Atrios flags some Pennsyltucky crank wailing on about the poors in Philly taking all the money from the hard-working real ‘Murcans.
We have these kinds of assholes in Western New York, too. I don’t know about Pennsylvania, but in New York, anything north and west of Westchester is basically subsidized by New York City and its suburbs. Yet the moron conservatives up here are always crying in their beer about how our taxes would be lower, our economy would be taking off and everyone would be dipping their toes in the lemonade springs, if only we could separate ourselves from the rest of the state.
In addition to getting the economics ass-backwards, I always wonder how these guys have the stones to spin their hard-luck tale of oppression and victimhood while pissing on the challenges facing anyone who isn’t white, male and over 50.
Cassidy
I think this about Balloon Juice sometimes.
Samuel Knight
Not so unusual actually. The deep red states that tend to wail the most about Federal dependancy tend to be net takers from the Federal Treasury. The coasts would be much better off trading the old Confederacy for Canada for example.
japa21
What challenges are you talking about? Heck, those young bucks get free food, free lodging, all have 90″ flat screen teevees and drive around in Cadillacs. St. Ronnie told me so. They don’t got no challenges.
brendancalling
the difference between PA (and I live in this godforsaken hellhole) and NY is that upstate NY learned its lesson in the 1970s when Ford basically told the city to drop dead. My parents lived in NYC at the time, and my father brings this point up regularly when comparing the two states.
Personally, I think Philadelphia should economically secede from the rest of Pennsytucky and join up with New jersey. THEN you’d hear some crying from the Pennsylfuckheads.
jomike
I don’t….
ranchandsyrup
There’s always a better, whiter, moar producery hypothetical utopia that can be achieved by cutting and running.
El Caganer
@brendancalling: Dunno if I’d consider Christie an improvement over Corbett….
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
My WNY county has a 70 million dollar budget of which 16 million is raised within the county. The rest comes from the state. They bitch about how much all those state mandates are bankrupting them. The maths, they are hard.
Eric U.
The only jobs to speak of in Central Pennsylvania are service jobs, retail, Penn State, and prisons. Because of Penn State and the prisons, we aren’t quite as dependent on federal money as we might be. But Pennsyltucky is definitely populated by a batch of takers, and they simply aren’t smart enough to know it.
El Caganer
@japa21: There’s loads of people here in PA who believe that shit, including in Philadelphia. Look at the comments section of just about any story at philly.com (including the one Atrios links to).
jibeaux
I think there should be an Internet Law for Craig T. Nelson. Saw on a FB comment thread today a spiel about how people need to pull themselves out of poverty without help from the government like he, the commenter, did, when he went into the army.
constitutional mistermix
@brendancalling: The lesson was learned and forgotten, unfortunately.
Roger Moore
I think japa21 has it about right above: they think everyone who isn’t an aging white male is on easy street because the government is giving them handouts, setting aside jobs for them, reserving them spots in college, etc. If we just stopped doing that, white men would return to their deserved, historical role as the dominant force in American life.
Sly
Fixed.
Woozy
Solution: allow reorganization of states. Red counties in northern Colorado can join Wyoming. Eastern Washington becomes part of Idaho. Downstate Illinios joins Iowa or Mo
frapalinger
Yes, everything in PA is subsidized by the Philly Suburbs. The only growing parts of this state are the 5 counties, Lancaster, and the New York Ex-urbs in the Eastern Poconos.
Woozywinks
Solution: allow reorganization of states. Red counties in northern Colorado can join Wyoming. Eastern Washington becomes part of Idaho. Downstate Illinios joins Iowa or Mo
kc
Why not link directly to Will Bunch?
Shakezula
@jomike: Yep.
scav
Best way to make a pedestal invisible is to stand on top of it and refuse categorically to move an inch further. Look how much taller you are than everyone! The only mildly tricky bit is looking down on all of those others and missing that your wingtips or Converse All-Stars are of the Doric order.
srv
MattF
What we need is an amendment to the Constitution that makes every big-city dweller of questionable complexion equal to 3/5 of a real red-blooded Amurrican.
Cacti
The disconnect is stunning.
My parents piss and moan about welfare bums, while ignoring the fact that one of their children is on Social Security disability, and their oldest grandchild depends on Medicaid to treat her type 1 diabetes.
