Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

He really is that stupid.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Fight them, without becoming them!

This really is a full service blog.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Everybody saw this coming.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Open Thread

Saturday Open Thread

by | 129 Comments

This post is in: 

I’m up at the Suwannee River visiting my grandma. I always bring her boiled peanuts when I come to see her. She’s been eating them for 90+ years. 

But yesterday, she had a reaction and had to go to the ER. Fortunately, she’s okay. Scared the shit outta me, though. I don’t think I could live with the guilt of accidentally killing my poor old grandma with peanuts!

What are you up to today?

Reader Interactions

129Comments

  4. 4.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Viva BrisVegas: He looks like the love child of Sen. McCarthy and Grandpa Munster. His self-esteem is awesome, though.

    I’m guessing he’s throwing his hat into the 2016 ring. It is prophesied by his dad, isn’t it?

    By the way, I miss Grandpa Munster. Al Lewis was a smart man who as a wee tyke marched for Sacco & Vanzetti back in the 1920s.

  10. 10.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Turtle mugged by a snail. Police ask him for a description of the perp. “Jeez, it all happened so fast!”

  11. 11.

    schrodinger's cat

    Caturday thread needs Caturday kitteh. First day of spring is also the new year in Maharashtra, known as Gudi Padwa. Of course in Massachusetts, no can has spring yet, as we are still buried under piles of snow with some fresh snow falling as we speak.

  12. 12.

    Botsplainer

    Apparently the origin of Big Ass Spider is some sort of genetic splicing of Martian soil DNA by a government scientist.

    This is some fine entertainment.

  13. 13.

    JCT

    On our way back from a camping trip in Utah and yesterday stopped for a tour at Best Friends Animal Shelter in Kanab. What a wonderful place!

  20. 20.

    Botsplainer

    We got some King Kong homage, Superman.

    And the oldest Special Forces major in the history of the Army. Dude is like 65.

  22. 22.

    Violet

    Your poor grandma! Glad she’s okay. Was it a reaction to the peanuts so now she can’t have them anymore? That would be so sad. :(

    I’ll be working inside today. Raining outside and everything is already soggy. Kind of a mess. I have plenty of boring paperwork to catch up on so it’s maybe a good thing.

  24. 24.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Mike E: He was a funny, smart and talented guy. I’d love to hear his opinions about the kurrent generation of klowns running for president.

  26. 26.

    Violet

    Ted Cruz? Yawn. The real news is that Donald Trump is launchinga presidential exploratory committee!

    Real estate mogul and billionaire Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee.

    The announcement comes weeks after Trump hired political operatives in key early primary states and marks the most concrete step yet that Trump in seriously considering a presidential run, something he’s hinted at doing for years.
    …….
    Trump will head Thursday to New Hampshire, a crucial early primary state, to meet with local veterans and business owners.

    I’m sure he’s just in it for the money, but he’s actually spending his time going around to early primary states. Funny.

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @Germy Shoemangler:
    I don’t think anyone knows. People keep speaking of this man or that as the Republican favourite, but none of the probable candidates can claim any broad appeal. I myself find Cruz’s voice grating, his manner creepy, his grasp on reality feeble, and his policy ideas delusional. I wouldn’t vote for him in a million years. But I’m not American.

  28. 28.

    Tenar Darell

    There is a new tv series about a medical resident who gets attacked by drug induced mutated zombies at a party on a boat, and 6 months later is working as an assistant in the morgue to feed her brain addiction. Coroner buddy-cop connections are made. It’s called iZombie (which is laughable title), but the fact that it was done by the Veronica Mars team made me give it a chance. It flips the zombie mythos sideways, kind of like Warm Bodies, but with more comedy and Bones elements. Anyone else catch it?

  29. 29.

    Cervantes

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    By the way, I miss Grandpa Munster. Al Lewis was a smart man who as a wee tyke marched for Sacco & Vanzetti back in the 1920s.

    Grandpa was a swell guy — his heart was in the right place, as anyone would know who ever heard him on his old radio show — but he made some claims that … well … he never marched for Sacco & Vanzetti: he would have been four years old in 1927, nor did he have a Ph. D. in child psychology from Columbia …

  32. 32.

    Tenar Darell

    By the way Bette, I’m glad you’re grandmother is okay. Close calls are scary for everyone involved. Have a better weekend.

  35. 35.

    ruemara

    @Tenar Darell: loved it. Better than I thought it would be, but it’s up against some big guns on it’s official night.

