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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Get Off My Grass

Get Off My Grass

by | 177 Comments

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Am I the only one who gets pissed off when people send me emails marked as urgent? Isn’t that pretty damned presumptuous? Shouldn’t I be the one that gets to determine it is urgent? And if it is so damned important, call me.

And it really pisses me off when it is marked as urgent and turns out to be a mass mailing and it has NOTHING to do with me.

And one more thing. Ed Schultz just spent fifteen minutes talking about the party crashers, and actually said “What is one of them were a ninja? Obama could have been killed.”

Just shoot me.

Reader Interactions

177Comments

  5. 5.

    JenJen

    Earlier on the same network, Chris Matthews reminded his viewers that “those knives on the table, they’re not made of plastic.”

    Shoot me as well, please. Or stab me with a dining utensil or something, just make it quick.

  7. 7.

    r€nato

    1) I think pretty much everyone ignores the urgency status of emails. If they aren’t answering your previous emails, my experience says they aren’t going to answer if it’s set to ‘super-urgent’. Also, I don’t see on my Hotmail account where to set the urgency of the message, and I think it defaults to “urgent” but not “super-urgent”. I really don’t know where to go to change it without wading through a bunch of links.

    2) Ed Schultz always annoys the piss out of me. But… I still disagree with you about the seriousness of this security breach, even as I acknowledge these ‘what-if’ scenarios and the media obsession are increasingly retarded.

    Nobody should get on the White House grounds if they aren’t supposed to be there. Period.

  9. 9.

    Aaron

    What if they were . . . wolverines!

    Won’t this non-story just go away? I long for the day when what we currently conceive as the “mass media” is dead. I am sure the current flock of pundits will find lucrative new careers as weathermen, streetcorner prophets, stenographers, and prostitutes.

  10. 10.

    r€nato

    Ed’s sole reason for having a radio broadcast career, is because he’s a kind of Rush Limbaugh for the populist blue-collar center-left. He even sounds like Rush and bellows like Rush. I can easily imagine a trucker accidentally tuning in Ed and thinking he’s found a Rush show for about the first 10 to 15 minutes.

  14. 14.

    Napoleon

    Has anyone considered the possibility that Ed S. was being sarcastic? Does anyone really believe he has a concern about ninjas attacking Obama?

  18. 18.

    licensed to kill time

    Is anybody else thinking about those bullet shooting bras in Austin Powers? No? Well, that would’ve been awesome.

  20. 20.

    Desert Rat

    Am I the only one who gets pissed off when people send me emails marked as urgent?

    I used to get pissed. Now I just delete them, unread.

    I certainly don’t give them anything like priority attention.

  21. 21.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    What if she had been trained in the use of the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique?

  22. 22.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @freelancer:

    I know you’re kidding, but for the kids out there, a former wingnut who married a sane person and became a libtard. His radio show was and is pretty good, and he is the liberal truckers voice in the village. He shoulda stayed out, but didn’t ask my opinion.

    I still like him, but rarely watch his teevee show. But that goes for about all of them, unless I am bored to tears.

  25. 25.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @r€nato:

    I can easily imagine a trucker accidentally tuning in Ed and thinking he’s found a Rush show for about the first 10 to 15 minutes.

    That’s how realignments happen.

  26. 26.

    lamh31

    I had a discussion with an older co-worker, an African-American like myself, and she talked about when MLK was stabbed by that Izola Curry. Most people know the story, but if somehow you’ve been living under a rock (or you’ve been living white…LOL). Curry had a letter opener in her purse and once she got close enough to King, she stabbed him with the opener (other than the pointed end, it’s bout as dull as a table knife, right?) before King’s security brought her down.

    I truly believe that the gate crashers didnt’ mean any harm, and I’m with you, all the attention they are geting in aggravating, but even with the best security in the world, you can still inflict alot of damage with regular household items before the security takes you down. So while I kinda wish the MSM would knock of the “ninja” coverage, I do thinks it’s a good idea that the Congressional Homeland Security committe are gonna have a public hearing on the Secret Service security lapse that should be the main issue, not the “gate-crashers”

  27. 27.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Why get off your grass and not your lawn, JC?

    And I do find Ed to be a poor lead-in to KO and Maddow. Ratigan would be better, IMHO. Or put him in place of the Morning Joke and get someone else for the Ed hour.

  28. 28.

    bodacious

    I don’t know, could this just be about the Steelers losing??? Please don’t toss Lily off the futon in your rage.

  29. 29.

    smley

    Damn you people are fast. I assume it’s because you don’t have jobs or you have gone Galt without informing your employer. Cyber Monday indeed.

  32. 32.

    lamh31

    Oh,

    yeah, urban legend says that if King had sneezed, the opener would have pierced his heart, and he would have died.

    I’ll tell you now, that was probably most older AA fears whenever Obama went into one of those large crowds during the campaign.

  34. 34.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Jack Handy speculated that the most dangerous creature on earth was the shark riding on the elephants back, just trampling and eating everything they see. Someone call me when a shark-elephant hybrid crashes a state dinner.

