe, a quick Google shows that the pilot was 21 years old and had 711 hours total, 128 in type and 52 toward his instrument rating… translation for everyone else, essentially that means he would have been reasonably well qualified if the flight had been in daylight and good weather, not nearly so at 1 am in snow though.
The aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, was a classic design which stayed in production for upward of forty years, may still be for all I know… many of them have tail surfaces arranged in a V rather than the one vertical and one horizontal you usually see, the Bonanza was once known as the “fork-tailed doctor-killer” because customers with more money than sense would buy one, get in over their head, and crash it.
reminds me of when I worked in Wichita and used to fly quite often with a helicopter pilot who had 7000 hours of experience and rising, most of that in cropdusters and Vietnam and I trusted him completely. We were going somewhere at night in bad weather once and we could not see out the windows at all, he was flying by instruments and everything was good. I was in the other front seat and as always was full of questions about how things worked.
Asked him what would happen if the electrical power to the instruments failed and he explained that there was a backup circuit. Asked him what would happen if that failed and he looked at me, dead serious: “You might as well open the door and jump out because you’re gonna die.”
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basset said on February 3, 2013 at 6:37 pm
MichaelG, Jr. and I are eager to see that… my other favorite cooking show, “Two Fat Ladies,” has shown up on Cooking Channel but I haven’t run across it there in awhile.
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Julie Robinson said on February 3, 2013 at 7:02 pm
Here’s another incredibly rational and logical idea about guns: treat them like cars. You gotta have an operator’s license after learning safety, you gotta license it every year just like a car, and you gotta carry liability insurance. It makes so much sense, I’m sure the NRA would be against it. http://www.jg.net/article/20130202/EDIT09/302029999/1149/EDIT09
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Deborah said on February 3, 2013 at 7:03 pm
My spelling and writing skills as bad as they are get even worse when I type on my iPhone which is the only technology I brought on this NY trip. I’m sitting in LaGaurdia waiting for the flight back.
On our way walking up 5th Ave from MOMA to the Met, we passed George Stephanopoulus walking two cute little dogs. George is pretty little himself. So I guess that counts as a celebrity sighting, always nice to have one of those on a NY trip.
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Prospero said on February 3, 2013 at 7:25 pm
Great Deborah. I’ve decided a NYC trip is required. My second grandchild is due mid March in Boston so we’ll head up for that and stop in the City on the way home. S has never been, and last time I was there, Frank Langella was doing Dracula. We went to a matine eafter a trip to MOMA to see the Starry Night and Guernica (The latter was on loan, and a major incentive to visit, for me. I was astounded at the size of both paintings.). Set design by Edward Gorey. Spectacular. Then dinner at One Fifth and Nina Simone at the Gate. No other city in the world
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Dexter said on February 4, 2013 at 12:18 am
Deborah, George Stephanopoulos was in the Pawn Stars shop in Vegas on an episode a couple years back, buying a first edition Charles Dickens book. He’s a slight, almost tiny dude. Good eye for spotting him.
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