In the grinder.

Wasn’t I just saying I hoped this week would be a little easier than last? Guess what? It’s not. Nothing horrible, just a fairly blistering pace. Plus, Alan’s sick — came home with a sore throat and a canker sore, the latter of which seems to be bothering him more than the other. I hate canker sores so bad, so I get it. Probably shouldn’t have made ribs with so much chipotle pepper in the rub, however.

But once the weekly menu is set in this household, it is set. No substitutions!

Now it’s Wednesday, and things are finally slowing to a nice, steady trot. Have some lines to re-bait, and an application for a workshop/conference next spring in Columbus, spaces in which are to be awarded on a competitive basis. That means I must start the bullshit machine that lives deep in my chest, so a nice steamy batch can be perked up when I start to write.

The spot includes a week of lodging in my ol’ hometown. That’ll be fun. I’ll invite all my friends over to trash the hotel, Led Zep-style.

Before I go on, though, I want to make a book recommendation. (I haven’t changed the On the Nightstand feature in close to a year, but I have been reading, promise.) I recently finished “In the Darkroom,” Susan Faludi’s memoir about the last year’s of her father’s life, after he underwent a sex change in Thailand and emerged as Stefanie. I bought it on the advice of Hank Stuever, mainly in an attempt to sort out my frankly confused thoughts about transgenderism. I lie somewhere between full-and-open-embrace and the position laid down by more radical feminists, who reject transwomen as having a claim on the gender at all.

I don’t come to the debate with animus, however. I’m just very confused.

Faludi came to the reopened relationship with her parent — they had been estranged — as a middle-aged woman and an incisive journalist. And she misses very little about the tangle of contradictions that Istvan Friedman, who became Steven Faludi, who became Stephanie, presents to the world. A man who’s had three names and two genders in the course of a lifetime will have an interesting life’s story, and s/he is no exception. Istvan Friedman was a Jew in WWII Budapest, which meant he was no safer than Jews anywhere else in Europe. Born to a wealthy family that was atomized by the Holocaust, Istvan survived on luck and hustle, shape-shifting his identity and front to match the occasion, many of them perilous to his health. He later emigrated to Brazil and then to the U.S., where he became Steven Faludi (“a good Hungarian name”), married and became a father. But that didn’t work out, and he repatriated to Hungary and eventually shed another skin, emerging as Stefanie. His tale is only reluctantly told by the septuagenarian matron that was his final identity, but his daughter is relentless in her pursuit of her parent’s true nature. The picture that emerges — the title is a play on both her father’s occupation as a photographer and photo processor and the nature of his manipulated self — is hardly sharp. People are complicated, and some people are really complicated.

But the book is wonderful. It’s in Alex’s hands now; his father was a Hungarian immigrant, and Stephanie’s story is of a piece with her native land, itself a bundle of contradictions. I thought I knew my Holocaust history, but I knew little of Hungary’s role in it, it turns out. The details were appalling and dispiriting in the age of Trump, and the behavior of Istvan/Steven/Stephanie, both then and in the contemporary era, are baffling and revelatory. (Stephanie votes with the far-right party, the one that teeters on the edge of ethnic cleansing.)

I don’t really understand transgenderism that much better now, but I’m enlightened about one of its story threads now, and I recommend “In the Darkroom” to anyone in search of a good read on this or any of its related topics.

So, a new thread for us to chat about the final debate, and some bloggage: I’m appearing on WDET tomorrow to trade snappy banter about it with two other panelists; I’ll be the one with the higher voice and XX chromosomes. Listen live in the 9 a.m. hour Thursday, if you’re so inclined.

Last week I went to Flint and stared into a hole, watching a typical pipe replacement, a huge project just getting ramped up. Read this thrilling tale of mud and infrastructure, here, after it goes live at 6:10 a.m., EDT.

The catastrophe of citizen journalism, from NYMag.

“Mulatto cock.” OK, I’m done.

Posted at 5:50 pm in Current events, Media, Same ol' same ol' |
 

53 responses to “In the grinder.”

  1. LAMary said on October 19, 2016 at 7:25 pm

    Mulatto cock. This is by far the weirdest election ever. I could have gone my whole life without witnessing something like this and I would not feel shortchanged.

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  2. beb said on October 19, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    “Mulatto cock”– I suggest bleach as an eyewash.

    Once ypu’re heard it you can’t unhear it.

