.
Niggling OCD query: Does this putz deserve a category of his own, or should we keep lumping him with the other Bush crime family members?
MacKay Coppins, at Buzzfeed, as “Jeb Bush Embarks On Least Joyful Campaign Ever“:
… From the beginning, Bush has insisted his decision about whether to undertake a presidential run in 2016 would depend on his answer to one question: “Can I do it joyfully?” But now, as he officially launches his campaign at a Monday afternoon rally in Miami, Bush’s pursuit of the presidency seems destined to be a grinding, grumpy ordeal — permeated with disdain for the trivial demands of campaign pageantry, and rooted in a sense of duty to save the GOP from a field of candidates he seems to regard as unprepared or unserious.
Joylessness wafts off Bush wherever he goes, from the photo-ops on his just-completed tour of Europe, to the grip-and-grins on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.
He responds with impatient sarcasm when he is forced to field questions about political strategy — or his brother’s polarizing record — instead of public policy…
Jeb Bush announces he is running for President and "Jeb Bush" is not trending – only #NoMoreBushes is trending.
— John Lurie (@lurie_john) June 15, 2015
.@tinyrevolution But with one of those little parasol umbrelllas stuck in the top.
— Billmon (@billmon1) June 16, 2015
Mr. Pierce, at Esquire:
… OK, past is past. Jeb (!) is not about the past. Not him. He’s especially not about that thin slice of the past that occurred during the years 2001-2009, when somebody Jeb (!) once met briefly was president of the United States and everything went to shit. Because Jeb (!) grew up in a small shoebox in the middle of the road, and is not one of the “pampered elites.”
(I have to admit that this was the point where I expected his pants to ignite.)
Honest to god, if you listened to the speech, which was written very well and delivered with the kind of smug WASP brio that so often eluded that chap who Jeb (!) bumped into back in the Aughts, you would believe that history began in January of 2009. He did make a little wink and a nod to the “first president I met on the day I was born, and the second one I met on the day I came home.” But, beyond that, you’d have thought he was found in a basket in the bullrushes along the banks of the Kennebec River…
"[Jeb Bush] is both the most likely Republican nominee — and still more likely than not to lose the nomination." http://t.co/OZdCUWT9E3
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) June 15, 2015
I suspect there are a not-insignificant number of Americans who think that Jeb Bush is actually his brother George operating under a false flag in defiance of the Twenty-Second Amendment. — Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly
Under his breath, through tight smile: "Jebby, the camera's over here. Try to keep up now." pic.twitter.com/wjx8COWQTM
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 15, 2015
(At the New Yorker, Andy Borowitz captioned the same photo “Scientists Believe They Have Isolated Gene for Failure“.)
Professor Krugman is so far from impressed, he’s almost irked:
It’s tempting! to ridicule! Jeb Bush! over his ludicrous campaign logo! But it would be wrong.
He should, instead, be ridiculed over his ludicrous, self-aggrandizing economic claims.
Incredibly, Jeb! is running on his economic record as governor of Florida, on the claim that he knows how to create growth — 4 percent growth, no less — because of the way Florida prospered during his term in office… During those years, of course, Florida experienced the mother of all housing bubbles — and when the bubble burst (luckily for Jeb! just after he left office) it promptly wiped out 900,000 of those 1.3 million jobs…
So Jeb! is basically promising that as president, he can generate Florida-style bubbles, which bring disaster when they burst, to the rest of America!…
So Jeb Bush decided to run for president because he was afraid if he didn’t, no one would?
— Molly Ball (@mollyesque) June 15, 2015
In the Atlantic:
… [B]efore Bush’s campaign could even officially begin on Monday, it seemed to be falling apart. His staff was in turmoil, the apparent result of tensions between new hires and longtime loyalists and potential opponents, unintimidated, kept jumping into the race. Bush’s poll numbers, while still good enough for first place in a 15-way contest, have been on a downward trajectory since he stepped out on the campaign circuit. Pundits have compared him to Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who led the field in the early run-up to the 2008 primaries, only to see his candidacy collapse when Republican activists in early-voting states turned their backs. The party that nurtured Bush’s father and older brother seemed disinclined to grant him the same deference…
Republicans, who have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, badly want to win this time around. Many of the activists I’ve spoken to—even staunch conservatives in rural Iowa—are concerned primarily with nominating a candidate who can win a general election; they are haunted by the unexpected defeat in 2012, and with it, a bewildering sense that they are out of sync with their country’s mainstream. But Bush’s stumbles—and their array of other options—make them wonder if he is the candidate who can turn the tide. Why compromise their beliefs for someone who can’t close the deal?…
I'm not just the brother to our worst modern president, I'm the guy who pulled the strings to help him get the job: Jeb!
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 16, 2015
Did @MittRomney rent his list to @JebBush ! pic.twitter.com/VwLDRBW79H
— Niels Lesniewski (@nielslesniewski) June 15, 2015
Cervantes
His own category.
Not because he’s better than the rest of them, but because each of them is awful in his own special way.
raven
Well, my guy showed up with the grading crew to backfill the foundation and clean up the area. “I’ve got some bad news, the framing crew boss’s dad is in the hospital and it’s going to be a couple of weeks until they can start”. The contractor is obviously not please and we are pretty mush helpless and just have to wait. This fucking job is cursed.
tybee
@raven:
wow. must have built on an old indian grave or something….
MattF
Jeb! needs to follow family traditions and administer the good old Bush family treatment to the other candidates. Ask John McCain about that. And then, to complete the job, and make sure Clinton is elected, he can drop out of the race.
ThresherK
#NoMoreBushes is trending?
Good.
I’ve been tired of the NoMoreDynasties blabber on my teevee, because the pundits want to conflate what Hillary has done with what Jeb has done. And as far as framing goes, before the actual campaign began, NoMoreDynasties has often uniquely shown up on Hillary stories and hardly ever on Jeb stories.
Hills is a largely self-made woman. If she was a cipher after getting into the Senate, we wouldn’t be here today. Everyone loves First Ladies, but she’s the only one to run for office after being First Lady, and actually test the limits of that goodwill. And she’s rung up more of all the best enemies than any First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt.
