The grand canyon.

Remember what I said the other day about making room in your life for delicious foods of all sorts, because they are wonderful? Today I had to attend a Thing — you know, a Thing — that included a “light breakfast,” according to the invitation. I arrived to find fruit, bagels and doughnuts.

Had a little fruit, ignored the bagels, because if you can’t toast a bagel, what’s the damn point? Most of the doughnuts were the sort I don’t like — chocolate-frosted, sprinkled — but there, nestled among its less-appetizing brethren, a little spotlight from heaven fell on my favorite doughnut of all time: Sour-cream glazed. Hello, beautiful, I thought, and selected it for my own.

I don’t mind telling you that eating it was like manna from heaven, if a little overpowering. I’ve been eating eggs and spinach and yogurt and protein-y breakfasts for so many months, I’d forgotten the simple, now-verboten joy of the Homer Simpson special. My heart soared like a sugary hawk. The program started. Ten minutes into the keynote, my eyelids grew heavy. That sucrose is one powerful drug.

Back to eggs tomorrow. I don’t need this sugar-crack stuff.

So. I was surprised to see myself Twitter-tagged on this story, until I read it and realized one of my tweets had been cited as evidence of the little-known cult of fans of the big-vagina subplot in “The Godfather.” Not the movie, the novel; Francis Ford Coppola wisely left those pages on the cutting-room floor when he wrote the script, although Lucy, the possessor of the oversize vagina in question, is in two brief scenes. As I think we’ve mentioned here before, it’s a strange little diversion in a badly written novel about organized crime. Lucy is one of Connie’s bridesmaids in the wedding, and is filled with shame because her vagina is SO BIG — how big is it? — it’s SO BIG that guys can’t even feel it. But Sonny Corleone has a giant Italian sausage and can please her. He first does so at the wedding; she’s the bridesmaid he’s seen banging against the wall, early on. His death at the toll plaza devastates her, until she meets a nice doctor in Las Vegas, who does vagina surgery on her and tightens her up again. They get engaged.

I read this when I was old enough to know what sex involved, but before I’d actually had any, and I can’t tell you how much this concerned me. Could I, too, have a giant vagina? How would I know? Would I be like Lucy, and just have to glean it from the grumbling of my unsatisfied boyfriends, who would mutter I was “too big down there?”

Do you start to understand how women’s minds work? Find us a topic, we’ll figure out a way to worry about it.

I tweeted the story to Laura Lippman, who once told me she, too, remembered Lucy. She replied: “Meanwhile don’t forget Puzo’s other valuable lesson — the best sex in the world is had by a Sicilian virgin on her wedding night.” We’ll save that analysis for another day.

Today’s unfortunate ad placement. You newspaper people know how this stuff happens. They are endlessly amusing to me.

Finally, some of you who read Bridge know that one of the services we provide during election season is fact-checking campaign ads, mailers, etc. — political speech of all kinds. You are certainly welcome to rummage around the Michigan Truth Squad section of our site, but I call your particular attention to this mailer, which encourages voters to call the candidate and complain about Obamacare. But the number given rings at the bedside of the candidate’s 91-year-old mother, who is in a nursing home. You think you’ve seen ’em all, and then you see another.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen one of the six “Say Yes to the Candidate” spots, we did that one, too. You may spot a familiar prose style.

Happy downside of the week, all.

Posted at 8:25 pm in Movies, Uncategorized |
 

75 responses to “The grand canyon.”

  1. Joe K said on October 8, 2014 at 8:30 pm

    Lucy’s big vagina, great name for a punk band, anyone know what the Stone Temple Pilots original name was?
    Nice to have you back on a semi regular basis N!
    Pilot Joe

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  2. Joe K said on October 8, 2014 at 8:40 pm

    Also remember Tom Arnold’s reply when his ex wife Rosanne spoke out about his alleged short comings, his reply? In the Grand Canyon even a 747 looks small.
    Bassett, hope all is well with Mrs B.
    Pilot Joe

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  3. brian stouder said on October 8, 2014 at 9:26 pm

    Y’know, honestly – it never occurred to me that women would ever have any concern about genital dimensions. Men’s concerns in that area are old hat (so to speak)…but really, truly, and sincerely – I cannot imagine ever complaining about female dimensions. (Y’know the cliche remarks that people make at awards ceremonies, like the Oscars or the Grammies or whatever? When they say “I’m just happy to be here” – and they never thought they’d win, etc etc? THAT sums up my view!)