    Until then, meh.

  35. 35.

    dmsilev

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I know this will be a deeply unpopular thing to say but ninjas are very overrated.

    It depends, actually, on whether there’s just one ninja or a whole bunch of them. One ninja: Badass. Whole bunch of ninjas: Cannon fodder. This has, in fact, been scientifically measured and quantified in the Law of Ninja Collective Effectiveness: The total combat effectiveness of a group of ninjas is inversely proportional to the number of ninjas contained in that group.

    -dms

  42. 42.

    Demo Woman

    Call me Cathy Hargraves, but I certainly would not have let the imposters in. No Way.. She just appeared like a realty TV star. Also it was Clinton’s fault that Huckabee became Governor and pardoned all those murderers.

  44. 44.

    Dayv

    One of the things I love about gmail is that it completely ignore the priority flag in email. I hope this is by design.

    I think Microsoft is responsible for this misbegotten “feature,” but I haven’t actually verified whether that’s true or just general anti-MS grumbling.

  45. 45.

    freelancer

    @smley:

    If this is “smiley”, than the reason is you technically changed your handle by making a typo out of it. Any change in the handle goes to mod-hell to prevent sock-puppetting.

  47. 47.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I’m just a farm animal, so you humans will have to clear this up for me.

    Which is really the bigger story: Partycrashers, or Tiger Woods Crashes Escalade Into Fire Hydrant?

  48. 48.

    JGabriel

    And one more thing. Ed Schultz just spent fifteen minutes talking about the party crashers, and actually said “What is one of them were a ninja? Obama could have been killed.”

    What if one of them were a ninja, but there was an Al Quaeda assassin at the party and the ninja crashed the party because he/she had heard about the plot and was secretly there to protect the President?

    Did you ever think of THAT, Ed? Huh?

    .

  50. 50.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    You know what’s worse than URGENT! emails? The ones where the sender wants you to verify that you received it. I’ll verify it with a backhand. Be gone control freaks.

    As for The Silly Salahis, Edroso reports that the fReichtards have checked the kerning, inspected the countertops and discovered a VAST ISLAMOFASCIST CONSPIRACY.

    If you are surprised, please check your pulse.

    (Apparently, complaining that the White House didn’t serve a side of beef to their vegetarian guest of honor didn’t gain any traction.)

  52. 52.

    D-Chance.

    Ed Schultz is a conservative bed-wetter?

    I can’t tell the players anymore without the program…

  53. 53.

    serge

    Not going to shoot you, John. Breathe deeply…stupidity will never go away, at least not until the planet gets pissed-off enough to eradicate all of us. Of course that may take less time than we thought.

  56. 56.

    ellaesther

    No. No he did not. He did not say “if one of them were a ninja.” I refuse to believe that. Just flat out would rather believe that you, my blogging host, were hallucinating at the time, than to think that someone with a nightly news broadcast just speculated about what would have happened if one of the party crashers were a fucking NINJA!!

    Je refuse! You cannot make me believe it.

    (Ah, but I suppose the question really is: Would it be responsible not to speculate?)

  61. 61.

    serge

    @ellaesther…True enough, but I get suicidal at times myself at the absolute imbecility we witness. I feel John’s pain.

  62. 62.

    Joshua Norton

    The “what if” strawman argument is usually the last resort of a wingnut loser.

    Before I swore off such shows, I vividly remember listening to a phone-in on CSPAN during the Clinton/Lewinsky bru-ha-ha. One highly irate old lady phoned in screaming “would Dems be making excuses for Clinton if Monica had been a 15 year old boy”?

    Their “what if” fantasies speak more to their own dirty little minds than anyone elses.

  63. 63.

    Chris

    The comment Ed made about the pic the lady took with VP Biden made me almost snort pork chop out my nose. I had to turn the channel lest I would give up watchin Ed like I have Tweety. He was pointing out the large ring the lady was wearing and that it could’ve had some kind of poisony..pointy..james bondish thing in it. POOF no more Joe Biden…Gatecrashers!!! Lions Tigers Bears…OH MY. I didnt think Ed was such a pus sy…..

  65. 65.

    MikeJ

    I think Microsoft is responsible for this misbegotten “feature,” but I haven’t actually verified whether that’s true or just general anti-MS grumbling.

    It’s mentioned in RFC 1327, but only as a nonstandard RFC 822 “extension field.”

  66. 66.

    MattR

    @Joshua Norton:

    Their “what if” fantasies speak more to their own dirty little minds than anyone elses.

    I think the same applies to all their concerns about “death panels” and similar things. It is actually a warning about what they would/will do once they are in control of things and should be a reminder that any legislation has to be crafted in a way to make it difficult for future administrations to bastardize it.

  67. 67.

    patrick

    just shoot me….
    On the other hand, I just got back from waiting in a long line at the post office. I heard two ladies talking behind me. One was a very old lady who looked very tired and a younger lady waiting in line just behind her. The young lady was saying — “you just go, I will mail this for you”
    The older lady said “Thank You”, and reached into her purse for some money and said “but all I have is a twenty”.
    “That’s alright, I’ll mail it for you. Merry Christmas.”
    The older lady thanked her and walked off.

