There was this woman who worked in Columbus for a time when I was there. Two women, actually. Both were young and quite pretty, which by newsroom standards made them practically Victoria’s Secret models. I think it’s safe to say both had their immediate (male) supervisors buffaloed, which is a little duh-you-don’t-say, but as someone who’s never been able to do that, it rankled a bit.
But only a bit. Both were far outside my orbit, so I was able to observe them both rather dispassionately.
Both were excellent at one key skill — seeming really busy. They bustled around, arms full of three-ring binders, pencils held in their mouths like a horse’s bit, hair prettily askew. They seemed barely contained. Oh my god I can’t believe how much I have to do, etc. They went to meetings. They leaned in close to talk to you. They contained multitudes. They vibrated with energy. (That men might find this attractive was something I’d never even considered until William Hurt essentially told Holly Hunter it was a huge turn-on in “Broadcast News.”)
One was working on a reporting project that was going to blow off lids. The other was launching a new section. Only the project landed with a dull, wet thud and the section editor ended up in the ER just hours before D-day, being treated for “stress” and seemingly clamped in a sustained anxiety attack.
I hadn’t thought of either of them in years, until I read this passage in a story about Paula Broadwell, posted yesterday in comments. Sorry for the length, but I need this whole passage to illustrate something.
One of Broadwell’s former professors at Harvard described her as a self-promoter who would routinely show up at office hours.
“It was very much, ‘I’m here and you’re going to know I’m here,’” said the professor, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of ongoing investigations. “She was not someone you would think of as a critical thinker. I don’t remember anything about her as a student. I remember her as a personality.”
The professor said when Petraeus chose Broadwell to write his biography, there was shock among the national security faculty at Harvard because “she just didn’t have the background — the academic background, the national security background, or the writing background.”
A second Harvard faculty member who knows Broadwell and Petraeus had similar misgivings.
At one point, Broadwell said she was leaving the doctorate track because she was overextended and didn’t have time to complete the coursework, recounted the professor, who was not authorized to speak to the press.
Broadwell later complained that the writing project on Petraeus was not going well.
“She was a lot of talk but not a lot of follow-through,” said the second professor, who described Broadwell’s struggle to deliver on the biography as “deeply embarrassing” to the Kennedy School. “That is why she brought on a co-author,” Vernon Loeb, an editor at the Washington Post.
Stipulated: It is the height of shittiness to say stuff like this behind the cloak of anonymity, and all that “the sensitivity of the investigation” and “not being authorized to speak to the press” is just a fancy way of being shitty. But if any of it is to be believed, it appears Broadwell was cut from the same cloth as these other women, born cute and smart and energetic, a city girl who seemed to find out early how to open doors with just a smile.
Broadwell was by any measure a superachiever, but she wouldn’t be the first woman defeated by a long-form writing project.
You want to know the punchline of this one? Check it:
Nonetheless, Harvard embraced Broadwell as a distinguished alumna after “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus” became a New York Times bestseller this year. On Sept. 10, the Kennedy School included Broadwell on an alumni panel of accomplished public servants and the next day hosted a forum at which she discussed her book.
Fuckers. Speaking of lyin’ eyes.
So. The weekend awaits. A little bloggage before I go? Sure.
This has been around for a while, and I know I said I was moving beyond the election, but “Letter to a future Republican strategist regarding white people” is too good a rant not to take note of:
My wife and I are quite familiar with America’s healthcare system due to our professions, and having lived abroad extensively, also very aware of comparable systems. Your party’s insistence on declaring the private U.S. healthcare system “the best in the world” fails nearly every factual measure available to any curious mind. We watch our country piss away 60% more expenditures than the next most expensive system (Switzerland) for health outcomes that rival former Soviet bloc nations. On a personal scale, my wife watches poor WORKING people show up in emergency rooms with fourth-stage cancer because they were unable to afford primary care visits. I have watched countless small businesses unable to attract talented workers because of the outrageous and climbing cost of private insurance. And I watch European and Asian businesses outpace American companies because they can attract that talent without asking people to risk bankruptcy and death. That you think this state of affairs is somehow preferable to “Obamacare,” which you compared ludicrously to Trotskyite Russian communism, is a sign of deficient minds unfit to guide health policy in America.
Thanks, Eric Zorn.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must rest for a day of reportin’, writin’ and birthday-cake-bakin’ tomorrow. It’s a big day at our house, Nov. 16:
Hope your weekend is pleasant.
Dexter said on November 16, 2012 at 1:12 am
Please convey a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the musician of the family, from the readers of and contributors to this blog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NxBaumftVg
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Sherri said on November 16, 2012 at 1:29 am
Doing a dissertation is a difficult thing, and the degree of difficulty varies dramatically from field to field, school to school, and department to department. As someone who bailed on a PhD program, and someone who was married to someone while he finished a PhD program, my conclusion was, there’s no bad way to leave graduate school.
Happy birthday, Kate!
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Dexter said on November 16, 2012 at 1:29 am
My favorite election wrap-up visual:
http://www.freep.com/article/20121111/BLOG24/121111022/Mike-Thompson-Ted-Nugent-s-at-it-again
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Brandon said on November 16, 2012 at 1:34 am
Nancy: Please tell your daughter Hau`oli la hanau for me.
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alex said on November 16, 2012 at 1:39 am
Happy birthday, Alan and Kate!
Woke up with indigestion and figured a little reading might help me get back to beddy-bye. “Letter to a future Republican strategist” is some brilliant stuff, the perfect meditation I needed. I’m sure I’ll sleep well.
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Sherri said on November 16, 2012 at 2:23 am
How about a little baseball for a palate cleanser from all the politics and important people behaving badly? I bring you one Gerald Dempsey “Buster” Posey. He was attending a fundraiser for his mom’s school, which is where the problem kids get dumped. That is, he and his wife and their adorable twins were there, when the call came that he had won the NL MVP at age 25 in his first full season in the major leagues.
That joins the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award, for returning after a gruesome ankle injury suffered last season, the Silver Slugger Award for the best batter at his position, and the Hank Aaron award for the best hitter in the NL. He also won the team’s Willie Mac award for the most inspirational player. Oh, and he caught a perfect game and got a World Series ring.
He was Rookie of the Year two years ago, when he got his first World Series ring.
You couldn’t make the guy up if you tried. Here’s a picture of the lovely family: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maqxluuqBk1ru5ngco1_500.jpg
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ROGirl said on November 16, 2012 at 6:49 am
Self-promoters who exaggerate their capabilities and snow the powers that be with their hype are everywhere. People who spend time around them see through the bluffery pretty quickly, then have to wait for it to start crumbling around them or collapse spectacularly.
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Deborah said on November 16, 2012 at 7:01 am
ROGirl you are so right. I have watched many shameless self-promoters crumble. It always amazed me how many people they could fool. One particular person lasted nearly 10 years on the job which was a miracle. Another colleague and I took to keeping a journal of all the foibles this person caused, we never showed it to anyone else but it consoled us as we watched the person get away with one thing after another.
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Snarkworth said on November 16, 2012 at 7:02 am
As an author of non-fiction, I’m perplexed by Broadwell’s co-author situation. Vernon Loeb is listed as a “with” author on the book, but in his essay about the project he describes himself as a ghost writer. Ghost writers are usually anonymous.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/petraeus-ghostwriter-clueless-to-affair/2012/11/12/c1271634-2ce4-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_story.html
Anyway, “ghost” or “with” aside, Broadwell didn’t write the book.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 16, 2012 at 7:31 am
…and Happy birthday, Alan!
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Connie said on November 16, 2012 at 7:42 am
Goodbye Twinkies, I won’t miss you at all. Hostess says it is going out of business.
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Jolene said on November 16, 2012 at 7:58 am
On Twitter, I saw that there will be protests in seven Irish cities, as well as in London, today and tomorrow re the woman who died of septicemia. Will be interesting to see how big they become and whether they bring about any change.
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James said on November 16, 2012 at 8:34 am
Speaking of superficially “pretty” girls in over their heads, I just read this this morning. In it, Meghan McCain bemoans the fact that her precious party is run by wing nuts, but never takes a stab at why that happened. Gee, maybe because your dad gave them a veneer of respectability when he hand-picked Sarah Palin?
Then she lists a number of issues she disagrees with the Republicans on, including choice, gay marriage, and immigration. If she had the intellectual candlepower of a dim bulb, and if she actually read what she wrote, she’d discover she’s a Democrat.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 8:51 am
Well James, she is dumb enough. Heheh.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 8:58 am
Snarksworth, perhaps Vernon is reaching for the “Ghost” status to get a little more comfortable degree of separation. I don’t blame him.
Regarding people faking busy, I have also been around the other types who don’t either don’t bother to look busy or are not smart enough to even try to cover up their laziness. A few years ago, a friend of mine was giving a tour of his company to a consultant who asked how many people worked there. My friend replied “Oh, about half.”
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James said on November 16, 2012 at 8:59 am
Thanks Danny. I can always count on you for an intelligent, thoughtful comment.
What… Are you watching Bevis and Butthead or something?
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Minnie said on November 16, 2012 at 9:09 am
Don’t feed the trolls.
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4dbirds said on November 16, 2012 at 9:28 am
Happy birthday Kate and Allen.
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Peter said on November 16, 2012 at 9:30 am
Well, I’m out of the loop, but I don’t see as many self-promoters among the youngsters as I do with people my age.
And how upright of Harvard to dismiss Ms. Broadwell as a lightweight hack but invite her back when she’s made the $$ and they want a piece.
I don’t know if it’s urban myth, but I did hear on WXRT once that Twinkies can last over a hundred years, and I took solace in that. No matter what happens, I know that if I see a Twinkie in a wrapper, it’s good eatin. Personally, I gave up on Hostess when Little Debbies made a better version of the Ho-Ho. There. I said it.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 9:33 am
Ms McCain lost me when I came to this sentence:
Times are changing. The face of America is changing and we as Republicans stand at a crossroads.