    Never read Puzo’s book. If you want to be creeped out, read a William F Buckley novel with a sex scene in it. Exactly like watching the giant turtles get randy at the zoo, really.

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  4. Sue said on October 8, 2014 at 10:15 pm

    Gosh I wish there was a Wisconsin Truth Squad.

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  5. MichaelG said on October 8, 2014 at 11:25 pm

    There was a time 35 or 40 years ago when I was very sexually active and I experienced women who … well, I think I’ll just quietly walk away from that one.

    I’m glad to hear that your wife is OK, Basset.

    When I was a kid a baseball game ran about an hour and a half. Now it’s as Sherri says. There is so much time between pitches spent preening by the pitcher and the batter that games have become almost unwatchable. I find myself doing something else or looking at a book or something and missing the next pitch. There’s no sense of immediacy any more. The dragging time also affords the director too much time to concentrate on the pores on the batter’s nose.

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  6. MichaelG said on October 8, 2014 at 11:27 pm

    And don’t get me started on those pants dragging on the ground when they should be tucked into the socks.

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  7. Kirk said on October 8, 2014 at 11:29 pm

    Not tucked into the socks, just bloused at the knee.

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  8. basset said on October 8, 2014 at 11:40 pm

    Thanks for the support, everyone… we’ll get some more test results in the morning, she’s feeling much better.

    Size… like throwing a hot dog down a hallway, I’ve heard it described. At least women are more or less adjustable to conditions.

    And how do we know that men designed the iPhone? Who else would build something five and a half inches long and call it a six plus?

    Badump-bump. Try the veal, we’re here all week.

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  9. beb said on October 9, 2014 at 12:04 am

    Brian S @3: I’ve seen turtles being randy at a zoo. Clack-clack-clack. slow and ponderous. And those were the smaller turtles.

    With four weeks to go before the general election I am already sick of the political ads. The Say Yes to the Dress ads may be amusing but most of them seem just filled with one bald-faced lie after another. It’s going to be a long month!

    I love this:
    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/10/08/your-wednesday-morning-moment-of-zen/

    man carrying a gun was robbed of it by another man carrying a gun.

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  10. Jolene said on October 9, 2014 at 12:47 am

    Brian, your “just happy to be here” line is priceless. Better than Letterman for a pre-bedtime laugh.

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  11. Dexter said on October 9, 2014 at 2:19 am

    Sonny’s member: extra grande salsiccia

    I read the book on the tarmac at Bien Hoa Air Base, about 16 miles from Saigon, Vietnam. It was a great way to kill time waiting for transport, which never arrived, and I was driven to my next duty station in an open jeep.

    The movie came out a couple years after I had read the book, and I loved it. I made a name for myself because at parties I did a mean Don Corleone, wadding up a couple napkins to stuff into my cheeks to get the preferred effect. I had it down. My most requested line: “I like to drink wine more than I useta…anyway, I’m drinkin’ more.” http://www.killerclips.com/clip.php?id=115&qid=1434&PHPSESSID=087bc151a782e97e6f5def938222a144

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  12. ROGirl said on October 9, 2014 at 4:36 am

    Lucy’s Loose Vagina — the porn movie name

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  13. alex said on October 9, 2014 at 8:29 am

    Throwing a hotdog down a hallway isn’t just hetero sex. There are guys who could birth a baby out their ass.

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  14. adrianne said on October 9, 2014 at 8:51 am

    I say Michigan wins the race to the bottom with political ad featuring 91-year-old’s bedside phone.

    Loved the Twitter conversation on Lucy’s cavernous woo.

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  15. Heather said on October 9, 2014 at 9:08 am

    I nominate Alex for the win.

    The only context in which I’ve heard concern about big vaginas is post-childbirth. But it eventually shrinks, and there are also exercises you can do to get it back into shape faster. I read some article about this in France–apparently as part of their system you get a nurse to check in on you and the baby at home for several weeks, part of which is to make sure the mom is doing her Kegels. Mais bien sur.

