Do you recognize the presidential candidate in this photo? I'd never seen this. Answer here: http://t.co/qaRgeF2YCm pic.twitter.com/LXqcH809rF
— sree sreenivasan (@sree) July 21, 2015
I’ve long wondered if the defining tragedy of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s public life is that she was born in the last generation of women raised to believe that their highest political ambition must be to marry a President. Perhaps her father felt her gender to be a tragedy, too…
… Mrs. Clinton has made the struggles of her mother, Dorothy Rodham, a central part of her 2016 campaign’s message, and has repeatedly described Mrs. Rodham’s life story to crowds around the country. But her father, whom Mrs. Clinton rarely talks about publicly, exerted an equally powerful, if sometimes bruising, influence on the woman who wants to become the first female president.
The brusque son of an English immigrant and a coal miner’s daughter in Scranton, Pa., Mr. Rodham, for most of his life, harbored prejudices against blacks, Catholics and anyone else not like him. He hurled biting sarcasm at his wife and his only daughter and spanked, at times excessively, his three children to keep them in line, according to interviews with friends and a review of documents, Mrs. Clinton’s writings and former President Bill Clinton’s memoir…
He would hurl criticism at his wife around the kitchen table at 235 Wisner Street. When she encouraged Hillary to learn for learning’s sake, Mr. Rodham, who drove a Cadillac, would quip: “Learn for earning’s sake.” If his children asked for an allowance for their many household chores, he would reply bluntly: “I feed you, don’t I?”
The family was isolated from its neighbors because of Mr. Rodham’s sour, demeaning nature and his misanthropic tendencies, said Carl Bernstein, who wrote a 2007 biography of Hillary Clinton, “A Woman in Charge.”…
Mr. Rodham taught his only daughter that she could play sports and do anything the boys did. When she was racked with self-doubt at Wellesley and Yale, her father wrote her tough but tender letters telling her to buck up. “Even when he erupted at me, he admired my independence and accomplishments,” she later wrote…
That little girl’s smile kind of breaks my heart, right now.
***********
Apart from musing on the memories we can get away from and the ones we can’t, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week?
BillinGlendaleCA
The new chair I ordered Wednesday morning is supposed to arrive today. They said 15-17 days, good thing I checked my e-mail yesterday; I was thinking of going for a morning hike.
Baud
That’s why I’ll never have kids.
Tommy
I often wonder the same thing about my mom. Until my brother was born on my Father’s side there were three generation of only male children. My brother’s wonderful daughter Katie (she is 6) was the first women born into my family in five generations.
I say this because my mother was pretty much around men her whole life once she married my father. She has a BA, but she was with doctors and PhDs. Funny thing, the males all knew she was the smartest person in the room. She still is!
After her BA she married my father and stopped school to work, to pay for his education. A secretary for Edwin Edwards when he was governor of LA of all jobs. When I was born and my father got a job, she became a “house wife.”
Well until my brother when he was 11. The doctors found he had the bone structure of a 5-year-old. This was the early 80s and they wanted to put him on this “test” drug. HGH. Human Growth Hormones.
My dad had great health insurance through the Federal government, but they don’t pay for “test” drugs. To afford it my mother took the crafts she did around the house and turned it into a business.
I am sure many males at the time (and women too for that matter) would have said it wasn’t a business. Just a hobby. But of course that was decades before things like Esty. She ran it like a business. Had business plans. Pricing models. ROI. Tested both products and pricing. She was a flipping rock star.
She made tens of thousands if not hundreds thousands over the years. She also took me with her as a pretty young kid and I might have learned more at those “craft” shows about business and watching her then the MBA classes I took in grad school.
I say all this, and sure if you ask my mother she wouldn’t have changed a thing, but I so often wonder if things had just been a little bit different, what amazing things she could have done.
I wonder a lot.
Baud
The family resemblance is strong on the female side of the family.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’m sure you’re the life of the party.
ETA: Keep in mind; I’m an introvert that lives in a cave.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I noticed that as well.
geg6
Interesting. For me, it was exactly opposite. Mom was the tough and gruff one, but the one who taught me to be tougher than anyone else. But Daddy was the loving, supportive, encouraging one who told me I could do anything and that I was great. Family dynamics really do, for better or worse, shape who we are.
TheMightyTrowel
Argue all you want about Netflix and it’s various issues, anything that causes pain to Murdoch makes me happy. This is the news out of Australia today
Tommy
@geg6: LOL. Same in my family. You did something wrong you hoped dad caught you, not my mother. Even to this day, and I am 46, I am a little intimidated by her. But then again if I need ANYTHING, advice you name it, I first go to her.
