It’s unlikely I’ll ever be a Cumberbitch, but one has to admit he’s a very good sport here…
Those of us in the Boston area have a parochial interest in the “Ice Bucket Challenge”. Details on the success of the U.S.-based ALS challenge, from news channel WBZ/CBS:
In just the last three and a half weeks, the ALS organization has raised a record $53.3. million. That’s compared to $2.2 million raised last year during the same time…
Well, 32 percent will go to public and professional education. Twenty-seven percent or about $14 million will go straight to research. Nineteen percent will be used for patient care. Fourteen percent will go to more fund raising and 7 percent is needed to pay for administration and salaries.
If you are wondering whether your money will be well spent, the watchdog group Charity Navigator gives the ALS association its highest marks, four stars, when it comes to accountability and transparency….
Another local station mentioned that the American Heart Association and some other research-based charities had also seen a spike in donations this summer, but I haven’t been able to track that down.
And, of course, one doesn’t have to go full immersion…
lamh36
Been watching Hallmark movies all day. Man, Hallmark Channel movies are like catnip to the single and ALONE…lol.
Hallmark Channel movies are to single women what Lifetime movies are to unhappy housewives…I’m just sayin’.
trollhattan
Gosh, those fund percentages should be what the Komen folks aim for. They probably think, “Lost opportunity” instead.
Headed to a salsa-tasting party. Wonder if I’ll survive?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
And if one really wants to go full immersion, Dave Bautista and Nonito Donaire are your guys.
With bonus Tom Hiddleston in a white tee.
Baud
I’m looking forward to next year’s “Punch Yourself in the Balls Challenge.”
Diana
fourth comment, and someone has already beat me to telling everyone to go look at ice bucket challenge of Dave Bautista!
oh, well, no-one can ever be swift enough to post the best thing ever on Balloon Juice.
Except maybe John Cole.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@lamh36:
I know what you’re saying. I hit Hallmark Movie Channel for my Perry Mason fix, and I see the promos for all those movies. Filled with the hot second-tier actresses whose names I can’t quite remember. Like Rena Sofer.
And, people, I’m sky high!
Uh-oh. Turbulence over Oklahoma. Probably fracking related.
Diana
aaah, fifth comment … oh well.
And to be completely fair, Mitt Romney also did the Ice Bucket challenge:
http://time.com/3159672/ice-bucket-mitt-romney-paul-ryan/
Not with the sense of style and clever wit that Patrick Stewart brought to it, to be sure. But did it just the same.
Kay
This is interesting:
I thought he was out for good. Looks like he’s back.
Shana
I’ve been toggling between Dr. Who and Simpsons for the last 24 hours, minus sleep. How can you all be watching anything else?
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Did anyone really want him back?
hildebrand
@Shana: We ditched cable, so we have to wait for the new Doctor Who episode to hit ITunes tomorrow.
skerry
Try the taco or beer challenge to help fund abortion rights
Here’s the tumbler: http://tacoorbeerchallenge.tumblr.com/how, complete with videos
ETA: Not sure why the first link didn’t work.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/08/21/want-eat-taco-drink-beer-fund-abortion/
whatever – you get the point
hildebrand
@schrodinger’s cat: Ye gods, no.
Cephalus Max
@hildebrand: Really? Despite all the Republican caterwauling about Obama, he’s a pretty centrist president. Webb might very well come in to the left of Hillary. (That’s not saying much, I realize…)
Baud
@Cephalus Max:
In what way do you see Webb being left?
JPL
@Kay: Surprising yes, but I’m not sure it’s interesting. He didn’t seem to enjoy being a Senator. The more the merrier, I say.
Baud
@Kay:
He might be angling for the Veep spot. I think a lot of Dems will be playing in that game.
raven
@Baud: Motherfucker needs to be left. . .behind.
JPL
@Baud: Hillary has a reputation of being a hawk. I don’t know if that’s true though.
Baud
@JPL:
I don’t know what Webb’s foreign policy views are, other than running against the Iraq War.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: There’s a decent thread at Blue Virginia about this story, for those interested.
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@Baud: He thinks Vietnam was a noble cause.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I don’t know. I never knew all that much about him. I remember he went after the health care law and I wrote a post about it because there were so many uninsured people in Virginia. On the upside, I once read a piece by a criminal defense lawyer org where he was working on sentencing reform.
