Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

75% of people clapping liked the show!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

He really is that stupid.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Payoff

The Payoff

by | 136 Comments

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My backyard chicken project finally paid off: an egg! The hen who laid it, Dorito (pictured below), had not been selected by any of us in the first-layer pool, so through random selection my husband got to eat the first hen fruit, which he reported as delicious!

In retrospect, Dorito should have been an obvious pick in the pool as her comb and neck dooly-bobs are more developed than those of her peers. Stupidly, we all went with other indicators, like overall size or fondness for hanging out in the nest boxes.

We know who laid the first egg because we heard squawking, which my daughter went out to investigate. She then saw Dorito exiting the henhouse and found the still-very-warm egg, which she bore triumphantly to the kitchen.

That was midweek. Yesterday was the kiddo’s birthday, and she had requested last week that I take the day off so I could chauffeur and chaperone her and a friend to the Batman movie premiere (matinee, not midnight showing).

Despite receiving the news of the carnage in Colorado shortly after waking up, we decided to go to the Batman premiere anyway. We figured any would-be copycats would have to wait until the local gun shops and militia gear purveyors opened at nine o’clock and that it would take some time – even in Florida – to assemble the requisite high-capacity magazines, select a target, etc., so 11 a.m. moviegoers would be relatively safe.

And we were. The kids enjoyed the movie. My verdict: meh. Anne Hathaway is a good Catwoman, but she was the only bright spot as far as I’m concerned. I think the film was trying to make some half-baked point about the Occupy movement a time or two – a point that Rush Limbaugh could sympathize with if he weren’t focused on ginning up dumb outrage over the use of the name “Bane” for the villain.

Anyway, maybe I’m just shallow, but I enjoyed “The Avengers” a lot more.

[X-posted at Rumproast]

Reader Interactions

136Comments

  1. 1.

    boonagain

    Those ” neck dooly-bobs” are called wattles. :-)

    And the earlobes indicate what color eggs they lay, Red earlobes= brown eggs, white earlobes = white eggs

  4. 4.

    Mark S.

    I know I’m in the minority, but I’ve hated these Batman movies. They’ve been unbelievably pretentious and at times completely ridiculous (how does someone as insane as the Joker find so many people willing to work for him?). I hate Batman’s six-packs-a-day voice, and few of the action scenes are exciting or even intelligible.

    Also, why didn’t Batman and Gordon just blame Harvey Dent’s murder on Joker, who had killed about 10,000 people in the past month? Would anyone have doubted it?

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    All of the Batman movies have been stupid, but I’ll give credit to the late Heath Ledger for a good performance as The Joker.

  7. 7.

    Palli

    …and you took your daughter to that movie because…?

    if only enough Americans would quit thinking entertainment is multi-million dollar movies about realistically enacted pretend violence and give the admission price for the priviledge toward feeding the hungry or healthcare for the needy or….

    fuzzy thinking

  8. 8.

    Ben Franklin

    Are eggs more cost effective than produce from the garden?

    I figure my cucumbers and tomatoes from last year’s crop only cost me 10 dollahs per pound.

  9. 9.

    dr. bloor

    @Palli:

    priviledge

    Pro tip: “Holier than thou” mode is far more effective if you learn to spell.

    Congrats, Dorito!

  10. 10.

    Valdivia

    good looking egg. I have not-so-fond memories of hen houses and picking eggs from when I lived in a Kibbutz many years ago, so I am trying not to flash back to that while beholding your payoff :)

  11. 11.

    Joey Maloney

    (I haven’t seen the movie yet, so in the fine tradition of the BJ commentariat I am talking out my ass.)

    I don’t think it has anything to do with Occupy or any contemporary issue as such. But Batman is fundamentally a story about fascism and about a dictator who rules by right of power and nothing else, a dictator who is all that stands between the innocent (yet corrupt) and the evil nature of humanity that threatens always to overwhelm them. Batman protects them, even though they don’t really deserve it. It’s a pretty nihilistic view of the universe.

    There’s a moment recounted in Frank Miller’s seminal graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns, where superheroes are appearing before a Congressional committee, hoping to get special license to continue their vigilante activities with government blessing. Batman queers the deal with “that scary laugh of yours. ‘Of course we’re criminals,’ you said. ‘We have to be criminals.'”

    Nolan understands that.