Jeb! was born, if not conceived, into all the right schools and clubs of his family’s choosing.
Suggesting people are tired of them, together, because Dynasty! makes my teeth grind.
Amir Khalid
I don’t know how accurate the Buzzfeed story is, but it seems to suggest that ¡Jeb! is running for President with reluctance, out of duty rather than desire.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Like his bro. Is he going to ask Dick Cheney to find a VP?
Valdivia
@Amir Khalid: The country needs him! I was going to say that God told him to but didn’t think he would go that way. Though I did see a story about how he’s approaching evangelicals.
Mustang Bobby
It’s my parents’ 67th anniversary today. They are still in reasonably good health although Dad has spinal stenosis and increasing short-term memory loss; not surprising as he nears 89. Mom is fine; still driving, still rallying the troops for liberal causes both in person and on the net, and I feel blessed that I still have both of them in my life.
mai naem mobile
When I see Jeb! I see 0 Job! or a Jab! to America. Are people even going to realize who John Ellis Bush is?
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
Even ¡Jeb! can’t be that stupid. My guess is, Bar will pick him a running mate. Definitely not Ted Cruz, who has that lean and hungry look. Or Chris Christie, a low thug who has a different kind of hungry look. I suspect it will be Marco Rubio, a youngish senator who vaguely reminds me of a Latin Dan Quayle.
Mustang Bobby
@Amir Khalid: It can’t be Marco Rubio. The Constitution forbids the president and vice president from being from the same state.
You’re right on the Quayle comparison, though.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I don’t think he’ll pick Rubio — two Florida polls wouldn’t fly (there may even be an electoral college impediment to that, IIRC). I think he’ll pick a woman to try to blunt Hillary’s appeal to fellow egg carriers. If he could get Susana Martinez, that would be a coup for him. He would still probably lose, but that would be his best bet.
ETA: Echoing Mustang Bobby’s observation that the Quayle comparison is spot on.
Valdivia
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats to them!
Just a tiny correction: both President and VP can be from the same state, there’s no legal prohibition, but they would lose the electors from that state (and being Florida, that would be shooting yourself in the foot electorally)
Betty Cracker
@Mustang Bobby: Awww, they look like a pair of sweethearts too!
Amir Khalid
@Mustang Bobby:
Oh darn, I keep forgetting that they’re both from Florida. Still, they could do what Cheney did, couldn’t they — invent resident status in another state for one of them.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Say what?????
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
A wicked part of me wants ¡Jeb! to pick Michele Bachmann, the Professor Trelawney of the Republican party.
mai naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: he might pick Sandoval from Nevada who’s very popular and could carry Nevada.
Mustang Bobby
@Valdivia: Thanks for the correction.
Valdivia
@Mustang Bobby: I only know this because I mentioned it in another thread and someone explained it to me. :)
Mustang Bobby
@Betty Cracker: He’s gotta pick someone that will mollify the nutsery, so comparative moderates like Martinez and Sandoval wouldn’t fly very well with the knuckledraggers.
Bart
@MattF: WRT Cheney looking for a suitable VP: you can read the first chapter of Bart Gellman’s Angler @ Amazon — http://www.amazon.com/Angler-The-Cheney-Vice-Presidency/dp/0143116169 — and they’re astonishing. Not only did Cheney investigated every nook and cranny of the potential candidates (which was a long list, not the “handful” he claimed to several potentials), he never allowed himself to be vetted at all!
He also ruined Frank Keating using information from Keating’s vetting file. And Keating was a buddy of Dubya!
See also: http://harpers.org/blog/2008/09/six-questions-for-bart-gellman-author-of-_angler_/
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
Sorry man, my BULLSHIT! meter is going off like a tornado siren having sex with a ships klaxon. 35+ years bleeding sawdust and I never heard anything even remotely like that. I mean, this is in the categorical “LIE!!!!” territory. Either his crew is so incompetent that they can’t work without “the man” for more than a few hours (in which case you don’t want his crew anywhere near your house anyway) or somebody made a major fuckup on another job and just doesn’t want to admit that he has to spend the next few weeks fixing it. Or possibly, somebody else’s job is paying better.
Whether it accomplishes anything or not, I’d advise you to start raising some hell because once they get the idea this shit will work, they may make it a habit.
satby
@Mustang Bobby: 67 years together is quite remarkable! Best wishes and a very Happy Anniversary to them!
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats to both.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @raven: argh, they really are saying that this guy wouldn’t work at all the entire time his dad is in the hospital (and how do they know it would be a few weeks?)
You’ve been a good sport, but that can’t be the only framing guy in town, tell your contractor to get another guy.
Baud
:-)
Gindy51
@OzarkHillbilly: I agree 100% BUT you do not want to piss them off too bad. They can seemingly do a “good” job only for you to find out that they really did not. It might be better if you look over your contract to see if there is any way out of it and start to look for someone else.
Debbie(aussie)
@Mustang Bobby:
That is wonderful. I too feel very fortunate to have both my parents still in the land of the living (Mum 73, Dad almost 79 just diagnosed with prostate cancer).
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: I blinked at that. “Unexpected” defeat. Nate Silver would have given them the scoop for free if they’d been willing to accept it.
Fool myself once, shame on me. Keep fooling myself because that’s what fools do. Or something like that.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: And I don’t mean to harp on this, but let me relate my own experience in this biz with “end of life” issues: My mother started having shortness of breath. After several doc’s and tests it was found she needed a bypass. Not going to be easy for a 78 yr old woman with an 83 yr old Alzheimered husband to deal with this situation. We had a family meeting and hashed out a plan for the 4 local kids to cover the bases. The next day I called my boss and explained the situation and what the plan was and the fact that every now and again I was going to need a few hours off or maybe even a day.
The next day I got my final check.
Now that guy was the most miserable fuck I have ever worked for and getting laid off was really all for the better ’cause our plan would never have worked without someone being on call 24-7 but that isn’t the point.
The point is that guys like me, and I can assure you I can build damn near anything conceived of by man if you can pay for it, are a dime a dozen. And so is this “framing crews boss”.
