Michelle Rhee was the big speaker at Mackinac today. Judging from my social-media feeds, it was either a huge success or, well, this:
There exists very little difference between her “reform” scheme and the broken system she seeks to fix. Both sides of this argument seek to reinforce a one-size-fits-all educational program that, to quote The Simpson’s Superintendent Chalmers, prepares the next generations for “tomorrow’s mills and processing plants.”
Thrive in a school envisioned by Michelle Rhee and you’ll likely make an ideal Secretary of State employee or insurance claims adjuster.
This is from Jeff Wattrick, who is covering the conference for Deadline Detroit. He’s not 100 percent my cup of tea, but he brings a certain zing to an event that encourages a sort of complacent, polite, inside-the-Beltway, respectful coverage that, frankly, it doesn’t always deserve.
The Center for Michigan is celebrating a big win up north, however — after about a year of work, a significant bump in early-childhood education funding is a done deal — $65 million a year more, to help another 10,000 kids attend high-quality preschool. A lot of shit is going down in Michigan at the moment that is unsettling — the DIA stuff is only the start of it — but this is good news.
Sorry for the late update, but it was one of those days where I hit the tape and collapsed into a heap. Eighty-eight degrees yesterday had something to do with it. Thursday had something to do with it. Laziness had something to do with it. And now I sit here on Friday morning, coffee at hand, and think: Cronuts? Well, OK.
A cronut, if you’re unfamiliar, is the new hybrid pastry — half croissant, half doughnut — that is sweeping New York. Or would be sweeping New York, if people could get their hands on them. As of today, the only place cronuts are sold is at the Dominique Ansel Bakery in Soho, where people now line up down the block as early as 6 a.m. — two hours before opening — for the chance to snag one of the 200 cronuts the bakery produces daily.
People will line up for pastry in other places, but they have to be Krispy Kreme.
We got to talking about doughnuts at dinner the other day. Alan revealed that a long, filled doughnut — long as opposed to round — is known as a “lunch stick” in northwest Ohio. This just goes to show you can spend nearly all of the last 25 years with a person and still not know everything about them. Why lunch stick? Who knows? Alan’s Defiance family is full of those country expressions — calling a green pepper a mango, calling lunch dinner, etc.
The other thing they’re known for is refrigerating everything. Alan once bought a dozen warm Krispy Kreme on the way to the lake one Saturday. Everyone had one upon arrival, and he went off to do some chore. When he came back for a second, they’d already been put in the refrigerator, i.e., ruined. Refrigerating doughnuts is the work of a woman who fears ants in the kitchen more than a cold, slimy KK.
Do cops still eat doughnuts? The ones I see are more likely to be eating Mexican food.
Speaking of public-safety workers, I wonder why Detroit firefighters even bother anymore. A short video on a blaze at one crappy corner liquor store that ended up critically injuring two firefighters. And then the ambulance didn’t show within 15 minutes. I ask you.
OK, time to wrap. Or rather, time to take the Slate news quiz and score miserably.
Have a good weekend, all.
Jolene said on May 31, 2013 at 7:59 am
Calling a green pepper a mango??? But, but, but how did that happen? A mango is a completely different thing, not at all like a green pepper.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 31, 2013 at 8:01 am
Northern Indiana, same deal. Mango. It confused people when I was cooking a group dinner at Purdue, and I’ve not said it since. Made me smile to read that, though.
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alex said on May 31, 2013 at 8:05 am
I’ve never been a picky eater, but if there’s one thing I would take a pass on, even if I were starving, it would be donuts. I’ve never understood their appeal.
Here’s another regional pastry that made its Chicago debut in the ’80s and didn’t go over very well despite being beloved in its hometown of Philadelphia.
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alex said on May 31, 2013 at 8:06 am
I first heard bell peppers referred to as “mangoes” downstate, and I always assumed it was a southernism.
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Mark P said on May 31, 2013 at 8:37 am
In the South, when lunch is the big meal of the day, it is dinner. And, at least historically, lunch would always be the big meal of the day because farmers need lots of fuel to finish up their work in the afternoon. Dinner would always be the midday meal on Sunday, after church. The last meal of the day, eaten in the evening after work, is supper. It would typically be a lighter meal than dinner.
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Dave said on May 31, 2013 at 8:38 am
Mango is all I ever heard bell pepers called until I was grown up and out of the house and learned that they weren’t. I had no idea. Even at that, I still wanted to call them mangoes, how could my parents, grandparents, my entire extended family be wrong?
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Dave said on May 31, 2013 at 8:39 am
Peppers
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brian stouder said on May 31, 2013 at 8:42 am
I’ve heard Wells County people call peppers “mangoes” – which makes no sense to me at all. But I WILL say that, I’ve always understood the term “dinner” as The Big Meal of the Day, whether at mid-day (say, Sunday dinner) or in the evening. (Never heard of “lunch sticks”, though. And my fave donut always used to be tractor tires)
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Dave said on May 31, 2013 at 8:44 am
Mark P, we always had supper at our house. My parents were both from deep southern Ohio and that’s what it was. My poor now dementia-addled mother corrected me just the other day when I asked her what sounded good for dinner. You do mean supper, don’t you?