    I am checking the render I did of a camera movement into a dorm room. I was trying to use the scene sent to me by my scene modeller, but everything was blocked to the cameras. D’oh! Had to turn off some walls and the roof. .
    I also need to do laundry. I miss having a house, but I miss my own, good quality machine. I don’t know if it’s just me, but nothing seems really clean from the complex washers. Hopefully, I’ll finish the next set of camera shots in an hour, get a load in and take a nice walk this morning before I try working the work I brought from work. And this is my rest day.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m so far in the boonies that connectivity is squirrelly.

    You’re way down upon the Suwannee River, far, far away.

    ETA: I’m amazed I’m the first one to make a Stephen Foster reference.

  38. 38.

    Amir Khalid

    A beautiful typo, right at the end of the sentence, from the BBC’s Saturday football liveblog:

    The Italian, who began the season like Roy of the Rovers, was played in by Ryan Bertrand but wanted too many touches and tried to beat a defender who was desperately trying to shit him down.

    ETA: fixed by the Beeb, alas.

  40. 40.

    PhoenixRising

    @Roger Moore: Low hanging fruit, is what it was.

    Today, I’m cleaning house & watching NCAA basketball.

    POTUS and his BIL are in the stands in College Park–wonder why the committee put the Princeton team that Michelle O’s niece plays on at that site?–while FLOTUS is hitting the sights, as well as major sites of girls’ education, in Cambodia. My strands of reality have crossed, causing a ripple in the river of time.

  42. 42.

    MattF

    Hmm. I suppose grandma’s last-but-one peanut meal sensitized her in some way.

    I’m taking the day off. And I’m hoping that Cruz announces a Cruz/Trump ticket– although I realize that’s not so likely.

  43. 43.

    Librarian

    Actually, it’s ” DreI peanuts were walking down the strasse, and one was assaulted. Peanut. Huh huh huh huh huh huh. “

  44. 44.

    Botsplainer

    @Roger Moore:

    Happily, most people are forgetting about the drunken mooch.

    If you ever want to be irritated to a frothing rage, go visit “My Old Kentucky Home” in Bardstown KY, followed by watching a production of “The Stephen Foster Story”. See a true case of whitesplaining occur, as they brush aside the facts that Foster wrote nothing but dreck, was a very young raging alcoholic who Jeannie had to leave due to the violence and alcoholic imbecility), and a mooching couch surfer who passed out and cracked his head open in a pathetic Bowery garret long before his 40th birthday.

    He over staid his welcome in Bardstown, by the way.

    Watching the result of decades of devotion to his white, slavery-excusing self in that area makes me sick.

    I’ve never been on a history tour that angered me before because of the mode of presentation, but that one did, because it was so untruthful.

  45. 45.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Cervantes: I didn’t know he embellished. I remember him saying his parents were both lefties; activists who took him along on marches. So I didn’t question the Sacco & Vanzetti story.

  46. 46.

    D58826

    The Pope reaffirmed the Catholic position that the death penalty violates church teachings. Now I’m just wondering if all the American bishops who want to deny the sacraments to pro-choice Catholics will line up to deny the sacraments to Jeb Bush. After all most pro-choice Catholics have never had an abortion but Jeb did sign a number of death warrants as governor. But I guess that this is another one of those its OK it its a republican.

  47. 47.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Botsplainer: I was irritated last summer when we went to see a four piece oldtime jazz combo. They were great, but the lead singer/egotist told a story before each tune. Before playing Saint Louis Blues he felt compelled to explain that W.C. Handy stole all his songs from folk musicians. But then when they launched into some Stephen Foster songs, he didn’t find it necessary to explain Foster’s habit of appropriating black folk music for his own purposes.
    The 1940s biopic was a glorious exercise in whitesplaining.

  49. 49.

    bk

    Heading to the Strip for another day of March Madness, although yesterday will be tough to beat.

  50. 50.

    the Conster

    @Tenar Darell:

    Zombie Nurse Jackie. Sounds like it’s in my wheelhouse.

    @PhoenixRising:

    An old friend of mine who’s big time in the media is in the press pool in Asia, following FLOTUS. Her FB feed is quite interesting this week. Yesterday she had a big plate full of crickets or grasshoppers or roaches in front of her, along with some other unidentifiable edibles.

  51. 51.

    Big ole hound

    Peanuts were probably grown using some new MONSANTO pesticide that Granny had never eaten in here 90 years. I would research their origin and sue the BASTARDS.

