• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was promised a recession.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

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

This fight is for everything.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Republicans in disarray!

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open thread

Open thread

by Tim F|  December 21, 201111:20 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

FacebookTweetEmail

For no particular reason.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « The Swollen Amphibian Starts to Deflate
Next Post: Brave sir Braveheart bravely ran away »

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    December 21, 2011 at 11:22 am

    Best. Bassoon. Solo. Evar. Bitch and a half to get right though.

  2. 2.

    Paul in KY

    December 21, 2011 at 11:23 am

    Loved this movie. Great to watch when you’re stoned.

  3. 3.

    Fed Up In Brooklyn

    December 21, 2011 at 11:27 am

    I watched the original Fantasia a few weeks ago and I can guarantee it could never be made the same way today, without the lunatic right wing boycotting it. It solidly embraces the Theory of Evolution, the Big Bang Theory, and has sections about ancient mythology, Paganism and witchcraft.

    Watch it again and tell me Disney would come within a country mile of producing something like that under current conditions.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    December 21, 2011 at 11:27 am

    Speaking of clips from fantasy movies, a trailer is just out for Peter Jackson’s take on _The Hobbit_:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0k3kHtyoqc
    Looks nice; I only hope that they got all of their silly “dwarf tossing” jokes out of their system with the previous trilogy.

  5. 5.

    Morbo

    December 21, 2011 at 11:28 am

    This man’s talents should not be wasted on the field of law.

  6. 6.

    PeakVT

    December 21, 2011 at 11:28 am

    Can the Republicans top this own goal with their payroll tax screw-up? They just might.

  7. 7.

    cmorenc

    December 21, 2011 at 11:32 am

    The “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” clip from Fantasia is one of the most succinctly prophetic, effective clips ever made about the unintended dangers of lazy reliance on technology or simplistic ideological notions to solve our problems. Although the clip most directly and obviously addressed shortsighted reliance on purported technological fixes we neither understand nor have the means for controlling the implications thereof, it also can be extended to simplistic ideological notions and fixes, such as “American exceptionalism” and “free market” fundamentalism.

  8. 8.

    jibeaux

    December 21, 2011 at 11:39 am

    A feel-good holiday moment: the newspaper sent out a request to give to various charities, which is does every year, with a reward if the goal is met of their most interesting columnist doing interesting things. So they wrote about a community music school which was about to have to close its doors and was months behind on the rent. This school gives lessons to needy kids for $1 a lesson and loans out instruments. They have a wait list of 80 kids. We gave our piano teacher a small donation to the school in her name, and lots of other folks chipped in too — with one woman donating a piano to the kid who was spotlighted in the story — and they’re staying open. /that’s just a speck of dust in my eye, that is

  9. 9.

    t jasper parnell

    December 21, 2011 at 11:40 am

    Why it’s almost like an analogy for the Tea Party’s disastrous influence on the Republican Party and, unfortunately, the only figure who remotely resembles the Wizard is Zombie Reagan and, to be fair, the resemblance is very remote.

  10. 10.

    Punchy

    December 21, 2011 at 11:41 am

    Am I the last to find out that just-turned-38 Monica Seles is dating a 70 year old man? He’s a billionare, natch, but why would she go the sugar (grand)daddy route when she’s famous and rich herself?

  11. 11.

    t jasper parnell

    December 21, 2011 at 11:46 am

    @Punchy: He’s insatiable, has a great sense of humor, and puts the seat down?

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    December 21, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    @Punchy:

    not the last one to find out. I am.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    Follow-up on something from a previous open thread. I went back to that shoe store and got the black Caterpillar boots. (Alas, the last yellow pair had been sold, probably to someone wanting looks-like-Timberlands-but-cheaper.)

    So, anyway, I am now the proud owner of a pair of (US) size 10 Second Shift Steel Toe boots in black nubuck. I’m researching care for nubuck footwear on the Intertoobs, but does anyone here have any advice or useful pointers?

  14. 14.

