Son/brother of 2 former presidents & oil millionaires gets to audition for oil billionaires #MakingOfThePresident2016 pic.twitter.com/KguelDnOI4
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) April 21, 2015
Looks like yesterday’s Koch Bros public announcement that Scott Walker was their guy may have been a ploy to get Jeb Bush (well, Jeb’s handlers) to pay attention to their GOP insurgency…
…[A] top Koch aide revealed to POLITICO that Jeb Bush will be given a chance to audition for the brothers’ support, despite initial skepticism about him at the top of the Kochs’ growing political behemoth.
Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz debated at the Koch network’s winter seminar in January, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made a separate appearance. Those were the candidates who appeared to have a chance at the Koch blessing, and attendees said Rubio seemed to win that round.
But those four — plus Jeb – will be invited to the Kochs’ summer conference, the aide said. Bush is getting a second look because so many Koch supporters think he looks like a winner. Other candidates, perhaps Rick Perry or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, may also get invitations…
I’m thinking Game of Thrones is popular because its murderous thieving megalomaniacs have the benefit of better writers. And their dragons are more attractive, too.
***********
Apart from acknowledging it’s gonna be a long eighteen months, what’s on the agendda for the evening?
Germy Shoemangler
Open thread:
Here’s something that choked me up a bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bktozJWbLQg
A 102-year-old woman sees herself on film for the first time. Alice Barker was a chorus line dancer during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s and 40s. She danced at clubs such as The Apollo, Cotton Club, and Zanzibar Club, with legends including Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
Some kind soul found old movies she’d never seen and shared them with her.
srv
You Americans and your auditions! Royalty doesn’t work that way. For example, King Salman’s wunderkinder, the new minister of defense, has been in a bit of a bind with his first project in Yemen. What to do?
Achievement unlocked! Also, too:
The NG is under another minister.
Brachiator
If you haven’t seen it or mentioned it before, I recommend that folks check out the music documentary, The Wrecking Crew, available for rental on Google Play, Amazon Prime and elsewhere. It may still be in the theaters in a few markets.
A cool public radio interview with some of the people behind the film can be found here… (Air Talk, KPCC public radio)
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2015/03/11/41925/the-wrecking-crew-filmmaker-keyboardist-on-unsung/
So a little music, and I may try to catch up on the latest episode of “Wolf Hall.”
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The only Republicans that have a chance of beating Hillary Clinton are Chris Christie and John Kasich. Christie is an asshole and a bully and the media will cover for him. Kasich doesn’t appear to be a raging asshole and may even be competent.
Jeb, Cruz, Paul, Rubio, Walker haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell.
Hal
This is were the quid pro quo the conservatives on the supreme court dismissed comes into play. Billionaires meet with potential clients, um, I mean candidates for President, and present them with a list of things they will want to see done as President. Any republican candidate that wins the Koch money will be answerable to them only.
Given their absolute dismissal of climate change, if a Republican becomes President we can expect 4 to 8 years of walking back on any even remotely significant climate change support we have seen from the Obama admin.
Hildebrand
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: I don’t think we can scratch Walker off the list – he has a Nixonian vibe (at all sorts of levels), which makes him feel very dangerous, especially coupled with endless reserves of money to throw around. Ugly it may all be, but Walker has parlayed ugly into a string of victories that makes me nervous.
Baud
I hope to all that is holy that the swimsuit competition of the Koch beauty pageant isn’t televised.
trollhattan
@Hildebrand:
Yup, and his anti-union cred will carry him far unless ¡Heb! can sell himself as such. He evidences no personality whatsoever from what little I’ve actually watched of him, i.e., a perfect projection screen.
Hills will kick all their asses in foreign affairs, which is an interesting turnabout from the usual Republican senator so-and-so who’s been on committee such-and-such.
Hal
@trollhattan:
Even in PA, OH and MI? I could see Walker getting trounced in those states based on his anti-union position. Also, I still don’t know if people are going to want a President without a college degree.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I’m not going to waste one second of my life feeling sorry for JEB! – he’s a monster – but damn, think of the humiliation, the sheer gall, of these two assholes SETTING UP AN AUDITION, like you’re some kind of c-grade actor, and you gotta go in and do your little song and dance, maybe put out on the couch for one or both of them, and walk off hoping you got the part but knowing they’ll probably give it to that little bitch who can do that thing with her tongue.