Stepping onto The Turd Blossom was just too much ick-factor for me.
Anyway – Happy Birthday to the Derringers – and indeed, I think Nancy also has one coming right up, yes?
Not for nothing, but that great article Jolene linked yesterday also noted that the general and his faux biographer were both on on the cusp of birthdays-ending- in-zero (40 for her and 60 for him) which is probably no small part of the equation
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Dorothy said on November 16, 2012 at 9:40 am
Happy birthday to the Derringer father and daughter! I’m off to the orthopedist’s office to get my half cast off and a splint made. Hooraw!
In case I forget next week (’cause I know it’s soon) Happy Birthday to you as well, Nancy. One of my brothers turns 59 on Sunday, and another brother will be 52 on the 24th. I need to get four brother birthday cards all at the same time – Dec. 4 and Dec. 8 are coming soon!
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 9:45 am
For you techies:
Woz believes that Microsoft may now be more innovative than Apple.
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/11/15/2340246/woz-worries-microsoft-is-now-more-innovative-than-apple
I guess Woz hasn’t seen Windows 8, which is very much like Son of Vista-stein. Don’t get me wrong. I prefer Microsoft over Apple because Apple offerings are so locked down and I hate their interfaces, but I will never understand Microsoft’s twice-a-decade penchant towards self-annihilation. They trot out unstable, unusable OS’es every other release and they do other stupid things like forcing the Ribbon on users without customization options for legacy menu interface. This is why for the better part of a decade, most corporations have shunned upgrades to Windows and Office.
If my understanding of Julie Larson-Green’s role in the Ribbon fiasco is correct, she should be shown the door instead of being appointed to president of the Windows.
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Bob (not Greene) said on November 16, 2012 at 9:58 am
Happy birthday to Alan and Kate (we bass players need to stick together). And, if I’m not mistaken Nancy, you’ve got a birthday coming soon. How odd is that, the entire family’s birthdays in the same month. That’s some planning right there.
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nancy said on November 16, 2012 at 10:02 am
As I always tell people: There’s just not much else to do in February.
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alex said on November 16, 2012 at 10:07 am
I did hear on WXRT once that Twinkies can last over a hundred years
It’s twue, it’s twue. And so do McDonald’s fries. There was an artist in NYC some years ago who decided to do a photo documentary of the decomposition of McDonald’s food and came to the conclusion, after a couple of years, that it just wasn’t ever going to change and so she gave up.
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Mark P. said on November 16, 2012 at 10:08 am
When I was in graduate school, someone in the PhD program who didn’t quite make it was given an MS as a consolation prize and was showed the door. That sounds like what happened to Broadwell. But it’s no surprise that they welcomed her back once she had achieved some professional standing (wonder how long that’s going to last?). I’ve seen that happen before.
I’m not sure I know anyone who didn’t seriously contemplate packing up and leaving before they finished graduate school. I thought about it more than once, and so did my brother. And I knew a few who actually did leave. Or worked for years without finishing. I came to believe that the ability to finish trumped brilliance if brilliance wasn’t accompanied by that ability. Oh, and the right advisor. You have to have the right advisor. I knew one guy who was way smarter than me. He was in the program when I got there, and had been in a program at another school before that. He was still there when I finished five years later. He never did complete his PhD.
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adrianne said on November 16, 2012 at 10:12 am
Happy birthday to my birthday buds, Alan and Kate! (and, posthumously, Elvis Whitehead).
Your take on Ms. Broadwell is spot on, as usual. And yes, Vernon Loeb is really the ghost writer for “All In,” a fact that’s been lost in the general pandemonium over bad generals.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 16, 2012 at 10:13 am
My wife and I are so naive we didn’t realize until we were in our forties that the reason the least-likely people we knew in our fields were getting all the awards and recognitions and such was because they were nominating themselves, or at least working hard to get someone to put them forward. It didn’t result in any changes for us in how we live our lives (plaques make lousy decor in the home, anyhow), but at least we sheepishly realized how the game worked. We’d just thought you did your work, and “the system” impartially recognized merit and effort.
Which I really should have realized, given my ongoing amusement at the fact that, if you do much public speaking, you learn that 9 out of 10 introductions are written by the person about to be introduced, and you have to be careful about how you respond to requests for “information about you” since it’s likely to be read verbatim. But now as I listen to other speaker introductions, I listen with an ironic sense of “hmmm, so he wanted *that* said, eh?”
And I can hear Broadwell having her publicist in another year or two write an intro that includes “was a key player in the transition of Gen. Petraeus from his work at the CIA back into the defense industry as a respected advisor and analyst on the crises we now face around the world, about which Ms. Broadwell will speak to us this evening.”
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 10:17 am
The proper way to observe the passing of the Twinkie is to consume a deep-fried golden cake with genuine simulated cream filling while watching the gutbustingly entertaining Zombieland, in which Woody Harrelson’s tough guy Tallahassee searches the zombiefied end times for the last Twinkie, only to inadvertantly blow up a case of them with a sawed-off shotgun. Tragedy ensues.
Godawful sequel idea. Worse idea than Red Dawn remake. People will absolutely flock to skip this idiotic POS.
Paula the well, Broad didn’t just try and fail at her PhD, she ditched it and then spent the rest of her life until it caved in on her claiming she had not one but two earned doctorates from the Kennedy School. That is aberrant behavior. Like I said yesterday, George O’Leary disease, aka Munchausen’s (another great movie, by Terry Gilliam). O’Leary (from facebook):
In 2001, O’Leary left Georgia Tech to take over as the head coach for the University of Notre Dame. A few days after he was hired, inaccuracies were discovered in his published biographical sketch. In the biographical sketch, it stated that O’Leary had earned a master’s degree from “NYU-Stony Brook University,” a non-existent institution and actually two separate institutions over 50 miles apart. In fact, he had taken only two courses at SUNY – Stony Brook, and never graduated. He also claimed that he had earned three letters in football at the University of New Hampshire, when the school claimed he had not even played in one game.
And with whom did Vernon Loeb do his mandatory sexting, Broadwell or Kelley? I think I’m going to look at the Amazon reviews and try to figure out which on Paula B. wrote for All In.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 10:31 am
BTW – leaving aside the long version of the (ongoing) story, I only just did learn the following factoid.
While I always knew my mom had two brothers and a sister, and I knew my mom’s birthday is November 29, I did not know that her brothers and her sister ALL also had November birthdays; and indeed, we then made the same February joke!
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Sue said on November 16, 2012 at 10:37 am
Hostess isn’t actually going out of business, is it? It’s just going to file for bankruptcy, fire everyone, get permission from the bankruptcy court not to honor any pension contracts with its former employees and start over with a cheaper and less-compensated workforce, many of whom will be former employees. I thought that was how these things worked.
I have a feeling Americans will not notice a very long break in the availability of Twinkies, and that’s the important thing.
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Sherri said on November 16, 2012 at 10:47 am
Sue, as I understand it, Hostess has already done bankruptcy twice. This time, they’re shutting down and selling the assets (which will likely include the names, so we’ll probably see Twinkies again, just not made by Hostess.)
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MarkH said on November 16, 2012 at 10:50 am
Sue, Sherri — They may indeed be blowing Twinkie filling at us, but this story says it’s over for good at Hostess. Nothing left to re-open.
http://www.money.cnn.com/2012/11/16/news/companies/hostess-closing/index.html
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Mark P said on November 16, 2012 at 10:51 am
Sue, I imagine that’s exactly the way it will go. The bankruptcy courts have become a tool of union busting.
A local TV station showed the way I think the national media have moved on the issues of unions when they talked about the Hostess bankruptcy. They said the company “called the bluff” of the unions.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 10:52 am
And, this is all Michelle Obama’s fault (just ask the insufferable fool on our local AM radio station)
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 10:58 am
Everybody’s a critic. Or, whatever became of Chunk?
If Twinkies fade into oblivion, what will happen to the work force in peripheral industries, like trans fat manufacturers? And will that affect gas pump prices? I did have LSD-injected Twinkies at a party in college once. Tastier than blotter. I’ve also had them soaked in champagne. Pretty tasty actually.
And those replacement Twinkies? Hydrox Twinkies? Little Debbie Twinkies? And anybody looking for a farewell Twinkie had best hurry, before Paula Deen buys them all for deep frying and dipping in mayonnaise and clarified butter.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 11:01 am
I suppose the applicable Romney-view pun would have something to do with makers and takers – and/or the “I DID build that” crowd.
The rallying cry – from the corporate suites at Hostess (where, I bet, bonuses and raises continued apace) would be “We can have our cake and eat it, too!”
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deb said on November 16, 2012 at 11:12 am
Happy golden birthday, Kate (is that a thing in Michigan or just Wisconsin?), and happy birthday, Alan. Let’s see photos of the cake, eh?
Re the relentless newsroom self-promoter: They’re not just women. I worked with a guy like that. He has survived draconian cutbacks and countless reorgs while more talented, energetic and meticulous writers sail out the door. Current and former co-workers remain baffled; how is it every but top management sees right through him?
Re food living past its sell-by date, I may be fouling the well for those of you planning to make That Green Bean Casserole next week, but last year I left the leftovers in a covered casserole dish in the basement refrigerator and forgot about it. Once I remembered it was down there, I was too terrified to even take a peek. I finally mustered my courage sometime after the new year — it was at least January, maybe even February. I held my breath, lifted the lid, and…it was still completely recognizable. Only a wee bit of mold around the edges. Somehow that was more horrifying than what I’d been expecting.