  52. 52.

    Major Major Major Major

    We went to the Castello Sant’Angelo today. Daaaamn. I wish the architect historian who recommended it could have shown us all the cool stuff we missed.

    Tomorrow, Prague!

  53. 53.

    scav

    There are a certain number of other suspects for a reaction than the poor ol’ boiled peanut, unless the allergy response has already been tested and confirmed. We could do a line-up. Although the “Found a Peanut, Found a Peanut, Found a Peanut Right Now” string does provide a traditional narrative arc, as well as a theme tune.

  54. 54.

    scav

    @Major Major Major Major: ConGrats on Prague! Esher meets Kafka and then has fun. If you can, manage to get to the castle area at night and poke around. It empties out (or at least it did) and and the little streets come into their own. plus, the view. My greetings to those paving stones.

  55. 55.

    PaulW

    Started a gym.
    Doing laundry.
    Getting a story written for a science fiction anthology publication called UFO. They want dark humor, so I’m dredging up an old idea and working it.

  56. 56.

    PaulW

    Also, Betty, what’s your take on Rick “Comrade” Scott using Soviet-style tactics of suspending employees and accusing them of being crazy for even uttering the phrase “climate change”?

  57. 57.

    Botsplainer

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Speaking of the 40s and whitesplaining, DW Griffith is buried only a couple of miles away from where I am right now, in a forgotten corner of a forlorn graveyard of a small, dwindling exurban Methodist church.

    When he died, everybody hated him. He was a racist and a drunk, so nobody wanted to attend.

    With all the Exceptionalism and whitesplaination that was occurring with the early stages of the Cold War, views of the dickhead softened, and the Directors Guild decided to fund a VERY modest monument and burial at his home church. They held a proper funeral at a local facility and bury him in that church. Some celebs showed up at the 1950 interment.

    Anyway, I conduct history/ghost tours of the local exurban town in October as a volunteer effort (we raise a shitload of money for facade improvement, benches, sidewalk lighting and sidewalk decoration and repair). Anyway, the funeral home where the ceremonies were held is on the tour. The other volunteers whitesplain the Griffith connection, but I don’t. I present him as a vile racist with innovative ideas for cinema, but who was a drunken jerk who was hated in his industry. White guys seem to frown a bit at my explanations, but I can’t reach them – I’m communicating with women and the young.

  60. 60.

    Major Major Major Major

    @PaulW: cool! I’ve always wanted to write Sci fi…. well. Heh.

    Were you solicited or are they talking submissions?

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    Tenar Darell

    If you like that sort of take on zombie mania, you might also appreciate the British series In The Flesh.

    2 seasons, nine episodes total.

  65. 65.

    Major Major Major Major

    @PaulW: good thing I have all that librarianship training then, not that I really had to use it :P

    I’ll see you in the to-read pile, sir and/or madam!

  67. 67.

    PurpleGirl

    @Violet: Ah, but when it comes to actually filing the paperwork.. Trump will wimp out. The LAST thing he will want to do is have to make public (as it were) his true financial status.

    ETA: Time he has; the show is on hiatus I believe and he hasn’t been quite as active as a developer in a while. He isn’t quite as needed in the office.

  68. 68.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I visited my grandma on Wednesday. Happened to be on her side of the state for work so I copped 4 hours to visit her house. Fun fact from Leona: In 1925 the sidewalks in Muskegon MI were plowed by a man standing on a triangular wooden blade pulled by a horse. She was 8 years old and still remembers that.

  69. 69.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @PurpleGirl:

    Ah, but when it comes to actually filing the paperwork.. Trump will wimp out. The LAST thing he will want to do is have to make public (as it were) his true financial status.

    He’ll make a big deal about his intention to run. Then when he doesn’t run he’ll make a big deal about why not. And it will be all about him. Making a big deal about himself is pretty much his only play.

  70. 70.

    srv

    Sanaa, Yemen (CNN)The U.S. military is in the process of evacuating about 100 Special Operations forces members from the Al Anad airbase in Yemen due to that country’s deteriorating security situation, sources in the region familiar with the situation told CNN.

    This is what apology tours lead to.

  73. 73.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @raven:

    You’d like it better now. The paper plant closed down so no horrid stink.
    I have a lot of relatives in Muskegon but don’t get there often. It’s 3 hours from home these days.
    In other news, after decades of fighting the Grand Haven merchants a Hwy 31 bypass may be built, finally allowing Chicagoans trying to get to their cottages up the coast to avoid driving right through the center of that tourist trap.

