.@Cat_Lance pic.twitter.com/6GSywpB1i4
— Spencer Moore (@spencer_moore) June 5, 2015
Carl Safina, in the NYTimes, on “Tapping Your Inner Wolf“:
… “The main characteristic of an alpha male wolf,” the veteran wolf researcher Rick McIntyre told me as we were watching gray wolves, “is a quiet confidence, quiet self-assurance. You know what you need to do; you know what’s best for your pack. You lead by example. You’re very comfortable with that. You have a calming effect.”…
“Imagine two wolf packs, or two human tribes,” Mr. McIntyre said. “Which is more likely to survive and reproduce? The one whose members are more cooperative, more sharing, less violent with one another; or the group whose members are beating each other up and competing with one another?”
Thus, an alpha male may be a major player in a successful hunt but then, after the takedown of the prey, may step away and sleep until his pack has eaten and is full.
Mr. McIntyre has spent 20 years watching and studying wolves in Yellowstone for the National Park Service. He rises early, uses radio telemetry to pinpoint the location of a pack with a radio-collared member, then heads out with his spotting scope to observe them, keeping careful notes of their activities.
In all that time, he has rarely seen an alpha male act aggressively toward the pack’s other members. They are his family — his mate, offspring (both biological and adopted) and maybe a sibling.
This does not mean that alpha males are not tough when they need to be. One famous wolf in Yellowstone whose radio collar number, 21, became his name, was considered a “super wolf” by the people who closely observed the arc of his life. He was fierce in defense of family and apparently never lost a fight with a rival pack. Yet within his own pack, one of his favorite things was to wrestle with little pups.
“And what he really loved to do was to pretend to lose. He just got a huge kick out of it,” Mr. McIntyre said.
One year, a pup was a bit sickly. The other pups seemed to be afraid of him and wouldn’t play with him. Once, after delivering food for the small pups, 21 stood looking around for something. Soon he started wagging his tail. He’d been looking for the sickly little pup, and he just went over to hang out with him for a while.
Of all Mr. McIntyre’s stories about the super wolf, that’s his favorite. Strength impresses us. But kindness is what we remember best…
***********
What’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
Mustang Bobby
21 sounds like he has confidence in his wolfhood. You won’t find balls hanging from his trailer hitch.
raven
Since Bohdi is having trouble with our round trip walk I’m going to drive, leave the van, walk home and then walk back with the family. It’s the only way we can figure for us to walk together some.
Keith G
I am on mobile, so I’m not going to go through the arduous process of providing links, but The New York Times has two worthy articles up. The first is about the budgetary problems facing states – particularly those states led by tax cutting Republican governors. The second article is a bit of an overview on the rise of Scott Walker. Nothing there is very profound. It is an interesting read nonetheless.
The intersection of these two stories is at a topic that will be with us for the next year and a half.
Taking my girl Izzy, AKA The Best Kitty in the World, in for x-rays this morning as we continue to eliminate possible causes for her Feline Idiopathic Cystitis. Thus far we have eliminated the causes which are the simplest to deal with. Thankfully, the abdominal x-rays can be done without anesthesia.
Amir Khalid
Seeing a wolf pack described as just like a human family, I think I understand why dogs and humans go together so well.
Schlemazel
@Keith G:
Good luck to you & Izzy. Aint it great having a sick pet? Worse than a sick kid because they can’t give you as many clues as to whats wrong & I there are no specialists that are expert in one area so you never know if they are just guessing. Hope the day and the diagnostics turn out well
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: They started out pretty compatible with small human social groups. Add in umpteen thousand generations of selective breeding…
Amir Khalid
The BBC reports that Nestlé’s reformulation of its classic malted chocolate drink Milo has met with serious resistance from New Zealand consumers who grew up on the old Milo. Milo is also popular in Malaysia, so I’ll see if there’s any similar backlash here.
Baud
Everyone acts better when people are watching.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: So, shilling for the NSA these days?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I don’t.
BillinGlendaleCA
The wife has decided that I should get a new freezer, the old one is getting close to 20yo. I was checking the energy usage number, a new one would be about half what the current one uses. WOW.
bystander
Stayed up late watching the Tonys. Very happy for Kelli O’Hara. She’s had one solid hit after another, and she’s singing beautifully in King & I. I was really taken by Ken Watanabe. His English diction sucks but he’s such a great actor that the garbled English is just part of the King’s character.
And anybody coming to NYC, Something Rotten, which won nothing, had me smiling ear to ear for the length of the show. Still want to see Fun Home, tho.
Waspuppet
But – but – The law of nature is that the weak and sickly get destroyed ruthlessly! Heroic tough-guy hero Glenn Beck said so!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s the only reason I’m here. BJ is my beat.
@BillinGlendaleCA: We know.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Dogdamn gov’t efficiency regulations…. What ever happened to FREEDUMB!!!! ?
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Apparently, the Milo reformulation is specific to New Zealand.
Mustang Bobby
@bystander: I TiVo’d the Tonys but read the results in the paper this morning anyway.
Amir Khalid
@bystander:
Watanabe doesn’t sound anything like a Thai name.
ThresherK
@bystander: Even though I had fandom rooting interest in every other Best Musical nominee, and The King and I won, I can’t find anything bad to say about O’Hara (especially) or Watanabe.
(And it’s not like I don’t love R&H, I just really wanted one of the others to win for strict fanboy reasons.)
Mustang Bobby
@Amir Khalid: Neither does Yul Brynner.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I knew it!
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Then again, any Thai actor who accepted that part might find himself facing a criminal charge of insulting the royal family.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Mickey Rooney was not available.
