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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Saturday Night Open Thread: Eurovisions

Saturday Night Open Thread: Eurovisions

by Anne Laurie|  May 14, 201610:32 pm| 184 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Music, Open Threads

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William Lee Adams, in the NYTimes:

Stockholm — ON Tuesday, during the first semifinal of the Eurovision song contest, the Bosnian singers Deen and Dalal stood onstage inside Stockholm’s Globen Arena singing to each other through a barbed-wire fence. As they crooned about love, a woman in strategically sheer leggings squeezed a cello with her gym-honed legs. She didn’t seem to mind that her gold tinfoil jacket made her look like a rotisserie chicken.

Despite rapturous applause from 14,000 spectators, the act failed to advance to the final, leaving a nation of Eurovision fans mourning.

Two days later, Deen and Dalal’s stage director, Haris Pasovic, told me that the foil jacket represented the blankets given to Syrian refugees landing on the Greek island of Lesbos…

At Eurovision, whose final will be broadcast live for the first time in the United States on Saturday, much is lost in translation. But everything — a shirtless acrobat spinning around a pole (Slovenia), a hologram of a naked man with a wolf (Belarus), a singer clutching a peach (Italy) — is steeped in meaning….

Over the past few years, as the Continent has buckled under the weight of the refugee crisis and Russia’s political posturing has set European Union nations on edge, this wildly camp singing show has served as a barometer of the anxieties of state broadcasters and artists. It’s a safe, eccentric and vast platform to express individualism and political views — even if the rules expressly forbid the latter…

The Washington Post reported that Russia had high hopes for their entry:

For Russia’s leaders, Eurovision is no minor frivolity. When Russia won the contest for the first time in 2008, Vladimir Putin himself made a surprise entrance at one of the rehearsals, to reinforce the music competition’s priority status in bringing Russia’s cultural ascendance to the world… In Saturday’s final, Russia finds itself once again on the verge of victory, and it’s pulling out all the stops. According to Daniel Gould, a Eurovision-obsessed former journalist interviewed by the BBC: “They have hired every top Eurovision person in their particular field to work on the Russian entry — two composers, a Russian called Philip Kirkorov and a Greek called Dimitris Kontopoulos, who’ve both written many Eurovision songs before. They’ve got the vocal coach, a Cypriot called Alex Panayi, who has worked on numerous successful Eurovision entries. They’ve hired the best Swedish backing singers. So basically they’ve put everyone in place to try and win it this year.”

All this is pinned to Sergey Lazarev, a pretty-boy pop singer who was in boy bands as a kid and whose acts presumably haven’t changed much since then — except to include more … adult themes. But for the patriotic fervor the contest inspires in its viewers, Lazarev is a highly unlikely conduit. He has consistently and publicly spoken out against two of Russia’s most internally popular policies: exclusion of LGBT people from full rights as citizens and the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. And the song he intends to win with is sung in English, like a good number of his previous hits…

This month, according to Agence France-Presse, Lazarev told a gay interest magazine in Sweden that he was happy for fans to wave rainbow flags at his performances, and that he respects his gay fans and they respect him. He has appeared at gay pride events and even taken to social media to protest a bill that Putin signed into law in 2013 that banned homosexual “propaganda” to minors, which has since been used to justify numerous arrests and hate crimes. That was the same year a survey found that 84 percent of Russians thought that homosexuality was unacceptable in their country…

But in the end, the award went to Ukraine …

The lyrics for “1944” concern the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, in the 1940s, by the Soviet Union at the hands of Joseph Stalin. Jamala was particularly inspired by the story of her great-grandmother Nazylkhan, who was in her mid-20s when she and her five children were deported to barren Central Asia. One of the daughters did not survive the journey… The song’s chorus, in the Crimean Tatar language, are words that Jamala had heard from her great-grandmother, reflecting the loss of a youth which could not be spent in her homeland…

Jamala has said in an interview that the song also reminds her of her own family living in Crimea nowadays, claiming that since the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea “the Crimean Tatars are on occupied territory”; the song lyrics, however, do not address this annexation. Eurovision rules prohibit songs with lyrics that could be interpreted as having “political content”.

Immediately after the selection of this song, some Russian politicians, as well as authorities in Crimea, accused the Ukrainian authorities of using the song “to offend Russia” and “capitalising on the tragedy of the Tatars to impose on European viewers a false picture of alleged harassment of the Tatars in the Russian Crimea”.

On 9 March 2016, a tweet from the European Broadcasting Union confirmed that neither the title nor the lyrics of the song contained “political speech” and therefore it did not breach any Eurovision rule, therefore allowing it remain in the competition…

Apart from acknowledging that humans just might be intrinsically political animals, what’s on the agenda?

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Reader Interactions

184Comments

  1. 1.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 10:35 pm

    Well, the BiP-signal was just lit.

  2. 2.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 14, 2016 at 10:38 pm

    Pootie-Poot is going to be very, very displeased!

  3. 3.

    MJS

    May 14, 2016 at 10:42 pm

    It’s probably just me, being old and all, but was anybody else’s first exposure to these European singing contests the skits on the Benny Hill Show?

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 14, 2016 at 10:43 pm

    @MJS: no and yes. And I’m 45.

  5. 5.

    Gin & Tonic

    May 14, 2016 at 10:43 pm

    Thanks for this post, AL. As I put it in comment number eleventy-hundred-something downstairs, this win was *huge* in Ukraine, which now gets to host the contest next year, as they did in 2006. Beating Russia was the icing on the cake, but the fact that it was a Crimean woman singing about an earlier deportation of the Tatars was the cake itself. As one of my friends there said, there’s have been no point in Ukrainian television channels broadcasting anything tonight, as all Ukrainians were watching Russian television to revel in schadenfreude.

    Incidentally, the previous Ukrainian winner, Ruslana, was one of the key public figures in the Maidan demonstrations in the winter of 2013-2014.

  6. 6.

    debbie

    May 14, 2016 at 10:47 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Good. The more schaden-y, the better.

  7. 7.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Somehow you came off as a decade younger.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 14, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not sure quite how to take that. I had someone remark to my mother about three weeks ago, who knows both me and my mother, that she thought I only looked 35. And that was nice to hear!

  9. 9.

    gogol's wife

    May 14, 2016 at 10:53 pm

    Is Cyrillic not allowed any more? I tried to express my approval in Russian twice, but the comments didn’t post.

  10. 10.

    gogol's wife

    May 14, 2016 at 10:54 pm

    I guess it’s official — you can’t use Cyrillic any more.

    So I’ll transliterate:

    Zdorovo! Pozdravliaiu!

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 10:57 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Everyone forms mental pictures, don’t they? And as an over-50 y/o, the guess that I am 41 or 42 is always welcome. Or the people who assume that my younger (by 6 1/2 years) brother is the elder. I particularly enjoy that one.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 14, 2016 at 11:02 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ll take it as a compliment then! My younger brother is bigger than me, so I never refer to him as my little brother.

  13. 13.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:02 pm

    btw, speaking of Eurovision…*nobody* can touch the King Of SchlagerMusik, Guildo Horn…

    …the first time I ever saw the Eurovision contest was when I was in Berlin in the 90s…and it was *this guy* who was so totally off the hook that I couldn’t believe it. He ruined me for everybody else in that contest forever, the creature.

  14. 14.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:04 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: My sister totally did not love being taken for my mother, altho’ she put a good face on it. My niece thought it was hilarious. But she and I look more alike than anyone else in my family.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:04 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: No insult was intended. My younger bother is also larger so I avoid the word little as well.

  16. 16.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:07 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Scarred for life I am.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 14, 2016 at 11:07 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: No insult was taken.

  18. 18.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:11 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: You, too? That was my thought when my Berliner friends *insisted* I had to watch it. They were hipsters before I knew the meaning of the word, but they had a not-quite- completely ironic love for Schlager.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    May 14, 2016 at 11:13 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Ha! My youngest brother (by 13 years) is almost a foot taller than me and about twice my weight, but he’s still my little brother. And because I am so much small than him, he likes to rest his elbow on top of my head and call me little sister.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:15 pm

    @Miss Bianca: When were you in Berlin?

