Did we talk much about Glen Campbell? I don’t think so. Of course his death was coming, everybody knew it. (Yours is coming too, and if you don’t know it, you should.) I took the opportunity to run through a few Jimmy Webb-written classics on YouTube, and thought what I always do: Jimmy Webb is an astonishing songwriter.
“By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Wichita Lineman” are two of the best songs ever written about adult heartbreak and loneliness, and Webb was barely out of his teens when he wrote them. He’s only 71!
I just said this again, at dinner. Alan pointed out that Billy Strayhorn wrote “Lush Life” when he was 17, and that song is even more knowing and sophisticated and world-weary. But then, Strayhorn was gay; some of those guys have that stuff baked into their bones. I love those lyrics as much as I do anything by Webb:
I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis
Of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktailsThe girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingué traces
That used to be there
You could see where
They’d been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o’clock tales
I snuck a “Wichita Lineman” reference into a Bridge story, because I could. Here’s to Glen, a great artist.
Man, it’s been a long week. Long for the usual reasons (work), long for the newer reasons (Trump), short for more poignant ones (ah, fleeting summer). I want to take two full days to myself this weekend; I think I deserve it.
In the meantime? Some bloggage:
Someone said on Twitter a while back that everything you need to know about dietary supplements can be seen in the fact that so many grifters find their way to them. Alex Jones is no exception, and Buzzfeed sent away for a few of his branded products and had them tested. The good news is, they’re basically what they claim to be. The bad news is, they cost about 200 percent more than they should, but of course, only Alex Jones is sending you Alex Jones-branded patent medicine. For something called Anthroplex, for instance:
Claimed ingredients: Zinc Orotate, Horny Goat Weed, Tribulus Terrestris, Tongkat Ali-Longjack, Fulvic Powder
Test results: Labdoor found that Anthroplex passed a heavy metal screening but noticed a discrepancy in the reported amount of zinc in the capsules. According to Labdoor, there’s 31% less zinc than advertised. “When we look into the zinc dosage, it’s so ridiculously low that you’d basically be buying a worthless product for $40,” the report reads.
Review snippet: “This product is a waste of money. The claim that ‘Anthroplex works synergistically with the powerful Super Male Vitality formula in order to help restore your masculine foundation and stimulate vitality with its own blend of unique ingredients’ is fluff on multiple fronts.”
Can’t get upset by this. If you’re dumb enough to believe Jones, someone’s going to get your money. Might as well be him.
From Philip Kennicott at the Washington Post, an essay about his border collie, a rabies scare, and some thoughtful thoughts about how we behave in a crisis:
In a serious pandemic, in a country full of people not just skeptical about scientific consensus but also deeply hostile to government authority, what chance is there that people will abide by basic public health mandates during an emergency? What if the Ebola virus scare of 2014 happened today and was managed from the White House by tweet? Even if you understand the idea of risk intellectually, the words “There’s a very low risk” aren’t comforting when it’s your health in the balance, which is one reason it is so difficult to contain costs in our medical system.
Finally, how you-know-who and his right-wing pals latched onto the death of Kate Steinle and rode it across the finish line. Good policy is based on fact. What is based on distortion of fact?
You tell me. And have a good weekend.
jcburns said on August 10, 2017 at 9:31 pm
I am a packet sniffer for the internet,
and I scan the main load
Searchin’ in the fiber for some broken microcode
I hear you pingin’ on the wire,
Your DNS resolves just fine
And the Wichita tech support guy
is still on the line
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Sherri said on August 11, 2017 at 1:31 am
Very good, JC!
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Dexter said on August 11, 2017 at 2:33 am
I would have bet a quart of Beaver Island blackberries that Laura Nyro wrote “Up, Up, and Away”, but she wrote “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Stoney End”.
I was a GC fan , and my favorite song he performed is “Galveston”. It made me melancholy because I was staring the military draft at eye level.
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alex said on August 11, 2017 at 6:56 am
What is it with dictators and bad hair?
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brian stouder said on August 11, 2017 at 8:26 am
Alex – that is a superb link!
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kayak woman said on August 11, 2017 at 8:30 am
JCB: LOL and good morning from my beach perch on the upper St. Marys River in which all shipping traffic is at a dead halt due to a grounded freighter in the vicinity of Clyde’s Drivein. (Not sure if that sentence makes sense but cheers!)
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Julie Robinson said on August 11, 2017 at 8:42 am
JC, I’m singing it! Wichita Lineman was one of the earliest songs I learned on guitar. The picture of me at 13, earnestly strumming and scrunching up my face as I hit “still on the line” gives me chuckles today.
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Connie said on August 11, 2017 at 8:53 am
See boatnerds.com for more info and pics of the ship blocking the St. Marys, which is the Caledonia. I know this because my old friend Joe who is the captain of the Oberstar reports that he is fifth in line downbound waiting for the river to be unblocked.
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Peter said on August 11, 2017 at 8:59 am
And just in case Donald goes button happy this weekend, it was nice knowing you all, and in the words of Firesign Theatre: the bigger the burger, the bigger the bun, everything you know is wrong, and in the next world you’re on your own.
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Deborah said on August 11, 2017 at 9:49 am
I’m spending the apocalypse weekend in Abiquiu, can’t imagine a place I’d rather be when the big one happens. Only 30 miles from Los Alamos, so no doubt in the line of fire, guaranteeing I won’t be around when it’s over, thank goodness.