HelloRochester
On a brighter note, though, we’re about to elect the next Governor of PA which will be whoever wins the Democratic primary today and manages to be found with neither a dead girl nor a live boy between now and November.
Roger Moore
@Woozywinks:
Can we get rid of a few states while we’re at it? I don’t see that there’s a need for a North and a South Dakota when their combined population is about the same as the City of Philadelphia. And wouldn’t things be a lot more convenient if Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho were all one state?
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Roger –
You’re usually spot-on, but …. jobs? The poors and blahs don’t have/want jobs, because they get everything they need from Obama. After all, the Lie-berals have made poverty in this country a virtual Paradise for all those undeserving darkies, et al.
Woodrowfan
the same in Virginia. the tax dollars from the blue northern area (Arlington, Falls Church, Fairfax, etc) keep the rest of the state running, but the rural red counties love to lecture us about high taxes and the evils of government. They should try buying their own frelling stop-signs and paving their own roads without for a change.
Woodrowfan
bleeping double post. sorry.
Mnemosyne
We get them here in California, too — the guys who are convinced that the high desert (with no agriculture, no industry, and no way to support themselves) could totally break off from the rest of the state.
They’re like whiny teenagers who think they could totally live on their own, but forget about little things like food, clothing, and rent when they’re calculating that they could be living the high life from their part-time job at Abercrombie if their parents weren’t keeping them down, man!
Elizabelle
The New York Times has thrown out some flying monkey bait, and the Drudge crowd is there in full, stinking up the comments section.
Economic Recovery Yields Few Benefits for the Voters Democrats Rely On
I’ll wander back a few hours later, once the comments are less a trollfest of people swearing they’re former Democrats who will vote straight Republican because they believe in full employment.
[PS: it’s a really shallow article.]
Geoduck
@Woozy:
As a Washington resident, what would be better would be to redraw the borders of Oregon and Washington, and divide them down the Cascade Mountains, with us Godless Hippies in Cascadia, and the Real Murikans to the east in the Jefferson Free State.
scav
@SFAW: You’re forgetting their magical ability to not be doing any jobs except the single position you want, aka deserve. They’ve always inevitably got your singular slot in the prestigious college you clearly merit as well, despite all evidence of under-representation. It’s uncanny.
Trollhattan
Speaking of The Rich: the Real Oppressed(tm)…
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/05/20/walmart-sues-photographer-s-widow?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=mainmenu&utm_medium=text&ref=mainmenu
Mnemosyne
@jibeaux:
IIRC, he’s also the guy who said, straight-faced, that his family got food stamps growing up, but no government handouts. Dude, who do you think those food stamps were coming from, Peter Pan?
cleek
my facebook feed is living proof that there are plenty of upstate women eager to soak this stuff up, too.
SFAW
The “state consolidation” idea is intriguing. I think it would work best if the deep-red states consolidate into a total of two, maybe three, new states. Either get rid of the extra Senate seats altogether, or reapportion them to MA, NY, and other blue states.
The number of Congressmen/women would need to be addressed, but it’s not an insurmountable problem.
The Reichtards who are unhappy with the new setup could be given a choice:
(A) stay where they are, but STFU
(B) move to Tejas, rename it Dumbfuckistan, have it secede
Of course, since all the Jaaahhb Creators will be in Red States, their economies should be booming in no time, which would make up for their current pitiful economic condition, a/k/a Welfare provided to them by Blue State tax revenue.
I think it could work.
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
I see where the real issue is:
Basically, WalMart doesn’t want to recognize the Huffs’ copyright on the images and thinks they should be able to use them for free. That’s kind of not how copyright works, but I’m sure WalMart will be able to afford all kinds of “experts” to claim otherwise.
mattH
@Samuel Knight: just add Canada in, there’d be enough population to throw the House into play and if the provinces were treated as states for Senate representation the South would be a permanent minority.
Ash Can
The only real “handouts” are the ones made to, ahem, melanin-enhanced types. The subsidies and payments made to young white fellas with bad backs or knees? Hey, it’s not their fault they got hurt, just bad luck. Or to already-wealthy corporations? Hey, they deserve it; they’re job creators. Or to all the poor white folks throughout rural America? There aren’t that many of them; you’re making those numbers up. Besides, it’s not their fault that the only factory in town closed or their farm had a couple of bad years of crops. Or to military families who can’t feed their kids without food stamps? That’s Obama’s fault; he hates the troops and won’t pay them enough.
