Since I lost weight I’ve been buying new clothes, and while I’ve never been a fashion plate and have no interest of becoming one, it is fun to look at fashion magazines and websites again and see what’s going on out there. I can report a few headlines and my own reactions:
The ’70s are back, big-time. I keep hearing that wide-legged denim is here again, and so just pack those skinny jeans up and throw them in the trash, because BELLS, BABY. As I age, there are very few things I am certain of, but one is: Not going back to wide-legged denim. I only recently bought some skinnies, but then, I live far from fashion’s nerve center. Around here, jeans and a Detroit-themed T-shirt will take you everywhere but the symphony, and probably there, too.
Anyway, no elephant bells, and I’m also going to let trendier people discover the styles of the ’70s, most of which I couldn’t purge from my closet fast enough when the ’80s finally came along. (You know what I loved best about the ’80s? All of a sudden it was all about natural fibers. Linen, cotton — man, was that a relief.)
That said, I found this interesting: Google’s predictions of spring fashion trends, based on what people are searching for. To my relief, wide-legged jeans are not on the list, but skinnies are in “seasonal decline.” Also declining: One-shoulder dresses — perfect, because I just bought one. Waist trainers? On the way up. (I think it’s a 50-shades thing.) Normcore? Outta here.
It’s a good time to be a middle-aged woman whose basic outfit is jeans, T-shirts and nothing with too much color.
A little bloggage? I think we can do that.
Here’s a profile I wrote of a high-profile tea partier in the Michigan House, but the link won’t go live until 6 a.m. Be advised.
Riots in Baltimore, but you probably already knew that. Mr. Lippman weighs in, too.
Waiting tables always seemed like pretty sucky work to me, and it is, but every so often you get a good customer. A few of those stories.
Off to bed.
alex said on April 28, 2015 at 6:48 am
Normcore. Hmmm. Lately I haven’t been able to tell whether I’m just becoming an old fart who’s disinterested in fashion or if fashion has simply become disinteresting. Now I know. Too bad they didn’t do this thirty years ago. I just shudder at all the time spent in front of the mirror that I’ll never get back.
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Wim said on April 28, 2015 at 7:32 am
I look good in everything but I’m damned if I’ll ever wear bells again.
Yeah, riots in Baltimore, and my God is the shit getting deep. You hear this bullshit everyone’s spewing about the gangs uniting to take on the Man?
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Nancy P said on April 28, 2015 at 7:33 am
My 12-year-old daughter loves to “dress like a hippie,” so the fashion outlook is good for her. I hope the bell bottoms trickle down to Target.
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basset said on April 28, 2015 at 8:04 am
“Exhaustingly plain,” that would be me. LL Bean and Cabela’s take care of just about all my wardrobe requirements.
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beb said on April 28, 2015 at 8:20 am
Waist trainers … isn’t that another word for corset?
I still have no idea what “normcore” means since the page Nancy linked to came up with text half the size of text here, and running the full width of the monitor. Who designed their page? Did they ever bother to see how it looks on a PC?
As to fashion I wear Carhart. Not for the style but because hardware stores tend to stock them in plus-plus sizes (have you ever seen a small construction worker?) and the price is good.
The riots in Baltimore are entirely understandable even if it they aren’t really going to get the police to re-evaluate how they deal with black people. The bunker mentality is dug in deep.
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Danny said on April 28, 2015 at 9:06 am
Saw two notifications on my smartphone. One about the unrest in B’more and one about the opening arguments starting for the white kid, James Holmes, who shot up the movie theater in Colorado. Can truly understand how people are pissed that unarmed black males are dying at the hands of police while white kids get their day in court.
But the mayor does seem in over her head
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 9:36 am
The problem is less the police than the courts. The police are taking the heat for the alienating, alienated criminal justice system we have, multiplied by the domestic/family court & CSEA system’s issues.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-americas-police/2014/12/05/35b1af44-7bcd-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html
I grew up in the Chicago area in the 60s. You simply can’t say that police, even in Podunksburg, are less trained, more thuggy, and with a greater propensity to lethal violence than they were 25 years ago, let alone 50. They’re smarter, better trained, more professional, and closely monitored in ways we couldn’t even dream of asking for in the 60s. But people are angrier at police and probation and diversion officers than they were just TEN years ago, and the problem is the rise of retributive justice and an emphasis on consequences as the be-all and end-all of the court system. So we have more jail time, and immensely more fines levied, and a sausage-making system that’s leaving large swathes of the population bitter and resentful.
