Man, this sketch by Ezra Klein, about the fallout of the very likely primary defeat of Richard Lugar, is depressing. If Lugar loses to the tea-partyin’ Richard Mourdock, here’s one likely scenario (assuming an Obama win in November):
Lugar loses and Mourdock wins the general election: This would be a signal that primary challenges remain a threat, and no Republican lawmaker can feel safe cutting deals or taking tough votes. This is a world where Republicans, having run and lost with a “Massachusetts moderate,” swear never to compromise on their principles again, and incumbent lawmakers realize that there will be a raft of primary challenges coming and so they had better spend the next two years shoring up their right flank. This is not a world in which you can imagine a ‘grand bargain’ getting done.
Lots of very casual observers might look at Michigan, where our attorney general and Republican-controlled legislature has recently gone crusading against two issues settled at the ballot in recent elections, and ask why. Why go after embryonic stem cell research, when it was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2008? Why go after medical marijuana, approved by a landslide the same year? Because no one is listening to the people who voted, only the ones still making noise on the right. If there’s a bumper sticker for this chapter of the GOP history, it’s this: Don’t primary me, bro.
Tea Party Nation, what have you wrought?
Ugh.
How was your weekend. I went to a battle of the bands. Last year:
This year:
They lost their singer, gained a lot of confidence and finished third, which was pretty impressive. I think those judges in the middle were checking out the guitarist’s stems. I didn’t offer any wardrobe advice, but I did tell her the black dress made her look nice, and when you’re in showbiz, even church-basement showbiz, you should do your best in that department.
It didn’t hurt that they rocked it. Beyond that, I’ll say no more. I already edge close enough to toddlers-and-tiaras territory as it is.
Beyond that, it was just a swell couple of days. Long bike ride, Eastern Market, pleasant weather, a Tigers game. And they won.
How about you?
Dexter said on May 7, 2012 at 2:15 am
This weekend I spent a lot of time cooking. I make huge breakfasts many days, bacon, sausage biscuits with gravy, eggs however anyone wants them, simply stuff. I also cooked a lot of potatoes many different ways.
I ignored the basketball playoffs and watched baseball. I am amazed that the nineteen year old from the Washington Nationals is this good…my gawd, he looks like a superstar seasoned veteran already. Runs fast, arm like a cannon, blasts pitched balls off fences…he’s worth the 18.9 million dollars he’ll get over the next seven years. Bryce Harper.
Ron Wood was really having fun at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. It was an entertaining show, and maybe you can catch a re-run if you missed it. HBO.
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Deborah said on May 7, 2012 at 4:04 am
Depressing about Lugar. Great pics of the kid.
Lousy weekend in Chicago, cold and windy Saturday and stormy all day and night Sunday. Loud crashing thunder going on right now, keeping me awake.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 7, 2012 at 7:03 am
Put on an outdoor program and activities to mark the rollout of this, http://www.ancientohiotrail.org, which has been eating my life for a year and change; it’s been great, but I’m ready to move to new challenges . . . which won’t happen until we complete staging a powwow, five guided full day hikes, and a tribal youth visit this summer. Then the grant money will run out, and I’ll wish I still had the old familiar challenges ahead of me!
Sunday morning we put our keynoter on a plane back to Rapid City SD earlier than I’d originally thought, and was feeling more alert than I’d anticipated, short nights and long days preceding not dragging me down as far as originally provided for. So since I hadn’t scheduled myself to preach anywhere Sunday morning, I decided to just drop by a little congregation I’d long wanted to visit, out of sheer ecclesial curiosity.
And had a dream, of a sort, come to life, not to say nightmare, but still: 20 people in this church, and an elderly semi-retired minister. Five or six of the congregation knew me from other community matters, but the white haired, gimlet-eyed pastor and I had never met. Halfway into the opening announcements and reminders, he swivels and looks at me, and says “Would you have a message for us this morning, Rev. Gill?” There is no good answer to that question for a preacher other than “Yes, I think I would.” And I did. Talked about what our keynoter the day before said about place, and prayer, and racism, and reconciliation – which doesn’t start with those who have the power, by the way – and community. Don’t know how good a sermon it was, but it got me lunch and some really nice pecan coffee cake for dessert, and a long conversation with a homeless woman about how she’d had her child taken from her, and she couldn’t imagine living in a place where all their children were taken. The parson and I are going to figure out how to get her into the local campus med tech program as a first step to getting her daughter back, or at least visitation, and she wants to come help at our next program out at the earthworks.
