My old buddy Frank Byrne posted this on his Facebook yesterday. I was there the night it was taken:
Frank’s on the left. He’s a doctor, although today he runs a hospital in Madison, Wis. I don’t remember who, exactly, brought C. Everett Koop to Fort Wayne that night, but I’m sure it was a fundraiser of some sort. Koop spoke at the Scottish Rite auditorium and Frank, a pulmonologist, introduced him. It was very moving, that introduction; Frank said Koop was not only his role model, but a personal hero. He explained how Koop had accepted the job of surgeon general and seemed to be one thing — an anti-abortion conservative in the Reagan-revolution mode, with a strain of weirdness (the uniform, the facial hair) — but turned out to be something else entirely. A doctor. A real doctor, who put his patients first and didn’t care what the tobacco industry thought he should say about their product line.
What’s more, when it became evident that HIV/AIDS was an epidemic, and was killing people, he also stepped up, and did something else remarkable. He supervised the production of a pamphlet called “Understanding AIDS” that explained exactly how the virus was transmitted, using terms like anal sex and intravenous drug use and sharing needles. Politically, he was right in line with the man who appointed him, but when the time came, he was a doctor first and foremost.
Koop died this week, after 96 years of what I suspect was extremely clean living. The obituary has more, but I think that picture says an awful lot about him — the three-piece suit, the bow tie, the bulldog expression. Doctors are frequently eccentric dressers, I’ve noticed.
Oh, and the guy on the right? Mike Mirro. If you’re ever in Fort Wayne and feel a pain in your chest, and wake up to see that face looking down at you, rest assured you are in very good hands. Maybe the best.
I have to get up early in the morning to go to an all-day policy conference, so let’s keep this short. I have some good bloggage today, anyway.
How big heads became a part of college-basketball culture. A fun read about something I’ve never heard of. And it all started with Michael Jackson.
My alma mater has been known for its fine photojournalists for some time, and I’m glad to see the tradition is continuing, although nothing about this photo essay is easy to look at. (Jeff? I’m afraid it will be just another day at the office for you.) Subject: Domestic violence. Remarkable photos.
Dexter said on February 28, 2013 at 1:16 am
I did a bit of reflecting back on Dr. Koop yesterday. He ripped the tobacco industry but US Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry , in 1964, will always be remembered as the real nail hammer man in that fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQn_3hgbfM
Dr. Koop will be fondly remembered for generations for his concern and approach to AIDS education. I was always complaining about Reagan, firing off hate-filled letters to newspapers about Reagan, but he did alright in appointing Dr. Koop. Diverting money from secret arms sales to Iran to fund The Contras of Nicaragua? Not so good . Ronald Reagan…how did the country survive eight years of that senile idiot? Remember when Nancy Reagan defended her husband with this nonsense, linked here? http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/09/world/nancy-reagan-says-hearings-have-not-affected-president.html
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 28, 2013 at 6:58 am
I get to go teach peer mediation skills to a bunch of teenagers today at a center for kids who have been kicked out of their schools and do a sort of “pooled virtual” education. They want an education, or they wouldn’t have made it together to the ProTeen Center, but they have trouble functioning in the larger school context & schedule. And even just a few dozen of them regularly interacting in the common space often have sudden, sharp conflicts, and they’re trying to learn how to deal with those without calling on the lead teacher or her two adult tutors.
Almost without exception, these kids as they talk reveal, usually without intending to, or without rancor, that their homes are . . . as pictured.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 28, 2013 at 7:24 am
Make sure to read the opening essay, or you might find yourself either thinking the pictures are staged, or that the photographer is a heartless wimp. Neither is the case, and I have absolutely no trouble believing that Shane would continue his behavior even with a camera clicking nearby. (Or that the photojournalist did the right thing.)
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alex said on February 28, 2013 at 8:00 am
Our local prosecutor’s office is pretty forward-looking despite Fort Wayne otherwise being about as backward as it gets in a city this size. Because domestic abusers were usually right back to their old games as soon as they made bail, and their girlfriends or wives were always dropping charges, and the cycle would just continue and waste law enforcement resources without helping the victims, local law enforcement policy was changed so that there is now an automatic order of no contact where abuse has been reported and the woman risks getting arrested if she takes the bum back just as he stands to get busted for going anywhere near her. They also amped up the penalties for choking or battery in the presence of a child. It doesn’t stop the worst stalkers, as one local murder in the past year demonstrates, but it has made a huge difference. The courts are also pretty progressive in their efforts to get squabbling estranged couples to cooperate as regards their shared obligations as parents.