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Sherri said on November 16, 2012 at 11:14 am
Brian, it would be interesting to see the severance packages of the 10 CEOs in the last 6 years that Hostess has had.
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Sherri said on November 16, 2012 at 11:32 am
Sorry, correct that to 6 CEOs in 10 years. Always check the numbers!
Here’s an interesting article from last summer about how Hostess got to this point: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
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Charlotte said on November 16, 2012 at 11:37 am
The Harvard stories don’t surprise me at all. The biggest shock of graduate school was the realization, very late in my coursework, that the professors out of Ivy League schools (which at the U of Utah were from Yale and Princeton) actually *wanted* you to parrot their views back at them. Good old Beloit would have flunked us for doing that. Sigh. I finished on the “fuck you I’ll make such an airtight argument you have to pass me” method. It was a miserable experience and I ran a low-grade fever for the last two years of the program (oh, and saw exactly the sort of pretty busy-bees Nancy describes (of both genders) go off and get tenure track jobs).
One of my best friends from Beloit wound up being a big deal executive producer in Hollywood where, for a while, it was very fashionable to bring in interns from the Ivies. He was shocked by how needy they were. You couldn’t just tell them to go do something, you had to walk them through exactly *how* to do it. Drove him crazy.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2012 at 11:40 am
Valentines Day is in the middle of February.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 11:42 am
According to the Teamsters and the Dow Jones Bankruptcy Review (that well-known backer of organized labor) Hostess played fast and loose with CEO and upper level management compensation on the Green Mile to bankruptcy.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 11:47 am
So here we are at the day that I knew was coming two months ago. The day when we find out that the administration knew that the post-9/11 talking points on the Benghazi attack were lies. The day when we find out that the administration knew that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, premeditated and preplanned. The day when we find out that the film, “The Innocence of Muslims,” had absolutely nothing to do with the attack. The day when we find out what anyone with half a brain already knew. But some of you would have none of it.
Some highlights from your responses to the role of the film:
Prospero: Sorry Danny, that’s bullshit. It’s nothing like that at all. The film trailer that caused the trouble was made in the USA and has been floating around since July. It was recently dubbed in Arabic and introduced on the net in the middle east. What wouldd you say was the intention. Apparently, there is no actual movie to go along with it. The only conceivable intention behind the thing was to cause exactly the sort of unrest it eventually stirred up. For your analogy to be eveen remotely close to valid, the person killed would have been the vile POS that produced the provocation, not a good man like Stevens.You can tell yourself whatever you want, but RMoney and Ryan fucked up bigtime on this, and anybody with a functioning cerebral cortex and cerebellum is well aware of it. His ole da is probably laughing at him in heaven. Maybe he should try brainwashing.
Alex: One doesn’t have to see the film to know that it’s inflammatory any more than one has to eat shit in order to know it’s shit. Puhleeze. In the Islamic religion, depictions of the prophet Muhammad are strictly forbidden. When you look at the parties behind the effort, it’s pretty clear they knew exactly what they were doing. If there isn’t a law against inciting terrorism abroad, there ought to be one.
…and a quite a few more of you were in agreement with these sentiments.
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Mark P said on November 16, 2012 at 11:52 am
Danny, can you give a link or two to the story as you heard it?
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Mark P said on November 16, 2012 at 11:59 am
I did a little googling and apparently the story is coming out of Petraeus’s behind-closed-doors testimony. The spin depends on who you want to believe. From the AP via Slate:
“Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Petraeus disputed Republican suggestions that the White House misled the public on what led to the violence in the midst of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.”
And:
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y “said to this day it’s still not clear how the final talking points emerged that were used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice five days after the attack …”
I’m still waiting for the smoking gun.
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alex said on November 16, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Well, Danny, explain why this earth-shattering revelation isn’t anywhere to be found at any of the legitimate news outlets.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Mark P., there may not be a smoking gun found, but there will be a scapegoat. And the talking points were so obviously false as to strain credulity that no one knew they were. I mean, we are talking about intelligent people here.. President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Jay Carney, Susan Rice…
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Judybusy said on November 16, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Happy birthday to Kate and Alan! What kind of cake is in the works?
My dad, my three brothers and I are all in June and July. This means a late September conception for me, and mid-October for the guys. All parents are/were farmers. Hmmm, don’t know how September happened, but by October, most of the crops are in and there is more time for extracurricular activities. Baby sister born October 1st, so a winter conception makes sense. Mom’s birthday is early January, so there was time before her parents’ spring work got too busy, I guess. It would be kinda fun to see the distribution of rural birthdays, and farm kids vs. town kids.
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Catherine said on November 16, 2012 at 12:18 pm
My oldest is September 12, and she was ~2 weeks early. We probably should have named her Noel.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Let’s do some critical thinking here, on some of the terms used below (emphasis added by me)
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y “said to this day it’s still not clear how the final talking points emerged that were used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice five days after the attack …”
See, the use of the ambiguous term “talking points” is, I think, purposely prejudicial.
Our UN ambassador was going to step onto the public arena, and she needed to know not just what happened, but also what she could say.
The source of the information she repeated was the Central Intelligence Agency, which, despite whatever other distractions the head of that agency had (or the distracting head he was having) (sorry) had an interest in telling the truth (albeit limited and circumscribed) as it was then understood.
What would the profit be, to simply lie? That’s the part of this ridiculous bit of puffery from the enemies of the president that I simply don’t get.
There was no gain to be had, by inventing a dishonest story.
The day when we find out that the film, “The Innocence of Muslims,” had absolutely nothing to do with the attack.
Absolutely nothing? Absolutely?
Why isn’t it possible, in Dannyville, that folks in the street were provoked into anger by the film, while actual terrorists separately conducted their own attack?
Why isn’t it possible for both things to be true, at the same time?
They could be parallel things – wherein the protesters upset about the film had nothing to do with the guys with the bazookas; indeed, the guys with the bazookas could well have chummed the waters with talk about the film, as cover for their attack.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 12:22 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lwfjHp5PJ78
Okay, so the reports are that Petraeus knew almost immediately that it was an attack by a terrorists group, but that they had about 20 intelligence reports regarding the film’s role that were disproved. There appears to be something of a plausible-deniability movement afoot.. Stay tuned
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 12:24 pm
They could be parallel things – wherein the protesters upset about the film had nothing to do with the guys with the bazookas; indeed, the guys with the bazookas could well have chummed the waters with talk about the film, as cover for their attack.
Exactly, Brian. But no one was having any of that talk.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Well, Red Romney, for one, was having none of that talk.
Maybe they oughta make that son of a bitch the new head of the CIA; he knew EXACTLY what was going on, even before the ambassador was dead…..right?
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 12:53 pm
The very first explanations out of the White House about Benghazi were based solely on reports from diplomatic and CIA sources in Libya, which made it clear that they believed that the original disturbance was a protest about profaning Mohammed and that the protest was used as a smokescreen by the militant insurgents. I never claimed anything else, and it’s also bullshit to quote my response to another comment without being clear what I was responding to. Claiming you know more than what the CIA said in the first place puts you in that weird Allen Westworld of having information you couldn’t possibly have. How this gets GOPers and neocons so exercised at this point when they still claim Shrubco and particularly Cheney didn’t lie their asses off and start an elective war that will cost trillions of bucks before the AMEX bill is paid and killed hundreds of thousands of people is a mystery to me. Well, no it isn’t. It’s another lame attempt at explaining getting thrashed in the election.
And anybody that takes anything that Rep. Peter King says at face value is making a mistake. The guy is a blustering partisan idiot. If the day and the hearings end with out this stupid mofo breaching national security, it will be a miracle.
Danny@52: Every single report I heard that day said exactly that. And you insisted on the RMoney “apology” shit, as I recall it, which was egregious and repulsive political gravedancing on Willard’s part. The way your bullshit talking point on that subject came about was that GOPers and RMoneyites were so quick to jump on Mittens’ asinine and ghoulishly opportunistic claims about apologies from the Obama administration. And I’ll stand by what you quoted if you’ll explain what you said that I responded to. I guess it was not so memorable, but I suppose you were trying to claim RMoney hadn’t made a vulturine misstatement about what happened, when he unquestionably did so.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 12:59 pm
My best current guess is as follows.. with the understanding that the Middle East is more volatile than ever with the Arab Spring.
1. Radical elements now in power planned to attack our embassy in Benghazi and as part of the plan decided to manufacture outrage over the film as cover.
2. The Administration was trying to navigate some very rocky shoals during the election. It is probable that the most convenient thing at the time was to go with this film storyline instead of expose some very inconvenient truths about our ME situation that could have been easily spun by the GOP as a foreign policy failure and possibly have swung the election.
This whole Petraeus situation seems very odd. I’m not given to conspiracy, but the timing is almost too perfect.
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beb said on November 16, 2012 at 1:00 pm
It’s hard to believe that Hostess foods is going out of business. How could the maker of Twinkies and Hostess fruit pies be losing money? But then the issue is that they wanted the unions to take some major concession, going from $18 an hour for the Bakers to $11 an hour. That’s nearly a 50% wage cut. And they wanted to negotiate away their huge underfunded union pension debt. The people working there ahd been counting on those pensions as part of their retirement plan. You go to someone in the 50s or 60s and tell them that that nice pension they had been counting on wasn’t going to be there. And finally the unions had agreed to major concessions a mere three years before and now company wants more concessions? I can see there the Bakers decided to put their foot down, even if it meant the end of the company If the company couldn’t turn around with the last set of concessions why should they believe that they’ll turn around with this set of concessions and won’t come back for yet more concessions.
And how does a company end up with nearly a billion dollars of debt. Sounds like too many Private Equity companies sucking the lifeblood out of this company for too long.
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Deborah said on November 16, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Happy birthday to the whole Nancy family!
