Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

This really is a full service blog.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

When we show up, we win.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Second rate reporter says what?

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

In after Baud. Damn.

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Open Thread

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Beautiful day today, and I got a bunch of cleaning and other stuff down, and now I am just waiting for the Steelers to suck up the joint at 8 pm.

Hurt my big toe pretty bad today. I was washing dishes, and I had a real heavy fiestaware serving bowl all soaped up and got an inexplicable wave of the heebiejeebies. I shivered and shuddered momentarily and lost grip on the damned serving bowl, and wouldn’t you know all the weight and force of the drop was focused on the outer lip of the bowl as it hit my left big toe. I screamed and almost fell over Steve as I hopped around yelling obscenities.

I’ve broken all my fingers and toes and know that this isn’t broken- truth be told it hasn’t even turned blue or swollen, although that may just be my body giving up – “Fuck it. He’ll hurt something else in a couple hours. Let’s sleep in and swell up whatever he hurts later on today.” But it sure hurts like hell and I am gimping all over the place.

At any rate, go Stillers!

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  1. 1.

    PeakVT

    I am just waiting for the Steelers to suck up the joint at 8 pm.

    The Steelers are going to suck up a joint on teevee? Isn’t that against the law?

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Aren’t the Pirates doing well for the first time in a generation? Or are you not a baseball person?

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    My advice remains the same: get laid immediately.

    I am going to be in Dallas in December with Mr. Suzanne on our anniversary weekend. We would like to go to an awesome restaurant and do something cool. Recommendations would be awesome.

  10. 10.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Baud: It was rather sad last year. I was down there late in July to deliver my son to school (CMU, but he had stuff to do for almost a month pre-start-of-classes.) and they had “Go Bucs!” on the destination crawls of all the Port Authority buses, and the traffic signs at the Squirrel Hill tunnel, and cards in the windows of all the storefronts on East Carson…. and a week after I left, they folded like a card table.

    I so hope they make it to the playoffs. PNC Park may be the best sports venue I’ve ever been in, and the world should get to see more of it than what’s in the background of an ESPN highlight clip.

  11. 11.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Housework is dangerous – as you prove time and time again. Is the bowl all right?

  12. 12.

    Sandia Blanca

    If it’s Saturday, it must be time for a John Cole injury story. Love the theory that your body has just given up–who can blame it! Anyway, hope it feels better soon.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    If I ever figured out how to post photos, I could share the pictorial record of my foot after I dropped the iPad on it. Vivid bruising? Check. Swelling like a turgid adolescent male? Check. Wound on top of foot the size and general appearance of a Louisiana sinkhole? Check.

  21. 21.

    Suzanne

    @Tokyokie: I am vegetarian but I like every kind of cuisine except those that are greasy or do weird things with random body parts (Scottish). My husband is also broad in his tastes. We will be out for a company celebration but will have one day to ourselves—and it happens to be our wedding anniversary. So we want to go somewhere somewhat posh, the kind of place where we typically don’t go because we have children. I have never been to Dallas but would love to go someplace that is rather iconic to the city, if such a thing exists.

  23. 23.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Suzanne: In Dallas, “Iconic to the city” means Texas steak. Might want to go with quirky.

    ETA: I’ve never lived there, but did my time there on bindness. One of the locals here on this here blog might be helpful.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Sad news about Linda Ronstadt. Parkinson’s is a bitch — I’ve had family members and close friends afflicted, and there’s really nothing nice I can say about it.

    Funnily, I was radio-dial scanning earlier in the car and heard a brief piece of news alluding to “walking on sticks and using a wheelchair when she travels.” But I was too late to hear who the “she” was, and the newsreader didn’t repeat the name. Wasn’t until someone (Raven? Yutsy?) in the downstairs thread mentioned her name that I went Googling (expecting to see an obit) and realized it was the same story.