(I hate to explain the joke, but Rooney was infamously cast as an east-Asian in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” some 50+ years ago, for no comprehensible reason, not even as failed humor.)
Mustang Bobby
@ThresherK: Neither was Marlon Brando (“Teahouse of the August Moon.”)
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
Yes, I know about
WayneMickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany. If you think that was embarrassing, you should see the movie of Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth.sm*t cl*de
Nestlé’s reformulation of its classic malted chocolate drink Milo has met with serious resistance from New Zealand consumers who grew up on the old Milo.
The word from the corporate leadership is that “These changes haven’t affected the flavour”. Also the change to more sugar and palm oil in the formulation makes it healthier. Also ‘the company had made “a number of small changes to Milo to improve it”‘, and they were “meeting the demands of consumers”, which is why they didn’t announce the change but simply made them hoping that no-one would notice.
Reading between the lines — Nestle decided to save money by no longer formulating a specific recipe for NZ, preferring to ship the generic Australasian recipe while telling consumers to learn to enjoy it.
RAVEN
That worked well. Long walk and no Joe!
Baud
@RAVEN: Without Joe, you’re ALLCAPS again.
ThresherK
@Mustang Bobby: Method acting Brando as an Okinawan? I’m thinking Robert Downey, Jr’s charater in “Tropic Thunder”. Except not so funny.
@Amir Khalid: Back in the 30s it was strange and complicated.
From the Wiki:
By the 1960s, that’s three decades more to get a “farm team” of Asian and Asian-lineage performers so Hollywood couldn’t say “The audience doesn’t know these actors, they can’t be stars!” But still, so often there was fail.
I know this is a lot less direct, but it’s so much easier to cast Third Reich movies: The nobody Nazis speak German, the “ordinary” Nazi generals speak English with German accents, and the “star” Nazis are so often famous English actors with High Shakespearian diction. (Shamelessly cribbed from Roger Ebert.)
raven
@Baud: iPad
PurpleGirl
@raven: Make the walk shorter and then go back out for your morning coffee. Or get a stroller to push him him back home in. I’ve seen pet strollers. (Carry it closed on the walk to the coffee shop and open it for Bohdi on the return home part.
PurpleGirl
@Keith G: Hope that Izzy will be all right and the vet finds the problem soon.
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
So, do you have an opinion on the business with Emma Stone’s casting in Aloha?
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: Didn’t they study what happened when Coca-Cola gave us ‘new’ Coke?
raven
@ThresherK: Kundun used mostly Tibetan actors.
raven
@PurpleGirl: That’s what we did. I took the van to the bakery, walked back and then walked the pups one way. When Lil Bit was, well Liller, she had a disc problem and I modified a baby carriage and pushed her. Bondi is too big for that.
sm*t cl*de
@Amir Khalid: Milo reformulation caused the Kinabalu earthquake!
debbie
21 seems a whole lot more evolved than lots of humans.
Baud
Jenna Bush is interviewing her family again on the Today show.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Incomprehensible. I’m chalking it up to a failure of the “new” way of making movies, where producing is “get commitments from enough big name performers who can carry a movie, then shop for financing”.
@raven: Thanks for the detail.
Germy Shoemangler
Has this already been posted?
100-year-old blackboard drawings found in Oklahoma school.
During renovations, a high school in Oklahoma City recently discovered a series of old chalkboards under their existing ones, covered in writing that had remained untouched since 1917.
raven
ThresherK
@Germy Shoemangler: (Muttering to myself) Pleasepleaseplease be anatomically correct. It’s the only sex ed these Oklahoma kids will get.
Germy Shoemangler
@ThresherK: And John Wayne played an Asian.
Punchy
@Germy Shoemangler: 1917? “100 year old drawings”? Apparently they cant do math in OK either.
Germy Shoemangler
@Punchy: Apparently “100” makes a more dramatic headline than “98”
Baud
Wasn’t there a big brouhaha several years ago when a black dude was picked to play Hamlet for the first time?
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: And I remember in high school sitting through a cringe-worthy film version of Laurence Olivier playing Othello in blackface. I remember saying to my teacher at the time “Why didn’t they go all out and get Al Jolson?”
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I thought they were both good movies. I think people were looking for “Saving Private Ryan” action and were disappointed when they didn’t get it.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Since all the actors were male in Shakespeare’s day, it would be neat to see an all-female Shakespeare play.
Germy Shoemangler
Kalief Browder is dead.
Suicide.
Actually, I consider him to be a murder victim.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@ThresherK:
You beat me to my favorite hobbyhorse. The Production Code’s censorship rules led to some very bizarre casting decisions. The Pre-Code version of “Imitation of Life” starred light-skinned African-American actress Fredi Washington as the “tragic mulatto” Peola/Sarah Jane, while the Production Code version starred Susan Kohner (who was half-Mexican, but considered white enough to kiss Troy Donahue onscreen).
Baud
An interesting article by Ezra
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I guess I knew so much about Ira Hayes and John Basilone that Flags was just ok for me but “Letters” was great.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I enjoyed FooF, but I thought “Letters” was by far the superior of the 2.
Bobby B.
Oh nobody, nobody, nobody knows
How much I love the maid as I tear off her clothes
-Michael Hurley, “The Werewolf”
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Nothing to read here, move along.
Patricia Kayden
@Germy Shoemangler: Such a heartbreaking story: false arrest, jailhouse beatings and assaults, solitary confinement, no trial. Such an injustice. May he RIP. Hopefully, the lawsuit will be successful even though he’s no longer here to see any justice for himself.