    Before the first interview someone mapped out the journalistic trajectory of all three. First debate would be Hillary’s. Then Trump would have a comeback on the second debate, followed by a resurgent Hillary in the third. So far media coverage of the debates has followed this map.

    I don’t understand transgenders, especially people in their 50s or 60s deciding at that late date they need to become woman. Why wait so long? Still, whatever floats their boats. I try not to judgmental.

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  3. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 7:43 pm

    I’m in favor of D.C. Statehood, but please, don’t call it Washington. That name is taken.

    http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/dear-dc-you-cant-call-yourself-state-of-washington-thats-our-name/

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  4. alex said on October 19, 2016 at 7:57 pm

    Well, obviously she’s had some dark black cock, then, by her own inference. Probably liked it better than her dad’s too.

    Haven’t had the chance yet to read Faludi — was hoping to get to it Sunday but my time got taken over by house guests — but my father picked it up and perused the dust jacket when he stopped by.

    I’m much befuddled by the transgender thing myself. I don’t think it would have been a good thing if I’d had the sex change I wanted at 12 before the Freudian psychoanalysis I had at 35. It freaks me when I see people indulging their children in elective surgeries before they have the maturity to make such a weighty decision.

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  5. David C. said on October 19, 2016 at 8:08 pm

    She should work up to it. Start with octaroon cock, then quadroon cock, and then and only then mulatto cock.

    $P got an invite to the debate. I hope they let her loose in the spin room. This election has been sorely lacking in that freak show feel.

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  6. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 8:54 pm

    I worked with a man who transitioned to a woman when he was in his 30s. I didn’t know him well, so I don’t know what was behind it for her, just that she announced what her new name was and started dressing as a woman. She was a great engineer, and nobody much batted an eye that I could tell. That was over 20 years ago. I don’t know what happened to her, because I left not too long after that to raise my daughter.

    There’s a professor at Stanford who is a transgender woman, and I’ve read some of her writing, mostly on her discovery that yes, women do get treated differently than men.

    I can’t say that I understand it, and my inclination is to be leery of allowing a child sex change surgery, but I’m not in their mind or footsteps, living their lives, either. It doesn’t bother me, never occurred to me that it should bother me. People are complicated. Were one of my parents to proclaim that they wanted to transition, that would be shocking, but my major concern about it would be that they would be losing their entire community, not about transition.

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  7. Suzanne said on October 19, 2016 at 9:08 pm

    I’ve wondered, too, about parents allowing their pre-adolescent kids either transition or identify as another gender. Heck, my daughter at some point wanted to go by a different name for a few weeks, so kids are in a constant state of flux. Youngsters are still trying to figure it all out and I’d hate to do anything permanent, but I don’t really understand how it all works.
    I do remember seeing a special on tv years ago about 3 or 4 married couples in which the male transitioned to female. At least one of the couples stayed together, maybe two of them. I think that would be a deal breaker for me, but as Sherri says, people are complicated.

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  8. alex said on October 19, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    Hillary’s a rock star when she needs to be. And for a Fox tool, Chris Wallace just proved himself to be one of the most effective moderators of the whole election cycle. He didn’t hesitate to query Trump about his previous “lies” and what he had to say about them now. Bravissimo!

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  9. alex said on October 19, 2016 at 10:50 pm

    Bravisissisisismo! Sissy-ho!

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  10. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 10:50 pm

    Trump refused to commit to accepting the results of the election. That’s the only thing that matters about the debate.

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  11. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    Wallace did a pretty good job as moderator. His questions about entitlement reform were from a group funded by Pete Peterson, who’s been trying to gut SS and Medicare for decades. That group always presents the scariest scenario for the death of SS and Medicare, and it drives me nuts that Pete Peterson gets to drive all the conversation about entitlements in this country. That’s why I say that Citizens United isn’t the biggest problem of money in politics.

    Hillary did a good job. Her answers on abortion were strong and clear, she was well prepared for everything, and she has shifted into describing what she will do as President.

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  12. alex said on October 19, 2016 at 11:14 pm

    As promised, Wallace didn’t do fact-checking. He just cut to the quick, and also surprised by cutting them off when they went tangential. It was really quite a tightly defined debate, and Trump was the loser without Fox having to call it.

