The press introduction of Detroit’s emergency manager was today. For you out-of-towners, it’s the law in Michigan that whenever a unit of local government meets a certain threshold of financial distress, the governor may appoint an emergency manager who has special powers to clean up the mess. So far, this has been deployed infrequently, but Detroit is by far the biggest city to be EM’d.
This is by no means a surprise — it’s been in the works forever, with constant maneuvering to stave it off. The city council has been rattling sabers for at least that long, with the volume set to Screech for some members. One warned of civil unrest, for instance, and defended a protest tactic that’s popped up in the last couple days: Flying wedges of cars throttling freeways down to very slow speeds. Because there’s no tactic for getting the public on your side like making people late.
But finally today, the governor introduced the man for the job, a bankruptcy specialist from D.C. with deep Michigan roots, and held a press conference. I listened to it on the radio. Kevyn Orr came across as personable, highly qualified and — very important — optimistic. Such a change of pace, an upbeat attitude about this civic disaster. So I’m feeling good about this, even though this is going to be a bloody damn job and still likely to be impossible.
Oh, well. As the city motto says, “We hope for better things.”
Today’s Our Bloody Nation story comes from upstate New York, where a mass shooter shot a bunch of people and then fled, barricading himself before being shot and killed by police. The final victim:
A police robot equipped with a camera was ready, but its use may have been limited because the gunman’s hiding place was littered with debris.
So a tactical dog named Ape, equipped with a camera, went into the building first on Thursday, followed by agents with the State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Ape, a Czech German Shepherd, was shot in the chest just as he breached the doorway.
Ape didn’t make it. One of the women in our Lansing office has a Czech German Shepherd puppy, and boy, is that dog adorable. Of course, all puppies are adorable. Poor Ape.
I’ve been purposely avoiding all this Lean In crap, because I’ve lived through about nine million women’s-career-book publicity blitzes in my life, and I have a feeling this one won’t change anything. But I did think this column, taking issue with Sheryl Sandberg’s book, was very good.
All this talk about the new pope inspired me to seek out the craziest Catholic website I have EVer seen, Tradition in Action. I suggest you start at the Cultural section, but clear your calendar first. That thing is a serious wormhole.
You could be there all weekend. See you Monday, then. And beware the Ides of March.
Dexter said on March 15, 2013 at 2:03 am
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/lat311moore/LAT311images/lat311images2/camuccini.jpg
Et tu, _ _ _ _ _ ?
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basset said on March 15, 2013 at 6:12 am
“I’m your vehicle, baby, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go…”
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 15, 2013 at 6:31 am
“Great God in heaven you know I love you . . .”
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 7:44 am
White House tours cut by sequestration. Fox News is up in arms. Obviously more serious than cuts to Head Start and WIC. Isn’t Emergency Manager the sort of big gummint intervention in local matters GOPers are supposed to abhor?
Jim Peterik, Berwyn, Illinois’ answer to David Clayton Thomas. And according to Wikipedia, they are still around.
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alex said on March 15, 2013 at 8:01 am
Pros, your Peterik link didn’t take, but I just wanted to give him a plug. I bought an MP3 of one of his songs a couple of years ago. He’s working in the smooth jazz genre these days doing instrumentals but has a long history as a writer of pop music and what I found interesting about some of his more recent work is how much it reminded me of Todd Rundgren in the ’70s. Never bothered to check it out but wondered if maybe he had some ties to Rundgren.
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Kim said on March 15, 2013 at 8:03 am
Jim Peterik was all of 16 years old when he wrote “Vehicle.”
And those guys are still around – Bob NG, have you seen them at Vesecky’s lately?
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beb said on March 15, 2013 at 8:22 am
I shot my wad about the Emergency Manager on yesterday’s thread. Should have waited until Nancy formally introduced the topic to the blog. The EM for the Detroit Public Schools as not fixed their problems, in fact he brought a wehole new level of corruption to the organization. I don’t Detroit’s EM being able to fix anything here either.
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nancy said on March 15, 2013 at 8:34 am
You’re not alone. Bankruptcy is likely the only option. But, y’know: Speramus meliora
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Andrea said on March 15, 2013 at 8:54 am
Wormhole, indeed. Or maybe a time machine back to 1950. Tennis shoes, black clothing, fast food, maternity clothes – all sinful! The movie reviews section was just as entertaining as the cultural section – “Brave” is “feminist, vulgar and progressivist.”