OzarkHillbilly
More Bad News For Rush Limbaugh
Note that his forced farewell from WIBC in Indianapolis was likely painful. The station hosted the talker for 22 years before announcing in April it was time for him to go. Especially embarrassing for Limbaugh was the fact that WIBC is sticking with its conservative talk radio lineup, it just no longer wanted Limbaugh to be a part of it.
Then, after WIBC announced it was dropping Rush, no stations in the market stepped forward to pick him up,
Much more at the article.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: Japanese.
Booger
@ThresherK: What, so two Wongs don’t make a white?
rikyrah
One Year Later-Racial symposium at Colerain High School
Mending community after teens’ constitutional rights violated.
Kate LeDonne
15 Apr 2015, 14:02 GMT
Imagine a group of teenage boys in high school making a music video for a digital media class. The music video gets an “A”. They post it online in typical teenage fashion with teenage boy swagger.
Then, the next thing they know, they’re being put in a room with armed police and their phones and bags confiscated.
……………………………………………
Sadly, a year ago, in April 2014, this is what happened in Colerain High School. In the aftermath, the parents of four of the African-American teenagers filed suit against the Northwest Local School District and several Colerain Police officers for violating their children’s Constitutional rights.
The following is a basic summary of the events that took place.
School administrators accused more than a dozen African-American teens of making so-called “street” signs and being member of a gang. Local police and school administrators had scoured social media sites and gathered photographs of the accused. The administrators said the postings made several unidentified parents feel uncomfortable. Police Chief Mark Denney saw rounding up the students as a proactive way to squash the rumors of gang activity at Colerain High School.
These students were scapegoated and criminalized because of the ignorance of a select few members of the community. School administrators and police rounded the kids up, and detained them in a windowless room without telling them why. The room was secured by armed police and the students’ phones, backpacks and bookbags were confiscated. Some of the kids were held for up to 5 hours in this manner, without bathrooms breaks, food or water. There were no attorneys present, nor any parents present.
One of the accused students became upset, and when he raised his voice, a school administrator who was guarding the teen said,”Now we have our infraction!” A police officer then placed the teen in handcuffs.
The kids were expelled from school. Their trust in the school administration irretrievably broken. Ultimately, the teens were expelled. They lost more than 10 days at school. One lost employment as a videographer. One lost access to the weightlifting equipment. The real loss was mutual trust and respect in the community between kids and those in positions of authority.
The local police started harassing them over the summer. One teen was given a jaywalking ticket for an address that didn’t exist. They were banned by local police from going to a local festival “Taste of Colerain”. The teens became frightened to go anywhere without a parent, understandably.
http://youtu.be/HdDsk9-csGk
https://www.the-newshub.com/general/one-year-later
rikyrah
@Germy Shoemangler:
he was most definitely MURDERED.
and everyone involved in this case should be IN JAIL FOR HIS MURDER
TaMara (BHF)
I found that whole article heartwarming.
Rough weekend, funeral and while I was at the funeral I txted a friend to see why she wasn’t there, she was at the emergency vet having her cat put down. Poor thing. Then I found a roofing nail in my tire, luckily not flat, but have to start my morning out at the tire shop. I hope the rest of the week ticks up.
bystander
MustangBobby, the show last night wasn’t bad, but I’m not a fan of either Cummings or Chenowith.
If you compare the cast of the original (for example, Dorothy Sarnoff as Lady Thiang) to the cast today, which includes primarily Asian performers, you can see how much more sensitive people are to casting matters. Ruthie Ann Miles is, btw, superb and so happy to see her win.
Amir, Watanabe’s predecessors include Brynner and Lou Diamond Phillips. For my two cents, he’s a lot closer to Thai realness than Alfred Drake.
Germy Shoemangler
@rikyrah: I remember seeing him on the View. This was after I read the original New Yorker article.
Hearing this news today knocked the wind out of me.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: It’s actually kind of interesting. One of the lies Republicans consistently tell themselves is that they’re voting out of superior knowledge and reason: it’s all stuff they’ve heard on Fox News or email forwards, but it’s a whole culture of Here’s What’s Really Going On.
I feel like there really are a lot of people out there who get worried about voting “the wrong way” because they just don’t know enough. They feel like they _should_ vote, but they’re shy to admit they don’t pay attention. Some of them rationalize it by saying that politicians are all crooks, so who really cares? If people with vaguely liberal or social-justice leanings voted as reflexively for Democrats as Republican core voters vote for their side, we’d be way ahead, I think. You don’t have to know very much to know that Republicans are vile and want to hurt you.
NotMax
@bystander
Also too, Rex Harrison, in a pre-musical film of the story.
Gindy51
@BillinGlendaleCA: We replaced our 17 year old one and were shocked at the drop in energy usage. We’d done the fridge a year earlier and it wasn’t as much since folks open and close that a lot more than the freezer.
boatboy_srq
@Baud: @Mustang Bobby: I can remember the noise when Josette Simon did Love’s Labours Lost at the RSC. Her character (Rosaline) was a “dark beauty” – which for The Bard meant “brunette”, and for which Berowne (her lover) caught much grief from the other characters – and there was a lot of debate as to whether the casting was in some way racist (she was the only black castmember that year). Simon was brilliant in the role; but it stood out that an interracial couple was the only non-white stage presence, and that gave the impression that she was cast, not because she was talented, but because she was black.
rikyrah
but, Kansas voted both these phuckers back into office. You get what you get.
……………………..
Brownback May Empower Kris Kobach To Prosecute ‘Voter Fraud’ Cases Himself
By DANIEL STRAUSS
Published JUNE 4, 2015, 6:00 AM EDT
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has five days before he must decide whether to sign a bill expanding the power of Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) to prosecute voter fraud cases.
