I could tell you I was totally busy early this week, which would be the truth, but the truthier truth is, sometimes you gotta lay your burden down, and sometimes it’s just nice to get out in the sunshine, and sometimes you have to do it without your laptop. And that’s what I did Sunday: Went for a longish bike ride with an old friend, followed by some Little Kings at a bar, and as Detroit Sundays go, that’s a pretty good one.
We went down to Delray, one of the most shat-upon neighborhoods in the city, for a variety of reasons I don’t want to explain here. (It often smells literally so, thanks to the sewage treatment plant there.) But we went mainly because things are changing fast there; the new bridge to Canada will begin construction eventually, and the customs plaza and various other infrastructure will be there, so I wanted to see how the land clearing was going. In a word: Apace. We rode past a building my friend was always curious about, and lo, the door was open, so we stopped. Inside was an old man who told us many stories about the place, about his life, about Delray, and about the building, which was once a bar.
“There’s a tunnel that runs under the road and comes out in the building over there,” he said. “The Purple Gang used to use it.”
Now. If you laid out all the Purple Gang-used-to-hang-here stories in Detroit end to end, there wouldn’t be a building left for a legit business. But in this case, I think it might be true. The bar is smack on the Rouge River, near where it flows into the Detroit River, and there’s a boat slip/house and dock out back, with not one but two basements. It would be a perfect place to offload liquor in the middle of the night, in the middle of Prohibition, and the neighborhood was never really known for its saintliness. We saw one basement but not the other, because it’s flooded, and that’s where the tunnel would have been. Meanwhile, the old man told story after story after story, some of them surely apocryphal, but maybe not. He was old and a little raggedy, and the bar had been closed for years. He said he was aiming to get his liquor license back, something I doubt will ever happen. But it was a nice interlude on a warm day.
This was the building. The garage just out of the frame on the left is now a pile of rubble. Here’s one man’s story about taking liquor deliveries to the bar. A boy who could ferry a boat over from Canada could make $5 per trip, big money in the 1920s. All soon to be gone, gone, gone. The new bridge will have a bike lane, we have been promised, so maybe someday, an international crossing for me on my two-wheeler.
Monday and Tuesday passed at a gallop, though. Gallops are good; they make the days fly. We’re whoa-ing to a trot Wednesday and Thursday, and may amble into the weekend at a relaxed walk. Time will tell.
Time will tell about a lot of things. The Iran deal cancellation, for one, although I think the time has already told: What a bonehead move. Our genius negotiator-in-chief.
The weekend’s WashPost story about the president’s real-estate financing during the before-he-was-president era is very interesting, too. It doesn’t actually say m – – – – l – – – – – – ing, but it’s certainly an unavoidable conclusion a thinking person might draw from the facts at hand. Some of you smarter people will have to explain how Deutsche Bank plays in all of this. I’m listening.
Oh, and this story is breaking as we speak:
A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.
And this was the big overnight read:
To many in Albany, New York’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, seemed staid and somewhat standoffish: a teetotaler who favored coffee shops over bars, liked yoga and health food and preferred high-minded intellectual and legal debate to the hand-to-hand combat of New York’s political arena.
But that carefully cultivated image of a caring, progressive Renaissance man came crashing down on Monday night after the publication of an expose by The New Yorker, detailing allegations of a sordid and stomach-turning double life, including Mr. Schneiderman’s physical and psychological abuse of four women with whom he had been romantically involved. The attorney general’s behavior, the article said, had been exacerbated by alcohol abuse and punctuated by insults of the very liberal voters and activists who had held him up as a champion willing to deliver a fearless counterpunch to President Trump.
Well, OK then.
Charge on into the week, guys. For the millionth time, I miss the olden days, don’t you?