So it was a good weekend. My grass needs mowing, though, and Deborah’s comment doesn’t encourage me that it can be done here when I get home tonight, but we’ll see.
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Kim said on May 7, 2012 at 7:37 am
So, what tune did the girls play?
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Joe K said on May 7, 2012 at 7:53 am
Saturday morning callout at 5am to Dayton then down to Charlotte N.C. back home by 11:30am. Phone rings 9:30pm down to Clarksburg W.V. and back to Charlotte home at 4:30am but it was like flying in the day time what a full bright moon. Off to martinsburgh w.v. today and Cincinnati- Lunken on Tuesday. Then down to visit Mickey with the wife on Wed thru Mon
Pilot Joe
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beb said on May 7, 2012 at 8:01 am
I think Ezra Klein is having an attack of the vapors worrying about the fallout from Lugar losing the primary tomorrow. First off, he’s two years late worry about the effect of the Tea Party challenging incumbents. 2010 was when the Tea Party first started challenging far-right Republicans from the even farther-right. Going after Lugar this time only proved that their strategy worked.
Secondly, the loss of Lugar, who, apparently, was a cordial man, hardly means the different between success and failure of any “grand bargain” between R’s and D’s. The R’s will not accept any bargain that isn’t a complete and total abdication to their demands, and maybe not even then. Second of all the Grand Bargains that Obama has been offering the R’s have been so horrible, so destructive of what the Democratic party once stood for that anything that prevents a grand sell-out of the middle and lower classes is a good thing. Basically losing Lugar means the Republican party will go from 99.9% crazy to 99.99% crazy, a difference without meaning.
Asdide from a walk in that Fauxtopia of Greenfield Village, our weekend was given over to slouth.
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alex said on May 7, 2012 at 8:12 am
Deborah ain’t a-kiddin’ about Chicago’s lousy weather. We arrived without jackets and wouldn’t have had any long pants but for the fact we were working a funeral into our weekend schedule. What was I thinking? After twenty years of living on the lakefront I should have known better.
Tried out a new pub called Lady Gregory’s that occupies the former space of a Persian hookah store. Sumptuous decor with big bookcases and frippery where there used to be bare fluorescent tubes and utilitarian sterility. There’s a similarly decorated former Irish pub now in its third incarnation—as an Italian eatery—in the very next block. The Irish pub theme is getting sort of tired but this place is really more about Irish pub atmosphere than Irish pub grub. I had the lobster mac ‘n’ cheese which I understand is their signature dish. Not bad, actually.
Here’s a plug for my fave new pub in Auburn, Mimi’s Retreat. Mimi’s an old pal who just bought a bar and revamped the menu and is doing remarkably well for having just gone into business. She serves a mean seared tuna and some of the biggest pork spare ribs I’ve ever encountered. I took a full rack of them to a party in Chicago this weekend and they were quite a hit. The winos who used to inhabit the place under the previous owner aren’t too pleased with the gourmet offerings replacing their old sausage gravy out of a can, but anyone with taste buds and a desire for something new and different agrees that it’s a change for the better.
Regarding Lugar versus Mourdock, I remember an old George Carlin riff on Richard Nixon, about how he looked like he hadn’t taken a dump in weeks, but I think that description works aptly for Richard Mourdock, who seems to have sprouted a jet-black pompadour of late that upstages his most defining feature, the big dark bags under his eyes. Pictures from just a few years ago show him with much thinner hair in an unflattering unnatural brown, but otherwise pretty much the same unfriendly mien. The prospect of seeing that mug in my mailbox every day between now and November makes me want to go pull the lever for Lugar like never before.
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coozledad said on May 7, 2012 at 8:27 am
The sooner those kids start performing their own compositions, the sooner the armored trucks full of cash will start rolling up to your door. It’s like my dad used to say: “Son, I always wondered if you’d ever learn to tie your shoes. Now hand me another twenty so I can roll a bomber”.
I think the Republicans ought to go with the Alien theme for the convention- as in “The company sent us a goddamn robot”.
Shorter summer of 2012 for Mitt and Anne, in that Lolcat speak the youth of this country can’t seem to get enough of: Iz2hoominz! Iz2!Iz2!
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Joe K said on May 7, 2012 at 8:32 am
Alex,
My kids go to mimmi’s and love it. Plan on trying it myself as soon as it goes non-smoking.