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  13. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 11:16 pm

    I was texting with a friend during the debate, coming up with all the things that NAFTA must have been responsible for. I came up with the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, and the Civil War, but I think I could have been much more creative if there hadn’t been this smirking orange person on mys

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  14. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 11:17 pm

    I was texting with a friend during the debate, coming up with all the things that NAFTA must have been responsible for. I came up with the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, and the Civil War, but I think I could have been much more creative if there hadn’t been this smirking orange person on my screen saying “Wrong!” all the time.

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  15. alex said on October 19, 2016 at 11:24 pm

    “Wrong” = you’ve got my fucking nuts in a vise, you bitch. Show some of that fucking liberal mercy you’re so famous for dammit.

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  16. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 11:29 pm

    You nasty woman.

    The Trump campaign is really flogging that James O’Keefe video hard. Trump brought it up twice during the debate, and before I turned off the TV, I saw Rudy and KellyAnne using it as evidence of why the election might not be trusted, “because you don’t know how far they’ll go.”

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  17. Mark P said on October 19, 2016 at 11:47 pm

    Here’s the Republican argument for Social Security “reform”:

    “SS will have problems in 20 or 30 years so let’s do something terrible to it right now.”

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  18. Sherri said on October 19, 2016 at 11:47 pm

    Washington ballots were mailed out today, so in a couple of days I’ll be able to vote!

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  19. St Bitch said on October 20, 2016 at 2:22 am

    Debate trifecta summary – donald to Hillz:

    Heads I win (and yours will be the first head to roll…Tails you lose (and I’ll be the tail wagging the dog of your illegitimate presidency

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  20. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 3:09 am

    Speaking of voting in Washington, one of the more depressing items on the ballot this election is I-732, which is a carbon tax. But Sherri, you say, why would a good liberal like you be depressed about a carbon tax being on the ballot? I’m depressed because there’s a good chance it will fail, because of a split in the coalition. It isn’t good enough for some people, but won’t win Republican votes, either.

    http://www.vox.com/2016/10/18/13012394/i-732-carbon-tax-washington

    (I’m voting yes, but I’m used to tilting at windmills)

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  21. Deborah said on October 20, 2016 at 4:55 am

    As for transgendered people, I don’t know any personally, I wish I did. Little Bird has a couple of Facebook friends that were men who became women. One of them she has met person to person a number of times and has stayed with her in Santa Fe when visiting the US, she lives in the Netherlands. She is married to a woman and Little Bird has come to know them both quite well and loves them dearly. I think if more of us knew transgendered people we would have more empathy for what they’ve gone through.

    I’m finally about done with the five volume Knausgaard saga, it was good but slow going so I’m ready for a new book suggestion and Nancy’s recommendation sounds like a good one.

    As for the debate, I only saw the end of it because of traveling. I saw the part where Wallace asked the question about accepting the results of the election and the “nasty woman” comment. What can I say? He’s toast. So vile.

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  22. ROGirl said on October 20, 2016 at 5:08 am

    I read Faludi’s book recently, and complicated is a good description for the whole mishegas (Yiddish for craziness).

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  23. Suzanne said on October 20, 2016 at 7:26 am

    I quit watching sometime after hearing about “bad hombres” and the very SNL “WRONG!”. I drank my wine in another room and visited with Twitter. And Go Cubs!!

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  24. A.Riley said on October 20, 2016 at 8:40 am

    I have a younger relative who is trans, so I’ve learned a bit about how the rest of us can talk to and about trans people respectfully.

    Use the name and pronoun they prefer. Singular “they” — no matter how it grates on this pld copyeditor’s ears — is often the way to go.

    The preferred usage is transgender or trans.

    I don’t understand why some people are trans, but I don’t have to. My young relative is still family, and we still love them.

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  25. adrianne said on October 20, 2016 at 9:00 am

    My favorite moment of the debate (which I followed on Twitter, I can’t stand to watch the Cheeto anymore) came when The Donald said he had nothing but respect for women…and the audience laughed. Word.

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  26. Bitter Scribe said on October 20, 2016 at 9:19 am

    I always was and still am weirded out by transgenderism. For me the biggest thing transgenders have going for them is that the people who oppose equal rights for them are the same unregenerate swine who fight against equal rights for everyone else who isn’t a straight white man. If those people say something is wrong, it almost automatically has to be right.

    I recorded the debate so I could watch the Cubs game (thank God they finally started hitting again!). I’ll watch it over the weekend. Maybe.

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  27. Julie Robinson said on October 20, 2016 at 10:09 am

    Isn’t it like not knowing any interracial couples? Anyone gay? Or anyone from Russia, or Guatemala? As transgenders are more integrated into mainstream society, we’ll feel more comfortable and accepting. Soon we won’t be batting an eye.

