I’m back, and I had a wonderful time. I’d like your indulgence to work on a longer post about the experience, which I’ll post in a few days. It turns out I have a few thoughts about the last week, and I don’t want to rush into just bleating them out there, but at the same time, I also don’t want to put in a few hours of work crafting them while I’m still on vacation. And I have a couple of big-busy days ahead — it’s Bridge’s 5th birthday this month, and there are parties and panels and places I have to be, none around the corner from the office. Oh, and checking the calendar, I see I have a deadline in a few days, too. Grr.
Well, I asked for this life. All I need is a little forbearance. In the meantime, how about a picture or two?
Here’s the group from surf camp — some day campers only, most overnighters, all tons of fun:
That’s me, second shaka sign from the right. Our group included two doctors, a dentist, more engineers than you could shake a stick at, bankers, a police lieutenant, firefighter, sales people of all kinds and I don’t know what.
And here’s the photographic proof I was there and successfully stood more or less upright on a moving surfboard for at least a few seconds:
Oh my, was it ever fun.
I stayed plugged in, news-wise, but there were things I was happy to let pass by like a wave in the lineup, unridden by the likes of me. The Matt Lauer thing, for one. Gary Johnson wondering what a Leppo is, for another. One of the best things about vacation is sitting around a campfire, listening to other people talk about stuff, and only joining in if you feel like it.
Needless to say, I usually join in. It’s m’nature.
But this is the start of a new week. Hillary has pneumonia. Oh, what joy to consider the slime that will be stirred through the national stew as that one gets around.
Maybe I should go back to California. I got money saved. Hardly anyone would miss me.
But no! The wave is coming — gotta start paddling.
Dexter said on September 11, 2016 at 7:37 pm
As I began reading this post, my diverted vision of the group photo indicated there were cartoon Minions in the group (just surfboards it turns out at full glance) …hell…it was California…I saw strange things also a few weeks ago. (In San Diego Old Town a young deranged man with a huge backpack decided to climb a large tree across from the candy store. Problem: the area is a state park, and the rangers were sternly on his ass in about 90 seconds, and after a long argument about his goddam rights, he climbed down.)
HRC’s pneumonia is serious but easily remedied, and she’ll be fine in a matter of hours. Two years ago in Columbus the day post-Thanksgiving, I started a pot of coffee and instantly I felt horrible and the world began spinning around my head. The next day I was DX’d w/ pneumonia, given a dose-pak of antibiotics and other pills and in a couple days, I slayed a dragon. But it is scary to lose control of everything instantaneously and assume death is nigh.
9-11…by now we have all had our fill of remembrances today, so I’ll just say this: the late Peter Jennings of ABC was the media star that day…he was great and he never took a break, just stayed with it.
And when I got back from California and still had three days more in Las Vegas before flying home, I was ready to be Leaving Las Vegas, go straight back to California, and never leave.
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St Bitch said on September 11, 2016 at 7:45 pm
Kind of bursting with pride about you riding that wave, Nancy!
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St Bitch said on September 11, 2016 at 7:47 pm
I did notice that Iowa, showing light red (not quite pink) on the FiveThirtyEIght site this morning, has turned light blue this evening. We are mos def a swinging state.
I’ve applied for an absentee ballot for my mother, per suggestions from some of you. Thankfully, she is still actively registered.
Also, one of my ‘respite’ caretakers, a black woman I met in an African dance class we both attend, has vowed to register 20 voters before Nov 8. She’s especially targeting young, first-timers…not necessarily Democrats…but individuals she can expect to show common sense when casting their ballots.
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Deborah said on September 11, 2016 at 7:54 pm
Nancy, you look like you’re thinking, “I got this”… Good for you.
I just gave Hillary $500. I feel so bad that she’s been treated bad for the last 20 years. Wow, what she must be going through. Yes, I know you’re saying she’ll be going through worse when she’s elected, but all I can say about that is that’s a crying shame.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 11, 2016 at 8:39 pm
Congratulations, blogmistress. That’s a lovely example of going “confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”
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Sherri said on September 11, 2016 at 10:20 pm
Way to go! I never doubted you!
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brian stouder said on September 11, 2016 at 10:44 pm
Absolutely marvelous photos!!
And the spirit that they capture is the secret sauce that makes this site the very best place to stop in and visit, every single day, I say.