Having testified on behalf of an abused woman who was seeking to rid herself of her stalker ex-husband a few years ago, I can say that the system seems to work. The man in that case learned his lesson and has been on good behavior after having been stripped of custodial rights. He was allowed supervised visitation only and the court also ruled that he was not allowed to contact his child but the child could contact him if she so wished. (That had been a big source of contention because he’d been using the child as an excuse to call the home of his ex and harass her. She documented the dozens of phone calls and abusive voice mails she had been receiving daily since the divorce decree had been issued.)
One wonders what it must have been like for that photojournalist to be present and documenting the moment and that the guy was oblivious to her. I’m not all that surprised after seeing the ex-husband’s behavior in court that day. The self-righteous putz didn’t give a damn what anybody thought and dug himself deeper with every ill-considered outburst and he was literally fit to be tied.
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beb said on February 28, 2013 at 8:24 am
I forget what I thought of Dr. Koop when he was first nominated. Probably nothing because up till then the position of Surgeon General was a forgotten post. In any case Dr. Koop grew into his position. Pres. Clinton’s first Surgeon-General, the black lady who got fired for talking too much about masturbation as an alternative to teen-sex was also pretty smart and forthright about saying the truth and not what people wanted to hear.
I don’t have the stomach to look at the photo gallery Nancy recommends today. I do wish Jeff the best with his class on conflict resolution and hope that he will be able to get through to some of his students.
Apparently the Philadelphia school board is beginning negotiations with the teacher’s union. The board’s opening proposal is a 13% pay cut, followed by a freeze till 2017, longer hours, more unpaid duties at the school, higher health costs, oh, and the school district will no longer be obligated to provide teachers with desks, parking spaces, extra.
It bears in on Atrois comment yesterday “We are ruled by people who think $250,000 annual income means you’re poor, but the minimum wage is too high and the olds have it too good.”
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 28, 2013 at 9:05 am
Jacking my own thread, have some/many of you read the Brill piece in Time?
http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/
It is very difficult to read this through, and I concede that for those of you not blessed to be speed readers, it is staggeringly long but necessarily so, but you can’t get to the end and not think “Medicare Part E” is a direction worth considering.
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Dorothy said on February 28, 2013 at 9:24 am
That photo essay blew me away. I’m glad Maggie is being smart and getting out of that relationship. Whew.
Speaking of basketball, I just heard about these guys this morning on the Today show. I’d love to see them play in person! http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/sports/utahs-lone-peak-high-school-surprisingly-climbs-to-top-of-pack.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 9:27 am
Jeff – read it; became depressed; still pondering it.
Oxy-Rush’s response, which I heard while driving to lunch earlier this week: Time magazine and the complicit “main-stream media”*/Obama partisans are COMING FOR YOU – DOCTORS!!!
*it never fails to make me roll my eyes when big media icons decry “main stream media”. Honestly, I think that’s one of the biggest indicators of being an older, angry white person.
If you can remember watching Walter Cronkite on the TV news, then that term might have meant something…but in 2013?
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RickB said on February 28, 2013 at 9:54 am
This is waaayyy off topic, but Dennis Rodman in North Korea: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/dennis-rodman-tours-north-koreas-monuments-18616468 Nightmare scenario: Rodman riding the nose of the nuke as it plunges to earth, ala Dr. Strangelove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueuauKKjPZI
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Jolene said on February 28, 2013 at 10:21 am
Stories like Maggie’s reflect such a long, pervasive history of bad choices that it makes me tired to think about them. Two children at 19? That pretty much means no high school diploma, which is never good. A convicted felon with a problematic work history and a jealous streak? Doesn’t sound like a good bet for building a stable family. Going back to the estranged husband? Have to hope it works, but it seems more like a port in a storm than a real decision to resurrect and invest in that relationship.
People like Maggie need to be assigned a full-time person for a few years–someone whose job it is to say, several times a day, “What do you want to do here? Do you think that will work? What alternatives do you see?”