    Hillary wiped the floor with Trump last night. Slam dunk, game over.

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  28. brian stouder said on October 20, 2016 at 10:11 am

    I nominate Julie for Thread Win!

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  29. alex said on October 20, 2016 at 11:29 am

    I think what rankles radical feminists about trans women is the same thing that rankles them about women generally — that so many embrace makeup and fashion as part of their identity, thus feeding the cycle of male objectification of women. In their ideal world, the superficial trappings of masculinity and femininity (and the arbitrary values attached to them) would disappear altogether and there would be no such thing as trans people because everyone would be happy in their own skin.

    But I have to say that of all of the trans women I’ve known, most aren’t content to be wallflowers. They’re campy and dress like tarts well past the age when it’s appropriate and they seem to find it liberating. I get the same kind of giddy thrill out of dressing in drag and being the center of attention, but I wouldn’t want to do it full-time.

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  30. nancy said on October 20, 2016 at 11:34 am

    Faludi gets into that, and it reminded me of Nora Ephron’s essay about Jan Morris. So many trans stories — the M-to-F ones, anyway — spend a ridiculous amount of time on clothes, makeup, perfume and so on. I realize that most of these folks *have* to concentrate on this, because surgery and hormones can only go so far, but as a woman, I find it irritating. Being a woman is not about matching your shoes to your purse, and if you think it is, you haven’t thought hard enough.

    Ditto on the stuff about surgery/hormone therapy on children.

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  31. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 11:36 am

    More on the media and the Wikileaks dump of campaign emails: http://billmoyers.com/story/writing-over-wikileaks

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  32. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    I haven’t met a lot of transgenders, but the latest person I met was last fall, an older (than me) transgender female. She was not made up or dressed up, she looked like a dowdy suburban housewife. Maybe the ones whose stories are written are more in your face, but some are just out there living ordinary lives.

    I’m not about to tell anybody what being a woman is about, because I’ve too often been accused of not being feminine enough.

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  33. Jakash said on October 20, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    Here’s a fun column from Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune listing an assortment of Rumpy’s most ridiculous boasts. Imagine being so delusional or, more likely, so much of a con artist that a guy like him would say “Nobody reads the Bible more than me.” What I’ll never understand is why that doesn’t deeply offend ALL of the very people he’s attempting to con. He may never be the Commander-in-Chief, but I think his strongest valid credentials are as Bullshitter-in-Chief.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-donald-trump-ignorant-policy-perspec-zorn-1019-20161018-column.html

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  34. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 20, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    Wow. Trump reads the Bible more than I do, eh? That’s impressive.

    But instead of spending this afternoon immersing myself in Scripture, I will take my wife and we will drive down to Circleville, Ohio for the annual Pumpkin Show. The heart of it all is usually a pair of near one-ton pumpkins, looking more like Jabba the Hutt than something you’d put on your front porch, but then myriad colors and shapes of gourds and pumpkin-like objects along with the real thing, piled into pyramids and lining the rooftops. Pumpkin burgers which are a savory sloppy joe with pumpkin puree in the sauce along with cinnamon and nutmeg, pumpkin fudge, and the list goes on.

    Did I mention the OU Marching 110 is anchoring tonight’s Pumpkin Show parade? Drop by around 8 pm, but the 110 won’t pass this point (as the camera is currently set until closer to 9). http://www.pumpkinshow.com/media/

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  35. Peter said on October 20, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    Sorry I’m late to the conversation, but one part of the debate piqued my interest – when Donald said that he would appoint enough Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    I know there have been many articles saying that evangelical voters are still with Trump because of the Supreme Court vacancies, and I was impressed that Trump served a lot of red meat without screwing it up, but it did make me think.

    Imagine you’re a pro-life zealot and you realize that this election, 40 years later, is the best and perhaps last opportunity you’ll ever have to rid the country of this sin, and all you have to do is to defeat the female Anti-Christ, which shouldn’t be too difficult, and who do you wind up with as a candidate?

    That’s got to hurt.

    Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

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  36. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    It looks like Hillary will win, after running a very good campaign, despite all predictions to the contrary about what a terrible campaigner she is. So, now the questions are:

    -will the Republicans begin impeachment hearings during the lame duck session, or will they wait until she’s actually been inaugurated? (Obviously this depends on who wins the house, which still is likely to be held by the Republicans unless Hillary wins by 10 points or so.)