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 14, 2016 at 11:17 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: My very first thought as I saw the new post.

  22. 22.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    May 14, 2016 at 11:20 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Wait until somebody calls you “old.” I was slightly mortified when I walked into a coffee shop and one patron looked at another and said “you better watch it, this little old lady has a tattoo.”

    The other patron, a grad student (gah!) apologized “I’m sorry I called you the little old lady with the MINI, but I didn’t know your name.” Then she heard herself and looked stricken. I laughed and assured her that when i was her age, I probably would have thought of someone my age as a little old lady. I lied, but she was so horrified to hear the words while looking at me that I wanted to make her feel better. Funny thing is, not only are we pals now, but I’ll be performing her wedding ceremony. Sobering to me was when i met her mother, who was visiting from Puerto Rico, and discovered she is 5 years my junior.

  23. 23.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:24 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: 1996. Doing research for the dissertation that never came to be. Going back someday. Will finish it, as God is my witness, even if I never get the degree.

    ETA: Were you stationed over there, by chance?

  24. 24.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:28 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Several years ago, when I was still married, we were running on trails near the UW campus on a Saturday morning and a student, who had clearly started pre-partying for that day’s football game shouted from his balcony, “Hey, look! Old people running.” Since I was probably around his dad’s age, I took no offense on my behalf, but it was rather harsh on my ex.

    Besides, my brother is completely gray, and I have just enough to prove I ain’t coloring. That’s what matters.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    @Miss Bianca: My entire active service was in Germany. Mostly in Bamberg. I haven’t been to Berlin since 1991.

  26. 26.

    schrodinger's cat

    May 14, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Do you watch the Americans? Last year’s season finale was set in Berlin, 1983.

  27. 27.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Damn, right after the Wall came down. I spent all my time in the Eastern part of the city, and I was shocked at how there were still bombed-out buildings left over from *WWII*, for all love. I bet it’s changed a lot in the intervening years, however.

  28. 28.

    sm*t cl*de

    May 14, 2016 at 11:36 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    *nobody* can touch the King Of SchlagerMusik, Guildo Horn

    It appears that Herbert Grönemeyer has never been on Eurovision. I am disappoint.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:41 pm

    @Miss Bianca: I was in Germany from 1/89 to 6/92. I have a small piece of the Berlin Wall and a couple of pieces of the Czech border fence – my battery commander drove over and grabbed a section and then had a soldier cut it into 2 x 2 inch squares. I still have two.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:44 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I never got into it.

  31. 31.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:44 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I had a chunk of the Wall myself, strangely, even tho’ I wasn’t there at the time. But a friend of mine happened to be travelling there at the exact moment the Wall came down, and he gave one to me when he got back to the States. Don’t know what happened to it, but I kept it for a long time as a paperweight.

  32. 32.

    Emma

    May 14, 2016 at 11:45 pm

    @Miss Bianca: What hatred do you harbor against us that you would post that video? *snicker*

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    May 14, 2016 at 11:46 pm

    What, no virtuoso whistling? (And he does rock, too.)

  34. 34.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 14, 2016 at 11:48 pm

    @Miss Bianca: I really wanted to go to Berlin when I was over there, but my high school German teacher(she was leading the group I went with) had concerns that they might keep her there. She was born and raised in the “Russian Sector”, as she used to call it.

  35. 35.

    Miss Bianca

    May 14, 2016 at 11:49 pm

    @Emma: what dreadful, dreadful creature held a gun to your head and forced, I say, *forced* you to watch it? > : >

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I could see that being a legitimate concern, actually.

  36. 36.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 14, 2016 at 11:53 pm

    @Miss Bianca: We ended up going to Baden Baden and visited her dad, the old Nazi.

    (He was a nice old guy, but was a member of the Nazi Party.)

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: It was really weird when I was there. Whenever I met someone of WWII age, I wondered…. OTOH, being in Bamberg, I met Claus von Stauffenberg’s son who was a Brigadier General in the German Army at the time.

  38. 38.

    chopper

    May 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm

    In Saturday’s final, Russia finds itself once again on the verge of victory, and it’s pulling out all the stops

    “welp, he passed the drug test”

  39. 39.

    chopper

    May 15, 2016 at 12:01 am

    @NotMax:

    (And he does rock, too.)

    that video is the least rock n roll thing ever.

  40. 40.

    opiejeanne

    May 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    OT. Yesterday I had my annual eye checkup, and had a new eye doctor run the tests. At the end he asked me a lot of questions about my drooping left eyelid and after we had finished he told me to ask my NP/GP to to check me for myasthenia gravis.
    So.
    I’ve read up on it, I know I won’t know anything really until the doc checks me, and I thought it was really a lot more serious than what I’ve read online .
    Am I missing something?
    Does anyone here have experience with this, either themselves or a family member?

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    @NotMax: Shouldn’t you be tending to pasta or something? Are you dizzy? Can someone help?

  42. 42.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 12:04 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I guess because my research focused on Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel and their political/artistic circle, who were pretty much forced to flee – Brecht was vulnerable as a “degenerate artist”, Weigel was even more vulnerable as not only the same, but a Communist and a Jew besides – I do find myself wondering how people could stay in Germany and join the Party. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because you were a member of the Party didn’t necessarily mean you were an evil person – that you had to be a member of the Party to stay, and work. Not everyone could leave. Not everyone wanted to. But it’s still hard for me to fathom.

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:07 am

    Redacted

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    May 15, 2016 at 12:07 am

    @Omnes Omnibus

    Second pot of cheese sauce nearly ready, 15 more minutes in the oven for the second pair of meatloafs. Just. About. Done.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 12:10 am

    @debbie: Mine isn’t a foot taller, just several inches. I am, apparently, the runt of the litter.

  46. 46.

    Luthe

    May 15, 2016 at 12:11 am

    @chopper: The result was positive.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:11 am

    @Miss Bianca: Would you leave the US immediately if Trump wins? Or would you say; “This is temporary. These assholes can’t take my country from me. Fuck them.”

  48. 48.

    pseudonymous in nc

    May 15, 2016 at 12:20 am

    I had friends over for Eurovision who were basically aware of it but didn’t really know what they were in for. It was a drunken fun time. Because Logo had a Flash player that didn’t work on our XBox, we hooked up a laptop on a VPN and went with the BBC instead.

    The new scoring system — not a new system, but how it was announced — was incomprehensible but created real tension at the end. Russia got the bulk of the popular votes — Putin’s got his finger on a lot of countries’ power switches — but not quite enough to outstrip Ukraine.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:21 am

    @pseudonymous in nc:Super-delegates?

  50. 50.

    pseudonymous in nc

    May 15, 2016 at 12:22 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Personally, I would make my plans to get the fuck out of the US between November and January, and I am going to make plans to make it easy to make those plans.

  51. 51.

    FlyingToaster

    May 15, 2016 at 12:23 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’d start looking for contract work again overseas; I did a bunch back in 2001-2 because I wanted somewhere to go if things went to hell for me here. Instead, of course, we got AlQuaeda and Shrub and the whole planet kinda sucks.

    It would suck a lot more now, because now I have hostages to fortune (spouse, kid, house, yadda yadda yadda).

  52. 52.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 12:26 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: *raises eyebrows*

    I guess it would depend on how much imminent danger I thought myself to be in. What if I had to kiss the book and join the Republican Party if Trump won, and somehow that became a prerequisite for work, travel, housing, social acceptability? Would I join if I saw that part of what that meant was to turn a blind eye toward discrimination – or worse – to minorities? I don’t see how I could. But I have no family to provide for, no child, no aged parents who depend on me. I have enough resources that I could flee if I had to – and right-wing conservative male relatives who could probably see to it that I wasn’t rounded up myself if I wanted to stay and fight. Would I stay and fight? Probably. Would I stay and fight if I thought I were in danger of my life? Possibly not. I am the good soldier Schweik, not Joan of Arc.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:27 am

    @pseudonymous in nc: @FlyingToaster: I am not leaving. I also won’t shut up.