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coozledad said on February 28, 2013 at 11:49 am
A society that believes its teachers should be punished for going to work, and that healthcare should be administered to the rich alone has only one option to contain the growth of a large, sickly underclass prone to domestic violence, meth production/consumption and property crime. We’ve tried placing the burden on women for a couple thousand years, and it’s led to a perpetuation of a violently unstable society, one that can’t seem to shake what is effectively a prolonged male adolescence.
Castration lotto*, merged with existing state education lotteries, will pay for itself in no time. Rubber bands and tetanus antitoxin are cheap-the costs will be heaviest for handcuffs and the minimum detention period (some outliers might be able to claw the band off their balls before they’ve sufficiently necrosed, although this might be cheaply addressed by the use of an emasculatome). The resulting decline in aimless criminal behavior among the poors might demonstrate a way to begin addressing the identical problems among our white collar criminals and state legislatures.
*Some gotta win, some gotta lose.
Goodtime Charlie gets the blues.
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alex said on February 28, 2013 at 12:16 pm
A car in every driveway
A chicken in every pot.
A cop in every bedroom
A wand in every twat.
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beb said on February 28, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Harsh, Coolzedad. Not saying I disagree with you, but that’s harsh, man.
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 12:31 pm
Thread win!
Aside from that, I liked the Koop obit a- and the evocation of the conservative Republican party that I thought I knew, right up ’til this paragraph
Dr. Koop traced his interest in medicine to watching his family’s doctors at work as a child. To develop the manual dexterity of a surgeon, he practiced tying knots and cutting pictures out of magazines with each hand. At 14 he sneaked into an operating theater at Columbia University’s medical college. At home he operated on rabbits, rats and stray cats in the basement after his mother had administered anesthesia. By his account, not one of the animals died.
“operated on rabbits, rats and stray cats in the basement after his mother had administered anesthesia.”
So the line between Jeffery Dahmer’s trajectory, and the Surgeon General’s – might be traced to whether you look good in a bow tie, or a biblical beard?
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 12:32 pm
…and I want some elaboration on the phrase “…after his mother had administered anesthesia”
What?
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Bitter Scribe said on February 28, 2013 at 12:59 pm
One thing that really annoys me is how the bar gets lowered for Republicans. If a Republican pays attention to facts and proposes non-idiotic solutions to social problems, he or she is instantly lionized as some sort of brave maverick. Feh.
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Lex said on February 28, 2013 at 1:56 pm
I was one of those people who didn’t trust Everett Koop. I was wrong. I said so years ago, but I was so wrong that saying it multiple times doesn’t bother me in the least. He held his job at the pleasure of Ronald Reagan, but he worked FOR the American people. He couldn’t get confirmed today.
@Bitter Scribe: ’80s Republicans were bad, but they make today’s GOP look like Ike’s more liberal primary challenger. Koop couldn’t get confirmed today. Hell, he wouldn’t even be nominated.
Re that photo essay: The worst part for me was watching that little girl in her diaper try to stand between Mom and the criminal abusing her. Dear God. My wife counsels children who have witnessed domestic violence. I pray that little girl and her brother get the help they need, even as I grow less sure by the day that it will be there for them.
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coozledad said on February 28, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Alex: Indiana state motto?
North Carolina’s is “Why, yes that IS shit on my nose.”
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Julie Robinson said on February 28, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Jolene, I did that math too, and shuddered as I thought of pregnancy at 14. That full-time person asking her about her actions was supposed to be a parent. I’m not blaming the victim here, just wondering about the back story. (And at the same time, recognizing the stupid things our own kids did even though they had two full-time people in their life.)
As for health care, we’re 9 or 10 years down the road to retirement and it looks like we’ll have a decent combination of savings, pension and social security, but who can possibly save enough for major illness? Long term care policies are very costly and riddled with exclusions. Who knows what the national policy will be by then? Trying to plan is like chasing a moving target.
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 2:31 pm
who can possibly save enough for major illness?
No one can.
That overly-long article in Time magazine takes a look at even just the parts of the monster that we can see, where costs ARE known, hospital mark-ups aren’t 100% or 500% – but 1000% or 2000%, or more.
It’s like that scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation – where Rusty needs a tire repaired at a service station in the desert. The key question wasn’t “How much does this cost?” but instead “how much do you have?”.
