It’s the only American religion with its own, separate amendment. Per Joe Coscarelli in NYMag:
Guns & Ammo, a popular magazine about firearms, does not welcome a diversity of ideas. In fact, it actively seeks to stamp them out. Contributing editor Dick Metcalf, a veteran of Shooting Times, has been straight-up fired for his December back-page opinion column titled, mildly, “Let’s Talk Limits.” Guns & Ammo does not talk limits.
In the article, Metcalf writes that “way too many gun owners still seem to believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement,” noting that “all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.” He adds, “I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, but I do not believe that they have a right to use them irresponsibly.” The nerve of this man!…
Guns & Ammo readers cannot believe it. His take sparked a response that could be accurately described as a mob with semi-automatic pitchforks…
Merely firing the writer (and printing a grovelling apology) having proved insufficient, editor Jim Bequette also ‘advance[d] the schedule’ on his own planned retirement. Check the NYMag link even if you don’t wanna go further up the river — the, uh, curated comments are probably more revealing than their posters intended.
***********
Apart from confirming the conviction that some of our fellow citizens shouldn’t be trusted with anything more dangerous than library paste, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Yatsuno
You’re giving them more credit than I would. Odds are they’d either overdose on it or get it stuck inside an orifice where extraction becomes either expensive or disgusting.
bullsmith
How you can interpret the words ” well regulated” to mean “free from regulation” is… ah hell, why am I wasting my breath.
hildebrand
Working on a lecture about Alcuin of York. Far more enjoyable than thinking about gun-fetish types.
Keith P.
It’s kind of amazing, because really, all the BoRs really are regulated to some extent. Free speech is not total, guns are regulated to some extent, there is search and seizure without warrants, there are cases where double jeopardy is possible, speedy trial is a fucking joke, as is cruel and unusual punishment, etc. Shouldn’t really seem controversial, yet is somehow is because guns over anything else are apparently sacred. Machines as gods.
EDIT: As an aside, how often has a right-winger (Sarah Palin, I’m looking at you) bitched about someone getting fired for what they said is an infringement upon their freedom of speech? Answer: A lot
lamh36
nothing much going on.
except my world was rocked this morning with this headline :-)
Idris Elba Is Off The Market… And May Be Expecting A Baby
I ain’t gonna lie, my first reaction to the news of Idris’ upcoming baby and new baby mama
DAMN DAMN DAMN!
Karen in GA
An update on Iggy the Wonder Schnauzer.
Quaker in a Basement
Library paste! Good god, woman! Don’t you know that stuff leads to deviancy and sharia law?
catclub
@bullsmith: I was not surprised to learn that militia might be a roundabout word for slave patrols.
Gin & Tonic
In the words of Rand Paul, the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: QUACK!!!
(Actually the Fighting Fashion Atrocities look pretty flat in the first half. Not that Stanford is lighting up the scoreboard either.)
NotMax
(Repeating for those who may not have seen it yesterday.)
Movie alerts on TCM (all times Eastern) –
Friday, 8:15 a.m. – The Match King – tale of avarice, hubris, the perils of unregulated markets, bubble economics, business manipulation and corruption of power (not all that dissimilar from some more contemporary machinations). And to boot, based on the true story of the worldwide rise and crash of Swedish tycoon and financial wheeler-deal Ivar Kreuger.
Monday, 3:45 a.m. – The Cars That Ate Paris – outré, grisly and macabre early horror/comedy effort by Peter Weir, a Twilight Zone-like rumination on a town reflected in a mirror, darkly.
Suffern ACE
I’m thinking of throwing in the towel on this ikea cabinet. I’m not a rocket scientist and I need a third thumb.
John O
I’m enjoying a nice and rare college football Thursday game night, what with 4 top 10 teams in action. Without a dog in the hunt, I’m for OR and Baylor (of all schools).
The gun debate is over and I lost. But I really enjoyed Wonkette’s take, if you haven’t yet read it.
raven
This time change is killin me, up since 4:00 am I I feel like I need to stay up a while longer but I’m fading.