If Brownback does sign the legislation, which has already passed both chambers of the state legislature, Kobach would be given the power to prosecute voter fraud cases even when, according to critics, local prosecutors had opted against moving forward with those cases.
Kobach is a prominent figure in conservative “voter fraud” circles, loudly declaring that voter fraud is rampant and pushing new laws that have the effect of restricting access to voting, especially among voters who tend to favor Democrats. Voting experts, on the other hand, point to studies that show voter fraud is relatively rare with negligible impact on election outcomes.
“I very much worry about Kobach getting additional prosecutorial authority, as he seems to be someone who is willing to make false or exaggerated claims of voter fraud to fit his political narrative,” election law expert Rich Hasen told TPM in an email.
Under current Kansas law, Kobach must refer cases of voter fraud to local prosecutors. Under the bill sitting on Brownback’s desk, those prosecutors would still handle voter fraud cases but Kobach’s office could move criminal charges on its own. “The bill also would upgrade penalties for several voting offenses to felonies from misdemeanors,” according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/kris-kobach-sam-brownback-prosecute-voter-fraud
ruemara
Which is why dominance theory of dog raising, as well as Cesar Milan, is total crap that encourages cruelty. Loved reading this.
lamh36
So I was out with family yesterday and I missed the story out of McKinney, TX until last night
I lived in Carrolton which is outside of McKinney, TX. The one thing I remember about this area, is that they didn’t have public transportation. A friend who lived there was complaining one day that she had to drive her son to and from work because his car was broke.
See places like Carrollton and McKinney and the like although suburbs of DFW, while Dallas proper has diverse public transportation, these suburbs do not.
Now what does that tell you about a city that does that?
To me it tells me that you are trying to keep out “those” people. Because people who can afford not to, don’t need public transportation. So by having none at all, you can keep those out.
So I’m not at all surprised this happened in McKinney
shell
Jeebus, what was with that opening of the Tony Awards? Okay, they don’t have to always have a big splashy number, but this was like….some high school production. Chenoweth and Cummings just standing there trading unfunny quips. Then the cast of ‘It’s Rotten’ performing ‘It’s a Musical’ on a bare stage, with references in the song to other classic musicals….and that was it? Did they cut their budget this year or what?
And what is it about having two hosts that never seems to work? (think of the times they tried it with the Oscars.) It encourages all that bandying back and forth which is usually just cringe-worthy.
Oh, and Larry David? STFU!
bystander
Forgot to add, George Takei was at the matinee Saturday. Turns out he’s an actor and not an astronaut. He has a show coming up on Broadway about the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
Funny coinkydink: Takei was featured in the program which focused on LGBT a pride month.
rikyrah
ONCE AGAIN, I say….you voted these mofos BACK into office. And now, he’s threatening the funding for the JUDICIAL BRANCH?
……………………..
Courts Budget Intensifies Kansas Dispute Over Powers
By JOHN ELIGON
JUNE 6, 2015
The fight between Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas and the state’s judicial branch has escalated, with the governor last week signing into law a bill that could strip state courts of their funding.
The measure, at the end of a lengthy bill that allocated money for the judiciary this year, stipulates that if a state court strikes down a 2014 law that removed some powers from the State Supreme Court, the judiciary will lose its funding.
The 2014 law took the authority to appoint district court judges from the Supreme Court and gave it to the district courts themselves. It also deprived the state’s highest court of the right to set district court budgets. Critics said the law was an attempt by Mr. Brownback, a Republican, to stack the district courts with judges who may be more favorable to his policies.
The budget bill that Mr. Brownback signed on Thursday was related only to the judiciary. He said he wanted to ensure that the courts would remain open while lawmakers sparred over the larger budget issues. Lawmakers have been debating how to fill a $400 million shortfall, which will most likely require tax increases that Mr. Brownback and many in the conservative-dominated Legislature oppose. If a budget is not passed by Sunday, state workers may be furloughed.
…………………………
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Matthew Menendez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, which is helping to represent a Kansas judge who is challenging the constitutionality of the 2014 law. “It seems pretty clear that these mechanisms have been an effort by the governor and the Legislature to try and get a court system that is more in line with their philosophy.”
Richard E. Levy, a constitutional law professor at the University of Kansas, likened the measure in the judiciary budget bill to Congress’s passing a law outlawing abortion and then telling the judicial branch that it will lose its funding if it finds the law unconstitutional.
“That kind of threat to the independence of the judiciary strikes me as invalid under the separation of powers principle,” Mr. Levy said in an interview on Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/us/courts-budget-intensifies-kansas-dispute-over-powers.html?ref=us&_r=1
cahuenga
@Baud:
Fanboi-rah-rah-team-boosters seem to drive everything these days. And this goes for both sides of the aisle.
lamh36
Also too, there seems to be a FB screen capture circulating from some dude claiming to be a homeowner there in McKinney. I’ve seen this screen capture alot. This man should come forward on the record if his claimed are true. There is no way to know if this dude is truly a resident or not. You can literally tell FB you live in Oz and it shows up on ur profile. Heck my profile says I work at “General Hospital” .
Oh and so far, conveniently the FB pic seems to be a Black person. But far as ai can tell, this is the ONLY opposing thing I’ve seen and it’s the same EXACT screen cap ONLY…no others.
Btw, my name on FB was LAMH Elba once and my pic was Diana Ross from Mahogany…I am neither married to Idris Elba nor have I ever been Diana Ross. And my young cousin changes his FAcebook location ALL THE TIME…so using FB without on the record evidence is ridiculous
DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON FB!
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: Did you miss this part?