Pilot Joe
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Dorothy said on May 7, 2012 at 8:57 am
I was at an Eastern Market yesterday myself, but on Capitol Hill. Spent a blissfull weekend in Maryland & D.C. with my daughter, spent around $150 on yarn, ate lots of good food & I head home to Ohio this afternoon. I wish I could afford to do this more often. This re-setting of my attitude & personality is highly desirable. I cried twice at the memorials – WWII and Vietnam. Over heard several conversations while somberly walking around, but the best one was a little girl around 7 years old, who said to her dad (at the Vietnam wall), “So everybody loves everybody, Daddy?”
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alex said on May 7, 2012 at 8:59 am
Joe, they’re making part of it into a family room in the very near future so there won’t be any smoking. Of course the ear-splitting sound of screaming babies can be as noxious as cigarettes but I think it makes good business sense. The state’s pretty much outlawing smoking anyway.
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Judybusy said on May 7, 2012 at 9:06 am
Kudos to Kate! My weekend was filled with gardening, a tequila-tasting and Mexican cooking class, and a screening of Hitchcock’s “Torn Curtain” at a micro cinema. (I am a bit craby because theweekend’s weather was rainy, cloudy and low 60s. Today: sunny, I think near 70. I am in a windowless office this week, covering our intake function. Blech!) I also made a rhubarb cake to welcome my new supervisor who begins today. My team is optimistic that he will do a good job; he’s a known quantity, and a decent guy.
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nancy said on May 7, 2012 at 9:34 am
Po plays covers of bands you never heard of — trust me on this — but there’s one tune in their set list that might ring a bell.
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Deborah said on May 7, 2012 at 9:54 am
Dorothy, you made me shed a few tears sitting here at Starbucks this morning.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 7, 2012 at 10:04 am
This Mourdock guy is basically running against Obama, as far as I can tell. If he wins the primary, the Obama forces had better give a lot of help to the Democrat in the general election.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 7, 2012 at 10:10 am
Dorothy, three cheers for your 7 year old friend. May she be proven right.
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basset said on May 7, 2012 at 10:41 am
Who the hell is Blink-182?
Our morning meeting broke up today with a discussion of what was popular when we were in college… I mentioned “Dark Side of the Moon” and everyone just looked at me.
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Scout said on May 7, 2012 at 10:44 am
Our weekend was the just the right amounts of socializing, gardening and general goofing off. Just the way I like it. We planted a large herb garden, one whole section devoted to tea. Mints, chamomile, steevia, etc. The cats have already partaken of the catnip we put in a special place just for them.
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brian stouder said on May 7, 2012 at 10:57 am
Basset, I worked with a person who loved loved loved Pink Floyd, back in the day.
Personally, I’ve always been pretty unrefined in my musical tastes. Huey Lewis and the News leaps to mind, as well as The Police (Ghost in the Machine); I owned the vinyl versions of all the Police LPs, many years ago.
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Icarus said on May 7, 2012 at 10:58 am
“How about you?” okay. Ran my first half marathon since getting the knee scoped, celebrated Polish Constitution Day and today is my birthday!
Your Tigers beat our Sox so I suppose victories for you will be defeats for me. Chicago sports teams seem to be contending but not succeeding.
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alex said on May 7, 2012 at 11:00 am
If [Mourdock] wins the primary, the Obama forces had better give a lot of help to the Democrat in the general election.
You can be sure they will. This is one senate seat that otherwise wouldn’t be in play and could mean the difference between the Dems holding onto their majority or losing it. Lugar is beloved by people of both parties in this state, which is why he always went unchallenged. Mourdock, on the other hand, has very lopsided support and might just prove to be the Christine O’Donnell of 2012.
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Joe Kobiela said on May 7, 2012 at 11:21 am
One thing about aviation is things change fast. Find myself in Macomb Ill instad of West Virginia. Alex at least screaming babys don’t cause cancer, I can put up with that, but not smoke. Icrus, nice job on the half, was it Indy? how was your time?
Sure is a lot of water laying in the fields south of Kankakee Ill.
Polska, Pilot Joe
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Scout said on May 7, 2012 at 11:35 am
Happy Birthday, Icarus!
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LAMary said on May 7, 2012 at 11:46 am
I spent Saturday making my grocery rounds. I’ve given up completely on supermarkets here, and between Costco, Trader Joe’s, the Latino market on the corner near my house, and an Armenian grocery store I recently discovered while searching for fresh tarragon. My kitchen is now stocked up on herbal teas, Starbucks French Roast, vegetables and herbs of all sorts. I made batch of tomato sauce yesterday and made enough meatballs to have them for supper and have a back up supply for a while. The eighteen year old decided to raid the meatball supply in the middle of the night, so it’s down to two more meals now, rather than three. I suspect when I get home it will be down one more. I’m cool with that. Better that than Hot Pockets.