    I can’t wait to go see the film.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    I liked “Batman Begins” because it went into the gray areas so much. Bruce acknowledges that it’s not a black and white world when he says “when you steal in order not to starve, you lose many assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong.” It showed what a thin line he’s walking and how close he is to being one of the bad guys (since he starts out as a project of the League of Shadows, who are driven by the same hatred for crime and corruption but end up being no different from the criminals).

    That whole theme seemed to disappear in the sequel, and I’m not expecting much in this one either with all I’m hearing about the OWS theme. Will definitely still see it, though.

  13. 13.

    Mark S.

    @Mike in NC:

    I didn’t even like Ledger’s Joker. The Joker should have a little charisma, but Ledger just seemed like a serial killer of children. I did find Cilian Murphy’s Scarecrow to be genuinely frightening.

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    Did you see Batman Begins and The Dark Knight? They are parts one and two of the trilogy, and The Dark Knight Rises is the conclusion. There’s so much more going on here than just the heroics of a messed-up rich guy who dresses funny.

    Anyway, my own favorite acting performance in TDKR is Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, the old family retainer who loves Bruce Wayne as fiercely as any father ever did his son.

  17. 17.

    robertdsc-iPhone 4

    The only Batman stuff I’m connected with is the Arkham City game for PS3. I bought its prequel, Arkham Asylum, yesterday for $14 new. Arkham City has some really good combat mechanisms & the world is quite large.

    For someone who never read the comics, I’m hooked on this game.

  18. 18.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mark S.:
    Mike Hamil. Sly, gleeful, sadistic, theatrical – his Joker is a dashing rogue who wants to make murder fun again! He conveys wonderfully a character who doesn’t think other people’s lives are even valuable enough to hate.

    EDIT – Oh, so THIS post goes through, but not my discussion of the evolutionary purpose of dooly-bobs. Sheesh!

  19. 19.

    maya

    @Mark S.:

    ….and at times completely ridiculous (how does someone as insane as the Joker find so many people willing to work for him?)

    What country did you write that from?

  20. 20.

    Chris

    @Mark S.:

    Just to pile on (and yes I do like these movies despite what I’m saying): the “hyperrealism” in Nolan’s movies reminds me of the technobabble in Star Trek. As in, they’re clearly trying to make a complete fantasy look as real as possible, and all it does is call further attention to the fact that it’s ridiculous and impossible. Better to keep the attempts at realism toned down and let the audience enjoy the movie universe for what it is.

    (And while I have nothing in particular against gritty and intense entertainment, I don’t think it automatically makes shit better either. I get more out of Burn Notice than 24, speaking for myself).

  21. 21.

    Linda Featheringill

    Side trip:

    This is the anniversary of my mother’s birth. She’s long gone, of course. She was born in 1906.

    Mom was a right winger, racist, anti-Semitic, militaristic, fundamentalist jerk. But she was my mom and I loved her. She’s been dead for over 30 years and I’m still proud of her victories and still feel sad about her failures.

    She never would have approved but there is a clump of trees in Israel as a memorial. They should be about the right height by now.

    And life goes on. Life really is grand, isn’t it?

  23. 23.

    handy

    @Chris:

    On the supposed “hyperrealism”–I actually think many of the characters, particularly the bad guys, are rather silly and as portrayals of seedy underworld types in movies rather conventional. In fact, conventional is how I’d describe a lot of Nolan’s work that people hail as being brilliant or something. For instance, Inceptions depiction of the human subconscious. That’s all a cinematic gold mine in the hands of a director bold enough to tackle it. But it ended up being just a better version of Dreamscape, big deal.

    With that said, having not seen it I’m not really sure how this new Batman movie will hold up against the other two, particulary TDK. Heath Ledger freaking owned that role. He will always be Joker to me now. Jack Nicholson we hardly knew thee.

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Linda Featheringill:

    She never would have approved but there is a clump of trees in Israel as a memorial. They should be about the right height by now.

    Saw what you did there.

    Your comments, and your tree-planting, make a lovely tribute to your mother.

  25. 25.

    Cassidy

    @Palli: YOU’RE CROSS! IT’S SO HEAVY!

    We haven’t seen it yet, but I am excited. People need to remember that Nolan is bringing a graphic novel to life, not the DC universe. The graphic novels always try to do a grittier, more realistic portrayal.

  27. 27.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Okay, repost didn’t work either, and I changed a word I thought might have triggered moderation. I dunno. You folks will just have to wait to hear about dooly-bobs.

  29. 29.