  68. 68.

    r€nato

    @MattR:

    sadly, there’s often a large gap between what the architects of legislation propose, and what actually gets passed and signed into law.

    I’m increasingly concerned that there are some really, really good people working on health care reform, but what comes out the other end of the Congressional sausage factory is going to be pretty weak with regards to containing costs. Simply transferring the payer from insurance companies to the government is not going to fix everything.

  69. 69.

    Jay in Oregon

    Ed Schultz just spent fifteen minutes talking about the party crashers, and actually said “What is one of them were a ninja? Obama could have been killed.”

    The only way that line should be delivered is while trying to contain fits of laughter.

    I have to hear the context for that because if he was trying to say that in earnest, then Ed Schultz is dead to me.

  71. 71.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @patrick:

    On the other hand, I just got back from waiting in a long line at the post office. I heard two ladies talking behind me. One was a very old lady who looked very tired and a younger lady waiting in line just behind her. The young lady was saying—“you just go, I will mail this for you” The older lady said “Thank You”, and reached into her purse for some money and said “but all I have is a twenty”.
    “That’s alright, I’ll mail it for you. Merry Christmas.”
    The older lady thanked her and walked off.

    What if the old lady was a deep cover terrorist and the envelope was full of explosives and anthrax and assorted jihadishness?

  73. 73.

    MattR

    @r€nato: There is definitely that. But even if Congress miraculously managed to pass a great HCR bill, I worry that the next Republican administration will convert “comparative efficiency panels” into actual “death panels” and that the government bureaucrats they put in place will be as bad, or worse, than the current crop of insurance company bureuacrats. It is almost as if they are telegraphing how they plan to undercut the legislation once they have the power to do so.

  74. 74.

    Leelee for Obama

    This is so pathetic. I haven’t watched the news for days except for a weather report, and I likely won’t anytime soon. Ninjas? I never liked Ed much on radio, but his show has never appealed to me, so I thankfully miss this sort of thing. I truly am beginning to think there is some truth to Kurt Vonnegut’s theory that the earth is trying to kick us off, like viruses. And who could blame it? As a species, we really are sad.

  75. 75.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Leelee for Obama:

    As a species, we really are sad.

    I somewhat disagree. There are pockets of kindness and caring within the human community, and societies that are trying to do better. There is great beauty produced by the human species (look at the open thread photos Tim F. puts up, as well as JC’s rescue diaries), but yeah, it’s hard to see that through all the bullshit that seems to be created by the alpha types, the greedy assholes who seem to try to dominate the rest of the species.

  76. 76.

    r€nato

    @Jay in Oregon:

    Ed Schultz was dead to me 4 and a half years ago when he viciously attacked on-air Arizona state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema over the sensible procedures in place when Katrina refugees were temporarily sheltered at the Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum.

    Details here

    Basically, the Coliseum is in Sinema’s district. Access to these families was controlled; there was a very real and sensible concern of their being taken advantage of by strangers. Some guy came by and wanted to ‘adopt’ a refugee family and was turned away. So Schultz accused Sinema of keeping these families prisoner and totally dismissed her first-hand accounts of what was going on there. Schultz also made some very disparaging comments about all Arizonans and our state, which is pretty rich coming from some guy who broadcasts out of North Dakota.

    It was the sort of odious radio show bullying that is employed all the time by Hannity, Limbaugh and all the C-list local hate radio show hosts in your town. What’s more, Sinema is a real gem of a legislator. She’s smart, she’s very liberal, and she’s media-friendly and media-savvy. Unfortunately she’s probably too liberal to get elected to statewide office, though someday there might be a Congressional district that is perfect for her.

    Sinema was gracious and forgave him; I don’t. It was an example of the worst that this kind of format has to offer.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @Aaron:
    I am sure the current flock of pundits will find lucrative new careers as weathermen, streetcorner prophets, stenographers, and prostitutes.
    What the hell are they now? I thought you were describing their current status.

  79. 79.

    SFAW

    It’s mentioned in RFC 1327, but only as a nonstandard RFC 822 “extension field.”

    Several thoughts were the result of this comment:

    1) Thanks! I had been trying to track that info down for ages!
    2) Someone has a little too much time on their hands.
    3) Sorry, you want http://www.geeks-r-us.com
    4) Obama’s working to fix that, even as we speak.
    5) But how does that correlate to MIL-T-FPS?

    usw.

  80. 80.

    jl

    I live in a “useless-but-required-and-Very-Serious-BS-form” rich environment. Therefore, high priority e-mails with REMINDER in caps in the subject line are very important.

    I am an expert at the hit-Reply-high-priority-attach-document sequence.

    As for Ed bloviating on the party crashers, another sign that we are all Mayans now.

