Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

T R E 4 5 O N

No one could have predicted…

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Bark louder, little dog.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Get Mail (Open Thread)

I Get Mail (Open Thread)

by | 200 Comments

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Commenter Sacrablue shared a prototype for a classy Trump White House Christmas card:

drumph

As valued commenter Corner Stone might say, shutters! Christ, it’s enough to make you miss GWB’s costumed Scotties.

The other day, valued commenter Soylent Green mentioned that he was going to check out a pro-Bundy gang rally at Portland City Hall, and I invited him to send photos to share. He did! Report and photos below the fold…

Soylent Green reports:

The event was uneventful and short-lived, about 90 minutes, and with no more than about 30 people present. They gathered at our city hall (recognizable to anyone who has seen “Portlandia.”) These folks are all locals, not outsiders (wearing Oregon Ducks caps to go with their Lavoy the Martyr T-shirts) and they were relatively subdued. No unconcealed guns, no verbal confrontations. Almost no cops around. I’m afraid Portland is just too civilized a place to see anything more dramatic.

Good. Here are some of the photos:

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

200Comments

  1. 1.

    Trentrunner

    Stipulating that consulting adults should be able to marry whom they want:

    Can we now put the Trump marriage(s) under the speculative spotlight the way Clintons’ marriage was/is?

    First, Donald: What role do you think your wealth plays in luring women that are obviously out of your league in terms of looks, intelligence, and age?

    Melanoma: On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being biting into a sandwich to find a dirty fingernail and 10 realizing that the co-worker’s applejuice you just drank was not apple-juice, how disgusted are you when Donald starts to put his stubby vulgarian fingers on your supple, dusky, unlined mittel-European flesh?

    Maureen Dowd, a nation turns its prurient eyes to you…

  4. 4.

    Ben Cisco

    @Trentrunner: There’ll be no speculation, mainly b/c of envy among those who would otherwise be doing the tut-tutting.

    On an unrelated note, does anyone know why that dude with the 20mm cannon in Predator keeps automatically running some braindead video everytime the site loads?

  8. 8.

    MattF

    … and the message inside the Christmas card is:

    “Rich Or Poor, It’s Nice To Have Money.”

  10. 10.

    Ruckus

    @Trentrunner:
    First problem, the donald doesn’t think he is in any way out of her league in terms of looks, intelligence and age and that wealth always counts.
    Second problem, there is no accounting for taste or marriage requirements. She might like drinking a co-workers “apple juice,” (assuming she’s ever worked) however disgusting that may be to the rest of the world.

  11. 11.

    redshirt

    Trump photo critique from a non-professional: Move the left candelabra to the left so it frames the painting; straighten the candles too.

    Also, we need some soft lighting on Trump to give more of an ethereal glow.

  12. 12.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @p.a.:
    Short. Short fingered vulagrian. But i would not be surprised if they were greasy also

  14. 14.

    Ruckus

    @redshirt:
    If you are going to be critical, what about the palm behind the hairpiece? Can’t tell if it makes the hairpiece look better or worse.

  19. 19.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    The late Leona Helmsley had a hilarious interview in Playboy when she talked about Trump.(Trump said that Leona destroyed her husband Harry, who owned the Empire State Building at onentime, real estate empire) She retorted that The Donald destroyed his father’s and kept on calling trump’s 2nd Marla Maples as Maple Marbles.

  20. 20.

    scav

    Scores severely low on the “Merry” quotient. Nothing says “Seasonal” either, unless the only magi available was Caspar the gold-carrying Ghost and he delivered it all to the saloon cast of the Wild Wild West.

  23. 23.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Wait don’t tell me, this is Donald Trump’s response to Mitt Romney, one-upping him to make fun of the station wagon roof carrier thing, right?

    The real scandal with that if I recall was Mitt trying to charge the carrier rental to his campaign as “overhead”.

  26. 26.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    Speaking of stupid, fucking Dreher, that fucking fuck, knob slobbering over the dried up corpse of some convert bishop that the OCA undoubtedly mistakenly and stupidly elevated. As always, Dreher is theologically and factually incorrect, and is being his regular asshole self.

    A couple of readers rightly correct me for giving the impression that in Orthodoxy, an incorrupt body is incontrovertible evidence of sainthood. It is not. I am personally choosing to take this as a definitive sign, because I knew Vladyka Dmitri. But doing so is not the way of the Orthodox Church. If he is to be canonized, that will be something for the Church to decide, after much discernment.