  74. 74.

    Botsplainer

    @JPL:

    Daughter described her as being really elegant in person. Her biggest compliment was this (she adores the Obamas, but has a really salty mouth):

    “Despite it being 95 and humid that bitch looked fabulous and her hair was en pointe.”

    From that child, that is huge praise. She de

  76. 76.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @raven:
    My dad has a cottage on Bear Lake so I know that joint. Dad says he ran into Jim Harrison in there years ago. Having a beer and walleye fillets and staring in 2 directions at once.
    It’s a nice area and I’d spend summers there when I retire if we can afford it.

  79. 79.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @raven:
    East side of the lake is a bastard in the winter. Unbelievable snow early in the season. I would not spend Jan/Feb there at an advanced age. But Spring through Fall is glorious.

  80. 80.

    PurpleGirl

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: Yup. True dat. As a life-long resident of NYC I’ve been exposed to his attention seeking for a long time.

    ETA: And am quite bored of it. I wish he would just vanish into the night and stay there.

  81. 81.

    raven

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: I’m sure. My ex works at an at school in Door County and it’s similar. I remember reading fishing blog about the Outer Banks and some guy announced he was moving there. The locals told him he better come there for a winter before he decided.

  82. 82.

    Tenar Darell

    @ruemara: @the Conster: It’s on Hulu, if you can take the commercials. Also, the CW did re-broadcast it last night, which may be temporary spot filling/looking for more of an audience, but means it can replace Constantine for me.

    @NotMax: Thanks for the tip, I’ll put that in my list.

  83. 83.

    Cervantes

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Ted Cruz has a big announcement to make on Monday.

    Worried that Tom Cotton is upstaging him, Cruz is going to declare his candidacy.

    For Supreme Leader of Iran.

  84. 84.

    PurpleGirl

    @schrodinger’s cat: Kitteh climbing Mount Momma is cute. The current crop of kittens at Cassie’s Kitten Kastle usually didn’t stop when they reached the peak of their Mount Momma. They tended to fall off the other side, which was cute.

  86. 86.

    PurpleGirl

    NYC had snow yesterday, mixed with some rain but it didn’t freeze. We have some sun today so the sidewalks are clearing up. Now to go run some errands.

  88. 88.

    Cacti

    Funny stuff:

    Tea Party governor Paul LePage tries to use Stephen King to demagogue for top 1% tax cuts, saying that King had moved away from Maine because of income taxes. King issued the following public statement:

    “Governor LePage is full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green. Tabby and I pay every cent of our Maine state income taxes, and are glad to do it. We feel, as Governor LePage apparently does not, that much is owed from those to whom much has been given. We see our taxes as a way of paying back the state that has given us so much. State taxes pay for state services. There’s just no way around it. Governor LePage needs to remember there ain’t no free lunch.”

    I heart Stephen King.

  89. 89.

    Botsplainer

    @Cervantes:

    Teabigots being teabigots, I’m detecting the emergence of a ticket with Tom Cotton on it.

    Maybe even at the top of it. They’re incapable of recognizing how poisonous Southern conservatives are to their EV calculation.

    Conservatives of the modern variety don’t do nuance, study or pragmatism.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @Cacti:
    “…..There’s just no way around it. Governor LePage needs to remember there ain’t no free lunch.”
    There’s always free lunch for grifters. Isn’t that the whole point of being a grifter?

  93. 93.

    Cacti

    @Botsplainer:

    Conservatives of the modern variety don’t do nuance, study or pragmatism.

    I think since 09/11/2001, you could pretty safely categorize the 21st century GOP as a proto-fascist political party.

    ETA: Maybe a bit earlier than that, with the SCOTUS’s election theft to put him in power.

  94. 94.

    Tree With Water

    “The Suwannee River is the site of the prehistoric Suwanee Straits which separated peninsular Florida from the panhandle”.

    I didn’t know that until your reference inspired me to google the river [note to myself: am I turning into Cliff Claven?].

  96. 96.

    raven

    Known familiarly as “Sewanee” by its students, faculty, staff and friends, The University of the South offers an unmatched educational experience. The university remains purposefully small and dedicated to building a sense of community. All classes are taught by professors, not graduate teaching assistants, and close faculty-student interaction ensures that each student enjoys a rich and personal educational experience. It is not unusual for students and faculty members to work shoulder to shoulder on research projects and journal articles, to meet for coffee at a local eatery, or to serve together as members of the university orchestra, volunteer fire department, and other civic groups.

