I always enjoy Julia Ioffe’s journalism for her deadpan Sancho Panza/Twelve Chairs wit. When I read she was being twitter-mobbed by antisemitic Trump followers, I assumed their grievance would be associated with her latest Foreign Policy article, “On Trump, Gefilte Fish, and World Order”:
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was eating my mother’s gefilte fish while watching Donald Trump’s foreign-policy address Wednesday afternoon. First, it was lunchtime; second, it is Passover; and third, the fish patties in front of me — an amalgam of lots of different ingredients (porgy, rockfish, matzo meal) that, mashed together, resemble nothing immediately recognizable as naturally occurring food — couldn’t help but echo the strange consistency of the policy combinations Trump put forward.
Punctuating his carefully scripted speech with Trumpian bursts of “believe me” and “very bad” — consider them bright bits of rhetorical magenta horseradish — Trump set out his vision of America in the world: America first, but America everywhere. America cutting down on its debt, but also expanding its standing army and revamping its nuclear arsenal. America standing up to China, but also striking an alliance with it. America supporting its allies, but also cracking down on them. America being restrained and judicious in its use of force, but also getting involved militarily and fighting to win…
Should’ve known better; the piece that so offended Der Trumpfuhrer’s fans was an apparently anodyne GQ profile of the woman a Stormfront blogger called “our Empress Melania”:
… Back then, in 2005, it didn’t seem odd that she and Donald Trump would mark their happy occasion with the former president and First Lady, then a senator from New York. “When they went to our wedding, we were private citizens,” Melania reminds me. Just two private citizens getting hitched at the groom’s 126-room Florida palace. He in a tux; she in a $100,000 Dior dress that laborers’ hands had toiled upon for a legendary 550 hours, affixing 1,500 crystals—jewels fit for private citizens like them. A pair of ordinary people, really, uniting in matrimony in the presence of Rudy Giuliani and Kelly Ripa, as Billy Joel serenaded the couple and guests slurped caviar and Cristal in the shadow of a five-foot-tall Grand Marnier wedding cake.
Those were, in some ways, simpler times. But things change quickly—which is perhaps the enduring fact of Melania Trump’s entire improbable life—and when your husband works up a plan to make America great again, the very same Clintons you once smiled with on your wedding day can now become your family’s mortal enemies. And you can think, as Melania Trump says she does, that it’s no huge deal, really. “This is it, what it is,” Melania tells me. “It’s all business now; it’s nothing personal.”…
We’re speaking on the phone, though I have no idea where she’s calling from. Is she in her penthouse, a gilded triplex in the Trump Tower? Perhaps somewhere out on the campaign trail? While she’s a crowd-pleaser on the stump, she appears infrequently and only when she deigns to. “Nobody controls me. I travel with my husband when I can,” she says, “when I know that I can go, and I know that my son is okay alone for a few days with the help.”While Donald often says that Melania would make a stellar First Lady, the former model offers little clue about what a move to the White House would mean for her. She once said she would be “traditional,” like Jackie Kennedy, and on the question of what causes she might support, she has noted she is already involved in “many, many charities.” She elaborated: “Many different charities involving children, involving many different diseases.”…
As Ioffe tells it, Melania grew up the daughter of a Mercedes dealer in [insert Slovenian equivalent of Podunk], not the prettiest girl in her cohort but one born and raised to make the most of every asset. She got out of that little city as soon as she could — as ambitious young people will — escaping design school for modelling, first in Italy, then in New York. Some years later, she was one of the ‘girls’ at a professional party for NY celebrities when she caught Trump’s eye, and the Donald grew to admire her shrewd deal-making skills as she negotiated her way from date to girlfriend to trophy wife. There is no lazy talk from Melania about ‘love’ or ‘partnership’; she knows her role in their relationship, and fulfills it to perfection:
… Melania is as fastidious a wife as she is a mother, which Donald appreciates. Things come easy with her. “I work very hard from early in the morning till late in the evening,” Donald told Larry King in 2005. “I don’t want to go home and work at a relationship.” To the twice-divorced Donald, Melania is terrific. He’s never heard her fart or make doodie, as he once told Howard Stern. (Melania has said the key to the success of her marriage is separate bathrooms.) He can trust her to take her birth control every day, he boasted to Stern; she’s just amazing that way. She has the perfect proportions—five feet eleven, 125 pounds—and great boobs, which is no trivial matter…
… He appreciates Melania’s restraint when it comes to Shopping While Trump. “She’s never taken advantage of that situation, okay, as many women would have, frankly,” he has said. (“I prefer quality over quantity,” Melania tells me.) Donald does his part to make things work, too. “He is a very understanding husband,” Melania once told an interviewer. “If I say, ‘I need an hour, I’m going to take a bath,’ or I’m having a massage, he doesn’t have nothing against it. He’s very supportive in that way.” She lets him have his space; she’s not “needy” or “nagging,” as she tells me…
In other words, she’s the perfect Last Young Wife for an aging medieval prince, a concubine for the wealthy potentate whose most pressing domestic need is for an ornamental figurehead around the manor(s). The Jackie Kennedy comparison, offensive as some of the twitter complainants find it, seems apt enough. It’s an ancient career path for ambitious young women, and one would assume by ‘traditional’ lights a respectable one… but perhaps that’s the problem?
Fifty years ago, the Successful Man wanted a beautiful young (or at least youth-preserving) wife who would keep a lovely home, support his career (more than enough of a job to keep her occupied), bear his perfect children (and raise them without demanding more than pro forma wait till your father gets home! participation), and never forget her place. But in these degenerate days, Godless media folk mock that humble dream; the assault has moved from the 1970s schlock-horror of Ira Levin’s Stepford Wives to the scornful dissection in Mad Men… and, now, to a Russian-Jewish immigrant woman reporter lifting her eyebrows at The Donald’s Empress in what used to be a lad’s mag! These guys may not get the joke, but they’re somehow convinced it’s being told against them…
"'We left Russia because we were fleeing antisemitism,' @juliaioffe said. 'It’s been a rude shock for everyone.'" https://t.co/GZ8s16sW83
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) April 29, 2016
… In the deeply disturbing response to her piece, Ioffe said she sees a frightening future of what freedom of the press – and the country – might look like under President Trump.
“What happens if Donald Trump is elected?” Ioffe said. “We’ve seen the way he bids his supporters to attack the media, his proposal to change libel laws to make it easier to sue journalists.”
The harassment from Trump supporters is not directly linked to the candidate. Yet he has fomented a culture of violence at his rallies, encouraging supporters to retaliate against protesters. He once offered to pay the legal fees for a man who sucker punched a protester at his rally. He also failed to immediately disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who said he supports Trump’s candidacy. His campaign has been contacted for comment…
(Ioffe’s twitter feed here.)
And this popped up while I was doing a final proofread:
If @juliaioffe isn’t afraid of Putin, she isn’t afraid of some of Trump’s internet brownshirts.
— John Cole (@Johngcole) April 30, 2016
Omnes Omnibus
What’s your issue with Jackie Kennedy?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Hair Furor’s a punk, and so are his fanbois.
