I was going to say, hard luck on us that our first flying saucer is apparently cracking up and presumably about to crash on some unsuspecting little town. CSI: Alien.
In this particular case, it happened while trying to hold a phone that was being used as a flashlight while carrying a bunch of kindling at the same time.
8.
Anoniminous
Today’s HuffPo national Poll-of-Polls standing:
Donald Trump 42.7%
Ted Cruz 17.4%
Marco Rubio 16.6%
Ben Carson 8.7%
John Kasich 6.7%
9.
boatboy_srq
And here I thought you’d been cave diving and found some obscure ray…
10.
Peale
@Politically Lost: No no, that’s an interesting thought. Please go on. Stay on the line. I’m going to put you on hold a minute while I call some “friends” to go to your place and pick you up for a rest. But I’ll be right back.
Too funny. I stopped at a Starbucks on the way out of town, bought a snickerdoodle to have with my coffee. Am still sitting in their parking lot and had just taken a bite of cookie when I opened this thread and saw the photo, and that was exactly what I thought too!
13.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Clinton’s getting a big turnout here in downtown Boston where she’s speaking at the Old South Church – a local reporter posted a pic to twitter that looks remarkably like Obama’s coalition – young, old, black, white, asian, male and female, and every combination of the aforementioned.
14.
Elizabelle
Cole stomped the thread; new post has to do with this: prominent on NY Times website:
Clarence Thomas Breaks 10 Years of Silence in Court
Justice Thomas asked questions from the bench for the first time since February 2006, and just weeks after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
I think I’m coming down with the nasty cold that’s been going around work, and I’m pissed off about it. I have to get through today and then maybe I’ll have time to be sick tomorrow.
16.
SiubhanDuinne
Apropos of nothing: You know those cleverly-dubbed videos of Trump talking in posh British or cockney British or stereotypically gay? Well, I would love it if someone would do one of those in a Donald Duck voice.
17.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Enjoy that snickerdoodle and coffee. Probably history by now. Safe travels.
18.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
anybody know what’s going on with Tulsi Gabbard? I was vaguely aware of her as a budding FoxNews Democrat calling on Obama to speak the magic adjectives wrt ISIS. Now she’s endorsing Bernie Sanders specifically, according to the clip I caught on MNSBC, because of his foreign policy stance of non-intervention. Anybody paying attention?
The down page open thread has migrated here and I read all the comments. I just wanted to chime in that the idea of The Other has been firmly entrenched in the American psyche from the very beginning of the Republic.
First it was the British.
Then it was the Natives.
Then it was the slaves (concurrent with the Native Americans some of the time)
Then it was the non-protestant Europeans
Then it was the communists.
After the USSR fell, we had no more other to define ourselves against. The other has become “Islamic Terrorists/Muslims” since 9/11.
That said, the otherness of our African American fellow citizens has continued to this day. I think that rikyrah and rhoda and others are absolutely right when they say Trump and the issues of this primary/presidential contest is about race.
But it’s race as the other. And it’s not just black people that these reactionaries want to get rid of, it’s ALL THE OTHERS that have stopped their weird white 50s mythical daydream.
Gay people. Atheists. Poor people. The other for our current GOP is ANYONE that is outside their club which in general is middle or upper-middle heterosexual christian white males. So yes, it’s about race, but that’s not the only group they want to get rid of.
ETA: And then poor white heterosexual christian males can always look down on the others that are even more othery (southern strategy / giant racial component)
Of course, as always I could be talking straight out of my ass and be wronger than Bill Kristol.
Cheers!
22.
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Speaking of the Oscars, I completely missed it if there was an Oscar’s thread last night.
I fast forwarded through pretty much everything except Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, and the In Memoriam. I loved Chris Rock and I was happy that he didn’t let up on the no black people got nominated theme, but he made it fun while he was making his point. What did other folks think?
As I was fast forwarding, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of black people presenting awards – good enough to present awards but not good enough for nominations. Really an insult, I thought.
Someone made a great analogy for what happened (didn’t happen) with nominations but for the life of me I cannot recall what it was. Does anyone know what I’m talking about with this vague question?
I am surprised you did not see it yesterday. My take as I “soldier” on is she saw up close and personal the ravages of the Iraqui War as a veteran and chose accordingly to a candidate who did not vote for it. In addition, I assume she was not too happy with how the DNC was being run. Google her name. I am sure you will find more about it. :)
24.
Bob In Portland
Does anyone else here realize that ISIS is a proxy for western and Sunni powers? Just curious.
Yeah, the picture looks like the disc separated from the rest of the USS Enterprise.
25.
Miss Bianca
And here *I* thought it was a magic mushroom…
26.
jl
So Cracker claims. Don’t worry Betty, you’ll get the truth out, one way or the other.