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  16. Dorothy said on October 9, 2014 at 9:32 am

    Oh Alex. Now I can’t un-read that comment. It was funny as hell, but also mildly disturbing. Yes, you get the thread win already.

    I hope Mrs. Basset will have only positive outcomes on her test results. And I’m so glad Little Bird’s surgery went well and she’s home recovering! And Jolene, I’m glad a knee replacement is a long way down the road. I’m glad I got my partial done 16 months ago, but I’m still not wild about walking up stairs. The surgery I’m most glad about was having both of my arthritic thumb joints fixed. Best thing I ever did. No more pain, I can hand quilt, knit and open bottle caps with ease.

    No job news yet (I am back at UD but not a full-time employee just yet), but I do have happy theater-related news. I auditioned on Monday for a part in Wendy Wasserstein’s “Isn’t It Romantic” and I got cast as Lillian. Show opens on 11/21 and runs three weekends. It’s an adrenaline rush to get a phone call from a director asking you to be in their show. So that’s three shows for me this year, which I haven’t done in quite some time.

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  17. brian stouder said on October 9, 2014 at 9:36 am

    Dorothy – that’s marvelous!

    (I would be petrified!)

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  18. Bitter Scribe said on October 9, 2014 at 9:59 am

    I remember thinking that Puzo’s book was surprisingly sophisticated about medicine–not just the clinical details, but how doctors work and think. (Most of this was expressed through the character of Lucy’s doctor boyfriend, who not only “fixes” her but helps the Johnny Fontaine character get his singing voice back.) I wonder if Puzo himself had some kind of medical background.

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  19. ninja3000 said on October 9, 2014 at 10:01 am

    re Lucy:

    Charles Bukowski goes off on a riff about a woman with a Grand Canyon in one of his novels, I forget which one. It was the first time I ever read about the subject, the kind of thing I would never bring up in public conversation. Until now…

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  20. brian stouder said on October 9, 2014 at 10:11 am

    We have that effect on otherwise-polite folks…!

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  21. Deborah said on October 9, 2014 at 11:02 am

    What fun Dorothy, I too like Brian, would be terrified to perform in a play.

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  22. coozledad said on October 9, 2014 at 11:07 am

    If you’re going to play football, you probably want to have a big prolapsed asshole. Otherwise some “heterosexual” will rip it with his finger.
    http://gawker.com/nj-high-school-football-team-hazing-included-fingers-in-1644014479

    The coaches and parents of these kids, like a lot of other high school boosters, are incubating rape culture. There’s research now suggesting antisocial behaviors are the genetic inheritance of about 10% of people. They havehigher rates of alcohol abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and smoking related illnesses. These high-rate or “life persistent” offenders begin victimizing others in early childhood-biting and hitting on the playground, bullying their peers-and continue on into adulthood, where they commit robberies, start bar fights, physically abuse their wives and children, and drive drunk.

    At some point in their lives, they will likely write for The American Spectator or the National Review.

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  23. brian stouder said on October 9, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    Cooz, wow.

    A quote from a mom of a freshman, taken from her comments to the school board [emphasis added by me]:

    “I was at the police station with him when they were questioning him,” she said. “They were talking about a butt being grabbed. That’s about it. No one was hurt. No one died. I don’t understand why they’re being punished. I think that the forfeited game was punishment enough.”

    I wonder how much she can fit (so to speak) into that dismissive “that’s about it”?

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  24. MichaelG said on October 9, 2014 at 12:59 pm

    Kirk @ #7, yeah, I knew that, I was just having fun writing it.

    That was funny, Brian.

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  25. beb said on October 9, 2014 at 1:31 pm

    There always seems to be a sexual dimension to all hazings, as if to say, ‘you’re not one of us until we (figuratively) fuck you.’

    The Sayreville’s principal’s decision to cancel the rest of the football season over this behavior was the right one.

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  26. coozledad said on October 9, 2014 at 1:53 pm

    It’ll take eighty years to undo Rudy 9/11’s condottieri. It might require government troops:
    http://gawker.com/nypd-interrupts-birthday-party-to-steal-cash-pepper-sp-1644318883

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  27. Jill said on October 9, 2014 at 5:10 pm

    Congratulations, Dorothy! I can give speeches to fairly large groups without much anxiety but the thought of performing in a play makes me break out in a cold sweat.
    I hope Little Bird’s discomfort is lessening today.

