I’m heading into a 48-hour period of grindstone-meet-nose stuff, but I wanted to put up a fresh post and let er’rybody talk about this and that. My weekend started with seeing, of all bands, Steppenwolf, and ended with an all-day there-and-back to Fort Wayne, to say farewell to one of our neighbors, who died unexpectedly a few weeks ago. It was a good trip, but exhausting, and for now, let me just show you this photo of one of the ‘Wolf crowd, and I’ll be back probably Tuesday or Wednesday:
Yeah, it was that kind of night. Carry on, and I’ll see y’all soon.
alex said on July 30, 2018 at 7:00 am
To carry over from the last thread, I found Neil Steinberg’s Granite City story troubling but even more troubling are the calls to shoot the messenger rather than pay heed to the message.
Trump has taken Nixon’s “southern strategy” to a whole new level. Back in the day when we didn’t have a 24/7 news cycle and partisan pundits measuring the winds of a politician’s every fart, Nixon figured out that you could talk out of one side of your ass on one side of the Mason-Dixon line and do likewise on the other and neither side would be the wiser. In today’s very different and disorienting media atmosphere, Trump has figured out that you can offer up contradictions and lies on the national stage and people will believe whatever they want to believe, and if you flatter them on their own home turf they’ll eat shit and swear it’s chocolate.
These are scary times indeed.
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Mark P said on July 30, 2018 at 8:51 am
What we have learned (Trump hasn’t “learned” anything) is that there are plenty of racists above the Mason-Dixon Line, so you don’t really have to change your message when you head back north. Hillary had it right when she talked about deplorables.
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Bitter Scribe said on July 30, 2018 at 9:56 am
Steppenwolf, wow. The very first album I owned. Who knew they (or some incarnation of them) were still around?
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Dave said on July 30, 2018 at 10:18 am
Is John Kay still the frontman?
My first album was The Beatles HELP!
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Jeff Borden said on July 30, 2018 at 11:54 am
Count me among the teens who fell in love with Steppenwolf while in high school.
I’m seeing the Foo Fighters tonight at Wrigley Field, the first real “rock concert” I’ve attended in a really long time. The Friendly Confines has become a premier venue for traveling artists ranging from the country bros to the Parrotheads to Billy Joel.
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Connie said on July 30, 2018 at 12:10 pm
So I am thinking maybe your second part-time job has to do with Deadline Detroit. ??
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nancy said on July 30, 2018 at 12:41 pm
Sure is. Didn’t I announce this a while back? I do the comms work for a policy-research group, and editing/writing for DD with the rest of my time. It’s a pretty alpha/omega arrangement, but fun.
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Jakash said on July 30, 2018 at 12:45 pm
Alex,
I’m not clear on this, but were you suggesting that I’m one of those “shooting the messenger?” I’m a big fan of Mr. Steinberg’s; I just don’t think he found a message that was any different from what I’ve been hearing for 3 years now. Charming the gullible with lies is part of the very essence of being a charlatan. I don’t know why seeing it done in person would be particularly instructive. And I thought you were tired of Cletus safaris…
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Connie said on July 30, 2018 at 1:09 pm
You told us about the second part time job without any details, but I’ve been seeing you there.
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beb said on July 30, 2018 at 1:58 pm
I’ve heard that Trump plans to spend $12 billion to bail out the farmers he’s ruined. I’ve also heard that Betsy DeVos is cutting about $12 billion in debt forgiveness in the Education department. Coincidence? Or parallel evil?
I have to question all the reports that Trump’s supporters remain strong for him because in no small number of cases the supporter interviewed turned out to be some members of the local Republican party. Of course those people remain loyal to Trump. It just raises big questions about how accurate any reporting about Trump followers are.
I ead an article a fe months ago on debt and debt-forgiveness things like the Jubilee Year in ancient Israel. The argument, as I remember it, was that most of the debt was owed to the state (noncollectable taxes) so forgiving debts was no skin off the state’s nose and freed up the citizen to be more productive. The argument seems to make a lot of sense in regards to student loan debt. So much money is owed to student loans that it’s a drag on the economy. Forgiving student loan debt would make it possible for young adults to think about things like buying a house, building a car, having kids, etc.