    Yutsano

    @Betty Cracker: The best part of your own eggs? Their shelf life. I’ve literally had eggs from my parents’ hens sit in my fridge for six months and none of them rotted. I don’t suggest trying that with a store-bought egg. And the flavour is addictive. My mom made me an egg snob. :)

  30. 30.

    Nellcote

    @Ben Franklin:

    Are eggs more cost effective than produce from the garden?

    Chickens have the bonus of being entertaining. The same cannot be said, for the most part, of produce.

  31. 31.

    quannlace

    The only Batman movie I like is the one nobody else ever likes- The second one with Devito as the Penguin.
    ******************
    But congrats on the egg!

  32. 32.

    paradox

    Isn’t that a picture of a dinosaur?

    Not to be the smartass all the time, right, congratulations on the egg, chickens are way cool. I’m glad things go well with your family, Lady.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    Jolted wide awake once again a bit ago at an hour when no one not on the graveyard shift should be by the neighbor’s rooster and chickens, who have collectively decided that the ground right outside and underneath my window is the most perfect spot in the universe to witness dawn.

    So not overly charitable toward uncooked chickens at the moment.

  35. 35.

    hilts

    From the folks over at Gun Owners of America

    Tragedy in a another “Gun Free Kill Zone”
    Friday, 20 July 2012 15:50

    Last night’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado was extremely tragic, as more than a dozen people were killed in another Gun Free Kill Zone.

    At the opening showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” James Holmes dressed up in costume and murdered several people while the movie was barely thirty minutes into the story. The gunman used a movie gunfight to cover his actions and further surprise the innocent patrons. Worse, the theater in Aurora reportedly has a “no guns” policy.
    Despite gun control’s obvious failure, the calls for more restrictions have already begun:

    * Piers Morgan of CNN came out of the box, calling for more gun control in the wake of the shooting.

    * New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the strategy of people arming themselves for self-defense just “doesn’t work.”

    * And the Brady Campaign took the opportunity to tell the nation that, “This is yet another horrific reminder that guns enable mass killings.”

    Tragically, many were killed last night. But it is also tragic that there was not another gun-toting Samuel Williams at the theater — the senior who rescued several Floridians against two armed thugs at an Internet cafe last week. (You can read the story and watch the exciting video here.)

    And of course, while the national media is sure to focus on this Aurora, Colorado shooting for days to come, there is another shooting in that same city that you probably heard nothing about — when a worshipper at an Aurora church stopped a shooting this past April
    In that shooting, the bad guy was only able to kill one person in the parking lot, as the armed hero took him out before any other damage could be done.

    Funny how the national media tends NOT to pick up stories where the good guy stops the perp!

    To keep this in perspective, whenever we hear about horrid shootings like the one last night in Aurora, Colorado, we should remember that guns save as many as 80 lives for every one that is tragically taken. See the Gun Owners of America Fact Sheet here

    Gun Owners of America is appearing on several media outlets today to answer questions about our gun rights and to offer concealed carry solutions as the cure to future acts of terrorism like this.

    Also, you can call in to GOA Radio Live to discuss this event with our Talk Show host, Bill Frady, from 6:00-8:00 pm tonight. Call 703-776-9264 to be on the show. GOA’s Larry Pratt will be interviewed by Frady next week.
    Please stand with us and help GOA continue defending our gun rights across the country
    .
    h/t http://gunowners.org/alert72012.htm

  37. 37.

    Mike E

    Much like growing your own ‘maters is the real reason to have a garden, aside from the delicious eggs they produce, having biddies scratch up and devour every nasty bug in your yard is the real reason for keeping hens.

  38. 38.

    quannlace

    not on the graveyard shift should be by the neighbor’s rooster and chickens

    That’s why a lot of communities will let you keep chickens but NOT a rooster.

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    @quannlace:
    The Burton/Keaton movies were all right, if a bit cartoonish. Nicholson’s Joker hasn’t dated well, but who could survive a comparison to Heath Ledger’s hilarious and frightening version? It was Joel Schumacher who sank that franchise, by dialing the cartoonishness up to elebenty.

  43. 43.

    lamh35

    I was never into the whole Dark Knight series, so even before the Colorado thing, I was ambivalent about seeing the new one (I’ll admit that I never saw the first 2). Also, the fact is that I’m not much of a Batman fan anyway, although I do like the Tim Burton-esque films and the Adam West tv version. So I was inclined to not see the movie anyway (although I did want to see Tom Hardy as Bane and Ann Hathaway as Catwoman), the Colorado shooting and reading what the Bane creator said about Bruce Wayne = Mitt Romney (???) and I have already decided that I’m not going to see it.