BruceFromOhio
Hmmmm…. ‘retirement’.
Pretty sure that’s what it was called when the Blade Runners killed the replicants.
Of course, Guns & Ammo means it in a different way. Mostly.
scav
Ahhh, smell that ‘mercan FRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEDDDDUUUUUUUUMMMMM they all hates us for.
Mike in NC
We saw a billboard on the highway advertising an upcoming gun show. It read “Get your Guns while you still can!”
No way to lose money pandering to wingnut paranoia.
BruceFromOhio
@Keith P.:
…and sometimes even those *with* warrants are, shall we say, unnecessarily invasive and inhuman.
Oh, and don’t throw rocks at Border Patrol agents, you’ll be shot.
Karen in GA
@Suffern ACE: I’m a freak — we have some Ikea furniture and I actually liked putting it together.
? Martin
@John O:
Don’t be so sure. CA is continuing to pass restrictions. We’re the fat lady, and we ain’t nowhere near ready to sing.
SiubhanDuinne
@hildebrand:
Don’t know anything about him except that he had something to do with Charlemagne. Expand, please?
Digital Amish
Jesus christ. The writer simply stated that he thought some mandatory instruction to qualify for a CCW permit was reasonable. The ‘nuts’ in the phrase ‘gun nuts’ is not misapplied. I know a couple.
TriassicSands
The publisher of Guns and Ammo is clearly a moral and mental defective. To allow someone to publish an opinion column and then, when faced with the frothing anger of the mob (G&A’s readership) to fire that writer is the height of cowardice.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Chris Christie just appeared on Michael J. Fox’s sitcom. Ugh. At least Fox dozed off while interviewing him.
Anoniminous
@hildebrand:
Was he or wasn’t he?
Teh Ghey, that is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: Many Swedes are actually brown moties. Most people don’t know that.
fuckwit
Reposting this, again and again, because it has not yet been said better:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/dec/15/our-moloch/
kdaug
2nd amendment? Pure Holy Gospel?
What was the 18th amendment?
What was the 21nd?
This shit ain’t written in stone.
Put down your beer and back away slowly.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
/Rand Paul
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I am the Walrus
/Rand Paul
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
I woke up at three o’ fuckin’ clock this morning. Could not get back to sleep no matter how I tried. Old age and return to Standard Time conspire to fuck me up royally.
seaboogie
Actually, in following the link, there were a lot more reasoned comments than I anticipated. And the reasoned ones keep coming back, so it feels like there is some hope there in the gun community, of which I do not count myself in that number.
Moreover, there seem to be more reasoned responses in this community than there are in the Republican political community – both pols and citizens. Maybe because it’s not just a few people trying to keep their jobs (on the public teat that they disdain) while fucking up the country and fostering fear and hatred in that goal, but individual citizens able to hold forth without fear of losing their access to power. It’s actually quite an honest discussion that is interesting to follow. The nutters are totally reactionary and name-calling knee-jerkers, but it is enlightening to follow people not of my tribe (gun owners) who have some perspective.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
/Rand Paul
Betty Cracker
@Suffern ACE: We gutted our kitchen and redid the entire thing with stuff from Ikea. It’s great once it’s done, but gott damn! Putting it together can be a bitch! I still have nightmares where that little cartoon man is chasing me with an allen wrench…
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, has nostrud pertinax platonem cu. Conceptam accommodare mea ei, modus paulo omittantur per eu. Populo vivendo cu has, cu mutat integre meliore vim. Cu liber mucius voluptatibus cum. Stet antiopam an eum, vitae salutandi neglegentur vix ei. Alia augue ea vis. An vim accommodare consequuntur conclusionemque.
/Rand Paul
pseudonymous in nc
It really doesn’t matter if the readers had a shit fit. Readers don’t pay the bills at BangBang and GunGunz. What happened here is that a few advertisers got on the phone and made it clear that their double-page centerfold for the latest assault rifle with scopes and shit was on hold until the badthinker was canned.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman:
This is why, this is why, this is why I’m hot
I’m hot ’cause I’m fly, you ain’t cause you not
This is why, this is why, this is why I’m hot
I’m hot ’cause I’m fly, you ain’t cause you not
This is why, this is why, this is why I’m hot
/Rand Paul
John O
Stanford The Cardinal is simply having their way with the vaunted Ducks. Long way to go, but they seem to have it figured out.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Hah! I just noticed the same thing. Said fuck it and went to Elementary on the DVR for a while. At least there I can fast-forward through the commercials.