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    I would also just like to note that when I asked my Facebook friends for recommendations on a new dishwasher, John commented on my post that I shouldn’t get one at all due to planned obsolescence, and that I should wash my dishes by hand.

    I feel VERY SMUG right now. All of **MY** toes are intact right now.

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven: I vaguely remember trying to set up a Flickr account a couple of years ago and having a lot of trouble just in establishing a new account. I will give it another try and see if things go better (although I was joking about posting those photos I described — nobody wants to see photos of my feet even on a good day, let alone after a trauma).

  30. 30.

    Garbo

    Ditto. Only in my case it was a 30″ television I dropped on my big toe, and a corner as well so all the weight was concentrated. Broke the bone, lost the nail, drove myself to the ER in a stick shift car. Good times.

    Feeling sad today that 25 years ago I was in DC for the 25th anniversary of the March on Washington and lately we’re arguing about the Voting Rights Act. Shit is fucked up and bullshit, I say.

  31. 31.

    AdamK

    Some day Cole will do some mundane chore and not get injured, and we’ll all faint dead away from surprise.

  32. 32.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Suzanne: I used to have to travel there alot when I worked for Satan, I liked “Dick’s Last Resort”. It’s a chain now, but started in Dallas. It’s quirky, but probably a bit much for an anniversary. On the other hand I took all the office staff I was working with there once, they liked it; they were primarily older women(legal secretaries).

  34. 34.

    shelly

    “Sad news about Linda Ronstadt. Parkinson’s is a bitch”
    ************
    Bad enough having your mobility affected, but it says that it’s hampered her ability to sing.

  35. 35.

    Ben Cisco

    Traveled to see the sisters-in-law, got to spend some more time with the kids, and am thoroughly exhuasted.

    Gonna settle down to an evening of watching preseason football and doing as little else as possible.

    Ben Cisco +2 Soco&Limes

  37. 37.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    Well, you know me anyway. And yes, PNC Park is truly awesome. And they finally have a team worthy of its beauty. Be great to have some playoff ball played there. Also, the food is freakin’ awesome there, too. A lot of real ‘Burgh fare.

  39. 39.

    Tokyokie

    Suzanne, The best steakhouse in Dallas that I’ve tried is Pappas Brothers. But it doesn’t have a whole lot to offer other than red meat, which it does quite well. The French Room in the Adolphus Hotel is highly rated, as is the restaurant in the boutique hotel, St. Germain’s. (The latter offers a prixe fixe menu that changes daily, so you should inquire about that.) If you want quirky, you might try Fogo de Chão, a Brazilian steakhouse where your husband can get stuffed to the gills, but which has a tremendous salad bar at which you can get your fill as well. And if you’ll eat seafood, you might try Truluck’s.

    And with all due respect to the previous poster, Dick’s Last Resort is a bit downscale for an anniversary dinner, and definitely isn’t romantic.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I have been to Dick’s Last Resort, but in San Diego.

    @Tokyokie: Fogo de Chāo is also a chain, and we have one here in Phoenix (Scottsdale). I took my husband one year for his birthday, and he loved it. I got to freak out on their lovely salad bar.

    We will be staying at the Magnolia Hotel, but I will definitely check out the Feench Room and the St. Germain. Thanks for the recommendations!

  45. 45.

    geg6

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Winger and Kerry, no doubt in my mind. Winger and Kerry both strike me as difficult people. Ronstadt seems very cool and down to earth. And that was in Brown’s Governor Moonbeam phase, when he was all spiritual and New Agey. He seems to have toughened up, at least image-wise, since then to me.

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman: I’m also trying to figure out Flickr (see my #29), so I’ll cheerfully share any hints with you. I, for one, can’t wait to see pictures of the new efgolddaughter!

  48. 48.

    Tokyokie

    @Suzanne: I know Fogo de Chão is a chain, but it’s not too widespread, so I thought it might be something different. (And I believe that the Dallas-area location was the first outside Brazil.) But it’s also up in Addison, which is a bit of a haul, and both The French Room and St. Germain are in or near downtown. And they’d both be more romantic than Fogo de Chão or Dick’s Last Resort.