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Julie Robinson said on May 31, 2013 at 8:50 am
When I visited my grandparents in Iowa, dinner was at noon, supper was at night, and lunch was the snack carried out to the field mid-morning and afternoon. Breakfast, dinner and supper all featured potatoes fried in lard. Cheap and filling, though by the time I came along they could afford to eat anything they wanted, and they still wanted fried potatoes.
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Dorothy said on May 31, 2013 at 8:59 am
Young Walter Cunningham came for dinner for the mid-day meal in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “drownded his dinner in syrup” – a scene that I lovelovelove with all my heart. My first job at the age of 15 was at Sherman’s Bakery. Long, filled donuts were called Long Johns. I Googled it and that is still a name for donuts. Donuts came in raised (glazed) or cake varieties. The chocolate sprinkles that went on the frosted donuts were called “Jimmies” in our bakery. Once a customer asked me for some of the donuts with “Johnnies” on them, and I had to stifle the urge to burst out laughing. Large, flat pastries (I think the dough was considered Danish) were called Crispies at Sherman’s, but most places call them Elephant Ears. Danish pastries were different from sweet rolls – Danish were lighter, flakier. Sweet rolls were plump and a little more pedestrian, IMHO. Like cinnamon rolls, or maple rolls. The maple rolls were my favorite – you bought them in 3’s or 6’s or by the dozen. Baked all stuck together and then frosted that way….mmmmmm. I still love maple frosting to this day! Don’t get me started on the bread and dinner rolls…. Alex I feel sad for you that you don’t care for donuts. But then again, I can’t eat them for anything but breakfast. Any other time of day just feels wrong – like my brain can’t compute it!
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coozledad said on May 31, 2013 at 9:03 am
they could afford to eat anything they wanted, and they still wanted fried potatoes.
The story of my life.
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Bob (not Greene) said on May 31, 2013 at 9:07 am
Alex, those Tastykake things must’ve been introduced to Chicago when I was wandering the quadrangles of any university that’d allow me to keep deferring paying back my student loans. Never heard of them. Maybe it’s that “kake” ending that, well, you know.
Rustic expressions, i.e., the way Indiana people talk, has always been a source of wonderment for me. Paper bags are sacks. I was at a grocery store in West Lafayette and (apart from the fact that I couldn’t buy a six-pack of beer on a Sunday — are you fucking kidding me?) the checkout girls asks me if I wanted a “sack.” Now, to me a sack is made out of burlap and that you use for picnic races. It took a couple seconds for me to figure out what the hell she was talking about.
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Peter said on May 31, 2013 at 9:31 am
My favorite Indiana expression occurred some years ago when we checked into a hotel in French Lick – the desk clerk said that the hotel was on “slow time”, and my wife looked around the lobby and said “No kidding”.
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Suzanne said on May 31, 2013 at 9:39 am
I grew up calling green peppers mangoes. Shocked was I to learn, as I entered the bigger, broader world, that mangoes were Tropical fruit. In what other realms did my parents mislead me?
We, too, called the midday meal dinner and the evening meal supper. Lunch was what my grandmother served late in the evening do family gatherings as a cue for everyone to go home. It usually consisted of ham sandwiches and pickles. All other meals included a stack of white sandwich bread that was passed around, no matter what else was on the menu.
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Suzanne said on May 31, 2013 at 9:49 am
Don’t know where that errant “do” came from in my comment.
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Judybusy said on May 31, 2013 at 9:58 am
Yes, scored miserably on that quiz, and I listen to NPR every morning!
Our schedule on the farm was like Julie’s. Lunch was brought out to my dad, older brother and hired hands around 4. I would love to have a dried beef sandwich on white bread, sitting on the side of a newly harvested wheat field again. That smell of the straw, the air, and the heat permeating everything!
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LAMary said on May 31, 2013 at 9:59 am
Hey, I aced the news quiz last week. I’m saving this week’s to do when I can’t stand reading one more entry level resume. If that sounds cold and flippant I’m sorry. You read thirty or forty resumes inflating six months of barista experience fill two paragrapha and then talk to me.
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David C. said on May 31, 2013 at 10:16 am
10 out of 12 on the news quiz. I guessed on at least 4 and got lucky. Dinner and supper were always synonyms for me. My mother’s dad worked in a factory and it was breakfast, lunch, supper. To my dad’s family, from the farm, it was breakfast, dinner, supper. I don’t know if the difference anything to do with the factory/farm split or not. Mom and dad grew up within 10 miles of each other, so the difference wasn’t regional.
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Jolene said on May 31, 2013 at 10:17 am
Julie’s schedule sounds like the schedule of my childhood, too. In fact, after most of us had moved to big cities and begun to call dinner lunch and supper dinner, my brother, who remained a country boy, jokingly made a schedule for us when we visited specifying the “correct” names for those meals.
