The end, finally.

Short shrift today, folks. We’ve entered the last days of the school year, which mean more work for mother, and practically no work for the student in the house. Today is the safety/service picnic, and I’m a driver/chaperone/fruit salad contributor. Also, I worked a seven-hour news-farming shift last night, and I don’t want to see my keyboard for another 12 hours. Discuss what you like. I hear Hillary’s finally throwing in the towel, which is gracious of her because, you know, she could have taken it to the streets of Denver, and tear gas could have been involved. I’m thinking what happened to Hillary is what happens to people who live in a human cocoon, surrounded by ass-kissers and pillow-plumpers who either a) spend all their time covering their own; or b) telling you what you want to hear. When Sonny Corleone shouted at Tom Hagen that he wasn’t a wartime consigliere, he was speaking for everybody at the head of a losing team: Tell me the truth!

Too bad no one did. On to November. Remember, look past the fence.

Bloggage:

Detroit should change its motto to “defining new ways to be fucked up, every day” — someone pried an 8-foot statue of Jesus from the cross on the side of a church, and I don’t think they were re-enacting the 13th station of the cross. Best guess for a motive is, the statue is green, and the thieves probably thought it was copper. (It wasn’t.) America, behold your future!

Sweet Juniper’s dad has the second kid in cloth diapers, and he was feeling a little smug about it. Was:

Yesterday I had the misfortune of going down into the basement during the spin cycle of that initial rinse. Our washing machine empties into a basin during the spin cycle. As desensitized as I have become to all things scatological over the past few years, nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for what was pulsing into the wash basin. Vomiting out of the tube was this butterscotch-tinted gray liquid, quickly filling the room with the humid perfume of pickled baby shit that had marinated in a brine of cold urine for a week. I watched it rise in the basin as the washing machine spun. Just when the vile brew threatened to spill over the top it began to subside in a roaring, fecal Charybdis above the drain. I swear I heard the voices of demons or lost souls calling desperately to me from the gurgling ferment.

That man is a good writer.

When I lived in Indiana, and I was about to attend my first Indy 500, I went prancing back to the sports department to pick up my press pass. Ooh, how exciting! The old geezer who covered, I think, golf and some other boring sport looked at me and shook his head sadly. He’d been to the race, he said. Once. He took his kids; they had great seats right on the main stretch. The race started, that thrilling moment when 33 cars go into that first turn like a flock of fighter jets flying in tight formation, and then this happened on the second lap:

Right in front of the biggest part of the crowd, right in front of his kids. The old sportswriter bundled his hysterical children into the car while they were still clearing the track, drove back to Fort Wayne and never felt the need to attend Indiana’s signature sporting event again. Those sitting close told stories much like this:

I see a driver being carried on a stretcher into the infield hospital. I am close enough I could have reached out and touched him. He is burned so badly there is no way to tell who he is. The figure is barely recognizable as a human being. I have never been able to get that image erased from my memory.

This particular writer is given to melancholy and hand-wringing; maybe this is why.

Off to hunt up my melon baller. So I can ball some melons. Shut your mouth. Back later.

Posted at 9:00 am in Current events, Detroit life, Same ol' same ol' |
 

38 responses to “The end, finally.”

  1. brian stouder said on June 5, 2008 at 10:00 am

    The defacto end of the Democratic party’s very compelling electoral phase of the nomination process is like that scene in Patton, where George C Scott and the Russian general embrace and exchange gritted-teeth toasts to Victory, and to the (plainly fraught!) future. (we’ll leave it to others to decide who gets to be Patton, and who gets to be the Red Army Field Marshall!)

    Off to hunt up my melon baller

    she lives in Seymour Indiana, yes?

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  2. nancy said on June 5, 2008 at 10:17 am

    Har har har.

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  3. MarkH said on June 5, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Wow, Nance, the Indy 500 entry sure came out of nowhere. My cousin worked in Ford PR at the time and was able to take his dad, my Uncle Ted, to that race, so they were in the pits and witnessed it all. Ted’s description was harrowing as well. Worst crash in Indy history and two things came out of it: the switch to methanol fuel, and reduced fuel capacity in the cars. MacDonald was carrying enough gasoline for the whole race, almost 100 gallons. This is as good a description as any of the incident and all that led up to it:

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

    MacDonald was a brilliant young road racer in his first 500 in a car no one else would drive.