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Dexter Friend said on July 30, 2018 at 2:52 pm
JeffB: I called my buddy Dave and he said he’d leave two tickets for me at will-call so I’ll be there tonight…yeah right! I have been a big fan since Nirvana and man the Foo Fighters can really rock, as we all know. I watched the Cubs and with the rain backing up the game start by like 95 minutes it went sorta late…funny, I must have dozed off as I can’t recall the end of the game today.
I just finished a 12-epi Netflix series called Red Road. Lots of bloody scenarios, action packed, good hard storyline, I recommend it. Only a couple or three dirty sex scenes so that’s no reason not to watch it, I say. The right wing media types are now saying Trump’s 3,000 documented lies are just jokes and exaggerations made to illustrate points. The constant lies about knowing nothing about the Russians-Donny Trump Tower meeting? Just a “nothingburger”. I mean, this motherfucker STILL has many apologists! Are we to really think he can be re-elected in 2020? I guess so. Trump is so overwhelmingly repugnant words don’t work…there’s too much to say, too much to quote…it’s sickening.
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Rana said on July 30, 2018 at 9:21 pm
Did that guy have an explanation for his drunk penguin “friend”?
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Connie said on July 31, 2018 at 6:11 am
It’s his emotional support animal.
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alex said on July 31, 2018 at 7:26 am
Jakash, I generally avoid Cletus safaris but when I hear that Neil Steinberg is patting Trump like Jimmy Fallon, you think I’m not gonna go see what it’s all about?
I thought it was a good story in that it contrasts the the steel workers, who so far have gotten something tangible for their vote, with the farmers, who are like dupes who wired their life savings to Nigeria two years ago and still refuse to believe that a massive windfall isn’t coming their way. I think it’s very instructive as to how this charlatan operates.
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alex said on July 31, 2018 at 7:28 am
Oh, and is it just me, or does anyone else think that guy with the penguin needs to zip up his pants?
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Deborah said on July 31, 2018 at 8:19 am
Alex, you have brought up a point that I’ve always wondered about: who falls for those Nigerian prince send me money emails? Now we know there are millions of dupes out there who will believe anything. Sad.
We are in Chicago for a day, got here yesterday and the weather is great. It’s humid but coolish. I’ve got a jillion things to do before we head back to NM.
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Suzanne said on July 31, 2018 at 10:11 am
This is what we are up against with tRump: https://mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/christians-who-hate-trump/
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Connie said on July 31, 2018 at 10:42 am
And are you the CRC of Michigan twitter voice as part of your job?
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nancy said on July 31, 2018 at 10:50 am
Yup. Can’t you tell?
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Deborah said on July 31, 2018 at 11:25 am
Suzanne, that was depressing. Amazing how they can twist things around when they want to. Sorry I gave that guy a click though.
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Sherri said on July 31, 2018 at 12:32 pm
An extended heat wave is finally breaking here. We’ve had over a week of temps around 90. It drops to around 60at night, but without air conditioning, after a couple of days, the inside temperature in the house starts getting into the mid-80s during the day, especially upstairs where all the bedrooms are, and sleeping is difficult even for my heat-loving husband.
The last few summers we’ve had more of these extended heat waves, and I’m starting to wonder if we need to put in A/C.
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Jakash said on July 31, 2018 at 12:53 pm
Fair enough, Alex, thanks for the reply. I saw on Twitter that a Chicago magazine writer said “i think he may have written the best thing I’ve ever read on trump,” referring to that piece, and the tweet was “liked” by a liberal tweeter whose opinions I generally agree with, so perhaps my take was off-base. Perhaps… : )
Yeah, Deborah, the weather has been unexpectedly (for the end of July) delightful for almost a week now. The humidity was lower a couple days ago. I’ll thank you to leave it the way you found it! ; )
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Scout said on July 31, 2018 at 12:57 pm
We had a spectacular monsoon last night. Hours of wind, rain, thunder and lightning. Our power was out for over 2 hours and we were some of the lucky ones. People all over Phoenix were without power all night, and those who can’t take the extreme heat had to go to hotels. The fury of these storms is certainly increasing, climate change is real.
http://www.azfamily.com/story/38772260/slideshow-powerful-storm-knocks-out-power-topples-trees
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Deborah said on July 31, 2018 at 1:38 pm
Scout, I wish NM would be having a better monsoon season. LB said Santa Fe had a couple of terrific rains but Abiquiu hasn’t had much. Hopefully since we’ve been gone on our road trip it rained some but my weather app hasn’t shown much there this past week and a half. I have one more month in NM, hoping for more wetness there.
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