It’s the face of racism in America today. POC get blamed, whites in the same situation have excuses made for them.
shelley
Speaking of victims:
“D’Souza Pleads Guilty, Faces Prison”
How soon before he appears on Fox for a little rehabilitation and whining. I sincerely doubt this guy is gonna see any jail time.
SFAW
@scav:
That almost sounds like a corollary to the “Obama is WEAK! and a TYRANT! All at the same time!” idea currently popular among the Reichtards.
ETA: Correction: SFAW’s Editor notes that the use of the word “idea” – thus implying thought – within 10 miles of a Reichtard is a null-set. SFAW regrets the error.
bemused
@Cacti:
It’s always the same thing with this line of thinking. They deserve it therefore any help they are getting isn’t welfare. It’s all those others who are lazy bums taking their money.
I am so sick of people who think they are paragons of virtue, sacrifice and hard work.
SFAW
@shelley:
Rehab: never gonna happen
Whining: never stopped
brendancalling
@El Caganer: yes he is, if only because the legislature is Democratic. And if Philly became part of NJ, the state would turn even bluer.
Gorgon Zola
There is a problem peculiar to Philadelphia not being addressed here. The working class gets fucked because there are fewer rich pezzonovantes than in other big (northeastern) cities. So the welfare state, such as it is, is supported largely by people trying to scrape by–i.e., the middle class takes on a higher tax burden than in other cities. Al Jazeera was all over this yesterday.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
It would be hilarious, if not ironic, if the Wal-Mart way thinking of intellectual property ran head-first into the Disney way. (It seems more probable that the Huffs might simply cease to be around one evening.)
WereBear
Gosh, I’d do that in a heartbeat.
Xantar
Western Maryland is the same way. There’s a group of counties who want to secede and form their own state. What they’re going to do without the free clinics, infrastructure, and other things the state builds for them I’m not sure.
Walker
All you have to do is look at school taxes in the area to see that this is bunk. The poorest, most rural areas always have the highest school tax rates.
scav
@SFAW: Indeed. They’ve a tendency to overwork their few cortical neurons. Work with what you’ve got.
ETA. do need to work on term for the non-idea neural contact event.
Moving on.
Problem with State Consolidation is all the cheap fucks will run the numbers on their neighbors and no way will the less screwed fragment take on their dead-beat neighbor without concessions. That could be a fun dating game to watch.
Hunter Gathers
We’ve got plenty of these assholes in my little corner of Eastern Illinois. I love it when they start bitching about how Chicago should be it’s own state. Never mind that all the taxes collected in Cook County and the ‘burbs pays for everything downstate. It’s a not-so-subtle way for them to bitch about ‘The Blacks’ and their super secret, super awesome welfare that only ‘The Blacks’ have access to.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I’m sure they’ll claim the photographs were a work for hire, so the copyright always should have belonged to the Waltons, and their failure to get the negatives all those years ago was either an unfortunate oversight or a nefarious plot by the photographer.
Mr. Longform
@Woozy:
Only if Northwestern Indiana gets to go with Chicago, then I’m with you
Roger Moore
@Trollhattan:
I’m pretty sure that Disney and Walmart can agree that copyright goes to the large corporation with high powered lawyers, not the original creator.
boatboy_srq
@Samuel Knight: The only reason I don’t jump on this bandwagon myself is that I don’t want to think about what a cesspool the Gulf and the Atlantic would become once the Auld South was allowed to become the Free Market Fauxtopia the wingnuts dream about.
srv
Finally, a real man for president:
He’s a man not happy with the status quo:
Jado
@El Caganer:
Whoof. That’s a tough one. I think i would take Corbett, because there is less uncertainty – everyone KNOWS Corbett is useless. There is still a swirling air of possibly/maybe about Christie due to his superior PR machine, even though he is a standard GOP thug/fraudster/sociopath.
scav
@Mr. Longform: Metra connections would certainly help your case and I’d personally swoop in and rescue bits of Michigan too. But there are some severely weird bits rather close in, and I’m speaking of blood kin. Gonna be a complicated border, and that’s before we start playing with time zones again.