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Danny said on March 15, 2013 at 9:08 am
Andrea Peyser isn’t buying what Sheryl is selling either:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/women_worst_enemy_sjGvDqEhR54DfmBOsMLc9K
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 9:09 am
Kim@6: Stevie Winwood was 16 when he made I’m a Man with Spencer Davis.
Sweet Valley High. Never read ’em. Tom Swift was more my line and Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu. But I kinda like this woman.
And of course, that “Catholic” website has absolutely nothing to do with modern American Catholicism.
And in breaking news, Kommissar Karl Rove says RMoney is still going to beat Pope Francis.
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Mark P. said on March 15, 2013 at 9:37 am
Yes, poor Ape. The rationale is that it’s better to let a dog get killed than a human. I disagree. It’s better to avoid having any living thing killed unless it’s absolutely necessary. I think it was not necessary; sometimes waiting solves the problem. But the police are men of action, and men of action don’t wait, they bravely go in. Or send a dog in.
And don’t get me started on the FBI.
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Peter said on March 15, 2013 at 9:38 am
I swear I’ve been through that site before -did you reference it some time back, Nancy?
I don’t know why, but when I check that site out all I can think of is Lyndon LaRouche – you read some of his stuff, and it has the same tut-tut tone all over it.
And I am so ticked – I was going to link what I think is the best version of Julius Caesar, performed by Bobby Bittman and the rest of SCTV, but the only like I could find was corrupted (and no, not by 3CP1 Moscow Is Today)
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brian stouder said on March 15, 2013 at 9:50 am
As much as I love-love-love Rachel Maddow, I thought she was off in the weeds last night, with her heavily simplified “it’s ALL about racism” analysis of Michigan’s EM law.
But indeed, that is certainly an important (or integral) part of it.
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 10:01 am
Gun nuts are nuts.
If the GOPers are so worried about their message, how do they support EM law and taking land by eminent domain for the Pipeline? Anathema, no?
The EM law is union-busting as much as the Pinkertons were. And as much as unions became coopted, we could use the wild and wooly union days back in America.
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 10:04 am
Brian, you can put lipstick on Boner and Yertle, but what bothers them most about the President is that he’s the wrong color. In no uncertain terms. That is exactly what frosts their lily-white asses.
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coozledad said on March 15, 2013 at 10:09 am
Andrea Peyser’s cobwebbed pussy writes bitterly about dirty women doing dirty things that Andrea Peyser’s cobwebbed pussy would not be willing to shake the dust out of itself for, because it already gets a paycheck for revisiting the moral panics of the nineteenth century. Her take on virtually anything can be reduced to this.
And she is a documented cat-tormentor as well as a neurasthenic shithouse rat.
Seriously Danny, do you read anything that has taken the past seventy-five years into account? Anything that doesn’t reinforce that sadass fundie worldview?
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Danny said on March 15, 2013 at 10:20 am
Easy, killer. I never read Peyser. Just was reading what Nancy wrote about Sandberg (who I knew nothing about), did a search and followed a link.
Off topic, I had two weird close-call things this week.
First, the power went out in my dentist’s office while I was in the chair still. Thankfully it was towards the end of the visit because I was getting a crown on a cracked molar and if the power had gone 15 minutes earlier, I would have been sitting there with an exposed root and no crown. And I have a very precise, German dentist… “Ezzz it saaafe?”
Second, Wednesday night was the first evening group hike since the time change, so we started in daylight and ended in the dark. There were five of us on a 10-miler in the outback and just as it was getting dark enough to consider using a headlight, I heard something behind me that sounded like a really loud cicada. I looked back to see Enrique (who had been behind me and who had turned on his light a minute or two beforehand) standing frozen, looking down at a 2-foot-long rattle snake that was about a foot or two in front of him and it was quite irritated.
Looks like my buddy Roger and I, first and second in line, respectively, had both walked unknowingly over or upon this snake while it was stretched out in the path… in the dark… And it’s only mid-March! We’ve had a few warm days, but we weren’t expecting to have to look for snakes for another month or so. Man that was scary. Being second in line, I’m lucky I didn’t get bitten because we were still about 3 miles away from the trail head.
Funny thing is, earlier we thought we saw a mountain lion paw print in the mud and we were chatting about how it would probably be the person bringing up the rear who would be in the most precarious position to be stalked, mauled and dragged away.
I guess the last person in line gets the attacked by the mountain lion and second person gets bit by the snake.
