A long, long time ago…

One of those evenings when you curse your life — a long day, the Lansing to/fro drive, capped by a school-board meeting in which they immediately went into closed session and stayed there for TWO HOURS.

I passed the time with no wi-fi connection, no iPad…why, my God, it was like some primitive hellhole where all I had to read were a bunch of old crap in a file marked “writing” in my Documents folder.

Evidently I had a guest-blogging stint at the Detroit News during Hurricane Katrina:

Apres le deluge, the backlash.

This past week has been emotionally exhausting. Anyone with a heart bigger and softer than a pebble has had it wrenched by the images beaming out of New Orleans — the frightening chaos, the infuriating bumbling, the misery of the afflicted.

And then there are…the rest of us.

A friend of mine was in her office Friday, and overheard two cube-mates discussing an incident from the ruined city, in which a brother shot a sister in a dispute over a bag of ice.

“What do they need ice for?” one wondered.

“Mixed drinks,” the other cracked.

It’s natural, when bad things happen to other people, to search for a reason. Everyone does it; it makes us feel safer. Of course it’s terrible that woman was raped, but she shouldn’t have been walking home after dark, especially not in that neighborhood. No wonder the Turners’ son is on drugs — his mother stuck him in daycare when he was six weeks old. Joe’s heart attack shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who’s seen him put away a pepperoni pizza.

Needless to say, we would never walk home after dark through that neighborhood, put a newborn in daycare or eat pork sausage so heedlessly. So of course these things will not happen to us.

I’ve always thought of this phenomenon as “distancing,” the way a herd skitters away when the lions take a straggler. I’m waiting for the distancing from the events in New Orleans to assert itself.

It’s already starting. Officials lamely protest that those who suffer in the city were told to leave ahead of time, for cryin’ out loud. Callers to talk radio wonder who told those morons to live below sea level, and in a hurricane zone no less. The obsession with looting — in a city where old people are dying in wheelchairs for lack of help — will only grow, until the plundering of an abandoned Wal-Mart will take on the gravity of an al-Qaeda-led sacking of the Smithsonian.

Finally, on Friday, came the ultimate: It is reported, intoned Randall Robinson on The Huffington Post, that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. That this came from a so-called “internationally respected foreign policy advocate and author” and an African American makes me fear for whatever foreign policy he’s advocating for.

Get a grip, Mr. Robinson. Other than your passive-voice “reporting,” there’s not a shred of evidence anyone is eating dead bodies. I’m sure there are still some ramen noodles left down at the Wal-Mart.

I’m sure someone out there believes him, though, and it only puts more distance between us and the unfortunates there. They loot, they chose a foolish place to live and now they’re field-dressing drowning victims. It’s all the justification many people need to change the channel, turn the page and otherwise move on to a more comfortable place, ignoring the truth: Like it or not, we’re all in this together.

What tripe! (Although I like that line about sacking the Smithsonian. I am capable of vanity.) Who was this woman? So strange to come across one’s earlier writing-self; I’m reminded of a quote attributed to the author of “Mandingo,” who refused to rewrite anything. “Do you expect me to return to my vomit?” However, sitting there waiting for the goddamn closed session to be over, it reminded me of the Colorado wildfires, and the thing you’re not hearing today, from the rest of the country: Gee, why’d you choose to live in such a tinderbox-y place, eh? The people of New Orleans had to put up with that over and over and over, up to and probably including today.

I think I might have brought it up myself. A useful reminder that one can be a douchebag oneself, every day.

Coasting into the holiday, I am. I hope your flag cake is moist and delicious, and if you live in a city affected by power outages, that you have some. Here’s a column by my Harrisburg buddy on the final lesson of Penn State (for some). I liked it; maybe you will, too.

Posted at 12:25 am in Ancient archives, Current events |
 

53 responses to “A long, long time ago…”

  1. Dexter said on July 3, 2012 at 3:20 am

    My neighbor’s family lives in Paulding and Continental, Ohio, not far from me at all, and they are suffering in this heat with no power. They are afraid to leave their house and head to a shelter somewhere because of fear of robbery…I never have heard the word “looting” pertaining to these small towns, but maybe now is the time for it to happen. This is a major event.
    All I have to complain about is this replacement A/C gets the room a little cool, but not cold like the other one did, and also I bought a lotto ticket for the five digit game for tonight. I was on a bike ride, I stuck the ticket in my pocket and somehow lost it. Finally I can breathe easy, I only would have won two dollars, so I can live with that mistake.
    Kirk, did you see Homer Bailey Monday night in LA? He set those Dodgers down with ease. Great job…two in a row! World Series bound!