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  4. Danny said on June 5, 2008 at 10:56 am

    Bringing one final thought forward from the last thread.

    Jeff, I’m not sure if you are familiar with Fernando Ortega, but he is an extremely talented musician, mainly piano with voice arrangements with sometimes a cello or other soft accompaniment. Excellent original stuff and excellent arrangements of traditional hymns.

    Anyway, he’s playing at our church a few years back and tells a story of how growing up, a friend of his could make anything sound like Bach. So this friend played a tasteful arrangement of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” during the offering. Afterwards, a little, old lady asked him gushingly what that wonderful piece was called. Heheh.

    I remember wondering at the time if the “friend” was actually Fernando.

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  5. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 5, 2008 at 11:12 am

    No, i hadn’t; on the other hand, i did see “Iron Man” yesterday, and Robert Downey, Jr. took Tony Stark right off the comic pages into a great portrayal. Good flick, odd ending (unless you consider it the close of Act I, prelude to Act II, which i will surely see).

    Hey, with more out of the blue tangents — i’m slowly reading (during son’s swim lessons) a Library of America gem, the World War II writings of A. J. Liebling.

    http://www.amazon.com/J-Liebling-Writings-Library-America/dp/1598530186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212678274&sr=8-1

    Wow. This is an eye-opening collection, starting with a view of Paris and then following the retreating (and ultimately surrendering) French government from Hitler’s invasion of Poland to the first days of Vichy. This isn’t a joke or a side show — these developments are why we have the Europe we do today.

    Each new section contains insights like that, delivered in sharp, clever, even funny writing, with dialogue and character just jumping right into your head and setting up camp.

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  6. John said on June 5, 2008 at 11:22 am

    Following Bart’s prank of having churchgoers sing the hymn “In the Garden of Eden” by “I. Ron Butterfly”…

    Simpsons done-diddley-did it too!

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  7. brian stouder said on June 5, 2008 at 11:53 am

    Good flick, odd ending

    agreed (and for my money, Ms Paltrow makes the movie worthwhile).

    I was dragged into it because the young folks wanted to see it, so my expectations were low – and were therefore vastly exceeded! (I was pondering the parallels and differences between this superhero and previous ones; Tony Starke’s ending public declaration that “yeah, I’m Iron Man” was the most stark difference!! And the classic flag-waving aspect was there, but with a definite, undulating shadow)

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  8. MichaelG said on June 5, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    In summer of 1965 they held a race in the parking lot of Candlestick Park. I was right there when a driver named Bart Martin, driving a Brabham sports racer, hit a power pole head on at speed. The live wire came down and torched the car. I don’t know if he died from the impact, electrocution or the ensuing fire. I do know that the charred remains were not pretty. It was the worst thing I had seen to that point in my young life. Because of these and other accidents all forms of racing are orders of magnitude safer than they used to be.

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  9. BOSSY said on June 5, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Is it mean that Bossy is still laughing over the part where you provide the fruit salad? Bossy’s daughter signed Bossy up for the same task.

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  10. brian stouder said on June 5, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    So, not to sound all “Seven Days in May”, or moonbatty, or wingnutty – but this story seems to be an aerial view over a deep, dark abyss

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24988491/

    some excerpts – (emphasis added)

    “Top-level Pentagon officials gave Moseley the option to resign or be fired during a meeting this morning,” the InsideDefense.com reported, quoting an unidentified military official.

    and

    Other controversies include the awarding of a contract for the Air Force’s elite Thunderbirds flying group and the service’s mistaken shipment of fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006, said a congressional source, who had been informed about the matter. “There has been a lack of accountability that raised concerns,” the source said.

    One assumes that the nuke fuses raised more concerns than the Thunderbirds did!!

    and

    The Air Force has endured a number of embarrassing setbacks over the past year. In August, for instance, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country. The pilot and crew were unaware they had nuclear arms aboard. The error was considered so grave that President Bush was quickly informed.