Betty Cracker
Question for the group on the topic of SPOILERS. I just read Cole’s late night post below, which caused a commenter to flounce dramatically because of the spoiler contained in the illustration. And I saw posts at Gawker and elsewhere that contained offhand references to the same TV show event that is alluded to in Cole’s illustration for the post below.
People lobbed flaming cauldrons of bile at the authors of these posts, the common theme being, “How fucking DARE you post an untagged SPOILER — I’ve been avoiding GoT threads so I could watch the episode tonight, and thanks to you, it’s all rooooont forever, goddamn you to hell!”
So my question is, how long are people obligated to tiptoe around plot twists for shows that have already been broadcast and have thus entered the realm of popular culture? Is there a day / hour cutoff? Why isn’t the onus on the lag-wagon viewer to avoid the Internet until he/she catches up on his/her show if it’s such a big fucking deal?
BruceFromOhio
Pierce channels Monty Python to describe yet another Republican klown in the kar. Seems to be a theme with this years parade of twits.
Sherparick
Also, what are the Republicans promising? To their base, they are promising to keep/restore a “white, Christian, heterosexual, man on top” world of the that base’s nostalgic dreams. They are promising their real base more gargantuan tax cuts and complete freedom to steal and plunder from the rest of us and to rape the environment until every last nickel of coal, oil, and gas is fracked out of it and burned. And they are promising an endless land war and occupation of much of the Middle East. This is what Jeb and the other 14 clowns all want (except to give credit where credit is due, Rand Paul does not go along with that last bit, although more than on board with all the rest.) Where JEB (Terry Schivao) Bush runs into problem is with that “Base” because although pretty on board with “slut-shaming” anti-reproductive rights crowd, he gets squishy on immigration (hence protection of the pure blood lines of real “Murricans) and education (he does not go along with the Right’s new passion to teach ignorance and lies as the primary curriculum). This is where Walker, a spawn hell from the toxic racial politics of Southeastern Wisconsin, has such an advantage over Bush. As past policies against public education and current plans to destroy the Wisconsin State University system shows, he know the Republican base gets its real thrill from seeing its enemies punished. They basically thrive on Conan’s the Barbarian/Genghis Khan’s theory of what is best in life: “Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.”
BruceFromOhio
@Betty Cracker: Oh, please. Flail for something worthwhile is my advice to those too undisciplined to bloody stay the hell away. It’s Thrones, mate – RR gets a sniff of someone liking a character, any character, and it’s some horrible death an ep or two later. Get over it.
As for the tip-toers, Gaia love ya, five seasons of this shit, you’ve earned your stripes. A night or two off isn’t going to sink the boat, and the flailers will get over it.
ETA: See? It ain’t just me…
Betty Cracker
@BruceFromOhio: I don’t watch GoT, which may be unique in its propensity to kill off popular characters. But on the spoiler issue in general, I just wonder what the expectations are. And I don’t get the anger. Could be because that kind of thing (having plot twists revealed in casual conversation) doesn’t bother me personally, so I can’t relate.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gindy51:
Gindy, I was one of “them”. Do not be afraid, Do not be afraid, DO NOT be afraid to piss them off. You need to make them afraid to piss you off! If you think a little argument might lead to that kind of BS, than you hired the wrong guy. Not standing up against this BS is worse, far worse. My Jeffco buddy put up with this exact kind of bullshit when he and his wife renovated their 1862 farmhouse. Now they are paying me to come over and fix the stuff those guys were too lazy to do right the first time. And some of it, I-can’t-fix without doing major demo first.
I tell people all the time, call me. But they don’t, because they know I won’t put up with that bull and they are afraid I will piss off the contractors. What they don’t understand is these contractors had better be afraid of pissing me (and you and Raven) off.
There’s a reason contractors have a bad rap. It’s why we call them CON-tractors.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: You know, the reason I keep posting this stuff is because I know you know what you are talking about. I guess I just feel hamstrung by this whole fucking deal. I will say that I believe that my contractor was told this but beyond that I just don’t know. I look around at all the work he has done for our friends and they are all as happy as they can be. I suppose our puny $80k job may have us on a low priority. I guess I just don’t know what good an adversarial approach will do in terms of getting this done.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Ha, I posted before I read this!
raven
@Gindy51: And would it clear things up if I told you we don’t have a contract!
DiTurno
Hey, remember yesterday when Zandar credulously re-posted a story from the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times of London? Remember how it did nothing but quote anonymous government British sources who claimed the Russians and Chinese had decoded some of Snowden’s files, putting British agents at risk? Remember how the story provided zero — nada, zilch, no — evidence for any of those claims? Remember how Greenwald said those claims were lies, and the “reporter” was merely serving as a stenographer for the government? Remember how the BJ comment session became virtually indistinguishable from Twitchy in his Greenwald/Snowden hate?
Guess what? Turns out Greenwald was right. One of the reporters in the story went on CNN and *literally and repeatedly* stated that he was just typing up what the British government told him. He provided zero evidence for any of the claims. Additionally, the Times silently deleted one of their central claims, i.e., that David Miranda (Greenwald’s partner) met with Snowden in Moscow to exchange documents.
So all of you who jumped all over Greenwald should probably ask yourselves why you were so willing to believe a story in a Murdoch rag that was little more than retyped government lies, because that really says something about your utter lack of judgment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I just finished watching GoT season 1. So no spoilers from season 2 on until the price gets down to where I am willing to pay for it. Thanx to all in advance. (and yes, sarcasm)
Baud
@DiTurno:
We’ll get right on that.
Alex S.
@Amir Khalid:
He could choose that young Texas land commissioner, George Prescott Bush. He’s a half-latino.
Baud
@Alex S.:
That actually would be something.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
As long as they continue to be haunted by defeats, I don’t really care whether they expect it or not.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I’ve said all that needs be said. I just hope it helps.
debbie
And yet his brother is his advisor on the Middle East.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It does and I appreciate it greatly.
Betty Cracker
@DiTurno: It was a disastrous interview for the Sunday Times reporter. And yeah, he basically admitted to stenography.
