I found some fascinating pictures online the other day:
Portraits of the first lady as a young woman, and as a young model, compared with today. I believe they were offered in the course of a Quora forum on what sort of plastic surgery she’s had, but I find them fascinating for other reasons. The first left-hand shot, I have to think, is Slovenia Melania, a pretty young woman hoping to become a model. Bottom left, Model Melania, already dating her share of wealthy pigs in hope of a permanent life here, but still hopeful in some way; maybe she’ll snag a hedge-fund manager closer to her age, one who stays in shape and remembers her birthday without having his secretary remind him.
And on the right, Melania Trump. I’m sure some combination of surgery and fillers and god knows what other witch-potion has given her that perma-squint, but even if we could see all the way past those flat brows and through the prickly hedge of her lashes, we’d find…maybe nothing? I’d love to put together a timeline of her modeling photos — because a model should have a zillion of them, right? — and see if we could find the exact moment when her soul left her body.
Midweek, feeling…midweek. The humidity is blowing out as we speak and will be replaced by clear, low-humidity, moderate-temperature loveliness, so I guess I will be enjoying it. Summer won’t last forever. Maybe an early-morning bike ride or something. Summer is fleeting; best enjoy it.
I was checking in on this and that today when that and this sent me over to Condoleeza Rice’s argument for why we should leave Confederate monuments where they are:
“I am a firm believer in ‘keep your history before you’ and so I don’t actually want to rename things that were named for slave owners,” she said Monday on Fox News.
“I want us to have to look at those names and recognize what they did and to be able to tell our kids what they did and for them to have a sense of their own history. When you start wiping out your history, sanitizing your history to make you feel better it’s a bad thing,” she said.
Huh. I remember when the Oklahoma City bombing memorial opened, an architecture critic noted how hard you have to look to find the name “Tim McVeigh” and there certainly isn’t a bronze rendering of him in that memorial. I haven’t been there, but I suspect he’s right, as someone who’s read approximately 10 million letters to the editor wondering why newspapers put the name of accused killers on the front page, WHEN THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT.
Is there a statue of Osama bin Laden at the 9/11 memorial? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Ignore the typos in this post to get a sense of just how ridiculous the Kid Rock for Senate campaign really is:
The July poll that went viral on the Internet, lifting Kid Rock as a serious contender for U.S. Senate, may have been created by a fake polling firm to cash in on lucrative bets related to the 2018 Michigan elections.
According to FiveThirtyEight, numbers from a mid-July poll incredulously showed the raunchy musician from Romeo (Mich.) leading Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow by a 30-26 percent gap. That raised questions among political pros whether this whole episode was a scam.
First, the so-called polling firm, Digital Analytica, had existed for about a week prior to the highly publicized poll of July 14-18. Second, there are some indications that this shadowy group may be engaged in cashing in on an online gambling website, PredictIt, which offers the opportunity for betters to make wagers on political matters relating to future elections and the advancement of political figures.
People around here are still click-whoring on this nonsense. I hope it can stop now.
Happy middle of the week to you. Next week’s a short one. Whew.
Bitter Scribe said on August 22, 2017 at 9:46 pm
When Condoleeza Rice’s kids ask about a Confederate statue, and she explains who the man on the horse was and what he did, and the kids ask, “Well, if he was fighting to keep us as slaves, Mommy, why is there a statue of him?” I wonder what she’ll say.
Maybe it’s a good thing that Condoleeza Rice’s kids don’t exist.
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Suzanne said on August 22, 2017 at 10:16 pm
Posted this on the last thread & then realized there was a new one.
Insight into Trump supporters.
I had a hair appointment today and as I was waiting, I hear my hairdresser & her client discussing the Charlottesville mess. Those people, you know, were just there to protect that statue, not trying to start trouble. “They” are trying to wipe out our history, blah, blah. I am fairly certain neither one of those women could date the civil war within 50 years, but on they went. Then the hairdresser said that “they” won’t stop there. They will go after our Bibles next. “They” are already destroying statues of the Virgin Mary (whaaaat???)
Then I hear that we just need to get more morality in the country or nothing will change (this from the hairdresser who has been married at least twice and spends her weekends at the lake on the sandbar-Lake James for you Hoosiers-partying & posting pictures of it on Facebook.)
Now it’s my turn for a haircut. During the chit chat, I mention that airports are getting much better at putting in charging stations for phones and other electronic devices. Oh, no! says the hairdresser. You shouldn’t do that because “they” put in those power stations so “they” can get into your phone & get information.
I listen to the radio on the way home and hear some woman in Phoenix waxing eloquent about how humble and wonderful Trump is because he gave up his wealthy life to serve the little people like her.
We are doomed, people, doomed.
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alex said on August 22, 2017 at 11:15 pm
Melania and Condoleeza…
What an interesting juxtaposition. It really got me thinking it’s a tossup who’s the bigger opportunist.
