I was amused by the turn the comments took on the subject of Ign’ernt Kids These Days. It was ever thus — even the best education has its blank spots — and a useful reminder that schooling only takes you so far. You have to be curious to fill the gaps. Curiosity is such a key element of intelligence, I don’t know why we don’t do more to encourage it.
Even my own child has her moments. As I mentioned a few days back, she’s in Cuba for most of May. No ATMs there, so you have to take cash. As I handed over a fat wad of Canadian dollars, she said, “So, I change this to Cuban, and then change back what I didn’t spend before I leave?” After I spluttered nooooo for a few seconds, we had a discussion about what constitutes “hard currency,” and why it’s wise to not only exchange only a little at a time, it’s probably equally wise to ask a civilian, rather than a bank, what the rate is on any given day.
I told that kid she should have majored in economics. On the other hand, if she had, she’d probably be doing her study-abroad term in someplace like Geneva and not watching Santeria ceremonies, nor sending home pix like this:
I know nothing about this image, if you have any questions, other than that the kneeling man and the woman in the head wrap are natives, members of a hip-hop group, and the rest are either students or instructors.
She’s having a good time, she said. Listening to a lot of drumming.
So. I heard the phrase “immunity by means of Congressional majority” the other day, and man, isn’t that true. Why isn’t the Michael Cohen story causing the roof to blow off Congress? Do you even have to ask? We’re all getting a little outrage-weary, and I’m wondering if it isn’t a smarter coping strategy to simply keep our ironic distance from this stuff and direct our energies elsewhere. There’s only one thing that will stop what’s going on, and that’s removing the key element of the immunity deal. I’m not reading about any more Trump-country safaris, at least not until the top of my skull is reattached after reading this:
Glazier spoke of the political divisions that had been building for some years. “I hate the fact that” — he paused. “I’m sorry, my parents raised me not to use the word ‘hate,’” he said before continuing. “I very much dislike the fact that a lot of people stereotype Republican individuals, Republican people, that were racists. I think that is further from the truth.”
He called the 2016 election ugly, but not the first where political differences shattered friendships. “I lost a longtime friend in the election of 2014 because he was gay and he was Democrat and he supported the Democratic candidate and I was supporting the Republican candidate, and he has nothing to do with me anymore just because of that. And his father passed away not too long ago and I didn’t know how to get a hold of him.”
Glazier was not a fan of Obama as president, but he praised the Affordable Care Act. He talked about the working-class values of many Republicans in the area. “I’m a union guy,” he said. “We want to see our country again back to the way it was. Will it be? We don’t know. That’s still a mystery that remains to be seen. I’ll be very frank. It could be a great ride these next four years. Or it could be a rough ride.”
Asked what the people in Whiteside County who had voted for Trump expected of him as Inauguration Day neared, Glazier said, “To make America great again.”
Hey, I don’t like to be stereotyped, either. If this guy would even hint that he understands that, in this case, both sides really do do it, I might not be rolling my eyes back in my head right now. But you know me — just a snowflaky, easily triggered, virtue-signaling SJW! Fuck my feelings, yes.
And now the weekend awaits us all. My week went fast, and I hope yours did, too, but a good kind of fast.
Connie said on May 11, 2018 at 11:45 am
Last comment on previous post, short version: Why is cooz badmouthing us?
73 chars
Julie Robinson said on May 11, 2018 at 12:22 pm
Our son Matt is going on a trip for work next week, and he was asking lots of questions about how to handle everything. He thought he needed to make all the reservations and pay, then get reimbursed, and it felt overwhelming. I said to ask, and it turned out all that was done for him. He turns 31 tomorrow, but he’s never traveled for an employer before.
So there are areas he doesn’t know, but many others that he knows way better than I. Computer stuff is a given. Music, even though I’m pretty well-educated there myself.
All the biology he’s learned in his job is staggering. He can talk for half an hour about different mosquito breeds, and for another hour on non-chemical eradication methods, and why they’re not only better for the environment but usually more effective.
There’s plenty of dodos but when I look at my own kids and their friends, I’m not so worried about the state of the world.
