Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Come on, man.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Let’s finish the job.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The words do not have to be perfect.

We still have time to mess this up!

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

The willow is too close to the house.

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Reader Interactions

78Comments

  1. 1.

    Tree With Water

    I caught the Frontline report on concussions this week. It was an eye opener, and its conclusions bode ill for the game. Go Niners..

  3. 3.

    Botsplainer

    I said the following below, and maybe somebody here can provide a statement that will save me from my worst instincts about my maternal grandmother, who turns 99 in January after having spent a lifetime of doing nothing. Her body, having little actual wear or tear, is outpacing her mind, which was, for most of her life, a shriveled and hateful repository of petty jealousy, peevishness, greed, sloth, racism and hatred.

    I’ll be struggling to come up with something to say at whatever visitation and funeral happens after her passing. I have to be there for my mother and my aunt, but I’m damned if I can think up anything to say to people who say “So sorry for your loss” beyond this shitty statement:

    “I’m not. She was nasty, lazy, manipulative and greedy, and hated humanity just for sharing her air. Her passing sorrows nobody but my mother, who allowed herself to be an uncompensated daily servant and whipping girl for over 45 years for a woman who couldn’t be bothered to take her own trash out to the cans when she was in her mid 50s”

  8. 8.

    burnspbesq

    @Svensker:

    I’ve been saying all season that the Jets would struggle in the Big North Conference. That may have given them too much credit. They might struggle against Group 1 and 2 schools.

  11. 11.

    Tree With Water

    @Botsplainer: You should peruse Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel for tips that might help inspire you in writing that eulogy. I doubt any author ever lived who portrayed his family in a more blistering light.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    People say “Sorry for your loss,” you respond “Thank you.”

    Yeah, this. If nothing else, don’t make your mother’s day worse than it already will be.

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tree With Water:

    Maybe I misread Botsplainer’s comment, but I didn’t think (s)he was talking about having to deliver a eulogy — merely of having to respond to people who express sympathy.

  14. 14.

    Ruckus

    @Botsplainer:
    Hard to make a positive funeral speech when you don’t feel you have anything resembling positive to say.
    I was told by a relative how I was supposed to feel about a family member’s passing and my scathing remarks about being in my sixties and having my own fucking opinion didn’t go down well. But I didn’t care. But I did come to figure out that it didn’t make any difference what I felt when that family member was alive and it would make even less of a difference after their passing.
    So you could do exactly what I did.

    Say nothing.

  15. 15.

    Howard Beale IV

    @hilts: I just saw another so-called denier website pop-up with a whole bunch of supporters-some climate scientist but the bulk of them are-yep-meterologists.

    Time to start calling these clowns what they really are: The Know-Nothings/Lysenko of Earth and Climatology.

  16. 16.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Botsplainer: Say thank you to well wishers. To your mom, say “How are you going, Mom? What can I do for you?”

    ETA: Basically, none of this is about your grandmother, who will be gone, thank god. It’s about the feelings of the living.

  17. 17.

    SRW1

    @Botsplainer:

    From what you wrote it appears that the most direct and presumably also persistent victim of your grandmother was your mother, And it also appears that she would be the one most aggrieved if you go through with saying what you wrote there. Even if it is all true, you might want to consider not doing it for your mother’s sake. I think SiubhanDuinne’s advice was a good one.

  18. 18.

    Mike J

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Say thank you to well wishers.

    Saying anything other than “thank you” is acting like the assholes who are offended by “happy holidays.”

    When people express a kind sentiment, accept it graciously.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    @Botsplainer:
    I sympathise with the temptation to say these things. But wait until the funeral is over and the potential witnesses have left her grave. Then you can offer your well-justified malediction, and even follow it up with a gob of spit.

    After which, and this is the most important part, you put her out of your mind forever.

  20. 20.

    raven

    @Botsplainer: A note from a reader on Robert Aiken’s view of death

    Flint, you also read another quote of Aitken Roshi in which he recalled that after sharing life with his wife for decades he knew her every weakness, her conditioning – and she knew his. He said when she died those weaknesses also died and she was left as who she really was, who we all really are – a Buddha. You then challenged us to drop that conditioning, those things that keep us from acting like the Buddha we are, now. Don’t wait. It’s true when I think of those I loved who’ve passed on, they have no flaws. All is forgiven. It sounds so simple to just let go of these habits now. And you reminded us: that’s the practice. To reduce the gap between whom we think we are now and our Buddha Nature. Thank you.

  21. 21.

    SatanicPanic

    @Botsplainer: I know some people in my family were ambivalent about my grandma’s death. Well, not so much some, but most. But attending the funeral was nice because I got to see lots of family that I hadn’t seen in a while.