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brian stouder said on August 22, 2017 at 11:45 pm
Alex – that’s an impossibly difficult question!
Condoleeza rose to where she was with intelligence and hard work (and being beautiful didn’t hurt)
whereas Melania rose to her current prominence with exceptional beauty – and probably more than a little intelligence and savvy.
Melania’s eyes seem to speak volumes; not glaring – but somewhat Clint Eastwood-ey; a sort of jaded “hit me with your best shot, Buck-o” appraisal.
Remember Eastwood in the movie Unforgiven? when the kiddo is freaked out by a shooting, and wants Clint to assure him that the guy they just killed ‘had it coming’?
And Clint says something like “We’ve all got it coming, kiddo”
I think Melania can kick piss-boy’s ass, whenever the situation calls for it
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Bitter Scribe said on August 22, 2017 at 11:58 pm
Suzanne: You might want to consider changing hairdressers.
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Sherri said on August 23, 2017 at 1:26 am
I don’t know, Bitter, I think it’s easier to find a doctor I like than a new hairdresser. The salon I was going to just closed, but rather than change hairdressers, I’m now driving 30 minutes one way to follow my hairdresser to her new salon.
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Dexter said on August 23, 2017 at 4:03 am
Rice is smart and all, and also a manipulative liar and toadie for Rumsfeld and Bush43…”smoking gun”, “mushroom cloud” nonsense of the Yellow Cake scandal. I hated all that bullshit of that administration. Melania Trump…so far by far the dullest FLOTUS ever.
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ROGirl said on August 23, 2017 at 5:50 am
Melania: aging and plasticized. Sad!
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2017 at 7:03 am
Trust me, I am considering a new hairdresser.
The whole incident brought home how impossible it is to get through to people who live in a parallel universe. I am haunted by the people around Jim Jones (or any cult) and that many were thanking Jones for letting them serve him while they were lined up to kill themselves for him. If facts and reasoning don’t matter, there isn’t much hope.
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Jolene said on August 23, 2017 at 7:05 am
Amazing how lively and fresh Melania looks in that photo compared to how she looks now. I did see some photos of her smiling in a way that looked genuine while doing craft projects with kids in a hospital, the only recent pic of her that conveyed any sign of pleasure or happiness. Honestly, I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to spend your life in the vicinity of Donald Trump.
That said, her happiness is the least of my concerns about the effects of Donald Trump.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 8:03 am
Old White Man Warning (Contains “words”).
https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-president-of-blank-sucking-nullity-roth
This son of a bitch is going to push the button. And it was old white that put him in. He’s the shopworn penile extension of their rotten impulses, their rollercoaster blood sugar malaise and the childish resentments latent in their chromosomal DNA.
These night rallies are packed with the dead and the soon to be dead. That they never were truly living beings is beyond all question now.
Bunch of drooling pink assplugs.
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2017 at 8:22 am
To top off my week of ignorance, on Monday, the guy that runs the business housed in the same building I work in, said to me, “Once the eclipse is over, the sun will go back to normal, right?” And a friend of mine talked to a man who told her his wife said she wouldn’t watch the eclipse because she didn’t want to get up in the middle of the night.
Ah, middle America full of real Americans.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 8:27 am
Preach.
To understand Trump is also to understand his appeal as an aspirational brand to the worst people in the United States. What his intransigent admirers like most about him—the thing they aspire to, in their online cosplay sessions and their desperately thirsty performances for a media they loathe and to which they are so helplessly addicted—is his freedom to be unconcerned with anything but himself. This is not because he is rich or brave or astute; it’s because he is an asshole, and so authentically unconcerned. The howling and unreflective void at his core will keep him lonely and stupid until the moment a sufficient number of his vital organs finally resign in disgrace, but it liberates him to devote every bit of his being to his pursuit of himself. Actual hate and actual love, as other people feel them, are too complicated to fit into this world. In their place, for Trump and for the people who see in him a way of being that they are too busy or burdened or humane to pursue, are the versions that exist in a lower orbit, around the self. Instead of hate, there is simple resentment—abject and valueless and recursively self-pitying; instead of love, there is the blank sucking nullity of vanity and appetite.
This is what an asshole is, and lord knows Trump is not the only one in his business, or our culture, who insistently bends every incident or issue back towards his sour and jealous self. Some of the people who do this even care at some level about the broader world, but because they are assholes believe that the solution that world’s problems lies in paying more attention to one particular asshole and his or her ideas. Trump is not one of those people. The rest of the world is an abstraction to him, a market to exploit; there is no other person in it who is real to him. They’re all supplicants or subjects, fans or haters, but their humanity is transparently not part of the equation. What other people might want, or indeed the fact that they could want at all, is crowded out of the picture by the corroded and corrosive bulk of his horrible self.
There is no room for other people in the world that Trump has made for himself, and this is fundamental to the anxiety of watching him impose his claustrophobic and airless interior world on our own.
