So I see the Nashville mass shooter’s “manifesto,” or parts of it, has been leaked. From what I saw, it’s a bunch of misspelled rage-scribbles in a spiral-bound notebook. I hope the people who have been panting for its release are happy now. Ever since it was revealed that the shooter was transgender, right-wing hysteric Rod Dreher in particular has been baying for it, doubtless hoping it would be full of trans cooties he could point to as evidence he’s not the crazy one, you are for thinking these people are actual human beings.
But no. It’s just horrifying and pathetic:
(Nashville police) likely suppressed this because Audrey Hale killed those kids on account of their whiteness, with all its “privilege.” The little “faggots.” We can’t know for sure why they suppressed it until they tell us, but I’d bet it’s because of the white angle. If the public saw that the end result of the ruling class’s obsession with condemning “whiteness” is the weaponization of that ideology by a savage tranny, who shot and killed white children — well, maybe, just maybe, white people would understand that we have been systematically set up for racial discrimination, even murder.
For the record, the police and others have been pretty clear about why the document wasn’t released: The parents of the slain children didn’t want that to happen, and police were waiting until the investigation wrapped anyway, and there were lawsuits, etc. But you are perhaps not driven by trans mania like Rod. And anyway, that isn’t what this is about. Rather, it’s one of my regular dead horses: Do words mean anything anymore?
Let’s ask my laptop’s dictionary the definition of “manifesto,” shall we?
a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate: a manifesto for gay liberation | [as modifier] : manifesto commitments.
That sounds about right. You can find the world’s most famous manifesto, the Communist Manifesto, online. I just spun my way into its middle and captured three paragraphs at random:
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, had a manifesto, typed out on his manual typewriter in his Montana cabin. It, too, is online. Titled “Industrial Society and its Future,” let’s again just dive in at random and copy/paste:
A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace; one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional.
Not your cup of tea, most likely, but still: An actual manifesto by the definition.
Other manifestos: The Declaration of Independence, MLK’s I Have a Dream speech, The Road to Serfdom.
Not a manifesto: Wanna kill all you crackers!!!! The most accurate term for this might be a “statement,” although “a notebook with writings suggesting the killer’s state of mind” would be better.
That is all.
Happy November 7 to all, and I was reminded, after I posted Sunday/Monday’s blog, that it’s also the anniversary of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press event, and I can’t believe I forgot to mention that. Because that might have been reason alone to have hope for a brighter future, and also hysterically funny, so.
Happy midweek, too. And remember: Words have meaning. Use them wisely.
alex said on November 7, 2023 at 3:20 pm
As long as we’re gonna call things what they are…
Herr Dreckmonger doesn’t know a manifesto from a hole in his ass. He thinks he wrote one, though — Crunchy Cons — but I think he just happened to be late to the party for David Brooks’ Bobos in Paradise which came out well after Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent. It was Chomsky who posited that countercultural chic quickly loses its mystique once it has been mass-marketed to the middle and lower classes. Brooks and Dreher marveled at its arrival, or rather its descent, once it had percolated down to them.
Let’s raise a toast to the Four Seasons debacle, and let’s not forget that it was merely the beginning of the delamination of Rudy Toot-Toot. Remember him farting audibly in court in Michigan? And the speculation that he must have been using shoe polish in place of hair dye when rivulets of black sweat were pouring down his face during a press conference? It was like a slapstick comedy unfolding in real time, and yet all too somber.
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Scout said on November 7, 2023 at 4:13 pm
I’m almost halfway through Cassidy Hutchinson’s book, Enough. I am reading about the weeks right before the 2020 election, and while she is still professing loyalty and working to help re-elect trump, she is starting to relate how even then Mark Meadows and trump were coming unglued about every little thing, and how obsessed trump was with appearing ‘tough’. It’s a fascinating look at the inner workings of that mis-administration and also more reminders why we can never ever ever ever ever let that insane clown anywhere near the levers of power again.
Happy Four Seasons Day to all who celebrate. Oh, and VOTE!! I know, I’m preaching to the choir.
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Jeff said on November 7, 2023 at 4:21 pm
So much pivoting.
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Joe Kobiela said on November 7, 2023 at 4:31 pm
What’s the Hamas manifesto?
Pilot Joe
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Mark P said on November 7, 2023 at 4:53 pm
The Hamas charter is a statement of its position on issues, like the existence of Israel. It could be called a manifesto.