? Martin
Putin has a measure of self-restraint. Many of Trump’s brownshirts do not.
oz29
@? Martin: Also: common sense.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Nice.
schrodinger's cat
OT: Does anyone know what’s going on in Venezuela?
Jeffro
Speaking of punk, “Rhetorical Magenta Horseradish” is a little long, but still suffices as an excellent band name.
Not one that would get said band nto the big time, but that’s the point, right?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Omnes Omnibus: Wish I could claim it, came from someone here…
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro: Album title.
Matt Rogers
Keep calm and it won’t be Trump.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Hell Toupee
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
None, except insofar as I think she should’ve been able/allowed to do more with her considerable brains & ambition.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis was pretty much the final flower of her role as The King’s Successful Wife” — not for nothing did she promote the Camelot thing after JFK’s death! — but young women should take that as a warning, not an encouragement. The next global-media version would be Princess Diana, and she didn’t even get a second/third career to console her for the disappointment of failing to negotiate between the classical Princess model (marry for position, don’t interfere with spouse’s love affairs, be discrete with one’s own) and the modern Disneyfied “all for love — once he meets the right girl he’ll change” fairy tale.
Melania’s doing her best, but it’s coming across as farce. That’s what she (& the Trumpkins) are complaining about now!
SarahT
Welp, Bride of Trumpenstein is right about one thing: All spouses should have separate bathrooms. Baud should run with the Mandatory Separate Bathrooms issue – it’s a winner ! Lord know my husband (the other Mr.T) should have a separate bathroom or grain cellar or bomb shelter. Anything, really.
What, TMI ?
SarahT
@Anne Laurie: I’m eternally grateful to Jackie O. for playing an enormous part in saving Grand Central Terminal. For that she has the thanks of many New Yorkers.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@? Martin: If @juliaioffe isn’t afraid of Putin, she isn’t afraid of some of Trump’s internet brownshirts.
QFT. Also he is much smarter, but that pretty much goes without saying.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Okay, it’s just that you had made what seemed to me to be disparaging remarks about her before. Perhaps you were disparaging the role she had play not the person and I misinterpreted.
Keith P.
Jeez, I’m turning into Cole. Copper River salmon is going to be in the local market soon, so I was thinking “Oh, cool, I can make *real* lox!” (I LOVE Nova lox…the smoked stuff. Really, any salmon that is not fully-cooked) Now, damn-near everywhere I looked had recipes that either included smoking or used dill, etc (gravlax). So here I am at my desktop yelling at the screen “NO, GODDAMMIT, REAL LOX!!!”
First-world problems…
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Jeffro: Agreed.
NotMax
After eight years of Mamie, Jackie was a gust of fresh air.
oz29
Instructive, I think, that he worries about her “tak[ing] advantage of the situation.” If I was legitimately worth $10 Billion, I might worry about my wife buying Tan-ZAYN-eeya (as women do) but not much else. Trump must be absolutely terrified that someone is eventually going to realize that he is nothing more than a mash-up of Jeff Lewis With More Starting Capital and Geoff Palmer With More Media Savvy.
Keith P.
@Keith P.: For anyone curious as to my flooding saga, the house is dried, but I have been getting a steady stream of people ringing the doorbell and then immediately knocking on the door glass. On the toilet? Ring, tap-tap-tap. Taking a nap? Ring, tap-tap-tap. Whatever.
Then, this morning, my hot water was MIA. I went outside, and there’s a friggin’ lock on my gas meter. And I have auto-pay, which I set up in January when the gas company abruptly changed my account number (and charging me a new deposit and init fees). Then, after a payment happened as I hoped, I forgot about it. Turns out, in February, the gas company changed my # back to the old one without transferring any autopay or notification services. That phone call was an hour and included a supervisor telling me it’s my own fault for not noticing the paper bills getting bigger and having a different account #. And for the record, even this morning, when I went to My Accounts, shows the (2nd, now old) account with “0.00 Due.” and no warning about disconnect.
So basically, even though I had enough of Houston by last Monday, the city is still finding ways to shit on me almost daily. I even felt hopeless enough to send the friggin’ MAYOR an email telling him how much I feel the city has failed. I am left wondering “what next” because I can’t get out of this city fast enough to avoid any more bullshit.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Jeffro:
I’m with Omnes: album title.
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus: yup that works…
“And now, with the first cut from their album, ‘Rhetorical Magenta Horseradish’, here’s Hair Furor!” – Colbert
love it!
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: It appears the energy crisis has taken a dire turn in terms of economic impacts on the average, let alone below average -economically, Venezuelans. This has led to open upheaval. I think what should be particularly worrying is there is no more beer (for the moment) in Venezuela.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/29/venezuelas-economic-woes-deepen-no-more-beer.html
A very good friend and colleague of mine, a Foreign Area Officer, once wisely remarked: “I don’t get worried until the breweries close and there’s no more alcohol available in a country.” Once that does happen violence is inevitable.
danielx
Been wondering of late about a possible revival of a series of awards – the Kippies! – first made by The Editors at the late and much lamented site The Poor Man. Some of the awards (the Fluffy) might have to be reconfigured, but how could you not want to vote for the wingnut of your choice for The Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls cluster, or the much-coveted Palme D’Hair? Granted that Jim Hoft pretty much has a permanent lock for Wank of the Year….
Sadly, this tradition has fallen by the wayside. Is there no one who will raise the fallen torch? I sense possibilities here.
Vote in the Kippies
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Julia Ioffe was on the Hayes show, some crazy shit she got for writing that article, the most frightening was a company that does crime scene clean up calling her at one in the morning to confirm her request they come to her house
Keith P.
@Keith P.: And, oh, yeah, the supervisor said while he would make an exception and waive my $50 reconnect fee (this part took 45 minutes of holds and venting), they wouldn’t be able to turn my gas on until Monday (via an order that went out a short time after they cut my gas). So when I went to go pay, they said I could get gas turned on today but that’s with the $50 fee. And remember, they’d already hit me up for initiation/deposit back in November when they changed my account number. Apparently all legal, but goddamn, what the fuck?
AkaDad
Trump supporters aren’t anti-semetic, they’re just concerned about ethics in journalism.
NotMax
@Keith P.
Can use either a dry or a wet brine.
Couple of examples: #1 – #2.
Adam L Silverman
@Keith P.: Here you go:
http://www.kasilofseafoods.com/Smoking/cold-smoked-lox.htm
No dill!
SarahT
@AkaDad:I’m sure you’re right.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Keith P.: You have really had an awful April. I do hope their is a solution to decelerate your medical issues.
Houston’s assholiness can even exceed that of a serious flood. I’m always hoping Mexico will take Texas back if we throw in Arizona and New Mexico. and pay them of course.
Keith P.
@NotMax: Awesome, thanks! Now if we can get Cole to sign off on one of those as “authentic”, it’s off to the store. Well, tomorrow morning…if it’s not flooding again.
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): And I turn 40 next month, so it would be…the…perfect…storm. Or is…whatever.
