Another day, another mass shooting. What is there to say about this one?
NPR gave it about five or six minutes, which might have been the limit of known facts, or a strategy to distinguish itself from cable news. Can’t say. As soon as I heard the news, I sighed and decided to wait until the Home Final was delivered, so to speak. And now that it’s on the doorstep, here’s what I have learned:
Well, there’s racism. Among other things.
Sigh. Let’s skip to the bloggage; I’m very tired.
I see Betsy McCaughey is peddling the same old snake oil.
A good one from Neil Steinberg. The homeless have very 19th-century medical lives:
In her 12 years with the Night Ministry, the last line of assistance for Chicago’s impoverished, Schreiber has seen much that medical professionals rarely see: trenchfoot, frostbite, gangrene, untreated fractures, gashes that victims sutured themselves with clear tape. “These people are so marginalized, they hesitate to seek health care,” she said. “These people just suffer.”
Baby Holly’s great line in Sunday’s “Breaking Bad?” IMPROVISED. Gives me hope for our bullet-strewn future, but right now, I’m going to bed.
Dexter said on September 17, 2013 at 1:35 am
Wayne LaPierre, P.O.S. extraordinaire:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nra-doubles-guns-article-1.1226225
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linda said on September 17, 2013 at 6:34 am
While McCaughey is a so and so, I wonder why the media isn’t doing more on the health care law before October 1st, the started of the sign-ups. They are running political horserace bullshit and scare stories. People are scarily uninformed.
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Suzanne said on September 17, 2013 at 7:33 am
One very right leaning (bordering on paranoid) woman I know recently regaled me with an account of her visit to the doctor, speaking at great length about how, because of Obamacare, she had to fill out a questionnaire that asked about drug use, AIDS exposure, etc. See? That’s how it’s going to be!! How could they ever think a middle aged, Christian grandmother would do drugs!!! It’s all HIS fault!
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coozledad said on September 17, 2013 at 7:33 am
Linda: OFA has some information sessions open to the general public. We’re going to one in Greensboro (at NC A&T) this weekend. Following the session, the attendees will canvass targeted areas to try and get some information out. I know it’s like having an encyclopedia salesman read selected sections, but its something.
Per the racist shit on twitter, I still haven’t forgotten who the Republicans supported in the last two elections, and in a moment of rare lucidity, I think I figured out what makes their pet monkey hump. I posted this over in the comments at alicublog:
First, a lot of them subscribe to a notion of grace that absolves them utterly from any consistency-intellectual, ideological, or spiritual.
What they wind up with is a creepy shamelessness. That’s why it was easy for them to identify with McCain/ Romney. And once you’ve sunk that far, you’re likely to have wounded and alienated so many people around you that a realization of it would make the difference between a mean, shabby life, and one that’s too poisoned to be worth pursuing at all.
Has this guy got a good reason to be walking the planet? Is paranoid style a justification for a life of gnawing up an undue share of resources? I fucking think not:
http://ncrenegade.com/editorial/why-security-is-important-immediately/
This particular sadass is either a living, breathing cautionary tale who needs some public sponsored protective incarceration, or it’s the ghost of Terry Southern, milking Poe’s Law for all it’s worth.
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David C. said on September 17, 2013 at 7:43 am
People who believe Betsy McCaughey or any Republican on anything to do with health care need to get a free drool cup fitted courtesy of Obamacare.
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Basset said on September 17, 2013 at 7:55 am
Some carryover from yesterday… Nancy linked to a Bridge article about new restrictions on hunting young male deer in some NW Michigan counties. Essential concept there is to let the young ones walk so they can grow up to be big ones, which I suppose is a good idea… we hunt in Newaygo County, just outside the affected area, and while I will admit to taking a spike there a few seasons ago I am a meat hunter and shoot mostly does. Which you can do literally by the dozens in my part of Tennessee, legal limit is three a day all season.
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nancy said on September 17, 2013 at 8:02 am
So now my old newspaper is running 9/11 truthers’ letters (from CANADIANS) and labeling them “community voice.” Pathetic. There’s no other word.