And indeed, on these major medical treatments, it’s payment in advance – or else GOMER (get outta’ my emergency room)
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Ya know Dr.Frankenstein Bill Frith also claimed to have operated on small animals, but never talked outcomes, nor did he say the animals were anesthetized. I always thought Koop looked like the second coming of John Brown. He also looked a lot like my Uncle Paul. Pretty good pick for a Misadministration that made a Cali divorce lawyer AG and a radio proto-wingnut conspiracy theorist paranoiac for SecDef.
If you found the photos too much, don’t look at the comments. As much blame the victim as blame the photog.
Have to hope it works, but it seems more like a port in a storm than a real decision to resurrect and invest in that relationship. Well it might provide enough peace and quiet for a long enough time for Maggie to get on her feet with a job and some stability. It should be very good for the kids, who are the real reason I find the photos nauseating.
This pm, the internets are filled with debates on whether or not SUV went too far last night with the Rhianna Bobby Brown episode in which the young woman ended up dead. A majority opinion seems to be “No fair, Brown didn’t kill anybody.” To which domestic violence professionals, the show, and I say “Yet”. I once cracked a big guy over the head in Allen’s Bar and Grill in Athens GA while he was beating a wife or gf he outwieghed by about a buck two eighty. Unfazed, the huge bastard came after me. Fortunately vigilante justice took over and Gargantua took a bad beat. When the cops arrived, the ahole claimed I had assaulted him unprovoked and they put handcuffs on me. Fortunately, there were plenty of witnesses to the bastard’s behavior and I wasn’t arrested. Maybe not the smartest thing I ever did. I’m not small, but that guy was huge. He would have killed me in a fight, though I held onto the cue, considering rhinoplasty. But he was sitting on her chest and choking her, and, even at midnight in a bar, I could see he was going to kill her, and I didn’t see a choice. The DA got a conviction on an attempted murder charge and I hope that fucker got buggered in jail. Graphic witness and medical testimony made the day, and I always thought that DA did a great thing.
Scribe@16: Case in point, AEI posits a health plan GOPers embrace. RMoney installs it and it’s a GOPer Goobernatorial success story. Obama gets it through the tanktrap Congess, it’s a Communifascist Kenyan Muslim plot to destroy America. Holy crap.
Re the Bigheads, when I was in HS, there was a rival hoops team whose despispicable coach actually wore King Louis bowling shirts on the sidelines. One game, hundreds of us went to secondhand stores and bought the closest imitation we could find. Coach was put off his game, and after that always dressed in jacket and tie. I don’t much like the fan crap on freethrows, but there was one instance I thought brilliant. in a game vs. NC, the Dookies behind the basket turned their backs simultaneously to the shooter while the gym wen quiet. I think it was pretty effective.
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 2:51 pm
and speaking of medicine – the other shoe is finally dropping here in Fort Wayne:
http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/crime/michael-fabini-indicted-for-money-laundering-and-drugs
35 charges for Micahel Fabini (brother of NFL guy Jason)
But the “feel-good” Fort Wayne story right now, to me, is the one about the Fort Wayne South Side girl’s basketball team – the Lady Archers – playing for the state championship Saturday in Terre Haute.
Lots of kids who want to go will get to go, as folks all around town (including Pam & I) are kickin’ over a few bucks for tix and bus transportation.
Win lose or draw, it’ll be great!
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Lex said on February 28, 2013 at 2:51 pm
Cooz: At the rate Gov. Pat McCrory and the General Teasembly are going, soon Mississippi will be able to say, “Thank God for North Carolina” and our state government will think this is a GOOD thing.
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coozledad said on February 28, 2013 at 3:12 pm
Lex: It was starting to look better for awhile, too. When Ellie Kinnaird told us blackshirts from AFP were disrupting votes after 2010, you could see it all going to shit.
The cities ought to secede.
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 3:26 pm
I never heard of Marissa Meyer before yesterday but the idea of applying her most recent brainstorm to the US Congress has some merit.
And I’d be willing to give these gumming goldbrickers a couple of weeks fundraising vacations if they would just vote today to repeal the sequester. Everybody in the world knows its stupid and deleterious, so what should be the problem. And nextime Boner blames it on the President, someone should get him with a cream pie or throw a brogan at his orange mug. He’s had a WH bill on the subject for more than two weeks while he’s been spouting this bullshit. What a mendacious bastard Rep. Oompa is.