Dorothy said on May 8, 2018 at 8:07 pm
A d.j. at 97.9 in Dayton (oldies station) said this morning, “You know the best part about the good old days? I wasn’t good – and I wasn’t old.” Hmph
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Suzanne said on May 8, 2018 at 8:43 pm
I read the Eric T. Schneiderman piece this afternoon. Amazingly disgusting. Also amazing that he, a Democratic perv, resigned almost immediately. Meanwhile, Trump stays in office and does the Governor of Missouri who tied up a woman and took naked pics of her.
So remind me again which party represents family values?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 8, 2018 at 9:41 pm
I try to imagine how the whole Twitter-as-instrument-of-24/7-press-coverage thing is going to work with a future President. I am optimistic enough to think we will have another POTUS someday. Of course, that’s not entirely optimistic: there were Roman emperors after Maximinus Thrax, but it didn’t go well.
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alex said on May 8, 2018 at 10:26 pm
Delray was a shithole even in the 1940s when my dad was placed there fresh off the boat from Hungary, so much so that he worked in a Swift meat packing plant and a Fisher body plant to put himself through college and law school so that he’d never have to go back there. I regret that I never had any incentive to excel at anything, but thanks to his hard work at least I didn’t have to grow up in Delray.
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beb said on May 9, 2018 at 12:17 am
The Delray area had factories, a train yard, Zug Island (a coking operation for the steel mills, the Marathon refinery and, yes, the sewage plant, also a rendering plant for meat byproducts. It;s hard to say which contributed most to the stink. You had to be pretty hard up to continue living there.
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Dexter said on May 9, 2018 at 12:45 am
I love the old man’s bar. Thanks for this piece, which reminds me of some of John Carlisle’s best in The Freep.
His(the old man’s) account reminded me of a guy I met who lived within sight of the Zilwaukee bridge. That proved to be quite a mess and the guy told me all about it and how they finally figured out a fix.
Most of you folks get what this Iran pull-out by Trump means. I won’t rave on, as I used to against Bush43, but I will point this out: as soon as—the very minute—the news reported the actual backing out of the deal, gasoline prices immediately went up 39 cents a gallon. Tonight’s national news reported “Americans may see a rise in gasoline prices very soon…” Duh and no shit Sherlock!
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beb said on May 9, 2018 at 12:48 am
I’m in Indiana visiting my Dad. Came down Sunday before the election. The political ads were ever more numerous than before. I noticed at Braun, Messer, Rokita and Donnely all wore blue causal shirts in their ads even though in the wild (as it were) they probably wear suits all the time. Donnelly was even shown driving and gassing up his campaign RV! How down home and folksy can you be? The biggest laugh Rokita’s claim that Braun, a businessman who main claim is that he’s never held elected office before, has voted for tax increases 45 times. How does a non politician get to vote for taxes. All three claimed to be Trumpier than Trump. Goebbels would be proud.
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Pam said on May 9, 2018 at 7:28 am
I love that bar building in Delray. I can just see it all restored with a fabulous apartment above to live in. But based on what Alex said, maybe not in Delray, but someplace else less stinky.
We voted in the primaries yesterday and I’m so glad that now the political ads are over for awhile. The Republican ads had to be muted whenever they came on TV. Basically, they were “Vote for me because I’m an even bigger assh..le than Trump.” One guy was dressed in fatigues with a rifle, one included photos of Hillary (photo shopped to look old and ugly), and 2 ads boasted about their A+ rating from the NRA. It was dreadful! Not one single rock in Ohio was left unturned.
But at least Spring has finally sprung and everything is lush and green and we hired a couple of guys to mow the grass and do the yard work. LIG!
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Suzanne said on May 9, 2018 at 7:39 am
Beb, Braun was in state government in the past so that’s how he voted for tax increases. Given that, i’m Not sure how he has the outsider label. And with a so-called businessman in the White House, his business experience is not really a selling point for me.