    We are becoming a nation of uneducated demoralized indebted ripped-off louts, informed by ignorant loons on TV who spout piffle in search of nothing other than ad dollars and corporate advantage. Best to turn it off so you can concentrate on your own bidness and reserve your mental and emotional stamina.

    Every wonder, my friends, what it is like to live in a great empire slowly going belly-up and rotting? We may be one of those historical groups of lucky-duckies about to find out.

    When the Very Serious Village People talk about decline, they usually talk about the Rome around the first century with all that sex and drugs and debuachery. That is wrong. Why, heck, Rome was just getting started as a major world empire and all that debauched sexytime and boozing just gave them the energy to get it all done.

    It is the public corruption, and theft, official hypocriscy and cynicism, and intellectually and morally bankrupt entitled aristocracies that do them in. John Adams, the first and maybe last great American conservative thought so, I and I agree. Remember, when Rome really fell in the West, it was a Christian nation, rapidly embarking on Xtianist style official hypocrisy and public corruption that put many pagan nations to shame.

  81. 81.

    bemused

    Ed’s radio show wasn’t this annoying when it first went on Air America. Then Ed got the msnbc gig. Now I can’t stand to listen much to either show despite some of the guests he has on I’d be interested in hearing. Ed reaching for that star is starting to look Glen Beckish.

  84. 84.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Ian:

    How we do it in Canada:
    __
    “(Canadian Prime Minister Jean) Chrétien and his wife escaped injury when André Dallaire, armed with a knife, broke in the Prime Minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex Drive. Aline Chrétien shut and locked the bedroom door until security came. It is said Jean was ready to defend himself with a sharp-edged Inuit carving.”
    __
    Bonus: Here’s Jean Chrétien doing his own crowd control by strangling a protester.

    Well, that may be all well in good in Canadia, but what are you going to do when a rampaging army of murderous, thieving children show up outside the Prime Minister’s official residence? Will you have the fortitude of Romania’s great leaders:

    Traian Basescu Hitting A Child Video? Romanian Opposition Says President Hit Boy In Face

    Romania’s government has collapsed and its economy is in shambles but its presidential campaign has been dominated in recent days by a video that appears to show the president striking a 10-year-old boy in the face. [emphasis mine]

  85. 85.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @jl:

    they usually talk about the Rome around the first century with all that sex and drugs and debuachery.

    I think more sex, drugs and debauchery would be preferable to two wars and the financial shitstorm we’re undergoing right now. That’s a slogan a dem should run on.

  86. 86.

    Leelee for Obama

    @arguingwithsignposts: Thanks, arguing. When I’m in this kind of mood, I need to be reminded that not all of us suck. I’ve really been kind of down in the dumps for a few days, with Thanksgiving and all. The first holidays after you lose someone are the worst, they say, and I’m keepin’ on. I just wish the media weren’t such asshats, and that the politicos would, for once, do what’s right, instead of what might keep them in their posts. It’s not new, of course. It just seems worse right now.

    On an up note-I made five Christmas table runners and am enjoying the finishing of same. It’s restful to just sit and sew.

  87. 87.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    What the hell are they now? I thought you were describing their current status.

    I’m pretty sure he was trying to describe the careers that would be open to people with the current media’s job skills.

  88. 88.

    jl

    @r€nato: David Cutler, a very good health economist, who does lots of solid empirical work (rather than empty theorizing), had an interesting comment in an interview recently.

    He said that the real goal of an initial reform effort should be to achieve universal coverage. Everything else was a detail, including cost control. Once people knew they had secure and reliable coverage, they would not let it go. Everything else would be changed, but politicians would be so afraid of pissed off voters who had coverage and lost it, that they would be forced to start the real reforms needed for a good healthcare system.

    Howard Dean made a similar point: the important thing was to move to universal coverage and get some people on a reformed system, preferably a public option for the currently uninsured immediately. The BS horror stories would definitively shown to be false, and people would not want to give up coverage.

    Maybe that is the real goal we should be pressing for, something that starts universal coverage now, with as much as possible done on public plans of one kind or another. That is how it has worked in several other high income countries -get the universal coverage and the whole set of arguments against further reform melt away against public demand to keep their coverage.

  89. 89.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Leelee for Obama:

    Positive vibes on overcoming the holiday grief.

    I just wish the media weren’t such asshats, and that the politicos would, for once, do what’s right, instead of what might keep them in their posts. It’s not new, of course. It just seems worse right now.

    There’s a tendency to focus just on the negative with media and pols. Sure, that’s a big part of it. But I know a lot of media people outside the Village who do quite a good job all things considered. They don’t appear in the pages of the national MSM, so they don’t get the credit, but think about the expose of the lead-painted Chinese toys, for instance, or the McClatchy folks who’ve been heavy lifting on a lot of stuff, or Frontline, or Bill Moyers.

    And the same with pols. Think of Alan Grayson, Rep. Weiner, Leahy, Franken and the like. There are some good apples out there. Sometimes we just have to adjust our gaze.