  54. 54.

    pseudonymous in nc

    May 15, 2016 at 12:27 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I suppose the juries count as superdelegates, though I prefer the current jury/pop-vote split compared to the period about 15 years ago when regional political voting was decisive, to the detriment of the songs. I’m not sure whether using the 2015 format for announcing the votes would have changed things in terms of knowing who’d won before the end, but I’ll take the result.

  55. 55.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 12:30 am

    Sometimes I wish I’d learned to keep my mouth shut and, when someone complains about a woman not getting the job as athletic director, not pointing out that she was the deputy director of the department during the period when lots of financial malfeasance was going on, and that, maybe, there were perfectly valid, non-sexist reasons for not wanting her to get the job.

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:31 am

    @Miss Bianca: My right wing relatives are distant.

  57. 57.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:38 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    When were you in Berlin?

    Ich bin Miss Bianca Berliner ? Miss Bianca is a jelly donut ?

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:38 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Dude, what happened? I was about to go to bed. What is wrong?

  59. 59.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 12:40 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I am very glad that I had the chance to spend two days in East Berlin before the Wall came down. It was very interesting. When we got out of the Ubahn station, it was like someone had dropped a gray filter over the lens. We had to exchange 25 perfectly good Deutschmarks for borderline useless Ostmarks; even the quality of the paper and the materials of the coins marked them as cheap. About the only thing I found to spend them on were some classical records in a department store; they were priced dirt cheap, for political reasons, as an alternative to decadent rock music.

  60. 60.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 12:40 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was trying to think of this in terms of what would have motivated someone to leave Germany, as opposed to staying, when the Nazis came to power. Am I the sort of person who would have been in danger under a Nazi regime? Let’s see…leftist artist, married to a leftist Jewish artist (or at least, I was), flirted with Socialism, if not Communism…yeah, I would have been in danger, right-wing relatives who would likely have joined the Party or no. Do I think things would be as extreme under Trump as they were under the Nazis? No. Would I feel a moral obligation to stay and oppose Trumpism? Again, probably yes, unless the right-wingers in my county felt emboldened to start going after people like me. Which wouldn’t take much, probably. I’d be a terrible undercover saboteur – I’m a lousy actress, when all is said and done. So no – I wouldn’t leave right away. But if things really started going to hell…maybe.

  61. 61.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 12:42 am

    @Prescott Cactus: Miss Bianca is a little cupcake baked by Satan, danke schoen. But I can’t think off-hand how to say it in the original German.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    May 15, 2016 at 12:42 am

    Off to the races. Y’all play nice.

    :)

  63. 63.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 12:44 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Nothing here. It was a discussion on Facebook. Briefly, Minnesota hired a new athletic director this week to replace Norwood Teague, who was fired for sexual harassment. The deputy under Teague, and the interim head of the department was Beth Goetz, and a lot of people wanted to see her hired because she’s a woman, and when it didn’t happen, some of them got pretty angry and said that this was clearly sexism in action and women are never given a chance.

    I pointed out that there were other reasons for not hiring her, such as the fact that I’d prefer to see them totally clean house after what the audit of the department found. I was pretty much accused of not taking sexual harassment seriously, and, when I tried to defend my argument, was told that my presence wasn’t welcome because they were discussing sexism. Pointing out that they were the ones who had brought up the specific example didn’t help.

    As far as I can tell, we aren’t supposed to sully discussions of the patriarchy with ideas such as that people who were in leadership positions when embezzlement going on probably shouldn’t get promoted.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 12:45 am

    @Miss Bianca: kleine cupcake von Satan gebacken.

  65. 65.

    angrystan

    May 15, 2016 at 12:46 am

    @MJS: not contests, just the one. Hill, Python and incessant references by the dearly departed Kenny Everett during the hour his show was on over here.

  66. 66.

    Mike J

    May 15, 2016 at 12:46 am

    Bernie delegate refused credentials because he rage quit party:
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cid99-XXEAEokv3.jpg:large

  67. 67.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 15, 2016 at 12:47 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: My German teacher was a really good track athlete as a kid and won a medal. It was presented to her personally by Hitler.

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:47 am

    @Miss Bianca: My family showed up hundreds of years ago. Fuck the fascists.

  69. 69.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 12:47 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: rats – sorry to hear it, dude.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:48 am

    @Miss Bianca:
    This really is an interesting question. I couldn’t leave, SS would be my only income and the VA is my healthcare. And if drumpf gets in power there may be no more SS or VA because I don’t see him winning and the repubs losing congress. I see no way to leave and no way to win that fight but how else would I live? And I know there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in the same boat as me, many of whom could not fight that fight.

  71. 71.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 12:48 am

    Meanwhile, the Big 10 softball championship game between Minnesota and Michigan is now in the 10th inning. Both teams have gotten runners into scoring position multiple times since the 7th. (Seven innings is the regulation length in softball, rather than nine.) It’s been excruciating.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 12:49 am

    @Mike J: Did any more information ever come out about the fighting that broke out?

  73. 73.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 15, 2016 at 12:49 am

    @Miss Bianca: Pretty much what my German teacher said about her dad, for alot of work you had to be a party member.

  74. 74.

    FlyingToaster

    May 15, 2016 at 12:50 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: And if the brownshirts come and kill you, or the Inquisition sets you up in their auto-da-fe, that’s that.

    I’m the wrong religion, wrong political orientation, and wrong gender to not to look for the writing on the wall. My ancestors fled the Reconquista, and therefore stayed alive. My dad was an airman in the Pacific in WWII; if our ancestors hadn’t left Europe in the 1800s, he’d have ended up in a camp.

    Few will leave the day after someone is elected (ref. Ted Nugent), but at least some of us will make sure that we have an exit strategy if it turns out we’re no longer safe here.

  75. 75.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 12:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman: OMG, you have no idea how hard you just made me laugh, Herr Doktor, you lovely pedantical creature! May your desire to explicate never desert you – or us!

    @Omnes Omnibus: So did mine. Wouldn’t prevent me from getting spitted like an ox if someone wanted to prove a point upon my person. Your mileage may, most likely, vary. I’d probably be safer in Madison than I would be out here on my lonesome in the wilds if shit got ugly. Tho’ I could probably drop a tree or two across my driveway and that would deter the bastards for a while – at least until they could figure out how to get their ATVs over it.

  76. 76.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 12:53 am

    Gophers win! It took two Michigan errors in the bottom of the 10th, but they got the job done. Sara Groenewegen pitched all 24 innings in the tournament, over two days. The funny thing is that, this year, we actually have other pitchers I trust, so I’m not sure they never got used.

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:54 am

    @FlyingToaster: What can/should I do different?

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:55 am

    @FlyingToaster:
    Where might you go if one might presume to ask?

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 12:55 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Its the case in most places that have either either a monist (one party online) or populist system (one party is in control and while it tolerates other parties for appearances, they have no power, are for show, and while one or two members may get positions, they’ve got no real power. Think the political party equivalent of Alan Colmes when he was doing Hannity and Colmes). This was the case under Saddam Hussein with the Ba’athists, under the Sandinistas, under the Soviets, etc. The real question that has always been hard to answer in the case of the NAZIs is that once they opened up the party membership, which was originally tightly controlled, just how many Germans were willing (as in in agreement with the NAZIs even if they didn’t want to personally kill Jews, the Roma, homosexuals, etc) versus unwilling, but had no other choice but to survive. Professor Goldhagen has one answer that he presents in his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners. There are other takes on it. It is likely that we’ll never know and the reality was somewhere in between Goldhagen’s thesis and that of his critics.

  80. 80.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 12:55 am

    @Miss Bianca:

    But if things really started going to hell…maybe.