    Creepy feeling, but why?—Watching the NBC News with Natalie Morales sitting in for Brian Williams, a segment featured the horrible destruction in Colorado. After seeing nothing but ashes in a major part of a housing area, the camera cuts to a middle aged man who yells at a passing firefighter and shakes his hand, just beaming and saying “You guys did a great job, I never thought I would see it standing!” Amongst total burn-out, and the housing area mostly looking like post-firebombing Dresden, this man’s house was untouched, and he was giddy. But what was he supposed to do, cry? Say “Why me? Why didn’t MY house burn too?” Some primal feeling compelled me to hate this lucky man.

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  2. MarkH said on July 3, 2012 at 5:05 am

    Well, Dexter, there is a flip side. One of my good friends of over 50 years, going back to grade school in Cincinnati, lost her home of 22 years in the Waldo Canyon fire. You may have seen her on CBS news over the weekend. The family saw the danger, heeded the warnings, and started moving personal valuables out two days before. But still, they didn’t get everything. In the end, while they thought it probably wouldn’t happen to them, they understood the risks. Don’t hate that guy just because he got extremely lucky. The number of fires throughhout the west is increasing daily. July 4th fireworks displays being cancelled all over the place, including here.

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  3. coozledad said on July 3, 2012 at 6:51 am

    I liked that piece. Enormity is going to write itself anyway. I’d like to write something as coherent about the KKK assclowns who rode a pickup with a six foot confederate flag waving from a flagpole bolted to the bed, in a circle around our OFA/Person County Dems cookout Saturday evening.
    We had to advertise in the shitty Courier Times, because it’s the only way to reach many of the elderly members of the group-the church ladies who showed up in their fantastic hats to share their scrapbooks of pictures they took during the last campaign. In 103 degree heat.
    That’s who I was sitting with when the cunts in the truck rolled by. It must have taken them a trip to Lowe’s to get the mount for the flagpole and an hour or two to set it up with bracing wire, unless they already had it ready for one of their periodic hooded semen exchange parties.

    “And here they are” Is what one of the ladies said. And we watched the truck circle the parking lot of the picnic shelter once and gun its engine on the way out.

    Fuck that white dogmeat. Toothless sisterfucking bastards.

    See? There’s not much you can do with watching people be routinely aggrieved.

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  4. beb said on July 3, 2012 at 8:09 am

    Gee, Coolze, your assclowns acted just like Romney’s preppy Mormons. It’s going to be a long hot summer…

    Nancy’s friend, David Jones says pretty much what I’d een thinking about the scandal at Penn State while adding the details about the unconfirmable rumors preceding all this.

    No one is ever going to criticize the good people of Colorado for moving into forests and wondering why their houses were burned a few years later. Those Coloradians were “free, white and Christian*” as opposed to those other people that lived in New Orleans. (* I came across this phrase while reading pulp fiction from the teens and twenties. That and the use of “white” as in ‘good, loyal man.’ As in “that was real white of you.”)

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  5. alex said on July 3, 2012 at 8:25 am

    Funny, we don’t hear the right-wingers chastising anyone for wanting to live in a tinderbox or whining about all the federal aid that’s going to be wasted on helping to rebuild.

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  6. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 9:37 am

    How bout them ranchers taking to the sky with Mossbergs in helicopters when an eagle takes a lamb and publishing bounties on wolves when they lose a few head of cattle while blaming the gubmint for their losses, fomenting armed insurrection, and grazing their stock for pittances that don’t cover the cost of collection on public land that used to belong to American aborigines, eagles and wolves. Oh, and then they poison the animals with antibiotics and growth hormones in feedlots before selling them for human consumption.