Brian Stouder@20: The plangent and salient question is, why do other big rich countries not suffer from this situation. The medical and health care systems in Canada, Germany, GB, France and all of Scandinavia produce results as good for half the %age of GNP, so somebody is profiteering or simply stealing in the USA. Culprit: Insurance industry.
For fans of Seth MacFarlane on the Oscars, please explain how this is funny in the slightest, rather than sophomoric LCD idiocy:
http://www.vulture.com/2013/02/seth-macfarlane-boob-song-video.html
Watts and Theron looked as if they wanted to kick his ass. They probably could.
Lady Archers is a very cool name for a BBall team, and good luck to them. I want to know how they do.
Big hair, surf guitar, whack lyrics and videos. Cindy Wilson’s Bday. B’s second best song.
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MaryRC said on February 28, 2013 at 3:38 pm
Jolene, at least Maggie’s husband is stationed in the US now; the essay says that he had been in Afghanistan. I wonder when the marriage fell apart — while he was away or when he came back.
That little girl broke my heart. What a brave little person to stick up for her mom like that.
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Jeff Borden said on February 28, 2013 at 3:41 pm
How are you all planning to celebrate Sequestration? I’m going to pour a bourbon neat and watch Congressional ratings fall even lower. Idiots, idiots, idiots.
And can I please say a hearty FUCK YOU to Huckleberry Graham in South Carolina. His fears of facing a teabagger in the primary have turned him into one of the dumbest douches in the Senate, which is no small feat.
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 3:48 pm
re: Lindsey the Louse –
hear hear!
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coozledad said on February 28, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Jeff Borden: One good thing may come out of this. We might be rid of that ass-crawling fraud Bob Woodward.
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Brandon said on February 28, 2013 at 3:59 pm
Rhianna Bobby Brown
Chris Brown. But Bobby Brown (Whitney Houston’s ex-husband) also was no prize. When he and Whitney visited Hawaii in 1997, he allegedly slapped her in the parking lot of the Kahala Mall. I still remember the news about that.
http://articles.philly.com/1997-06-04/news/25526616_1_bobby-and-whitney-kathie-lee-whitney-houston
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 4:01 pm
Domestic abuse news: Why didn’t the wholes approve this in the first place? Because it might have allowed prosecution of white men by tribal courts for offenses against Indian women, and because it might have extended protections in these programs to partners in same sex relationships. Mean-spirited, inhumane bullshit at the expense of more than half the population.
And let’s hear from anybody on the efficacy of the idiotic, unprecedented GOPer filibuster of the Hagel nomination. Just made themselves look more like stubborn buffons that DO NOT have the country’s best interests at heart. And what did they get for their mindless intransigence? As Edwin Starr would say “Absolutely Nothin'”, unless they were trying to create precedent for filibustering a cabinet appointment, or trying to erode the Constitutional foundations of Senate oversight and Advise and Consent.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/a-flabbergasted-maddow-on-gop-filibustering-congratulations-you-won-nothing/
Cooze@29: Woodward has published more whole-cloth inventions than Janet Cooke ever dreamed of, especially all of those WH conversations he puts in quotation marks. Sure thing Bob. You had hidden microphones, right? What a jerk.
The idiots have three bills to choose from currently. One from the WH, one from the House, one from the Senate, the latter two, bipartisan, all of which are better than letting sequestration happen. Those bills have languished while Boner and Yertle have tried to blame President Obama. So make ’em stay until one of those passes, or until they simply do the smartest thing and repeal the sequester legislation. Seems pretty easy to me. If they don’t do it withhold their paychecks and have the capital police prevent them from leaving their chambers.
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MarkH said on February 28, 2013 at 4:12 pm
Said something you didn’t like, eh, Cooz….
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coozledad said on February 28, 2013 at 4:18 pm
Mark H.: Actually, he lied his ass off.
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Judybusy said on February 28, 2013 at 4:38 pm
Just jumping in to share this palate-cleansing NYT story about how two gay men and their son came to be a family. I’ve been reading a bit of depressing stuff lately, (A book called “It’s Even Worse than it Looks” about the current congressional dysfunction, and an article in National Geographic about fracking in ND. And that photo essay above) so this was very uplifting. Be sure to read the first comment, which quotes a wonderful way to say grace. Right up JeffTMMO’s alley.