    Of course by then it might be too late. Just as it was for many in Germany. We can look back at the past with the knowledge of what actually happened and it is hard to remove that from our thinking. It wasn’t immediately obvious to the people in Germany where everything would end up when Hitler and the Nazis took power. Some people were prescient enough to realize and escaped, but others surely felt it was something that would pass. No easy answers for sure.

    But if Trump is a Hitler figure then we need to shit our pants big fucking time if he wins. And in we, I mean every living creature on the planet. Hitler took power over a Germany that was economically and militarily still weakened from the First World War. Trump will gain control of the world’s strongest military and 6,970 thermonuclear warheads. This, really is why the BernieorBust idiots truly are idiots. They say they don’t won’t to vote out of fear. They damn well should be afraid though. Deathly afraid. I am. And I damn sure am going to vote for Hillary Clinton and I left the country when her husband was president.

  81. 81.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:56 am

    @Miss Bianca: I’m not good at German either, I was relying on Eddie Izzard for my translation.

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 12:56 am

    @Miss Bianca: de nada! I have a really high end translation app on my phone. Its kind of a requirement in my line of work.

  83. 83.

    Wag

    May 15, 2016 at 12:59 am

    Any contest responsible for inflicting ABBA upon the world deserves to be ignored. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest_1974

  84. 84.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 12:59 am

    @Miss Bianca: I can’t speak to your tactical situation.

  85. 85.

    Mike J

    May 15, 2016 at 1:00 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Did any more information ever come out about the fighting that broke out?

    Sixty four people were refused credentials because they could not be found on the voter rolls. Six were reinstated after providing additional info.

    Final delegate count: 1,693 Clinton: 1662 Sanders (yes, that’s less that 58 difference)

    People who aren’t Democrats weren’t allowed to be delegates at the NV convention. And that was the cause of the outrage. Keep in mind that Clinton won the precinct level caucuses, Sanders won the county level caucuses because some Clinton supporters were silly and didn’t show up. Clinton wins state level caucus because this was the first level where they double checked party/voter registration.

  86. 86.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 1:00 am

    @Miss Bianca:

    I guess it would depend on how much imminent danger I thought myself to be in. What if I had to kiss the book and join the Republican Party if Trump won, and somehow that became a prerequisite for work, travel, housing, social acceptability? Would I join if I saw that part of what that meant was to turn a blind eye toward discrimination – or worse – to minorities? I don’t see how I could

    If they tried to legally force their partisan label and racist, sexist, misanthropic ways on the population; right-thinking Americans would grind the economy to a halt faster than you could say “boycott.”

  87. 87.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 1:01 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: You should have thrown the book at them. The one you wrote, which was awesome, BTW.

    Keep fighting the good fight TTP !

  88. 88.

    Ruckus

    May 15, 2016 at 1:02 am

    @magurakurin:
    I’m not sure he’s a Hitler figure but he really is so far out of reality that it’s impossible to tell what he might do. With an ego his size and his micromanaging there is no accounting for who he would listen to (the voices in his head?) or what he might do. Would people (the military) follow him? Would he be able to get enough brownshirts together to do a lot of damage internally?

  89. 89.

    eemom

    May 15, 2016 at 1:02 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    What can/should I do different?

    differently. Fer fuxsake. Et tu, Brute?

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:02 am

    @Mike J: I’ve got all that. I saw a report earlier in the evening (yesterday evening now) that indicated there was fighting:
    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/violence-erupts-at-nv-democratic-convention-amid-tensions-between-clinton-and-sanders-supporters/

    But haven’t seen any updates. I tried Ralston’s reports and didn’t find anything. That’s why I was curious.

  91. 91.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 1:04 am

    @magurakurin: Yes, the question of when the frog was still free to jump out of the water is a haunting one, ain’t it?
    @Adam L Silverman: and now I’m cracking up again picturing you typing, “little cupcake baked by Satan” into your phone app. Dude, du spinnst! (or would that be'”Sie spinnen”? Loses something when you put into the “you formal” form.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:06 am

    @Miss Bianca: My German was never that good. I’ve never been there for a long enough period of time. A month here, three months there, a week here, a fortnight there. So I have no idea.

    And I’ve typed far stranger things into that app!

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 15, 2016 at 1:08 am

    @eemom: I woke up at 6:00 a.m. for no reason. Give me a fucking break.

  94. 94.

    Mike J

    May 15, 2016 at 1:09 am

    @Adam L Silverman: It looks like violence was limited and quickly dealt with. No armies squaring off against each other, just a few random hot heads who don’t understand that politics is what we do as an alternative to violence.

  95. 95.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:10 am

    @Ruckus: I’m not sure he is a Hitler figure either, just that’s where the little discussion seemed to be centered. I agree with you. There is no telling what that nutjob will do. He is mentally ill. That phone call from back in the 90’s where he is pretending to be his publicist is super frightening (and it definitely is him.) Super frightening for the guy who has his finger on the button. Trump isn’t tethered to reality by the same strings as the rest of us. How anyone can actually consider sitting out the election is beyond me. How anyone can actually consider voting for him scares the living crap out of me. I’ve always known that a goodly portion of my fellow countrymen and women were little more than racist greedy assholes but I never actually thought they would get this close to running the whole shit show. The Country Club Republicans always have used them to get elected, but at least they were tempered by not wanting to hurt business. That’s some sort of braking mechanism. But Trump, he couldn’t give two shits.

    I think Clinton will win and handily, but I won’t sleep truly well until after the vote. The mere possibility of Trump winning is troubling in its own right.

  96. 96.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 15, 2016 at 1:11 am

    @Mike J: So they wanted to be delegates to the DNC without being Democrats?

  97. 97.

    FlyingToaster

    May 15, 2016 at 1:12 am

    @Ruckus: Where I could work :) Back in ’01-2, I had contracts with firms in the EU, Canada, and Australia. There’s more work in the EU in my field, and I have a sib who’s a permanent resident in the UK, so most likely it would be somewhere there.

  98. 98.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:13 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    So they wanted to be delegates to the DNC without being Democrats?

    Not really surprising. Bernie wants to be the nominee without being a Democrat, so…bygones?

  99. 99.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 1:14 am

    @magurakurin:

    Trump isn’t tethered to reality by the same strings as the rest of us.

    It seems to be the same strings as the rest of the Republicans and their close relations within their alternate reality bubble. The prospect of his election is horrifying, true, but is he really that much worse than the other Republicans?

  100. 100.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:14 am

    @Ruckus: @Miss Bianca: The leadership wont. The general officers/flag officers pride themselves, despite their personal political beliefs, of being professionally apolitical in terms of electoral politics (they are, generally, very good politicians as they have to be to get to their ranks and do their jobs). And I don’t know of too many that would accept orders to operate against their fellow citizens for plainly political reasons. That’s why the conspiracy theories about Jade Helm and other exercises are so silly. Are there some enlisted that might be willing to go along? Sure. And I’m sure there would be a few officers as well (including warrants), but everyone knows who those guys and gals are and they’ll be easily contained. We do a very good job of training and teaching proper Civil-Military relations within the US military.

    My bigger concern would be local law enforcement. Or rather a subset thereof. They tend to recruit for, or accept people who self select as, authoritarian personalities that have very little aptitude for creative and critical thinking. Moreover, there are large numbers of want to bes that will try to get on board. But here too there are far more of the rest of us to resist. And the amount of people that would need to go along with an attempt to institute in the US some variant of what’s been done in other places would need to be very, very large. Both because of the size of our population and because of the size of the actual country. And that could only be accomplished if the military went along. And I see no indication that it would do so for anyone.

  101. 101.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 1:15 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Softball is interesting, in that Minnesota has played 53 games this season, and exactly 10 of them have been at home. 21 were road games, and 22 were at neutral sites.

    Also, they went 3-0 against teams ranked in the top 5 of the final regular season polls. We’ll ignore that they were 0-3 against teams ranked from 6-10.

  102. 102.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:15 am

    @FlyingToaster: I recommend Lisbon…nice weather, nice people, good food, beaches, surf…

  103. 103.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:15 am

    @Mike J: Okay, glad the injuries were kept to a minimum. I’ve heard of a raucous caucus, but this was a bit ridiculous.

