In the never-ending stream of Excuses for Lame Blogging, add this:
Tonight the three of us, plus one of Kate’s friends, had two peak experiences:
1) First visit to a Hooters, ever; and
2) “World War Z.”
I have to say, I enjoyed them both. And both beat swimming the Detroit river.
I promise better tomorrow.
EDIT: What. The HELL.
jcburns said on July 25, 2013 at 1:53 am
What did you enjoy about 1)? The cuisine? The costumed finery? The parade of implantishness?
92 chars
Deborah said on July 25, 2013 at 7:56 am
Hooters? Seriously?
“Implantishness”, good one JC.
53 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 25, 2013 at 8:12 am
I mean this with all due respect to Christie’s, and also to Sotheby’s (who no doubt did the same thing but with more discretion, hence no one knew to complain): they’re vultures. That’s their JOB. They’re professional, very classy vultures — a kettle of vultures, circling and occasionally descending to help pick the bones, with skills to get the good gobbets other scavengers miss.
Why would anyone call them out for being . . . vultures? If this collection goes on the market, and they didn’t try to get a piece of it, I’d call it professional malfeasance & vocational incompetence . . . it puts me in mind of a post by a friend of mine:
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/07/liberals-as-new-puritans.html
730 chars
alex said on July 25, 2013 at 8:24 am
And here I thought the difference between liberals and conservatives is that the former are motivated by altruism, the latter by animus.
136 chars
coozledad said on July 25, 2013 at 8:44 am
Vultures strip the dead. Christie’s has been invited by a third party to help mug an old lady who’s very much alive.
They’re descending on Detroit because there’s stuff there that isn’t nailed down. There’s water. There’s metal they can pay unfortunates to scrape off of buildings. There’s warehouse space they can use to run game to rip off consumers. It’s past time for one of those periodic bloody historical corrections:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0ehzfQ4hAQ
471 chars
Bob (not Greene) said on July 25, 2013 at 8:45 am
Jeff, that was not exactly the most convincing argument I’ve ever heard. “See, I have these ‘liberal’ friends who are always freaking out about sugar, so liberals are now General Ripper, worried about the nation’s precious bodily fluids.”
I have seen plenty of people like that. In my experience they are neither liberal nor conservative; they are young professional parents who read parenting magazines and are health freaks. The only parents I know directly who act like this are my wife’s sister and her husband — who is a staunch conservative. Both are fitness freaks.
Hey, at least they put the flouridation issue (which this liberal is fine with) to a vote of the people. Tell that to all of the broad-minded conservatives in Wisconsin, Texas, Virginia and North Carolina. I think we all know puritanism when we really see it.
839 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 8:52 am
If we were having a hamburger and a Diet Pepsi, this fellow’s rhetorical soap bubbles (such as the next two sentences) would make the lunch hour pass fairly quickly
we can summarize by noting that liberals tend to restrict their moral judgments to issues related to harm and justice where conservatives appeal to additional moral criteria like sanctity and purity. Liberals care more about things like fairness where conservatives worry more about things like contamination.
But then, given the sentence that appears at the foot of the post, would this fellow dare to stop at Micky-D’s with me, for a hamburger?
Read Mark Oppenheimer’s full article (he has some great stuff in there, for example how eating fast food is a form of feminist politics): The New Puritans: When Did Liberals Get So Uptight?
826 chars
coozledad said on July 25, 2013 at 9:00 am
Hey, at least they put the flouridation issue (which this liberal is fine with) to a vote of the people.
That was their mistake right there. That democracy shit is a relic of the old civil rights era.
210 chars
Bob (not Greene) said on July 25, 2013 at 9:16 am
I’ve never been to the DIA, but I’d like to visit before the sell off. And it’s a bargain. Admission is only $8. Hell, general admission to the Art Institute of Chicago is 23 freaking dollars. I get a break as an Illinois resident — $20. Of course, no one can beat the Cleveland Museum of Art (which also has a wonderful collection) on admission. It’s still free, if you can believe that.
389 chars
alex said on July 25, 2013 at 9:27 am
Eating fast food is a form of feminist politics? Why?
Does that fool think its sole purpose is to liberate women from their rightful place in the kitchen? What a stretch. It would be equally plausible to argue that women’s footwear was invented to liberate them from their rightful place on their backs.
