I just finished the first chapter of “This Town“. We’ve talked before here about Washington’s strange cult of masculinity, and “This Town” makes it sound even worse than I expected. Tim Russert, the “mayor of DC”, is loved in part because he drank Rolling Rock from the bottle, ate manly food with nothing drizzled on it, and was a big Bills fan.
The punditocracy often turns presidential elections into quién es más macho. This probably reached its peak under Bush, but let’s not kid ourselves, it’s a game that the Obama people know how to play too.
How will this change once we start having female presidential nominees? It seems to me there’s two key points to note. One is that so far, the press has tended to frame things as a MILF/shrew dichotomy. Republican women — Bachmann, Palin — are MILFs, and Democratic ones — Pelosi, Hillary — are shrews. But I don’t think this is sustainable, because it alienates too many female voters and consumers of media.
The other is that while the media loves manly men who don’t take any shit, many (if not most) of the posterpeople for no-shit-taking are women. The comparison between Boehner and Pelosi is almost too easy. Boehner is afraid of his own shadow…I might be too if my shadow was Cassius Cantor. House Democrats speak Pelosi’s name in whispers (what higher praise can there be). But there’s lots of other examples too, Hillary’s “Fuck the White House Correspondents’ Dinner”, Elizabeth Warren telling WH reporters, essentially “don’t quote me son, I ain’t said shit”.
Maybe this is stretching the point too far, but “This Town” portrays DC media as a bunch of jock sniffers. They’re never going to swoon over a woman who’s not in a bikini (and even then they might swoon harder over a sun-chapped prairie himbo), anyway, so it’s only natural that women leaders aren’t going to give a fuck what David Gregory thinks of them.
NotMax
Ho-hum.
Hunter Gathers
Does high school ever end?
daveNYC
Drinking Rolling Rock from the bottle is some sort of masculine thing? Don’t even get me started on the Bills. They crapped the bed for basically every Superbowl when I was in college, they can rot for all I care.
It’s like the beltway media came up with masculine criteria as chosen by committee.
MomSense
@Hunter Gathers:
Seriously. Hated it the first time and apparently we must relive it forevah.
Splitting Image
The ideal woman is someone who can be admitted to the Get Rid of Slimy Girls club without changing its mission statement. She should be able to cheerfully take some shitty little country and smash it against a wall whenever necessary, and ready to begin her administration by telling the country’s little people that the good times are over and they will just have to take their medicine from now on. All the while letting the Village’s crony capitalism go unchecked.
In short: Margaret Thatcher with a Southern accent.
kd bart
High School? More like Junior High.
Ronnie Pudding
I always thought that the DC media could be understood once you realize that they are just trying to assure you that they weren’t the smart kids in high school. They aren’t the sort of nerds who, you know, really care about policy.
prufrock
Rolling Rock sucks the sweat off dead donkey balls.
That is all.
Alexandra
Meshes nicely with Josh Marshall’s Bitch Slap Theory of Politics. I don’t blame the cheerleaders and players; we’re all social status seeking apes after all, with little lizard brains nestling deep within.
I’d even argue that the left to some extent, across the western world, has forgotten some of the rules of this sordid little game, thinking that people, undecided voters particularly, vote on policy of all things.
Chris
@daveNYC:
I don’t understand the Rolling Rock reference either. I don’t know shit about booze and rarely ever drink it because most of it tastes like shit to me, and all it does is put me to sleep. Rolling Rock, unless I have my brands mixed up, is one of the few beers I DO remember drinking (from the bottle), precisely because it’s one of the few that 1) tastes okay to me and 2) doesn’t make me too sleepy.
Given that, I would’ve thought Rolling Rock was considered unmanly, if anything.
hildebrand
The criteria are not consistent – if a younger, attractive woman happens to be a Democrat (Wendy Davis, TX), then they denigrate her age (of course, Davis is 50, I think) and intellect, call her emotional, and all assorted whatnot. Attractive Republican men and women are good – attractive Democratic women and men are clearly up to something, or using their good looks to move beyond their intellectual or class station.
Also, too, a black Democratic woman is always fat – no matter what they look like, because old, white, Republican types can’t quite handle black anything. The beltway media types simply accept the Republican categories as fact.