And I’ll take the label of social justice warrior any day over someone who says John McCain’s opinion doesn’t count, since he’s dying anyway.
1059 chars
Scout said on May 11, 2018 at 12:50 pm
I’m not sure exactly, but it seems that cooz may have equated us all as one with our annoying troll.
I read this absolutely terrifying thread on Twitter this morning: https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/994885449473773570
That scenario may be a bit overwrought, but not entirely impossible with the way things are going. Every single day I beg the universe to give Mueller and/or Avenatti and/or the new NYAG Underwood the tools they need to end this nightmare. It’s unfathomable to me that the GOP is so brazen in their enabling of undemocratic evil. They will do nothing to stop this and they are counting on diminished voting rights to help them remain in absolute power.
681 chars
Bitter Scribe said on May 11, 2018 at 1:38 pm
I’m sorry but this Glazier guy is a fucking moron. He likes the ACA, he’s a strong union man, and he somehow never managed to notice that Republicans have been bitterly opposing both for years?
He reminds me of the fool interviewed by the WaPo after Matt Bevin was elected governor of Kentucky. The guy had health care for the first time in years thanks to the ACA, but he voted for Bevin, who had vowed to dismantle the ACA in Kentucky, “because he’s a businessman.” (Bevin had some sort of half-assed job in his family’s business, which manufactures bells, that vital cog in the American economic machine.)
These people have the political sophistication, if not the overall intelligence, of dogs. They respond in Pavlovian fashion to buzzwords and phrases—“Make America great again,” “businessman”—without the slightest clue what the people uttering them are really doing or intend to do.
As for Cooz, good riddance. His talent for invective always exceeded his capacity for rational thought.
1008 chars
Catherine said on May 11, 2018 at 1:44 pm
100% agree about the “Trump-country safaris” (nice turn of phrase). Diana Mutz, a political scientist, looked specifically at the voters who turned the race (as compared with the states or counties). These are not “disenfranchised victims of capitalism’s cruelties.” As she says, “it was about dominant groups that felt threatened by change and a candidate who took advantage of that trend.” Super simple, though not easy to address. But the rest of us can slow our sympathy roll.
https://theatln.tc/2Hod7pm
517 chars
ROGirl said on May 11, 2018 at 2:09 pm
Consider what would have happened if Obama had slept with a porn star and paid her hush money from a slush fund bankrolled by Putin cronies.
140 chars
beb said on May 11, 2018 at 2:41 pm
Bitter Scribe sums up my feelings about this Glazier fellow. He likes the things Democrats have supported but votes for the people who wants to take those things away. Part of this is due to the louder voices of the Republicans but also it reflects the Democrats reluctance to take credit for these things or blame Republicans for taking them away.
Coolzedad strikes me as one of those activists who have monomaniacally pursued his political goals, never with effect, so he has doubled-down and double-down again till he has lost sight of who his friends are and who are the enemy. And ended up attacking his friends because they aren’t as momomianical as he is.
A lot of people get nervous doing something they have never done before. Older people are more likely to have done that thing or something similar so they don’t have the apprehension as their younger friends. But that’s not the same thing was thinking a 60s president dropped The Bomb during a 40s war.
A month of so back there was an episode of Jeopardy where a column of sports questions, left till last went without anyone buzzing in with an answer. More recently during the College Championship there were two columns of music related questions where I know neither the lyrics quotes or the musicians who sang/said them. It made me want to run out into my yard and yell at some kid (lol).
JC — There’s one tweak I wish you could do for the blog’s stylesheet. The body font has a kind of fadeaway number six. The upper portion is hard to see so it looks more like a lower case o than the number six (6). Is there a similar font with a more substantial 6.
