Well, in the New Yorker, he’s gonna (further) disarm you with Dowton Abbey — and cats!:
Look, I never want to tell stories about my children, because it always seems a little lazy. Children tend to be sort of dumb, and, in the end, the stories are always the same: children say hilarious things, and I am old and dying.
So when I tell you these stories about my children let’s just pretend they are about my cats.
So my cats and I were watching “Downton Abbey” last year. (I have two cats, one girl cat, who is twelve—in cat years, obviously—and a boy cat, who is seven.) And at one point my younger cat turned to me and said, “What is that human woman trying to say to that other man?”
And I said, “That is Mary Crawley. She is trying to tell Matthew that she is in love with him.”
And my younger cat thought about it and said, “Well, that is a very hard thing to do.” And then he said, “You have to pick just the right time.”
Then my older cat turned to him and said, “WILL YOU BE QUIET, PLEASE?”…
***********
So, what’s on the agenda this evening that isn’t maddening and/or depressing?
Mike E
Sweet, sweet sleep, then flu shot in the morning followed by car inspection… oh, gotta find a place to live too, also.
jl
Only have time to skim it now, but it seems to be John Hodgman poking fun at the Downton Abbey thing, which sounds good. I am in, and will read it first thing tomorrow. I am a boor and not a fan of BBC TV drama.
Just read TPM list of bigshots in the GWBridgeocalypseChristieGate. Man, his Chief of Staff, Dep Chieff of Staff, Press Secty, campaign manager, and ex Chief if Staff were in on it from beginning or within days. And I read someplace his counsel was in on it too (maybe the TPM story has to be updated) So, six bigshots.
They say many fat men are suprisingly light on their feet and can really move elegantly on the dance floor, swinging and twirling around like ballerina, you would not believe your eyes. It will be interesting to see how Christie does.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/christie-bridge-scandal-players
Edit: maybe a future for him on Dancing with the Stars (is that things still on?)
MikeJ
Veronica Mars on the TV.
MomSense
Watching 24 and I don’t know how people watched this show when they had to wait a whole week in between.
James E. Powell
@jl:
And I read someplace his counsel was in on it too
If his lawyer gets a lawyer, then we’ll know there is something very interesting going on.
Anoniminous
Another responsible gun owner:
Culture of Truth
I read his book. It was very funny.
NotMax
Never seen the show*, don’t much care for cats or children (nor Mondays, for that matter), and no idea who John Hodgman is.
Now get off my lawn.
*My impression was it’s similar to Upstairs, Downstairs, and couldn’t stay interested in that. As usual with TV, YMMV.
srv
I, for one, can’t get enough of TV shows that reinforce the 99%’ers proper place.
@MomSense: A measure of sociopathy is if you don’t need some down time between torture sessions.
Bill E Pilgrim
@srv: I know, I once walked out of a movie called The Lion in Winter because it “reinforced” feudalism.
rda909
So let’s see here…long-time, trusted journalist is kicked out of Russia because….well, just because, and at the exact same time, lil’ Eddie Snowdenwald, carrying a bunch of classified U.S. material that he stole, is welcomed into Russia with open arms after his stay in China first. Makes perfect sense:
“Under Putin, the FSB has brought back KGB-style methods of harassment against foreign journalists. These include demonstrative apartment break-ins, surveillance and interrogations. Largely unreported, the FSB is increasingly rejecting visa applications from western academics seeking to visit Russia if their publications are deemed hostile.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/13/russia-expels-american-journalist-david-satter
Privileged progressives gonna keep phucking that chicken though in order to scold the most liberal president in America in any of our lifetimes. Brilliant strategy!
The Pale Scot
Advise requested; i’m setting up an old dell laptop (w/ Ubuntu god save me) for an older female member of the family and it’s struck me that what the home page will be is sorta important to draw her into using the thing. Does anyone know of a gateway website that might interest a person who watches Downtown Abbey, The Walking Dead, those finding a house to buy shows and has a NE attitude but is stranded in FL? Not quite the National Enquirer but not at the Economist either, I’m a bit stumped.