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Suzanne said on May 9, 2018 at 7:47 am
How Oliver North gave us Trump
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/nra-president-oliver-north-and-the-creation-of-donald-trump.html
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Deggjr said on May 9, 2018 at 8:56 am
If Stormy Daniel’s lawyer could figure out the source of Trump’s payment then Mueller’s team with a ten month head start should be able to figure out the source of Trump’s payment and other payments as well.
Steve Bannon was quoted in ‘Fire and Fury’ as saying there was money laundering and that Mueller would detect it.
Two phrases from the Watergate story come to mind: “Follow the money” and “These are not very bright guys and things got out of hand”.
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Ivor The Engine Driver said on May 9, 2018 at 9:54 am
I guess it depends on when the olden days were. When white men set vicious dogs and fire hoses on blacks who simply wanted to be treated as human beings? When the nuclear genie hovered over our heads promising fiery annihilation if we didn’t duck and cover properly? When we shit in the outhouse out back and drank water from a hand pump 50 feet from the outhouse? When we couldn’t pay the light bill and used kerosene lamps, and heated the house with corncobs and shards of coal stolen from parked rail cars across the street? When Nam stared back at an 18 year old kid without college options or pull with the draft board? Nah, don’t miss those olden days.
But if you mean when the Only Thing That Mattered was cruising with your girl with the top down on a soft Missouri night, then yeah, I pine for those days.
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nancy said on May 9, 2018 at 10:16 am
I was thinking more of when we didn’t have three presidential scandals breaking before lunch, and two more during the dinner hour. Or thereabouts.
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Ivor The Engine Driver said on May 9, 2018 at 10:52 am
Oh. To paraphrase Amerika’s Mayor, “Sorry, I’m new here. Responding on point ain’t my strong suit”
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Bitter Scribe said on May 9, 2018 at 11:22 am
This Purple Gang stuff sounds like the Detroit equivalent of Al Capone. Every basement, every tunnel in certain Chicago neighborhoods, and even some far-flung suburbs, was a storage area or escape route for the Capone gang. Anyone remember Geraldo Rivera and “Al Capone’s vault”?
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Heather said on May 9, 2018 at 11:41 am
Some years ago I did some Chicago hotel and restaurant blurbs for a magazine and visited the Hotel Burnham, which is in the Reliance Building, which is where Capone’s dentist had an office. Apparently he did more than clean and pull teeth: https://www.kimptonhotels.com/blog/burnham-hotels-al-capone-history/
I do love all this Midwestern history.
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MarkH said on May 9, 2018 at 12:30 pm
OT follow-up from yesterday’s thread –
“VW identification hint: It’s in the backup lights and the size of the rear window.”
Not exactly, jc. The Beetle went to an integrated tail/brake/backup lens in ’68, yes. But, the small oval window went away in ’58 when the larger one was introduced and stayed till the end. More obvious identifiers are, ’66 was the last year for the glass bezel-covered headlights, and in ’68 the bumpers went to the higher mounted one piece impact absorbing unit. Here’s all you need to know and more on changes since 1949:
http://www.thegoldenbug.com/en/air-cooled_vw_history/d3/beetle_changes
The only changes on the Prius to be concerned about are increasing mileage, and longevity of the costly drive battery, currently at about 150,000 miles.
I, too was surprised at Nancy not recognizing a classic Chevy silhouette. Although I count myself as one of maybe ten motorheads here, I only recognized the foreground car as Mopar, not as either Dodge or Plymouth.
Dexter, on what planet did gasoline jump 39 cents when Trump opened his mouth on Iran? Maybe you misread. Yesterday, wholesale prices closed up 3.9 cents and are holding today. Wholesale gasoline is up 39% over last year, and up 8.49% year-to-date, as per CNBC charts today.
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Jakash said on May 9, 2018 at 12:33 pm
Obviously, this isn’t the same as rum-running across the Detroit River, but, like Bitter Scribe, I was reminded of all the Capone stories in Chicago. Similar to “If you laid out all the Purple Gang-used-to-hang-here stories in Detroit end to end, there wouldn’t be a building left for a legit business.”