  27. 27.

    Teddy's Person

    Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like the overflowing bosom of a pouty woman and her constipated gentleman friend.

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    @redshirt:

    Trump photo critique from a non-professional: Move the left candelabra to the left so it frames the painting; straighten the candles too.

    I think you’d be better off getting rid of the candelabras completely. The one on the left is in an unfortunate position, and moving it to frame the painting will make it worse. The whole scene is too busy, and eliminating a few unnecessary objects would probably improve it. And fire the interior decorator.

  43. 43.

    Mike in NC

    Trump’s classy remodeling of the White House would be only slightly better than what the British did to it in 1814.

  44. 44.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @LAO:

    As somebody who is Orthodox, the monastics bug the ever living fuck out of me when they want to prattle on about the evils of the secular world and the superiority of their own, all while they mooch donations and hawk product. Historically, that’s where families sent their socially awkward or really unskilled sons and daughters. The monastery was there to retreat to and meditate. Now we get asshole convertsy like Dreher et al. listening to people who have no clue about regular life acting as role models.

    Dreher’s wife must be an incredibly frustrated woman – we had some in our parish just like him.

  45. 45.

    phein55

    Remember when Schwarzenegger was revealed to have slept with a rival’s wife, and had said woman call her husband under some pretext while they were still lying in bed together, then shouted “I fucked your wife!” over the phone?

    Remember how that sunk his candidacy for governor?

    Yeah, me neither. Sexual mores, along with any other societal standards, are for use by the wealthy and the powerful against you, not against themselves.

  48. 48.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @KB:
    I learned a long time ago that sitting at the piano does not indicate one can PLAY the piano. The instrument, like the bimbo, is just a prop to make the short-fingered vulgarian look impressive.

  49. 49.

    PurpleGirl

    In the Trump photo, take away the candelabras and the clock. The clock blocks the painting. It looks like decorator was going for what in the trade was known as Bronx Renaissance. Although it usually included a lot of red velvet curtains and red walls, it also included lots of brass and gold. Decorators joked among themselves that it was look favored by former Jewish Bronx residents when they moved to Westchester County and thought they were being classy.

  55. 55.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    It looks like the picture goes back to at least 2007. He looks like a relative youngster there.

    He didn’t have much taste in decorating then, either.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    PurpleGirl

    OY: Are we going to have a Downton Abbey thread, it being the last shows of the season and the series. PBS plans to show a BAFTA special about DA at 8 pm; the last episode at 9-10:30 and then a PBS farewell at 10:30.

  61. 61.

    SFAW

    @PurpleGirl:

    Decorators joked among themselves that it was look favored by former Jewish Bronx residents when they moved to Westchester County and thought they were being classy.

    Or Leonard’s on Northern Boulevard.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @PurpleGirl: Yes! Got one in the hopper just for the ocassion. Someone else should be putting up a debate thread any minute now.

  63. 63.

    Poopyman

    OT, but I’ll mark the moment.

    There are two times in the year that I hear the snow geese – in the fall as they’re flying south at altitude for at least a few more miles to the Chesapeake, and spring as they head north. For some reason it’s always been after dark, and their ethereal hooting several hundred feet overhead is unforgettable, and a fitting marker.

    I hear them tonight. Spring is coming.

  64. 64.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @JPL: I want to second this. Few reports of how not sizable the “free the Bundy nuts” demonstrations turned out to be. I think JJ McNabb linked to the Bundy Ranch Facebook page where there was angry bitching that patriots stayed home.

  65. 65.

    SFAW

    @LAO:

    It’s the tough guy scowl that wins me over.

    Yes. It’s very Christmas-y.

    (“Hey, Santa, you suck, you amateur! And you’re fired!”)

  66. 66.

    Technocrat

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Whooooooo, that is is going to be a lively thread.

    I will say though, it saddens me that political partisans can’t just allow each other to be wrong. We have to be moral failures. Not mistaken, but evil.

    Politics makes people stupid, and is ultimately a suboptimal way to run the joint.

  67. 67.