And judybusy, I loved those afternoon trips to the field during harvest too. Everybody’s happy, I guess, when the results of the year’s work are being gathered in.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 31, 2013 at 10:21 am
OK, a lot of rural people used to call lunch dinner—in fact, that used to be the norm. But confusing green peppers with mangoes? That’s just weird.
It reminds me a little of the joke from The Simpsons, when the Ned Flanders is stuck taking care of Bart and Lisa:
“Now we’re going to have nachos!”
Bart and Lisa cheer.
“Flanders style! That means sliced cucumbers and cottage cheese!”
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adrianne said on May 31, 2013 at 10:24 am
Curse you, Nancy, I went for the Slate news quiz and only got 8 out of 12 right – slightly better than average. Remember our smackdown newsroom team of you, me and the incredibly competitive David Heath smokin’ Fort Wayne high school students? I still have my News-Sentinel sweatshirt from that competition!
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Deborah said on May 31, 2013 at 10:30 am
Peppers as mangoes, no wonder folks in St. Louis referred to hicks as Hoosiers. Ha ha (felt I had to add that since there are so many Indianians here)
Dorothy, your description of pastries was great. I used to like the cake variety of Dunkin Donuts back in the 70s, haven’t had them since then though, they changed the recipe or something. Now about all I ever get is a morning bun at Starbucks heated up, it’s actually pretty good.
I did less than average on the news quiz, but I attribute that partly to the fact that when I’d touch the answer on my iPad nothing would happen but the timer kept going. I had to touch multiple times before it would register, by the end I was banging audibly on the screen.
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Heather said on May 31, 2013 at 10:43 am
In my observation, you can always find a couple of cops at good chicken joints.
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alex said on May 31, 2013 at 10:55 am
I got nine out of twelve in two minutes and 23 seconds. Damn that monkey with blue balls. Somehow missed the flooding in San Antonio. And I forget which other one I missed.
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Julie Robinson said on May 31, 2013 at 11:00 am
Around here it’s Pizza Huts, since they offer free pizza to on-duty police.
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Jolene said on May 31, 2013 at 11:06 am
Ten out of twelve, but, yes, taking the quiz on the iPad was a hindrance, especially since I didn’t, on the first question, realize that I was being timed as well as checked for accuracy. (Excuses, excuses.)
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Jolene said on May 31, 2013 at 11:07 am
My thoughts, exactly.
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Charlotte said on May 31, 2013 at 11:28 am
The first couple of years after my parents divorced, our dad was still living in the big fancy horse farm house that he’d lost to bankruptcy (early 70s, real estate market sucked, bank didn’t want it standing empty). However — typical of my father, he was still foxhunting every weekend. The early part of the hunt season is called “cubbing” — when they teach the new hounds what to do, and it starts at 6am. He’d roust us and we’d stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way up to the hunt club — Dad in his formal riding clothes, the two of us dressed, but sleepy. Dad’s idea of a healthy breakfast was that we each had to have a cake donut, but we could pick one fluffy one as well. Oh, and a carton of milk. I was obsessed with the pink donuts with the sprinkles, even though the chocolate ones tasted better. It was all very Don Draper now that I think back on it — but northern Illinois in late summer, in the very early morning, was beautiful — mist and pink sunrises and Dunkin Donuts. (Then we’d be left in the clubhouse to wait while Dad went off hunting. Usually, after a couple of hours, Mrs. Murphy, wife of the huntsman, would come rescue us and feed us a real breakfast.)
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crinoidgirl said on May 31, 2013 at 11:28 am
Same-sex marriage may be voted on today in Illinois.
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Basset said on May 31, 2013 at 11:29 am
Here in Middle Tennessee a grocery cart is a “buggy” and a stove burner is an “eye.”
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MaryRC said on May 31, 2013 at 11:56 am
Suzanne, I thought the region I grew up in was the only place where “lunch” meant a snack, usually sandwiches, pickles and perhaps cake, served at a get-together in the afternoon or evening. This was a rural breakfast-dinner-supper region and “lunch” was served by your hostess when you visited in the evening, or at the end of a church meeting or a card game.
The local paper once ran a article by a snooty woman who had emigrated from Britain (as a war bride, I think), describing all the odd behavior she had encountered in this region over the years and expressing particular disdain that a light meal served in the evening was called “lunch”. Readers lost no time in pointing out to her that back in the UK she would have called supper after a beverage.
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Maps: Some states are better than others at some things. And worse at other things.
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Dexter said on May 31, 2013 at 1:35 pm
I beat David Haglund by 29 points, that chump! 🙂 I did miss 2 questions, including the gimmee about Obama, on which I simply hit the wrong block.
Green peppers were always green peppers in my family, but plenty of folks called them mangos. I see every responder here spells it mangoes. That didn’t look right so I researched it…meh…either way.