    We live in a hurricane zone, but we’re protected by white trash hurricane magnets to the south in FLA and north at Myrtle Beach. But we’re on a bluff and the Army Corps hasn’t built us any porous levees. It would take a storm surge of historic enormity to reach the first floor of our building. Still, the first sign of salt water on the property, I’m sure we’ll be condemned so some rich RMoney backer can build a McMansion with an automated garage. I mean, who will be displaced but our black and hispanic neighbors? Check out Newport RI, where the hoity toity showed the hoi polloi how it’s done. Build on the cliffs, with a view. You just get sand in your wingtips on the beach anyway:

    http://zero-drop.com/?p=1149

    http://www.trivia-library.com/a/president-richard-m-nixon-physical-description-behavior-and-personality.htm

    Cooze @3 and Beb @4: Those morons needed a bogus state trooper escort. Guess Willard’s uniform was at the cleaners. Is that fatuous ass relying on the statute of limitations on false imprisonment, impersonating a law officer and kidnapping to skate on that outrageous shit? Oh wait, there is no statute of limitations on kidnapping. Arrest that mofo and put him in a cell with AquaBuddha.

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  7. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 10:04 am

    Oh, and the vas deferens between the reaction to burning McMansions in the heart of Christian American bigotry as opposed to Katrina ‘fugees put me in mind immediately of Bar “Quaker Oats” Bush on Katrina’s aftermath:

    http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2005/09/08/barbara-bush-on-hurricane-katrina-refugees.htm

    Give them blappeople an inch, they’ll take Judge Hoffheinz’s Seventh Wonder.

    Dexter: Wouldn’t crow about beating Dodgers. They survived for weeks without the best player in the majors, but when Ethier went down, the offense disappeared. No team in MLB could survive losing two players that good at the same time. Most teams aren’t close to having two hitters that good. Hell, the Mets beat them 3 of 4.

    Newport Cliff Walk:

    http://www.cliffwalk.com/

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  8. Dorothy said on July 3, 2012 at 10:11 am

    Ninety minutes ago a neighbor called to tell me the power returned to our street. I was happy to run home quickly (living close to the office has its dividends) and shut the windows, and the refrigerator/freezer doors, ran the disposal and emptied the washing machine of the standing water. Thank heavens – here’s hoping we don’t get anymore power outages like that again for a long time.

    Connie – you are a librarian, aren’t you? Did you attend this convention? I would have loved to have been there! http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/books/childrens-corner-little-shushing-at-rollicking-librarians-convention-643034/

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  9. Sue said on July 3, 2012 at 10:34 am

    ‘the thing you’re not hearing today, from the rest of the country’
    Not exactly. Charles Pierce has been going after Michelle Malkin and her kind with his usual energy, bless his heart. It’s revolting to see Michelle ‘Marble Countertops’ Malkin screaming that Obama isn’t doing enough to save her little corner of the world now that she’s in trouble.
    No flag cake for me this year. I need to devise a low salt, low fat, low everything lunch for my FIL who is doing poorly. So far, white bean dip with bagel chips, chicken breasts marinated in balsamic vinegar, broccoli pasta salad with a teeny bit of parmesan and I haven’t figured out a dessert yet, he’s already sick of angel food cake. The Mayo Clinic recipe website is very good for this kind of thing, by the way.

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  10. Bitter Scribe said on July 3, 2012 at 10:51 am

    Nancy, FWIW, I think you’re being way hard on yourself, calling that old column “tripe.” I liked it.

    Aren’t those closed school board sessions infuriating?

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  11. Connie said on July 3, 2012 at 10:51 am

    Nope Dorothy, I used my travel money to go to the big PLA conference in Philadelphia in March. I would have liked to attend the one you mention if only to see the final performance of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band that features Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, and unfortunately Mitch Albom. Next year in Chicago! Let me know if you want a free exhibit pass.

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  12. Dorothy said on July 3, 2012 at 11:00 am

    Oh dear that’s mighty tempting. I have a brother in the Chicago area and I haven’t seen his new house yet. Remind me when it gets closer – that could be a fun excursion.

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  13. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 11:03 am

    On that Katrina comment: Heckuva job, Nancy. I would have said “Anyone who had a heart…”.

    Happy birthday Fontella Bass.

    and Paul Barrere, Lowell George’s right-hand man. One of the greatest lines ever:

    He’s got two degrees in bebop, a PhD in swing, he’s a master of rhythm, he’s a rock ‘n’ roll king, and he’s a man to me.