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  28. brian stouder said on October 9, 2014 at 5:41 pm

    Cooz, and aside from Rudy, Governor Cuomo is a piece of work, too

    http://dianeravitch.net/2014/10/09/after-elections-governor-cuomo-plans-major-crackdown-on-teachers/

    The lead (with some emphasis added by me):

    Governor Cuomo made clear that he thinks the current system of teacher evaluation in New York is inadequate. Too many teachers have been found to be effective or highly effective. In his way of thinking, the proportion of ineffective teachers would be as high as the proportion of students with low scores. With a “meets proficiency” rate of only 31% on the state’s Common Core tests, most teachers would be found ineffective, and there would be a whole lot of firing. Then Cuomo would have the challenge of replacing most of the state’s teachers. He knows nothing about education, about teaching, or about children. I could give him a reading list, but he wouldn’t read it. It is frightening to have consequential decisions made by a man who is so uninformed. Cuomo, who never attended a public school, never taught a day in his life, never sent his own children to public school, wants to crack down on teacher evaluation. He seems not to know that New York has one of the most inequitably funded school systems in the nation. Certainly he knows nothing about the needs of children other than his own and those of his privileged friends.

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  29. Little Bird said on October 9, 2014 at 6:20 pm

    It’s already better today! I’m trying to go with Aleve instead of the oxycodone, since the latter seems to give me heartburn. With crutches I can hobble to the bathroom or kitchen.
    Oh, and as per the turtles gettin’ it on? Two summers ago I saw two very large tortoises engaging in such activities. She didn’t seem too interested…

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  30. Basset said on October 9, 2014 at 6:21 pm

    Post-childbirth? I have heard the sewing up of a tear in the surrounding flesh called “the husband’s knot,” I dunno.

    Another night in the hospital for mrs. B and more tests, they’re not telling us anything scary yet though. Yet.

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  31. MichaelG said on October 9, 2014 at 7:58 pm

    I just got a fantastic call from my surgeon with results from the CT Scan and the MRI. The spots on my lungs have shrunk and what I have with my thigh is just fluid build up. The sarcoma is not recurring. He wants to keep an eye on things but no action for now. I will be seeing my oncologist on Monday. Whew!!

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  32. Sue said on October 9, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    MichaelG, I have been worrying about you and feel very happy for you now. This is good good news.
    The reason I popped in tonight though is to say two things:
    What the hell is the matter with Alaskans that NO ONE got video of The Big Fight; and
    Those baby grizzlies sure did grow up straight and true, didn’t they.
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sarah-palin-family-brawl-police-report

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  33. Jolene said on October 9, 2014 at 9:31 pm

    Great news, MichaelG. Very glad to hear it.

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  34. Deborah said on October 9, 2014 at 9:41 pm

    Glad to hear it MichaelG. I wonder if all the walking you did in Spain might have had something to do with the fluid build up?

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  35. brian stouder said on October 9, 2014 at 10:31 pm

    Basset – here’s to No News and/or No Scarey Stuff!

    And Michael G – magnificent! I credit the rain in Spain, and the ride in the plane

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  36. Dexter said on October 9, 2014 at 10:46 pm

    Tonight, with no baseball and only a Colts game available (I hate the Colts) , and , of course, the Red Wings games still blacked out for us (seven years now after many years of watching them on Fox Sports Detroit), I watched “The Legend of Mick Dodge” on NatGeo. Mick Dodge lives in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State these past 30 or so years. Tonight he was crossing a raging river, had all his clothes and belongings in a “dry bag” which got away from him, so for the entire show we watched Mick run naked through the forest , heading towards his woodsy tailor-woman (and new leather clothing), his front and back parts pixelated. He eats marrow from old bones, he eats parts of ferns stirred up with freshly-tapped maple sap…well, that’s about all it is. Finally he got his new duds.
    I am so naive sometimes I believe this crap really happens. These reality shows mix a little bit of backgrond truth in with a whole lot of scripted bullshit, at least that’s what I believe.
    I finally watched the Bil Maher show that had the country in a fit…the part where guest Ben Affleck refuted Maher and an author in a heated discussion about the majority of Muslims being peace-desiring folk…Maher and his guest thought along different lines.
    In case you never picked up on it, Bill Maher is a weaselly little prick who masquerades as a liberal who makes fun of Republicans, that’s his schtick. When push comes to shove, he always backs away and goes out of is way to support hellacious programs and policies that were engineered by Republicans like Bush and Cheney, such as Shock and Awe in 2003. Maher went on for weeks after the initial attacks on Baghdad which wiped out entire neighborhoods of civilian families. Oh well, it’s a free country, this USA.