  22. 22.

    shelley

    Will be so happy when we’re finally past Tuesday and whatever happens will have happened.
    So sick of every talking head on every cable show, and every editorialist (even my favorite progressive ones) absolutely certain that the Democrats are in for a ‘shellacking.’ And the reasons they give…..just makes you more despairing of the American voter. The ‘six year fatigue’ where people want some kind of change, even if it’s bad. And examples like, people in Kentucky loving KYnect, till they realize it is Obamacare, and then they’re all
    negative.

  23. 23.

    raven

    A couple of years ago my cousin had a daughter who died suddenly. We didn’t know her but the funeral was on our way back from the holidays in Virginia so we went. It was a Southern Baptist affair and these folks were celebrating the fact that she died and left three kids because now she was with Jesus. We hung in there and ended up in the family receiving line that must have had 300 people in it. We stood and had them all express their condolences to us for the loss and we just kept saying thank you.

  24. 24.

    decitect

    Stuck with Chargers being blown-out by the Dolphins – would probably enjoy the Jets game if I could get it.

  25. 25.

    Tree With Water

    @SiubhanDuinne: Ah, again I skimmed rather than read. I had last read or even thought about Look Homeward maybe 25 years ago, too, but for some reason it sprang to mind.

  26. 26.

    Libby's person

    We took down the tomato plants today (it’s supposed to go below freezing tonight), so I have a lot of green tomatoes to deal with. Anyone have any good recipe ideas? (Other than frying them, which I already plan to do.)

  27. 27.

    JPL

    @hilts: So CNN has to give an angry white guy a forum for nonsense pablum. They really, really, really want to be foxlight.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tree With Water:

    It’s been a good 50 years for me. I should haul it out and see how well it stands up to re-reading.

    I skim threads all the time, and thus am forever getting things wrong, or plowing ahead and answering questions or comments that turn out to have been much better addressed, earlier, by others.

  29. 29.

    shelley

    @Libby’s person: A green tomato pie is always a nice surprise to serve. Reminds people that tomatoes really are fruit. Heres a Food Network recipe http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/green-tomato-pie-recipe.html
    This is a traditional 2 crust pie. The kind I’ve made is more of an open face tart.

    There’s also green tomato chutney and other kinds of relish.

    A savory green tomato cobbler
    http://food52.com/recipes/26574-savory-green-tomato-cobbler

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    (Corrected from an earlier thread in which inadvertently listed wrong day.)

    Recall several people here expressing a liking for Clara Bow, a/k/a “The It Girl.”

    Well, the source of that moniker will be shown Monday at 9:30 p.m. (Eastern) on TCM, when 1927’s It airs. An 80-minute primer on what was considered sexy during Prohibition,

  32. 32.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @shelley: The six-year election factor is major and normal. When a president is elected by big numbers the way Obama was, the coat tails drag some senators into office who otherwise wouldn’t have been elected. At the 6-year mark, those senators are up for re-election and you get some correction back to normal.

    The press treats this like some sort of revelation. It’s not.

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    @Botsplainer:

    The advice to be gracious (if not strictly truthful) and be there for your mother is best. She is going to have a harder time than you think.

    Nothing to stop you from writing whatever you wish in a private journal though, or drawing some wicked cartoons. Key word is private.

    @raven: liked your comment about the death of flaws; it’s comforting. But this is the hard part:

    It sounds so simple to just let go of these habits now. And you reminded us: that’s the practice.

    Really hard to do. Useful, even, but hard. I’ve not managed yet.

  40. 40.

    Svensker

    @Libby’s person:

    You can wrap each tomato in a piece of newsprint and store them in a dry, airy place. They’ll ripen nicely (keep an eye on them and rotate occasionally, check for moldy spots) and taste at least better than supermarket maters.

  44. 44.

    Corner Stone

    Nice skip pass RGCheese!
    Oh, wait. You can’t take a one bouncer to a WR?!
    When the hell was that put in the rule books?

  46. 46.

    cckids

    @Botsplainer: I had the same problem with my “grandmother”. She’s my stepmother’s mother, but while my stepmother was & is Mom, her mother I’ll never claim as family. She was a mean, grasping, passive-aggressive old bag who made it clear from the day Mom & Dad married that she didn’t like or want the added baggage of non-blood related children.

    So, at her funeral, when her kids/grandkids were sobbing & grieving, all I could do was look serious & pass the Kleenex, wondering at the difference in our perception of her.

    I chose to respond to the “Sorry for your loss” with “Thank you”. Nothing more.

    Though as people pointed out above, “This will be hard on my mother” also works. Really, people are trying to be polite & compassionate, the details of grandma’s failings fall into the “not my circus, not my monkeys” land.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @Botsplainer: Or just say, “She’s in a better place now,” which is hilarious if you don’t believe in any sort of afterlife.

    Or say, “Thank you, please send good vibes/prayers/best wishes toward her daughters, who are struggling with this today” and thereby deflect it while not lying.

  52. 52.