If you want to know what I do weekdays? I do what ISN’T in this story, but replace the court and the judge with me and a conference room in the school or in the neighborhood of the parent and student (which the judge in the story calls for, intervention and mediation, not hearings and fines), and this is my work nine months of the year. Which is done in less than a dozen counties of this state, and by part-time people covering 12 school districts and four dozen buildings.
But here’s one manifestation of a mindless swing to “consequences” which, for the record, DOESN’T WORK. If it worked, we might have to tolerate it. But for chronic truancy, this approach just makes things worse, while collecting fines from people who don’t have it and whose circumstances are a big part of the problem leading to unexcused absence.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/04/27/400099544/in-texas-questions-about-prosecuting-truancy
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BigHank53 said on April 28, 2015 at 9:44 am
A bit of background that I haven’t seen reported regarding the resentment of the Baltimore police. In Maryland, the police are covered by a shield law: they can’t be compelled to give evidence against other police officers. So if all six of the cops involved in Mr. Gray’s death keep their mouths shut it’s going to be nearly impossible to prosecute them under state law. The feds may have more luck.
I lived in Prince George’s County (just outside of DC) for eight years. The police force did not have a good reputation. The running joke at my workplace was that in order to get a traffic ticket, you’d not only have to collide with the cruiser while it was sitting in a parking lot, you’d have to make the cop spill his coffee.
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Danny said on April 28, 2015 at 9:59 am
One other weird thing about the juxtaposition of those two news alerts I got: on the one hand, I grew up in Baltimore and on the other, James Holmes grew up a few blocks from where I live in San Diego. A few of the kids who lifeguard at the pool where I lap swim, went to high school with him.
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Deborah said on April 28, 2015 at 10:00 am
Regarding fashion, since retiring every day now I wear skinny jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt, if it’s cold I wear a turtleneck sweater over it. I get my jeans at Old Navy because I like the way they fit. I have dark blue jeans and black jeans, dark blue, grey and black tops, solid colors. On my feet I wear boots that I tuck my jeans into or Ecco walking shoes. That’s about it, every single day. In Chicago I have a closet full of clothes I wore to work that I never wear anymore, I should take it all to a consignment store. I love being retired.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 10:06 am
While I’m in vent mode, if I never see again “Many parents expressed disappointment and anger with how the BLANK school district related information to parents,” it will be too soon. I know and like the reporter who committed that sentence, but it’s always in these stories, and it just feels like lazy journalism to me . . . or it’s pernicious editorial requests that keep that “meme” alive in these stories. You can ALWAYS find disappointed and angry parents. It’s dog-bites-dog level non-news.
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Snarkworth said on April 28, 2015 at 10:07 am
I still have a warm spot in my heart for bell bottoms. For those of us who did not resemble Twiggy, the bells balanced out the hip area nicely. Plus, if you bought them long, you could wear platform shoes under there and look long and lean(ish).
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Charlotte said on April 28, 2015 at 10:24 am
Ta-Nehesi Coates on the Baltimore situation: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/?utm_source=SFFB&fb_ref=Default
Here’s the money quote: “When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. ”
And an eyewitness account of the cops stopping all the busses filled with schoolkids, making them get off, then confronting them in riot gear. Sounds like “how to start a riot 101” — http://whatisawridingmybikearoundtoday.com/2015/04/27/cops-in-riot-gear-at-mondawmin-mall-at-liberty-heights-and-reisterstown-road/
I started sewing again last year when I turned 50 — lots and lots of linen for summer. I might be rumpled, but I’m comfy, and slightly stylish in an oddball sort of way. Also, Chuck Taylors as footwear of choice (although my newly-arthritic ankles mean I had to put orthotics in them). I am becoming a little old lady in tennies with a straw hat, walking my dog.
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Basset said on April 28, 2015 at 10:25 am
I could never find Earth Shoes wide enough, though.
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Bitter Scribe said on April 28, 2015 at 10:37 am
Fashion changes for one reason only: To keep clothing companies in business.
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brian stouder said on April 28, 2015 at 10:39 am
I must have worn bell-bottom jeans and flannel shirts all through high school.