    -how many days after the election will Democrats wait before deciding that it’s impossible for her to win a second term, and start discussing which white man should run in 2020? (I say white man because policy-wise, there was no reason for all the Joe Biden longing last spring.)

    -What happens to Trump? What happens to Trumpism? What happens to the Republicans? Does Mitch McConnell ever emerge from his turtle shell?

    -Will the political media take any lessons from this campaign, or will they treat the whole thing as a fluke? (I think I know the answer to this one.)

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  37. Bitter Scribe said on October 20, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    Alex @29 and Nancy @ #30: Someone, I wish I could remember who, made a very provocative comment about that.

    Suppose a white person took pills, spent loads of time under a sunlamp, or did whatever to darken his skin. And suppose he then declared himself to be black. Not only that, but started wearing nothing but the tackiest dashikis and speaking in a grating parody of Ebonics. Would black people be charmed and flattered? I doubt it. That’s what annoyed this person about transgenders doing the tacky-tart thing.

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  38. LAMary said on October 20, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    Not only do I not believe Trump reads the bible more than anyone, I don’t believe he reads.

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  39. Sue said on October 20, 2016 at 2:18 pm

    Because I am such a serious student of politics, I read Jezebel’s live-blog of the debate rather than watching it, because I can get incredibly in-depth analysis, including:
    “Did Trump just say “Magarthur” trying to talk about Douglas MacArthur? Also his “sincere” whisper makes my vulva creep down my leg and flee in fear”
    and
    ” Update from here: all our vaginas have crawled down our legs and run into a janitor’s closet for shelter”
    and
    “A good hazing for a freshman English class would be forcing them to diagram Trump’s sentences”

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  40. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    Paul Ryan has not commented on what his endorsed candidate for President said last night regarding accepting the will of the people. Currently, Paul Ryan stands second in line of succession to the Presidency, should catastrophe strike. If Paul Ryan can’t stand up for the principle of the consent of the governed, what is he doing in any office, much less high office?

    I detest people who idolize the Constitution and the Bible, yet refuse to take stands for either that might cost them something.

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  41. Little Bird said on October 20, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    All of my trans friends prefer to be called she, and all dislike the “ed” tacked onto the word “transgender”. Likewise all are comfortable with the term “trans” as a shorthand version of the word.
    It’s more than likely that most people know a trans person and don’t realize it. Just like I don’t wear my sexuality on my sleeve, none of my friends make a big deal about theirs.

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  42. Charlotte said on October 20, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    Jenny Boylan’s books are my go-to on the transgender thing … in part because she’s a very good writer. Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts is also quite terrific — she just won a MacArthur.

    I couldn’t bear to watch the debate, but Himself said let’s switch over when I was reading twitter replies. I was mostly cooking dinner but we tuned in just in time for “She’s a nasty woman.” — he was like what? He just said that out of the blue? In the middle of her answer? — I mean, can you imagine him having to deal with diplomatic relations? And Hillary’s time as Sec. of State dealing with dictators seems to be standing her in good stead — she’s got that steely fake-pleasant-smile look down pat.

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  43. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    Time as Secretary of State? I bet 18 years in Arkansas dealing with good ole boys prepared her for that long ago.

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  44. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 4:47 pm

    No, what Al Gore did in 2000 is not anything like what Trump is doing, not even close, and don’t even bring that nonsense in here, Trumpers.

    http://abovethelaw.com/2016/10/6-facts-about-bush-v-gore-worth-remembering-before-the-trump-campaign-revises-history-to-death/

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  45. Charlotte said on October 20, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    Sherri — I’m sure it did too — but she just had that nodding-at-dictators look that Madeline Albright also perfected (of Condi, I shall not speak). And she’s better at it than she was in 2008 … so, was just trying to give her credit. Because Jeebus-on-a-cracker I could not have gotten through one appearance with the Cheeto, much less three, without losing my shit altogether …

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  46. Deborah said on October 20, 2016 at 5:48 pm

    I didn’t watch Colbert last night, caught this clip today, my favorite line was when he said Trump will wipe his fat ass with the constitution. https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=674&v=wMAuk5D6h1w&ebc=ANyPxKr3gTjNiAiAdlDXYsBDe9VjNbVp-r26-py-rkEePNUGriKSidLWLt_JVikpwA8ZadZxTBQE

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  47. Andrea said on October 20, 2016 at 6:19 pm

    Re: transgendered MTF. I agree. It is difficult to accept sometimes the public persona and focus on looks or ultra fem clothing, etc. I am on board with people wanting to be comfortable in their skin and to have their external identity match their internal one. But I am deeply uncomfortable with a lot of the reinforcing of stereotypes that I see in my personal life with the trans women I know, and in public, with people like Caitlyn Jenner, whose first interview focused all about how she can now get together with her girlfriends and talk about makeup and clothes. Which is a topic, I might add, that occupies less than 0.001% of the conversations I have with my girlfriends.