There’s so much more. This will be the probity of the historical record on the murder ape. We’ve missed the opportunity to grind him and his like into the utter insignificance that should have been their birthright.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 8:44 am
Kick a Republican in the balls day:
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/900324182164221952
The prisons need to be emptied of marijuana users and stuffed with our national disgrace. West Moginia could be reconsecrated as parkland.
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Julie Robinson said on August 23, 2017 at 9:09 am
The speech lasted 75 minutes? I think my ears would bleed.
How does plastic surgery make your eyes do that? I’m clueless on this subject.
I’m killing time at the airport, headed back to Orlando to see the kiddos. Our son was asked to understudy a role and will now be going on for one performance. I’m so glad I get to see it, and glad he’s back performing again because it helps the rest of his life.
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Heather said on August 23, 2017 at 9:26 am
Julie, I’m guessing because they have to pull your skin back to tighten it? It’s amazing how fresh and pretty she looked, and now she just looks like she does soft porn. Not that there’s anything wrong with soft porn if that’s your thing, but it’s just a very cookie-cutter look.
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Peter said on August 23, 2017 at 9:31 am
This is for Cooz – a friend of mine drove down Monday morning to Southern Illinois for the eclipse. He stopped at the McDonald’s in Mount Vernon, and inside there was a sign posted that the McDonald’s would be closed from 1:00 to 2:00. A young female customer asked the clerk why, and he said “so we can look at the eclipse”, and she said “Is that TODAY?”, to which another customer said “Girl, you must be one of them Trump lovers!”
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LinGin said on August 23, 2017 at 10:08 am
Cooz – You can’t say Stephen King didn’t warn us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj9M34DzAKo
Linda
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 11:02 am
LinGin: That’s about it. Old white guys looking for the semblance of god up their pathetic assholes. That’s the whole nut of the end timers’ and evangelists’ urge to worldwide death; they can’t conceive of a world beyond them: it’s why they constantly rail at the young or the track of an emerging civilization that doesn’t honor their cramped kitschy protocols. They want to burn it all down before their natural physical rot shakes them finally into the shit that is their constituent parts.
They remind me of Nero’s supposed last words “Thus the world loses a great poet.” Like Nero, there isn’t a flying fuck worth of anything keeping about them: their plebe hobbies, their worship of consumer goods, their insistence on a god who reflects their vindictiveness and devotion to pure appetite. It’s not just the Nazism of opportunists, but a deeper canker, a blacker investiture of the dumbass American soul.
There isn’t a goddamn thing wrong with any of them suddenly quitting this earth in pure agony. Not a fucking thing.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 11:05 am
Make that “pure, lonely ass agony”.
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Jeff Borden said on August 23, 2017 at 11:10 am
Please, please, Robert Mueller. Get your ass in gear. Time is a-wasting.
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LAMary said on August 23, 2017 at 11:27 am
Melania’s husband has that squinty look too. I think they hiss at each other.
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Peter said on August 23, 2017 at 11:38 am
What Would You Do: It appears that attendance at last night’s rally was rather sparse – and there were several people who posted that they obtained tickets for the event and purposely didn’t go so the place would look empty.
While I think that’s not a bad idea, what if Trumpolini held a rally in your town? Would you try to get tickets and not go, or would you go so you can stand up at some point and yell “LOOOO ZZERRR…LOOOO ZZERRRR” like you’re trying to chase the goalie at a hockey game.
I always thought I’d go and get kicked out, but deliberately not going could get the same result and I wouldn’t get a concussion from the security goons.
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Peter said on August 23, 2017 at 11:40 am
lamary…in Trump’s case that’s not hissing…that’s leakage, and I wouldn’t light a match near him for fear of recreating the Hindenburg landing.
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Deborah said on August 23, 2017 at 11:44 am
When I was a kid and my mother used to brush my hair, she pulled so hard it made my eyes squint like that. I think Melania’s squint is caused by plastic surgery that pulls the skin tight as others have said here.
It sounds like Trump’s speech in Phoenix was one lie after another, he lied about everything. Since his rally was sparsely attended compared to the size of the room, maybe he’s really losing his base? Wishful thinking probably.
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Dorothy said on August 23, 2017 at 12:02 pm
Why does someone have to have a ‘campaign rally’ when there’s no campaign going on right now? The people who go to them are every bit as delusional as he is.
I’d have to ditch a hairdresser who thinks charging stations at the airport are set up to steal information from my phone, or who can’t back up a claim about the Virgin Mary statues being destroyed. That’s too much crazy to tolerate for 30-45 minutes in the chair. Granted, I have very short hair and I go to the cheap place down the street but still – there is a woman there who has the most annoying laugh and if I see her working, I go back another day. A person can only take so much, and I only have so many bullsh** flags to throw.
