Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

Second rate reporter says what?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This blog will pay for itself.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Our … Ongoing Media Experiment

Open Thread: Our … Ongoing Media Experiment

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Summer’s over, so Hillary Clinton will dutifully invite the press corpse to join her, where they will no doubt proceed to do their best to ensure Donald Trump gets as close to winning the election as the man’s innate unworthiness will allow. Discussion topic from Jay Rosen, something of an expert on the modern American media and its biases:

Reader Interactions

185Comments

  1. 1.

    redshirt

    It’s because the MSM wants to support the Republicans, but Donald makes that too difficult. So a pivot would allow them to cover him as they want to – favorably.

  3. 3.

    JMG

    They’re all useless losers who I wouldn’t trust to cover the local high school football team with any depth or accuracy. But they came from the right schools and background shared by their bosses, and have the same attitude — insufferable snots. I mean, look at Chris Cillizza on TV. Don’t you want to give him a wedgie?

  5. 5.

    redshirt

    Hypothetically speaking, would an organized leftist campaign of violence against the media accomplish anything in regards their coverage?

  6. 6.

    geg6

    Because they don’t give a shit about the country or anyone in it but themselves and their fellow villagers. They are sociopaths who should all be shunned and mocked if noticed. They are enemies of the state and I want them all to disappear. I hate them. I hate them more than I hate Trump and his minions. They are evil incarnate and you know it because hey are so banal.

  7. 7.

    Trentrunner

    There is a glimmer of hope, in that Vox, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and TPM are all pushing back hard against the false equivalencing.

    Those outlets won’t count much for the general pop, but media do follow them and many respect them.

    Let’s see what happens…

  9. 9.

    eclare

    @efgoldman: Musburger sucks. Have been saying so for thirty years, but apparently he has the life span of mold. The worst is when he and Leslie Visser would announce the UT games.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    So I think I read a book that was written by a pantser yesterday. It was well-written, but the plot took several weird turns that didn’t seem to be set up earlier, plus the whole set-up was basically discarded by about a third of a way in.

    For those not familiar with NaNoWriMo terms, a “pantser” is someone who writes a book without an outline, i.e. flying by the seat of their pants. It can be good for one’s creativity, but it can lead to some weird blind alleys that end up making no sense by the end. Really, this character is desperate to hide her identity because she’s being pursued by a terrifying villain, and yet she writes and publishes a pamphlet decrying the morals of her neighbor? WTH?

  11. 11.

    lollipopguild

    @geg6: You are correct! President Trump could crash the economy, start a race war and then finish with a World War and it would be just fine with most of the press. They do not see themselves as suffering under President Trump, they just want the excitement, the ad revenues and the page clicks.

  12. 12.

    amk

    Hacks like cillizza are leeches. Strike that, at least leeches are useful in some cases. They are all fucking parasites.

  13. 13.

    lamh36

    Open thread…okay…

    I’m watching True Lies. And no joke, but True Lies may just be my fav Arnold Schwarzenegger flick of the 90s. I mean Schwarzenegger may have had THE WORSE stunt doubles, but still love it.

    It’s also the one movie where I actually liked Tom Arnold. Arnold’s character is like the ultimate guy friend. I mean someone sees your wife’s head buried in some dude’s lap and he say’s “maybe she’s sleepy”…BWHAHAHAH

    If I had to chose between Bill Paxton & Bill Pullman, I’m always gonna go with Pullman. Still Paxton was perfect in this
    “the Vette makes em wet…”
    Dick…

    Watching this now, I’m like…dude…this all this surveillance stuff over your wife…is an abuse of gov’t resources…lol

    LOL

  15. 15.

    Citizen Alan

    Fuck Chris Cilliza! “Mad Bitch Beer” alone should insure that filthy swine never gets within a hundred yards of Hillary Clinton!

  16. 16.

    mike in dc

    @Mnemosyne: Novel-writing 101 sez you should know how the story/plot ends before you write the first word of chapter 1. It’s possible you can add wrinkles in between, but generally as a writer you’re reverse-engineering the rest of the book from the ending in your head.

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    Do reporters get to ride on Donald Trump’s campaign jet? On Gary Johnson’s? On Jill Stein’s? What’s it like on those planes?

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @mike in dc: I understand that mystery writers frequently write the second half(-ish) of the mystery first. Then they figure out hoe to get there.

  20. 20.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Has anybody noticed how Trump comments on his obviously prepared speeches as he is goving the speech? It just looks so weird. Its like he’s not even glanced at it before he gives it.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @mike in dc:

    That’s the interesting thing about writing a genre, though: your ending is often already written for you. In a romance, the protagonists get a happily-ever-after; in a mystery, the crime is resolved.

