Don’t forget the Pacific and Treme.
As a side note, this write-up from a Palin rally in Oregon made me laugh and then cry:
Dawn Attleberger of Vancouver said she got a bit rattled as she endured jeers on her way into the event. But it was worth it, she said.
“I’m 51, and I wasn’t interested in politics until she came into the picture,” Attleberger said. “Now I am.”
Palin- the darling of people who neither understand nor care about issues, but want to have a team to root for! We might as well get rid of elections and just decide the winner through the annual House softball game.
Tom Hilton
I’ve been at the office all day, and the odds of getting home in time for Treme are steadily diminishing. Damn. (Thank FSM for DVR, though…)
Edit: and yeah, you nailed it. It’s nothing more than tribal loyalty for these people.
Cat Lady
Sarah Palin is to middle aged morans what Miley Cyrus is to preteens. There’s no there there, the window of opportunity is narrowing, and it’s smash and grab until it closes.
Yutsano
Dear Sarah:
Please go away and take your drama-laced family with you. Spring is back in Wasilla, maybe you can go up there and pick flowers or something. Kthxbai.
EDIT: Watching Ratatouille again. I never seem to get tired of this movie. I think it’s the foodie in me. Or the fact that I’m a rat in Chinese astrology.
rknight44
Pacific is pretty good. Just got through re-reading “With the Old Breed”. Friend of mine from Mobile met Dr. Sledge coupla times some years back. Said he was a nice gentleman.
SteveinSC
Sarah’s alarm clocks are set to go off in 2012, but the fuckers run backwards and are missing some numbers.
stevie314159
Can Sarah see Vancouver from her porch too?
ronathan richardson
This is true, too, for many Obama fans. But they love him because he seems to be the first to actually understand what it’s like to be outside of the white-male power structure, to have experience with poverty, and to speak in a way that represent the highest American ideal of hope for a better future.
The new-to-politics Palinites like her for her kitchy sayings, her style, her accent, and her indignance towards intellect and reason–they’ve been waiting for someone as underwhelming as themselves to get on TV with the men in suits and just be selfish and simple.
Mike Kay
She’s really no different than the PUMAs. They did everything they could to sink Obama simply because their team didn’t get the nomination, issues be damned.
currants
@Yutsano: Ah! re: Edit: Me too, me too, and me too!
mr. whipple
@Yutsano:
“Dear Sarah:
Please go away and take your drama-laced family with you. Spring is back in Wasilla, maybe you can go up there and pick flowers or something. Kthxbai.”
Nooooooooooooo! Run in 2012. You can beat Obama after yer done whopping Newtster and Romney with your killer snark.
Run Sarah, run!
Mike Kay
@ronathan richardson:
“But they love him because he seems to be the first to actually understand what it’s like to be outside of the white-male power structure”
Yup, just like all those white-male, middle-class, 20 somethings who voted for the first time – ever. Yup. Yup.
NOLono
Just walked home from Allman Bros. at JazzFest, Levon Helm w/Dr. John, Blind Boys…livin the Treme.
Fern
Whew – for a minute there I thought that woman was from Vancouver, BC.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
You’re all a bunch a Starburst haters. Don’t you no never mind, Levi is bringing the true story with his memWha? (cough cough) for Sarah Palin, from his personal adventure on boning his way to fame. Or, ‘How I Used To Be Horny Teenage Nobody Too, Also”
Yutsano
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Oh dear God someone hand Sully a towel now. He’ll be fapping over that (for several reasons) for months on end.
@IndyLib: I absolutely adore ratatouille, I think it’s one of my favorite French dishes. My mom has a fantastic recipe for it that I couldn’t get enough of.
Linda Featheringill
@Yutsano: I watched it, too!
[Ratatouille]
IndyLib
@Yutsano:
Love the movie, it got my kids interested in food beyond mac and cheese and hamburgers. They won’t eat my homemade rattatouille yet, but at least they tried it.
Mark S.