We understand the truth.
@WaterGirl: I didn’t think Sarah Silverman was particularly funny. I was folding laundry and making lists while I watched the broadcast, so not listening closely to answer your question.
28.
ed_finnerty
@Bob In Portland: the flying sub from voyage to see whats on the bottom
Boy, that stirs old memories. I think it was a tv show, but I remember the old Saturday matinees. That was one of the movies that passed through my town. If I recall correctly, they had to fire a missile at the Van Allen Belt for some reason.
I guess for action/sci fi movies it was a step between WWII submarine movies and outer space movies.
Not sure what you’re thinking of, but I thought Rock had the perfect metaphor for Hollywood racism: it’s sorority racism. I think his example was, “We really like you, Rhonda, but you’re just not Kappa material.”
I just wanted to chime in that the idea of The Other has been firmly entrenched in the American HUMAN psyche from the very beginning of the Republic HUMAN RACE.
Edited for accuracy.
32.
Feathers
@WaterGirl: My guess was that it was Rock and the new Academy head calling in lots of favors. There were also lots of “diverse” cast members from ABC TV shows, Kerry Washington was the first one I noticed, who undoubtedly have network promotional appearances mandated in their contracts. It felt like, yes we are protesting, but we are also serious about solving the problem going forward. Her point about how Hollywood needs to have diverse casts if it wants to keep being the world leader in cinema is important. Cruising through Netflix, I noticed that the foreign films are now International Movies. There is even a Nollywood section – Nigerian movies made in Africa, with African casts, for Africans. They are now the third largest film industry in the world, behind Hollywood and Bollywood. Africa used to be a market for Hollywood movies, but now they make their own – and it’s a $3 billion industry. And now being distributed in the US.
Note, I have not yet begun to dive into the Nollywood films, but if you like heist/gangster/noir films, Viva Riva, from Congo, is probably the best I’ve seen in recent years. No longer streaming on Netfix, but worth getting the DVD.
@Feathers: Calling Hindi film industry Bollywood sounds like appropriation. Hollywood may lead in $$ earned but India makes more movies than Hollywood and there is more to Indian film industry than just Hindi movies.
34.
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: Oh yes. The idea of us v. them has built many a civilization (and collapsed it). There was a science article within the last six months that suggested that one of the reasons why humans spread out across the globe was in part because some folks wore out their welcome and had to leave. Which reminds me of an interesting story about human brain size and evolution. Up until the last ten thousand years the size of human brains kept expanding. Cro-Magnons had big noggins and big brains.
Then ten thousand years ago brains throughout mankind suddenly stopped increasing in volume. There have be a multitude of theories (one is that the brain evolved more efficient wiring between its regions and thus decreased its size while being more efficient than older, bigger brains). The most interesting theory, though, goes thusly: When humans domesticate animals their brains get smaller. A wolf/dog that is on its own has to be pretty inventive. It’s always looking for prey and avoiding being prey. Life with humans is much easier and so with domestication a lot of the worries are gone and those parts of the brain are not only excess but get you into trouble in a domesticated setting. Thus, domesticated animals gave up some of their smarts (street smarts) to better fit with humans.
The theory is that humans domesticated themselves. As larger groups of humans formed people had to learn to better get along with others. The author of the article pointed out that the extensive use of banishment or even the death penalty for disobeying your group’s rules helped in the self-domestication. Thus tribalism, with different social cues to obey or suffer. But what happens when a tribe runs into a tribe with a whole other set of rules? Absorption is the positive outcome. Wiping out the “other” is the less positive outcome. Thus, an explanation of the evolution of war and peace.
35.
singfoom
@Betty Cracker: That’s fair. But beyond questions of human nature, it’s also evident in our history specifically in the cases I mentioned.
The reason it works so well on the nation state level is due to it’s existence in our human nature IMHO.
Ironically, one of the reasons for the dearth of Hollywood movies with African-American stars is that those films often don’t do well overseas, particularly in Asian markets, but also in places like the former Soviet Block countries. Now that Hollywood films make most of their money overseas, it’s a major financial incentive to not have diverse casting.
@Mnemosyne: So Hollywood is blaming its lack of diversity on Asian markets? Sounds like passing the buck. FWIW, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman etc are pretty popular in India.
Politically Lost
No it’s not. Snickerdoodle with a bite out of it revealing it’s glowing inner perfection.
Think I might have failed the Rorschach
Juju
It looked like a broken floating cookie to me as well.
BGinCHI
When they said The Truth Is Out There, I thought they meant Norway.
Not so far.
Felonius Monk
How does an accidental photo happen? Were any cameras injured in the accident? Were any photographers injured?