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Icarus said on August 23, 2017 at 12:47 pm
What Would You Do: deliberately not going could get the same result and I wouldn’t get a concussion from the security goons
I concur
Hairstylists: I go to them to get my hair cut, not for political analysis, education or anything else. I can put up with crazy for 30 minutes if it means getting my hair cut right.
“Why does someone have to have a ‘campaign rally’ when there’s no campaign going on right now? The people who go to them are every bit as delusional as he is. ”
Rust Belt voters finally feel like someone is on their side, and they are right. Against enemies real, imagined, or distorted, Trump and his most loyal voters will feel comforted that if nothing else, they are in the fight against the liberal media and MS-13 together.
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2017/08/23/resource-harvesting/
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alex said on August 23, 2017 at 12:50 pm
I think the Virgin Mary derp arose from a local pilfering no doubt perpetrated by lighthearted pranksters. I mean look at that thing. Puhleeze.
http://wane.com/2017/08/05/noble-county-police-search-for-stolen-virgin-mary-statue/
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LAMary said on August 23, 2017 at 1:01 pm
Where did I read it? Here? The Donald had scalp reduction surgery which was very painful. They remove the bald spot and pull the hair covered scalp together around the hole and stitch it up. That could account for his squint.
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LAMary said on August 23, 2017 at 1:03 pm
I think all the haircutters where I go are bilingual. Last time I was there the comments about Trump did not offend my political sensibilities one bit.
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Jakash said on August 23, 2017 at 1:39 pm
Cooz @ 11 “…they also may not like engaging with their peer-dogs while wearing a goofy blunderbuss…” Nothing wrong with those words; they’re cherce, even. ; ) That piece offers a fine analysis of his egomania. The fact that’s it’s been evident for decades and that a large segment of the population thinks it’s somehow cool is disturbing, indeed.
If one *really* wants to be depressed, one needs only recall that ole Rumpy got 53% of the white *women’s* vote, as well.
Deborah asks “maybe he’s really losing his base?” To be mildly optimistic: “Trump’s approval hits new low post-Charlottesville. Most notable: 18% of Trump voters now disapprove”
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/900332889845497857
It seems kinda unfair to be comparing the friendly, black-and-white, much younger Ms. Trump photo to the later ones. But I agree with Heather’s assessment. I suppose there must be many who are intrigued by the “viper about to strike” look, but I’m not one of them… What would be interesting to me would be an alternate-universe photo of her now, sans nips and tucks.
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Scout said on August 23, 2017 at 2:11 pm
Local sources tell me the Phoenix Convention Center closed off half of the space originally rented. The half that Minihands spoke in was filled to about 2/3 capacity. I’m not sure of the actual number but I heard they never panned the crowd on TV. Outside were appx 20,000 protesters. Everyone who was there said it was peaceful with little to no sign of the white supremecists/KKK/NeoNazi faction that I KNOW is here seething below the surface. The gas and flash bombs at the end were unprovoked according to people I know who were right there. They think the police were jumpy and just wanted to clear the crowd.
There was no reason for this rally. He yelled for almost an hour and half his laundry list of grievances against his many enemies, but never mentioned the lost Naval personnel, Afghanistan or Heather Heyer. It was a greatest hits rehashing of his Twitter feed. No other city should have to endure the expense and brain damage of an event like this just so this sick man can get a crowd fix.
Pretty sure the black guy in the group behind Hair Furor was one of the paid ‘supporters’. Hopefully he did get paid, he looks like he needed a drink. My poor Mom did after watching that hot mess of a speech – she was up until 4am trying to get her blood pressure down. True story.
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2017 at 2:43 pm
I watched a bit of the Trump thing with a bourbon on the rocks, but it wasn’t long before I had to go to bed. I couldn’t stand it.
He and his people are unhinged but I bet they know not to plug their electronic devices into those innocent looking airport outlets. So, there is that.
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Jeff Borden said on August 23, 2017 at 3:00 pm
I’m with Charlie Pierce. . .
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57164/trump-arizona-speech/
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Jolene said on August 23, 2017 at 3:17 pm
The Post had a couple of good pieces on last night’s rally. This one notes that, as the evening went on, the crowd thinned out and some of the people who remained appeared to lose interest.
And here’s the story on the black guy that Scout mentioned. He’s not a paid supporter, but he is somewhat nuts.
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Charlotte said on August 23, 2017 at 4:05 pm
An astonishing piece on Dylan Roof (someone I thought I’d have no interest ever reading about again), by a black essayist named Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. https://www.gq.com/story/dylann-roof-making-of-an-american-terrorist
I continue to be somewhat bewildered that there are whole swathes of the population who are dropping out of school and drifting without jobs. It took all the hustle I possess just to get myself into a very modest house, and car, and the bottom rungs of the middle class. How do these folks get by? I know we’ve discussed it here before, but no wonder zombie movies/tv are so popular — we seem to have a whole portion of the population who have become them.