I love fresh peppers in a salad or a stir fry, stuffed with tomato cheese and rice and baked…any old way. My favorite is the sweet red pepper.
I saw a huge cloud wall about noon; it looked just like those clouds just before a tornado, but it moved fast and didn’t form a funnel cloud. To this day, I have never seen a tornado. I am not complaining.
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Dexter said on May 31, 2013 at 1:40 pm
I once saw Michigan Governor John Engler http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/03/07/Others/Images/2013-03-07/_MG_45521362680229.jpg
on the grounds of the Mackinaw Governor’s house http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/22818805.jpg
It was a long time ago and he was on the lawn talking to people, his triplets in a triple-wide stroller.
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 2:02 pm
How incalitrantly obtuse does the GOP look when they refuse to act upon a judicial appointment of the President’s for nearly a year, and then the Senate votes to confirm the nominee unanimously, when filibuster fervor runs out of gas? That is unadulterated bullshit.
I know lots of very good Italian cooks that add sugar to marinara or bolognese, or putanesca. It’s my contention that the effect is better acchieved by roasting a red peppper and a whole Vidalia with the tomatoes and then processing the whole shebang together to make the base sauce.Wonderful sweetness to balance the acid tomatoes.
It’s just dawned on Greta van Susteren that she works with a bunch of male chauvinist pigs at Fox. Has she been in a coma? C’mon Greta that’s what you signed up for when you sold your brain and soul to Roger Ailes for the makeover.
That photo of Engler looks like he ate the triplets.
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brian stouder said on May 31, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Deborah – as a life-long Indianan, and an avid Lincoln-reader, it came as a revelation to me that the term “hoosier” has been (and more or less continues to be- although we digress!) a synonym for ‘idiot’. Recollected jokes and anecdotes from AL almost always feature a “hoosier” or, occasionally, a “sucker”, which is a person from Illinois*.
And, one other thing, regarding your balky ipad/touchscreen. A month ago or so, Pam learned that this can definitely be a “thing”.
People’s fingers (including hers)aren’t all equally warm, and the screen relies upon heat to sense your inputs. So, of course, there are special gloves one can buy, that address this(!).
Thus – you may be a New Mexican, but you’ve a cool touch nonetheless (and Pam is one cool Hoosier)
Pros – interesting Van Susteren link. She’s an interesting person, from CNN/OJ to a facelift and Fox. Maybe her autobiography will be titled “No reGretas” or some such
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 31, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Julie, what about second breakfast?
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brian stouder said on May 31, 2013 at 2:28 pm
*forgot the asterisk. I asked the Lincoln biographer Michael Burlingame where “sucker” comes from. The theory we came up with was maybe a reference to the Illinois River/sucker fish?
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Julie Robinson said on May 31, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Is second breakfast the same as elevensies?
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 3:14 pm
How many rocks did the Virginia GOP have to turn over before they found this guy? He’s a gift that just keeps on giving. If VA elects this nutjob and Kookoonelli, I’d say the state should be invited to seceded. E.W. Jackson is non compos mentis, but I’ll bet he had no trouble getting a concealed carry permit.
All-female tribute rock bands. Lou Dobbs and Erick Erickson may have heart attacks and Uncle Tom Williams will swallow his tongue. Vag Halen, Lez Zeppelin.
Brian, I was a fan of Greta’s during the mindless judicial exercise of the OJ trial. She gave as good as she got to the insufferable Roger Cossack, and she clearly didn’t give a crap what she looked like doing it. She sure didn’t spend much time in hair and makeup back in the day. She is smart as hell, clearly, which makes it tragic she works for scumbags like Ailes and Murdoch.
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Brandon said on May 31, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Well, I was born and still live in a place where mangoes grow, as well as lychee (pronounced lye-CHEE).
Just microwave the doughnuts.
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Charlotte said on May 31, 2013 at 3:29 pm
I’ve never heard of the mangoes thing — only local language oddity I’ve noticed since moving to Montana is the use of “borrow pit” for roadside ditch. Apparently, the dirt from teh ditch was “borrowed” in general practice to build up the roadbed.
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brian stouder said on May 31, 2013 at 3:36 pm
The Virginia link is worth a (dark) chuckle, but remember: no matter how terrible the Lt Gov candidate is – he won’t necessarily sink the Cooch, as they are in separate races (so to speak).
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 3:56 pm
brian@44: The entire point of E.W. is probably to make Kookoonelli look halfway normal by comparison. There is no way that any man spews that sort of unmitigated venom about gay people without secretly questioning his own sexuality.
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nancy said on May 31, 2013 at 3:58 pm
As I’ve noted many times before, my whole family was St. Louis-born, and I grew up hearing “Hoosier” used as an insult. So it was a revelation to actually move to Indiana, and hear it used exclusively to describe the state’s natives and residents. So much so, that when the NYT uses “Indianans” I scratch my head, because no one — NO ONE — in the state says that. Everything is Hoosier State Something or Other.
