Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

This blog will pay for itself.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Consistently wrong since 2002

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Happy Father’s Day Everyone!

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57Comments

  3. 3.

    Pogonip

    Well, NOW you put this up, after I addressed Father’s Day in the previous topic.

    Happy Father’s Day, everyone!

    Too bad there was no YouTube back then so we could see the denouement of Devon’s project.

  4. 4.

    kindness

    See John, you really are normal in a sense. It’s the wild children who come back responsible that are the real bedrock of a town. Cause you been to both sides. You know. You understand.

    I used to think I grew up wild but it was tame suburbia wild, not real wild. Thank the FSM for that.

  5. 5.

    John (MCCARTHY) Cole

    @tybee: Yes. Four years younger than me. Went boy/girl boy/girl every two years starting in 1970 with me in June, Devon in 72 in August, Seth in 1974 in March, and Anne in 1976 in June.

    We’re German. Even pregnancy is orderly.

  6. 6.

    Dee Loralei

    Happy Father’s Day to all dads! Even if you only parent the 4 legged variety or Frat Boys! That means you too John G. Cole.

  7. 7.

    SuperHrefna

    That is the cutest photo! But now I want to know the story behind it – did your mother give Devon a watering can and an idea before running to get her camera?

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My little sis and I had this discussion today as to whether we had the “BEST Dad in the WHOLE world” or not. Well, I was 4 of 4 and she was 6 of 7. The first 4 had an ENTIRELY different father than the last 2 (#5 didn’t make it) He had definitely mellowed.

    The best 2 things I can say about my old man is that #1, he loved me, and #2, I know because he did not kill me. It is a little more complicated than that, but he was from the old country (his parents got off the boat in 1900) and the first born son was always the main priority (I was #2) and to call me the “problem child” doesn’t begin to touch it. I had the cops called on me for the first time when I was 2.

    I’m not kidding.

    Oh, and MY 2nd son gave me almost as much trouble. Sins of the fathers and all that stuff.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Oh and John? I took my granddaughter and niece to the circus today and they had a troupe of dogs made up of mutts and 2 of the cutest little JRT’s in it and they were all perfectly behaved and pulling off some of the smartest tricks and just absolutely adorable.

    Not sure what your problem is.

  10. 10.

    shelley

    Happy Dad’ s Day, everybody.

    And can’t laugh enough at this NewsMax header:
    “Romney: Obama’s Foreign Policy ‘Monumental Bust'”

    Do we really need to be reminded that empty barrels make the most noise?

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I had the cops called on me for the first time when I was 2.

    For the gods’ sake, man, you can’t just say something like that and walk away. Let’s hear what happened!

    Daddy, tell me a story about when you were little.

  15. 15.

    big ole hound

    My earliest memory is of my Dad putting me in the car and telling me to honk the horn as much as I wanted. It was VJ day and the war was over.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @big ole hound: What a neat memory! I vaguely remember my military uncle coming home from the Pacific theatre around that time, but I don’t think anyone put me to honking horns.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodinger’s cat: @SiubhanDuinne:

    When I was 2 and my brother 3, what he didn’t think of, I did. My mother had four children in 6 years and paid hell trying to keep track of all of us. This was late 50’s early 60’s…. WAY different time. Today my mother would have her children taken away for neglect.

    ANYWAY…. This particular day she was doing laundry and they didn’t have a dryer so we all headed out to the back yard where she could hang it up to dry. Eventually she looked up and…. My brother and I were gone. She ran one way to look for us, but we had gone the other. She ran back the way we had gone but by the time she got there we had turned a corner or 2 and disappeared (or so I surmise, amazing how fast children can disappear) SOOOOOOOO…… Once again she was forced to call the cops for help in finding us.

    “Police. How may we help you?”

    “Hello, my name is Paine, I live at…”

    “Mary? Did you lose the boys again?”

    So while everyone is out looking for us my brother and I found an open gate. Ever curious we entered. We found a CONCRETE POND!!!! Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy!!!!! and we proceeded to do what every little boy since the beginning of time has done when ever around water: Throw stuff in it. Make splashes. Make BIGGER splashes. If it wasn’t bolted down it went into the pool. Rocks, bigger rocks, BIG rocks, REALLY big rocks, patio chairs, tables, barbells anything and everything. Until the lady of the house arrived and found that the gate she left open for the repairman had instead been accessed by some vermin that she proceeded to scream at and chase off with a broom (or whatever). So my brother and I went back home. And my mother was ever so grateful that we had returned alive and in one piece (once my brother tried to blind me with some rose spray) and went on about cooking dinner for her family, 4 kids and the husband who was at that moment engaged in the ever important ritual of schmoozing while playing golf.