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basset said on September 11, 2016 at 10:53 pm
Congrats on your surfing success, don’t think I’d care to try it though. What led you to do that?
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Heather said on September 11, 2016 at 11:29 pm
Well I am terrified and panicky about this latest health issue. The video is scary and the media is going nuts. I’m sure it is just pneumonia–even when I get bad allergies I overheat easily and get dehydrated, so I can easily imagine fainting if I were going nonstop for the last, what, year or so? But shit, it looks terrible. I’m imagining President Trump and North Korea and nukes and seriously considering if I should just flee to the countryside in some nice socialist country.
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alex said on September 12, 2016 at 12:05 am
A Taylor University student talkin’ dirty: http://www.salon.com/2016/09/11/sex-in-the-cornfields-the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-dating-at-a-strict-christian-college/
And I’m sure not everyone puts their fair share of dollars into the pound-the-pud penance jar or it would be an endowment by now.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 1:22 am
The media is going nuts because they’ve been primed to by the constant drumbeat of the right-wing conspiracy theorists about Hillary’s health. Yes, Hillary fainted; over heating, dehydration, and walking pneumonia can do that. That’s not unusual. As someone pointed out, David Petraus fainted during a Congressional hearing. I once fainted when I was just standing listening to a friend tell me about her husband’s collarbone fracture. One second I was hearing how the injury happened, the next thing I knew I was looking up at her concerned face. Fainting is not usually a big deal, unless you hurt yourself falling. Some people are just more prone to fainting than others. I’m one of them, so’s my mother, so’s my daughter.
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Deborah said on September 12, 2016 at 3:27 am
I’ve fainted twice in my life. The first time, it was Christmas Day, I was at church in Miami, I was fourteen. I had gotten a sweater for Christmas and was determined to wear it even though it was over 80 degrees that morning. We had to stand and I must have stood up too fast. My sister later told me that I crumpled onto the pew causing a bit of a stir around me. The other time I fainted I was about twenty five, Little Bird was a baby, I lived in Dallas and was getting laundry out of a hot dryer at my house. That time it was out of the blue.
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David C. said on September 12, 2016 at 6:21 am
I’ve never poked a toe in salt water let alone surfed on it. Pretty cool. Living in the Midwest’ll do that to a person, I guess.
Since my wife’s thermostat started burning out, she’s fainted a couple of times. It’s scary as hell, but the doctor’s say she’s fine, nothing to worry about.
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Suzanne said on September 12, 2016 at 6:54 am
Heck, George Bush barfed mightily at a state dinner in Japan, if I remember correctly. So, people get sick.
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adrianne said on September 12, 2016 at 8:05 am
Bitchin’ pix, Gidget. Looks like you had a whale of a time!
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ROGirl said on September 12, 2016 at 9:25 am
I had a health scare on Friday due to … acid reflux. Too much really strong coffee had me wiped out for the entire day. Had to lie down to keep from throwing up. It was worse than a hangover, and no alcohol was involved.
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Dorothy said on September 12, 2016 at 9:59 am
That picture of you is just so terrific, Nancy! It looks like you had such a great time!
I’m not terribly worried about Mrs. Clinton. She had on long sleeves (a suit) and a blouse, and had stood 90 minutes according to reports. I’m astonished she didn’t keel over sooner than that. The anchors on Sunday TODAY talked about how very, very warm it was in NYC that day, one saying she came into the building in shorts and a tee shirt and it still felt very hot to her. So for Hillary to show up knowing she had pneumonia and still try to stand during the memorial services says volumes to me about her determination and strength, not her weaknesses. I’m not wild about the fact that they didn’t reveal the pneumonia, but I’m sure they were hoping to skate through this health issue without it being public because of Trump’s propensity to jump on her health issues. I think she’s going to own his ass at the debates and Donald will be the one getting weak-kneed when she is shown to be so much more informed than he.
I commented to my husband this weekend that ISIS must be frothing at the mouth for a Trump victory. He says he knows so much more about ISIS than ‘the generals’ and boasts about how he’s going to defeat them. I feel very strongly that if he wins, ISIS is going to pull off a massive terrorist attack on our soil within a month of him getting sworn in. That’s a big “F you, Mr. President” waiting to happen. Does anyone else think this is a strong possibility?! It’s seeming more and more inevitable to me and scares me to death.
