Season Four of True Blood is really getting kind of dirty like late night skin-e-max or show-it-all-the-time.
In other words, I’m having to rewind a lot.
Archives for June 2013
Almost Late Night Open Thread
Was sitting here planning my July 4th festivities, and remembered that one of my traditions for years was calling my best friend from active duty, Donald Geoffrey Wood. We talked a couple times a year, but we always talked on the 4th. He’s dead now, a victim of his own insane driving (he could do things behind the wheel I have never seen- a day on the autobahn with him in a BMW Alpina changed my life, and by changed, I mean shortened it by a couple years) and died in a car wreck at what I am sure were insane speeds, but I miss him and think about him all the time. Here we are, 20 years old, standing in some miserable piece of shit place in Kuwait:
When we got out of that shithole we went on leave together for a month long insane Hunter S. Thompson like journey that included a week and a half in New Orleans. But that is a story I will never, ever put into print.
You were my brother, Geoff. Love you.
Here’s another pic, off duty circa 1990:
Ahh, pastel Polo shirts.
Dexter Open Thread
No spoilers please.
I’ll rephrase–if anyone spoils it for anyone else, I’ll hunt you down and TP your house.
Confederations Cup Championship Game: Brazil v Spain
Feijoada or paella? Will Spain claim the one non age-restricted title it has never won or will Brazil retain its title? Add your thoughts.
Confederations Cup Championship Game: Brazil v SpainPost + Comments (121)
Horror Story Open Thread: Nate Silver Is Trying to Kill John Cole
Or maybe it’s just the Aspen Institute has it in for DougJ?… Via Garance Franke-Ruta, at the Atlantic, “Hillary Is the Strongest Non-Incumbent Ever“.
And we’ve already got a [semi]declared candidate from the Other Party, according to Robert Costa at the National Review:
Almost everybody has written off Rick Santorum as a 2016 contender — everybody, that is, except Rick Santorum.
Behind the scenes, the former Pennsylvania senator is quietly preparing for another presidential run. Trips to Iowa are in the works, he’s meeting daily with his advisers, and he’s already fine-tuning his message for the early primaries…
… For now, Santorum’s nonprofit organization, Patriot Voices, is his chief vehicle for staying in play. He’s working to develop the group into a film and educational outfit that informs voters about issues he considers important. Brabender tells me that more than 400 chapters of Patriot Voices are being formed. Those clusters of Santorum supporters will likely be important as he maneuvers to run again.
Nadine Maenza, the finance director for his 2012 campaign, has also been keeping the senator in touch with his major donors, including Foster Friess. According to several sources, Friess, the top financier of Santorum’s super PAC, has privately said that he’ll once again be a major backer.
“The presidential election is a long way away,” Santorum says. “I know we’re not on the front burner of anybody’s mind right now, and there’s a lot going on that’s getting people’s attention. But I’m going to stay out there, and you’ll see me in Iowa soon.”…
The Return of the Sweater-Vest, or C.H.U.D. in the Heartland. “Santorum/Random Token 2016 – “Tomorrow Belongs to Us!“
Horror Story Open Thread: Nate Silver Is Trying to Kill John ColePost + Comments (153)
Old Folks Boogie
Most folks realize that we are all heading for our second taste of non-existence at a constant rate of one day per day (don’t give me none of those event horizon/Protoss portal/twins paradoxical time bending maundering, either you denizens of ‘con and SciFi channel) .
What’s more — and I’ll admit this may be the fifty-something me talking, so feel free to challenge this presumption in the comments — I’m guessing that most of us recognize certain rewards that accrue as we successfully complete each circuit ’round the sun. Losses too, of course, and more of them as the decades past (I’d love to reacquaint myself with my knees of twenty years ago, and certain summers, and the people now gone always and most of all).
But I wouldn’t want to give up what I’ve learned, the stuff I now know how to do, the way I come at the world with enough understanding to help me act each day with at least a bit more capacity than I had in my happy, high energy, dumb 20s (or 40s). What’s more I value evidence of that kind of accumulated judgment in folks who seek to lead me and my country (and world). I don’t think I’m entirely alone in this.*
Which is why I read this in today’s NYT with such…well…
Glee.
Jonathan Martin’s piece on the GOP’s emerging strategy for dealing with the presumptive Hilary Clinton juggernaut is in fact a masterpiece of subtle knife work.
Confederations Cup Third Place Open Thread: Italy v Uruguay
Anticlimactic? Perhaps, but third place leaves with a medal and fourth place with nothing. Add your thoughts.
Confederations Cup Third Place Open Thread: Italy v UruguayPost + Comments (49)