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Connie said on May 7, 2012 at 11:56 am
Saturday I cooked morels for the second time in my life. Very tasty. Today I learned that my grad student daughter had gotten a summer job with the Grand Traverse Conservation District. Not only will she get paid she will get the experience requirement for her MSES degree. And they will pay for her herbicide application training and licensing. As for a place to live? We think there is a spare room at Uncle Fred’s in Suttons Bay. And the other good news? It means I get her dog for the summer!
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Icarus said on May 7, 2012 at 11:56 am
Thanks Joe and Scout. No it wasn’t Indy though I’ve done that one twice. It was the Kenosha HM and I ran it under someone else’s bib because the poor doctor couldn’t get the day off. My time was 1:56:47, which I’m happy with and I believe the doctor (a dozen years younger) is happy with as well.
Speaking of smoke, any suggestions for dealing with second hand smoke from neighbors who (well within their rights) smoke on the back deck?
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Dave said on May 7, 2012 at 11:57 am
LA Mary, we wish we could give up on supermarkets, hard to give them up altogether here.
Happy birthday, Icarus.
Gee, I’ve heard of Blink-182 but only because I must have read their name somewhere or another, so out-of-date when it comes to music. There was a time I couldn’t have imagined being this way but here I am.
ALex, I hope your comments about Mourdock come true because I fear he will trounce Lugar tomorrow. Badly, which will send the tea partiers higher in their beliefs that they are RIGHT and UNSTOPPABLE. Oh dear.
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coozledad said on May 7, 2012 at 11:58 am
Icarus: Fire.
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Peter said on May 7, 2012 at 11:59 am
While I appreciate Senator Lugar as well, I have to say – the guy’s 80. He’ll be 86 if he completes his term, God willing. You mean to tell me that he’s holding on to dear life because there isn’t a younger moderate who could have run instead of him?
This is a carbon copy of what happened years ago in Illinois. Chuck Percy was a liberal Republican senator, and when he was finally challenged in a primary, he kept telling people about his foreign policy experience, and how he helped out Nixon and Carter with the King of Jordan, and this wasn’t impressing the folks south of Kankakee at all.
Some of these people don’t know when to quit. So instead of exiting with grace and helping to pick a replacement, they get kicked to the curb by some true believer who fantasizes about Michelle Bachmann. Or her husband. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Oh, I forgot – to the True Believers, there’s plenty wrong with that.
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Julie Robinson said on May 7, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Happy Birthday, Icarus! Hope it’s a great day.
We got the Chicago weather overnight and as a result it’s emerald green outdoors today. I hope it will dry out enough that we can do some gardening this next weekend, with plants I bought from the Settlers and the Extension Service master gardeners.
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Jolene said on May 7, 2012 at 12:31 pm
I agree with you, Peter. Much as I hope Lugar wins, both he and the state of Indiana would have been better off if he’d retired.
In fact, I’ve been thinking for some time that some of the “old bulls” in the Senate need to give it a rest. Orrin Hatch has turned himself into a caricature trying to hang on for a seventh term. John McCain could have spared himself his current status as a cranky has-been by resigning after his 2008 loss rather than running again in 2010. And Arlen Specter bought himself an embarrassing defeat by failing to accept that the world had moved past him.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 7, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Happy b-day, Ic, and glad your knee rehab’s gone so well. Cooze already covered the suppressive fire idea, although I hope he means with Super Soakers. Apocalypticism does come into play if they’re close and upwind, but keep in mind that chemical accelerants are very easily traced.
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Judybusy said on May 7, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Have a great day, Icarus!
I feel your need to try to do something about second hand smoke. We also have a very nice neighbor who is a light smoker, and only smokes outside. As we saw some weeks back, it can be a very touchy issue. How well do you and the neighbor get along? Is s/he chain-smoking? Do you spend a lot of time outside? I weighed the potential cost of talking to my neighbor against what is truly a small annoyance and decided not to approach him. It would be different if he were outside smoking all the time, as I spend a lot of time in the garden and really loathe cigarette smoke.
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Dorothy said on May 7, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Happy Birthday Icarus!
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Dexter said on May 7, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Alex on the winos comment…Hey! I resemble that remark! Well, even during my prime I never liked The Hangar which is where Mimi’s is now it appears. I used to frequent all the bars in DeKalb County, and I mean every one of them, and The Hangar was the last one on my list. I suppose it changed names over the many years since I quit that scene.