On the other hand, some of Greenwald’s dramatic framing around the Snowden revelations has proved to be less impressive upon closer examination (example: Prism). I recommend a healthy dose of skepticism on all reporting about l’affaire Snowden.
Baud
@debbie:
If Jeb! promises to make W. ambassador to Iraq, or the Hague, I could see voting for him.
Valdivia
@Betty Cracker: I always watch the show a day later and try as best as I can to stay away from posts that are dedicated to the theme and stay away from twitter until I watch. Sometimes the post will start with one theme and somehow end on GoT and a spoiler. Almost can’t be helped which is why I stay away from most things internet until I have watched the episode. It works for me, I am still in shock about the latest death.
Dan
GOB!
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Or maybe Nicky Haley so he can be pan-ethnic.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
When stuff like this happened to my friends during their renovations, they withheld payments. Things got moving again very quickly.
Patricia Kayden
@ThresherK: I’m not really bothered by the dynasty aspect to Jeb. I’m much more worried about the horror which was the Bush Administration from 2000 through 2008. This country cannot afford another Bush administration with its unnecessary wars, pro-torture pols, lack of job creation, financial crisis, etc.
NO MORE BUSHES! They’ve done more than enough.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I’m always late because I’ll wait for my library to get the DVD, but it’s up to me to stop reading if I think a spoiler’s coming.
On the other hand, I went nuts for the show Wolf Hall and knowing what was coming (having read the books) didn’t ruin it at all for me.
This world has too many big babies in it.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
It was only unexpected because they only listen to themselves. That will never change.
raven
@debbie: And we’ve had the block foundation built, the concrete floors poured, and the tractor work done. We haven’t paid anything yet.
Cervantes
@Baud:
That would be excellent, but I don’t see it happening.
@Baud:
That would be excellent, but I don’t see it happening.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
If there was ever a reason to employ such a rude retort as “Get a life” …
raven
@Betty Cracker: People post scores of games in threads adjacent to game threads. That pisses me off.
Baud
@Cervantes:
Right on both.
Elizabelle
Today in shark: there were apparently no further NC shark attacks yesterday. That we are aware of. Sounds like the tourists were kind of staying out of water above their calves.
LA Times: N.C. Officials ready to kill ‘aggressive’ sharks after attack. Bad idea, experts say
[And cue the Jaws music:]
Do they have no cinemas near Oak Island?
FWIW, Oak Island’s year round population is just north of 7,000 people. How big can its town government be?
Cervantes
@ThresherK:
He did attend Phillips Andover at his parents’ behest, yes — but then he rejected Yale and chose UT Austin instead, where, unlike certain other Bushes, he worked hard, did well, and took the opportunity to grow out a pretty luxuriant Mexican-style mustache.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: Seems like the entire Snowden saga has been and continues to be basically this: “My source, Edward Snowden, tells me that spy agencies have the capability of doing many villainous things. If you don’t think they’re ALREADY doing them to YOU (whichihaventprovenbutdontthinkaboutthattoomuch) you can only be a naive pawn or willing abettor of Big Brother-ish authoritarianism.”
RSA
@Betty Cracker:
I’d say 24 hours is polite. Of course, maybe that’s because I’m in my middle years; I was in high school during the VHS/Betamax wars, which a lot of younger people might not even have heard of.
On this particular spoiler, Us and People magazine had articles online before John’s post went up!
Also, Rosebud is his sled.
Elizabelle
Love Toles, but I do not understand the illustration.
Is Jeb! underwater, implying Florida will soon be? Is he tethered to a computer monitor from the 1990s?
Also, caught a glimpse of him after his speech yesterday, and it looked like he was interacting with “supporters” from behind the window of a food truck.
Maybe a campaign bus, but I was watching to see if he handed over a snowcone or a taco.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: That resembles the framing of Snowden’s strongest promoters, but on the flip side, we have condescending dismissals of any concern about government surveillance (OMGthegubmintsgonnagetcherLOLCATS). I find both annoying.
MomSense
@Mustang Bobby:
Congratulations to your parents. They have the sweetest smiles no doubt perfected by years of good use.
Betty Cracker
@raven: To your credit, you don’t pitch a hissy fit over it!
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
It’s his brother in that flight-suit.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not about what Snowden tells you. He’s not the message.
It’s about what, if anything, the leaked documents tell you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I don’t worry about it one way or the other, ’cause really, ME? I just keep sending my dues to the ACLU.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
FSM smite you for that one, bucko.
1) Professor Trelawney was a little loopy – probably goes with the territory of being a part-time seer – but she wasn’t batshit insane.
2) Emma Thompson would need two, maybe three lobotomies to be as mentally useless as Our Lady of the Crazy Eyes Bachmann currently is
3) Kenneth Branagh may be an asshole (I have no idea whether he is/isn’t), but he’s still a much more worthwhile person than Marcus Gay-Converters-R-Us Bachmann
4) Emma Thompson and Michele Bachmann in the same breath? (OK, so maybe I have a thing for Emma T.)
raven
@Betty Cracker: I’m just a wimp.
bg
The books are so complicated you will never remember who everyone is, or where they were, from one to the next or as you watch the show. And a lot of stuff you think happened, it later turns out, didn’t really
Great stories in print or video
They got me through many tough nights sitting up w/ my late doggie as she went through her last illness
SFAW
@RSA:
You bastid! I was just going to read that one!
Oh well. Next up, The Sixth Sense.
Bobbo
“they are haunted by the unexpected defeat in 2012, and with it, a bewildering sense that they are out of sync with their country’s mainstream.”
Gee, ya think?
Brachiator
Jeb! probably belongs in his own special category until he falls back into the pack with the other klown kar riders.
An irony is that Dubya, the faux cowboy and inept rancher, was born in Connecticut. Jeb! who gives off whiffs of elitism, was born in Midland, TX. Both were dipped in East Coast WASP sauce in various ways.
Jeb! is still an enigma. Some GOP activists may not be warming to him, and is early campaign has sputtered, but he and the Mitt Man probably have the greatest appeal to money guys not named Koch. And I still think that Jeb may be able to reach out to religious fundamentalists.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I was behind on Person of Interest because there was a 3-part story arc and I wanted to watch all 3 together. I was quite disappointed when someone at BJ made a comment without warning that told of the death of a beloved character. And person of interest is not a show that routinely kills off beloved characters, so it was quite a shock.