I haven’t been following the Benghazi story much. I don’t get what the rightwing is so up in arms about? A tragedy happened, how is it Obama’s fault? Because he was president at the time? While Bush was president 9/11 happened, I certainly don’t think he was to blame for that. I don’t get it.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Ambassador Rice could legitimately have refused to answer that question on the basis of not being involved in the incident personally or ex officio. Claiming she repeated a prepared lie, as Oldtimer McImpotent did is a speculative slander of the lowest sort, with absolutely no substantive basis, and if his erstwhile running mate wants to see a real “gotcha” question, the half-goober-nor should check that interview. The GOPer side on this is all “Anybody could see” and “It was obvious” when GOPers were making up wild shit in the immediate aftermath of the murders and nothing whatsoever was obvious, except that some heavily armed militia thugs had attacked the American legation under cover of a spontaneous demonstration. That’s what every one of the cooler heads said immediately Danny, and claiming otherwise is just dishonest or it’s very convenient forgettery.
The idea that anything about this business might have “swung the election” is absurd. People still voted for Shrub in ’04 (or at least Ken Blackwell’s voting machines said they did) after the Pretzeldent actually ignored the “hair on fire” PDB about muslim terrorists flying planes into US buildings, and then made up a bunch of bushwa to cover the illegal invasion of Iraq.
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4dbirds said on November 16, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Oh paleeze, I was in intelligence for twenty years. It isn’t like the movies. It is dull, excruciatingly dull, repetitive and boring for 99% of the time and when the 1% hits the fan it’s never when and where you think it will be. Raw intelligence coming in is just that, raw. It has to be analyzed. That takes time. The actual events and the subtle subplots that tell the whole story can takes weeks, months and years after the event for it to be fully understood. Yes, there is ass-covery in the business. I saw plenty of it. Real high political ass-covery and the players would surprise, well maybe not surprise you.
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coozledad said on November 16, 2012 at 1:32 pm
They would have sold their mama’s ass for a whiff
or a taste of good ol’ Dubbya’s quiff
But now waits are all they’re giving the stiff
Cause Romney shook them down for all they had
Romney shook them down for all they had,
& they know
Their butt-hurt is the deepest
Baby they know
Their butt-hurt is the deepest
They suspected their dude was a fake
But they let him drive their Porsche in a lake
And the only turd would float was Jeff Flake
So they’re gonna trot Benghazi out again
When it comes to dumpster fires, they’re the pros
shoveling campaign cash to toesucking ho’s.
And now they’ve rubbed their own shit in their nose
they’re gonna try Benghazi out again.
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jcburns said on November 16, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Happiest of birthdays to the musician and her father!
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Sherri said on November 16, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Beb, lots of private equity firms involved is exactly how there was that much debt. The article I pointed to @39 gives the whole saga.
220 Marines get killed in Beirut, and it’s a tragedy. 4 Americans get killed in Benghazi, and it must be a scandal and a cover-up. Two things I believe to be true: (1)it’s not the first nor the last time that Americans will die because of terrorists and (2) in the immediate aftermath of any attack, disaster, accident, what have you, no one knows anything about exactly what happened. That’s true whether anybody’s trying to cover their ass or not.
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del said on November 16, 2012 at 1:49 pm
I’m with Deborah on Benghazi. Nothing to see here folks, move along, or, if you really must conjure that it was somehow Obama’s fault, conjure away, but then move along.
My strongest memory of Benghazi’s aftereffects is Mitt Romney’s absurd press conference, replete with faux presidential briefing room, curtains and flags in the backdrop — and his accusation that President Obama sympathized with the attackers.
That was about as low as he could stoop. It reeked of desperation.
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del said on November 16, 2012 at 1:52 pm
See now, Cooze puts it so much better.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 1:56 pm
When the GOPers in Congress try to sidetrack the nation’s business by making a mountain out of the Benghazi bullshit, everyone should remember that long before anybody had ever heard of Ken Starr, there was an actual investigation of the Clintons’ Whitewater business dealings by the august GOPer and Raygun partisan Lawrence Walsh who found no there there. Spent $50 million. Then came the Ken Starr Fishing Expedition and Voyeur’s Ball at a cost when it was all over of another $100million. No there there either, aside from old fart GOPer Viagra addicts with “youthful indiscretions in their pasts acting like whitwashed sepulcher hypocrites about a randy intern that went to DC with kneepads and gave a BJ to the most powerful man on earth.
If there’s a scandal when GOPers pull this kind of crap, it’s that the bastards motives are purely political, and what they really want to accomplish is to do the job for which they were elected and make life better and more secure for Americans.Scumbaggery.
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mark said on November 16, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“While Bush was president 9/11 happened, I certainly don’t think he was to blame for that.”
Now there is a point with which we can all agree, right?
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Agreed.
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alex said on November 16, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Bush isn’t to blame for 911, true enough. He’s to blame for exploiting it as an excuse to invade Iraq, even though the intelligence community and he fully well knew Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda had absolutely nothing to do with one another. The Fox-watching chumps who bought that lie are the same idiots falling for Benghazigate.
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del said on November 16, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Alex, agreed.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 2:32 pm
beb@56: Did it ever dawn on the BSchool whizzes that ran Hostess into the ground to actually produce at least a faux health conscious product and market it? I mean, changing the fruit pie recipe to something more tart and less gloopy and the crust lighter and flakier, and baked seems as if it would have been an easy and obvious way to increase the snack calories market share. Blaming the unions for contracts signed with no guns to temples involved appears to have been much less the problem than singulr lack of vision and marketing talent and an utter failure to read consumer interest. Those pension agreements the company agreed to constitute a legal contract, and the pensions should be paid out first every time this shit is perpetrated. Those assets the vulture capitalists are selling in the Chapter 11, the union workers made that, you crooked bastards.
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Jolene said on November 16, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Add my name to the list of people who think the odds of learning any important truth about what happened at Benghazi are vanishingly small. It’s a part of the world that is chock full of dangerous men and dangerous weapons. To be there is to be at risk. People are dying in large numbers in Syria, in frequent bursts in Iraq, and the Israelis and Palestinians seem to have decided that now would be a good time to express their profound contempt for each other. That only four Americans have been killed in the midst of everything that is happening there is a small miracle. That one of them was Chris Stevens, who appears to have been both respected and effective in a challenging and important role is a great tragedy.
Truth would be hard to find even if that were really what people is trying to do, but the Rs have been trying since the news broke to find wrongdoing on the part of the Obama administration. We need some kind of intervention or some new fact to arise that would let people step back from their partisan positions.
The only really useful discussion, it seems to me, is to think long and hard about whether more can and should be done to protect our diplomatic personnel without imprisoning them in their offices.
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Jolene said on November 16, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Oh, dear. Make that “what people were trying to do.” That edit button can’t come too soon.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 2:55 pm
GOPers have been desperate for 40 years to catch the Democrats at something as evil as Watergate or Iran-Contra. Of course, those episodes were quite different. Watergate was an attack on the Constitution. Iran Contra funded murderers and rapists, the drug trade, and both sides in a devastating middle east war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. And, of course, bribed the Iranian government to hold American hostages in the interest of getting a febrile old codger with diminished mental powers elected President to rape the treasury. If people like Danny and politicians like John McImpotent. little Lindsay Fauntleroy and the Amazing Cretin Peter King want to try to claim there’s been some coverup recently, I want to hear their opinions on their patron saint’s dirty dealings with the Ayatollahs.
As far as the security of foreign-stationed diplomatic staff, GOPers under Shrubco cut US military budgets for active duty security forces, figuring as per usual that this was a great way to privatize some spending to their political supporters. Only thing is, Blackwater/Xe and Halliburton and the other private security companies have deployed so many psyopathic murderers and rapists that no country wants them within its borders and none of the diplomatic corps want them around. I’m sure the Congressional Benghazi investigators are going to deal with that sorry state of affairs.
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Jolene said on November 16, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Re the birth dates topic: I have three siblings born within five days of each other–all at the end of May, meaning that they were conceived at the end of the summer. Years ago, I happened to be visiting the fam when these birthdays rolled around, and we all went out for dinner, followed by a few drinks at the Elks Club w/ my parents, who, as you may recall, were farmers. We asked them whether these births were associated w/ good harvests or poor harvests and, after some stammering and blushing (mostly by my dad), my mother admitted that it was the timing of their wedding anniversary (August 30) that accounted for the proximity of the three birthdays.
As all but the last of their children were born before the advent of the birth control pill (and he just barely afterward), what we have here is a clear demonstration of how alcohol and high spirits (they always celebrated their anniversary with a special set of friends) can interfere with the use of barrier methods of birth control.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Count me also in the group that doesn’t think anything important will come out of Benghazi. I only brought it up because the amount of rediculous push-back I got at the time about the importance of that stupid film.
And although I swore to myself to never to be cruel to you all like coozledad, I understand that Niel Young is re-purposing, “Ohio”
Petraeus and Congress talkin’,
They’re meetin’ behind closed doors,
This winter I hear them humming,
Four dead in Benghazi
Gotta get down to it,
Film-makers are cutting us down,
Should have been jailed long ago,
What if you’re incumbent
With th’ ambassador dead on the ground
How can you tell what you know?
Petraeus and Congress talkin’,
Prospero says leave them ‘lone,
This winter I hear them humming,
Four dead in Benghazi
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Sorry typos. Hurrying off to a meeting and constant interruptions.
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beb said on November 16, 2012 at 3:34 pm
I think this article gets to the nut about Benghazi – scandal envy! Obama has been so clean they can’t find anything else to complain about
http://prospect.org/article/what-benghazi-about-scandal-envy
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MichaelG said on November 16, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Happy birthday(s) to the Derringer household! Have yourselves a great celebratory weekend!