    Bane’s Creator Responds

    … Chuck Dixon is a self-described “lifelong conservative.” Money quote from Dixon:
    “As for his appearance in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a force for evil and the destruction of the status quo. He’s far more akin to an Occupy Wall Street type if you’re looking to cast him politically. And if there ever was a Bruce Wayne running for the White House it would have to be Romney.”

    As if I needed anymore reason not to see the movie…lol. Bruce Wayne=Mitt Romney…I actually may never watch another Batman movie…EVER!

  44. 44.

    dance around in your bones

    Fresh-laid eggs from backyard hens are ¡increible!

    I haven’t heard the word dooly-bobs for many years (my childhood) but it made me laugh. Thanks, Betty C.

    Shine on you crazy chickens!

  45. 45.

    cckids

    I haven’t seen it yet either, but the two teens in the house (17 & 19) give it a big thumbs up, especially the boy. The whole franchise isn’t my favorite, though I see it’s appeal. I just like a little more fun with my movies.

    And for added anecdata, my daughter works at a movie theatre here, worked the midnight shows, which were huge & sold out, then turned around & worked a 12-8 shift Friday. Ghost town, very slow, slower than the average weekday. For an opening weekend of arguably the most anticipated movie of the summer? Horrifyingly slow.

    And they added a set of security guards plus the local cops had a presence outside the shopping area where the theatre is located. The copycat thing is on people’s minds.

    I guess for me, I don’t think that way. I wasn’t afraid to fly after 9/11, I don’t think that because shootings happened at UVA that my son is in danger in Reno, we went to see a movie yesterday afternoon (Brave – it was fun & gorgeous). I don’t know if I’m not sensitive enough or if I just don’t project enough.

  47. 47.

    MikeJ

    Would somebody please tell me why when I want to add one stinking podcast to my ipod as I walk out the door iTunes decides that it absolutely must delete a ton of the music on it and add 615 new tracks? Gah! If Steve Jobs wasn’t dead I’d have to kill him. Did they bury or scatter him? I will piss on his grave if they buried.

  52. 52.

    brent

    I think Nolan gets a lot of credit for taking Batman seriously which is to say, he really wanted to use the character to tell a particular kind of story which asked real social and human questions. Comic book writers had been doing that for awhile and it was always disheartening, as a comic book fan, to see the kind of cartoonish approach to superhero moviemaking that characterized most of the movies prior to Nolan and that were much more about selling toys than storytelling.

    That said, I do believe that each of the movies tend to be a little weighed down by all the Philosophy 101 subtext and this last one is probably the worst of the 3 in that vein. Its not saying anything nearly as interesting as it thinks it is and more than that, it treats the class issues it raises in an extraordinarily superficial way.

    I think its worth seeing but its nothing like great. Meh is about right.

    Also, I agree with others about the Batman voice which is a terrible and entirely unnecessary artistic choice that badly distracts from the story it is trying to tell and diminishes the movies in some small way.

  53. 53.

    burnspbesq

    @Nellcote:

    The same cannot be said, for the most part, of produce

    True, but there is the joy of being roused from a sound sleep by dogs that go bat-guano in the middle of the night when they get wind of the nightly rat/raccoon/possum visit to the garden.

  57. 57.

    burnspbesq

    @MikeJ:

    Definitely a settings issue. Uncheck “sync automatically,” or whatever it’s called in the current version.

  58. 58.

    ChrisNYC

    “She saw Dorito exiting the henhouse” completely cracks me up. I also love your photos.

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    @lamh35:
    Chuck Dixon might understand Bane; but this quote tells me that he most definitely does not understand Batman.

  63. 63.

    Violet

    @Ben Franklin: Chickens eat scraps, are small scale cultivators and pest controllers, and also produce manure, which can be cycled back into the compost. It’s not just about eggs.

    Congrats on the egg! Hope many more are following that. Eggs from your own chickens are such a treat!

  64. 64.

    quannlace

    and also produce manure, which can be cycled back into the compost. I

    Does chicken manure need to be ‘aged’ before you can use it on the garden?

  65. 65.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Congrats on the egg. I’ve taken a break from the non-stop shooting porn that passes for local news here and thought I’d stop by BJ to see what’s up. Glad for a little feathered reprieve.

    Can’t wait to have ducks again and probably a few laying chickens.