    This was a romance, so the writer obviously knew that the hero and heroine would be getting together at the end, but I’m not sure the writer knew that the heroine had had an affair with the hero’s brother until the dude finally showed up three-quarters of the way through, so it kind of came out of nowhere.

  26. 26.

    Wag

    So one of my right wing friends on the Book of Face posted a tired meme asking everyone to share if they agree that the national anthem should be played before all professional sports games.

    Duh.

    My reply contained a serious suggestion that I hope might change the dynamics in this country.

    Only if everyone joins in and sings it like they mean it. Enough of having everyone listen to some bozo who tries too hard and “makes it their own”. Its OUR song and we need to reclaim it for ALL Americans. Enough of having some hand picked person tell us how to sing it. We can do it ourselves if we work together.

    And this applies to our political process, too. We can work together and come to reasonable compromises on all the issues that confront our country.

    If I remember correctly, when I was a kid in the late 60s/early 70s, singing the SSB at sports events made it feel more like a community. I think it was in the Reagan era when we began to be told to shut up and listen politely to someone who knew what they were doing sing the anthem.

    Thoughts?

  27. 27.

    mike in dc

    The train wreck narrative is lurking in some corners of the media but hasn’t become a unified consistent theme. It will follow the polling, with stories on the Trump campaign’s gaffes, lack of ground game, flip-flops, tensions with the RNC, etc. If Trump face-plants in the debates, it will become the dominant narrative. It’s remotely possible that Clinton getting a handle on the “scandal” BS via some kind of definitive presser could lead to a bump in the polls and a renewed focus on the Trump! shitshow, but I’m not holding my breath.

  28. 28.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Mnemosyne: Any plot that is dependent on the stupidity of the principal characters is a bad plot, unless it’s satire.

  31. 31.

    jl

    @lollipopguild:

    ” finish with a World War ”

    And not just any old World War, but a World War he started because he won’t understand how stuff works.
    But if the world is going to blow itself up, I guess a cascade of Stupid is the way to go. Start with very idea of a Trump nomination, and end with a series of blunders more asinine than WWI. Why not? Will be great for the corporate media bottom line. They have accountants and lawyers to help them cash out quickly. (edit: OK, that will be the slackers, the real pros will be on a sugar rush from their ratings until we are all properly vaporized and our nuclei are properly fused into some high number element)

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Wag:

    Thoughts?

    You need better FB friends. The few nuts I am socially or familially obligated to maintain as friends, I have hidden.

  33. 33.

    geg6

    @Wag:

    I have always hated that song, much as I hate the stupid Pledge of Allegiance. Fetish items for the weak willed and minded. Neither have anything to do with the Constitution or the ideal of America. Just the opposite, in fact.

  34. 34.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @Wag:

    So one of my right wing friends on the Book of Face posted a tired meme asking everyone to share if they agree that the national anthem should be played before all professional sports games.

    Said right-wing ‘friends’ should only get their suggestion taken seriously if (a) they can, themselves, sing a reasonably good rendition of the SSB, and (b) they know the 2nd verse of the SSB by heart.

    Otherwise, they can STFU.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @lamh36:

    Zero Effect (1998) has been on HBO lately (and is still on HBO on demand). That’s my favorite Bill Pullman movie. Ben Stiller, Ryan O’Neal, Kim Dickens.

  36. 36.

    scav

    I’d almost say pivoting is the mini-skirt while flip-flopping is the maxi and the press just runs from one to the other and back again it’s all just fashion and change and keeps closets churning. But. This is the one instance where they both do it card isn’t played. They’re not breathlessly following Hillary’s steps shouting “SHOW US YOUR PIVOTS!” Any changes there are firmly tutted over in a retro tone of “O! The Triangulating Insincerity!” whereas true conviction is demonstrated by holding mid-speach policy tests by checking applause and changing tone after single flights.

  37. 37.

    mayyouliveininterestingtimes

    I think those proposing that they are part of Trump’s demographic may not be that far off. What’s his demo? Whites who, believe or not, aren’t the ones most royally shafted by the vicissitudes of the economy? Something like that.

    Also, and this needs to be mentioned every time that monumental sack of shit parades the loved ones of those killed by illegal immigrants across a stage; that immigrants, illegal on not, commit crimes, including violent ones, at a lesser rate than natural born citizens. Mention it. Every. Time.

    At some point I expect him to thank families for raising children good enough to be killed by real Americans. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually did this.

  40. 40.

    Percysowner

    @Amir Khalid: Flying with Jill Stein means flying into the wrong city and then having to find a plane to take you to the right city to then sit and hear why antivaxxers may be on to something, so not a load of laughs.