There was a recent story in Chicago magazine about “A Prohibition-Era Tunnel” in a bowling alley. Which prompted this 5-tweet take-down from a Northwestern professor / old-time bar aficionado who contends that, while mobsters may have *used* such tunnels, the infrastructure was already there and had had legitimate purposes before.
https://twitter.com/RogersParkMan/status/988644708019851264
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brian stouder said on May 9, 2018 at 12:45 pm
In good ol’ Peru, Indiana, we recently bought a car – and were regaled by the sales guy about a great place to eat in town, called Dillinger’s!
And indeed, he repeated a similarly ubiquitous claim (hereabouts) that ol’ John loved to eat there, back in the day.
As a matter of fact, we DID proceed there, to grab a bite to eat – and it was closed…so there’s that!
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Joe Kobiela said on May 9, 2018 at 1:12 pm
Gas here in Auburn dropped 2cents.
Pilot Joe
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ROGirl said on May 9, 2018 at 1:17 pm
I was told by a cousin who seemed to know a lot about family secrets, that the father in law of another cousin was in the Purple Gang. She also said that the f in law disappeared for a few years and mysteriously reappeared when it was deemed safe to do so. Don’t know about the reliability of this story, but it’s possible.
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alex said on May 9, 2018 at 1:27 pm
There used to be a Dillinger’s in the town of Hudson north of us. The Dillinger family sued for trademark infringement and they had to change the name to Gangster’s. The building’s claim to fame is that Dillinger robbed it when it was a bank.
The Barbee Hotel and other spots around here capitalize on their reputations as old-time gangster hangouts.
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Jakash said on May 9, 2018 at 1:28 pm
As if it hasn’t been quite clear enough for a long time that we’re through the looking glass, this is a succinct indication:
“In 24 hrs a president tore up a multinational deal to keep Iran from having more weapons and the NRA hired a president who did a secret deal to give Iran more weapons.”
https://twitter.com/JohnFugelsang/status/993997978988924929
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basset said on May 9, 2018 at 1:57 pm
There’s a sandwich shop that the Jesse James gang robbed back when it was a bank… Jesse and his brother Frank lived here for awhile.
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Connie said on May 9, 2018 at 1:58 pm
We used to live near Goshen Indiana, a city that was once concerned about Dillinger robberies in nearby cities. So much so that the city built a freestanding many windowed miniature police station at a location downtown that could view all the banks. http://www.goshennews.com/news/local_news/the-little-booth-that-protected-goshen/article_171e0a69-d001-5e3f-b0a8-e09298ec007d.html
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Connie said on May 9, 2018 at 1:59 pm
And a photo. It is still there. http://landmarkhunter.com/196896-goshen-police-booth/
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basset said on May 9, 2018 at 2:07 pm
Sandwich shop on the north edge of Nashville, I should say. Got distracted there for a minute.
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Dave said on May 9, 2018 at 2:47 pm
John Dillinger did break out of the Lima Allen County jail and the sheriff was killed during the escape, an article that came up a few times in the Lima News when we lived there.
We had a neighbor who said her grandfather drove and delivered for the Purple Gang and another neighbor spoke up and said she had a great uncle who had supposedly done the same thing. I had a great uncle who was a moonshiner, the black sheep of the family, but it’s not nearly as exciting to say that because I don’t know of any crime gang associations in Southern Ohio during Prohibition.
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Dexter said on May 9, 2018 at 9:29 pm
What planet do you live on? Yesterday morning all gas stations here were at $2.45 for regular. As soon as the story was confirmed, gas jumped exactly 39 cents to $2.79. My math looks off because my station knocks off a nickel for cash payment, which I did not knock off the posted $2.79, true. Today, another dime more. We drove to Angola and regular at the east side Speedway was $2.95. These are tremendous one-day jumps. No Texas refinery foul-ups, the Wisconsin fire damage to their one refinery has been fixed…why did the gas go up then? Are you using data from pre-Trump fiasco ledgers?