In other related news, a bill was introduced today in our state senate to legalize same-sex marriage. I’m optimisitic it can be passed with a great deal of work. Please wish us luck!
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 4:47 pm
MarkH: Woodward has made a fortune writing books with massive page inches of alleged conversations from inside the WH he puts in quotation marks and claims were somehow recorded verbatim. This is not only patent bullshit but, unless everybody he allegedly talked to is possessed with total mnemonic recall like Keanu Reeves, also an impossibility for human beings. All of that was just recreated scripts written by Woodward to toe the GOP and Shrub misAdministration line. And if those Shrub hagiographers were feeding Woodward from notes, they were most likely breeching all sorts of security laws and should be prosecuted
Nobody wants to talk about Hagel’s nomination being approved? As Gomer said, “Surprise, surprise”. Aholes could have been working on forestalling sequestration while they wasted time on that flea circus. Like , ya know, in the house throughout 2012, there could have been votes on four jobs and infrastructure measures sent up by the WH, none of which ever made it to a vote, while the Klowns were voting 35 times to repeal ACE. As a taxpayer, I’d like their salaries and the costs of their Cadillac Congessional health care back, now.
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brian stouder said on February 28, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Judybusy: Luck!
Pros/Cooz: word
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Jeff said on February 28, 2013 at 4:57 pm
From J. S. Woodsworth, a Canadian pioneer of social democracy, on how to say grace:
“We are thankful for these and all the good things of life. We recognize that they are a part of our common heritage and come to us through the efforts of our brothers and sisters the world over. What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all. To this end, may we take our share in the world’s work and the world’s struggles.”
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Brandon said on February 28, 2013 at 4:58 pm
Nancy, the other day you were saying that you don’t know what Antonin Scalia’s voice sounds like. As a peace offering (re: Manti Te`o), I post here a C-SPAN interview with him.
http://youtu.be/sXynIZOtKkg
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nancy said on February 28, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Thanks, Brandon. 😉 He sounds like Morgan Freeman, if Freeman were white.
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 5:26 pm
I always thought Scalia sounds like somebody on an FBI Patriarca surveillance tape. And I’ve got no problem comparing him with thugs when he says protecting the voting rights of Americans is pandering to minorities that expect “racial entitlements”. Holy shit, a Supreme Court justice said that. That should be grounds for immediate impeachment, especially when GOPers went after the privileged college-going offspring of the middle class with limited voting hours and tricked-up voter ID shit in the last election. When Roberts voted on the yes side on ACA, some observers said he was setting up a Voting Rights Act ambush. Anybody that claims racism is somehow an anachronism in the USA, down south or otherwise, is a fracking idiot or has a nefarious ulterior motive. The notion is just loony. These phonies ever hear of Volusia County or the Goobernor Rick voter registry purge? John Lewis didn’t march for an entitlement, he marched for his right to vote without infringement on that right.
What’s Scalia’s point? They’re still only 3/5 of a person as the Founders intended, but we deign to let them vote. We don’t have to go out of our ways to protect their voting rights.
Very cool story about a very bright kid.
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LAMary said on February 28, 2013 at 5:32 pm
Completely off topic:
I keep seeing these things reposted by facebook friends. “Name a movie with no s in the title,” or “name a city in Indiana with no E,” or “name a city in California with no e.”
No lie. I immediately thought of Argo, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, Indianapolis, Gary, Hammond, and Azusa, Burbank, Santa Barbara, San Francisco….
There is nothing at all hard about these questions. I read them to my son and he did as well or better than I. What’s the deal?
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nancy said on February 28, 2013 at 5:39 pm
It’s spam. You also shouldn’t fall for those “hit like and see what happens” things. Nothing happens, but it’s how you get hacked.
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Deborah said on February 28, 2013 at 5:36 pm
Good luck Judy Busy and that was a wonderful story you linked to. A good friend of mine, a gay man and his partner adopted a little girl almost 5 years ago, then when the birth mother had another child later she asked through the adoption agency whether they would adopt him too. They did, and those are the two of the luckiest kids in the world. The partner is French so the kids are bilingual, cute as buttons and smart as whips. Since Illinois passed same sex marriage they are waiting to find out what will happen in France before they marry. I can’t wait to go to that wedding.