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LAMary said on August 23, 2017 at 4:08 pm
I think the same tight facelifting thing that makes Melania squint prevents her from completely closing her mouth. I bet bugs fly in there.
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brian stouder said on August 23, 2017 at 4:12 pm
I think Mary just won the thread – but this has been a goodie all around!
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Sherri said on August 23, 2017 at 4:26 pm
I think one factor that gets overlooked sometimes in all the discussion of people drifting, particularly young people drifting, is the impact of the financial crisis. There are people who got knocked down by that who have not and probably never will recover. I’ve also seen a number of particularly young men who graduated from college around that time who have never really managed to get going. These are all kids from upper middle class families who generally aren’t burdened by college debt and have degrees from good schools, but have not found a direction. They graduated in the 2007-2009 range, and I’ve seen enough of them that it feels like a pattern.
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Deborah said on August 23, 2017 at 5:00 pm
I’m making my first apple pie of the season. As usual my pie is ugly but hopefully tasty. I’m the world’s worst at rolling out the pie dough and plopping it into the pie plate and then on top of the pie. Why that is, I do not know but my pies always look horrible.
Trump just astounds me every single day, how can this asshole hold on to his power? The citizens of our nations who still support him after all of his mess ups need to ask themselves some serious questions. Mainly, why?
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LAMary said on August 23, 2017 at 5:25 pm
I shouldn’t be so nasty about Melania, but I have very limited sympathy for her. She made her choice. It wasn’t quite the same as Bill and Hillary or Barack and Michelle. The motives for marrying, and I’m guessing here, were not quite the same. I don’t think the anticipated “sharing” she thought was going to be part of her marriage was aspirational in the same way. As has been brought up a few times in this forum, no one knows what goes on in marriage except the parties involved. I agree with that completely. But I think Melania and Don’s marriage was more cynical than most.
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Deborah said on August 23, 2017 at 6:05 pm
I need some book recommendations again. I’m still in NM for two more weeks and pretty busy with a major project LB and I are working on. I’ve finished my summer reading and am looking for some interesting fiction that will carry me through. Any suggestions?
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LAMary said on August 23, 2017 at 6:19 pm
I’m liking Sherman Alexie short stories right now, Deborah.
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Scout said on August 23, 2017 at 6:35 pm
I just finished The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I love to read, but I did the audio book version of this as read by Jim Broadbent and it is superb. Now I am listening to the second book of this series, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey, as read by Celia Imrie. Both are gorgeously written and the two readers are the best I’ve ever heard.
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Candlepick said on August 23, 2017 at 6:38 pm
Book rec: we are all completely beside ourselves. By karen joy fowler. Don’t read reviews or dustjacket or anything. Just start it and be amazed by the story.
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adrianne said on August 23, 2017 at 6:38 pm
From another Charlie Pierce column today, on Hil being creeped out by Trump stalking her during the second debate: “HRC found her opponent looming behind her like Nosferatu with a combover.”
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2017 at 6:43 pm
candlepick, I second that book choice! I don’t remember why I chose it as I knew nothing about it, but it is very, very good. And parts take place in Indiana!
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2017 at 6:47 pm
Also, for book recommendations, I recommend almost anything by Alice McDermott, especially Someone. Beautifully written book about a woman’s everyday life through decades. Extraordinary book. H is for Hawk is not fiction but also a wonderful book.
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alex said on August 23, 2017 at 6:53 pm
Here’s hoping Hillary’s book gives the creep aneurysm while he’s tweeting about it on the toilet at 3 AM.
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Jeff Borden said on August 23, 2017 at 6:55 pm
Michael Connelly’s latest, “The Late Show,” is a kickass crime thriller with a wonderful woman detective as the protagonist. If you’re into a deeper dive, I’m two-thirds through Don Winslow’s “The Cartel,” which has been called “The Godfather” of the Mexican drug wars. Tough stuff, but brilliantly written and plotted.
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Charlotte said on August 23, 2017 at 9:09 pm
Karen Joy Fowler is a fellow UC Davis writing program alum — and We Are Completely Beside Ourselves is FABULOUS. One of the best books I’ve read in years — stuck with me, and scenes come back at odd times.
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basset said on August 23, 2017 at 9:16 pm
Anything by John Biggins.
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Joe k said on August 23, 2017 at 9:37 pm
How far is too far?
ESPN is switching a sportscaster from the Virginia football game because his name is Robert Lee?
Seriously? How long before people are going to demand someone changes their name? Maybe just maybe, the pendulum has swung a little too far.
Pilot Joe
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Suzanne said on August 23, 2017 at 9:44 pm
Honestly, Joe, I think it’s dumb, because if I heard the name while watching the game, I would not have made any connection to Robert E Lee.
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Deborah said on August 23, 2017 at 9:57 pm
Joe, I call bullshit on that.