I’m punching out now, thanks in advance for any suggestions. Nite.
FlipYrWhig
@Bill E Pilgrim: Kings of this, princes of that, otherworldly time-traveling doctors, it’s all a racket to flatter special people with their specialness. That’s why I only watch the world outside my window. Because it’s real, man.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I spent the day dodging queries from coworkers about projects of theirs that I’ve been procrastinating on. So, overall, a crappy day at work.
PurpleGirl
@The Pale Scot: This web site isn’t a home page or gateway per se, but someone who likes Downton Abbey might find it interesting:
http://www.janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/downton-abbey-season-4-episodes-1-2-some-observations/
NotMax
A shaky superlative, as we olds have witnessed the center mangled and shoved more and more to the right, a phenomenon which has accelerated over the past 40 years.
Keith G
Been saving up extra shekels to plop down cash for a new desktop system. Went to Micro Center with the contents of my now zeroed-out slush fund and came home with a few boxes of goodies. A short time later, I broke my “good pair” of glasses. Oy.
Mark B.
Hey, I’ll be going on a cruise in February with Hodgman. And Coulton (Jonathan). It’s going to be a blast.
Gex
@Anoniminous:
That sentence, right there, is a pretty good summary of what the hell is wrong with this country. So much navel gazing about the wrong goddamn things. Once again, being rude is the real problem.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: get the cheapies from Zenni Optical. Whole pair of glasses for like $20.
Also, your story is like that twilight zone with the guy who breaks his glasses after the nuclear apocalypse.
Anoniminous
@Gex:
A “nice and neat” (sic) riff on the “an armed society is a polite society” meme. Only those of us with a fingertip hold on Reality realize an armed society is a violent, homicidal , society.
rda909
@NotMax: Given the most obstructionist Congress by far, ever, and the terrible Senate/House numbers compared to LBJ’s and FDR’s times, the amount of liberal change brought on during the Obama Presidency on so many issues across the board, is nothing short of astounding.
srv
@Bill E Pilgrim: Sheeple.
@rda909:
The hippies were in fact pretty awful to Nixon.
ruemara
Trying to find someplace to go and take pictures. I have a costuming party function, but I’d like to take some other shots. And I’m trying to figure out ways to get a newer car or improve the current car for long trip durability. That being said, I am very interested in a vehicle like this one, but what should I know about vans and stuff?
piratedan
@srv: in his defense, Nixon acceded to a lot of liberal social programs so he could have a free hand in foreign affairs, things like the EPA (for example); but then when the left started to apply pressure over Vietnam, well shit just kinda went down and the straight laced Okies from Muskogee have been hating on liberals ever since. Those old my country right or wrong types never suffered any kind of self examination over that issue and because they couldn’t wrap their heads around it, the effect kind of killed old midwestern populism and certain elements of folks retreated into their Bibles and started hating on everything that threatened their way of life without looking at BigAg (strange that).
Why the far left firebaggers have embraced the dudebros in demanding a dismantling of the surveillance state just has the feeling of certain folks being played imho. I understand the outrage, just that things change in the country incrementally and as such, it’s become just as much an idiotic mantra as Benghazi has… ymmv.
mai naem
I don’t understand why this movie theater shooting in Fla has become such a big deal. It was one of the stories in hourly AP news for at least three hours. There have been so many stupid shootings – whats the big deal with this one?
Tommy
@mai naem: My gut. You go to see a movie you shouldn’t worry about getting shot. I hate going to see a movie. I want to “hit” folks with their cell phones. That can’t eat pop corn without making enough noise to raise the dead. But in no world would I think I’d pull out a gun and fire it.
srv
@piratedan: What would McGovern have saved us from? Detente? SALT/ABM? China? CointelPro? A ‘Decent Interval’ strategy?
Trying to imagine what Kissinger would do differently with Afghanistan.