I just thought it was interesting because I think his reputation is that he hates the whole show biz aspect. I watched him getting ready to go talk on tv at the 2008 convention (he was standing in front of me, waiting to go on). They were making him up for his turn w/the pundits, smearing on makeup, and he looked absolutely miserable – his face! Like he was in pain :)
Shana
@JPL: Yeah, he seemed to really dislike campaigning and the crap of being a senator, although I happily voted for him, so I have to assume he’s trying to pull Hillary or whoever ends up as our nominee farther to the left. The GOP has done this repeatedly so I’m not sorry to have probable democratic nominees pulled to the left, just sayin’.
Cephalus Max
@Baud: Yeah…you’re right. Honestly — not many. But who are the true left alternatives? Certainly not Hillary. Maybe O’Malley and Elizabeth Warren. But thanks to our national disfunction (which I blame largely on the news media) my votes these days are always a protest action based on who is the electable Democrat. Hillary, yes. Webb, I’d say yes. O’Mally maybe eventually. Warren — much as I love her because she is one of the only pols who seems to be in touch with what the rest of us would call reality — probably not, and she doesn’t seem to want it anyways.
Cephalus Max
@Baud: Yeah…you’re right. Honestly — not many. But who are the true left alternatives? Certainly not Hillary. Maybe O’Malley and Elizabeth Warren. But thanks to our national disfunction (which I blame largely on the news media) my votes these days are always a protest action based on who is the electable Democrat. Hillary, yes. Webb, I’d say yes. O’Mally maybe eventually. Warren — much as I love her because she is one of the only pols who seems to be in touch with what the rest of us would call reality — probably not, and she doesn’t seem to want it anyways.
askew
Ugh, Webb is a prickly asshole who served one term in the Senate and hung it up because he didn’t like it. He also wrote some horrible things about women in the military and voted against the DREAM Act. No thanks. Kaine is a huge improvement over Webb.
hildebrand
Webb is yet one more Democrat who spent his entire time pissing on everything that Obama did, usually kvetching about Obama’s lack of ‘leadership’.
I get it, Obama hasn’t been perfect, but good god, why has it been so damned difficult for Democrats to verbally, and substantively, support the President. Webb was always quick to stick the knife in.
Dog On Porch
I dig the bucket challenge. Human’s doing good for good’s sake.
But above all, it lends itself to a planet-wide understanding that Americans genuinely desire their tax dollars be spent wisely. That a gutting of our entrenched & perverted “security state” status quo is long overdue, and vital to the life of our Republic.
Forgive the poetic license, and my thinking well of my fellow Americans.
Democrats and Independents that dig the status quo will rally to Hillary Clinton 2016. And that’s exactly what she will deliver.
askew
@Cephalus Max:
O’Malley is significantly to the left of Hillary and Webb, is running and has tons of executive experience. He’s by far the best of the left alternatives running in 2016.
rikyrah
@Kay:
And who would be his base?
raven
Cephalus Max
@hildebrand: Ha ha. Democrats…. just can’t do that right. God love us, we’d rather argue.
askew
@rikyrah:
Not Kay, but white men I’d guess.
I could see O’Malley attracting younger voters and minorities. Hispanic groups have said O’Malley is the most pro-Latino governor in the country and he’s successfully won mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland with a large share of AA voters.
raven
@rikyrah: Pat Lang.
Gene108
Binge watching anime on Netflix. I have been so utterly lazy today. Perks of being single, I guess.
Anoniminous
@raven:
I’ll give him this: he was a USMC infantry officer in Nam so he walked the walk.
raven
@Anoniminous: He’s an asshole, fuck him.
some guy
Sime Gal’s boss was challenged and asked her to organize the ice bucket thing. As an acting chair she was 200% ready, willing and able. 8 folks drenched, get sitting right next to El Jefe Maximo. She is nobody’s fool, my wife.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@rikyrah: Remember that Webb was Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, for a time.