    R-Jud

    December 21, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    @Fed Up In Brooklyn: When there was a theatrical re-release of Fantasia several years ago I distinctly remember reading that people complained about the Pastoral Symphony sequence.

    It wasn’t so much the nekkid lady centaurs that bothered them. It was the fact that the pegasus couple was a black male and white female, and kids would get the idea that interracial marriage was okay.

  15. 15.

    Maude

    December 21, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    @Amir Khalid:
    Be careful with steel toed boots. Do not drop anything heavy on your foot. The steel can cut toes.

  16. 16.

    Paul in KY

    December 21, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    @t jasper parnell: I always thought Mickey’s boss sorta looked like Uncle Sam. Now I was probably stoned when I came to that realization, but I’m sticking by it.

  17. 17.

    Paul in KY

    December 21, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    @rikyrah: Well, I just found out too. Monica was the last of my tennis crushes. That POS-Steffi-lover who stabbed her would have lasted about 4 days if I had got hold of him.

  18. 18.

    Joseph Nobles

    December 21, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    NDAA Alert! NDAA Alert! Look Away Now! NDAA Alert! NDAA Alert!

    OK, John Dean (yeah, that John Dean) just recommended this piece on the NDAA by Joanne Mariner. She worked at Human Rights Watch for a long while before taking her current post, director of Hunter College’s Human Rights Program. She was a clerk for Stephen Rehnquist of the Ninth Circuit, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and belongs to the board of advisors of the International Justice Resource Center and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague. So I’m thinking we’ve got someone here who knows what she’s talking about.

    She’s written the first of a two-parter at Verdict, the blog for this outfit called Justia, which seems on the up-and-up as far as my cursory glance at their About page could tell. She goes through a well-written summary of how we got here and deals with most of the issues, the good and the bad. She leaves the possible indefinite detention of American citizens for the second part, but gives a hint with her quotation of John McCain on the Senate floor:

    In applauding the bill’s passage last week, Senator McCain spoke of its “strong, unambiguous language that recognizes that the war on terror extends to us at home.”

    I recommend this highly, whatever your baggery bent.

    NDAA Alert Over! NDAA Alert Over! You may now return to your open thread safely. NDAA Alert Over!

  19. 19.

    Cris (without an H)

    December 21, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    @Paul in KY: Monica was the last of my tennis crushes.

    I’m still not over Gabriela Sabatini.

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    December 21, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    @R-Jud:

    When there was a theatrical re-release of Fantasia several years ago I distinctly remember reading that people complained about the Pastoral Symphony sequence. It wasn’t so much the nekkid lady centaurs that bothered them. It was the fact that the pegasus couple was a black male and white female, and kids would get the idea that interracial marriage was okay.

    I don’t know whether it’s been cut from the later releases of the film, but what stuck in a lot of people’s craw was the standard issue racism in the original:

    Even in Fantasia’s beautiful, magical landscape, African centaurs are hoof-polishing handmaidens for prettier, Aryan centaurs.

    Disney was sadly a product of his times in some ways, and the past was not all pleasant nostalgia. On the other hand,

    Watch it again and tell me Disney would come within a country mile of producing something like that under current conditions

    Hollyweird gets blasted by the worst conservatives no matter what. “Avatar” and even the current Muppet movie have been blasted for supposedly stealth sozhul ism. And as I noted in a couple of prior threads, conservatives are getting their panties in a twist over a supposed “Occupy Gotham” attitude that they are getting from the new “Dark Knight Rises” trailer.

    Me, I just love this bit of dialog from Selina Kyle (Catwoman):

    “You think this can last,” Kyle says, an apparent reference to Wayne’s extreme wealth, and a nod to a much darker version of the real life 99% Occupy Movement. “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”

    I look forward to goons like Limbaugh and Michael Medved lambasting the film when it comes out this summer. A piece of slime like Medved will probably try to spoil every bit of narrative to try to keep people away (he wretchedly did this once before with a Clint Eastwood movie).