    Dallas has a lot of good, high-end steakhouses, but none of them offer much for non-meat-eaters. And the better BBQ joints (which are even worse in that regard), tend to be over on the Fort Worth side of the Metroplex.

  49. 49.

    JPL

    @Suzanne: It has been decades since I lived in Dallas but back then the Mansion was an upscale restaurant. It is now called the Rosewood Mansion. In the mid eighties, Dallas was known for shopping and Ft. Worth for the arts.

  50. 50.

    Tokyokie

    @efgoldman: Truluck’s is OK for seafood, which in Dallas, puts it near the top. But one can find better seafood in Houston or Galveston, which doesn’t do somebody stuck in Dallas a whole lot of good.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @geg6: I actually never cared much for Winger (and the name has nothing to do with it, I didn’t care for her long before the term “winger” had political connotations).

    Ronstadt is a terrific musician, and really funny and, as you say, down to earth. A few years ago she was the guest on the “Not My Job” segment of NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” which I heard the first time it aired and at least twice subsequently on rebroadcasts. Delightful, natural, witty personality. I am just devastated for her about the Parkinsonism. Age and disease, just sucks, you know?

  53. 53.

    Billy Dilly

    Watching High School football on ESPN, watching future stars of the SEC, well the games are being played in Georgia or South Carolina.

  56. 56.

    Kineslaw

    @Suzanne: I celebrated my birthday at Bolsa and enjoyed it. I would describe it as upscale, quirky food, excellent drinks, but not the fanciest place.

  57. 57.

    Redshirt

    Am I bad person for generally not liking clumsy people? I mean the truly clumsy. They might be nice, and I might be nice to them, but deep down, I don’t like them because they’re clumsy. I’d probably never say so, but I’d also generally stay clear of them if I could, because the clumsy can spread.

    Cole, while he seems clumsy enough, to be sure, can’t truly be, right? I mean, he was a college athlete – you need a certain amount of co-ordination to be able to do that.

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @piratedan: Dick’s is fun. We are going out there for a big party, though. Our first time going WITHOUT OUR KIDS, so we want to go to the kind of restaurants we don’t typically get to hit.

    @JPL: don’t worry. I didn’t forget to not go there.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Suzanne:

    Quirky is also fine.

    You want quirky? There is nothing more quirky than a Southern Baptist. They got lots of them in DFW.

  61. 61.

    Felonius Monk

    I certainly hope you took that poor serving bowl to the emergency room to be checked out. Anything less could be considered Fiestaware abuse.

  62. 62.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: Yeah, I grew up on the North Shore of Long Island. I’ll be skipping the Dallas seafood. My husband can freak out on a steak, though.

  63. 63.

    catclub

    @efgoldman: I know Dallas ain’t Madrid, but Madrid is nowhere near a coast but has great seafood. It cost the earth in 1985 when I was there, but good.

  65. 65.

    Redshirt

    @efgoldman:

    Maybe he took too many hits to the head.

    Possible. Maybe he got gassed in Iraq and didn’t know it, and now is suffering some kind of nerve degradation.

    I mean, the number of accidents is staggering. I can’t even understand how it’s possible for a person ostensibly possessed of most of their senses to have as many accidents as Cole – and we’ve probably only heard of a small percentage of them.

  66. 66.

    p.a.

    @Redshirt: I think that’s why he went/was placed into tanks: you can’t trip, drop a tank and have it go off like you can a rifle. Although if he handled shells…

  67. 67.

    Bob In Portland

    Cole, cut down on the drinking and you’ll cut down on the heebiejeebies. You never know when a cat or dog may be down around your feet.

    The Steelers don’t seem to be having much problem with the Chiefs.

  69. 69.

    Pogonip

    I work with a guy whose boyfriend had brain surgery for Parkinson’s and it helped him quite a bit. I did not know much about the disease till that came up.