  42. 42.

    hitchhiker

    @efgoldman:

    This is September of an election year with just over two months to go. They want the eyeballs, ad revenue, and page clicks NOW! NOW! NOW!
    If the write, day after day, that Combover Caligula said something stupid and outrageous, and told x number of new lies, and contradicted y number of old lies, while reporting that HRC continued her slow, steady campaign

    And the people working in television and newsprint know very well that their audience skews old, white, and fat. That population wants a certain version of this year’s exercise in awesomesauce. It’s the one where Donald could beat the bitch.

  43. 43.

    raven

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh yea, I was on it. I was thinking at first that there was thie strange band of LSU seats around the top of the stadium but it turned out that it’s some kind of barrier.

  47. 47.

    Wag

    @geg6:

    I kind of like the idea that our national
    Anthem is sung to the tune of an 18th century drinking song. What better song to pull together a diverse group of Americans, united is love of beer and the local team, if nothing else.

  49. 49.

    Elmo

    I love love love LOVE that we have novel writers in this community.
    This may be the wine talking, and if it is, just ignore me. But what do we think about a BJ Writers Workshop? Share chapters and book/character thoughts? Stupid?

  53. 53.

    chanster

    @Wag: Everyone singing the anthem together is actually standard at Seattle Sounders home games. I’m not a huge fan of the Star Spangled Banner – America the Beautiful would be a much better anthem. But I really like that the whole stadium is singing it together.

  54. 54.

    lamh36

    So if your husband or wife was given a truth serum, that only lasted a short time, what would you REALLY want to ask em.
    #TrueLies

  57. 57.

    jl

    @Wag: Not just any drinking song, but a dirty one that is song before wine drunk sexy time. Sounds good to me. Let’s keep it.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Percysowner:

    This made me laugh:

    “Look, she hates you. Period. That’s never going to change.”

    They should have someone come out and start a press conference with that.

  59. 59.

    TK

    James Fallows had a good take on the pivot. Basically journalists are expecting to see a pivot at this point in the campaign. So they are trying to shoehorn Trump into a pivot. More or less it’s confirmation bias.

  61. 61.

    Wag

    @jl:
    I had no idea. That lends a whole new meaning to my favorite lines ( Rocket’s red glare, bombs bursting in air)

  64. 64.

    lollipopguild

    @jl: He will start a war with China because china is not kissing his ass hard enough or well enough. He will abandon NATO and europe to the Russians. Our economy will crash because Business and the Stock market cannot run anything with a President who changes his mind on policy every 5 minutes. He will blame Obama and Clinton for everything he fucks up. No matter how bad it gets Trump will never take the blame or do anything about the mess he has created. He can make no mistakes.\, and the press agrees with him or does not care.

  67. 67.

    Doug R

    @mike in dc: I heard “Casablanca” was still being written as they were filming. Ingrid Bergman wanted to know…I think it made for a more nuanced performance.

  68. 68.

    Calouste

    @Wag: In Europe they don’t play the national anthem unless it is, you know, a national occasion. That tradition probably started around 1945.

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    Repeating for the nighttime crowd.

    Several non-run of the mill entries on TCM Sunday

    2:00 a.m. – “Zardoz”
    Place of honor on the What Were They Smoking When They Made This? list. Sean Connery traipses through an SF landscape while wearing a speedo.

    12:30 p.m. – “Dracula”
    Ponderous and corny it may be, but Lugosi shines.

    8:00 p.m. – “People Will Talk”
    A more literate role for Cary Grant, in an uneven story that hits slightly more than it misses.

    Dr. Praetorius: “Tell them about when you died, Mr. Shunderson.”
    Shunderson: “The first time?”

  74. 74.

    lamh36

    The entire True Lies action sequence on “the island” culminating in the swimming underwater with flames above scene, is one of the best action sequences from the 90s…IMHO..

  75. 75.

    JR in WV

    Copied from a deeper thread:

    We went to see the Streep movie, Florence Foster Jenkins. It is a great film, with lots of humor, but it’s bittersweet to an extreme.

    Your eyes open not long into the movie. Highly recommended. The Big Bang guy playing her piano player was great too. And a good pianist. Really packed with emotion. Streep did a great job, she learned the songs for real with a real operatic coach, and then figured out how to alter them to Jenkins’ “style”.

    But it wasn’t just that Jenkins thought she was better than she was. Won’t say more for fear of letting the cat out of the bag.

    Even if you aren’t a fan of badly sung opera (who is?), this is a good movie from the acting/story/production viewpoint. Imagine NYC with 1930s and 40s cars, and no traffic compared to now. They did a great job, and with old Carnegie Hall, somehow.

  76. 76.

    p.a.