Similar experiments have shown similar self-deception among Democrats when the questions favor Republican ideas or politicians.
We Dems aren’t any better at avoiding self delusion.
rikyrah
KAY KAY KAY!!!
DID YOU SEE THIS KAY!!!
…………………….
Barack Obama poised to hike wages for millions
The Labor Department could propose a rule that would raise the current overtime threshold — $23,660 – to as much as $52,000.
By Marianne LeVine
6/8/15 5:04 AM EDT
Updated 6/8/15 6:30 AM EDT
The Obama administration is on the verge of possibly doubling the salary levels that would require employers to pay overtime in the most ambitious government intervention on wages in a decade. And it doesn’t need Congress’s permission.
As early as this week, the Labor Department could propose a rule that would raise the current overtime threshold — $23,660 – to as much as $52,000, extending time and a half overtime pay to millions of American workers. The rule has already come under fire from business and Republican opponents who say it will kill jobs and force employers to cut hours for salaried employees.
“The minimum wage they can’t do,” said Bill Samuel, director of legislative affairs for the AFL-CIO. “This is probably the most significant step they can take to raise wages for millions of workers.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/barack-obama-overtime-salary-levels-white-house-118688.html#ixzz3cTm2m1DM
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Ha, beat you to it. Just in case people thought it was all about too much sex and drugs.
It’s Spousal ThresherK’s birthday. I’m planning a retro-style Hollywood celebration, Hays-code style, which means no matter how hot things get we’ll have at least one foot on the floor at all times.
@Booger: One of my favorite episodes, especially when “White Rice” was cancelled after exactly one joke.
jeffreyw
Add me to the list of those thinking Letters was the better of those two Eastwood films.
@lamh36: I don’t use Facebook, but Mrs J does and someone has referred to her husband as a dreamboat handyman and I choose to believe the poster.
Karen in GA
@ruemara: Before I got Iggy, I watched an episode of Dog Whisperer or whatever Cesar Milan calls himself. At one point I sat straight up and yelled “HEY!” at the screen because of how he was treating a dog. I wanted to punch that bastard in the neck.
raven
jeffreyw
“Say It isn’t So”
Germy Shoemangler
@lamh36:
http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2015/06/know-your-history-white-cop-threatening.html#disqus_thread
Karen in GA
@Keith G: Sending healing vibes to little Izzy. Get well soon!
OzarkHillbilly
@lamh36: You can take the racism out of the housing, but you can’t take the racism out of the citizens.
City of McKinney, TX was sued over housing discrimination in 2009
FlipYrWhig
@OzarkHillbilly:
That could be — I’m not sure, though; facts have a well-known liberal bias and all that.
But I do think there’s a surprisingly strong presence of people who would be Democrats who get shy about voting because (1) they know it’s important and (2) they feel like they don’t know enough and might do it wrong somehow. And Republicans don’t have this same phenomenon, because by and large they _do_ feel like they know quite enough already. IOW, Republicans are willing to be knee-jerk partisans because they think their partisanship has a rational basis, while potential Democrats are unwilling to be knee-jerk partisans because they think it’s important to make a good decision.
In other other words, we need more knee-jerk Democrats.
It’s hard, though, because one of the things that goes along with being a liberal is having an open mind and trying to be a good listener. And in politics, in a winner-take-all system, those are only impediments to electoral success.
Germy Shoemangler
Pool Party Policeman Named; video of him abusing teens was added to “Police Training” playlist
gelfling545
@jeffreyw: For quite a while one of my relations could not use her own name on FB due to her employment. She was Stella Artois for a few years. IIRC her husband was Fred Mertz.
My employment, if you ask FB, is currently with the fine firm of Perennial Scold & General Earache.
srv
Westerners behaving
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig:
Trust me, as a knee jerk partisan Democrat, Republicans have so poisoned their brand I know that the opposite of anything they say is the good decision with 98% certainty. I just figure the 2% chance of being wrong is a fair trade off for not having to think too much.
Matt McIrvin
If I recall correctly, most of the notions about wolf dominance hierarchies that inspired MRA rhetoric and such came from observations of wolves in captivity, a highly artificial, extremely stressful situation for the wolves.
cahuenga
@FlipYrWhig:
Heaven forbid any thought entering the equation.
Matt McIrvin
…It would be almost as if all your notions about interpersonal relations came from observations of maximum-security prison inmates.
FlipYrWhig
@cahuenga: With thought comes doubt and with doubt comes reluctance to vote. The other side has no such compunction. Don’t overcomplicate things.
Belafon
@OzarkHillbilly:
Which, while true, doesn’t negate the fact that the most pressing issues right now – climate change, race, inequality, education – are things that Democrats have a far more realistic view of than Republicans. Yes, the pendulum will swing eventually, but those need to be fixed.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
If you want to talk about real self-delusion, Glenn Beck’s announcing a program of constructive disobedience and non-violent resistance to get the country back to its real (Christian) roots. It’ll include boycotts, etc. Because he sees himself as the successor to Gandhi and MLK, he’s beginning his work with a speech at a Birmingham AL church.
Matt McIrvin
@cahuenga: Thought is a great thing, but I think many people with broadly liberal sympathies who are not political junkies consider their votes on the basis of lofty ideas how the perfect voter should behave, and don’t think strategically.
I vote even in elections where I am pretty sure I have limited information about the issues involved. I figure that if I have even the slightest understanding and a preference in one direction or another, that is a nonzero informational input to the result, and the rest is noise that tends to cancel out in the aggregate. And I know that interested parties with nefarious motivations are not going to have any reluctance to stay out of it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Belafon: See me at #92. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I could learn a lot from that man if I could only tolerate him.