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  37. MichaelG said on October 10, 2014 at 12:48 am

    Good, Dexter. I’m glad that someone besides me sees Maher for the pos that he is.

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  38. Dexter said on October 10, 2014 at 1:50 am

    It’s always discouraging to find a funny guy who you used to laugh with and tell your friends about turns out to be a vile bastard. So that’s right, MichaelG, he’s a waste of time.

    Another controversial star would have been 74 yesterday, the 9th. I first heard of him and his band in 1962 when a few stories made the US newspapers. This wild and crazy band had set the world on fire in Hamburg, then had been corralled and cleaned up and presented to the world as Great Britain’s answer to Buddy Holly, actually…but it evolved into a much more complicated story as the entire world knows today. This is just one of many of my favorite tunes written by John Lennon of The Beatles fame. (John , murdered by a man who had let J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” get into his head, in reality had a lot of Holden Caulfield’s values himself: he despised the rich who felt so superior but he also hated poor folks who proclaimed themselves “revolutionaries” of the 1960s…John Lennon hated phonies as much as Holden Caulfield ever did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

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  39. Dorothy said on October 10, 2014 at 8:36 am

    I’m so happy for you, MichaelG! My Michael got good news after his blood work at the oncologist a week ago today. If the next two blood work tests come out equally clear, he’ll be at the five year status and a cancer survivor.

    My son had Lasik surgery yesterday. We’re spending the day with him and Meg tomorrow. He said yesterday when he saw his doctor 15 minutes before the surgery, they exchanged pleasantries. My son asked “How are YOU doing today, doc?” and he said “Meh, I have a hangover.” Here’s hoping he was kidding.

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  40. brian stouder said on October 10, 2014 at 8:37 am

    Dorothy – yikes!!

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  41. coozledad said on October 10, 2014 at 9:22 am

    Sue: If the Palin brawl had been black, the cops would have shot it up with tear gas and plastic bullets and shaken everyone down for their cash and jewelry. Cars would have been impounded, gun safes looted.

    I have a theory that the Palins are just part of our oligarch’s program to freshen up their bloodlines with some white trash gametes. Looking down the road they can see they’re going to be lacking in a couple of traits necessary for their survival in the face of broad public contempt. The Palins have what they need: utter shamelessness, animal cunning, perpetual estrus and a monstrous insatiable lust for stuff.

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  42. LAMary said on October 10, 2014 at 9:29 am

    Good news, Michael.
    I stopped watching Bill Maher a while ago. There was just too much I had to overlook to justify watching. He’s a real jerk.

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  43. alex said on October 10, 2014 at 10:04 am

    Maher makes liberals look bad in the same way that Ann Coulter brings discredit to conservatives. I initially defended Maher back when he got thrown off network television for challenging the mainstream media orthodoxy at the time holding that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were “cowards.” He had pointed out that it takes some balls to commandeer a jet and fly it into a building, and that the real cowards were the press genuflecting before the stupid president who came up with the word in the first place. He was one of the few people willing to speak truth to power at the time and it cost him his show.

    In the years since, however, he has struck me as being all about shock value and taking contrarian positions that are indefensible, this latest one among them. Maher also describes himself as an atheist but again is a discredit to sincere nonbelievers who aren’t out to insult anyone.

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    • nancy said on October 10, 2014 at 10:06 am

      He’s also an anti-vaxxer. That sealed the deal for me.

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  44. coozledad said on October 10, 2014 at 10:11 am

    I get tired of watching Bill Maher read to the camera pretty quickly. No wit and no timing. The show is geared to stoners, but that’s no excuse for his monologues. They sound like a voiceover for an old Coronet social hygeine film.