CaseyL
Political journalism is yet another area in which the means has become the end. In this case, “cultivating sources to gain trust to get a story” has become “networking to curry favor.” Access is now its own reward.
I stopped reading analysis from national pundits when it became clear that: 1) they didn’t “analyze” anything, only said whatever their sources said; and 2) I knew more about what they were talking about than they did.
I’m sure there are other professions more essentially useless than DC pundits, maybe even other useless professions that pay so well, but I’m not sure there are other useless professions that pay so well and don’t require any rigorous skills. (Even the rent seekers who have mangled our economy have to know accounting.)
hoodie
@prufrock: Rolling Rock is the sweat off dead donkey balls. Real Buffalo guy would have been drinking Genny Cream. DC poser.
Violet
Republican women get into the quien es mas macho game too. Sarah Palin, for instance, told candidates to “man up” and said Jan Brewer had “cojones”. They’re also seen with guns, hunting, fishing, at the shooting range, etc. The macho thing is all through the Republican side.
Matthew Butcher
Richard Thompson allusions, hurrah.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: Rolling Rock is status-less, which paradoxically gives it status in this world as a sign of everyday Joe Schmoe-ness. It’s like the metal lunchbox of beers.
NotMax
@Chris
Back before Anheuser-Busch bought up Rolling Rock (and relocated its brewing to NJ, if memory serves), it was made in
LatrineLatrobe, Pennsylvania, using local water culled from a river site just a couple of miles downstream from a paper mill’s waste outlet.Chris
@hildebrand:
Yeah, I agree. The goalposts move depending on the politician.
Simply put, the Beltway media has a type (an image of what kind of politician is worthy to rule America), and, while not all Republicans fit that type, you pretty much have to be a Republican to even be considered. (Some exceptions made for Blue Dogs like Lieberman).
schrodinger's cat
Its not just the DC media,anyone who has been following the gushing press coverage regarding the appointment of Raghuram Rajan, an Indian born academic from the University of Chicago to lead India’s central bank will see the same phenomenon at work. It is sickening to say the least.
ETA: Please delete 14, WP won’t let me edit it.
FlipYrWhig
@Ronnie Pudding: Agreed. Way too much of the media is made up of people desperately trying to prove that they’re not nerds or yuppies, precisely because they’re nerds and/or yuppies. So they’re impressed when they come across salt of the earth types, and they make people they meet into fetish-objects of Authentic Americana. And this habit is a longstanding one. And it’s embarrassing to witness. And for all that it’s still better than when they try to do hipsterish snark like Jake Tapper does.
I Heart Breitbartbees
Tl;dr: Pundits are the jocks who got passed without earning their grades because they could play ball, and they would now be pumping gas were it not for a happy accident of birth. Is anyone surprised by this?
schrodinger's cat
I will never understand what motivates Republican women, either the office holders or the voters. Talk about voting against your self interest.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
It filled the same role as PBR before PBR started serving that role.
Marc
@Splitting Image:
Or Park Ridge by way of Wellesley.
I assume the first female president is going to go the Thatcher/Golda Meir/Indira Gandhi route and show us how “tough” she is by bombing Syria or Iran. Sadly, Clinton has already demonstrated her willingness to step into the role.
schrodinger's cat
@Marc: Indira Gandhi, used to be known as the only man in her cabinet and Thatcher the Iron Lady. Women in power don’t get there by being warm and floofy.
piratedan
it’s the yearbook staff, they’re the people behind who make the judgements as to who is cool and who isn’t, they decide who’s mug you get to see that attempt to dictate what you remember about High School. Doesn’t mean that they’re accurate, doesn’t mean that they’re “right” just the grooming of the types who determine what’s in the best interest for the rest of us….
hildebrand
@FlipYrWhig: And when the nerds (who embrace their nerd-dom) show them up (Nate Silver, on line one), they absolutely savage them as only a mid-level high-school bully can.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve only read about the book, watched a few interviews, but it seems to me the author pulled his punches wrt Russert. He hints at how weird the cult of Russert is (Tom Brokaw gave some beltway power couple Bills jerseys as a wedding present– some kind of secret uniform to acknowledge their status in the club? Brokaw is as goofy as he is useless) without seeming to get (again, based on what I’ve seen on TeeVee) that Tim Russert was one sorry excuse for a journalist, as Charlie Pierce reminds us from the outskirts of the Village
He also told Moyers that no one could question his sources, because he was from Buffalo.
hildebrand
@I Heart Breitbartbees: Nah, pundits are the kids who never could quite make the team, and weren’t smart enough to get into the chess club either – thus they nursed their grudges and are now taking out their frustrations on those who kept them from scoring with the girl/guy of the their dreams.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
Most of the Republican men don’t have much to gain from voting that way, either.