    I love Little Feat music, and it’s nearly tragic that most people never heard anything but Dixie Chicken. And calling an album “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now”? Brilliant.

    Sue, for me low sodium means much roasted garlic, particularly in things like hummus and bean dip. Vinegar is also a great savior from lack of piquance.

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  14. Judybusy said on July 3, 2012 at 11:36 am

    I’ve been following this blog for about 18 months. It’s beautiful, eloquent writing on what it’s like to lose a home–and everything you own–to fire. Andi, the author, lost her home abut two years ago. On June 29th, she found out her newly-built home has passed inspection and she can move in.

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  15. Julie Robinson said on July 3, 2012 at 11:44 am

    So glad for Dorothy and everyone else who got their power back. It’s looking like Saturday now here, but the basement is at 70, so I slept there last night. It’s been a blessing to have water and gas, so we can still make our tea too.

    Just saw that Andy Griffith died. RIP, Sheriff Taylor.

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  16. JWfromNJ said on July 3, 2012 at 12:06 pm

    The only thing worse than covering a school board meeting is sitting through the executive session.

    They televise our school board meetings here which gives credibility to my long standing theory that if you want long ass meetings with horrific bad goverment and a full house of the local gadflies – televise your meetings. Every single mouth breather that THINKS they have something to say flocks to the meeting to enjoy their semi-regular (in this case) three minutes of fame. 30 gadflies @ 3 min each is an hour and a half of my life I’m never getting back. I’d like to inform them of my other adage as a reporter: if I’m not writing anything you’re not saying anything.

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  17. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    Andy Griffith:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNxLxTZHKM8

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBoreT93BbA&feature=related

    And Andy Griffith and Elia Kazan nailed the Fox News superpatriots in advance in A Face in the Crowd. And, No Time for Sergeants is a great movie, I think. Funny as hell.

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  18. coozledad said on July 3, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    Tammie Duckworth lost both legs to a rocket propelled grenade, fighting a war that John McCain pimped.
    There isn’t a single person in the crowd on this video that had the common decency to kick Joe Walsh in the balls?
    Trash. Just white trash.
    http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/walsh-slams-duckworth-true-heroes-dont-talk-about-their-military-service.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

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  19. beb said on July 3, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    Once again the Republicans bad mouth the people they once touted as heroes. They’re not just shameless, they are incurably dishonest.

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  20. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    I’m hoping the real Joe Walsh falls off the wagon long enough to beat the shit out of Rep. Deadbeat Dad.

    A fuunctional definiton of cretinism could be: Idiocy so profound one denies that McCain’s entire political career is based on crashing $multi-million jet aircraft and being captured by the NVA, and, of course heiress trophy-wives.

    beb@19. Meantime, the Ryan Budget they all tout calls for cutting the VA budget by $11billion. Chickenhawk assholes.

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  21. paddyo' said on July 3, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    Prospero @13 — Anyone who had a heart? Why, I think I hear Dusty . . .
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HObJypnu3-4

    Nance, the masses across the land may not be tsk-tsk’ing at those who lost their homes in the Colorado wildfires for making homes where people have no business dwelling. But more and more of us in the West do criticize lax planning/ zoning/ building authorities for allowing it on this scale. Unfortunately, people go right on building (and RE-building) in wildfire zones because they CAN. Somehow they find the money for higher insurance rates, too, or else go without, cross their fingers and buy extra garden hose.

    I mentioned a few days back the exploding population in the “red zone” where exurbs meet wildlands in Colorado; it’s epidemic throughout the region, really, and it’s getting lots more news media attention in the wake of all these fires. One of the biggest concerns is how much more of the U.S. Forest Service’s budget now goes to fighting those wildfires. It’s something like half the budget now. Talk about welfare!

    But it will take time — and many more destroyed homes — to sink in, if ever. I wrote newspaper stories a decade ago about this “urban-wildland interface” problem after the Cerro Grande wildfire that ravaged Los Alamos, NM, talking about “defensible space” around homes and/or lack thereof. They lost 400-plus homes in that one, but those dwellings weren’t in the center of that longtime mesa-top city in the desert — they were on the forested fringes of town (again).