The cool kids wore Converse gym shoes; I was in the lower caste and wore K-Mart specials
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nancy said on April 28, 2015 at 10:39 am
Hit my Todd Courser profile if you get a chance today. I’m pretty happy with it, and when you’re a journalism startup, every click counts.
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Mindy said on April 28, 2015 at 10:47 am
It’s still about natural fibers for me. What passes for denim these days feels like wearing a plastic bag, and I won’t do it. L. L. Bean still produces all cotton jeans, bless them. I’ve dropped a few pounds as well and am considering finally slipping on old jeans that have been in the archive for ages. Haven’t done it yet because, what if they still don’t fit?
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Bob (not Greene) said on April 28, 2015 at 11:01 am
“Barbarian warlord” my ass. Todd Courser is a goddamn cartoon character.
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nancy said on April 28, 2015 at 11:04 am
I was just thinking I was too hard to unnatural fibers. They really have made improvements since the ’70s, and I for one don’t know where I’d be without fleece, which is made from old plastic bottles. When we were in northern Michigan last winter, I noticed fleece vests are essentially business wear.
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Heather said on April 28, 2015 at 11:10 am
I partially agree with you, Bitter Scribe, but fashion also eventually incorporates what’s happening in the streets, which may be something original. Doesn’t happen often but it does happen. And yes, it’s easy to predict trends: just bet on the opposite silhouette of what is popular/mainstream. Hence the shift from skinny jeans to bell bottoms.
As I’ve mentioned here before, I used to write about fashion, but then the cycles got so predictable, and I don’t know, I lost interest in it for the most part and didn’t have anything new to say. I’m more interested in style and its psycho-social aspects, which is a part of fashion I suppose.
Anyway, like Deborah I’ve found myself defaulting to a uniform of sorts. I wear a lot of jeans with striped shirts, and jackets. A dress in nicer weather, because they’re easy. But now I generally think of my clothes as a backdrop for interesting jewelry and accessories.
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susan said on April 28, 2015 at 11:37 am
Nancy, watch out for wearing anything “fleece” (which term pisses me off because “fleece” is no longer sheep wool on hide…) around wood stoves, fireplaces, flame-emitting grills, hot plates, stove-stops (gas and electric), bunsen burners, candles, gas “log” fireplaces, house fires, forest fires, brush fires, and so on. That shit will melt in a flash and cause horrible burns on your body. There is a reason fire-fighters do not wear it. Now wool and cotton, but especially wool…wool is the best. Warm, even when damp, somewhat fire resistant. Pop-bottle fleece just creeps me out.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Nancy, I’ll bet you got your week’s worth of high calorie tasty food at the Coursers as your new good friend plied you with casseroles and hot dishes!
I work with lots of folks like this family, and the frustration is that there IS a reservoir of good will and willingness to help without judgment when the problems are right in front of them, but they’re resistant to the idea that there are problems with deeper roots and wider social dysfunctions behind them than hot dish and a willingness to dig ditches can overcome. Tuna noodle casserole and a work ethic can fix anything, like my mom always said, don’t you agree, preacher?
“Well, no, and it’s because . . .” and the conversation moves on undeflected.
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BethB said on April 28, 2015 at 12:13 pm
When I retired in 2008, I got rid of all or most of my “teacher/librarian” clothes–dozens upon dozens (literally) of jumpers, skirts, and dresses. I saved a few that I really liked, but I don’t know why because I haven’t worn them. They’re just taking up space in my closet. I haven’t had a dress on or ironed since my mother’s funeral in 2009.
Now it’s all LLBean or Lands End jeans, cotton tees, and cotton knit crop pants for exercise. I wear jeans and boiled wool jackets with turtlenecks in the winter. I can’t even wear cute shoes or boots because I wear an AFO on my left leg and it only really fits in a certain SAS lace-up shoe which I have in three colors.
That’s it: my style is now dictated by my health, I guess, and the style critics around me can just go to hell!
Susan, thanks for the warning about fleece. I will be more aware now when/if I wear my few fleece things.
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nancy said on April 28, 2015 at 12:22 pm
We learned the fleece/flame lesson the first year either of us owned any, when Alan reached across a Coleman lantern on a camping trip and melted the sleeve of his Smurf-blue Patagonia pullover. No burns, thank heaven, but we still refer to the material, and the garments, as “Smurfs.” “Have you seen my Smurf vest?” “Where’s my yardwork Smurf?” Etc.