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Joe Kobiela said on November 7, 2023 at 5:05 pm
So what’s it position on Israel?
Pilot Joe
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Scout said on November 7, 2023 at 5:47 pm
Joe, why don’t you ask Google if you really want to know?
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Jeff Gill said on November 7, 2023 at 5:48 pm
Joe, while the MAGA crowd in my county insists I’m a RINO and no conservative, as perhaps the second most conservative regular poster here: that’s pure unmitigated trolling, and you aren’t making a point, you’re embarrassing any cause or perspective you assume you’re affirming by being a troll. Ask if anyone supports Israel or not here, and you’ll get a range of opinions worth engaging with & considering. Do what you did, and you make supporting Israel look shallow & trivial.
I suspect there’s not a single person on this feed who is ignorant of the Hamas charter. The question is what to do about it, any response in the real world leading to some measure of blood and sorrow.
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Joe Kobiela said on November 7, 2023 at 6:06 pm
Ok, do you support Israel? I do, I just wonder if the majority of those protesting really know what they are supporting, not just the destruction of a group of people but also how hamas stands on gay and women’s rights or religious freedoms, are they all in or not?
Pilot Joe
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Mark P said on November 7, 2023 at 6:32 pm
Joe, that’s a false dichotomy. You can oppose the killing of multitudes of innocent Palestinians without supporting the killing of multitudes of innocent Israelis. You can support Israel’s right to exist without opposing the creation of a Palestinian country. You can oppose Israel’s current government without opposing Israel. Just like I can oppose the election of a perverted rapist fraudster who tried to overthrow the elected US government without opposing the US. But I suspect you know that.
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alex said on November 7, 2023 at 6:47 pm
Joe, there is no one here who supports Hamas, so put a fucking cork in it already.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2023 at 6:57 pm
Joe, there’s been plenty of nuanced discussion of the Gaza situation on here already. If you really wanted to know what anyone here thinks, you could have read all about it.
Yes, we know about Hamas. Do you know about Nabka?
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Deborah said on November 7, 2023 at 9:07 pm
I know it’s still early but the Dems seem to be doing Ok in the elections. happy to read that Ohioans seem to be doing the right thing, at least so far it seems that way.
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Jeff said on November 7, 2023 at 9:16 pm
Ohioans are centrists. This comes out as GOP support historically, but there’s plenty of resilience to resist too strong a rightward pull. That’s how I read these results.
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Sherri said on November 7, 2023 at 9:34 pm
I think that if the Dems ran on abortion, weed, and student loan forgiveness they’d do great next year. They won’t, ‘cause that’s too scary and they’ll never give up hope that white men will vote for them.
They really ought to lean into abortion, though. It’s been a winner at the polls since Dobbs. Turns out women don’t like being second class citizens.
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alex said on November 7, 2023 at 10:47 pm
Ohioans are centrists. This comes out as GOP support historically, but there’s plenty of resilience to resist too strong a rightward pull.
Republicans are fascists, which is why Ohioans are happy to vote for abortions and weed when actually given the opportunity to have their say.
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FDChief said on November 7, 2023 at 11:07 pm
Since everyone else is being polite about ol’ Joe’s atrocity-trolling I’ll step up and say fuck, yes, if I was an Arab inmate in the big Gaza prison I’d have a big jones to work things out with the people running my apartheid Bantustan in blood and fire and being a good Second Amendment-lovin’ patriot I’ll bet you would, too.
Since I’m not, I can cheerfully wish both parties would go the hell away.
But as an American, there’s also this; Israel is the most useless, irritating, pain-in-the-ass “ally” my country has spent a ridiculous amount of time tongue-bathing and money propping up. It’s the cocky little guy in your family who’s always picking fights and pissing off the neighbors. It’s a goddamn nuisance.
It at least used to be a nice little democracy, a rarity in the neighborhood, so it was a fun little hobby for US politics so long as it didn’t pick my pocket or break my leg.
Between Occupation, apartheid, Bibi, the damn settlers, and the ultra orthodox religious nuts that’s pretty much gone to hell.
So, frankly, a pox on both Hamas and Likud both. All hands there are filthy with blood.
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Brandon said on November 8, 2023 at 1:56 am
Meanwhile, the actors’ strike continues, but a settlement could be reached.
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4dbirds said on November 8, 2023 at 9:14 am
I have conflicted feelings on Israel and their right-wing drift. Do I dismiss the attack on Israel and the murder of 1400 innocents? Of course not. The whole situation is complicated.