Belafon
@Trollhattan: Can’t wait to see the motions and briefs filed in this case. Every newspaper, magazine, and news station will be filing with the photography company.
Hunter Gathers
@srv:Can’t wait for him to start talking about income equality. He’ll do what he did in the Senate about the issue – Nothing. Except bitch about how hard the Scots-Irish in Red States have it.
Mr. Longform
@scav:
Well if non-severely-weird blood kin is going to be one of the criteria, the plan is doomed
Calouste
@Geoduck:
I think as long as the new state border is drawn just east of the ski slopes, that proposal would get about 98% of the vote west of the Cascades ;-)
Tommy
@Woodrowfan: Exactly. I live in the largest county in IL that isn’t in and around Chicago. We are an economic powerhouse. Pretty darn blue. Blue dog, but Democrat. All the areas around me, conservative. I keep wondering why they don’t see things are good over here. Don’t preach to me cause our shit is working out.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
I’m sure WalMart’s lawyers will give it a try, but it seems that other, more famous photographers kept their copyrights despite shooting movie stars for the studios. There’s a long enough history of photography-specific copyright law that I don’t think it’s going to be an easy win for WalMart, except by grinding the other side down.
iami
It strikes me as ironic (but expected) that LBJ’s push to modernize rural America is delivering blow-back now that 2 entire generations of rural Americans have grown up not knowing what it’s really like to live in the rural areas of a more strictly capitalistic society.
RSR
I’m amazed, and disappointed, frankly, that the Pennsyltucky crank didn’t slip a Black Panthers reference in somewhere.
I’m sure hundreds of Black Panthers have secretly fanned out across the city today, as it’s primary election day.
But really, election day shenanigans here take place on primary day, usually in the form of dem-on-dem intimation and/or violence.
scav
@Mr. Longform: Didn’t want to imply I’m not open to compromise (as though my vote mattered) given the massive bulk weirdness of my kin, even those in the collar counties. There were some good apple orchards and cinnamon doughnuts yon-abouts that might balance it all out. Plus that dune with the magic holes they can’t explain. Lots to work with.
Jado
@brendancalling:
NJ Blue is a good thing for national election stuff, but the Blue Machine in NJ local politics is really distressing. If the other choice was even a little rational, there would be more GOP representatives from NJ. But as long as the GOP is Vespertilionidae-excrement-raving, NJ will remain staunchly Blue.
Bobby Thomson
@Geoduck: Why the hell would we trade 4 Democratic Senators for 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans?
Booger
@japa21: And booty, if I understand correctly. Lots of it.
Cacti
@iami:
My recently departed grandmother grew up the daughter of tenant farmers in the boot heel of Missouri in the 1920s. She contracted typhoid and scarlet fever as a kid FFS.
Prior to the liberal democratic policies aimed at rural uplift, rural America was a dirt road, impoverished, disease-ridden hell.
Botsplainer
The greatest tyranny of all is the suffering of old white men when they come to the realization that it is no longer socially acceptable in a general sense to denigrate people on the basis of race or sex.
Imagine having a huge collection of stories and jokes about black folks, and few people to share them with. It makes one weep with longing for the America that once was….
Tommy
@Jado:
My parents vote Republican. They are pro choice For gay marriage. I think they vote the way they do almost out of habit. My mom and dad are moderates. You couldn’t force then to watch Fox or listen to Rush. I can’t believe there are not a lot of them out there. You know moderate Republicans.
xenos
I once met a photographer (specializing in scenic lighthouses) who walked into Walmart and bought 3 different calendars full of his uncredited work. I sent him to a good copyright lawyer and I hope it turned out alright for him.
Cacti
@Botsplainer:
And despite making up less than 1/3 of the US population, and generally supporting policies that favor themselves at the expense of all others, white men don’t practice identity politics.
That’s what the 69% “minority” population of the country does.
JoyfulA
@Eric U.: Farther south in central PA, we have state government and a couple of military facilities, which is usually enough to keep the unemployment rate low, thanks to taxpayers.
Botsplainer
@Cacti:
My maternal grandparents escaped their white trash hellhole in central Kentucky thanks to FDR. My grandfather came from a line of unsuccessful sharecroppers, my grandmother’s father a failed blacksmith and general store operator. CCC work, WPA construction and union industry were bootstraps out.
JoyfulA
@El Caganer: Then join Delaware, which is too small anyhow.