Karen in GA
@Omnes Omnibus: My humps, my lovely lady lumps.
/Rand Paul
Steeplejack
I killed a man in the Library of Congress just to watch him die. But it took a while because library paste.
Karen in GA
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, actually, the walrus was Paul.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
So let it be written, so let it be done.
/Rand Paulr
Anoniminous
@efgoldman:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright.
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
/Rand Paul
Omnes Omnibus
@Karen in GA: I am glad someone caught that.
Redshirt
My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard.
Damn right,
they’re better then yours.
/Rand Paul
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Okay, that’s funny!
/typographer
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Typographical history.
AliceBlue
Algy met a bear
A bear met Algy
The bear was bulgy
The bulge was Algy
/Rand Paul
Redshirt
I AM the Senate!
/Rand Paul
Pogonip
Where’s the mustard?
–Rand Paul
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
And the reciprocal of ETAOIN SHRDLU to your good wife.
hildebrand
@SiubhanDuinne: Fascinating guy – monk, teacher, school master, became the head of the palace school at Aachen in 781 – one of Charlemagne’s most influential advisors. Reformed writing (helped popularize Caroline minuscule), was a staunch advocate for the liberal arts curriculum, and thought it important to read secular and sacred authors. Additionally, he revised the liturgy, produced a very clean and readable version of the Bible, and developed important libraries at both Aachen and Tours (where he became abbot in 797). His educational reforms shaped medieval schools for centuries.
Caroline minuscule was a big deal, in that it was exceptionally helpful in streamlining medieval latin, introducing lovely concepts like spaces between words, standardized spelling, upper and lower case letters, and the use of punctuation. Alcuin was a tireless advocate for the script, insuring that it would catch on across the empire.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
It’s still used pretty often. When you’re trying to look at a page as a design, actual readable text can distract your eye, so you use a swatch of Lorem ipsum, or “printer’s Greek,” so you can just look at the font size and weight and other design elements.
I have a link to a Web site that will blat out a piece of varied Lorem ipsum of whatever length you require.
And when I started at my first newspaper job in ’72 the “composing room” was just off the newsroom, and the clanking of the Linotype machines was a near constant background noise. But that was okay, because the noise of the manual typewriters in the newsroom drowned that out. Heh.
eemom
Rude Pundit has a great post today on this very thing.
Might want to consider broadening the targets of serial copyright infringement once in a while, AL. Jussayinzall.
JGabriel
It seems interesting that most of the people who believe the right to own a gun should not be restricted, also believe that the right to vote should be.
Very odd, that.
SiubhanDuinne
@hildebrand:
That rings a bunch of bells. Years ago (25 or more, I expect) I read a book by Andrew Taylor with the title Caroline Minuscule. Will have to dig it out and reread.
Interesting that spacing between words was such a great innovation in the day, one which seems to have largely disappeared in the age of URLs and hashtags.
handsmile
It’s Joni Mitchell’s 70th birthday today.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/nov/07/joni-mitchell-70-birthday-blue
Which makes me feel very, very, very old. (though I’m still more than a decade younger than the birthday girl.) I’ve certainly drunk a case of her over the years.
Hejira is her album that has held up the best for me, though a personal greatest hits album would feature songs from at least a half dozen others. And I must admit that I’ve listened less attentively to her work from the 1990s onward.
I wonder if the damned kidz these days listen to her at all.
(my apologies if “Happy Birthday” has already been sung hereabouts to Ms. Mitchell; been otherwise engaged today)
JGabriel
handsmile:
Blue/For The Roses/Court and Spark is one of the greatest three-consecutive-album streaks of the 20th C.
.