307 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 9:32 am
Speaking of ‘that democracy shit’, yesterday’s discussion of Mitch Daniels versus Howard Zinn piqued my interest. When mymanMitch spoke at IPFW a year or two ago (before we found out he was going to take over that whole shebang) I attended, and….I bought his book. I made it 60 pages into the book and then gave up, and put it behind the other books on the shelf.
So last night I dug it out, and flipped back to the index, and found that he references Howard Zinn on page 68 (just beyond where I’d given up the drudgery of reading the thing), while he attacks “revisionist” history, and the idea that anyone is “entitled” to anything from the government, and where he attacks the TSA for NOT racially profiling who they want to screen through security. (Even if he has a point about airport security – and he doesn’t! – what about movie theaters, shopping malls, and elementary schools? White male terrorists outnumber their middle-eastern counterparts in all other areas of American life….but we digress)
The term “revisionist history” raises an immediate question, which is: what other sort of history is there? Are not ALL other studies – economics, medicine, geology, astronomy, quantum physics, and so on – aren’t they ALL constantly revised? Would you go to a doctor who proudly proclaims that he will NOT keep up with the latest revisions and best practices and so on?
I hear a dufus on the local talk radio spout on and on about how Christian and divinely inspired the ‘Founding Fathers’ were (he seems to be cribbing Oxy-Rush on that point, but we digress), and one of these days I’m going to have to call him up and ask him if he’s ever actually read ANY history, at all.
By way of saying, if Zinn is iconoclastic and provocative, as well as substantially accurate and with supporting citations – why would you NOT have students read his book and consider his argument, and then reject what they don’t accept on their own? Isn’t critical thinking the purpose of an education?
But again, we digress.
2035 chars
Bob (not Greene) said on July 25, 2013 at 9:50 am
Isn’t critical thinking the purpose of an education?
Brian, that’s one of my pet peeves. I don’t believe most people view colleges as places of “higher learning” or “critical thinking” anymore. They view them as very expensive trade schools. You go to college to get a job, not to learn to think critically. That’s for unemployed English and philosophy majors. And colleges have made it so expensive to attend that it’s not surprising the message to kids is, “You’d better get a high-paying job out of this, because you are in hock up to your eyeballs.”
565 chars
Deborah said on July 25, 2013 at 9:50 am
The St. Louis art museum is free too, except for special exhibitions. And may I say that the new addition to that museum, designed by the British architect David Chipperfield, is fantastic. The whole museum is extremely well maintained and the collection is amazing, especially the contemporary and modern art.
310 chars
coozledad said on July 25, 2013 at 9:51 am
Republicans and other authoritarians regard history as source material for polemic, especially the variety which supports ruling orthodoxies. The recent shift toward contemporary source materials and oral histories often omits the state or church approved versions entirely, except in instances where the focus of the study is ass-covering.
Republicans prefer reading Herodotus or Thucydides and would never consider pulling them from the curriculum despite the fact they were lying, dissembling frauds.
What Zinn does is point at the host of crimes that made it possible for a group of religious zealots and drunks to overrun indigenous peoples, put them to the torch, and then claim the resulting amalgamation of real estate whores was motivated by a love of jeeber. And once the Indians are gone, the only people left to fuck ragged are the former slaves and poor whites who accomplished the miserable project.
919 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 25, 2013 at 10:03 am
Also you should read James Loewen (if you appreciate Zinn’s work). “Sundown Towns” and “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and a third book on historical markers whose title I’m forgetting — all useful, horribly fascinating work.
220 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 10:27 am
Years ago, a fellow named Lerone Bennet wrote a thick, detailed, and fascinating book called Forced Into Glory, which posited that Abe Lincoln was a racist and only a reluctant emancipator; in short, that he was a consummate political “trimmer” with no real (or at least no heroic) attachment to the greatest single thing that he is remembered for.
I loved his book, and found it to be a muck-raking, enlightening, and refreshingly critical. Indeed, lots of folks that one meets and gabs with at Lincoln Colloquiums and lectures and so on react angrily to that book, and that author – but it always struck me the other way. I think Bennet wrote a very fine book, and he breathed life into the political and moral reality that our 16 POTUS had to deal with. Reading it is like looking at the Statue of Liberty from 5 feet away, where you can see the flaws and the rust and imperfections, while still being conscious of towering grandeur of the thing.