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alex said on September 17, 2013 at 8:09 am
Well, Nance, we’ve heard enough from our own village idiots to last a lifetime. Craig Ladwig and the rest never have anything new or insightful to offer. The readership wants fresh red meat.
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brian stouder said on September 17, 2013 at 8:24 am
Well, on the subject of mass shootings and general unease, there’s this breaking story, which Pam learned when Grant (our 18 year old senior at South Side) texted her from the football field, 15 minutes ago:
http://www.wane.com/news/local/schools-evacuate-due-to-bomb-threat
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – A bomb threat has caused the evacuation of several high schools in Fort Wayne.
Police are currently responding to North Side High School, South Side High School, Wayne High School and Northrup High School.
Fort Wayne dispatch has confirmed a bomb threat was found at one of the schools around 7:45 a.m.
We also have a freshman (Shelby) at Wayne New Tech.
On the bright side, the day can only improve from here (presumably)
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alex said on September 17, 2013 at 8:51 am
Yesterday Bluffton High School was evacuated over a bomb threat. Probably the new way to get out of tests you’re unprepared for. Just call in an idle threat or leave a note someplace and everyone gets the day off.
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beb said on September 17, 2013 at 8:58 am
Yesterday was a sad day all around. There was the Navel Gardens shooting, and the racism expressed against the shooter, but there was also a lot of racism being flung around like so much monkey poo because the new Miss America is of Indian descent, so obviously she’s a muslim n****r. It’s like Twitter is the new cesspool.
Then I learned of the death of a man named Crohns, the great-nephew of Doctor Crohns, who first described Crohns disease. Mr. Crohns, 66, committed suicide for some reason. Before that he had been a medical oddity – being naturally immune to AIDS. In fact it was from studying his resistance that a key step to slowing and even immunizing against the disease was first made. Such a critical man in so many ways and yet such an unhappy one as well, apparently.
His immunity was due to the AIDS virus requiring two receptor sites to lock on to. Through a genetic mutation his second receptor site was distorted and so not available. That discovery has lead to medicines that block that second receptor site ahead of the aids virus.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 17, 2013 at 8:58 am
Unless you’re a parent, you generally don’t hear about them, because standard doctrine is not to publicize bomb threats — it demonstrably triggers more when you do. But they’ve never gone away, and yes, they do spike around test time.
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Kim said on September 17, 2013 at 9:02 am
I think there are as many bomb threats today as when I was an unprepared high school student staring down an exam. I remember when (oh, dear God, do I sound like Mitch or what?) newspapers didn’t report threats because copycats would surely follow. Today it seems like newspapers react to the text message sent by the school division to parents (or the kids texting their parents to say there’s been a threat, so everyone please go immediately to the Worst Case Scenario)by writing the story, which is followed by the copycats.
I’m not saying newspapers shouldn’t be on it, but caution arising from knowing what you don’t know seems to be absent. Today’s lead WaPo story on the Navy Yard shooter doesn’t mention the second – or third – suspects who were at large in yesterday afternoon’s coverage. Why? Apparently they didn’t exist.
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Jolene said on September 17, 2013 at 9:24 am
To be fair, I don’t think anyone official said there were other suspects in the Navy Yard shooting. What they said was that they had seen two people on video who, for some unstated reason, aroused suspicion. When they tracked down those individuals, the suspicions were dismissed fairly quickly.
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Dave said on September 17, 2013 at 9:24 am
Bomb threats used to avoid tests are nothing new, I remember one somewhere in Fairfield County, OH, some forty years ago. Can’t quite remember which school.
I also remember a couple of bomb threats at my father’s workplace, Newark Air Force Station in Heath, OH. As a supervisor, he had to stay and help search.
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BigHank53 said on September 17, 2013 at 10:02 am
Twitter isn’t the new cesspool. The cesspool was always there. Twitter just installed a porthole and pipes the images straight into your living room. What do you imagine mouth-breathing halfwits were saying when Vanessa Williams won the pageant? ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is kind of broken now.