Mike in NC
@Hunter Gathers:
No. At a State of the Union speech, lifelong frat boy and tough guy Dubya Bush said something to the effect that “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people”. No doubt that got a standing ovation from the cool kids in the audience as well as the Village Idiots who covered it.
handsmile
More details please on Elizabeth Warren slapping down (ever so politely I suspect) the Tiger Beat reporters.
Unfamiliar with the incident and could find nothing specific by Googling. But I did come across this TruthOut article: in 2009, Warren publicly mocked Larry Summers by comparing him to Eva Peron.
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18134-sen-elizabeth-warren-mocked-larry-summers-as-eva-peron-backs-janet-yellen-to-head-federal-reserve
How I love this Senator! Must/should be considered a serious candidate for 2016 Democratic Veep.
Mustang Bobby
@prufrock: We used to say Rolling Rock was brewed through a horse. Probably still is.
Marc
@schrodinger’s cat: Unfortunately, the first one who does get there tends to overcompensate.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: At least they get to put uppity women in their place.
schrodinger's cat
@Marc: Hillary is not immune to this, see the made up Bosnian sniper incident. BTW how has Merkel been? I haven’t followed her career closely.
Doug Milhous J
@handsmile:
Thanks, I added a link for Warren.
Marc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: See also Matt Yglesias.
Written before Russert’s untimely death, and therefore honest.
Hawes
I’ve always hated Maureen Dowd, but it’s pretty clear fewer commentators are more clued in to the social dynamic of DC. It really is junior high, with all the beat down nerds worshiping the alleged manliness of certain dudes, while ignoring the fact that everyone on the honor roll is a girl.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: Rolling Rock is like 3% alcohol, so not exactly a tough guy beer. But I suspect most of these beltway types drink either frou-frou cocktails or the blood of children, so they can’t really be expected to know any better.
JustMe
@Chris: Rolling Rock is a PA-based beer that’s of better quality than “Iron City” but inexpensive and not the sort of thing taken up by microbeer connoisseurs. It occupies that “sweet spot” on the class hierarchy above “drunk college student” and “lower class mill worker” but below an elitist like brew like Sam Adams. It means you like a good beer that you drink regularly, but you don’t like it too much that you would make someone feel bad by having better taste in beer than they would, and that your dad could still relate to the kind of beer you drank.
Culture of Truth
Tim Russert was a blue collar guy. If you visited him at his house on Martha’s vineyeard he’d tell you all about it
gelfling545
@Chris: Please bear in mind that Tim Russert was from Buffalo (well, West Seneca – just over the city line) where Genesee Cream Ale is actually considered a beverage suitable for humans to drink. You can’t judge by what someone from here might imbibe.
prufrock
@Mustang Bobby: It would definitely explain the taste.
schrodinger's cat
It is too funny when these cossetted media types pretend that they have their finger on the pulse of the country and are ordinary Joes themselves
Betsy
@schrodinger’s cat: They are admitted into the patriarchal power structure on sufferance, so have to prove their loyalty constantly, by attacking the weak, shooting things, wearing heels, and so forth. Adhering to both the “feminine” and the macho rules more than 100%.
Tbone
Was that an easy e reference?
Felonius Monk
Why limit this to just women leaders? Why would anyone give a flyin’ f*ck what Gregory thinks about anything?
Napoleon
@Marc:
Which is one of the reasons she will not get my vote in a primary.
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: No wonder it tasted like fermented ass.
I can’t drink beer any more, but when I did it was pretty much either Sam Adams, Massachusetts microbrews when in town, them thar furrin Old Yurrup beers what’s fer snobs, or Oregon microbrews when I was feeling really hopsy. Yingling hefeweizen was ok at parties. Japanese beer is okay too but only the real stuff, not that Canadian swill.