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Deggjr said on August 11, 2017 at 9:50 am
It will only hurt for a little while.
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Mark Stryker said on August 11, 2017 at 10:26 am
“Lush Life” is an astonishing song on every level. The only comparable work I can think of is Mendelssohn writing his Octet for strings at age 16. Even Mozart’s earliest works don’t have the range of expression or level of adult knowingness of these pieces. Coda: For those who don’t know it, the definitive recording of “Lush Life” is this one by Johnny Hartman with the John Coltrane Quartet. (The whole record is a miracle.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ-968Fw3bA
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john (not mccain) said on August 11, 2017 at 10:31 am
I got that Coltrane/Hartman album just the other day. It is, indeed, a miracle. I also got a dvd of the Gaga/Bennett show at Lincoln Center that was on PBS. Gaga does Lush Life solo. Of course, I’m a sucker for a diva blasting away so I loved it. I’m astonished and a little sad that it was written by a 17 year old.
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Bitter Scribe said on August 11, 2017 at 10:57 am
Is it just me or does “fulvic powder” sound vaguely obscene?
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Lynn Perry said on August 11, 2017 at 11:07 am
And those Strayhorn lyrics are just the verse….it gets even better.
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Charlotte said on August 11, 2017 at 11:10 am
Glenn Campbell was also one of the great session players, part of the famous “Wrecking Crew” and shows up on all kinds of songs you’d never expect. People has a good roundup of it here: http://people.com/country/glen-campbell-dead-session-musician-hits/
I got sucked into the supplements racket while I was doing my PhD — I was so sick for so long, all low-grade stuff that I couldn’t shake (see also: misery) — that I bought a lot of junk. Only thing that eventually worked was doing a lot of mushroom hunting in the Uintas, and getting the hell out of academia. Hence I’m finding myself more nervous than I should be about going back in — but so far, the department gives us free rein on what we teach, and at 6K per section + health insurance if you teach at least 3 sections per semester (thank you union of non-tenured faculty) I should be able to keep my head above water, save Himself and me from the GOP attacks on health care, and with some discipline, still have enough time to finish this novel, which needs a rewrite. Either that or I’ll get sick again, have to quit and find another gig. Sigh.
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Deborah said on August 11, 2017 at 12:05 pm
I’m at the airport waiting for my husband. On the way in I heard an interview with Carrie Bernstein (Slater Kenney and Portlandia) on NPR, I was impressed. She very casually used the words “quotidian” and “peripatetic” in the piece. You don’t hear that very often.
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brian stouder said on August 11, 2017 at 12:05 pm
Speaking of school – this article made me do a double-take!
http://wane.com/2017/08/11/concordia-lutheran-hs-requiring-students-to-pay-fees-for-detention/
an excerpt:
After a student’s fifth a.m. tardy to school, they will have to start paying the school. For the 6th and 7th tardies they pay $5 for each. For the 8th and 9th tardies they are sent to Saturday school, where they pay $30 per session. The rate is $10 per hour, with Saturday school lasting 3 hours.
Sort of Breakfast Club – only you get billed!
A market-based “solution” that cannot possibly be legal, can it? Those guys are accepting ‘voucher’ money – so we taxpayers are supporting them to begin with…and one can imagine a kiddo from modest means possibly being in there, with mom and dad not able to cough-up $30 (or whatever)
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Deborah said on August 11, 2017 at 12:07 pm
Skater-Kinney, not Kenney
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Sherri said on August 11, 2017 at 12:08 pm
Charlotte, my husband said that for quite a while even after he finished his PhD, he found himself tensing up anytime he flew back into Pittsburgh, because unconsciously, it was like returning to work on his thesis. And he finished! (Though it took a long time.) I got out early enough that I recovered sooner, I think, plus leaving was easier in CS. Merely having been admitted to and in the program at CMU for a was enough cred to tap into that network.
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Jeff Borden said on August 11, 2017 at 12:22 pm
I think it’s time for Korean barbecue this weekend in keeping with the Orange King’s latest obsession.
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Heather said on August 11, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Sleater-Kinney.
All I have to say is that I giggled at “Horny Goat Weed.”
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Sherri said on August 11, 2017 at 1:12 pm
We haven’t really talked much about the Damore manifesto here, which is fine, because it’s obviously garbage. But I’ve seen pundits from Conor Friersdorf to, most egregiously, David Brooks of course, decry the coverage of the Damore manifesto as unfair because it failed to engage with his arguments, which were cogent and backed up with citations.
No. No. And No. Damore did not write a well-argued document backed up by science in the interest of honest discussion. He wrote a manifesto that used half-assed readings of a few cherry-picked studies to buttress his own sense of victimization at the expense of people who already are marginalized in his company and industry, and blast it out to the entire company. Google is under investigation by the government for pay inequity for women, yet Damore feels alone because there are too many liberals at Google.
Friersdorf and Brooks demonstrate another example of something I see rampant among clueless white men: a failure to appreciate that what may merely be an intellectual exercise for them has real world consequences for other people. They have the privilege (yeah, I know it’s a trigger word for some people here, oh well) to contemplate Damore’s “argument” without thinking about the context: that the manifesto reinforces behavior that already makes life more difficult for women and POC who work at Google, that it encourages and emboldens more of that behavior, and that that behavior is both wrong and counterproductive. In other words, they don’t consider the human element, which is the biggest problem in tech today, and the biggest reason that I’d argue that tech needs fewer people like Damore and more women and POC, not because they are innately more likely to consider the human element, but because they bring different experiences and perspectives to the table.