    America the Beautiful, or This Land is Your Land (no way in hell in this climate), Don’t Mean a Thing (if it Ain’t Got That Swing) because why shouldn’t the national anthem be 1) awesome, 2) a musical demonstration of one of our greatest musical gifts to world culture. Guns on the Roof would be too fitting, plus written by Brits.

  78. 78.

    Doug R

    @Wag: I can remember seeing Loverboy on Canada Day at Expo ’86 and when the laser/fireworks show started and the pavilion’s side was lit with the red laser projecting the Canadian flag, the spontaneous drunken singing of “Oh Canada”.

  81. 81.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mnemosyne:
    George R R Martin is a pantser, and it’s why I can’t watch Game of Thrones anymore. When I realized that character deaths and suffering aren’t setups for any greater purpose, they’re just random shit he felt like at the time, it destroyed my investment.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    @Wag

    Read the lyrics of the 3rd and the 4th verses of the national anthem sometime if you want an eye opener (and not in a good way).

    Strictly FYI, the name of the drinking song was “To Anacreon in Heaven.”

  83. 83.

    Elmo

    @NotMax:
    ZARDOZ? The Easter island reject vomiting rifles, that Zardoz?
    My wife and I joke that we will watch anything with Sean Connery in it – “even Zardoz!”

  86. 86.

    drylake

    Longtime lurker here, who has been trying to find the right time and place to tell this story for quite some time; a piece of anecdata concerning the sociopathy and general numbnutness of the press corpse.

    In my senior year of high school I had a classmate, an annoying twerp who was not much liked but suffered by the People of Prestige because he was good at ingratiating himself with them. After third period PE we were obliged to wait in a breezeway (this was CA) for the bell to ring so we could go to our next class. On Nov. 22, 1963 while we were waiting, the news that JFK had been shot started to circulate through the crowd. While I was standing there assuming (really desperately hoping) that it would turn out to be a survivable wound, said twerp sidles up and says to me with real enthusiasm: “If he really dies, you know this means, don’t you: there’ll be a real race in the presidential election next year!” Of all my memories of that day, and there are very many, this stands out not just for its cold-bloodedness, but also for its stupidity: it didn’t take a great mind to realize the sympathy vote that would accrue to LBJ the next year would virtually assure a landslide, regardless of the GOP candidate.

    You can imagine my lack of surprise at my 30th reunion when I overheard said twerp going on about his journalistic career and what it was like to ride on Air Force One..

    Perhaps these people are born, not made, with their peculiar combination of focus only on the horse-race and no powers of useful analysis (to to mention their general twerpitude)

  89. 89.

    lamh36

    Big ups to Jamie Lee Curtis who apparently did as much of her own stunt work as they let her…

    Actually I’d say the entire last what 20 mins of action sequences in True Lies were some of the best classic action sequences for that time.

    With so much CGI-ed effects nowadays, it’s always cool to see the classic non-CGI effects. Not many movies studios will allow much stunt work from the headliners, maybe that’s why i enjoy Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible so much…the crazy bastard doesn’t seem to care…

  90. 90.

    NotMax

    @Elmo

    Even the speedo was embarrassed. Always presumed Mr. Connery had boat payments coming due (or something similar) and that’s why he agreed to do it.

    BTW, plans were announced a while back to film a remake, starring The Rock.

  91. 91.

    Doug R

    @lamh36: The look on Jamie Lee Curtis’ face when she’s hanging off the helicopter is not acting. She’s actually cabled up and terrified.
    I think that’s the best use of CG-to have your actors safe and then remove the harnesses, cables, scaffolding in post.

  92. 92.

    PhoenixRising

    @Amir Khalid: Well, on Jill Stein’s plane there’s a lot of turning back to the correct direction, but they get pizza.

    I’m still laughing at the Green Party being such a clown show they sent their candidate to Kentucky’s largest airport in order to give a speech in the capitol of Ohio. Which TBF is only one state away but Jesus really? My stoner BIL probably sent them $27 of my sister’s hard earned salary, is the hilarious part.

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Some odd “Movies” channel is showing To Catch a Thief. I am happy. Missed the first 20 minutes, but still…

  94. 94.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: I was just re-reading some of my draft tonight, and I am definitely a “pantser”.

    Great. Now what?

    O btw, I finished a Tessa Dare book this evening too – it was cute. Very fluffy. Like a dessert souffle. Not something I could live on, but a nice break from heavier fare.

  95. 95.

    The Thin Black Duke

    My wife, a friend and I just got back from seeing Blazing Saddles at the Commons. It’s the first time I saw it. 7:30 show sold out, had to add an 8:00 screening. A good audience. Fucking brilliant.

  96. 96.

    Mike in NC

    @JR in WV:

    We went to see the Streep movie, Florence Foster Jenkins. It is a great film, with lots of humor, but it’s bittersweet to an extreme.