Amber Bock was okay, also Michelob Ultra. Watered down but okay. Same with PBR, I mean it’s so cheap it’s okay that it’s watered down, ya know? I don’t understand the hatred for PBR but maybe it’s a can vs tap thing, the way Foster’s tastes pretty nice on tap but is total shite from a can.
I always liked sourdough and beers that tasted like sourdoughs … now I must drink beer made from millet, buckwheat, and rice… cry.
I just figured life was too short for shitty beer. And if I want to get drunk, I’ll use vodka. Less risk of a nasty headache later.
Doug Milhous J
@Tbone:
Don’t quote me son I ain’t said shit? Yes.
Another Holocene Human
Sorghum beer is gross. Also. Too.
Another Holocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: Not to mention embarrassing to whiteness.
NonyNony
@JustMe:
Being a better quality beer than Iron City is a pretty damn low bar to cross. Tap water probably meets this threshold.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: Yeah, but Rolling Rock is rank. PBR is sort of blandly inoffensive.
My mother likes it, which is about all the counter-endorsement anyone on this planet could need or want.
Another Holocene Human
@piratedan:
that’s … that’s it. You’ve nailed it.
maye
My mother drank rolling rock from the bottle. She was not considered particularly masculine. Back then, it came in a teeny tiny bottle. A beer bottle for hobbits.
JustMe
The beer falls into DC’s peer pressure of mediocrity. Never dress to well, never enjoy food that’s “too nice” (it’s ok if it’s expensive, just as long as it’s not different), never be too interesting– that’s putting yourself “above” other people. The only thing that’s supposed to matter is money and proximity to power. Wanting to dress well or having good taste is seen as trying to “show up” your boss. The entire town defaults to a sort of base-line cultural mediocrity of the sort found in the home states of the congressmen and their staffers, while the locals tend to want to maintain DC as a “small southern town.”
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, and Republican women get to keep uppity blah people in their place, prove they aren’t sluts like other women, and keep their daughters and daughters-in-law in line. Not quite as attractive a proposition as the men get, but it’s apparently enough to keep hierarchy loving women pulling the (R) lever.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Or outrageously expensive wine that they don’t really appreciate but want to drink anyway because it proves their wealth and good taste.
handsmile
@Doug Milhous J:
And thank you for the link. Superb article, both for demonstrating Warren’s gravity (“But I want to be able to talk about the issues in depth, and I don’t think that works very well in the hallway”) as well as (inadvertently?) exposing how trivially these “professional journalists” conduct their business.
I guess we now know the real reason for the Village’s animus towards Nate Silver: he didn’t drink Rolling Rock.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: I’m imagining them making the face that Captain Kirk makes in Star Trek IV after he sips some Miller.
We know it’s not the alcohol because he does his share of drinking as recently as, oh, Star Trek III, so one can only imagine that the UFP Beer Purity Law of 2187 outlawed shitty beers.
Another Holocene Human
@JustMe:
So that’s what’s up with the $15 hamburgers (that taste worse than a drive thru).
Chris
@Roger Moore:
This. There’s a hierarchy to the whole thing. The lower you are on the Republican Hierarchy of How Things Ought To Be, the less people from your level will join the GOP… but there are always some. Even all the way at the bottom, you’ll find the occasional Muslim Republican who signed up so he could punch gays, or gay Republican who signed up so he could punch Muslims.
schrodinger's cat
@JustMe: So true, I had some friends who worked for Congress Critters or were lobbyists, and most of them dressed in the most boring way possible. I don’t blame them, one does have to conform to local standards of dress and not stand out. One exception was a Colombian born lawyer. She could have been a super model, was very athletic too.
Another Holocene Human
No wonder I always hated DC. I’ll take ultrarich snobbier than thou NYC style food elitism over chitty food and chitty weather in Our Nation’s Ozone Capital any day. Ugh.
When I lived in DC, Chipotle opening up was like food heaven, I am so not kidding. (I also ate a lot of samosas, because first gen immigrants haven’t forgotten what flavors are like. Iraqi restaurants, also, too.)