He did some good in the Senate, but at his heart, he’s probably what used to be called a “Reagan Democrat”. He’s not a liberal. He sees his constituency as being poor, rural, “Scots-Irish” people in SW Virginia. He didn’t like the EPA regulating CO2 emissions (“hurts” the coal industry), and about 20 minutes after Scott Brown won his election he was yapping to the press that the Senate had to put off a vote on the PPACA until Brown was seated (while Republicans keeping Franken out of the Senate for 6 months was just fine and dandy, apparently). Webb voted the right way on the important bills, and his work on the GI Bill of Rights and prison reform was good. But he’s not a good fit now.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cephalus Max
@askew: I agree that O’Malley is way to the left of the other possibilities, and he’s got real credibility as an executive and somebody who has actually cared about policy. But just based on media play, I’d put him behind Webb as a serious contender, sad to say.
askew
@Gene108:
One of the best parts of being single is that there is no one to judge you for binge watching bad movies/tv in your pjs. I watched Raising Helen, Freaky Friday and am now on to Legally Blonde. I excuse it by saying I am cleaning because I am doing laundry while watching these movies.
PurpleGirl
I was told by friends that David Gerrold did the ALS challenge. But because So Cal is having a drought he used a bucket full of something else… tribbles!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oIn1ZNLD0U
El Caganer
Webb and Brian Schweitzer are duking it out for the veep spot on the Willard Romney ticket.
raven
askew
@Cephalus Max:
If the first two states were California and New York, I’d say that matters. O’Malley has been getting good local coverage in Iowa and NH and he’ll have plenty of time to work those states after he’s finished as governor in January.
The DNC finalized their 2016 calendar and the first caucus in Iowa isn’t until February. Curious how that changes things since it was January 3rd in 2008.
Baud
@Cephalus Max:
You’ve seen Webb in the media more than O’Malley?
Anoniminous
@raven:
Why is he running as a Democrat? Even the DLC wasn’t that out of step with the Party.
ETA: @raven
roger that
PurpleGirl
@Shana: Currently watching original Star Trek (The Cloud Minders), will then watch Outlander Epi 3 on Starz, then I’m not sure.
some guy
@PurpleGirl:
People are doing it with empty buckets in Gaza.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@raven:
Link, or at least source?
Kay
@rikyrah:
I don’t know that either. I am of the opinion that The Reagan Democrats are kind of a mirage, so let’s hope we’re not chasing that again.
I tire of the whole “real” Democratic Party thing, and maybe that’s unfair, maybe I’m putting that on him, he hasn’t said that and maybe he isn’t doing that.
For one thing, “real” implies their current voters aren’t somehow “real” and for another I don’t think of political parties in those terms. I think they’re groups of people so a sum of parts – there is no “other” aspirational group of “real” people who are somehow missing or elsewhere or something :)
I have trouble with the whole concept of the “voters who got away”. Remember that? “Where are OUR VOTERS?” in the nineties. That sort of James Carville thing?
I’m not a “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” person. I think they’re Republicans, those voters. That’s where they went.
Cephalus Max
@Baud: Recently? No. But when Webb was in the Senate he was always able to command attention from the media far beyond his freshman senator status — I’m assuming it was the military background and his willingness to run his mouth (sometimes in questionable ways). O’Malley (who — again just to be clear — I really like) struggles to get that level of attention.
And now look at the Wash Post feature story just because Webb showed up in Iowa…
Steeplejack (tablet)
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
What you said. Webb sounds good until you spend two minutes looking past his image to his actual record.
Anoniminous
@Kay:
Reagan Democrats are either solid Republican voters or dead. Either way, they are not Democratic presidential primary voters.
raven
@Steeplejack (tablet): USA today. . .when some people here were in 2nd grade. I have a long memory.
gnomedad
Ann Coulter takes the challenge.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Well, he has always struck me as a bit of a misogynist, and his wife looks old enough to be his daughter. Can’t say I am a huge fan.
Anya
@schrodinger’s cat: He’s better than HRC. At least he’s not in love with wars and will be able to stand up to the republicans.
raven
@Anoniminous: I’m biased, as I noted today in my dustup with the cactus, he also termed “The Black Gash of Shame” for the Wall.
askew
@Cephalus Max:
The Washington Post has been covering O’Malley in Iowa/NH for quite some time now. And Webb got news while a Senator because he was almost always willing to slam Obama. That’s what gets a Dem on tv.
raven
@Anya:
Sheeeet.
PurpleGirl
@gnomedad: LOL. Perfect.
schrodinger's cat
@Anya: That’s a low bar.
Gene108
@askew:
On domestic issues, how is O’Malley to the left of Hillary?
I see his name floated about as some sort of liberal anti-Hillary, but do you honestly think Hillary or Bill Clinton would be opposed to expanding pre-K or legalizing same sex marriage, right now?