  104. 104.

    Mike J

    May 15, 2016 at 1:18 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: This was just the state level, but same idea. That was where they chose the DNC delegates.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:18 am

    @magurakurin: Its beyond that. Given who Mr. Manafort, his now senior strategic advisor, works for in Eastern Europe, and who he’s brought with him and who they have and do work for in Eastern Europe, it is not possible to say that the Trump campaign’s senior staffer and his own section’s staff are not indirectly or directly on the payroll of Vladimir Putin. Even if they were indirectly or directly on the payroll of a far more benevolent and friendly foreign leader it would still be both unacceptable and scary.

  106. 106.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:18 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And that could only be accomplished if the military went along. And I see no indication that it would do so for anyone.

    Coming from a voice I respect, these are comforting words.

  107. 107.

    Icedfire

    May 15, 2016 at 1:18 am

    I wanted France to win, and thought Australia’s entry was gorgeous.

  108. 108.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 15, 2016 at 1:19 am

    @magurakurin: Bernie did say he’s a Democrat, but there does seem to be an expiration date associated with that.

  109. 109.

    FlyingToaster

    May 15, 2016 at 1:19 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Figure out if you’re likely to be a target, and come up with a strategy.

    Two thoughts:
    Non-violent protest works if you’re up against someone who sees you as human. If, on the other hand, you’re opponent sees you as evil, or demons, or dinner, they’ll just kill you.
    Fighting works if you’ve got a strategy and tactics and understand your opponent well enough to anticipate them. If it’s clear that you’ve got nothing to oppose them with, run the fuck away.

    I’d be a target, in a fascist takeover. And I’m not equipped to fight any Gestapo-like groups. So I’d make sure I’ve got somewhere to go.

  110. 110.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 1:19 am

    @Prescott Cactus: Heh. The original post I responded to was by my copy editor.

  111. 111.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:20 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Trump as a Putin plant…now you are canceling out the comforting thoughts….

  112. 112.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:21 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, Bernie might have rage quite the party already like the guy in Mike J’s comment. Pretty sure Jane already has and Weaver is locked in the bunker…

  113. 113.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:22 am

    @magurakurin: This is my impression. Obviously I don’t know everyone in the US military. And the bulk of people I know are in the Army. But I don’t know of too many that would even contemplate turning on the citizenry. We work very, very hard to indoctrinate (in the best sense of the term) through Professional Military Education (PME) the idea that the US military’s client is the US Constitution and through the Constitution the citizenry.

    Its why the paranoiac fears that some future Democratic president would use the military to round up everyone’s guns is absurd. No one would follow that order. In fact no one would give that order.

  114. 114.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 1:22 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: “you got a problem with that, Mister?”

  115. 115.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 1:24 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And I’ve typed far stranger things into that app!

    OK…now I’m curious…but it’s probably classified. As well as strange.

  116. 116.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:24 am

    @magurakurin: He’s not the plant. My worry is Manafort and his people are the plants and agents of influence. Certainly the anti-NATO rhetoric and the “take our ball and go home” rhetoric play right into Putin’s strategic objectives.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 15, 2016 at 1:26 am

    @Miss Bianca: Can’t be classified as my iPhone is my personal phone. I doubt I could get a classified iPhone, even if I needed one to do my job, and even if I could I doubt the commo folks would be allowed to put the app I want on it.

  118. 118.

    FlyingToaster

    May 15, 2016 at 1:28 am

    @magurakurin: … a language I don’t actually speak…

    Honestly, it would be work-driven; I’ve done projects for companies in Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, so anywhere with decent internet connectivity and an international airport is acceptable, if they’ll accept me.

  119. 119.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 1:28 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, I was sort of kidding, of course, but nice evasion! Smooth, even!

    Come on…examples or it never happened… ; )

    ETA: On a more serious note…it’s stuff like the Putin connection that I fear about Trump. Not that he’d be able to establish some kind of coup, but that he’d be surrounded by people who could so easily, patently, be seriously damaging influences.

  120. 120.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:31 am

    @FlyingToaster: Plenty of people speak English in Lisbon. There would be no problem getting along. And Portuguese is similar to Spanish. I speak Spanish and I was able to manage basic Portuguese for travel. Once you identify the differences(which can be large) it isn’t any tougher than any other Romance language, I’d reckon. But English would do. Lot’s of ex-pats from the UK are retired and living in Portugal.

  121. 121.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 1:33 am

    @Adam L Silverman: A Trump is just dumb enough to be completely oblivious…and he probably wouldn’t actually care even if he knew.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    May 15, 2016 at 1:33 am

    Kid is over the moon–got to meet Christie Rampone and even hold one of her Olympic gold medals (still unclear which). I have never seen so many soccer girls in one place, not even at a tournament. Don’t know if the US women’s team would outdraw Taylor Swift, but Selena Gomez wouldn’t stand a chance.

  123. 123.

    Ruckus

    May 15, 2016 at 1:39 am

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I do believe this as well. But and it’s a big, round firm but, it wouldn’t take a lot to create a disaster if a few malcontents went along. And I agree that more police would be much more likely to join in than much or most of the military. But that could be enough to do irreparable damage to the country and be pretty difficult to stop. As I said I can not imagine him winning without the congress along for the ride. And that’s a lot of power in all the wrong hands.

  124. 124.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 1:40 am

    @FlyingToaster:

    And if the brownshirts come and kill you, or the Inquisition sets you up in their auto-da-fe, that’s that.

    The irony. Right winging survivalists stockpiling ammo and guns to defend against a tyrannical Obama regime may be getting a head shave and working for the das trump @ .gov

  125. 125.

    MomSense

    May 15, 2016 at 1:43 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I almost just out grape jelly in my son’s egg salad. I swear I took the mustard out of the refrigerator. Maybe it snuck off to Cole’s place.

    Being off the normal sleep schedule is not a good idea.

  126. 126.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 1:46 am

    @Ruckus:

    And I agree that more police would be much more likely to join in than much or most of the military.

    Cities and towns with enough such officers, particularly in leadership, to make such behavior official department policy would soon find their jurisdictions un-policeable.

  127. 127.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 1:49 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    Softball is interesting

    But can you mold, craft, form, massage a book out of this experience?

    PLEASE !

  128. 128.

    seaboogie

    May 15, 2016 at 1:55 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’m not sure quite how to take that. I had someone remark to my mother about three weeks ago, who knows both me and my mother, that she thought I only looked 35. And that was nice to hear!

    About 17 years ago (going to celebrate 55 in a couple of months) I got “Hi Ma’amed” at the mini-mart by some teens (kind of sweet) and then answered the door to my home in overalls a week later and was asked if my Mother was home – a pollster, I think. Kind of a confusing week, age-wise. No such ambiguity now – at the local grocery stores on Tuesday they ask me if I qualify for the discount, and I’m all “two more months baby, and that sweet 10% is all mine…”

  129. 129.

    MomSense

    May 15, 2016 at 1:55 am

    @Miss Bianca:

    I just can’t get over the whole Bond villain quality to der Trump.

    Weird (bad)hair Check
    Unusual and off putting physical characteristics (Orange skin tone with raccoon eyes). Check
    Creepy henchmen with bad guy names like Manafort Check
    Russian intelligence lying in wait Check
    Vacuous, one dimensional “Bond girl” girlfriend/wife Check
    Suspicious businesses that seem like scams or fronts for other activities but provide at least illusion of fabulous wealth. Check
    Flying around in private jets and helicopters to tacky and ostentatious evil lair (Trump Tower with bizarre Midas fantasy fake gold decor). Check

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    May 15, 2016 at 1:56 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    Okay, it’s probably way too late for this and I’m unfamiliar with the situation, but was she actually accused of doing anything wrong in the financial scandal, or is it just a general feeling that nobody who was an administrator at that time should be promoted because they may have been involved? Because if it’s the latter, that’s going to be a little harder to defend online.