    And then the doorbell rang. And my mother went to answer it. And there was this very embarrassed cop standing there with papers he was to serve on my 3 yr old brother and I. As he was trying to explain all this to my mother, our dog who hated all uniformed people but had a special loathing for cops came tearing around the corner all teeth and snarls and the poor cop who had just been bitten 3 days before, pulls his gun and say’s something like “Lady, if you don’t control that dog, I will kill it.”

    And my poor mother, may she rest in peace, is standing there, holding the hand of a 3 year old, with a 2 year old on her hip and a cop who has just informed her that her 2 toddler sons have just had charges formally filed against them and she has to be in court with the 2 miscreants on such and such a day and he is going to shoot her dog….

    And the SOB she is married to? Where is he? PLAYING GOLF?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!! I’ll show him a thing or 2 about games with clubs!!!!!!

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    I’m trying not to be sad today because while I don’t have my Dad any more, at least I had a Great Dad.

    He adored me and never talked down to me and bought me a monkey just because I wanted it so much. He let me check out adult books on his library card when I was in fifth grade. He went down to the school in Jr High to make sure I was taken out of Home Ec and put in a language because “this girl is going to college.” He didn’t even yell at me when I hit his house with his car. We shared an extreme love of Beethoven.

    When I was eight he gave me the computer aptitude test IBM gave high school graduates. I passed it and eventually embarked on the career I still can’t get away from.

    Thanks, Dad. I love you.

  28. 28.

    Citizen_X

    Devon (along with Seth) was one of the good kids

    But you put her up to this little prank, right?

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Thanks for the story! Great story!

    And the SOB she is married to? Where is he? PLAYING GOLF?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!! I’ll show him a thing or 2 about games with clubs!!!!!!

    I can see why you posted this on Fathers’ Day.

  34. 34.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    Cole, is Devon riding again for charity? If so, can you link to her website? I donate every year I can find the MS website. Thanks.

  35. 35.

    geg6

    I loved my dad so much. And I miss him every day. I haven’t seen him since January 2, 1999 and my heart and life have never been the same. I knew that day that the only person I could count on 100% from that day on would be me. It changed everything. I am the ultimate daddy’s girl and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The only reason I could possibly believe in an afterlife would be to convince me I’d see him again. Doubtful I could be convinced but I wish it could be true.

  36. 36.

    J R in WV

    These kind of holidays I really miss my folks. They were rock-ribbed Rockefeller Republicans, but when Martin Luther King went to the Birmingham jail, Dad put on a suit and went to the local NAACP demonstration. So I got called the typical names.

    He helped organize the community concert organization, so little WV coal town had international classical musical groups coming through to play in the High School auditorium. We saw Cossack dancers doing saber dances, and that amazing dance where they jump from a squat about 10 feet into the air, while the other dancers slice beneath them with sabers.

    I was able to talk them into tickets to Louis Armstrong in St Pete one Christmas holiday around 1960. They were so disappointed when I dropped out of college, but I knew better than they did that I was going to be drafted and so might as well have a good time. I lived in Philadelphia for a few months, being a hippy, as much as you could in PA in 1969.

    When I graduated from MU in 1984 they were so proud I thought they would bust. He did become a Faux Propaganda addict at the age of 77 or so, which was hard. I was able to help him rehab after he fell and broke his first hip. He got good professional care for the second one.

    He was diagnosed with CMML leukemia, rare, one out of 450,000 cases, average survival past diagnosis of only 9 months. He got into a clinical study and lived another 5 years…. was a subject of much study at the MD Anderson center, they didn’t see many patients like him.

    He died on election day, 2004. My brother had a Bush bumper sticker on his giant SUV. I will always be grateful that he didn’t say a single word about the election outcome. I didn’t either, but it wasn’t a secret that I was disappointed.

    Mom died in 1997 – killed by the Pall Mall producers. She got hooked on free cigs they passed out at the football games every Saturday at WVU, at the age of 16. She got double promoted twice, went to MU in Huntington where she could live with her aunt for a couple of years, then went to WVU for the J School. Where my Dad and wife went as well. I’m the only non-WVU grad in my immediate family.