I’ve not yet read Zinn’s book, but it makes enough people mad that I think I probably should!
1066 chars
Charlotte said on July 25, 2013 at 10:28 am
Yeah, but has Leslie Hindman (http://www.lesliehindman.com/) shown up? My brother worked for her back in the 90s when she ran a huge salvage house — the MOST unpleasant person I have ever had dinner with. Admire the business she’s built, but boy is she awful.
260 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 25, 2013 at 10:31 am
“Lies Across America” is the one I couldn’t recall with enough specificity to post — I’ve given it as a personal gift to the historic marker programs in WV & OH, both thanked me with all the ruefulness they could muster . . . and were amazed they hadn’t heard this before. I had the honor of helping Dr. Loewen with some of his research in Ohio on “Sundown Towns” which is just a necessary read for us Northerners who still suffer from assumptions about the South’s monopoly on racism.
491 chars
coozledad said on July 25, 2013 at 10:33 am
Check Tom Tillis’ greasemonkeys out in this vid.
I want to know which genius thought a boogerpicker flattop looked good with hairgel:
http://www.bluenc.com/storyofamericaorg-documents-arrests-last-night-thom-tillis-office
223 chars
Heather said on July 25, 2013 at 10:34 am
Charlotte, this Chicagoan would love some details if you are willing to share. Just curious–I’ve attended a couple of her vintage auctions.
140 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 10:51 am
non-sequitur: don’t fail to click Nancy’s link (on the main page) to the scrapper scourge article on Bridge.
Good stuff
122 chars
Colleen said on July 25, 2013 at 10:59 am
Bob (Not Greene, I totally agree with you. As someone with a liberal arts degree who is finding it difficult to land a decently paying job, I’m seeing it first hand. So first hand that I am finishing up a 2 year degree in Health Information Management, just so I can “do something”. It’s not my love, it’s not my calling, but it’s something concrete that I can say I was trained in.
384 chars
adrianne said on July 25, 2013 at 11:07 am
I went to “World War Z” the first weekend it came out with my zombie-loving sister-in-law and thought it was pretty good. It’s quite harrowing when Brad Pitt and his family are stranded in a traffic jam in downtown Philly and slowly realize that THEY’RE UNDER ZOMBIE ATTACK!!! My immediate family boycotted it, but what do they know?
333 chars
beb said on July 25, 2013 at 11:16 am
I got as far as Zinn’s chapter on the railroads and the Gilded Age. At that point my stomach revolted. Zinn isn’t “revisionist” history. That normally refers to people who are turning to turn history over on its ear. Like the guy who goes around claiming the US is a Christian country because all the founding fathers were such great Christians. Actually most were Deists which is to say, closet atheists. Zinn is the guy who likes to turn over rocks to see the bugs scurry away. His book is a counter-point to conventional, ‘Manifest Destiny’ histories.
Speaking of Hooters, and I wasn’t, there was an interesting defense of Anthony Weiner I saw last night which argued that the media’s outrage is a little bit of a double standard. Clinton was forgiven for doing actually sexual things with Lewinsky. and of charged that he had a long time girlfriend. Weiner has only sent pictures of himself and flirted on-line, a much more passive line of behavior. And when you look at the websites of these places condemning Weiner you find ads that tout smut. I immediately flashed on an ad, seen endless, of a slender woman in a white bikini on a beach. I’m not sure if they were selling vacation locations, weight-loss or something else, day after day, site after that there was that woman posterior advertising a link to somewhere. I thought it was on Talkingpointsmemo but when I went to look for it today – suddenly it, and the block of other ads was gone. The point being that the pery sexting that Weiner was doing is not out of the mainstream of business and entertainment and so outrage being expressed by New York newspapers and calls for him to drop out of the race are hypocritical.
That doeosn’t endear me to Weiner but it is a good point.
1751 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 12:04 pm
That guy is a disgrace, and if he won’t voluntarily leave the political stage, he should be (figuratively) pelted with rotten tomatoes until he’s off of it.
NYC’s mayor also has total control of NYC’s public schools. I’d say that his “private” internet usage habits would preclude him from being hired as a teacher, and it should certainly preclude him from superintending the nation’s largest public school system, let alone dragging his family jewels (so to speak) onto the mayor’s chair
492 chars
Little Bird said on July 25, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Deborah, according to a friend in STL, the STL Art Museum apparently sold the Degas Ballerina and a Monet. Possibly to pay for the construction.