    Unfortunately, on this topic here in the West, there remains (and might always remain) a certain forget-history’s-lessons-and-repeat-to-one’s-own-doom quality to the wildfire scenario. Not everyone living out there in the tinderbox is hard-headed, but a lot of them are.

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  22. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    Whitey Bulger was living with Michael Westen’s mom.

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  23. Bitter Scribe said on July 3, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    Once, many years ago, I was at a school board meeting, sitting next to a reporter from a rival newspaper. The board proceeded to take a vote on something or other–by secret ballot.

    I fished out my pocket guide to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (the suckiest, most loophole-riddled FOI statute in the 50 states, but that’s another story). It was right there in black and white: “Secret ballots are not permitted at open public meetings.”

    The other reporter was looking over my shoulder, so I showed her the passage.

    “Are you going to write about it?” she asked.

    “Nah,” I said, flipping the booklet back into my briefcase. “It’s chickenshit.”

    A few days later, there was her paper, with a big headline:

    BOARD TAKES ILLEGAL VOTE

    and an angry note from my boss: “Why didn’t we have this story??”

    Aaargh! Talk about feeling like a schmuck!

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  24. Kirk said on July 3, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    Dexter @1: Games like the one Homer pitched last night make his inconsistency all the more maddening. Sure would like to see him do it three or four times in a row.

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  25. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    An excellent critical piece on Andy Griffith’s tour de force, A Face in the Crowd:

    http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/03/wolcott200703

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  26. Jakash said on July 3, 2012 at 2:39 pm

    Prospero,
    Thought you’d enjoy this, from Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Particularly the typo and the response it drew from a reader:

    “Excellent typo – I’m reasonably sure you meant to type ‘Romney’ and not ‘Rmoney’. With that said, I think ‘R-money’ is an excellent nickname for the Republicans’ main man. Run with it!”

    http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/the-gops-romney-jitters.html

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  27. Sherri said on July 3, 2012 at 2:49 pm

    Moral hazard is only for those people, not the Rugged Individualists of the Great American West.

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  28. Sue said on July 3, 2012 at 3:04 pm

    Cooz, the Northwest and far north suburbs are solidly Republican but as far as I know not freakishly tea-party. I kind of thought Walsh might be done before this but after today I can’t believe the people who live in the district will retain him. It’s not that a bunch of people will suddenly decide to vote for Duckworth because, like I said, solidly Republican; more likely they just won’t cast a vote in that race and she’ll win with the Dems she has and a some very angry Republican veterans.
    I see that VoteVets is calling on Walsh to resign.

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  29. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    I’ve always thought The Trouble With Harry is spectacularly funny. Never knew it was a uniquely unsuccessful Hitchcock movie.

    Recent SRC reunion show in Detroit. This was the best Detroit band of the ’60s, Yeah, better than MC5. Psychedelia at its most imaginative and virtuosic. The sustain heavy lead guitar is better than anybody except perhaps John Cippolina of Quicksilver. Better classical cover than ELP 10 years in advance. Amazing B3.

    That Andrew Sullivan bit is illuminating. Fact is the GOPer base likes RMoney only a tad more than they like Obama, i.e. not hardly. The fundagelicals think he’s a cult member and the Teabangers think he’s a filthy rich asshole and not a Rull Murrican. Fast and Furious is whistling past a yard of empty graves (no there there, Issa’s whistleblower is the guy that did the gunwalking), and hanging their electoral hat on the ACA polling unpopularity is mistifying. If the dumbasses think the Deanie Baby, progressiver-than-thou left that criticizes Obama for not going bigger on health care and whines about the public option is ever going to put Willard Windsock and his buddy butt-boy Bork in charge of Supreme Court nominees, they are stupider than anyone could have thought. Jackash: Far as I know, I called W the Pretzeldent before anybody else. I did see RMoney somewhere else.

    Sue@28: A reasonable person would think that Walsh could be ruined by a simple appeal to common decency and normal people’s sense of embarrassment by association. The guy is more of a scumbag than Dan Burton or Alan Keyes, and that is saying a hell of a lot. It’s like voting for David Duke. The shitheel makes Lester Maddux and Sackless Chambliss look like good guys. Chambliss notoriously employed the same scurrilous tactics against Max Cleland in ’02, so voting for Rep. Deadbeat is aligning yourself with the most ignorant crackers in the USA.