    Corner Stone

    Rut Roh.
    Tonight’s Sunday Night Game is BAL at PIT.
    Can the WV Dynamic Duo (sans masks and tights…maybe) survive this kind of emotional conflict?

  53. 53.

    max

    @Shakezula: Went to the National Museum of the American Indian for lunch and bumped into an college classmate. She was exhibiting an ofrenda for Dia de los Muertos.

    That’s the best museum in DC. (And her work is very nice.)

    @Mustang Bobby: So who is this team playing the Chargers in Miami? I don’t recognize them.

    Who was the team playing against Miami?

    max
    [‘They were really bad.’]

  54. 54.

    Shakezula

    @Botsplainer: She’s not dead yet?

    I won’t say you’ll feel differently once she’s dead, but I can tell you that when my excessively unpleasant granny goose-stepped off this mortal coil I found two things:

    1. I was too busy to do anything but give an absent-minded nod in response to the standard condolences.

    2. Everyone who knew her knew she was awful so we didn’t get many standard condolences. We got a lot of “How are you doing?” and “Well, at least she isn’t suffering any more,” because everyone understood that we – her care-takers – weren’t exactly grief-stricken.

    3. I did not feel any differently about her, but it did take me a while to realixe there were certain things I’d never have to worry about any more.
    p.s. Don’t dance on the grave until you’re sure the soil has settled.

  56. 56.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Botsplainer: FWIW, seems legit to me. But such statements are always shocking to people who weren’t raised in an atmosphere of selfishness, sadism, and cruelty. They literally can’t conceive of the idea that a parent could withhold love and treat a child like a slave.

  57. 57.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Ruckus: This. When somebody has tormented you, had an overwhelmingly negative influence on your life, it can be very painful, even retraumatizing to have that person be praised and lionized by others. Maybe they only saw one side of that person, or maybe they’re a Pollyanna, or maybe they’re being polite, or maybe they knew everything and told you to suck it up and stop whining, basically minimizing what was going on, your whole life.

    Sometimes people do need to speak their truth. IDK. This is how abusers get by. Because it becomes literally unconscionable for the victims to speak. Think about the implications of that. That it’s more harmful to the family and survivors to acknowledge the truth than to keep silencing the survivors, keep gaslighting everyone, keep pretending that nothing is wrong or was ever wrong.

  60. 60.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Mike J: Really? You get horribly offended when you offer a bland sentiment about somebody you don’t know and the family member answers with “Actually, I’m not sorry so-and-so is dead. Long story, but let’s just say so-and-so can’t hurt anybody any more.”

    And you feel like you ran into a raging Billo fan?

  62. 62.

    opiejeanne

    @Mike J: You watching this? I know that Steve Raible announces on the radio, but I’m in SoCal and watching* these announcer clowns rooting for the Raiders. Bah.

    Random thought I have a second computer handy. Maybe I can find that radio station and play that and turn off these ninnies.

    *Hooray for Dish Anywhere!

  64. 64.

    opiejeanne

    @Bonnie: Yes, and the national announcers are almost cheering for the Raiders.

    And I’m out of area right now so i can’t listen to Steve Raible unless I give ESPN some money. Or maybe it’s the NFL that wants my money. Blah.

  70. 70.

    Jasmine Bleach

    @Botsplainer:

    Instead, why not throw a party somewhere nearby afterwards? Send out a note before the funeral to everyone that there will be a family get together afterwards (with drinks, food, music–whatever you intend it to be), and as you see them at the funeral, say thanks and casually remind them of the party to keep it in people’s minds.

    Try to throw the most fun, outrageous, and best party you can. Your grandmother probably would hate it, and when you think back on her life and funeral you can instead think about what a great time that party was . . .

    Incidentally, my mother, when she goes, wants her funeral to be a party with lots of fun and dancing. I’ve always thought that was a great idea . . .

  71. 71.

    Heliopause

    @opiejeanne:

    I’m in SoCal and watching* these announcer clowns rooting for the Raiders. Bah.

    I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, in that their job is to keep the half dozen people in the Bay Area that are watching this from switching to the 49ers-Rams.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @Jasmine Bleach:
    When my time comes I’d like the truth to be told. You want to celebrate my death? Have a party. You want to morn my death? Have a party. I won’t care, other than I won’t be able to attend, I’ll be dead. No one shows up? I’ll still be dead.

  74. 74.

    Cain

    @hilts:

    Co-founder of the Weather Channel went full wingnut on CNN this morning when discussing climate change.

    That is so strange.. I mean if you’re a business to weather, having something you can talk about all the time and have more viewership sounds like a good thing. I would think they would embrace that shit..

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    @Ruckus:

    When my time comes I’d like the truth to be told.

    Shouldn’t be a problem.
    “That guy who slept on other peoples’ couches for the last 15 years?”
    “Yeah”
    “Ok, sounds like pimento cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off? Pringles?”
    “Yep. Sounds about right.”

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