    What is this? What’s going on?

    It looks very “grave” indeed – even if you don’t wear a tinfoil hat every night. (Maybe this Michael Wynne is Jack D Ripper’s grandson, or some such)

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  11. Catherine said on June 5, 2008 at 2:40 pm

    Nothing says end-of-the-school-year like balled melons. I’ve made at least 4 fruit salads in the last week.

    And while we’re on food — Nancy, I made your beans & rice last night, to rave reviews. 4 stars!

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  12. Danny said on June 5, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    What is this? What’s going on?

    I only know of one person who can sift through this data and give us a reasoned analysis. As Jimmy Durante might have said, “Goodnight, Mr. Caliban, wherever you are…”

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  13. brian stouder said on June 5, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    “Goodnight, Mr. Caliban, wherever you are…”

    this reminds me of a movie I caught on Showtime – Bloody Mary – wherein the obligatory group of young couples in a cabin get involved in the mandatory drinking games, and then amidst the required sexual tension, someone makes the inevitable suggestion that they play a predictably stupid game; whereupon a young fellow goes into a dark bathroom and says some typically stupid incantation three times (“bloody Mary come to me” or some such) – and then things (including the sexual tension) begin to fly to pieces in a hurry!!

    By way of sayin’, let sleeping Calibans lay!!

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  14. Danny said on June 5, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    HAHAHA!

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  15. brian stouder said on June 5, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    speaking of rousing ghosts, the only quibble I have with the terrible youtube video is that they label it the CART series. Really, the team ownership group called CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) arose (in the late ’70’s, when I had hair!)almost literally from the ashes of the horrendous complacency of USAC and other, older sanctioning bodies, with a heavy insistence on safety improvements, such as fuel cells and improved monocoques and so on.

    Race fans my age and younger have gotten used to racing as something other than whatever it was, just a few years before. Racers don’t die all the time anymore, and rarely get badly hurt; very different from just a few decades ago.

    And as I sit here and write that, I’m reminded that my very favorite racer – a personable fellow that I had the ‘high honor and distinct privilege to meet’ (in the paddock at Gateway Raceway in St Louis), and whose hand I shook, was suddenly killed, when he crashed at the then-new California Speedway at Fontana.

    I remember being very dispirited for quite awhile; and my brother, who is only 10 years older, had a much more detached point of view. He’d seen all this many times more than me…it wasn’t stunning to him. (although he stopped going to the short, highbanked track at Winchester years ago; he’d just seen too much there, including in the stands)

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  16. caliban said on June 5, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    In the Summer of ’68, it was down to Bobby if you weren’t some effete jackass that was Clean for Gene. If you had a brain, you were for Bobby. I don’t mean this culturally, and I don’t mean that had something to do with my genes.

    When Bobby was shot, I was staying up late, watching California primary election returns. I was making a pineapple upside down cake for an English class celebration with a weird character named Fr. Polakowski, SJ. My parents were out at some Mich. Dem fundraiser. I watched that faux-Brit twat Howard K. Smith say that the other networks had declared Bobby the winner in CA, but that his recalitrant ass wasn’t throwing in the towel. Like he had an axe to grind and anybody cared what his pompous ass thought.

    Bobby was shot, and I couldn’t believe it, but I’d seen the same thing happen to his brother Jack, and my whole family had watched spellbound while Oswald was murdered on live TV. I woke up my brother, same as I’d done when Bob Beamon exceeded 29 feet. Chris had a Tennyson quote of Bobby poster over his bed.

    Our parents had been quintessential Kennedy people since ’63. .Gorgeus mom that made her own style in the midst of Memphis Bevo-impersonators and was there every step of the way as my dad defied defied convention and treated, well, black people, as people, and wasn’t above just bullying when it came down to it.

    I suppose there’s something like a Bush dynasty, but if anybody wants to put those war profiteers, bailers and draft-dodging coke hos in the same breath as the Kennedy’s, I’d be obliged to kick their greedy, cowardly asses. It’s just so shabby and money-grubbing.