    Wife went with several of her friends the other night. They liked it but she said I would have hated it (i.e., chick flick). We just found “Narcos” streaming on Netflix and find it to be a fascinating take on the drug wars from the late 1970s to present.

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: Weird shit happens in life, why shouldn’t it happen in fiction. No one should feel obligated to tie up all loose ends. Hell, a loose end can create the impetus for another book.

    I don’t write fiction, but I have never written anything without a brief outline. OTOH, I have always felt free to deviate from it when it seemed to be a good idea.

  98. 98.

    hitchhiker

    @drylake:

    Jesus. Who was this deeply flawed teenager, can I ask?

    Also, similar revelatory story that will cement your Dan Quayle impression. My brother in law used to write white papers for a think tank based in Indiana. Mostly right wingers, but it was a living. One day his boss asked him to do some research and come up with ten pages on the American Revolution … um, what?

    Turns out one of the Quayle kids needed some homework help, and old Dan was pulling in a favor.

  100. 100.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Thin Black Duke: you’ve never seen it before?? Oh, I could almost envy you. I have to re-watch it at least once a year – and “it just gets funnier EVERY DAMN TIME!!”, as Beetlejuice says about “The Exorcist”.

  102. 102.

    hitchhiker

    @efgoldman:

    For the record, I’m old, white, and starting to get droopy in the most troubling places. And I’d be the one holding the party if Mr Cillizza and all his friends were told to shut up and listen for the next ten years.

  104. 104.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:
    Obama hates them too, for their lack of seriousness, and love of shiny objects. See that’s not how democrats are supposed to view the press, they should hold them in awe and cower before them. Republicans are alpha dogs who hate the media, and that’s okay, the media bend over backward to prove they are not liberal by kissing up to them and being their stenographers.

  105. 105.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve hardly ever been able to write to an outline. Hell, even my term papers were always first drafts.

    That’s probably why I could never finish my dissertation. I was absolutely paralyzed by the realization that I simply could *not* get away with that shit anymore.

    Still, I am realizing now that it is, in fact, sort of OK to have to take multiple drafts to write something. Whee…progress?!

  109. 109.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @drylake:

    Twerpitude indeed. Would it be out of line to ask if he’s anyone any of us would ever have heard of?

    And please stop lurking. You write clearly and engagingly, and I hope you’ll come into the sandbox and play as often as you can.

  111. 111.

    Zippity

    @lamh36: Love that movie! I worked with Tom Arnold at McDonalds when I was in high school. The crew used to go down to the Wheel Room at the Student Union and watch him do stand up. It was a lot of fun for a 17 year old.

  112. 112.

    lamh36

    @NotMax:

    Not for nothing, but Fav Sean Connery character: I’ll admit, I’m partial to him as Henry Jones in Last Crusade, “we named the dog Indiana”

    Fav Cary Grant film: too many to list, but I’m partial to Houseboat (actually own it on Digital DVD), but still too many to really list,

  114. 114.

    greennotGreen

    @Percysowner: I just read that piece. Wow, the author is completely failing at seeing how totally full of Kool-Aid he is. He calls the Clintons “paranoid” when the entire article is about how the press is out to get the Clintons. And never a mention about how the media’s horrendous coverage of Al Gore in 2000 gave us the disaster of W’s presidency.

    Man, I hate the press. Fucking assholes.

  116. 116.

    frosty

    @lamh36: Dayyyum! you’re making me want to go find this flick and see it again. I agree that it was Tom Arnold’s best work ever.

  120. 120.

    Splitting Image

    @lamh36:

    With so much CGI-ed effects nowadays, it’s always cool to see the classic non-CGI effects. Not many movies studios will allow much stunt work from the headliners, maybe that’s why i enjoy Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible so much…the crazy bastard doesn’t seem to care…

    I’m a huge fan of Buster Keaton for the same reason. Apparently his crew used to make bets on whether he would kill himself doing one or another stunt. He managed to break his neck in one movie and nearly drowned in another. Hardcore stuff.

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: Of course, they do. Writing an appellate brief is the culmination of the required legal writing course. And my noted method of preferred writing style is what I use whenever I can.

    ETA: The choice of gun and choice of shell/fuse combination matter.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    It’s not bad to be a pantser in your first draft. Write all the crazy shit you want and see where it takes you. But in the re-write, you have to be willing to follow the advice of Mark Twain and kill your darlings if they don’t fit with the larger story anymore.

    Even Tessa Dare says she’s not really writing historicals, just fun books that are somewhat loosely set in a period. Her characters are very likable and she writes hot, so I’m willing to go along with it.