If we ever get these adult grandsons to leave “for good”, we’ll try to get some of Mimi’s ribs. You make them sound scrump diddly-ish-uss!
Correction, that little bar on Randolph in Garrett, a little north of Martin’s Tavern, was worse than the Hangar.
The only bar I was ever thrown out of was Collins’ Tavern in Butler. The guy I was with got mad with the slow service… it wasn’t busy and my pal wanted another shot of booze with his beer, and the owner’s wife told him she’d be there , but she was too slow, and my buddy dumped half his beer glass on the bar and threw the other half towards the slow poke. I knew right then we had to leave, and he fell flat on his face after two steps. I had to drag him out of there. We learn. He now has 33 years of sobriety and he never “got into” AA. He just quit drinkin’.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 7, 2012 at 1:05 pm
@Peter – IIRC, Percy was defeated in the general election, not the primary, by the late Paul Simon, a liberal Democrat. Doesn’t seem very analogous to Indiana.
Kate and her band look adorable. If they do covers, be careful, because ASCAP might be on their butts.
(I’m exaggerating, but only slightly. I’m doing an article about coffeehouses that offer live entertainment, and they regularly get shaken down by ASCAP. Have somebody who plays “Margaritaville” for a dozen people sipping espressos? That’ll be $1,000, please.)
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Sue said on May 7, 2012 at 1:10 pm
This is for anyone watching Sherlock. Make sure you click home to see the most recent silliness:
http://redscharlach.tumblr.com/post/19565284869/otters-who-look-like-benedict-cumberbatch-a
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Icarus said on May 7, 2012 at 1:14 pm
we enjoy our deck whenever the weather permits. We are on the second floor, and there
are actually two neighbors who chain smoke on the first foor. It’s the wind or lack thereof that causes the smoke to whiff our way. There’s the happy teacher couple that everyone likes who just happen to chain smoke on their back deck (it saddens me that they have two small children who indirectly inhale these fumes) and then there is grumpy neighbor who manages to take everyone you say as a personal attack. [It’s gonna rain today — oh i suppose you think that’s my fault].
I really cannot ask them not to smoke and our condo assoc rules don’t define the back area as common (our condo declarations are generic and outdated) I’m thinking maybe a small fan to blow it back under the guise of breaking up the mosquito flight paths?
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Joe Kobiela said on May 7, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Dexter,
That little bar north of martins is now Shorty’s steak house. Very good and non-smoking. During the buzzard of 78 I walked with my dad and brother Dave pulling a sled to get a case of beer up there. Sat down and drank a cold one with the old man. I was just 20. Police chief walked in took one look smiled and walked out.
Pilot Joe
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MaryRC said on May 7, 2012 at 1:48 pm
For me the problem with Benedict Cumberbatch is not that he looks like an otter, but that he looks like a Don Martin cartoon. The little eyes, the long face, the tufts of hair sticking out — all he needs is the articulated feet and he could be stepping out of Mad Magazine in the 70s or 80s. And now that I’ve seen that, I can’t un-see it.
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coozledad said on May 7, 2012 at 2:49 pm
From the department of “Do you know who I am?!!!”
Fuck tha police comin’straight from the lakeside
Young Mormon got it bad, can’t get on the waterslide
lake cop ain’t let me put my ski-doo on the slip
callin me disorderly
cuz I’m a minority
Fuck that shit
puttin’ me in cuffs
I ain’t been to Wal-Mart
ain’t dipped snuff
You’re fuckin’ with my sense of entitlement
phone my daddy, niggas
he’s your fuckin’ government!
According to what Romney told the Boston Globe in 1994, he had taken his family off to Wayland, Mass.’s Lake Cochituate, about an hour outside Boston, for a summer excursion. As Romney prepared to put his family boat into the water, a park officer told Romney not to launch because his license appeared to have been painted over. The officer told Romney if he put his boat into the water he would face a $50 fine.
Romney felt that his license was still visible and decided to ignore the order from the officer and pay the fine.
“I figured I was at the state park with my kids. My five kids were in the car wondering why we weren’t going out in the boat, so I said I’d launch and pay the fine,” Romney said in 1994.
Romney said the officer didn’t tell him not to launch his boat, just that he would face a fine for doing so.
“I was willing to pay the fine. But if he had said don’t launch the boat and not mentioned the fine, I would not have done it,” Romney said.