    I was on the Obama bandwagon after his ’04 convention speech. You could look back to the day after the convention on the DNC blog I said he was a candidate with no need of a second name. Maybe he’s not. NcCain is so purely Bush, it’s just not worth considering. When Poppy got shot down, he left his two best friends to drown or get blown up. War Hero? McCain, shot down and incarcerated? War hero? If you had been Vietnamese and he was raining down death indiscriminately, would you have thought he was a war hero or a criminal? When W absconded to Alabama from the Tejas O Club, was he a hero? But ‘Bring it on” when somebody else got blown up or committed suicide because it was too expensive to treat traumatic stress disorder. Piece of shit, most Lynnyrd fans would say.

    So he runs against a hero that is so much smarter, and braver, than his sorry ass is he can’t comprehend. So he gets wackos from Nixons world to make up shit.

    And then. And then. It’s a done deal, and Kerry actually beats this little scumbag. But Kenneth Blackwell, the Secratary of State, bags Cuyahoga County that is so Democrat historically, and we have an idiot instead of a hero?

    It was robbed without a doubt. When Republicans rob votes, they attack African American voters, by telling them they might be investigated if they vote at all.

    In the last 20 years, there have been exactly 4 episodes of deliberate lying at polls. This is like what Republicans say about welfare fraud. There isn’t any, you scumbags.

    There was a guy that made all this shit up. His name was Lee Atwater. When he was dying from an inoperable brain tumor, He said it was bullshit.

    What I do have to say: Progressive. Kiss my ass. We invented this long before your beady eyes invented yourselves to make out like we didn’t understand issues. We understand issues. If you look at what the candidates have said, the only place Obama comes close to getting an issue is when he plagiarises from some hillary site. What’s he say about health care

    So I’m undesirable. If you say so, could you coment on National Health Care? No you can’t Neither can Obama. Asshole’s not Bobby by any stretch. How about global warming. Obama got a clue? Spouts some lame imitation of hillary. Not made up, moron. She knows what shes talking about, you have no clue.

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  17. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 5, 2008 at 7:23 pm

    Wow, Caliban — the cheap shot on G.H.W. Bush is really, uh, Swiftboaty of you. I assume you’ll let folks speculate on circumstances and motivations and chronologies about Kerry’s service without objection.

    Look, McCain’s an opportunist, Clinton is an amoral scrambler up greasy poles, and Obama has flirted with neo-Marxism his entire adult life (and they’ve run to replace Bush-lite, who was born on third and thought he hit a triple). Let’s leave it all where Jesus flang it and debate what they propose this country do in foreign policy and domestic programs. There’s room for plenty of heated, passionate, very worthwhile disagreement over how we should increase health care or deal with international aggression, and i’m up for that.

    But flinging mud over LBJ’s Silver Star, whether JFK was lost when PT 109 got run down by the Jap destroyer, or if Hyman Rickover literally gave Lt. (jg) Carter a paddling on the wardroom table — that’s not politics, that’s soap opera. For that, i read Marvel Comics.

    And Poppy Bush is on the short list of actual heroes we’ve had in the White House, and he’s proof that being a hero does you no earthly good in governing a nation: so i’d drop the muckwhackery and let the man have his due, because it makes a better argument against McCain than whatever blithering point you thought you were making.

    I know, i know — don’t feed the trolls.

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  18. basset said on June 5, 2008 at 8:01 pm

    1968 was the second and last year for the turbine engine at Indianapolis. That being, if I remember correctly, a modified Allison helicopter engine… and Allison, right there in Indy, being a major defense contractor, making powerplants for helicopters used in Vietnam… one turbine wrecking early and the other two going out late with the same problem, a broken fuel pump drive… it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that the Dems had the fix in. Undesirable, no you just can’t handl t truth, hillary was there somwhr. wak up sheeple.

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  19. Dave K. said on June 5, 2008 at 8:07 pm

    Thank you, Jeff.