I can think of few people who deserve this treatment more than JEB! does.
MomSense
@Germy Shoemangler:
Thank you for posting that video. Wonderful.
SiubhanDuinne
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Any single one of the candidates who is willing to play this game* — which would be funny if it weren’t so tragic for the country — deserves to be roundly humiliated.
*(I guess that would be “All of them, Katie.”)
kindness
Who has a spare missile we can send to this august conference?
Brachiator
The UK elections are May 7. Should be as much fun as our upcoming electoral circus. And unexpectedly, this election might be called, The Scottish play:
SNP is the Scottish National Party. Coalitions make strange bedfellows.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: How about the talent portion with maybe some fancy pageant walking?
MomSense
@Baud:
Need brain bleach. Ew.
the Conster
Rooting for injuries, but the idea that the Bushes have to pirouette, curtsy and drop trow to anyone after what they’ve perpetrated without consequence all these years, well, it’s downright Shakespearean. Also, I love that the Kochs have been flushed out, and aren’t even pretending anymore. That’s a victory of sorts.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: Come on, I know you want to see Scott Walker in a Speedo.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’ll be GMing Cairn of Shadows for the Pathfinder Society this evening.
MattF
The Kochs really want someone who will simply do what they are instructed to do. Walker is already there, I can see Rubio falling in line– and maybe Jeb! will toe the line. Cruz and Paul, not so much. And the others are just burning oxygen under the floorboards of the clown car.
Violet
I think Rubio doesn’t look like a good candidate, but the media swooned over him at his announcement and the recent NH thing. If the media thinks he “looks presidential” and he gets the Koch money, could that be enough? Ugh.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
At least none of them will claim that they will work for world peace if elected.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: And there goes any desire for dinner.
WereBear
@BillinGlendaleCA: I don’t want to see any of them in a Speedo.
And the talent competition is going to be a total washout.
Violet
@the Conster: Yes, as old money and well connected as the Bush clan is, it isn’t enough. Their current dog in the hunt has to don a tutu and dance around for treats. Good boy, Jeb! Good boy!
Now, if only some of the help could be persuaded to wear a recording device….
raven
@Germy Shoemangler: This is obviously not the same but Aurore Clément as Roxanne Sarrault in Apocalypse Now had her scene cut in the first release in 1979 and did not see herself in the film until Apocalypse Now Redux was release in 2001.
Baud
@WereBear:
The talent competition will be each candidate playing the role of the Koch’s ventriloquist dummy.
Hildebrand
The Democrats better pummel the ‘candidates’ for this dog and pony show. If there aren’t ads already in the can speaking to the Republicans need to sell themselves to the Koch brothers, I will be incredibly disappointed in the DNC – oh, that’s right, I already am – but good god, these ads write themselves. They should flog Walker and anyone else who even goes that conference.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: DRINK!
Roger Moore
FWIW, I think this whole thing should count as illegal coordination between the candidate and the Kochs’ SuperPAC. The whole idea that a candidate can go and court a big money donor but that the donor’s spending on that candidate is still and independent expenditure is absurd.
PIGL
Game of Thrones is popular because its murderous thieving megalomaniacs….occasionally get their comeuppance. This never seems to happen in real life.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Not sure it would help.
MomSense
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Help. I have the most horrific mental picture.
Baud
@Hildebrand:
Hillary has come out of the gate on this issue. Any challenger will undoubtedly do the same.
Violet
@BillinGlendaleCA: You are an evil, evil man. That image is making the stomach virus I’ve been dealing with feel a little bit worse. Ugh.
WereBear
@Baud: Love it!
Now the evening gowns… I wouldn’t mind a few leaked pics.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hard drugs it is then.
JustRuss
I simply cannot read that phrase too many times. Dance, monkey, dance! Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
fleeting expletive
I missed Soonergrunt’s piece earlier but it resonated greatly with me. A little over a month ago I injured my eye fairly seriously and it has been a month of Opthalmologists, specialized eye clinics, one surgery, expensive eyedrops, and pain. I wanted a mommy’s lap to curl up in and cry, and I’m 67 and never had that kind of mommy. I think I must have become more depressed than I knew. Two significant light bulbs burned out and I couldn’t get up on a stepladder to change them, so my house was dark and, with just one functioning eye I really couldn’t see what was around me. My recyclables piled up in my kitchen, it was hard to even take the trash out.