    I think I’ll go put in an old Disney movie, like Pollyanna or the original Parent Trap and pretend the world is all butterflies and fuzzy bunnies. Sigh.

  66. 66.

    ThresherK

    @hilts: “Bill Frady” sounds like a name straight out of Dickens. Curious if “fraidy cat” rings in his ears, from his childhood, when he tries to get to sleep.

  67. 67.

    Julia Grey

    I get more out of Burn Notice than 24, speaking for myself

    You speak for me, too.

    Also, though, if we’re talking relative “cartoonishness” or “unrealistic-ness”or whatever, 24 beats Burn Notice all hollow.

    I mean, at least they sometimes write traffic problems into the Burn Notice plots.

    And I always laugh myself sick over any plot that involves consistently perfect real-time access to and instantaneous satellite (?) relay of broadband information. The computer business in 24 was always hilarious anyway, but relaying secret building layouts to Jack in the field…HAHAHAHAHAHHA.

  68. 68.

    Violet

    @Yutsano:

    I’ve literally had eggs from my parents’ hens sit in my fridge for six months and none of them rotted.

    You don’t need to put eggs from your own chickens in the fridge. They’ll keep fine on the counter. Eggs that have already been refrigerated, like store-bought or even your own chickens’ eggs that you put in the fridge, need to stay in the fridge. Can’t remember why I read up on that but I did after a friend who has chickens told me about it.

  69. 69.

    Yutsano

    @quannlace: My parents use theirs right away. They also have horses, so they have several good nitrogen sources available.

    @Violet: Chickens are just all around useful birds. A few laying hens can get a family through the worst of famines and droughts. Survivalists should embrace the noble hen!

    @Violet: Europeans do not refrigerate their eggs. Which is why the French say their omelettes are superior to the American versions. The advice about refrigeration is correct, I store mine there because I don’t use them that often and they do last longer. I was gone for six weeks. The only thing in the fridge still edible when I got back was the eggs. :)

  70. 70.

    dr. bloor

    I don’t mean to alarm Dorito and the other ladies, Betty, but your post has drawn KFC ads to the top of the front page.

  73. 73.

    dance around in your bones

    I lived on an old farm back in the day and helped my friend build a chicken coop. She had a window over her kitchen sink that she could push open to scrape leftovers off the plates right out to the chicken yard.

    Man, those chickens came running for those leftovers – and their eggs were just incomparable to store eggs in every way.

    The chickens were pretty well-behaved, unlike the geese she had that would bite you on the ass if you bent over whilst spreading their feed. Fuckers.

    ETA: to hip-hop artist – thank you for your kind comment, as well…..I am coping as well as can be expected. some days good, some days bad.

  74. 74.

    wmd

    I’ve got chicks coming next week. 4 barred rock, 3 buff orpington, 2 americauna, plus 18 cornish X rock meat birds.

    Egg production from current flock is low – I think 4 or 5 hens are not producing and will be stew meat or cat food come slaughter time in late September/October. 10 year old hens just don’t lay.

  75. 75.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Ben Franklin:

    I figure my cucumbers and tomatoes from last year’s crop only cost me 10 dollahs per pound.

    Ain’t that the gods troof.

  76. 76.

    Violet

    @quannlace:

    Does chicken manure need to be ‘aged’ before you can use it on the garden?

    Depends what you need in the soil. It’s very high in nitrogen and can burn your plants. If your soil needs that much nitrogen, you could use it fresh. Otherwise, putting it in your compost, which will benefit from the nitrogen, would be better.

  78. 78.

    Violet

    @Yutsano: Chickens really are great. My friend had two, then only one, and recently has added several more. They’re still not full sized, but getting close. A regular flock!

  81. 81.

    waratah

    @quannlace: I am not sure but my father in law told me it was one of the richest fertilizers and to be careful how much was added to soil.

  83. 83.

    Yutsano

    @Violet: Chickens are legal in Seattle. I only wish I had room for them! I really need to buy a house…

    @SiubhanDuinne: Get a friend who raises hens. You will never look at a store-bought egg the same way again!

  84. 84.

    wrb

    @Betty Cracker:

    Dooly-bobs signal how hawt (healthy) a chicken is.

    They might also signal arousal. They do turn bright red when a chicken works out (we had a hen who used to jog along when we took walks).

    Some think the flapping of a roosters’ wattles help attract hens and chicks when he’s trying to show them food.

  85. 85.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Maybe you could get Sorkin to do the next Batman, and Nolan to take over Newsroom for a two-fer.

  87. 87.