  129. 129.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne:

    But in the re-write, you have to be willing to follow the advice of Mark Twain and kill your darlings if they don’t fit with the larger story anymore.

    Yeah, pretty much. But save your stuff, you’d be surprised how often scenes, settings, characters, or lines can pop up in other pieces.

    EDIT: @Miss Bianca: Yayyy

  130. 130.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @burnspbesq: As a WI fan, I will say that I bet that he did not know that the WI player had been on the ground. He knew that there was an interception and saw the WI player running with the ball. No whistle had been blown – as far as I noticed.

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    @hovercraft: Apparently in the first draft of that scene – the follow-up to that line was Sheriff Bart saying, “Uh…ma’am…that’s my arm.”

    According to Mel Brooks the studio brass wouldn’t let him put that line in.

  132. 132.

    Mnemosyne

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):

    The characters weren’t dumb, but a large part of the plot seemed to be thought up at the last minute and then didn’t have enough time to play out.

    I mean, if you’re going to have two brothers in love with the same woman, FFS introduce the second brother before page 200, because otherwise it’s going to end up a very shallow, throwaway part of the plot.

  133. 133.

    Joyce H

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    George R R Martin is a pantser, and it’s why I can’t watch Game of Thrones anymore. When I realized that character deaths and suffering aren’t setups for any greater purpose, they’re just random shit he felt like at the time, it destroyed my investment.

    You should try Robin Hobb. She’ll pull a plot twist that just leaves you gobsmacked, and then you think back and realize – she’s been foreshadowing this for TWO TRILOGIES.

    Plus her dragons are cooler.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    Day 540 of the email coverage:

    Chuck Todd flipped out on MSNBC this afternoon over the FBI not recording Hillary Clinton‘s interview on her emails. He said, “it bothers me as an American citizen.”
    Ron Fournier wholeheartedly agreed with Todd that even if it was protocol, it seems kind of important to have a recording––or at least a transcript––of what was actually said for future review.
    “Are you kidding me?!” Todd cried. “We’re releasing notes?!”

    I think she should be videotaped 24/7. It’s the only way we’ll get the whole story.

    Meanwhile, Donald Trump bribed Florida’s attorney general.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I can’t remember who said it, and it was about movies (specifically Donnie Darko), but they said that the biggest failing of first-time screenplays is that they try to cram in every idea the writer ever had because they’re afraid they’ll never be able to write another one.

    So, yes, recycling is a virtue. Save those scraps and build them into another book!

  137. 137.

    lamh36

    @Splitting Image: I admit, I do love the ole skool stunt methods, as long as I know, no one got hurt.

    I know it wasn’t during a “stunt” but I find that as an adult, I can’t watch The Crow, knowing what happened to Brandon Lee on set. I saw it when it came out over 20 years ago, I was 15 years old then though, so death and dying wasn’t really a big deal to me…

    The last time that I watched The Crow, I could barely finish it.

  138. 138.

    FlipYrWhig

    I am 44 and today’s reporters are mostly my age and younger. We all (OK, many of us) grew up thinking that stuff sucked and finding consolation in sarcasm. That’s their approach to covering politics. They admire Trump for not giving a shit, and they want to see if he can get away with it; and they despise Hillary for trying too hard. Of course this doesn’t explain Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell, who are just horrible tools by nature.

  139. 139.

    hovercraft

    @Miss Bianca:
    It’s amazing today to look back on what was considered risque back then. My sister and I were laughing about how our Dad bought the video for us back in the day when we really much too young to watch it, but a friend had told him it was a great movie, he’d forgotten to mention it was for his kids. We didn’t catch all the double entendres the first few times, but eventually caught on.

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    @efgoldman

    Still in the thick of it. Lots of rain happening as I type. But the eye veered north to about 100 miles offshore, so dodged the real nastiness. Not expected to clear up until very late Sunday or early Monday.

  141. 141.

    Mnemosyne

    @Joyce H:

    Apparently people were gobsmacked by the latest Lois McMaster Bujold novel when it turned out that one of her long-term characters had a major (secret) relationship. But, honestly, I’d wondered about that since the fourth book of the series, so it was nice to know I hadn’t imagined it.

    (Trying to stay away from spoilers because, actually, I haven’t read the new book yet myself! I just know what that part of the plot is because it was so controversial.)

  143. 143.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: THE THING THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE HAPPENED AND IT IS RETROACTIVELY SCANDALIUS!

    Remember when people liked Chuck Todd?

  147. 147.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:
    Clinton rules. “The Clintons think the rules don’t apply to them.” And yet here they both acknowledge that it’s FBI protocol to take notes, but they want the FBI to make an exception for the ‘Clintons’. Just die in a fucking fire already.