I had a friend who owned a large sailboat. He bought it in Tahiti and flew down there with his wife to pick it up and sail it back to Oakland. Their first child was born the requisite number of months afterward. Later they sailed to Hawaii and back and had a second child. “Nothing else to do out there.” He shrugged.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Is Danny’s thumbnail photo in the dictionary next to protests too much?
As I recall the day of the attacks on the Benghazi legation, the presumed incident involved a public protest over the film trailer used as gover by militia thugs to launch an attack on the diplomatic staff. I don’t remember anyone with any actual reason to know what was going on saying anything else, except for the original information from the diplomatic staff in Benghazi themselves who attempted to ameliorate the situation by issuing a statement deploring the film trailer. It was that statement that got RMoney all bunched in his magic panties when he called it “sympathizing with the attackers” and “apologizing”, in one of the most craven political acts I have ever seen in 50+ years of watching American politicians.
Now the GOPers are taking Bullshit Mountain News reports as reality, never a rational approach:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/fox-news-and-benghazi-video-for-real/2012/11/09/79410b04-29d8-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_blog.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/fox-news-mangled-huge-benghazi-story/2012/11/16/c2d152c6-2f99-11e2-9f50-0308e1e75445_blog.html?hpid=z2
None of this shit changes anything I ever said about the trailer, the people that produced it and what they intended to happen, which is apparently what did happen.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 4:15 pm
As a palate cleanser (of sorts!), here’s a Michigan-related non sequitur, regarding energy drinks:
http://www.chem.info/News/2012/11/Safety-Were-Deaths-Linked-to-Energy-Drinks
This excerpt struck me as darkly humorous (emphasis added by me)
5-Hour Energy’s small size can also be dangerous to consumers with underlying conditions because it’s easier to take several of them or mix them with alcohol. Though it is liquid, the 5-Hour Energy “shot” is marketed not as a drink but as a dietary supplement. FDA regulations require supplement manufacturers themselves to be responsible for products’ safety.
A spokeswoman for the manufacturer, Michigan-based Living Essentials, LLC, says 5-Hour Energy is a “compact-sized energy shot intended for busy adults — it is not an energy drink, nor marketed as a beverage.”
So the essentially alive spokeswoman says that 5-Hour Energy is “not an energy drink”?
I suppose she means that it is a concentrate that you’re supposed to mix with water (or something else) – but when you do this, what do you then have?
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mark said on November 16, 2012 at 4:18 pm
You are a little mixed up, pros.
There was never any protest outside the consulate in Benghazi, as cover for an attack or otherwise.
The diplomatic personnel and CIA operatives in Benghazi did not communicate a protest or riot, they called for help and reported they were under attack.
The diplomatic personnel and CIA operatives in Benghazi did not issue statements about a film trailer; that was the Embassy staff in Cairo.
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DellaDash said on November 16, 2012 at 4:34 pm
Even though it’s a breathtaking autumn day, I took advantage of leaving my road trip car in queue for an inspection and oil change, to catch a premiere showing of LINCOLN here in Nashville.
It’s only fitting that Brian S’s take gets chewed on first…but I will say that I was enthralled to be in a darkened theater and reduced to silly putty in the hands of Spielberg with his posse of virtuosos.
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Scout said on November 16, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Am I the only one who finds it a mite disturbing that our resident pot stirrer goes to all the trouble of tracking down and quoting comments from two months ago in order to try to score some kind of vague AH-HA!!1! talking point about a situation that is obviously a big nothing burger. It’s ridiculous.
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brian stouder said on November 16, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Della – I envy you very much! Pammy and I should catch the Lincoln movie sometime this weekend, God willin’ and the river don’t rise.
And in exchange for her indulgence, we’ll also see the new Twilight/vampire movie. Her sister did an all-day Twighlight-palooza of all their movies, plus the premier of the new one….but I’m only on the hook (so to speak) for the newest one.
Scout – that’s just Danny bein’ Danny.
I’m much too lazy to use the ‘search’ button here and look at conversations from days – let alone weeks (or months!) ago
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Jakash said on November 16, 2012 at 4:49 pm
I’d just suggest that, if one might be interested in seeing a movie directed by the most successful director of our time, starring arguably the greatest actor of our time, portraying probably the greatest President of all time, in one of the most significant political battles in our history — well, then, one will probably enjoy LINCOLN… Daniel Day-Lewis was remarkable, and the cast was amazing, though I, too, await brian’s verdict on the performance and film, in general.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Mark, the diplomatic staff in Benghazi issued the statement about the anti-Muslim trailed that RMoney foolishly and callously attributed to the President in an effort to calm the crowds around the legation building, You claim that didn’t happen. That unquestionably is exactly what took place that day. And the calls for help came from Tripoli, not Benghazi, at least initially. Fox has been pushing a jury-rigged timeline since the entire thing happened. I know what I saw reported as it happened.
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4dbirds said on November 16, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Scout, he’s been doing it for ages. He loves to search and dig up quotes. He’s done it to me a few times. I don’t respond to him anymore.
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mark said on November 16, 2012 at 4:53 pm
Prospero-
You are wrong. Try the State Department timeline. http://abcnews.go.com/International/attack-benghazi-consulate-unprecedented-state-department-official/story?id=17438780
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DellaDash said on November 16, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Hear hear, Jakash (@85)!
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Unlike certain people I don’t take something from a bogus news source and presume it’s Gospel because it fits my political thinking. And I know exactly what I saw reported when it was happening.
And that should be “trailer” obviously. Personally, I think that people that foment middle eastern rioting on purpose in the United States should be prosecuted. Daniel Pipes should have faced prosecution for the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, for instance, which had zero to do with freedom of the press and everything to do with inciting violence. Same for that redneck idiot antiChristian Terry Jones, the Koran and Obama effigy burner.
Also, quoting something that was obviously a response to a specific comment without including the comment that educed the respons is unmitigated bullshit.
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Brandon said on November 16, 2012 at 5:01 pm
shoveling campaign cash to toesucking ho’s.
Is this a reference to Dick Morris? If so, I think he was doing the sucking.
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DellaDash said on November 16, 2012 at 5:02 pm
One of my favorite lines went something like this:
“The greatest piece of legislation of the 19th century was just passed through corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America.”
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 5:06 pm
The timeline is fine, Mark, but it’s the product of the clarity of hindsight. I’m talking about what was reported by American media while it was happening, and when RMoney was sticking his head up his anus. Why anyone is trying to make this out as some terrible breach of duty by the President would be mystifying if it weren’t so obviously the GOP game plan for obstructing real work on the economy to damage their political opposition. And I’d repeat, fuckheads like McCain calling Susan Rice a liar for something she said when none of this stuff was clear in any honest non-clairvoyant’s mind is scurrilous slander, despite her public position, because those assholes pulling that shit no they are making it up.
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Sue said on November 16, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Brian @84 and Scout @87, no. There is a new level of hostility that wasn’t there before.
Read his comments carefully, and cumulatively, and also note that he introduces topics now as well.
He’s really angry at us. He can’t quite hide it.
Deep breath, and hit submit button…
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Charlotte said on November 16, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Oh my. I hate Spielberg’s storytelling — he’s almost good but then has to go do something like add the stupid frame to Private Ryan, or the girl in the red coat in Schindler — pound that nail in so we Can’t Miss The Point. But that the screenplay is by Kushner seems promising. Let me know if it’s at all surprising, or if it simply hits all the marks it sets up for itself …
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Ummmm, all the embassy protests and the ensuing conversations happened around 9/11… so easy peazy. I didn’t have to perform search and certainly would not have for this. It’s just part of having a good memory.
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 5:28 pm
Oh poor all of you, geesh… what a bunch of whiny babies. Sorry that little ol’ me was able to gang up on all of you with a differing opinion and some facts to support it.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Funny Gawker comment on the NYT Guy Fieri review. Apparently the NYT ad department held a party for clients at the Fieri Hellhole. Tres awkward.
And you know, this Benghazi rehash to embarrass the President that kicked Willard’s ass is reminding me of the stories of the death of Pat Tillman and the daring rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. It’s clear that official accounts of both of those incidents were outright lies, one a coverup, the other unadulterated propaganda. Did Shrubco ever attempt to get to the truth of either? Unm, NOPE. Is the Obama administration attempting to get to the truth about the horrible attacks in Benghazi? Uhm, YUP, clearly. That’s not a double standard from the GOPer Congressional truth seekers, it’s a standard and a total lack of a standard. So they really need to STFU.
And Quoting shit out of any context whatsoever is a really sleazeball thing to do. I mean, that’s like something you’d expect from Kommissar Karl Rove.
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Danny@97: Facts?
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Scout said on November 16, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Whining? No, actually just intrigued at your fascination with us.
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alex said on November 16, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Yeah, Danny always played a sort of passive-agressive game here and it’s definitely getting more aggressive. His modus operandi is to make an outrageous personal attack on somebody and then immediately get into a chatty lovefest with others so that he’ll have defenders when he’s called out for being an ass. Strikes me as kind of a juvenile amusement. I’m not going to let myself be used that way. My prediction is that he’s just going to keep on upping the ante until he gets thrown out.
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nancy said on November 16, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Ten years ago, you couldn’t have gotten me close to “Lincoln” with a cattle prod, but I’ll probably see this one. I have often squirmed at Spielberg’s maudlin stew, but “Munich” changed my mind a little. And Kushner wrote that, too. So here’s hopin’.
Meanwhile, the DetNews ran a review that said “politics” bogged it down. I showed it to Alan, who said, “Yeah, why couldn’t they get some vampires in this one?”
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Connie said on November 16, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Birthdays of my two brothers and I are in a 5 week span with mine in the middle exactly nine months to the day after my mother’s 21st birthday. She always said their friends in Ann Arbor got her way too drunk on her birthday for that to be a likelihood. Since the brother born two and a half weeks before me came early as well, we just never believed her.