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Bob (not Greene) said on March 15, 2013 at 10:27 am
No, Kim, I haven’t seen any of the Ides at Vesecky’s, but I was there just a couple of weeks ago picking up some kolackys. I do run into Chuck Soumar, one of the band’s horn players every once in a while, because he owns an upholstery business in one of the towns I cover.
The very first rock concert I ever saw in person was the Ides of March “farewell” concert in the gym at Morton West High School, which was (hell it still is) a couple of block from my house. Must have been 1973 or so. My mom took me and my sister. The place was packed. The Ides used to hang out at a house kitty corner from where I lived, and Jim Peterik married the sister of a kid I hung out with who lived across the street. They are still married and run some kind of band rehearsal space out of an industrial building in one of the other towns I cover.
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MarkH said on March 15, 2013 at 10:34 am
Alex Chilton was all of 17 when he took the Box Tops to #1 with ‘The Letter’. I preferred ‘Cry Like a Baby’ and ‘Soul Deep’. Vocal quality and ability beyond his years, a real Memphis blues quality. Died suddenly about three years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Chilton
I didn’t realize he was seriously considered to replace the booted Al Kooper in Blood, Sweat & Tears before they hired David Clayton Thomas.
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nancy said on March 15, 2013 at 10:36 am
Wow. Just watching Rachel Maddow’s segment on the EM. She is SO full of shit. Just her basic info is riddled with inaccuracies.
I heard someone on the news the other day say “if you think an emergency manager is undemocratic, wait until you meet municipal bankruptcy. That is a profoundly undemocratic process.”
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Danny said on March 15, 2013 at 10:46 am
BTW, Derrick, I do read this site and the links (most of the time), so I’d say yes I do try to stay well-rounded in what people of various viewpoints think. And though you might wish to ignore it, I’ve had substantial agreement with folks on this website on some issues… most recently was with respect to gun laws and the need to do something to curb the violence.
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Charlotte said on March 15, 2013 at 10:53 am
Seventy degrees here in southern Montana yesterday. Um. In March. Which was weird, but did lend itself to the first front-porch gin-and-tonic of the season.
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adrianne said on March 15, 2013 at 10:55 am
Andrea Peyser is a warped human being. I read her occasionally for guffaws.
My take on Sheryl Sandberg is that I’m not willing to be the suck-up to men in authority (hello, Larry Summers) that she was to succeed in my work life. Also, Sheryl, the problem isn’t women being afraid to assert their authority. The problem is that American workplaces are hostile places for men and women who want to have a personal life. The workplaces need to change, not the employees struggling within them.
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MarkH said on March 15, 2013 at 11:01 am
Danny, I had the same experience YEARS ago while working in the brush in Idaho. My buddy and heard something just off to our left while hiking, we instantly had the same notion and froze. A coiled rattler in the sage about three feet away, very irritated. Needless to say, backed away VERY slowly.
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 11:03 am
What sort of weirdos are buying American elections?
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Dorothy said on March 15, 2013 at 11:20 am
Glad that you – nor anyone else in your party – was snake bit this week, Danny. Or munched on by a mountain lion. Time to put some flashlights in your backpacks! Or head lamps?
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annie said on March 15, 2013 at 11:21 am
You are right about that Catholic website being a time suck. Did you notice that the editor of the site is named Atilla?
I am pretty much an atheist but I wonder about human’s propensity to “be good” — do we really need the threat of eternal damnation to treat others with kindness? Obviously not. Must have something to do with evolution.
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brian stouder said on March 15, 2013 at 11:43 am
Well you know, annie, it’s easier to be poor than rich; if you’re poor, you just want to eat and be sheltered…but if you’re (really, really) rich all your decisions are so much more difficult.
For example, maybe you have to deal with ‘the help’ in your mansion; or maybe you want to look more like a cat…
(from Prospero’s link)
Over five generations, the Wildensteins have amassed a fortune estimated to be worth as much as $10 billion by dealing art, breeding horses, and—according to French authorities—evading a reported $800 million in taxes. One family member received a multimillion-dollar mansion for her 17th birthday; another has spent millions on plastic surgery to make herself look more like a cat.
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Danny said on March 15, 2013 at 11:52 am
Dorothy, yeah, we all have head lamps, we just hadn’t all put them on yet because it was dusk and the path seemed visible enough. I am so glad that Enrique had put his on two minutes before we ran into the snake, otherwise, he or his wife, Louisa or Barry, who was bringing up the rear, probably would have gotten bit. And if I hadn’t been follwowing so closely behind Roger, I probably would have.
Too close for my tastes.