Also, fine men are just being battered around in the public media arena, right? Read about this fine example of male humanity, called “Caballo” (Horse) because of his “putrid 12 inch member” , that he liked to have women just do all KINDS of loving acts to, to pleasure him through his “stinky penis”. Jesus H. Christ, the New York Post is a great paper, right? https://nypost.com/2018/05/09/jail-guard-with-huge-stinky-penis-bragged-to-inmates-he-was-nicknamed-horse-feds/
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Suzanne said on May 9, 2018 at 9:57 pm
My Pants unmasked by a conservative
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-no-longer-the-worst-person-in-government/2018/05/09/10e59eba-52f1-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html
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basset said on May 9, 2018 at 10:16 pm
Well, maybe the Jesse James story wasn’t quite correct. Maybe the place used to be a sandwich shop and now it’s a Cajun restaurant, and the James connection was in a different building across the street from the one I was thinking of. Maybe one of his gang got arrested there and Jesse left town shortly afterward so the sheriff didn’t get him too. Or something. Jesse and brother Frank did live in Nashville for awhile, we know that.
Anyway, truth is all relative anyway, right? Nothing is real, nothing to get hung about.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/charles-j-sykes/when-everything-is-possible-and-nothing-is-true
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Joe Kobiela said on May 9, 2018 at 10:17 pm
Currently the gas prices in Angola are $2.77 gal reported at 8:15 pm.
Pilot Joe
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Dexter said on May 10, 2018 at 1:49 am
Joe, I was there at exactly 1655 hrs., 09MAY18, and the price of regular gas at the east side Speedway was/is $2.95.
I visited the Dillinger/Gangster or whatever museum in Nashville, Indiana about 32 years ago. It was OK, but as a kid we lived across from Art Fike’s junk yard on US 327 south of Corunna, Indiana. We’d walk across the highway when we figured Art was busy, and play around and inside the old cars. One had bullet holes everywhere and we were told it was “The Dillinger Car”, but that was just kid gossip I figure now, and I was just five years old then anyway. Years later, telling tales with my uncle, he said he was sure it was a car Art had gone a distance to buy for a novelty thing, but it was one of Al Capone’s many cars. Old cars were not a big thing then, so it was no big deal. This was just ten years post WWII and people were sick of old things and wanted new…the reality of rationing and just “making-do” was still ingrained into the adult psyche I reckon. I mean, government agents came around during the war and collected meat grease and tallow to make soap.
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Jakash said on May 10, 2018 at 1:57 am
I don’t mean to pile on, Dexter, but in the spirit of checking in from various parts of the country with our observations, the gas prices around me in Chicago haven’t changed since the weekend. They’re certainly higher than they were a couple months ago and, of course, mostly at least 40 cents a gallon higher than your $2.79, but that difference is not unusual at all.
Seems to me that you were lucky up until yesterday, and your stations are just catching up to what took place earlier in other places. I could be wrong, of course. We drove past Toledo a couple weeks ago — I used to think they had pretty cheap prices — and was surprised to see them at $2.86 there at that time.
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Jakash said on May 10, 2018 at 2:07 am
FWIW, GasBuddy dot com has prices in Angola from $2.77 to $2.99, depending on the brand and location. So, you’re both evidently right! : )
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Dexter said on May 10, 2018 at 2:30 am
Last week Lester Holt was in LA and a seg was about gas prices, and Shell Super was $4.99 and regular was $4.39. Around here, Defiance always hikes prices first then Bryan follows…Indiana usually runs a dime to 12 cents more. Chicago always is more as you write, by 40 to 50 cents. I hear GasBuddy reports on NewsRadio 780 WBBM-AM in my car radio and that’s steady and constant. Ford media people said one reason they are ending automobile production is to focus on this new mini-ute Eco. I suppose it is a hybrid, but I don’t care enough to research.