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 10:27 am
Dorothy – I share that same apprehension, that you eloquently described.
Having an 18 year old daughter and a 21 year old son (not even to mention the 12 year old) tends to focus my attention to bull(shit) artists in the China (or North Korea) shop.
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Heather said on September 12, 2016 at 10:42 am
To be clear, I’m not worried about her health–just about the effect on the election. But thanks for talking me down, guys. I have to learn how to tune out the media noise. Unfortunately I read about this right before I went to sleep and then woke up at 4 AM and worried some more.
And I was so upset about that I forgot to say–gnarly waves, Nancy! Or whatever surf talk is these days. How long were the classes each day? That is, were you in the water for hours? It’s got to be very intense. Good on ya!
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 11:11 am
I DID see that the Donald plans to make a stop in Asheville, North Carolina.
This gave me pause, because – will he visit the Biltmore? Or at least, the fancy-Biltmore-y McDonald’s, which is on the way to the Biltmore?
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Jenny Derringer said on September 12, 2016 at 11:25 am
Congratulations on staying upright at least for awhile. I was looking forward to seeing photos.
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Deborah said on September 12, 2016 at 11:26 am
Brian, one of these days we may get into the Biltmore, my mother-in-law lives in Charlotte and if we drive from Chicago to see her we go through Ashville. So far we’ve only been to the grounds where we had a picnic. As I recall the fee to get into the mansion was high and we didn’t want to spend that much time there.
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Dorothy said on September 12, 2016 at 11:35 am
The Biltmore is a really fabulous place to visit. I’ve been twice, but never at Christmas time when I hear it is extraordinarily gorgeous. Maybe someday I’ll go at Christmas, when I’m retired. It was worth the $$ spent to go and takes awhile to get through.
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 11:40 am
Deborah – it’s $50 – which at first blush is ridiculous…..
but we enjoyed it thoroughly.
If you do it – may I suggest adding the “upstairs/downstairs” tour – which shows you the secret passageways (really!) and the work spaces and the sleeping quarters of “the help”?
Also – we found later-in-the-day-crowds were much reduced, when we did the ‘upstairs/downstairs’ tour
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Charlotte said on September 12, 2016 at 11:54 am
I’m a fainter — especially in heat and crowds. Once famously flopped off the front pew of the outdoor Mass in northern Wisconisn. Eight years old, pink dress, little shoes, out cold. *That* sped up the Mass — the other thing everyone seems to forget is that Hillary wears a Kevlar vest much of the time — and those things are hot. The media might have been all “oh horrors” but my FB and Twitter feeds were full of “eh, big deal, woman is sick and does her job anyway — who hasn’t?”
I do worry though. I watch very little TV, but every time we watch a football game I’m reminded of the cacaphony most folks live with — especially considering how many have the box on all day long, loud.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 12, 2016 at 11:55 am
Sherri, being in the Episcosphere, I’m curious as to your reaction to this: I’m less bothered directly by Friday’s “basket of deplorables” (GOTV or not, I think it was an oddly broad dismissal of big chunks of an electorate she will need to win over, even if not in a Nov. vote but in post-Jan. governance) than I was seeing how many of my colleagues in mainline Protestant ministry on social media jump directly to “yeah, those folks are not even worth our trying to reach.” When I know they are at least 20-30% of most of our congregations, and that’s down, but not as far down as it should be.
But my real ire is how it turns into “if we could just get rid of them, those brutal Neanderthal ignoramus haters, we’d have such a lovely church, and we’d never have to choose our words carefully talking about climate change or income inequality, but we could just all say exactly what we think, hooray!”
I’ve got a solid 100 years of history in my own denomination of how on three separate occasions in the past the dominant and educated elites have pushed this idea of church vitality, and a) they always end up with lots fewer people and congregations when the dust settles, and b) more to the point, because it’s not all about numbers, but in 12-20 years IT HAPPENS ALL OVER AGAIN. So we’ve halved ourselves thrice, and are cruising for a fourth, because many of my colleagues want all the Trumpsters and unreformed racialists and older people in general and traditionalists of all sorts to just freakin’ go away . . . and they will doubtless get what they want over these next few years, and there will be less done by fewer people using dwindling assets (building & cash), and the harder-to-reach folk will drift into where their prejudices will be confirmed, and everyone can at least not worry about how to state their assumptions during coffee hour, let alone from the pulpit. Under a ceiling where half the bulbs are unreplaced and a large water-stain from a leak is growing each spring and winter.