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: Let It Bleed/Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street is a pretty good one.
johnny aquitard
This is watershed. Guns and Ammo Firing Dick Metcalf is like Southern civil war enactors firing Shelby Foote for pointing out that slavery had something to do with the civil war. Or like the firing of Bruce Bartlett, except only if Bartlett had the stature of Reagan. Or something like that.
Metcalf is a sportsman foremost, and a firearms expert, writer and enthusiast and historian. He is the intellectual and cultural connection in this country with the history and culture of hunting and firearms in Anerica, back to when men were alive who still had memories of the frontier.
This means the NRA coalition is breaking up. The non-crazy, the seemingly mythical responsible gun owners are questioning and pushing back against the crazy. And the crazy are responding with purity purges.
I want the NRA exposed for what it is, an organization that is deeply anti-American and hostile to what sportsmen like Dick Metcalf believe in, namely, gun ownership is merely a part of American life that is cognizant and tolerant and respectful and responsive to the other parts of the varied mosaic of American life.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
True what you say. I went into a a bit of a Proustian reverie because I was remembering that sound of a noisy newsroom back then, which would be inconceivable now: dozens of typewriters clacking—and dinging at the end of each line—phones ringing constantly, all in that standard Bell ring tone that people now use “ironically” on their cell phones, the background clanking of the Linotype machines in the next room (they made constant “housekeeping” noises even when you weren’t typing on them), the occasional machine-gun sound of stuff coming in on the high-speed wire service printers, etc. Not to mention all the people talking and occasionally yelling. And smoking. Lots of smoking back then.
Goddamn it, where’s my green eyeshade and sleeve garters?!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack:
Oh my god, I am a hipster.
Karen in GA
@handsmile: She’s one of those artists I’ve always meant to get into, beyond the Greatest Hits collection I’ve had for a few years. Finally, after coming across the Guardian article today, I bought Hejira. It’s the first of what I’m sure will be many Joni Mitchell albums added to my collection.
I’m looking forward to this.
Redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: U2 The Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum/Achtung Baby is a contender. I note the very different styles of all three albums especially.
handsmile
@efgoldman:
Thanks for the links!
And btw, several days ago while reading through an unspooled thread, I came upon your recommendation of Russell Sherman performance of Liszt’s “Transcendental Etudes.” I shouted out both in agreement and at seeing his name. Sherman has a cult reputation as a pianist, one nurtured in part I expect by his monkish demeanor, but I’m among the devotees. I last heard him two summers ago at the Mannes School of Music performing Schoenberg’s complete piano works.
Also too, as a Boston classical music aficionado/professional, are you familiar with the pianist Stephen Drury? I’m pretty sure he’s a NEC faculty member. Most of his concertizing explores 20th-c. or contemporary compositions. I find him astounding.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
No surprise there.
To be fair, I have always had that Bell ring tone on my cell phones. I originally downloaded it as an MP3 from some retro-nerd site around 2000 or ’01, then it started showing up on the list of default tones. I have had to adjust because now when I’m out and I hear that sound it’s not automatically my phone that is ringing. My lawn, the kids are on it!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I almost always have mine on silent so the ringtone really doesn’t matter.
ETA: No neckbeard. No skinny jeans. No PBR, except in a real working class bar where that is what people are drinking.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
I was a nonsmoker, and I can remember being in the minority at the island of 10-12 pushed-together reporters’ desks.
handsmile
@JGabriel:
That’s an assessment I can only agree with. If the desert island collection permits two Mitchell albums, Court and Spark would be my second.
@Karen in GA:
I’m pleased to know that you’ve embarked on that musical adventure! I hope (and trust) you’ll find Hejira to be a refuge.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah, those are more poseur traits to me. You are a vrai hipster, what with your taste in music, your discerning temperament and the (no doubt sultry) Eastern European ex. There’s probably a pack of stale Gitanes somewhere in your house right now.
johnny aquitard
@efgoldman: I still have my mother’s Olivetti Lettera 22 portable. It’s a sleek, beautiful machine. My mom could type 75 words per minute on it, with zero corrections. It was totally mechanical. Try even 45 wpm on a mechanical. You need the finger strength and agility of a pianist.
handsmile
@efgoldman:
“I don’t keep up at all the way I used to.”