I had talked with my daughter about how things were–she’s 1700 miles away. But this last weekend one son contributed some flight miles so that she could come and spend 4 days with me. He and his older stepbrother came at the same time and we all spent a day visiting. My daughter did tremendous work here–laundry, cooking, shopping, etc., and lots of hugging.
The upshot is, their visits reminded me that I still matter, I’m not worthless nor helpless, and that some people do love me. I didn’t know I was in such a low place. This situation may ultimately prove to be life changing, too. The boys talked to each other about what if this had been a Big One, like breaking a leg or having to go to assisted living, and how no one is nearer than 175 miles from me. The older son lives in a house owned by his uncle in the city where both boys live, but he’s living with a girlfriend. He’s going to talk to the uncle and see if he can work out a family price so that I can afford to move into his erstwhile house, near a lovely street with bookshops, sidewalk cafes and people-watching.
I’m pretty much amenable to that since I’ve lived in this little house for 7 years and barely know one neighbor. So I feel like 500 pounds of crap might be within sight (no pun intended) of being lifted from my shoulders. Also, within 5-6 months I think my eye will be healed and whatever vision I have left will be restored.
Sooner’s troubles are horrible for him and I wish him nothing but complete recovery. That thread this morning, though, I took some comfort from it myself.
Thank you all.
Linnaeus
Audition for support, said without irony.
Hell in a handbasket, ladies and gentlemen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I suppose so, and here I was saving my smack for Friday.
ruemara
@fleeting expletive: Welcome back to life. We’re glad you’re here and you have great kids.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d go with the smack, acid or shrooms would only make things worse. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
Violet
@fleeting expletive: Wishing you the best. Sometimes there are silver linings and it sounds like your eye injury may turn out to be the beginning of a welcome new chapter for you.
WereBear
@fleeting expletive: I’m so glad some good things are likely to happen. We can all use more of those.
fleeting expletive
Thank you, reumara. I certainly do. I’d love to live closer to my sons. I have driven to doctors’ appointments with one functional eye but there won’t be much driving, either, for the next few months.
MomSense
@fleeting expletive:
It’s often in times of crisis that everything save what is most important just slips away. It sounds like you are reconstructing a life that is centered on family. I wish continued healing and good things for you.
raven
@fleeting expletive: 40 years ago this month I was in Grady hospital in Atlanta with a broken T-6. I had rods put on my spine and, after the surgery, laid on the ICU ward and watched the war that I had left 5 years before come to a crashing end. Things looked pretty bleak on a lot of levels but I was lucky and things worked out. Hang in there.
SiubhanDuinne
One thing I think is really interesting is how, in something under five years, the Koch Brothers have gone from being shadowy, almost unknown background figures to people whose names are practically household words, at least among the politically aware. (Heck, Jane Mayer’s 2011 New Yorker article, which introduced them to most of us, was titled “Covert Operations.”) Whereas not long ago they tried to stay more-or-less anonymous (at least for their political activities), they now seem to be thumbing their respective and collective noses at us, jerking around potential GOP candidates in the most humiliating fashion, and essentially saying to the rest of us “Whaddya gonna do about it?”
Wonder when and why they decided to be overt rather than covert.
Violet
@fleeting expletive: Without going into too much detail, an older relative of mine had an issue develop last year. When one of his kids got out there they found him to be in a really bad way, much worse than any of them knew. A health emergency then happened followed by time in rehab and then the kids all decided the best solution for everyone was to move him back to the state where they all lived.
He’s been recovering over the last few months and is doing much better. Amazingly he doesn’t need his pain medications now that he’s on antidepressants (depression in older adults can present as pain issues). He’s put on weight, other measures have stabilized, and they’re looking to move him to a more independent living situation.
One of the kids or grandkids visits almost every day, sometimes he gets two visits a day. He’s thriving and they’re all loving having him so close. It really has worked out wonderfully for everyone. They never could have imagined such a good outcome last year when it looked so bleak.
I hope you have a similar good outcome and get to enjoy creating a new life for yourself nearer family.
Kyle
@srv:
Homer Simpson: Mmmm, king salmon…
srv
At least one liberal organization has a real ombudsman:
Imagine what Congress could investigate if they weren’t so tied up with Benghazi.
kuvasz
I’m going to start a prayer circle to pray for an earthquake that swallows up the GOP candidates and the Koch boys all at once.