Or was Angry Gates wrong, and Obama is a True Believer?
So much easier with an AVF, damn hippies just didn’t appreciate their civic duty like the 69% of Americans who kept shopping in 2003.
Mandalay
@Anoniminous:
More death by cellphone….
Tommy
@srv: I am a hippie liberal. But at the same time a military brat. Dad worked at high levels within the DoD. A military planner. Heck there was a time I lived in Leavenworth, Kansas cause he was teaching at the Army War College.
Funny thing often on the topic of war we agree. You don’t fight a war just to fight it. And what Americans seem to do is being good at starting a war, but not ending it. That is a problem.
Name the last time since like the 1940s where we “ended a war.”
Mandalay
@mai naem:
I think it because of the mundane nature of the incident that provoked it, and the fact that most people can identify to some extent with both the victim and the killer. (See comments in thread.)
When really bad shit happens to ordinary people in everyday situations it is inherently newsworthy.
piratedan
@srv: who knows, maybe a couple of decades of stopping the support of every dictator in South America, Central America and the Middle East? Maybe the Soviet Union endures without Reagan forcing them to bankrupt themselves? Does China more strongly mimic North Korea without Nixon? I don’t have the answers, just commenting on the effects and ripples that marked Nixon’s time in the chair, some good and some bad.
Tommy
@Mandalay: Sad. I don’t mean this to sound heartless, but I’ve spend a ton of time around water, woods, nature. I was always taught to never go into the water to save somebody, well if you might not get out yourself. Two bodies are worse then one. But I don’t think I can help myself.
Two years ago I went white water rafting. Hardcore stuff. A friend brought a guy I didn’t know. I would later learn he “didn’t like water” much and couldn’t really swim. Nothing happened but I let my friend know that wasn’t cool. You don’t do stuff like that. Maybe I have to “fish” him out. Not knowing he isn’t comfortable in water might have been a nice thing to know.
YellowJournalism
@Mandalay: Not to mention one of our most recent mass shooting occurred in a movie theatre.
srv
@Tommy: I’m a brat too, dad was in Vietnam. 12 uncles in WWII, Korea. One KIA.
We’ve ended a lot of wars, they were all just different shades of victory.
It’s just funny, a blog that is filled with the equivalent of 1968 Firebaggers emoting about those that don’t show enough fealty today.
Mj_Oregon
The (Oregon) Multnomah County Republicans are raffling off an AR-15 assault rifle as part of their yearly homage to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, whom they identify as fellow Republicans. No, really, they are.
srv
@piratedan: Latin America appears to have been a pretty bipartisan effort, but maybe JFK would have been more careful after the Bay of Pigs.
And I think the Cold War strategy was as well. All that scary stuff Ronnie got credit for? Pershings, ALCM, GLCM, SLCM, Euro-deployments, Trident, MX, B-2, Afghanistan?
All started by or fully funded by that liberal James Earl. Unless resurrecting B-1B made the difference, Ronnie just kept signing the checks.
Mandalay
@Tommy:
Grenada, 1983.
Thank God Reagan had the courage and vision!…..
If only all our wars were like that one. More medals than gunshots.
srv
@Mandalay: My sister is still, to this day, embarrassed about her medal.
Mandalay
@Tommy:
Which is exactly what happened here. That water must have been barely above freezing. I don’t know the details of what happens to your body in that situation, but I would think that unless you get out of the water immediately your ability to survive drops rapidly.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tommy:
I’m a native Michigander, grew up around the water, got swimming lessons young and kept ’em going for quite a few years (quit before I got my life saver’s license, but only because I was really bored hanging around the pool when I was 13). You’re right about it being dangerous, but that’s if you dive right in and try to rescue someone head on. You have to get behind someone who’s in distress, and talk them down- they’re usually panicking- before you explain how you’re going to grab them from behind.