For fuck’s sake Bill and Hill tried to ram “socialized” medicine down our throats 21 years ago. Socialized medicine is fucking holy grail of American liberalism, so much so liberals flipped out over a law, in 2010, that should achieve near universal healthcare coverage, but with less socialism.
O’Malley’s raiding the state employee’s pension fund to pay for his policy agenda, rather than raise taxes. This is not good for the long term health of Maryland and makes me think a lot of what he is doing is to position himself for a 2016 Presidential run; the long term consequences be damned.
I think O’Malley’s just as much a “corporatist” tool as any other prominent politician and liberals could be disappointed, if they think he’s a lefty leftist liberal.
Kay
@Anoniminous:
Right, but it’s a bigger concept than the actual Reagan voters because it persists, in one form or another. I’m uncomfortable with it partly because I’m not the “real” voter they’re pining away for and it’s just too remote and sentimental for me. I know who they’re talking about, which voters, it’s older white working class or middle class people. They’re fine, but I don’t consider those voters any more “real” or desirable or legitimate than the rest of the Democratic electorate. A lot of it is nostalgia, I think, Chris Matthews and his “lunch bucket” brigade. I sometimes get annoyed with it because it’s like he’d rather be associated with THAT idea of a Democratic electorate than the one that exists. I don’t know what that means and I also find it slightly insulting to the actual Democratic electorate.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: If they don’t look like Matthews than they must be less “real”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I had seen rumors Webb might try a third party run, maybe somebody pointed out that was damn near impossible. I’ll credit Webb for doing more than virtually any other Republican about his opposition to the Iraq invasion– he and Lincoln Chaffee are about the only elected R’s that did fuck all, as far as I can remember, and for all his Blue Doggedness as a Dem, he voted for some stuff that was undoubtedly uncomfortable for his ideology/psychology. And he did give Obama a strong endorsement during the 2012 campaign. He strikes me as someone with a fairly limited understanding of domestic policy– IIRC he didn’t like the ACA because of the “process”, whatever the hell that means, and this from Raven’s quote
combined with his tribalism about the “Scots-Irish” suggests a man with some ideas about race that are troubling. That weird and perverse romanticism about ethnicity that I can’t quite come up with the right adjective to describe– aggressive? defensive? blinkered?– really isn’t a trait that fits in politics anymore, at least it shouldn’t.
He’ll get Tweety and Ed Rendell (and probably a few others– maybe he’ll be Sirota’s post-Schweitzer infatuation?) all excited, but in the end I don’t think he wears too well
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Maybe we can think of Webb as the Democrats John McCain. He’s irascible and mavericky! Political media also love Webb, so he and McCain have that in common too.
Cephalus Max
@askewThat’s an interesting point. You’re privileging retail politics above national media coverage, which I’m uncertain about with Dems these days, but I’d love for you to be right.
(My ranting here is all related to my belief that the Villager consensus about Dem electability is far more important in practice than any actual rational, political metric, which makes me a bitter person.)
Gene108
@Kay:
I think the the “Reagan Democrat” did exist. How did Reagan crush Mondale, but the Democrats still controlled the House, statewide offices, etc in states Reagan carried?
There was an era of split Party voting on ballots, where Republicans would carry a state for the Electoral Votes, but the Democrats still held on down ballot races.
This really caused the fracturing of the Democratic Party, we.complain about today, where local politicians had to turn away from the national Party, in order to be competitive in their races.
Cephalus Max
@askew: yeah, true dat. no argument here.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I love how clueless that whole line of inquiry is. It’s thoughtless. “Where are OUR VOTERS of yore?” Fuck if I know. What, the ones you have are somehow less desirable?
It’s like having a party and spending the whole night telling the people who came “I wish those OTHER, BETTER people I invited had come!”
rikyrah
@Kay:
They just don’t want to admit that Barack Obama showed the way. That you can win without one Southern State, and you don’t need to chase after working class White people.
Hawes
Picard FTW
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: then not than, note to self: read once before pressing enter.
Anya
@raven: Wow! I stand corrected. Still, HRC will infect the soul of the Democratic Party. We need someone who can save us from the Clintonites.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: I have only heard Pundits like Matthews and Joe Klein, concern troll about this, not actual elected Democrats.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gene108: I think “Reagan Democrats” just sounds better to the pundit class than the more accurate “Nixon Democrats”– and they’re mostly dead.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Half-hour to Vegas, baby! Gotta power down. Steep out.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Steeplejack (tablet): Have a good time!