Amir Khalid
You want some music to go with that picture.
scav
I was going to say, hard luck on us that our first flying saucer is apparently cracking up and presumably about to crash on some unsuspecting little town. CSI: Alien.
Betty Cracker
@Felonius Monk:
In this particular case, it happened while trying to hold a phone that was being used as a flashlight while carrying a bunch of kindling at the same time.
Anoniminous
Today’s HuffPo national Poll-of-Polls standing:
Donald Trump 42.7%
Ted Cruz 17.4%
Marco Rubio 16.6%
Ben Carson 8.7%
John Kasich 6.7%
boatboy_srq
And here I thought you’d been cave diving and found some obscure ray…
Peale
@Politically Lost: No no, that’s an interesting thought. Please go on. Stay on the line. I’m going to put you on hold a minute while I call some “friends” to go to your place and pick you up for a rest. But I’ll be right back.
Mnemosyne
Looks like the Millenium Falcon to me. Goddamned Disney marketing is everywhere you turn!
SiubhanDuinne
@Politically Lost:
@Juju:
Too funny. I stopped at a Starbucks on the way out of town, bought a snickerdoodle to have with my coffee. Am still sitting in their parking lot and had just taken a bite of cookie when I opened this thread and saw the photo, and that was exactly what I thought too!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Clinton’s getting a big turnout here in downtown Boston where she’s speaking at the Old South Church – a local reporter posted a pic to twitter that looks remarkably like Obama’s coalition – young, old, black, white, asian, male and female, and every combination of the aforementioned.
Elizabelle
Cole stomped the thread; new post has to do with this: prominent on NY Times website:
A disturbance is felt in the universe.
Mnemosyne
I think I’m coming down with the nasty cold that’s been going around work, and I’m pissed off about it. I have to get through today and then maybe I’ll have time to be sick tomorrow.
SiubhanDuinne
Apropos of nothing: You know those cleverly-dubbed videos of Trump talking in posh British or cockney British or stereotypically gay? Well, I would love it if someone would do one of those in a Donald Duck voice.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Enjoy that snickerdoodle and coffee. Probably history by now. Safe travels.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
anybody know what’s going on with Tulsi Gabbard? I was vaguely aware of her as a budding FoxNews Democrat calling on Obama to speak the magic adjectives wrt ISIS. Now she’s endorsing Bernie Sanders specifically, according to the clip I caught on MNSBC, because of his foreign policy stance of non-intervention. Anybody paying attention?
Ascap_scab
The thing inside the briefcase in Repo Man.
schrodinger's cat
My thoughts on 2016 Oscars, kitteh got all dressed up and even made a speech!
singfoom
The down page open thread has migrated here and I read all the comments. I just wanted to chime in that the idea of The Other has been firmly entrenched in the American psyche from the very beginning of the Republic.
First it was the British.
Then it was the Natives.
Then it was the slaves (concurrent with the Native Americans some of the time)
Then it was the non-protestant Europeans
Then it was the communists.
After the USSR fell, we had no more other to define ourselves against. The other has become “Islamic Terrorists/Muslims” since 9/11.
That said, the otherness of our African American fellow citizens has continued to this day. I think that rikyrah and rhoda and others are absolutely right when they say Trump and the issues of this primary/presidential contest is about race.
But it’s race as the other. And it’s not just black people that these reactionaries want to get rid of, it’s ALL THE OTHERS that have stopped their weird white 50s mythical daydream.
Gay people. Atheists. Poor people. The other for our current GOP is ANYONE that is outside their club which in general is middle or upper-middle heterosexual christian white males. So yes, it’s about race, but that’s not the only group they want to get rid of.
ETA: And then poor white heterosexual christian males can always look down on the others that are even more othery (southern strategy / giant racial component)
Of course, as always I could be talking straight out of my ass and be wronger than Bill Kristol.
Cheers!
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Speaking of the Oscars, I completely missed it if there was an Oscar’s thread last night.
I fast forwarded through pretty much everything except Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, and the In Memoriam. I loved Chris Rock and I was happy that he didn’t let up on the no black people got nominated theme, but he made it fun while he was making his point. What did other folks think?
As I was fast forwarding, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of black people presenting awards – good enough to present awards but not good enough for nominations. Really an insult, I thought.
Someone made a great analogy for what happened (didn’t happen) with nominations but for the life of me I cannot recall what it was. Does anyone know what I’m talking about with this vague question?
HRA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I am surprised you did not see it yesterday. My take as I “soldier” on is she saw up close and personal the ravages of the Iraqui War as a veteran and chose accordingly to a candidate who did not vote for it. In addition, I assume she was not too happy with how the DNC was being run. Google her name. I am sure you will find more about it. :)
Bob In Portland
Does anyone else here realize that ISIS is a proxy for western and Sunni powers? Just curious.