    They are still with me, tho. I feel them behind me, beside me in hard times.

    I could have been a bank robber or killer and they would have still loved me, that’s what family meant to my family. I’m glad I rose to their expectations, even if it was a long strange trip!

    I still support some of their causes, classical music on Public Radio, we go to the local symphony whenever we’re in town and they do a concert, unless it’s vocal squalling or pops. Serious classical music still moves me, the greats like Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, the Russians, seeing someone able to play the great concertos on the Steinway Grand at the concert hall, they make me cry with joy.

    Thanks to my Dad!

    The world’s only Republican, atheist nudist, and proud of it!

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    Dad’s been gone for over 13 yrs now. I went to work with him for the first time when I was 12, I still eat lunch at the place he took me that first weekend whenever I can. Best BBQ in the world. Worked for and with my dad almost every day for 18 yrs, other than the navy and during school days. Then I owned the business for the next 15 and he worked for me for 5 of those. He taught me skills I still use today, he taught me something far more important, the ability and desire to learn new things as often as possible. He taught me respect for others and he taught me how to have others respect me. He also once taught me to not walk behind him carrying a big steel plate while he was chewing tobacco. He laughed so hard when I called him a fucking asshole, I think he almost swallowed his chew. This may be hard to understand but I’m glad he passed away. He suffered with Alzheimer’s for 20 yrs and the last 10 sucked beyond belief. He probably worked too hard and too many hours but he was a good guy.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    My dad is thankfully still around. Talked to him a little while ago. He likes the USA World Cup jersey I sent him.

  41. 41.

    ruemara

    Dads sound like a really awesome thing. Happy Dad’s day to all of them. I’m trying to speed edit multiple interviews so I have a leg up on my backlog, but I squeezed in 5 minutes for the perfunctory phoning of the parentals. Saw Edge of Tomorrow, had the momentary question if shooting oneself in the head really worked to reset things as depicted. I doubt it, but it did seem seductive. Other than that, hella mellow.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @ruemara:

    Saw Edge of Tomorrow, had the momentary question if shooting oneself in the head really worked to reset things as depicted.

    Not a chance I am willing to take.

  45. 45.

    ruemara

    @WaterGirl: Starting to think zygotes should get some football pointers for the scrum for the luckiest uteri.

    They could have always been worse and if their love is a little bit of self-serving olds who hope the smart kid will step up for their olds care, i can’t really blame them. Just these holidays and all these feelings and memories I see people having make me a touch melancholy. I feel terrible that I’m so perfunctory and simply doing the duty. You guys seem to be fond and that’s rather alien to me.

  46. 46.

    WaterGirl

    @ruemara: I think we tend to give what we get, and it doesn’t seem like you got all that much.

    “They could have been worse” is probably never gonna make it to a hallmark card.

    Though I did read a great line in a recent blog post about orphan black:

    I once gave my mother a Mother’s Day card that said, “Well, I guess you did the best you could” and it still didn’t cause as much damage as this singular Project LEDA picture, the source of all mystery, the forefront of all misery for the clones and clone-adjacent.

  50. 50.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @WaterGirl: You no like song? The line that resonates is “Yeah, they did okay, at least they tried.”

  52. 52.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @WaterGirl: Oh, dear. Paul Westerberg is the songwriter for The Replacements. In order to avoid a scene, the full album is great, but, to answer your question, go to the last song.

  53. 53.

    Ruckus

    @ruemara:
    I’ve known a number of people who lost the parent lottery. Mine were, on the whole, OK. Left some scars, left some good. The first time I remember my dad giving me a hug was when he was 75. Surprised me to no end. Don’t ever remember mom doing so. I’m sure she did, but it’s just not enough of a memory to stick. But some of the best people I know had the parents from hell, and/or had only one parent. You never know, for the most part, until it’s way to late which you have. And a lot depends on what you make of your life. Some times a bad example works about the same as a good one. Have a cousin and a good friend who both lost their moms at about 11. They are amazing women and I’m not sure it’s because of or in spite of the tribulations of their lives.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Paul Harold Westerberg is an American musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter in The Replacements, one of the seminal alternative rock bands of the 1980s.

    Apparently I need to get out more!

    My favorite artists are the ones whose lyrics are like poetry.

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