If memory serves, it was one of the first comments on a completely unrelated thread. The comment was made either the same night the show aired or the next day and I felt that was pretty thoughtless, out of bounds, really. It’s not that hard for people to say SPOILER! before they comment.
For how long? I’d say week at most.
Valdivia
@Brachiator: There was an article somewhere yesterday or over the weekend about this exactly. How he is reaching out to the religious to try and win them over. If I dins it I will drop a link here.
SFAW
@Baud:
I think The Hague has potential, maybe he can get the CIA to send Cheney as a special attache for local affairs or some such, and maybe Rummy as cabana boy.
Trifecta!
Kay
I love how Bush is trying to get both sides of “experience” and “disruption”
His brother did exactly the same thing in 2000, except there were different business slogans in 2000.
“Education miracles” are back, too. The education miracle of Texas… I mean Florida.
WaterGirl
@Mustang Bobby: Your mom is beautiful! What a great smile. They look good, you are so lucky to have them.
Valdivia
@Kay: Also, the gushing over the fact that he speaks Spanish which they did with W too. Funny how when a Dem speaks another language it’s a sign that he doesn’t love Amurica.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Nice!
BrianM
The press has slotted Bush into the well-worn Al Gore “awkward loser” pigeonhole. That annoys me less than when they did it to Gore, but damn I wish they’d grow up.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I think the anger comes from unexpected spoilers. You might know to stay away from a post titled “I’m Glad I Am Not the Only One Taking the GoT Season Finale Badly,” but if you go to the Balloon Juice main page and are hit with that—and the spoiler—at the very top I can see some synapses getting fried.
And I don’t think it’s realistic to tell people to avoid the entire Internet to avoid spoilers. The most recent show I cared about in that way was probably Justified—final season with a lot of stuff going down. I knew to stay away from media-infotainment click-bait sites—and there are some sites that revel in being the first to throw out spoilers—but if I went to, say, the New York Times site as part of my morning routine I knew they would have a “Justified recap” story but there wouldn’t be a spoiler in the headline or the short teaser.
NonyNony
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yeah – that was basically what I was going to post. The defeat was only “unexpected” if you were either convinced that various Republican Secretaries of State were going to be able to steal the election for you or if you were so blind you thought that Mittens Romney was going to convince more people to vote for him than he was going to alienate people and get them to vote against him. (Of course, Mittens was literally the best candidate they had to run against Obama in 2012 – I suspect most of the rest of them would have struggled to hit that 47% popular vote threshold that Romney got.)
What’s amazing to me is that this cycle looks no better for them – you’d think that there would be one of them that could do that faux-populist (fauxpulist?) evangelical schtick that W was able to pull off, but nope. (Might not work this time around anyway – that “whole fool me once shame on you fool me twice you can’t get fooled again” lesson might actually have stuck with some of us this time around…)
rikyrah
@MattF:
I have to admit, that’s one of the reasons I wanted Jeb in the race. To watch how he took out the rest of the Clown Car.
Kay
@Valdivia:
Because when Republicans do it it means they are “good men” because their base are English-only. Integrity!
It’s like how they simper over Obama’s integrity when he touts border security (which he does constantly) oh wait, they don’t do that.
Chris
@ThresherK:
#NoMoreDynasties is the several thousandth variation of Both Sides Do It (But Liberals Are Worse).
boatboy_srq
If only there really were the possibility of a serious, prepared candidate from the GOTea. The Teahad, however, seems to have stricken those possibilities from consideration.
JEB! gets his own special place in – well, in the Shrubbery at least.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: Good point about unexpected spoilers. It’s not a thing that bothers me, but I can see where others would be annoyed. But damn, the screaming hissy fits people are throwing about it!
NonyNony
@BrianM:
You’re right of course – the press is being catty toward Bush because they recognize that the “popular kids” aren’t into the Bush family anymore and so they’re following right along with the taunts and the sneers and the not inviting him to their parties teenage drama bullshit.
That said, I’m petty enough to enjoy them doing it to the Republican for a change. And a member of the Bush family no less! (I do wonder if they’ll face any kind of retribution, or if the Bush family’s star has fallen so far that their buddies won’t be inclined to jump up and hit back this time around.)
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
I agree with everything you said, only substituting “no more Republicans” for “no more Bushes.”
Nixon, then Reagan, then Bush; each one’s been much worse than the last and left the country in even worse shape. Assume the next Republican president follows that pattern (which given the radicalization of his entire party is all but assured), remember what a horrific condition the country was in by the end of 2008, and now imagine a presidency leaving it in worse condition than even that…
Keith G
All candidates are flawed. The current GOP cohort are especially well-supplied with an grand assortment of flaws.
Which GOPer has a collect of flaws and other issues which will still allow her/him the best shot of winning the general election?
That would be John Ellis Bush (Less a comment on him than a sane appraisal of the others).
So the question is, despite his flaws can the Bush Old Guard (BOG) get him through to the nomination? We know they have a good chance of doing it. They are good at this sort of thing.
They also are setter than most at wining general elections.
I am not finding comfort in thew Twitterverse reaction to the roll out. So much lay ahead of us.
WaterGirl
@raven: I haven’t built a room addition, of course, but I did spend quite a bit of 2013 dealing with the contractor in the aftermath of the tree damage to my house.
There’s a lot of space between oh, okay, another 2-week delay AND confrontation and an adversarial relationship. I’d suggest that you move into some of that space in the middle and have a friendly but frank conversation with your contractor.
In IT, it’s important to manage the expectations of your clients, and if you do, they are likely to be happier, even if the end result is the same. In the same vein, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for you to ask them to help you manage your expectations of the job now that it has actually started.
I think you could reasonably ask where your job sits in terms of relative priorities to other jobs, is your job being fit in between larger jobs, for instance? I think you could reasonably say that your expectation going into it is that the job will be finished by x date, or by fall, or whatever your timeframe is. I would ask them point blank: is that a reasonable expectation for me to hold? I also think you can fairly state that you have really tried to roll with the punches and have tried to accept the delays with grace, but that you are kind of running low on patience at this point. A good conversation can work wonders.