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 4:12 pm
This movie looks great to me. Clive Owen is a very talented actor. (Cf. Children of Men.)
brian@44: “separate races?” Neither of which is human.
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JWfromNJ said on May 31, 2013 at 4:36 pm
I encountered the mangoe term (not mango) in Bluffton and it used to be common in the old advertising. The Hoosierisms that I enjoy include sack, and that you stand in line, not on line. the one I notice from my wife, who after half her life on the East Coast can lay down some serious “Jersey,” talk is acrost. She doesn’t hear it, but many Hoosiers say it’s acroast the street, not across.
Been lurking lately, as we just bought a place and we’re moving piecemeal, one car load at a time until I rent a truck on Monday. We’ll still be in Vero.
Perhaps some of you have heard the big local news here about an 18 year old girl charged with child molestation for having a 15 year old girlfriend. Kaitlyn Hunt. It’s become a gay rights cause and the truth is vastly different. It’s been a media circus, with Today here, etc. I rescued a lost truckload of Cnn folks who were on the right road but ten miles south. That dried up slag Nancy Grace is covering this story now. There is so much the national media outlets have misreported on this story that many people will look very stupid when this goes to trial.
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Deborah said on May 31, 2013 at 4:37 pm
Dexter, I grew up in Miami, FL we had a (real) mango tree in our backyard (which I was allergic to playing around, I’d break out in a terrible rash and my mother’s “cure” was to give me an enema, I kid you not, that was her cure for everything). But the plural was always mangoes. I could eat mangoes as long as someone peeled them, isn’t that crazy. Now I can pick them up and peel them myself, no problem. My daughter Little BIrd can’t touch them or she breaks out. She worked in a grocery store and had to ask people to put their mangoes in a plastic bag so she could deal with them. Or she called over another cashier to help. She is afraid to eat them so we don’t really know if they effect her that way.
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Deborah said on May 31, 2013 at 4:38 pm
edit: Little Bird… and she’d
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brian stouder said on May 31, 2013 at 4:43 pm
…my whole family was St. Louis-born, and I grew up hearing “Hoosier” used as an insult. So it was a revelation to actually move to Indiana, and hear it used exclusively to describe the state’s natives and residents.
Hah! I had exactly the opposite introduction to the term “hoosier”…
which raises the question: when they made that Gene Hackman basketball movie and titled it “Hoosiers”, were they displaying great perception, or sneering contempt? We, here in Real America, wanna know!
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David C. said on May 31, 2013 at 4:57 pm
JWfromNJ, I think standing on line is a Northeast thing. The rest of the country, not just Indiana, stands in line.
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Jolene said on May 31, 2013 at 5:03 pm
So, JW, what is the untold truth about the Kaitlyn Hunt case?
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MichaelG said on May 31, 2013 at 5:04 pm
I never heard a pepper called a mango.
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Sherri said on May 31, 2013 at 5:16 pm
Green peppers were never mangoes, we always stood in line, dinner was at midday and supper was the evening meal where I grew up in Tennessee. The language oddity that I’ve never been able to quite purge from my own speech is “fixing to” for “about to”, as in “I’m fixing to go to town.”
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JWfromNJ said on May 31, 2013 at 5:25 pm
She is dating a 27-year old male… allegedly. And age or not 18 and 14 (then 15) is still creepy IMO. If this was an 18 year old black male from Gifford (our version of the hood) dating a 14 year old rich white girl from the beach front no one would care. I think equality should mean equal protection under the law and justice should be blind. The lawyer for Hunt is lovving this exposure and the deal on the table was fair. A jury of six (thats what this case would get) would draw crackers, right wing born agains, and I doubt she’d be acquitted. The state is talking 15 years – thats a lot to risk. Plus they are making big money on t-shirts and other swag.I just don’t think is the case the national media thinks they are covering.
I don’t take our prosecutors side lightly because Florida justice is flawwed, but Mr. Workman is fair and competent.
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brian stouder said on May 31, 2013 at 5:33 pm
Well, I got home and took the news quiz, while our 8 year old (who is a week away from becoming our 9 year old) was busily telling me about her day (luckily, the clock stops between questions, so she told me about Montessori Madness day while showing off her zebra-face makeup, all of which was pretty good stuff).
So – I scored 388, with 10 out of 12 (only guessed three times, and missed two of those).
And now the question looms: what score did Nancy (who, according to Adrianne, used to stomp on kids in trivia contests?!) get?
If this site was a school house, the future of the place would depend upon these standardized high-stakes tests!
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Joe K said on May 31, 2013 at 6:01 pm
Toms doughnuts, @ five corners Jimmerson and lake James, absolutely the best doughnuts. Especially tasty at 3 in the morning after a night of drinking, cold beer and warm doughnut, on a hot summer night. YUM
Pilot Joe
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 6:01 pm
Thanks to James Whitcoomb Riley, I’ve always associated the term “hoosier” with egregiously lachrymose and corny attempts at poetry, like “When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock”:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174222 Gutdom, that’s inexcusable. Everett Dirksen used to recite that odious verse at the drop of a hat.