    (and yeah, me playing the optimist is a sign of the apocalypse) :)

  90. 90.

    jl

    @arguingwithsignposts: Thanks. Maybe the B-J blog should think up a good sex booze and debauchery slogan and submit to the WH webpage for Rahm’s perusal.

    With an abbreviation like B-J, there is some material to work with, you think?

  92. 92.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @jl:

    When the Very Serious Village People talk about decline, they usually talk about the Rome around the first century with all that sex and drugs and debuachery. That is wrong. Why, heck, Rome was just getting started as a major world empire and all that debauched sexytime and boozing just gave them the energy to get it all done.
     
    It is the public corruption, and theft, official hypocriscy and cynicism, and intellectually and morally bankrupt entitled aristocracies that do them in. John Adams, the first and maybe last great American conservative thought so, I and I agree. Remember, when Rome really fell in the West, it was a Christian nation, rapidly embarking on Xtianist style official hypocrisy and public corruption that put many pagan nations to shame.

    Dude, what were you doing during the 60’s, hanging out in the library reading Edward Gibbon? We already had the orgies, back then. Now on to the Xtianist hypocrisy and public corruption bit. Just like the Romans, only x100 faster. Because we are teh bestest evah.

  94. 94.

    jl

    @arguingwithsignposts: “And the same with pols. Think of Alan Grayson, Rep. Weiner, Leahy, Franken and the like. There are some good apples out there. Sometimes we just have to adjust our gaze.”

    thanks, that cheered me up.

    On the cheery side, Rome almost went belly up in the early 200s, but managed to reform itself enough to stagger along for another 200 years or so.

    It can be done, maybe we will gradually elect a Congress that can do something. The House is doing pretty well, but it is three (WH, SC, and Senate) against one.

  95. 95.

    Aaron

    @Roger Moore:

    That is what I was going for, Roger. The list is basically all they are currently, so it would be an easy transition into their new stenogritute careers :-)

    I mean, the biggest stories of recent years were mostly “non-stories” anyway, so it is arguable that journalists have been extinct for the past 20 years (with a few notable exceptions) and no one has known.

  96. 96.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    We already had the orgies, back then. Now on to the Xtianist hypocrisy and public corruption bit. Just like the Romans, only x100 faster. Because we are teh bestest evah.

    I think we need to turn this car around, dammit! I wasn’t even born until the end of the ’60s!

  97. 97.

    jl

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Ahem, I was too young to be a hippie. I came of age in the horrid backwash of the 70s and 80s. It is all a blurr. I guess I must have been in the library sobering up and went to the stacks where it was real quiet.

  98. 98.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @jl:

    but it is three (WH, SC, and Senate) against one.

    Well, now that you mention it, I’m more concerned about SCOTUS than the WH or Senate. You can vote out the president or Senators (yes, it’s hard to dig out those Senate types, but it can be done). The SCOTUS is for life, and fuckers like John Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia will haunt us for a long time.

    Back to thinking happy thoughts. I’m going to watch a Grayson clip for a palate cleanser.

  99. 99.

    Leelee for Obama

    @arguingwithsignposts: I will listen a bit later, I like blue-grass. Right now, I’m gonna watch the animated Grinch-it’s my second favorite-but no one runs Mr. McGoo’s Christmas Carol anymore.

  100. 100.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:
    I’m pretty sure he was trying to describe the careers that would be open to people with the current media’s job skills.
    But, but, but that’s what they do now, why do they need new careers?
    I got the point. Just making another.

  103. 103.

    geg6

    arguingwithsignposts @89: Thanks for providing some context and positive vibes there. I, too, have been depressed as hell lately, a lot of it attributable to politics and the media (but not all). I could use a Lily of my own or at least a Lily thread. All I know is that I think we, America, suck. Myself included.

  104. 104.

    gex

    Oh good. Open thread. I’m late to it, but I don’t care. I just need a space to put this out there. You probably want to skip this comment.

    I feel so alone. It’s just me, and usually I fucking hate myself. So that’s a pretty shitty place to be. But there’s nothing to be done about any of this. I’ve already proven incapable of improving the situation or ending the situation. So I just suffer.

    I woke up one day in my late 20’s and realized that the thing that had twisted me up all inside was the fact that I was gay. And in the 10 years since then, I have not been able to fix any of the personality problems that infested me while I was so twisted up. I’m a horrible, ugly, angry, dysfunctional asshole. And I wish I had the Ugandan government to help me out of this situation sometimes.

    Fuck.

    I just needed to put this out there somewhere just to express it. No one needs to worry, not that I assume you would. It just is what it is. I’m dumping this out there and moving on.

  105. 105.

    Rekster

    @Comrade Mary: I am with you about this tub of lard. What a day it would have been if MSNBC put Mike Malloy on in that time slot.

    What I wouldn’t give to see the right when Mike went off on one of his “Bush Crime Family” tirades.

  108. 108.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @gex:

    Hey, listen to me as someone who’s been in a dark place. Don’t just dump and run.