    Jimbo

    Hi,
    Could anyone here tell me of a dog rescue for special needs animals?
    I’m in Colorado.
    Yesterday I found a male puppy,(Shepherd mix/mutt) that recently went through a rear limb removal, (within a couple months), abandoned behind a Home Depot.
    He was just laying there, anxious, and waiting on his people, I guess. Human projection on my part.
    But it had been a few days, you could just tell. It took 2 hours to get close to him with an offering of water. Then he drank a couple quarts.
    He ducks hands reached for him, and fears the lead.
    I’ve already been to the local Humane Society, but it was the weekend. Pictures were taken, information given.

  69. 69.

    LAO

    @SFAW: Seriously, one set of my grandparents took the Bronx to Westchester route and I promise you, their very lovely home in ritzy Purchase, NY looked nothing like that. It was tacky but not gold leaf tacky. Definitely is a Long Island look. Lol

  71. 71.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Roger Moore:

    I think you’d be better off getting rid of the candelabras completely

    Can’t have a LIberace homage without candelabras.

  72. 72.

    SFAW

    @KB:

    How can he play the piano with such short, greasy fingers?

    He’ll just stick to the first few bars of “C-Jam Blues” and declare himself the world’s classiest pianist. (Or was he going to say he had the world’s classiest p3nis? I can never remember. )

  75. 75.

    Nutella

    @Trentrunner:

    That’s the worst spellcheck error ever. That poor woman not only has to recline on a hard surfacd while over made up and under dressed, she has to live with Donald Trump. Calling her “Melanoma” is not nice. Her name is Melania.

    Melanoma is a kind of cancer that is often fatal.

  77. 77.

    SFAW

    @LAO:

    Definitely is a Long Island look.

    LI, represent!

    (Although most people in Great Neck have significantly more class than the decor at Leonard’s)

  78. 78.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: I keep forgetting the long game! I blame the retreating rhinovirus.

  80. 80.

    Applejinx

    @redshirt: Not on /r/hillaryclinton she ain’t. It would be really tacky for Bernistas to go flood her own fan group just to gripe, which probably means they will. I’m Applejinx there too, and I will certainly not be going and sassing her fan group.

    A place like this is MEANT for snarky, partisan discourse. Hassling /r/hillaryclinton would be the height of tacky. I wish ’em joy that their namesake came and expressed good wishes: nice shout-out, and totally on-topic for that subreddit.

  81. 81.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: Hey Adam, is this dying thread open enough for a religious (Xtian) question that has me completely confused?

  82. 82.

    SFAW

    @delk:

    Ha! My husband had his bar mitzvah at Leonards of Great Neck.

    I would venture to say that the number of bar mitzvah’s at Leonard’s exceeds that for all other venues, combined. At least on the North Shore and Queens. Maybe other boroughs as well. Except Staten Island.

  86. 86.

    Technocrat

    @redshirt:

    No doubt. Moderation is essential on the internet. I was more commenting on how the CW is becoming “kos was always a sellout”. See the Booman link in DXM’s post. And I typically find Booman to be relatively even-keeled.

    ETA: When I said “a suboptimal way to run the joint”, I meant the planet, not kos’s blog :)

  87. 87.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: Thanks – a lots, but clearly the cognition remains compromised. Though that doesn’t explain my Xtian confusion I want to consult Adam about; its way too weird to be blamed on viral fuzz.

  90. 90.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Davis X. Machina:

    He should just rename it the Broman Tribune. What a bunch of useless “hot take” whining about ways white men are now having to check their privilege when the stakes are unacceptably high for literally everyone else.

  92. 92.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @sacrablue:
    How are women like pianos?

    When they are not upright they are grand.

    Thanks-you , don’t forget to weigh your tipster, I’ll be here all week

  96. 96.

    LAO

    Ugh. Just reached the rodent infested portion of hoarders. I think I’m going to be sick. (I know, ridiculous show that capitalizes on the mentally ill but I can’t help myself!)

  98. 98.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: Cool. I’d rather put it here so as not to distract from more important things like the debate thread. No rush, obviously, but I need help getting my brain around this.

    There is this overtly (by which I mean loud and proud) Christian family that I know, by circumstance rather than choice. When they moved from one state to another they selected the town where they settled – at least in part – based on the warm welcome they received from the pastor and congregation of a church they visited there.

    A few years later, they are returning to their home state. Interesting and potentially related/relevant details can be provided upon request. What’s puzzling me most is that the wife told me in an email that she expected an invitation to her in laws for Easter, not so much for the fellowship as to help with the cooking.