A link on that page to A Reporter’s Chance Meeting With Sarah Palin turned out to be a lot more boring than I thought it would be (probably because Todd was there), but, geez, I find Sarah’s aversion to the press both funny and creepy:
If I were one of Palin’s handlers, I’d probably try to keep her exposure to the press down to the minimum, but it wouldn’t be zero. The woman needs to learn how to not make an ass out herself someday, so some practice would be advisable.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
James May’s trip in the U-2 was pretty good. To truly achieve enough geek status – yes, the show likely paid a pretty good sum, but that doesn’t mean they’d still let anyone up – to be allowed to go up like that would be awesome.
arguingwithsignposts
Let me just say that Ira Glass p0wns Steve Poizner on this week’s This American Life. And yet, epistemic closure in its full glory.
madmommy
@Mark S.:
She’s dumb as a bag of hammers, and will fail miserably at answering even the most basic of questions. Plus she’s got a huge sense of self-importance and an aversion to learning from any of her past experiences. Let’s face it, if Katie Couric makes you look like a fool, chances are you are indeed a fool.
Watching the Mets & Braves on ESPN since I don’t get those fancy-pants pay-TV channels. The grass is an especially vivid green at the Mets’ new ballpark.
Jon
@ronathan richardson: Thanks for posting about this. I was just coming here to say that Palin drives me up the wall as much she does for most of you here, John included. That said, we should be much more fair about her supporters. Anyone uneducated about politics who decides to get involved because of her has every right to educate themselves on the issues just as many starry-eyed Obama supporters did.
As far as TV for the evening, I’m missing Treme and the Pacific because Universal HD is playing the Prestige and I have never seen this before. Holy shit, all hail Nolan/Bale/Caine/Jackman!
dmsilev
@Mark S.:
She’s probably going to try to stick to Fox News, right-wing radio talkers, etc. Guaranteed friendly questions. Demonize the rest as Liberal Media Elite, and so forth. For a Republican primary season, that might actually work. For a general election, not so much, unless she truly wants to be the 28% candidate.
dms
Alan
Since this topic is OT here’s different kind of evidence the industrial type of food we consume is shit and destroying our health.
MikeJ
@arguingwithsignposts: It’s so annoying that TAL still just doesn’t quite understand the internet. On the plus side: they put up a transcript. Yay! It’s a PDF for no good reason. Boo!
Mike Kay
this is one of many reasons why I don’t see her running in 2012. Yes, bashing the liburel media is fun. But I’ve never seen anyone throw down for a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Even Dubya and Reagan went out of their way to charm the press.
you keep stirring the hive, at some point they’ll investigate how you built that 500K home from left over supplies.
geg6
Treme! Hallelujah for Treme. Easily the best show on television right now (with the exception of Lost’s last season which is paying off nicely for this loyal viewer). Other than Pens games and some cooking shows, the only appointment tv for me is Wednesday at 9 and Sunday at 10. So satisfying these shows are and that’s such a rarity these days.
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ: The podcast is now available via iTunes for free.
demo woman
For those that missed this over at Think Progress.
Froley
The Pacific has been getting better each week and the actors that play Leckie, Gunny and Snafu (he’s so creepy) are all outstanding. In the end, I think I’ll like it better than Band of Brothers.
Mike Kay
@Jon:
I don’t know where this patronizing and elitist attitude comes from? Where do you get off with this when it was the “starry-eyed” blogosphere who wildly supported that elmer gantry huckster, john Edwards. You sophisticate book worms got taken, hook, line, and zinker.
Jon
@Mike Kay: Eh, I came off douchey in that original quote. I didn’t mean to. I just mean the first-timers Palin’s bringing out deserve as much fairness as all the first-timers Obama brought out. That’s all.
Wile E. Quixote
@Mike Kay:
Jesus, you are a pathetic little punk of a contrarian. Yeah, Edwards is a sleazebag but outside of his personal life he’s not a dumbshit. Palin however is a sleazebag, and a fucking dumbshit. And if Palin didn’t have tits and wasn’t a MILF, or now, GILF no one would even be talking about her. Do you think that Rich Lowry ever saw starbursts when he saw Olympia Snowe, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Susan Collins, Christine Todd Whitman, Condoleezza Rice, Elizabeth Dole or any other female Republican? Yeah right. Palin got picked because she has a certain, how shall we say it, fuckability, that those women don’t.
superking
I’m coming to hate The Pacific. It hasn’t given me any reason to like or care about any of the characters. The story is not in any way related to or representative of Sledge’s book (I read it last week). This is really annoying when it comes to the depiction of the actual battles, but there are other things as well. Like just now, we had the scene where the Lieutenant was killed. Not at all close to what Sledge wrote in his book.
