Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Come on, man.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

Infrastructure week. at last.

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

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

People are complicated. Love is not.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Kids Today (Open Thread)

Kids Today (Open Thread)

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Back in MY day, during the summer, lounging teenagers would maybe steal an empty toilet paper roll (a “goodle“) and a scrap of tinfoil to make a pipe, then sneak off to smoke pot.

Can kids today enjoy such simple, relatively cheap pleasures? Nosiree, Bob. Now they need tickets to ComicCon and a trip to Not-HobbyLobby to buy glue guns, paints and foam rubber panels so they can take over your workshop to fashion Lady Thor costumes. I give you the Maidenform of Asgard:

maidenform of asgard

It’s not done. It still needs to be painted and decorated and bejeweled. Good god, what’s to become of this generation, I ask you. Please discuss whatever.

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    KG

    tin foil and toilet paper rolls? we i knew some guys who used coke cans and apples for such summer activities youthful indiscretions.

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I put this as an O/T on the thread downstairs, but it belongs better in an open thread: James Brady, who was shot and paralyzed for life during the Reagan assassination attempt, has died. He was a republican nominally, of course, but he and his wife Sarah were tireless advocates for gun control in this country. May he RIP.

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    I think Cracker Jr’s design skills are way beyond mine, at her young age.

    Very cool.

  4. 4.

    Pogonip

    Looks like something Madonna would wear.

    I don’t follow this stuff closely, but I don’t understand why they cooked up Thorette when Thor had a wife, Sif, who could have served the same function and painlessly taught kids something new at the same time.

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Yeah. My first thought was that it was his second death, since his injury devastated the Bradys’ lives, but led to their very good work in support of sensible gun legislation.

    Now done in by the party of Reagan. Sad, sad, sad.

    RIP James. Peace to Sarah.

  6. 6.

    Randy P

    a “goodle”

    A what? Oh wait, is this another one of those poodle cross-breeds with the cutesy name? Let me guess… a miniature poodle and a G…great Dane?

    Seriously, I have never seen that word in my life.

  9. 9.

    Josie

    I certainly hope we will get to see a picture of the completed project. It looks to be a very glamorous costume. I actually like the lack of pointiness – much more modern and natural.

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Randy P:

    My middle name is “Goodelle” (like NFL Commissioner Roger, but with a Frenchy “e” affixed to the end) — family surname — but my cousin has always addressed or referred to me as “Goodle.” Until you posted about it a year or so ago, Betty, I never actually knew that a goodle was a Thing. Let alone a useful Thing.

  11. 11.

    Dee Loralei

    Very cool and talented young lady. Did she re-take the driver’s test today? Best of luck to Jr. Cracker.

    One of my sons friends makes stuff like that and sells it, makes enough money to go to Comic Con and several other places every year.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    We’ll all want to see what the costume looks like when painted and decorated and bejeweled (and worn, also, but you may want to exercise some discretion there for privacy’s sake).

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    Went to a small press comics expo last year, and was delighted to see so many women and young girls into cartooning and graphics. Very smart people all around, and loved watching teh youngs (in the audience) finish each other’s drawings.

    It’s the best admission fee you will spend in the DC area this fall — $20 for both days, with plenty of good panels and the chance to talk with real (published!) artists.

    September 13-14, “North Bethesda” near White Flint Mall (OK, Rockville!) — maybe we can do a BJ meetup?

    Go cartoonist grrrrls.

  14. 14.

    NonyNony

    @Pogonip:

    I don’t follow this stuff closely, but I don’t understand why they cooked up Thorette when Thor had a wife, Sif, who could have served the same function and painlessly taught kids something new at the same time.

    Sales.

    The thing to understand about the modern comic book industry is that a book with really, really high sales sells somewhere around 120,000 to 150,000 copies into the US market per month. A low average book sells more like 30K to 40K copies. Thor has been selling right in that average spot recently, so they’re looking to tweak the market for Thor. How do you do that? Stunt casting is one way to do it.