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FDChief said on August 11, 2017 at 1:27 pm
What kind of infuriates me about the reportage of this Kim-Trump Dick Waving Exercise is that almost every news source fails to emphasize the almost-total-lack of workable military options for both sides.
The NORKs have a tiny nuclear arsenal, if any, and their ability to deliver an actual weapon to Guam, or anywhere else, for that matter, is questionable. And Kim – who appears to be slightly better-hinged than Orange Foolius – knows perfectly well that if he throws a nuke at the US or a US-ally his entire nation will likely get glassed from Pyongyang to the DMZ.
But the U.S. has nothin’, too. Nothing short of that glassing can ensure that the NORKs can’t throw a combination of chemicals, conventional explosives, and, possibly, nukes at the ROK and Japan at the very least. And glassing the North would require a pretty massive volley of ICBMs and SLBMs that neither China nor Russia can afford to ignore, thus risking a global nuclear exchange over what amounts to the usual NORK bluster.
So the real bottom line is that this is just a couple of egotistical autocrats indulging in nuclear penis-length-measuring, and it’d be nice if the “news” would report it as such.
But…
Trump’s blustering DOES make things worse, not because both countries intend to go to war, but because they don’t and all this “fire and fury” nonsense makes the possibility that a “Bedford Incident” sort of accident COULD blunder the two sides into a nuclear or chemical exchange in East Asia.
The news reports make it sound like the “danger” is that the two countries will go to war intentionally, so it makes it sound like Trumpy’s “warning” is a rational act of deterrence against a belligerent opponent.
But examining the real likely possibilities makes accidental collisions or military actions the more plausible, meaning that talking about “fire and fury” and acting the madman makes the danger of escalation MORE likely. After all, if your enemy leader is a tangerine-colored nutbag you can’t take the chance that that incident IS accidental and not the first shot in a nuclear war. If your enemy’s leader is a colossal nutter who intends to glass you if you blink, then, screw it, you’re gonna make him and his buddies hurt before you go.
If I’m KJU and I hear the Tangerine Toddler’s gums flapping and don’t have the experience to take him as the blowhard he is…I’m going to send my boat drivers out with the warning “The Yankee bastard wants us dead. He’s looking for any excuse. So if his lackeys come after you it’s because he’s started a war. You will do what is needful to punish them and their slaves.”
That’s why you “threaten like a minister of state” instead of like a dockside bully. Five-Deferment Donnie in his ignorance has no idea.
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Sherri said on August 11, 2017 at 1:53 pm
Another point I read someone make, FDChief, is that for all trump’s (questionable) experience in negotiation and deal-making, in real-estate, you’re usually dealing with two parties. No doubt Bannon thinks he’s playing 12-dimensional chess, but I don’t see a lot of evidence that he’s particularly good at it; you don’t need to be to blow everything up. Kushner doesn’t even know what that means. And trump? Only deals with the immediate moment.
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Sherri said on August 11, 2017 at 2:06 pm
This is a story that should bring a smile to your face: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/fashion/weddings/senior-citizen-older-couple-wedding.html
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FDChief said on August 11, 2017 at 2:14 pm
Sherri: Trump’s “negotiation” appears to be limited to 1) talk tough 2) hope the other party folds 3) if so, boast; if not, sulk/pout/rant. Only here the sulk/pout/rant includes weaponry, including nuclear weapons which Trump is on record as pouting about because all the large-fingered-sissies seem to regard as off-limits for actually USING.
So far as I can tell Bannon is simply a nihilistic nutter. In his mind he may be Machiavelli but in practice he’s more like some sort of cut-price Julius Streicher. And IMO he’s fine with slinging nukes around Asia. After all, those people are all sort of brownish and probably not Aryan Christians, so, whatev’.
I don’t see the “adults” asbeing able to tell the Tangerine Toddler nothin’ about nothin’. Looks to me like he’s wrapped up in his mano-a-mano chest beating with young Kim. If a bunch of people have to die to preserve the Trump brand, hey…just the cost of doin’ business. His Trumpkins will adore his manly manliness for being willing to kill what they see as “just slopes” for Jesus and the Old Flag.
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brian stouder said on August 11, 2017 at 2:17 pm
Sherri – that is indeed a great article; made my eyes a little moist!
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Judybusy said on August 11, 2017 at 2:31 pm
In honor of the current crisis, I’m eating here this weekend. And I’m getting those tacos!
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FDChief said on August 11, 2017 at 3:11 pm
And the Rude Pundit, as usual, has what is IMO the best take on this nonsense:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2017/08/advice-to-young-folk-freaking-out-about.html
Yep.
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Jenine said on August 11, 2017 at 3:57 pm
@Charlotte, your employment plan sounds good. Good wishes for fairly low stress work.
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nancy said on August 11, 2017 at 4:38 pm
Sherri, I’ve not weighed in on the Google memo, mainly because I’ve had a busy week and lack the patience to read 10 single-spaced pages on Bitches Be Crazy when I could be reading data on car-pedestrian accidents or something else on my plate right now.
But.