Well then, you make a pretty convincing impersonation of it on those occasions when the discussion here turns to music performance/production.
I envy you all the free tickets (and the glorious music you must have heard), but that’s proper professional courtesy. When I lived in Boston, many were the Saturday afternoons outside of Symphony Hall awaiting the discount ticket distribution.
And while living there, I was among those full-house audiences for Sherman’s NEC recitals. I used the word “cult” because he seems to perform rarely and I understand he sharply divides music critics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I never smoked, but if I did it would have been the Morland’s Balkan blend with three gold rings smoked by James Bond in the Fleming novels.
It is odd the extent to which my ideas of manliness and cool have been formed by my dad, Fleming’s Bond, and Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.
Steeplejack
@johnny aquitard:
I had a Hermes 3000 portable that my parents gave me in about 1969 that I used all through college and into my 20s. Traded it in in the mid-’70s for my ultimate dream machine, an IBM Selectric II. Loved both of those machines and wish I still had them.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
It has been years since I read any of the Bond novels, but he is definitely a different character from the one played by Sean Connery in the movies. (Connery is the only screen Bond who even comes close to the book character, in my opinion.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, and champagne as a late night snack. FTW.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
True dat. And I’ve always said that if I could drink champagne every day life would be perfect.
johnny aquitard
@johnny aquitard: The platen moved on a carriage past the point where the keys’ strikebar heads focused to strike against the paper wrapped around the platen roller. When the platen roller reached the furthest leftward travel, that was the end of a line, and a bell would ring. A real bell, musical and bright and silvery in its tone.
I realize my kids will never have that memory, the silvery peal of a real bell in everyday appliances. Or even in church bells. Or anything. When was the last time you heard a real bell?
Metallic bells are under appreciated or even forgotten, yet when heard linger in our sense memory like effects of fresh ginger or nutmeg. Even the most dimunitive and subtle of the musical examples remain vibrating in our memory long after the bell itself ceases motion.
Steeplejack
@johnny aquitard:
I’m mad that I never felt comfortable using those “call for service” bells at business counters. And now they’re all gone. Can’t remember the last time I saw one.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard: More cowbell?
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Still see those aplenty. Particularly at the post office.
Matt McIrvin
@johnny aquitard: You can still occasionally find some all-electromechanical pinball machines from before the late 70s. Metal bells were their primary sound effect.
scav
@johnny aquitard: I’ve still got bells, even the pull on rope school-bell come-in-from-recess memories and have been lucky in residences since. So bells in places can hang on. My stunned feeling of loss was in discovering my cousins kids entirely lacked the joy of eating corn on the cob as a typewriter (to loop back one topic). They probably didn’t fully understand the technology behind it, but they adored making the ding after a row of chewing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: Jesus. A couple of weeks ago, I was home for my mom’s b-day and we had dinner at her fav old pizza place. While waiting for food, my dad was paying for his grandkids to play videogames and someone challenged him to try something. So he jumped on a pinball machine and, without having played in years, found himself at number 2. It was awesome because other people in the family had tried that game and quickly lost their three ball. Dad went through 11.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
The Spousal Unit just had one of those moments — kid in the manga he was reading talked about the weirdness of visiting his friend’s family’s manion: “It’s just like a museum, all the old stuff they have — samuri armour, and telephones with dials!”
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Buggy whips mean nothing to us. Big deal.
johnny aquitard
@Steeplejack: I typed most of my papers in college on my mother’s olivetti portable (as if almost 20 pounds in a case the size of a carry-on bag is portable).
I was a freshman in college in 1983, and the Apple Macintosh, the forerunner of personal computing, came out in 1984. For the entirety of my college career you could either go to the library or VAX computing lab before 5 pm on Sunday to print out your paper, or you could type it out at 3 am in your room on your portable after you’d finished it at 1am.