    One of my neighbors transitioned in her 50s, and was so supremely indifferent to the impact that it was having on her teenage daughter, to have them both growing breasts at the same time, and to have her parent wearing highly inappropriate clothing (short shorts, etc.) and wanting to compare nail polishes. It made me ache for this adolescent girl, who went from being a bubbly, outgoing redhead to a sullen teen with dyed black hair in the space of about 12 months. I know that happens to kids anyway, but I really felt like this child was screaming out her pain as she clothed herself all in black and rarely left the house.

    Another woman I know who transitioned as an adult chose for herself a first and last name that was as girly girl as you can get (think Amber Tiffany, or similar). Again, I support the transition, but was like, really? That’s what it’s about for you?

    We all struggle so much to be recognized as human beings first, and objects of sexual desire somewhere else on the hierarchy — a struggle put in stark relief during this public discussion of casual sexual assault — that it just seems frustrating and annoying to have people aggressively appropriate that aspect of being a woman as the most important, most visible statement they can make.

    Perhaps with people transitioning at younger ages, they will experience their transgender adolescence at a more age-appropriate time and some of these irritations will disappear.

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  48. nancy said on October 20, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    Faludi said her father did that, too — inappropriate sharing, allowing her robe to fall open, etc. — and it made her uncomfortable as a woman who had to be in her 40s by then.

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  49. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    Well, I guess the way I look at it is that people who transition late in life probably have been in tremendous psychological pain for many years, so it’s not too surprising that when they transition, they aren’t necessarily as age appropriate in their appearance as the rest of us might prefer. I’d venture to say that their development of self got stuck at some point, and that’s the self that emerges when they finally feel free to transition.

    Transgender women are hardly the only women out there who focus on hair clothing and makeup, even in age inappropriate ways, so I’m not sure I understand the particular resentment. Just not my problem what they’re doing and wearing or what they think being a woman is.

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  50. alex said on October 20, 2016 at 7:47 pm

    I knew a trans woman who drank herself to death a couple of years ago. She had an extravagant theatricality that was completely absent when she was her male self and it could only find release when she was tarted up to the nines and six sheets to the wind. And that, alas, is the person I miss the most, even though her family misses the man they knew for the first 50 years.

    I’m not one to preach at others about what to do, but I think that generally it’s healthier for those with self-acceptance issues to learn to love themselves just as they are and that going under the knife should be reserved only for matters of life or death. When I see people who’ve gone overboard with plastic surgery, for instance, I see tormented souls who are desperately unhappy and trying to change in all the wrong ways. I knew a trans woman in Chicago who had buyer’s remorse on her sex change. When in doubt, better to leave things alone until you find your own inner peace.

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  51. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 8:47 pm

    Would that there were some magic way to find inner peace! Maybe then I wouldn’t have to take antidepressants every day just to stay sane.

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  52. Sherri said on October 20, 2016 at 10:01 pm

    Ugh. Shoot me now. I watched the Al Smith Dinner, hoping for a little sign that despite how ugly Trump has been in the campaign, he was at least capable of showing up and giving a light-hearted speech at a charity event. Nope. It started off okay with some jokes, but before long, it was almost into stump speech territory and he was being booed. Nobody was laughing, except for near the end, Hillary laughed because of how badly he had bombed. It was really awkward, and there are lots of people on the dais so you can see the reactions when he’s bombing.

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  53. brian stouder said on October 20, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    Sherri – I’m with you on the Al Smith Dinner.

    Truth be told, my attention was heavily diverted by the woman in the read dress with her boobage on display, just the next row behind where the podium was.

    She absolutely could NOT stop taking off her elbow-length white gloves, then replacing them, then removing just one, and then replacing it, etc etc…the whole time texting, and then texting some more (probably saying “Is my cleavage visible now?” and “A little to the left?” etc etc)

    Betcha a nickle she ends up featured on some internet thing or another

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