SarahT
@Keith P.: Oy vey… Run. Run like the wind.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Miss Bianca: Also quality.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Keith P.:
:-(
Hang in there Keith. It will get better.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
There’s a whole clutch of women from that era — smart, talented, interested in and committed to any number of important causes — and they are known, even today, primarily for their beauty and sense of style. I’m particularly thinking of three women who were all, coincidentally, born in 1929 — Jacqueline Bouvier (Kennedy) (Onassis), Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly/HSH Princess Grace. Yes, they were fashion icons, but Jackie O was inter alia a gifted editor, linguist, and antiquarian; Hepburn was an expert on gardens and gardening, and was a UNICEF Ambassador; Princess Grace supported arts organisations, especially dance and poetry, and children’s health initiatives. All three died prematurely. I often wonder what they might not have done had they been born a generation or so later — how constrained they were by the prescribed gender roles of their day.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s pretty chilling.
AL – are you willing to help with my request, since my Juice search fu is in hospital?
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m a second-wave feminist. We thought it wouldn’t be necessary, in 2016, to be warning young women that ‘trophy wife’ is no longer a worthwhile career goal.
Redshift
@? Martin:
I wouldn’t bet that Putin’s brownshirts do either.
Chip Daniels
Trump and his coterie remind me of something out of Game of Thrones, with Melania playing the part of oh, not Sansa- she seems tougher- but maybe Danerys, the young trophy who turns out to be a canny survivor.
Donald should get a dog to taste his food, unless Chris Christie is available.
Adam L Silverman
@Keith P.: Dress up in a green leather hoodie, shoot people with arrows painted green, telling them as you do: “You have failed this city!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUaDTakFH0U
More seriously, sorry you are going through this mess.
Miss Bianca
@Keith P.: poor you! : (
@SiubhanDuinne: yes, my mother was of that era, a little older – born 1922 – but oh! an object lesson in thwarted intelligence and ambition – all curdled into bitterness, alternately proud of and threatened by her girl childrens’ intelligence and ambition – alternately encouraging and stifling us – while her boys could do no wrong. I couldn’t/wouldn’t be Jackie Bouvier/DAR/Junior League material, and we butted heads terribly. Sad. : (
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If someone arranged that, she’ll likely get properly doxxed – though I hope not. Nothing like having the SWAT guys taking your front door down at 3 AM on a bogus call out that you’re being held hostage in your own home or your husband is trying to murder you and the kids.
Mike J
Open thread? Good. I realise this is not a hotbed of gamers, but could somebody please inform Twitch…
OK, I’ll give a little backstory. Twitch is a streaming service where you can watch people play video games. Mostly you’re watching personalities make a lot of jokes while playing games. Not everybody’s cuppa, but it’s a big deal for the kidz. This week they suspended a woman gamer because she “flashed her vagina.”
I don’t want to get into the whole argument about her wearing shorts under her skirt, and of course the misogynists claiming that she was just trying to drive up ratings. No, I studied the use of language. One can not flash a vagina. A vulva, yes. A vagina, no. Vulvas and vaginas are not the same thing. There are too many stupid boys who have never been with an actual girl and too many girls who have never been taught about their own bodies. For the love of god, not everything below the waist on a woman is a vagina.
Thank you.
Adam L Silverman
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): But what do we do with the Texans? We can’t make Mexico take them – that’s a crime against humanity. And we can’t let them stay here and migrate their crazy to other states.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The bullying tactic of making a fake call to try to get a SWAT team to go to an “enemy’s” house is apparently common enough that it has a name: SWATting.
I’d like to think it wouldn’t be very easy, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in that, and it would be all too likely to get someone seriously injured or killed.
different-church-lady
I feel odd tonight — like a balloon that’s going to pop, only metaphorical.
Is there such a thing as a spontaneous hallucinogenic episode? I didn’t take or smoke anything and I’m not drinking.
Matt Rogers
Keep calm and it will not be Trump.
Cruz will get a nice head of steam coming out of Indiana.
Ruckus
@Keith P.:
This may be of little help but it is nice that I’m able to share the truckload of craptastic that life has thrown us. Some days it feels like the entire load is falling on my back, I know that it feels like that to you right now, although I have to say that it does seem like you are carrying a bit of an unfair larger load currently. I’m sure it will even out any day now, it always seems to. Anyway thanks for sharing the load. The Craptastic Brothers. Not a good band name.
Gin & Tonic
@Keith P.: We went through this at (too much) length years ago. Nova is smoked. Lox is pickled. They are different.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Look, I just want something yummy for my bagel.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Do you have asthma or sinus troubles? The onset of a migraine can also make one feel quite peculiar.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: But smoked salmon is so much more yummy than pickled. Out here in the hinterlands, we even eat it for dinner.
LAO
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): ten things we’d lose if Texas succeeded. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/05/texas-secede_n_4213506.html
@Adam L Silverman: I say, go With g-d, Texas.
Mike J
@LAO: Seceded.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Well, I made a big bowl of egg salad yesterday…
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: The guy funding the largest of the Texas Secession groups is? Vladimir Putin.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: Sinus sometimes… I do feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe it’s just overwork catching up to me. Or my lungs rebelling from under-work. Or too much time staring at a screen…
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: To be honest, I prefer Scottish style smoked salmon to anything else, but it doesn’t go well with bagels.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Whitefish. Doesn’t suffer from confusion.
Darkrose
Thought I’d link to this follow up to the “More Than Mean” video of bros reading abusive Tweets to female sportswriters, from Julie DiCaro, one of the women in the video:
I wanted to highlight this, in light of what certain people said about how the women should just “grow a thicker skin”:
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: You have mail!
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I find it goes very well with bagels, but to each their own preferences.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Egg salad has mayo, yes? For me, no.
Jeffro
@Matt Rogers:
Or more likely, win by a percent or two, limp into California, and do the same. Meanwhile, Trump marches on…isn’t that the gist of all the articles I’ve seen the past couple of days, about his inevitability and how GOP elites are reconciling themselves to Trump being the nominee?
I mean, Rubio’s on board. You’d think if ANYONE was going to put the shiv in, it’d be him. But no.
They’re going to begrudgingly let Trump in, hope he can do his Trump thing against HRC and if not, well, the anti-HRC fundraising opportunities are endless. And that’s $500M less that the Koch network will waste on the presidential race…meaning, beware all down-ticket races from Senate to dogcatcher.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: If we’re not careful here, somebody will be by shortly to let us know those are all CIA conspiracy theories.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I do?
ETA: Oh, Jaysus, Mary and Bride…you lunatic! I’m laughing too hard to type…
Keith P.
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, I know; that was the point of me mentioning Cole in my lox post (along with the bit about “real lox”). At the time that thread, I was of the opinion the distinction is not particularly important, but Nova packages usually *do* say “lox”; however, now that I am trying to make the genuine article with a particularly nice variety (Copper River is only in stores for a month or two starting around May) I’m taking on Cole’s cranky “IT’S NOT REAL” persona and insisting on making true lox.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: still can live with it.