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  30. MarkH said on July 3, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    Prospero @28 – Don’t think so. Nancy can confirm, but I remember a poster here about five years ago named Gasman, lived in NM, fell away long ago. He regularly called W pretzeldent. He sounded a lot like you, though. Did you move from NM to Hilton Head?

    EDIT — Nice to see Cipollina’s name come up after all these years. Way underappreciated, died way too young in ’86. I sure liked Quicksilver pre-Dino Valenti (and even some afterward).

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  31. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    ACA as job killer? Wrong again, honey:

    The bill in fact contains substantial benefits (some might even say giveaways) for small businesses. That starts with a program already under way to offer special subsidies to firms with fewer than 25 employees that want to offer health benefits. As long as your employees earn less than $50,000 on average (law firms, medical practices, and other elite professional partnership are thus ineligible), you can get a tax credit to defray 35 percent of the cost of the insurance if you’re a for-profit firm, and 25 percent if you’re a nonprofit. When the law really gets rolling in 2014, those subsidies rise to 50 percent for for-profits and 35 percent for nonprofits.

    Total fabrication:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/nfib_is_wrong_on_obamacare_the_aca_should_actually_help_small_business.html?wpisrc=newsletter_tis

    What GOPers don’t like is that it leaves out the hedge fund managers and white shoe lawfirms.

    Dino Valenti was just so fracking serious about himself. Better band with Mona and Shady Grove. I started calling W Pretzeldent back a year befor the ’04 election on the DNC blog. The pretzel takedown and Barney pissing on his pointy little head just struck me as very funny.

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  32. MarkH said on July 3, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    Prospero, maybe you shoud list all the nom de plumes you’ve had here at nn.c over the years.

    Correction on Cipollina, he died in ’89, emphysema at only 45. Agree on Valenti taking himself so seriously. I liked Shady Grove ok, too, but not like the first two albums. Didn’t know that Valenti and Nicky Hopkins both died in ’94.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_Messenger_Service

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  33. brian stouder said on July 3, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    The only thing worse than covering a school board meeting is sitting through the executive session.

    Fort Wayne’s school board meetings are televised, but they adjourn the meetings (ending the TV feed) and then open the floor to public comment. The gadflies have pretty much given up now, but every so often one will show up and (of course) their comments invariably complain about public commentary not getting to be on TV!

    But recently, not many folks come, except for parents of students being recognized by the board (and they invariably leave early, before the good stuff)

    If I feel like a ‘public comment’ is worth making, then I go home and write a letter to the editor…and in fact, after the last school board meeting I did indeed go home and scratch one out. We’ll see if it makes it into the paper (I’d guess in a week or two).

    Our board occasionally has an executive session before the regular meeting, and then they also have what they call “work sessions”, which are open to the public and can be very interesting and enlightening, although I’ve only made it to a few of those.

    Aside from that, I liked Nancy’s old Katrina article. It is not too much to say that that hurricane turned me into a passionate member of the Democratic Party. True enough, my former love for the Republican party was “off the boil” – but that compound catastrophe completely (and thankfully*) disillusioned me.

    *afterall, you cannot be disillusioned unless you’re fooled by an illusion to begin with.

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  34. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    GOPers accused Sherrif Andy of being a socialist not long ago. GOPer whining about these ads, when Shrub did the same thing with the Schedule D drug “benefit” (to Big Pharma, sure) and when these are the people that produced the Swiftboat pack of lies, and the unadulterated bullshit about Hillary that led to Citizens United, is seriously pitiful. Assholes.

    Judging by the hysterical response from the right to the ACA decision I’m thinking even the apparent males have uteri, while finding the word vagina frightening. That’s straight out etymology, so please don’t give me any grief.

    Mark H, elephino. I’ve only been to NM to go trout fishing on the San Juan. Pride of Man is typical of Dino’s over-earnestness. Parbly his best song was Get Together, which is also a little heartfelt for my taste. A QSM favorite:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhklHHMGPnU&feature=related

    Although nobody does this as well as Buffy Ste. Marie on a Strat. I believe she wrote it. Cipollina’s vocals incorporate Buffy’s vibrato, by design I think.