Cermet
@SiubhanDuinne: When they lost big time with the mitt; learned a lesson they did!
Iowa Old Lady
@fleeting expletive: I was thinking about you just today and wondering how things were going. Sounds like it’s been a tough struggle but maybe things are on the way up.
Frankensteinbeck
Given my opinion of the national media and its grasp of political reality, I am forced to skepticism. I would find it just as easy to believe that Jeb is going to tell the Kochs that they can fall in line, or find out just how little their gauche tradesman’s money means when the People Who Matter are lined up against you. The Bushes don’t need politics. It’s a matter of ego for them. They’re not likely to abandon their pride for it. Or the entire story could be bullshit with no resemblance to reality. Again, my faith in our media is below ‘none’.
No matter what this story means, it’s moot. Crazy ass rich people want things done their way. There will be no deal that sticks. We will see another round of rich lunatics pouring money into PACs that promise the campaign they think the public wants. Those PACs will be staffed by grifters who have really stepped up their game, and more money will be bled to less result than ever before.
Our one salvation is that the SCOTUS unwittingly built a system whose design encourages, nay, demands anarchy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Germy Shoemangler: Thanx. I needed that, renews my faith in humanity.
mainmata
@Brachiator: Scotland has long been a Labour Party bastion so an SNP-Labour coalition is much more likely than either a SNP-Tory or a SNP-Lib-Dem coalition.
Iowa Old Lady
@Frankensteinbeck: I think I found that post comforting.
Is that wrong?
mainmata
@MattF: I somewhat disagree. Walker is a dull-witted, corrupt Midwestern apparatchik. He already has been a dutiful employee of the Koch Enterprise for several years now. The others have had independent, non-Koch origins. What the Kochs don’t realize is that simply having a dull-witted, dutiful employee run as President isn’t going to fly in the general.
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck:
I agree. I spent enough time in close proximity to that family to know how they play the game.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
@Cermet:
I’ll go with efgoldman for the meta, Cermet for the proximate.
mellowjohn
it will come down to which R candidate can unzip a Koch brother fly with the least amount of tugging.
JPL
@fleeting expletive: One of the reasons I gravitated to this site 8 or 9 yrs ago was because we could share. It’s a place for intelligent discussion about politics, woes, pets and now gardening and food. What other blog offers those things. Take care.
Tenar Darell
@srv: That’s nice. But it doesn’t surprise me that they caved under a little pressure. Are they gonna apologize and broadcast Citizen Koch? Or re-broadcast Park Avenue with Stanley Tucci’s intro and no rebuttal by David Koch too? Jane Mayer had this story, PBS proved then that they will cave to powerful interests.Caving to pressure from a subject is easy after that. It’s only one person’s story in one series of a continuing program. Who cares, but history and genealogy nerds! /snark
JPL
@efgoldman: That might have been an exaggeration. We are a motley crew though.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: I hate that band.
Baud
@efgoldman:
I’m doing my best to maintain the lowest common denominator here.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Familiarity breeds contempt, especially with Republicans.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@fleeting expletive:
I sometimes feel a little bit bad that we pressured our mother to sell her house in Arizona and move in with my brother in Illinois, but I really was worried all the damn time that something was going to happen to her and we wouldn’t find out until it was too late.
I’m feeling more justified right now because she’s getting back to crafting after a few years away (she didn’t have time while my dad was dying and then didn’t want to do it), so I think it’s better for her to be around family (her sister lives in the same area) than to be all alone and far away from everyone.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
True, they are stronger as abstractions.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Did you catch my reply on the previous thread about LASIK?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I’m happy that my parents decided to move closer to their children while it was still comparatively easy for them. Admittedly, they aren’t very close, but they’re within much more reasonable driving distance.
Violet
This has to be complete bullshit. The “perhaps” and the “may” indicate as much, but the actual content–Perry and Jindal? Really? Politico is just making shit up. They wanted to pad the story so just added a few names. Maybe those guys’ PR people took them out to dinner recently. Or paid for whores.
Sm*t Cl*de
“Game-changing” in the sense of “kicking over the chess board when one loses”.
danielx
@MomSense:
Could be worse. I am resolutely trying NOT to contemplate the awful image of Chris Christie in a Speedo.