LAO
@Mike J: thank you. I’m the world’s worst speller and the iPad makes it worse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: You lived in Scotland for a bit. right? I’ll admit that it would be better than haggis on a bagel.*
*I am not conceptually opposed to haggis. I like blood pudding, if done right.
? Martin
@Redshift:
Nor would I, but few of any of them are rattling around Julia’s neighborhood.
Look, I’m not trying to defend Putin here, but every presidential assassination/attempted assassination in this country has been due to some fringe individual attached to a cause that had opportunity, and not as an ordered hit. Putin doesn’t demagogue the fringe hoping his dirty work will get done – he hires it out directly. He’s more effective against those that directly threaten his power, but he’s less dangerous to those that are powerless critics. Demagogues are less effective but more dangerous to a wider population of critics.
NotMax
@different-church-lady
Maybe slightly dehydrated. Drinking a glass of fruit juice could help. Fructose + water not gonna make things worse, at any rate.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: sshh…for God’s sake, don’t mention Tovarisch Putin…that’s almost a bat signal…
Mike in NC
Drumpf has been attracting hostile crowds the last couple of days here in California. May the next six months be filled with chaos and mayhem for him and his lunatic followers.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: You’re welcome! I collect those type of things. Whenever I see a graphic online I like and think I might have a use for, I save it. When I did the homeland security lesson at the war college I used to use a color alert chart set to kaiju threats to Tokyo and types of hot dogs.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
IANA MD. Maybe you should call someone.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Salted, not pickled. And either are fine on a bagel or just about anything other than chocolate cake.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: Nah, I should just stroke out here by myself. Much more poetic.
Kidding — it’s not that bad — just very odd. there might bes something to the dehydration idea.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I find that most of the Scottish smoked salmon has a bit less salt, which allows for more salmon flavor, which is why I like it.
As for haggis: properly done haggis is excellent. Its basically just a white pudding with finely minced sweet breads mixed in. Usually this is served with a whiskey sauce and sweet neeps and tatties (ground, steamed turnips and mashed potatoes). The stuff you get fried at the chip shops is heinous and a violation of several Geneva Conventions.
patroclus
@? Martin: You should read Red Notice, a book by Bill Browder, about whether Putin and his goons have any self-restraint. Browder, the grandson of Earl Browder, a former American communist, was a leading venture capitalist in Russia who was basically thrown out of the country for challenging some of the oligarchs. His lawyers were hounded, tortured and killed, and Putin’s henchmen would call him in the U.K. and the U.S. while they were torturing the lawyers so that he could hear them scream.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Anaerobic fermentation/preserving in brine is pickling.
jim parente
@Keith P.: Keith, I’m sorry to hear about your flooding miseries and your hassell with the gas company.
As a person who has lost everything because of FEMA/Insurance Fraud in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, my word of advice to you is that when you receive your insurance settlement, cash the check and immediately hire an attorney, because you have been shortchanged and cheated by your insurance company and FEMA. Do not participate in any grant programs and do not take an SBA loan.
Beware of the term: Duplication of Benefits.
Google : FEMA Fraud, Superstorm Sandy, Falsified engineering reports in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.
If you are interested in more info, I’ll try to provide links.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
As can a rapid change in blood pressure.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: ah, that’s probably what’s happening to me.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Got it: ixnay on the utinpay! Also, I do have a legitimate citation for that assertion.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: My fave is when my neighbor catches one and we wheel the smoker into the driveway. For as much time as I spend on the water, I should learn how to just throw a line out and catch one myself.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin: Anna Politkovskaya was “just” a journalist, too.
Rand Careaga
I’ve heard it said of Melania Trump that she merits our compassion as one more foreigner doing a dirty job that no American is willing to perform.
? Martin
@Jeffro:
Cruz won’t win California. He’ll get blown out here.
As much as the CA GOP wants to put immigration behind them, the smattering of Republican voters left in this state are still all-in – that’s why they’re Republicans. And Fiorina is not liked in California. The anti-abortion thing really doesn’t play here.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: No? Nu? I’d beg to differ but – meh – these days, I’ll just go directly for the fish and skip the bagel anyway.
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you for sticking up for haggis, a thing of beauty and a joy forever if prepared properly. *And* neeps – which I like as jumbled roots with parsnips as well as taters. Spoken as one who will happily mow down on almost anything a chip shop would prepare as well, tho’…human GUFF bucket, that would be me…
J R in WV
@Keith P.:
I’m sorry about your too many problems. I don’t like Houston either; I spent a lot of time there when my brother lived and worked there, and my father was treated at M D Anderson, until he went with Hospice with COPD, a side effect from otherwise successful treatment for leukemia, a successful clinical trial in the early 2000s.
We too have gone around with utilities regarding auto-payments, F’ed up billing procedures, stupid rules, etc. We have 3 power bills, one for the well, one for the garage/shop, and one for the actual house we live in.
Leaving Houston sounds like the best news you could have. That place is so flat, the first time we traveled there was for a football game, and I saw huge concrete gullys through a dry flat town, and wondered why. The next day there were thunderstorms, and I found out what those concrete – I guess they call then bayous there? – what they were for – floods.
My brother lived in Cypress IIRC, which was prototypical surburban. The hill country is pretty countryside to drive through. The rest of Texas is miserable even to drive through. West Texas, OMG. Lately we drive cross country on I-40 and only hit Texas through the panhandle. You can do it pretty fast, without stopping much, if you time your overnight stops well.
Best of luck, and please keep in touch here on the blug… ;-)
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Hey, now. The stuff at the chippers is yummy, sort of like Scottish kishke.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: I would be interested in the citation. If you don’t want to go public, I’m sure you can find my e-mail address somewhere.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, I know a few youngish men who have always annoyed the bejesus out of me and I never knew why, and always felt slightly guilty at being so annoyed.
I had an epiphany tonight while hearing (not by choice) various sports broadcasts, and I suddenly realised that the annoying dudes all communicate as if they were sports announcers. It’s in the volume, the cadence, likely the vocabulary. I don’t think it’s deliberate at all; I think they’ve spent so much time absorbing sports-announcer talk patterns that they’ve internalised them.
J R in WV
@different-church-lady:
Maybe you should have a small whiskey and go to bed?
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
From either chromosomal inclination, the inflection known as verbal fry drives me up the wall.
? Martin
@Gin & Tonic:
Her criticism was much more threatening to Putin. I never suggested that being a journalist insulated Julia, rather I suggested that Julia didn’t have sufficient power to threaten Putin, in part because she’s reporting from outside, rather than inside, and because her reporting from what I’ve seen is less threatening to Putin than Anna’s was, and Julia seems quite aware of where that line is.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
I felt similarly when I had the flu. A friend brought me some Vitaminwater and I felt much better very quickly. Electrolytes or something.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
I generally eschew anything involving visceral organs, but I confess to a fondness for proper haggis. (Doesn’t hurt to have a wee dram nearby to help wash it down.)
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Yes, that’s a different thing but I hate it. It seems recently that every reporter and anchor on NPR affects the fry. Creeps me out like the proverbial fingers on a chalkboard.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Adam L Silverman: Second try.