Then again, the great comic novelist of the Penrod books (anybody with prepubescent boys to buy books for should get them these, and I imagine girls would like them too) and brilliant playwright of Monsieur Beaucaire, screenwriter of The Magnificent Ambersons, author of the American masterpiece of small town social climbing, Alice Adams,, Booth Tarkington, claimed hoosierdom proudly, as did Kurt Vonnegut, so that sort of makes up for the phony homespun literary transgressions of James W. Riley, the hoosier poet and Indiana can have him, if Indiana wants him.
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 6:06 pm
Every account I have read says that Kaitlyn was 17 when the girls met. And the scenario has played out many times down south to the detriment of black guys. The parents lying in wait until the elder of the kids is 18 and chargable with statutory rape or whatever is far creepier than the age disparity. That’s not the behavior of a loving, caring, reponsible parent, by a fracking long shot.
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Jeff said on May 31, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Prospero, you would mock . . . The Master?
Little Orphant Annie
To all the little children: — The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones — Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.
Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,–
An’ when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wuzn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an’ roundabout:–
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’ one, an’ all her blood-an’-kin;
An’ wunst, when they was ‘company,’ an’ ole folks wuz there,
She mocked ’em an’ shocked ’em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
An’ little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,–
You better mind yer parunts, an’ yer teachurs fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
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Jeff said on May 31, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Stouder beat me; I got 384 in a minute ten seconds. Darn Chinese youth vandal – of all of you’ns, I should have guessed that right.
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Deborah said on May 31, 2013 at 6:39 pm
The Poetry Foundation’s new “headquarters” was designed by a friend of my husband. It’s on Dearborn and Huron (or Erie) in Chicago, it’s a really nice building. The architect John Ronan also teaches at IIT where my husband teaches.
Here’s an image, it’s hard to photograph well because of it’s location, I think this image is actually a rendering done before construction: http://www.prairiemod.com/prairiemod/2011/06/new-poetry-building-subtle-and-revealingkamin-finds-it-appealing.html
It’s funding mainly comes from a female heir of Eli Lilly, the Indianapolis pharma company, I forget her name.
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JWfromNJ said on May 31, 2013 at 6:45 pm
No Prospero, 14 and 17. Either way I don’t see it as a gay rights thing. Those years wouldn’t make a difference a decade later, but I have a 14 year old and he can go from rational and mature to coloring power rangers or sonic pictures and cuddling with an eyeore blanket.
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JWfromNJ said on May 31, 2013 at 6:49 pm
I do agree with you on the victims parents being creepy too, they have damaged their relationship deeply. That is what they did, and they are big time bible thumpers, but isn’t equality supposed to presume equal protection under the law? My editor wrote a good piece about this:
http://insidevero.com/2013/05/24/media-has-turned-hunt-case-into-a-circus/
another take by a local freelancer:
http://insidevero.com/2013/05/28/where-have-all-the-fact-checkers-gone/
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 7:11 pm
Jeff@61, you betcha. That’s doggerel. I particularly object to all the cutesy misspellings. Still, in the world of crap poetry, Riley is a far cry from say Vachel Lindsay (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-dirge-for-a-righteous-kitten/)or, God forbid, Joyce Kilmer. (Trees is very likely the worst poem ever put to paper.)
I’d bet that had the young girls parents seen her going out with a 17 or 18 year old fudiegelical youth ministry leader that was male, they would never have had any problem with it, so long as the charade of a chastity/commitment ring was maintained.
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 7:36 pm
Interesting music/literary project.
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Little Bird said on May 31, 2013 at 7:45 pm
Mangoes are evil. That is all.
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Prospero said on May 31, 2013 at 7:50 pm
Mangoes remind me of those Asian plants that smell like rotting flesh.
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Deborah said on May 31, 2013 at 8:15 pm
There are two fires that have erupted in the Santa Fe region lately, one in the Pecos river area east of Santa Fe over the mountains and a new one North of Jemez Springs which is kind of Northwest of here. So far they aren’t that big 500 acres or so but all conditions are that they could spread quickly. I can smell the smoke and earlier this afternoon we could see it when we were out doing errands while walking. It is very, very dry, hot and windy, what could be worse? Neither of these fires are a threat to us, either here in Santa Fe or on our land in Abiquiu, it’s just sad that peoples’s homes and cabins may be devastated and beautiful natural landscapes will be destroyed. LAMary and Charlotte, this is probably something you folks live with all the time, it is something I’m less familiar with, but becoming more so.
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Kirk said on May 31, 2013 at 8:49 pm
I tied Haglund (331) in 1:11.
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Deborah said on May 31, 2013 at 9:22 pm
Shame on Illinois not passing marriage equality this session.
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alex said on May 31, 2013 at 9:45 pm
So Kaitlyn Hunt is a nympho and the media are ignoring a sexy story like that? You’d think Fox would be all over it like Monica Lewinsky on a cigar.