Schlemazel
As long as its an open thread I will take the opportunity to let everyone here know that JMN/tissue thin has a kisk starter up & running for his novel “Becoming Phoebe”
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1282165987/becoming-phoebe
Here is what the most negative person on the internet had to say about the book:
I was scared when JMN asked me to read his book because I wouldn’t want to tell him it stunk if it had. But he gave me the ground rules and I could live with them. It turned out I didn’t have to worry as his writing does not stink! (You can use that as one of your cover quotes if you want ) smile emoticon
The story is well written, a quality story and an enjoyable read.
The story line is new and original, unlike anything I have read before. You do not need to be a hockey fan or even a sports fan to enjoy this novel, it is very much a story of human relations, with sport being merely the “maguffin” that draws the individuals into contact. Phoebe is a protagonist you are not likely to have encountered before. JMN gives her a compelling humanity you want to touch despite her attempts to put up barriers.
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Saw your question about Lasik and wanted to add what my friend told me about her husband’s experience. This is second hand and on the internet, so salt and all.
He had Lasik when he had a good job with insurance. He was probably in his early 30’s. Loved it. Got rid of his glasses and all was well. Then he got into some kind of a car accident and it shifted something in his eye related to the Lasik. Apparently they couldn’t fix it so he had to go back to wearing glasses. What I don’t know is if they couldn’t fix it because it wasn’t fixable or if they couldn’t afford to have it fixed. He had lost his job and money was tight. I think it was something that wasn’t fixable because my friend felt like it was sort of money down the drain and wish they’d been told about that possibility upfront.
Wanted to mention it in case you wanted to ask your doctor about that possibility.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WereBear:
I did. I’m still pondering it. Like most elective surgeries, it sounds like going for the cheapest surgeon you can find is always a mistake, and fortunately I wouldn’t have to do that.
But I’m really, really, REALLY tired of being unable to function without glasses. If one of the cats knocks mine off the nightstand, I sometimes have to call G in to find them for me because I can’t see well enough to find them. I don’t need perfect 20/20 vision, but knowing I could see well enough without glasses to function in an emergency would be comforting.
Tracy Ratcliff
@danielx: you *had* to go there.
[searches for brain-bleach]
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): In contrast to what I said in my previous comment, another friend had it done several years ago. Her eyesight was poor and she was sick of wearing glasses. She LOVES it. So far no problems. She tells everyone to do it, based on her own experience of course.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Violet:
From what I’ve been reading, they strongly advise people to give up contact sports because head injuries can affect the LASIK by shifting the cornea out of place. So I can see a car accident screwing things up.
WereBear
Amen to that. The link has some good information that you can quiz prospective doctors with, like large pupils or existing conditions that make a poor outcome more likely.
I know I’m annoyed enough having to need reading glasses. Especially in tech, where they have a habit of using 2 point type on devices that are black on black.
And I used to have no problem reading such things :)
Also, PRK is supposed to be a better option all around.
lamh36
So “Cleopatra” is on one of the classic movie channels. Ya know, I know the iconic scenes, but I’m just now realizing that I never actually watched the film.
So, nothing else much is on, so I find myself watching Cleopatra of all things…oh well.
gf120581
My reading of this is that while Walker may be the Koch brothers’ personal favorite (he’s the perfect dimwitted puppet who’ll dance to their every whim), they’re aware, especially after the last couple months, that he doesn’t have what it takes to win a national election. (The recent polling showing his approval crashing in Wisconsin and Hillary crushing him there by double digits probably doesn’t help his case either.) So they’re auditioning for someone else. Jeb and Rubio seem the most likely. Even the Kochs know Paul and Cruz don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at winning next November.
Mike E
Watching The Reagan Presidency pt 3, The Iran/Contraning…his heart and mind didn’t approve it, some other vestigial organ must’ve tho!
IOKIYAR should be inscribed on a nat’l shrine somewhere.
MomSense
@danielx:
Damn the power of mental suggestion. Something is seriously wrong with my brain. He’s wearing a blond wig and lipstick. Sort of a John Goodman as Linda Tripp vibe.
MomSense
@Mike E:
Didn’t he say something like “I might have been in possession of that information at one time.”