Company website
These people are beyond assholes. No wonder they like Trump and object to anything resembling reporting.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: you mean “links or it’s all a conspiracy theory”? : ) I have heard that assertion bruited abroad elsewhere, and it makes me almost laugh…almost.
ETA: Post it, man, post it…evidently, I am not the only one who wants it!
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman: Oh, well played, you!
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: OK, now that…I’m almost afraid to visualize.
Keith P.
@jim parente: I did have this couple who were investors hound me INCESANTLY right after the flood. My realtor (a friend of mine going back a while) warned me about scams, and a lot of their behaviours screamed “scam”. They would wait in front of my house and then knock 5 minutes after I got home. Left paperwork taped to my door, came back a couple days later with a new contract + 3 day signing deadline, the wife got a tad bit upset when I mentioned “realtor” (“Well, we can bring in realtors, too, you know.”), they kept talking about how religious they are (I’m not), and the wife wore a HUGE crucifix around her neck. Like I wanted to ask her if she brings Jews and Romans with her to scream at/whip her while she hauls that thing around.
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus:
Pacific, preferably Spring Chinook caught on the Columbia river. Nothing else compares.
NotMax
@efgoldman
One grandmother was the first (and AFAIK the only) female to graduate high school in her little village in what was then Poland (before the village essentially disappeared during WW2), at her insistence and against her parents’ wishes. Circa 1910, give or take a couple of years either way (her actual birth date is somewhat nebulous – may have been in the late 1880s, may have been in the early 1890s).
Tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman: As Fred Ward says to Alec Baldwin in Miami Blues after learning that they’re out of Polars (a Venezuelan brew): “Beer’s gone, I’m gone.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: You might find this photo mash-up interesting Brand Blvd. (1930’s and current mash-up).
Davebo
@efgoldman:
Sadly, more than you might think.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
IAANAMD but have had a few days where things did just not feel normal. It could be migraine which sometimes feels like pressure everywhere as it builds up, before it becomes actual pain. Sort of your body telling you the shit is about to hit the fan. I can’t always feel this before the pain, which is feeling as though I’ve been hit in the head with an axe.
I don’t know if other causes have the same symptoms. I suspect they might.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt Rogers: Anyone who calls a hoop a “ring” is not going to build up a head of steam coming out of Indiana, of all places.
Miss Bianca
@Tokyokie: Fred Ward!! I love him. Won my heart forever in “Tremors”. I’ll have to check that one out!
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, A friend forwarded a blog entry by some fella called Hirst ranting about Venezuela.
Perusing his blog I found out that this person quotes Peggy Noonan approvingly among other things. I told my friend that I couldn’t take him seriously.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: thanks, parsnips, not turnips! Operator headspace timing error!
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
This is eerily reminiscent of Mitt’s 2012 observation:
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve posted one of them here before. Basically he had the biggest of the groups at the same conference last Fall (2015) where he hosted all the far right/neo-Fascist anti-EU parties from the different EU countries. He’s openly bankrolling LePen’s Front National and semi-covertly (its not officially recognized, but it keeps getting reported on in the news) all the other ones. Here’s a whole bunch of links:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/vladimir-putin-texas-secession-119288
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/06/23/Why-Vladimir-Putin-Wants-Texas-Secede-US
http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/is-russia-pushing-for-texas-secession-7340112
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/24/russia-wants-texas-and-puerto-rico-to-secede.html
different-church-lady
Thanks all for your suggestions and concern. The ice cream seems to be helping.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: but turnips are unexpectedly delicious, particularly in a nice chicken stew…rutabagas too, despite the ridiculous name!
@SiubhanDuinne: I noticed that one, too!
Mike J
BTW, HIllz just hired scribe Ben Krauss from Fenway Strategies.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Have you considered putting brandy or rum on the ice cream?
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Hell, I’ve considered putting brandy or rum on my toothbrush.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: So the vegan recipe posts are now going to be professionally written?
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: What’s even worse is that being a Canadian isn’t an excuse as a Canadian invented basketball.
max
@efgoldman: OK, you folks who do big data(bases) for a living, riddle me this:
Not moi, but I expect ‘big data’ knowledge is not necessary for this.
So I chose the rental location, and started filling out the on line form. Put in name, phone #, email, state (RI) and driver’s license number
It returned the prefilled form with my daughter’s maiden name, (she’s been married since 2009), her former, no longer valid address, and her VA driver’s license number.
The database is using email address or phone as the primary selector. Given the maiden name, then sometime in 2009 or earlier you (or your daughter, or your wife) used the same email address to rent a car in your daughter’s name. The DB still has the entry stored.
You entered your email and/or phone and the big data monster urped up the old entry.
max
[‘Most likely case. Several other possibilities.’]
guachi
Wow, that GQ article is a pathetic hit piece. A $100,000 dress? That involved actual human labor?
That certainly is terrible considering a typical wedding dress is about $5,000 and I’m sure the Trumps make far more than 20x an average wage. Hand placed sequins are truly awful considering all the cheap stuff from China the writer must buy that has a huge amount of hand labor involved. Confession: I went to McDonald’s and bought a hamburger with pickled placed on it by a laborer’s hand. True!
That writer should be fired for that piece of hack work.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: It happened because a governing body dictated that all basketball hoops are to be the same height.
Rafael is being a fuckhead. AGAIN.
Villago Delenda Est
@guachi: Yet it’s true. That’s hack work? Reporting the truth?
guachi
@Adam L Silverman:
Look up the actual NCAA rule book describing the basketball court. Come back and tell me what the official name of basketball hoop is.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Mike J
@max: I can give you what is almost surely, with 99% certainty the correct answer.
Shit happens.
Old data gets corrupted, they buy data from a new source and fuck up their good data. Almost nobody who gets paid to deal with customer data has any idea about what they are doing, and even fewer of them care. This week their boss is yelling at them to “disrupt” stuff and next week he’ll be telling them to “narfify” or whatever word they read in Fast Company. Either way, somebody is going to put the word “agile” on their CV and work somewhere else in the next year.
eclare
@guachi: You are correct. Maybe Ted could hold up the book wearing a suit and tie and explain it all to us. That would help.
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: I actually don’t care. I don’t like basketball, don’t follow basketball, and the only thing I really know about basketball is that it was invented by a guy named Naismith, who was Canadian and was a distant relative of the guy with the ski cap from The Monkees.
SFAW
@Keith P.:
@Adam L Silverman:
You kids with your hippity-hop music and your new-fangled names for food …
Growing up in the land of bagels and lox, Nova was Nova and Lox was Lox, and no one called it “Nova lox.” But, apparently that is no longer the case.
Now get offa my lawn.
amk
@guachi:
ted crud pandered and bombed. that simple.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Bullshit. Mike Nesmith was born in Texas.