Could we try harder to preach conversion and transformation? No, we’ve tried enough; there was an MLK essay contest last winter, you know. It’s time for “those people” (uneducated, less aesthetically inclined, more homogenous in general except for their grandkids, but don’t bring it up, they’re lovely) to just get out of our church and leave us alone. And yes, I worry that the Democratic Party is going to head down that same rat-hole of dwindling returns on self-referential efforts, but I know my mainline Protestant denomination is going to go down the drain long before that if trends continue. 2037, maybe 2041 at the latest. Unless there’s a miracle!
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basset said on September 12, 2016 at 12:11 pm
The working parts of the Biltmire were the most interesting for me, probably because my ancestors were more than likely among those doing the cleaning, washing, cooking, and general upkeep.
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Dave said on September 12, 2016 at 12:30 pm
You really did it, California surfing, minus Frankie and Annette. I can’t even imagine doing that, I can only sort of swim. Looks like a great adventure that I’d never do, sometimes I think I’m a big chicken, frankly.
Hillary shouldn’t have said that, regardless, I can’t think of it creating anything but more divisiveness. Perhaps she wasn’t going to win those people over, anyway (no doubt) but rubbing their faces in it probably makes it more likely.
We toured the Biltmore several years ago, I don’t think it was $50 then, but it was pricy. We very much enjoyed the tour and the grounds but I wondered then and wonder now why anyone would want to have it, other than because they can. I wonder the same at people who build huge homes today.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 12:43 pm
Jeff(tmmo), I have several thoughts on the matter. First, church is open to anyone seeking God, as far as I’m concerned, and I have a pretty broad definition of God. We can disagree about many other things as long as that common goal is shared. I’m going to say what I believe about climate change and income inequality, and I can love them and accept them when they disagree. They can even be as bigoted as hell, as long as they don’t act on their bigotry among our congregation. If they start running off the male couple we have in our church, or start agitating for no more women priests or worship leaders or acolytes, or make comments about the Asians in our church, then we’ve got a problem.
As for politics, I don’t know, as a white male, to what degree you have noticed the level of racism, sexism, anti-semitism, xenophobic bigotry that has been directed at people during this campaign. There are Trump supporters doing things that are beyond what is acceptable in civil society. I think white male media people were more shocked by her statement than other people in the media, simply because that while they’re aware of the stuff that is out there, they aren’t targets.
All of us will react to something or someone in bigoted ways at times. It’s distasteful, but something to work on as long as we don’t do or say anything to hurt anybody else. If we regularly do or say something to hurt other people, especially knowing that it is hurtful, then that’s deplorable.
When talking about the white working class, which generally has left the Dems over race, I don’t say the Dems should write them off entirely. What I say is, we should not make changes to attract them that compromise civil rights. We should pursue economic policies that will help them, because they need help. But not them exclusively, because working class people of color need help, too.
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LAMary said on September 12, 2016 at 12:54 pm
I’ve fainted at a few very inconvenient times. Once in line at Souplantation (someone caught me before I caused too much wreckage) once in a disco in Amsterdam, once at an anti war rally at the pentagon and a few times far less interesting places. A doctor friend tells me I might be fainting because I can’t handle really noisy places. Which indeed I can’t. The anti war rally and the disco would be in that category. He tells me that my brain tells me to leave and I don’t, so the brain says, ok then, we’re checking out.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 12, 2016 at 1:49 pm
“But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
What I think is missing in the so-called “discussion” of Clinton’s speech is that she said that paragraph next after discussing the “deplorables,” and it speaks much more directly to the problems of trust that she or the other candidate will face upon reaching office. It’s un/under-reported lines like that which keep me firmly in her camp, despite the unpleasant and dismissive tone some of her supporters take about those who don’t see or say things exactly the way they want them to… and which the previous ad lib (or so I’m inferring it was) seemed to reinforce. Hillary Clinton is the only candidate of all four options (McMullin isn’t on the Ohio ballot anyhow) who has consistently shown any understanding of the hollowing out of the Midwestern/Appalachian/rural economies, sympathy for those still trying to navigate their descent, and a willingness to find some sort of middle ground for US economic policy between nationalism and globalism. I think she’s stuck in some insincere postures around TPP et alia, but she only looks inauthentic in how she’s trying to thread that needle until you look at what any of her opponents are saying — and I emphatically include Johnson & Stein in that dismissal along with Trump.