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David C. said on May 10, 2018 at 5:59 am
I can’t figure out gas prices at all. Last week, when I was in West Michigan, it was $2.999. As I was leaving Wisconsin it was $2.639. I expected it to match the Michigan price when I got back, it was up to $2.699 and now it’s $2.799. It doesn’t matter much to me anyway. I live only four miles from work so a $45 tank of gas lasts me a month.
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alex said on May 10, 2018 at 8:52 am
Just paid $2.75 this morning. A week or two ago it was $2.99 at the same place just north of Fort Wayne.
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Deborah said on May 10, 2018 at 9:53 am
Gas is in the $2.75 range in Santa Fe. I haven’t had to buy any gas yet since I’ve been back here, but I looked at prices as I was driving earlier this morning. We usually buy our gas at a station on the Santa Clara reservation, it’s halfway to Abiquiu, they have the best prices. I rarely buy gas in Santa Fe.
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Deborah said on May 10, 2018 at 10:33 am
I’ve read this rumor that the pay off by Broidy was really by Trump, it seemed far fetched but this version seems plausible http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/theory-playboy-model-had-affair-with-trump-not-broidy.html
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Dorothy said on May 10, 2018 at 11:14 am
On my way to work this morning in Dayton I saw gas at one station for $2.859 and then across the street from my office it was $2.899. This is a definite jump from Monday when I think it was around $2.539 a gallon. Monday as I left work the UDF had cars lined up out into the street for gas because the Shell station next to it had jumped 36 cents a gallon. No one was buying there at that time.
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Connie said on May 10, 2018 at 11:58 am
Oil prices soar: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/oil-prices-soar-after-trump-dumps-iran-nuclear-deal/ar-AAx0yVy
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MarkH said on May 10, 2018 at 12:18 pm
No, Dexter, no Trump stuff – as others here are, I am using GasBuddy and my area retailers’ numbers every day, as well as the oil/fuel charts on CNBC. You have to know that that kind of an instant jump at the retail location is a one-off and your retailers could be ginning the market. Or, as jakash said, they could have been seriously behind the curve to begin with. But, something is wrong at your location (maybe Dorothy’s as well), no legitimate market reaction is that fast at the pump without some sort of fix. In my ‘retirement’ job as a medical courier, I drive 400 miles a day and am very keen on the prices in western Wyoming and eastern Idaho. In Jackson it’s $3.15 across the board, similar over the hill in Idaho, and has been there for almost two weeks. Cheapest is at a small location south of Pinedale at $2.89, likely jumping by the weekend. Price moves around here average five to eight cents a pop, max.
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Jakash said on May 10, 2018 at 12:58 pm
Back when gas was 99 cents a gallon, it seemed like there was consistency, at least. I knew where the cheap stations were, on our regular rounds, and I could *count on* them being the cheapest stations, more or less. In the last few years, that’s gone out the window. Every trip, something different.
We recently were driving across Indiana and I couldn’t get a handle on what the cheap price *was*. I’d seen a lot in the $2.80s, but some less and some more. Finally we stopped in Plymouth at a Speedway that usually is all right, though not the best. I was very bummed that it was $2.99, based on some of what we’d passed by. But I figured, oh, well — that must be the rate between here and Chicago. Indeed, most of the cheap places in Valpo and Merrillville *did* end up being $2.99. But, as we got back on the highway with our topped off $2.99 tank, we immediately encountered 2 different places at $2.64, the cheapest we’d seen all day, a mile or two down the road. Uh, this did not make me happy! ; ) (And why I didn’t check in to Gas Buddy before stopping where we did is a mystery for the ages, alas…)
Fascinating story, I know! Anyway, I gotta think that Dorothy’s $2.53 on Monday was the anomaly, given what I saw in Ohio and Indiana, and that the $2.89 is just what other folks have been paying for a while.