    Yutsano

    @Violet: I get plenty from my parents so I’m usually pretty well set up. I really just want the hens for the entertainment value. They really are such fun, especially after they’ve bonded with you. :)

  89. 89.

    BigD

    Oregon is chicken friendly so this is good for me. One of my goals for this summer is to build a chicken coop in my large back-yard. However, I have recently purchased a dog, a Black Labrador, who has been bred to bite birds.

    This dog is proficient at birding and, despite his puppy-adolescent status, had already chalked up two birds that were flight-capable. Some have considered the bird remains to be nasty; personally I’m kind of proud of my dog (name: Hank).

    If I have to replace my potential future chickens, are they expensive?

  90. 90.

    Violet

    @Yutsano: Yeah, they’re excellent. My friend’s chicken that is sadly no longer with us used to come sit in her lap and practically coo. It was adorable.

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    @Violet: It’s fun to feed them too. You can analyse their pecking order and watch them go nuts over a nice hunk of bread.

    OT: very disappointed in Google. Nothing for Hemingway’s birthday?

  95. 95.

    wmd

    @BigD:
    Chicks are generally under $3.50 each mail order. My barred rock are $2.63 for hens. Meat birds are $2.05 for unsexed chicks.

  96. 96.

    BigD

    Thank you for the information wmd. I am fortunate enough to purchase several chickens for my project, on a repeated basis, if necessary.

  99. 99.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @hilts: Naturally, your solution to this issue involves MOAR guns and easier access to them.

    You’re stupid. You’re irresponsible.

    And to somebody whose dear friends were murdered by a wacko who had legally purchased his guns, too – you’re incredibly offensive.

    Fuck off and die. Hopefully while cleaning your guns.

  107. 107.

    dance around in your bones

    I also wish to say that the roosters at my friend’s place were far less annoying than the guinea fowl that stood on the old fence posts outside my bedroom window and squawked all morning.

    Plus, they were vulture-headed guinea fowl which made them look like the melting Nazi in the Indiana Jones movie which came out years later.

  109. 109.

    Palli

    @dr. bloor: or type…or edit…
    Sorry if I sound holier than thou to you, but there was content to consider.

    I actually take the research science seriously that questions the idea of “entertainment” that depicts excessive violence is a benign influence in contemporary culture. I am a teacher. I also wonder how I would tell my child the day after such a terrible event: Sure let’s go see the movie that so many people were watching when they died yesterday”. I know I couldn’t do it.

  112. 112.

    dance around in your bones

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    There’s really nothing better than fowl to alert you to…well, intruders or just any visitors. Those geese that used to bite my ass when I fed them? They would start honking if a vehicle or even a couple of Mormons on bicycles arrived at the gate that was half a mile from our house.

    P.S. The Mormons were always politely invited to enjoy the view as they left the property.

  113. 113.

    Palli

    @Cassidy: I’m not cross and enjoy gardening and my chickens lay eggs too. We aren’t talking about graphic novels- we are talking about a multi-million dollar movie with admission prices that cost more than the price of a meal.

  114. 114.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Palli:

    we are talking about a multi-million dollar movie with admission prices that cost more than the price of a meal.

    That depends on where you get the meal, doesn’t it?

  117. 117.

    wmd

    @dance around in your bones: I had an order come in on a Sunday in 2008, got a call from the airline to pick up chicks at the airport. I’ve joked about picking up chicks at the airport or post office many times since.

    Mail order has a minimum order of 25, which is why I raising some birds for meat. I like to have about 12 chickens producing eggs regularly, also like having control over what breeds I’m getting or I’d buy at a feed store (pricing is a little higher than mail order).

    Not to say organic meat whose provenance is known isn’t good karma. If you eat animal flesh there’s something righteous in knowing the animal was treated humanely and processed in sanitary conditions. I figure about $3.00 per pound for organic chicken is a good deal too.

  118. 118.

    McJulie

    It does my heart good to see all the people here who are “meh” about Nolan’s take on Batman! I thought they were both okay as big blowing-things-up-and-punching-stuff style summer entertainment spectacles, but uneven and prone to being dull.

    Still, it doesn’t bother me that there are people who really, really like them. What bothers me is the nearly universal acceptance, at face value, of their pretensions toward “depth.” People! Get a grip on yourselves! They’re exactly like all the other costumed hero movies only less fun!