Now, dramatic license and all that, but it’s fucked because what Sledge wrote is usually more dramatic. The earlier scene where the marine was shot by another marine. In reality, the guy was shot in the head point blank and they kept it kind of quiet. Much more interesting.
So, as it turns out, this is just Tom Hanks’ War Fantasy. I feel like they just made up the most extreme images of war and then threw them in front of camera without significant concern about the actual people involved. Band of Brothers worked in large part because it told a story about how the men in this one company all came to rely on each other in terrible circumstances. Can anyone tell me what The Pacific is about?
It certainly isn’t about the characters. Most of these performances are so flat. It’s like they just want us to fill in whatever we think someone in that situation would be feeling rather than trying to show it to us.
Bah, I’m frustrated with this show.
Still like Treme, but was kind of disappointed with the last episode. Why did the Chief have to kill the copper thief? I wish they hadn’t done that.
Yutsano
@Wile E. Quixote: It’s called thinking with the little head, and with the amount of sexual repression conservatives seem to exhibit, Sarah must be manna from heaven. It makes you wonder how many of them fantasize about their turn with Bible Spice. Except those with other proclivities that cannot be expressed by good Christian white men.
Mike Kay
@Wile E. Quixote: oh, stop with the hippie punching, you meanie. It wasn’t me who stood on the Senate floor and gave a “beat my chest” speech calling for the invasion of iraq, it was your son-of-a-mill-worker-who-grew-up-and-worked-for-a-hedge-fund-phoney who did.
Mike Kay
@Jon: Thanks. We’re cool. I admit I get angry too fast if only because I’m a white middle-class guy with a graduated degree, and yet I came across endless dismissive articles (especially on blogs) on how Obama voters were a bunch of mindless 18 year olds (ie obots).
Texas Dem
NBA update: Spurs take game four of the series, putting them up 3-1 against the Mavs. Bye-bye Mavs.
MikeJ
@arguingwithsignposts: Yes, I’ve got it. But it would be nice if the transcript was in html. I can read a lot quicker than I can listen to a podcast, and html would mean I wouldn’t have to fire up a separate program to read plain text with no fancy formatting.
J. Michael Neal
@Jon:
Fabulous, fabulous movie. My idea of a horror movie. Just stupendously creepy, and it gets more so as it goes. Whoever decided to cast David Bowie as Nikolai Tesla deserves a fucking medal.
It’s also one of those rare cases in which the movie is better than the book. The movie strips out the book’s framing, which was mostly a distraction. It changes a number of the plot elements, almost exclusively for the better. There is a huge change in Angier’s big trick, and the movie version is vastly more horrifying. The book also provides the secret of Borden’s trick right at the beginning, so, if anyone does want to read it, make sure you see the movie first, as it gives away nothing about the book, while the reverse is not true.
Jon
@J. Michael Neal: I was going to pick the book up this week. Thanks very much for the info!
J. Michael Neal
@Jon: The book is still interesting, and is really attempting something different from what the movie is, so it might be worth reading. I just think the movie is much more successful at what it tries.
With The English Patient, though, just avoid the book altogether.
MikeJ
Does the book have Scarlett Johansson?
J. Michael Neal
@MikeJ: Yet another failing on its part.
Mike in NC
@superking:
OK piece in the print Atlantic on how the TV miniseries varies from the books on which it was largely based. Artistic License is a bitch…
Jon
Also, while we’re on the subject, does anyone have suggestions on good books about Tesla? I’ve always been fascinated by him.
catclub
From Fawlty Towers:
“They put Basil in the ratatouille!”
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
What a tool! Though if TAL is any indicator, he will be the next Gov of Cali. (Last year, they profiled a man convicted of terrorism charges, where the dude was amoral and kind of a dunce, but he was setup by the FBI and the US attorney selling him a fake stinger missile. They sold it to him and arrested him on charges only after they had setup an undercover operative to ask him to find weapons on his own to sell to them, and the guy couldn’t do it after 3 years of trying. The US Attorney? One NJ Governor Chris Christie, also a total tool.)