Matt McIrvin
…To put it another way: A lot of hands get wrung about low-information voters, but the worst voters aren’t actually low-information voters, they’re high-bad-information voters. It’s not what you don’t know, it’s what you know that ain’t so. And the only real way to fight that is to mobilize your own voters against it.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sometimes the amusement factor outweighs the aggravation. But not always.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin:
This.
Have there been studies of what makes non-voters not vote? It’s probably swamped by the effect of people being just plain too busy, not being able to get off work, etc. But I think sheepish low-information non-voters are a substantial presence (or absence, I suppose).
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
Actually, given that Emma Stone’s character is white on her mother’s side, and based on my own acquaintance with partly white people, I didn’t think she looked all that implausible — although a bottle of hair dye would have helped. (Stone’s character is apparently based on a real-life person with white skin and red hair.)
As for Othello, there’s a centuries-old tradition of him being played by white guys. In Will Shakespeare’s time black men, let alone black actors, were of course very very rare in England. Nowadays England has more black men, including some of its best actors. It would bother me, though, to hear it said that no white man should ever play Othello again.
debbie
And he’s already asking for donations to help him pull this off.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
Q: What do you think of Western civilisation?
A (Mahatma Gandhi): I think it would be a very good idea.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Othello’s a Moor. Maybe he looks like Zinedine Zidane.
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
“Moor” is a religious description rather than a racial one, true. But If I recall correctly (My Complete Works is on the other side of the room, and I’m to lazy to go look it up) the text of the play does refer to Othello having dark skin.
Iowa Old Lady
@FlipYrWhig: One thing that makes voters not vote is oddly timed elections. We have a school bond election tomorrow. That’s the only thing on the ballot and the only reason I know about it is that it was in the local paper yesterday.
I suspect a lot of people think their vote makes no difference. All politicians are alike. You may not pay enough attention even to know which party is in charge of congress or your statehouse. No one pays any attention to your needs anyway. That’s how a lot of people see it.
Iowa Old Lady
Here’s some data apparently collected by the Census Bureau on reasons people give for not voting:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/11/05/why-dont-people-vote/
raven
@Amir Khalid: I thought it was
British”?
Amir Khalid
@raven:
The quote, as typically attributed to the Mahatma, is “Western civilisation”.
Origuy
@Amir Khalid: There were enough Africans in Elizabethan England that the Queen wrote a letter complaining about it
Amir Khalid
@Origuy:
And how many of them were in showbiz? Seriously, the very few black people there at the time would have stood out simply because of their rarity. I admit, I have no idea how many black people QE1 signed deportation orders for.
Gin & Tonic
@Origuy: Wow, I didn’t know she spelled so poorly.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Matt McIrvin: And it’s “information” that’s been discredited for decades now. Animal behaviorists understand that wolves – and dogs – don’t behave that way. “Dominance” is about control of access to resources, not physical dominance, and it is necessarily to some extent cooperative to ensure the pack’s survival.
That’s among the reasons veterinarians and animal behaviorists have petitioned for years to pull Cesar Milan’s show. Don’t get me started on MRA idiots.
Mandalay
A father accidently shot his 14 year old son in the neck. He was taken to hospital and died last Thursday. A gofundme account has been created to help pay for the medical expenses since the family has no medical insurance.
There is so much Republican agenda in that brief sad story.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Fair enough, but Brits have a funny understanding of colo(u)r. Like how they call orange things “red,” like Robin Redbreast. Why? Because to them “red” betokened a whole spectrum of colors, including orange.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if Othello (as written/imagined) was olive-to-brown enough to be called “black,” “black” meaning “darker than the usual sickly pale.” The Wikipedia page on Othello has a digest of the question of his race / skin color.
Mustang Bobby
@Gin & Tonic: If you want to open a can of Spell Check on Her Majesty, go right ahead. But I think that’s how they nailed Sir Walter Raleigh.
Matt McIrvin
@Iowa Old Lady: That is really interesting.
It appears that the reasons that amount to political reluctance or low information (don’t care/don’t like options/forgot) add to a bit more than a quarter of the sample, but simple practical issues that could be addressed by more convenient voting options (too busy/sick/place, time, registration, transport and weather issues) are somewhat more than half. Of course, these are self-reported ex post facto justifications, so they probably shouldn’t be taken as gospel, but they’re probably worth considering.
And that’s among registered voters.
FlipYrWhig
@Mustang Bobby: I blame that upstart crow Shaxberd.
Comrade Dread
It both warms my cold black heart and simultaneously makes me profoundly sad that some wolves are better human beings than some people are.
catclub
@Amir Khalid:
Possibly an understatement.
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul.
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise,
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.
Arise, I say!
FlipYrWhig
@Iowa Old Lady: Interesting, thanks…
Amir Khalid
@srv:
TPM reports the Malaysian Government is blaming those yahoos for provoking the mountain spirits with their grossly indecent behaviour. Not true: the accusation comes from Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan. I don’t know how seriously he believes in the mountain spirits, though; while Pairin’s a native Sabahan and ethnically Kadazan/Dusun, he’s also Catholic.
raven
@Amir Khalid: got it
catclub
@rikyrah: Is that related to defining various workers as supervisory in order to deny them overtime? I think GWBush did that in about 2004. It got some play at the time.
the Conster
@Comrade Dread:
I will never refer to people as animals, because animals would never do to each other what humans are capable of doing to each other, and to animals. Especially to animals.
Origuy
@Amir Khalid: Yes, I don’t think there were really many Africans in England at the time. That just happened to cross my Twitter feed this morning and I thought it was interesting.