1634 chars
David C. said on May 11, 2018 at 3:44 pm
I think Dexter in the last post mentioned a youngster not knowing where Newfoundland or Nova Scotia are. I’m pretty sure a majority of Americans couldn’t either, including my wife. I’m sure Mary would know they were both in Canada, but she could never pick them out on a map. I think geography has always been given short shrift here because “America, damn it!”. Which also is the same reason languages are given short shrift. I’m pretty good at geography, except for Africa or the old Soviet republics. I could find the majors, but if you asked me to point out Azerbaijan, or Burkina Faso, I’d be lost too. Is it any wonder that most of the American Nobel Prize winners in the past few years have been foreign born? We’re so screwed as a country and almost half of us are happy that’s happening.
796 chars
Judybusy said on May 11, 2018 at 3:56 pm
I, too, am so happy Cooz has flown the coop. He really seemed to become more nasty and for about the past year I just scrolled past his comments.
On to happier things: Congratulations, LAMary on the job! What a relief to get bennies and long-term employment.
Tomorrow, I will be volunteering on a Warrant Resolution day in a neighboring county. Folks can come in and get their cases resolved without fear of arrest, and are able to breathe easier out in the community. It also helps clear up the court calendar, lessens jail overcrowding and saves money on 3-5 day detentions, which often cost more than the fine the court would collect for minor offenses. Brought to you by the local county, the ACLU and NAACP.
Volunteering with the last has been so instructive. I’m making good allies and they are doing amazing work. It has continued my education in how messed up the criminal justice system is. Last night the organizer with the ACLU and I started talking books during a little phone banking break. He said fantasy fiction was so important while he was in prison to help him cope. Another volunteer joined the discussion and the two of them geeked out–I’m more of a sci-fi fan. People like Eli give me hope.
1366 chars
beb said on May 11, 2018 at 3:59 pm
Speaking of ” snowflaky, easily triggered, virtue-signaling MAGAers” here’s an article on the recent spate of white people calling the police on black people are not doing anything wrong — like sleeping in their doorm’s common room, bbqing in a bbqing area of a park, entering an airbnb, waiting at a Starbucks and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/in-america-calling-911-is-still-a-privilege-of-being-white.html
It sure sounds like it’s Trumpers who are the easily triggered snowflakes.
534 chars
Dexter said on May 11, 2018 at 5:06 pm
LA Mary, I know little about contract work but 14 years ago we lived with our nurse practitioner daughter in New Bern, NC for three months , because she took a contract there for some fast cash to gear up for her divorce. My wife baby-sat their 3 kids and hauled them around to school and activities and I met some really cool ex-drunks in the local AA meetings there. Daughter Lori worked in a local hospital and she said it was a world apart in differences from hospitals and other places she had worked as an RN. That place had so much poverty her kids were actually the only kids that paid cash for school meals. One funny aspect of her hospital work was how patients needing assistance would “mash the call-bell”. That meant buzzing for a nurse for help.
Back to ignoramuses, who could ever forget the brainiac Dana Perino, who didn’t know her ass from a crisis: “…I was panicked a bit because I really don’t know about the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”
So she consulted her best source. “I came home and I asked my husband,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Wasn’t that like the Bay of Pigs thing?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’ ”
Weather report: Carla Lee just called from Columbus, where it is 81F. Here in NW Ohio, 51F. We are in the same layer of cold weather that Detroit is in…two hours ago it was 44F in Detroit.
1476 chars
basset said on May 11, 2018 at 5:08 pm
I never thought Cooz actually said much, his act was his message – loud and coarse and negative and we were supposed to be impressed. Good that he’s gone.
88 and sunny in Nashville.
183 chars
Peter said on May 11, 2018 at 5:22 pm
OK, I need to apologize. On the May 4th entry I said that Nancy should do a well being check on Coozledad because reneging on the Iran deal may have sent him into orbit.
Well, judging from the recent comments, I guess the well being check wasn’t needed.
257 chars
basset said on May 11, 2018 at 5:24 pm
Peter, some people prefer to be miserable.
42 chars
Peter said on May 11, 2018 at 5:27 pm
Oh, and as far as ignorant kids are concerned: Our grade school did a Model UN every year, and when I was in 8th grade three of the participants declared war on each other; when the teacher was explaining how you would conduct a war, I had to tell her that the three countries involved weren’t next to each other or even on the same continent, which would make a land invasion kind of difficult.