Cheers,
Scott.
askew
@Gene108:
Most recently, he’s come out significantly to Hillary’s left on the refugee crisis. And he has actual left policies that were enacted while he was governor and that he fought for unlike Hillary who is all-talk no action.
Some examples from his time as Governor.
He repealed death penalty. Hillary is in favor of the death penalty.
He’s to the left of her on immigration reform. She voted for the stupid Secure Borders Bill which would build a massive fence between Mexico and the U.S. O’Malley has been one of the most outspoken Governors on Immigration. He refuses to enforce ICE
requirements in MD, he passed DREAM Act (which Hillary did vote for).
But, the biggest difference is that O’Malley can say he enacted left policies while Governor such as :
Passed DREAM Act
Signed Same-Sex Marriage Act and then campaigned extensively for voters to affirm SSM rights at ballot box
Repealed Death Penalty
Raised the Minimum Wage
Set-up offshore wind farm
Increased spending on education including expanding pre-K
Capped tuition at Maryland public univiersities
Increased Gun control measures
Minor Marijuana decriminalization
Hillary, on the other hand, did nothing in the Senate to push for left policies. She named post offices and sponsored a flag burning amendment. Hillary can say she supports these issues, but why has she never pushed to get them done? Are they just empty campaign promises?
O’Malley’s actions puts him to the left of Hillary. As Hillary said about Obama in 2008, everything else is just words.
Debbie
No mention that the Church has come out against the Ice Bucket Challenge because the charity supports embryonic stem cell research?
Kay
@rikyrah:
I thought we were done but with it but it’s a really persistent idea, the Lost Democrats of 1980. It’s why some people are wary of populism and I don’t blame them. I don’t think populism has to be like that, but I see how it could go in that direction.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Cephalus Max: I’m sorry, that’s just bullshit.
If it were up to the media, Thompson would have been a serious contender in the GOP primary. Also Huntsman, for that matter.
The media loves them some “contrarian” Schweitzer but I don’t think any Dem primary voters outside of his home state are going to be filling in the oval for “I’m against everything Barack Obama stands for”.
Hey. The good news is that Democratic party primary voters are in the driver’s seat during Democratic party primaries. We got this.
askew
@Cephalus Max:
In Iowa, retail politics really matters. I’ve campaigned down there in 2004 for Dean and I have family/friends who are active in the party and get involved for the caucuses. It really does matter and the local press devotes a huge amount of coverage to it. In 2007, Obama, Edwards and/or Hillary were covered daily. Everyone in Iowa will know who all the nominees are by the time the caucuses roll around. There is no escaping it. I’d assume the same thing happens in NH.
Anoniminous
@Kay:
“Reagan Democrats” existed in 1980 which, I note, was 34 years ago. I don’t know why some people are still pushing it. My guess is those who do know they are slowly losing power and are pining for the days of the Gipper when it was Morning in America and the Conservatives were sweeping all before them.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Strickland ran on it. It was part of his campaign, “real Democrats” was right below the surface, which was disappointing and actually didn’t work out for him because they abandoned him for Kasich and he hadn’t built any real loyalty or enthusiasm with what should have been his core voters. NRA, the death penalty and appointing Republicans to the bench in rural counties doesn’t do much for me.
debbie
@JPL:
Apparently, Hillary was pushing Obama to bomb Syria while she was SOS.
Baud
@Anoniminous:
I think that’s right. It’s an attempt to set the field upon which Democrats are supposed to play on, which is limited to a limited set of “real” voters.
debbie
@Kay:
Kay, I heard a couple of days ago that they might be asking Strickland to replace Fitzgerald, who’s become a scandal for being an adult without a drivers license. Ohio’s an embarrassment.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): Hey, Cephalus Max, sorry about how I expressed myself with you. I didn’t mean that your comment is bullshit, I kind of mean more that the media, what we see on the media and the shiny objects that they fixate on, is bullshit.
Media is so caught up in its own bullshit that they’re perpetually caught by surprise when reality doesn’t conform to their narrative. A lot of times they can just pile the bullshit higher but it can be really funny with events like elections that they usually can’t bullshit spin the other way.