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  35. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    RMoney photoshop:

    http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=l7q&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=903&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=RfjD20VHorZg0M:&imgrefurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/mitt-romney-rmoney-photoshop_n_1257877.html&docid=EH7w5dLKbvddpM&imgurl=http://i.huffpost.com/gen/490179/MITT-ROMNEY-RMONEY.jpg&w=562&h=449&ei=BGPzT_KyB4Su9ATq0rXNCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=2090&sig=100920275694405468385&page=1&tbnh=125&tbnw=163&start=0&ndsp=52&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:79&tx=70&ty=59

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  36. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 5:32 pm

    Took a helluvan effort to locate, but here’s another GOPer shitheel as stupid as Rep. Deadbeat. Hey dumbshit, don’t say that to RMoney.

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  37. MichaelG said on July 3, 2012 at 6:26 pm

    If I recall correctly, Gasman lived in Santa Fe and was a professional musician.

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  38. MarkH said on July 3, 2012 at 7:05 pm

    MichaelG, that’s what I remember as well. Unlike Danny, who sort of faded away, Gasman just fell off, never to be heard from again.

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  39. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 7:09 pm

    Here’s the Medicare ad by the notorious socialist tool Andy Griffith that got GOPers so excited:

    http://front.moveon.org/why-medicare-gets-a-boost-from-obamacare-as-told-by-andy-griffith/?rc=daily.share

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  40. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 7:18 pm

    RMoney as a case study of how absurdly rich Americans hoard their fortunes:

    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/03/510246/romney-financial-tactics/

    Willard’s argument is that all of this is legal, shady as it might be. OK. But prolonging dodges like this, with Mitt’s additional rich folk tax cuts and continuing health care inflation make his claims about wiping out the deficit transparently nonsensical. ReBush, 24/7, plus unbridled and irresponsible deregulation of all sorts, how this mess got to be a swamp in the GD first place, but with less breathable air and more fouled water supplies. Probably planning to sell National Parklands too. And, unbelievably, less competent on foreign policy:

    http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/06/28/507926/cheney-romney-china/

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  41. Prospero said on July 3, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Tell Joe Walsh he’s a flaming asshole:

    http://www.dccc.org/page/m/1d63cd1d/1be3e402/213d3fce/4e0c85fb/1836356458/VEsH/

    Mayb Reprehensative Walsh ought to do a stint here:

    http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2012-06-28/news/fathers-support-center-st-louis-halbert-sullivan/?ref=navigation

    Might make a man of him. Anything is possible. Even for a confirmed dick like Walsh.

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  42. Crazycatlady said on July 3, 2012 at 9:44 pm

    Joe Walsh, who is busy badmouthing Ms. Duckworth still owes tons of back child support. I wonder if his children think he’s a ‘hero’. I think not.

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  43. JWfromNJ said on July 4, 2012 at 2:45 am

    Come back Danny and Gasman, both had plenty of good stuff to add to the mix. And I for one welcome more Pilot Joe and his views from the sky and from the ground. We should try to understand and appreciate the views of any American who isn’t foaming at the mouth, has a good job, and leans to the right. Yeah, i want to study his POV but I’m more than willing to say his opinion, and the opinion of anyone else who isn’t throwing racial slurs and Faux news tidbits, is valid.

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  44. coozledad said on July 4, 2012 at 8:22 am

    WOLFEBORO, N.H (Reuters)) The Romney Family Olympics Commision (RFOC) is said to be convening multiple investigations into doping, game rigging, betting, and even an alleged assault.

    “Granpa hit me on my knee with the hammer” Bettina Romney, aged six said. She had just bested the elder Romney in the 30d nail driving competition and was advancing to the 40d boards when the elder Romney allegedly moved in behind her and dislocated her knee with his California nailer. Subsequent analysis of the nailer revealed it to be improperly weighted, and not in accordance with commission guidelines.

    “That’s just fucking bullshit!” said Mitt Romney. “I’m well within the guidelines, and I should know. I wrote the motherfuckers.”

    “And I didn’t hit her, either. She fell on her own hammer because Dagg’s got that child hopped up on steroids. I mean, really. Have you ever seen a normal six year old drive a 30 penny nail in two strokes? Fucking Christ! And that after clocking Ann’s Arabian filly in the 440. Let’s get real here, for fuck’s sake.”