And yes, Jeff, the main course that Sunday was noodle …stuff. Tasty!
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 12:25 pm
I have the recipe for “Noodlestuff.” You start with a pound of butter and two cans of cream of mushroom soup…
Oh, and you serve it with this:
http://www.pauladeen.com/english-peas
(I never get tired of posting that.)
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nancy said on April 28, 2015 at 12:27 pm
If you click to enlarge the birthday-party picture, you’ll see the serving vessel at far left: An enameled turkey roaster. Filled with noodlestuff. (There was also a salad. A green one.)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Or now: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/english-peas-recipe.html
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brian stouder said on April 28, 2015 at 12:32 pm
I loved-loved-LOVED the Bridge piece about the new representative. It is pretty much a “Mr Smith goes to Lansing” piece, substituting this fellow (who has a penchant for metaphorically invoking Middle-Ages combat) for Jimmy Stewart. If the Bridge’s intent is to objectively (rather than polemically) look at policies and personages, this profile hits the mark and fulfills the mission.
As I am fresh from last night’s FWCS school board meeting, Mark GiaQuinta is front-of-mind, and I immediately thought of the cringe that come across his visage, if he read this quote from the new representative:
“I think it goes to the heart of the integrity of this particular process and the whole of the processes of state government that we are asked to administer,” he wrote.
Didja catch how the legislator thinks his job is to administer?
Another local school board (East Allen) is busy censuring a new board member, for willfully exceeding the rightful role of an elected board member…but we digress!
Go read Nancy’s article
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Charlotte said on April 28, 2015 at 12:35 pm
I’m with Susan on the wool evangelism — only good thing to come out of these decades of desert wars — washable wool. Since wool doesn’t melt to your skin when you’re blown up, the armed services have sort of single-handedly revived the wool business (which has also been good for Montana’s sheep industry). I spent all winter in black wool long johns/leggings and some cute wool tunic tops I made. The long johns were kind of spendy, but they last and last … and I now have a perennial gift for Himself, who hates fleece, but loves wool (and who spends a lot of time in the mountains in the spring).
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Jakash said on April 28, 2015 at 12:50 pm
That “recipe” is hilarious, Jeff (tmmo)! But don’t most of the noodlestuffs already include peas? ; )
Plus, some of the comments at the Food Network link are swell:
“Well once I mastered the can opener it was a breeze! Next time I’ll look for cans with a tab on them…would make this so much easier, that and brushing up on my knife skills would of helped out here…”
“This recipe is awesome. I added a pound of bacon and left out the peas. Delicious!”
“I would’ve given it 5 stars but the recipe was too complicated. Incredible show of technique though. Maybe you could do a video tutorial on this one because I was so lost.”
“I don’t like peas. Can any other veggie be substituted or can I just serve the melted butter?”
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Dorothy said on April 28, 2015 at 1:38 pm
You’re inspiring me to find a particular picture of me and my BFF Toni in our freshman year of high school, and put it on Facebook this week for TBT. I made the bell bottom pants – black, red and yellow corduroy plaid. I thought I was All That in my yellow blouse and black sweater over it. I was trying to catch the attention of a cute sophomore named Kenny Buzzard. Alas, he was immune to my charms. He doesn’t know what he was missing!
Jakash I hate peas too, but I’m just gagging at the idea of serving melted butter in place of them!
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brian stouder said on April 28, 2015 at 2:09 pm
Dorothy, I betcha you’re STILL ‘all that’!!
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Sherri said on April 28, 2015 at 2:18 pm
I’m a blue jeans and t-shirt wearer, too, though mine are Eddie Bauer, because that’s where I found blue jeans that fit the best, and I found that the Eddie Bauer t-shirts held up in the wash longer than Lands End. I very seldom wear a dress; my husband wears a suit to the opera, but I don’t do opera. I have several pairs of nice black slacks that I wear with sweaters to the theater, or with a t-shirt in the summer, though nobody would look twice at you wearing blue jeans. Of course, Seattle is infamous for not being very fashionable.
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Joe K said on April 28, 2015 at 3:18 pm
I have discovered Duluth Trading Company,
Folks it don’t get any better, Armachilla underwear, quick dry light weight chinos, best pair of snow boots I have ever owned light weight quick dry polo shirts, in a hot cockpit nothing comes close. I was in Milwaukee a few weeks back and found a Duluth outlet store in Port WAshington about 50 miles north, they gott me for over $300.00.