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MarkH said on March 15, 2013 at 12:24 pm
With the new pope installed and all the talk here about the catholic faith, this is a pertinent article from WaPo on dwindling catholic identity in the US.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/as-pope-francis-begins-american-catholic-identity-hits-40-year-low/2013/03/14/e5692cd2-8cd7-11e2-9838-d62f083ba93f_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
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alex said on March 15, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Did you notice that the editor of the site is named Atilla?
Actually, that’s very likely not a nom de plume but an actual first-generation Hungarian-American like some I have known who cling fiercely to the Mother Church and the Mother Land and eschew tennis shoes, black clothing, fast food and maternity clothes (and that’s just for starters) and love tut-tutting about vulgar Americans with their gum-chewing slutty women (this is to discourage marrying outside the clan) and they love delivering harsh pronouncements regarding all things modern. As one of them once said to me, there is no such thing as American culture because America is the one nation on earth completely lacking in anything that could even remotely be called culture. You have not met a true fuddy-duddy until you’ve met one of these. They’re angry old men from birth.
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Lucky Ducky. I remain fiercely Catholic. And Granny Starvers ain’t Catholics. And Pro-Life, pro death-penalty doesn’t quite grab it. Bullshit, you assholes.
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Prospero said on March 15, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Alex, I have no problem differing with the Catholic Church on the subject of same sex sex and marriage. I do not understand the problem. If people are happy together, that is an undeniably good thing. It seems to me to be an undeniable truth that Catholicism has been a force for spreading good. And Yep, I’m Catholic, and I believe what I want to believe. Whatever. And in South America, we believe in feeding the poor and ministering to the sick. Does anybody else?
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LAMary said on March 15, 2013 at 1:34 pm
There are lots of things about the Catholic Church that are problematic, but I have to say that the nuns and priests I meet at my workplace are compassionate, smart, interesting people. Sister Sheila and Father Mark (a Jesuit) are brilliant.
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Peter said on March 15, 2013 at 1:51 pm
Woo-hoo! I was just going to unload more criticism of that wacky wacky site when real life has come up with something even more wacky:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-cps-promises-explanation-after-graphic-novel-pulled-20130315,0,1828297.story
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Connie said on March 15, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Questions that have come up in local conversations about the Detroit EFM. Can he sell the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts? Or privatize the Detroit Zoo? What about Detroit water and sewer which also supplies water to many of the suburbs.? Just wondering.
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Sherri said on March 15, 2013 at 2:01 pm
My only comment about Sheryl Sandberg is that when she had her first child, she was working at Google, which at the time was providing subsidized on-site child care. If my employer at the time my child was born had offered on-site child care even at above market rate, I would have continued working (and I told them so.) I worked at a good company, I liked working there, they kept me on (unpaid) maternity leave for 18 months, but I didn’t have the advantage that Sandberg had – I didn’t have the sister-in-law of the founder working for my company while having a baby. (Google started on-site daycare when Sergey Brin’s sister-in-law came back to work after her maternity leave.)
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coozledad said on March 15, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Brown university report on the costs of the Iraq War.
http://costsofwar.org/iraq-10-years-after-invasion
But we got ’em good, didn’t we. Six trillion and counting good. Shit blowed up good. Historians in the future will be trying to answer why the United States lost its collective shit and spent its hard won place among industrialized nations only to blow its own goddamn foot off, and reveal to the entire world the amoral calculus behind its weapon fetishism.
Thucydides would have tried to find some central trait, some metaphor that explains a society behaving like a cutter, but there were too many pathologies convergent in that brutal display of stupid.
I’ll go with George Carlin. You could tell shit like this was going to happen when fat bastards started putting the brown dick of a cigar in their face publicly again. The fashion of turd smoking spelled it all out in advance.
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nancy said on March 15, 2013 at 2:07 pm
The art collection came up during the millage campaign last year, and I believe it is protected from liquidation:
Though the DIA began as an independent nonprofit in 1885, it quickly turned to the City of Detroit for financial help, and in 1919, it became a city department. The pattern was set: In good economic times, things were swell, but downturns were devastating. When the city nearly went belly-up in the 1970s, the state took over funding the museum — but only after it closed doors for three weeks in 1975.
The status quo held until John Engler swept into the governor’s office. Philosophically opposed to arts funding, he cut state arts spending by 46% in 1991. As the balance of political power in Lansing shifted further to the west side of the state, all of Detroit’s cultural institutions saw their share of state funding fall. In 1998, the DIA regained full control of its operations, but the city continues to own the building and the museum’s collection — and is prohibited by the operating agreement from selling the art.