145 chars
Peter said on July 25, 2013 at 12:38 pm
First off: Charlotte, I second that opinion, and thank you for confirming it. I didn’t have the honor of having dinner with her, but I was in a meeting with her and some real estate developers and I needed two showers after that crapfest.
Now, on to history: This whole thing about Mitch and Zinn fascinates me to no end, but for a peculiar reason.
One of my favorite college courses was Man and His Past, which had a ton of reading for an elective – Herodotus, Thucydides, Gibbon, etc. At the end we read Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution, and it was a stunner.
Trotsky spends a decent amount of print in that book (and accompanying essays) on how a historian should approach a subject. In one essay, he talked about three approaches to history – Greek, Judeo-Christian (but usurped by the Catholic Church), and Communist. To cut to the chase, the Greek approach is based on cycles – seasons, years, generations, with the underlying thought of presenting history as guide to avoid making the same mistakes. Several of Hitler’s ideas in Mein Kampf use that logic – that each generation must engage in a war, for instance.
The Catholic version of history is the story arc – from the creation of the earth to the Final Call. Mitch and a lot of his ilk are on board with a feature of this type of history – if it doesn’t fit the story, it gets tossed. Why bother studying other cultures, or the other side of a conflict? They lost, didn’t they? They’re heathens; nothing to see here.
Trotsky was the one who said that correct historians need to revisit events and see if any new evidence changes the narrative; he stated that participants in an event cannot grasp the entire event, and that those who study the event from afar cannot know what the internal struggle was like. He argued that one needed to continually issue “revisionist” histories so to gain better understanding.
The same essays also detailed his concept of “politically correct” history, which of course has turned into something else altogether.
That, and he formed the Red Army AND took an axe for the team – what a guy!
2129 chars
Kirk said on July 25, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Gee, Nance, I seem to remember that you and Alan once visited a Hooters in Fort Myers when you were staying with your old pal, Becky.
I stopped in for the night on my way from Tampa to Naples. It was the first time I met Alan. We gorged on a bowl of boiled shrimp. Seems like he was grousing about having been dragged to Hooters the night before by Becky and her husband (“They seem to specialize in drinks with six kinds of liquor in them,” I remember him saying — or something like that).
Or maybe I’m just old and delusional.
Meanwhile, I know for a fact that I never have been to a Hooters.
604 chars
alex said on July 25, 2013 at 1:08 pm
Bill Clinton hasn’t lowered the bar in terms of what’s acceptable. Remember, he had already been elected to his second term when the Lewinsky story broke, and public sentiment that he should step down was very much mitigated by the fact that the Republicans were behaving so outrageously in their efforts to destroy him.
The Paula Jones lawsuit was particularly egregious. She’d been paid by Jerry Fallwell during Clinton’s first term to appear in a video in which she claimed he once propositioned her. This was just a mere sidelight; the video was mainly about how the Clintons murdered Vincent Foster and supposedly many others who possessed knowledge of the Clintons committing crimes. In her lawsuit, Jones amped up her allegations and told a story much different and much more sensationalistic than the one she’d sold to the tabloids and Falwell, revealing herself to be an opportunist and a liar.
I think most people felt that the humiliation Bill Clinton had endured was punishment enough.
1004 chars
Bitter Scribe said on July 25, 2013 at 1:19 pm
I was so glad when Tonya Harding kicked Paula Jones’ butt on Celebrity Boxing.
78 chars
adrianne said on July 25, 2013 at 1:33 pm
I find Anthony Weiner’s behavior incredibly creepy. Plus he lied and lied and lied about it. He shouldn’t be running for any political office, anywhere.
152 chars
Deborah said on July 25, 2013 at 1:41 pm
Wow, that is American TV for you in a nutshell, Tanya Harding vs Paula Jones on Celebrity Boxing. Oy.
101 chars
Dexter said on July 25, 2013 at 2:04 pm
I used to be a fearless (ignorant) swimmer. I once jumped into the San Joaquin River for a swim…it seemed too “small” to cause me any trouble, and I never gave a thought as to how many 1970-era land run-off chemicals I must have been swimming in.
I used to swim way the hell out into any ocean I was near, and I have swum in all the Great Lakes, even filthy dirty disgusting Lake Huron one time, just to complete the set of lakes. I have swum in the South China Sea with poisonous sea snakes, big deal.