    “It’s that wife of his. She put him up to it. She’s a former Episcopalian, and you know how they are.” Said family matriarch Ann Romney. “There’s money involved. You can bet the last hair on your ass.”

    Asked for comment, Dagg said”I was going to just let this slide, because dad you know. He’s …he just gets way too into this thing and goes a little overboard…’

    “Fuck you Dagg! You’re out of line!” Said the elder Romney, before closing the remaider of the games to the press.

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  45. basset said on July 4, 2012 at 9:03 am

    “better than MC5”

    Which is not saying much.

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  46. Prospero said on July 4, 2012 at 10:07 am

    De gustibus, basset.

    Happy birthday, Malia Obama.

    Cooze, I think RMoney would have hired somebody like Tonya Harding’s boyfriend to take out the kid, and the kid was parbly wailing “Why me?” at the top of her lungs. Very funny bit. The Cranbrook annals indicate Willard was inept at sports. For 30d nails, I’d think you’d need a 2-lb. sledge.

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  47. Prospero said on July 4, 2012 at 11:08 am

    The real Joe Walsh:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF2OP_gFsz4&feature=related

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  48. brian stouder said on July 4, 2012 at 11:15 am

    Funny stuff, Cooz.

    If President Obama is re-elected by any margin, I’ll be very happy; but I confess that the more I see of Governor Romney, the more I’m hoping for a genuine national drubbing of that guy.

    The longer-term worry is, what then? The Republican party of the 1960’s saw their hard-right candidate in 1964 go down in flames, and then the ever-present American hard right was relegated to the grassy knolls and bushes, off the main political thoroughfare*….so what will the “lesson” be, for them, when Romney has his well-manicured ass handed to him by President Obama?

    My guess is, it won’t take long before the accepted “wisdom” (if we can call it that) amongst the ditto-head herd was that “they” robbed us; “our” national political milieu was “Chicagoed” with a latter-day ‘corrupt bargain’, that stuck the anti-Obama patriots with a clearly inferior candidate, blah blah blah, etc etc.

    We’ll see, I suppose. Meanwhile, I smell bratwurst….

    edit: Prospero, if the United States House of Representatives had even one ounce of institutional stewardship (let alone integrity), they censure his ass – if not expell him outright. Congress attempts to tar and feather the Attorney General, with a tremendously bizarre and flatly dishonest narrative featuring a US ATF agent who lost his life in the line of duty, and yet this Walsh guy brings disrepute upon himself and the Congress by openly mocking his challenger’s military service?

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  49. Sherri said on July 4, 2012 at 11:48 am

    Brian, as despicable as Joe Walsh is, he’s not even the first I’d kick out of Congress for mocking a veteran. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia gets that dishonor, for what he did to Max Cleland back in 2002.

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  50. Prospero said on July 4, 2012 at 12:05 pm

    I’m with Sherri on Anglo-Sackless Chambliss, but I expect more from voters in Illinois than crackers in GA, and I can say that since I lived in GA for many years and went to college there. And how ’bout Mean Jean Orgasm. who told Murtha on the House floor “Marines don’t cut and run.”He was a gyrene, you miserable dessicated harpy.

    If another were needed, a good reason to ride RMoney out on a rail:

    http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/06/27/507721/romney-cheney-ites/

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  51. Deborah said on July 4, 2012 at 8:13 pm

    103 was the high today in Chicago according to my iPhone. We spent the afternoon in a cool dark movie theater watching the Woody Allen movie, To Rome With Love. Eh, not a great movie, kind of entertaining but silly, not in a good way. But it was a great way to try to beat the heat. Tomorrow and Friday are going to be similar and then we get a break. This is ridiculous. Give me February, please.

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  52. Deborah said on July 4, 2012 at 9:10 pm

    God bless Charles Pierce http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/fourth-of-july-state-parks-10284053

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  53. Prospero said on July 5, 2012 at 5:41 am

    Yeah, Deborah, but it isn’t tripe like Magic Mike. I saw that guy Tatum Channing or whatever on Letterman. He is painfully stupid. Like a step down from Ashton Kutcher. And that is less than Old Man of the Forest brains.

    Frederick Douglass’s Fourth of July speech:

    http://front.moveon.org/the-most-powerful-4th-of-july-speech-is-one-youve-probably-never-heard/?rc=daily.share

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