ETA: So of course you beat me to the Nesmith ref. Damn kids.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: The inventor of basketball was named James Naismith. He was from Canada and eventually immigrated to the US. He established the University of Kansas’s basketball program and wrote the first official rule book for the game. Mike Nesmith from the Monkees is from Texas. I saw an profile about him years ago that included the bit about allegedly being related to James Naismith. I have no idea if it is accurate or not.
jl
So, Trump was honestly disgusted and horrified at the thought that HRC maybe went to pee during a break in that debate a while ago?
Trump is nuts. He thinks it’s an act, but it isn’t. Trump has some serious issues.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: I withdraw my objection to your objection to my objection.
I’m confused now: what the hell are we talking about?
Mike J
@efgoldman: There do exist any number of fuddy duddies who always go on and on and on about the right way to do things so that even if fuck ups do happen it doesn’t corrupt data. Outside of banks and insurance companies that kind of stuff is boring and slows you down. Heavily regulated businesses seem to do better, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
guachi
@Adam L Silverman:
You cared enough to comment.
By random chance, Cruz was correct. (Or close enough. It’s actually called a “basket ring”). And yet I bet the number of people mocking him for it who actually knew what it was called was approximately zero.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
What does Brookline know from lox? Especially considering they probably spelt it “laahx.” [Considering I’ve seen its mate spelled “baigel” in these parts, it wouldn’t surprise me. Well, technically, I guess it should be “amaze” me.]
But you’re right, because everyone knows that the Boston area (at least when you and I were kids) was second only to Salt Lake City in terms of its Jewish population density. Not like Noo Yawk, a bastion of Baptists if ever there was one.
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: Maybe you should have led with the explanation rather than just being obnoxious?
Andy
@efgoldman: –Narrative—Fits—Pile on.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
I think it was the sanity clause.
Erisia
@Ruckus: Thing about migraines is that they hit people differently, (and I’m not singling you out or anything, just responding to the most recent response in this vein.). When I get a migraine light gets very intense for 20-30 min, then I go T-rex blind for about an hour. By T-rex blind I mean that my entire visual spectrum turns beige and only objects moving in 3D register. No tv, no books, nothing unless I move around it or it moves by me. As a counter, I have a cousin who goes deaf before migraines without exception and has no visual impairment at all. Either way, once the disability abates is when the pain starts for the next several days. Excedrin extra strength helps the most, but nothing beats lying in the quiet dark. Did I mention migraines are also super boring? Anyway, it’s all about what part of the brain is over-stimulated to send things into overload that causes migraines. If something goes wonky and you have a killer headache that lasts for days then focus on what went wrong with your senses and what was stressing you out and try to reduce both. For me it was light, for my cousin it was cacophonous sound. Who knows what the triggers might be for anyone else?
I could go on, but I think it’s best I stop now.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
And saying that your staff looked it up is a tell in itself.
I fervently await being told that facial tissues are not legitimately referred to as “Kleenexes” and cellophane tape should not be called “Scotch tape” because those are trademarked names, etc.
jl
And speaking of nuts and batshit insane, and as long as this post is about various kinds of scary clowns, when is someone going to mention Trump’s increasingly weirdo face make-up? Is that his godawful fake tan, or is that something he forces his make-up people to do to him?
He looks like an obese mutant raccoon. With some kind of reverse mutant coloration. A morbidly obese orange raccoon with a white band around his eyes. Why is that not discussed? Are the implications too horrifying to contemplate?
Does it have something to do with his nutso ideas on foreign policy? How to show US strength without getting involved in pesky and difficult issues. If Belize gets into a spat with Guatemala, just give the one we like better some nukes and let them sort it out. That is the way a morbidly obese orange raccoon with a white band around its eyes, and probably demented from sleep apnea would think. There are a lot of raccoons around where I live, and I think I have some insights into the various ways that they can go bad, very very bad.
Keith P.
@jl: He’s best understood in context of pro-wrestling (being a friend of VKM and host of Wrestlemania years back). He has a persona that he has (his “gimmick”), but because he is not playing a wrestler on TV, he has to work his gimmick a LOT (some wrestlers still stay in character all the time, but nowadays, most act normal in person). As a result of having to live such an outrageous gimmick for so long, it really is who he has become. He likes to think he can turn it off, but he can’t; it’s what his subconscious defaults him to now.
EDIT: VKM = Vince K. McMahon
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Yes, and add Newton, and you’re up to 10. And that was pretty much it ’round hyar (i.e., Boston area) for a long time.
New York, on the other hand …
But we should probably stop the “Quien es mas
machojudeo?” thing.Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: @efgoldman: @guachi: As a descriptivist, I could care less what the three of you think.
jl
@Keith P.: Maybe. On the other hand, maybe much of what he thinks is his ‘gimmick’, is really an expression of his genuine weirdness and hang-ups. I guess it could be a mix of both. Edit: which is one reason that his proclaimed plan to act more normally and adopt a more mature and grown-up presidential gravitas, ain’t gonna happen. Trump may have brainwashed himself into thinking it will, but I don’t think it will.
Anyway, Trump is nuts, that is clear.
eclare
@jl: I think the white around his eyes is from the goggles they make you wear when you are in a tanning bed.
Steeplejack
@jl:
I think he hits the tanning booth hard and the white around the eyes is from the goggles.
ETA: @eclare:
Mind meld!
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Its spray tan. And I’ve seen it mentioned in lots of places.
Major Major Major Major
wow, that was uncanny
jl
@efgoldman: Oh. My. God. Trump is an alien mutant possum and mutant demented raccoon hybrid clone monster. He has middle European ancestral roots, weird shit happens with those people. This Mayan Prophecy level stuff. This is serious shit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
As I have always noted here, clowns frighten me.
scav
More than just sloppy data, that’s sloppy programming. Why apparently did fields that were filled in correctly come back with different data? I can see doing some autofill, say if you fill your email first and it refreshes the screen with other field completed with who it expect you are (even then, ideally with certain sensitive fields left for the user), but from the description it sounds like correct data was entered and the utterly ignored and replaced with stuff from the database. A) that’s stupid and B) if nothing else, that’s a lost opportunity for updating your damn database. Checking for discrepancies between entered and stored data would also be a chance to weed out dodgy transactions, but that might only be done by consientious companies and who knows where they’ve gone.
Adam L Silverman
@eclare: @Steeplejack: That’s exactly what it is. You wear them, apparently, for both spray tanning and tanning beds. He’s clearly doing the former, not the latter. Why he thinks this is a good color for him is beyond me.
Anne Laurie
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Just sent you an email…
jl
@Adam L Silverman:
” Its spray tan. And I’ve seen it mentioned in lots of places. ”
I know the spray tan has been mentioned. What I mean is, where is the discussion that the problem is getting bugfuck insane. The guy looks more and more like he’s walking around wearing scary clown make-up. Pretty soon it will scare children, dogs will start barking at it, and cats will spit, or laugh their asses off (and it takes a lot for that to happen). Adult humans, being slower to sense danger, seem to be oblivious.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Funny, I never thought of you as being an Ayn Rand follower.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, if he wears a blue suit, it could work.
(My high school colors were blue and orange. And I’m of the opinion that, in general, color-wheel opposites make for more interesting combos. But, on the other hand, I’m an engineer, so what do I know about that shit?)