  131. 131.

    Anne Laurie

    May 15, 2016 at 1:59 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I tried Ralston’s reports and didn’t find anything. That’s why I was curious.

    Jon Ralston’s twitter feed today was… interesting. Curious to see if he’ll write about it for his next column.

    For further… edutainment?… if you’re not already a regular reader, check out Al Giordano’s twitter feed. He’s threatening (how seriously I don’t know) that if the BernieBros act out at the national convention like they acted in Nevada today, he will move back to Vermont and run for Bernie’s Senate seat in 2018. And he could do it, too!

  132. 132.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 2:01 am

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    Heh. The original post I responded to was by my copy editor.

    I wish you all the LUCK in the world ! ! ! !

  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    May 15, 2016 at 2:03 am

    @magurakurin:
    There is a very nice Portuguese island in the Atlantic, Maderia which looks lovely. I was considering moving there a few yrs ago, maybe taking up life as a bartender.

  134. 134.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 2:03 am

    @Anne Laurie: It’s so pathetic the degree to which people are letting their opinions of politicians’ supporters affect their attitudes toward the politicians themselves.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    May 15, 2016 at 2:03 am

    @Miss Bianca:

    No idea if this would help you figure that question out, but I still have on my shelf a YA autobiography called Mischling, Second Degree, by a woman who grew up in Nazi Germany whose father was half Jewish. Her maternal grandparents basically forced her mother to divorce her father once the Nazis came to power and kept things on the down low as much as possible. By her account, they were just very practical people who were more interested in survival for the family than in politics.

  136. 136.

    seaboogie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:08 am

    @Prescott Cactus: Hey Prescott, I read your earlier post and now understand why you showed me so much empathy in my kitty sitch, and followed up – also, too. Thank you.

    The volunteer work that you do is so generous and loving and absolutely fundamental. We are so uncomfortable around death in our culture, and even though I have lost a husband and two subsequent lovers in less than two years (some 16 years ago now), I did not attend their deaths, as they were sudden. I have attended the passing of my BFF pooch, my landlady’s previous cat who was euthanized due to acute kidney failure, and then the passing of the little one earlier this week who was hit by a car and died of internal injuries at the side of the road. It was difficult to watch the last kitty’s last spasms, but there was no other thing to do in that moment than to be with my sweet pal, and stroke or touch him so that he would know, that I would know, and that his mistress would know that he was not alone in that most universally prosaic and also mysterious of moments.

  137. 137.

    Xenos

    May 15, 2016 at 2:11 am

    I have been an expat for six years, for economic reasons more than political ( the spouse and I each lost about a decade of career progressas a result of W’s mismanagement of the economy), and as the spouse has a citizen of an EU country, why not? My kids are well on the way to speaking 4 or more languages but are exhausted by it all and want to move back to the States for college and after. At least they will have a choice, and a foot in both continents.

    I have been meaning to take them to the nearly abandoned village in Alsace where my great-grandmother grew up on the rue des juifs in the 1870-80s. It is less than a two hour drive from here (Luxembourg), but I keep procrastinating because it is such a depressing place. I think they need to see it, though.

  138. 138.

    Anne Laurie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:13 am

    @Adam L Silverman: You may be too young to remember, but it was widely reported that during the last months of his presidency Nixon’s military aides were under strict orders *not* to follow any of his orders more significant than his luncheon choices. Far less was said about St. Ronnie’s second term, but then he never made any decisions that weren’t spoon-fed to him by his inner circle even before Hinckley shot him, and he never did come all the way back from that near-death experience.

    If, gods forfend, Trump were ever to “win” the Oval Office, the only military coup I’d worry about would be the one putting him under house arrest. My pessimistic WAG would be that we might have some local authoritarian flare-ups — shitheels like Joe Arpaio or Abbott in Texas trying to start their own baronies — and a lot of people who wouldn’t deserve it would suffer. But if the Civil War couldn’t unstitch an emerging nation with more resources than people, I misdoubt even our current malicious GOP can manage more than attempted murder (mostly in the most farcical ways) to go with their own suicide.

  139. 139.

    amk

    May 15, 2016 at 2:14 am

    so, another black eye for the short fingered statured czar?

  140. 140.

    Anne Laurie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:15 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Given who Mr. Manafort, his now senior strategic advisor, works for in Eastern Europe, and who he’s brought with him and who they have and do work for in Eastern Europe, it is not possible to say that the Trump campaign’s senior staffer and his own section’s staff are not indirectly or directly on the payroll of Vladimir Putin.

    Y’know, I’ve been sitting on some articles about Manafort, wondering if he really was that dangerous, or if thinking he might be was just paranoia on my part…

  141. 141.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 15, 2016 at 2:18 am

    @Mnemosyne: No, she hasn’t been publicly accused of anything specific, though a lot of the things in the audit report are attributed to anonymous actors within the department, so she may have been accused of something and none of us involved in the discussion would know.

    It’s my point that someone who is the deputy director of an organization is responsible for malfeasance within that organization absent an explanation of why they are not. To me, that’s an absolute and basic rule of accountability. That’s the basis of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. It’s the reason we’re all angry that no one within banks and financial firms have been held accountable for the malfeasance that preceded the financial crash. It’s something that was beaten into me repeatedly when I was taking classes on internal controls and corporate governance.

    Absent some explanation for why Beth Goetz shouldn’t be held accountable for routine malfeasance within the department, I don’t want her to become the permanent athletic director. I don’t see any reason she should be prosecuted or anything, but I also don’t see sufficient reason why someone in that position deserves a promotion. And, I absolutely don’t see any argument that it is necessarily sexist to hire someone else. It means that there is a basic part of her job that she failed at.

    It should be noted that there have been a lot of problems with the search to find a new AD, and I have no doubt that there are a lot of sexist attitudes within the department. I said as much in that discussion thread. However, there are reasons above and beyond sexism why one might oppose hiring her.

  142. 142.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 2:25 am

    @seaboogie: my volunteer work is to help all, but for some reason “adopted you” … The whole Tubular Bells thing. Your response to pressure was remarkable. Right to the freezer. Well, then the sounds. . . Tough place to be and You SHINED !

  143. 143.

    Anne Laurie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:31 am

    @Kropadope: Oh, Giordano & Sanders were working the same Vermont protests back when Bernie was still a Socialist socialist. Apparently they didn’t get along well in the 1970s, and time has not improved Giordano’s opinion.

    Sanders’ problem with Democrats seems to be a much milder version of Ted Cruz & his fellow Repubs — even the people who agree with him philosophically find him difficult to like. So when his most fervent supporters (many of the most visible men old enough to have been pests in ‘the Movement’ since the 1960s) act up, the general reaction tends towards ‘yeah, wadya expect’ over ‘not all Sandernistas’.

  144. 144.

    seaboogie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:34 am

    @Prescott Cactus: Thank you PC, love to you and your Missus.

  145. 145.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 2:36 am

    @Anne Laurie: Hey, we can’t all shit sunshine and rainbows. I don’t particularly like Hillary Clinton and more than a few of her supporters have driven me to distraction, but I’ll be damned if I”m not gonna vote for her. Indeed, I view it as a patriotic duty.

  146. 146.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 2:45 am

    @seaboogie

    The volunteer work that you do is so generous and loving and absolutely fundamental. We are so uncomfortable around death in our culture, and even though I have lost a husband and two subsequent lovers in less than two years (some 16 years ago now), I did not attend their deaths, as they were sudden. I have attended the passing of my BFF pooch, my landlady’s previous cat who was euthanized due to acute kidney failure, and then the passing of the little one earlier this week who was hit by a car and died of internal injuries at the side of the road. It was difficult to watch the last kitty’s last spasms, but there was no other thing to do in that moment than to be with my sweet pal, and stroke or touch him so that he would know, that I would know, and that his mistress would know that he was not alone in that most universally prosaic and also mysterious of moments.

    Being uncomfortable around death is a barrier that needs to be shattered. Your actions in protected your landlady’s kitty made me proud of you. Many other alternatives could have arisen, but they didn’t.