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Jakash said on November 16, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Oh, there are a couple of surprises, Charlotte, but if “hitting all the marks” isn’t good enough for you, then I suppose you could be disappointed. For me, when “hitting all the marks” meant that I felt like I was in a room in 1865 with these actual historical people while they’re verbally jousting with each other and/or telling jokes, while determining the course that the nation would take, I wasn’t really looking for some kind of clever twist or outlook. The political aspects of this film, given the nature of the campaign we all just suffered through, would have made it interesting enough to me from that perspective alone.
I suppose Anthony Lane’s review in “The New Yorker” gets to your point, though:
“The true tussle of the movie, however, is between the Spielberg who, like a cinematic Sandburg, is drawn aloft toward legend—hardly an uncommon impulse when dealing with Lincoln—and the Spielberg who is tugged down by Kushner’s intricate screenplay toward documentary grit.”
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2012/11/19/121119crci_cinema_lane?currentPage=all
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Danny said on November 16, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Scout, first off, there is no “us” as in there being a monolithic entity against Danny. Yeah, there are a number of you around here who probably can’t handle disagreement in a civil manner, but there are plenty of people here who are confident enough in who they are and what they believe that they can handle it without having a total melt down.
On the other hand, there are a number of very vocal whiners. Sue, who I have absolutely nothing against, has said that I have some grand plan to drive you all off one by one. At least that is what she posted a while back. Now she is projecting emotions on me of anger when, unlike some here, I am not telling people to “shut the fuck up” every other post (Propsero/michaelj) or obliquely trotting out Nazi references on a regular basis (Coozledad). And Alex, who also have nothing against, regularly calls for my ouster. (Alex if by “outrageous personal attack” you mean reminding you of what you said a few weeks back, I guess you have that)
So just from this few smattering of examples, a reasonable person could see that there is not so much intrigue that is expressed, as it is whining because someone doesn’t have the same opinion.
I’m probably done for the weekend. The few of you.. I mean several dozen of you… who don’t like me for whatever reason, have fun.
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DellaDash said on November 16, 2012 at 6:27 pm
I found sitting through ‘Schindler’s List’, many years after it came out, as something of a (politically-not-so-correct) chore. And I pretty much hated ‘Saving Private Ryan’…grumbling to myself while watching the excellent ‘Generation Kill’ about the gulf between the two. Don’t let the brief opening scene of ‘LINCOLN’, with its shades of ‘Ryan’, turn you off at the jump.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2012 at 6:52 pm
That wedding anniversary date got me thinking. I was born nine months after my parents’ 20th anniversary.
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alex said on November 16, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Though I shouldn’t respond to a troll, I have to say that quoting me out of context isn’t what I consider an outrageous personal attack. That’s just lazy-ass shit-slinging. This is what I consider an outrageous personal attack:
Sherri, my original comment was mild and measured and, per usual, her reply was abrasive and pedantic.
Y’all remind me of a great light-bulb joke.
Question: “How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb.”
Answer: “THAT’S NOT FUNNY!!!!”
This was just yesterday. Where do you get off calling someone abrasive and pedantic when you’re not only abrasive and pedantic yourself but puerile and crass? And you defend as mild and measured comments that were calculatedly inflammatory. I think it’s you who feels defensive about his beliefs and that’s why you play these games.
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Catherine said on November 16, 2012 at 7:39 pm
As Della said, the opening scene of LINCOLN makes you go, What? Private Ryan again? But things rapidly improve. I really think Kushner is going to at least be nominated for best adapted screenplay Oscar, and fingers crossed he wins.
If I can be pardoned a little shameless self-promotion, this is the project I’ve been working on for the last couple of months, which has turned me into a total Lincoln geek: http://www.disneyeducation.com/lincoln
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Prospero said on November 16, 2012 at 7:40 pm
My humble apology to any of you I ever told to shut the fuck up, although I sincerely doubt I actually did. Except for Danny who’s Eddie Haskell brand of nudging is too cute by half and twice as churlish and chidlish. I probably have told him to STFU, which is rude, but the guy is so snot-nosed obnoxious.
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Minnie said on November 16, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Happy birthday to all Derringers beginning their next trip around the sun.
I ignore Danny’s posts, but then the comment thread goes to hell with people taking him to task. alex @ 101 is right about his methods. Unfortunately they seem to work.
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Jolene said on November 16, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Catherine, what was your role? Are you a web site designer?
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Sue said on November 16, 2012 at 9:33 pm
I’ll repeat what I said yesterday: Danny is very good at what he does here.
This is a social group, in spite of the fact that most of us wouldn’t recognize each other on the street. It’s not a 500 commenter blog where a bunch of different bloodfights are going on at the same time with dozens of people participating in each one, egging each other on for their own reasons. You know, like high school.
That bar analogy that keeps coming up around here is fitting – we like to chat and we support and energize each other. And argue and bicker, but mostly support etc.
I just sat down with two pieces of pizza and a glass of Three Lakes cranberry rhubarb wine (highly recommended for the holiday table, by the way), and I raise my glass to all of you. Cheers.
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Deborah said on November 16, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Catherine, impressive. Were you the writer for the site? Designer?
And I’ll add to the self promotion meme. I just found out that my project in DesMoines for the Workd Food Prize was selected by Interior Design Magazine as one of the best of the year. Pat, pat, pat.
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Deborah said on November 16, 2012 at 10:41 pm
World Food Prize
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Dexter said on November 17, 2012 at 12:23 am
The movie was inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals”, of course…Doris advised throughout, as she had gotten a real “feel” for how Lincoln’s voice sounded and especially his gait and all other mannerisms. Sally Field was turned down at first by Sp. because Abe was 10 years older than Mary and Sally is ten years older than Daniel Day Lewis. She begged for a screen test and was awarded the part. The two actors, never having met before, met in character and stayed that way during the filming. Sally is a product of the Lee Strasberg Method Acting school. I didn’t know this, but Lee flew out to LA from NYC once a week to hold classes for his actors. This was in Fields’ “Flying Nun” days in the mid-1960s.
Hostess closing will impact a lot of working people. Along with the bakeries, they pushed a lot of product through the outlet stores, and Hostess was popular in the bodegas and convenience stores. I won’t miss them, but I ate my share years ago. Choco-filled cupcakes were the best.
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Catherine said on November 17, 2012 at 2:18 am
Thanks for the kind words. I am a content developer, whatever the hell that is. It boils down to a lot of writing and some user experience design, I guess. I’m not a designer but I collaborate with designers and love that part of the job. That site, like most, is definitely a team effort with the client, two different agencies and the studio; plus three other writers and a content expert.
Deborah, congratulations on your award! Pat, pat, indeed. Is there a place to see more?
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Deborah said on November 17, 2012 at 3:48 am
Thanks Catherine, it was published already in Interior Design magazine back in the spring, I’m not sure when the best of year issue comes out. Here’s a link for when it was first published http://www.interiordesign.net/slideshow/2382-Food_for_Thought.php?photoId=385772&photoUrl=/photo/385/385772-World_Food_Prize_Foundation_in_Des_Moines_by_Gensler_Photo_by_Eric_Laignel_.jpg. My role was the design of all the story telling elements.
If you’re up at 4am check out the Lionids meteor shower, not as spectacular as the Orionids shower back in October but still cool. Supposed to be about a dozen or more an hour at the peak.
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Deborah said on November 17, 2012 at 3:50 am
That’s Leonids, not Lionids
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Brandon said on November 17, 2012 at 3:55 am
Ten years ago, you couldn’t have gotten me close to “Lincoln” with a cattle prod, but I’ll probably see this one.
A contrary view: http://lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo242.html
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 17, 2012 at 7:31 am
Leonids were a bit of a bust, but there’s a second chance this year because of a cloud of Comet Tempel-Tuttle’s debris that runs along behind the annual cloud that Earth orbit thru some years; if you missed 3-6 am this morning, try Tuesday pre-dawn. Leo overhead and Orion in the lower west is lovely, and you have Venus rising over the eastern horizon as Jupiter drops through Taurus’ horns, so even if you see no meteors, it’s a stirring sight — and it only takes one good meteor streak silently slashing through the array to make it all uplifting, cold nose or not.
http://feraj.narod.ru/Radiants/Predictions/Leonids2012eng.html
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 17, 2012 at 7:43 am
Lew Rockwell? Really?
In the second paragraph, this writer on Rockwell’s site blows himself up. The major subtheme of the movie is exactly what he says the movie doesn’t say, that Thaddeus Stevens and the committed abolitionists force Lincoln towards giving his all to the Thirteenth Amendment.
The only possible support for what DiLorenzo is trying to say is that Lincoln was always ambivalent on his commitment to full civil rights for African Americans, which, again, is pretty clearly limned in the movie; at worst, Spielberg et alia do with Lincoln what they did with Oskar Schindler, over-shading the ultimate idealism with scenes like the anguished clutching at his ring when the war was over and Liam Neeson gets a marvelous speech about what he could have done . . . which no one thinks the actual Schindler said other than as an off-handed ruefulness long afterwards. But a mere half-hour spent with Lincoln’s collected writings & speeches (two volumes, Library of America, cheap and worth having in every home) would disprove the idea he was actively indifferent to slavery or freedom and rights for freed slaves. He just couldn’t find a place of political leverage and personal comfort with balancing those rights against the loss of life on the battlefield, and was ambivalent much of his presidency, let alone his career. But this movie is about his last four months of life, and after his old antagonist George B. McClellan had shown him just how unpleasant accommodation could have looked like . . . McClellan’s suave and socially acceptable poisonousness, I believe, helped make Stevens’ crosspatch cantankerousness look much more reasonable and collegial by contrast.