396 chars
David C. said on May 11, 2018 at 5:34 pm
We may be humorless, white, shitbricks but we managed more comments in the 45 minutes after this post hit than he’s managed in the past three months.
Peter, were the three countries the US, Iran, and North Korea and was John Bolton a classmate? Although that doesn’t quite work because Iran and North Korea are on the same continent, but otherwise.
351 chars
Suzanne said on May 11, 2018 at 6:10 pm
“We want to see our country again back to the way it was.” says Mr Glazier.
But it won’t ever be. Even if the economy improves, even if there are better jobs, even if, even if. It won’t be the same. Why can’t people understand this?
242 chars
Julie Robinson said on May 11, 2018 at 6:35 pm
What a lot of hate for Coozledad. He has always struck me as someone from a rough childhood who lives surrounded by rednecks of the worst kind. Add a passionate personality with a skosh of brain fever, and there you are. I didn’t appreciate his attacks on people, but neither did I appreciate the counterattacks. So I’m not gonna say good riddance.
348 chars
basset said on May 11, 2018 at 6:43 pm
I am, again and often.
Meanwhile… McCain is “dying anyway”? How DOES that woman still have a job?
101 chars
David C. said on May 11, 2018 at 6:48 pm
There was a time when I found Coozledad quite amusing, but his attacks became way over to top and gratuitous. Kicking allies in the teeth doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly good way to win back anything.
208 chars
Jakash said on May 11, 2018 at 6:51 pm
I saw the remarks on Cooz’s blog a while ago, but decided not to stir things up by mentioning them here. Speaking of stirring things up — in considering what to say about them now, the most succinct comment I have with regard to his misguided fixation with all of us Midwesterners and our assumed preference for a certain condiment is “Vive la mayonnaise!” And I don’t even particularly like mayonnaise. ; )
411 chars
Deborah said on May 11, 2018 at 7:12 pm
I guess I’m in the minority here, but I too enjoyed Cooz’s comments (hi Julie). He is funny and spirited, and has a way with words that I find hilarious and impressive. I for one wish he were back with us. We don’t have to agree with everything everyone says here, but we can appreciate the way they say it, as opposed to someone else herewith.
I don’t envy where Cooz lives at all, while it is beautiful country, the people around there must be hell to have to deal with on a regular basis.
I miss Prospero too for the same reasons.
541 chars
LAMary said on May 11, 2018 at 9:34 pm
I’m with Deborah and Julie regarding Cooz. He seemed to get angrier and I figured something was going on in his life. Either that existing in the Trumposphere was doing him in. It’s certainly getting to me. I haven’t hit that magic zone of awareness without outrage yet.
270 chars
David C. said on May 11, 2018 at 10:01 pm
Outrage is fine, probably appropriate, but maybe he should aim in the right direction. There are very few of us here who wouldn’t be considered allies to Cooz, but to him we’re all humorless, white, shitbricks and dumb motherfuckers. That’s not going to help anybody. It’s like the Hilbot and Berniebro pissing contest. Two groups who probably agree 90% of the time, but spend all of their time making bombs and throwing them at each other. Who is that helping, except maybe tRump?
https://rurritable.wordpress.com/2018/04/30/if-i-ever-want-to-know/
552 chars
LAMary said on May 12, 2018 at 1:29 am
You’re right, David C. I still wonder if he was faking friendliness at first and hated all of us all along or if something soured him big time.
144 chars
Jakash said on May 12, 2018 at 1:32 am
For anybody who is unaware — or cares — on January 6, Cooz got into a bit of a spat by purposely antagonizing some of the commenters here. I only saw a couple of the comments the night before, but that day the Proprietress announced, mid-thread: “Guys, I deleted a few comments, no hard feelings, but this shit has to stop. Settle down.”
Then, on February 16’s thread, after being asked “Where is Coozledad”?, she responded: “I had to tell him to stop needlessly insulting people here, and I think he left in a snit. But he’s been gone for long times in the past, and come back. I hope he does.”
Deborah says that he “has a way with words that I find hilarious and impressive.” Agreed.