    I didn’t know of your previous loses, but sometime they can be “felt”. You are a caring person in need of a lil’ help. Glad I was standing where you could see me. Think about the odds of two folks having Mike Olfield’s Tubular bells and one suggesting it to the other. . . Oh that whole Exorcist understanding was a bit of a laugh, yet soothing music for troubled times. I hope your subsequent loses begin to bring you to whole.

    I wish you peace and happiness and If you ever need a hand getting there, give me a shout !

  147. 147.

    Amir Khalid

    May 15, 2016 at 2:52 am

    @Kropadope:
    The lack of discipline among Bernie’s supporters that we so often hear of seems to have no real equivalent among the supporters of other presidential candidates this cycle — except maybe Trump’s. It reflects badly on both Donald and Bernie. I think you have to wonder if it stems from some failure of leadership by the campaign, or maybe the candidate himself.

  148. 148.

    Anne Laurie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:54 am

    @Kropadope: Fair enough. Were Sanders in the lead, I would do the same for him.

  149. 149.

    seaboogie

    May 15, 2016 at 2:56 am

    @amk:

    so, another black eye for the short fingered statured czar?

    So this it what it is like to confront my own racism. If there is one “people” to whom I am averse, it is Russians. They can be very flashy, and coarse, and vulgar (in my perception) and ruthless against their enemies, esp. journos – poison not so far from Rasputin days.

    And yet, and yet…some of my most favorite people I have ever known are from Russia – gracious, cultured and very spiritual. I suspect that many ’round the world say the same of Americans. This awareness has been an eye-opener for me – about me, and about us.

  150. 150.

    Prescott Cactus

    May 15, 2016 at 2:59 am

    @seaboogie:

    Thank you PC, love to you and your Missus.

    If I was gonna get a tattoo that would be it !

    WOW on my ass cheeks, so that it could MOM if I laid on my tummy. . .

    @seaboogie:

    it’s too late for this shit. . . . maybe !

  151. 151.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 3:01 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    The lack of discipline among Bernie’s supporters that we so often hear of seems to have no real equivalent among the supporters of other presidential candidates this cycle

    Oh, yeah, the discipline with which a particularly vocal subset of Hillary supporters has tossed out red herring rebuttals, false assertions, and conventional “wisdom” bullshit has been very impressive.

    Bad behavior is bad behavior regardless of the form it takes and its relative level of discipline. In some respects, disciplined assholery is far more scary than the undisciplined variety.

  152. 152.

    Amir Khalid

    May 15, 2016 at 3:14 am

    @Kropadope:
    Ever since there were elections, campaigns and candidates have disagreed with their rivals. That’s the normal stuff of campaigns, and it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the rude and inconsiderate behaviour at caucus meetings that Mike J described a couple of threads down, the ignorance of the rules demonstrated in this post, things like that which i have heard off and on about Bernistas in this campaign..

  153. 153.

    amk

    May 15, 2016 at 3:19 am

    @Kropadope:

    Hillary as a democrat? Everyone knows.
    BS as a ‘democrat’? Even he didn’t know it until a few weeks ago. Get over it.

  154. 154.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 3:19 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Ever since there were elections, campaigns and candidates have disagreed with their rivals. That’s the normal stuff of campaigns, and it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the rude and inconsiderate behaviour at caucus meetings that Mike J described a couple of threads down,

    That is bad. We can agree to disagree on whether disruptive public behavior is more or less bad than endemic misinformation and trollery.

  155. 155.

    Sheridan P. Teasely

    May 15, 2016 at 3:22 am

    Good morning

  156. 156.

    seaboogie

    May 15, 2016 at 3:33 am

    @Prescott Cactus: Hey there! I did a store display many, many years ago (and I still do that to a certain degree), and we did a “WoW” thing that was around Mother’s Day. Didn’t check the orientation of the sign before executing the reverse side. So WOW! did become MOM! when we hung it up. Thank dog it was timely (just before Mother’s Day). Heh.

  157. 157.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 3:35 am

    @Anne Laurie: Al is the real deal. Interesting that he is so anti-Bernie and telling. He knows Sanders well. Was with him the night he was elected mayor, helped him get into the House. Al was Abbie Hoffman’s protege and they helped shut down a nuke plant. I’m going with Al. I’d send him money if he did that about a primary run against Bernie. For sure.

  158. 158.

    magurakurin

    May 15, 2016 at 3:41 am

    @Kropadope: so, do you want a fucking cookie for that? She’s running against Donald fucking Trump. Not much of a leap to realize that the only choice is to vote for Clinton.

    Bernie is a dick. Why that is so hard to accept, I don’t know. It’s got nothing to do with anyone but him. But he is definitely a dick. Thankfully, he won’t be the nominee.

  159. 159.

    Amir Khalid

    May 15, 2016 at 3:43 am

    @Kropadope:

    endemic misinformation and trollery.

    Putting an opponent’s point of view in the worst possible light is also the normal stuff of campaigns, and I’m not so worried about it. But disruptive public behaviour by a candidate’s supporters distracts people from what the candidate has to offer. It also suggests he or his campaign can’t, or won’t try to, keep supporters in line and minimise a preventable embarrassment.

  160. 160.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 3:50 am

    @magurakurin:

    o, do you want a fucking cookie for that?

    Quite the contrary, I thought it was a little prayer I had to say every day lest hell be unleashed upon me. My penance for skepticism.

  161. 161.

    Amir Khalid

    May 15, 2016 at 3:57 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    I should add, the disruptive behaviour being discussed impeded the caucus meeting, a part of precisely the democratic process that Bernistas care so much about.

  162. 162.

    Mike J

    May 15, 2016 at 4:02 am

    @Amir Khalid: When the facts are on your side pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.

  163. 163.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    May 15, 2016 at 4:08 am

    @Mike J: …and when you’re dealing with nihilists, tell ’em to pound sand.

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    May 15, 2016 at 4:11 am

    @NotMax:
    Sounds delicious ?

  165. 165.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 4:18 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    But disruptive public behaviour by a candidate’s supporters distracts people from what the candidate has to offer.

    It is awful. It makes me regret not having engaged beyond my vote. For my part I did denounce it and take the posters off my Facebook feed when I saw it. Still, those are a few supporters. From the beginning it has been that because of the existence of Bernie bros, there has been an aversion to considering the candidate and non-bro advocates.

    “Sanders doesn’t have a plan should the radical overhaul not come to fruition.” In fact, he had sets of piecemeal proposals for most of the segments of policy. “He makes people think it’s gonna be easy” The messages I got from the campaign proper were quite to the contrary. He frequently asserted that he needs a strong D Congress to maximize his potential. One of the most memorable which I posted to Facebook was from Killer Mike. “The Democrats won’t work with him.” The Democrats have worked with him for decades. If nominated, whether they like it or not the Democrats own him. I personally believe Bernie is pragmatic and smart enough to work with the best and brightest who, if they are truly so, would avail themselves to him should he be elected President. Also, who’s forgetting Congress? They should be able to do their job regardless of who’s President. “That’s not what Sanders supporters think” I do, I’m here. “Hur de hur de MLK.” I don’t tweet. ”

    ETA: It would be OK if the caricaturing and pointing at Berniebros were only here and maybe even the campaign. But it prevailed in the media, which the Clinton campaign encouraged. Their campaign should know that’s a double edged sword, one the Republicans wield far better.

  166. 166.

    El Caganer

    May 15, 2016 at 4:32 am

    Late to the party, but thought I’d put a link to Jeb Lund’s modest proposal for an American Eurovision:
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/14/eurovision-song-contest-america

  167. 167.

    Amir Khalid

    May 15, 2016 at 4:35 am

    @Kropadope:
    You can’t entirely absolve a candidate of responsibility for his supporters’ poor behaviour. He has to have some ability to get them to behave better, otherwise what kind of leader is he? I think it’s quite legitimate to bring this up as a criticism of Bernie.