As a Virginian, I couldn’t be happier and prouder. Youngkin’s win was always a one off and not a sign of Virginia turning red again. Now he has no chance to get anything through that will make us a red state again.
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Jeff Borden said on November 8, 2023 at 10:01 am
The QOP in Ohio already is plotting how to subvert the will of the voters, just hours after they got their asses royally kicked at the polls. That’s how the American right rolls these days. You will bow down to them!
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2023/11/after-voters-back-abortion-and-pot-gop-leaders-signal-plans-to-undermine-referendums.html
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alex said on November 8, 2023 at 10:24 am
Hooray for last night’s victories in Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
Youngkin was nuts to believe that people would settle for a middling compromise on abortion and that this should be the model for the GOP going forward and that it would serve him well as a presidential springboard. The party hails him as a visionary for having created the “critical race theory” bogeyman and fomenting the “parents’ rights” shenanigans that are now tearing apart the country, but this will eventually come back to bite the GOP just like its anti-abortion posturing.
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Jenine said on November 8, 2023 at 10:44 am
Relieved and pleased to see that multiple Moms for Liberty candidates were rejected for ABQ school board and in other states as well.
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Bitter Scribe said on November 8, 2023 at 11:05 am
Rod Dreher! I haven’t thought about that little weirdo since his column got yanked.
I can’t remember now whether Nancy covered this at the time, but I can’t resist giving a recap:
Dreher’s main outlet was his column at The American Conservative, only TAC wasn’t paying him anything for it. Dreher’s entire salary, a six-figure one IIRC, was underwritten entirely by some asshole who inherited a shit-ton of money and had nothing better to do with it than give it to guys like Dreher. Only Dreher became too weird even for Mr. Inheritance—it might have been his column about sneaking peeks at the “primitive root wiener” of a Black classmate in the boy’s room—and Mr. I yanked his support. I guess TAC didn’t offer to pick up Dreher’s entire salary (or any of it?), so he packed up and left.
Now he’s begging for nickels on Substack. Most of his articles are locked, so if you want to read such gems as his thoughts on “the religious meaning of UFOs,” it’ll set you back $50 a year. Gee, Rod, only 2,000 subscribers and you’ll be back to your former lifestyle.
Of course, you’ll have to stop giving away gems like this for free:
Jesus, what a fucking doofus.
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brian stouder said on November 8, 2023 at 11:32 am
Bitter S, correct me here: Is the Ouija board the one where two people place hands lightly on a thing, that then is moved around on the game board? If I’m recalling it correctly, that game struck even 10-year-old me as a pretty good example of an observer-created ‘reality’…but we digress!
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Bitter Scribe said on November 8, 2023 at 11:38 am
Brian: Yes.
Weird story: When I was in junior high, I did my science-fair project on how Ouija boards work. I no longer even recall what the hell it concluded, except that 1) it was a lot of bullshit and 2) even at that young age, I was good enough at BS to reach the state finals. Unfortunately, the judges there were a priest and a nun who gave me low marks. Oh well.
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Heather said on November 8, 2023 at 11:49 am
Amen, FDChief. The attacks on Israel were horrendous. Essentially trapping a half million people in an open-air prison for decades isn’t great either. I’m alarmed by the number of people who equate any criticism of Israel’s policies with anti-Semitism and any sympathy for the Palestinian people with a pro-Hamas sentiment.
By the way a lot of the U.S. rallies and protests calling for an end to the bombing in Gaza are being led and promoted by Jewish groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.
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basset said on November 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm
I’m not plugged in enough to even know who Rod Dreher is… looked him up and now I know but I don’t care, why does what he says matter anyway? This business of who has an audience and who is influential is not part of my life.
Nancy, how’s the band doing?
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Deborah said on November 8, 2023 at 12:36 pm
I don’t get polls. How can a smallish number of people be questioned and somehow that represents how millions of people will vote. I don’t understand statistical probability, I suppose it is scientifically based, but I am mystified. I was listening to a pod cast I listen to regularly, Pod Save America, and they were discussing the latest Times Siena poll that is scaring the bejesus out of Democrats, they said it was an extensive poll, that thousands of people were questioned in total but when you broke it down to each individual swing state it boiled down to 600 people in each of those states. How in the world can 600 people in Pennsylvania for instance, be determinative of the millions of people who live there? How do they select 600 people to ask questions? Or maybe they actually try to connect with way more than 600 people but only 600 answer their phones or what? I feel like there is a lot of money in running polls and those pollsters have convinced a lot of politicians that they have the magic formulas to show them what they want to see. I don’t get it, and I honestly think it’s dangerous. It’s seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors and uses up lots of money that candidates need to get their messages out to the voters. Media companies who pay for them are looking for clicks by constantly predicting horse races. I’m sick of it. Rant over.