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coozledad said on May 31, 2013 at 10:43 pm
I dunno. Eighteen years old is a weird time. It occurs to me sometimes, that as frightened as I ever was by the prospect of children, the people who hate them most are the ones who pumped them out. Give them a damn break.
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Brandon said on June 1, 2013 at 4:51 am
Mangoes remind me of those Asian plants that smell like rotting flesh.
You’re comparing mangos to durian?
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Prospero said on June 1, 2013 at 11:49 am
These green energy stories from Juan Cole must be manufactured propaganda. Otherwise why wouldn’t they all be taking place in the most exceptional country in the history of exceptional countries? A solar-powered hospital in Haiti. It can’t be. Everyone knows that renewable energy technology doesn’t work.
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MichaelG said on June 1, 2013 at 1:04 pm
It’s going to be upper 90s here this weekend with brisk winds and very low humidity. CalFire has all their people on site and ready to deploy and they are very nervous. Let’s hope nothing happens.
Durian is sold at Asian markets here. They freeze it first which somehow kills the smell. I’ve tasted it and it’s nothing special. I’ll stick to oranges and apples and bananas. And mangos, sorry Little Bird. Mango salsa is delish. It’s tough when you are allergic to some food items. My Ex is allergic to lobster and crawdads. I felt for her when we would all feast and she couldn’t have any.
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Prospero said on June 1, 2013 at 1:44 pm
Jake Shimakuburo. Uke virtuoso. If you ever get a chance to see the doc Life on Four Strings about this ukulele virtuosw, make the time. Remarkable musician, remarkably gentle and thoughtful human being. I’m trying to figure out how to use his strumming and picking techniques on guitar. He’s married to an obstetrician:
http://www.pbs.org/arts/gallery/jake-shimabukuro-life-four-strings/jake-shimabukuro-life-four-strings-drum-strum/
Were I Kaitlyn’s lawyer, I’d ask the judge and jury whose behavior damaged her girlfriend most deeply, the parents that laid in wait and pulled the ambush, or Kaitlyn? No doubt in my mind.
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Sherri said on June 1, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Off-topic, but here’s an interesting (longish) article on the conflict between intellectual property laws and the need to respond to emerging viruses: http://www.cfr.org/health-and-disease/why-saudi-virus-spreading-alarm/p30799
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Prospero said on June 1, 2013 at 4:32 pm
Yertle, Yertle’s bank account, and the filibuster. What an outright crook. Yertle may be a biffer crook on the public teat than Roy Blunt. Hard to imagine, but maybe. Intellectual property laws have been use in US Courts against the people with the intellect to create the property. That’s a fact, Jack.
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Prospero said on June 1, 2013 at 4:50 pm
OK Sherri. you may be, probably, smarter than I, but there are sorts of intelligence,and you are certainly more academically rigorous. But why should cloned seeds be intellectual property? It sure as shit happens by accident. And why would anybody trust Monsanto? That seems like the absoposiutevely stupidest thing a human being could do. Think about the limits of science, and think about Kolton Houston. I know you know who that is. He is being screwed over by the NCAA BigTime. Original Nandrolone level after surgery five years ago: 250mg. Current after 100s of tests 2.5 mg. This is a witch hunt worthy of GOPers.
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Sherri said on June 1, 2013 at 5:47 pm
Prospero, I don’t trust Monsanto. I don’t agree with current intellectual property law, either patent or copyright. In my more radical moments, I’m ready to throw it all out, but certainly, I think we need to remember that the purpose of patent and copyright law is to promote progress, not profit.
The NCAA exists to screw over players. Kolton Houston is just a more egregious example than most.
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Deborah said on June 1, 2013 at 6:22 pm
Michael G, there are two fires now that we can see heavy smoke from, one in the Pecos Canyon to the east of us and the other near Jemez springs to the west-ish of us. The whole city of Santa Fe smells like smoke and has a smokey haze over it.
We drove down south of Albuquerque today on an errand and saw many signs reading “fire danger: extreme”.
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LAMary said on June 1, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Sticky rice and mango is one of my favorite desserts. I love mangos, papayas almost as much, both in salsa or just with a squeeze of lime, my goodness,
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Deborah said on June 1, 2013 at 6:58 pm
RIP Edith Bunker. Honestly, I didn’t know she was still around.
We had a papaya tree right outside our back door when I was a kid. It smelled like rotten cheese which put me off of papayas for life. Love mango though, just cold and sliced.
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Prospero said on June 2, 2013 at 12:32 am
I’m reading a wonderful book called Angelmaker, by this guy called Nick Harkaway. It is sort of a combination of Mr. Norrell, Stephen King, Tom Pynchon, and maybe Thomas :Another Roadside Attraction” full goose loony. Damn, I love that book.