After Romney put the family boat into the water, the officer reappeared visibly angry and arrested Romney for disorderly conduct. Romney was handcuffed on the scene, taken to the local police station, and booked.
“There I was, dripping wet in a bathing suit,” Romney told the Globe. A magistrate let him go without bail.
Several days later, Romney appeared in Natick District Court and threatened to sue the arresting office for a false arrest. The charges were dropped and sealed at Romney’s request.
“He did not have the right to arrest me because I was not a disorderly person. This was an obvious case of false arrest,” Romney said. “The officer obviously agreed because he agreed to dropping the case.”
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Don’t fly to close to the sun, and happy b’day Icarus. My only problem with Cumberbatch, aside from his obviously fabricated surname, is that I have to remind myself repeatedly that I’m watching Sherlock Holmes and not Dr. Who. I’m a huge fan of the original, read ’em all by the time I was eight. The Speckled Band is my favorite. I liked the Robert Downey version pretty well, and Basil Rathbone rules. The current Watson is far more interesting than the Nigel Bruce version. I just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, which is connected in its DNA to Conan Doyle. Wonderful book I recommend highly. I love books with mentally challenged first person narrators, like Set This House in Order. I’m listening to Spotify at the moment, a new album by Jack White called Blunderbuss. Outstanding.
And, a good one on the recycling line.
Good story Joe. I thought ’78 was mostly a NE thing. I had to go out in it and stopped at the super liquor store Martignettis (big as a WalMart) in Brighton MA and loaded up several cases of Molson’s Golden and a few fifths of DeKuyper cherry brandy. Our place was party central for the duration.
Scribe, I’d bet a bundle Jimmy Buffett would find that offensive, and I’m sure he never sees a dime of that money.
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Connie said on May 7, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Prospero, I have always thought the great blizzard of 78 was a midwestern thing. At least for Chicago, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Connie:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/7/796/GCJI000Z/art-print/minots-ledge-lighthouse-during-the-blizzard-of-1978.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.art.com/products/p10080093-sa-i796778/-minots-ledge-lighthouse-during-the-blizzard-of-1978.htm?rfid%3D765667&h=450&w=337&sz=35&tbnid=CK6g9H645NczNM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=75&zoom=1&docid=a1DHlX0x94gnfM&sa=X&ei=8x-oT4aoEYrs8wS41bnDAw&ved=0CGYQ9QEwAw&dur=784
We had drifts on the roof than our 3-story apartment building.
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MichaelG said on May 7, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Happy birthday, Ic. Prospero beat me to the warning.
I know what you mean, Mary. I find myself in Safeway mostly to by wine since they are so cheap and have such a great selection. For the rest, there’s Taylor’s Market, Morantz for prepared meats (bacon, sausage, etc.), Freeport bakery, the farmer’s market, TJ’s and others. It’s fun to shop those places and the prices are competitive with the supermarkets.
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Charlotte said on May 7, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Yowza — have any of you all seen this? UC Davis is suing it’s own prof, Joshua Clover and 11 other people for the protest that resulted in closing a US Bank branch on campus. I did my MA in that department. Between this and the pepper spraying — I mean, it’s Davis not Berkeley — the nice quiet AG school. There’s a petition in case anyone is so inclined: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/05/poet-joshua-clover-and-11-students-may-face-prison-time-and-1-million-in-damages-for-shutdown-of-us-bank/
And I remember both the blizzards of ’78 and the one in ’67 (although the first one I was just a tot — we have a good family photo of my younger brother and I, in snowsuits, perched on an enormous drift). Jane Byrne’s downfall …
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Kim said on May 7, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Aw, come on, Nance. I have three teenagers, including a daughter who plays in a band. I think I have heard three tunes short of all but would be happy to be turned on to another band. Many happy returns, Icarus – it’s my day of birth as well and a fine one at that.
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Jolene said on May 7, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Jane Byrne was elected in 1979, defeating Michael Bilandic after that year’s huge blizzard. There were a couple of “worst ever” winters in a row back then.
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Dorothy said on May 7, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Happy birthday to Kim….and ditto to any others who pop up before midnight. I hope there are no blizzards happening wherever you & Icarus are celebrating today.
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 4:41 pm
George Lidsay photos. Remember the Mayberry episode where Opie used walkie-talkies to convince Goober a dog could talk?
Happy Birthday Kim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noXYiNo5TOo&feature=related
Two distinct sets of people in the world. Those that rip and tear and those that open carefully. Those that like Bjork, those that don’t get it. One way of another, the video is cool.