As I look back, one incident could have done me in: I was staying at the Warwick Hotel in Newport News, Virginia, when I was a baseball player; it was 1968. The hotel was near the James River where the river is very, very wide…like seven miles wide. The water looked very inviting so I went in for a swim. Some little kids stopped in their tracks and watched me go deeper and deeper…suspecting I would soon be pulled down by a current, I know now. I remember feeling like I had better get my ass back to the river bank before I took one more stroke out away from the river bank. I would have had to had a helluva lot more than eight beers to try to swim the Detroit River, true that.
1210 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Standing in the Pacific Ocean last week was, I consciously recognized the feeling of undertow for the first time.
Went out about chest deep, and about every 7th or 8th wave would come in with a curl and be over my head – first driving me toward the shore and then wanting to sweep me out to sea.
It wasn’t scarey, but it got my attention!
349 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 3:02 pm
(and I liked how you could try and stand with planted feet in knee-deep water, and feel the sand beneath your feet run out, until you re-adjusted, or got toppled!)
163 chars
LAMary said on July 25, 2013 at 4:37 pm
Brian, for some reason what I consider undertow is now being referred to as rip currents. They give rip current warnings with the weather reports here. My ex and I were once sitting on the beach in Santa Monica, just watching the water and drinking beer, when we saw a woman who was clearly not able to deal with getting back to shore due to rip currents. We both dropped our beer, ran into the water, and pulled her to shore. Then sat back down and felt weird. Adrenaline I guess.
481 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 4:56 pm
Now that you mention it, I would have thought rip-tides and undertow were different things. I recall reading that if a rip current took hold of you, the thing to do is swim parallel to the beach, so as to escape it.
The major threat of the day, off the Coronado beach, was jelly fish. I saw a dead one, and then I do believe I saw a dead octopus in the waves.
(is that possible?)
I didn’t go for him because, first, if he wasn’t dead, it would anger him; and second, if he wasn’t an octopus, but instead something that stings (as jelly fish do, even when they’re dead, I’m told), then things would take a bad turn.
But darned if I didn’t catch sight of him (or her) again and again, as the afternoon progressed.
In any case, the all too pleasant California sun burned my hoosier shoulders (and bald skull) all too soon.
I could definitely live in San Diego
874 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 5:04 pm
…But I will lodge this ONE non-complaining bit of Hoosier homerist hubris:
The altogether wonderful San Diego Zoo really has nothing (other than its spectacular location in Balboa Park) on the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, period.
Our zoo has grown and improved and renovated, and it is absolutely world-class, in terms of the very wide variety of animals and displays and attractions.
San Diego does have very very cool panda bears, and their cable/sky ride is much faster than ours….
but do you know what it costs to enter the San Diego Zoo?
$44/person, period. (no discounts for kiddos or students or for having a zoo membership from here)
The cost to get into Fort Wayne’s zoo, if you didn’t have a membership (which we always have obtained) is $13 for adults, and 8 or 10 dollars for kids up to 18.
Just sayin’
845 chars
Charlotte said on July 25, 2013 at 5:15 pm
Oh Leslie — it was twenty years ago, and my brother was working for Salvage One — they came out to do some big interiors show at the convention center, and to deliver a bunch of stuff to Hollywood types (I remember someone had bought some old streetlights that Patrick and his co-worker had a devil of a time delivering up some twisty Hollywood Hills road). Anyhow, there were about 10 of us at dinner — her employees mostly — and she was just awful. Preemptively ordering for other people, talking over everyone, sending perfectly good food back to the kitchen. Needlessly self-important behavior of the type that only really insecure, social-climber types indulge in. We were all horrified. It was like being taken hostage. I think we all left surreptitious tips for the waitstaff too — did she skint on the tip or am I just retroactively imaginging it? I admire the business she’s built, and the way she’s brought a major auction house to Chicago, but once was enough on a personal level.
Then we went off to meet my old college buddy who was working for a production company on the Universal lot, and had to hide out inside the Bates house while the tour went by (you get in big trouble if the tour catches you). There’s nothing inside the house! Dirt floor, no interiors at all, Mama Bates on a wee platform up in the 2nd story window rocking away.