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Charlotte said on August 23, 2017 at 10:22 pm
It’s true — apparently ESPN is afraid of memes …
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 10:24 pm
Joko: The network and the announcer agreed it was too sensitive. You’re one of the foreigners the Secessionists would have used for cheap labor at the docks, maybe building a drowner submarine with old boiler metal.
You know Slav is the root of slave, right?
My people thought your people were shit. Somewhere beneath fresh Irish trash.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 10:29 pm
My ancestors fought for the Confederacy. They were stupid, hungry trash.
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Joe Kobiela said on August 23, 2017 at 10:34 pm
Google Polish 363 Squadron battle of Britain
Pilot Joe
Polska Proud
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 10:40 pm
They got locked in a belief system that said it was alright to fuck your own blood as long as your children knew that when the bossman flashed his dick, you lined up to suck it. If they could find that dick with their crossed eyes.
That’s your glorious South, asshole.
Christ I hate racist ass foreign yankee shits.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 10:45 pm
Look bitch. The Polish state was fascist. They just didn’t meet the white standard. It was Fascist on Fascist.
My uncle flew to his death in a Spitfire fighting your kind. Your world has forgotten him. Shut the fuck up.
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coozledad said on August 23, 2017 at 10:58 pm
I have to keep posting this for WWII illiterates, because some jackasses have endeavored to make it a cause celebre for neo Hitlerite scum.
Real Americans kill Nazis. They liberate racist camps and shoot the Skorzenys and whateverskis in the fucking head. it’s our job.
https://rurritable.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/sermonette-in-a-dead-tongue/
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Deborah said on August 23, 2017 at 11:24 pm
Ok that’s just stupid. ESPN, how ridiculous, another reason I don’t watch that crap.
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Jakash said on August 24, 2017 at 1:16 am
“How far is too far?”
Your man Trump has said and done so many things that are “too far” that it would take 3 hours just to compile a thorough list. Yet the irresponsible, dangerous behavior of the freaking President of the United States — that you seem to take in stride. Well, as long as it pisses us liberals off, at any rate.
Which sportscaster ESPN uses for which damn football game, however, warrants your concern and a comment here. Wow. Truly, that’s the most pathetic “Gotcha!” I’ve seen in quite a while. Was it really worth biding your time and waiting for *that* to spring on us? Luckily, you’ve insisted before that you’re not a troll, otherwise one really might be inclined to wonder…
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coozledad said on August 24, 2017 at 8:16 am
Joe’s like that carpetbagger Corey Stuart, the racist from the frozen north. Half those damn Germans, Norwegians and other assorted squareheads have barely been in this country since the Civil War was fought. And they’re all still singing there’s no place like home (POLAND, for fuck’s sake. The fascist asshole of Europe.) But they love them some racist ass monuments.
Those black folks Joe hates have been here four hundred plus years. He’s an interloper. We don’t need his kind down here. Non racists welcome, but keep your white trash.
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nancy said on August 24, 2017 at 8:21 am
Guys? Let’s just cool out for a while, OK?
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basset said on August 24, 2017 at 8:34 am
About those WW2 Polish pilots Joe mentioned:
No. 303 (“Kościuszko”) Polish Fighter Squadron (Polish: 303 Dywizjon Myśliwski “Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki”) was one of 16 Polish squadrons in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. It was not just the highest scoring of the Hurricane squadrons during the Battle of Britain, but it had the highest ratio of enemy aircraft destroyed to their own lost (safest).[1][2][3]
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coozledad said on August 24, 2017 at 8:56 am
From the US Holocaust Museum
https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/collaboration-and-complicity-during-the-holocaust
I know there’s a general reluctance among Americans to read difficult, depressing, or challenging books*, but you’re eliding the causes of our current moral cancer if you don’t actively engage with the American Shoah: A vast concentration camp stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi floodplains, kept in operation by sadistic rapists, financed by the banking houses of New York, London and Paris; fed, tooled, clothed and shod by the industrial north and the cereal farmers of the midwest.
White failure to absorb our complicity in this ongoing tragedy is the root of our current crisis. Read, dammit.
The Half has Never Been Told Edward Baptist
The American Slave Coast Ned and Constance Sublette
The Fire Next Time James Baldwin. Anything by James Baldwin, actually.
*Happy fun story time at our age and in our situation is a kind of prurience.
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Jenine said on August 24, 2017 at 9:25 am
@Deborah. I just read Alice in Bed by Judith Hooper and loved it. It’s a fictional auto biography of Alice James, sister of Henry and William. I haven’t ever been a Henry James fan but this was a fascinating read.
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Julie Robinson said on August 24, 2017 at 9:35 am
Thank you, Jackash. My oww DNA, with fresh Irish trash mixed up with African, German, Welsh, Scandinavian and a dollop of Ashkenazi Jew, would surely have had something for some group to hate.
Deborah, I just finished Al Franken’s Giant of the Senate, which manages to be hopeless, hopeful, and hilarious at the same time. I recommend the audiobook, which Franken narrates with classic comic timing.