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Julie Robinson said on November 8, 2023 at 1:01 pm
Here’s a poll of sorts: for the last five election cycles, the party winning Kentucky governor won the White House the following year. So Democrat Andy Beshear’s victory is, I hope and pray, a very good omen.
Aside from that, my candidate in Orlando’s mayoral election won, but only 26,000 people voted, in a city of over 300,000. Oof.
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Jeff Borden said on November 8, 2023 at 1:39 pm
Perhaps overlooked by the drubbing the MAGA asshats received in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky is this little nugget, which will surely inflame the already throbbing hemorrhoids within the crumbling husk of the orange cancer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/exonerated-central-park-five-member-yusef-salaam-wins-new-york-city-co-rcna124120
It’s truly heartbreaking the federal court system has been packed with right-wing trogs because the people of this nation –particularly those of the non-boomer generation– are finally asserting themselves at the polls. And, folks, they hate MAGA policies. Fucking hate ’em. So, the courts will continue to work their dark, ugly magic for the next many years, thwarting the will of the people as they were specifically constructed to do by Leonard Leo and his Federalist Society goons. Eventually, those atavists will be retired and/or die off, much like the heart of the MAGA movement. (Blue state residents live an average of 7 years longer than red state residents.)
I hope I live long enough to see it.
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alex said on November 8, 2023 at 1:40 pm
Julie, I thought Fort Wayne was bad at turnout but it sounds like Orlando is far worse. Between Tom Henry and Tom Didier, there were about 46,000 votes for mayor in a city of 266,000.
Henry won an unprecedented fifth term but by only 1,735 votes, a much closer margin than last time when his Republican challenger was an abrasive right-wing evangelical.
I think the local GOP finally learned its lesson not to be complacent during primary season, when their worthiest candidates kept getting trounced by people who didn’t stand a chance come November.
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Brandon said on November 8, 2023 at 2:09 pm
Now he’s begging for nickels on Substack.
His main venue is The European Conservative.
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Julie Robinson said on November 8, 2023 at 2:41 pm
Brian, I am appalled. All I can think is that is was an off year, and the mayor was expected to win handily, which he did. Three challengers and they didn’t add up to 5000 votes together. But still. We are going to need a lot more blue voters next year.
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alex said on November 8, 2023 at 3:19 pm
I think it was mentioned here on NN.C some time ago that Dreher nearly caused an international scandal for his patrons. He’s living in Budapest and his job is to write fluff about Viktor Orban-style “democracy” as a model for the U.S. (i.e., a Trumpian autocracy where “elections” are held with pre-ordained outcomes and the state owns the media). This, as you may recall, was one of Tucker Carlson’s pet projects before his ouster at Fox.
Orban confided to Dreher and some fellow “journalists” that he intends to pull Hungary out of the E.U. but is constrained from doing so at present. Dreher misunderstood this secret to be a talking point, which he then went forth and disseminated much to Orban’s horror.
Evidently they managed to put out that fire and Dreher’s still there.
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David C said on November 8, 2023 at 4:38 pm
Statistics are weird, and fun, Deborah. When I worked in quality control, I’d accept hundreds of parts based on checking a few dozen. One weird thing is in a group of 30 people, chances are 70% that two will share a birthday. With 45, it’s a 95% chance. But the problem with polling is getting a random sample. They can’t so they use tricks to try to match the samples to what they think, based on some increasingly wobbly assumptions, what the electorate looks like. I think polling is probably permanently broken. There’s no way to make people answer their devices when they know who’s on the other end.
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Deborah said on November 8, 2023 at 4:52 pm
I never answer my iPhone unless I recognize the caller number and I assume millions are the same. How do pollsters find people to interview for their opinions? Off the street, in person? I don’t do that either. Maybe I’m unusual but I don’t think so. There is absolutely a white male bias in this country, so how does anyone figure out what people really think? People often say one thing in public but when they’re behind the confines in the voting booth, doesn’t seem like they necessarily follow through.