    She went on to say that they don’t know how to tell the in laws that they are no longer evangelical Christians and don’t celebrate that holiday. Am I more uniformed than I believed? I thought all Christians celebrate Easter and it’s sort of a foundational event marked by the holiday. And the holiest day of that religious year. Most of my Christian friends have been doing it wrong their entire lives.

    Can you help? If it’s a) not obvious and b) important, the entire bunch is dumber than a bag of hammers.

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @Jimbo:
    I know of someone in CO who I used to work with who deals with animals with less than the requisite number of legs. Email Betty and have her email me so we can get together and I’ll contact my friend and see if he can help.

  104. 104.

    Jimbo

    @Miss Bianca: I went through the list that came up on google, and the Humane Society is definitely not something I’m a fan of.
    Teller county was the nearest “No Kill” shelter.
    He’s just a puppy.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I think there are two different issues here. The first is that they’ve stopped being evangelicals – of whatever flavor of evangelical they had been. This would be enough to put up a social (socio-religious) barrier between them and the members of the former congregation where they are moving back to. Though I would think those folks would take it as a chance to try to bring wayward sheep back into the flock.

    The second is are there Christians/Christian denominations that don’t celebrate Easter? Yes, yes there are. The United Church of God:
    http://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/christians-who-dont-celebrate-easter-what-do-they-know

    And its offshoots, such as the Christian Biblical Church of God:
    http://cbcg.org/should_christians_celebrate_easter.htm

    Also, Jehova’s Witnesses, some Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, and some of the Amish and Mennonites and others of the plain folk.
    http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-witness/TQ3S5BUIKGMA69K2B

    As a trained (in comparative religion) outsider looking in I think one of the major issues is where the focus is. I’ve heard Catholic theologians, and some Catholic priests, as well as Mainstream Protestant ones often lament that the focus of Easter is on the wrong things. It either winds up on the passion, and you get a celebration of the violence around the Crucifixion, or it winds up on the modern American commercialized Easter of bunnies and chocolates and eggs. Their concern was that the real emphasis of the holiday, on the actual good news (gospel) of the celebration, should be on the risen Christ and the fulfillment of the promise of redemption in the resurrection.

    I hope that helps.

  106. 106.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: @Jimbo: I’ll do it right now, I’m in here and this way you don’t have to wait. So expect a digital intro email from me to the two of you in about three minutes.

  108. 108.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jimbo:

    No, there are “no kill” shelters in Pueblo and Springs. But the Humane Society in Buena Vista, where I have adopted and taken dogs, is just excellent:

    http://ark-valley.org/

    I have to go up that way myself sometimes, so if it comes to it I might even be able to come get him and take up there for you – but I wouldn’t be able to get to you till Tuesday/Wednesday.

  109. 109.

    Bill Arnold

    @Technocrat:
    A similar sentiment (though with less research backing) is Politics is the Mind-Killer (Eliezer Yudkowsky, an AI researcher/philosopher)

    Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there’s a Blue or Green position on an issue.

  111. 111.

    NotMax

    @SFAW

    It’s still there. Gallery of pictures for those who have never been exposed to the ‘wretched excess retro-moderne’ school of decoration.

  113. 113.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jimbo:

    Let me know if I can help. I’m sure that nice Dr. Silverman would be willing to set up a way for us to communicate directly. : )

  117. 117.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Holy crap, you’re on it already?? What are you, the eye of the Panopticon? ; ) Does this mean that I should be watching my email or something?

  118. 118.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: The United Church of God, and its offshoots, such as the Christian Biblical Church of God are both totally news to me, so thank you.

    Also, Jehova’s Witnesses, some Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, and some of the Amish and Mennonites and others of the plain folk.I knew of those, and my bias didn’t let me think of the JW/FDLS as Christian (or LDS for that matter).

    I’ve not gotten a good sense of what variety they were in NY, since I didn’t much care but the church they joined in VA was Providence Church “a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches Augustine Presbytery,” which sounds pretty Calvinist:

    We believe that the elect were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to live holy and blameless lives.

    (from website statement of faith)
    How the hell can a Calvinist evangelize? Do you recruit people you recognize as elect?