  70. 70.

    JPL

    @Redshirt: Since his father’s accident with the chipper, I decided that it’s genetic. I do hope that he’ll update us about the bowl though.

  71. 71.

    Citizen_X

    @Redshirt: I think it’s all a ploy to leave his house a mess. If guests say, “John, geez, why don’t you clean up a bit?” he can say, “DON’T YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS HOUSEWORK IS FOR ME?”

  72. 72.

    gbear

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I was never sure which was the weirder coupling, Linda Ronstadt and Jerry Brown, or Debra Winger and Bob Kerrey.

    I’ll put in a vote for Gregg Allman and Cher.

    Twin Cities meet-up was nice. Six Juicers + one spouse. I’m going to embarrass myself by forgetting two of the names, but the folks I can remember were imonlylurking, newdealfarmgrrrlll, and Schlemizel plus spouse (she has the pictures). One of the guys recently returned from a teaching gig in China so many regulars probably know who that is. Apologies for forgetting names. Glenn Greenwald’s name was never once mentioned.

    imonlylurking brought helium balloons and some other fun stuff that we never quite got around to. As I was leaving, I saw her giving all of the balloons and treats to a table with a couple of little kids. They looked pretty happy about the surprise gifts. I thought that was really cool.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    Did my grocery shopping for the week. I don’t know if I can substitute fresh figs for dried apricots, but I’m going to try it — they were on sale at Whole Paycheck and I’m not a huge fan of dried apricots.

  76. 76.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    At one time, worked at an establishment just beyond Manhasset’s Miracle Mile (where everyone wears a smile).

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Wish her well and all that, but still rankle at recalling witnessing (and being on the receiving end of) an entitled diva tantrum from Ms. R in the early 1970s. (Incidentally, I prevailed in that altercation and she grudgingly agreed to get on stage and perform.)

  77. 77.

    max

    @Suzanne: I am going to be in Dallas in December with Mr. Suzanne on our anniversary weekend. We would like to go to an awesome restaurant and do something cool. Recommendations would be awesome.

    I am vegetarian but I like every kind of cuisine except those that are greasy or do weird things with random body parts (Scottish). My husband is also broad in his tastes. We will be out for a company celebration but will have one day to ourselves—and it happens to be our wedding anniversary. So we want to go somewhere somewhat posh, the kind of place where we typically don’t go because we have children. I have never been to Dallas but would love to go someplace that is rather iconic to the city, if such a thing exists.

    Iconic for Dallas is corny dogs at the state fair, a taquiera over on Hines or something like that.

    We will be staying at the Magnolia Hotel, but I will definitely check out the Feench Room and the St. Germain.

    Well, then you’re downtown. Are you renting a car? Because lots of places are too far without driving. (Of course, if you want to spring for a cab that works.) Anyways, you want posh.

    I was thinking Del Frisco’s, or Arthur’s, both in Addison (where I used to live), but that’s a bit of a haul up the Tollway from downtown. So maybe Nick and Sam’s or Al Biernat’s (in the gay neighborhoods) but if you want *posh*, Bailey’s is probably it. You might see a politician or oil man you don’t like. Certainly you’d be around the kind of Park Cities types that give me the hives. But monogrammed leftovers boxes. Posh.

    max
    [‘If I wanted iconic, probably Campisi’s would be my choice. He’s mobbed up, so that’s cool.’]

  78. 78.

    Sarah in Brooklyn

    @John Cole – I just saw my podiatrist because I thought I might have broken a toe and he said that broken toes often don’t swell and turn blue so be careful, even if it doesn’t look that bad!

  79. 79.

    mainmati

    Watching “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” for the umpteenth time but first time on HD (PBS). Yes, it is a spaghetti Western but easily the best ever made. Still one of my favorites.