1) I notice Rod Dreher has gone fully hysterical about it, which tells me right there that it’s bullshit.
2) I heard a simple, well-reported piece on NPR, about how certain universities dealt with the imbalance of women in tech fields, very successfully, through the application of strategies like making them feel welcome and offering social support, etc.
3) The first thing this guy did after being fired was turn up on the podcast of some MRA guy.
Thanks, all I need to know!
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Jakash said on August 11, 2017 at 4:42 pm
What’s remarkable to me is that Kim is so intent on engaging in this “nuclear penis-length-measuring” when NK is obviously hung like a Ken doll. It’s like taking a revolver loaded for Russian roulette and trying to piss off somebody who’s got 15 tanks pointed right at you. Not that rationality is his strong suit, obviously.
In Dolt 45’s case, you don’t need to be a psychiatrist to understand his relishing an instance where he actually *does* have the large hands. After all the bullshit he’s spouted, here he can bluster and at least not be exaggerating about our capabilities. Not that rationality is his strong suit, either.
That being said, fine posts and I loved the reference to Orange Foolius, FDChief. I must just travel in the wrong circles, but I hadn’t seen that one before…
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Sherri said on August 11, 2017 at 5:28 pm
Nancy, Harvey Mudd led the way in improving their gender ratio in computer science classes. I’m happy that CMU joined in (and have made my appreciation known), and the University of Washington has also made strides in this direction. If you look at the data, women were entering CS at the same rate they were entering other fields up until the mid-80s, and then the numbers took a dive. Women continued to enter the physical sciences, at a slow but steady climb, but not CS. Obviously, Biological Differences, right?
Or, maybe, the rise of the personal computer in everybody’s home, and the way it was targeted to boys. Soon, guys were entering CS programs in college with a leg up, and a pernicious cycle fed upon itself.
I maintain that if Google (and other tech companies) really wanted to improve diversity, they would. They would treat it like they do any other hard problem, research it, and look at novel solutions. They would look beyond CS programs at universities, and train people themselves if need be. It’s really not that hard to take smart people and teach them to code, as long as you’re not locked into the idea of what a coder has to look like.
Look at what the finance industry did. When they wanted more sophisticated models, they didn’t go to B-school grads, they went trawling for math and physics and CS PhDs, and threw a lot of money at them to come build those models for them. The problem with the tech world right now is, they don’t even see that their world is too narrow, that their perspective is lacking, that there are markets other than mom-replacement apps for affluent 25 year old techies and advertisers.
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Charlotte said on August 11, 2017 at 5:34 pm
Sherri — I completely understand your husband’s feelings. My PhD program is notorious for how toxic they were to the students, and there are certain turns of academic phrase that still make me flinch. So far though, this program seems pretty collegial and I’m working hard to trust that it’s so.
And you should see what the rhetoric & composition people think is “technical writing” — a weird mishmash of very old-fashioned “business” writing (resumes, memos) and standard humanities papers on technical subjects. So my plan is to apply user-design principles to written communication (it hits all the rhet/comp buttons — iterative, have to think about your reader/user), then have them do a white paper, then run a unit on Agile, and finish by making them do performance reviews. They’re primarily CS students, so I’m hoping this will at least feel relevant — and if nothing else, they’ll leave knowing how to put together a decent slide deck.
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LAMary said on August 11, 2017 at 7:25 pm
Fulvic powder does sound dirty. All of those ingredients sound sleazy. This is not a coincidence.
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Deborah said on August 11, 2017 at 8:59 pm
Not sure if this twitter link will work but this would make a president stop and think https://mobile.twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/895367424182149120/photo/1
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Suzanne said on August 11, 2017 at 9:08 pm
Did I mention I am reading a book on Jim Jones? The parallels between Jones’ followers & Trumps is chilling.
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alex said on August 11, 2017 at 9:57 pm
Must be the stuff you sprinkle on it when you get fulvofaginitis.
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Dexter said on August 12, 2017 at 3:07 am
As Lindsey Nelson said on Notre Dame films of condensed Irish games on TV 52 years ago, “Now we move to further action…” and…we’re off to get involved militarily in Venezuela. MSNBC is flipping out totally.
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BigHank53 said on August 12, 2017 at 5:27 am
Best piece yet about the Google-bro manifesto, written by an ex-Google manager:
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788
It is mostly about the practice of engineering, actually. It’s a few minutes of reading, and well worth it. My spouse (the engineering project manager) forwarded it to several co-workers; it is entirely appropriate for a professional environment.
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basset said on August 12, 2017 at 6:54 am
Back to Glen Campbell for a minute… we’ve talked some time ago about “It’ll Be Me,” the documentary on his cognitive decline, and I would say again that it’s definitely worth watching.
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Suzanne said on August 12, 2017 at 7:30 am
BigHank, that Medium piece is excellent.
I warched a clip of an interview of the manifesto writer, and honestly, I am not sure he’s not an Asberger Syndrome guy which would explain a lot. He maybe was just nervous but his speech patterns seemed sort of stilted and his facial expressions sort of blank. But again, maybe just nervous.
I did love this Medium author’s explanation of engineering. It makes me understand some engineers I’ve known better and realize that they are so used to problem solving that they probably don’t realize that they can come across as know-it-alls. They Spend their days thinking about solutions, so when I rant about the traffic jam I was stuck in, their default is to think about ways I could have solved that problem, not just letting me vent. So an engineer thinks he’s being helpful, and I think he’s being arrogant. Ah, communication! It seems like it should be so easy, but not so!