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coozledad said on November 17, 2012 at 10:43 am
Suck. On. This.
Contrary to the current GOP narrative, Petraeus’ testimony made clear that various intelligence sources at of the time of his initial briefing to Congress indicated that a protest arising in response to a similar one in Cairo was the impetus for the attack in Libya. While those initial assessments were later disproved, the Wall Street Journal has previously reported that this change in thinking began too late to alter Rice’s talking points.
And no, mark. Obama didn’t “throw her under the bus”. In fact, the Donner party has made it even more likely she’ll get State.
But don’t worry. Your team still has Grampa Dookie-Drawers and Miss Lindsey. At least until one of them has to eat the other.
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coozledad said on November 17, 2012 at 10:45 am
H/T digby:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/16/1203921/peter-king-cia-approved-rice-libya-statements/
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DellaDash said on November 17, 2012 at 11:19 am
Catherine – I know how dry behind-the-scenes work can be, but this handsome website looks like it must have been an enjoyable project.
Deborah – Congrats! I remember that project particularly (as an Iowa native and Iowa State University alumnus) when you first gave us a look.
I think another factor in Lincoln’s ambivalence was his strong belief in state’s rights, and his reluctance to override them. What do our Lincoln geeks say?
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beb said on November 17, 2012 at 12:32 pm
I made the obligatory trip to the Hostess outlet store near us. The place was already stripped of the good stuff. No fruit pies (just a half dozen chocolate pies. No Ding-dongs, just Suzy-Q, no Twinkies, just Zingers. And lots and lots of bread.
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Rana said on November 17, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Sue, Brian, Scout, alex, Prospero – I agree with your assessment of Danny’s behavior here. He’s gone from being the guy who happens to disagree to the guy who tries to actively stir up shit, often in not very nice ways. From what he’s said, I get the impression that he thinks he’s a gadfly afflicting our hypocritical selves for not being as nice as we think we are (or something). So at the very best he’s a scold indulging in endless attempts at gotcha, which, while not trolling, is tedious. However, judging by the ways he seems to delight in setting us up for fools, even in conversations where it is not appropriate or relevant, I’d say he’s crossing into troll-dom. He’s no longer here to discuss the posts, or engage in honest conversation; he’s here to bait and provoke, and I for one am tired of it.
But it’s not my call to make.
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Prospero said on November 17, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Here’s a Spielberg movie ranking from somebody at New York Magazine. I have never watched Saving Private Ryan so I can’t really comment, except to say that Raiders is clearly the best, followed closely by the Last Crusade, and that both Sugarland Express and Empire of the Sun should be much higher in rank than this list has them. I liked AI, but I’ve never bothered to watch anything to do with Jurassic Park. I’d put Close Encounters (stoned_ over Close Encounters (straight), and I like the movie a lot either way. I thought Minority Report was a fascinating, very intense thriller, despite the midget lead actor. E.T. is still great. Duel is ridiculously overrated. Knife in the Water (Polanski), Blood Simple (Coens), The 400 Blows (Truffaut), Breathless (Godard), and Bottle Rocket (Andersen),even the unintentionally hilarious Bound (Wachowskis) were all better first movies than Duel. Hell, John Huston’s first was The Maltese Falcon. Of course, for first directing efforts, everybody other than Orson Wells is like the guys in the NBA 3-pointer contest back when Larry Legend would walk in the locker room and say”Hey boys. Who’s playing for second place. Wells’ first feature was Citizen Kane.
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Rana said on November 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Sue, Brian, Scout, alex, Prospero – I agree with your assessment of Danny’s behavior here. He’s gone from being the guy who happens to disagree to the guy who tries to actively stir up shit, often in not very nice ways. From what he’s said, I get the impression that he thinks he’s a gadfly afflicting our hypocritical selves for not being as nice as we think we are (or something). So at the very best he’s a scold indulging in endless attempts at gotcha, which, while not trolling, is tedious. However, judging by the ways he seems to delight in setting us up for fools, even in conversations where it is not appropriate or relevant, I’d say he’s crossing into trolldom, whether he intends to or not. He’s no longer here to discuss the posts, or engage in honest conversation; he’s here to bait and provoke, and I for one am tired of it.
But it’s not my call to make.
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Prospero said on November 17, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Speaking of movies, TCM is showing the original Bedazzled with Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore, not the reprehensible remake with Brendan Frasier, at 10 tonight.(EST)
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Deborah said on November 17, 2012 at 1:40 pm
I haven’t had a Hostess product in probably 30 years or more. I used to like ding dongs as a kid, twinkles were low on my list.
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Brandon said on November 17, 2012 at 2:15 pm
Armond White usually loves Spielberg but not Lincoln.
http://cityarts.info/2012/11/14/the-pageantry-of-rhetoric/
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Dexter said on November 17, 2012 at 2:29 pm
The last Hostess do-dad I had was a fruit pie. I can still get them from other companies, and the knock-offs taste better anyway. I remember a place in the north end of Garrett, Indiana, about 55 years ago called Red’s Market. Red sliced balogna and olive loaf, and he sold canned food and candy and little cakes and such. I mention this because Dad would go there for balogna for out school lunches and usually get some kind of treat, and I recall Twinkies, and how they were so sweet I would nearly vomit when I tried to eat them at school. Another thing that actually would make me sicken was any product containing marshmallow. To a lesser degree, coconut. When I began drinking coffee as a teen, a Twinkie, once in a great while, tasted good, finally. I still can’t stand marshmallow. For a while I became addicted to a daily Almond Joy or Mounds bar. The hell of it was, if I ate one bite, I already craved a second bar, and a third, and a … It was a sickness, this addiction, but easily kicked when I had to have 4 Mounds bars to be satisfied and I knew that was one half step from being bat-shit insane. The other day I posted how my boyhood vow to abstain from heroin was such a great idea. Well, I ran in circles of coke snorters, too, but never once bumped a line from a dollar bill (or a switchblade knife like Mick Jagger did in “Crossfire Hurricane”.)
Well, I stopped in here after a very busy half-day so far of cleaning, running errands, dog-walking down by the Tiffin River, phone-talking, making a big container of egg salad for sandwiches, and hanging new plates and getting all the paper work in order for the used Chevy Blazer I acquired yesterday. It’s not perfect, but it runs, for now. 🙂
If you want spot-on-instant reporting from Gaza, start following Richard Engel, Region Bureau Chief, NBC News, on Facebook. He reports Twitter-style, very short, but timely.
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Dexter said on November 17, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Brandon: How did I JUST KNOW Armond White would shit all over Abe? Because that’s what he does! Hey, he’s the guy who said “Jack and Jill” (the movie that was universally trashed a couple years ago) was “Excellent…outstanding..best picture…” Armond…I love to hear him talk, I love to read his reviews…but …he’s kinda crazy, there’s that, too! 🙂
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Brandon said on November 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Armond is a contrarian but he’s a Spielberg fanatic. Given the universal praise Lincoln has received, I wondered how Armond would review it; that is, would he praise it as has everyone else or damn it? His review is very mixed: he likes some of the acting and cinematography but finds fault with the historical approach.
His Jack and Jill review:
http://cityarts.info/2011/11/11/plumbing-ethnicity-sandler%E2%80%99s-jack-jill-and-tyler-perry/
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MichaelG said on November 17, 2012 at 3:26 pm
How bout dat, Dexter? I’ve got eggs on for egg salad. Great minds think alike. I’m making it for my lunches next week. What do you put in yours?
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Deborah said on November 17, 2012 at 3:40 pm
While typing my previous comment I hit submit before I realized my iPad auto corrected twinkies to twinkles. And it did it again but I caught it. I should turn auto-correct off but I sometimes I like it.
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Charlotte said on November 17, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Thanks everyone for the Lincoln reviews — sounds like it’s at least an interesting mixed bag, and that the “swelling strings” are kept to a minimum — good news. I think I’ll take the high school kid I’m mentoring —
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DellaDash said on November 17, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Armond White seems to have loved ‘Beloved’ while it made me want to gag with a spoon.
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Prospero said on November 17, 2012 at 5:24 pm
T’sm out of here. I can’t ignore horseshit like Danny, and he seems to have a strange fixation, ADIEUX MARGARITA. PEOPLE LIKE DANNY ARE R
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Prospero said on November 17, 2012 at 5:26 pm
I ns, I promiae you, I m gone.
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brian stouder said on November 17, 2012 at 7:19 pm
I think Pam and I will see Lincoln tomorrow (Sunday); today was a solidly jammed up day (lots of Land of Big Decisions stuff- which I’ll bother you with later, if you pull my finger)
Let me just say that the linked Lincoln review (now there’s a catchy phrase!) struck me as – at best – very odd. They guy who wrote it sounds like a jilted lover, who exists to attack ‘KUSHNER’.
Take this bit, which follows several other swipes at the the screen writer, Tony Kushner:
Justifying political manipulation and the idolizing of a single politician forces Spielberg and Kushner into the weird position of displacing the moral rigor that distinguished their collaboration on Munich. When Lincoln bases his notion of equality on Euclidian principle, referencing a 2000-year-old secular book as his foundation then praising “a great invisible strength in a people’s union,” Kushner’s vagrant communist-sympathy comes into play. The platitude is barely disguised by Lincoln’s out of nowhere wish to visit the Holy Land “where David and Solomon walked.”
If that guy knew anything about our 16th president, he’d have deleted that paragraph, given that Lincoln very much loved Euclidian principles; and several people – including Mary Lincoln and some cabinet members – recorded that, as the war finally seemed to be successfully ending, the president did indeed wistfully say he’d like to see the Holy Land (and also California, IIRC) after his presidency ended.