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  45. Sherri said on October 10, 2014 at 11:05 am

    I though Maher was a libertarian, not a liberal. He’s never struck me as someone who was that interested in protecting the rights of the underclass. But I’ve never paid that much attention to him, because I never found him that interesting.

    Great news, MichaelG.

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  46. Basset said on October 10, 2014 at 11:50 am

    Watched local news last night on our NBC affiliate, don’t usually but I was avoiding football on CBS… got distracted and came back into the room must as the Tonight Show was starting. Loud and obnoxious and who is that smarmy man in the middle of everything? I couldn’t stand it. Get those kids outa my yard.

    Good news on mrs B this morning, situation is non-life-threatening and already been repaired, expect to have her home Sunday.

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  47. Dorothy said on October 10, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    For the writers who hang out around here – please pass this along, particularly to those who live in Ohio: https://employment2.kenyon.edu/postings/1879

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  48. MichaelG said on October 10, 2014 at 2:15 pm

    That’s fantastic, Basset!

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  49. Julie Robinson said on October 10, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    That’s three good medical reports and I’ll take those any day over the bad kind. Happy weekend, all!

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  50. brian stouder said on October 10, 2014 at 2:29 pm

    Superb news, indeed, Basset.

    That makes this an extra-nice Friday afternoon!

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  51. Dexter said on October 10, 2014 at 2:55 pm

    Back in 1993 Lasik-type surgery was only for the well-to-do. As I heard it, Lasik surgery wasn’t even approved in the USA until a few years later, hence the cash-paid surgery in Canada. My grandson’s dad has a mother who had and has the cash, and she sent her son to Toronto for the surgery. The son used to wear coke-bottle glasses at a very early age and his surgery was totally successful…21 years down the road and never wore glasses again.
    Nowadays, athletes are examined before they sign big contracts, and if it is deemed Lasik will improve their eyesight, they are sent straightaway to the clinic. Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants is featured in a Lasik commercial on the Giants’ flagship, KNBR-AM radio. (I get it on satellite radio.)

    Back in 1965, our high school’s varsity basketball team started five guys, Buff, Den, Bob, Jim, and Steve. They all wore eyeglasses. You won’t see that anymore I betcha. Lasik revolutionized that, and if not Lasik, plenty still wear contacts. Generally speaking, the only kids wearing eyewear are wearing goggles to protect from/prevent injuries.

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  52. Sherri said on October 10, 2014 at 3:42 pm

    So everybody’s probably heard about Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stepping in it at the Grace Hopper Conference, telling women they should let karma take care of raises. You may not have heard of the panel the day before at the same conference, where a group of male execs in the tech industry weren’t much better (http://readwrite.com/2014/10/09/technology-sexism-male-allies-grace-hopper-celebration).

    I bring this up for context for this piece by one of the (white male)business columnists at the Seattle Times, who seems to think we’re all just getting outraged over nothing: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/jontalton/2014/10/10/vote-nadella-on-women-asking-for-raises/

    The Grace Hopper Conference is for women in computing, put on by the Anita Borg Institute. I met both of those women, and neither of them tolerated fools well. I especially wish Anita Borg were still alive to address these men; she died much too young.

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  53. brian stouder said on October 10, 2014 at 4:08 pm

    Sherri – a moment of glaring, unpolished, unedited unfair honesty, on the part of the jerkwad who runs Microsoft.

    And indeed, being a lukewarm follower of Diane Ravitch and the defenders of real public schools (as opposed to for-profit voucher-mills), I have zero-tolerance for Bill Gates his-own-self, and his ridiculously destructive “reform” agenda for us plebeians and our uppity notion that he DOESN’T actually “know best”

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  54. Sherri said on October 10, 2014 at 5:12 pm

    The depressing thing is, Nadella seems to be less of a jerk than many tech CEOs, and certainly less of a jerk than either Ballmer or Gates. But the idea from the columnist at the local paper that we should just give him a break is annoying to me; what ever happened to to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”?

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  55. Basset said on October 10, 2014 at 5:36 pm

    Thanks for the support, everyone! Heading over there shortly. LASIK… I have mentioned this before but I had one of those Nashville moments awhile back, walked into the eye doctor’s office and saw a big frame with gold CDs and a letter from the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd thanking him for doing theirs.

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  56. Judybusy said on October 10, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    So happy to hear the positive medical news from Little Bird, Mrs. Bassett and MichaelG!