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Julie Robinson said on November 8, 2023 at 5:28 pm
There might be a few who answer unknown numbers. As a pastor, our daughter kinda has to, in case it’s a family member of a parishioner, or someone from the community. But she still screens the calls with an app that asks the person’s name and generally tosses out the bots.
So are they just talking to oldsters with landlines?
The other issue is that when we still had a landline and I did polls, I was frustrated by the way questions were written. Exaggerated example: do you like candidate A or do you hate America. So I stopped.
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LAMARY said on November 8, 2023 at 7:31 pm
Amen FD and Heather. One Jewish friend is accusing me of antisemitism because I’m disgusted by Netanyahu in general and by his treatment of Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas.
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Dexter Friend said on November 9, 2023 at 4:42 am
I am glad we have these threads because you contributors are on top of topics needed to be discussed.
I was a 17 year old just-graduated from high school kid when the 1967 war broke out. I have spent years, not dedicated to the situation, studying the conflict. Since 1948, it’s been chaos interrupted by weeks of peace. I have heard it all, the whole story many times from both sides, and it’s too much to recall totally. I have had close secular Jewish friends, only in the army however. Other than that, I am physically distant to Palestinians here in Ohio, but I have been to conferences in New York City and have heard speakers.
I understand Israel is there to stay, with a horrible Prime Minister intent on wiping out Palestinians no matter what psuedo-humanity clabber he utters. I was an advocate of Yasir Arafat in theory.
I am for the Two State Solution which never gets established without the apartheid angle. Netanyahu and his weirdo Cabinet must be taken down, but Netanyahu has a strong grasp on the job, despite his generals threatening a strike, and his subjects protesting him in the streets for 2 years now. Now he has declared more-less a permanent police state for Gaza and increased military harassment of Palestinians in The (divided) West Bank. Hamas is a terrorist ,horrible group. Netanyahu has in turn become a terrorist in the name of defense. The coverage is intense and horrifying.
To insert a line from Elvis Costello’s magnificent “Tramp the Dirt Down” (regarding Margaret Thatcher in that case)…
“I never knew for a moment…
That human life
Could be so cheap…”
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FDChief said on November 9, 2023 at 10:50 am
During a drunken bull session my pal Ed mourned that Israel had trashed his lifelong conceit that Judaism’s long history of persecution and intellectual tradition of thoughtful exegesis on faith made his religion immune from the sorts of brutal inhumanity so often encountered in the other monotheistic faiths.
“It turns out that we weren’t ANY fucking better! We just never had the opportunity before!”
Anyone who is surprised by Hamas’ savagery needs to spend forty years being brutalized and oppressed. Trust me; you’ll find it shocking easy to butcher the innocent.
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Little Bird said on November 9, 2023 at 10:53 am
I got a call from my physical area code and I typically answer those because it might be one of many doctors offices calling. This one was for one of the people running for whichever elected office, I didn’t really pay attention. I cut him off and told him that I had already voted, and he asked who I voted for. I declined to answer that and ended the call. I felt like it was intrusive to ask that.
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Mark P said on November 9, 2023 at 11:05 am
I literally just now got a phone call from Kingston, Jamaica. I was 99.99% sure it was a scam of some sort, so I declined the call. The odd thing is that they didn’t disguise the source by spoofing a local area code.
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Jeff Borden said on November 9, 2023 at 11:42 am
There’s a Page One story in the NYT today saying Hamas is getting precisely what it wanted from the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. They want a perpetual state of war and hope to draw in other Arab nations upset over the massive casualties inside Gaza. Of course, it’s noteworthy the big brains of Hamas are sitting comfortably in Doha, Qatar, manipulating events they and their families will never experience. But they’re over the moon with the success of their villainy and support for Palestine is rising fast in the Middle East.
The Palestinian issue has festered since the creation of Israel. There is blame enough for everyone involved including Israel, Palestinian radicals, other Arab states and the West. Uncountable errors have been made over the decades. It was only a matter of time before it all exploded. It’s hard to see a path forward because so many elements are invested in NOT moving forward. One thing is certain: The issue is incredibly complex. Anyone embracing a bumper sticker slogan as a solution is a moron.
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Dave said on November 9, 2023 at 12:22 pm
Alex, not to change the subject but your former colleague who passed away, was it a woman with the initials CAT? I knew her father and one brother well at one time.