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 1:50 pm
Basset at 27 – agreed!
And two things that really hit me were –
1. if you worked there, you lived and slept there…so if you got fired, you were immediately homeless!!
2. The household budget: the head woman was given whatever the annual amount was (say – $1,000 – although I don’t recall), and she paid everyone out of that. Whatever she didn’t pay out to others, made up HER pay. So her primary motivation would always be to pay as little as she could get away with, and still get the work done.
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Scout said on September 12, 2016 at 1:51 pm
Anyone Hillary put in that Basket of Deplorables was never, ever, ever, ever, ever (everevereverever) going to vote for her in a million years anyway. Seriously, another case of the media having the freaking vapors over the calling out of racism instead of the actual racism itself. Just like they want to make the Clinton Foundation look like a shameful mess, while the real story of corruption and mismanagement is the Trump Foundation. There has been nothing fair or balanced in this election’s coverage.
Trump making fun of Hillary’s pneumonia only creates Exhibit Eleventybillion that he is a sociopathic bully. As usual, the only one who ends up looking bad is the Tangerine Hellbeast Himself. I want a legit Dr report on Rumplethinskin and to see his taxes. Only then can he honk about transparency.
I’m looking forward to the full Gidget write up. The pics so far have been da bomb.
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MarkH said on September 12, 2016 at 1:54 pm
Basset –
See my post #167 from yesterday.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 12, 2016 at 2:15 pm
Here’s a shock: Thomas Frank has already said what I’m trying to (without the ecclesial angle) and done so much more fluently. I loved his advice to the next president…
http://www.politico.com/magazine/politico50/2016/thomas-frank
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 2:20 pm
It wasn’t an ad lib, Jeff(tmmo); she didn’t say half, but she did use the “basket of deplorables” line in an interview on Israeli TV the week before. I think she is very deliberately calling out the racism of the Trump campaign. We’re not supposed to do that anymore, I guess, unless people wear hoods, but in case you haven’t noticed, there is a significant fraction of Trump supporters who do wear hoods. The campaign CEO runs a media site that proudly proclaims itself the platform of the white nationalists. This is not normal, but the media continues to treat this campaign as if it is.
Trump, with his “outreach to black people”, was trying to paper over his racism so that he could attract votes from people turned off by his racism. Clinton is saying, nope, can’t hide it, it’s right there.
The media isn’t interested in covering the rest of Clinton’s quote because it’s too nuanced and boring and can’t be fit into the narrative or horse race very well. The narrative is that Clinton is corrupt liar and Trump is a racist, so things that fit that narrative get much more coverage.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 2:23 pm
My major problem with Thomas Frank and others like him is that he consistently ignores race. The working class isn’t just white, and the Democrats haven’t ignored them. It’s only if you pretend that race has no impact that you can make these arguments.
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Mouse said on September 12, 2016 at 2:33 pm
Not too bad for a gremmie Nance.
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 2:40 pm
You gotta hear Pearl Jam’s “Gremmie outta Control”….great song! (and taught me the meaning of the word ‘gremmie’, years before I’d need to know it!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mu54N9NSaQ
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Dexter said on September 12, 2016 at 3:01 pm
A seer could have easily predicted I would be a low-rank-soldier,a warehouse man, and a hard-job factory worker for a career, because my mom’s people came over from Bern, Switzerland, as indentured servants. I reckon the closest anyone from that side of the family got to being slightly elevated in the middle class was my grandpaw, who made $80 a week in the depression, as a senior mail clerk on the NYC RR.
HRC cancelled the big California trip.
On the plus side, the Chicago Cubs are rolling along, hopefully World Series bound.