I’ve never had to use what training I’ve had. The closest thing I came to saving someone was while boogie boarding in the best warm surf I’ve ever seen in Grand Haven. It was a red flag day, some 5- or 6-year old kid was getting pulled out by the undertow, right near the trough (it’s amazing how many people drown in shallow water close to the shore, especially kids), as I was boarding in towards shore. I got an arm out, asked him where he was from (Indiana, and probably not from anywhere near the shore there), and sent him off to find his parents, who I’m sure didn’t know the significance of a red flag.
piratedan
@srv: come on now, don’t just lay it all in the lap of poor Jimmy, JFK and LBJ had their faults too, that cold war mentality wasn’t simply confined to the R’s to be sure, but Reagan surely embraced it and took it to the next level. Can’t speak to how beholden the Dem’s were to the complex (hey, I was still a kid during the time of Kennedy and Johnson) but Nixon was most certainly in bed with them (and Gerry Baby). While those programs may have started with Carter, the machine was already fully entrenched by that time, and afaik, the machine is/was only answerable to itself. It’s only during this last administration are we starting to see some curtailing of the ongoing boondoggle. You could make a case for the 60’s thru the aughts as to ask just who was really driving the foreign affairs bus.
Mandalay
@srv: She was one of the brave 8,612? You must be proud of her for being embarrassed.
srv
@Mandalay: She made it sound like a complete cluster f**k and inter-service shitfest. Not noted anywhere that I know, but the first C-130 on the ground to light the runway had a female crewmember (not her), because it was the backup of the backup that didn’t make it.
Alas, it did take all those days to fight back those Spestnaz trained Cubans. The internets don’t have the pic of the rest of them (all about 50 lbs overweight and wearing track outfits to go with their AKs, I guess).
? Martin
@Mandalay:
Only about 1600 women earned a medal during all of WWII.
? Martin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Some years back, my dad had the misfortune of finding a mom and her young son at the bottom of the community pool. Lifeguards were long gone in the budget cuts in his town, and best as he and the police figure, the boy (5) got in trouble, and mom (divorced) went in after him. Nobody reported them missing.
? Martin
@billmon1
In reponse to this:
Apparently the debate about bringing loaded weapons to the movies and shooting random people is over.
VodkaGoGo
@? Martin:
Can I have a link to that last blockquote please? Because holy shit that is messed up.
? Martin
@VodkaGoGo: It was here, but the line was removed. Check the comments for countless references to the sentence.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@? Martin:
We’ve had the same sort of thing around here in the last decade or two. The one that leaps to mind happened at an apartment complex that went Section 8 right after it opened in the late ’90s, and instead of emptying the pool, the management just didn’t hire a lifeguard. Outdoor pool, low fence, and a lot of young, poor kids whose parents could only dream to have the money for swimming lessons for those kids. One of the younger kids- again, 5- or 6-years old- just turned up dead in the bottom one evening. Just a heart-wrenching, avoidable shame….
? Martin
Time to update the handle. Birthday week has begun.
MikeJ
Florida, retired cop. How many hours you think he’ll do?
Anne Laurie
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Tragically, I think the case of Marie Joseph trumps you both — she drowned in a public pool with lifeguards on duty and nobody noticed her body for 48 hours. IIRC, she was chaperoning a bunch of kids, but she wasn’t a good swimmer; one of the kids told the lifeguard ‘she hadn’t come up’ but when the guard brushed him off he didn’t mention the problem to anyone else…
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Anne Laurie:
Yep, that’s bad. Murky water (in the case I noted above, the water was sparkling- not the entire complex was Section 8, just the townhouses nearer the pool, while the apartments up the hill were being rented out largely to Aquinas College students, so, ya know, clean pool) and non-swimmers. At least one drowning at our Millenium Park’s murky lake…Well, gravel pit, really…That I can think of. That “beach” gets shut down from time to time due to issues with infectious bacteria in the water.