NineJean
@Jon:
When I read this, it brought back a really vivid memory — my mother was 51 in 1980, and had just managed to shove her youngest kid out of the nest and was looking for something new to spend time on. She told me that summer that she’d registered to vote so that she could vote for Ronald Reagan — because, as she said, “he has such a dreamy voice, and I always liked his movies!”
I actually sorta considered disowning her because of that. However, this did get her interested in actual politics — and it only took her a couple of years to turn into a very active, vocal, pavement-pounding liberal. Which she was, until a couple of months ago when she passed away.
I have to think that there are a whole lot of Palin fans (probably a lot of Obama fans as well) who just haven’t thought much about political process or issues, but just got emotionally involved with the star-o-the-day. A few of these folks (okay, maybe 1%, more or less) will learn something from it. The rest? (rolls eyes…)
NineJean
…guess I need to practice that blockquote thing…
burnspbesq
I don’t listen to much mainstream rock music any more, but I have to say that I am really enjoying the new Drive-By Truckers record.
Little Dreamer
Ummm, Vancouver Canada? Is this woman an expatriate who can vote or just someone who is enjoying the sideshow from her living room television in a foreign country?
If a Canadian who can’t vote wants to play this silly game, I have no problem with it. I agree that U.S. voters who play this game and get involved in politics simply because of the grifter’s personality are a real problem.
burnspbesq
@geg6:
Season Four of “Friday Night Lights” starts on NBC in two weeks. I watched it last fall (I had access to the shows as they were airing on DirecTV). It is stunningly good – we’re talking MASH/Hill Street Blues good.
AB
Peter Baker of the New York Times can suck it.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/at-the-biltmore-mckinley-vs-obama/
NineJean
@Little Dreamer: Since I live near here, I assume that it’s “Vancouver U.S.A!” aka Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland, Oregon.
There are big signs that tell you that, when you’re in the neighborhood. Little Vancouver just doesn’t like being mistaken for it’s big sister…
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano:
Maybe you just like the idea of a big happy twink who’ll unquestionably obey your every command, and also do all the kitchn grunt work?
(I keed, I keed. But I would still like to know if that was Peter Boyle voicing Dad Rat… )
Little Dreamer
@NineJean:
Oh, I stand corrected. Apologies. I don’t spend any time in that part of the country. I know the capitols of those states, that’s about all.
Little Dreamer
@AB:
So, now this non-soshulist society is supposed to pay for the accommodations of news organizations that cover them? Hmmm!
Little Dreamer
@Wile E. Quixote:
I certainly hope that when the first female president is elected, that we choose on attributes that are far beyond fuckability.
[newsflash to horny guys who might choose a female political figure based on how hot she is – you’re never going to have her except in your dreams if she wins – you won’t stand a chance, so it’s probably better that she doesn’t win and you can keep that fantasy option open].
MaryRC
@Little Dreamer:
I assume it’s Vancouver, Wash., near Portland.
ChockFullO'Nuts
@Wile E. Quixote:
Surely, even for you, this is rank sarcasm. There is not the remotest hint of sexual attractiveness in Sarah Palin. She looks to me like some long-fingernailed divorced bitch who is out looking for her next meal ticket.
Fuck me with a sharp stick …. beehive hair, and leather jackets?
Good god almighty.
burnspbesq
Andrew Sullivan, pundit and … classical music star?
It’s twoo.
http://www.amazon.com/Adamo-Victorians-Regina-Overture-Lysistrata/dp/B002QEXBUO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1272255703&sr=8-1
NineJean
@Little Dreamer: Oops. did I sound a bit strident? Didn’t mean to.
When I was in grade school, I learned all the capitols of all of those states that were somewhere east of the Rockies. Clueless as to what any of that country actually looks like, or what any of the nearby, but euphonious small towns might be.
I think everybody’s familiar with Vancouver, B.C. Nice place, if I do say so myself. Vancouver, WA is a very small city, also a nice place, just dinky.