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 4:50 pm
What cooze’s parody is supposed to sound like. The strength of street knowledge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51t1OsPSdBc&feature=related
Mittens is a badass. Not.
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brian stouder said on May 7, 2012 at 5:10 pm
And, I don’t know what the fuck Cooz is talkin’ about – ’cause I went lookin’ for the story Cooz references, and Romney wouldn’t say “fuck” if he had a mouth full (apparently).
The worstest thing he’d say is “H-E-double hockey sticks”…!
…at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney found himself stuck in a huge traffic backup on the road to the men’s downhill ski area, because some buses had not received the proper security-clearance placards and were being prevented from proceeding. Romney, who had organized the Salt Lake Olympics, jumped out to take charge. He started directing traffic, over the objections of a sheriff’s deputy, Kodi Taggart; she later filed a report on Romney’s interference. And he lit into an 18-year-old volunteering as a security officer, Shaun Knopp. Knopp told reporters that Romney had asked “who the fuck” he was and “what the fuck” he was doing and had then told him, “We got the Olympics going on, and we don’t need this shit going on.” Romney denied this at the time, saying he had not used such language since high school. “I would not, have not, and never would use the f-word,” he said. The worst word he used with Knopp, he said, was “H-E double hockey sticks.”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/buzzfeed-dredges-up-mitt-romneys-1981-disorderly-persons-arrest/
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LAMary said on May 7, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Having a 21 year old and an 18 year old, I am well acquainted with Blink 182 and the song the band played. I think I like that song more than the boys do. They’re more Wilco than Blink 182, and I’m with them on that as well.
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Source of that Harry Truman description of GOPers I quoted earlier. Truman had a bunch of good ones, like:
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a Republican. But I repeat myself.
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Bob (not Greene) said on May 7, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Kim,
Happy birthday! What were you doing on your birthday back on this day 20 years ago, in 1992? You were reporting on a story about a grade school student who set fire to the lost and found box, that’s what. It can’t be that long ago can it?
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Bitter Scribe said on May 7, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Prospero: That line is actually a ripoff of a Mark Twain quote, only he said “member of Congress.”
One original Truman line that my father, rest his soul, used to repeat often: Truman was speaking before the UAW or some other union:
“Every vote for a Republican is a body blow for labor. And if you vote Republican, you’ll deserve every body blow you get.”
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Teabanger paragon.
Another reason why GOPers fracking up USPS is a terrible idea.
OK Kim. Why’d the kid burn the lost and found?
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MichaelG said on May 7, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Whoops. Went to Safeway to BUY wine.
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Well that one is a paraphrase of Mencken, Scribe.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
Which is a great description of GOP politics, come to think of it. All those cracker Teabangers that think their place is being saved in the big tent.
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Minnie said on May 7, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Concerning the name Cumberbatch, I found this site: http://www.one-name.org/profiles/cumberbatch.html
The family name Cumberbatch is the most popular variant spelling of a place called Comberbach; which is a village in Cheshire, England. A Co(o)mbe is old English for a valley, so a Comber is a dweller in a valley; bach(e) is Old English for a stream. So Comberbach means dweller in a valley with a stream and this is an accurate description of the place. Comberbach was not mentioned in the Doomsday Book but is mentioned in early Cheshire Charters dating from the late 12th century.
. . .
Benedict says about his Cumberbatch surname: ”When I started, I just assumed I couldn’t be called Benedict Cumberbatch,’ says the 30-year-old actor in a pub near the play’s rehearsal rooms. His father, an actor, had been persuaded by an agent to become Timothy Carlton, and so the son initially carried on the family stage name. ‘But then, one day, I told someone in the business what I was really called and they said, ‘That’s great, that’s something you can use to stand out.’ ‘
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Deborah said on May 7, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Did somone mention Bloomsbury? I’m completely obsessed with the Bloomsbury group. Virginia, her sister Vanessa and all the rest. One visit to the UK we went to Charleston to see where they all hung out during the war. Roger Frye and the Omega Workshop are facsinating to me. But as I’ve said here before, I’m a nerd.
Edit: Or was it “doomsbury” (?) in which case, I have no idea what that means. I’d much rather talk about Bloomsbury.
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JWfromNJ said on May 7, 2012 at 10:34 pm
There were two blizzards of 1978. Too lazy to rewrite this or source it better but Wikipedia (yeah, I know) says:
Two major blizzards occurred in the United States in the year 1978:
The Great Blizzard of 1978 which struck parts of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes on January 25-27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1978
The Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978 which affected the northeastern United States from February 5 to February 8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978
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Prospero said on May 7, 2012 at 11:31 pm
We had a 27 in. storm in Boston Easter week in ’78. There was nowhere to put the snow and flooding was horrendous.