We hardly ever answer the phone if we don’t know the number and especially if it’s from our old area code, many suspect calls are masked by that. The ones we do answer when we don’t know the caller are those from the area code that we live in now and it’s almost always a legitimate call. We received quite a few polling calls during the time we lived in the Sunshine State and had a landline but now, they may be the calls we never answer. I always wonder at who they’re polling.
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alex said on November 9, 2023 at 12:41 pm
Dave, yes indeed it is.
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Mark zp said on November 9, 2023 at 12:47 pm
The local media are reporting that a letter laced with fentanyl has been mailed to the Fulton County elections office. Apparently similar letters have been sent to other states. They apparently originated from Washington state. A Fulton County election official said he thinks this is a precursor for 2024, especially in Fulton County. I wonder who would do a thing like that.
They now say they have a “pretty good idea” who did it …
A woman, they say. I wonder where MTG is these days.
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Julie Robinson said on November 9, 2023 at 2:03 pm
Well I’m blowing this joint and heading to NYC for a few days. Getting out of town didn’t go smoothly and the person responsible for my brand new coat left it behind. Now I am getting another new coat; thanks to some quick shopping by our daughter there will be one waiting for us at REI.
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FDChief said on November 9, 2023 at 2:35 pm
I wrote this back in October:
‘Last night my Bride asked me “They can’t possibly win, right? What does Hamas expect? And why now? ”
Here’s my guess.
1) I think that the Arab residents of the former Ottoman province of Palestine see that their Muslim co-religionists are wearying of the endless expenditure of blood and treasure on the Palestinian bloody shirt. The Saudis are cozying up to Israel. The Syrians and Egyptians have their own problems to worry about. The old grievances are losing their appeal, so…
2) I think that Hamas see this as a sort of grand scale suicide/martyrdom – dying on their feet rather than living on their knees – AND the chance to hand the Israeli government their Own Personal Atrocity; a Warsaw Ghetto that will help make more anti-Israeli warriors.”
So, basically, the Hamas leaders kicked off a murder-suicide pact
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Dorothy said on November 9, 2023 at 3:42 pm
There is a setting on my iPhone that I have enabled. It blocks unknown callers. The only way my phone rings is if the number calling me is in my list of contacts (address book so to speak). It’s very handy and my blood pressure is grateful for this iPhone setting. If anyone really needs to talk to me, they’ll leave me a message, I’ll call them back and then save that number for future interactions.
In 2019 I got a phone call (before I discovered this setting!) about participating in a poll about the presidential election. I agreed to do it. They called once in a while but not to an annoying degree. But after the election I was getting more calls on different topics and I didn’t feel like participating anymore. So I used their menu to access that request and blocked the number. I no longer get polling calls. I’ve been maintaining that the polls are terribly inaccurate. The media fawn over them as if it was something carved into stone. I take them with a grain of salt. The election(s) are the only outcomes that really matter. I try to ignore all these polls saying Trump is so wildly popular still with the Republican Party. I really think many now think he is an anchor around their necks, a sinking ship, a deteriorating idiot who has no self control, and will never vote for him. This is just my opinion, and also a very fervent hope I hold in my heart and brain. If I allowed myself to believe that Orangey Turd McDumpster could be elected again I’d really just fall apart. His influence is so much worse than anyone could have predicted. I just want him to go away. Permanently.
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susan said on November 9, 2023 at 5:40 pm
A day late, but better late than never. You can’t not laugh to tears watching this.
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Deborah said on November 9, 2023 at 6:23 pm
Susan, I can’t get your link to work and I really want to laugh to tears.
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tajalli said on November 9, 2023 at 6:28 pm
Deborah, I’ve noticed that when accessing a link to the social media formerly known as Twitter, I have to attempt it a couple times before it loads. Weird.
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susan said on November 10, 2023 at 12:10 am
Deborah, does the tiktok version work for you?
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Jeff said on November 10, 2023 at 8:12 am
On 10 November 1775, the Second Continental Congress ordered that “two Battalions of Marines be raised.”
Happy 248th birthday, United States Marine Corps!
#Oorah.
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alex said on November 10, 2023 at 11:22 am
I got to see it via tik tok because twitter was fucking with me too.
The hysterical laughter is contagious.
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Deborah said on November 10, 2023 at 11:24 am
That Tik Tok version worked for me. It’s so infectious when you watch someone laughing like that. I like to watch those cute videos of babies laughing when they crop up on the internet from time to time.
