I’ve had this song in my head ever since riding in Critical Mass on Friday, so here’s a corny video and an open thread.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!
Not all heroes wear capes.
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
Giving up is unforgivable.
The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.
Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?
Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.
Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.
The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.
The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.
When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?
I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.
When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.
Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
Innocent people do not delay justice.
“They all knew.”
Second rate reporter says what?
Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.
No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”
We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.
cathyx
What does pescano mean? It’s not in any of my spanish dictionaries.
Steeplejack
Love that song.
Thread title: you met a fish drinking a mojito? WTF?!
jurassicpork
Ever notice how many liberal/progressive blogs, the ones most critical of BP, are now plastered with BP ads? Eschaton has a banner ad at the top of its index page now it’s Balloon Juice. What’s up with that? Don’t you guys care who pays you?
debit
@jurassicpork: I don’t think Cole gets to picks the ads.
Kristine
I love Michelle Shocked’s voice. Great thing to hear before coffee!
Nothing more to add, except that I often notice ads on prog blogs that run counter to the blog philosophy. I am wondering if there’s a program or something–no clue how any of this works–that analyzes how often a term is mentioned by posters, and runs ads accordingly? So if many people bitch about BP, the algorithm will only see “BP-BP-BP,” and so show ads for BP. It doesn’t measure pro/con or attitude of the posters, just # of mentions.
Since a conservative blog would mention the same company names/politicians/etc in a more favorable light, they would get the same ads, but they wouldn’t run counter to the blog philosophy, so they wouldn’t stand out. And no, I haven’t tested this and have no idea whether it’s true. I haven’t even had coffee yet, a situation I need to correct, like, now.
mai naem
@jurassicpork: You just noticed that? Over the years, I’ve seen anti-union/card check ads on progressive blogs. Ann Coulter ads. Energy company ads. Anti-net neutrality ads. Nothing new here.
Alwhite
@jurassicpork:
I find those ads hilarious! Not only are they supporting web sites that undermine the brain-damaged goals of these morons but they are not farming people that might actually fall for their bullshit. Its a win-win.
One question: Cole, do you get extra money if we click though? If so I’ll click through just to take a few extra cents from the bastards.
mistermix
@Steeplejack: She encountered a wet fish in East LA, meaning she saw somebody who had entered the US by crossing a river, so they were a “wet fish”.
Josie
Except the word for fish is pescado, not pescano.
Scott
@Alwhite: Not sure about the ads on Balloon Juice, but on some blogs, they pay on the basis of page views — every time someone loads the blog. So there may be no need to click.
mistermix
@Josie: Yeah, typo, just fixed it. Thanks.
db
Great song about story and place. For those not from L.A., she nails it.
KCinDC
Leonard Peikoff, head of the Ayn Rand Institute, comes out against property rights in the case of the “Ground Zero Mosque” (the Peikoff part starts a few paragraphs in, after the bit about Pamela Geller). He favors bombing the place if it is built.
Steeplejack
@mistermix:
Humor fail on my part, apparently. I am aware of all wetback traditions.
mistermix
@Steeplejack: Well, title fail on my part. Every blogger needs an editor or commenters, preferably both.
Hob
@mistermix: Not quite– it’s “me encontré”, reflexive, literally “I found myself [being] a wet fish” in the sense that she was one. The joke is that she arrived in East LA by crossing the river, so that makes her a wetback.
Random memory: I listened to this song about a million times when I’d never seen LA and had no idea what the hell any of it was about, and I assumed the Watts Towers must be some huge apartment complex. Heh.
Hob
OK, more Michelle Shocked nostalgia trip: I got to see her in concert twice (not counting the time she did some live music for a dance piece) and damn she has an intense live presence.
#1 was a medium-size show in New York in the early ’90s, packed with folkie fans, and after doing a lot of her standards, she explained that she’d just joined an evangelical church and proceeded to do a bunch of gospel tunes. The audience didn’t know what to make of this at all, but went with it, and it was a great show & generous show – about half a dozen encores, the last one being “Come a Long Way.”
#2 was at the Health & Harmony Fair, a NoCal hippie thing, with a much smaller crowd, and she reduced every person in that crowd to tears when, in “Anchorage”, she hit the line “What was the name of that love song you played” and then segued right into the aforementioned song, which turned out to be “The Water Is Wide”.
That’s all…
Ash Can
@KCinDC: A Randroid ditches everything he supposedly stands for when his personal prejudices are riled? Hoodathunk?
I suppose he’d say he was just exercising his
GodRand-given individual freedom to bomb the shit out of people he didn’t like.