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Icarus said on August 24, 2017 at 9:55 am
my thoughts on the ESPN Robert Lee thing:
1) it is ridonkulous
2) now the right has more ammunition to make fun of the left*
3) maybe it spares Robert Lee some flack from dummy SJW
4) could there be more to it than I am thinking?
* it was a decision by exec who tend to be more conservative.
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Scout said on August 24, 2017 at 10:08 am
I found this excellent Lance Mannion essay on Twitter.
http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2017/08/they-couldnt-have-voted-for-this.html
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Sherri said on August 24, 2017 at 10:09 am
ESPN was in a no-win situation, whatever they did, people were going to find a way to be outraged. If they had kept Robert Lee, an Asian man who is not named after the Confederate traitor, covering the UVA game in Charlottesville, that would have provoked outrage as well, I’m sure.
Robert Lee will still be working a game that day, he’ll just be in Pittsburgh covering Pitt vs Youngstown. ESPN wanted to avoid being the story, which they learned is impossible, but. It moving him wouldn’t have worked either. The Right Wing Noise Machine would have found a way to use that, too.
Joe drops in and gives us a taste of what the RWNM is churning out every now and then, just in case it hasn’t been loud enough for us to hear otherwise.
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Sherri said on August 24, 2017 at 10:12 am
More on that Atlantic salmon farm story I posted a few days ago, with that eclipse tide angle debunked: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/fish-spill-bigger-than-initial-estimates-farm-destroyed/
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Scout said on August 24, 2017 at 10:18 am
https://www.facebook.com/PHXSUX/posts/1182511388519503
The eyewitness reports are starting to emerge. It was a peaceful protest and the Phoenix PD way over-reacted. I’m surprised because every protest interaction I ever had with them was positive. But maybe they were just that spooked due to C-ville. He never should have come.
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Scout said on August 24, 2017 at 10:18 am
I messed up the link.
https://www.facebook.com/PHXSUX/posts/1182511388519503
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coozledad said on August 24, 2017 at 10:22 am
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/347741-descendent-of-robert-e-lee-hits-trump-you-shouldnt-defend
What people refuse to accept is the South is chocolate, has been chocolate for centuries, and is only going to get more chocolate. Yankees keep busting their ass to drag us back to their own inbred notions of “racial purity.”
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Jolene said on August 24, 2017 at 10:57 am
Here’s another book recommendation. A good choice for reading on the john.
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brian stouder said on August 24, 2017 at 11:13 am
I could care less what name a sports announcer has. Harry Caray’s name could have been construed as somewhat offensive; why not a sports announcer named Cammy Kazzi (to cover a baseball game in a Navy town like San Diego – with the obligatory jokes about ‘sacrifice flies’ and so on); or – if they sent someone named Tim McVay to cover a football game in Kansas, and remark on the great ‘long-bomb’ passing….
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brian stouder said on August 24, 2017 at 12:13 pm
BREAKING NEWS (Pam forwarded the Facebook thing to me)
The end of the print edition of The News-Sentinel is upon us
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alex said on August 24, 2017 at 12:25 pm
Yay!
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Suzanne said on August 24, 2017 at 1:42 pm
Is it bad that my first thought was that Kevin Leininger is probably wishing he had stuck with that job he took for a week or two at the Lutheran Seminary in Fort Wayne?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 24, 2017 at 2:16 pm
Well, the South was originally Cherokee and Creek, but your point remains.
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coozledad said on August 24, 2017 at 2:30 pm
Where have I heard this shit before?
https://twitter.com/Yoojin_Cho/status/900725436556161024
Seems I heard it upthread.
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Julie Robinson said on August 24, 2017 at 3:03 pm
From a Pulitzer to almost death, in a few short years. Remembering the grand institution that was Fort Wayne Newspapers back when my hubby joined really saddens me. We must have been among the few subscribers to both papers, albeit at the retiree rate. I hope our excellent afternoon carrier will make the jump to morning, where our route has been open for two months and a succession of temps have been casual as to whether or not they bother to bring us a paper.
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brian stouder said on August 24, 2017 at 3:37 pm
In my lifetime, it’s always been the good ol’ News-Sentinel; but my dad always referred to it as “The News and Sentinel”, which always sounded strange to my ears…but we digress
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Bitter Scribe said on August 24, 2017 at 3:47 pm
I cross-posted Nancy’s curse on those “lost productivity” estimates to Neil Steinberg’s blog, and one of the other commenters informed me that the source of almost all that crap is an employment consultancy called Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Apparently they spew those numbers several times a year, for occasions like Super Bowls and holidays (including, presumably, Christmas). Here’s a New York Post column that refutes them very effectively.
Oh, and the specialty of CG&C? Outplacement.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 24, 2017 at 4:17 pm
And it’s really just one guy. David something. He just thought he sounded more legit with Challenger & Gray, and added Christmas to get media calls because who doesn’t like saying “and Christmas”?