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    @Maude:
    A friend of mine gave me exactly this warning many years ago, when steel-toed boots were first becoming fashionable, and I have tried to heed it ever since. I know there are boots whose steel toes aren’t actually certified as a safety feature. (I understand this is true of some Doc Martens styles, for instance, and is probably true of my older pair of boots as well.)

  22. 22.

    Paul in KY

    December 21, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    @Cris (without an H): She was hot too. Wonder what happened to her (probably down in La Argentine havin a great time).

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    December 21, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Disney was sadly a product of his times in some ways, and the past was not all pleasant nostalgia.

    Yep. There’s plenty of stuff in the vaults that will never see the light of day again. It’s not vicious, just stuff that was done out of ignorance and cultural blindness that’s become embarrassing for the company.

    But Fed Up has a point for once: Walt Disney, who was correctly regarded as a right-wing reactionary in his day, would now be totally rejected by “conservatives” because he supported crazy left-wing ideas like environmentalism and science.

    A long ETA: I was lucky enough to hear Chuck Jones speak several times, and one person asked him what he thought of companies like Disney editing racially insensitive scenes out of their films. Jones said, “Well, I never have to worry about that, because I never put racist stuff like that in my films in the first place.”

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    December 21, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    @Maude:
    @Amir Khalid:

    They busted this on Mythbusters — basically, anything heavy enough to cause a real steel toe to fail and cut off a toe would crush your toes into jelly without that protection, so you actually are better off with the steel-toed boots.

    I think the problem is more having boots that look like they’re steel-toed but actually aren’t, so you think you’re protected when you aren’t.

  25. 25.

    Paula

    December 21, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    Randinho alert!

    I love that FreeRepublic and HotAir are among the top results for links to this article about how much better American Football is than soccer.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    Any tips on taking care of nubuck boots?

  27. 27.

    Brachiator

    December 21, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    A long ETA: I was lucky enough to hear Chuck Jones speak several times, and one person asked him what he thought of companies like Disney editing racially insensitive scenes out of their films. Jones said, “Well, I never have to worry about that, because I never put racist stuff like that in my films in the first place.”

    Chuck Jones directed Angel Puss, one of the Censored Eleven animated shorts that are now seen as being particularly racist and insensitive, and rarely shown anywhere today.

    The entire entertainment industry, like most of society, had to grow up reject racism. There were very few who could claim to be enlightened, and even here, much of the industry caved in to racism in order to avoid troubles, or to make sure that there films would be shown in the South (e.g., editing out black performers in musical films, playing to stereotypes, etc.).

  28. 28.

    FlipYrWhig

    December 21, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    @Joseph Nobles: Thanks… Struck me as a good piece — factual, concentrates on language as written, and rhetorically restrained. I’m a bit skeptical about the impending second part, just because I don’t think John McCain’s intentions are particularly trustworthy barometers of how legislation would/should work, but I’ll try to remember to read it when it appears. If you see it, please flag it for me/us, wouldja?

  29. 29.

    ruemara

    December 21, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    @Brachiator: I used to have a collection of banned cartoons, so I’ve seen angel puss. I also adore Chuck Jones, so I will say in his defense, he did not write the story for that cartoon and this was under Looney Tunes, who did not do a lot of the racist nonsense on the banned eleven. Besides, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves was good music. Not as good as Scrub Me Momma with a Boogie Beat, that has colour consciousness to boot.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    December 21, 2011 at 2:22 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And all of your other examples of the multiple cartoons Jones did using those stereotypes are … where?

    You do realize you missed the point by about 5 miles, yes?

  31. 31.

    Schlemizel

    December 21, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    @Maude:
    Mythbusters busted this myth a while back. If it was heavy enough to crush the steel toe you were screwed anyway. Lighter than that the cap saved your toes.

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    December 21, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    @ruemara:

    I used to have a collection of banned cartoons, so I’ve seen angel puss. I also adore Chuck Jones, so I will say in his defense, he did not write the story for that cartoon and this was under Looney Tunes, who did not do a lot of the racist nonsense on the banned eleven. Besides, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves was good music. Not as good as Scrub Me Momma with a Boogie Beat, that has colour consciousness to boot.