This is for Chicagoans: the NYT had an article about 50 exciting places to eat in the US and 2 on that list are in Chicago. We went to one last night called Daisies https://www.daisieschicago.com Lordy the food was delicious and it didn’t break the bank, it’s in Logan Square. Highly recommended.
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Deborah said on November 10, 2023 at 11:41 am
Looking at photos of Ivanka taken at the courthouse, seems she has had her face “refreshed”, not a line or wrinkle anywhere. Maybe that’s why she’s been missing in the press for a while, it takes time for the swelling and bruising to heal, I imagine. She has a good surgeon though, I’ll say that.
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Jeff Borden said on November 10, 2023 at 1:21 pm
The Daily Mail in the U.K. is a piece of shit, but they published this the other day:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12729977/Ivanka-Trump-transformation-plastic-surgeons-weigh-in.html
This is the tabloid rag Prince Harry, Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and others are suing in Great Britain. The court just ruled the lawsuits, which allege the Mail hired private investigators who placed electronic bugs in homes, offices and cars to reveal deeply private conversations, could proceed against the Mail. The Mail is controlled by the largest shareholder and chairman, who is the 4th Viscount Rothermere. . .so there!
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jcburns said on November 10, 2023 at 4:22 pm
Jeff, your first line is “The Daily Mail in the U.K. is a piece of shit,” which is also my understanding.
So…why give them a click?
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David C said on November 10, 2023 at 4:32 pm
When you have $2 billion of Saudi blood money in the checking account, you can afford to do some things.
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Jeff Borden said on November 10, 2023 at 4:49 pm
J.C.,
I went looking for Ivanka pix and they came up at the top, so I copied and pasted in response to Deborah’s comment. I regret the link to them.
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Jeff Borden said on November 10, 2023 at 5:01 pm
Looks like the Buckeye chapter of the QOP is pretty pissed off by the voters and plans are afoot. . .Sore losers doesn’t really cover it.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/2023/11/10/ohio-gop-lawmakers-float-axing-judges-from-review-of-abortion-measure/71529703007/
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Sherri said on November 10, 2023 at 6:19 pm
A young friend of mine is a grad student, and is currently the enemy on the Internet today because someone circulated an edited video of her tearing down some flyers about abducted Israelis in Gaza. There’s of course more to the story than appears in the video, but XTwitter is afire making her out to be a Nazi. Fine, whatever, but nothing stops at the Internet anymore. Her parents awoke this morning to nasty phone calls and emails, making it clear that people know where they live. There’s also been some political blowback, since her mother is mayor.
My young friend is not particularly political; she wasn’t trying to take sides or make a statement about Israel-Palestine, she just didn’t think the flyers were appropriate in a classroom. It didn’t occur to her that the situation would blow up. She’s a physics grad student.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, consider services like DeleteMe that make it harder to find your personal information on the web. The ACLU began offering this service to all affiliate board members a couple of years ago, and since I had already received a couple of anonymous letters, I took advantage of it. It’s not impossible to find my address and phone number on the web, but you have to go beyond a simple web search. You have to know a little more about me beyond just my name to find that information.
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Dexter Friend said on November 11, 2023 at 3:21 am
It’s reached my house; Netflix family sharing is ka-poot.
Several options; I chose the $16 monthly plan because I hate ads breaking up shows and movies on the $7 plan.
They cut me off right in the middle of “Ferry”, a foreign gangster series.
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basset said on November 11, 2023 at 10:29 am
Just spent half an hour live on the radio in Bloomington, being interviewed for the college radio station fund drive. I’m the oldest alum they’ve had on yet…
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Julie Robinson said on November 11, 2023 at 10:33 am
Deborah, I thought of you yesterday at the MOMA, where there’s an exhibit on architecture and environmentalism. One of the homes reminded me of how you’ve described your place in New Mexico. It was fascinating.
We saw the new musical Back to the Future last night; not exactly highbrow entertainment but lots of fun. Today we see the Sondheim masterpiece Merrily we Roll Along, and tonight a return visit to Moulin Rouge. We’re going to box offices to get seats for our next trip because there’s no add-on fees there. When you buy online you can pay as much as 25% in fees, so this way we can spend the same and get better seats.