Yeah, the picture looks like the disc separated from the rest of the USS Enterprise.
Miss Bianca
And here *I* thought it was a magic mushroom…
jl
So Cracker claims. Don’t worry Betty, you’ll get the truth out, one way or the other.
We understand the truth.
schrodinger's cat
@WaterGirl: I didn’t think Sarah Silverman was particularly funny. I was folding laundry and making lists while I watched the broadcast, so not listening closely to answer your question.
ed_finnerty
@Bob In Portland: the flying sub from voyage to see whats on the bottom
Bob In Portland
@ed_finnerty: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea?
Boy, that stirs old memories. I think it was a tv show, but I remember the old Saturday matinees. That was one of the movies that passed through my town. If I recall correctly, they had to fire a missile at the Van Allen Belt for some reason.
I guess for action/sci fi movies it was a step between WWII submarine movies and outer space movies.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
Not sure what you’re thinking of, but I thought Rock had the perfect metaphor for Hollywood racism: it’s sorority racism. I think his example was, “We really like you, Rhonda, but you’re just not Kappa material.”
Betty Cracker
@singfoom:
Edited for accuracy.
Feathers
@WaterGirl: My guess was that it was Rock and the new Academy head calling in lots of favors. There were also lots of “diverse” cast members from ABC TV shows, Kerry Washington was the first one I noticed, who undoubtedly have network promotional appearances mandated in their contracts. It felt like, yes we are protesting, but we are also serious about solving the problem going forward. Her point about how Hollywood needs to have diverse casts if it wants to keep being the world leader in cinema is important. Cruising through Netflix, I noticed that the foreign films are now International Movies. There is even a Nollywood section – Nigerian movies made in Africa, with African casts, for Africans. They are now the third largest film industry in the world, behind Hollywood and Bollywood. Africa used to be a market for Hollywood movies, but now they make their own – and it’s a $3 billion industry. And now being distributed in the US.
Note, I have not yet begun to dive into the Nollywood films, but if you like heist/gangster/noir films, Viva Riva, from Congo, is probably the best I’ve seen in recent years. No longer streaming on Netfix, but worth getting the DVD.
schrodinger's cat
@Feathers: Calling Hindi film industry Bollywood sounds like appropriation. Hollywood may lead in $$ earned but India makes more movies than Hollywood and there is more to Indian film industry than just Hindi movies.
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: Oh yes. The idea of us v. them has built many a civilization (and collapsed it). There was a science article within the last six months that suggested that one of the reasons why humans spread out across the globe was in part because some folks wore out their welcome and had to leave. Which reminds me of an interesting story about human brain size and evolution. Up until the last ten thousand years the size of human brains kept expanding. Cro-Magnons had big noggins and big brains.
Then ten thousand years ago brains throughout mankind suddenly stopped increasing in volume. There have be a multitude of theories (one is that the brain evolved more efficient wiring between its regions and thus decreased its size while being more efficient than older, bigger brains). The most interesting theory, though, goes thusly: When humans domesticate animals their brains get smaller. A wolf/dog that is on its own has to be pretty inventive. It’s always looking for prey and avoiding being prey. Life with humans is much easier and so with domestication a lot of the worries are gone and those parts of the brain are not only excess but get you into trouble in a domesticated setting. Thus, domesticated animals gave up some of their smarts (street smarts) to better fit with humans.
The theory is that humans domesticated themselves. As larger groups of humans formed people had to learn to better get along with others. The author of the article pointed out that the extensive use of banishment or even the death penalty for disobeying your group’s rules helped in the self-domestication. Thus tribalism, with different social cues to obey or suffer. But what happens when a tribe runs into a tribe with a whole other set of rules? Absorption is the positive outcome. Wiping out the “other” is the less positive outcome. Thus, an explanation of the evolution of war and peace.
singfoom
@Betty Cracker: That’s fair. But beyond questions of human nature, it’s also evident in our history specifically in the cases I mentioned.
The reason it works so well on the nation state level is due to it’s existence in our human nature IMHO.
Mnemosyne
@Feathers:
Ironically, one of the reasons for the dearth of Hollywood movies with African-American stars is that those films often don’t do well overseas, particularly in Asian markets, but also in places like the former Soviet Block countries. Now that Hollywood films make most of their money overseas, it’s a major financial incentive to not have diverse casting.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: So Hollywood is blaming its lack of diversity on Asian markets? Sounds like passing the buck. FWIW, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman etc are pretty popular in India.
Bob In Portland
@schrodinger’s cat: More Idris Elba.