The Zoo is now run by a nonprofit, and I would imagine they have the same protection. The Water and Sewer Department is under federal-court oversight — I’m sure beb could explain more details — but a memo leaked last week detailing a plan to remove it from city control and establish it as a regional authority.
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Jolene said on March 15, 2013 at 2:13 pm
To follow up LAMary’s comment, the childhood fascination w/ Catholicism that I mentioned a few days ago grew not only out of the physical accoutrements of the faith (rosaries, habits, religious habits, holy water and such), though that was a big part of it, but also out of the kindness that our family experienced from the nuns at our local hospital. My next younger sister contracted polio when she was 16 months old–just before the vaccine became available–and had several surgeries in early childhood as a result. The nuns were terrific with her and, really, our whole family.
That Tradition in Action web site, though, is one for the ages. God forbid that the culture be overtaken by people wearing tennis shoes.
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Julie Robinson said on March 15, 2013 at 2:14 pm
It’s totally off-topic, but I’ve got good news to share: our daughter just passed her final interview and will be ordained in June. I’m bursting with pride and joy!
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brian stouder said on March 15, 2013 at 2:36 pm
Julie – that is superb! And a great piece of Friday news!! Tell her congratulations, for us
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Carolyn said on March 15, 2013 at 2:44 pm
Nancy, I’m up for one more round of career woman publicity blitz. I bought the book. Will let you know.
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John (not McCain) said on March 15, 2013 at 2:48 pm
Tennis shoes and maternity clothes (!) are the downfall of civilization, but internet use is okey-doke? I do not understand people like that. Of course, their site does look like it was designed in 1999, which I guess counts as pre-modern in internet terms.
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Dorothy said on March 15, 2013 at 2:51 pm
Many congratulations to your daughter and your family, Julie! That is wonderful!
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Jolene said on March 15, 2013 at 2:52 pm
Congratulations, Julie. What follows ordination? Will she be getting a new assignment?
Also in the realm of off-topic good news about the family, my niece’s basketball team won its regional tournament in OT last night and is headed for state. She inherited her father’s long legs and has been a key player in their 23-2 season. Aunts from coast to coast have been following the games on Internet radio and, today, are bursting their buttons with pride.
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Julie Robinson said on March 15, 2013 at 3:07 pm
Thanks, all, and congrats to you, Jolene. Keep us updated on the state tourney.
Sarah is seeking another call right now because her little church can’t afford two pastors. I’m hoping the next place will be closer to home, because, well, I’m a mom.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 15, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Julie, huzzah, and as she goes thru her first round of search committee interviews, grace and peace be with her — and practice nodding and looking interestedly thoughtful, because questions from pastoral search committees are usually long, convoluted, and don’t often end up where you think they’re going. So don’t succumb to the temptation to jump in during a breath and answer what you think they’re asking . . . let ’em wind down and wind up where they meant to go.
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MarkH said on March 15, 2013 at 3:13 pm
WTF here. Are we finally on the way to conflict with boy dictator?
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/15/17327806-us-to-deploy-more-ground-based-missile-interceptors-as-north-korea-steps-up-threats?lite
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Jeff Borden said on March 15, 2013 at 3:30 pm
“Persepolis” is a terrific book. It was also a very interesting film.
Anyone see that the big he-men at the National Rifle Association used armed security guards yesterday to throw out a group of mothers whose kids have been victims of gun violence? They tried to present a petition signed by 15,000 people, but the candyasses at the NRA turned them away.
Man, I really, truly hate the NRA.
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Jolene said on March 15, 2013 at 3:38 pm
Save a little antipathy for CPAC, Jeff. Along with their many other forms of unpleasantness, at least some of the attendees are criticizing Sen. Portman for saying that he now supports same-sex marriage. Of course, when your critics are wearing three-corner hats, I’m not sure you have to take them very seriously.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/03/15/1725891/cpac-marriage-equality/?mobile=wt
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Brandon said on March 15, 2013 at 3:40 pm
I’ll go with George Carlin. You could tell shit like this was going to happen when fat bastards started putting the brown dick of a cigar in their face publicly again. The fashion of turd smoking spelled it all out in advance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_cigar_boom
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Basset said on March 15, 2013 at 4:17 pm
And Tommy James from Niles, Michigan did “Hanky Panky” at fifteen.