Yes. For the first few years I was active on Daily Kos I didn’t give out personal info like I do here/now. When started to people were somewhat stunned, because they thought I was female. I took this as about the best compliment I could get and it was all because of the values and ideas my mother pounded into my head!
EconWatcher
Not sure I understand your (AL’s) response, based on the quoted passage. It sounds like a fairly standard issue childhood to me, with a father who had an unpleasant edge and other weaknesses but was no monster, may have been a bit ahead of his time on the role of girls and women, and seems to have been genuinely proud of his daughter’s strength and ambition.
The balance of pluses and minuses sounds about like my family; maybe that’s why I have my reaction. But unless there’s more, one thing’s for sure: You could do a lot worse.
Tommy
Oh how I love Friday’s and working for myself. Worked 15+ hours a day all week with four smaller projects. Long story short smaller web development and email marketing projects, where I charge my hourly rate and not a project rate, well I make a lot more money.
Other than mowing the lawn, weeding the garden, and hanging these “blackout” curtains I got via Amazon yesterday, I got nothing to do. Good feeling.
So since I now can get Showtime on Hulu I think I will watch about 10 straight episodes of Penny Dreadful from this year so I can get caught up on this season.
Oh and I just pulled a Filet Mignon from Omaha Steaks out of the freezer, got a huge bag of potatoes I’ll use a few to make a twice baked potato, oh and a few nice, ripe tomatoes from the garden for dinner.
It is going to be a very, very good day!!!!!!!!
dogwood
I’ve, never been a big fan of the Clintons in general, but but I’ve always been more sympathetic to her than to him. She was the first First Lady to have had a successful career of her own. America wasn’t used to that. Marylyn Quale was actually more successful than her husband, but people don’t pay much attention to the veep’s wife. Being the “first” at anything challenging and burdensome; just ask the Obamas. But being the “first” has never been her biggest problem. Her biggest problem has always been Bill. Trying to manage his screw ups and keep them out of the press, must be nerve racking. Being publicly humiliated by your husband ain’t no picnic either. I imagine after many years the pattern establishes itself and you snap into crisis mode automatically. I don’t know how she does it; Bill Clinton would exhaust me.
BillinGlendaleCA
Joe is continuing to call Trump’s McCain comment, “Al Franken’s bad joke”. I Joe is not aware that when Al had his show on Air America, Sen McCain was a guest and Al told him that joke and McCain thought it was funny.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It wouldn’t matter if he was aware. Wouldn’t change a thing.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Wait, are you saying that Joe would mis-represent this information. Say it ain’t so.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, it would still be Al Franken’s joke.
ETA: Although IIRC, the part where Trump says that he likes guys who were not captured wasn’t Franken.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Franken said McCain just sat out the war.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
So maybe Joe is a liar. Hard to believe.
RK
“…because of Mr. Rodham’s sour, demeaning nature…” So that’s where it comes from.
Sherparick
As Pat Conroy wrote (in several ways in all his books), “kids, your mother and I are screwing you up. Its what parents do.”
David Koch
She’s worth a couple hundred million dollars. What a tragedy.
Sherparick
@Baud: And it was also what, 12 to 13 years ago? But remember, “both sides,” but it is always a good day for hippie punching on Morning Spew.
Baud
@Sherparick:
And yet, for Joe, the Bush economy ended the second he left office. Go figure.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Joe would ask, who is this Bush person you speak of.
Betty Cracker
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
― Philip Larkin
Gimlet
Medical examiners ruled the death of Sandra Bland a suicide by hanging, and the autopsy uncovered no evidence of a violent struggle, a Texas prosecutor said Thursday.
The prosecutor said the autopsy found no defensive injuries on Bland’s hands — only about 30 abrasions on her wrist consistent with a struggle while she was initially being handcuffed.
So officers go to the cell, ask Bland to put her hands behind her while they cuff her and she cooperates. They slip the bag-noose around her neck and hang her.
Later they remove the cuffs, and loop the surveillance video.
No defense wounds. Voila, a suicide.
Sherparick
Atrios makes an interesting catch on a NY Post article decrying the delays on New Jersey commutes to New York City. Guess whose name does not appear in the article? http://www.eschatonblog.com/2015/07/um-ny-post-i-think-you-left-important.html
Hint: His initials are “C.C.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Sherparick: I know, I know(raises hand and waves it furiously), pick me, pick me.