Kay
@debbie:
I think it’s too late to replace Fitzgerald. I think the deadline passed for the ballot the Monday after the scandal broke, which Republicans probably planned. Democrats are asking him for his campaign funds for the rest of the ticket and I read today he has agreed to help with that.
I have a lawyer friend here who is a really active Democrat, travels to Columbus and goes to meetings, all that. It’s funny because I remember when she became a Democrat, in 2006. Up till then she had been “I don’t follow politics”. It was like overnight.
Anyway, I saw her last week and she was so funny with the drivers license mess. She’s really organized and structured and methodical. She was “WTF? He doesn’t have a drivers license?”
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Sounds like he deserved to lose.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: Wow, I didn’t realize my saying Webb was “probably what used to be called a “Reagan Democrat”.” would cause so much heartburn. :-)
I don’t know that he called himself that. Headline writers certainly did.
It was just short-hand for me – I honestly didn’t know of another term to use to describe him quickly.
Someone earlier compared Webb to McCain. I think that’s unfair to him. McCain is a politician who adores the limelight and political fights and doesn’t care about much more than appearing tough and demanding that others respect him. McCain can (and has) changed his pronouncements whenever it suits him without a second thought.
Webb is more of a thinker (he’s written 8 books) and doesn’t like campaigning (at all). I don’t agree with many of Webb’s positions, but he at least put some thought into them, and he does have a genuine interest in helping people other than the 1%.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m baffled by him. After he lost he wrote this furious piece on Huffington Post about how it was Obama’s fault because Obama wasn’t enough of a Democrat. Strickland wasn’t very liberal himself, as governor. Arguably, that’s why he lost. I read it and was just amazed. I don’t think Obama had anything to do with it.
debbie
@Kay:
Hopefully, politicians everywhere are double-checking to make sure they paid all their library fines. Possibly the next reason for impeachment.
askew
@Kay:
Do you think Jennifer Brunner would have been a better nominee in 2010? At GOS, people are still up in arms over that primary and think Brunner should have been the nominee.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@rikyrah:
And at any rate they’re chasing comfortable middle to upper middle class professional people of the Caucasian persuasion who “claim” a working class background, not actual working class whites with high school degree and some or no college who tend to vote if they’re in a union, tend to not vote if they’re un- or underemployed or basically not in a union, and trend Democratic, not Republican, because working poor whites have withdrawn from their steeplejacked mammon-loving churches* dominated by their more successful exurban white peers and do know which party is for the rich people and which party is gonna at least, pardon my french, fuck them with lube. Though mileage may certain vary from state to state, and single white working class women, when they vote, aren’t voting identically to say your steadily employed married white blue collar male.
Tweety doesn’t know shit about actual working families. Better TiVo the Ed Show if you want a tiny insight into how that demographic thinks today. Ed himself is not a poor man but he frequently has union leaders on as guests. When’s the last time Tweety had the head of the CWA or the IBEW on his show?
*as the day of worship is the most segregated day of the week let me be clear that working poor African Americans are being driven by vastly different cultural forces and the Black Church can be a driving political and social nexus for personal empowerment and community organization and power building, souls to the polls, for example … but broke whites feel alienated from the new uptown version of their old evangelical churches, the mega-church, and so they either quit church–the numbers show this is happening big time–or they join the pentacostal subculture, real kooky to the max church movement which interestingly can depending on denom and variant be quite racially integrated, but imo is a true parasite, promising transcendence and escape but trapping the marks into a spiral of destructive behavior, abusive relationships, financial ruin, spiritual abuse and extremism, and ideological alienation from the greater community and other potential sources of support. At least that’s my experience with AoG. AoG are such rabid haters they are famous for excommunicating (rhetorically) other congregations in their own denom, and northern AoG is infamous for being racist as fuck but the AoG in NCFl is an equal opportunity mind-fucker. They have literally ruined lives of people close to me. Evil, evil place.
Cephalus Max
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): No worries, buddy, it’s BJ so we are supposed to rant at each other a little bit.
I keep trying to respond to both you and @askew on my phone, but I’m having FYWP problems and my comments keep getting eaten.