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Sherri said on August 12, 2017 at 12:15 pm
Suzanne, as someone who can live on both sides of that divide, trust me, there is at least a degree of arrogance on his side. His world doesn’t value the so-called “soft skills”, and he’s really good at the “hard skills”, so he must be smarter! I had to learn (sometimes the hard way) to see it in myself, and my husband and I, both techies, had to learn to negotiate it in our marriage.
It helped me see it when one of my best friends from college once, seeing me in action once, told me later that she would have smacked me in the face had I done that to her. That, and lots of therapy.
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Deborah said on August 12, 2017 at 12:27 pm
Seriously!?? The transcript of the president of the United States call to the governor of Guam https://mobile.twitter.com/ddale8/status/896237868733083648
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Jeff Borden said on August 12, 2017 at 1:05 pm
I saw a rundown of some of our louder conservative talking heads and they are jizzing themselves over the Orange King’s bluster, which they contrast with the “mom jeans wearing pajama boy” who preceded him in the Oval Office. Most of these obnoxious weasels, of course, never served in the military, much less saw any kind of combat, but man, they are butch.
Speaking of butch, did anyone else notice the Nazi punks in Charlottesville were using backyard bamboo tiki torches for their march last night? Ernst Rohm must be spinning in his hell grave.
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Sherri said on August 12, 2017 at 1:52 pm
I’m glad that they were carrying bamboo tiki torches and wearing polo shirts. Makes it clear that the deplorables are the people next door.
I don’t see how people cookie miss the obvious racism during the campaign, but I know people who were in denial about it. Surely it’s getting harder to deny now.
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Sherri said on August 12, 2017 at 2:08 pm
Could, not cookie.
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David C. said on August 12, 2017 at 3:02 pm
It ain’t just tiki torches and bad complexions anymore. http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/47439_BREAKING-_Car_Plows_Into_Counter-Protesters_at_White_Supremacist_Rally_in_Virginia
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 5:34 pm
Remember when the mayonnaise out here was bitching about Hillary’s use of the word “deplorable’?
Good times. Good fucking times.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/896464424319451136
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 5:39 pm
Here’s the president you earned. The administration you done begat:
http://ijr.com/the-response/2017/08/946055-trump-refuses-call-charlottesville-attack-terrorism/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 6:42 pm
Attacker was KKK from Ohio. Maybe they ought to send some reporters and preachers to debrief him on his economic security.
And suck his goddamn dick.
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 8:47 pm
Hey, where’s Kobiela? Danny? Jeff TMMO?
You bastards were pushing Nazi tropes when it wasn’t cool.
You’re about to feel the “tyranny of the majority”: Fucking whelps.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 12, 2017 at 9:07 pm
Yeah, you got me. I own a couple of tiki torches. Can’t find ’em, they’re in a pile of crap in the garage. Not too dissimilar to the piles of walking turds goose-stepping through Charlottesville, a town that deserves better than David Duke and Richard Spencer, but has its hands full of them and worse right now.
Cooze, your hate isn’t going to heal this running sore either. But our mutual anger at this kind of rally being possible in our time and place isn’t good for any of our hearts, I know. I’d like to tell you to fuck off, honestly, but we need each other. I have to finish a sermon for a roomful of people tomorrow morning most of whom are certain they aren’t racist (and that includes the half that didn’t vote for Trump, too), and are skeptical about racism still being in the air and water and tiki torches of our fair county. My language won’t suit you, but it’s in the same damn service, okay? Call out racism, drag it into sunlight, watch it die, teach each other how not to let that old old sin fester again in our civic and sanctimonious hearts. I’m sure since I won’t call them all evil shits you think that warrants calling me a Nazi fuck, but I’m quite certain myself your path is not going to turn any hearts, let alone change some minds.
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 9:19 pm
No, motherfucker. You got sucked in by the Sarah Palin grift and on this very site you defended her “Blood and soil” semantic poetry. You don’t get to erase your past positions. You don’t get to elide your pro torture stance, your endorsement of the “humble white Ohioan” framework adopted by the media who portrayed the Ferguson rioters as criminals, when it’s you slick white deviates who are consigning a miraculously unified country to the dictat of racists and pervs.
And to quote your ass re Michael G. Fuck you.
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Sherri said on August 12, 2017 at 9:24 pm
North Carolina, Tennessee, North Dakota, Texas: all have considered legislation this year to reduce liability for running over protestors “unintentionally.”
I’m honestly dubious as to how much hearts and minds can be changed at this point. When the media seems reluctant to call a Nazi a Nazi and trump talks about “many sides” and the right-wing noise machine harps on the violence of the left, I’m not sure there’s much hope for persuasion.
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 9:27 pm
And I AM all fucking heart. Not some slick scheisster bastard who has to sucker a congregation into a building fund every quarter. You aren’t on anyone’s side that can’t promise you a dollar. Your party built this. Own it, you fucking coward.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 12, 2017 at 9:46 pm
Understood.
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 9:51 pm
And let’s discuss HATE a little, as I have walked through the shadow of the valley of death in the Selma to Washington DC march with Reverend Barber. You probably have never heard of the Norlina riots, which provoked the intervention of Canada to achieve a modicum of justice.
You and your fans here are an insidious rot, a cancer.