We ran into a Palestinian protest on the way to the theater last night. They had Grand Central terminal closed down for awhile. Hope it can make a difference.
basset, what fun! At our son’s wedding we won the prize for longest married couple.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2023 at 12:39 pm
Julie, I’d love to visit that MOMA exhibit but alas a trip to NY isn’t in the cards for us between now and January when it closes. It’s sobering to know that buildings produce nearly 40% of the world’s yearly carbon emissions. I usually blame it on cars and they contribute a lot too, there are lots of problems that need to be addressed as climate change keeps getting worse.
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Sherri said on November 11, 2023 at 1:38 pm
So Manchin is running for re-election. Presumably he’s not running because he’s trailing badly in the polls, not a good sign for an incumbent. Yet all the stories I’ve seen framed this as Manchin “dealing a blow” to Dems’ chances of holding the Senate. If he wasn’t going to win, doesn’t seem like he’s dealing much of a blow, does it? Sure, maybe he had a better chance of winning than some other Dem in WV, but if he thought he had a chance, he’d would have stayed in the race.
You might think his realizing he couldn’t win his Senate seat would translate into not running for president with No Labels, but you don’t think like an ambitious politician with money people in his ear. I think the odds are at least 50-50 he runs for president, convinced that he is the answer.
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basset said on November 11, 2023 at 2:53 pm
It sure was… kid interviewing me kept saying “awesome!”
so, so different now…
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basset said on November 11, 2023 at 2:57 pm
And on another topic… anyone here been on a northern lights tour/cruise/excursion? Been looking at some, most of em seem really long though.
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Suzanne said on November 11, 2023 at 6:29 pm
This is worth reading:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/mitt-romney-retiring-senate-trump-mcconnell/675306/
His assessment of his fellow senators
“Retirement was death. The men and women of the Senate might not need their government salary to survive, but they needed the stimulation, the sense of relevance, the power. One of his new colleagues told him that the first consideration when voting on any bill should be “Will this help me win reelection?” (The second and third considerations, the colleague continued, should be what effect it would have on his constituents and on his state.)”
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brian stouder said on November 11, 2023 at 8:33 pm
Basset – no, but it sounds great! Pammy and I are going to do the cruise thing next year. The idea of traveling around, and bringing your hotel room with you, sounds pretty good to us!
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basset said on November 11, 2023 at 10:38 pm
We’re not interested in the big party ships with casinos and carnival rides and such – we’re looking at something smaller, maybe like one of the Viking river cruises, not a huge floating amusement park which drops you in a port every day or so to spend more money. We are old, need something quiet.
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Dexter Friend said on November 12, 2023 at 6:04 am
brian stouder, have fun. So many grounded ships, so much norovirus, bad navigation leading ships into horrible storms, all these have kept me off all but riverboat cruises. I do have a longtime e-friend couple from New York and Cape Coral who cruise at least 4 times a year, and have for at least the 20 years I have known them.
On the other hand…a large group of about 30 couples from work went on a Caribbean cruise. The lot got norovirus, one man was hospitalized in the Caribbean long after his vacation was over. I heard the stories firsthand how sick they all were. This finalized my stance: no ocean cruises.
But life is but a dream….
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David C said on November 12, 2023 at 6:10 am
If you’re pining for the fjords, this one looks perfect. If you don’t see the aurora, they give you another freebie.
https://global.hurtigruten.com/destinations/norway/north-cape-express-full-voyage-oslo-bergen/?_hrgb=2#key-info
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Deborah said on November 12, 2023 at 7:24 am
I’ve been wanting to go to Norway but no cruises for us. We’ve talked about driving down the western coast of the country, one of these years we’ll do it, I hope.
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Dorothy said on November 12, 2023 at 10:38 am
basset if you find one of those please let me know. We too would not want a noisy, overly pumped up experience. I am not a cruise person – the very idea just kind of skeeves me out. But we have talked about the possibility of doing one of the Viking cruises. The commercials on all the PBS shows we watch sure make them appealing.
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jcburns said on November 12, 2023 at 11:09 am
“The commercials on all the PBS shows we watch sure make them appealing.”
The first time PBS “funding credits” (as they were then called) switched from white type centered over a blue background I expressed concern, dismay, regret…ok, anger.
Dorothy, repeat to yourself your own words: “I am not a cruise person – the very idea just kind of skeeves me out”
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Deborah said on November 12, 2023 at 3:27 pm
Read David Foster Wallace’s essay about cruises in his collection “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Supposedly_Fun_Thing_I'll_Never_Do_Again
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