I hated that guy. I’ll never forget watching the Reagan just say no video in an all school assembly. I started heckling (quietly) and was praying they would kick me out. I had never done drugs before that horrendous video message, but a quarter of the way through and I really wanted to start.
MomSense
@efgoldman:
It was bad. I was about 10 days away from The Shining: this time the mom loses it.
Baud
@MomSense:
The heart wants what it wants.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I had LASIK surgery over 10 years ago. It was scary as hell but painless and successful in that I was no longer near sighted, could drive without glasses, etc. But I was old enough to start needing reading glasses. Since I spend most of my time reading or on the computer, I’m not sure I came out much better.
I did learn how to deal with having glasses I needed only part of the time though. I bought a bunch of cheap ones and leave them all over the house.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: right next to the bottle of extra bile.
So *that’s* why you never seem to run out.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WereBear:
The FDA’s website has a lot of great information, as does the one for the American Academy of Opthamology. The FDA seems a little skeptical about the long-term prospects, but there isn’t a lot of hard evidence since they only started doing the procedure in 1998 and there have been changes and refinements since then.
Howard Beale IV
@kindness: Missile?
Drones.
Lots and lots of drones. The load-out of the drones can take many different forms.
The thing that I don’t understand is why the Koch’s feel such a compunction to do what they’re going to do. For fucks sake, they got wealth beyond everyone’s imagination, and when they die, they’re done-so what the fuck are they trying to prove?
Are they trying to force on the American public what their sick twisted father did to them? If the Koch’s intend to force the Sins of their Father on the American populace, then we must prevent this from happening by all political and legal means necessary.
Howard Beale IV
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I had a co-worker who had LASIK done in Canada back in the early 1990s when it was approved there before the FDA allowed it here-she was happy as hell. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep in contact with her to know how it has held up.
Kathleen
@Germy Shoemangler: Wasn’t that awesome? And she’s still beautiful and alert.
On another note, how does one “audition” for the Koch Brothers? Does one whip slaves? Stage reenactments of children having their fingers and hands cut off in milling machines? Lock people in buildings and set fire to them?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I started wearing glasses when I was about six (very nearsighted). Never could deal with contacts, although Lord knows I tried. About ten years ago (I was in my early 60s at the time) I had LASIK surgery.
It was great; I loved it; I’d do it again in a heartbeat. One of the frivolous things I most loved was being able to buy and wear silly or fashion sunglasses, which I had never been able to do before — it was either those awful clip-ons, or super expensive Rx shades.
What they either didn’t tell me, or I didn’t know enough to ask, is that your eyes can continue to change shape. In other words, after several years, I once again needed correction. A fairly mild correction, to be sure, but you wouldn’t want me behind the wheel of a car without something corrective. Since I was used to wearing glasses, I went with a very funky, wow-look-at-THAT! frame, and lenses that transition from outdoor to indoor in a few seconds.
I don’t consider this a failure of the LASIK, because it was great for many years, but I wish they had alerted me ahead of time that the benefits of the surgery wouldn’t last forever. However, I can certainly get from bed to bathroom in the middle of the night without fumbling for my specs — something that would not have been possible previously — and having experienced the actual cuttage, I’m not as scared of my looming cataract surgery as I might otherwise be.
Dunno if this helps, but whatever way you go, I wish you luck.
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That’s probably what happened, then. I remember that both my friend and her husband were annoyed but she really felt like they’d got ripped off financially. I guess their surgeon didn’t tell them about the head injury thing.
danielx
@MomSense:
Hey, it’s no more weird than a lot of other fetishes indulged in at CPAC. So rumor has it.
jl
Koch guys are nicer than me. I wouldn’t give Jeb! ‘a chance’ with a personal interview. For whatever that is worth.
danielx
@Kathleen:
I believe it starts with licking their shoes and goes on from there.
David Koch
@SiubhanDuinne: how much did it lasik cost?
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
IIRC, there’s a “surgeon’s law” that the guys who know most about it won’t allow their doctors to try any new, improved techniques or devices until they’ve been on the market for at least ten years — fifteen for stuff that’s really essential, like eyesight or cardiac surgery. So Lasik has been around long enough to pass that milestone.
On the other hand, just about everyone will eventually need cataract surgery if they’re lucky enough to live that long, and at 59 I’m just as happy to stick with my trifocals. Since you’re younger, YMMV.