Short version of my response: Yes, I agree the media is nuts, and in my opinion, our (supposedly liberal) news media has a much bigger impact on the Dem primary presidential selection than for the Republicans, so I don’t think that the Thompson and Hunstman examples are relevant for us. As much as I’d love to see an O’Malley candidacy in 2016, I don’t think there is any chance of there being a real primary contender other than Hillary, unless somebody who’s really “butch” and “contrary” like Webb shows up, which the media will eat up for completely bullshit reasons.
Even shorter version: The Fourth Estate is the institution most responsible for holding back liberal ascendancy in the US in the early 21st century.
Kay
@askew:
Brunner was the senate race primary challenger to Lee Fisher. She wasn’t running against Strickland. Rob Portman, the Republican, won the senate race.
I do think Brunner would have better than Lee Fisher, because anyone would have been better than Lee Fisher. I was told at the time that AA in urban areas wouldn’t turn out for Fisher because when he was Ohio AG he did these high-profile urban drug raids that they felt demonized them and their communities solely for his political gain in establishing his law ‘n order cred. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what I was told. I don’t know if you remember that period for Democrats, when they were all “tough on crime”, but it was all the rage. Bill Clinton was part of it.
NotMax
Was completely puzzled by what an Eid Mubarak video had to do with the posting until remembered that often on BJ the video on the front page is wrong and the correct video only shows up if you click through to comments.
rikyrah
Kay,
The Democratic nominee for Governor did not have a driver’s license?
HUH?
rikyrah
@Kay:
And they say Black folks don’t have long memories.
Good for them if they punished that “tough on crime” clown.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I know. He had a learners permit and you can’t drive by yourself with a learners permit. Wait, there’s more! They discovered he had a learners permit because there was a police incident report where he and this woman who was part of an Irish delegation to Ohio were parked in the middle of the night and a person called in a suspicious car, which led to police asking them why they were parked and the subsequent discovery that he didn’t have a drivers license. Which might have been okay, except he’s been driving without a license for what seems like an extended period of time.
I don’t know about the Irish woman story. That seems like a smear, she denied anything was going on and she seems credible, but it is true that he doesn’t have a drivers license.
It’s over. They’re asking for his campaign money to use for the down ballot candidates and it sounds like he has agreed to give it to them.
askew
@Kay:
Oh, that’s right. Fisher was the disaster as a Senate candidate. I get him mixed up with Strickland. Strickland is the dumbass who was nodding his head as Hillary screamed meet me in Ohio Barack while waving some piece of paper.
For as much attention as Ohio gets in political media, you’d think I could keep them straight.
ruemara
@lamh36: I keep planning to write one that has black people in actual lead and non best friend/support character roles. But you are right. Only a few a really good. Remember Me and the one with the Orthodox Jewish lady finding herself after doing the marriage to her recently dead husband.
gwangung
@rikyrah:
Always thought ethnic communities have very LONG memories….they have to, because it’s a survival trait.
Mnemosyne
I haven’t really gotten into the ice bucket challenge videos, but Chris Pratt’s is pretty funny.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
May as well give it a try! Keep in mind that those movies are VERY formula-driven when it comes to plot — one of my screenwriting instructors at Loyola wrote a Lifetime movie and he was a little surprised at how many of the plot points were dictated by the producers. Watch a lot of Hallmark Channel movies and see if you can figure out what they’ve decided the non-negotiable plot points are and then create your story around those.
Other than that, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to write one for black characters. The remake of About Last Night … made almost $50 million on a $12 million budget, so Hallmark is probably smart enough to spot a potential audience if you put it in front of them.
sparrow
@Cephalus Max: Yeah, from what I hear from (mostly white, liberal) people in Baltimore, most aren’t all that fond of O’Malley. He didn’t come off as extremely competent, let’s just say. I get the sense that while he *says* all the right things, he’d be a huge step down from Obama in terms of getting things done and being pragmatic. That said, I may be wrong. I’d LOVE for a capital-L lefty to win the next term, and it sure as heck isn’t that war-monger Hillary.
Patricia Kayden
@askew: As a Marylander, I’d love O’Malley to run for President. Whoever wins the Democratic Primary gets my vote and right now it looks like Mrs. Clinton is the shoo-in. That could change but seems unlikely that another candidate like President Obama will come along and upend Secretary Clinton’s position at the head of the pack.
Tripod
I certainly understand how aging Jeff Davis Democrats might be a bit confused. But then the southern wing of the party almost always favored the wealth and power interests of the south. So lets not get all weepy and start singing Dixie.