Baud
@Gimlet:
I never understood how “hanged by bag” worked. First, how did she get a bag that was capable of hanging her? Second, how does one actually use a bag to kill oneself or another? But I haven’t heard anyone talking about that aspect of the case, so I assume I’m simply not knowledgeable in how these things work.
Baud
@Sherparick:
I’ll go with Barack Obama, because he’s to blame for so many things.
BillinGlendaleCA
Oh goody, they’re going to be talking to Trump.
satby
@Betty Cracker: True that! HRC’s dad was a product of his time as much as any personal traits he may have had. And 60 years ago women were mostly raised to be wives. That he encouraged her at all in directions other than getting her “Mrs” degree is a bit unusual. I know my dad loved me very much, but any career he encouraged me in was a traditional female one, so that it would be something I could do that would be easy to pick up again after my future children were school age.
satby
@Gimlet: and now all sorts of stuff about her alleged history of mental health issues are being leaked too. As if the fact that she should never have been arrested is irrelevant to the discussion.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Very little of it makes sense of any kind.
dedc79
@Sherparick: you ruined the punch line.
It’s supposed to go “We’ll just call him Chris C. No wait, that’s too obvious. C. Christie.”
FWIW, his name was all over the Times article about it. And there’s not a NJ commuter out there who is unaware that he screwed this up.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s a jungle out there.
Two dozen people have called the Milwaukee police department in the last three days to report that they have seen a lion stalking the city’s streets.
bystander
@satby: The boomer generation was raised by people who had lived through the Great Depression and then WWII. That many of them were tough and sarcastic and raised their children to be aware of the relative luxury of their childhoods is hardly surprising. The tone of that article is like, “See, this is why HRC is so damaged. She wasn’t raised in Scarsdale by a third-generation lawyer and a stay-at-home Mt. Holyoke grad.”
OzarkHillbilly
It gets weirder:
Inside his own head, Jeffrey Alan Lash was a secret government operative under constant surveillance by the CIA, the FBI or both.
He spent lavishly to build up an arsenal of 1,200 firearms, six and half tons of ammunition and explosive-making materials, which he piled high in every room of the small condominium he shared with his fiancee in a well-heeled hillside enclave high above the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
There’s a video!
BillinGlendaleCA
@bystander: Having been raised by parents that went through the Depression and the war, I didn’t see the description of HRC’s upbringing as odd. My parents were similar in many respects.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: That local TV news segment at the Guardian link was just awful — high school kids would have done a better job. The nano-second video of the alleged lion sure did look like a mountain lion of some type, though.
My husband and his crew saw a Florida panther once while doing some landscaping work at a subdivision near to a swampy area in SW FL. He said it was the weirdest feeling, watching that lithe critter assess them as possible meals from a distance (or that’s how it made them feel, anyway) and then disappearing into the underbrush. I wish I had seen it. I’ve lived here all my life and have never seen one, which isn’t surprising since there are so few left in the wild.
dedc79
@Betty Cracker: yeah, and the panther was probably thinking “I must be going crazy. I would swear this was the swamp I used to hunt in just a few years ago.”
Tommy
@bystander: Exactly, it was a different time. A very different time. My grandfather was a HUMP pilot in WWII. He was hard on my father and expected a lot. Sent him off to military school at 12 until he graduated from high school. Anything other then straight A’s just wasn’t acceptable.
One of my favorite stories was when he passed away I got one of the few copies of my father’s Dissertation. Almost 1,000 pages long on the Civil War. His major professor was T. Harry Williams at LSU.*
As I was reading it I noticed my grandfather had proofed and edited it with a red pen. And then I knew. I just knew where my father came from.
In college he’d write me a handwritten letter, at least 3-4 pages, at least weekly. I wrote back a few times and the next time I got his letter mine was included, marked up in red pen just as his Dissertation was.
That was maybe the first time I ever realized how much we are a product of our parents.
*If you don’t know who T. Harry Williams is Google it. It was kind of a bi deal he advised and signed off on it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: When I took my hike up to Amir’s Garden last week, there was a sign there warning about the presence of Mountain Lions and Rattlesnakes. There are the other kind of lion just north of Amir’s garden(the LA Zoo).
Ultraviolet Thunder
Parents. This is my vacation week. I’m spending it at the hospital where my mom is in bad shape after a perforated ulcer 2 weeks ago. The rest of the time my sister and I have been packing up her house because she’ll never be able to live there again. She doesn’t know we’ve been boxing up her books, art supplies, clothes, keepsakes and pots and pans. But it’s gotta be done.
Luckily 4 of 5 siblings live nearby and one is an RN so it’s not just me in this depressing situation. But it’s pretty grim and it’s dragging us all down.