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  20. Dexter said on June 5, 2008 at 8:07 pm

    effete what? C’mon now…if RFK had really been for the party, he would have joined forces with McCarthy right after the Oregon Primary ,McCarthy would have won California and been the nominee. He would have been elected in November, 1968.
    The war would have ended by summer, 1969, and McCarthy would have kept after and improved LBJ’s social programs.
    Nixon would be remembered for his Checkers speech , and Bobby Kennedy would still be alive today.
    I was 18, out of high school and waiting for the draft, and working in a factory, and Gene McCarthy was my candidate, and RFK ruined it for him, and us.
    That is fact…but does not diminish the tragedy that befell RFK.

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  21. Dexter said on June 5, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    I was listening to Fred Agabashian broadcasting the race when Eddie Sachs died. Sachs death got more airplay than MacDonald’s, as I recall. Agabashian had a great radio voice, and knew his stuff, as he was a retired Indy driver at the time.
    He died in 1989.
    TV is nice, but it was special all those years to have it on the radio, too.
    I never forgot the name, Eddie Sachs. This is the first time I ever saw a video of the death-crash. And MacDonald was packing 100 gallons of fuel? wow…

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  22. caliban said on June 5, 2008 at 8:34 pm

    When Barack gave his stemwinder, I could have been the first onboard. I commented on the DNC Kicking Ass that this was a presidential candidate and only one name would be necessary. Like Bob.

    Crakshaft needs to consider the Up Your Bunghole Prostae Exam cavity search. I don’t mean to inject anything like seriousness (or, as a disdictional friend of mine in college said, sort of to the point, Syrianly; the guy once said all pandonian was breaking loose, and, when he asked me to edit a paper, I found he had littered it with “for all intensive purposes”). but Richard Reid was a full-goose looney incapable of harming anybody Syrianly but himself.

    The Cuyahoga Line truckdriver that was going to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge cables (1000s of strands of wire wound into 29 or so 2 inch cables, wrapped around each other to make 39-1/2 inch support cables) in broad daylight with an acetylene torch. The Liberty City Desperadoes that were scamming a guiding light FBI plant they thought was Al Quaeda into trying to scam some Desert Storm boots, I-Pods
    and $50 grand.

    Don’t know about y’all, but when every leading political cartoonist other than Ann Telnaes runs some horseshit about Hillary’s bunker mentality , and every one of them makes an ass of himself, by mysoginistic vituperation aimed at Phantoms not wearing sttriped birth control panties, maybe ole’ Crank’s got a point. It’s all a crock.

    I mean, might terriss (sorry, that’s the way Mr. Inter-Coke-aTur’s puppet says it) just be a, gasp, boogeyman? Like really black OJ and cafe-au-laity OJ, and Willie Horton

    In the meantime, if Hillary Clinton points out that Lyndon Johnson’s legendary vast incriminating files were’nt ‘called in, there would have been no civil rights Act of 1965. that’s somehow like Nixon and the Southern Strategy. And if Bill points out his wife knows more about health care in the USA, than anybody, that’s racist.?

    Don’t care now. Every important world government (well every one is important, I mean the one’s that can do anything) has adopted the tactics of John Kerry, which ought to tell Mark Trail and RexMorgan and maybe Margo Magee, we hit these aholes in the bank account. Kerry did that to the Raygunistas and they had to shut down. They still sleazed by and managed to blight the country and advance some perverted Malthusian agenda based on the idea they were intellectually superior, and they got over on greedy preachers that never believed for a minute that ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do it to me.’

    Can’t comics heroes be Christ figures? Naah. The idea there’s some global struggle over right and wrong is just totally belied by Commandant Mission Accomplished crawling to kiss the shit-whiping hand of Saudis and administration officials that know where Bin Laden is because they send him money at the drop box.

    So assholes steal Cuyahoga County and the ultimate draft dodger (and I don’t see anything wrong with dodging the draft.) I guess, neither do the champions of the New American Century, that made it into an art-form.

    I doubt there was a racist component to opposition to Obama. I decided I supported Clinton when Obama said repeatedly, something like: Her supporters will vote for her. I don’t know if mine will vote for her. Who was slagging party unity?

    Y’all have time to read their competing platform-style statements about energy and health care. Obama’s vague, sometimes he plagiarizes, Clinton knows exactly what she’d try to do. Hillary’s ought to make the Democratic Platform. She knows what she’s talking about and he mostly is speaking in platitudes.