    Batman has a noir mood, yes, but the mere fact of the screen being bluish-gray and poorly lit does not, in itself, constitute an especially thoughtful exploration of moral gray areas, or questions of responsibility and power. In fact, with The Dark Knight, the more “deep” it tried to be, the stupider it seemed.

  119. 119.

    dance around in your bones

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    I like geese, too….but we used to get hundreds of Canadian geese overwintering around the lake on the property, and the goose shit could get a bit….uh, slippery.

    Those domesticated geese were sometimes nasty lil fuckers.

    Once I was attacked by a goose and had to hold it by the neck and scream until I was rescued by my husband. Who laughed a lot about it…. for YEARS.

  121. 121.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    I keep wondering if the Colorado shooting kept me from relaxing and immersing into the movie, but the more I think about it, the less I believe that. Unfortunately, I can’t get into what bothered me without spoilers. *sigh*

    I do want to point out that any comments about Occupy that anyone thinks they see in the movie are most likely coincidence. Principal photography started before Adbusters registered the OWS site.

    The parallels and echoes to A Tale of Two Cities are much stronger, even made explicit at the end.

  123. 123.

    Darkrose

    I loved Batman Begins, though, mostly because I adore Liam Neeson, and even with the ridiculous facial hair, the chemistry between him and Bale was incredible.

    I’m a bit puzzled by the idea that the film is a swipe at OWS. Obviously, I haven’t seen it yet, but based on the other two, I think Nolan’s vision is centrist. The League of Shadows and the Joker were extremists as villains. While the character of Batman, especially as reinvented by Frank Miller, is pretty right-wing, I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Chris Nolan is pushing any agenda other than, “Oh the cleverness of me!”

  124. 124.

    Betty Cracker

    @Palli: Okay, the holier-than-thou shtick about exposing teenagers to violence in movies I can understand even if I disagree, but I’m not sure where you’re going with this:

    I also wonder how I would tell my child the day after such a terrible event: Sure let’s go see the movie that so many people were watching when they died yesterday”. I know I couldn’t do it.

    Are you saying that since the lunatic decided to shoot up a Batman movie premiere, decent people should boycott the movie out of respect for the dead?

    Or are you just restating your original objection to people spending money to see violent movies when they could be contributing the $6 ticket price toward feeding the hungry or healing the sick instead and using the involvement of a teenager in the equation to amplify your point in a particularly obnoxious manner?

    Just trying to figure out if you’re a ninny, a sanctimonious ass or both.

  126. 126.

    dance around in your bones

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Oh, crows are the greatest! I had a friend who healed a wounded crow, then it hung around her backyard for years, strutting around, mimicking voices, and bringing the occasional shiny object back home to show off. Just stellar :)

  127. 127.

    Betty Cracker

    @Darkrose: RE: OWS, I could be wrong, but I think they actually used the phrase “the 1%” at one point, and the bad guys tossed rich people out of their penthouses and allowed the rabble to occupy their former homes. One of the “occupiers” finds a photo of the family who formerly lived in their swell digs and says something along the lines of “actual people lived here!” — as in “the faceless 1% everyone is bitching about have feelings too, damn it!”

    Still, I think Sister Rail Gun has it right: It’s more aligned with “Tale of Two Cities” than OWS. And McJulie has it even righter, in my opinion: It’s really not all that deep anyway.

  128. 128.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Betty Cracker:

    One of the “occupiers” finds a photo of the family who formerly lived in their swell digs and says something along the lines of “actual people lived here!”—as in “the faceless 1% everyone is bitching about have feelings too, damn it!”

    I think Nolan included that bit to demonstrate the character’s empathy rather than to make a political statement, something we needed so that the character’s later actions didn’t seem to come out of nowhere. (Must…fight…spoilers….)

  129. 129.

    J R in WVa

    @quannlace:

    No. But it is high in nitrogen (strong fertilizer) and can burn delicate plants if you put a shovel-full of chicken waste right on top of them.

    It may work best if you put a few inches of chicken crap in a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with water, and tomorrow or the next day water around the plants you want to fertilize, without splashing it all over them. I have had good luck with that process.

    Home grown eggs are about 8 weeks fresher from the chicken than grocery eggs are, and they go in the cooler quicker too, which is why they last so much longer. I imagine the cleaner lifestyle of yard birds helps too, but I know of no scientific studies that show that is the case. Of course commercial processors would support research that shows the contrary fact.

    I love how yard bird eggs have nearly solid yolks, that stand up like a sphere, and are the color of gold, rather than the color of cheap yellow dye. I used to make mayo and hollandaise with our yard bird eggs and milch cow butter – on home grown Asperagrass, yum!