    I feel so alone. It’s just me, and usually I fucking hate myself. So that’s a pretty shitty place to be. But there’s nothing to be done about any of this. I’ve already proven incapable of improving the situation or ending the situation. So I just suffer.

    Don’t know what the situation is totally, but you sound like you’re in deep pain. There are a lot of caring people here in the BJ community. I’ve benefited from their kindness many times over, and you can too. The Internet is a funny place. There’s judgment, but there’s also caring.

    There’s always something to be done. I know. Don’t give up, and keep us posted. If you need to dump, then feel free to use these comment threads. I’ll be watching and thinking positive thoughts for you.

    It sucks to be in so much pain. I know.

    keep on keepin’ on.

  111. 111.

    Betsy

    @gex:

    I’m so sorry to hear that. You don’t deserve to feel this bad. Lots of us have been in some dark places, emotionally, and can empathize completely. Feel free to talk about it.

  112. 112.

    Lowkey

    @gex: Don’t worry, Gex, poison is supposed to be vomited out. It’ll save your life. What is it that’s cracking open old wounds tonight? You sound like I do when I get dark.

  113. 113.

    chrome agnomen

    @gex:

    as gunny highway said in heartbreak ridge, ‘don’t give the bastards, {the wingnuts}, the satisfaction!’

    hang in there. we need all the troops we can muster. people out here are feelin’ for ya’. you serve a purpose.

  121. 121.

    Mary

    @gex: gex, I identify on many levels with your dark and hopeless feelings. Let’s you and I start by putting put one foot in front of the other (starting tomorrow of course) to get out of the hole. After all, we know we are good people just for the fact that we hang out on John’s blog, which is so full of love bugs, starting with the proprietor. Everyone loves you here.

  122. 122.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Mary:

    After all, we know we are good people just for the fact that we hang out on John’s blog, which is so full of love bugs, starting with the proprietor.

    Lovebugs. Heh, we are the surliest bunch of lovebugs. :)

    You know, with all the ads JC puts up on this place, I’m surprised he doesn’t have a CafePress store or something. I’d buy a Balloon Juice t-shirt. Consistently wrong since 2002. Hell yeah, bitchez.

  129. 129.

    Something Fabulous

    @gex: I don’t know if you’re still reading this; I hope you are. I mostly lurk, but have always noticed how kind people can be here, and really step up when someone calls out like this. I hope you keep checking in.

    So, two things: please know (as I’m sure you do, intellectually if nowhere else inside just now), that whatever “horrible, ugly, angry, dysfunctional asshole”-ish parts you feel you want to work on and fix, please please be reminded that none of that is BECAUSE YOU ARE GAY. That part does not need to be “fixed.” That part of you deserves love and respect as is. You are not alone with that. And anyone who is trying to make you feel less than for being true to yourself in that does not deserve your attention anymore.

    Now, the other thing: whatever ELSE you want to work on, so do I, so do so many here. We are all so much works in progress, and this horrible economy and global situation can make all of the personal stuff seem so grim, yet oddly unimportant and isolating. You are not alone with that, either. One step at a time, as they say, towards something better. Please don’t feel alone.

    Hope I was not too preachy here, but I want you to know you were heard.

  130. 130.

    Svensker

    @gex:

    Can’t offer you much, except a wish of peace, friend. You need to see a social worker or someone to help you learn to forgive yourself.

    Keep coming back. Talk to us.

  132. 132.

    Tattoosydney

    @gex:

    I’m a horrible, ugly, angry, dysfunctional asshole.

    But apparently one with self awareness, which puts you one step ahead of the millions of other dysfunctional arseholes out there…

    Recognising your own (alleged) shortcomings has to be at least part of the first step to making things better (although it is also presumably part of the problem – if you didn’t care that you were (or at least thought you were) horrible, ugly, angry and dysfunctional, you wouldn’t be worrying about it).

  134. 134.

    DonkeyKong

    “What is one of them were a ninja? Obama could have been killed.”-Ed Shultz

    What if Obama were attacked with a banana, or some other fresh fruit like a mango. Was John Cleese there to shoot them with a pistol?

  135. 135.

    EJ

    I sometimes have similar concerns, except usually my thoughts are more along the lines of, “What if one of them were a ninja? Obama fighting ninjas would be AWESOME.”

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @gex:
    As arguing said, many of us have been in some real dark places. For many different reasons. The old joke of the friend that jumped in the hole with his buddy and the buddy said “what the hell did you do that for?” The answer is “because I know the way out.” We don’t know you and we don’t know the hole you’re in but we still know that you can get out. Many of us have done it. Some more that once. I don’t want to sound like a 12 stepper but you have taken the first step. As hard as it may sound there are places to help and people here to support you as you dig your way out.
    You may not need if for that reason but if you can’t find help any place else call a suicide hotline. They should be able to help or refer you to help.
    Here’s a website if you need it. they are not the only source.

  142. 142.

    Joel

    this MNF game is looking like a good one. all ground game so far (with the saints scoring on a screen). tom brady looks shaky though.