If “-ski” is Polish, what’s “-ik?”. Seem to remember I saw a chart once explaining a bunch of Eastern European suffixes.
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Dave said on March 15, 2013 at 4:19 pm
I really despised the Indiana Republican senatorial candidate last fall but when I saw him pictured locally with some moron in a tri-cornered hat, I despised him even more. Those people are out of my realm of understanding. I’ve no other way to put it.
Julie, congratulations to your daughter, may it go well and she get that call to a pastorate closer to you.
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Dave said on March 15, 2013 at 4:22 pm
Speaking of young musicians, I always thought Mitch Ryder was only 15 or so about the time of “Devil With a Blue Dress”, but he was born in 1945, so he was much older than I thought.
Oh, which reminds me that Mark Lindsay just turned 71 last week, I believe.
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basset said on March 15, 2013 at 9:03 pm
Believe he had a restaurant in Portland for awhile, not sure if it’s still open. And Paul Revere is still out there on the fair and festival circuit… hey, it’s a paycheck…
http://www.paulrevereandtheraiders.com/
speaking of tricornered hats, y’know…
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coozledad said on March 15, 2013 at 10:11 pm
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php
Hit it, Dusty.
We just don’t know what to do with ourselves
We just don’t know what to do with ourselves
we’re used to pinning our frustrations on the blacks
Where can a cracker go relax?
And now CPAC too?
I just don’t know what to do with my hood
And I just got it dry-cleaned real good
Going to a picnic only makes me cry
I had to ask my daddy why.
He said he’s not sure
If I am racially pure.
Like a wooden cross
flaming in the night
I need some of my fellow druids
To set me alight
We just don’t know what to do with our time
What we call ‘black outreach’ here is a crime
If y’all pull the statue of Bedford Forrest down
I’ll gun my pickup through town
yell slurs at some Jews
I don’t know what else to do
Like a wooden cross
Needs some lighter fluids
I need to beat up someone
With my fellow druids
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brian stouder said on March 15, 2013 at 10:20 pm
…And while I sleep; and dreamily see
the stiff woody crosses manhandled by my fellow druids
I’ll have to pull & jerk to be free
of a cumbersome load of my bodily fluids
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Dexter said on March 15, 2013 at 11:31 pm
Reading Danny’s account just after I watched a cable show on the world’s deadliest vipers just gave me “the shivers” once again.
One snake in Africa can chase you at thirty mph, one can stand straight up and jump into trees; many can stay underwater for thirty minutes and then attack and eat an impala. Shit…c’mon, man! Man is no match for a 30 foot rock python.
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beb said on March 16, 2013 at 10:23 am
Wow, CPAC really got their KKK on yesterday. And right after Dick Morris lectured them about doing stuff like this.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php?ref=fpa
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Minnie said on March 16, 2013 at 10:54 am
Oh, sweet mothers of gods, can’t we get beyond skin color? LBJ was optimistic when he (allegedly) said after signing the Civil Rights Act that the Democrats had lost the South for a generation. I’m about of the opinion – and I say this as someone raised in the Deep South and now living in the upper South – let ’em go.
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Prospero said on March 16, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Insane in the brain. Trump seems blithely unaware that the neocon wet dream turned Iraq into Iran West. Or Kuwait North.
And Paul Revere and the Raiders made some grat songs, and the best Rock TeeVee evah.
Insane in the brain.
And I take Fang over Keef.
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Prospero said on March 16, 2013 at 12:03 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGZ0GFAqJYc
The Judge.
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Prospero said on March 16, 2013 at 12:11 pm
What the hey? They’re rednecks:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/15/1194484/-So-You-re-Shocked-Some-Young-Southern-White-Dude-Defended-Slavery-at-CPAC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nGw_vAnqPI
These current GOPers would love Lester Maddox.
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Minnie said on March 16, 2013 at 12:18 pm
True. Grew up listening to demagogues. They’re still at it. And poor-whites are still buying it.
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brian stouder said on March 16, 2013 at 1:09 pm
Say a palate cleanser – of sorts!
http://vimeo.com/61275290
A friend of Pam’s sent this; it runs maybe 30 or 40 seconds, and is worth a chuckle
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alex said on March 16, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Brian, I saw that one the other day and enjoyed it very much. Too bad Americans are such prudes. Some of the best advertising comes from Europe. Like this one.
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brian stouder said on March 16, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Bravo!! I think I wanna learn english!
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Minnie said on March 16, 2013 at 6:54 pm
Ha! Alex. And check out the ads for condoms offered after the language school one.
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