But that leaves you with a red state. Pittsburgh’s population is now growing a little, but not enough to balance the rest.
Botsplainer
@Cacti:
“We Built That*”
*along with the uncompensated labor of slaves, the undercompensated labor of immigrants and freedmen, on land that was handed to white men only during the homestead years. But redistribution is evil.
Tommy
@Botsplainer: I don’t know much about WPA stuff. Obama was talking about a workers program so I went to read about what we had done. I was blown away. We build our nation to a large extent. I am a huge music guy. My favorite project, we built Red Rocks during the WPA. We built a concert hall in the side of a mountain cause I guess we could.
Gex
@Trollhattan: What’s interesting about this is that there were several cases in which a Walmart store refused to let someone scan and print copies of family portraits they had had taken some time ago because the photographers owned the copyright, not the family in the portraits.
ETA: Not legal cases as far as I know. Just people blogging about their frustration with Walmart policy in this area.
scav
There may have been a single individual in the generation before me that didn’t go to college on a National Defense Student Loan — or something similar for teachers. And they were also the first of their families to go to college. It’s a different planet visiting back.
japa21
@Gex: That is pretty standard. Unless you have a release from the photographer to make copies, it is illegal to do so.
Citizen Alan
@scav:
This. I still remember the exact moment I realized what white privilege was. I was trying to finish grad school but had to take a semester off for personal reasons. I wanted to stay in the town where my college was located instead of moving back in with my parents, so I applied for some campus jobs as an office secretary. I was an excellent typist but otherwise had no office experience at all and was not surprised when I didn’t get hired (which, for reasons that elude me, my mom felt the need to reveal to all her friends). Within the space of three days, I bumped into no less than four people out of my mom’s peer group including her pastor, and they ALL said the exact same thing: “Don’t feel too bad about it. They probably HAD to give it to a black.”
Villago Delenda Est
Not one of these ignoramuses has read The Wealth of Netions (quelle surprise!), and have no clue, period, about economics in general.
Same old same old. The tribal markers blind them to enlightenment. They can’t get over the color of the skin of those urban masses…even though most of them are probably as pale as they are! Of course, many of those nominal white people have last names that end in vowels, you know…
beltane
@scav: That’s how it went with my mother’s cousins also. Big evil government gave these people the education that allowed them to join the ranks of the middle class, with their own children mostly becoming Wall Street douchebag types. Left to their own bootstraps, the whole lot of them would have languished among the urban working poor as their ancestors had for generations.
JoyfulA
@Gorgon Zola: The article didn’t mention that Philadelphia’s population has been growing since 2000 and that the Philadelphia School District was taken over by the state at least a decade ago.
Helen
@Eric U.: I’m not sue I understand your statement “Because of Penn State and the prisons, we aren’t quite as dependent on federal money as we might be”
Are all of the prisons state prisons, not federal? How much does Penn State receive in federal financial aid to students? And one question that I can answer because this is the business I am in: How much does Penn State receive in Federal research dollars? According to Penn State’s own numbers, it is more than $537 million.
So I don’t think that eliminating all of those sources of income tells the true tale.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer:
After stealing it from the indigenous population, of course. Trail of Tears, anyone?
raven
Since were talking about white privilege I thought it would be helpful to consider Pat Lang’s latest complaint. You can easily click over to this racist asshole’s blog because he is STILL on BJ’s blogroll.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer: HELP! HELP! I’M BEING REPRESSED!
Did you see that black man and that woman repressing me? Did you?
JoyfulA
@Jado: And doesn’t the NJ Blue Machine now own the Philadelphia newspapers?
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: Oh, come on now. Webb should know by now that the “National Security interest” of the United States is whatever enriches the 1% the most. The actual security of the rest of us is utterly irrelevant.
Jack the Second
@Geoduck: The 38 States plan? (http://www.tjc.com/38states/38states.jpg)
I’d like to see someone with maths skills figure out how Congress would look under a 38 state plan.
I think in general the problem with letting red counties join red states is it just aggravates the problem we have now, where maps of the country look mostly red with tiny slivers of blue along the coasts. I think this feeds into the conservative persecution complex, because they can’t keep straight that votes are allocated per capita and not per acre.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samuel Knight: Like the Canadians are stupid enough to take such a deal.