If you haven’t seen “Up in the Air” I recommend it, even to people who don’t like Clooney. Outplacement indeed.
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Bitter Scribe said on August 24, 2017 at 4:19 pm
JTMMO: I love Clooney but will never see “Up in the Air” because 1) I can’t stand Judd Aptow and 2) having been unemployed all year, watching people get fired is not my idea of entertainment.
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Deborah said on August 24, 2017 at 4:32 pm
Coozledad at #84, I can not believe that guy in the video of your link said “Martin Luther Coon” and then grinned sheepishly as if he didn’t say it on purpose. What a complete and total, raging asshole. Everything he said was sad and pathetic.
I really enjoyed the movie Up in the Air, I think Clooney is a pretty good comdedic actor, if you’ve seen him in any of the Coen brothers movies you’d see how good he is. Up in the Air wasn’t exactly a comedy but still…
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coozledad said on August 24, 2017 at 4:40 pm
deborah: Fortunately his case was dismissed, and he’s likely to have to pay court costs.
That’s the streak of peculiar American ugliness our former allies despise in us, and why Germany is becoming the conscience of the free world.
We’ll be a long time digging out of this mess, and the Republicans will be fighting us every step of the way.
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beb said on August 24, 2017 at 5:26 pm
I read Al Franken’s Giant of the Senate shortly after it came out and commented here earlier how great it was. Most reading for anyone thinking of running for office because Sen. Franken describes is first campaign both clearly ad in detail. Here’s the mentions that he read for the audiobook version makes me want to go out and buy that just to hear him talk.
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basset said on August 24, 2017 at 5:42 pm
Everyone at our house just sent little vials of spit off to Utah, we’ll see what surprises that brings.
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David C. said on August 24, 2017 at 5:49 pm
I liked “Up in the Air” until the end. It was the most depressing end to a movie (where nobody died) I’ve ever seen.
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alex said on August 24, 2017 at 6:37 pm
They’re threatening to distribute “News-Sentinel content” in the print edition of the Journal-Gazette. Easy enough since the thing’s thinner than an advertising insert, but it’s essentially an op-ed section for trolls written by trolls. Does it really deserve wider distribution than it already gets? You’d think the News-Sentinel would be true to its vaunted “free market” principles and just fucking die its well-deserved death already.
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Deborah said on August 24, 2017 at 6:46 pm
Well, la-di-da, LB and I realized that we are among the winners of powerball, we guessed one number so we win $4, enough to buy two tickets for the next one, if we wish. The lucky real winner gets $435 million after taxes, wow would that come in handy.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 24, 2017 at 7:17 pm
The discussion today reminded me of “The Hidden Wound” (North Point Press, 1989), by Wendell Berry. From the opening page:
“…If I had thought it was only the black people who have suffered from the years of slavery and racism, then I could have dealt fully with the matter long ago; I could have filled myself with pity for them, and would no doubt have enjoyed it a great deal and thought highly of myself. But I am sure it is not so simple as that. If white people have suffered less obviously from racism than black people, they have nevertheless suffered greatly; the cost has been greater perhaps than we can yet know. If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon back men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself. As the master, or as a member of the dominant race, he has felt little compulsion to acknowledge it or speak of it; the more painful it has grown the more deeply he has hidden it within himself. But the wound is there, and it is a profound disorder, as great a damage in his mind as it is in his society.
“This wound is in me, as complex and deep in my flesh as blood and nerves. I have borne it all my life, with varying degrees of consciousness, but always carefully, always with the most delicate consideration for the pain I would feel if I were somehow forced to acknowledge it. But now I am increasingly aware of the opposite compulsion. I want to know, as fully and exactly as I can, what the wound is and how much I am suffering from it. And I want to be cured; I want to be free of the wound myself, and I do not want to pass it on to my children. Perhaps this is only wishful thinking; perhaps such a thing is not to be done by one man, or in one generation. Surely a man would have to be almost dangerously proud to think himself capable of it. And so maybe I am really saying only that I feel an obligation to make the attempt, and that I know if I fail to make at least the attempt I forfeit any right to hope that the world will become better that it is now.”
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basset said on August 24, 2017 at 8:08 pm
So any attempt to do right doesn’t count unless you feel sufficient guilt?
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alex said on August 24, 2017 at 8:51 pm
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=H3SfWbLXIcLGjwSOlrWIBA&q=do+right+woman&oq=do+right+&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.1.0.0l5.4805.9622.0.11086.10.10.0.4.4.0.240.1707.0j8j2.10.0….0…1.1.64.mobile-gws-hp..0.9.1016.0..46j0i131k1j0i46k1.00bzho60k8g
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basset said on August 24, 2017 at 11:02 pm
Ever heard Kitty Wells’ version of that? It’s on an album she did for Capricorn in the mid 70s, backed mostly by members of the Marshall Tucker Band… that’s the real thing right there.
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