@FlipYrWhig: Orange as a distinct color (or colour) is fairly new in the English language. Wikipedia says: The earliest recorded use of the word in English is from the 13th century and referred to the fruit. The earliest attested use of the word in reference to the colour is from the 16th century.
rikyrah
I don’t have any words.
Only one question.
would three BLACK 20somethings been awarded a MILITARY CONTRACT?
…………………
How These Stoner Kids Landed a $300 Million Pentagon Arms Contract
“Arms and the Dudes” exposes the sordid underbelly of the military’s weapons trade.
Mon Jun. 8, 2015 6:00 AM EDT
In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. “The dudes,” as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn’t their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.
To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.
Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson’s new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/b00k-arms-dudes-guy-lawson-pentagon-contracting
FlipYrWhig
@catclub: Right, but “black” could also mean “swarthy” or “dark” to Elizabethans and Jacobeans. African characters also get called things like “tawny.” And English people don’t seem to have been terribly interested in establishing fine gradations between Moors, Ethiops, and so forth. “Dark enough to be visibly different” –> “black.” YMMV.
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
Let’s see if I remember: Act 1, Scene 1, right?
rikyrah
MI GOP State Rep Says Detroit Public Schools Should Be Dissolved
The “charter schools” can’t want to get their hands on the DPS money.
Read more at http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/317010_MI_GOP_State_Rep_Says_Detroit_#oZyoG3xh4DLxoAU5.99
Kathleen
Edited to add this should be reply to rikyrah @71.
“Kobach is a prominent figure in conservative “voter fraud” circles, loudly declaring that voter fraud is rampant and pushing new laws that have the effect of restricting access to voting, especially among voters who tend to favor Democrats”.
All 3 Democratic voters in the state of Kansas? Also, considering the fact the majority of government officials in Kansas are Republican, is he saying rampant voter fraud is the reason for Republican dominance? These clowns are not only unoriginal, they’re inconsistent.
FlipYrWhig
@Origuy: Re: orange, I did know something of the history — IIRC it has something to do with William of Orange, as in William and Mary. But what I really meant was more that if “red” can include orange, “black” can include olive and brown, which is why descriptions of Othello as “black” don’t necessarily mean black-the-way-we-understand-black-after-400-years-of-transatlantic-slavery.
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, all
languagescultures divide colours up differently. At least that’s what this dude Guy Deutscher says.catclub
@Kathleen: On the one hand, a motivated prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted.
So, bogus prosecutions could end up in convictions.
On the other hand, having lots of bogus prosecutions, with no convictions, may not be the best argument for MORE voter fraud prosecutions/laws/ etc.
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
In Apartheid-era South Africa, Barack Hussein Obama II wouldn’t be considered black; he’d be classified as “coloured” i.e. mixed-race.
Peale
@bystander: Yep. I guess I need to see Fun House now, but I thought Something Rotten would win more. It did win for Best Featured Male, which it deserved. Thomas Nostradamas had us in stitches during our performance and the role got two standing ovations during the performance I attended. I think we had a total of three or four actual show stoppers during the musical – I mean, really, the show stopped so that the audience could give standing ovations and settle down. That doesn’t happen that often.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
I’m amazed the Pentagon doesn’t seem to vet people who bid on defence contracts.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Cool, thx for the tip/reminder on Deutscher — I remember the reviews…
patrick II
Wolves know who is a member of their pack. If you live by a philosophy of individualism and everyone else is a competitor, then there is no reason for kindness or community.
Origuy
@Amir Khalid: An amusing video on the subject of colors in different languages. For example, there is no single word for “blue” in Russian. It’s either синий, dark blue, or голубой, light blue.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I didn’t see it rikrah, thank you.
It should be really interesting to see how properly categorizing overtime works out.
Isn’t it funny how when we really started to look at why wages were flat or sinking we found all kinds of reasons?
It’s almost like no one really wanted to look at it before- it was easier to say “markets!” or “increased productivity and efficiency!” rather than asking “where did overtime go? why do so few people get it when so many people got it in the past?”
This was deliberate. It was a deliberate effort by lawmakers to hold down peoples’ wages. Nothiing whatever to do with “markets”.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: Thank goodness. Milo is one of those strange drinks and its possible that Malaysia is the major market for it per capita and with Ovaltine right there to capture share—lol. I think you can divide Indochina into Ovaltine Countries, Milo Countries and Horlicks countries but those drinks have different formulas in each depending on which one is dominant. The New Zealanders are probably Horlicks, so Nestle probably tried to reformulate it to be more like that one.
Peale
@rikyrah: Makes you wonder about the Iraqi military. We liked to talk about how we spent all that money on it and laugh that the soldiers just threw their weapons away and ran. It’s possible that those weapons weren’t worth much anyway.
shawn
no GoT thread/post – especially after this week’s craziness???
Mike J
@shawn: I can’t believe they killed off Timmy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Karen in GA:
Animal Planet : animals :: History Channel : history
catclub
@Mike J:
Tim Duncan was on Game of Thrones?
Gin & Tonic
@Origuy: It seems that in common usage, синий is “blue” in Russian or Ukrainian, and голубой/голубий or блакитний are used for greater specificity, like saying “azure” or “sky-blue.”
Amir Khalid
@Peale:
Per Wikipedia, Milo has 90% market share in its segment here. There’s an urban legend that Malaysians consume 90% of all Milo, but Wikipedia says that’s not true.
shawn
@Mike J: that is remarkably close to an accurate statement of incredulity this week
shawn
@shawn: i guess its true most weeks now that i think about
Peale
@Amir Khalid: Just across the border, Thailand is the number 1 world consumer of Ovaltine per capita (Brazil leads for total amount consumed). I wonder why that is? I know they are very distinct cultures, but I wonder if there was a war between the two states, if it wouldn’t somehow involve the choice of fortified malt beverage.