  97. 97.

    Elie

    From a comment on Huffington Post in relation to the Israeli election:

    “Israel has turned from the land of milk and honey to the land of hate and money”

  98. 98.

    Botsplainer

    @Cacti:

    I think since 09/11/2001, you could pretty safely categorize the 21st century GOP as a proto-fascist political party.

    If you look at the MoJo article regarding the CIA video briefing for Reagan and the characterization of a mid-80s Pravda series on life and the economy in the US, most of what was stated turned out to be true, particularly on income equality, race relations and gunboat diplomacy. Each of the supposed bad things listed is in fact a critical plank of the modern conservative agenda – attempts to alter any of them bring claims of liberal tyranny.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    @Botsplainer:

    “Despite it being 95 and humid that bitch looked fabulous and her hair was en pointe.”

    How did you manage to time travel and have a child with Sarah Proud and Tall?

    Your daughter has a blog in her future.

    Also: staying at a Raffles is on my bucket list. They look exquisite.

  100. 100.

    Sandia Blanca

    Betty, that photo is very much like my current view–we are staying on the Santa Fe River, watching canoes full of college kids float by. Perfect weather here in North Florida.

  101. 101.

    opiejeanne

    @Major Major Major Major: Dang! We ran out of time and didn’t get to see that except from a distance.

    We did get to see Livia’s Garden, which is displayed in the Palazzo Massimo. The room was built especially to display the remaining pieces of the fresco, and most of it is intact. Pictures do not do it justice.

  102. 102.

    PhoenixRising

    @Elizabelle: The Raffles is a very nice hotel.

    For the same money we get a riverfront condo with a kitchen, which allows us to shop & cook…and the property is just beautiful, view of the temple across the river, and the desk staff rent me a scooter so I can get around.

    If you ever end up going…Karavansera is all that.

    And @Botsplainer: amen to the daughter: Keeping your hair tamed inside a Crock-pot is the reason Cambodian women could rule the world if they only had the time. I get a fresh Annie Lennox brush cut 1 week before leaving for the region; my kid, native to the area, finds that her long hair is wavy by day 3.

  103. 103.

    Cervantes

    @Botsplainer:

    My wife and youngest daughter saw FLOTUS in Siem Reap yesterday – they were staying at the same hotel.

    I was there once at the same time as Jackie Kennedy, a few years after the assassination.

    The hotel has been refurbished since then. I, on the other hand, have not.

  104. 104.

    ThresherK

    @Germy Shoemangler: Oh, the studio-era musical biopics, don’t get me started on the bleaching out of all the flavor they do, simply to get use of royalty-free or studio-owned music.

    See Mickey Rooney as Larry Hart, and the elephant in Hart’s room. Not that he was homosexual (and perforce a closeted one). No, his short stature was presented as the cause of all his misery.

    And it wasn’t, IIRC, some subsumed Fritz Lang or Rod Serling kind of allegory.

    *SPOILER ALERT*

    The last scene is of Hart falling on a sidewalk underneath a shop window advertising elevator shoes. The younger me laughed so hard at that I have no idea if, in the movie, they depicted the drinking binge which the depressive Hart was on, or the torrents of rain which also contributed to the actual pneumonia Hart died from.

  106. 106.

    Mike in NC

    Visiting Prague should be on everybody’s bucket list. One of the most enchanting cities in the world.

  107. 107.

    Tree With Water

    @Mike in NC: Indeed, it was 76 years ago this month that the Wermacht decided to tour Prague. They liked it so much they didn’t leave for another 6 years.

  108. 108.

    Botsplainer

    @Cervantes:

    I was there once at the same time as Jackie Kennedy, a few years after the assassination.

    Prior to the bad days, eh? Had to be fascinating, and I’m guessing that a lot of the temple areas were in much better shape.

    Sadly, from what was told to my wife and daughter, most of the Buddha heads in the temple complex were removed during the days of the Killing Fields and after, most having been pillaged for sale. She got authority for a little work on a freshly unearthed section of the complex newly cleared of landmines.

    The hotel has been refurbished since then. I, on the other hand, have not.

    Funny old thing, life.

  110. 110.

    Cervantes

    @Botsplainer:

    So the CIA used to brief Reagan by videos (I suspect it reflects the beginning of his dementia – stuff needed to be dumbed down).