  143. 143.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @gex: Came late to this thread and I hope you’re still reading (thanks to the wonderful and compassionate arguingwithsignposts for pointing us back here): I can’t really add to what others have said except to say that this community — as curmudgeonly and rowdy as it gets — will really be there for you. I’ve seen them/us offer nonjudgmental shoulders and practical advice to at least three posters who had arrived at their personal Slough of Despond, and the love and empathy is immeasurable when anyone here loses a loved one or a devoted pet or is just going through a shitty time. The common thread is: This Too Shall Pass. We are all here for you, and if it doesn’t sound too fatuous, we love you. Lotta love around here. Keep posting. Please.

  144. 144.

    Dr. Psycho

    @ JenJen: Or what if one of them had been the Blue Rajah, Master of Cutlery? Then, not only the knives and forks would have been a danger to the President, but also the pie-serving spatula and the punch ladle!

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

    @Gex: Do you live in Oregon? Would you like to come to Corvallis and have a cup of tea with us (Ally het couple) and get your feet rubbed?

    @Leelee: Golly, how I loved the ghosts who haunted Mr. Magoo’s Scrooge. Especially how the Ghost of Christmas Present flew him past so many lonely souls who were all singing the same carol. Priceless.

    @arguingwithsignposts re missing the ’60s: Hugh Hefner grew up during the Depression, sorry he missed the 1920s, little guessing that the ’60s lay in his future. Let’s do what Hef did, and help make our own glorious decade.

    @EJ: There is a poster around somewhere, showing Obama in dark glasses making bullets stop in midair, with the caption “Not. This. Time.” It struck a surprisingly strong chord within me. Of course, since Obama doesn’t actually have superpowers (at least not physical ones), it is up to all of us to keep the bullets from hitting him. Because the bastards have killed enough of our Presidents, and we really do need to tell them Not. This. Time.

  148. 148.

    Dr. Psycho

    @kommrade reproduktive vigor: Canadian dildos have sharp edges? There is more to these folks than I suspected.

    One good thing about the Party Crashers: It proves that there is no Secret Service conspiracy to pull an Anwar Sadat on our President, because if there were, they would never have exposed themselves to scrutiny through an embarrassing incident like this.

  149. 149.

    4jkb4ia

    @gex:
    It was important to put this thought into words where you could examine it like an object that was both you and not you, to bastardize an Aviva Zornberg observation. I am also an amoral and dysfunctional bastard. It does not always help but if you have some notion of what you are living for, you have motivation to transcend your bad character traits even if you don’t know how.

  151. 151.

    Lowkey

    @Dr. Psycho: Okay, I’m impatient. I will invariably wind up looking like a tool for this, but… onward!

    “I apologize for having to crash your social do, Mr. President… or, should I say, your soshalist do? Ah-hah, ah-ha ha ha ha!”

  152. 152.

    South of I-10

    @gex: I am sorry that you are in such a bad place today. Just know that there is someone (a lot of people) who are worried about you and hoping it gets better.

  153. 153.

    Leelee for Obama

    @gex: Sorry I missed this post earlier. I was watching something and then I drifted off for a bit.

    Gex, this is the kind of site where neighbors meet and console when one of us is aching, so you’ve dumped this in the right place. I was down before and arguing helped me a bit, too! So, you see what I mean, yeah?

    Don’t let the misery of the past mess up your today-I know you think you can’t, but let go of the anger you feel about who you think you are and work at being who you’d like to be. And fuck that Uganda horseshit, that’s just wrong. You are not deserving that, no matter how down on yourself you get.

    Every time John post about Lily, I am reminded of the proverb, “I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.”

  154. 154.

    zhak

    I haven’t really been following the “crashers” story too closely so apologies if this has been said a million times already, but when I was clicking around this morning on news sites, I came across all sorts of foolishness like calls for Congressional hearings and such and my own response to such was “with everything that’s wrong with our country at the moment, THIS is what Congress wants to focus on?” and then it hit me why this is so important to these people: they’re scared to death that someone will “crash” one of their private swanky affairs and hurt them. They’re that afraid of everything — another terrorist attack, being accused of liberalism (applies to “Dems” only), Rachel Maddow, the Village (of the Damned) — that they can’t think straight and have, apparently, no idea how utterly inane this stuff comes across as. We didn’t used to be a country of wusses, but it’s been a pretty straight downhill trajectory since the end of WWII (my gawd can you imagine this crew at the helm back in the day?) with rare and temporary exceptions (Eisenhower’s highway system, Medicare, Civil Rights). And in 1980 we got to the bottom of the hill, rolled into a convenient rabbit hole & we’ve topsy-turvy ever since. People who crow about the govt being the problem are hailed as patriots (huh?) and those who wish to help regular Americans are reviled 9 ways to Sunday for their nasty Socialist leanings. So something like health care reform, which we desperately need — we are, I believe, the only “advanced” nation left that puts the profits of insurance companies ahead of the needs of our people — gets watered down and politicized until it’s a toothless not-much-of-anything.

    Hope? Change? We are in desperate need of both.