  168. 168.

    El Caganer

    May 15, 2016 at 4:40 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism….

  169. 169.

    sm*t cl*de

    May 15, 2016 at 4:54 am

    @magurakurin:

    nice weather, nice people, good food, beaches, surf…

    Several good art galleries, and hmmm, cherry brandy.

  170. 170.

    Kropadope

    May 15, 2016 at 4:59 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    I should add, the disruptive behaviour being discussed impeded the caucus meeting, a part of precisely the democratic process that Bernistas care so much about.

    A lot of the people who Bernie brought into the primaries were new voters and a few of the earliest well-publicized events of the campaign season that was exactly how the events were treated. I don’t know what they were all about but the first was a panel on immigration, real nice. Between that and the highlight of conflict in the news, Republicants shouting during the State of the Union, maybe they think it’s normal. Maybe it is normal. I don’t think it should be, but the problems of individual voters shouldn’t be elevated above the problems in the campaigns (both had plenty) and the problems in the media, which I think prevented Bernie from getting a fair hearing. A trend which will cut against any D nominee in the Fall and so shouldn’t be encouraged.

    You ever stop to think, by the way, that maybe the constant effort to highlight and mock the Berniebros empowered them? They became the whole conversation and sensible voices were drowned out and maybe falsely led to believe they had no home in the Bernie campaign. Of course the Berniebros came to the fore. I even decided to fill the role and went so far Berniebro as to say I wouldn’t vote for Bernie as a Democrat (forget whether I stated or simply left open the possibility of voting for him as an independent).

    I actually prefer Hillary’s policy approach overall, but preferred Bernie for the job. Still, I hated to see his ideas sidelined with a few punchlines because I really liked where he wanted to end up. What keeps getting forgotten is that Congress writes the laws. Whether it were Hillary or Bernie, I would expect a slightly D Senate and a closer-margin R-led house. They’re likely getting similar legislation sent to their desks and agree with each other on 90% of everything if their platforms are to be believed. So I expect they would sign and veto the same things. They probably hear from a lot of the same people. I figure at least with Bernie, at the very least, he might be able to make a difference with his appointments. Supreme Court is supremely important. He and a good staff would do a good job making the regulatory state more equitable and efficient.

  171. 171.

    Amir Khalid

    May 15, 2016 at 5:58 am

    @Kropadope:
    If the Bernie campaign was bringing new voters into the caucuses (not the primaries) who didn’t know how to conduct themselves, it should have educated them. When Bernie did get a fair hearing in the media, he succeeded only in showing himself to be unprepared for the Presidency.

    You ever stop to think, by the way, that maybe the constant effort to highlight and mock the Berniebros empowered them? They became the whole conversation and sensible voices were drowned out and maybe falsely led to believe they had no home in the Bernie campaign.

    Nonsense. If the bros chased out the sane Bernistas, it’s on the bros and nobody else.

    I actually prefer Hillary’s policy approach overall, but preferred Bernie for the job.

    This makes no sense at all. Were you expecting President Bernie to govern the way Candidate Hillary said she would? Why would he want to do that?

    Is your feeling about Bernie’s potential appointees based on any sort of evidence?

  172. 172.

    NotMax

    May 15, 2016 at 6:06 am

    @Amir Khalid

    Bernie angst is so enervating, isn’t it?

  173. 173.

    Iowa Old Lady

    May 15, 2016 at 7:50 am

    @Kropadope: That Nina Turner stood up and asked the Sanders supporters to calm down is a sign that their behavior was disruptive, possibly threatening. I’m a little old lady, and if I’d been anywhere near the men shouting “Who gives a shit, bit*ch?” at Barbara Boxer, I’d have moved away from them and assessed the rest of the crowd to see whether they were interpreting Sanders’ call for a “revolution” to mean physical force.

    I assume that’s not what Sanders is calling for when he says millions of people will go to DC and somehow “make” Mitch McConnell so what Sanders asks, but since he’s not entirely clear on what he does mean, there are always people ready to go too far.

    No one should be afraid when they go to cast their vote.

    ETA: I forgot my point, which was that Sanders should loudly and very publicly denounce this kind of action.

  174. 174.

    RSA

    May 15, 2016 at 9:01 am

    @Wag:

    Any contest responsible for inflicting ABBA upon the world deserves to be ignored.

    That was the first time I’d heard of Eurovision, when I was a kid in the ’70s. I kinda think ABBA peaked with their first hit.

  175. 175.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    May 15, 2016 at 9:18 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Sanders should loudly and very publicly denounce this kind of action.

    He only scolds everyone else, not his supporters. He’s not a leader, he’s an egomaniac. Obama’s campaign trained all their surrogates and his supporters to be respectful, but then he was a liberal, not a progressive.

  176. 176.

    Uncle Cosmo

    May 15, 2016 at 9:59 am

    @Miss Bianca: My dad had nearly-black hair that started graying in his 30s but was thick & sliver when he passed in his 85th year. Mom’s hair was thin but went gray much later. So my 4-years-younger brother got Dad’s thick hair & Mom’s late graying–he only started to show at his temples as he closed in on 60–& I got the reverse. People new to his neighborhood would assume I was his father. (He’s also taller..grrrr…..)

  177. 177.

    Uncle Cosmo

    May 15, 2016 at 10:04 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My younger bother…

    Oh, felix culpa (not to be cornfuzed with the poster of the same nym). Brother & I shared a bedroom & never got along until I left for grad school & he found out what a PITA it was to be #1 son in residence. I still remind him of abuses he inflicted on my in childhood. You’re never gonna let that go, are you? he says, & I reply I paid enough for it, I’m gonna get my money’s worth!

  178. 178.

    Marc

    May 15, 2016 at 10:08 am

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: I expect partisans to have selective memories, but this really can’t go without comment. Both Obama and Clinton supporters behaved quite badly in 2008; it’s not something reserved for Sanders and his supporters. He has asked the more zealous online supporters to reign it in – of course, you’re painting with a broad brush because you appear to genuinely hate Sanders and anyone who supports him. I don’t think that’s too strong of a word.

    But it may be worth stepping back and noting that differences that appeared so large in the heat of the 2008 campaign don’t appear so large with the benefit of perspective; similarly, Sanders was a pretty straightforward Democratic vote in the Senate, without a lot of drama about him being a prima donna. He’s running against a candidate that you really like, that’s all.

  179. 179.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    May 15, 2016 at 10:22 am

    @Marc:

    He has asked the more zealous online supporters to reign it in

    When? Where? What about his non-online supporters, who seem to be more and more aggressive?

    When did either Obama’s or Clinton’s supporters go this far?

  180. 180.

    Iowa Old Lady

    May 15, 2016 at 10:26 am

    @Marc: Marc, I hope Sanders does comment on yesterday’s events in NV, if only for his own sake. Barbara Boxer is very popular in CA.

  181. 181.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    May 15, 2016 at 10:29 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Sanders supporters are becoming more and more like a mob. I don’t think Sanders has any real interest in taking control of it.

  182. 182.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    May 15, 2016 at 10:31 am

    I’m being oppressed by the moderation filter, and I wasn’t even mentioning Trump’s failed business enterprises.

  183. 183.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    May 15, 2016 at 10:43 am

    Michael Cohen ‏@speechboy71 19h19 hours ago

    What’s happening at Dem convention in NV is direct result of a candidate who refuses to gracefully accept defeat
    Michael Cohen ‏@speechboy71 19h19 hours ago
    It’s the result of a candidate who constantly finds new excuses & new enemies to explain his campaign losses ..
    Michael Cohen ‏@speechboy71 19h19 hours ago
    It’s the result of a candidate who portrays his opponent as the product of a corrupt political system …
    Michael Cohen ‏@speechboy71 19h19 hours ago
    Quite simply Sanders is feeding the paranoia & sense of victimization among his supporters – and imperiling the pursuit of party unity

  184. 184.

    Miss Bianca

    May 15, 2016 at 11:38 am

    @Mike J: My God, what a maroon.

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