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Suzanne said on May 10, 2018 at 1:44 pm
It seems to be true. Everything Trump touches does die.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/387110-giuliani-resigns-from-law-firm-due-to-pressing-demands-of-mueller
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Icarus said on May 10, 2018 at 2:05 pm
With the exception of a few holiday trips, we use our vehicles primarily as runabouts between home and daycare, home and the El station, and a few errands on the weekends.
Thus filling up once a month, I’m not impacted by a $.35 price swing the way people who buy gas more often are.
If we were smart, we’d get rid of one car for insurance purposes.
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Dorothy said on May 10, 2018 at 2:06 pm
Gas ALWAYS jumps about 25 to 38 cents a gallon around here seemingly every week. My husband and I will text each other: “Gas jumped” and then say what the current price is. I am used to it now. But what’s weird is within 48 hours or so it slides back down a little. Lately, though, it’s been edging up, which is a reaction to what’s happening all around the nation of course.
At a lunch a couple of weeks ago we were talking about gas prices and my boss said they had traveled through my home state over Easter break. “We call it Expennsylvania!” is what she said, making everyone laugh. Gasoline taxes in PA are outrageous. When we go to Pittsburgh to see family, we try to gas up just before we cross the border, and then we usually manage not to have to buy any in PA. Once we’re back in Ohio we’ll pay about 30-40 cents less a gallon. I hate the system. Should be one price fixed everywhere in my cranky opinion.
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Jakash said on May 10, 2018 at 2:07 pm
“Trump averaged one false claim every 83 seconds of his speech on the Iran deal.”
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/994080271170461698
Wouldn’t it be something if our Maximum Leader was given some paper and a pen, locked in the Oval Office for 2 hours and required to write a rebuttal to this?
https://m.facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10155854913976749
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Suzanne said on May 10, 2018 at 6:08 pm
Oh my Lord. Trump supporter interviewed as he waits in line for the Trump rally in Elkhart, IN. His only criteria for voting in the midterms is if the candidate supports Trump. “We don’t need ideas. We have enough ideas. They just have to follow President Trump.”
We have no hope.
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Julie Robinson said on May 10, 2018 at 6:32 pm
Suzanne, that segment came on just as got into the car, and I had to immediately cut away to a CD of a musical to keep myself sane.
Around here, 9 times out of 10 we find Costco the cheapest on gas.
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Connie said on May 10, 2018 at 9:43 pm
Around here if you want to buy gas at Costco you have to wait in line for a pump.
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Sherri said on May 10, 2018 at 10:39 pm
You always have to wait in line to buy gas at Costco here, too, Connie. GasBuddy reports Costco in Redmond at $3.15, with other Redmond stations at $3.25-$3.55.
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basset said on May 11, 2018 at 12:06 am
And now for something completely different:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYKB6Lag-wg
Terribly out of fashion… no hip hoppin, no emo, no alt-whatever. Too bad.
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beb said on May 11, 2018 at 12:29 am
The South Bend TV station(which may be the Sinclair affiliate) treated Trumps’ arrival like was the arrival of the pope. Or maybe the second coming of Jesus. Didn’t hear anything he said there. Did he embarrass himself? Call for someone’s death? Lying non-stop, that part is a given.
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LAMary said on May 11, 2018 at 1:15 am
Gas is 3.85 a gallon here. The good news is I got a new job (with benefits!) and I’ll be working from a home office.
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Dexter said on May 11, 2018 at 2:54 am
Congratulations, LA Mary. Paychecks are indeed nice.
I patronize McDonald’s , mostly for senior coffee. I remember in 2000 it was 29 cents. For many years it was 69 cents, and now it’s jumped to 79 cents. Most of their dollar items jumped a whopping 29 per cent just recently. Most lottery dollar games from the “computer” are $2 instead of $1, regular candy bars which cost $1.09 last week jumped to $1.89 at two drive-thru convenience stores. My last Social Security raise was about $4.55 a month.