  157. 157.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    @gex:

    Wow Gex. What did you do to try and fix your problems? Maybe you should see a therapist or something. Are things really that bad? When I see “horrible, ugly, angry, dysfunctional asshole” I think Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. I doubt you’re in their league. Anyway, I feel for you.

  159. 159.

    mandarama

    @Notorious P.A.T.:

    …When I see “horrible, ugly, angry, dysfunctional asshole” I think Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. I doubt you’re in their league….

    This. gex, I promise that whatever you are struggling with and however you feel about yourself right now, you are a lot more admirable than you think. You care about ideas and the future of our country. And you’ve dealt with such damaging institutional pressures, and survived. Focus on what you’ve overcome so far, if you can. Peace to you.

  161. 161.

    Anne Laurie

    @gex:

    I woke up one day in my late 20’s and realized that the thing that had twisted me up all inside was the fact that I was gay. And in the 10 years since then, I have not been able to fix any of the personality problems that infested me while I was so twisted up. I’m a horrible, ugly, angry, dysfunctional asshole.

    There’s a lot of it going around, right now. This is a particularly hard time of year for those of us who drew the black marble, via bad genes and/or dysfunctional families, because it’s all about Happy Fun Communal Celebrations and Heartwarming Family Traditions, which are much easier to market than “The best thing I can say about my parents’ child-raising efforts is that they knew how badly they sucked at it, which didn’t make the experience suck any less.” And the dearth of natural light doesn’t help, especially if you’re commuting to work in the dark, spending your day under florescent lights, and then going home in the dark. The good thing is, you’re a ‘horrible, angry, dysfunctional asshole’ SURVIVOR, which is probably not something you could take for granted at every point in your life to date. Thirty-odd years of beating the odds is not to be dismissed lightly; the next step is to figure out which of the ‘skills’ you acquired while doing so are worth practising, and which have just become bad habits. We can’t always outgrow old wounds and knotted scars, but given sufficient time and attention sometimes we can use their strength & resiliency to our future benefit.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    Gex
    Anne Laurie probably said it best. Try to find the upside. There is one. She’s also right that just making it means you have the skills, it’s just they are sometimes hard to find. I really never thought I’d make it to 30 but here I am 30 years after that, older, crankier, and possibly a smidgen wiser. Or not. But I’m here, no one has revoked my breathing permit yet, all the limbs sort of work, I get 4-6 hours of sleep a day and it’s not raining on my head unless I want it to. At the end of the day most of the other crap in my life is just that. A number of people I’ve known over the years haven’t made it as far as me and another fair number didn’t make it as far as you. So getting this far and just being who you are is a big deal.
    Ask for help, it is very much worth it. I have and the world of difference is immense.

  169. 169.

    IndieTarheel

    The irony of Ed Schultz blasting the attention seeking media wh0res WHILE RUNNING THE SAME VIDEO CLIP 150 TIMES…it burned.

  170. 170.

    Leelee for Obama

    @mandarama: Thanks so much-this is fabulous!

    And thanks to Betsy-I appreciate your concern.

    This time of year can be hard for anyone with troubles, or issues or doubts. It’s so helpful to be able to say something is bothering you and have people who care let you know that they do!

  172. 172.

    Ming

    @gex:

    I feel so alone. It’s just me, and usually I fucking hate myself. So that’s a pretty shitty place to be. But there’s nothing to be done about any of this. I’ve already proven incapable of improving the situation or ending the situation. So I just suffer.

    dear gex, my heart goes out to you. being in pain and feeling helpless to do anything about it is an awful place to be.

    your characterization of yourself and your life may or may not be true — so far, you’ve been incapable of improving the situation, but you don’t really know that that’s going to be true forever. even a week from now, something could happen that, in combination with the strengths you do have, is enough to put you in a better place. we just don’t know. but replaying this characterization in your head is pretty much guaranteed to make you feel awful — so remember that this characterization may or may not be true, and that in any case, there are many, positive characterizations of yourself and your life that you could just as well be playing in your head. (e.g., man i went through some serious, serious shit and am still here; i’m grateful to have the wisdom to see my limitations so i can figure out ways to deal with them; i’m grateful that i had the courage to admit my limitations, and the courage to reach out to the BJ community). the book Full Catastrophe Living might be helpful — it offers insights to people living in chronic physical pain, but the insights are just as relevant to chronic psychological pain.

    all best to you

  175. 175.

    Scandi

    I get pissed when one person marks every email as urgent. If every email is urgent, no email is urgent.

    (actually Outlook says “with high importance, but same diff).

  176. 176.

    jesdynf

    Nobody important enough to merit an urgent response will bother to use the flag, because they know they’re important and don’t have time to bother with trifles, leaving only people who wish they were important enough to merit an urgent response.

    In other words, the flag status is precisely backwards.

  177. 177.

    Original Lee

    @gex: I mean this in the most sincere way possible: thanks for sharing this. You already have come farther than you think, to be sufficiently self-aware enough to write this post. Keep it up.

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