It was a no-brainer.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard: I hand wrote and paid someone to type it for me. Early to mid 80s as well.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: That deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard: It was amazing to watch. Pinball was the video games of his timeframe. But it involved body movements and such. It was very cool.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: I hand wrote it too because corrections and revisions were so much easier to do in long-hand. Revisions on the typewriter, one quickly learns, are counter-productive.
Never thought I could pay someone to type it for me. Then again, who would at 3 am? Everyone I knew was either long asleep or desperately typing out their own papers.
Steeplejack
@johnny aquitard:
Get off my lawn! The IBM PC came out in 1981, and I did “personal computing” on a CP/M machine and an Apple II before that.
[Personal anecdote name-checking Bill Gates redacted.]
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, actually, they’ve acquired a rather different meaning — although I don’t think typewriters will ever quite pick up the kinky weight of that particular “lost” technology. What fascinates me is the persistence of steam technology when it comes to children and trains. It’s always chuffa-chuffa-chuffa-chuffa. I’ve seen a kid go bonkers and make that noise when he saw an airport luggage ‘train’ — rails optional, but engine sound from great-granddad’s playlist.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard: I had a person who would type for me if I gave the draft to her before 2am. Guaranteed by 8am.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Remember the short market life of the IBM Peanut?
Ah, 1981. The time of the Sinclair/Timex PC.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes. It was a dance.
Sometimes I have thought it looked like a rape. Sometimes it was a fuck. Sometimes, the best, it was a dance. It was something more; there was also syle and perhaps even a grammar to it. There was a language.
You can know a lot about how a man views women by how he dances. As my mother said to me long ago, most men want women, only some actually like women.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: Wish I had had a girlfriend like that. : )
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard: I get the like vs. want thing. One sees it a lot.
@johnny aquitard: I paid a reasonable wage for every paper sonone typed for me.
Anne Laurie
@johnny aquitard:
One of my favorite Jules Feiffer cartoons: “Men don’t hate women. Men need women. Men hate needing!“
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: That is kind of bitchy.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: Does it help, if I point out those words came from a male character?
(Since I literally grew up reading Feiffer, I tend to forget he can be an acquired taste.)
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: Kinda sorta but kinda sorta not.
We hate needing. True enough. But, Annie, hating needing is not just men, it’s not gender specific. It’s what any human being who wants to be their own autonomous person would value. It’s not a man thing, it’s what it means to be an adult human being.
And yet, we need others. Perhaps that is the completion of adulthood, the reconciliation of needing to be autonomous and yet needing others.
But only some of us conflate the needing of women with the resentment of needing to be an adult.
I need women. I am missing something vital without them, and I do not mean sex.
How strange it is to go through life with a woman, and how much stranger it is to go without. They always find the kookiest way to end up pretty much at the same place I’m at. I’ve always been kind of fascinated by that. It’s the road not taken, nor one I could ever take.
It’s as if I am reading a baedeker I can never fully translate. I don’t fully get it but I would hate to make the journey without it.
johnny aquitard
@johnny aquitard: My wife would say, “I come around to where you are? Huh. You mean you find eventually yourself where I am.”
And it’d be true that it’s as good one way as the other if the aim is to be where you are and not how you got there or whose idea it was. But I’d not thought of that until she pointed it out.
tybee
@Omnes Omnibus:
but on the gripping hand…
Cervantes
@Yatsuno: Odds are they’d either overdose on it or get it stuck inside an orifice where extraction becomes either expensive or disgusting.
Well, yes. And your point is …?
J R in WV
@efgoldman:
I actually operated a Linotype for a couple of years. I saw that computers and phototypesetting was gonna replace all that complex machinery and molten lead, and wanted to get in on a craft that was going to disappear soon.
So I knew Etoain Shrdlu, but I never used a Latin piece. We were doing a newspaper, and didn’t have time to edit stuff for how it guttered or lined up, for the most part. Early in a shift we might reset an editorial, but late sports and the wire, that stuff went in as set, as long as it was spelled rite.
Original Lee
@Suffern ACE: Actually, many of the rocket scientists I know would also have difficulties assembling an Ikea cabinet.