MattF
Note also (via Prof. K): the infallable economic authority quoted by Hubbard and Kane in this morning’s ridiculous NYT op-ed is the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mullins. So, it’s not only jock sniffing– actual conservative economists will happily defer to military bureaucrats. Anything you say, Sir.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
This isn’t about what the beer is like, it’s about what your choice of beer says about you. Rolling Rock back then and PBR today say that you’re not some boring person who drinks one of the beers with big media campaigns, like Bud or Coors, but you’re also not some beer snob who only wants to drink imports and microbrews. By focusing on beer as beverage rather than beer as social statement, you’ve put yourself clearly in the elitist liberal beer snob category.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: Also too, Ethiopian restaurant and Vietnamese restaurant on M Street.
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: Hubbard is unfortunately without shame. Will be making economic policy if a Republican succeeds Obama.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
That’s why they say they signed up, but a lot of them did it because their wallet’s fat, and those people are automatically at the top of the Republican hierarchy when it comes to actual policy.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Voting for the GOP makes sense if you are rich, gotta love those tax cuts.
piratedan
@Roger Moore: well Rolling Rock is a great niche beer for DC, it’s not a big corporate brand, nor is it one of those specialty micro brews, it’s from Pa, which is close, but hardly DC. It’s in a few words, trendy but unoffending. It doesn’t taste like much of anything, like it’s made blandness a specific category. So you can be all things to all people, it’s the Zelig of beers, you’d hardly know you’re drinking one except for the green bottle which stands out to a degree.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Neoliberalism’s taken hold in the upper levels of most countries in the world (thank the World Bank and IMF, among others, for pushing through the Thatcher/Reagan “consensus.”)
It’s a lot rarer, though, that you have such an enthusiastic and large share of the public out there thinking it’s a good thing and agitating on behalf of the Masters Of The Universe, as our teabaggers do. Even the most neo-fascist douchebags in Western Europe think neoliberalism’s a crock.
@FlipYrWhig:
Somewhat related – I think a big part of the West Wing’s popularity is that it didn’t do that. It appealed to white collar nerds and yuppies by basically saying “look, we are nerds and yuppies, stop apologizing for it, and stop trying to be the jocks or trying to get the jocks’ approval; you’re not convincing anyone and you’re just fucking embarrassing yourselves.” (The “stop running scared from the word ‘liberal’ and grow some fucking balls” speeches mostly fell under that category).
reflectionephemeral
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There was a fine article by Paul Waldman around that time:
geg6
Heh, wait until you read the whole thing, Doug. I just finished it this weekend and cannot for the life of me imagine how the author will ever be allowed back into DC society ever again. Hell, he snarks on himself. I had read reviews of the books that said he wasn’t that hard on the Village or that he was too polite. I don’t know what book those people read. Maybe they don’t have a nose for snark, but that book is nothing but pure snark. The Russert memorial service is just so illustrative and I laughed my ass off at his description of the whole thing. And then I laughed a whole bunch of other times. And then I finished the book and wept. Everything about what is wrong with our country is spelled out in that book. And I see no way to change any of it.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: you’ll find the occasional Muslim Republican who signed up
so he could punch gaysso he could be counted as white at the country club and move up the ladder in terms of lucrative local business dealsMoney money money. MONEY!
askew
I finally gave up on this book halfway through it. It was whole chapters devoted to minor players in DC. Very little info on the top-tier pundits or politicians.
It was still better than Dan Balz’s Collision Decision 2012 though. He clearly had full access to Romney’s campaign and less or no access to Obama and other Republican candidates’s campaigns. And the prize for the access to Romney’s campaign was some serious revisionism. Truly awful book.
Another Holocene Human
A lot of GOP fellow travelers thought they could ignore the bad crazy especially when GOP banner-bearer GWB was outspoken in tamping down the bad crazy (until he left office–then he let the bad crazy freak flag fly for the good of the party… the man has always, always been party before country, see steel industry, US).
Sadly, no.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: Gosh, I might show some discretion on what I put in my mouth? I might be a feminist, too! BURN THE WITCH!
///
aimai
@Marc: That MY piece is genius.