I got really screwed around for 6 weeks by my insurance company after the tree hit. I like to think I’m a pretty nice person, at least most of the time, but at 6 weeks I had about had it, and I wrote a pretty clear email message to the guy I had dealt with at the insurance company. He phoned me less than 30 minutes after I pressed send, and at the end of the conversation he gave me the name of the person who would be handing my claim – I had just been escalated to the catastrophic loss group. Within an hour I had a phone call from the new guy, who was utterly and completely wonderful and completely fair in his dealings with me for the 6 months of repairs. That was on Wednesday and by the end of the day we had an appointment for the “reappraisal” guy to meet with my contractor on Friday.
Best thing I ever did with the new awesome guy was to be very honest in our first phone call. I told him I had tried very hard to be patient but I thought that 6 weeks or runaround was beyond unacceptable. I told him that I would be happy to start fresh with him, but that he needed to know that I was running low on patience at the moment. I also told him that I thought it would probably be useful for him to know that if my voice ever got high pitched during a conversation that would be an indication that I felt like I was getting screwed by the insurance company again.
We got along famously. I felt like he was fair and honest and he felt the same way about me. I can’t recommend a frank conversation highly enough.
Edit: sorry this was so long!
SFAW
@boatboy_srq:
Does Jeb! need a new bumper sticker that says “Ni!”? I’ll go fetch one.
Kay
@NonyNony:
I do think the “reluctant candidate” thing is weird though. It’s really incredibly arrogant, this idea he has that he has to wearily put self-interest aside and be President to save us from ourselves. That’s okay, buddy. Feel free to go back to public education profiteering. Don’t let me burden you with this job. I’ll survive without you.
Thor Heyerdahl
Really late to the open thread – but not sure if anyone saw this article in WaPo.
Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’
Mostly about strongly-leaning Republican districts doing what they do best…being a bunch of dicks
Just noticed the web URL-not sure if that was the previous title or someone getting in a shot “rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands”
raven
@WaterGirl: We have nothing but frank conversations. If I had it to do all over again would I do it this way? I don’t know. If I had just said ok to my wife’s idea to make out next-door-rental an air b&b none of this would have happened. No addition, no 2 year delay for the sewer, none of it. I do know that our builder has a number of jobs, including building his own house, going on now. I think your input and that of others is helpful in me keeping my bearings. We have determined that we’re having a meeting soon to hash out a list of things that are to be done and I will feel my way through it in my ever diplomatic manner. See, my problem is I and either all in for trusting or all out and I’m not ready to go all out yet.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
I would say eight days, because in my memory that’s often how long it takes for an episode that’s aired on TV to be available on Hulu, where quite a few people without televisions (or who can’t watch during the assigned time slot) watch their favorite shows.
I don’t watch GOT so I don’t know if that applies to this show in particular, mind you. And sometimes Hulu’ll have longer lags. (I dropped Sons of Anarchy back in season 3 because Hulu started airing them with a month-long delay, which after like three episodes became a two-month-long delay).
SFAW
@Thor Heyerdahl:
Atrios linked to it yesterday. Good to know that assholes remain assholes, no matter how bad things get for everyone (else).
Valdivia
@Steeplejack: It is definitely impossible to stay away from the whole internet. I did install a spoiler shield which blocks spoilers from my twitter feed. But that doesn’t work on a blog unfortunately. A couple of weeks ago there was a post that started talking with politics and had a couple of totally unexpected spoilers as it closed. I would have liked a warning on that, since it came out of nowhere.
@Kay: Yes they never do that. Sigh.
NonyNony
@Keith G:
I disagree – the one I’m worried about is King John Kasich of Ohio. He’s a smoother Scott Walker without Walker’s baggage.
If Jeb! looks like he’s not going to be able to cut it, Kasich and Walker will be fighting over Jeb!’s donors. And Kasich comes across in person much, much better than Walker apparently does. Kasich also has been able to fool people into thinking he’s some kind of reasonable person for decades.
Right now he’s literally the only candidate the GOP has that worries me. I’m hoping he worries Jeb! and his team and Walker and his team enough that they oppo-research his ass into the ground and have him begging for mercy by SC. Because if they don’t there’s a good chance he sneaks in and we have to deal with him an a general election campaign, where he can fake “reasonableness” and make it an actual contest.
Chris
@Kay:
I just hate is because they’re so full of shit. Nobody rises that high in politics without wanting it.
BobS
I used to visit Whiskey Bar (Billmon) and A Tiny Revolution (Jon Schwarz) daily — ATR is still up but new stuff is unfortunately rare and sporadic. Moon of Alabama started as a forum for Whiskey Bar readers when Billmon closed his own comment section — it still offers an interesting POV on America’s empire. And anyone who isn’t familiar with John Lurie would do themselves a favor by checking out the Lounge Lizards, Marvin Pontiac, as well as his soundtrack work (Mystery Train, Fishing with John, etc).
Chris
@Keith G:
I got a New York Times article on Jeb Bush forwarded by my liberal, will-probably-vote-for-Hillary father this morning saying that Jen was a “true centrist like his father,” who’d be hard to beat.
Le sigh.
boatboy_srq
@DiTurno: Maybe it’s because GG has such a stellar record? Or maybe it’s because Snowden has proven to be a libertarian dudebro who knew enough to go public in ’09 but waited until his guy washed out in the ’12 primaries to go public?
NonyNony
@Kay:
It’s a fairly standard pose, though, isn’t it? The pose that you don’t really want the job (because that would be seen as power hungry), but if so many people want you to do it, well, then you’ll sacrifice the next 4-8 years of your life for “public service” and listen to the demands of the people. It’s stupid, but it’s part of that political theater that we Americans love so much.
I do wonder whether having a quixotic presidential campaign might do more good than his public education profiteering, though. He’ll spend the next year spending money to do opposition research on other Republicans and taking potshots at other Republicans. Money that I don’t have to give him to destroy the careers of Scott Walker and maybe a few others sounds like a good deal to me. Meanwhile if he was continuing his public education grift he’d be stealing tax dollars away from kids who need education. Getting him off that for a year or so might make it all worthwhile.