    I also admire Chuck Jones. I even admire Disney. However, Jones directed Angel Puss, so he was the guiding authority even if he did not write it.

    But I am not particularly slamming Jones as being especially egregious, but I cannot defend him or other artists of the era. The main point is that all the animators of the time, like most everyone else in the movie industry, accepted the racism of the time. There were no nonwhite positive images in this stuff, and they lazily accepted the stereotypes of the day.

    Good music doesn’t save it. Hell, animators are still reluctant to have nonwhite characters as the protagonists of works today. And the upcoming Brave is one of the few animated features with a female lead that it not pitched directly to girls.

    As an aside, I find it telling that there are still many admirers of the extraordinary comic strip “Krazy Kat” who cannot acknowledge that many of its panels can be seen as an oblique commentary on American racism, or acknowledge that the creator of the strip, George Herriman, was passing for white in order to be taken seriously as a creator.

    @Mnemosyne:

    And all of your other examples of the multiple cartoons Jones did using those stereotypes are … where?

    Jones claimed that he “never” used racist stereotypes. This simply is not true. Angel Puss is pretty bad, and typical in its casual racism. That Jones did not do a lot of this is irrelevant.

    That is the point, plain and simple.

  33. 33.

    Joseph Nobles

    December 21, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: I sure will. She probably didn’t go with the Graham quote because she was looking for a teaser, not the whole loaf. But no doubt Graham’s “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.” will figure prominently in part 2.

  34. 34.

    Gravenstone

    December 21, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Had a summer job in college working in a brass foundry. Part of our safety gear was steel toed boots that also had a padded steel plate covering the instep. I learned the value of that latter component when I dropped a roughly 3′ length of 3″ rod stock on my foot, and barely felt it through the padding.

    One proviso about wearing steel toes, if you’re inclined to kick something, do not do so straight on. Go for a soccer style kick. Your toes will thank you.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    @Gravenstone:
    No, I don’t plan to kick anything. That might scuff my brand-new boots. (Plus, kicking people sounds illegal.) These boots will just be for walking around in, because I find them very comfortable.

    I first got steel-toes when I was a reporter, because I found myself having to visit the occasional industrial site as part of my job. And sure enough, I never saw the inside of a factory again.

  36. 36.

    Samara Morgan

    December 21, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    oh mistermix……you have driven your homie EDK back into the arms of GaJo.
    hahahahaha

    First things first, I’d like to apologize to mistermix for the rudeness of my last piece on the matter. Mainly I was feeling jaded over various Twitter exchanges that occurred prior to my reading his post, and it simply opened whatever petty wound I’d been smarting over. It was an uncharitable response, and not really meant to be directed at him.

    didnt we determine that GaJo is a racist too, that last time EDK raved about him here?
    that guy has more positions than a weathervane in a windstorm.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    December 21, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Yes, because my quote from memory of something that Jones said at an event 10 years ago is clearly definitive proof that he was lying.

    Sorry, but if you’re going to place Chuck Jones alongside Fantasia, Song of the South and Dumbo (just off the top of my head, and leaving out the shorts) as an equal offender, you’re going to have to come up with more than a single short.

  38. 38.

    ruemara

    December 21, 2011 at 10:06 pm

    @Brachiator: Mmmm, not sure how Jones is guiding the racism, especially if you’re making the point that the racism was casual. I see you have viewpoint, fine. I just think there’s proof that this was not any sort of racism that Chuck Jones felt was right, but more of the basic bigotry that was part and parcel of the culture at the time.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • kalakal on Interesting Read: How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor? (Apr 1, 2023 @ 5:03pm)
  • OzarkHillbilly on Interesting Read: How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor? (Apr 1, 2023 @ 5:00pm)
  • Cacti on Interesting Read: How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor? (Apr 1, 2023 @ 4:56pm)
  • kalakal on Interesting Read: How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor? (Apr 1, 2023 @ 4:56pm)
  • trucmat on Interesting Read: How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor? (Apr 1, 2023 @ 4:54pm)

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Seattle Meetup coming up on April 4!

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!