    In an update to my sad kitty story, we did end up reporting the fool who let his dog off leash. His dog has been declared a dangerous animal. There are host of restrictions that go with this, including having him on a 3-foot leash, muzzled, etc. The owner will also have to carry liability insurance of $300,000, and pay more annually for a special permit and license. He also got fined for letting the dog off leash, around $300 I think. We don’t know if he will still come around to our next-door neighbor’s. We can’t control that of course, but I’ll never speak to him again. Thanks again for all your kindness.

    Re: Nadella et alia: I read a great book about 10 years ago called “Women Don’t Ask” all about how we are less likely to negotiate in all sorts of areas. I always recommend it to my students (I supervise a student intern every year as they earn their master’s in social work) as they prepare to seek new positions with their shiny new degrees. I’ve also shared it with my nieces as they’ve come to adulthood. After my not asking for more money in my first post-college job, I’ve always asked for more moeny and gotten it.

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  57. Sherri said on October 10, 2014 at 5:51 pm

    Over half the advertising by outside groups in this year’s Congressional elections is by secret money, organizations that don’t disclose their donors: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/us/politics/ads-paid-for-by-secret-money-flood-the-midterm-elections.html?_r=0

    I’m surprised it’s that low. Even in the state senate race here, there’s been a flood of secret money supporting the Republican incumbent under the name “Good Government Leadership Council”, whose only donors are “The Leadership Council”.

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  58. Sherri said on October 10, 2014 at 6:26 pm

    It’s never as simple as “why don’t they just leave”: http://espn.go.com/espnw/w-in-action/article/11672435/i-know-whether-victory-was-leaving-staying

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  59. Sherri said on October 10, 2014 at 6:51 pm

    I believe that I expressed some doubt here about the rape accusation against Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston when that story first broke. I was wrong: http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/jameis-winston-florida-state-tallahassee-police-hindered-investigation-documents-101014

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  60. Deborah said on October 10, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    Great news Basset.

    As Little Bird said upstream, she’s doing much, much better today. I helped her change the dressing this morning, Dr ordered it to be done 48 hrs after the surgery and it was the first look we got of the incision. It is much shorter than the Dr led us to believe it was going to be in his initial description when she had her first appointment with him. It is only about 7″ long, kind of swollen around it and bruised but he says that will all clear up and level out. It really doesn’t look bad. She’s much more mobile today and her pain is much, much better when putting weight on that leg. It’s not been exactly a piece of cake but all in all it’s been ok.

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  61. basset said on October 10, 2014 at 10:57 pm

    Mrs. B. feels good and is more than ready to go home, they want to keep her a little longer to watch for infection and monitor her blood counts.

    On a totally different topic… saw something the other day, I think on some subreddit, which asked “if you were going to spend the next year in 12 different cities, one month apiece, where would you go?” I narrowed that down to 12 US cities and came up with this list, some of them selected for their proximity to rural/remote/small town locations:

    Portland, OR
    Seattle
    Boulder
    Minneapolis
    Sault Ste. Marie, MI
    Anchorage
    Pensacola, FL
    San Antonio, TX
    Charleston, SC
    Montpelier, VT
    Rapid City, SD
    Bloomington, IN

    So let the mockery begin… and yes, I did leave New York out on purpose, also DC, Atlanta, Houston, and Miami. Have been to three of the last four and while DC would be interesting for a few days I could quite happily go the rest of my life without another visit to Atlanta or Houston.

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  62. Dexter said on October 11, 2014 at 2:19 am

    Places to ticket me through: 1) Austin 2)Pacific Grove (Monterey) 3)Brattleboro , VT 4)New York 5)Seattle 6)Nag’s Head NC 7) New Orleans 8) Asheville, NC 9) Fort Myers, 10) Wellfleet, MA (Cape Cod) 11)Savannah 12)Chicago

    Musts to avoid: 1) Macon, GA 2) Indianapolis 3)Columbus 4)Needles, CA 5) Buffalo 6) Elko, NV 7)Atlanta 8)Perry, GA 9)Orlando 10) San Antonio 11)Phoenix

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  63. Basset said on October 11, 2014 at 8:23 am

    I’ve been to your 7, 8, and 10 and would go back to the last two… saw New Orleans before it flooded, that was enough.