Steeplejack
Should’ve posted this earlier, but I got distracted.
Spoiler TV ad.
WaterGirl
@raven: Yep, when stuff matters the most, that middle space can be hard to find, but it sounds like you’re on your way.
I never heard about the air B&B idea. How would that have given you what wanted from the addition? Would love to hear more about that.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: That’s really cute!
raven
@WaterGirl: I don’t see how. Our current bedroom is too small for a king and the pups can’t fit with us in the queen. Of course Bohdi is now having issues with his back and may not be able to get in the damn thing anyway! We have good b it if stored furniture from her folks and she though we could put it next door. None of that solves one bathroom, not closet space or storage for her 1 zillion projects. This really was the way to go despite the fact that the enormous delays have also shown that it is NOT essential.
Keith G
@NonyNony: You are not wrong in this. Being a Buckeye by birth, I follow my home state’s politics from afar.
Kay should check me on this, but I have felt that there is a bit of a brittleness to Kasich that can be unattractive at the presidential stage. That is a thing that can be a barrier to folks outside of Ohio whom he will need to woo.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Our dogs pile in with us too, but the one with thyroid issues has had a helluva time lately! Our bed is kinda high due to thick mattresses, and poor fatty has to get a running start! My mom used to have a ramp for one of her micro-dogs who got too old to leap onto the bed without assistance. Maybe you can build a Bodhi Bridge!
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, I think I remember what you’re talking about. Really egregious when it possibly occurred while the show was still airing on the West Coast. (Can’t remember if it came on at 10:00 or 9:00 back then.)
NonyNony
@Keith G:
From what I’ve heard (also from here in Ohio) I believe that you’re right. But it’s a relative thing – for example it sounds like Scott Walker has the same kind of issues but it at least sounds like he’s much, much worse than Kasich. And when you compare Kasich to the rest of this field I don’t think he’d have the same kind of issues that they would.
When he ran in 2000 he flamed out spectacularly and early, but that was because he was up against both W’s amazing campaigning abilities (he truly was a political campaigning savant – he wasn’t good at anything else but he was a campaigning machine) and McCain’s entrenched national warchest/fundraising machine. He didn’t have a prayer and really shouldn’t have bothered trying. This time around it’s becoming clear that while Jeb! might have his brother’s machine behind him, he’s not nearly as talented a campaigner as his brother was. And there isn’t a McCain level competitor to hold that spot either – there’s Walker, but Walker is not nearly as talented a campaigner as John McCain (nor does he have decades of schmoozing with political reporters in his background to get the good press for free). So he’s got a real shot now that he didn’t have in 2000.
Would he flame out in the general? Grod I’d hope so – he’s been a lousy governor and would make a terrible president. But of all the clowns in the clown car he’s the only one that I think would have a good shot of beating any of the Democrats that have announced so far. I think absent a major economic collapse the rest of them – even Jeb! – would suffer a vicious beatdown.
raven
@Betty Cracker: We’d always had a foot stool that worked well but the vet felt we should let him stay on the floor so we moved it.
raven
@Steeplejack: egregious was a wild commenter back in the day on FDL!
WaterGirl
@raven: It will all be worth it in the end!
During the 6 months of repairs — where it felt like every single day was a series of compromises to the point that I wondered if the end result would bear any resemblance at all to what had originally been planned — I noticed a pattern.
I could pretty much roll with the punches, but occasionally I would be stretched beyond my limits. And it always happened on a Thursday! The first time was after spending 2 hours standing in the disgusting gutted bathroom — with me, the contractor, the contractor’s right hand man (woman), and the plumber — all in my tiny little bathroom. Can’t have the toilet where I wanted, check. Can’t have the sink where I wanted, check. Can’t even have the f-ing tub where I wanted, check. Custom tub surround looks nothing like what I ordered, check. White on the tub doesn’t match the white on the sink, check. I thought my head would explode and I was sure the bathroom was going to look nothing like the dream bathroom I planned. (The bathroom was one area where I had to put in 15k of my own money!)
It didn’t happen every Thursday, but it always happened on a thursday – I called them my “thursday mini-meltdowns” and we would all laugh about it. Some weeks, there were too many compromises, and by the time thursday hit I was SO tired of having people in my house day after day after day. By Friday I could see the (weekend) light at the end of the tunnel.
PS. I love my bathroom!!
Steeplejack
@raven:
I wish I was an adjective.
rikyrah
@Mustang Bobby:
What a blessing. You are so lucky to have them still. Appreciate it :)
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Yep, that was it! She wanted to punch someone? I wanted to punch someone! But it was ruemara so of course I had to let it go. :-)
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: You could be a verb – as in, you have been steeplejacked!
lgerard
The wait for TRUMP!: THE (even louder)TRUMPETING is killing me
He better declare himself in this time
Brachiator
@Valdivia: Jeb! learned Spanish well enough to teach it. He appears to be fluent to a large degree. This is not the same as throwing a few words out on the campaign stump. This may also make some xenophobic GOP folk dislike him.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
I’ll think about working that in and see if it flies.
Brachiator
@lgerard: I’m sure that Trump will decide that he can best help America, and make needed cash, by doing more Celebrity Apprentice episodes.
Brachiator
@Thor Heyerdahl: I don’t care for the GOP,but this story is almost amusingly biased. The writer only looks at upscale Republican neighborhoods. But it would be more honest to look at all upscale neighborhoods, or a more representative sample. The writer was honest enough to note some people who are replacing water guzzling yards with less thirsty plants.
And since 80 percent of water goes to agriculture, what everyone else does is really just a drop in the bucket.
NonyNony
@Brachiator:
Not really – that 20% still has to be distributed in a sane manner and is probably better used for drinking water and hygiene than on dick-swinging lawn ornamentation.
Valdivia
@Brachiator: I didn’t know that, I give him credit for speaking it fluently. It just annoys the hell out of me to see the Village gushing about that and yet laugh at Kerry for being fluent in French.