1361 chars
Joe K said on July 25, 2013 at 5:24 pm
Did we discuss this and I missed it, but is anyone else watching house of cards on Netflix? Got the first 6 done and I must say, that is one fine show. I usually don’t like when actors break the fourth wall, but Kevin spacey is just superb.
Pilot Joe
251 chars
Dexter said on July 25, 2013 at 5:41 pm
Joe, I never dealt with Netflix but I am aware that the new “Orange is the New Black” , a series from Netflix about a women’s prison, filmed in Astoria, Queens, NYC, is just sensational. People are raving about this new series. It is said to be “real big”…lots of story lines, lots of angles to expand upon. Natasha Lyonne is a real firecracker in this series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nryWkAaWjKg
408 chars
Jolene said on July 25, 2013 at 6:07 pm
I saw “House of Cards”, Joe, and agree that it was very good, though depressing too. When you finish it, you might want to watch the British series of the same name that provided the basis for the Kevin Spacey version. Also available through Netflix.
250 chars
Deborah said on July 25, 2013 at 6:34 pm
I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know what Netflix is?? I think it used to be a mail order deal where you got DVDs via snail mail and had to return them. I assume it is not that anymore because that is antiquated. Is it movies/TV that you download on your computer or is it like Pay Per View (or whatever they call it) on cable? I would like to watch “Orange is the New Black” from everything I’ve read and heard about it, but first I have to figure out how to access it. Hard to believe I don’t know this already, but there you have it.
533 chars
LAMary said on July 25, 2013 at 6:44 pm
Brian, that is stupid expensive for a zoo admission, but I think Sea World is around 80 dollars, Disneyland is over 100. There are discount coupons at the hotels but still. A family of four for Disneyland? Sorry. There is nothing there I would consider worth it. I’ll take the carnival games at the Santa Monica Pier any day.
325 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 6:44 pm
Deborah, you and me both!
But my lovely wife is (somehow) able to run these things on the TV; and indeed the TV can access the web….somehow.
Speaking of being up to date, my fine young son was the indispensable person on our western trip; he and his i-phone.
He was my all-purpose navigator/question answerer. And we no sooner got back, then I read an article about how GM’s OnStar service is simply obsolete now, with all the smart phones and so on.
I’ll say!
474 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Mary – I felt the spaces between my teeth for an instant there, at the zoo!
It was about 4 pm when we got there, and they’d be open through 9 pm….so I thought the crowds would be down, and the animals might well be more active (at our zoo, I love to go just before 5, and wander ’til 7 – as the animals are mostly all getting supper and are quite…animated!) – and indeed, that seemed to be the case!
We weren’t disappointed. The San Diego Zoo is a very beautiful and inviting place; and indeed, one continually descends a hill-side as you go deeper into the zoo, and the jaguars were up, as were the fishing cats(!) and some kind of heavy-set impala as well as the zebras….but then, when it was late and dark and time to go, we faced a big (big) climb!
THAT’s where the cable ride comes in! Grant and I were literally the very last folks to ride the skyride, back to the front of the zoo and out.
Interestingly, the cable ride and tour buses (which we skipped altogether) are free if you paid to get in, but costs $4 otherwise…so I take it if you buy a membership you avoid the pain at the front gate but get nicked again and again otherwise!
Anyway – I suspect you’re onto something there; the zoo admission thing is probably quite gameable (so to speak), with travel packages and hotel incentives and so on. As it was, I’m not complaining – but it got my attention. (Pam is an expert at gaining all manor of tix/food deals at Walt Disney World in Florida)
If I lived in SD, we’d have a membership and NOT ride the rides very often; and we’d also have a membership at the USS Midway
1617 chars
LAMary said on July 25, 2013 at 7:20 pm
When my kids were younger we had zoo memberships every year and the kids went to Zoo Camp every summer. I live about four miles from the LA Zoo.
144 chars
Brandon said on July 25, 2013 at 7:21 pm
I want to know which genius thought a boogerpicker flattop looked good with hairgel…–coozledad
Are you talking about Jordan Shaw’s haircut?
145 chars
alex said on July 25, 2013 at 7:33 pm
The single most amazing thing at Disney World etc. is how much moolah they can extract even from those who can least afford it. Nothing else there is even half as much a source of wonderment.
Charlotte, I adore Salvage One! A Saturday morning spent there is as good or better than any spent in the city’s world-class museums. And the exhibit is ever changing. There was also an architectural salvage place on Ravenswood between Montrose and Foster where the prices were a little less exorbitant and I picked up a few cute things there many years ago.