I assumed that the quote was from a local news source, which would always note the “BC” part if they were referring to the Canadian town. But if you don’t actually live around here, that distinction probably isn’t really clear.
You are correct in that it does make a difference — a Canadian Palin fan is pretty irrelevant. A fan from
Washington State is not quite.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
Nope — it was Brian Dennehy.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: Heh. I’m not much for slavery in any man. Now persuading him to clean the kitchen after I’ve fed him and it looks like a tornado has gone through it…Collette would have killed me for how messy the kitchen gets after I cook.
And according to teh Google Daddy Rat is Brian Dennehy. Still a great voice actor.
@Mnemosyne: What I get for typing slow. :)
Little Dreamer
@NineJean:
Nope, not strident – I completely forget there is a Vancouver, Washington, although I have heard of it before. I hear Vancouver and I automatically think of Canada.
I come from that area east of the Rockies (about as far east as you can go actually – Delaware, on the eastern seaboard) and the west is territory that I’m still learning about, even though I’m in Arizona now.
MaryRC
@Wile E. Quixote: \
Have you seen this? Couldn’t be more obvious, could it?
Here’s the original, by the way.
Yutsano
@Little Dreamer: Heh. You should try explaining to people that Walla Walla is actually a real place. Cute little town too, nice college, huge wine area.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I wonder if Sarah Palin can do this.
NineJean
@Little Dreamer: I have been told that there are places where you can sit on a beach and actually watch the sun RISE!!! Won’t believe it till I see it… which I hope to do, one of these days.
But as to that whole smaller town thing — I was born in a place called Pittsburg. CA, not PA. Local folks know…
But if you’re into the whole migrating west thing — Oregon & Washington are really awesome. Just as long as you don’t melt in the rain…..
It may be a job thing. But come visit, sometime.
eco2geek
My akita (who we adopted about 6 months ago) just came and got me. I follow her to the kitchen and find a dead mouse, surrounded by a bit of blood and copious amounts of dog saliva. Apparently, I’ve got an akita that catches mice!
Considering that the cats all live outside, this is probably a good thing.
Yutsano
@eco2geek: Akitas are a wee bit big to be mousers but I will still not discourage this behavior. Unless the mouse bodies get to be too messy.
eco2geek
@Yutsano: She managed to leave it on the linoleum, rather than the hardwood floors. And it was a tiny thing, too. Not bad for a dog that weighs ~95 pounds.
(Re: Palin’s appearance in Eugene, Oregon: I wonder how much they paid her to be there. I saw some TV clip where they were talking about how Palin earned (excuse me, made) $12 million in less than a year since she resigned. Ain’t no way she’s running for president in 2012, unless there’s enough money in it.)
(Also, too.)
Yutsano
@eco2geek: Interesting. According to the Wiki akitas are hunting dogs but they were originally bred for larger game. I guess that skill is adaptable to smaller critters as well.
Anne Laurie
@eco2geek: Well, wolves will live on mice when the caribou aren’t around (remember Farley Mowat & Never Cry Wolf?). But I think it’s very sweet that your rescue girl was willing to share her dinner with you! Or maybe she just wasn’t sure what to do with a meal that wasn’t de-boned and pre-cooked?
YellowJournalism
@AB: So is the next step to criticize the President for not giving the media enough room in the White House bathroom so they can report on his morning poo?
geg6
@burnspbesq:
Gawd, I hate Friday Night Lights. Watched it a few times because everyone raved about it, but I am not a fan at all. I think it totally sucked. But then I felt exactly the same way about Hill Street Blues. Never liked it, still don’t.
Little Dreamer
@NineJean:
I’ve sat on the beach and watched many a sunrise. ;)
No chance of heading to Washington or Oregon right now. TZ and I are taking a trip to San Francisco in a few weeks though (plane tickets already purchased, I need a couple of nights off from work, I’ve been working every night since January 14th (I deliver newspapers, only get to take off once in a while, it’s a seven day a week job).
Keith
Treme’s really been growing on me. I especially like the way that they’ve been closing with the ceremonial stuff involving Big Chief Lambreaux. The first one with him in costume was very striking, but the later stuff with the singing is really interesting and moving to watch, just from the historical aspect alone.