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coozledad said on August 12, 2017 at 10:04 pm
He sooo fuckin’ purty, ain’t he.
https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/896543463310737409
Fuck you midwestern assholes. We’re trying to rebuild the south without so much mayonnaise.
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susan said on August 13, 2017 at 1:08 am
One of the commenters about the car-terrist, after looking at his mugshot: “Dude could look through a keyhole with both eyes.”
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Jakash said on August 13, 2017 at 1:41 am
“In case you’re wondering if President Trump inspires neo-nazis–this is from their publication The Daily Stormer:”
https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/896492127911149568
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Dexter said on August 13, 2017 at 3:14 am
6 hours ago – Driver Who Plowed Into People In Charlottesville Identified As James Fields … His last known residence is in Maumee, Ohio, a town southwest of Toledo …<>
Yeah, he’s from just over two county lines from me but he ain’t my nephew.
Trump declined to diss the Nazis when a reporter tried to get an answer. And now he’s calling for peace when he also encouraged use of force at his campaign rallies and shouted thinly-veiled nuke-threats at Korea.
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Linda said on August 13, 2017 at 6:41 am
Coozledad at #60 and Dexter #63–weirdly enough, though his last address was Maumee, Ohio, a Toledo suburb, he and his mom recently moved here from Florence, Ky to take a job: http://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-charlottesville-suspect-knew-rallyi-thought-trump/story?id=49185691
But it’s an American disease
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 8:23 am
Linda: Honestly, I thought most of the bastards would be from Southside VA or NC. But they trucked in from as far away as NV and California. That’s some commitment to utter stupidity.
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 8:33 am
People on the ground are saying cops and National Guard sat on their hands while the violence escalated. We need a purge.
https://twitter.com/cflav/status/896569248147009536
I remember the good old days when I only thought the cops in whatever town I was living in were the Nazis.
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 9:09 am
We’re going to the protest in Durham this evening (not a hardship because RESTAURANTS) but goddamn if Americans don’t need to Arab spring the fuck out of DC this week. Fuck permits. Shut that motherfucker down.
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Deborah said on August 13, 2017 at 10:58 am
I have to go with Coozeldad here, if you voted for Trump you are complicit in what happened in Charlottesville. I might even go so far as to say that if you call yourself a Republican you need to own it. Because the Republicans in the legislature and beyond are treating Trump with kid gloves when he needs to be excoriated. Trump has clearly called for violence, he’s on video over and over again at his rallies. For some reason he’s coddling the white supremacist, they love him and are spurned on by him. His response to the situation was disputable.
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Deborah said on August 13, 2017 at 11:06 am
Despicable not disputable damn autocorrect
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Bill said on August 13, 2017 at 11:11 am
Neil Sternberg says it well today.
http://www.everygoddamnday.com
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Jakash said on August 13, 2017 at 11:12 am
Just wondering, Coozeledad. Are MM Jeff, his “fans here,” and the rest of us insidious, mayonnaise midwesterners just supposed to forget your ad hominem parade from last night and look forward to your next witty poem or song lyric? ‘Cause if that outpouring of unfocused rage about the nightmare this country is going through is an example, you don’t seem to be picking your targets very effectively. Again, whatever his supposed flaws, Jeff has never supported ole Rumpy, and probably does as much to try to positively impact folks and attempt to deal with the racism we all despise as anybody posting here. Almost all of the rest of us are also on your side. I sure hope that diatribes like you fired off last night make you feel better about things. Otherwise, they seem like a pretty pointless, misguided airing of grievances when it’s not even close to Festivus.
I wouldn’t bother posting this, as it’s also pointless, but it just seems odd to have those comments go unremarked upon, as if we all think that they were okay. Nothing posted here is gonna change the mind of the type of perverse yahoo carrying a tiki torch in support of “blood and soil.” But your comments *could* conceivably incline Jeff to post less, which would not be a good thing, IMHO.
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Bill said on August 13, 2017 at 11:13 am
Steinberg
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 11:18 am
This is a useful tool. Make certain these guys can never find a job outside the Ohio Republican party.
https://twitter.com/YesYoureRacist/status/896747603135692806
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 11:28 am
Jackash. You don’t know how to use the search function for this site do you? Jeff is a long running supporter of torture, and a Sarah Palin enthusiast. I recall a discussion where Ol’ Jeff even endorsed Sarah’s Blood and Soil word salad.
I’ve cut and pasted a few of Jeff’s screeds to literate sites to see if they could make any sense of his guck. It’s all racist apologetics and ass covering. That’s what being a dissembler does to your writing. It’s also what being fundamentally wrong does to your head.
I’m sorry you are so enamored of passive constructions and stale Victorianisms that you think they make racism pretty, but in my humble opinion, you’re also a no writing motherfucker. You’re one of the reasons folks like David Brooks still have a job.
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Jakash said on August 13, 2017 at 11:31 am
“I might even go so far as to say that if you call yourself a Republican you need to own it.”
I’m sorry, Deborah, but I’m not on board for that. How is this broad-brushing of every Republican not the same as the fools saying every Muslim needs to publicly disown every terrorist attack? My mother was a cloth-coat Republican. She’s been gone for a long time, but I feel confident she’d have never voted for ole Rumpy. And she’d be just as outraged by this racist, Nazi bullshit as we are. Plus, there are *plenty* of Republicans who didn’t vote for him, despise what he represents, and *do* disown him, which is why his approval ratings are so low. I’d certainly like them to be calling their Reps and Senators to let them know and I agree that the *leadership* deserves plenty of shaming, but I don’t blame *every* Republican simply for *being* a Republican. Yet.