By the way – that Lew Rockwell thing was pretty much incoherent. And let me say, I very much enjoyed Lerone Bennett’s Lincoln book, Forced Into Glory. Friend-of-NN.c and Lincoln historian Dr Gerry Prokopowicz and I gabbed about that book some years ago, and he also enjoyed it very much. It is a refreshing bit of iconoclasm, which (whether the author intended it or not) always struck me as very like standing 5 feet away from the Statue of Liberty – where you can see the corrosion and the imperfections, even as you cannot help but also note the towering magnificence and grandeur of the thing
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Sue said on November 17, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Dexter, I spent the afternoon cleaning out the fridge and cabinets in my kitchen – no egg salad though. A thorough fridge-cleaning just before Thanksgiving is good for the soul. I removed the old contact paper in the cabinets and put in a new style that matches my cabinet color better. It occurred to me while I was doing it that probably only old ladies use contact paper anymore, but my lower kitchen cabinets are quite possibly original to the house – shaky uneven planks that benefit from an adhesive paper holding them together.
Plus, I got the contact paper from a place that looked like it hadn’t sold its stock in years. It was off in a corner with several other styles that looked like my mother or grandmother might have recognized them. So I probably lowered the value of my home by several thousand dollars by fogey-ing the kitchen all up.
I love my house, it’s probably over 100 years old, but the kind of 100 year old house built and maintained by a succession of people without much money. So… ‘interesting characteristics’, but not in a magazine spread kind of way.
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beb said on November 17, 2012 at 7:41 pm
It was nice to see Pros realizing that it was time to nap.
Went to the Henry Ford museum to see their Lego exhibit, eleven replica of famous skyscrapers, plus F.L.Wright’s Falling Water. There was also a collection of kid made buildings which was pretty neat. Saw them setting up the Lego trains/ Detroit landmarks set and an apparently permenant O scale train set-up. Great day. The souvenir shop had some great kits but the prices…. $44 for a plastic cookie jar shaped like a lego figure’s head. Outrageous!
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LAMary said on November 17, 2012 at 8:42 pm
I brown bag every day and I either save a good serving of leftovers or I make a turkey/jarlsberg/tomato sandwich with a bit of dijon mustard and some arugula. I’ve got a pot of pork chili verde cooking right now and I’m hoping I have some left to bring for lunch on Monday. Tomorrow night’s supper will be Italian sausage and peppers. I double the recipe and the three bown baggers in the house all get sausage and pepper sandwiches on French bread. One of my sons says his office mates all want me to adopt them.
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Dexter said on November 17, 2012 at 9:31 pm
LAM: I wish you could have visited Maxwell Street in its heyday so you could have sampled the fantastic pork chop sandwiches and the world-standard Polish sausages from Jim’s Original Polish sausage stand which for years was at 15th and Halsted, maybe a mile and a quarter from the South Loop in Chicago. I remember my first visit there in 1964…the old market area was really humming. My pals and I made many trips to Chicago in the 1970s and 80s and Jim’s became a regular stop. You can see the place in action in the movie “My Bodyguard” with Chris Makepeace and Adam Baldwin.(1980) There was something magical about that place…was it the ancient grill? A fast-track to the best meat in Chicago? The great fresh buns? It was great. I guess that Jim’s has moved to new digs now. The original Maxwell Street Market area only lives on in dreams. I can say I ate at the world’s best sausage joint.
http://www.jimsoriginal.com/jimsoriginal/Welcome/
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MichaelG said on November 18, 2012 at 12:20 am
Brian, you’ve got an F-1 race in your time zone tomorrow for the first time in several years and you’re going to a movie?
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Dexter said on November 18, 2012 at 1:28 am
I recorded the Michigan-Iowa game because it was just too damn nice to sit in front of a teevee Saturday. I went to Indiana to ride my bicycle a little while with my brother, but he was busy with yard work, so I rode a while by myself. I was monitoring the Notre Dame slaughter of Wake Forest and also the nail-biter up in Madison, which Ohio State won in overtime.
Well, I fed the dogs their bed-time snack and clamped on my old-school radio and tuned in WCBS Radio 880 , NYC, for a Sandy update (lots of communities will be needing massive beach sand replacement projects when the hurricane season finally ends soon).
Then sports…and the guy says Oregon and K-State both lost, and Notre Dame will be #1 ! What the HAIL? Good for them. It never lasts long. Coach Kelly is a genius, it appears, and rumor is he will be fleeing to the pros to cash in big-time.
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alex said on November 18, 2012 at 8:35 am
Some reading that gives new insight into the movement conservative mind. For the ones who are smart enough, anyway, they don’t really believe most of the outlandish bullshit they repeat, they just get off on saying it and it’s a way to connect with other members of their tribe.
That would make sense. I’ve long suspected that the ones who go around saying Fox is fair and balanced know it ain’t so, but they think the rest of us are dumber than they are and could be persuaded to tune in and get religion. One lady recently tried to strike up a conversation with me about something I’d never heard of before. I couldn’t tell you what it was except that it had that ring of right-wing arcana, kind of a nonchalant hystericism, and when I responded that I’d never heard of that before, she quickly retreated with “Okay, never mind,” and moved on in her quest to find another true believer in the room.
Last night began reminiscing about dijon-tarragon cream sauce with really grainy mustard and today I’m determined to make some. California Pizza Kitchen used to have such a dish years ago with chicken and mushrooms served on a bed of fettucine. Why they yanked it from the menu I never understood because it was one of their better offerings, in my opinion. The recipe calls for whipping cream and white whine. Er, wine.
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LAMary said on November 18, 2012 at 10:16 am
I promised the household huevos rancheros this morning and as soon as the rest of these bums get up I’ll make some. The supermarket down the street, full of Mexican, Salvadorean and Vietnamese produce, inspires a lot of good meals. The green chili last night was excellent.
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Minnie said on November 18, 2012 at 10:25 am
Y’all are making me hungry.
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Deborah said on November 18, 2012 at 11:19 am
Huevos rancheros are my favorite. I’m moving into my last week in Santa Fe, I love New Mexico but I’m looking forward to being back in the bustling city for awhile. I can even get good huevos rancheros there at our preferred Rick Bayless place Xoco. My husband comes to Santa Fe for Thanksgiving and then we both go back to Chicago for awhile, leaving Little Bird to have some time to herself. It will be strange being back in Chicago and not being part of the work force, strange but not unpleasant.
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del said on November 18, 2012 at 11:33 am
Thanks for the link to that article Alex. It develops a notion I think about a lot, the mysterious connection between religious beliefs and movement conservatism.
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Dexter said on November 18, 2012 at 2:30 pm
MichaelG: I slice the cold hard-boiled eggs by hand into a bowl. I add diced sweet white onions, and about 3/4 tsp of mustard for each single sandwich I am shooting for. I add a lot of mayo or Miracle Whip, but not too much; that’s the easiest way to ruin egg salad.
I add a scant teaspoon of EVOO.
I sprinkle in a dash of onion powder, and I pepper and salt the mixture liberally. I then add chopped dill weed, again, just a little bit. My mom used to add a spoon of white sugar. Not for me, no sir.
Then I stir it all up, cover and chill.
I like it served over olive oil coated grilled bread…any bread at all will do.
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MichaelG said on November 18, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Hmmm. The olive oil sounds interesting. I add a little chopped pickle, chopped celery, green onion, capers and mustard. Also, yes but I’m making this for myself, a bit of curry powder. Mayo but only enough to bind well. I agree. Too much will ruin things. I serve it on french bread.
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Deborah said on November 18, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Love egg salad sandwiches, I’ve never used onion though, only celery and very light on the mayo, serve on any bread. When I worked in London briefly, one time during lunch hour I ventured out to a sandwich shop near the office. I ordered what they called an egg mayonnaise sandwich which turned out to be just horrible because the proportion of mayo was way more than I like, I tried to find a different place in London where it might have been better but they were all like that. Too much mayo turns my stomach. I also had a business trip to Manila once in July, excruciatingly hot, in a high-rise building a short walk from the hotel. The air-conditioning in the building was woefully inadequate. Then they served sandwiches swimming in mayonnaise for lunch. I took one bite and hightailed it back to the hotel where I instantly made reservations to return home on the next available flight. The next morning I gratefully flew out of there after a night of gastro-intestinal he’ll.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 18, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Friend of mine here in central Ohio has an engineering project that will take him to India, and the old hands in his office reminded him not only not to drink the water, but to beware of ice in a beverage, which is how they all got gotten. And don’t eat anything with dairy products in it if you can help it. But mayo in the tropics in general? I’d be wary of anything with mayo when you get within hailing distance of the equator.
I wrestle with the whole “throw out spices after a year,” which I strongly suspect is an inventory turnover scam from The Seasonings Institute. Cumin, rosemary, thyme, celery seed: you may have to use a bit more if it’s elderly, but dried vs. fresh — dried is dried, I’m thinking.
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Deborah said on November 18, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Hell not he’ll, damn auto-correct.
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Charlotte said on November 18, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Asian egg salad: dice the eggs, add scallions, a splash of soy, wasabi, and mayo. perhaps grate a little ginger in as well. Yum.
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brian stouder said on November 18, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Didn’t get to see Lincoln yet (but I know how it comes out). Today was consumed with LBD* stuff. Really, beginning in mid-October with jury duty**, and then the somewhat relentless LBD stuff that began at the same time, things have generally taken a turn.
But, life is a learning experience, and the past 6 weeks or so have been nothing if not educational
*Land of Big Decisions (with regard to mom)
**http://www.fwgn.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=534
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Brandon said on November 19, 2012 at 1:07 am
Jeff, go to stilltasty.com. It has good guidelines on when to keep or discard all kinds of foodstuffs. For example, cinnamon:
http://www.stilltasty.com/fooditems/index/16887
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Brandon said on November 19, 2012 at 12:06 pm
One more thing about Armond White: he is from Detroit.
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