Worth every penny.
Pilot Joe
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Jolene said on April 28, 2015 at 3:34 pm
Also, the Duluth Trading Company has very funny–and very blunt–commercials.
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Sherri said on April 28, 2015 at 4:16 pm
Jeff(tmmo), I remember in California, school districts really began becoming more punitive about truancy as budgets got tighter and tighter, because school funding is based on Average Daily Attendance. At least, that is, in all but the richest districts, where it isn’t. So, of course, there’s disparate impact and less flexibility and support in the places you need it the most.
In general, we treat poor people as if they are not very bright children, and not even our own not very bright children, but those children we don’t like very much and think weren’t raised right and if their parents had just done whatever we had done to produce such fine, upstanding members of society, all would be well. Because our mistakes are just mistakes, theirs are defects of character. After all, I/my parent/my grandparent/my ancestor never got a handout, and we just worked hard and they can, too.
(I just had a variant of this discussion, which I tried to avoid, with my older neighbor, whom I dearly love, who is absolutely convinced that college is no more expensive now than it was when she sent her own kids to college back in the 70s. I gently mentioned that I was able to pay for my last two years of college entirely on my own just from summer jobs and working part time, and nobody can do that anymore.)
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Jolene said on April 28, 2015 at 4:32 pm
I’m feeling grumpy because (a) I sprained my ankle and am having a hard time getting around. Being injured and on your own is no fun. And, (b) my more conservative brother called from his rural empire to ask me about the misdeeds of “my neighbors.”
I live in Alexandria, VA, and what he wanted, of course, was to sound off about the trouble in Baltimore, which he described as the fault of “people who have no respect for life or property.”
Annoying even on a good day.
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brian stouder said on April 28, 2015 at 4:46 pm
“people who have no respect for life or property” pretty well sums up the default setting for some number of armed, empowered, and aggressive POLICE, scattered here and there across the country.
The big difference in 2015 is that practically wherever more than 10 people are, there is at least one phone/video camera.
Suddenly – all the police boilerplate about “to protect and serve” (and “Blue Knights” and “New Centurions”) turns out to amount to “people who have no respect for life or property”, peppered across the landscape, wearing badges
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Jolene said on April 28, 2015 at 4:50 pm
I agree, Brian. But I suspect more people share my brother’s view than yours.
The Baltimore Sun, by the way, has temporarily dropped its paywall, so you can look there for local perspectives on the latest news.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 5:18 pm
Sherri, please stop telling the truth; you’ll just get us both in trouble.
😉
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Deborah said on April 28, 2015 at 5:23 pm
Yesterday I was walking home from Trader Joes, in front of the Pennisula Hotel on Superior (I think?) there must have been 5 or 6 cops surrounding what looked like a poor black homeless guy, he was standing and was beginning to reach back for his plastic bag on the ground with clothes and what-not in it. The cops suddenly grabbed him and stopped him from doing that. I started to reach in my pocket for my cell phone to capture it on video but I kept moving along as I did so, in case bullets started to fly. The cops settled down and were talking to the guy when I got to Michigan Ave and I turned the corner and kept going. I have no idea what that was about. Probably nothing.
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FDChief said on April 28, 2015 at 5:30 pm
Thing is, I lived on the East Coast for much of the Seventies and Eighties and even then the Baltimore cops had a reputation for being hot-tempered, brutal dipsticks. And for some of that period I lived near Philly, which says a lot; if someone used to the Rizzo-era PPD thinks than another police organization is a gang of nightstick-happy goons? That ain’t good.
Plus it’s painfully obvious that these goons have been teeing off on the local black folk like it was National Whack-a-Brother Week every week and the local pols and the paler shade of voter have given less than two used-food portions about that, so, really…what else y’gonna do? Without the sympathy of the news media and a larger, empowered, group of people “nonviolence” is gonna get you diddly squat. I won’t kid you; if I was there I’d be tempted to burn the damn place down and dance antic hay on the ruins.
Push on a people long enough and hard enough and don’t be surprised that if they get the chance and the power they bury you and sew the ground with salt when they’re done…
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FDChief said on April 28, 2015 at 5:39 pm
And the Courser piece is…interesting.