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: I went to UF, I have a doctoral hood with Gator Blue velvet and orange satin! Though, for some reason on mine, the orange is more like a polished bronze color so it doesn’t look too bad.
Anne Laurie
@Miss Bianca:
Yeah, the lady did her best with the cards she perceived herself to be holding, but her life story is a godsdamned tragedy. Even leaving aside the big horrors like losing a husband to an assassin right in front of her, or outliving her favorite child, there seems to have been so much small grinding unhappiness.
And the role she lived by has become, thankfully, even less rewarding than it was in the 1950s. Encouraging a girl-child to aspire that way is like encouraging a little boy to aspire to be a Pony Express rider — it was a magnificent job while it lasted, but it’s gone & it’s not coming back.
scav
@efgoldman: That’s why I added the issue of not autofilling certain fields during the refresh (credit card numbers obvious, SSN another). Some things you should definitely have to have the user type in and be hyper-vigilant about the comparison with the data you’ve got stored. (Granted, my databases weren’t customer databases, but they were the ones that were the basis of of our products so we were fiends about data entry and data quality).
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Will do.
Mnemosyne
@guachi:
Wait, what? You’re gonna need a link for that. My dress was silk organza and it didn’t cost anything close to that, even new.
ETA: Yep, you’re full of shit. Average cost for a dress is $1,200.
SFAW
In news that approximately zero of you will care about: Mets 13, Giants 1, on a 12-run third inning, capped by a Cespedes grand slam. (Or as the NCAA Rule Book no doubt calls it “A home run which scores three baserunners in addition to the batter.”)
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Some freedumb-loving moran actually SWATted my Rep. Katherine Clark, because she’s sponsored legislation specifically outlawing this kind of crap.
I keep telling myself the doxxers & the #sadpuppies & the MRAs are sociological evidence of what behaviorists call an “extinction burst” — the kind of frenzied backlash you get when a toddler who’s always been able to get a cookie at the grocery store comes up against a parent who’s no longer choosing appeasement. There are tantrums, increasingly noisy tantrums, but assuming both parties live through the tantrums eventually the toddler gives up & finds a less wearying method of cookie-acquisition…
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: All I have is the hood. It was important to my Dad, who’s PhD was in Psychology and had been one of the three founders of the crim program at USF, that I both walk for the PhD – it was also important to my dissertation chairs: I was the first doctorate for one and the last for the other (at least until he came out of retirement to help his center out and took on new students) and have my own hood. He also insisted on paying for the hood even if I didn’t want the gown or cap. I actually wore his gown and cap to walk, which I did since he was going from being chronically to terminally ill.
I always did my best to avoid going to graduations when I was a faculty member at a civilian institution. At the Army War College I couldn’t avoid it, except for one summer when I was on TDY. Though we didn’t have to wear regalia if we didn’t want to. So most folks were either in their Class As or civilian equivalents/suits and ties and equivalent dress for women.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: And the shapeless hat is called a Tudor cap. They’re actually better than a traditional mortar board.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: I saw the news reports about that. Eventually someone is going to get really hurt in one of these. And then its going to be a 26 car pile up as the justice system tries to figure out who to hold accountable and how to do so.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Was the commencement speech given by David Lynch, and the Recessional sung by Bobby Vinton?
Origuy
@Adam L Silverman: Chicken Balmoral: chicken breast stuffed with haggis and a whiskey sauce. Had it at an inn in Alloa, near Sterling.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
How so? (Unlikely though it may seem, that was a serious question.)
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: We wore off-the-rack shirts from H&M thanks to United misplacing a bag. Now that’s some fab-u-lous gay wedding attire right there.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: No and no.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Did Mrs. efg ever do the Running of the Brides thing? Mrs. SFAW did, more to see what it was like than to actually look for something reasonable.
Adam L Silverman
@Origuy: My housemate, and one of my closest friends, when I lived in Scotland is from Coalsnaughton. Do you remember the name of the inn? I may have eaten there.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: I think that they sit on the head/fit better. And when worn correctly, and this means purchasing a decent one, not the ones that look like you’re wearing a semi-pleated bag on your head, they look better. The mortar boards, to me, look cheap. And they are. They’re a square piece of cardboard covered with polyester fabric.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m not sure why, but I really like that story (or those stories?)
Thanks.
Anne Laurie
@NotMax: I always thought haggis would make a good cocktail snack — individual bites wrapped in puff pastry, or in bacon, and fried. And the alcohol would be right at hand, so’s you wouldn’t need to sauce the bites.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: Glad I could be of service. The funny thing was my Dad insisted on taking a ton of pictures. Brought his dated, but still snazzy in 2002, Cannon 35mm camera. Because he had a slight tremor in his left arm from his dialysis fistula none of the pictures came out. So I think we have the official two or three from the UF photographer that are provided to each graduate and thats it.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: There were only two gay people at my wedding. (Little family affair :)
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Sorry, next time I complete a doctorate, I’ll make better arrangements for your reading pleasure.//
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Mine was technically secondhand — another bride had purchased it and then changed her mind — so I got it for something like $400. Even with alterations, it still wasn’t more than $600 total.
And I scored awesome refurbished sandals at Nordstrom Rack. I think the only thing I paid full price for were the undergarments.
@Major Major Major Major:
Pro tip: that’s why straight guys rent tuxes. If you use a national shop like Men’s Wearhouse, you pick it up when you get there and don’t have to schlep it on the plane.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
I can’t really hate Melania Trump, though. She knew exactly what she wanted — a rich husband and a child — and she took the steps she needed to take in order to get it. It’s not my choice, and I would rather slit my throat than go back to the days when there were no other options, but that’s what some people want.
For some reason, I’m picturing her as the Catherine Zeta-Jones character from Traffic, completely focused on doing what she needs to do for her family no matter how morally awful it is.
Mike J
@Anne Laurie: .
Goddamn NAFTA.
Origuy
@Adam L Silverman: No, sorry. It was four years ago and I was only in Alloa one night. Were you ever in Oban? I stayed there a week on that trip.
Ruckus
@Erisia:
Oh I know everyone is different. I’ve had ocular migraines, went blind for about 15 min. Least that’s what I was told it was. My sister had worse migraines than me and different triggers. Ain’t nothing but a family thing. But my normal one feels like an axe to the head. Same place every time. The good ones feel like it’s stuck in there. I know some of my triggers but not all. I know some of my pre-migraine symptoms, but don’t always feel them either. I think my brain is just defective but the warranty ran out decades ago.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, I don’t know if he still has decent pipes, but Teh Google tells me Bobby Vinton is still alive. But he’s 81, so you might want to hurry.
And, for all you tech dweebs out there: also according to Teh Google, Claude Shannon was born 100 years ago today.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I had two gay groomsmen.
Adam L Silverman
Fresh Overnight/Early Morning Open Thread is up. I’ll be around until the hockey game ends, then I’m racking out.
SFAW
@Mike J:
I think you mean “Thanks, Obama.”