    Please tell me people that find daily newspaper cartoons diverting actually care about politics too. There’s a spectacularly wonderful word for what Obama online has unleashed toward a good woman that just started out to ensure that every American get’s good health care. Vituperation.

    Did Obama attempt to coopt Hillary’s statements on health care and the environment? Yeah, he doesn’t know so much, she does, and what the hey. Are these the two issues that mean more in some ongoing economy? Well Hillary knows that for a fact and Barack’s guessing

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  23. coozledad said on June 5, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    We just hit 97 degrees today, and we’re going to be around 100 this weekend. Sometimes I do miss air conditioning.
    Sorry I’m OT. Having trouble with synapses.

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  24. beb said on June 5, 2008 at 9:48 pm

    oozledad says:
    June 5th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    We just hit 97 degrees today, and we’re going to be around 100 this weekend. Sometimes I do miss air conditioning.
    Sorry I’m OT. Having trouble with synapses.

    After Caliiban, you’re a breath of cool air.

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  25. brian stouder said on June 5, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    I blame Danny; he kicked the dang dawg!

    I will agree that the overt sexism Hillary got hit with exceeded the overt racism that Obama got hit with.

    For example, just the other day Pam told me she saw a bumpersticker, that said something like “Life’s a bitch; so why would you VOTE for one?” This gave her serious pause; if a sentiment like that is acceptable to even 10% of the American public, what chance did Hillary ever really have?

    But it’s water under the bridge, now. Caliban (et al) will have 5 months to chill out, before deciding whether to vote for Barack Obama, or else acquiesce in the defacto extension of the Bush administration

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  26. basset said on June 5, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    the “old geezer” in the sports department was probably not the same Terry Doran who worked for the Beatles and was allegedly the “man from the motor trade” in “She’s Leaving Home.” Just guessing on that, I could be wrong.

    meanwhile, back to the obligatory topic:

    second-best t-shirt I’ve seen in awhile had on it… let me see if I can describe it properly…

    letter I, a heart, picture of Hillary, picture of a tree, musical note.

    and underneath… “I love country music.”

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  27. Catherine said on June 5, 2008 at 11:48 pm

    Brian, I think you hit the nail on the proverbial head. One lesson I’ve learned from this primary is that it’s not OK to be overtly racist anymore; however overt sexism is pretty much fine.

    The question we’ll be grappling with now is: How much covert racism exists, and how will it affect the numbers in November? I hope I don’t have another lesson coming. What do you all think? Overt sexism vs. covert racism: which is more prevalent? Which is worse?

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  28. Terry WAlter said on June 6, 2008 at 12:25 am

    When A.J. Foyt started driving, he decided not to get too close to the other drivers; lost too many friends. Seems he kept it up for the long haul. I remember several years ago when Robbie Gordon was driving for Foyt. He crashed at Indy, probably not for the first time. A reporter came up & asked him if he was hurt. The reply “Not yet”.

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  29. Dexter said on June 6, 2008 at 2:18 am

    Hey, I only watch a network show if I am tipped off by someone I trust that it is a smash, or at least interesting.
    Craig Ferguson mentioned a show called “Swingtown”…said he will watch it…I guess it is on CBS…anybody got a thumbs up or thumbs down?
    Ferguson rules…he cracks me up every night.

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  30. Jolene said on June 6, 2008 at 2:48 am

    One of the election features on the WaPo web site is a sort of political advice column called “Stumped”. Today’s column has to do with the issue of sexism in the just-concluded Dem primary. You might want to check it out.

    Catherine, the sexism vs. racism question is so complicated that I get tired just thinking about it. Am going to try to figure out what it is I think I want to say. If I succeed, I’ll let you know!

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  31. moe99 said on June 6, 2008 at 3:37 am

    Ok, ok. I hate to weigh in with the wingnut side on this but I will say that there was an attorney in Seattle, named partner in a mid sized firm, still had his military crew cut in the ’80s. Rock ribbed Republican in a city that has very few, and unashamedly so. However, he said that he would never vote for GHWB. Reason being he flew the same plane in WW2 that GHWB flew and he said that it was configured such that if the pilot ejected it opened the hatch and imprisoned the gunner sitting behind him. So the drill was the guy in the back ejected first. GHWB lost his nerve and popped out w/o giving his partner the first chance, thereby consigning him to his death. I dunno. The attorney was a real straight shooter and highly respected in the legal profession. He was not a tin foil hat kind of guy at all.