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MarkH said on May 7, 2012 at 11:45 pm
The Great Blizzard of ’78 (Ohio) is indelible in my memory. I was living in a flimsy little house on Hill Road in Pickerington. That first night, my then girlfriend and I watched Jerry Rasor’s dire warnings on the DeMoss Report wondering if he was off his rocker. We found out soon enough. By 3:00 AM we were wide awake, no power, no heat and a deafening wind we thought was going to take the creaking flimsy house right off the foundation. Truly scary. Had not seen that much snow in all my time in Central Ohio. But it was a nice 4-day weekend.
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baldheadeddork said on May 7, 2012 at 11:47 pm
Wanted to write earlier on Lugar, but there is a good reason we don’t have scheduled appointments on Mondays. Today started with one dead system at a law office, then a three-hour power outage with another client, a corrupted database at another, a couple of smaller quick jobs, with a few phone support calls while driving between them all.
Back in my yoot I attended Lugar’s future leadership conference. For at least thirty years he’s held an annual day-long conference for one or two kids from any high school in Indiana that wanted to participate. Lugar welcomed us, then we broke up into small groups for short seminars with professors, local pols, staff members, and I forget who else. At the end of the day Lugar took questions in a lecture hall until there were no questions left. Then he posed for pictures with all of us, thanked us for coming, and asked us to stay involved.
I’m trying to avoid what Doghouse Riley calls the pre-postmortemizing of Lugar’s career, but it’s not easy. I can’t remember a damn thing I heard that day but three decades of political addiction since have shown me what an extraordinary event it was. I went in 1982. That would have put Lugar in his first term and my group wasn’t the first. Here was a freshman senator investing a lot of staff time and personal work with no clear political benefit, in an election year.
The clearest memories I have is that I was a punk who kept trying to pin down Lugar on the David Stockman budget scandal which had broken open a few weeks earlier, and that despite my poor manners the Senator was having a ball spending the day with us. If he had an ounce of the arrogance or elitism he’s being painted with now, it was undetectable to that room of high school students. I know I’m not the only one who wished our history and civics teachers could be like him, instead of the coaches that always seemed to end up teaching social studies.
I’ve voted for Lugar every time he’s been up for re-election since, except for 1994 when I lived in Arizona. High school brush with fame aside, his work in the Senate has made the world a better and safer place. If Indiana cared about such things his work on nuclear disarmament and security would cause at least one district to rename a school after him. But if that was the case Lugar probably would have never beaten Vance Hartke in 1976. Anyone who believes Indiana voters value taking the lead on statesmanship and the national good isn’t paying attention. If Lugar loses because he was insufficiently neanderthal he’ll be in good company.
So am I going to ask for a Republican primary ballot and vote for him again tomorrow? I don’t think so.
Part of the reason is practical. I live in the 9th CD and there is a competitive Democratic primary for the House seat. But it’s also because that, despite tying Orrin Hatch for most seniority in the Senate Republican caucus, Lugar has either no power to influence his leadership or he has no spine to use the power he does have. He’ll fight his party when a bill he cares personally about, like he did two years ago on the new START treaty. But otherwise he’s been a rubber stamp for every bad idea that has come out of the Republican party in the last three decades. Maybe it was one thing for Lugar to not take a stand when he was a freshman and David Stockman was committing the truth with a reporter from The Atlantic. But where was he 25 years later when his party was rushing us into an Iraq war that he had to know would have massive negative effects on our position across the Middle East? Where has he been while Mitch McConnell is destroying anything that was good about the Senate and its reputation among the people it is supposed to serve?
I look at how far its gone in the last decade and ask myself, how far would it have to go before Lugar would put the country or even the institution of the Senate ahead of his party’s leadership? I’m not naive. I know that if Lugar loses there is a better than even chance Mourdock will win in November and he’ll be like Dan Burton on crack. But if Lugar somehow pulls it out tomorrow, he will win easily in November and let the McConnell’s and DeMint’s run wild.
It’s not a great choice to make, but if my vote decided it I’ll take a chance of beating Mourdock over another sure six years of Lugar doing nothing to make his fellow Republicans behave like grownups.
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Scout said on May 8, 2012 at 12:18 am
Great post, baldheadeddork, and I agree with your reasoning.
Kim, I hope your birthday was splendid.
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