    There are historians, including some within the Agency, now trying to argue that, contrary to popular belief, Reagan was a “capable and engaged” President. To make this case, they adduce details noted in his diaries, complicated conversations he is said to have had with his advisers, and so forth — and they make a regular song and dance of it. Yet to stop them cold, one needs only to ask: If he was so “capable and engaged,” how did he let so many crimes occur in his own White House? And why did he so often disavow all knowledge of said shenanigans with the phrase “I don’t recall”?

  111. 111.

    raven

    Well, the bad new is UAB ain’t gonna win. The good news is I learned that I won the 1st round biggest upset on the second tiebreaker.

  113. 113.

    opiejeanne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: We finally just decided to do it last September. We didn’t get to stay long enough in Rome, had to leave on day 5. It was part of a 10 day Rick Steves tour that started in Venice with 3 days there (we got there early and had nearly 5 whole days; it was glorious weather), three days in Florence (again, not enough time there), and ended with 3 days in Rome, and we spent another day and a half in Rome seeing some of the things we had missed on the tour. Then we caught a train south to Brindisi, where my niece works. She and her husband live nearby and they spent four days showing us a whole different Italy. Her husband is from Tuscany so we have to go back and see his family and that region of Italy.

    ( We never do tours but I have to say that this tour was an excellent introduction to Italy and I had much less to fret over.)

  115. 115.

    trollhattan

    @Cervantes:

    To make this case, they adduce details noted in his diaries, complicated conversations he is said to have had with his advisers, and so forththe White House bannisters.

    I take pleasure in watching heads ‘splode when I refer to “The criminal organization known as the Reagan Administration.” As long as I’m breathing I plan to push back on his race to Conservative Sainthood(tm).

  117. 117.

    Cervantes

    @Botsplainer:

    Prior to the bad days, eh?

    For Cambodia? Prior to the worst days, yes, but the civil war had already begun.

    For Jackie — well, her worst day was behind her, of course. She was traveling in Cambodia with a friend.

    This was in 1967.

  118. 118.

    Corner Stone

    @Cervantes:

    For Jackie — well, her worst day was behind her, of course. She was traveling in Cambodia with a friend.

    This was in 1967.

    I thought her worst days were in 1969 when she desperately wanted to visit JFK (who at that time had been relocated to living on the moon), and they told her it had to be an all male crew per JFK’s request.

  119. 119.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @ThresherK: The musical biopics are often grotesque. Cary Grant starring in the Cole Porter story! I liked what orson welles remarked when he heard they were filming it: ”What will they use for a climax? The only suspense is: will he or won’t he accumulate $10 million?”

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    Sorry about your grandma’s difficulties.

    One of my fears is to suddenly develop and allergy to something I’ve eaten all my life. I’ve never had any food allergies, but been around someone when they had an attack – scary.

  122. 122.

    Cervantes

    @trollhattan:

    Well, even in the most generous view, they can’t have it both ways: either he knew something of what was happening or he didn’t.

  123. 123.

    SenyorDave

    The Suwannee River is permanently etched in my mind as the foil of Ralph Kramden’s dream to win $64k on an episode of the Honeymooners. Possibly my favorite moment in sitcom history is when Ralph is fumbling for an answer to the question of who wrote the American classic song “Suwanee River”, and the only answer he comes up with is “hom-in-ah-hom-in-ah Ralph Norton”. The kicker, of course, is that “Suwanee River” is the song his pal Ed always warmed up with whenever he played the piano.

  125. 125.

    dan

    I’m from NY. I’ll eat just about anything. A couple of years ago I stopped at a truck stop in the southern-most Carolina. They had crockpots full of boiled peanuts. I was going to try them, but when I looked in, it looked like a backed up toilet.

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Pretty much any Hollywood studio’s biopic of that time period bears zero resemblance to reality. Buster Keaton was hired as a “consultant” on his MGM biopic, starring Donald O’Connor. O’Connor asked Keaton about a scene he was about to play, where child circus performer Buster has to go out and do his circus act right after his father has died.

    Keaton said, “I was never in a circus, and my father died when I was 50 years old.”

  127. 127.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    Pretty much any Hollywood studio’s biopic of that time period bears zero resemblance to reality

    Why would that be the case? Was every inaccuracy designed to attract a larger audience or was something less obvious going on?

  129. 129.

    Theodore Wirth

    Boiled peanuts and the Suwannee river are nostalgic and all that, but has anybody considered the toxicity of the water or the level of pesticides in the peanuts?

Comments are closed.