This probably isn’t the best time or place to post that opinion, but I guess I just did…
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 11:37 am
You wear a bowtie, don’t you.
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Linda said on August 13, 2017 at 11:42 am
My bro said, of course this loser is from Ohio, handily forgetting his Facebook post a moth or so ago about how he would run down protesters who blocked him. I guess it’s all fun and tough talk till someone is in the boneyard.
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Jakash said on August 13, 2017 at 11:43 am
Oh, ouch, Cooze! And here, right up until those shots, I had fancied myself a modern-day Voltaire. I’ll reconsider, thanks.
I’ll admit that I haven’t been around here nearly as long as some folks and am not familiar with all of Jeff’s posts. Nor am I going down the rabbit-hole of freaking searching for them. As I won’t round up the litany of posts of yours attacking anybody on this blog who has the audacity to disagree with you (insert sodomy reference there, if you prefer,) right up to the Proprietress. But I know what Jeff has written lately and your attacks on him are well out of proportion to his role in this administration, I’m pretty sure about that.
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 11:45 am
linda. Republicans in the NC General Assembly passed a bill that would have decriminalized hitting protesters with a car. But we need to respect their views
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 11:47 am
Shorter jackash: “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, but I’ll keep talking anyway.”
You do wear a bowtie. And those round tortoiseshell glasses.
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beb said on August 13, 2017 at 11:50 am
At the risk of starting a shitsturm, I’m tired of Coolzedad. His rants on NN.c tend to resemble internet bullying and his rhetoric too often is indistinguishable from the invective of the fascists he abhors.
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Jakash said on August 13, 2017 at 11:51 am
“Republicans in the NC General Assembly” Just so. And if you want to call those Republicans in the NC General Assembly “an insidious rot,” more power to you. Neither Jeff nor his fans live in NC.
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Jakash said on August 13, 2017 at 11:57 am
He evidently just wants somebody to argue with, beb. Well, I’ve done my part there! I certainly don’t blame him for being royally pissed off with the state of affairs in this forsaken nation. Sorry about egging him on, to the handful reading this on a fine Sunday morning. I’ll stop now.
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coozledad said on August 13, 2017 at 11:59 am
too often is indistinguishable from the invective of the fascists he abhors.
I’ve actually had to confront fascists. In person, in Person County NC. They threatened my life. I don’t care if your are tired of me. I would care if you were articulate or less of an old fart, but here we are.
It seems to me the people who most dislike me here are old ass white men. I must be doing something right.
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Suzanne said on August 13, 2017 at 12:12 pm
I have family members who voted for Trump. I am not sure how I can face them. Ever. One is an in-law married to a guy who is second gen Phillippino and she has children who clearly are not 100% white and yet, she supports Trump all the way. I do not, cannot, understand it. A cousin of mine hated Obama with a passion and I am fairly certain supported Trump. Her very white daughter is married to a very dark man from South America who is not a citizen.
Do people like her honestly think their own family will not be caught up in this?
I will never understand it. Never.
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Suzanne said on August 13, 2017 at 12:15 pm
FWIW, I am glad Jeff posts here. He dos a difficult job that makes a difference in people’s lives. I value his opinion.
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nancy said on August 13, 2017 at 12:24 pm
Guys, I was busy most of yesterday and into today, and am just seeing the last 24 hours of comments. Can I ask all of us to just chill in this venue for a few hours? I don’t want to shut things down, but we’re way onto the rumble strips.
Meanwhile, sounds like Mr. Fields is your garden-variety loser, a type that we’ve become all too familiar with in recent years.
That said, I thought the president’s statement yesterday was shameful.
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alex said on August 13, 2017 at 12:52 pm
I remember giving Jeff a ribbing one time many years ago over a concerted effort on his part to read Barack Obama’s books side by side with those of Bill Ayers for evidence that Ayers was Obama’s ghostwriter, as was being alleged in right-wing circles at the time. He asked me not to remind him of that shameful episode as he had come around and realized he’d been bamboozled.
Likewise, my parents were falling for the Ground Zero Mosque bullshit at one time, yet when they realized they’d been had it marked a turning point for them as longtime Republicans. They are now sworn Democrats, two-time Obama voters and they voted for Hillary as well. My mother used to say horrible things about Hillary but once she stopped listening to political buzz and started reading about Hillary in depth, she developed a strong sympathy and liking for Hillary.
I can’t harbor ill will toward people who have learned to question propaganda and come away wiser, and I don’t hold their pasts against them. It’s what’s in the present that matters. For all of us, being part of this community has made us better for it, milquetoast midwesterners and dyed-in-the-wool radicals alike.
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Linda said on August 13, 2017 at 12:54 pm
I, for one, welcome Jeff’s comments. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he works with people in the crappiest places in their own lives, where we see society without turd polishing. It’s a useful perspective.
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Snarkworth said on August 13, 2017 at 1:05 pm
I am but a humble lurker (and occasional poster) who enjoys both the conviviality of this community and the acerbic voices that add zest to the discourse. However, while I am perfectly capable of dealing with crap, I was pleased when my children were no longer in diapers and don’t seek it out for wallowing purposes. I don’t condemn the language in question, but I find it odd to see it freely directed at members of the community, rather than outward toward more deserving targets.