Hasn’t commenting here taught you anything? Sheesh.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
Not that anyone cares, but you realize that wasn’t the actual budget, right? It was just a reporter going to all of the different potential wedding vendors and saying, “Tell me what the most expensive option would be for this.”
Anne Laurie
@guachi:
No, that’s part of the joke: In the Trophy Wife fairy tale, getting married in a very expensive very exclusive hand-made dress is the traditional “happy ending”. And getting to wear that dress, in front of VIPs like the Clintons, was something Melania, (like a good fairy-tale-princess believer) had worked her whole life to achieve.
And for that “reward”, she gets to spend the rest of her life working (& it is work) to stay the Perfect Porcelain Princess, who never reminds her husband that she’s also a human person who farts and ages and bears/raises his child and keeps his social calendar and his lovely home(s) lovely. Also, now, she gets to drop everything and follow him around the country, for the ‘privilege’ of standing on the podium behind the old bloviator, just across from the daughter of his first marriage (who is younger & fresher & probably reminds Melania that she must always keep her eyes peeled for aspiring Trophy Wife #4)…
It’s not a funny ha-ha joke, but then, Russian/Slovenian/peasant humor mostly isn’t.
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: Happy birthday, Claude! I always wanted an Ultimate Machine.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: It gets worse…
http://theslot.jezebel.com/melania-trump-has-a-secret-half-brother-and-was-raised-1773348062
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Unless you have to wear that tux somewhat regularly and then you buy your own. They really weren’t that expensive for the whole thing. Sure you could pay more but mine cost about $300 all in and that wasn’t the cheapest I found by far. Paid for by my expense account even.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
When I said all in, I meant it was a name brand with shoes, puffy shirt, the works. Besides remember that part about the expense account.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, that’s one reason Rep. Clark & others are trying to pass laws now. It’ll still be a multiple-car pile-up, but at least there will be seat belts or air bags. By which I mean, the defense team will no longer be able to protest NO LAW and have to start parsing. Also, since the sort of people who think SWATting is funny tend to be incorrigible rules-lawyers, some of them will be distracted by arguing about the limits of the laws before they can get around to actually calling the cops. Like sticky traps, it won’t discourage the worst vermin but it will cut the volume down.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne:
Well, yeah. It’s not “hate”, it’s peasant amusement. With a side of something along the lines of “Look, America: This is how Melania Trump ‘won’, and look where she is today. Is this the kind of ‘winning’ you really want for yourself?”
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, I read the article — to me, Melania’s father looks like what you’d get morphing William Shatner into Donald Trump, ugh ugh ugh. But while the ‘scandal’ about her old man is what she’s publicly bitching about, I have a very strong suspicion that it’s the “ambitious nobody from the sticks claws her way to the top” narrative that’s really bothering Donald. Not so much Melania, she doesn’t seem to have been particularly secretive about her background, but the explanation that she’s just a hard-working immigrant who negotiated The Donald into a lifetime deal after he had a couple of big-time public failures has to be sand-blasting his sensitive ego. He’s really prickly about those financial bankruptcies — having his first mailorder bride and then his most public gold-digger successfully break their contracts & go on to have happy lives without him can’t be any less irritating.
NotMax
<@BillinGlendaleCA
Phrasing!
Your wedding included two gay groomsmen.
;)
eemom
@Anne Laurie:
JFK Jr. died 5 years AFTER his Mom. I know this because my own Mom has always insisted that if she’d still been alive, she’d never have allowed him to fly that plane.
opiejeanne
@efgoldman: Both of my daughter’s gowns cost less than $1000 and were gorgeous silk, and hand embroidered and beaded.
My silk and lace wedding gown in 1969 cost $20 because I bought it in December and it was 90% off. It was a size 1. It fit perfectly except that it was made for a 7 foot tall woman and I was 5’2″.
I still have it and my girls laugh when they look at the picture because back then a popular look was “little girl” which is ridiculous. It was demure an innocent, high lace neck and half-length sleeves, and I looked about 12.
Msb
@ Annie Laurie
Bingo. Talented young women have lots better choices today. Like my mom, who was born about the same time, Jackie B K O played the hand she was dealt the best way she could. It’s a sad mercy that she didn’t live to see her Son John’s death. And I remember thinking, when Princess Di got married, in what way is an uneducated girl’s marriage to a needy rich guy nearly twice her age “a fairy tale”?
different-church-lady
@guachi: You’re saying he had to consult the NCAA rulebook to find out what the thing was called before making his fake off-the-cuff comment?
(Tongue in cheek: having heard the clip, I subscribe to the theory that he was trying to say “rim” and muffed the word.)
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
How is it you are so certain the first version isn’t the correct one?
different-church-lady
Hold it, wait a minute, hold it… you can make a wedding cake OUT OF GRAND MARNIER?!?
bk
@Anne Laurie:
Who would that be? She died several years before her son did.
J R in WV
@efgoldman:
Mrs JR made her own wedding dress, and a slightly fancy collar-less linen shirt that I wore. My mom took b&W photos and her mom got a chocolate cake with white icing. Wedding was at their church’s chapel, cost maybe $50 for organist and preacher, reception at their house, cake was probably $15. All this was in 1971 dollars.
Our honeymoon was staying at my Grandma’s farmhouse where she had put many of our favorite foods away in her fridge, she went ot stay a couple of days at my folks house in town. Then we drove a scenic route back to my duty port/ship in a 1962 Plymouth, which FIL found for us to buy with our own money.
My best friend there at the wedding is still a good friend, retired ER Doc now, we plan to travel some together, although they are ahead of us quite a bit. While inexpensive, that marriage has lasted 45 years in 3 weeks. We had to wait until her graduation in Morgantown, then drove to P’burgh to pick up a couple friends at the bus station there. None of us was poor, but we all knew how to get around inexpensively.
Now I’m wanting business class on any flight over about 4 hours, or shorter if the plane has more comfortable seats – I’m bigger than I once was now…
Joel
@? Martin: CA GOP is still Pete Wilson’s GOP.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Anne Laurie: This.
Things we thought it would be unnecessary to fight for in 2016: the right to reproductive self-determination, equal pay, voting rights, etc.
I guess I’ll be pushing that stone uphill till I die, and then my daughters-in-law will take over (it is hoped, and I am sure, they will be aided by my sons).
sw
@Anne Laurie: They were different times, but I would bet that Jackie would object to your characterization. The role of wife and home maker was not something that she felt was imposed on her by external forces. It was the core of what she wanted from life. What was difficult was getting her to let the family business exploit her appeal as a political asset. She resisted that until the end. Had her domestic life not been so cruelly interrupted, I think she would have ultimately been even more effective in areas that she was truly interested in.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@Miss Bianca:
I hate turnips, though I do love me some turnip greeens. If they are cooked properly, they don’t need any vinegar. Those you get at Cracker Barrel are edible, but do need a dash of vinegar. CB’s fried Okra is OK, but like restaurant versions of fried green tomatoes, are not sliced thinly enough. FGT should not be thicker than a quarter inch and okra no thicker than a half inch.
grandpa john
@efgoldman: Which is most likely why it is called “Basketball”