  148. 148.

    redshirt

    @FlipYrWhig: I remember. It was 2007 and 2008 and Obama v. Clinton was an awesome battle. Everyone rooted for Obama of course, even Drudge. At the beginning, when he was just some guy running against Hillary.

  150. 150.

    BillCinSD

    @Miss Bianca: I would say there’s nothing wrong with letting the plot find itself, but the key is heavy editing of the draft. My published work is all scientific papers and research grant proposals and I don’t ever use a written outline, excepting if you consider the list of issues that must be included in the proposals, but my collaborators and I edit the crap out of the document.

  151. 151.

    Mnemosyne

    OH, and here’s my #FirstWorldWriters lament:

    Since my main character is an American who goes to England in the early 19th century, I was super excited to see that I can still get a copy of the journals of Benjamin Silliman, who was an American chemist and scientist. But it turns out that it was published in 3 volumes and I bought volume 2 only because it wasn’t clearly marked. So now I have to track down volumes 1 and 3. Feh.

    (I mean, I found them on Amazon, but I’m still annoyed that the first one I bought was not clearly marked as being the second of three and I didn’t realize I didn’t have the whole thing until I received it. So, again, feh.)

    One historical tidbit I did find already — apparently, American men were still wearing bright colors and snazzy fabrics when Englishmen had already transitioned to wearing mostly dark blue and black.

  153. 153.

    NotMax

    @redshirt

    As the Brooklyn doctor said of chicken soup, “It couldn’t hoit.”

    There will be somewhat less acreage on the smaller islands. On the Big Island, the volcanoes are still making it larger.

    Volcano on Maui is dormant but not extinct, last erupting during the 1790s, so ya never know.

  165. 165.

    Mandalay

    @Kay:

    Chuck Todd flipped out on MSNBC this afternoon over the FBI not recording Hillary Clinton‘s interview on her emails. He said, “it bothers me as an American citizen.”

    Todd flip flops as fast Trump. Just the previous day he was clutching his pearls and chastising the Trump campaign for being obessed with Hillary Clinton.


    Media Matters     did a nice demolition of the endless media drivel about Clinton and “optics”. In a swirling bowl full of shit the winner was Time with this doozy:

    If she didn’t do anything wrong, why won’t she defend herself?

  166. 166.

    burnspbesq

    @efgoldman:

    Unless you’re planning to argue that walking on the field constitutes consent to everything that happens, there is a no-doubt-about-it prima facie case for a violation of Wis. Stat. 940.19(1).

    The problem is inherent. Football must go.

  167. 167.

    CZanne

    @Elmo and @MajorMajorMajorMajor: I’m interested. I have a political fantasy that elevator pitches to The West Wing, set in Westeros, a sort of urban fantasy set just after the Battle of Waterloo, a modern rebuild of Sense and Sensibility and a post apocalyptic where the vampires are definitely the bad guys. (That last is the least finished, and the most likely to be abandoned. Good idea, decent world building, but I pants that one, and didn’t have even a vague clue where it’s going.) I also edit. I mostly lurk around here, but I lurk s lot.

  168. 168.

    frosty

    @Kay:

    I think she should be videotaped 24/7. It’s the only way we’ll get the whole story.

    I read your words, but what came out in my head was “Nuke them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

    And whatthell, a little bribery of AGs when you ass is on the line is no biggie. Everybody does that kinda stuff. Right? Right???

    PS Thanks for your posts and comments Kay, I look forward to them.

  169. 169.

    frosty

    @FlipYrWhig:

    We all (OK, many of us) grew up thinking that stuff sucked and finding consolation in sarcasm.

    I’m way older than you but that was my go-to attitude since I was in my 20s. Here’s the deal: It’s a shitty attitude for a reporter. Back in the day when these guys weren’t MS Journalism majors, but blue-collar cop reporters who got promoted, they tried to find a hook and write a story. I don’t see that hunger to interview real people, get a scoop, and make their name. Like you say it’s just lay back and snark at the system these days. Facts and news be damned.

  170. 170.

    Keith G

    Good, bad, or indifferent, the Press is a reality that anyone running for president or existing in the office of President needs to deal with. Both collectively and individually and collectively, being human beings, the Press can be “worked” and can be manipulated. Clinton has nearly more money than God so she should just hire the best marketing and PR team possible and get on with the process of working the Press and working with the Press.

    I would squawk if a Republican president avoided the Press, so I need to be insistent that my Democratic compatriots find ways to deal with the Press.

  172. 172.

    Kay

    @Keith G:

    Okay, Keith, but Donald Trump doesn’t avoid the press and we still don’t know anything. You know what he said when a local reporter in Philadelphia asked him why he went after the President for a year on the President’s birth certificate?