Counterpoint, David C.: “But maybe he should aim in the right direction.” Hear, hear!
He’s gone from railing against the few conservatives who participate on this blog, to those who dared to take issue with some of his attacks, to now generalizing about all the Midwesterners who chime in, not sparing Nancy herself nor the entire commentariat in his brief April 13 post on his own blog.
LAMary says: “I haven’t hit that magic zone of awareness without outrage yet.” Me neither, nor does it seem that I’m likely to. But I try not to spew the outrage indiscriminately, taking shots at folks who are just as outraged as I am.
1339 chars
Sherri said on May 12, 2018 at 1:37 am
I miss Cooz. I’d say that most of us are in a position of relative privilege, and Cooz’s periodic proddings of that privilege didn’t need to provoke such a defensive reaction.
181 chars
basset said on May 12, 2018 at 8:50 am
Out of sight, out of mind, mine anyway.
About the front picture… which one’s Kate? or did she take the pic?
113 chars
Mark P said on May 12, 2018 at 8:59 am
Cooz’s feelings are hurt. I think he might feel rejected by people here, and I think he really wants to be accepted by everyone here. Unfortunately it seems that he may see any disagreement as rejecting of him personally.
223 chars
Joe Kobiela said on May 12, 2018 at 10:29 am
Basset,
My bet is Kate is top row with the sunglasses on top of her head.
Pilot Joe
86 chars
Icarus said on May 12, 2018 at 12:27 pm
Deborah says that he “has a way with words that I find hilarious and impressive.” Agreed.
Counterpoint, David C.: “But maybe he should aim in the right direction.” Hear, hear!
Pretty much. I didn’t appreciate when he said Poland was a Fascist Shithole but lost any respect for him when he wouldn’t walk it back.
431 chars
Brian stouder said on May 12, 2018 at 1:09 pm
Great photo! My fine young son is travelling to North Africa (the country w/Casa Blanca in it) in a few weeks (I’m pecking out this post from the Indinapolis Motor Speedway…so I’ll let y’all fact- check me!…typing on a phone is not my thing)
245 chars
Brian stouder said on May 12, 2018 at 2:36 pm
Morocco
7 chars
Ivor The Engine Driver said on May 12, 2018 at 4:57 pm
Dear Mr. Glazier,
This country was never the way it was, at least the way it was inside your head and the heads of your fuckwit Trumpoid compatriots.
No charge for the history lesson.
Sincerely,
Ivor
212 chars
Joe Kobiela said on May 12, 2018 at 5:15 pm
Brian,
Just landed at Indy, flew over the speedway at 4:50 didn’t seem like there was much of a crowd, saw soom cars on the track, tryed but couldn’t pick you out.
Pilot Joe
176 chars
brian stouder said on May 12, 2018 at 10:02 pm
We were on the mounds adjacent to the golf course, on the straight-a-way between turns 6 and 7 (I was wearing a ballcap and my fine young son had a Penske shirt on…!)
It was a good show, and we may well go back next week for some Indy-500 qualifications (that is to say, Grant certainly will go back, and I might join him again)
As for the crowd – we were in a pretty dense patch of peoples, and the north parking lot we parked in was full (and a genuine challenge to escape) – although, indeed, the grandstands were probably reflecting lots of sunlight back upon you! I betcha 80,000 people (for example) in that humongous place would look like a sparse crowd.
Although there wasn’t the usual collection of ad-trailing planes circling the place, a helicopter (for the TV folks, presumeably) was up and around for the whole show. And, the Navy F-18’s (that did the pre-race fly-over) mighta blown past you, at some point
All in all, a marvelous day at the speedway, indeed.
980 chars
basset said on May 12, 2018 at 10:30 pm
There was a B-2 flyover before the 500 when we were there a few years ago, first time I had seen one in person… damn, that is a sinister-looking aircraft, particularly when it appears out of nowhere and you can’t hear it till it’s right on top of you. Here’s one over the Rose Bowl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jn0nd2zxtg
330 chars
brian stouder said on May 12, 2018 at 10:39 pm
Basset – I’ve seen one of those on a fly-over at the speedway, and once at Grissom AFB (near Peru, Indiana); and in fact, got to say hello to Senator Lugar there, that day.