@Steeplejack: that was my favorite ad from the World Cup. Cute and so true.
feebog
@Betty Cracker:
I think GoT is a special case in terms of spoilers. I have read the books, so I know, at least insofar as the producers follow the books, what happens next. I don’t have HBO, I buy the season when it comes out on Amazon and watch it in two or three sittings. All I can say is GRRM damn well better finish book 6 and get on to book 7. I’m older than he is and I’m going to be pissed if I die before knowing how it all ends.
Goblue72
@Thor Heyerdahl: anything that gets the O.C. A punch in the mouth is a good thing.
I see Martin O’Malley has decided to roll out his secret weapon – http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/top/forget-the-white-house-what-about-the-2016-swimsuit-contest/2015/06/14/9f4fb208-0b00-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html
Citizen Alan
@Amir Khalid:
That is a terrible insult to Sybil Trelawney.
Brachiator
@Valdivia: You’re right. The sniping at Kerry was just asinine and mean spirited.
Brachiator
Supposedly, Trump’s yooooge ego has announced that it is running for president. They’re gonna need a bigger klown kar.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Jon Snow got stabbed to death by a bunch of his Night’s Watch brethren. Also, Dany gets killed off next season.
SPOILER!
Did I do it right?
sukabi
@Valdivia: it’s going to be a long, uncomfortable campaign season, hopefully (or not) ¡Jeb’s! children have out grown their adolescent criminality…. they are a bit too old to have their parents protect them from the prying eyes of the press…
Brachiator
@NonyNony: Hygiene my arse. Folks, including me just want to take long showers. And maybe we in California will have to re-examine a lot of uses. But a chunk of that water goes to parks, golf courses, city, state and highway landscaping, swimming pools and countless residential lawns, restaurants and all kinds of uses. Sniping at the rich, and singling out Republicans, is easy, but lazy and irrelevant to what really might be needed.
Let them drink bottled water! The modern Marie Antoinette.
sukabi
@Elizabelle: maybe he seized Huckabee’s ‘ice cream truck’.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
Em and Ken were divorced 20 years ago. She remarried in 2003.
@Citizen Alan:
Maybe, if I were comparing Michele Bachmann’s character to Trelawney’s; but I’m not saying they are equally good or bad. They are alike in being largely on the fringes of what’s going on.
boatboy_srq
@SFAW: @Amir Khalid: FWIW, I’ve met Branagh. He is (or was as a younger man) a remarkably whole, well-adjusted guy who was dealing with celebrity as well as a reasonably normal (if extremely talented) twentysomething could. Quite approachable and seemingly a decent human being. Absolutely not comparable to Ladybird Bachmann. No info on Greg Wise (Emma’s current spouse).
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq: How cool to have met K Branagh.
For all we know, he thought the same of you. Minus the celebrity, but who knows what you do in your free time?
Punchy
Slate’s got an article up saying that because Fat Tony has gone completely berserk in one of his recent dissents, that usually means he’s pissed about losing a major case elsewhere on the docket. Whether that’s gay marriage, Ocare, or both, it’s a good sign that the good guys likely wont go 0-fer on the 2 major cases this year.
YMMV, but Slate had some pretty good anecdotal evy to support this….
Randy P
@SFAW:
My daughter had that one ruined for her in the theater by some a-hole just as she settled into her seat and the film was starting
Tree With Water
The worm turned for the GOP with the Judiciary coup of 2000. Conclusions were drawn after the War in Iraq was plotted, launched, and waged overseas as a result of deliberate falsehoods and the perverted political calculations of American monsters. With no lie was too big to tell, anything became possible. Republicans immediately realized that, if left unchallenged by their democratic counterparts, there is no such thing as a “big lie”. Certainly not one big enough for them to worry about, anyway. The War in Iraq was a triumph of political will, their political will, and their already insatiable appetites were further whetted.
The rabid activists of the republican party today remain true believers of the neo-cons 2003 brag that their actions alone define history. Which is to say, the republican party has gone around the bend and it’s not coming back. And although there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between any of their candidates (or perhaps for that reason) I’ll be surprised if Jeb is nominated (rest in peace, Terry Schiavo). It’s almost irrelevant. The fact is, whoever the republicans nominate in 2016 will be an American fanatic.
Mack
“And we’ve had the block foundation built, the concrete floors poured, and the tractor work done. We haven’t paid anything yet.”
Then you are in the driver seat. No need to be pissy about it, but I’d calmly inform him that a two week delay is unacceptable and that you may have to move on. Either way, best of luck.
Can I just say that I find spoiler alerts as annoying as trigger alerts? Are we all that fragile?
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, I know. Mrs. SFAW was not very much into the idea of an open relationship, so Emma ended up with that other guy, instead of with me/us. Oh well …
@boatboy_srq:
I had heard otherwise. Glad to hear that he isn’t (or at least wasn’t) a jerk, and that what I heard was (presumably) wrong. Thanks!
SFAW
@Randy P:
I believe the US Code has been modified to allow summary execution when assholes pull shit like that. And if it hasn’t been, it should be.
Person A: “Ya know, Bruce Willis is actua ..”
Person B: BLAM!
Person B: “Anyone else want to tell me the ending?”
One of the few Second Amendment Solutions I could actually support.
fuckwit
a bit slow on the uptake, but it just occurred to me that the JEB! logo was designed specifically to avoid having to put the toxic word “BUSH” on campaign materials.
fail. from start, immediate start. a campaign that starts that way is a faceplant.
Matt McIrvin
@fuckwit: It apparently goes back a long way, to Jeb Bush’s earlier campaigns… but then, the intent was to get him out of the shadow of his father. So, yes.
Aleta
Actually, that photo of the bushy tailed boys looks more like both sons were facing the other camera, until the CIA director pulled on little g’s shoulder to face HIS camera. What a picnic those gatherings must be. Understandable if Laura stayed tranked.
SWMBO
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats! We recently went to dinner for my aunt and uncle’s 51st anniversary. It takes love and stamina to last that long. Last year another aunt and uncle had their 65th anniversary. When asked the secret to a long marriage, he replied, “Pick ’em young, don’t divorce and don’t die.”