I mean, the guy and his family sound like “nice” people. They also sound like a bunch of smug, self-righteous Christopaths who think that everyone not like them is wrong and deserves a good talking-to and perhaps a Jack Chick tract. This is a guy who reeeeeally needs to get shanghaied and have to spend two years slaving as a deckhand on a container ship run by a rapacious multinational or lose his house and job and have to panhandle for six months to appreciate the law in its impartial majesty, etc.
And of course the joker burps out the bog-standard Republican line that involves both “democracy” with “government” as if somehow they’re mutually exclusive, rather that intimately connected. That somehow government is good when it does nothing, that for some reason taxes aren’t the price of civilization but theft.
It made me just feel sad and old. I remember a time when Republicans were – or, at least, seemed – smarter than that.
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beb said on April 28, 2015 at 5:42 pm
Nancy, I read your Bridge article. Or most of it because I have a low tolerance for conceited jerks. (I know, pot, meet kettle) It was funny that while he believes in small government he wanted a larger office and a better spot on the floor. I also hate people who wear their religion on their sleeve because generally that is as close as God ever gets to their hearts.
Jeff (TMMO)@7: I have to disagree with you that the cops are taking the heat from a bad judicial system. The issue is that a man in police custody died and no one can explain how or why that happened. And it’s not like this is the first time that’s happened. This is a problem with how the police work, not with how the courts work.
Cotton v. poly-blends… I have a black shirt. My wife thought it looked really nice on me. But I worse it to work a few times and suddenly it was full of small holes. Acid burns. Meanwhile I have a polyblend shirt I’ve worn for years. The synthetic fibers don’t melt from acid. Sadly, everything seem to be cotton these days.
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Dexter said on April 28, 2015 at 6:13 pm
Deborah, that reminds me of an incident from October 31, 1987. Easy to remember, because my brother and I were entering the Chicago Theater for the Tom Waits Halloween show.
One very drunken disheveled man was mad at another and charged him and began flailing on him. Both men were staggering and weaving and stumbling, and very loud. Two uniform beat cops approached and grabbed the disenchanted ones and began talking softly to them to calm them down. They just separated them and talked things out, did not call for reinforcements or paddy wagon, just kept talking to them and within just a few minutes everybody walked away…it was over… no arrests, no more shouting, and the cops resumed watching the crowd and the street. Tom Waits was his usual brilliant self that night.
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Charlotte said on April 28, 2015 at 6:23 pm
More from Everest and the surrounding mountains: http://www.outsideonline.com/1973381/everest-airlift
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Sherri said on April 28, 2015 at 6:32 pm
It’s okay, Jeff(tmmo); I’m used to being in trouble. Everybody says I don’t play well with others.
Besides, nobody listens to the truth, anyway. If they did, they’d have to do something about it.
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Jolene said on April 28, 2015 at 7:04 pm
Speaking of knowing the truth vs. doing something about it, here is a very good article about The Wire and what its appeal may say about us.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/04/28/the-wire-the-burning-of-baltimore-and-the-limits-of-art/?tid=trending_strip_1
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beb said on April 28, 2015 at 7:35 pm
I remembered reading about cops giving prisoners a “rough ride.” The Baltimore Sun remembers as well.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-gray-rough-rides-20150423-story.html#page=1
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Sue said on April 28, 2015 at 8:28 pm
Hit the link and gave you a click, and left a comment. Thanks for the opportunity.
My sister and I once solemnly vowed never never never to give up our bell bottoms.
The only jeans that ever fit my middle-aged bod were LA Blues from Fashion Bug. Brand and store are gone now, sigh.
FD Chief, I’ve become a real fan of yours.
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Suzanne said on April 28, 2015 at 9:58 pm
FDChief-“It made me just feel sad and old. I remember a time when Republicans were – or, at least, seemed – smarter than that.” I feel the same way. And it makes me sad as well.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 28, 2015 at 11:45 pm
beb – these cops in Bal’more clearly did something wrong, even evil and certainly stupid. But the general readiness to erupt, around the country, isn’t just from police brutality becoming endemic. The numbers don’t bear that out. What is clear is that people are getting harassed and chivvied and fined and processed to the point where they aren’t interested in responding to any aspect of the law enforcement system, and that really doesn’t (in my neck of the woods, at the very least) seem to be because of cop malfeasance.
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Hattie said on April 29, 2015 at 8:16 am
Normcore does not work for the basically stylish. It works for me,though.
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