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Mouse said on September 12, 2016 at 3:09 pm
Great song Brian.I think I first heard gremmie in a Beach Boy’s song when I was a surfer wannabe in the Navy.Flew to California in 1967,first time in a big jet,courtesy of the US gov’t.I was stationed on Treasure Island,had never been out of Indiana before.God I loved California,never wanted to leave.Lousy surfer though.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 3:33 pm
I pass out because my imagination is a little too good. I didn’t pass out when I smashed my wrist into pieces, but I almost passed out when the surgeon described what he did to fix it. I didn’t pass out when I tore my ACL, but I had to be careful researching the injury because I could get pretty woozy reading about it. I have to look away and focus on something during a blood draw or they’ll be picking me up off the floor.
When I was in high school, a teacher came and pulled me out of class because my mother had passed out giving blood at the church across the street from the high school and I needed to drive her home.
I have a very high tolerance for pain, but don’t tell me the details of your gruesome injury or you might find me collapsing in front of you. It’s weird and a little embarrassing, but i don’t know of anything to do to stop it.
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adrianne said on September 12, 2016 at 3:39 pm
Charles Pierce, one of my fave commentators, has an epic takedown of the grift that has taken over the charter school industry. Here it is: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48531/california-charter-schools/
My favorite line: “In other words, all they want from the public school system is money and suckers.”
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 4:14 pm
Adrianne – excellent article!
I especially loved this line:
There’s now a bill before Governor Jerry Brown that would tighten the public accountability standards for charter operators within the state.
…which is to say – increasing accountability from “absolutely nonexistent” to…something!
I love love love our public schools in Fort Wayne, and tonight is school board meeting night (ie – “public accountability” night, conducted by a popularly elected board of trustees, who all live here (and in fact live in particular school districts), and who do the business of allocating and overseeing public funds in public, in front of God and everybody!
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 4:17 pm
The fundamental idea behind the school reform movement is that local elected school boards are not capable of doing the job.
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 4:28 pm
Sherri – I know you’re stating a fact.
My standing challenge to anyone is: come to a Fort Wayne Community Schools Board of Trustees meeting. Listen, read, take it in.
before or after the meeting, mingle a little; if you have a question about something, you can even walk right up to the superintendent (a magnificent individual who is a life-long Fort Wayne resident, and who has grand children in the system, and who was a teacher in the district some years ago) and ask her.
They – the administrators and the teachers – skillfully navigate the district (31,000 students, with about 70 different languages spoken) through any number of Federal and state mandates and challenges, and I could not possibly be prouder than to say that it’s truly MY district, looking out for what the young folks need
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Deborah said on September 12, 2016 at 4:42 pm
As Gary Johnson might say, what’s a gremmie?
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 4:43 pm
Jeff(tmmo), more thoughts on the bigots and church.
We moved up here to this church during the height of the to-do being fomented in the Episcopal Church over gay priests and bishops and same sex marriage. There were already churches leaving and threatening to leave and a few rogue bishops, and lawsuits over the property. The church we had left in Palo Alto was quite liberal, but this one less so.
There were people here who were adamant that homosexuality was an abomination full stop and were quite vocal about it. Our priest, God bless him, held a forum where everybody could have their say and kept it as civil and loving as possible, and didn’t let the church fall apart over it. There was one family in particular who was quite vocal about it (and pretty obnoxious about it). The problem with continuing to tolerate that from this family is that their stance ended up driving off a couple of other families, including a family who were long time parishioners whose son was gay.
Eventually, the obnoxious family left, and the long time parishioners came back, but they had been quite clear when they left why they had left. This family came close to driving me away, too, because they were active and so overt in their bigotry. The church was starting a capital campaign, and I wasn’t sure I could commit to a multi-year pledge if this family represented a substantial fraction of the church. I don’t have to agree with everybody, but I felt this family was doing harm, and if they were going to pull others with them, I didn’t want to be there. I had a discussion with the priest, and decided to stay and commit, but it was a close thing.
I know there are still parishioners who disagree with the Episcopal Church’s stance on LGBTQ issues, because I’ve spent enough time with the church finances to know that there are a couple of families who refuse to have any of their pledge money go towards the diocesan assessment. Personally, I have a problem with that, but money is fungible, and that’s just one of many reasons I’m not cut out for the priesthood anyway!
I think we could discuss climate change and income inequality and disagree in our church without it being a deal breaker, and I know we can be Republicans and Democrats in our church and it not be a deal breaker, but I understand that in other churches, that might be harder.