JustMe
@Another Holocene Human: I’ll take ultrarich snobbier than thou NYC style food elitism over chitty food and chitty weather in Our Nation’s Ozone Capital any day.
yeah. I’m at least willing to put up with snobbery from New Yorkers because they really are ultrarich and the things they have access to in terms of food and clothes really is pretty rarefied and worth snobbing over. But DC’ers have much less to be snobby about– it’s jockeying over minutia while looking down on anything that is genuinely interesting.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Hopefully Rajan won’t be able to inflict much damage, we have to wait and watch.
Another Holocene Human
It’s funny when you travel around Europe, east or west, the local food and drink is not a matter of snobbery but a matter of intense local pride (plus, certain degree of self-interest, I’m sure). Just bring up American Budweiser or Pilsner Urquell in the Czech Republic and prepared to be schooled about Budjejovice and Starobrno. Btw, real pilsner will sear your mouth lining with the hops. Oddly, not entirely like Oregon beers and I’m trying to figure out why through the haze of imperfect memory. Maybe the Oregon beers are filtered fuck like whoa?
Even French people who will not shut up about their wine (to be fair, it lives up to the rep) have their own local beers. Not to mention cheeses, srsly, that is more important to them than their nuclear program.
Of course I am an outlandish snob for running old, cheap computers, never buying an xbox, renting or ripping movies instead of buying them, living in tiny apts for years and otherwise being a cheap bastard so I could leave the country every couple of years. I guess that makes me a non-real American and the real racist against real Americans, white bread, Kraft singles, mayonnaise and Bud Light.
ps: trying to think of a DC local specialty and coming up empty unless you mean Maryland Chesapeake cuisine, basically seafood marinated in Old Bay. Hmm, Baltimore has some fucking awesome beer pubs now and it’s only a short Acela ride from DC. I used to like Utz chips. Granted, they’re imported from PA. One nice thing about DC was all the ethnic supermarkets. Lots of German import food available. Korean. Indian. Vietnamese. True of any big city but especially DC b/c of the diplomat’s families. Of course, the whole matter is trickier without a car because the cheap rent was like Tyson’s Corner which is a nightmare on transit.
Tell me if it’s changed because last time I was there the city itself had shitty M-F deli shops for lunching bureaucrats, one McDonald’s hidden in L’Enfant Plaza and maybe some food in the old Post Office building but other than some museum cafeterias pretty much a food desert in the Federal Triangle. Georgetown has a Subway, ooo la la. I used to smuggle food in on the Metro from MD or VA. Dupont Circle was the exception. Last time I was there taquerias were the new hotness. Eastern Market used to be scary but did have fresh food. I understand the “Millennials” have moved in.
JustMe
@Another Holocene Human: trying to think of a DC local specialty and coming up empty
The half-smoke.
Chris
@JustMe:
Being from DC, I’d say the big difference is in how they handle themselves. NY aristocrats are fully aware that they’re rich assholes, embrace it, and flaunt it at every opportunity (remember the “WE ARE THE 1%!” banner on Wall Street?”) DC elites are about as entitled, but still feel the need to wrap it up in this grinning, faux-populist “Look at us! We’re men of the people, we are! Aren’t we folksy? Aren’t we down to earth? Aren’t we totally blue collar and beer drinking and not AT ALL like all those OTHER nasty elitists in DC?” crap that really makes you want to punch their lights out.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s what happens when all the money comes from out of town. I’m sure there’s good food in DC, but it’s all poor people food, because those are the real natives.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: Really? Eastern Market was pretty gentrified when I was there (4 years ago). Maryland is cheaper than NoVa. Bethesda is quite nice and so is Silver Spring.
JoyfulA
@schrodinger’s cat: Really? I’ve been in Silver Spring and found it lovely, reminiscent of Philadelphia’s Main Line. I was certain it was way, way out of my price range.
Whereas everybody I know in NoVa lives in a development that looks like any and every boring suburb.
Suffern ACE
@Another Holocene Human: I lived in DC from 1992-1996. At the time, the pizza was awful, but we thought that the burritos and the pupusas were much better than their equivalents in the Northeast Corridor, especially New York. I don’t know if DC ever really embraced the large numbers of central american refugees who moved there in the 1980s and developed anything out of that. The large hotels had the best high end restaurants. There just seemed to be a culture of fine dining aimed at meetings in hotels.
schrodinger's cat
@JoyfulA: Bethesda is quite expensive, but a great place to hang out. Silver Spring and Greenbelt in MD were cheaper compared to NoVa suburbs like say Arlington or Falls Church. I have no idea why that was. This was about 7 to 8 years ago. I moved out of the area in 2009.