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LAMary said on February 28, 2013 at 5:42 pm
I never click on them. I don’t click on anything in facebook. I just wonder if there is anyone out there who finds them difficult.
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Danny said on February 28, 2013 at 5:44 pm
Mary, when I have time to check out FB, I marvel at how much time people have time to waste. Farmville was my first such experience. I could not fathom people putting profile pics up of what their Farmville farm looked like.
‘nother topic:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/02/consensus-white-house-didnt-threaten-woodward-158172.html
and this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/cbs-white-house-screamed_n_995794.html
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 6:18 pm
Danny, Anything on any show connected with Dr. Laura shoule be taken with a large dose of Himalayan pink salt. She’s a fraud and a person who will say anything to cause outrage while pushing cospiracy theories. And foor once on the subject of Fast and Furious will you admit that it’s a Bush era program under a changed name, that Issa’s big scoop invetigation has fizzled because it turns out his star whistleblower is a noted ATF malcontent who is the only person in his story that actually “walked” any guns, and that if the NRA would stop opposing reasonable gun regulation, nothing like this operation would ever have happened? Ingraham’s crediblity is somewhere in the neighborhood of Michael Savage’s.
Woodward’s proble is undoubdetly that he doesn’t get the deference to which he believes with a mighty faith he is due. In a written message, in polite society, telling someone they’ll regret a statement is an acceptable way of saying “You and I know your peddling bullshit, and you’ll be sorry when that comes home to roost.
Much ado.
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alex said on February 28, 2013 at 6:41 pm
The Fast and Furious gun-running scheme was concocted by the Bush Administration DOJ with the ostensible purpose of tracing the weapons’ paths in the underworld and securing intelligence on Mexican drug lords. It was just another shit sandwich inherited by the Obama Administration from its predecessor, and it does make some good sense even if it has some unintended negative consequences. Intelligence gathering isn’t a partisan endeavor, and that’s why some of the previous administration’s other questionable programs haven’t been dismantled for the sake of mere politics.
I’m sure the Obama White House is tired of defending itself against screaming meemies in the right-wing media who say Holder ought to be sent to the gallows and Obama impeached and deported to his native Africa. It’s perfectly understandable that they’d have little patience with a bimbo from CBS revisiting this tired shit and if she were harping on Benghazigate she’d deserve no better.
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Jolene said on February 28, 2013 at 6:50 pm
Great story, Judybusy. Thanks for posting it and good luck w/ the MN marriage equality campaign. I have a whole pile of cousins there, and I know they are on your side.
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Deborah said on February 28, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Off topic: just spent some time making fire-starters out of dryer lint and petroleum jelly. Got the idea from Nancy’s friend Zach Klein who has a website for kids called DIY. It’s actually kind of a cool site if you have kids they might enjoy it, kind of a digital scout league of sorts. We have a fireplace in Santa Fe and have been buying cheap fire-starters from REI nearby but they have discontinued them. This makes me feel all tree-hugger sustainable.
LAMary, I have been seeing a dearth of those postings too, and had the same reaction you did, one that I saw was to list cities in Illinois that don’t have an A in them. Who cares?
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Prospero said on February 28, 2013 at 7:52 pm
If the sequester goes into effect, shouldn’t Congressional salaries be cut before any other programs? None of those guys will go hungry, and most of them need to, or homeless but WIC moms and kids will. Lets hear it from Congress-starving grannies.
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Deborah said on February 28, 2013 at 8:01 pm
OMG do the dryer lint fire starters work. Never buying another fire-starter again.
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Sherri said on February 28, 2013 at 8:38 pm
Prospero, let’s leave their salaries and instead cut their health insurance. Let them pay chargemaster rates for their healthcare.
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alex said on February 28, 2013 at 10:13 pm
Dryer lint and petroleum jelly? Careful, you put some ideas into some pyro’s head and there’s no telling what could happen. So you can recycle dryer lint? Good.
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Jolene said on February 28, 2013 at 10:48 pm
If you get tired of making fire starters, there are other uses for dryer lint.
https://www.google.com/search?q=dryer+lint+art&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
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