    I’m not crazy about movies, but we go sometimes to a stadium-seating theater downtown, and are often the only members of an audience, so I wonder how they stay in business. Maybe the Friday/Saturday crowd is so big the Tuesday evening crowd is totally irrelevant…

    Remember, you will have to do away with older hens eventually, unless you can turn that job over to the possums and owls. Last time we did chickens in we filled nearly 30 quarts with prime chicken meat! But it was 3 people working all day long, sweaty mess, chicken parts and wet feathers everywhere. That’s why we don’t have ’em today. Also we’re doing more travel.

    Best to all, keep up the chickens.

  130. 130.

    Betty Cracker

    No way am I doing away with my hens when they stop laying! I’m a hobbyist, not a chicken farmer. I’ll pension them off with some grain and start buying eggs again. Have my own personal petting zoo!

  132. 132.

    Palli

    @Betty Cracker:

    I have actually never before been called names in comments nor used them myself.

    Boycott means never going to the film, trying to prevent others from going-shutting it down, in effect.
    Perhaps, out of respect for the dead, not the next day.
    Just saying, I couldn’t enjoy the film without thinking of the carnage. And I wasn’t in the mood to be entertained.

    Corporatism is in Hollywood too, and the major motion picture industry is not the most responsible democratic community institution-and I’m not talking only of violent content, but racism, sexism, economic inequalities and the glamorization of crime. Big bucks entertainment too often glosses over reality or, worse, belies it. Oh, I am an artist and I don’t believe in censorship.

    BTW: Booman at BooTribune suggests the killer was modeling his actions after The Black Knight, the beginning of the series.

  133. 133.

    wmd

    @Betty Cracker:

    You can just get some new chicks when your flock slows down in 4 years or so. Keep getting fresh eggs, keep your pensioners. For what it’s worth I’ve collected eggs from 8 year olds, they just lay less frequently. Peak production seems to be for period from 1-3 year old for my flock.

    My 10 year old hens are starting to die of old age. Since I don’t have a problem with processing them I expect some will be pozolé or curry.

  134. 134.

    Patricia Kayden

    @lamh35: Yeah, I was also shocked by Dixon’s comment. I’ve enjoyed all 3 “Dark Knight” Batman movies though, so I’ll just ignore the fact that Bane’s creator sounds like a Rightwing jerk.

  135. 135.

    Chris

    @Joey Maloney:

    I don’t think it has anything to do with Occupy or any contemporary issue as such. But Batman is fundamentally a story about fascism and about a dictator who rules by right of power and nothing else, a dictator who is all that stands between the innocent (yet corrupt) and the evil nature of humanity that threatens always to overwhelm them. Batman protects them, even though they don’t really deserve it. It’s a pretty nihilistic view of the universe.

    Just for the record, I don’t consider that fascism. Just conservatism. It’s standard GOP fare.

    @lamh35:

    As for his appearance in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a force for evil and the destruction of the status quo.

    So what exactly was the status quo? I thought the status quo in Gotham was that it was an epically corrupt city, in the old “big city machine politics” tradition, where the mob ran everything and the police couldn’t be counted on to serve and protect. I mean… all these rich and powerful people Bane takes down – are you telling me these guys managed to be rich and powerful in Gotham City without being up to their freaking eyeballs in the crime and corruption and mob dealings?

    Not that they deserve lynching, but it’s kind of hard to see how “defending the status quo” is supposed to be good – or even help Batman accomplish his goals – in Gotham City.

  136. 136.

    Chris

    @Julia Grey:

    Also, though, if we’re talking relative “cartoonishness” or “unrealistic-ness”or whatever, 24 beats Burn Notice all hollow.

    Yeah, it really does. But it covers it up with a ton of blood, sweat, toil and tears so you don’t notice the ridiculous plot points.

    I like BN because it actually involves more thinking: you can’t just conveniently torture your way to the top of your problems, the main characters actually need to think their way through things in a way that’s 1) better TV and 2) probably a lot truer to real life.

    Same for MacGyver, twenty years earlier, not using a gun. Besides the fact that it’s actually more realistic (the CIA often doesn’t arm its field officers, if only because a gun’s hard to explain for someone who’s supposed to be low-keying it), it’s also more fun to wonder how he’s going to work his way out of a situation without killing everyone in sight. Even if quite a few MacGyverisms ended up being silly, I gave them credit for at least trying.

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