    Why not use Sif? Well they put Sif in her own book a couple of years back (after the first Thor movie) and it only sold in the 10K-20K range – not enough to keep a book floating and they cancelled it last year. (It was good book too – as with much of entertainment, popular does not always equate with good). No way they’d replace Thor with Sif so soon after her own book getting canned – it’s unlikely to tweak sales.

    (For the same reason the Falcon is now going to be Captain America for a while. Captain America’s book is right now selling in the 30K range, so some stunt casting is in order. And Wolverine’s book is in the 40K range so they’re going to kill him off as a stunt in the hopes that when they bring him back down the road sales on his new book will be boosted. Follow the money and you’ll rarely go wrong.)

  21. 21.

    Michael A

    I see the sickles, I assume she will be carrying the hammer? These damn commie kids are so creative today.

    M

  26. 26.

    Paul in KY

    @Amir Khalid: Thank God the idiot didn’t point it at anyone else.

    Pro Tip: If the gun is not a revolver or a single shot weapon, you must look 2 places to see if it is loaded. The magazine (where future rounds to be fired are) and the firing chamber (where a current round to be fired will be).

    I’m sure alcohol was involved…

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    @Amir Khalid:

    His friends told him to put the gun away, so he proceeded to take two or three rounds out of the gun, according to police. He then pointed the gun at his cheek, said the gun was empty and pulled the trigger, witnesses said.

    All witnesses gave a similar account of the shooting, police told the Sun-Times. Police scheduled the autopsy for Monday.

    Death by stupidity.

    Poor witnesses. They cannot unsee what the late Mr. Eric Zyzanski brought into their lives.

  28. 28.

    catclub

    ISIS has captured the largest dam in Iraq. This is not good news.

    They also drove out the Kurdish Peshmerga from another area. This is also not good.
    It might become good if the Kurds and the Iraqi Shia/Baghdad central ‘government’ can start cooperating, which may happen.

  32. 32.

    Suffern ACE

    @catclub: i’m going to go with “What is, “It’s too late?”, for 10,000 troops back in Bagdad right after mid-terms.

  40. 40.

    shelley

    That would look pretty good in Midgard (the realm of men) as well. Let her know that there were völvur, women prophets/shamans in pre-Christian Scandinavia. Some of the most respected people in the Viking age.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    It’s great looking. Good job!

    My son wants to go to one in Cleveland but I think he’s too young so he’s not going. He’s only 12. I don’t know what would be The Age. Maybe 14?

    Which is too bad. I love making costumes. Not wearing them, just making them.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    14 or 15 is probably about the right age. Obviously, you ideally have a geek-minded parent who’s willing to chaperone the group (I’m assuming he wants to go with friends).

  45. 45.

    Cervantes

    @Bob In Portland: Emotional investment can make discussion complicated, I agree. As for information, accuracy and reliability are not always easy to establish.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    He does, he wants to go with one particular friend. This friend’s parents don’t drive them anywhere for whatever reason so I would drive and stay…around them.
    I actually really like this particular friend. He’s smart and funny and my sense is his house is unhappy or something is going on there so I like to take him places he might not ordinarily go. Just not there, yet.
    They were good about it when I said “no”, the boys. They moved right on to the next plan :)

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    I was trying to find it online, but have you seen the Target commercial with the mom who takes her teenage daughter and daughter’s friends to the boy band concert? The tagline is something like Coolest Mom Ever. That’s the mom you’ll be when they’re a little older. ;-)

    ETA: To be clear, I think you were right to veto it this time around — 12 is a little too young.

  49. 49.

    Bob In Portland

    @Cervantes: True. How many people here have irrational hatred towards Putin? I imagine there was a lot of irrational hatred towards bin Laden, Saddam, Khadafy et al.

    When I was a younger man my government made me run around a field with other young men chanting, “I want to go to Vietnam. I want to kill me a Charlie Cong.” Many of generation actually did go to Vietnam and kill Vietnamese. It must be easier if you run around a field with that little poem in your head. Or rely on the NY Times.

    Did the NY Times ever get around to mentioning the surrender of 400 Ukrainian soldiers to Russia? How did they explain it? Identify units?

    Absence of evidence is evidence of absence of evidence.

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