Ash Can
@piratedan: Given the roles of Afghanistan, the Helsinki Accords, and Gorbachev and his desire for reform, I doubt the Soviet Union would not have fallen in the absence of Reagan. In fact, given the timing of the fall of the Eastern Bloc (well after Reagan left office), I wouldn’t be surprised if Reagan actually prolonged the existence of the communist governments of the Eastern Bloc with his belligerence. It seemed as if, once Reagan was out of the way and they didn’t have to worry about him dropping bombs on them out of the blue, they could focus on domestic issues, and the shoes began to fall.
Debbie(aussie)
The comments to that NYT article were almost all excellent. How come I could find no admission to a correction in the article?
Tommy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): My parents threw me in a pool and swim, swim. My four year old niece is taking swimming lessons Her parents watch her. I was asked to go see her lessons. I was confused, don’t you swim with her? I went into the pool and we swam around. Yet another way I am the cool uncle!
PurpleGirl
OT (Via Avedon Carol/The Sideshow)
RIP: Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), 79.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/arts/amiri-baraka-polarizing-poet-and-playwright-dies-at-79.html?_r=0
He died Thursday, January 9th. Did any fp note this last week?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tommy:
I’m sure I was in the water before I took lessons, but I was so young that it blurs together. I don’t think my parents had lessons, but learned by osmosis- they were born and raised in Muskegon, Lake Michigan is right there, so…I think they wanted my little sister and I (me?) to learn properly, and we did. My sister swam competitively, but I wasn’t into, like, the competition, maaaan. But we could both handle ourselves in some of the rougher stuff Lake Michigan can throw at you in the summer. I think I’m still confident enough in my skills to be able to jump in if I saw someone starting to go down.
Tommy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It is a strange thing. Like I might yell get off my lawn or something,
My niece is taking lessons. I learned to swim by being put in a pool of water and told to swim. I can’t stress how strange my brother and his wife found it when I was asked to attend her swimming class and I got in the water. I was like water folks, it won’t hurt you.
I am a strong swimmer, I like to think I’d jump in to help somebody, well I would and not even think about it, but I hope that person didn’t drawn me while trying to help them.
raven
@Tommy: Damn, I’m sitting here contemplating what it is going to be like when I get this shoulder surgery next week and what it will do to my daily swim. Most of the information I can find on masters swimming discussion boards indicate it will be at least four months and probably a lot more. I’ve felt lucky I made the transition from hoops to running and then to the water. I guess a stationary bike is going to be the best that I can hope for.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@ruemara: I would research the specific engine and transmission and search for those on car forums.
aimai
@Anne Laurie: That was such a horrifying story, it haunts me to this day.
SteveM
Sorry to say this, but I can’t stand John Hodgman. I find him insufferable on TV. He exudes a sense that he regards himself as the cleverest person on earth.
MomSense
@srv:
Ok, well I haven’t gotten to any torture sessions yet. Just want to know if wife and daughter survive.
Do they show torture?? I don’t think I can watch that.
ThresherK
Cannot dig it up now, but I seem to remember a New Yorker editor’s front-of-issue column saying “The chief function of an editor is to keep writers from writing about their pets. The subject turns everyone, from a Hemingway to a Lessing to a Runyon, mushy and sentimental.”
The Pale Scot
@ruemara: I think what you want is the
“Cadillac of minivans”, can’t remember which one that is though.
The Pale Scot
War is politics “by other means”, when does politics ever end?
Neddie Jingo
@SteveM:
…And then utter walleyed nonsense comes out of his mouth. That’s sorta…the…schtick….
Mark B.
@Neddie Jingo: That’s right it’s a character he plays. He’s a bit like Stephen Colbert, in that he’s always in character when he appears in public. His character is a little more esoteric than Colbert’s arrogant conservative dolt, but it’s no less satiric.
Jebediah, RBG
@Mandalay:
When we had our little boat, we were told about the 50-50-50 rule – if the water is fifty degrees, and you are in it for fifty minutes, you have a fifty percent chance of survival.
grillo
@The Pale Scot: Oldsmobile Silhouette