    That church was most supportive when the adult son was arrested shortly after their arrival, and apparently remain supportive as his release date approaches, which a church member providing employment and a fiend of another renting him an apartment. Indeed the pastor has told son that it’s his home church as long as he wants to be part of the church.

    It’s his family they haven’t told – they can just not go to church there and plan to move to western VT as soon as they find a place.

    @Pogonip: That’s not it, but it’s one I’d forgotten about and think of as kind of the conjoined twin of Evangelical Jews.

    I thank you both for the information. The bottom line, I suspect, is that they just don’t want much of a church experience at this time, or they may have found themselves drawn to one the first two Adam mentioned, since they won’t be going plain.

  119. 119.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    It’s still there.

    Of course. It’s been there for 50 years, why would it disappear now? I try to resist the urge to gawk when I drive by it. In some ways, going there for a bar mitzvah is not unlike a hajj.

    Gallery of pictures for those who have never been exposed to the ‘wretched excess retro-moderne’ school of decoration.

    I notice that it’s now “Leonard’s Palazzo.” The “Palazzo” thing certainly makes it much more classier.

    Of

  120. 120.

    muddy

    @NotMax: So fancy. Reminds me The Morris Hotel. My family used to use this hotel in Philadelphia when we visited the in the US in the 60s and 70s. I guess it had initially been a clean decent place, and convenient to downtown when they first stayed there, but they’d gone overseas in the 50s so things had changed a lot. I don’t know why we kept going there each year except that they knew where it was and it was cheap. Tradition!

    The elevator had shiny gold wallpaper with red flocking. I thought it was amazingly beautiful because I was a kid. It was this peel and stick stuff, and they gave me a spare piece which I installed in my folding dollhouse. My parents had a weird attitude about my beautiful paper, which I didn’t understand.

    Until I was grown and realized that The Morris Hotel was prostitute central. The ladies hanging around by the tv in the entry were so pretty too, and wore sparkly clothes. I kept telling my mom to get nice outfits like that. Oh dear.

  122. 122.

    LAO

    I’ve been thinking about the Trumps picture and this thought just occurred to me; do you think, when you are obscensely wealthy, nobody has the guts to tell you you’re tacky? I grew up in the 80s surrounded by real old-school wealth and I’ve never seen anything or anyone as tacky as Trump.

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Its like Adamception…

    So there’s two different issues here. The first is that yes, there are two different accounts of creation in Genesis, but neither of them specifically mentions Lilith. Lilith is never mentioned in the Torah.

    Let’s take the divergent accounts first: The first of the two accounts is often referred to as the Priestly account and delineates that man and woman were created at the same time. This is Genesis 1:26-27. The second and later account, sometimes called the Yahwistic account, is in Genesis 2 and is the one most people know. I actually wrote a paper on this about twenty years ago. The first account, in 1:26-27, is likely both the older and original narrative account. The second account, the one everyone is familiar with where Even is formed from a rib of Adam, is the later one. D. S. Margoliouth, the ur-Semitics scholar at Oxford in the early 20th Century wrote an interesting text entitled The Relations Between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam. Margoliouth’s thesis is that the group we come to know as the Hebrews and then the Israelites and then the Judaean remnant and ultimately as Jews, were originally from SW Arabia – the Hijaz area of what is now Saudi Arabia and the Hawdramut in what is now Yemen. A portion of this community was living/trading (surviving? fleeing?) in Northeastern Arabia, specifically the Levant. He posited that the cataclysm that created the Sahara and turned Arabia into a desert ecosystem trapped this community in the Levant. Because they worshiped the Deity by the Semitic name of Ya (there were six traditional Semitic names for God: Ya, El, Eloha, Um, Ba’al, and Malik) and the Levantine Arabians they were now stuck with also worshipped God under the name of Ya, that each community decided they were related and merged to survive the ecological shift. This merged the two traditions together and led to multiple, and often contradictory, narratives in the Torah.

    One final point: the description of Eve’s punishment, and please remember that Judaism doesn’t have original sin (unless you’ve come up with a really unique and novel transgression recently…), is a pretty accurate description of life for Israelite women after the conquest of Canaan, as well as most Levantine women before that regardless of tribe or religion. The need to toil and labor and at the same time to have multiple pregnancies to produce enough children to assist with eking out an existence in an area that is tantalizingly fertile at times and frustrating infertile at others.