Origuy
@Gin & Tonic: I stand corrected. I’m mostly going by the books on learning Russian and Rosetta Stone.
sukabi
@Waspuppet: funny isn’t It that lying about EVERYTHING includes laws of nature/ what it means to be an alpha.
Belafon
@Mike J: The Ghost of Christmas Future was correct.
Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne: Animal Planet still has the Puppy Bowl, though, so I’ll tune in once a year.
Amir Khalid
@Peale:
How popular is Ovaltine these days in its native USA?
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: I wouldn’t have been aware it even still existed.
gwangung
@Amir Khalid: Meh. Far as I’m concerned, fuck Cameron Crowe.
Lots of hapa actresses in Hollywood, many of whom can pass for white. Given the reluctance to cast non-whites in anything other than race-specific roles, I look upon this unamused.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: I think we’re a Nesquik country, which isn’t the same thing. But people know what Ovaltine is. It probably wins the malt beverage name recognition war, although it isn’t a very popular drink.
Milo and Hendrick’s not so much. There is a small market for immigrants to get their Milo and Ovaltine shipped in because the formulas vary so much from country to country. So if you find Milo in a standard grocery store, you might not like it very much as it won’t be like the product you get in Malaysia. But if you go to, say, a Filipino grocery store, you might find something closer (but not the same) to what you are used to and if you went to a Colombian market it would be different still. I don’t know how I know this, since I am a Nesquick guy, but for some reason I needed to research this at some point to help someone from the Philippines locate the proper Milo supply.
raven
@Peale: Villa Park, Illinois is my hometown and it was the original location of Ovaltine
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Probably the most resonant mention of Ovaltine in the relatively recent USA: Seinfeld, 1998. Kenny Banya is a terrible comedian who Jerry Seinfeld hates. He’s previously been described as having as a staple of his act a 12-minute bit about Ovaltine. In this episode, Jerry has a girlfriend whose professional mentor is dating Kenny Banya.
Later Jerry decides to mentor Kenny Banya and writes new material for him.
Later the new Ovaltine joke gets left in a folder where it ends up in a presentation that’s supposed to be about risk management.
Peale
I think I’ll leave this thread with the happy Ovalteenies song. Because I’ve listened to the music y’all find promotable on this site, and you could clearly use some cheering up.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: The casting of Emma Stone stops me from seeing Aloha.
I realize it was vastly easier to get the film financed with Ms. Stone in the lead. She’s box office gold.
That said, and even though the actual person depicted had red hair: can they not find an actress of Asian heritage to play the role? Even one who does not look particularly “Asian.” Film’s already got Bradley Cooper.
Bad call by Cameron Crowe, who’s made some pretty good films previously. (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Almost Famous, Singles, Jerry McGuire ….)
Am guessing it was financing driving the decision, although who knows …. But Hollywood is pretty unimaginative sometimes.
From Crowe’s website, theuncool dot com, About Allison Ng
Renie
@FlipYrWhig: Points for you for the Seinfeld reference. I could hear their voices as I read what you wrote!
Amir Khalid
@Peale:
You mean Horlick’s, right?
Tree With Water
In his autobiography, William Tecumseh Sherman wrote of Abraham Lincoln (paraphrase): “Of all the men I ever met, he possessed more elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other”.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: Yes. Horlicks. LOL. Must have been a Freudian slip, although I wouldn’t put it passed those Australians to serve their kiddies Gin fortified with 8 essential vitamins and minerals..
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: It’s sold, I think, by the same company as Gold Bond Medicated Powder, and I recall seeing cheap TV ads for the two of them that were so similar that I began to suspect they were actually the same substance. The pitch for Ovaltine seemed to lean heavily on the nostalgic impulses of the over-70 crowd.
To me, the most significant association the stuff has is with the bit in A Christmas Story (and the Jean Shepherd story it was based on) about the kid who waits excitedly for his Orphan Annie decoder ring so he can decipher a secret message on the radio, and is disappointed that it’s just “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.” That the story is set in the golden age of radio should tell you something.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: Yes. Horlicks. LOL. Must have been a Freudian slip, although I wouldn’t put it passed those Australians to serve their kiddies Gin fortified with 8 essential vitamins and minerals..
Matt McIrvin
…hmm, seems that company sold Ovaltine to Nestle in 2007. Or something like that.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Steady decline since Davy Crockett hats were in vogue.
sm*t cl*de
The New Zealanders are probably Horlicks, so Nestle probably tried to reformulate it to be more like that one.
Nope. Horlicks and Ovaltine are unknown in NZ.
Tree With Water
@NotMax: Watching Fess Parker get chopped by Mexican soldiers may well have been my first history lesson. I certainly didn’t see it coming, any more than I did Old Yeller getting shot.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
That’s funny. I don’t think this mix would be seen as surprising to anyone but an outsider.
But that’s just it. Crowe and this film is mentioned in the infamous leaked Sony emails. Crowe had already been given a tremendous amount of creative control to do this film (and the studios already thought it a bit of a mess). Stone, who is a very good actress, may more likely been cast because she is a hot property, more than because she made it easier to finance the film.
I was almost ready to give this kerfluffle a pass until I listened to a podcast with two film critics (who usually are very good and perceptive) who essentially argued that white women they love should be able to play any role, and tough cookies if other actresses get overlooked. Too glib and too stupid.