  81. 81.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Tokyokie: If you went to Pappas Bros in Dallas, then you were also by all the other ones they own – the Mexican place, the seafood/Cajun place, and the BBQ place. Each is pretty good, though I’m partial to the Mexican one.

  83. 83.

    trollhattan

    @gbear:

    I’ll put in a vote for Gregg Allman and Cher.

    Shudder. What was somebody saying recently about missing the ’70s?

    I toss in Joyce Maynard and JD Salinger.

  84. 84.

    Tokyokie

    @mainmati: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo is probably my all-time favorite movie — what other movie can be accurately described as a nihilist epic? — but you should check out the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Corbucci, especially Il grande silenzio and Vamos a matar, compañeros, as well as Quién sabe? or any other spaghetti Western with Gian Maria Volonté.

  87. 87.

    Anne Laurie

    @Redshirt:

    I mean, the number of accidents is staggering. I can’t even understand how it’s possible for a person ostensibly possessed of most of their senses to have as many accidents as Cole – and we’ve probably only heard of a small percentage of them.

    Being “accident prone” is one of the standard markers for ADD. Theory is it’s mostly a failure to pay attention to what we’re doing (“we have two focus-on-task settings, zero and eleven“). But some of it seems to be another part of the neurological mis-setting… early intervention for ADD kids involves teaching them physical skills like skipping that “normal” kids pick up without thinking about it.

    Not that getting hit in the head (lacrosse, soccer) was liable to help!

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    @max: I will check all of those out. I don’t know if we’re renting a car yet. My company is arranging most of our transport, but we want to real off and do our own thing on the last day. If we decide to leave the downtown area, we’ll probably just take a cab. I heard there’s a nice sculpture garden, and apparently the Perot Museum is worth visiting, too. I am not much of a shopper, and Scottsdale has all the high-end shopping I think I could ever want to do anyway, so feh.

    My company’s building is right behind the Schoolbook Depository, so I am hoping to go check that out.

    Thanks for the recommendations. If you ever are visiting Phoenix and want the 411, let me know.

  89. 89.

    mainmati

    @Tokyokie: Thank you for that comment. I was, in another life, a student of the Civil War and the lack of commentary on the common brutality of the war and its intersection with civilian life never mind the “Western front” (Texas, Kansas, Missouri) which while not really important did have a role. I suspect the battle of the bridge in this fiilm is not historical but is very representative of the senseless slaughter of many of the Civil War battles. That and the reference to torture of prisoners while the soldiers sing is a beautiful part of the film (I speak as a “Yankee” – it goes to human rights; this was not part of the movie genre in the 1960s. Sergio Leone introduced a number of other film innovations with this movie that makes this one of my all time favorites.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    Was in Dallas a few years ago and standing in front of the school book depository my first reaction was, this doesn’t look anything like the pictures I remember. I was expecting a much more imposing place, what with that much history.

  94. 94.

    Patty K

    If you go to the book depository, you will see that Oswald could have fired at the motorcade when it was coming straight at him but supposedly waited until it had turned a corner and was moving away from him at a 45 degree angle. Perhaps he just liked to make things hard for himself.

  95. 95.

    Rosalita

    good luck with that. I had a similar incident with a slippery glass that hit my toe, then shattered on the floor and then I slipped on the spilled soda and cut my leg to shit in the broken glass. truly cole-esque moment. say goodbye to that toenail.

  96. 96.

    GooIndy

    well, I don’t watch some of the shows you mentioned, but I plan to attempt to eventually catch up on this second season of Scandal, except I don’t really like watching tv shows on my display screen when I could watch stuff of my large flat screen i don’t already have the equipment to view my computer stuff on my tv.

    Still, maybe I’m able to catch up on Scandal around my work hours on my Kindle.

  97. 97.

    LeftInTexas

    @Suzanne: For a restaurant (or hotel) in Dallas, check this out: http://www.nara.me I takes a little bit to set up, but then the recommendations are great. Works for me in Austin and Boston. Should work for you in Dallas.

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