    Now back to Lilith. Because there were these two accounts of creation a folk tradition developed that Adam became displeased with the first woman for some reason and asked God to cast her out or sent her away himself. This led her to a hatred of men and to find away, through arcane means, to become the Mother of Demons. This legend was probably created by a guy who couldn’t get a date… The reality of it is is that there never was a Lilith in the Genesis story and both creation narratives refer to the same man and same woman being created.

    Here’s a link to Margoliouth’s essay:
    http://muhammadanism.com/Margoliouth/relation_arab_israel/relation_arab_israel.pdf

  125. 125.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): All of the evangelical varieties are all five point Calvinists. Remember that the Puritans, who were the original in America five point Calvinists and huge adherents to the theology of pre-determinism, also believed that everyone still had to adhere strictly to the church’s teachings, theology, and dogma. Despite there being a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, did I say very?, very small chance of anyone being predetermined to go to Heaven as one of the elect, you could screw it up. So everyone had to adhere and the community had to police itself. This created a very interesting dynamic of personal and communal responsibility among the Puritan communities.

    For modern evangelicals, regardless of flavor, it is similar. A lot of these denominations have jettisoned or downplayed the pre-determinism portions, but all of them that I know of are rooted in five point Calvinism.

  130. 130.

    redshirt

    @Steve in the ATL: Yes. But it’s a really twisted form of Calvinism, and I think it might be the dominant form in American Christianity right now. I don’t know though because I have zero religious background so I defer to anyone that knows about the subject.

  132. 132.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: I’ve never heard it taught in that context. Its not in the text and its not in the commentary, including Rashi’s. Its a medieval legend to scare people. And to drive the second and third seasons of Supernatural.

  134. 134.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks. That was the answer I was looking for.

    It seems like a lot of current religious myth stems from middle ages horror stories. Dante, for example, who defined almost everything about the current Christian afterlife. As a fiction writer.

  135. 135.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL:
    @redshirt: The made in America variants of Christianity, which include the evangelical denominations, as well as the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Seventh Day Adventists among others, all have a very different context, and flavor, because of where and how they were created. Almost all of them come out of the Great Awakening and the Burnt Over District and where heavily influenced by the apocalyptic rhetoric and fervor used against the English in the Revolution just fifty or so years before. They were also heavily influenced by trying to grapple with America’s original sin of slavery, as well as the contrasts between urban and rural settlement in the new States coupled with the rapidly building dynamic of early industrialization in the cities and its impact on society.

  136. 136.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: All the real old school wealth I’ve been around is very low key. Including attire – they wore what they wanted and didn’t give a shit what people thought. Because I pretty much never gave a shit what anybody thought, I was often mistaken for a member of the old money class. I’d just laugh, which did nothing to disabuse them, even though I wanted to. I continue to be mistaken for a Jew – and how do I politely deny that? I’m actually not, but I have lots of Jewish friends? The young Palestinian from Jordan I dined with a few times 25 years ago never did believe me.

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes, I should know better. It’s all rooted in the five points, I let myself get taken in by the downplaying by so many groups of limited atonement/pre -determinist stuff.
    Like Steve in the ATL, I believe our culture would be vastly improved without Calvinism.

  141. 141.

    redshirt

    @LAO:

    I know. I can’t figure out how not to.

    I hit “reply”

    Then I hit the quote button. Then I copy and paste the text I want, then hit the quote button again.

    You’ve now linked to the original poster and quoted only the text of theirs you wanted to. Everything after that final click of the quote button is your response to the quote.

    Try it on me. Quote this line for ease of use.

  142. 142.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And to drive the second and third seasons of Supernatural.

    Really fun first several seasons. Had to stop watching when their tame angel became god. I think season 9 or 10?

  149. 149.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: You weren’t allowed to live in Westchester as a teenager unless you got freckles? That is some really restrictive community charter BS.

  150. 150.

    joel hanes

    @Poopyman:

    I hear the snow geese

    Envious.

    Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac has a piece about goose music, and the emotions it engenders spring and fall.

    In the spring, hope and renewal.
    Let us hope it’s an omen.