Don’t know when you started wearing glasses, but I have had a couple early-adopters among my acquaintances who were moderately perturbed while they got used to not using the appliance that had become almost an extended part of their bodies.
jl
Why are House GOPers intimidating people who confront or challenge them or ask hard questions, in any way at all, in person? This is third or fourth time I have heard or read news reports about these jackasses issuing threats to people on what I think are pretty flimsy pretexts. I only remember one guy by name from previous incidents, and that was the jackass Grim, who is out of the House now.
This one is from Rep. Steve Knight (R Jackass-CA) . And the guy he threatened was a teabagger criticizing him from the teabagger reactionary xenophobic right. But I don’t care. This crap from Congress jackasses really ticks me off, I don’t care what end of the ideological spectrum the person on the receiving end is.
Anyone see any excuse for this garbage from Rep. Steve Knight (R Jackass-CA)?
GOP Congressman To Protester: ‘Touch Me Again, I’ll Drop Your A**’ (VIDEO)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/steve-knight-amnesty-protester-drop-your-ass
NotMax
@danielx
Speedos?
Nah. He’s definitely let it all hang out thong guy.
jl
@efgoldman: maybe the ‘on’ was supposed to be an ‘up’. That would make sense.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
At the time, I think about $1700-1800 an eye. Really can’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it ended up being about $3500 bucks or so out of pocket (unfortunately, insurance didn’t pay for the surgery, although I seem to recall it covered the follow-up visits).
Mike E
@MomSense: Then there was that disclosure of how advanced his dementia/Alzheimer’s was during the whole affair. His innards were Teflon coated as well. Too.
J R in WV
@Violet:
The polling data that someone posted a link to yesterday included Jindal on the Republican questions. He got 1% and 2% (tops) along with quite a few * asterisks (which I take to mean ZERO rather than just bluntly putting the zero in the list of results.
Another interesting datum, in the questions about respondents’ race – there were no respondents who identified as Republican or leans-Republican who also identified as non-white. NONE!!
So the Republican party has lost everyone with any ethnic identity other than white-bread. Latinos, Islanders, Native-American, African-American, all those groups are (give or take 3.5% error margin) all going Democratic, all of them. Everywhere.
lamh36
Lol. That processional though, when Cleopatra arrived in Rome…lol. Lord, but I can totally see Beyonce pulling some of that shit…if she hasn’t already.
fuckwit
@trollhattan: It just occurred to me that Ms. Clinton’s taking on the job of SecState and absolutely crushing it, was extremely shrewd and extremely valuable, and makes her almost unbeatable. She did a fantastic job. Kerry is becoming competent now, but I think Clinton was the best SecState in my lifetime. Nobody running or likely to run can come anywhere near her on that. She already knows all the world’s leaders personally, and has travelled to almost every country. If the R’s want to make 2016 about war and peace, Clinton is ready and waiting for them.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve been wearing glasses since about age six, too, and I also never could get used to contacts. Apparently, one of the things that makes me a good initial candidate from a psychological POV is that I’d be okay with wearing reading glasses or even distance glasses after the surgery as long as there’s a noticeable improvement from where I started. I mentioned I the last thread that I’m a -6 in one eye and a -8 in the other, so there’s a lot of room for improvement. I’m in my mid-40s, so I could potentially have a good 20-25 years before things go south.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Anne Laurie:
Cataracts are one of the things I’m nervous about, though hopefully I have postponed that day by wearing sunglasses 90 percent of the time I’m outdoors. I’m trying to remember if we have a family history of glaucoma on either side, but I don’t think we do. I may have a couple of physical contraindications (like dry, sensitive eyes), but that’s something the doctor would have to tell me for sure.
It would be very freaky if they corrected me to the point where I wouldn’t need glasses at all. I’m not really sure I could handle it. I think efgoldman said they let him choose to stay at 20/40 so he wouldn’t have to give up glasses.
Zinsky
I hope no one has a cellphone video of Jeb fellating the Kochheads. I just might blow chunks….
fuckwit
@Zinsky: No dude you don’t understand… Chunks is my dog….
Omnes Omnibus
@fuckwit: Okay, I lol’ed.
PIGL
@danielx: You’ve seen Borat in one, I expect? What could be possibly be more disturbing?
PhilbertDesanex
@kuvasz: Re an earthquake for the Kochs, how about they just have their dancing boy show in Oklahoma?