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  32. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 6, 2008 at 8:16 am

    Moe, i appreciate the way you frame the story you heard, and hey, the internet is all about stories we’ve heard that wouldn’t make it onto the front page, so that’s fair.

    What i’m not up for is leading the search party for truth so far into the weeds we all get lost. I’ve read enough on both sides to say that John Kerry probably made some mistakes during his time in service, and how he described his service, but there’s not enough there for it to be worth overriding the conversation about what Kerry wanted to do this year. It’s beyond doubt that Bush-lite got a little help, even if no one asked for it, from folks wanting to be nice to the family, getting into his ANG unit — as did Quayle, but instead of the safety Quayle and Robertson found behind full metal typewriters, Bush-Dubya got into a crappy fighter jet . . . probably because he needed to prove something to Daddy-Poppy.

    Like all of us haven’t done stupid things to prove ourselves while doing selfish things to protect ourselves, especially in our twenties.

    And Obama has shown amazing focus and discipline getting into the political game and knocking off opponents with a fair degree of ruthlessness — exactly what James Madison said we’d be creating with the political system they cooked up at the Constitutional Convention, so we needed to hedge such strivers around with checks and balances, to blunt the edge of popular passions (see the South Sea Bubble and the Tulip Craze for what made the Framers tick). The Electoral College, the Sherman Compromise (yeah, slavery was in there too, but that’s not the whole argument), balance of powers between the branches — they’re all built into the system because an electoral representative democracy will draw people running for office like the candidates we’ve got.

    Once we’ve confirmed they aren’t unindicted felons or delusional psychotics, i say let’s look at what they propose and dispute heatedly about that. And i say again, heroism doesn’t make good presidents, so Bush Sr. could have choked and McCain could have cracked under pressure, Obama may be an opportunist more than altruist and Kerry may be a compulsive exaggerator. So what.

    Just read Liebling’s “Run, Run, Run, Run,” and i’m in the mood to give the benefit of the doubt to Bush on that canopy. If someone who flew alongside of him feels differently, that’s their call, and i respect that, but it doesn’t help me make political decisions.

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  33. brian stouder said on June 6, 2008 at 9:00 am

    Jolene – thanks for the link to the interesting discussion of sexism/nepotism.

    I think it is very easy to misunderestimate and/or overlook just how badly handicapped Hillary Clinton was, by her last name. As the article says, her campaign began by heavily emphasizing EXPERIENCE and depth of understanding (such as only an “insider” would have)…

    and 20:20 hindsight now tells us that this was a doomed effort, in a heavily CHANGE-oriented year, wherein the contest is for an office already held by the scion of another president!

    Hillary defined herself as the establishment candidate, and succeeded in that effort –

    The End.

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  34. Danny said on June 6, 2008 at 10:13 am

    …Oh, no. What have a wrought!

    {chuckle}

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  35. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 6, 2008 at 10:16 am

    One more, and i promise i’ll drop it — http://www.maam.org/flightsim/news/tbm_history.htm (scroll down past the refurbishment story to the Lt. Bush story)

    58 combat carrier takeoffs, 56 landings, with the incident at ChiChi Jima in the middle (not long after the forced ditching where all three aboard were rescued). I just have trouble calling that guy a coward and a friend-killer based on what we know. So let’s argue his politics, where you can call me an idiot and i’ll often smile and agree.

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  36. Dave said on June 7, 2008 at 5:13 pm

    Terry Doran is a Fort Wayne local, not the Beatles associate, I’m sure he wasn’t the old geezer sportswriter Nancy refers to, either. Don’t think he’d be old enough.

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  37. basset said on June 8, 2008 at 12:25 am

    >>Terry Doran is a Fort Wayne local, not the Beatles associate

    ya think? really?

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