  154. 154.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: Many years ago, I was in a courtroom where I was assigned for September and October. One morning in early October, the judge was startled to see me. “What are you doing here!?” “The city docket.” “But, it’s um, a holiday” “It’s Rosh Hashanah,I know. I’m not Jewish, so here I am.” It looked like he really wanted to ask “are you sure?” It hasn’t helped that I now live in a traditionally very Jewish suburb, as in developed by Jewish folks who were not permitted access to a similar suburb.

    @Adam L Silverman: So what is a polite correction to an assumption that I’m Jewish? If I were going to adopt an organized religion it would be Judiasm, but I don’t speak Hebrew so it seems inappropriate. Particularly since my mother grew up in a nominally Baptist community.

  155. 155.

    BubbaDave

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    It’s also possible that they joined an Orthodox church and what they mean is they don’t celebrate that day as Easter Sunday. Due to Gregorian/Julian calendar differences, Orthodox churches will typically celebrate Easter (aka Pascha) on May 1 this year, vs March 27 for Catholic and most Protestant denominations.

  156. 156.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m laughing at you making fun of me. Maybe I should take back that lol, nah. If I can’t laugh at myself, I’d just cry.

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): every one thinks I’m Irish (except in Europe, then they think I’m German – which I mostly am). Saint Patrick’s day is a nightmare. Why aren’t you wearing green? Why aren’t you drinking? Are you going to the parade?

  157. 157.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @BubbaDave: Good thought, and thanks for the reply! I’m sure they didn’t do that.

    I learned to ask my friend of Greek heritage “when’s your Easter this year?” many years ago and within the last 5 years learned its called Pascha when I had an Orthodox board member at my NAMI affiliate. I always look it up every year and send them a card on the Julian date because I think that’s polite. I also find them an genuinely religious Christmas greeting card because I know it is important to them, and my Merry Yule cards, however attractively I might design them would not feel right to me.

    @LAO: In this town, “Peerless noses” are quite recognizable, still, in a certain age cohort.

  158. 158.

    LAO

    @redshirt: I picked up the first volume of sandman (I’m generally losing my mind but I’m pretty sure you recommended it to me yesterday).

  165. 165.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman:

    If you mean a polite one: thank you, and while its happened all my life, I’m not Jewish.

    Not that it matters a whit, but this is surprising, based on name alone. What is the background for your name, if you know it?

  166. 166.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: I’m not making fun of you. I’m just stunned at the authoritarian burghers of either Westchester, NY or Westchester, PA. Where were the patriots to reverse their tyranny? Why was the Tree of Liberty not watered? Making a teenager go get freckles, that is just beyond the pale.

  168. 168.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: That was for Hip Hop as a response.

    I’m (nominally) Jewish American. As in my religion is Jewish, I have a somewhat unique understanding of the Deity, and my own religion’s rituals and ceremony makes me antsy. And since I’ve been studying Asian martial arts for 30 years, I’ve got a deep appreciation for Taoism.

  170. 170.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: Thank you; I appreciate your reply. It’s just always creeped me out because any correction sounds potentially critical. And “actually I’m Zoroastrian” sounds flippant.

    I’m sure things like asking if the Pesadich Coca Cola has arrived yet don’t help, or it may simply confuse store people when they see a half pound of BH Tavern Ham at the top of the basket. In such a Reform centered town, that might not be shocking.

  172. 172.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I think, given what you’ve described about where you live, that some of it is simply also a lazy default assumption that since the area was founded as a suburb for and by Jews who were at the time being legally covenanted out of other suburbs, that everyone there is likely Jewish. And if you look Jewish, or they think you look Jewish, then even a lazier assumption.

    Since I look Asian-American, I don’t get that. I did get asked a couple of times, last June when accompanying my aikido sensei – a 76 year old Japanese master instructor who is a naturalized American – through Chinatown in NY to get his calligraphy and other supplies, how many grandparents were from China. Its the eyes. My Dad looked Mongolian – actually my Dad looked indigenous. When he was in Hawaii they thought he was Polynesian or Samoan, when he was in New Mexico they though he was Dine/Navajo (Athabascan features), in Israel they thought he was a Mizrahi (Jews from the Middle East). If he’d had any proclivity for foreign language he’d have made a great covert operative. Just drop him in and let him blend in.

    The working theory is that one part of the family went east, not west at some point. Eventually working into Mongolia and then across the steppes into Russia. My dad’s mom and her mom looked like the strawberry blonde, blue or green eyed Mongols that live on the Russian side of the steppes. We can’t really prove it, but it would explain a lot. Of course if I ever had the DNA test done, I’m sure I’d find out we were from Patagonia or something equally silly.