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  64. Basset said on October 11, 2014 at 8:27 am

    Now that Herman’s Hermits song is stuck in my head – “sheeee’s aaaaa must to avoid, a complete impossibility…”

    Time to go hit some Saturday morning yard sales and see if I can find some more swivel chairs for the deer blinds. Two down, two to go.

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  65. brian stouder said on October 11, 2014 at 8:28 am

    I can attest to Rapid City, a wonderful place to be; and Pueblo, Colorado; Hagerstown, Maryland; Wisconsin Dells; Dale, Indiana (Lincoln Boyhood Home attraction is quite nice); Springfield, IL (and/or Galesburg – an interesting place for both Lincolnia and Carl Sandberg); San Diego, CA (of course!); Columbus, Ohio (marvelous zoo, excellent downtown); and Harrisburg, PA (lots of interesting stuff thereabouts)

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  66. Deborah said on October 11, 2014 at 9:42 am

    While I liked parts of South Dakota I was in this summer, Rapid City wasn’t one of them. But maybe it wasn’t pleasant because of our dingy, over priced hotel room. Places I would want to spend an entire month:
    NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis (but not a winter month). I can’t think of 10 right now. I wouldn’t pick any places in either Florida or Texas (not even Austin, not for a month).

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  67. Deborah said on October 11, 2014 at 9:44 am

    I mean I can’t think of 12 right now. It would be easy to think of 12 cities in the world, not just in the US.

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  68. Heather said on October 11, 2014 at 9:46 am

    I’m so glad to hear MichaelG, Mrs. B., and Little Bird are doing well! That is some really good news. And I am hanging on to good news right now.

    I know this isn’t a support group, but I am facing some challenges of the emotional variety. My boyfriend is going through a very tough time–the worst time of his life, I’d say, with his mother terminally ill and some other related family stresses going on. He’s 46 and I knew he was emotionally a bit immature and easily overloaded, but basically I haven’t heard from him at all in ten days. We had a very difficult discussion about the future (dumb to bring it up, but his issues triggered my abandonment issues and apparently I couldn’t help myself) and I kind of fell apart at what he told me. I put myself together pretty quickly and he said it was fine, he loved me, etc, and I know he does–but then he pulled back. I told him I knew he needed some space and that’s been it since last Wednesday.

    I feel like I’m in a Lifetime movie–“my boyfriend of three years disappeared!” Everyone says to give him all the space he needs, and actually this is good for me in a weird way, because I realized I was relying on him wayyyyyy too much for my happiness, so he felt a lot of pressure. It’s all still in motion and I go up and down. I know in the end I will be OK no matter what, but I’m not really feeling it yet.

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  69. brian stouder said on October 11, 2014 at 10:30 am

    Heather, no fun.

    Here’s wishing you strength, and (always) – perspective

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  70. Basset said on October 11, 2014 at 11:38 am

    I’ve never been to Rapid City or to that part of the country, just seemed like it’d be a good base for exploring the area.

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  71. Jill said on October 11, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    That sounds hard, Heather. I’m sorry you’re having to go through it.

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  72. MichaelG said on October 11, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    Gosh, Heather, I feel terribly but I’m certainly the last person to give advice about relationships. I hope everything works out all right.

    Dexter. what do you have against Needles? And yes, there still is sand blowing through the streets.

    I’ll try New Orleans, Miami, New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland, L.A., San Francisco and San Diego. I have several places in mind for the last few spots and none of them is Needles. Or its neighbor Barstow. Maybe Savannah, Wilmington, NC and Charleston. Nothing’s cast in stone here.

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  73. MichaelG said on October 11, 2014 at 3:11 pm

    Come to think of it I suppose they don’t cast stone. Stones maybe but not stone. I better quit.

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  74. Jolene said on October 11, 2014 at 7:32 pm

    My choices:
    Seattle
    Tucson
    Santa Fe
    Boston
    Chicago
    New York
    San Francisco
    Asheville, NC
    Ann Arbor
    Minneapolis
    Madison, WI
    Pittsburgh

    Of course, this assumes a posh place to stay in a cool neighborhood and the funds for all the restaurants, taxis, and tickets (to plays, concerts, museums and such) that I could squeeze in.

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