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brian stouder said on August 13, 2017 at 1:07 pm
I believe ol’ Cooze forgets that he’s preaching to the choir-loft, hereabouts, with regard to what’s right and what’s wrong in American culture in 2017.
I often refer to myself as being in “the cheap seats” – as I’ve never been in a protest march, or faced the actual maw of such invincible ignorance as was on display at Charlottesville.
I genuinely respect – with no ‘but’s – the courage of Cooze and others, who actually do pick up a sign or a banner or a bullhorn, and go into the public square and exercise their 1st Amendment rights, and risk their personal well-being in the process.
And I genuinely respect – with no ‘but’s – the life-long commitment of Jeff and others, who actually dedicate their lives to a lifetime of hard work work dedicated to specifically helping individuals and families through all manner of human hardships, and making positive, tangible improvements in those lives, with no giving up.
I suppose it’s only natural that Cooze’s passion occasionally becomes indiscriminate; he’s evangelical, indeed – and (I’d guess) he cannot help but arrive at “you’re either with me or against me” – with no gray in between; whereas Jeff’s passion cannot help but land him on forgiveness (or at least its possibility) – even for the absolute “least of these” in (for example) a crowd of impassioned people who (somehow) cannot see the ridiculousness of proudly waving the Stars and Stripes along with the stars and bars, and fighting to maintain a municipal statue honoring the #1 most treasonous person in American history.
From the cheap seats where I sit (always trying to be informed, always voting, always concerned about my young folks, first), people like Cooze and people like Jeff are both indispensable to our society.
Anyway – off to hell with me, eh?
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Andrea said on August 13, 2017 at 4:25 pm
I do believe this is a turning point for our nation, and that if we truly want it to go into a different — and better — direction, we owe a duty to be visible and vocal. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and complaining about it amongst ourselves won’t get us closer to the change we wish to achieve. None of this will ever be conveniently timed, but the time is now to stand up for the values we claim to share and to condemn white supremacy and racism in all of its forms, from the blatant now before us, to the subtle every day acts and omissions that mark people of color’s every day experiences.
My oldest child is leaving tomorrow for college (for the first time!) and we have so many things to do to prepare, and yet I now see one more opportunity to model for him and his sisters the values I hope they have learned from me. We are going to the Chicago vigil at Federal Plaza as a family. We can always mail him whatever stuff he forgets here.
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Sherri said on August 13, 2017 at 4:40 pm
Charlie Pierce: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a56979/charlottesville-donald-trump-republican/
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Deborah said on August 13, 2017 at 4:47 pm
Jakash, I “might” be inclined to say if you’re Republican you need to own it because of the appalling way the “official” Republican Party and most of the Republican legislature responds to Trump. Very, very few of them publically make statements calling out his shameful behavior and speech. If you still stand with them (those Republican leaders) after they have silently stood by while Trump condones violence and white supremacy, not to mention nuclear annihilation, misogyny and all the rest. Then I honestly question their ethics and moral judgement. If they speak out against those abominations themselves (everyday Republicans) well, that’s great, but I don’t understand how everyday Republicans can turn around and vote for those same Republican leaders who are silent in the face of the atrocities of speech and behavior that Trump continually engages in.
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FDChief said on August 13, 2017 at 7:11 pm
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE 45th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Look, I know you have the attention span of a housefly, but try to follow along, K? I’ll keep it as simple as you are.
Here’s what Americans do to Nazis: they kick their ass. Captain America? Kicked Nazi ass. The 82nd Airborne? Kicked Nazi ass. Georgie Patton? Kicked Nazi ass.
That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?
It used to be a bar that you had to clear to get elected here in this goddamn country; don’t be a Nazi, don’t be a commie. Sadly, you could be racist, sexist, and xenophobic as all hell, but you at least had to clear that low bar.
So.
As the fucking President of the United States, here’s what it’s your job to do.
You put your ginormous orange meatface in front of the teevee cameras and say this:
“Don’t be a Nazi. Fuck “alt-right” and “white pride”; that shit’s being a Nazi. Don’t be a Nazi. Don’t talk like a Nazi. Don’t act like a Nazi. Don’t hang out with Nazis. Nazis are evil. We killed shitloads of Nazis, there was a whole war and everything. If you talk like and act like and hang out with Nazis you are fucking evil. As your President, I hate Nazi scum and everything they stand for and I recommend you do, too.”
See? Wasn’t that easy?
But you won’t say that.
Ever.
Because you can’t. Because you know these Nazi shitpokes are your shitpokes, the ones who elected you, the only ones who still have your back after eight months of solid derp, the ones think you’re doing such a great job, the very best job. Because you’re a worthless goddamn orange oxygen-thief who should never have been trusted with anything more important than the menu choices at the Trump Tower grill.
But I’m leaving this here in hopes that somehow the Wizard figures out how to give you a heart, a brain, and some courage enough for you to act like a president of, y’know, the United Fucking States…
Lemme know when that happens.
I won’t be holding my breath.
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Deborah said on August 13, 2017 at 8:35 pm
FD Chief, you just won best comment of the year!!!!
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Diane said on August 14, 2017 at 12:25 am
What Brian said @91.
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