I tease our treasurer all the time about listening to Rush Limbaugh, and we still get along just fine.
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brian stouder said on September 12, 2016 at 4:54 pm
I gave Uncle Rush his 5 minutes at lunchtime (helps keep my apetite in check, I think) – and he was all over the medical mysteries of Secretary Clinton.
Made me wonder if ol’ Rush has been hitting the oxycontin again; or maybe it’s just all the Viagra he apparently needs, before going on a sex-vacation in the Dominican Republic.
That piece of human excrement can go straight to hell, for all I care…or maybe he should, more appropriately, swirl around and around before getting there
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 5:03 pm
More Ta-Nehisi Coates on the basket of deplorables, this time on media reaction to it: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/they-are-all-breitbart-now/499511
An even bigger problem with political reporting and punditry than the horse-race and narrative is that everything is reported through a white lens, usually a white male lens. Black reporters I was reading on twitter had a different reaction to Clinton’s statement than white reporters, because racism is a different experience for them. A lot of women I follow on twitter had a different reaction to the news about Clinton’s pneumonia, too, not “why didn’t she tell us” but “yeah, I know what it feels like to keep going even though I’m sick”.
As for not telling the press about the pneumonia, I don’t know. Where’s the line? She didn’t need to go to the hospital. What if it had been bronchitis, instead (also a common campaign affliction)? The flu? An upper respiratory virus? This wasn’t a serious health issue, despite the media attempt to make it so.
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Jakash said on September 12, 2016 at 5:05 pm
Jeff (tmmo),
I get that there are a lot of “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different.”
What I’ll never get is why they’d ever have any hope that the pumpkin-faced plutocrat would have their back. If it’s ever been clearer that a campaign was demonstrably about the ego of the candidate, and almost nothing else, I’ve missed it. How many stories about him screwing contractors and small business folks does one need to see before it dawns on them that the defining feature of this guy is than he cares only about himself and his family and scant few others, but certainly NOT down-on-their-luck, or even prosperous blue collar folks?
Brexit? — well, more people will be able to afford to come to MY golf course!
9/11? — Hey, MY building is now the tallest in lower Manhattan!
Orlando terrorist attack? — “Appreciate the congrats for being right…”
There’s a theme running through those comments, and it’s called narcissism — which ain’t gonna suddenly morph into a passion for improving the lives of voters, deplorable or not.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 5:16 pm
They don’t think he’ll help them. They think he hates the same people they do.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 5:35 pm
There are not two sides to racism.
http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/09/donald_trump_fans_have_been_se.html#incart_2box
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 6:22 pm
Headlines at the NYTimes right now.
Hillary Clinton’s Campaign to Release More Information on Her Health
Watching, and Wincing, as Clinton Stumbles
Donald Trump Demands Hillary Clinton Apologize for ‘Deplorables’ Remark
What Pneumonia Experts Say about Clinton’s Case
Michelle Obama Brings Voters’ Trust to Hillary Clinton’s Campaign
The new Public Editor for the Times said over the weekend that complaints of false equivalence were basically just partisan bickering.
Meanwhile, the Times may as well cede the Pulitzer to David Farenthold at the WaPo, who continues to do the digging on the Trump Foundation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/12/there-were-five-phantom-donations-in-the-files-of-donald-trumps-foundation-heres-what-we-know
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jcburns said on September 12, 2016 at 6:59 pm
The Public Editor’s article just infuriated me when it was released online, and I wrote an, um, sternly-worded quickly-dashed-off response. I seem to be becoming consumed with picking fights and putting out fires on Twitter, deluding myself that I’m somehow speaking up for the fine principles of journalism. This probably isn’t good.
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beb said on September 12, 2016 at 7:03 pm
A question for JC Burns. After 100posts in a thread my browser, Firefox, begins to screw up the display, overlaping new posts over old posts and making it all difficult to read. This this something messing up on my endor is that an incompatibility between nn’s server and firefox?
The Hillary craziness now claims that HRC has been replaced by a body double. It’s madness.
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jcburns said on September 12, 2016 at 7:13 pm
Beb, I’m sure it’s something about how your particular build of Firefox deals with the CSS (the style instructions) on the site. I checked it on Firefox here (on a Mac) and I’m not seeing it, but I can’t assure you it would be that way on every browser on every operating system. Sorry for the inconvenience!