    He said “I don’t talk about that anymore”. Case closed. The big man has spoken. They have plenty of access to Trump. They either don’t ask or he doesn’t answer.

    Clinton should try that. “I don’t talk about that anymore”. See how far it gets her.

    As long as we’re clear there’s a double standard. It’s not her job to pretend there isn’t.

  174. 174.

    Joel

    They assume candidates don’t really believe what they’re saying. Sometimes they’re right, but often they’re wrong.

    And to believe that implies that they have some sort of enlightenment that the plebes lack. But they’re wrong. And they never have to concede when they fuck up, although a handful of them do.

  175. 175.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Miss Bianca: IIRC, Tolstoy wrote 6 drafts of War and Peace. My Russian Lit prof in college said Tolstoy wrote more drafts of it than the number of times he had read it (and the prof edited a book on it). ;-)

    “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

    Whatever works. :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  177. 177.

    Elizabelle

    Staggered by that Vox article on Clinton Rules.

    (1) cynicism never built anything, nor is it that edifying, long term

    (2). Those fucks don’t get a do-over

    (3) gobsmacked by how many MSM reporters are fundamentally ignorant, subject to bias confirmation, and too lightly edited

    Did the grown ups take the buy outs?

    The New York Times reporting on Hillary is actively scary.

  179. 179.

    Barbara

    @Elizabelle: The New York Times reporting on Hillary is like a man asked to describe his wife after she left him because he had a gambling addiction. Seriously, she left them in the dust and they think it’s her fault for not living up (or down) to their twisted expectations. I try not to read NYT on Hillary at all, and I have been reading NYT since I was 9 years old and my parents got it every Sunday. I can’t think of any other serious newspaper including WaPo that would tolerate the constant, repetitive and barely literate screeds of Maureen Dowd on Clinton. The NYT reporting on Anthony Weiner’s latest testament to the fact that he is an adolescent living in a grown up body (1) unironically quoted serial adulterer Donald Trump on how awful it is for an adulterer to be even in the proximity of someone with security clearance and (2) suggested that Huma Abedin’s marriage was somehow reflective of Clinton’s campaign. Not quite as cruel as blaming Clinton for Vince Foster’s death, but in the same vein — taking a traumatic personal experience of a Clinton aide and reporting on it as if it was something sinister related to Hillary Clinton herself. It’s been pathological for a long time.

  181. 181.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    She’s the top vote-getter so far:

    Clinton 8,668,136
    Trump 7,548,429
    Sanders 6,131,951
    Cruz 5,484,494
    Rubio 3,394,134
    Kasich 2,725,327
    Carson 677,307
    Bush 249,894
    O’Malley 94,692

    Not polls. Votes. Millions upon millions of people have voted for this universally loathed person, and they have done so over 6 years. Pretty good showing for an enemy of the people, don’t you think?

    I guess the sneering is based on the belief that they would have voted for someone else, except 20 people ran on both sides in 2015-16 and they didn’t vote for someone else. They voted for her.

    How does the top vote getter end up portrayed as universally loathed? That’s not the “voice of the people”. It’s the voice of 150 influential people.

  182. 182.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Major Major Major Major: Bad plot does not mean bad story. As an editor and critic once noted, plot is a literary convention, but story is a force of nature.

    Besides, Hitchcock was capable of satirizing conventional tropes, and in that one, I think he was, just a bit.

  183. 183.

    workworkwork

    @The Thin Black Duke: My wife and I are doing a Gene Wilder mini-marathon this weekend.
    Friday: “Hanky Panky” with “The Assassination Bureau” as a palate cleanser
    Saturday: “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”
    Today: (so far) – “Young Frankenstein” (for my money, his best film) and “The Frisco Kid”
    Still in the queue: “Blazing Saddles” and “The Producers”

  184. 184.

    eyelessgame

    @Wag:

    If I remember correctly, when I was a kid in the late 60s/early 70s, singing the SSB at sports events made it feel more like a community. I think it was in the Reagan era when we began to be told to shut up and listen politely to someone who knew what they were doing sing the anthem.

    the lack of music education makes this an impossibility today. The song has an octave and a half range. Without some amount of vocal training most people can’t manage that unless you pick a key just for them.

    Of course, the lack of music education can be placed mostly at the feet of budget-cutting run-gubmint-like-bizness education-is-just-for-employment-training folks like Reagan as well.

  185. 185.

    Procopius

    @geg6: I never hated the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, when the principal announced at Assembly that, henceforth, we had to include the disgusting, idolatrous phrase, “under God.” I mean it was something I grew up with. It was like breathing. It was just the natural way to start the day. Until they changed it. I’ve resented the heck out of it ever since. Now I live in Thailand, so I never encounter it, but if I had occasion where I was required to say it I think I’d just lip sync.

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