But for a complete change of pace, I clicked on this odd story, about something foul being afoot…or not –
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in-canada-theories-swirl-with-the-tide-as-14th-human-foot-washes-ashore/ar-AAx9qJn?ocid=spartandhp
423 chars
LAMary said on May 13, 2018 at 2:25 am
I live near the Rosebowl, so I get that flyover every January 1. They are scary looking aircraft to be sure. I’ve experienced a lot of interesting flyovers living here. Presidential helicopters, Space Shuttle double sonic booms, Hueys spraying for Mediterranean fruit flies, blimps many times and B2s for the new year. I saw the Space Shuttle piggybacked on a 747 on its way to the Science Center museum a few years ago. That was very cool. It flew by my workplace twice and everyone was at the windows applauding and oohing and aahing.
538 chars
Dexter said on May 13, 2018 at 3:04 am
We get low-flying med-choppers coming and going several times a day, as the hospital heliport is about 600 yards from my house. I remember the Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport Labor Day Airshows, seen from what was then called Jacob’s Field, just down 9th Street a mile or less, during ball games. One year a pitcher stopped mid-delivery and got all tangled up with himself as he was startled by the fucking incredibly LOUD aircraft flying low right over us. One year “The Flying Wing” buzzed us…man was it huge and loud at that altitude. But watching a company of Cobra helicopter gunships , hovering steadily, emptying all their firepower into a hillside right beside our compound in Vietnam remains my most vivid memory of just very impressive force-in-the-skies. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VAJDnhpvtJY/hqdefault.jpg
826 chars
basset said on May 13, 2018 at 10:24 am
We lived in Wichita for awhile and you’re liable to see anything in the air there. Mrs.B worked near the Boeing plant, I went to pick her up one day and heard this ungodly noise overhead… looked up and saw a B-52 landing over us, quite a sight. Probably the most memorable, though, was downtown on a Sunday morning, a B-24 and a B-29 together. no air show or anything, just passing through.
395 chars
basset said on May 13, 2018 at 10:40 am
and now we live out on the edge of Nashville and army helicopters from Ft Campbell come over pretty often – the “night stalkers” stealth flights, at night with no lights on and sometimes flying with night vision goggles on. no telling how many of em we don’t hear.
265 chars
Jolene said on May 13, 2018 at 3:54 pm
There’s a new version of Little Women beginning on PBS this evening. Hank Stuever, the WaPo TV critic is not entirely enthusiastic about the effort, but concludes that it’s worthwhile viewing nonetheless.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/a-new-little-women-stumbles-on-the-path-to-2018-but-it-eventually-gets-there/2018/05/11/8d118f58-52e2-11e8-9c91-7dab596e8252_story.html?utm_term=.985c91f59fff
425 chars
beb said on May 13, 2018 at 4:57 pm
Thw White House is very upset that a rude comment about Sen. McCain, made in a closed door meeting was leaked to the press. They aren’t embarrassed that the comment was made, only that it was leaked. But who oh who could the leaker be? I don’t know but if I were to guess, I would guess it was leaked by Trump himself. He has a history of calling up reporters sing phony names to spread gossip. And the rude comment is just the sort of thing Trump would love to say about McCain, a man who’s reputation has it’s tarnishes but has an undeniable foundation. he _WAS_ a war hero. And for him to banish Trump from his inevitable funeral is the kind of insult Trump can’t ignore.
I don’t know that model of the jet that flew over the Water Treatment Plant fove or years ago but it was literally flying over the plant. It was doing a bit for the start of the Detroit Boat Races and the races take place between Belle Isle and Water Works Park. We’re the water works. So it was making it’s turns overhead. It was awesome but the most impressive part was as it left. It headed back to Willow Run airport, climbing into the air. We were looking directly down it’s exhausts and the noise! It was so painful, even at it’s distance, that I had to cover my ears.
1262 chars