Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Let’s finish the job.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Remembering Andrew Olmsted

Remembering Andrew Olmsted

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Like most online I only knew Andrew through his ideas, which consistently showed him to be one of the more mature, humane and independent voices in our digital town square. Andrew’s last blog post at Obsidian Wings asked readers to support a shelter for sexually battered women on a Native American reservation. His last column at Rocky Mountain News described a charity that Olmsted selflessly helped organize to provide toys and food for destitute Iraqi families.

Politically, more than anything, Andrew rejected the lazy thinking that goes with partisanship, yours and mine included. Granted that each of us thinks we have a uniquely informed perspective; we’ll get to that later. More to the point, though I don’t know whether Andrew ever expressed a political preference, and I won’t imply that he did, Andrew’s writing suggests that he would enjoy knowing that on his last day Iowans decisively chose candidates from both parties who embody, imperfectly if better than their rivals, magnanimity and an openness of spirit.

Here is another post on bitterness. I like to think that it would please him to know that in the first major contest of the season voters chose the farthest thing from it.

Reader Interactions

9Comments

  1. 1.

    STEVEinSC

    As someone who detests the right wing, I do feel that people like Huckabee really can put themselves in the shoes of others and that he acutally has christian compassion for others of all stripes, and that is hopeful. One of the good characteristics of evangelicals is their rejection of racism and that in itself is revolutionary in my part of the world.

  2. 2.

    Jay C

    Tim, are you sure you have the link to the correct Andrew Olmstead Blog post?
    This link takes me to a post of Oct. 30, 2006 about “Get Out The Vote” – is this the one you wanting to link to??

  3. 3.

    Tim F.

    Tim, are you sure you have the link to the correct Andrew Olmstead Blog post?

    It’s not the most perfect example, but as one of the first posts that I landed on while looking for something else I consider it a representative sample. From the end of the post:

    Still, it’s hard not to be frustrated at the state of American politics today. We have two parties that differ only on the margins, both of whose raison d’etre is to get their hands on the levers of power in order to direct government largesse to their friends and allies, and like the weather, while many people aren’t happy with the situation, few are interested in doing anything about it. At a time when we are fighting two difficult wars overseas and when more and more problems are seen as in the government’s purview, it is disturbing to realize that the answers our government arrives at will be reached based more on the ability of political parties to get their voters to the polls than on the relative merits of those candidates.

  6. 6.

    Gary Farber

    “More to the point, though I don’t know whether Andrew ever expressed a political preference”

    Um, yes. Yes, he did. Quite a lot. In most posts, over six years, in several of the different blogs he posted at. It would be hard to have ever read him without having a clue about his politics.

    As regards other folks, we’re talking about Andrew Olmsted. “Andrew Olmstead” is someone else frequently confused with Andrew.

    Most of the comments about Andrew are here.
    If anyone wishes to add a comment, please keep in mind that his family is reading the thread, and that comments about politics or the war, rather than strictly about Andrew, are absolutely forbidden, please. Leave it here.

  7. 7.

    fleinn

    *sigh* One less american. Who believed in what he did – not because he thought he could do no wrong, but because he tried to do the right thing. He’ll be missed. Very.

  8. 8.

    bago

    You know, it’s things like this that make you wish people talked before they shot. To bad you don’t always get that option.

    Lost too many to the people in suits and trenchcoats.

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