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Kim said on September 17, 2013 at 10:05 am
Jolene, I’m pretty sure Cathy Lanier said the cops were looking for possibly two others. Maybe it was Gray who said that? Regardless, the lookout for them was canceled late last night. Maybe that was out of an abundance of caution, but considering the WaPo graphic still says “As many as two shooters, including one in fatigues, killed at least four people and wounded eight others in a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, police said…” I think it should have played in the whole chaos of the day. It was certainly the reason the shelter in place order wasn’t lifted until some seven hours after the shooting stopped (because the shooter was killed).
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Judybusy said on September 17, 2013 at 10:15 am
The real tragedy of the ACA is that so many states are declining the Medicaid expansion, so that the most vulnerable citizens, like the homeless, will continue to have no insurance. Colleagues of mine recently attended the National Conference on AIDS. The states with the highest number of low-income HIV+ people are the same states who are rejecting expanded Medicaid funding. So much human potential wasted, lost.
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brian stouder said on September 17, 2013 at 10:38 am
Nancy’s snake oil peddler-link lady would absolutely have a case of the vapors at question-time at Red Cross (a non-governmental agency which has nothing to do with ACA, btw) if she ever wanted to donate blood or platelets
(somehow, I bet that will never be an issue for her)
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nancy said on September 17, 2013 at 10:51 am
No shit, Brian. Back when those questions were asked face-to-face, I’d always quip that I’d led a boring life. (“Have you ever had sex with a man who traded sex for drugs or money, even one time?”) That McCaughey column is so vile — pitched at the dumbest possible lip-moving readers. Every doctor worth even an offshore medical-school diploma should ask those sorts of questions as a matter of course. I’ve answered them many times, and have always felt a simple yes or no was sufficient to move the show along.
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coozledad said on September 17, 2013 at 10:58 am
What are these people afraid of? If you’ve led an exemplary fundie life, you’ll have the pleasure of shouting NOOOH!at the top of your lungs after every question. I thought that was a feature in their roleplaying community, anyway.
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brian stouder said on September 17, 2013 at 11:19 am
I like the newer one, where they ask me if I’ve always been male, since birth.
The temptation is to ask if that includes metaphorically – ’cause my wife would surely testify against me!
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alex said on September 17, 2013 at 11:22 am
No, Doctor, I just grew a prostate so you’d finger-bang me.
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Maggie Jochild said on September 17, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Alex for the win.
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Dorothy said on September 17, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Hey Kirk…I hear you introduced yourself to the new intern and told her we “know” each other. She told my daughter “Maybe I got a little way too excited” to find out about the connection. But she was thrilled you spoke with her about me. I was right – her unhappiness comes from the age differences, and the fact that it’s mostly men there. I hope she’s not miserable for the entire duration of her time at the Dispatch. I think Mike and I will meet up with her in two weeks or so. I’ll include our daughter-in-law so she has someone closer to her age to chat with, too.
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Kirk said on September 17, 2013 at 2:09 pm
She was rather effusive, but she seems like a nice kid. I worked with her for the first time last night; she seems to have a clue, unlike some copy-desk interns who have complicated my life over the years.
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Dorothy said on September 17, 2013 at 2:55 pm
I think she thinks the Dispatch is too old fashioned in some habits. I won’t go into details – but I’m glad she has a clue.
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adrianne said on September 17, 2013 at 4:36 pm
I can’t believe Betsy McCaughey is still spewing her vile crap, especially after her less-than-stellar performance as lieutenant governor in New York for George Pataki. Basically, this is a nothing position that’s usually given to some upstate backbencher (quick, can anyone name Andy Cuomo’s lieutenant gov? What about his dad’s?). Betsy made the mistake of thinking it was all about her, not Pataki, and she was quickly exiled.