Never had an occasion to rub shoulders with Leslie Hindman, but my dad’s employer did business with Baird of Baird & Warner and also the Pritzkers and these associations got me some wonderfully deferential treatment from attorneys, mortgage brokers, etc., a few times. These folks were Chicago royalty and they weren’t assholes. They were so down to earth that they were always willing to put in the fix for the kids of a small-town business exec of a company that was a co-investor in their ventures. It was almost embarrassing and my ass got kissed raw. But then it has always been my observation that the old guard are laid back and the nouveaux are nuts.
1220 chars
Jolene said on July 25, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Deborah, Netflix still sends DVDs through the mail if you buy that kind of subscription, but most of its business, I believe, is streaming video. You can access it on your TV if you have the right kind of set-up, or you can watch on your computer or iPad. Check out their web site for more info.
295 chars
dull_old_man said on July 25, 2013 at 8:55 pm
Leon Despres, my alderman when I moved to Chicago, took some secondhand clothes to Trotsky in Mexico. Socialists didn’t have any money to give in
1935. I shook hands with someone who shook hands with Leon Trotsky! While he was there, Len took Frida Kahlo to the movies, but that is another
story.
I organized a meeting of amateur historians, retirees from a social service organization. Every one was supposed to bring 20 pages of history on an
assigned topic. I sent them a one-page version of Trotsky’s preface to the History of the Russian Revolution for inspiration.
576 chars
Suzanne said on July 25, 2013 at 9:08 pm
“Isn’t critical thinking the purpose of an education?” It used to be but no longer. Now, it’s the job training that the employer no longer bothers to do. Why should they if they can get the worker to pay for it ahead of time. Only problem is, you are never sure which training will get you that job, so you go into debt, debt, debt and keep trying.
As for Weiner, well, I have yet to talk to any woman who says she feels deprived because she’s never gotten a texted pic of…well, you know.
498 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 10:20 pm
Dull Old Man – very cool! Once, years ago, when Governor Jerry Brown had the presidential grub gnawing at him, he came to Fort Wayne, and (tying into another discussion that came up hereabouts a week or two ago) thus – I got to shake the hand of a man who was intimate with Linda Ronstadt – which was very cool!
311 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 10:22 pm
…and I forgot the reason I was going to post!
A fun little thing here, so that you, too, can generate an online pseudonym, as the disgraced Weiner (aka Carlos Danger) did
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2013/07/carlos_danger_name_generator_use_our_widget_to_get_a_name_like_anthony_weiner.html
My screen name?
Sandro Hazard
365 chars
Deborah said on July 25, 2013 at 10:47 pm
Enrique Risk, this is obviously only names for men
50 chars
brian stouder said on July 25, 2013 at 10:54 pm
I typed in Pamela Stouder, and got Jamie Threat….so I dunno, Enrique
70 chars
alex said on July 25, 2013 at 11:11 pm
Greetings from Antonio Calamity.
32 chars
basset said on July 25, 2013 at 11:14 pm
Fabricio Jeopardy here… think I’m gonna have to work on the hair and the pecs for that one.
93 chars
Bill said on July 25, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Ariel Hazard. We’re brothers (or sisters), Stouder.
52 chars
Dexter said on July 25, 2013 at 11:37 pm
My Blu-Ray player has a Netflix sticker on it and the cable company made me get a wireless router, but I still haven’t co-ordinated the set-up to work for Netflix. I cannot keep up with all the great cable TV shows…I have not even watched any of the new “Newsroom” series episodes. I love “Ray Donovan” and the final year of “Dexter”.
338 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 26, 2013 at 12:21 am
Mario Risk.
Meh.
19 chars
Sherri said on July 26, 2013 at 12:28 am
Mario Catastrophe. I’m gonna need to find a fake dick, obviously.
65 chars
Little Bird said on July 26, 2013 at 1:13 am
Raul Hazard. Only for guys, clearly.
37 chars
Little Bird said on July 26, 2013 at 1:15 am
Way off topic here, MASSIVE thunderstorm going on in Santa Fe. Power out in some areas, not here, but I would need surgical instruments to remove the cat from my chest.
169 chars
MichaelG said on July 26, 2013 at 10:25 am
Carmelo Death here.
19 chars