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Prospero said on June 2, 2013 at 12:38 am
And yeah, Tom Robbins is probably a bigger ahole than I am. But he is funny as hell. And hell is very funny. And I live for that aholes novels. But not like a new one from Valetta. That is the best you get. Unless it comes straight from the Khyghyz. For those that don’t get it, we apologize.
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Sherri said on June 2, 2013 at 2:26 am
Angelmaker is on my to be read list. Nick Harkaway is John le Carre’s son.
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Bitter Scribe said on June 2, 2013 at 12:39 pm
What a rotten fucking weekend. My best friend committed suicide and I had to go to his place to get his cat. I can’t keep her myself because I’m allergic, so the neighbor lady downstairs has him, but she can’t keep him long either.
Anyone know anything about no-kill shelters? The ones around here don’t seem to accept any new animals.
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Prospero said on June 2, 2013 at 12:41 pm
I think John LeCarre is a great novelist. The Spy that Came in from the Cold is as good as it gets. Russia House is brilliant.
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Sherri said on June 2, 2013 at 12:43 pm
So sorry, Bitter Scribe.
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brian stouder said on June 2, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Bitter Scribe – that is truly terrible news.
Presumably your best friend has no other family that will take the kitty; I hope that at least that one small detail can have a happier conclusion.
Regardless, here’s wishing you the strength to (at length) move past this place in your life.
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Minnie said on June 2, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Bitter Scribe. So sorry. Contact the cat’s vet or another veterinarian. They may know of a home.
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MichaelG said on June 2, 2013 at 1:19 pm
I’m sorry to hear that, Bitter Scribe. My sympathies are with you.
I hate that smoky stuff, Deborah. It gives such a bad feeling. We haven’t experienced it yet this year but Nov is a long way off.
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JWfromNJ said on June 2, 2013 at 6:33 pm
Wow,bitter scribe. tough road. I guess the question is did this make your friend whole, because he was obviously broken. It’s a cop out,but I can relate on many levels. I have already written specific advice regarding nn.com but I plan on going out on the job pushing the envelope. Not dying in my bed,not dying in a hospital,hospice, etc. and won’t know until about 60 seconds before I go.
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Deborah said on June 2, 2013 at 6:48 pm
So sorry Bitter Scribe.
I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but the magazine of the NYT has piece about Chicago. The cover has a view of the city in line with my location except I’m at the extreme east end on the lake (the background of the photo). If you find the Hancock tower which is the tallest in the view with the white lights at the top, to the space to the left of that heading east (toward the background) is my street, Delaware, my building is one block toward the lake from the Hancock (which is actually two half blocks). I have been busy working on a project today so haven’t been able to read the article yet, hope it is positive.
We are supposed to get rain in Santa Fe tonight, fingers crossed. It sure has gotten windier.
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Deborah said on June 2, 2013 at 6:49 pm
bunch of typos in #96, I’m too lazy to correct.
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Danny said on June 2, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Okay, so I’ve stepped on two rattlesnakes while hiking since March (yes another little one about two weeks ago). Luckily no bites. Today, I am minding my own business, riding my bike, and a bee flies into my mouth, hits my teeth and stings me on the inside of my lower lip! I cannot win! My lip is way bigger than Mick Jagger’s.
Better stick to swimming…I did 7k yesterday with no ill effects.
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David C. said on June 2, 2013 at 8:45 pm
It sounds like you need a screen door when you ride, Danny. Take a Benadryl and sleep it off.
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beb said on June 2, 2013 at 9:22 pm
Bitter Scribe that is terrible news.
Danny, whose lips are bigger, yours, Jaggers or Stephen Tylers?
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Danny said on June 2, 2013 at 9:33 pm
beb, after another hour, it is now fairer to say that I now look like Mick and Steven’s love-child.
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Danny said on June 2, 2013 at 9:33 pm
delete second now.
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Julie Robinson said on June 2, 2013 at 10:20 pm
Oh Bitter Scribe, I’m so sorry. His pain has ended but yours has grown tenfold. Bless you for honoring your friend by taking charge of care for his cat. I will be in this situation someday with my mother’s cat–same deal, love them but I’m horribly allergic.
I don’t know what area of the country you’re in, but I bet all of us here would put out your request to our own friends across the country, to see if they know of any situations available. The author and animal activist Gwen Cooper is on a tour of no-kill shelters right now and I wonder if posting on her facebook page could also help with information about shelters. I’m on my way to bed now but I’ll check back in the morning, please let me know. I hope you can feel the virtual love and hugs from everyone here at nnc as you mourn him.
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nancy said on June 2, 2013 at 10:45 pm
Very sorry to hear this, B.S.
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Jolene said on June 2, 2013 at 11:28 pm
Count me among those who send condolences, Bitter. Am very sorry to hear about the death of your friend. Julie’s suggestion for finding a placement for the cat sounds like a good one. Might also be worth calling the US Humane Society. They may know of a rescue organization in your area that hasn’t come to your attention yet.
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Bitter Scribe said on June 3, 2013 at 10:59 am
Thank you all very much.
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