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adrianne said on September 17, 2013 at 4:36 pm
I can’t believe Betsy McCaughey is still spewing her vile crap, especially after her less-than-stellar performance as lieutenant governor in New York for George Pataki. Basically, this is a nothing position that’s usually given to some upstate backbencher (quick, can anyone name Andy Cuomo’s lieutenant gov? What about his dad’s?). Betsy made the mistake of thinking it was all about her, not Pataki, and she was quickly exiled.
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adrianne said on September 17, 2013 at 4:36 pm
I can’t believe Betsy McCaughey is still spewing her vile crap, especially after her less-than-stellar performance as lieutenant governor in New York for George Pataki. Basically, this is a nothing position that’s usually given to some upstate backbencher (quick, can anyone name Andy Cuomo’s lieutenant gov? What about his dad’s?). Betsy made the mistake of thinking it was all about her, not Pataki, and she was quickly exiled.
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brian stouder said on September 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm
Adrianne – you’re now officially in the club* (and I am the lieutenant governor of that club!) ; congratulations, madam!
*The club for thread growth through accidental replication (CG-TAR)
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acjones said on September 17, 2013 at 4:53 pm
ok, so Betsy says what she says. Still, I think that all one needs to know about the value of ACA is that Congress is exempt by a back room deal orchestrated by the Prez. Why should the rest of us have to participate if the designers of the law don’t?
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beb said on September 17, 2013 at 5:19 pm
Spotty internet connection again. drat!
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nancy said on September 17, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Congress is not exempt from the ACA.
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Jolene said on September 17, 2013 at 6:12 pm
Of all the things that piss me off re the massive ignorance and misunderstanding of the ACA, the idea that Congress is exempt from it is at the top of the list. And all the brouhaha stems from a Republican senator’s efforts to put a wrench in the works. What a dick!
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LAMary said on September 17, 2013 at 8:16 pm
Everyone in my office, politics be damned, was amused by the Betsy McCaughey thing. We all give blood regularly and we’re used to being asked strange questions about sex. Betsy’s a dolt.
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Deborah said on September 17, 2013 at 8:39 pm
My doctor, a woman in Chicago’s Northwestern medical system asked questions like that as routine the first time I met with her. No biggie, I thought nothing of it.
I do not get what the rightwing finds wrong with the ACA. What in the world could you dream up to find fault with? Granted it could have gone further to satisfy the lefties, but WTF?
Michael G, we’re doing the cherry coke pork shoulder braising soon, bought the shoulder today. Is there anything else I should know?
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Deborah said on September 17, 2013 at 8:46 pm
Why is my last comment awaiting moderation?
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nancy said on September 17, 2013 at 9:39 pm
It isn’t, according to my dashboard.
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Deborah said on September 17, 2013 at 10:59 pm
Must be my computer…
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MichaelG said on September 17, 2013 at 11:16 pm
Probably, Deborah. It will take several hours. Just don’t let it run dry. Check a generic recipe for shredded pork. I think she put some herbs in but I didn’t really watch. Now I feel responsible. My fingers and toes are crossed.
I’m in a Best Western in beautiful downtown Alturas, CA, which is way past the back of beyond in the upper right corner of the State where CA and OR and NV come together. There is some kind of old car thing going on and the parking lot is full of ancient cars. Nothing newer than about 1925. I counted eight Pierce Arrows. Beautiful old cars. They’re on some kind of tour. These are all driving cars, not museum queens.
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Dexter said on September 17, 2013 at 11:57 pm
I studiously and religiously avoid right wing and tea party assholes , you all know who they are, but quite by accident I was exposed to yet another one, who I thought must be Ann Coulter by her words, yet it didn’t sound like her voice, and it turned to be a robot-sounding tea party nutcase named Scottie Nell Hughes. If you like stunningly beautiful blonde women who have been brain-channelled and apparently hypnotized into the world of darkness, I bet you’ll love this stupid bitch.
She’s on Twitter @scottienellhughes. Another “looker” with an air-filled head.
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Jolene said on September 18, 2013 at 2:28 am
Lots of recipes online, Deborah, for pork with cherry coke. Just google “pork cherry Coke”.
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