ETA: There are more black people in MD, may be that’s why, I don’t know.
schrodinger's cat
@JoyfulA: Bethesda is quite expensive, but a great place to hang out. Silver Spring and Greenbelt in MD were cheaper compared to NoVa suburbs like say Arlington or Falls Church. I have no idea why that was. This was about 7 to 8 years ago. I moved out of the area in 2009.
ETA: The DC suburbs of Maryland are older and they also have more black people. Is that why, I don’t know, just a guess.
hitchhiker
That book is terrible.
It’s a window into a snake pit, where all the snakes are fat and grinning while they stroke one another. I can’t even — it’s just indescribably terrible to witness, not least because the author knows how disgusting it is but also seems to think he can make it amusing if he tells it with just the right amount of irony.
DC is junior high with GIANT GOBS of money all over the place. That’s how I feel every time I go there.
handsmile
I’m hoping that the now-seldom-sighted (sadly) commenter Valdivia makes an appearance on this thread to shame you all with her extensive knowledge of contemporary culinary DC. I’ve been the happy beneficiary of her expertise and her company.
@Another Holocene Human:
Pray tell, when, when has Eastern Market ever been “scary”? I’ve been at least an annual visitor since 1989 and the only thing scary about it has been that Market Lunch may run out of crab cakes before one orders. :)
schrodinger's cat
@handsmile: Market Lunch is the awesome. Great crab cakes and root beer. Want!
Jewish Steel
In my neck of the woods Rolling Rock = hippie beer. When jam bands would play the club I worked at, we’d go through case upon case.
fuckwit
The Rethugs like their women pretty and flirty and submissive. They generally do not like smart, bad-ass women, though, strangely, they seemed fine with Thatcher, and they seem OK with Merkel, at least those who even know who she is.
I personally do not like Clinton, but I’m a huge fan of Elizabeth Warren. Why? It’s not about gender, or looks, or age, or submissiveness/dominance, or feminism/non-feminism, IT’S ABOUT POLICY. They are both from the same generation, both female, both feminist, both very very smart, both very accomplished, both very driven and very tough. But I agree with Warren’s agenda, I think she gets what’s wrong with this country and how to fix it, and I think she’s in it for the right reasons. I can’t say the same for Clinton.
Also, huge props for quoting Easy-E.
James E. Powell
@Chris:
Look at us! We’re men of the people, we are! Aren’t we folksy? Aren’t we down to earth? Aren’t we totally blue collar and beer drinking and not AT ALL like all those OTHER nasty elitists in DC?
You left out Jesus – they really are all about saving the world from all kinds of devils.
Visceral
@Hunter Gathers: High school doesn’t end because it’s normal: typical chimp social dynamics. Researchers have found that chimps will forgo food to be able to look at pictures of the alpha male’s face as well as to look at pictures of female chimps’ butts. Researchers have also found that human males check out other males’ crotches as well as their faces, while human females only check out the face. Jock sniffing is normal.
danielx
@Matthew Butcher:
Exactly. Anybody who can work a Richard Thompson quote into a diatribe on the tendency of Villagers to plummet to their knees in awe (so to speak) when they meet Manly Men…
Forget it, that just gave me a whole host of unwanted visuals about Jeff Gannon/Guckert interviewing Karl Rove.
The horror….
Thymezone
I agree, and more power to them. It’s fascinating to me that a party that trades on pumping up a minority base (old people, rich people, stupid people, Jesus freaks, bigots, damned fools) would spend so much time alienating an even larger coalition (women, hispanics, people with a brain, etc) and screw themselves at the national pollitics level. But hey, five out of six national elections lost … they’re on a roll. Keep up the good work, Grumpy Old People party.
jamick6000
damn that’s a good phrase and it’s true
Marc
@Another Holocene Human: You need to get the hell away from the Mall if you want a good meal in DC. Ethiopian restaurants and half smokes on U Street, Jose Andres restaurants at Gallery Place, Salvadoran restaurants and Belgian gastropubs all over the place.
mfpseth
Seconding my enjoyment of the Richard Thompson lyrics!!