I moved quickly to buy a window A/C because of the hot spell last week. We’ve had it ready for a week and only have had it on long enough to see if it works properly. This past week has been simply mah-velous…no A/C needed.
Have any of you experienced young people you work with and/or associate with who have no grasp of history whatsoever? I hear them on the radio…one producer who is 24 and works for XM Radio which has a Beatles channel, could not name one Beatle…first or last names. One 21 year old intern, a university junior, thought JFK dropped the bombs on Japan in WWII. And one college graduate, at 33 years of age, had no idea where Newfoundland was, and had never heard of Nova Scotia. How are college people so fucking stupid?
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basset said on May 11, 2018 at 6:54 am
Reminds me of the intern we had from Vanderbilt who wanted to know why President Reagan didn’t just fire all those senators who were giving him so much trouble.
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Deborah said on May 11, 2018 at 7:03 am
Good for you LAMary, working from home has its advantages. Especially in LA where driving can be a pain.
Dexter, I’m not sure young people today are worse with history or geography than our generation was, but sometimes it seems that way.
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Suzanne said on May 11, 2018 at 7:06 am
Dexter I know a bunch of people who have no grasp of history. None. I was with a group of women last night, women who are all near or past retirement age, several of whom couldn’t remember which Beatle was George. This is the same group of women who, several years ago, when the subject of WWI came up, about half couldn’t place it in the correct century. Another time, a woman I know, who is a very successful business woman with years of experience, told me she was amazed to discover that there were still Jews in camps in the 1940s.
I have had people look at me like I am talking crazy when I say that a number of the signers of the Declaration were not born here. They also have trouble grasping that there was no legal/illegal immigration at that time because this was not a country.
It bothers the heck out of me. These are the patriotic types who like to use the Founding Fathers as a prop but they really know nothing about them. It seems the younger people learned that from their elders.
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alex said on May 11, 2018 at 8:37 am
Suzanne, I think stupidity in American society is a feature not a bug and it’s nothing new. Hell, I remember having teachers who went on ignorant racist political harangues that should have gotten them fired, except they were preaching to the children of the choir for the most part.
The Archie Bunker drunken-uncle types were always a bit of a nuisance, but I find myself having zero patience with Trump trolls. Where does anyone get the idea that ISIS has been defeated?
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Icarus said on May 11, 2018 at 9:04 am
stupidity in American society is partly by design, with the attack on education that has been going on…forever.
But I think the ability to look anything up from your phone contributes to it somewhat. Why learn anything when you can look it up when you need it.
For those wondering about Coozledad, he has been posting on his blog since at least the end of April. I don’t think he regard our commenteriat very highly.
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Heather said on May 11, 2018 at 10:20 am
Re the “no new ideas” thing, I got in an argument on Twitter with some woman who said sexual consent is too vague and confusing, so she believes in “traditional morality,” i.e. no sex before marriage. (She also told me to shut up at one point, so I asked her if insulting strangers was also traditionally moral.) I know this is not an original insight, but it bears pointing out: this is really all because people are frightened by the complexity and nuance of not just contemporary society but life itself, no? Humans are messy, life is messy. So much easier not to wrestle with these issues and just do what some powerful man says you should do.
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Connie said on May 11, 2018 at 11:06 am
So Cooz is badmouthing nancy nall on his blog. Saying: what humorless white shitbricks are thinking, I just go out to Nancy Nall’s blog to see which black person has pissed them off today. Man, there’s a swath of dumb motherfuckers in the midwest who are so hungry for a Hitler sculpted out of mayonnaise they’ll eat a simulacrum made out of Maggie Haberman’s shit.
I must have missed that part on this blog.
I am thankful to no longer see his foul mouthed comments.
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LAMary said on May 11, 2018 at 1:01 pm
I was getting paycheck before, but I was “contract” so no bennies, no sick days, generally treated less than nicely. Three contract jobs in a row, ranging from 30 days to 90. It seems like a trend. There are loads of contract jobs out there.
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