Well, perhaps Alberta, but I don’t think even the Newfies are that gullible.
Villago Delenda Est
@Woozywinks: Nuke Jackson County, OR off the face of the Earth.
(home of Art Robinson)
beltane
@raven: The last line deserves some attention as a stand-alone because it is just that crazy:
This must have to do with Chipotle Grill banning firearms in their restaurants. How can the White Man be free if he can’t protect himself from the burrito invasion?
Belafon
@raven:
The right to be represented by 80+% in every legislature in the country. The right to be considered for a position based solely on name. The right to believe that I must have worked hard and deserved all of the advantages I received rather than some other reason.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: The burritos are coming! The burritos are coming! One if by grill, two if by deep fry!
Belafon
@Jack the Second: Which is why some have suggested changing it to by property owned.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: But I was promised flauta and tamale overlords!!!!!!! Plataños con crema or nada!
Ok, I do frogspeak, Plátanos?
SatanicPanic
@raven: I don’t know why that guy is still on the blogroll.
raven
@Belafon: And, yet, there he sits on the blogroll. I used to argue with him about racial issues and the military but I just gave up. He’s a war hero and a hippy spit on him.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s too late. You didn’t count on the Korean tacos.
Two words: kimchi quesadilla.
Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity)
It’s basic conservatroll socio-economics:
“Those people having property is theft.”
El Caganer
@raven: He’s an odd duck, that’s for sure.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think it’s going to be a win at all for Walmart, but I don’t expect that to keep them from trying. They know what they want, and they aren’t going to give up until they’ve absolutely exhausted all their options in court. What they aren’t going to do is to offer to buy the copyrights, because they don’t want to pay for what they think they should have had all along. I hope they get nailed to the wall in the countersuit.
pseudonymous in nc
Yeah, @SFAW:
Yeah, I’m not one for saying “look at Russia”, but the idea of “federal cities” — meaning metropolitan states, as opposed to something like DC — isn’t a terrible one, especially if it brings together metro regions where state lines create weird disconnects and their only value is to encourage firework or liquor sales.
The US is a pyramid of structural biases towards the plain people of Bumfuck.
Villago Delenda Est
@pseudonymous in nc: “You know, morons.”
J R in WV
I have half a chicken vindaloo burrito in the fridge right now! Umm, hot goodness!
I have a farm I built, after the neighboring elderly farming brothers taught me how to plant a fence post, and a house I built, with the aid of many neighbors who work in various building trades. Oh, yeh, the first house we bought, all on our own. With a VA loan.
I went to college, because I’m a bright guy and was attentive in HS. Oh, yeh, GI Bill for tuition costs! And a little help from Mom and Dad with gas money… the farm truck got 15 miles per gallon///
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Nooobody expects the Korean tacos! Surprise is their main weapon. Surprise and a twitter account.
Juju
@Roger Moore: Wyntanaho?
Roger Moore
@Juju:
Mormonistan.
Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity)
@Roger Moore:
And the comfy chair.
Juju
@Roger Moore: Mormonistan, or Moranistan?
Missouri Buckeye
It’s the same way in Missouri, with St. Louis and Kansas City (and Columbia) vs. the rest of the state.
At least Branson brings in some tourism money, but you can’t fund the whole state on that.
cckids
@Gex:
Yeah, I’m one of those people. Wanted to scan & print some of my mom & dad’s wedding photos for their 45th anniversary. They got married in a tiny town in SE Nebraska, the photographer is long dead & his business closed, like at least 25 years ago. WalMart told me I had to find the heirs & get written permission from them.
Now, I understand photographer’s copyright & respect that they own their work, but seriously? That is just ridiculous. We ended up finding a friend with a really good printer & just printing them ourselves.
Groucho48
We’ve had a lot of flooding in the last couple of weeks in some small towns outside Buffalo. In the TV coverage, a lot of the locals, who look like 80% Tea Party folks, are upset that the government hasn’t done more to protect their property from the flooding. I’m sure they vote the straight R “small government” ticket and also mock MMGW and any attempt to do anything about it. One of them actually exclaimed…3 100 year floods in the last 10 years! Something has changed and the government needs to do something!! Of course, her idea of doing something would probably be having the Corp of Engineers spend a mint to protect her property and bigger flood insurance subsidies. Doing something about global warming? That would be soshilism!!!