Today’s my birthday (56) so my brothers and sisters gave me a day off from house and hospital. I’ll spend it getting caught up around my own house. Yard work, house plants, pets, correspondence, etc.
I think the best thing is just to keep moving. Get up a head of steam and stay ahead of the blues. If I sit and think I’ll just sink deeper. In 30 minutes I’ll be sweating and I’ll feel better!
Have a good Friday, and hug your mom if you’ve got one.
Gimlet
@OzarkHillbilly:
He was a human-alien hybrid, a savior for mankind.
If only the NSA had a bigger budget they would have been aware of him, unless his superpowers prevented it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
Once on a caving expedition in Mexico it was my turn to get water for the crew. Off I went by myself thru the jungle, me my machete, and pack frame. After picking up another 5 gallons I was hiking back to my compadres who had continued on chopping trail after breakfast. I was just strolling along, singing a song, when the ground suddenly felt kind of funny under neath me foot. I looked down and instead of the usual knife blade karst it was kind of soft and squishy. As I raised and lowered my foot there was a bubble of something 6 inches away from it going up and down. Then I looked at the ground 2 feet away from my foot. It was looking back at me. It was a deer head. I was standing in the gut pile of a jaguar kill.
I looked up at the impenetrable mass of greenery that I was surrounded by, knowing full well that there were 2 yellow eyes staring back at me, flaring nostrils trying to catch my scent, possibly wondering if I might be good to eat as well, or maybe just there to steal it’s meal.
The next day we sent 2 people on the water run. The kill was gone.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Happy birthday, in spite of it all. You’re a good “kid” and have a good bunch of siblings. Your mom should be proud of you, and undoubtedly would be if she understood what you were doing for her.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Thank you for the update — I’m sure I’m not the only one who was wondering how you’re doing. You’re exactly right about keeping busy. It sounds like you have compatriots in your siblings to help you get through this, which is so important. Be kind to yourself and each other.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Gives me the shivers just reading about it!
OzarkHillbilly
@Ultraviolet Thunder: It is good to not be alone when going thru that. Keep strong.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Betty Cracker:
I appreciate that and I’m very thankful for my siblings standing up and sharing the burden.
I’m also trolling for sympathy here. It’s a lousy situation and it feels better when someone understands and tells you you’re doing the right thing and it’ll be OK.
Thanks to all. Now I have to wake up the parrot* and go tackle the lawn.
*not an obscure s*x reference. There’s a parrot and he’s asleep.
JPL
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Try to enjoy your day.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Hard to describe my feelings at the moment, a strange mix of wonder and exhilaration with a tinge of fear. Now it is a great memory of adventure and excitement on an otherwise totally disappointing expedition.
FlyingToaster
Update from the CT condo cleanout: we put out ~6 bags of trash. I started consolidating the rolls of paper towels. Today I gather the open boxes of white cotton gloves and latex gloves. I’d stayed out of the basement yesterday, but today I have to start moving stuff down.
I may end up stripping hard drives from the office. Yeesh. I’m tempted to masking tape label each, bring them home and drop them off at the rescue joint uphill to be burned onto non-volatile media. Readable in a modern drive, even.
Gotta run, all. Have a lovely Friday!
Emma
@David Koch: Wonderful. You win the crass comment of the day sweepstakes. This early, too.
opiejeanne
@Emma: RK’s comment a couple above it deserves first runner up.
Halcyan
Hillary sure takes after her mother.
Patricia Kayden
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Happy B’Day. Sorry about your Mother’s situation.
MBunge
Uh…Hillary was 13 when the pill was legalized in the U.S. She was 16 when JFK was assassinated. She was 17 when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. She was a freshman in college just as the U.S. started to ramp up involvement in Vietnam. And she was 22 when Woodstock happened.
This is not Betty Draper we’re talking about here.
If you want to psychoanalyze Hillary Clinton, you don’t need to go back to her childhood. If you think there’s something wrong with her, I think there’s a fairly obviously source for any psychological/emotional scars.
Mike
Paul in KY
That is a wonderful smile. Great picture.
Mike G
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m just surprised he wasn’t running for the Republican presidential nomination.
Paul in KY
@Baud: You put the bag over your head & if you can get to unconsciousness, death will follow as all the air in bag is used up.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: I’m going to assume he acknowledged that slavery was why the Confederacy was fighting.
Paul in KY
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Understand where you are coming from. Sending good thoughts your way. Mine are 91 & 90 & what you are doing will come for me & my sister too.