  173. 173.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: yes. It was a county wide requirement. Although at the time I assumed it was merely directed at public school kids. But at my temple youth group, I learned the shocking truth.

  175. 175.

    SFAW

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    So what is a polite correction to an assumption that I’m Jewish?

    What sometimes works is saying, quite loudly, “I’m NOT a goddamn Jew, you anti-semite! And what if I were? Goddamn NAZI! Where the hell is Simon Wiesenthal when you need him?!?!”

    Oh, you said “polite.” Never mind.

    But you could try my way. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties.

  176. 176.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Adam L Silverman: I partially (long story) grew up where the Jewish folks were covenanted out, and have joyfully moved to this lovely place. I’m sure part of it may be “female lawyer who doesn’t back down” but I was amused by the Palestinian guy. I don’t much look Jewish, so it’s weird.

    It could be worse; they could mistake me for an evangelical fundie.

  177. 177.

    LAO

    @SFAW: when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I was getting off the school bus and a kid shouted “kike” at me. Then another kid yelled at him and “she’s no kike”. I had no idea what that meant. I asked my mom and that was it for the bus. Walked home (1/2 mile) the rest of the year.

  178. 178.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Thanks for all the great discussion. I’m off to slumberlandia.

  179. 179.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: That Xavier guy’s school, more properly known as Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, is the formal cover for the X-Men. In the comic books Xavier’s home, which is both school and headquarters, is in Westchester, NY.

  181. 181.

    SFAW

    It amazes me to hear of Jews being covenanted out. I grew up in a very Jewish town on LI, and although the Holocaust was (at that time) still a fairly recent memory, and I knew a couple of people with tattoos – but not the kind one sought out — there was never any talk (that I heard) regarding shit like that. Yeah, I know that some country clubs were still keeping Jews out, and so forth, but not a whole town. I guess I led a more sheltered life than I realized.

  184. 184.

    SFAW

    @LAO:

    when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I was getting off the school bus and a kid shouted “kike” at me.

    Nice. Asshole was lucky he didn’t try that in my town.

    I’m sorry you had to go through that.

  187. 187.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Were you also trying to make other people dizzy by focusing on them? Or was this a power that had little practical use in battle save to remove you from the fight? And would your codename have been The Ditz?

  189. 189.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh no, the dizziness was the cocoon of my new mutant powers. What powers would emerge from such suffering?

    This is the fantasy, of course. Weather control? Super speed? Strong as Hulk?

  192. 192.

    PurpleGirl

    @SFAW: Any number of older wedding palaces have closed over the years. I forget the name of the place where my sister and a number of her friends had their receptions. It was a former movie theater in Jamaica, NY. There’s a place on Roosevelt Avenue that’s now a Spanish Evangelical church.It does happen in catering.

  193. 193.

    LAO

    @SFAW: honestly, it wasn’t a big deal. I was more pissed I couldn’t the bus with my friends. Anyhow, I wound up dating the kid who yelled ” she’s not a ….” In high school. All I remember about him was he had one blue eye and one brown eye.

  195. 195.

    Adam L Silverman

    Well you all have a good night, I’ve got to go give the four foots some attention before there’s real trouble.

  196. 196.

    PurpleGirl

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Re your comment on how old wealth dresses… The non-profit I worked for was founded by a group of middle class women and a few of the old wealth class. (One of the founders was Mary Harriman Fisk.) And yes, they very much downplayed their wealth. Mrs. Fisk was a volunteer who worked in a public school in East Harlem for 4 days a week for 20-odd years. She stopped her work only when she died unexpectedly.) There were several women just like her. And they were nice and treated every one with dignity.

  197. 197.

    NotMax

    @PurpleGirl

    Yup yup. .And then there was the Great Recession as well.

    Too, Leonard’s was always rumored to be owned by The Mob.

    @SFAW

    Ya never know. The venerable Scobee Diner (a/k/a Scobee Grill) and also Pat’s Pub* in Little Neck, just a hop skip and jump down Northern Blvd. from Leonard’s, went bye-bye.

    *Shore and begorrah, but it was a little bit of Erin set down in the tail end of Queens. Great lamb stew on the bill of fare there.

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