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adrianne said on September 12, 2016 at 7:19 pm
The biggest miss in campaign coverage is the intense scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation (which found that no favors were granted for donors) and the complete miss on the pay-for-play graft on the Trump Foundation. (David Fahrenthold is a lonely voice out there). Disgraceful.
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alex said on September 12, 2016 at 7:31 pm
Even PBS sucks these days. Tonight they’re debating whether Clinton’s pneumonia is a health issue or a “failure to disclose” issue. Because, as we all know, every presidential candidate in history has always called press conferences to announce their every shart and sniffle.
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 7:33 pm
The Public Editor’s response was especially galling coming after the tenure of Margaret Sullivan as Public Editor, who was really good at the job. I don’t know whether she had any impact in the newsroom, but she at least got it.
I’m not a journalist, but damn, I get frustrated by incompetence!
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 7:51 pm
Heather, this is for you: http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/afternoon-cartoon-monday-september-12th
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 8:12 pm
Guess what? John Kerry had pneumonia while he was campaigning in 2004, and he didn’t tell the press about it! But only Hillary could be so secretive as to hide an illness from the press!
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/26/nation/na-diners26
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 8:21 pm
This is one of those standard interview the undecided voters piece, except that you look more closely and see that one of them is a 42 year old political reporter in DC and you read what he (it’s got to be a guy) has to say, and you just want to give up.
http://www.gq.com/story/inside-the-mind-of-the-undecided-voter
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basset said on September 12, 2016 at 8:25 pm
MarkH@34,thanks for the link. I am aware of that exhibition but have not yet seen it… don’t know enough about art to be comfortable in the Frist or most museums, so I tend to stay away. That said, I did make it to the Frist’s art deco car exhibit three years ago, looks like CBS Sunday Morning did a piece on that one too:
http://fristcenter.org/calendar/detail/sensuous-steel
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 8:33 pm
Good news! I figured out a way to be NPR free. Instead of using my last century tech clock radio as an alarm and waking up to NPR, I’m now using an old iPhone and a Sonos speaker to wake up to the BBC World Service.
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susan said on September 12, 2016 at 8:43 pm
There ya go, Sherri! I’ve been doing that for almost two years now. And BBC Radio 4. Get the CBC app, too. They have a reasonable take on Amukkkan news. I am so much happier without NPR news. No yelling at the radio anymore.
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Mouse said on September 12, 2016 at 9:17 pm
Nice goofyfoot Nance!
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Mouse said on September 12, 2016 at 9:19 pm
Oops,no it isn’t looking back at the pic.
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nancy said on September 12, 2016 at 9:36 pm
Yes, left foot forward is regular foot. Right forward is goofyfoot. Among the million things I learned last week.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 12, 2016 at 9:38 pm
Jakash, Trump will have their back, their front, and he will process and resell everything from their hooves to their horns. Or as Mencken said, “the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
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Sherri said on September 12, 2016 at 10:14 pm
Hard-core Social Security privatization fans always point to Chile as a model. That’s where Friedman and buddies got to consult on designing the pension plan. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s been a lot better for the people drawing fees than the people drawing pensions. Who could have known?
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/09/heres-cautionary-tale-pension-privatization-chile
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Sherri said on September 13, 2016 at 12:10 am
Just in case you needed any more info about the deplorables, James Fallows updates his Time Capsule: http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/09/trump-time-capsule-101-pepe-the-frog/499688/
This really isn’t normal, and too many of our media outlets have demonstrated that they just aren’t up to the task of covering this election. I think they’re focusing on Hillary because they understand how to cover her.
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St Bitch said on September 13, 2016 at 12:22 am
Character assassination of voters by a candidate is a piss poor idea, and I’m pissed off at Hillz & co for trying it. I don’t think it will lose her the election, but…come on!
First of all, ‘never generalize’ is high school debate 101.
Secondly, there’s nothing to be gained by stating what is obvious to her supporters, slanderous to her detractors, and off-putting to independents who don’t trust her anyway.
Thirdly, she’s going down the Trump rabbit hole onto his turf where she can’t prevail…she’s outa his league.
Finally, there’s enough investigative reporting about Trump supporters that she simply doesn’t need to go there.
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